Rift From the Embers patch 1.6 release notes

Huge Rift patch 1.6, From the Embers, has been released.

This adds an entire new continent called Ember Isle, which offers the largest dungeon in the game, a new 10-player raid, new Warfront mode and opens the 2nd tier of Planar Attunement.

Full patch notes are below.

Features

• Welcome to EMBER ISLE, a new zone where the cults of Laethys and Maelforge work to restore their masters to power, and the history of both the Farclan Dwarves and Kelari is being re-discovered.
• Caduceus Rise, the largest dungeon to date, is now available on Ember Isle in both Normal and Expert modes. See CADUCEUS RISE for more info.
• In the newest Sliver, the Wanton have corrupted the Titan Gate into a portal for Maelforge's entry to Telara. Prevent this fate in RISE OF THE PHOENIX! Details below.
• World Event: As winter descends on Telara, Grandfather Frost and the Yulemother arrive to celebrate the season. Keep an eye on the World Event UI for the start of THE FAE YULE event in the days following the arrival of 1.6!
• The second tier of Planar Attunement is now unlocked!
• We've made some additions and updates to the Ascend-a-Friend system, and friends can now be Ascended from the new in-game UI! See ASCEND-A-FRIEND UPDATES, below.
• A new alternate version of the Black Garden Warfront enters the weekend rotation; see details under STOCKPILE: BLACK GARDEN!
• The 'start menu' buttons on the UI have been reorganized and put into a new layout; look below under UPDATED 'START MENU' BUTTONS for more info.

Ember Isle

• An entirely new overworld zone, the volcanic island of Ember Isle plays a strong part in the history of both the Dwarves and the Kelari, as well as being the current seat of the Wanton and the Golden Maw's plots to restore Laethys and Maelforge to power.
• The Sourcewells, direct connections to the core of Telara, are powerful energy sources and invaders from the Planes attempt to control and corrupt them for their own ends.
• The Guardians venture to Ember Isle to seek out the Dwarves who left to form the Farclan.
• The Defiants look to discover what happened to their Kelari brethren who remained after a civil war fractured their people.
• Ember Isle is a fully-featured level 50+ zone including all new characters and storyline, new defense-style gameplay, a large emphasis on Planar invasions, and all the good things you might expect - new gear and items, artifacts, vanity sets, pets, titles, factions, achievements... the list goes on!
• Two new Tier 2 raid Rifts have been introduced! Travel to Ember Isle to find the openers for Dragon's Gold and Enkindled Flames!
• The Telaran effort to rebuild the Travel Stones has opened travel to Ember Isle once more; visit the NPCs at the Travel Stone locations outside of Meridian and Sanctum to journey to the island.

Caduceus Rise (dungeon)

• The Golden Maw and some of their Wanton allies occupy the temple at Caduceus Rise, built by the Kelari to honor the powerful Telaran spirit, Caduceus.
• In their ongoing efforts to give Laethys a corporeal form, her cult followers have made an agreement with Caduceus to lend his powerful Earth magic to their cause.
• By negating Caduceus' assistance, the Ascended buy more time against Laethys' attempts to return to full strength on Telara.
• Normal mode Caduceus Rise is targeted for a group of level 48-50 Ascended. Two - yes, two - tier 2 Expert modes are also available!

Rise of the Phoenix (sliver)

• In an alternate Telara, the Eth priests attempting to open the Titan Gate in Stonefield are ambushed by General Silgen and the forces of Maelforge before they can complete their ritual - allowing Silgen to warp the gate into a portal for the forces of Maelforge. In an effort to stop the Wanton, High Priest Arakhurn pushes himself too far and is immolated, reborn as a phoenix.
• Enter the Rise of the Phoenix sliver to prevent the Eth's tragedy from turning into Maelforge's takeover of Telara!
• Rise of the Phoenix is intended for a group of 10 well equipped players who might otherwise be tackling the challenges of Hammerknell.
• New gear, new pets, and new achievements await!

Stockpile: Black Garden

• A new weekend warfront joins the rotation! Stockpile: Black Garden is a 15 vs. 15 player Warfront available in all level brackets.
• Obtain, defend, and store the most orbs to gain victory for your team!

Ascend-a-friend updates

• You can now invite a friend for Ascend-a-Friend from inside the game! See the status of your invitees from the new AAF In-Game UI, located under the 'Social' button on the new start menu.
• All NEW Ascend-a-Friend Rewards! You are now additionally granted an awesome chest of Ascended Treasure when someone that you referred subscribes to RIFT. Ascended Treasure includes things like Inscribed Sourcestone, Lucky Coins, Plaques, and Marks!
• FREE TIME! You get 30 days of free time for every friend that you refer to RIFT who continues to play for more than 30 days!
• Ascend-a-Friend awards are now granted at the time your invited friend subscribes to RIFT.

Updated 'Start Menu' buttons

• We updated and consolidated the on-screen menu butttons that appear by default in the lower left corner of the screen.
• PLAYER: The 'Player' subsection handles menus related to your character's current status, abilities, and quests.
• ACTIVITIES: Manage your queues for Warfronts and Dungeons here!
• SOCIAL: Handles keeping track of your friends, guild, and raid members under this section.
• HELP: For when you need somebody! Contact CS or receive other in-game assistance or reports.
• SYSTEM: This is where all of the setting, layout, and keybinding type menus are hanging out.

General

• Added a checkbox to merchants who have items filtered from your view that will allow you to See All Items.
• 'Nimble' mounts - +90% speed - now require level 30 rather than level 40 to use.
• You may now remain mounted while inside Lantern Hook and the Chancel of Labors.
• The Inventory search feature can now search by the terms 'Soulbound' and 'Bind-On-Equip' to help find these items in your inventory.
• Characters who are /afk will be notified if they auto-fail any party or raid leader-issued ready checks.
• Added an 'Already Purchased' indicator (if applicable) to the tooltip of Ascended Power abilities on merchants.
• All Artifacts now stack to 99. Which is a lot.
• The minimap now shows tracked NPCs that are dead for as long as they remain lootable.

Experience Updates

• Groups of 10 or more players will gain more experience when killing NPCs than they currently get.
• Instance boss NPCs in Expert and Master modes now award more experience when killed.
• Instance boss NPCs in Slivers and Raids now award significantly more experience when killed.

Rifts and invasions

• Rift consumable items now stack to 50, increased from 20.
• The [Zone] Defender Achievements now have more general description text as the Rifts required now regularly show up in all zones.
• All Invasions now drop Artifacts based on the Invasion's planar type, rather than based on zone, as the presence of zone-specific Invasions has changed due to world events and new Rift opening abilities.
• PvP Rifts: When you are carrying the Sourcestone, we now show a target arrow on the ground pointing you toward where you should go with it.
• Increased the frequency at which Invasions spawn during high level zone events.
• Added more daily quests to all zones for closing Rifts and defeating Rift creatures.

Looking for group

• Players manually added to in-progress LFG groups can now use the 'Enter Dungeon' button on their LFG map icon.
• Some forms of NPC mind control effects that would remove you from the LFG queue no longer do so.
• You can now use the raid frame UI to initiate a LFG member votekick.

Planar attunement

• The second tier of Planar Attunement is now unlocked! The window now allows you to preview abilities in tiers you cannot access yet.
• Players will receive more Planar Attunement experience when killing NPCs in Sliver and Raid zones.
• Significantly increased the amount of experience granted for Raid and Sliver bosses.
• Significantly increased the amount of Planar Attunement experience awarded from random Tier 1 and Tier 2 Expert Dungeon completions via LFG.

Souls

• Teleport abilities like Shadow Assault and Shadow Stalk that move the character behind the target will fail less often and will now teleport directly on top of the target if no good location is available behind it.

CLERIC

CABALIST

• Undertow: Now properly triggers on the correct target of Maelstrom (assuming it's an enemy, of course).

DRUID

• Satyr: Now properly inherits the Cleric's Focus, allowing Thorns of Asphodel to do proper damage in raids.
• Spirit of the Wood: Now properly works as described, and no longer affects the pet's auto-attacks.

INQUISITOR

• Clinging Spirit: Can also be applied by Bolt of Depravity. Now properly lists its duration as 15 seconds.
• Nysyr's Rebuke: No longer suffers from pushback.

JUSTICAR

• Increased threat generated by all damaging abilities.
• Bolt of Radiance: Now properly categorized as a Damage ability and not Threat in the ability binder.
• Precept of Refuge: This ability may now critically hit.
• Reparation: Now properly matches the ability description, no longer healing other Clerics with Reparation.
• Righteous Mandate, Doctrine of Righteousness: Properly flagged as a single-target spell, rather than an Area of Effect spell.
• Rebuke: No longer interrupts un-interruptible boss abilities.
• Mien of Leadership: Increased threat bonus to 500%. Now also causes overhealing to generate threat.
• Thorvin's Law: Now causes Mien of Leadership to reduce damage from spells by 3-6%, and all non-Physical damage by 1% + 1% per point spent in Justicar above 26. No longer requires the purchase of Precept of Refuge to unlock.
• Shield of Faith: Now reduces all damage by 2-10%.
• Just Defense: Now absorbs 50% of the Cleric's maximum health. Removed ranks 2 and 3.
• Resplendent Embrace: Now also increases the Cleric's maximum health by 20%.
• Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Reduced the absorption triggered by Doctrine of Authority to 50% of the Justicar's Spell Power.

SENTINEL

• Serendipity: Now properly applies to the next spell cast immediately after proccing.

SHAMAN

• Lightning Hammer: Lightning may now critically hit.
• Bitter Wind: Reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.

MAGE

• Fixed a bug where Charge consuming abilities which block Charge generation while active could also block Mana returned from drinks.

ARCHON

• Purification: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage's target does not have a Curse debuff on them.
• Illuminate - New Ability: Illuminates the weak points on a target, causing each attacker to deal additional Physical damage on 1 attack every 3 seconds for 20 seconds. Obtained after spending 14 points in Archon.

CHLOROMANCER

• Raised in Nature: Now uses only the mage's base Intelligence and the Intelligence added by equipment to determine the amount of Endurance bonus granted.
• Updated ability descriptions on Lifegiving Veil, Lifebound Veil, and Synthesis.
• Nature's Cleansing: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage's target does not have a Curse, Poison, or Disease debuff on them.
• Living Shell: Fixed an issue where this would not return Mana if used while Entropic Veil was active.
• Wid Growth: Fixed an issue where the Snare and debuff portions of wild Growth did not have the same radius as the heal effect.

DOMINATOR

• Quick Thinking: Fixed a bug where Quick Thinking would not be consumed by casting Icicle if both Quick Thinking and Storm Shard occurred at the same time.
• Haunting Pain: Increased damage. Now deals damage every 1 second, down from 2. Fixed an issue where the damage was not dealt as expected when used with less than 10 stacks. Updated mana cost. Fixed an issue where the damage or duration in the debuff tooltip would display as 0.
• Thunder Blast: Now interrupts the target when the ability is cast instead of at the time damage is dealt. Fixed an issue where switching targets just after the ability was cast would cause the new target to get knocked back rather than the spell's target. Will now trigger Quick Thinking when cast.
• Deny: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage's target does not have a Curse, Poison, or Disease debuff on them.
• Improved Charged Shield: Fixed an issue where this was not correctly affecting the damage of Charged Shield and Mass Charged Shield. Updated description to indicate that it affects Mass Charged Shield.
• Fixed an issue where Traitorous Influence and Mass Betrayal would not drain Mana or Energy if cast while a Charge-draining ability, such as Internalize Charge, was active.
• Fixed an issue where Ineptitude and Call of Spring were incorrectly affecting the ability and tooltip descriptions for Incompetence.

ELEMENTALIST

• Velocity: Now has a 100% chance to debuff enemies hit by Crystalline Missiles. The debuff increases the mage's Elemental pet damage against that target by 15-75%. Updated the description to more clearly indicate it only affects ability damage.
• Crystalline Missiles: Increased damage.
• Air Elemental: Reduced damage of the Air Elemental's Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning abilities.
• Elemental Fury - New Passive Ability: Successful critical hits by the Mage's Elemental pet will increase the Mage's Spell Power by 20 for each point spent in Elementalist at 40 and above. This buff has a 15 second duration. Obtained after spending 40 points in Elementalist.
• Planar Expansion: The damage bonus now affects Earth Elemental pets in addition to the currently affected Air and Water Elementals. Now increases Elemental pet damage by an additional 3% for each point spent in the Elementalist soul above 31.
• Swarming Flames: Reduced cooldown to 2 minutes.

NECROMANCER

• Plague Bolt: Increased damage.
• The Shadow Revenant ability, Oblivion, now requires only the initial target to have Necrosis in order to trigger the Area of Effect damage and additional effects of Oblivion.
• Mass Grave: Reduced cooldown to 2 minutes.
• The Skeletal Knight's Bone Shatter ability will now force enemies it successfully taunts to attack the pet for 3 seconds, in addition to its previous effects.
• Deadly Collusion - New Passive Ability: Successful Critical Hits by single target spells will increase your Undead pet's Attack Power and Spell Power by 30 for each stack of Deathly Calling on the affected target. Attack and Spell Power boost lasts for 15 seconds. Ability is gained after spending 40 points in Necromancer.
• Epidemic - New Passive Ability: Successful Critical Hits by the Mage's Undead pet will reduce the casting time of the Mage's next Plague Bolt within 10 seconds to instant-cast. Obtained after spending 44 points in Necromancer.

PYROMANCER

• Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Pyromancer will receive a free Soul respec.
• Burning Bonds: Now instant-cast.
• Improved Burning Bonds: Removed.
• Unbreakable Bonds: Now requires points spent in Burning Bonds.
• Backdraft: No longer has Fire Storm as a prerequisite to obtain.
• Fire Shield: Now a single-point branch ability.
• Improved Flame Jet: Now a two-point branch ability.
• Spark - New 5-point branch ability: Reduces the Mage's global cooldown by 0.1-0.5 seconds. Unlocked after spending 20 points in Pyromancer.
• Ignition: Now reduces the casting time of non-Fire spells by 1-5%, in addition to its original effect.
• Philosophy of Flame - New branch ability: Increases the Mage's maximum Charge by 5-10. Unlocked after spending 10 points in Pyromancer.
• Burning Fury - New branch ability: Each time the Mage fails to critically hit a target with a single-target spell, they gain a 15 second stacking buff. This buff increases their Spell Critical Hit chance by 3% per stack. A successful critical hit on a target will consume all stacks. Unlocked after spending 5 points in Pyromancer.
• Combust: Renamed to Improved Combustion.
• Glyphs of Power: Now increases all spell damage by 5%, at the expense of the Pyromancer taking 5% more damage.
• Improved Glyphs of Power: Decreases the additional damage you take while affected by Glyphs of Power by 1-5%. Increases the additional damage you deal under Glyphs of Power by 1-5%.
• Fireball: Now has a base 20% chance to proc a Combust damage-over-time effect on the target.
• The Combust damage-over-time effect now deals damage as soon as it is applied, and every second after. This is decreased from the previous 2-second interval.
• Improved Combustion: Now appears in the combat log as its own ability, no longer attributing the damage to Fireball and no longer deals damage based on how much damage Fireball does. Now increases the chance for Fireball to proc Combust again on the target by 10-30%.
• Countdown: Damage now increased by 5% for each stack of Combust on the target.
• Improved Flame Bolt: The buff effect now increases all spell damage by 10% instead of just Fire.
• Wildfire: Now gives Flame Bolt a 33-100% chance to proc Combust on the target, in addition to its previous effects.
• Pyromancer's Armor: The chance for this ability to proc is now increased by 1% per point spent in Pyromancer above 40. Updated description to indicate that this cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds - the ability worked this way previously, but now the spell description matches.
• Withering Flames: Now deals Fire damage and applies a stack of Combust each second while channeling. Withering Flames damage is increased by 20% for each stack of Combust on the target.
• Heat Wave: No longer reduces the global cooldown. Also no longer resets the cooldown of Intensify Elements or Sacrifice Life: Damage.
• Fulminate: Now requires 110 Charge to cast.
• Improved Smoldering Power: Combined into the base Smoldering Power ability, removed the Improved Smoldering Power ability.
• Smoldering Power: Fixed an issue where this would not consume Charge if used while Internalize Charge was active.
• Fire Storm: Now deals damage every 1 seconds, down from 2 seconds previously. Damage per tick has been reduced so that the total damage of the full channel has not changed. It will no longer deal damage immediately upon casting. Duration of the total channel has not been changed.
• Fiery Concentration: Now reduces the amount of pushback suffered while casting single-target spells by 33-100%.

STORMCALLER

• Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Stormcaller will receive a free soul respec.
• Hypothermia: Increased the duration of the Hypothermia debuff to 15 seconds. Duration of the Snare effect is unchanged. Multiple mages can now have the Hypothermia debuff on the same target at once. This applies only to the debuff and doesn't impact the snare portion of the effect.
• Building Storm, Favorable Conditions: Abilities removed.
• Storm Shard - New Ability: Tier 3 branch ability with 3 ranks. Gives your damaging Air spells a 33-100% chance to make your next Icicle cast within 10 seconds an instant cast, and gives that Icicle a 100% chance to critically hit with increased critical hit damage bonus of 75%. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
• Lightning Conductor: Now causes Electrocute, Thunderbolt, Raging Storm, and Forked Lightning to deal 10-30% more damage if the target is suffering from Hypothermia.
• Watertouched Soulstone: Fixed an issue where this was not correctly working with AoE abilities.
• Lightning Rod: Now reduces the pushback caused by damage attack by 50-100% while casting area effect spells.
• Eye of the Storm: Damage increased.
• Icicle: Damage increased.
• Permafrost: Ability removed.
• Severe Weather - New Ability: Increases damage done by area effect spells by 10-20%. Tier 5 branch ability unlocked after spending 20 points in Stormcaller.
• Forked Lightning: Reduced damage.
• The portrait icon for Electrified now shows the correct stack size and remaining time when switching targets.

WARLOCK

• Devouring Shadows: Now deals damage every second, down from 2 seconds previously. It will no longer deal damage immediately upon casting. The duration of the channel has not been changed, but the damage and charge generation per tick has been adjusted to maintain the same overall damage and charge from a full channel of the ability.
• Neddra's Influence: Now increases both Death and Fire damage dealt by damage-over-time spells.
• Improved Warlock Armor: Renamed to Improved Mage Armor. Now increases the Mage's damage by 2-10% when they have any Mage Armor buff active. Updated icon.
• Void Decimation - New Passive Ability: Increases the Mage's Void Bolt damage by 0.75% for each of their Death damage-over-time spells affecting the target. This bonus increases by an additional 0.75% for each point spent in Warlock above 40. Obtained after spending 40 points in Warlock.
• Dark Armor: Fixed a bug where rank 1 was not dealing damage.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN

• Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Assassin Finishers apply Expose Weakness on the target.

BARD

• The requirement where players can only have 1 Fanfare per Bard has been removed - the Bard can now buff the entire group with all 3 Fanfares.
• Coda of Jeopardy - New Ability: Unlocked at 14 points in Bard. Plays a Coda that uses Combo Points to put the enemy in jeopardy, causing each attacker to deal additional Physical damage on 1 attack every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. Additional damage taken increases with Combo Points. This ability is similar to the Warlord's Spotter's Order.
• Extended Grief: Ability now also increases the duration of Coda of Jeopardy.

BLADEDANCER

• Weapon Barrage: No longer turns on auto attack which causes Incapacitate and Lost Hope to break.

INFILTRATOR [PvP]

• Ambush: Fixed a bug so that the remaining pets do not despawn when only one of the pets is killed.

MARKSMAN

• Electrified Munitions, Silver Tip Munitions, Vampiric Munitions: No longer have a 1 second internal cooldown when using AE attacks. The proc chance is reduced for AE attacks based on the number of targets affected. For example, Electrified Munitions has a proc chance of 100% on a single target. Using Fan Out that affects 2 targets will reduce the proc chance to 50%. On 5 targets, the proc chance is reduced to 20%.
• Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Increases the damage of Electrified Munitions by 30%, down from 50%.

NIGHTBLADE

• Blackout: Functionality changed. Now a passive ability that increases the number of times Scourge of Darkness triggers by 3, and the damage of Death-based attacks by 6%. For every point spent in Nightblade above 44, the number of Scourge of Darkness triggers increases by 1 and the Death-based attack damage increases by 2%.
• Twilight Transcendence: The amount of healing done is now computed from the Rogue's base maximum health instead of their current maximum health.
• Twilight Shelter: Duration of the buff reduced from 8 seconds to 5 seconds. When combined with Twilight Transcendence, the outgoing damage reduction is recalculated before the second reduction is applied, from 100% to 60% with Twilight Shelter, and from 60% to 36% with both Twilight Shelter and Twilight Transcendence active.
• Fire and Death Attunement: Now increases damage dealt by 2-6%, up from 1-3%, and decreases damage taken from Fire and Death based attacks by 2-6%, down from 5-15%.
• Scourge of Darkness: Fixed a bug where additional triggers from Blackout and Synergy Crystal effects were not benefiting from the 30% damage bonus of Heat Retention.

RANGER

• Quick Shot: Fixed a bug with the first tick of Quick Shot's damage-over-time effect so that it no longer triggers poisons, weapon enchantments, or Munitions effects.
• Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece bonus: Splinter Shot and Shadow Fire can now be cast instantly.

RIFTSTALKER

• Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Riftstalker will receive a free Soul respec.
• Guardian Phase: Now unlocked at 16 points, down from 18. Increases all Resistances by 30, reduced from 50.
• Improved Guardian Phase: Now also reduces damage taken from non-Physical attacks by 5% when Guardian Phase is active.
• Stalker Phase: Now unlocked at 18 points, up from 16.
• Guarded Steel: Duration set at 30 seconds and does not increase with more Combo Points spent.
• Improved Guarded Steel: Functionality changed. Now increases your Deflect chance by 10-20% and increases threat generation by 20-40% while Guarded Steel is active.
• Rift Guard: Changed to a passive ability. All Plane Shift abilities and Guarded Steel trigger Rift Guard, absorbing 15% of all incoming damage for up to 50% of the Rogue's current maximum health. Lasts for 30 seconds.
• Improved Rift Guard: The bonus applied to Rift Guard now only occurs when you are in Guardian Phase. If not in Guardian Phase, you will only get the benefit from the regular Rift Guard. Switching out of Guardian Phase after getting the Improved Rift Guard effect will cause the effect to be removed.
• Rift Barrier: Functionality changed. 20-60% of the damage Rift Guard absorbs is reflected back on the attacker.
• Shadow Guard: Functionality changed. Reduces Physical damage taken by 1-5% after using a Riftstalker damage attack that grants a Combo Point. For every 400 points of base Armor, you take 1% less Physical damage, up to a maximum of 20% reduction. Fixed a bug where the physical damage reduction was not working for several boss abilities in Hammerknell.
• Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Now reduces damage taken from a deflected non-Physical attack by 15%.

WARRIOR

• 'Gift' abilities now reduce incoming Physical damage by 0.3% and non-Physical damage by 0.38% per Soul Point spent in the associated Soul Tree. Ultimately this grants a 20% Physical mitigation and 25% non-Physical mitigation bonus to characters who have all of their points spent in tank souls.
• Several tank abilities have had their threat generation amounts increased.
• Rebalanced Power costs of non-Finisher abilities to resolve the issues caused by the Surging Energy fix. This change affects all Warrior Souls.
• Spell interrupt shared cooldown has been increased to 8 seconds to match interrupt ability cooldowns.
• Removed the damage reduction in PvP for the following abilities: Paired Strike, Punishing Blow, Frenzied Strike, Reaping Harvest, and Path of the Raptor.

CHAMPION

• Lingering Wounds: This and related abilities should now proc correctly in duels.
• Having both Overrun and Blitz for Bull Rush no longer double-dips on diminishing returns.

PALADIN

• Aggressive Block: Tooltip no longer references this ability being modified by Strength, which it isn't.
• Aggressive Guardian: In addition to increasing the threat generated, now also increases the threat generated from Retaliation abilities, modified further by Endurance.
• Touch of Life: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
• Preservation: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
• Improved Reverent Protection: Now increases Reverent Protection by 10-20% plus an additional 0.02/0.04% per point of Endurance.
• Impassable Guard: Now also reduces non-Physical damage by 15%. Increased Magic damage mitigation to 25%. No longer blocks spells. No longer requires Attack Points.
• Scales of Justice: Threat generated has been increased significantly.
• Sweeping Strike: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased significantly, the number of targets it hits increased to 10 in a range of 10 meters, cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, and no longer requires a target to be used. Because of these changes, the damage has been reduced slightly.
• Rebalanced some abilities to work with the new 'Gift' ability enhancements:
• Stalwart Shield: Now enhances Block by 1% per point, instead of 2%.
• Defender: Now enhances Armor by 1% per point instead of 2 points.
• Hardened Will: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%.
• Shield of the Chosen: Now increases Block by 10%.
• Small Arms Specialization: No longer enhances the damage of Spotter's Orders.
• Life's Rapture: Now heals the Paladin instantly, and generates additional threat.

REAVER

• Increased the threat generated from all Reaver damage over time abilities.
• Power from the Masses: Fixed a bug causing all points spent in this ability to cause the same percent chance to trigger. Reduced damage mitigation to 0.7% per application.
• Sinister Intent: Threat enhancement is now modified by Endurance.
• Crest Mastery: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%.
• Wasting Away: Ability changed - now increases damage of Area of Effect and Damage Over Time abilities by 3-10%.
• Binding of Death: Ability changed - Soul Sickness, Necrotic Wounds, or Blood Fever on the target reduces all damage types dealt to the Reaver by 9%. Continues to reduce Power cost of Area of Effect abilities.
• Binding of Affliction: Fixed a bug causing Binding of Affliction to enhance the damage done by Spotter's Order.
• Flesh Rot: No longer reduces chance to hit on the target. Now reduces the Physical damage the target deals to the Reaver by 2% when under the effect of Flesh Rot. Value is increased based on the number of Reaver damage over time abilities the target has on it, to a maximum of 5.
• Cyclone Strike: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. The threat generated has been increased, the number of targets it can hit is now 10 in a range of 10 meters, cooldown increased to 5 seconds, Power cost has been increased, now generates an Attack Point, and no longer counts as a Finisher ability.
• Imbued Armor: Now affects all damage types. Damage mitigation percentage scales from 0.5-3%.
• Shroud of Entropy: No longer requires Attack Points.
• Blood Fever: Can now trigger Void Knight's Blood from a Stone ability.

RIFTBLADE

• Surging Energy: Fixed a bug causing 1 point in this ability to reduce the Power cost of the next ability by 75% instead of 25%.

VOID KNIGHT

• Fixed a bug causing Efficient Conversion to not properly alter the Power cost of certain abilities.
• Fixed a bug where damage shields such as Warlock Armor would trigger the counter on Fusion of Flesh, but not trigger the heal.
• Fusion of Flesh: Fixed a bug causing this to stick around after death.
• Surge: Now generates threat to nearby enemies when using Pact generating abilities. Due to this change, the damage of Discharge, Tempest, and Unstable Reaction have been increased slightly to make up for the loss of the increase Surge previously gave them.
• Rift Summon: Now acts like a taunt. Due to its high point requirements and long cooldown, it does not share an internal cooldown with other single-target taunts. Once again teleports the target.
• Discharge: Significantly increased threat caused by this ability.
• Singularity: Damage reduction is reduced from 50% to 35% but now reduces all incoming damage, not just Magical. No longer requires Attack Points.
• Accord of Emptiness: Now grants a Pact every 3 seconds. Now also has a 50% chance to refresh the cooldown on Rift Summon when the Void Knight is struck by a damaging spell. No longer grants damage mitigation to support the new 'Gift' ability enhancements.
• Ravenous Defense: No longer increases Armor. Reduces incoming damage, rebalanced to support the new 'Gift' ability enhancements. Fixed a bug causing this to not stack with Ravenous Strength.
• Tempest: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased, range increased to 10 meters, cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, and no longer requires you to have a target to use it. Changed the way that the secondary damage effect on Tempest is generated; it now generates an amount of damage per Pact that the Void Knight has active. No longer drains Pacts.
• Void: Rebalanced to support the new 'Gift' ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
• Devourer: Rebalanced to support the new 'Gift' ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
• Ravenous Strength: Now increases Strength based on how many points you've spent in Void Knight. Now properly stacks with Ravenous Defense.
• Rift Shield: Now absorbs all non-Physical damage instead of just Magical damage.
• Catalyze, Power Sink: No longer proc 'Instability' on the target; the 5% damage reduction this gave the Void Knight is now part of the new 'Gift' ability enhancements.
• Power Sink: Should now properly give Pacts.

WARLORD

• Spotter's Orders is no longer a Call and no longer generates threat from Battlefield Awareness.
• Locked Down: Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
• Dramatic Presence: Now increases the self-effects of all Calls and Commands.
• All Aspects have been increased to meet their previous numbers due to the change to Dramatic Presence.
• Killing Field: Threat generation has been significantly increased.
• Battlefield Awareness: Threat generation rebalanced to fit into an intended role as an ambient threat generator. New burst-threat generators have been added to other abilities. Increased Dodge amount.
• Promise of Steel: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased, number of affected targets increased to 10 in a 10 meter range, cooldown set to 5 seconds, damage slightly reduced, and no longer requires a target to be used.
• Fixed a bug allowing Promise of Steel to trigger Light's Decree.
• Call to Entrench: Self-buff bonuses have been rebalanced to work with the new 'Gift' ability enhancement.
• Rallying Command: Rebalanced the resistances on the self-buff component to work with the new 'Gift' ability enhancement.
• Powerful Countenance: Increased Armor buff.
• Imposing: Threat generation is now enhanced by Endurance. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, AND RAIDS

• Knockback abilities used by NPCs in Dungeons and Raids no longer re-orient your camera.
• The following dungeons now allow the use of mounts in outdoor areas:
• - Abyssal Precipice, Charmer's Caldera, Foul Cascade, Realm of the Fae, Runic Descent.

DROWNED HALLS [Sliver]

• Fixed an issue making it impossible to complete the Wave Goodbye achievement.
• Slightly increased the radius of the Hydrostatic Shock protection bubble so players gain its buff a bit faster on entering the bubble.

HAMMERKNELL [Raid]

• Player pets are now potential targets for the Bloodplague Crawler stacking damage buff.
• Soulrender Zilas' minions no longer award experience when killed.
• The 'Death's Hand' debuff cast by Runeburst Umbrals is now removed from characters leaving the instance.
• Achievement: Wait, What: Fixed a bug with this achievement!

RIVER OF SOULS [Raid]

• Herald Gaurath: It should no longer be possible to force Gaurath's Icon of the Herald to spawn outside of the raid zone.

PvP & WARFRONTS

• Players in Warfronts should be more frequently matched against similarly ranked opponents. As always, feedback on your queue experience is welcome!
• Library of the Runemasters now has associated Achievements!
• The Codex: Fixed a case where Defiant characters could sneak into the Guardian spawn area.
• Guardian's Flare and Defiant's Flare Planar Abilities can no longer be used on the core area-hub Wardstones. [Only affects PvP shards, as this has never been usable on hub Wardstones on PvE shards.]

CHRONICLES

• You can now enter a Chronicle in a group that has been converted to a Raid, as long as the total size of the raid meets the player cap for the Chronicle.

ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS

• Ant Farm: Entering a Warfront while you've been polymorphed into an ant will now remove the effect.
• Thwarting the Emberlord: Quest should be soloable once again!

GLOAMWOOD

• A new Butchering trainer has taken up residence in Gloamwood Pines. Dan Lewis can be found near Dursk Nightclaw.
• Declawed: The Razor Sharp Claw item is now a 100% drop from Goremouth.

IRON PINE PEAKS

• Frozen Gauntlet: Fixed a case where players in a group could fail the quest after completing the objectives.
• The quests 'In Over His Head' and 'Dark Heart' should no longer be blocked by nearby Rifts.
• Logging out in the Forge area of the Chancel of Labors should no longer cause you to be magically teleported to the Guardian or Defiant camps when you log back in.

SCARLET GORGE

• Moved the Deranged Cadaver out of some rocks that would occasionally hide it.

SCARWOOD REACH

• Rift: Neverending Labyrinth: Fixed an issue where the player who gains first aggro on the boss was unable to ever lose aggro from it.
• The achievement, Mushroom Soup, should now be granted MUCH more reliably.

SHIMMERSAND

• Cleansing of Firesand: Updated the quest objectives so this daily quest should make more sense now!
• Quests involving Rifts in the Dunes of Akala now provide the Rift Lure for the required Rift.

STILLMOOR

• Sir Isaac Kasimir will no longer single-handedly tank the hordes of Endless Invasions during some zone events in Stillmoor.
• The zone event, An Eye for an Eye, should conclude more reliably.

CULT SAGA

• The Heart of the Destroyer: The Shade of Regulos in heroic King's Breach should be a bit less Regulos-enhanced and actually killable now!
• Enchanted Wood: This quest has been merged into the preceding quest, 'A Token of the Fae'.

ITEMS

• Added a wider range of weapons to the Epic Planar Goods vendors.
• Manastones have been fixed so they correctly apply their bonus to your maximum mana.
• Improved the way we count how many items are currently equipped in an item set.
• Ancient Murdantix Spawn [Item]: The mount item is no longer Unique, meaning you can properly acquire and trade or sell additional 'Murdantii' after you've collected one yourself.
• Blighted Champion Crystal: The set bonuses on this crystal were accidentally set to the wrong order - the 2 piece bonus is now the 4 piece bonus, and vice versa.
• Dusty Treasure Hunter's Satchel can no longer be sold on the Auction House.
• Hunter Shard: This lesser Essence now has Attack Power rather than Spell Power.
• Nyx's Archon Crystal: Fixed a bug where the buff would not be removed when the Crystal was unequipped.
• Nyx's Necromancer Crystal: Also fixed Elemental pets triggering the 2-piece bonus effect. Description has been updated to help clarify that only Undead pets trigger the effect.
• Nyx's Pyromancer Crystal: The 2-piece set bonus now increases the chance for Fireball to leave a Combust DoT effect on the target by 10%, and increases the damage done by the Combust DoT by 40%. The 4-piece bonus causes Heat Wave to increase Fire damage by 20% while active, increases the duration of Heat Wave by 5 seconds, and reduces the cooldown by 15 seconds.
• Pulverizing Stonesource and Igneous Stonesource were giving an incorrect amount of Spell Critical Hit bonus and have been corrected.
• Sanctum's Word: Now with Spell Power.
• Shadepiercer: Updated icon and equipped renderable.
• Voucher: Crystal Sourcestone will now give Inscribed Sourcestones rather than Crystal Sourcestones (which are no longer used).

CRAFTING

• Clarified the description of the Apprentice/Journeyman/Dedicated/Artisan/Supreme Harvester Achievements to specify that only Mining and Foraging count for 'harvesting'.
• The recipe for Polished Shadethorn Lumber now properly uses Sagebrush Timber instead of Sagebrush Lumber.
• You can now mine Earth Elemental, Oreling, and Golem corpses.
• You can now forage Treant and Bogling corpses.
• Thwarting Runes will no longer display as 'Thwarting Cipher' when applied to an item.
• Recipe: Sacred Fetish now requires 280 skill to learn, which matches the skill required to craft it.
• Heroic Healing Tonics and Bright Surge Vials no longer share the same icon.
• Light Magenta Dye is now crafted at a level that gives skillups at the point you are able to learn the recipe.

ART AND AUDIO

• Improved and optimized some surfaces for players using the low-quality renderer mode for better visuals!
• Improved reflections added to many kinds of water in the game (for high-graphics settings), and improved the coloring when looking down into the water, especially in shallow areas.
• Sanctum outdoor music now plays more often.
• General area music should kick back in more reliably after exiting combat.
• Fixed the Spindrel mount's footstep audio not playing correctly.
• More swimming camera work - can now swim up easier when the camera is at the sea floor level, smarter character-hiding logic when the camera gets very close to your character, and now treats the top of the water like ground and will pitch appropriately.

MACROS AND COMMANDS

• Changed setting window text for "Show Only my Buffs" to refer to party members instead of "on the target", as it was described incorrectly.

UI/SETTINGS

• Porticulum locations now appear on the world map once discovered.
• Fixed the scrolling reset to the top of the list in the Guild UI whenever the data is refreshed.
• Trying to link items in a Raid Warning no longer displays box characters.
• Fixed a case where the Healer role icon on a group member's portrait would disappear after rearranging the group order.
• Quest tracker should be less likely to overlap other quests on your screen.
• The 'Daily Limit' number shown on the quest log should now properly update each time a repeatable quest is turned in.
• RiftConnect: Sending and receiving Twitter messages including the '=' character works properly again!
• Fixed a rare case where an incorrect tooltip would show up on Role icons.
• Added a bunch of new loading screen tips to highlight new features!
• Fixed Party and Pet raid frame locations being labeled backwards in the Edit Layout mode.
• Characters level 6 and below who have not spent their Soul Points will have a reminder pop-up of the Soul Tree UI once per play session while out of combat. Those points are important, use 'em!