The MMORPG community, when tired of something, seeks to find “the next something” that will fix their woes. I may be a jaded bastard but I’ve watched players do this since EverQuest. As we’ve added more people to our genre it has gotten worse. I just can’t do it anymore and often look down on those that do. I’m simply accustomed to disappointment. I’m going to pick on Chris a little here and go back to something he said to me on the podcast. He told me that Star Wars was the most polished MMORPG in beta in forever. That was not my experience. It wasn’t even close and I continually see posts from others about lack of polish. The most polished MMORPG in beta, to date, was Rift. It was so polished it completely disarmed my jaded, callous, and skeptical demeanor. SWTOR was not as polished as Rift. People will disagree but that is the pedestal effect. We will look past faults because we don’t want to see them. I wanted to see faults in Rift and was proven wrong.

This is the same reason why 38 Studio’s Copernicus is in so much danger. Based on the early information that was released, the general ideas behind the design, and the all-star team they have working there, players (including my guild mates) have set their expectations so high the game can’t possibly live up to them. Everyone is literally expecting this to be a Renascence of MMORPGs. A return to what made EverQuest great. This is both an unfair and unrealistic expectation. Players did the same thing with Star Wars because “It is Bioware man! Everything they make is the best.” Well folks, I’m sorry. SWTOR didn’t turn out to be “the best MMORPG ever made.” It was just the most expensive and it is literally just on par with everything else out there.

It IS a single player game

Yes, people continue to tell me that it isn’t and that anyone who thinks it is “doesn’t get it.” That is fine. Raw data available to me says you’re incorrect. When Star Wars released I knew my Rift guild would take a hit. I bolstered our ranks because I knew we’d dip. At the same time I told my officers that we just had to last 30 to 60 days and we’d be fine. Everyone took that on faith that I would be right. If Star Wars is such a compelling group and raid game why is that literally all but one of my guild mates are now back in Rift? Why is that each and every one says they came back because when they reached the cap the game was not compelling enough to pay? That is the failing of “the story as the forth pillar.” Eventually that pillar ends and, if the other three aren’t strong enough to support the weight that is dis-proportionally focused towards the story, the load on top collapses.

Still not a failure

All of this said, the game is still not a failure in the scheme of things no matter how many people want to claim it is. If your goal was to reach and convert two million subscribers it is probably a failure. If it was to reach and convert one million subscribers I’d guess that it was probably a failure. EA and Bioware got too much ego with this one and opened their mouths (a failure that 38 Studios does not have). They started throwing around numbers, acting like they were the masters of the genre, and now they’re suffering the consequences. Don’t write checks to shareholders that you can’t cash. Being profitable doesn’t always means being a success when it comes to publicly traded stock.

Par the course

This is, once again, why I’m viewed as a “pessimist” when it comes to MMORPGs. It seems if you don’t get into the fanboyisms and/or love “the next big thing” you’re the bad guy. I’m an optimist in life but when it comes to repeated experiences I become a realist. If I get my hand bit twice when I try to pet a specific dog I’m going to assume that he’ll bite it a third time. I just chose not to allow myself to be bit by Star Wars: The Old Republic.

PVP UPDATES
* In the ongoing effort to more appropriately match up characters of different ranks, and give a smoother entry to high-level PvP, we will be revamping the existing Prestige system in 1.7. The below are some initial changes currently in testing, with more to come over the following weeks. As usual, the below info may change prior to the patch going to live shards.
* The Prestige system has expanded from 8 ranks to 40 – existing ranks will be converted to the appropriate rank on the updated scale.
* Bolstering is now enabled for level 50 Warfronts. Players entering a level 50 Warfront below Rank 13 will have their stats boosted to be more effective for both rank-appropriate and mixed-rank Warfronts.
* Marks of Retribution gained from closing PvP Rifts and completing weekly quests are now consumables that grant 1600 Favor.
* Existing Marks of Retribution have been converted back to Favor at 1600 Favor per Mark. Players who find themselves exceeding the current Favor cap after the conversion will need to spend that excess Favor and get below the cap before more can be earned.
* Reinforced Crystallized Insight is now available for purchase from Girdoom in Meridian and Templar Zim in Sanctum. These consumables grant 100,000 Planar Attunement experience at a cost of 15,000 Favor.
* PvP Rifts: Only one PvP Rift can now be active at one time across all zones.
* PvP Rifts: Sealing a PvP Rift now grants a buff to your entire faction, ‘Prismatic Glory’, which increases Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Endurance by 10, as well as increasing Prestige, Favor, and Planar Attunement experience gains by 5%.
* Removed grey-item drops from player corpses, and significantly increased coin drops.

PVP SOUL UPDATES – PVP PLANAR ATTUNEMENT
* With 1.7, the PvP-specific Souls have been converted into a Planar Attunement-based character enhancement.
* A large amount of Planar Attunement experience is granted each time you gain a Rank in PvP. Yes, this will be granted retroactively for ranks already gained.
* The Achievement, ‘I’ve Got Soul and I Am a Soldier” is now a Legacy Achievement. [If you're reading these notes on the PTS forum, that means you have time to go pick up your PvP Soul to obtain this achievement before it gets phased out in 1.7!]

PVP EQUIPMENT UPDATES
* Removed Rank requirements from all PvP armor sets. You still need to purchase sets sequentially, but the limiting factor is now total Favor gained rather than rank.
* PvP weapons and Synergy Crystals will still require specific ranks to purchase and equip.
* PvP Synergy Crystals have a reduced notoriety requirement to equip. A new set requiring Rank 40 and Revered with the Order of the Eye or The Unseen has been added.
* The previously-Rank 3 and Rank 4 gear is now available without prior purchase requirements.
* The previously-Rank 7 and Rank 8 armor has been upgraded to include Vengeance, and the amount of Critical Hit on it reduced slightly.
* PvP Armor merchants now stock Bows for Defiants and Guns for Guardians.
* PvP Armor set merchants now display items filtered by Calling. Filtering can still be disabled if you’d like to purchase items designed for other Callings.
* Costume versions of PvP Rank armor are now available from Desma Chontos in Meridian, and Templar Sanzo in Sanctum. These still have rank requirements to equip.

WARFRONTS – MERCENARIES
* Currently in testing on PTS: In order to reduce queue times to as near-zero as possible, players can join the opposing faction’s Warfront team as a “Mercenary”.
* Right now, on PTS, you queue for Warfronts as normal and may be assigned as a Mercenary when the Warfront map loads. You’ll receive a Mercenary buff and on-screen callout and will be placed as part of the opposite faction’s team.

GENERAL
* A sixth role is now available for purchase! PTS BUG: Right now you can buy the sixth role but it isn’t appearing properly on the Soul Tree UI, so you’ll see that it’s available but can’t use it properly yet! We’ll be fixing this.
* You know all those times you hit ‘Leave Party’ instead of ‘Ready Check’? Yeah, Leave Party got moved down to the bottom of the menu list.
* Increased the available Wardrobe slots to 5.
* The hit points and damage dealt has been reduced on normal mobs from levels 1-17.
* Mobs now run slightly slower than players in Terminus, Mathosia, Silverwood, Gloamwood, Freemarch, and Stonefield.
* Characters under the effect of any type of Mind Control ability are no longer able to enter new instances – Chronicles, Dungeons, Warfronts, Slivers, or Raids.
* Doubled the duration and removed the 2 minute cooldown on Omen Sight and Quantum Sight.
* The maximum water depth that you can ride your mount in has been increased and made consistent across all player races. Female Dwarves should notice the biggest overall boost, while Bahmi males should see only a slight difference.
* The guild perk Blood Thirsty will no longer be removed by triggering Killing Spree.
* While in a LFG-formed random Expert group for an instance you already have a normal lockout for, you no longer get locked from your random version if disconnected before the first boss.

CURRENCY UPDATES
* Added Eternal Crystallized Insight, a new item that grants 100,000 Planar Attunement experience when consumed.
* Expert Dungeon, Raid, and Planar Goods merchants will now sell Eternal Crystallized Insight for their respective currencies.
* Players can now visit the Crafting Specialty Goods merchants to exchange Artisan Marks for Master Crafter Marks.
* You can now purchase Augment boxes for Artisan Marks instead of Planarite from the Crafting Specialty Goods merchant.
* Augment boxed now award special stat and dual-stat Augments more frequently.
* Added Exceptional Augment Boxes that contain Epic Augments to the Crafting Specialty Goods merchants.

SOULS
* Mage and Cleric abilities that are low-ranked compared to your level now always use the ability cost of one rank below the max currently available to you. This won’t change costs for characters who’ve trained up their abilities to current rank as they level.
* Many tooltip clarity updates for abilities on Souls.
* Planar Attunement: Fixed a case where weapon-based stat bonuses from Planar Attunement could be lost and not appropriately granted when changing equipment.

CLERIC

CABALIST
* Dark Passage: Now teleports 10 meters forward.

DRUID
* Trickster Spirit, Slothful Spirit, Spiteful Spirit: These have all been changed to spells that deal Earth damage at a 30-meter range.
* Eruption of Life: Now triggers off of any damage.
* Faerie Healing: Increased the amount healed.
* Faerie’s Favor: Now instant-cast. Increased the healing amount. Now affects up to 4 additional party or raid members within a 20 meter radius if cast by the Greater Faerie.
* Mead Rush: New ability usable by the Satyr. The Satyr charges at the enemy for a damaging strike. 10 second cooldown. Also, MMMEEEAAAADDD!!
* Fury of the Fae: The Satyr will now autocast this even when out of combat.

INQUISITOR
* Corporal Punishment: Duration is now 12 seconds.

JUSTICAR
* Reprieve: Increased the bonus from Spell Power.
* Light Makes Right: Now works properly immediately after being purchased.
* Healer’s Creed: Now increases the healing you receive by 5-10%.

PURIFIER
* Surging Flames: The triggered heal now has a 20 meter radius.
* Divine Cascade: Ability removed.
* Gathering of the Ancestors: New spell available at 38 points. Places an absorption shield on up to 10 party or raid members within 35 meters. Cannot be applied again on the same target for 20 seconds – this is a separate ability blocker from the Ward of the Ancestors single-target shield. 30 second cooldown.
* Rise of the Phoenix: New spell available at 44 points. Resurrects the target with 50% health and mana, can be used in combat. 5 minute cooldown.
* Item: Asphodel’s Purifier Crystal: 4-piece bonus now reduces damage taken by 7% for 10 seconds. This effect now overwrites and cannot be overwritten by Protect the Flock.

SENTINEL
* Healing Communion, Healing Benediction: Both spells now have a 20-meter radius.
* Marked by the Light: Now has a 15-meter radius.
* Life’s Return: Cooldown is now 5 minutes.

SHAMAN
* Battle Charge: Reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.
* Brutalize: Now deals 30-60% of Massive Blow’s damage over 10 seconds. Reduced maximum stack size to 3.
* Dauntless Courage: Now affects all melee damage.
* Vengeance of the Frozen Earth: Ability removed.
* Ekkehard’s Invocation: New ability available after spending 15 points in Shaman. Instant-cast ranged spell that deals Air damage.
* Favored of the Valnir: Now increases the duration of Lightning by 4-8 seconds, causing increased damage on each additional tick.

WARDEN
* Healing Showers, Orbs of the Tide: Both abilities now have a 20-meter radius.
* Healing Cataract: Now has a 25-meter radius and affects up to 10 party or raid members.
* Cascade: No longer has a mana cost.
* River of Life: New spell available at 44 points; resurrects the target with 50% health and mana, can be used in combat. 5 minute cooldown.
* Ripple: Now has a 20-meter radius.
* Waterjet: Reduced the benefit given to this spell by Spell Power.

MAGE

CHLOROMANCER
* Wild Abandon: Fixed a case where this ability could break certain boss mob roots and snares when it shouldn’t be able to.

STORMCALLER
* Flash Freeze: This will now deal damage even if the target is immune to the root portion of the ability.

WARLOCK
* Item: Nyx’s Warlock Crystal: Updated the 4-piece set bonus. It now reduces the cooldown of Empowered Darkness by 15 seconds, and casting Defile increases the total damage of your damage-over-time effects by 15% for 20 seconds.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN
* Expose Weakness: Fixed a bug where the damage increase from Exposed Weakness was not applied to all three stacks of Serrated Blades’ damage.

BLADEDANCER
* Blade and Fury: Your Quick Strike and Precision Strike increase the damage of your next Keen Strike by 10-20%, up from 5-10%.
* Deadly Dance: Can now be triggered by Compound Attack.

NIGHTBLADE
* Dusk to Dawn: This is no longer a channeled ability but a straight damage-over-time ability. Now awards 2 Combo Points when used and does not give additional Combo Points per second. Energy cost reduced to 45 from 60. Cooldown reduced to 45 seconds from 1 minute. Damage has been reduced.

WARRIOR
* Power regeneration rate has been increased.
* Disarm abilities now properly block abilities that require either Ranged or Melee weapons.
* Bash, Furious Rage, Flinching Strike, and Face Slam no longer have multiple ranks to upgrade.

BEASTMASTER
* Calming Influence: Now obtained at 20 points in Beastmaster. Now puts a single target to sleep for 45 seconds – the target must not be in combat at the time of the effect. Any damage on the target removes Calming Influence. Only 1 target can be under Calming Influence at a time.
* Primal Rage – New Ability: Increases the damage of attack abilities for the Beastmaster and their pet by 7% per Bleed effect on the target. Duration is increased by the number of attack points when used. Obtained at 44 points in Beastmaster.
* Enraged Companion: Aura now grants a 7% bonus, increased from 5%, and overwrites the Reaver’s Enraged Essence.

VOID KNIGHT
* Spell Sunder: Now checks for line of sight.

RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Guild Quest: Upping the Ante: Should now always give credit if a Rift is closed by a guildmember.
* Fixed the level requirements on various level 20-29 Earth Rift reward items.
* ‘Puresource’ type reward containers now stack to 99.

INSTANT ADVENTURE
* If an Adventure Group is waiting for a new chain of adventures to start, the teleport invitation for new group members now waits for the start of the next set.
* The ability ‘Crushing Earth’ used by Hazeed’s Sorrow, Thargwar, and Milgrid the Terrible should be much less punishing now.

ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* A new porticulum has been constructed in Fallback!

EMBER ISLE
* Returning the Spirit: Fixed a case where players would be unable to obtain the Blessed Water.

GLOAMWOOD
* Dead Water: The mobs inside the cave you enter on this quest now have a longer respawn time.

SCARWOOD REACH
* Fall of House Aelfwar: Quest should no longer get blocked sometimes by a nearby foothold.
* A Temporary Solution: Players can now get a Pinch of Sourcestone Powder at any time while on this quest.

STILLMOOR
* The zone event ‘The Blight’ should now properly award Glowing Puresource for participants who are on the quests Shield of the Land or Frontlines of the Planes.
* One With Nature: The Aelfwar House Signet item is now properly removed from players when this quest is completed.
* Monster Hunter of Stillmoor: Now has additional item rewards available.

STONEFIELD
* A Failure of Leadership: Quest location markers for this quest have been corrected.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, CHRONICLES, RAIDS
* If your invitation to teleport to an instance fails because it is full, group/raid members can now trigger the teleport prompt an additional time by re-zoning into the instance.
* Expert and Master Dungeons, Raid Rifts, Slivers, and Raids: Reduced the critical hit damage bonus that most ‘regular’ NPCs get when they critically hit a target with insufficient Toughness. In effect, non-tanks should be less likely to be absolutely gutted when taking a critical hit by a general-population NPC in these areas.

CADUCEUS RISE
* Fixed the achievement, Bloody Bothersome, that was triggering incorrectly in Expert mode.
* Expert: The Rapid Assault achievement should now award properly in both Caduceus Rise and Upper Caduceus Rise.
* Increased Caduceus’ health. Slightly decreased the health of Erupted Core. Drastically decreased the health of Erupted Ember.

DROWNED HALLS
* Players who have been polymorphed by Hydriss should no longer get pushed outside of the encounter area by the Tsunami ability.

GREENSCALE’S BLIGHT: THE FALLEN PRINCE [Chronicle]
* Shadow of Metamorphosis should now properly end if you leave the zone while under the effect.

ITEMS
* Costume versions of PvP Rank armor are now available from Desma Chontos in Meridian, and Templar Sanzo in Sanctum. These still have rank requirements to purchase.
* Amplified Soulstone: Now properly increases damage from Elemental Touch.
* Golem Inductor: Will now proc slightly more often.
* Vornia’s Chain Spaulders, Notched Weapon, Maelforge Acolyte’s Hat, and Maelforge Acolyte’s Slippers now all have proper NPC sale values.
* Adjusted the NPC sale amount of Staff of Eruptions and Searing Obsidian Dagger.
* Updated the description text on Marks of Ascension and Greater Marks of Ascension.

CRAFTING
* Crafting will now use items directly from your bank – No need to swap a bunch of items around before heading over to the crafting stations!
* Artificer: The recipes for Diamond Focus and Diamond Icon have been changed from consuming 8 Brilliant Diamond and 4 Jagged Lightstone; they now require 1 Brilliant Diamond and 8 Orichalcum Bars.
* Carmintium Spellcutter: The recipe and resulting item have both been renamed to Orichalcum Spellcutter to match the actually-required materials.
* Apothecary: The recipe for Mighty Intelligence Serum now requires 2 Basiliskweed Stems rather than 4.

ART AND AUDIO
* Added some visual effect improvements for the low-quality renderer.
* Fixed ambient volume in Droughtlands not being correctly raised/lowered by whatever your Ambient Audio volume is set to.
* Mounts have more audio variety at audio and are not so silent!

UI/SETTINGS
* Fixed the Warfront UI window being blank while your character is mind controlled.
* Your current target is now indicated by an icon on the minimap and main map. The icon will show red, yellow, or green, depending on whether the target is hostile, neutral, or friendly.
* Guild Perk reset charges are now shown in the Guild Bank currency log.
* Fixed the ‘receive item’ spam in the chat window when combining stacks between your inventory and your bank.
* Right-clicking on the party pet raid frame when using Show Party As Raid mode now shows the proper right-click menu.
* Party member selection hotkeys (default F1-F5) now work properly when your party is displayed as a raid.
* Raid member UI should be a bit better with displaying the state of logged out or AFK members.
* Fixed a loot confirmation popup sometimes appearing if you were grouped while looting an already-owned container (like the Rift Loot bag).
* Planar Attunement experience rewards for Achievements are now shown on the Achievement UI.
* If you get disconnected due to your shard being down, we now show a message letting you know this, instead of surprising you with a different shard’s character select screen.
* Target tooltips now show Elite for group and raid encounter NPCs.
* Tweaked the ability tooltips when mousing over abilities in the Soul Tree window; they now show ability stats like cooldown and mana costs in the tooltip.
* Tooltips for abilities with cooldowns now use abbreviated cooldown duration text.
* Updated the character selection screen with faction-sorted and colored Character listings.
* You can now preview various armor sets at character creation to have an idea of what your character will look like in different types of gear!

The Justicar Nerf

Trion went a different direction with starting the Justicar nerf than I suggested but that is okay. Doctrines will no longer benefit from the mana reduction provided by Healer’s Creed. This effectively increases the cost of using them by 30%. The community (strangely) is up in arms for the most part. The crowd that realizes this is necessary doesn’t see it as a big deal. Doctrine of Loyalty costs 210 mana currently. This change makes it more difficult to spam it but it isn’t a huge deal. I think there is a need for more changes but we’ll see. The downside is that group healing in the Sentinel and Warden souls wasn’t really improved. I can see people being upset about that.

Purifier

I am a big Purifier fan. That is the type of cleric I like to play and be. There are some major issues with the soul at the moment. The blessings, which are a big part of our gimmick, are terrible. For the amount of points required they just don’t cut it. This update does not address that at all but we did get a lot of help.

Surging Flames: The triggered heal now has a 20 meter radius.
Divine Cascade: Removed.
Gathering of the Ancestors: New spell available at 38. Puts an absorb shield on up to 10 party or raid members within 35 meters. Applies a blocker that prevents being affected by it again for 20 seconds (this is a different blocker from the one applied by Ward of the Ancestors and the two don’t block each other, but they don’t stack). 30 second cooldown.
Asphodel’s Purifier Crystal: 4 point bonus now reduces damage taken by 7% for 10 second. Now overwrites and cannot be overwritten by Protect the Flock.
Rise of the Phoenix: New spell available at 44 points. Resurrects with 50% health and mana. Usable in combat.

Divine Cascade was a joke of an ability and won’t be missed. The group shield is interesting and relatively useful but it is really just there to say that we do have a group “heal.” Surging Flames getting a larger radius is pretty useful. As I advocated it, it is also nice to see that the soul will be getting a combat resurrection spell.

Warden

The Warden also had some decent changes but still not enough to turn it into the group-focused healing soul I believe it was designed to be.

Waterjet: Reduced its benefit from Spell Power.
Healing Showers, Orbs of the Tide: Both now have a 20 meter radius.
Healing Cataract: Now has a 25 meter radius and affects 10 party or raid members.
Ripple: Now has a 20 meter radius.
Cascade: No longer costs mana.
River of Life: New spell available at 44 points. Resurrects with 50% health and mana. Usable in combat.

Healing Showers and Healing Cataract now have a realistic healing radius. This turns Healing Showers from an absolutely useless ability into something that someone might cast. They still have longer than necessary cooldowns and do not otherwise improve. The same tactic has been used with Ripple. More range, no other improvement. The Cascade change is a true upgrade. Healing-soul clerics cannot return their mana effectively (and that would be OK if Chloromancers suffered the same way) and this gives the Warden a fighting chance at it. The Warden also receives a battle resurrection spell. There isn’t really any big change here other than to make abilities that you would rarely use potentially more attractive.

Sentinel

The Sentinel seems to have received the lightest touch so far. That isn’t too terribly bad as, in my opinion, the Sentinel tree is by far the most useful of the three healing souls. I still believe more can be done of course.

Healing Communion, Healing Benediction: Both now have a 20 meter radius.
Marked by the Light: Now has a 15 meter radius.
Life’s Return: Now has a 5 minute cooldown.

If you’re sensing a pattern here you’re right. Instead of making the Sentinel’s group heals more effective they just earned themselves a larger radius. There are no upgrades here other than bringing the combat resurrection in line with all other similar ones. I don’t see much for folks to get excited about.

A Start

I still don’t believe that the cleric healing souls are where they need to be. It is good that Trion is addressing them. It is great that something is changing but, on the whole, they still haven’t been under the microscope like other classes. In some cases that is good. In others, it is bad. In this case I’m afraid it is bad because of a few issues I have:

1. The three healing clerics souls don’t have clear distinctions about what makes them unique
2. Outside of healing a main tank they don’t offer very much to a raid
3. Somewhat bland and unexciting to play. Total lack of synergy within the individual soul

Can we do our job? Sure, I would never argue that I’m not effective. Are we irreplaceable? No. Outside of one cleric for the main tank you really could swap a chloromancer in with ease. There should be something these souls do that nobody else can!

There are virtually no changes to clerics yet which is a disappointment. Trion needs to get moving on that. I know this is the first set of notes but there isn’t a big “WOW” feature here yet. This is more of a 1.X.X patch than a true 1.X. I’m sure we’ll learn more as we go forward!

1.7 PTS-In-Progress Set #1 – 1/9/12

== FEATURES ==
* The below are, as usual for PTS, works in progress and may be changed!
* New Chronicle! Grab a friend and disguise yourself as Endless Cultists to infiltrate and sabotage Alsbeth’s plans within the River of Souls!
* No matter who you are, you now have twice as many Expert Dungeons to play in! The two tiers of Expert Dungeon difficulty have been combined into one.
* Sweeping improvements are in progress for gear at levels 45+. General details are listed below, with more info coming on the forums and future patch notes.

LEVEL 45+ ITEMIZATION ADJUSTMENTS
* With this patch we’re focusing on improving gear progression in endgame content. The goal is to create a smoother high-end item progression and to ensure level 50 players can be competitive in either/both PvE or PvP with a clear route of content to upgrade through.
* The following improvements are being implemented toward this goal:
* Content tier adjustments to better match with the items granted:
- Intro 50 content: level 50 Dungeons, Chronicles, Rifts, and Zone Events.
- “Tier 1″: Expert Dungeons, Ember Isle, early Prestige Ranks, Expert Rifts, and Zone Events.
- “Tier 2″: Master Dungeons, entry Raids and Slivers, mid-Prestige Ranks, Raid Rifts, and Zone Events.
- “Tier 3″: Difficult Raids and Slivers, high-end Prestige Ranks.
* Items will improve consistently between tiers of content, instead of having small improvements early on followed by huge power jumps in later tiers.
* The overall power of a new level 50 character will be increased slightly, and the power differential for items between 50 and top-tier content will progress more evenly.

DUNGEON, EXPERT DUNGEON, AND CHRONICLE IMPROVEMENTS
* The biggest change in support of the above progression is the combining of Expert Dungeons to a single difficulty tier, which impacts both gear dropped as well as LFG reward categories. The rest of the level 50 Dungeons and Chronicle content will be getting minor balance tweaks and major itemization adjustments.
* After these changes, the difficulty and rewards from content should be clearer between Chronicles/Level 50 Dungeons and Expert Dungeons.

GENERAL
* A new Guardian porticulum has been completed in Gloamwood at Tearfall Run.
* Added a new ‘Lock XP’ checkbox to the Interface > Misc settings pane. Checking it will stop your level 1-49 character from gaining experience until it is unchecked.
* You can now choose to disable auto-weapon-sheathing with a new Settings option: Interface > Misc > Disable Auto Sheaths.
* You can now use the command ‘/interact’ to interact with an NPC you have targeted if you are unable to right-click it.
* The background color of target casting bars now correctly indicates their interruptible (blue) or non-interruptible (gold) status during cast time for channeled abilities.
* You can now split stacks in your bank even if your inventory is full.
* Dismiss Pet no longer cancels Veteran Reward Vendors or Personal Bankers.
* Applying a rune to an item now only pops a confirmation prompt if you will overwrite an existing rune.
* Group leaders are now indicated in Raids.
* Fixed an issue that could cause a quest-giving item to stop offering the quest, even though it hadn’t yet been accepted.

RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Zone Events on Ember Isle now also grant Inscribed Sourcestone when event objectives are completed. Only players who have contributed during each event objective will receive these rewards. Some of the less difficult objectives will not be awarding Sourcestone. In order to maintain the same overall total Inscribed Sourcestone granted, the amount obtained from Colossi kills has been reduced.
* The Invasion commander, Hardshell Nightmare, will no longer off itself after spending only a short while on Telaran soil.

SOULS
* Mage Charge is now reset to zero when changing roles.
* Characters will no longer be taken out of stealth when their guild increases a passive Perk.

CLERIC

JUSTICAR
* Rebuke: Now works more consistently on different mob types in Dungeons and Raids.

WARDEN
* Deluge: Will no longer generate infinitely-looping visuals in some cases.

MAGE

ARCHMAGE [PvP]
* Withered Veins: The debuff will no longer persist through death.

ARCHON
* Pillaging Stone: The debuff portion of Rank 1 no longer persists through death.
* Flowing Sand: Now provides the movement speed debuff even if the target is immune to the Snare portion. Reduced the cooldown to 45 seconds from 2 minutes.

DOMINATOR
* Disorient: The stun portion no longer persists through death.
* Incompetence: No longer persists through death.

PYROMANCER
* Lockdown: Will now debuff the enemy, increasing the Fire damage they take, even if they are immune to the Snare portion.

STORMCALLER
* Storm Shard: Fixed an edge case where Storm Shard wouldn’t apply the critical hit damage bonus.
* Absolute Zero: Fixed this causing more than one next cast of Icicle or Arctic Blast to cause a root effect.
* Electrocute: The knockback should no longer occasionally fail.
* Fixed an issue where damage from Hailstorm and Eye of the Storm could be blocked by abilities like the Chloromancer’s Wild Abandon.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN
* The Attack Power contribution to the damage from Poisons has increased.
* Leeching Poison: The Attack Power contribution to the healing from Leeching Poison has increased.

BLADEDANCER
* Blade Finesse: Functionality changed. Now increases the Attack Power bonus of your Finishers by 5-25%. This bonus is applied only to attacks using melee weapons.
* Combat Expertise: Functionality changed. Now increases the Attack Power bonus of your Combo Point-generating abilities by 5-25%.
* Combat Culmination: Functionality changed. Your Finishers cause Physical attacks to ignore 1-3% of the target’s armor per Combo Point for 10 seconds.

NIGHTBLADE
* The Attack Power contribution to the damage from weapon enchantments has been increased.

RANGER
* King of the Jungle: Now increases pet damage by 20%, increased from 10%. For every point in Ranger above 21, increases pet damage by 6% – increased from 3% per point.
* Feral Aggression: Increases Critical Hit chance and also pet damage by 100% for 15 seconds. Cooldown reduced to 1 minute from 2.
* Pin Down: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute from 3.
* Diffuse: Cooldown reduced to 1 minute from 2.

RIFTSTALKER
* Shadow Stalk: Using this ability should no longer put both the player and the target into combat.
* Rift Barrier: The damage shield from Rift Guard now only reflects damage from the first tick of a DoT, in line with other damage shields in the game.
* Planar Vortex: The damage from Planar Vortex now takes the Riftstalker out of stealth.

WARRIOR

PALADIN
* Preservation: No longer prevented from being cast on a Paladin after the original target removes it. No longer causes you to enter combat.
* Aggressive Block: Now properly triggers Rising Waterfall.

RIFTBLADE
* Rising Waterfall: Will no longer immediately break the buff granted by Surging Energy when it critically hits.

VINDICATOR [PvP]
* Tactical Strikes: No longer affects Spotter’s Order.

VOID KNIGHT
* Surge: No longer ignores line of sight for threat generation.

ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* Thwarting the Emberlord: Fixed an issue that could cause this quest to not reset properly.

EMBER ISLE
* Anchors to the Depths: Fixed the placement of Shrines to Ithkus that were hiding under the sands.
* Crawl No More: The catapults should no longer be stuck in a fired position when the catapult has an active target.
* Drakes in the Drift: There is now a teleporter to the base of the Kelari tower when the quest is completed.
* Feline Intervention: Fixed an issue causing the Corrupted Wildstalkers to not despawn correctly if left unconscious.
* Pyrkari at Large: Fixed an issue where the pyrkari would sometimes not despawn when brought to the cages. The lasso effect now also leaves the pyrkari if the player who lassoed them dies.
* Raw Recruits: The reset time for the Shamblers has been significantly increased.
* Recluse Wrangling: The devour ability of the Recluse can now consume multiple spirits at once.
* Science Under Pressure: There’s now a higher chance for the Smoldering Piles to appear in larger numbers. Stavel will also leave properly if his timer runs out.
* The Nexus Infusion ability no longer works on the Bazaars in Ember Isle during the In Golden’s Grasp event, since it doesn’t actually do anything for them.

GLOAMWOOD
* Notoriety items for the Waykeepers will no longer drop for Defiants.

SHIMMERSAND
* Additional NPCs in Shimmersand grant a small amount of Dragonslayer Covenant reputation when killed.

STILLMOOR
* Additional NPCs in Stillmoor grant a small amount of Order of Mathos reputation when killed.

STONEFIELD
* Dead Drop: The Earthmaul Ward quest objective should be easier to find.
* Notoriety items for Granite Falls will no longer drop for Guardians.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, and RAIDS
* Targets marked by Raid leaders are now visible to players who join the raid after the mark occurs.
* Fixed a case where a raid member could be stuck with a ready check and be unable to initiate another if they were a leader or assistant.
* Fixed a case where a raid member logging in right at the completion of a ready check would cause incorrect results to display.

CADUCEUS RISE
* Cinderstorm’s Molten Cinders beams now appear properly in additional attempts after a wipe.

DARKENING DEEPS
* Fixed some collision on Scarn’s elevator shaft.

GREENSCALE’S BLIGHT [Raid]
* Added runspeed buffs to Hylas, Aleria, and Infiltrator Johlen.

HAMMERKNELL [Raid]
* Runebone Sorcerers’ Silent Void ability no longer roots targets inside the effect for the entire duration.
* Darktide Serpents’ Brine Net ability no longer roots targets inside the effect for the entire duration.
* Population mobs in Hammerknell award Planar Attunement experience more consistently.

PVP/WARFRONTS
* Damage dealt by your pet is now included in your leaderboard totals.

ITEMS
* Fixed a bug where some items showed a ‘Vanity’ category instead of ‘Costume’.
* Fixed several Planar Lens items that had their stats removed.
* Lavaforged Helmet incorrectly had Block on it which has been removed – the points have been redistributed into Dodge and Parry.
* The Planar Conqueror armor set is now compatible with Blighted Synergy Crystals.
* Shimmering Windstone: Increased Dexterity.
* Elder Chain Coif: Now properly gives Spell Critical Hit rather than Physical Critical Hit.
* Rising Crest: No longer usable by Clerics.
* Scarn’s Hide is now tradeable and can be sold.
* The artifacts from The Heir of Hammerknell set should now be listed in the Auction House as Collectibles rather than Quest Items.
* Some old items related to quests that are no longer in the game are now displayed as grey-quality loot items rather than quest items.

ART AND AUDIO
* Smoothed out the appearance of shadows in the distance.
* Added proper ambience sounds to caves on Ember Isle.
* Reduced the volume of steam geysers on Ember Isle around Scaldwater Fields and Wellspring Flats.

UI/SETTINGS
* Fixed occasional tooltip titles getting stuck on-screen when a debuff appeared under the mouse cursor on the Raid UI.
* Tracking of completed Artifact sets no longer turns off after a loading screen is displayed.
* Switching Roles with the Soul Tree open will cancel any previewing of souls or soul point spending in progress that has not been saved.
* Fixed a bug where sometimes the LFG window would think you were in an Instant Adventure group when you were, in fact, not.
* Added a new splash screen after leveling up displaying your level and soul points available. The display can be clicked on to open the Soul Tree window if you are out of combat.
* The Artifacts tab now shows the rewards to be gained from displayed Artifact sets.
* Fixed the Artifacts tab disappearing from the character window for those crazy players who completed all Artifact sets!
* Guild Wall: Fixed the scroll-to-top reset when deleting comments.
* Fixed the mouse cursor not highlighting when targeting items you can salvage.
* Defiants should no longer appear on the Guardian tabs of a Warfront leaderboard if they joined the Warfront while you were viewing that tab.
* Corrected zone event notice broadcasts to level channels for non-English language shards.

Poor Scaling

The main issue at hand is that as other DPS classes scale up the cleric does not. Our damage may be comparable in the tier two grouping area and even in the tier one raiding but the higher you go the more other classes pull away. That has clerics a bit hot under the collar as they feel we should at least be able to hang with our DPS peers. In all honesty I agree. Rift does not distinguish damage output by class like EQ did. It distinguishes by soul so a DPS cleric soul should be comparable to a DPS rogue soul. The difference comes in what else they bring to the table. That can swing who does more or less raw damage. Scaling currently isn’t that great for a cleric and I get why that upsets folks.

A Sloppy Fix

I completely agree that the Mein of Aggression change was necessary but a mere stop gap on Trion’s part. Instead of looking at each soul they throw a 25% damage increase buff at most of the DPS trees. I really dislike this kind of design as it breaks the uniqueness of the souls and really shows a lack of caring. We can’t be bothered to create unique versions of this buff that match the soul. Here, take this thing that really relates to the justicar tree because we don’t really want to fix what is broken.

The Justicar is Broken

It is time to just come right out and say it: Trion made a bit of a mistake with the justicar tree. This tree was intended as our tank tree and somehow turned out to be the best group healer, a decent damage soul, and all around amazing. Four a mere eleven points you can group heal like an insane person while still putting out decent damage. This is exactly why we got the sloppy fix and clerics remain low in the DPS ranks. Justicars put out healing with damage. The more damage the more healing. When you’re already healing at a level higher than you should you can’t really increase damage. So what needs to happen?

The honest truth is that it is time for Trion to pop the reset button and fix the justicar soul. Yes, I know it is going to piss people off for me to say it, but it is time to nerf it. The justicar must die a little so that everyone else can get better! It wouldn’t even take that drastic of a change to set things right. The first thing I would do is move Reparation up one tier. That turns it from a eleven point buy into a sixteen point one. That, in turn, requires a further commitment to the tree and would slightly reduce DPS of any -icar build. The real nerf comes with Doctrine of Loyalty. For a mere six points in the tree you get an amazing AoE heal. I would move this to twenty-four points. By making those two changes you really force someone to commit a bit to the tree and make it impossible to go fifty-one points into another soul. It will still be amazing for a heal build but someone will think twice about using it in a pure DPS role.

Change the DPS souls

Nerfing the justicar is part of the plan to bring other souls’ DPS up. The other is to drop Mein of Aggression and actually do something that is flavorful and makes sense with these souls. Starting at the twenty-eight point mark there should be some serious improvements that noticeably increase DPS and scale with gear. The passive abilities that are intended to drastically improve cleric DPS should move down to thirty-four points and offer some sort of gear scaling as well. By being that deep in the soul tree players will not be able to double dip and will have to give up some versatility to specialize.

Purifier

Unrelated but I just wanted to point out that the purifier gimmick (Blessings) are terrible. This soul needs a redesign!

Arm Chair Quarterback

It is easy for me to sit here and say what will absolutely fix the game. I don’t have to do the work! That said, I think we all know that for the cleric souls to thrive the justicar must suffer a bit. I’m tired of waiting Trion! Rip that band-aid off and move forwards.

Welcome to RIFT™ 1.6.1!

====================================
RIFT 1.6.1 – 12/7/11

== INSTANT ADVENTURE ==
* For players level 45+ looking for on-demand open-world challenges, we introduce: Instant Adventure!
* Join up with constant scaling objectives (and rewards!) that adjust to the size of your raid as you move through Shimmersand and Stillmoor, independent of the zone content and events that also occur in those areas right alongside Instant Adventure.
* Players can join up with an Instant Adventure raid at any time, from anywhere, and be teleported straight to the action.
* Click the ‘Activities’ menu button and select Instant Adventure to join a raid. A window will appear with the ‘Teleport’ option available for you to go directly to the group you’ve joined.
* Complete the objectives for your raid – which occur alongside regular zone content – to earn experience, sourcestone, and vanity armor items.

GENERAL
* You may now send in-game mail to characters on your account that are on the same shard but of the opposing faction.
* Rested bonus now applies to Planar Attunement.
* Updated the appearances of Rank 7 and Rank 8 Defiant and Guardian PvP armor sets.
* Rifts: The difficulty of the final unstable stage boss has been adjusted so that a solo player stands a chance of completing all stages of a Minor Rift.
* Daily quests for Black Garden can now be completed in Stockpile: The Black Garden.
* Characters who are AFK will not be selected as replacement party or raid leaders.
* Removed a couple of low-tier consumables from Freemarch and Silverwood.
* If a character levels while waiting in the LFG queue, they will no longer be placed in dungeons they’ve just out-leveled.
* Planar Abilities: Holy Champion, Anti-Planar Augmentation: Updated the tooltips to more accurately reflect their functionality.

EXPERIENCE UPDATES
* Players should receive slightly more experience during Weekend Warfronts.
* Players will receive significantly more experience for wins, losses, and ties in normal Warfronts.
* Players should receive more experience for PvP kills in both Warfronts and in the open world.
* Reduced the amount of time required for PvP kills to return to granting full experience after the most recent time the target was killed.

EMBER ISLE
* Ember Isle artifacts should now be more attractive to vendors.
* Added some additional quests to the Ember Watch daily quest pools.
* Ithkus’ Rise: Ithkus has learned a few more tricks!
* Added a new rare NPC spawn to Ember Isle that can result in you acquiring the new companion pet, ‘Snogs’!
* Danger in the Dark: The number of targets required for this quest has been reduced to five.
* Fire Shall Fall: There are now map locators for all steps of this quest.

COMBAT
* When a combat target blocks your attack, the on-screen combat text no longer shows negative damage.
* Fixed a bug where auto-attacks would begin automatically after Smart Targeting chose the next target.
* Fixed a rounding issue that caused players with both very high stats and passive multipliers on those stats to appear to have a mysterious -1 ‘debuff’ to that stat on the character window.
* Normal spiders in the open world no longer use the ability ‘Web’.
* Oreling mobs: The Pummel hit point debuff now appears properly in the UI.
* The NPC ability ‘Dust Cloud’ can no longer cause spells to miss.
* Void Knight-type NPCs will no longer mana drain Justicars using Mien of Leadership.
* Assassin NPCs will now use Lethal Poison instead of Debilitating Poison.

SOULS
* Planar Attunement: Death: Fixed a bug where the healing from Vampiric Essence wouldn’t occur when the character had respawned after death.

CLERIC
* Mien of Aggression: Now available with 21 points in Cabalist, Druid, Inquisitor, or Shaman. Increases the single-target damage of the Cleric and their pet by 25%. Reduces healing by 20%. Does not affect healing from Balm of the Woods, Contempt, Glory of the Chosen, Harsh Discipline, or Ravaging Darkness.
* Mien of Aggression, Mien of Honor, Mien of Leadership: Increased the individual and shared cooldown for Miens to 15 seconds.

CABALIST
* Curse of Discord: Now lasts 15 seconds, as the tooltip indicated.
* Symbol of the Ancient: Split the bonus per point spent in Cabalist into 2% per point for Shadow’s Touch and Bound Fate, and 2.5% to Dark Water, Distorted Shadows, and Curse of Discord. Updated tooltip.

INQUISITOR
* Armor of Awakening: Increased spell damage bonus to 10%.
* Clinging Spirit: Now lasts for 30 seconds.
* Shroud of Agony: The Area of Effect now hits 10 targets.

JUSTICAR
* Doctrine of Authority: No longer uses a projectile particle effect.
* Mien of Leadership will no longer cause ‘Immune’ messages under certain uncommon circumstances. It should also not cause certain Polymorphs to break.
* Mien of Leadership: Overhealing now properly generates threat.

TEMPLAR [PvP]
* Detaunt: Will no longer be removed due to effects of abilities cast prior to it. Detaunt’s protection will only be removed when an ability is cast while the Detaunt effect is already on you.

MAGE

ARCHMAGE [PvP]
* Detaunt: Will no longer be removed due to effects of abilities cast prior to it. Detaunt’s protection will only be removed when an ability is cast while the Detaunt effect is already on you.

ARCHON
* Illuminate: Fixed an issue where damage from this ability was incorrectly modified by damage increasing buffs.
* Fixed an issue causing Warlock’s Opportunity buff to make Archon Auras have a casting time even when the Archon had spent points to make them instant.

CHLOROMANCER
* Accelerated Growth: Fixed an issue where this was affecting non-Life spells.
* Wild Growth: Will no longer cause enemies to aggro that are out of line-of-sight.
* Fixed an issue where under some situations, the Warlock’s Opportunity would give Bloom and Flourish a casting time even if they shouldn’t have one.

DOMINATOR
* Fixed an issue where casting Charged Shield on another target would remove a Mage Armor buff from the caster.
* Charged Shield, Mass Charged Shield: These will no longer cause Stormcaller’s Storm Shard to proc.
* Arresting Presence and Reflective Presence now show as a debuff if cast on an enemy, and a buff if on a friendly target.

PYROMANCER
* Glyphs of Power: Fixed an issue where the effect would drop when zoning.

STORMCALLER
* Static Discharge: Fixed this incorrectly triggering Storm Shard.
* Electrocute: Now has a 30 meter range. The knockback will move the target up to 15 meters, to a max of 30 meters away from the caster.

WARLOCK
* Improved Mage Armor: Now correctly increases spell damage when you cast Charged Shield on yourself.
* Dark Touch: This will now properly proc Pyromancer’s Burning Fury.

ROGUE

NIGHTBLADE
* Fell Blades: Fixed a tooltip bug where the damage for Rank 6 was being displayed incorrectly.

RIFTSTALKER
* Planar Reversal: New Ability unlocked at 14 points. When activated, it causes the Rogue to Plane Shift behind the target when using Shadow Stalk, Shadow Assault or Shadow Blitz.
* Shadow Stalk: Now causes the Rogue to Plane Shift towards the target. Planar Reversal must be activated to Plane Shift behind the target.
* Shadow Assault: Now causes the Rogue to Plane Shift towards the target. Planar Reversal must be activated to Plane Shift behind the target

WARRIOR

CHAMPION
* Lingering Wounds: No longer cleansable.

PALADIN
* Life’s Grace: Range increased to 35 meters to match other resurrection abilities.

WARLORD
* Spotter’s Order: Ability effect is no longer modified by effects that increase damage.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, and RAIDS

CADUCEUS RISE [Dungeon]
* Caduceus’ leap behavior should be more consistent. If he does fail to leap during a transition, you should no longer see double minion spawns on the next leap.
* Caduceus: Lowered the damage of Quake Surge.
* Caduceus: The Standard version now spawns appropriate-level minions.

HAMMERKNELL [Raid]
* Akylios: Voice of Madness now reduces Toughness by 15 and Focus and Hit by 40.
* Just about everything that drops inside this zone can properly be sold, salvaged, or runebroken as appropriate!

RISE OF THE PHOENIX [Sliver]
* Fixed an issue that could cause Arakhurn to not spawn properly.
* Seething Core now only spawn after a boss has been killed.

UI/SETTINGS
* The borders and buttons on the map window now hide when the map goes transparent (such as while moving).
* Dragging and dropping items into the Macro edit window should now work as expected.
* The Planar Attunement window now shows total points spent as well as points available to spend.
* Hovering over the start menu buttons now shows the button header text.
* The Auction House Armor categories now shows Costume instead of Vanity.
* Tooltips that list quest objectives now indicate when an objective is complete for that target.
* The map tooltip for PvP Rifts now shows the correct time remaining.

I really need to get more work done on my PvP story, failing my way to rank eight. Ferrel is about to hit rank five and I have so much to say about ranks three and four. I have so much PvP player nonsense to disprove but so little time.

Anyway, thank you for your patience! We’ll have new content here shortly. Oh, and to the spammer who is posting “comments about Rift” you’re never going to get past my spam filter. You’re never going to be approved by me. Go bother someone else. I hear Gamebynight is a good target!

Ember Isle – A Vacation Spot

It wasn’t long ago that Trion put out a post asking which zone or area was your favorite. I said Moonshade Highlands. Strangely enough, a lot of other people said the same. Why Moonshade? Simple! It isn’t a bleak wasteland like Shimmersand, Stillmoor, and Iron Pine Peaks. Eventually you get tired of running around in a frozen waste, desert, and war zone. Ember Isle looks like none of the above (even if it is a war zone)! You have beautiful

beaches with some of the best water effects I’ve ever seen, lush green trees, grass, bright sunshine, and a giant active volcano. I felt like Ferrel had won a trip to Hawaii and I loved it. It isn’t depressing to run around the island. I spend a lot of time just looking about and exploring. Ember Isle is simply huge with little wasted space and offers a lot of opportunities to find something that makes you say, “oh neat!”

In some ways Trion almost did too good of a job. It doesn’t hurt that Ember Isle is new. That is going to attract a lot of attention. Despite that newness there is also going to be a huge shift in the level 50 crowd. I don’t do anything in the old world anymore other than my Order of the Eye dailies. I’ll also try to catch the zone events but those tend to fail more often now since nobody bothers to do them. I’m not saying this is bad. It is just something Trion will eventually have to address if they don’t want the old “level 50″ zones barren and lifeless.

Onslaught: Rift’s Tower Defense

Ember Isle also brings a new play element to Rift in the form of the Onslaught daily quests. If you haven’t found them yet you need to think about your favorite tower defense game. There are 13 sites that offer a kill 20 invasions quest. Each one has a sourcewell defense arch. Your mission is to use your planar charges to boost the sourcewell’s defenses and fend off the invasions. There are brief periods of inactivity but you won’t have to wait long before the planar fiends start knocking at your door. Some players may lose interest in this but I think it is genius. I love building up the defenses and fighting against the tide. Trion did an exceptional job with this mechanic and I can’t wait to see it grow and mature.

Your Itinerary, Sir

Have you ever gone on vacation and found out you had more things to do than time? Instead of relaxing you just rush around in a vain attempt to do it all. That is how Ember Isle is. There are so many repeatable daily quests it is insane. I’m not complaining here, I’m just pointing it out. You have several quests at Ember Watch to do. You also have a Farclan quest or two. You then have the opportunity to knock out the 13 onslaught quests. There is also a race out there and those are just the solo ones. You also have a group daily to do if you want. This mass volume of daily quests allows you to avoid a little bit of the redundancy if you’re on a limited play time budget. You’ll need to pick what you want to get done each day. I’m glad to have more to do than I have time. It keeps me motivated and happy that the zone will last a long while.

Stormy Weather in Paradise

Ember island isn’t all blonde high elves bouncing around in Brazilian bikinis. There are certainly some downsides. I’ve read that there are four zone events there. Unfortunately on Byriel we keep getting the same two over and over again. They’re interesting, I won’t lie and say they’re not, but they can also be pretty long at off-peak times. This ties into my other complaint that I’m sure some people will tell me to get over. I recognize that Ember Isle is the next level of progression. The post 50 progression! I’m post 50. I have a full set of raid gear. Iniquity has defeated every tier one raid boss. Now that I’ve qualified myself as “awesome” I’ll say it: Ember Isle monsters have too many hit points. I don’t care that they can kill me easily. I don’t mind that they run you over with invasions. All of that is perfectly fine. I mind the fact that when it is clear that I’m going to win I still have to stand there and swing for five times as long as I would at a level 50 monsters. I said this the other night and I meant it. You are more likely to die in Ember Isle than in Greenscale’s Blight. Not because it is “hard” but because you lose focus swinging so long. The event boss mobs have 1 million hit points per person on the island (an exaggeration) and every monster has huge mitigation. It just takes too long to down them. So to sum up: Hard is fine. Damage output is fine. Mass quantities is fine. Hit points, too many!

Buy a Time Share

So there you have it, my walk through Ember Isle. The verdict is that Trion did a wonderful job here. This is content that I would have paid over and beyond my subscription for. If you haven’t visited yet I recommend getting on it! Units are selling out fast!

RIFT Update 1.6 – 11/16/11

== FEATURES ==
* Welcome to EMBER ISLE, a new zone where the cults of Laethys and Maelforge work to restore their masters to power, and the history of both the Farclan Dwarves and Kelari is being re-discovered.
* Caduceus Rise, the largest dungeon to date, is now available on Ember Isle in both Normal and Expert modes. See CADUCEUS RISE for more info.
* In the newest Sliver, the Wanton have corrupted the Titan Gate into a portal for Maelforge’s entry to Telara. Prevent this fate in RISE OF THE PHOENIX! Details below.
* World Event: As winter descends on Telara, Grandfather Frost and the Yulemother arrive to celebrate the season. Keep an eye on the World Event UI for the start of THE FAE YULE event in the days following the arrival of 1.6!
* The second tier of Planar Attunement is now unlocked!
* We’ve made some additions and updates to the Ascend-a-Friend system, and friends can now be Ascended from the new in-game UI! See ASCEND-A-FRIEND UPDATES, below.
* A new alternate version of the Black Garden Warfront enters the weekend rotation; see details under STOCKPILE: BLACK GARDEN!
* The ‘start menu’ buttons on the UI have been reorganized and put into a new layout; look below under UPDATED ‘START MENU’ BUTTONS for more info.

= EMBER ISLE =
* An entirely new overworld zone, the volcanic island of Ember Isle plays a strong part in the history of both the Dwarves and the Kelari, as well as being the current seat of the Wanton and the Golden Maw’s plots to restore Laethys and Maelforge to power.
* The Sourcewells, direct connections to the core of Telara, are powerful energy sources and invaders from the Planes attempt to control and corrupt them for their own ends.
* The Guardians venture to Ember Isle to seek out the Dwarves who left to form the Farclan.
* The Defiants look to discover what happened to their Kelari brethren who remained after a civil war fractured their people.
* Ember Isle is a fully-featured level 50+ zone including all new characters and storyline, new defense-style gameplay, a large emphasis on Planar invasions, and all the good things you might expect – new gear and items, artifacts, vanity sets, pets, titles, factions, achievements… the list goes on!
* Two new Tier 2 raid Rifts have been introduced! Travel to Ember Isle to find the openers for Dragon’s Gold and Enkindled Flames!
* The Telaran effort to rebuild the Travel Stones has opened travel to Ember Isle once more; visit the NPCs at the Travel Stone locations outside of Meridian and Sanctum to journey to the island.

= CADUCEUS RISE [Dungeon] =
* The Golden Maw and some of their Wanton allies occupy the temple at Caduceus Rise, built by the Kelari to honor the powerful Telaran spirit, Caduceus.
* In their ongoing efforts to give Laethys a corporeal form, her cult followers have made an agreement with Caduceus to lend his powerful Earth magic to their cause.
* By negating Caduceus’ assistance, the Ascended buy more time against Laethys’ attempts to return to full strength on Telara.
* Normal mode Caduceus Rise is targeted for a group of level 48-50 Ascended. Two – yes, two – tier 2 Expert modes are also available!

= RISE OF THE PHOENIX [Sliver] =
* In an alternate Telara, the Eth priests attempting to open the Titan Gate in Stonefield are ambushed by General Silgen and the forces of Maelforge before they can complete their ritual – allowing Silgen to warp the gate into a portal for the forces of Maelforge. In an effort to stop the Wanton, High Priest Arakhurn pushes himself too far and is immolated, reborn as a phoenix.
* Enter the Rise of the Phoenix sliver to prevent the Eth’s tragedy from turning into Maelforge’s takeover of Telara!
* Rise of the Phoenix is intended for a group of 10 well equipped players who might otherwise be tackling the challenges of Hammerknell.
* New gear, new pets, and new achievements await!

= STOCKPILE: BLACK GARDEN =
* A new weekend warfront joins the rotation! Stockpile: Black Garden is a 15 vs. 15 player Warfront available in all level brackets.
* Obtain, defend, and store the most orbs to gain victory for your team!

= ASCEND-A-FRIEND UPDATES =
* You can now invite a friend for Ascend-a-Friend from inside the game! See the status of your invitees from the new AAF In-Game UI, located under the ‘Social’ button on the new start menu.
* All NEW Ascend-a-Friend Rewards! You are now additionally granted an awesome chest of Ascended Treasure when someone that you referred subscribes to RIFT. Ascended Treasure includes things like Inscribed Sourcestone, Lucky Coins, Plaques, and Marks!
* FREE TIME! You get 30 days of free time for every friend that you refer to RIFT who continues to play for more than 30 days!
* Ascend-a-Friend awards are now granted at the time your invited friend subscribes to RIFT.

= UPDATED ‘START MENU’ BUTTONS =
* We updated and consolidated the on-screen menu butttons that appear by default in the lower left corner of the screen.
* PLAYER: The ‘Player’ subsection handles menus related to your character’s current status, abilities, and quests.
* ACTIVITIES: Manage your queues for Warfronts and Dungeons here!
* SOCIAL: Handles keeping track of your friends, guild, and raid members under this section.
* HELP: For when you need somebody! Contact CS or receive other in-game assistance or reports.
* SYSTEM: This is where all of the setting, layout, and keybinding type menus are hanging out.

GENERAL
* Added a checkbox to merchants who have items filtered from your view that will allow you to See All Items.
* ‘Nimble’ mounts – +90% speed – now require level 30 rather than level 40 to use.
* You may now remain mounted while inside Lantern Hook and the Chancel of Labors.
* The Inventory search feature can now search by the terms ‘Soulbound’ and ‘Bind-On-Equip’ to help find these items in your inventory.
* Characters who are /afk will be notified if they auto-fail any party or raid leader-issued ready checks.
* Added an ‘Already Purchased’ indicator (if applicable) to the tooltip of Ascended Power abilities on merchants.
* All Artifacts now stack to 99. Which is a lot.
* The minimap now shows tracked NPCs that are dead for as long as they remain lootable.

EXPERIENCE UPDATES
* Groups of 10 or more players will gain more experience when killing NPCs than they currently get.
* Instance boss NPCs in Expert and Master modes now award more experience when killed.
* Instance boss NPCs in Slivers and Raids now award significantly more experience when killed.

RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Rift consumable items now stack to 50, increased from 20.
* The [Zone] Defender Achievements now have more general description text as the Rifts required now regularly show up in all zones.
* All Invasions now drop Artifacts based on the Invasion’s planar type, rather than based on zone, as the presence of zone-specific Invasions has changed due to world events and new Rift opening abilities.
* PvP Rifts: When you are carrying the Sourcestone, we now show a target arrow on the ground pointing you toward where you should go with it.
* Increased the frequency at which Invasions spawn during high level zone events.
* Added more daily quests to all zones for closing Rifts and defeating Rift creatures.

LOOKING FOR GROUP
* Players manually added to in-progress LFG groups can now use the ‘Enter Dungeon’ button on their LFG map icon.
* Some forms of NPC mind control effects that would remove you from the LFG queue no longer do so.
* You can now use the raid frame UI to initiate a LFG member votekick.

PLANAR ATTUNEMENT
* The second tier of Planar Attunement is now unlocked! The window now allows you to preview abilities in tiers you cannot access yet.
* Players will receive more Planar Attunement experience when killing NPCs in Sliver and Raid zones.
* Significantly increased the amount of experience granted for Raid and Sliver bosses.
* Significantly increased the amount of Planar Attunement experience awarded from random Tier 1 and Tier 2 Expert Dungeon completions via LFG.

SOULS
* Teleport abilities like Shadow Assault and Shadow Stalk that move the character behind the target will fail less often and will now teleport directly on top of the target if no good location is available behind it.

CLERIC

CABALIST
* Undertow: Now properly triggers on the correct target of Maelstrom (assuming it’s an enemy, of course).

DRUID
* Satyr: Now properly inherits the Cleric’s Focus, allowing Thorns of Asphodel to do proper damage in raids.
* Spirit of the Wood: Now properly works as described, and no longer affects the pet’s auto-attacks.

INQUISITOR
* Clinging Spirit: Can also be applied by Bolt of Depravity. Now properly lists its duration as 15 seconds.
* Nysyr’s Rebuke: No longer suffers from pushback.

JUSTICAR
* Increased threat generated by all damaging abilities.
* Bolt of Radiance: Now properly categorized as a Damage ability and not Threat in the ability binder.
* Precept of Refuge: This ability may now critically hit.
* Reparation: Now properly matches the ability description, no longer healing other Clerics with Reparation.
* Righteous Mandate, Doctrine of Righteousness: Properly flagged as a single-target spell, rather than an Area of Effect spell.
* Rebuke: No longer interrupts un-interruptible boss abilities.
* Mien of Leadership: Increased threat bonus to 500%. Now also causes overhealing to generate threat.
* Thorvin’s Law: Now causes Mien of Leadership to reduce damage from spells by 3-6%, and all non-Physical damage by 1% + 1% per point spent in Justicar above 26. No longer requires the purchase of Precept of Refuge to unlock.
* Shield of Faith: Now reduces all damage by 2-10%.
* Just Defense: Now absorbs 50% of the Cleric’s maximum health. Removed ranks 2 and 3.
* Resplendent Embrace: Now also increases the Cleric’s maximum health by 20%.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Reduced the absorption triggered by Doctrine of Authority to 50% of the Justicar’s Spell Power.

SENTINEL
* Serendipity: Now properly applies to the next spell cast immediately after proccing.

SHAMAN
* Lightning Hammer: Lightning may now critically hit.
* Bitter Wind: Reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.

MAGE
* Fixed a bug where Charge consuming abilities which block Charge generation while active could also block Mana returned from drinks.

ARCHON
* Purification: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage’s target does not have a Curse debuff on them.
* Illuminate – New Ability: Illuminates the weak points on a target, causing each attacker to deal additional Physical damage on 1 attack every 3 seconds for 20 seconds. Obtained after spending 14 points in Archon.

CHLOROMANCER
* Raised in Nature: Now uses only the mage’s base Intelligence and the Intelligence added by equipment to determine the amount of Endurance bonus granted.
* Updated ability descriptions on Lifegiving Veil, Lifebound Veil, and Synthesis.
* Nature’s Cleansing: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage’s target does not have a Curse, Poison, or Disease debuff on them.
* Living Shell: Fixed an issue where this would not return Mana if used while Entropic Veil was active.
* Wid Growth: Fixed an issue where the Snare and debuff portions of wild Growth did not have the same radius as the heal effect.

DOMINATOR
* Quick Thinking: Fixed a bug where Quick Thinking would not be consumed by casting Icicle if both Quick Thinking and Storm Shard occurred at the same time.
* Haunting Pain: Increased damage. Now deals damage every 1 second, down from 2. Fixed an issue where the damage was not dealt as expected when used with less than 10 stacks. Updated mana cost. Fixed an issue where the damage or duration in the debuff tooltip would display as 0.
* Thunder Blast: Now interrupts the target when the ability is cast instead of at the time damage is dealt. Fixed an issue where switching targets just after the ability was cast would cause the new target to get knocked back rather than the spell’s target. Will now trigger Quick Thinking when cast.
* Deny: Ability will no longer be available to cast, and will be greyed out, if the Mage’s target does not have a Curse, Poison, or Disease debuff on them.
* Improved Charged Shield: Fixed an issue where this was not correctly affecting the damage of Charged Shield and Mass Charged Shield. Updated description to indicate that it affects Mass Charged Shield.
* Fixed an issue where Traitorous Influence and Mass Betrayal would not drain Mana or Energy if cast while a Charge-draining ability, such as Internalize Charge, was active.
* Fixed an issue where Ineptitude and Call of Spring were incorrectly affecting the ability and tooltip descriptions for Incompetence.

ELEMENTALIST
* Velocity: Now has a 100% chance to debuff enemies hit by Crystalline Missiles. The debuff increases the mage’s Elemental pet damage against that target by 15-75%. Updated the description to more clearly indicate it only affects ability damage.
* Crystalline Missiles: Increased damage.
* Air Elemental: Reduced damage of the Air Elemental’s Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning abilities.
* Elemental Fury – New Passive Ability: Successful critical hits by the Mage’s Elemental pet will increase the Mage’s Spell Power by 20 for each point spent in Elementalist at 40 and above. This buff has a 15 second duration. Obtained after spending 40 points in Elementalist.
* Planar Expansion: The damage bonus now affects Earth Elemental pets in addition to the currently affected Air and Water Elementals. Now increases Elemental pet damage by an additional 3% for each point spent in the Elementalist soul above 31.
* Swarming Flames: Reduced cooldown to 2 minutes.

NECROMANCER
* Plague Bolt: Increased damage.
* The Shadow Revenant ability, Oblivion, now requires only the initial target to have Necrosis in order to trigger the Area of Effect damage and additional effects of Oblivion.
* Mass Grave: Reduced cooldown to 2 minutes.
* The Skeletal Knight’s Bone Shatter ability will now force enemies it successfully taunts to attack the pet for 3 seconds, in addition to its previous effects.
* Deadly Collusion – New Passive Ability: Successful Critical Hits by single target spells will increase your Undead pet’s Attack Power and Spell Power by 30 for each stack of Deathly Calling on the affected target. Attack and Spell Power boost lasts for 15 seconds. Ability is gained after spending 40 points in Necromancer.
* Epidemic – New Passive Ability: Successful Critical Hits by the Mage’s Undead pet will reduce the casting time of the Mage’s next Plague Bolt within 10 seconds to instant-cast. Obtained after spending 44 points in Necromancer.

PYROMANCER
* Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Pyromancer will receive a free Soul respec.
* Burning Bonds: Now instant-cast.
* Improved Burning Bonds: Removed.
* Unbreakable Bonds: Now requires points spent in Burning Bonds.
* Backdraft: No longer has Fire Storm as a prerequisite to obtain.
* Fire Shield: Now a single-point branch ability.
* Improved Flame Jet: Now a two-point branch ability.
* Spark – New 5-point branch ability: Reduces the Mage’s global cooldown by 0.1-0.5 seconds. Unlocked after spending 20 points in Pyromancer.
* Ignition: Now reduces the casting time of non-Fire spells by 1-5%, in addition to its original effect.
* Philosophy of Flame – New branch ability: Increases the Mage’s maximum Charge by 5-10. Unlocked after spending 10 points in Pyromancer.
* Burning Fury – New branch ability: Each time the Mage fails to critically hit a target with a single-target spell, they gain a 15 second stacking buff. This buff increases their Spell Critical Hit chance by 3% per stack. A successful critical hit on a target will consume all stacks. Unlocked after spending 5 points in Pyromancer.
* Combust: Renamed to Improved Combustion.
* Glyphs of Power: Now increases all spell damage by 5%, at the expense of the Pyromancer taking 5% more damage.
* Improved Glyphs of Power: Decreases the additional damage you take while affected by Glyphs of Power by 1-5%. Increases the additional damage you deal under Glyphs of Power by 1-5%.
* Fireball: Now has a base 20% chance to proc a Combust damage-over-time effect on the target.
* The Combust damage-over-time effect now deals damage as soon as it is applied, and every second after. This is decreased from the previous 2-second interval.
* Improved Combustion: Now appears in the combat log as its own ability, no longer attributing the damage to Fireball and no longer deals damage based on how much damage Fireball does. Now increases the chance for Fireball to proc Combust again on the target by 10-30%.
* Countdown: Damage now increased by 5% for each stack of Combust on the target.
* Improved Flame Bolt: The buff effect now increases all spell damage by 10% instead of just Fire.
* Wildfire: Now gives Flame Bolt a 33-100% chance to proc Combust on the target, in addition to its previous effects.
* Pyromancer’s Armor: The chance for this ability to proc is now increased by 1% per point spent in Pyromancer above 40. Updated description to indicate that this cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds – the ability worked this way previously, but now the spell description matches.
* Withering Flames: Now deals Fire damage and applies a stack of Combust each second while channeling. Withering Flames damage is increased by 20% for each stack of Combust on the target.
* Heat Wave: No longer reduces the global cooldown. Also no longer resets the cooldown of Intensify Elements or Sacrifice Life: Damage.
* Fulminate: Now requires 110 Charge to cast.
* Improved Smoldering Power: Combined into the base Smoldering Power ability, removed the Improved Smoldering Power ability.
* Smoldering Power: Fixed an issue where this would not consume Charge if used while Internalize Charge was active.
* Fire Storm: Now deals damage every 1 seconds, down from 2 seconds previously. Damage per tick has been reduced so that the total damage of the full channel has not changed. It will no longer deal damage immediately upon casting. Duration of the total channel has not been changed.
* Fiery Concentration: Now reduces the amount of pushback suffered while casting single-target spells by 33-100%.

STORMCALLER
* Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Stormcaller will receive a free soul respec.
* Hypothermia: Increased the duration of the Hypothermia debuff to 15 seconds. Duration of the Snare effect is unchanged. Multiple mages can now have the Hypothermia debuff on the same target at once. This applies only to the debuff and doesn’t impact the snare portion of the effect.
* Building Storm, Favorable Conditions: Abilities removed.
* Storm Shard – New Ability: Tier 3 branch ability with 3 ranks. Gives your damaging Air spells a 33-100% chance to make your next Icicle cast within 10 seconds an instant cast, and gives that Icicle a 100% chance to critically hit with increased critical hit damage bonus of 75%. Cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds.
* Lightning Conductor: Now causes Electrocute, Thunderbolt, Raging Storm, and Forked Lightning to deal 10-30% more damage if the target is suffering from Hypothermia.
* Watertouched Soulstone: Fixed an issue where this was not correctly working with AoE abilities.
* Lightning Rod: Now reduces the pushback caused by damage attack by 50-100% while casting area effect spells.
* Eye of the Storm: Damage increased.
* Icicle: Damage increased.
* Permafrost: Ability removed.
* Severe Weather – New Ability: Increases damage done by area effect spells by 10-20%. Tier 5 branch ability unlocked after spending 20 points in Stormcaller.
* Forked Lightning: Reduced damage.
* The portrait icon for Electrified now shows the correct stack size and remaining time when switching targets.

WARLOCK
* Devouring Shadows: Now deals damage every second, down from 2 seconds previously. It will no longer deal damage immediately upon casting. The duration of the channel has not been changed, but the damage and charge generation per tick has been adjusted to maintain the same overall damage and charge from a full channel of the ability.
* Neddra’s Influence: Now increases both Death and Fire damage dealt by damage-over-time spells.
* Improved Warlock Armor: Renamed to Improved Mage Armor. Now increases the Mage’s damage by 2-10% when they have any Mage Armor buff active. Updated icon.
* Void Decimation – New Passive Ability: Increases the Mage’s Void Bolt damage by 0.75% for each of their Death damage-over-time spells affecting the target. This bonus increases by an additional 0.75% for each point spent in Warlock above 40. Obtained after spending 40 points in Warlock.
* Dark Armor: Fixed a bug where rank 1 was not dealing damage.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Assassin Finishers apply Expose Weakness on the target.

BARD
* The requirement where players can only have 1 Fanfare per Bard has been removed – the Bard can now buff the entire group with all 3 Fanfares.
* Coda of Jeopardy – New Ability: Unlocked at 14 points in Bard. Plays a Coda that uses Combo Points to put the enemy in jeopardy, causing each attacker to deal additional Physical damage on 1 attack every 3 seconds for 30 seconds. Additional damage taken increases with Combo Points. This ability is similar to the Warlord’s Spotter’s Order.
* Extended Grief: Ability now also increases the duration of Coda of Jeopardy.

BLADEDANCER
* Weapon Barrage: No longer turns on auto attack which causes Incapacitate and Lost Hope to break.

INFILTRATOR [PvP]
* Ambush: Fixed a bug so that the remaining pets do not despawn when only one of the pets is killed.

MARKSMAN
* Electrified Munitions, Silver Tip Munitions, Vampiric Munitions: No longer have a 1 second internal cooldown when using AE attacks. The proc chance is reduced for AE attacks based on the number of targets affected. For example, Electrified Munitions has a proc chance of 100% on a single target. Using Fan Out that affects 2 targets will reduce the proc chance to 50%. On 5 targets, the proc chance is reduced to 20%.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Increases the damage of Electrified Munitions by 30%, down from 50%.

NIGHTBLADE
* Blackout: Functionality changed. Now a passive ability that increases the number of times Scourge of Darkness triggers by 3, and the damage of Death-based attacks by 6%. For every point spent in Nightblade above 44, the number of Scourge of Darkness triggers increases by 1 and the Death-based attack damage increases by 2%.
* Twilight Transcendence: The amount of healing done is now computed from the Rogue’s base maximum health instead of their current maximum health.
* Twilight Shelter: Duration of the buff reduced from 8 seconds to 5 seconds. When combined with Twilight Transcendence, the outgoing damage reduction is recalculated before the second reduction is applied, from 100% to 60% with Twilight Shelter, and from 60% to 36% with both Twilight Shelter and Twilight Transcendence active.
* Fire and Death Attunement: Now increases damage dealt by 2-6%, up from 1-3%, and decreases damage taken from Fire and Death based attacks by 2-6%, down from 5-15%.
* Scourge of Darkness: Fixed a bug where additional triggers from Blackout and Synergy Crystal effects were not benefiting from the 30% damage bonus of Heat Retention.

RANGER
* Quick Shot: Fixed a bug with the first tick of Quick Shot’s damage-over-time effect so that it no longer triggers poisons, weapon enchantments, or Munitions effects.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece bonus: Splinter Shot and Shadow Fire can now be cast instantly.

RIFTSTALKER
* Due to the below changes, characters with Soul Points spent in Riftstalker will receive a free Soul respec.
* Guardian Phase: Now unlocked at 16 points, down from 18. Increases all Resistances by 30, reduced from 50.
* Improved Guardian Phase: Now also reduces damage taken from non-Physical attacks by 5% when Guardian Phase is active.
* Stalker Phase: Now unlocked at 18 points, up from 16.
* Guarded Steel: Duration set at 30 seconds and does not increase with more Combo Points spent.
* Improved Guarded Steel: Functionality changed. Now increases your Deflect chance by 10-20% and increases threat generation by 20-40% while Guarded Steel is active.
* Rift Guard: Changed to a passive ability. All Plane Shift abilities and Guarded Steel trigger Rift Guard, absorbing 15% of all incoming damage for up to 50% of the Rogue’s current maximum health. Lasts for 30 seconds.
* Improved Rift Guard: The bonus applied to Rift Guard now only occurs when you are in Guardian Phase. If not in Guardian Phase, you will only get the benefit from the regular Rift Guard. Switching out of Guardian Phase after getting the Improved Rift Guard effect will cause the effect to be removed.
* Rift Barrier: Functionality changed. 20-60% of the damage Rift Guard absorbs is reflected back on the attacker.
* Shadow Guard: Functionality changed. Reduces Physical damage taken by 1-5% after using a Riftstalker damage attack that grants a Combo Point. For every 400 points of base Armor, you take 1% less Physical damage, up to a maximum of 20% reduction. Fixed a bug where the physical damage reduction was not working for several boss abilities in Hammerknell.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Now reduces damage taken from a deflected non-Physical attack by 15%.

WARRIOR
* ‘Gift’ abilities now reduce incoming Physical damage by 0.3% and non-Physical damage by 0.38% per Soul Point spent in the associated Soul Tree. Ultimately this grants a 20% Physical mitigation and 25% non-Physical mitigation bonus to characters who have all of their points spent in tank souls.
* Several tank abilities have had their threat generation amounts increased.
* Rebalanced Power costs of non-Finisher abilities to resolve the issues caused by the Surging Energy fix. This change affects all Warrior Souls.
* Spell interrupt shared cooldown has been increased to 8 seconds to match interrupt ability cooldowns.
* Removed the damage reduction in PvP for the following abilities: Paired Strike, Punishing Blow, Frenzied Strike, Reaping Harvest, and Path of the Raptor.

CHAMPION
* Lingering Wounds: This and related abilities should now proc correctly in duels.
* Having both Overrun and Blitz for Bull Rush no longer double-dips on diminishing returns.

PALADIN
* Aggressive Block: Tooltip no longer references this ability being modified by Strength, which it isn’t.
* Aggressive Guardian: In addition to increasing the threat generated, now also increases the threat generated from Retaliation abilities, modified further by Endurance.
* Touch of Life: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
* Preservation: Cooldown reduced to 5 minutes.
* Improved Reverent Protection: Now increases Reverent Protection by 10-20% plus an additional 0.02/0.04% per point of Endurance.
* Impassable Guard: Now also reduces non-Physical damage by 15%. Increased Magic damage mitigation to 25%. No longer blocks spells. No longer requires Attack Points.
* Scales of Justice: Threat generated has been increased significantly.
* Sweeping Strike: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased significantly, the number of targets it hits increased to 10 in a range of 10 meters, cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, and no longer requires a target to be used. Because of these changes, the damage has been reduced slightly.
* Rebalanced some abilities to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements:
* Stalwart Shield: Now enhances Block by 1% per point, instead of 2%.
* Defender: Now enhances Armor by 1% per point instead of 2 points.
* Hardened Will: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%.
* Shield of the Chosen: Now increases Block by 10%.
* Small Arms Specialization: No longer enhances the damage of Spotter’s Orders.
* Life’s Rapture: Now heals the Paladin instantly, and generates additional threat.

REAVER
* Increased the threat generated from all Reaver damage over time abilities.
* Power from the Masses: Fixed a bug causing all points spent in this ability to cause the same percent chance to trigger. Reduced damage mitigation to 0.7% per application.
* Sinister Intent: Threat enhancement is now modified by Endurance.
* Crest Mastery: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%.
* Wasting Away: Ability changed – now increases damage of Area of Effect and Damage Over Time abilities by 3-10%.
* Binding of Death: Ability changed – Soul Sickness, Necrotic Wounds, or Blood Fever on the target reduces all damage types dealt to the Reaver by 9%. Continues to reduce Power cost of Area of Effect abilities.
* Binding of Affliction: Fixed a bug causing Binding of Affliction to enhance the damage done by Spotter’s Order.
* Flesh Rot: No longer reduces chance to hit on the target. Now reduces the Physical damage the target deals to the Reaver by 2% when under the effect of Flesh Rot. Value is increased based on the number of Reaver damage over time abilities the target has on it, to a maximum of 5.
* Cyclone Strike: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. The threat generated has been increased, the number of targets it can hit is now 10 in a range of 10 meters, cooldown increased to 5 seconds, Power cost has been increased, now generates an Attack Point, and no longer counts as a Finisher ability.
* Imbued Armor: Now affects all damage types. Damage mitigation percentage scales from 0.5-3%.
* Shroud of Entropy: No longer requires Attack Points.
* Blood Fever: Can now trigger Void Knight’s Blood from a Stone ability.

RIFTBLADE
* Surging Energy: Fixed a bug causing 1 point in this ability to reduce the Power cost of the next ability by 75% instead of 25%.

VOID KNIGHT
* Fixed a bug causing Efficient Conversion to not properly alter the Power cost of certain abilities.
* Fixed a bug where damage shields such as Warlock Armor would trigger the counter on Fusion of Flesh, but not trigger the heal.
* Fusion of Flesh: Fixed a bug causing this to stick around after death.
* Surge: Now generates threat to nearby enemies when using Pact generating abilities. Due to this change, the damage of Discharge, Tempest, and Unstable Reaction have been increased slightly to make up for the loss of the increase Surge previously gave them.
* Rift Summon: Now acts like a taunt. Due to its high point requirements and long cooldown, it does not share an internal cooldown with other single-target taunts. Once again teleports the target.
* Discharge: Significantly increased threat caused by this ability.
* Singularity: Damage reduction is reduced from 50% to 35% but now reduces all incoming damage, not just Magical. No longer requires Attack Points.
* Accord of Emptiness: Now grants a Pact every 3 seconds. Now also has a 50% chance to refresh the cooldown on Rift Summon when the Void Knight is struck by a damaging spell. No longer grants damage mitigation to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements.
* Ravenous Defense: No longer increases Armor. Reduces incoming damage, rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Fixed a bug causing this to not stack with Ravenous Strength.
* Tempest: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased, range increased to 10 meters, cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, and no longer requires you to have a target to use it. Changed the way that the secondary damage effect on Tempest is generated; it now generates an amount of damage per Pact that the Void Knight has active. No longer drains Pacts.
* Void: Rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
* Devourer: Rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
* Ravenous Strength: Now increases Strength based on how many points you’ve spent in Void Knight. Now properly stacks with Ravenous Defense.
* Rift Shield: Now absorbs all non-Physical damage instead of just Magical damage.
* Catalyze, Power Sink: No longer proc ‘Instability’ on the target; the 5% damage reduction this gave the Void Knight is now part of the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements.
* Power Sink: Should now properly give Pacts.

WARLORD
* Spotter’s Orders is no longer a Call and no longer generates threat from Battlefield Awareness.
* Locked Down: Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
* Dramatic Presence: Now increases the self-effects of all Calls and Commands.
* All Aspects have been increased to meet their previous numbers due to the change to Dramatic Presence.
* Killing Field: Threat generation has been significantly increased.
* Battlefield Awareness: Threat generation rebalanced to fit into an intended role as an ambient threat generator. New burst-threat generators have been added to other abilities. Increased Dodge amount.
* Promise of Steel: Shifted to more of a threat-generation role. Threat generated has been increased, number of affected targets increased to 10 in a 10 meter range, cooldown set to 5 seconds, damage slightly reduced, and no longer requires a target to be used.
* Fixed a bug allowing Promise of Steel to trigger Light’s Decree.
* Call to Entrench: Self-buff bonuses have been rebalanced to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancement.
* Rallying Command: Rebalanced the resistances on the self-buff component to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancement.
* Powerful Countenance: Increased Armor buff.
* Imposing: Threat generation is now enhanced by Endurance. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, AND RAIDS
* Knockback abilities used by NPCs in Dungeons and Raids no longer re-orient your camera.
* The following dungeons now allow the use of mounts in outdoor areas:
- Abyssal Precipice, Charmer’s Caldera, Foul Cascade, Realm of the Fae, Runic Descent.

DROWNED HALLS [Sliver]
* Fixed an issue making it impossible to complete the Wave Goodbye achievement.
* Slightly increased the radius of the Hydrostatic Shock protection bubble so players gain its buff a bit faster on entering the bubble.

HAMMERKNELL [Raid]
* Player pets are now potential targets for the Bloodplague Crawler stacking damage buff.
* Soulrender Zilas’ minions no longer award experience when killed.
* The ‘Death’s Hand’ debuff cast by Runeburst Umbrals is now removed from characters leaving the instance.
* Achievement: Wait, What: Fixed a bug with this achievement!

RIVER OF SOULS [Raid]
* Herald Gaurath: It should no longer be possible to force Gaurath’s Icon of the Herald to spawn outside of the raid zone.

PvP & WARFRONTS
* Players in Warfronts should be more frequently matched against similarly ranked opponents. As always, feedback on your queue experience is welcome!
* Library of the Runemasters now has associated Achievements!
* The Codex: Fixed a case where Defiant characters could sneak into the Guardian spawn area.
* Guardian’s Flare and Defiant’s Flare Planar Abilities can no longer be used on the core area-hub Wardstones. [Only affects PvP shards, as this has never been usable on hub Wardstones on PvE shards.]

CHRONICLES
* You can now enter a Chronicle in a group that has been converted to a Raid, as long as the total size of the raid meets the player cap for the Chronicle.

ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* Ant Farm: Entering a Warfront while you’ve been polymorphed into an ant will now remove the effect.
* Thwarting the Emberlord: Quest should be soloable once again!

GLOAMWOOD
* A new Butchering trainer has taken up residence in Gloamwood Pines. Dan Lewis can be found near Dursk Nightclaw.
* Declawed: The Razor Sharp Claw item is now a 100% drop from Goremouth.

IRON PINE PEAKS
* Frozen Gauntlet: Fixed a case where players in a group could fail the quest after completing the objectives.
* The quests ‘In Over His Head’ and ‘Dark Heart’ should no longer be blocked by nearby Rifts.
* Logging out in the Forge area of the Chancel of Labors should no longer cause you to be magically teleported to the Guardian or Defiant camps when you log back in.

SCARLET GORGE
* Moved the Deranged Cadaver out of some rocks that would occasionally hide it.

SCARWOOD REACH
* Rift: Neverending Labyrinth: Fixed an issue where the player who gains first aggro on the boss was unable to ever lose aggro from it.
* The achievement, Mushroom Soup, should now be granted MUCH more reliably.

SHIMMERSAND
* Cleansing of Firesand: Updated the quest objectives so this daily quest should make more sense now!
* Quests involving Rifts in the Dunes of Akala now provide the Rift Lure for the required Rift.

STILLMOOR
* Sir Isaac Kasimir will no longer single-handedly tank the hordes of Endless Invasions during some zone events in Stillmoor.
* The zone event, An Eye for an Eye, should conclude more reliably.

CULT SAGA
* The Heart of the Destroyer: The Shade of Regulos in heroic King’s Breach should be a bit less Regulos-enhanced and actually killable now!
* Enchanted Wood: This quest has been merged into the preceding quest, ‘A Token of the Fae’.

ITEMS
* Added a wider range of weapons to the Epic Planar Goods vendors.
* Manastones have been fixed so they correctly apply their bonus to your maximum mana.
* Improved the way we count how many items are currently equipped in an item set.
* Ancient Murdantix Spawn [Item]: The mount item is no longer Unique, meaning you can properly acquire and trade or sell additional ‘Murdantii’ after you’ve collected one yourself.
* Blighted Champion Crystal: The set bonuses on this crystal were accidentally set to the wrong order – the 2 piece bonus is now the 4 piece bonus, and vice versa.
* Dusty Treasure Hunter’s Satchel can no longer be sold on the Auction House.
* Hunter Shard: This lesser Essence now has Attack Power rather than Spell Power.
* Nyx’s Archon Crystal: Fixed a bug where the buff would not be removed when the Crystal was unequipped.
* Nyx’s Necromancer Crystal: Also fixed Elemental pets triggering the 2-piece bonus effect. Description has been updated to help clarify that only Undead pets trigger the effect.
* Nyx’s Pyromancer Crystal: The 2-piece set bonus now increases the chance for Fireball to leave a Combust DoT effect on the target by 10%, and increases the damage done by the Combust DoT by 40%. The 4-piece bonus causes Heat Wave to increase Fire damage by 20% while active, increases the duration of Heat Wave by 5 seconds, and reduces the cooldown by 15 seconds.
* Pulverizing Stonesource and Igneous Stonesource were giving an incorrect amount of Spell Critical Hit bonus and have been corrected.
* Sanctum’s Word: Now with Spell Power.
* Shadepiercer: Updated icon and equipped renderable.
* Voucher: Crystal Sourcestone will now give Inscribed Sourcestones rather than Crystal Sourcestones (which are no longer used).

CRAFTING
* Clarified the description of the Apprentice/Journeyman/Dedicated/Artisan/Supreme Harvester Achievements to specify that only Mining and Foraging count for ‘harvesting’.
* The recipe for Polished Shadethorn Lumber now properly uses Sagebrush Timber instead of Sagebrush Lumber.
* You can now mine Earth Elemental, Oreling, and Golem corpses.
* You can now forage Treant and Bogling corpses.
* Thwarting Runes will no longer display as ‘Thwarting Cipher’ when applied to an item.
* Recipe: Sacred Fetish now requires 280 skill to learn, which matches the skill required to craft it.
* Heroic Healing Tonics and Bright Surge Vials no longer share the same icon.
* Light Magenta Dye is now crafted at a level that gives skillups at the point you are able to learn the recipe.

ART AND AUDIO
* Improved and optimized some surfaces for players using the low-quality renderer mode for better visuals!
* Improved reflections added to many kinds of water in the game (for high-graphics settings), and improved the coloring when looking down into the water, especially in shallow areas.
* Sanctum outdoor music now plays more often.
* General area music should kick back in more reliably after exiting combat.
* Fixed the Spindrel mount’s footstep audio not playing correctly.
* More swimming camera work – can now swim up easier when the camera is at the sea floor level, smarter character-hiding logic when the camera gets very close to your character, and now treats the top of the water like ground and will pitch appropriately.

MACROS AND COMMANDS
* Changed setting window text for “Show Only my Buffs” to refer to party members instead of “on the target”, as it was described incorrectly.

UI/SETTINGS
* Porticulum locations now appear on the world map once discovered.
* Fixed the scrolling reset to the top of the list in the Guild UI whenever the data is refreshed.
* Trying to link items in a Raid Warning no longer displays box characters.
* Fixed a case where the Healer role icon on a group member’s portrait would disappear after rearranging the group order.
* Quest tracker should be less likely to overlap other quests on your screen.
* The ‘Daily Limit’ number shown on the quest log should now properly update each time a repeatable quest is turned in.
* RiftConnect: Sending and receiving Twitter messages including the ‘=’ character works properly again!
* Fixed a rare case where an incorrect tooltip would show up on Role icons.
* Added a bunch of new loading screen tips to highlight new features!
* Fixed Party and Pet raid frame locations being labeled backwards in the Edit Layout mode.
* Characters level 6 and below who have not spent their Soul Points will have a reminder pop-up of the Soul Tree UI once per play session while out of combat. Those points are important, use ‘em!

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PTS NOTES:
* Riftstalker: Annihilate: Reverted functionality changes back to the 1.5 version [A finisher that deals damage and increases Attack Power by 15%].
* Riftstalker: Guarded Steel: Reverted functionality changes back to the 1.5 version [A finisher that deals damage and increases Armor Value by 30%]. The duration of the Armor buff now lasts 30 seconds instead of being increased by using more Combo Points.
* Justicar: Thorvin’s Law: Now properly states the scaling damage reduction based on points in Justicar in the ability tooltip.
* Justicar: Mien of Leadership: No longer causes Mien of Leadership or Mien of Honor to cancel on nearby targets.
* Reaver: Fixed a bug allowing Binding of Affliction to enhance damage done by Spotter’s Order.
* Reaver: Binding of Death: Increased damage mitigation per application to 4%.
* Void Knight *– Devourer has been reduced slightly. Now it increases mitigation on Void by 1-5%
* Void Knight: Fixed Tempest still draining Pacts.
* Planar Attunement: Mage: Flaring Glyph now increases Spell Power by 120.
* Planar Attunement: Mage: Razor Edge now increases one-handed weapon DPS by 3.
* Planar Attunement: Mage: Keen Edge now increases two-handed weapon DPS by 6.

GENERAL
* Added a checkbox to merchants who have items filtered from your view that will allow you to See All Items.
* ‘Nimble’ mounts – +90% speed – now require level 30 rather than level 40 to use.
* You may now remain mounted while inside Lantern Hook and the Chancel of Labors.
* The Inventory search feature can now search by the terms ‘Soulbound’ and ‘Bind-On-Equip’ to help find these items in your inventory.
* All Artifacts now stack to 99. Which is a lot.
* Characters who are /afk will be notified if they auto-fail any party or raid leader-issued ready checks.
* Added an ‘Already Purchased’ indicator (if applicable) to the tooltip of Ascended Power abilities on merchants.

RIFTS AND INVASIONS
* Rift consumable items now stack to 50, increased from 20.
* The [Zone] Defender Achievements now have more general description text as the Rifts required now regularly show up in all zones.
* PvP Rifts: When you are carrying the Sourcestone, we now show a target arrow on the ground pointing you toward where you should go with it.
* Increased the frequency at which Invasions spawn during high level zone events.
* Added more daily quests to all zones for closing Rifts and defeating Rift creatures.

LOOKING FOR GROUP
* Players manually added to in-progress LFG groups can now use the ‘Enter Dungeon’ button on their LFG map icon.
* Some forms of NPC mind control effects that would remove you from the LFG queue no longer do so.
* You can now use the raid frame UI to initiate a LFG member votekick.

PLANAR ATTUNEMENT
* The second tier of Planar Attunement is now unlocked! The window now allows you to preview abilities in tiers you cannot access yet.
* Players will receive more Planar Attunement experience when killing NPCs in Sliver and Raid zones.
* Significantly increased the amount of experience granted for Raid and Sliver bosses.
* Significantly increased the amount of Planar Attunement experience awarded from random Tier 1 and Tier 2 Expert Dungeon completions via LFG.

SOULS

CLERIC

CABALIST
* Undertow: Now properly triggers on the correct target of Maelstrom (assuming it’s an enemy, of course).

DRUID
* Satyr: Now properly inherits the Cleric’s Focus, allowing Thorns of Asphodel to do proper damage in raids.
* Spirit of the Wood: Now properly works as described, and no longer affects the pet’s auto-attacks.

INQUISITOR
* Clinging Spirit: Can also be applied by Bolt of Depravity. Now properly lists its duration as 15 seconds.
* Nysyr’s Rebuke: No longer suffers from pushback.

JUSTICAR
* Increased threat generated by all damaging abilities.
* Bolt of Radiance: Now properly categorized as a Damage ability and not Threat in the ability binder.
* Precept of Refuge: This ability may now critically hit.
* Reparation: Now properly matches the ability description, no longer healing other Clerics with Reparation.
* Righteous Mandate, Doctrine of Righteousness: Properly flagged as a single-target spell, rather than an Area of Effect spell.
* Rebuke: No longer interrupts un-interruptible boss abilities.
* Mien of Leadership: Increased threat bonus to 500%. Now also causes overhealing to generate threat.
* Thorvin’s Law: Now causes Mien of Leadership to reduce damage from spells by 3-6%, and all non-Physical damage by 1% + 1% per point spent in Justicar above 26. No longer requires the purchase of Precept of Refuge to unlock.
* Shield of Faith: Now reduces all damage by 2-10%.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Reduced the absorption triggered by Doctrine of Authority to 50% of the Justicar’s Spell Power.

SENTINEL
* Serendipity: Now properly applies to the next spell cast immediately after proccing.

SHAMAN
* Lightning Hammer: Lightning may now critically hit.
* Bitter Wind: Reduced cooldown to 10 seconds.

MAGE
* Fixed a bug where Charge consuming abilities which block Charge generation while active could also block Mana returned from drinks.

ARCHON
* Power In Numbers: Will no longer affect damage done by Illuminate.

CHLOROMANCER
* Raised in Nature: Now uses only the mage’s base Intelligence and the Intelligence added by equipment to determine the amount of Endurance bonus granted.
* Updated ability descriptions on Lifegiving Veil, Lifebound Veil, and Synthesis.

DOMINATOR
* Quick Thinking: Fixed a bug where Quick Thinking would not be consumed by casting Icicle if both Quick Thinking and Storm Shard occurred at the same time.
* Haunting Pain: Increased damage. Now deals damage every 1 second, down from 2. Fixed an issue where the damage was not dealt as expected when used with less than 10 stacks. Updated mana cost.
* Thunder Blast: Now interrupts the target when the ability is cast instead of at the time damage is dealt. Fixed an issue where switching targets just after the ability was cast would cause the new target to get knocked back rather than the spell’s target.

ELEMENTALIST
* Velocity: The debuff now increases the mage’s Elemental pet damage against that target by 15-75%. Updated the description to more clearly indicate it only affects ability damage.
* Crystalline Missiles: Increased damage.
* Air Elemental: Reduced damage of the Air Elemental’s Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning abilities.
* Elemental Fury: Now increases the pet owner’s Spell Power by 20 points for every point spent in Elementalist above 40. Fixed an issue preventing it from being purged.
* Planar Expansion: Now increases Elemental pet’s damage by 3% (increased from 2%) for each point spent in Elementalist above 31, in addition to the existing effects.
* Burning Fury: Fixed an issue where this would proc off of auto-attacks; it now procs only off of damaging spells. Burning Fury buffs are also removed properly when the character dies.

NECROMANCER
* Plague Bolt: Increased damage.
* The Shadow Revenant ability, Oblivion, now requires only the initial target to have Necrosis in order to trigger the Area of Effect damage and additional effects of Oblivion.

PYROMANCER
* Heat Wave: No longer resets the cooldown of Intensify Elements.
* Glyphs of Power: Now increases spell damage by 5%, at the expense of the Pyromancer taking 5% more damage.
* Improved Glyphs of Power: Decreases the additional damage you take while affected by Glyphs of Power by 1-5%. Increases the additional damage you deal under Glyphs of Power by 1-5%.
* Fulminate: Now requires 110 Charge to cast.
* Combust: Slightly increased damage. Now correctly enhanced by all abilities and buffs.
* Improved Flame Bolt: Updated the buff icon tooltip to correctly indicate that it affects all spell damage.
* Fire Armor: Improved Mage Armor from Warlock now correctly applies to Pyromancer’s Fire Armor.
* Smoldering Power: Fixed an issue where this would be non-castable during combat.
* Pyromancer’s Armor: Updated description to indicate that this cannot occur more than once every 10 seconds – the ability worked this way previously, but now the spell description matches.
* Withering Flames: Increased damage.

STORMCALLER
* Storm Shard: Now only procs on damaging Air spells. Reduced critical hit damage bonus provided by Storm Shard from 100% to 75%. Fixed an issue where this ability could occasionally cause 2 Icicles to be instant-cast. Procs should no longer display 2 icons. The buff should also properly disappear on death.
* Lightning Conductor: Fixed an issue where this wasn’t providing its damage increase for the full duration of Hypothermia.
* Forked Lightning: Reduced damage.
* Hypothermia: Multiple mages can now have the Hypothermia debuff on the same target at once. This applies only to the debuff and doesn’t impact the snare portion of the effect.

WARLOCK
* Void Decimation: Now increases the mage’s Void Bolt damage by 0.75% for each of the mage’s Death-type damage over time spells affecting the target. This bonus damage increases by an additional 0.75% for each point spent above 40 in Warlock.
* Dark Armor: Fixed a bug where rank 1 was not dealing damage.

ROGUE

ASSASSIN
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Assassin Finishers apply Expose Weakness on the target.

BARD
* Coda of Jeopardy: Fixed a bug so that Coda of Jeopardy can overwrite Spotter’s Order and vice-versa if both are at max rank.

INFILTRATOR [PvP]
* Ambush: Fixed a bug so that the remaining pets do not despawn when only one of the pets is killed.

MARKSMAN
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 4-piece Bonus: Increases the damage of Electrified Munitions by 30%, down from 50%.

NIGHTBLADE
* Blackout: Functionality changed. Now a passive ability that increases the number of times Scourge of Darkness triggers by 3, and the damage of Death-based attacks by 6%. For every point spent in Nightblade above 44, the number of Scourge of Darkness triggers increases by 1 and the Death-based attack damage increases by 2%.
* Twilight Shelter: Now reduces outgoing damage by 40% and additional copies apply their 40% reduction on the recalculated amount [ex: 100% original outgoing damage reduced to 60% by the first effect of Twilight Shelter, then to 36% of the original outgoing damage by the second]. Duration of the buff reduced to 5 seconds from 8.
* Fire and Death Attunement: Now increases damage dealt by 2-6%, up from 1-3%, and decreases damage taken from Fire and Death based attacks by 2-6%, down from 5-15%.
* Scourge of Darkness: Fixed a bug where additional triggers from Blackout and Synergy Crystal effects were not benefiting from the 30% damage bonus of Heat Retention.
* Twilight Shelter: Duration of the buff reduced from 8 seconds to 5 seconds. When combined with Twilight Transcendence, the outgoing damage reduction is recalculated before the second reduction is applied, from 100% to 60% with Twilight Shelter, and from 60% to 36% with both Twilight Shelter and Twilight Transcendence active.
* Twilight Transcendence: The amount of healing done is now computed from the Rogue’s base maximum health instead of their current maximum health.

RANGER
* Quick Shot: Fixed a bug with the first tick of Quick Shot so that it no longer triggers poisons, weapon enchantments, or Munitions effects.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece bonus: Splinter Shot and Shadow Fire can now be cast instantly.

RIFTSTALKER
* Rift Guard: Absorption shield is now triggered whenever you use Guarded Steel or a Plane Shift ability.
* Stalker Phase: Now unlocked at 18 points, up from 16.
* Guardian Phase: Now unlocked at 16 points, down from 18. Increases all Resistances by 30, reduced from 50.
* Improved Rift Guard: The bonus applied to Rift Guard now only occurs when you are in Guardian Phase. If not in Guardian Phase, you will only get the benefit from the regular Rift Guard. Switching out of Guardian Phase after getting the Improved Rift Guard effect will cause the effect to be removed.
* Improved Guardian Phase: Now also reduces damage taken from non-Physical attacks by 5% when Guardian Phase is active.
* Improved Guarded Steel: Functionality changed. Now increases your Deflect chance by 10-20% and increases threat generation by 20-40% while Guarded Steel is active.
* Hammerknell Synergy Crystal 2-piece Bonus: Now reduces damage taken from non-Physical attacks by 15% when you deflect.

WARRIOR
* ‘Gift’ abilities now reduce incoming Physical damage by 0.3% and non-Physical damage by 0.38% per Soul Point spent in the associated Soul Tree. Ultimately this grants a 20% Physical mitigation and 25% non-Physical mitigation bonus to characters who have all of their points spent in tank souls.
* Several tank abilities have had their threat generation amounts increased.
* Rebalanced Power costs of non-Finisher abilities to resolve the issues caused by the Surging Energy fix. This change affects all Warrior Souls.

CHAMPION
* Lingering Wounds: This and related abilities should now proc correctly in duels.

PALADIN
* Impassable Guard no longer requires Attack Points. Increased Magic damage mitigation to 25%.
* Rebalanced some abilities to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements:
* Stalwart Shield: Now enhances Block by 1% per point, instead of 2%.
* Defender: Now enhances Armor by 1% per point instead of 2 points.
* Hardened Will: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%; no longer scales with points spent in Paladin.
* Shield of the Chosen: Now increases Block by 10%.
* Small Arms Specialization: No longer enhances the damage of Spotter’s Orders.
* Sweeping Strike: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, range increased to 10 meters, threat generation reduced accordingly.
* Life’s Rapture: Now heals the Paladin instantly, and generates additional threat.

REAVER
* Wasting Away: Ability changed – now increases damage of Area of Effect and Damage Over Time abilities by 3-10%. The previous effect has been moved to Binding of Death.
* Binding of Death: Ability changed – Now causes Soul Sickness, Necrotic Wounds, and Blood Fever on the target to reduce all damage types dealt to the Reaver. Continues to reduce Power cost of Area of Effect abilities.
* Flesh Rot: The damage reduction now only affects Physical attacks. Removed an errant debuff icon that this ability would place on the caster.
* Crest Mastery: Now gives 2% non-Physical resistance instead of 3%, and no longer scales with points spent in Reaver.
* Imbued Armor: Now affects all damage types. Damage mitigation percentage scales from 0.5-3%.
* Shroud of Entropy: No longer requires Attack Points.
* Blood Fever: Can now trigger Void Knight’s Blood from a Stone ability.
* Cyclone Strike: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, range increased to 10 meters, threat generation reduced accordingly.
* Power From the Masses: Reduced damage mitigation to 0.7% per application.

VOID KNIGHT
* Rift Summon: Once again teleports the target.
* Void: Rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
* Devourer: Rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Still reduces Physical and Magical damage.
* Accord of Emptiness: Now grants a Pact every 3 seconds. No longer grants damage mitigation to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements. Now also has a 50% chance to refresh the cooldown on Rift Summon when the Void Knight is struck by a damaging spell.
* Singularity: No longer requires Attack Points. Fixed a tooltip error where it listed only non-Physical damage reduction. Singularity reduces all damage and the tooltip now reflects this.
* Rift Shield: Now absorbs all non-Physical damage instead of just Magical damage.
* Ravenous Defense: No longer scales with points spent in Void Knight, and has been rebalanced to support the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements.
* Ravenous Strength: Removed an erroneous number ’5′ on the tooltip.
* Catalyze, Power Sink: No longer proc ‘Instability’ on the target; the 5% damage reduction this gave the Void Knight is now part of the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancements.
* Surge: Now gives even more Threat enhancement.
* Tempest: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, range increased to 10 meters, threat generation reduced accordingly.

WARLORD
* Call to Entrench: Self-buff bonuses have been rebalanced to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancement.
* Rallying Command: Rebalanced the resistances on the self-buff component to work with the new ‘Gift’ ability enhancement.
* Powerful Countenance: Increased Armor buff.
* Battlefield Awareness: Increased Dodge amount.
* Imposing: Threat generation is now enhanced by Endurance. Cooldown reduced to 30 seconds.
* Promise of Steel: Cooldown reduced to 5 seconds, range increased to 10 meters, threat generation reduced accordingly.

DUNGEONS, SLIVERS, AND RAIDS
* Knockback abilities used by NPCs in Dungeons and Raids no longer re-orient your camera.

DARKENING DEEPS
* Scarn: Moved the in-combat barrier slightly further into Scarn’s chamber to prevent him from getting stuck on take-off.
* Master: Scarn: Fires now immediately extinguish when the encounter is reset.

DROWNED HALLS [Sliver]
* Fixed an issue making it impossible to complete the Wave Goodbye achievement.
* Slightly increased the radius of the Hydrostatic Shock protection bubble so players gain its buff a bit faster on entering the bubble.

HAMMERKNELL [Raid]
* Player pets are now potential targets for the Bloodplague Crawler stacking damage buff.
* Soulrender Zilas’ minions no longer award experience when killed.
* The ‘Death’s Hand’ debuff cast by Runeburst Umbrals is now removed from characters leaving the instance.
* Achievement: Wait, What: Fixed a bug with this achievement!

RIVER OF SOULS [Raid]
* Herald Gaurath: It should no longer be possible to force Gaurath’s Icon of the Herald to spawn outside of the raid zone.

PvP & WARFRONTS
* The Codex: Fixed a case where Defiant characters could sneak into the Guardian spawn area.
* Library of the Runemasters now has associated Achievements!
* Guardian’s Flare and Defiant’s Flare Planar Abilities can no longer be used on the core area-hub Wardstones. [Only affects PvP shards, as this has never been usable on hub Wardstones on PvE shards.]

CHRONICLES
* You can now enter a Chronicle in a group that has been converted to a Raid, as long as the total size of the raid meets the player cap for the Chronicle.

ZONES

DROUGHTLANDS
* Ant Farm: Entering a Warfront while you’ve been polymorphed into an ant will now remove the effect.
* Thwarting the Emberlord: Quest should be soloable once again!

GLOAMWOOD
* A new Butchering trainer has taken up residence in Gloamwood Pines. Dan Lewis can be found near Dursk Nightclaw.

IRON PINE PEAKS
* Frozen Gauntlet: Fixed a case where players in a group could fail the quest after completing the objectives.
* The quests ‘In Over His Head’ and ‘Dark Heart’ should no longer be blocked by nearby Rifts.
* Logging out in the Forge area of the Chancel of Labors should no longer cause you to be magically teleported to the Guardian or Defiant camps when you log back in.

SCARLET GORGE
* Moved the Deranged Cadaver out of some rocks that would occasionally hide it.

SCARWOOD REACH
* Rift: Neverending Labyrinth: Fixed an issue where the player who gains first aggro on the boss was unable to ever lose aggro from it.

SHIMMERSAND
* Cleansing of Firesand: Updated the quest objectives so this daily quest should make more sense now!
* Quests involving Rifts in the Dunes of Akala now provide the Rift Lure for the required Rift.

STONEFIELD
* Revised the flow of the final few Stonefield quests so that players don’t get tricked into heading straight into Scarwood Reach and skipping past Scarlet Gorge.

ITEMS
* Added a wider range of weapons to the Epic Planar Goods vendors.
* Manastones have been fixed so they correctly apply their bonus to your maximum mana.
* Improved the way we count how many items are currently equipped in an item set.
* Ancient Murdantix Spawn [Item]: The mount item is no longer Unique, meaning you can properly acquire and trade or sell additional ‘Murdantii’ after you’ve collected one yourself.
* Blighted Champion Crystal: The set bonuses on this crystal were accidentally set to the wrong order – the 2 piece bonus is now the 4 piece bonus, and vice versa.
* Dusty Treasure Hunter’s Satchel can no longer be sold on the Auction House.
* Nyx’s Archon Crystal: Fixed a bug where the buff would not be removed when the Crystal was unequipped. Also fixed Elemental pets triggering the 2-piece bonus effect. Description has been updatede to help clarify that only Undead pets trigger the effect.
* Nyx’s Pyromancer Crystal: The 2-piece set bonus now increases the chance for Fireball to leave a Combust DoT effect on the target by 10%, and increases the damage done by the Combust DoT by 40%. The 4-piece bonus causes Heat Wave to increase Fire damage by 20% while active, increases the duration of Heat Wave by 5 seconds, and reduces the cooldown by 15 seconds.
* Sanctum’s Word: Now with Spell Power.
* Shadepiercer Bow: Updated icon and equipped renderable.
* Voucher: Crystal Sourcestone will now give Inscribed Sourcestones rather than Crystal Sourcestones (which are no longer used).

CRAFTING
* Clarified the description of the Apprentice/Journeyman/Dedicated/Artisan/Supreme Harvester Achievements to specify that only Mining and Foraging count for ‘harvesting’.
* The recipe for Polished Shadethorn Lumber now properly uses Sagebrush Timber instead of Sagebrush Lumber.
* You can now mine Earth Elemental, Oreling, and Golem corpses.
* You can now forage Treant and Bogling corpses.
* Thwarting Runes will no longer display as ‘Thwarting Cipher’ when applied to an item.
* Heroic Healing Tonics and Bright Surge Vials no longer share the same icon.
* Recipe: Sacred Fetish now requires 280 skill to learn, which matches the skill required to craft it.
* Light Magenta Dye is now crafted at a level that gives skillups at the point you are able to learn the recipe.

ART AND AUDIO
* Improved and optimized some surfaces for players using the low-quality renderer mode for better visuals!
* Improved reflections added to many kinds of water in the game (for high-graphics settings), and improved the coloring when looking down into the water, especially in shallow areas.
* Sanctum outdoor music now plays more often.
* General area music should kick back in more reliably after exiting combat.
* Fixed the Spindrel mount’s footstep audio not playing correctly.
* More swimming camera work – can now swim up easier when the camera is at the sea floor level, smarter character-hiding logic when the camera gets very close to your character, and now treats the top of the water like ground and will pitch appropriately.

MACROS AND COMMANDS
* Changed setting window text for “Show Only my Buffs” to refer to party members instead of “on the target”, as it was described incorrectly.

UI/SETTINGS
* Porticulum locations now appear on the world map once discovered.
* Fixed the scrolling reset to the top of the list in the Guild UI whenever the data is refreshed.
* Trying to link items in a Raid Warning no longer displays box characters.
* Fixed a case where the Healer role icon on a group member’s portrait would disappear after rearranging the group order.
* RiftConnect: Sending and receiving Twitter messages including the ‘=’ character works properly again!
* The ‘Daily Limit’ number shown on the quest log should now properly update each time a repeatable quest is turned in.
* Fixed a rare case where an incorrect tooltip would show up on Role icons.
* Characters level 6 and below who have not spent their Soul Points will have a reminder pop-up of the Soul Tree UI once per play session while out of combat. Those points are important, use ‘em!
* Added a bunch of new loading screen tips to highlight new features!
* Fixed Party and Pet raid frame locations being labeled backwards in the Edit Layout mode.
* Quest tracker should be less likely to overlap other quests on your screen.

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