Essence

\*This mechanic will be getting a rework and will work significantly differently. Although essence gathering remains the same, most elements will be getting a gimmick. This article will be expanded when the update is out.

The mod added in a whole new mechanic to fighting called "Essence." Essence has no practical purpose other than helping the player to fight against monsters and moving around. The first essence gathering tools the player might find are either item drops from structures or elemental ore swords.

## Overview and mechanics

There are three things the player can do with essence. They can either gather it from enemies or from relics, use it to cast stuff at enemies or use it to fuel various items and relics. Of course, the first step to doing anything at all with essence is gathering it.

### Gathering essence

To gather essence, the player has to use a "gatherer." Gatherers are typically either swords, axes, special relics or cores.

#### Swords and axes

The swords and axes that can gather essence from monsters have a tag next to their name which looks something like this :

[Fire]-[Water]-etc...

As you can guess, this helps the player determine what kind of element the weapon can gather or possibly use. Most gathering tools have a small chance of gathering some amount of essence from the enemies the player attacks while using the weapon. However, gatherers made from the same material are not always equal. The axes tend to gather less essence, but deal more overall damage versus the swords. Some weapons are able of gathering two elements at once or more. These weapons deal a regular amount of damage and are very powerful because they allow the player to use multiple items at once or allow the player to do a combo.

#### Essence gathering relics

There are only really three kinds of essence gathering relics. There are the automatic harvesters which generate essence every few seconds, the "gathering boosters" and the cost reducing relics. The automatic harvesters are fairly simple. They just generate essence at either random intervals or specific intervals. The "gathering boosters" help the player gather more essence from monsters when they are attacked. These can greatly help the player harvest the necessary essence to cast something. Finally, the cost reducing relics do exactly what their name implies. Whenever the player uses essence to cast something, the cost reducing relics give the player a part of what they paid back.

#### Casting

Casting is when the player uses a channeler or the ability of a sword or axe to send a projectile or activate an effect. Note that relics that consume essence cannot cast. Casting is when the player actively uses an item to do something. Channelers are the most common way of casting abilities. Channelers send out high damaging projectile, debuff enemies or buff the player. Some swords can also cast things, but these swords are pretty rare and typically don't have a lot of durability.

#### Armor buffs

When the player wears a full set of one kind of armor that is made from an elemental material, the armor strengthens the player and adds extra effects to the player's casts. Some armor can spawn minions when the player casts something and some others return a large portion of the cost. Many armor have different and very unique effects.