Alpha 0.5.2

**Alpha 0.5.2** is a Game Version of Last Epoch that was released on October 3rd, 2018.
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## Purchasing Access

This version of the game requires alpha access which is included in some of the Supporter Packs. Supporter Packs can be purchased on the official website.

## Installing the Alpha Launcher

This support article includes instructions for how to download the alpha Game Launcher and install the game.

## Patch Notes

### Mechanics

* Arena
	+ Reduced wave spawn delay by 83%
	+ Added monster movement speed scaling with waves (scaling very slowly towards 40% increased)
	+ Increased damage scaling with waves (it now asymptotes to 132% increased, up from 97% increased)
	+ Enemy pack sizes now scale with level (linearly from 0% increased at level 0 to 200% at level 100)
	+ Increased health and xp scaling with waves, and it no longer has a maximum
* Increased xp requirements at high levels
* Added a player light indicator for low health– shifts towards red as you lose health
* Reworked the backend for how damage/ability tags are handled
* Renamed tenacity to Stun Avoidance
* Added the Freeze status effect, which prevents enemies from moving for 1.2 seconds
	+ All cold spells have a chance to freeze based on their freeze rate.
	+ Freeze chance = (1 + Increased Freeze Chance) \* freeze rate / (maximum health of the target)

### UI

* Added a new graphics options menu
	+ Nicer UI for changing options with dropdowns, etc.
	+ All settings are saved to an .ini file in the same location log files are saved
	+ We are working on being able to change resolution and display mode in game as well but that functionality isn’t ready yet
* Added icons for NPCs, entrances/exits, waypoints, and the stash on the mini-map
* NPCs that can be spoken to now have icons above their heads
* Updated all node descriptions to use the new system of displaying per point effects (like they appear on passives). This has been done so that it will be easier to update the display in the future
* Chat messages now wrap to a new line if it will not fit on one line
* Added a scrollbar to chat
* Chat now stores three screens worth of messages
* The ladder now shows the mastery class of characters that have mastered instead of always showing the base class
* Character level ladders now show the XP you have earned past your current level instead of arena wave
* Added a ladder button to the menu button
* The ladder shows data on first open instead of all dashes
* Opening a ui window now closes overlapping windows
* Added an option for a high contrast XP bar
* Updated font and reduced duration of damage numbers
* Added a glowing effect to level up buttons at the bottom of the screen
* Updated the appearance of the mini-map and overlay map
* The FPS display is now bound to K by default and is now remappable
* Hide Items is now bound to Z by default instead of spacebar (will not change automatically)
* Updated some keybind descriptions

### Items

* Adjusted the names and implicits of armour base types
* Items with 4 affixes are now rarer at low levels
* Increased the values on the Increased Shock Effect Shard
* Some affixes now have a minimum level required for them to spawn (particularly niche ones)
* Added an Increased Freeze Chance Shard suffix for amulets, wands, sceptres, rings and relics

### Performance

* Improved the performance of cooldown calculations, which should slightly improve performance at all times, but especially in situations with lots of enemies that have abilities that have cooldowns.
* Reduced the size of some large textures, improving memory usage

### Enemies

* Added Devoured Husks, void consumed humans that have a chance to spawn Void Leeches on death
* Effigy of Oblivion
	+ Reduced damage by 20% and increased health by 250%
	+ Added two new abilities that make it more dangerous as it loses health
* The experience rare enemies give and their health multipliers now scale somewhat with zone level, rather than being a static increase.
* Tweaked appearance of Groles
* Updated rampancy VFX

### Level Design

* Overhauled Chapter 1 levels– new scenery, different layouts, and more!
	+ We've had lots of good feedback, as well as refined our internal level making process and criteria.
	+ We have spent a lot of time working towards having Chapter 2 ready as well, but since Chapter 1 is the first thing players see we thought it was worth putting in the work now rather than later.
* Added a new enemy type to [[The Sheltered Wood]
* Added new void particles that move through the air in certain areas
* Added a new VFX for portals

### Sound

* Updated waterfall, void enemy death, void enemy hit, fire, detonate corpse, fireball, meteor, barrel and crate sfx
* Added new sfx for using a potion
* General combat sounds overhaul, back end changes and sound updates including:
	+ Melee attacks and hits now sound different for various weapon types
	+ Various new enemy hit sounds

### Skills

* Added Snap Freeze, a new Mage skill that unlocks at level 9: Freezes enemies in a cone in front of you for 1.2 seconds
* Added Ice Barrage, a new Mage skill that unlocks at level 10: Channeling this skill creates Ice Shards which are released after one second. Ice Shards create an ice explosion on hit
	+ This replaces a placeholder spell called Ice Barrage
	+ Ice Shards have a freeze rate of 12
* Removed the Mage skill Ice Bolt
* Updated VFX for Fireball, Hammer Throw, Lightning Blast, Meteor, Shield Rush, Vengeance, Volcanic Orb, character level up and ignite
* Increased minion aggro range to 14m (up from 12 or 13 depending on the minion)
* Abyssal Decay’s damage over time now also scales with spell damage
* Devouring Orb’s Dark Torrent node now has a maximum of 3 points allocable (up from 1)
* Elemental Nova
	+ Fire Nova deals 13% more damage
	+ Lightning Nova has 20% more crit chance
* Fire Shield’s Wide Emanation node now grants 40% increased area per point instead of 15% increased radius per point
* Focus now unlocks at level 14 (from 13)
* Glacier’s freeze rate varies for each explosion
	+ The smallest explosion has a freeze rate of 30
	+ The middle explosion has a freeze rate of 50
	+ The large explosion has a freeze rate of 110
* Hammer Throw
	+ Added three new nodes
	+ Disintegrating Aura is now more reliable. It deals 108% more damage and has a 33% larger radius, but reduces attack speed by 25% (up from 20%)
	+ Disintegrating Aura now requires points in Weighted Hammers
	+ Battle Rouse now grants 10% chance per point to regain 12 health on hit, from 1 health gained on hit per point, and has a point capacity for 5 (up from 2)
	+ Hammer of Want has been reworked and now adds a 5 second cooldown, but restores health and mana by creating returning orbs on hit
	+ Dark Spiral and Hammer Vortex now add 5 to mana cost each instead of reducing the chance to deal double damage
	+ The Slinger’s Stamina node has been removed
	+ The Shattering Force node now grants 15% chance to shred armour per point, up from 10%
* Replaced Hungering Soul with Hungering Souls
	+ Hungering Souls has 7 projectiles up from 1
	+ Hungering Souls costs 11 mana up from 5
	+ Hungering Souls uses slightly different homing mechanics
	+ Skeleton Mages still use the old Hungering Soul spell
	+ The possessed status effect caused by Hungering Soul(s) now scales with increases to spell damage
* Rip Blood
	+ Added a new node, Stench of Blood, which causes rip blood to leave a stench on the target enemy that causes your minions to prioritise attacking it
	+ Thirst no longer increases mana efficiency by 50% per point, but instead increases cast speed by 5% per point and subtracts 1 from mana cost per point.
	+ Carrion Hunger no longer reduces health restored
	+ Eviscerate now adds 6 to mana cost, rather than increasing mana cost by 120%
	+ Crimson Flood now has a maximum of 7 points allocable (up from 4)
* Sacrifice can no longer summon a blood wraith when you sacrifice a blood wraith, to prevent infinite blood wraith loops
* Reduced the delay before movement on Shield Rush, but increased its mana cost to 50 (from 45) to compensate
* Shield rush is now faster than before when travelling more than two metres, and slightly slower otherwise
* Summon Wraith’s Putrid Wraith and Flame Wraith nodes now also grant 15% increased damage per point
* Swipe’s Burning Claws node now grants 25% increased damage per point (up from 16%) and has a maximum of 8 points allocable (up from 6)
* Teleport now unlocks at level 12 (from 10)
* Thorn Burst now releases thorns 36% of the way through it’s animation (down from 47%), which should make it feel more responsive
* Tornado
	+ Hurricane now grants 20% less pull strength per point (multiplicative) up from 15% reduced pull strength per point
	+ Eye of the Storm node now requires 5 points in Hurricane
	+ Eye of the Storm node now grants 100% increased base damage (up from 50%), and no longer increases mana cost, but prevents you from double casting tornado
	+ There are now two new nodes behind the Eye of the Storm, one makes tornado an instant cast and adds a cooldown, the other reduces that cooldown
	+ Adjusted other node connections
	+ Clarified some node descriptions

### Bug fixes

* (Hopefully) fixed damage numbers not appearing for some users
* Fixed minimap arrow disappearing in A10
* Fixed a bug where the void, necrotic, and poison protection displays in the quick stats section of the inventory were not displaying the correct values
* Fixed a bug where Thorn Burst didn’t benefit from increases to spell damage
* Fixed a bug where nodes on the Tornado tree behind the Aspect of the Storm would sometimes not load or function properly
* Fixed a bug where item name length settings weren’t being saved properly
* Fixed a bug where the Soul Maw node for the Lich only worked when you were using a one handed weapon without a shield (it now correctly has no weapon requirements)
* Fixed a bug where the leech buff on cast and leech buff on kill nodes on the marrow shards tree were granting increased health leech, rather than adding health leech.
* Fixed a bug where Soul Feast played the wrong vfx
* Fixed crate destruction hitboxes being too small
* Fixed bug with floating health bars not accurately adjusting off the height of the enemy
* Fixed some memory leaks
* Fixed a bug where Rip Blood would sometimes fail to create a blood orb when targeting your own minions with the node that makes it target your own minions
* Fixed a bug where having very low values of ward regen resulted in no ward being displayed
* Fixed the intelligence tooltip on the character sheet sometimes saying elemental damage instead of spell damage
* Fixed a bug where some abilities would not correctly scale with tagged cast speed

## Hotfix 1

Alpha 0.5.2.1 is a hotfix that was released on October 4th, 2018.

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### UI

* Added minion ability tags to minion tooltips

### Enemies

* Effigy of Oblivion
	+ Reduced damage of void pools
	+ Reduced strength in the arena, especially at lower levels

### Items

* Increased Throwing Attack Damage and Increased Throwing Attack Speed can no longer roll on weapons
* Shields can no longer roll increased throwing attack speed, but can roll increased throwing attack damage
* The hybrid increased throwing attack damage and reduced throwing attack mana cost affix now grants high amounts of increased throwing attack damage
* Unique items can now have apostrophes in their names
	+ Affects Urzil’s Pride, Keeper’s Gloves, and Rahyeh’s Light

### Skills

* Hammer Throw Tree Adjustments
	+ The Disintegrating Aura deals 20% more damage, and the node that grants it reduces attack speed by 20% (down from 25%) and now adds 10 to mana cost
	+ The Rapid Disintegration node now also subtracts 1 from mana cost, and has a point capacity of 6 (up from 5)
	+ The Zealot's Conviction node has a point capacity for 6 (down from 7)
	+ The Iron Spiral and Hammer Vortex nodes each add 6 to mana cost (up from 5)
* Added a new node to the Glacier tree

### Bug Fixes

* Fixed tag order for implicits (e.g. melee physical damage instead of physical melee damage)
* Fixed a bug where ability objects could collide with the stash
* Fixed a bug where repeat casts from skill trees were not working
* Fixed a bug with loading high contrast xp bar settings
* Fixed a bug that caused the game’s UI to load improperly for the first time if quality was changed

## Known Bugs

### Skills

* Ice Barrage
	+ Firing them uses the Fireball casting sound
	+ Their impact sound is from Static Orb's explosion

* Devouring Orb
	+ Some nodes on the Skill Specialisation tree prevent Devouring Orb from orbiting

## Hotfix 2

Alpha 0.5.2.2 is a hotfix that was released on October 5th, 2018.

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* Fixed a bug where buffs from Devouring Orbs weren’t applying
* Fixed a bug where certain nodes prevented Devouring Orbs from orbiting
* Fixed sounds for Ice Barrage not fitting the skill
* Fixed a bug where attributes with a tagged damage increase were increasing all types of damage
* Fixed a bug where some brightness settings were ludicrously bright on some systems
* Fixed a bug where grass settings would cause severe lag on some systems
* Fixed a bug where the game would load improperly if the quality was set to Very Low even after a restart (changing it in game does still require a restart due to another, more complicated bug)