U53 Preview 1: Hunt or be Hunted

[Lomizir]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hello, folks! Preview 1 of Update 53 is open! It is expected to remain open until sometime in the afternoon (Eastern) of Friday, January 21st.


There will be a dev event on Thursday, January 20th from 8-10 PM EST (GMT -5) where members of the DDO team will be available to collect feedback and answer questions in real-time on Lamannia.

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Our upcoming content pack for Update 53 will feature 2 new dungeons (levels 7/32) and a Legendary raid (level 32) where you will be challenged by the powerful Master of the Hunt. While the dungeons will be appearing in a later preview, we have a first look at the raid along with a number of other features listed below.

To access the content pack on the preview server, speak to Lord Poincelot in the Test Dojo to be granted preview server specific DDO points and then "purchase" the "Hunter and Hunted" Adventure Pack in the DDO Preview Store. The raid can be reached by speaking to "The Questgiver" in the Test Dojo who will transport the player to the raid foyer where Chogrum will start the raid when your group is assembled.


In addition to the raid, this preview features the following miscellaneous changes (many of which will see release before the content update in an interim patch):

Epic Destinies
Fatesinger

• Ranged Attacks will no longer hide your weapons as they fire
• Fatesinger Greater Shout SLA now displays its DC in its tool tip and correctly adds its evocation bonuses
• Various Fatesinger effects will now use their correct names in the combat log
• Majesty now applies restoration correctly and scales with spell power correctly

Fury of the Wild

• Primal Scream will now scale correctly with spell power

Unyielding Sentinel

• Divine Energy Resistance now uses the correct icon
• The duration of Celestial mandate is now 15 seconds up from 10 as per it's description

Shadowdancer

• Impale now functions more reliably with Repeating Crossbows

Shiradi Champion

• Watchful Eye as granted by Shiradi Champion now functions

Divine Crusader

• Blessed Blades should no longer appear in the buffbar

Draconic Incarnation

• Dragon Breath epic strike now has a tooltip that explains its DC.
• Bring About Destruction really actually gives its spellpower
• Draconic Spell Focus: Conjuration now applies its conjuration bonuses

Grandmaster of Flowers

• The Flow of Water no longer increases damage taken by 1500%

Primal Avatar

• Primal Avatar SLAs are now considered druid spells for things like casting while raging (beast awakened, etc)
• Removed the tooltip reference of a DC for Storm Catcher (Storm Catcher has no saving throw)
• Shard Storm will now display on animal forms correctly

Quests and Adventure Areas

• Undead monsters in a variety of content packs should now no longer heal from positive energy.
• Soul Survivor is completable once more.
• The Tents in Siegebreaker are burnable again
• In the Wheloon Prison Landscape, the Shadowfell mechanic has been adjusted behind the scenes to help improve performance.
• In the Wheloon Prison Landscape the Random Encounter quest "Rest for the Weary" now attempts to remove you from the Shadowfell earlier in its teleport sequence to help improve performance.
• Tharashk Arena:
  
  • Grogan the Promoter now drops his key again
  
  
• The Plane of Night:
  
  • Monsters here should now update in the monster manual correctly
  • Claw of Velah/Ice Flenser HP/Stats have been adjusted (they were incorrectly set as bosses)
  • Djinn won't use their whirlwind form anymore
  
  
• Captain Loren d'Lyrandar has a slightly less horrifying face
• Typos have been fixed in Raven's Bane

Spells

• Death Aura will no longer tic on the player if they are at full health
• Celestial Bombardment is marginally less blinding.
• Storm of Vengeance now applies its Lightning damage again
• Call Lightning Storm is now much more consistent about picking actually useful targets and delivering damage at it's intended fire rate
• Call Lightning Storm no longer hits through walls or doors.
• Chaos Hammer now damages your hard target
• Holy Smite no longer strikes targets through walls and doors
• Turn to Frog and Banish/Dismiss spells will no longer break some quests
• Meteor Swarm now respects Epic Defensive Fighting range limitations
• Lionheart and Reincarnate now properly take the Eschew Materials metamagic
• Fire Seeds, Ice Flowers, and Burst of Glacial Wrath now take appropriate metamagics
• Blur is back to being 20%
• The Quest Selection UI now spells Receive correctly in its tooltips

Enhancements

• Half-Elves Greater Mark of the Storm's text description's damage values have been correct to reflect Call Lightning Storm's current power
• Traditionalist Caster in Tiefling Scoundrel no longer resets your enhancement trees when you log in
• Bombardier's Caster Level Bonuses in the cores now stack more reliably
• Feydark Illusionist's Illusory Augmentation is no longer lost on death
• Swashbuckler's Fast Movement is no longer lost on death
• Nature's Warrior's Go For the Kill no longer costs double the SP
• "Enduring Beast" in Nature's Protector no longer has the wrong min level (was 4, needed to be 3, as it is tier 3)
• Divine Intervention in Warpriest and Warsoul now works while moving
• Feydark Illusionist's Illusory Augmentation now correctly grants its bonuses if you have obtained Augment Summoning from a temporary source, such as gear or an augment
• Hope for Success from the FVS Beacon of Hope tree now applies more reliably

Items

• A variety of cookies' tooltips have had their spell portion of their tooltip adjusted.
• Finesse effects on named and crafted loot now function more reliably
• Potions of greater heroism now apply their fear immunity
• Several combo effects that are meant to add to more than one spellpower now correctly apply the intended spellpowers
• Fixed typo in certain enhancement bonuses so that they can now scale appropriately to +15
• The Runearm from Saltmarsh now has an epic and legendary version
• Items from other adventure packs are no longer able to be used with Slave Lords Crafting
• The Reaper Shard Crafting recipes for Goggles and Glove now function
• First Blood no longer kills you if you cast a spell on yourself

Classes

• Paladin Auras have been reworked behind the scenes to be quieter and slightly improve performance
• Artificer and Druid pets will no longer go brain-dead after climbing a ladder.
• Artificer pets will no longer go brain-dead after being resurrected 33% of the time.
• Artificer and Druid pets are now better at handling dismounting from ladders.
• The system for selecting Enhancements for Artificer Iron Defender and Druid Wolf Pets has been removed.
  
  • Almost all existing enhancements for Artificer Iron Defender and Druid Wolf pets are now granted automatically as those pets go up in level. The level they gain them at is the same as the previous Minimum Level for those Enhancements.
  • For Iron Defender pets, Alignment enhancements are not automatically granted, as they are mutually exclusive. You can now talk to any Artificer trainer to select your Pet's Alignment, which is now displayed as an effect on your pet. Your selections remain until changed or until you Reincarnate. The Chaotic selection continues to provide the Breaker of Boxes behavior.
  • For both Iron Defender and Wolf pets, Threat Generation/Reduction enhancements are not automatically granted, as they are mutually exclusive. You can now talk to any Artificer or Druid trainer (depending on your pet) to select -40% Threat from Melee Attacks, +0% Threat from Melee Attacks, or +100% Threat from Melee Attacks. Your selections remain until changed or until you Reincarnate, and stack with all other sources of Increased or Reduced Melee Threat.
  • Artificer Iron Defender Pets, Druid Wolf Pets, and Pale Master's Skeleton Pet now all have a baseline of 100% Fortification at all levels. This stacks with Gear and any Feats or Enhancements they have.
  
  
• Absolute Zero now applies its frozen CC to Fire enemies that are immune to Death, instead of letting the Death effect bounce off and therefore having no effect

Feats

• Watchful Eye's tooltip has been updated to make it clear that this ability needs Spot to function properly
• Several category feats no longer display erroneous missing class levels as a prerequisite
• Combat Archery now properly provides +1W
• Fount of Life has a more accurate tooltip

Reaper

• Made a change to Reaper Enhancement bonus removal to help prevent dying (again) after releasing from a Reaper Dungeon while dead.
• Reaper bonuses on Runearms now function
• A variety of fixes to the acquisition of new slot-specific effects have been made that will prevent those effects from appearing on the wrong slot

UI

• The Dice UI is back to being more appropriately justified against the icon portion
• Guild Rewards beyond level 150 now mention the color change of your guild nameplate as part of their rewards
• The tooltip on weapons now shows the correct proficiency penalty
• The Details (+) Tab now shows both Blast and Pact Dice, and now correctly tracks your bonus HP Percentage
• The Quest Entrance UI now has slightly more room for quest names to avoid truncation, and the ? tooltip area near the Dungeons Completed section has been nudged to be a little more out of the way

Reincarnation

• Iconic Reincarnation no longer erroneously fails to wipe your Monster Manual Progress.

Misc

• Henchmen and arty/druid pets now benefit from epic summon bonuses again
• Changes were made to some background Event processes to aid server performance.
• Fixed a server performance issue that could trigger under certain conditions when attempting to post something to the Auction House.
• Fixed a performance issue that could occur under some circumstances when depositing items to Banks.
• When you cast a spell that has to bypass Spell Penetration, the combat log no longer mentions Dodge.
• Shifter Females now display bloody footprints
• You may now hold your block key (default: left Shift) while falling with Feather Fall to drop as if you did not have Feather Fall.
• You may now dismount from your mount while in mid-air (default: left shift)

Known Issues

• Two of the Souls of the Hunted will never peacefully resolve (this is now fixed internally)
• The Lingering Grip of Death effect is not functioning properly

[DarkChilde]

Disclaimer[INDENT]Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.The Runearm from Saltmarsh now has an epic and legendary version

Thank You. I asked about this when Lynnabel was on Strimtoms stream.

[QuantumFX]

Iconic Reincarnation no longer erroneously does not wipe your Monster Manual Progress.

Did Yoda or Bizarro write this?

Artificer and Druid pets will no longer go brain-dead after climbing a ladder.

Will this help when you teleport pets to you and then they can no longer pull levers?

You may now hold your block key (default: left Shift) while falling with Feather Fall to drop as if you did not have Feather Fall.

Does this affect Monk Slow Fall?

Artificer pets will no longer go brain-dead after being resurrected 33% of the time.

So, 33% of the time it works 100% of the time?

[lipidoidal_maniac]

[*]You may now dismount from your mount while in mid-air (default: left shift)

Can we get this for while swimming as well? It is very difficult to get out of the water in the Hall of Heroes while mounted.

[GramercyRiff]

Disappointed not to see Righteous Command get its seemingly proper 20 MP from the 5 mcl in epic. Angelskin gets the extra 5 prr/mrr from the mcl bump, so why doesn't Righteous Command?

[rabidfox]

Can we get this for while swimming as well? It is very difficult to get out of the water in the Hall of Heroes while mounted.

Tested it and using the block key dismounts you in water (both on the surface and deep down swimming).

[Synthetic]

So, no ED balance changes?

[blarhblarhblarh]

No reason to mix the fixes and the update.

If SSG launchs one or the other first it will be easier to fix the bugs that will come with this update. Do one thing right then do another thing right. Trying to do many things at once is what lead to updates with over 200 bugs. Otherwise it will only bring more bugs to ddo and another postpone to bugs that are already on the game like the reincarnation bug, some map issues inside feywild quests and even the sea elf bug on saltsmarsh.

But it´s good to see some fixing. Playerbase still begging for quality of life changes.

[voxson5]

I don't think the death aura change will be well received

[Amoneth]

I don't think the death aura change will be well received

You are correct sir. The primary function of Death Aura is to do damage to enemies, which it now won't do when the caster is at full health. Lol, just lol

[Logicman69]

You are correct sir. The primary function of Death Aura is to do damage to enemies, which it now won't do when the caster is at full health. Lol, just lol

I read that differently. I read it as it will no longer tick on the PLAYER if they are at full health. The spell should still be active though and damaging enemies when cast (you just will not see heal numbers above your head). My only gripe with that is that it will be a little more challenging to make sure its up, especially if the icon is lost on the buff bar.

[Arkat]

I read that differently. I read it as it will no longer tick on the PLAYER if they are at full health. The spell should still be active though and damaging enemies when cast (you just will not see heal numbers above your head). My only gripe with that is that it will be a little more challenging to make sure its up, especially if the icon is lost on the buff bar.

That was my interpretation as well.

[Baahb3]

Expanded Clip feat available to Mechanics at least?

The bug for ranged where they lose shots when an aoe effect is cast on them until they move needs to be addressed in this update.

[Seph1roth5]

It's nice that von finally got it's fixes, but can you devs take a loot at zawabi's revenge/chronoscope as well? Stuff in there is clearly much beefier than it was previously. And if von6's trash-coded-as-boss-stats is not WAI, I can't imagine it's not WAI for those as well?

The efreeti in EE zawabis were like....cr46, 30k+ hp. And Lailat kept returning to the center regardless of dps, which might be good for teams with **** ranged dps I guess, but coupled with beefcake efreeti it's a pain in the ass to just have her randomly come down to the center.

[pawpaw2000]

Lots of nice fixes, the feather fall change especially will help in quite a few places.

Is there any chance of getting Feywild set bonuses added to the items in this pack? That set system could really benefit from having a few extra items to choose from, and this new pack set in the Feywild seems like a perfect place to expand them.

[Epicsoul]

Already hearing the raid is one room and very short I'll wait to try it myself, but after 6 months of no dungeon content and nearly a year with no raids...Let's just say I'll be very disappointed.

[Zavina]

Already hearing the raid is one room and very short I'll wait to try it myself, but after 6 months of no dungeon content and nearly a year with no raids...Let's just say I'll be very disappointed.

1 main room, two optional rooms (Maze and trap room).

* * * * *

Also, someone posted this in party chat while doing the Lammania raid. (Same raid as Strim's stream)

[Arkat]

1 main room, two optional rooms (Maze and trap room).

* * * * *

Also, someone posted this in party chat while doing the Lammania raid. (Same raid as Strim's stream)

Is THIS raid called "Die in a Fire"?

[Xezom]

[*]Artificer and Druid pets will no longer go brain-dead after climbing a ladder.
[*]Artificer pets will no longer go brain-dead after being resurrected 33% of the time.
[*]Artificer and Druid pets are now better at handling dismounting from ladders.
[*]The system for selecting Enhancements for Artificer Iron Defender and Druid Wolf Pets has been removed.

• Almost all existing enhancements for Artificer Iron Defender and Druid Wolf pets are now granted automatically as those pets go up in level. The level they gain them at is the same as the previous Minimum Level for those Enhancements.
• For Iron Defender pets, Alignment enhancements are not automatically granted, as they are mutually exclusive. You can now talk to any Artificer trainer to select your Pet's Alignment, which is now displayed as an effect on your pet. Your selections remain until changed or until you Reincarnate. The Chaotic selection continues to provide the Breaker of Boxes behavior.
• For both Iron Defender and Wolf pets, Threat Generation/Reduction enhancements are not automatically granted, as they are mutually exclusive. You can now talk to any Artificer or Druid trainer (depending on your pet) to select -40% Threat from Melee Attacks, +0% Threat from Melee Attacks, or +100% Threat from Melee Attacks. Your selections remain until changed or until you Reincarnate, and stack with all other sources of Increased or Reduced Melee Threat.
• Artificer Iron Defender Pets, Druid Wolf Pets, and Pale Master's Skeleton Pet now all have a baseline of 100% Fortification at all levels. This stacks with Gear and any Feats or Enhancements they have.

These are nice for the changes to the malfunction of the pets, however just in the first 30 seconds of testing pets still go brain-dead when you have active skills on their bars (Rage, Trip, Hamstring). The druid wolf specifically will use the skills on CD and stand still aimlessly until you move outside it's range (about 1 minimap distance). At that point it will run to your location and stop again. Nice to get all the enhancements, but until that issue is fixed the wolf is now worse because you could avoid training the skills before and wouldn't have this issue. Now they will break no matter what because they are auto trained.

Until those issues are fixed I HIGHLY recommend reverting these changes as it actually makes the wolf WORSE because there is no work around by avoiding the active skills enhancements.

Edit: The wolf is very weird at the moment. If he uses his active skills with no enemies around (which he will do often as he spams them on CD), that is when he goes into his pause and stall behavior only following you when you get outside range. Additionally, he seems to only use Yip not intimidate even if you only put intimidate on the bar and remove yip. Recommend making The bluff/intimidate options similar to the increased/reduced aggro option for training as well.

Overall, I still VERY HIGHLY recommend waiting on making these changes until the functionality issue of pets stalling/lagging behind until out of range after using a skill is fixed. As it is, if you don't train the active skills and just increase hate and use incite items he holds aggro decently as is without the need to be broken by taking actives.

[HastyPudding]

Iconic Reincarnation no longer erroneously fails to wipe your Monster Manual Progress.

Best change on the whole list.