Warhammer: Chaosbane adds Invasion Mode

The first major post-launch patch for Warhammer: Chaosbane has dropped, and there are some good and bad things buried within.

The biggest change is the introduction of the Invasions system. This is a randomized series of maps that follows the main campaign that offers players something else to do beyond the Relic Hunts. Invasion Mode maps are virtually the same maps and tilesets as before, just with more difficult enemies and different modifiers.

Players are a bit disappointed that a bunch of skill and class changes have been pushed out with little warning. Several classes have had their abilities nerfed, making the already difficult higher Chaos levels more challenging. the God skill tree also got some layout changes, and with no free respec for this tree, a lot of players are stuck with having to redo their God Tree layout entirely.

There’s also been some adjustments to the Passives system which should allow for more build customization. General Passives have been upgraded to six slots and fan vanity (“fanity”) slots have been upgraded to twelve.

The drop rates of Tier 4 or Heroic items got a heavy nerf as well, making it much harder to gear out your characters with OP items in the lower difficulties. Players will now have to move into Chaos 2 and beyond to see drop rates of “Reds” become more common. To compensate, Eko software has introduced an entirely new tier 5 rarity, colloquially referred to as “Greens.” These exponentially more powerful rare items are largely restricted to Chaos 4 and beyond.

As we pointed out in our review of Warhammer: Chaosbane, there were some issues. Like the lack of substantive graphics options on the PC port. This patch has fixed that by adding various graphical tweaks like depth of field, TAA, MLAA, volumetric lighting, and an FPS cap to the game.

Read on for the full patch notes:

• A new rarity level for gear T5 (Green) gear that provides a new upgrade for all armors, rings, weapons, and amulets. These have the same set effects as T4 and can be stacked with T4 armor (so you won’t have to wait for a complete set for the effect).

• Invasion Mode

  • Over 100 nodes to explore

  • New Unlockable Items

    • 6 Passive Skills (including effects when using the life potion)

    • 3 Rings (T5 Objects)

  • Rank system

• Additional Graphics Options Added

  • Depth of Field (On/Off)

  • Temporal Anti-Aliasing (On/Off)

  • MLAA (On/Off)

  • Volumetric Lighting (On/Off)

  • Option To Limit FPS

• Balancing Changes

  • Loot drop rate

    • Loot Quality % has been globally reworked

    • T4 (red) drops around 2 times less depending on the difficulty level

    • Fragment bonus’ has been removed from Relic Hunt

  • Bosses difficulty adjustments

  • God Tree:

    • Bonuses have been rebalanced

    • Skill unlocks have been reworked

Misc

• Passive Slots Upgraded to 6

• Fanity Slots Upgraded to 12

• Added an option to display loot permanently on the ground

• Players will no longer die to DOT (Damage Over Time) effects alone

• 10 new levels of reputation have been added to the collector’s guild

• Missing sounds have been added

• Two new levels of difficulty have been added (Chaos 6 & 7)

• Blessing values have been adjusted

• The pause menu now shows current global quality loot bonus, current difficulty and the map modifiers (for Relic Hunt and Invasion).

• The map size key is not a toggle when playing with mouse and keyboard (you no longer have to hold for map zoom).

• New voiceover for Bragi Axebiter

Bug Fixes

• Random crash fixes

• Multiplayer bug fixes (including loss of story progression)

• Backup bugs (lost character progression) in multiplayer

  • a backup save system has also been added to make sure you won’t lose your characters

• Loot drop frequency issue for multiplayer games and disappearing ground objects

• Pets now correctly increase pick-up radius

• Fixed a bug that made some objects impossible to pick up

• Fixed navmesh problems in boss arenas

• Fixed pathfinding issues when playing with the mouse

• Slayer dash skill will no longer take the player out of bounds

• Fixed a rare occurrence where Elontit could disappear after using his teleportation ability

• Fixed an issue where some people were ending up with more than 100 skill points

• Fixed some issues on big creatures that can be attracted or repulsed and those that should not.

• Leaders: fixed a bug that allowed Auras to stack.

• Banners: reduced hit points and fixed a bug that allowed Auras to stack. Now daemons can only benefit from one banner at a time.

• Bloodthirster: Increased Basic Damage

• Reduced the natural life regeneration of Nurgle’s daemons.

• Great Unclean: damage rebalanced.

• Daemonette: removal of bleed effect on skipped attacks.

• Seekers: Reduced damage and basic health.

• Keeper of Secrets: increased damage, basic hit points, attack strike zone, reduced the trance aura’s slow effect, reduced projectile pattern durations, and added the addition of a knockback to these.

• Lord of Change: Reduced damage and basic hit points, reduced damage and hit points for Pink Horrors summoned by portals.

• Rebalanced difficulty and statistics of enemies based on the number of players in the same part.

Empire Soldier

• Reduced damage to melee characters from 20% to 10%.

• Increased damage depending on riposte damage on some skills.

• Fixed a bug that allowed auras and banners to stack between multiple players.

• Increased the knockback effect of the skill Break through the Ranks.

• Increased god skill duration.

• Increased Vengeance Blade bonus duration.

• Increased Meteor Shield damage aura.

• Exchanged improved skills between the Solland Destiny and Metallic Iron Armor sets to better match builds.

• Reduced cooldown, increased damage, and decreased the duration of the Improved Empire’s Justice skill slowdown.

• Heroic set changes to the Skaven’s Slayer’s Armor: The Shield Strike now creates a wave that repels, and the set no longer improves the banners. The improved Blunderbuss skill touches a larger area and does more damage.

• Heroic Meteoritic Iron Armor set deals more damage to the zone counter when the player is hit and has a new effect that inflicts a lot of damage depending on Thorn damage to the first enemy hit by each attack. The bonus duration of the improved skill Provocation is increased.

High-Elf Mage

• Reduced damage to Arcane Hail.

• Increased Qhaysh Breakage Damage

• Fixed a bug that allowed some bonuses to stack between multiple players.

• Increased the duration of Aetheric Pillar.

• Reduced knockback distance and increased damage from the Blade Energy Wave of Instability.

• Reduced damage to the aura of the Hérault stick Phoenix.

• Increased damage from the Crystal of Focus Blast.

Slayer

• Reduced damage to melee characters from 20% to 10%.

• Reduced Rage bonus duration.

• Fixed a bug that allowed shouting bonuses to stack between multiple players.

• Reduced damage penalty for Ultimate Carnage.

• Increased Marks of Last Song Damage Bonus. Increased damage and increased skill size for Cleaver.

Wood Elf Scout

• Fixed a bug that prevented the Ambush Specialist from increasing the maximum number of traps.

• The traps from the Living Roots skill are now persistent.

• Controlled Reflex Shooting no longer repels but provokes enemies.

• Reduced deployment time for Hungry Roots.

• Fixed a bug that allowed some bonuses to stack between multiple players.

• Reduced conversion percentage from life regeneration to Executor dagger damage.

• Increased the Poison Damage bonus of the Eternal Queen’s Dette set, increased the size, and reduced aura damage.

• Reduced damage and speed for the improved version of Tournament Blades.

• Increased the damage bonus of the Armor of Eternity set.

• Reduced the collision size of the Dryads, increased armor and health.

• Increased damage stats, critical strike damage, riposte damage, and maximum energy, on all items.

• Reduced critical hit chance, reduced cost, reduced cooldowns, and armor strike on all items.

• Reduced statistics for damage blocked by shields.

• Increased bonuses on heroic items.

• Rebalanced the appearance of certain statistics on items.

• Added stats to some items: energy costs reduced on chest armor, damage bonus on gloves.

• Increased bonuses on rings and amulets.

• Reduction to armor-piercing statistics on amulets.

• Rebalanced bonuses related to tapping items.

• Rebalanced in-game currencies (fragments and gold) and XP gains

• Rebalanced the odds of finding better items and reworking the bonus statistic formula regarding luck of finding better items.