Finally Mythic have listened...

[swords]

Mercenary Changes

- The Mercenary Dirty Tricks special ability is now on a 7 minute re-use timer (it was previously set to 30 minutes), and has changed in effect. It now activates a 30 second offensive proc effect on the Mercenary that applies a 10 second debuff on the Mercenary's target every time it is hit. This debuff gives the target a 50% chance to fumble all their melee attacks while under the debuff's effect.

- The damage for both styles in the Flank -> Shadow's Rain combat style chain has been increased for Mercenaries only (Infiltrators are not affected).

- Increased bleed damage for Dual Wield combat styles Dark Tendrils and Dual Shadows. This is a Mercenary ONLY change - other classes that receive Dual Wield will not see increased bleed effects on these styles.
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Blademaster Changes

- The Blademaster Triple Wield special ability has been updated. It is now on a 7 minute re-use timer (it was previously set to 30 minutes). It now will stack properly with other damage adds - it will always increase damage no matter what other buffs or damage adds are currently affecting the Blademaster. Triple Wield also now makes Blademasters immune to critical melee damage.

- The Ice Storm -> Tempest -> Supernova chain has been modified for Blademasters only (i.e. Rangers and Nightshades are not affected by this). The damage for each has been increased, and Ice Storm now has a short stun component.

- Increased bleed damage for Celtic Dual combat styles Tempest and Twin Star. This is a Blademaster ONLY change - other classes that receive Celtic Dual will not see increased bleed effects on these styles.
********************************************

the style changes are a very welcome addition, and the bleed dmg actually makes it more viable to spec 50 CDW.

What are your thoughts on the special abilities of each class?
They changed the Merc one dramatically i believe as now were able to fling dirt like a loon for 30 seconds at more than one target. also the resists will still likely be a bitch but with a fast pair of weapons you get a chance to proc every hit so it's likely to stick now.
also 7 min timer in line with the Zerkers Vendo ability which always puzzled me...

the BM change now makes their ability work better than before but im unsure about this 'Triple Wield also now makes Blademasters immune to critical melee damage.'
This totally negates the Bezerkers ability, in effect BM's now have a negate Zerker ability

I just hope if this goes live i actually remember to use Dirty tricks more in rvr instead of waiting an eternity....

 

[Kagato.]

Styles changes etc seem all positive, and indeed so do the special ability changes, but the ability changes AND the reduction to a 7 minute timer seem a touch to far, it makes it a very frequent very powerful ability, specially in the case of DT as mentioned above you can spam it on as many different people that you can hit in 30 seconds (potentially alot for a fast weapon dual weilder). And the BM ability effectively makes them immune to the zerker ability lol.

Early stages yet though, be interesting to see if it makes it to the final patch unchanged.

 

[Tigerius]

Can you say Shield spec Mercenary defensive tank with Dirty Tricks and Prevent Flight as caster protector?

 

[old.Wildfire]

=====================================

Dark Age of Camelot

Test Version 1.62c Release Notes

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

=====================================

1.62c is a few changes that were still being tested by our Product Quality department when 1.62b went live. These changes have now all been tested and verified, so without further ado, here is 1.62c.


NEW THINGS AND BUG FIXES

- All of the craft recipe windows now display your current skill level in the window title, for example: Armorcrafting (705).

- We found and fixed the infamous "Block/Parry bug" - the one that caused players to block and parry less often when attacked by a grouped opponent. This change will have the most effect in RvR situations where you are fighting an opponent who is in a group.

- The above block/parry fix will also fix an issue with opponents appearing to be "in melee" and having bolt spells fired at them blocked more often than intended.

- Bolt Spells in general have had their damage calculation modified so that it now uses 50% of the target's spell resistance and 50% of its armor. Previously, it was using 100% resistance and 100% armor in the calculation. This means that bolt spells will now do substantially more damage against PVP targets.

- The Mercenary Dirty Tricks note in 1.62b is minorly incorrect. The percent chance to fumble is 35%, not 50% as it was originally documented.

 

[swords]

ok 35% chance...still better than whatever miniscule amount it normally is.

and the 7 min timer is perfectly acceptable as all the light tanks now have abilities on a 7 min timer.
plus we get it at level 20 still so the resist rates will be high, heck ill need to thwack someone a good few times before it sticks i bet.

perfectly valid change imho.
and they finally fixed the parry/block bug or so they say...

 

[Draylor]

Originally posted by old.Wildfire
- We found and fixed the infamous "Block/Parry bug" - the one that caused players to block and parry less often when attacked by a grouped opponent. This change will have the most effect in RvR situations where you are fighting an opponent who is in a group.

This isnt the first time Mythic have claimed to fix this - but lets hope theyve got it right this time

Merc and BM changes look reasonable - we'll see how the numbers work out after its been properly tested - and what actually goes live. And as for LA - with luck all they did was reverse the stupidity of the changes in 1.50.

 

[K0nah]

nowhere near enuf, flank has no bonus to hit ffs, it misses half the time u use it, worthless style changes. dt change sounds... okish, have to wait n see. oh and bm's immune to criticals when triple wielding?? wtf?

mercs get a much better antidote to vendo, bms get to be immune from vendo and yet all we really fkin wanted was MORE FKIN DAMAGE. *sigh*

spose it depends how much LA is nerfed, if the styles r less than 1.0 growth rate now instead of the 1.0-1.5+ they r atm then maybe, just maybe they've brought some balance back... still say CD/DW needed 15%+ style dmg boost across the board... oh well its not over yet...

 

[Draylor]

Konah: Someones attempt at LA growth rate numbers before/after this change

Cant find the standard style growth rate page just now to compare (was looking earlier) so its hard to judge much. And its 4am so Im not spending more time looking tonight, I dont care that much

 

[old.Ramas]

LA nerf seems to be about 35%.

Which, as it happens, is aproximately the same as the cleric nerf from way back.

Tend to agree that the merc changes don't really fit with the stated intention (that light tanks are high damage - low defence classes). Only damage increase is on bleed styles (which I expect is still irrelevant) or on side positional styles, which are more or less pve only. And the other change is purely defensive.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Am I the only one who thinks new Triple Weild>>>Dirty Tricks???

Triple Weild = Damage Add (ALL hits) + Critical hits inmunity (and not only ur target´s crit hits but every crit hit u receive)

Dirty Tricks = 35% fumble rate (on a single target)

 

[Flimgoblin]

vasc- dirty tricks is a 35% fumble rate on everything you can hit within 30s

it's quite nice - take off 35% of the melee damage from any tank class you fancy.

Read the note again - they didn't say we do more damage at the expense of defence. They say we do more damage when someone else is distracting the monster - we use positional styles, on our own we're not using our full potential - if we can get someone else to make them turn to the side we can use some nasty side positionals.

It looks quite interesting the only merc change I don't like is the improvement on the evade style - utterly useless

 

[Vasconcelos]

Originally posted by Flimgoblin
vasc- dirty tricks is a 35% fumble rate on everything you can hit within 30s

it's quite nice - take off 35% of the melee damage from any tank class you fancy.

Read the note again - they didn't say we do more damage at the expense of defence. They say we do more damage when someone else is distracting the monster - we use positional styles, on our own we're not using our full potential - if we can get someone else to make them turn to the side we can use some nasty side positionals.

It looks quite interesting the only merc change I don't like is the improvement on the evade style - utterly useless

Actually I meant DT only affects the opponent u have targeted while "Crit hit inmunity" of TW affects every enemy that hits you n not only the one u have targeted.

 

[RD_MuDgEtH]

Well, that's sounding pretty nice, but what really caught my attention was this snippet from the new 1.60 patch..

- The Mercenary ability Dirty Tricks should delve properly now (it was previously delving as a "combat heal chant").

Rar!!

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by Vasconcelos
Actually I meant DT only affects the opponent u have targeted while "Crit hit inmunity" of TW affects every enemy that hits you n not only the one u have targeted.

true... but you can hit three different opponents and dirt them all

not quite the same...

Have to say, TW sounds pretty nice really

 

[old.LandShark]

Originally posted by Tigerius
Can you say Shield spec Mercenary defensive tank with Dirty Tricks and Prevent Flight as caster protector?

We think too alike, Tiggles :O That's exactly what I was thinking
Better yet, I'm fairly sure a fumble doesn't interupt, even though a miss or guard-blocked swing does.