Highguard's episode 2 patch adds ranked mode, new character Ekon

Episode 2 goes live Friday with a new Warden

Despite Highguard's rocky launch, developers at Wildlight Entertainment aren't giving up on the game. On Thursday, Wildlight announced a new patch (the second major update since the game launched two weeks ago), which is set to go live tomorrow.

Referred to by Wildlight as the Episode 2 update, the patch introduces permanent ranked mode, and also adds a new playable Warden to the game. Ekon is a "legendary monster-slayer who shapeshifts into a powerful direwolf to track and hunt his prey," and can see the heartbeats of injured enemies through walls and other structures. Interestingly, Ekon doesn't ride any of Highguard's mounts. Instead, he turns into one, morphing into a direwolf at will.

Here's a closer look at Ekon's abilities:

Passive: Dread

Reveal the heartbeat of wounded enemies. Once an enemy Warden is at low health, they are highlighted in pulsing beats until they are dead, or their health regenerates.

Tactical: Wolf Spirit

Unleash a spirit wolf to hunt the nearest enemy and apply Dread. This Wolf Spirit travels long distances, moving straight through rocks and structures to find its prey. If seen in time, it can be shot down. This ability can be cast in human form, or in Wolf form.

Ultimate: Fearsome Howl

Apply Dread to all enemies across the map and increase your movement speed. This ability can be cast in human form, or in Wolf form.

Wolf Form

Ekon doesn’t ride an animal into battle, he becomes one — transforming into a powerful direwolf that tracks, hunts, and runs down mounted enemies. While in this form, Ekon’s speed is unmatched by other mounts. Through a full third-person point of view, the direwolf can see around cover. When moving in for an attack, weapons are laid down in favor of Ekon’s deadly bite attack, which will dash forward and bite a prey before immediately transforming back to human form to finish off the job. Attacking without a target will allow Ekon to perform a small air dash to traverse maps more athletically. In addition, while in Wolf Form, Ekon can track an enemy’s scent that they leave in their path. Ekon can use all of his other powers while in Wolf Form.

In addition to Ekon and the new ranked mode (which is 3v3-only for now, despite the popularity of the game's new 5v5 mode) and a new free mount (a wolf), Episode 2 also introduces a new raid map called Skydrift, along with changes to the game's "gear up" phase. These changes include better loot and waypoint icons to help new players locate upgraded weapons, armor, and Amulets. These icons will also appear on the in-game map, giving players a bird's-eye view of the nearest loot locations.

Say what you will about Highguard, but the devs at Wildlight seem deeply committed to implementing player feedback and making the game the best it can possibly be. The latest patch features a number of quality-of-life improvements, along with bug fixes and a new feature that adds kills and assists to the player's HUD, above the minimap.

Highguard's Episode 2 update goes live Friday, Feb. 6, though Wildlight hasn't yet announced what time the update will be released.

You can check out the full Episode 2 patch notes below.

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Highguard Episode 2 patch notes

GEAR UP PHASE UPDATES

One consistent point of feedback we’ve heard is that the Gear Phase needs improvements.

We’re tackling that in 4 ways for the launch of Episode 2, and we’ll continue to work on that phase in the future.

Better POI Loot

Red Weapon Chests in POIs now contain Masterwork weapons.

Masterwork weapons have improved stats within their rarity. Blue Masterworks are better than Blues, but still less quality than Purple. Players can still loot upgraded weapons outside of POIs, but the Masterwork versions of weapons each round are only found in POIs.

Ultimate Chargers

These items are found in white barrels in POIs, but we’ve seen that players are having a hard time identifying that. In order to make that clear, white barrels that contain Ultimate Chargers now have an obvious gold glow.

Waypoint Markers

When you leave your base in the gear phase, waypoint icons will guide players towards the Points of Interest. They’re also pingable so players can communicate intent without voice comms.

The map will also communicate that POIs contain Masterwork Weapons and Ultimate Chargers.

Speed Gates

Speed Gates are always on when a player is near them, instead of only when a Shieldbreaker is present.

This should allow players to get back to fights after respawning,

QUALITY OF LIFE & NEW FEATURES

As we continue to improve the game through feedback, bug fixing and small features, we will document them here. When necessary, we’ll use “dev notes” to give context on why we made a specific change.

Stats 1.0

Players want stats! For Episode 2 we have added a Stats menu to Headwall.

The stats tracked here are mostly retroactive from Episode 1.

Raid Attack and Defense success stats are new for Episode 2, as we are just now starting to track these stats.

We will continue to expand this feature in future episodes.

New Orange Weapon Mods:

We will continue to mix up orange weapon mods. For Episode 2, we are adding variety and not removing anything.

• Saber Rifle - Impact Rounds
• Increased critical damage (headshots) with a slower rate of fire. Fires a two shot burst instead of three. Faster projectile speed.
• Vanguard - Drum Magazine
• Much larger magazine, with a slower reload.
• Corsair - Doubleshot
• Fire a 12 round burst on each trigger pull

Technical Updates

• Users can now enable NVIDIA Reflex on supported systems.

Gameplay Updates:

• The Defensive Phase at the start of the game has been reduced to 30 seconds from 60.
• Anchor Stones fuse timers have been increased to 80 seconds from 60.
• Dev note: The goal here is to make Anchor Stones a bit harder to win on
• We’ve added your Kills and Assists to the HUD above the minimap.
• Many zipline usability improvements, including smoother attaching and riding, and making it harder to accidentally attach
• Players can now have a maximum of 4 ziplines. When casting the 5th, their first one will automatically destroy
• Improvements to mantle feel
• You will be prompted to drop the BigRig when it gets to low or zero ammo
• Upon being revived, you now get a hint to tap the emote button to say "Thank You". As a byproduct your character will no longer automatically say thank you.
• Pinged orange weapons will now show the perk when you hover on them
• You can now ping ziplines
• You can now ping Mara darkspawn when it’s highlighted through walls (at the end of a raid)
• You can now ping Kai’s ice wall
• Pinging a Shieldbreaker or Domesplitter plant point now has more specific ping VO based on the scenario.
• The end game podium will now highlight people who had the highest stats on their team
• Smugglers Den minimap has been updated to be more accurate
• Adjusted the final Shieldbreaker plant animation to take exactly as long as a normal one
• The Trader menu will darken and update if his stock changes while you have the menu open
• Dev note: This is to reduce accidentally purchasing something right as the stock is upgrading.
• Dead players no longer show up on the minimap
• Dev note: This seemed confusing and redundant with being able to see a player's orb through walls.
• Adjusted Mara’s Soul Armor power description to include that it also works on enemy players (so be careful where you throw it)
• Added key bindings on PC for Map Screen, Character Info and Loadout
• AFK timer in a match has been reduced from 5 minutes to 4
• Firing Range targets have been replaced with new versions that stay open so you can test sustained fire
• Firing Range can now accommodate parties of up to 5 players

• Added an option to leave the party by clicking on party member’s social card
• You now get a message confirming that you sent a Friend Request
• Slider bars in the settings menu can now be adjusted by typing in numbers
• Changing your controller profile will now highlight what buttons are changing
• You can now unblock players in your Social tab

Weapon Updates:

Vanguard

• Slightly slowing rate of fire and raising damage. TTK is nearly equivalent. This just reduces the number of bullets required to kill
• Increased headshot multiplier

Longhorn

• Repeater - Less vertical kick, faster raise time, faster sprint raise time, less spread (hipfire), slower spread bloom (hipfire)

Viper - Impact Rounds

• Smaller mag size
• More kick

Item Updates:

• Amulet: Bomb Kit
• Bomb plant time nerfed (2.5s -> 3s). Defuse time is still 2.5s.
• Amulet: Harvester no longer drops bonus Ultimate Chargers from White Supply Barrels.
• Slightly lowered the top speed of orange Saddles.

Character Updates:

Slade

• Fixed a bug where the impact damage from his Ultimate was not dealing damage on uneven terrain.
• Adding friend/foe identification to Slade’s VFXs. Enemy fire will now take on a darker red appearance.

Redmane

• Redmane can now break floors he’s standing on with his tactical
• Redmane’s tactical now hits players more reliably.
• Leaping into solid geo with Redmane will drop him to the ground faster, instead of bouncing off and floating down.

Mara

• Mara will now dismount automatically when casting Immortal Coil while mounted, instead of getting an error message.

Una

• Improved Una minion target acquisition speed (they should shoot at players faster)
• Fixed Una minions having larger hitboxes than intended.

Atticus

• Adjusted Atticus’s Ultimate audio to not be occluded by geo. This means you can hear him better in his active Ultimate state even if he’s in another room.

Quest:

The Quest is designed to be a set of difficult challenges to complete over the course of an Episode for some free rewards and bragging rights. Because Episode 1 was only 2 weeks long, we decided to keep the Episode 1 Quest active through Episode 2. We’ll be back in Episode 3 with more challenges and more rewards.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where characters with movement speed bonuses could double-dip on slide boosts
• Fixed instances where you would sometimes get bumped off the zipline when respawning
• Fixed some issues where the Play button would be unresponsive
• Fixed an issue where loot in chests would show highlights for different rarities
• Fixed a bug where the Care Package was dropping too low of level loot in the 3rd gear up phase and beyond.
• Fixed an issue where Emote anti-peek wasn’t hiding enemy mounts
• Fixed an issue where you could respawn with your initial loadout when dying to environmental hazards like lava
• Fixed collision issues on Dustline
• Fixed multiple ways to break Training by leaping and climbing over walls
• Fixed some incorrect key bindings in the UI
• Improved the reliability of voice chat icons
• Fixed an issue where the Shieldbreaker would sometimes drop in inaccessible places if you tried to enter your own base
• Removed the ability to drop the Shieldbreaker on top of the enemy dome (how cheeky)
• Fixed rare cases where “Position Revealed” would stay on your screen long after a raid was over
• Fixed an issue where pressing Esc to leave the Social menu would cancel matchmaking
• Fixed an issue where Slade’s arms would not reset after losing his Hot Streak
• Fixed ability to repair large gates in bases
• Fixed Condor running in place when she uses her Ultimate Power while running
• Reduced the amount of screen the Longhorn Repeater covers while jumping and firing
• Fixed some invisible collision blocking bullets above banners on Wellspring base
• Fixed some cases of your player having a third arm
• Multi-Lock Rocket Launcher will no longer target trees
• Fixed mounts not playing proper water audio and fx when running through it
• Fixed ability for players to ping when riding a zipline
• Removed the ability to place Mara’s Immortal Coil on open doors
• Fixed the zipline gun colliding with air in some areas of Summit
• Fixed Blast Hammers from doing splash damage behind you when used
• Players are no longer detected by Condor’s tactical when standing still on their mount
• Fixed Una summoning a Tree Walker in mid air by riding a zipline
• Fixed some locations in Wellspring base where you would get kicked off your mount
• Fixed an issue where you would hit yourself with a rocket if fired while running full speed on a mount
• Improved game performance when mounting or dismounting
• Improved some translations for different languages, both in text and VO
• Added localized translations for different languages in the Advanced Training video
• Fixed the Crossplay setting not saving when changed to off on consoles
• Fixed rare cases where your controls would be unresponsive after using a mount emote
• Fixed a bug that would cause ambient audio to drop out
• Fixed a bug where mouse and controller sensitivity settings weren't being applied correctly while transitioning between hipfire and ADS
• Resolved a bug where DLSS presets did not immediately appear or disappear in the Settings menu after modifying the antialiasing mode.