Patch notes 3/10

[WaringMcMarrin]

Here's a sneak peek at Wednesday's Game Update Notes. These notes are subject to change before the servers reopen on Wednesday.

*** Highlights ***

- The Convorteum and the First Creation:

The Convorteum is a secluded area of the Underfoot that is the home of the First Creation and the heart of the conspiracy against Brell. It is a massive, inverted pyramidal structure sprouting from the ceiling of a huge, lava-filled chamber. Those that have been converted to the Faith of Self come to the Convorteum at times to show their loyalty to the First Creation and to show that they accept the tenets of the Faith of Self - place oneself above all others. This creates confusion in the minds of some, mixed messages that have lead to much sadness, loss and even madness.

The First Creation was the first and most loyal creation of Brell Serilis, and the very first sentient form he ever created. The First Creation chose to rebel against Brell. His tampering with the design of new races is subtle but in powerful ways, causing them to turn along paths that lead to destruction and harm to the Underfoot.

The First has done something to distract Brell, to turn his attention away from the Underfoot. Brell's loyal servants are not usually ones to question his actions or decisions, and few of them have even tried to discover what is wrong, or even understand that anything is wrong. But a few have, and the intrusion of upworlders gives the loyalists more options, more tools, to further their understanding of the problems in Underfoot.

- Many of the rare creatures in Underfoot have been moved to consolidate their spawn locations. Be on the lookout for new places to find them.

- Most Underfoot raids have had significant tuning changes made in order to make them more surmountable. Please see the "Quests and Events" section for details.

- There is a new stats pane on the inventory panel that displays many stats not aggregated elsewhere.


*** Items ***

- The focus on the Ranger Breastplate has changed to Focused Storm of Arrows Fury which increases damage from Focused Storm of Arrows. The amount is equivalent to the increase in damage other damage increasing breastplates get over existing foci.
- The Underfoot berserker breastplate effects should now stack with Shared Bloodlust.
- Changed the augment slot on the Magmatic Deflector from type 4 to type 7.
- Added an augment slot to the Eyepiece of the Fancy Tinker.


*** Tradeskills ***

- Three more ranks of the Salvage Alternate Ability have been created. Each rank offers an additional 5% of salvage ability. You must own the Underfoot expansion in order to purchase these new ranks.
- Added bag tokens for the new tradeskilled ornaments.
- Added Faerune to Cosgrove Arcanist Seals and Cosgrove head seals, as long as they did not already have a worn focus.
- Tradeskill Treasurer NPCs will always give molds to dwarves, even if they are asked for patterns. They will no longer offer a quest for armor patterns. Any Dwarven books turned in as patterns are unavailable for now, but are not lost. We will continue to work on a better solution.
- Increased the direct damage of the Tallon and Vallon tactic poisons by an additional 50%. This portion can hit for critical damage. Doubled the synchronous damage done by these poisons. This portion will not hit for critical damage. The duration of the debuff has been increased to 12 ticks.


*** Quests & Events ***

- Fippy the Destroyer's power up damage and frequency has been reduced.
- Reduced the damage on Fippy the Destroyer's Shadow Strike ability.
- Add numbers have been reduced in all phases of Fippy the Destroyer's event, except between the first and second phases.
- Reduced combat values on all non-unique Burynai in the Masked Invaders event.
- All Burynai in the Masked Invaders event should be a bit more manageable in general.
- Slightly increased the time between power-ups for the Brutale in the Masked Invaders event.
- The Burynai Destroyer has been made slightly more difficult.
- Reduced damage output from the bosses in Grunkuck's event.
- Increased the interval between add spawns in Grunkuck's event.
- Grunkuck's mate will now spawn near Grunkuck in order to help keep her safe.
- Brath's damage when his regeneration ability is removed has been slightly reduced.
- The Arcane Shards of Brath will not immediately split if the one they hate the most is too far away. You now have 15 seconds to engage them before they get angry and split in two.
- The Icy Shards of Brath will now correctly reset the Strike of Brell timer when they are hit by six cold spells.
- Reduced the number of 'food' aphids in the Guardians of the Hive event from 15 to 10.
- Increased the time between possible aphid wave spawns in the Guardians of the Hive event.
- Slightly reduced the HP of each of the boss Klik'nar in the Guardians of the Hive event.
- Increased the time before the healing mushrooms cast their spells in the Guardians of the Hive event.
- Fixed a bug with the young queens in the Cliknar Queen event. They had taken on too many of their progenitor's powers due to overenthusiastic genetic material. They have returned to their proper status.
- Corrected combat settings for the Death Beetle event.
- The Living Legacy event rewards for 2010 and later will no longer be dependent on your server's best score. Any event completion from this point forward will be able to grant its reward immediately. You still will receive the best augment if your 2008 or 2009 scores were better.
- Added some in-mission reward chests to Underfoot missions in Cooling Chamber, Brell's Rest, Underquarry, Foundation, Pellucid Grotto, Arthicrex and Shining City. Rewards for the other missions are forthcoming in the next update.
- The Shade of Darott will no longer immediately send you out of his mission if you accidentally hail him twice.


*** Spells ***

- Beastlord - Steeltrap Jaws, Lockfang Jaws, and Fellgrip Jaws have been reworked to only be limited by their own triggered effects and not other spells cast by the pet.
- Beastlord - Friendly pet is now a contact ability that shares a stacking slot with steeltrap jaws and other similar spells. It will fire up to 6 times per cast and has an increased chance to proc.
- Berserker - Reflected Bloodlust will now also effect piercing weapons for the berserker.
- Berserker - Axe of Rallos Dread effect will now increase the damage the target takes from the next 50 melee hits by 5%.
- Berserker - Axe of Rallos and its attributable effects are now harder to resist.
- Cleric - Aquifer Splash now has a wear off message.
- Cleric - Blessed Aquifer should now disappear when all the charges are used.
- Druid - Removed the recast time of Blessing of the Heartwood.
- Druid - Sundew Blessing's description now matches its functionality.
- Necromancer - Necrotize ally no longer does damage to the caster's pet. The stun has been increased to 12 seconds up from 10.
- Paladin - Protective Confession's melee guard effect is now in slot 1.
- Paladin/Shadowknight - Withstand Blow's melee guard effect is now in slot 9.
- Ranger - Increased the range of Jolting Frontkicks from 30 to 50.
- Rogue - Increased the range of Assault to 50 up from 30.
- Rogue - Assault aggro has been lowered to approximately 2/3 of the original value.
- Rogue - Twisted Chance Discipline is now on Timer 3.
- Shadowknight - Malarian Skin's Melee guard effect is now in slot 6.
- Warrior - Added cast messages back on to all ranks of Field Armorer.
- Warrior - Field Armorer can now be used regardless of what you have targeted.
- Warrior - Field Armorer now has a 1.5 second recast and shares a timer with Champion's Aura, Commanding Voice, and Myrmidon's Aura.
- Wizard - Self-Immolation will now trigger a DoT effect on the caster instead of a DD effect.
- Wizard - Self-Immolation is now listed under the Direct Damage -> Fire category.
- Wizard - Malediction of Havoc can now be found in the Direct Damage -> Fire memorization category.
- Wizard - Malediction of Havoc now has a -50 resist modifier.
- Wizard - Removed the cast messages from the Malediction of Havoc Reflection Spells
- Wizard - The "Syllable of fire/ice/magic/mastery" effects now grant a damage bonus to the next spell of their respective types. The mastery syllable will grant bonus damage to any spell. They also cause damage to the caster while they remain unused.
- Fixed a bug in spells that vary with distance that was causing incorrect values when damage was reduced to 0.


*** NPC ***

- Many of the rare creatures in Underfoot have been moved to consolidate their spawn locations. Be on the lookout for new places to find them.
- The hive in Arthicrex and the tunnels of Volska's Husk have had their population thinned out a bit.
- Lowered the damage and HP of NPCs in Brell's Rest, the Cooling Chamber, and Pellucid Grotto slightly.
- Cliknar in Underquarry should be less observant of what's happening to other nearby Cliknar.
- Removed the humanoid property from Cliknar that do not stand upright.
- Enforcer Stoutspore's Sweeping Blow ability will no longer affect or aggro NPCs.
- Underquarry - genati ancients, iron golems, burynai tricksters and welterwizards, and cliknar adepts no longer see invisibility.
- Arthicrex - cliknar adepts, cliknar arcanists, cliknar auxilioids, cliknar seers, and bellikos recruiters no longer see invisibility.
- The Hive Nurse in Arthicrex should now be less resilient.
- Corrected some text errors in Volska's Husk.
- Changed the repop times (and rare spawn percentages) in the following zones:
-- Fungal Forest - 17 minutes
-- Underquarry - 22 minutes
-- Cooling Chamber - 22 minutes
-- Shining City - 17 minutes
-- Arthicrex - 17 minutes outside the hive ascent, 22 minutes for everything on the ascent and up into the hive
-- Foundation - 17 minutes
-- Pellucid Grotto - 17 minutes
-- Volska's Husk - 22 minutes

*** Mercenaries ***

- Mercenaries can now be maintained with Bayle Marks (an alternate currency). These can be purchased on the marketplace as an alternate payment method to platinum. Platinum is still accepted by all mercenaries, but Bayle Marks will be consumed first if they are available.
- Fixed a bug that allowed mercenaries to continue attacking even when invulnerable.

*** AA ***

- Bard - The Selo's Kick ability should now be instant with no mysterious duration component.
- Bard - Selo's Kick no longer checks against physical resist in order to land. It can however still be dodged/parried/etc.
- Berserker - Precise Blow has been increased in effectiveness.
- Druid - Egress should now work as intended.
- Druid - The Spirits of Nature ability has had its damage increased slightly.
- Druid - Wall of Wind will now only hit NPC targets and should be constricted by line of sight.
- Enchanter - Forceful Banishment has been made more... forceful.
- Monk - Stunning Kick has been revamped and should now work as described.
- Monk - Infusion of Thunder will now stack correctly with Heel of Kanji.
- Monk - Quickfoot once again will reduce the time required between Flying Kicks. It should now not conflict with Heel of Kanji, but it will also not enhance it any further either.
- Monk - Eye Gouge and Crippling Strike have had their resist modifiers adjusted to function properly at their higher ranks.
- Paladin - Blessing of Light will now correctly focus Silvered Fury.
- Ranger - Mobs under the effect of Harmonious Arrow's harmony spell now have their awareness range reduced to 15 rather than 18.
- Shadowknight - Hate's Attraction will no longer affect players.


*** Miscellaneous ***

- Updated pathing in Volska's Husk and Underquarry.
- Corrected an issue that previously prevented NPCs from correctly calling for help when taking very low amounts of damage.
- Fixed several grammar issues in Underquarry, Foundation, and Lichen Creep.
- Fixed several resource leaks.
- Fixed a thread-safety issue with non-"original" graphics memory modes. If you are running in "original" mode, you will be automatically switched back to "most memory" mode. The eventual goal is to remove the need for "original' mode. You can still switch it back to "original" if you encounter problems (please post about any issues you have). NOTE: This has nothing to do with "West bug" like symptoms in Field of Scale, etc. That's a totally separate issue. This may address the problems reported with corrupted textures when the memory optimized modes were introduced.
- Fixed a problem with twinheal when triggered from an item. It now does the twin-heal and consumes the twinheal charge. Previously the charge was consumed but no twinheal occurred.
- Fixed a rare zone crash associated with achievement links.
- Made some hardware changes to address the spell and ability timer issue some zones on Povar were experiencing.


*** UI ***

- Added a new stats pane on the inventory panel that displays many stats not aggregated elsewhere.
- Fixed several issues with the extended target window having phantom empty entries during raids.

- Changed -

- EQUI_Animations.xml
- EQUI_Inventory.xml
- EQUI_MercenaryInfoWnd.xml
- EQUI_MercenaryMerchantWnd.xml

*** Previously Updated ***

- Envoy Therma now drops the correct tier of armor pieces.
- Immature Sporali will now correctly despawn if their creator dies.
- Corrected an issue with the Guardians of the Hive reset.
- Added spell runes to the chests in the Underfoot Raids in place of some of the purity augments.
- Reduced the difficulty of the undead and rares in Cooling Chamber.
- A Darkhollow Sporkin in Arthicrex only needs one mushroom. He will no longer reward you for more.


- The EverQuest Team

[dohrian]

- Corrected an issue that previously prevented NPCs from correctly calling for help when taking very low amounts of damage

Does that change the way HA worked (I box a friend's alt ranger from time to time to help me)?

EDIT : found that info : http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts ... _id=161672

No fix for shaman (twincast / twinproc / third spire) or other reports from Retron / Maccuul

But it looks like they fixed many problems and lowered the overall difficulty of UF (just after our 4 toons friend guild flagged the 3rd toon for T8...)

[Ughbash]

Hmm no change to Pelucid grotto raid.

Glad to see that there will be chest rewards for the progression missions.

[Brohg]

PG raid already quite winnable. Problematic without 3 enc, maybe, or with insufficient dps, but several degrees of magnitude more manageable than Cooling Chambers even with perfect composition.

[Sowslow]

[Finori]

[riou]

Dunno, Unborrowing for my guild was/is harder then Beast (we made it a lot farther on beast then unborrowing), heh : /

[Ughbash]

Prior to patch we had gotten to the point where "The beasts mate spawns" and on PG had gotten Magestric Phaelx dead (but died shortly after). Was really just supirsed that they had changed it appeared everythign BUT that one event.

And one of the problems we face is with DPS, when you are doing Open raids you don't always have the luxury of the ideal raid force composition, though you often have more then 54 people to choose from.

[Finori]

I read this on various boards a lot ... but I cannot agree that DPS is a major requirement for UF T6. If you have gotten to the Magrix then you have enough DPS. Once they spawn DPS is de facto irrelevant. As always it makes things easier but by no means is there a do-or-die DPS threshold.

[Ughbash]

[Finori]

[Frakass]