Median XL - Version Log

Median XL: Sigma

- Patch Σ 1.1.0 -



Game

New Waypoints


The waypoint UI has been expanded to display more waypoints. New waypoints will make it much more convenient to run certain new areas that were designed with waypoints in mind. Currently there are a total of 6 new waypoints. They are strategically placed in locations so that you don't have to waste a lot of time running through weak mobs. The locations are:

  • Act 1: Duncraig
  • Act 2: Tran Athulua
  • Act 2: Island of Skartara
  • Act 3: Torajan Jungles
  • Act 3: Caldeum
  • Act 4: Silver City

Experience


  • The changes to endgame leveling aim to make solo farming more efficient and not rely on party games
  • Bonus per player in game is now 12%
  • Experience gain on multiplayer has been increased to match single player
  • Improved experience scaling from 100 to 125
  • Leveling past 130 will be more difficult now
  • Removed exploits to AFK farm experience
  • Ancients now give 50k experience on all difficulties (down from 50/75/100)

Quality of Life


Improvements
  • Caldeum and Silver City have been implemented as proper towns. This does not persist upon exiting the game
  • Using town portal or dying in certain locations will now lead you to the new towns
  • Vendors and player stash have been added to new towns
  • Shift+Click when attributing stat points now adds 25 points instead of all
  • Reduced the length for which errors such as "failed to join game" display
  • Shrines now describe their granted stats
  • You can now use Ctrl+Click to transfer items from your inventory to the trade window
  • Mercenaries and minions now appear on the automap display again
  • Expanded the amount of characters shown in the realm lobby
  • Items now have an indicator next to their name when color blindness accommodations is enabled
  • Item level no longer displays on items with an item level of 1
Illumination Settings
We intend to provide Glide as the default video mode when playing Median, due to the many advantages it provides for modern computers. However the illumination settings for stages were never adjusted, this caused oversaturated colors and excessive effects, which was undesired in many cases. The players which enjoyed the previous colors can further tweak/increase their Glide settings to their desired amount. We recommend trying the new settings first as many stages look noticeably better.

  • Changed illumination settings on all stages to better fit Glide, our default video mode
  • Reduced monster and missile light radius effects
  • Multiple zones now have a working day/night cycle again
  • Tainted Sun quest effect now works again

General


Monsters
  • Increased monster targeting distance for most enemies
  • Madawc now deals damage instead of being useless
  • Shenk the Overseer: reduced HP on Nightmare and Hell difficulties
Areas
  • Wirt is back in Tristram. He thanks everyone who looked for him
  • Caldeum: split into two zones
  • Torajan Cemetery: improved layout to not require Jitan's Gate (werewolves have no mana)
Fixes
  • Fixed a bug that caused Yshari set's aura to not work after death unless re-equipped
  • Fixed a bug that made portals not take quest status into account
  • Putting points into vitality or energy no longer refills HP/Mana/Stamina
  • Gems and runes now display stats in the order that they were intended from the base game
  • Removed leftover open wounds from monsters
  • Fixed a bug that caused Desert Turret AI to cast their skill twice upon spotting the player (i.e. Death Projector)
  • Fixed a bug that made own-class skills on items not visually cap at +3
  • Fixed issues with resolving the save path on non-English systems
  • Fixed issues related to the configuration file
  • Fixed a bug that caused absorb's heal to apply twice under certain circumstances
  • Fixed a bug that caused minion HP to overflow with high numbers
  • Fixed a bug that caused totems to not be summoned at the target corpse's location
  • Toraja charm now has the correct level requirement
  • Banish no longer locks out certain skills
  • Sunless Angel no longer displays FPBE in the character sheet
  • Fixed a bug that caused Yshari mystic sword to display FPBE as it's item class
  • Fixed a bug that caused certain polearms to be displayed as unusable by Act 2 mercenaries


Endgame Quests

Nephalem Rifts

The Dimensional Labyrinth
New Endgame Rift. Strange riftstones have started to appear on Sanctuary, use them to travel to a realm between worlds. Discover what is manipulating mind and matter and why, before it is too late. Play through an epic 15 level quest chain, where the areas are transformed with every new game and unique challenges await. Monsters gain unique modifiers which strengthen them as you venture deeper, yet defeating them offers many outstanding rewards. These include brand new crafting options for your favorite builds.

Easy

Torajan Jungles
  • Reduced Lord Aldric Jitan's minion count

Moderate

Library of Fate
  • Increased experience
  • Doubled chance of obtaining riftstones here vs other areas (bias)
  • Improved rare drop chance

Hard

Teganze
  • Increased experience
  • Umbaru treasure can now be upgraded with Runestones too
  • Increased drop chance of essences and runestones
  • Improved shrine/jewelry drop chance
  • Mystic Shard now always rolls +1 skills
  • Slightly increased density
  • Map fixes
Triune
  • Modified boss room to be closer to Malic, increased Lucion's speed
  • Reduced damage from Kraken Guard's ice attack

Very Hard

Fauztinville
  • Slightly reduced experience

Dungeons


Soulstealer bosses, except Samael, will now only heal after killing a player, and not minions.

Easy

Assault on Mount Arreat
  • King Koth: reduced Hawk Talons skill level

Moderate

Black Road
  • Buyard Cholik: now uses Thundergod instead of Beacon when low on life
Legacy of Blood
  • Reduced Maximum Skill Levels to +1, steal is now 3-5%
  • More visible clues added to Bartuc's Wychwind spell

Hard

Eve of Destruction
  • Baal: now drops a charm.
Kingdom of Shadow
  • The clue to reach the Kingdom of Shadow is now slightly (a lot) more obvious
  • New shrines have appeared outside of the Kingdom of Shadow
  • Juris Khan: no longer a superunique, increased health
Banisher of Light
  • Upgrade gem quest overhauled, monsters are now resistant to all elements but their own, instead of immune

Very Hard

Astrogha
  • Now uses a Frozen Orb with high, but not one-shot, damage
Bremmtown
  • Decreased experience to match other dungeons
  • Challenge needs to be completed in 1 minute and 30 seconds, down from 2 minutes
Spirit World
  • Zorun Tzin quest now has a 5 minute level lock
Xazax
  • Penitents can no longer be converted. Reduced fire damage
  • Book reward with laz charm now gives 5% experience instead of maximum skill levels
Yshari Sanctum
  • Removed Iron Shield from the set
  • Doubled set durability

Extreme

Nephalem's Sacrifice
  • Uldyssian:
    • Is no longer a purify boss
    • Rebalanced all stats, changed AI, now has an overlay
    • Has Soulsteal (25k health on player kill)
    • Now teleports
  • Edyrems: increased speed, fire damage, health and AR. Reduced damage, and they are now CB immune
  • Removed proc from charm due to interference with monster AI, can now roll an extra skill instead. Increased edyrem buff
  • Rebalanced experience on all stages

Impossible

Herald of the End
  • Samael's lightning resistance reduction is now 20%
  • Now only has a 50% chance to drop items (still always drops charm)
  • Reduced block chance by 33%
  • Aura now displays lightning overlay when dealing damage to characters


Characters

General


Class Life Regeneration Changes

Barbarian and Paladin, the two classes scaling most from vitality and life increases, were also those which had the easiest time obtaining regeneration. It has exponential scaling for them and so has been reduced (see class changes below)

Changes to party buffs
  • Skills include, but not limited to: Bloodlust, Burning Veil, Mark/Gift of the Wild, Vindicate
  • Bonus to Enhanced Weapon Damage reduced by 60%, Bonus to Spell Damage reduced by 45%. This also applies to items increasing the effect of these buffs
Crowd Control changes
  • Skills include, but not limited to: Psionic Scream, Thundergod, Elvensong, Lightning Arena
  • Crowd Control skills have been re-balanced around having at most a 20% uptime
Miscellaneous
  • All instances of "Base Level (Depending on Character Level)" have been renamed to "Base Level"
  • The Shapeshifter Desert Mercenary now has Thorn Field again
  • Barbarian Mercenary: reduced delay between activating self buff. Strength reduced by 40%

Amazon


Amazon bow and crossbow casting animation duration has been reduced by 1 frame

  • Bloodlust: now only affects the Amazon
  • Hammer of Zerae:
    • Fixed a bug where spell related stats were scaling the weapon damage of this skill
    • Weapon Damage has been increased to 200%, up from 100%
    • Base bonus lightning damage increased by 8x, added bonus physical damage component equal to the lightning one
  • Enfilade: improved against small targets
  • Ecstatic Frenzy: now adds stamina per hard point

Assassin


Now gains 8 extra life per level up

  • Phase Bomb:
    • Removed Next Delay, damage increased by 200%
    • Fuse duration decreased by 50%
    • Added a 5 second cooldown
    • Increased mana cost
  • Hades Gate: removed knockback
  • Crucify: weapon damage increased by 20%
  • Shadow Refuge: now works with any melee weapon
  • Broadside: description fixed. Increased mana cost
  • Tiefling Form:
    • Removed HP bonus, instead you get +1 to All skills per 7 base levels
    • Now adds stamina per hard point
    • Reduced cooldown

Barbarian


  • Spirit Guide: aura is now only carried by wolves and not Ancient Spirits. Change was made for performance reasons
  • Ancient Blood: now gives 0.5% max life per skill level, down from 1%
  • Iron Spiral: weapon damage increased by 10%
  • Death Gaze: weapon damage decreased by 10%
  • Moved 10% Enhanced Weapon Damage per skill level from Lion Stance to Wolf Stance
  • Titan Strike: no longer regenerates life
  • Eagle Stance:
    • Life regeneration rate has been halved, removed attack speed penalty. Now only affects you
    • Mana Regeneration is now 40%+10%/Base Level, down from 25%+25%/Base Level
  • Lion Stance: bonus Magic Damage reduced by 19%, fixed a bug which made this skill give more damage than intended
  • Nephalem Spirit:
    • Is now a Passive rather than an aura-granting minion. Your Ancient Spirits will inherit this skill
    • Now only gives Fire and Lightning Damage, no Cold. Total damage is unchanged in this step
    • Reduced damage by 20%
  • Screaming Eagle: no longer reduces enemy attack speed
  • Spirit Walk: minimum cooldown is now 3 seconds

Druid


  • Thorn Wall: mana cost increased
  • Quill Storm: mana cost increased
  • Harbinger: reduced explosion effects

Necromancer


Summon
  • Blood Skeleton: new skill. Area of effect attack summon that provides a powerful aura to your team
  • Night Hawks: new skill. Suicidal hawks with multihit that are solid boss-killers and reward active playstyle
  • Abyss Knight: new skill. Death knights with a powerful ranged elemental attack
  • Iron Golem: new skill. Powerful golem that absorbs the stats of the items it was created from, and persists through games
  • Resurgence: new skill. Strong passive that will boost your minion's damage and give them a chance to avoid damage
  • The new summoner skills have powerful effects and synergies that scale with hard points
  • All the previous summoner skills are now available as o-skills from items
  • The "extra necromancer minions" stat has been rebalanced
Totem
  • All elemental totems are now considered separate summons, and you can have multiple of each
  • Totems will now inherit the following stats from the player: spell damage, elemental pierce, energy/strength factor, life after kill and reanimates
  • Totemic Mastery: new skill. Increases totem count and life, and grants them with a chance to avoid damage. Totem HP is now centralized in this skill
  • Soulbond: new skill. This passive will provide a massive damage boost to your totems, when you have one of each and they are together
  • Howling Totem: removed
  • Death's Fury Totem: removed
  • Frostclaw Totem: now a level 1 skill
  • Stormeye Totem: now a level 12 skill
  • Fireheart Totem: now a level 24 skill
  • The "extra totems" stat has been replaced on most items
Support
  • Embalming: increased max life bonus from 5% to 6% per level to compensate for removed demon blood
  • Death Pact: new skill. This devotion-based passive will grant bonuses for hard points invested in the melee/crossbow/malice trees
  • Bane: is now a curse. Now reduces enemy phys resist by 10% at level 1, up from 5%. Resist reduction increases by 0.5% per skill level, down from 1%
  • Death Ward: rebalanced as a level 24 support skill, as it trivialized the Ultimate pick
Melee
  • Improved attack and cast speed when using 1 and 2 handed melee weapons to match Deathlord morph values.
  • Angel of Death: now has a 5 second Cooldown
  • Deathlord: no longer morphs. You can see your scythe again
  • Famine: now grants movement speed while in deathlord form as well, so it's easier to chase your knocked back enemies
Crossbow
  • Fragmentation Shot: increased attack rating bonus
  • Widowmaker:
    • You can now open doors when skill is selected on left-mouse button
    • Now 60% weapon damage, down from 70%
    • Magic conversion increased to 80%, up from 50%. Mana cost at level 1 increased by 40, mana cost growth per level reduced by 1
Malice
  • Nightwalker: Removed totem synergy (now in Totemic Mastery)
Ultimate / Reward / Innate
  • You can't escape your necromancer roots this time. All Ultimate skills are now aura-granting summons. Pick wisely!
  • Jinn: now casts a new ranged skill, Eruption, which gains extra missiles with invested points. Hellfire aura is a very strong elemental-focused aura
  • Rathma's Chosen: this immortal summon will now have Evocation Aura, which provides strong bonuses to weapon-based builds, and summon stat boosts
  • Veil King: is now an Ultimate skill. Fully reworked skill and synergies
  • Black Mass: removed
  • Talon's Hold: is now the ennead skill, reduced reanimate chance
  • Burning Veil: removed as it was obnoxious to use. The bonuses granted have been spread to other skills
  • Bend the Shadows: is now the innate skill. Added a 3 second cooldown to match other warp skills. Can now be used in town

Paladin


  • Demiurge: no longer gives strength. Reanimate chance halved
  • Mind Flay: damage from levels 1 to 28 increased by 40%
  • Vessel of Retribution & Justice: damage increased by 25% at level 1
  • Vindicate: life regen rate has been halved
  • Sacred Armor: life regen per skill level after 28 is now 5 per second, down from 40 (base level synergy unchanged)

Sorceress


  • Chronofield: added a 5s cooldown. Reduced enemy movement speed slow effect. Improvements for online desynch issues. Increased mana cost
  • Fusillade: added 3 seconds to Base Cooldown. Increased mana cost
  • Vengeful Power: updated description to clarify damage bonus only applies to Sorceress spells
  • Flamestrike: now delivers the same damage in ~50% less hits. Corrected tooltip, which was significantly underestimating total damage
  • Pyroblast: area of effect increased by 23%
  • Familiar: aura now only affects players

Oskills


  • All totem oSkills now receive the health/avoid listed in Totemic Mastery
  • Banish: now makes enemies take increased elemental & magical damage per hit rather than reducing enemy maximum life (i.e elemental doom)
  • Powder Keg: removed stun and knockback
  • Bear Claw Nova: increased mana cost
  • Exorcism: now requires a melee weapon. Mana cost increased
  • Crane Stance: clarified it only affects you
  • Jitan's Gate: description fix
  • Lightning Arena: fixed icon
  • Hammertime: duration now increases with skill level
  • Charged Strike: now 100% weapon damage, down from 125%
  • Frozen Soul: removed travel sound
  • Venomous Spirit: removed travel sound


Items

General


  • Ethereal Items:
    • Mystic orbs, socket punches, lucky upgrades and lottery bonuses can now be applied to Ethereal items
    • Defense and damage multipliers given by the Ethereal property have been reduced to 25% to compensate
    • The chance for an ethereal item to drop has been halved to 1 in 40
    • Durability penalty has been reduced to 25%
  • Some Tiered Uniques and Runewords have been adjusted to make them more viable for summoner builds
  • Replaced the "-X% target defence" and "-X monster defence per hit" affixes on items which had them. With the multi-hit nature of Median's skills, these items quickly allowed you to ignore the hit calculation with weapon damage and were significantly better than the much rarer "Ignore Target's Defense modifier"
  • Reduced "Enhanced Weapon Damage based on strength" on all items
  • Amulet lottery bonus is now 1-2% max res
  • Thunderfury is now a 25% chance to proc instead of 50%
  • Fixed a bug where unique Barbarian two-handed Axes, Paladin two-handed weapons, Necromancer Scythes and Amazon Spears had double innate chances
  • Reduced excessive poison duration on many items. It did not conform to Median's fast paced gameplay. The damage per second remains unchanged
  • Cured the suicidal tendencies of the Inarius reanimate
  • Aligned the maximum resist stats on set and runeword items which were missed during 1.0
  • Reduced XP gain stat on all non-mandatory items (i.e. not on easily accessible charms/vets reward etc)
  • Items can no longer be orbed after +150 level requirement to prevent Iron Golem abuse
  • Removed the visual states from The Ancient Repositories and Kabraxis Trophied charms
    • It has been a long time since these quests were at the pinnacle of difficulty. They do not justify cosmetic rewards any longer
  • Kabraxis Stone: now grants 25% Enhanced Damage/Defense, down from 30%
  • Thai Rune: now gives 10% to elemental resistances instead of 15%
  • Assur's Bane: now only gives +50% Weapon Damage vs Undead
  • Cold Fusion Schematics: Timestrike proc on this charm reduced to 1%
  • The Black Road: +1 max skill levels moved to Weather Control charm
  • The Sleep: Tran Athulua trophy no longer adds gold find, added variance to stat rolls
  • Perfect Sphere: now rolls from 0-1 maximum resistances, rather than 1-1
  • Marksman's Eye: fixed description

Tiered Uniques


  • Demonstone Blood: now adds 0-3% Max Life, down from 2-3%
  • Black Dame (4): increased damage

Sacred Uniques


  • 6 new unique items have been added as part of the Necromancer rework:
    • Smokeless Fire
    • Grim Visor
    • Iron Shard
    • Malevolence
    • The Worshipper
    • King's Desire
  • Thunder King of Sescheron: Stormblast modifier is now single wield only
  • The Grandfather: Deadly Strike reduced to 400%, down from 500%. Modifier is now single wield only
  • The Colonel: Enhanced Weapon Damage bonus is now single wield only
  • Wizardspike: elemental pierce bonus is now single wield only
  • Valthek's Command: removed Antimass cooldown reduction, damage bonus to Mana Sweep down to 15%
  • Candlewake: increased variance of defense and strength rolls
  • Manticore Sting: removed Spell Damage penalty
  • Shadowfang: removed Deathlord vulnerability
  • Quov Tsin's Talisman: increased all pierce variance
  • Bad Mood Ring: increased all pierce variance
  • Tyrael's Might: now gives 50% movement speed rather than a hidden 30% velocity bonus
  • Storm Blade: Enhanced Damage is now always 200%
  • Point of No Return: reduced Mana penalty, removed flavour text, increased rarity
  • Adjudicator: bonus to Total Vessel Damage from passives reduced to 50%, down from 100%
  • Undead Crown: now adds 6% of Minion Damage as Deadly Strike, down from 10%, and 40% of Minion Life as Total Character Defense, down from 50%
  • Hwanin's Hwacha: now modifies Flametail Shot to only gain 1 projectile per 7 Base Levels
  • Skin of Kabraxis: now gives 200% EWD, down from 300%
  • The Collector:
    • Now gives 10 life after each kill per Great Rune, down from 20
    • Now gives 15 Strength/Energy Factor per Great Rune, down from 25
  • Doom Gong: Life after each Kill now varies
  • Spire of Kehjan: increased variance on all stats roll
  • Black Masquerade: all skills now rolls 1-3
  • Plunderbird: Increased variance on rolls, now reduces EWD by 10%, down from 15%. Maximum bonus Enhanced Weapon Damage capped at 250%
  • Book of Kalen: orange text working as intended now
  • Lacuni Cowl: +10 to level requirement
  • The Collector: +10 to level requirement
  • Windforce: Now grants 2.5 Maximum Damage per Level, down from 3. Gives 10% proc chance, down from 12%
  • Eye of the Storm: added +75% Lightning Spell Damage
  • Dark Pact: Now gives 5% Avoid chance instead of 200% Enhanced Defense and 40% to Combat Speeds instead of 50% Attack Speed
  • Eagle Eye: increased Deadly Strike variance. Now gives 50% extra projectiles, down from 100%
  • Coldhunger: Removed stamina leech (not working)
  • Maleficence: Harbinger Cooldown is no longer shared with teleports
  • Malleus Maleficarum: no longer disables magic damage
  • Mad King's Spine: deadly strike bonus reduced by 25%
  • Rogue Foresight: removed flat physical damage
  • Blackjade's Legacy: clarified orange text to explain bonuses are active while Shadow Refuge is up
  • Grim Silhouette: now gives Veil King stats instead of Dragonfire Oil
  • Spirit Walker: Energy Factor is now 50-100, down from 75-150. Greatly increased rarity
  • The Defiler: now has Deathlord morph

Sets


  • Multiple necromancer set changes as part of the Necromancer rework
  • Archbishop Lazarus Set: replaced Dual Veil Kings oskill, now simply gives one extra Veil King copy. Rebalanced
  • Satanic Mantra: rebalanced to make it more competitive
  • The Towerlord: rebalanced to better suit the new Totem Necromancer
  • Zerae's Divinity: Fixed Divine Judgment having a cooldown

Runewords


  • Ljosalf: renamed Dragonheart proc to Lionheart to indicate a shorter duration. It gives a small burst of velocity instead of vitality as well
  • Amaymon: reduced resistances, removed howling totem, increased other stats
  • Fennec (xis): reduced resistances, added +2 barbarian skills

Occult Effigies


Several new crafting reagents, which drop in the Dimensional Labyrinth only. These work like traditional orbs, but are not affected by "Mystic Orb Effect" modifiers

  • Elemental Ire: Quivers. Adds 75-125 Fire and Lightning Damage. Required Level +10
  • Empyrean Touch: Armors and Weapons. The item becomes Ethereal. Required Level +10
  • Path of Brutality: Rings and Amulets. Transforms (and removes) every +1 to All Skills to +4% Deadly Strike. Required Level +10
  • Celestial Wind: Boots. Sets Movement Speed to 40%. Required Level +10
  • Elemental Dominion: Zero Socketed Weapons. Adds 150-250 Fire, Cold and Lightning Damage. Required Level +10
  • Sigil of Absolution: Armors and Weapons. Requirements +25%. Required Level -5. Limit of 2
  • Breath of Thaumaturgy: Blessed Crafted Armors and Weapons. Item can be Blessed again. Required Level + 25
  • Arcane Hunger: 1H Weapons with at least 15% Leech. Transforms Life Leech to +25% Spell Damage, item cannot be unsocketed. Required Level +10. Limit of 1



Previous Patches