r250

hunter was nerf in update 250: wolf pack (summon the wolves one by one waiting for 100% recharge time) and explosive arrow (does not break armor, does nothing) and by the way, the event of the sewers was also nerf in rewards.

 

Fresh r250_0 on test server, so not many obvious changes for my low-level toons, but presumably more interesting stuff to come before release to live servers.

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Journal-->Achievements -- now shows what reward you'll earn at the next achievement level (chiefly applies to Crafting)

Event -- Infested Sewers -- haven't played but the progress bars for both the main and mini only reward you with Draken.

I didn't see anything obviously new in crafting, skills, or wisdom tree. However, there's almost a full page of Level 100 players in Kingshill; hopefully some of them will contribute more to this nascent thread.

 

Go to TS in English. The changes are still not translated and the descriptions in other languages are still old.

There is a bunch of changes in skills.

First test and then write. Hint: Thicket of thorns breaks armor.

 

I think I am a little too tired from this huge update and working to make videos out of this one, but I did do a live stream. If you open it on Youtube, I put in chapter markers in case you don't want to watch every single class.

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For those of you who prefer to read rather than watch, below are my notes that I compiled for the stream. Please note that there are some things are are not described because I went through the tooltips to compile the notes, I did not have time to actually test all the skills until the stream itself. If there are some inaccuracies, please forgive me. And ofc, it's r250_0, so there will probably be changes in the future.

Very long list incoming, not properly formatted because I'm too tired.

SW
- frost charge now gives a stackable armor buff (new players playing with 0 armor, completely useless, mid-to-endgame players will find this handy

- ball lightning damage increased from 115% to 125%
- ball lightning also reduces the CD of lightning strike for each enemy you hit
- ball lightning CD reduced from 5? seconds to 3s

- guardian damage increased from 60% to 100%

- fire guardian damage increased from 100% to 130% damage

- destruction base damage increased from 500% to 550%
- Passive "Elemental Surprise" (10 stacks of random debuffs) replaced with Intensified Havoc (increased Destruction damage by 50% and active CD reduced by 2 seconds for each enemy hit)

- Piercing Nova now inflicts 5 stacks of Frost instead of 1x

- fire blast synergy with Guardian of Flames changed (was decreased mana cost, ... on a mana cost of zero, now it's increased damage)
- passive Magma now increases damage of Fire Blast by 100% and the stacking burn is now 5x instead of 1x

masteries reworked, now it has 10 levels each. Level 1 and 2 will impart different things, but the higher levels are pretty basic. The first level costs 5 points, the second tier and onwards cost 2.
- Master of Poison now converts 3 SW skills into poison damage (need to test this combo w/ Q10 pauldrons, but it will likely be viable or at least good)
- second level and onwards, same poison bullets but also increases poison resistances by 5.0% and reduces duration of poison debuffs by 0.1s

- first level of Fire Mastery is identical
- second level onwards now also boosts meteor, fire blast and guardian damage in addition to increasing fire res and reducing burn debuff duration

- first level of ice mastery is identical
- second level onwards now makes ice missile pierce 3 enemies (hit a total of 4 targets)
- Frost wind inflicts additional 10 stacks of frost
- second level onwards: increased frost charge explosion damage (20%)
- decreased CD of Frozen Sphere (0.2s)
- 5% increased Frost Nova damage

- first level of lightning mastery now makes lightning strike 4.0 meters...
- second level onwards increases lightning strike and ball lightning damage by 5%

special passives now have 5 levels each. Quite pricey to upgrade: 10 points for first level, 5 for subsequent ones.
- Bloodmage: each skill now deals a specified amount of physical damage per skill used. You also cannot kill yourself.
- it also make Guardian (only the regular one, not the fire one) heal you just by standing around
- higher levels upgrade the healing effect, increase your own damage, and reduce bleeding debuffs

- Arcane Concentration
- second level onwards: increases duration of singularity by 2 seconds, increases duration of mind control by 1 second, reduces cooldown of destruction by 2 seconds


RA
- marking mechanism changed: Now it doubles the damage of Explosive Arrow, Precise Shot, Scatter Shot AND Blade Dance and Bird of Prey

- Death Sweep damage increased from 145% to 150%, and damage increase per level increased from 1.5% to 2%

- Blade dance dmg increased from 100% to 120%

- duration of buff granted to Death Sweep increased to 5.0 seconds, and a note about 20 stacks is the max added

- Adrenaline now also increased attack speed by 20% for 5s
- each level of Adrenaline increases 2.0 attack speed
- CD reduced from 25s to 20s

- Precise Shot level 1 talent now increases movement speed by 5% for 2 seconds, but is stackable up to 10x
- increase to damage per level increased from 1.5% to 2.0%
- decrease to movement speed per level from 2% to 0.5%

- Hornet Cloud damage increased from 25% to 75%

- Thicket of Thorns now has armor debuff of 20% and can be increased by 2% per level - kindly remember that Thicket deals POISON damage, so you need other skills to take advantage of the armor break

- Scatter Shot damage decreased from 150% to 120%
- CD from 0s to 1s

- Tree of Life healing increased from 1% to 5%

- Explosive Arrow no longer breaks armor

- Deadly Blow damage increased frrom 500% to 550%
- additional damage per level increased from 3.5% to 5%

- Wild Pack Bite damage increased from 100% to 150%
- Healing decreased from 60% to 5%
- damage increase per level increased from 2% to 5%
- NO MORE EXTRA WOLVES... WOOHOO LESS BODY BLOCK
- behaviour of Bond of Wolves changed: Now you get one mega wolf with 400% increased HP, doesn't despawn, 200% increased dmg, 25% increased damage TO THE PLAYER, and marks peeps when it howls... holy duck how is this even allowed

See notes in SW about Masteries rework.

- Master of Poison now turns Death Sweep and Hunting Arrow into poison damage
- Blade Dance reduces poison resistance of hit enemies by 2% for 2s
- investing in higher levels will increase the poison resistance reduction by 2% for Blade Dance and Net, increase 5% poison res, and reduce duration of poison debuffs by 0.1s

- Master of Fire now converts Blad Dance, Price Shot, and Bird of Prey into fire damage
- Blade Dance and Net both reduce fire res by 2% for 2s and 5s respectively
- each level increase increases fire res reduction of Blade Dance and Net by 2% each, 5% increase in fire res, burn debuff reduction by 0.1s

- Master of Ice converts Death Sweep into ice damage
- Blade Dance and Net both reduce ice res by 2% for 2s and 5s respectively
- each level increase increases ice res reduction of Blade Dance and Net by 2% each, 5% increase in ice res, frost debuff reduction by 0.1s

- Master of Lightning converts Scatter Shot into lightning damage
- Blade Dance and Net both reduce lightning res by 2% for 2s and 5s respectively
- each level increase increases lightning res reduction of Blade Dance and Net by 2% each, 5% increase in lightning res, electrified debuff reduction by 0.1s

Power of Nature
- level 2 and up increases HP regen from Tree of Life by 1% per level
- level 2 and up increases the damage reduction from Bird of Prey by 3% per level

Rising Concentration
- level 2 and up: +1 additional concentration (to the 10) per defeated enemy


DK
- Rageful Swing: level 1 will reduce damage of enemies by 5%
- 2% increased damage reduction per level

- Charge cost reduced from 50 rage to 40 rage

- Smash damage increased from 200% to 250%

- Bloody Wild Swing dmg increased from 125% to 175%

- Mighty Wild Swing dmg increased from 100% to 150%
- dmg per level increased from 2% to 5%
- rage cost decreased from 50 to 40
- CD reduced from 2s to 1s

- Furious Battle Cry buff now grants 30% increased dmg
- per level 2% increased dmg

- Outburst reduces elemental resistances of all enemies "in range" (18m?! holy crap) by 20% for 5s
- no longer reduces armor

- Dragon hide regen increased from 10% to 20%

- Iron Brow shred armor debuff increased from 30% to 50%

- Fury of the Dragon shockwave damage increased from 100% to 200% damage
- Synergistic passive "Unleashed Dragon" effect altered: now it causes particles to fall for 8s that deal 200% of your base dmg to all enemies in a radius of 8m
^ can only have 1 stack active at one time

- Banner of War level 1 movement speed debuff increased from 20% to 40%

See SW notes about masteries rework

- Master of Poison now converts Bloody Wild Swing, Smash and Rageful Swing into poison damage
- per level: increases poison resistance reduction of Outburst by 2%, 2% poison resistance of Dragon Hide, 5% poison resistance, reduction of poison debuffs by 0.1s

- Master of Fire converts Charge and Ground Breaker into fire damage
- per level: increases fire resistance reduction of Outburst by 2%, 2% fire resistance of Dragon Hide, 5% fire resistance, reduction of burn debuffs by 0.1s

- Master of Frost converts Rage Attack, Bloody Wild Swing, and Rage Jump into ice damage
- per level: increases ice resistance reduction of Outburst by 2%, 2% ice resistance of Dragon Hide, 5% ice resistance, reduction of frost debuffs by 0.1s

- Master of Lightning converts Mighty Wild Swing, Smash, and Iron Brow into lightning damage
- per level: increases lightning resistance reduction of Outburst by 2%, 2% lightning resistance of Dragon Hide, 5% lightning resistance, reduction of electrified debuffs by 0.1s

Immovable Wall
- level 1: increase 25% to 50% armor, Mightly Wild Swing heals 1% of HP for every hit enemy
- level 2 (many new effects):
:: +5% armor for 5s after landing Rage Jump
:: +2% armor for 3s after each enemy hit by Charge (stacks up to 10x)
:: increase per level: 5% armor, 2% additional Rage Jump armor, 2% additional Charge armor, 1% additional healing for Mighty Wild Swing, +2s duration of Dragon Hide

Quick Striker
- level 1: attack speed increased from 25% to 30%
- level 2 (many new effects):
:: removed 25% attack speed
:: 5% damage for 5s when landing rage jump
::2% dmg for 3s for each enemy hit with Charge (can stack 10x)
::increase per lvl: 5% atk spd, 5% additional rage jump dmg, 2% additional charge dmg, furious battle cry increases crit value by 1%, 5% additional ground breaker armor reduction, 1.0 rage regen for all skills that build up rage


SM
- Quick Shot dmg increased from 100% to 115%
- new buff "Quicker Shots"... probably incomplete, says TBD xD: +2% atk spd, lasts 5s, stacks up to 10x

- Flame Thrower... need to check range?

- Steam Conductor regens 2% of HP/s
- per level: increased HP regen from 0.5% to 1%, and duration of HP regen by 0.5s
- Steam cost increased from 30 to 40
- CD increased from 5s to 6s

- Mechanical Turret dmg increased from 100% to 120%

- C14 micro-rocket armor shred increased from 10% to 20%, 2% increased reduction per level

- Mine: no longer reduces movement speed (unsure what the point of it was, since it stunned enemies lol)
- increased bleed stacks from 1x to 5x

- Dwarf in Box: range increased from 10m to 20m
- converted from fire dmg to physical dmg explosion
- minus 10 steam cost for heavy shot as long as one Dwarf-box is active

- Iron Dwarf, per level:
::increased Iron Fist dmg from 10% to 15%
::increased Iron Pounce dmg from 20% to 25%

- Machine Gun Turret synergy skill "Explosive Ammunition" removed
- replaced with "Double Action"... you can now have 2 mguns active at once

See SW section about Mastery rework

- Master of Poison converts Quick Shot, Shrapnel Shot into poison dmg
- C14 Micro Rocket reduces poison res by 2%
- Dwarf-box explosion is now poison dmg
- level 2+: mgun also reduces poison by some (broken)%
- per level:
:: 2% additional poison res reduction for C14
:: 2% additional poison res increase for Tactical Turret
:: 5% poison res
:: duration of poison debuffs reduced by 0.1s

- Master of Fire converts Heavy Shot into fire dmg
- C14 Micro Rocket reduces fire res by 2%
- Dwarf-box explosion is now fire dmg
- level 2+: mgun also reduces fire by some (broken)%
- per level:
:: 2% additional fire res reduction for C14
:: 2% additional fire res increase for Tactical Turret
:: 5% fire res
:: duration of burn debuffs reduced by 0.1s

- Master of Ice... does not convert any skills (lolwut)
- C14 Micro Rocket reduces ice res by 2%
- Dwarf-box explosion is now ice dmg
- OIL SLICK increases your move speed by 50% for 5s
- level 2+: mgun also reduces poison by some (broken)%
- per level:
:: 2% additional ice res reduction for C14
:: 2% additional ice res increase for Tactical Turret
:: 5% ice res
:: duration of frost debuffs reduced by 0.1s

- Master of Lightning converts Quick Shot into lightning dmg
- C14 Micro Rocket reduces lightning res by 2%
- Dwarf-box explosion is now lightning dmg
- OIL SLICK inflicts 1x electrified per sec to all enemies in puddle
- level 2+: mgun also reduces lightning by some (broken)%
- per level:
:: 2% additional lightning res reduction for C14
:: 2% additional lightning res increase for Tactical Turret
:: 5% lightning res
:: duration of lightning debuffs reduced by 0.1s

Explosive Support
- Rocket Pack explodes on landing 30% fire dmg in 2.5m
- Bomb explodes 50% faster
- Iron Fist and Iron Pounce (belongs to Iron Dwarf), have a "chance" to cause explosion that deals 50% fire dmg in 2.5m radius
- per level:
:: +5% explosion dmg Rocket Pack, Heavy Shot, Dwarf-Box, Shrapnel Shot, Iron Fist, Iron Pounce

Engineer
- Steam Conductor regen 5% more HP as long as turret active
- Mine is freeeeee
- Oil Slick increases dmg of turrets inside puddle by 2%
- per level:
:: mechanical, tactical, tesla turrets last 2s longer
::+2(%?) dmg of Oil Slick


EVENTS
- drakens are the main rewards now
- pick and choose your own reward with the drakens from Grima's Reward Shop
- can pick items useful towards the completion of an event, or cosmetic items (mounts, pets, etc)
- also a variety of useful items: lockpicks, other currenices, wisdom, inventory expansion, gems, rune, and jewel of poisonous thorns
- also a new thing: event attire skins!

 

Perhaps you missed the most important thing for a wizard. The ice nova de-energized the explosion, before it was 10% now 2%. It goes from a hypothetical 350% to 146%. Nice change for the worse for the wizard, everything else is useless.Congratulations bp.

 

Does this change things for the worse for the classes or things practically remain the same? I'm talking about ease of farming and farming times of course.

 

Thanks for pointing it out, I did indeed miss it.

AFAIK for SW it seems easier than before. Just due to the skill tree changes alone, my TS SW on r250_0 is already stronger than my LS SW on r249. Even though there were supposedly some buffs made to monsters, I can't tell because my damage output is higher while I basically have free healing attached to a meat shield skill.

As for the other classes, I really can't say. I don't play them enough to have an accurate comparison. But what I can tell is that everyone got buffed overall.

 

What do you think about ice vs other elements and vs physical, when ice has a second res break in frost nova, unlike other elements?

 

I think ice SW is still top dog for solo play (keeping in mind that I did this test with most of my items heavily biased towards ice skills). Lightning is really good now in a group now thanks to synergy between lightning strike and ball lightning, but it lacks burst damage, so I have a feeling it won't be popular in solo play. Poison is decidedly lackluster even when wearing Q10 pauldrons and gloves (lack of synergy between skills to either reduce cooldown/ increase damage really limits its viability). Fire is actually pretty decent damage (and I'm saying this as I play solo, with only the Herald cape boosting it, I don't have other fire-oriented items). Lightning and Fire might be better in a group depending on what your teammates bring to the table, now that other classes can bring resistance breaks to those specific elements.

Before people start putting their Herald capes on again, I have one matter that bothers me. SWs are only capable of summoning a single Guardian at a time, unlike Rangers who can simultaneously call wolves and tree. The Bloodmage passive healing effect is tied solely to the regular Guardian, not the Fire Guardian. This means that if you want to play Fire, you will not be playing with Bloodmage, and vice versa. This is the main reason why I rank fire build slightly below lightning. That said, you do get a big damage boost to the individual skills if you max out Fire Mastery, so it doesn't feel that bad, you're just missing out on the big free healing potion called Guardian.

So if I had to rank it right now on the TS, I'd probably say:
1 Ice
2 Lightning
3 Fire
4 Poison
5 Physical (not sure why anyone would even bother, I only checked it out because you asked. It's terrible.)

 

Good, if true.

Now the problem is that some uniques are still not craftable.

 

But you get your main attack to be a healing skill in the same time. Since you're using singu and MC anyways, you could utilise the synergy and throw in Destruction for AoE horde clearing... and then there are two strong attacks that you could cycle between using your element (FS and meteor) - so maybe cd is not a problem? I lack cd reduction jewels on TS for a proper test.

Setups I think could make sense:
1. Magic Missile 20/20, Portal 1/10, Singularity 14/14, MC 5/10, Guardian 6/10, Frost Charge 1/10, Frozen Sphere 20/20, Meteor 10/10, FS+Meteor damage 10/10, Master of Poison 2/10, Bloodmage 5/5
2. Magic Missile 20/20, Portal 1/10, Singularity 14/14, MC 5/10, Guardian 1/10, Destruction 5/5, Frost Charge 1/10, Frozen Sphere 20/20, Meteor 10/10, Destruction 10p talent, Master of Poison 2/10, Bloodmage 4/5
...and some variations from these two, like Guardian 6/10 and Bloodmage 3/5 in the second one. Also, pay attention I hinted at some uniques with the numbers, but some other uniques could be used too.

Well, it looks like with warrior or dwarf gameplay without any elemental masteries could make sense, that's why I mentioned it.

I agree. Every unique or set item in the game, including stuff like Duria/Norselands sets should be craftable. A next tab in the special bag should be made with "local ingredients", or whatever the name. It would contain things like "durian crest" (for Duria set and possibly a few other uniques) or "memory dust" (for the lingering memories' set)... those ingredients should drop at a decent rate in its areas... so if you find a portal to a lingering memory, you should be guaranteed to get 10-20 of that dust (supposing 100 would be needed to craft 1 unique item of your choice).

 

give armour debuff to iron pounce

 

Or Iron Landing. Anyways, make it possible to break armour when in Iron Dwarf mode.

 

Well, I took your suggestions out for a whirl with the closest items I have. In terms of numbers, my TS LS has higher base dmg, crit, hp, res, etc etc than my LS character but still kills slower on poison build. I think part of the problem is that Magic Missile damage is not only limited to a single target (yes, it now has Ice Missile's old problem, before it was made to hit two targets), and it's still lower damage than ice missile when fully stacked. The heal on MM it is completely unnecessary btw, just put your Guardian in a good spot so it keeps healing you and you'll never die. As well, the single-target MM means I have to strain myself to proc double poison res break on multiple targets before tossing out meteor/FS, so it's actually a pretty stressful way to play. If you are more mechanically talented than I am, it might not be an issue, but I don't think this will appeal to a lot of players. Perhaps in a group with other players breaking poison resistances it might not be as bad.

 

Not sure, people on discord are claiming that Bloodmage deals too much damage to yourself for guardian to be enough. Also, with 3 healing skills you are safer than safe, so why not.

Ah, and it's quite possible to play with MM not piercing any opponents (and succeed). Think how chain lightning hits 3 opponents, which is currently less than ice missile or fireball can do, and it's still great (especially that it doesn't require a straight line). Much more important is to me putting piercing back where it "started" in this game: to ranger, namely to HA. It should pierce like 2 opponents (seeing how many opponents two of mage's base attacks pierce nowadays).

 

I don't know how those people are playing or how different their LS and TS characters are in strength. For most people, there is a huge discrepancy in the strength of their characters, and I would question if they adapted their play style to match their stats, or did they just recklessly try to speedrun like they normally do on LS? I have yet to die because of Bloodmage as long as I have it at 4/5 or 5/5. If I have it much lower at 2/5, then it would be a struggle to stay alive.

MM not piercing basically limits poison build to just focusing down a single target. All is well and fine, until the target you want to kill is surrounded by a bunch of smaller critters and it takes too long to chip your way through the crowd.

 

Well, in case the crowd is too dense to send a MM through a gap, you can teleport in -> FN -> charge out -> FS, meteor, destruction...

Usually however the crowd is not that big, especially on bosses. Outside of bosses, the crowd generally at least won't respawn when you wipe it, and the single (miniboss) target should take damage well at the 78% break from singu.

They claim it happens with a high dmg and high crit char, because supposedly the damage to self crits. You can read it yourself in the r250 feedback channel on the official discord (not the TS one).

 

Ah yes, I don't use teleport. I only use Frost Charge, so maybe I'll have to take that for a whirl.

Yes, you can self-crit, but here's a few things to consider: armor and block can both help mitigate the damage dealt to oneself. I've abandoned a full glass cannon play style years ago and have no plans to re-adopt it other than during necessity while I was leveling. As well, if you read the Bloodmage description carefully, the passive cannot directly kill you, meaning you could eternally sit at 1hp. Meaning... if you die, it's your own fault, you got hit by something. If anything, it's better than Mortis set where I can play perfectly and never get hit but still be beheaded by Mortis for no reason.

 

No reason? Making a contract with the devil is not good enough a reason?

 

Agreed, but then you'll have the shills coming here screaming that noobs are going to get those uniques in one run and thus get everything handed to them for free( of course disregarding the fact that they'll have to farm the dust and the ingredients and they'll probably have to do that on lower difficulties and disregarding the fact that today a noob can get carried in brigavik, find the portal at the first run and then drop the boots from the first mob, but apparently that doesn't count for some reason) which will give BP the excuse not to do this.