Update 39 Patch 2 Release Notes

Here are the Release Notes for Update 39 Patch 2, released on Wednesday, September 12th.

Enhancements

 * Fighter Kensei's Power Surge is no longer considered an Action Boost. It now has its own set of five charges per Rest.
 * Fighter Kensei One Cut now grants +1 Power Surge use per Rest. Kensei's Alacrity grants +2 uses.
 * Kensei's One Cut no longer acts like an Action Boost in some edge cases.

Feats

 * Colors of the Queen can no longer affect allies while using Flame of the Favored.
 * Blinding Speed's description now matches the speed it actually does (22% ranged attack speed), and its missing 1% Dodge bonus has been added.

Items

 * Six new items have been added to the s Vendor called War Paint! These items go into the Cosmetic Headgear slot, and apply patterns in various colors to Druids in Wolf, Winter Wolf, Bear, and Dire Bear forms.
 * Level 8, 16, and 28 versions of the new Crystal Cove weapons have received an increase in their damage dice to match the current dice progression in the game.
 * The revamped Phiarlan Carnival weapons now have a minimum level.
 * 's freeze effect now applies more reliably, and is now properly made of bone.
 * The is now properly Cold Iron.
 * Handwraps that previously held s can now be converted into collars. It is still intended that Sentient Jewels cannot be slotted into collars, or convert handwraps that currently hold a Sentient Jewel into a collar.
 * The Bastard Sword now goes to d11.
 * 's fire no longer dispels itself.
 * It is now possible to get Mythic versions of several items in Return to White Plume Mountain.
 * Sentient Gems with a Spark and over 60,000 Sentient XP should no longer lose their extra XP when being fed to a different Gem.
 * A fell wind blows through the game, and your nightmares includes voices whispering, "Night Revels approaches...." You wake up to find all of your 2017 Night Revels ingredients and candy spoiled.

Melee Survivability Changes

 * We are introducing some changes to help melee builds survive in Epic and more difficult content. This is a first step in a longer process to add features that will be generally available to anyone, with changes that target specific classes or builds, such as the Barbarian changes listed below.
 * Epic Defensive Fighting - Your hero has learned to enter a reactive state, protecting themselves in the chaos of battle by rolling with the punches, but this hampers their ability to engage ranged threats.
 * This is a new Epic Feat automatically granted at level 21. This is a toggled ability that when active:
 * Adds a 5% Competence Bonus to maximum Hit Points, with an additional 5% for every combat fighting style feat you have, to a maximum of 25%. The applicable feats are:
 * Single Weapon Fighting
 * Improved Single Weapon Fighting
 * Greater Single Weapon Fighting
 * Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
 * Two Handed Fighting
 * Improved Two Handed Fighting
 * Greater Two Handed Fighting
 * Perfect Two Handed Fighting
 * Two Weapon Fighting
 * Improved Two Weapon Fighting
 * Greater Two Weapon Fighting
 * Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
 * Natural Fighting (Counts each time taken)


 * All Spell or spell-like abilities that are affected by Metamagics have their range reduced to touch range.
 * Your Doubleshot and Ranged Power are zero while active.
 * This feat is exclusive from Range stances, such as Improved Precise Shot, Archer's Focus, Shiradi stances, and Warlock Blast stances.
 * This feat is exclusive from the Enlarge Spell Metamagic toggle.
 * This feat remains active when dead.
 * The feat can be used with other defensive and offensive stances, in addition to Rage.
 * The Paladin Defensive Stance Hit Point buff has been changed to Competency, which it always was, but the text was incorrect.
 * The Aasimar racial Hit Point bonus has been changed to Sacred.
 * Barbarian Damage Reduction no longer gives "classic" damage reduction of a certain amount of points per strike, and instead Barbarians now start with a 3% damage absorption to all damage except for Bane. This is a straight percentage of damage reduced before Physical and Magical Resistance Rating calculations.
 * This resistance is increased at levels barbarians normally receive DR increases, for a net of 9% at level 20.
 * Enhancements in the Barbarian Occult Slayer line increase this by 1% instead of the DR they once increased for a total of 4% available from the tree.
 * Fury of the Wild's passive Damage Reduction increases this absorption by an additional 1% at the third rank.

Monsters

 * Fixed several additional undead to no longer heal improperly.

Quests and Adventure Areas

 * A new NPC named Aelonwy Maelodic is available in the Eberron Hall of Heroes who will turn unwanted cosmetics gained from Daily Dice and deconstruct them into, which can then be crafted into other cosmetics available from Daily Dice.
 * Fixed an issue that was causing the quest Enter the Kobold to not be able to be completed.
 * Fixed a stuck spot in Return to White Plume Mountain.
 * The Codex and the Shroud
 * Fortis will no longer occasionally spawn the sigil of life ability randomly, which could sometimes cause a client performance issue if it triggered too frequently.


 * The number of cultists in Misery's Peak has been reduced.
 * Some bushes and frills have been trimmed in Eveningstar.
 * In Arena Challenges, the crowd no longer throws Supply Crates onto the field after five have been thrown. This change is needed to improve game performance.

Reaper difficulty

 * Damage and healing values now have a minimum value of 1 due to Reaper scaling. If Reaper scaling would reduce a value for damage or healing that is above zero to zero, then the value will now be at least 1.

UI

 * Skill bonus grouping strings now have more verbose and accurate tooltip descriptions.
 * Feats are now organized by Category in the Character Sheet.