Grab Bag - April 4, 2008

Sit back and relax with the Grab Bag!


The Paladin 'Chant of Perseverance' is costing power now, when it clearly does not delve a power cost. Is it supposed to cost power to cast?

Happy to investigate, the Balancinator started chanting for you: The "Chant of Perseverance" does not cost power to cast, but it has a power upkeep cost of 14 per tick. If you check the delve of the chant, you will notice under power cost that it lists the power cost per tick.

I was wondering about the camera. I can't seem to get it to face the back of my character, so I can see what he's running towards. How can I do this?

Without blinking the Bearded Wonder answered in a flash: /resetcamera

Will the new stealth changes affect how assassins detect other assassins?

I went to the Balancinator who was pretending he could not be seen at the time, but I found him: No, the assassin classes will still have to rely on innate detection range to find other assassins. The innate detection ranges have not changed.

So I had a question about something I'm unsure about. The realm ability "Adrenaline Rush" the description says it doubles baseline damage, but you cannot perform styles. But it does not affect my Wizard's baseline damage. It should though right?

The Balancinator looked at this question as if you are trying to increase your baseline magic damage: I could be wrong, but I am tackling this question from that angle. The ability "Adrenaline Rush" doubles the base damage of your melee attacks. It will not affect spell damage. I checked the ability on my Wizard and it did in fact double its melee damage.

Hi, I have a question about spell piercing. Some players have been telling me that 10% is the cap but when I equip Jacina's Sash, Erinys and a cloth cap I have 15% and I can see 15% bonus screen. I also talked to a high rank Animist who told me that only Animists can make use of the pierce bonus above 10%.

Is this how it's supposed to work?

The Balancinator nodded firmly, knowing the answer right away: There is a bug in reporting spell piercing to the bonuses window. It should stop reporting after you max out at 10% spell piercing. It is in our bug tracker and we are working to fix it.

Yes, Animists are benefiting from going over the 10% cap while using certain spells. When the Animist casts a bomber, it summons an orb (NPC) that travels to the target. This orb will cast the damage portion of the spell. The NPC that you summon inherits your bonuses, but ignores the spell piercing cap. This affects most pet classes as well, but it is highly pronounced in the Animist bomber. This is a bug and our coders are working hard to get a fix for it.

Say an item reads "Fatigue: 5." Is this the same as Power, in that it adds "5 points of Fatigue" to your "Fatigue cap", or does it grant you a 5% bonus to endurance cost?

Stretching then calculating, The Balancinator had this to say: Fatigue: 5 pts

This represents the amount of fatigue added to your fatigue pool. If your fatigue pool is 105 to start, then after you equip that item it will be 110.

I would like to ask you, if the Realm Ability "Mastery of Focus" has any influence on crowd control (My Healer has 36 in pacification)?

The Balancinator remained focused for your question and replies: 'Mastery of Focus' increases the level of all spells cast by the listed amount for out-right resistance purposes. 'Mastery of Focus' will not allow a spell to exceed the level 50 limit. The level of the spell and the level of the target are the biggest factors in determining out-right resists.

To answer your question: Yes, you will gain benefits from this realm ability in your pacification line. You will notice less out-right resists to your crowd control spells as you increase the levels to 50.

What happened with the condemned houses being repossessed?

I tiptoed over to Code Red so that he could explain: The housing zone is a very fragile and complicated location. Once we noticed that potential issues could develop, we decided to pause the timers to make sure that our current active player base would not be affected by these changes. We are investigating these issues and we hope to have them resolved soon.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

It's hard to believe our next Road Trip in Bethesda, Maryland is just around the corner. Come join us on May 10th as we answer your questions, give out some great prizes and of course, don't forget the free snacks! From what I hear, there will be plenty of Devs on hand to hang out with and talk about Camelot! You know you want to attend and we would love to see you there. Please remember to RSVP!

Many players have asked where the Doppelgangers can be found for the Invasion. We wanted to make triple extra sure they were spawning correctly and they are. Sometimes the best way to find one is to stumble upon it when you aren't looking for it. I do have one hint for you: They do not always appear in the same places you've seen them before. Get out in the Frontiers, kill some enemies but always keep an eye out for the invaders!

1.94 where art thou? With the Devs turning their focus on the live servers this week, 1.94 was not ready for Pendragon on Thursday. Never fear, 1.94 is just around the corner.

Speaking of Pendragon. we mentioned a couple of weeks ago, that /character copy was unavailable. We are continuing to update some behind the scenes stuff on Pendragon and this means you will not be able to copy your character for a little bit longer. I'm sorry Pendragonites, it shouldn't be too much longer, I'll let you know when it is available again.

Play on Mordred weekend starts tomorrow. If you have ever wanted to give our PvP server a try, then this weekend or if you wanted to revisit the Mordred server with your existing characters, it's a great time to do so!

It's time for me to head to the frontiers and enjoy the extra Zone Bonuses this weekend. See you on Monday. Stay safe out there.