Hellgate: London Abyss Chronicles Patch Notes

Now that Hellgate: London’s ambitious Abyss Chronicles patch is finally hitting the game’s test center server, we’ve been given a chance to look through the preliminary patch notes. Lots of goodness in here:

The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Test Center Notes [Preliminary]
June 9th, 2008
The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is heading to Test Center today!

This is the largest addition to Hellgate: London to date. There is a new town with a new quest line that includes four new boss fights, the Consignment House, the Blademaster rebalance, Mythic and Double-Edged items, rings that go into the new trinket slot, new armor sets for each faction, new weapons and uniques for each faction and on and on. I’ll let these Patch Notes get into the specifics, but we have a lot of improvements in this patch for subscribers and non-subscribers alike.

We’ve been fixing bugs and polishing this new content for a couple weeks now, and we plan on focusing on polishing it for a while longer. You will see by the list of caveats in this post that we aren’t finished yet. In fact, at the time of this writing we have made 140 changes since this specific build was completed we are still fixing things as fast as we can, but we tried to get you the first build that was ready for Test Center. This post contains the current Patch Notes for The Abyss Chronicles, but I can guarantee you that things will keep changing over the next few weeks. During that time, as we see you guys playing in Test Center and hear your feedback, the new content will probably be nerfed, buffed, and radically changed. Please just roll with the punches.

We need your help to polish this Chronicle while it is still in Test Center. Players who are in Test Center enjoy several cool perks: double experience gain, a free Skill Retrainer each login, a free Attribute Retrainer each login, a free Expertise Retrainer each login, a Test Center-only vendor who sells the skill scrolls (he didn’t end up in this build), and a nice small community of fun people to play with. So, hop on Test Center and post the issues that you have found here in the forums.

Tyler (Bogustus)

—

GENERAL

• All characters made prior to the launch of The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) will receive a Skill Retrainer, Attribute Retrainer, and Expertise Retrainer upon logging in. Attribute Retrainers also unlearn an Engineer’s drone’s attributes. Players must make inventory space for the three 1×1-sized (single cell) items to receive them. The items will be given to the character when there is sufficient inventory space. Players in Test Center will get all three items with each log-on.
• Added a line of affixes that increase the damage of Guardian Shield skills.
• Bob the Stat Vendor now stands in Holborn Station. All players may pay him to redistribute their stat points. The cost for redistributing points goes up with level with big jumps at level 16 and 31.
• Stack size on potions/consumables/essences/heads has been raised to 100.

NEW FEATURES

• New Abyss Quest Line with Four New Boss Fights:
  • Travel to the all new Parliament Square and help Titus of the Cabal fend off the rapid spread of the Abyss, a new Demonic underground that grows in size as Demonkind consumes more of our world. The only way to halt the Abyss is to seek out and destroy those who control it. Lure the four Abyss Lords from their cursed realm by collapsing their Hellrifts (a new Rift for each of the boss types), then confront the masters as they emerge to investigate the problem. Four repeatable boss runs with four new bosses! Features three new environments and some reworked environments.
• New Shared Stash System:
  • The Shared Stash will now feature separate panes for each gameplay mode: Normal, Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite. Items currently in your Shared Stash will be placed in the correct pane.
• Major Rebalance of the Blademaster Class:
  • The Blademaster class has been significantly rebalanced with changes to almost every skill. Overall, they should do more damage and have many more options than before. Some of the highlights include Strength now stacking on top of the skill percent bonuses a huge boost and Blademasters can now gain a Surge with any melee attack or with any melee skill (rather than just when killing something with a Surge skill).
• Improved, Configurable Guild Controls:
  • Guilds will now have four titles they can assign to members. The titles can be renamed. There can only be one Guild Leader. Non-subscribers can only have the lowest title. The Guild Leader can configure what the middle two titles are allowed to do including invite new members, promote and demote existing members, kick members, and send all-guild e-mail. The lowest title is not allowed to invite, promote, demote, kick, or send guild e-mails.
• Consignment House:
  • Players can place items into the Consignment House to offer them for sale at a set price. All players in the same gameplay mode can see and purchase that item. The Consignment House currently only offers a (buy out) price, there is no bidding.
  • The Consignment House is accessed in Stonehenge and Templar Base.
  • The default duration for listed items is seven days.
  • Listed items are mailed back upon expiration, as is payment for successful listings.
  • Listed items can be withdrawn.
  • While players cannot place items up for auction (bidding) yet, this feature is planned for the future.
  • The Consignment House can be searched using type, quality, and item level filters.
  • Search queries can be sorted by price.
  • All uniques in Hellgate: London can be viewed using the Consignment House.
• Three New Skills for all Classes:
  • Skill Scrolls are new items which unlock the new skills and allow skill points to be put into them. For example, the Spider Mine Schematic unlocks the Spider Mine skill for Engineers. The Skill Scrolls will be tradable and can be used by all players; however, they drop off of boss monsters in the subscriber-only Abyss levels. Only a few of the skills will be enabled in the first Patch 2 build that goes to Test Center.
• Trinket Inventory Slots:
  • There will be two new Trinket inventory slots. The first trinkets will drop as cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier. These cursed rings will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradable and can be used by all players.
• Attribute Respec Vendor:
  • Bob, the Attribute Respec Vendor, will allow you to spend palladium to remove points one at a time from an Attribute and add them to your unassigned Attribute Points pool. The cost to remove each point goes up with character level.
• Stack Splitting:
  • You will be able to right-click on a stack of items and select to split it into smaller stacks using a new radial menu option. A dialog will pop up and let you type in how many items to place in the new stack.
• Item Linking:
  • Players will be able to enter a clickable (link) to an item’s details into the chat pane by right-clicking on the item and selecting the Link Item option on the radial menu.
• Achievement Rewards:
  • Rewards have been added for completing achievements. Some achievements unlock special character emotes or grant selectable titles while others give access to gameplay bonuses that can be equipped in the achievement interface.
• Mythic and Double-Edged Items:
  • Two new rarity types have been added, Mythic and Double-Edged. A new "mythic" version of the most popular affixes have been included. These affixes grant bonuses 1.5-1.75 times their legendary counterparts.
  • Mythic items are more rare than unique items and have one very strong "mythic" affix plus a random number of legendary affixes. They can be gambled for and are not sold by merchants.
  • The much more common Double-Edged rarity grants mythic-quality properties as well, but at a cost. To equip these, players will have take a penalty to a different statistic/property. Double-Edged items are more common than uniques and less common than Legendary. They cannot be gambled for and are not sold by merchants.
• New Weapons for all Factions:
  • Templar Weapons:
    • Gleamcarver Sword, Dissector Sword, Dissector Shield.
  • Cabalist Focus Items:
    • Ripshard, Glyphshard, Bloodshard.
  • Hunter Weapons:
    • F-S Force Magnum, XM909 Thunderclash, Thumper.
  • All of these new items can be found only in the Abyss.
• New Armor for all Factions:
  • A new armor line is available for each faction at levels 47 and above, found only in the Abyss.
• New Monster Types
• New Chat Color Scheme

ITEMS
The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) introduces a new inventory slot for Trinkets. The first type of trinket available are rings.

Rings
There are seven types of rings available.

• Opal:
  • These rings can drop from champion monsters anywhere in Hellgate: London.
• Runic:
  • These rings can drop from any monster in the Abyss.
• Stone:
  • These rings can drop from any monster in the Abyss.
• Ruby:
  • These rings are a specific Talox boss drop.
• Scale:
  • These rings are a specific Fulcrum boss drop.
• Prism:
  • These rings are a specific Squadro boss drop.
• Ring:
  • These rings are a specific Dreadnaught boss drop.

PVP

• Capture the Flag:
  • We’re including a preview of CTF, with a basic set of features. Capture the Flag is available only in this Test Center version of Patch 2 and will not be available on the live servers until a future build, after Patch 2.
  • In the new CTF level, players team up to battle over flags. To join a CTF game, press P to bring up the party and matchmaking screen. Select the Match tab, and join a game from the list. If there isn’t a game, press the Create button to make a new one. Many of the features in this matchmaking dialog are disabled for the Test Venter version.

NEW SKILLS
Each class may now gain access to three new unique skills! However, these skills can only be learned through the acquisition of mysterious items.

Summoner

• Darkform (Level 10): Using this skill transforms the Summoner into a demonic being, exchanging the use of weapons for vicious claws. This skill also passively allows the use of dual focus items.
• Dark Lord (Level 15): This skill passively grants a chance on successful attacks to summon up to 3 Shadow Minions to aid the Summoner.
• Dark Offering (Level 20): Using this skill sacrifices a Shadow Minion to unleash a powerful attack against all enemies within range.

Evoker

• Arcane Resilience (Level 15): This skill passively decreases the Shield Recharge Delay.
• Bone Wall (Level 20): Using this skill creates a temporary, destructible Wall of Bone at the targeted location.
• Spectral Serpents (Level 30): Using this skill temporarily summons 3 Spectral Serpents to fight for the Evoker at the targeted location.

Engineer

• Drone Aggressive Mode (Level 5): Using this skill toggles the Engineer’s Drone into an aggressive mode, increasing its awareness as well as its movement speed.
• Ghostly Strike (Level 30): Using this skill commands the Engineer’s Bomber Bot to detonate on the targeted enemy, phasing the enemy for a long period of time in addition to causing severe damage.
• Spider Mines (Level 10): Using this skill creates an autonomous Spider Mine that seeks out nearby enemies and detonates.

Marksman

• White-Out Grenade (Level 15): Using this skill throws a grenade that explodes with a blinding light, disorienting all enemies caught within it.
• EMP Blast (Level 30): Using this skill creates a controlled electromagnetic pulse, removing all Shields from nearby enemies and temporarily preventing their natural Shield Recharge.
• Camouflage (Level 15): Using this skill requires there to be no enemies near the Marksman, but camouflages him while in Sniper Mode, preventing enemies from detecting him as long as he does not perform any actions. Camouflage also remains for a short duration after the Marksman attacks.

Blademaster

• Templar Restoration (Level 5): Using this skill expends active Surges of Restoration to heal the Blademaster and all nearby friendly targets.
• Balance of Power (Level 30): This skill passively causes all successful Hamper attacks to steal power from the target.
• Crusader Wrath (Level 15): Using this skill requires and expends three active Surges of Wrath to temporarily empower the Blademaster with wrathful energy, greatly increasing Damage at the cost of Armor.

Guardian

• Aura Stability (Level 30): This skill passively allows the simultaneous use of up to three auras, as well as increases the effectiveness of the Guardian’s auras.
• Prayer of Smiting (Level 30): Using this skill calls upon the power of the heavens to strike down all nearby enemies.
• Shield Throw (Level 15): Using this skill throws the Guardian’s Shield, bouncing between enemies to deal extra damage.

SKILL ORGANIZATION
We’ve reorganized each class’s skill page into three named tabs! Since these new skill tabs are more compact, the skills page now fits within the middle panel area of the UI. The reorganization of the skills into separate tabs is both much more intuitive and visually pleasing. The new skill tabs are named:

Summoner

• Elementals, Demons, Necromancy

Evoker

• Nature, Spirit, Arcana

Engineer

• Bots, Drone, Spec Ops

Marksman

• Assault, Recon, Demolitions

Blademaster

• Duelist, Knight, Flying Blade

Guardian

• Shield, Devotions, Retribution

GAME BALANCE
With The Abyss Chronicle (Patch 2), we are taking the opportunity to change a number of global balance issues based off of player feedback and trends that we’ve noticed through the Evil Eye.

Shields

• The Shield Recharge Delay (time after getting hit and before Shields begin to recharge) has been reduced to 2.5 seconds from 4 seconds. This change also applies to monsters.
• The base Shield Recharge rate has been doubled to 10% per second, from 5%. This is a static value, remaining constant regardless of level or amount of shields. This change also applies to monsters.
• The Shields curve (amount provided by items and skills) has been improved dramatically. This change has been retroactively applied to old items.
• Templar Armor lines have been given a substantial boost in Shields, retroactively
• Related Properties:
  • Base (inherent) Shield Overload properties have been removed from all Swords. These are the inherent Shield Overload amounts that were previously on all Swords. This change is retroactive.
  • Shield Overload abilities on monsters have been significantly toned down. Now, a monster can at most deal 100% extra damage to Shields, compared to 300%.

Armor & Health

• The Armor curve has been rescaled to use much larger values to allow for greater accuracy when applying percent bonuses. 5400 Armor is now required to achieve 50% absorption against level 50 opponents. All old armor pieces have been retroactively updated.
• Relative Armor values provided by Cabalist and Hunter armor lines have been increased, such that they provide higher absorption than previously. This change is retroactive.
• Relative Armor values provided by Blademaster armor lines have been slightly decreased, such that they provide slightly less absorption than previously. This change is retroactive.
• Relative Armor values provided by Guardian armor lines have been substantially decreased, such that they provide much less absorption than previously. This change is retroactive.
• Relative Armor values provided by Shield items (Templar) have been substantially decreased, such that they provide much less absorption than previously. This change is retroactive.
• Related Properties:
  • Standard Armor bonus properties now operate under a new mechanic: they increase the armor of the base item by a percent.
  • The Total Armor Value properties’ bonuses have been lowered to 3/4/5%. This change is retroactive.
  • Inherent Total Armor Value properties found on some Templar armor lines have been changed to use the standard Armor bonus properties, retroactively.
  • Pet Armor bonus properties’ bonuses have been scaled down, retroactively.
  • Pet Health bonus properties’ bonuses have been scaled down, retroactively.

Feed Requirements

• Many armor lines have had their feed requirements changed (all retroactively) to require feeds that make more sense for the classes they were made for (and all armor lines now have Stamina as the primary feed requirement):
  • Summoner armor lines now require Stamina and Willpower feeds instead of Strength and Willpower.
  • Low level general Cabalist armor lines now require Stamina and Willpower feeds instead of Strength and Willpower.
  • Engineer armor lines now require Stamina and Accuracy feeds instead of Strength and Willpower.
  • Low and high level general Hunter armor lines now require Stamina and Accuracy feeds instead of Strength and Stamina.
  • Blademaster armor lines now require Stamina and Strength feeds instead of just Strength.
  • Guardian armor lines now require Stamina (primary) and Strength (secondary) feeds instead of Strength (primary) and Stamina (secondary).
  • Low level general Templar armor now requires Stamina and Strength feeds instead of just Strength.
  • High level general Templar armor now requires Stamina feed instead of Strength.
• Many Sword varieties have had their feed requirements changed (all retroactively) in order to promote a variety of builds:
  • Quick, primarily single-target Swords with inherent bonuses to critical chance now require Strength and Accuracy feeds.
  • Slower, primarily single-target Swords require Strength feed only.
  • Splash damage Swords now require Strength and Willpower feeds.
• All mod properties can now be found requiring any one out of the four Feed types, rather than usually just Willpower. This is to allow for better optimization and customization when spending Attribute Points.

Elemental Effects

• Character defenses against Secondary Damage Effects have been increased.
• Poison effects now prevent the afflicted character or monster from receiving any benefits from health regeneration and abilities that grant health regeneration; however, some abilities which grant health regeneration (such as health injectors) are no longer prevented from being used.
• The cooldown on Elemental Effects Removal and Defense consumables has been decreased to 15 seconds.
• The group cooldown on Elemental Effects Removal and Defense consumables has been decreased to 5 seconds.
• Effects Removal and Defense consumables no longer share a group cooldown with Adrenaline Pills and Shield Boosters.
• Related Properties:
  • The bonuses provided by standard Elemental Defense properties have been improved, and they now also provide an Elemental Defense to a secondary Elemental Effect.
  • The All Elemental Defenses property has been improved.

Properties

• All available properties are now weighted consistently throughout the game by the general group of properties they belong to. This means that the frequency of any Skill bonus property appearing at any level will remain constant, as will a Damage bonus property, etc.
• The rarities of the different types of properties have been rebalanced.
• All Attributes bonus properties have been scaled down, retroactively, to a maximum of 10 to All Attributes. The feed requirements of these properties have also been retroactively scaled down according to their new attribute bonus values.

Items

• Adrenaline Pills and Shield Boosters now share a 5-second cooldown with Health Injectors and Powerpacks.

PvP

• Elemental Attack Strengths are now reduced by 75% instead of 25%.
• Fixed an issue causing players to increasingly do more and more damage than expected to other players at higher levels.
• Health Injectors may no longer be used.

Skills

• Every skill can now be trained at each level after the skill’s base level and skill prerequisites are met. For example, Sword of Reckoning can now be trained up to rank 9 when the character is level 9.
• The update speed for Auras has increased to once every second, up from once every 3 seconds. This means that Auras will more quickly evaluate how many enemies are within their radius, as well as increase the frequency that Aura of Deflection and Aura of Vengeance will attempt to destroy or reflect projectiles.
• Many errors and inconsistencies in skill descriptions have been fixed.

Templar
We have corrected an error in the way that damage bonuses provided by Templar skills were being applied. Previously, most of the damage bonuses were being added directly to the damage bonuses gained from other sources, which meant that the damage increase from using one of these skills was effectively much less than the listed value. Now, the damage bonuses for these skills multiply the total damage of the Templar’s attack, so the listed damage bonus will always be the exact increase in damage gained from using the skill. One side effect of this fix is that we have had to generally adjust the damage bonuses of Templar skills downwards; however, the actual damage provided by these skills has been increased tremendously.

• Opposing players in PvP are now counted toward the enemy count for Templar auras.

Blademaster

• Surge of Restoration
  • This skill is now a passive skill with a 12% chance to proc on successful melee hits. The proc does not cost power, but cannot occur more than once every quarter-second.
  • The per-rank bonus of this skill has been doubled.

• Surge of Wrath
  • This skill is now a passive skill with a 12% chance to proc on successful melee hits. The proc does not cost power, but cannot occur more than once every quarter-second.
  • The rank progression of this skill has been adjusted down slightly, beginning at a 2/4/6% increase to Critical Chance at rank 1 and reaching a 5/10/15% increase to Critical Chance at rank 10.
  • The skill prerequisites for Surge of Wrath have been removed.

• Surge of Speed
  • This skill is now a passive skill with a 12% chance to proc on successful melee hits. The proc does not cost power, but cannot occur more than once every quarter-second.
  • The rank progression of this skill has been adjusted down slightly, beginning at a 10/20/30% increase to Movement Speed at rank 1 and reaching a 28/56/84% increase to Movement Speed at rank 10.
  • The skill prerequisites for Surge of Speed have been removed.
  • Sprint can now be used while Surge of Speed is active.

• Surge Mastery
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase the chance that any of the Surge skills will proc by an additional 3% per rank.
  • The skill prerequisites for Surge Mastery have been removed.

• Sword of Reckoning
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 60% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 8% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased slightly.

• Sword of Authority
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase the Elemental Attack Strengths of this attack by 30% per rank.
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 200%.
  • The power cost has been decreased by approximately 37%.
  • The duration of this skill and the delay afterwards have been decreased substantially.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Sword of Reckoning rank 3.

• Hamper
  • Using this skill no longer forces the Blademaster to stop moving.
  • The duration of Hamper’s effect has been increased to 6 seconds.
  • The movement speed penalty of Hamper’s effect has been decreased to 15% at rank 1.
  • The armor penalty of Hamper’s effect has been decreased to 6% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 2% per rank.
  • This skill now has a cooldown of 3 seconds.
  • The skill prerequisite has been increased to Sword of Authority rank 2.

• Sword of Justice
  • This skill now provides a total damage multiplier bonus of 40% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 7% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 30%.
  • This skill is now properly modified by its attack speed coefficient, such that the Elemental Attack Strength of this attack is now equivalent to that of a normal swing.

• Sweeping Strike
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase the Elemental Attack Strengths of this attack by 25% per rank.
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 75%.
  • The power cost has been increased by 10%.

• Whirlwind
  • The mechanics of this skill have changed: Whirlwind is no longer based on a set duration instead, it does 8 spinning attacks at twice the Blademaster’s normal melee speed hitting all targets within melee range, each attack having 50% of the Damage and Elemental Attack Strengths of a normal attack.
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase the rate of use by 20% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 12.5%.
  • The initial cooldown has been increased to 25 seconds.
  • The Movement Speed bonus is now fixed at 50%.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Sweeping Strike rank 3.
  • Players can no longer jump while in Whirlwind.

• Charge
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 25%.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 50%.
  • The base range has been decreased to 12 meters.
  • The skill prerequisites for Charge have been removed.

• Onslaught
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase the maximum range of Charge and Path of Righteousness by 10% per rank.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Charge rank 2.

• Path of Righteousness
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 10%.
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase the damage multiplier bonus by an additional 10% per rank.
  • The cooldown is now fixed at 8 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 29%.
  • This skill now teleports the Blademaster in the direction of movement at the time it is used, or forwards if there is no current movement.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Onslaught rank 2.
  • Path of Righteousness now applies damage bonuses correctly.

• Crosscutter
  • This skill now receives a damage bonus from Strength, like other melee skills.
  • This skill no longer requires a target and no longer homes.
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 15%.
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase the damage multiplier bonus by an additional 15% per rank.
  • The cooldown is now fixed at 2 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 60%.

• Sword Master
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase the Critical Chance of Crosscutter and Sword Typhoon attacks by 5% per rank.
  • The skill prerequisite has been increased to Crosscutter rank 2.

• Sword Typhoon
  • This skill now receives a damage bonus from Strength, like other melee skills.
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 50% for each shard.
  • The cooldown has been decreased to 15 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 25%.
  • The display for this skill now shows the correct number of shards thrown for each rank.
  • The skill prerequisite has been increased to Sword Master rank 2.

• Heaven’s Arc
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 50% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 10% per rank.

• Matched Blades
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase Strength by 8 per rank.

• Call of the Chosen
  • The display for this skill now shows the correct values for Fear duration, Taunt duration, and Fear Radius.

• Angelic Orator
  • The damage reduction effect of this skill has increased to a 5% damage reduction per rank.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Call of the Chosen rank 2.

• Aura of Power
  • The display for this skill now shows the correct value for its Power Regeneration bonus.

• Aura of Zeal
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to provide a passive Critical Damage bonus of 25% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 25% per rank. The Critical Chance bonus provided by this skill is now a constant 2% per enemy within the Holy Aura.

• Aura of Deflection
  • This skill now provides a 27% chance to destroy projectiles at rank 1, increasing by an additional 9% per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 5.

• Aura of Vengeance
  • This skill now provides a 15% chance to reflect projectiles at rank 1, increasing by an additional 5% per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 5.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Aura of Deflection rank 1.

Guardian

• Sword of Reckoning
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 60% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 8% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 25%.

• Hamper
  • Using this skill no longer forces the Guardian to stop moving.
  • The duration of Hamper’s effect has been decreased to 6 seconds.
  • The movement speed penalty of Hamper’s effect has been decreased to 9% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 3% per rank.
  • The armor penalty of Hamper’s effect has been decreased to 12% at rank 1, but the bonus of ranks thereafter has been increased to an additional 4% per rank.
  • This skill now has a cooldown of 3 seconds.
  • Players can now move around while invoking Hamper as if it were a regular sword swing.

• Heaven’s Arc
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 50% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 10% per rank.

• Shield Turn
  • The initial bonus to Elemental Attack Strengths has been removed.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 27%.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Shield Bash rank 2.

• Shield Charge
  • The power cost has been decreased by 50%.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Shield Turn rank 2.

• Stampede
  • The Elemental Attack Strengths bonus has been increased to 50% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 29%.
  • The range has been decreased to 10 meters.
  • Stampede now applies damage bonuses correctly.

• Shield Master
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 12% per rank to all Shield skills.
  • This skill no longer increases the duration of Elemental Attack Effects caused by Shield skills.

• Anchor
  • This skill now provides a damage multiplier bonus of 30% at rank 1, increasing by an additional 10% per rank.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 25%.

• Challenge
  • The cooldown has been increased to 5 seconds.
  • The power cost is no longer decreased with additional skill ranks.

• Provoke
  • The display for this skill now shows the correct bonus to the Taunt Strength of Challenge.
  • Denounce is no longer a prerequisite for this skill.
  • The skill prerequisite is now Challenge rank 2.

• Denounce
  • The skill tooltip has been updated to display the duration of the effect.
  • The base Armor reduction effect has been removed.
  • The cooldown has been decreased to 5 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 33%.
  • The power cost is no longer decreased with additional skill ranks.
  • The skill prerequisites for Denounce have been removed.

• Spiritual Strength
  • This skill has been renamed (Spiritual Toughness).
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase Stamina by 10 per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 8.

• Shield of Faith
  • The amounts of Shields provided by this skill have been rescaled based on the new Shields curve and bonuses to Templar armor lines.
  • The return on investment of this skill has been increased.
  • The duration is now fixed at 15 seconds.
  • The cooldown has been decreased to 30 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 22%.

• Shield Wall
  • The amounts of Shields provided by this skill have been rescaled based on the new Shields curve and bonuses to Templar armor lines.
  • The return on investment of this skill has been increased.
  • The cooldown has increased to 30 seconds.
  • The power cost has been decreased by 38%.

• Prayer of Healing
  • The power cost has been decreased by 13%.

• Prayer of Retribution
  • The skill prerequisites for Prayer of Retribution have been removed.

• Aura of Power
  • The display for this skill now shows the correct value for its Power Regeneration bonus.

• Aura of Deflection
  • This skill now provides a 27% chance to destroy projectiles at rank 1, increasing by an additional 9% per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 5.

• Aura of Vengeance
  • This skill now provides a 15% chance to reflect projectiles at rank 1, increasing by an additional 5% per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 5.
  • The skill prerequisite has been decreased to Aura of Deflection rank 1.

Hunter

Marksman

• Sniper Stance:
  • You can no longer Sprint while in Sniper Stance.
  • Warping to another level will now take you out of Sniper Stance.

• Escape
  • Fixed Escape skill not working when the player has points in Escape Artist.

• Overshield
  • The amounts of Shields provided by this skill have been rescaled based on the new Shields curve and bonuses to Hunter armor lines.

Engineer
It is now possible to summon Engineer drones in town areas.

• Construct Drone
  • Drone AI has been reworked to be more defensive, as a counterpart to its new Aggressive Mode.
  • The Drone’s base Armor has been rescaled with the new Armor values, and then relatively increased.
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been decreased to a Health bonus of 15% per rank.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Drone to not attack when it should under certain conditions.

• Master Engineer
  • This effect of this skill has been decreased to an Armor bonus of 15% per rank, to remain consistent with the Armor rebalance.

• Sword Retrofit
  • The effect of this skill has been changed to increase the Drone’s Strength instead of Willpower, to fit the new feed requirement changes to Swords.

• Armor Retrofit
  • This skill no longer increases the Drone’s Strength.

• Bomber Bot
  • The skill prerequisites for Bomber Bot have been removed.

• Molotov Assault
  • Fixed a bug causing the field component of Molotov Assault to not be modified by the field coefficient.

• Beacon
  • The Engineer’s beacon can now be used on already-beaconed targets to refresh the duration.

Cabalists

Evoker

• Arc Legion
  • Fixed a bug which caused a large performance drop when using Arc Legion.
  • Fixed a bug which caused this skill to not use the proper attack speed coefficient when modifying Elemental Attack Strengths.
  • Increased the base Shock Attack Strength to match previous values.

• Tempest
  • The mechanics of Tempest have changed such that it may no longer target the same enemy more than once per striking round.
  • The damage of each bolt has been increased by 300%. The result of these two changes is that Tempest will do somewhat less damage to a single target standing by itself under the Tempest, but multiple targets will take far more damage than previously.
  • Fixed a bug which caused this skill to not use the proper attack speed coefficient when modifying Elemental Attack Strengths.
  • Increased the base Shock Attack Strength to match previous values.

• Arcane Shield
  • The amounts of Shields provided by this skill have been rescaled based on the new Shields curve and bonuses to Cabalist armor lines.
  • This skill has been improved dramatically as it now scales with the Shields curve rather than the Focus Damage curve, although it is still modified by Focus Damage.

• Shield Wall
  • Shield Wall is no longer castable while Shield Wall is already active.

• Dual Focus
  • The effect of additional ranks in this skill has been changed to increase Willpower by 10 per rank.
  • The rank cap of this skill has been increased to 8.

Summoner

• Summon Carnagor
  • The display of this skill now shows the correct Armor bonus provided by additional ranks: 15% per rank.

• Blink
  • The skill prerequisite for this skill has been changed to Word of Fear rank 1.

Expertise

• Cruelty
  • The bonus provided by this Expertise is now a damage multiplier bonus, meaning that it multiplies total damage.

• Impunity
  • This expertise now increases the Shield Recharge rate by approximately 1/2/4/7% per second.

• Toughness
  • This expertise has been rescaled to match the new Armor curve.

• Fortuity
  • The display for this expertise was displaying 10 times the actual amount of Luck provided. The display issue has been fixed.

GRAPHICS/USER INTERFACE

• Improved the efficiency of item graphics to reduce UI load times.
• Champion carnagors, seraphs, and other monsters that hide no longer show Nova particles when hidden.
• Party portals are now only seen by members of the party.
• The Expertise UI has been rearranged to take up less screenspace.
• Many NPCs had lost their colors in a previous patch. These NPCs now have the properly colored costumes.

FIXES

• Fixed a bug in the ragdoll tech which prevented some bodies from falling all the way to the ground.
• Allow tradable quest items (such as the Stonehenge boss heads) to be placed in the shared stash.
• Fixed a bug where Boomerang-type champion monsters could interact badly with Hunter Tactical skills.
• Fixed a bug where Carnagors and related monsters would sometimes not charge at players.
• Fixed a bug which could prevent the troops in The Wall quest from entering the portal at the end.
• The E-mail panel now closes with the ‘Z’ key.
• Fixed some bugs where your items could disappear and only reappear when you switched weapons.
• F-S Grizzly and other laser-based weapons that create ground fields now always create their fields at the correct locations.
• Fixed a bug that could cause a player in a party to not receive quest credit for killing Moloch.
• Fixed a bug which could cause items to lose their mods when placed in the shared stash under certain circumstances.
• Player panel now displays velocity bonuses correctly.
• Items should no longer spawn in inaccessible locations (such as inside of pillars).
• Fixed Blightblasters with proc affixes never firing.
• Backwards running speed is now affected by sprint and other speed modifiers.
• Fixed a bug where some mods could be erroneously de-equipped on loading a character.
• Fixed a bug that could cause some items in players’ stashes or on merchants to seem to disappear temporarily.
• Players can no longer see another players’ stats when inspecting.
• Made Buddy List font larger and a lighter color for easier readability.
• Fixed a bug where shift-right-clicking on an item with the Shared Stash open would put it in the standard stash rather than the Shared Stash.
• Changed the name of the common stun boost affix to "Intense".
• Fixed some keyboard commands not functioning properly when the guild panel was open.
• The achievement for leveling up within a time limit has been removed.
• One can no longer email quest rewards or items produced by a crafting vendor.

KNOWN ISSUES
As this is a preliminary build of The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2), there are some existing issues which players should be aware of:

• NPCs:
  • The Test Center Vendor who will offer Skill Scrolls on Test Center is not implemented in this build (but is in the next build).
  • NPC Alay Penn shows quest marker for players who are too low of level to begin the quest.
• Sound:
  • A new Focus weapon (Cabalist) does not have firing nor impact sounds.
• Skills:
  • Some new skills have placeholder icons.
  • The following Blademaster skills still have their Patch 1.3d properties:
    • Crosscutter
    • Sword Typhoon
    • Angelic Orator
    • Aura of Deflection
• Items:
  • The new armor sets for each faction have intrinsic properties that are implemented but do not display yet.
  • Generic cursed rings (Opal, Runic, Stone) cannot be cleansed.
  • Cleansed rings cannot be traded to non-subscribers (this is not as intended).
• Parliament Square/Abyss Levels:
  • PRD portals cannot be created in Parliament Square.
  • Players cannot take the portal back to Templar Base from Parliament Square.
• PvP:
  • Duel mode will still be active after returning to Parliament Square from a duel.
• Abyss/Parliament Square/Quests:
  • The landscape of the Abyss may cause camera troubles due to pathing/boundary walls.
  • Talox doesn’t drop any items when killed.
  • After all Lieutenants are spawned, Talox will die from killing only one of the Lieutenants.
  • The method for resetting hellrifts is disabled. Players must log off/on to reset hellrifts.
  • If party members go into separate hellrifts they see each other’s (Escape the Hellrift) message.
  • Clearing a hellrift in the Abyss quest prevents the player from reentering Parliament Square.
  • NPC Titus’ transmission of how many hellrifts are closed is missing text.
  • Abyss bosses respawn automatically after completing the Abyss quest.
  • Player is spawned on the wrong side of East Treasury and Middlesex Guildhall in Parliament Square.
• Achievements:
  • Item-related achievements (ex: mod twenty items) cannot be achieved by new characters.
  • Level 10 and Level 20 achievements are listed in the game but will be taken out in next Build.
  • The "Speedster" achievement will be removed in the next build of Patch 2.
  • Achievement rewards are given retroactively.
• Shared Stash:
  • Cannot use Shift-Right Click to move items from inventory into Shared Stash for Elite and Hardcore Elite.
  • Stack amounts are not displayed in Shared Stash for Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite.
• Monsters:
  • Fulcrum (Abyss boss) is broken in the Abyss quest.
  • Talox’s (Abyss boss) "summoning rope" ability does not display properly.
  • Riftwarrior Enforcers slide before doing their Charge attack.
  • Riftwarrior Gunners sometimes spawn without weapons.
  • Monsters do not attack if the player is standing in a cubicle (East Treasury and West Treasury).
  • Fallen Savage Fiends frequently jump off the Abyss level.
  • Fiend Tanks are not balanced (too hard).
• Guilds:
  • Only Guild Leaders can invite players into their guild.
  • Guild Leader rank is not reassigned when the Guild Leader leaves the guild.
• User Interface:
  • Quest items can be linked into chat.
  • The Invite UI in the Guild window is misaligned.
  • The Title Bar drop-down UI doesn’t extend to the bottom.
• Consignment House:
  • Text in the Listing pane can overrun the UI.
  • The current listing duration for all items is seven days.
  • The Consignment House is for all players. However, the Consignment House location in Templar Base is not working in this build.
  • The Consignment House is presently not listing miscellaneous items. Posting consumable items such as Analyzers, Adrenaline Pills, and Health Injectors will yield in them not appearing on the Consignment House.
  • Duplicate item names appear in the search list.
  • Hitting the left or right arrows in the Asking Price pane makes the cursor jump two spaces.