Guild Wars-Novel

Chapter 180 - Rebalance Patch 1

｢Eye of Heaven – Ornamental Item

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Light Amplification: Light-based skills and techniques are boosted by 300%.

Passive 2 – Heaven’s Eye: You can never lose your sight due to status effects or low light areas, and you can see in 360° within a 1-mile radius.

Active 1 – Light of the World: Activating this skill allows the user to summon a Rank 1 Heaven’s Eye to send out a giant beam of light energy, which deals 1,000% Light Damage over a demarcated Area Zone. Cooldown: 3 days.

Description: This talisman was created from the condensed essence of the Heaven’s Eye, a mystical being that occasionally emerges in the world to purify all evil.

It has reached its strongest state and can no longer be improved.｣

｢Abyssal Ring – Ornamental Item

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – King of Noct: All attributes are boosted by 70% when the light of the sun does not touch the wearer. Every attack that lands on the user has a 30% chance to miss despite its accuracy.

Passive 2 – Shroud of Darkness: A permanent layer of darkness covers your form, making you 300% harder to detect in stealth and 70% resistant to darkness element attacks.

Active 1 – Abyssal Pull: Open a wormhole to the abyss that swallows all enemies within range. Cooldown: 3 days.

Note: The maximum suction range is 500 meters at Rank 1.

Note: The maximum suction targets are 500 at Rank 1.

Further abilities can only be unlocked by attaining a higher class tier.｣

｢Dragon Soul – Fusion item

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Bloodline Resonance: All non-equipment skills and techniques that belong to the Draconic category are boosted by 500% and cost 50% fewer resources.

Passive 2 – Dragon’s Fire: Possessing a small part of the soul of a Divine Fire Dragon, Fire-based spells and skills are boosted by 400%.

Active 1 – Dragon’s Force: Activating this skill gives the user a boost of power by 1,000% for 1 minute. Cooldown: 3 hours.

Further abilities can only be unlocked by attaining a higher class tier.｣

｢Seal of Camelot – Medallion

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Sword of Promised Victory: Damage dealt by one-handed swords are boosted overall by 1,000%.

Passive 2 – Isle of Avalon: The first three times you die every day, you survive with 1 HP. For the next 5 seconds, you enter an invincible state.

Active 1 – Camelot’s Might: Summon the full army of Camelot right before the catastrophic Battle of Camlann. Duration: 3 hours. Cooldown: 21 days.

Note 1: 100,000 Rank 1 troops are summoned at Rank 1.

Note 2: 6 Rank 1 Knights of Camelot are summoned at Rank 1.

Description: As King Arthur bled out on the Isle of Avalon, his last wish was to thank the noble swordsman who enlightened him on the treachery of his friend and wife. He divided a wisp of his soul into the Seal of Camelot, allowing that Swordsman to possess his greatest strength, his army and the right to share in his blessing of eternal life on Avalon.

Note: This item is soul bound. No one other than player Draco can wield it.｣

｢Eyes of Caelo – Fusion item

Rank: Divine

Durability: MAX

Effects:

Passive 1 – True Sight: You are able to see everything and anything within your Rank.

Passive 2 – Paragon of Destruction: Destruction Energy no longer damages targets you deem as allies and does not negate drops.

Active 1 – Omega: Fire out a blast of the purest Destruction Energy that can rend anything and everything under heaven within your Rank. No cooldown.

Note 1: Casting this skill will result in instant death.

Note 2: This is a beam of unparalleled destruction! Anything hit by it will CEASE TO EXIST.

Description: These are the Eyes of the Supreme God, Caelo, God of Destruction and the Ultimate God. Due to a resonance, the player is able to bring out the full potential of the divine eyes.

The Eyes of Caelo will become more powerful after every rank up.｣

｢Fragarach – Sword

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Unstoppable Force: Every attack from this blade ignores 100% defense.

Passive 2 – King of Wind: Every attack with this blade can summon the wind, dealing 300% wind damage to a single target.

Active 1 – Lugh’s Might: Swing the blade down with unparalleled force, dealing 1,000% sword damage over an Area Zone. Cooldown: 3 days.

Description: Sword of one of the lesser gods of the sea, Manannan mac Lir, and later bestowed to Divine Hero Lugh, it was said to be a weapon that no armor could stop.

Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 2,381% of 100,000% needed to upgrade to Divine Rank｣

｢Flamesear – Staff

Rank: Legendary

Durability: 1,000,000/1,000,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Fire Mastery: While this Staff is equipped, Fire Mastery is raised to the maximum.

Passive 2 – Flame Control: Gain 100% resistance to all forms of fire damage and control all flames at your Rank while wielding this weapon.

Active 1 – Supernova: Create a mini-sun that deals 1,000% fire damage over an Area Zone. Cast time: 1 minute. Cooldown: 3 days.

Description: Staff of the Fire God Flashflame. It was damaged and cast down to the mortal realm during the War of the Gods.

Further abilities can be unlocked by sacrificing experience points. 9,397% of 100,000% needed to upgrade to Divine Rank｣

｢Dragorugio – One-handed sword (Optimal)(Infused)

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Durability: 500,000/500,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Destructive Aura: This sword deals 10% Destruction Energy with every attack.

Active 1 – Black Flame: Cover the blade in a black flame that is a mixture of Destruction Energy and Fire Energy for 30 seconds. Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣

｢Dragorugio – Chest Plate (Optimal)(Infused)

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Durability: 500,000/500,000

Effects:

Passive 1 – Reverse Scale: Covering the key weakness of a Black Dragon, this item allows no harm to come to the reverse scale while equipped.

Active 1 – Destruction Barrier: Create a barrier of Destruction Energy that negates 10% of damage for 1 minute. Cooldown: 5 minutes.｣

｢Dragorugio – Pauldrons (2) (Optimal)(Infused)

Durability: 500,000/500,000

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Passive 1 – Resistance: Physical and Magical Resistance is increased by 20%.

Active 1 – Energy Gather: Drag in a torrent of Worldly Energy that reduces the cooldown of one of the set equipment’s active skills. Cooldown: 10 minutes.｣

｢Dragorugio – Arm Guards (2) (Optimal)(Infused)

Durability: 500,000/500,000

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Effects:

Passive 1 – Speed Boost: Attack speed is increased by 20%.

Active 1 – Rapid Hands: Drastically increase attack speed by 100% for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.｣

｢Dragorugio – Knee Guards (2) (Optimal)(Infused)

Durability: 500,000/500,000

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Effects:

Passive 1 – Speed Aura: Movement speed is increased by 20%.

Active 1 – Rapid Legs: Drastically increase movement speed by 100% for 10 seconds. Cooldown: 3 minutes.｣

｢Dragorugio – Set Equipment (5 piece) (Optimal)(Infused)

Rank: Epic (Evolvable)

Effect;

- With 2 pieces equipped: Grants the passive skill ’Black Dragon’s Heritage - Rank 1’

- With 3 pieces equipped: +15,000 HP

- With 4 pieces equipped: +1,000 STA

- With 5 pieces equipped: Grants the active skill ’Black Dragon’s Roar - Rank 1’｣

｢Black Dragon’s Heritage – Passive skill (Rank 1)

100% source energy of a Low-ranked Black Dragon｣

｢Black Dragon’s Roar – Active skill (Rank 1)

Effect: Send out a soundwave containing elements of destruction that boosts damage dealt by the user by 500% over a distance of 100 miles.

Cooldown: 10 minutes｣

｢System to Player Announcement

Item Rebalancing complete, thank you for your patience. The system will apply frequent rebalancing to items above Epic Rank on users with more than one of them to display their best effects, while removing illogical features.

The system has detected that the loophole of experience sharing for growth items between multiple players exists. This will require an update patch, which will require users to log out.

Due to the presence of a World Quest, the system has deemed that it will conflict with the preparations for the event and disrupt the enjoyment of players.｣

Draco smiled. It seemed as if the AI understood that it was far too soon to put up Update 2, so it had used the Abyss Event as an excuse. Technically speaking, it did follow Protocol, so there was that.

Draco and Riveting Night were half pleased and half-saddened by this rebalance patch. Some items had been buffed and some had been nerfed. On an item by item basis, there was a mixture of nerfing and buffing all around.

The Eye of Heaven’s new passive skill had been nerfed, but it didn’t provide utility to Riveting Night anyway. The active skill though, had been... balanced. Now, it no longer summoned a Rank 4 Heaven’s Eye at Rank 1 to destroy a small number of troops.

Instead, it summoned a Rank 1 Heaven’s Eye that dealt 1,000% Light damage over an entire Area Zone, just like Supernova. The higher Riveting Night’s damage, the stronger the skill.

While it had done 10,000,000 damage before to less than a hundred monsters, it would do - hypothetically - 300,000 damage to every ’enemy’ in an Area Zone.

The Abyssal Ring was 3/4 buffed and 1/4 nerfed. The first passive changed to allow her to gain 70% higher attributes as long as the light of the sun did not touch her.

Putting aside Control, as the incarnation of the Goddess of Light, Riveting Night could even manipulate the light in her hood, making it impossible to see into.

Manipulating the light of the sun around her form alone was a bit strenuous, but it would be worth it. This was far better than the previous iteration when she had been time-limited.

Its active skill had an increased range and a greatly increased the number of targets it could swallow, however, the trade-off was it the cooldown had been increased to 3 days from 1 day.

The Dragon Soul...

It had been absolutely butchered beyond belief. The Dragon Soul alone was the reason why Draco felt miffed. Even during the other rebalance patch, the AI performed on him after the Flora and Fauna quest, he had been unmoved.

The Dragon Soul’s first passive was now limited to organic Draconic skills and techniques. This meant that Aether Conversion and his bloodline Draconic skills should be boosted by 500% and cost 50% less to cast.

Draco would no longer need to burn all his BP to cast the Basic Manifestation Technique. He could use half of it for the same effect, which was great! However, the fact that the passive skill now excluded the Dragorugio set was disheartening.

The rework of the second passive skill was what really made Draco lose his cool. He had previously gained 10 times his combat stats, which were Str, Dex, Int, Spr. As such, his damage had been overpowered for his rank.

If one theoretically reached the level cap at Rank 7, with the way stats were distributed, one would not have as many stats (overall) as Draco was supposed to have.

Of course, since this came from a skill and not a technique, the system limited his damage and speed to the max of what a Rank 1 fighter could show. However, that only limited his base damage, but it did not hinder buffs like Sword of Promised Victory and the like from taking effect.

Now that it had been swapped for 400% fire damage on every attack, it was a great nerf. Draco had looked forward to his damage output at Rank 2 and higher, but now it had been taken away.

400% fire damage was great though, especially when one considered his high base damage. However, that same high base damage would now be reduced, and what if he met an enemy who was resistant to fire? What then?

Draco sighed. It seemed the AI realized that it had greatly inconvenienced him, because the active skill of the Dragon Soul had been greatly boosted to the point where it was scary.

He got a 1,000% power boost for a whole 1 minute, as opposed to the 700% boost for 30 seconds. Not only that, but the cooldown had also been reduced from 12 hours to 3 hours!

However, between a passive skill and active skill, anyone with half a brain should realize which was the better one.

The Seal of Camelot was another one that had been butchered, but not as greatly.

The first passive increased his sword damage by 1,000% overall. This didn’t really change much, but it meant that Draco could now deal slightly more damage if he could figure out how to equip more one-handed swords.

The second passive had been nerfed, but with an extremely good boon to make up for it. Before, Draco could die an infinite amount of times and respawn endlessly. This sounded great if one were playing a PC RPG game, but not in a FIVR game were sensations were 100%.

Having all penalties negated for the first 3 times meant that Draco could ignore three deaths and come back fine. Then again, how many things could kill him once, much less 3 times?

What thrilled him was the 5 seconds of invincibility. It meant that should a Rank 7 power smash in him to paste, he could come back fine and have 5 seconds to escape with whatever means he had, or even logout.

You couldn’t interrupt the ’spell’ of an invincible person after all.

It also meant he could escape another situation in which he died over and over in a short amount of time to the point would have to endure trauma. Had the system perhaps designed this especially to combat the suicidal tendencies of that fellow?

The active skill had been vague. Arthur and the other Knights had been Unranked and so had the Army of Camelot, so their attack power had been a big (?). Now that they were limited to his Rank, they were in the same boat as the Wood Monster Army.

However, while it now had three times the duration, its cooldown also tripled to 21 days. Draco would have to enter large-scale battles sparingly from now on.

The Eyes of Caelo were, so far, Draco’s most broken item. The initial first passive had allowed him to see everything and anything, see-through everything and anything and see beyond everything and anything.

However, conflict occurred since he couldn’t easily see things beyond his Rank, thus the new version specified that he could see everything in his Rank without exception.

Draco was fine with this. After all, he knew that it would take him a much, MUCH shorter time to reach his former peak and surpass it in this life. He would have to get tortured to death as punishment if he couldn’t do that much as a reincarnator.

The second passive, which had been Subservience, had been totally useless to him. That was because it would directly use a divine aura to suppress those who looked into his eyes.

No matter how haphazardly he used it, wouldn’t everyone learn that he had a Divine item? If some Hidden Powers had thought about robbing him for a Legendary item, even Richmond himself would turn his back and take away Draco’s Divine Item by any means necessary.

However, the new passive was the best thing Draco had received in this rebalance hands down. He could now use and abuse Destruction Energy without the penalty of losing drops or experience.

He could finally act like a Black Dragon, instead of a person who occasionally used Destruction Energy when he was desperate. This one change greatly increased Draco’s ability to farm experience for his upgradeable items.

As for Omega, it had also been brought down a bit, but in a way Draco liked. It now killed anything within his Rank and did not rip holes in the fabric of reality, so he could use it without worry.

He could also use it on players, which was also great. However, it would result in an instant death, but... didn’t he have the Seal of Camelot? This meant that Draco could use Omega three times a day without repercussion.

The Eyes of Caelo were neither nerfed nor buffed. They were optimized for him. The changes to this Divine item represented the very essence of rebalancing.

Fragarach had also been nerfed and buffed in equal amounts. The first passive had changed from ’no defense being able to stop the blade’ to ’being able to ignore 100% defense’, which was the same thing, but reworded.

It closed out any loopholes that might have existed there first, so Draco took it with a grain of salt.

The second passive had been nerfed. The 300% wind damage which had affected everyone within 3 meters of him was now a single target attack.

The active skill though, had been greatly buffed. He now dealt 1,000% sword damage over an area zone, instead of 500% sword damage over a large area. The cooldown had gone from 1 day to 3 days, but that was fine.

Flamesear though, had been unilaterally buffed. It might be because Rina had only that one Legendary item.

Then again perhaps the system had taken a liking to her for her achievement which also reduced the rewards it had to dish out. Whatever the case, she had undoubtedly gained the most from this rebalance patch.

The first passive had changed to allow her to gain maximum fire mastery while the weapon was equipped, not when it was directly wielded. That meant that Rina could still benefit from this without having to physically hold the weapon.

The second passive gave her 100% fire resistance and allowed her to control all flames in her Rank. This included elementals and flame-based entities of course, as well as other flames from enemies within her Rank.

In a Pyromancer vs Pyromancer battle, Rina would destroy her enemy so badly that the AI might just delete their account in order to save them the embarrassment.

As for her active skill, it was boosted greatly. She now had a cast time of only 1 minute compared to 30 minutes, and she dealt the same damage over an entire Area Zone.

Not only that, but the cooldown had also been reduced from 1 month to 3 days, which was extremely great. Now Rina could actually farm the 1,000 levels needed to upgrade it to Divine Rank, without it taking years.

It would take her a terrible amount of time nevertheless.

As for Dragorugio...

Draco’s feelings about its changes were complex.