Hey crawler,
The Vanguard has a name now — and a face to match.
Meet Kael.
Our melee fighter just got the biggest visual overhaul since pre-alpha began. Same swing, same Ground Slam, same Execute finisher. New everything else.
🎨 A face worth remembering Kael now has a hand-painted hero portrait on the Hero Select tile and on krawlhero.com. No more generic class icon — when you log in, you see the character you're actually playing.
🦴 Rebuilt from the ground up We migrated Kael to a shared biped skeleton: cleaner weapon attachment, better animation blending, and a foundation for swappable armor down the road. The chibi proportions stay — the jank doesn't.
⚔️ Weapon trail + VFX Every swing now draws a warm golden trail, and every skill — War Cry, Ground Slam, Heavy Strike, Execute — plays a proper impact effect at the exact moment of contact. Ground Slam in particular finally lands.
🔊 Frame-accurate SFX Slash sounds now fire on the frame the blade connects, not when the animation starts. It's a small change with an outsized effect on how combat feels.
🐛 And the usual housekeeping:
Heal particles now burst from the torso — visible from any camera angle, not just overhead
Click-to-move drops a clean LoL-style ring marker, and multiple clicks replace the previous one instead of stacking
Cast cancellation and auto-retarget keep combat flowing when fights get messy