Feldon From the EQ2 Forums:
GENERAL
- Fixed a client crash that could happen when trying to examine an item in certain situations.
- Skyshrine: the Claws of Veeshan faction will now be in the Destiny of Velious category along with all other DoV factions.
POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
Skyshrine : The Forbidden City of Dracur
- A Pennant of Skyshrine Loyalty can now be purchased from the Skyshrine City faction merchant once you have earned enough faction with the Claws of Veeshan. This pennant will allow you to return to Skyshrine from any house or guildhall.
- Editor’s Note: This item requires +10,000 Claws of Veeshan faction and 100 plat.
Dracur Prime [Challenge]
- Nenlarn the Ebon Claw’s adds will now come less often.
- Hammilkor Barka the Undaunted’s reaping whirlwinds cast Vitiating Zephyr much less often.
Lyceum of the Recondite [Challenge]
- Termagore the Butcher summons amorphous sludgers less often.
Skyshrine: the Underdepths
- Sevalor and Putretor will no longer be stuck invulnerable if one should die before the other.
Skyshrine: the Underdepths [Challenge]
- Dagarn the Destroyer now casts Fiery Feedback 50% less often.
Dracur Prime: Sevalak Awakened
- The static elementals that Sevalak spawns will now appear as a single group of 6 rather than 2 groups of 3.
- Sevelak of Storms will now drop his proper loot.
Covenant District [Challenge]
- Commander Mirrakar the Soul Merchant will now spawn when the four previous bosses are slain.
Plane of War
- All bosses now drop raid shards.
ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
Coercer
- Force of Intellect now properly modifies only reactive heals and not death prevents.
QUESTS
Guide Quests
- Players who have completed the guide quest “Techgnical Difficulties” should now be able to pick up a copy of the journal from Shady Swashbuckler in Netuklos Forest. Players who get the quest in the future should get the book as a reward.
ITEMS
- Weapons awarded through the quest “Slaying of Sevalak” have been increased in quality to better reflect the challenge.
- Hammer of the Dragonkin Generals is now Dagger of the Dragonkin Generals.
What a relief.
In other news, Skyshrine HM raid content drops EM gear. Srsly?
10k faction… Safe…
50k was too high, 10k is a bit too low…20k would have been fine but hey it’s still better than nothing…
Now they should have raid shard dropping from skyshrine raid even if i’m against it as PoW stuff are still better than Skyshrine HM raid aren’t they ?
As convenient as blue shards dropping from skyshrine would be, leaving it as is at least gives a reason to do old content, and people always complain how new updates/expansions completely nullify previous content, leaving it to collect dust.
Melpheos – Yes, PoW is the best loot in game, which is just fine because the difficulty is astronomical compared to skyshrine.
Only wish is for more content, I love this new system, it involves exponentially more people than previous expansions.
wheres the merchant at ?
and of course they dont fix the damn focus for the sashbucklers chrono boots
actually overall swashy focus on boots
The Skyshrine faction merchant is in the Covenant District of the old city of Skyshrine, you can get there any time once you have completed all of the access quests. He is up in the market area and is known as Claws of Veeshan Armor Merchant, or something to that extent. Not sure the exact name of the mob though.
The guards in Skyshrine will point you to the merchant if you ask them for “merchant” or “vendor” or “faction”, something like that, forget the exact phrase that pays. At least one of those works and will lead you right to him. But you have to be in the old city, the one in the past. The one where you are a droag.
Although I got shouted down for saying so, I still believe this:
Destiny of Velious was the first expansion that TOTALLY invalidated all the current-tier content that came before it. And GU63 TOTALLY invalidates Destiny of Velious.
In contrast, Echoes of Faydwer built upon Kingdom of Sky without completely invalidating it or eliminating any reason to run it. The same with The Shadow Odyssey and Kunark. People still ran Kunark dungeons for a long time after TSO came out, and not just for Epic updates.
The day Velious came out, Sentinel’s Fate dungeons were a ghost town.
Also let’s talk about gear inflation. In 10 levels, my DPS has increased by a factor of 100:1.
IIRC, there were no level cap increase in Echoes of Faydwer and The Shadow Odyssey hence why they did not invalidate previous expansions.
All other expansions changed the level cap and hence they invalidated the previous ones.
Desert of Flames – Level cap increased to 60, previous content invalidated.
Kingdom of Sky – Level cap increased to 70, previous content invalidated.
Echoes of Faydwer – No level cap increase, previous content not invalidated.
Rise of Kunark – Level cap increased to 80, previous content invalidated.
The Shadow Odyssey – No level cap increase, previous content not invalidated.
Sentinel’s Fate – Level cap increased to 90, previous content invalidated.
Destiny of Velious Part 1 – No level cap increase, previous content not invalidated immediately!
Destiny of Velious Part 2 – Level cap increased to 92, previous content invalidated.
I don’t personally see anything wrong with invalidating previous expansion. I am pretty sick and tired of DoV pat 1 zones after doing them for nearly a year and I don’t want to go back there if I can help it!
Yeah I dont really get that either…. I prefer new stuff and new gear… gives me a reason to play and not just plat farm all day.
At least your boots have a focus, the summoner boots from pow don’t have a focus and are therefore useable by anyone.
DoV Part 1 did invalidate Easy Mode SF gear at first, but when they revamped it was much better. Skyshrine is a game changer of a GU.
DoV1 completely invalidated SF. The reason you are tired of DoV1 is because it was the worst expansion the game has seen (I don’t count AoD). DoV1 was simply not fun compared to every other expansion that’s come out, I quit the game after DoV1 came out, played rift for 6 months then came back. SS is at least fun, but that could just be because I’m comparing it to DoV1 which I truly hated.
I agree with Drona. I like having the new content and new gear. That shouldn’t mean that the old content isn’t used anymore. I have two alts and I want to play my way to 92 on them. However, nobody else uses the old content anymore. Those two alts can’t group with anyone and must solo or power level to 92. I just want to play them the way I played my first char, solo/group content.
CoV faction merchant is named Quartermaster Zrek , found at loc +50, -1, -294 in the market bazaar of the Covenant District of Skyshrine: The Forbidden City.
Unless you were in the best SF raid gear when DoV launched, you struggled in EM DoV content. People who swapped out fabled gear for Rygorr crafted fared much, much better. Even people who just raided with PQ gear were doing better. Not sure what experience Drona had, but that’s what I remember.
Now we have a level cap increase, and even though I’m ok with it invalidating DoV’s gear for the most part, I’m kinda miffed that they claimed some of the gear would still be usable when it’s clear that wasn’t true.
The thing that upsets me the most is that we are required to do DoV1 content still if we want to keep our DoV2 gear optimal. While we could use SF adorns as a temporary thing until we had the shards for DoV adorns, we don’t have that option at all now. We do old content for adorns, or we don’t adorn – which isn’t really an option. SOE can’t have it both ways. If they want to invalidate all old content, then invalidate it, and make sure that everything is updated with it. Don’t invalidate gear from zones, but make us run them anyway just so we can keep our gear the best.
Despite my bitching, I am actually enjoying skyshrine. I just hate these half-assed measures that SOE constantly throws out. And for god’s sake, STOP ANNOUNCING WHEN A PATCH WILL BE RELEASED BEFORE THE PATCH IS ON TEST!
I totally agree with Feldon. Though Skyshrine seems to be quite well done, it is still only 4 instances with varying tiers (solo, heroic, challenge heroic, raid) and a contested zone that’s basically the same as the instances. The gear has made all previous DoV dungeons pointless as a form of advancement, and only relevant for obtaining shards. Sure, people may be having fun now, but in a couple months there will be a LOT of bored folks in EQ2-land.
I am bored with it now, and don’t even have my drake mount quest line completely done. The only exciting thing about the SS zones is the gear drops, which do include mythicals — ! — but the lack of any kind of varied areas or mobs really is so uninteresting. However, if you want to group, pretty much that’s it for now. No other place to get gear drops that matter, as Feldon said.
And whoever said it was easy to get to 92, I beg to differ, it’s a rather long grind. The only person I know that got there quickly had a 300% exp bonus.
Oh yes, and that final encounter in UD where you turn into a robot — I am not truly a fan. Perhaps some people find that a clever twist?
You still have to earn 50,000K faction with Claws to get flag….your toon starts at -40,000 and has to get to +10,000
Took me 90 minutes to grind to 92. Used my veteran vitality booster, and a 110% xp pot. Solo, and mentored to 80, just pounded mobs in the basement of sebilis till i got my levels. So if your willing to grind, then getting to 92 really is a cake walk.
SS GU is the best thing SOE has done in a long time, quik fast and productive everytime i log in. no sitting around waiting for groups and running through massive zones just for a single quest update.everything in here overlaps so you don’t have dry areas where you can’t get help doing quests….people will help you on your quests in here just for the faction grind, another great thing i see is the drops are worth getting even if you mute, alt greed, or burn on the diety for faction there. cost of adornments has gone up a little but who needs red adornment slots when the gear has the focus built in on them. i have 3 fabled heroic pieces that have the same focus as the adorns i was useing but now i have extra adorn slots for stats.