Update 44: Keep on the Borderlands Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 44, released on Wednesday, November 13th.

Of Special Note:

Keep on the Borderlands

DDO debuts its newest classic pack with the release of Keep on the Borderlands!

8 New Dungeons

New Adventure Area

New Public Space

New Named Loot

Mounts

Keep on the Borderlands is FREE to VIPs and Season Pass holders, and is available in the DDO Store as well. The quests are levels 1 and 2 on Heroic, and levels 21 and 22 on Epic. Find Kregan the Gatekeeper in the Hall of Heroes or near the Grotto exit on Korthos Island to get started!

Keep on the Borderlands Bonus Items

In addition to the Keep on the Borderlands adventure pack, a collection of bonus items is available for Update 44. Find them in the Adventure Packs > Low Level section of the DDO Store. The bonus item pack can be purchased separately, whether you already own the pack or are VIP. A set of items to complement the Keep on the Borderlands Adventure Pack including the Borderlands Warrior cosmetic set (A Helm, Cloak, Longsword, Shield, and Armor), a Small Wonderous Mount Bag, and the Steed of the Borderlands. All of the items will be delivered to each character on your account in a bundle. The Cosmetics and Mount are all Bound to Account while the Bag is Bound to Character. Note: The Keep on the Borderlands Bonus Items does not grant access to the Keep on the Borderlands adventure pack.

Mounts

Mounts for player characters have been added to DDO! Mounts can be summoned via items kept in your characters' inventories. While mounted, the player characters' movement speed is replaced with the movement speed of the mount (VIP speed bonus still applies while mounted). Mounts may be used in Public Areas and Wilderness Adventure Areas. Characters may not engage in combat while mounted, and being damaged while mounted has a chance to dismount the character. Mounts come in two varieties: Normal which moves at 180% the base character run speed and Fast which moves at 200% the base character run speed. Players may dismount at any time by pressing the “block” key (defaults to left shift). Players may gain access to mounts in a variety of ways:

Exchanging Quaal Feather Tokens (found in the Keep on the Borderlands adventure pack) with Quaal of Vesve in the Keep on the Borderlands public area for one of 4 different variations of Normal speed mounts. These normal speed mounts can be upgraded to Fast Speed mounts by turning in an “Enchanted Horseshoe” to Quaal of Vesve. Enchanted Horseshoe’s have a rare chance of dropping in the chests of the Epic variants of Keep on the Borderlands dungeons.

There are two Fast Mounts available with a roll of at least 96 on Gold Daily Dice rolls.

The Keep on the Borderlands Bonus Items bundle includes the Fast Mount “Steed of the Borderlands” which will be delivered to every character on the account of a player who has purchased the bundle.

News and Notes

Classes

The Monk's Touch of Despair now applies its debuff more reliably.

Combat

The Base Attack Speed for bows and throwing weapons has been adjusted for a better experience in the Heroic levels, while keeping the current maximum attack speed at Base Attack Bonus 25 and above. This change approximately doubles the relationship between Base Attack Bonus and Attack Speed, but adjusts the per-level progression to provide less of a per-level increase. Players at all levels should experience an increase in animation smoothness and Attack Speed, with the increase tapering off as your Base Attack Bonus increases.

Dodge values can no longer be reduced below zero.

Enhancements

Coup de Grace now properly requires five levels of Bard.

Fixed an issue with one of the Vistani Knife Fighter cores not affecting the two-weapon fighting style. The enhancement has been re-written to affect all melee combat styles.

Warpriest and War Soul's Wrathful Weapon damage now properly hits undead.

Some text has been cleaned up in Pale Master enhancement tree descriptions.

Wizard Pale Master's Zombie Form now appropriately slows reload speed for crossbows.

Several versions of Wrack Construct no longer use placeholder icons.

Wrack Construct in the Mechanic and Battle Engineer trees have had their descriptions updated.

Warlock's Feigned Health is now less visually obscuring upon application, and no longer covers the buff names of other buffs.

Falconry's Deadly Instinct now has a more appropriate icon on the buff bar when active.

Nature's Warrior - Jaws of Ice has been reworded.

Epic Destiny

Fatesinger's Harmonic Resonance has a better tooltip and more appropriate visual effects.

Greater Shout in Fatesinger now has a saving throw.

Items

Several new Night Revels weapons are now dealing their proper damage type instead of Piercing.

The Esoteric Initiate set bonus now has a more accurate tooltip.

The Feywild Dreamer set now provides its correct stats.

Several items that had their skill or alacrity bonuses adjusted erroneously are now back to their proper values.

The Shattered Device filigree set now applies on melee strikes.

Fulcrum Shift has been redesigned, and is now: Kick 'Em While They're Down: You have +5 to-hit and damage to enemies that are knocked down or stunned.

Items that grant Negative Spell Power now also grant an equivalent amount of Poison Spell Power, and their tooltips have been updated to reflect this change.

Druidic Survival Mastery now applies more consistently.

Fate, the Knower of All (Raid throwing dagger from Ravenloft) now properly hits enemies while Improved Precise Shot is active.

Monsters

Gelatinous Cube damage now scales with the level of the gelatinous cube. Low-level cubes apply a slow effect instead of paralysis.

Quests and Adventure Areas

Crystal Lasers and Mirror Puzzles have been updated. Laser sources no longer shoot a beam unless there is a mirror at the end of it. Corrected an issue where the laser fails to appear on a valid match.

Fixed several typos in Killing Time and Tavern Brawl.

Fixed some typos in Alynda d'Cannith's dialogue.

Fixed typos in Termple of the Deathwyrm.

Fixed an issue in Van Richton's Tower in Ravenloft where the player camera could get stuck in a blue screen.

Price of Freedom: the prisoners and crew are less likely to fall off the boat near the end of the quest, during the mutiny.

Price of Freedom: the floating lava rocks change colors and light up when they're about to vanish, helping players to time their jumps.

Sealed in Amber: The absent-minded lich will no longer fight alongside the adventurers in certain circumstances.

Sound

Added new footstep sounds for players adventuring on Gravel-like terrain

Audited our existing footstep sounds, and applied correct sounds to different terrain types

Spells

Thunderstroke no longer goes through Spell Absorption.

Rend the Soul no longer puts Thunderstroke on cooldown.

Admixture Spells now accept the Accelerate Spell Metamagic. The Accelerate Spell Metamagic is not trainable at this time.

Evard's Black Tentacles can now be cast targeting a foe.

UI