Update 1.63.0

You must update your client to log in. Close the game and the launcher, then reopen the launcher and press PLAY. On Steam the update is automatic.

We packed up the server and moved it west. Helbreath Evolution now lives in Los Angeles, much closer to most of you, and the way you connect got a lot smarter. On the battlefield, shields stop stacking on top of your armour, and Hammer and Axe finally have an answer to a wall of Physical Absorption.

New

A new home in Los Angeles The game server has moved from Miami to Los Angeles. Players in Asia should see their ping drop by roughly 40 to 70 ms. In the rest of the Americas and in Europe it goes up by about 10 to 60 ms, depending on where you play from. Your characters, items, guilds and everything else came along: just update and log in.

Smarter connections The game now measures every connection route in the background while you play, and uses the fastest one from your next login on, even if you picked a route by hand. If your connection freezes or drops for a few seconds, the game reconnects you to the same session through another route, without sending you back to the menu or reloading the map. You'll see "Connection interrupted. Reconnecting..." and carry on where you were. Short network blackouts no longer kick you out either: the game pauses for a moment and keeps going.

Shields reworked A hit now lands on your shield or your armour, never both. You block only blows from the front, your block chance is half your Shield skill, and a blocked hit absorbs 1.5x your shield's absorption (up to 80%). Surrounded, the hits from your sides and back go straight to your armour.

Hammer and Axe cut through armour Against players, Hammer ignores 30% of the Physical Absorption of the piece it hits (shield included), and each Broken Armor stack from an Axe ignores 5% (8% with Deep Sunder, 11% at its peak).

Changed

• Mass Ice Strike now deals 4d8+16 per hit (was 7d8+25). It still hits twice and still freezes.
• Any hit of 5 damage or more now interrupts the spell you are casting (the threshold used to be more than 10). Concentration still gives you its chance to keep casting.
• A hit big enough to knock you back no longer breaks your spell if you are paralyzed or have a wall right behind you.
• With Safe Attack off, party members can now hit each other. With it on, they are still protected.
• Killing the same player now pays out at most twice every 6 hours.
• Invisibility Potions now behave like ascended Invisibility: a regular Detect Invisibility spell can't reveal you, and a Detect Invisibility Scroll reveals you without stopping you from turning invisible again. The potion's cooldown drops from 30 to 10 seconds.
• Invisibility Scrolls now have a 10-second cooldown, so clicking fast no longer burns through the rest of your stack.
• Raid Day now lasts 12 hours instead of 2. You can still stay in enemy territory for up to 1 hour.
• Tower of Hell 1 is less crowded: up to 300 monsters at once (was 460).
• Trolls drop the Golden Axe, and the +1 and +2 versions of both the War Axe and the Golden Axe, 4 to 7 times as often.
• Capes no longer drop with the Strong or Light prefix or roll Physical Absorption, neither of which did anything on a cape.
• Ctrl+P no longer opens the chat with /party. Inviting the player under your cursor is still available, with no key by default: assign one in Key bindings (Ctrl+F).
• The friends list no longer shows which map a friend from the other faction is on.

Improved

• Xelima wielders now see their current Recklessness bonus on a plate next to the HP bar. It glows red when Bloodlust kicks in, and hovering it explains the bonus, your cap and the Max HP you're giving up.
• When you click to move, your character now steps around other players running into your path instead of bumping into them.
• In the dungeons and Tower of Hell you no longer walk on top of painted rock or wall tops, and the pillars you walk behind turn see-through like buildings.
• The minimap's auto-route no longer gets stuck going back and forth in the narrow corridors of Tower of Hell.
• Summoned Slimes, Giant Ants and Snakes now engage enemies around them instead of waiting for them to come close.
• Experience Potions now survive server restarts and logouts: the remaining time is saved with your character.
• Axe cleave now shows the red slash on every extra target it hits, just like Fencing.
• The Kloness Axe now sits in your hands at the size of the other two-handed axes.
• Frost now slithers when she moves, and the Orc and the Orc Mage walk east and west without sliding.
• Spell names above a caster's head are now green for you and your faction, and red for the enemy faction.
• The Vitality tooltip now spells out how much Vit your next point of magic and physical damage reduction costs, and the caps that apply.
• Footprints left in the rain are easier to see.
• More Chinese names now follow the official Chinese Helbreath server: spells, monsters, item prefixes, skills, Majestics, Zemstones and several armour pieces.

Fixed

• Total Overcharge now empowers every bolt of Fury of Thor, not just the first one.
• Bloodlust's Max HP reduction now shows correctly on your HP bar and character window, and it clears when you die.
• Other players no longer block you from a spot they already left, and you can walk right up to Wyverns, Abaddon and gates.
• After bumping into someone, your character no longer freezes a second time before moving again.
• Aresden Dungeon: you can walk into the passage right of the entrance without being sent back to town.
• Removed a broken teleport spot in Tower of Hell 3 that made you stutter when running over it.
• Fixed brief server-wide hitches when someone created an account or searched for a name that doesn't exist.