12/09/08 Patch MessageFollow

December 9, 2008
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*** Highlights ***

- Frostfell: As the air starts to chill and the frost begins to cover the ground, the season of Frostfell begins. No holiday season is perfect though and a couple of your fellow Norrathians need your help to make Frostfell a merry holiday for all! Visit your favorite major city and the Plane of Knowledge to find out how you can help. The season of Frostfell will embrace Norrath from December 9th through January 8th. Various events new and old will be available at different intervals throughout the season. So make sure you join in the fun before Frostfell is over for another year.

- New Hot zones: The following Zones are now "Hot" with additional experience and item rewards. Additionally Franklin Teek in Plane of Knowledge will be happy to remind you of the current Hot Zones!

Level 20: Stonebrunt Mountains
Level 25: Crystal Caverns
Level 30: The Overthere
Level 35: Mons Letalis
Level 40: Great Divide
Level 45: Nagafens Lair
Level 50: Plane of Innovation
Level 55: Sshraeshza Temple
Level 60: Crypt of Decay
Level 65: Stoneroot Falls
Level 70: Valdeholm
Level 75: Dreadspire Keep


*** Items ***

- Added backstab skill modifiers to Seeds of Destruction Piercing weapons.
- Adjusted the nomenclature for some SoF items with corruption damage foci. The focus percentages did not change, only the names.
- Altered the required level for the procs on the "fine weapons" to match the required level of the symbol instead of the recommended level. The exceptions to this are the Blessed symbols which require level 11.
- Changed the appearance of the player-crafted "fine" long hammers.
- Changed the focus effect on the Gleaming Ursine Fang to match the focus on the base item.
- Class-specific armor for Clerics, Druids, and Shaman has had healing foci added to match the SoD armor. Clerics and Shaman will now have healing foci on their arms, while Druids will have healing foci on their wrists.
- Druadic Frostlinked Leggings and Necrotic Chillsteel Greaves have had a detrimental spell haste focus added to match the other elemental leggings.
- Fixed an issue with the Familiar of the Emerald Jungle that was causing it to behave differently from other familiars.
- Many Elaborate Defiant weapons have been upgraded slightly to follow the group item changes.
- Many SoF and all SoD group weapons have received a damage upgrade. Please be aware that some of these items are still being adjusted and may change further in a subsequent patch.
- SoD weapons with elemental damage did not all have the element that was intended. These have been changed to the intended element.
- The Bloodreaper has changed appearance and effect.
- The click effect on Darkened Shining Metallic Robes now uses its own recast timer and will not interfere with other effects.
- The Crystal Dewdrop will now have some benefit even when it is not raining or snowing.
- The Dagger of Darkflaying's appearance has changed.
- A new set of Defiant armor has appeared.


*** Spells ***

- Corrected an issue that was causing the focused versions of pets summoned by the beastlord spell "Spirit of Hoshkar" to take more melee damage than they were intended to.
- Dropdown category for Spell Damage and Haste combination songs is now "Haste/Spell Focus" instead of either or both.
- Paladin and Shadowknight damage reduction disciplines should now stack with all other spells that use the same effect. This change applies to the "Armor of <X>" and "<Y> Carapace" lines.
- Range on Rogue targeted abilities has been increased.
- Range on the Necromancer's Withering Decay and Enchanter's Dominating Aura effects has been increased.
- Tempest Blade is now an aura named Aura of Rodcet that mimics the functionality of the Cantata of Rodcet.
- The damaging proc effect from Bard's Tempest Blade song has been consolidated with Arcane Arietta.
- The global cooldown for spells previously set between 1.5 to 2.5s has been reduced to 1.5s.
- The hate reduction effect from Mindfreeze should no longer have stacking issues with other effects.
- The Malo and Tash lines should no longer interfere with out of combat regeneration.
- The Mindfreeze hate reduction effect will now stack with the Bazu Bellow line.
- The Necromancer SoF robe clicky now spawns a short duration pet instead of bestowing casting haste. Higher tier versions of the click increase the pet's lifespan.
- The Rogue SoF breastplate clicky has had its average damage increased slightly. Higher tier versions of the effect now increase the damage done per proc, instead of the increasing the effect's duration. The duration on both versions is now 2 minutes.
- The Wizard SoF robe clicky will now work on higher level spells, albeit at a reduced effectiveness.
- Type 3 augmentation bonuses should no longer benefit additional spells. For example: Icesheet Cascade / Klixcxyk's Fire improving the damage of Ethereal Conflagration.


*** Quests ***

- Addressed some faction issues that were causing NPCs in the Safe Passage mission to assist the wrong group.
- Fixed a bug with Captain Tillin in Oceangreen Hills. He will now always give out his tasks in order.
- Fixed the reset issues with the task in Old Bloodfields called Supply Interruption. If the task is not completed within 20 minutes of the flags being placed, the event will clean up and the task is failed.
- Guards in missions in Toskirakk and Kaesora will not be so easily fooled by hiding from them.
- Heralds in each of Seeds of Destruction's five eras will now offer a new quest. Each day the heralds will select one mission and grant players a bonus for completing that mission, as long as they have accepted the new quest from the Heralds.
- Killing Silliv` Host will now properly update the task "The Cabilisian Trade Route."
- Malaurin V`Kon will now reset much more quickly after a failure of the Disruptive Influences task.
- Modified the quest Favors of the Hopelost in City of Dranik to remove unwarranted faction hits.
- Navrn K`Val, Thaliv T`Kysh and Vyntal Zintha now carry the false orders.
- People on the "Let my people go" task must now complete the first two elements before speaking with Lymrit again to complete the task.
- Reduced the number of Army of Light Longswords needed to complete the Take Everything task in Bloody Kithicor.
- Reduced the number of Poachers that need to be killed for Poach the Poachers in Oceangreen Hills to 4.
- The necromancers in the Drake Scourge task will update the group's task more reliably now.
- The quest "Disruptive Influences" is now much less likely to get out of sync, so should be much easier to complete. Malaurin V`Kon will also only wait for a quest update for 20 minutes at a time. If this time elapses Malaurin V`Kon will go home, resetting the task.
- The Seeds of Destruction Quest buy back merchant now uses Chronobines instead of Doubloons. He will also buy any of his quest items from you for 1 Chronobine.


*** Raids ***

- Added an additional reward to the Field of Scale raid "Jaled`Dar's Sacrifice"
- Emperor Ganak has decided to try a new tactic for using his spells during the Jaled`Dar's Sacrifice raid.
- Fixed an issue that would not allow players to get the second Rathe Council raid.
- Upon completion, the Fall of Toskirakk event should now show "The Fall of Toskirakk" as the lockout name instead of "Unknown Event".


*** NPCs ***

- Adjusted the spawn rate for rare NPCs in the Rathe Council Chambers.
- Rathework guardians have moved out of the inner sanctum of the Rathe Council Chambers.
- Removed the remaining unkillable NPCs from the Safe Passage mission.
- The Dragorn defending Dranik have become strangely weaker. It appears the Muramite forces may have gained the upper hand.


*** Tradeskills ***

- "Fine" Inured one handed, non-piercing weapons, and Exalted Nimble symbols had a change in their damage to fix an upgrade path issue. The damage will be very close to what it currently is, just distributed differently.
- Added Paladins and Shadow Knights to the "Fine" maces made via tradeskills.
- All "fine" elegant and stalwart weapons, along with their corresponding sublime and venerable symbols, received an upgrade in overall damage.
- All spells and tomes that are tradable on regular servers should now be tradable on the Firiona Vie server.
- Altered the recipes for Wishka's Favor Rk. II and Tome of Aura of Draconic Runes Rk. II.
- Baublie Diggs, outside of West Freeport, now will give a quest to any researcher, no matter their class.
- Changed Faceted Blue Diamond to Mounted Blue Diamond in the recipe for Fizzlesprocket's Forceful Discharging Apparatus.
- Chronal Resonance Dust has become more common.
- Created a new instruction book for research that can be found on some research vendors.
- Immaculate Silk is now tradable on Firiona Vie.
- Made appropriate changes to the following research recipes: Spell: Aura of the Grove, Tome of Crippling Strike, Spell: Summon Aenda's Trinkets, Spell: Summon Plate of the Elements, Spell: Summon Elemental Armaments, Spell: Nectar of Pain, Spell: Spear of Ro, Spell: Rathe's Strength, Spell: Grave Pact, Spell: Death Rune, Spell: Dark Rune, Spell: Spirit of the Stoic One Rk. II, Spell: Ancestral Bargain Rk. II, Spell: Blacktalon Bite Rk. II, Spell: Terror of Vergalid Rk. II, Spell: Venin Rk. II, Spell: Elemental Symbiosis Rk. II, Spell: Shield of the Crystalwing Rk. II, Tome of Tendon Cleave Rk. II, Spell: Silent Piety, and Pack Shrew (added prayer writing kit to shaman version)
- Modified the recipe for "Spell: Tortugone's Drowse Rk. II" to make it more properly fit the spell research system.
- Some "fine" simple weapons received an upgrade in damage.
- The Drink of Timeless Energy is now made with simmering fairy drake dust, and can also be made with any of the elemental spirit dusts (earth, air, fire, water).
- The level 69 Dragons of Norrath spells and tomes created through research are now tradable on all servers.
- The Researcher Charm can now be used by all classes.
- The slot 12 seals from Crystallos have been made to fit in the seven visible armor slots, and are no longer agnostic only.


*** AA ***

- A new AA has been added to the Seeds of Destruction List for Bards - Sionachie's Crescendo.
- Adjusted the slot order on the Ranger AA Group Guardian of the Forest to prevent a stacking conflict with other spells that have a Chance Spell.
- Adjusted the spell casting range of Fog of Memories (Enchanter AA).
- Adjusted the stacking of Second Spire of Enchantment (Enchanter AA).
- Re-enabled the SoD AA Extended Ingenuity. Bards, Monks, Warriors, Rogues and Berserkers will now be able to purchase this AA.
- The AA Fortified Entanglement (Wizard) now requires the purchase of Hastened Root 4 to resolve a conflict between these two AAs, making your roots less reliable if you had not purchased both.
- The heal over time component of the highest ranks of Lay on Hands will now go to the short buff window.
- The Ranger AA Hastened Trueshot will now focus the Sureshot Discipline.
- The Rogue AA Sleight of Hand should now stack with the Envenomed Blades AA.
- Veil of Mindshadow spells will now have a wear off message.


*** Zones ***

- Replaced the missing door on the merchant vs. merchant ship instances in the Buried Sea.
- Savet Ironstove now properly advertises what he sells.


*** Mercenaries ***

- Healer mercenaries will give less priority to healing shamen that are not flagged as the main tank role and that are not being directly attacked. This should allow them to be a bit friendlier with regards to cannibalize.
- Mercenaries should be friendlier to feign splitting techniques. If the puller feigns in camp before the merc has a chance to react, the merc will not attack the mobs hostile only to the puller.
- Mercenaries will no longer attack enemies that are currently engaging targets outside their group (or group's pets).
- The camp radius now scales somewhat dynamically in that if your group is widely spaced, the radius around the group's center considered "in camp" to the AI is increased to avoid a situation where you've pulled an NPC past one of the group's members, but the AI still does not react to it. The minimum camp radius from group center is still 50feet as it was before.
- Healer mercenaries will no longer cast heal spells on themselves that have an invulnerability component, as the AI was never tuned to do this at the right time, and it leads to problems with the mercs appearing to be unresponsive.
- Increased the timer for how often a merc will attempt to resurrect a corpse when the res is not accepted from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
- The ability to suspend/un-suspend a mercenaries is now locked when in combat and when the player still has a cool-down timer on PvP servers. For standard rule servers, the cool-down timer still does not factor into this, suspend/un-suspend can be done immediately after the hatelist is cleared.
- Tank mercenaries will now default to following their owner (or group) when there are no melee targets even when in combat.
- Mercenary Clerics should no longer cast their spell haste buff on classes that have no mana.
- Mercenaries now appear with a ':' before their name in the tracking window, similar to pets.
- Fixed a bug that allowed a mercenary to keep the effects of an aura permanently after the aura was no longer present.
- Fixed a problem that caused some players that zoned slowly to not be able to unsuspend their mercenary after they zoned.
- Mercenary healers will now only dispel buffs on enemies when in aggressive stance. Since aggressive stance isn't currently in the game (though it may return at some point) healer mercs will no longer be dispelling for now.
- Mercenaries should no longer become bald after various illusions.
- Added a new "Assist" stance for Journeyman and above tank mercs that allows them to operate in essentially a DPS mode. If the tank merc is in Assist stance and not designated the main tank it will not use any off-tanking behavior like it does when in Aggressive stance. It will attack whatever the main assist is targeting (or whatever it last attacked it there is no main assist) and continue to do so until the main assist switches targets. If in Assist mode and designated the main tank the tank merc should behave the same as it does in Aggressive stance.
- Fixed a problem where if you had maxed out your buff slots, healer mercenaries would no longer heal you.
- Fixed a problem that caused the AI to be blind to damage taken from certain spells like Blood Magic or Divine Arbitration.
- Fixed a problem where mercenaries were counting toward the hit limit for rain type spells, causing them to have fewer pulses when in the area of effect.
- Merc healers will no longer cure charmed pets.
- Mercenary "in camp" radius is no longer a sphere. It is now more of a disc to help with problems of mercs healing, etc. when a puller is on a floor above or below.
- Merc healer AI will no longer cast cure spells if somone in the group is at lower than 50% health.
- Mercs will no longer move out of melee range of their target if they are casting a beneficial spells (heals, buffs). This should cut down on a fair amount of unnecessary movement.
- Mercs should no longer run off to follow someone across the zone when their owner is set as puller. They will only follow another group member other than their owner if that other group member is within their awareness radius (about 200 ft.).
- Fixed an issue with out of combat healing AI doing a lot of over healing.
- PvP spell resist and duration values are now used when hostile spells are exchanged between a merc and a PC (for non PvP servers this only applies to the Arena).
- Fixed an issue with merc suspend timers counting down too fast if a custom UI had multiple instances of the timer display.
- Fixed a problem where mercenaries would go bald when removing an illusion and zoning.
- After carefully watching mercenaries since SoD launch some balance changes are being made:
-- You will no longer be able to suspend or unsuspend your mercenary while you are in combat.
-- Journeyman mercenaries will now cast 96% resurrection. Apprentice mercenaries are limited to 90% res.
-- Increased the stats of the Tank Mercenaries starting at the Journeyman tier. The values are tuned to be less than what an equivalently geared player would be but is higher than previous values for various mitigation and avoidance stats useful for a tank.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Corrected a few Stability issues.
- Implemented new Hot Zones! Franklin Teek in Plane of Knowledge will be happy to remind you of the current Hot Zones.
- Modified the pathing in the old commons zone.
- Fixed a bug that was causing power sources to only be drained when out of combat. Now they only drain while in combat instead.
- The NPC buy/sell/bank window will no longer disappear when the game client is re-sized.
- Made tuning adjustments (downward) on many NPCs that had higher-than-expected resistances to Physical Attacks (Such as the Monk Eye Gouge attack). These attacks should be much more reliable now.
- Rathework guardians have moved out of the inner sanctum of the Rathe Council Chambers.
- Guards in missions in Toskirakk and Kaesora will not be so easily fooled by hiding from them.
- Players can now decline a group invite when they own a mercenary.
- Fixed a problem that caused player traps (e.g., fadelure, fire rune, bonestitch fetish) to trigger on pets/mounts/mercs, causing all kinds of havoc.
- The incorrect boosts to HP/mana/endurance have been brought back in line with what they should have been. Please see other posts on this subject for more information.
- Fixed a bug that caused stun effects to wear off the moment mez effects did. This meant that if you stunned a mezzed mob, it would wake up immediately. Now it will not wake up until the stun wears off.
- Fixed a bug that caused certain spells that triggered casting of more spells (like Spectralside and Unity of Spirits) to overwrite each other even though that was not intended.
- Power sources will once again change the color of the affected stats in that slot.
- The potion belt now conveys the cool down timers on potions.
- The Emerald Sokokar will now behave like other familiars.
- NPC Strikethrough will no longer penetrate defensive disciplines like Weapon Shield, Deflection, Deftdance, etc.
- Fixed a client crash for the quest Arachnophobia.
- Fixed an issue with proximity aggro.
- Fixed a problem with certain AAs with illusion components that allowed them to be used with no reuse timer if you had another illusion on you.
- Fixed a client crash when your pet got more than 30 effects on it.
- Corrected an issue that caused guilded characters to be forcably placed in the guild voice channel upon zoning.
- Changed the way charges are deducted from consumable click items. Now, if the spell on the item is beneficial and it does not land, the charge will not be consumed.
- Drakkin should now revert to a walk/run animation after dismounting.

Quite possibly the most game changing 'change' is tucked away under Misc.

What, pray tell, does this mean?

I'm actually ok with the merc no longer dispelling as they'd often dispel whatever first dot I'd put on the mob in the process (bye bye snare!).

Hopefully the problems with mercs/pets poofing when you zone into POK has been fixed along with the inability to purchase a new merc.