Dragonslayer Patch Notes: NW.137.20220509a.2

terramak

These patch notes are relative to NW.137.20220425a.5, released onto the public test shards 2022-05-06. The full list of changes for this module is not yet compiled.


Dragon Hunts
Combat

• Enrage can now cause dragons to use major attacks and abilities more often.
  
• Tasha’s Caustic Brew now faces the target when charging.
  
• Vitriolic Sphere now drops three spheres over time.

Other Gameplay

• Smerdiuk should no longer have a chance to be in two places at once.
  
• Various art has been added, such as the campaign background and a boss bar variant for enrage mechanics.

Environment

• Red Dragon Lair should have fewer floating rocks and fewer objects to trip folks up in the combat areas.
  
• Various parts of the minimap now properly display.

Hunt Modifiers

• The “Done” button has been removed and an X has been added to the top-right corner.
  
• The following Hunt Modifiers are now the starting offering, once unlocked:
  • Tier 1 Pointless
    
  • Tier 1 Hindered Recovery
    
  • Tier 1 Ferocity

Rewards

• Dragon’s Scales are no longer incorrectly split between party members.
  
• Some gear that was missing visuals has been updated with new looks.
  
• Visual rune positions on certain pieces of armor have been adjusted.

Strands

• Strands can no longer be exchanged for themselves.
  
• Trials now drop a pack of Elemental Strands at the end of the encounter.

Content and Environment
General

• Elemental Evil: Hard to Reach Places
  • The air cultist now spawns in at the start of the relevant cutscene.
    
  • The initial cutscene now properly shows mouth movements on the dialogue.
    
  • There is now camera shake when taking the fire seed.
    
  • There should no longer be a chance for the quest to get into a weird state where it progresses before all the Air Seed encounters are defeated.

Combat and Powers
Classes and Balance: Bard

• Bonus damage from Ballad of the Hero, Ballad of the Witch, and Aurora Fantasia will now crit when the power that triggers them deals a critical strike.
  
• Critical heals should no longer be affected by Critical Avoidance. There may still be a few remaining cases, but Sheltering Etude and Starstruck should be solid.
  
• Healing from the Starstruck class feature should now be able to crit.

Enemies and Encounters
Rise of Tiamat
(Note: The trial is currently closed on Preview; we’re hoping to re-enable it sometime next week for an additional round of feedback.)

• Collision has been tweaked so that players should not be able to stand under a platform.
  
• Balance changes
  • Increased damage of Fire Wall.
    
  • Added damage over time to Fire Wall.
    
  • Added an additional Fire Wall.
    
  • Removed Cache of the Dragon Queen reward from Tiamat match details.
    
  • Fixed a bug where Chain Lightning from Blue Head breath was doing less damage than intended.
    
  • Reduced damage of Blue Head breath.
    
  • Slightly reduced damage of Green Head and White Head breath.
    
  • Half of the group's Dragon Souls will now be shattered (Removed) for the final phase
    
  • Ensured that Tiamat always starts the final phase with Frightening Presence
    
  • All dragon breaths will do the appropriate elemental damage now
    
  • Fixed an issue where the Poison and Ice breaths were hitting twice as frequently as expected
    
  • Changed the breath attacks from Heads in Phase 4 to target random players as opposed to exclusively the aggro target
    
  • Tuned down dragon breath damage across the board
    
  • Fixed an issue where Chain Lightning from Lightning Breath was doing far less damage than intended
    
  • Fixed an issue where Suffocating Gas was doing far less damage than intended
• The Tiamat artifact has been added to Collections.
  
• Tiamat’s black dragon head’s attacks should no longer have a chance not to display.
  
• Tiamat’s white dragon head’s abilities should have a less-opaque screen effect.

Items and Economy
Zen Market

• VIP: Travel Signpost now unlocks at Rank 1.

User Interface
Campaigns

• Dragonbone Vale: Faction reputation icons now consistently display.
  
• Redeemed Citadel: This campaign no longer incorrectly shows up in the main campaign list.

Inventory

• Items unbound via unbind tokens will no longer display various warning messages when equipping or refining.
  
• Titles now have a new look when received through rewards, quest offers, etc.

Scoreboard

• The scoreboard now tracks shields consumed separately from Temp HP applied. This change is potentially subject to further tweaks.

Zen Market

• The search text entry field now becomes focused upon opening the window, which should allow typing without an extra click.

Localization
General

• The first pass of text for the Dragonslayer module has been localized in French, German, Italian, and Russian.

hastati96

This patch seems to have reverted some recent Bard changes. Bard songs can be applied to NPCs again since this patch.