The popular free-to-play MMO title Marvel Heroes has just got a boost. According to reports, developer Gazillion Entertainment has pushed out an updated patch v.1.3 that adds a host of new in-game modes, heroes and more.
To begin with, the new update has added a Prestige Mode, Legendary quests, Synergy System and a lot more to offer more options to players while live in the game.
The update also introduces Luke Cage to the team and frankly, he looks even cooler than he was ever before. And as revealed via the official patch notes, Cage possesses super strength, unbreakable skin, and the ability to summon Heroes or hire team mates.
Also, there’s a massive rework done to the powers of Iron Man who now appears with “new powers, improved options, and some AWESOME new animations.” The new tweaks to Tony Stark’s powers include Hovering, Repulsor Ray, Pulse Bolt, Arc Reactor Enhancement (formerly Reserve Power), Repulsor Barrage, Force Shield, Laser Devastation and more.
For example, Arc Reactor Enhancement “No longer provides passive defense (moved to another power). Now provides a minimap radar tracking passive, and increases the damage of beam powers based on your maximum spirit. The power now resides in the Energy Beams tree.”
As far as Legendary Quests are concerned, fans will see the addition of The Legendary Quests of Odin in the game. These quests will allow players to travel all through the Marvel Universe “in order to fulfill particular tasks for Odin, All-Father of Asgard.”
“Though Odin cannot assist you directly due to pressing matters in Asgard, he will supply you with special blessings for your artifacts in order to assist you in combating the effect of the Cosmic Cube,” per the patch notes.
The newly introduced Prestige Mode will allow heroes to start again at level one (along with a name color change), and once the player buys the “Ancient Gourd of Prestige” from Clea, it will allow a level 60 character to restart at level one.
And as usual, the patch also adds a number of overall performance improvements like speeding up loading screens, reducing stuttering for low-end video card, small fixes to hero powers and improvements to the loot system have also been added to the game.
Other characters that see an update in powers apart from Iron Man include the likes of Black Panther, Colossus, Captain America, Ms. Marvel, Cyclops, Spiderman and Thor, to name a few.
Check out the entire detailed patch list below:
MARVEL HEROES 1.3
This game update brings Luke Cage, the Hero Synergy System, the Prestige system, new items, and much more to Marvel Heroes (including a complete rework of Iron Man). In the coming weeks, we'll be focusing on buffing heroes who need it and adjusting tuning based on feedback. As usual, please post your feedback in the forums.
PRESTIGE MODE
A new prestige system has been added to the game allowing heroes to start again at level one (along with a name color change). Visit Clea to buy the “Ancient Gourd of Prestige”. It will allow a level 60 character to restart at level 1.
All of your items will be retained and unequipped. All quests may be repeated, but power rewards will not be given again.
You will retain all synergy bonuses.
Five colors of Iron Buddy pets are available from Clea - only for players of the appropriate prestige level. (Green, Blue, Purple, Orange and Red)
HERO SYNERGY SYSTEM
The Hero Synergy System has been added to Marvel Heroes.
Press V to see open the achievements pane, which inclueds Hero Synergies. A full achievement system is coming this Fall.
Adjust and “Apply Changes” in hub or training room. No cooldown or cost to change.
LEGENDARY QUESTS
The Legendary Quests of Odin have been added to Marvel Heroes!
These quests have you travelling throughout the Marvel Universe in order to fulfill particular tasks for Odin, All-Father of Asgard. Though Odin cannot assist you directly due to pressing matters in Asgard, he will supply you with special blessings for your artifacts in order to assist you in combating the effect of the Cosmic Cube.
Available starting at level 20.
Press L to see them at the top of the mission log.
These quests will provide the best experience rate in the game.
Provides the only way of earning Legendary Marks of Odin. These are used in crafting recipes in the “Legendary Blessings” section of the crafter.
Legendary Blessings
A "Legendary Blessings" tab has been added to your crafter which allows you to craft the following blessings to your artifacts:
Legendary Blessing of Baldur
Legendary Blessing of Fandral
Legendary Blessing of Frigga
Legendary Blessing of Heimdall
Legendary Blessing of Hela
Legendary Blessing of Hogun
Legendary Blessing of Loki
Legendary Blessing of Odin
Legendary Blessing of Sif
Legendary Blessing of Volstagg
These Blessings are the only way to modify your artifacts. Each requires 100 Odin Marks.
ZONES
X-Defense is still active as a public beta. Data is being collected. Tuning and design adjustments underway, please continue posting feedback on our forums.
Midtown adjusted to feel appropriately dangerous.
Cow level fixed – Brevik has returned from his short vacation.
EXPERIENCE
Experience has been buffed in certain story areas (and Midtown) to help normal mode progression.
Completing a Legendary Quest will grant an extremely large experience reward and should be the best way for players to level up from an experience perspective.
TENACITY
Mobs and heroes should have fully functioning tenacity. Tenacity will now be an extremely powerful stat for reducing crowd control times and therefore increasing overall damage.
Tuning will most definitely need to occur for tenacity on heroes and enemies over the next week.
ITEMS
Added a new artifact, Hand of Doom, which drops from Red Tier 4 Doctor Doom only.
Added many new unique items to the game, approximately 40 in total. Good hunting out there!
You can now purchase a one-time use Bovine Sector Portal from Clea for 500,000 credits.
Six new artifacts have been added to the game! Many existing artifacts have been buffed.
Added new Advanced Artifacts to the game! These are high level versions of other artifacts that will allow players to chase down new versions of their favorite artifacts. There are 19 artifacts Advanced artifacts in all, with more coming!
Corrected a defect from patch 1.2 where bonus critical damage bonus on some items was still being calculated twice. All remaining items should now be fixed.
Most medallions in the game have been significantly buffed and adjusted to be competitive. We did a large analysis pass of which medallions were being used by players and buffed the bottom 75% of medallions in popularity, some extremely.
Added a recipe to upgrade a purple item to a cosmic item. Requires level 20 crafter. It will retain all of its attributes and item level, but gets +1 to all skills and a random cosmic affix (it becomes a full cosmic item). This recipe is extremely expensive and is intended to allow players to find a “great roll” on a purple and be able to turn it into a late-game powerful cosmic.
Uniques now have a confirmation box when attempting to donate to a vendor.
Credits are now a light green color, medikits are now a bandage color, Eternity Splinters are orange.
Item powers can no longer proc effects.
Item effects no longer benefit from damage rating.
Changed costume core crafting to cost 1000 credits per level instead of 1 credit per level.
TEAM INSIGNIAS
A new item type is now in the game: Team Insignias.
They have a dedicated item slot.
They are allowed to be worn by any hero who has been a member of the team in the past, including “honorary members”.
S.H.I.E.L.D. team insignias may be worn by any hero.
Every insignia provides an aura. Blue and purple insignias have an additional 1 or 2 random affixes, respectively. Test Center Note: These items are still undergoing tuning and testing.
Many more recipes are coming in the near future associated with blue, purple, comic and unique items.
USER INTERFACE
The experience bar is now green.
Chat channels (such as social chat) can now hold up to 500 players.
Floating Healing Numbers only appear when you have less than 100% health.
Some UI improvements to the launcher system.
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS
Sped up loading screens in many areas of the game.
Reduced stuttering for some low-end video cards.
Many small fixes to hero power functionality from a performance standpoint.
Improvement to back end AI of loot entities will greatly speed up low-end systems when piles of loot are present.
HEROES
Luke Cage
Luke Cage has been added to Marvel Heroes! With his super strength, unbreakable skin, and ability to summon Heroes for Hire team mates, Luke Cage is an exciting addition to the Marvel Heroes roster!
Iron Man Rework
Iron Man has had his powers completely reworked, with new powers, improved options, and some AWESOME new animations! For details, see the post at the end of the patch notes.
Black Panther
Updated Panther Leap to be faster and more responsive.
Black Widow
Updated Acrobatic Assault to be faster and more responsive.
Captain America
Shield Block (when used with Avenging Sentinel) now reflects a flat amount of damage to attackers rather than percentage.
Captain America's Defensive Prowess now properly increases the projectile reflection chance while using Shield Block. The reflection angle now matches the damage resistance angle (180 degrees).
Captain America's Shield Toss and Shield Ricochet tooltips now display the correct damage of the power.
Colossus
Metallic Warrior now increases damage rating to all powers, rather than fighting powers. All of Colossus' damaging powers are already fighting powers - this change is to clear up unnecessary confusion and allow the bonus to display on the character sheet.
Cyclops
Rallying Command can now be used when not under the effects of crowd control.
Cyclops' Optic Explosion now properly deals damage equal to the damage indicated on the tooltip.
Cyclops' Channeled Blast no longer has variance on damage. As with most DoT powers, it deals the same damage at all times.
Human Torch
Human Torch's Homing Flares now properly trigger the delay of spirit regeneration when using the power. The power's tooltip now has the 'Spark' tag.
Human Torch’s Protective Flames no longer toggles off when you have zero spirit
Ms. Marvel
Ms. Marvel's Photonic Regeneration will no longer cause her to lose her current target.
Ms. Marvel's Stellar Flare now delivers its damage in one packet rather than two. This will cause the tooltip damage to increase accordingly.
A bug has been resolved that was causing Stellar Flare's area of effect radius to be reduced.
Spider-Man
Reflective Web Shield now reflects a flat amount of damage to attackers rather than percentage.
Spider-Man's Reflective Web Shield now properly reflects projectiles while active. The damage negation amount now scales correctly with ranks in Protective Web Shield. Both shields now have the proper damage negation values (as listed in 1.2 patch notes). The reflection angle now matches the damage resistance angle (180 degrees).
Spider-Man’s Leaping Assault now has a very short cooldown.
Spider-Man’s Web Splat now has an increased amount of damage vulnerability
Thor
Hammer Punch's health-shredding has been increased to 1.2% (from 0.8%), and scales with power points.
Thor's Storm Strike chain lightning portion no longer has a damage synergy with basic powers.
All heroes have received a free respec for this patch.
All channeled powers now have their DPS increased.
Black Panther's Panther Leap, Black Widow's Acrobatic Assault, and Deadpool's Stabby Flip will no longer fail to fire their secondary attack upon landing if the target is out of reach.
Tooltips for pets now properly indicate what type of damage the pet deals.
Bounce powers (such as Storm Strike, Chain Lightning and Reflective Blast) now should be dealing full tooltip damage to the first targets hit. Subsequent targets hit by the same bounce power take less damage as intended.
The scaling of damage powers has been changed. Powers will now scale higher with power points based on their unlock level, up to rank 20, then scale at a rate equal to other powers from ranks 21 through 40. This will result in powers that unlock early on in a hero’s power tree will be more powerful and more viable in hero builds.
The bonus from 'pet damage', 'pet health', and 'pet duration' affixes will now properly display on tooltips. Several bugs relate to these affixes not functioning for certain powers have been resolved.
Heroes with spirit regeneration powers will no longer regenerate spirit within seconds of using a spirit spending power. To compensate, their spirit regen has been increased. Many of the heroes affecting by this on top priority for buffs/reworks.
MISSION CHANGES
Midtown
Reduced spawn time of super villains in Midtown
Reduced maximum number of enemies that can be present for a particular ambush in Midtown; heroes who are defeating enemies very quickly will not notice this change, while heroes having more trouble will not be quite as overwhelmed.
Slightly reduced number of possible ambush points to ease up on overlapping ambushes in Midtown.
Slightly increased time between enemy reinforcements within each wave in Midtown so as to make Midtown more manageable for solo players. We will be watching metrics closer and expect to be adjusting overall difficulty - as opposed to density - of Midtown by level range.
Enemy Changes:
Heals When Injured affix has been removed from bosses.
Electro's Lightning Storm AoE no longer stacks damage if he casts multiple in the same spot Lavamen’s puddles upon defeat can no longer stack.
Rhino’s charge arrow is now much more prominent.
Pyro’s Rain of Fire warning is much more prominent.
Doop should now be easier to target.
IRON MAN REWORK
Energy Beams
Hovering - After continuously walking for a short period of time, Iron Man will activate his jet boots and hover along the ground. This will persist until you stop moving or attack. In the future, this new 'hover' feature will be implemented on other heroes who have a long history of hovering rather than walking across the battlefield.
Iron Man's power trees have been rearranged with new powers. All powers have received adjustments in regards to tuning values.
Repulsor Ray - Now deals 25% additional damage if you have a Force Shield active. The visuals have been improved to be more beam-like.
Unibeam - Iron Man now diverts a portion of his shield's energy to his arc reactor, powering up the Unibeam even further. You can still use the power with no Force Shield. The Unibeam's charge time has been set to a flat 1 second, to resolve player confusion around the charge time and make the tooltip damage more clear.
Repulsor Barrage - Power points now increase Repulsor Barrage's base rate of fire. Freon Ray - This power has been removed, and Coolant Blast has taken its place (see below).
Pulse Bolt – Pulse Bolt now pierces through targets and pulses stunning blasts as it travels. The AoE radius of Pulse Bolt has been significantly increased.
Arc Reactor Enhancement (formerly Reserve Power)- No longer provides passive defense (moved to another power). Now provides a minimap radar tracking passive, and increases the damage of beam powers based on your maximum spirit. The power now resides in the Energy Beams tree.
Disruptor Beam- The visuals have been improved to be more beam-like.
Laser Devastation- A new power for Iron Man's Energy Beams tree. I'll let you guys see this one for yourselves... I think you should lead with this next time.
Iron Man's Defense Shields tree is now 'Defense Systems', and contains both defensive Shield powers, and Iron Man's melee/close range powers.
Force Shield - Force Shield is now the only shield power available to Iron Man (Reflective, Kinetic, and Energy Shields have been removed). While active, the shield increases your defense. The maximum amount of shields per point has been increased.
Hyper-Velocity Charge - Now increases Iron Man's attack and movement speed for a short duration after charging. Now resides in the 'Defense Systems' tree.
Shield Shutdown - This power has been removed, and its functionality has been merged into Shield Overload (spirit regen) and Force Shield (defense with shields).
**Shield Overload **- Now restores a percentage of your maximum spirit when detonating the shield, and consumes only a portion of your maximum shield reserve. The bonus damage is no longer based on how much damage your shields have taken, but based on the amount of shields it consumed instead. The area of effect radius and the visuals have been increased, and the power now has a brief cooldown. Overloading also clears Iron Man of any crowd control effects.
Voltaic Punch - A new basic power for Iron Man's Defense Systems tree. Iron Man goes toe to toe with an enemy, throwing heavy punches that deal increased critical damage. Jet-Assisted Slam - The area of effect radius has been increased. Now resides in the 'Defense Systems' tree.
Coolant Blast - A new power for Iron Man, which has replaced Freon Ray. Iron Man channels a chilling spray of his internal coolant systems at enemies in front of him. Enemies who stand in the blast for too long will be frozen. In addition, Iron Man's melee powers deal double damage against frozen enemies.
Adaptive Defenses (formerly Shield Recharge)- The 'thorns' component of Reflective Shield has been combined into Adaptive Defenses. While your Force Shield is active, enemies that strike you in melee combat will take damage. The power still restores your shields over time. Death From Above - Now has scaling knockdown duration with power points. Now resides in the 'Defense Systems' tree.
Tech Gadgets
Wrist Rocket- A new power for Iron Man's Tech Gadgets tree, which has replaced Missile Salvo. Iron Man fires a small rocket from a wrist-mounted launcher, which explodes on targets and ignites them, dealing damage over time.
Missile Salvo - Has been replaced with Wrist Rocket, and an improved MicroMissiles. MicroMissiles now functions more similarly to Salvo, but has more targeting options.
Micromissiles- Micromissiles now fire in a much quicker burst, and can be used on single targets for a burst of damage, or against no target and the missiles will seek out and track targets on their own. Micromissiles now hit targets in a small AoE, similar to the splash damage formerly provided by Missile Salvo. The power now has a brief cooldown, but fires more missiles in one burst.
Missile Control System (formerly Automated Missiles)- This power has been redesigned. It is now a passive which increases the critical rating of your missiles, and has a chance when firing any power to launch a missile.
System Reboot- A new power for Iron Man's Tech Gadgets tree. This passive will engage Iron Man's self-preservation systems when Tony is reduced to zero health, resuscitating his vitals and dealing damage to his attackers. Passively increases Iron Man's defense, which formerly was attached to Reserve Power.
Deployable Medic- A new power for Iron Man's Tech Gadgets tree. Iron Man throws a device to a target location, which deploys a combat medic drone. The drone heals anyone who stands in its area of effect.
Jericho Bombardment- A new power for Iron Man's Tech Gadgets tree. Iron Man paints a target area for satellite missile bombardment, raining missiles down on anyone who stands in the blast radius.
House Party (Ultimate Power)- The drone suits summoned by House Party have been enhanced with AI. They will now follow Iron Man and pursue targets on their own. The Shotgun armor has been refitted with the new Coolant Blast, rather than Missile Salvo.