This build will be playable on our Playtest Client. Get access to the client here. Play the latest build during Friday Night Fights or by jumping in to custom games at any time. 

ARMOUR BREAK CHANGES

A number of changes have been made in this patch in order to make armor break more relevant in gameplay including some adjustments to consumables. 

These changes will likely take a moment to adjust to, especially for players who get deep in the weeds of Arkheron’s mechanics. We’re planning to stick with these changes for a while to see how things feel on the other side of the adjustment period, but we expect there to be further changes as we continue to find the sweet spot. 

In short, we’d love for you to help us test these changes in earnest, so please spend some time with them. However, if after that time there is feedback we will definitely be taking notes. 

Changes to Damage Numbers

We’ve made a slew of changes to damage numbers on items. The intention wasn’t to nerf or buff specific items but to tune them around armor break. A good example is Grimwold’s Charged Rings, before when you would just tap they would do 25 damage, which means you never got to feel armor break.

Once we lowered this to 23, so that armor break would matter, it was essentially a 45% nerf to Charged Rings when fighting against a player using Fortitude. If you were in a 1v1 situation you’d have to do 8 shots to break all of your fortitude, as opposed to the 4 with the original damage numbers. 

We’ve changed Grimwold’s Charged Rings to take armor break into account, so that it matters more - these changes have applied across many items. Another example is Edani’s Hook. The damage used to be 18 / 18 / 20 / 20. 

One of the probable side effects of these changes is that time to kill will increase, which hopefully means that crowd control mechanics will have slightly less impact on gameplay than they do now. More time to live means more time to break free from crowd control and make your next move. 

Another focus of these changes is to give more purpose to other consumable choices. 

Changes to Health, Fortitude, Armor Break

Arkheron has two types of restoration: health and fortitude. Having two types enables us to create many more build choices and strategies than is possible with a single health pool. Here’s how we view the role of Arkheron’s consumables. 

• Health Potions: Individual healing that takes a moment to take effect. Generally used away from combat. 

• Fortitude Shards: Individual healing that’s instant and is generally used in combat. 

• Healing Ward: Team healing that’s generally used away from combat. 

• Healing Mist: Team healing that’s generally used in combat. 

If you’ve been in our community for a while, you know that we’ve been making some changes to Health potions to try to find a sweet spot, where there’s some risk with healing while still being reliable. We’ve changed health potions again so that they no longer heal over time, but instead heal instantly for 125, but only after a longer cast time (1&1/2s)

We haven’t changed Fortitude as a consumable, but you’ll likely still feel a difference when opting for it. In the past, people could hit so quickly and chew threw armor break as if it wasn’t there which meant it essentially didn’t matter. It should matter a lot more and open up more options for items you use on the offensive as well. 

Part of our road to launching Arkheron is trying things to see how they fit over a period of time, evolving them if they work or completely changing them if we don’t. We understand that the journey can sometimes feel a bit bumpy and really appreciate you coming along for the ride with us so we can make Arkheron as fun as possible. Thanks so much for your help! 

PATCH NOTES

HEALING CHANGES

Transforming into a full Eternal will now heal for 150 (down from 300)

Healing Mist

Cast time: 1/2s 

Heal: 60 AoE (up from 50)

Carry: 4 (up from 3)

Cost: 50

Healing Ward

Cast time:  1s (up from 3/4s) + 3s heal over time (down from 6)

Heal: 100 AoE

Carry: 3 (down from 4)

Cost: 75 (up from 50)

Fortitude

Cast time: 3/4s

Heal: 50 fort / 2 pips

Carry: 5 (up from 4)

Cost: 50 (down from 75)

Health Potion

Cast time: 1&1/2s (up from 3/4s)

Heal: 125 (down from 150)

Carry: 4 (up from 3)

Cost: 100

ETERNAL ITEMS

DAHLA

• Dancing Blade’s Twisting Thorn ability now has pull out damage of 40 (down from 45)

• Dahla’s Blade Barrier knives are now positioned farther out from her at 1.25-1.5m. The rotation speed has increased to 10 to compensate for the bigger radius. 

EDANI

• Lunging Hooks Thin Skinned Thrash damage is now 14/14(12+12+). Previously it was 12/12(14+14)

• Outburst Crown is now 20 damage (up from 15)

GRIMWOLD

• Charged Rings Particle Shot ability damage is 23 (down from 25)

• Static Turret’s projectile damage is 12 (up from 10)

HOLLOW

• Sneklan Gloomy Trap ability damage is now 20 (up from 18)

IRENNA

• Icebreaker Mace’s Callous Swipes ability combo damage is now 28/28 (from 26) and marked Crushing. 

• Icebreaker Mace’s Icebreaker ability ice slam slow is now 2s (up from 1.5s). The root at Level 3 is now 2s. 

• Caretaker’s mini slow on the third hit of the combo is now 1 second (up from .25) so you can follow up with Irenna’s bonus damage from her set bonus. 

KARRIV

Karriv’s buff is a little different to the other changes in these notes. He has a damage over time on almost all hits, attacks and abilities. The damage over time was small (6 damage over 3 ticks, so 2/2/2) but on everything. We wanted the damage over time to be more meaningful, so we’ve buffed it but taken it off most of the regular combo hits. 

The new damage over time is 15 over 5 ticks (3/3/3/3/3). For the future, we are considering moving this to be a ‘corrosive’ element that does more damage to armor or more damage if you don’t have armor. We need to explore this more before committing. 

• Searing Shovel’s Shovel Swing combo is now 23/23/30(+15 DoT) from 24(DoT)/24(DoT)/30(DoT)

• Flaming Lantern’s Strike the Anvil combo is 20/20/20/20/25(+15 DoT) from 18(DoT)18(DoT)18(DoT)18(DoT)25(DoT)

LEODIN

• Eclipse Hammer’s third hit on combo is 24 (down from 30)

PENELOPE

• Porcelain Parasol’s Under the Weather ability has been updated so that you can cancel out of the gust faster to give you more flexibility in combat. 

RAVAH

• Ringblade’s Embedding Throw cadence has been slowed down and projectile speed is 23 (down from 25)

• Ringblade’s Take Flight damage on teleport is 24 (down from 30)

• Talonflight Crossbow’s Piercing shot cadence has been slowed down. The base tap projectile speed was reduced to 50 and the charged version is the same speed as before (60). 

• Shadowsmoke’s cloud of smoke no longer does damage at Level 3. It now gives you and your teammates a 1.5 second invisible buff on exit. If you attack, you will become visible. 

RYNSHI

• Wrath Cleaver’s Cleave ability’s third hit of the combo is 23 (down from 25) and the last hit is 25 (down from 30). The combo is now 20/20/23/25 (from 20/20/25/30)

• Fury Bracer’s last hit of the combo is now 23 (down from 25) so it’s now 18/18/18/20/23

• Fury Bracer’s Sadistic Throw is 30 (down from 35)

VATON

• Seeing Eye’s Shattering Sphere damage is now 8+15 (from 10+16 which was previously guaranteed armor break)

SOUND EFFECTS

• Added a new evade sound. It’s more subtle and swooshy than the rattley anchor one. 

• Adjusted hitmarkers - they should make the damage to health bars feel very clear without being annoying or causing fatigue. Let us know!

• Updated / Polished Karriv’s sound effects - most of his sound effects got a fresh sweep on sound effects. 

SETTINGS

We’ve added voice volume sliders for party and team members. The volume slider has been added to: 

• Party view menu

• Social menu

• Party and Team channel member (this is new)

• Custom game member menu

Additional updates to the sound settings menu: 

• Reordered entries in the sound settings screen to optimize for quick high level volume and device changes. 

• Replaced the “Voice Mode” dropdown with “Push to Talk Enabled” 

• Added the Push to Talk keybind right below “Push to Talk Enabled” for convenience (redundant with the setting in the keybinds screen). 

• Added a new Advanced header where we pushed down a lot of the miscellaneous sound settings. 

• Exposed Noise Suppression and Echo Cancellation as configurable options. These were already autoenabled under the hood before this change. 

BUG FIXES

• Fixed a bug where the visual effects to show when your item’s cooldown has been completed would show when the HUD was hidden. 

• Fixed a bug where using one of the Rynshi emotes after moving can cause him to keep moving. 

• Fixed a bug where Karriv’s Eternal ability Fire Cage, would not deal damage on cast unless you were directly on top of an enemy. 

• Fixed a bug where when using Rynshi’s Sadistic Throw ability would create some unexpected hit reactions. 

• Fixed a bug where the front end client background disappeared. 

• Greg fixed a bug where the arch in the wall would not fully dissolve in the arena on Floor 3. 

• Fixed a bug where players could consume health potions from the ground without using the consumable. 

• Fixed a bug where Dahla’s Petal Dance sound effects could play continuously after being interrupted with another ability. 

• Fixed a bug where Karriv’s Forgefire Crown and Flamepath Amulet would have looping sound effects when cast at Level 3

• Greg fixed a bug where the pot assets in the locked storeroom within the City of Bells would not dissolve. 

• Fixed an issue where the ‘team found’ music is heard too early on the team info screen. 

• Fixed a bug where Penelope’s Looking Glass ability sound effects would repeat when the player moves near the glass shards after embedding them. 

• Fixed a bug where sound effects weren’t played when players gained the invulnerable buff. 

• Fixed a bug where the set bonus icons would flicker when lots of items were on the ground nearby.

• Fixed some sound /visual effects issues with Ravah