Feldon What’s on Test this weekend? Here are just a few items:
- UI: The XP bar will now stay put between logins.
- UI: Designers of custom UIs can now set the XP bar to not “snap” to top/bottom.
- UI: The Character window has seen multiple improvements.
- UI: The Implied Target arrow now reflects the ‘con’ color of the enemy, and can have its opacity adjusted.
- Items: 2-handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased. Ranged weapons will also have a bit of a damage penalty in PvP to compensate.
- The Guardian class has had over 25 changes made.
- Resident’s of Omen’s Call (Fens of Nathsar) now have a World Travel Globe on their dock.
- Items: The Wicked Wand of Malice effect has been changed to on-equip.
- The Palace of Roehn-Theer zone-in bug has been fixed.
If you’re wondering about other announced changes which aren’t on Test yet, they will come later. For instance Ranged Flurry and Ranged AA Auto-Attack changes are still in the queue. Remember, Game Update 57b is still 4-7 weeks away.
If you haven’t tested out these changes yet on the Test server, check em out!
Complete update notes after the jump…
The complete Test Server Update Notes for August 25, 26, and 27th as posted by Bunji:
8/25 Notes:
USER INTERFACE
The XP bar will now stay put through relogging.WELCOME WINDOW
The item of the week will display the item of the week description rather than a copy of the message of the day.TRAVEL
The residents of Omen’s Call have added a travel globe to their dock.QUESTS
Adventurers looking to worship Anashti Sul and on the quest “Gathering Feathers” should now be able to locate the necessary scroll within Gorowyn’s Grand Atheneum.ITEMS
Troubadors who have completed the quest “An Ayonic Journey” can now read all of the pages within the book, “The Case of the Lost Lute.”
The wicked wand of malice has been altered. The effect attached to the wand is now an on equip effect. The 10% cast speed on hostile spells has been changed to a generic 10% cast speed mod attached to the item.POPULATION
Stonebrunt Highlands: NPC Combatants found outside of Quel’ule should no longer fly up into the sky.ASCENT OF THE AWAKENED
Drop rate of the “Ornate Winged Eye” has been increased and should now drop even if mobs are grey.THE VIGILANT: INFILTRATION
There should now be a new respawn area in the beginning section once the first two groups of Zeklings have been defeated, thus keeping the circle of death from occurring.PALACE OF ROEHN THEER
Zone-in should work correctly now.8/26 Notes:
USER INTERFACE
The Character window has undergone a few changes:
The Auto-Inventory area has returned.
The stats dropdownbox has been replaced with buttons
The main tabs were moved back to the top of the window, sub-tabs were moved to the bottom.
Your character’s name was moved to the titlebar.ITEMS
Roehn Theer: Godslayer Breastplate rewards have been made more in line with the challenge.
Fixed a rendering issue with Dendroxa the Envenomed.8/27 Notes (should be on Test around 7-8pm tonight):
USER INTERFACE
[FAN FAIRE FEEDBACK] The implied target arrow now displays the con color of the implied target.
You can now adjust the opacity of the implied target arrow independently from the main target arrow under Options -> User Interface -> Target ArrowQUESTS
Feral Citizenry: Ghoulish Nerians should no longer remain in an “unattackable” state after being exposed to the Strobe of Innoruuk.ITEMS
Stigmatic Frenzy now correctly triggers on the caster’s group.
Two handed Weapons and Ranged Weapons have had their damage ratings increased.
Master Yael’s weapons have had their damage ratings increased.PVP ITEMS
Ranged Weapon auto-attack damage has been slightly reduced in PVP Combat.ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Damage Reflection abilities can no longer do more than 300% of the max health of the caster before Crit Bonus and Potency.Brawlers
Bob and Weave and Inner Calm now give a small amount of physical mitigation.Guardian
“Got Your Back” is now raidwide and has a 50 meter radius.
“Cripple” is now a combat art that deals damage and reduces riposte damage of the target by 75%.
“Call of Shielding” now increases the maximum health of the raid as well as the defense skill.
“Guardian Sphere” now has a 0.5 second casting time. It lasts for 12-20 seconds (based on spell revision) and grants the guardian a 25% (at master) chance to absorb an attack (same as before) but no longer has max triggers of 6. The interpose effect has been changed to a stoneskin proc at 50% at master.
“Recapture” now reduces the hate position of the group members by 1 as well. The reuse is now 45 seconds.
“Iron Will” now reduces snare effects on the guardian as well as increases stamina. (36% at master at 90)
“Plant” now forces targets in Area of Effect to target the guardian and increases the guardian’s threat slightly. The duration has been slightly reduced.
“Enhance: Plant” now improves the duration by 0.4 seconds per point rather than 1.
“Double Attack” is now “Flurry” and grants 3% Flurry chance rather than 9% double attack.
“Bind Wound” now heals the warrior to full.
The “Crippling” line has been changed to the “Aggression” line:
“Enhance: Intercept” also reduces incoming damage to the target of Intercept.
“Enhance: Moderate” now increases the target’s crit bonus by 1% rather than reducing hate gain by 2%.
“Enhance: Rescue” has been moved to slot 4 in the new hate line (formally crippling.)
“Enhance: Reinforcement” has been moved to slot 5 in the new hate line.
“Enhance: Rescue” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call to Arms” which increases the skill bonuses by 7% per rank.
“Enhance: Reinforcement” in the original slot has been replaced with “Enhance: Call of Shielding” which increases the spell by 5% per rank.
“Enhance: Ruin” is now “Enhance: Provoke” and increases the threat amount by 7% per point.
“Enhance: Concussion” is now “Enhance: Shout” and increases the potency and reduces the resist chance of Shout.
“Enhance: Sever” is now “Enhance: Hatred” and increases the guardian’s threat generation by 2% per rank.
“Cripple” is now “Shoulder the Burdon” and transfers 10% threat from the target group member to the guardian.
“Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense” now trigger threat 100% of the time on a successful block.
“Aggressive Nature” now increases the threat amounts on “Hold the Line” and “Aggressive Defense.”Inquisitor
Chilling Invigoration is now correctly modified by the Inquisitor’s stances.UNDERFOOT DEPTHS
Mosaasus now has a smaller hitbox area.PERAH’CELSIS’ ABOMINABLE LABORATORY
Players now have more time to get to the platforms to prevent his adds from coming to life.
I don’t have much enthusiasm in SOE lately so i hope these guardian changes are “good” changes because the main tank in the raid force i’m in is a guardian and we have had enough trouble as it is. lol
These changes are going in the good direction for sure. Will it be enough for us to be on par with other tanks is another debate.
One change which is unclear is related to Hold The Line. By default, HTL will also proc on block now. But Aggressive Nature doesn’t seem to enhance proc chance to 100% but to only increase threat generated by 5%/rank (that’s what’s on test at the moment)
Will it be enough???
I don’t know what you guards are smoking. I really don’t. In a raid you have a dirge plus coercer plus assassin/swashy. A templar can hold hate with that.
As for survivability, you’ve always been tops. Now you they’re just handing you everything. Be happy, cause SOE is catering to YOU and you alone. Spoiled whiny brats.
I play a Guardian too, your lack of understanding doesn’t do you any favours 🙂
These buffs are nothing to do with allowing Guardians to be able to tank content, while its hard at times a well geared and played Guardian could do everything right now (+hate is trivial, my character is mostly legendary geared and already at +30% unbuffed).
Instead its about closing the gap between a Guardian and the other tanks who can do everything we can but much easier and better (more DPS, better at AOE etc), its pretty clear that this buff won’t do that alone as there isn’t much extra DPS added in to bring a Guardian up to the level of say a Shadowknight.
Personally I think they should have nerfed classes to balance it out as buffing just makes the game less challenging, but that’s just not a popular option, so we’ll get a serious increase in power instead.
There are also some changes there though that are more for utility, changing some useless abilities (raid only and even situational at that) so that they have some use in the group game.
I think Xegad’s approach of relatively small steps at a time is a good one though, so many times I’ve seen (in other games too) a class buffed up with the result of them becoming all powerful followed by a nerf back into uselessness!
Agreed, just goes to show bitching is the way to go. But hey crusaders and brawlers will still be needed for one or two encounters per zone due to scripts so thats something!
Some of the top guilds ww use guards already. Nothing was wrong with em. they are the defensive warrior, their dps was ment to blow from the get go.
The latest fix to +mitigation (I wondered why I was hitting the cap so easily!) looks like its fitting in well, it should restore some of the challenge to the non-raid game.
The guardian changes don’t add a lot of DPS, but they do add in better group utility (some of our endline abilities only had a use in raids).