Imba Mode

Imba Mode is an alternate gameplay mode that is available in Unlimited Modes menu on Command Console.

To activate Imba Mode, the player must enter the Play Lab and turn the slider next to the name to ON. The mode cannot be used in Multiplayer. Once there, the game will take a drastically different appearance when a run is started. For starters, the Inventory is completely overhauled: the player's 4 item slots are disabled, an icon with the words "LEVEL" on it is placed there instead, and any and all items that are in the Backpack function as if equipped. This icon will also show up above the character portrait when not in the Inventory. Additionally, the space for skill swapping is changed to 4 circular slots, the left two showing the player's primary and secondary skills, and the right two empty by default.

Next to primary skill button you can see the a little button with health potion icon. It is a health potion storage, that can store up to 2 bottles. Click the button to use the health potion. The total recovery amount of the health potion is adjusted to: 20% of the character's total health + 20 HP. When using the health potion, the character will recover 40% of the total amount at once, and then continue to recover the remaining 60% over the next 5 seconds. During the continuous recovery of HP, if the character is attacked, the recovery will be interrupted.

## Gameplay

While playing Imba Mode, Skill Stones and Shadow Skill Stones drop randomly when enemies are killed. Skill Stones have the traditional skill icon, while Shadow Skill Stones have a heart, eye, sword, kraken or dodge/roll icon depending on what type they are. Skill Stones will take the shape of skills your current character can use, and can randomly have styles attached to them or not, while Shadow Skill Stones only take the form of other characters' skills and never have styles. There are no Shadow Skills available for Anaerobic Exercise, Shadow Strike, all of Hannah's gun skills, Angelic Pact and Roar of Gauls, or any of Oli's skills. Stones can be picked up at any time by going near them and interacting with them, and they are stored in the 9 spaces of storage near the four skill slots, meaning you can store only 9 Skill Stones at the time. Stones can be dropped just like items can, and doing so is currently the only way to browse through all the Stones you own. It is possible to have more than one stone of the same type. From the slots, Stones can be dragged into the four skill slots, as long as both primary and secondary skills are ready to use and not in cooldown.

Due to the massively empowered kit players possess, enemies have their health caps progresively increase throughout the game, capping at extraordinary amounts, with bosses often having several hundred health bars.

You can't passively pick up health potions for healing even after filling health potion storage.

Fabled Article and Forge table are disabled and bosses don't drop Fabled Article in this mode.

Sometimes chests, that can drop coins as a reward, reward player with greatly increased number of coins, worth roughly 85-105 Gold.

In Normal difficulty, if the player was to die, they will instead remain at 1 HP, release a massive shield blast effect, and a random hero different to the hero chosen by the player will appear alongside them, saying "I'm coming to help you!". This hero will use specific skills that will not have any styles, and have the same cooldowns as the original, as well as their default attack and dodges, will not mimic the currently equipped skin and will follow the player along for the rest of the game. Heroes who require resource management, Oli's bolts and Hillding's Wrath, will not use said resources and will simply have longer-cooldown skills. Additionally, after spawning the rescue hero, the player will remain unflinching and unable to be killed for 15 seconds. This rescue effect will trigger before any other revival effect. Here is a list of the potential heroes and what skills they will have:

* Akaisha - Rapid Shot, Arrow Rain
* Katherine - Glacial Tempest, Thunder Strike (she does not possess a default attack)
* Hillding - Tornado Decimates Donkey Farm, Elephant Thrusts Its Leg
* Oli - Oli's Flying Fish
* Ginzo - Hiken - Shooting Stars, Hiken - Heirloom Katana

## Skill Stones

Skill Stones can be dragged into the left two slots, changing your primary and secondary skill. It is also possible to swap around the skills your character begins with just like any other Skill Stone. It is possible to leave the Skill Stone slots empty. Skill Stones placed in the secondary slot can still benefit from their respective styles if they have any. If you try to place same skill stones in both primary and secondary slot, the game won't let you do this, saying '*Skill repetition*'. Even if you selected same skills as primary and secondary in the Lobby, the secondary skill will go in the storage as Skill Stone after entering a new run.

Shadow Skill Stones can be dragged into the two right slots, granting your character a new special ability. Shadow Skills will trigger when a specific criteria is met, at which point a shadow version of the character in question will appear and perform the skill. This character will be permanently holding forwards on the movement stick, and will not hold the skill button. This character can benefit from all of the player's active items as if they were the player themselves. The skills still must undergo a cooldown before they can be activated again. Hillding's skills have cooldowns assigned to them when used as Shadow Skills, and the cooldown of Shadow Skills cannot be reduced through items.There are five types of Shadow Skills, listed here:

* When-struck Shadow Skills: The skill will activate whenever the player takes a direct hit. On-damage Shadow Skills have 20% (1/5) of the original skill's cooldown.
* On-hit Shadow Skills: The skill has a fairly high chance to activate whenever the player lands a hit. Shadow Skills and followers cannot trigger On-hit Shadow Skills. On-hit Shadow Skills have 200% (2 times) of the original skill's cooldown.
* On-crit Shadow Skills: The skill will activate whenever the player lands a critical hit. Shadow Skills and followers cannot trigger On-crit Shadow Skills. On-crit Shadow Skills have 83.3% (5/6) of the original skill's cooldown.
* On-kill Shadow Skills: The skill has a fairly high chance to activate whenever the player kills an enemy. On-kill Shadow Skills have reduced skill's cooldown.
* When-dodge Shadow Skills: The skill has a fairly high chance to activate whenever the player dodges. When-dodge Shadow Skills have 200% (2 times) of the original skill's cooldown.

Skill Stones and Shadow Skill stones can have levels, which provide skill bonus, skill damage increase or skill cooldown reduction. The higher level Skill Stone has, the greater skill bonus increase will be. There only 5 levels of Skill stones, and damage buff can vary from +5% to +80% damage or from -5% to -55% of skill cooldown ,depending on level and skill itself.

## Trivia

* "Imba" is short for "Imbalanced", the nature of the mode. This also explains the icon above the player's item slots and character portrait: it is a terribly bent scale.
* Due to being in beta testing, there are many errors in the mode, some notable ones being the inability to swap through tabs in the Skill and Shadow Skill Stones menu, the animation of a shadow dissipating repeating whenever the player leaves and reenters a room, and secondary skills failing to carry over all the benefits of a style, like the cases of Extreme Swing (no cooldown reduction or armor loss is applied, but damage loss is still done) or any of the styles of Anaerobic Exercise (the passive buffs are never applied).