With the November 13th maintenance at 7:00am CET also comes a big balance update for Fellowship. This patch will include buffs to armor, changes to Tariq and Ardeos, bug fixes, updates to UI, and adjustments to dungeon difficulties and their timers.
Additional Tariq Changes Coming Via Hotfix
An additional hotfix is coming on the 14th of November at 9:00am CET.
TARIQ CHANGES
We noticed that the adjustments to Tariq’s lightning damage had a larger effect than intended on his overall for his “lightning build”. As we stated in yesterday’s patch notes, our intention was to keep that build relevant, while making his other talent and legendary choices more competitive. As such, this hotfix aims to get his lightning build back on track.
- Chain Lightning damage was increased by 60% (counting from the value before yesterday’s patch results in a 20% reduction, rather than a 50% reduction).
- Hammer Storm damage was increased by 12.5%.
- The additional Lightning Damage dealt by Heavy Strike, Skull Crusher, and Hammer Storm during Thunder Call has been increased by 16.67%.
- The Schism talent now increases the damage of your next Skull Crusher or Hammer Storm by +250% (was +200%).
- This change is not reflected in the tooltips in the game. This will be updated in a coming patch.
Quick Balance Summary
To kick off the November 13th patch notes, here is a quick summary of the balance changes coming this patch:
- Armor buff for Cloth and Leather armor types. Affects Rime, Ardeos, Sylvie, Mara, Elarion, Meiko, and cloaks across all heroes.
- Ardeos’ spirit ability, Incinerate, was changed so that the ability no longer generates Cinders, but will deal more damage than before.
- Tariq’s lightning build has been nerfed while buffing his other skills.
- The bug for Sylvie’s Moccasins of the First Dryad where the Life Petal was failing to spawn if you were casting when Safe Haven expired is fixed in this patch.
- Vigour’s Dawnbreaker Orb no longer pulls enemies far beneath him on the z-axis.
- Bug fix for Rime’s spirit ability, Wrath of Winter, getting canceled when moved by a displacement effects.
- Dungeon timers for all single-boss dungeons, except for Stormwatch, have had their timers increased.
- Nerfs and changes to some of the enemies within Cithrel’s Fall, Wyrmheart, Emperyean Sands, Wraithtide Vault, Godfall Quarry.
Below are the detailed patch notes for the November 13th patch.
General Updates
- Removed the ‘Haunting of Stronghold’ Event.
- Updated the Stronghold’s appearance.
- Updated the Stronghold music, emitters, and ambience.
- Updated Stronghold Loading Screen.
- Removed the ‘Caretaker of Fallen Heroes’
- Added the ability to bind Left and Right mouse buttons, but only when used with modifiers.
UI Updates
- Added feedback so health bars on the party frame will now fade down when the other player is out of range, or line of sight to them is blocked. The distance check is based on the standard max range of ranged hero abilities.
- Added a ‘Refresh Regions’ button to the start menu to force the refresh of each region’s state. Previously players needed to restart the client.
Bug Fixes
General
- Fixed an issue where middle-mouse clicks weren’t registering when clicking on health bars.
- Fixed an issue where non-party leaders were still getting AFK kicked while matchmaking.
- Fixed an issue with the ‘select previous target’ functionality where the history could be lost.
- Fixed various translation issues in text throughout the game.
Heroes
Rime
- Fixed an issue where Wrath of Winter would cancel when Rime was being moved by a force push such as High Tide or the Rivers in Sailor’s Abyss.
Sylvie
- Fixed an issue where spawning Life Petal through Dryad’s Haven (Legendary Boots) could cancel other abilities or be canceled by other abilities.
Vigour
- Fixed an issue where Vigour’s orb would pull enemies too far beneath him.
Hero Changes
Cloth & Leather Armor Adjustments We have increased the amount of armor provided by Cloth and Leather items. Our intention is to have a noticeable difference in between the Armor Classes in the game – and to overtime supply players with a variation of ways to deal with encounters where Physical damage specifically becomes a problem for them as we continue expanding on the game’s systems. However, we have noticed that the difference was larger than intended on higher difficulties and decided to increase the amount of armor found on Cloth and Leather items to reduce that gap. This will affect all cloaks and Rime and Ardeos (cloth) – and Sylvie, Mara, Elarion, and Meiko (leather).
- At 330 item level, Cloth heroes will now have around 25% physical damage reduction from their armor (was 14.5%).
- At 330 item level, Leather heroes will now have around 32% physical damage reduction from their armor (was 22%).
Meiko
Armor Adjustments and Meiko Adjusting for the changes to Leather armor values, we have adjusted Meiko’s kit in some places to make sure her defensive power does not increase while she has all her buffs and effects active. The change will increase Meiko’s defensive power when she has no buffs or effects active.
- Stone Shield now increases Meiko’s Armor by 20% (was 50%) per stone up to a maximum of 60% at 3 stones (was 150% at 3 stones).
- Spirited Armor (spirit refund passive) now increases Meiko’s Armor by 20% (was 30%).
To clarify how the above changes affect Meiko’s defensive power in various situations (using 330 item level without gems as the reference point):
- With no buffs or effects, Meiko now has 48.95% Physical DR (was 41.04%).
- With Stone Shield at 3 charges, Meiko now has 68,17% Physical DR (was 66,95%).
- With Stone Shield at 3 charges + Spirited Armor proc Meiko now has 70.88% Physical DR (was 70.82%).
- With Stone Shield at 3 charges + Resonance from talent + Serenity DR from legendary boots Meiko now has 83.45% Physical DR (was 82.23%).
- With Stone Shield at 3 charges + Resonance from talent + Serenity DR from legendary boots + Spirited Armor proc Meiko has 84.86% Physical DR (was 84.32%).
Ardeos
- The direct damage dealt while channeling Incinerate has been increased by 312%.
- The damage over time of Incinerate now deals 62.5% increased damage.
- The damage over time of Incinerate now gains +30% increased damage for each stack applied.
- Incinerate now has a static channel time of 2.5 seconds, and its tick rate is now affected by your Haste.
- Incinerate no longer generates Cinders.
- Note: Ardeos Spirit Ability, Incinerate, was underperforming and did not have enough of an impact beyond its ability to generate Cinders and extend the duration of his other damage over time effects. In addition to this, Ardeos’; ramp time has been a bit too long – especially in the early game. As such, the ability no longer generates cinders and deals heavy damage on its own, to allow Ardeos players to get into their big burst moment earlier.
- The initial direct damage of Apocalypse has been increased by 50%.
Tariq
- Heavy Strike damage increased by 50% and the static portion of its Fury Generation increased to 7% (was 4%).
- Face Breaker damage increased by 50% and the static portion of its Fury Generation increased to 6% (was 5%).
- Wild Swing damage increased by 100%.
- Chain Lightning now deals damage 6 times baseline (was 5 times).
- Thunderstruck talent now grants Chain Lightning 2 additional bounces (was 3).
- Chain Lightning damage reduced by 50%.
- Skull Crusher damage increased by 10%.
- Culling Strike damage increased by 54%.
- The additional Lightning Damage dealt by Heavy Strike, Skull Crusher, and Hammer Storm during Thunder Call was reduced to 30% of the initial hit (was 50%).
- Schism talent now has 3.2 PPM (was 1.2 PPM) and the damage bonus has been reduced to +200% (was +300%).
- Bloodied Brass Necklace (legendary necklace) now deals 350% of Face Breaker’s damage to the target of 24 seconds (was 450%).
- Note: The lightning damage in Tariq’s kit has been reduced, while the power of his other abilities have been increased. Overall, his total damage should be at a similar place as before, but more of the damage is coming from your non-lightning mechanics – with the intention of making other legendaries and talents more competitive.
Dungeons
Dungeon Timer Adjustments
- The Wyrmheart: +15 seconds
- Sailor’s Abyss: +20 seconds
- Empyrean Sands: +20 seconds
- Urrak Markets: +20 seconds
- Godfall Quarry: +35 seconds
- Everdawn Grove: +48 seconds
- Silken Hollow: +50 seconds
Cithrel’s Fall
- Cithrel’s Path of Oblivion damage from the initial hit has been reduced by 20%.
- Cithrel’s Bloodhunt initial hit damage has been reduced by 10%.
- Cithrel’s Bloodhunt bleed damage has been reduced by 20%.
- Damage from the Blade of Cithrel’s Spinning Blades ability can now be Blocked, Dodged, and Parried.
- The Blade of Cithrel’s Ice Breaker ability now detaches from the player after 1 second – allowing players time to move out of the impact area.
- The Tundra Stalker’s Rapid Fire now has a 1.5 second precast (uninterruptable).
The Wyrmheart
- The Coldheart Assassin’s Coldheart Poison ability now has a 2 second, uninterruptable cast.
- The Coldheart Assassin’s Wicked Strikes now waits 1 tick after the stun to start stabbing the target.
- Damage from the Blade of Cithrel’s Spinning Blades ability can now be Blocked, Dodged, and Parried.
- The Blade of Cithrel’s Ice Breaker ability now detaches from the player after 1 second – allowing players time to move out of the impact area.
- The Tundra Stalker’s Rapid Fire now has a 1.5 second precast (uninterruptable).
- Fixed an issue where Cithrel’s ‘fly away’ animation would not play if one player reached the boss before the others.
Empyrean Sands
- Damage from the Tombguard Reaver’s Whirlwind ability can now be Blocked, Dodged, and Parried.
- Acolyte of Sinnari’s Wrath of Sinnari damage reduced by 59%.
- Sin-magir’s Ruinous Star explosions can no longer be outranged by players.
- Sin-magir’s arena now has a barrier that activates in the doorway once the encounter has started.
- The damage of Sin-Magir’s Ruinous Star explosions has been reduced by 10%.
- The health of Sin-Magir’s Ruinous Star has been reduced by 15%.
Empyrean Sands / Wraithtide Vault
- Greedspawn Sentinel’s Greed’s Embrace damage reduced by 30%.
Godfall Quarry
- The Enforcer’s Piercing Strike now has a 2 second pre cast (uninterruptable) and a new sound effect on both the pre-cast and the impact.
- The boss encounter will now reset correctly if a lone player starts the encounter and dies before other players join the fight.
Sailor’s Abyss
- Fixed an issue where players would not be able to detach from the mast if the team wiped during ‘Sinthara’s song phase.
