Class Changes: Warrior
Warrior Core Changes
We’re relatively happy with warriors’ position in the game, however, they do have a few things we want to address before launch. Specifically, the ‘Mighty Glacier’ mechanic, which provided significant but invisible power increases, was problematic. It increased damage reduction and critical strike chance the longer the warrior stayed in combat, capping at 10% damage reduction and 5% critical strike after five minutes. This mechanic was largely unknown and made it hard for players to accurately assess the different tanks defensive capabilities, especially early in fights.
To address this, we are removing ‘Mighty Glacier’ and redistributing its effects into more visible, active abilities:
- Mighty Glacier effects have been removed.
- Vindicator’s Stance damage reduction increased to 18%.
- Defend now provides 20% damage reduction, up from 15%.
- Resilient Defense now provides 30% damage reduction, up from 25%.
- Flurry AA chance to flurry increased to 1%, 2.5%, and 5% (up from 0.5%, 1%, and 2%).
- Raging Flurry AA now adds 1% flurry chance per rank (up from 0.3%, 0.6%, and 1.2%).
Warrior AA Adjustments
We have also revamped Crippler, a special warrior AA, to make it more impactful. Previously, Crippler only increased the level of enemies that could be affected by Crippling Strike, but did not directly improve the chance to score crippling strikes as accuracy rolls happen long before cripple chance is even checked for. Now, Crippler both increases the max enemy level you can crippling strike to 70 from 69 and each rank now increases the chance a critical strike will become a crippling strike.
- Crippler now works on enemies up to level 70 (previously 69).
- Crippler now grants an additional 2% chance per rank for critical strikes to become crippling strikes, on top of the existing 8% chance from the Crippling Strike AA.
Class Changes: Shadowknight
Shadowknight Core Changes
Shadowknights are currently in a solid position power-wise, but they suffer from a few systemic issues, such as spell gem pressure, resource overwriting conflicts, and endurance costs. These problems are not exclusive to Shadowknights, and we plan to address them more holistically.
However, we’ve expanded their runic spell lineup to alleviate some of the pressure on spell gems, adding versatility and improving utility:
- Runic: Heart Possession remains unchanged.
- Runic: Spear of Woe remains unchanged.
- Terror of Gradalshis now Runic: Terror of Gradalsh with no other changes.
- Unholy Shield II is now Runic: Unholy Shield with no other changes.
- New Runic: Death’s Caress merges Touch of the Succubus and Vortex of Death with improved effects:
- Grants 20 overcap Flowing Thought
- Provides 40 health regeneration
- Adds 30 strength and 30 stamina
- Grants 60 attack, 80 armor
- Reduces stamina cost by 4%