EQ2 - Live Update 46 (Gathering Tempest)

[Braen]

It's been a while since a Live Update thread was posted and since some people have started playing again (no, not me this time), I figured why not post this?

HIGHLIGHTS

During "Gathering Tempest" (GU46): The ranks of Freeport’s Academy of Arcane Science and Qeynos’ Concordium have been stretched thin as they attempt to investigate the mysterious and dark storms that have erupted across Norrath. Those wishing to volunteer their services for the investigation are encouraged to speak with the Concordium Pupil Adepts or Academy Apprentices that have been sent all across the world.

There is a great commotion stirring around Bog Mountain, goblins from all nations appear to be drawn to the halls of Runnyeye Citadel! High level groups can now investigate, should they choose, the new dealings with the goblins in Runnyeye: The Gathering!

Poisons now have the option to auto consume when they run out. Check out the "POISONS" section for details.

Carpenters, inspired by some of the elaborate cloaks adventurers have discovered, have started learning to create similar tapestries for the home. They have also acquired a few new recipes inspired by Kelethin and Maj'dul craftsmanship.


GAMEPLAY

Stealth and Invisibility spells should no longer be broken by NPC buffs which trigger off damage. The same will apply in PvP for player based damage shields and similar spells.

Additional new books are available with Sages Navarius Orvalis and Indis Surion.

Coins in the shared bank can now be split.

Bank trainers have been informed that the amount of bank space a character receives has been increased.

The player movement requirement in the Tangrin and Avatar of Growth encounters are somewhat more lenient than before.


MOUNTS

Rhino mounts no longer cause the camera to bob up and down.


HOUSING

Trustees of your house can now interact with house pets.


ITEMS

The 'Claws of Pestilence' and 'Fists of Pestilence' can now be turned into a house item to serve as a trophy of your accomplishments during "A Prophet Returns (GU 45)" as can the 'Celestial Mallets' and 'Celestial Blades'. Examine the weapons for this new functionality. Additionally, you can pray to the gods for these items to scale with your progression by examining the mounted house trophy versions!

'Battleaxe of Venom' now properly deals poison damage.

'Turmoil Warts' will now evoke an unsavory effect on those who dare equip them.

'Remkit's Belt of Flight' was improved slightly for ranged classes.

'Warlord's Long Bow of Defense' has been renamed to 'Warlord's Short Bow of Defense', to match its type.

'Vexthorne' may now be equipped by Paladins and Shadowknights.

'The Teachings of Master Wu' book is now No-Trade.

Consuming 'Magma Fish Reduction' will no longer prevent you from imbibing certain potions.

'The Bloodthirsty Choker' should now properly inflict the 5% damage instead of doing slightly more.

Fettering poisons can now be cured while dueling or pvping.

You will once again be able to put partial stacks of ammo into ammo slots.

The Token of Loyalty has had its description changed to avoid confusion. While equipped it still grants the same bonus as before.


ACHIEVEMENTS

Summoner
Caution should be used when attempting to pull with 'Magic Leash' now.


SPELLS

Cures
Curing a charmed pet should no longer remove the charm from it.

Bard
All bard buffs will now be consistent and castable while moving.

Coercer
Coercer reactives should now trigger properly in PvP combat.

The Hostage Line should now be useable on breakable objects.

'Possess Essence' and 'Puppetmaster' can no longer be used on breakable objects.

Predator
The Stalk line is no longer toggleable.

Swashbuckler
'Hangman's Noose' should now use the same Heroic Opportunity icon as the rest of the line.

Changed the icon of the Undercut line so that its distinct from the other Snare line.

Increased the additional hate gains to 'Sleight of Hand'.


POISONS

Poisons now have the option to auto consume when they run out. Right click a stack and turn auto consume to on and you no longer have to worry about your poisons running out mid fight.

Fettering poisons can now be cured while dueling or PvPing.


TRADESKILLS

The imbued stone hide leather bandolier recipe is once again available. The sandalwood cudgel recipe is now making the correct item.

A duplicate recipe for fistwraps has been removed from advanced weaponsmith volume 38 and is now only present in volume 39.

Crafted javelin, tribal and great spear appearances are now more appropriate to the weapons' names.

The costs of city tradeskill faction titles are now more equivalent between different cities.

The variety of item selection for level 40 carpenter crafting writs should now be a bit more (or less) bearable ...

Di'Zok weaponsmiths have shared their knowledge of riding crops to crafters they deem sufficiently worthy.

Armorers and tailors can now imbue all armor sets in the level 40-49 range, as well as making all armor sets for all normal equipment slots in this level range.

Short spears are now somewhat shorter in appearance.

All woodworker-crafted wands now look wand-like. Woodworkers are also able once again to make magic-imbued wands.

Crafted sledgehammer recipes have been replaced by a crafted sledge which has more unique stats. Any existing crafted sledgehammers will remain as they are.


PVP

Shrink has once again been enabled on PvP servers. The new shrink will constrain the characters to a minimum height rather than scaling the model down which should alleviate many of the issues found in the past.


QUESTS

"The Gauntlet of al-Azhar" can now be attempted by characters that are 60+ in level.

Spirits of the Lost raid can now be entered if you are on the first part of "Marr's Chosen" or if "Marr's Chosen" is completed.

"The Secret of the Stone": All players in the raid on the second part of stage 1 ("Find a use for the lost medallion...") will get a quest update when someone places the medallion into the stone.

Coercers who finished the Illusionist epic will no longer be affected by the temporary faction changes of the Lucan illusion spell.


ZONES

The bosses of a number of group instances now give status when killed.
* Chelsith
* Charasis: Maiden's Chamber
* Charasis: Vault of Eternal Sleep
* Crypt of Agony
* Court of Korucust
* Shard of Fear
* Estate of Unrest
* Crypt of Valdoon
* Obelisk of Blight
* The Acadechism
* Court of Innovation
* Halls of Fate
* Den of the Devourer
* Blackscale Sepulcher
* Nest of the Great Egg
* Vault of El'Arad
* Cazel's Mesa
* Scornfeather Roost

Sanctum of the Scaleborn
The Sanctum Trial Stone will now drop off of gray con Droag mobs in the Sanctum of Scaleborn.

Shard of Hate
Some of the more powerful raid encounters in the Shard of Hate should now give status rewards when killed.

The Eye of the Sisterhood is now being held by Demetrius Crane in the Shard of Hate, rather than Master P`Tasa.

UI

You can now leave chat channels that contain characters such as semicolon.

Text shadows were optimized which should give a small performance increase on the client.

The minimum width of the main chat window has been returned to its previous width.

You will no longer receive quest feathers for quests that are too high compared to your level.

The /who command is now throttled.

[Jait]

Originally Posted by Braen

Bard
All bard buffs will now be consistent and castable while moving.

Awesome. I was always heavily concerned by having to stop for .5 seconds to cast my group-dehate buff. All the other buffs were castable while moving...

But since they've obviously hired Mr. Magoo to read the bard forums, I'll let him in on a secret. The problem started around DoF, when you nerfed ALL bard songs and turned them into spells that require you to stand still. Well most of them anyway, you missed a few for no reason. Song = something you can do while moving. Spell = Concentration and stillness.

We'd like to be able to nuke again while moving. Since our nuke is 1/10th of a normal INT casters dps, it doesn't seem to be gamebreaking to give Bards back this one thing you nerfed without reason during DoF. Especially since a bard is kind of that one class you'd like to see moving during a raid. Not being rooted and dazed in order to cast Maestro. Yes, when a Bard is using his best ability he turns into Corky. Always made sense to me as normally Bards are the kings of dps (I'm rolling my eyes), best to slow that down when they're at their best. Kinda like learning the lesson that healers don't like to play their class when all they do is press heal buttons all the time.

Remember that time you learned that healers would be more fun if one type of healer could melee like a madman, another healer could nuke really well, and the final type would debuff really well? Well you forgot that lesson.

I haven't played EQ2 in a year, and it still doesn't take much to get me bitter over bard design. I'm going to be generous and assume by now they've already given Bards the ability to use poisons like every other Scout Class has. Or at the very least adjusted the bonus so Bards aren't sharing melee tables with casters anymore.

[Stryfe002]

Precision hasn't rooted or dazed for months now, and we share the same auto attack damage tables as other scouts as well, however, we still have no poisons

[Lourdin]

With the utility gains of being a bard, it would be plain stupid for SoE to give them the ability to use poisens.

[Stryfe002]

I actually agree, once you get to mythicals, Bards are breaking 4k regularly, and parse quite well. Not to mention what they bring to your raids DPS. Giving them more personal DPS just doesn't seem smart.

I don't have alot to complain about as a Troub these days, IMO. When your #1 bitchfest is the lack of EQ1 type run speed, your class is likely fine.