December 11, 2008

Update Notes (Frostfell!)

FROSTFELL

(12/11/08-1/05/09)

Happy Frostfell, Norrath! Gigglegibbers and Frostfell elves are busy celebrating the season in each player city with tasks and stories for everyone. And those that want an even more concentrated amount of Frostfell festivities are encouraged to enter the Frostfell Wonderland Village through the Magic Closets in Qeynos Harbor, West Freeport, Haven, Kelethin, Neriak and Gorowyn. Here you can gather presents to craft wondrous new Frostfell goodies, add to your collections while ducking snowballs, purchase new and classic Frostfell goods, and even assist Mr. McScroogle, Queen Bunny and the innocent Snarf Frostfoot with some important tasks. Don’t forget to log in each day and claim your extra-special Frostfell present from everyone’s favorite Frostfell Gigglegibber, Santa Glug!

ZONES

Moors of Ykesha
It should now be slightly easier to avoid the blood gorgers in the entry passage to Grobb, if you are careful.

ITEMS

The Talisman of the Ethernauts should now proc when casting beneficial spells.

Mutagenic Burst now stacks properly with other procs.

The Darkened Vitality proc on Dark Mail Gauntlets for priests now improves the base amount of wards.

The Talisman of the Ethernauts should now proc effects when casting both hostile and beneficial spells.

QUESTS

Those who are not able to destroy the upper catapult on “Shadow Odyssey, Chapter 6”, should now have an easier time of it.

RAIDS

Many adds associated with high level raid encounters are now immune to memory wiping effects.

Palace of the Awakened One
The void beasts Pentaclypse and Ultaclypse in Palace of the Ancient one will now respawn with their handlers.
Mynzak in Palace of the Ancient one has had his Elemental onslaught ability fixed so that it does less damage under most circumstances.

Palace of the Ancient One
Players encased in ice can no longer drag themselves or other players into the void flames during the Mynzak fight in Palace of the Ancient one.

GUILD HALLS

Level 69 guilds now properly can have a maximum of 24 amenities instead of 20.

BROKER

Fixed a bug causing house addresses to display on the broker for houses with upkeep due.

Nu’roga Nights

Yesterday was a fairly good day as far as leveling goes. I dusted off my swashbuckler and headed to The Mines of Meldrath in Steamfont. I used an experience potion from /claim and the levels were pretty fast, and before I knew it she hit level 52. I don’t have any cobalt clusters to make her some gear or weapons, but I’m hoping I can level to 60+ before that becomes too much of an issue. 

Afterwards it was time for the bruiser to get a little love, and I headed to an Everfrost TSO zone. The zone actually ended up being bugged, and no matter how many times me and my group attempted the third named, he would life tap to 100% health. Searching the forums came up with all sorts of other people with the exact same issue. Since we had just taken him down the day before I was a little annoyed that now he was bugged (expected fix: Next update) but there wasn’t much I could do about it last night. The bruiser did manage to get to level 54 though. Another character I’m trying to push through the dreaded 50’s.

So my group decided we would forgo the alts for the evening, and do a TSO instance that most of us (if not all of us) had never been to before. For me personally, that means 1 EF zone, 2 CL zones, 1 Lavastorm zone, 3 LP zones, 3 Moors zones, and the 3 zones in Fens of Nathsar. We decided to head to the Fens of Nathsar and explore Nu’roga. Friends had told us this zone could be solo healed, and said it was ‘medium’ on terms of difficulty. 

I’m not sure if it’s just because it was late, or if I was off on my game but DANG this was a hard zone. The group consisted of myself (warden), a shadowknight, ranger, assassin, dirge, and warlock. Since I was the only healer I really had to keep on my toes. The first named is a giant drake, and you have to pull him some what close to these two goblins who have stoneskin on. He casts a dispell, and he will dispell not only all of your buffs (and heals if they’re on someone) but he’ll also dispell the two goblins with stoneskin, so that you can attack them. We fought these guys (dying twice first) for 15 minutes before finding the spot to position the wyvern. If you fight him directly on top of the plat form, for some reason he doesn’t dispell. So we had to pull him a few feet away from the base of the platform every time we killed him. Long, hard fight and I’ve never healed so frantically as I did that encounter. 

The other named were all fairly easy, but there are not many of them. This zone is FILLED with trash that you have to clear, and they hit HARD. Typically I don’t see the hitpoints jump around as often as they did last night, spiking from one minute to the next. 

The loot was exceptionally abysmal. The stats seemed lower (it’s a required 80 zone and we got a ring that’s for level 77’s) then every other instance I’d been to, with +25 to most things, and +90 or even +70 to health and power with few effects. For the difficulty of the zone I’d say this is NOT worth it, and if it wasn’t for the fact that we did manage to get two void shards (quest + chest) along with a heritage quest update (cloak needs 12 shard drops from mobs) then I’d avoid it. There’s certainly no way I’m going back unless I really have to. 

By the time we finished it was bed. I believe today is when Frostfell goes live and I’m really looking forward to that. I should be spending some time in Vanguard today as well if all goes according to plan. I was going to play a little last night, but just wasn’t in the mood.