Test Update 03/07/2023 - Patch Notes and Discussions

Yes, everyone will want to care about them now.

They literally said "Hi, I'm removing all of those unnecessary race calculations in the unnecessary proc calculation and giving you a flat base damage increase instead based on how many achievements you've completed."

The race of your target no longer matters, just how much slayer you have completed to determine whether you get a 0, 2, 4, 7, or 10% increase to your base power on every target, including beneficial spells now too (heals). No more proc; no more unnecessary race calculations which were a contribution to combat lag.

Most of the other AA changes were also made to simplify calculations to reduce combat lag without really changing anything for the player.

10% for the banestrike change seems rather high. Especially considering a flat boost is going to affect classes differently.

Even if it's going to be that high, a majority of the banestrike damage should be frontloaded to the initial unlocks of the skill meta tree, while providing much smaller boosts for the other meta achievements.

This would keep it reasonable for casuals and give hardcores something to do for a small gain.

/em whines like a fat, lazy ogre.

I must be missing something.

The 2, 4, 7, 10 percent increase is based off of completion of what four specific Banestrike AA? I am going off the top of my head, I remember three major ones that break down into smaller categories that IIRC break down into even more smaller categories. Again off the top of my head so I could be wrong until I go into the game later on.

https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:Slayer_System

Progressive = Rank 1
Highly Decorated = Rank 2
A Force Of Nature = Rank 3
Megadeath = Rank 4

Does this banestrike achievement change mean that the AA skill will not be available on classic start TLP's for quite some time? I don't think that you can kill every mob on the slayer list for quite a few expansions. I still enjoy collecting them even if I won't get any benefit from them for awhile.

This has to be wrong. There are only three ranks of the passive AA. Megadeath does nothing except give you a title. In the new system, the three passive ranks are giving you the 4, 7 and 10% bonuses. The original 2% bonus is unlocked by the lowest level "skill slayer" achievements, as they have previously existed, there's no other way I can see to get it.

And now that I think about it, the patch notes description of this change doesn't make sense to me either. Banestrike has historically affected melee DPS only, it has had nothing to do with other spells, songs, discs or mitigation. It would be nice if a dev could provide us all with a more precise explanation of the new mechanic, and resolve the confusion.

Spells can banestrike

It's just going to be a permanent passive bonus % to your character now, instead of a proc that goes off on certain mob races. That's what it is describing. Much like the Luminous Restless Ice aug that unlocks a % effectiveness bonus to your character based off of achievements.

What about the other things included in that AA?

Rank 34 on live is currently

This AA change looks like a down grade to what we have on live, Wizzys are a class that has been lacking for years and they are making us worse?

With regard to the confusion over how the new Banestrike works, people should be doing what I've already done and actually login to the Test server, read the new achievement descriptions, and look at toons you have on that server which have already unlocked at least some of these things, and click the reward buttons. All else is speculative.

The banestrike change is a small quality of life nerf to caster and priest classes for farming. I used to enjoy taking my druid stick and hitting low level mobs for one shot kill numbers instead of casting a spell. I also lost the ability to use a level 1 nuke and wreck classic mobs. Not a big deal though. I like the change.

I've already done that thanks. As multiple people have tried to tell you... it's NO LONGER A PROC. It's 100% a flat damage bonus increase based on how many achievements you've completed. It's like having a 2'nd luminous ice aug, or another focus AA to give extra damage now. There is no confusion here for most players.

They're changing it from a proc that goes off based on whether or not you've completed the slayer achievements for the race of whatever you're killing to flat damage as part of the battle against combat lag.

While it will effect different classes differently (as per the other part of the conversation going on about whether or not the changes are OP), it was necessary to change it in the battle against combat lag.

If you have 0 slayer achievements completed... you get a 0% bonus to your base damage.

If you have completed one of the "skill" slayer category achievements you get a 2% base damage increase (it doesn't seem to matter which one; the "View Reward" for all of them states it still unlocks the first rank of banestrike, aka the 2%).

If you have completed the "Progressive" achievement, you get a 4% base damage increase.

If you have completed the "Highly Decorated" achievement you get a 7% base base damage increase.

If you have completed the "A Force of Nature" achievement, you get a 10% base damage increase.

These damage increases aren't cumulative; it's 0-10% total.

The last three technically don't state which increase they are in the "View Reward" screen... but since you can't complete A Force of Nature without completing Highly Decorated, and can't complete Highly Decorated without having completed Progressive... there you go.

I'm sure the one guy on E-Marr that runs two AFK bot groups at Laima Ratgur all day will be be very pleased

STILL no fix of the triggered bosses in Umbral Plains????

That's not correct. A Force of Nature can be completed in GoD, prior to that there isn't a way (I know of) to complete Invaders in a Strange Land. Highly Decorated and Progressive both require VoA because of Alarans, CotF Fire Elves and Xulous and TDS Dinosaurs and Book Minions are optional. You can complete Highly Decorated at around 30/114 for Progressive since at most you have to complete one Skill Slayer to complete a Special Slayer and I'm a People Person and all the Natives don't require any Skill Slayers and you could probably complete 1 or 2 others without a Skill Slayer if you made an effort.

That explains why all three of those latter achievements I haven't completed yet (aka I'm at the 2% level) all say 4% in the View Reward screen, thanks.

However, those 4 achievements are how you can get the banestrike unlocks, 100% confirmed - people can view it themselves on test.

Umm... you can complete both "Highly Decorated" and "A Force of Nature" without completing "Progressive". As one example off the top of my head, don't kill any cubes. They aren't included in any slayer achievement in the "Highly Decorated" tier. There's a whole mishmash of permutations here. The way I read it is, you complete any of those three tiers, it doesn't matter which one, and your passive AA is bumped up a level. The three levels are 4, 7 and 10%.

Complete any of the skill tier achievements, and you unlock the AA Banestrike passive, which is a necessary first step for all of this. That gets you the 2% for whatever you've flagged. Even after you've flagged the first mob type, the rewards for the other mob types you haven't completed continue to say "Player flag". It would be nonsensical for them to let you kill 25 level 1 bunnies in Crescent Reach and then reward you with a 2% base DD bonus on everything in the game. They can check your flags based on mob type as a one-time step each time you zone, so there is no proc needed to do that.

Yes, I'm incorrect, and my being incorrect explains why all three Highly Decorated, A Force of Nature, and Progressive all tell me I'll get 4% unlock when I complete them when I look at the rewards on test. So, thanks for pointing it out.

However, I'm not incorrect on it unlocking on 1 skill slayer achievement of your choice, Highly Decorated, A Force of Nature, and Progressive. Look at the "View Reward" for the skill achievements and you'll see it say "Player Flags" and in the description box "Unlocks the first rank of Banestrike" aka the 2%.

That's Banestrike 1, 2, 3, 4 (aka 2,%, 4%, 7% and 10%). You can complete them in whatever order floats your boat, but that's how people attain their 10%.

Sorry, nonsensical or not, that's how its working on Test. And... mob type no longer matters... dev wouldn't have liked my earlier post if it still did. They removed all mob type calculations from banestrike.

The Anniversary merchant on Test is not showing any new items for this year yet, if you're still searching for ideas might I suggest:
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...s-speed-mounts-about-time-for-another.288651/