Ancient Kingdoms v0.9.24.0 - The Combat Update

The biggest combat overhaul so far has arrived!

This update is focused on making combat feel more fluid, more tactical, and less burst-oriented. Encounters should now be decided by sustained decision-making, positioning, healing, cooldown management, and mechanics instead of a few overwhelming hits.

As always, this is an Early Access update. We'll continue monitoring your feedback and making adjustments over the coming days and weeks until the combat reaches the right feel.

✨ New Features

• Added Mana Regen Augments.
• Added Light of the Heavens to Cleric Mercenaries.
• Added the new monster ability Wounds (target melee DoT).
• Added new RCON commands:
• houses
• houselist
• removehouse <houseId|ownerAccount>

⚔️ Combat Changes

• Reduced Boss/Elite (Lv. 50+) Attack Power and Spell Power by 10%.
• Reduced Boss/Elite Area DoT damage by 10%.
• Increased cast time for most healing and buff spells.
• Celerity / Alacrity cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
• Celerity / Alacrity now reduces the remaining cooldown of all abilities by 50%, up to a maximum of 30 seconds.
• Battlefield Restoration cooldown adjusted to 90 seconds.
• Meditation cooldown adjusted to 300 seconds.
• Enrage now activates at 10% HP instead of 25% for bosses.
• Enrage damage bonus adjusted to 50–75% (previously 50–100%).
• Wards now absorb DoT damage, with reduced strength.
• Reduced WIS scaling for Wards.
• Increased WIS scaling for HP regeneration spells (100 WIS = 20 → 30 HP/sec).
• Added an additional 0.5 second refractory period after monsters use a special ability.
• Bosses and Elites will now attempt to move behind their target.
• HoTs and DoTs can now critically strike.
• AoE healing now displays healing numbers.
• Increased reputation gains from Bosses and Elites.

⚖️ Class Balance

✝️ Cleric

• Increased Bastion of Health cast range.
• Reduced Superior Healing by 1,000 HP.
• Increased Waves of Healing scaling (40 → 50 HP per level).
• Divine Intervention cooldown reduced (10 min → 5 min).
• Reduced Battlefield Restoration cast time.
• Reduced Leadership cast time.
• Leadership adjusted:
• Critical Chance: 5% → 15%
• Accuracy: 10% → 15%
• Damage: 250 → 300
• Duration: 60s → 30s

🌿 Druid

• Elderwood Aegis cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
• Increased Wild Growth duration.
• Early Spring healing increased (35 → 60 HP per level).
• Early Spring duration increased by 1 second.
• Radiant Spring healing reduced (500 → 400 HP per level).

🔮 Wizard

• Evacuate cooldown reduced (10 min → 5 min).
• Spellwind adjusted:
• Spell Haste: 20%
• Area Radius: 8 yd → 16 yd
• Mana Cost: 700 → 1200

🛡️ Mercenary Changes

• Improved healing target selection when using two healer mercenaries.
• Reduced cooldown of all mercenary cleanse abilities.
• Battlefield Restoration now affects all your mercenaries regardless of distance.
• Resurrected mercenaries now appear at the caster's position.

✝️ Cleric Mercenary

• Added Light of the Heavens (AoE heal).
• Healing Light cooldown reduced to 1 second.
• Healing Light healing reduced (200 → 150 HP per level).
• Base healing scaling reduced (300 → 200 HP per level).

🌿 Druid Mercenary

• Gale Burst damage increased (10 → 12 per level).
• Protection of the Forest cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
• Swift Bloom is now a HoT target buff.
• Swift Bloom healing increased (10 → 15 HP per level).

🔮 Wizard Mercenary

• Arcane Blast cooldown increased (5s → 6s).
• Mana cost reduced (15 → 12 MP per level).

🗡️ Rogue Mercenary

• Will now use its invulnerability before taking fatal damage.
• Fixed Cloak of Shadows occasionally failing.

🐉 Valaark

• Fixed vulnerabilities not displaying correctly.
• Valaark now rotates between 2 different vulnerabilities each window.
• Reduced debuff immunity duration.
• Adjusted Valaark stats.

🔧 Fixes & Improvements

• Fixed Tempest Nova tooltip.
• Fixed mercenaries occasionally getting stuck after dying.
• Fixed debuff visual effect positions.
• Fixed armor set bonus issues when changing specialization.
• Spell visual effects are now synchronized with cast times.
• Fixed touchscreen support for handheld PCs.
• Fixed Dragonbait Stew hotkey issue.
• Fixed Dragonbait Stew debuff timer.
• Increased chance to cleanse Blinding Gaze.
• Fixed RCON "unban" command.
• Fixed Critical Resist augment tooltip.
• Mercenaries now move to the player's position when using Come Here.

❤️ Thank you to everyone helping test these combat changes. This is just the beginning of the combat rework, and we'll continue iterating based on your feedback until it feels just right.