How to read Guildrun patch notes: Rush, Stall, Backup and the other keywords, with Leyline's definitions

Leyline published a patch for the Guildrun demo every week from 23 July to 20 October 2026, fourteen in all, on the Steam news page, after six months of weekly alpha patches. Most of the text is written by Jay (the general changes and bug fixes) and by Aleco, lead designer, who signs the balance section and explains his choices. The notes use a compact vocabulary: Rush, Stall, Backup, ranks, timings. This guide explains it using only the notes themselves: when Leyline writes out an effect in full we quote it, when a word is only used we say what the usage shows, and what remains open is marked "to verify in the game". Names stay in English, as in the game.

Where the notes are and how they are built

The notes are on Steam, in the community announcements of Guildrun (app 3669200), with titles like "Patch 0.5.9". A typical note has: a greeting to the "Guildmasters", a paragraph on the full game's progress, then General Changes, Bug Fixes and, when there are any, Balance Changes by Aleco, grouped by Items, Relics, Class Modifiers (or Class Mods), Heroes and sometimes Enemies, Challenge Fights, Starting Bonuses. Each balance entry has the hero or object, the ability or specialization, the change, and often a "Notes:" paragraph with Aleco's reasoning. The last five patches were almost only fixes; the big balance patches are 0.5.1.718 to 0.5.5 and 0.5.9 (see our article on patch 0.5.9).

Symbols and numbers

• ⭐ marks a change suggested by the community; the notes repeat "⭐ = Community Suggestions" every week.
• ⬆️ and ⬇️ (patches 0.5.1.718 to 0.5.5) mark a buff and a nerf; 🔄 a change that is neither. Patch 0.5.9 uses 🟩, 🟥 and 🔄 in the same roles, without defining them.
• Old → new: a change is written as "33% -> 50%", old value first. "Added Stall (15)" or "Removed Rush" means the keyword was added to or taken off an ability.
• Base + per rank: many values are written as "2 base + 2 per rank" or "0 base + 5 per rank": a fixed part plus a part that grows with the hero's rank (see below).
• Base Stats: a hero's starting numbers (Attack Damage, Attack Speed written as a decimal such as .42, Defense, Max Mana, Starting Mana).

Rush

Rush always comes with a number of seconds, "Rush (10)", and the notes talk about its duration: "Rush duration: 6 -> 8", "+2 seconds of Rush duration", two seconds of Rush extension per rank (Ming's The Enlightened). When Leyline writes an effect out in full, Rush reads as a time window: Burn Catalyst, a rare relic, "For Rush (15), enemies receive 50% more Burn damage" (patch 0.5.12). Other effects count Rush triggers: Reyna's The Champion gains Attack per Rush triggered this game; Enforced Presence gives Assassins stats on Rush trigger. Rushes can be refreshed (a bug counted refreshed Rushes twice, patch 0.5.1.718), could keep running after their owner died (fixed in 0.5.8), and combined with interval triggers, every X seconds, could skip the last tick (fixed in 0.5.14). Rowan's The Friend, by contrast, triggers on Stall trigger.

What the notes do not say in so many words: whether the Rush window starts at the start of combat, and when exactly a Rush trigger fires. Patch 0.5.9 separated a start-of-combat Stealth from a Rush effect because Stealth tied to a Rush duration caused issues in Endless. To verify in the game.

Stall

Stall also comes with a number of seconds, "Stall (15)", and effects are written "After Stall (30), permanently gain 5 Mana Regen" (Stall Enlightenment) or after Stall (20), inflict Burn on all enemies (Stalled Heat). The clearest explanation is Aleco's, in patch 0.5.3, when he added Stall (15) to the bonus Shields of Kai's The Bold: in most cases, he writes, this means that only Kai's first cast of each combat does not get the bonus. So an ability with Stall holds back part of its effect until that many seconds of combat have passed. Some specializations have two Stalls (First Stall duration 20 → 10, Second Stall duration 40 → 30 for Pollen's The Fae's Kiss); since patch 0.5.2 the word appears only once in such texts, without changing the effects. Aleco adds Stall to gate the upfront power of a strong ability (Irini's The Mighty got Stall (10) in 0.5.2) and lowers Stall durations to buff weak ones (Funke's The Inferno, 20 → 15). Since patch 0.5.10 the game shows "rush & stall feedback" effects in combat.

Backup

Backup appears as a label at the end of an effect ("… 15 Magic. Backup.", Enforced Presence) and as a measure: "Magic given on backup: 20% -> 25%" (Ratna's The Ostentatious), "Backup Only Shields given per rank: 250 -> 200". The usage ties it to the reserve: in patch 0.5.2 Aleco writes that Grace was performing very well in the reserves but less so on board, and that her The Radiant is one of the top specs mainly as a Backup; Pollen's Fae's Kiss keeps her strength as a late-game backup option (0.5.6); patch 0.5.14 fixes Fiona's The Lustrous when used from the reserve. So a Backup effect works from the reserve, when the hero is not fighting on the board, and Backup Only works only from there. Whether every Backup effect also works on board: to verify in the game.

Debuffs: Burn, Frost, Poison

The three debuffs are Burn, Frost and Poison; Aleco calls Frost stronger than the other two (patch 0.5.4) and says changes to how debuffs work are for the full release. Their ticks were made precise in patch 0.5.6: 60 per minute instead of 58. Frost also reduces stats: normally 2 Frost take 1 point of Defense and 1 of Attack Speed off the target; in Red Rift the Act 2 Boss resists Frost by 50%, so it takes 4. Amounts are written as numbers ("inflict 25 Poison", "100 Burn") or as formulas ("1 Poison per 10 Crit", Burn equal to 66% of Magic). Relics named Migrator, Conduit, Ascendancy or Catalyst build on them. A "Debuff" count also includes effects such as Stone Skin stacks.

Stats, statuses and triggers

The stats in the notes: Attack (or Attack Damage), Magic, Defense, Crit (a number, such as "200 Crit", not a percentage), Attack Speed, Max HP, HP/S (health regenerated per second), Mana, Max Mana, Starting Mana, Mana Regen, Omnivamp. Heroes build Mana and cast their active ability; lowering Max Mana gives a quicker first cast and more casts (patch 0.5.1.718). Statuses: Shields, Stun (with Stun Resistance for heroes against repeated enemy stuns and Stun Immunity for some heroes while casting, since patch 0.5.5), Stealth, Damage Immunity. Triggers: "On cast", "On Crit", "On auto attack", "When auto attacked", "At start of combat", "On kill", every X seconds, plus Rush and Stall. Quest: relics unlock when a target is met ("Quest: Apply 7500 Shields"). Permanently means the gain lasts for the whole run, not just the fight ("permascaling" in Aleco's words).

Ranks, specializations, class modifiers

Heroes have ranks C, B, A, S; "per rank" scaling counts the ranks gained. At rank B a hero takes one of its three specializations (Aleco: the "B-rank up moment"); at A and S it takes Class Modifiers, also called Class Mods or rank modifiers, from pools per class (Assassin, Duelist, Mage, Mystic, Tank, Vanguard appear in the notes). A signature ability is the hero's own active or passive. "Spec" is short for specialization; "comp" for team composition; "pickrate" and "winrate" are what Aleco reads in the internal data. How a run is built, with the ranks in context, is in our guide to Guildrun.

Modes and timings

Difficulties go up to SSS and Red Rift; after a run comes Endless, scored in floors. Aleco reads performance across five timings: Act 1, Act 1 Boss, Act 2, Act 2 Boss and Endless (patch 0.5.3), and groups players into Climbers, Endless players and Red Rift players. Leaderboards: Merged, SSS and Red Rift, reset every Tuesday at 7pm CEST since patch 0.5.14 (see our guide to the demo). Boss Tokens, the Emergency Rewind and Shards are the run's resources.

Aleco's vocabulary

A few words from the design notes: a band-aid is a change that treats a symptom without fixing the underlying problem (the Red Rift Frost resistance, patch 0.5.4); a burf is "equal parts buff and nerf" (Pimenta, patch 0.5.3); auto-pick is a choice so strong it is not a choice; net fun is his way of weighing a patch for each group of players (patch 0.5.3); an outlier is a hero or spec far above or below the others in the data.

To verify in the game

• When the Rush window starts and ends, and what counts as a Rush trigger.
• Whether Backup effects also work on board or only from the reserve.
• The exact effect of Stealth and Damage Immunity, and how Stun Resistance scales.
• What Crit numbers mean in practice (chance, damage, or both).

Terms in the three languages are in the glossary.