Changelog: Dragonfire Patch 3

Ancient Lands Changes

Since the launch of Dragonfire, we’ve been closely monitoring both your feedback and the data around the new features, especially the Ancient Lands. One thing we’ve heard very clearly is that many of you would like the Ancient Lands to be available more frequently, so you can jump into the content more regularly.

We’ve taken that feedback into consideration, and with this patch we are significantly increasing the availability of non-lethal Small Portals to the Ancient Lands. Small Portals in Yellow Zones should now be frequent enough that players can chain this content, with portals almost constantly visible on the World Map. We will monitor the effects of this change to see if enough players remain engaged with the activity to sustain this high portal frequency.

With this increased availability, it is necessary to reduce the Fame and loot available in Ancient Lands accessed through Small Portals in Yellow Zones by 30% to avoid injecting too much Silver and too many items into the economy, and to allow other activities to remain competitive.

Note that this change only affects small Ancient Lands portals in Yellow Zones. Small Portals in Red and Black Zones remain unchanged and will remain opportunity targets offering access to the same high Fame and loot. This allows us to give players the choice between accessible and frequent portals in Yellow Zones, and high-risk/high-reward portals in Red and Black Zones.

The Fame and loot available through Medium and Large Portals will also remain at their current levels. Large Portals will appear more frequently but will remain occasional opportunity targets. Since more players are needed for these instances, keeping their availability more limited helps prevent them from becoming too empty while allowing us to keep Fame and loot high.

Ancient Lands portal changes

Small Portals in Yellow Zones

Average spawn time: 45 minutes → 15.5 minutes

Chance of appearing in a region: 25% → 33%

Lock time: 15 minutes → 5 minutes

Time available to enter after unlocking: 8 minutes → 10 minutes

Fame and loot reduced by 30%

Small Portals in Red and Black Zones

Chance of appearing in a region: 25% → 33%

Time available to enter after unlocking: 8 minutes → 10 minutes

Canceling a completed portal channel now silences the player for a short time

This is intended to counter strategies in which groups cancel their finished portal channel and attack other groups

Increased the chance of Large Portals appearing by 50%

They are now also more likely to appear during prime times

Other Ancient Lands changes

Roughly 10% of the value from each of the four regular Drake chests has been moved to the central Fire Drake chest

Additionally, the value of the central Fire Drake chest has been further increased by providing a significantly higher drop chance of the new artifact items

The Small and Medium islands now require their Drake to be killed to complete the quest

Reduced Ancient Lands mob health and damage

Small Portals: -10%

Medium Portals: -10%

Large Portals: -20%

Reduced Stonebreaker Berserkers’ Pulse Shock damage

Damage: 400 → 300

Damage is now correctly applied to all players within the Pulse Shock range behind the player hit by the attack

Reduced Renowned Huntress’ Cross Fissure damage

Damage: 1350 → 1000

Dragon Sanctuary Changes

Our changes to Maeve in Patch 2 succeeded in making the fight more consistent, which is good. However, the fight is still too punishing once Meave drops below 40% health, especially at higher tiers (8.1+). With these changes, we want to address this specifically by reducing some of the chaos caused by the boulders and providing more breathing room toward the end of the fight.

Maeve combat changes

Number of additional boulders summoned below 40% health:

3 → 2 (Max. boulders 6 → 5)

Reduced Primal Dragon Flame’s damage

Normal damage: 1250 → 1150 (true damage unchanged)

Increased time between Storm Spire appearances

45s → 55s

Fixed issue where Boulder Charge could hit twice on rare occasions

Open-World Dragon Attack Changes

To reduce the impact of strategies where outsiders try to grief a group fighting a Dragon, the reset behavior of open-world Dragons has been adjusted.

Open-world Dragons no longer fully recover their health when reset. Instead, they recover to the last 20% health threshold reached

For example, if a Dragon is reset at 72% health, it will resume the fight at 80% health when engaged again

Might rewards from open-world Dragons have been increased by 150%

Mobile Combat and Targeting

Targeting modes have been added on mobile, allowing you to control which types of targets can be selected when switching targets or dragging the attack button

Targeting modes can be enabled or disabled in Settings → Controls → Auto-Targeting

They are disabled by default

Once enabled, the modes can be toggled in the HUD

Available modes are All, Enemies, Party, Allies, and Automatic

‘All’ does not filter possible targets

‘Enemies’ selects hostile players and mobs

‘Party’ selects only your party members

‘Allies’ selects friendly players, whether in your party or not

‘Automatic’ chooses one of the above modes based on your current abilities and whether you’re in a party

A new ‘Double Tap to Self-Cast’ option has been added

This can be found in Settings → Controls → General on mobile

It is enabled by default

It can be disabled to prevent accidental self-casts when repeatedly tapping and to remove the delay used to detect a double tap

Other Changes

Improved T4 Boar dash behavior and indication

Combat Balance Changes

Crossbows

Explosive Bolt has been dealing too much effective damage in small-scale PvP and PvE, so its damage has been reduced.

Explosive Bolt (all Crossbows)

Damage: 130 → 119

Cursed Staffs

Plaguebringer has been too dominant in 5v5 content, so its cooldown has been increased, giving enemy healers a larger window to act before the next team-wide heal negation.

Plaguebringer (Rotcaller Staff)

Cooldown: 30s → 35s

Daggers

Bloodthirsty Blade has been made slightly less thirsty for the caster’s own blood, reducing its self-damage and helping the caster stay healthier throughout many fights, even when they can’t maintain 100% DPS uptime.

Bloodthirsty Blade (Dagger)

Self-damage: 4% → 2.5% (max.: 24% → 15%)

Ring of Death’s initial ring of floating daggers has had its area significantly increased and its damage raised, improving the value of the initial cast.