Patch Notes - March 4th, 2021

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HEADLINES
  • The Dream, overhaul and zone replacement.
  • Tarhansar deity completion.
  • Sunken Cathedral announcement, 6 man experience zone.
  • Fast recovery state, an out of combat recovery enhancement.
  • Weapon Squish, a high tier rebalance to weapons and raid bosses.
  • An Enchanter class refactor.
  • Fletching, a tradeskill overhaul.
SEASON
Seasonal Characters will be converted to standard on March 31st 2021. Players will have until the start of Season 2 to spend their seasonal currency.

TARHANSAR
The final encounter for the Tarhansar Deity Quest "Tides of Blood" is finally live. Be sure to review the quest before attempting it!

THE DREAM
The Dream has gotten a complete overhaul, including a replacement to the zone itself. Changes include: a streamlined entrance to the game for old players as well as a highly detailed tutorial for new players. It is filled with great information that was previously unavailable.

SUNKEN CATHEDRAL - 6 MAN EXP ZONE
Follow the trail of Consumerist Coyote into the deep depths of the Sunken Cathedral! Keep a watchful eye in the next few weeks for this new zone's arrival!

RESTING OUT OF COMBAT RECOVERY
We have implemented a new resting recovery feature. Here are the key points:
  • The state of your character's recovery synchronizes with the client icon in the player health window:
    • Crossed Swords - You are in combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to in-combat recovery.
    • Poison Icon - You are weakened and cannot rest currently.
      • The player has a debuff that is preventing them from entering the fast recovery state.
    • Yellow Swirl - You are resting and recovering health, mana, and endurance at an increased rate.
      • A player will enter the resting recovery rate while sitting.
    • Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to out-of-combat recovery. Indicates the player will be able to enter a rested state shortly
  • A player's out of combat status is now tracked separately from the group.
  • Raid groups will receive a lockout timer after engaging with a champion enemy, and cannot enter a rested state until this timer expires.
  • The fast recovery rate is a zone by zone setting. We will be manually adjusting this as time progresses.
AA SQUISH
To work around a client restriction, we are combining and refunding the following AAs:
  • Innate Strength and Advanced Innate Strength
  • Innate Stamina and Advanced Innate Stamina
  • Innate Agility and Advanced Innate Agility
  • Innate Dexterity and Advanced Innate Dexterity
  • Innate Intelligence and Advanced Innate Intelligence
  • Innate Wisdom and Advanced Innate Wisdom
  • Innate Charisma and Advanced Innate Charisma
  • Innate Fire and Warding Of Tarhyl
  • Innate Cold and Blessing of Shojar
  • Innate Magic and Shiri's Protection
  • Innate Poison and Shroud of Kaezul
  • Innate Disease and Gradalsh's Gift
  • Healing Gift and Advanced Healing Gift
  • Healing Adept and Advanced Healing Adept
  • Combat Fury and Fury of the Ages
  • Finishing Blow and Coup de Grace
  • Combat Ferocity and Unerring Precision
  • Combat Agility and Lightning Reflexes
WEAPON SQUISH
The next balance section consists of two parts: A linear balance pass on all tier 7 to tier 15 weapons and a reduction in health for late game content. The power of particular items was creating a roadblock for future item creation and melee class balance. By smoothing this progression, we are one step closer to allowing melee class rebalances. To offset an average raid's damage loss, the maximum health of content balanced on the existence of these items will be reduced.

1 - TIER 7 TO TIER 15 WEAPON BALANCE
The following items have been balanced for raid content; to address exponential growth and class disbalance. We removed the slow spell effects from area of effect procs as the threat generated from these was too great. Overhaste was removed from all weapon procs as the power of this modifier scaled too sharply. Rogues will see the next class balance to offset the void created from this loss.
Buffed
  • Fidelity
  • Peerless Raptor Talon
  • Icegouge
  • Bludgeon of Brutal Panacea
  • Mace of the Leechblood
  • Antediluvian Axe
  • Sihk's Hidden Hand
  • Mindlash
  • Massive Beak
  • Blade of Green Mist
  • Transcendent Ritual Blade
  • Caex, Axe of Brutal Valiance
  • Mercy, Destiny of the Father
  • Flame-Forged Kalis
  • Pock Marked Obsidian Geofact
  • Aquos, Blade of Command
  • Searfist
  • Flamescar
  • Ortaninam, Fall of the Dragonkin
  • Xenelaqui, Muse of the Fallen - Weapon Proc moved to Slot 9, Rate increased
  • Elael-ihn, Massive Ember
  • Render of the False
  • Hand of Twisted Magics
  • Nail of Festering Decay - Weapon Proc increased, stun added.
  • Calcified Perfection - AC increased.
  • Fist of the Dawn
  • Curveblade of Ancient Kings
  • Bane of the Fallen God (1h) - AC Lowered
  • Ysar, Blasphemer's Bite
  • Khukri of the Plague
  • Cloudbreaker - Spell damage also increased.
  • Immorvo, Immaculate Fist - Ammo slot removed.
  • Acid Tongue
  • Ravenclaw
  • Agni
  • Ansaag's Skullsplitter
  • Divus Sicarius
  • Ragecaller
  • Halbred of Killing Frost
  • Obsidian Spiked Greatstaff
  • Confounding Sphere of the Prime Enchanter
  • Yclistinite Alloy Dreadblade
  • Tower of Deathly Cold
  • Perditrix, Truncheon of Undoing
  • Bane of the Fallen God (2h)
Shifted
  • Stoneculler - Overhaste removed. ATK and duration increased.
  • Whirlpool - Tank classes added, damage lowered.
Nerfed
  • Dagger of the Chosen
  • Baton of Frenzied Strikes
  • Sceptre of Supreme Rituals
  • Sword of Seeping Shadow
  • Unfortunate Pickaxe
  • Spirit-Harvest
  • Yclistinite Gavel
  • Galeforce, The Eye's Edge - Slow spell component removed
  • Brainsucker
  • Runeaxe of the Gruploks
  • Spear of the Szithri
  • Architeuthis Tentacle
  • Ortaninim, Rise of the Dragonkin - AC decreased.
  • Ortananoch, Custodian's Demise - Overhaste removed.
  • Blade of a Bygone Era
  • Horok, Reality's Kaleidoscope
  • Dissonatatus, Bladedancer's Enmity - Overhaste removed, proc duration and ATK increased.
  • Digger's Shovel - Pet haste spurt spell narrowed in scope, haste reduced.
  • Lute of Al'Kaba'Ng
  • Bamboo Rod of Entanglement - Slow spell component removed
  • Sanctus
  • Apocalypse - Slow spell component removed
  • Craedyl, The Frozen Blade of Shojar - Spell damage lowered.
  • Venandi, Spirit's Envy
  • Soulsong
  • Stave of Mist
  • Eo, The Tide - Overhaste removed, melee ratio increased.
  • Os, The Sword - Overhaste removed, melee ratio increased.
  • Ank'Ai, the Corporeal Curse
  • Sharn'rees Verdict - Spell damage lowered, heal component removed, self damage increased.
  • Summoned: Fist of Gurok - Stats removed from item.
  • Beguiler's Belittling Barrage - Somatic Surge proc removed.
  • Staff of Molten Rage
  • Staff of Shifting Shadows
  • Screamblade
  • Entropy's Spine
  • Windworn Boka
  • Core of Ygg'sar
JYRE
Jyre suffers from three issues we are currently addressing: Items that a player cannot discard with progression, addressing ammo slot items that are not ammo, and content having to be balanced around 100% deathsaves. As such, the following changes have been made:
  • Jyre will now only apply it's specialization penalty when worn.
  • Embodiment of Jyre's unique deathsave has been reduced to 30%.
  • Embodiment of Jyre's DS has been reduced.
  • Consuming Flame lifetap proc has been reduced.
  • Ammo slot has been removed.
2 - RAID MOB HEALTH
The following have had mob health reduced proportional to difficulty; later content will see a bigger reduction in health.
  • Silent Halls
  • Thazeran's Tower
  • Overgrowth
  • Bloodstorm Tunnels
  • Individual Bosses
    • Umbriel`Arkhe
    • Altar of Bones
    • Thenn`ayr`duun
    • Nalansar, Agent of Chaos
    • Blazewind
    • Taeshlin, the Fallen Guardian
    • Warchief Rujik Moktar
    • Sharn`Ree, Blood's Justice
  • 6-Mans
    • Rohk
    • 4.3
    • Overgrowth
    • A Gnarled Taldorian
ENCHANTER - CLASS REFACTOR
Based on player feedback and internal review, the following issues continually creep up and need to be addressed moving forward.
  • An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.
  • The play style of an enchanter is not dynamic/fun in raids.
  • The viability of an enchanter diminishes in duo and solo situations.
  • Enchanters are impacted the most from spell slot limits.
As such, the following changes have been made to the enchanter class.

GENERAL
  • Enchanters now have access to the Group Invisibility spell at level 40.
  • Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
  • Trickster's Augmentation has had it's levitation component removed.
AVATAR, BOND, BOON
The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.​
  • Incarnate Bond - A new level 44 spell, replacing Boon of the Vulfwere.
  • Somatic Bond
  • Corporeal Bond I - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond I.
  • Corporeal Bond II - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond II.
  • Avatar of Destruction - Mimicry has been lowered to 50%.
MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE
The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:​
  • Chaotic Feedback
  • Sanity Warp
  • Chaos Flux
  • Anarchy
  • Discordant Mind
  • Dementia
  • Dementing Vision - 0.001 stun added.
  • Insanity - Base damage increased to 990.
  • Chaotic Visions - 0.001 stun added, base damage increased to 1360, Recovery time lowered to 2.5s.
MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME
The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:​
  • Suffocate damage over time increased. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Gasping Embrace mana cost and cast time lowered.
  • Torment of Gnyrt damage over time and mana cost increased.
  • Asphyxiate direct damage and damage over time increased, cast time lowered. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Chokehold direct damage and damage over time increased
MESMERIZE
The following changes have been made to mesmerize spells:​
  • Glamour of Astris is a new level 24 Enchanter mesmerize with the additional effect chance to memory blur your target.
  • Glamour of Nalia now has an additional effect chance to memory blur your target. Max enemy level increased to 59.
  • Minimum duration increased to 4 ticks for Enchanters on all mesmerize spells.
  • Overpowering Calm properly reduces enemy mitigation to mesmerize duration rather than adding a flat duration before mitigation.
CONTROL ENHANCEMENT
  • Control Enhancement is now applied to mesmerize spells against all mob levels (previously below level 63 only).
  • Control Enhancement now grants a dual effect to charm spells:
    • Adds a flat duration to charm effects on durations less than or equal to 19 ticks.
    • Adds a percentage duration to charm effects on durations greater than or equal to 20 ticks.
  • Transfixiating Armlet Control Enhancement focus effect lowered to IV.
JINX
The following changes have been made to the jinx line of spells:​
  • Hex - A new jinx spell available at level 34. Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (50%) of the potential power back into them.
  • Vex - Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (90%) of the potential power back into them.
DISPELL DETRIMENTAL
Enchanters now have access to the dispel detrimental spell line. These powerful spells allow a chance to dispel a snare, root, fear, and mesmerize from your ally. Stronger spells increase the success of removal but require more expensive reagents.​
  • Taper Tethers - Available at level 24. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 44.
  • Cancel Constraints - Available at level 44. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 63.
  • Break Bindings - Available at level 63. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 70.
CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION
Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:​
  • Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
  • Chromatic Burst at level 29.
  • Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
  • Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
  • Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
  • Chromatic Aberration at level 65.
Chromatic focus effects and worn chromatic damage have been implemented and will become available to players in the future.

DRUID
Druids can now purchase the following spells:
  • Call to Shojar at level 65.
  • Call to Tarhansar at level 61.
BEASTLORD
Beastlords will now get an introductory pet in The Dream (also available on the spell vendor):
  • Spirit of the Dream at level 1.
FROGLOK
Racial bonus while in rain has been lowered to 2%.

FLETCHING
Fletching has been reworked as follows:
  • The cost of fletching materials has increased.
  • The number of combines per skill-up has been decreased.
  • The container "Quiver" has been replaced with a new stackable item "Empty Quiver"
  • All recipes that previously combined inside "Quiver" now combine in a fletching kit, but require the additional "Empty Quiver".
  • All quiver recipes have had their required large quiver quantity reduced to one.
  • Small quivers no longer produce arrows.
Example combine in a Fletching Kit:​
Large Bundle of Varnished Arrows + Mild Humanoid Monster Agent + Empty Quiver = Quiver of Humanoid Monster Arrows​
ITEMS
  • Bangle of the Sleepless Night vendor price reduced.
  • Wand of Altered Mana delay has been increased, but ratio remains the same.
  • The clicky effect on Benediction of Zeshan has been removed.
  • Deepmetal Plate, Deepmetal Chain, Imphide, and Shadow Silk tradeskill items have received a balance pass.
  • Robe of Flowing Water, Mantle of the Forest, Torment-Forged, and Searing Deepmetal items have received a balance pass.
  • Mid tier and above tailoring and blacksmithing armor has received a cosmetic overhaul.
SPELLS
  • Elemental Swagger is now flagged as a beneficial spell and should work as intended.
  • Ranger level on Soothe has been correctly set to level 25.
COSMETIC
All of the tradeskilled creations will have armor textures and weapon graphic updates to go with their improved stats. Anything higher than 100 skill will display the 'velious' textures on old model player characters. In cities across the land look for newly dressed citizens and bartenders to appear in these stylish velious textures as well! So far you can see evidence of this in Athica, Oggok and Grobb. In the coming weeks, look for this trend to spread to more cities, quest items, and older loot! There is a beta test fix for the long-standing issue of robes not displaying on some of our races. Drape of Virulent Scales and Thrice-Woven Mesh Robe should now show as a velious Chain Tunic on races which cannot display a robe. If an illusion is cast you may re-equip your item to refresh the appearance. Be aware that purposefully clicking the item on and off rapidly will cause a disconnection on your character.
 
Really love the changed to combat recovery. Amazing job!

Glad to see a new zone added in. Can't wait to see it.

Really deeply discontent with the nerf of the weapons. I understand that most raid mobs have their health reduced, but some nerfs are too disproportionate. A few examples, that in MY OPINION, didnt deserved it:

-Fist of Gurok: It is a priest + enchanter weapon, we wont see very high dps with it on a proper healer. It's a summoned weapon that get destroyed every few minutes in use, meaning you have to keep a spell gem for it. It already wasnt a great weapon because of that, now it makes even less sense to have it/use it.

- Shan'Ree Veridict; removing the healing content was too much in my opinion. If there's a health reduction all across, having a nerf to the proc is understandable, but unless there's a damage reduction on NPC's, the healing proc should remain. The recource should accompany the nerf on the proc as well, since it does a significant damage to the wearer AND reduce it's mana.

- Beguiler's Belittling Barrage; removing the proc makes a few of lowered tiered weapons more desirable. Maybe reduce the proc or the proc rate

Which are basically caster/priests weapons, which we barely see them doing huge DPS solely with them.

One weapon that I find it strange to not been included is Imp's Fury. It has a totally ignorable proc and it should have the proc changed to something more usefull.
 
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That's a massive nerf to enc. Wow. You guys even took out the overhaste for melee mimic it seems?

Well, it will be interesting to see how it lasting for 10 ticks instead of 3 feels, at least it will not require so much work to use I guess. Plus maybe the enc nukes might be okay to use now? They were so worthless before. One thing I hope you did was remove the knockback on the enc relic nuke. The knockback often pushes a mob out of melee range so you nuke for like 1-2K or whatever and then some melee are out of range which means the mob can sometimes take less total damage from your spell. That was(is?) so bad.

And just wow to that AoD nerf again, it now does 1/6th of the DPS. Crazy.

edit-------
Chromatic aberration looks interesting.
 
SUNKEN CATHEDRAL - 6 MAN EXP ZONE
Follow the trail of Consumerist Coyote into the deep depths of the Sunken Cathedral! Keep a watchful eye in the next few weeks for this new zone's arrival!
New zone? I like it!

RESTING OUT OF COMBAT RECOVERY
We have implemented a new resting recovery feature. Here are the key points:
  • The state of your character's recovery synchronizes with the client icon in the player health window:
    • Crossed Swords - You are in combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to in-combat recovery.
    • Poison Icon - You are weakened and cannot rest currently.
      • The player has a debuff that is preventing them from entering the fast recovery state.
    • Yellow Swirl - You are resting and recovering health, mana, and endurance at an increased rate.
      • A player will enter the resting recovery rate while sitting.
    • Hour Glass - You are recovering from combat and cannot rest currently.
      • No change to out-of-combat recovery. Indicates the player will be able to enter a rested state shortly
  • A player's out of combat status is now tracked separately from the group.
  • Raid groups will receive a lockout timer after engaging with a champion enemy, and cannot enter a rested state until this timer expires.
  • The fast recovery rate is a zone by zone setting. We will be manually adjusting this as time progresses.
This sounds promising!

AA SQUISH
To work around a client restriction, we are combining and refunding the following AAs:
Squish as in "condensed functionally identical AAs with different names into one AA with more ranks"? (Also can we go with the deity name included names for resist AAs for that extra bit of flavour?)

WEAPON SQUISH
Nerfed
  • Beguiler's Belittling Barrage - Somatic Surge proc removed.
Thank god that ridiculous proc is finally gone! Now that it IS gone, can we talk about the atrocious stats on this item that in the past were justified with the now-gone proc, and maybe even change it to a 1hander since the last caster-only 1hander is from about tier 10, not counting single class exclusive 1handers? Healers, on the other hand, get healer-exclusive 1handers on tier 11, tier 13 and tier 14, so all the way to the top.

ENCHANTER - CLASS REFACTOR
Based on player feedback and internal review, the following issues continually creep up and need to be addressed moving forward.
  • An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.
  • The play style of an enchanter is not dynamic/fun in raids.
  • The viability of an enchanter diminishes in duo and solo situations.
  • Enchanters are impacted the most from spell slot limits.
Agree, disagree, agree, agree so much!

As such, the following changes have been made to the enchanter class.

GENERAL
  • Enchanters now have access to the Group Invisibility spell at level 40.
  • Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
  • Trickster's Augmentation has had it's levitation component removed.
I do not quite understand why the group invis happens, given that invis is targetable, most everyone can cast invis themself anyways, there are plenty of invis clickies and invis is fragile, but I don't really mind eitherways.

AVATAR, BOND, BOON
The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.​
  • Incarnate Bond - A new level 44 spell, replacing Boon of the Vulfwere.
  • Somatic Bond
  • Corporeal Bond I - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond I.
  • Corporeal Bond II - A new spell, replacing Lycanthropic Bond II.
  • Avatar of Destruction - Mimicry has been lowered to 50%.
MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE
So I can now EITHER AoD ONE caster, OR boon/bond one melee? Couldn't that be atleast one of each, as in AoD having its own 1 min cooldown? Turns out AoD doesn't share a cooldown here. Not entirely sure why Corporeal Bond went for invisible man as a model, but it is what it is. Also from just reading this I think it actually hurts pre-CB ENC because can no longer boon/SB a melee. I'll come back to this after I got to do some testing.

The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:​
  • Chaotic Feedback
  • Sanity Warp
  • Chaos Flux
  • Anarchy
  • Discordant Mind
  • Dementia
  • Dementing Vision - 0.001 stun added.
  • Insanity - Base damage increased to 990.
  • Chaotic Visions - 0.001 stun added, base damage increased to 1360, Recovery time lowered to 2.5s.
Oh you mean those nukes noone in his right mind ever bothered casting now cast faster? Great...

MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME
The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:​
  • Suffocate damage over time increased. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Gasping Embrace mana cost and cast time lowered.
  • Torment of Gnyrt damage over time and mana cost increased.
  • Asphyxiate direct damage and damage over time increased, cast time lowered. A Reverse damage shield effect has been added.
  • Chokehold direct damage and damage over time increased
You appear to have forgotten about the last spell in this line, the only one people really cast any more once obtained, Misery of the Swamp.

CONTROL ENHANCEMENT
  • Transfixiating Armlet Control Enhancement focus effect lowered to IV.
Was this really necessary? CE2 can be obtained on BoE gear or tier 7 gear, CE3 comes into play at tier 8, CE4 starts showing up at tier 11, but we can't have CE5 at tier 14? Please revert this, it makes no sense!

DISPELL DETRIMENTAL
Enchanters now have access to the dispel detrimental spell line. These powerful spells allow a chance to dispel a snare, root, fear, and mesmerize from your ally. Stronger spells increase the success of removal but require more expensive reagents.​
  • Taper Tethers - Available at level 24. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 44.
  • Cancel Constraints - Available at level 44. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 63.
  • Break Bindings - Available at level 63. Successful against detrimental spells up to level 70.
I'm not sure if I understand this correctly. Are these beneficial spells cast on group/raid members to remove determinal effects? Also why why WHY would you introduce MORE spells with reagents! You just took a big step in the right direction by removing reagents from the majoroty of spells that required them (with some glaring exceptions), and now you turn around and introduce more reagent requirements? Why?!? (Also if you insist on burdening ENCs with more reagent requirements, please add more reagent conservation options for ENCs. Currently, there is only a single option at t12+.) So this is even worse than I expected. You need Sapphires. So you can not even buy the required components off your local NPC vendor in reliable quantities.

CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION
Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:​
  • Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
  • Chromatic Burst at level 29.
  • Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
  • Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
  • Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
  • Chromatic Aberration at level 65.
Chromatic focus effects and worn chromatic damage have been implemented and will become available to players in the future.
Umbriel'Arkhe memoriel spell focus effects, only One Good Weekend Away. In the meantime, will monochromatic focus effects help, assuming the matching color happens to be worn? How about stacking, will monochromatic effects stack with rainbow focus effects? (Assuming "yes" on the 1st question, "no" on the 2nd, but I'd like some clarification)
Ok got some numbers. Damage per mana is even more horrible than on the never-worth-casting Relic: Chaotic Visions. What gives?

Also all in all I'm at a loss of:
  1. what I am supposed to do as an ENC at a raid now. Keeping my raid members AoD'd/LB'd seems out of the window now with the 1 min shared cooldown on any such spells. I fully agree that having 3 wizards AoD'd or 2 wizards AoD'd and 2 monks LB'd at the same time was a bit ridiculous, but I think "slashing the number of targets down by 66-75% AND reducing the mimic chance at the same time" might be a bit too much.
  2. how any of this is going to help an ENC in a duo/solo situation. Maybe the rainbow spells are amazing in their own right, hard to know with no numbers provided. But what I got so far is that DPS sources (AoD, propably CB, who knows, again no numbers provided) have been nerfed while squishyness remains unchanged. Spells the opposite of helping really.
  3. How any of this is supposed to help with the spell slot limitation. Maybe I'm overlooking something obvious, but the way I read this, ENCs are now going to need 1 spell slot less for proc buffs (since they ALL share a CD, something I still disagree with, but see above). I read this wrong, still need to keep both AoD and CB memmed. To compensate for this, they
    1. are apparently supposed to cast their nukes more (except that they still have a HORRIFIC damage-to-mana ratio, even compared to wizards, the kings of terrible damage to mana ratio, who can atleast do ridiculous crits).
    2. get a new spell line to remove certain debuffs off their companions. Oh and they cost reagents, because reagents are such a fun and engaging design choice. Can we please just retire reagents for good instead?
    3. get a new spell line of rainbow nukes. No numbers provided, so who knows where these will fall.
    So 1 0 spell line out, 3 spell lines in. By my count, that is another 2 3 spell gems being requred/nice to have now. On a class that could have filled 2 entire spell bars easily before. How any of this could be considered "helping" is beyond me.
 
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Enchanter Changes: On the surface really crippling. I would second the idea that chanters should AT LEAST be able to boon and aod on different cooldowns. The other changes, too early to judge but it completely changes how the class plays.

Super specific reactions to the weapon changes:

I love two handers as a concept in the game, but why nerf the only one worth using at mid/early high tiers: Screamblade? I like that other weapons were buffed but they are still not quite usable. What a tank is giving up to use a two hander is two full slots of gear, a proc from the shield/off hand weapon and innate block chance, plus whatever raw ac they would get from the shield. Jyre is the only exception to this for obvious reasons and it is honesty not that great for dps (for knights) due to its super low delay (casting while using a 25 base delay weapon means you lose a LOT of swings). Knights can buy the ability to bash with a two hander at least so they dont lose out entirely but its still pretty steep. Two handers should start at AT LEAST a 2.0 ratio and mostly have their stats increased by a non trivial amount to offset that loss. IMO the proc rate on two handers should also START at about 6=7% and scale up a lot from there. I can at least understand the past arguments for nerfing the screamblade due to ae aggro concerns (I disagree but I understand the reasoning) but the single target ones def need some more love.

Bane of the Fallen God (2h): Upgraded ratio is nice. The focus effect is still a problem, it is good to great for Paladins as they dont have a ton of DD spells to cast and the heal bonus is pure gravy. SK's still eat on this since, myself, in non trivial gear, I come close to breaking even for casting a lifetap, not to mention the full 10% of my life bar I suffer for daring to hit with a spear or any other dd. The downside makes this completely impractical to ever use for what amounts to a 3% increase in damage over something with DI 9. It is SO close to being usable. How about just lifetaps not triggering the self hit? Reduce the self damage hit? Something. The downside was much more understandable two tiers or whatever of raiding ago when it was actually a decision on a 6-9% bonus to damage for the hit to life instead of 3%. This is similar to the verdict nerf, that the downsides are too steep to the point of being not worth using instead of a carefully considered option of power versus danger.

Yclisinite Alloy Dreadblade: Its SO close to being good. It is a super rare item that is also class restricted. If the accepted end result for Bane of the Fallen God is that it just bad for SK's to ever use, then how about this as an alternative in some way? It's only from Spires, but still, by the time one can get it, it ever is quite worth equipping even now. IMHO the proc rate should be MUCH higher (it's also poison so useless against many mobs) and the ratio could be bumped a bit more due to being both super rare and super specialized. It has the old life SK epic graphic...it should live up to that. This is a weapon I love the idea, love the look but it needs some love.

Jyre: I get the reason for the death save nerf, and am quite happy with the change to the specialization penalty. The stated reason to nerf it was for needing to balance around the death save, so why nerf the damage and proc as well. You now HAVE To have it equipped in primary to get any benefit and its not exactly trivial to get, so I feel like it should do good damage. I am a bit sad because it is now immeasureably less 'special' now, it's just another piece of gear that will be outclassed and replaced, not quite as unique as it was, but them's the breaks of gear progression I guess.

Halberd of Killing Frost: Proc rate still too low IMHO but nice to see it get buffed.

Divus Sicarus: Was this changed? It's still not really usable imho.

Agni: I like Agni but its a weird weapon to randomly buff. Should perform for the tier one can get it now.

Windworn Boka: Been nerfed before, similar to Screamblade. Its a 2 hander thats actually pretty solid and has drawbacks (damage can be resisted, 2hb skill not easy to come by), but I don't own this so cannot make a definitive statement. It is like the anti screamblade, all defense, self heal proc. Screamblade has basically zero AC now and in theory would be more offensively geared.

Apocalypse: Is this weapon used by anyone? Your raid has to perfect an event to get this special reward, and its kind of worse than most of the rest of the loot from this encounter. Its really slow, the proc rate isnt that great to begin with, and now it's actually worse. If I am wrong about this let me know, I am legit curious if it is really used by any class. No knight uses it, warriors don't that I've seen and bards certainly didn't.

  • Confounding Sphere of the Prime Enchanter
  • Tower of Deathly Cold
  • Perditrix, Truncheon of Undoing
They all needed a buff for the same above reasons. Haven't tested.

Other weapon nerfs: I guess bards are the new rangers. Are there any actively played rangers in raiding guilds anymore? I know this is old, well trod ground, but rangers suffer from crippling dps loss because they are reliant on both pets that die and a tradeskill for damage, they got nerfed in the tome change as well (loss of 4% spell crit)...again this has been covered. The point is that rangers aren't played. I don't think I'm overstating by much if I suggest there are basically none. With these nerfs bards will likely go that way unless we (the players, I don't play a bard) are given some information on where these changes are going since just about every bard usable weapon (and therefore bard dps) just got nerfed hard. Rogues also got nerfed but they at least have the promise of some near future focus. They definitely need some love but these weapon changes just crippled bards and with no stated plan to address that in sight, its pretty disheartening. Warriors, I am unsure about but the Spirit harvest and bamboo rod/Gale force nerfs are going to hit mid tier warrior aggro hard. I'd have to see how it shakes out before I can make a hard judgement but looks rough for a certain tier of warrior.


Overall I like the fact that the devs are taking interest in the server again. These are big changes, to a number of things we have come to accept as relatively unchanging for a LOT of years. I really wish however that we as players could get some idea of where the intended destination is for the classes so when these huge changes drop, we have some idea of what the overall changes will look like rather than just the whatever is explicitly in the patch. The reaction can ONLY be overwhelming negative when we don't have any idea what the final changes are going to be and we have to wait months at a time between patches to see what the next step is. I'm not saying the devs need to poll the players or even solicit or listen to advice, but just some idea of where these things are headed for the affected classes would be very helpful and appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Other weapon nerfs: I guess bards are the new rangers. Are there any actively played rangers in raiding guilds anymore? I know this is old, well trod ground, but rangers suffer from crippling dps loss because they are reliant on both pets that die and a tradeskill for damage, they got nerfed in the tome change as well (loss of 4% spell crit)...again this has been covered. The point is that rangers aren't played. I don't think I'm overstating by much if I suggest there are basically none.
There isn't a single weapon that got nerfed that Rangers should be upset by, and Fletching got a massive BUFF. Yes it's a common opinion that birds suck and Fletching is still frustrating, but this seems a bit dramatic. Rangers still do great DPS and there have been reworks to help obtain arrows through other channels than trade skills. I agree they could use some love, but please stop feeding the stigma that Rangers are trash.

I would likely still be playing (more) if we didn't get these massive "balance" changes with promises of new content to help reason them out that are still years down the pipeline. I get balance and nerfs have to happen often, but unless content is right around the corner; and not just a 6-man, many parts of this patch should have been delayed.

Very happy to see the out-of-combat stuff implemented, along with the Fletching changes. Can't speak on many of the class changes but it'll be interesting to see how they develop.
 
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Bane of the Fallen God (2h): it is good to great for Paladins as they dont have a ton of DD spells to cast and the heal bonus is pure gravy.
not sure if you're aware but the sword nukes you every time you cast a heal. this item is still unbelievably bad for everyone
 
not sure if you're aware but the sword nukes you every time you cast a heal. this item is still unbelievably bad for everyone
Ooops yeah I was unaware of that. I was going off of the tooltip, which only specified the self nuke on dd. Now that you bring it up in words, my brain does remember being told this, so that's on me. I think I remember....Lindstrom...using his bane for a bit, but I think that may have been the 1hs? It's been a while. Beyond that I don't know of any tank really using theirs though, but yeah ok it's worse than I remember then:p


QUOTE:
There isn't a single weapon that got nerfed that Rangers should be upset by, and Fletching got a massive BUFF. Yes it's a common opinion that birds suck and Fletching is still frustrating, but this seems a bit dramatic. Rangers still do great DPS and there have been reworks to help obtain arrows through other channels than trade skills. I agree they could use some love, but please stop feeding the stigma that Rangers are trash.

-I wasn't implying that this patch did anything to nerf rangers, that was not my point, sorry if it was read as such. My point was that rangers aren't played more due to the stated, known issues with the class, and the nerfs to bard weapons will put them in the same place, playerwise. If a class is perceived to be repeatedly nerfed and ignored by the devs, people will lose interest in it. I certainly think this has happened with rangers and could happen with bards based on my perception of the changes. It isn't that the class sucks, its that it is simply better to play other classes. Other classes do what they do, but better, and for less effort. I still have fun playing Kat, but joys of resummoning my bird for the 80000th time every raid or having to go farm replacement parts for arrows and now find a fletcher isn't as fun as it might otherwise be. Bards, similarly, I think, without an idea of what the future plans are for the class, or a near future rework, if their top end dps is nerfed too much, will just be afk songbots, of which we have had a few in our guild, versus active engaged players. DPS isn't the only metric for fun or utility and bards to bring some unique things to the game and or raid, but I definitely think the changes to melee dps are hitting them particularly hard, with no word on any fixes to that or even necessarily an awareness of it happening.

EDIT: When I specify that I feel 'ignored' as a ranger player, I'm referring kind of specifically to the supposed ranger melee rework that was half implemented, for example (our silent spell and the third tome that had a name for about a week) and the pet fix that Grinkles implemented in ZMal that IIRC was stated to be part of a future patch (may be misremembering) and disappeared into the ether, and to some extent the arrow changes. I can at least understand the nerf to the damage of scornwood arrows, if they were thought to be too strong (it was a pretty big nerf though), but IIRC they now require a fletcher to make, and the magic based arrows are just gone now entirely.
 
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We are reexamining the self damage. Will probably get toned down a bit.
Please, consider adding the gheal back into it, or at least removing the mana drain on proc. Otherwise there are several other lower tier weapons for priests/casters that are more desirable.

EDIT: When I specify that I feel 'ignored' as a ranger player, I'm referring kind of specifically to the supposed ranger melee rework that was half implemented, for example (our silent spell and the third tome that had a name for about a week) and the pet fix that Grinkles implemented in ZMal that IIRC was stated to be part of a future patch (may be misremembering) and disappeared into the ether, and to some extent the arrow changes. I can at least understand the nerf to the damage of scornwood arrows, if they were thought to be too strong (it was a pretty big nerf though), but IIRC they now require a fletcher to make, and the magic based arrows are just gone now entirely.

Yea, it's really kinda strange that they are already balancing all these weapons, when there are half a dozen classes that doesnt even have their 3rd class AA/Tome or some classes with useless important spells (for example the Shaman Runics). I would imagine that they would need that in order to have a full clear vision of balances that needs to be made.
 
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I would like to suggest that the "weakened" state for regen bonuses be looked at. Specifically it should only trigger when a damage over time or other spell is on a person. As it currently is getting hit with a 10 minute malo/other not-easily-removed-debuff is 10 minutes of this feature not existing.

While I guess you could dispell potentially everything, have a cleric bot or a sapphire slave, this doesn't seem very intuitive or fun. If this is some stupid client/server limitation then please disregard.
 
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I wrote up my thinks about the enchanter changes the day after they were written but didn't have time to forum them with the little quote boxes and stuff, so here they are! it's possible some things were fixed or changes since I thinked upon them:

An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.
Stop nerfing classes based on broken end-game items that are generally only allowed to be held by the dev's friends anyway. it never works out well.
The play style of an enchanter is not dynamic/fun in raids.
it was the literally the only class i enjoyed playing. i used to be a necro. the other dps's look crazy boring.


The viability of an enchanter diminishes in duo and solo situations.
Enchanters are impacted the most from spell slot limits.

those two points are super true though so good on recognizing it! i always thought things like placid would be better served as buttons. or buff-yourself-and-forget kind of things.

Enchanters can purchase three ranks of a new memory blur AA at level 65, Becloud Memories.
do mem blurs in shards even remove you from agro list? as i recall you still retained a point of agro and then got raped violently.

AVATAR, BOND, BOON
The following spells now have a 1 minute duration, and a 1 minute shared cooldown.

If you can't stack it on more than one person, does the damage go up per proportionately to make up for the loss of 4 other chimps?

I would suggest making this a 'never fade' thing where you put it up and as long as you're in the group it stays up if you mean for it to be a single target at a time thing. and maybe tweak the numbers up or down on the damage till you arrive at the magic number that is acceptable for a class that can't solo and is terrible till you get mid-tier drops and spells.

50 percent mimicry is weird. seems like a "nerfing all chanters because you don't like what top tier itemization does to classes surrounding enchanter" kind of thing.

does this change also take a giant dump on cascading bond on your self? if so cascading bond should change to "while you have SB line cast on another dude you hit real good" to make it worth using ever.

MAGIC DIRECT DAMAGE
The following spells all have had their cast time lowered to 1.6s:
being a terrible nuker sounds better than what it was, but i didn't sign up to be a nuker so i'm personally not a fan.
MAGIC DAMAGE OVER TIME
The following changes have been made to smooth out the spell line progression:
these sound like positive changes, like the nuking improvements but i also didn't want to play a terrible necro (or i'd of just stayed necro).

MESMERIZE
The following changes have been made to mesmerize spells:

Glamour of Astris is a new level 24 Enchanter mesmerize with the additional effect chance to memory blur your target.
Glamour of Nalia now has an additional effect chance to memory blur your target. Max enemy level increased to 59.
Minimum duration increased to 4 ticks for Enchanters on all mesmerize spells.
Overpowering Calm properly reduces enemy mitigation to mesmerize duration rather than adding a flat duration before mitigation.
memblur is interesting, but won't that lead to some healer being raped instead? like mez > heal > break > smash?

CONTROL ENHANCEMENT

Sounds good!
JINX
The following changes have been made to the jinx line of spells:

Hex - A new jinx spell available at level 34. Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (50%) of the potential power back into them.
Vex - Curses the target's next melee round to miss, diverting a portion (90%) of the potential power back into them.
does this make the mob smack themselves? if so that's really neat. i like that sort of mechanic. i'd way rather something like this than more nuking. 1 gold star awarded.
DISPELL DETRIMENTAL
Enchanters now have access to the dispel detrimental spell line. These powerful spells allow a chance to dispel a snare, root, fear, and mesmerize from your ally. Stronger spells increase the success of removal but require more expensive reagents.
really cool spell idea! 1 gold star!

CHROMATIC REPERCUSSION
Enchanters now have access to the chromatic repercussion spell line, featuring the new resist type: Chromatic. These spells nuke your target with a chromatic nuke, dealing direct damage against your targets lowest resist. This spell line will also cast a shimmering rune on the target of your target. These spells are learnable at the following levels:

Chromatic Gleam at level 20.
Chromatic Burst at level 29.
Chromatic Barrage at level 39.
Chromatic Refraction at level 49.
Chromatic Fusillade at level 58.
Chromatic Aberration at level 65.

this sounds like a really fun nuker spell! do chromatic focuses mean when you avatar a dude and he does ice damage does the chromatic focus kick in?


Its possible some of these changes were reverted by the time i write this, or that they've been tempered or examined to be fairer than they first sound. if so "cool!"

I haven't played in a while, but this makes me seriously consider not playing some more. I'm not sure i want to be gimpynuker in light of how the class played before.

overall:
3 gold stars for new ideas that are interesting and potentially fun!
5/5 frowny faces for gutting a fun class due to top end itemization making things get strange and / or the class being inherently bad at soloing.

Final thinks:
If i wanted to play a nuker or dotter i'd of played one. I like the class bein group-centric. reducing the chimp total to 1 and making whatever other changes steer them toward being a nuker is strange and undesired. I'm not sure i want to play the chanter with these changes and I'm certainly not going to make a whole new character and slog through all manner of other nonsense to get back to where i was pre-nerfs. I'd suggest if you want only one chimp. adjust the numbers to make chanter 'near' what it could do, but nerfed to whatever the lords-on-high deem is required to balance the universe. new prismatic spells and jinx are interesting. take or leave the nuke upgrades. quit trying to balance the game from top end itemization. Nerf top end items if they need it.
 
enchanters didnt need any specific item to do insane dps, class just fucking roasted with a proper raid comp. could easily top damage while being the least geared and progressed character in the raid with no weapon equipped.
 
enchanters didnt need any specific item to do insane dps, class just fucking roasted with a proper raid comp. could easily top damage while being the least geared and progressed character in the raid with no weapon equipped.
right. that's not what i'm saying. i'm saying that the patch's first chanter nerf statement was:
  • An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.

was it suddenly too high in those tiers because the air was fresher in those raids? or was it too high because itemization enhanced the DPS of the people they were avataring and moonchimping were pushing to new heights and the chanter was riding that? was it too high because the chanter's itemization allowed for loads of mana so that you can AFFORD to literally cast a cycle of chimp > Aod > chimp > aod > SB > SB (self) the entire fight and thus keep that plateau of high dps?

I'm saying that nerfing, then butchering a whole class, then reassembling it as some strange franken-nuker is not a good response to
  • An enchanter's DPS is too high in the last few tiers of the game.

I'd certainly agree that if they want those numbers to line up better there must be a good way to address it. I do actually like the one chimp idea, it makes chanters flex into smaller groups better than needing five high tier and good players in order to be their best. I just don't think that adding nukes in place of slicing the DPS down to a quarter or less is a good direction for the class. I think there is a lot of wiggle room in how that one target's damage is expressed.
 
I wrote up my thinks about the enchanter changes the day after they were written but didn't have time to forum them with the little quote boxes and stuff, so here they are! it's possible some things were fixed or changes since I thinked upon them:


Stop nerfing classes based on broken end-game items that are generally only allowed to be held by the dev's friends anyway. it never works out well.
This is the exact feeling I had.

I took up to 2 different Discord trying to argue about nerfs & balances. And "people" were like: "Oh...but X or Y person (which is in Top#5) did too much damage, the whole class needed a nerf"

But yes, enchanter got a good -50% DPS hit with the whole thing. They should be revised.
 
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