Today on QA (R89)

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Coswald_Dirthmire, May 6, 2021.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Hello again! A new release and a new QA build, so time for another megathread on all the fun stuff (and some not so fun bugs) going on in the land of QA. Hoping again that this can be a thread to help folks anticipate changes, a place to post your own findings to share, and maybe even encourage some people get download the QA client and try things first hand!




    QA Build 1184:



    Though the cast time of sonata has been raised significantly, bard skills now respect cast time multipliers (some more than others at the moment). Having a cast time multiplier will speed up bard songs, but a bug report has been posted for a couple unintended exceptions.
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...cales-inversely-with-chaotic-feedback.168375/


    The focus cost of Canticle is now properly applied to the caster instead of the target. The cost is 10% of focus pool, which coupled with a long cast time creates and interesting interaction with the torpid torment now used by mobs, especially for air shield bards.


    All Legacy artifacts now have (L) after their names! This will same some time (and much paranoia) at the salvaging table.


    New skills being used by control point mages! Oh man, the Vertas Pass guys really pack a wallop now. Ice Arrows and chain lightning from the mages (the latter of which can get cast by many at a time leaving you well stun locked), doing damage that seems on average 20-100x as strong as the damage from fighters and archers (using OCX Tools Attack Details analyzer). At 100 Water Resistance and the Magic Resistance offered by full Obsidian Plate I was getting critted for over 300 average damage per ice arrow, and they can come at a very rapid rate.


    Shield of Crystal now gives 2 health per level instead of 1 health per level (this is unaffected by attunement)


    Shield of Ice sports a spell critical damage multiplier that gets very, very powerful. The skill offers 10% Spell Critical Damage + 0.125% per level for a single stack and does not scale with attunement. At skill levels only in the 80s it left my death mage build comparable in power to running a level 150 death shield, despite losing 30+ death attunement.

    Chris has mentioned not liking skills that are so powerful that players are effectively "forced" to use them, so I imagine this one might come down in power. As it stands now I don't see why any mage (other than fire) would use anything else.


    Unable to access the Lost Vale as it was closed. I don't recall this ever happening on QA, and in fact had noticed it being open so often that I thought it was always accessible on QA. Not sure if something changed or I was just mistaken. (I was after the 50% learning speed buff to help train up some skills for testing)


    Masterworking of Cloth or Leather belts still results in an error, so Heavy belts remain the only ones that can be masterworked for the time being. This was marked as fixed in previous patch notes, so the bug thread for that has been updated: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...ash-to-treasure-dropped-items-turn-in.168328/


    Miscellaneous items tested include Public Vendor listings (still limited to 10 each Buy/Sell), no salvaging of stacked mundane items, and 100% bait recovery chance is still possible. There was no indication these had been changed already, but it seems they're on the schedule, so I'll be checking them out every QA build.
     
    Fox Blue, Gravidy, FBohler and 6 others like this.
  2. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

    Messages:
    2,632
    Likes Received:
    5,108
    Trophy Points:
    153
    I would like to add some details here :

    Earth spec seems to add an Armor effectiveness bonus to Shield of Crystal (no definite numbers, only saw a guild mate share this info from his Earth specced shield on QA)

    Atonal Aria has had its Min damage reduced by 40%, and it's max damage reduced by 25%.

    Voice training still does nothing for the Bard skills (as of 1184).

    Savage Sonatas cast time is equal to that of Atonal Aria and Mezmerizing Melody (somewhere around 9-10 seconds when at around 100-120 rhythmic readiness).
     
  3. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

    Messages:
    1,213
    Likes Received:
    1,264
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The Savage Sonata cast time seems now prohibitive to solo players. Losing 9 full seconds to cast it will either open up a huge vulnerability or a long dead time between fights that won't be worth the wait. Probably unlearning all the way back to GM if this comes to live.
     
  4. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

    Messages:
    2,632
    Likes Received:
    5,108
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Yup, this change pushes Bard songs further into the dedicated Bard slots. I don't see many people deciding to play Savage Sonata mid fight so I expect this song to leave 90% of the decks it was on. A change in the right direction, will reduce crit stacking from all the physical classes and Savage Sonata will finally look like a "Bards play this to replace themselves in the DPS meter for groups" song, which was the intention of the entire tree.
     
  5. Violet Ronso

    Violet Ronso Avatar

    Messages:
    2,632
    Likes Received:
    5,108
    Trophy Points:
    153
    A new addition to the recent balance changes to bard skills I have noticed today while testing out my usual go-to scenes. Atonal Aria is now something you (and mobs) can get cover from. This means that you can no longer sit behind a wall while everything dies, as your DPS is GREATLY impacted by this. Good change all around!
     
    Last edited: May 7, 2021
    Anpu likes this.
  6. FBohler

    FBohler Avatar

    Messages:
    1,213
    Likes Received:
    1,264
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Hmmmm it seems to me they're balancing bard stuff so the new skill tree can take the throne as the must-have kind of thing.
     
    Duke Gréagóir likes this.
  7. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    QA Build 1192:


    The "Play" splash screen has been removed
    and players land directly on the first menu, which has spiffy new text.
    [​IMG]


    Seems everyone's experiencing the 94% loading bug
    and are unable to get in. Hopefully 1193 is a lucky number...
     
    Last edited: May 16, 2021
  8. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    QA Build 1193:

    Copper and Iron chains of power recipes have been updated to not require legacy versions
    , though not the shrine recipes which require rings, not the warlock chain itself.

    Masterwork of cloth and leather belt's isn't working. The fix from this seems to be what was preventing the QA build from working, so I an thinking it might have just been reverted to get the rest of the changes out?


    A round of artifact balance changes has been added, and negative effects now scale with level! Some of the changes I noticed:
    • Lich Rings give 5 attunement (common) to 25 attunement (epic) and start at -5 Life attunement and -5% healing modifier, scaling to -100 attunement -25% healing modifier at Epic.
    • Zombie Skin Belts give 10%-20% Death Summon Life Drain (common-epic) and 10-20 death attunement (common-epic) -10 fire and sun attunement at Common, -20 fire and sun attunement at Epic.
    • Boots of the Energetic Tamer give 0.2-0.6 Move Speed for common-rare, so presumably 0.2-1.0 for epic. (oof)
    • Gloves of Control, Common are giving a 6% boost to spec, rather than 20%. Not sure how they scale yet.
    • Lavaliere of the Lagomorph lost some of its move speed, gained some more attack speed, lost strength penalty.
    • Necklace of Cautious Precision lost some dex and has a reduced movespeed penalty
    • Frog and Cuttlekin rings start at +1 jump bonus and scale to +2 at epic, Cuttlekin got a small Dex reduction
    • Ring of the Gambler took a large dex hit, but the negative side effect (basically casting fireflies on yourself so mobs can hit you harder) has been greatly reduced as well.
    • Sage's Sash starts at +5int/-5dex/-5str and scales to 25int/-25dex/-25str at epic.
    • Shield of Attraction now has +10% fizzle at all levels, to match existing shields.
    • Sword of Speed give rend damage! 2% at common, 10% at epic, this is in addition to the +1 doubleslash count.
    • Cutlass of the swashbuckler gives 5% sneak attack, +5 pick pocket and 1.5% attack from behind bonus (!!) at common.
    • Spider Silk Belt has been very significantly reduced in power, and the negative effect has been correspondingly lessened
    • Warlock Chain gives less int, and attunement scales based on level (as does reagent use cost)
    • Brittle Brawn ring gives far less strength but only takes 33% of health (at all levels) instead of 50%.
    • Crossbow of Accuracy, Uncommon has been reduced in stats, but it scales better. The Rare version is stronger than the old Rares.
    • Shard of Night has no more negative, no dex, less attunement and shorter lunar hours bonus
    • Two-Handed MAce of Unsummoning is now the Two-Handed Mace of Elemental Slaying and has a Very High strength bonus instead of High.
    • Staff of Anarchy has possitive magic resist instead of negative, and a slightly lower Chaotic Feedback bonus. The CF bonus still doesn't appear to work, but I should test further
    • Staff of Death has no Undead Mastery bonus, and is less beneficial to summons. Attunement is lessened at uncommon, same at Rare. May have increased at higher levels.
    • Belt of Control, Common has reduced stats and no more negative (used to be loss of adventure level)
    • Tamer Boots have reduced player move speed but are otherwise unchanged.
    • Bandit Chest weapon damage greatly reduced
    • Ancient Two-handed Sword is now Ancient Two-handed Sword of Elf Slaying, to reflect it's hidden stat bonus. It has slightly reduced damage and a greatly increased critical modifier in Legendary form.
    • The Acara's set all just shows a larger set bonus, no other stats for individual pieces, except for the shield which is unchanged. I don't have pants to test with, but want to look at this more in depth.
    • Unchanged (as far as I noticed): Bacchanal Belt, Focus Battery, Cabalist Hoods, Envy Bow, Brutal Butcher, Ox Belt, Patient Harvester, Troll Belt, Mace of the Undone, Deceitful Vile Wand, Thunder Branch, Ankhs/Offhands, Cat's Grace Ring, BMC Ring, Riding Gloves, Quiver of Jealousy, Slipshod Sash, Attunement Rings, Crafting Rings, Pax Rings, Ring of Luck/Luck Greater, Necklace of Civility, Assassin's Blade

    Ohmy. There is more, and a lot more to test on this QA build. I'm going to go do that and post an update later, I know folks will be anxious to see these changes though, and I hope folks will share the changes they've seen. I'm sure to miss more than I find
     
  9. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    I also want to throw in that as much as we're bound to complain or celebrate or curse or love these major changes to artifacts and crafted gear, the post above is about a QA build that several of the dev team seems to have worked on all day and night between them, and on a Sunday. So if nothing else, praise and thanks for that.
     
  10. Elgarion

    Elgarion Dev Emeritus Dev Emeritus

    Messages:
    3,223
    Likes Received:
    9,292
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Gender:
    Male
    I submitted the fix for the Warlock Chain earlier this morning. Just noticed you mention the shrines using rings in their recipes. I've fixed all 3 of those, and just submitted. CL 211233
     
  11. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    QA Build 1193 (Continued):

    Imbued gems are in! Well, the crafted attunement ones at least. The other Imbued Gems will be what we salvage from artifacts to socket into crafted gear for better stats. These require a new socketing recipe, which for the imbued jewels takes lvl 100 Alchemy, and for the 1 handed weapons takes lvl 120 alchemy. These recipes drop off of elves, especially the Watch Commander, in the Obsidian Panopticon. Imbued Jewels add 12 attunement to crafted rings or necklaces, and Imbued Gems add 25 attunement to crafted weapons, shields, offhands. Enchantments are the same for imbued or regular jewels and gems. A huge thanks to Gwendolyn and Fox Blue in helping getting these recipes!
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]


    A bug with the health bar
    was reported, and it seems Devilcult has already fixed it. The man moves fast, and I'm not sure he sleeps.
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...th-bars-display-as-white.168503/#post-1320599


    A display bug with the combat bar
    reported by Violet Ronso, can make it difficult to quickly see glyph stack counts
    https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/combat-bar-glyphs-dont-fit-in-ui.168502/


    Resurrection Ankhs have been made more accessible in the Obsidian Panopticon by being placed closer to the bars, so they can be used on either side of the barrier without the the cell door needing be open.
    [​IMG]


    Really excited to see what stats are on the Imbued Gems off of artifacts when those go in!
     
  12. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Presumably the imbued gems use the same "socket" as attunement gems? ((As in, you can't socket a regular and imbued gem to the same piece of gear.)
     
    FrostII, FBohler and Elgarion like this.
  13. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Yup, that's the intended design and none of the combinations or orders I tested allow an item to be double socketed, so it seems to be working. The crating button lights up but it prompts a dialogue telling you it's already socketed.
     
    FrostII, Wilfred, Elgarion and 3 others like this.
  14. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    Some info on where to find the new Imbued attunement Gem/Jewel recipes, as well as the all important socketing recipes.
    [​IMG]
     
    Fox Blue, FrostII and Anpu like this.
  15. Bridge Troll

    Bridge Troll Avatar

    Messages:
    441
    Likes Received:
    841
    Trophy Points:
    55
    Location:
    New World
    Are all of the imbued gems only for attunements? No skill enhancements? As a bard, I don't cast much of anything requiring attunement.
     
    FrostII and FBohler like this.
  16. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Ugh, Well of Aldur? Dang.

    (Unless they can drop from things other than air elementals. Or the wyverns.)
     
    Asclepius, FrostII and FBohler like this.
  17. Gwendolyn Obscuro

    Gwendolyn Obscuro Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    594
    Likes Received:
    1,142
    Trophy Points:
    63
    These are only the craftable gems. Salvaging artifacts will also (very soon) give a chance at getting a gem. And I'm betting at least one of them turns out to be bard related. Those might come from salvaging instruments though, so they might not be in with the first set of gems.
     
  18. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    QA Build 1198:


    Imbued Gems and Jewels are In!
    And there's a ton of stuff to cover. I'll be editing this post and adding more in other posts but in the mean time I've clipped them names of the Gems/Jewels we've found and gone over the detailed stats of some of the ones I think folks will be most interested in. If the names of any others catch your eye let me know and I'll try to pull up the stats for you.

    Imbued Gems come from artifacts that would normally take a Gem as a socket, so weapons, shields, chest pieces etc. They all give +1 to an item, the rest is from the base materials used for the example pieces.
    [​IMG]

    Imbued Jewels come from everything else; boots, belts, gloves, helms, rings, necklaces, etc.
    [​IMG]



    Video clips of some of the more popular sets and their stats:

    Bandit Gear salvages into some good pieces, particularly the Weapon Damage gem from the chest. Poison effectiveness is worth a playing with, and the player scaling one is just fun. Bludgeon users might be rather interested in what's in their pants.

    Taming Gear is an interesting one. I don't see much use for the jewels that drop off the rings, and honestly most of these gems/jewels seem worse than even moderately leveled artifacts that you'd have to stop using. The Control Gem will be great for adding a bunch of taming stat in your weapons slot though, and heavy armor tamers are sure to put it in their chests.

    Base Combat Skills also get a nice boost that will affect auto attack and charge attack. This alone with return a lot of the power that some archers recently found missing.
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2021
    Sara Dreygon, Ysold, Anpu and 4 others like this.
  19. Cora Cuz'avich

    Cora Cuz'avich Avatar

    Messages:
    4,648
    Likes Received:
    7,614
    Trophy Points:
    153
    Location:
    Veritas Sanctuary
    Yeah, I was afraid that might be the case. Especially for things like rings, where salvaging for a jewel to socket into a crafted ring would probably be less desirable than just using the ring. Or leggings- you can't socket them (unless that's coming?) so you're better off just using the Bandit Leggings.

    Do we know yet if the arti gem slot is in addition to the attunement gem slot, or instead of?
     
    Sara Dreygon and FBohler like this.
  20. Coswald_Dirthmire

    Coswald_Dirthmire Bug Hunter

    Messages:
    713
    Likes Received:
    1,755
    Trophy Points:
    93
    QA Build 1198 (Continued):


    In general a lot of these gems and jewels won't be better than the artifacts they come from, at least not at Epic level, but they will allow you to take some of the stat from that artifact and also have it in other slots. For instance the move speed from a Lavaliere of the Lagomorph is best taken in the form of an epic artifact at +10%, but one can also add 3% to each ring slot for even more overall speed. There's a lot of potential here for some niche builds and convenient gear tied decks, letting you focus in on one aspect of a build in the places it makes sense.

    An example would be stacking the 20% Rend Damage gem on both weapons and perhaps even a chest, for a total of +60% Rend Damage. Coupled with sword masterworks this hits about 95% rend bonus and would be stellar against dragons that spend much of their time flying around, but if fighting unrendable undead one might well switch out their weapons and chest for something that gave strength or attack from behind bonus, for instance.

    Some of the gems force rather interesting decisions. There are gems that give lots of fire speed or fire time for instance, but they would force a huge attunement drop. They might be nice for chest pieces, but I do wonder if anyone will bother putting them in wands or staffs. Perhaps more attractive to folks running fire/melee builds?

    I've also made a quick overview of the summon gems from offhand items here:
     
    Last edited: May 22, 2021
    Ysold, Anpu, Fox Blue and 2 others like this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.