Patch Notes: NW.70.20161025b.0

Highlights

New Adventure Zone: Sea of Moving Ice

Take the fight to the frost giants in this new adventure zone! As the name may suggest, this new location is set on several icebergs in the sea to the north of Icewind Dale. Continue the story of Storm King's Thunder and bring justice to your enemies!

For more information, head here.

Campaign Extension: Storm King's Thunder

With the Sea of Moving Ice having opened up, the top of the Storm King's Thunder campaign has thawed! Win the awe of the factions operating in the area and earn new rewards, including up to two more points for the top-tier campaign boons.

Sea Travel

Getting from place to place in the Sea of Moving Ice requires one to be able to navigate the icy waters, and what better way than with a khyek? These personal-sized conveyances are the perfect way to get from shore to shore, with some fun new gameplay in between!

For more information, head here.

New Epic Trial: Svardborg

The frost giant Jarl Storvald has made his stronghold in Svardborg, a fortress in the Sea of Moving Ice. Face him in his lair and recover the Ring of Winter for the good of the Realms!

For more information, head here.

New Rewards

With more places to go and monsters to slay, there is also more treasure to claim! New pieces of Artifact Equipment, an Artifact, and a Companion are newly available.

In addition, adventurers in possession of relic armor may now see the armor restored to its full glory. Completely restored relic armor, or "vivified" relic armor, will increase by 10 item levels at each empowerment rank.

The first time Svardborg (Master) is cleared in a week you will receive an Ostorian Tale Carving.

Ostorian Tale Carvings may be exchanged for testimonies at the newly arrived Historian in Bryn Shander.

With the proper testimony in hand, selecting "restore" in the context menu on a piece of relic armor will allow that piece to be converted into "vivified relic armor."

All transmutes, dyes, enchants, and armor kits on the original relic armor piece will persist during the upgrade process.

The item level will increase by 10 at every empowerment rank. Fully empowered "vivified relic armor" is item level 160 while standard relic armor is item level 150 when fully empowered.

Removal of Legacy Set Bonuses

As part of our efforts to rein in runaway power sources, we have removed set bonuses from level 60 equipment that has been unobtainable since the release of Module 6: Elemental Evil.

For more details on this decision and links to discussion locations, please view the thread here.

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Elemental Evil

The final task of the Elemental Evil campaign now properly requires all four tracks to be completed before it can be started.

General

Fangbreaker Island: Catti-brie has an additional bit of optional dialog at the end of this dungeon, once complete.

Icewind Dale: If players donate currencies to their Stronghold coffer while on the quest, The Long Night, they are now able to progress by returning the next day to complete daily quests.

Icewind Dale: Return on Investment can now be dropped. Dropping this quest prevents it from being taken or auto-granted again for another day.

Several instanced maps have received minor visual and audio polish and fixes.

Storm King's Thunder: Fishing nodes no longer get into a non-interactive state when players take certain actions.

The mount tutorial quest no longer incorrectly keeps the Level Up UI active once complete.

Various quests and contact dialogs have received minor typo fixes.

Combat and Powers

Guardian Fighter

Commander's Strike no longer incorrectly causes affected teammates to deal far more bonus damage from encounter powers than intended. This power now correctly adds +10% bonus damage, and adds an additional +10% bonus damage per rank (for a maximum of +40%).

The fourth rank of Knight's Valor now properly receives its indicated bonus.

Hunter Ranger

Players can no longer swap stances while Forest Ghost locks out powers.

Oathbound Paladin

Absolution Absolution now grants the target 20% of their maximum hit points as a shield, up from a smaller value based on the Paladin's wepaon damage. Additional ranks now grant 10% more of the target's maximum hit points as a shield, up to a maximum of a 50% shield. The Oath of Protection bonus for this power has been adjusted to provide a 50% increase to damage resistance for the duration of the shield. Previously the bonus increased the size of the shield by a small amount. This power now triggers effects that activate on Encounter power use.

Banishment This power no longer makes targets immune to damage when the control component is resisted.

Binding Oath Binding Oath now has the following effect: For 5 seconds, nearby enemies are forced to attack you and you gain 100% of your Maximum Hit Points as a Shield. When this effect expires or the shield is depleted foes in a 30' area take 100% of the damage that was taken by the shield and you take 50% of that damage. Additional ranks increase the duration of the shield by 1 second. Binding Oath previously had the following effect: Nearby targets are forced to attack you for 2 seconds. During this time you absorb all damage dealt to you. When this effect expires you takes 50% of that damage and deal 20% of it to all foes in a 30' area. (The damage dealt to each target cannot exceed your Maximum Hit Points.) Additional ranks increased the duration of the effect by 2 seconds. Binding Oath now properly taunts, as indicated. Binding Oath’s damage component now affects a maximum of 5 targets, consistent with other area effect powers. Binding Oath’s tooltip no longer incorrectly states that affected players deal 75% less damage to targets other than the paladin. This is just a tooltip change.

Circle of Power The effect of circle of power now lasts 10 seconds, down from 20. The cooldown of circle of power has been reduced to 28 seconds, down from 60. In accordance with this adjustment, additional ranks of this power now grant 2 additional seconds to the effect per rank, down from 4. The additional effects gained by Circle of Power when the Paladin has Oath of Devotion or Oath of Protection (30% more outgoing healing and 25% damage resistance, respectively) are now also granted to allies standing within the Circle of Power. This effect does not stack with multiple Circles of Power.

Divine Protector Divine protector now redirects 60% of damage taken by nearby allies, down from 100%. The damage reduction effect on the Paladin has been increased to 60%, up from 50%.

Sacred Weapon Sacred Weapon now applies Divine Challenge like other short duration Paladin taunts, which reduces damage dealt of affected players against the Paladin's allies. The additional damage dealt by Sacred Weapon has been increased by 50%.

Sanctuary This power now grants 80% damage resistance for those who have taken the Oath of Protection, increased from 60%.

Vow of Enmity Additional ranks of this power now properly grant an increase in damage against affected targets. Vow of Enmity is now a toggle power with a 10 second cooldown. Pressing Vow of Enmity after a vow has been chosen will remove the vow and trigger the cooldown. Only one target may be affected by your Vow of Enmity at a time. Previously Vow of Enmity could only be recast if the target was killed or after 60 seconds.

Several Paladin power tooltips have been updated for clarification.

Scourge Warlock

Tyrannical Curse: The damage-increasing effect of this power no longer incorrectly scales with the player's power. The effect now consistently increases the damage affected enemies take by 20%, as indicated in the daily power.



Trickster Rogue

Impossible to Catch: This power now triggers effects that activate on Encounter power use.

Companions

General Companion Powers Expert Striker, Expert Controller, Expert Defender and Expert Leader have been adjusted to increase your companion's class stats by 10%. Master Striker, Master Controller, Master Defender and Master Leader have been adjusted to increase your companion's class stats by an additional 10%. Additional defenses have been added to Master Striker. Companions with Expert Controller now create less threat.

Ambush Drake: This companion's Deadly Infection debuff no longer scales with Power.

Ambush Drake: The Deadly Infection power now properly shows its duration in its tooltip.

Harper Bard: Song of Rest now properly increases the owner's maximum health by 10%.

Repentant Dragon Cultist: This companion's Acidic Stab debuff no longer scales with Power.

Repentant Dragon Cultist: Acidic Stab now properly shows its defense reduction value in its tooltip.

Mounts

Active mount powers are now more responsive.

General

Effects that activate when non-critical damage is dealt, such as the Owlbear Cub's Active Companion Bonus, now only activate once per power use.

Enemies and Allies

General

Dragons no longer become so indignant when affected by knock or repel powers that they refuse to continue fighting altogether. They insist, however, that they continue to be unaffected by such powers, as no self-respecting chromatic dragon would be vulnerable to being pushed around by lowly humanoids.



Items and Economy

Changes to Artifact Weapon Stats

With the addition of relic artifact weapons, we've taken a look at the way stats progress as artifact weapons are ranked up. As a result we have resolved some long-standing issues and made the following changes and improvements:

The amount of stats granted at uncommon, rare and epic ranks of artifact weapons have been increased. This includes stats that increase incrementally with rank, such as: power, recovery, etc. Stats that either do not increase at all (AC on shields) or increase only with rarity/item level (weapon damage) have not been increased. As a result of this change, the difference in power between weapons of a given item level should be more predictable. The amount of stats on legendary artifact weapons has also increased very slightly to accommodate for the adjustments.

The effect of ranking up an artifact weapon on stats has been increased in order to create a more contiguous increase in power. For example, the stats on a rank 34 rare artifact weapon will now be much closer to a rank 35 epic artifact weapon, (weapon damage excluded.)

An issue wherein classes that dual-wielded received less total stats from their weapons than those that did not has been resolved. As a result, the amount of stats from bows, ranger blades and daggers has been increased. In addition, the amount of stats granted from off hand items like sword-knots and grimoires has been reduced. However, as the stats on all artifact weapons have been increased, this decrease will only be visible on legendary rank off hand items and primary weapons stats will be increased as well.

These changes affect the following sets: Twisted Weapons Stronghold Weapons Drowned Weapons Burning Weapons Howling Weapons Earthen Weapons



General

Baphomet's Infernal Talisman: This item no longer incorrectly shows up as a cloak on players who wear it.

Frozen Galeb Duhr is now spelled correctly in all cases.

Horn of Valhalla: This artifact is now part of the new Valhalla set, which includes a new artifact belt and cloak, and comes with a new set bonus. These items are obtainable in the Svardborg trial.

Items (such as Medal of Heroism) that have been moved to the currency tab now properly update and move to the expected location, regardless of whether they were previously in the bank.

Stronghold food: Eating food while the buff from a higher rank of food is active no longer causes the buff to disappear without applying the newly-eaten food's buff.

The following "altar" items now vanish when the player who summoned them enters combat: Hero's Feast Mechanical Altar Portable Altar

The tooltip for the uncommon-quality Ostorian Trowel has been updated for clarity.

Token of Chromatic Storm: The damage values displayed on the tooltip no longer incorrectly scale with player power. This was a display-only issue.

Token of Chromatic Storm: The damage resistance from the Acid effect no longer incorrectly scales with player power.

Enchantments, Enhancements, and Runestones

A new enchantment is available in Sea of Moving Ice content: Wicked Enchantment. Offense: Armor Penetration, Recovery Defense: Deflect, Hit Points Utility: Movement, Bonus Gold

Dual-stat enchantments (Brutal, Cruel, Savage, Vicious) now properly have higher stat values at rank 3 than rank 2.

Frost Enchantment (Weapon): In addition to its other properties, all ranks of this enhancement now slow the target (players and NPCs) by 30% as part of the effect.

Bloodtheft Enchantment (Armor): A minor typo has been addressed on this enhancement.

Frostburn Enchantment (Armor): This enhancement now has an internal cooldown.

Thunderhead Enchantment (Armor): In addition to its other properties, all ranks of this enhancement now include the foe that critical strikes you, stunning and damaging them as well.

Tooltips on the Black Ice overload enchantments have been made clearer. No functional changes have been made, just a clearer explanation of existing functionality.

Visual weapon and armor enhancements no longer display while the player is stealthed.

Professions

Tasks to create various Elemental Artifact Weapons are now available in the Artificing, Weaponsmithing, and Platesmithing professions.

Strongholds

Overload Enchantments for effectiveness against Trolls and Giants are now available in the Stronghold enchantment store.

User Interface

Auction House

Expired auctions once again consistently actually expire, rather than hanging around on the auction house in an expired state for an indeterminate period of time.

There is now a limit to the number of unclaimed items a player may have in their mail. Once this limit is reached, the player may no longer post items up for auction until they claim items from their mail.

New items posted to the auction house no longer occasionally remain hidden until the next server maintenance.

Chat

Chat text once again properly wraps if the end of a word would go past the edge of the chat box.

Collections

Horn of Valhalla has been added to the Storm King's Thunder collection.

HUD

Pressing the Artifact key while using a ground-targeted artifact no longer causes the targeting indicator to appear.

Inventory

Insignias no longer incorrectly state that one can "double click" to improve them.

When double-clicking armor kits or jewels in the inventory, they can now properly be applied to equipped items.

Mail

Players can no longer attempt to ignore themselves via the mail UI.

Queues

In 10+ person PvE queues, tank and healer roles are now evenly distributed amongst parties. This should result in a tank in each party in a 10-person queue, and one healer in each party in a 10- and 25-person queue, depending on how many healers are in that queue.



Sword Coast Chronicle

The PvP campaign windows now have distinct names - Starting PvP and Veteran PvP.

Foundry

General

Using a teleporter in Preview mode no longer breaks the logic and state of the currently previewed map.

Graphics, Effects, and Animation

Animations

The Giant Crab mount once again uses the proper riding animation.

Character Art

At long view distances, the magical autonomous hammer in the Dread Ring camp is no longer attached to a mysterious formless person.

Ceremonial Mask of Lliira now displays on male dragonborn characters.

Certain shirts no longer display a protruding extra neck on male player characters.

Cloaks and capes no longer seem to fly straight up in the air when viewing characters wearing them from long distances.

Gilded Moonstone Regalia Mask now displays on dragonborn characters.

Iliyanbruen Ancestral Helmet no longer removes hair from the player.

Manaseeker's Orb: This weapon now properly appears while outside of combat.

Noble Finery mask now displays on dragonborn characters.

Trailblazer's Bow: This weapon now properly displays weapon enchantments' visual effects.

Visual Effects (VFX)

Camera shake has been reduced for various visual effects.

Camera shake has been removed from various visual effects when the player is not the target of powers that display these effects. The intent of this change is to reduce the amount of unexpected screen / camera shake during normal gameplay in certain areas while other players are fighting nearby. Visual impact should be unchanged for players using abilities or being hit by those abilities.



Performance and Stability

General

Various improvements have been made to client performance and stability.

Various crashes and disconnect cases have been addressed.

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