Dread Knight Related Patch Notes

[XeroKill]

Last Updated: 24-JAN-07 02:11 CST

Hey guys, I am making this post to try and consolidate the more important points of the recent patch notes as they pertain to us in particular. This will serve as a reference point for tracking the changes to our class over the course of the open beta. They will be listed with newest changes at the top and the oldest changes at the bottom. I will be updating this as often as possible. If you notice something I missed or something you feel should be added because it pertains to us, feel free to comment below.

• Vanguard Build 01705 Patch Notes 1/23/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Energy pool sizes are now based on archetype.
  - Fix for NPC corpses warping away after they drop
  - Fix for all NPCs seeing invisibility.
  - Melee AE attacks have been had energy costs significantly reduced and the damage has been lowered to make up for the change in cost.
  - Some melee attacks and all finishers have had damage fine tuning. The costs have not been adjusted.
  - Melee percent attacks have had their additive portion significantly increased.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Ravaging Darkness now waits 2 seconds before draining any endurance
  - Dread Knight - Added a particle effect for Provoke so that it will fire off no matter what level of Dreadful Countenance you are at.
  - Dread Knight - Provoke should now gain its increasing effects properly while in different forms of Dreadful Countenance.
  - Dread Knight - Lowered the run speed buff of Shadowy Veil to 15%, down from 50%
  - Dread Knight - Shadowy Veil now lasts for 60 seconds with an 80 second refresh.
  
  Vanguard Build 01700 Patch Notes 1/22/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Abilities requiring a defensive target will now automatically target the caster if they do not have a defensive target. This will also set an actual defensive target for the caster.
  - Added an 'Auto Defensive Target Me' option to the Interface section of the Settings window. If this option is enabled, you will automatically cast any beneficial abilities on yourself if you have no defensive target.
  - Intelligence spell damage mod and strength melee damage mod are now getting applied as intended. The ability tool tips should also be updating properly again.
  - The maximum damage and healing reached from maximizing intelligence, strength and vitality has been increased.
  - Invisibility and Stealth type effects now break when you begin harvesting or interact with an interactable object.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Your Dreadful Countenance should now actually lower targets SPI mitigation
  - Dread Knight - Moved Scythe of Doom to level 18. Upgrades from there.
  - Dread Knight - Increased hate added on Incite
  - Dread Knight - Increased Provoke taunt to the correct level.
  - Dread Knight - Increased damage from Symbol of Suffering
  - Dread Knight - Backlash now lists its maximum duration.
  - Dread Knight - All Symbol abilities now cost 1 energy/ second
  - Dread Knight - Fixed display description on Vengeance to reflect how much damage it actually does.
  - Dread Knight - Added a block animation to Bleak Foeman.
  
  GUI
  
  - Your map arrow will now always appear on top of other waypoints.
  - The location currently being tracked will now appear red on the map.
  - You will now see only the waypoints for the currently selected quest on the map instead of all of them.
  - Group member points on the map will correctly have their tooltip set to the group member's name.
  
  Coding
  
  - You will no longer receive loot spam to the chat window when looting your own corpse.
  - Video memory manager updated to hopefully reduce the number of "out of video memory" crashes clients are experiencing.
  - If there is a region server crash, and you login and get the invulnerability buff, and your Recall ability is not castable due to still having refresh time, the refresh timer on your Recall ability will be reset allowing you to cast it immediately to escape the area.
  - Items required for quests will now be correctly updated when they are moved to or from your corpse
  
  Graphics
  
  - FPS in outdoor scenes should be increased
  - Volumetric clouds are now much less of a performance hit
  
  Vanguard Build 01697 Patch Notes 1/20/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Dexterity bonus to melee evasion and spell evasion has been re-centered. The new maximum with 18 points per level is 17%.
  - Dexterity no longer grants a bonus to mitigation, it still grants a bonus to evasion. That part of mitigation has been shifted into block, dodge and parry.
  - Block, dodge and parry now have different chances with max skill for your level against an even con NPC. Light Fighters: 8% dodge chance, 8% parry chance, and 4% block chance. Heavy Fighters: 10% block chance, 4% dodge chance, and 4% % parry chance. Healers: 6% dodge chance and 4% parry chance. Casters: 6% dodge chance. The disciple has an 8% chance to dodge instead of the normal 6% given to healers.
  - Cost over time abilities and item regeneration are now functioning as intended. Many of these were not properly deducting costs or adding regeneration.
  - Mounts now require a min level to be used
  - You can no longer move while summoning your mount
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Shadowy Veil will no longer decrease your run speed.
  - Dread Knight - Incite and Inflame now correctly cost 10 each.
  
  Vanguard Build 01694 Patch Notes 1/19/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - NPCs that you have very low faction with (Kill on Sight) will no longer respond to hails, and will not act as merchants, trainers, or recipe trainers.
  - Items on merchants will now display their true damage numbers.
  - Balance: Fast weapons (daggers, hand wraps, etc) have had a significant damage increase.
  - Balance: PC damage of time spells (DoTs) have had a significant boost in damage and cost.
  - Balance: Direct damage spells have had their damage significantly increased across the board. This applies to all cast times.
  - Balance: Challenge level 2 NPCs have had their damage growth rate slightly increased from level 10 upwards.
  - Balance: NPC hit points have been adjust down for the different level blocks as part of combat speed tuning. All level ranges above 10 were affected by varying degrees.
  - Staves - Many staff items have been updated to work now.
  - NPC leashing has been modified to allow more flexibility to those fighting. When you are actively fighting an NPC it will have a much larger hard leash radius.
  
  - Characters:
  
  The races in Vanguard have new attribute bonuses!
  
  Starting at level 10 characters start to gain racial attributes. The following table illustrates the attribute bonus attribute points that a character will receive. All characters receive one point in every attribute each level in addition to the bonus points.
  
  

  Race          STR CON DEX VIT WIS INT 
  Varanjar       1   2   0   0   1   0 
  Varanthari     2   1   0   0   1   0 
  Dwarf          0   3   0   0   1   0 
  Dark Elf       0   0   1   0   1   2 
  High Elf       0   0   0   0   3   1 
  Wood Elf       0   0   2   2   0   0 
  Gnome          0   1   0   0   0   3 
  Goblin         0   0   0   3   0   1 
  Half Elf       0   0   2   1   1   0 
  Lesser Giant   3   1   0   0   0   0 
  Halfling       0   0   3   0   1   0 
  Kojani*        0   0   0   0   0   0 
  Mordebi*       0   0   0   0   0   0 
  Qaliathari*    0   0   0   0   0   0 
  Thestran*      0   0   0   0   0   0 
  Kurashasa      0   2   0   0   0   2 
  Orc            2   2   0   0   0   0 
  Raki           0   0   1   2   0   1 
  Vulmane        1   0   1   0   2   0

  In addition to the bonus points each race with the exception of the four human races (Kokani, Mordebi, Qaliathari and Thestran) earns 10 attribute customization points per level. The non-human races may spend up to 4 attribute points in each attribute per level. They do not all have to be spent at the same time. At level 11 a character could have spent 8 points total in any one attribute.
  
  *The human races gain 14 attribute customization points per level and may spend 5 points in a single attribute per level.
  
  There is no longer attribute gain associated with your class.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Shadowy Veil now grants a run speed buff as well as invisibility
  - Dread Knight - Moved weaknesses from Wrack to Malice.
  - Dread Knight - Increased the flanking bonus from Malice.
  
  Vanguard Build 01689 Patch Notes 1/17/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Experience has been made approximately 20% easier across the board. The experience gained from 2 dot and 3 dot (challenge level 2 & 3) NPCs has been slightly increased relative to higher dot value (challenge level) NPCs.
  - Attributes caps for all things that they effect have been raised from 11*Level to 18*Level. The majority of factors that they modify have been scaled up in effective by a factor relative to the increase in range from average value to the increased cap value. This change will allow players to be much more specialized in their gear selection and still reap full rewards. Many players were hitting the old caps early in their careers.
  - There has been a general migration in all the adventuring gameplay logic too soft caps. There were a few soft caps before, there were a few hard caps and a few uncapped lose ends. These are now all soft caps and those related to attributes start at the new cap amount of 18*Level.
  - Energy has had some significant enhancements. The vitality attribute now directly controls energy regeneration and is much more substantial than in the past. Your base regeneration from vitality (as displayed in the vitality tool tip) is your in combat energy regeneration. When in combat using an ability will halt regeneration vitality similar to endurance, however the delay before restarting is slightly longer. Out of combat energy regeneration is now also based on your vitality and is approximately 150% of in combat regeneration. For out of combat regeneration speed increases more option will be available in the near future.
  - The new energy regeneration is still clamped to the old out of combat regeneration times as a maximum down time.
  - Endurance regeneration is now only halted by use of a melee type attack.
  - Energy regeneration is now only halted by use of a spell or tactical maneuver and only during cast time. While in global you still gain full energy regeneration, this makes instant spells VERY exciting.
  - Endurance regeneration pacing has changed. You now earn a regeneration tick after wait slightly longer than 2 seconds. This time interval restart with each attack or when some regeneration occurs. This should resolve the issue with melee gameplay revolving around waiting for the endurance bar to fill all the way up.
  - Energy regeneration delay has been shortened.
  - NPC spell and melee special attacks have been reduced in damage for NPCs that are greater than 2 dots (above challenge level 2).
  - Dark Elf Racial ability is now active.
  - Dark Elves:
  Dark Elf racial pets will be available to dark elves who are level 8+. Your pet and its abilities will be based upon your level and arch-type.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - All Classes - Abilities that Mesmerize now have a delay before they will begin to heal their targets.
  
  GUI
  
  - Offensive targets that are aggro, but can't see you (due to stealth or invis) now display their names in light red instead of red on the offensive target window.
  - Character sheet combat stats information and ability tool tips have been updated with the new caps and soft caps.
  - Added time/gametime to connection meter tooltip.
  
  Coding
  
  - Many improvements to NPCs walking backwards and also visually warping away in combat although the game still behaves as if they were in front of you. This particular type of warping should now be fixed.
  - Noticable hitch reduction when first entering a new area. No longer as necessary to do a "hitch spin" before you can start moving.
  
  Vanguard Build 01677 Patch Notes 1/15/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Updated block, dodge, and parry tooltip text with info that with level-capped skill, you now get a 2% chance instead of a 5% chance.
  - Strength now contributes to melee damage as intended, there was a bug causing strength to move damage to only three different ranges. For most people this will increase your DPS in melee combat. Personal Note: This is should go along way for Dread Knights and our Devour Strength ability.
  - As NPCs increase challenge level so does how easily they hit players with spells and melee attacks.
  - Melee and spell evasion have been adjusted to values that will enable debuffing enemies and buffing allies in these areas to have a more significant impact on combat.
  - Block, dodge and parry have been reduced to a more appropriate level with respect to evasion.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Added more description to Anguish, Dark Bastion and Ruin
  - Dread Knight - Vengeance is now free
  
  Vanguard Build 01672 Patch Notes 1/12/2007
  
  Balance Issues
  
  Logging in today you will likely notice some significant changes to combat balance. Today's patch kicks off a series of significant balance patches. The primary focus in this patch is combat difficulty at all NPC dot levels and combat time both solo and in group configurations. We are honing in on our objectives so please be cautious out there! Some things you could solo yesterday may require some help today. The following is an overview of the most significant changes:
  
  NPC damage and hit points have been rescaled at all dot values and levels. In some cases this makes combat harder and in others it makes it easier. Combat times are now closer to our target in most areas. The target audiences have not changed:
  
  - 2 dot NPCs are intended for challenging solo play
  - 3 dot NPCs are intended for challenging duo and trio play
  - 4 dot NPCs are intended to be challenging for 4 & 5 player groups
  - 5 dot NPCs are challenging for a full group
  - 6 dot NPCs are very challenging and can require multiple groups
  
  In some areas we did not feel the challenge was quite there and it should be more noticeable now. Remember not all NPCs of the same challenge rating are exactly the same, the dot values represent a category but you still need to experiment to find what you can handle.
  
  Out of combat regeneration: These values have been adjusted this is most noticeable at the early levels. Low level combat cause players to expend more resources however they should be spending much less time waiting for their expendables to return. This faster regeneration begins to scale back significantly around level 4.
  
  In combat regeneration: In combat energy regeneration has been increased. This goes along with an increase in healing costs. We are still striving to find a good balance between energy expended in a long group fight and energy expend when soloing at all level ranges.
  
  Pool size: Caster hit points have been slightly reduced relative to other archetypes and their energy pool has been slightly increased.
  
  Groups: Along with the changes to combat time and NPC damage we have taken steps to allow for more variance in groups at low challenge ratings. This will make forming 2 and 3 man groups easier.
  
  Longer combat times inherently sharpen archetype roles and there is more opportunity to enjoy your class play experience both solo and in groups. This will become most noticeable when fighting against high challenge rating (4 dot+) NPCs. Please have fun experimenting.
  
  Resists: We have introduced non damage spell resists as part of what makes higher dot value enemies more difficult. It is now significantly harder to mesmerize, snare or slow a 5 dot NPC than a 3 dot NPC.
  
  Getting Hit. It is now easier for NPCs to hit players. Players are expected to invest more effort in avoidance (attributes and gear) if they don't want to get hit.
  
  Damage and ability upgrades: The rate at which player damage increases has been adjusted. Particularly at higher levels you will notice a bigger upgrade in the damage of your abilities. We found that there were some situations where it was not worth the increase in cost to move onto an ability upgrade. This should be the case much less often. Remember, player damage is relative to NPC hit points which has also been rescaled.
  
  Class Balance: We are continue the process of class verses class balance and have made quite a few tweaks at the lower levels. This is an ongoing process so expect more soon.
  
  Racial Abilities (Only included DRK Races for ease of comparison.)
  
  Kojani Human: Spirit of Jin
  - This ability will immediately restore 45% of energy and hit points to the target.
  
  Qaliathari Humans: Swiftness of the Sands
  - For this next 10 seconds, when this ability is activated your ability to evade all melee attacks and spells will be greatly increased.
  
  Thestran Humans: Inspirational Commands
  - You will have 3 inspirational commands at your disposal: Inspirational Presence, Inspirational Wisdom, and Inspirational Tactics. Each command is a group buff that will add either 2% to mitigation, a 3% reduction to mana cost of all spells, or a 2% increase in damage. You may only maintain one command at a time, however you may have all 3 effects active at the same time.
  
  Kurashasa: Symbiotic Armor
  - When this armor is active you will be consumed by a symbiotic presence. In addition to regening 2% of your health every 3 seconds, you will apply an effect to all enemies within a 20 meter point-blank radius. Anyone affected by this debuff will become snared and slowed.
  
  Lesser Giant: Strength of Torsheim
  - For the next 30 seconds after this ability is activated, you will increase your max hit points by 50%.
  
  Orc: Fury of Ghalnn
  - For the next 5 attacks after this ability is activated, you will receive a 10% increase to damage and all the damage you do will return to you in the form of hit points.
  
  Vulmane: Spiritual Bond
  - This ability will apply an effect to every member in your group, allowing 35% of all damage done by them to return to you in the form of health for 20 seconds.
  
  NOTE: The following is not implemented yet:
  
  Dark Elf: Spawn of Haelufir
  - This ability allows you to summon forth a small drake for a short duration. The type of drake you summon will be based on class and level. Each type of drake will have a variety of effects at their disposal, ranging from group aura's, to breath attacks. The higher level drakes will also learn spells that are sympathetic with their associated class.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Added hate numbers to Incite ability line. (missed it last pass)
  - Dread Knight - Removed increasing drawbacks on combat forms
  
  Vanguard Build 01670 Patch Notes 1/11/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Two handed weapon damage has been significantly increased.
  
  Vanguard Build 01666 Patch Notes 1/11/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - PC melee special attack damage off by 5% bug fixed. This is a decrease in damage by 5%.
  - Melee auto-attack damage is no longer normalized by weapon category, this means the strength and level portion of your melee damage while auto-attacking is now tied directly to your weapon speed. This was a bug with auto-attack damage. When duel wielding this includes your dual wield damage but does not significantly change dual wield damage. The best dual wield combinations remain nearly 20% higher damage when compared with 2-handed damage of equal caliber.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Added hate numbers to all DRK abilities. This should help you determine how effective your abilities are at taunting.
  
  Vanguard Build 01659 Patch Notes 1/9/2007
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight - Increased the damage buff portion of Hatred Incarnate
  - Dread Knight - Lowered the refresh time of Hatred Incarnate from 1 day to 2 hours.
  
  Vanguard Build 01655 Patch Notes 1/8/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Added the first (of four) components for your defense rating: Melee Evasion. Mouse over this item on your character sheet for more details. Still a work in progress.
  - Added the second (of four) components for your defense rating: Spell Evasion.
  - Updated the Block, Dodge, and Parry tooltips to contain your block, dodge and parry percentages. Note: With a shield, you get two different chances to block and this number is your actual chance considering both. Example: With a rare shield (25.0% chance to block) and level capped block skill (5% chance to block) you have a 28.75% chance to block (not 30%), because you first have a 5% chance to block on the first check, and then you have a 25% chance to block the second time (which happens 95% of the time block is checked). 5 + 95% of 25 = 28.75. The same calculation applies for people using parrying daggers or martial swords, and parry.
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight – Lowered the refresh time on the Incite ability line to 60 seconds, down from 3 - minutes.
  - Dread Knight – Changed the resist type of Scythe of Doom to Spiritual from weapon based
  - Dread Knight - Changed the resist type of Torture to Physical from Spiritual
  - Dread Knight – Increased the duration of Hatred Incarnate to 60 seconds, up from 30 seconds.
  - Dread Knight – Vexing Strike should no longer give double combat text.
  - Dread Knight – Vexing Strike now increases Dreadful Countenance by a larger amount than it used to
  - Dread Knight – Malice increases Dreadful Countenance by a smaller amount now.
  
  Bug Fixes
  
  - Guards in Khal now give correct directions to the warrior, psionicist, dreadknight, and paladin trainers.
  
  Coding
  
  - Performing a find on Dread Knights in the social window will now work correctly.
  
  Vanguard Build 01647 Patch Notes 1/5/2007
  
  General Gameplay
  
  - Damage over time and healing over time abilities now display the total damage not the damage per pulse in the description
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight – Greatly increased the damage done by Word of Doom.
  - Dread Knight – Shadow Meld stance is now available at level 25, up from level 1.
  - Dread Knight – Armor of Darkness is now available at level 10, up from level 1.
  
  Vanguard Build 01643 Patch Notes 1/4/2007
  
  Adventuring
  
  - Dread Knight – Increased range on Shadow Step to 35m, up from 25m.
  - Dread Knight – Fixed a bug with Torture’s mana cost. Should be back down to what was intended.
  - Dread Knight – Fixed a bug with Provoke’s mana cost. Should be back down to what was intended.
  - Dread Knight – Increased cost of Scythe of Doom to 40 END, up from 27 END.
  - Dread Knight – Decreased Vengeance cost to 40, down from 80.
  - Dread Knight – Decreased mana cost of Word of Doom ability line
  - Dread Knight – Reduced energy cost of the Bane ability line
  - Dread Knight – Reduced energy cost of the Black Wind ability line
  - Dread Knight – Reduced energy cost of the Cull ability line
  - Dread Knight – Increased overall DoT damage
  - Dread Knight – Increased overall AE damage
  - Dread Knight – Reduced energy cost of the Dark Ward ability like
  - Dread Knight – Reduced energy costs of the Dreadful Visage ability line.