The previous Thursday and Tuesday hotfixes have brought some itemization changes, specifically with the increase in the number of items holding Red Adornment slots, the introduction of Yellow Adornments for heroic gear, and the addition of Resists to Legendary and Fabled gear (previously, players were expected to run around with 2-3 pieces of Mastercrafted jewelry).

Now, we are starting to see the second prong of these changes, intended to fix the itemization mess that Sentinel’s Fate launched with. Frizznik brings us:

Thanks for your patience with us as we look at items, spells, and combat arts.  We are reading your concerns and are trying to make adjustments where we can.  This week we have been hard at work on raid item changes.  Those changes should happen in the next hotfix, so please don’t transmute those drops, you may want them after the changes hit.  After the changes next week, we are going to be looking at resistances on Legendary drops and some other things as well.

Please understand, we have a lot to think about.  The expansion, battlegrounds, and the golden path added a lot of content that we have to keep an eye on.  The content team did an excellent job with the golden path and if you haven’t tried it, you might want to talk to a chronomage or roll a new character to check it out.  Battlegrounds are a lot of fun too, even if you don’t like PVP combat you might want to give it a shot because the cooperative team play is a lot of fun.  I am not trying to make any excuses, but instead I am trying to say that there are only so many hours in the day.

Defense/Parry — Useless?

An interesting thread, which I’ve been following, on whether the +Defense and +Parry skills have any utility whatsoever.

Additional

• Frizznik and Xelgad are looking into the Crit Multiplier for Wards with regards to Shamans. They are currently falling behind Druids.
• Ward of Elements (T3) Armor may become available without the prerequisite of T2 Shard Armor. (link)

Yellow Adornments

A handful of Legendary items from level 80-83 received Yellow Adornment slots, however Yellow Adornments were all initially flagged level 84.  This has been remedied in the March 18th hotfix, as they are now level 80 adornments.

Flurry, Double Attack, and AE AutoAttack

When you Auto-attack with your mainhand weapon each of the following has their own independent chance firing off in addition to that mainhand attack (from EQ2 Forums):

• Flurry — results in 2 to 4 additional mainhand weapon swings. These swings do not proc additional procs.

• Double Attack – Auto-attack the target a second time, this can also proc (trigger) off an offhand weapon swing

• AE Auto Attack – Attacks up to 4 targets in front of the player, but cannot flurry or double attack

AE Auto-Attack is primarily an AA line that points can be spent in. Double Attack has a cap of 100% and now appears widely on gear of all kinds. Flurry is much rarer to find, and is mostly found in AA lines, but look for it on items.

Making Sense of Tier 2 & Tier 3 Raid Gear

Whether you are rewarded Tier 2 or Tier 3 raid gear is dependent upon which raid mob you are killing, and whether you are taking on the “easy” version of that mob, or the “hard mode” version of that mob. Hard mode mobs typically have more adds, more hitpoints, unique effects, stronger detrimentals, etc.

I have to tell you, even after reading this thread laid out by established raiders, I’m not clear on every single mob and Tier.

Moonlight Enchantments

Don’t forget that Moonlight Enchantments start tonight!!

Itemization Puzzle Pt 2

We’re still working on part 2 of the Sentinel’s Fate Itemization Puzzle. SF Gear is still in a state of flux, and we now know that the “Tier 3″ Sentinel’s Fate raid armor, which drops from the hardmode version of each mob are all being upgraded, loot tables adjusted, etc. so it’s hard to get an accurate picture of the gear at this point.

Development

Fyreflyte, itemization lead for EQ2, has been conspicuously absent from the EQ2 Forums in the last couple of weeks. Further, Xander, Frizznik, and timetravelling have all been stepping in to answer itemization-related questions. It is unclear what, if any conclusions can be drawn from this.

Meanwhile, a former EQ2 developer, Aeralik, has been posting some of his perspectives on how the Shadow Odyssey expansion played out behind-the-scenes. He still holds forth that he fought the good fight for the players against the Fighter Revamp and other sweeping, ill-considered changes. EQ2 team members I’ve spoken to on the condition of anonymity dispute this viewpoint.

Thursday night saw the first post-expansion developer chat of 2010. Hosted by ZAM, this chat had previously been scheduled for March 4th, but was postponed to March 18th as developers focused on issues with Battlegrounds.

You would have assumed, with the key issues of Battlegrounds and Itemization consuming a great deal of development effort in the month since Sentinel’s Fate launched, AND the 2 week postponement in the EQ2 Developer Chat, that Calthine at ZAM would have received an avalanche of hardball questions. Instead, we saw just a few of these critical issues raised, with the rest running the usual gamut of comfortable questions.

continue reading Dev Chat Covers Wide Range of Issues, Offers Few Revelations…

Your Hotfix notes for March 18th include tweaks to Tier 3 (raid armor).

NOTE: Make sure your EQ2 client patches before trying to log into EQ2. Due to an oversight, EQ2 servers are allowing out-of-date clients to login, resulting in bugs with the Broker, Group window, etc.

After the jump…

continue reading March 18 Hotfix Notes…

Today brings the first part of a two part story about how we got to the Itemization situation we are in now. Part history lesson, part recap.

Part 2 will try to sort out the Sentinel’s Fate Itemization picture as we have it so far. I assure you that Part 2 will be MUCH shorter. After the posting of Part 2, we will be posting a survey to get your feedback on these long-form articles.

continue reading The Itemization Puzzle Part 1…

Today’s Hotfix notes for March 16th, 2010. Yellow Adornments also made it in, but they’re not in the notes…

GENERALMost of the guards in Freeport, Qeynos and Kelethin have had their levels reduced to what they had previously. Exceptions to this include palace guards and patrolling knights.

ITEMS

All jewelry from the Vigilant: Final Destruction (x2) has had resists added.

Summoning the mount from the Ykeshan Warbear whistle will now work if you are level 80 in either adventuring or tradeskilling.

The valuable, Onayan staff of the waves, should now be on the Vasty Deep collection tables.

QUESTS

The Footsteps of Dartain: Observation – The projected erudite will no longer disappear during conversation.

In Search of Lucan – Fyr’remd Lorak should no longer disappear during conversation.

“Confronting the Godslayer” requires the raid lichform version of Perah’Celsis in order to update. The prose is now more specific about this.

Delinah now properly updates “The Footsteps of Dartain: Emergence.”

Players who delete or decline the various “Footsteps of Dartain” signature quests can now re-obtain them.

Stage 3 of “Whispers from the Past” now correctly mentions Silent City instead of Living Tombs.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER

Kendis and Penda United now have lower maximum health.

The 3 sages in challenge mode now synchronize their use of prismatic sphere with their exchange of stones (tank switching).

SUNDERED FRONTIER

Neophyte Sairal in the Hall of Necromancy seeks adventurers 80 and higher for a special task.

VASTY DEEP: THE ABANDONED LABS

Adds on the Kadara’Mola fight in Vasty Deep: The Abandoned Labs should now de-spawn should she reset or the encounter breaks.

Most of the Sentinel’s Fate raid and heroic gear has had no Resists (vs. Arcane, vs. Elemental, vs. Noxious), presumably with the intention that players would have to wear 2-3 pieces of Mastercrafted jewelry. Also, all but the highest level raid gear in Sentinel’s Fate has lacked Red Adornment Slots. This made most of this gear a poor upgrade over TSO raid gear.

If you’ve been following the Equipment Adjustments thread on the EQ2 Forums, as well as yesterday’s Hotfix notes, you know that Resists and Red Slots have now started to appear on Fabled and Legendary gear. However there are some outstanding items, specifically the x2 raid (The Vigilant) items.

We are continuing to watch the changes in Gear Itemization, including Yellow Adornments which should appear in Tuesday’s Hotfix.

EQ2 servers will come down for a Hotfix on Thursday, March 11th, 2010. This hotfix takes place at 6am PST for U.S. servers and 5am GMT on March 12th for Runnyeye and Splitpaw.

After the Hotfix notes, you’ll find some good news about the Guard levels in Qeynos, Freeport, and Kelethin.

continue reading March 11 Hotfix Notes, Guard Level Adjustments…

If you’ve been thinking that the pieces of the Sentinel’s Fate itemization puzzle just have not fit well together, you are not alone.

While we have not spent a lot of time covering itemization in SF, it is because things have continued to be in such a state of flux during, and after the Beta.

The smooth progression of TSO gear was seemingly replaced by a scattershot approach, with some of the x2 raid items being the best in the game, the x4 Hard Mode gear being only 1-2% better than the x2 Easy Mode gear, and Battlegrounds gear the red herring, providing a confusing shortcut to skip instance gear altogether. In short, the “plan” has not been clear. Until now.

After the jump, check out what Frizznik has posted regarding the EQ2 Team’s itemization plans:

continue reading A Light at the End of the Itemization Tunnel?…

Posted by Kiara:

We’ll be having our usual Tuesday hotfix starting at 6am for the US servers and at 9pm (5am GMT Wednesday March 10) for Runnyeye and Splitpaw.The downtime will be the usual hour or so.

and your March 9 Hotfix Notes after the jump…

continue reading March 9, 2010 Hotfix Notes…

Battlegrounds are currently closed due to a Transmuting exploit which has allowed players to duplicate items. In short, items which you transmuted or scribed on Battlegrounds were returned to you upon exiting Battlegrounds.

Here are some end-of-week news items which I’ve noticed on the EQ2 forums that readers may find useful…

Scale of Flame

Players have been having trouble advancing/completing the quest Scale of Flame. In response, Gninja has responded:

I found the issue causing the spirit to not spawn and have corrected it. You should see it come to live server early next week with our next build.

Breaking Combat on PvP/Battlegrounds

Rothgar has made some further adjustments in how combat is broken on PvP/Battlegrounds. It has been tweaked so that you must be at least 1000m from the other player as well as a timer based on activity.

Raid Mob Damage Calculations

There has been some wonkiness, to say the least, in how raid mobs have been putting out damage. Players have noticed these issues and been reporting in this thread on the subject. Rothgar has provided an update:

Yesterday’s patch fixed a bug that was causing many of a mob’s special abilities to not be applied correctly. So technically the code is working as it should be now and all buffs are being applied to the mob. However, this bug has only been in since the first hotfix after the 24th of February. So the mobs should be the same as they were on release, but unfortunately no one was probably raiding them that much during the first week or the people that did expected them to hit this hard.

I’ve spoken with our raid designer and he’s going to take a look at the mobs on a case-by-case basis and determine what needs to be changed. We don’t have any ETA’s on changes yet, but please continue to post your feedback on the ones that you think are way too hard.

Keep in mind we’re only a few weeks into the expansion and that mobs SHOULD be pretty tough until people get caught up on gear, levels and AA’s.

Battlegrounds Cloaks for Testers

For those folks who tested out Battlegrounds, there was an announcement that these players would be getting an appearance cloak. Kiara weighs in on the status of this item:

It hasn’t been entitled yet. Yes it will be very soon. The department that handles this particular sort of situation has been swamped under with another project.

Itemization Issues

We are continuing to follow a story about Itemization issues with the new EQ2 expansion. Players are reporting that Battlegrounds armor is far better than shard gear (Marks of Manaar), quest items are far better than Mastercrafted gear, and most notable, jewelry and charms from the Vigilant x2 raid zone have so far been far superior to the 24-person raid zones and contested x4 raid mobs introduced with Sentinel’s Fate.

We will be tracking this story to see how this all shakes out.

Timetravelling created a thread on the EQ2 Forums regarding the Sentinel’s Fate Mechanics Changes. With all the changes to primary stats, lifting of various caps on bonuses, etc. there have been a lot of questions and this thread has started to answer them. Here are some updates:

• Updated the Aggression question with info about other skills (yes, they work the same way)
• Updated the base stat uncap section with more detailed information (new curve starts @ 1200, after that a 30% stat increase = ~ a 10% gain in effectiveness)
• Added several more questions to the end of the post

The list of questions in that thread keep growing and timetravelling is continuing to update the first post in the thread with any answers he finds. It’s worth a read.

Several players have reported that Xilaxis the Explorer in the new Labs x4 raid zone is not dropping any loot other than small wooden chests of plat (not a bad reward, but some armor would be nice). Fortunately, timetravelling is on the case:

I found the issue with both his normal- and challenge-mode item tables and corrected them. Should be hotfixed soon, apologies for the frustrations!

No words on those pants though.

One of the unique characteristics of the Ranger mythical bow Eagle’s Talon is that it allowed the user to do ranged auto-attacks at point blank range (zero meters distance).

Once a ranger has completed the Epic Repercussions quests, they are awarded an enervated version of Eagle’s Talon with all of the special effects stripped off, and then zero-concentration spells are added to their Knowledge book to get all those unique effects on whatever bow they decide to use. The issue is that those persistent buffs do not grant the ability to use other bows at point blank (0m) range.

Fyreflyte has given some unexpected response on the subject of rangers always being able to use their bows from point blank range:

I feel rangers ought to be encouraged to deal their damage at range. I don’t plan on releasing any more bows with a min range of 0. Standard longbows have a minimum range of 2, which is close enough to use your CAs, so at present there is no benefit to 0 range except that it makes your positioning slightly more convenient.

The issue with having no 0m range bow is that some epic mobs are so gigantic, and their “hit boxes” are so large, that a ranger must back out 20-30 meters to get to a range where both melee and ranged combat arts are usable.

Flyreflyte continued with:

We’ve been discussing this internally, and have some good ideas for it. We’ve been holding off on touching this, however, until we can get a good idea of where everyone’s at after the stat changes and consolidation. Just to quell any suspicions, the ideas all focus on providing an incentive to attack from range, rather than a penalty for using the current melee range methods.

A ranger usually stands at 5 meters so that all of their ranged and melee attacks are available. A ranger that uses only ranged attacks is losing up to 40% of their DPS. It’s usually only done if the mob has a particularly nasty Area of Effect (AoE) attack. We’re not sure how this change will work. Although as he said it’s in the planning stages, not set in stone.

There has been some talk on the EQ2 Forums both in PvP circles and elsewhere, in the Beta forums, not to mention EQ2 Flames, with a lot of concerns about how fairness is going to play out in the Battlegrounds. There have been suggestions that people will exploit and game the system as a stepping stone to progress further in raiding. I am not taking sides in this, but so far I am reasonably happy that these issues are being watched like a hawk.

Parts 1 and 2 of what should probably be a 2 part post.

continue reading Balancing Battlegrounds…

I’m sure a lot of you are wondering. Where’s the good stuff?

Where’s the shard gear? Where’s the raid gear? Where’s the Battlegrounds gear? Where’s the detailed analysis of class changes, the new AAs, racial traits, etc.? The meat and potatoes of groupers and raiders that my readers have come to expect from EQ2Wire? Frankly, I’d like to know too.

However even at this late date, all of these items are in such a state of flux on Beta, that it seems to document ANYTHING at this point would be foolhardy. Beta veterans assure me that there’s plenty of time left, but I admit this makes me nervous. Remember folks, raid gear didn’t even appear on Beta until 72 hours before TSO went live.

Two weeks ago I thought I’d be working my fingers to the nubs so I could present you with the coverage you’ve come to expect. Folks can go to EQTraders, EQ2 Zam, and other sites to get the grand tours of the overland and group zones, artwork, tradeskill info, etc. I know that’s where I look.

I will be providing some documentation of the Red Adornments system very soon, but the raid gear, battlegrounds gear, and shard gear will have to wait until it’s finalized.

Mythicals present a significant challenge to EQ2 developers trying to create desirable weapons for players at level 90. Some of the Mythical effects are uniquely powerful and no player would even consider replacing them without getting the same effect with another weapon. For this reason, it was announced at Fan Faire that mythicals would become either an equippable charm, or a clickable item.

Already, in Beta, players have discovered that, when equipped, Mythicals would not modify level 81-90 spells (eg. Chimes of Blades III, etc.).

The Truth Comes Out

Frizznik has posted in the Beta forums that owners of their Epic weapons will be able to do a challenging heroic quest called “Epic Repercussions” at level 90 to gain a Persistent Spell which gives them the effects of their Mythical weapon.

Mythical Conversion

Mythicals are a large part of character power, and we don’t want to remove that functionality at higher levels.  We did however want to make weapon slot upgrades viable again.  In the expansion, mythical weapons can be converted into a spell by doing a quest.  The new spell will take the mythical’s proc and buff components and convert them into a “Until Cancelled” buff. Any subclass with an activatable effect will have that effect converted into a spell as well.  You will also be able to retain the mythical appearance through an appearance only or house item.

Effect Changes

We needed to make a few changes to how some of the mythical effects worked. The modifications will also be applied to the effects on the existing mythical weapons.

• Mystic: The reuse time of the activatable portion is now 10 minutes rather than 5 minutes.  We didn’t want to weaken the effect, but the duration and reuse made this effect too powerful so we increased the reuse time.
• Wardens: The triggered proc will now trigger off of any heal rather than only critical heals.  The effect will only trigger once per cast rather than up to six times per cast for group heals.  The power gain on group heals was greater than intended.
• Illusionists: The triggered power proc was reduced to one trigger rather than three.  The power gain was too too high across the entire group.
• Rangers: The bonus based on proximity was removed and replaced with a bonus that is active all the time.  The bonus is equal to the bonus you would have gotten at point blank range.
• Conjuror and Necromancer:  The new spell effect will increase the damage of the pet’s spells and auto-attack damage directly, rather than summoning a new pet.  The existing mythical will not been altered.

Most of the mythicals are a direct conversion from the item to the spell.  The spell version will modify level 80-90 spells.

The heroic quest to acquire the Mythical Spell effect will be available to players who own either the Fabled or Mythical versions of their Epic weapons.

The significance of these changes will be felt by Rangers (yay, I can stand anywhere I need to!). And Summoners starting out the expansion will be able to continue to use their special Mythical pet. My understanding is that the mythical pet’s maximum level is 83. Then, after completing the quest, they’ll be able to cast one of thier other pets and cast the Mythical Spell to buff that pet instead. The folks who will lose out the most are Illusionists who will see a huge loss in how much power they are able to regenerate.

Bracing for Betrayal

Kaitheel has advised us that the Mythical spell will be cancelled, and the Mythical spell removed from your knowledge book if you betray to another alignment. The last step (as well as previous steps) of “Epic Repercussions” requires you to have the fabled or mythical weapon in your inventory or bank to complete the quest.  Completion of the quest removes the original weapon (from either inventory or bank).

Once you have completed the quest “Epic Repercussions”, if you betray your class, you will be able to speak with an NPC on the Nektulos Forest docks to trade in your useless spell gem for a new one of your new alignment. In other words, you no longer need to re-do your fabled/epic/mythical quest if you betray.

The Mythical Appearance

Gninja reports in on the topic of still having your mythical weapon appearance:

When you finish the quest you get the spells appropriate for your class, an appearance only weapon to use if you so choose, and a house item version of your weapon.

Our Stand

Considering mythicals are pretty much just knowing the right person or paying the right amount of plat to get into a raid, I have no issues with this change.

From EQ2Players:

Raiding is an important part of gameplay for many and is a part of every MMO. Roger “Patherpanchali” Uzun designs the raids for EQII and Brett “Timetravelling” Scheinert often works with him on these. Timetravelling was kind enough to sit down and give us an overview of the new raids coming with Sentinel’s Fate.

We have three x4 raid instances launching with:

• Sentinel’s Fate: Lair of the Dragon Queen (x4)
• Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory (x4)
• The Palace of Roehn Theer (x4)

For x4 content players will discover the Lair of the Dragon Queen first, then Perah’Celsis’ Abominable Laboratory, and finally The Palace of Roehn Theer. The relative difficulties progress in a similar pattern. One thing that is relatively new is that they are all built in a manner similar to Miragul’s Planar Shard—the normal mode encounters are challenging and offer internal progression. However, the challenge-mode versions within all zones are a step above and offer players a truly difficult foe!

There will also be a x2 raid — The Vigilant – based on the 3 Vigilant difficult level 90 group zones.

Further, Timetravelling has dropped the other shoe, so to speak, on the other Adornments which will be available to raiders. Instead of 12 sets or 24 sets of gear, there will be just a handful of raid gear sets. It would seem that the Sentinel’s Fate Raid Gear Sets will have a second adornment slot which will allow players to further specialize their gear how they see fit.

There were numerous balance issues in both TSO and RoK that came up again and again:

• Unique set bonuses were often so desirable, that players often worked very hard to avoid having to break the bonuses when upgrading to a later set
• With 24 classes and 24 sets, loot tables had a tendency to often be…unkind

In The Sentinel’s Fate we are addressing these issues by moving away from class-specific sets. Many of the sets will fulfill a role/playstyle—such as a plate-wearing tank, or a leather-wearing healer—instead of being the Berserker or Fury set. However, we certainly did not want to cause players to lose the unique focus effects and set bonuses received from their gear.

For that, we have created a new system of adornments based upon color. Gear in Sentinel’s Fate can be created to allow more than one adornment upon each item. Almost all items will have a ‘white’ adornment slot that will allow players to continue to apply adornments normally as on live. In addition, raid armor will receive an additional ‘red’ adornment slot that is restricted to raid-level adornments. These adornments can be either powerful generic effects (such as dps-enhancing stats or critical mitigation) or a number of class-specific adornment effects. For example, the Berserker might—in some bizarre Kiara-run-world—receive an adornment that causes them to spawn Rabid Bunny pets whenever their Berserk effect is activated.

These changes should help to reduce the often extremely wide range of loot on any particular encounter while additionally providing players with even more ways to tailor their characters to their playstyle and spec.

Check out the complete article at EQ2Players.

The Adornments system in EQ2 has always been pretty confusing. And so far, there just have not been a lot of options for certain classes in certain slots for adornments.

Each of the 9 tradeskill classes and the 2 secondary tradeskill classes have each made a handful of adornments. necessitating adornment websites to keep it all straight. We are thrilled to see that the Kanga will be updating her fantastic EQ2 Adornments site for Game Update 55.

With Game Update 55, adornments have been rebuilt from the ground up. In fact some prized adornments (Parry) can no longer be crafted as the recipes have been removed.

Starting with Game Update 55, all adornments are crafted by those players who choose the secondary tradeskill of Adorning. If you were a 400 Transmuter, then you will be a 400 Transmuter and 400 Adorner on February 16th.

continue reading Sentinel’s Fate Adornments Revamp…

Consolidating Stats

Sentinel’s Fate consolidates many separate stats in an effort to simplify itemization. Developers have been hounded on the EQ2 forums for “ignoring” healers, hybrid classes which need both spell and melee abilities, etc. in designing gear. Stat Consolidation is a huge step in making a smaller set of gear usable by a larger player population. Here is the list of changes:

• Crit = Damage Spell Crit, Melee Crit, Range Crit, Heal Crit
• Crit Bonus = Spell Crit Bonus, Melee Crit Bonus, Range Crit Bonus
• Double Attack = Double Attack, Ranged Double Attack
• Potency = Base Spell Damage, Base Combat Art Damage, Base Taunt, Base Heal Amount
• Ability Mod = +CA Damage, +Spell Damage Mod, +Heal Amount
• Physical Mitigation = vs. Crushing, vs. Slashing, vs. Piercing
• Elemental Resist = Cold, Heat resists
• Noxious Resist = Disease, Poison resists
• Arcane Resist = Divine, Magic, Mental resists

Consolidated Stats naturally lead to a simplified Persona Window. Most classes will no longer have to hunt in Spell Stats and Melee Stats to find their Crit, Crit Bonus, Double Attack, etc. numbers. They’re all right there on the main Persona page. There isn’t even a Ranged Stats page anymore.

Inflated Stats?

If you think about how this consolidation works, you’ve probably realized that it’s going to be very easy for Druids, for example, to end up with 100% spell/heal/melee crit, or for rangers to end up with 100% self-buffed Double Attack/Ranged Double Attack. We already know that this expansion is going to be all about Crit Bonus. I think the developers have just accepted that even casual raiders are going to be at (or very close to) the 100% caps for Spell/Heal/Range/Melee Crit on day 1.

continue reading Consolidated Stats Persona Window…

Everything you know about the main Character Stats is about to change.

For the past 5 years, in addition to the primary stats that each class uses:

• Predators have focused on STR to do melee and ranged damage and INT to increase poison damage.
• Druids have focused on STR to do more melee damage.
• Crusaders have focused on INT for spell damage and WIS for healing.

These are just the most obvious examples, but all 24 classes had some unique benefits from the different Stats. Starting with Sentinel’s Fate, each class now benefits significantly from just ONE statistic, even if they are considered a “hybrid” class.

continue reading Primary Character Stats Changes…

From Fyreflyte on the EQ2 Forums:

Post expansion-launch, the useable effect on Najena’s Ring of Readiness will give a flat +2000 spelldamage buff. The cooldown and duration will remain the same. I realize this effect has been available to you for over a year now, but due to the way it scales, it can not be left in game as-is. Without a rating system to curb its effects, the item would have only become more powerful with each expansion, crippling our ring itemization for sorcerers.

I understand this will be an upsetting change for those that spent countless hours running the Hollow Tower in order to acquire one, but it is absolutely necessary for the health of the game. I know this information is coming fairly late, but hopefully it will save those who are still farming for it further frustration.

Why the item wasn’t changed when it was realized how powerful it was, or why this change wasn’t announced last summer when Gear Scaling was cancelled, we may never know.

When Commission crafting was altered in March 2009 to prevent crafters from using their own Void Shards and other NO TRADE/HEIRLOOM materials for other players, it closed the book for several crafters on this highly profitable market.

However it was quickly discovered that a crafter could still use their own shards if the customer had at least the requisite number of shards in their own inventory to make the item. This was accomplished by swapping out ingredients in the Commission Materials window.

Today’s Hotfix marks the closure of this exploit:

Patch Notes January / 26 / 2010

GENERAL
You can no longer swap no trade and heirloom items given to you in a consignment trade.

Mentored Shards

Further, EQ2Wire is now hearing rumors that it will be impossible to run mentored “grey” void shard runs in Shadow Odyssey dungeons once the Sentinel’s Fate expansion launches. This likely will take the form of either being booted from the zone or a forced mentoring if a “trivialized” condition exists (mobs are grey).

It seems a concerted effort is now being put forth to restore the logical progression of gear in EverQuest II:

• Treasured/Mastercrafted — solo gear
• Legendary — group gear
• Fabled — raid gear

The Problem

1) Some players have no interest in getting into any sort of group, and play EQ2 entirely as a solo game, yet they are currently getting exceptional gear.

2) Some players are husband-and-wife or trio setups. Either they don’t want to do a full group and deal with the personalities, or they are undergeared and not able to get into a group.

3) And some players already have several main characters and are leveling an alt, possibly an alt that is not always desired (summoner, druid, brawler, etc.).

One of the biggest problems players of The Shadow Odyssey faced is that all 20 dungeons were targeted for level 80, and if more than one mid-70’s character joined the group, then zone rewards were scaled down (no chest, no shinies, level 67 gear).

The Solution

1) Treasured and Mastercrafted gear in Sentinel’s Fate will be much better gear comparatively than level 72 gear was for level 80 characters. Considering how powerful the T1 and T2 void shard armor are, for many solo players, it will likely last them well into the 80’s until they replace that gear with Mastercrafted and quested rewards.

2) The Hole offers a large sprawling open dungeon ranging from level 82-90. Most of it is tailored to 3-4 players. Instead of waiting for hours, trying to build the “perfect” group, I expect players will simply show up at the entrance and jump into whatever ragtag groups are running through. Also, a variety of quests and large number of named encounters exist within the zone.

3) We haven’t heard much word on Class Balance, but hopefully with the changes, and the fact that Sentinel’s Fate dungeons range from level 82-90 means that people will actually get to group up with mains AND alts throughout the level range. With the AA slider, it should be possible to earn AA just as easily this way as solo questing.

With the dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate not being locked to level 90 (The Hole is 82-90, and the first instance is accessible at level 83), players won’t be pressured quite so bad to “solo quest grind to 90″ before being able to play the group game.

A new Achievement has been added for Raiders who are able to clear the original Shadow Odyssey raid mobs without dying (earning a Flawless Victory at least once on each mob). These are some pretty amazing awards, commensurate with the effort required to get them.

• \aITEM 92894355 -1176837326:[Flawless Charm of Combat]\/a
• \aITEM -625928716 1415794346:[Flawless Symbol of Stealth]\/a
• \aITEM 1132459187 -1244409981:[Flawless Gem of Healing]\/a
• \aITEM 1381090014 420207800:[Flawless Stone of Destruction]\/a

EQ2Wire is back in town and brings you some Hotfix notes.

October 28 Hotfix

ACHIEVEMENTS

• New Achievements have been added! Test your skill with three new types of Achievements: Flawless Victory, Sense of Urgency and Shorthanded Victory achievements have been added to Rise of Kunark and The Shadow Odyssey zones.

ITEMS

• Equipment with pet buffs should no longer experience stacking issues which cause the cancellation of multiple pet buffs when removing a single piece of armor.
• Jewelry items purchased from Lavastorm and the Moors of Ykesha are now heirloom attuneable.
• Jewelry items acquired with Void Shards is now Heirloom.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now be placed as a red puzzle cube then after placed should retain its fog effects.
• The “Blanket of Fog” should now change into a red puzzle box when turned off by the defogifier.
• The Necklace of the Plague has been increased to 12% base damage.
• Hallow’s Gallows now grants ranged crit.
• Frostburn and Mutagenic Burst now give larger gains when stacked.
• The appearance of the Ceremonial Robe of the Brethren has been corrected.

MIRAGUL’S PLANAR SHARD

• Miragul Encounter (Hard mode) : Miragul’s Arcane impairment now only affects spells. Miragul’s Physical Impairment now only affects auto attack and combat arts.

USER INTERFACE

• The placeholder detriment icons were removed from the raid window.
• The raid window’s font-size was decreased and the overall window is a little more compact.

November 3 Hotfix

ITEMS

• The Collar of Ice is now Heirloom.