Dungeon Talents¶
Dungeon Talents are Lyonspyre's per-region progression system. Every monster you kill inside a dungeon (or its associated wilderness / ocean region) funnels gold into a per-dungeon pool. When the pool hits the next threshold, you earn a talent point. Spend those points on the archetype trees to specialise — but those points only matter while you're standing in the dungeon they were earned in.
Per-dungeon, not per-character
Points earned in The Pit do nothing in Despise. Points earned in the Wilderness do nothing on the Ocean. The whole point of the system is to make each dungeon feel like its own progression box: you pick a build for the place, not for the character.
How you earn points¶
Every time you land the killing blow on a creature inside a dungeon zone, the creature's corpse-gold value is added to your GoldTowardsNextPoint bucket for that dungeon. When the bucket reaches the cost of the next point, the point is awarded (and the bucket retains any remainder for the next purchase).
Costs scale linearly with how many points you've already earned in that dungeon:
Cost curve
cost(n) = 200 + n × 200
where n is the number of points you've already earned in that dungeon. The first point is trivially cheap; each subsequent point is 200 gold more.
| Point # | Gold cost | Cumulative gold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 200 | 200 |
| 2 | 400 | 600 |
| 3 | 600 | 1,200 |
| 5 | 1,000 | 3,000 |
| 10 | 2,000 | 11,000 |
| 20 | 4,000 | 42,000 |
| 30 | 6,000 | 93,000 |
| 50 | 10,000 | 255,000 |
A single boss can pop multiple points at once if its corpse-gold overflows several thresholds in a row.
Every time a point lands, a short golden burst plays at your feet and the "talent-level" chime fires. Bursts stack visually if multiple thresholds clear in a single kill.
How you spend points¶
Points open up nodes in the per-archetype trees. The system ships seven archetypes, each with its own tree:
| Tree | Theme | Page |
|---|---|---|
| Melee | All-weapon melee + defensive shell | (covered across the weapon pages + Defensive) |
| Archery | Bows, crossbows, throwing | Archery |
| Magic | Spell damage + abjuration | Magic |
| Swords | Sword-family offensive specialisation | Swords |
| Macing | Mace/maul/staff offensive specialisation | Macing |
| Fencing | Spear/kryss/dagger offensive specialisation | Fencing |
| Taming | Pets, summons, beastcraft | Pet / Taming |
The Stealth and Support trees are designed but not currently shipped — see Healing for what's planned.
Each tree is laid out as two main paths (Offensive and Defensive) plus a small Utility column:
T1 (5 ranks × 1pt) Entry scalar -- no prereq
T2 (3-5 ranks × 1pt) Secondary scalar -- prereq: T1 same path
T3 (1 rank × 2pt) Feature node -- prereq: T2 same path
T4A (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice A -- prereq: T3 (locks T4B)
T4B (1 rank × 2pt) Fork choice B -- prereq: T3 (locks T4A)
T5 (1 rank × 3pt) Capstone -- prereq: EITHER T4 fork
The T4 fork is a one-or-the-other choice (mutually exclusive). You can refund and re-pick freely — talents are not permanent.
30-point cap per dungeon
You can SPEND at most 30 points into any single dungeon's tree. Earned points beyond that are tracked but locked out of allocation. Thirty points is roughly enough to fill ~2 archetype paths (e.g. an Offensive lane + a Defensive lane), or one fully-specced archetype (off + def + util).
Active abilities vs. passives¶
Most T1/T2/T3 talents are passive scalars — they apply automatically while you're in the dungeon. T4 forks are usually a mix of one passive + one active. T5 capstones are almost always active abilities on long cooldowns. Actives bind to the in-game hotbar; passives just work.
Any active talent you've unlocked shows a big "+" badge in its top-right corner in the talent tree. The "+" means you can put this on your hotbar — click it to start assigning, then click a hotbar slot to drop it in.
Hotbar pages — one row per build
The talent hotbar ([hotbar) holds multiple pages of slots — it starts with 5, so the ◄ N/M ► arrows are right on the bar. Save a different build's actives to each row and flip between them. Your slot keybinds always fire the current page, so swapping pages swaps your whole ability set. Change how many pages you want (up to 5) from the right-click bar options, alongside slot count and orientation. Each page keeps its own bindings and your current page is remembered between sessions.
Assigning to a slot, and resizing the bar
There are three easy ways to fill a slot. (1) Click the "+" badge on any unlocked active in the talent tree, then click a hotbar slot. (2) Left-click an empty slot (it shows a soft "+") to open a menu of the talents you've unlocked in your current zone — pick one to slot it. (3) Right-click any slot for the same menu. When you send a talent to the bar, every slot lights up with a gold glow — click anywhere inside any glowing slot to drop the talent there (you no longer have to aim for a precise spot). To resize the whole bar, drag the small grip in its bottom-right corner: drag out to enlarge, in to shrink. The size is remembered per character. You can still set an exact size, slot count, orientation and page count from the right-click bar options.
Every active talent has a fixed cooldown listed on its node. The cooldown is dungeon-wide — you can't dodge it by leaving and coming back.
Loadouts (3 saved specs per archetype)¶
For each (dungeon, archetype) pair you get three save slots. Save your current Off/Def/Util spend into a slot, give it a 12-character name, and one click later you swap into a totally different build without re-spending every node. Save slots persist across server restarts.
Reset and refund¶
- Refund one rank: right-click a talent to refund one point back to your available pool. If that drops the talent to rank 0, anything above it in the chain that depended on it is automatically refunded too — you never keep a talent whose prerequisite is gone.
- Reset tree: wipes every rank in the current dungeon back to zero. EarnedPoints is not touched — you only lose the allocation, not the points themselves.
Talent changes require you to be out of combat. Spending, refunding, resetting, and loading a saved build are all blocked while you're fighting — step out of combat for a few seconds first.
The reset / refund pipeline never destroys earned points. Experiment freely.
The dungeon zones¶
| Zone | What it covers |
|---|---|
the-pit |
The Pit dungeon (Felucca, ~152x119 tiles) |
ocean |
Anywhere you're on a boat |
wilderness |
The default — every land tile that isn't a bounded dungeon and isn't on a boat |
Ocean is checked first (so it always wins if you're on a deck), then The Pit's rect, then Wilderness as the catch-all. Each is its own pool — the gold and points are tracked entirely separately.