Disclaimer: this topic is a teaser and everything is subject to change. The full patch notes will be released 2 days prior to the new season.
Druid 2.0
The currently least popular class sees a major overhaul, including a fully remade Hunter tree
Druids are thematically one of the coolest classes in the game, and that was one of the main principles adhered to during the overhaul. Several skill trees received major improvements in terms of damage, mechanics and theme. The incoming patch is a great time to try out a Druid as their leveling experience is much better. Lifeshield is now a level 18 skill and you no longer need to fear for your life until level 90. Some of the tree changes coming next patch include:
- Hunter: complete tree overhaul, featuring a new pseudo-resource system: "Steady Aim". The bow tree also gives you access to Bear Companion, a powerful summon unique to the Hunter.
- Nature: the poison druid has been fully re-themed into an earth-based build, it can summon harvesters and infect enemies with constricting roots.
- Seer: is now a devotion with a new powerful caster passive: Pagan Rites. That's right, it's also the first passive-aura skill - periodically eating corpses to heal you.
- Trap Rat: the evolution of the big rat sees a trade-off in projectile quantities for increased speed. Trap rats are now much more agile, with a 9 frame attack duration, significantly faster than the old 13.
- And more: other changes include a new reward skill, Survival Instinct, a Spell Focus passive that also provides a freezing attack and much needed physical resistance.
Damage Shrink
Changes to player damage and monsters' health to fix an issue present since 1.0
With version 1.7 comes the fix for a long standing Sigma engine bug which would increase all weapon physical damage from skills by 50%. This means that the current patch is the best time to execute a damage shrink in order to keep all player damage sources in line. It involves reducing all player damage AND monster life by around half compared to version 1.6. Additional benefits of this change include: further reducing the occurrence of any annoying damage caps, more possibilities for us to improve server performance in projectiles v damage trade-offs and, crucially, more aesthetically pleasing number values.
Question & Answer time:
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Quality of Life
Barbarian meets the future...
Adding convenience is always at the top of our priorities, and the next patch features many exciting quality of life changes:
- Barbarian Stances are now Buffs
We are saying good-bye to yet another outdated and annoying mechanic: the requirement to have stances on the right mouse button for them to be active. This mechanic made Barbarians annoying to play and you wouldn't be able to use certain skills with stances. They are now long duration buffs for you and your spirits, and you can still swap them around.
. - Mercenary Improvements
There's multiple changes and fixes to mercenaries. But the most interesting one is that Act 1, 2 and 3 mercenaries will be able to equip class items like act 5 mercenary! Of their corresponding class, Amazon, Paladin & Sorceress respectively. There's several skill changes to mercenaries to adapt them to their new gear choices.
. - Energy Factor -> Spell Focus
The main issues with Energy Factor are that the scaling is very unintuitive and the stat is rather useless during the first half of the game. We are fixing these two issues by revamping it into Spell Focus, it now has a linear effect capping at 1000. While Energy still grants a damage bonus to spells, Spell Focus doesn't rely on it, meaning that endgame casters may consider allocating in every attribute and not just Energy.
. - Dynamic damage display for Elemental Weapons
Elemental weapons will now display how much damage you're receiving from stacking a stat. The display calculates both the conversion from the attribute as well as your Innate Elemental Damage percentage, making it very easy to compare different gear choices as well as accurately track how much damage you deal at any point in the game.
And more!
More unannounced features and changes...
There's more exciting stuff to come: in this patch and, especially, a future one which has been in development for a while. We thank everyone for your patience and support, good times are ahead. Stay tuned for Season 26.
