EverQuest 2 Game Update Blog

Amnerys has posted the complete Game Update Notes for Game Update 58: Arcanum Revealed on the EQ2 Forums.

Here they are after the break:

ZRAXTH’S UNSEEN ARCANUM

• Before his death, High Shaman Zraxth meddled in dark magics, spiritual and arcane.  The secrets he discovered and the planar forces that he tapped into should have been lost forever within his tower upon his death. Those who are attuned to spiritual forces are now having visions of a sinister power trying to force its way into Norrath, from somewhere hidden deep within the hallows of Guk. Now you must travel to the Ruins of Guk, and challenge what lurks inside the Unseen Arcanum.
• Zraxth’s Unseen Arcanum is a single group heroic zone that has the choice of either normal or challenge mode for players of level 90.

SPELL FX REVAMP

• Based on player feedback many of the spell visuals have been updated.
• Many sounds have been restored to what you had before the revamp.  Dirges and Troubadors should sound much more familiar now as well as Priest healing spells and buffs.
• Many of the casting and combat animations have been restored.  The issue where the weapons were sheathing and unsheathing during casting should now be fixed.
• Fixed an issue with entering and exiting stealth on all classes.  It should now be more visually obvious when stealth breaks and when entering stealth.
• Lifetaps, mana taps, etc should no longer incorrectly show the damage portion on the caster.
• Fixed all Wards, Roots, Mezz, Slow, Fear and Stun FX to show for the duration of the spell.  These FX should now be big enough for all to see.  Also, it should now be more obvious when a root or mezz breaks as the FX will turn off at the right moments.
• Some specific updates include but are not limited to:
  • Dirge:  Notes will now persist on “Death’s Door”.
  • Troubador: Notes will now persist on “Daelis’ Dance of Blades”.
  • Wizard:  “Fusion” and “Ro’s Blade” have been restored to their former glory.
  • Conjuror:  Updated “Earthquake” to be more unique looking than “Shattered Earth”.
  • ShadowKnight: “Grave Sacrament” will look and sound much more familiar.
  • Warlock:  “Rift” now has a more shadow/void look.

NEW MOUNT FEATURES!

• It’s now easier to manage your collection of mounts from within the Character Window (C)!
  • Mounts can be stored in their own dedicated inventory window and newly acquired mounts will go here automatically (there is a ‘Mount’ tab on the bottom of the Character Window).
  • Drag any mount to the “Equipped” or “Appearance” mount slot.
  • Summoning a mount will now use the effects from the Equipped slot but apply the appearance from the Appearance slot.
  • There’s a new “Summon Mount” ability in your Knowledge Window as well as the bottom of the ‘Mount’ tab, which may be dragged to your hotbar.
  • There are also new achievements to reward you for expanding your collection of mounts!
  • To better display the name and type of mounts that will be appearing in the mount window, many of the items have been renamed to be more concise.

PLAYER HOUSING

• You will not be able to purchase and move into a new house if the total number of items you are bringing (old house item count + number of items in old moving crate) is more than the total number of items the new house can hold (new house item limit + new house crate limit).
• You will no longer be able to place or move items in your house if your moving crate is overloaded. Take items out of the crate until it is back down to its limit to be able to place and move items again.
• Outdoor areas have been added to the following housing layouts:
  • Neriak: 2 Walk of the Dead and 3 Walk of the Dead
  • Kelethin: Aerie Kolmas and Aerie Amree
  • Gorowyn: Timorous Heights and Gorowyn Heights
  • Halas: Manors of Erollisi and Manors of Mithaniel
  • Maj’Dul: Affluent Maj’Dul Residence and Large Maj’Dul Residence
  • Freeport: 1 Compassion Road, 3 Compassion Road, 5 Compassion Road, 7 Compassion Road, 1 Integrity Road, 1 Freedom Road, 2 Freedom Road, and 1 Justice Road
  • Qeynos: 2 Bayle Court, 4 Bayle Court, 5 Erollisi Lane, 8 Erollisi Lane, and 5 Karana Court
• The houses now have a higher allowed house item count.

BETRAYAL

• Spells above apprentice are now preserved after betraying in the following situations:
  • Betraying to a different class:
    • Shared spells will retain upgrades
    • All new spells will start as apprentice
  • Betraying back to original class:
    • Shared spells will retain upgrades
    • Any spells that were upgraded before betrayal will remain
  • Betraying to the same class:
    • No spell upgrades will be lost

PVP UPDATES!

OPEN PVP

• Warfields are now tiered!
  • Participants should visit Antonica (10-39), Enchanted Lands (40-69) or Kylong Plains (70+) to test their might!
  • Participants must now defend and attack within each Warfield.
  • Participants will need to destroy the enemy towers to win. (6 Tokens)
  • Failure to defeat the towers will result in a draw.  (3 Tokens)
  • Failure to defend the towers will result in a loss.  (2 Tokens)
  • Event will continue to spawn every two hours and run for 30 minutes unless one team is victorious.

PVP USER INTERFACE

• Targeting a PvP target will no longer open the grouping tutorial window.

PVP GENERAL

• Attacking a RED con player will now place you under Carnage.
• All zones are now set to an 8 level PvP range.
• With the exception of a few quest hubs, all other zones will now be immunity free.   Anyone that zones in or spawns in our 8 level range areas will no longer have infinite immunity.
• A timer of 60 seconds will count down and players will need to fight or flight from now on.
• Starting Cities and corresponding starting zones are now aligned to their ruling faction and will “carnage” flag enemies.
• The time and distance before you are out of combat has been doubled in PvP.

PVP MERCHANTS

• Scion of War (Open PvP) armor merchant will now display all wearable armor within your level range. This includes armor that is focused for another class, but wearable by you.
• New weapons and accessories are available via the Scions of War.

PVP ITEMS

• Novice of Discord set bonuses are now No Modify and the ward regenerates for less each round.
• “Mutilate” and “Mangle” will last 10 seconds and will continue to stack with similar effects from different casters and are curable.

PvP WRITS

• PvP Writ rewards are now tiered based on levels.
• PvP Writs will now grant the following number of tokens:
  • T2 = 1 token
  • T3 = 1 token
  • T4 = 2 tokens
  • T5 = 2 tokens
  • T6 = 3 tokens
  • T7 = 3 tokens
  • T8 = 4 tokens
  • T9 = 4 tokens
  • T10 = 5 tokens

PVP ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• Toughness has been changed to 30% damage reduction at max skill and will continue to provide PvP Critical Mitigation.
• The skill cost to reach max Toughness has also increased by 50% at all tiers.

Defiler

• “Mail of Souls” now has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.
• “Mail of Souls” no longer shows a duration.

Druids

• “Tunare’s Grace” now only cures one effect of each type in PVP Combat and has a 40 second reuse.

Fury

• “Abolishment” has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.

Inquisitor

• “Resolute Flagellant” has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.

Mystic

• “Ancestral Balm” now has a 16 second reuse in PVP Combat.
• “Ebbing Spirit” now has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.
• “Ebbing Spirit” no longer shows a duration.

Templar

• “Cleansing of the Soul” now only cures one effect of each type in PVP Combat and has a 40 second reuse.
• “Devoted Resolve” now has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.

Warden

• “Verdant Whisper” has a 40 second reuse in PVP Combat.
• “Tranquility” now has a 120 second reuse and heals for less in PVP Combat.

BATTLEGROUNDS UPDATES!

• Season 2 begins!  New weapons and accessories are available via the Sisters of War.
• A huge change for Season 2 is the consolidation of the Ganak, Gears and Smuggler’s tokens into a single Battleground Token.   The Sisters of War have each taken the duty of exchanging your old token at a 1:1 ratio.   In addition, the items previously sold for multiple currencies are now priced to accept the new Battleground Token.
• The Scions of Discord have taken over the duties from the various battleground faction representatives and will now have players complete battle specific challenges, once per day.   Players may do one kill count and one victory condition quest per day and it will grant a battleground token once completed.   Players can also start participating in these challenges starting at level 30.

BATTLEGROUNDS GENERAL

• Gears of Klak’Anon’s Relic will now place you in combat when held.
• Ruins of Ganak Flags will now place you in combat when held.
• Smuggler’s Den victory condition has been reduced from 1500 to 1250 points.
• Attacking a player in a BG will pull that player into combat.
• Fixed an issue where a groupmate’s icon was still visible after that groupmate left the group.

BATTLEGROUNDS MERCHANTS

• The Sister of War (Battleground) will now display all wearable armor within your level range.  This includes armor that is focused for another class, but wearable by you.
• New weapons and accessories are available via the Sisters of War.

COMBAT

• The stat “Double Attack” has been changed to “Multi Attack”.
• Multi Attack has been capped to 100%.

USER INTERFACE

• [Fan Faire feedback] You can now specify chat channel colors for up to 20 channels.
• [Fan Faire feedback] You may now define up to 40 custom chat channels and they will be stored between sessions.
• [Fan Faire feedback] The Leader-Only loot dropdown box is now sorted alphabetically by player name.
• [Fan Faire feedback] The trade window has now been expanded to allow for the trade of up to 12 items at a time.
• The Options window now supports Basic/Advanced mode (toggled by a button in the upper-right corner of the Options UI).
  • Many options have been flagged as “advanced” and will no longer be displayed when the options window is in “basic” mode.
• We made a few modifications to the character window for stats.
  • There is now a fourth button that has tradeskill stats and general information.
  • The second button was moved into two buttons.
• We’ve introduced a new “Currency” tab within the Character window.
  • All in-game currency items can now be stored in this window instead of filling up your bags and bank space.
• You can now click the detriment icons in the player window, group window or raid window to attempt to cure those conditions.
  • New command /cureplayer [playername|group or raid position][trauma|arcane|noxious|elemental|curse] optional [spell|potion]
    • Example: /cureplayer g0 noxious spell
      • Will attempt to cure yourself of a noxious detriment with only spells and without using potions (even if you have them).
    • Example: /cureplayer r4 noxious
      • Will attempt to cure the character in raid slot 4 of a noxious detriment using a spell or potion (whichever is available).
  • When using potions, the highest level tradeskilled potion in your inventory will be used first. This works with all tradeskilled potions.
  • The abilities Cure Spell, Cure Arcane, Cure Elemental, Noxious Cleansing and Cure Curse work with click to cure and the /cureplayer command.
• Your Target and Implied Target windows will now display the casting activity of NPC targets.
• You can no longer place items on the broker for 0 copper.
• The left side of the quest window now properly updates when a quest is ready to hand in.
• When sorting the quest journal by zone the current zone will be highlighted in gold.
• Chat bubbles above characters’ heads will now be restored after using the /loadui command.
• You can now search for items on the Marketplace by name.
• Changed the mini-map to show the player indicator and orientation even when no map is available for compass functionality.
• Inventory bag windows will now always anchor to the center of the screen so they will remain positioned relative to each other when the main window resizes.

GENERAL

• Default performance settings on new installations should now be more accurate based on your computer’s capabilities.

STREAMING CLIENT

• Fixed an issue where the client locks up when the asset server cannot be contacted.

ABILITIES / ALTERNATE ADVANCEMENT

• [Fan Faire feedback] Fixed an issue where some high end de-taunts like evade were giving hundreds of thousands of points of de-taunt when they should only be giving 2000 to 5000-ish.
• AAs that modify spells cast on others, such as the Dirge’s “Enhance: Dead Calm”, now properly modify the buffs cast on others in your group or raid.
• Cure curse will no longer be used if the target does not have a curse to cure.

Brigand

• [Fan Faire Feedback] Advancement Abilities can now be applied with “Double Up”.
• When doubling up on Barroom Negotiation you will no longer hit yourself.

Clerics

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Steadfast” can’t be dispelled randomly.

Coercer

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Possess Essence” can now be cast on bosses and named NPCs.

Crusaders

• “Holy Steed” and “Unholy Steed” now grant 25% run speed.

Defiler

• “Mail of Souls” no longer shows a duration.

Druid

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Serenity” can now be cast while stifled.

Illusionist

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Time Warp” now has a 120 second reuse and applies to the group.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Time Warp Preparation” no longer uses the same icon as “Time Warp”.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Time Warp” now uses a slightly different icon.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Arms of Imagination” now grants 1% Flurry per rank as well as the 4% AE Auto-Attack.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Personae Reflection” has 20% more health and has higher magical mitigation.

Mystic

• “Ebbing Spirit” no longer shows a duration.

Necromancer

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Undead Horde” can no longer be dispelled.
• “Siphoning of Souls III” should now grant the correct souls.

Priests

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Wrath” has had its power cost drastically reduced.

Rogues

• [Fan Faire Feedback] Wisdom line:

• • First Ability: “Deft Disarm” deals small damage and decreases the target’s strength and wisdom.
  • Second Ability: “Lunge Reversal” deals damage to the target when the Rogue is deflected, blocked, riposted or parried. It will also inflict damage when the rogue parries or ripostes. The refresh is 15 seconds.
  • Third Ability: “Remarkable Mobility” grants the Rogue a chance to Multi-Attack.
  • Fourth Ability: “Coule” is a frontal attack that reduces accuracy and melee damage of the target.
• Strength line:
  • Fourth Ability: “Traumatic Swipe” now reduces a small amount of potency as well as reuse time.

Warden

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Infuriating Thorns” can now be cast on the Warden.

Troubador

• [Fan Faire Feedback] “Requiem of Reflection” now lasts for two minutes when it triggers.
• Benefits from AAs that enhance “Aria of Magic”, “Elemental Concerto”, “Arcane Symphony” and “Ballad of Warding” now properly apply to group members.

Dirge

• Benefits from AAs that enhance “Dead Calm”, “Cacophony of Blades” and “Noxious Symphony” should apply properly to group members.

Bards

• “Victorious Concerto” can critically hit once again.

VITALITY

• Vitality will no longer be lost when you reach max level.
• Players at max level will accrue and use vitality as normal. The vitality bonus at max level will increase the amount of XP that is converted into AA XP.

TRADESKILLS

• [Fan Faire Feedback] Carpenter tradeskill writs now only ask for items that are made on the woodworking table.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] Adorning merchants in Butcherblock Mountains and Kelethin now sell Transmuting Dilutions recipes which allow the conversion of higher quality transmuting components into lower quality products.
• The Adorning daily quest now works off your actual skill not your modified skill.
• Woodworkers and their customers rejoice!  Woodworkers can now make totems that stack up to 100 in your inventory.  (Old totems that already existed remain unchanged.)
• The tinkered items Call of the Tinkerer, Repository of Construction, and Heart Stopper devices are now usable by anyone of the required level, tradeskill OR adventurer (formerly they were adventure level only).
• Tradeskill fuels are now named more consistently to make them easier to remember and to find on merchants.
• All crafted ammo (arrows, throwing knives, etc.) now stacks to 200 for more storage convenience.
• Neriak now has more clipboards available in the crafting area for picking up tradeskill writs.
• Failing to counter an event while tinkering now only produces an actual explosive fireball for the more major failures, instead of any failure.
• Tinkered fireworks now have a lower fuel cost to make.
• Jewelers now have recipes for necklaces in the level 10 and 20 ranges.
• Dusts used by alchemists to make potions and poisons now indicate which level range they are for.
• Danak Wishbone and Riliss Chicken Foot are now flagged ‘lore equip’ so that crafters may use one and sell others.
• Far Seas Supply Chain and Tools of the Trade buffs now properly increase the amount of progress and durability gained by the percentage specified and should be more helpful than they were before.
  • These only increase the gain, and have no effect if you lose durability or progress in a tradeskill round.
  • These effects increase the gain from tradeskill abilities such as Varnish and bonus progress you get from a success or critical success!

GUILDS

• The required experience for guild levels has had its progression smoothed out; “hell levels” have been removed.

AMENITIES

• [Fan Faire Feedback] The crafting supply depot amenity can now hold up to 200 unique items.
• Guild Hall Mailboxes can now be set to the Paineel style.

POPULATION

Willow Wood

• [Fan Faire Feedback] Banker Deephathom no longer chastises you about loans.

Greater Faydark

• Kurista has become the new High Priestess of Growth! She can be found in the same building Eva Corunno’thes occupied in Kelethin.
• Ambassador Gibrien Marsden [Change of Citizenship] & Derek Travllor [Qeynosian Emissary] have been moved from Green Knoll to Near Residential Aerie in Kelethin.

QUESTS

Kingdom of Sky

• Many quests in the Kingdom of Sky now also reward house items.  If you have already completed these quests and would like the house items, you can visit Drednever faction merchant Ellywig at the Drednever Crash Site, or acquire one from a friend (they are fully tradeable).

Butcherblock Mtns

• The Yarpsnarls: There should be significantly more Yarpsnarl lookouts found within the zone.
• Teir’Dal Timber: Quest now allows players to harvest or buy/trade severed ash. Quest requirements have also been reduced.
• Fletch Me More!: Quest now accepts feathers from any type of Kragploom aviak found in the Butcherblock Mountains.

Pillars of Flame

• Shu Fang Qi now offers the quest “Sandscrawler Debacles” to New Halas citizens.

EVENTS

• [Fan Faire Feedback] The City Festival specialty merchant now has doors in stock!  A different one will be sold in each city.
• [Fan Faire Feedback] More tiles are available from some of the enchanted grottos that appear on the 20th of each month!
• [Fan Faire Feedback] There is now a token exchange merchant located in Stonebrunt Highlands who will sell you Floret of Growth tokens in exchange for old prelude event coin.
• The Druid Ring reconstruction event has been completed! Tunarian token merchants will remain at the rebuilt Druid Rings so that players can spend any excess Florets of Growth.

ITEMS

• [Fan Faire Feedback] All Hua Mein illusion weapons can now be used by any class.
• All newbie areas have been reitemized with a focus on what is important for classes to focus on at those levels.
• Erudin, Vasty Deep, and The Hole instances all have a chance to spawn a rare named with new items.
• New Items have been added to Erudin, Vasty Deep, and The Hole instance boss loot tables.
• Scavanator should now drop T2 helms.
• Aviak Lore & Legend items now drop from all bird-men everywhere, not just the ones in Kingdom of Sky zones.
• Fixed issues with “Call of the Veteran” giving “in combat” errors.
• Proc effects from set bonuses that were flagged as “cannot be modified by direct means” and “cannot crit” will now properly not be modified and properly not crit.
• Standard level 80+ mastercrafted jewelry is now equipable at level 82.
• Orc petrified eye illusion should now remain while mounted, swimming and climbing.
• Fixed an issue where the author of a player-written book would not be able to edit his books after a server move.
• The “Ring of Rage” now reduces healing by half rather than preventing the user from being able to heal at all.
• The house item versions of the “Mysterious Black Tome”, “Mysterious Red Tome”, and “Mysterious Green Tome” are now actually colored black, red, and green.  Mysteriousness levels remain unchanged.
• The “Gorowyn Destrier”, “New Halasian Courser”, “Kelethin Courser”, and “Neriak Destrier” can now be purchased from city mount merchants by adventurers that have already completed the quests which now reward them.
• The “Shadeshire Cap” can now be equipped by all mages.
• The “Ethereal Tabard” now has slightly more appropriate stats for a mage item.
• The “Earring of the Solstice” can now be used while moving.
• The “Gnomish Parachute Pack”, “Call of the Tinkerer”, “Repository of Reconstruction”, “Heart Stopper” devices and tinkered “Message in a Bottle” can now be used at level 5.
• Magma armor molds from Lavastorm now stack to 200 and are heirloom.
• Limited charge petamorph wands have been removed from the Station Marketplace and replaced by an unlimited charge version.  If you currently have a limited charge version wand in your inventory, you will also find it has been upgraded to the new uncharged version.
• “Impact” should now proc correctly.
• Fixed a bug with player-written book text not saving correctly in some situations.
• Aviak mastery items now drop from all bird-men everywhere, not just the ones in Kingdom of Sky zones.
• “Consuming Auras” will now work with the mythical spell activated.
• 110% experience bonus potions now give the full 110% experience bonus.
• Tinkered feign death items now share their own unique reuse timer and should no longer interfere with the adorning tradeskill arts.

MERCHANTS

• Sublime 2-handed weapons have been added to the Arad merchant.
• A new Trader of Arad named Krin’Jilna sells T4 armor in Sundered Frontier.
• Bad’Ushra now sells stat items for the head, legs, chest, and hand slot.
• Numahiid sells 2 new items.

GREATER FAYDARK

• The Crushbone orcs are threatening the city of Kelethin!  Adventurers traveling through Sapling Spur Outpost and Green Knoll are being recruited to help save the mighty city.
• Spire Shadow Outpost was forced to move close to the Lower Emerald River due to a pack of kobolds that has moved in from Steamfont.  Adventurers are being sought to help remove this threat.
• Adventurers within The Nursery will once again find harvestable resources available.
• New named creatures have been added to Greater Faydark to bring it more in line with other newbie areas.
• Respawn times on pre-existing named have been standardized.

DARKLIGHT WOOD

• New named creatures have been added to Darklight Wood to bring it more in line with other newbie areas.
• Respawn times on pre-existing named have been standardized.

TIMOROUS DEEP

• New named creatures have been added to Timorous Deep to bring it more in line with other newbie areas.
• Respawn times on pre-existing named have been standardized.

NEW HALAS

• Level 10 den harvesting nodes are now more common in New Halas.

NORTH FREEPORT

• A new group of enchanters are conducting class outside the Academy of Arcane Science.  Witnesses report seeing banned forms of Illusionary magic being practiced openly!

SOUTH FREEPORT

• The Red Hoods have been allowed to set up a training area in South Freeport, the Overlord expects these Rangers to be shown the same respect as other members of the Freeport militia.

NORTH QEYNOS

• Per decision of the Celestial Watch, Coldian Inquisitors are permitted to train young clerics in the use of more martially focused divine practices.  An area near the Temple of Life has been set aside for their use.

SOUTH QEYNOS

• Warning: Reports of a frolicking ogre are being reported near the Tower of the Magi.   Adventurers are advised to avoid the area until the incident has been resolved.

SUNDERED FRONTIER

• The Duality of Al’Kabor and Dartain has been seen within the Odus city of Paineel, to continue his research into the prophecy known as Age’s End.  He is looking for brave adventurers to assist him with his investigation into the mystery of the runes on the surface of the Chelsith Stone, and to help him finally begin put together the pieces of that ancient prophecy.

BUTCHERBLOCK

• Travelers in Butcherblock Mountains should find that the availability of harvests is much improved.

DEATHTOLL

• There is no longer an access quest requirement to enter Deathtoll.
• You no longer need to have the Marked Flameshield of Scale in order to deactivate the flame machine in the first tunnel in Deathtoll.

PALACE OF ROEHN THEER

• Crossing the bridge to Roehn Theer’s platform should no longer prove fatal.

NEST OF THE GREAT EGG

• Killing Nutty or Switch will now allow anyone in the instance to activate the lift to the Chamberlain. You no longer need to have the key on your person. This should also continue to work if players leave the zone and come back.

UNDERFOOT DEPTHS

• Many bosses in the Underfoot Depths now have “Flawless Victory” and “Shorthanded Victory” achievements!

EVERQUEST II EXTENDED

• Bronze and Silver members can now equip the Highland Stalker mounts.
• Bronze and Silver members can now properly select AAs.