Live Update: Wednesday, February 19 @ 4am Pacific

Magician - Changed the early ranks of the Burning Aura line of spells to be limited to 48 procs, rather than 240 incoming attacks, to match later spells in the line.
- Magician - Hulking Bodyguard now fades after 48 hits like later spells in the line.
- Magician - Added a target limit of 12 to all beam spells.
Berserker - Decapitation - Changed all levels of this ability to function on enemies at the purchase level minus 1. Reduced the proc rate to approximately 2 per minute for a raid geared player.
- Berserker - Decapitation - Created 3 new ranks of this ability to bring its maximum effective level up to 99.
- Ranger - Headshot - Changed all levels of this ability to function on enemies at the purchase level minus 1. Reduced the proc rate to approximately 2 per minute for a raid geared player.
- Ranger - Headshot - Created 3 new ranks of this ability to bring its maximum effective level up to 99.
- Rogue - Anatomy (Assassinate) - Changed all levels of this ability to function on enemies at the purchase level minus 1. Reduced the proc rate to approximately 2 per minute for a raid geared player.
- Rogue - Anatomy - Created 3 new ranks of this ability to bring its maximum effective level up to 99.
- Shadowknight - Mortal Coil now has a hit limit of 1320 incoming hits and will trigger Mortal Residue more often. Mortal Residue's duration has been extended.
not much a nerf for mages ?

hmm. i guess i heard wrong when people could flat out buy 85 toons. still have to level you say?

heard that was in march

No game should required *years* of playtime to merely hit the highest level with some old AAs.
That is an issue with the game itself, imo.

It took me years to get here only because the expansions come out 1 year at a time. I do not want new/returning players to have to take years to reach me.

Heroic Character purchase is coming, just not in this patch I believe Frands481.

Unless you think level 85 is end game, yes. You still have to level at least 15 more times.

Not yet - coming soon.
-R

I guess they totally ignored the Mercs disappearing with auras up.

They are aware.

Any word on when the servers are coming back up?

didn't mean it was last level. just if peeps bought 85 the zones around that level would be really bad.

Working Overtime - Nibbling Moles in this Heroic Adventure will no longer leave corpses.

Does this mean that this mission can no longer be used to PL burdens or bloodstained shoulders? Or will they still have their white con and "give exp," thus allowing burdens/shoulders to work? Because if this gets nerfed, classes like the warrior are kind of screwed when leveling this. I don't want to be losing 20k+ and 500ac while leveling this the slow way. It would be even slower and more dreadful. Certain classes will again be at such a huge advantage when leveling it IE the ones that dont need the stats to tank mobs effectively.

I don't think it would be all bad.
There will be a lot of really good as well.

Are we there yet?

It's because it took you years to get there that they are doing this. It's one thing to spend those years getting 85 and those AAs as the levels and AAs were current. To make a new player (and I include those who left with characters below 70) spend years again, when the vast majority of the player base is in the new content, makes no sense. If the game could add enough new players every week that there were plenty of players at all levels to group and socialize and go through it together, then fine. The point is that your levelling to this point was a VASTLY different experience than it is for a new or returning player. You had lots of other people in your level range. The content was new and fresh.

To say to somebody: "I know those levels are a lonely wasteland now, but you have to take a long time to gring out what took me 5, 7, 10 years to earn, and the 1000s of AAs I earned during all those years or it just isn't fair to me." They WILL give up. There are few that will stick it out, but not enough to replace normal attrition in current expansions. Should the game die because new players have to either grind through old content alone (admittedly with mercs and defiant gear to make it easier) or get power levelled?

And I know. I box three to four accounts on one computer. Even with the AA bonus, bringing characters up that didn't do the earlier parts of the journey with me is slow and painful. I've been boxing my Shaman in current content since HoT and while he has all T4 HoT gear plus some RoF T1, he still has less than 1000 AAs. With my play time, without this help, he won't have 4000AAs for a couple more years at least. Even if I did nothing but hotzone tasks and power levelling for 40 AAs a day on him, it would take me another 100 days of play time, and I'd be going mad with boredom from the monotony.

It's a business decision. I would not be surprised if they are seeing 100s of new accounts go from 1 to less than 50 and cancel. I would not be surprised if they are seeing returning players stay for only a few months. If I were starting EQ new right now, even boxing four accounts from level 1, and saw the amount of experience it was going to take to catch up to players doing current content and earning current AAs, I would quit out of boredom really early on that hill.

Suggestion to Sony:

Add an experience bonus for players in groups of 3 or more non-mercs. This bonus would apply to players within two levels of the cap in groups with players 10-15 levels below the cap. So if you had a 99, 100, 86 and 87, the level 99 and 100 players would get bonus experience. This will encourage people to group and help mentor the new players when heroic characters go in.

If you didn't box you'd level faster. Powerleveling is seen as a nasty word but ultimately chilling with your friends can be a similiar process. you shouldn't fool yourself to think you'll box better than a real group. it's simply a tool for when you can't group.

That would be a yes then

Time to play

Something I don't see mentioned very often, that I think people need to watch out for:
- There is a significant exp boost toward AAs when you have under 4000 AAs total.
- This grant of AAs up to level 85 will give you more than 4000 AAs total.
- You will no longer get that AA exp boost after you take the grant (assuming you are level 85+), and that is intended by Sony, per their wikia chat last week.

If you disagree with the AA grant on principle: More power to you. Continue to enjoy the game and the AA exp boost.

If you don't have a Gold account: you cannot get the AA grant, so you'll continue to gain the AA exp bonus. You may consider buying gold for a month just to collect the grant, and then drop back to silver after that. Keep in mind you will then be over the 1kAA cap for a silver account so you cannot collect any more AAs after that unless you maintain gold.

If you have a toon with over 4kAA already: there's no obvious reason not to take the grant and fill in a bunch of AAs you wouldn't otherwise get, and may gain some benefits from having.

If you have a toon near 85 with few/no AAs earned: you will certainly advance faster by taking the grant, but you will gain further AAs slower than you are used to.

If you have a toon under 4kAA, but you've carefully picked the AAs you want to spend. Then you may want to skip the grant so you can continue to earn AAs faster and continue to cherry-pick the best AAs for your class. The grant will give you a bunch of AAs that you already decided you don't need. Taking the grant would push you out of the exp bonus and could slow down your advancement.

If you have a toon in the level 51-70 range: You'll have to look at it carefully. You can probably turn on the grant for a while and build up a very fast base of AAs without going over the 4kAA boundary. Then turn it back off again and earn your way up to the AAexp bonus cap while cherry-picking the AAs you want to have.

Already there... LOL
-Rat