THE HERALD

On Ywain:

• 50% bonus to RP gain in all NF zones (including the Labyrinth)
• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones

On Gaheris:

• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 100% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities
• 100% 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

These bonuses will expire on November 6th, 2018.

Time for another Grab Bag!

Dark Age of Camelot turns 17 next month (yay party)! Celebrate throughout the month with us with bonuses, giveaways, and events. Keep an eye on the Herald and our official Discord channel for updates! Our newsletter goes out later today, so make sure you are signed up to get all the updates on what’s coming in Patch 1.125, events, community news, and more!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for the Grab Bag!

My question is regarding Clud.
Before the Curse campaign, this mob used to drop items such as Lightning/Thunder and jewelry. Does it still drop them, or is there a different monster that does?

The original Clud loot table has been replaced with a newer one that provides a chance at rare Alchemy drops and other, more up to date loot. Please see the following question & answer for more details on our plans regarding these items coveted for their aesthetic!

Hi, I’ve been searching for a helmet that drops in the realm of Albion for years, I have seen it, but nobody has felt it necessary to divulge the name or the whereabouts of where and what drops it. Here is a link to a picture of the model http://camelot.allakhazam.com/item.html?citem=6383 , it is a chain helmet, but it looks like a plate full helmet sort of. Can you shed any light on this, much appreciated!

Unfortunately the Foul Helm is no longer dropped. With the revamping of the classic-world dungeons a few years back, most all of their pre-existing loot was overwritten by newer gear with better stats.

With the advent of the Mithril ‘Pattern’ system, obviously many of you would like to get your hands on these obscure and fun pieces of equipment again!  Fortunately, we have some plans for this that we’ve hinted at in previous Grab Bags involving the revamping of the Catacombs areas and providing an opportunity there to get some coveted gear!

Why do weapons on healing classes lose durability now?  I can understand that an archer uses a bow to shoot and a caster uses a staff to cast, but a healing class neither uses nor needs his weapon to cast.  And now after over 15 years not losing durability it had to change.  Why?

In 1.124 durability repair was introduced in conjunction with a fairly major overhaul to how repairs were calculated and how much they cost. The calculations for repair were changed because there were some long-standing bugs that got addressed involving repair costs and the rate of condition-loss. In making these fixes and cost-changes it made sense to look at the repair system as a whole and see about addressing the un-level playing field that existed in regards to weapon-repairs.

Melee, casters, archers, and instrument classes were having to repair their weapons while support classes almost never did. Support classes cast on enemies and allies just as much as casters did or instrument classes played their songs or melee hit their targets and support weapons are extremely important to their casting stats (the bulk of support weapons are carrying a large portion of the major TOA casting-related bonuses in a support class’ full equipment). Additionally, many casters use a sword and shield to cast now, in lieu of a staff, so arguing that casters need a staff to cast and so they make sense while support doesn’t no longer holds much water.  Considering all of those factors in conjunction with the major changes already coming to the repair system in 1.124, it made sense to put everyone on the same playing field in terms of condition-loss.

That said, we do realize that the overall rate of condition loss (and thereby durability loss) is a bit high at the moment and will be addressing it in the upcoming 1.125 patch, so stay tuned!

In regards to the 10% spell range spell minstrels have. If this spell is active with a scout in group and said scout uses their track ability, is the scout’s range of detection given the 10% bonus or not?

No, spell range% bonuses and the Track’s stealth detection range are two entirely separate things.

A spell is really comprised of two separate things: the cause and the effect. The initial spell cast is the cause and the spell’s effect is the… effect. The spell range% bonus *only* affects that initial spell cast portion and not a spell’s landed effects.

Specifically in the case of archers’ Track, it would be considered the landed effect of the spell and the spell cast itself has no physical range. Instead, it’s a buff with 0 range that is applied to the archer that then grants them a stealth detection bonus.

However, it is possible to increase the effectiveness of Track by other means! Because track is trained in the stealth skill line, what does increase its effectiveness is the archer’s stealth specialization in the stealth skill and their +stealth skill stat.

Which is more accurate when calculating swing speed? Daoc Char Planner or Excidio? Daoc Character Planner says that for a Paladin I need 183 quickness 10% melee speed, 37% celerity, and 20 haste to cap a 6.0 weapon while Excidio says I need 225 quickness.

We aren’t going to spell out the melee swing speed formula precisely here but it’s always a good bet to go with the more recently updated website or tool for these sorts of matters. We’d also encourage you to ask or confer with your fellow players for what they think is the best approximation!

That’s it for this week. Stay tuned during the month of October for further updates 🙂

<3

Welcome to the Grab Bag!

There’s some horrendous weather across the globe this week, so please stay safe and love to all!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Continue reading below for the questions!

Does Mastery of Magery affect style proc damage or weapon proc damage?

And does Mastery of Focus help with the resisting of style procs? Speaking of Reaver/Thane/VW

Yes to both!

The Mastery of Magery realm ability increases spell damage dealt and so does affect style proc spell damage.

The Mastery of Focus realm ability effectively raises the level by its listed amount for all spells cast (including style procs). Style procs have their resistances calculated based on the level of the style, so a level 39 style has a level 39 spell’s resist rate vs level X targets. The Mastery of Focus realm ability can raise that style’s spell level, depending on the amount of MoF trained, up to a maximum of a level 50 spell.

All spells have a base chance of 10% to be resisted, so a level 50 style proc will still get resisted at around that 10% rate, on average. However, a level 12 style proc with no Mastery of Focus will see around a 30-35% resist rate vs a level 50 target and a level 34 style proc without MoF would have a 15-20% resist rate, on average.

Previously, to be aggro to as few mobs as possible as a healer, I was able to kill Curmudgeons and gain faction with Gurites, Siogs and Siabras. Lately I’ve been able to gain Gurite and Siog faction easily yet no Siabra faction.  Has positive Siabra faction been removed with OW?

The ghostly Siabra of the Otherworlds campaign have a different faction than the normal, living Siabra found in the Hibernia homeland. While it’s still very much possible to befriend the Siabra of Hibernia, it is not possible to do so with the Siabra of the Otherworlds.

Can you shed some light on what effect, if any, +archery skill has past level 50?  I have heard that it does nothing, but other people seem to think it helps in some way, but they aren’t sure how exactly.

Yes, increasing your +archery skill beyond level 50 will increase your archery damage, albeit very slightly. At a certain Realm Rank or amount of +skill over 50, due to diminishing returns, you will cease to see a damage increase which may be why some players reasonably think it does nothing.

An archer with 50+11 (61 composite) archery specialization will likely not see any damage increase for any subsequent +archery skill from realm rank or items. However, an archer with 35+16 (51 composite) archery specialization will see a slight increase with additional +archery skills from realm rank or items.

The level 1 Mauler Staff style “Wild Swing” is supposed to make the mauler’s attacks ignore bladeturn. However, after testing it in realm duels and against enemy players, the effect does not function although the buff applies. Is my understanding of how this is supposed to work correct is or is the tooltip mislabeled?

Thanks for this report, this effect should be functioning correctly on live now!

Many threads have been created in response to the npc/player disappearing bug. What is being done to address this issue?

We’ve identified the cause of this and plan to have it addressed in patch 1.125. In the meantime, make sure to relog or zone out of the New Frontiers region every few hours or so to prevent this issue

Enjoy the weekend everyone, and stay safe out there! 🙂

It’s Grab Bag time!

Our August newsletter goes out later today, so keep an eye on your inboxes! We have some more sneak peeks you won’t want to miss 🙂 If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do so by entering your email address here!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Continue reading below for the questions!

Does mastery of focus affect witchcraft dots? I seem to have an unusually high resist rate on the first 3 dots in the Doom chain. It seems that mastery of focus 3 would be enough according to its description but it doesn’t seem to do anything for my resist rates.

Yes, Mastery of Focus would raise the spell level of DoTs for resist purposes. Remember though that level 50 spells still have a 10% chance to be resisted.

Is it possible to add another feasible method of obtaining Orb/Cache of Reforming Energies? Perhaps via bps or the currency exchange merchant?

Right now, one of the best ways to obtain reforming energies is by defeating doppelgangers in the frontiers and earning doppelganger shards, which have a chance to drop reforming energies.

With 1.125, we’ll be removing the doppelganger shards as drops (to help alleviate inventory issues when in RvR) and instead allowing the shards to be purchased directly for bounty points. This should effectively increase the overall supply and availability of doppelganger shards and therefore the supply of reforming energies too.

Hi, I was wondering when are you activating Catacombs again? All of the Dragon Curse chapters have been released already. Some of us miss hunting there (zones, dungeons etc).

Catacombs regions are still under construction and are currently planned for release after Endless Conquest is out. While these areas do and did have lots of great content, much or all of it ran parallel to many other encounters and content in the rest of the world, which contributed to splitting up the game’s population too much.

Catacombs’ re-release will be focused on high-level single-player to group-size encounters that reward *cosmetic* options for existing loot. That said, we have heard your feedback regarding access to the Darkspire instance and will be providing access to the instance only, with patch 1.125!

I have a level 50 Bainshee. Is there any way in the future you can fix it where the volume on the Banshees be turned down some? The screaming is so annoying and loud. Several of us hate to turn down the game volume for just for one character. Thank you.

Noted! We’ll take a look/listen and adjust accordingly.

Can you please confirm that “alacritous” weapons proc in RvR zones.  I tested them recently, and they seemed to fire are a reasonable rate on the test dummies, but I never saw them go off in a couple of days of RvR, and assumed the proc only worked in PvE.  Others have told me they do work in RvR, but have an abnormally low proc rate.  Perhaps you could confirm this as well?  Thanks.

Yes, these weapons do proc in RvR. Their proc rates are set to fairly standard values as well, so it may have just been an unlucky streak.

That’s it for this week!
Have a good one, and enjoy the bonuses 🙂

On Ywain:

• 25% bonus to RP gain in all NF zones (including the Labyrinth)
• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones

On Gaheris:

• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities
• 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

Time for another Friday Grab Bag!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Continue reading below for the questions!

I’ve heard that the Minstrel pulse charm (and the ability for the Minstrel to hold higher con pets) is determined by Instrument + Realm Rank; years ago I heard that charisma also played a role. What’s the determining factor?

For both the Minstrel and Mentalist pulse charms, the resistances to the charm pulses after their initial cast are only affected by the level of the character and their composite Instrument or Light specialization values. Having a maximum composite specialization level allows for fewer resistances and allows Minstrels and Mentalists the ability to charm higher level mobs. Charsima and Intelligence have no effect on the pulse charms’ resistance rates.

As an additional note, the Mastery of Focus realm ability also does not affect the resistance rates on the subsequent pulses of the charms but does affect the initial cast on the mob that starts the charm song.

There has been some controversy regarding Hand to Hand and Fist Wraps – do they benefit from the same penetration bonus as CD/DW/LA (vs Block and Evade)?

Yes, both Hand to Hand and Fist Wraps have the same penetration bonus as Celtic Dual, Dual Wield, and Left Axe as they are also considered “dual-wielding” specializations. Block and evade chances are reduced by 25% vs dual-wielders.

In testing this, the Savage and Mauler will still likely show more blocks and evades over the same number of tested styles than one of the Light Tanks would but this is because of their comparatively lower weaponskill and not due to a difference in their penetration bonus.

Can you explain how Mauler’s cast damage works? There is not a whole lot of knowledge regarding the class, so some people say that stats affect the magic damage of the mauler and others say that stats do not affect it, it seems as though there is not general knowledge when it comes to Caster Maulers.

There is no “casting-stat” for Mauler Aura Manipulation casts. This is why the delves on their abilities are generally much higher than other classes.

Damage variance is affected by the Aura Manipulation specialization value, just like how all other casting specializations work. TOA stats like spell damage%, resist pierce%, etc and realm abilities like Mastery of Magery also still affect its damage potential, just like how they work in all other cases. The only difference for Aura Manipulation damage-spells is that normal stats like strength, acuity, etc do not affect their damage.

Hello!  I’ve noticed a discrepancy in the stated power cost and the actual power cost percent power cost spells.

Thanks

After running some tests it seems like you may have a sword/shield equipped instead of a staff with a focus bonus stat. Going s/s on your Warlock does have its benefits but without the focus bonus, the power cost is going to be much higher than it would be with a staff equipped. For instance, with a sword/shield equipped, the spells were costing 36% and 30% as reported; but with a focus staff the level 46 group heal only takes 25% power when using Solid Cast and only 22% power when using Solid Cast+ from the Curse set.

Midsummer’s Wrap’s 10% self abs overwrites cl 5% abs, any chance we can change this?

The Champion Level ability, Damage Ward, a self-ABS% buff is now changed to not be overwritten by other ABS% of the same type. This will affect very few other ABS% abilities like Battler and Midsummer’s.

Have a great weekend all! 🙂

Welcome to this week’s Grab Bag!

Just a reminder to not miss or forget our giveaway streams live on Twitch on Saturday nights at approximately 10:30PM GMT / 5:30PM EST! Join me as I stream the frontiers (lengthy delay, don’t worry) for some chat, fun, and giveaways including a 1 month game time, 425 Mithril pack, and a chance to spin the Wheel of Loot where you could win game timecodes, Mithril, dragon-egg pet, or some of the new BP items added recently! 

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game questions, feedback should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for the questions!

In the Friday Grab Bag from 7/20/2018 you mention changes in patch 1.124 for setting prices on a consignment merchant. However, I tested these changes today and the only thing I can do is hold SHIFT + click the number increment spin control and have values increment by 10’s. Increment by 100’s and 1000’s as described are not working. Is there something that I am missing?

Our mistake.

The Incrementing with CTRL+Left-click and CTRL+SHIFT+Left-click for now only works on the “default” value chooser window (the one you see when selecting money from your paperdoll, on the trade window, or when editing stacks of items). We have the consignment merchant money selector window on our list for this update too, but it’s a bit more involved and so isn’t part of 1.125.

Apologies for the confusion!

Should the “Bonus to Heal Effectiveness” increase the healing of the Animist:

What about “Life tap” spells in general?

The Grove Druid and the Shroom of Life fire and forget pets are not affected by a character’s heal bonus stat simply because they are duration-based pets that can select their own targets once spawned and are not a directed at a specific target from the Animist. It’s a nuanced difference because the Rejuvenating Spirit line of heals are also a duration-based pet but they are specifically directed towards a target by the Animist and so are affected by the Animist’s healing effectiveness stat.

Regen spells are not affected by the Animist’s healing effectiveness stat since health regeneration spells are separate from healing spells. The stat that would coincide with a regen spell would be the mythical health regeneration stat; which would stack with a health regen buff (if a pet could have the stat). The Healing effectiveness stat would only affect heal-over-times or “regen” spells that actually print out a healing value to the target each tick, and not ones that simply increase the rate of base health regeneration.

Lastly, lifetaps are not considered “healing” spells. They heal a straight percentage value based on the damage dealt. They are not affected by the healing effectiveness stat at all.

Does the 15% abs debuff from pict/Ancient Longsword stack with the Hallowed Sword 10% abs debuff?  Both icons appear in a test duel, not sure if it is stacking or co-existing, if they do stack does this give a 25% abs debuff?

No, they co-exist but the ABS% debuff that was applied *first* taking precedence, regardless of the delve value. The same can be said when there is an absorption debuff that has a delve of “-X%” instead of “X%”. The debuff that is applied first is the one that is used for damage calculations.

The lone exception to this are the special ABS% debuffs for assassin Critical Strike styles that can stack with each other and the normal ABS% debuffs too.

Does the CL 5% abs buff stack with casters self abs buff?

Yes.

Is there any way you can create a new potion in Alchemy – Cauldron of Supremacy/Celerity etc. which has higher charges with the corresponding ingredient increase?

This is something planned with the 1.125 patch, stay tuned for details!

Until next time…..see you in the frontiers! 🙂

Midsummer Event update: The Spirit of War’s Mark buff now applies to all players in the same zone that the Spirit of War is in, instead of just in a radius immediately around the keep. This also extends credit out to the entire zone for the [Midsummer] Spirit of War kill-quest. Happy hunting!

The Midsummer celebration is upon us with a brand new event! Midsummer and the traveling merchants will run from today, July 26th, 2018, through August 28th, 2018.

Read on for the full notes, including some Hot Fixes which are now live!

Midsummer Event

A brand new Midsummer Event is now live!

Find and speak with the following NPCs to participate:

• Guy in Albion’s strength relic town (Catterick Hamlet)
• Garmr in Midgard’s strength relic town (Godrborg)
• Salle in Hibernia’s strength relic town (Criar Treflan)

The event is made up of 2 stages:

• During Stage 1 of the event, level 50 characters will be offerred the [Midsummer] Dragon Eggs quest from Guy, Garmr, or Salle.
  • Each completion of this quest grants 1,000 realm points!
• The first realm to complete 150 of the [Midsummer] Dragon Eggs quests wins the first stage!
  • When one realm wins, the other 2 realms’ progress is not lost and they can pick up where they left off after stage 2 is complete and the event has reset.
  • After a realm wins, no realms will be able to turn in the [Midsummer] Dragon Eggs quest again until the next stage is completed and the event has reset.
  • Players can speak with Guy, Garmr, or Salle in their relic towns to check the event’s current [status].

When a realm completes Stage 1, Stage 2 begins.

• During Stage 2 of the event, level 50 characters will be offerred the [Midsummer] Spirit of War quest from Guy, Garmr, or Salle. A Dark Dragon will spawn and CAPTURE one of the following enemy realm keeps:
  • Albion is victorious: Nottmoor Faste, Blendrake Faste, Hlidskialf Faste, Dun Crimthainn, Dun Bolg, or Dun da Behnn
  • Midgard is victorious: Caer Berkstead, Caer Erasleigh, Caer Sursbrooke, Dun Crimthainn, Dun Bolg, or Dun da Behnn
  • Hibernia victorious: Caer Berkstead, Caer Erasleigh, Caer Sursbrooke, Nottmoor Faste, Blendrake Faste, or Hlidskialf Faste
  • The captured keep is chosen randomly.
    • However, a keep can only be captured if the winning realm does not already own it.
• Dark Dragons repeatedly destroy the outer walls of any keep they are flying over.
  • For the duration of this event, keep walls on all keeps will not provide realm points when repaired. Keep doors still provide realm points when repaired.
• Once a keep has been captured by the Dark Dragon, any realm can take it and defend it.
  • Once a realm has taken the keep, the keep behaves as normal and the Dark Dragon will not ever re-capture it; however the outer keep walls will still be repeatedly destroyed as long as the Dark Dragon is alive.
• The Spirit of War will spawn to battle the Dark Dragon at the keep.
  • Players that fight within the same zone that the Spirit of War is currently in will receive the “Spirit of War’s Mark” – a 75% realm point buff that lasts 30 seconds and refreshes instantly so long as you remain in the same zone.
    • This buff does not stack with or overwrite Buggane’s Folly or Lone Wolf buffs; however if either of those buffs are currently active they will need to be dropped for the Spirit of War’s Mark buff to affect the character.
• Once a Dark Dragon has spawned and captured a keep, the [Midsummer] Spirit of War quest will become available from Guy, Garmr, and Salle.
  • This quest asks players to earn 25 enemy realm kills while they have the Spirit of War’s Mark buff active.
    • Players can also receive the quest by heading to the keep that the Spirit of War is flying above (8,000 units). 
  • To receive quest kill credit, players will need to fight in the same zone that the Spirit of War is currently in.
  • Complete this quest to earn the Midsummer’s Triumphant Wrap!
• After the Dark Dragon and Spirit of the War have battled over a keep for 45 minutes, the Spirit of War will summon Dragon Ballista siege weapons that can be used to kill the Dark Dragon.
  • These Dragon Ballista will do negligible damage to everything except the Dark Dragon – but beware, the Dark Dragon doesn’t like their attention!
  • Killing the Dark Dragon will cause the inner keep to be destroyed and it’s door to be opened!
  • Once the Dark Dragon is killed, the Spirit of War will only remain so long as there is still a battle being waged at the keep.
• If, after roughly 3 and a half hours, the Dark Dragon has not been killed, it will retreat from the battlefield.
  • Once the Dark Dragon has retreated, the Spirit of War will only remain so long as there is still a battle being waged at the keep.
  • If the Dark Dragon retreats, the inner keep and its door are not destroyed.
• Once the Spirit of War leaves a keep, the event resets and the [Midsummer] Dragon Eggs quest can be obtained and completed again.

Let the siege battles begin!

Traveling Merchants

• The Traveling Merchants make their return and hawk their wares in the following locations:
  • Albion: just outside Castle Sauvage
  • Midgard: just outside Svasud Faste
  • Hibernia: just outside Drium Ligen

Hot Fix Notes

• The [Daily] Battle of Buggane’s Obelisk quest now grants credit within the entire zone that the obelisk currently resides.
  • As such, the chance for the obelisk to spawn in Ellan Vannin has been lowered slightly. It still has the highest chance but the other locations should happen a bit more frequently now.
• The Buggane’s Obelisk no longer spawns in Emain Macha at the Hibernia maze, instead spawning in Breifine at Cavana’s Drift location on the map.
• The [Daily] A Solo Road has had its requirements changed as follows:
  • Players can now earn 1 solo kill on Ellan Vannin or at any Ruined/Maze area.
  • Players must still earn 5 solo kills anywhere in the Frontiers.
• Curse Campaign Glove reward /use timers should now behave correctly.