Update 60 Release Notes

Here are the release notes for Update 60, released on Wednesday, July 26th, 2023.

Of Special Note:

The Pre-purchase for Vecna Unleashed Arrives July 26th!

Face the Power of Vecna! Experience the Thrilling Climax of The Codex of the Infinite Planes Saga!

High amongst the Sharn city of Towers, something sinister is afoot in the halls of Morgrave University. The Codex of the Infinite Planes has escaped to the academy, and with it comes the dark presence of Vecna and his cult. Now with the university's vast collection of rare and powerful artifacts under their control, the destiny of not just Sharn but the entire Eberron plane hangs in the balance. Do you have what it takes to stop Vecna before he claims your universe for his own? Prepare to explore new areas, face perilous enemies, and uncover dark secrets in Vecna Unleashed!

Unleash the power of the Macrotechnic with a new Epic Destiny, battle powerful creatures that have been unleashed amongst the halls, and experience new dungeons that will push you and your group to the limit! The latest Dungeons and Dragons Online expansion, Vecna Unleashed, is available for pre-purchase now! Get immediate access to the new Macrotechnic Epic Destiny with any edition of Vecna Unleashed!

Learn more about Vecna Unleashed on DDO.com!

News and Notes:

General Balance and Gameplay Changes:

• The Legendary Curse of Agony now has a maximum duration of 60 seconds.
• The pause at the end of tumbling with the Experimental Tumble Controls has been removed, allowing for a seamless Dodge experience.
• There is now a dance for Raptor and Panther mounts!
• We've done some adjustments to the flow of the early game involving taverns in The Harbor. Tavern keepers in The Harbor can now be asked for "Quest Leads" and grant vector quests leading to the various quests around The Harbor. There is also a bit of info about favor and the compendium there. To get started, talk to the barkeeps in the Wayward Lobster or the Leaky Dingy.
• We are updating Dungeon Alert to put some bite back into the system, which has not scaled well against ever-increasing player power over the years.
  • If Red Alert is maintained for 30 seconds uninterrupted, a new Purple Alert will now trigger.
  • On Purple alert all enemies will gain True Seeing, similar to how bosses have it.
  • On Purple Alert all enemies will gain 25% Dodge Penetration and a very large to-hit bonus while flanking (the enemy is behind you).
  • On Purple Alert enemies who have been Crowd Controlled will break free in six seconds, and will break free faster for every time they are crowd controlled.
  • Defeating enough enemies to leave Red alert while in Purple will cause alert to immediately shift to Orange. If you go back up to Red from Orange, maintaining Red for another 30 seconds will cause you to go back up to Purple. Don't ignore Red Dungeon Alert!
  • Movement speed bonuses have been increased for all Dungeon Alert levels by about 20% for enemies that are CR 10 and higher.
  • We are aware some content has some trigger issues and we are working through the feedback we've already received.

• Slaads will no longer spam throw boulders while sliding, but have now also remembered they have tongues!
• Exalted Whirlwind and Avenging Whirlwind now work with Be The Whirlwind.
• Acid volumes now scale with level and difficulty. This makes them less lethal at low level but more dangerous at high level.

• The following Favors should now Grant Rewards:
  • If your character has passed the Threshold, speak to the respective Favor NPC and you should be granted the Feat.
  • Below is the list of Awarded Feats:
    • Gatekeepers: 700 Favor: +2 Saves Versus Extraplanar Creatures
    • Keepers of the Feather: 240 Favor: +2 to Listen and Hide Skills
    • Summer Court: 180 Favor: +2 to Diplomacy and Perform Skills
    • Morgrave University: 150 Favor: +5 Hit Points

Bugfixes:

• Players impacted by a recent bank space expansion error should now be fixed, and are now able to purchase the full bank upgrades.
• The Wrathful Weapons weapon tooltip now has accurate text.
• Titania's Glory now references the correct helmet in its description.
• Corrected a misspelled Tiefling in Devil Assault.
• A typo in Soul Survivor's quest journal text has been fixed.
• Fixed a typo in When There's Smoke's objective text.
• Fixed typos in Olyn Araphyr's dialogue.
• The Stone Giant walking around Gianthold has remembered how to use his legs again and will no longer hop along his path at a jaunty angle.
• Frogo now has ladder climb animations.
• Removed bad tooltip info from an Enlightened Spirit ability.
• Heroic, Epic and Legendary ancient Vulkoorim Daggers now have their proper material.
• Pack Aptitude now properly grants its +6 bonus, and its tooltip has been corrected.
• The tooltip in Morninglord enhancements for Sunburst has ben fixed.
• Flurry of Blows now grants its Dodge bonus at its correct levels.
• If you gained Flurry of Blows via Sacred Fist levels, the Dodge bonus is now correctly based off your Paladin level and not Monk level.
• The set bonus effect of the Menechtarun Scavenger set has been fixed.
• Some Collectable turn-in NPCs have had their descriptions fixed.
• Combat Brute no longer sticks to your weapon forever.
• Maiming found on randomly generated and named items now correctly only triggers on a critical hit.
• Metalline Bond now displays on your weapon properly.
• The Silverscale augment now has a more accurate tooltip.
• Tooltips on Proof against Poison and Disease Augments have been fixed.
• Laughter's Melee Power now applies more reliably.
• Hallowed items are now correctly Enhancement typed bonuses and not Sacred typed bonuses, and also boost the correct stat.
• The exit in Haverdasher is now named The Harbor instead of The Marketplace.
• Consecration now properly heals hirelings.
• Corrected a text error in Lightning the Candle's buff.
• The Power Word spells are now correctly listed as Enchantment spells.
• Acid Bolt is now properly a conjuration spell.
• Fixed the description of the Thorn Blade spell.
• Vile Eruption now deals its correct damage through Earthquake.
• Fixed description on Grandmaster of Oceans.
• Fixed name of Rakhat's Trifle and other miscellaneous Rakhat text.
• Fixed the description of Heal, Mass.
• Diplomacy is now slightly less buggy!
• Druid's Improved Dodge now has a % sign in its tooltip.
• Arcane Tempest is less likely to get stuck on enemies forever.
• Fixed a number of crowd control abilities that were not being properly counted as crowd control.
• Uncanny Balance now has its correct prerequisites.
• Stormsinger's Electrocution now correctly triggers from Cold spells, and boosts Cold Spell Power.
• Distraction from Feydark Illusionist may now properly be used without breaking stealth.
• Kelas' Volatile Mixture is no longer secretly acting like a throwing dagger instead of an Orb.
• Transcend Darkness can now be properly trained.
• Fixed the names of Transcend Darkness and Transcend Light to better match the abilities granted.
• Blossoming Peace now correctly adds its stun to Orchard Blossom.
• Burst of Glacial Wrath now properly takes the Embolden Metamagic.
• Removed erroneous weird recipes from the Hunt or Be Hunted raid turn-in.
• A typo in the Legendary Winter set bonus has been fixed.
• Cruel Cut and Mutilate now apply reliably.
• Steal Life Force's heal now properly scales with 150% Spell Power.
• Multiclassing into Monk now properly allows you to take Spring Attack and Ten Thousand Stars at Monk levels 1 and 2.
• Legendary Aim now applies correctly if you are using a Repeating Crossbow and/or a thrown weapon with something in your offhand.
• Dark Hunter's Medium Armor boost from its 2nd core no longer applies 100% of the time.
• Druidic Wild Shape items now work on all wild shapes not just wolf/bear variants.
• Dark Hunter's Bleed the Weak now properly scales with Melee and Ranged Power.
• Newly created copies of the Kundarak Delving Suit now have slightly different effects to avoid overlaps.
• The 4th core in Ravager now gives its Maximum Hit Points

Enemy AI Changes

Monsters will now be better about dropping aggro against players they have no hope of catching, and dropping aggro against players who passed them by but were never primary targets and might be long gone. Note this does not effect the duration they'll contribute to Dungeon Alert, only killing them or waiting for the alert to cooldown will do that once they've aggro'd and added to the alert level.

Monsters will no longer try to path home when they drop aggro. Sometimes these paths could get very long and performance expensive. Monsters on landscapes will still leash normally which is the teleport they do with the little yellow stop sign when they get pulled too far off their spawn point.

Archer/Casters will generally try to run from you less often when you get close to them. These AIs when they got jammed into corners would spend a lot of time failing to find a good spot, and we feel it's not worth the server cycles. An Archer/Caster will still occasionally move away from you, especially when they first aggro, but typically won't spend cycles trying to maintain distance anymore. Mobs with baked in jump back animations will still do those behaviors though.

Macrotechnic Epic Destiny

The Machrotechnic Epic Destiny revolves around the following themes:

• Defense (but not necessarily tanking)
• Rune Arms
• Electric, Sonic, and Repair/Rust Spellcasting

Cores

• Core 1 (level 20): Maker's Touch: You gain the Magical Training feat. Each core of this tree grants +25 Maximum Spell points, +15 Maximum Hit Points, +5 Electric, Sonic, Rust, and Repair Spell Power, +5 Universal Spell Power, +5 Melee Power, and +4 Ranged Power. Each core also grants a +1 Epic bonus to all Spell DCs. This Epic bonus is a non-stacking bonus type.
• Core 2 (level 23): Metamagic Capacitors: +15% Fortification and +3 to each Healing Amplification. Your Rune Arms now benefit from the Maximize, Empower, and Intensify Spell Metamagics if you own those feats. This does not cost Spell Points, and you do not need the Feats toggled on to gain their effects on Rune Arms.
• Core 3 (level 26): Warding Inscriptions: +15% Fortification and +3 to each Healing Amplification. Your Ablative Armor spell now blocks 20 points of damage per caster level with no cap.
• Core 4 (level 32): Armored Augmentation: +15% Fortification and +3 to each Healing Amplification. +15% Exceptional Bonus to Armor Class. Your Rune Arm caster levels now factor in bonuses from your Epic and Legendary Knowledge feats.

Tier 1 (req level 20):

• Sprockets: +5/10/15 Repair Amplification. If you have the construct exemplar feat, you gain +10 Physical Resistance Rating
• Solid Footing: +2/4/6 Armor Class and Physical Resistance Rating.
• +1/2/3 Spellcraft and Use Magic Device. Your Rune Arms charge 5/10/15% faster.
• Multiselector: Discharge (Epic Strike)
  • Galvanic Blast: Deals 1d6+6 Electric damage per Character level to enemies around you (Player-based Area of Effect). Cooldown 15 seconds, Costs 20 Spell Points.
  • Sonic Boom: Deals 1d6+6 Sonic damage per Character level to enemies around you (Player-based Area of Effect). Cooldown 15 seconds, Costs 20 Spell Points.
  • Mending Burst: You and allies around you (Player-based Area of Effect) are repaired for 3d6+6 Hit Points, plus an additional 1 per Caster Level (Max Caster Level: 35). This counts as a Repair Damage spell. Cooldown 6 seconds, costs 20 Spell Points.
• Blast Shields: +2/4/6 Reflex saves, rank 3 no longer fail Reflex Saves on a 1.

Tier 2 (req level 20):

• Fluidity: Your Armor and/or Body type no longer contributes to Arcane Spell Failure.
• Radiant Prison: Target non-boss foe is sealed away for 8 seconds in an Unbreakable Forcefield with no save. In this Forcefield, they cannot act, but take 95% less damage and healing from all sources (except Untyped). 20 second cooldown.
• Rune Arm Use: You gain the Rune Arm Use feat. Your Caster Level with Rune Arms is now based on your Character Level instead of your Artificer Level. If you already had the Rune Arm Use feat, +1 Stable Charge Tier.
• Multiselector: Hammer
  • Lightning Hammer: This is chaos hammer but electric. Area of Effect.
  • Thunder Hammer: This is chaos hammer but sonic. Area of Effect.
• Destiny Mantle: Animated Aegis: You create a small animated object that floats with you. While this Mantle is active, you gain +15 Repair Amplification, and you absorb 10% of all Force, Piercing, Bludgeoning, Slashing, Electric, Sonic, and Rust damage you take. This is increased to 15% if you are wearing a Rune Arm.

Tier 3 (req level 23):

• Machrotech Spell Focus: Multiselector: +1/2/3 Evocation, Transmutation, Conjuration, or Abjuration DCs
• Technique Drive: Multiselector:
  • Speed Drive: +2/4/6% Doublestrike and Doubleshot
  • Efficiency Drive: +3/6/10% Spell Cost Reduction
  • Flash Drive: +150/300/450% Threat Generation
• Storm Core: +1/2/3 Rune Arm DCs. Rank 3: +5 Electric, Sonic, Rust, Repair, and Universal Spell Power
• Arcane Imbuement: +1/2/3 Imbue Dice
• Destiny Mantle Improvement: While you have Animated Aegis active, you gain +5 Physical and Magical Resistance Rating. If you are wearing a Rune Arm, gain +10 PRR/MRR instead.

Tier 4 (req level 26):

• Galvanic Attunement: +10 Electric, Sonic, Rust, and Repair Spell Power. +10 Universal Spell Power.
• Strike Drive: Multiselector:
  • Ruin Drive: Your Epic Strike now disassembles enemy constructs, dealing Rust damage in a large AOE. If you are using the Repair Strike, this also applies a supercharged buff to you that decreases your metamagic costs for a short time
  • Blast Drive: Your Epic Strike now Stuns enemies struck, assuming they fail a save. If you are using the Shock strike, this also applies a supercharged buff to you that increases your movement speed for a short time
  • Dissonance Drive: Your Epic Strike now confuses enemies, assuming they fail a save. If you are using the Sonic strike, this also applies vulnerability to enemies
• Boost Drive: Multiselector:
  • Spark Drive: Once per second, an enemy hit by your Rune Arm spells take an additional 1d4 bonus Electric damage per caster level. This scales with Spell Power.
  • Echo Drive: Once per second, an enemy hit by your Rune Arm spells take an additional 1d4 bonus Sonic damage per caster level. This scales with Spell Power.
• Epic Improved Metamagic: Multiselector:
  • Maximize
  • Empower
  • Intensify
• Destiny Mantle Improvement: Magical Recoil: +5 Electric, Sonic, Rust, Repair, and Universal Spell Power. While you have your Destiny Mantle active, firing a Runearm grants you spell resistance equal to your character level for 10 seconds.

Tier 5 (req level 30):

• Enhanced Machrotech Spell Focus: +1/2/3 to all Spell DCs.
• Critical Connection: +1 Critical Multiplier on a roll of 19-20 with weapons while wearing a Rune Arm.
• Armor of Legends: the Epic Mage Armor feat's bonus is now untyped and grants you +1 AC per character level. You also gain a bonus based on your installed drives:
  • Speed Drive: +5% Action boost bonus to Attack Speed
  • Efficiency Drive: +5% Action boost bonus to Movement Speed
  • Flash Drive: +10 Action boost bonus to Physical Resistance Rating/Magical Resistance Rating
  • Ruin Drive: +10 Action boost bonus to Spell Power
  • Blast Drive: +3 Action boost bonus to Saves
  • Dissonance Drive: +3 Action boost bonus to Tactics
  • Spark Drive: +10 Action boost bonus to Energy Resistance
  • Echo Drive: +1 Action Boost bonus to Imbue Dice
• Epic Moment: Shift into MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE. This grants you a 100% boost to Rune Arm Charge Speed and Cooldown Speed, a 50% reduction in Spell Cooldowns, a 30% Action Boost bonus to Attack Speed, and a 50% Action Boost bonus to Movement Speed for 30 seconds.
• Destiny Mantle Improvement: Forcefield Generator: With your Animated Aegis Epic Destiny Mantle active, you gain +10% Insight bonus to Maximum Hit Points. While you have a Rune Arm equipped, increase this bonus to 20%.

Rune Arm Changes:

We are rebalancing Rune Arm shots throughout the game. We currently have around 20 Rune Arm shot types, which vary wildly in damage, number of hits, speed, spread, homing, and hitbox size. In this pass, we've standardized many things to make more Rune Arm types viable, bring in odd outliers, and make the user experience better.

• The information below is sorted by Shot Type - Every Rune Arm with that Shot Type is affected by the listed changes.
• The Rune Arm Charge UI is now moveable like other UI elements.
• All Rune Arm shots now have a consistent projectile size. This should especially help ones like Light Spirals, which were so large they'd often impact the ground before actually shooting.
• One of the biggest power disparities we tackled here is in AOE vs. Single(ish) Target Rune Arms. An example of AOE is Fire Blast, which is a cone that hits many enemies inside it. An example of Single(ish) Target is Salt Shot, which shoots 5 homing projectiles at a single target. That doesn't mean all of those will hit that target, or ONLY that target as things can get in their way, but they're single target most of the time.
  • We've made the target damage for Single(ish)-Target ones equivalent to what Salt, Knife, Ghost, Book, and Bee Shot are currently dealing (below called "New Single Target Curve"). Their damage has remained the same; other shots have come up to meet them.
  • Currently, these have similar damage curves. However, many of the AOEs only hit their target once, while the Single(ish)-Target ones can hit up to five times. Meaning the AOEs are doing 20% of the damage of Single(ish)-Target ones, sometimes less.
  • The damage on AOEs that do 1 hit to affected targets has gone up substantially across the board to put their damage at roughly half of what the Single Target(ish) ones do with the number of projectiles they fire at the same tier.
  • All Rune Arms that deal multiple damage types still do, we've just split the numbers to fit the new damage paradigm.
• Breakdown By Shot Type:
  • Acid Bolt
    • Updated damage to New Single Target Curve
      • Changed shot spread to narrow
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Bee Shot
    • No changes (slow projectile speed remains as this one also delivers a DOT)
  • Book Shot
    • Increased projectile speed
  • Cold Bolts
    • Updated damage to New Single Target Curve
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Cannon Shot
    • Updated damage to something close to New AOE Curve, split across two damage types
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Electrical Blast
    • Updated damage to New AOE Curve
  • Electrical Lash
    • Updated damage to New AOE Curve
      • Increased projectile speed slightly
      • Added homing - This projectile does not explode on impact, but this change will fire it in the direction of your target instead of straight ahead.
  • Ghost Shot
    • Increased projectile speed.
  • Fire Blast / Corrupted Fire Blast
    • Updated damage to New AOE Curve
  • Exploding Fire Shot / Corrupted Exploding Fire Shot
    • Updated damage to New AOE Curve
      • Added homing
      • Increased projectile speed
      • Made hitbox significantly larger - This now matches other shot types, but we wanted to call it out because the hitbox on this one was SO SMALL before, especially without homing, that it... often just wouldn't hit anything.
  • Force Shot
    • Updated damage to New Single Target Curve
      • Changed shot spread to narrow
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Gold Shot
    • Updated damage to New Single Target Curve
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Knife Shot
    • Increased projectile speed
  • Light Spirals
    • This shot type actually works now, no longer immediately destroys itself while standing on the ground
      • Updated damage to New Single Target Curve
      • Increased projectile speed
  • Salt Shot
    • No changes
  • Trash Shot
    • This is our outlier. Trash Shot is currently doing around double the damage of the next-best Rune Arm in the game.We've adjusted the damage down and given it homing and better projectile speed. Its damage has been reduced by around half, putting it slightly higher than the New Single Target Curve to most targets.
    • It has four damage types, but very few will almost take all four - Poison and Rust are generally mutually exclusive against targets.
      • Each damage type here is slightly higher than 1/3 of the New Single Target Curve. If you manage to find a target that will take all four types of damage... Well, this Rune Arm will be good for that.
      • Added homing
      • Increased projectile speed

• The following shot types have been updated from shooting (2/2/3/3/4) projectiles to (1/2/3/4/5) projectiles:
  • Cold Bolts
  • Electrical Storm
  • Ghost Shot
  • Gold Shot
  • Light Shot

• Trash Shot now shoots (1/2/2/3/3) projectiles (previously 2/3/2/2/3).
• Electrical Storm Rune Arms no longer erroneously have Electrical Lash Rune Arms' AOE properties.

UI and Engine Work:

• You can now right click a party member in the party UI to send them a tell.
• You can now move the Rune Arm Charge UI element.
• The Experience Report window has gotten a slight overhaul!
  • No longer reports about bravery streaks (as that mechanic has been deprecated for several years).
  • Now contains less empty space.
  • Now reports starting Reaper XP accurately.
  • Now shows you the previously-hidden Reaper First Time Bonus to Reaper XP.
  • Now shows your estimated Reaper XP even if you haven't activated Reaper XP by killing 10 monsters yet.

XP Adjustments:

• Bravery Bonus has been renamed Delving Bonus.
• Conquest now has a ceiling of 100 Kills that will always trigger conquest bonus.
• Many quests now have working conquest bonuses that didn't before.
• Kill Thresholds for Aggression/Onslaught/Conquest are now at lower values of 25%/50%/75%.
• Reaper First time bonus reduced to 45%. 50% of reaper's first time bonus has been moved into a new Delving Tier (Hard 50%/Elite 100%/Reaper 150%).

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Source: Official U60.0.0 release notes on DDO.com