Highlights - Storm King's Thunder

Storm King’s Thunder Campaign, level 70+ campaign

Return to Icewind Dale in a brand new journey through three new Adventure Zones.

With the assistance of Makos, Cattie-brie and Wulfgar, confront the Frost Giant Jarl Storvald and the powerful artifact known as the Ring of Winter threatening to plunge Faerûn, and possibly all of Toril, into eternal winter.

Read more about the background and story here.

Fangbreaker Island, New Tier 3 dungeon

Travel to Fangbreaker Island, a Frost Giant stronghold to confront Drufi in this brand new tier 3 dungeon (item level 3100) with an emphasis on unique and interesting boss mechanics. Along the way, encounter a ferocious manticore and a massive dragon turtle, then storm the stronghold itself, defeating the Frost Giants’ foothold in the North.

Read more here.

Ostorian Relics, item progression system

The ancient kingdom of the giants, Ostoria, fell thousands of years ago, collapsing under the stresses of the wars against the dragons and betrayal from within the ranks of the giants themselves. Almost all of the great treasures the giants accumulated during their rule are now lost, but not all.

With a new tier of armor comes the chance to restore powerful pieces of equipment to resist the potent effects from the Ring of Winter that lies in the hands of the Frost Giants.

Read more here.

Class Balance notes can be seen in our previous blogs.

Read about the Hunter Ranger, Scourge Warlock, and Guardian Fighter.

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Campaigns

Sharandar: Players are now properly scaled to the expected level in certain locations.

The Dwarven King

Prophecy of Madness (Queued): In the Demonic Incursion variant, the timer now properly resets when the players reach Gold in Phase 1.

Prophecy of Madness (Queued): In the Protect the Prophecy variant, encounters now respawn more quickly.

PvP

Stronghold Siege now has a bonus event in the hourly rotation. Playing during a Stronghold Siege hour grants +50% Glory and +1 Banner of the Fallen as a reward.

General

Castle Never: Orcus' name is no longer visible while he is flying.

Castle Never: "Demon Prince of Being Dead" now grants progress credit to support characters.

Mold on various cheese wheels has been cut away; the cheese textures once again look cheesy. Yum!

Combat and Powers

Classes and Balance

Companions

Acolyte of Kelemvor: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.

Elemental Air Cultist's active power no longer requires the player to be at low health to trigger.

Companions with Combat Advantage active companion bonuses (Blink Dog, Staldorf, and Intellect Devourer) have had these powers changed to combine additively rather than multiplicatively. As a result, players using these may notice slight reductions in the combat advantage bonus provided by these powers.

Harper Bard: This companion now properly functions as a Leader companion.

Priestess of Sehanine: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.

Renegade Illusionist: This companion now properly functions as a Striker companion.

Repentant Dragon Cultist: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.

Sergeant Knox: This companion now properly functions as a Defender companion.

Wandering Scarecrow: This companion now properly functions as a Striker companion.

Items and Economy

Campaigns

Elemental Evil campaign reward armors now all have an Armor Enchantment slot. If there was an Armor Kit slotted in any existing items, this kit will be moved to the Armor Enchantment slot. It can be removed or destroyed like an Enchantment, then reapplied as desired.

Maze Engine Campaign: Armor set prices have been adjusted. The prices are now 4,000 supplies for the lowest tier, 5,000 supplies for the medium tier, and 6,000 supplies for the highest tier.

Companions

Cultist of Air: This companion is now named Elemental Air Cultist, to match his item and collection name.

Enchantments and Enhancements

Armor Kits and Jewels now display the item level increase they add to armor in their tooltip text.

Bronzewood Enchantment: Rank 12 of this Enchantment now properly applies the 10% damage reduction and 5% increased incoming damage on the target.

Drain Overload Enchantments: The power of the Stronghold PvP AP and Stamina Drain Overload Enchantments has been significantly reduced. The corresponding wards and boons are scaled proportionally.

Frost Enchantment: Higher ranks of the Frost Enchantment no longer incorrectly cause massive damage increases.

Frostburn Enchantment: In addition to its other properties, all ranks of the Frostburn Enchantment now slow the attacker (players and NPCs) by 30% as part of the effect.

Lightning Enchantment: In addition to its other properties, all ranks of the Lightning Enchantment now reduce all cooldowns by 2% for the first lightning strike, plus an additional 1% for each chain.

The internal cooldowns on Lesser through Transcendent rank Fireburst, Frostburn, Thunderhead, and Bloodtheft armor enchantments have been reduced.

Three-stat enchantments now have slightly improved stats, in attempt to make them competitive with one- and two-stat enchantments.

Insignias

Five new bonus powers have been added to the game! Assassin's Covenant: This new bonus requires a Regal, and two Enlightened insignia. You lose 10% of Defense, Deflection and Life Steal and gain the combination lost as Power. Barbarian's Revelry/Delight: Updated the tooltip to list that the effect can only occur once every 2s. This is just a tooltip update. Berserker's Rage: This new bonus requires a Barbed and two Illuminated insignia. While you have full Action Points, you gain 10% of your Armor Penetration as Power. Combatant's Maneuver: This new bonus requires an Illuminated and two Regal insignia. Whenever you control an enemy, you gain 5% combat Advantage damage for 10 seconds. Slayer's Redemption: This new bonus requires an enlightened and two crescent insignia. Whenever you kill a target, you are healed for 10% of your maximum Hit Points over 5 seconds. Victim's Preservation: This new bonus requires a Crescent and two Barbed insignia. Whenever you take more than 35% of your maximum Hit Points before any mitigation in a single attack, you are healed for 10% of your maximum Hit Points over 5 seconds. This cannot occur once every 10 seconds.

Insignia Bonuses are now properly affected by healing debuffs, such as Healing Depression in PvP.

Magistrate's Patience: The damage dealt by this power is now properly considered Damage Over Time damage.

Invocation

Invocation now gives a Rough Astral Diamond bonus instead of granting Rough AD directly. The bonus Rough AD awarded is moderately larger than what was previously granted as straight Rough AD. In general, Invoking while playing other Rough AD generating activities will see a reasonable increase in AD earned, while Invoking only will see a drastic decrease.



Professions

Adamant Rejuvenation Surcoat is now available via Masterwork Professions. This body slot item is usable by Devoted Clerics, and provides stats focused on healing.

For players who have misplaced their Worn Gauntlets, they are now available at any profession vendor. They are only visible for those that need them.

PvP Rewards

Grim equipment is no longer available for purchase at the Trade of Blades.

Seals of Triumph have been removed from the cost of Lionsmane armor.

The cost of Burning equipment has been reduced.

The number of Fallen Banners required to purchase Lionsmane armor pieces has been halved.

Rings of Ambush, Sieging, and Charging Bull: The wording has been changed to state "When you have been running" instead of When you have been moving." This means that moving very slowly (such as when you are running into a wall) will cause the effects to stop, and the effects will no longer apply while you are mounted. Note that most Slow effects will not cause players to move slowly enough on their own to prevent these effects from firing.

Seals of Triumph The amount of Seals of Triumph awarded for winning a daily domination match has been increased from 1 to 60. The amount of Seals of Triumph in the cost of items has been adjusted based on therelated changes. The cap for Seals of Triumph has been increased from 500 seals to 1200.



Salvage

Now that a new tier of gear is in the game, we've streamlined what Salvage values items give with the goal of making them feel more consistent. Going forward, all items of level 130+ that are salvageable will have their salvage value determined by rarity and size (Small/Medium/Large) only. "Small" gear includes: Neck, Waist, Ring, Shirt, Pants "Medium" gear includes: Arms, Feet, Head, Off-Hand Weapon "Large" gear includes: Body, Main Hand Weapon In practice, the biggest effect of these changes is that some rings have gone down in value and some Elemental/Protector seal gear has gone up.



Trade Bar Store

Dusk equipment has been moved from the "current" tab in the Trade Bar store's equipment section to the "legacy" tab.

Grim equipment is now available for purchase in the Trade Bar store.

The Goat Companion is now available in the Trade Bar Store!

General

All identification scrolls stack to 999 (up from 99).

Champion's Battle Horn: This item no longer places the player in combat when used.

Demonic Ichor: The weekly cap for Demonic Ichor has been removed.

Illusionist's Mask: A new Legendary rank has been added to the Illusionist's Mask as part of the next Masquerade of Liars event. The epic rank of the artifact can now take basic refinement and Masquerade refinement to be upgraded, and the mask acquires an activated power when it is upgraded to legendary.

Insignias: Rare and Epic Insignias can now be donated to the Stronghold Coffer.

Oghma's Release has been renamed Oghma's Token of Free Movement, to match rest of the set.

Shard of Shadowclad Enchantment is now available at the Seal Vendor.

Star Metal Gauntlet and Adamantine Gauntlet tooltips now accurately display the rewards they can retrieve.

User Interface

Bank

The maximum purchasable slots of the Account Shared Bank have been increased by 40.

The maximum purchasable slots of the Personal Bank have been increased by 32.

Collections

The Artifact pages have been condensed. This may affect players' collection point totals.

The Trade Bar Store collection page has been updated.

Guild Alliances

Guild leaders now have the option to set visits by allies to Invite Only.

Invocation

When a player has bonus Astral Diamonds to gain through gameplay, there is now an indicator below the player portrait.

Queues

Average Wait Time is now visible in the queue window.

Players who log out and back in are now properly placed back into the queue and party, rather than being in some quantum state of both in and out of the party depending on perspective.

Vote Abandon is now available. This feature allows a player to initiate a vote with all active players on the map. If the vote succeeds, all players are notified that the map is shutting down, and no leaver penalty is applied. This option is only available in PvE content.

When a queued event expires, such as the short window to join a Tiamat queue or a longer Call to Arms queue, all players who remain unmatched are now removed from the queue. This is to prevent the queue from misleading the player into thinking they may still get into a match.

When a queued event expires while the player is in a related queue, "Looking for reinforcements" no longer displays, as players can no longer reinforce.

When attempting to join a queue while already in a queued instance, a tooltip now properly informs the player that they are unable to queue while they remain there.

Zen Market

Coupons are no longer sometimes consumed while reclaiming a free product, such as a mount.

Visiting the Zen Market with a coupon no longer sometimes shows an incorrect price for certain items, as though the coupon provided a discount to an unrelated item.

Graphics, Effects, and Animation

General

Interaction sparkles now show up again for certain interactive objects, such as the crates at the beginning of the tutorial.

Performance and Stability

General

A client crash that could occur when donating to Stronghold Coffers has been resolved.

Several client crashes that could occur when transferring maps have been resolved.

Discuss on the official forums