MAY 20, 2021 - UPDATE NOTES

General:

• Performance Optimizations 
  • Framerate and general performance should be noticeably improved for low and mid-tier hardware, with those improvements providing additional performance gains for high and ultra-level hardware. 
  • Graphics settings will be re-detected and reset per your hardware as a result of numerous optimizations.
  • Low and Medium graphics settings now use more customized foliage settings for improved performance.
  • Certain boss-arena cameras have been adjusted to have a lower impact on performance.
• New User Experience 
  • New players will obtain their starting 12 spells twice as fast as the previous iteration, allowing for earlier deck building experiences. 
  • Tazeem Overworld quests have been reorganized as part of the New User Experience reorganization. 
  • The first realm visit will now occur half way through the Tazeem experience, followed by unlocking the Sanctum and the ability to explore the entire game. 
• Tutorial Revisions 
  • Tutorial is slightly faster, and, the cutscenes have been improved and shortened. 
• Quick Play Added 
  • You can now Quick Queue and choose a story, ordeal, and difficulty mode to place then be randomly queued with other Planeswalkers. 
  • You can find this under "Guide" to the left "Quickplay". 
  • Daily Rewards will be granted for using this feature in addition to the standard difficulty mode based mission rewards. 
• Summoner's Draw event mechanics are here to stay.
  • You will no longer redraw a creature once summoned until it dies on the battlefield
• Battlepass: 
  • New Tutorialization has been added for the battlepass 
  • Multiple new awards added to the battlepass Free Track: 
    • If you already have these levels unlocked - you will be auto granted these awards.
    • Level 2 
      • Spell Unlocks:  
        • Parasitic Infection 
        • Brood Widow 
        • Spell Page Pack 
    • Level 3 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Glorious Anthem 
        • Lorekeeper Sphinx 
        • Benalish Arch Spell Infusion 
    • Level 4: 
      • Pyromancer Class 
      • 3 Pyromancer Starter Deck Spells: 
        • Goblin Rush
        • Shock 
        • Bathe in Dragonfire 
      • Gold Chest 
    • Level 5 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Thought Cadence 
        • Virulent Ooze
        • Unrefined Aether chest 
    • Level 6 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Veteran Bodyguard 
        • Ghoulish Infector 
        • Lightpiercer Angel - Penumbral skin 
    • Level 7 
      • Spell Page Pack 
      • Icicle Spell Infusion  
    • Level 8 
      • Draconic Flux Legendary Artifact 
      • Pyromancer Costume 
  • You can now buy battlepass levels via the battlepass menu 
• Keyboard-Based Movement (WASD) Targeting Changed 
  • The Primary Ability command will now target in direction of the mouse cursor.
• Non-Combat Character View Zoom-In Keybind Added (Z) 
  • Bound to Z on keyboard and R3 on gamepad.
  • Set Creature Target moved from R3 to d-pad left and right on gamepad.
• New Event: Latent Shadows - May 20th, 2021 to June 10th, 2021 
  • Collect 14 Stolen Artifacts and return to your Realm to finish the Core project to get the new spell.
  • This can be accessed either via the Sanctum, or Guide.
• Cursor Visibility Increased 
  • New cursors added for certain menus, size and color adjusted.
• Sound FX Improvements  
  • Missing Sound FX and VO have been added in many cases.
  • General improvements across Sound FX and VO gamewide.
• Codex of Knowledge Object Added 
  • Contains general tutorial, world, and game information.
  • Can be found in the various regional social hubs, your Realm, and the Sanctum.
• Localization:
  • Several areas improved

Content:

• General: 
  • NEW! Act IV: Chasing Answers 
    • Help Ral Zarek uncover the truth behind the mysterious Planeswalker's actions. 
  • Resolved an issue where The Sanctum would remain as a personal objective.
  • Tightened Navmesh & Collision functionality throughout the game. 
  • General voice over & sound sfx adjustments and fixes throughout the game. 
  • Adjusted timing of dialogue callouts to align with audio. 
  • New end of mission reward flow: After opening the reward chest at the end of Story and Ordeal missions, players can close the reward screen to pick up any remaining loot interacting with the chest again will cause players to exit the instance. 
    • Multiplayer matches allow individual planeswalkers to pick up their loot as well. 
• Benalia:
  • Benalia Overworld:
    • Minor Skirmish - Shade Reanimation
      • Resolved an issue that prevent the 10 Drifting Shades from respawning in this skirmish if the skirmish had been previously played.
    • Resolved an issue where High Cleric Alya was flagged as an enemy.
• Gavony:
  • General:
    • Gavony Missions and Ordeals now properly show creature vulnerabilities.
    • Updated grass models in Gavony to high detail so they only draw on High and Ultra settings.
  • Gavony Story 1: Curse of Crussebourg
    • Removed controller rumble.
  • Gavony Ordeal 1:
    • Adjusted the score bands for gold, silver, and bronze.
  • Gavony Ordeal 2 - Geralf's Charge
    • Resolved an issue where Subject 627 contact was broken.
    • Resolved an issue where Lorla voice over would be cut off.
    • Reduced the frequency of the battery under attack callout dialogue.
  • Gavony Story 2: Sibling Rivalry 
    • General:
      • Resolved an issue where the gate would sometimes be open.
      • Added a new gate and gate collisions.
  • Gavony Story 3 - Self Preservation:
    • Nani Oula:
      • Resolved an issue causing Nani Oula's forms to reset at max health and not despawn upon the player’s defeat
      • Resized Nani Oula to improve visibility
      • Nani Oula has had a balance pass
        • Damage from Nani Oula's tornadoes reduced somewhat.
        • Damage from Nani Oula's spreading roots attack reduced.
• PVP:
  • Resolved an issue where PVP was falsely claiming you'd get Aether at the end. 
  • Added a new reward - gold for win / loss.
• Shiv:
  • General:
    • Added hoods to Deniz soldiers
    • Increased the damage of the shiv lava hazard.
  • Shiv Overworld:
    • Resolved an issue where Goblin Warchief's were not spawning properly.
• Tazeem:
  • Tazeem Overworld:
    • Minor Skirmish: Briarthorn Execution:
      • Resolved an issue where Briarthorn Scouts did not respawn.
    • Major Skirmish: Baloth Bait
      • VFX surrounding dens have been updated.
    • During the Tazeem Overworld interstitial mission - History Repeating the Interact Objective has been adjusted to allow easier interacting.
    • Academy Grounds Tolarian Researcher Deed moved to a better location.
  • Tazeem Story 1:
    • Resolved an issue where Nissa followed the player in the tutorial version of Wild Growth.
    • Merfolk Hornblower now despawns when the instance is completed.
• Tolaria:
  • General:
    • Resolved an issue with lighting in caves.
  • Tolaria Overworld:
    • Adjusted the water in the background to not repeat as rapidly.
    • Adjusted several areas in the overworld where tiles were unaligned.
    • Minor Skirmish: Merfolk Captors:
    • • Empowered Aqueous Sphinx should now properly spawn in the skirmish.
    • For Knowledge Skirmish:
      • Resolved an issue where Planeswalkers who killed the Juggernaut objective too fast would break the Skirmish causing it to be incomplete and fail.
  • Tolaria Ordeal: Thermo
    • Adjusted the end scoring rewards tier rank
  • Tolaria Ordeal 2: Meltdown
    • Resolved an issue where there was no increase in enemies while in multiplayer for this ordeal.

Systems:

• General:
  • Resolved an issue that disabled Traits while Mana Surge was active.
  • Resolved an issue where hazards were not scaling properly with difficulty
  • Mana Color Spell packs no longer can be opened if you don't own any spells of that mana color
  • Colorless Mana spells no longer can be obtained from mana colored spell packs
  • Increased currency earned events (double mana, double fragments, etc) no longer apply to the battlepass daily and weekly missions objective as well as currency chests in some cases
  • Expert now grants up to 1 World Enchantment daily, rather than up to 7 weekly You can obtain your Expert World Enchantment on Master
  • Master now grants up to 3 World Enchantmenrs daily, rather than up to 7 weekly
  • Slightly increased Loadout Score scaling rates for certain shield and heal class abilities
  • Chromatic Mana and Eternal Echoes no longer incorrectly count towards their earn cap, if you can't hold any more of the currency.
• Affixes:
  • Hypnotic:
    • Shrunk the area of effect for Hypnotic creatures
• Artifacts:
  • General:
    • New Icon Art of the following:
      • Whip of Erebos
      • Implement of Combustion
      • Thornbite altar
      • Benalish Heirloom
      • Hallowed Sanctuary
  • Resolved an issue where multiple Legendary Artifacts did not have the correct icons
  • Orb of Shiv:
    • Removed camera shake 
• Classes
  • Removed target caps on Geomancer, Necromancer and Mind Mage spark power primaries.
  • NEW! Pyromancer:
    • Type: Ranged
    • +600 Sorcery Damage Potency
    • +150 Creature Damage Potency
    • Skills:
      • Fireblast - Shoot exploding fireballs in front of you with your twin wands.
      • Incinerate - Deals damage and applies a damage over time effects to foes at target location.
      • Alacrity Ablaze - Dash forward, dealing damage and applying damage over time to enemies in your path.
    • Obtaining the Pyromancer:
      • Free in the battlepass at level 4.
      • Free in the Store (featured/classes & packs tab) for 4 days 5/20-5/24.
  • Beastcaller:
    • General:
      • Adjusted the animations on the Beastcaller slightly.
  • Dimir Assasin:
    • General:
      • Adjusted the Mana Surge color to match blue-black better.
  • Geomancer:
    • General:
      • Adjusted the animations on the Geomancer slightly.
  • Necromancer:
    • Grim Siphon: 
      • The necromancer primary ability tooltip has been updated to reflect the amount of healing it actually provided. No functionality on this power has been changed.
• Realm:
  • The Realm project for Burgeoning Seed now correctly refers to Burgeoning Seed rather than Sylvok Armlet.
  • Class unlock projects now show all the spell icons in the list instead of showing them via text.
  • Events that increase the amount of currency earned no longer apply to Realm projects.
  • Spell and Relic Projects are no longer modified by events.
  • Realm Repeatable Projects have been changed. Rather than being restricted by timers, the repeatable projects can be completed a set number of times per day, stacking up to three days’ worth. For example, if a player logs in on Monday, does the repeatable project for the Mana Vault, then logs off until Friday, they can do the project three times on that Friday.
  • Relic Fragment projects in the Realm now show that the reward is random. 
  • World Enchantment projects in the Realm now show a reward icon.
  • Realm Structure and Land Projects have had their Planar Mana and Chromatic Mana costs substantially reduced.
  • Planar Mana earned from claiming Regional Reputation rewards no longer counts towards the Planar Mana Weekly Caps.
  • Players can now receive up to 3 free World Enchantments from the Prophetic Quill daily.
• Spells:
  • General:
    • Reduced the time that these spells root the caster:
      • Butcher
      • Grim Revival
      • Wake the Dead
      • Chronosphere
      • Tidal Wave
      • Animalistic Fury
      • Elven Assailment
      • Fog
      • Giant Growth
      • Gift of Reincarnation
      • Hunt of the Apex
      • Nourish
      • Refreshing Glade
      • Stampede
      • Char
      • Magma Burst
      • Pyroclasm
      • Elemental Shatter
      • Altruism
      • Revenge
      • Unwavering Passage
      • Victory or Death
  • Black:
    • Grim Revival
      • Grim Revival now properly states the skeletons last for 30 seconds.
    • Shadow Barrage:
      • Shadow Barrage now properly shows a 10 second base duration.
    • Wailing Souls
      • Adjusted this spell's timing slightly so that it now has a cast time, but a shorter root time. The end result is a very slight overall animation time increase.
  • Blue:
    • Evolvozoa
      • Evolvozoa now unlocks at Rank 1, rather than 3
    • Magnetic Pulse:
      • Magnetic Pulse no longer knocks enemies back instead of pulling them in.
    • Tolarian Winds
      • Reduced the cast time.
  • Red:
    • Unstable Beam:
      • This spell is now correctly flagged as a red sorcery, instead of a white one. This was causing incorrect interactions with World Enchantments and enemy color Vulnerabilities. Additionally, increased base damage by 25%.
    • Elemental Shatter
      • Reduced the cast time.
    • Pyroclasm
      • Reduced the cast time.
  • White:
    • Divine Wrath
      • Reduced cast time.
    • Radiant Volley
      • Reduced cast time.
• World Bosses:
  • Resolved an issue where world bosses would sometimes instantly reset right after being killed - allowing double kills.

UI:

• General:
  • Reworked the Party Invite window/pop-up.
  • Added additional boundaries when ignoring a Planeswalker.
  • Battlepass has been moved out of the "Store" tab and up to its own tab at the top for easier access.
  • Reworked the Social Menu
    • Added Nearby
    • Added Recent
    • Resolved an issue where the friendlist would sometimes cause overlapping if you had too many friends.
  • Reworked the entire chat system:
    • Added tabs (All, Global, Party, System, Private)
      • To unlock global chat you must be Planeswalker level 5
      • Global Chat is across the game
      • To unlock Whisper you must be Planeswalker level 5
      • Chat is now easier to use on a controller
  • Adjusted the "Guide" tab interface
    • Now quickplay, zones, and events will be located on the left menu
  • Realm:
    • Added daily currencies to the top bar for easier viewing

Store:

• Battlepass:
  • New Tutorialization has been added for the battlepass 
  • Multiple new awards added to the battlepass Free Track: 
    • If you already have these levels unlocked - you will be auto granted these awards.
    • Level 2 
      • Spell Unlocks:  
        • Parasitic Infection 
        • Brood Widow 
      • Spell Page Pack 
    • Level 3 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Glorious Anthem 
        • Lorekeeper Sphinx 
      • Benalish Arch Spell Infusion 
    • Level 4: 
      • Pyromancer Class 
      • 3 Pyromancer Starter Deck Spells: 
        • Goblin Rus 
        • Shock 
        • Bathe in Dragonfire 
      • Gold Chest 
    • Level 5 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Thought Cadence 
        • Virulent Ooz 
      • Unrefined Aether chest 
    • Level 6 
      • Spell Unlocks: 
        • Veteran Bodyguard
        • Ghoulish Infector 
      • Lightpiercer Angel - Penumbral skin 
    • Level 7 
      • Spell Page Pack 
      • Icicle Spell Infusion  
    • Level 8 
      • Draconic Flux Legendary Artifact 
      • Pyromancer Costume 
  • You can now buy battlepass levels via the battlepass menu 
• Boosterpack:
  • The Booster Pack Grand Prize has been changed to Mythic Spells Pack.
    • You have a chance at unlocking 1 of 10 spells (5 mythic, 5 rare)
  • The Booster Pack name has changed to "Legends Booster Pack" to better reflect the change.
• Classes and Packs:
  • The Pyromancer can be freely claimed from the store between 5-20-2021 to 5-24-2021.
    • Anyone who misses this can earn the Pyromancer through the battlepass free track.
    • Pyromancer will be on the free track at level 4.

Client:

• Performance improvements:
  • Framerate and general performance should be noticeably improved for low and mid-tier hardware, with those improvements providing additional performance gains for high and ultra-level hardware. 
  • Graphics settings will be re-detected and reset per your hardware as a result of numerous optimizations.
  • Low and Medium graphics settings now use more customized foliage settings for improved performance.
  • Certain boss-arena cameras have been adjusted to have a lower impact on performance.

Server:

• General fixes for long term server stability.