Refinery

Patch notes ·

Dragonfire Update

What it did to prices on Americas

No market history for this patch. Refinery keeps a month of price history, and saves each patch’s result once its first week is over.

The patch notes

This update introduces dragons to Albion, from open world attacks to the Dragon Sanctuary, where adventurers will face the most challenging raid battle to date against Azaryon, the Fire Dragon. Players can also explore the mysterious Ancient Lands and earn powerful new rewards, including brand-new Dragonslayer Armor, consumables, and the elite Firewing Drake mount.

Ancient Lands

Dragonfire unveils a previously undiscovered realm: the Ancient Lands. This domain comprises numerous floating islands suspended over Albion, linked by a network of Leygates. Upon arrival, adventurers will face Ashborn mobs, brand-new creatures, and rival parties. Activating Leygates allows deeper exploration into the territory, where even more significant challenges and rewards await those who venture furthest. Entering the Ancient Lands The Ancient Lands can be reached via portals in the open world.Within the Ancient Lands When you arrive in the Ancient Lands, you’ll appear on one of the outer islands, and you’ll see two quests in your HUD Tracker:Defeating the enemies on an island completes its local quest, rewarding you with a Leygate Keystone:As you explore, you will encounter four Drakes on certain islands, marked on both the Minimap and Region Map. You must complete each of these islands’ quests to complete the global quest.If you wish to leave before completing the encounter, any entry portal found around the outer islands can be used. These return you to your original open-world region. Spirit Essence Spirit Essence is a stackable buff that can only be acquired and used within the Ancient Lands.Revive In both partial-loot and full-loot Ancient Lands, players who are knocked down in PvP enter a Bleedout state instead of dying immediately. While in Bleedout, players can be revived by allies before a timer expires.Ancient Altars Ancient Altars can be found throughout the Ancient Lands, with a guaranteed Altar on the central island and additional Altars spawning on smaller islands adjacent to the spawn location.

Dragon Sanctuary

The Dragon Sanctuary is Albion’s most challenging dedicated PvE encounter to date, built for raids of up to 20 players. Fight through a dangerous Ashborn stronghold, overcome powerful high-level bosses, and ultimately face Azaryon, the Fire Dragon. AccessThe Dragon Sanctuary The Dragon Sanctuary contains new Ashborn enemies, powerful Drakes, deadly traps, and increasingly demanding PvE encounters. There is no Item Power cap, allowing groups to bring their strongest PvE gear and optimized compositions. Guarding the path to the Dragon Sanctuary's heart is Maeve, the Unfettered Oracle. As the leader of the Ashborn, this formidable high-level encounter serves as the ultimate test for your party before the raid's final boss: Azaryon, the Fire Dragon.

Azaryon, the Fire Dragon

Awaiting at the end of the Dragon Sanctuary is Azaryon, Albion's most challenging raid boss to date. Designed for up to twenty players, the encounter demands coordination, execution, and teamwork across multiple phases featuring devastating attacks and unique mechanics. Players capable of defeating Azaryon can earn immense rewards, including a rare Drake Egg (see ‘New Rewards’ below). If your party defeats Azaryon, every member will receive a Lingering Dragon Spirit, lasting for seven days. Each Lingering Dragon Spirit makes completing the Dragon Sanctuary significantly more difficult, making repeat attempts a considerable challenge.

Dragon Attacks

Dragons also launch attacks across both the Royal Continent and the Outlands, creating large-scale, open-world encounters that any player can join.As the dragon approaches, its roar echoes across the region and its shadow sweeps overhead before it descends in a fiery landing, scorching the surrounding area and challenging everyone nearby. Reduce the dragon's health until it is forced to retreat. As it flees, it leaves behind a reward chest containing loot for every player who contributed to the fight, whether playing solo or as part of a group. In the Outlands, successfully repelling a Dragon Attack also awards Might and Favor, making these encounters valuable Guild Season objectives.

New Rewards

Dragonfire introduces a host of new challenges and rewards, from powerful equipment and consumables to exclusive cosmetics. Draconic Insight The more you encounter Dragons and explore the Ancient Lands, the more you learn about them. Draconic Insight is a new form of Standing which can be increased through the following activities:Increasing Draconic Insight unlocks brand-new rewards, including the Ancient Mystic Vanity Set, Avatar, and Avatar Ring. Dragon Armor Fire Dragon Scales can be obtained by defeating Drakes and Dragons, and used to craft the new Dragonslayer Armor set. Each piece grants a unique ability:Drake Mount Defeating Azaryon, the Fire Dragon, offers a rare chance to obtain a Fire Drake Egg. These can be raised in a Kennel into a Firewing Drake, but be warned: these creatures have quite the appetite, and you'll need to feed it other mounts before it's ready to ride.New Consumables Drake Eggs can also serve a rather different purpose in the kitchen:Drakes and Dragons can also drop Dragon Blood, a rare crafting material used to create a powerful new potion:The Ancient Lands are also home to a previously unknown type of fish. These Leyfin fish can be used to cook a new dish:New Albion Journal Missions Dragonfire brings new missions in the Creatures, Exploration, and PvE categories. These focus on hunting Drakes and Dragons, exploring the Ancient Lands, and raiding the Dragon Sanctuary. New Guild Might Levels Guild members can now earn Might and Season Points through two new Guild Might Levels, one focused on the Ancient Lands and one on Dragon encounters. Ancient Memories New Lore Fragments can be found throughout the Ancient Lands, uncovering the history of Dragons and their connection to Albion.

Destiny Board Crafting Bonuses

Leather Armor With the addition of the new Dragonslayer Armor items in the leather category, Focus Cost Efficiency and Quality bonuses have been adjusted for all Leather Armor items in order to keep the total available crafting bonuses equal across all armor types.Potions With the addition of the new Lifeward Potion in this update, we have also looked at Focus Cost Efficiency bonuses for potions. Since certain potions require expensive artifact ingredients, we have decided to weight Focus Cost Efficiency bonuses away from these and towards those which do not require more specialized ingredients. In doing so, the total alchemy bonuses will be more fairly distributed between base potions and more specialized potions. We chose this specific approach as it benefits the majority of crafters, and keeps alchemy competitive with cooking as the majority of the bonus comes from simple ingredients. This also now more closely mirrors the Focus Cost distribution for weapons and armor, where base items provide more of the overall bonus due to their accessible reagent costs. The Lifeward Potion is grouped with those which provide less Focus Cost Efficiency bonuses.

Destiny Board Improvements

To improve visual clarity, specialization nodes on the Destiny Board with the same parent node have been combined into one. This does not change the behavior of specializations in the game, but visually simplifies the Destiny Board.

Armory Improvements

The Armory's Metrics section now includes a second page with a detailed breakdown of a build’s performance, making it easier to evaluate and compare them.

UI Changes

Other Changes

Combat Balance Changes

Mob Debuff Changes
After observing both elite and standard groups in PvE, the performance gap between groups that consistently reach the maximum debuff caps and those that only apply part of those debuffs has become too wide. The debuff caps applied to players and PvE enemies have therefore been decoupled. Adjusting these caps provides a healthier baseline for balancing PvE encounters, without excessively punishing standard groups or allowing highly optimized groups to trivialize encounters. Paired with additional changes to specific spells, this should also give groups more flexibility in how they reach the new caps.
Axes
Axes have become much stronger in small-scale combat following the recent buff to Adrenaline Boost. Its behavior has now been refined to give opponents more counterplay.
Fire Staffs
Flame Blast has been too powerful as a ganking tool. Its movement speed buff for allies has therefore been removed, while retaining the mobility granted when self-casting.
Frost Staffs
Avalanche has received increased damage, while its knockback against mobs has been adjusted to improve its performance in solo PvE.
Frost Lance has received its missing AoE Escalation, along with several other spells listed below. Its damage has also been reduced to limit its effectiveness as a very long-range poke tool with limited counterplay.
Following its recent buffs, Freezing Wind has become a top performer in solo PvP. While the instant effect has proven more effective than the previous version, its root duration has been reduced and its hitbox has been significantly adjusted to give opponents more room for counterplay.
Maces
Blessed Aurora’s healing on auto-attacks has been increased to encourage a new Oathkeepers playstyle in smaller-scale PvP, focusing less on the shield’s immediate effects and more on maximizing auto-attack uptime.
Gravitas has remained unpopular for some time. With more weapons and builds in modern Albion relying on blinks and dashes, the Morning Star’s root has become less effective. While the weapon remains a candidate for a larger rework in the future, its cooldowns have now been improved to help it better keep pace with competing options.
Following the reduction to the maximum damage decrease that can be applied to mobs, single-source, damage-decreasing abilities have also been adjusted to better fit the new cap.
Nature Staffs
Rampant Staff has received targeting and indicator adjustments to make Spirit Animal easier to use. Its hitbox now begins slightly behind the cast position, while its cast range has been increased to offset the resulting loss in maximum forward reach.
Druidic Staff has fallen out of the group PvP meta. To give it more power and flexibility, Spiritual Seed can now be recast a third time, at the cost of an additional cooldown penalty.
Quarterstaffs
Following the reduction to the maximum damage decrease that can be applied to mobs, single-source, damage-decreasing abilities have also been adjusted to better fit the new cap.
Shapeshifter Staffs
The Panther transformation’s auto-attack passive has received increased damage to encourage and better reward fighting while transformed.
The common Prowling Staff gameplay pattern of fishing for crowd control while in Plate Armor, then transforming to quickly use all Panther abilities before transforming back, offers opponents too little opportunity for counterplay against the less durable Panther form. To address this, Sinister Swipes’ cooldown with Shapeshifter Charges has been further increased.
War Gloves
Dragon Leap’s recast window has been shortened to reduce accidental early casts of Dragon Punch, which would otherwise trigger the spell’s longer cooldown.
Helmets
Following the reduction to the maximum damage decrease that can be applied to mobs, single-source, damage-decreasing abilities have also been adjusted to better fit the new cap.
Armors
Following the reduction to the maximum damage decrease that can be applied to mobs, single-source, damage-decreasing abilities have also been adjusted to better fit the new cap.
Mounts
Intimidating Aura has been weakened to reduce the impact of Grizzly Bears moving through enemy groups and disrupting engagements while remaining difficult to remove, without reducing the mount’s durability or transport endurance.
Resilience Penetration
For the upcoming season, all Resilience Penetration has been set to zero as a seasonal test. The goal is to shift the meta more strongly away from Plate melee DPS and create space for players to rediscover and experiment with different compositions. Resilience Penetration is a very powerful stat that was originally introduced to compensate for the inherent risk of melee weapons having less range, particularly in large-scale PvP. However, modern Albion offers significantly more mobility across weapon lines, while player positioning and engagement strategies have also evolved. This season will therefore serve as a test of how ZvZ combat develops without Resilience Penetration. The results will be closely observed, and further adjustments may follow based on how the meta develops.
Resilience Penetration has been removed from the following weapons and spells:

Fixes

Spell FixesUI FixesOther Fixes

Written by Sandbox Interactive. Read the original post on Steam.