Season 5.5: Return of the Dwarven King

Season 5.5 Patch Notes — Return of the Dwarven King

Important dates & times:

• Leaderboard locks: January 13th at 1:00 PM EST (24 hours before Chaos Days)

• Server wipe: January 14th at 12:00 PM EST (1 hour before Chaos Days)

• Chaos Days begin: January 14th at 1:00 PM EST

• Season launch: January 16th at 1:00 PM EST

• Server wipe: January 16th at 1:00 PM EST (Season start)

The Dwarven King

The Dwarven King now appears after defeating Zul, Skorch, and Dark Skorch (with plans to expand this system to additional bosses in future updates).

After every 10 boss kills, the Dwarven King allows you to forge a custom weapon:

• Choose the weapon type

• Choose the offhand ability affix

• Receive a weapon with the maximum possible number of monograms, based on the boss defeated

This system gives players long-term progression and deterministic rewards tied directly to boss mastery.

Quality of Life Features

Multiple Elven Skill Tree Allocation You can now allocate multiple Elven Skill Tree points at once by holding Shift + Left Click, making build experimentation much faster and smoother.

Affix Reroll

What started as a bug — and became a community favorite — is now an official feature.

Instead of repeatedly altering an item back and forth to chase a better roll, you can now reroll an affix directly, preserving the spirit of the original mechanic while making it clearer and more intentional.

Performance & Core System Improvements

This season focuses heavily on performance, stability, and scalability.

We performed a major rework of core gameplay systems, including:

• Full pawn system overhaul

• Rebuilt damage number system

• Removal of pawn health bars, which caused performance spikes and visual clutter during high-density combat

These changes significantly reduce CPU and GPU load in large encounters, improve frame stability, and allow us to safely expand enemy counts, effects, and future content without compromising performance.

This groundwork also enables future visual and gameplay upgrades.

Audio (SFX) Improvements

We completed a large-scale audio polish pass across the entire game:

• Improved clarity and balance of combat sounds, including offhands, bosses, elites, and abilities

• Stronger audio feedback for player actions such as dashing, teleporting, leveling up, and taking damage

• New and improved sound effects for boss mechanics, including ground telegraphs, projectiles, charges, and elite attacks

• Reduced overly loud or unclear effects while enhancing important combat cues

• Added variation and polish to enemy sounds to improve immersion and readability

Boss encounters should now feel more impactful, readable, and satisfying without overwhelming the sound mix.

General Changes

• Removed the pawn HP bar setting entirely

• Improved interaction responsiveness across several systems

• Reduced Amenon key stacking limit from 10 to 9, resulting in 10 maximum clears per run (1+9).

Bug Fixes

• Fixed various collision and navigation issues across multiple maps

• Fixed Toxicity behavior when going underground on Skorch

• Fixed multiple references and edge-case pawn issues

• Fixed several offhand, boss, and elite interaction bugs

• General stability improvements

This update lays the foundation for future expansions while delivering meaningful new systems and improvements today. Thank you for being part of the journey into Season 5.5: Return of the Dwarven King.

January 15th Patch Notes

General

• Added commas to damage numbers for improved readability

• Damage numbers now display on bosses

• Fixed reroll resource cost displaying incorrectly

• Fixed a performance issue with damage number

• Fixed pawn attack range and hitbox sizing issues

• Fixed a hole in the Bridge of the Demigods map

VFX

• Updated Rain of Flames VFX

• Optimized Rain of Flames by replacing hundreds of lava and ember particles with a meteor mesh, better matching the ability’s description and improving performance

Offhand Balance Changes

• AdjustedChain LightningCooldown increased by an average of 5.2%

• Blood Dragons: Dragons gain a 25% chance to trigger a Dragon Burst that deals 200% damage. Dragon Burst deals an additional 33% damage based on dragon size (previously 15% chance)

• Static Charge: Static Charge increases its damaging radius by 20%. Thunderbolts have a 33% chance to deal an additional 30% damage based on Static Charge time (previously 25% chance and 20% damage)

• Electric Dragons: Each dragon has a 30% chance to shoot a burst of electric meteors that deal 75% damage (previously 25% chance)

• AdjustedElectric DragonsFor each dragon, all other dragons deal 95% increased damage (previously 85%)

• Toxicity: Triggers a chain reaction; each projectile spawned gains 35% additional damage for each active pool on the battlefield (previously 25%)

• Toxicity: Pools last 5 seconds longer and deal 45% more damage based on pool size (previously 35%)

• Spark: Each spark now propagates four additional times (previously three)

• Arcane Orb: When Arcane Orbs return to the player, they create an Arcane Burst dealing 100% damage plus an additional 15% damage for every extra orb (previously a 25% chance to spawn an Arcane Burst)

• Arcane Apocalypse: Gains a 50% chance to explode a second time and a 25% chance to explode a third time (previously 10% chance for a third explosion)

• Arcane Apocalypse: After an explosion, spawns a black hole that damages enemies over time. The black hole deals 75% damage per tick. Each stack reduces tick time by 10%, increasing damage over time (previously 50% damage per tick)

• AdjustedArcane ApocalypseCooldown reduced by an average of 5.0%

• Vortex: When vortexes collide, they form a thunderstorm that deals an additional 200% damage (previously 100%)

• Fire Orbs: Orbs now charge for an additional 2 seconds (previously 2.5 seconds)

• Fire Orbs: When fully charged, the explosion deals 100% damage plus 20% additional damage for each extra second charged (previously 10% per second)

• Fire Beam: Gains three additional beams (previously two)

• Fire Beam: Each beam spawns a Fire Ring that deals 90% additional damage (previously 80%)

• AdjustedCarnage of FireExplosion radius increased by 66%, spike damage increased by 50%, and Scorching Fire duration increased by 1.5 seconds (previously 25% spike damage)

• Starblades: Gain an additional blade that deals 75% damage (previously 50%)

• Starblades: For each extra blade, all blades deal 75% additional damage (previously 50%)

January 16th Patch Notes

VFX

Carnage of Fire:

• Fire spikes rise faster and hit harder visually

• Ground effects linger longer, matching offhand timing better

Rain of Fire:

• Less visual clutter during explosions

• Clearer impact zones so enemies and effects are easier to track

Delusion of Zelkors:

• Casting visuals now properly align with target's location

• Fire explosions look cleaner and more consistent with other fire spells

• Removed unnecessary effects that weren’t visible during gameplay

• Smoother visuals during intense combat

Balance

• Gain 3% Lightning Damage for each Critical Chance above 100%. (Previously: 5%)

• Gain 3% Fire Damage for each Critical Chance above 100%. (Previously: 5%)

• Gain 3% Arcane Damage for each Critical Chance above 100%. (Previously: 5%)

• Gain 1% Critical Damage for every 10 essence collected. (Previously: every 5 essence)

• Gain 1 Damage for every 20 essence available. (Previously: every 10 essence)

• Gain 1% Crit Chance for every 20 essence available. (Previously: every 10 essence)

• Gain 1% Damage for every 10 essence available. (Previously: every 5 essence)

• Adjusted stance skill tree node order

General Changes & Bug Fixes

• Adjusted Fire Orb brightness

• Adjusted pawns attack range (previous change made it too easy)

• Added damage abbreviations to EXP numbers, fixing a freeze above level 1214 and preventing number overflow

• Fixed damage number placement on bosses

• Fixed an issue with the Show Damage Numbers setting

• Fixed Shield of the Miner node in the Elven skill tree not working correctly

• Fixed an issue with Mining nodes using old damage numbers

January 17th Patch Notes

General

• Adjusted mini Fire Orb explosion brightness

• Removed dust particles from Drythus attacks and Abilities

• Fixed Mining Nodes showing damage numbers regardless of settings

• Reduced death effect intensity on mobs

• Fixed several issues that could lead to game crashes

Balance

• Gain 2 maximum Energy for every 75 of your highest stat. (Previously: every 100)

• Maximum Energy increased by 75%. (Previously: 50%)

• While Unholy Void is active, gain 3 base Damage for every 25 of your highest stat. (Previously: 2 base Damage)

• While Unholy Void is active, gain 2% maximum Health for every 50 of your highest stat. (Previously: 1% per 40)

• Gain 2 Base Damage for each available potion. (Previously: 0.5)

January 24th Patch Notes

General

• Added a rupture closing horn to clearly warn players when time is almost up.

• Reworked boss arenas in Ruptures 1–4 (camera visibility only). More arenas will be improved in future updates.

• Added new elemental enemy death effects.

• Updated visuals for several abilities, improving both visuals and performance:

  • Arcane Apocalypse

  • Blood Dragons

  • Arcane Orbs

  • Fire Orb explosions

  • Spinning Blade trails

  • Toxicity

  • Fiery Totems

  • Burning Shield

  • Flame Dragons

• Tweaked the toon shader and outlines to be less intense and easier on the eyes.

• Improved damage number readability.

• General performance improvements.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Earthquake spawning outside arena bounds.

• Removed an unintended Christmas tree collision from Homefort.

February 3rd Patch Notes

SFX

• Improved boss audio balance and presence

• Crate open and pickup sounds are now more audible

• Adjusted death sounds to better highlight elemental effects

VFX

• Updated Electric Dragon visuals and improved performance

• Updated Star Blade visuals

• Updated Lightning Totem visuals

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Eye of the Storm hitbox

• Fixed portals colliding with players

• Fixed phasing healing issue with Banshee

• Fixed shadow mobs spawning underground