Version 0.8.7

Patch notes
These are the official patch notes for version 0.8.7 released by Grinding Gear Games.

Features

 * Added new skill prototype - : Creates a wall of ice which holds back enemies. Targets under the wall are damaged and pushed back.
 * Added new skill prototype - : Casts a shocking circle of lightning which deals maximum damage at its outside edge.
 * Added new skill prototype - : An icy projectile which has a chance to freeze enemies it passes through. The damage and freezing are highest up close.
 * Added new skill prototype - : Makes you hard to see, and you move faster. Lasts for a short time or until you make an attack. If that attack is with a melee weapon, it deals extra damage.
 * Added new skill prototype - : Poisons the foe, which can stack up to five times. Each time they are re-poisoned, the duration is extended. Requires a claw, dagger or sword.
 * Added support for items having mods that increase the level of gems of a certain type socketed into them.
 * Merveil's caves now have an important river flowing through them.
 * Added support for dungeons within dungeons. See if you can find one.
 * Improved synchronisation of monsters in combat.
 * Added aggressive resynching when things are detected to be in the wrong place.
 * Added automatic resync when the player fails to perform actions too many times in a short time period.
 * Removed the resync request (equals) key binding.
 * Implemented the "poison on critical strike with dagger" passive skill.
 * Continued improvement of animations, sounds, world areas and spell effects.
 * Gave the patcher a facelift (it's only visible once you've patched the first time).
 * Some monsters (currently Monkeys) now flee when other monsters of that type are slain.
 * Many monster types now flee when set on fire.

Bug Fixes

 * Fixed a bug that would cause monsters to get out of sync when an action completed early on the client but not the server, or vice versa.
 * Fixed a bug in the existing resync code that prevents moving objects from resyncing correctly.
 * Fixed bow attacks so that they still do damage when firing really fast. The arrow may still be taken away visually.
 * Fixed a bug that prevented the game from working on older Radeon 1950 series graphics cards. This affected approximately 5% of Alpha testers.
 * Fixed a rare server crash when buying items.
 * Fixed a problem that caused all monster evasion/damage reduction values to be calculated incorrectly.
 * Fixed a bug where the portal effect in town would sometimes be incomplete.
 * Spells now face their targets correctly.
 * Fixed a bug that caused impact sounds involving animal claws to not play.
 * Made the Multiple Projectiles support gem work on skills that use wands.
 * Fixed the mods on unique boss monsters to be the ones we intended.
 * Fixed a bug with burning damage being wrong.
 * Fixed a bug with monsters returning during a flee.
 * Fixed a bug where projectiles would fail in certain directions along elevation changes.
 * Fixed a problem with the "enemies chill as unfreezing" passive skill.
 * Fixed various bugs related to piercing projectiles opening chests.
 * Infernal Blow doesn't explode unique monsters any more.
 * Fixed various crashes that would occur when removing items while skills were active.
 * Fixed bugs with the timing of Blood Rage.
 * Quality is now correctly taken into account when picking the dominant skill gem.
 * Fixed a crash involving portals.
 * Fixed some visual problems with the portal effect clipping into the ground.
 * Fixed a bug where raised zombies over level 10 did not decay.
 * Fixed a problem with the progression of elemental spells where they didn't ramp up exponentially in damage at higher levels like attack skills did.

General Balance

 * Player attacks are now 20% faster by default.
 * Player spellcasts are now 15% faster by default.
 * Player run speed is 10% faster by default.
 * Players now dual wield at an additional 25% increased attack speed by default.
 * Reduced default mana per character slightly.
 * Endurance charges grant 3% to all resistances, per charge.
 * Increased cast/attack speed per frenzy charge from 4% to 5%.
 * Flasks now have substantially higher numbers of charges and require a lot more charges per use. When a monster is killed, all flasks gain a charge (rather than one at random).
 * Flask charges are biased so that mana is harder to come by at the start of the game (to help with progression).
 * Flasks now heal faster. Vials are substantially faster.
 * Increased the size of life regen mods/passives.
 * Improved damage reduction on items by around 10%.
 * Reduced energy shield on items by around 10%.
 * Doubled the size of non-percentage life, mana, accuracy, critical strike passives.
 * Made many minor changes to the size of various passive skills.

Monster Balance

 * Rebalanced higher difficulty levels substantially so that the monsters do approximately half the damage they did before, and are easier to kill.
 * There are now a lot more monsters in the Ruthless and Merciless difficulties.
 * Monsters now have resistances. They're higher on higher difficulties. The resistances are currently not shown anywhere.
 * Halved the damage of Merveil's fireball attack, now that she's able to hit you with multiple fireballs at once.
 * Reduced the attack range of skeleton casters.

Item Balance

 * Increased the chance of rares dropping.
 * Item mods are now biased towards 70% of the generation level of the item (like drops). This will increase the chance of getting a "good" item but cause players to converge on "great" ones slower.
 * Monsters now drop items in quantity proportional to their relative effectiveness. This means that bosses drop more items than before, and hordes of small monsters like Blood Monkeys drop less items per monster.
 * Halved the number of gems that drop now that there are so many from quest rewards.
 * Changed claws back to be 50/50 Dexterity/Intelligence for a while.
 * Jeweler's Orb is now 60% more common.
 * Reduced drop rate of Scroll of Wisdom to increase Portal Scroll.
 * Many belts now have different implicit mods than before.
 * Lowered the levels of most support gems so that they're easier to use.
 * Increased the drop rate of rings, amulets and belts.
 * Changed the formula for the quality of skill gems. It's now a lot harder to get ones with higher quality.
 * Increased the likelihood of caster mods on caster items.
 * Improved the odds of getting off-colour sockets on high level items.

Skill Balance

 * Completely rebalanced every skill in the game so that they're all powerful at high levels. Most skills received damage increases! Only behavioural skill changes are listed here:
 * Ice spear now does substantially higher damage in its pre-arm form.
 * Shield Charge can't miss now.
 * Poison Arrow does additional chaos damage on the actual arrow itself now, in addition to the cloud damage.
 * Frenzy and Flicker Strike now attack even faster if you have more frenzy charges.
 * Made raised zombies faster by default, but not as fast as high levels were before.