DC Universe Online is permanently being updated and improved. This Game Update introduce: New Universal Currency, Combat Changes, NPC Difficulty Scaling, and more.

Iconic Style Vendor

Style only versions of many low and middle Tier Iconic suits, such as Speed Force Spectrum and Kryptonian Commander, are now available for purchase at a reduced cost from ‘Vending Unit 00’ located in the Hall of Doom Pit or the Watchtower Aquacultural Area.

Powers

• Earth
  • Corrected an issue with Crystal’s Epicenter attack that caused it to inflict less damage than her Striking Stones attack.
  • Crystal’s base damage has been increased.
  • Brick Changes
    • Fixed and issue with Earth tanks not getting full 50% absorption bonus from having Brick out.
    • Added 25% absorption when you start summoning Brick, which lasts for 3 seconds. This will increase your absorption to 50% until Brick is fully summoned, then it will go away and you get the bonuses from transferring damage to Brick. If you fail to summon Brick, from being Controlled for example, you still get the bonus for 3 seconds, so you have time to re-summon him.
    • Envelop now grants power re-gen on Brick as well as everything else it already did. This simulates casting Fortify Golem at the same time.
    • Envelop encasement can no longer be destroyed early.
    • Brick will now heal to full health when using Envelop.
  • Crystal Changes
    • In Damage role and while Crystal is active, Fortify Golem increases your power regeneration for each of the next two powers activated from the Geokinesis tree before the cooldown of Fortify Golem expires.
    • Crystal does increased damage when you (not her) are within 12m of your target.
    • Crystal causes additional damage for 12 seconds after using Fortify Golem or when attacking enemies afflicted with the Dazed or Crushed state.
• Fire
  • Fire Tank Buff: Hid two tooltips in the Current Effects menu that were displaying inaccurate information related to Restoration and Healing Received.
• Gadgets
  • Paralyzing Dart and EMP Pulse will now properly refresh Battle Awareness when the abilities are used instead of when they deal damage.
• Mental
  • Corrected the damage scalar on Mass Terror and Mass Levitation.
• Munitions
  • Pump Action Shotgun will no longer split damage environment objects.
  • 50 Cal will now properly refresh Eye of the Tiger when the ability is used instead of when it fires.
  • Biggun will now properly refresh Bullet Frenzy and Eye of the Tiger when the ability is used instead of when it fires.
• Sorcery
  • Corrected an issue with the Fury’s Transmutation attack that caused it to inflict less damage than his Soul Barrage attack.
  • Boon of Souls no longer wipes Red Soul Aura.
  • Fury Changes
    • Fury’s base damage has been increased.
    • In Damage role, while Fury is active, Offering increases your power regeneration for each of the next two powers activated from the Summoning tree before the cooldown of Offering expires. This effect is also triggered by Weapon of Destiny and Circle of Destruction.
    • Fury does increased damage when you (not it) are within 12m of your target.
    • When Fury applies Red Soul Aura to you after defeating an enemy, the effect now lasts for five minutes instead of one.
    • Fury’s attacks now begin splitting damage after two targets as intended.

New Universal Currency

Marks of Triumph and Marks of Fury have been replaced by the new universal currency, the Mark of Victory.

• Automated Conversion
  • The currency conversion has taken place automatically. There is no action necessary on your part.
  • Marks of Fury have been automatically converted to Marks of Victory at a 1 to 1 ratio.
  • Marks of Triumph have been automatically converted to Marks of Victory at a ratio based on your Combat Rating.
    • CR 0 to 42 = 1:1
    • CR 43 to 52 = 5:1
    • CR 53 to 69 = 25:1
    • CR 70 to 83 = 125:1
    • CR 84 to 99 = 625:1
    • CR 100+ = 1565:1
• Currency Conversion Vendors
  • Currency conversion in general is no longer necessary, so vendors no longer offer currency conversion kits. Unwanted currencies may still be turned in for Tokens of Merit. Some Token of Merit denominations may now also be donated for Prestige.

Pricing

• Symbols are no longer required to purchase any items and were removed during the currency conversion process.
• Items that were priced in Marks of Fury now cost the same number of Marks of Victory.
• Items that were priced in Marks of Triumph have been scaled back down to their base price and now cost Marks of Victory to purchase.
  • For example, recipes now cost 25 Marks of Victory across the board instead of costing some number of Marks of Triumph that scaled by a factor of 5 based on tier (25/125/625/3125/15625).

Mainframe

• Rank 1 Sidekick/Accomplice now costs 5 Marks of Victory and Rank 2 now costs 20 Marks of Victory.
• Rank 1 Henchman/Backup now costs 10 Marks of Victory and Rank 2 costs 25 Marks of Victory.
• Rank 1 and 2 of Orbital Strike, Supply Drop and Tactical Mods cost 25 Marks of Victory.
• Boosts
  • Boost ranks have been consolidated from three to one. Only one unlock is required to fully boost a mainframe ability.
  • Boosting now costs 7 Marks of Victory and lasts for 60 days.
  • A boosted mainframe trait contributes 27 Prestige per week to your League.
  • Orbital Strike
    • Orbital Strike now inflicts damage based on the rank and maximum health of the target when boosted.
  • Supply Drop
    • Rather than a flat amount, Boosted Supply Drop now restores 45% to 55% Health and Power and then ticks for an additional 3% – 5% Health and Power for eight seconds.
  • Henchman/Backup and Sidekick/Accomplice, when boosted, have all attributes, powers and abilities formerly granted them with Boost III.
  • Tactical Mods
    • Boosted Tactical Mods now provide access to all mods formerly available with Boost III.
    • Tactical Mods: Fortified Blocking
    • The unmodified Block ability now scales automatically as your CR improves. It is no longer necessary to buy the Fortified Blocking Tactical Mod to keep your Block fully effective. As a result Fortified Blocking now increases the amount of damage Block can prevent to 77% and 80% for the Boosted version.
  • Tactical Mods Scale when Boosted
    • In addition to other existing effects, Boosting now allows these mods to scale in the following ways:
      • Breakout Protection
        • Your Defense and Toughness is increased by 10% for 4 seconds after using the Breakout ability.
      • Reserve Tank
        • Increases your maximum Power pool by 25%.
      • Enhanced Recovery
        • Blue baubles dropped by defeated enemies now restore more Power.
      • Empowered Channeling
        • Channeled super powers increase Defense and Toughness by 15% while active.
      • Escalating Replenishing Procs V
        • Increases Vitalization by 1%.
      • Focused Restoration V
        • Increases your Restoration by 8% until you are hit by an attack.
      • Escalating Might V
        • Increases your Might by 3% for 8 seconds each time you hit an enemy with a harmful super power.
      • Relentless Precision V
        • Increases your Precision by 8% while you maintain the hit counter above 9 and for six seconds afterward.
      • Absorption Adapter V
        • Weapon attacks have a chance to activate a shield, reducing damage by 75% until damage equal to 25% of your Health is prevented or 12 seconds.

Utility Belts

• The 3rd and 4th slot of the Utility Belt now require 5 Marks of Victory to unlock.

Rewards

• Marks of Victory can only be earned from instances, missions and content of the appropriate challenge level that is relevant to you. Marks of Victory are not awarded for completing instances, missions and content below your current challenge level.
• Promethium Lockboxes now award a Mark of Victory.
• The Vault now awards a Mark of Victory.
• Amazon Fury Part I, Halls of Power Part I and War of the Light Part II content no longer has a chance of awarding only an extra Marks of Fury; in those cases you will always receive the gear drop.
• Weekly and Monthly award boxes no longer award bonus marks.
• Content that formerly awarded Marks of Fury will now award the same number of Marks of Victory.
• Symbols can no longer be earned from any content.
• Marks of Victory are now awarded in place of Marks of Triumph, where ever they were originally awarded such as beating bosses and completing instances.
• Any incomplete missions that used to award Marks of Triumph or Marks of Fury will now award Marks of Victory instead.
• Side missions available from content under level 30 can no longer be unlocked and replayed.

NPC Difficulty Scaling

Until now we have had to rely on raw stat differences to tune challenge levels. This lead to a very wide difference between low and high level statistics. Level 100 stats were over 600 times greater than level 1 stats. We can finally correct this. Now when fighting against non-player enemies with a Combat Rating higher than your Equipped Combat Rating, you will inflict less damage and take more damage. When your Equipped Combat Rating is higher, you will start inflicting more damage and taking less. The greater the difference in Combat Rating, the more you experience these effects.

Stat Flattening

In order to provide a more consistent experience while progressing through the game and decrease the stat difference between low and higher CR characters, stat progression in general has been flattened.

• Stats in General
  • Stats in general for both players and NPCs have been increased and brought closer to the stats of top end NPCs and players.
• When your Combat Rating is higher than the Combat Rating of the NPC you are fighting you will inflict more damage on them and take less damage from them. This effect is very slight when the difference is small and becomes much more dramatic when the differences are greater.
• Low Level Boss and Match Toughness
  • The health values of lower level boss and match rank NPCs have been increased so they are consistent in toughness with those at higher levels.
• Weapon Combo Damage
  • The damage for non-basic weapon combos (hold attacks for example) has been increased and brought a little closer to the damage caused by Advanced Mechanics and Weapon Mastery, which still remain the superior damage option.
• Ability Power Cost and Bonus Vitalization Reduction
  • The TL;DR is that this is a buff to your effective Power pool if you are a not a healer. If you are a healer, there’s no change. Your rate of Power recovery vs. Power consumption is unchanged in both cases.
    • Ability Power Cost
      • Ability Power Cost scales as you earn better gear. This has been decreased in general. This means it costs less to use powers than before. Although Healers won’t notice a difference, non-Healers may notice a slightly larger effective power pool.
    • Bonus Vitalization
      • All gear is allotted an amount of “Free” Vitalization that scales directly with Ability Power Cost to keep power regeneration vs. power consumption the same over time. The amount of Free Vitalization has been reduced in direct relationship with the Ability Power Cost reduction. The rate of Power recovery vs. Power consumption is unchanged and so you should feel no difference aside from having a potentially larger Power pool.
• Increased Trait Stat Values
  • We increased the value of all but the bottom row of non-percent based Trait stats earned by purchasing boxes in Weapon skill trees and Iconic tree.

Legends

Legends Health and damage caused by tray powers has been increased by 50%, offsetting the increase in weapon combo damage.

Defense, Toughness, and NPC Armor Penetration

NPCs no longer use Armor Penetration to overcome a player’s armor. The number of points of Defense and Toughness required to mitigate damage now scales with a player’s highest achieved Combat Rating. The damage prevention cap from armor remains 75%.

Block

Blocking now triples your current Defense and Toughness, up to the 75% armor cap. This allows it to continue scaling with you. This is an improvement, since NPC Armor Penetration no longer reduces the effectiveness of Block as you fight tougher, higher tiered foes.

Mods and Combat Rating

Armor Mods no longer contribute to Combat Rating. Combat Rating is now equal to 115% of your gear’s weighted Item Level. Because you always wanted to know, here’s how each slot is now weighted and contributes to your Combat Rating. The combined total below is 115%.

• Back: 8%
• Chest: 12%
• Face: 6%
• Feet: 7%
• Hands: 7%
• Helmet: 11%
• Legs: 12%
• Neck: 6%
• Ring (2): 6% each
• Shoulders: 9%
• Trinket: 6%
• Waist: 7%
• Weapon: 12%

Weaponization and Super Strength

• Weaponization Rating now scales with your maximum Combat Rating and now increases in effectiveness as you do.
• Super Strength now increases your Weaponization Rating by 10%.

Low Level NPC Combat and Difficulty Pass

NPC combat has been improved in many lower level instances. A balance pass was conducted to correct cases of abilities or content that were unintentionally more lethal than necessary. Many more NPC attacks have been given proper names, rather than having generic names like Primary Attack.

The following are highlights, not an exhaustive list of changes

• T.O. Trap:
  • The Joker’s attacks now have proper names.
  • Reduced the lethality of The Joker’s “Bad Present” attack.
  • Iconic characters appearing in this use more standardized weapon attacks.
• Trigon’s Blood:
  • Zatanna’s healing ability is now called “Heal” and is more effective.
• Superman’s Doom:
  • The Overlord is now a match rank enemy.
• The Super-Plan:
  • Shevla’nuhur Kyramud is now a match rank enemy.
• Brain Pain:
  • Brainiac Overseers are now match rank NPCs, rather than sub bosses.
  • The Batcave’s defensive rockets are slightly more accurate
• Lair of the Spectre:
  • Reduced the density of spirits that inhabit Lair of the Spectre so fights are more manageable.
• Circe’s Stronghold:
  • Reduced the density of Bestiamorphs (hero) and Amazons (villain) so fights are more manageable.
• The Greenhouse:
  • You may now use Breakout to escape Sequoia Lord’s “Melee Stomp” attack and this attack will no longer force YOU to become Vulnerable to Lunge.
• Old Gotham Subway:
  • A number of Penguin’s henchman, as well as the notorious Pengbot, had artificially inflated damage. These now inflict the normal damage.
  • Hush can now be affected by normal control effects.
• Hive Base:
  • Major Honeygut can now be affected by normal control effects.
• Gorilla Grodd’s Lab:
  • Captain Shortly can now be affected by normal control effects and he now attacks with a standard rifle.
• Watchtower Containment Facility:
  • Watchtower Security Enforcers missiles are now less lethal and they now use standard Handblaster weapon attacks.
  • Eradicator now uses standard Brawler attacks.
• Ace Chemicals:
  • Duncan now uses standard rifle attacks.
  • Clownsanity will no longer continue hurting your allies with Spinaroo after he has stopped swinging you around.
  • You can now use Breakout to escape Ace Patrolman’s Toxic Field.
• Area 51:
  • Prime Servitor, Subprime Regulator Alpha and Subprime Regulator Beta as well as many lesser Brainiac forces now attack using standard weapon types.
• Smallville:
  • Many Doomclones had artificially inflated damage. This is understandable considering their DNA. However, now these all inflict the normal damage.
  • Doomcrazed Giant, Lady Doombringer and other lesser Doomclones now use standard weapon types.
• Stryker’s Island Penitentiary:
  • Perhaps due to mind control, most inmates have begun using standard weapon types.
  • Lasher is no longer an 8-player enemy type and should therefore be much easier for 4 players to take down.
•  Arkham Asylum
  • Due to sheer population density, the strength of enemies in the Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze wings have been reduced. Of course, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze remain as strong as ever.
  • Corrected a number of Poison Ivy minion attacks that were unintentionally more lethal than normal.
  • Most normal Poison Ivy minions will now wait until you are within range of them before they get angry with you.
  • Most humanoid mobs now use a variety of standard weapon types.
• Oolong Island:
  • Pterodactyls should be a little less annoying to deal with and will get in your face when angry with you, instead of quietly bombing one unlucky soul to death from orbit.
  • Doctor Pyrate, Metal Man A-7, Oolong Enforcer, Chang Tzu Personal Guard and other Oolong Robots now use a variety of standard weapon attacks.
• Hive Moon Base:
  • Guard Captain Bombus, Chief Engineer Wolzie, Captain Buzzzcutt and other lesser minions of Queen Bee use a variety of standard weapon attacks.
  • Chief Engineer Wolzie’s attacks with artificially inflated damage have been reduced to normal, perhaps due to the hypno pollen’s effect fading.
• Batcave Outer Caverns and Inner Sanctum
  • Due to population, many match rank enemies have been reduced in strength to minion rank.
  • The damage of attacks that launch multiple projectiles has been reduced.
  • All spin attacks have had their damage reduced. The spin attacks of weaker enemies are now vulnerable to block.
  • Armored Robotic Custodian now only becomes invulnerable twice. It also uses standard Brawling attacks. During the vortex phase objects and players are no longer subject to impulse.
  • OMACs, the Bat-family and humanoid Brainiac forces now use a variety of standard weapon attacks.

Combat Changes

Combat Responsiveness

• Combat has undergone a round of optimizations. Here is what can be expected:
  • The vulnerability icon better reflects the counter windows. It should be less likely that you are countered when the vulnerability icon is not present.
  • The ability to counter or be countered is more responsive to when you use the relevant abilities (block, lung, range hold).
  • Stun, Knockdown, Knockback, Pushback, Knock-toward, Pull-toward, Levitate, Juggle all now occur sooner on your client when they affect you or another player. This means that when the server knows you are in these states, now the client reflects this sooner.
  • Breakout should be more responsive and should never cause multiple power consumption.
  • The facing of the target player when using Knock-toward or Pull-toward is now correctly towards the instigator instead of away from the instigator.
  • When a target or you resist an attack, we now show “Resist” above the head. Previously “Resist” was only shown due to diminishing returns resistances, not stat resists. So when you thought your attack should Stun someone and it doesn’t, you should always see the feedback “Resist”.
  • Other player movement is visible on your client sooner. In addition to general movement, this helps you see the result of a crowd control ability on a target player sooner.

Combat Parser

The combat parser accumulates damage, healing, and power over specified time intervals and logs a summary to the specified chat tab.

• You can enable the summaries by selecting “Damage Summary”, “Healing Summary”, or “Power Summary” in the Options>Settings>Chat Options>Chat Tabs>Edit on a specific tab.
• The frequency of the summaries can be changed in the Options>Settings>Gameplay tab> “Combat Parser Interval”. There is a dropdown that allows you to set the intervals: “1 Second”, “10 Seconds”, “30 Seconds”, “60 Seconds” and “After Combat”. “After Combat” waits for 5 seconds after your last damage, power, or heal then shows a summary.
• For players interested in the combat parser, it is recommended to create a new tab called “Parser” and route all 3 summaries to it.

Alerts

• Oolong Island
  • Fixed an issue where it was possible to get locked out of the final boss fight after a group wipes.
• League of Assassins
  • Adjusted the stats and ranks of certain bosses in certain fights to compensate for fighting three and four bosses at once. Reduced rank of Lying Claw’s Psionic Duplicates from match to minion.

Bounties

• Original classic game and Lightning Strikes bounties now use standardized weapon attacks.
• Corrected a number of attacks that were more lethal than necessary for a number of abilities used by bounties

Combat

• Weaponization Rating now scales with your Combat Rating after level 30.
• Shield
  • Overhead Plate Smash is now properly vulnerable to block.
• Block now triples your Defense and Toughness, rather than increasing them by a flat amount, allowing it to scale with you.

Combat Logs

• (PC Only) – Non-English combat logs now write to disk properly.

Ignore Lists

• Players on your ignore list will no longer be grouped with you when match making through the On Duty menu.

League Hall: Undersea

• Removed a glowing section from hydro generators that was causing performance issues in the engine room.

Loot

• Players will no longer see gray loot for a group member.

Mainframe

A few Mainframe icons have been updated for better messaging.

Missions

• Lair of the Spectre
  • Efforts to rejoin the Spectre with his humanity have lead to Vengeful Spirits being slightly less vengeful. In the “Lair of the Spectre” instance, Vengeful Spirits will no longer detect and attack players from extreme range.

Operations

• Love and War
  • The “V-Lanterns” should no longer be treated as minions for power targeting.

Sparring Target

• Sparring Targets are now level 1, have 1,000,000 health, no longer have boosted defense, and will restore 100% of your health and power back.

Trophies

(PSN Only) – Three old trophy descriptions will now use the word Episode as opposed to DLC:

• Battle For Earth – Uncover the Truth
• War of the Light Part II – Going Green
• Amazon Fury Part II – Rockin’ the Paradise Island

UI

• (PS3 Only) The broker slot marketplace prompt will now open to the proper Upgrade item, and will no longer keep you locked from movement.

Weapons

• Handblast
  • Scissor Kick now hits multiple targets in a radius instead of a single target.
• One-Handed
  • Flip Slash now hits multiple enemies in a cone.

Windows 10 Support

• Fixed a bug that was causing the game to crash during the startup screens when run on Windows 10.