THE HERALD

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag!

Don’t forget to face down the bunny by April 27th!

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue reading for the questions 🙂

Does myth DPS from skull of the soulkeeper (for example) increase the dmg from melee necromancer?

Yes, mythical DPS stats increase melee Necromancer damage.

Can you please confirm if Esbjorn and Enar still spawn in Oceanus Notos?

Hmm, the only NPCs named Esbjorn or Enar are redcaps found in Midgard Shrouded Isles’ zone Modernagrav. These two, along with the named redcaps Erland and Evert do still have an extremely rare chance to spawn as outlined below.

Get your pen and paper out…

Killing skadedjurs anywhere in Modernagrav will cause a ‘Named’ fengarus (Xothra, Zanguirus, or Yigan) to spawn around 48100 16400 in the zone. There’s a small chance that killing the skadedjurs will only spawn a normal fengarus so be sure to clear those out too!

When a ‘Named’ fengarus is killed, it has a chance to spawn 1 of the 4 ‘Named’ redcaps (Esbjorn, Enar, Erland, or Evert) at the redcap camp (1 spawns at each crystal cluster). It also has a chance to spawn normal redcap bestigars so these will need to be cleared out if a named does not spawn and the process begun again!

Lastly, when a ‘Named’ redcap is killed there is a chance a ‘Named’ reanimated howler (Yngve, Ingvar, or Ingegard) is spawned around 34,500 34,500 in the zone with a small chance that a normal reanimated howler is spawned instead.

Par for the course, if any of the ‘Named’ mobs in this chain (or their normal mob placeholders) are already spawned anywhere in the zone, they will need to be cleared out first before killing a skadedjur will cause the first mob in the chain to spawn.

Happy hunting!

I’m very tight on inventory space these days, mainly due to items that aren’t tradeable which means I can’t dump them in my house vaults.  Needless to say, this doesn’t mesh well with my OCD.  Are there any sources of personal storage that I’m overlooking?  The only ones I know of are personal vault and mount saddlebags.

Great game, thanks for all you guys do!

The personal Vault keepers and your mount’s saddlebags are the only direct areas to store *most* non-tradable items currently. For non-tradable mounts specifically, there is a Royal Stablemaster in each capital city (or a portable one can be purchased at the Mithril MTX Shop) that will store those items for you so that they are not taking up inventory space.

We hope to introduce additional features like the Royal Stablemaster for other categories of non-tradable items in the future!

In response to a previous Grab Bag question about scripting and multiboxing (here), is the following scenario legal: In NF, a player has a bot on a separate computer that is spamming heals using a pre-recorded automated sequence of keystokes (for example over 30 seconds) while they play another character on another computer. Where is the line drawn for having multiple characters in NF?

No, this would not be legal. Any playing of multiple characters by the same person via scripts is not allowed in New Frontiers or RvR Battleground zones. Normal “dual-logging” of accounts is perfectly fine so long as their actions are in no-way automated while they are both being played.

I’m having a really hard time finding BP merchants for all the crafting components I need for level 51 recipes.  Can you list all of the BP merchants and their locations?  Right now, I can’t find the merchant that sells ToA crafting components and all Google searches lead to Sage Gilda, who only accepts glass–a currency I can’t obtain.

• ToA Legendary Weapon components
  • These be obtained with bounty points by purchasing Doppelganger Shards at Garett, Mirren, or Breagh’s <Bounty Master> store in each realm’s relic town.
    • Doppelganger shards have a chance to drop reforming energies which can be used to receive these components from their respective TOA encounters at the trogo zontanos mageia NPCs in TOA zones.
  • These are also purchasable in Housing with gold or with Atlantean Glass in the Hall of Heroes.
    • Glass can still be obtained via trades with other players or converted from other old alternate currencies at the Alternate Currency Conversion NPC in each realm’s capital.
  • Please note that the Orb of Entropy and Pound of Flesh legendary weapon components are not sold anywhere and must be farmed via Otherworlds encounters.
• Rare Alchemy components
  • Garett, Mirren, or Breagh’s <Bounty Master> store in each realm’s relic town
• Perfected Armor patterns
  • Garett, Mirren, or Breagh’s <Bounty Master> store in each realm’s relic town
• Otherworldly Ore
  • Garett, Mirren, or Breagh’s <Bounty Master> store in each realm’s relic towns
• Otherworldly Essence
  • These can only be obtained by gathering them in Otherworlds or Frontier zones.
• Bountycraft recipes and molds:
  • Garett, Mirren, or Breagh’s <Bounty Master> store in each realm’s relic town
• Broken Dragonsworn Armor and Weapons
  • Currently only purchasable with Dragon Scales in each realm’s capital or with gold in Housing.
    • Similar to Glass, Scales can still be obtained via trades with other players or converted from other old alternate currencies at the Alternate Currency Conversion NPC in each realm’s capital.
  • The Dragonsworn Armor and Weapons can also still be directly farmed by killing dragonsworn mobs at their camps in the dragon zones.

Thanks everyone! 
Have a great weekend 🙂
 

Welcome to this week’s chocolate covered Grab Bag! Hope you enjoyed our little April Fool’s in-game yesterday 🙂 

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Hop on for the questions!

Does spell pierce from doppel arcane mace stack with spell pierce from gear or is it all counted at cap 10%?

All spell piercing bonuses are capped at 10% regardless of their source.

Hello! There was an old grab bag that discussed how the casting cost of spells works, specifically mentioning focus and its impact. Can you provide insight into the factors that go into how much a spell costs and how much or little using a mace/shield over a staff affects different types of spells? Thank you.
Old Grab Bag details.

First, a quick reminder on what classes are set as a “focus caster” (note: a focus caster is not the same as a list caster; for example a Valewalker is a list caster, but not a focus caster):

Albion	Midgard	Hibernia
Cabalist	Bonedancer	Animist
Necromancer	Runemaster	Bainshee
Sorcerer	Spiritmaster	Eldritch
Theurgist	Warlock	Enchanter
Wizard		Mentalist

As that old grab bag states, if you do not have a focus staff equipped and are casting a spell on a focus caster your power cost will be increased by 120% of the spell’s normal power cost value.

For example, a spell that costs 70 power (in the delve) will cost 84 power when not using a focus staff on a focus caster.

When a focus staff is equipped, has a focus stat that is higher level than the spell being cast, is of the right spec. line, the staff’s condition is 100%, and your character’s composite specialization level is higher than the spell’s level then the power cost is reduced to 80% of the delved power cost.

Continuing the example, a 70 power cost spell now only costs 56 power with the (fully repaired) focus staff equipped and a higher composite spec. than the spell’s level.

These days, one doesn’t have to worry as much about having the right Focus specialization or +level stat, as almost all focus staffs have a +50 to all magic lines. So just make sure your focus staff is equipped,  fully repaired, and that your composite specialization of the spell’s skill line is above the spell’s level to get that full 80% power cost reduction.

Using the same example again, if a focus caster was casting a level 45 spell that cost 70 power and that spell was in a line that the caster only had +30 composite spec in, and they had a fully repaired +50 all focus spells staff equipped they would use 65 power; so getting some reduction but not the full 80% due to the spell’s level being higher than their composite spec. in that line.

Other than +focus and some minotaur relic bonuses, there are no modifiers that reduce the cost of casted spells though Cave Shamans do have an a debuff that increases the power cost of spells cast by their enemies. There is also the arcane siphon stat on some items that will give your character a chance to not use any power when casting a spell.

Otherwise, having high power regeneration (from mythical power regen stats or class’ power regen abilities) and obviously a higher overall power pool from equipping power% and power% cap gear will allow a character to cast more spells for longer too and with enough power regen and power pool% a character can largely offset the power cost of spells even when not using a focus staff!

As for the different types of spells that use this focus power cost mechanic, it’s actually less confusing than it may seem based on that previous grab bag answer:

For focus-caster classes, *all* spells found in their base and specialization lines use the focus power cost mechanic; including heal spells! 

As for non-focus caster classes, other than those other power cost modifiers mentioned above their spells will cost the exact same as the delve shows. If a spell delves for 30 power, it will cost 30 power when cast by a non-focus casting class.

For classes that can cast Mesmerize, does +skill (+Pacification, +mind, +music) assist with your chance to land said spell?

It does not and these +skills do not increase the effectiveness of crowd control either. +Pacification actually provides no benefit to any spells in its line while +Music does affect the damage of a Bard’s damage shouts and +Mind does affect the power cost of Mind spells since Sorcerers are a focus caster.

A previous grab bag stated that weaponskill isn’t used in any combat equations.  What benefit does envenom weaponskill debuff then have in combat?  What exactly is debuffed?  Does melee dmg debuff in envenom modify style proc damage in any way?

The Weaponskill debuff is technically reducing the underlying aspects of the character that contribute to their weaponskill totals – such as how much they are specialized into a weapon line, among other things. It’s just displayed through the weaponskill stat. This debuff will cause targets to land less of their melee attacks and block/evade/parry fewer melee attacks against them as well as reduce the target’s overall melee damage dealt.

The melee damage debuff only reduces damage done by the target’s melee portion of their style. Style procs are spells that are attached to a style and so they derive their damage from the proc’s spell delve amount. All spells are treated as casted/magic damage (regardless of the damage type). This is why stats like spell piercing help style proc damage and why melee damage debuffs don’t affect them.

Why can’t Maulers use Polaris? It’s a staff

Maulers use the specialized staff skill ‘Mauler Staff’ which are staffs that can only be wielded by them. Polaris requires the ‘Staff’ skill (same skill that all casters and the Friar class has). It’s maybe a small distinction on paper but it’s similar to how a ‘Polearm’ is a two-handed weapon but Paladins can’t wield them even though they can specialize in “Two-Handed” weapons.

We do realize that Aura Manipulation specialized Maulers are largely caster-hybrids now and would like to have more caster staff-options. We’ll keep monitoring things but right now Maulers are performing quite well with their existing itemization options and so have no immediate plans to introduce more caster-centric gear options.

What is the buff cap on summoned pets and non-summoned pets?

Neither summoned nor non-summoned (charmed) pets have hard-caps on their buffs.

Remember, buffs don’t affect pets identically as players, here’s a link to a previous grab-bag answer on this very subject: Grab Bag 05/05/2017 
 

Enjoy the weekend everyone – I’m off on an egg hunt! 🙂

Thank you all for your feedback on the teleport obelisks in each realms relic town!

It’s been great fun to watch the new dynamics created with groups enjoying some great combat on Ellan Vannin as well as the constant action at the ruined areas! We have also really enjoyed the epic keep battles this dynamic seemed to encourage!

As such, the following remains in effect for the foreseeable future:

• Teleport to and from Knoc Meayll has been re-enabled.
• Teleport to the Towers of Korazh, Deifrang, and Graoch remain disabled but the towers are no longer ruined.
• Teleport to the safe areas on Ellan Vannin remains disabled.
• Players of any group-size can visit their realm’s relic towns to use the Ellan Vannin Obelisk to teleport to a random location in the central area of Ellan Vannin.
  • Groups of 6+ members who use this obelisk will receive a 100% bounty point bonus buff that will auto-refresh as long as they stay in the central area of the island.
    • Please note that this buff will *not* stack with mithril-purchased bounty point bonuses but will stack with all other BP bonuses.
    • Please note that this buff will affect Endless Conquest accounts as well as subscribed accounts.
  • This buff will dissipate if the group leaves the area but will return if they return to the area and still have the Ellan Vannin Port buff.
  • Groups of 6+ members with the Ellan Vannin Port buff will continue to get updates on the number of other 6+-person groups in the central area of Ellan Vannin.
• The obelisk in each realms’ relic town will also still teleport ungrouped characters to Folley Lake, The Trellebourg, or Moydrium Castle and the 1 minute anti-group camping timer remains in place at the ruined areas.

We look forward to your continued feedback!

Update 11 AM EST / 4 PM GMT: Ywain and Gaheris are up!

The Ywain and Gaheris servers will be coming down tomorrow, March 30th (5:45 AM EST / 10:45 AM GMT) to perform Amazon server hosting maintenance.

We appreciate your patience and understanding!

Sun is starting to show itself in some parts so hoping a lovely Spring/Summer is on the horizon 🙂 We’re all still recovering from such a hugely successful and massively fun event in Caledonia!

Our new RvR changes to Ellan Vannin have brought some interesting dynamics to Ellan Vannin already! Keep that feedback coming in and let us know your thoughts through our feedback form, official forums, or official Discord 🙂

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

Continue reading for this week’s Grab Bag 🙂

Why do Maulers have a base melee critical hit chance and not a base magic critical hit chance? And why don’t Maulers benefit from endurance regen on omni-regen buffs and siphon endurance from omni-drains?

Maulers are primarily a melee-hybrid class and so only receive the base 10% chance to critical hit with melee styles without needing to specialize in the Mastery of Pain realm ability (though they still can to further increase their melee critical hit chance). They can critical hit with magic by specializing in the Wild Power realm ability though.

After some testing to be extra certain, Maulers do benefit from omni-regen endurance spells and do siphon endurance from omni-drain procs.

Is there any way to influence the portal pads in Treibh Caillte? I seemed to port more consistently to the same place in the dungeon when an Befuddled Rocky Golem was up. Is there any truth to this, or was I just lucky on the rolls?

Each portal location in the dungeon typically has a single portal destination it can send you to when a normal golem spawns. These locations generally teleport players back and forth between 2 areas of the dungeon. Typically, only 1 rocky golem can spawn between 4 nearby portal locations at a given time.

However, a few portal locations have a chance to sometimes spawn a befuddled rocky golem instead of normal golems. Befuddled rocky golems, regardless of which portal location they spawn in will always send players to the same location in the dungeon. When a befuddled rocky golem is already spawned, it has no effect on where other portal locations will send you though.

What is the true health% value of Convoker ML7  Dissonance Traps?

Traps are set to remove 40% of the target’s base health. This means their health value without buffs or +hits from items. Also, because the traps are a ML ability there is no +specialization bonus in regards to damage variance. This is why the damage values can fluctuate on the same target by as much as 10% of the target’s base health. Typically the damage from a storm will be around 20% of a fully buffed and equipped target’s total health.

Question about defense penetration, are defenses cut by just having an offhand out? or do I have to spec into the offhand spec to have increased shield/parry penetration/

They are cut in half by simply using dual-wielded weapons. Increasing offhand specialization does still help your defense penetration though!

My question is what stats control damage taken from archery  shots? Base af seems to not affect it, neither on a leather wearer nor on a caster, but spec af does? Also in my testing I found that abs buffs affect (friar 15% did) but a lvl 39 caster (5%abs) did not affect?

Both armor factor (AF) and absorption (ABS) should affect archery damage in a similar way to how melee damage is affected by both AF and ABS buffs.  Melee and magic resists also further affect damage of their respective archery shot types.

In our testing between 2 level 50 characters, both base and ‘spec’ AF on a cloth wearer as well as their +%ABS buffs did noticeably reduce archery shot damage when using both physical and magic shots. On non-cloth wearers, base AF buffs will do less to mitigate archery shots because high quality leather armor and up will already nearly cap base AF values.

It could be that if your tests were between a level 50 archer hitting a lower level character that the archer was capping out their damage regardless due to the level disparity. This could account for why no difference was seen in those tests!

Regardless, the higher the total armor factor and absorption values on a character, the less damage they will take from all archery shots!

Many thanks, and enjoy the weekend! 🙂
 

Teleport Obelisk Event

Fresh off the heels and feedback from the very successful Catch Up in Caledonia Event, we’re excited to introduce a new temporary RvR feature on Ellan Vannin!

One of the major takeaways from the Caledonia event was the love of its fast action and the ability to quickly get back into the fight. With this new event, we hope to create a similar environment on Ellan Vannin that allows groups to quickly return to the fray!

Depending on the feedback, we may look into making this a permanent fixture on the island!

• An Ellan Vannin Obelisk now stands on the portal pad in each realm’s relic town that will teleport players and their group to random open-field locations on Ellan Vannin!
  • Differing slightly from Caledonia, only members within 3500 radius of the obelisk will teleport.
• All other existing teleports to Ellan Vannin are disabled for the event’s duration:
  • Master Vaughn and his elementalists, Stor Gothi Dagny and her gothis, and Brerend and his seoltoirs are all taking a well-deserved holiday from teleporting players to their safe locations on the island.
  • Tower of Korazh, Tower of Deifrang, and Tower of Graoch one-way ports are disabled.
  • Knoc Meayll teleports to and from the keep are disabled.
• The Tower of Korazh, Tower of Deifrang, and Tower of Graoch are now ruined for the event’s duration.
• Knoc Meayll keep can still be captured normally by the realms and still will be periodically captured by the Manx.
• Ungrouped characters can also use the obelisk to teleport to the ruined areas of Folley Lake, The Trellebourg, or Moydruim Castle (as well as Ellan Vannin still).
  • This is a one-way, random teleport and does not unlock any of the individual ruined area locations, it simply allows players to port into one of the ruined area locations from the relic town obelisk.
• Ruined area ports are now refreshable when all 3 locations have been unlocked and all port-buff durations have been reduced from 6 to 2 hours.
• An anti-camping mechanic has been added to ruined areas.
  • Any grouped characters that remain in the area for longer than 1 minute will take repeated damage until they leave the area for at least 1 minute.
• This event will run until Tuesday, March 30th, 2021.

Traveling Merchants

• The traveling merchants have made their return and now hawk their wares outside Castle Sauvage in Albion, Svasud Faste in Midgard, and Druim Ligen in Hibernia!
• The merchants will remain until Tuesday, March 30th, 2021.

Realm vs Realm Bonuses

On Ywain:

• 50% bonus to RPs from kills
• 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic and shrouded isle zones and dungeons.

On Gaheris:

• 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all battlegrounds, classic and shrouded isle zones and dungeons.
• 50% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities.

In each Capital City:

• 40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

In all Housing Zones:

• 20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

Bonuses will last until Tuesday, March 30th, 2021.

The Catch Up in Caledonia Event was a huge hit over the weekend with thousands of characters leveling through the event so far in its first 3 days.

With today marking the start of the 4th day, new character creation for the event is now disabled.

• Characters still in the level 1-4 and level 1-9 areas can now visit their realm’s Teleporter NPC to [advance] to the level 10+ battleground and then speak with the Caledonia Event Coordinator to receive level 10 and some bounty points! 
• Day 4 means a current level cap of 30! Don’t worry if you’re still far behind, with the Caledonia Boost buff, lower levels can still compete!
  • Grouping with any character that has the Caledonia Boost will also grant their entire group (regardless of group member levels) a 400% XP and BP gain bonus!

Thanks to all that have and will continue to participate in the event, we have loved every minute of it and hope you have too!

Feedback on the event has been tremendous and we’ve already made several tweaks to it. We look forward to going over more feedback as the event continues so that we can make the next iteration even better!

Here are some of the updates to the event in case you missed them in our official discord channel:

• Random teleport locations have been improved to no longer send characters into the keep areas.
• Added a Caledonia Boost buff to level 1 characters and characters that are 7 levels or more below the current level cap.
  • This buff drastically reduces damage received and massively increases damage dealt on these characters so that they can better compete against higher levels.
• Resurrection sickness is removable by the Healer NPC in the level 1-4 and 5-9 areas.
• The buff NPC now offers a free buff token to level 1-2 characters.
• The bounty merchant now has power-heal and power-regen potions for sale.
• The pet collector NPC is now available for charm classes.

A mini sort of Grab Bag this week just covering most of the questions we’ve been asked about the Catch Up in Caledonia Event! Make sure you don’t miss out on any of the fun of this event, starts today! 🙂

For regular grab bags please continue to submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form.

To the event questions we go!

What pots will be available?

There are endurance regen, endurance heal, water potions, and speed of the hunt gems available on the Bounty Master in Caledonia, among several other goodies!

What about horses/saddles for mount speed?

There are no mounts in the battleground this go around!

What is being done to try to make all 3 realms balanced and prevent portal keep camping?

Caledonia’s zone has been changed slightly for the event.

Players do not start out in their traditional portal keeps and instead are in staging-areas outside of the RvR-enabled area.  In fact, the old portal keeps are completely defenseless now and can be fought over!

Players will one-way teleport (along with their group – think Labyrinth obelisk teleports) to a random location in the RvR-enabled area when they are ready.

This should drastically reduce or wholesale eliminate portal keep-camping and will also make it much more difficult for realms to coalesce as large battlegroups in the zone since there is no guarantee they will port to the same location or even the same side of the zone! To be clear, a grouped player will always teleport along with their nearby group members to the same location, but multiple groups will not teleport together.

Is there a way to quickly find a group?

Yes! Use the /cgf command to flag yourself as looking for a group. Just set your archetype (or several) and click “set” and you’re queued!

Group leaders out there, don’t forget about the /goption (/go for short) command that lets you flag your group as open and able to accept queued players!

What do we do if we’re a pet (charm) class?

Visit the Pet Collector NPC in the staging areas and choose your pet. Charm it quickly as un-charmed pets do not stick around for long!

Can we bind in the zone? How do we get back to the staging areas?

Yes, when you initially zone into the staging area the game will automatically bind your character there. Unlike New Frontiers regions, characters can make use of their Personal Bind Recall stone (and later on, Gateway and Mass Gateway ML abilities) to return to their bind point. Otherwise, your best option may just be a head-long battle charge towards enemy lines – for glory!

Are buffbots allowed?

Yes, buff bots are allowed, but keep in mind that they will need to be levelled too. Please remember that multi-boxing in RvR zones is strictly prohibited. Even just 2 characters that are being actively played with a multi-boxing software or hardware setup qualifies as “multi-boxing”.

What items will be available for purchase and how?

All of the standard battleground bounty point gear is purchasable inside the zone as well as Illustrious gear, doppelganger shards, magic orbs (Random-object-generated gear), and all Bountycraft ingredients that can be used to Bountycraft in the zone!

To obtain the gear players will need to earn bounty points through RvR kills and quest completions and then purchase the gear at the relevant merchants in the staging areas.

In addition to purchasable gear, there is a King’s Emissary who will grant players the ability to train Champion Levels and gift them the free level  King’s Epic gear set, including accessories, as well as the Loyalty Cloak upon reaching level 50!

Will the class Cl15 cloak be available at 50? If so how do you complete the tower quest part?

The Class Loyalty Cloak quests of either Loyalty Rewarded or Loyalty Needed will be given by the King’s Emissary exactly like they are from the King. If the account only qualifies for the Loyalty Needed quest, the character still must complete that tower quest part (after the event is over) to receive the cloak.

Is xp/rp rate increased or same as normal zones?

There is a 200% bonus to experience gain given to Endless Conquest (free) and Veteran (subscribed) characters that are level 10+ in the zone!

In addition, there is a 200% bounty and realm point bonus too!

Will the realm underpop bonus work in Caledonia?

No, the underpopulation system only looks at the New Frontiers region.

Thanks for all the questions and feedback on this event, everyone, wa great to get it all!

Now off to plan my new level 1’s 🙂

See you in Caledonia!