Σ 2.5.0 Announced

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MedianXL
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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.




The Mirror Temple


New class-specific dungeon challenges with exclusive class rewards

  • The tombs on the Island of Skartara have finally opened!
  • Seven class-specific dungeons can now be accessed at level 120
  • Find your class Nemesis and kill it to get great rewards exclusive to your class
    • Upgrade to your class charm
    • Drops materials to instantly craft a complete set for your class
    • There is a single reward set per class, which will rotate every season
    • Sets available for Season 33 are: Vasily's Following, The Snake Pit, Spirits of the Nephalem, Last King of Scosglen, Celestial Orchard, Cinadide's Craft, and Zann Esu's Secrets



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Endgame Enhancements


Improvements to avoid mechanics and Unique Mystic Orbs

We've done various endgame balance changes in order to reduce the disparity between builds and provide a more pleasant transition to endgame zones.

UMO Changes


  • All Unique Mystic Orbs have a limit of 2 per item instead of 5
  • Increased their drop frequency in certain zones
  • Improved some of the weaker UMOs
  • Introduced some new Unique Mystic Orbs
The changes are meant to reduce reliance on single orbs for gear, which were creating bottlenecks in trading and felt rather tedious to obtain. Additionally, further changes have been made to make various orbs more viable and desirable, which together with a boost in drop rates should make for a more natural gearing progression.


Avoid Changes


  • Avoid stat is globally capped at 60%, which can be extended from certain sources
  • Avoid penalties in endgame zones have been greatly reduced (Lab, Baal, Samael, Bremm, Deimoss, Riftwalkers)
  • Various skills granting avoid have been reworked (e.g. Backstab, Cognition)
There are two immediate benefits from this set of changes. One affects the high avoid builds (assassins, wolf druid) - their survivability no longer plummets in the hardest content. This comes with a tradeoff in tankyness during the midgame, however, reaching max avoid will be less costly as well, reducing this impact. The other benefit is for low and medium avoid builds: they are unaffected by this cap and so receive a net gain in effective HP (e.g. Death Ward on Necromancer) in endgame content.

Finally, avoid can now become more available through items as there is no longer a concern for certain classes reaching 100% avoid. And it will become a much more desirable stat as previously you wouldn't have much incentive to stack it when you needed over 30% for it to barely start having an effect in some endgame quests.



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Dungeon Improvements


Dungeon Refresh Program, also improved several existing quests

  • Dungeon Refresh Program: breathe new life into the classic dungeon quests that were a part of Median XL for many years
    • Starting with the current patch, and every patch until 3.0, we will refresh the oldest dungeon content
    • These refreshes may overhaul the mechanics and/or visuals of the quests, introducing more difficult (Uber) versions, adding trophies or challenges
    • For patch 2.5 this means the introduction of the Uber Butcher and an overhaul of the Death Projector
  • Samael: Pain Worms no longer spawn over time, instead 4 of them will always be in the arena
  • Nithogur: added reward relics for Barbarian and Necromancer, and battle mechanic changes
  • The Triune: area level now 130, to better fit the experience curve when players usually farm cycles, and to provide alternatives to rifts in that bracket



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[BETA] Score Ladder


New realm ranking system which consists of obtaining points by completing challenges

We believe one of the most effective ways to develop meaningful PvP content is to embrace the PvE nature of the game and provide ways for people to compete by killing monsters - the very essence of the genre. The current ranking, which is based on a single metric (experience), does a poor job of showcasing the feats of the strongest and most impressive players in the community.

Introducing [BETA] Score:

  • Score ranking will be account based and persistent through seasons
  • All scores will be awarded for all classes, rewarding class diversity and playing multiple classes in a season
  • There will be both a Softcore and a Hardcore leaderboard
  • Points will be automatically rewarded for the following achievements every season:
    • First kill of any level 120 or higher Dungeon (more points the higher the bracket)
    • Most kills of any level 120 or higher Dungeon (more points the higher the bracket)
    • Most kills in any rift zone
    • First to 150
    • And more!
  • We also plan on implementing points that don't require competing with others, but are rather obtained by completing certain personal seasonal milestones
  • There will also be point rewards from contests or rewards for getting the highest score in a season, so stay tuned!

The system is in beta as it's brand new territory, therefore we cannot promise that there won't be changes to the scoring system. We very much appreciate any feedback and ideas that the community will have to offer in order to make it as enjoyable as it can be.



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And More!



  • Multiple class balance and build changes as usual
  • Introduced a new tier of rare-only items with unique implicit modifiers, Mastercrafted items
  • Added some new Sacred Uniques and runewords
  • Experience on realm can now still be obtained after 150 so players can continue to rank up in the experience ladder
  • We've internally released a beta of our new launcher app. Our goal is to reduce the occurrences of people having difficulties installing the mod
  • We are also continuing to improve the trading experience in the game

There will be additional improvements not discussed in this topic, as per usual. If you haven't already, please join our Discord community here for updates and to get ready for the upcoming season. Thank you for your continued support, and we look forward to seeing you in Season 33!



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Traxxi1337
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hype
Sierra989
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Hell yeauh
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Let's go!
PitStains
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:shock: :shock: 8-)
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SnakekillerX
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Haven't played this in a while but I'm really glad to see the content still coming. This will be a real treat next time I decide to jump back in.
Keep up the good work.
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JustSO
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cool
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LETS GOOOOOOOOOO!
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953648475
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:bounce: :bounce: :bounce:
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Sfp4
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Every change looks good.

Glad to see UMO's getting a much needed nerf.