Heartstone
What it is
Defensive stat-category artifact that listens to the player-damage signal and fires only after the ship has absorbed a tier-scaled number of hits. Each proc grants a brief damage-reduction buff and detonates a ship-centered bracing pulse that damages nearby enemies. The flavor reads as the hull bracing harder as damage piles up; mechanically it is a counter-trigger that resets on every proc, so the player gets one Heartstone payoff per N hits rather than a sustained tank state.
Identity
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Heartstone |
| Category | stat |
| Icon | stone |
| Damage tag | none (type-agnostic) |
| Trigger type | counter |
| Counter signal | player damage taken |
| Counter resets on proc | yes |
| Banner on proc | yes |
| Proc audio cue | artifact_heartstone |
| Primary color | aa6644 |
| Secondary color | #664433 |
| Bright color | ddaa88 |
Per-tier values
Tiers indexed 0 → 3 map to uncommon → rare → epic → legendary. A common tier exists above this list via the engine’s flat-bonus layer (see EXTRACT-CANDIDATE below). The threshold field is the number of hits the ship must take before each proc; lower threshold means more frequent procs.
| Tier | Rarity | Hits to proc | Damage reduction (%) | Buff duration (s) | Pulse damage (flat) | Pulse radius (px) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Uncommon | 5 | 30 | 5 | 75 | 200 |
| 1 | Rare | 4 | 40 | 6 | 120 | 225 |
| 2 | Epic | 3 | 55 | 7 | 180 | 255 |
| 3 | Legendary | 3 | 75 | 8 | 260 | 290 |
Effect
When the player-damage counter reaches the tier-scaled threshold, the artifact fires three actions plus a flash on the artifact icon in the same frame, and resets the counter back to zero.
| Element | Value |
|---|---|
| Trigger type | counter |
| Counter signal | player damage taken |
| Counter resets on proc | yes |
| Stat modified | damage reduction |
| Stat mode | percent |
| Stat source tag | artifact:heartstone |
| Pulse damage mode | flat |
| Pulse center | ship |
| VFX type | burst-and-ring |
| VFX particle count | 18 |
| VFX scale | 4.5 |
| VFX lifetime (s) | 0.40 |
| VFX color | ddaa88 |
The damage-reduction value, buff duration, pulse damage, pulse radius, and hits-to-proc threshold all read from the active tier’s values. The VFX shape, particle count, scale, and color are fixed across tiers.
Stacking rules
| Rule | Value |
|---|---|
| Stacking mode | refresh |
| Max stacks | 1 |
The damage-reduction buff cannot accumulate. A second proc while the first buff is still active resets the remaining duration to the full tier-defined window without adding a second stack. The bracing pulse is a separate per-proc action and fires every time the counter threshold is reached. The counter resets to zero on every proc, so procs are gated by the threshold rather than by buff state — a second proc cannot fire until the ship has absorbed another full N hits.
EXTRACT-CANDIDATE flags
- Common tier handling. The shared
ArtifactDefshape documents that the runtime prepends a 5th “common” tier on top of the four listed tiers, with the common tier sharing the uncommon values record and differentiating only through a separate per-artifact flat-bonus layer. The Heartstone source itself does not declare a flat-bonus field, so the common-tier behavior depends entirely on engine-level defaults. This belongs on theartifactsroll-up page, not duplicated per entity. - Counter-trigger family. The source comment positions Heartstone in the mid-band of the player-damage trigger family — between a per-hit reactive plating artifact (no cooldown, smaller payoff) and an 8-second shield-break nova (larger payoff). The full counter-trigger family comparison and the radius / damage scaling rule across the family belong on the
artifactsroll-up or a dedicated counter-trigger family page. - Counter signals as a class. The repo has multiple counter triggers across artifacts (player-damage, weapon-fire, enemy-kill), each with its own reset rule. The counter-trigger primitive and the inventory of counter signals should be documented once on an effect-engine / signals page.
- Damage-reduction stat semantics. How the damage-reduction ship stat composes with other sources (additive vs multiplicative, cap behavior, interaction with shield layers) is not specified in the artifact file and should be documented once on a combat / damage-pipeline page.
- Three-channel proc template. The source comment references a “three-channel proc template” (audio cue + secondary hitbox + VFX/flash) that newer artifacts are expected to ship. This authoring rule belongs on an artifact-authoring guide page.
- Banner and flash actions. The banner-on-proc flag and the artifact-flash action are shared primitives across many artifacts; their exact UI behavior is engine-side and should be described on the artifacts roll-up.
- Bulwark pairing. The source comment calls out a synergy with a passive damage-reduction modifier (Bulwark) as a “longer you take hits, the tankier you get” recovery loop. Cross-artifact / artifact-vs-modifier synergies belong on a build-synergies page rather than duplicated per entity.
Summary
Heartstone is a player-damage counter trigger. Every 5 / 4 / 3 / 3 hits across uncommon → legendary, it grants a 30 / 40 / 55 / 75 percent damage-reduction buff lasting 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 seconds and detonates a ship-centered bracing pulse for 75 / 120 / 180 / 260 flat damage across a 200 / 225 / 255 / 290 px radius. The buff uses refresh stacking with max one stack, and the counter resets on every proc so the payoff is one burst per N hits rather than a continuous defensive state.