OUTLAW AND MURDERER GHOST TIMES

  • Outlaws and Murderers have had their time before poofing raised from 30 seconds to 6 minutes.

We set that value awhile back and PKing stopped abruptly and completely. Time to go back to the drawing board.

  • Everyone now has a new utility spell called Donate. Unlike Conveyance and Guild Conveyance, it can transport gear items such as swords or armors.

It cannot transport stacked items. It is therefore sort of the opposite of existing conveyance spells. Donate puts the item in a permanent new chest in the Adventurer’s Hall of Marion. That room has also been sculpted to provide a noticeable new platform for the chest. Since all new players start in Marion, if they happen to enter the Marion Ad Hall, they will see the lit chest right away. Donate costs no mana, vigor, money, or reagents.

STANCES

  • Changing stances now breaks focus. Notably, Sneak and Hide are dropped if you change Stance.

The one exception is Light Feet. If you switch TO Light Feet, you will not lose Sneak and Hide. Changing stances does break spell focus, for spells like Blink and Earthquake.

However, Volatile Focus in Sorcery 5 can prevent loss of focus this way by expending mana.

There are two purposes to this change. The first is to fix the ‘lore’ of stances a little bit. It was sort of odd that changing stances didn’t break focus. The second is to remove a use case of Backstab where a Banditry user runs, sneaking and hidden, using Light Feet, but then switches to Reckless Heart once in striking range. Now if you want that uber Reckless Heart strike, you’ll have to walk, as was initially designed.

THE GHOST

  • A resistance calculation oddity made the ghost more vulnerable to magic weapons (Kraan ded) than holy. This has been fixed.

The ghost had its magic weapon resistance changed from -50 to 0. Its resists currently look like this:

Fire: 90% Cold: 90% Unholy: 90% Acid: 90% Nonmagic weapons: 90% Holy: -50%

Punch and most weapons count as nonmagic. Punch is included in Holy Touch attacks, which are Punch + Holy. This means that the ghost will experience 90% – 50% = 40% resistance to holy enchanted weapons and holy touch.

However, if you can figure out a way to deliver holy damage on some source that isn’t punch / a nonmagic weapon, the ghost will experience 0% – 50% = -50% vulnerability. That includes a kraan ded/ mystic sword with holy touch using charged clutch, or a Holy Weapon enchanted Nerudite Sword, or a Holy Weapon enchanted bow with Nerudite Arrows.

In any case, this makes the ghost’s vulnerabilities more sensible. As it was before, a mystic sword (-50%) was more damaging than a holy sword (40%) and further adding holy to that mystic sword made no difference. Oops.

To reiterate, mundane weapons with holy enchantments will experience 40% resistance. Kraanan enchanted weapons with charged clutch + holy touch will experience -50% resistance. Nerudite swords and arrows with holy enchantments will experience -50% resistance.

And of course the ghost remains 0% resistant to lightning damage.

SPIRIT HAMMERS

  • Now stun instead of knockback.

RESERVED BUFFS

  • Now have a chance to passively imp while you are fighting, the way cast buffs do.

Their imp rate is half that of normally cast buffs, however.

ITEM ENCHANTMENTS

  • Now properly list the skill of the enchanter. This hasn’t worked for years and nobody noticed, apparently.

There’s also a new level of text. If you’re under 24%, you’re an Initiate. Then 24-49 is Novice, 50-74 is Apprentice,74-98 is Journeyman, and 99% is Master.

Abilities for item enchantments have been added.

  • The Glow spell now adds up to 10 offense against all targets, and 1 base damage against certain creatures of darkness, such as shadowbeasts and dark angels, and players with Shadow Form.

You will see the offense listed on the weapon, but not the conditional damage.

  • The Enchant Weapon spell now adds up to 100 offense based on spellpower.

Equation = + 1 + Spellpower.

  • Unholy Weapon and Holy Weapon now add up to 3 base damage based on spellpower.

1-32 sp = +0 33-65 sp = +1 65-98 sp = +2 99 sp = +3

Note that these damage bonuses are specifically tied to unholy weapon and holy weapon. Just dealing holy damage, such as with charged clutch, does NOT count. If you attempt to use charged clutch to override the elemental damage type of holy weapon or unholy weapon, the damage bonus is lost. What this means is, if you have the skill charged clutch and an active touch spell enchantment, you will not receive the damage bonus from unholy/holy weapon, because you are ATTEMPTING to use charged clutch, even if charged clutch fails to proc due to low % or no mana. You can check that this is happening by looking at your weapon, which will not have the base damage bonus while you have charged clutch + a touch spell. Your damage bonus will return if your touch spell wears off, is cancelled, is purged, or if you forget charged clutch. THIS COUNTS TOUCH SPELLS OF THE SAME TYPE! Holy Touch + Charged Clutch will still turn off the damage bonus of your Holy Weapon enchanted weapon! Your sorcerous redirection of elemental energies is overriding the Unholy/Holy Weapon enchantment entirely.

All of these bonuses do apply to ranged weapons. All of these bonuses apply for other purposes. For example, the offense granted by Enchant Weapon counts for Fencing Mastery’s defense bonus from listed weapon offense values. You can actually see these values if you look at your weapon’s stats once enchanted. For example, a mace normally has 75 offense rating bonus. With a 99 sp Enchant Weapon, it will have 175. These are BASE values, and can thus become rather strong once values like Might or buffs are taken into account!

As a reminder, you can overwrite dedications by simply casting a new one. Many don’t realize this ability was added a few years ago. You can, therefore, enchant the same item over and over to work the spell, or to attempt a better spellpower.

SHROUD

  • Shroud is now an ‘identified’ mod, meaning for the first time in 23 years you’ll get to see shroud’s text when it is added to an item.

This is far more informative than simply saying an item has something odd about it while preventing Identify and Reveal!

SPELLPOWER READOUTS FOR HEXES

  • Witchery finally has its own effectiveness reports, since hexes use a different system of power measurement.

When you cast a hex, if you have the preference set to see spellpower, you will see a message akin to: The effectiveness of your flammability hex is 140.

This number is affected by quite a few factors, such as %, spellpower, your gear, and enemy hex resistance. It is quite possible to see numbers anywhere from 0 to 250. However, that number is interpreted by each hex differently through power equations, so:

Hexes also have a custom line of text that will tell you exactly what the hex is doing. You will see a second message like: At that effectiveness, the victim will suffer 34% reduced resistance.

This means hexes are a bit ‘overtexty’, with many lines of text for each cast, but we’d rather give you all the info than not enough. If you turn off spellpower readouts preference, you won’t see either of those lines of text.

NEQUZON LEVEL 6

  • To fix a bug, Ostracization no longer applies hexes ‘forever’. Now it’s just 27 hours.

Related text will still say they apply permanently, though, because 27 hours is still literally forever compared to a modern gamer’s attention span.

VENTDAL

After running some statistics, Ventdal has a serious power problem in its upper levels. Therefore, it’s buff time!

  • Ventdal level 4 got Mana Shield, a skill that automatically attempts to shunt a portion of damage you take to your mana.

Its base effect is 10%, which will increase to 20% at 99% in the skill. It will also absorb an additional 1% per 10 Mysticism. That means that at 50 myst, your mana will absorb 25% of all damage you take – as long as you have sufficient mana. Mana Shield stacks with level 5’s Spirit Shackles. Together you can reach ranges about 45% to 50% damage taken to mana, if you hex your opponent with Spirit Shackles. Mana Shield is sold by Vrinna.

This has potential to be kind of uber. We’ll be watching this one to make sure it’s not OP.

IWODACH

Iwodach is in a similar spot to Ventdal and needs improvement.

  • Iwodach level 4 got Noxious Strike, a skill that automatically applies a hex when you hit an enemy with punch or melee weapon.

Touch spells don’t work – that’s Nequzon’s area, and Iwodach followers despise Nequzon. You can set which hex you apply. Look at the skill’s description for instructions. The chance to proc can reach 100% when you max the skill and have at least 70 Myst. It is intended as an alternate form of casting that saves you a hotkey, mana, reagents, and time. A player with Noxious Strikes can reliably curse every enemy he fights at melee range simply by fighting normally. The hexes are applied after the hit, so the first hit does not include their effects.

If you have Xaerdun 6 Blood Runes, you can choose a second hex, and every damaging hit you land with punch or a melee weapon will double-curse.

You must know the hex to apply it. The hex’s base spellpower has the potential to be stronger than if cast normally, because of the melee hit requirement. Base spellpower of a Noxious Strike hex is 33 + (% in the Hex/3) + (% in Noxious Strike/3) + Myst/3.

So if you have 66 Myst and 99% in the hex and Noxious Strikes, landed hexes will have a base spellpower of 33 + 33 + 33 + 22, or 121. That’s in comparison to normal base spellpower, which ranges from 1 to 99. Other effects, such as witchery skills or items that increase effectiveness, all come into play after that, and are still counted. However, ‘general spellpower boosts’ such as +5 from a mace, and ‘general spellpower negatives’, such as AMA, are skipped due to the proc-based nature of the casting.

Noxious Strike is sold by Iwodach.

This is REALLY REALLY strong. We’ll be watching this one to make sure it’s not insane OP. LIKE REALLY STRONG. I can’t emphasize enough that people should try out these new abilities.

We’ve put Ventdal’s and Iwodach’s new abilities in level 4 to lower the opportunity cost of levels 5 and 6 in those subschools, which can already be quite powerful. If you’ve already gone to level 4 for one of these powerful skills, then level 5 is just 5 more int, not 10-15 like it might be if you didn’t already have these levels. Plus both skills are vastly improved by the abilities above them. Mana Shield because it combines with Ventdal’s level 5 spirit shackles, and Noxious Strike because applying Iwodach’s Frailty curse (-weapon resist) with weapon hits is AWESOME.

PROJECTILE CHANGES

  • Projectiles now travel faster visually in order to improve graphical accuracy. The farther away you are, the faster they’ll go.
  • All spells and skills now have a maximum range of 40 (if they were higher before).

This includes long bows, fireball, lightning bolt, hold, and so on. Anything with a single target.

Why did we change this? Well, unlimited range makes for difficult area design. Plus, projectiles fired from too far away tend to ‘freeze in the air’ visually. At a certain number of ‘frozen projectiles’, people crash. Solid projectile behavior could only be guaranteed below range 40. Additionally, it’s proven very difficult for classic client users to even see targeted battlers more than 40 units away. Meanwhile, Ogre users click a name on a list and cast without even knowing exactly where their target is.

This change might be super unpopular. It’s hard to know. Please try it out and give feedback.

This does change balance a bit. If someone is very very far away, you’re not going to be able to reach them with attack spells, bow, hold etc.

Tos Streets is just over 40 units in range from duke’s to fams. If you stand at the north entrance from Duke’s, you’ll need to take some steps south to cast on someone standing at the fountain.

This will also help you avoid spells from monsters, such as Ma’Xeo’s hold or fireball / LB spam from red / sky xeos.

BLIND AND DAZZLE

  • Blind got a new noxious green ring visual projectile. Check it out!
  • Blind causes the victim to glow dimly green. The glow will stop the instant they are no longer blinded.
  • Dazzle got a new blazing star visual projectile. Don’t look too close!
  • Dazzle causes the victim to glow very brightly, lighting up the area.

Uses for this are, well, many and varied! From seeing your way in dark places to indicating your guildmates should target someone, check it out! The glow will stop the instant they are no longer dazzled.

These glows (including Hold) now also work on monsters, so you will be able to see when your hold scim’s proc wears off, for example.

Glow priority in descending order: Hold Blind Dazzle Other sources of light

That order is made with level of vulnerability in mind. You’d probably want your guildmates to most know an enemy is held, for example, to beat on the unlucky chump. Blind is important after that, then dazzle’s probably the least important pacification.

DEFLECT

  • Deflect got a visual effect. Try it out. Seriously, it’s hella cool. You will actually see projectiles bounce off a magic barrier!

NEW BARRIER ABILITY

  • Monsters got a new barrier ability. This bounces all projectile-based spells (not just attack spells, hold blind and dazzle too!).
  • The barrier radius for each monster is different. Xeos are range 3, dark angels range 6.
  • If you are casting from inside the barrier, the spell will NOT be deflected! The monster is vulnerable up close!

Fireball and Lightning mastery effects do not occur on a bounced or deflected spell. However, their mastery effects CAN hit shielded or deflected mobs. Specifically, fireballs on a nearby target can splash damage shielded battlers, and lightning bolts can chain to them without issue.

MONSTER CHANGES

  • Xeos of all types and sizes no longer ‘resist’ magic. Instead, they now reflect all projectile spells cast from beyond range 3.

This means you WILL be able to cast on them up close. But if you’re not inside their aura barrier, you will see a ‘bounce’ visual effect and the spell will reflect back at you! The spells bounced include anything with a projectile, such as Hold, Blast of Fire, Lightning Bolt, etc. Basically, if the spell shoots something visually, it’ll be reflected.

  • Dark Angels no longer ‘resist’ magic either. They reflect all projectile spells cast from beyond range 6.

This should make them less group-wipingly absurd.