Highlights

• Come back to Dark Age of Camelot with Endless Conquest and play for free (with some restrictions) without an end date!
• Getting back into the game has never been easier with new and improved Returning player quest rewards and updated King’s Armor freely given to all level 50s!
  • Is the new King's gear better than your own? Maybe!
  • Returning accounts that already received the old returning player quest can still get the new and improved one!
• Been a long-time subscriber? Check out the new Veteran Rewards!
  • All "EU" accounts have been gifted +4 years of eligibility!
• Changes galore to RvR quest rewards, objectives, and Ruined Keeps!
• New wares are available in the Mithril Shop including the new Omni Dyes and much more!
• New quests have been added to the newly streamlined New User Journey!
• Check out the new class changes including updates to AoE mezzes, Stealth mechanics, and the return of PBAoE bombs (and more)!

Endless Conquest and patch 1.126 have been up and running smoothly for a full day now. It's been exciting seeing all the new (and many familiar!) faces. A huge thank you to those who have sent in feedback and/or bug reports, please keep them coming! We have some fixes and changes based on those initial reports for you this evening.

Developer's note:

• We're currently aware of and working hard on fixes for the following issues (these fixes will likely require server downtime to address):
  • Certain pets chain-buffing themselves as well as occassionally enemy targets.
  • Certain pets not casting certain abilities that they normally would.
  • Targeting and attacking issues after coming out of forceful zephyr.
    • NOTE: As a temporary solution, players experiencing this issue can clear their target by clicking on the ground and then re-select their target to be able to attack again.
  • Dead players appearing as "alive" briefly after /releasing.
  • The /bg groups command no longer functioning

Hot Fix Notes

We're still hard at work fixing the other issues mentioned in the previous Hot Fix but we have a few more notes hot and ready for you today!

Hot Fix Notes

General Bug Fixes

Read on for the questions :)

We’re monitoring feedback constantly and have been making several adjustments already to levelling rates as well as some other fixes. With this Grab Bag we’re also happy to announce the following Live Hot Fix notes.  As time goes on and we receive more feedback we’ll continue to make adjustments as needed!

Live Hot Fix Notes

• The bounty point costs for Master Level tokens on Demyphon have been reduced as follows:
  • Master Level 1 Encounter Credit – 25,000 to 8000 BPs
  • Master Level 2 Encounter Credit – 25,000 to 8000 BPs
  • Master Level 3 Encounter Credit – 55,000 to 18000 BPs
  • Master Level 4 Encounter Credit – 45,000 to 15,000 BPs
  • Master Level 5 Encounter Credit – 30,000 to 10,000 BPs
  • Master Level 6 Encounter Credit – 50,000 to 17,000 BPs
  • Master Level 7 Encounter Credit – 35,000 to 12,000 BPs
  • Master Level 8 Encounter Credit – 50,000 to 17,000 BPs
  • Master Level 9 Encounter Credit – 60,000 to 20,000 BPs
  • Master Level 10 Encounter Credit – 75,000 to 25,000 BPs
  • Complete Master Level 1-10 Credit – 450,000 to 150,000 BPs
• Bountycraft Recipe costs have been reduced as follows:
  • Recipe: Pictslayer – 250,000 to 50,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Darkness Falls – 250,000 to 75,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Seasonal – 350,000 to 100,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Aurulite – 350,000 to 100,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Otherworldly – 350,000 to 125,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Frozen – 400,000 to 150,000 BPs
  • Recipe: Curse – 400,000 to 175,000 BPs
• Bountycraft Mold costs have been reduced as follows:
  • Bounty Accessory Mold – 10,000 to 5,000 BPs
  • Bounty Armor Mold – 12,500 to 6,250 BPs
  • Bounty Weapon Mold – 15,000 to 7,500 BPs
• Bounty Point rewards on the RvR Daily quests have been increased from 15,000 to 25,000 bounty points and are still modified by zone bonuses.

The 1.126 live patch notes have also been updated with these changes for reference.

Yes, the trophies given out for Veteran rewards are all tradable which retroactively affects any of those trophies that already existed!

Charisma is the Bard’s casting stat (as well as the Skald and Minstrel). It affects their damage done with their instant DDs as well as their power pool and healing effectiveness.

Never-ending flame deals heat damage. Elemental simply means that the weapon is a non-physical (slash, crush, and thrust) damage type. This means that when you hit someone with the Never-ending flame, it deals heat damage to the target and the target uses their heat resistance to calculate how much damage should be done. This can be beneficial to use in some scenarios (like when the target is debuffed of their heat resistance) and  disadvantageous in others (like when the target has high heat resistance).

Additionally certain armors have bonuses and penalties against certain damage types. Our armor resist table has more information on those.

Yes, weapon-based procs always apply after the style’s effect. A damage proc from an item will break a style’s snare.

 

Highlights

• The 7-days play time restriction limiting returning Endless Conquest (free) account characters from logging in has been reduced to 1-day!
• Get an instant level 10 Loyalty Cloak token at the Mithril Shop now!
• /BG groups and /release are back to normal and many more bug fixes!
   

Hot Fix and Event Notes

World

Realm vs Realm Missions

• Visit Generals Kogis, Bruki, or Vegda in the frontier to receive personal, group, or guild missions!
  • Use the /task command or look under Tasks in your /journal to see your current personal, group, or guild mission.
  • Personal missions
    • [Realm guards] - Kill 25 guards of a random enemy realm
    • [Enemies of the realm] - Kill 15 players of a random enemy realm
    • Players can choose a new mission over and over until they get the realm they want, however doing so will wipe any progress made on a current personal mission.
    • Rewards realm points, experience, and gold and the rewards are automatically granted at the time of completion.
  • Group missions
    • [Enemy guards] - Kill 25 guards of a random enemy realm
    • [Realm enemies] - Kill 15 players of a random enemy realm
    • Group leaders can choose a new mission over and over until they get the realm they want, however doing so will wipe any progress made on a current group mission.
    • Rewards realm points, experience, and gold and the rewards are automatically granted at the time of completion.
  • Guild missions
    • Choose which enemy realm to target as a guild.
      • These cannot be changed once chosen.
    • Once a guild mission is granted, the guild will be required to complete all of the following (in any order) to receive the reward:
      • Complete 20 kill enemy missions.
      • Complete five guard kill missions.
      • Take 5 towers belonging to a particular realm.
      • Take 2 keeps belonging to a particular realm.
    • Rewards 4,000 guild realm points, 100 guild bounty points, and a 24 hour buff to all guild members for 2% bonus to magic damage/heals and melee damage.
      • All guild members receive the 2% bonus regardless of if they were in the guild or online at the time the mission was completed.

Bug Fixes

• Buffs received from NPCs should now last through logout and zoning. Please note that these buffs have a duration of 8 hours.
• 100 Bounty Point scrolls received when turning in reforming energies can now be /used properly.
• The quest Lysagh's Problem will now properly complete the quest when interacting with Gemma on the last step.

Event Notes

Harvest Celebration Event

• The realms are humming with anticipation for their upcoming feasts and local festivals!
  • Help the realms' Festival Steward recover a lost shipment of food!
    • The repeatable RvR quests '[Harvest] Lost Turkey' is now available at each realm's strength relic town at the Festival Steward NPC!
      • Earn bounty points for your efforts!
• The Harvest Event will run until Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019.

Farmer's Market Festival

• The Farmer's Market Festival makes its return to the following locations:
  • Albion: Ludlow
  • Midgard: Vasudheim
  • Hibernia: Ardee
• Visit the Festival Matron and go bobbing for apples to earn some house trophies!
• Let Captain Mack in Albion, Captain Marks in Midgard, or Captain Geddes in Hibernia regale you with their tales of a shark THIS big on the high seas and see if you can avenge their crews to earn the Sharkblood Bracer!
• The Farmer's Market Festival will run until Tuesday, December 3rd, 2019.

Continue reading for all the news!

Currently the only way to see a list of all of your account’s characters and their server is to send an email to support@darkageofcamelot.com. They’ll get back to you as soon as possible with that list (please be sure to include the account name in your email and to email them from your account’s email address).

However, as soon as next week there will be a new “View Characters” feature on the Account Center that will list out all characters on an account by server!

Not immediately. There is a 180-day limit before any recently subscribed account will be eligible for Endless Conquest, as described in our FAQ and Features Table.

These spells do call the pet to cast them but in this case the subsequent pet-casted spells are instant-cast. However, if the pet is currently in melee combat, it cannot immediately cast any spells (this is how all monsters/pets work) and instead queues up its next spell based on its swing time. All of the queued up spells will fire upon the end of the swing timer but this can result in some of the Animist-casted PBAoEs being delayed if the Animist casts multiple spells during the pet’s swing timer. When the pet is set to passive or is not in melee combat, all of the PBAOEs will fire immediately after the Animist’s casts with no delay.

At base, a character gets a cap of 200 hits and would need to include +400 hits cap in their gear to be able to reach the 600 hits cap. Then they’d also need to have 600 hits from their gear.

Jari has not been removed. Killing the boar piglets and wild sows and waiting for Jari to spawn is your best bet!

A sharp eye! This looks like a test object that was missed from our filter. It does not drop anywhere in-game. We’ll filter this one out in the next update, thanks!

Yes, this is intended. There are numerous other areas to get Bounty Points now (RvR, Darkness Falls, Curse Campaign, and TOA Bounty quests) and Nosdoden drops other rewards too!

No, armor resist tables only work against melee attacks.

The Supplies for the Cause quest is a permanent style quest that offers the exact same reward as Turkey Legs and involves a similar goal of collecting supplies or rubble from the maze and ruined areas in the Frontier. Additionally, we’ll have other event quests that are identical to the Turkey Leg collection quest, including one coming next week with the Midwinter event!

Altantean Glass, Dragon Scales, Aurulite, and Blood Seals are still plentiful on the Market Explorer in housing. And if one of those currencies becomes unavailable there, there is still the possibility to convert it from the other currencies at the Alternate Currency Converter NPC in each realm’s capital city. As time goes on and those alternate currencies do dwindle out we’ll be adding in alternate ways to purchase these Flames, and other items like it, but we’re a long way away from those currencies running out at this point.

We agree and work continues on the new website! We’ll be focusing on those tools first and then launch the new website when most are completed. The next web-tool coming is the template builder; followed by the character planner, leaderboards, Realm War status, and housing directory!

In the first quarter next year we’ll be continuing our response to Endless Conquest feedback as well as delivering numerous bug fixes and some other goodies in the form of a 1.127 update.

Afterward, our alternate server proposal will then be our major developmental focus. Our original proposal of a subscription-only ‘Classic + Shrouded Isles + Housing’ server that advances (vote-based) through DAoC’s subsequent content is still the plan. We’ll be sharing the details of that server’s ruleset, like which Frontier it will use and what other changes will be involved with it, as we get through 1.127! Depending on how this alternate server goes, we will be launching subsequent versions (perhaps with some fun variations) with a more forced progression.

With that said, Ywain will continue to be the primary long-term focus as we view it as THE game. With Endless Conquest and the ability to play for free we’ve seen a great number of returning and new players out exploring our beloved world and more importantly, endlessly battling each other in the Frontier and battlegrounds!

While alternate servers may seem like a shift away from Ywain in the short term, in the long term they will be another boon to the game as a whole and to Ywain. New and returning players alike will have a chance to start fresh on the new servers, learn or re-learn the game, gain realm rank and eventually transfer over to Ywain with their established characters, which will continue to grow Ywain’s population over time. In addition to the momentum from Endless Conquest and this future momentum from these alternate servers, we are also in the midst of an investigation into bringing DAoC onto Steam! 2020 is going to be a great year for Dark Age of Camelot and with these plans coming to fruition, there will be many more ahead!

• Realm Point, experience, and crafting bonuses are now live!
• Bounty points are yours if you can once more assist the surly Festival Steward and the friendly Cargomaster!
• The Frozen Medal of Honor and Frozen Cloaks of Midwinter are once again available!
• Battleground Presents are there to be gathered and are now uncapped!
• The Frozen Cavern instance makes its return!
• The Traveling Merchants have set out their wares!
• The Twelve Days of Midwinter gifts are being wrapped!

The Midwinter celebrations will start today and run until January 14th, 2020.
The 12 days of Midwinter event will begin on Saturday, December 21st!

Read on for more details!

Realm Bonuses

• 50% bonus to RP gain from RvR kills
  • This bonus applies to all RvR zones, including battlegrounds.
• 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic and shrouded isles zones and dungeons

• 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic and shrouded isles zones and dungeons
• 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
   

The days grow short, a chill is in the air, and warm fires glow in our homes. The Midwinter Festival has come once again to the Realms! Visit the festival grounds to take part in the festivities and challenges.

• Level 50 characters can complete the following quest for the duration of the event:
  • Visit your realm's Cargomaster at the Caer Benowyc, Bledmeer Faste, or Druim Ligen docks to obtain the repeatable '[Midwinter] Roll On' quest!

 

• Olibar's Gift Retrieval quests can now be done an unlimited amount of times!

• Venture to the Frozen Cavern and test yourself against the chill... and its cunning inhabitant: Jack Frost!
• Visit Njord in the following locations to enter the instance of your choice:
  • Albion: near Merlin's Tower in Camelot
  • Midgard: near the Burial Grounds in Jordheim
  • Hibernia: near the Chamber of Magic in Tir na Nog
• Two modes exist for this instance: Normal and Challenging
  • The Normal mode has a chance to drop 1 of the following rewards:
    • Frozen chestpieces
    • Frozen and other mythirians
    • Infernal sleeves
    • Darkness Falls jewelry
    • Supremacy, celerity, or omni-regen potions
  • The Challenging mode has a chance to drop 1 of the following rewards:
    • Frozen weapons
    • Frozen chestpieces
    • Frozen mythirians only
    • Darkness Falls jewelry
    • Supremacy, celerity, or omni-regen potions
    • In addition to having a chance at the weapons, the chance at the mythirians and darkness falls jewelry is much higher. The chestpiece chance is the same in both modes.
• Loot no longer drops directly from Jack Frost, instead a loot chest is spawned when he is defeated.
  • Players can interact with the chest and receive 1 guaranteed reward per day but can still participate in the instance as many times as desired.
  • This chest will despawn after 20 seconds, so be sure to grab your loot quickly!

Traveling Merchants

 

Players can find the merchants at the below locations. Happy Shopping!

In Albion: Just outside of gates of Castle Sauvage in Camelot Hills
In Midgard: Just outside of Svasud Faste in the Vale of Mularn
In Hibernia: Just outside of Druim Ligen in Connacht

Twelve Days of Midwinter

 

On the first day of Midwinter, Broadsword gave to me...
 

• Login to the game and visit the following NPCs to receive a special reward each day!
  • Albion: Santa Nicholas in Castle Sauvage
  • Midgard: Kris Kringle in Svasud Faste
  • Hibernia: Daidi na Nollag in Druim Ligen
• Speak with the above NPCs to reveal your reward for each day.
  • Each day's reward will be revealed around 5:30 AM EST / 10:30 AM GMT and last the remainder of that day.
  • If you miss a day, you will be able to catch up and receive the missed rewards by visiting the NPC on subsequent days.
    • This means if you simply login on the twelfth day, you'll receive all 12 rewards!
      • Make sure you have room in your inventory!
• These rewards are limited to level 50, Veteran (subscribed) account characters and can only be obtained once per character.
• This event will run from Saturday, December 21st, 2019 for the next twelve days, with the last day being January 1st, 2020!

Dynamic Population Bonus

• This system will reward underpopulated realms with bonus realm points to help offset and stabilize population imbalances.
• The current bonus status will be displayed to players when viewing the realm selection screen and in-game on the /realmwar 'bonuses' window.

 

• The dynamic population bonus is re-calculated every 15 minutes and only calculates based on the number of players within the New Frontiers region.
• The bonus amounts are as follows:
  • 81-90% population of most populated realm: +10% RPs
  • 71-80% population of most populated realm: +25% RPs
  • 61-70% population of most populated realm: +40% RPs
  • 51-60% population of most populated realm: +55% RPs
  • 41-50% population of most populated realm: +70% RPs
  • 31-40% population of most populated realm: +85% RPs
  • 0-30% population of the most populated realm: +100% RPs
• These bonuses will stack with all other bonuses!

On to the questions!

This is for a couple reasons.

The first is that until recently there was no root-specific cure in the game. While there is a root-cure now, it’s not ubiquitous and has a recast timer and long-cast time.

Additionally, roots are identical to snares in the combat code so it would be confusing when the color-code for “root” showed on snared targets that don’t really need or want a cure.

We can take a look at adding this but it would almost certainly require some changes to how snares and roots work to differentiate them in the code and so this is unlikely to happen.

Yes, so long as the character was created prior to the launch of Endless Conquest.

Yes, there is a chance for the spell to fail to affect its target siege weapon (just like a spell resist). The base chance to be resisted is 10%.

Composite specialization (up to 52) is enough if you’re only using Celtic Dual styles.

Our 1.127 patch will focus on some tweaks to Endless Conquest restrictions, which are still under discussion as well as several bug fixes and some updates to housing such as market explorer search functionality, full consignment merchants being automatically de-listed, wholesale texture improvements, and more!

It's time for another Grab Bag!

We get a lot of feedback and suggestions sent in through the Grab Bag form which doesn't go to our devs but to me, and while they are passed on, please do make sure you're sending the right things to the right place :) The love letters are fine though, you can keep sending me those.

You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form :)

Our January newsletter will be sent out later today, so make sure you are signed up!

Now, on to this week's questions!

Nightshade’s casting stat is their dexterity stat, meaning the more dexterity they have, the harder their direct damage and DoT spells will hit.

Acuity is a substitute stat for the “traditional” casting stats of intelligence, piety, charisma, and empathy. It is not meant to be a substitute for ALL casting stats, even if a particular class uses a different stat than those four. If an item with acuity is equipped onto a Hibernian class that uses intelligence or empathy as their casting stat, the relevant stat will be increased. For classes that don’t use those stats, nothing will happen when equipping acuity.

So equipping an item with acuity on a Nightshade will not increase any of their stats and therefore does not increase their spell damage.

The conversion stat converts a percentage of damage dealt to into endurance and power. So when the combat log says “X health is converted” it means that the damage amount was prevented and then used to heal your endurance and power. It does not actually heal your character’s health.

In terms of damage mitigation, one can think of conversion% like a resist% that can’t be debuffed or bypassed and works against all damage types.

Item stat caps:
Power: 25 at level 50 or character level / 2.
Power%: 50% with 25% power cap equipped, otherwise 25% is the cap at level 50 or character level / 2.
Power Cap: 25%  at level 50 or character level / 2.

The Power stat simply grants a point of power to your power pool per point of power stat. If a spell costs 25 power to cast, templating an extra 25 points of power would offset that single spell cast. In the current game, this is probably not an efficient stat to use in one’s template.

Power% and Power% Cap both increase the existing power pool by the listed percentage. So a class with a base power pool of 500 that has +50% power pool equipped will have 750 points of power to use in their power pool.

Mythical power regen does not affect the amount of power a class has, it simply replenishes their power at a faster rate.

As for what’s best in a template? That will largely depend on the class and what all else needs to be templated. A combination of power% and mythical power regen for heavy-casting classes is generally a good idea though!

There are no “solo-only” (or 8-man-only or battlegroup-only) zones in Dark Age of Camelot. The Frontier is a sandbox that is meant to have options for all playstyles. While the ruined areas may be conducive to “solo” play over other playstyles due to how the teleportation mechanic works, they are still part of the Frontier and are not meant to wholesale prevent other playstyles from joining in the fun!

Frozen Weapons are not dyable (or un-dyable).

 

Valentine's Day Event 

• A Matter of the Heart: This quest will give players of all realms the chance find the imp, Russel, located mainland side of Castle Sauvage/Druim Ligen/Svasud Faste. He's ready to offer some interesting tasks from the local imp's union in return for a Lawn Cupid trophy, experience and coin. Don't forget to speak to Lady Payne and earn your ROG Valentine's Ring or Bracer too!
• Keeping Company: This quest will be offered to characters level 45 and above and will have a unique challenge for players in Albion, Midgard and Hibernia.  As a reward, players will receive a Tiny Compatriot Crate, experience and coin. Visit Lailen in Jordheim, Pondar Cully in Camelot, and Harris MacCullogh in Tir na Nog to start the quest.
• Valentine's Traditions: These quests will offer three old style quests which were part of the original Dark Age of Camelot Valentine's Day content. Players will be able to complete the quest up to eight times, which is based on the number of times the original quest has been issued online.  Players will be rewarded with a Hearts Cloak, Heart-Shaped Box, experience and coin. Visit  Rumdor in Mag Mell, Hrolf in Mularn, or Sir Prescott in Camelot Hills to start the quest.

RvR Bonuses

• On Ywain:
  • 25% bonus to RPs from kills
  • 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic and shrouded isle zones and dungeons.
• On Gaheris:
  • 50% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic and shrouded isle zones and dungeons.
  • 50% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities.
• In each Capital City:
  • 40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
  • 20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain
• In all Housing Zones:
  • 20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
  • 10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain

Live Hot Fix Notes

Items

• Loyalty cloaks now level 50% faster.
• Enchanter's Loyalty Cloak /use1 has been changed as follows:
  • No longer provides a radius-increase to spells cast for 60s.
  • Now provides a reset quickcast ability.
• Enchanter's Freezing Vest proc Enchantment of Crystal now correctly applies to the pet.
• Champion's Dragon Curse set bonus has been changed as follows:
  • No longer provides a radius bonus to the level 33-39 debuffs.
  • Now increases the effectiveness of Level the Odds and Even the Odds magic resistance buffs by 50% in addition to the existing bonus of increasing their range from 1000 to 1500.
• Champion's Dragon Curse set is now properly identified in the Bountycraft window as Varshe's Dark Armor, Varshe's Dark Greaves, and Varshe's Dark Armguards and have the proper armor icons.

Quests

• New User Journey quest rewards no longer ask for players to select a choice of 1 armor reward and instead just grant the single armor piece directly.
• New User Journey quest rewards will now properly show up for "different realm" characters that complete the quests on the Gaheris server.
• Gaheris players will no longer be offered the Daily RvR quests in the relic towns.
• The quest Unraveling: Kingly Crisis will now always spawn the demon lord when players on the quest enter the Throne Room.
• The level 30 and level 40 Skyros Order, Naxos Society, and Melos Alliance faction quests in Mesothalassa have been re-enabled.
• The Priceless Antiques quest will now properly step when speaking with Nydimeth on step #9.
  • Players currently stuck on step #10 without a Tarnished Key can now re-interact with Nydimeth and she will advance the quest.

Ruined Areas

• All acquired teleport buffs will once again immediately be stripped from any grouped-players in the ruined areas.

Trophies

• Cleansed diamond seals (used to craft the etched aquamarine eye) are now available for sale directly from Taxidermy Supplies NPCs in housing.
  • Players with Fiery Diamond Seals may still turn them into the various trophy NPCs to receive the same cleansed diamond seal.

Siege Weapons

• Boiling Oil and Fortified War Rams now take 60% less damage from Palintones.
  • Field War Rams now take 30% less damage from Palintones.
• Palintone Ammunition's radius has been reduced as follows:
  • Default, Heavy Bolt, and Honed Heavy Bolt radius reduced from 200 to 25.
  • Toxic Bolt and Lethal Bolt radius reduced from 350 to 125.
• Boiling Oil's splash radius has been increased from 400 to 500 units.
  • This change means that either side of the outer gatehouse "nooks" will be hit by oil now.

Class Changes

Heal Power Cost Increases

• Specialization-based casted group heals now cost 50% more power to cast.
  • This change affects Bards, Clerics, Druids, Friars, Healers, Paladins, Shaman, and Wardens.
  • This does not affect baseline casted group heals or group-based HoTs or regens.
  • It also does not affect Warlock group heals as they are secondary-cast and have their power cost controlled by the primer selected.
• Spread heals now cost 100% more power to cast.
  • This change affects Clerics, Druids, Healers, and Warlocks.
    • Warlock's spread heal power cost is no longer percentage based (which was based on base power pool and costing less power than intended) and is now a hard-power cost. This puts their power cost on even footing with other support classes using spread heal.
• These changes are aimed to reintroduce power pool management on support classes and to reduce the effectiveness of non-LOS heals in certain situations, such as keep sieges.

Armsman

• Armsman now receive the Snapshot ability at level 25 for free and no longer receive it in Crossbow specialization.

Bainshee

Champion

• The red, level 40+ str/con, dex/qui, haste, and acuity debuffs no longer have a radius.
• Champion's Dragon Curse set bonus has been changed as follows:
  • No longer provides a radius bonus to the level 33-39 debuffs.
  • Now increases the effectiveness of Level the Odds and Even the Odds magic resistance buffs by 50% in addition to the existing bonus of increasing their range from 1000 to 1500.

Enchanter

Mercenary

• Mercenary's Dissolute Swings Realm Rank 5 should now correctly clear all haste debuffs on initial firing as its delve states.
  • Please note that it is intended to allow subsequent haste debuffs to land however.
     

Necromancer

• A new level 50 spell has been added:
  • Channeled Rage – PBAoE DD – 345 Spirit Damage – 2.5s cast – 300 radius – Only targets and hits enemy realm players, pets, and realm guards.

Warlock

• The level 50 PBAoE DD Spellbinder's Torrent has had its damage increased from 325 to 365 and had its snare component removed. It now only targets and hits enemy realm players, pets, and realm guards.

Valewalker

• The Vale Defense Realm Rank 5 has had its damage absorption values lowered from 2000 to 1500 for the Valewalker and 1000 to 750 for their group.
   

General Bug Fixes

• Various error and destination messaging on battleground, hub, and dungeon teleporters has been cleaned up.
• Hamish Duncana should no longer become permanently un-interactable.

It's a Valentine's Day Grab Bag! Happy Valentine's Day, everyone :)

While the rest of us are out doing something special for our hunnies, Whitman the Imp has also been busy today and has managed to find himself something special that he's sure will melt even the heart of his scorned succubus love! Avenge him for Lady Payne and steal his gift for your someone special instead! Or yourself, no judgement.

Developer's note: Players that have already killed Whitman and completed the 'A Matter of the Heart' quest will need to kill Whitman again to receive his One Time Drop gift. The 'A Matter of the Heart' quest is not needed to receive the OTD for anyone. Limit one per character and the gift is tradable.

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form :)

On to the questions!

The comment about this putting them on “even footing” in the notes is more about general power consumption in comparison with other support classes, and not about the power cost of the individual spreadheal spells.

The higher spreadheal power cost on Warlock’s is due to list-casters having higher base power pools than other support classes from their higher acuity, their group-heal potentially costing 0 power if used with the powerless primer, and due to their access to very high power regen in the same Witchcraft specialization as their spread heal. With all of those factors considered, Warlock’s are on even footing with other support classes in terms of power management and cost when healing.

Owning the Siege Workshop as an attacking realm destroys all realms’ siege weapons (except for rams) inside the keep, including your own. As such, when the defending realm takes the Siege Workshop, the siege-destruction is disabled so that they can setup defensive siege weapons inside the courtyard. This does mean that the attacking realm can also setup siege in the courtyard too if they have breached the outer gate.

Unrelated to this, siege weapons are not allowed to be placed inside or on the CKs (other than via hookpoint) in the battlegrounds at any time, regardless of whether or not the Siege Workshop is active.

No, all weapons in the game have the same +5% bonus chance to hit now.

Dexterity does still help with evade rates on Shadowblades but as you stated there can be some diminishing returns at high dexterity values. However, there is no other stat that would go on the King’s Epic gear in lieu of dexterity. That doesn’t mean we can’t come up with any other stat other than dexterity, it means that all of the other stats we want the King’s gear to cover, are already covered.

The King’s gear is setup so that when it’s equipped along with the Exemplar accessories and weapon, characters have the +101 to most relevant stats, +8-11 to most relevant skills, and 6-8% to their relevant TOAs. Shadowblade’s King’s epic gear does that already with the dexterity included.

Sure thing! For a healer to receive realm points from healing, the following conditions must be true:

1) The target was damaged in RvR combat by another enemy player.
2) The heal spell is a single or group-targeted instant or casted heal and not a spreadheal or heal-over-time spell.
3) The healer or the healer’s group have earned realm points from kills or resurrections previously. These previously earned RPs are “pooled” and used to divvy out the heal RPs. If enough heal RPs are given out and the pool is diminished, no more RPs will be earned from heals until more are earned from kills or resurrections in RvR.

The Ywain server will be coming down tomorrow, February 19th (5:45 AM EST / 10:45 AM GMT) to perform Amazon hosting maintenance.

This downtime should last no more than 6 hours. We appreciate your patience and understanding!

Ghost Keep Event

• Members of each realm should make haste to their ghostly ambassador to strengthen their realm's cause:
  • Albion - See the Ancient Paladin in the Catterick Hamlet relic town
  • Midgard - See the Ancient Thane in the Godrborg relic town
  • Hibernia - See the Ancient Champion in the Crair Treflan relic town
• Players should ask the 'Ancient' NPCs for a [progress] report to be directed to the current task at hand.
  • These NPCs offer two quests during the 'supply' phase of the event that can only be obtained and completed during that phase.
  • Once a ghost keep has been triggered by a realm, the 'supply' phase ends for all three realms and these NPCs will direct players to defend or attack the appropriate ghostly keep lord!
  • Be sure to visit this NPC at each phase to ensure you pick up any available quests.
• Earn extra realm and bounty points for completing the tasks throughout each phase of the event!
• A successfully summoned ghostly keep lord will offer the Ring of the Summoned reward, along with a quest for the Ghostly Medal of Valor!
  • Please note that players who have already completed the Ring of the Summoned quest can obtain another one or exchange their existing one for another at the ghostly keep lord.
  • Players who obtained the Ghostly Medal of Valor last year can obtain one more with this event.
• For more in-depth information, our handy guide explains the phases of this event in detail!
• The Ghost Keep event will be available until March 10^th, 2020.

Welcome to this week's Grab Bag!

Our February newsletter went out earlier this week, including a poll for a future weekend event! Check it our in your browser here, and make sure to vote! Now's also the time to make sure you're signed up to get our DAoC newsletter in your inbox soon as it's sent :)

Thanks, as always, to everyone for your questions! You can submit any questions relating to current development plans, to request clarification on basic game mechanic questions, or questions on community issues through the Grab Bag Submission form. For any other feedback or suggestions please use our feedback form :)

Read on for this week's questions :)

I am using Renvek's crafting helm for spellcrafting and It says I have a 100% chance to gain skill but I have made several gems without gaining skill and it is using charges still is that normal ?

Yes, this is normal behavior. The 100% skill gain bonus has a random chance to apply or not. When it applies (only possible on non-grey recipes and when not at max skill), it will cause the item to use an additional charge and you should see your spellcraft skill increase. The crafting haste bonus will apply to every spellcraft recipe crafted and so always uses a charge. This means when the skill gain applies, 2 charges will be used on the item and this why you will sometimes not receive a skill gain but still see the item use one charge.

I have a question about my vulcans charm on albion. It has charges now that I don’t remember it having and I can’t recharge it. Is this intended?

The Vulcan’s Charm (and the Vulcan’s Eye and Vulcan’s Favor) have always had 30 charge limits. They are intended to be a consumable/one-time-use item for their respective craft bonuses, though they can still obviously be worn for their other stat bonuses when the charges run out. All crafting bonus items are meant to work this way, with the exception of the Renvek crafting helms that are received from the quest in Cotswold, Mularn, or Mag Mell.

Does anything affect the damage caused by storms, siege weapons, traps etc.  The damage varies but I'm unclear what affects the damage aside from chance.

Siege damage can be modified by siege damage and siege damage protection buffs such as from the Skald, Minstrel, and Champion siege chants. Additionally, some siege ammunitions have a magic or physical damage type such as thrust, matter, crush etc. Any resist buffs or debuffs on the siege weapon’s target would affect its damage; however resist piercing on the user of the siege weapon would not. 

Conversely, while storms and traps use the essence damage type, they are not affected by essence resist buffs/debuffs on their targets because they are technically cast from an object (so the casting character’s stats cannot modify the damage) and are set to use a straight percentage damage amount on their targets (so the target’s resistance values are ignored). The variance you see on these abilities is just the general base damage variance on all un-specialized direct damage spells.

                                                                                                                                  
Can you tell us how melee crit chance is calculated? And what’s the cap?

Melee and spell critical hit chances are calculated similarly so we’ll answer with both in mind!

From an old but still accurate 2005 Grab Bag:
The base chance to critical hit is 10% for melee damage and for magical direct damage spells. Damage over time spells have a base 0% chance to critical (meaning they will never do critical hits) but that chance can go up if the player purchases the Wild Power realm ability.

A 10% chance to critical hit means simply that each melee swing or each direct damage spell cast has a 10% chance to critical hit. If a melee character were to train the Mastery of Pain realm ability to level 9 and get the +39% critical hit, their total critical chance would then be 10% base + 39% bonus = 49%. The same additive process works for Wild Power on spell casts too or with Wild Minion with pet classes.

Your specialization, stats, or +skills have nothing to do with critical hit chances.

The cap for both melee and spell critical hit chance is 50%. This 50% cap applies to all realm abilities and buffs that increase critical chance such as Mastery of Pain, Wild Power, Wild Minion, class abilities like the Warlock’s Chamber of Destruction (+10% spell critical chance), Minotaur relics found in the world, or any other critical hit chance buffs.

The only exception to this is the Berserk ability on Berserkers that causes their critical hit chance to be 100% for its duration (it also raises the critical hit damage cap from 50% to 100% of damage dealt). Additionally, the Triple Wield ability of Blademasters prevents melee critical hits entirely for its duration regardless of their targets’ chance to land a critical hit.

Astral Wither proc does not have any animation. This makes it near impossible to catch in the chat log when you are fighting, especially when you're running with a group. Would this be something you guys would be willing to change?

The Astral Mordant weapons that proc armor withers do have a small spell effect that appears on the armor piece that gets withered (Helm, Chest, or Legs), just like normal class-based armor wither abilities. We can certainly look into adding a secondary, general and more visible effect that notifies targets they’ve been withered though and perhaps one that makes it easier to see which piece was withered.

Is it working as designed when grappling (power lock) with necro a Charged enemy that he can run around and reposition himself, whilst the necro can't?

Yes. Charged targets are immune to crowd control and so are still able to move around when grappled.

That's it for this week!

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend full of keep battles, rps, and good friends! :)

Endless Conquest

• As of this posting, the 180 day account inactivity restriction for Endless Conquest eligibility has been reduced to 120 days.
  • This reduction aligns with the house repossession timer due to account inactivity which will be re-enabled in the upcoming 1.127 Patch.
  • Accounts that are already past the 120 day mark are now automatically eligible to play for free as an Endless Conquest account!
  • Accounts that have recently gone inactive will now only need to wait for the remainder of the new 120 day threshold to be eligible.

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 around the mazes areas of each realm. 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.

• Players that interact with the 'Leprechaun Treasure' at the realms' mazes will now receive a new One-Time Drop (OTD) reward, Patches' Mug.
  • This OTD can only be obtained once ever on a character (and not a new one each year).
  • Players must be on the 'Leprechaun Treasure' quest to interact with the Leprechaun Treasure and obtain this OTD.

      

For players of all level ranges, there are three pesky little tricksters who are hoping you're not too lucky! A 'charming' reward will be bestowed upon those who have the cunning to out-wit:

Killaghe in Albion
Daighu in Midgard
Iollarme in Hibernia

The "Luck of a Leprechaun" quest can be obtained from the following:

Sir Prescott in Cotswold
Hrolf in Mularn
Epona in Mag Mell

Once again, the event will run until Monday, March 21st.

A happy and safe St. Patrick's Day to one and all, and we'll see you in the Frontiers!