The time has come for our next major monthly update, 0.2 is nearly here and it arrives with some heavily requested features as we continue to work through our Roadmap.

Let's cover the downtime portion first, then get into all the fun stuff. Here's the usual countdown for when maintenance will begin[www.timeanddate.com] as well.

• Servers Locked: Thursday, March 28th at 9 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

Fun stuff time - first out of the gate, a new Veil Demon that many of you have known about since the Invitational, Shadow Master. Clone your enemy and utilize deployable buff stations to enhance your possessed minions as a Shadow Master. It's your choice how you want to utilize the clones you create, either offensively or defensively, enabling a whole new world of strategies for the Veil Demon and challenges for the Heroes.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rX7JcCifDo

In addition, don't forget about the Twitch Prime promotion that started last week[www.playbreach.com], and will run for 4 months. You'll receive QC Points and Boosts every month, with some special rewards along the way just for linking your Twitch account to your QC Games account. More details on that as we move forward.

Another major roadmap item we're debuting with 0.2 is the long-awaited Challenge System.  Challenges are achievements players can accomplish and earn rewards for throughout the game.  In 0.2 we've added the first set of Challenges, which includes rewards for every level earned in every class up to level 30.  These rewards are varied and include things like equipment items with brand new talents, gold, emotes, hats, prestige class names, and outfits.  Additionally, at levels 16 and 18 you will unlock the ability to use general and ultimate spells from any other owned class in the same school of magic without having to level up those classes. 

We've got even more coming in this update in the form of bug fixes and optimizations, which you can see in the lovely bullet points below.

• Added Shadow Master Veil Demon Class
• Added Challenges System
• A new section has been added to the "Character" Tab ("C"), where you can view all of your progress on individual Challenge categories.  
• Added Leveling Up Challenges and Rewards for every class including Equipment, Gold, Cross-Class Ability Unlocks, and Outfits.
• These rewards can all be claimed retroactively.
• Additional Categories of Challenges coming soon.
• All players will now automatically receive all 6 'default' Hero Classes, instead of only the one chosen in Character Creation.  
• The Free Weekly Rotation will now contain two classes instead of four, a single non-default Hero class and a single Veil Demon Class
• The Free Weekly Rotation will now update on Tuesday instead of Wednesday, to match up with our patching schedule.
• Rarity and prices of several classes have been reduced.
• Ranking System Beta.  There are now two Ranks, one for Hero and a separate one for Veil Demon.  As a result, everyone's Rank will be reset.
• Added a /help menu to help new and existing players understand various aspects of the game, and detail some non-obvious chat commands.
• Added a "Blocking" command that will hide all chat messages from the blocked player.  It will also prevent that player from sending you party invites.   

Veil Demon

• Possessed NPCs will now receive 1k health on possession.  This health is lost on depossess.  
• Possessed Boss NPCs will receive 33% damage buff.  
• There is no longer a cast delay after de-possessing.
• Hero Minions can no longer be targeted by several Veil Demon spells, including Veil Rift and Aethyr Coil.
• Hero Minions can no longer trigger Veil Demon breaches.
• Chronos Gem.  Reduced cooldown to 50s.
• Winds of Auros. Now purges buffs from affected targets and applies a 50% damage taken debuff for the next 3x.  Max charges reduced to 2.
• Soul Infusion.  Stacking bonuses are no longer removed on depossess, instead they will decay over time.  Possession stops decay.  Re-casting Soul Infusion will enable gaining of stacks again.  Casting Soul Infusion on a new target will remove stacks on previous target.
• Summon Elite.  Now starts with 1/3rd of a charge.
• Veil Rift.  Now has a 1s windup where the target is locked in place and the Veil Demon aim the launch direction more reliably.  Targets inside the Veil can now walk through destructible objects.  Cooldown now starts once the Veil Demon leaves the Veil.
• Veil Shroud.  No longer blocks ability to target creates inside, but still blocks all projectiles.  Now lasts until replaced.
• Command.  Cooldown reduced to 8s.  No longer has charges.  Movement speed buff reduced to 30%.  
• Sacrifice.  Can only be used on grunts and now explodes target instantly instead of on health trigger. 

Arcane

• Flamestrike.  Fixed an issue in which this could stun enemies while in the dodging state.
• Stasis Beam.  Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.
• Haste is now named Accelerate

Battle

• Cyclone Blade.  Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.
• Resolute Block.  Caster is immune to all damage and stuns for duration.  Lasts up to 2s or on input release.  Damage received will heal caster.   

Dark

• Frenzied Shambler.  Reduced cooldown to 8s.
• Grim Reaper Form.  Fixed an issue where Grim Reaper Form would trigger while downed if you take a talent that grants Ultimate charge.
• Overwhelming Power.  Fixed an issue in which the frequency was not correctly defined in the tooltip.

Shadow

• Bloodlust.  Updated the tooltip to match the fact you can only lifesteal up to 100%.
• Mob of Ravens.  No longer targetable by allies or enemies. Can no longer launch enemies in the air.
• Talon Frenzy.  Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.

Tech

• Arcane Converter.  No longer consumes Healing Microbots, but the damage bonus per active Healing Microbots has been reduced.
• Lead Storm.  Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.

• All NPCs damage and health have been reduced slightly across all modes.
• Oni Boss fight mechanic has changed.  3 orbs spawn at 85% and 70% health.  6 orbs spawn at 55% and 40% health.  9 orbs spawn at 25% and 10% health.  As long as one Orb is active the Oni gains 25% haste and invulnerability.  Spawning orbs no longer interrupts the Oni.  Malestrom is now cast at 70%, 40%, and 10% health.  Maelstrom no longer consumes orbs.
• Ra Pillar Mechanic.  Has been reduced from 3 orbs to 2 orbs in Co-op vs AI Adept and Co-op vs Player.
• Sekhmet Sacrifice Mechanic.  Now does 75% max health damage to sacrificed target, down from 100%.
• Fixed several destructible object spawn location exploits in Valley of Kings. 
• Kiev Artifact Objective.  Artifacts spawn locations have been moved farther away from the drone.
• Academy Training Room.  Komainu Annihilator is now available to spawn from the tab menu.

• Defeat Enemies.  Contribution per enemy killed has been reduced slightly.
• Capture Uplinks.  Banished and stealthed enemies no longer block capture progress.
• Collect Veil Beacons.  Count is now displayed with a dedicated UI icon and larger number.  Elite enemies now drop 6.
• Escort Drone.  Banished and stealthed enemies no longer block capture progress.
• Deliver Artifacts. Heroes will now drop the artifact if they fall into a pit.  
• Secure Relic.  Objective radius has been reduced.  Objective progress rate has been reduced.

• Added over 50 new Equipment Talents across all classes.  Several of these new talents can be found on equipment rewards in the Class Challenges. 
• Invis to Veil Demon. Stealth happens after 8s of not using spells or basic attacks. After 8s, you are stealthed for up to 7s. Stealth can be broken by using spells or basic attacks.
• Basic attacks apply slow to possessed targets has been reduced from 10% per stack to 5%.
• Sacrifice Immediate Explosion.  This is now the base functionality for sacrifice.  This talent has been replaced with Increases Max Charges and Reduces Charge time.
• Command Bonus Damage Prismatic Gem.  Instead of reducing max charges, this now increases the cooldown.
• Mob of Ravens +1.  Now also increases damage of the clones by 33%.

• Lifesteal was improperly tracking as "Heal" in the scoreboard - this has been corrected to properly track as "Mitigation".
• Match chat has been properly name Mission (note, this also changes the slash command to access this channel to /mission).
• Match Bonus in the Play Menu has been renamed to Mission Bonus.
• "Cooldown and Charge Accrual" has been properly named "Cooldown and Charge Cooldown".
• "Cooldown and Charge Cooldown for Minion Spells while possessing" no longer applies to bosses.
• Fixed an issue where some gems were multiplicative with one another.
• Fixed an issue that applied the Cooldown and Charge Cooldown for Minion Spells to apply to bosses.
• Fixed an issue that caused the Damage Echo talent to deal more damage than intended.  It should now be 50% of the damage dealt in all cases.
• Fixed an issue where some Roots were considered an Ailment.
• Recruit mode has been removed as an option
• Bastet - Prowl.  No longer shows impact hits from enemy attacks while immune.
• Juggernaut - Juggernaut Smash.  Fixed an issue where the total effect of the spell was not properly manipulated by haste or slow effects.
• Fixed an issue that caused Ra's dodge counter not to display on the HUD
• Fixed an issue that caused Oni's dodge counter not to display on the HUD
• Fixed an issue that caused Sekhmet's dodge counter not to display on the HUD
• Fixed an issue that caused the Firestorm Onryo to have more health than intended.
• Spray is now a bindable key.
• Season 0 quest will no longer be granted to new players.

• Challenges: Due to the retroactive nature of challenges, high-level players will receive a large number of rewards upon joining the Library of Alexandria. Please claim those rewards first, then you will be able to chat and accept party invites.
• Challenges: If you do not claim a reward after acknowledging the reward, you may get a second pop-up upon your next login
• Challenges: If you claim a reward, then exit to Alexandria and load the rewards screen again, the same challenge may still be active. Attempting to claim it will cause an error message, but your reward will have already been claimed.
• The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.
• Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers
• Rapid Fire Clip only reloads properly when placed in the 3rd spell slot for a Tech class.
• Bonus AoE Damage gems do not work with the following abilities: Cerberus Inferno, Sacrifice, Vortex Slug, Shards of Cerberus, Cerberus Core
• We've noticed a rare occurrence during the Hero reviving process may deactivate by itself before reaching completion during multiplayer matches

Today we're excited to reveal that Breach has teamed up with En Masse Entertainment to bring the Action RPG Pack to Twitch Prime[twitch.amazon.com]! If you're already a Twitch Prime subscriber, you can access this new pack via their official page[twitch.amazon.com]. If you're not already, you can sign up right now [www.twitch.tv]and get these benefits!

This will be a multi-month pack, and we're starting out of the gate with an easy to understand offer to all Twitch Prime members. You'll get access to Breach, along with 2,000 QC Points and a 30-day Boost added to your account. If you're already playing Breach, you too can redeem this offer and add the QC Points / Boost to your account as well. Make sure to check back when we announce next month's addition to the Action RPG Pack as well, which will contain something new!

If you already own Breach, you can redeem this for the QC Points / Boost as well!

• Q: Is there a way I can get free in-game stuff from Twitch? How do I get Twitch Prime items?

A: En Masse will be hosting a series of special Twitch-exclusive loot boxes between March 21 2019 and July 24 2019. Head over to the Twitch Prime En Masse: Action RPG Pack[www.twitch.tv] for more general information about when the drops will happen and how to set up your Twitch Prime Account.

• Q: How do I access my Breach En Masse Twitch Prime Loot?

A: If you got Breach Early Access through the Action RPG loot box you'll be able to access Breach Early Access through the En Masse Launcher[www.enmasse.com].


Once you're signed into the En Masse Launcher (making sure to sign in using the account you claimed your Twitch Prime Loot with) click on Breach Early Access. You'll be prompted to create or sign into a QC Games Account. The En Mass Launcher can then automatically tell QC Games that you have an Early Access Account.

You'll then be able to press Play from the En Masse launcher and get into Breach. In Breach you'll have a single character who can change classes and abilities on a per encounter level. So make sure you pick a name and appearance that you'll be happy to follow through your adventures.

• Q: How do I claim my items in Breach?

A: If you got an item from your Twitch Prime En Masse: Action RPG Pack you'll get a popup when you go into the game where you can click to redeem your loot. Any QC Points will be applied to your in-game wallet, any gold or XP boosts or costumes will be applied your character.

To access Hero costumes, press "C" to open your Character screen, select "Wardrobe", followed by "Hero". You can set your costumes, hats, and sprays by clicking on icons under Visuals.


You must log into Twitch Prime to claim your Loot for the months listed. The Loot will then wait for you until January 1, 2020 in game. Make sure you press Play on the game you scored loot for sometime in 2019!


The Action RPG Pack will be available in Twitch Prime North America, LATAM (including Brazil) and Japan. To meet various licensing restrictions and commitments not all content may be available in all regions, you can read here about Why Some Country IP Addresses Are Blocked[enmassehelp.zendesk.com].

Our goal this week was optimizations and corrections, and as you may have heard on our most recent Developer Stream[www.twitch.tv], we're mostly focused on ensuring Hero attacks actually hit their intended target with the correct amount of force, and improving FPS through such things such as a haircut to the Onryo. We know it may sound weird, but we all know how much better we all feel after a haircut, even enemies from another timeline.

Here's a little more specifics as to what we're adjusting this week, including our St Patty's Week bundle. Remember to purchase the new Headgear for just 1 gold!

• Added St Patty's Day Headgear, Outfit, Spray, and Emote. Please remember to purchase the Headgear first for just 1 Gold, to change the price of the outfit in the shop.
• All players will have any empty Blue / Red Gem slots filled with free HP Gems, in order to get them off on the right foot. If a player did not have empty gem slots, and had not purchased HP gems, they have been added to their inventory. Finally, if a player already had the HP Gems, we have refunded their gold for that amount.
• Corrected an issue with hit detection for weapon collision on both direct attacks and long-range projectiles. This applies to multiple Hero classes / schools.
• Improved enemy health bars so they should more accurately depict the damage being done
• Adjustments to some locations of destructible objects in Valley of Kings
• Gave the Onryo and Satyr enemies a haircut, giving them a clean, fresh look, while improving rendering and FPS.

• The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.
• Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers

Did you watch the Breach Invitational this past weekend[www.playbreach.com]? So much amazing competition, and luckily for you, you can watch the entire replay right here[www.twitch.tv]. Congrats to Team Carthh on their victory!

Along with that, we're still giving out some FREE access to Breach via our friends over at {LINK REMOVED}Alienware Arena (there's still keys left!) and if eligible, you could also win an Alienware Aurora Desktop PC, an NVIDIA GTX 1080, or even a snazzy blue Breach t-shirt[gleam.io]. Check over here for rules and eligibility requirements[gleam.io].

Oh also, we revealed our next upcoming class, the Shadow Master!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rX7JcCifDo

This week may be a little light on bullet points, but we're working behind the scenes on some additional optimization fixes and improvements to make Breach run better as a whole. Yes, we are in Early Access, but we are committed to improving performance as we continue forward with development. We're also going to be taking an updated look at our Early Access Roadmap[www.playbreach.com] shortly and provide everyone with an update on what we've accomplished so far, and what's coming in the months ahead.

All that aside, here's the timing for the upcoming downtime, and the usual countdown clock for all of you in various timezones across the world[www.timeanddate.com]. Please note that we've moved the update time one hour to 9 AM Central, instead of the usual 8 AM.

• Servers Locked: Tuesday, March 5th at 9 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

Updates and Changes:

• Kikimora Fiend Eggs will now properly display a warning ring around the egg
• Watcher's Slow talent has been reduced to 30% from 50%
• Miscellaneous backend updates and optimizations (more next week as well)

Known Issues:

• The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.
• Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers

Earlier today, for all current players on Steam, we gave every one of you that purchased a copy of Breach, 4 additional keys for Breach to hand out to friends! Just check your Inventory (you may have to log out and log back in), and you'll see them waiting for you. Hand those out to whomever you want to play Breach with, and get them started on the tutorials while providing some helpful tips along the way.

In addition, while we may have just had our weekly downtime and update yesterday, we're going to run another quick maintenance on the morning of February 27th in order to correct a small issue we found with QC Points. We have a few cases where some individuals that purchased our largest QC Points Pack were receiving 500 points less than what they should've been. Due to this, we're correcting the issue with this maintenance so it won't occur again, while making good for those individuals. Anyone directly impacted by this will receive an automatic 500 QC Point addition to their account once maintenance is complete.

There are no other direct changes during this maintenance. Here's a countdown timer[www.timeanddate.com] for those in other time zones.

• Servers Locked: Tuesday, February 27th at 8 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

As always, please remember to exit out of the game and launcher fully during this downtime. Sitting inside the game and waiting for the light to switch from red to green can potentially cause an issue, requiring a game restart anyway.

We're extremely pleased with the response to our 0.1 update last week[www.playbreach.com] which not only added a new map (Valley of Kings) and a new class (Medic), and of course the VD/Hero queuing, but it also corrected a lot of smaller issues from player feedback that we were able to address. This week, our team will continue to adjust core gameplay aspects based on feedback post-patch, as we prepare for the Breach Invitational[www.playbreach.com], pitting 40 players on 8 teams against each other for a share of $10,000! Don't forget that just by watching, you too can win prizes from a t-shirt, to a NVIDIA GTX 1080, or even an Alienware Aurora PC! We can't wait to stream all the action on March 2nd, starting at 3PM Central on Twitch, Mixer, and Facebook.

Now, let's get to the update this week. Here's the timing for the upcoming downtime, and the usual countdown clock for all of you[www.timeanddate.com] in various timezones across the world. 

• Servers Locked: Tuesday, February 26th at 8 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

As always, please remember to exit out of the game and launcher fully during this downtime. Sitting inside the game and waiting for the light to switch from red to green can potentially cause an issue, requiring a game restart anyway.


Updates and Changes:

• Summon Elite: Charge cool down increased to 3 minutes (from 2 minutes) and Elites deal 25% more damage and healing.  There will now be fewer Elites per match, but they will be more impactful when present.
• Cooldown Reduction and Charge Accrual cap has been reduced from 50% to 33%.
• Mending Wave (Arcane Mender): Now grants 1 starting potion, instead of 0.
• Healing Microbots (Medic): Now grants 1 starting potion, instead of 0.  
• Potions: You can no longer have more than 3 potions on your character at a time.
• Komainu Basic Attack: Increased the damage of the basic attacks and slightly decreased the amount of impact on the first attack in the chain.
• Kinetic Absorption Field/Kinetic Charged Shot: Maximum stacks of Kinetic Charged Shot set to 6 and updated tool tip to show "Max Charges" for the ability
• Sticky Grenade: Decreased damage from 350 to 315.
• Marked Shot: Lifesteal Talent changed to grant 25% Lifesteal.
• Bastard Cleave: No longer grants Lifesteal.
• Elemental Quintessence: No longer pushes enemies outside of the area.
• Guardian Sprite All Allies Talent: Reduced the shield value given to all allies from 3000 to 1000.
• Combust Heals Caster Per Burn Stack Consume: Combust now grants 0.5s Charge Accrual towards your next Firebolt per Burn stack consumed.
• Grim Reaper Form: Removed Stun and Suppression immunity from the ability
• Sehkmet: Increased the health of the destructible towers during Event Horizon mechanic to 4800.
• Translocate: Skilled play bonus increased to 2,000 health.
• Pain Conduit: Skilled play bonus increased to 200 damage per tick.
• Cerberus Core.  Increased cool down from 8s to 16s.  Reduced Max charges from 8 to 4.  Reduced arm time from 3s to 2s.  Increased damage to 775.
• Shards of Cerberus: Increased damage to 900 and Charge cool down is now 25s
• Talent - Breach Restriction: Reduced the restriction of Breaches from 5m to 2m.
• Talent - Invisible to the Veil Demon: Increased cool down from 8s to 16s.  Healing spells now break stealth.  

Known Issues:

• The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.
• Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers

Our first major monthly update since Early Access began is nearly here! As we've discussed in previous blog posts, our goal is one major update a month, combined with a weekly update / bug fix moving forward. Some of those weekly updates will contain (and have contained) large new features, such as Pyromancer a few weeks back, so not all updates are created equal. This Tuesday however, the bullet points are going to be MASSIVE to cover all the major updates and adjustments coming to Breach, including a bunch of community-requested features including the long-awaited specific queues for Heroes and Veil Demons. Did we mention we're also adding an optional Ranked System to go along with it to really show off your chops?

First and foremost though, make sure to read up about the final hours of our current Founders Packs right here[www.playbreach.com]. They will be replaced with a new Early Access Pass that comes with 2,000 QC Points and a 30-day boost, which all current and future players are welcome to pick up. 

Here's the timing for the upcoming downtime, and the usual countdown clock[www.timeanddate.com] for all of you in various timezones across the world. 

• Servers Locked: Tuesday, February 19th at 8 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

Now, the bullet points!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DttR9L3NaeQ

Highlights:

• New Map - Valley of Kings

An icy Breach erupts at an ancient ruin in Egypt - frosty catacombs and dusty sands exist side by side as monsters cross the Veil. A mysterious opponent unleashes a strange ritual, but is he trying to destroy the Mana Anchor... or something worse? This new map is accessible in all game modes.  

• New Boss - Sekhmet, the Goddess of War

The Egyptian goddess of war uses a combination of regal magic and feral rage to carve Academy mages apart. Beware the ritual of Sacrifice – batter down one of the two obelisks to free your captured teammate!

• Medic Hero Class

Bolster your team with a new style of run and gun healing, part of the Tech school of magic.

• Veil Demon and Hero Queue

You can now choose to queue to play as only a Veil Demon or Hero!

• Ranking System (Beta)  

You can opt in to track your wins and losses while playing Co-op vs Player matches.  In this first pass your nameplate will change based on Ranks achieved, with more rewards yet to come!    

• Added a new faction of monsters on the Tokyo map - The Onryo
• Updated the video settings options with a bunch of new features and drop-downs
• Update the UI to reflect non-default keys being bound to specific actions.
• General graphical and performance improvements
• Two Gems of the same type can now be purchased and utilized
• Added and adjusted options for various keybinding, including mouse thumb buttons
• Numerous bug fixes and iterations listed below

The number of health potions a Hero Mage starts a mission with is now based on a passive attribute in their class' Signature spell.

The number of health potion crates that spawn during a mission is now based on the sum of Heal Potion Crate passive attribute on Hero team member's Ultimate spells. 

• Pyromancer

Combust.  Fixed an issue where damage was incorrectly multiplying per character instead of applying the base damage to each character.

Firebolt.  Fixed an issue causing the burn from firebolt to sometimes not apply to targets hit.

• Arcane Mender

Purification All Allies Talent.  No longer requires a target in order to use.  Once this talent has been taken, simply executing the ability will apply it to all allies.

Guardian Sprite All Allies Talent.  No longer requires a target in order to use.  Once this talent has been taken, simply executing the ability will apply it to all allies.

• Elementalist

Glacial Armor.  Cooldown has been reduced from 15s to 10s.  Cooldown no longer resets on consumption.  Duration of the shield has increased from 5s to 10s.  Shield value has been decreased from 1000 to 600. 

Aqueous Globe.  Reduced the cast time from 2s to 1.5s.

Quake.  Reduced the cast time from 1.65s to 1.15s.  Slightly increased the impact dealt, and slightly lowered the total damage dealt.

Meteor.  Reduced the cast time from 2s to 1s.  No longer deals impact.  Increased the damage from 250 fire damage to 400 fire damage.  Now an enemy target area of effect instead of ground target area of effect.  

• Mana Warrior

Mana Strike.  No longer provides damage reduction and CC immunity while executing.

Cleave.  Fixed an issue with how the damage bonus from both Taunt and Prismatic gem were factored.

• Vanguard

Resolute Block.  Fixed an issue where damage taken while in Resolute Block was not granting Bastard Cleave stacks when Bastard Cleave was slotted.

Bastard Cleave.  Fixed an issue where you would not gain Bastard Cleave stacks if you were Guarded by an ally.

Guard.  Fixed an instance where applying Guard to another ally was keeping the icon above the previous ally.

• Lich

Death Touch.  Fixed an issue where the Lich wouldn't teleport to a target on a ledge.

Overwhelming Power.  Fixed an issue where Overwhelming Power would consume a charge of Arcane Siphon.

Arcane Siphon.  Fixed several issues where the damage bonus was not applying properly.

• Necromancer

Command Minion.  Shamblers damage will now apply to owner's score and killing blows will count toward objectives.  Will no longer consume a charge of Arcane Siphon.  

Sacrifice Minion.  Fixed an issue where Sacrifice Minion did not get the damage bonus from Arcane Siphon.

Frenzied Shambler.  Fixed an issue where Frenzied Shambler did not get the damage bonus from Arcane Siphon.

• Reaper

Death's Beckon.  Fixed an issue where Death's Beckon did not get the damage bonus from Arcane Siphon.

• Demon Hunter

Banishing Relic.  Fixed issues with the cooldown application.  The Veil Demon can no longer target a Banished creature.

• Occultist

Projectile Ward.  Fixed an issue in which more than ranged damage was adjusted to zero.

Hellfire.  Fixed an issue that caused the VFXs to be misaligned when using Hellfire while moving.

• Exorcist

Exorcism.  Fixed bug that caused the preview field for Exorcism to be misaligned.

• Nighthawk

Mob of Ravens.  Various improvements to their AI.  They now properly factor into their owner's score and objectives.  Fixed an issue allowing the Permanent Mob of Ravens talent to appear on secondary equipment.  It will now correctly only ever appear on the Weapon equipment.

Talon Frenzy.  Fixed an issue where both the caster and target of Talon Frenzy would continually hang in the air if the target dodged out of Talon Frenzy.

Fleeting Talon.  Fixed an issue where re-applying Fleeting Talon to the same enemy would appear to remove the Root debuff from the target.

Bird of Prey.  Fixed an issue where launching Togors and other large enemies into the air was preventing the usage of Talon Frenzy or other melee range required abilities.

• Shadowblade

Mass Ambush.  Using Mass Ambush on aerial launched targets now correctly keeps the primary target in the air.

• Bloodstalker

Cursed Strike.  Fixed a bug where in certain instances the Cursed Strike mark would not properly apply.

• Engineer

Kinetic Absorption Field / Charged Shot.  Fixed an issue with the VFXs being misaligned when using ability.  Fixed a bug that would cause Kinetic Charged Shot to have 0 charges and not switch back to Kinetic Absorption Field.

Turret.  Now despawns if the caster and the turret are not in the same room.

Possession.  Fixed an issue causing Veil Demons to fly through the world sometimes when possessing.  

• Soulfiend

Soul Infusion.  No longer grants immunity, haste, lifesteal, or grunt cooldown reduction.  Damage and healing buff now stacks to 100% (up from 15%), but at a slower rate.  Possessed creature will now receive double health.  Health increase is removed on depossess and cannot be applied again on same target for 30s.  Ability cooldown lowered from 20s to 10s, but begins on depossess.   

Burning Soul.  Fixed an issue in which the aura would scale with the model of the character.

• Dark Artificer

Chronos Gem.  Increased base Health.  Now despawns if the target and Chronos Gem are no longer considered in the same room.

Watcher. Increased base Health.

• Taskmaster

Pain Conduit.  Secondary aura effect will now trigger if target is below 20% health OR 100 health.  Buff duration is reduced on Boss mobs by 50%.

Translocate.  Secondary heal effect will now trigger if target is below 20% health OR 100 health.

• Chaos Weaver

Sheaths of Sorrow.  Will now impale enemies after it has spawned if that enemy is considered falling from a ledge or jump. It will not impale those being pulled into it after nor will it impale those that walk in after it has spawned.  Fixed an issue where players that were dodging were adding to the tally of caught enemies.

• Veil Shifter

Veil Sight Curse. Affected player can now be identified with a VFX. 
 

• Elites will now gain significant threat against the closest enemy hero when the Veil Demon Spawns the Elite.
• Elites will now properly teleport back to the map properly if knocked off a ledge.
• Kikimora Hag.  Weave.  Fixed an issue where the target of Weave could dodge out of their CC earlier than desired.
• Anubis.  Consume Ally.  Bonus damage now caps at 100% at 15 stacks.
• Bastet.  Bounding Slash now applies 5 stacks of the standard Bleed debuff instead of a unique Gash debuff.  Prowl is now usable during dodging and Bounding Slash.
• Togor.  Fossilize will now aim the direction the player is pressing on the cast, but can no longer be rotated after the cast.  Demolish damage reduced from 640 to 400 and from 1280 to 1200.   
• Kikimora Fiend.  Rotten Egg now deals 475 damage and 320 heal (both up from 215).  Entangle cooldown reduced from 35s to 26s and has a short tell.
• Novus Sentinel AI will now use Resolute Block, while reserving Bastard Cleave for use while possessed.
• Various AI bug fixes.

Downtown Kiev

• The static collision in the Leshi Boss Room should now be more accurate to the visuals, and its should be easier for players to move along the edges of the room.
• Room 1 - Spawn portals in Room 1 have been moved slightly closer together to make the Defeat Enemies objective a bit easier to accomplish in disorganized groups.
• Room 2 - Some of the Uplinks and Spawn Portals have been moved around in Room 2 to make the objective a bit easier for heroes to win.
• The Leshi's walls will not longer hit players twice sometimes when they spawn.
• Being knocked or pushed into a Leshi wall while in the air will now results in a 1 second impale, down from 4 seconds
• Being hit by a wall when it erupts will now result in a 3 second impale, down from 4 seconds.
• The warning indicator for Leshi Walls will now accurately show where the wall will spawn.

Library of Alexandria

• Currently slotted Quick Emotes can now be chosen from the Quick Chat wheel in the Library.
• Players should no longer spawn stuck inside the steps by the water.
• Julia should no longer vanish briefly when she is waving back to players.
• Julia's Drone has had its Dance Detection Radius calibrated to a smaller radius, so it should not longer start dancing when a hero is dancing anywhere in the Library.
• The Emote Tutorial should now go away properly when a player walks away from Julia and her Drone.
• The Magic Mirrors have been disabled for repairs due to a temporal paradox that is not covered under warranty.  We apologize for the inconvenience.
• Players will no longer be assigned the Quest 'Mirror,Mirror: Run Through a Magic Mirror in the Library".  The next quest in the chain will be assigned instead
• Players on the Quest 'Mirror,Mirror: Run Through a Magic Mirror in the Library" can complete the quest by getting close to a Magic Mirror

Pyramid of Giza - Avatar of Ra 

• Will now properly execute the Obelisk phase 3 times every fight, even when possessed.
• Fixed an issue causing the invulnerability state to remain after the Obelisks have closed.
• Solar Beam.  Fixed an issue that caused float text not to appear.

Tokyo Breach

The Onryo, a new enemy faction, replace the Satyr's in Tokyo.

Oni 

• Health increased to 70,000 from 55,400.
• Onibi Orb Health reduced to 1,000 from 1,400.
• Maelstrom will now properly pull Heroes that are in Stealth.

Other

• During a match, the first equipment drop will now always be for your current school of magic.  Any drops after that will continue to be from any school.
• Improvements made for when a Hero is downed in a previous room to move them forward reliably
• Veil Demons should no longer be able to place objects in locations inaccessible to heroes.
• The flat XP/Gold bonus for winning in Co-op vs Player mode is no longer dependent on match duration - it will be the same regardless of the duration of match.
• Fixed some bugs where enemies would not spawn quickly enough, or stop spawning too soon.
• Objectives will now start more quickly when heroes enter a room, allowing players to properly get credit for early kills.
• Bosses can no longer be made invisible by Veil Demon Spells and Talents.
• Sprays will no longer block projectiles.
• Fixed an issue that allowed the "Dodge automatically reloads basic attack" talent to appear on equipment usable by schools of magic other than Hedge and Tech.  If you have existing equipment with that talent as any of the other schools of magic, that talent will be re-rolled upon logging in.  It will not affect other talents on that piece of equipment.
• Aura spells are now called out in tooltips.
• Fixed an issue where allies killing your aerial target would keep you hanging in the air longer than desired.
• Fixed an issue that was causing basic attacks to generate twice as much ultimate accrual as intended.
• Reduced the range in which sprays can be used.
• Fixed an issue where the Dark Lethal Conjuring Ruby, Dark Lethal Conjuring Sapphire, Empowering Dark Lethal Conjuring Ruby and Empowering Dark Lethal Conjuring Sapphire were not properly increasing Bonus Conjuring Damage.
• Fixed issue where the Hedge mage reload would not add the correct amount of charges when the Increased Clip Size Talent was applied.
• All Elite skins now display an icon respective of the skin's art.
• Burn debuff icon is now visible for everyone at all times.
• Center screen messages are now displayed with a drop shadow.
• Melee NPCs that are rooted will now attack nearby targets if their primary target is out of range.
• Various fixes and improvements have been made to the Veil Demon Tutorial.
• Reinforcement waves during Boss fights will now wait until a Hero enters the room, instead of spawning indefinitely when the objective starts automatically before a Hero has arrived.
• Updates and fixes to the Veil Demon Tutorial
• Updated icons for the emotes via the interact menu

• The rewards for Veil Demon players winning a Co-op vs Player match early has improved with the win bonus applying regardless of duration, but we are still working on improving it beyond that.
• Siphoning Skull's stun effect will sometimes end early.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers
• Guardian Sprite All Allies Talent will be rebalanced soon.
• The audio tell when Sehkmet's mechanic begins is not always heard by all players.

We are so grateful to everyone that supported us in our first month of Early Access! As a token of our appreciation, everyone who owns Breach before February 19 at 8:00AM CT will get 3,000 QC Points and at that moment, the Founder’s Packs will no longer be available. This $30 value is our way of saying thank you for being a part of Breach as we continue to develop the game through this Early Access / Beta period as we look towards Free to Play.

Beginning at 8:01 AM CT on February 19, there will be a new offer called Early Access Pass. The $10 digital package will include access to Breach, a 30-day boost, and 2,000 QC Points (a $20 value). Existing players can also purchase the pack, as it's a great value for anyone who wants to play Breach.

We also have an exciting update coming on February 19, “Patch 0.1: Valley of Kings” will include:

• A new Map with new Boss Monster
  
• A new Medic hero class
  
• New Veil Demon and Hero queue system
  
• A Ranking system, new monsters on the Tokyo map
  
• Several graphics and performance improvements, along with additional options

We can’t wait for you to experience it and will have more details to share about it soon.

As a reminder, this update follows our goal during Early Access: to provide a large update once a month, with smaller updates and hot fixes each week as necessary. We’re still on track with the content roadmap below.

We hope you’ll stay on this journey with us as we continue to bring exciting new content and improvements to the game. Thanks so much for playing.

Did you get your Pyromancer? Today, February 6th, if the FINAL DAY, so make sure to enter "FREEPYRO" into the launcher before this offer has expired at 11:59 PM Central tonight.

Now, onto business. February may be the shortest month of the year, but we have some big plans during this tiny month as we continue to add to and improve Breach during our Early Access phase. For those that missed our most recent livestream[www.twitch.tv], we're continuing forward through our Early Access roadmap[www.playbreach.com], and pleased that we've been able to start checking things off. Speaking of, did you see us tease the next map coming to Breach? More details soon...

In this week's patch, we're continuing our spell adjustments from last week by re-aligning some to be how they were originally intended. A handful of these changes, like those for the Grael cages, have been mentioned quite often by our community, but we also didn't want to just make the Grael Cage an unusable spell.

Here's the timing for the upcoming downtime, and the usual countdown clock[www.timeanddate.com] for all of you in various timezones across the world. 

• Servers Locked: Thursday, February 7th at 8 AM Central
• Service Downtime: Approximately 1 hour

As a reminder, our goal for Breach during Early Access is to provide a large update once a month, with smaller updates and hot fixes each week as necessary. That large update is nearing completion, and we hope you're all looking forward to it.

Updates & Fixes:

• Adjustments have been made to ELO & Matchmaking in order to better align players of similar rating. We have also reset everyone's ELO to start fresh and create better overall matchmaking moving forward.
• Additional cosmetic items have had their names slightly adjusted to better represent the look of the cosmetic.
• Removed the +1 Health Potion grant on the Health Potion Revive Talent. 
• Grael Cage Refund Charge talent has been changed.
• Grael Cage will now receive increased health based on the number of enemies caught in it up to a max of 4.
• Capturing Heroes in a Grael Cage will no longer grant a refund.
• Grael Cage warning will now more appropriately line up with other warnings in the game to allow players to more easily dodge through it to avoid capture.
• Aethyr Coil will be updated with a handful of adjustments.
• Updated the Free Weekly Rotation behind the scenes so that it will accurately display the proper free class rotation moving forward.

Known Issues:

• Veil Demon rewards for quick wins are currently not awarding an appropriate amount of Gold and XP
• Frenzied Shambler is not affected by some Red and Blue gems.
• Attack clip 50% increase talent does not work on hedge classes.
• Demon Hunter Ultimate, Siphoning Skull, stun effect sometimes does not persist for the entire duration.
• The overhead vfx indicator showing when a player is the target of the Satyr Lich's Deathtouch sometimes does not appear, resulting in sudden spike damage without warning.
• You currently cannot purchase 2 of the same type of gem.
• Some Prismatic gems balance values are in progress.  
• Kikimora Fiend's abilities balance values are in progress.  
• Pain Conduit and Translocate's skilled play bonuses health threshold requirement is lower than intended.
• Players may get caught in a longer load screen than expected when starting a match, and can hear a match starting in the background. This cannot be fixed by reconnecting, but the player will eventually connect within a few minutes.
• The Veil Demon model can sometimes appear to throw itself out of the world upon possession. 
• The Veil Demon can sometimes lose all collision after reconnecting to a game.
• Some abilities are not tracking their score correctly on the in mission stat board, resulting in displaying lower than actual stat numbers.
• Equipping Rapid Fire Clip on another class or slots prevents it from recharging.