• In celebration of St. Patrick's Day and running from now until Tuesday, March 19th, our 'Leprechaun Treasure' quest is on!
  • Follow the notes below for full event and quest information!
• Traveling Merchants will be available fromtoday, March 14th,until Tuesday, April 2nd so get their wares while you can at the following locations:
  • Albion: just outside Castle Sauvage
  • Midgard: just outside Svasud Faste
  • Hibernia: just outside Drium Ligen
• Beast Mask helm patterns are now for sale on the Mithril Merchant found in each realm’s capital city.

St. Patrick's Day Event

 

• As part of the quest, players will be shapeshifted into a realm-specific "leprechaun" but have ALL of their stats debuffed by 75%.
• But fear not, leprechauns may be weak but they are also nigh impossible to catch: shapeshifted players will also have an unbreakable CC-immunity and speed buff for the duration of the shapeshift.  
• Oh, and we hear the real leprechauns love hiding their treasure in dangerous lands and ancient ruins. Enjoy some zany RvR through the weekend!
• The ROG reward is a choice between a ring or a bracer similar to the Valentine's Day event with some slight differences. These ROGs will only allow up to 5 slots for stats but will also have 1 of 6 possible /uses.

      

On to the questions!

Essence Dampen debuffs dexterity for a starting value of 55. Master Level ability delves are a bit on the vague side; which is something we’d like to address when we can!

No, a Vampiir would need to have a buff that grants a bonus to spell crit chance for their claw DD to crit, as they don’t have access to the Wild Power realm ability.

The only classes that have a base chance to crit on spells are list casters. All other classes else can crit on their DD spells with the Wild Power RA or any other spell crit chance buff. The one exception to this is Valewalkers, who can crit naturally due to them technically being a list caster. This also only applies to DDs. Heals and DOTs do not crit naturally, even for list casters, but can crit with RAs.

A list caster is any class that benefits from the +Focus Magic stat bonuses on items and is affected by the Acuity +stat concentration buff.

The Savage taunt behaves no differently than the Paladin/Friar instant taunt or the various casted taunts when it comes to forcibly dismounting or removing speed bonuses from their targets. All taunts will forcibly dismount and remove hastener or speed buffs from their target. However, the Savage taunt does not interrupt its target like the other taunts do, which is intended.

This is because the Necromancer Spirit and Decrepit Forms provide and/or unlock other survival-based abilities that exceed or equal the benefit from the traditional base AF buff on other casters while the Chthonic form grants a much stronger version of the base AF buff already. Granting those forms the base AF buff as well would be too powerful.

Yes!

The first thing to do is speak with your realm’s King in your capital city throne room. There’s a free full suit of armor, jewelry, and starter weapon awaiting you that will quickly get you up to speed. From there, you’ll want to peruse our returning player’s guide for information on all that’s changed and where to go to acquire it!

Additionally, the Traveling Merchants are currently up and have many items for sale on their stores!

When you’re ready, hit the Frontiers’ and visit the Generals in the relic towns to get their RvR quests, which award lots of bounty points, and can mostly be completed with a little help from other players. Use the bounty point rewards to bountycraft any remaining items you want for your character’s gear!

And lastly, join our official discord channel where you’ll find lots of helpful and knowledgeable players from our community that can answer any further questions you may have!

• Level 50s should visit the Festival Steward in each realm's relic town to obtain the repeatable quest '[Spring] Preparations'
  • Earn bounty points for each completion!
• Preparations for the Spring Festival will last until April 18th, 2019!

Read on for the questions!

There is no cap for absorption buffs other than their delves which typically top out around 30%-something for classes with long duration ones. An example of a very high absorption buff is the Sorcerer’s realm rank 5 ability that grants 89% damage absorption for a short duration.

The Physical Defense realm ability does stack with a Warlock’s absorption buff but the Physical Defense RA is not an absorption buff itself. It grants a bonus to secondary melee resists so having PD9 + the Withcraft absorption buff does not equate to 61% damage absorption.

Thanks, we’ll get the delve corrected ASAP! Yes, it is a reactive 40% ASR debuff that lasts 20s.

First, the duration of the crowd control spell is determined. A casted mesmerisation spell with a 70s duration value gets any +duration% added to it prior to any crowd control reductions taking effect.

Next, that spell’s duration value gets reduced by the target’s relevant magic resist value. Then the remaining duration value gets reduced by any determination and stoicism amounts (combined into 1 value).

The remaining value then gets reduced by any ‘dampen’ buff value. Lastly, the mythical: crowd control reduction item bonus is used to reduce the remaining duration value.

More details about specific account bonuses will be released when we’re closer to launch!

Spell damage caps are based on a myriad of factors including the delve of the spell itself.

Realm abilities like Mastery of Magery can increase that damage cap whereas a magic damage buff like the Valewalker’s loyalty cloak chant is not going to increase the damage cap but will still increase/affect the damage of the spell (or style proc) up to its cap.

Enjoy the weekend, all. I'm off to pick a lot of flowers :)

Now on to the questions!

The Mastery of Concentration realm ability reduces the effectiveness of all spells, meaning it reduces durations, damage, and heal amounts. All CC types affected by MoC In the same way. It does not affect resist rates.

Yes, we do have a plan for clearing up some of the names on Ywain and the process will involve a long lead-time in notifying players which characters are going to be affected and how. There’s nothing more to say right now and the timetable for this is still to be determined.

Yes, both realm abilities work with the revamped Necromancer class. Juggernaut increases the melee and magic damage effectiveness of their pets and wild minion grants the pets a chance to critical hit. However, please note that since the succubus pet doesn’t cast damaging spells or melee, these realm abilities won’t do much for her!

Mythical stat caps – 52
Mythical DPS – 10
Mythical Power, Health, Endurance Regens – 50
Mythical Crowd Control – 50
All others – uncapped

To clarify, the overall stat cap is +52 too, meaning level 50 characters can reach 75 (base) + 52 (cap) to reach 127 of a given stat with their items. This overall cap of 52 cannot be exceeded via any combination of mythical and normal/TOA stat caps. However, mythical stat caps can provide all +52 by themselves whereas normal/TOA stat caps can only provide +26 stat cap.

Please note that while the mythical crowd control stat is capped at 50, it is not able to be reached with the available items.

Sure thing! Armor provides %resist bonuses or penalties when hit by melee depending on the damage type of the weapon; with different armor types providing different bonuses and penalties.

Resistant: 10% more resistant to the given damage type
Vulnerable: 5% less resistant to the given damage type
Neutral: no bonus or penalty

Check out the armor resist tables page for the full breakdown!

• The killer bunny makes his annual return!
• Collect and choose your Gem of the Harbinger reward!
  • Remember, the gem no longer drops as a One-Time-Drop and instead is a loot-choice on the Rites of Spring quest.
  • Killing the Harbinger of Spring mob (battlegroup-credit) still grants the quest automatically.
  • There will be no item exchange service for the Gem of the Harbinger or any of its variants, choose carefully!
• Enjoy Spring with some RvR bonuses!

Rites of Spring Event

Bonuses

• 50% bonus to RPs gained from RvR kills
• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones and battlegrounds

• 100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons
• 50% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities
• 50% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities

• 40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

• 20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
• 10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

Going to try break my record for fastest posting of the Grab Bag questions and answers before this Storm Hannah cuts my power, so here goes! Someone time me.

Welcome to this week's Grab Bag! As we're heading into the end of the month our April newsletter will be hitting your inboxes soon, so make sure you've signed up!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep 'em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

A quick Hot Fix note first:

Client Bug Fix

• Housing decorations should no longer change their tint randomly when placed onto a house wall.
  • Please note that players will need re-run their patcher if they are currently online to receive this fix.

Now onto the questions!

Legendary weapons’ looks signify their damage type to other players. Allowing them to be dyed could obfuscate that information and is not something we wish to allow at this time.

Miss rates aren’t affected by typical character stats like constitution, dexterity, etc.

Miss rates are affected by the weapon used and the armor it is hitting. The enchantment “bonus” value on the weapon and armor (35% for level 50 drops)  is compared first and that determines the base miss-rate. This is why enchanting your crafted weapon and armor is so important. If a weapon isn’t enchanted, it will miss much more often and if an armor isn’t, other players will almost never miss melee styles when hitting that armor piece!

Now that all weapons have the hidden 5% to-hit bonus (as of Patch 1.117C) that was previously only available on Artifacts, Champion Level weapons, and some other specialty weapons, the base, unstyled to-hit rate for a level 50 character using a weapon with 35% enchantment bonus vs an armor with the same 35% bonus is about 87%. Meaning there’s a 13% base chance to miss.

Next, a melee style’s to-hit bonus/penalty as well as any accuracy buff/debuff applied on the character will further affect that to-hit rate. With high to-hit bonus styles and no accuracy debuffs involved, the miss rate becomes 0%.

Please note that evade, block, and parry rates are calculated differently and do rely on a myriad of character stats, specializations, and abilities.

Correct, in order to not clog up the /bonuses window with various stats vs X monster type, it is strictly limited to stats that always apply to the character. We can look at changing this down the road but it’s very low priority for the time being.

For resist-stacking questions, please refer to your character’s attribute page. If the numbers in the first tier or second tier increase when using one of those items or abilities in conjunction with the other, then they stack. If not, then they don’t!

On the character attributes page, highlighting over a resist value will pop-up the following tooltip:



The 25% / 7% Body Total line in the above screenshot are the first and second tier resist totals (25% is first tier, 7% is second tier).  Realm abilities typically affect the second tier resists and class-buffs, items, and item-based buffs typically affect the first tier, with some exceptions for item-based buffs like the dragon arcane rings which affect the second tier.

For resists received from buffs like the Golden-scarab vest and various champion weapons, a character can also tell if they stack by simply looking to see if the buff is overwritten by the other – which in the case of GSV and champ weapons’ melee resist buffs, they are overwritten by each other so do not stack.

The 1.125 version is now available for download HERE!

Update 11:35 AM EST / 4:35 PM GMT: Ywain is once again open to all players!

The Ywain server is coming down now to perform emergency server maintenance to fix an issue with accessing battleground and certain dungeon regions.

This downtime should be completed in under 2 hours.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we resolve this matter!

Update 4:18 PM EST / 9:18 PM GMT: Ywain is once again open to all players!

The Ywain server is coming down now to perform emergency server maintenance to fix a crash in New Frontiers.

This downtime should be completed in under 3 hours.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we resolve this matter!

• Character spell effects should no longer disappear randomly after playing for a certain time.
  • Please note that players currently in-game will need to exit and run their patcher to get this fix.
• Hibernia's Dragon Curse Campaign Chapter 9.1 encounter has been adjusted as follows:
  • The flame mechanic has been removed.
  • Players must now defeat Hurgundhu prior to Lady Kharis.
• Hitpoint and Armor Factor /use items have been changed to be consistent across the board; this affects the following two items specifically:
  • Band of the Dream Conqueror's Triumphant Aura and Traldor's Oracle's Traldor's Aura abilities now co-exist but do not stack with other item-based HP/AF buffs.
    • With this change, ALL item-based HP/AF buffs stack with the class-based HP/AF buffs now.
    • This also changes the abilities on these items to no longer drop when unequipped.
• Players attempting to enter the throne rooms in each capital city will no longer see a dialogue window telling them they must have the Darkness Rising expansion to enter.
• The Shades of Mist artifact should no longer occassionally give players a "too far away" message when /used.
• Weapon drops in Stonehenge Barrows, Coruscating Mine, and Spindelhalla have been given another pass.
  • All weapons have had their stats, weapon speeds, damages, and +skills normalized and generally increased.
  • The target bonus level for these weapons is now around level 35, instead of levels 20-25.
  • Weapons with %damage and %range bonuses are now applied vs all targets.
  • More weapon options have been added to cover all classes.
• Several issues in the Stonehenge Barrows dungeon have been fixed:
  • All associated quests now have the proper "[Barrows]" prefix.
  • High Priestess Ywera's remains now only drop from High Priestess Ywera.
  • Albino Grugner now has a chance to drop accessories and weapons like the other named bosses in the dungeon.
  • Additional skeletal high priestess monsters now spawn.

Welcome to this week's Grab Bag!

No additional notes this week, but plenty of info in the answers below!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, please keep 'em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.
 

Now onto the questions!

The HP/AF values were reduced across all items and classes (in Patch 1.125) because they were over-performing a bit and because most of the item /uses could already stack with the class-based HP/AF abilities. The value changes were not made because of the items stacking with each other.

The change to the dream conqueror band was simply made to make it consistent with all other item-based HP/AF /uses. We therefore have no plans to revisit these values.

The kopesh is an Egyptian-inspired weapon that was introduced in Trials of Atlantis. So there is already a model of this blade available to each realm: Qebehsenuef's Blade of Dread. Happy hunting!

However, please be aware that there are several realm-unique weapon models in-game that we want to keep as realm-specific. Those models help add flavour and highlight differences to each realm and that’s something we will always try to maintain.

Similar yes, but not identical. The idea of several objectives outside of the under-sieged keep itself that can be controlled and captured by small forces will be the same, but the objectives will control and affect different aspects of the keep than they do in Molvik.

We don’t want to give away everything just yet, but it won’t involve every keep in the frontier and it will be a temporary event. Depending how the event and the reception to the objectives go, they may be added as a permanent feature down the road!

Unfortunately, it sounds like this may have been an “old” version of the cold legendary weapon which only has 3 spellcraft slots instead of 4.

When we added the new versions, we couldn't force previously crafted items to have different stats, so there are still old versions of these legendary weapons out there.

The new versions of Legendary Weapons all have +3% melee or spell damage, +10 Armor Factor, +3% style damage or 3% cast speed, and 4 spellcraftable slots. The 3% style damage or cast speed are not on the old versions, so be sure to look for them before purchasing or spellcrafting the item to make sure it's a newer version.

We’re continuing to work hard at it and still expect to deliver it this year!

That's all for this week!
Enjoy the weekend :)

• The [Manx] [Small Group] Loyalty Rewarded quest is now active and will remain available until Tuesday, June 18th!
  • Level 50s should visit their realm's General to obtain the quest!
    • Speak to General Kogis in Catterick Hamlet
    • Speak to General Bruki in Godrborg
    • Speak to General Vegda in Crair Treflan
  • Players are encouraged to find 1 or 2 friends for help completing this quest!
  • A Manx Vanguard or Manx Tunneler can be found in 4 locations around each coastal keep!
    • Search around Caer Bersktead, Caer Erasleigh, or Caer Sursbrooke in Albion.
    • Search around Nottmoor Faste, Blendrake Faste, or Hlidskialf Faste in Midgard.
    • Search around Dun Crimthainn, Dun Bolg, or Dun da Behnn in Hibernia.

                   
 

• Your loyalty will be handsomely rewarded!
  • Receive a realm-unique Gem of Swift Travels for your efforts and cruise around your realm in style with 204% movement speed!
  • Choose between an instant level 35 character token or a level 50-restricted 50,000 bounty point scroll!
  • All rewards are tradable.

The generals eagerly await more information on what the Manx and Manannan mac Lir are up to...

Update 8:45 AM EST / 1:45 PM GMT: Ywain is once again open to all players!

The Ywain server is coming down now to perform emergency server maintenance to fix an issue with accessing capital cities and some PvE regions.

This downtime should be completed in under 2 hours.

We appreciate your patience and understanding as we resolve this matter!

Welcome to this week's Grab Bag! As we're heading into the end of the month our May newsletter will be hitting your inboxes soon, so make sure you've signed up!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep 'em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

What can cure snare?
It happened to me several times where I snare an opponent, but it seems that there is something that cures snare (beside of purge or sos).
The spell effect looked like they use "draught of omni-heal".

Yes, there are 3 classes that each have a casted “root/snare cure” ability:

• Shaman – Level 16 Cave Magic specialization:
  • Escape Hold – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

• Cleric – Level 13 Smiting specialization:
  • Blessing of Movement – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

• Druid – Level 13 Nature Affinity specialization:
  • Free Wind – 10s cast – 1500 range – 300s Reuse Timer – Single-targeted cure of root and snare effects.

It's Friday, and that means it's Grab Bag time! 

Don't forget to check out our May newsletter and make sure you get your vote in on our template poll, and test your DAoC knowledge in round two of our picture quiz! Let us know how you did :)

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep 'em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

We have some updates below for everyone who's been asking about realm timers(!), so read on!

If you use the curse boots, like Soul Infused Greaves, it blocks the Shaman spells "Friggs remedy" and the group version "Fungal regeneration". Is this intended?

Thanks for the report! We’ve added this to our Bug Tracker and will take a look at how best to tackle it.

There is a house by mine that has been up for repossession for over a week saying 5 days until repossessed, when does it kick in?

House repossession is currently disabled. There was a minor issue with the condemnation flag not always being removed when accounts re-subscribed.  Before those houses became erroneously repossessed, we went ahead and disabled repossession entirely for the time being. Houses that are currently condemned should remain in their existing state until we re-enable the process, but won’t ever get repossessed. When the process is re-enabled, all erroneously condemned houses (due to active subscriptions on the house owner’s account) will refresh and no longer show as condemned. Additionally, houses that should be condemned will start ticking down their timer again and once again be repossessed.

The process won’t be re-enabled until the next server downtime so there will be ample notification prior to this process being turned back on.

Would buying a keycode for Darkness Rising (New/old stock boxed) online grant the pre-order horse armour? Or is there any other way to get it?

Potentially an old Darkness Rising pre-order keycode could grant it, but only if it’s never been redeemed on another account before, so it would be a bit of a risk if you’re purchasing one from somewhere. Other than that, there is (currently!) no other way to get the “Mythical” saddle or light/medium/heavy horse armor.

We’ve been submitting feedback about the desire for realm timers for a while now, any chance they are coming with Endless Conquest?

After previously discussing that we were working on a Realm Loyalty system, we’ve been monitoring your feedback closely!

It turns out that many of you would prefer a realm timer over a loyalty system, and after some deliberation, we are going to do just that!

With Endless Conquest we will be implementing a short (30 minutes or less) realm timer to subscribed accounts in lieu of any loyalty system. EC-accounts will have a longer realm switch timer (in the 4 hour neighbourhood). Additionally, the realm switch timer will be changed to only be triggered if the character earned realm points and/or a player kill during their play session. This will allow players who are not participating in RvR to still switch realms freely while mostly resolving the major complaint of large-scale forces “realm-hopping” or “bandwagoning”.

We know that adding any additional realm switch timer will upset some of our players who enjoy switching back and forth at will. While this solution isn’t perfect for all play-styles we think it’s a happy-medium and one that should help reinforce realm loyalty with the impending influx of fresh recruits with Endless Conquest!

As always, we look forward to your continued feedback!

On last week’s grab bag you stated, "The first of those will be a “Classic” + Shrouded Isles + Housing server that will only progress to newer content if its player-base votes to do so."

When stating "classic" does this mean "Old Frontiers" ? I just want clarity on if this is an Old Frontiers type of server or just classic chars and rulesets.

To be determined. Once we’ve released Endless Conquest we’ll be engaging the community on those nitty gritty ruleset choices to see which one you’d like to see the most! Whichever version the first alternative server ends up being, there’s a good chance to be another with other options further down the road.

Only 11 days left on the [Manx] Loyalty Rewarded quest - so get your Gem of Swift Travels and 50k BPS or Level 35 token quickly!

Enjoy the weekend all :)

 

Time for this week's Grab Bag!

Happy longest day of the year, everyone! Which also means we're almost at the end of the month, and with July on the horizon (where is 2019 going?!), that's newsletter time. Make sure you've signed up so you don't miss a thing!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, do please keep sending them in! You can submit any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Onwards!

Yes, though it is an extremely rare drop!

Yes, these 2 abilities do stack. Champion Level resists are *Primary* resists and show up on the character attribute page as green-colored resist buffs. The Repel Magic resists are *Secondary* resists that do not show up on the character attributes page as buffs, but do show up on the attribute page when hovering over a specific resist:
 

The “+10% / +40% Energy Total” in the above screenshot shows the “Primary / Secondary” total resist values. In that screenshot, both Champion Level resists and the Repel Magic ability are active for a total of 10% primary energy resist and 40% secondary energy resist. When Repel Magic fades, the line will change to “+10% / 0% Energy Total” for a total of 10% primary energy resist and 0% secondary energy resist.

The general rule of thumb is that primary and secondary resists stack and co-exist with each-other while 2 of the same type of active resist buffs will be overwritten by (or at best only co-exist with) each other, with some exceptions of course.

 

100% is the max secondary magic resistance a character can theoretically have. The Empty Mind and Bedazzling Aura realm abilities do not stack with each other as they are both effectively the same ability – with one being self-targeted and the other group-targeted. Each do stack with the passive Avoidance of Magic realm ability and some other secondary magic-resist buffs (from items) though.

Concentration buffs are already removed when buffed characters go to a different zone, so it’s already impossible for a BG-level character to get buffs from a level 50 and then return to a battleground fully buffed.

NPC-based stat buffs do allow characters to teleport with them, but a level 20 character receiving buffs from the level 20 buff NPC gets the same bonuses as from the level 50 buff NPC; so there is no advantage there.

As for item /uses, items with too-powerful /uses for battlegrounds are generally already prevented in those areas by either having a higher /use level requirement than the BG level range or by wholly preventing the item from being equipped at lower levels.

Additionally, there are several other explanations for the scenario given with the damage variance seen between Perforate Artery attacks. One possibility is that in the second instance the character was buffed (by another character in the same battleground zone) while in the first instance they were unbuffed/sheared. Another could be that in the first instance the character had active debuffs on them from a previous fight that allowed the damage to increase. Yet another could be that certain class abilities were down in the first instance but up in the second.

That said, if there are certain items that seem too powerful to be allowed in a battleground, please report them and we’ll absolutely take a look and adjust them (if necessary) on a case by case basis.

This is a popular and recurring question and something we’ll be taking a look at after the release of Endless Conquest. We launched 19 new emblems per realm in patch 1.120 which did help alleviate this issue somewhat but we know there is more to be done! The likely end result will be that guilds with no active members for a certain length of time will have their emblem unset and cleared so that active guilds can choose it. We’ll of course also look into adding more emblem and color options down the road!