July Patch Cliff Notes: What’s Awesome This Month

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Roshen, Jul 23, 2015.

  1. Roshen Brand Manager

    In our July patch we made quite a few changes… and here’s an explanation from the dev team talking about what’s happening since the last patch:

    Damage Shield Changes

    Damage shields have always been kind of weird. They've never reported how much damage they're doing to you, and though there are technically different types of damage shields, their messages weren't all that informative. Environmental damage, like from lava or falling, was lumped in with damage shields, for some reason. Here's what we did to change Damage Shields, Mark effects (reverse damage shields), and Feedback spell messaging:
    • We created new chat filters, with user-assignable colors, so that you can filter or hide environmental damage happening to you or to others now.
    • We created new chat filters, with user-assignable colors, so that you can filter or hide damage shield messages that apply to you or others now.
    • You can now see the damage that is done to you by a damage shield on your target.
    • You can now see the damage that is done to someone else that hits you.
    • If you're near someone with a damage shield, you can see the damage done to people who hit that person.
    • While the differences in damage shield types (fire, cold, magic, etc) were mainly for flavor, the damage messages from them weren't consistent. The messages are now in a consistent format that say what the damage type was and how much damage was dealt.
    Damage shields still count as "environmental" damage -- that is, there is no attributed owner. Damage shields also all combine into one "hit" for reporting purposes, so if someone has a fire shield and thorns the damage will be combined and the message you get (burnt or pierced) will depend on which buff is earliest on your target.

    The one mechanical change we made was to classify damage shield damage as magical non-melee damage for the purposes of damage absorption. Spell Guard effects (Aegis of Satum, Aegis of Gordianus, Legion of Lucem), Runes, Spell Threshold Guards, and spells that convert damage to mana will protect you from damage shields, Mark effects, and feedback spells instead of Melee Guard effects.

    Your Spell Did Not Take Hold

    If you've ever tried to buff someone else, you've received that message. With this update, spells that do not land on your target due to an existing spell will now report the name of the spell that blocked it.
    • Your Certitude spell did not take hold. (Blocked by Surety Rk. III.)
    The benefits are pretty obvious here, but mainly it lets you be accurate when yelling at someone who doesn't think they have a blocking buff up.

    Proc Stacking

    Previously, any spell proc or melee proc could only fire once per round, regardless of the total chance for those procs to occur, and regardless of the number of effects that were present. This meant that in many cases, adding several procs could reduce the overall chance for the most desirable proc to fire.

    Now both spell procs and melee procs are rolled independently, and multiple effects can be triggered at once. This means that you can freely add as many lines of proc spells as you like and all of them have their individual chances to fire. A single melee swing can trigger both a weapon proc and a Spirit of the Puma proc. A single spell can trigger a Sympathetic Burst and a Sympathetic Alleviating Burst.

    Stacking Lines

    We now have the ability to specify "lines" of spells and use their position within that line to determine whether they stack or not. For example, Mana Reiteration and Mana Reciprocation are both parts of the Mana Flare stacking group, and higher ranks of that group will overwrite lower ranks. When you inspect a spell within a stacking group, it will display the name of its group and its rank.

    Spell Critical Chance and Critical Damage

    Spell Critical Chance and Spell Critical Damage were, in the past, controlled by a single spell effect type. Having these two important effects on the same spell caused many problems with buff and debuff interactions, and the fact that only the best amount of critical damage was usable at once meant that many spells or AAs were simply ignored.

    Spell Critical Chance remains calculated in the same way and we did not change any data related to it, apart from removing the Critical Damage portion of the data.

    We moved Spell Critical Damage to its own spell effect and changed how it is computed. It's no longer "best only," but it is now cumulative.

    The old way critical damage was handled was as follows:
    • 0 meant no critical damage, 100 is "the same," anything over 100 is a bonus.
    • Only the best modifier from AAs was added, and only the best modifier from spells was added.
    • Black Wolf had a crit damage value of 200, which meant it added 100% to your critical damage if you had no AA modifiers. With AA modifiers, it would actually add 200%.
    The new way critical damage is handled is as follows:
    • 100% is the base inherent critical damage modifier. The new SPA is now strictly a modifier to this number.
    • Values below 0 mean less critical damage, 0 is "the same," and anything above 0 is a bonus.
    • All modifiers stack (assuming they are in different slots). This means you get the bonus from Fury of Magic added to Spell Casting Fury Mastery and Spell Casting Fury. If you have multiple spells active, they add up as well.
    • To compensate for the "extra" 100% that used to be added when you had both a spell and an AA modifier active, we have added a 100% modifier to Spell Casting Fury.
    • Black Wolf has a crit damage value of 100, which means it adds 100% to your critical damage. This can now stack with other active buffs, or you can time your buffs for maximum effect as you did before.
    Here's the upshot of the change:
    1. We can now add spells that simply change your critical chance without affecting how much damage you do. We couldn't do that before.
    2. We can now add spells that modify the damage you do on a critical spell hit, adding to or subtracting from your damage in a cumulative way.
    3. You can stack up all of your critical damage modifiers at once and do massive crit damage, or spread them out to extend a lower amount of crit damage.
    But Wait, There’s More!

    Of course, these aren’t the only changes from the last patch, and you can find a full list in the July Patch Notes found here. We update EverQuest every month, and we strive to improve YOUR gameplay experience. We’re grateful for the feedback you provide us, and your continued support!
  2. Slasher Augur

    you forgot the rain nerfs and the chromatic haze nerf.
    Mediik, Mintalie, Motherlee and 7 others like this.
  3. Sancus Augur

    Uhm... Auspice?

    And the fact that you still won't explain why you neutered a class' two top DPS spells is quite disturbing...

    Assuming this is a response to complaints about lack of communication, I don't think anyone needed a regurgitation of the patch notes on Spell Stacking changes or Damage Shields. I appreciate you sharing the mechanical reasons why you changed crit damage mods, though they seem to ignore the actual impact the change has on classes. And, again, 0 communication on the rain change...
  4. Sancus Augur

    Though, in hindsight, I suppose the rain changes were definitely not awesome, and wouldn't jive with the title. I'd still like an explanation somewhere...
  5. Potawatomi Augur

    Can we get an actual response to the nerf of rains? Honestly, this shouldn't be so hard to comment on...
    Sancus likes this.
  6. Iila Augur

    If there's a turd in a sandwich, no matter how great the rest of the sandwich is, that turd will be the defining feature.

    Everyone that looks at the sandwich keeps pointing out the turd, and you guys keep talking about how the bread is so fresh that it's melting the aged, sharp cheese.

    It's incredibly frustrating and confusing that the most talking about part of the patch hasn't even gotten an acknowledgement.
    Mintalie, sojero, Tour and 3 others like this.
  7. Labonte New Member

    So i took the time to read this because it looks like someone took time and effort to try and explain something about the game and how it improves the game play. I tried my best to follow but i don't fully grasp whats going on with what as far as Crits and stuff go. I guess im just learning about how to "power up" and do more DPS as a class. ( Enchanter main, cleric alt) So if anyone wants to teach a teachable person then please. And what is Raid stuff? what is wrong with what ever it is, TDS im assuming a raid? idk-hmu.
  8. abysalsoul New Member

    So how does the new crit system work on things such as Headshot, Decapitate, Backstab? and least Headshot is just a massive crit in the damage box.
    Motherlee likes this.
  9. Songsa Augur

    Did some proc rate have been adjusted (lowered) to compensate for more proc chance with this patch?
  10. Songsa Augur

    Also given you are in a communication day melees dps would like to know if something is on the plans before next campaign to help them doing better dps especially sustained dps in raid/group thx.
  11. Bidaum_TR Lorekeeper

    Normally, when encountering a mob with a sizable DS, dispelling it was standard procedure or overwriting it with a mark; will marks still overwrite DS?
    Also, when both of those fail (for a melee) fighting the mob "off-handed" was the last resort to get around a bad DS; will off-handed melee still work now?
  12. Smallpox Augur

    Thanks Roshen, good stuff. Really like the "Your Spell Did Not Take Hold" and "Proc Stacking" changes.

    Question: How will the Spell Crit / Crit Damage changes affect Dots? The same way as DD's or no?
  13. Sancus Augur

    This does not change anything for DoTs. DoTs use different SPAs than nukes, and those SPAs already worked how they changed Nuke mods to work.
    Silv likes this.
  14. Drayze Elder

    Most cliff notes I have encountered hit on all the major topics of a story....leaving out the rain nerf reasoning is pretty telling that the devs don't have an answer as to why they felt it was necessary other than they felt the need to cripple the magician class to the point that they won't be wanted on raids anymore. Why would any raid force choose a 2nd magician over a 8th or 9th wizard? That is what this nerf has done to the magician class....
  15. Riou EQResource

    Balanced raid is better then an un-balanced one, maybe in the upcoming campaign wizards get over nerfed to below mages and remain worse dps for 6 months until campaign2.

    Maybe mages gain some utility or something they provide is big on new raids, etc.

    Same thought process would be why would you want any magicians, monks, zerkers or rogues when you can just replace them with 2x the dps Wizards.
    Elricvonclief likes this.
  16. Silv Augur

    So the justification is that they're nerfing now so that they can *maybe* balance in the next campaign? Umm... ok. Seems like if that was indeed the rationale they'd make all the sweeping changes at once so that there wasn't as much of an uproar. I'm sure there would still be unhappy people (there always will be) but at least it would be in more context.

    Given the thread title includes the word "awesome" it is no surprise that nothing was said about rains. I eagerly look forward to the Cliff Notes on what's "horrible this month". Transparency and all, right?
    Mintalie and Sancus like this.
  17. CrazyLarth Augur

    not sure how to find these STACKING LINES for spells? How to tell what one is higher then the others?
  18. Riou EQResource

    Inspect the buff, if it has the stacking line it has it, if it doesn't it doesn't
  19. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    Thank you for the update, Roshen.

    As a side note, I didn't know you were related to Billy Mays :).
  20. Drayze Elder


    That is a whole lot of maybe's that wouldn't exist if there was more transparency and discussion with the devs about class defining changes instead of a 1 liner that is thrown into a book of patch notes.

    Why is it so difficult for the current dev team to communicate with the player base about things they perceive as balance issues? Why is it so difficult for the current dev team to communicate with the player base why certain changes, while difficult, had to happen in their eyes? You have some talented players of this game that could offer alternative solutions to things the dev team perceives as issues and yet they choose not to tap into them.

    Until there is a dev response to the rain nerfs and how big it hit magician raid dps most players will continue to wonder and doubt if they really understand the magician class at all. The reality is this:

    1. Magician TDS AA and spell lineups were catered to magicians using their rain spells religiously. This is why in TDS magician's didn't receive an upgrade to their gather mana spell. Now that rains have been nerfed to oblivion magicians are having to use their higher mana cost spears in order to max out dps during raids. That gather mana line sure could use an upgrade now...

    2. The magician spell focus AA's still do not work correctly on our spear and bolt spells....yet no fix is in place.

    3. The magician dps clickie on the TDS raid robe doesn't work on our main dps pet because water pets can't bash...how ironic...

    :confused: