Highlights - Storm King's Thunder

 

Storm King’s Thunder Campaign, level 70+ campaign

Return to Icewind Dale in a brand new journey through three new Adventure Zones. 
With the assistance of Makos, Cattie-brie and Wulfgar, confront the Frost Giant Jarl Storvald and the powerful artifact known as the Ring of Winter threatening to plunge Faerûn, and possibly all of Toril, into eternal winter.

Read more about the background and story here.

 

Fangbreaker Island, New Tier 3 dungeon

Travel to Fangbreaker Island, a Frost Giant stronghold to confront Drufi in this brand new tier 3 dungeon (item level 3100) with an emphasis on unique and interesting boss mechanics. Along the way, encounter a ferocious manticore and a massive dragon turtle, then storm the stronghold itself, defeating the Frost Giants’ foothold in the North.

Read more here.

 

Ostorian Relics, item progression system

The ancient kingdom of the giants, Ostoria, fell thousands of years ago, collapsing under the stresses of the wars against the dragons and betrayal from within the ranks of the giants themselves. Almost all of the great treasures the giants accumulated during their rule are now lost, but not all.

With a new tier of armor comes the chance to restore powerful pieces of equipment to resist the potent effects from the Ring of Winter that lies in the hands of the Frost Giants.

Read more here.

 

Class Balance notes can be seen in our previous blogs.

Read about the Hunter Ranger, Scourge Warlock, and Guardian Fighter.

 

Guild Alliances

Guilds will now be able to band together into an alliance! 

This feature provides the opportunity for alliances of up to 13 guilds to contribute to each other's growth and band together for challenging tasks.

With this update, players will be able to visit allied guilds' Strongholds, take part in Alliance-wide chat, and gain benefits from their guild's spot in the alliance, based on the level of all guilds combined. 
Players may also shop at allied guilds' stores and contribute to allied guilds' coffers, if they so choose.

Read more on this feature here: Bringing Guilds Together

 

 

Sword Coast Chronicle and Campaigns Update

Two new campaigns are now available! 
The Sword Coast Chronicle campaign brings together all the other campaigns into a recommended order. 
This should make progression through post-70 content more guided, while leaving the option open to branch out for a more challenging experience.

The Benign Order of the Third Eye campaign provides a recommended flow through lower-level content, and gives the opportunity for new rewards. 
In addition, the Campaign UI has been updated to provide a recommended flow through all the available campaigns in the game.

Read more on this feature here: Sword Coast Chronicled

 

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Campaigns

• The Sharandar campaign and its related content now spans levels 64-68, reduced from 70.
• Sharandar Campaign: The "Reinforce Protective Wards" task no longer awards Power Points. 
  They are instead given through the task, "Assist War Effort."
  • This task requires 10 of each area's currency, along with 150 Feywild Sparks, 15 Gold, and 15,000 Astral Diamonds.

 

Elemental Evil

• Assaulting Blackdagger Keep: This quest no longer incorrectly claims it gives Elemental Water as a reward.
  • The same is true of the quests for Hag's Hold and Goldseeker's Folly.
• Drowned Shore: Merchants in Distress: This Heroic Encounter now resets appropriately.
• Feeding the Slaadi: Exiting this instance no longer sometimes causes players to become stuck.
• Players are now properly able to acquire lore that was in the previous version of Elemental Evil.
  • Players who have already completed the new quests will retroactively receive the lore.

 

The Dwarven King

• The Pwent: The second group of prospective sacrifices now properly flees when freed.
• Prophecy of Madness (Queued): In the Demonic Incursion variant, the timer now properly resets when the players reach Gold in Phase 1.
• Prophecy of Madness (Queued): In the Protect the Prophecy variant, encounters now respawn more quickly.

 

The Maze Engine

• Lans Thuliaga's Fire Spin repel effect now properly respects control immunity on certain NPCs.

 

Events (Changes for future runs)

• Call to Arms: Garrundar the Vile: The terrain in this skirmish has been smoothed out to better display danger zones (a.k.a. "splat attacks")!
• Celebration of Lliira: Professional Fireworks no longer open the Professions UI when double-clicked.
• Challenge of the Gods: Blessed Gift of the Gods: When the Eye of Lathander is gained from this pack, it is now given as Bound to Account instead of Bind on Pickup.
• Summer Festival: The off-hand weapon of Sunite Dagger now properly shows up in the Petal Store and Collections.
• Wonders of Gond: The Wondrous Blueprint is now consumed for 4,000 Refinement Points, increased from 1,800.

 

PvP

• Certain Player versus Player queues will now allow players to enter even if fewer than the full number of players accept. 
  This is intended to increase the number of successful large-group PvP matches.
  • Gauntlgrym now allows entry at a minimum of 16 players, decreased from 20. 
    The maximum team size difference at the beginning is 1 (e.g. 8v9 or 9v10, but not 8v10).
  • Stronghold PvP now allows entry at a minimum of 30 players, decreased from 40. 
    The maximum team size difference at the beginning is 2 (e.g. 16v18, or 19v20, but not 15v18).
  • The game will continue to add players after the match begins until the maximum number of players is reached.
• Stronghold Siege now has a bonus event in the hourly rotation.  Playing during a Stronghold Siege hour grants +50% Glory and +1 Banner of the Fallen as a reward.

 

General

• Captain Kayliss in Pirates' Skyhold is now properly immune to control effects.
• Castle Never: Orcus' name is no longer visible while he is flying.
• Castle Never: "Demon Prince of Being Dead" now grants progress credit to support characters.
• Mold on various cheese wheels has been cut away; the cheese textures once again look cheesy.   Yum!
• Storm the Keep: The achievement for this skirmish no longer completes immediately upon leaving the skirmish, whether or not it's been completed.
• The Professions vendor summoned via VIP rewards now appears in the contact dialog cutscene when speaking to her.
• Various doors in Reclamation Rock and Upper Helm's Hold now properly have collision, preventing players from sneaking into buildings with one-way walls.

 

Combat and Powers

Classes and Balance

• Oathbound Paladin: Oath of Protection no longer impacts server performance. 
  As a side effect of this change, it is now slightly easier to hit the cap from this passive power when receiving very small amounts of damage.
• To bring certain movement-based powers in line with others of that type, the following powers are now disabled when the player is rooted.
  • Threatening Rush
  • Shadowy Disappearance
  • Fox Shift
  • Boar Charge
  • Bull Charge
  • Radiant Strike

 

Companions

• Acolyte of Kelemvor: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.
• Astral Deva: This companion's tooltip has been updated to clarify that its Active Companion Bonus triggers when the summoned companion deals damage, rather than when the player deals damage.
• Companions can no longer enter combat while their player is on a mount.
• Companions with Combat Advantage active companion bonuses (Blink Dog, Staldorf, and Intellect Devourer) have had these powers changed to combine additively rather than multiplicatively. As a result, players using these may notice slight reductions in the combat advantage bonus provided by these powers.
• Elemental Air Cultist's active power no longer requires the player to be at low health to trigger.
• Ghostly Theratra: This companion's attempts to possess friendly NPCs have now been thoroughly busted.
• Harper Bard: This companion now properly functions as a Leader companion.
• Lillend: This companion's Song of Life power can no longer be triggered while it is on cooldown. 
  This also improves performance.
• Priestess of Sehanine: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.
• Repentant Dragon Cultist: Acidic Stab now properly works as described.
• Repentant Dragon Cultist: This companion's Rank 30 ability now properly triggers.
• Repentant Dragon Cultist: Various text issues in this companion's powers have been cleaned up.
• Renegade Illusionist: This companion now properly functions as a Striker companion.
• Sergeant Knox: This companion now properly functions as a Defender companion.
• Wandering Scarecrow: This companion now properly functions as a Striker companion.
• Bonding Runestones now grant their combined effect in a single stack.
  • For example, if a summoned companion has two Bonding Runestones (Rank 12, 95% each) equipped, the related buff now gives the player 190% of the summoned companion's current stats.
  • This effect no longer stacks.
     This gives the effect a maximum of 285% of the summoned companion's current stats (with three R12s equipped).

 

Mounts

• Champion's Bulette: This mount's spawn-in effect has been reduced in size.
• Neverwinter Champion's Charger: This mount now properly makes a sound when playing its standing jump animation.

 

Items and Economy

Campaigns

• Elemental Evil campaign reward armors now all have an Armor Enchantment slot.
  • If there was an Armor Kit slotted in any existing items, this kit will be moved to the Armor Enchantment slot.  It can be removed or destroyed like an Enchantment, then reapplied as desired.
• Gear from the Sharandar campaign and zone is now equippable starting at level 64, and scales with the player's level.
• Maze Engine Campaign: Armor set prices have been adjusted. The prices are now 4,000 supplies for the lowest tier, 5,000 supplies for the medium tier, and 6,000 supplies for the highest tier.
• Players may now purchase Gold Crescents directly from the Sharandar campaign vendor, rather than through campaign tasks.
• The Sharandar repeatable campaign task, Assist War Effort, has been changed to award one Power Point per completion.
• When opening the Gauntlgrym Bounty reward from the Maze Engine campaign, players may no longer choose a type of Seal if it would push them over the maximum number of that type.

 

Enchantments and Enhancements

• Armor Kits and Jewels now display the item level increase they add to armor in their tooltip text.
• Bronzewood Enchantment: Rank 12 of this Enchantment now properly applies the 10% damage reduction and 5% increased incoming damage on the target.
• Drain Overload Enchantments: The power of the Stronghold PvP AP and Stamina Drain Overload Enchantments has been significantly reduced.
  • The corresponding wards and boons are scaled proportionally.
• Frost Enchantment: Higher ranks of the Frost Enchantment no longer incorrectly cause massive damage increases.
• Frostburn Enchantment: In addition to its other properties, all ranks of the Frostburn Enchantment now slow the attacker (players and NPCs) by 30% as part of the effect.
• Lightning Enchantment: In addition to its other properties, all ranks of the Lightning Enchantment now reduce all cooldowns by 2% for the first lightning strike, plus an additional 1% for each chain.
• The internal cooldowns on Lesser through Transcendent rank Fireburst, Frostburn, Thunderhead, and Bloodtheft armor enchantments have been reduced.
• Three-stat enchantments now have slightly improved stats, in attempt to make them competitive with one- and two-stat enchantments.

 

Insignias

• Five new bonus powers have been added to the game!
  • Assassin's Covenant: This new bonus requires a Regal, and two Enlightened insignia. You lose 10% of Defense, Deflection and Life Steal and gain the combination lost as Power.
  • Barbarian's Revelry/Delight: Updated the tooltip to list that the effect can only occur once every 2s. This is just a tooltip update.
  • Berserker's Rage: This new bonus requires a Barbed and two Illuminated insignia. While you have full Action Points, you gain 10% of your Armor Penetration as Power.
  • Combatant's Maneuver: This new bonus requires an Illuminated and two Regal insignia. Whenever you control an enemy, you gain 5% combat Advantage damage for 10 seconds.
  • Slayer's Redemption: This new bonus requires an enlightened and two crescent insignia. Whenever you kill a target, you are healed for 10% of your maximum Hit Points over 5 seconds.
  • Victim's Preservation: This new bonus requires a Crescent and two Barbed insignia. Whenever you take more than 35% of your maximum Hit Points before any mitigation in a single attack, you are healed for 10% of your maximum Hit Points over 5 seconds. This cannot occur once every 10 seconds.
• Insignia Bonuses are now properly affected by healing debuffs, such as Healing Depression in PvP.
• Magistrate's Patience: The damage dealt by this power is now properly considered Damage Over Time damage.

 

Invocation

• Invocation now gives a Rough Astral Diamond bonus instead of granting Rough AD directly.
  • The bonus Rough AD awarded is moderately larger than what was previously granted as straight Rough AD.
  • In general, Invoking while playing other Rough AD generating activities will see a reasonable increase in AD earned, while Invoking only will see a drastic decrease.

 

Professions

• Adamant Rejuvenation Surcoat is now available via Masterwork Professions.  This body slot item is usable by Devoted Clerics, and provides stats focused on healing.
• Leadership: The "Kill Rogue Elemental" task now gives 2500 Experience, up from 500.
• Masterwork Profession nodes (from Explorer's Charts) are no longer exploitable during the Double Profession Resources event.
• Masterwork Profession tools may no longer be sold to vendors.
• The "Worn Gauntlet" asset in Black Ice Shaping may no longer be sold or discarded.
  • For players who have misplaced their Worn Gauntlets, they are now available in the profession vendors. They are only visible for those that need them.

 

PvP Equipment

• Grim equipment is no longer available for purchase at the Trade of Blades.
• Seals of Triumph have been removed from the cost of Lionsmane armor.
• The cost of Burning equipment has been reduced.
• The number of Fallen Banners required to purchase Lionsmane armor pieces has been halved.
• Rings of Ambush, Sieging, and Charging Bull: The wording has been changed to state "When you have been running" instead of When you have been moving."
  • This means that moving very slowly (such as when you are running into a wall) will cause the effects to stop, and the effects will no longer apply while you are mounted.
  • Note that most Slow effects will not cause players to move slowly enough on their own to prevent these effects from firing.
• Seals of Triumph
  • The amount of Seals of Triumph awarded for winning a daily domination match has been increased from 1 to 60.
  • The amount of Seals of Triumph in the cost of items has been adjusted based on therelated changes.
  • The cap for Seals of Triumph has been increased from 500 seals to 1200.

 

Salvage

• Now that a new tier of gear is in the game, we've streamlined what Salvage values items give with the goal of making them feel more consistent.
  • Going forward, all items of level 130+ that are salvageable will have their salvage value determined by rarity and size (Small/Medium/Large) only.
  • "Small" gear includes: Neck, Waist, Ring, Shirt, Pants
  • "Medium" gear includes: Arms, Feet, Head, Off-Hand Weapon
  • "Large" gear includes: Body, Main Hand Weapon
  • In practice, the biggest effect of these changes is that some rings have gone down in value and some Elemental/Protector seal gear has gone up.

 

Trade Bar Store

• Dusk equipment has been moved from the "current" tab in the Trade Bar store's equipment section to the "legacy" tab.
• Grim equipment is now available for purchase in the Trade Bar store.
• The Goat Companion is now available in the Trade Bar Store!

 

Vendors

• Dusk Gloves and Dusk Boots are now available for purchase in the Trade Bar Store for 65 Trade Bars each.

 

Zen Market

• Coupons are no longer sometimes consumed while reclaiming a free product, such as a mount.
• Visiting the Zen Market with a coupon no longer sometimes shows an incorrect price for certain items, as though the coupon provided a discount to an unrelated item.

 

General

• All identification scrolls stack to 999 (up from 99).
• Champion's Battle Horn: This item no longer places the player in combat when used.
• Controller's Celestial Cowl: This item from the Control Wizard Class Pack no longer has a class requirement.
• Demogorgon's Girdle of Might now shows the correct sigil in its Collection entry.
• Demonic Ichor: The weekly cap for Demonic Ichor has been removed.
• Dread Enchantment: Ranks higher than Lesser now properly refresh the entire debuff, instead of just the DoT portion.
• Dread Enchantment: The additional damage debuff added by the Pure and Transcendent versions now properly trigger only on Critical Hits.
• Dusk Boots packs now properly show up in the Equipment section of the Auction House, rather than the Enchantment section.
• Illusionist's Mask: A new Legendary rank has been added to the Illusionist's Mask as part of the next Masquerade of Liars event.
  • The epic rank of the artifact can now take basic refinement and Masquerade refinement to be upgraded, and the mask acquires an activated power when it is upgraded to legendary.
• Insignias: Rare and Epic Insignias can now be donated to the Stronghold Coffer.
• Mace of Elemental Fire no longer calls itself the Longsword of Elemental Fire in its flavor text.
• Oghma's Release has been renamed Oghma's Token of Free Movement, to match rest of the set.
• Players may no longer obtain two High Forest Bears on the same character, which could result in an inventory slot being permanently held by the mount.
• Quartermaster's Enchantment: Similar to the Dragon Hoard Enchantment, the bonus drops given by this item now reduce in frequency after a certain number of drops in a day.
• Several minor typos have been addressed.
• Several remaining cases of "Epic Demogorgon" have been updated to "Demogorgon (Master)" to reflect the queue's new name.

• Shard of Shadowclad Enchantment is now available at the Seal Vendor.
• Star Metal Gauntlet and Adamantine Gauntlet tooltips now accurately display the rewards they can retrieve.
• The buff gained by Squash Soup is no longer called Corn Chowder.
• The Sword Coast Potion Pouch, from Sword Coast Adventures, now properly includes Superior Healing Potions.

 

User Interface

Bank

• The maximum purchasable slots of the Account Shared Bank have been increased by 40.
• The maximum purchasable slots of the Personal Bank have been increased by 32.

 

Campaign

• The Campaign window is now called Sword Coast Chronicle.

 

Character Sheet

• History tab: A wave of a very specific form of magical amnesia has been dispelled, allowing all adventurers to remember their original homelands and backgrounds, rather than thinking they're from the Dalelands.
• Stamina Regen rate now properly updates when the player gains the Underdark boon, Dwarven Stamina.

 

Collections

• The Artifact pages have been condensed.  This may affect players' collection point totals.
• The Trade Bar Store collection page has been updated.

 

Invocation

• When a player has 0 Celestial Coins, the maximum no longer incorrectly displays as 0.

• When a player has bonus Astral Diamonds to gain through gameplay, there is now an indicator below the player portrait.

 

Queues

• Average Wait Time is now visible in the queue window.
• Players who log out and back in are now properly placed back into the queue and party, rather than being in some quantum state of both in and out of the party depending on perspective.
• Vote Abandon is now available.
  • This feature allows a player to initiate a vote with all active players on the map.  If the vote succeeds, all players are notified that the map is shutting down, and no leaver penalty is applied.
  • This option is only available in PvE content.
• When a queued event expires, such as the short window to join a Tiamat queue or a longer Call to Arms queue, all players who remain unmatched are now removed from the queue.
  • This is to prevent the queue from misleading the player into thinking they may still get into a match.
• When a queued event expires while the player is in a related queue, "Looking for reinforcements" no longer displays, as players can no longer reinforce.
• When attempting to join a queue while already in a queued instance, a tooltip now properly informs the player that they are unable to queue while they remain there.

 

Rewards

• Strongboxes now have an appropriate background image.
• The visual treatment has been improved for receiving a title as a campaign reward.

 

Social

• Guild Level can now be seen in searches when viewing the "Find a Guild" tab.

 

Stores

• The Wondrous Bazaar now remembers the tab the player was on when they last browsed it in the same play session.

 

Graphics, Effects, and Animation

General

• Horses no longer pop slightly during their flourish animation.
• Interaction sparkles now show up again for certain interactive objects, such as the crates at the beginning of the tutorial.

 

Performance and Stability

General

• A client crash that could occur when donating to Stronghold Coffers has been resolved.

• Several client crashes that could occur when transferring maps have been resolved.
• Minor optimizations have been made to tooltip generation.

 

Discuss on the official forums