Welcome to an electrocuting and edgy patch! ⚡We've taken parts of the Inquisitor rework from Korea and integrated it, and Roy's much anticipated Arch Heretic rework is here too! We have the usual PvE and PvP balancing, PvE content balancing, and bugfixes! Finally, you can now extract all those pesky clean talismans and crests.

/\c4\Cleric Reworks

Touching up some of the clerics that haven't gotten much love in a long time (even though some devs main these classes!) and taking advantage of some of the new changes from Korea.
We're sure some of you are wondering "well my class is even more garbage why hasn't it gotten a rework yet" - there's several reasons which we can cover in a dev blog or roadmap later.
[also lol insert "dev class favoritism" comment here]

/\c83\Arch Heretic Rework

Goal: Increase contribution of other skills besides Devastation and Carnage

[Devastation]

• Damage reduced from 8679% --> 7811%
• Nightmare version is 2.5x so 21698% --> 19528%
• Cooldown increased from 5 --> 8 seconds

[Carnage]

• Damage reduced from 1463% --> 585%
• Cooldown decreased from 1s --> 0.75s

[Pain to Gain]

• Gains 0 Nightmare Force instead of 30 (using other skills will allow for bubble gen)
• Movement speed increase removed

[Land Corruption]

• Action speed decreased from 30% --> 15%
• Buff time increased from 3s --> 5s

[Cruel Slash]

• Damage increased from 260% --> 521% (per hit)
• Nightmare Force generation changed from instant 10 upon initial hit --> 1 per hit

[Execute] damage increased from 1512% --> 6050%

[Evil Hand]

• Nightmare Force generation changed from 1 to 1 per hit
• SA increased

[Savage Attack]

• Damage increased from 6592% --> 11866%
• Nightmare Force generation changed from 1 --> 1 per hit

[Deadly Blow] damage increased from 1164% --> 2715%

[Class Mastery II] Final Damage increase on [Deadly Blow] changed from 50% per bubble --> 40% per bubble after the 5th bubble

[Chaos Shield]

• Damage increased from 1242% --> 1863%
• Skill enhanced at level 10 to double hit

[Cruel Rush]

• Chain off of Quickdash by holding W/Forward input or Left Mouse Button to continue moving
• Can interrupt with skills during Rush

[Shield Smash] damage increased from 556% --> 2220%

[Flaming Revenant] damage increased from 386% --> 1885%

[Soul Steal] heal % increased by 1 level on all levels (e.g level 9 heal now has level 10 heal)

[Death Gate] damage increased from 4850% per spear + 12125% --> 6305% per spear + 15763%

[Sawblade]

• Cooldown changed from 30 --> 20 seconds
• Cooldown change keeps its damage but increases DPS to help even out spread

[Arch Heretic] transformation duration changed from 100 seconds --> 900 seconds

[Brutal Soul Enhanced]

• Removed Final Damage buff
• Added new effect: gain 1 more Nightmare Force every 1.5s

[Enhanced Pain to Gain] Nightmare Force gained 20 --> 40

[Power Accelerator A] enhances Land Corruption to give more SA while the field is out

[Attack Accelerator A] 5% damage on Nightmare skills increased to 15%

[Class Mastery III]

• Divine Combo now Dark Elemental
• Cooldown changed from 10s --> 9.5s
• [Right Click] creates dark lightning projectiles (125% per hit)

[Arch Heretic EX A] New effect added: Reduces the cooldown of [Devastation] from 8 to 5 seconds

[Arch Heretic EX B]

• Damage increase changed from 5% --> 20%
• Consumes up to 45 Nightmare Force when [Devastation] is used
• Elemental defense removed

/\c44\Inquisitor Rework

hEllO iT's Me, JoRgBi. I'm introducing the new Inquisitor rework to Project Duck with our own twist. It's a custom rework that does not apply the changes directly from retail DN.

[Lightning Rush] new skill added to Priest branch, 10s CD iframe forward dash
[Chain Lightning EX / Exceed Lightning]

• 806% per hit → 1328%
• Cooldown 12s → 9s
• At 50 [Retribution], [Exceed Lightning] is enhanced to [Lightning Fury]
• Video linky

[Awakened Passive Vengeance Blast] → [Awakened Passive Thunderous Vengeance]

• Now enhances the following skills: Vengeance Blast, Judgement Spear, Heavenly Judgement
• New Effect: Gain 1 bubble of [Retribution] on successful hit of Judgement Spear or Heavenly Judgement
• Gain 1 bubble of [Retribution] every 2 seconds

PvP Changes

[Lightning Rush] new skill added to Priest branch; 25s cooldown; invincible while casting; left click to swing your shield at enemies in front of you for 100% damage. 1200 SA, 300 SAb, LI

/\c43\Saint

We didn't forget about ya, we'll have something coming for Saint in the future. We're still planning what we wanna do with it.

/\c41\Guardian

Our resident stancy-boi is still on the books for a full rework too!

[PvE] Class Balancing

Note: Changes to Arch Heretic and Inquisitor numbers are duplicated here too for completeness

Mostly focusing on small QoL buffs and nudging certain classes back into line.

/\c24\Lunar Knight

Minor QoL which is a slight buff due to crit mechanics, also fixes certain weird corner edge cases with projectile interactions (WE LOVE PROJECTILES)

[Smash X]

• Number of hits per projectile 1 --> 2
• Damage on hit 50% of total --> 25%
• Total damage is unchanged (e.g. was 2x 50%, now 4x 25%)

/\c37\War Mage

Why was it not an iframe before.

[Energy Blast] is now an iframe if you hit an enemy

/\c83\Arch Heretic

See above for details on the rework

Since the entire rework is essentially a rebalance, go read it

/\c43\Saint

Improving consistency of healing skills across the healers. Also increasing Saint's DPS outside of relic electro-dancing which should give Saints more consistent damage without making teammates curse your existence and a bit less reason to sit afk on a King Chair in the middle of raids. (ZERK I'M LOOKING RIGHT AT YOU)

Note: Still don't have relic hitbox reduction/removal due to several unpleasant bugs (like wiping teams at Balapa).

[Heal] range increase 700 units → 2000 units
[Blessed Sign] 25s → 20s (aligns with Paralyze Bolt now)
[Awakened Grand Cross] 3033% → 3639%
[Antiphona Pool] 700% → 840%
[Relic Reaction] 995% → 895%
[Holy Burst] 2052% → 1846%

/\c44\Inquisitor

See above for details on the rework

[Righteous Bolt] 162% → 127%
[Lightning Fury] 27900%
[Heavenly Judgement] 8042% → 15440%
[Judgement Spear] 2 charges → 3 charges
[Mind Snapper EX] debuff duration 10s → 20s
[Class Mastery II] When [Mind Snapper EX] is used, light attack increases by 10% for 10s → 10% for 20s
[Awakened Passive Detonate] Detonate's damage increased by 25%

/\c99\Vena Plaga

Honestly, this class didn't even need hotfix buffs, although several players definitely need to buff their gameplay instead.

[Vena Plaga Transformation] 5% Dark Atk → 0%

/\c97\Lustre

Still heals too much, and does too much damage. Fixing a bug as well as nerfing overall damage and healing a bit.

[Eternal Light Soul]

• Healing .05% → .025%
• Max healing per hit 10% → 5%

[Awakened Eternal Light Quartz] costs 5 Bubbles to use

[Class Mastery II] 25% Atk → 15%

[PvP] Class Balancing

/\c1\Warrior

[Side Kick] tumblability timing reverted from frame 6 to frame 0
[Sweeping Kick] tumblability timing reverted from frame 6 to frame 0
[Destructive Swing] hitbox hits 3 frames earlier

/\c25\Barbarian

[Whirlwind EX] action speed increased by 40% (damage adjusted accordingly to not buff/nerf it)
[Demolition Fist EX] is now not camera locked if you successfully land the attack

/\c80\Hunter

[Wild Shot] SAb increased to 35/hit

/\c84\Mara

[Void Coil] cooldown increased from 11 to 15 seconds

/\c20\Paladin

[Divine Ascension] initial sound volume increased

/\c41\Guardian

[Divine Ascension EX] initial sound volume increased

/\c62\Shinobi

[Rain of Death] SA nerfed from 400 to 200
[Rake] SA nerfed from 400 to 200
[Mortal Blow] SAb changed from 200 + 400 to 100 + 500
[Barrage] cooldown reduced from 15 to 12s
[Blade Runner] SAb nerfed from 200 + 400 to 100 + 500
[Flame Locust] SA inceased from 300 to 400
[Shinobi Drop] damage increased by 50%

/\c63\Reaper

[Barrage EX] last hit's AoE's max range decreased slightly
[Blade Runner EX] SAb nerfed from 200 + 600 + 400 to 100 + 500 + 200

[Flame Locust EX]

• SA increased from 300 to 400
• SAb decreased from 400 + 200 + 400 to 200 * 2 + 400

[Izuna Drop EX] damage distribution changed from 14% * 6 + 46% to 5% * 6 + 100%

/\c64\Raven

[Rake EX] SA nerfed from 400 to 200

/\c67\Taoist

[Nether Burst]

• Air cast reverted to jump upwards first
• Damage decreased by 40%

[Illusion Strike] damage nerfed by 15%

[Outbreak]

• SAb on last hit increased from 300 to 400
• Left click attack SAb increased from 300 to 400 after the first 3 hits

/\c68\Light Bringer

[Outbreak EX]

• SAb on last hit increased from 300 to 400
• Left click attack SAb increased from 300 to 400 after the first 3 hits

/\c69\Abyss Walker

[Nether Burst EX] air cast reverted to jump upwards first

/\c77\Patrona

[Kidney Blow] SAb nerfed from 400 * 5 + 50 * 7 to 200 * 3 + 100 * 2 + 50 * 7

[PvE] Midnight Crests and Frost Talismans

Extractor-san is lonely and wants to eat your worthless crests

• You can now extract Midnight Crests for Midnight Crest Fragments
• You can now extract Frost Talismans for Frost Talisman Essence

Midnight Crest Fragments and Frost Talisman Essences will be used for crafting and rerolling crest/talisman stats soon, and may also be used as material for future options.

We know that it feels kinda shitty right now to run Granom/Guardian for 2x of each and we're working out ways to make this better, but at least in the meantime you can start amassing materials in preparation for crafting options and rerolling 2nd/3rd stats.

[PvE] Content

We've been monitoring clear times, party composition, and failure rates of the endgame nests after the debuff compensation and balance changes. We overshot somewhat so we're pulling back some of these changes.

(also we forgot to put the flat HP nerf into the patch notes last time, oops)

The DPS checks especially got over-nerfed because of an oversight where our calculations forgot to factor in the boss's HP nerf so the percentages we had last time are actually higher than they actually were. DPS checks should make you sweat a little but not require you to raid-comp your parties.

Guardian Nest

• Gate bosses' HP are now -5% from release (instead of -10%)
• Guardian boss HP is now back to release HP
• Guardian boss DPS check HP compensation reverted and mildly buffed (now 45% --> 75% of release)
• (Bugfix) No longer revives you after certain gates

Granom Nest

• Gate bosses' HP are now -5% from release (instead of -10%)
• Granom boss HP is now back to release HP
• Granom boss DPS check HP compensation reverted and mildly buffed (now 25% --> 70% of release)
• (Bugfix) No longer revives you after certain gates

Red Dragon Nest

No changes, but just noting that the crit resist nerf has lifted clear rates and a given a moderate boost in DPS statistics. Also, nobody's cleared RDN VC in 2 weeks now (but plenty of failures) ever since the veteran players stopped running it lol. Step it up, new players!

Misc

• DPS meter (N menu --> Damage Counter) is now left-aligned on the screen

• Added [Full Party], [Fixed Raid Team], and [Private] maps selectable in raid party menu so you can indicate that your raid party is not meant to be joined by random players (although knowing the types of people who join random parties, this might not help very much)
• Totally a tech nerd-out but we rewrote our table compiler (which we used to make the DNT files that the game uses) in Rust to reduce compile times by up to a factor of 120! #productivity
• Also a tech nerd-out our CI/CD pipeline times have been cut from 5-8 minutes down to 1-3 minutes
• The Rock of Strength is now able to be deleted

Bugfixes

• Crusader [Awakened Divine Hammer] animation desync fixed
• Removed the additional damage gained on [Hurricane Dance EX] in PvP
• Removed elemental attributes on all awakening/CM3 skills that gave elemental to a skill in PvP (Divine Combo CM3, Armor Break Awakening, Shield Charge Awakening, Shadow Hand Awakening, Fan of Blades Awakening, Piercing Star Awakening, Blunt Slash Awakening, Brandish Awakening, Rising Lava Awakening, & Falling Meteors Awakening)
• [Struck by Lightning] flow removed from levels 11+ in PvP
• [Chain Claw EX] flow on air casted version removed in PvE & PvP due to flow leak
• [Black Dragon Death Salute Crest] now works properly (non-elemental attack, applies bleed, does correct damage)
• [Green Dragon's Crest Toxic Smog] and [Sea Dragon's Crest Ice Frost] are now permanent
• [Universe Kong's Heraldry Headspin] and [Universe Kong's Heraldry Operation] are now level 70 items
• Removed IDN Gate 4 option