Update 48 Patch 4 Release Notes

= Update 48.4 Release Notes =

Here are the Release Notes for Update 48.4, released on Wednesday, February 24th, 2021.

= Of Special Note: =

The Anniversary Event has arrived!
Expect lots of fun in-jokes and references to quests throughout DDO's history in our returning Anniversary Event! Find it in House Phiarlan. Running the anniversary challenge gets you Party Favors that can be turned in for great rewards with Tolero outside of the party event! This year the reward list includes a new Red Crystal Crown, a new Dretch Creature Companion, and the 13 Eberron House Cloaks given away in a prior anniversary!

The Anniversary Event is available when the update goes live through March 23rd, 2021.

Free Gifts!
Open the DDO Store and click on Redeem Code, then type in the Coupon Code (arrives tomorrow) to get your gifts! The Coupon Code is available to redeem once per account through December 31st, 2021.

The Coupon Code will get you TWO FREE GIFTS:


 * A 15th Anniversary Token that can be used to select a named raid item from certain raids for your character! The 15th Anniversary Token is Bound to Account, while all of the items received are Bound to Character. Make sure to redeem the coupon on the game world where you wish to receive the item! The raid item turn in token is named "Dungeons & Dragons Online 15th Anniversary Token" and to use it you go talk to the Anniversary Djinn at the entrance to the Anniversary Dungeon in House Phiarlan. He'll offer you any of the raid items using your token as an ingredient in a barter box.
 * A 15th Anniversary cosmetic cloak! The cloak is Bound to Account, and will be delivered to every future character created on that account.

New Raid!
A new raid is now available called "The Dryad and the Demigod"! This is a Legendary level raid that is included in Fables of the Feywild, and is accessible to anyone who owns the Feywild expansion. Find "The Dryad and the Demigod" by speaking to Hermia the owl in Wynwood Hall. Sound plays an important role in the experience of the new raid, and the Ambient Sound channel in particular can be used to adjust the volume of the performance.

= News and Notes =

Character

 * Wildhunt Shift no longer erroneously grants +4 Constitution.
 * Razorclaw Shifter's tree is now properly titled "Razorclaw Shifter".
 * Paladin Knight of the Chalice's Blessed Purpose stacks are now properly titled "Blessed Purpose".
 * Paladin KOTC's Champion of Good no longer gives an unlisted change (from +3 to +5) to the amount of Melee and Ranged Power each stack of Blessed Purpose gives; it instead only increases the max stack size to 25, as listed.
 * Renegade Mastermaker: removed Conjure Component from the game.
 * Warlock Aura colors now change depending on your Pact Choice.
 * Fixed several warlock visual effects being the wrong color.

DDO Store

 * A new item has been added to the Store during the Anniversary Event called Party Punch, which provides a 5% chance to earn Party Favors every time an enemy is defeated for the next hour.

Enhancements
General Summary: The enhancement tree changes in this patch center around two goals, to boost spellcasting ability for Artificer and Bard and to help equalize the disparity between Vanguard's Tier 5 selections and Kensei/Knight of the Chalice. Artificer in particular suffered from a lack of immunity bypass, and we think tying it directly to your runearm shots bridges an important thematic and mechanical gap. Enhanced Spellpower caused several significant long-term gearing problems for both the casters who had elements represented and the casters who did not. Either you had access to your element, which forced you to always wear the appropriate belt, or you did not, and you were left behind by a large margin of power. This change removes a significant amount of disparity between elemental types of offensive and defensive casting, and is necessary to enable us to do the comprehensive offensive spell pass being done in this patch. The changes to Shifter are primarily bugfixes, but we also wanted to give an avenue for advancing out of the Fatigue that occurs after Shifting for Shifters that don't get Tireless Rage from Barbarian. In addition, we wanted to bump the durability of Beasthide Shifters slightly. We're keeping an eye on the overall placement of Shifters and may continue to buff Shifters in the future if needed.


 * Arcanotechnician
 * New Tier 5 enhancement: Charged Recoil: Runearm shots now strip Electric Immunity for 10 seconds.
 * Lightning Motes and Shocking Vulnerability now cost one Action Point per rank.


 * Shifter & Razorclaw Shifter
 * The Beasthide, Wildhunt, and Razorclaw Shift feats now clearly state that their effects block things that cannot be used while Raging.
 * Empowered by Nature (both Wildhunt and Beasthide versions) and Destructive Shifting now also grant "You are now immune to Fatigue, including Fatigue from Shifting" in addition to their existing effects.
 * Threatening Shift now also grants +10 Physical Resistance Rating in addition to its existing effects.
 * True Hunter now properly lists its Freedom of Movement effect, and no longer lists its nonexistent Immunity to Petrification.


 * Spellsinger
 * Advanced Magical and Advanced Musical Studies are now merged and condensed together into one single-rank Enhancement named Advanced Musical Studies that costs 2 Action Points. It grants +200 Spell Points, +3 Bard Songs, and adds the spell Hold Monster, Mass, to your spell book at level 5.
 * Horn of Thunder's SLA is no longer a multiselector and is now one Action Point per rank.


 * Thief Acrobat
 * Shadow Dodge and Quick Strikes now cost one Action Point per rank.


 * Vanguard
 * Shield to the Face has been merged into Armored Strength.
 * Disorienting Smash now applies 1d4 stacks of Vulnerability instead of one stack.
 * New Tier 5 enhancement: Shield Specialization V: +3 to hit, damage, and Armor Class when using a shield (requires Shield Specialization IV).
 * New Tier 5 enhancement: Brutal Impact: You gain +1 to your Critical Damage Multiplier on a roll of 19 or 20.

Epic Destinies

 * Divine Crusader and Unyielding Sentinel
 * Confront Any Foe now uses different animations.
 * Confront Any Foe, Draw Them Out, and Celestial Mandate no longer apply bonuses that specifically apply to Smite Evil. These spells have also had their attack hit boxes adjusted to match other special melee attacks, as opposed to using the hit box for Smite Evil.
 * Draw Them Out and Celestial Mandate now correctly apply their listed extra hate to enemies in range of the melee attack and who are not being blocked by other objects.

Feats
General Notes: We wanted to boost the DPS and versatility of Single Weapon Fighting to expand to better cater to hybrid builds. We also wanted to tone down the DPS of Two Handed Fighting while leaving its area of effect capabilities top-tier. We looked at the DPS of Two Weapon Fighting and found that while it is in a balanced place offensively, its companion feats needed help to become more compelling defensive options. We ran through several iterations of Two Weapon Blocking before we decided to simply remove it entirely, merging it with Two Weapon Defense, and we also wanted to further incentivize it by adding a Magical Resistance Rating cap boost. Natural Fighting needed adjusting to match Two Handed Fighting, but it also needed incentives at its top so both Bears and Wolves would be happy switching their feats to the new Perfect combat style feat. Finally, we wanted to add more compelling combat options for Shield Fighting.


 * Natural Fighting


 * The Natural Fighting feat now increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25% while in Bear or Dire Bear form.


 * New Feat: Perfect Natural Fighting
 * Requires: Level 26, maximum experience in one Primal sphere Epic Destiny, at least one copy of Natural Fighting.
 * If in Bear form, your Two-Handed ability mod increases by .25, and your Bear form's bonus to Armor Class is increased by 5%.
 * If in Wolf form, +15% competence bonus to maximum hit points, and you gain +2d6 sneak attack dice.


 * Shield Mastery


 * New Feat: Greater Shield Mastery
 * Requires: Base Attack Bonus 13, Improved Shield Mastery
 * You are exceptionally skilled with the use of a shield, and your physical resistance is increased by 10 when using a buckler or small shield, 15 when using a large shield, or 20 when using a tower shield. Your Doublestrike chance while using a shield is increased by 2% to 10%. Your Combat Style bonus to Melee Power is increased by 4 to 10.
 * (These bonuses do not stack with previous feats, so this is a net gain of 5 PRR with each type of shield (5 -> 10 for buckler/small shield, 10 -> 15 for large shield, 15 -> 20 for tower), 2% Doublestrike, and 4 Melee Power.).
 * Fighters may select this feat as one of their Fighter Bonus Feats.


 * New Feat: Perfect Shield Mastery
 * Requires: Level 26, maximum experience in one Divine sphere Epic Destiny (same as other Perfect Combat Style Feats), and Shield Mastery.
 * You are the paragon of shield usage, able to effectively leverage all types of shields in close combat. Your shield gains +1W, and you gain +20% Shield Armor Class and +5 Physical Resistance Rating.
 * Shield Mastery feats now contribute to Epic Defensive Fighting (including the new ones).
 * Single Weapon Fighting


 * New Feat: Offhand Versatility - Requires Base Attack Bonus 8 and Single Weapon Fighting
 * Your offhand item modifies your main hand:
 * Runearms and Orbs now grant: when you vorpal strike, your next spell automatically crits. This has an internal cooldown of 20 seconds and lasts for 20 seconds.
 * Nothing in your offhand increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.
 * Fighters may select this feat as one of their Fighter Bonus Feats.
 * Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
 * Now also increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.
 * Now also grants an additional +10 combat style bonus to Melee Power.
 * Two Handed Fighting
 * The Two Handed Fighting, Improved Two Handed Fighting, and Greater Two Handed Fighting feats now increase your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.


 * Perfect Two Handed Fighting now also increases your ability score modifier to damage by 25%.
 * Two Weapon Fighting


 * Two Weapon Defense
 * Now grants everything that Two Weapon Blocking did, as well as its original +1 Armor Class and +5 Physical Resistance Rating.
 * Now also grants +10 Magical Resistance Rating Cap.
 * Two Weapon Blocking is no longer a feat and can no longer be trained.
 * Improved Martial Arts now works with all weapons you are centered with instead of just basic ki weapons.
 * The feat Epic Eldritch Blast is now: +2d6 Blast Dice, +1 per 2 Epic levels, max +7d6 dice at level 30.
 * The feat Epic Arcane Eldritch Blast is now Epic Pact Dice, and grants +1 Pact dice, +1 per 2 Epic Levels, for a max +6d4 Pact Dice at level 30.

Items

 * Enhanced Spellpower from all sources is now typed as Equipment spellpower. This change mostly impacts the Spellpower total for characters that use Ravenloft belts and Legendary Greensteel items.
 * The Cookie Jar now holds the Cookies from the Anniversary Event.
 * Several Feywild items have had their effects hidden from the buff bar to prevent visual clutter.
 * Frozen Keys no longer fit inside of Ingredient Bags. If you have Keys that are currently inside of those bags, they may be removed but will not return to within the bag once you have done so.
 * All Raid Runes (except for Shroud) can now be used by double-clicking them instead of needing to go to the questgiver NPC.

Quests and Adventure Areas

 * Animated Armors in the Extraplanar Palace challenges are now properly vulnerable to Rust damage.
 * Soul Survivor has had some cosmetic changes.
 * A minor cosmetic issue has been resolved on the Barovia landscape.

Spells

 * General Summary: Nukers are fairly strong right now, but we've identified two outliers: Alchemists and Fire Sorcerers. There are several factors involved in why they're ahead of others, but one of the largest factors is their top-end spells. As a result, we've brought those spells down to be closer to Acid Well, Iceberg, and Thunderstroke, and met in the middle on cooldowns, buffing those three spells in the process. On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of offensive spellcasters that don't have access to the Wizard and Sorcerer spell list needed a boost. This patch targets offensive spells across a wide variety of builds and aims to bring up the floor of the spellcaster spectrum considerably. We have also fixed key bugs with Druid to allow its premier CC ability, Earthquake, to correctly scale its Duration in Reaper Mode. We have also made a special effort to target underused spellbooks, such as Artificer, by giving them access to key offensive spells to round out their repertoire.


 * Alchemist, Sorcerer, and Wizard Spells
 * There are now 5 new Alchemist spells, the Concentrated Vial spells, in levels 2 and 3. They deal 1d6 damage +1 per caster level every 2 seconds for 16 seconds, can stack 3x.
 * The following spells have had their cooldowns reduced to 6 seconds for Sorcerers and 9 seconds for WIzards: Acid Well, Iceberg, and Thunderstroke.
 * Meteor Swarm's cooldown has been raised to 6 seconds for Sorcerers, 9 seconds for Wizards.
 * Multivial's cooldown has been raised to 9 seconds.
 * Multivial's damage dice has been reduced to 1d4+3 (Element) per caster level per projectile.
 * Master of Spellvials no longer applies to Multivial.
 * Multivial spells now cost 40 SP for both the core spell and the Bombardier SLA versions.
 * Fixed Multivial's tooltip to show the correct Max Caster Level (20).
 * Meteor Swarm's Max Caster Level has been reduced from 30 to 20 to match Iceberg, Thunderstroke, Acid Well, and Multivial.


 * Artificer Spells
 * Artificer now has access to the level 1 Sorcerer/Wizard spells Fire Bolt and Shocking Bolt.
 * Artificer now has access to Chain Lightning at spell level level 6.
 * The spell Static Shock has had its damage dice increased to 1d6 per caster level.
 * The spell Lightning Sphere has had its damage dice increased to 1d6 per caster level.
 * The spell Elemental Prod has has been reworked: Touch Range. Target enemy takes 1d6 per caster level in two of three elements (Fire, Force, or Electric) chosen randomly each time. Elementals are also Dazed.
 * The spell Blast Rod has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level.
 * The spell Lightning Motes has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+2 per caster level.
 * The spell Prismatic Strike has been reworked: Ray spell. Enemy takes 1d6 per caster level in two of three elements (Fire, Force, or Electric) chosen randomly each time. The enemy is also subject to 2 of 3 CC effects (from the original Prismatic Strike) chosen randomly each time.
 * The spell Tactical Detonation has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level for both Fire and Force damage.


 * Bard Spells
 * The spell Sonic Blast has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+1 per caster level.
 * The spell Soundburst has had tis damage dice increased to 1d6+1 per caster level, and now has a Max Caster Level of 15.
 * The spell Shout has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level.
 * The spell Greater Shout has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level.
 * The spell Horn of Thunder has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 Sonic and Electric per caster level.
 * Cleric/Favored Soul Spells
 * The spell Nimbus of Light has had its damage dice increased to 1d6 per caster level, and now has a Max Caster Level of 15.
 * The spell Inflict Light Wounds has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+2 per caster level.
 * The spell Chill Touch has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+2 per caster level.
 * The spell Deific Vengeance has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+4 per caster level.
 * The spell Inflict Moderate Wounds has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+4 per caster level.
 * The spell Searing Light has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+6 per caster level.
 * The spell Inflict Serious Wounds has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+6 per caster level.
 * The spell Sun Bolt has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level.
 * The spells Chaos Hammer/Holy Smite/Order's Wrath/Unholy Blight have had their damage dice increased to 1d6+8 per caster level.
 * The spell Inflict Critical Wounds has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+10 per caster level.
 * The spell Flame Strike has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+5 per caster level.
 * The spell Slay Living has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+10 per caster level.
 * The spell Cometfall has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+3 per caster level.
 * The spell Destruction has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+10 per caster level and now has a Max Caster Level of 20.
 * The spell Fire Storm has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+8 per caster level.


 * Druid Spells
 * The spell Produce Flame has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+1 per caster level.
 * The spell Splinterbolt has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+4 per caster level.
 * The spell Salt Ray has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+6 per caster level.
 * The spell Call Lightning has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+6 per caster level.
 * The spell Fire Seeds has had its damage dice increased to 1d6 per caster level (per PROJECTILE).
 * The spell Word of Balance has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+12 per caster level.
 * The spell Sunbeam has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+7 per caster level (no max caster level, so it is lower than other spells of this type/level).
 * The spell Sunburst has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+4 damage per caster level.
 * The spell Ice Flowers has had its damage dice increased to 1d6+8 Piercing and 1d6+8 Cold damage per caster level.


 * Additional Spell-Related Changes/Clarifications
 * The spell Horn of Thunder now has new visual and audio effects.
 * The Inflict Wounds, Mass spells will now use the new versions of their dice as per above.
 * Additionally, the Inflict Wounds spells will only use this new dice against enemies. This will not adjust potential self-healing for Undead players.
 * The Druid spells Call Lightning Storm and Storm of Vengeance will now use the new Call Lightning damage dice.
 * Admixture spells are now properly restricted with Epic Defensive Fighting.
 * All lingering spells (such as Web, Otto's Sphere of Dancing, and Evards Black Tentacles) now correctly calculate their duration in Reaper and obey the 6 second floor. This means that spells such as Earthquake will now function even in Reaper 10, where previously they ended almost as soon as they were cast.
 * Meteor Swarm is no longer penalized by Fire Sorcerer Savant.
 * The Fire Storm spell now properly casts when you have an enemy targeted, and casts further away when you do not have an enemy targeted. The delay from cast to damage has been reduced from 1.8 seconds to 1 second after cast.

Miscellaneous

 * Launcher: Patching Speeds have been greatly increased.
 * The firey projectiles sometimes thrown by Fire Beetles will now properly display.
 * Fixed some bad object filtering on Rally Cry (purple dragon knight/war chanter), Purple Dragon Knight Aura and Favored Soul's Beacon of Hope and Wall of Healing that was causing lag/game performance issues in certain situations.

Source
https://www.ddo.com/en/update-484-release-notes