Heroes!

It has barely been a week since the last update, but with Arena Season 2 beginning we wanted to give you an update focused on changes to PvP. We have a lot to get into, so let's dive right in.

Resilience rework

Let’s start with the updates to Resilience:

• The base Resilience which heroes received for simply equipping an item has been moved to a passive effect which reduces damage taken by 50% directly, without increasing the Resilience stat. This means that the value of Resilience no longer dramatically increases the more of it you have.

The goal of this change is to make the power of Resilience more consistent.

With this change, damage reduction from Resilience on gear will be multiplicative (rather than additive) with the base damage reduction. As a result of this, players with low Resilience (i.e. players who do not have full Bloodforged/PvP gear) will take marginally less damage than before, and players stacking extremely high amounts of Resilience (more than just what you get from PvP gear) will take a few percent more damage than they did.

Resilience will continue to be a very powerful and desirable stat for PvP, but with the updated design stacking extreme amounts of Resilience at the expense of any other stat will not be as dominant. Rather than mindlessly picking the option with highest Resilience, you will want to look out for the stats best suited for your character and how you want to play.

PvP Set Bonuses

In the previous Classless Update all of the Tier 5 set bonuses were reworked to fit better into a classless system, giving every player several unique and interesting gearing options. You may have seen this update containing dozens of new effects thinking “That’s great, but what about PvP?”

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

Here are some examples of the updated set bonuses:

• Gladiator's Regalia 4-set: Reduces the cast time of your next direct damage spell by 20%. This effect has a 15 seconds cooldown after being consumed.
• Gladiator's Redemption 4-set: Your non-periodic critical heals increase your healing done by your next heal with a cast time by 8%. This effect can only occur once every 3 seconds..
• Gladiator's Vindication 4-set: Your critical hits with Judgements give you a 10 second version of a lesser Seal corresponding to that Judgement. Lesser Seals stack with normal Seals.
• Gladiator’s Vestments 4-set: For each second you do not attack an enemy you become increasingly Ravenous, making your next melee attack cause bonus damage, increasing with each stack.

The rest of the set bonuses will be posted on the changelog shortly! 

PvP balance team notes: Crowd Control 

As the PvP meta has developed, one of the aspects of the game that has been brought to the centre of many players’ attention is Crowd Control. For this update our PvP Balance Team would like to share some of their thoughts on the topic.

Those of you who were with us back in the early days  of Ascension will remember a time when Crowd Control was very different to how it is now. Back then, Polymorph and Fear were on separate DR categories and could be chained back-to-back. Virtually every caster had a 20-second CD Scatter Shot which functioned similarly to how Repentance and Wyvern Sting work today (except it was undispellable, couldn’t be grounded, etc). There were builds with permanent uptime on Bestial Wrath, and others that had passive immunities to Stun and Slow effects.

Due to Crowd Control effects being so impactful - often single-handedly determining the outcome of PvP encounters - it naturally becomes a focal point of PvP gameplay (and therefore of PvP balance). The unavoidable endless crowd control chains and permanent immunities of the past has been refined to a meta that instead largely is defined by trading Crowd Control effects for Crowd Control counters until someone runs out. The player who runs out first often loses. This creates significantly more room for skill expression than before, since instead of passively immuning CC you have to actively choose which effects to counter. However it can also be frustrating when you lose a fight simply because your build doesn't have all the tools that perfectly counters what your opponent is doing.

This is an aspect of PvP balance that has our full attention, and we have formulated goals that will serve as a basis for future redesigns to Crowd Control:

1. Using and avoiding Crowd Control effectively should be an expression of skill.
2. The most powerful and common forms of Crowd Control should have several types of intuitive counterplay (i.e. Fear can be prevented not only by Berserker Rage, but also by interrupting the cast, line of sighting, etc).
3. CC effects and CC breaks that are easier to execute should have other drawbacks such as longer CDs.
4. While keeping it classless, access to CC and CC-breaks should feel flavorful and be as varied as possible without becoming too unpredictable.

Going forward you can expect updates to the way that both Crowd Control effects and Crowd Control counters work. Our goal with these changes is to emphasize skillful outplay in CC interactions, so that how you play rather than what build you have is the primary factor determining the outcome of your PvP encounters.

Many of you will likely see how many changes we've made - such as the Fade rework, the Waking Nightmare Mystic Enchant and the Test of Faith Capstone - already are informed by this kind of philosophy. The future will bring way more of these kinds of effects.

And that future is starting right now:

New PvP-oriented Random Enchants

• [New Legendary Enchant]: Astral Storm - Your Thunderstorm is transformed into Astral Storm, a single-target spell dealing Astral damage. This spell is castable while moving and benefits from modifiers to Thunderstorm. Astral Storm forcefully knocks players back. If cast on a player afflicted by your Unrelenting Storm it will knock their soul out of their body, forcing your target and yourself into an alternate dimension for 8 seconds.
• [New Legendary Enchant]: Guerilla Trapper - Teaches you a Barbed Snare Trap, which can be deployed from a distance. This trap slows and applies a bleed effect to the target. Your Concussive Shot now also attaches a rope to the target, pulling it toward you after a 2 second delay. If you lure an enemy afflicted by your Concussive Shot into your Barbed Snare Trap they will be severely wounded, causing bonus damage and stunning them for 3 seconds.
• [New Legendary Enchant]: Shadow Warp - If you know Shadowstep you learn a more advanced form of this magic: Shadow Warp. This spell envelops the caster in shadows for up to 0.5 seconds.  While channeling, the caster is immune to any effects that would cause them to lose control of their actions. If struck by a direct damage attack while active, the shadows absorb the hit, harnessing the energy to Shadowstep to the attacker.  This ability shares a 20 second cooldown with Shadowstep, Feral Charge, Intercept and Intervene.

• [New Epic Enchant]: Totem of Petrification - Your Stoneclaw totem pulses with petrifying dust for 2 sec, slowing nearby enemies. On the last pulse it also petrifies enemies for 5 seconds. Petrification puts the target asleep, rendering it unable to act. Damage taken is reduced by 50% while petrified but breaks on any damage taken.
• [New Epic Enchant]: Hibernate (Hypnosis) - Your Hibernate is transformed into Hibernate (Hypnosis), forcing the enemy target to sleep for 6 seconds. Any damage dealt to that target will be increased by 15% but wake them from their sleep.
• [New Epic Enchant]: Light of Justice - If you know Hammer of Justice you will now also learn Light of Justice, stunning the target for 5 seconds but making them take 50% less damage while active. This spell has a 1.5 sec cast time and 30 yard range. It benefits from modifiers to Hammer of Justice and can be made instant with the Surge of Light talent.
• [New Epic Enchant]: Freedom by Death - Taking damage from your own Shadow Word: Death while affected by a crowd control effect increases your damage and healing is increased by 20% for 6 seconds. In addition, the cooldown of Shadow Word: Death is reduced by 2 seconds.