As mentioned in one of our earlier outline posts, one of our current focus areas is the balance between factions leading into the next expansion. We have completed testing for this and will outline some of the major findings below, including our plans for future content to help keep this balance. We have also added a TL;DR at the bottom of this post.

While it is impossible to have a perfect overall balance between both stats and factions due to having a variety of content and abilities, we are still aiming to ensure that nothing becomes excessively strong or weak in specific areas, or performs better or worse on average from an overall viewpoint. To help with this we have completed a large number of simulations which help us understand the current balance between the main 3 damage types (atk+vile / elemental / chaos), which in turn allows us to understand which factions benefit from these damage outputs in all content.

The first area of note is the damage breakdowns for PvP attacks, specifically with base damage overperforming and chaos damage underperforming relative to other combat systems, which directly affects the strength of faction bonuses. The PvP system has fixed damage modifiers for all attacks, as opposed to mob attacks and raids which are set on a per mob basis. Over time these modifiers have been adjusted (most recently in 2021), however when these changes were made factions did not exist and there was no need to have closer balances between stats at the time. Our planned solution in a future update to help this balance is reducing base damage dealt in PvP attacks by 40% and increasing chaos damage dealt in PvP attacks by 18%.

Another area of note is chaos damage on average slightly underperforming from an overall viewpoint, which in turn causes Vordyn bonuses to also underperform. This is mostly caused by a lack of chaos damage available with new endgame content relative to other stats. While we feel this does not require immediate change, our long term solution to combat this is adding chaos damage to more content rewards in the future (particularly with expansion content and gear) in amounts that balance with attack and elemental gains. On top of this we also plan to add extra chaos damage rewards with expansion content to make up for the current deficit.

TL;DR
- In the coming weeks we plan to reduce base damage dealt and increase chaos damage dealt in PvP attacks.
- We plan to add chaos damage to more content rewards in the future, including expansion content and gear.

- Players can now speak with Celio in the Astral Rift to exchange 1 Dimensional Bond for 10 Elemental Fusers.
- The Astral Guardian quest now awards 4 Squidberry Juices and Wonderland Potions (was 3).
- Increased droprate of Ruin Invader Essence by 50%.

In the coming days we will be updating the design of the Mob and Mob Talk windows, we have added HTML files for these changes in the announcements channel on our discord server.

- Items can now be awarded from Crew Vaults to Quest, Orb, Potion, Key and Utility backpacks if the Regular backpack is full.
- Items can now be transferred on the Item Transfer page to Quest, Orb, Potion, Key and Utility backpacks if the Regular backpack is full.
- Items can now be withdrawn from Personal Vaults to Quest, Orb, Potion, Key and Utility backpacks if the Regular backpack is full.
- Utility items can now be purchased from the Treasury if the Regular backpack is full.
- Added a [No-Transfer] label to items if the item can not be transferred.
- Enhancements can no longer be purchased from the Treasury if the character does not meet the level requirement.
- Prime God kills are now logged in the Crew Action Log.
- Added a display on the Home page to show current God Cap status.
- Removed some items from appearing on the Blacksmith page that are not blacksmithable.
- Added a Show All function when searching for Illusions on the Blacksmith page.

- Reduced mob kill requirements for Normok 1 by 40%.
- Increased droprate of Sinister Power Source for Normok 2 by 75%.
- Reduced mob kill requirements for Aestor 1 by 40%.
- Increased droprate of Petrified Ogre Trophy, Treetop Stalker Blade & Animorph Trophy for Aestor 2 by 65%.
- Increased droprate of Ergon Plasma for Aestor 5 by 40%.
- Increased droprate of Witch Invocation, Buglord Thorns & Pillager Loot for Wilker 1/2/3 by 25%.
- Increased droprate of Conductor Energy, Demonic Armor & Elexocutioner Power Supply for Wilker 4/5/6 by 40%.
- Reduced PvP kill and strip requirements for Virxen 1/2 by 25%.
- Increased droprate of all 4 Sanctum Emblems required for Sanctum Augments by 40%.

We have made the following changes to Collection content:
- Reduced mob kill requirements for Anjou Collection 1-3 by 50%.
- Increased droprate of items required for Reikar Collection 1-3 by 100%.
- Increased droprate of items required for Lorren Collection 1-3 by 50%.

We have made the following changes to Skill Crest content:
- Increased the droprate of all Skill Orbs required for Skill Crest quests by 50%.
- Reduced Imprisoned Demon kill requirements for Excelled Crest quests by 50%.
- Reduced PvP kill requirements for the Excelled Crest of Affliction quest by 50%.
- Reduced the respawn time of Koth, Younis, Ulkor and Prux by 40%.
- Reduced the respawn time of Morrik and Grouz by 33%.
- Reduced Imprisoned Hellion kill requirements for Tier 3 Crest quests by 50%.
- Reduced the respawn time of Hovok by 50%.

The War of Zhul invasion has been put to a stop. Draemor, the Eternal Woe is now vulnerable. Defeat him before he has a chance to retreat!

Congratulations to the Summoning Shard Contest winners, please submit a support ticket to claim your prizes.

Brutus and the Tier Traders will remain in Diamond City with all quests for 1 more week, at which point WoZ quest items will also be removed.