Version 0.8.4

Version History
← 0.8.3 January 1, 2011	0.8.4 April 23, 2011	0.8.5 → June 24, 2011

Patch notes

These are the official patch notes for version 0.8.4 released by Grinding Gear Games.

Features

• Enabled forum item linking!
• Added new skill prototype: Ice Spear (fires an icy projectile that pieces and chills nearby enemies. After a short distance it will arm, exploding on and freezing the first enemy it hits)
• Added new skill prototype: Raise Spectre (raises a ghostly copy of a monster from its corpse which will follow you as a minion)
• Added new skill prototype: Enduring Cry (taunts nearby monsters to attack you and adds Endurance Charges based on how many are nearby)
• Added new support gem: Pierce
• Made the "Synchronise with server" (=) key bindable
• Set up new currency item icons (colour shifted for now) so that they are easier to distinguish
• Incrementally improved effects, animations, sounds and world areas
• There's now a UI option to disable items being picked up unless alt is held down
• Overhaul of chat box that now supports partial scrolling of multiline messages properly
• Tweaked UI colouring on the waypoint screen
• Corpse targeting is now key-bound by default (rather than starting as "Always")
• Added new gems as quest rewards. The new skills are available from the difficulty 1 Merveil quest, and the new support is available from several difficulty 2 quests
• There's now a text notification as gems level up
• The client should now be unable to log in to the server while it is not sufficiently patched

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a client crash that occurs sometimes when a skeleton caster with attached arrows dies
• Chests can now drop more than just equipment
• Irrelevant monster mods won't occur on casters any more
• Fixed a client crash with whispering
• Spark can now pierce the same monster several times if it has bounced between each pierce
• Fixed a crash bug that occurred when resizing the screen after linking an item in chat
• Fixed up many incorrect world area names
• Fixed a bug where whisper messages from someone in the same instance would appear as local messages
• Whispers to offline players now warn you that the character is offline
• Merveil now shouldn't fail to spawn her second form or her minions if you're too far away

Balance

• Improved Energy Shield on items by 34%
• Made unique monsters a lot harder
• Made Merciless difficulty harder again
• Disabled Multiple Cast/Multiple Attack gems. Sorry!
• Substantially increased Flicker Strike's damage
• Made spark do 45% more damage and increased its mana cost per level
• Changed most lightning damage in the game to be a wider range of values
• Decreased Act Two outdoors monster density slightly
• The damage dealt by a shield charge is now proportional to the distance charged. Also increased shield charge damage and disabled it being usable with wands.
• It's now more common to find two linked sockets on items. It's less common to find three-six linked sockets.
• Epic chests now have a substantial bonus to dropped item rarity
• Normalised all weapons in each series to have the same str/dex/int ratios and speeds. Additional series are planned.
• Elemental bosses can now get damage increase mods
• Reduced the "Stun Threshold Reduction" stat on items/passives/supports by 25% globally
• Raised zombies now follow you
• Improved movement speed and damage reduction of raised zombies
• Merveil has equipped a multiple projectiles support gem