Update 5: a mod in review

[Drfirewater79]

I thought i would start with why and then go onto ranting this time ...

why part 1 .....

A pass was made on many epic items. Full release notes will be up tomorrow (I think?), but I figure I'd post this list tonight:

* The following Epic items have been modified. New versions have the new effects on them. Existing versions will gain some base item changes retroactively, but to gain all effect additions and changes must be run through the Altar of Epic Rituals with three Epic Dungeon Tokens:
o Ancient Vulkoorim Dagger: Greater Giant Bane upgraded to Epic Giant Bane.
o Bejeweled Letter Opener: Add Efficient Metamagic - Empower Healing II. Add Healing Amplification - 20%.
o Bracers of the Demon's Consort: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15.
o Bracers of the Hunter: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15. Upgrade Backstabbing to +5. Add Stealth Strike.
o Chimera's Crown: +4 Natural Armor upgraded to +5 Natural Armor. Add Minor Greater Dragonmark Enhancement. Add Colorless Augment Slot.
o Collapsible Shortbow: Now deals Slashing and Piercing damage. Add Force Burst. Upgrade skill bonuses to +15. Increase threat range to 19-20.
o Docent of Grace: Add Reinforced Plating +2.
o Duskheart: Upgrade Death Ward to Mass Death Ward.
o Dustless Boots: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15.
o Dynastic Falcata: Add Axiomatic Burst. Charisma +6 upgraded to Charisma +7. Upgrade Colorless to Red Augment Slot.
o Flint: Add Lightning Strike.
o Gloves of the Falcon: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15. Add Heightened Awareness +2.
o Green Blade: Upgrade Lesser Potency IX to Potency IX.
o Hammer of Life: Upgrade skill bonuses to +20. Add Good alignment to damage. Add Disruption Guard. Add Greater Disruption.
o Hyena Claw Necklace: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15.
o Kundarak Delving Goggles: Upgrade Spot to +20. Add Open Lock +15.
o Jidz-Tet'ka: Wisdom +6 changed to Exceptional Wisdom +1. Add Colorless Augment Slot.
o Mirage: Critical Threat Range upgraded to 17-20. Add Improved Cursespewing.
o Mummy Wrappings: Add Negative Energy Absorption 20%.
o Ring of Baphomet: Add Exceptional Constitution +2. Add Exceptional Strength +2.
o Sandstorm Glasses: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15.
o Seal of the Earth: Upgrade Natural Armor +4 to Natural Armor +6. Remove Superior Acid Lore. Upgrade Acid Resistance to Greater.
o Shard of Vollun: Upgrade Wizardry V to Archmagi. Add Yellow Augment Slot.
o Sirocco: Add Air Guard and Smoke Screen. Telekinetic upgraded to Epic Telekinetic.
o Spiked Turban: Upgrade +4 Protection to +5 Protection. Upgrade +4 Resistance to +5 Resistance.
o Staff of Arcane Power: Upgrade Recharge to 10/day. Add Archmagi. Add Arcane Augmentation IX. Add Colorless Augment Slot. Add Exclusive.
o Staff of Inner Sight: Upgrade +1 Spell Focus Mastery to +2 Spell Focus Mastery.
o Sting: Add Puncturing.
o Stinkpelt's Hide: Add Exception Constitution +2. Replace Stinking Cloud with Cloudkill.
o Storm: Add Lightning Guard. Thornlord: +6 Enhancement Bonus upgraded to +8 Enhancement Bonus.
o Unkor's Cleaver: Add Limbchopper. Add Bleed. Add Eat Jerky 1/day. Under no circumstances should one ask where the jerky comes from.
o Weathered Targe: Upgrade Spearblock to Greater Spearblock. Add Blue Augment Slot.
o Whirlwind: Add Air Guard and Smoke Screen. Telekinetic upgraded to Epic Telekinetic.
o Wolf Whistle: Upgrade skill bonuses to +15. Replace Charm Canine with Summon Epic Thaarak Hound 1x/day.
o Zephyr: Critical Threat Range upgraded to 18-20. Upgrade Colorless Augment Slot to Red Augment Slot.

* The following Epic items have been modified. Existing versions have been retroactively changed, there is no additional benefit to running them through the Altar of Epic Rituals with dungeon tokens:
o Ring of Spell Storing: SP heal reduced to ""Greater Mnemonic"" (55 - 300 sp).
o Sword of Shadows: Increase base damage to 5d6. Decrease Critical Multiplier to x3.

And there were a couple of less awe-inspiring non-epic item changes:

* The following items from the Catacombs adventure pack have been modified. Newly generated items will have the following properties:
o Blade of Inquisition: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
o Dagger of Inquisition: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
o Eternal Rest: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
o Gerard Dryden's Mace: Once again Undead Bane instead of Lesser Undead Bane. Now made of bone. Now Bound to Account on Equip. (Existing Gerard Dryden's Maces will also now be made of bone, including very old versions.)
o Guidance: Add Holy.
o Morningstar of the Heretic: Add Bodyfeeder.
o Pillar of Light: Add Radiance II.

why part 2

http://i50.tinypic.com/2lmo1ab.jpg

The old weighted 5% is now 3% and there is a fortitude save of 33. no more autostun from weighted items. But hey at least my monks stunning fist dc will be higher.

why part 3

K, so we tested that.

If you have Death ward cast on you before you go Lich form then it goes away and you can get healed by Negative Energy spells. If it's casted on you during Lich form it doesn't show up and still makes you immune.

Yeah figured it was a bug with Necrotic Touch with the self healing. 2hp cost for 110hp heal is kinda silly.

Also, we are still rolling saves vs the healing effects of negative energy.

............

PERSONAL EXPERIENCE ON LAMA

I played for 2 hours on my monk in aramath ... soloing rares and first half of gen point (which i do on live all the time)

negitive things i noticed

attack patterns dont always seem to match up ... especially when using special attacks on monk like stunning fist

stunning fist ability seems to work more frequently but stunning ability from weighted 5% nerf makes stunning fist work more often then new stunning +10 does costing more ki and no longer auto stun dc 33 instead from new weighted effect.

hard to tell if and when you get double strike ... by the time i finished clearing the top floor i switched to fire stance cause i couldnt stun anything in wind stance cause smiting used up 90% of my ki and didnt do a heck of a lot of damage (the 25-35 i get from wind stance 4's shock touch was more effective for less ki and shorter reset time)

ki generation in wind stance takes a major blow cause it already sucked now it just sucks a little more .... and a little is a lot sometimes .. .

once i switched to fire stance I (thus losing double strike which i couldn't really tell if it was going off or not) i was smiting every other combo (recharge time is stupid at 30 secs) doing anywhere from 60 points of damage to a high of 178 (again in two hours of gaming)

smite seems to be useless over all unless mob is stunned ... and protection from evil is useless in missions where they dont cast greater command.

Dissmissal is useless at end game cause nothing dismisses but plan to test vale out today.

Positive things i noticed

mobs in gen point didnt do as much damage as before ... i got so used to not needing to heal myself i almost let myself die twice and didnt even need to try to regen my health so mobs are hitting less often (ac was only 55 at the time and playing on normal difficulty with dungeon scale in effect)

mobs also seemed to be dieing faster ... dont know if that was cause stunning fist actually works now or if there hit points have been reduced to make up for bs twf nerf.

.............................

these are all from monks prespective in shintao II

...............................

now to comment on the hate crimes turbine has added that i have NO PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH but am unhappy/happy about.

WHY PART 1

alot of things have changed especially in the epic variety ... unless epic items become easier to craft they are no longer worth the time ... outside maybe of epic dragon items...

I am happy that i was right about epic sos ... which now is about as useful as an uncompleted min II weapon ... You knew it was gonna happen eventually and so here it is nerfed down to 5d6 x3

sentinel monk bracers are changed from wisdom 6 to exceptional wis 1 which is nice ... need to double my set of non epic to see if they changed at all will get back to you on this later.

spell storing ring (AND THE BOBBLE) have been changed to give less sp ... this was pointless as they are exceptional items ... but maybe this is a sign that mana pots will be more readily available in game .... but more likely that they are trying to boost sales in DDOstore.

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why part 2

weighted 5% becomes weighted 3% +10 stunning

this is both really bad and really nice ..

if you used weighted 5% instead of stunning blow or stunning fist ... this is the worst nerf ever for your upgraded icy burst risia weapon ... if you spam stunning fist and stunning blow ... its now a little more effective from the monk stand point and still 2% less from everyone elses ..

have yet to test it in epic runs yet to see how bad it effects players there with new drop in saves but thinking over all this was a stealthy nerf from what would have been uber to now sub par

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why part 3

the biggest part of this update aside from new epic missions (cause really who needs more lvl 5 bs missions) and monk pres (which we get two unfinished ones rather then one ready to go) was the fix to Pale masters ... giving them new spells and ability to heal through death ward ...

still bugged but i expect it to be working right by end of this lama period .....

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Over all combat changes really do suck .. .looses some of the feel for the game experienced vets have come to love and this could lose some interest amongst the Vet community especially with big mmos on the rise at e3 like swtor and dc universe expected to come out later this year.

The question of will turbine be able to hold our attention with this game due to the changes and major dps drop in update 5 is still yet to be answered ... and what things we have yet to see with underwater combat in update 6 could hold the answer to the many people on lama boards talking about leaving the game finally having there hopes crushed for the last time .... especially with the nerf heard round the world to Epic SoS (man am i ever glad i didnt grind that one out)

guild housing and ranking system seems to be interesting enough and possible that while large guilds will be able to hit the high end fairly quickly with some farming and general play it seems the highest possibility for fast upgrades will be zerging ... which funny enough has been the big hate on from turbine since launch.

small guilds will be able to get the end game bonuses in guild housing but if they are casual players its unlikely to be able to hold back the decay of guild status unless they game daily and farm from time to time just to keep guild levels up.

out of everything up and down and in between this update has potential for increased excitement mixed with heavy disapproval and hate spread.

balanced maybe but over all opinions seem negative as the spells lack luster needed to be the replacement especially at end game for firewall ... it simply was not there as for dps especially since death ward (though not many mobs have it ) negates most of there effects and no real damage over time type effects ... and melee doesnt seem to be as fluent or damaging as live game is currently.

Still i suggest EVERYONE go to lama and test out the features ... get your guilds to go over and run raids check lag .... over run lama as much as possible and test its limits ... if we dont there is no way to find out if the changes are worth it or not ...

this forum poster is not impressed but not ready to leave the game just yet ... however the other mmo's on there way might bring more bang for my buck if turbine doesnt find some way to improve on gameplay and truly live up to its "Powered By the Players" slogan ... most players are pretty sick of the lack of love they get from this update.


This is the hack report

over and out.

[Drfirewater79]

more update info lists when i can find them will be added here

To whom it may concern at Turbine,

Let's list the nerfs as we know them right now.

#1 TWF is getting a large nerf to attacks per unit time directly leading to a large dps nerf.
#2 THF does not gain glancing blows while moving any longer. To fix twitch??? Sadly this does nothing of the sort since twitch is about increasing your attacks per unit time and this does nothing ot address that. Instead it is another mistargetted change.
#3 Tempest 1 is badly nerfed.
#4 Tempest 3 is badly nerfed.
#5 Alacrity itself is nerfed to not benefit TWF as much as before.
#6 Token drops are nerfed in epics to fragement drops.
#7 Epic trash is nerfed to have lower saves and a -1d20 added to their to hit rolls.
#8 Mysterious Babble is ~50% nerfed
#9 Epic Ring of Spell Storing is ~50% nerfed
#10 Barbarian Capstone is nerfed to remove it's alacrity bonus, yet it's bugged benefit still does not work
#11 Rabbit Hat is nerfed
#12 Weighted Weapon nerf

One of the requests we saw the most in the various epic discussion threads was that the tokens should be bound to account instead of character, so we did it.

Epic raid/dungeon tokens and their fragments are now bound to account instead of bound to character. A single epic raid token can now also be placed in the eldritch device to convert it into one epic dungeon token.