Monolith of Fate

Our aim with these changes is to improve the rewards for killing enemies in echoes when farming timeline boss drops and/or corruption.

Bonus stability

• Echoes now grant bonus stability based on the number of enemies you kill, up to around double the normal amount of stability.
• The maximum bonus stability for an echo is listed in the rewards section of its tooltip.
• Fall of the Outcasts’ 3rd quest echo now has slightly higher stability requirements. It requires 300 in non-empowered and 800 in empowered (from 250 in non-empowered and 750 in empowered).

Gaze of Orobyss

• The first two quest echoes of each timeline are now optional in empowered timelines.
• Completing the third quest echo in an empowered timeline now grants 1 Gaze of Orobyss.
• Defeating a Shade of Orobyss that increases corruption consumes all Gaze of Orobyss to grant bonus corruption. However, if you die while fighting such a Shade, you will lose all Gaze of Orobyss.

Randomization

• All regular monolith echoes now have multiple player spawn locations rather than a single fixed player spawn.
• Most regular monolith echoes have a wider variety of objective spawn locations.
• We have a system in place to prevent objectives from being placed too close to the player spawn location regardless of the randomization.

Arena Echoes

• Now 10% less common for most timelines, and 28% less common for Ending the Storm, where they were previously 25% more common than usual.

 

Swarmblade Form

The reception to the summoning side of Swarmblade Form was originally that it was underwhelming. We attempted to fix this by adjusting numbers to make it more rewarding to consume Locusts for Locust Swarm.

However, the scaling duration of Locust Swarm, combined with some bugs and unintended mechanics, made a version of this build brokenly powerful. Regardless, abuse of these mechanics requires a playstyle that is really unenjoyable. We understand that many players want to play optimal, powerful builds, so we’re making such an immediate change to avoid funneling players onto this build, especially as we increase rewards for clearing more enemies in Monolith echoes.

On account of this we’re reworking the summoning aspects of Swarmblade Form and will be closely monitoring further feedback on its playstyle and balance. These changes involve limiting the number of Locusts while greatly increasing the ease of summoning them quickly, and making individual Locusts more effective and powerful. It will no longer be possible to gain increased damage per Locust for Locust Swarm so that increased damage from items and passives matters for the build.

Locusts

• Last 12 seconds by default (from 9).
• You are now limited to 12 active locusts.
• Locusts deal 50% more damage.
• Hives summon locusts 122% more frequently.
• The summon hive skill has 35% more cast speed.
• The summon hive skill has a 5 second cooldown (from 8) and can hold 3 charges (from 2).
• You are limited to 3 active hives (from 2).

Locust Swarm and Swarm Strike

• You are now limited to a single active Locust Swarm.
• Fixed a bug where the added melee poison damage for Locust Swarm was actually applied as added melee physical damage.
• Locust Swarm deals 25% more damage.
• Locust Swarm gains 15 melee physical damage, 15 melee poison damage, 15% increased duration, and 15% increased area per locust consumes (from 12, 12, 12%, and 12% respectively).
• Added melee damage is now applied at 350% effectiveness to Swarm Strike (from 300%).

Skill Tree

• All Druids with Swarmblade specialized will receive a free respec for its tree.
• Replaced Toxic Hum (20% increased swarm damage per locust, grants 2% poison chance per locust while swarm active) with Plague of Locusts (2% more swarm damage per locust, grants 4% poison chance per locust while swarm active).
• Grand Colony now also grants +1 maximum locust, but no longer increases the summoning speed of hives, and can have 3 points allocated (from 4).
• Hive Mind no longer increases the maximum number of hives or grants additional hive charges, but instead increases hive summoning speed and causes Locust Swarm to release locusts over time (a swarm does not lose damage as it releases locusts, but cannot release more locusts than were initially gathered to create it). It can have 3 points allocated (from 2).
• Bountiful Hibernacula no longer increases cooldown recovery speed for Summon Hive, but now grants 10 health and 1 rage whenever a hive releases a locust.
• Earth Stinger grants 3 melee physical damage to you and locusts, and 3 melee physical damage for Locust Swarm per Locust consumed (from 2, and 2 respectively).
• Hornet Nest now halves the maximum number of Locusts rather than the maximum summoned by a Hive.
• Army of the Tempest can have 2 points allocated (from 3), but now also grants procced tornadoes 40% more damage per point.

 

Other Changes

• Using a skill that requires an accessible target location, such as a movement skill, while targeting an inaccessible location now casts the skill at an accessible location near the target. Previously the skill would fail entirely.

  • This should prevent movement skills from failing in Titan’s Rest, for example.

• Soulfire Shield no longer scales with cast speed, but is 80% faster to cast. This improves how smooth it is to use, and makes it consistent across classes.

• Scales of Eterra

  • Grants 8-20% increased Cast Speed (from 5-16%).
  • Infusion grants 10% more damage of that element per stack (from 8%).

 

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Vaion the Arsenal’s Smelter’s Wrath ability would still trigger if you killed him while it was charging up.
• Fixed a bug where the quest list on the right side of the screen would appear empty at first when loading an existing character.
• Fixed a bug where you could exceed the summon limit for a minion type if you summoned multiple minions with a single ability cast.
• Fixed a bug where Void Rifts were creating duplicate visual objects, affecting performance.
• Fixed a bug where Warpath’s Apocalypse Whirl gave 10% Time Rot chance instead of the listed 30%.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible in some cases to still deal critical strikes with Singularity equipped.
• Fixed a visual bug where Shield Rush’s Echoes of the Charge followed the player.

Uniques are still being worked on. We’re gonna announce when we do.

Yes. You’ll receive all of the bonus stability you earned upon leaving the echo.