Table of Contents

Game

General

Engine

• Fixed realm create game queue panel in realm lobby
• Added visual response when not enough gold to buy something from vendor
• Fix for quickcast when aiming at objects
• Removed repair buttons from vendor screen
• Added mouse wheel input to go through pages in gamble filter
• Added a global avoid cap for players only, see the character section
• Implemented hover tooltips in the stat screen that explain how each stat works

Experience

• Experience can be earned after 150 in TSW. This allows competing in the realm leaderboards after max level is reached

Monsters

• Lament: reduced static lance projectile lag

Endgame Quests

The Dungeon Refresh Program

What?

• Breathe new life into the classic dungeon quests that have been a part of Median XL for many years

Why?

• It's beneficial to all players. Veterans get new challenges, new players will have a more polished experience and have more things to look forward to, everyone can develop their characters further -- We have a nice opportunity to provide extra content, interesting rewards, and make use of advanced engine features that were not available when these old quests were first crafted

How?

• Starting with the current patch, and every following patch until we celebrate the release of Median XL 3.0, we will refresh the oldest dungeon content
• These refreshes can take several forms: overhauling the mechanics and/or visuals of the quests, introducing more difficult (Uber) versions, adding trophies or challenges
• We will assess, and collect feedback on, each dungeon individually to determine the best course of action
• For patch 2.5 this means the introduction of the Uber Butcher and an overhaul of the Death Projector
• We hope you share our excitement for this project and will be on the journey with us to Median XL 3.0!

Nephalem Rifts

Kurast 3000 BA

• Skeleton Warriors: physical resist now 20%, up from 10%

Tran Athulua

• Amazon Defenders: physical resist now 50% (up from 10%)

Triune

• Monster level is now 130, required player level is 125
• Increased equipment drops and equipment quality
• Lucion: reduced health to avoid prolonging boss fight too much with level increase

Duncraig

• Necromorb: physical resist now 50% (down from 75%)

Fauztinville

• Necrobots: physical resist now 60% (down from 75%), block now 20% (down from 41%)
• Neon Fiends: physical resist now 20% (down from 40%), elemental resists now 60% (up from 35%)
• Unique Mystic Orb drop chance increased by 10x
• Black Road charm no longer requires a rune to cube a portal

Dimensional Labyrinth

• Regular enemies physical resist now scales from 15% on floor 1 to 30% on floor 9 (down from 40-45%)
• Regular enemies magic resist now scales from 10% on floor 1 to 20% on floor 9 (down from 30-35%)

Endgame Dungeons

Horror under Tristram

• Horror Under Tristram (Uber)
  • New dungeon quest, requires level 125
  • Quest instructions are found on freshly dropped Butcher's Teeth

Death Projector

• Increased health, removed untargetable mechanics
• The projector is now attended by four officers (mini bosses) with different skills, which pose different challenges to your character:
  • The Commander: summons ranged damage minions, has an AoE slap
  • The Architect: casts damaging spells of every element
  • The Befowler: warp strikes, buffs allies and debuffs enemies
  • The Bulwark: uses Earthquake, repairs the Projector
• For the projector to be vulnerable, you must lure at least 2 of these officers to it
• Choose the officers which are easiest to deal with for your build
• Fixed a bug where the projector was not considered a boss in-game

Legion of the Damned

• Reduced non-boss monster life by 20%, reduces DPS check / alleviates lag for lower damage builds
• Increased delay between attacks of Malevolent Spirits and Apparitions
• Replaced laggy Phantom spinner skill with fireballs
• Replaced Nightstalker's Frost Prince skill with Glacial Spike volley
• Manouruk uses his skills half as often but they have increased damage
• Increased delay between mini-boss skill usage
• Corruption bearers ground on death effect now pulses less often. Hits slightly harder

Mirror Temple

• Required Level: 120
• New class-specific locations in the Island of Skartara tombs
• Defeat the Nemesis of your class and earn exclusive rewards
  • Drops Mirror of Shadows, an upgrade for the class charm
  • Rewards the ability to craft a full set for 2 Arcane Crystals per piece
  • The set is a specific set of that class which will be fixed for the entire season
  • The sets will rotate every season
  • Sets available for Season 33 are: Vasily's Following, The Snake Pit, Spirits of the Nephalem, Last King of Scosglen, Celestial Orchard, Cinadide's Craft, and Zann Esu's Secrets
  • This feature is also available in Single Player

Ghosts of Old Bremmtown

• Necromancer reward is now 5% physical resist instead of 15% summoned minion resistances

Herald of the End

• Pain Worms no longer spawn randomly over time
• Instead there are 4 pre-spawned in the arena and their number is fixed, removed player collision
• Lockout timer reduced to 13 minutes

Heart of Darkness

• Blood of Creation: removed broken relic limit restriction
• Nithogur:
  • Made changes to prevent Desolation from triggering instantly upon re-entry if you died to this skill
  • Added reward relics for Barbarians and Necromancers
  • Moloch now spawns randomly around the arena instead of next to the boss
  • Their spawn timer is now more random instead of being completely fixed
  • Slowed down the projectiles and increased the damage of the Eradication (cold) skill

Characters

Main

• Avoid mechanics overhaul:
  • Avoid from all sources is now capped at 60%
  • Skills granting too much avoid have been reworked (see appropriate character sections)
  • Avoid penalties applied to players have been greatly reduced or removed:
  • Dimensional Labyrinth: floor 7+ avoid penalty is now 5%, down from 30%
  • Hell Baal: 30% avoid penalty has been removed
  • Bremmtown: 20% avoid penalty removed, replaced with -10% movement speed
  • Samael: avoid penalty is now 10%, down from 50%
  • Deimoss: avoid penalty is now 5%, down from 20%
  • Sescheron's Destroyer: Burn Nova avoid penalty is now 10%, down from 50%
  • Riftwalkers: avoid penalty removed from Lesser and Greater, reduced to 5% (down from 30%) on Ascended

Misc

• Fixed an issue where mercenary strength, dexterity and potentially other stats were not displayed properly

Amazon

Blood

• Eldritch Storm: damage reduced by 5%
• Magic Missiles: damage increased by 5%

Storm

• Askari Lightning: corrected description damage calculation

Bow

• Rearranged tree to be a bit cleaner.
  • Dragonlore is available at level 10
  • Decoy requires Dragonlore
  • Fire at Will is available at level 25
  • Phalanx is available at level 30, requires Fire at Will
  • Elemental Command requires Barrage
• Trinity Arrow: corrected description damage calculation
• Barrage: fixed a bug where some arrows had less damage than intended. The arrows that are not converted to an elemental damage type should now also have 90% WDM and add the flat damage as magic.
• Wyrmshot (and Rapid Wyrmshot):
  • Now randomly converts 25% of physical damage to fire, cold, or lightning
  • Base seek range increased by 1.66 yards (maximum range is still 18 yards)
• Keen Sight:
  • Max level is 8 instead of 12
  • Also gives a chance to critical strike with bows and crossbows (up to 20% at max level)
• Decoy:
  • Now has an 8 second cooldown, decreasing with base points down to 4 seconds
  • Now benefits from Specialization (to 2 second cooldown)
  • Reduced life gain per skill level to 15% (from 20%)

Assassin

Main

• Gets only 1% life per point into Endurance again, since the reduction of avoid penalties increases her survivability in endgame.

Ninja

• Perfect Being:
  • Maximum Skill Level is now 20, less points required to max
  • Now gives 36% + 1% per Base Level (Max 55%), down from 40% + 1% per Base Level

Psionic

• Shuriken Flurry:
  • Now deals ~66% of total damage as magic, up from ~52%
  • Total damage unchanged
• Cognition:
  • No longer gives bonus avoid to Perfect Being
  • 150 Cognition bonus is now 15% Magic Pierce
  • Points in Perfect being will now increase your Cognition bonus

Traps

• Artifice Mastery: Claw block chance now up to 35%, down from 45%
• Shockwave Trap:
  • Lightning bolt range reduced by 36%
  • Damage gain for skill levels 9-22 increased by ~1.8x
  • Damage gain for skill levels above 22 increased by ~3.2x
• Negative Charge: Maximum Skill Level is now 10, allowing for 14% extra lightning pierce

Throwing

• Lethal Incision: now reduces Scorpion Blade area of effect while active

Naginata

• Backstab:
  • Removed cooldown and immunity effect
  • Duration is now always 1 second
  • Now adds weapon physical damage: 100% + 20% per Base Level
  • Now hits 4 times per attack, up from once
  • Maximum Base Level is now 20
• Execution:
  • Now increases Backstab cooldown and duration by 10 seconds
  • Removes weapon physical damage bonus

Barbarian

Earthshaker

• Earthquake: removed annoying sound effects
• Tectonics:
  • Maximum Base Level is now 10, up from 5
  • Level 1 value is now 170% EWD per 1% proc chance, down from 200%

Windcarver

• Gale Force:
  • Weapon damage is now 70%, down from 80%
  • Now hits 3 times per attack, up from once
• Executioner:
  • Bonus damage increased by 57%, up to (50-60)
  • This damage now also scales with 10% of your total Strength
  • The above is multiplicative with the existing EWD scaling

Warmonger

• Snake Bite: damage increased by 10%
• Violence: Innate Elemental Damage synergy has been doubled
• Stampede:
  • Physical damage synergy now 20% per Base Level, up from 10%
  • Bonus physical damage now also scales with 20% of your Strength
  • Bonus magic damage from Gladiator's Dominance doubled
  • Weapon damage now 120%, up from 110%
• Honing:
  • Now increases Stampede weapon damage to 130%, up from 120%
  • Now increases Snake Stance damage by 40%, up from 25%
  • Clarified on tooltip that this is a poison damage specialization
  • Fixed Honing giving a small amount of poison damage to Stampede if Snake Stance was not active
• Gladiator's Dominance: magic damage bonus to Warmonger skills increased by 20%

Druid

Seer

• Ember Spirit:
  • Reduced hit count by 90%, damage has been increased by 11x to compensate
  • Change was made to reduce the power of the skill's interaction with Banish
  • It now deals more damage standalone and will lead to less enemy teleporting
  • Note: tooltip damage value is not comparable with 2.4

Hunter

• Cascade:
  • Fixed an oversight which prevented Cascade from scaling with weapon physical damage modifiers
  • In addition, weapon damage procs such as: "on Kill" and "on Striking" will now work with this skill
  • Changed tooltip tag to "projectile"
  • Removed Steady Shot interaction (will always deal full bonus damage)
  • Duration increased to 4 seconds, reduced graphical effects
  • Now has a 1.8 second cooldown
• Primal Bond: now 4% weapon physical damage per 1% minion resistance, max 800%

Werewolf

• Werewolf Form: now gives 2% avoid at Base Level 1, down from 7%
• Twisting Claw:
  • Small tornadoes no longer pierce
  • This change was made to prevent an interaction whereby standing just outside of melee range at certain angles could cause the skill to do 4-5x the intended damage per each use
  • Namelocking an enemy with this skill is unaffected by this change
  • Weapon damage now 180%, up from 172%

Reward

• Symbiosis: avoid now capped at 15%, down from 20%

Necromancer

Deathspeaker

• Death Pact:
  • Crossbow: now grants attack speed instead of fire pierce
• Death Ward:
  • Chance to avoid damage is now 1% at Base Level 1, down from 6%
• Famine:
  • Life leech is now 10% + 1% per base level, down from 10% + 2% per base level
  • Now gives 100 + 50 per base level maximum life

Crossbow

• Ignite:
  • Level cap of 20
  • Grants 5% + 1.5% fire pierce per base level up to 35%

Reward

• Graveyard:
  • Delay between punishers reduced by 20%
  • New synergy: +3% damage multiplier per Base Level

Paladin

Aspects

• Clarified summon number scaling on Servants of Valor and Conclave

Incarnation

• All the damage synergy tooltips now respect the maximum value
• Dragon Jaws:
  • Now hits twice per cast instead of once, damage halved
  • Mana synergy max bonus now 600%, down from 700%
  • Damage gain per skill level between levels 9 and 16 increased by 60%
  • Damage gain per skill level between levels 17 and 22 increased by 100%
  • Damage gain per skill level between levels 23 and 28 increased by 150%
  • Damage gain per skill level above level 28 increased by 100%
  • The goal of these changes is to make the early-mid game progression with the skill easier (before you can stack significant mana) while reducing the effect of the buff in the late endgame
• Dragon Breath:
  • Maximum Skill Level is now 8
  • Base Level synergy bonuses doubled
  • It now takes 7 less Base Levels to get the maximum effect
  • Now also reduces enemy lightning damage
• Solar Flare:
  • Duration no longer scales with Base Levels
  • Duration now fixed at 30 seconds (old Base Level 23 value)
  • Base levels now increase damage synergy with increasing returns (but linear with the mana bonus)
  • This allows you to get very high damage out of this skill early on if you specialize in it
  • Now has a cooldown that starts low and increases with character level up to 6 seconds
  • Greatly increased damage scaling after level 28
  • Added graphics for the damage effect
  • Maximum Skill Level is now 20, down from 25
• Annihilation:
  • Reduced area scaling from 90% for 0.6 yards to 110% for 0.6 yards
  • Max area is now 9 yards, down from 10
  • Updated tooltip to be clearer
  • Damage gain per skill level from levels 2-28 increased by 44%
  • Increased fire pierce gain per level significantly. Capped pierce now achieved at character level 110, down from 150
  • These change makes the skill better at single target throughout early to late game. This skill does not need as much area scaling

Sorceress

Melee

• Reorganized the skill placements in the tree to make it more obvious you are choosing between one of two damage source paths
• Fusillade:
  • Reworked cooldown formula: will now always have 2 seconds of downtime, regardless of skill level (note: higher skill levels will still increase uptime)
  • Change was made to promote Bladestorm as a single target filler and thematically separate the skill from Broadside
  • Weapon damage modifier now 175%, up from 110%
• Bladestorm:
  • Weapon damage now 70%, up from 60%
  • Greatly increased sword hitbox size for better area of effect
• Primordial Might:
  • Renamed from Paradigm Shift
  • Now requires Bladestorm instead of Mooncall
  • Added information to tooltip that this is the elemental damage specialization
  • Added melee only restriction to mirror Determination
  • Now requires level 40, to give players some time before they have to commit
• Determination:
  • Removed unnecessary elemental damage nullification
  • Added information to tooltip that this is the physical damage specialization
  • Now requires level 40
• Cold Blooded:
  • No longer reduces weapon physical damage and gives pierce based on Dexterity
  • Using Bladestorm while wielding a crystal sword will have a 40% chance to trigger a Glacial Volley on attack
  • NB: due to a technical limitation this skill will only work with crystal swords found in patch 2.5 and onwards
  • Glacial Volley:
  • Fires off three medium range piercing ice bolts
  • Deals damage equal to 140% of your total cold weapon damage
  • Converts your added lightning and fire weapon damage to cold
  • Checks hit chance similarly to other Melee Sorceress skills

Fire

• Pyroblast:
  • Reduced hit count by 89%, damage has been increased by 11x to compensate
  • Change was made to reduce the power of the skill's interaction with Banish
  • It now deals more damage standalone and will lead to less enemy teleporting
  • Note: tooltip damage value is not comparable with 2.4

Lightning

• Superposition: no longer restricts summoning

Reward

• Baneblade:
  • Removed 1% Base Block
  • Now adds 2% Innate Elemental Damage bonus per Base Level

Item Only Skills

• Weapon damage of Arrow, Bolt, Knife Throw, Javelin procs standardized to 100% (most were 50%).
• Lava Pit:
  • Fixed a bug that made you immobile if you triggered this skill while using Whirlwind
  • Due to a technical limitation it will only apply to freshly found items
• Guard Tower: now 100% weapon damage, down from 140%
  • In the Dimensional Labyrinth, this change is mostly compensated for by resist changes

Items

General Changes

• Non-class bows now get 13% weapon physical damage per 100 dexterity (up from 11%)
• Repeating Crossbow: rebalanced to shoot faster, but less damage
• Heavy Crossbow: increased damage
• Trebuchet: increased damage
• Balanced Axe:
  • Reduced throwing damage variance to make it more consistent
  • Sacred throwing damage increased by ~20%, Strength scaling is now 14% (up from 11%)
  • T2 - T4 throwing damage increased by ~33%
  • T1 throwing damage increased by 100%

Mastercrafted Items

• New type of base items with the following properties:
  • Always spawn rare with max sockets
  • Cannot use with Oil of Renewal
  • Have unique implicit modifiers
• These items can be crafted and are designed to be interesting options for builds as well as to promote farming less popular areas
• Currently only items of this type are the Maiden Bow and the Kukri, but more will be added in the future
• Maiden Bow:
  • Bow: 77-85 damage, 20 speed, 13% Dexterity scaling
  • Adds 2% EWD per 3% attack speed
  • Low chance to drop from Amazon Defenders in Hell Tran Athulua
• Kukri:
  • Dagger: 45-50 damage, 0 speed, 14% Dexterity scaling
  • Gives +1 Lightning Damage per 1% Total Physical Weapon Damage Bonus (includes bonus from dexterity)
  • Gives +1 Lightning Damage per 1% Bonus to Defense
  • Drops in storyline side areas on Hell difficulty

Item Affixes

• Resist affixes on armor, shields, and weapons can now also grant max resists
  • 50-60% resist rolls on body armor, staff, bow, scepter, and amazon spears always give +1% max res of the same type
  • 35-40% resist rolls on other weapons, armor, and shields gives (0-1)% max res of the same type
• Arrow quivers no longer roll + to Necromancer Skills
• Quivers no longer roll + to Mana
• Quivers can now roll up to 20% Magic Find
• Quivers can roll +1 life on striking or rarely +2
• Rings can roll +1 life on striking or rarely +1 mana on striking

Mystic Orbs

• All Unique Mystic Orbs are now limited to 2 per item from 5
• Solitude:
  • Now gives 1 Life on Striking instead of Life Spark proc
  • Reduced to 2% strength
• Ten Pin Striker: added 5% strength
• Zayl's Soul Orb:
  • Moved to armor only
  • Increased energy bonus to 2%
  • Reduced mana from 150 to 100
• Farnham's Lost Marble:
  • Moved to jewelry only
  • Reduced move speed penalty from 4% to 2%
• Vizjun's Ball Bearing: increased dexterity to 25
• Eye of Malic: no longer drops
• Eye of the Storm: new weapon UMO
  • +5% lightning spell damage
  • +12 energy
  • 1% ctc level 50 Supernova on melee attack
• Crystal of Tears:
  • Reduced level requirement from +20 to +10
  • Reduced damage from 5-8 to 3-6
• Warbringer:
  • Increased proc chance to 3%
  • Reduced maximum damage slightly and added minimum damage
• Moon Crystal:
  • Increased regenerate mana stat slightly
• New Unique Mystic Orb: Invisible (Armor)
  • 1% Chance to Avoid Damage
  • 12% Faster Hit Recovery
  • 12% Faster Block Recovery
  • Limit: 1

Occult Effigies

• Arcane Hunger: can now be used with runewords once more

Tiered Uniques

• Locust Hive: reworked
  • 4% ctc arrow on striking
  • adds (2-3) to (8-10) magic damage
  • +1 life on striking
• Plague Gland: reworked
  • adds 2 to 4 physical damage
  • +(50-200) attack rating
  • 15% attack speed
  • 25 life regenerated per second
• Herr Donner: magic find rolls are now positive
• Shadow Vortex: replaced curse length reduction with 50% Weapon Physical Damage bonus

Sacred Uniques

• Etrayu: proc chance increased to 33%, max damage rolls up to 300 (was 25%, 250)
• Gjallarhorn: flat damage increased to 50-125 (was 40-100)
• Stormstrike: now rolls 5-20% innate elemental damage instead of 5-20% lightning pierce
• Fleshstinger: added an extra 100% damage to demons
• Hellreach: flat damage increased to 50 (was 0 min, 50 max), now has 250-500 flat life
• Windforce: max damage per character level increased to 3.75 (was 2.5)
• Chasmstriker: now rolls up to 175 max damage, 200 strength, 200 dexterity (was 150, 150, 150)
• Nymyr's Shadow: now grants +4 to Necromancer skills
• Dacana's Fist: minimum magic find roll is now 0
• Eye of the Storm (Viper Bow): renamed to Storm Arc
• Dark Pact: now also grants 5% maximum avoid (new stat)
• Auriel's Robe: removed buggy Wolf Stance. Now gives 50% movement speed and 100% Enhanced Weapon Damage. Defense roll is now (140-200)%

New Sacred Uniques

• Breath of Fire: new Stinger Crossbow
• Athulua's Blessing: new Amazon-only Heavy Gloves

Sets

• Achilio's Wake: full set bonus now grants 50% to strength
• Curse of the Zakarum:
  • Removed the Wolf Stance aura on the 3 piece bonus, due to it constantly glitching with other items
  • 3 piece bonus now just gives the straight basic stats as the aura would
  • Namely: 70% Attack Speed and Hit Recovery, 40% Movement Speed, 10% Crushing Blow, 20% EWD

Runewords

• Mirage:
  • Bonus damage from deadly strike now caps when deadly strike caps (100%)
  • Bonus damage per deadly strike reduced from 140 to 95 (this change is a ~10% nerf in the Dimensional Labyrinth)
  • Maximum block bonus reduced from 25% to 10%
• Maenad: new amazon helmet runeword (Shaen Loz Yst)
  • Ecstatic Frenzy: +300% Total Damage
  • Fire, Cold, and Lightning Pierce Reduced by 100
  • +3-4 to All Skills
  • +40-45% Cast Speed
  • +25-30% Move Speed
  • Adds 20-30 Damage
  • Maximum Elemental Resists +1%
• Black Cat: removed negative magic find
• Talon: new barbarian sword runeword (Nef)
  • Area Effect Attack
  • 20% Attack Speed
  • +24-35% Enhanced Damage
  • +4 Minimum Damage
  • +6-10 Dexterity

Relics

• Fusillade:
  • No longer reduces the skill cooldown
  • Dexterity bonus now 10%, up from 6%