[25.FEB.2012] MEDIAN XL 2012 v005 IS RELEASED

A relatively small patch that contains some balance changes, bugfixes and a new
druid bow skill to help you across that annoying low level gap until Spore Shot
kicked in.

[07.FEB.2012] SPELAR LITE DOTA

Thanks to the nice people who offered me a Dota2 beta key: Jeemeeh and Abedeus.
Honourable mention goes to David V.

[04.FEB.2012] PLEASE REDOWNLOAD

It is possible that a bug snuck into the v004 release version that made amazon
Fury ineffective. I have no time to verify this claim so I changed its effect
from attack speed to enhanced damage as a quick fix. Redownload v004 if you
downloaded it before this message.

[03.FEB.2012] MEDIAN XL 2012 v004 IS RELEASED

Carebear Stare The previous 2012 releases were aimed at veteran Median XL
players, leading to many complaints from normal humans about the increased
difficulty. This patch reduces the difficulty to the usual level and nerfs
several annoying or overpowered monsters.

Join the Wild Hunt The amazon has received a major overhaul. Spear based
huntress builds now have access to Fury to enhance their abilities, bloodwitches
gain increased survivability and a large number of bonuses for staying low on
health.

Bugfixes Not even Median XL is flawless, but it just got a little closer to
perfection.

In case you were wondering, v003 was not publicly released.

[04.JAN.2012] MEDIAN XL 2012 v002 IS RELEASED

A small bugfix patch for Median XL 2012.

[01.JAN.2012] MEDIAN XL 2012 IS RELEASED

A significant update for Median XL. New monsters, new balance, new skills, new
items!

Eve of Destruction Is the grind getting to you? Median XL 2012 rescales the game
so you reach level 120 at the end of Terror difficulty instead of Destruction.
All Destruction difficulty monsters have the highest monster level and drop
sacred uniques and sets, similar to Inferno difficulty in Diablo III.

Little Mr. Sunshine The morninglord, the holy caster paladin paradigm, has been
revamped with a new mechanic (Resonance) that rewards players for creatively
combining skills.

New monsters From trolls that blink invulnerable to venomous snakes in the
grass, Median XL 2012 adds a large selection of new regular and elite monsters
to fight.

Rolling out the cheese wheel Fighting monsters that are slowed to a standstill
is not a challenge, therefore slow target has been drastically cut down. Freeze
spells on the other hand are much more effective this time round.

Get the patch now on the download page.

[21.DEC.2011] A NEW PATCH IS COMING

The upcoming patch will feature many improvements, including the addition of
many new monsters and the implementation of D3-style 'Inferno' difficulty
(basically a level 121 bonus difficulty) while the regular levelling-up grind is
compressed into two difficulties instead of the boring three difficulties.

===============================================================

Patch Notes -------------
>>> Median XL 2012 v005
for Diablo II Lord of Destruction 1.10 and later Mods by Brother Laz

Characters

Amazon

- Ghost Arrow: now gains an extra arrow every 5 hard points, up from 7 hard
  points.
- Barrage: increased flat magic damage.

- Fairy Ring: massively increased flat fire damage.

- Lava Pit: doubled damage at all levels.

- Takedown: reduced health regen per kill from 5% to 2.5%.
- Great Hunt: damage listed in skill description is now correct.

- Wild and Free: now gives faster hit recovery instead of stamina; movement
  speed self-synergy not affected.
- Ecstatic Frenzy: increased flat magic damage, added self-synergy.

- Curare: increased damage per second, reduced duration.

Assassin

- Batstrike: nova now has 20% chance to knock back; reduced bat health by 20% to
  prevent overflow.
- Queen of Blades: reduced delay between shots from 1 second to 0.8 seconds.

- Scorpion Blade: now gains an extra knife every 6 hard points into Maelstrom
  MkIV, up from 10 hard points.
- Storm Crows: increased damage per knife from 1/2 WDM to 3/4 WDM, but reduced
  knife count and capped knife bonus out of combat at 20.
- Maelstrom MkIV: increased damage per flechette from 1/4 WDM to 1/2 WDM and
  increased flat damage by 50%, reduced number of flechettes per nova from 16 to
8.

- Bionetic Blast: reduced mana cost by 25%.
- Psionic Storm: reduced mana cost by 33%; increased damage radius from 4.6
  yards to 6.6 yards; added damage per second to description.

Barbarian

- Bloodhatred: now grants 2*lvl worth of fire/cold/lightning pierce when the
  buff is active.

- Screaming Eagle: increased nova speed; reduced ND so the nova does not cancel
  out other piercing attacks.
- Overkill: reduced damage per axe from 3/4 WDM to 3/5 WDM.

- Wolf Companion: increased Doom damage bonus.

- Immortal: increased avoidance rate at all levels by 5%.

Druid

- Laughing Ghost (replaces Blindside): shoots a bone flayer across a set
  distance, where it explodes and deals damage around it.
- Cascade: now starts at 9 targets, up from 6.

- Egg Trap: increased flat fire damage.

- Pummel: now converts 10% of your physical damage to magic damage.
- Circle of Life: made completely useless due to certain complaints from certain
  people that a tank with little aoe and a slow kill speed is actually hard to
kill.
- Wildfire: mana cost now starts lower but slowly increases with skill level.
- Idol of Scosglen: reduced starting speed penalty by 10%.

- Plague Avatar: increased minimum damage.
- Summon Acid Fiends: added 33% chance to avoid damage.

Necromancer

- Summon Lamia: reduced mana cost by 40%.

- Embalming: reduced max health bonus per hard point from 5% to 4%.
- Bane: greatly increased radius of effect.
- Talon's Hold: reduced slow by 10% and reanimate chance by 5% at all levels.

Paladin

- Increased base cast rate with 1h swing weapons.

- Lionheart: defense bonus is now linear.
- Sunstorm: is no longer a channeled spell, this fixes the delayed damage bug
  and enables the skill to be affected by cast rate.

- Black Sleep: now has only 66% chance to convert each target in the area (this
  is a buff, it causes monster infighting).
- Symphony of Destruction: greatly increased minimum damage.

- Blessed Life: now gives 2% damage reduction per level, down from 3%.
- Plague: increased damage per second, reduced duration, now correctly affects
  Scourge.
- Resurrect: increased movement speed of resurrected monsters.

Sorceress

- Living Flame: now gives 20+blvl*blvl*2 flat health, down from 20+blvl*blvl*3.

- Forked Lightning: increased maximum damage.
- Nova Charge: increased maximum damage.

- Miasma: reduced number of submissiles to reduce graphics load.
- Carpet of Spiders: increased minimum damage.

- Moonstrike: health % bonus is now linear and capped at +35%.

Items

Uniques

- You may need to refind Thunder Machine and Athulua's Command: their procs no
  longer work due to the replacement of Blindside. Newly found ones do have
Blindside.

Drop rates

- Reduced unique bias of Act bosses to prevent farming runs.