Feldon
I’m sure a lot of you are wondering. Where’s the good stuff? Where’s the shard gear? Where’s the raid gear? Where’s the Battlegrounds gear? Where’s the detailed analysis of class changes, the new AAs, racial traits, etc.? The meat and potatoes of groupers and raiders that my readers have come to expect from EQ2Wire? Frankly, I’d like to know too. 🙂 However even at this late date, all of these items are in such a state of flux on Beta, that it seems to document ANYTHING at this point would be foolhardy. Beta veterans assure me that there’s plenty...
Itemization
Mythicals present a significant challenge to EQ2 developers trying to create desirable weapons for players at level 90. Some of the Mythical effects are uniquely powerful and no player would even consider replacing them without getting the same effect with another weapon. For this reason, it was announced at Fan Faire that mythicals would become either an equippable charm, or a clickable item. Already, in Beta, players have discovered that, when equipped, Mythicals would not modify level 81-90 spells (eg. Chimes of Blades III, etc.). The Truth Comes Out Frizznik has posted in the Beta forums that owners of...
From EQ2Players: Raiding is an important part of gameplay for many and is a part of every MMO. Roger “Patherpanchali” Uzun designs the raids for EQII and Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert often works with him on these. Timetravelling was kind enough to sit down and give us an overview of the new raids coming with Sentinel’s Fate. We have three x4 raid instances launching with: Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4) Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4) The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4) For x4 content players will discover the Lair of the Dragon Queen first, then Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory,...
The Adornments system in EQ2 has always been pretty confusing. And so far, there just have not been a lot of options for certain classes in certain slots for adornments. Each of the 9 tradeskill classes and the 2 secondary tradeskill classes have each made a handful of adornments. necessitating adornment websites to keep it all straight. We are thrilled to see that the Kanga will be updating her fantastic EQ2 Adornments site for Game Update 55. With Game Update 55, adornments have been rebuilt from the ground up. In fact some prized adornments (Parry) can no longer be...
Consolidating Stats Sentinel’s Fate consolidates many separate stats in an effort to simplify itemization. Developers have been hounded on the EQ2 forums for “ignoring” healers, hybrid classes which need both spell and melee abilities, etc. in designing gear. Stat Consolidation is a huge step in making a smaller set of gear usable by a larger player population. Here is the list of changes: Crit = Damage Spell Crit, Melee Crit, Range Crit, Heal Crit Crit Bonus = Spell Crit Bonus, Melee Crit Bonus, Range Crit Bonus Double Attack = Double Attack, Ranged Double Attack Potency = Base Spell Damage,...
Everything you know about the main Character Stats is about to change. For the past 5 years, in addition to the primary stats that each class uses: Predators have focused on STR to do melee and ranged damage and INT to increase poison damage. Druids have focused on STR to do more melee damage. Crusaders have focused on INT for spell damage and WIS for healing. These are just the most obvious examples, but all 24 classes had some unique benefits from the different Stats. Starting with Sentinel’s Fate, each class now benefits significantly from just ONE statistic, even...
From Fyreflyte on the EQ2 Forums: Post expansion-launch, the useable effect on Najena’s Ring of Readiness will give a flat +2000 spelldamage buff. The cooldown and duration will remain the same. I realize this effect has been available to you for over a year now, but due to the way it scales, it can not be left in game as-is. Without a rating system to curb its effects, the item would have only become more powerful with each expansion, crippling our ring itemization for sorcerers. I understand this will be an upsetting change for those that spent countless hours...
When Commission crafting was altered in March 2009 to prevent crafters from using their own Void Shards and other NO TRADE/HEIRLOOM materials for other players, it closed the book for several crafters on this highly profitable market. However it was quickly discovered that a crafter could still use their own shards if the customer had at least the requisite number of shards in their own inventory to make the item. This was accomplished by swapping out ingredients in the Commission Materials window. Today’s Hotfix marks the closure of this exploit: Patch Notes January / 26 / 2010 GENERAL You...
Plane of War – Page 1 Essences { an essence of war an axiom of war an artisan of war } drops: secondaries Warboars { a Warhide battlecharger a Warhide guardbreaker } drops: forearms Diakus { a Diaku warfury a Diaku doomcrusher a Diaku battlebrute } drops: boots Morlocks { a Morlock afflictor a Morlock thrasher } drops: charms, wrists Aviaks { a Hendin wardiver a Hendin battleclaw a Hendin brawlwing } drops: gloves war wraiths { a Decorin warscourge a Decorin deathmonger } drops: helms The Enraged War Boar drops: ranged, belts Berik Bloodfist drops: legs, secondaries Tagrin...
A new Achievement has been added for Raiders who are able to clear the original Shadow Odyssey raid mobs without dying (earning a Flawless Victory at least once on each mob). These are some pretty amazing awards, commensurate with the effort required to get them. \aITEM 92894355 -1176837326:[Flawless Charm of Combat]\/a \aITEM -625928716 1415794346:[Flawless Symbol of Stealth]\/a \aITEM 1132459187 -1244409981:[Flawless Gem of Healing]\/a \aITEM 1381090014 420207800:[Flawless Stone of Destruction]\/a
EQ2Wire is back in town and brings you some Hotfix notes. October 28 Hotfix ACHIEVEMENTS New Achievements have been added! Test your skill with three new types of Achievements: Flawless Victory, Sense of Urgency and Shorthanded Victory achievements have been added to Rise of Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey zones. ITEMS Equipment with pet buffs should no longer experience stacking issues which cause the cancellation of multiple pet buffs when removing a single piece of armor. Jewelry items purchased from Lavastorm and the Moors of Ykesha are now heirloom attuneable. Jewelry items acquired with Void Shards is now Heirloom....
Here are your Hotfix Notes for October 21, 2009: GENERAL Nu’roga now has plunderable loot! Malicious Thoughts and Icicle Explosion now trigger on ranged and melee attacks. Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now correctly modify each other’s damage. Purifying Persistence should properly modify the caster’s heals rather than the targets. LoN The Cloak of Crystal Shards, Assassin Master’s Cloak and Cloak of Runes returned from Collector Rattelis are now Heirloom. ITEMS Icy Prison now has 3 shield effectiveness to match its deflection chance. Charm of Solusek Ro once again triggers multiple times on AE casts, however its effect is now...
One of the exciting aspects of the 2009 Nights of the Dead live event is the contested x2 Headless Horseman Knight. No less exciting (and surprising) than the loot that drops from said encounter: Hallows Gallows Bloodthirsty Choker 2.0? \aITEM 430679940 306448646:Hallow’s Gallows\/a Soulleach \aITEM -1026839664 -1911359172:[Soulleach]\/a Secret Sash \aITEM 71107619 -1772367845:[Secret Sash]\/a Brainless Belt \aITEM 1534172351 1374785267:[Brainless Belt]\/a and of course these humorous items: an oddly empty crate \aITEM -1414756000 -2003420917:[an oddly empty crate]\/a Frictionless Piece of Eight \aITEM -1495753407 -624402372:[Frictionless Piece of Eight]\/a Note that some players are reporting issues with the new Hedgemaze zone (an instance...
If you have been following the increasingly train-wrecky Legends of Norrath Affects Gameplay topic on EQ2 Forums, you know that the Legends of Norrath card game is on the cusp of making powerful items available within the EverQuest 2 universe. Already, by purchasing booster packs of cards (at $2.99/ea) and/or playing the LoN card game, one can acquire cloaks, mounts, appearance items, potions, and other items within the EQ2 world. So far these items have drawn the line at being comparable to dungeon/raid drops. Many have argued that EQ2’s $15/month subscription + $50/year expansion cost should be more than...
Most of my gametime these days is either raiding with my Ranger, or leveling my Dirge alt. I do live events (looking forward to Nights of the Dead), but otherwise, I’m fairly bored with the runaround quest lines. Groups in the 20’s-60’s are few and far between, but that is an issue for another blog post… Our guild is currently running Ward of Elements (I have all but shoulders and the cloak from Aiden) and we do as much x4 raiding as we can with 2 1/2 groups. That’s the first 3 named of Tomb of the Mad Crusader...
From EQ2Players: The leaves are turning and the air has become crisp in the land of Norrath. Ghoulish activity has started to increase. It can mean only one thing; the return of the Nights of the Dead. Norrath’s annual Halloween celebration will be returning from 12:01am PDT on October 16th and will run through 11:59pm PST on November 9th. New this year: New Haunted Hedgemaze in Nektulos Forest! New holiday collection. New Headless Horseman in Nektulos Forest. New rewards for some of the old Nights of the Dead Events! New illusions from the goblins. New costume illusions available from...
Well, now we know the real reason that Avatar Loot was nerfed. It wasn’t because it was “overpowered” or because it would “break the next expansion”. It was so similar items could be put on the endboss of an instance. As posted by Jasuo on the EQ2 Forums, two of the charms dropped by Miragul in Miragul’s Planar Shard (x4 raid zone) are very similar to Avatar Charms: and yes, we will be back later today to talk about the new EQ2 zone which requires a LoN item to access.
Much has been made of the difficulty, and more importantly the limited desirability of the loot that drops in the new raid zone — Miragul’s Planar Shard — which arrived in Game Update 53. Players capable of killing these mobs already have access to far superior gear, and indeed some of these items were not as good as Ward of Elements or even group instance drops. Significant changes are expected to both the difficulty of the zone and the quality of the loot in tomorrow’s Hotfix. Gninja advises us that further changes to the difficulty of the zone should...
Resolving hopefully the last of the Game Update 53 issues, we’re expecting the next Hotfix on Thursday, October 1. Here are the Update Notes: GENERAL The destroy confirmation is now more clear in confirming that you are actually destroying an item. The Guardian of Eternity has returned to Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep Research Assistants are a little more helpful when asked about their jobs. ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENTS Monk Enhance: Mend will once again work properly. ITEMS Najena’s Ring of Readiness is no longer heirloom. Additionally, the Ring of Readiness effect will only function as long as the ring is...
So far, today my coverage of Game Update 53 has been entirely positive. I think Game Update 53 is actually an excellent update, with the live quest, HEIRLOOM LORE-EQUIP flag, etc. However in the long term, I think all the great things about this update may be overshadowed by some colossal mistakes. The bland Racial Trait revamp which I’ve already talked about. And an issue that a lot of people don’t take seriously, but I think needs to be discussed — the Avatar Loot Nerf. So far, I have refrained from covering these changes, hoping that cooler (and wiser)...
UPDATE: Servers will go down September 23rd from 6am to 10am PDT. And you can read the complete update notes from EQ2Players. However you might want to read my revised notes… NOTE: I have gone through these notes and slightly improved them for readability specific to issues I’m familiar with. If that bothers you, go and click on the EQ2Players link above.
While we wait the last 1 1/2 hours for the EQ2 servers to come back up, I thought some of you might like to check out a few more tidbits expected to come in Game Update 53 at the end of the month. I’ve focused on new features here. If you want, you can read the full EQ2 Test Update Notes courtesy of EQ2 ZAM. GENERAL Runic Deflection should proc slightly more reliably. House layout files now properly save the scaling of an object. The save_layout and load_layout commands now properly save and load positions of NPC amenities. ACHIEVEMENTS...
So what exactly does 150 Void Shards get you these days? So you were frugal with your void shards and hired a tradeskiller to make your T1 set [38 shards] and T2 sets [112 shards]. You traded in more shards for Jewelry, Charms, Cloaks, and Baubles. You needed a few more shards for that shiny new T3 pattern that dropped out of Ward of Elements. And after all this, you’ve still got 150 shards or more just burning a hole in your money purse? Have we got a deal for you! As you may or may not know, almost...
Shards of Destiny (Gu53) appeared on Test just moments before midnight last night. This update is expected to go live in late September (the initial date was September 22nd, but this was an internal target). Here are the Test Update Notes: Test Update August / 27 / 2009 FEATURED Achievements The new achievement system gives players a fun new way to track their accomplishments! Most achievements will award players with achievement points that can be used to compare their progress against other players. Some harder to complete achievements will offer non-stat item rewards. The basic categories are General, Quest,...
Here are your EQ2 Patch Notes for August 26th: ACHIEVEMENTS Fury Enhance: Hibernation should trigger properly when falling below 15%. ITEMS The focus effect on the Robe of Shifting Visions will increase the damage properly now. MISC The Welcome Screen now lists the current Daily Double. Rothgar reports further at the EQ2 Forums: Also, the Welcome Screen has been updated to include information about the current Daily Mission as well as support for upcoming Hot Zones.* My understanding is that Hot Zones will be a rotation of zones that offer extra XP, AA XP, or other rewards.