Patch 1.22 is a small weekly patch with many quality-of-life improvements. It contains many item, hero, and enemy changes many of which were based on community feedback. We've also included many small bug fixes and performance upgrades.
As an additional feature, we have activated "X-Defense" on live servers as an open beta test. Although the mode is not completely finished and not fully tuned, it's in a fine state for players to test and just have a fun challenge.
A larger patch with additional features and systems, including the Iron Man rework and improvements to several heroes will be out towards the end of September.
X-Defense
The open-beta version of X-Defense is available from the "Survival" terminals in any player hub. It's intended for 5-player groups, although players are welcome to use smaller groups for an added challenge.
This new gameplay mode allows heroes to defend the X-Mansion from a never ending wave of enemies and super villains. Players will have to work together to prevent students from being captured, and difficulty (and rewards) will increase with each wave!
Each wave greatly increases the damage and health of enemies, along with experience and item rarity. A group queue is almost complete for the mode, but for now players can form a group and simply teleport to the group leader after the leader enters the zone.
User Interface Changes
Auto-zooming while interacting with the Crafter has been turned off. We may bring it back in the future if we feel we have addressed all related performance issues.
3:58AM
Hero Changes
We have no significant hero changes in this patch, but have a minor fixes and a small buff to Punisher and Spider-Man for this week.
Black Widow
Black Widow's Evasive Shot should now slow enemies properly.
Captain America
Shield Bash and Vibranium Bash: Now hits multiple enemies in a melee cone.
Emma Frost
Cow Commanders in the bovine sector are now bosses, although they enjoyed their time away from the fields for a few weeks. Emma Frost players who have Ranged Cow Commanders as pets will have their pets changed to Disgraced Cow Commanders, who are level 1, have 1 hit point, and cannot move.
Mass Invisibility: Cooldown has been increased to prevent 100% uptime for an entire party.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye will now start the game with Taser Arrow at level one, and will unlock the passive Precise Aim in the place of Taser Arrow. This change was made to improve the level 1 experience for Hawkeye players.
Punisher
Punisher's passives Driven by Vengeance and Killer Instinct will no longer stop player movement.
Driven By Vengeance - Now gives a scaling critical chance and brutal strike chance bonus.
Pain Tolerance - Improved defense rating, now increases health, improved damage reduction, and now has a chance to completely ignore incoming projectiles. These changes were made to improve Punisher players' survivability significantly.
Spider-Man
Damage has been slightly increased on Spider Strike, Sticky Strike, Amazing Uppercut, Web Shot, Ballistic Web Shot, and Webswing Assault.
Stick Around: Damage has been moderately increased.
Agile Attack: Now includes a haste buff and has had its flow improved.
Sensation Escape: Now grants a CC immunity buff as well as a cleanse effect.
Sticky Strike: Improved attack speed.
Storm
Refreshing Breeze - Specified crowd control effects as the removed effect (from "negative effects").
Quickening Breeze - Added duration into the tooltip.
Item Changes
Hyper Viper Beam (Cable Unique): Now grants bonus ranks to Cable's entire Soldier tree, a bonus to attack speed, crit chance, energy damage, ranged damage, and has a chance to fire a laser burst. Damage has been reduced. Devestating Beam bonuses have been removed. Defense removed.
Guns with No Name (Deadpool Unique): Damage increased.
SHIELD Life Support Gear (Unique): A bug was fixed that caused certain heroes to equip this in the wrong slot (it's a slot 2 item). Hulk and Thing will now equip this in Slot 2 instead of Slot 4. Storm, Scarlet Witch and Thor will now equip this in Slot 2 instead of Slot 3.
White Hole Gauntlets (Ms. Marvel): Explosion effect will now proc from any Photon power.
Portal to Confidential Bovine Sector: Now costs 60,000 credits to craft.
Increased Reroll Cosmic Item recipe cost to 40k credits.
Increased Create Random Costume recipe cost to 100k credits.
Dr. Doom's Medallion: Damage bonus increased by approximately 35%. Now gives a health bonus. Power Duration bonus has been decreased by 60%.
4:05AM
Boss/Mob Changes
Venom now attacks and moves faster when he grows larger during combat.
Sabretooth: His bleed no longer stacks multiple times. Getting hit will instead refresh the bleed duration.
Doop has increased health, but pauses for longer when not running away. He will now wait at least 50% longer before teleporting.
Brood Warden's HP has been corrected to normal levels (down from insane levels!)
Mindless Ones deal more damage with their attacks and have 20% more HP.
Reduced DoT damage on AIM Incinerator
UI Changes:
Eternity Splinter Edge Marker will stay on screen an incredibly large distance.
Mission Changes
Midtown difficulty has been increased, and players will now gain more experience there.
Reduced time between super-villain waves in Midtown.
Added a new Brotherhood of Mutants super-villain variant to Midtown.
Added Lavamen ambush waves to Midtown.
Added A.I.M. ambush waves to Midtown.
Added new variant ambush waves.
Tutorial: A new waypoint has been added to Forest Hills! Players switching to new characters in a hub and then travelling to Queens (Forest Hills) will now start near Ben Urich.