Preview Patch 1.05.5.1 Update Notes from TestLive

For the next patch that is coming to the live servers (date has yet to be determined), the conqueror class gets adjusted mainly. Following the previous class changes, it is aimed to enhance the playability of the class and make choices matter more, which results in a complete rebuild of e.g. orders and formations work.

Here are the preliminary patch notes, be aware, that these may be subject to change anytmie and may not reflect what will come to the Live servers.

The link to the TestLive forum thread, from hwere the information below is gathered, can be found here (you need to login there with your AoC forum account):
http://forums-tl.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=47509

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28th August 2009

Update Notes for Update 1.05.5.1
**These notes do not necessarily reflect the final version that will be deployed on Live**

GENERAL
* Using the rest ability while swimming or climbing will no longer result in the ability going on cooldown.
* Fixed a bug where players could hit through Shield of the Risen,
forcing your procs to hit back and the Shield to be despawned.



CLASSES
Assassin
* Fixed an issue where you could get soul fragments from Sprit of Nightfall while in poison stance.


Bear Shaman
* Fixed a bug where you could not use Manifestation of Spirit until you were level 17.


Dark Templar
* PLEASE NOTE :
You will need to recast Soul Barrier and/or Pact of Malacador when you
log in after the patch if you logged out with them active.
* Fixed the effect on the Dark Templar combo line Leech Life so the skull appears above the head of the templar.
* The Dread Shadow pet will no longer lose life before despawning.
* The old Soul Barrier and Pact of Malacodor spells should no longer
show in your spellbook, and only appear in your Abilities tab.
* When you use the Pact of Malacodor ability to remove the active buff, it will correctly go on a 5 second cooldown.
* Fixed some bugs with Swapping Covenants.


Demonologist
* Fixed a bug that made Inferno of Amher never crit.



CONTENT

Atzel's Approach
* Vaskeque will no longer offer the quest Worm Holes to players on this quest.
* Vaskeque will no longer offer the quest Against the Larva Matrons to players who have it.
* Rulvio will no longer try to offer The Killing Zone quest to players with this quest.
* " The agents of Thoth-Amon are no more" will no longer show up unless you are handing in the quest The Killing Zone.
* The quest marker over Prosco's head will no longer show when he doesn't have any more quests for you.

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CONQUERORS

The Conqueror buff system of Auras, Battle Cries, Formations, Orders
and Commands has been streamlined and improved. Players now have 6 team
abilities divided into two types of buffs: Disciplines and Formations.
Players have 3 Disciplines and 3 Formations to choose from, and may
have 1 discipline and 1 formation active at any time. During the course
of a battle, a conqueror has the choice of either temporarily replacing
his active formation with an aoe/team-effect banner, or replacing his
active discipline with a more powerful solo buff. These actions may be
achieved through new abilities granted to all Conquerors called "Plant
Banner" and "Grant Technique." After the temporary effect has expired,
the original buff which was replaced is reapplied.

Team Effects:
* Discipline: Retribution - grants melee and magic retribution damage.
* Discipline: Hoarfrost - grants armor and spell penetration.
* Discipline: Precision - grants hit rating.

* Formation: Fire Weave - grants fire combat rating and a fire damage proc.
* Formation: Skirmish - grants mana/stamina regeneration and bonus weapon damage.
* Formation: Thunderhead - grants evade and critical damage bonus increase.

Temporary Solo Effects (replaces the corresponding Discipline)
* Technique: Retribution - grants an absorb shield (scaling with your
level, up to 750 points at level 80), while granting half the normal
amount of armor, protection and retributive damage.
* Technique: Hoarfrost - grants critical rating and gives your attacks
a chance to stack up both the Physical and Elemental Torment debuffs.
* Technique: Precision - grants increased weapon damage.

Team/Aoe Banners (replaces the corresponding Formation)
* Fire Weave Banner - inflicts fire damage to all enemies around the banner.
* Skirmish Banner - provides mana/stamina regeneration and a half-power
"green" heal to all allies around the banner. This secondary heal
follows the normal rule of ordinary team heals (maximum 2 "green" heals
active on a target).
* Thunderhead Banner - provides bonus immunity chance and a reactive
mana burn effect (triggered from being hit by a hostile spell) to all
allies around the banner.
* Note : Banner - Fire Weave is using a temporary placeholder effect.


Feat Changes:

* Improved Inspire feat changed name to 'Resolute Advance.' This feat
gives 10/20/30% root resistance, and when rooted the conqueror can use
his charge to break the root effect and apply a 2/4/6 second root
immunity.
* Whirlwind will now place Deep Wounds on targets it hits, if you have Deep Wounds trained.
* When consuming a Furious Inspiration stack of 10 with bladeweave, you will also get a critical increase.
* The Burst of Aggression knockback will now affect all enemies hit by that swing, not just one target.
* Power Counterstrike has changed position in the feat tree to where
Improved Furious Inspiration used to be. This feat has been renamed
'Improved Retaliation' and now increases the retributive damage and
duration of the Retaliation buff. It has a dependency link to
Retaliation.
* Improved Furious Inspiration has been moved to row 6. It now also
increases the critical chance of the Guard of Dancing Steel reactive
damage hits by 2/4/6/8/10%.
* Angel of Fury has been augmented. In addition to its current effect,
when you perform a physical critical hit, you have a 50% chance of
triggering a Furious Inspiration gain. You gain an additional 10%
chance for each point in Improved Furious Inspiration, up to a 100%
total chance.
* The Frostbite feat has been replaced with Scourge. This causes the
reactive damage proc gained from Guard of Dancing Steel a 33% base
chance of inflicting damage on enemies casting hostile spells on you.
This chance gets increased by the Improved Dancing Steel feat. Scourge
has moved down 1 tier and has no pre-requisite
* Guardsmans Feint has been renamed to Blessed Blade and is now a
20/40/60/80/100% chance of obtaining a buff when executing Hail of
Furious Strikes or Bloody Hack that heals you by 1% the next 3 attacks.
* Cold Steel Feat renamed to Furious Strikes. This feat decreases reuse
time on Hail of furious strikes comboline by 0.8 seconds per point up
to a total of 4 seconds. In addition it also enhances the improved
feint and feint combo line by increasing critical rating by
1.5/3/4.5/6/7.5% when used.
* Art of war now gives the Conqueror a stacking combat rating buff every time he inflicts critical damage.
* Tactical Mastery feat has been renamed to Hemorrhage, and increases
damage from Bloodbath, Deep Wounds, Lacerate and Rend Flesh by 7.5/15%
while Art of war is running.
* Quick Vengeance has been removed and replaced with Grievous Wounds.
This new feat swaps positions with Lightning Steel. Grievous Wounds
grants you 1/2/3/4/5% increased critical damage. Additionally, it
causes the stamina cost of Rend Flesh procs to be decreased by
5/10/15/20/25% per target currently affected by your Bloodbath dot;
affecting enough targets will cause Rend Flesh to cause you to gain
stamina per proc rather than lose it.
* Bloodlust now enhances the Breach combos by granting a buff after use
that increases the damage of your next combo finisher by 25%
* Improved Dancing Steel has been buffed to increase the reactive proc by 8/16/24/32/40% from 2/4/6/8/10%
* Improved Vitalize feat renamed "Improved Throat Slash" and moved
position to row 6, column 1. This feat now extends the silence effect
from throat slash by 1/2/3 seconds. The Improved Throat Slash also
increases the critical damage bonus of the Guard of Dancing Steel
reactive damage hits by 33/66/100%.
* The reactive damage from Guard of Dancing Steel is now able to critically hit.
* Bladeweave has swapped positions with Crippling Bloody Hack feat in the Brute tree.
* Steel Discipline changed name to Impervious Defense, and now grants 3/6% bonus armor.
* Lingering Fire weave now increases the critical chance of the fire weave proc by 5%
* Devastate has changed position in the feat tree, on same tier (cosmetic change).
* At Death's Door changed to give the conqueror 6/12/18% damage
deflection if health drops below 25%. This buff can only be obtained
once per minute.
* Moved At Death's Door to row 8, column 4.
* Lacerate has been changed to only tick every third second, to give
bigger numbers. The overall damage of Lacerate has been slightly
increased.
* When using Flashing Defense, Overcome the Odds, or Blessed Conquest
you will now have a blocking buff cast on you, stopping you from using
another of these abilities for 30 seconds.
* Mocking Sneer's hate increase on combo starters has been boosted
significantly. Each feat point should now add 10% hate on combo
starters in defensive stance.
* Improved Shield of Retribution has been renamed to Improved
Retribution. It now increases the armor, protection, and retributive
damage that you receive when using running Discipline: Retribution, and
Technique: Retribution.
* Remorseless Aggression has changed to clear the Burst of Aggression
cooldown when you or your group get a killing blow. It now has Burst of
Aggression as a pre-requisite.
* The hate buff you get after using Burst of Aggression is now a friendly buff and not a hostile buff.
* Changed Lingering fireweave to increase the Critical chance of the fireweave proc by 5%

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CONQUERORS

Ability changes:

* The Furious Resurgence resurrection ability has been split up and you
will now receive an additional ability called Resurgence.
Resurgence can only be used when you are out of combat, while Furious Resurgence can be used in combat, as before.
An additional check has been added to both to see that your target is
actually dead before using the ability, so that the ability will not
allow itself to be used (and hence not go on cooldown) if you have a
non-dead target selected.

Feat Changes:

* At Death's Door changed to give the conqueror 6/12/18% damage
deflection if health drops below 35%. This buff can only be obtained
once per minute.

* The Ability - Cunning feat has changed. It is now 2 feats rather than
3. It now grants an ability that gives you -2%/-5% hate while active.
It is now a "stance" toggle effect so can be turned on and off rather
than needing to be used constantly. This feat now also passively
increases the critical chance of the Lacerate, Deep Wounds, Rend Flesh
and Improved Rend effects by 1%/2%, regardless of whether you have the
Cunning buff running or not.

* The Fleet of Foot feat has been redesigned. It will now clear the
cooldown on your Charge ability whenever you or someone in your team
makes a kill.

* The Combo - Flashing Defense feat has been changed to Ability -
Flashing Defense. This no longer grants you a combo, but instead grants
you a new ability that gives you 100% evade chance for 8 seconds.

* Whirlwind now has a 10 second cooldown. When you use the Whirlwind
combo, you will gain a stacking buff that increases your Whirlwind
damage by 1% and Bloodbath damage-over-time damage by 2%. This effect
can stack up to 5 times.

* Rend Flesh and Improved Rend can now critically hit. The Rend Flesh
debuff name will no longer change as the stack builds up (it will
always appear as Rend Flesh).

* The Lightning Steel feat has been augmented. In addition to its
current ability, when you have the Lightning Steel buff effect active,
your successful offhand attacks have a
5/10/15/20/25% chance to refresh the duration of your current Bladeweave effect.

* Bladeweave is no longer marked as a hostile debuff, and will now appear in your buff bar.

* Deep Wounds has been moved into the Carnage tree, and received a
number of changes. The tick interval has been increased to 4 seconds,
the overall damage increased, and it now has the normal chance to crit.
This DOT can now also be applied from offhand attacks, not just primary
hand attacks. The proc rate has been increased from 5 to 6
proc-per-minute. Each conqueror can now have their own Deep Wounds
stack on the target, rather than there just being one. The way the
damage is calculated has been changed and will now improve based on
your weapon dps and strength. The DOT applied is now always called Deep
Wounds, rather than changing per rank.

* Overcome the Odds has been redesigned. When used, it debuffs nearby
enemies into healing you as they physically attack you. Additionally,
it clears the cooldown of Retaliation when used.

* The War Lord's March feat has been deleted. The War Lord feat will
now additionally grant 6% out of combat movement speed in addition to
its existing effects.

* Berserk Inspiration has been changed slightly. It now has an
independent change to increment the Furious Inspiration stack from
offhand attacks, at a significantly higher rate.

* Improved Furious Inspiration now also increases the
health/stamina/mana the resurrected target spawns with by 18% per feat
point, up to 100% with all 5 feat points trained.

* Some issues with Lacerate have been fixed. Lacerate now has the
normal chance to critically hit. The name of Lacerate will no longer
change based on the stack count.
Multiple conquerors now generate multiple stacks of Lacerate, rather than a single stack (one per conqueror).

* Reaping Blade feat now increases damage by "Bloodbath, Lacerate and Deep Wounds" by 5%.

* Both end tier feats in the Carnage tree now reduces the recast time
of Rend Flesh by 5 seconds, for a total of 10s reduction if both feats
are trained.

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August 31, 2009

Conqueror

* Overcome the Odds will now heal the correct amount in pvp.

* Fixed a bug with the Discipline: Retribution where training Improved
Retribution gave 2 entries of melee retributive damage instead of 1 for
melee and 1 for magic.

* The 3 new banners now have some obvious particle effects so you can
better see the area size. The Retribution technique now also gives you
a particle effect for as long as the absorb shield lasts.

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September 2, 2009

COMBAT

* Added a range check criteria on 'charge' when used from a rooted state.

MINIGAMES

* Capture the skull: If no skulls are captured the game will now end in a tie.

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September 4th

GENERAL

* Ranged attacks without target should now work properly again.
* When NPC's that run after you give up and return to their spawn point, you will not be stuck in combat mode anymore.

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September 9th

COMBAT

* Sheathing your weapon will now correctly cancel any multi-button combos you may be in the middle of performing. You should no longer see yourself doing a combo with no weapons in hand.

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September 10th

GENERAL
* Fixed an issue with invisible objects/characters when teleporting out of a minigame.
* PLEASE NOTE : All Conquerors will log in and find their feats have been reset. This has been done for testing purposes.

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September 11th

TESTLIVE
* Corrected the issues that arose from yesterday's update (ie. pets/mobs/particle effects not despawning).


COMBAT
* Weapons are now placed correctly in your hands again if you attack while sheathing your weapons.


CLASSES
Conqueror
* Changing Formations and Disciplines is now instant, but places those abilities on a 5 second cooldown.