This patch consists mostly of buffs for a few underused uniques, set items, and skills. However a major reason for it is fixing the Ashes of Mortality + Humming Bee combination that resulted in movement speed and defense far beyond that which other builds could achieve. This occurred on account of us critically underestimating the amount of ward that could be generated by Ashes of Mortality. This was in part due to the ailment stack limit in the UI hiding the actual stacks of ailments that enemies often had applied. That limit will not be removed in this hotfix, but has been removed internally and that change will be included in our next major patch.

Meanwhile, we are greatly reducing the amount of ward generated by Ashes of Mortality based on the stacks of ignite and damned on the target. To compensate, we are increasing the power it gains from ignite and damned stacks on you, and increasing the amount of increased damage it grants.

Humming Bee is also being reworked. Movement speed scaling off of ward is a legacy effect implemented long before we knew how much ward builds would frequently accumulate, and in its current state it greatly exacerbates ward related imbalances. With the changes in this hotfix it will no longer give crazy amounts of movement speed when you have a ton of ward. However, it will give more increased damage than before if you’re using an elemental melee attack, and its new movement speed bonuses will be more relevant when found early on in the game, as they’re less dependent on generating very large amounts of ward.

One of the benefits of the overpowered state of Ashes of Mortality was that it enabled ignite builds that had been underpowered for quite some time. We are slightly buffing the damage of ignite to attempt to keep those builds above water despite the nerf to the unique.

Due to some changes in our deployment infrastructure, this patch has a larger download size than usual. Our apologies for the inconvenience.
 

Uniques

• Ashes of Mortality now grants a 6% chance to gain 2-3 Ward per Ignite and Damned on the target and 13 to 29 ward per Ignite and Damned on You (from a 13% chance to gain 6-13 ward per Ignite and Damned on you or the target).
• Ashes of Mortality grants 30% to 76% increased fire and necrotic damage (from 30% to 52%).
• The Confluence of Fate now grants 13 to 18 Fire, Necrotic, and Void Spell Damage (from 5 to 13) and is now an Oracle Amulet (from Silver Amulet).
• Humming Bee grants 1% Chance per 20 Ward to gain Haste for 2 seconds when you use a Melee Attack (from 1% increased movement speed per 250 ward).
• Humming Bee grants your Elemental Melee Attacks 1% Increased damage per 200 ward (from giving 1% increased elemental damage per 250 ward).
• Humming Bee now also grants 3% to 7% increased movement speed.
• Zeurial’s Hunt grants 12 to 32 bow lightning damage and throwing lightning damage (from 12 to 22).
• Zeurial’s Hunt’s conditional effects grants 42% to 62% Lightning Penetration (from 42% to 52%).
• Fixed a bug where Zeurial’s Hunt’s effect could be procced by non-lightning attacks.
   

Set Items

Zerrick’s Set

• Zerrick’s Set’s old 3 item bonus is now its 2 item bonus (its previous 2 item bonus was 54% Increased Chance To Find Potions). Its 3 Item bonus is now 72% Increased Chance to Find Potions and 18% less poison and necrotic damage taken.
• Zerrick’s Greed now grants 130 to 390 dodge rating (from 120 to 240).
• Zerrick’s Guile now grants 125 to 375 dodge rating (from 100 to 200).
• Zerrick’s Ambition now grants 23% to 35% increased leech rate (from 20% to 30%).

Halvar’s Set

• Halvar’s 2 item bonus is +25 Spell Cold Damage (from +15).
• Halvar’s 3 item bonus now also grants +2 to Avalanche in addition to its existing bonus.

Isadora’s Set

• Isadora’s Revenge grants 40 to 82 health (from 40 with no range).
• Isadora’s Gravechill grants 48 to 80 health (from 36 to 60).
• Isadora’s 3 Set Bonus now also grants 30% Increased Damned Effect in addition to its existing bonus.

Pebbles’ Set

• Pebbles’ Collar grants 24% to 42% increased minion damage (from 24% with no range).
• Pebbles’ Collar grants 24% to 42% Cold Resistance (from 24% with no range).
• Pebbles’ Bitemarked Sash grants 24% to 42% increased minion damage (from 24% with no range).
• Pebbles’ Bitemarked Sash grants 24% to 42% Fire Resistance (from 24% with no range).
• Pebbles’ Femur grants 24% to 42% Lightning Resistance (from 24% with no range).
• Pebbles’ 3 set bonus now grants +42 fire, cold, or lightning damage (from 24).

Corsair’s Set

• Corsair’s Set’s 2 item bonus now also grants 35% less necrotic damage taken on block in addition to its existing bonus.
• Changed Corsair’s Blood Cowl’s base type to Umbral Visage from Exile Hat.
• Corsair’s Blood Cowl no longer grants 17% to 35% less necrotic damage taken on block.
• Corsair’s Blood Cowl now grants 35% to 85% increased chance to find potions (from 35% to 72%).
• Corsair’s Blood Cowl now grants 35% to 85% increased mirage attack area for Lethal Mirage (from 35% to 72%).
• Corsair’s Boarding Shield requires level 35 (from level 51).

Last Bear’s Set

• Last Bear’s Set’s 2 item bonus now grants 20 health gained on stun (from 15).
• The Last Bear’s Scorn grants 20% to 30% Endurance (from 10% to 15%).
• The Last Bear’s Fury grants 30% to 75% increased melee physical damage (from 20% to 50%).
• Changed The Last Bear’s Fury base type to Engraved Gauntlets from Noble Gloves.
• The Last Bear’s Lament requires level 20 (from level 28).
• The Last Bear’s Lament grants 25% to 45% void resistance (from 15% to 50%).
• The Last Bear’s Lament grants 45 to 105 Endurance Threshold (from 50 to 100).
   

Skills

• Soul Feast deals 25% more damage and costs 17 mana (from 20)
• Blood Tether (from the Soul Feast and Reaper Form trees) has 50% more base damage and added spell damage applies to it at 100% effectiveness per second (from 40%)
• Hammer Throw has 22% more base damage and added throwing damage applies to it at 110% effectiveness (from 100%)
• Shield Throw deals 20% more damage
• Meteor deals 12.5% more damage and costs 56 mana (from 60).
   

Ailments

• Ignite deals 5% more damage.

It’s possible that it will still need further changes. We prioritised getting a quick change in while keeping the mechanic to see if it could exist in a balanced state. The ward generation from enemy ignite/damned stacks from a max roll AoM has been reduced from an average of 1.69 per stack to 0.18 per stack, which is an 89% reduction. The highest ward total I’ve seen recorded with the previous iteration was around 650k, and that was on a build that maintained around 200k normally. Those values will be more like 70k and 20k after the change, which is still a lot, but 89% is a big change so we’d like to see how this settles before changing it further.

We prefer to state damage changes in percentages, because the flat values can be misleading, for example adding 1 base damage to poison would have a much bigger impact than adding 1 base damage to meteor. It can be easier for people to understand the implications of a change if we just state the percentage change in total damage.

In this case, the base damage of ignite was changed from 37 to 39.

It’s not a mechanic change like that, just a numbers change. If your ignite stacks were dealing 100 damage before, they’ll be dealing 105 now.