Test Update 07/15/15

July 15, 2015
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*** Highlights ***

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*** Items ***

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*** Quests & Events ***

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*** Spells ***

- Beastlord - The Nature's Fury line of spells will now correctly reduce offhand damage from damage shields, instead of increasing it.
- Magician - Summon spells such as Call of the Hero no longer cause their target to dismount, unless the location that the target is being summoned to is too small of an area for that target to have summoned a mount.
- Magician - Frenzied Burnout AA spells now allow all ranks of the ability to imbue the magician's pet with the ability to rampage and flurry.
- Spells that do not take hold will now relay a more accurate description as to why they did not take hold.
- Reduced the critical chance for all rain spells level 96 and above.
- The Spell Critical Chance spell effect has been split into separate Critical Chance and Critical Damage effects. Spells that affected one or the other have been changed to have equivalent effects.
- Proc effect stacking - Changed how buffs that trigger effects when spells and skills are used ("procs") interact with each other. All procs now have the ability to cast concurrently. This changes previous behavior that only allowed one proc spell to be cast at a time.
- - Example one: For a player using the Bone Staff of Wickedness and the buff Spirit of the Puma, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each melee round. Under the previous rules players could only cast one or the other spell per melee round.
- - Example two: For a player wielding Kyzer's Ritual Dagger augmented with The Murderer's Heart, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each time that player casts an appropriate detrimental spell. Under the previous rules players could only cast one or the other spell per appropriate detrimental spell cast.
- Spells can now be defined as belonging to a Spell Stacking Group. Inspecting a spell that belongs to a Spell Stacking Group will list the name of that group and the rank of that spell within the group in the spell inspection window.
- Assigned Spell Stacking Groups to buffs that trigger effects when casting spells or using skills in order to support the fact that you can now have multiple buffs with these effects active at the same time.
- - Examples: Mana Reiteration Rk. III (which is now rank 22 of the "Mana Flare" stacking group) will now be overwritten by Mana Reciprocation Rk. III (which is now rank 40 of the "Mana Flare" stacking group).
- - Mana Reciprocation Rk. III will *not* be overwritten by Ancient Hedgewizard Brew because Ancient Hedgewizard Brew is part of the stacking group "Resonant Tonics".
- Damage shield damage is now considered magical non-melee damage; this means that melee guard and melee threshold guard spell effects will no longer negate damage shield damage. Rune, spell guard, spell threshold guard, and spells that allow you to absorb damage as mana will continue to block damage shield damage.
- Taking damage from a damage shield is now an action that can decrement the use counter on some limited use spells.
- A number of changes have been implemented regarding damage shield and environmental damage messages:
- - Changed damage shield message filters from "Show All/Hide All" to "Show All/Show Mine/Hide All."
- - Added the ability to filter environmental damage messages for other players as "Show All/Hide All."
- - Added the ability to set individual colors for incoming, outgoing and others' damage shield messages, and to filter them to separate windows.
- - Damage shield messages will now display the amount of damage dealt by a defender to an attacker. Damage assignment has not changed; damage from damage shields is still not assigned to an owner.
- - Damage shield messages will now display the correct message if the amount of damage being taken was negated by spell effects such as rune or spell guard.
- - Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the bearer to take damage when they attack (such as the cleric "Mark" line of spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the attacker takes.
- - Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the caster of a detrimental spell to take damage ("feedback" spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the caster takes.
- - Created new filters and assignable colors for environmental damage messages (such as burning in lava, drowning, suffocating, freezing in ice, falling, or being hit by a trap). They are no longer filtered as if they were damage shield messages.
- Adjusted the spell names and the 'spell landed' and 'spell wore off' messages on a number of spells to reduce the cases where dissimilar spell lines shared the same messages or where multiple spells shared the same name.


*** NPC ***

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*** AA ***

- Corrected a display issue that could occur when two existing AA lines were consolidated into a single line.
- Activated AA abilities that have their timer refunded because their spell failed to take hold or affect a target can no longer trigger spell procs.
- Enchanter - Ranks 1-21 of the AA ability line Nightmare Stasis have been consolidated into ranks 4-24 of the Stasis AA ability line. The /alt act number for Nightmare Stasis (previously 748) is now 409. The functionality of Waking Nightmares, triggered when ranks 4-24 of Stasis breaks, remains unchanged.
- Enchanter - Fixed a bug that prevented the AA ability line Quickened Stasis from shortening the cast time of ranks 4-24 of Stasis.
- Enchanter - The AA ability line Hastened Nightmare Stasis has been renamed Hastened Stasis.
- Enchanter - Fixed a bug with the AA ability line Profound Visage. The ability line now multiplies the base effectiveness of the visage buffs by 20% per rank. (Ex. Rank 6 now allows the bearer of Horrifying Visage to generate 22% more aggro, up from its base 10%.)
- Enchanter - The AA ability line Surreality has been renamed Hastened Mind Over Matter.
- Enchanter - The AA ability line Doppelganger's Beckon has been renamed Hastened Doppelganger.
- Enchanter - The buff triggered by the AA ability Gracious Gift of Mana has been renamed Gracious Gift of Mana 96 to 105 and has had its messages updated to more closely match other "Gift of Mana" spells.
- Enchanter - Corrected a bug with the AA ability Hastened Mesmerization that prevented it from functioning on level 86 through 89 and level 100 to 105 spells.
- Enchanter - Ranks 1-6 of the AA ability line Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 2-7 of Gather Mana. The AA ability line Hastened Gathering has been renamed Hastened Gather Mana. Ranks 1-3 of the AA ability line Hastened Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 3-5 of Hastened Gather Mana.
- Enchanter - Corrected a bug with the AA ability line Forceful Banishment that prevented it from working on ranks 2-4 of Beguiler's Banishment.


*** Progression Servers ***

- Hunting zones in The Ruins of Kunark will spin up new load balancing versions when they are populated by enough adventurers.
- Many of the bosses in the Plane of Sky will provide more of a challenge on Progression Servers.


*** Mercenaries ***

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*** Miscellaneous ***

- Added /pickzone fewestplayers to automatically pick the zone with the lowest number of players.
- Fixed a bug that would very occasionally cause you to appear unconscious even though you were full health after a divine save.
- NPCs that are in combat and are pushed by spells with a knockback component should no longer teleport directly to their most hated target if their most hated target remains stationary.
- NPCs that are pushed by spells with a knockback component should appear in their new location more quickly than before.


*** UI ***

- Changed -
EQUI_AchievementWnd.xml


*** Previously Updated ***


- The EverQuest Team

Good Stuff.

Is this to include classic Gods as well, like Innoruuk and Cazic Thule?

Test wont load after this patch, gives an error missing MSVCR71.dll.

Kind of curious are you running windows 8.1? A friend of mine is having the same issue but i am running 7 and have no issue.

I am currently having the same issue. Missing MSVCR71.dll file. I have used validate and it says all is ip to date. I also switched to live, run Validate there, same message. Difference is that I can log into live, not test.

I am using windows 7 so its not the OS causing this problem.

Same using Win 7, can't log into test but can into live.

I copied the file from my live folder to my test folder and when i ran the patcher it removed it.

what did it remove? the problem?

Uhm... What does this mean, exactly?

Edit:
This is a huge nerf to the Magician class. Why exactly was this implemented? We have an innate crit chance of 58-59%, and are generally higher than that with ADPS (100% on burns)... Limiting it to 40% is ridiculous:

[44841/7606] Coronal Rain
Classes: MAG/103
Skill: Evocation
Mana: 1808
Target: Target AE
Range: 150', AE Range: 25'
Resist: Fire
Reflectable: Yes
Casting: 4s, Recast: 12s, Timer: 3, Rest: 1.5s
AE Waves: 3
Crit Chance/Dmg: 40%
1: Decrease Current HP by 15530
Text: You are caught in a burning rain.

The Magician class has been tuned around this for two expansions. This throws the entire class out of wack DPS wise and mana usage-wise. The fact that it is a minor note in a patch rather than something that is openly discussed with players is ludicrous.

the msvcr71.dll file. when the patcher is run for test it is removing the file. i copied and pasted the one from my live folder to my test folder and it removed it again. apologies for not being more specific

OK just ran Dll fixer and installed the file and running fine now. Friend is telling me it has something to do with a Microsoft update last night supposedly. You can get a free trial of a dll fixer and fix one file which thankfully was that needed installed.

Everyone needs to download DLL-FILE FIXER And use that to get the MSVCR71.DLL File fixed. Microsoft had an update last night and the file is missing from their update. Simple fix. im on TEST right now on Shallido Enjoy

Furthermore, all of the critical damage abilities are 100% lower than they used to be. For example, Illusions of Grandeur on Live vs Test:
[38603] Illusions of Grandeur
Classes: ENC/254
Skill: Melee
Target: Target Group, MGB: No
Range: 200', AE Range: 200'
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Casting: 0s
Duration: 2m (20 ticks), Extendable: No, Dispelable: Yes
2: Increase Chance to Critical DoT by 10%
3: Increase Critical DoT Damage by 110% of Base Damage
5: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 10% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 250% of Base Damage
Text: Illusions of Grandeur fill your mind.
Increases your chance to land critical hits with both your direct damage and DoT spells, while also increasing the damage they do.

[38603] Illusions of Grandeur
Classes: ENC/254
Skill: Melee
Target: Target Group, MGB: No
Range: 200', AE Range: 200'
Resist: Beneficial, Blockable: Yes
Casting: 0s
Duration: 2m (20 ticks), Extendable: No, Dispelable: Yes
2: Increase Chance to Critical DoT by 10%
3: Increase Critical DoT Damage by 110% of Base Damage
5: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 10%
6: Increase Chance to Critical Cast by 150%
Text: Illusions of Grandeur fill your mind.

Edit: and Magician First Spire of the Elements doesn't even have a Crit Damage Mod anymore /sigh

When the patcher for test is run, it is removing the msvcr71.dll file (click on advanced setting and you can see this if your file is still there). It is not doing so when you run the patcher for live. So I dont believe it is a windows issue.

If you have 2 EQ folders like i do, you can still log onto test if you

1) run the patcher ***DO NOT CLICK PLAY***
2) copy and paste the msvcr71.dll file from your live folder to your test folder
3) now click play and enter game

I just did this and it worked for me.

"- Damage shield damage is now considered magical non-melee damage"
PANIC PANIC
"Damage assignment has not changed; damage from damage shields is still not assigned to an owner."
Whew !

Parser hasn't been updated to reflect the change, so it's wrong.

It is 7, the other posts seem to be right it is deleting it for w/e reason.

Copying it from live and bypassing launcher does indeed work

Indeed. This, along with the other changes, feels like yet another kick in the pants to the mage class. Can we start moving toward positive balance changes, rather than all of the negative balancing? Unless deterring players from playing the game is the goal, in which case, by all means, proceed.