The announced removal of Critical Mitigation will coincide with the conversion of Yellow and Red Crit Mit adornments into Health adornments. So why will the replacement adornments have less Health (less than 250 points each) than White health adornments? According to Omougi, it’s because the EQ2 team thinks we should have other viable choices, like DPS. Adornments should be about choice!

From Omougi on the EQ2 Forums:

Our goal with these adornment and spell conversions is to give you guys something in the place of nothing essentially. Before, you were playing a zero-sum game if you had enough crit mit. If you didn’t have enough crit mit, you couldn’t do the encounters — period. All these adornments and spells did is bring you up to a threshold. If you were past that threshold, it does nothing for you.

Now, [while] these adornments and spells actually do increase your survivability at all times – equating the amount of crit mit lost to an equivalent form of HP doesn’t really work out, because any amount of HP is infinitely better than a threshold stat with no use. If you were slotting your adornments for survivability before, you are still slotting them for survivability with HP – the only change is the adornments have been made more powerful in their actual effectiveness with crit mit out of the picture.

This change equates to a free survivability gain across the board, and we need to be very careful with numbers at first to ensure things do not get drastically easier. Changing the difficulty of content is not the goal here – changing the accessibility of content is.

A point which has been made by several raiders on the official forums as well as Flames is that the top end guilds already have more than enough Crit Mit on all their characters to meet the requirements of the zones they’re doing. These changes only affect up-and-coming guilds which are trying to do harder content, but can’t because they haven’t spent months farming obsolete gear whose only saving grace is Crit Mitt.

An oft-seen comment is “The EQ2 team will just replace needing 290 Crit Mit with needing 100k health to survive.” Omougi has a great response to this:

A few more HP is possibly the difference between an AE one-shotting and being survivable. We really don’t want guilds to “force” their members into slotting for survivability if they are trying to push progression. If the HP difference on the adornments was significantly higher, people would feel the need to stack up on HP adorns, similar to how they feel the need to stack up on crit mit adorns now.

We are trying to make customizing your gear with adornments a viable option while progressing through content. If we make an adornment choice too powerful, then there really isn’t much choice there…especially if what you are “forced” into adorning isn’t what your class is about. Many mages and scouts would really prefer to slot more adornments to increase their DPS, but they are forced into critmit adorns in order to not hinder their guild’s chance of progress. We really don’t want to replace crit mit adorns with hp adorns and have essentially the same problem.

and some great news about the relatively limited choice of adornments we have now:

Now, our available choices need some work, specifically with mage options. We are trying to alleviate the problem by allowing more adornments to go in more slots (critbonus, potency, etc), so that scouts do not get more benefit from this change than mages. Adding more adornment choices in the future is definitely something we want to do.

Just to clarify some confusion.

• Crit mit as a mechanic is being removed.
• NPC crit bonus was countered by crit mit and we are reducing crit bonus to 0 across the board.
• Critical avoidance is staying around. Critical avoidance is an NPCs way of contesting your chance to critically hit them.
• Replacing the adornments with HP is not to compensate for anything. Since the critical mitgiation stat is no longer useful we are converting to a stat that benefits all players.
• The goal is for this change to not change the difficulty of the encounters. This is why we ask that you all take some time to log on to test once we push it there. We plan on having this on test by the weekend.

Note: NPC crit bonus may be used in the future on a case by case bases and will be considered in the balance of the encounter so that crit mit is not required.

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to PM me.

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where some characters wouldn’t show on character select.

ZONE PROGRESSION / POPULATION

Tower of Frozen Shadow (Raid)

• Tserrina’s spell “Wing Buffet” should no longer cause priests to become knocked back.

• Adds spawned from shadow doors should no longer spawn quite as quickly.

• The number of adds that spawn from shadow doors has been slightly reduced.

Tower of Frozen Shadow: Umbral Halls

• Demanti Sheda should no longer have issues resetting his encounter.

• Demanti Sheda’s spell “Paralyzing Fear” should now stun instead of fearing and has been reduced in duration.

Elements of War [Challenge]

• Terrinon Bloodclaw now has less strikethrough ability.

Tower of Tactics

• Lady V’uul will no longer spawn archers once defeated.

Vallon’s Tower [Challenge]

• Ambassador Grindstone’s Council Judgment proc now only lasts half as long and is no longer a curse.

• During the Hand of Vallon/Golem fight the golems should no longer get out of color synch or double cast any spells.

• During the final Vallon Zek fight – Fighters no longer destroy domes if they enter with the wrong color.  Only non-fighters destroy domes in this way.  You have more time to react before the domes spawn to get out of the way, and after the domes spawn to get in the proper color dome.  Tactical Toll no longer snares players.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge]

• Tyrax Terrolus will no longer curse the main tank with Tyrax’s Edict.

Kael Drakkel contested

• Boss mobs will now cast curses less frequently.

Stonebrunt Highlands

• Ghazi the Conqueror should no longer retreat from battle with mercenaries.

DUNGEON MAKER

• All Dungeon Maker avatars should now be the same tier.

ITEMS

• The elemental disc mounts from the 8th year veteran rewards should now be able to be used by 85th level tradeskillers.

• Yellow adornments on the Ry’Gorr, Thurgadin, and Snowfang merchants should now offer options for beastlords.

• Fertilizer treasure should once again be able to be sold on the broker.

• The AOE radius on Tradeskill Apprentice priest 2hander procs has been reduced from 25m to 5m.

• Added beastlord items to loot tables for [Echoes of War].

• Increased crit chance on [Echoes of War] 2 handed weapons.

QUESTS

Beastlord Epic

• There are no longer two axiom within the Great Divide that share the same name.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Extra Dungeon Mark Days are here from 17 January until 30 January! Dungeon Maker dungeon players and creators will receive 25% MORE tokens during this time period. To create and see listings of available dungeons, select Dungeon Maker from your EQ2 Menu button in game. Visit the Dungeon Maker category in the Marketplace to spend your tokens on items to equip your play character, as well as items to enjoy and build more dungeons.  Prepare to get your dungeoneering on!

GENERAL

• Fixed a UI bug on the mini-map window.

• Fixed a bug where if you had a single target maintained spell on a group member and logged out that the spell would still be there when you logged back in.

• Fixed an issue that prevented respec cards from working with beastlords.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Elements of War

• Decorin Bonewing should now drop treasure each time he is killed in both the normal and the challenge versions.

Befallen: Halls of the Forsaken

• Sir Loros Highgarden should no longer cast his flawless charge relentlessly.

Tower of Tactics [Challenge]

• Ambassador Grindstone will not cast bullseye on anyone with Council Judgment, nor will he cast Council Judgment on any player who has Bullseye.

MERCENARIES

• Fixed a bug where maintained spells on mercenaries would drop when zoning.

• Fixed a display issue with mercenary salaries when mentored.

• Raid leaders with a mercenary should now be able to properly add/remove players from their raid groups.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

• Tradeskill Apprentice priest belts now have a proc.

• The additional heal amount provided by Tradeskill Apprentice priest food now affects wards as well as heals.

ITEMS

• Gnomish Safety Hat can now be equipped by beastlords.

QUESTS

The City of Freeport

• Maldreya Darkheart’s conversation with Xolantan should no longer give players an examine box instead of a dialog node on rare occasions.

• The quest description for “Qeynos Bounty: Yewon Martrcle” should reflect Yewon’s new location in the Gorowyn Chancery.

• It should no longer be possible to accidentally kill the conspiring citizens while working on the Freeport human racial quest, “Purification.”

• The corpses that show up before the sewer entrance for “To Make or Unmake” quest in West Freeport should now disappear once the quest is completed.

• The quest “On a Boat” should now award items appropriate for the level of the character that completes the quest. If you have already completed this quest the rewards should be available on the armor and weapon upgrade merchant within Freeport.

Moors of Ykesha

• The Quest “Swabber the Deck – Stock the Loft” will once again grant the Deckhand Labor Boots as a reward.

Great Divide

• For the quest “It’s a Trap!” you can now re-arm the traps for the eastern and western fronts in any order.

Antonica

• For the Shining Metallic Robes heritage quest line, the time breach portal and cog in Antonica should no longer be visible after the portal has been destroyed.

Betrayal

• The Old “Switcheroo,” Party Crasher, Extracting the Defector, and The Captain’s Ring betrayal quests should again update properly.

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug where you would have to recast buffs on group members every time you zone.

• Fixed random lighting bugs on characters and environments.

• Players will now receive achievement credit for earning hall of fame status if they are offline when awards are processed.

ACHIEVEMENTS

• Sense of Urgency: Debone Bonewing should correctly update when defeating the zone boss in under 30 minutes from zone in.

DUNGEON MAKER

• Dungeon Maker creatures will no longer temporarily reappear when defeated while under the effect of a tier-adjusting object.

• Dungeon Maker adventurers should now show up in the Marketplace preview tab.

• Fixed a UI bug with the Dungeon Maker create window.

BEASTLORDS

• Fixed an issue that allowed “a drakonine guardian” to be tameable.

MERCENARIES

• Ten new mercenaries can be found within the major cities of Norrath. This includes Freeport, Qeynos, Neriak, Gorowyn, New Halas, and Kelethin!

• Gaeri Tallspire (Warlock) and Firus Scorchtouch (Wizard) have returned to their normal hang out and can once again be hired! They have been rebalanced a bit to do less spike damage but in some cases might do more DPS on sustained battles! Gaeri is now more encounter based where as Firus is more single target based damage.

• Stamper (Inquisitor Merc) should no longer be invisible to players who have not hired him.

• Bdorn (Templar Merc) should no longer be invisible to players who have not hired him.

• All mercenaries should now have the correct amount of magical mitigation.

PVP GENERAL

• Beastlords should now be able to purchase gear from the Scions of War.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

• Tradeskill Apprentice food and drink no longer require reactants.

• Provisoners can now have their Tradeskill Apprentice research belt recipes.

• The recipes required for the daily Tradeskill Apprentice tasks no longer delete themselves from your recipe book.

• Tradeskill Apprentice scout bows should now use arrows as ammo.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Tower of Tactics [Challenge]

• Ambassador grindstones Geonid Warriors will not spawn as frequently, have less health, and have less members per wave.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge]

• During the Tallon Zek fight the sparkfiend will not cast sparked as often.  Combustible Combination Curse (caused by spark interaction with greater avazek Concussive Winds) now lasts 7 secs instead of 24 secs.

QUESTS

The City of Freeport

• Atraxus Bhotlis, the titular target of the quest “Qeynos Bounty: Atraxas Bhotlis,” has moved to the Seafarer’s Roost.

• Adrianna has now agreed to complete the “Descent into Madness” quest for those who have already finished “Searching the Sewers for the Strix.”

• For the quest “Killing All the Birds,” it should now be more obvious if you’re on the Strix cultists’ hit list.  (Check your buff window!)

• An appearance-only Cultist’s White Cowl is now a reward for completing “Killing All the Birds.”  If you’ve already completed the quest, you can purchase the cowl from Viducius Festus in the Harbor Exchange.

• For the quest “To Make or Unmake,” it’s no longer necessary to target Lerenth to use the clickable items on him.

ITEMS

• The Ancient Diakan Grindstone and Grim Ring of the Ruthless should once again be able to be used by both fighters and scouts.

• Beastlords can now wear Roger Goldie’s Straw Hat and the Unseen Hand rewards from the Dark Mail Gauntlets quest line.

• Priestly Wand of Focused Power should now have a red adornment slot.

• Wand of Crystallized Shadows should now have a red adornment slot.

Merry Frostfell, Norrath!

The team is about to fly off to their families, great food, and probably a hangover after the new year.

But before we go, we wanted to leave you all with a couple more updates (today and tomorrow) with some really good stuff in it.

Here’s the goodies, broken down by feature.

Dungeon Finder

• We are adding Contested Dungeons to the Dungeon Finder feature from levels 20 to 89. (Level 90 contested dungeons are *not* being added to DF because of itemization concerns.) You should see a lot more dungeons available to you now at the various levels of play.
• (The following update is occurring on Wednesday, 12/21) We’re increasing the rewards for using the Dungeon Finder system. We’re adding a daily quest you can get that pays out after you play with a Dungeon Finder group for 30 minutes or more. The mystery crates are the same type of crates offered as rewards in the Dungeon Maker marketplace category, so the rewards found there are great stuff!

Dungeon MAKER

• We are buffing the Adventurers in Dungeon Maker so they have more power. (They currently run out too quickly currently.) We have other new updates beyond this coming in the new year, but this immediate change helps make Dungeon Maker instances a lot more fun over the holidays.
• We’re adding more Effect Objects into the Dungeon Maker category in the marketplace. (Very useful things for builders that want their spawners to be more unique.)
• Many pure builders have asked for spawners, decorations, and maps to also be available for Station Cash, and not only for Dungeon Marks. So we’re adding “either or” prices to the Dungeon Maker category of items. You can purchase those types of items (spawners, decorations, and maps) for SC or for Dungeon Marks. NOTE: Power items, like the mystery crates and glass swords are *not* purchaseable with SC. You have to earn those items by collecting Dungeon Marks.
• You are now able to build and publish three dungeons instead of only one.
• And, of course, even though it’s currently only on the Test server, you will be able to play your own characters in Dungeon Maker instances soon. (You’ll no longer be constrained to Adventurers only!) (For more details on this, see http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/…topic_id=512106)

General Improvements

• In response to popular demand, we’re replacing the five-star rating system (for housing and dungeons) with a “Like” system instead. The ratings for each house will be converted from a star-rating to a percentage score based on how many players played your dungeon and “Liked” it. (Example: A 90% rating would indicated that 90% of the players that played your dungeon liked it.) You can choose to Like (or not) in each of the ratings categories for each dungeon/house.
• Additionally, to help players understand rankings categories a bit better, the categories in Dungeon Maker are being renamed “Action” and “Style”.
• The default leaderboard shown for dungeons is now “Highest Ranked (Style)”. We’re changing  this from “Recently Published” so that players that casually try the first dungeon on the list don’t get such a random result on their first experience into the feature.

And one final note: We have heard from several players that they don’t realize that the “Dungeon Maker” category in the marketplace can be used to purchase rewards for ANY of your current characters. It’s unfortunate, but true, that some players thought the DM rewards were only to buff up their Adventurers instead of their actual characters. This is not the case. Those items are for your real characters. So…enjoy!

We here on the EQII dev team hope you all enjoy your holidays, have a very happy New Year, and we’re looking forward to returning so we can keep working on the best MMO on the planet.

See ya then!

– Dave “Smokejumper” Georgeson.

Throwing Weapons

Cyliena took the lead on some random changes with Game Update 62 affecting a variety of thrown weapons (sheaths, pouches, bandoliers, and satchels) which use throwing daggers, shuriken, and other such ammo. Some items were flagged Beastlord-only, some flagged anything-but-Beastlord, and yet others flagged Fighter, Priest, and no Scouts at all.

After some communications with Rothgar and Silius, this is going to be ironed out in the next update:

Just a heads up I that I have fixed the thrown items. Should be live with the next hotfix. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Beastlords and War Runes

Currently all War Runes that are Scout-flagged do not include Beastlords. From Silius:

Just looked at this and it looks like it did not make it live. Should be in in the next hotfix. Sorry for the wait all.

Beastlord Quests — Deliver us from Eeeeeeevilll

A series of quests exist for Beastlords at levels 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, and 80. Alas, these quests are all flagged Evil-only, and we will see a fix for these either tomorrow or possibly next Tuesday. Since most of the Beastlords on Beta were also evil (in order to test out the revamped Freeport) it’s not surprising this was missed. Cronyn has been very apologetic:

I’m very sorry to you all. I fixed the reported problem [the level 30 quest], and then went on to other projects, when I should have verified the whole line was working. I was just pleased that Shalih Mar and I had come to an agreement, but I should have ensured her friends were on the same page.

The fixes are in, and I’m double checking them all to make sure they are working. I’m sorry again, all. It’s my mistake, but I’ll go through and fix it. It’s up to me to verify these things work all the way through.

and:

I just ran through everything myself to try and break it, and it seems like it’s solid now. I’ll probably do it another time or two tonight just to try to catch anything that might have slipped. Again, I’m sorry to the good guys – hopefully you guys are all fixed up come the next patch.

One More Update

Apparently we can expect another bug stomping update in the next week or two according to SmokeJumper’s twitter:

Planning one last update before the holiday break. Details soon!

GENERAL

• Fixed a bug with the 48 hour grace period for trade for some no-trade and heirloom items.

• Magic Carpet guild hall amenity now has Fens of Nathsar as a destination.

• Fixed a bug where loading a profile from your Mirror of Reflected Achievements would reset your AAs instead of loading the profile.

DUNGEON MAKER

• Item rewards from Dungeon Maker should no longer be able to be transmuted or sacrificed.

• Dungeon Maker rewards should now be flagged as heirloom.

• Fabled Dungeon Maker rewards should no longer have red adornment slots.

• Ammo (Arrows) are now available in bundles of 50 arrows for 20 dungeon marks.

REFORGING

• Health and Power adjustments will now properly persist through zoning.

BEASTLORDS

• Leopards should no longer be flagged as dire creatures.  Happy taming, beastlords.  Nyan!

• Fixed a bug where renaming your warder, to a name that the warder did not like, could result in that warder turning off protect self and protect owner.

MERCENARIES

• Mercenary Bdorn Alehammer will typically heal players before he cures any detrimentals on them, if anyone in the group has fallen below 50% health.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Tallon’s Stronghold x4 raid [Challenge Mode]

• Mystikus terrorwing casts Call of the Sky once per 25 secs instead of once per 15 secs.  The spell has a shorter duration now.

Tower of Tactics x4 raid both [Challenge and Normal]

• Ambassador Grindstone no longer drains as much mana during the fight.

• Gindan Commander Angler’s adds now spawn less frequently.

Condemned Catacomb

• You will now find a more convenient revive and evac point inside the Condemned Catacomb.

Shard of Love: Moment of Valor

• The fresh pomegranate and fermented pomegranate now have a minimum harvesting skill of 300.

South Qeynos

• All prestige housing portals are now consolidated into a single multi-housing access in South Qeynos.

ABILITIES

Ranger

• Snaring Shot should once again toggle ranged auto attack instead of melee auto attack.

ITEMS

• Many items which had lost being able to be used by fighters should once again be usable by fighters. Please continue to report any other items that may have been affected by this through /bug or /feedback.

• The Fang of Ichor should no longer be able to be used by beastlords.

• The Hand of Serenity should no longer be able to be used by beastlords.

• Achievement reward appearance armor should now be able to be used by beastlords.

LIVE EVENTS

Frostfell

• Saving Frostfell: The entrance to McScroogle Corp. Headquarters in Steamfont Mountains is now marked on the map.

• A Frostfell Favor: The possessed McScroogle now gets 6 small bags in his inventory (along with the package and turkey).  This enables you to access his inventory by simply opening bags.

• Gigglegibber Melodies: Playing the pots with the spoon no longer has a casting time.

QUESTS

General

• Freebloods can now speak to “a stranger” for the quest, “The Secret of the Stone.”

• Shalih Mar should now stop playing favorites, and should offer her quest to every beastlord.  The Truespirit were very displeased.

Darklight Wood

• The respawn time on necromancer Kronryn N’Xytyl in Darklight Wood has been lowered.

Butcherblock

• Respawn times on multiple named quest targets in Butcherblock Mountains have been lowered.

Lavastorm

• Fixed a bug with the “A Cleansing This Temple Needs…” quest.

The City of Freeport

• The quest “The Triumph of Fear” should update properly now.

• Freeport Citizenship: Ambassador Zrelach’s new location at the Gorowyn Chancery in Freeport is now marked on the map.

• Maldreya Darkheart will now reset properly for the quest A Dismal Discovery.

• The ending of Scale Break should now update properly in non-english versions of EverQuest II.

• Scale Break should now update properly if a pet or mercenary strikes the “killing” blow on Captain Xalkastiz.

• First Time Buyer will now update off of the small rooms in the Jade Tiger Inn.

GENERAL

• Characters created before 12/6/2011 no longer have class or race pack restrictions.  Characters created after that date are still subject to your current membership restrictions, if applicable.

• Fixed a crash that could be caused by doing a raid with a large number of mercenaries.

• Fixed a bug that was preventing mentoring on PvP servers.

• Dungeon maker items in the marketplace that contain house items will now display previews in the paperdoll window.

• Fixed issues with Shader 3.0 causing client crashes.

The complete Update Notes after the jump…

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

• Tradeskill Apprentices should now offer their daily quests more reliably.

• Tradeskill Apprentices should now be coachable once per day.

ABILITIES

• Fixed a bug where the availability of character traits was not updating until you zoned or leveled again.

Warlock

• Absolution should no longer have such a fast cast time and reuse.

ITEMS

• Nizaran Assassin Armor should now be usable by beastlords.

• The Jagged Scale charm should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.

• The Darkened Caertaxian Blood Ruby charm should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.

• Grim Belt of the Ruthless should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.

• Grim Chain of the Ruthless should now be usable by all fighters and scouts.

• Brute’s Prodigious Hand Wraps should now have the haste effect added to them.

• The Guise of the Deceiver is now usable by all classes.

• Gleaming Mallet of the Grandmaster should now be usable by all fighters and beastlords.

QUESTS

The City of Freeport

• The trolls have dropped more copies of the Words of Zxrath for the quest “Follow the Leader”.  They got a good deal with the local scribe.

• Rusty Cogsprocket in Freeport should no longer disappear after first speaking to him while on the quest “Nobody Expects It”.

BATTLEGROUNDS

• Fixed a client crash related to dying in battlegrounds.

Age of Discovery is the eighth expansion of the groundbreaking EverQuest II franchise.

Age of Discovery offers never-seen-before features including user-generated content and the re-imagining of the Beastlord class from the original EverQuest release.  You can make your mark in-game by creating your very own Dungeon, hire some much needed help for your heroic battles, push tradeskilling research to new heights, customize your weapons at the forge, and of course, play as a Beastlord. There’s a lot to like about this expansion!

DUNGEON MAKER

Ever wanted to build your own dungeon? Now you can with the Dungeon Maker system! Locate and collect a variety of floor layouts and styles, decorate your dungeon, select monsters to fill it, and battle through the content you designed to win new rewards!

Ever want access to tons of new content to play so that you rarely need to repeat the same experience? Play as an Adventurer in Dungeon Maker and win xp and awards for your characters!

To start creating a dungeon, click on the ‘Dungeons’ tab on the ‘Character’ sheet (default hotkey ‘c’).  Here you can ‘Create’ a new dungeon from a selection of layouts, ‘Edit’ any dungeons you have created, or ‘Delete’ any dungeons you no longer need. (This Create screen can also be accessed by clicking the ‘Create’ button on the Dungeon Maker leaderboard screen.)

To view and play through any published dungeon, click on the ‘Dungeon Maker’ button found on the ‘EQII’ menu.  Here you will see a list of all currently published dungeons.  Choose any and click on ‘Enter’ to start your play through!

BEASTLORDS

At last, the Beastlord class returns to Norrath.  Seek out new animals throughout the world to train as your warder pet.  Work with your warder to build up your strengths and exploit your enemies’ weaknesses.  Build up Savagery with your Warder to trigger powerful Primal attacks! In the Age of Discovery, Beastlords walk the lands of Norrath once again!

To create a new Beastlord character, look under ‘Scouts’ during character creation.

FREEPORT REBORN

The return of Lucan D’Lere to Freeport has given the city new life and purpose. With his iron hand once again on the throne, the citizens of Freeport have been commanded, coerced and dragooned into overhauling the city’s appearance and reorganized to be more efficient and responsive to Lucan’s will. Of course, this is still Freeport, so dissention is always brewing just under the surface, but Lucan’s firm grasp on command keeps most people tentative about their resistance currently.

Storyline Quests

• Players can speak to Serris in the Freeport Militia House to begin doing work for Freeport.
• Players can speak to The Forgotten to continue doing work for Freeport once they are level 40 and have completed the level 20 storyline quests.

Racial Quests

• Sarnak players may wish to visit the Gorowyn Chancery and speak to Ambassador Erazak.
• Half Elves should seek out Thavian Destrus on the docks near Seafarer’s Roost.
• Gnomes should seek out Professor Flimflam located at Inventor’s Outlook.
• Dark Elves should seek out Dyymona K’Vexx located inside The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Erudites should seek out Azreana located inside The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Ogres should seek out Kroota Gukbutcher located in the Dreadnaught’s Plaza.
• Arasai players should visit their new embassy and speak with Ambassador Anttel V’Xeath.
• Freeblood players should seek out Glaria in the Jade Tiger Inn.
• Human players should seek out Derald Walldons on the Overlord’s Perch.
• Iksar players should seek out Zulk Veskk just outside the doors to the Scale Yard.
• Kerra players should seek out Caltuur, just outside the Freeport Block and Tackle.
• Ratonga players should seek out Sneel Valiyn near The Academy of Arcane Science.
• Troll players should seek out Nelik Ulnya on the docks outside of the Freeport Block and Tackle.

Class Quests

• Mages will find quests being offered by Librarian Motius Feldarn at the Academy of Arcane Science at level 20+, and then Foci Tamara Paust at the Academy of Arcane Science at levels 40+, 60+ & 80+.
• Fighters will find quests being offered by Corporal Sergius Mordanticus at the Freeport Militia House at level 20+, and then Grand Duke Lazarus Hazran at the Freeport Militia House at levels 40+, 60+ & 80+.
• Scouts will find quests being offered beginning at level 20+, by seeking out Galla Silverwing, Quartermaster Baile, and Vali’il near the docks of Freeport.  Scouts at level 40+ can then find work with Privateer Twitchwisker, and finally with Captain Siren at levels 60+ and 80+.
• Priests will find quests at level 20+ by seeking out Administrator Frugi, Kenth Lanringe, and Belimee Viperwing at the Temple of War.  Priests at level 40+ can find work with Gisuka Voll, then with Grand Inquisitor Nethal L’tylex at level 60+, then finally with Gisuka Voll once again at 80+.

MERCENARIES

As you travel the lands of Norrath, keep your eyes open for mercenaries who may be for hire. Is your group short-handed? Now you can hire a brave companion to fight by your side, filling a spot in your group or assisting you in a duo. Coin talks, and the mercenaries of the shattered lands are eager to listen. Be sure to watch out for rare mercenaries who may not normally be available, but who will serve you well and faithfully for a limited time.

REFORGING

Ever obtained an item that’s just not quite what you wanted?  Using the reforging system, you will be able to reconfigure your items to change their stats and even add particle effects!

Reforging specialists have appeared in Freeport and Qeynos (look for the tag)!

• These specialists will allow you to tweak stats on your Legendary, Fabled, and Mythical equipment via a new “Reforge” window.
• You can revert the reforging process via the “Restore” tab at any specialist.
• These specialists will also allow you to attach a Decoration to your weapon.

Decorations add particle effects to your weapon.

Decorations are available via various means throughout Norrath.

There are several tiers of decorations.

• The higher the tier, the more elaborate the effect.
• The first tier is available for purchase from Reforging specialists

To add a decoration to your weapon, drag and drop your decoration into the decoration slot in the “Reforge” window.

• Reforging stats and adding a decoration to a weapon must be done at the same time.
• You can revert the reforging process via the “Restore” tab at any specialist.

TRADESKILL APPRENTICES

Claim your tradeskill apprentice and gain your very own minion!  Put your apprentice to work researching new recipes for extremely powerful items specific to your tradeskill class. Coach your apprentice to make his or her research more efficient; gain XP and rewards as well as recipes as your apprentice gains in skill.

• Tradeskill Apprentices can be found at the major crafting hubs in Freeport and Qeynos.
• You must be a level 10+ tradeskiller to mentor a Tradeskill Apprentice.
• In exchange for a roof over their heads and tutelage, Tradeskill Apprentices will research recipes to share with you.

This research takes a good amount of time, so choose your desired recipe research wisely.

Up to 100 new recipes for each Tradeskill Class, spanning from level 10 to 90.

These recipes produce powerful items, all of them with unique effects, and many with unique appearances!

Additionally, 10 unique Reforging decoration recipes are available for research.

You can mentor your Tradeskill Apprentice once per day to speed up their current research task.

• You can also help your apprentice via a daily quest.  This will further speed up their research.You can customize the uniform and name of your Tradeskill Apprentice.

COMMONLANDS PUBLIC QUEST

The Dismal Rage seek the aid of brave adventurers as they battle the rising undead in The Commonlands (find them near the entrance to the Graveyard).

GENERAL

• On some machines when turning Multi Sample Anti Aliasing to anything other than “None” the UI would disappear until the game is restarted. This should be fixed now.
• New characters will no longer have racial abilities automatically populated in their hotbars.
• Fixed a bug with flying mounts and the cannon in Moors of Ykesha.

HOUSE RATING SYSTEM

• Trial accounts can no longer vote for houses in the leaderboard system.

POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION

Den of the Devourer

• Fixed an issue that prevented the hatchlings from attacking in the Den of the Devourer.

Kael Drakkel

• Sorleyt Taskill will hand out Kael Drakkel missions more reliably.

All Drunder x4 raid zones [Challenge Mode]

• All basepop mobs have lower max health.  Boss mobs in challenge mode drunder zones (Sullon, Tallon, Vallon x4 raid zones) do less spell and melee damage.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge and Normal Mode]

• In the General Zevitus fight Combat Madness is now cureable as a curse.  If you cure it it does not go away, but simply jumps to a new player immediately rather than when it would expire normally.

Tallon’s Stronghold [Challenge mode]

• During the Lieutenant Klaatuus fight the aviak trooper adds spawn less often, and Klaatuus will no longer memwipe to players holding or near the totem.

Vallon’s Tower [Challenge Mode]

• During the Gindan Commander Angler fight the Diaku Deceptors spawn less often.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• Players with the Age of Discovery expansion can now earn up to 320 Alternate Advancement points.
• Characters hitting level 10 will automatically be granted 5 Alternate Advancement points. Characters above level 10 logging in for the first time will gain a small amount of Alternate Advancement experience.
• Fixed a bug where spell double attack chance was no respecting values less than 1 but greater than 0.
• Altered the description text on spells that give or take away potency and pvp potency to have a more uniform description.
• You can now buy Singular Focus from your class trainer NPC.  This ability allows you to turn off AE autoattack from melee, ranged and spell weapons.

Coercer

• Medusa Gaze now can complete Arcane Storm.

TRADESKILLS

• Altered the description of the tradeskill AA “Conservation of Mass” to give more information including proc rate and effects.
• The proc rate of the tradeskill AA “Conservation of Mass” now increases as you increase rank.
• The proc “Conservation of Mass” will now only proc when you complete crafting a pristine item, and not while crafting the item.
• Repair Materials and Pristine Repair Materials are now flagged heirloom.

ITEMS

• Many items that were designed to be sold to a vendor can no longer be listed on the broker.  Items like these that already exist on the broker have been taken down and cannot be relisted.
• Petamorph Wands are now toggleable.
• The Station Marketplace casino games can now be played. The result of the spin/roll will be random and all players will see the same result.
• Brute’s Unyielding Hand Wraps, Cenobite’s Unyielding Hand Wraps and Cenobite’s Prodigious Hand Wraps have had haste added to them.
• Fixed a bug where a few items would not properly auto equip when there was already an item in that slot.
• Fighter helms that drop from the Tower of Vuul should now have critical bonus applied to them.

QUESTS

Signature

• The Stormhammer signature quest now spawns Xicotl at the appropriate level for the quest.

Timorous Deep

• Primary Sha’Ki is now more willing to give out The Chain of Command after players have completed work for Ku’Uul.

Chardok

• The Encyclopedias of Mutigenica will no longer tell the whole zone you already have the book.

BATTLEGROUNDS

• Fixed a bug where elemental blast would not work on some NPCs.