page 3 [OPEN BETA] Patch Notes for December 5th, 2025

[lemming]

55 minutes ago, nethod said:

I think the last time i saw anyone play ninjutsu was.....

I have three I play often enough.  Last night latest.  (Oh yea, I do have a fourth.    It's a fine set. 

[Kaballah]

Enthusiastic support for every one of these changes, especially the armor Tier 9 changes and the taunt aura radius increase - totally fine with leaving damage radius the same, the taunt effect is really the valuable part.

[nethod]

Just now, lemming said:

I have three I play often enough.  Last night latest.  (Oh yea, I do have a fourth.    It's a fine set. 

can do softcaps real easy

its weakness is quartz emitters/nemisis on vengence crack and i think that's the only time i'd use this new T9 just to get another heal off...or i guess smoke flash, but other than that it softcaps like any other defensive set and leaves you wishing for resistance in the t9 instead of more defenses but that's how it goes.

[BlackSpectre]

3 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Can someone with greater math skills than I translate what this means in terms of how much less XP a player would need to reach Level 50?

 

Experience

• Minor tweak to the XP curve, rounding Experience Required down to the nearest 100
  • Example: Level 40 requires 8,401,500 experience instead of 8,401,519.

Looking at only the words written, It looks like the last 2 digits (on the right) will be removed. So 519 becomes 500, and 599 also becomes 500. So at most 99 xp points less needed to earn, but most likely a lot less than 99 depending on the level. It’s a negligible change. Not sure why the devs are doing it, but there’s got to be some reason…
 

 

[KaizenSoze]

23 minutes ago, nethod said:

can do softcaps real easy

its weakness is quartz emitters/nemisis on vengence crack and i think that's the only time i'd use this new T9 just to get another heal off...or i guess smoke flash, but other than that it softcaps like any other defensive set and leaves you wishing for resistance in the t9 instead of more defenses but that's how it goes.

 Sounds like you haven't played it awhile. You can have good defense and decent resists. Ageless Radial takes care of all your DDR needs.

 

The changes are good, but Ninjitsu isn't weak. I have several. Example attached.

Scrapper - Psi - Ninjitsu.mbd

Edited 13 hours ago by KaizenSoze

[Divi]

Quote

 

Reconstruction (Stalkers)

This power has been replaced with Up to the Challenge, a regenerative toggle that does not require targets in range to grant it's regen buffs and currently available to Sentinels.

The healing is now moved to Resurgence.

 

 

Please don't. Up to the Challenge sucks. It equates to less than 20 hp/s at the hp cap.* That is not better than an on-demand heal, idiosyncratic as it is. Moving it to the self-rez (a Lv28 pick) with a 90s cd—50% longer—and forcing us to take every single power in the set to be viable is a gargantuan quality of life reduction.

 

Not to mention, the set already has a passive regeneration power—called Fast Healing. Why double up with redundant functionality instead of just buffing values on FH? It does exactly the same thing.

If you *MUST* do this, please just add a mutually exclusive option instead.

The only change Stalker WP feels like it needs is some analog of Quick Recovery rolled into one of its passives, akin to Rad and Bio's. Adding another toggle, without the help of some +Recovery (a hallmark of regular WP) is the most baffling direction to go here.

 

 

*Based on Mids. Currently cannot slot anything into UttC on beta. That said, Mids is confusing because the power info claims <19/s, but when subtracted from totals looks more like ~33/s. This is on both Sentinel and Scrapper. Even if it's the higher number, that's only equivalent to about 3 stacks of RttC. Which is awful because Scrap, Brute and Tank still get the proposed Resurgence and higher MaxHP. 

 

 

[Frosticus]

2nd the call for mutually exclusive t9s on the armor sets. 

 

The tech exists, enough players like the OG designs, not seeing the need to force this change on them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[PoptartsNinja]

5 hours ago, The Curator said:

Storm Blast

• Storm Cell
  • Is now immobile
  • Cast Time reduced from 2.03s to 1.17s
  • Recharge reduced from 60s to 15s
  • Radius increased from 25ft to 35ft
  • The High Winds proc is now tied to Storm Brewing
  • While High Winds is active, Storm Cell will automatically cast lightning procs every 2s
• Storm Cell - Automatic Lightning
  • These procs are now an aura power granted to the Storm Cell as long as High Winds is active
  • Can proc every 2s on any target in a Storm Cell
  • After hitting a target, up to 2 additional nearby targets can be struck with a 33% chance of occurring for each
  • The main target cannot be hit again for 2s by the proc, but can be struck by chained procs of nearby targets
• Storm Cell - Lightning Procs
  • Target cap reduced to 1 from up to 4
  • Damage scale increased from 0.5 to 1.14
  • Proc rate per power changes:
    • Gust - 20%
    • Hailstones, Jet Stream - 30%
    • Direct Strike (Fast), Chain Lightning - 40%
    • Cloudburst - 50%
    • Direct Strike (Slow) - 80%
  • Can only occur every 2 seconds from the caster, no longer locked out on the target
  • These Lightning Procs can stack with Automatic Lightning
• Storm Cell - Lightning Lockout
  • Damage and Endurance Drain are no longer subject to any sort of Lockout
  • All versions of Lightning now have a 33% chance to either inflict Knockdown or a brief mag 3 Stun
  • If either effect is procced, the target is immune from other strikes inflicting these effects for 5 seconds

What this actually means for Storm Cell's lightning:

• Lightning will proc one big hit on one single target when you make attacks with the Storm Blast powers, at significantly reduced chances over the live version.
  • Gust - 20% (down from 40%)
  • Hailstones, Jet Stream - 30% (Down from 55%)
  • Direct Strike (Fast), Chain Lightning - 40% (Down from 70%)
  • Cloudburst - 50% (Down from 70%)
  • Direct Strike (Slow) - 80% (Down from 90%)
• Over the course of Storm Cell's lifespan, it can fire up to three additional lightning bolts at random targets within its radius as long as your High Winds is at 3 or higher.
• Storm Cell is bigger and casts nearly twice as fast, but is still a pain point for the set's design. Now, it's practically guaranteed to be available when you need it for the next spawn without needing to excessively slot for recharge

What this effectively means:
Chain Lightning is now Storm Cell's only 'every spawn' AoE


I didn't have enough time in closed beta to test how heavily this actually impacts Storm's gameplay.

Edited 12 hours ago by PoptartsNinja

[golstat2003]

1 hour ago, macskull said:

It is mystifying that we're making all these armor set T9 changes which we know are going to be controversial when the win-win situation of "make the new ones mutually exclusive with the old ones" is staring us right in the face.

 

Full disclosure: I don't care either way. I tend to skip most T9s and would probably take them more often if they didn't have a crash and added stuff the set didn't already have a ton of, so I'm all in favor of these changes, but I also understand some players aren't going to like them and when we've already shown we're willing to start using mutually exclusive powers this is the perfect use case.

 

yeah I'm glad they don't have a crash but you just shifted around the population who takes and doesn't take them. lol

 

I can see players who like them as is, now dropping them from their build and players who never took them taking them.

 

Not sure if that a net positive or net negative, but I think myself and others have given enough feedback that it just comes down to something the devs just don't want to do.

 

/shrug

[Harbor]

21 minutes ago, Frosticus said:

2nd the call for mutually exclusive t9s on the armor sets. 

 

The tech exists, enough players like the OG designs, not seeing the need to force this change on them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Outside of lasting for 3 minutes, what part of the current T9s do you guys like? Or is it just the duration that is the hang up?

Can you note any advantages there are to having powers like Elude, Kuji-In Retsu, Unstoppable, or Power Surge as they are on live? Something that would make it worth having them as mutually exclusive?

[nethod]

1 hour ago, KaizenSoze said:

 Sounds like you haven't played it awhile. You can have good defense and decent resists. Ageless Radial takes care of all your DDR needs.

 

The changes are good, but Ninjitsu isn't weak. I have several. Example attached.

Scrapper - Psi - Ninjitsu.mbd 41.36 kB · 2 downloads

Quartz emitters/nemesis with vengence don't debuff and you start seeing those at 30s when you don't have access to ageless radial, its the +tohit that kills a defense based toon.

you can min/max just like everything else with all the bells and whistles to give a boost for resistance beyond what Bo Ryuku does, but those are still gonna be the kriptonite for the new player without funding to fill those holes. the powerset itself though, very little resistance.

something I do like though about the t9 - (PvE only) Now grants a 40% absorb buff for 30s.

that right there gives some time to pop it and kill an emitter or two before the absorb gets eaten through

Edited 11 hours ago by nethod

[Wavicle]

5 minutes ago, Harbor said:

Outside of lasting for 3 minutes, what part of the current T9s do you guys like? Or is it just the duration that is the hang up?

Can you note any advantages there are to having powers like Elude, Kuji-In Retsu, Unstoppable, or Power Surge as they are on live? Something that would make it worth having them as mutually exclusive?

It is the combination of duration and strength.

The new model loses the crash at a heavy cost to both. That might be fine in SOME cases, but others perhaps should have had a smaller reduction while retaining a Partial crash.

[kelika2]

Not seeing a Mastermind focused feedback thread so lets give it a shot here:

The Mastermind ATO set "Mark of Supremacy" can use some Enhancement related Recharge.

Acc/End/Rech

Dmg/End/Rech

Acc/Dmg/End/Rech

 

maybe, I dunno, any of them really.

[Aracknight]

34 minutes ago, Harbor said:

Outside of lasting for 3 minutes, what part of the current T9s do you guys like? Or is it just the duration that is the hang up?

Can you note any advantages there are to having powers like Elude, Kuji-In Retsu, Unstoppable, or Power Surge as they are on live? Something that would make it worth having them as mutually exclusive?

 

Elude specifically, i love the movement increase, but what I REALLY love is the recovery bonus it gives.  I dont proc bomb, but i do fight avs, and 3 minutes of +Recovery vastly outweighs the extra defense and can enable me to take down a hard target.  Given the recent efforts to Increase Difficulty Levels, i feel this is the wrong time to institute what are net t9 nerfs.

 

The idea in making the difficulty harder is to go back to teamwork and tactics, right?  So why cut legs out from under our "oh shit" powers when you're  giftwrapping "oh shit" difficulty to us?

 

Im short, for me, the issue is 100% the duration.  

Edited 11 hours ago by Aracknight

[Frosticus]

27 minutes ago, Harbor said:

Outside of lasting for 3 minutes, what part of the current T9s do you guys like? Or is it just the duration that is the hang up?

Can you note any advantages there are to having powers like Elude, Kuji-In Retsu, Unstoppable, or Power Surge as they are on live? Something that would make it worth having them as mutually exclusive?

 Retsu:

Nin has click mez, passive kb and a 0 cost endurance refill.

Means the crash on live is a small speedbump in actual play. Like less scary than a sapper cause you know it's coming.

 

You get good ddr, crazy recovery, and most importantly for my ninja, the unsupressed movement speed*

 

* new retsu kills my speedster elec/nin sentinel.

 

The huge defence buff helps in incarnate content, nems vegence, etc. Tons of places where soft cap isn't that great and you heal/low res is easily overwhelmed.

 

You can strive for 70%+ uptime without outside buffs.

 

Overload:

Long video, but I plow thru 10 crashes without issue/hesitation. You can't dream of doing this stuff with the new version.

 

Overload video

 

Its just the culmination of the reward of building out the synergies in this set and the incarnate system.

 

EA has garbo psi protection and low ddr. Here's a (boring vid) against a 54 psi AV. Basically unwinnable without overload

 

PSI AVs

 

Unstoppable/powersurge:

Id use these if they didnt have the health crash. I do use FON on a corruptor and powersuge on a dominator as those versions are just end crashes.

 

 

 

[ivanhedgehog]

4 hours ago, Nayeh said:

---

Stalker Martial Arts got ignored in the Melee pass. Hello?

 

Bio Armor changes are trash. Stop nerfing shit. Adaptive Recharge is super lame.

 

Fire Armor got some relief from the brutal nerfs the HC Devs delivered to Burn a few years ago.

 

 

and stone still has so many disadvantages that no one uses granite. not many stone tanks out there anymore anyway.

[Maris]

I'm super stoked about the Sentinel buffs.

Actually gives them a niche in teams and a fairly distinctive playstyle

 

 

[Frosticus]

T9 armors:

 

Last thing id like to bring up is you literally just added the crash notifications a couple months ago. No one has had a real chance to put that system into use to see if they can circumvent/play thru the crashes when you know (more) precisely when they are about to hit.

 

Seems weird to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

[Fira]

I like the MM changes except for one thing...

 

The pet Stealth when getting out of Supremacy basically completely neuters any possibility to do meaningful pulling with them.

This was pretty much my main gimmick and fun factor in the past years, and testing on Open Beta shows it's now simply not really working anymore.

I'm not gonna blame, cause this is an exceedingly niche usage I'm sure nobody cares about, but hey.

[Seroster01]

I'm not sure /Bio really deserves all those changes, but most of them are OK-ish. The outlier to that "OK-ish" IMO are the changes to Inexhaustible. Very specifically, I feel like the -rech portion being only active in 1 of the 3 stances (& not even the offensive one, which you'd think would be the most thematically attuned to having faster recharge times) is overkill. Needs to be baked in by default, or at least have it paired w/ the move speed slow & active in 2/3. The rest I don't love, but can at least kinda understand.

[StarkWhite]

30 minutes ago, Fira said:

I like the MM changes except for one thing...

 

The pet Stealth when getting out of Supremacy basically completely neuters any possibility to do meaningful pulling with them.

This was pretty much my main gimmick and fun factor in the past years, and testing on Open Beta shows it's now simply not really working anymore.

I'm not gonna blame, cause this is an exceedingly niche usage I'm sure nobody cares about, but hey.

I'm not sure what your worry is. Attacking/being in combat kills the stealth, so pulling at whatever distance should be unchanged?

[Fira]

20 minutes ago, StarkWhite said:

I'm not sure what your worry is. Attacking/being in combat kills the stealth, so pulling at whatever distance should be unchanged?

No because it suppresses only for a small duration.

My understanding is if you tag enemies and your pets move away, the stealth will come back up and prevent enemies from following them as far as before.

 

 

Bad/Messy long distance pull on current version

They latch onto the robots and follow them directly because they're within perception

So you get about 40 enemies
https://streamable.com/rlmzr8

 

Same pull but cleaner on current beta

.... and yet since you can see the ones on stairs they just move around confusedly back and forth (they aren't directly following, but only trickle in to indirect aggro),

you only get about 20 enemies
https://streamable.com/4adu8b

 

[Chaos Ex Machina]

Quote

Black Hole

    Due to potential harassment against some enemy groups, now only the main target of the power will be Phased, should it be immune to repel effects.
    Radius increased from 10ft to 20ft

 

Could you just let phase be off by default and perhaps optional with intangibility IOs?

Like -100% intangibility unresistable with 100% intangibility resistable

Or use exclusive powers?

[Wavicle]

Just now, Chaos Ex Machina said:

Could you just let phase be off by default and perhaps optional with intangibility IOs?

Like -100% intangibility unresistable with 100% intangibility resistable

Or use exclusive powers?

Seriously it is WAY PAST TIME for all Foe Intangible and Foe Cage powers to be removed completely.

[Bill Z Bubba]

Regarding SR changes: Crashless +recovery/+regen click with elude AND I have to click PB more for the extra juicy absorb shield? Fine. I'll just have to deal with being more of a god.