Qindaar has been working in Shard’s Landing to get XP.  This weekend he took advantage of the fifty percent XP bonus, along with his Lesson of the Devoted and then an adventures bottle he has managed six percent XP this evening bringing up to ninety three percent of level.  He hopes tomorrow night he can finally ‘ding’ and get out of this hell level and move to level ninety seven finally.

Qindaar still struggles to get additional experience points.  Currently one percent every four hours of play is exhausting.  Struggling to find a better place to kill for experience points that net a bigger bang for the buck.

On another point a new expansion pack is being introduced and pre-orders are being accepted, please visit Daybreak Games for more information.

Also a patch has occurred:

September 24, 2015
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*** Items ***

– Adjusted the weapon damage bonus formula to scale more gracefully for low damage weapons. This should result in damage bonus values that are more in line with the old formula for older items.
*** Spells ***

– Fixed a bug that caused spells with a recourse component to cause triggered spells to hit the caster rather than the caster’s target. This is most notable in the case where the wizard claw line of spells would cause effects such as Pyromancy to harm the wizard rather than the wizard’s target.
– Bard – Corrected an issue with a number of spells that were not behaving as intended. A notable example of the fix is that Selo’s Kick will once again be usable while under the effects of Frenzied Kicks.
*** AA ***

– Beastlord – Made rank 2 of Shrink available to Beastlords.
– Cleric – Bestow Divine Aura has been renamed Bestow Divine Aura Azia and Cascading Divine Aura has been renamed Bestow Divine Aura Beza to simplify the categorization of the abilities.
– Cleric – Adjusted ranks 10-12 of Ward of Purity so that these abilities provide an improvement over rank 9.
– Shaman – Restored the missing rank 2 of Shrink.
– Warrior – Quickened Howl of the Warlord has been fixed to correctly apply its spell haste to all ranks of Howl of the Warlord.
– Warrior – Ranks 2 and 3 of Merciless Blade have been fixed to function on 2-handed slashing weapons. Previously it would only function on 2-handed blunt and 2-handed piercing weapons. Renamed this ability to Merciless Grip to better reflect its ability to increase the damage of all 2-handed weapon types and updated the description.
– Warrior – Corrected a bug with Combatant’s Pact that prevented it from having any effect and updated its description.  It will now increase the amount of health healed by promised heal triggers.
– Warrior – Updated Hastened Unbroken Attention to also function on the level 102 skill Unflinching Attention.
– Wizard – Changed the way Frenzied and Sustained Devastation consume limited use charges.  Charges will now be consumed based on the number of spells cast and not the number of targets hit. This corrects an issue where spells that hit multiple targets would consume as many charges as there were targets hit by the single spell.
– Wizard – Spells that meet the Frenzied and Sustained Devastation focus criteria that are triggered from twincast or from spell triggers (such as the second spell from Ethereal Weave) will consume a limited use charge.
– Wizard – Removed the mana preservation suppression component from all ranks of Frenzied Devastation and Sustained Devastation.
*** Progression Servers ***

– Items introduced with the 2003 revamp of Veeshan’s Peak will no longer drop on Progression Servers until Legacy of Ykesha has unlocked.
– The EverQuest Team

September 23, 2015
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*** Highlights ***

– Modified the way that a weapons damage bonus is calculated. This should result in increased weapon damage bonuses, especially for two-handed weapons.
– Most clickable buff items will now grant you a passive AA ability with a permanent effect!  See the Items section for details.
– Look out for new Nights of the Dead items available in the Marketplace, beginning October first!
– Made several changes to the way Fading Memories and other escape abilities work.  Please see the AA section for details.
*** Items ***

– Keep an eye on the Marketplace starting in October for new and returning Nights of the Dead items! You’ll be delighted to find sinister mounts like the Dark Direhound, horrifying weapon visuals like the Nightmare ornaments, fiendish familiars like the Cat in a Bag, Player Studio offerings, and much much more!
– Updated the way that the alternate advancement ability Sinister Strikes functions. The ability now grants weapons wielded in your offhand a percentage of your weapons damage bonus. This change allows the ability to grant an effect for weapons with a delay lower than 30 and will better scale to higher damage weapons.
– Fixed an issue that would cause items to be deleted if you tried to send them to a player that doesn’t exist.
– The server is no longer alcohol powered and no longer requires a sacrifice of an alcoholic beverage when you drink an alcoholic beverage.
– Changed the following buff lines that result from activating items so that their effects grant the bearer passive AA abilities:  Ancestral Memories, Aura of Battle, Breath of Atathus, Expanding Mind, Form of Defense, Form of Endurance, Form of Protection, Form of Rejuvenation, Grim Aura, Knowledge of the Past / Soothing Breath, Might of Stone, Myrmidons Skill, and Prismatic Ward.
– – Activating an item with one of these spells grants you a passive AA ability at a rank that matches the power of the buff. (Activating an item with a weaker buff will not lower your passive AA ability rank.)
– – Activating an item with one of these spells now casts a shadow spell named for the buff line. These shadow spells have no effects but are permanent duration and are intended to allow you to retain the use of these items as a means to reduce the impact of incoming dispel attacks.
– – When you are granted a rank of one of these passive AA abilities you are now also granted an activated ability called Item: Disable Item Abilities. This ability will clear all of your item-granted abilities and allow you to start fresh.
– Extended the spell durations of the following item buff lines: Aura of the Void, Essence of Ruaabri, Gnoll Reaver Fortitude, Gunthak Grit / Fortitude, Illusionary Spikes, and Thorny Shield.  They all have a permanent duration and persist through death.
– Fixed a problem that could cause some items to be lost when unpacking a suit of Hero’s Forge armor.
*** Quests & Events ***

– Look to the marketplace this October for the Cat in a Bag. Each one contains a random adoptable cat familiar. Trade them to your friends or collect them all yourself, and keep an eye out for the easily terrified Scaredy Cat familiar and always agitated Cranky Cat familiar!
*** Spells ***

– Spells can now have more than one focus effect at a time, similar to AAs.
– Melee skills that apply buffs to the caster no longer require a target in order to work.
– Shadowknight – Adjusted the hatred multiplier for the gift recourse from the line of Touch spells to be as good or better than the highest rank of the AA ability Voice of Thule that is available at each level range.
– Spells that allow you to gravitate your target toward your location have been modified so that they only function on targets up to level 100. This applies to Compliant Lurch and Forceful Attraction.
*** NPC ***

– Reviewed the majority of enemies in Call of the Forsaken and The Darkened Sea zones with regards to immunity to runspeed changes, mesmerization, stun, lull, charm, and fear, and removed or relaxed restrictions on most NPCs.
– Fixed some enemies that were immune to fling and gravitate effects but would allow players to attempt to cast on them.  These spell now fail immediately upon casting on these immune enemies rather than upon landing.  This applies primarily to raid encounters and encounters in the Plane of War.
*** AA ***

– Passive AA abilities that modify the amount of hatred generated by the player’s actions can now be toggled on and off. This change means these abilities can now be auto-granted to all classes, and allowed us to refund the activated AA ability Negation of Subtlety.
– The AA abilities Knowledge of Alaran Culture and Advanced Knowledge of Alaran Culture have been removed. All Veil of Alaris AA abilities that required the purchase of Advanced Knowledge of Alaran Culture have had that restriction removed.
– Consolidated All bind-wound-related AA ability lines (Bandage Wound, Mithaniel’s Binding, Field Dressing, and Combat Medic) into a single general line called Bandage Wounds.
– Consolidated the general innate statistic lines (Innate Strength, Innate Agility, etc) and the statistic cap lines (Planar Strength, Planar Agility, etc) into single ability lines in order to reduce UI clutter in the AA window. For example: Planar Strength is now rank 16 of Innate Strength.
– Glyph of the Indeterminable Reward and Glyph of Unfathomable Reward no longer share a re-use timer with the other Glyph AA abilities.
– Corrected an issue with the Ageless Enmity and Area Taunt AA abilities that prevented them from adding the intended amount of hatred over the previously most hated target.
– The passive AA ability Spell Casting Reinforcement no longer extends the duration of invulnerability spells.
– Unobtainable ranks of Hero’s Vitality, Hero’s Fortitude, and Hero’s Resolution no longer display in the Special tab of the AA window. Newer ranks of the ability are displayed as they become available as rewards for completing content.
– Beastlord – Renamed the AA ability line Extended Feralgia to Extended Moongrowl and corrected it to work on level 105 spells.
– Beastlord – Corrected an issue with the AA Extended Bloodlust that prevented it from extending the duration of the second rank of the Bloodlust ability.
– Beastlord – Renamed the AA ability line Spell Casting Subtlety to Combat Subtlety and updated its description to better reflect the fact that hatred generated by both spells and melee combat is affected by this line.
– Beastlord – Corrected a bug with the passive AA ability Extended Moongrowl that prevented it from extending the duration of the Growl of the Leopard and Feralgia lines of spells as intended.
– Beastlord – Adjusted the required level, expansion and costs for the Shaman and Beastlord versions of the AA abilities Shrink and Group Shrink. This corrects an issue that prevented the beastlord version of the AA ability Shrink from displaying.
– Berserker – Renamed the AA ability line Echoing Cries to Extended War Cry.
– Berserker – Removed the ability for the self-damage component of the AA ability Agony of Absolution to apply critical damage.
– Berserker – Updated the AA ability line Axe of Rallos to function with the level 105 skill Axe of Numicia.
– Berserker – Renamed the AA ability line Extended Havoc to Extended Cry Havoc and it now functions on the ability Cry Carnage.
– Berserker – The AA ability line Decapitate no longer reports “Your target does not meet the spell requirements” when melee attacking targets that are above the level in which the ability can trigger. Instead, the decapitating blow will deal 0 damage to targets that are too high of a level for this ability.
– Berserker – Furious Rampage now places a visible buff on you to indicate its duration and to allow you to remove the effect early if needed.
– Berserker – Created Focused Furious Rampage, a new AA ability that allows you the same number of additional combat rounds on a single target.
– Enchanter – Changed the re-use times of all enchant material AA abilities from 1 to 8 hours to 10 to 60 seconds. These abilities now share two re-use timers (one for mass and one for single use).
– Monk – Destructive Force now places a visible buff on you to indicate its duration and to allow you to remove the effect early if needed.
– Monk – Extra melee rounds granted from Destructive Force now have the ability to trigger additional hits from double attack, etc.
– Monk – Created Focused Destructive Force, a new AA ability that allows you the same number of additional combat rounds on a single target.
– Monk – Updated the AA ability Hastened Destructive Force to function on both Destructive Force and Focused Destructive Force.
– Rogue – Rakes Rampage now places a visible buff on you to indicate its duration and to allow you to remove the effect early if needed.
– Rogue – Created Focused Rakes Rampage, a new AA ability that allows you the same number of additional combat rounds on a single target.
– Paladin – Modified the AA ability Beacon of the Righteous so that it will now impart its instantaneous hatred component even if the stun and hatred over time components of the ability are resisted.
– Paladin – Changed the resist modifier for Divine Call to be more in line with other gravitate and fling abilities.
– Paladin and Shadowknight – Added a new passive ability line, Bold Attacks, that increases the amount of hatred generated by your actions.  Reduced the effective hate percentages for the activated AA abilities Voice of Thule and Marr’s Salvation so that maximum hate generation is close to the same amount.
– Warrior – Added more ranks to the passive AA ability line Bold Attacks and extended the line to lower levels to match the levels that the Paladin and Shadowknight version of this AA ability line become available.
– Warrior – The buff applied when using Rage of the Forsaken has had its duration and aggro multiplier reduced to better reflect intended values with the recent changes to Bold Attacks.
– Warrior – Renamed the AA ability line Hastened Defiance to Hastened Warlords Tenacity and re-ordered the ranks to reflect their proper power growth.
– Warrior – All ranks of the AA ability Warlords Tenacity now count down in buff-frozen zones.
– Warrior – Modified Warlord’s Grasp so that the improved taunt portion of the ability will continue to function even if the target is immune to the gravity portion of the ability.
– Warrior – Sneering Grin ranks 1-3 have been changed to be a toggled passive ability.
– Wizard – Modified the AA abilities Frenzied Devastation and Sustained Devastation so that only the spells focused by these abilities will use charges and receive the focus effect.
– – Adjusted the mana cost component of these abilities to make them less mana efficient.
– – Improved the number of charges slightly for Frenzied Devastation and substantially for Sustained Devastation.
– – Improved the chance to critically cast granted by Sustained Devastation.
– – Created two additional ranks of Sustained Devastation to better match the available ranks of Frenzied Devastation.

– Made a number of changes to AA abilities that allow players to escape from combat:
– – Corrected a bug that ignored any chance to escape from combat that was set below 100% on spells that did not have a duration.
– – Changed the invisibility component of abilities that allow you to escape. Now, upon successfully rolling your escape chance, if you are at least 30 feet away from all targets that have you high (top 10) on their hatelist, you will have a spell cast on you. In most cases this spell is an invisibility buff.
– – Modified the Cleric ability Divine Peace, the Paladin ability Balefire Burst, the Warrior ability Howl of the Warlord, and the Berserker ability Self Preservation to apply a sanctuary buff upon a successful escape rather than invisibility.
– – The distance restriction for the added spell component of these abilities does not apply to the hatelist removal functionality. There is no minimum distance for removing yourself from the hatelists of qualifying NPCs.
– – Put level restrictions in place on all escape abilities. Starting at level 75 most classes are only able to immediately escape combat from NPCs that are yellow con (player level +3) or lower. Exceptions to this are Rogues, Bards, Monks, Shadowknights and Rangers who can escape from NPCs that are up to 5 levels higher. AA abilities available prior to level 71 now work on creatures up to level 75.
– – All classes with escape AA abilities now have new 0 cost ranks available at each level increase that they did not previously have purchasable ranks. These 0 cost ranks increase the maximum level that the abilities will function on.
– – Bard – Increased mana cost for higher level ranks of the AA ability Fading Memories by approximately 3% per player level.
– – Ranger – Removed mana cost for the AA ability Cover Tracks and increased its success rate from 50-70-85% to 60-75-90%.
– – Magician – Combined the AA abilities Drape of Shadows and Cloak of Shadows into a single ability line Drape of Shadows which provides a chance for the Magician to escape from combat and a guaranteed chance for their pet to escape from combat. The combined ability does not require the Magician’s pet to be up for the Magician to escape from combat. Merged the Magician passive abilities Hastened Drape of Shadows and Hastened Cloak of Shadows into a single line which provides a 4.5 minute reduction to the reuse time of the combined ability at max rank.
– – Shadowknight – The spell Rigor Mortis will be modified in a later patch to correctly cap the level of targets that it functions on and Last Gasp, Last Breath, Final Gasp and Terminal Breath will be updated with similar functionality to Rigor Mortis. For now, Rigor Mortis is capped at level 109.

– Modified all AA abilities that allow you to fling or gravitate your target to your location so they function only on NPC targets below your current level. Added new 0 cost ranks at every level to increase the level range that the abilities will function on. This applies to Lure of the Siren’s Song, Divine Call, Moving Mountains, Warlord’s Grasp, and Hate’s Attraction.

– Combined the following activated AA abilities into single lines:
– – Acute Focus of Arcanum, Enlightened Focus of Arcanum and Empowered Focus of Arcanum are now ranks 2-5 of Focus of Arcanum.
– – Replenish Companion ranks 1-21 are now ranks 2-22 of Mend Companion.
– – Berserker – Cascading Rage ranks 1-10 are now ranks 4-13 of Untamed Rage. Hastened Cascading Rage has been renamed Hastened Untamed Rage and has been updated to function on all ranks of the combined ability line.
– – Berserker – Stomping Leap is now rank 3 of Battle Leap. Battle Leap rank 3 is now rank 4. Rank 3 of Battle Leap now stuns targets up to level 85 in addition to conferring a melee bonus to the caster, rank 4 now stuns targets up to level 90 as well as conferring an improved melee bonus.
– – Cleric – Improved Sanctuary is now rank 2 of Sanctuary.
– – Druid – Hand of Ro is now rank 1 of Blessing of Ro, ranks 2-5 of Blessing of Ro are equivalent to what were previously ranks 1-4.
– – Enchanter – Improved Reactive Rune ranks 1-3 are now ranks 3-6 of Reactive Rune.
– – Magician – Small Modulation Shard, Medium Modulation Shard, and Large Modulation Shard are now ranks 1-3 of a combined line: Summon Modulation Shard.
– – Magician – Fire Core ranks 1-10 are now ranks 2-11 of Heart of Flames. Extended Fire Core has been renamed Extended Heart of Flames and has been updated to work on all ranks of Heart of Flames.
– – Magician – Vapor Core ranks 1-12 are now ranks 2-13 of Heart of Vapor. Extended Vapor Core has been renamed Extended Heart of Vapor and has been updated to work on all ranks of Heart of Vapor.
– – Magician – Ice Core ranks 1-7 are now ranks 2-8 of Heart of Ice. Extended Ice Core has been renamed Extended Heart of Ice and has been updated to work on all ranks of Heart of Ice.
– – Magician – Stone Core ranks 1-10 are now ranks 2-11 of Heart of Stone. Extended Stone Core has been renamed Extended Heart of Stone and has been updated to work on all ranks of Heart of Stone.
– – Necromancer – Army of the Dead ranks 1-27 are now ranks 4-30 of Wake the Dead. Graverobbing has been renamed Hastened Wake the Dead and has been updated to function on all ranks of the combined ability line. Quickened Army of the Dead has been renamed Quickened Wake the Dead and has been updated to function on all ranks of the combined ability line.
– – Necromancer – Improved Death Peace is now rank 3 of Death Peace.
– – Necromancer – Perfected Dead Man Floating is now rank 2 of Dead Man Floating.
– – Paladin – Hand of Disruption is now rank 1 of Force of Disruption, ranks 2-15 of Force of Disruption are equivalent to what were previously ranks 1-14.
– – Shadowknight – Improved Death Peace is now rank 3 of Death Peace.
– – Shadowknight – Improved Explosion of Hatred is now rank 3 of Explosion of Hatred. All ranks have been made no-resist.
– – Shadowknight – Improved Explosion of Spite is now rank 2 of Explosion of Spite. All ranks have been made no-resist.
– – Warrior – Enhanced Area Taunt is now rank 2 of Area Taunt. Hastened Instigation has been renamed Hastened Area Taunt and has been updated to function on all ranks of the combined ability.
– – Warrior – Stomping Leap is now rank 3 of Battle Leap. Battle Leap rank 3 is now rank 4. Rank 3 of Battle Leap now stuns targets up to level 85 in addition to conferring a melee bonus to the caster, rank 4 now stuns targets up to level 90 as well as conferring an improved melee bonus.
– – Wizard – Mana Blast, Mana Blaze and Volatile Mana Blaze are now ranks 2-12 of Mana Burn. Hastened Manaburn has been updated to function on all ranks of the combined ability line.
– – Wizard – Prolonged Destruction ranks 1-15 are now ranks 4-18 of Frenzied Devastation. Sustained Destruction has been renamed Sustained Devastation. Improved Sustained Destruction is now rank 7 of Sustained Devastation. Hastened Prolonged Destruction has been renamed Hastened Devastation and has been updated to function on all ranks of both Frenzied Devastation and Sustained Devastation.
– – Wizard – Frenzied Devastation and Sustained Devastation have been modified so that only the spells focused by these abilities will use charges and receive the focus effect. The mana cost component of these abilities has been adjusted to make them intentionally less mana efficient. The number of charges has been improved slightly for Frenzied Devastation and substantially for Sustained Devastation. The chance to critically cast granted by ‘Sustained Devastation’ has been improved. Two additional ranks of Sustained Devastation have been created to better match the available ranks of Frenzied Devastation.
– – Wizard – Atol’s Unresistable Shackles is now rank 2 of Atol’s Shackles.

– Modified the timer data for the following activated AA abilities so that they should no longer conflict:
– – Berserker – Furious Leap with Battle Leap and Battle Stomp.
– – Berserker – Savage Spirit with Identify.
– – Cleric – Call of the Herald with Harmonic Dissonance.
– – Cleric – Blessed Chains with Drakkin racial breath abilities.
– – Cleric – Innate Invis to Undead with Celestial Regeneration.
– – Enchanter – Beguiler’s Banishment and Beguiler’s Directed Banishment with Drakkin racial breath abilities.
– – Necromancer – Self-Sacrifice with Banestrike.
– – Necromancer – Encroaching Darkness with Bind Affinity.
– – Necromancer – Cloak of Shadows and Innate Invis to Undead with Death Peace.
– – Necromancer – Scent of Terris with Identify.
– – Paladin – Radiant Cure with Heroic Leap.
– – Shadowknight – Bobbing Corpse with Bony Grasp of Death.
– – Shadowknight – Cloak of Shadows with Death Peace.
– – Warrior – Furious Leap with Battle Leap.
– – Wizard – Translocate with Summon Clockwork Banker.

– Corrected the following issues with the AA abilities Projection of Doom, Projection of Fury, and Projection of Piety:
– – Multiple projections can now be used on a single target. Previously, if multiple projections were used on the same target only the most recently summoned pet would transfer aggro to the caster.
– – Corrected a bug where the caster would have their aggro value with the target set to the amount of hate generated by the pet rather than increased by the amount of hate generated by the pet. Previously, if the ability was used late into a fight, it could result in a net loss of hate with the target.
*** Progression Servers ***

– Removed the maximum player limit for the following Kunark zones: Karnor’s Castle, The Dreadlands, Skyfire Mountains, The Ruins of Sebilis, The Emerald Jungle, Timorous Deep, and Howling Stones.
– The Plane of Fear and the Plane of Hate now load balance when populated by enough adventurers. Raid targets will only spawn in the base version of the zone.
– Increased the intensity of the effects of Mark of the Old Ways, which is applied to Magician and Necromancer pets that are engaged in combat with raid bosses, to values that are more in line with intended tuning.
*** Miscellaneous ***

– If you are currently bound in a zone that no longer allows Bind Affinity to function, that bind point will be reset to your starting location the next time you enter your current bind zone.
– Monk – The skills Eagle Strike and Dragon Punch (or Tail Rake) now share the same timer as Tiger Claw so that they will no longer conflict with the reuse timer for Kick, Round Kick and Flying Kick.
– The auto-follow command no longer requires you to be grouped with your targeted player.
– Corrected a bug that prevented the Add Funds function in the Marketplace window from working.
– Bags and items will no longer temporarily disappear on the client if you retrieve them from the shared bank and have a lore item conflict with your Parcels.
*** UI ***

– In a future release, marketplace purchases will be able to complete directly without having to open the Marketplace window. Created a new window that contains only information about the specific marketplace item to support this.
– Corrected a bug where NPC wild rampage messages were being filtered as pet wild rampage messages and vice versa.
– Changed –

EQUI.xml
EQUI_PurchaseWnd.xml
*** Previously Updated ***

– Trakanon in Sebilis will drop additional Veeshan’s Peak key pieces (Trakanon’s Tooth) on progression servers.
– a dracoliche in pre-revamp Plane of Fear is no longer teeny tiny. He is three times his previous size, and the same size as his post-revamp version. a dracoliche in pre-revamp Plane of Fear now has a 100% chance to drop an item, up from 30%.
– The experience rewards for all bone chip quests have been retuned. Half of the bone chip quests had their reward increased dramatically. However, with the current ease of collecting bone chips in the modern game, the reward was very high in some cases, and so those quests have had the reward reduced.
– The Keg of Vox Tail Ale is now available for purchase from various merchants across Norrath.
– An Undead Bard will only spawn in the base version of Old Sebilis.
– The EverQuest Team

Been working on getting out of this Hell Level, been spending about an hour a day to get one percent XP towards level Ninety Seven.  Eighty One Percent complete so far, but at this rate it will require another nineteen hours to move on.  Qindaar seems to be stuck in a spot that he cannot move up and try till kill higher level without death, but even level MoB’s he has no issue with but they do not seem to be giving enough XP.

So that is the latest update, still killing in Shard’s Landing

Qindaar has spent the last week in Shard’s Landing.  Not that there was a need to be there, he is trying to get out of level 96.  This must be one of those hell levels that everyone talks about, where it takes and extraordinary amount of XP (kills) to move up. He has spent hours killing white and dark blue cons only to move three percentage points towards the next level.  He is currently at 74%.

Going to bite the bullet and continue to kill there until the next level. It gets really boring when all you do is kill the same creatures over and over.

July 22, 2015
_____________________

*** Highlights ***

– Proc effect stacking – Multiple procs can now trigger from the same triggering action. Each proc effect that is active will be processed independently. See the Spells section for details.

– Damage shields now report the damage that they do in all cases and can be directed to chat filters.

– Spells that do not take hold will now relay a more accurate description as to why they did not take hold.

– A new item, the Legend of the Oathbreaker, is available with prizes from the Legends of Norrath sets Oathbreaker, Ethernauts, and Against the Void.

– Journeyman’s Rucksacks and Journeyman’s Pocketed Rucksacks are now available for purchase year-round on all servers that have Omens of War unlocked.

*** Spells ***

– Beastlord – The Nature’s Fury line of spells will now correctly reduce offhand damage from damage shields, instead of increasing it.

– Magician – Summon spells such as Call of the Hero no longer cause their target to dismount, unless the location that the target is being summoned to is too small of an area for that target to have summoned a mount.

– Spells that do not take hold will now relay a more accurate description as to why they did not take hold.

– Reduced the critical chance for all rain spells level 96 and above.

– The Spell Critical Chance spell effect has been split into separate Critical Chance and Critical Damage effects. Spells that affected one or the other have been changed to have equivalent effects.

– Proc effect stacking – Changed how buffs that trigger effects when spells and skills are used (“procs”) interact with each other. All procs now have the ability to cast concurrently. This changes previous behavior that only allowed one proc spell to be cast at a time.

– – Example one: For a player using the Bone Staff of Wickedness and the buff Spirit of the Puma, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each melee round. Under the previous rules, players could only cast one or the other spell per melee round.

– – Example two: For a player wielding Kyzer’s Ritual Dagger augmented with The Murderer’s Heart, it is now possible for both effects to proc independently each time that player casts an appropriate detrimental spell. Under the previous rules, players could only cast one or the other spell per appropriate detrimental spell cast.

– Spells can now be defined as belonging to a Spell Stacking Group. Inspecting a spell that belongs to a Spell Stacking Group will list the name of that group and the rank of that spell within the group in the spell inspection window.

– Assigned Spell Stacking Groups to buffs that trigger effects when casting spells or using skills in order to support the fact that you can now have multiple buffs with these effects active at the same time.

– – Examples: Mana Reiteration Rk. III (which is now rank 22 of the “Mana Flare” stacking group) will now be overwritten by Mana Reciprocation Rk. III (which is now rank 40 of the “Mana Flare” stacking group).

– – Mana Reciprocation Rk. III will *not* be overwritten by Ancient Hedgewizard Brew because Ancient Hedgewizard Brew is part of the stacking group “Resonant Tonics”.

– Damage shield damage is now considered magical non-melee damage; this means that melee guard and melee threshold guard spell effects will no longer negate damage shield damage. Rune, spell guard, spell threshold guard, and spells that allow you to absorb damage as mana will continue to block damage shield damage.

– Taking damage from a damage shield is now an action that can decrement the use counter on some limited use spells.

– A number of changes have been implemented regarding damage shield and environmental damage messages:

– – Changed damage shield message filters from “Show All/Hide All” to “Show All/Show Mine/Hide All.”

– – Added the ability to filter environmental damage messages for other players as “Show All/Hide All.”

– – Added the ability to set individual colors for incoming, outgoing and others’ damage shield messages, and to filter them to separate windows.

– – Damage shield messages will now display the amount of damage dealt by a defender to an attacker. Damage assignment has not changed; damage from damage shields is still not assigned to an owner.

– – Damage shield messages will now display the correct message if the amount of damage being taken was negated by spell effects such as rune or spell guard.

– – Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the bearer to take damage when they attack (such as the cleric “Mark” line of spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the attacker takes.

– – Changed the filter for spell effects that cause the caster of a detrimental spell to take damage (“feedback” spells) so they are reported as damage shield damage. These spell effects now message the amount of damage the caster takes.

– – Created new filters and assignable colors for environmental damage messages (such as burning in lava, drowning, suffocating, freezing in ice, falling, or being hit by a trap). They are no longer filtered as if they were damage shield messages.

– Adjusted the spell names and the ‘spell landed’ and ‘spell wore off’ messages on a number of spells to reduce the cases where dissimilar spell lines shared the same messages or where multiple spells shared the same name.

*** AA ***

– Corrected a display issue that could occur when two existing AA lines were consolidated into a single line.

– Activated AA abilities that have their timer refunded because their spell failed to take hold or affect a target can no longer trigger spell procs.

– Enchanter – Retuned Gift of Hazy Thoughts to grant a more consistent but lower damage increase. Gift of Hazy Thoughts now triggers Gift of Chromatic Haze rather than Chromatic Haze VI, and can now be triggered by casting damage over time or stun spells in addition to direct damage spells. Gift of Chromatic Haze has a much lower damage focus than Chromatic Haze VI.

– Enchanter – Ranks 1-21 of the AA ability line Nightmare Stasis have been consolidated into ranks 4-24 of the Stasis AA ability line. The /alt act number for Nightmare Stasis (previously 748) is now 409. The functionality of Waking Nightmares, triggered when ranks 4-24 of Stasis breaks, remains unchanged.

– Enchanter – Fixed a bug that prevented the AA ability line Quickened Stasis from shortening the cast time of ranks 4-24 of Stasis.

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Hastened Nightmare Stasis has been renamed Hastened Stasis.

– Enchanter – Fixed a bug with the AA ability line Profound Visage. The ability line now multiplies the base effectiveness of the visage buffs by 20% per rank. (Ex. Rank 6 now allows the bearer of Horrifying Visage to generate 22% more aggro, up from its base 10%.)

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Surreality has been renamed Hastened Mind Over Matter.

– Enchanter – The AA ability line Doppelganger’s Beckon has been renamed Hastened Doppelganger.

– Enchanter – The buff triggered by the AA ability Gracious Gift of Mana has been renamed Gracious Gift of Mana 96 to 105 and has had its messages updated to more closely match other “Gift of Mana” spells.

– Enchanter – Corrected a bug with the AA ability Hastened Mesmerization that prevented it from functioning on level 86 through 89 and level 100 to 105 spells.

– Enchanter – Ranks 1-6 of the AA ability line Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 2-7 of Gather Mana. The AA ability line Hastened Gathering has been renamed Hastened Gather Mana. Ranks 1-3 of the AA ability line Hastened Mana Draw have been consolidated into ranks 3-5 of Hastened Gather Mana.

– Enchanter – Corrected a bug with the AA ability line Forceful Banishment that prevented it from working on ranks 2-4 of Beguiler’s Banishment.

*** Progression Servers ***

– Hunting zones in The Ruins of Kunark will spin up new load balancing versions when they are populated by enough adventurers.

– Many of the bosses in the Plane of Sky, the Plane of Hate, and the Plane of Fear will provide more of a challenge on Progression Servers.

– Antonican Traveler’s Bags and Antonican Traveler’s Rucksacks are now available for purchase year-round on Progression Servers.

*** Miscellaneous ***

– Added /pickzone fewestplayers to automatically pick the zone with the lowest number of players.

– Fixed a bug that would very occasionally cause you to appear unconscious even though you were full health after a divine save.

– NPCs that are in combat and are pushed by spells with a knockback component should no longer teleport directly to their most hated target if their most hated target remains stationary.

– NPCs that are pushed by spells with a knockback component should appear in their new location more quickly than before.

*** UI ***

– When viewing achievements from chat you will now see the category and sub-category that the achievement is from in the Achievements window.

– Added the ability to open an achievement in the achievements window when viewing an achievement from chat by clicking “View Mine”.

– Changed –

EQUI_AchievementWnd.xml

– The EverQuest Team

Qindaar ventured out last Saturday evening with Vmalice and a couple of others from the Guild – Veterans Crew. We did a few this in Dead Hills and then one of the others needed to get flagged for the Plane of War, so Qindaar tagged along on that to get his flag as well.

The evening was fun with a lot of killing of MoB’s to get to the named to get the flag. Now Qindaar is tasked with making a Zekarian Stonewwod Compound Bow with an embedded Zekarian Diamond to turn in.  Since Qindaar is a wizard and not a huntsman his fletching skills are zero.  Wizards usually do not carry a bow, but what the hell he will give it a try.

So Qindaar will be heading off to the Plane of Earth to forage for the parts.

Good afternoon all,

Happy to announce that Qindaar has returned from a month long vacation to Israel where he truly enjoyed the time spent there.

A lot has happened in the world of EQ with two new updates:

July 01, 2015
_____________________

*** Highlights ***
– Big bags are returning to Norrath for a limited time! Special larger bags will be available on the Marketplace starting at noon (PDT) on July 2nd. Act quickly, as they will disappear after July 6th!

*** Items ***
– Girdle of the Weaponmaster – The focus effect Boon of the Seeress has been adjusted to include the number of spells that it previously focused, prior to a number of data changes to AA spells.

*** Quests & Events ***
– Aranaea the Cleaver – Fixed an issue with the use of the Arcanist’s Ignitor in the Plane of War. Burn it all down!

– Seductive Subterfuge – The task step to “Banish the skeletons, spirits, and banshees” in this Caverns of Endless Song heroic adventure now requires 9 kills instead of 10.

*** Spells ***
– Enchanter – Corrected an issue with the way that damage shield damage from items is calculated in order to fix a problem with the Ward line of spells. Damage shield damage from items will now only be added to your total damage shield amount if your effective Damage Shield total is greater than 0.

– Corrected an issue with player cast spells that trigger an additional spell when the first spell fades. The second spell will now properly use the original caster’s focus effects and send damage messages to the correct person.

– AoE resurrection abilities will now properly land on corpses in hover mode.

*** NPC ***
– Original EQ bosses are now immune to memory blur effects.

– Most clockworks throughout Norrath now have a chance to carry saltpeter.

*** AA ***
Magician – Updated Theft of Essence to include the three ranks of the level 103 summoned bane damage spell “Eradicate the Unnatural” as a possible trigger for the “Theft of Essence” pet buff.

Magician – Corrected a bug that caused rank 6 of Extended Fire Core to extend the duration of all spells by 36 seconds rather than extending the duration of just the “Fire Core” AA spells.

*** Progression Servers ***
– The Hole, Kedge Keep, Permafrost Keep, and Nagafen’s Lair will spin up new load balanced versions when they are populated by enough adventurers. There is no hard limit to the number of adventurers that can be in any particular version of these zones. Raid NPCs will only spawn in the base instance of these zones.

– The Commonlands can now support many more simultaneous adventurers before it is full.

– Raid bosses will provide more of a challenge on progression servers. They will also spawn more frequently but with more randomization between spawn times.

– The residents of the Plane of Hate and Plane of Fear will spawn more frequently.

*** Miscellaneous ***
– /outputfile will now tell you it’s complete in chat. Also if you use /outputfile with an invalid option, it will output the usage message.

– Shadowrest – Corrected an issue that could potentially result in a player becoming stuck in Shadowrest. If the location from which you entered has been cleared, you will now be sent to your original starting location rather than your bind point.

*** UI ***
– Merc AAs – Made the cost column display nothing when the max rank has been purchased.

– Added the current count of players in your current /pickzone instance to the window.

– When a player is in a load balanced zone (/pickzone) they will now display their instance number in /who.

– Changed –

*** Previously Updated ***

– Corrected an issue that would cause a zone to crash if a player died from a limited use doom effect.

– The EverQuest Team

June 17, 2015
____________________

*** Highlights ***
– Fixed an issue where a player could crash after logging back into a load-balanced zone (/pickzone) or gating to a point in a load-balanced zone when that particular instance had closed.

– Corrected an issue causing players entering mission instances of some zones to be teleported to the non-instanced versions.

– Fixed an issue regarding binding in a load-balanced zone; you should now properly be sent to an available zone when gating or returning to your bind point.

– Fixed an issue with the leave on corpse option in the manage loot window that could cause crashes.

– All Noble Exchange merchants can now be used to send or receive parcels. These merchants are available in every starting city, the Plane of Knowledge, the Bazaar, and other zones throughout Norrath.

*** Items ***
– Bard – Reduced the casting time of the Arpeggio spells on certain breastplates from 0.3s to instant.

*** Quests & Events ***
– Arx Mentis raids – Glowing Essences of the Citadel now have a small chance to drop in Tier 2 Arx Mentis raids and drop more commonly from Calix Quirinus.

– All Arx Mentis progression raids – Now drop exactly six Essences of the Citadel rather than between four and eight.

– Anniversary – The 5th-13th Anniversary events have been extended to run until July 15th.

– Heritage – The Crushbone and Permafrost Hardcore Heritage events have been extended by a week and will now end on 7/1.

*** Spells ***
– Buffs with limited charges that are consumed when their focus effect is applied now continue to apply their remaining effects until the spell that was focused by that buff is finished resolving. This corrects a problem where the critical chance portion of spells (like Chromatic Haze and Frenzied Devastation) was never applied during the buff’s final charge, because the buff was removed after the focus effect was applied but before the critical chance modifier was checked.

*** NPC ***
– All Noble Exchange merchants can now be used to send or receive parcels. These merchants are available in every starting city, the Plane of Knowledge, the Bazaar, and other zones throughout Norrath.

– Added factions to many NPCs in newbie zones that did not have them before, causing guards to hate them once again.

*** AA ***
– Bard – Restored the doppelganger effect and removed the shadowstep component on the AA line “Lyrical Prankster”.

– Beastlord – Corrected a bug with ranks 4-6 of the AA line ‘Nature’s Salve’ that caused them to cast the spell associated to rank 3 of the ability. Ranks 4-6 should now increase in power and trigger the effect on your warder as originally intended.

– Rogue – Corrected an issue that caused rank 6 of AA Extended Envenomed Blades to not function.

– Rogue – Corrected an issue that prevented all ranks of the AA Enduring Vision from working.

– Wizard – Arcane Fusion no longer deals damage to non-NPC targets. This should ensure that wizards who fail their Bucolic Gambit are slightly less likely to annihilate themselves.

– Corrected a typo in the description of the buff cast by the AA “Glyph of the Cataclysm”.

– Corrected several inconsistencies with the casting level of AA abilities.

*** Progression Servers ***
– Restored the spell merchant Gadallion to the Southern Desert of Ro in all eras.

– The Wizard spell Rend is now available on Progression Servers in all eras.

– The Potion of Companion’s Amnesia is now available for purchase in the marketplace on all Progression Servers.

– “an old froglok” in Upper Guk no longer spawns on Progression Servers until the Planes of Power expansion is unlocked.

– Luminescent Weapon Grade Ore is no longer be available for purchase on Progression Servers until Rain of Fear has unlocked.

– Some cookie molds that were not available at launch are no longer available on Progression Servers.

– Recipes that call for Thalium Ore are no longer visible on Progression Servers until Dragons of Norrath.

*** Miscellaneous ***
– Steamfont Mountains will now correctly use load balancing as intended.

– Corrected an oversight that prevented players that were created on the Vox server from being able to select the suffix “of Vox”.

*** UI ***
– There is now a chat message of how much time you have before you can run /pickzone again, if you have a timer remaining.

– You now get a message in chat with what instance you are in when you run /pickzone in a load-balanced zone. This will only appear when it is possible for the window to open, meaning any circumstance where /pickzone won’t function (such as combat) will prevent this message from appearing.

– Changed –
*** Previously Updated ***
– Fixed the Deepwater Harpoon quest. Returned the missing sentries to West Freeport, and Sentry Xyrin will again attack the nearby spectres on the island when inspired to do so.

– The EverQuest Team

This evening, Qindaar completed two missions solo.  They were

Captain Hiran Group #1: Stop the Contamination

Captain Hiran Group #2: A Dread Challenger

Both these missions required Qindaar to scout out Oceangreen Village and kill the threats that were either poisoning the supplies or killing off the villagers.  Tried these a few nights ago with no success, but tonight managed to pull them off on the first shot both times. Finishing these moved Qindaar one set closer to becoming a Here of EverQuest.  Now he is working in Blackburrow instance zones to complete that chain.

While the missions seemed difficult, running in a tight circle around the village and concentrating on the beach under the pier, the north and south ends behind the rocks proved the best route for both missions, although some people had said invis and hide in the building that hosed the supplies and wait for them to get there.  I did not try this tactic so I do not know how well it would work.

Today Qindaar managed to complete the Heraldic Crest he was working on.

After he completed that he traveled to Temple of Bertoxxulous to activate the altar and kill the main MoB.

All in all Qindaar had a very successful day in Oceangreen Hills, a few more tasks and he will be moving on.

Qindaar has been patiently awaiting the spawning of the Defiled Treant. Once he gets that complete he should be able to complete all tasks to finish the Shield he has been working on.  Some people complained it took five to six hours for this guy to spawn.