Marvel’s Avengers: Countdown to the Age of Ultron
Avengers Take Over the Starting Screen
As part of the Countdown to Age of Ultron, the starting hero lineup now features the core 6 Avengers!
For existing player, you can now play these heroes up to level 10!
50% XP Boost for The Avengers
Black Widow, Captain America, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man, and Thor will all receive a 50% server-side XP bonus during the Countdown to Age of Ultron!
This bonus will now be display in your conditions panel in it’s own page labeled “Server”.
Ultron Approaches!
Ultron Sentries are starting to appear in Midtown and Industry City Patrol, as sign that Ultron is not far behind.
Black Widow Update
As part of our prep for the Age of Ultron, Black Widow has received a small design update:
Our goals with Natasha were focused around cleaning up her rotation options specifically regarding Widowmaker, visually updating some older powers, and increasing her tuning in key places (such as adding a damage layer to her Signature) to make her more viable in endgame content.
Secondary Resource / Widowmaker - The Widowmaker mechanic has become a bit dated as a full secondary resource. It essentially played the role of a shared cooldown between two powers, which we have newer tech to do in a way that doesn’t require a UI bar. That being said, the former Widowmaker spenders will be powerful shared cooldowns, and the Widowmaker resource bar will be removed.
Electric Ride (new) - New Travel Power inspired by her bike in the Age of Ultron trailer (not the same bike, but one in a similar style)
Silent Killer - Passive effect migrated to Red Room Reflexes
Crippling Strikes - Weaken and Slow have been removed, since basics are not a strong place to put debuffs, especially melee basics that are short range. The proc has been converted to energy damage, giving her melee build a smoother method of using hybrid damage items. The power has been renamed to Stinging Strikes and re-themed as Natasha using her Widow’s Bite gauntlets in melee combat.
Electric Batons (new) - New single-target spirit spending melee power using the electric taser batons from the Age of Ultron trailer. Like the new Stinging Strikes, this power has a chance to deal a burst of energy damage in addition to its normal strikes. While using the Fear Itself costume, Widow will strike with her dual swords instead.
Deadly Blade - Bonus damage to bosses removed in favor of higher base damage. Now has a damage bonus that stacks up to 4 times, allowing it to still serve as an alternative to Electric Batons if players wish. Bleed duration increased to 4 seconds, giving a little more time for her melee rotation.
Sweepkick - Power now deals bonus damage if used from stealth, giving Widow a stealth combo for players to initiate fights with. Vulnerability duration has been flattened to 8s.
Deadly Kick - Has gained its Widowmaker bonus damage baked directly into the power, and gained an appropriate cooldown - a much lower one than the former Widowmaker’s natural charge rate. Deadly Kick now always critically hits and has a large critical damage bonus built into the power. In addition, Deadly Kick grants a significant damage bonus for a duration, keeping it a powerful and attractive melee cooldown. It shares a cooldown with Coup de Grace.
Coup de Grace - The Ranged equivalent of Deadly Kick - Coup de Grace has gained its Widowmaker bonus damage baked into the power, and gained an appropriate cooldown - a much lower one than the former Widowmaker’s natural charge rate. This power will now always score a critical hit, and deals bonus damage to targets under half health. In addition, Coup de Grace grants a significant damage bonus for a duration, keeping it a powerful and attractive ranged cooldown. It shares a cooldown with Deadly Kick. Lastly, the bonus damage to stunned or knocked down enemies has been removed in favor of increasing the base damage, since these affixes do not apply to most boss enemies.
Snap Shot - Slow has been removed - as with Crippling Strikes, single target basic attacks are not great places for debuffs. We’ve replaced this with critical damage rating.
Covert Sniper - Visually updated using ‘tracer’ visual tech, similar to the recent visual renovation of Punisher’s sniper rifle. This also made the bullet travel instantly through the world, removing any ability for the projectile to miss its target. Power now has a cooldown and higher base damage, and does not have the ‘bonus to far away targets’ affix, since we’ve seen that affix doesn’t work well on long animation powers such as a charge-up. The cooldown will be reset on entering stealth, giving Widow a small minigame with her tumble similar to Star-Lord’s grenade resets, possibly invoking an alternate build path.
Stinging Shot - Updated with a new animation and visuals. Widow’s Bite as a weapon should be a more useful power in the kit, so we’re allowing it to serve as a potent ranged area clearing power by way of bouncing between targets hit.
Stinging Barrage - Visually rethemed, Widow now uses automatic pistols to fire at enemies in front of her. The former visuals stretched the concept of the Widow’s Bite weapon a bit too far, and we felt Widow needed another gun type to round out her ranged arsenal.
Flawless Escape - Merged to become an active effect of Kevlar Reinforced Bodysuit.
Twilight Cloaking Device - We’ve added a damage over time and stun component that fires briefly after the initial cast, allowing the power to be a bit more impactful in terms of a DPS boost. This power now also grants a significant amount of health regeneration for the entire duration. Since Widowmaker has been removed, the power will now fully reset Widow’s other cooldowns.
Widow's Kiss - Now applies the slow that was removed from Crippling Strikes and Snap Shot. Duration of weaken and slow will be bumped to 8 seconds. Area of effect slightly increased.
Rolling Grenades - Burning duration increased to 8s.
Kevlar Reinforced Bodysuit - Now grants additional health regeneration when you use a medkit.
Anti-Personnel Grenade - No change.
Timed Explosive / Detonator - No change. There are some players who enjoy this as an alternate build path, and we don’t want to jeopardize that.
Micro-Drones - Micro-Drones has been revamped, with the goal of making the power satisfying to use in both single target and group scenarios. Each drone will now seek out a random target, with one drone guaranteed to seek out the target under your mouse cursor when activated. The drones now deliver a non-stacking short duration damage over time effect instead of a raw damage packet, allowing each drone to carry the full damage output of the power to every target hit. These changes will allow for the full DPS contribution of Micro-Drones to be consistent so long as one drone finds the intended target.
Hawkeye Update
Hawkeye has received a design update to prep him for Ultron.
Designer's Notes:
With Hawkeye, our goals were to give him some new layer options to bring up his endgame DPS potential, polish his melee tree into a more usable state, and install some fun new mechanics in his Trick Arrows to make them a bit more build worthy.
World’s Greatest Archer - Precise Aim and World’s Greatest Archer have been combined into one passive. This will free up 20 points from builds who cap both passives. Spirit on Crit has also been added to this passive, allowing him to regenerate spirit in-combat. Additionally, the power can now be toggled on to grant Rocket Arrow and Boomerang Arrow bonus damage in exchange for cooldowns. Combat Training will be the melee partner to World's Greatest Archer, giving extra layer effects to some melee powers, allowing Hawkeye players to choose their additional layers.
Wave of Arrows - Now deals a single cone of damage like Moon Knight’s Crescent Dart Fan, with each individual arrow only being art to represent the area of the cone, and the power will now slow enemies hit. At one point in Hawkeye’s history, Wave of Arrows was his primary tool for defeating bosses, but now that Three Arrow Burst has taken that role, this will provide a method for Wave to become the powerful area clearing power it was meant to be.
Trident Shot - Slow has been removed in favor of dealing bonus damage to close targets, allowing Trident Shot to serve as a close-range basic alternative for melee oriented players.
Three Arrow Burst - Bonus damage to bosses has been removed in favor of higher base damage at all times. This power now also has a bonus chance to critically hit.
Speed Loader - New single target burst damage cooldown power using 9 arrows rapid-fired out of a new device showcased in an Age of Ultron trailer. This power also has a much higher chance per shot to trigger Trick Quiver procs.
Rocket Arrow - Has received a visual update, and the projectile now moves instantly through the world, preventing it from missing.
Boomerang Arrow - This power now replaces Harpoon Arrow. The projectile will pierce through and stun all enemies, then return to Hawkeye.
Combat Training - Will now be able to be toggled on, granting Kick a cooldown and bonus damage instead of knockback and stun, and allowing Ronin Lunge to apply its damage over time effect. Now also passively grants additional health regeneration when you use a medkit. This toggle is mutually exclusive with the toggle from World’s Greatest Archer.
Ronin Assault - Is now a spirit spending power, turning this into the core damage source for the rare melee Hawkeye player. The changes to Trident Arrow will allow that power to serve as a basic option for players who like to stick to close range combat.
Crippling Kick - No change other than the mechanical interplay with Combat Training.
Elusive Arrow - Movement has been sped up.
Ronin Lunge - Movement has been sped up, and the damage of the DoT has been baked into the initial hit. There is no damage over time by default unless the player has toggled on Combat Training.
Fleet of Foot (new) - New Travel Power option. The SkyCycle is definitely on the agenda, but we don’t have time for the model just yet, so this power will serve as an intermittent travel method in the mean time.
Trick Quiver (new) - mechanic will allow all Archery (Tree 1) powers to fire Trick Arrows as a small chance to occur whenever those powers are used.
Electric Arrow - Knockdown no longer scales with additional ranks. Passively adds Electric Arrows to Hawkeye’s Trick Arrow Quiver.
Explosive Arrow - Passively adds Explosive Arrows to Hawkeye’s Trick Arrow Quiver.
Freeze Arrow - Passively adds Freeze Arrows to Hawkeye’s Trick Arrow Quiver.
Nerve Gas Arrow - Duration reduced to 10 seconds. Passively adds Nerve Gas Arrows to Hawkeye’s Trick Arrow Quiver.
StarkTech Claymore Arrow - Cooldown reduced to 35s. All Archery powers have double the chance to trigger Trick Quiver procs for the duration. The damage per tick has been slightly reduced accordingly, but is an overall DPS gain.
StarkTech Medical Arrow - Toughness and Constitution has been replaced with Protected. Hawkeye himself restores additional health over time while standing in the field.
Avenging Arrow - Now additionally provides a buff that allows Hawkeye to leave a burning DoT when striking enemies, and gives him additional durability for the duration of the effect.
Loot Buffs
- Slightly increased drop rates of Starktech Powercubes in both Cosmic Patrol Zones and Cosmic Terminals
- Loot and difficulty for level 60 X-Defense and Holo-Sim has been buffed at higher waves and has a higher chance of dropping Reliquaries of Rarity, Cosmic Rings and Uniques with Challenge Bonuses.
AXIS Raid Changes
The following changes and bug fixes are including in this patch for the AXIS Raid:
- Sentinels will use their Freeze Ray more often to provide ice patches for players to extinguish their fires more reliably.
- Onslaught should not target players with his prison or prison beam that are using their ultimate powers.
- Players should no longer remain in the Prisons after success or failure in the Onslaught Encounter.
- Red Onslaught loot is now final and has increased in several ways, including:
- 2 additional Reliquaries of Rarity
- 2 additional Starktech Power Cubes
- 4 additional Uniques, at least 1 with guaranteed Challenge Bonus
New Launcher
- We’ve redesigned our standalone launcher! Using improved download tech and a redesigned UI, this new launcher should provide a better experience for new and returning players alike.
User Interface Changes
- Updated the Tooltip for the Influence Experience Bar to be more clear and display the total amount of influence you have learned.
- For additional clarity, locked missions no longer display "???" for their name. instead they display their actual name in greyed-out text.
- To avoid confusion and information overload for new players, the Omega System is now locked for players who haven't reached level 30 with any characters. Once they reach level 30 on any hero, the system is fully accessible by all their heroes.
- The Hero Synergy system is now locked until at least one of your characters reaches level 25.
- German, French, Portuguese, and Russian translations have been updated in many places.
Other Changes
- Resurrecting other players can no longer be interrupted by taking damage. This applies to all zones. Revive your friends and fellow superheroes at will!
- Your Mission Allies in the Axis One-Shot have received a health boost! They will also slowly regenerate their health and be able to fight alongside you for longer! Treat them with kindness.
- Added a tiny **pet-only** collision range on all player summoned pets/allies so that they will not stack on themselves quite as much, but still allow players to move through them unhindered.
- Luke Cage's Hero's Call wasn't displaying a Spirit Cost, but instead of adding it to the tooltip we've just removed the Spirit Cost entirely.
- Emma Frost's controlled minions should be a little more relaxed in the distance they can be from Emma before running towards her. They will also follow behind her a little farther back, giving some space between them and Emma.
Bug Fixes
- Improved the graphical fidelity of Daredevil's Staff Strike power.
- Upgraded the version of Chromium to fix several crashes on Windows machines.
- Fixed an issue where defeated Asgardian Casters in the Slag encounter were not healing the correct amount.
- Hero switching is now prohibited during the duration of certain Ultimate powers, to prevent getting stuck.
- After months of slacking off, the portal master has finally been put to work in the Surtur Raid. After defeating Surtur, a portal to your last checkpointed hub will appear.
- Surtur Raid should no longer have invisible portals after respawning which trick players into travelling out of the region and leaving everyone behind to die.
- The Dora Milaje in the Wakanda One-Shot will no longer stand inside of each other rather than correctly colliding with enemies/each other. While phasing into each other was pretty rad, all three of them being hit by the same Spider revealed flaws in their battle-field tactics.
- Mission Allies will no longer stand inside of each other either but we couldn’t think of a funny reason for that fix that was safe for work…
- Living Laser in the Raft now correctly battles the S.H.I.E.L.D. Mission Allies with appropriate fervor.
- Fixed an issue where conditions applied via team up powers were never being removed.
- Fixed a crash that would occur on the Mac client when logging out.
- Invisible Woman’s Quantum Compression has been rebuilt to solve some of the activation, animation, and cooldown issues players were having. The initial implosion is no longer automatically followed by an explosion, and the power now features more distinct activation choices between retaining defensive shield layers for a slightly reduced cooldown and Damage has been increased
- Fixed an issue that prevented Juggernaut from turning to face the mouse cursor while charging up his Devastating Charge power.
- Slightly reduced the aggro range of Monolith in the Muspelheim raid.
Known Issues
- Blue Avenger’s Spotlight artifact currently cannot be traded. This will be fixed next patch
- Raid bosses will not show health percentages in the overhead UI panel at certain intervals. This will be fixed next patch
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24/04/2015, 16h20
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