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NW.10.20131018a.8 Shadowmantle Preview Patch Notes
panderus
Member, NW_CrypticDev, Cryptic Developer Posts: 1,007Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
New Features and Content
New Class: The Hunter Ranger!
The Hunter Ranger is now available to play! A brand new class that twists together ranged and melee attacks to exploit his foes in combat. You can now select the Hunter Ranger class at character creation.
New Level 60 Adventure Zone: The Dread Ring!
The recent Thayan Resurrection has caused much turmoil amongst the Red Wizards of Thay, some wanting to return Thay to the rule of the zulkirs, some still in service to Szass Tam. In a desperate bid to consolidate her power, Valindra Shadowmantle has decided to accelerate her plans at the Dread Ring to raise the ancient black dragon Lorragauth. Red Wizard insurgents revealed to Lord Neverember Valindra’s plans, and now a force of heroes from Neverwinter has been sent to try and stop Valindra. Take up the battle to thwart the lich’s evil plans by visiting Sgt. Knox in Protector’s Enclave at level 60 and taking the “Conquering Our Dread” quest.
New Level 60 Skirmish: Dread Legion!
The forces of the Red Wizards have rallied to drive the Neverwinter Vanguard from the Dread Ring, led by the powerful Saj Amog, Zulkir of Conjuration!
New Level 60 Epic Dungeon: Valindra’s Tower!
It is time to finish the fight with Valindra Shadowmantle! Confront the lich in her stronghold and end her reign of terror over the good people of the Sword Coast! This is the hardest dungeon in Neverwinter yet, requiring a Gear Score of 10500. Gear up, then queue up for Valindra’s Tower in the dungeon queues list.
Dungeon and Skirmish Queue Revisions
Party Vote Kicking
Dungeon party leaders may now call a vote to kick a player from a party. This includes all Epic Dungeons, regular dungeons and Skirmishes at this time.
Early Game Revisions
The early game from Protector’s Enclave through Tower District has been adjusted to improve quest flow and zone composition. Try it out with a new character! Highlights include:
Collections
Have you ever seen a really cool companion but had no idea where to acquire it? Are you a fresh level 60 but don’t know what items are available? Collections are for you.
The Collections window is accessed from the main screen by pressing 'ctrl-j'. Select the category of collections along the left side of the window. Each category will display item icons with tooltips available for the stats of the item. All the items are arranged in Collections of 2 or more items. Once this system is live, the icon will light up if you have that item in your inventory. Every item so collected will increase your Collection Score (or Companion Collection Score if it is a companion). Completing many Collections will also give a bonus to your Collection Score and some even grant titles. The Scores are purely cosmetic for the time being.
There are 5 separate categories:
Active Companion Bonuses
All companions now have an Active Bonus that they grant to you or your summoned companion when they are in an Active Companion Slot. These Active Companion slots are on the left side of the Companion Window. You start with 3 and gain one at level 30 and a fifth slot on reaching level 60.
Active Bonuses are varied in their effects. Many just grant a bonus to the character’s stats. Some give bonuses when certain conditions apply, such as extra damage when the target is knocked prone. Still other bonuses have a chance to trigger when the character uses an at-will, encounter or Daily power.
Look through your companions and decide which ones will be in your Active Slots based on the bonuses that they give.
New Artifact Quests!
Along with the new Artifacts system, we’ve adding in an introductory quest to teach players about artifacts and acquire your choice of one of three artifacts. Talk to Sgt. Knox in Protector’s Enclave at minimum level 21 and take the “Artifact Facts” quest.
Artifacts provide stats and a power that can be activated for your Primary Artifact. Up to 3 artifacts can be slotted at a time a single Primary and two Secondary artifacts available. Primary Artifact slots are always available to slot an item into where Secondary Artifact slots unlock at level 60. You may refine these artifacts similarly to how Enchantments now refine and improve their item quality, upgrading the artifact's provided stats and active powers!
Enchantment and Runestone Item Refinement
The way you rank up these items has changed. The process is now called Refinement, and instead of gathering 4 of the same type and “Fusing” them together, they now gain Refinement Points (RP) by consuming any other Enchantment or Runestone. The amount of RP gained varies based on the Rank of Enchant/Runestone you are consuming, and these amounts are displayed in the new Refinement UI when you place a valid item into a Refining Slot. You get additional RP when using a matching item, which is an Enchant/Runestone of the same type (Radiant or Training, for example), regardless of the Rank. After an Enchant/Runestone gains the appropriate amount of RP, it will now be able to Upgrade to the next rank. The Refining Stones needed to upgrade it are displayed, as well as the chance of success to do so. Upgrading has an Astral Diamond cost associated with it now, which is based on the Rank of the Enchant/Runestone. You will also be able to find various Refining Stones that are designed to be consumed for a boost of RP.
Unslotting an Enchantment or Runestone now costs an amount of Copper, Silver, and Gold (based on the Rank of the Enchant/Runestone and the Quality of the item) as opposed to Astral Diamonds. You can also now Refine/Upgrade a slotted Enchantment. This can be done by right-clicking on a slotted item and choosing “Refine Enchantment” or by choosing “Refine” from the drop down list while in the Enchanting window.
Patch Notes
Classes and Balance
Companions
Content and Environment
Performance and Graphics
Professions
Items and Economy
User Interface (UI)
Known Issues
New Class: The Hunter Ranger!
The Hunter Ranger is now available to play! A brand new class that twists together ranged and melee attacks to exploit his foes in combat. You can now select the Hunter Ranger class at character creation.
New Level 60 Adventure Zone: The Dread Ring!
The recent Thayan Resurrection has caused much turmoil amongst the Red Wizards of Thay, some wanting to return Thay to the rule of the zulkirs, some still in service to Szass Tam. In a desperate bid to consolidate her power, Valindra Shadowmantle has decided to accelerate her plans at the Dread Ring to raise the ancient black dragon Lorragauth. Red Wizard insurgents revealed to Lord Neverember Valindra’s plans, and now a force of heroes from Neverwinter has been sent to try and stop Valindra. Take up the battle to thwart the lich’s evil plans by visiting Sgt. Knox in Protector’s Enclave at level 60 and taking the “Conquering Our Dread” quest.
New Level 60 Skirmish: Dread Legion!
The forces of the Red Wizards have rallied to drive the Neverwinter Vanguard from the Dread Ring, led by the powerful Saj Amog, Zulkir of Conjuration!
New Level 60 Epic Dungeon: Valindra’s Tower!
It is time to finish the fight with Valindra Shadowmantle! Confront the lich in her stronghold and end her reign of terror over the good people of the Sword Coast! This is the hardest dungeon in Neverwinter yet, requiring a Gear Score of 10500. Gear up, then queue up for Valindra’s Tower in the dungeon queues list.
Dungeon and Skirmish Queue Revisions
- Players may now replace missing party members in queued dungeons and skirmishes.
- The level restrictions on dungeon and skirmish queues have been relaxed, allowing players up to two levels lower or higher to queue for each one.
- If a player is two or more levels below the recommended level, they'll temporarily be boosted to one under the recommended level.
- Party restrictions have been relaxed on skirmishes, no longer requiring a party to have a tank and healer.
Party Vote Kicking
Dungeon party leaders may now call a vote to kick a player from a party. This includes all Epic Dungeons, regular dungeons and Skirmishes at this time.
Early Game Revisions
The early game from Protector’s Enclave through Tower District has been adjusted to improve quest flow and zone composition. Try it out with a new character! Highlights include:
- Protector's Enclave
- The quest, Vital Supplies, has been removed.
- New quest: A Game of Orbs! This quest guides players to find the three Scrying Stones throughout
Protector's Enclave. - The flow of Finding Honor has been slightly smoothed out.
- Blacklake District
- Hazel's quests are now more integrated with the flow of the zone.
- The Dead Rats instance has been shortened and streamlined.
- The enemy encounters in the zone are now a little more spread out and varied.
- Tower District
- The enemy encounters in the zone are now a little more spread out.
Collections
Have you ever seen a really cool companion but had no idea where to acquire it? Are you a fresh level 60 but don’t know what items are available? Collections are for you.
The Collections window is accessed from the main screen by pressing 'ctrl-j'. Select the category of collections along the left side of the window. Each category will display item icons with tooltips available for the stats of the item. All the items are arranged in Collections of 2 or more items. Once this system is live, the icon will light up if you have that item in your inventory. Every item so collected will increase your Collection Score (or Companion Collection Score if it is a companion). Completing many Collections will also give a bonus to your Collection Score and some even grant titles. The Scores are purely cosmetic for the time being.
There are 5 separate categories:
- Companions – a list of every companion that can be obtained in Neverwinter.
- Epic Equipment – almost every armor and weapons set of Epic quality for level 60 characters.
- Artifacts – a complete list of available artifacts showing each major phase in their progression.
- Sharandar –The Sharandar Rewards page has been converted into a collection category. It lists all of the rewards available in and around Sharandar.
- Dread Ring –Like the Sharandar page, this category lists all of the rewards for the new zone, the Dread Ring. This collection is still a work in progress.
Active Companion Bonuses
All companions now have an Active Bonus that they grant to you or your summoned companion when they are in an Active Companion Slot. These Active Companion slots are on the left side of the Companion Window. You start with 3 and gain one at level 30 and a fifth slot on reaching level 60.
Active Bonuses are varied in their effects. Many just grant a bonus to the character’s stats. Some give bonuses when certain conditions apply, such as extra damage when the target is knocked prone. Still other bonuses have a chance to trigger when the character uses an at-will, encounter or Daily power.
Look through your companions and decide which ones will be in your Active Slots based on the bonuses that they give.
New Artifact Quests!
Along with the new Artifacts system, we’ve adding in an introductory quest to teach players about artifacts and acquire your choice of one of three artifacts. Talk to Sgt. Knox in Protector’s Enclave at minimum level 21 and take the “Artifact Facts” quest.
Artifacts provide stats and a power that can be activated for your Primary Artifact. Up to 3 artifacts can be slotted at a time a single Primary and two Secondary artifacts available. Primary Artifact slots are always available to slot an item into where Secondary Artifact slots unlock at level 60. You may refine these artifacts similarly to how Enchantments now refine and improve their item quality, upgrading the artifact's provided stats and active powers!
Enchantment and Runestone Item Refinement
The way you rank up these items has changed. The process is now called Refinement, and instead of gathering 4 of the same type and “Fusing” them together, they now gain Refinement Points (RP) by consuming any other Enchantment or Runestone. The amount of RP gained varies based on the Rank of Enchant/Runestone you are consuming, and these amounts are displayed in the new Refinement UI when you place a valid item into a Refining Slot. You get additional RP when using a matching item, which is an Enchant/Runestone of the same type (Radiant or Training, for example), regardless of the Rank. After an Enchant/Runestone gains the appropriate amount of RP, it will now be able to Upgrade to the next rank. The Refining Stones needed to upgrade it are displayed, as well as the chance of success to do so. Upgrading has an Astral Diamond cost associated with it now, which is based on the Rank of the Enchant/Runestone. You will also be able to find various Refining Stones that are designed to be consumed for a boost of RP.
Unslotting an Enchantment or Runestone now costs an amount of Copper, Silver, and Gold (based on the Rank of the Enchant/Runestone and the Quality of the item) as opposed to Astral Diamonds. You can also now Refine/Upgrade a slotted Enchantment. This can be done by right-clicking on a slotted item and choosing “Refine Enchantment” or by choosing “Refine” from the drop down list while in the Enchanting window.
Patch Notes
Classes and Balance
- General
- Many powers such as Icy, Terrain, Shard of the Eternal Avalanche and Daunting Light should now properly benefit from the Armor Penetration stat.
- Paragon Feats are now in the same position for all classes, this has no impact on when they can be purchased.
- Control Wizard
- Arcane Singularity is now able to properly score critical hits.
- Arcane Singularity should now obey line of sight rules.
- Devoted Cleric
- Flame Strike is now able to properly score critical hits.
- Power of the Sun is now part of the Righteous Tree.
- Restoration Mastery is now part of the Virtuous Tree.
- Great Weapon Fighter
- Powers: Increases AoE effectiveness from Atwills, while also adding some additional group utility with Wicked Strike and Battle Fury. Reaping Strike has received several buffs and feat interactions to make it a more attractive option. Should note that slight defense buffs from Wicked Strike and Reaping Strike make tanking and chopping swarms of enemies a tad more survivable.
- Wicked Strike: Now briefly reduces targets outgoing damage by 2% (Stacks 3 times) for 3-5 seconds depending on rank. Damage reduction from hitting multiple targets has been reduced by 4%, resulting in 16% more overall damage against 5 targets.
- Reaping Strike: Now reduces incoming damage by 8% while charging, damage reduction from hitting multiple targets has been reduced by 3.2%, resulting in 16% more overall damage against multiple targets. In addition, the crawl speed while charging has been increased by 50%.
- Sure Strike: Reduced damage of final hit and increased damage of hits 1-3. Overall damage is about 2.5% higher. The damage reduction from hitting multiple targets on the final hit has been reduced by 5%, resulting in 10% more damage against multiple targets.
- Weapon Master Strike: Damage reduction from hitting multiple targets has been reduced by 2%, resulting in 8% more overall damage against 5 targets.
- Battle Fury: Now also affects your team at 25% of it’s normal effectiveness.
- Feats: These adjustments generally serve to better flesh out the various paths, as well as add some additional PvE tanking benefits.
- Unstoppable Recovery: Is now part of the Sentinel Tree. Student of the sword is now part of the Instigator Tree.
- Executioner’s Style: This was a powerful effect in theory, but in practice it could be difficult to use effectively. This effect has been changed so that now Reaping Strikes grants you .04/.08/1.2/1.6/2% of your max AP per target killed, and also causes Indomitable Battle Strike to deal 2/4/6/8/10% more damage based on the targets missing health.
- Grudge Style: The extra threat gain now also affects Reaping Strike. Intimidation: Now also makes any affected targets temporarily build 5/10/15/20/25% more threat against you when you attack them with any of your powers. In addition, the base powers now always generate 100% extra threat.
- Instigator’s Vengeance: This feat was relying on too many outside variables to be useful, so has been simplified and made more self-reliant. It now increases your damage by 12%, but is disabled for 3 seconds whenever you take direct damage. (Dots should not disable it)
- Feat Deep Gash: This feat now benefits from your strength and other damage bonuses.
- Feat Deep Gash: Fixed bug causing this to ignore armor and evasions.
- Item Set Heroic Duelist's: Fixed bug causing the Heal over time to end when Unstoppable does, but heal value is now based on your Determination level when cast. Reduced Hot to last 8 seconds instead of 10. (Healing improved overall compared to current).
- Guardian Fighter
- Menacing Impact: Description no longer disappears after ranking it up.
- Supremacy of Steel: Fixed bug allowing the AoE effect to sometimes be cast multiple times.
- Trickster Rogue
- Courage Breaker: Tooltip now mentions that it increases your Power stat. (10% for 10 seconds)
- Courage Breaker: The duration of the power stat buff has been slightly reduced to match the debuff duration.
- Feat Swift Footwork: This feat now properly grants the full Stamina regeneration bonus.
Companions
- Panthers now have an updated walk animation.
- Panthers will no longer slide when attacking in certain conditions.
- While mounted and moving you should no longer hear your companion making idle noises.
Content and Environment
- There are now transition cutscenes when using the Moonstone Mask teleporters.
Performance and Graphics
- Protector's Enclave has received a minor performance update.
- Blacklake District has received a minor performance update.
- Tower District has received a minor performance update.
Professions
- Every armor making profession has new tasks to make shirts and pants with a new look and different stats.
- Leatherworking and Weaponsmithing has been updated with Hunter Ranger weapons and armor.
Items and Economy
- Soulforged Armor: These enchantments have been reworked. When you die you are resurrected, healing you for 20/22.5/25/27.5% of average player health and healed for an additional 10/12.5/15/17.5% of average player health over 3 seconds. This effect may only occur every 90 seconds.
- Tenebrous Enchantment now properly respects armor, dodging, and damage immunity.
User Interface (UI)
- Achievement notification window sizes should now better fit the text contained in them.
- Auction Broker has had small layout adjustments to be better in line with other stores.
- Auction House: There is now a 50 character limit in the search field.
- Auction House: There is now a Clear button in the search tab that sets all fields to empty but keeps the category and type selected.
- Character Window: Equipping an item from one of the equipment slot buttons will now properly notify the user if they are equipping an item that is bound.
- Chat: Right clicking on a friend notification now has the option to message them.
- Companion mouse over tooltips have been updated to be more accurate in rare instances such as when viewing them from a store.
- Companions: Double clicking on an active companion will now make it idle.
- Item set tooltips have received an updated font.
- Journal, Lore and Achievement tabs have had slight adjustments to avoid overlapping.
- Minimap will now properly contain manual waypoints (red flags) so they don’t display outside the minimap.
- Paragon Path powers and feats now have a more distinctive look.
- Pet Inspect and pet detail windows have had updated and unified layout changes.
- Pressing the ESC key now properly closes the correct order of windows when the Professions window is open.
- Professions: The XP bars now properly retain their correct locations when moving the window around.
- Social Window Friends List now includes the class icons and levels of friends.
Known Issues
- Dread Ring: Some buildings may not display at expected times , resulting in seemingly floating objects in the distance.
- Dread Ring: The Dread Spire and Death Forge: These Lairs have a few instances of enemies in walls and geometry in inappropriate locations. The instances can still be completed otherwise.
- Ranger: Not all Ranger items have correct icons, such as starting and seal items.
- Ranger: There are not yet Ranger weapons that come in the Delzoun or Greycloak from the Hero of the North and Guardian of Neverwinter packs in the Reward Claims Agent.
- UI: You are currently not able to place an enchantment or Runestone over the top of an existing one. You must unslot them at the current time.
- Audio: Not all Ranger or Paragon Path powers have their final audio pass.
Post edited by panderus on
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This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Also, as a side note - Owlbear has been brought back up for testing the current live builds so we can test the Fury of the Feywild and Shadowmantle modules concurrently.
Look at me!
The one with Griffon was only due the fix of all charge powers bug. =(
That's ominous. How did that happen? Will it still cost AD to unbind on Preview?
Anyway, exploring the rest looks like it will be fun! At this rate, I may end up spending more time on Preview than I do in the game...
It no longer costs AD to unslot enchantments. It costs gold.
It cost then gold to unslot them. But it's a bit bad that you aren't able to overwrite the old enchantment. But 100 times better than to pay AD to unslot them!
This would depend on the cost in gold to remove. i.e. if its going to cost 200g to remove a R7/8/Lesser/Std then its going to smell brown and yucky. 50g Sweet.
Liking most of the changes that will be coming
Any word on tenebrous balances?
So what happens now with Coal/Preservation wards... you just put them on sale... was that just a cash grab?
- GWF is fine, some players understand this and dominate in pvp, while bads cry on the forums for months that GWF is useless and terrible in PvP because they simply don't know how to play it.
- Devs listen to bads and buff GWFs
- It is then realized that GWFs were buffed way too much
- Devs Nerf GWFs
- Devs Buff GWFs
* TWITCH * YOUTUBE * MY GUIDES *
lol different time zones!
nvm
can u rework mark encounter of gwf to? it dose not need nothing special cant u just make it to not lose it when u get hit since how should tank tank and not get hit
They don't always post a patch note when they are fixing an exploit.
i hope fixes of dungeons are not posted but they are made
Items and Economy
*Soulforged Armor: These enchantments have been reworked. When you die you are resurrected, healing you for 20/22.5/25/27.5% of average player health and healed for an additional 10/12.5/15/17.5% of average player health over 3 seconds. This effect may only occur every 90 seconds.
*Tenebrous Enchantment now properly respects armor, dodging, and damage immunity.
Wish List item Panderus, can we get a server status light for the test shard so when can easily see if it is up or not rather than loading in just to find it is not available.
My video tribute. hahaha
* http://youtu.be/-2Mnnjponj4
Ouch Soulforge look to have gotten the Tene treatment too..... 5% healing separates greater and perfect.... seems harsh.
Please tell me it won't be active in pvp.
History of you:
- You're an idiot
+25% damage single target still, right? the biggest reason I have this ability is that the WMS giving me tendonitis.
PS Anyone has problems launching game (preview shard)? When I hit play button nothing happens (it still shows GameClient.exe in task manager->process tab)
Gonna verify files and run in safe mode but maybe it's not the case and someone knows solution
edit: still not working
To be clear: the launcher works fine.
Launching into the LIVE server works fine (though no music on character screen)
Launching into Preview does nothing - launcher hides, hard disk ticks a moment or two, then nothing. Attempting to retry states the game is already running.
Performing a full verify on game files (Preview) now.
Just an FYI for the Devs.
No ticket because it's beta server.
No bug report in BUGS forum because it's preview server.
Windows XP SP3 and all updates.
NVidea GE 9600/512MB
#JustSaying #ForWhatItsWorth
UPDATE: Verifying all files (Preview) does nothing to help. Darnit. I really wanted to play with my Wizzie Fire-based toys and peek at the Ranger. Maybe an uninstall and reinstall is due (haven't since Live Launch way back when - it's probably due.)
but you get the bonus whether the companion is summoned or not. All that matters is if it is slotted. So it is a valid concern.
well lets hope the devs know it shouldn't be active during PvP or we'll have a minor P2W problem