In our July patch we made quite a few changes… and here’s an explanation from the dev team talking about what’s happening since the last patch:

Damage Shield Changes 

Damage shields have always been kind of weird.  They've never reported how much damage they're doing to you, and though there are technically different types of damage shields, their messages weren't all that informative.  Environmental damage, like from lava or falling, was lumped in with damage shields, for some reason.  Here's what we did to change Damage Shields, Mark effects (reverse damage shields), and Feedback spell messaging: 

  • We created new chat filters, with user-assignable colors, so that you can filter or hide environmental damage happening to you or to others now.
  • We created new chat filters, with user-assignable colors, so that you can filter or hide damage shield messages that apply to you or others now.
  • You can now see the damage that is done to you by a damage shield on your target.
  • You can now see the damage that is done to someone else that hits you.
  • If you're near someone with a damage shield, you can see the damage done to people who hit that person.
  • While the differences in damage shield types (fire, cold, magic, etc) were mainly for flavor, the damage messages from them weren't consistent.  The messages are now in a consistent format that say what the damage type was and how much damage was dealt.

 

Damage shields still count as "environmental" damage -- that is, there is no attributed owner.  Damage shields also all combine into one "hit" for reporting purposes, so if someone has a fire shield and thorns the damage will be combined and the message you get (burnt or pierced) will depend on which buff is earliest on your target. 

The one mechanical change we made was to classify damage shield damage as magical non-melee damage for the purposes of damage absorption.  Spell Guard effects (Aegis of Satum, Aegis of Gordianus, Legion of Lucem), Runes, Spell Threshold Guards, and spells that convert damage to mana will protect you from damage shields, Mark effects, and feedback spells instead of Melee Guard effects. 

Your Spell Did Not Take Hold 

If you've ever tried to buff someone else, you've received that message.  With this update, spells that do not land on your target due to an existing spell will now report the name of the spell that blocked it. 

  • Your Certitude spell did not take hold. (Blocked by Surety Rk. III.) 

The benefits are pretty obvious here, but mainly it lets you be accurate when yelling at someone who doesn't think they have a blocking buff up.

Proc Stacking 

Previously, any spell proc or melee proc could only fire once per round, regardless of the total chance for those procs to occur, and regardless of the number of effects that were present.  This meant that in many cases, adding several procs could reduce the overall chance for the most desirable proc to fire. 

Now both spell procs and melee procs are rolled independently, and multiple effects can be triggered at once.  This means that you can freely add as many lines of proc spells as you like and all of them have their individual chances to fire.  A single melee swing can trigger both a weapon proc and a Spirit of the Puma proc.  A single spell can trigger a Sympathetic Burst and a Sympathetic Alleviating Burst. 

Stacking Lines 

We now have the ability to specify "lines" of spells and use their position within that line to determine whether they stack or not.  For example, Mana Reiteration and Mana Reciprocation are both parts of the Mana Flare stacking group, and higher ranks of that group will overwrite lower ranks.  When you inspect a spell within a stacking group, it will display the name of its group and its rank. 

Spell Critical Chance and Critical Damage 

Spell Critical Chance and Spell Critical Damage were, in the past, controlled by a single spell effect type.  Having these two important effects on the same spell caused many problems with buff and debuff interactions, and the fact that only the best amount of critical damage was usable at once meant that many spells or AAs were simply ignored. 

Spell Critical Chance remains calculated in the same way and we did not change any data related to it, apart from removing the Critical Damage portion of the data. 

We moved Spell Critical Damage to its own spell effect and changed how it is computed.  It's no longer "best only," but it is now cumulative. 

The old way critical damage was handled was as follows:

  • 0 meant no critical damage, 100 is "the same," anything over 100 is a bonus.
  • Only the best modifier from AAs was added, and only the best modifier from spells was added.
  • Black Wolf had a crit damage value of 200, which meant it added 100% to your critical damage if you had no AA modifiers.  With AA modifiers, it would actually add 200%. 

The new way critical damage is handled is as follows:

  • 100% is the base inherent critical damage modifier.  The new SPA is now strictly a modifier to this number.
  • Values below 0 mean less critical damage, 0 is "the same," and anything above 0 is a bonus.
  • All modifiers stack (assuming they are in different slots).  This means you get the bonus from Fury of Magic added to Spell Casting Fury Mastery and Spell Casting Fury.  If you have multiple spells active, they add up as well.
  • To compensate for the "extra" 100% that used to be added when you had both a spell and an AA modifier active, we have added a 100% modifier to Spell Casting Fury.
  • Black Wolf has a crit damage value of 100, which means it adds 100% to your critical damage.  This can now stack with other active buffs, or you can time your buffs for maximum effect as you did before. 

Here's the upshot of the change:

  1. We can now add spells that simply change your critical chance without affecting how much damage you do.  We couldn't do that before.
  2. We can now add spells that modify the damage you do on a critical spell hit, adding to or subtracting from your damage in a cumulative way.
  3. You can stack up all of your critical damage modifiers at once and do massive crit damage, or spread them out to extend a lower amount of crit damage. 


But Wait, There’s More! 

Of course, these aren’t the only changes from the last patch, and you can find a full list in the July Patch Notes found here. We update EverQuest every month, and we strive to improve YOUR gameplay experience. We’re grateful for the feedback you provide us, and your continued support!