Posted by PrintsKaspian (Source)

Today we launched Percival Patch 5, also known as the Percival Midseason Patch. Here's a rundown of some of the changes and improvements it brings:

Meta Changes and Updated Spells

The patch brings changes across a wide range of weapon and armor spells, with some specific goals in mind. "One of our primary goals with this patch was to reduce the impact of dive comps," says Michael Schwahn, Combat Designer for Albion Online. "And while we buffed a few underused items, this patch brings quite a few nerfs. The recent trend toward buffing items was shifting the gameplay away from our intended direction, so these changes are intended to ground the gameplay a bit."

The patch also brings several new and updated spells. The new Fire Staff spell, Fire Artillery, launches a cannon-like stationary attack on a target that inflicts ongoing burn damage and stacked debuffs. The Nature Staff spell Poison Thorns has been reworked: now simply called Thorns, it has moved from the W to the Q slot and gives 5 stacks that deal additional magic damage to targets.

Finally, Healing Sickness is a new debuff intended to prevent solo healers from sustaining their own HP indefinitely. As healing another target immediately cancels the debuff, this change should only affect solo and small-scale PvP.

New Guild Logs

Today's patch also introduces new and improved guild logs for several long-requested categories:

• Players joining and leaving the guild,
• Players being invited to or kicked from the guild, and
• Guild role changes, including who made the change.

These logs are accompanied by an updated UI, which, in addition to being more attractive and easier to read, also allows for longer lists of names. For more information about the updated guild logs and our plans for future improvements, please see this forum post.

Updated Mobs

Randomized Dungeon mob spells have been balanced and reworked, with many of them receiving improved animations and spell effects for clearer feedback during combat. Affected mobs include the Heretic Brawler, the Undead Governor, and several Keeper bosses, along with the Keeper Bear and Keeper Stump.

Additional Patch 5 Changes:

• Updated parameters for crafting station fees
• Updated names of mount skin unlocks to include base mounts + improved Trash item description
• New icon for Cleanse spell
• Numerous fixes related to combat, respawning, terrain, animation, audio, and localization

For a complete list of the changes launching with today's patch, please see the official patchnotes.