Update 16 Patch 1 Release Notes

Release Notes: Update 16, Patch 1
Welcome to the Release Notes for Dungeons & Dragons Online! These release notes were posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2012.

News & Notes
The Festivult season is upon us! Happy Festivult!

Festivult
Look for coins in Eberron treasure chests and gather them up to turn in to the Festivult Jester for festive treats and prizes. Be on the look out for the latest cookies this season, and remember that each year the Festivult cookies can change their effects due to the power of the shifting planes of existence! Learn more about our schedule of holiday activities this winter by clicking here!

Introducing Astral Shards
There is now an alternative currency available known as Astral Shards. A smaller denomination of the Astral Diamond, shards can be used to purchase various in-game services and Store items, including:
 * Resetting Enhancements
 * Resetting Epic Destinies
 * Feat Respec costs with Fred the Mindflayer
 * Airship purchases & ship tier upgrades
 * Airship amenities
 * Gold Seal amenities have been added to the in-game airship hook point vendors.
 * Gold Seal Hirelings
 * Gold Seal contracts have been added to the in-game Hireling vendors.
 * Item Repairs
 * It is now possible to perform repairs away from a vendor using Astral Shards.
 * You may repair using Astral Shards while you are in a dungeon. The cost is discounted at shrines, and cheapest in public areas.
 * Astral Shard repaired items can receive a temporary "Blessing of Moradin" (when in Forgotten Realms content) or "Blessing of Onatar" (when in Eberron content), which will apply a random beneficial effect to equipped armor, primary, and off-hand items.
 * This effect ends upon death or un-equipping the item.
 * Note that using an Astral Shard repair on an item subsequent times will apply a new random effect, over riding any existing one.
 * Runearms are not eligible for this effect since they do not take item damage.
 * Possible effects include:
 * Common:
 * +10 Hardness (weapon and armor)
 * Uncommon:
 * A d4 of elemental damage on hit (weapon)
 * Acid, cold, electric, or fire
 * Only one type at a time, does not randomize per hit
 * Rare:
 * +10% Insight bonus to Fortification (armor)
 * Stacking +5 to Physical Resistance Rating (armor)
 * Very Rare:
 * A d4 damage on hit (weapon)
 * Sonic or force
 * Only one type at a time, does not randomize per hit
 * Increase to damage dice (weapon)
 * +0.25, +.5, or +1
 * Stacking bonus to Physical Resistance Rating (armor)
 * +7 or +10
 * +25% Insight bonus to Fortification (armor)
 * +10% elemental absorption of one type (armor)
 * Acid, cold, electric, or fire

Other notes:
 * Since it is now possible to use shards to reset Epic Destinies, Looms of Destiny purchased prior to Update 16 Patch 1 have been converted into Astral Shards automatically. The shards will appear in your Astral Shard balance.
 * Astral Diamonds can be converted into shards by double clicking on them.
 * Features that use astral diamonds currently (e.g. Cauldron of Sora Katra) will continue to do so for now. This will change in a future release.
 * Astral shards are also available in the DDO Store.

Enhancements

 * The Defender of Siberys no longer incorrectly grants its threat bonus without a shield equipped, and should now always grant the threat bonus when a shield is equipped.
 * Stalwart Defender's "Stalwart Defense" buff text that appears when you have a shield equipped no longer claims to provide DR - it provides Physical Resistance Rating as described by the enhancements.
 * Stalwart Defender II text no longer contradicts some of the Stalwart Defender III's text (no gameplay change).

Epic Destinies

 * Resolved some issues with caster levels not being consistently granted for Magister, Draconic Incarnation, and Fatesinger.
 * Unyielding Sentinel: You now properly gain stacks of Unyielding Resolve (for Undying Vanguard) when spells damage you.
 * Primal Avatar:
 * Stormrage works consistently with melee and ranged attacks.
 * Primal Travel now grants +10 Tumble and 50% dodge (ignoring cap) for 12 seconds after use and has greatly increased cooldown.
 * Autumn Harvest healing area quadrupled in size.
 * Elder Dryad gains +200 spellpower and loses Mass Cure Critical wounds, which she liked to heal enemies with.
 * Insidious Spores no longer contaminates you, your party members, or your hirelings. Deals up to 24d6 poison damage every two seconds with maximum stacks. Doubled the area of effect when a creature dies, lowered the chance for a given nearby enemy to catch the spores.
 * Seasonal auras only affect fellow party members, or summons/charms of the Primal Avatar. Enemy monsters should no longer benefit from Chill of Winter, etc.
 * Tsunami and Gust of Wind cast by party members/hirelings no longer knock down halfling party members, nor affect party members/hirelings in anyway.

Items

 * A bug has been corrected which caused epic items from the Spinner of Shadows, Cannith Challenges, and Crystal Cove to not regain their +6 Enhancement Bonus when the Cleansing Ritual (3 Epic Dungeon Tokens) is used on an epic item that has a +7 Enhancement Bonus augment slotted. This has been fixed. To regain the missing +6 Enhancement Bonus, perform the Cleansing Ritual again. The 3 Epic Dungeon Token cost to do this has been removed for affected items. Please note that this will also remove any currently slotted augments.
 * Newly-found Potions of Wonder will now stack in your inventory, and are more unpredictable.
 * Ioun stones should no longer supress the display of their suppressed power. Supressception.
 * The Rusted Crown is no longer hot pink.
 * The Frozen Tunic now properly shows its icon again, rather than an empty white box.

Skills, Feats, & Abilities

 * A consistency pass has been done on whether or not using an active feat should disable auto-attack if it is currently on. The sneak feat and feats that have an induction period of longer than 2 seconds now turn off the autoattack toggle, but all instantaneous feats (including spellcasting feats) that did before no longer do so.
 * Druidic animal form spell abilities that shouldn't have durations no longer display durations that have absolutely nothing to do with the attacks themselves.
 * Fascinate, Suggestion, and Mass Suggestion no longer display wildly inaccurate durations.

Monsters

 * Netherese Wizards have learned a few new tricks.

Menace of the Underdark

 * Dungeon alert warnings will once again appear in House Szind and a few other areas where they were failing to give warning.
 * The Necromancers of Sschindylryn have tighted security in their home and allowed the laws of physics and causation to exist in the same rooms as their necromantic cauldrons.
 * The base experience for the quest "In the Belly of the Beast" has been increased.
 * Overall experience for the quest "House of Rusted Blades" has been increased - base experience for the quest has been reduced, but the experience for the optional objectives has been increased even more.

High Road of Shadows

 * Song's treasure chest now unlocks when players defeat her.
 * Song no longer fires daggers out of her orb since she switched to her other hand. She uses her bare hand to throw them instead.
 * Fixed a typo.
 * Removed some Netherese Mercenaries to make travel on the road a little more pleasant.
 * Some visual improvements to the grass along the ledges.
 * Fixed a gap where players could escape the world.
 * Dead bodies in the quest "End of the Road" are now less likely to move around.
 * You are now somewhat less likely to trigger Dungeon Alert in the quest "The End of the Road"
 * The quest "End of the Road" has a new additional quest objective. You must now kill a certain number of Netherese forces in addition to killing the demon to complete the quest.
 * The King's Forest and the High Road should now scale properly for party strength.
 * Fixed a stuck spot in the Tavern Basement of A Stay at the Inn
 * Fixed overlapping DM text in A Stay at the Inn
 * Rats in the Barn part of A Stay at the Inn are no longer stationary
 * There is now an objective to get the key from the Terrified Villager at the start of A Stay at the Inn
 * Falsifax no longer leaves a key hovering mid-air when he dies.
 * Dia took some etiquette lessons and no longer tries to talk with everyone at once.

Spinner of Shadows

 * Removed the usage bars from the ward pillars in Spinner of Shadows.

Spells

 * The Destruction spell no longer erroneously claims to be "Shadow Manipulation" when it kills you.

UI

 * Fixed the level range fields on the Who tab and LFM window.
 * It's no longer possible to enter more than two characters in the level range (since it's not like we have level 34,000 characters)
 * The egregiously long alert on negative levels has been trimmed back down to its original size.

Other

 * Fixed a physics problem that could allow players, monsters, and NPCs to slip through the wall or floors and become stuck or fall through the world.
 * It should no longer be possible to use your shield as a hoverboard.
 * Fixed a crashing issue related to Hirelings & traps.
 * Removed a stuck spot from the crafting hall.

Known Issues
Known issues are now available, click here!