[.77] Have the devs been up to something ?

Today .77 seems to act differently than before.

My champ with maul often gets 3 hits now (when/if he finds something that can survive the 1st two, at least    Until today I never saw more than two hits in .77.  Remember how earlier versions let you get in 7 or 8 hits and there were discussions about how .77 might have over-nerfed it?  Any chance they were listening and sneaked a fix into the stuff that gets downloaded when the game starts ?

Not complaining.  Far from it.  Just wondering.

Also tonight early-game I got two of a kind of shield I haven't seen before.  When you are hit it does lightning damage to the foe, which increases with your level.  It's a hoot watch hordes of darklings hit you for 1 point of damage and drop dead.  I could win most battles without moving.  You might say "overpowered", but I'm having too much fun to say it now.  And my sovie's companion with the other magic shield has counterattack and the axe that mauls - so anybody who lays a finger on him dies of the double whammy of lightning followed by counterattack, and everyone else gets mauled to death.  

Minor bug -- it looks like if an attacker dies of the lightning he still gets the counterattack too, but it doesn't seem to do any harm (to the game, not to the attacker)