The v1.5.5 patch focused primarily on bringing Transmuting up to date with some of the newer item types.
Transmuting Recipes
You can now transmute some jewelry pieces with multiple runes to create a version of jewelry with reactive procs.
Added new transmuting recipes which take two items of the same type, one typically a magic variation and one a rare variation. Combining those two with the appropriate ingredient can in some cases create a Legendary piece of equipment.
Added a new recipe type which can take a specific type of jewel and a flask to create consumable explosive.
Miscellaneous
Sorcerer's Gloves are now appropriately named. Previously this item had been templated from the Cloth Gloves and improved, but the item name was showing up as Cloth Gloves. That has been fixed.
v1.5.4 Build Notes
The v1.5.4 patch brings new consumable items, longer decay times, and small UI improvements.
Items and Loot
Introduced new single use items, which are activated using the consumable slots, similar to Potions. But unlike potions, these are for more general world abilities, such as AoE attacks or circle spells.
Rare, Epic, and Legendary loot will now take longer to decay when on the ground than more common items. Rare items will despawn after 90 seconds, legendary and epic items will spawn after 2 minutes. Common and uncommon loot will still despawn after 1 minute.
NPCS
Nerfed two overpowered NPC special abilities.
Added new random loot to a variety of NPCs. Spell casters and demons, primarily.
User Interface
Changed the Remove Skill tooltip text to be Replace Skill, as that more accurately reflected what the option did. It can be used to both replace a skill slot with a different skill, or it can return the slot to empty.
Skill tooltips on the action bar now indicate that you can use ALT+Left Click to replace a skill in all circumstances. Previously it would display this information if the slot was empty. But once you slotted a skill, there was no indication of how to remove or replace it. That has been fixed.
Miscellaneous
Localization updates.
v1.5.3 Build Notes
Today's patch adds ricocheting projectiles, which are now supported by some NPC bosses. Wizards also have a new spell which utilizes this feature. We'll be adding it to more abilities in the future.
NPCs
Barbarian Witch-Doctors and Liches now have ricocheting projectile attacks.
Skills and Abilities
Wizards (Mage) now gain access to train the Chain Lightning spell at level 12. It requires the Lightning spell to have been trained previously. This new spell is a projectile attack which will launch three multiple bolts, which can ricochet off of objects, and can damage multiple targets before they consumes themselves. This can be used to fire three shots around objects, or to fire into crowds where it can bounce many times. Each additional skill rank adds an additional bolt.
The Hopebringer: August Recap
Our third month of Early Access brought a price reduction, and a variety of changes. This month brought items with reactive procs, and a variety of new NPCs added to the bestiary.
You can find highlights of the changes this month in the notes below.
Dungeons and Scenarios
Adjusted the spawners in the majority of scenarios. This was done to both add in the new NPC minibosses, but also to adjust the miniboss distribution. Allowing some minibosses to cross over into different themes, wherever it made sense. It will for example, be much more common to get an Orc boss on an orc map. But it is also possible to get a Gorgon, Troll, or Mage from time to time.
The Protecting the Artifact scenario now features multiple new potential NPC and miniboss types available for its wave spawners.
Items and Loot
Items can now process special effects after you get hit, or when you defeat an enemy. The time at which it processes will vary by the item type. In the near future we will also be adding weapon procs which will fire when attacking with that weapon.
Introduced multiple new types of items which take advantage of this capability. These will begin appearing around level 5. We'll continue adding these in the upcoming patches.
NPCs
Harpies have been added to the game. Harpy songs can bewilder heroes and their companions, and they also have some deadly talon attacks, and debuffs. They are vulnerable to elemental effects, but resistant to poison. Harpies come in a variety of feather color configurations, and can be found as rare spawns in most scenarios.
Introduced a new Giant Spider miniboss type. These have a new appearance, unlike the smaller spiders. They are as you would expect, quite a bit larger, and have a different mesh and textures. These spiders will leap and have a deadly poison, like their smaller cousins. But they also have a spider web attack which can restrict your movement and make you unable to attack for a time. They are resistant to poison, but vulnerable to both fire and cold.
Introduced new Night Blade NPCs. These are a new rogue type that will only appear on Undead or mixed maps. They can use stealth, backstab, and penetrate armor.
Introduced new Ice Caller minibosses. These are a specialized human mage type which casts frost based magical attacks. This includes slowing attacks which will reduce your movement. They can also blink, which will not only relocate them, but boost their damage for a period of time afterwards. They can easily be identified by their light blue robes.
There is a new NPC mage miniboss type: Fire Bringer. These human spell casters are similar to the Ice Callers, except their abilities are fire based. They can not warp, but have more offensive minded abilities, including reactives and proximity damage. They can be easily identified by their red robes.
Werewolves and Scraggly Werewolves are now more dangerous when flanking their opponents, gaining a damage bonus in those situation.
Made some adjustments to the reactive fireball attacks on Minibosses. The mini-boss variation will now spawn less projectiles and will randomly choose which directions are chosen. We also toned down the damage on these attacks.
Skeleton Captains can now backstab.
Added a slew of new items which were thrown into various NPC loot tables.
Skills and Abilities
Optimizations were made to the Energetic Skill.
Sounds
Added new NPC pain, death, and taunt sounds.
Optimized some animation notifies which were runing on the server and client, but only needed to run on the client.
Fixed a bug that had an orc pain sound on one of the smaller spider hit reactions.
Miscellaneous
Virtual shadow map optimizations.
Localization Updates.
Fixed an issue with the liches ice blast attack. It erroneously had a tiny effect radius.
v1.5.2 Build Notes
Items and Loot
Items can now process special effects after you get hit, or when you defeat an enemy. The time at which it processes will vary by the item type. In the near future we will also be adding weapon procs which will fire when attacking with that weapon.
Introduced multiple new types of items which take advantage of this capability. These will begin appearing around level 5. We'll continue adding these in the upcoming patches.
NPCs
Added a slew of new items which were thrown into various NPC loot tables.
Skills and Abilities
Optimizations were made to the Energetic skill.
The Hopebringer: Half Off This Week
The Hopebringer will be available at a 50% discount for the next week.
v1.5.1 Patch Brings Harpies
Harpies have been added into the game.
Harpy songs can bewilder heroes and their companions, and they also have some deadly talon attacks, and debuffs. They are vulnerable to elemental effects, but resistant to poison.
Harpies come in a variety of feather color configurations, and can be found as rare spawns in most scenarios.
v1.5.2 Patch Brings Harpies
Harpies have been added into the game.
Harpy songs can bewilder heroes and their companions, and they also have some deadly talon attacks, and debuffs. They are vulnerable to elemental effects, but resistant to poison.
Harpies come in a variety of feather color configurations, and can be found as rare spawns in most scenarios.
v1.5 Patch Is Live
This is a small performance related patch, to try to address a report that we received on poor performance in some situations.
Although we were unable to duplicate the issue, we believe that it was likely virtual shadow map related, and have made some tweaks which we hope will address the issue.
If anyone experiences any odd or transient performance related issues, please do let us know about it on the forums. Especially if you can recall anything leading up to when they occurred, as this information can help aid in narrowing down the possible causes.
The Hopebringer: v1.4.9 Patch Live
The Hopebringer's v1.4.9 patch has gone live and includes new additions to the bestiary, along with some miscellaneous improvements.
Dungeons and Scenarios
The Protecting the Artifact scenario now features multiple new potential NPC and miniboss types available for its wave spawns.
NPCs
Introduced a new Giant Spider miniboss type. These have a new appearance, unlike the smaller spiders. They are as you would expect, quite a bit larger, and have a different mesh and textures. These spiders will leap and have a deadly poison, like their smaller cousins. But they also have a spider web attack which can restrict your movement and make you unable to attack for a time. They are resistant to poison, but vulnerable to both fire and cold.
Introduced new Night Blade NPCs. These are a new rogue type that will only appear on Undead or mixed maps. They can use stealth, backstab, and penetrate armor.
Sound
Optimized some animation notifies which were runing on the server and client, but only needed to run on the client.
Localization updates.
Fixed a bug that had an orc pain sound on one of the smaller spider hit reactions.
