Welcome to the final Pre-Patch Blog Post before the release of the full Patch Notes for Runes of Power!

Today we’re going to be looking at another new encounter mechanic we’re adding to Last Epoch in just three days! As mentioned in the Rune Prisons blog post, we wanted to improve the moment- to-moment feeling within the Campaign, as well as within Echoes. To bolster this, we’re adding two types of caches to the game: One-shot Caches, which can be found during the Campaign, and Lost Caches, which can be found within the Monolith of Fate.


Have you ever thought to yourself “I love exploring, but sometimes I wish there was something just a little bit more to find while exploring”? Well, we have, and so we’re introducing One-shot Caches!

These Caches are hidden throughout various Campaign zones. You won’t find them on the beaten path either, so if you want them, make sure to put your exploring boots on. When you begin to approach a One-shot Cache, you will be able to see the cache appear as an icon on your mini-map to let you know that treasure is near.



One-shot Caches, as the name implies, can only be opened for their specific rewards once per character, but when opened provide greater rewards than a normal chest and always have a guaranteed drop of either a Personal Item or other helpful leveling items. Personal Items are hand-crafted items which once belonged to another entity that left them behind. They have fixed stats on them, and boast special Personal Affixes. These Personal Affixes cannot drop naturally, define the name of the item, and can be identified by their pale yellow color. Personal Items also cannot be crafted, so you’ll need to find the cache that has the personal item for you.



To prevent missing out on One-shot Caches when playing in a party, the Cache will only be opened for you by another player if you are also nearby. If you’re further away, it will remain safely closed for you to explore it yourself when you’re ready.

You can always find the same One-shot Caches in every playthrough: so once you know where to find one, containing a particular item to help you through the campaign, you’ll know where to go. This also provides an opportunity for more experienced players to find different routes through the campaign for different characters, depending on which One-shot Caches they may want to nab.


Lost Caches are similar to One-shot Caches, however these will randomly appear in Monolith Echoes and don’t have any limits on finding and opening them. Our goal here is to improve the feeling of each potential echo by adding random events where you can find fun little rewards - perhaps stumbling upon them, or for the avid explorers out there, a reward for your efforts. Do keep in mind, not all Echoes will contain a Lost Cache.



When found tucked away within Echoes, Lost Caches will grant a bunch of powerful items themed around the specific Lost Cache. There are many types of Lost Caches to find, as well as several Tiers of each type of Lost Cache. For example you may find an Explorer’s Cache which hoards keys, a Lost Thief’s Cache which contains jewelry, ranged weapons, and daggers, or perhaps a Thief Lord’s Cache which contains a greater version of the rewards from the Lost Thief’s Cache.


Alongside adding new mechanics and things to find in Monoliths, we’re making some changes to Echoes themselves to improve the experience. Our goal here is to make Echoes feel more consistent in navigation, feel better when clearing, add a bit more variety, and reduce the feeling of “getting a bad map.”

With the performance improvements we’ve been making, we’re feeling confident about this first change being made: increasing mob density. On average, this works out to about a ten percent increase in mob density. However, in combination with adjusting mob spawner locations, we believe this can help with the feeling of density, without too much of a performance impact. This is just a first step towards better balanced endgame monster density and this will be an ongoing effort.



The second change we’re making is adding more possible player spawn locations. This was a quick change which can help to make maps feel more variable by creating different routes around the maps.

The third change we’re making is to maps with a lot of dead ends — either removing many of the dead ends, or adding additional connections to make these maps less punishing on path choice and reduce backtracking.

The final change is we’re reducing the sizes of some of the larger maps. This means Alpine Halls is now about one third the size it previously was.


Thank you everyone for joining us for the final Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power! With One-shot Caches and Lost Caches providing more reward to exploration, and general Monolith of Fate Improvements keeping the feel-goods coming, we hope everyone enjoys Runes of Power and Runemaster as much as we’ve enjoyed creating it. So get your theory-crafting juices flowing, and your plans set, because Runes of Power releases in just three days on September 7th!

Keep your eyes open tomorrow for our final post before the patch, containing all of the juicy patch notes, coming soon!

Happy Sunday, Travelers! Welcome to the 0.9.2 Pre-patch Blog Post covering the new Rune Prisons and Experimental Items coming this Thursday in Runes of Power!

An area we’ve felt is in need of improvement with respect to Last Epoch’s endgame system is the moment-to-moment gameplay of completing Echoes. This isn’t something we feel can be fixed by any single change, however we’re still looking to improve this aspect of gameplay piece by piece. By introducing more random events that can happen in an Echo, it can help to reduce the ‘sameness’ of each Echo, and feel like a much more dynamic experience. The first random encounter we’re introducing this Thursday is Rune Prisons.


Rune Prisons are a special type of encounter you can find in any Monolith Echo, as well as most campaign areas. While making your way through the world and Eras of Eterra, you may find yourself coming across a large floating prism held in place with chains. The intermittent shudders betray the power that lies within these prisons.



By clicking on a Rune Prison, you will unleash the Exiled Mage held within, who will become immediately hostile to both you and any enemies in the area. These Exiled Mages will spawn with a random set of abilities, so you never quite know exactly what you will be facing when you break them out - but always be ready for a fight.



If you manage to defeat this Exiled Mage, you will be rewarded with an Experimental item, and potentially, at higher levels, a Rune of Research.


Experimental Items are a new class of items being introduced in Runes of Power. These are items which at first glance may appear to be a standard Magic, Unique, or Exalted item. However on closer inspection you’ll notice they come with a very special affix. These Experimental Affixes cannot by crafted or found through normal means, and are typically only found on items dropped by an Exiled Mage.



These experimental affixes can even roll exalted, as well as the potential for other affixes on the item to roll as Exalted. This means that yes, you can in fact craft a Legendary Item using Experimental Affixes!

At higher levels, you may also find a very special crafting item dropped by an Exiled Mage: a Rune of Research.


Successfully defeating an Exiled Mage above level 70 has a chance to drop a Rune of Research. This Rune will seal an Experimental Affix on an Experimental item. This obeys normal Sealed Affix rules, in that an item can only have one Sealed Affix.



When sealing an experimental affix through the use of a Rune of Research, you have a chance to receive a particularly powerful crafting item, a Glyph of Insight. When this glyph is used to upgrade a normal affix, it will change it into an Experimental Affix. This process is deterministic based on the item.



This means if you have two of the exact same item, it will always produce the same Experimental Affix. Determining what exactly an item needs for each possible Experimental Affix however is something that may require a bit of… experimentation.




That’s all for today’s Pre-Patch Blog Post taking a look at Rune Prisons, and we hope everyone’s excited for this entirely new type of item and crafting mechanic coming in just four more days on September 7th.

Join us again tomorrow for a look into One-shot Caches, Lost Caches, and some general improvements for Monolith Echoes coming in Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Welcome Travelers to the third Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power!

Today we’ll be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, visual improvements, and quality of life features coming in Patch 0.9.2 on September 7th. This post is going to be quite a visual feast, so make sure you have your eyeballs ready for the images ahead!


With the recent complete overhaul of Chapter 1, we wanted to go back through some of the mid-game areas and apply our new tech and design principles. All zones in Chapter 6, most zones in Chapter 4, and several other hand-picked zones have had significant visual upgrades made to them.



Many of these areas have had completely new assets created for them such as siege weaponry for Osprix War Camps and new soul storage devices for the Immortal Empire. Many of these items not only improve the visuals of the area, but also work to create additional immersion as each of these custom crafted items also have a purpose and intent.



These changes help us bring Eterra as a whole up to our latest standards in preparation for 1.0. Our goal with many of these changes is not just to beautify these areas, but also to help bolster the unique distinctions between both different Eras and Zones. Time travel is a core part of Last Epoch, and so it’s even more important to have distinct visual traits and variety to help reinforce the difference between the Eras. These visual updates make many of these areas feel like entirely new maps to play through.






Alongside Zones, a number of enemies are getting visual updates as well in 0.9.2. For those that keep close track of our teasers on our weekly Dev Streams, we teased this duo’s art a while back, and they’ll be two of the new Enemy Models arriving in Runes of Power!












One of the most frequently requested quality of life features is a way to be able to quickly and easily report bugs and provide feedback in-game. As of September 7th, this ability will be added to the game! On the Character select screen, as well as in the main menu, you can find a new “Report a Bug” button.



When you submit any bugs or feedback through this feature, you can automatically include a screenshot of your current game view, as well as your log files, for comprehensive review. We’re quite happy to finally have this feature in players’ hands, both to make it easier and more friendly for you to report issues. We’re looking forward to receiving more info and feedback on a range of issues so we can address them more quickly and efficiently with this new tool!


Earlier this week we re-enabled Town functionality live on all servers, allowing players to encounter other Travelers throughout Eterra in Towns. With this Town functionality, you’re able to connect with other players, form parties, or socialize, show off your latest legendary, and talk shop.

To make interaction in Towns a bit smoother, with Patch 0.9.2 we’re also adding the ability to right click players in Town to be able to interact with them. Using this interact menu, you can start a direct conversation, add to your friends list, send them a message, or if the need arises, block them.




Beta patch 0.9.2 Runes of Power is going to be adding twenty-one new Uniques to Eterra! With a new Mastery coming in, many of these will be aimed to support the Runemaster, however we haven’t completely forgotten other characters for this patch. Here’s a look at a few of the new Unique Items coming in just five more days! You can also find a few more Unique teasers by keeping an eye on other news such as from our Dev Streams, and videos.




With continuing visual enhancements across all of Last Epoch, as well as improving quality of life features, we’re making our way ever closer to 1.0. While still making sure we continue to add new ways to build and theory-craft in Last Epoch with an ever-expanding roster of Unique Items. In Last Epoch, gameplay, quality of life, and visual fidelity are held in balance to continue making the game as enjoyable as possible for everyone in our great community.

Thank you for joining us for Saturday’s Pre-Patch Blog Post for Beta Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power, and we’ll see you all again tomorrow to talk about Rune Prisons, Experimental Items, and Experimental Crafting!

Hello Travelers, and welcome to the Pre-Patch Blog Post for Frost Claw!

Frost Claw is being added as a new skill for the base Mage class. This is in addition to the 5 Runemaster skills, meaning there will be a total of 6 new skills being introduced in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power!

As we were developing Runemaster for the Mage, and began receiving early feedback, one of the most common responses was was the lack of a ‘spammable’ cold skill, particularly for use in generating Heo runes early. When we reviewed this feedback, we agreed that there needed to be an earlier access for the Runemaster to generate runes, as well as correcting the lack of a fast usage cold spell alongside Fireball and Lightning Blast. Because of this, we decided to address the gap within the Mage class in tandem with the release of Runemaster. Frost Claw helps to provide support for more elemental build options, supports all Mage Masteries, and is just plain fun.




Unlocked at level 12 for all Mages, Frost Claw fires three piercing cold projectiles in an arc, dealing damage to any enemies they pass through, and converging on the targeted location to create a burst of area damage on impact. With Fireball’s focus on damaging single enemies, and Lightning Blast’s ability to target multiple enemies, this left a space in between for an area damage based ability. As such, not only does Frost Claw take up the missing element, it also fits the middle ground between playstyles, adding a greater element of accuracy rewarding picking the right spot to deal damage to a number of enemies.

With its versatile design and ability to be quickly cast at high speeds with low cost, Frost Claw offers opportunities to be used by any of the three masteries. It can be specialized into Fire or Lightning in addition to the base cold, it can gain Melee Damage as Spell Damage, and can even be triggered automatically by melee attacks — allowing even further spell synergy with the Spellblade. Depending on how Frost Claw is specialized, it can also be set up as a zero cost skill, making it useful as a generator for other abilities.



Let’s take a look at a couple of the Transformative Nodes you will find on the Frost Claw tree!




With On Through the Snow, you will enable Frost Claw to recast from the target location a second time behind the targeted location. This recast can hit the same enemies hit by the first cast, producing both increased targeted damage, as well as expanding the total area of effect of the ability as the new projectiles can also hit any enemies along their path.






Looking for greater single target damage out of Frost Claw? Volley of glass removes the Area of Effect blast damage at the target location, but staggers each of the projectiles, allowing a single enemy to be hit by each one. This also lends Frost Claw to some very exciting ailment builds, so options are very open here.




Frost Claw is a perfect example of the importance and value of listening to feedback from the community. We want to provide a big thank you to everyone who helped us arrive at introducing Frost Claw to fill a much needed vacuum in the Mage Class, and provide an additional skill for everyone to enjoy in Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power! With a total of six new abilities, with five in a completely new mastery coming to Mage in just six more days, it should be a great patch for theory-crafting builds!

Join us again tomorrow we’ll be taking a look at some of the new Unique Items, continuing visual improvements, and quality of life updates coming to Last Epoch next week!

Patch 0.9.2 - Runes of Power releases in just 7 days! Over the next week we'll be going over all the big new features coming in Runes of Power leading up to the Patch Notes on September 5th. We'll be covering the next mastery to reach Eterra: The Runemaster, a new Base Mage Skill, Rune Prisons and Experimental Items, One-shot and Lost Caches, a new Crafting Mechanic, a peek at some new Unique Items, and more progress in our ongoing efforts to improve Last Epoch’s visuals!


We're exhausted. The good kind of exhausted that only whirlwind adventures can provide. In case you missed the news, last week we traveled to Cologne, Germany for Gamescom - the biggest stage in gaming. We were excited to introduce the Runemaster, who is featured in today's blog post, on that stage. For many of us it was the first time attending a convention of this scale and meeting each other face to face. We experienced the joy of those playing the game for the first time, we spoke in great depth with existing fans, and even strengthened our bonds as a team. We were honored to work (and play) alongside Maxroll ( Lonestar_McFluffin, Terek, and Lizard_IRL), Aaron ActionRPG, and Rhyyker. With their help we were able to show off Last Epoch to a whole new audience. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to them for making it a memorable Milestone in our history. We wish it could last forever, but the ephemeral nature of time is what makes those moments so special. Now with our eyes on the future, we are incredibly excited to bring you 0.9.2 - Runes of Power.




Seeing so many amazing fans show up to our booth in Germany is a perfect segue to our first feature to mention coming in Runes of Power - Localization. Patch 0.9.2 will be releasing translated into eight languages in addition to English: Simplified Chinese, French, German, Korean, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish!

We wanted to get localization into our community's hands before 1.0 so we could have time to get feedback from our global player base on it, and get it as clean as possible for 1.0. We are happy to say that we will be including this feature in patch 0.9.2. Our community has been the biggest part of what makes Last Epoch what it is from its very beginning, so being able to support an even larger community across the world is an amazing milestone to reach, and we're super excited to see all the new players joining the fray in Eterra.

We know there are a lot of intricacies in an ARPG where wording is critical and we want to make sure that comes across as much as possible for everyone in our community. We have been working closely with translators over the last year to make as many translations hit the mark as possible. We also know no one could know the subtleties and nuances of game mechanics better than our own players, and we look forward to continuing to improve localization in Last Epoch with help from all of you!


Of course, what we’re all excited about since the reveal at Gamescom - the Runemaster! The third and final Mage Mastery, and the latest Mastery to join the ranks, the Runemaster provides the greatest opportunity for customization and skill expression to date with Runic Invocation. With the Runemaster’s mastery skill, Runic Invocation, you will passively gain Runes each time you use an ability: Heo, Rah, And Gon runes, representing Cold, Fire, and Lightning respectively. At any point you can invoke these Runes using Runic Invocation to cast one of 40 different invocations based on which runes you have active, and in what order they were generated. The Runemaster also has the ability to generate, benefit from, and consume runes with other abilities depending on how you choose to specialize. The new Passive tree continues to build upon our latest passives designs with threshold nodes, and even new mechanics such as dynamic defensive stats.

As a savant, weaving the power of the raw arcane, infusing magic into offensive and protective wards, we wanted to create a class which could deliver a large depth of mechanical play. We felt this was a playstyle ripe for exploration within Last Epoch. One where in combat, each decision and ability used could impact the course of the fight individually, and create large payoffs for active decisions on controlling enemies and choosing how to approach a fight. With this in mind, the Runemaster offers several methods for area denial and enemy control with Frost Wall, Glyph of Dominion, and several of the available outcomes of Runic Invocation.



When we originally envisioned Runemaster, we had also looked at “Golems” as part of the Mastery, and we don’t want to leave out mentioning them. These weren’t to be traditional minions, but rather arcane constructs which could be invoked by the Runemaster. When designing the specific interactions and diving into the gameplay of Runemaster, we made the decision that the focus should be on the Runes and Area Control. With the amount of depth, and complexity already offering such a strong playstyle for Runemaster, we found having pseudo-minions muddled the gameplay of the mastery too greatly. That being said, we also didn’t want to leave out the theme of arcane constructs entirely, so you can still find ways to generate constructs as a Runemaster. Rune Bolt can create Runestones which automatically cast Runebolt for you, and the Hydrahedron Invocation creates a construct which lobs balls of molten fire at nearby enemies. These constructs act as an extension of yourself, scaling with your own stats rather than with Minion stats.

The goal with the Runemaster is to be easy to approach, and have a large amount of depth to master and power to wield. While Runemaster is designed to offer great depth in mechanical play opportunities, we also want to make sure that every mastery is still approachable and easy to get into. A good example of this is the Runemaster spell “Rune Bolt”, which casts piercing elemental projectiles. This spell supports being used to manipulate specific rune generation, while being powerful and versatile enough to be a primary ability on its own in a “low cost spam” setup. Whether you just want to quick-cast single elements for three of the same Rune, establish a specific pattern of Runes, or adapt your Rune usage on the fly to get the absolute most out of the Mastery, The Runemaster has you covered.




The Runemaster’s Mastery Skill, gained the moment you gain your Mastery, Runic Invocation is at the very heart of the class. By invoking Runic Invocation with any number of Runes generated from other elemental abilities, Runic Invocation will consume your current runes to cast one of its forty corresponding invocations.

Generate three Rah (Fire) Runes, and unleash Aergon’s Greater Fireball, creating a massive fiery explosion, dealing fire damage, and applying spreading flames to all enemies hit in a large area. By generating Rah, Gon, Heo (Fire, Lightning, Cold), you can invoke an Antipode of Mesembria, a rune stone which destabilizes over time eventually pulling in surrounding enemies followed by a massive explosion. Or perhaps a more defensive move is in order? Generate Heo, Rah, Heo (Cold, Fire, Cold), and surround yourself in an explosive shell of regenerating Ward with Reowyn’s Frostguard.




Flame Rush adds a new Traversal ability to the Mage’s Toolkit. Available to all masteries via the Runemaster passive tree, Flame Rush turns you into a hurling ball of fire, gaining damage reduction and exploding at the end of the movement. Channel the ability to its fullest and you’ll gain up to 150% increased area and damage when you release the ability.

As a Runemaster, you will generate Runes while channeling abilities, making you ready for the next Invocation once you arrive at your destination. Flame Rush can also be specialized to automatically trigger your invocation at the end of the traversal for a very impactful arrival. Flame Rush can also be converted to either Lightning or Cold, matching the elements you need for your build and giving the Runemaster greater control over Rune generation.




Frost Wall is the second ability you can unlock in the Runemaster tree, and alongside Flame Rush will be available to all Mage Masteries should they chose to invest in the Runemaster Tree. Frost Wall erects a sheet of chilling winds, freezing and dealing Cold Damage over Time to enemies which cross it. With Frost Wall, we aimed to reinforce the Runemaster’s ability to control enemies and aid allies with thoughtful positioning.

Frost Wall can be further specialized to apply beneficial effects to allies, or even to other spells passing through them. You can also convert Frost Wall to either Fire or Lightning to match your elemental style and provide their own positive effects, such as more damage over time. Frost wall offers extensive ways to control enemies and provide great payoffs for positioning.




Rune Bolt is the Runemaster’s “bread and butter” spell. Rune Bolt allows you to steadily fire piercing projectiles of Cold, Fire, and Lightning, rotating through the elements. We wanted to offer all Runemasters a skill which was easy to get into, and fill the role of something that was “spammable”. With a low mana cost, ability to generate resources, and ability to generate all Rune Types, Rune Bolt provides a go-to ability for the Runemaster.

Within Rune Bolt’s Tree you can modify the ability to focus on its own projectiles - adding additional projectiles, making them home in on enemies, and even explode on contact dealing area damage. Alternatively, specialize Rune Bolt’s ability to generate runes and resources to make it a supporting skill for a larger build setup. Rune Bolt gives Runemaster many ways to control the flow of combat.




The final skill unlocked as a Runemaster is Glyph of Dominion. Placing a growing rune on the ground, dealing damage over time, culminating in a large explosion dealing damage to all enemies within it, Glyph of Dominion allows you to punish enemy positioning. With Glyph of Dominion, we wanted to focus on the area denial aspect of the Runemaster.

To accomplish this, Glyph of Dominion can be specialized into taking greater advantage of enemies within it - dealing more damage to enemies that have shredded armor or are slowed, or adding a chance to stun enemies each second they are within it. You can also specialize to make Glyph of Dominion a haven for yourself and allies, offering defensive benefits such as ward generation, resistances, and even an additional 30% cast and attack area of effect while being dangerous for enemies to approach.

Our goal with this ability is for Runemasters to be able to either take advantage of enemies positioning, or empower their own positioning. With the Runes of Disintegration node you can also generate ward per second and gain more damage to Disintegrate for those wanting some more laser beam action.




We’re extremely excited to get Runemaster into everyone’s hands on September 7th. With a whole new level of opportunity for mechanical play, we can’t wait to see what kinds of builds everyone manages to come up with. Alongside the new Mastery, making Last Epoch available to so many more players in their native language, means we have an opportunity to get feedback and continue building on Last Epoch for an even wider community!

Tomorrow we’ll be back looking at another, as yet unmentioned Mage Ability, which is going to be arriving with Patch 0.9.2 - Frost Claw! Until then, may Eterra watch over your travels.

• Made some configuration changes in advance of the Server Maintenance scheduled for tonight.

As announced last week:
We will be performing some Server Maintenance today, Monday, August 21st. This will require our servers to be unavailable for approximately 12 hours. Offline mode will still be available during this time.

This maintenance period is expected to run from August 21, 2023 10:00 PM to August 22, 2023 10:00 AM (US Central Time)

Edit Aug 22 11:20 AM Central
We’re investigating an issue that has occurred after this maintenance. We’re brought matchmaking down, meaning you can’t join new servers, and some players may be kicked. Offline is still available. We'll provide an estimate when able.

Edit Aug 22 2:47 PM Cental
Online play is back up now. Apologies for the lack of updates in the meantime, we weren't able to give an accurate estimate in the middle of it.

Edit Aug 23 1:58 PM Central
We've re-deployed the Windows client build for this update to resolve some issues causing Dungeons to not work properly.

• Fixed a bug introduced by 0.9.1d which sometimes caused loading into Imperial Era Monolith Echoes to fail. Verifying game files did not fix this.

This issue was caused by a gap in tooling: issues like this should absolutely be caught by our own internal systems before ever making it to players, and we are working on making sure this issue does not happen again.

Otherwise, our priorities are the same as described in our 0.9.1d post.

• Fixed a race condition introduced by 0.9.1d which caused players to sometimes be disconnected after loading a zone.

• Improved how dynamic Solar Invaders (archers) are in combat:
  
  • Increased how much and how frequent they move between attacks.
    
  • Added another short fleeing state that can happen more often, not just after taking a lot of damage.
    
  • Reduced their kick damage by 25%.
    
  • Reduced their arrow damage by 11%.
• Majasa’s Blood Pools tick 4 times per second from 5 and deal 10% more damage per tick (resulting in 12% less damage per second). The ticks now always show damage number and hit vfx, so that it's clearer that they're dangerous
  
• Immobilized enemies no longer start using movement skills (immobilizing an enemy will not interrupt a movement skill in progress).
  
• Improved internal performance telemetry to assist our server optimization efforts.
  
• Overhauled the mechanics and visuals of Soul Cage and Soul Warden enemies.
  
  • Added new on-hit particle, hit flash and death flash visuals for Holy Fire, Holy Lightning and Blood abilities.
• Previously these visuals would look the same for all abilities of a given damage type. Now a Physical ability can use Blood visuals instead, for example.
  
• Added new loading screen art for Lake Liath zones, Divine Era Maj’elka zones, and various Imperial Era zones.
  
• Updated frozen breakables in the Tomb of Morditas.
  
• Added new emerging sound effects for spider enemies.
  
• Updated the vocal sounds for all Osprix enemies to match the new sounds added for the Chapter 1 rework.
  
• Added new sounds for Basic Attack that change with weapon type.
  
• Updated the Game Guide to add region selection and the Sanctuary of Eterra.
  
• There is now a confirmation prompt when purchasing a cosmetic with Epoch Points.

• Fixed the game stuttering when spawning new enemy types in Arena starting in the second Arena layout of the run.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Sanctuary of Eterra window did not close after being used, allowing it to be used several times and causing it to block the screen.
  
• Portal cosmetics now apply to the portals you open after completing an Echo.
  
• Fixed a bug where item visuals and cosmetics would sometimes disappear after transitioning to a new zone.
  
• Fixed a bug where visual effects could project on top of some cosmetics.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused some "when landing" effects in Fury Leap's skill tree such as Frenzied Onslaught, Wings of Endurance and Battle Bloom to not apply to Maul with Werebear Form's Skull Crusher allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Earthquake's Aftershock did not scale with strength, and also incorrectly said it receives 40% increased damage per point of strength. It receives 4% increased damage per point of strength.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spirit Thorns did not apply ailments to enemies hit by more than one Spirit Thorn.
  
• Fixed a bug where when using Avalanche’s Precision node, the skill appears to not properly cast at the location of the Player's cursor after the initial cast.
  
• Fixed a bug where the visual for Lightning Blast and Lightning Smite would appear twice (once in its previous cast location).
  
• Fixed Bone Golem’s leap attack having a firey ground effect visual.
  
• Fixed Manifest Armor not having an outline in Online mode.
  
• Fixed a bug where lightning wolves' unique appearance would be reverted to the regular summoned wolf visual when they were hit.
  
• Fixed rare Void Despair enemies not having a visual effect for changing their triple projectile attack.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Ice Breath from Frozen Wolf enemies cast in the wrong direction in Online mode.
  
• Changed the positioning of off-hand weapons for Sentinels to prevent clipping.
  
• Fixed Humming Bee uniques facing the wrong direction when in your Offhand, and being invisible when used as an Offhand for Mages.
  
• Fixed a bug where quest item drops in the Council Chambers would happen for all players present in the zone, but would only happen once. If a player joined the zone later and tried to turn in a quest, they wouldn’t get the item.
  
• Fixed a bug where players could rarely be in 2 parties at the same time, causing various buggy behavior with party functionality.
  
• Added a quest progression failsafe for the first Blood, Frost and Death quest echo: you can skip talking to the first Wengari if needed.
  
• Fixed the world map showing that the Fortress Gardens has a waypoint, when it does not.
  
• Fixed a bug where there was no quest pulse leading you to speak to Balthas in The Summit.
  
• Fixed a bug where Orian’s entrance animation could sometimes play while he’s off screen in The Summit.
  
• Fixed the world map not fading nicely when switching between eras.

Thank you to everyone who is continuing to report bugs and provide feedback, we really appreciate it. At this point our designers are primarily working on content for our next major update, but as you can see we are still dedicated to bug fixing and polish.

One initiative that isn’t visible in the patch notes is that we have an internal team dedicated to improving performance, particularly on the server side. There are significant technical changes underway that will have a big impact, but we’re still in early stages. We’re also working on reducing zone transition times.

Besides that, here are some specific changes we are working on. We’ll keep looking through your reports to pick other things to fix as well.

• Chat sometimes re-enables itself - also it says “Chat is Disabled” when it actually isn’t.
  
• Rarely, a failed attempt to transition to another zone can become completed after loading a different character.
  
• Summoned Spriggans don’t gain the Cold Minion tag when cold converted.
  
• The Journey To Maj’elka quest does not advance when talking to the Nagasa in Soreth’Ka. You can move to the next zone without talking to them, however.
  
• You can get stuck in place if you join the Sanctum of the Architect after the fight starts.
  
• Further Ambush encounter and Chapter 1 enemy scaling changes.

• Fixed Item Linking not working. Press ctrl + right click to link up to 3 items in a chat message. Open the chat window and hover over a linked item to view it.
  
• Fixed a bug where Weaver's Will items upgrading caused a performance stutter.
  
• Fixed a bug where parties would sometimes incorrectly use US East for their server region rather than the desired region.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Burning Daggers created by Cinder Strike's Firebreathing were not affected by the Pillager's Gold unique.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Increased Chance to Find Potions affix had no effect. This stat only worked when provided by the unique affixes of The Scavenger and Melvern's Writ or by passive tree nodes. This bug also impacted the Pillager’s Gold unique.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spirit Plague's Rotten to the Core node could not be allocated.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cinder Strike’s area of effect was not increased by its Blast Wave node.
  
• Fixed a bug where Volatile Zombie's Necromantic Fervor also gained the benefit of the Vital Ward node without allocating it, and Vital Ward still gave the health gain from Necromantic Fervor when allocated.
  
• Fixed ground visuals projecting on top of Storm Crows.
  
• Fixed a bug where The Shrouded Plateau was missing terrain in some areas.
  
• Fixed the prices for Epoch Points in the store always displaying in $USD, rather than your local currency in Steam.
  
• Fixed the polearm visual variant of Multistrike and Vengeance being rotated incorrectly.
  
• Fixed a visual issue with Voidtouched Archivist’s Ice Mortar and Voidfused Armor’s sword attack.
  
• Fixed Wraith and Volatile Zombie minions from party members having minimap icons.

• Improved AFK detection: interacting with the UI, pressing buttons, etc. will prevent you being flagged as AFK. The time before being kicked has also been increased to 20 minutes.
  
• Because the Increase Chance to Find Potions affix was having no effect before, we're being cautious with the total amount that it can give. The maximum value at T5 has been reduced to 60% (from 70%) and the maximum amount at T7 has been reduced to 120% (from 140%). Additionally it can no longer roll on rings and any existing potion drop rate affixes on rings have been changed to armour affixes (the armour affix can still not roll on rings naturally).
  
• Reduced Bolroth Stomp hitbox size especially at the sides of the Bolroth.
  
• Bolroths now stop turning (finalize target) 0.35 seconds into their Stomp attack. Previously they could turn right until the end.
  
• Regular enemies in Monolith Ambushes gain 15% more health (from 10% more damage and 5% less health).
  
• Bosses in Monolith Ambushes gain 5% more damage and 5% less health (from 10% more damage and 5% less health)
  
• Minibosses in Monolith Ambushes gain 20% more damage and 150% more health (from 40% more damage and 150% more health)
  
• The Osprix Monolith Ambush contains 1 fewer lightmage.
  
• Added final 2d art for Pillager's Gold, Ambitions of an Erased Acolyte, and Gambit of an Erased Rogue.
  
• Improved the quality of the preview images for the Soul Eater cosmetic armor set.
  
• Updated the Game Guide and tooltip for Corruption to mention the Sanctuary of Eterra.
  
• Baby Scorpions no longer have minimap icons.

• Thank you for continuing to report bugs; we keep an eye on everything that comes through the Forums. Here’s much of what we’re currently working on fixing or improving:
  
• Chat sometimes re-enables itself - we’ve found that this is caused by joining or leaving a party or town server (because this joins/leaves a chat channel).
  
• Rarely, a failed attempt to transition to another zone can become completed after loading a different character.
  
• Further Ambush encounter scaling changes.
  
• Adjusting new Chapter 1 enemies that are problematic when scaled to Endgame.
  
• The window for reducing corruption in the Sanctuary of Eterra does not disappear after being used.
  
• Maul with the Skull Crusher node is not affected by some “when landing” effects in Fury Leap.
  
• Shield Bash fails to cast sometimes when you have increased attack speed.
  
• Summoned Spriggans don’t gain the Cold Minion tag when cold converted.
  
• There isn’t a quest marker prompting you to walk to Balthas after defeating Orian and Emberwing in the Summit in Chapter 1.
  
• Cosmetics and armor visuals are sometimes invisible (usually fixed by re-equipping or going to the next zone).
  
• Echo Completed portals don’t use equipped Portal cosmetics.

Edit: Starting about 2.5 hours ago, a number of our servers in US-West are experiencing connection problems to our online infrastructure, causing very long load times or entirely failed transitions. Changing to another server region will bypass this issue while we work on a fix.

Edit 2: We have made a change that seems to resolve the problem. Monitoring is still in place and we will re-assess tomorrow if necessary.