March's Heart of Madness patch was revealed earlier today with information about the weapon, Blunderbuss, and the finality for the Isabella story arc. It was only a matter of time before the PTR servers come online with this information! The PTR servers will be online starting March 3rd at 10am PST (1PM EST; 6 PM UTC) for players to test out the new content. This time around there will only be 1 server on the US-East realms, sorry EU players. Amazon Games wishes increase the number of players on the test server, so they've removed all others. While playing on the PTR, please make sure to report any bugs you encounter on the forums.
Lets dive into some notable changes and what we can expect on the PTR!
Tempest's Heart - The Myrkgard Expedition
The final epic battle with Isabella happens in this expedition. Its recommended for 5 players with Gearscores between 550 and 570.
There will be a quest chain for this expedition; the final quest is called "The Heart of the Tempest" and is given by Yseult Meredith in Mountain Home (Shattered Mountain). There will be a repeatable quest just south of the expedition entrance for players who run the expedition multiple times.
New Weapon: Blunderbuss
Scales off of Strength and Intelligence making it our first weapon to be scaled with these two stats. Unfortunately we don't know which is the primary stat, but it is assumed to be Strength as it was the first one listed here. The weapon will offer high mobility and high close to mid range damage. As with all weapons; we will have 2 skill mastery trees for the Blunderbuss:
Containment - Ideal choice for closing the gap and unlocked a lot of buck shot into your enemies
Chaos - If you wish to stay further away and apply AoE damage to your foes
The Blunderbuss will be released with a Legendary Weapon Quest series that starts in Ebonscale Reach. Make sure that you are level 60 and weapon mastery 20 for the weapon and then talk to Wang Tang Zhi to start the quest chain.
Enhancing The World Rewarding Exploration
Additional locations have been added to the game that will reward players for exploring.
Starter's Beach New Players will be offered gear and weapons from The Watcher to help them in their adventures.
World Paintings Each Territory will have 2 vista locations in which you can interact with an easel to paint the surrounding area. You will then receive a painting of the area to put into your house for viewing. If you lose the painting, you can go back to the easel 24 hours later from your first visit to get your painting back.
Rafflebones the Loot Collector The loot goblin of Aeternum. If you find Rafflebones in the wild, you have 45 seconds to kill him before he runs away. If you are successful in killing this treasure hunter, you will be rewarded with a named weapon 100% of the time. If you are level 60 then you will also get a Obsidian Gypsum. If you are level 60 and quality to earn Umbral Shards, then you will be rewarded with 500 shards for the kill.
Stinky the Hunter A level 30 named that appears in Weaver's Fen. Can only be found during the day and will despawn at night. Can drop 1 of 3 named weapons for player; Stinky's Keepsake, Stinky's Sharpshooter, and Stinky's Hatchet.
The Forgotten Yeti Yetis can be found wondering The Great Cleave as level 45 elites and will have the loot of a level 45 elite.
Roadside Encounters Currently limited to only Weaver's Fen and Restless Shores; random road side encounters may happen while traveling the roads in these territories.
Unbound Island Revamped the island of Cutlass Keys that houses the curse of Benjamin Boatswain. Content is ideal for early level 30 players.
Andrometus Revamped the area of Weavers Fen that the blight continues to spread across the territory and threatens to consume Aeternum. Content is ideal for early level 30 players.
Durability Loss Will now only apply to equipped gear.
Territory Storage Transfer Removed the cost associated with moving items between territory storage
World Bug Fixes
Reduced the difficulty of POIs that players encounter while playing the MSQ for early levels
Removed invisible water that was on land
Added T4 (Mansion) housing in Reekwater and Ebsonscale Reach
Automatically granted faction advancement when faction changing
Collision improvements
Improved camp placement locations
Adjusted some of the floating assets in the world
Fixed gatherables under terrain or cliffs
Expeditions
Only requires 1 person at the entrance to start; everyone else can be teleported in once started
Simon Grey's model updated
Garden of Genesis Blighted Greenskeeper player instant kill fixes
Mutators
Named AI difficulty turned down, but boss AI turned up
Various bug fixes and tooltip updates
Combat Inventory While Moving You can now have your inventory open while moving! You will be unable to swap out equipment while in combat however...
In Combat System A new in combat system has been added to the game. You will see some crossed swords next to your health bar while in combat. Additionally, your mana, stamina, and health bars will all become visible. While in combat you will be unable to change gear or abilities. This replaces the previous restrictions that prevented you from swapping while abilities were on CD.
Weapon Fixes Bow
Fixed an issue where bow status effects could not be extended via perks or other bonuses.
Fire Staff
Burning: Updated the burning debuff applied by several fire staff abilities.
Increased damage tick rate from 1.5s to 1s.
Decreased maximum stacks from 10 to 5.
Increased damage per stack from 3% weapon damage per tick to 6%.
Updated tooltips for all affected abilities.
Fixed an issue that prevented players from interrupting repeated light attacks with a block.
Burn Out: This ability now ends early if the player traverses into deep water.
Flamethrower:
Accelerating Flamethrower (Item Perk): Fixed an issue where this perk did not properly scale its potency with gear score.
Great Axe
Bloodlust: Adjusted detection volume to prevent exploits between dueling players.
Charge: This ability now ends early if the player traverses into deep water.
Hatchet
Raging Torrent
Refreshing Torrent (Item Perk): Fixed issue where the final attack of Raging Torrent was not triggering the cooldown reduction from this perk.
Feral Rush
Energizing Feral Rush (Item Perk): Fixed an issue where this perk would not apply the stamina gain on both hits of Feral Rush.
Feral Rush now ends early if the player traverses into deep water.
Ice Gauntlet
Heavy Attack: Fixed an issue where heavy attack could be charged with insufficient mana and a light attack would be performed at the end of the charge. The functionality has been changed so that attempting to charge without sufficient mana will instead trigger a light attack immediately.
Fixed an issue that prevented players from interrupting repeated light attacks with a block.
Entombed
Healing Tomb (Item Perk): Fixed an issue that prevented this perk from functioning properly if the player exited the Entombed state by dodging.
Heavy Freeze: Fixed a typo in the description.
Ice Spikes: Fixed an issue where the Mighty Spike visuals would not appear in some circumstances.
Wind Chill: Fixed an issue where this ability could trigger the Defiant Freeze passive even when canceled.
Life Staff
Orb of Protection: Fixed a text error with the tooltip that stated it healed for 10% weapon damage when it actually healed for 8%. (Actual healing values were not changed, only text was corrected.)
Sacred Protection: Fixed an issue which caused this passive to deal durability damage to the equipped weapon when swapping.
Spirits United: Fixed an issue which caused this passive to deal durability damage to the equipped weapon when swapping.
Sacred Ground:
Blessed (Upgrade):
Changed the name of this upgrade to be “Anointed” so as not to be confused with the item perk of the same name. * Fixed an issue where this upgrade provided healing through Ice Gauntlet’s Entombed ability.
Basic Attacks:
Light and heavy attacks can now be canceled by self-targeted heals.
Fixed an issue that allowed light attacks to fire at a faster rate while holding the block button.
Divine Embrace: Fixed an issue where the channeling UI element did not match the actual casting time of the ability.
Musket
Shooter’s Stance
Fixed an issue where Shooter’s Stance was increasing the meter for the “Censored” mutator if the player entered and exited the stance without ability going on cooldown. It will now only increment of the meter after the first shot is fired while in Shooter’s Stance.
Marksman: Fixed an issue where the this upgrade was not functioning properly.
Back it Up: Fixed an issue where this passive was disabled while using Sticky Bomb.
Critical Reload: Fixed an issue that caused the sound effects for this passive to play incorrectly. Improved reliability of hit counting.
Rapier
Tondo: Fixed an issue where using Evade to cancel Tondo could result in the damage being dealt without showing the visual effects.
Flurry: Fixed an issue where this ability could not be canceled using Fleche.
Fleche: This ability now ends early if the player traverses into deep water.
Momentum: Fixed an issue where the visual effects for this passive would persist even if the rapier was sheathed or swapped.
Sword and Shield
Leadership: Fixed an issue which caused this passive to deal durability damage to the equipped weapon when swapping.
Leaping Strike: This ability now ends early if the player traverses into deep water.
Counter Attack: Fixed an issue that caused this ability to stop functioning and display 0s for all of its values.
Void Gauntlet
Heavy Attack: Fixed an issue where heavy attack could be charged with insufficient mana and a light attack would be performed at the end of the charge. The functionality has been changed so that attempting to charge without sufficient mana will instead trigger a light attack immediately.
War Hammer
Path of Destiny
Stimulated Reduction: Updated description to specify that the cooldown reduction only occurs on the first 4 enemies hit by this skill.
Mighty Gavel
Justice For All: Fixed an issue that caused the second hit to refresh the cooldown of the ability.
Outnumbered: Fixed an issue that prevented this passive from functioning when its conditions were met.
Game Mode Updates
You can now queue for wars and invasions from the world map
War: Defenders can no longer respawn on points A, B, or C; only inside the fort
War: Increased rewards
Invasion: Increased rewards
OPR: Removed the downed state (No Death's Door)
OPR: Kill credit goes to whoever got the killing blow
OPR: Gain points for contesting a point
OPR: Can see progress towards other team's Corrupted Brute Token
Quest Updates
New Soloable MSQ options are available for players so they are not required to enter expeditions to progress further.
New Faction Missions for Corrupted Breaches in all territories.
Added Gypsum rewards to Shattered Mountains, Reekwater, and Ebonscale Reach quests.
Removed level requirements to MSQ.
Economy / Progression Updates
Storage Chests effectiveness doubled; Chests that used to offer 200 weight will now offer 400... etc...
Adjusted Trophy descriptions to better clarify benefits of them.
Elemental motes, coin, and Diamond Gypsum can be uncovered while Harvesting, Logging, or Mining.
Elite Boss Arena keys may now drop from enemies in the surrounding Elite zones.
The amount of materials required to craft Elite Arena Tuning Orbs has been reduced.
The crafting mod selector popup is now sorted alphabetically.
And there is much more to this patch; make sure to check out the patch 1 forum post for all the information.
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