The Shadow Odyssey is now live!

You can visit EQ2Players.com to read news and articles about the latest EverQuest II expansion or you can dive right into game and visit the new airship near the Sinking Sands docks to visit the newly discovered Moors of Ykesha.

An all new map system has been added for all players.

GAMEPLAY

• You can now mitigate critical attacks done to you. Critical attacks work as before but the player can mitigate the amount done to them by having higher agility for melee classes or higher intelligence for priests and mages. In addition, you will now find certain creatures can critical against you. They will use their calculated damage times their critical multiplier to determine their damage. PvP based combat will now also follow this formula. Players against an npc will continue taking the higher of max damage plus one or damage times critical multiplier. There are also some items which now reduce the amount of critical damage you take while in combat.
• As a result of the critical mitigation addition, damage formulas have changed slightly. Damage is now calculated the following way:

base damage calculation
weapon attacks add in dps and weapon multipliers
spell and weapon tier multipliers
attribute modifiers
base damage multipliers
normalized damage ( +spell/ca/heal amounts )
critical multiplier

• All of your characters will now receive a 10% experience bonus for each character at the maximum level. (Up to 50% max). You’ll also receive a tradeskill experience bonus for each character at the maximum tradeskill level. Your current experience bonus will be displayed on the character selection screen. This experience bonus can be disabled on a per-character basis by right-clicking on the experience bar.
• Shield Block chance is no longer an uncontested avoidance. It will now multiply your base chance to block with a shield rather than add.
  
• Pet buff icons will now tint when out of range. Examine data will now also list the range of the spell.
  
• Combat arts will now properly use the max damage + 1 as the minimum critical amount when attacking an npc. PvP combat arts will still use damage time the critical multiplier.
  
• Fish and water-only creatures should now stay underwater.
  
• Item purchases that require items other than gold in exchange now have a confirmation dialog.
  
• Characters will now continue to get Apprentice I versions of spells and combat arts placed in their spell book at appropriate levels above 50.
  
• /load_uisettings will no longer work while the crafting window is open.
  
• Glide/Slow fall can now be suspended by holding the jump key while falling.

SPELLS

Fighter

• The recast time on Rescue has been reduced.
  

Druid

• The Darklight Wood portal spell will no longer be removed while betraying.

Summoner

• Improved the hate amount of the pet’s defensive based stances.

Brawler

• Devastation Fist has changed slightly. It is now a high damage attack without a stifle penalty. Against higher end creatures it will be more potent.
  
• Brawler Defensive stances now grant additional agility and parry skill.
  
• The combination stances also grant additional parry skill.

Bruiser

• Brutality now improves the base damage of combat arts and increases the strength of the raid.
  
• Divide and Conquer now has a positional hate boost and is not interruptable. However, it now has a slightly longer reuse timer.

Berserker

• Screaming Rage line will now grant the raid additional dps instead of health regeneration.
  
• Reduced the casting time of area of effect abilities and increased their damage.
  
• Insolent Gibe will now inflict melee damage in addition to the taunt. This melee attack cannot be parried, riposted or dodged.
  
• The Rampage line will do slightly more damage.
  
• The Stifled Rage line will grant additional shield effectiveness.
  
• Blood Rage will give a small rush of adrenaline to the berserker now healing them for a small amount when hit.
  
• The penalties for Adrenaline have been reduced.

Coercer

• Possessed Essence should no longer be able to mesmerize targets.

Conjuror

• There are new appearances for the Inferno Golem pet. As a result the spell has been renamed to Fiery Magician.

Guardian

• Added agility and wisdom bonuses to the defensive stances. Also improved the Aggression bonus.
  
• Increased the hitpoints on the Battle Tactics Line.
  
• Increased the mitigation amount of the Rallying Cry line.

Monk

• The Wisdom of Zephyl line has had its casting speed bonus reduced slightly.

Paladin

• Castigate will now add in normalized spell damage effects.
  
• Vigor of Trust now improves the base healing of spells.
  
• Lay of hands has had its recast lowered but now consumes power.
  
• Lowered the casting time of heal spells slightly.
  
• Single target spells now cast at 0.5 seconds and their damage is increased slightly.
  
• Reduced the duration of the Incite line so the full taunt amount is gained faster and before the spell is reusable.
  
• Added intelligence to the defensive stance.
  
• Improved the spell Divine Favor so it scales more appropriately for level.

Shadowknight

• Contract from Below now improves the base damage of spells.
  
• Adjusted the damage and casting time on a number of spells. Many DoTs were also given more initial damage to go along with the pace of combat.
  
• Tainted Sacrament and its upgrades have changed to be an area of effect taunt and damage spell.
  
• The Harm Touch line is now a 5 minute recast.
  
• Mana Sieve now drains health and converts it to power.
  
• Draw Strength line now also reduces intelligence of the target and gives it to the shadowknight.
  
• The defensive stances now grant additional intelligence for the shadowknight.

ACHIEVEMENTS

Crusader

• Avenger’s Relentlessness now grants double attack.
  
• Improved the casting bonuses of Avenging Invigoration.
  
• Removed the mount restrictions from the Agility line.
  
• Aura of Leadership is now a small protective replenishing ward.
  
• Reduced the recast of Divine Aura to match similar skills of other classes.

Berserker

• Altered Perseverance to give a heal when the berserker drops to low health.
  
• Gut Roar will now riposte the next melee attack.

Brawler

• The Strength line has undergone a number of changes and has had the weapon restrictions removed. It will also grant a bonus to improve deflection chance.

Guardian

• Improved the riposte damage reduction of Cripple.

Paladin

• Changed Prayer of Resuscitation to modify Lay on Hands and its upgrades.

Shadowknight

• The Siphon Hate ability has changed and now protects the shadowknight from a large hit and then increases hatred for the shadowknight on termination.
  
• Reaver now adds additional spell damage.

Warrior

• Changed Gladiator’s Revenge to do additional riposte damage.
  
• The stamina line no longer requires a buckler but since you are no longer penalized for a lesser shield the double attack values have been reduced.

PLAYER VS PLAYER

• The recent kill list has been increased to 20 players but anyone on it is still removed after 30 minutes.

ITEMS

• Ayonic Axe, Lamentation of the Intrepid, Marrow’s Song, and Incandescent Blade have all been changed to a 4.0 delay.
  
• Removing an item which grants additional effects to a spell will cause that spell to cancel. Certain cases where the player is disarmed in combat will not cause the spell to drop though.
  
• Overloaded Heal and Empowered Heal have had their effect radius reduced to 25m. Pond Wash and Mind Wash have had their radius increased to 25m.
  
• Lesser Overloaded Heal, Overloaded Heal, Empowered Heal, Holy Water Sprinkler, Pond Wash, and Mind Wash can now only trigger once from Area of Effect heals. The trigger chance on some of these effects has been increased to compensate.

HOUSING & GUILD HALLS

• Three new amenities added to guild halls! Achievement Counselor, Collection Binder, and the Mariner's Bell: Island of Mara.
  
• The choice of where to go with the Druid Portal hireling has been moved to the portal itself, instead of a list of dialog choices. The created Guild Hall portal now functions like a mariner's bell.
  
• The "collect an item" window used to retrieve items in a house will now display the owner’s name for NO-TRADE items that you cannot pickup.
  
• The guild hall supply depot now contains sortable columns for item name and level.
  
• No-Trade house items can now be returned to their owners via email by anyone with Trustee access or higher.
  
• The Guild Hall Faction Market Broker will now properly appear as a purchasable amenity in Tier 2 Qeynos PvP guild halls.
  
• The Slayer Poster amenity will no longer sit buried into the ground when first purchased.
  
• Training Dummy Supply Chest will now properly enforce Use Access.
  
• The hitpoints of the placed Training Dummy has been doubled.
  

CLIENT

• The "Flora Displacement" option has been optimized and does not reduce framerate so much.
• Lowered memory usage in large zones.

USER INTERFACE

• All windows with a Help button have had the help button’s position swapped with the settings button to reduce accidental opening of the browser.
• Charge counts and stack sizes on icons will no longer become misaligned after using the /loadui command.
• The stats section of the Persona window has been expanded to include more information.
  

CHAT CHANNELS

• Many of the alignment-based chat channels have been replaced with non-alignment versions on PvE servers.
• Good_Help / Evil_Help is now Help
• Good_Newbie / Evil_Newbie is now Newbie
• Good_Crafting / Evil_Crafting is now Crafting
• Good_Traders / Evil_Traders is now Traders
• All race and class channels have been merged into non-alignment based channels.
• If you have joined any of these channels, you’ll need to leave them and join the new channels as the old channel names will still remain valid as custom channels.
  

TRADESKILLS

• Two new tradeskill collection quests can be found for those who wish to seek them out.
• The deity historian in Butcherblock Mountains is now selling a book of "Decorative Deity Shrines" recipes, for those who wish to display their deity's influence in homes and guildhalls.
• Fixed an issue where recipe tooltips would display an incorrect number of components when components were separated into multiple stacks.
• Outfitters are now able to produce vest versions of cloth armor in the level 10-19 range.
• Tailors now have recipes for crafted canvas, ruckas, and broadcloth vests.
• Sackcloth and tranquil sackcloth shoulder armor now have appearances. The tranquil threadbare shoulders remain without specific appearances.
• The tailored tranquil dragon's breath armor set now has a slightly different appearance from the regular dragon's breath armor set. All tailormade armor with a robe graphic is now called a robe, and all tailormade armor with a vest graphic is now called a vest.
• The tranquil sackcloth vest is now a slightly different shade from the "dashing tunic" acquired in Sebilis.
  

ZONES

Veeshan’s Peak

• Phara Dar will no longer critically attack when Khalan is dead.