Patch Notes Build 19 (June 10, 2014)

Build 19 (v0.2.5.3) is an update that was released on June 10, 2014. It has received a hotfix.

This update introduced two-handed melee weapons and the Constitution mechanic.

Major new features

 * The rogue-like dungeon in Steps of Torment is now available! To unlock access to this dungeon, you must complete a quest line that begins in Old Arkovia.
 * Two-handed melee weapons are now available.
 * Tooltips have been overhauled to provide a cleaner overview of item and skill attributes.
 * Out-of-combat regeneration is now limited by a new resource: Constitution. This new healing mechanic is still experimental and will likely need further changes and/or balancing. We're not quite sure we're happy with it yet but we felt it was important to get B19 out, both so you all could start swinging those big two-handers but also so we can gather feedback on the current changes and begin the next phase of multiplayer implementation.
 * Constitution is an overlay on your health bar that indicates how much fast-regeneration you have remaining. If this pool runs out, you will not be able to regenerate rapidly until it is replenished.
 * Constitution is refilled via Food Rations and Vital Essence, which can drop from enemies, breakable objects and chests. It is also reset upon gaining a level or dying.

Art

 * Updated item art on Salazar's Sovereign Blade.

Animation

 * Two-handed melee animation set for player characters (20 animations).
 * New PC "Channeled Spell Attack" animations (begin, loop, end).
 * Updates to the PC "Run" animations for all weapon types.
 * New NPC "Chat" animation.
 * New Dranghoul "Run" animation.
 * New Dranghoul "Walk" animation.
 * New Groble "Walk" animation.
 * New alternate Ghost "Spawn" animation.
 * New Zombiehound "GetUp" animation.
 * New Boneback "Death" animation.
 * New Boneback "Get Up" animation.

Game

 * Increased Warden's physical melee damage and reduced delay of phase 2 spike projectile attack.
 * Reduced enemy OA in normal difficulty.
 * Increased the quality of Gutworm's loot chest.
 * Bumped up difficulty on Veteran a touch.
 * Skeletons and Ghosts no longer bleed on death.
 * The Depths of Old Arkovia side quest now has an additional reward.
 * All armor now also states what type of armor it is (Light, Heavy, Caster) in order to clarify the variation in protection value and stat requirements.
 * Shield block recovery time was reduced and block chance scaling increased.
 * Shield damage blocked increased.
 * 1h melee weapon damage given a slight boost from tier 3 up.
 * Physical damage bonus from Cunning has been equalized to match the magical damage bonus given by Spirit. Physical was previously higher as an effort to offset enemy armor, however, it was decided that because physical damage is also much easier to amass, it didn't need the stronger bonus multiplier.
 * Reduced the Scrap and Iron Bits crafting cost of Enchanted items.
 * Increased the quality of items generated from Enchanted blueprints and updated the description to better clarify that these recipes can generate items of Rare quality.
 * Increased the chance of getting rare affixes on Rare quality blueprints (ex. Ranger's Badge).
 * Reduced the crafting cost of consumables.
 * Increased the duration of crafted consumables, but also added a cooldown on their use.
 * Revised what items can grant active skills (skills that are placed on your skill bar to use) in order to reduce skill bloat. In accordance with this, many granted skills were turned into auto-cast skills or moved to different items.
 * With a few rare exceptions, granted item skills can be found on: 2h-ed guns and Melee Weapons, Amulets, Head Armor and Relics.
 * Updated stats on Aethersteel Alloy, Bindings of Bysmiel, Corpse Dust, Dense Fur, Ectoplasm, Focusing Prism, Frozen Heart, Kilrian's Shattered Soul, Leathery Hide, Molten Skin, Radiant Gem, Rigid Shell, Runestone, Sanctified Bone, Scaly Hide, Silk Swatch, Soul Shard, Spined Carapace and Viscous Venom components.
 * Converted Vicious Spikes to be usable in all weapons and changed its stats to be more appropriate for Pierce and Bleed dmg. Vicious Spikes now provides a new skill: Piercing Aura II.
 * Venomous Fang component has been removed from the game. All crafting recipes that required a Venomous Fang now require a Vitriolic Gallstone.
 * Vitriolic Gallstone has had its stats updated to also appeal to melee Poison users. Acid Strike has been replaced with Poison Aura.
 * Wrathstone and Riftstone now grant new abilities: Aether Aura and Chaos Strike.
 * Reduced the item level of Hallowed Ground and Dread Skull, making them more accessible in high-end areas such as Steps of Torment.
 * Updated the crafting recipe for Radiant Gem.
 * The following components are now primarily acquired via crafting (new blueprints have been added to loot tables). They can still drop as loot, but are much more rare: Aether Soul, Ballistic Plating, Blessed Steel, Focusing Prism, Haunted Steel, Leathery Hide, Mark of Mogdrogen, Restless Remains, Rotten Heart, Runestone, Sanctified Bone, Spined Carapace and Vengeful Wraith.
 * Adjusted stats on some Rare affixes.
 * The Bloodreaper's Glory set has had its stats adjusted.
 * The Ornate Chestguard has been renamed to Nightstalker's Chestguard. Its stats have been redesigned.
 * Slightly increased the effectiveness of dmg stats on 1h melee weapon affixes.
 * Increased absolute Energy bonuses on gear.
 * Increased absolute Energy Regeneration bonuses on most items, particularly on Magic items.
 * Increased the chance of generating % dmg bonus Suffixes on Off-Hands.
 * Mastery Prefixes (+1 Skill) now also grant a small bonus relevant to the mastery they are boosting.
 * Troll MI maces are now 2h-ed weapons. Existing 1h-ed versions are now legacy items and will never drop again. Troll Talisman blueprint has been updated to use the new 2h-ed version.
 * Demolitionist: Rebalanced Fire Strike and Explosive Strike to make the base skill more desirable and tone down the mod's AoE a bit. Fire Strike got a %physical and flat fire damage increase and reduced energy cost. Explosive Strike %wpn dmg was scaled back and energy cost increased. Explosive Strike burn chance no longer scales but has a high base value and physical dmg slightly reduced.
 * Demolitionist: To emphasize fire damage more on the Fire Strike line, the %fire dmg on Splinter was moved to Static Strike and flat fire damage was added to Splinter.
 * Soldier: Menhir's Will now has increased regen scaling and the %health restored begins lower but scales up quickly to encourage more investment.
 * Soldier: Overguard's bonuses begin a little lower and scale faster in the first few levels to encourage investment.
 * Soldier: Block Chance was removed from Overguard and Block Recovery removed from Veterancy to reduce redundancy and strengthen the role of each skill.
 * Soldier: %Physical damage scaling increased for Veterancy and it now also raises constitution.
 * Soldier: Slightly reduced flat physical damage on Cadence while increasing bleed damage on Fighting Form and reducing duration, so that it does more bleed damage over a shorter period.
 * Soldier: Markovian's Advantage and Zolhan's Technique chance to be used starts higher and skill stats scale more significantly with levels.
 * Soldier: Reduced energy cost on Blade Arc.
 * Soldier: Cadence %wpn dmg now scales higher and physical scaling has been reduced to help create a more pronounced difference when using two-handed melee weapons.
 * Occultist: Increased Raven's healing cooldown by 1 second.
 * Occultist: Added 15% heal to Blood of Dreeg so that the Occultist has at least a modest emergency heal available from a directly controllable skill (as opposed to the sometimes clutch but not always reliable raven healing).
 * Occultist: Moved all %chaos dmg in Witchfire to the modifier and added %poison to the base skill to create a synergy with Dreeg's Evil Eye. Increased flat chaos damage in the base skill.
 * Occultist: Bumped up poison and acid damages on Dreeg's Evil Eye and modifiers while changing base skill physical to %weapon dmg. Removed poison from Vile Eruption and increased acid.
 * Occultist: Reduced Sigil of Destruction cooldown from 15 to 12 seconds.
 * Nightblade: Veil of Shadow and Night's Chill have been reworked to hopefully make these skills more worthwhile. Veil has been reduced from 16 to 10 points max, OA reduction scales faster and higher and it now reduces total attack speed. Night's Chill damage has been almost doubled and it now reduces pierce and cold resist.
 * Nightblade: Dual Blades now has a max level of 16 and allows damages to scale to a higher level.
 * Nightblade: removed % health regeneration from Shadow Dance.
 * Health tonics now return 50% of health instantly and 50% over time.

Hotfix changes

 * Fixed an issue where enemy spawns could be unloaded and then not load again properly if the player triggered them but then moved out of the area and returned later. This should resolve the problem where the Ancient Shambler wasn't appearing.
 * Fixed missing display of skill bonuses on components and relics. Since this was a display issue only, the bonuses should now show up on any previously completed components or relics.
 * Fixed an issue that could cause the loss of items in the stash. Unfortunately, there is no way to recover items already lost and we apologize for that.
 * Increased the drop rate of food rations and vital essence.
 * Increased fast-regen rate.
 * Missing community localization fonts.