Update 24 Patch 1 Release Notes

Characters facing the game’s toughest challenges have encountered a wide variety of Monster Champions – creatures with increased skill and power. What is causing this increase in power? As characters investigate the source of this newfound strength they will begin to discover that many of these creatures carry Mysterious Fragments that seem to resonate with strange magical power. Could these fragments be causing these champions and their rise in power? What use could these fragments have for those looking for power?

Monster champions will have a chance to drop Mysterious Fragments. Players can gather these fragments, and various agents and interested parties might trade them for a variety of rewards, including scrolls, potions, cosmetic items, and even prestigious and rare pets. Organizations do not have unlimited resources, and as factions vie for power some agents and rewards might change over time. Players can find Mysterious Fragments in some chests when encountering minibosses, and can sometimes find them on the ground when defeating regular Champions. Mysterious Fragments can only appear if the difficulty-modified quest level is equal to our higher than the player character’s level that killed the Champion. Mysterious Fragment reward NPCs are located in both Halls of Heroes.

Classes

• Characters with Greater Rage, gained at barbarian level 11, now get +10 Physical Resistance Rating when wearing Medium armor.
• Characters with Greater Rage, gained at barbarian level 11, now get +10 Melee Power while the rage is active.

Combat

• Ballistas fired by monsters (such as those in Epic Storm the Beaches) now wait longer to fire when their target emerges from behind cover. Shots from these ballistas also no longer hit enemies through cover.

Monster Champions

• Monster Champions no longer spawn in quests below level 5. Quests which are level 3 on Normal would not have Champions on Hard, but would on Elite, since Elite difficulty would bring the quest level to 5.
• The chance for epic monsters to ignore ability score damage has been reduced from 90% down to 33% on Epic Hard and 50% on Epic Elite. This chance remains zero percent on Epic Casual and Epic Normal.
• Champions have had their chance to gain True Sight reduced.
• Champions now have a greater chance to See Invisible.
• The amount of hit point buffs for Monster Champions has been reduced for most levels.
• The triggered buff from Second Wind has been reduced from nine seconds to six seconds.

 

There is also some changes made to the Barbarian, so if you playing a barb, you will want to make sure to read about those changes.