Arena of Kings News

v1.3.0.0 Changes:
- Added Region support for EU-West. Players will have a choice on which region they would prefer to play. The system is smart enough to automatically attempt to place you on a lower ping server before assigning you to a less favorable region. Most players should have US-East and EU-West selected (assuming they are both playable for you) since your best region will be weighted more heavily automatically in the matchmaker.



- Ranked Season 1 has begun! Players will be able to team up to climb the ranked ladder on level **10+ Characters**! Your rating is tied to your character, not your account. Your ranking will be the foundation for Esports eligibility for most of the automated tournaments in Season 1. **Your first few ranked matches will swing your rating significantly while the system determines your proper rating.**



- The Ranked Ladder is now visible on the Esports tab. We'll be adding the Tournaments section later.



- Character Level is now hidden in Quick Play. Players were frequently dodging games based on Character Level. Instead of punishing that behavior we’re reshaping the mentality of the game mode. Quick Play is intended to be a fast casual mode that you can just hop on and get a match in. We want players to use this mode to level characters, experiment and learn new things, all while being friendly to new players.
- Removed the “dinging” sounds.
- Blackwood Vale arena no longer poisons when stepping in the water and no longer burns when touching the torches. This was disproportionately frustrating a lot of Assassin players due to Stealth interactions, as well as new players that had no idea that these areas were hazardous.
- Improved the quality of loot contained in Winner’s Satchels.

Balance Changes Assassin
- Bandage cooldown reduced from 8 to 6 seconds.
- Disappearing Act’s Empowered Stealth breaks on receiving 1000 damage.
- Stealth (non-empowered) now breaks on receiving 500 damage.

Champion
- Master of the Sword cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.
- Resounding Warcry cooldown reduced from 35 to 30 seconds.
- Safeguard cooldown reduced from 22 to 20 seconds.

Elder
- Remedy cooldown reduced from 15 to 12 seconds.
- Serenity duration increased from 10 to 12 seconds.
- Spirit Wolf movement speed increased from 35% to 40%.

Lich
- Abyssal Spike damage reduced by 5%.
- Exhaustion cooldown reduced from 12 to 10 seconds.
- Parasite life steal reduced from 2% to 1.75%.
- Terrify now breaks on 9% damage (up from 6%).
- Torment duration reduced from 11 to 10 seconds.
- Underworld Armor damage reduction reduced from 10% to 7%. Healing amplify reduced from 10% to 5%. Health regeneration reduced from 0.5% to 0.25%.

Mystic
- Fixed a bug that was causing Disenchant to remove more Effects than intended.

Nihilist
- Orb of Absolution now ticks when placed and ticks every 1 second.
- Lingering Demise damage reduced by 4%.

Paladin
- Purify healing increased by 30%.

Ranger
- Aether Shot cooldown reduced from 10 to 9 seconds.

Scholar
- Gospel of Harmony duration increased from 6 to 7 seconds.
- Life Burst instant healing increased by 3%.

Wizard
- Combust damage increased by 5%.
- Sheepify now breaks on 6% damage (up from 4%).
- Fixed the inaccurate Magic Missile tooltip regarding a critical strike bonus (we’ll revisit this in the future).

v1.1.2.0 Changes:
- Stuck in pillars: we've added unstuck protection and reduced the chance to get stuck in pillars/rocks.
- Added limited edition profile backgrounds to celebrate the new year!
- Changed the global chat channels to General, LFG, and Help.
- Channel messages do not display during a game anymore to reduce spam while playing.
- Increased the drop rate of Legendary Items during games.
- Internally we're preparing for EU servers soon.
- We're monitoring the health of the Party Finder tool and will make adjustments to speed it up when Season 1 begins (soon).
- Fixed several client crashes.
- Fixed several bugs with targeting and attacking Nihilist Orbs.
- Fixed a bug with Lich receiving Wisdom gear during games.





Balance Changes
- Stage 4 Sudden Death damage per tick is now the same as Stage 3 but now also reduces all healing by 30%. This change is targeted towards double healer compositions and edge-cases with two healers in overtime.

Assassin The Whirling build is pretty good - we want Annihilate to be a little better.
- Annihilate energy cost reduced from 50 to 45.
- Puncture damage increased by 3%.
- Slash damage increased by 3%.
- Temple Strike cooldown reduced from 14 to 13 seconds.

Champion Champion has been overperforming, we're bringing it down to a more fair level.
- Basic attack damage reduced by 3%.
- Slashing Strike bleeding duration reduced from 3 to 2 seconds.
- Enrage no longer provides damage reduction. Fixed a bug that was causing Enrage to give 5% more Power than intended.

Lich We know that Lich is overperforming at lower ratings - we'll continue to monitor it.

Nihilist Orb of Smoke was basically a permanent Gospel of Onslaught (but better) with permanent uptime. This ability was way overtuned.
- Gloom amplify reduced from 3% to 2% per stack.
- Infusing an Orb of Smoke now also temporarily increases Health by 750.
- Orb of Smoke power reduced from 82 to 35.

Ranger Ranger needed more raw numbers to compete with the other DPS classes.
- Elemental Arrow base damage increased by 2%.
- Rain of Arrows damage increased by 6%.
- Twisting Shot damage increased by 4%.

Wizard Less damage on Frostbolt - bringing back the Ice Spikes playstyle - making Magic Missiles core to Frost's gameplay.
- Frostbolt damage reduced by 4%. Reverted the Mana nerf from 220 back to 200.
- Ice Spikes: reverted to require Chill instead of Freeze. Hypothermia now always roots for 3 seconds and counts as a Chill effect. Cooldown increased from 16 to 18 seconds. Stun duration reduced from 1.8 to 1.7 seconds.
- Magic Missiles now deals 2x damage against Chilled targets. We'll be looking forward to hearing your feedback

v1.1.0.0 Fixes:
- Added Network improvements to better handle connectivity errors and abnormal disconnects. These common issues were keeping players “stuck” online at position 1 in the Login Queue. Your account will now be completely set Offline after 30 seconds, or when your current Game ends.
- Improved Network stability between Clients and the Login Server.
- There are now 3 connection retry attempts when assigned to a new Game.
- Fixed a bug that was causing Items to be purchased from the Vendor when right clicking Inventory/Stash Items despite the Vendor window not being open.
- Removed role restrictions for players that have been manually invited into premade groups.
- You can no longer change roles while in the Party Finder (technical reason to reduce errors).
- Fixed several client crashes.

Balance Changes:
- Added a 4th stage of Sudden Death: Increases all damage taken by 55% and deals 7.5% of maximum health every second to all Players.
- Healing Reduction effects are now capped at 30%.
- The range legality check for melee attacks used on Nihilist Orbs wasn’t working properly. This has now been fixed.
- Fixed a bug that was causing Fear to not break on damage received. Damage break threshold reduced from 9% to 6%.
- Fixed a bug with Elder’s not being able to exit Shapeshift: Bear while on low mana (also changed the red visual keybind indicator).
- Sheepify damage break threshold reduced from 8% to 4%.

Champion
- Crushing Blow Stun duration reduced from 2.2 to 2 seconds.
- Decapitate damage increased from 225% to 275%.
- Enrage no longer gives a 10% movement speed increase.
- Sprint duration reduced from 5 to 4 seconds.
- Whirlwind damage reduced by 4%.

Lich
- Blood of the Dying cooldown reduced from 90 to 60 seconds. Healing and restored reduced from 50% to 40%.
- Inflame damage per tick reduced by 2%.
- Miasma damage per tick reduced by 2%.
- Torment damage per tick reduced by 2%.

Nihilist
- Shadow Affinity mana cost reduced from 300 to 265.

Ranger
- Rain of Arrows has been retuned to provide more burst. Base damage increased significantly. Now it always critically hits. Cast time increased from 0.5 to 1 second. No longer applies Bleeding.

Scholar
- Transfer Life self heal value doubled (approximately 126 more healing).

Wizard
-Frostbolt damage reduced by 5%. Mana cost increased from 200 to 220.
-Hypothermia no longer applies a fading snare (this was buggy).
-Ice Spikes now requires the target to be Frozen instead of Chilled.

We're conducting emergency maintenance to fix several issues with the matchmaking system.

v1.0.9.0 Fixes:
- Fixed a longstanding bug that was causing the Party Finder to get "stuck".
- Fixed an issue with the Party Finder that was causing roles to be assigned that a player had not selected.
- Reduced the profanity filter sensitivity on new accounts.

We will continue to monitoring the queue times and other ongoing issues.

v1.0.8.0 Patch Notes:
- Based on community feedback, we’ve added Role Selection for the Party Finder system. This will have no effect on premade groups of 3. However, Players looking to fill their Party must select one or both roles (Damage/Healer) before pressing Ready. The resulting Party will contain assigned roles of 1 Healer and 2 Damage based on the roles they selected. The assigned roles are visible on the Player frames next to the Character’s name (see image below).
- Party Finder now matches players based on Character Level. The search ranges are Levels 1-9 and 10-20 respectively. We will adjust if necessary.
- Item Quality rates have slightly increased for Vendor and Loot Bag Items.
- /say Chat during a match is now functional. Hotkey Shift+Enter to quickly send a message to everyone in the game.
- Added an extended profanity filter to Account names.
- Added an extended profanity filter to Character names.
- Added feedback to the Character Creation screen for entering an invalid or already taken name.
- Lich will no longer find Wisdom items from Vendors and Loot Bags.