General

Instruments should now lose their durability much less frequently as before.

There was an issue causing instruments to lose durability much faster in conjunction with running several songs at once.

The new weapon from Jack Frost, the Ice Shard, has had its slow duration reduced to 3 seconds.

Ice Shards are now only usable by level 50 characters.

Midgard’s Ice Shard is now an Axe weapon instead of a Sword.

This change allows it to be used in the offhand like the other realms.



Class Changes

The Underhill Stalker has had two styles removed:

Achilles Heel and Leaper

These styles caused the armor wither effect, which lead to massive hits on targets while Summon Mastery (ML9) was active. With these styles removed, the stalker's damage should be more in-line with the other melee-DPS pets in the other realms.

Otherwise, we are happy with the DPS pets' damage as these pets are extremely weak to both physical and magical attacks, and gain no defensive bonuses even while under the effects of Summon Mastery (ML9).

Arawn’s Legion pet limit has been reduced to 12, down from 16.

Please note these pets are instantly destroyed with confusion spells (Skald, Runemaster, Healer, Bard, Mentalist, Warden).

These pets are vulnerable to all forms of crowd control.

Gates of Valhalla pet limit has been reduced to 24, down from 32.

Please note these pets are instantly destroyed with confusion spells (Sorcerer, Minstrel, Friar, Bard, Mentalist, Warden).

These pets are vulnerable to all forms of crowd control.



The following changes are now live!Overall, we are very happy with the pet-based class' performance. Prior to 1.122 pet-based classes had static and uninspired pets and pet abilities that made their pets more after-thoughts than class-defining roles. With 1.122 we wanted there to be a real choice among the different pets with each pet type being useful and unique. In many ways this has been accomplished. However, the melee-DPS pets seem to be a bit too popular still. As we monitor this latest round of fixes, we are looking at some additional adjustments in the coming weeks that will help the other pet types' performance.In addition, we would like to announce that class balance related tweaks and adjustments will be coming more frequently and more often as Hot Fixes, going forward. This allows us to more nimbly respond to your feedback to address any imbalances and allows us to perform more gradual improvements in shorter timespans. Major class balance changes will still be part of major patch versions (read: with downtime) but tweaks to classes, in the form of Hot Fixes, should be expected every 3-5 weeks throughout the year from now on.We've addressed the stealther archetypes, light-tank archetypes, and pet-classes extensively over the previous two patch cycles and so Hot Fix adjustments between now and the next major update will be focused in those areas; however, we will be looking at hybrids and the lesser-used support lines in the next major version. Speaking of the next major version, as discussed in the end of the year podcast, one of its major focal points will be on adjusting /uses and procs on gear so that class abilities once again matter more than the procs or abilities found on a character's equipment.Finally, we'll be outlining our full plan for the 1.123 version (and beyond) in the coming weeks with a Producer's letter and newsletter. There are some big updates on the way and we're very excited to unveil them to you!