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Call to Arms Patch 9 - Version 18.090.1 - July 28, 2021

General Corrupted Dungeon Changes

  • The Shrine at the dungeon start (registering for PvP) must now be activated within 45 seconds of entering the dungeon
  • All Cooldowns (including capes) are now reset at the start of an invasion
  • All Healing Cast inside the Corrupted Dungeon is now reduced more (10% → 20%)
  • Spike Traps: Hit area improved to fit the visuals more closely to better communicate their damage area
  • Demented Heretic Thief: Now consistently tries to slow the target at the start of combat
  • Slag Spewer: Now casts more frequently (Cooldown 5s → 3s), and the Magma Ball moves faster but has reduced damage (900 → 750) and knockback (5m → 2.5m)
  • Incendiary Fissure and Magma Mephit: The damage effect can no longer be cleansed while inside the lava
New Corrupted Dungeon Mob: Corrupted Mephit
To address the "reset meta" (i.e. hit-and-run strategies where players run from fights indefinitely to reset cooldowns and switch abilities), a new mob has been introduced to Corrupted Dungeons. The goal is to still allow for a few disengages to change abilities, adjust tactics, and not have the fight narrowed to one single encounter, while also adding a penalty if players keep continuously resetting.

This mob only spawns into Corrupted Dungeons after an invasion has gone on for some time, as the intention is to improve the quality of PvP by avoiding prolonged fights, and not to interfere with players who attempt to escape immediately.
  • During an invasion, a new mob, the Corrupted Mephit, now spawns in every corridor and applies a stacking debuff to the first player passing it
  • Mob Spawn Conditions:
    • 180 seconds have passed since the invasion began on Slayer difficulty or 300 seconds on other difficulties, AND
    • one player has damaged another player
  • Mob Behavior:
    • Appears in every corridor
    • When a player enters the mob's aggro range, the mob attacks and applies one stack of the "Corruption" debuff, killing itself in the process
    • The mob can see invisible players
    • The buff is always applied, even when invincible
    • After 30 seconds, the mob respawns
    • Mobs that respawn can immediately aggro the closest player
    • If both players go 45 seconds without damaging each other, all these mobs temporarily despawn
    • As soon as one player damages another again, the mob respawn cycle restarts
  • Corruption Debuff:
    • Reduces Max Health by 1% per stack
    • Additionally slows by 1% per stack beginning with the 6th stack
    • Max Stacks: 25
    • Duration: the entire Invasion
Overcrowded Zone Skipping Changes
  • Zones must still be overcrowded for a minimum duration before they can be skipped, which resets regularly
  • However, if the zone becomes uncrowded for a brief time it no longer resets the counter
  • Also reduced personal cooldown for zone skipping: 125s → 60s
  • Overall, this should reduce wait times for zone skipping
Marketplace Notification Improvements
  • In addition to summary mails (introduced with the last patch) sent when Marketplace orders are completely fulfilled or expire, a mail is now also sent to players who cancel their own Buy / Sell Orders, so players still get the overview for partly fulfilled orders they have canceled
  • Additional info has been added to Marketplace mails to clarify that they are summaries of full orders, and that some items / Silver may have already been received
Faction Warfare Changes
The behavior of the Bandit Ringleader (Caerleon Faction boss) has been updated:
  • The boss now spawns a wave of support mobs four times per fight, once for every 20% reduction in his health
  • The number of spawned mobs is now more precisely based on the number of attackers, and maxes out at 6 spawned mobs when attacked by 15 or more players (where "attacking" means being on the boss's aggro list):
    • 1-4 attackers: 1 mob
    • 5-7 attackers: 2 mobs
    • 8-9 attackers: 3 mobs
    • 10-12 attackers: 4 mobs
    • 13-14 attackers: 5 mobs
    • 15+ attackers: 6 mobs
New Ability Icons Added
Added four new icons to better represent the corresponding abilities:
  • Blood Bandit (One-Handed Axe, E-slot)
  • Protective Beam (Enigmatic Staff, E-slot)
  • Arcane Orb (One-Handed Arcane Staff, E-slot)
  • Ground Shaker (Maces, W-slot)
Other Changes
  • Reduced recovery time of items from destroyed Hideouts from 28 days to 7 days, and halved the recovery fee
  • Guild Season Winner popup is now only shown for up to 3 days after the season ends, and only to characters who have unlocked Expert Adventurer
  • [MOBILE] Scaling optimizations to Character Creation, Item Details, Farming, and Laborer UIs
Combat Balance Changes
Axes
Bloody Reap has been reworked into an AoE execution tool, to give it a more distinct role that doesn’t overlap with the AoE sustain damage the Halberd already offers. Additionally, Rending Rage and Adrenaline Boost have been buffed to make it easier to stick to an enemy target. Rending Rage now also offers more potential burst damage, with the decreased cooldown between hits. Battle Rush is no longer restricted to requiring a target and can instead be used more freely as a ground target dash with an AoE effect.
  • Rending Rage (all Axes):
    • 1st and 2nd Hit Standtime: 0.3s → 0.16s
    • Cooldown between hits: 1s → 0s (Now only limited by Global Cooldown)
  • Adrenaline Boost (all Axes):
    • Time window for direct damage condition: 2.5s → 3.5s
  • Battle Rush (all Axes):
    • Doesn't require a target anymore. It is instead a ground target dash with the AoE Effect.
  • Bloody Reap (Infernal Scythe):
    • First Hit Damage: 74.45 → 108
    • Removed the Damage over Time effect
    • Second Hit does now extra damage if enemy health is below 40%:
      • Damage above 40% Health: 74.45 → 108
      • Damage below 40% Health: 74.45 → 240

Daggers
Deadly Swipe now consumes more energy when used purely for mobility, but is more energy efficient in fights, even in PvE. Chain Slash's first hit had too much value, so its damage output was adjusted to increase with each chained hit, reducing its damage in 1v1, but also adding a more interesting dynamic by rewarding multiple hits in group fights. Forbidden Stab can now completely negate any healing and interrupts spell casting. This new strong-but-short debuff places more emphasis on the timing of the ability activation.
  • Deadly Swipe (all Daggers):
    • Energy Cost: 6 → 7
    • Energy Regain on hit: 2 → 4
    • Energy is now also regained when hitting mobs (no longer limited to enemy players)
  • Forbidden Stab (all Daggers):
    • Hit Delay: 0.1s → 0s
    • Standtime: 0.2s → 0.1s
    • Removed the Healing Received and Healing Cast Debuff
    • Instead, the target won't be able to receive any healing for 1.5s (this debuff is cleanseable)
    • The ability now also interrupts enemy spell casting
  • Chain Slash (all Daggers):
    • Damage now increases with each consecutive hit:
      • Damage 1st Hit: 120 → 90
      • Damage 2nd Hit: 120 → 110
      • Damage 3rd Hit: 120 → 130
      • Damage 4th Hit: 120 → 150

Fire Staffs
Fire Staffs are currently underrepresented in many types of PvP content and are often outclassed by Frost Staffs in group PvP. To make Fire Staffs more attractive in group fights, a new Q-ability, Searing Flame, has been added. This ability is a Q-slot skillshot which allows users to deal constant damage from the backline. The damage of each individual hit is moderate, but if the caster lands 3 hits in a row, the next projectile becomes Furious Flame and deals far greater damage.
  • Added a new Q-slot Ability, Searing Flame:
    • Fire a Searing Flame in the target direction. The first enemy hit receives 94 magical damage and starts burning. Each time you hit an enemy with Searing Flame you get a charge. If you have 3 Searing Flame Charges, your next Searing Flame cast will be a Furious Flame instead, dealing 182 magical damage on impact. Burning enemies take 11 magical damage every second for 4 seconds.
Frost Staffs
Once one of the most feared weapons in large-scale fights, the Glacial Staff has unfortunately fallen off the meta significantly. To help bring back this unique playstyle, the damage output has been increased, and some utility improvements have been made including increased cast range and making cast direction independent of cast position.
  • Ice Storm (Glacial Staff):
    • The cast direction can now be chosen after the cast position
    • Cast range: 5m → 10m
    • Ice Storm travel distance: 23m → 18m
    • Damage per Tick (vs players): 60 → 72
    • Damage per Tick (vs mobs): 20 → 25
Maces
Oathkeepers have thus far remained a very niche weapon. To open up more possibilities, the number of buffable allies of Blessed Aurora has been increased, allowing for use in larger-scale fights.
  • Blessed Aurora (Oathkeepers):
    • Max affected Allies: 10 → 20
Nature Staffs
Cooldown of Spirit Animal has been reduced to 30 seconds to be more in line with many other E cooldowns, allowing it to be better synchronized with the rotation of other ZvZ weapons.
  • Spirit Animal (Rampant Staff):
    • Cooldown: 45s → 30s
Swords
Various older and rarely-used abilities in this weapon line were overhauled to bring it back into the spotlight. The former mobility increase has been returned to Heroic Charge to help stay on targets. Various E-ability cooldowns have also been reduced to emphasize a more dynamic playstyle. Hamstring has been reworked to consume stacks for an additional effect.
The new Clarent Blade ability, Crescent Slash, has a secondary effect that depends on the number of Heroic Charges. This offers an interesting synergy with the new Hamstring, where the caster can consume a single Heroic Charge. This means Heroic Charges can now be increased or decreased, which allows for more versatility with Crescent Slash’s secondary effect.
  • Heroic Charge (all Swords):
    • Movement Speed & Attack Speed Increase: 9% → 12%
  • Interrupt (all Swords):
    • Standtime: 0.4s → 0.3s
    • Energy Cost: 10 → 7
  • Hamstring (all Swords):
    • If you have a Heroic Charge when casting, you can now cast a followup attack within 3 seconds
    • The followup consumes 1 Heroic Charge and is a ground-targeted 7m leap, inflicting another Hamstring on enemies in a 3m radius
    • Slow Strength: 38% → 25% (but the slow now stacks up to 2 times)
    • Slow Duration: 5s → 3s
    • Damage: 60.15 → 66
    • Energy Cost: 10 → 5
  • Spinning Blades (Dual Swords):
    • Jump End Position now offset by 3 meters. (This means the max range covers less distance for the caster, but also makes it easier to hit enemies without getting too close, making the cast harder to interrupt in midair.)
    • Cooldown: 20s → 15s
    • Max Health Damage vs Players: 6% → 4%
  • Mighty Swing (Clarent Blade):
    • Reworked the ability; it is now called Crescent Slash:
      • Slice the air to shoot a demonic wave in the targeted direction, piercing through all enemies and dealing magical damage. Consumes all Heroic Charges for a secondary effect. (You can only get one of the effects depending on the amount of Heroic Charges, not multiple.)
        • Heroic Charges: 1 / 2 / 3
        • Effects: Slows by 20% for 2s / Silences for 0.8s / Deals additional damage

  • Majestic Smash (Kingmaker):
    • Widened the hitbox of the Smash to make the followup hit more reliable
    • Cooldown: 25s → 20s

Armors
Energy Drain (Royal Armor) no longer steals enemy energy. While energy management should be an important part of the game, fights with energy-draining comps are not very fun for the receiving end. Energy Drain will thus now be a purely supportive ability that generates Energy for the user and allies, and be renamed Energy Source.
  • Energy Drain (Royal Armor):
    • Reworked the ability, it is now called Energy Source and no longer reduces enemy energy
Helmets
Along with the Royal Armor change, the currently underused Circle of Inspiration has been buffed to offer a strong alternative for supporting a team with energy.
  • Circle of Inspiration (Druid Cowl):
    • Tick Interval: every 1s → every 0.5s (Energy gain per tick stays the same, so total energy output is doubled)
Shoes
One of the least used shoe abilities, Royal March, was improved: first by making it easier to complete the channel, and second by increasing the payoff once the channel finishes. With the higher movement speed boost, it is now easier to catch up to enemies who attempt to disengage during the channel. Battle Frenzy and Premonition, also underutilized, have had their effective uptime increased, which increases the value of their defensive aspects, as well as boosting their mobility.
  • Royal March (Royal Boots):
    • Now immune to slows and roots during the channel
    • Movement Speed per Stack: 6% → 9%
  • Battle Frenzy (Graveguard Boots):
    • Duration: 5s → 6s
  • Premonition (Boots of Valor):
    • Cooldown: 25s → 20s
Fixes
  • Corrected an issue where players leaving Roads of Avalon could spawn at a Hideout if portal and Hideout were sufficiently close
  • Fixed an issue where Hideouts could be placed too close to zone exits
  • Fixed an issue where Sell Order Completed mails for Luxury Goods showed incorrect total price
  • Fixed an issue where chain spells could hit invisible targets
  • Fixed issues with Loadout and Guild UIs blocking other windows
  • Fixed an issue where incorrect guild member could be kicked from guild while member list was updating
  • Chat command /wiki now searches for unknown pages instead of immediately giving "page not found" error
  • Corrected buff description for T8 common fish (River Sturgeon / Steelscale Swordfish)
  • Fixed an issue where damage buff of Mortal Agony (Stalker Hood) could be cleansed by self or allies
  • Silence debuff of Flee (Miner Workboots) can no longer be removed by unequipping item
  • [MOBILE] Fixed an issue where the world map camera was zoomed out beyond maximum when first opened
  • Additional graphical, audio, animation, terrain, UI, and localization fixes





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