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Patch notes for Tuesday, November 11th - Altar of Malice

Source: EQII Forums

ALTAR OF MALICE
In the service of the monarchs, the bravest adventurers will journey across the mysterious Shattered Seas to face prehistoric deinodons, petite-yet-perilous pygmies, bone-armored lizard men, salty pirates, and other new, unseen creatures. While there are dangers on the waters, beware the grotesque, thickening plot hidden deep in the Kithicor Woods. It’s so malicious it could make even the undead’s skin crawl…

Features:

• Level 100 for Adventurers, Tradeskillers, and Guilds
• New Prestige Abilities to 100
• 15 Heroic zones
• 6 Raid zones
• 6 Advanced solo zones
• 2 Contested zones
• 2 Overlands
• 4 new Avatars of the Gods raids
• New Grandmaster spells
• Rare Ancient Spell scrolls
• Over 100 quests
• Tradeskill Quests and Recipes
• New PvP Gear
• Lots and lots of loot!
• Collect gem sets to give bonuses to armor

NEW PLAYABLE RACE - AERAKYN
Once the unwilling soldiers of the great Prismatic Dragon, Kerafyrm, the Aerakyn are now free from his thrall. Unable to return to their homelands, they seek to re-establish their culture on Norrath. Having been used as shock troops by Kerafyrm throughout the Age's End they are looked upon with suspicion by most Norrathians, but the Aerakyn are determined to prove their worth. They are a neutral race of seasoned warriors who may choose to align with Qeynos or Freeport.

Aerakyn options are available for purchase at the Character Select screen through the “Shop Now” button, during character creation, and through the in-game Marketplace. The Aerakyn purchase options are located under the “Prestige Races” category in our marketplace.


GENERAL

• Free members now have access to Chains of Eternity content.
• Experience rewards for all quests, including collections, level 95 or higher have been increased.
• Reduced the amount of experience required to level from 90 to 95.
• The Channeler class may now be purchased separately through the Marketplace.
• You can now sort items on a merchant by name, price or level by clicking at the top.
• A new option to disable automatic auto-attacks has been added to the Auto Attack Mode section of the Options menu in the Character window.
• Corrected an issue where the numbers displayed in the spell examine information for wards were not receiving the full benefits of ability modifier.
• Added texture quality options to the patcher's "Game Configuration" program.
• Extended chest looting range to 5 meters (up from 2 meters).

EQUIPMENT SETS
Equipment Sets are a new feature intended to simplify equipment management and remove the need for clunky equipment swapping macros.

Players may access Equipment Sets via the new Sets tab in the Equipment and Appearance sections of the Character window. A maximum of 20 Equipment Sets (10 Adventure/Tradeskill, 10 Appearance) can be created. Creating a new set will copy your existing gear to it. Equipment Sets can then be equipped via the "Equip" button in the Equipment Sets window or with the slash command /equip_equipment_set [0|1] "[Set Name]", where 0 is an adventure/tradeskill set and 1 is an appearance set.

Examples:
/equip_equipment_set 1 "Pretty in Pink" would equip an appearance set "Pretty in Pink" (and you know you are!).
/equip_equipment_Set 0 "Max DPS" would equip an adventure/tradeskill set named "Max DPS."

Items that are a part of an equipment set will display tooltip information indicating such and also have a background color to help prevent accidental obliteration.


SPELL FILTERING OPTIONS
A new feature, Spell Filtering, has been added. It can be found in the Options tab of the Persona window under the new Advanced Options section. By enabling this option, players will see a new option in the context menu when right-clicking a spell effect in the spell effects window: Hide Effect.

Hiding an effect will exclude it from being sent down to the client, because after a few years of hearing your Bard sing the same ol' tune, you probably don't *really* need to know if they're running their crit chance buff anymore as long as they’re getting those nice Victorious Concertos. Hidden effects will also be filtered from the maintained window, though any spell with a concentration cost will still appear, and hidden effects still appear in the target window. Furthermore, hidden effects do not count against the 45 max player effect icon limit or 30 max maintained icon limit.

Hidden effects can be managed by using the /hidden_effects command.
/hidden_effects list - Lists currently hidden effects along with an ID.
/hidden_effects delete [id] - Removes the specified effect from the list.
/hidden_effects clear - Removes all effects from the list.


HOUSING
Characters on an account now have trustee access to other houses on that account. This requires no action to take advantage of and the other characters will not appear in the access list.


POPULATION / ZONE PROGRESSION
General

• Experience rewards in many contested dungeons will be reduced for players over the intended level.
• Fixed a bug where some NPCs would not follow other NPCs like they should when out on patrol.

Qeynos

• Bartholomew Benson in Qeynos now has a voice more fitting his age.

Precipice of Power

• You can now access the Precipice of Power via the Arena of the Gods entrance within Freeport and Qeynos. This is where new Altar of Malice Avatars can be summoned.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT
General

• Wards now display the value to their caster in the combat log when they apply.
• Wards now gain the full effectiveness from Crit Bonus.

Beastlord

• Spirituality now increases Potency by 3% of the beastlord's base potency per rank.
• Feral Rampage now increases the beastlord's ability damage by 3% per rank. This behaves similar to the new mythical effect.
• Devour now can be cast on the move.
• Beastlord Warders now have 100% to their accuracy stat and 100% strikethrough. Their combat arts now have a higher accuracy and their spells cannot be resisted.
• Master of Beasts now increases outgoing combat art damage by 15% to targets below 90% health.

Channeler

• Construct's Interception no longer requires line of sight.
• Call Construct is now granted at level 15.

Fury

• Primeval Awakening no longer applies resurrection sickness.

Mage

• Runic Protection now properly increases stamina.

Wizard

• Frigid Gift and Frostsword now work with all types of damage.

Guardians

• Focused Offensive no longer doublecasts combat arts in PVP.

Bruiser

• Wild Beating now has a 10 meter radius.
• Shiftiness now deals damage and has the threat values increased.

Predator

• Impenetrable now grants immunity to strikethrough while active.

Scout

• Evade will now make the scout immune to riposte damage for 3 seconds.

Swashbuckler

• Maruader's Vaunt has been added to swashbucklers at level 96.

Warden

• Reincarnation will no longer apply resurrection sickness.

Prestige Abilities

• In Plain Sight is now 42% hate reduction.
• Bleedout has had its damage slightly increased.
• Hidden Assault has had its damage slightly increased.
• Wreak Havoc has had the damage bonus slightly increased.
• Strongarm has had its damage slightly increased.
• Mercy or Anger now reduces damage by 61%.
• Spinning Flurry's damage has been slightly increased.
• Utter Destruction's damage has been slightly increased.
• Chaos Cloud's damage and threat have been slightly increased.

TRADESKILLS

• A new tradeskill questline is now offered via in-game mail at tradeskill level 5. This questline will offer 1 quest every 10 levels up to 100 and rewards recipes for expendable utility items, as well as introducing new players to some game concepts and other tradeskill quest areas.
• Londiar now offers additional daily adorning writs.

ITEMS

• Equipped activatable items can now be placed in the spell queue.
• PvP Adornments will now work on a PvP Server, or a BG server, but will not apply their benefits on a PvE server.
• PvE Adornments will now work on a PvP Server, PvE server, but will not apply their benefits on a Battleground server.
• Uplifting Effects can now only be triggered by the wearer. The trigger chance is multiplied by the number of players in the wearer's raid. This change was made as part of server optimizations to reduce latency and increase gameplay performance.
• Uplifting Effects now include pets in the calculation for trigger chance.
• Mythical Cloaks from Plane of War can now only be used below level 96. Upgrades to select cloaks effects will be found within the Altar of Malice zones.

QUESTS

• Earn even more achievements for completing Signature quests!
• Learning to Let Go - The map marker for Hircus in Great Divide is now accurate.
• The Captive's Information - Vakiza Skinner is now located in Freeport, near the entrance to Big Bend, and the quest journal reflects her new location.
• The Captive's Information - Quest is now level 19 to reflect the level of the quest targets.
• The Captive's Information - Quest is now listed as "city of Freeport" category.
• The Captive's Information - Quest now has map regions marked.
• The Rift - Lu Sywaka's meditation focus stone is now removed from player's inventory if the quest is deleted.
• The Rift - Lu Sywaka's meditation focus stone now has a shortcut icon in the quest helper window.
• Time For a Garden Party - Thalbinous now remains spawned for 10 min.
• The Vessel of Fyr'Un - The Tome of the Vessel now has a shortcut icon in the quest helper window for the duration of the quest.
• The Relic of Health - Rewards Earring of the Long Rot, once again.
• The Relic of Sun - Rewards Ring of the Hearth Elders, once again.
• The Relic of Decay - Rewards Necklace of the Winter Seed, once again.
• The Relic of Growth - Rewards Seed of the Tenders, once again.
• The Relic of Ocean - Rewards Bracelet of the Green Mother, once again.
• The Relic of Underfoot - Rewards Oleander-Wrapped Belt, once again.
• The Relic of Sky - Rewards Ring of the Campfire, once again.
• The Blood Countess Rises - Quest has the intended reward choices, once again.
• Far Seas Requisition ENC0745 - giant spearfish now also update the quest.
• Fundraiser Two: Sewing a Sampler - Deputy Hopple now recognizes the "Tranquil Broadcloth Cap" and "broadcloth cap" as the cap he has requested.
• Vranala's Champion - Vranala in Vesspyr Isles now offers this quest, even to those that have already completed Vranala's Next Nest.
• Fearful Words - The Alliz Raef Ew in sinking sands now have a chance to drop the Thulian Puzzle Box.
• Words of a Giant - The Kromzek giants in Withered Lands and Kael Drakkel now have a chance to drop the Giant Idol.
• Sinking Sands Settler - The Pirate's Perch exploration region is now easier to trigger, no matter if you are on a mount or not.
• Becoming a Resident of Ro - Exposing the orb to fire is easier to trigger now, even if you are on a mount.
• A Mysterious Trinket - Assassinating Ekner Darkblade, Rid Jestands, Yulessia Nybright, and Rollus the Sly should now update the quest, whether a mercenary is assisting you, or not.

Ann "Cyliena" Hosler, Managing Editor