AC2:Announcements - 2003/06 - Portents

Teaser

Original Link (now dead) - No Link Available

June Episode: "Portents"

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Stetten and Allacen ran as quickly as their feet would carry them. Occasionally, one of them would turn back to see if the shrieking creature still followed, only to feel their terror redoubled when they saw it still bearing down on them.

"Run, little ones, run!" the undead woman howled. "Your fear will be gone soon."

The warriors had encountered the creature as they hunted the jungles of Omishan. They had heard rumors of undead lurking in the jungle's shadows and had set out to see if the tales were true. They found out soon enough when they encountered an undead woman wandering west of the ruins of old Mayoi.

At first she had seemed almost harmless, her head bowed to her chest, mumbling to herself. Stetten and Allacen had seen a few of the revived sentients at Artefon behave this way, almost as if they hadn't been awakened with their full faculties, and their broken minds were forced to relive the events of their life.

To put the woman out of her misery, Stetten had sent an arrow flying toward her, only to see her head snap up suddenly. With a wave of her hand, she knocked his arrow from the air as if it were nothing more than an annoying insect. The same had happened to Allacen's flame bolt; the undead creature had simply caught it in her hands as if to examine it, then flung it to the ground, looking up at the pair with a smirk. Stetten and Allacen had exchanged a single glance, then turned and begun their mad flight.

"Come, come don't you want to see your friends at the Lifestone?" the undead woman cried, her voice sweet with mock concern.

The warriors' flight brought them to the fallen buildings of old Mayoi. They darted between the ruins, hoping to gain enough distance from their pursuer to escape into portalspace. Yet each time they looked back, the woman was still the same distance behind them, cackling and howling insults.

"No, no, no, I will not be so easily dissuaded," she screeched. "You desired my attention, and you shall have it!"

Leaving the ruins of the town behind, the pair headed east along the beach, following the ocean's shore. Hearing Stetten and Allacen's approach, a lone Mimbu began weaving a spell with its staff. Suddenly the Mimbu dropped its staff, squealed, and fell twitching to the ground. Allacen looked back over her shoulder as she ran and saw a glow fading from their pursuer's outstretched hands. "We can do without any interruptions!" the undead woman said, laughing.

As the pair continued east, they saw that the land reached a point. They turned to follow it as it curved to the southwest. Allacen called out to her companion, "We can't keep running! We must turn and fight. If we are to die, it is better to do so with honor!"

Stetten nodded and replied, "There, ahead! The ruins of the tower! We'll make our stand there!"

The pair jumped over the rocks and ancient debris that littered the fallen tower's base. They stopped and turned to face the creature, an arrow nocked in Stetten's bow and Allacen's staff at the ready.

Gliding closer, the woman howled, "Fools! You shall fall as easily as this... tower..." As she reached the word "tower," the woman's voice trailed off and she halted her advance toward them. With rapid sweeps of her head, she examined the area, the tangled masses of her matted hair brushing her decaying shoulders. Stetten and Allacen looked at each other, not knowing what to make of this sudden change.

"...Tower?" the creature mumbled, her voice now a barely audible whisper. "Welcome... to my... lonely... lonely tower?" Abruptly her head stopped twisting and she fixed her eyes firmly on Stetten and Allacen. Her mumbling continued. "How can... this tired... tired... tired... mage?... help you?... Travel with care... Golems?... coming..."

A piercing whistle interrupted this rambling speech, followed by the meaty thunk of an arrow hitting flesh. The undead woman glanced down to see a wooden shaft protruding from her left shoulder. Then, looking up at Stetten and Allacen, she let loose an ear-piercing scream and disappeared.

"You are fortunate she didn't kill you for that, Stetten!" Allacen chided. "Who was that? Why did she stop like that?"

Gazing at the ruins of the tower behind him, Stetten spoke somberly. "I think it was Shoyanen."

 

Rollout Article

Original Link (now dead) - No Link Available

June Episode: "Portents"

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Summary

Significant changes were made in our June episode, the details of which can be found below. Only changes to existing content and dynamics are listed, since we don't want to spoil new content!

Summary of Chat Issues/Fixes Over the past few weeks there have been a number of fixes to the chat system to fix a number of bugs that have been preventing players from using the system to its fullest. One of the most important things to these fixes is that players must install Direct X 9.0 to be able to take advantage of these improvements. Find out more about these fixes, and offer your feedback, by going to: http://www.accmty.com/idealbb/view.asp?topicID=43984.

Skill Changes

We have tweaked a number of skills in June, both in the base skill trees and the specialty trees. Since these changes have resulted in some dramatic changes to classes this month, we are once more offering a skill reset to all existing characters. This skill reset will be available throughout the duration of the June and July episodes. As with previous skill resets, this reset will return all spent experience and skill credits. However, in order to give you more time to correct any errors you may make in reassigning your experience the skill reset command may be used repeatedly for one hour following its first use, with each use returning all of your experience and credits. After that hour passes, the command becomes unusable to you again.

In addition, due to the number of changes being made to a few skills, some classes will be forcibly reset when the characters log into the gameworld. Classes that will be reset include:

• Human Defender
• Human Bounty Hunter
• Human Alchemist
• Human Ranger
• Lugian Berserker
• Lugian Juggernaut
• Characters with any of the following skills trained: Surge Step, Stolen Youth, Sapping Will

After logging into the gameworld, characters in these classes will have all their experience and skill credits returned to them. In addition, they will be able to use the "/skills reset" command repeatedly for the next hour to let them correct any mistakes they may make in reapportioning their points. Following that hour, these classes will still have one additional reset that they can use at any time through the end of our July episode. This reset will also have an hour grace period to allow players to correct any mistakes they've made.

Lugian

Base Melee

• Sneer - This skill now causes a monster to think that you have done damage equivalent to 5-10% of its total health, making it more likely to choose you as a target. In addition, the skill no longer does any damage to the target, and costs 40 vigor to use.
• Ignore - Ignore now reduces the amount of damage the targeted monster thinks you've done to it by 10-15% of its total health. However, this skill can never cause a monster to completely ignore you; it will only make other targets more appealing.
• Lure - When using this skill, the user only receives half of the armor debuff given to the target.
• Quicken Pulse - With this skill enabled, the character will regenerate health in combat. The amount he regenerates will range from 3-15% (depending on skill level) of what he would regenerate in peace mode. This skill won't stack with other combat health regen skills. When in peace mode, this skill will work as it does now.
• Battle Cry - This skill now taunts the target in an attempt to draw its aggression. It makes the targeted creature think you’ve done damage equivalent to 5-10% of its total health. In addition, the skill's range has been reduced to 30 meters.
• Surge Step - This skill will move down the tree and parented to Life Unbound instead of Periodic Recovery.
• Reap Essence - The amount of health this skill steals from the target has been reduced by 50%, but the amount of health returned to the character has been increased from 200% to 300%. The amount of vigor drained from the target remains the same, but only 150% of that vigor is returned, instead of the current 200%.

Juggernaut

• Maim - The maximum by which this skill can decrease all of the target's attack skills has been reduced from 50 Grand Mastery points to a maximum of 37.5 points.
• Challenge - This skill now causes monsters to think you've done damage equivalent to 5-20% of their total health. It doesn't do any damage to the target and only costs 50 vigor to use.
• Reckless Abandon - This skill is really more akin to a Berserker skill, so it has been removed and put into the Berserker tree.
• Power Surge - This skill now increases your damage from 5-25%, instead of the previous 10-35%.
• Cripple - The damage range of this attack has been increased to 7-200 points.

Berserker

• Berserk - The armor debuff cast by this skill has been completely removed, and the damage increase given by this skill has been reduced from 20-40% to 5-30%.
• Forced March - This skill has been completely removed and replaced by a modified Reckless Abandon.
• Reckless Abandon - This skill moved from the Juggernaut tree to the Berserker tree and replaced Forced March. The skill performs two 7-200 damage attacks, but reduces the user's melee defense by 25 Mastery points for seven seconds.
• Circle of Pain, Wheel of Pain, Storm of Pain, Vortex of Pain - When using these skills, only 50% of the damage inflicted on surrounding monsters is applied to those monsters' hatred of the Berserker. This will help the Berserker draw less monster aggression in group situations.
• Cascade - This skill's three attacks now do 3-90 points of damage each, increased from 3-75 points each.
• Deluge - This skill's four attacks have been increased from 3-75 points of damage each to 3-100 points each.
• Avalanche - This skill's five attacks now do 3-130 points of damage each, instead of the previous 3-75 points each.
• Overwhelm - Fury's Focus is no longer needed to use this skill. To compensate for this, the reset timer has been increased to 20 seconds.
• Disruption - 20% of the damage from this skill's five attacks now ignore armor.
• Dissolution - This skill has been changed in similar fashion to Disruption, and now 20% of this skill's six attacks ignore armor, damaging the target directly.

Missile

• Sapping Will - This skill now returns 150% of the vigor drained from the target. In addition, it has been parented to both Subjugate and Double Throw.
• Sapping Life - This skill now drains 10-100 points of health and returns 300% of that health to the user.
• Dust Devil - The range of this skill is going to be increased to 6 meters.
• Imminent Suffering - The bleed effect from this skill has been increased to 2-15 points of health per second for 30 seconds.

Raider

• Side Arm - In addition to damaging the target, this attack reduces the amount of damage the monster thinks you've done by 10-15% of the monster's health. Note that this skill cannot cause the monster to completely ignore you; it can only cause other targets to be more appealing.

Tactician

• Turrets - We've tweaked the AI of Turrets so that they respond to all enemies equally (meaning they hate all their enemies equally). We will be looking into their AI further in July and would appreciate your feedback on how this change is affecting Turrets in June.

Base Magic

• Blistered Skin - The reset timer on this skill is going to be reduced from 12 seconds to 5 seconds.
• Give Life - This skill has been changed so that it gives 50-500 points of health to the target, while removing 50% of that value from the caster.
• Wound Twister - The percentage damage increase this buff can give to weapons has been reduced from 30% to a maximum of 15%.
• Detonate - We've increased the cost to use this skill from 298 to 300 vigor and we've reduced its long windup animation.
• Energy Vortex - The damage that this skill does has been increased to 10-100 points of damage.
• Frostbite - The damage bonus from this skill has been increased to 10-100 points of damage.
• Life Cycle - The amount of health over time this skill can give has been increased from 1-15 points per second to 2-20 points per second for 2 minutes.
• Earth Skin - This skill now gives the user 6-60 points of armor for two minutes and can be cast while moving. It doesn't stack with Encase and can only be used once every 5 minutes.
• Forked Bolt - The "bolts" fired by this skill have had their damage increased to 10-100 points of damage each.
• Earthquake - This skill is no longer centered on the caster; instead, it can be cast on targets within 20 meters. The area of effect is 10 meters and the skill does 12-260 points of damage to all targets in the affected area. Finally, the vigor cost for the skill has been increased to 280 points.

Sage

• Restore Will - The reset timer on this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 4 seconds.
• Bolster Conviction - The amount this skill can raise a target's maximum health has been increased from 10-100 points to 20-200 points.
• Saving Graces - The reset timer on this skill has been reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.
• Personal Savior - The reset timer on this skill has also been reduced from 15 minutes to 10 minutes.
• Heart Rend - This skill will be reduced from a level 35 skill to a level 30 skill, the skill credit cost will be reduced from 3 credits to 2 credits, and it will deal out 12-260 points of damage.

Human

Base Melee

All Skills - All skills found in the base human melee tree can now be used while dual-wielding swords. Note that since only Human Bounty Hunters have a dual auto-attack, this provides no additional benefits to other melee classes.

• Backstab - If used from behind the target, the damage this skill does is increased by 20%. The arc in which this attack is most effective has been reduced from 180° to 150°. The reset time on this skill has been increased to 5 seconds.
• Aura of Defense - The reset timer on this skill has been reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes. Along with this, instead of giving additional protection against melee attacks, it grants increased defense against magical attacks.
• Find Hole - The armor ignoring damage done by this skill has been reduced by 50%.
• Aura of Deflection - The reset timer on this skill has been reduced from 10 minutes to 5 minutes.
• Begrudge - This skill taunts a monster, making it think you've done damage equivalent to 5-10% of its total health. It does not do any damage to the target and costs 25 vigor to use.
• Insult - This skill also taunts the targeted monster, but has a more powerful effect, causing the monster to think you've done damage equivalent to 5-20% of its total health. This skill does not do any damage to the target either and costs 50 vigor to use.
• Peripheral Blow - This skill's damage is increased by 25% if used while standing on the right-hand side of the target. The arc that the skill receives this bonus in has been reduced from 180° to 150°.
• Kidney Strike - When used while standing on the left-hand side of the target, this attack does 30% more damage. The arc that the skill receives this bonus in has been reduced from 180° to 150°.
• Defensive Stance - This skill's combat speed decrease effect has been completely removed. It will still increase the character's melee defense by 5-50 points of Mastery.
• Twin Blades - This skill won't require you to use Begrudge prior to using it.
• Bide - This skill's damage was never increased by using Blind Rage, so reference to this has been removed from the skill's description.
• Cutthroat - This skill's damage is now increased by 40% if used when standing directly in front of the target. The arc that this skill is most effective in has been reduced from 180° to 150°.
• End Game - The amount of armor-ignoring damage this skill deals out has been reduced from 75 - 400 points to 30 - 200 additional points of damage.

Defender

• Inspiration - This skill has been removed from the Defender tree and "Emblem of Might" has been put in its place.
• Emblem of Might - Emblem of Might has been significantly changed and can now only be cast on the Defender's shield. Once on the shield, it increases the shield's protection level by 20 to 120 points and its damage by 20 to 100 points for 30 minutes. In addition, it attunes the shield to the user, meaning it cannot be given to someone else.
• Swipe - Twenty percent of this shield attack's damage now bypasses armor and directly reduces the health of the target. The attack also does an additional 5-50 points of armor-ignoring damage.
• Bring Peace - The reset timer on this skill has been increased to 4 seconds.
• Shield Wall - The maximum armor buff from this skill has been increased from 50 points to 60 additional points of armor. Along with this, the reset timer has been reduced to 2 minutes.
• Interpose - The skill credit cost for this skill has been reduced to 2 skill credits.
• Smash - This attack normally just does shield damage, but if it’s used following Swipe, it will inflict 12-260 points of armor-ignoring damage. In addition, it costs 180 vigor to use.
• Bash - The amount of damage this attack does has been increased from 7-200 points to 12-260 points.
• Benevolent Leader - This skill's effect has been increased so that it can last 2 to 5 minutes, depending on the skill level of the Defender. The reset timer has not been changed and remains 5 minutes. Since the skill can now last a much longer time, the healing rate has been reduced to 1 to 10 points per second.
• Anticipation - This skill has been removed from the Defender skill tree and is replaced by Bulwark.
• Bulwark - This new skill increases all three of the Defender's defenses by 25 to 250 Grand Mastery points, but reduces their combat speed to 20% of normal and their run speed to 50% of normal. The skill's effects last 20 to 30 seconds.
• Expulse - This skill's "knock back" effect has been increased by 25%. In addition, it taunts the targeted monsters into thinking the Defender has done damage equivalent to 5-15% of their maximum health. The vigor cost has been reduced from 220 to 200 points.
• Lay Hands - This skill can once again be used on the Defender, as well as being cast on others. To balance this out, it has been moved up the skill tree and can only be purchased by characters level 35 or higher.
• Mighty Blow - Since Anticipation has been removed from the Defender skill tree, Mighty Blow no longer requires that skill to be used before it in combat. Since the skill is now easier to use in combat, the maximum possible armor-ignoring damage has been reduced from 400 to 300 additional points, while the reset time has been increased to 10 seconds.

Bounty Hunter

All Attacks - All of the Bounty Hunter’s attacks can now be performed while wielding a sword and shield, a single sword, or two swords. This also includes auto attacks.

• Ruse - In addition to damaging the target, this skill taunts monsters into thinking you've done damage equivalent to 5-10% of their total health.
• Feign Death - Although many other monster taunting skills have been changed in June, Feign Death has not. This skill will still temporarily cause monsters to think you are dead.
• Fate’s Forgiveness - This skill's ability to ward off death now works against attacks from other players, as well as monsters.

Base Missile

• Critical Shot - The vigor cost of this skill has been reduced from140 to 110 vigor points.
• Mending - When this skill is active, the character now regenerates health in combat. The amount they regenerate ranges from 3-15% of what they would regenerate in peace mode. When in peace mode, this skill works as it did previously.
• Bluff - This skill now temporarily reduces the amount of damage the monster thinks you've done to it by 10-15%. However, this skill can never cause a monster to completely ignore you; it will only make other targets more appealing.
• Disease Arrow - The vigor cost of this skill has been reduced from 280 to 200 vigor points.
• Impending Doom - The vigor cost of this skill has been reduced from 245 to 200 vigor points and the reset timer has been reduced to 2 seconds.
• Eye Rake - A bug allowed this skill to be used while wielding a sword and shield. This skill has been changed so that it can only be used while wielding a bow.
• Poison Arrow - The vigor cost of this skill has been reduced from 340 to 280 vigor points.

Ranger

• Arrow Speed Improvement - The speed of arrows shot by a Ranger will travel faster than those shot by a character that hasn't trained Trailblazing, the introductory Ranger skill.
• Trailblazing - This skill's run speed buff now ranges from 120-140%, increased from 104-120%.
• Nature's Aid - Rangers should find that their pet Lasher moves and responds faster.
• Paired Attack - This skill has been removed from the tree.
• Scent of the Prey - This skill has also been removed from the tree.
• Forage - This skill now generates potions that restore 30 - 300 points of health and 30 - 300 points of vigor when used. The reset time has been increased from 30 seconds to 1 minute.
• Symbiosis - Previously this skill cast a beneficial healing effect on the Ranger's pet Lasher, while casting a negative harmful effect on the player. Instead of this, the skill now only casts the beneficial effect on the pet. To offset this, the duration of the effect has been reduced to 1 minute.
• Assassin's Kiss - This skill's damage has been increased to 10 - 100 points, while the reset time has been reduced to 2 seconds.
• Hunter's Intuition - Although the skill's description said that it only did additional damage if used soon after the pet Lasher attacked the target, in reality this skill always did full damage. This skill has been fixed so that it works as originally designed, so it only does additional damage if the Lasher has recently attacked the target. However, the skill's maximum range has also been increased from point blank to 70 meters, while the reset time has been increased from 5 seconds to 7 seconds. Finally, since the attack can now be used at range, the bonus damage it does has been reduced to 25-250 points.
• Rabies - This skill will add 10-100 points of normal damage to every attack the pet makes for next 10 to 60 seconds.
• Divine Water - This skill has been removed from the tree.
• Toughen Hide - The skill can now be trained at level 30, its vigor cost has been reduced to 240 vigor points, and its reset timer has been reduced to 4 minutes.
• Triple Threat - This skill has also been removed from the tree.

New Ranger Skills

• Crushing Jaws - This skill places a trap on the ground; any opponent that runs over this trap takes 7-260 points of damage and is slowed 10-35%. After being triggered, the trap disappears. If the trap has not been triggered within 5 minutes of it being placed, it disappears. This skill costs 2 skill credits to purchase and 200 vigor points to use, and has a reset time of 2 minutes.
• Fiery Jaws - This skill also places a trap on the ground. Any opponent that runs over the trap takes 7-260 points of damage and receives a fire damage over time effect. After being triggered, the trap disappears. If the trap has not been triggered within 5 minutes of it being placed, it disappears. This skill costs 3 skill credits to purchase and 260 vigor points to use, and has a reset time of 2 minutes.
• Sinew Snap - This new attack does 3-75 points of damage to the target and reduces their missile skills by 5-50 Mastery points for 30 seconds. It costs 2 skill credits to purchase and 200 vigor points to use, has a maximum range of 70 meters, and has a 4 second reset timer.
• Blinding Arrow - This is another new attack that does 3-75 points of damage to the target. In addition, it reduces the amount of damage the monster thinks the Ranger has done by 10% - 15% of the monster's maximum health. Finally, the skill does more damage when the target is vulnerable and cannot be used at close range. This skill costs 2 skill credits to purchase and 200 vigor points to use, has a range of 70 meters, and has a 4 second reset timer.
• Lilitha's Vengeance - This new attack does 7-260 points of damage, costs 3 skill credits to purchase, requires 230 vigor points to use in combat, has a maximum range of 70 meters, and has a reset time of 5 seconds. In addition to this, if the attack is used shortly after a successful Sinew Snap it does an additional 20-200 armor-ignoring bonus damage.

Alchemist

• Stink Bomb - This skill now reduces the amount of damage monsters think the Alchemist has done by 20-25% of their total health. However, this cannot cause monsters to completely ignore the Alchemist, it can only make other targets more appealing.
• Furor - We've added a second attack to this skill and changed the skill so that each attack does 7 - 200 points of damage.

Base Magic

• Heart of Ice - The range of this skill has been increased from 5 meters to 20 meters.
• Horripilate - This skill now increases the effectiveness of all cold-based attacks by 20 skill points.
• Rushed Recovery - Every time this skill is used it will drain 25 - 200 points of health from the user and return 3 times that amount as vigor. The skill will also have a 90 second reset timer.
• Spontaneous Combustion - The damage this skill can deal out has been reduced from 12-260 to 7–200 points, and the vigor cost has been increased to 220 points.
• Robustify - With this skill enabled, the character will regenerate health in combat. The amount regenerated ranges from 2-8% of what they would regenerate in peace mode. This skill won't stack with other combat health regeneration skills. When in peace mode, this skill will work as it does now.
• Fireball - The vigor cost of this skill has been increased to 220 points.
• Slithering Flames - To improve the accuracy of this skill's second attack, it will fire off at approximately the same time as the first attack.
• Encase - The reset timer on this skill has been increased from 0 seconds to 1 second.
• Explosion - This skill's area of effect has been reduced to 10 meters and the vigor cost has been increased to 340 vigor points.

Tumerok

Base Melee

• Growl - This skill no longer does any damage; instead, it taunts the targeted monster into thinking the user has done damage equivalent to 5% - 10% of the monster's total health. This skill costs 40 vigor points to use.
• Avert Eyes - Along with damaging the target, this skill reduces the amount of damage the monster thinks you've done to it by 10-15% of the monster's total health. Remember that this cannot cause the monster to completely ignore you; it can only make other nearby targets more appealing.
• Lightning Strike - The damage this skill does has been increased from 3-75 points to 10-100 points of damage.
• Bastion - This skill now applies a 7-70 point increase to the user's armor level for 2 minutes. It is also usable while moving, but can only be used once every 5 minutes.
• Resuscitate - With this skill enabled, the character now regenerates health in combat. The amount regenerated ranges from 2-8% of what they would regenerate in peace mode. This skill won't stack with other combat health regeneration skills. When in peace mode, this skill works as it did previously.
• Stolen Youth - The amount of vigor returned by this skill has been reduced from 200% to 150% of that taken from the target. In addition, both Avert Eyes and Lightning Strike are now required to purchase this skill.
• Devastate - This skill now does 12-260 points of damage.
• Hunger - The amount of health this skill steals from the target has been reduced by 50%, while the amount of health it returns to the user has been increased from 200% to 300%.
• Hurricane - This skill's area of effect has been increased from 4 meters to 6 meters.
• Blood Tithe - This skill's attack will do 50-500 points of damage to the target, while inflicting 20-200 points of damage on the user.

Feral Intendant

• Lumbering Might - This skill's run speed debuff has been completely removed.
• Iron Pincers - At the lowest skill ratings, this skill now only applies a 5% damage increase to all attacks, instead of the previous 10%. The maximum damage increase has not been changed.
• Summon Reedshark - Due to an error in linking the pet up with Sanguine Orders, the pet Reedshark was always doing an additional 30-100 points of armor-ignoring damage. We've fixed this, and this bonus damage now no longer ignores armor. The Sanguine Orders skill has not been changed in anyway.
• Reap - The health stolen by this skill has been reduced to 20-200 points, while 300% of that stolen health will now be returned to the Feral Intendant.
• Summon Shreth - The pet Shreth suffered from the same problem as the pet Reedshark, and had an error linking up with Tenderize. We've fixed this error and the pet's bonus damage no longer ignores armor. The Tenderize skill has not been changed in anyway.
• Reave - The damage from this skill's 2 attacks has been increased from 3 - 75 points to 10 - 100 points of damage for each attack.
• Wet Fur - When this skill is enabled, targets that attack the Intendant will receive an effect that is equivalent to Still Water at a rating of 10-35. The chance of this effect being applied ranges from 30-40% each time the target attacks the Feral Intendant, while the slow effect can last 10 to 20 seconds.

Zealot

• Bruise - The vigor cost of this has been reduced to 110 points. In addition, it has been given a secondary swing that does normal weapon damage, similar to the damage done by Zealot auto-attacks.
• Shred Hope - This skill has also been modified so that it has a secondary swing that does normal weapon damage.
• Rapid Healing - With this skill enabled, the character regenerates health in combat. The amount regenerated ranges from 3-15% of what they would regenerate in peace mode. This skill won't stack with other combat health regen skills. In peace mode, this skill works as it did previously.
• Icy Grasp - The skill's attack has been increased from 3-75 points to 12-260 points of damage.
• Blur - The damage from this skill's 3 attacks has been increased from 3-75 points to 10-100 points of damage each.

Base Missile

• Huck - This skill’s range has been increased to 70 meters.
• Barbed Spear / Gore Combo - This skill combination has been fixed, and if Gore is used on a target soon after Barbed Spear, it will do an additional 20-40 points of damage.
• Critical Throw - The percentage chance of this skill performing a critical hit has been increased from 15% to 20%.
• Infect - This skill's disease effect now does 2-18 points of vigor damage a second. However, if it is used soon after Taint Blood, it will do 2-20 points of vigor damage.
• Spiritual Malady - This skill has been modified so that if it is used soon after Infect, it will remove an additional 100 points of vigor from the target. In addition, its range has been increased to 40 meters.
• Visceral Malady - The additional damage this skill does if used soon after Infect has been reduced to 10-100 points of damage. In addition, the skill's reset timer is now 2 seconds, while its range has been increased to 40 meters.

Hive Keeper

• Wax Statue - The Wax Statue now uses our revised monster aggression system. (Please see below for more details on this revised system.) When summoned, monsters have no aggression directed toward the Wax Statue. However, as the Statue "attacks," it taunts nearby monsters over and over again, building up monster aggression until monsters begin to attack it.

Base Magic

• Charged Air - This skill's damage over time effect now does health damage instead of vigor damage.
• Eye of the Storm - This skill's damage over time effect also now does health damage instead of vigor damage. In addition, the skill is now a caster-centered attack, instead of having a range of 10 meters.
• Acumen - The percentage damage increase given by this skill now ranges from 5% to 15%, reduced from the previous 10% to 30%.
• Splinter Bone - The range of this skill has been increased from 10 meters to 20 meters.
• Compound Fracture - This skill's range has been increased from 10 meters to 40 meters.
• Ionize - This skill's damage over time effect has also been changed so that it does health damage instead of vigor damage.
• Interlope - Instead of this skill having a 50% chance of reducing 5-20% of incoming damage, it now reduces the damage of all incoming attacks by 3-10% for the duration of its effect.

Monster Aggression

As you may have noticed in this month’s skill changes, we’ve made some significant changes to monster aggression in our June episode. Prior to June, the major determining factor on how a monster chose its target was how much damage it did to them. This was slightly modified by a love/hate table, meaning the monster would sometimes ignore how much damage was done to it and go for a specific target. In June we’ve added another layer to this system: monsters are now keeping track of a new rating, your taunt rating. These two values, the amount of damage you've done to the monster and your taunt rating, are summed together into the monster's aggression rating for you. The higher the aggression rating, the more likely the monster is to attack you.

Various special skills modify your taunt rating. Skills that are designed to draw or divert a monster's aggression add or subtract a huge value from the attacker's taunt rating. How much depends on the skill, but the value is based on the total health of the monster. For instance, an attacker using Begrudge will add a value equivalent to 5% - 10% of the monster's total health to his or her taunt rating. De-taunt skills work in the same way, removing a percentage of the monster's health from the user's taunt rating. It should be noted that although a target's taunt rating can be a negative number, if the sum of the damage rating and taunt rating is less than 1, a default value of 1 will be assigned as that target's aggression rating. (This means that if you're the only person around, you won't be able to de-taunt the monster so much that it will wander away.)

Other skills may add a value equal to a multiple of the skill's damage. As an example, your skill may only do 75 points of damage, but 300 points might be added to the monster's taunt rating for you. Healing a target that is currently damaging a monster is another way to earn the monster's aggression. The monster's hatred of the healer will increase by a value equal to 50% of the amount healed.

(NOTE - A bug found at the last minute in our June episode is preventing healing skills to cause monster aggression. This will be fixed in our July episode.)

We’ve also changed how a monster decides to change its target. If a special taunt or de-taunt skill is used on the monster, it immediately revaluates its target list and changes targets accordingly. Other skills, such as attacks or heals, do not cause the monster to revaluate targets, and the monster waits until its next "heartbeat" to decide if it wants to attack someone else.

It should be noted that your taunt rating decays at a rate of 1% per second. On the other hand, your damage rating never decays. To take advantage of this, certain skills only apply a percentage of their damage to your damage rating. This is a permanent effect, since it is being added to your permanent damage rating.

This may sound confusing, so we’ll explain how the system works in a few examples.

Example 1 - Alpha inflicts 100 points of damage on a monster, while Beta does 200 points of damage to the same monster. Neither has used a special skill, so the monster chooses to attack Beta.

Example 2 - Alpha and Beta have been fighting a monster for quite a while, and Alpha has done a total of 750 points of damage, while Beta has done 850. However Alpha now uses Begrudge, a taunting skill. This gives Alpha a taunt rating of 1,000, since the monster has 10,000 health. The monster now assigns a rating of 1,750 (1,000 + 750) to Alpha, while Beta still has a rating of 850. The monster immediately decides to attack Alpha.

Example 3 - Alpha and Beta are fighting a different monster. Beta has edged out Alpha, and has done 2,000 points of damage to the monster, while Alpha has done 1,250. However, Beta doesn't want the monster's attention, so Beta uses Bluff, a de-taunt. This skill subtracts 1,000 points from Beta's taunt rating (since the monster again has 10,000 health). In evaluating Alpha and Beta, the monster gives Beta a rating of 1,000 (2,000 + -1,000) while Alpha has 1,250. The monster immediately decides to attack Alpha.

Example 4 - Gamma comes along and heals Alpha for 250 points. The monster takes notice of this, and assigns Gamma an aggression rating of 125. However, Alpha and Beta still have significantly higher damage ratings, so they are still attracting the monster's attacks.

Monster Upgrades

Our monsters have received some extensive attention in June, with a number of significant changes being made to their attributes. These changes include:

• Increasing their armor values.
• Most Solo and Nemesis monsters have had their experience rewards increased. However, please note that a minority of these creatures have had their experience rewards reduced.
• Changing their health and vigor values.
• Increasing or decreasing the damage they can deal out.
• Giving group monsters combat health regeneration rates.

How much these values were changed depends on the monster. We have given group monsters the largest boost to their armor, with their new armor value being roughly equivalent to 4 times their level. Solo and Nemesis monsters have been given armor equal to approximately their level. Of course the exact values given to a specific monster may be more or less than that value.

Please note that we will continue to refining these changes in our July episode.

Allegiance Upgrades

Monarchs and their vassals have a few new commands and abilities at their finger tips in June:

Dismissing any character from the Allegiance: In the Allegiance panel, the "Break" button is active at all times for Monarchs. This will allow a Monarch to select a character from the Allegiance tree and dismiss them from the Allegiance at any time. Note, however, that all vassals sworn to the dismissed player will also be booted from the Allegiance.

• /allegiance_search : Everyone in the Allegiance can search the Allegiance tree for a specific character name. If found, the following information is displayed in the Allegiance panel:

-Name

-Allegiance rank

-Gender

-Species

-Patron name

-Number and names of immediate vassals

• /allegiance_name "": Monarchs may rename their Allegiance, though the number of text characters in the new name may not exceed 32 in total. The default name for all allegiances is "'s Allegiance." The text characters and names allowed in naming the Monarchy are the same as for naming a player character. In addition, the allegiance name must be unique to that allegiance's server. Along with these restrictions, there are two other restrictions that limit how often this command can be used One of these restrictions is that the monarch must have at least 10,000 gold in their money bag when trying to use the command, if they don't have this amount of gold, the command will fail. If they do have the required amount of gold, it is removed from their money bag and their allegiance name is changed. Following the first change of the allegiance's name, the monarch has a 5 minute grace period in which they can use the command repeatedly to correct any mistakes. After that 5 minutes expires, the monarch must wait an hour before using the command again, and will have to pay the 10,000 gold fee again.

• /allegiance_tree_export: Monarchs can export Allegiance Family Trees to an .xml file for use on a Web site (including all members, all the way down the line). This .xml file will be written to the user’s local machine, much like a screenshot.

Player Conflict Changes

The following changes have been made to Player versus Player conflict in June:

• We've renamed "PK Rating" to "Kingdom Points." This is just a small name change since these points can now be acquired through means other than PK combat.
• All Kingdom conflict areas of the world have been changed into Controlled areas. Players not sworn to a Kingdom are now immune to attack if they stray into one of these areas. Palisades has also been changed into a Controlled area from a Free-For-All area. In addition, we've added the new Lifestone near the Prosper Free-For-All area that we originally discussed to make it easier for players to start up friendly duels. These changes do not affect the Kingdom-versus-Kingdom worlds of Coldeve and Snowreap or the Free-For-All world of Darktide.
• The drop-off points for all ringway and gateway portals on Linvak Massif are no longer in conflict areas.
• We've implemented the changes we originally discussed to a Neutral shrine and there are now two restrictions on using a Neutral shrine. The first restriction is that you will need to have a specific amount of gold in your money bag before the Neutral shrine will change your status to Neutral. How much you need depends on your level:

-Levels 10 - 20 will not be charged any gold.

-Levels 21-30 will be charged 15,000 gold.

-Levels 31-40 will be charged 75,000 gold.

-Levels 41+ will be charged 500,000 gold.

• If you have this amount in your money bag, the Shrine will change your status to Neutral and subtract the gold from your bag. The second restriction is that you will need to wait two weeks after your alignment has been changed back to neutral before you can swear to another Kingdom.
• When a Neutral character kills the Guardian of a mine, the mine and the surrounding area do not change to Neutral alignment.

Combat and Creatures

• We've slightly changed how you can use beneficial spells in combat to make them easier to use on yourself. If you have a monster or nothing selected and elect to use a beneficial spell, the spell will apply its effects to you. This means that you will no longer have to select yourself in the middle of combat to use a buff or heal spell on yourself. Players engaged in PK combat will have to be careful, though, that they don't apply buffs to their enemies in combat!
• The mighty Warath is now to be found prowling the wastes of Linvak Massif, along with some other variants of existing monsters. And, speaking of those wastes, they seem a bit greener lately...
• The maximum shield level has been raised 30% for all characters level 15 and above.
• We've fixed the "backwards shield bug." This bug was causing a shield's protection value to be ignored for ranged attacks that came from the front, but applied their protection from ranged attacks that came from the rear.
• Previously, when a monster ran out of vigor, its attack and defense skills were significantly reduced. In our June episode this is no longer the case, and monsters will have the same attack and defense skills, regardless of vigor. Player skills have not been affected by this change.
• Incursion and dungeon quests found on the landscape no longer propagate to fellowship members greater than 300 meters away from the person that received the quest or are not within 5 levels of the fellowship's leader.
• Any pets owned by a character are now immediately notified when their master logs out, and delete themselves accordingly.

Treasure Changes

• We've corrected an error in the treasure profiles of monsters level 50 or greater, and their treasure should be significantly better again.
• The level variance on treasure found on monsters has been tightened and should vary to be plus or minus 3 levels of the monster.
• Previously certain types of armor and shields were found only in certain levels of treasure. All pieces of armor and shields can now be found regardless of the level of treasure. This should give players more variety in their appearance.

Fixes

• A bug that was causing swords, axes, and scythes to appear upside down when wielded in the character's left hand has been corrected. If your character is already wielding one of these items, you will need to unwield it and wield it again to see this fix.
• For all newly created characters, general chat now defaults to Chat Window 1. Since we do not want to change the preferences of any existing character, their chat preferences have not been affected by this changed.
• The diseased saddle, found as a trophy and used in completing the various mount quests, is no longer destroyed on use.
• The pet Armoredillo's armor has been restored to its previous value.
• All Tyrants have had their armor reduced.