Update Notes 2.6 – 30th of June

Launch of the new Free-to-play and Premium Membership Model

The new business model gives players the opportunity to choose whether they want to play for free or become members with access to extra content, and we also introduce an in-game store to the game where both free players and premium members can purchase exclusive content such as weaponry and mounts.

New Level 40 to 80 Solo Instances: “The Breach” and “The Forgotten City”

As dynamic dungeons, these brand new solo instances scale the experience to the player's level so that all players between level 40 and 80 can enjoy the content. Following on from the very well received max level solo instances, these new dungeons are designed to add some great, repeatable, fun, and engaging content for players as they progress through the levels.

Both dungeons can be found in the north in Gateway to Khitai. Just check the new waypoints on the in-game map to find their location. You can obtain quests for these new areas from NPCs in Gateway to Khitai. See Akana and Jiuling for Forgotten City quests, and speak to Menudsjin to obtain quests for The Breach.

New Feature: Vanity Item Slots

This update includes the new vanity armor tab, which allows players to wear items for vanity / social purposes over their stat granting armor. The equipment window is now split between "Power" and "Vanity" items. Currently you use any item you meet the requirement for as vanity armor. Vanity armor will be disabled in minigames and sieges. There are also a score of new items available that were specifically created to be used as vanity armor.

Raids / Group Encounters

We have reworked the normal modes of the Khitai dungeons to offer a more balanced option and hopefully make them more interesting and rewarding for people to attempt. The earlier instances have also been made more accessible for those arriving in Khitai for the first time, and will not require any AA investment to be worthwhile options. See the details blow for the list of changes and tweaks to these dungeons.

General

• Khitai Raid and Group bosses now award a higher amount of Mastery XP as well as Rare Trophies.
• Pillars of Heaven, Enigmata of Yag, Celestial Necropolis and Cavern of Malice now all have new lobbies where players will respawn.
• Boosted the drop chance of Epic items in the Tian’an and Ai Districts Hardmodes.

Thoth-Amon’s Stronghold

• You are no longer required to finish the quest The Immortal Hand to gain access to Thoth-Amon's Stronghold.
• Players fighting the Acheronian Soul will no longer be able to fatality the soul, as intended.
• There is now more music in Thoth-Amon's Stronghold.
• The Demonic Eruption spell cast by Obliterator, Overlord and Havoc will now apply the knockback effect at the end of the casting.
• The Wicked Bolts spell cast by the Storm Magus' in Thoth Amon's Stronghold no longer ignores Line of Sight when being cast.

Abyss of Kun Whu

• Kun Whu's Death of Qian spell now hits for significantly less damage.
• The guards in the wave event in the Abyss of Kun Whu now hit for less damage.
• The Commune Life and Spirit Shield spells in the Abyss of Kun Whu now have cooldowns which match the cooldowns for Tainted Weapons and Finely Honed respectively.

Celestial Necropolis

• Players should no longer find themselves locked in combat in the Harbinger of Jang encounter room when the encounter is not active.
• The window in which to bring down the pillars in the Harbinger of Jang encounter has been increased by 10seconds.
• The combat window against the Harbinger of Jang has been increased by 10 seconds in normal mode.
• The Ghostly Torment spell now does significantly less damage in normal mode in the Celestial Necropolis, the cooldown has also been increased.
• The Mind Ruin debuff has been reduced in power for normal mode in Celestial Necropolis.

Pillars of Heaven

• Ming the Knife
  
  • Berries are not removed from inventory as you use them, so they are usable more than once.
  • Meat pile interaction time was shortened to 1.5 secs (from 3 secs).
  • Alpha Wolf DPS value has been decreased by 25%.
• Brass Mask
  
  • Anklebite now lasts 3 seconds (was 5 seconds) and its cooldown is now 25 seconds (was 8 seconds) .
  • Heartpiercer has been nerfed to a random target (excluding the most hated player and pets).
  • The oil burning urn AoE now lasts 12 seconds instead of 10 minutes.
  • Brass Mask should now reset properly when the players die while he is transitioning between phase 1 and phase 2.
• I-Po, Master of Bats
  
  • Dead Man Walking doesn't deal an AoE damage when casted.
• Banghi Khan
  
  • Guo-feng the Strategist received a 30 seconds knockback immunity to his knockback spell.
  • Banghi Khan's Hammer Throw cooldown was increased to 20 secs (up from 12 secs).
  • During his enrage, Bhankis Khan will no longer constantly switch target before his current target is killed.

Palace of Yun Rau - Hardmode

• The smouldering embers effect from the braziers in The Palace of Yun Rau will no longer snare players.
• The Poison of Yun Rau debuff will only apply damage at most once every 4 seconds.
• Yun Rau will only activate his first brazier after 8 seconds, in phase 2 of his encounter. The activation time on the braziers in phase 1 is unchanged.
• The cast time of Yun Rau's Frost Whip ability is now 1 second longer.
• Phase 1 and phase 2 are now separated. That means that if your group wipes during phase 2, you will not have to beat phase 1 again.
• Unholy Essence AoE are now removed from the ground when Yun Rau dies.

Enigmata of Yag

• Doubled the cooldown on The Guardian's spell Separate Threat in the Enigmata of Yag.
• Increased the casting time and lowered the chance and stun duration on The Guardian's spell Power Surge in the Enigmata of Yag.
• Tweaked the placement of the parasites in the Enigmata of Yag so that none should be found in the miasma areas.

Enigmata of Yag – Hardmode

• The Bloated Celestial Parasite in the Enigmata of Yag can now only receive a maximum of one healing buff each time he casts Parasitic Flail.

Den of the Crowmen

• The group mobs in the build up to Kian Lai in the Den of the Crowmen now deal less damage.
• The cooldown on Kian Lai's Claws of the Queen has been increased to make it more in line with Soldiers' Resolve ability.
• Kian Lai's Debilitating Wind ability now does significantly less mana damage and the snare effect of the spell has been removed.
• Kian Lai's Screech ability no longer silences players, instead it only interrupts targets on impact.
• The reduction in received healing from Kian Lai's Ruin has been reduced for normal mode.

Cavern of Malice

• The Dread Abomination's life was reduced by 25%.
• The time between the waves of Abomination Pustule have been increased to 25 seconds, up from 10 seconds.
• The number of Abomination Pustules spawning in a wave has been decreased to randomly be 3 or 4 (before it was either 3, 4 or 5)

The Jade Dugout

• The number of Black Powder Urns has been increased.
• The adds appearing at Lao Che's 25% health event had their dps reduced.

The Reliquary of Flame

• Sizzling Aura works correctly again.
• Critical damage bonus was lowered from 60% to 30%.
• Only two adds spawn now, thus removing the 2nd tank requirement.
• Burning Sweep (in normal) and Tranquil Recovery (in normal and hard mode) are no longer used.

Vortex of the Storm

• Players should now be able to use the rest ability and resurrect someone right next to Air and Water without triggering the encounter start.
• Air and Water no longer uses Lighter than Air
• Critical damage bonus was lowered from 60% to 30%.

Coppice of the Heart

• The Deadweight debuff should now be a snare in normal mode, but remain as a root in hardmode. Both versions should be dispellable as an esoteric torment and using CC breaker abilities.
• The Arrest spells (phase 2) should now hit for crushing damage allowing their effects to be mitigated by armour.
• The Thralls of the Heart mobs on the buildup to the encounter area should now be in pulls of two and reduced in difficulty.

The Kang Pagoda

• Po Sha will no longer cast his spew spell at the start of the encounter. This will give the tank time to be able to position the attack in the direction of choice.
• Po Sha's Spew now applies its effects at a much lower frequency but for higher damage.
• Po Sha's Crave now uses poison damage to allow for the armor stat to mitigate the damage.
• Po Sha's Mental Assault will deal less damage when being applied to a player without any mana in normal mode.

Factions

• The gold prices for faction related items have been reduced:
  
  • 16 Gold for all Epic Dungeon Chest and Helm items
  • 12 Gold for all Epic Faction Wrist and Boot items
  • 14 Gold for all Epic Faction Accessory items (Cloak, Ring and Necklace)
  • 12 Gold for all Epic Faction 1-Handed Weapons (1HE, 1HB, Dagger, Bow, Crossbow, Ammunition, Trinket and Shield)
  • 18 Gold for all Epic Faction 2-Handed Weapons (2HE, 2HB, Pole Arm and Staff)
  • 10 Gold for the Faction Pet and Mount items (including Horsehair Blanket from Tamarin and Wolves)
  • 20 Gold and 300 Marks of Acclaim for The Art of Eastern Riding (from Tamarin Tigers and Wolves of the Steppes)

PVP

General

• Existing Battlekeep rewards have been redesigned. The complete list of new rewards are: Health, Natural Regens for Mana and Stamina, CC Resistances, and PvP XP modifier.
• Fixed an issue that sometimes lead to PVP resources not dropping correctly off killed players in the Border Kingdoms.
• You will no longer get PvE XP for PvP kills.
• When you kill someone in PvP that is worth PvP XP, your target now has a chance of generating loot.

Minigames

• Added a new option for team vs team mini-game matches through a new queue option. This queue is designed to let organized teams pit their wits against other organized teams for bragging rights.
• Slightly adjusted the values of the objectives. Lowered the value of the Shrine of Jhebbal a bit, while buffing the value of the rest of the objectives. This should speed up the minigame slightly.

Sieges

• Items that might drop in PvP will no longer drop while participating in a siege.

Classes

Conqueror

• Overcome the Odds will now work properly when the Conqueror is silenced. Also the targets should in most cases not be able to randomly resist the effects of this ability.
• Vindication will now also work properly when the conqueror has Lumbering Hulk running.
• Burst of Aggression will now knock back the target on the conquerors next non-Crowd Control combo finisher.

Demonologist

• Backdraft should no longer knockback players with knockback immunity.
• Backdraft will now knock the targets further back based on the number of incinerate stacks.

Guardian

• Master of Arms (AA) will now also affect Guard Destroyer IV and Disable IV.
• Investing additional feat points in Counterweight (AA) will now also increase the Reckoning damage of the polearm version of the Counterweight combo.
• The Movement Multiplier gain from Vengeance have been significantly reduced.

Necromancer

• The Frozen Hatred spell will no longer get removed by Overwhelming Shout or when you do a feat reset.
• Dismissing certain pets should no longer cause the Necromancer to be marked as an aggressor.

GUI

• The AA Window should have working icons again, and text should no longer read "undefined".
• The fall damage reduction stat should now display percentages correctly.
• The error message when attempting to unbind an items that are currently equipped is now localized.

General

• You may notice a file called ConanSystemTweaker.exe included in this update. This tool tunes Windows file cache size in a way that makes it work more efficiently with large files. By default, Windows file cache is unlimited on 64-bit systems, and that can make it grow infinitely and fill up all available physical RAM when actively accessing large files. By setting its upper limit, we ensure that the player always has physical memory available for AoC and other applications, without sacrificing performance. A check will be done every time a patcher is started, to determine whether to use the tool or not. In most cases, this tool will be run only the first time you boot.
• Fixed the cause of some client crashes.
• Resolved the cause of several server crashes.
• The maps for Tian’an and Ai Districts have been visually improved.
• Fixed an issue that caused male characters jogging backwards in combat mode and with no weapons equipped to slide across the ground.
• The exhausted debuff should no longer be applied when a character runs out of stamina.

Combat

• It should no longer be possible to queue CC abilities with cast time.
• All NPC's that could be affected by a knockback before the CC revamp are now affected by it again.
• Procs should no longer affect friendly/hostile targets if the spell is not intended to hit these types of targets.

Tradeskills

• Alchemist: Nectargold is now a stamina consumable as originally intended.

Items

• Fixed various clipping issues of items that happened while a character was moving or running. This, among other changes, includes tweaks to the overall shield placement on the back of characters and changes to some movement/idle-animations for male and female characters.
• Wearing Boots of the Farseeker should no longer cause the calfs on male characters to go invisible.
• Arcane Battlebraid Bracers should no longer cause the wrists on male characters wearing them to go invisible.
• The Kitten and Puppy pet companions are now designated as Rare loot, instead of Mundane
• The pet War Machine now has a significantly higher chance of knocking back any targets it hits.
• The faction item 'Leggings of Mirrored Heaven' will no longer also equip a helmet on the player.
• Some Khitan merchants will now sell books to teach you new ranks of spells or combos for Rare Trophies.
• The buff effect from Faction sold Brews will no longer be removed on death.

Quests

• Army of Nations: the waypoint to the first quest goal should now be shown correctly on the map.
• Shadows of Jade quest "Gore in the Grasslands" will now update when killing members of the Brittle Blade, not the Shadows of Jade.
• Jiang Shi quest "Wonders of the Wasteland" now should give the correct amount of faction reward.
• The Corruption of Sxi Ai: The mortar in the Ai District can now be used by all players.
• The Corruption of Sxi Ai: It turns out that Commander Yeng-Wang-Yeh is born under the new moon; killing him will provide players with Blood of the New Moon needed to make a cure for Sxi Ai's corruption. The item might also drop from Elite Dark Legion Soldiers and Elite Dark Legion Captains.
• Spreading Strife/ Spreading Discontent: Yi of the Scarlet Circle demands that you help her with "Legions on the Loose" before you are allowed to spread strife and discontent on her behalf. Characters who are not member of the Scarlet Circle can no longer accept the quests Spreading Discontent and Spreading Strife, as intended.
• Shadows of Jade quest Leading the Way: Xiao-mei is less likely to despawn when you want to take her to Jhongshun. Setting her free will now yield less faction points than taking her to captivity.
• You are no longer required to finish the quest Xibaluku to gain access to the Xibaluku instance.