Category: Gaming

Vanguard Patch Notes – Level Cap Raised to 55!

Vanguard: Saga of Heroes

Vanguard Build 2427. 0 Patch Notes
Halls of the Pantheon

The Halls of Pantheon is finally here. The first part of the great architect Artera’s story has finally been released and now is your chance to prove to the gods of Telon you are worthy of their blessings. Within the halls you will be asked to do many things as you increase your favor with the gods until finally correcting the imbalance of creation and unlocking the path that leads into the halls of shattered souls and the truth behind the gods of Telon and their years of silence. It is up to you adventurers, crafters, and diplomats to unlock the secrets within the halls and prove once again that the inhabitants of Telon are a force to be reckoned with.

Feature Details:

  • 200 new quests
  • 1000+ new items
  • 2 new flying mounts
  • Choose your alignment and reap the rewards
  • Find out the truth behind the schemes of Kamelott
  • Become a god warrior and unlock the way to the Halls of Shattered Souls
  • Craft enhancements making them more powerful
  • Craft god armor
  • Craft a unique epic weapon for each class
  • New item mods
  • New resistances

Level Increase

  • New level cap is 55
  • 95 new abilities
  • Spell crafting added
  • Item levels increased
  • New crafting related quest series

Items

  • Bow max ranges have been reduced.
  • Fixed an issue where the Kamelott Rucksack had slots when it was not supposed too.
  • Fixed haste buff on panther mask to increase attack speed and not decrease it.
  • KDQ crates can now only be opened in Kamelott’s landing
  • Fixed an issue with fireseed refresh discrepancy

Abilities

  • All counterattacks now have a minimum endurance/mana cost.
  • Stroke of Fervor now has an endurance cost
  • Stroke of Conviction now has an endurance cost
  • All rogue abilities requiring piercing now properly check for the dagger in the main hand.
  • Accuracy buffs should now properly buff spell accuracy
  • Fixed an issue where some abilities that were supposed to only modify the refresh haste of modular attacks were affecting other modular abilities
  • Fixed the Halfling racial (FINALLY!!!)
  • Fixed an issue that prevented minions from assisting properly as intended.
  • Dementia now has a max target limit
  • Hewing the Mountain now buffs your group for 10 seconds or 1 attack
  • The Dark elf racial has been modified.
  • Warrior offensive form should once again have its accuracy bonus
  • Fixed an issue where abilities affected by zeal would not display added attack damage.
  • Time Trick 2 should now work like 1 and 3
  • Fixed an issue with quelling winds it should actually work now.
  • Treeshape will now wipe hate while it is in effect.
  • Many secret chains should now display their icons again.
  • The body enhancement buffs from KDQ should no longer wear off

General

  • All corpses now last 2 hours max
  • Paladins should now have archery skill
  • A camp of KDQ agents has popped up near the Bridge of Destiny.
  • All npcs in KDQ should now drop tier 6 skins
  • Tier 6 metal can now be harvested in SOD
  • Mobile Power suit should work correctly now
  • Fixed an issue with caps that has been around for the past few years. Many items and ability caps should now work properly.
  • Updated the character sheet to show new resist types.
  • Added new hairstyles for most races.
  • Thinned out the density of the bridge NPCs just a little.
  • Fix for escrow items having incorrect prices show up
  • All exp debt has been wiped.
  • All exp into 50 has been reset to 0.
  • All brotherhood exp has been reset.
  • All tombstones have been sent to escrow.
  • Adjusted the loot tables of Yerkj & Rinipin. They will now only drop 1 class specific item per kill.
  • The Ruined Jharuu Sword and Runed Jharuu Sword are now longswords.
  • Synchronize now works with the Summoners Cap of Control version of Time Trick.
  • An altar has been added to IOG
  • Zyxil and omac have had their pathing adjusted
  • Yiminil no longer roams.

Quests

  • KDQ quest rewards have had their monetary amount reduced.
  • Fix for quests not abandoning properly sometimes when expired

Raids

  • Karax is now level 59
  • Karax loot tables have been overhauled due to his level increase.

Crafting

  • Kaius Rufish and his excavation team have work for skilled crafters in the Pantheon.
  • Shajin Graywine is doing research in the Pantheon and is requesting help from talented diplomats.
  • Geoffery Wallsten in New Targonor has a new rumor about an artisan’s treasure from long ago. Interested crafters should seek him out.
  • An informant in the Pantheon named Delroz is willing to trade prestige for lore in the Pantheon to diplomats.
  • Skilled diplomats can parley the avatars of the gods in the Pantheon.

Known issues

  • The last hair selection for those races that received new hairstyle has an issue. Please try not to select this or you may see some funkiness with your avatar’s hair.

One more Trophy Joins the Hall

There are very few trophies a guild of three people (four since Kasul has started playing more) can obtain unless we start running raids ourselves which is always a possibility but I think that remains a very faint possibility. There are a select few that we are able to get ourselves. We already had Darathar and Gynok (who was a mistake I believe, as he dropped for us out of the group instance) and last night obtained our third trophy – Godking. The raid for Godking used to be really hard back in the day. It’s an instance located in Silent City, which is all but deserted these days. You used to need access to even enter the zone, as well as access to Silent City. The access to Silent City was fairly easy, obtained by completing a quest in Living Tombs, given to you by a monkey who hangs out right at the entrance. You kill multiple named which could take a while as their spawn timers were not that friendly, but it was still a fairly easy quest.

The access to The Fountain of Life (where Godking resides) on the other hand – not so easy.

Every time my guild said they were going to ‘farm eyes’ for the Godking raid, suddenly multiple ‘thunderstorms’ would show up and people would start losing connection all over the place, real life would suddenly intrude, and a million other reasons why people could not be online during that particular time. Farming eyes was long, boring, and not fun whatsoever. What’s worse is you needed to farm eyes EVERY single time you wanted to attempt Godking and he is used for the Prismatic 2.0 quest finale, so guilds liked to go there often.

However, access to Godking has been removed, you no longer need to farm eyes. We zoned into the Fountain of Life with no problems. It’s a single beautiful room with peacock feathers everywhere, a long river of green ‘life juice’ that spawns skeleton adds, and various named that you have to defeat in order to get the Godking to spawn. Actually, he ‘saves’ you from the named you’re trying to defeat, and they vanish before your eyes, leaving just him.

Since the trophies are a body drop (thank you sony) we were able to obtain ours even though we have out leveled the zone. I realize that this may be looked at as being unfair, but it’s really nice that there are at least SOME trophies that a smaller guild can obtain without having to mass together 24 people. Leave the bigger / better trophies to the bigger guilds.

There’s an amazing painting that hangs behind Godking which I really wish were available to players. You’ll know the one I’m talking about if you’ve ever set foot in the fountain. It’s absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I was too busy gawking at it to actually take a screen shot, so maybe next time.

Afterwards Ultann had to head out for a bit, so Wpus decided to mentor Hamal in Sinking Sands, where they spotted two epics (Brog the Banished, and Meathooks) that we could kill for achievements. We managed to down Brog with just three of us and no healer (yes he was green but none of us aside from Wpus is that well geared) and then I logged the healer in to take down Meathooks which is a x3. Neither dropped anything at all aside from treasured (ew, why is that not fixed?!) nor did they reward any guild status as other contested epics do, but they did grant achievement points. Better then nothing I suppose.

It was getting late by the time that was finished, so I did a quick search on the broker for master spells – my paladin is going to be the next character I try to hit level 80 with I believe, and I found her defensive stance for sale for 70 plat in Freeport. There are a few things I know every tank should try to obtain, stances, and taunts. I’ve never spent that much money on a single spell before, but a stance is a great thing. My offensive stance was also for sale for another 75p but alas after purchasing that one I was down to 50p – most of my money is still on Najena and not Kithicor. Another time perhaps!

It felt nice to get my first ‘real’ upgrade for the paladin, an important one at that. She’s sitting at level 72 (with lackluster aa might I add, a mesely 58) and that is the level of the stance. We’ll see how leveling goes, but I’m excited about it. Even if I don’t have the recruit a friend bonus any longer.

I hope everyone else has an amazing day, and I’ll see you in Norrath! I’m looking forward to doing some tanking.

A Day of Crafting and Instances

Yesterday was Victoria Day here in Canada (though I was informed that it’s called something else in Quebec) and a quiet one too (at least for me). I’m still recovering from being sick these past three weeks which is a process that’s frustrating since I seem to be on a ‘good day bad day’ plan where I’m feeling fantastic one day only to get up at 2am the next and feel horrible.

Game wise things were relatively productive though not exactly on the same level as the day before. I managed to inch the illusionist up from level 40 carpenter to 46 before burning up my vitality. I have plans to get her to 50 so that I can do the crafting quests in the Moors and eventually take her to the crafting instances to try and obtain some books and other goodies. I’ve got all of them except one on the mystic (tailor) and it would be great if I could get that one to drop. Plus there’s the faction which would be nice to get and finish off one day (which I have slacked horribly on I’ll admit).

Aside from the crafting there were instances. Ah yes there are always instances. We headed to Maidens and Chelsith neither of which dropped anything of use this time around, and then we decided to head to The Crucible, a TSO instance in Everfrost. We’d never been there as a trio before and in the past you used to be able to stun the final named each 20% to avoid the massive AoE that goes off if you don’t click books in time. Since I had my doubts (that were later confirmed) that I’d be able to heal + click books effectively I decided I’d try the stun approach on my illusionist.

Except each time I cast my stun I was granted the annoying resist ping sound that happens, so we couldn’t stop the books from spawning. Wpus and I grabbed torches and burned books as they appeared, then Wpus took down the adds but alas it became too much for me to be able to burn books and heal at the same time, so we ended up giving the encounter three tries before calling it. If we added one more person to our little trio we’d have had it down no problems at all. We did manage to get him down to 46% which was amazing for just the three of us I figure. All was not lost though, we still got the ‘free’ shard update from the main floor, as well as the shard update from the quests given outside. I’m slowly working on getting a T2 set for the illusionist and finishing off the T2 set on the mystic. She only needs the breastplate and the shoulders for her set to be completed. What I also didn’t realize last night is that they changed the 5 piece bonus on my gear. That will teach me not to pay attention.

Now that both of my characters (on Kithicor) have their epics, it’s time to mark out a new plan of attack – what to do next. There’s a huge bundle of aa that the illusionist is missing because she was leveled up fairly fast, she’s only sitting on 100 right now, which leaves another 100 to go. The mystic is faring slightly better with 156 aa under her belt. Though I’m not in too much of a rush for hers because there’s not exactly a lot of ‘useful’ aa. What I’d really like (especially for the TSO heal aa) is for them to physically show on the spells you have. My TSO aa increase the amount of crit and the amount of the base heal, but when you examine the heal they’re not listed as being adjusted. Makes me feel as though the heals are doing no more then they would typically do.

Hopefully GU52 gets put on the test server soon so that it can move to live, I know a lot of people are looking forward to that one. In the mean time, I’ll see you in Norrath!

7th Epic Completed, it’s a Sickness, I know.

When I logged in yesterday I didn’t have a very clear indication of what I wanted to do. I figured I’d work on obtaining some achievements and maybe do a few instances as per usual. Instead it was suggested fairly on in the day that we work on my illusionist epic, and so that’s what we spent most of the day doing.

The first portion of the quest is spent retrieving instruments for a bard who hangs out in Kylong Plains. He’s agreed to give you a book in return for said instruments. The only problem is that once you do your part, he gives you an empty book with the pages torn out. Seems like he’s got a bit of a money problem, and he’s ripped those pages out and used them as IOU’s to various people throughout Norrath. The IOU comes up to 189 plat, which is more then it would cost to purchase the actual mythical weapon these days so it’s your job to run around to each NPC doing various tasks for them in order to pay off the debt.

There are 10 pages in total that you’re sent out to retrieve all with varying tasks like killing 100 yah-li for updates, and obtaining 30 pieces of T8 player crafted furniture. That portion cost me approx 5 plat to complete, and then there’s a portion later on where you’re sent to retrieve 6 masks for a halfling that requires you to have completed the hool’oh hat quest in Barren Sky. The alternative method to completing that quest (because of course I have not done this on my illusionist) is to pay off the bird with 5 plat. So in total my epic cost about 10p give or take a few coins – and a lot of time. There are a LOT of sub components to this quest.

Instance wise it was not so bad. I needed to get one of my masks from the Queen in Chardok which we did fairly painlessly. She was even up rather then a place holder. Then there was the Maidens update which also went really well (though the zone itself didn’t drop all that much).

Finally after a full day of questing I completed the fabled version of my epic. This marks the 7th epic that I’ve completed to date. I have the epics for: Mystic, Templar, Warden, Coercer, Troubador, Dirge, and now Illusionist. I know, it’s a sickness. Once the quest was finally done we headed over to Obelisk of Ahkzul where the healer shield refused to drop (again) but it was the daily double shard zone so we all walked away with three shards and I managed to get the illusionist her first piece of T2 gear which was nice. The final mob also dropped a master for her which was a great bonus, she has all of her adept3 but illusionist masters on kithicor are priced insanely, and she hasn’t owned a single one. Pessimism marks her first.

We headed to Crypt of Agony shortly after that to attempt (once again) to get the fabled range item for Ultann but our luck held steady and we got a treasured chest from that particular named. The Farseer eludes us once more. On the plus side a level 73 mystic master did drop, a temporary pet that helps heal and cure the group. Not as wonderful as a heal or a buff spell but hey it’s better then nothing. The mystic actually doesn’t have horrible luck when it comes to getting her masters, and that one marked her 4th drop.

All in all it was a very productive Sunday game-wise. Kasul also managed to tear up the levels with his baby assassin and inched his way to 61 with a handful of aa via the new hotzones that were around for the weekend. Before long we’ll have ourselves another DPS in the group – and a full group at that, which will be great. The faster we can kill stuff before it tears us to shreds the better. I hope everyone enjoys their Monday, and if you happen to have today off for the holiday, enjoy!

See you in Norrath

Fun in Instances

One thing I enjoy about the TSO instances that a lot of people on Kithicor don’t take advantage of is the fact that you can start doing a lot of them mentored down to level 50. I realize a lot of people mentor down to grey out a zone in order to complete the shard quests, but yesterday Wpus, Ultann, myself and Hamal (newly betrayed to assassin) headed to The Necrotic Asylum in Commonlands mentored down to level 55 and did the zone as it was meant to be done.

There a few benifits in doing the zone this way – if you’ve never been to the zone before as a level 80 you can learn how to defeat the encounters. I’d never been here on any of my characters before aside from doing shard quests that don’t require you to complete the zone. It was a lot of fun, and the encounters are still quite difficult at level 55.

The sign that not many people take advantage of this aspect of the instances came from the fact that we made four discoveries while in the zone – a zone that has been out since November of last year. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but I’m sure on servers that have a greater number of players below 80 they would have already discovered those items.

It rewarded a shard and some nice gear for Hamal, as well as aa and my dirge managed to inch her way to 75. I’ve stopped grinding her experience for the last little while, being a little burnt out from it and trying (and failing) to focus on the enchanter and mystic combo.

We all had great fun none the less. Before heading off to Necrotic we went to Solusek Eye and wandered around the zone taking down named. One was an epic x2 that rewarded a nice master and a piece of gear. Aside from that the day was fairly quiet, spending some time to decorate the guild and wondering what I should work on next. I’m far behind in achievements on both of my characters, while Wpus and Ultann are almost finished with theirs. Even though GU52 is a few weeks off (not even on test yet) I am looking forward to the changes that will be coming, as well as the new instances.

I hope everyone is having a fantastic Sunday, if you live in Canada chances are you have a holiday tomorrow – take advantage of it! I’ll see you in Norrath.