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Dragonstone - Patch 1.8

Cycle 9 - Patch 1.8

New Items

image.pngMolten Tools

  • Tier II Hellforge Tools!
  • Reinforced with very high durability.
  • Upgraded enchantments, comes with Efficiency V and Fortune III.
  • Autosmelts mined ores, logs, and sand.

Infernal Armorimage.png

  • The Hellforge's Tier II armor set!
  • Equipped with additional armor points, armor plating, and a shorter dash cooldown, this set is designed with melee combat in mind.
  • This is our first armor set that goes above the vanilla limits of armor, featuring 21 armor points and 18 armor toughness!

Aether & Nether Gemstonesimage.png

  • Melee weapons can now be upgraded with Gemstones, just like wands!
  • Choose from 3 different types of gemstones, with more coming soon!
  • All Tier I melee weapons now have 1 gem slot, while Tier II melee weapons have 2 gem slots!
  • Crafting station located on the right side of the Hellstone Forge

image.pngForge Potions

  • Five new potions are being added to the forge!
  • Restoration Potions: Health Potion, Mana Potion, Golden Elixir.
  • Buff Potions: Leyline Potion, Smite Potion
  • Crafting station located on the right side of the Aether Forge.

Developer Notes (Click to show)

These new forge potions should allow players to recover more quickly from the high damaging abilities of forge items and difficult bosses. Mana Potions will help mages recover mana more quickly to sustain their magic attacks and have higher uptime, as they often exhaust themselves too quickly and have to wait for their next mana surge or rely on natural regeneration to continue fighting. The new Leyline and Smite potions should help make dealing with dungeon hordes a little easier and faster, especially at higher difficulties. ~Dragon & Dummy

⚙️ New Mechanic ⚙️

Armor Plating

  • We are adding a new armor stat called Armor Plating.
    • Armor Plating is being added to our new Infernal Armor set and Dragon Helmets. (Replacing chromatic scales)
  • Here is how it works:
    • Upon equipping an item with Armor Plating, you begin generating Armor Plate stacks.
    • While armor plating is active, all incoming damage is reduced by 40%, and you are immune to most forms of knockback.
    • Taking damage from any source reduces your armor plating by 1.
    • When your armor plating reaches 0, it becomes "cracked" and is no longer effective.
    • Armor plating will regenerate after 60 seconds have passed. It will also begin to regenerate if you don't take damage for 15 seconds and still have some armor plating left.

Balance Changes

Armor

image.pngAether Armor (Full Set)

  • Armor Toughness increased from 4 ➜ 6 (+50%)
  • Magic Resistance reduced from 30% ➜ 20%

image.pngTrue Aether Armor (Full Set)

  • Armor Toughness increased from 10 ➜ 12 (+20%)
  • Magic Resistance reduced from 50% ➜ 20%
  • Fire Protection enchantment reduced from Lvl IV ➜ Lvl III
  • [Ability: Mana Surge]
    • Cooldown reduced from 150s ➜ 90s (-40%)
    • PvP nerf reduced from 50% ➜ 25% (-25%)
    • Now notifies you when cooldown is finished. 🡹
    • This ability no longer benefits from Cooldown Reduction. 🡻
Developer Notes (Click to show)

The high magic resistance of Aether Armor made PvP matches with other magic users very slow. We still want them to be a little resistant to their own element, but not to the extent they were previously. We shifted some of that resistance into their offensive utility, and a little bit into armor toughness to help mages survive longer in dungeons. ~Dragon

Mana surge had too low of an impact with too high of a cooldown in PvP. With careful testing, we believe these changes will help mages deal burst damage more often. ~Dummy

image.pngHellstone Armor Set

  • Removed Melee Resistance. 30% ➜ 0%
  • Fire Protection enchantment increased from Lvl III ➜ Lvl IV
  • Improved animation for Hellstone Dash. 🡹
  • [Set Bonus: Level 2]
    • 🡹 Added +10 Max Mana
    • 🡻 Removed +10% Melee Damage
  • [Set Bonus: Level 3]
    • 🡹 Added +1 Base Melee Damage
    • 🡻 Removed +20% Melee Damage
Developer Notes (Click to show)

Tier 1 Hellstone Armor was not only competing with Tier 2 Aether Armor, it was often stronger due to a number of problems with physical builds dealing way too much damage in PvP scenarios. These changes help to bring physical more in line with where it should be. ~Dummy

We also gave the Hellstone Armor a small amount of mana capacity to help melee users utilize their right click abilities more often, such as Molten Slash and Magma Bomb. ~Dragon

image.pngRaven Wings

  • Now grants immunity to fall damage. 🡹
  • Removed damage resistance while flying. 50% ➜ 0%

Developer Notes (Click to show)

We are removing damage resistance while in-flight to combat potentially annoying PvP scenarios. ~Dragon

image.pngSky Dragon Helmet

  • Added +4 Armor Plating. 0 ➜ 4
  • Removed Chromatic Scales. 20 ➜ 0
  • Can now hover slightly above the ground and maintain empowered buff while flight suppressed. 🡹

Developer Notes (Click to show)

Sky Dragon Helmet was severely weaker than the other dragon helmets, largely due to being locked out of its flight buff in boss fights. These changes allow for the sky dragon to enhance their magical attacks while keeping their floaty movement in dungeon boss fights. ~Dummy

image.pngFire Dragon Helmet

  • Added +4 Armor Plating. 0 ➜ 4
  • Removed Chromatic Scales. 20 ➜ 0
  • Removed 30% Melee Resistance. 30% ➜ 0%
  • [Passive: Infernal Strength]
    • Strength I now begins at 20 HP. 16 ➜ 20
  • [Ability: Meteorite]
    • Max meteor charges reduced from 10 ➜ 3 (-70%)
    • Damage increased from 40 ➜ 60 (+50%)
    • Vertical knockback increased by 300%
    • Now applies Inferno Hex to all entities it hits. 🡹
    • Animation adjusted to make the meteor feel more powerful. 🡹
  • [Ability: Combustion]
    • PvE damage reduced from 3x ➜ 1.5x (-50%)
    • PvP damage reduced from 0.5x ➜ 0.33x (-33%)
Developer Notes (Click to show)

The Fire Dragon Helmet was definitely a controversial topic when discussing how it should be balanced. First of all, Fire Dragon specifically made the best use of chromatic scales in both PvP and PvE content, and was next to impossible to kill in PvP scenarios. We have replaced chromatic scales on all dragon helmets with armor plating. Additionally, it had too many meteors and poke potential, so we condensed the power of them while giving them less stacks. Finally, we made a straight nerf to combust, as it was scaling unexpectantly with physical stats. ~Dummy

Meteor make big boom boom now! ~Dragon

image.pngSea Dragon Helmet

  • Added +4 Armor Plating. 0 ➜ 4
  • Removed Chromatic Scales. 20 ➜ 0
  • Healing Potency reduced from 50% ➜ 25%
  • Removed 5% Parry Chance. 5% ➜ 0%
Developer Notes (Click to show)

Healing was largely overlooked as only one healing build existed. After calculating potential healing numbers with different amounts of investment into healing, we decided to nerf the sea dragons healing potency to level out its raw healing potential with a green focused Aether Staff. ~Dummy

In addition, we are removing RNG stats like % parry chance from all dragon helmets for the time being as we consider more skill-based methods of blocking or parrying attacks. ~Dragon

image.pngVoid Dragon Helmet

  • Added +4 Armor Plating. 0 ➜ 4
  • Removed Chromatic Scales. 20 ➜ 0
  • Removed 10% Dodge Chance. 10% ➜ 0%

Developer Notes (Click to show)

This item is pending a rework, but for consistency purposes, we are giving this dragon helmet the same treatment as the others. ~Dragon

Melee

image.pngAll Melee Weapons

  • Increased base damage vs mobs, now uses PvP Power to control damage vs players.
  • Slash attack no longer occurs while in the air to avoid confusion when attempting crits.
  • A sound now plays when landing a direct hit (not a slash hit) to let you know you did full damage.
  • Reduced particle size of slashes to reduce visual clutter.
Developer Notes (Click to show)

We finally figured out a way to change how much damage is dealt between Mobs and Players with physical weapons. This should help make physical builds more viable in dungeons. Additionally, damage vs players was slightly reduced in order to keep physical in check as it was previously too strong in PvP. ~Dummy

In addition, testing revealed that slash attacks made it difficult to tell if you landed a crit or not, as more often than not the slash would hit the player when it felt like it should've been a crit. We changed the behavior of slash attacks to no longer occur while in the air to reduce the feeling of missed crits. ~Dragon

image.pngAll Axes

  • Slash attack damage reduced from 0.9x ➜ 0.8x (-11%)
  • Slash attack now only occurs on direct hit. 🡻

Developer Notes (Click to show)

This change to axes was made to prevent axes from constantly slashing while chopping trees. This also helps to balance their power a little bit, as axes have much wider slashes compared to swords which made them a little too powerful when swinging freely. ~Dragon

image.pngAether Blade + Eternal Wind

  • Damage increased from 11 ➜ 16 (+45%)
  • PvP power set to 69%. 11 ➜ 11 (+0%)

image.pngTrue Aether Blade

  • Damage increased from 14 ➜ 20 (+43%)
  • PvP power set to 63%. 14 ➜ 12.5 (-11%)
  • [Ability: Whirlwind]
    • Cooldown increased from 2s ➜ 6s (+200%)
    • Knockback vs mobs increased by 47%
    • Knockback vs players increased by 100%
    • Removed weakness effect after casting. 🡹
Developer Notes (Click to show)

The True Aether Blade was another controversial item when it came to its balance. Its AoE damage capability in dungeons far exceeded the True Aether Wand, and it found little to no use in PvP. We decided to make it a CC tool to help mages deter physical units by increasing the knockback power of Whirlwind. In addition, we increased Whirlwind's cooldown to reduce knockback spam in both PvE and PvP. ~Dummy

image.pngHellstone Blade

  • Damage increased from 13 ➜ 18 (+38%)
  • PvP power set to 67%. 13 ➜ 12 (-8%)

image.pngTrue Hellstone Blade

  • Damage increased from 17 ➜ 23 (+35%)
  • PvP power set to 65%. 17 ➜ 15 (-12%)

image.pngAether Axe

  • Damage increased from 13 ➜ 19 (+46%)
  • PvP power set to 66% 13 ➜ 12 (-7%)

image.pngAngelic Axe

  • Damage increased from 17 ➜ 21 (+24%)
  • PvP power set to 67% 17 ➜ 14 (-18%)

image.pngHellstone Axe

  • Damage increased from 15 ➜ 20 (+33%)
  • PvP power set to 68% 15 ➜ 13.5 (-10%)

image.pngVolcanic Edge

  • Damage increased from 18 ➜ 25 (+38%)
  • PvP power set to 66% 18 ➜ 16.5 (-8%)
  • [Ability: Magma Bomb]
    • Cooldown increased from 12s ➜ 15s (-25%)
Developer Notes (Click to show)

Magma Bomb deals a large amount of damage very reliably on a relatively short cooldown. Instead of targeting the high damage, we decided to increase the cooldown slightly to maintain the item as a good wave clearer in PvE and heavy poke tool and/or finisher in PvP. ~Dragon

image.pngReliquae Aurora

  • Temporarily removed AoE and Crit Chance. 🡻
  • This item is pending a full rework.

image.pngChaos Hammer

  • Damage increased from 19 ➜ 39 (+105%)
  • PvP power set to 43% 19 ➜ 17 (-11%)
  • [Ability: Explosive Pain]
    • Damage increased from 20 ➜ 60 (+300%)
    • PvP damage increased from 10 ➜ 20 (+100%)
    • Cooldown reduced from 8s ➜ 4s (+50%)
    • Added range limit to thrown blocks to reduce lag. 🡹
  • [Ability: Grand Slam]
    • Damage ceiling increased from 80 ➜ 120 (+50%)
    • PvP damage ceiling increased from 30 ➜ 40 (+33%)
Developer Notes (Click to show)

While Paragon Items remain as a source of uncertainty in the development process, we still want to ensure they are at least as viable as a Dragon Helmet. As such, this item is receiving various buffs to maintain a power level similar to a Tier IV item. ~Dragon

Ranged

image.pngAll Forge Bows

  • PvP power reduced from 50% ➜ 30% (-20%)
  • Arrow Velocity is now displayed in blocks per second instead of a multiplier.
  • Now fires custom projectiles that we have more control over.

Developer Notes (Click to show)

We found that bows were out damaging other weapon types with zero investment, so we tuned their damage to be more respective of uninvested weapon damage numbers of other damage types in preperation for future ways to invest in ranged/bow capabilities. ~Dummy

image.pngTrue Aether Bow

  • Can now continue charging to reduce arrow spread. 🡹
  • All three arrows can now damage the same enemy. 🡹
  • Damage reduced from 57x3 ➜ 49x3 (-14%)

Developer Notes (Click to show)

With the ability to deal shotgun levels of damage up close, and choke the spread for longer distance sniping, this is now a very formidible weapon. As a safety precaution, we are reducing the damage slightly and will be keeping a close eye on this weapon. ~Dragon

image.pngHellstone Bow

  • Arrow Velocity reduced from 80 ➜ 50 (-38%)
  • Explosion damage multiplier increased from 0.7x ➜ 0.75x (+7%)

image.pngMagma Bow

  • Arrow Velocity reduced from 80 ➜ 50 (-38%)
  • Explosion charge time reduced from 3.5s ➜ 2s (-43%)
  • Explosion damage multiplier reduced from 0.8x ➜ 0.75x (-6%)
  • An entity hit by an exploding arrow will now take damage from both the arrow and the explosion.
Developer Notes (Click to show)

After discussing feedback on the Magma Bow, we decided to heavily buff the charge speed for explosive arrows to make the bow feel quicker, more reliable, and much more fun to use. In addition, we reduced the arrow velocity of Hellforge bows to ensure that they are not strictly better than Aether bows. They both have their own benefits and drawbacks.

image.pngAll Forge Repeaters

  • Now have a new Arrow Spread stat.
    • Set to 2° on most repeaters for now.
  • Arrow Velocity is now displayed in blocks per second.

Developer Notes (Click to show)

Repeaters were dominating single target DPS with no investment, especially in PvE content. Their original purpose was to relieve strain of pulling back arrows while still having a bow type weapon, however they ended up being an infinitely better choice than regular bows. We are nerfing them in hopes of letting regular bows shine once more. ~Dummy

image.pngAether Repeater

  • Damage reduced from 24 ➜ 16 (-33%)
  • Arrow Velocity reduced from 40 ➜ 20 (-50%)

image.pngTrue Aether Repeater

  • Damage reduced from 33 ➜ 22 (-33%)
  • Arrow Velocity reduced by 60 ➜ 20 (-33%)

image.pngHellstone Repeater

  • Damage reduced from 38 ➜ 26 (-32%)
  • Arrow Velocity reduced from 60 ➜ 40 (-33%)
  • Explosion damage multiplier increased from 0.7x ➜ 0.75x (+7%)

image.pngMagma Repeater

  • Damage reduced from 48 ➜ 36 (-25%)
  • Arrow Velocity reduced from 80 ➜ 40 (-50%)
  • Explosion damage multiplier reduced from 0.8x ➜ 0.75x (-6%)

Magic

image.pngTrue Aether Wand

  • [Ability: Aether Barrage]
    • Cooldown reduced from 20s ➜ 12s (-40%)
    • Reduced the spread of barrage projectiles by 80%. 🡹
    • Barrage projectiles will ignore immunity frames, allowing all 7 shots to deal damage. 🡹
Developer Notes (Click to show)

The barrage ability of this weapon is often used as a finisher or as a high damage tool, but was found to be unreliable outside of point-blank range. We are tuning the spread and damage capability to make this ability more reliable in fast-paced PvP combat, and reducing the cooldown so mages have more opportunities to deal good burst damage to a tanky opponent, especially considering the new existence of instant consumables. ~Dragon

image.pngInfernal Wand

  • Updated item description to state that projectiles leave behind a lingering AoE for a short time.
  • Temporarily removed unfinished secondary ability.
    • Replaced with Hellstone Wand's secondary.
      • Cooldown of this ability is shared between the two wands.
  • Other players' AoE circles are now colored red to differentiate between your own AoE circles.
Developer Notes (Click to show)

This item has very strong crowd control potential in PvP. As such, we are keeping a close eye on this item and are working on finishing up the unfinished secondary ability we accidentally released. ~Dragon

image.pngAether Staff

  • Now has a party targeting option.
    • Enabling Party Healing will ensure projectiles only track and collide with party members.
    • Turning this off will allow you to track and heal anyone.
    • Toggle by looking directly down and pressing F (your swap hand keybind).
Developer Notes (Click to show)

This change was to allow healers to target party members that are closely fighting other players, without accidently healing non party members. Additionally, you can still heal players in the open world without needing to be in a party with them. ~Dummy

🧟 Dungeon Changes 🧟

Outpost

  • Warden Shield health reduced from 300 ➜ 250 (-17%)
  • Added forge potions to forest crate loot.

Ancient Digsite

  • Ancient Pharaoh now fires the "cursed sand" attack at the same time as the tornado to make the attack easier to predict.
  • Demonic Seal Shield health reduced from 500 ➜ 250 (-50%)
  • Hellfire Archdemon base health reduced from 8600 ➜ 6600 (-23%)
  • Added forge potions to desert crate loot.
  • Boss Loot Changes:
    • Now drops 2 rare items at base instead of 1.
      • Rare count is 2 + 1 for every 100% difficulty added. (3 at 200%, 4 at 300%, etc.)
    • Added Infernal Heart (Relic)
    • Added Infernal Ruby
    • Added Outpost Cooldown Reset
    • Removed Red, Green, and Blue Hellstone Focus Gems
    • Removed Mana Generator
    • Removed Mana Crystal
    • See updated loot table and weights here!
Developer Notes (Click to show)

The health reduction is to compensate for the Repeater nerf and to slightly reduce the duration of the boss fight at higher difficulties, as this dungeon already takes enough time to finish as it is. In addition, we have boosted the base rare drop count to account for this dungeon being of much higher difficulty than other dungeons. ~Dragon

🛠️ Forge Changes 🛠️

Dragon Communion Altar

  • Crafting a Dragonstone now also requires 10 Infernal Rubies. 0 ➜ 10

Essence Generator

  • Cloud Essence & Infernal Essence crafting time reduced from 30 min ➜ 15 min
  • Fast Aether Essence & Fast Nether Essence shard cost reduced from 25 ➜ 20

Aether Infuser

  • Removed shard dust smelting.
  • Aetherian Steel:
    • Smelting time reduced from 2 min ➜ 30 sec
  • Starlite Alloy:
    • Smelting time reduced from 5 min ➜ 2.5 min

Hellstone Furnace

  • Removed shard dust smelting.
  • Hellstone Ingot:
    • Replaced 10x Quartz with 10x Gold Ingot
    • Smelting time reduced from 2.5 min ➜ 40 sec
  • Arcane Netherite:
    • Replaced 1x Netherite Ingot with 1x Netherite Scrap
    • Reduced Obsidian, Nether Brick, and Blaze Powder requirements from 30 ➜ 10
    • Smelting time reduced from 10 min ➜ 5 min
Developer Notes (Click to show)

We made the difficult decision to remove the shard dust options for smelting dungeon ores, because we found that there was little reason to gather and spend vanilla materials anymore. ~Dragon

Hellstone Forge

  • Hellstone Pickaxe:
    • Reduced Magma Block requirement from 150 ➜ 75
  • Hellstone Shovel:
    • Reduced Magma Block requirement from 100 ➜ 50
  • Hellstone Bow:
    • Replaced 1x Bow with 30x String
  • Hellstone Helmet:
    • Removed 150x Blackstone from recipe.
  • Hellstone Chestplate:
    • Removed 200x Blackstone from recipe.
  • Hellstone Leggings:
    • Removed 175x Blackstone from recipe.
  • Hellstone Boots:
    • Removed 100x Blackstone from recipe.
  • True Hellstone Blade:
    • Reduced Infernal Essence requirement from 30 ➜ 2
  • Volcanic Edge:
    • Reduced Infernal Essence requirement from 25 ➜ 2
  • Magma Bow:
    • Reduced Infernal Essence requirement from 40 ➜ 4
  • Infernal Wand:
    • Reduced Infernal Essence requirement from 30 ➜ 3
    • Reduced Infernal Ruby requirement from 6 ➜ 5
    • Reduced Blackstone requirement from 150 ➜ 128
    • Reduced Crimson Stem requirement from 300 ➜ 128

Event Forge

All costs below are in Event Points, which can be obtained from server events, beta testing, and development work.

  • Undead Essence cost reduced from 60 ➜ 25
  • Fiery Essence cost reduced from 75 ➜ 25
  • Cloud Essence cost reduced from 175 ➜ 100
  • Infernal Essence cost reduced from 200 ➜ 100
  • Aether Essence cost reduced from 1000 ➜ 500
  • Nether Essence cost reduced from 1400 ➜ 500
  • Ancient Debris cost reduced from 100 ➜ 45
  • Dragon Breath cost reduced from 40 ➜ 10
  • Totem of Undying cost reduced from 100 ➜ 25
  • Budding Amethyst cost reduced from 2000 ➜ 1000
  • Dragon Shard Block cost reduced from 1000 ➜ 900

🦋 Quality of Life 🦋

  • Ender Chests can one again be mined without silk touch.
  • Improved magma bow charge animation to reduce visual clutter.
  • Reduced particle size of melee weapon slashes to reduce visual clutter.
  • Players in the forge now receive Fire Resistance to prevent hellforge lava from burning players.
  • All forge armor and spirit armor use a netherite base again, which makes the items themselves immune to lava.
  • You can now add armor trim to forge armor once again.
    • Note that trim will be lost if we make any stat changes to forge armor, so please keep copies of your trim templates!

🐛 Bug Fixes 🐛

  • [Major] Finally fixed a long-standing bug that caused wand & bow projectiles to collide with invisible armor stands/markers in dungeons.
  • Fixed true hellstone blade slash consuming mana even if you did not have enough, causing you to enter mana debt.
  • Fixed mob grinders not working while AFK.
  • Fixed forge armor and spirit armor playermodel textures.
    • Sadly animations are not yet supported.

⚠️ Known Issues ⚠️

  • Bow and Wand bullets were temporarily removed due to an alignment issue. (We added additional particles to keep them visible)
  • Repeaters temporarily no longer have a firing animation due to an issue with item data being overridden.
  • We temporarily disabled sneak to trade as it was interfering with forge abilities in pvp combat.
  • Custom biome colors in dungeons currently do not work and will appear as plains biome.

📆 What’s next? 📆

  • We are planning on launching server-wide quests soon that the whole server can contribute to!
  • We are also planning a server event that will affect the overworld in new ways!
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