Updates that nobody seems to be talking about

[AZgreentea]

I thought I would take a moment to highlight some of the more interesting (to me) but less talked about changes in U5.

UI Improvements
It is now possible to bind keys to cycle through your weapon sets.
Spell animations and effects will no longer trigger if the player fails a UMD or caster level check.
When you mouse over weapon sets you will now see detailed examination boxes of the items.

Character Paths
Many of the class paths have been updated with more useful and appropriate stats, skills and feats. These updates will be available to view in the Compendium under the Paths category soon.
Finally! Maybe this will reduce some of the gimpped noobs, though I wont pretend they will be as good as custom builds

Combat
When targeting an object with the reticle over it (the red reticle appears), you can perform an untargeted attack. This allows players to fire at specific parts of a target. Example: Using this targeting method you could shoot at the head of a kobold whose body is hidden behind a crate. Head shot!
Interrupted actions will now clear their cooldowns. For example: Drinking a potion and then moving the character before the potion is used resets the cooldown to 0.

Hirelings
Hirelings, especially melee ones, have gotten big bonuses to stats, AC, and weapon power, and are now gifted with very high reflex saves vs. traps.
Hirelings will now properly follow you in caves, through portals, and any other in-quest teleportation related places. They will also no longer mistake this process as the throws of death, crying out in anguish at their demise that didn't actually happen.
Fixed an error that was preventing Hirelings from benefiting from some of their equipment. They are now ready to bring the pain.

Shopping

In-game Vendors
The vendor shop UI, auction house, and other places where we display coin values in the UI should now all appear with platinum as the primary coin.
Pale Masters can now interact with a new collector in House Jorasco, Malato. Talk to the vampire Verisgante while in an undead form and ask him about special offers for those like himself. You can give Malato undead-related collectibles to get potions of inflict serious wounds, as well as various wands and scrolls that will be useful to a Pale Master.

Items
Eardweller now comes out of various adventures in Inspired Quarter, in addition to Eye of the Titan: I Dream of Jeets, Inspiration Center and Plane of Nightmares now have places where it can be observed in its natural habitat. Eardweller remains an elusive and rarely seen quarry, however: it can be found more often in longer quests and in harder difficulty settings.
Epic fragments are now available in the chests of Epic quests that are not as lengthy as their peers.
The Catacombs end loot finally gets a much needed bump!
The following items from the Catacombs adventure pack have been modified. Newly generated items will have the following properties:

• Blade of Inquisition: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
• Dagger of Inquisition: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
• Eternal Rest: Add Lesser Undead Bane.
• 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.)
• Guidance: Add Holy. Morningstar of the Heretic: Add Bodyfeeder.
• Pillar of Light: Add Radiance II.

Monsters
All trolls now take 20% more damage from acid and fire. Burn baby burn!
Now thats the D&D I remember....
Non-named Epic monsters now are often classified as "minions", and have reduced saves and a greater chance of missing their opponents due to their lackluster combat training. Sucks to be them!

Quest & Adventure Area Changes
Monsters on epic difficulty now have a chance to drop epic fragments as collectibles (each party member gets one fragment per drop). Enjoy!

Other changes
The Friends of Xendric's Wetlands and the Phiarlan Garden Club have joined forces with House Phiarlan to improve and promote House Phiarlan's wetlands.
You can walk in the swamp without being slowed down.
The client will no longer fail to start in fullscreen mode while running DirectX 10.
Fixed a bug where items being detached from a mail could be lost.

[Visty]

All trolls now take 20% more damage from acid and fire. Burn baby burn!
Now thats the D&D I remember.....

if you remember trolls taking more damage by fire/acid, then you werent playing raw

trolls only get subdual damage from any attack unless its fire/acid thus you cant killem without fire/acid

[gwlech]

Finally, currency will be referred to in plat instead of gold.

[Zenako]

Well one of the other changes seriously weakened the challenge of Tears of Dhakaan, by making all the shrines unlocked AND adding another shrine.

WHY? It was not a hard quest, and having some quests not be a cakewalk is a good thing. It should not be enough to merely show up and be able to beat a quest.

I guess they should be adding a shrine to Shroud Part 4 next since that is too hard for some....sigh

[Daggaz]

Well one of the other changes seriously weakened the challenge of Tears of Dhakaan, by making all the shrines unlocked AND adding another shrine.

WHY? It was not a hard quest, and having some quests not be a cakewalk is a good thing. It should not be enough to merely show up and be able to beat a quest.

I guess they should be adding a shrine to Shroud Part 4 next since that is too hard for some....sigh

What serious? Maaaan... That quest was just the right amount of challenge.. easy for elite players, a skin-of-your neck fight to the shrine for under-level groups, and a painful lesson to poor noobs. The shrines especially are what made it challenging. I remember one group, the rogue who swore he had no problem opening the shrines (we were lvl 7 i think) realizes he didnt have any toolkits. We fought tooth and nail towards each next chest, hoping above all hope until finally somebody looted some random tools.

Turbine!! If it aint broke, DONT fix it! That was easily one of the better quests for its level.

[rdasca]

if you remember trolls taking more damage by fire/acid, then you werent playing raw

trolls only get subdual damage from any attack unless its fire/acid thus you cant killem without fire/acid

You beat me to it

[AZgreentea]

if you remember trolls taking more damage by fire/acid, then you werent playing raw

trolls only get subdual damage from any attack unless its fire/acid thus you cant killem without fire/acid

Sorry, I meant MORE like the D&D I remember. The trolls being terrified by the fire and acid traps in Caged Trolls will make more sense now.

[Solmage]

Sorry, I meant MORE like the D&D I remember. The trolls being terrified by the fire and acid traps in Caged Trolls will make more sense now.

You forgot to read the part that the ONLY trolls that actually behaved like D&D trolls and ONLY died to fire and acid (crag trolls) no longer do so, because the poor wow players got confused and frustrated because they couldn't kill them.

[ArichValtrahn]

There are some nice changes coming with the update. Perhaps the sugar will help the medicine go down.

[Eladiun]

Well one of the other changes seriously weakened the challenge of Tears of Dhakaan, by making all the shrines unlocked AND adding another shrine.

WHY? It was not a hard quest, and having some quests not be a cakewalk is a good thing. It should not be enough to merely show up and be able to beat a quest.

I guess they should be adding a shrine to Shroud Part 4 next since that is too hard for some....sigh

Without the optionals...agreed.
With them it kinda sucks...

Prior to F2P this was not a popular quest. I only ran it for K favor on Elite to open my second bank page. It was one of the thinks it took me a bit to figure out when I came back, why all the ToD and Stormvault's Mine parties?

[AZgreentea]

You forgot to read the part that the ONLY trolls that actually behaved like D&D trolls and ONLY died to fire and acid (crag trolls) no longer do so, because the poor wow players got confused and frustrated because they couldn't kill them.

Ah, that explains it. I didnt realize the significance of those changes, because I have never encountered those trolls. I wish all trolls were like D&D trolls, switching into incapacitated mode when they reached 0hp, and regenerating from there.

[Rabbi_Hordo]

Without the optionals...agreed.
With them it kinda sucks...

Prior to F2P this was not a popular quest. I only ran it for K favor on Elite to open my second bank page. It was one of the thinks it took me a bit to figure out when I came back, why all the ToD and Stormvault's Mine parties?

Whoa. Ok, maybe you didn't run it. But this quest has ALWAYS been pretty easy and it gives out XP like a crack#^## gives out STDs. At level, this is one folks used to burn up and grab all the optionals they could to make the levels zip by.

[Eladiun]

Whoa. Ok, maybe you didn't run it. But this quest has ALWAYS been pretty easy and it gives out XP like a crack#^## gives out STDs. At level, this is one folks used to burn up and grab all the optionals they could to make the levels zip by.

WW, TR, STK, Delera's, Co6, Threnal, VoN

Throw in K favor, CL favor, SC, Lootwillow, and Gwylan's and you blow right through that level range without ever touching ToD. Leveled dozens of toons to different caps and never bothered with ToD and there weren't a whole lot of parties heading there in the LFM's.

Although it could be that I personally find it long and boring...worse now F2P pugging it is like pulling teeth.

[Therilith]

What serious? Maaaan... That quest was just the right amount of challenge.. easy for elite players, a skin-of-your neck fight to the shrine for under-level groups, and a painful lesson to poor noobs. The shrines especially are what made it challenging. I remember one group, the rogue who swore he had no problem opening the shrines (we were lvl 7 i think) realizes he didnt have any toolkits. We fought tooth and nail towards each next chest, hoping above all hope until finally somebody looted some random tools.

Turbine!! If it aint broke, DONT fix it! That was easily one of the better quests for its level.

Completely agree.

[phalaeo]

it gives out XP like a crack#^## gives out STDs.

RABBI!

[Rabbi_Hordo]

RABBI!

umm...I...well...oh, yeah! I minister to the needy and underpriviledged so I have a great deal of experience as a witness only...um...to such pulchritude...yeah...

[TiranBlade]

Korthos got a major Tutorial Update, including a broken tutorial for the DDO store.

[AZgreentea]

Korthos got a major Tutorial Update, including a broken tutorial for the DDO store.

That reminds me of one I missed. I dont really understand what it means exactly though:

(Element) touch, (Element), and (Element) Burst weapon effects now have distinct visual FX. Korthos is no longer a sea of flame!

So not all those Korthos weps will be +1 flame touched, or they simply wont look like other flame weps anymore?

[Wizard_Zero]

Nice job Turbine. I like these changes a lot. To bad I already spent forever and a day farming the Eardweller.

[Angelus_dead]

So not all those Korthos weps will be +1 flame touched, or they simply wont look like other flame weps anymore?

Probably means that flametouch and flame burst will look different from flaming. On a related note, the icons for greensteel acid burst weapons is changed. On live it was a blend from white to green, while the new one is more green.

I guess the flame burst weapons are maybe bigger and brighter than flame... not sure.