Combat Beta : Next Step
Our combat beta has been in full swing since November and over that time we have been polishing and refining changes to the systems with your feedback at the heart of it!
We are drawing close to a release into the live game and for this final stretch we really want to get the feel just right and that is where today's update and you the players jump in.
Is this Beta different than the previous ones?
This beta patch is being pitched as a release candidate! Now I say pitched, if something goes wrong and we need to return to the drawing board we will and this will need to cook a little while longer but the aim of this patch would be to refine the systems and clear up any standout issues.
What this means is that it is paramount that we get players of all playstyles and skill levels trying it out to get the feel just right, when this launches into the live game we want there to be minimal interruption to the average play session outside of improvements and so we ask that everyone who can, jump into the beta and try out some of your usual combat activities.
If you're a pvm god and smash your way through bosses, or just want to get your daily combat challenge done, try out your usual combat scenarios and let us hear from you on how they play and feel with these changes under your belt!
How to access the beta
Ready to give the Beta a try? Here’s how:
- Jagex Launcher
- Click this link.
- Click this link.
- The link will load the Jagex launcher then start loading the Beta, logging you in automatically.
On first login, your live save is imported into the Beta. You can re-import your save into the Beta once per hour.
How do I give feedback?
With the aim of this patch being refinement before launch we are asking people to focus their feedback on how the systems feel compared to currently on live, there will be plenty of time in future for bigger picture ideas but right now we want to set a solid foundation for the other styles like Necromancy currently has. Are your slayer tasks taking longer then normal? Are bosses flowing differently? How do you feel about the visual information you are getting from your tooltips and buffs etc
Once you have played around with the changes for a bit and have some feedback you want to share please do so via the following:
If you are talking about the changes in other places like streams, twitter etc we will endeavour to hear from you all but using the above channels will be the easiest place to have your voice heard!
What is changing/patch notes
There have been a lot of changes across different systems so we have broken it down into 3 sections. Several of these changes have already been communicated during the previous beta patches but we wanted to give a more concise list here.
Core
The primary focus of this update. These changes impact all styles and will be felt across various aspects of combat, familiarize yourself with them so we can hear how they feel to you.
Style specific
Changes to the different styles specifically, will include changes to how abilities function. Try them out with their specific styles and let us know how they feel.
Miscellaneous
Changes to other systems such as weapons and abilities from other sources, may be relevant to individual styles but on a case-by-case basis.
Click on the titles below to switch between them.
Audio Narration
If that's too many notes for you to read why not give them a listen as Mod Doom gives a rundown of several of the changes listed below!
Damage Potential
"The current 'roll to hit' nature of combat is quite dated and can be frustrating at times if you're relying on an ability, only for it to miss. As part of the Necromancy skill we trialed a replacement which made your output more consistent and predictable which we are now rolling out to all other combat styles."
Changes
- Replaced the 'roll to hit' system with the 'damage potential' system for Melee, Ranged and Magic combat against NPCs.
- Removed a number of hidden buffs that increase your hit chance when using special attacks or ultimate abilities as they were band aids in the previous system.
- Auto-attack damage range: 0-100% → 20%-100%
- Note: Previously you could 'roll to hit' but then roll 0 for your damage, however in the new system you should always be hitting, therefore the damage range and average has been brought up to reflect this.
Example: If your hit chance against a monster is 70%, you will hit for 70% of your damage potential instead of having a 70% chance to hit (i.e. 1,000 damage becomes 700 instead of either 1,000 or 0 based on whether you hit or not)
Critical Strikes
"The current 'critical strike' system in combat is quite dated and hard to understand. The chance to perform a critical strike is different for each ability as the formula relies on the values within the damage range. As part of the Necromancy skill we trialed a replacement which made the calculation much simpler to understand and included more impactful result when critically striking which we are now rolling out to all other combat styles."
Changes
- Modernised the 'critical strike' system for Melee, Ranged and Magic.
- Critical Strike Chance: 10% - further increased with item and perk effects.
- Critical Strike Damage: 20% - further increased with skill levels (i.e. Strength, Ranged and Magic)
- Note: 20% effective in PvP (e.g. 50% Critical Strike Damage is reduced to 10%)
Example: If your attack is to deal 1,000 damage, you have a 10% chance to perform a critical strike which will increase that attack by 20% resulting in 1,200 damage.
Damage Hit Cap
"The damage cap is the maximum amount of damage you can deal in a single hit and any damage above this amount is essentially lost. As a result, multi-hitting abilities would perform far better than single-hitting abilities of the same total value, because they were less likely to hit the cap as the damage was spread across the hits.
This was weighing melee down in particular as there are a number of powerful buffs that when combined would increase the damage of a single attack, however this often resulted in scenarios where it wasn't beneficial to stack these buffs together because the damage would exceed the hit cap. As part of the Necromancy skill we trialed an increase which we are now rolling out to all other combat styles."
Changes
- Damage cap: 10,000 → 30,000
- Removed and/or replaced a number of increased hit cap effects from items as they were no longer relevant.
Damage Ranges
"Ability damage ranges are very wide in the live game (typically 20% fixed damage, 80% variable damage) which meant that with the new critical strike system, you could roll low in the damage range but critically strike, and do less damage than if it had just rolled high in the previous systems. This leads to incredibly high variance, based on whether your critical strike luck lined up with your damage rolls. We've narrowed these ranges to be closer to which results in more consistent gameplay which also plays nicer with the critical strike system."
Changes
- Narrowed the damage range for Melee, Ranged, and Magic abilities.
- Note: The average damage of several abilities has changed slightly to use more digestible numbers (e.g. 112% average damage → 115%)
Example: A 20%-100% ability would have an average of 60% with a 40% range either side. This ability is now 55%-65% maintaining the same average but with far less variance.
Tooltips
"Tooltips have always been a bit of a pain for both players and developers; it was easy to change a value for an ability and not update the tooltip or how it interacts with different modifiers. As part of the Necromancy skill we wrote parts of the ability system from the ground up which now allow us to iterate on abilities faster and have those changes be accurately represented immediately in the game which we are now rolling out to all other combat styles."
Changes
- Updated tooltips for all Melee, Ranged, Magic and Constitution abilities.
- Inclusion of relevant iconography and keywords.
- Adrenaline consumption is visible on Threshold abilities.
- Actual damage values are visible when equipped with appropriate weaponry.
- Defined stricter guidelines for tooltip consistency going forward.
Hitsplats
"In the current era of RuneScape combat, combat produces a lot of hitsplats. This system is handled by the engine so numerous changes require engine support, however we've modified a few things that are in our control to try and improve the visuals."
Changes
- Hitsplat fade delay: 70 (1.4s) -> 60 (1.2s) client cycles.
- Note: This lines up with the server cycle so that hitsplats sent to the client should appear as expected, allowing newer hitsplats to always replace older hitsplats if all slots are full.
Channeled Abilities
"Channeled abilities were hard to track as they were hidden among the buff bar and it wasn't clear when it was active or for how long. They also work differently from regular abilities in that you must be within attack range to cast them. We've made several changes that improve this as well as support better and more unique channeled behaviour going forward."
Changes
- Added a 'Channel bar' component to the top-level interface that is now displayed when using a channeled ability.
- Removed channeled ability presence from the buff bar.
- Channeled abilities cast out of range will now cause the player to run into range and cast as expected.
- Fixed a number of issues with revolution being slow to act after finishing a channeled ability.
Action bar Improvements
"Modernising the actionbar is an iterative process so we're making a few smaller improvements that should increase general readability."
Changes
- Action bar slots will now highlight briefly with a gold outline when interacted with.
- Action bar slots with abilities will now show the cooldown in text form for the ability cooldown in the centre of the slot.
- Note: This feature has been enabled by default but can be toggled on/off via: Settings → Combat & Action Bar → Action Bar
- Global cooldown will no longer display the ability cooldown in text form to remove visual clutter.
- Removed the white flash that occurs at the end of the global cooldown rotation graphic
- In the future, we would like to add something subtle. But for now, this is to keep flashing relevant to the specifics of abilities as opposed to having your entire action bar light up.
- Action bar slots that have no relation to the global cooldown will no longer display it unnecessarily (e.g. 'Teleport War's Retreat').
- Action bar slots will no longer flash unnecessarily when swapping weapons after having been used in the current play session.
- Reduced the size of key bind information as it was taking up a large amount of real estate when only contextually relevant.
- Shortened modifier keys (e.g. Alt-C → a-C)
- Alt → a
- Ctrl → c
- Shift → s
Damage Clarity
"Some abilities generate their damage based on previous hits. For example, Snapshot's second hit is determined by the damage of the first hit. Abilities like this can have unintended consequences, such as scaling additional effects oddly (a good example is Snapshot's second hit scaling up a ruby bolt's damage). To make combat easier to understand we're moving towards unlinking these abilities so the damage rolls independently."
- Removed all linked damage rolls such as 'Snapshot', 'Greater Ricochet' & 'Snipe' (with Enchanted Nightmare Gauntlets)
"Abilities do additional fixed amounts of damage if your combat stats are boosted above their base level. This is a triple problem: It leads to multi-hit abilities always being a priority over an equally balanced single-hit ability. It means boosting a stat essentially boosts your damage twice (once at the core making you deal the same damage of the level you've boosted to, and once by giving a fixed amount of damage). And, it means a player with 80 magic boosting to 90 magic would out-damage a player with 90 magic that isn't boosting. To reduce the sense of the player feeling weaker from the removal of this, we've adjusted most of the ability damage ranges in the game. "
- Removed damage per level granted by boosting Melee (Strength), Ranged and Magic stats
- Note: Potions will still boost accuracy and damage, however it won't be done via two different systems.
- Rebalanced damage ranges to account for the loss of DPL (damage per level)
"In live, some abilities have a heightened chance to roll their minimum hit, making them overly confusing as their displayed damage ranges can't be used to figure out their average damage. A good example is 'Dismember', using its tooltip you would assume its average damage is around 144% ability damage, however, it is, in fact, closer to 120% ability damage due to its increased chance to roll low. To simplify these abilities we're removing this skewed rolling, so the tooltips are a more accurate representation of the ability (Note: This is a buff)."
- Removed skewed damage rolling from all abilities, such as 'Dismember', 'Fragmentation shot' and 'Combust'
- Note: The average damage of these abilities will now be higher than before.
Melee
Systems
"We have learned a lot from the introduction of Necromancy and want to use systems created for it to improve combat quality and clarity. Melee has been updated to use the foundational system that Necromancy is built on as a first step to moving towards modernised combat systems."
Changes
- Abilities now respect the true center of NPCs. (e.g. Using an attack that hits the target and enemies around the target within 1 tile will correctly hunt in a 5x5 area if the NPC is size 3x3)
- Reworked ability priorities to reduce/remove the idea of 'hidden' attacks where mechanics were not correctly synced up with their animations.
- Modified various hit timings to better match the visuals.
- Rewrote all melee abilities to be easier to adjust and work with.
- Note: This is a buff to development and allows faster, more efficient changes going forward
- Channeled abilities now allow movement while remaining within attack range of the target.
Updated Damage Ranges
"Several abilities' damage ranges have been updated, this will help offset lost power due to the removal of DPL (damage per level)."
Changes
- Slice: AVG 95% → 105%
- Punish: AVG 75% → 85%
- Sever: AVG 112.8% → 120%
- Barge/Greater Barge: 75% → 85%
- Havoc: 94.2% → 105%
- Fury: 147.6% → 180%
- Greater Fury: 94.2% → 105%
- Decimate 111.8% → 120%
- Bladed Dive: 75% → 85%
- Kick/Backhand: 60% → 70%
- Cleave: 112.8% → 120%
- Chaos Roar: 75% → 95%
- Flurry: 225.6% → 260%
- Greater Flurry: 376.8% → 440%
- Assault: 525.6% → 560%
- Destroy: 451.2% → 520%
- Frenzy 610% → 730%
- Hurricane: 265% → 285%
- Stomp/Forceful Backhand: 120% → 130%
- Quake: 131.4% → 145%
Melee Special Attacks
"We've modernized and narrowed the damage ranges for all special attacks, there are also some minor tweaks to costs, damage, and in some cases effects of different special attacks. We don't consider special attacks 'complete' but this gets them into a good enough state to allow us to easily work with them more in the future"
Changes
- Special attacks now display their cooldowns and target type in their tooltips.
- Updated/rewrote and narrowed the damage ranges of the most special attacks in the game.
Noteworthy Mentions:
- Noxious Weaponry - Mirrorback
- Spiders HP increased to 10k
- Now reduces incoming damage even if there's not a target to reflect at.
- Dragon Battleaxe - Rampage
- Moved the damage buff over to a multiplicative bonus (was additive)
- Added necromancy into the stat reduction effect
- Removed a hidden debuff that increased NPCs / other players' chance to hit you under the spec, stacking with the existing defense debuff
- Dragon Longsword - Draconic Cleave
- "Upped average damage slightly to account for the loss of the hit cap raising effect"
- AVG 250% → 270%
- Armadyl Godsword - Armadyl's Judgement
- "Upped damage to be more in line with Dragon Claws"
- AVG Damage 235% → 400%
- Bandos Godsword - Warstrike
- "Simplified the stat draining effect as it was hard to determine its value"
- Now reduces ALL the targets' stats by 5% instead of 1 stat at a time and scaling with damage dealt
- Removed a secondary modifier that was being applied as a 'curse drain'
- Saradomin Sword - Saradomin's Lightning
- Both hits are now magic damage
- AVG Damage 105% → 270% per hit
- Vesta's Spear - Spear Wall
- Now reduces incoming damage even if there's not a target to reflect at
- AVG Damage 45% → 100%
- Keenblade - Aimed Strike
- Special renamed from Critical Strike to reduce confusion with the Critical Strike mechanic.
- AVG damage 130% → 140%
- Hitchance bonus 25% → 20%
- Adrenaline 75% → 35%
- Korasi Sword - Disrupt
- Dominion Tower / Quest version updated to pull data from the reward version.
- Added walk merge to the special attack animation (attack will no longer stall the players' movements)
- Darklight - Weaken
- Stat reduction changed from 1 level + 5% of levels → 6% reductions
- Barrelchest Anchor - Sunder
- "Ability was too random, whilst random CAN be good, this one was just a bit too whacky for players to get their heads around"
- Randomness has been removed → Now always applies the +4 base hit chance increase and reduces the targets' damage dealt
- Brackish Blade / Brine Sabre - Liquefy
- Now both weapons share the Liquefy ability instead of having different, but very similar attacks.
- No longer has an underwater restriction
- Stat boost is no longer based on damage dealt (It was almost always hitting the internal cap) → Now just boosts stats by 3 flat levels + 10%
- Abyssal Vine Whip - Vine Call
- "The vine whip was quite buggy and had no real niche, we're trying a small rework to the special to let it fit more in the realm of poison builds"
- Complete rewrite of the special
- Vine now deals poison damage over time effect
- Vine no longer does AOE damage
- Vine no longer extends the player's range
- AVG Damage 110% initial
- AVG Damage DoT 25% (10 hits)
Dive / Bladed Dive
Changes
- Weaponry is no longer hidden during the dive animation.
Greater Fury
"Greater Fury's Critical Strike effect could be considered overly complicated and low value in rotations, so we've given it a new lease of life."
Changes
- Critical Strike Chance: 10% on next ability → 100% on next melee ability.
Assault & Fury
Changes
- Updated the animations to better match the ability and hit timings.
Blood Tendrils
"Blood Tendrils was just a little outdated with how it functioned, we gave it a little bit of a facelift whilst rewriting it. In particular, it would get confused if the player was using a Spear of Annihilation, placing little hits before the big initial hit."
Changes
- Cleaned up how self-damage was calculated.
- Hits added through the Spear of Annihilation now get appended to the end of the ability, instead of placing them in front of the double damage initial hit.
Greater Barge / Barge
"Greater Barge has a lot of 'niche' side effects, which is often the cause of confusion for developers and players alike. We're trying to clean it up slightly to make it less of a pain. In particular, it would change the attack timings of channeled abilities that were changed to damage over time through its effect, making the timings feel slightly off."
Changes
- Greater barge no longer forces channeled abilities to attack every four cycles and instead uses the same rate the ability would naturally do.
- Now uses the correct barge animation rather than the kick animation.
Berserk
"Berserk was calculated differently to other damage-boosting ultimate abilities such as Death's Swiftness and Sunshine, so we've moved it over."
Changes
- Updated to be a multiplicative modifier as opposed to an additive modifier.
- Note: This is a buff
Flurry
"Flurry did reduced damage in AoE scenarios, resulting in clunky gameplay where you' would occasionally be trying to move back into a single target to get your full damage. As flurry is less used than other abilities we're simply just removing the reduced damage."
Changes
- Deals full damage in both single-target and multi-target scenarios.
Shard/Sliver of Leng
"The Leng swords needed a new effect given their old special attack doesn't work post-combat beta, we're using time set aside for them to give them a full overhaul, as collectively we don't think the old passive effects offered much in the way of gameplay or stylization and ultimately was going to result in Lengs becoming a switch just for hurricane if higher tiered weapons released."
Changes
- Removed the old special attack, set effect, and passive effect of the Leng swords (both Tier 85 & 95)
- Added new main-hand passives
- Frost (T85)
- Attacks have a 12% chance to apply a primordial ice stack with each hit. Whenever you apply a primordial ice stack gain 3% adrenaline.
- Endless Frost (T95)
- Attacks have a 17% chance to apply a primordial ice stack with each hit. Whenever you apply a primordial ice stack gain 5% adrenaline.
- Added new offhand passives
- Chill (T85)
- Attacks have a 3% chance to apply a primordial ice stack with each hit. Whenever you apply a primordial ice stack gain “Frostblades” for 6s
- Frostblades: Attacks deal an additional 12% of your ability damage stat on-hit.
- Boundless Chill (T95)
- Attacks have a 5% chance to apply a primordial ice stack with each hit. Whenever you apply a primordial ice stack gain “Frostblades” for 9s
- Frostblades: Attacks deal an additional 12% of your ability damage stat on-hit.
- Reworked 'Icy Tempest'
- 30% adrenaline cost
- Hits Primary target for AVG 100% damage
- Hits AOE on all targets around the player for AVG 155% damage
- Consumes all primordial ice stacks on enemies hit.
- Deals an additional 20% damage to enemies for each primordial stack on them.
- 15s Cooldown.
Ranged
Updated Damage Ranges
"Several abilities' damage ranges have been updated, this will help offset lost power due to the removal of DPL (damage per level)."
Changes
- Piercing Shot: 90% → 100%
- Snipe: 172% → 185%
- Ricochet: 60% → 70%
- Greater Ricochet (additional single target hits): 30% → 35% / 10% → 12.5%
- Demoralise/Binding shot: 60% → 70%
- Dazing Shot: 94.2% → 105%
- Needle Strike: 94.2% → 105%
- Snapshot: 265% → 285%
- Tight bindings/Rout: 120% → 130%
- Rapidfire: 451.2% → 560%
- Bombardment: 131% → 141%
- Unload: 610% → 680%
- Deadshot (initial hit): 112.8% → 120%
- Salt the wound: 112.8% → 120%
Ranged Special Attacks
"We've modernized and narrowed the damage ranges for all special attacks, there are also some minor tweaks to costs, damage, and in some cases effects of different special attacks. We don't consider special attacks 'complete' but this gets them into a good enough state to allow us to easily work with them more in the future"
Changes
- Special attacks now display their cooldowns and target type in their tooltips.
- Updated/rewrote and narrowed the damage ranges of the most special attacks in the game.
Noteworthy Mentions:
- Magic Shortbow - Twin Fang
- Special renamed from Snapshot to reduce confusion with the Snapshot ability
- Adrenaline 55% → 50%
- Magic Shieldbow - Powershot
- Hitchance bonus 20% → 40%
- Guthix bow - Balanced Shot
- Adrenaline 55% → 35%
- AVG damage 90% → 180%
- Heal: 100% of Damage over 60s → 60% of damage over 15s
- Heal cap of 400 removed
- Saradomin Bow - Restorative Shot
- Adrenaline 55% → 30%
- Average Damage 60% → 140%
- Heal: 200% of damage over 60s → 100% of damage over 15s
- Heal cap of 400 removed
- Zamorak Bow - Destructive Shot
- Adrenaline 55% → 40%
- Average Damage per hit 60% → 170%
- Zanik's Crossbow - Defiance
- Adrenaline 50% → 40%
- Average Damage 110% → 250%
- Simplified PvP bonus damage: Varying damage increase based on which prayers are active → Flat 10% bonus damage for each prayer active
- Hand Cannon - Aimed Shot
- Adrenaline 50% → 35%
- Average Damage 115% → 330%
- Eldritch Crossbow - Split Soul
- Players soul split icon will now visually change to a split soul icon whilst the effect is active
- Added an audio queue when split soul ends
- Quickbow - Twinshot
- Adrenaline 75% → 35%
- Average damage 65% → 60%
- Hitchance increase 25% → 50%
- Seercull Bow - Soulshot
- Adrenaline 60% → 50%
- AVG Damage 60% → 110%
- Damage now increases based on how high the target's current magic level is (2% per magic level)
- Now drains a flat 5% of the target's magic level instead of scaling with damage dealt.
- Decimation - Locate
- Adrenaline 50% → 35%
- Morrigan's Javelin - Phantom Strike
- Applies in PvM
- AVG Damage 72% → 130%
- DoT portion has been modernized
- AVG Damage 35% per hit
- 5 Hits
- Morrigan's Thrownaxe - Hamstring
- No longer drains run energy
- Now prevents the target from using movement abilities for a short duration
- AVG Damage 72% → 160%
- Strykebow - Deep burn / Dark burn
- Removed damage thresholds where values would change → Now stores flat 50% of damage taken
- Simplified damage storage
- Special Now has an initial hit: AVG damage 195%
- DoT damage now occurs every 1.2s instead of every 0.6s for visual noise
- Now releases 12.5% of the damage stored per hit. (was 2.5%)
Bow of the Last Guardian - Balance by Force/Perfect Equilibrium
"Critical Strike changes and narrowing the damage ranges of abilities has pushed the 'BotLG' to Zanaris and beyond; because it stored damage after critical strikes were rolled, and it could then also critically strike, resulting in compounding power. We've brought it down slightly and redistributed its power to make up for the excessive strength it's gained, the hope is getting its power a little closer to the live game."
Changes
- Stored damage AVG 42.5% → 35%
- Base damage AVG 11% → 12%
- Perfect Equilibrium now stores damage before critical strikes roll
- This means you no longer double up on power if the attack that triggers 'PE' rolls a crit.
- Increased buff bar priority so it falls closer to the front of the bar
- Buff is no longer hidden at 0 stacks to prevent it from 'flickering'
- Buff is hidden when the bow is unequipped
- Buff is no longer redrawn when the player activates the special, preventing it from shifting position
- The buff icon now changes when the player's next hit triggers the passive
- Special attack duration is now shown on a separate buff icon
Greater Dazing Shot
"A couple of effects that happen 'on next attack/ability' are misleading and this ability was one of those. The hit chance debuff was only active on the target for a short duration of time with the assumption that they would attack it before it expired. We've felt that a debuff like this on the target could be improved - so, that's what we did!"
Changes
- Hit Chance Debuff: Now active for the full 4.2s and is not cleared on-attack
- E.g. Any attack from the target within that duration will have its hit chance reduced
- The hit chance debuff is now reapplied when the ability is used as previously it wouldn't which meant it could time out
- E.g. Player 1 applies the debuff, then Player 2 uses the ability after 3.6s at which point it wouldn't apply the debuff as it was still active on the target for another 0.6s (it now reapplies)
Shadow Tendrils
"A while back, smoke tendrils had a little quirk that forced it to critically strike and we built that into the abilities identity. In the live game, shadow tendrils has the same quirk if the player is using certain buffs, so we're cementing it into the abilities identity. We're also removing some of the unnecessary variance that the ability had with the randomness in hits."
Changes
- Shadow tendrils is now guaranteed to critically strike
- Hit count: 2-5 → 5
Ruby Bolts - Blood Forfeit
"With the Critical Strike changes and increased damage cap, ruby bolts were overperforming. We have redesigned them to reduce both damage and complexity; meaning it will no longer reduce your damage in certain situations, it's no longer hard to figure out its chance to proc, and it no longer has a hidden cooldown."
Changes
- Deals 20% of the target's current health (capped at 10,000/12,000) → Increases the damage of the attack by 50% AD (ability damage)
- E.g. If an ability has a damage range of 30%-40%, if a ruby bolt procs it will instead be treated as a 80%-90% ability
- 6s cooldown → 0s cooldown
- Deals 10% of your life points as recoil damage → Deals 5% of your life points as recoil damage
- 5% proc chance, reduced by 1% for each 1m HP your target has → 5% proc chance
Magic
Updated Damage Ranges
"Several abilities' damage ranges have been updated, this will help offset lost power due to the removal of DPL (damage per level)."
Changes
- Wrack: 90% → 100%
- Wrack and Ruin: 180% → 200%
- Dragonbreath: 112.8% → 120%
- Chain/Greater Chain: 60% → 70%
- Shock/Impact: 60% → 70%
- Sonic Wave: 94.2% → 100%
- Greater Sonic Wave: 115% → 125%
- Concentrated Blast: 147.6% → 150%
- Greater Concentrated Blast: 160.2% → 168%
- Wild magic: 265% → 280%
- Horror/Deep impact: 120% → 130%
- Detonate: 225% → 250%
- Asphyxiate: 451.2% → 480%
Magic Special Attacks
"We've modernized and narrowed the damage range of all special attacks, there are also some minor tweaks to costs, damage, and in some cases effects of different special attacks. We don't consider special attacks 'complete' but this gets them into a good enough state to allow us to easily work with them more in the future"
Changes
- Special attacks now display their cooldowns and target type in their tooltips.
- Updated/rewrote and narrowed the damage ranges of the most special attacks in the game.
Noteworthy Mentions:
- Iban Staff - Iban Blast
- AVG Damage 320% → 380%
- 50% Adrenaline
- Penance Trident - Reap
- 35% adrenaline
- 270-310% damage
- Refunds 20% Adrenaline if it kills the target
- Mindspike - Rune flame
- Adrenaline 75% → 35%
- Zuriels Staff - Miasmic Barrage
- Adrenaline 100% → 50%
- code centralization: debuff should now be more consistent
- Obliteration - Devour
- Adrenaline 100% → 50%
- Debuff duration 10.2s → 15s
- Now has an initial hit AVG damage 220%
- code centralization: debuff should now be more consistent & work in more places
- Staff of darkness - Power of Darkness
- Added buff/debuff visibility
- Now reduces damage if no target to reflect at
Metamorphosis
"The 62.5% increase didn't look right in the tooltip and the ability is underused so we're upping it slightly."
Changes
- Increases the damage bonus from 62% → 66% (PvP: 31% → 33%)
Magma Tempest
"Magma tempest's value should come from the ability itself, not a hidden inconsistency that lets an auto-attack be threaded in."
Changes
- The targeted variant of the ability now applies an auto-attack delay when cast.
- Increased base damage to 23%-27% per hit resulting in a total average of 200% AD (ability damage)
Wrack and Ruin
"Now with added ruin - We want to explore giving the ability a bit more combo potential, without compromising its identity."
Changes
- The combust extension effect is now stack-based, benefiting from abilities such as 'Greater Chain' that cause it to hit multiple enemies
- Note: The additional hits for 'Combust' are capped at 15
Global Cooldown Abilities
"Less combat experienced players often fall into issues with abilities that can be cast during the global cooldown, but only sometimes. Namely; Surge, Escape, and Dive, where if players use them on specific cycles these abilities would consume their global cooldown and generate adrenaline. We have made it so that these can always be cast during the global cooldown so you're less reliant on a specific ability order. Were also interested in experimenting with making reactive abilities more... reactive. Anticipation is our test subject right now; in some scenarios, you could know that a stun was incoming, but due to being part way through the global cooldown you are unable to use the ability. This could in theory allow some future mechanics to require faster reactions instead of requiring a global cooldown (1.8s) lead-time."
Changes
- 'Surge', 'Dive', 'Escape' and 'Anticipation'
- Can always be cast during global cooldown
- No longer generate adrenaline
- Are now classed as 'Abilities' rather than 'Basic Abilities'
Equilibrium
"The Equilibrium aura and perk have suffered negatively from narrowing the damage ranges on each of the styles, whilst previously a solid perk it's now close to useless, as a result, we're giving it a full redo. We originally looked at making the equilibrium perk disable critical strikes but give a large amount of ability damage. Whilst we like this effect it negatively affected players that already had equilibrium on their gear, we're going to rework the equilibrium perk to something simpler and look to add the other effect to a future perk. "
Changes
- Equilibrium Aura has been redesigned
- Aura Effect: Now increases the player's ability damage stat by 12%, but prevents the player from critically striking.
- Equilibrium Perk:
- Now increases your ability damage stat by 0.5% per rank.
- This will now apply at the base level, increasing damage over time, poison and other effects.
- Has been renamed 'Eruptive'
- The old name implies positive and negative which no longer fit the new effect.
Mobile perk / Shadow's Grace
Changes
- They no longer cause 'Barge'/'Greater Barge' or 'Bladed Dive' to generate half adrenaline.
Bugfixes
Changes
- Revolution no longer delays the player after casting channelled abilities such as 'Greater concentrated blast'
- Fixed an issue with 'Guthix's Blessing' and the 'Brief Respite' invention perk where the maths was being calculated incorrectly
- The combat dummy at War's Retreat will now correctly play a defend/flinch animation with each hit inflicted
- All targets affected by Greater Chain will now benefit from the additional hits granted by Wrack and Ruin's secondary Combust extension buff.