Patch Notes

Rebalance Proposal v8

🧪 Test Server — Under Review

Hello everyone, and we hope your week is going well. We are here with a new set of proposed rebalance changes, and we want to begin by explaining the process behind them.

As you know, for the past few months we ran a discussion group that included players from almost every guild. It worked well at times, but in-game rivalry too often took over from the balance discussion itself. Players ended up arguing with each other rather than debating balance, and a belief took hold that the suggestions being made were not aimed at balance at all, but at strengthening whichever guild or class the person making them happened to play. By that point the trust between members was gone. So we have paused the general discussion group and instead asked the players who engage with balance most actively and most critically to come to us as a single team with their proposals.

We also want to explain what we are proposing and why in far more detail than usual. We want the next patch to rest on a solid foundation, so that we need far fewer rebalance patches from here on — and we will do whatever we can to make up for any hardship it causes.

We believe the changes that arrived with our last major content update, The Shattered Firmament, have affected balance far more than any class skill has. For that reason we have focused on the items that came with that content rather than on class skills.

Alongside that, we are proposing to roll back some of the changes we made in the balance patches over the course of this process.

Scope: Only the entries listed in this section would be rolled back. Everything else from Rebalance v7.4 and Rebalance v7.5 stays exactly as it is — including the Halt / Toxic Hand grouping, Sacrifice's cooldown, the Orbiter cast-time increases, Advent Legend's Tenacity removal, Blessing Elemental's range removal, Axe Smash, Indomitable Dagger, the Steadfast Sword resistance reduction, and the v7.4 Ida Oread changes. Titles are the one exception — see Title Changes below.

Ultimate Rage & Ultimate Rage Cast

RestoredMovement Speed is back on both skills. v7.4 stripped it entirely; it returns at +5 / 6 / 8 / 11 / 15%, holding at +15% from rank 5 onward.

Vital Charge

RemovedMovement Speed Tenacity is taken off the skill. It granted a flat 5% at every rank.

Lightning Strike

ReducedDuration goes back to a flat 6 seconds at every rank. The scaling added in v7.4 is removed, so the extra time you currently get from rank 11 upward is gone.

Duration (seconds)

Imposed Fatigue

ReducedDuration goes back to a flat 15 seconds at every rank, on the same basis as Lightning Strike above.

Duration (seconds)

Speed Attack

RestoredSkill Cast Time returns to its old curve and climbs all the way to rank 20 again: 37% → 62% at max rank. The v7.5 cap is gone.

Skill Cast Time (%)

Razor Sharp

ReducedSkill Cast Time loses the flat +10 it was given in v7.5 as Speed Attack compensation, going back to 54% → 44% at rank 20. With Speed Attack restored above, it is no longer needed.

Insane Howling (Heroic)

RemovedSkill Cast Time is taken off the buff again. v7.5 added it as the Berserker's share of the Speed Attack compensation; with Speed Attack restored, it comes back off. Insane Howling Cast is a separate skill and is not affected.

Swing Shot

RestoredSkill Block debuff — Arena only. The Arena-specific values added in v7.5 are removed, so the Arena uses the same 2% per rank as everywhere else again: −20% → −40% at rank 20. Outside the Arena nothing changes.

🔮 Sorcerer — Combat Cast Times

RevertedThe four main combat spells return to their original cast times, in the Arena as well as everywhere else. The single shared 2.10s cast introduced in v7.5 is gone. The Orbiter cast-time increases from the same patch are not affected and remain in place.

Ethereal Impale — 2.10s → 3.26s

Windstorm — 2.10s → 3.26s

Wretched Cold — 2.10s → 2.83s

Firestorm — 2.10s → 2.66s

🗡 Swashbuckler — Buff Cast Times

RevertedEvery Swashbuckler buff returns to its original cast time. The faster buffing introduced in v7.5 is rolled back in full.

Heroism Might — 1.46s → 3.66s

Shout of Insight — 1.66s → 3.66s

Smart Force — 2.16s → 3.33s

Smart Weapon — 1.66s → 3.12s

Smart Blade — 1.66s → 2.99s

Sword Stopper — 1.56s → 2.78s

Advent Legend — 1.59s → 2.79s

Fortitude Soul — 1.66s → 2.79s

Steadfast Sword — 1.66s → 2.79s

Force Armour — 1.46s → 2.66s

Boost Up — 1.48s → 2.66s

Safeguard — 1.64s → 2.66s

Masquerade Master — 1.66s → 2.66s

Lunar Masquerade — 1.66s → 2.46s

Dauntless Masquerade — 1.66s → 2.46s

Chant Masquerade — 1.36s → 2.46s

Fires Masquerade — 1.36s → 2.46s

Fallen Masquerade — 1.36s → 2.46s

🔮 Oenone Oread — Debuff Duration

RestoredThe v7.5 restriction is lifted. Increases Duration of Debuffs applies to every debuff again, including skills that lower Skill Block, Physical Resistance, an Elemental Resistance or a Dimensional Resistance. The 18 skills that lost the bonus — among them Remove Armor, Swing Shot, Requiem, Firestorm, Frozen Darts, Seismic Shock, Wind Shear, Volatile Combustion, Body Check and Explosive Bodkin — get it back.

HH Effect Removal — Split by Class

ChangedSkills that strip HH effects no longer work on both ends. Each one now cleans either you or your target, not both.

Target only — these can no longer clear debuffs from the caster. They are a tool for saving someone else.

Ruins of Horror (Sorcerer)

Iron Protector (Elementalist)

Hand of Justice (Slayer)

Dragon Boon (Orbiter)

Self only — the exception, and it goes the other way: it now cleans the Archer alone and can no longer be used on anyone else.

Bow of Meditation (Archer)

Debuff Duration Reduction — Capped at 5 Seconds

ChangedDebuff Duration Reduction now stops at a total of 5 seconds, no matter how many sources you stack. The stat comes from both items and skills, and until now every source simply added on top of the last, so stacking enough of it could shorten a debuff far past what any single piece advertises.

Armor Cooldown Reduction

ReducedThe Cooldown Reduction on Ancient, HH and Nightfall body armor is halved: 10% → 5%. The line stays on the armor, it simply gives less.

Wind Shear

ReducedThe Poison, Ice and Lightning Resistance debuff now stops at −20 → −10, reached at rank 10 instead of climbing all the way to rank 20. Its Elemental Resistance debuff is unchanged.

Poison / Ice / Lightning Resistance

Temper Armour

ReducedThe Poison, Ice and Lightning Resistance it grants now rises by 1 per rank to a maximum of 10 → 5, reached at rank 5. Its Physical Resistance is unchanged.

Poison / Ice / Lightning Resistance

Why: These three carry a lot of the pressure this class puts out. Blue Dire stays up far too long at high rank, and the two Skill Block debuffs start harder than they should. The base values come down; the bonus values go up, so the reward for ranking them is bigger than it was.

Blue Dire

ReducedDuration is rebuilt as a flat +1 second per rank instead of +2. It starts slightly longer and ends far shorter — 48s → 31s at rank 20.

Duration (seconds)

Insightful X

ReducedThe Skill Block debuff starts much softer — −6 → −1 at rank 1 — and now climbs one point per rank.

Skill Block — base

AddedThe bonus value keeps climbing instead of flattening out, reaching −27 → −32 at rank 20.

Skill Block — bonus

Close Fin Air

ReducedSame treatment as Insightful X — the Skill Block debuff starts at −7 → −2 and climbs one point per rank.

Skill Block — base

AddedThe bonus value climbs further as well, ending at −33 → −38.

Skill Block — bonus

Why: All Stats causes a problem across the Oreads. A damage-focused Oread should not be gaining HP from Stamina — when we mean to give one thing, All Stats quietly hands over several important ones at once. Each Oread now grants the stats that match its own character instead.

All Stats → Type-Specific Stats

ChangedEach of the five Oreads now gives the stats tied to its type rather than All Stats.

Cynsoura (cast damage) — All Stats → Intelligence + Agility + Strength

Helike (crit damage) — All Stats → Strength + Agility

Ida (cast tank) — All Stats → Stamina

Adrasteia (crit tank) — All Stats → Stamina

Oenone (support) — All Stats → Stamina

Oenone Oread (support)

ReducedIncreases Duration of Debuffs is coming down across the board. Combined with the rollback above, the stat now reaches every debuff again but for less added time.

Increases Duration of Debuffs (sec)

Cynsoura Oread (cast damage)

ReducedWe consider Cynsoura stronger than the other Oreads, so its damage is coming down.

RemovedSkill Cooldown Time Reduction comes off the Oread. It ran 1 / 1 / 2 / 2 / 3 / 3 / 4 / 4 / 5 / 6% across the ranks. This is the cooldown line only — the separate Skill Cast Time Reduction, which runs the same ladder, is untouched.

AddedAll Dimensional Damage takes its place, at +1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10.

All Elemental Damage

Heroic Damage

Why: Some of the set bonuses turned out to weigh far too heavily on balance.

1. Since release, the HH special effects — Frenzy, Hold and Fear — have been the most effective skills in PvP, and the ones where timing matters most. The −3 second duration we put on the Cap cut their impact severely and shifted a balance that had been settled and familiar for a long time.

2. Debuff Duration Reduction, combined with HH skills, became overwhelming on certain classes and combinations.

3. Decrease Stun Duration badly affected how effective crit characters are, along with the item habits built around stun support, and caused real imbalance.

So we are replacing those three stats.

Cap

ChangedHH Effect Duration Reduction — removed, replaced with Skill Block (1 / 3 / 5%)

ChangedDebuff Duration Reduction — removed, replaced with All Elemental Resistances (1 / 3 / 5%)

Boots

ReducedDodge and Evade are halved across every tier: 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 / 10% → 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5% on each.

ChangedDecrease Stun Duration — removed, replaced with Stun Hit Resistance (1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5%)

The Sage

RemovedIgnore Skill Block / All Elemental Resistances by 4% has been taken off the title. All Dimensional Damages +15 stays.

Crusader of Ugdrasil & The Gladiator

RemovedIgnore Dodge/Block comes off both titles — +5% on Crusader of Ugdrasil and +7% on The Gladiator. Everything else they grant is unchanged.