Throughout the week, Merloc receives questions from various places and answers as many as he can. He wanted to start sharing some of his answers with everyone else so that he wouldn't have to repeat himself.

Here's the fourth edition of Q & A from Merloc's Tower.

Q: I have the TBS Vendor Gloves, and the TSS Raid arms. Both have a pet focus, with the TBS one obviously being superior. However, whenever I have both equipped, the TSS focus takes precedence over the TBS focus, making me unequip my TSS arms to get my desired effect. Look into this if you can, please.

A: I talked with Prathun, and that should be fixed with the next update.

Q: I still find Bloody Ancille's Pouch is summoning 20 Arrows each click. Could you please update this item to summon 100 arrows?

A: There is a component requirement to the Transmute Hunter's Barbs, so I won't be changing this spell.

Q: I've been killing Slitherer in Silyssar that supposedly should drop an aug, but after getting named to pop like 30 times with only shoulder drops, I'm thinking that's beyond bad luck.

A: The augment is the rare drop with 25 percent drop rate; I tested it to make sure. It seems like some really bad luck, there's about a .02 percent chance that it wouldn't have dropped for you after 30 kills.

Q: Could you please clarify your plans regarding purity augs (type 13/14):
  1. Are you going to add some means of safely removing them (rather that destroying)?

  2. Will there be more infusible raid items in SoF?

  3. If so, then will the purity augs from Katta work with SoF items?

A: Here's a clarification:
  1. No, the augments from Katta Vendors will only be able to be removed by destroying them. In the future I plan to add some rare type 13 / 14 augments that drop from content that can be safely removed with distillers.

  2. Yes, there will be infusible armor from raid and single group content in the future.

  3. Yes, the purity augments should be usable in future infusible armor.

Q: Why can't clicky auras be used while an aura is already up?

A: There is a code limitation, mainly due to resource requirements, that limits auras to one per player.

Q: Why is the Sporali Familiar being poofed by malo?

A: There is a stacking issue with Malo. I've made some changes to the spell that should fix the problem.

Q: Can you replace the Faerune on my helm with a different focus that is more useful.

A: In terms of value, Faerune is very low on the scale... and it's not actually a focus effect, it's a worn effect. An item can have a worn effect, a focus effect, and a click effect that all function. It's a common misconception that a particular spell effect 'takes the spot' of another on the item, which isn't generally the case.

Q: Why aren't Paladins on Haunting Ruby Amulet or Tattered Cryptrobber's Cloak.

A: Specifically, those items are Melee DPS classes, which does not include Paladins or Shadow Knights. Since class usability is essentially at the lowest level of itemization, even though it's essentially arbitrary, it's not something that is usually changed.

Q: I have a Serpent Seeker's Charm of Lore, my raid augment which is type 8 and works in charm slot will not go on it.

A: There is no way to make a slot accept multiple augment types. The charm slot is not a standard slot that most augments fit in, so it is slightly harder to find an augment that works with it... That was taken into consideration when the charm was created, and I don't plan to make any changes to the charm.

Q: Why does Buckler of Corruption have 2 avoidance?

A: That was a mistake. I've changed the 2 avoidance to the 2 dot shielding that was intended.

Q: Is Gali Vertebra meant to be socket type 7 only?

A: Yes, some augments are specifically meant to be type 7 only, even though they might be desirable to place in equipment with type 8 sockets.

Keith "Merloc" Turkowski
EQ Designer - Items