Q – What is the Red Plague all about and how will it affect the game?

James – It’s a plague and it’s red and it’s probably a portent.

A portent indeed, exactly as the warhammer lore tells us…

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It’s a plague and it’s red and it’s probably a portent

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First off his banner is awesome, I mean come on…. who wouldn’t want to see a pig in boxing gloves?

Secondly Testpig has put a lot of effort in to creating videos that demonstrate his ideas for improving WAR. It can take enough time just writing and editing blog posts, let alone making videos with all the diagrams, animations and so on. /salute

And finally the ideas themselves are well worth considering, particularly regarding PQs and Fortresses.
Go check it out.

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Public Test…. Pig???

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Lot of people getting all in a stress about this situation, but keep in mind folks this is not really anything to do with Warhammer Online and Mythic. Gamesworkshop see Curse, which is a business, making money and using their IP without permission. From the comments posted by the previous owner of WHA, the WHA site did have permission before the site was sold to Curse, but alas for WHA it was sold and as a result in GW’s eyes will have become a business and no longer a fan site. So no matter what Mythic or Warhammer Online players may think, Gamesworkshop will always sue.

To them no matter how well WAR did it would always have been just a sideline, a licence they sold and get a little bit of cash from. It’s a small priority compared with protecting their intellectual property, since failure to do so even once can lead to difficulties when making a legal challenge in future. Gamesworkshop have a history of aggressively protecting their IP against anyone that could be seen as making money from it. And to be honest they don’t really have much choice, their IP is their entire business. They have to be aggressive, that’s just how it works. It’s like with the Damnatus warhammer 40k film, GW didn’t want to give them the legal slap, but because of the way German copyright laws work, to protect themselves in future they had no choice. That one is still rumbling on I believe.

Do I like it? Of course not, whilst I couldn’t give a monkey’s about Curse (due to apathy, not some random hatred), I do like WHA and regularly read the forums. But this situation is just about business, is far from uncommon and totally understandable. Hopefully Gamesworkshop and Curse will work something out, after all that’s what usually happens in these situations. The whole suing thing is probably just a kick up the arse and a statement, rather than an attempt at taking Curse for a milllllllllllion dollars.

But don’t get dragged into blaming Mythic. Feel free to shout at Mythic for not giving us news on an expansion though. I mean come on, Age of Conan gets one and we’re not? Now is not the time for viral marketing, hints or just plain silence. Now is the time to kick arse and take names, it’s time to stake a claim! A fitting tune considering the UK’s political mess at the moment. Lib Dems get 24% of the vote, but only 8% of the seats in the House of Parliment, how the fuck is that democracy working? In fact while I’m getting cross… 52% of the population make clear votes to keep the Tories out, yet somehow with a mere 36% it looks like they’ll get in. No please, no return to eighties rich person buffing! Do not want! Broken system is broken.

Ooh man now that was a tangent.

Anyways……. don’t blame Mythic, this is not their fault. The sue Curse bit I mean, not the politics. Though I’m sure there is an ex-WAR playing Troll that can think up why the political mess is Mythic’s fault.

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Mythic are NOT suing Warhammer Alliance. Gamesworkshop are suing Curse.

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To really understand why siege warfare in DAoC is seen as being much better than in WAR, just like in my previous post you once again have to take a step back, look at the big picture and consider more than just the details of the combat itself. Not just the how we fight, but the why we fight. So the first thing to think about is what is the actual purpose of keeps? In the most basic sense within both games the purpose is the same; the keeps are there to provide us with something to fight for, they are battle objectives if you like. However beyond that basic reasoning the two games go in very different directions.

In WAR capturing a keep gives points towards the score required to lock the zone it’s in… The only reason to attack a keep is when trying to lock the zone, and in return the only reason to defend a keep is if you want to prevent the enemy getting the points towards the aforementioned zone lock. Unfortunately other than that point score and a bit of extra loot for a guild claiming the keep, ownership provides no benefits of any form. And it must be stressed, once you get the zone lock and the active zone changes, that keep is now completely irrelevant. This is why you very rarely see a guild in WAR take and hold a keep in any serious manner, unlike in DAoC where they will often end up staying there for hours defending their ground. In WAR keeps are just cap it, get the points, lock the zone, move on and repeat back and forth. Am I being too harsh? Not really. Ask yourself, what does holding a keep give you?

In DAoC taking and holding keeps provides an entirely different set of benefits, but to understand why, first I have to explain the difference between WAR’s flight-masters and DAoC’s teleporting. As you know, in WAR when you want to go to a different zone you simply talk to a flight-master in any warcamp, a loading screen appears and then you are in the new zone, instantly. However in DAoC there no flight-masters, instead there are Border Keeps and teleport stones. Each realm’s frontier (which consists of multiple seamlessly linked zones) has a couple of Border keeps. These are massive un-attackable keeps that separate the PvE levelling zones from the full RvR enabled frontier zones, in other words these are the doorways to RvR. Once inside you will find no flight-master for quick travel, instead you will discover a teleport stone, that works like a flight-master, sort of … Same-same but different!

Spread across the frontiers are DAoC’s many attackable keeps, each of which have 4 towers fairly nearby in the surrounding landscape. If your realm controls a keep and all 4 towers, then a teleport stone within that main keep becomes active and under your realms control. You can use these to instantly travel between ANY teleport stones also under your realm control. So if you capture a keep and towers deep in the enemy frontier lands, this means your realm buddies can then teleport yourself from the Border keep (or other controlled keeps) directly into that newly captured keep within the enemy frontier… as long as you also control the 4 related towers.

Think about that for a minute. Control of DAoC’s keeps effectively give you supply lines into enemy territory. It allows you to pin your enemy back and bring your armies in to their lands. Remember this is a campaign without zone locks, where anywhere can come under attack at any point, as such this is a campaign where your ability to manoeuvre is an extremely significant factor. These keeps provide a way of controlling territory. They let you turn segments of the enemy frontier into your own territory, restrict enemy movement and provide beachheads to launch your attacks from. When you look at the frontier map in DAoC you can see effectively lines of battle as control of the land is gained and lost. Like an old school war map! REAL strategic choices. Do you push for the keeps nearest to your frontier and try to directly expand your territory, or do you send raids deep into the enemy frontier and try to capture a strongpoint and make a push directly from the heart of the enemy frontier? What about both? Could you hit 3 enemy keeps at once and potentially control 3 different routes into the enemy frontier?!

At first glance it’s very similar to WAR, with oil, rams, doors and keep lords. The big difference is once again the options you have. Not only do keeps in Camelot have destructible walls, siege weapons can be placed anywhere (no silly siege pads), you’re able to build siege towers and there are other abilities that let attackers climb the walls, which means you’re not limited to just attacking or defending a single doorway. Defenders will be spread around the battlements, as the attacks could come from anywhere. Just spamming AoE on a doorway will not work. All told this is much more like those images of sieges we see in the movies and it makes for much more epic feeling battles. Much more epic, simply because we’re spread out more and we have options in how we play. Visually and in layout terms the keeps are quite different, DAoC’s having a much more traditional, but not necessarily better, theme. DAoC’s feel bigger, but I’m not entirely convinced they are. I think it’s a more a case of placement, which is just like real castles being often on hills and raised areas, which makes them quite imposing as you approach. A key point is that you’re not funnelled to the doorways in the same way as WAR, so you will always see much more of the keep and be fighting over a much larger area, which I think gives it a more dramatic ambiance

Teleport stones = Flight Masters
Having already removed the zone locking system, opened up tier 4 to be fully RvR and added some more objectives to the former pure PvE sections, it’s time to give the keeps and objectives some real meaning. Flight masters should only work if your realm controls a keep and a certain number of associated objectives. Otherwise you have to fly to the nearest zone (with a controlled flight master) and then ride. Alternatively you could choose to leave your city gates or a lower tier entrance and ride there. A racial pairing will now actually have a feeling of going into enemy territory as you travel from one city to the other. While this will mean it can sometimes take longer to get into a fight (though we have scenarios for instant action still), I think the trade off for a proper campaign with a real tangible feeling of pushing into enemy lands is more than worth it.

Upgrade siege warfare
I gather destructible walls are hard to implement now, as are freely deployable siege weapons. OK, so give us siege towers and ladders that work on inner and outer walls. This will mean both attacking and defending melee has more of a role in sieges, the combat is spread around more, it’s a hell of a lot less boring and it brings an end to the DOORhammer Online era.

As before I think these are feasible changes. I’m not asking for 2 years worth of new artwork, or in fact anything that requires structural changes to the game world (I don’t think?). It’s about moving us away from the too prescriptive campaign and not making everything too easy for us. Actually I think that’s a big contributor to Mythic’s errors (and some of the great things too) with WAR, they have really tried to make everything as accessible as possible. They’ve tried so hard to make it easy for us to take part in anything, that they have actually made it a bit too easy.

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What WAR needs from DAoC – part 2 – siege warfare

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What WAR needs from DAoC

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If it’s a short duration it will make the whole faction system farcical, but if it’s a few days… OK I agree with Shadow-war, yes that could work out.

Hopefully Mythic will give us an answer soon.

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A question of time

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Putting in a changing faction lock out timer of say 12 hours after logging in with a character will prevent much of the spiteful and tactical cross-realming, but it still leaves us with problems to deal with. Some guilds will be fractured as people decide to jump ship; the grass is greener and all that. And what about a strict no cross realming guild? How do they manage this change? It will also be much easier (with no extra cost) and more common for people to infiltrate enemy guilds and cause all manner of problems. I just can’t see what positive purpose this change has, unless it is related to an expansion. It makes no sense.

In the producer’s letter thread Andy has confirmed they are not considering server merges, so that thankfully is ruled out. I’ve no idea what the US servers are like, but the 2 English speaking EU ones I play on are both very busy, so server merges seemed odd anyway.

Just to throw a little more hope in there; the grab bag video is broken at the time of posting, it only plays for about a minute, but the Bretonnia background is there again. We also have to hope this line from the Producer’s Letter means something decent:

“Also keep on the lookout for a special announcement video coming straight from the bloggers to you!“

I think we really need some reassurance from Mythic here. Feel free to email me something positive Mythic (hey if you don’t ask you don’t get!) Everyone I’ve spoken to is very worried about what this means. Everyone is hopeful for an expansion. And everyone will be devastated if that’s not what is coming and we just get Mythic sponsored cross-realming.

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Having had a few hours to discuss and think about the cross-realming change…

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“By 1.3.6 players will have the capability to play as both Order and Destruction on the same server. We did this in Camelot, because we wanted to give players more choices about where they wanted to play and who they wanted to play with. We’re aware of the possible downsides (such as cross-realming) and we’re aware that people have a lot of realm pride, which we believe is very important, so we’re going to be introducing a significant lockout timer to switch between realms. Warhammer has a lot to offer between Order and Destruction and we want to give you the opportunity to experience all of WAR with a single account while still maintaining ties to the community of your home server.“

If as Wasdstomp suspects is to aid the introduction of a third faction, then I can accept it and will welcome it, it is probably the only way to get a third faction in and give it a chance of high population. In which case I can take the negatives this brings in exchange for the HUGE improvement that a third faction would provide.

BUT if we’re not getting a third faction, then this is absolutely not required, shafts realm pride even further and changes the game in a bad way for people that have stuck with it through, to be honest, a lot of crap. So unless they announce plans for a third faction expansion soon I can only consider this as bloody terrible news. And I don’t mean “awww shame terrible news”, I mean absolutely fucking terrible, game ruining, re-consider my subscription news.

I loathe cross realming. I like my enemy players earning their reputations in-game and being somewhat enigmatic, it’s why I don’t have a particularly high forum post count and don’t go on IRC or anything. I don’t want to know them, I want to fight them in game and have them (and if I’m lucky, me) earn respect from that. Not from some epeen circle jerk outside of the game. I don’t want them logging onto our side and trolling me after I kill them, tthough I have actually had this happen from some guy with 2 accounts already, but at least he paid for the privilege.

First Mythic ripped up realm pride with the changes to a “no downside” and high speed, ping-pong campaign, but this… yikes… it could decimate it further.

For the first time in ages I’m really worried for my future in WAR. Mythic if you want to prevent people like me spiraling into negativity, then please, PLEASE, either cancel this (as if…) or give us something solid to hope for.

More than ever I hope the Red Plague is not just a rumour.

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NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! unless…

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Obviously this features naughty words and lots of anger. Seriously don’t watch it if you’re easily offended, or a little ‘un or something.

RAAAGH!

And this is clever, trippy and slightly hypnotic.

And finally I’m gonna pimp our latest guild video again. It’s so damn… uhm… pimp!

For WAR reading check the blog roll, lots to read as ever. I’ll get a proper post up in due course.

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Busy day :( So have a very angry man and some giant teddy bears

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Also if you’ve not played WAR for a while or never dabbled at all, this video does a good job of showing off some of the high quality graphics inside the game’s premier dungeon experience. I’m a big fan of the way The Land of the Dead and it’s dungeons look. It’s just so right, not one of those over-stated WoW fairy glowy crap things (which are impressive in their own way, but totally wrong for WAR), it’s an ancient yet maintainted tomb of evil egyptian style buggers. Mythic absolutely nailed the Tomb Kings theme.

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Bootae’s Bloody Blog 2010-04-28 13:18:00

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To answer this I shall quote Pandemic of Karak Norn Brightwizardy fame:

Being a rambling long post type person myself, I could waffle on with a larger explanation, but why bother when that sums it up perfectly!

If you’re still not convinced then perhaps this collection of Skaven imagery will convince you…

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Horned rat is horny

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WAR’s resurgence continues!

Oh and on another topic… if you want to see the new city being tested live, check out Mykiel’s site for streaming video uberness.

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Youch! It burns!

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BIG MISTAKE

We got the shit kicked out of us and ended up with a 1-6 win/loss ratio before we decided to call it a night. Ugh… this was by far the worst result I’ve ever had in an event like this. I’m not going to make excuses for this poor result, as we were outplayed by Order and the speed of some of our losses said it all. However I want to ponder on it a bit, since this was such an unprecedented arse kicking for me and losing a fight is not just about how well your opponents play, but also about other factors like how well you play, your group synergy and the environment you’re fighting in.

To be clear then, /salute to all our opponents, in each fight you outplayed us and fully deserved your wins.

Our group looked like this:
- Chosen (shield)
- Chosen (great weapon)
- Disciple of Khaine (heal specced)
- Disciple of Khaine (DPS specced)
- 2x Sorcerer (single target specced)

First off, this is no sleight on the people in my group. They were all good (or even excellent) players who don’t make a habit out of getting their arse kicked. We just didn’t play well; our assisting was sloppy, ventrilo was a muddle, changing to better targets was off and our use of crowd control was rubbish.

I respecced great weapon for this event, which was a mistake, I’ve been sword and board for ages now and I discovered I just didn’t quite know anymore where I should be and what I should be doing in a situational sense with this type of group when using a great weapon. For the last 2 fights I went back to my shield spec and did a lot better (which included the one win lol). No escaping though, I was shockingly shite for most of our fights. Oh! The shame… Meh I’m no epeen ego monkey, I’ll freely admit when I played like turd Anyways, I don’t know if other people will think that group should work ok, but for me there was no synergy. It’s a set up that didn’t seem to know what it was trying to be and it felt very squishy. The squishy bit I’m a little surprised at, since there’s this impression of DoKs as un-killable monsters, but it was Slayer central last night and they were absolutely tearing through our DoKs. In previous groups we always went with 2 proper heal specced players and I think this was our biggest mistake in creating the group. To summarise my rambling, on top of just plain playing badly, I think we made 3 key mistakes in our “setting up phase”:

1) Overconfidence based upon past performances meant we didn’t put enough thought into setting up the group. In an event that will have some opponents in absolutely perfect “FOTM” (as people on forums like to call them) set ups, be cocky and over-confident is asking for an arse kicking. This is the root of the other 2 key mistakes.
2) The group didn’t have an overall purpose or theme; we didn’t consider synergy of careers or anything other than having 2 healers (1 ½ as it turned out), 2 tanks and 2 DPS.
3) Individuals not being clear on their role and responsibilities led to headless chicken moments. Changing to unfamiliar specs in an unfamiliar group was not my brightest moment.

Important to state again that I’m not saying had we sorted ourselves out better we would have won. Order outplayed us and judging by the score on my Casualties of WAR mod they outplayed quite a few others too, but had we got our shit together we would at least have had put up a better fight and not got steamrolled so much. A lesson in humility learnt perhaps.

There was one other thing that was a complete fucking headache. Idiots in the audience.
These events attract spectators, which is cool and normally not a problem. Spectators sit naked on their mounts and watch from a distance. Unfortunately last night the audience (from both Destruction and Order) decided it wanted to get a bit closer to the action and in some cases join in. We had people circling the fights at close range, running through the middle, adding onto fights, throwing in resses onto our opponents and all sorts of other crap from a mixture of people who weren’t all naked either. This meant that for a bunch of our fights I couldn’t tell who was in the enemy group and who was just some random bell-end trying to screw things up; in fact there was one fight where I had (by a rough count) 18 red names in tab targetable range. It also looked like Order was having similar difficulties. At another point what appeared to 2 groups worth of spectators tried to gank us, we killed them mind you, there’s a big difference between puggies and the proper Order pre-mades. In your face psycho spectators!

(update) for fellow Nornites, this was in Praag

It was incredibly annoying though. With us realising our group just wasn’t working at all and the idiots amongst the audience making everything a headache, we decided to call it a night after just 7 proper fights.

Events like these can be great fun, but it requires more than just respect from the teams taking part. It needs those watching it to not act like total twats.

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Getting my arse kicked and why audience participation is not always a good thing

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Crest rolling rules are like political manifestos

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The second big thing to get round is the perception that Bretonnians are all about Knights and Damsels, which limits career options too much. I’d actually like to challenge that perception, because I don’t think it’s true anymore. The current Bretonnian book puts a lot of emphasis on the class divide in Bretonnian society and how this is reflected in the army itself. Yes there are a lot of Knights, but there are also things like Men at Arms, Peasant Bowman (based upon Enligsh Longbowmen who as history demonstrated were not to be underestimated), Yeoman and Battle Pilgrims. Those units also often have champions, champions that could be taken a bit further perhaps… Keep in mind this kind of tinkering is why the Disciple of Khaine career exists in WAR and not on the tabletop.

I’m not going to spend ages going into the detail of how I would make the actual careers work, that’ll turn this post into a monster So instead here are some basic themes from characters and troop types already in the existing lore:

Young Knights trying to prove themselves and become Knights of the Realm. Also known as arrogant, obnoxious and very posh psychopaths. Give them medium armour, lots of weapons, abilities that reflect their unhinged nature and I’m sure us players could provide the psychosis.

Villein (RDPS)

Bretonnian longbowmen are led by dubious characters know as Villeins. Why not expand that character a bit? A peasant he maybe, but this guy has fought tooth and nail to escape his lowly birth. Deadly at range with his longbow, but devious and tricky up close. Dirty tricks are the order of the day, anything goes if it gives him an advantage. Dirt in their eyes, kicks in the balls, hidden weapons, poisons, the works.

Damsel (Healer)

Now those are not the only options, whilst I was looking at the Bretonnian book I had other ideas for things like a Master of Arms, Battle Pilgrims and Questing Knights. So I think it is perfectly doable, should Mythic ever choose to do so. I’d still prefer Wood Elves overall, but I’d roll a Villein on Karak-Azgal tomorrow if they existed

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Bretonnia, could it work?

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Why is this relevant to the Red Plague? Well that would be because the Red Plague is most famous for being inflicted by the Skaven upon Bretonnia, which involved both the Bretonnians and Wood Elves.

Another clue? Or just another example of a community desperate for an expansion clutching at straws? Pffft… I have no idea, but either way it’s something positive and potentially awesome to talk about so why the hell not!

Oh and I get to put a nice picture of a Knight Templar up with an English flag for Saint George’s day and it’s actually on topic! AWESOME SAUCE! Well, apart from the fact it’s now late at night and it’s actually the day after. Bollocks, I should have posted earlier…

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Further Red Plague rumour milling

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/boils kettle
/makes a lovely cup of tea

Ah there you are. Have a biscuit. Interesting read eh?

Now then, now then… it could be nothing at all, but everything Mykiel has said makes sense. It is very strange for Mythic to reference the Red Plague from established Warhammer history as the reason for the crafting NPCs to have moved to the cities. For a start they wouldn’t normally bother fluffing out the reason for the NPC’s relocation, certainly they never have before and if they did want to give it a reason then surely the more obvious and straightforward one would have just been because of the current war between Order and Destruction? Instead they’ve referenced a Skaven engineered plague… And note this is lore very specific to Skaven. The red plague heralds the Skaven going to war against the surface dwellers and not in a little half-arsed way; we’re talking major Skaven invasions. Cities destroyed, populations slaughtered or enslaved and a general collection of devious Rat-Bastardry™. So could this mean the Skaven are coming to WAR?

It’s only a clue and maybe not a real one, but there are things afoot. Lets look at the clues so far:
1) Bioware/Mythic stated they have new content and expansions planned for WAR.
2) They’ve also stated that the game is very profitable and subs are increasing. Profits and subs will mean development.
3) At the recent blogger visit to Mythic HQ there was a WAR development team that they were not allowed to talk to or see anything they’re working on.
4) The Red Plague revelation by Mykiel.

The Red Plague… A good name for an expansion yes?

Hmmmm I say! Hmmmm and thrice hmmmm! I think it’s time for all of us to get those little grey cells working. Keep your eyes peeled folks.

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The Red Plague expansion?

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Bloody hell! This is a BIG patch! There are a lot of things I didn’t see coming, as well as a lot of things we all knew were on their way. In general terms I think this has the potential to be the best WAR patch in a looooooooooong time. Perfect? No of course not. But there are lots of clear improvements, a range of excellent new options, recognised headache bugs being zapped and of course the new city siege. It’s far too big a patch to review in its entirety in a single blog post, so excuse me for skipping a fair few things for now.

Clearly the focus of this patch is the new improved city siege system. Unfortunately this will mean that some people bitch and whine that their class hasn’t had this buffed or that fixed, but then unless they get an uber buff from God himself, well… they would bitch and whine anyway. Mythic appear to have changed their strategy regarding balance to making smaller focussed changes to careers, rather than the gung-ho widespread nerf-gimping of the past. This is a good thing, remember how much people hated that in the past? No? You bloody well should, the crying was epic. Small and considered change is a better way of doing things. Does this mean we have to wait longer for our buffs? Yes. Is that a shame? Yes, of course. Is it better than ruining loads of things at once because you can’t see the impact on individual careers? HELL YES! Having the end game turned into something worthwhile is more important than my poor Magus getting the buffs he needs. This is a big patch for the big picture.

The NEW 100% RvR City Siege
Which leads me to the big picture change, Mythic’s attempt at delivering an end-game worthy of Warhammer. Have they delivered? This is hard to say with complete confidence as this is all on paper still, but it looks like they’ve delivered with style. Each stage is now completely RvR focussed, with the NPCs supplying reasons for us to fight other players. The NPCs are mobile targets and the goal of each stage is to kill or protect them, but crucially they don’t attack us, they are JUST a target to be killed or protected. There’s no boss tactics or PvE style stuff, no shitty kite fights or other such tedium, instead it’s all about one side defending against the invading players. Winning sovereign will no longer be about how good you are at (or interested in…) PvE, it will be about how good you are at defeating enemy players. Also the city has been opened up, with the war quarters areas included, so the fight should feel much bigger. On paper this sounds excellent.

Probably the next biggest changes for city siege instances are the change from 48 vs 48 to 24 vs 24 and each instance being self reliant. This is really good news. No longer are we reliant on someone in some other instance not fucking up, no more being hampered by unrelated and unknown players screw ups. This change also has another excellent knock on effect… At the moment one of the main reasons people do alarm clock city sieges is because pushing to stage 2 in the city is a lot easier without any defenders, and the reason it’s easier without defenders is because of that thing where one instance can screw up the entire king push for your entire realm. This patch gets rid of that. How well you do is now down to how well your warband (and your enemy’s warband) performs.

Career changes

• Auto-attack changes… Good move. People defending auto-attack were deluded, as anyone that has actually fought against a tier 4 slayer (with the related gear) would testify to, this was insanely over-powered. Regular readers will know I’m not one to jump on the nerf this nerf that bandwagon, but this was a genuine serious problem.
• Runepriests and Zealots getting buffed… Excellent news, these are two classes that really did need some tweaking and I’m chuffed for them. The changes look great too.
• Chosen and Ironbreaker get changes… All good as far as I’m concerned. The ironbreaker Gromril Plating morale ability was rather potent and having the Chosen morales moved around and aligned with that makes perfect sense for me, despite them not being career mirrors.
• Sorcerers and Bright Wizards… I have to say I’m not well versed enough with these classes to really tell what this means for them. I’m reliably informed it’s not really nerfs or buffs, more just changes.

As I can’t see the new prices for gear this is rather hard to make a judgement on. It does sound like we’ll earn a LOT more crests in future, though I have to say the breaking crests down on a 1 to 1 basis seems very, very odd. Why???

Combat Highlighting!
I had no idea that this was on its way. It sounds very useful for healing people outside of your group. And as an option you can have turned off or on, with a range of settings between, it sounds like an excellent addition.

Tomb of Vulture Lord 7th Boss changes
VERY good news. The problem with this boss is it’s too reliant on either certain classes being present or kiting mobs. The problem with kiting is that the mob pathing in WAR is just not good enough and it will regularly bug out, teleport or worse. If you have a group of friends that want to clear VL, but you don’t have the right classes, the 7th boss (and only the 7th) is a complete nightmare. I go with different group set ups, sometimes its a doddle, but sometimes when those staggers, etc aren’t available, its just total bollocks.

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A big patch for the big picture

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HIGHLIGHTS

 City RvR Improvements
The city RvR experience has been greatly enhanced to create a much more satisfying RvR endgame. Please see the “City Campaign Changes” section of the Patch notes for the full details.

Item Improvements
Career restrictions on many equipment drops have been eliminated (i.e. if a heavy armor piece drops and you can wear heavy armor, then you can use it.) The look of dyed items has also been greatly improved.

Mini-Map Edge Tracker
Edge Tracker – To help navigate around the world we’ve added a new Edge Tracker to the mini-map. When your party members are out of range their mini-map icons will stick to the edge of the mini-map to indicate which direction they are in. Also in Scenarios, Open RvR and Contested Cities objectives and keeps will be represented by icons on the edge of the mini-map as well. Mousing over any of these tooltips while they’re on the edge of the mini-map will also display the approximate range to the edge point as well. You can also filter what items are tracked by bringing down the Map Filters option box and unselecting the items you don’t wish edge tracked. Part of the Edge Tracker is a new border around the mini-map when you are tracking anything, if you wish to use the Edge Tracker with the old mini-map border check the “Old Minimap Border” option on the General tab in User Settings.

Combat Highlighting
To provide better feedback during combat in the playable game space we’ve added a new method of lighting characters when they are healed or damaged. At its default settings whenever your own player takes damage they will flash red briefly, a critical hit will flash a stronger red. Receive a heal from someone and your character will flash green briefly. Likewise any targets you damage or heal will also flash in a similar manner. This feature can be enabled just on yourself, others or turned off completely in User Settings on the General Tab.

Inventory Space Changes
To help players carry around their belongings, we’ve changed how inventory space is acquired as well as added new vault space to fill up! Backpack pouches can now be purchased at any time instead of waiting for them to be unlocked every 10 ranks. Additionally, we’ve added two more tabs of vault space, which can be purchased 1 row at a time for a total of an additional 160 vault inventory spaces. Guild vaults have also been expanded with another tab, which is purchasable 1 row at a time for a total of an additional 60 guild vault inventory spaces. See below for more details!

AFK Changes
To combat AFK players in scenarios and contested cities we’ve made some adjustments to how AFK is handled in these areas. Now in addition to the existing Idle Hands system if a player anywhere inside of a scenario or contested city idles for more than 2 minutes they will be flagged as AFK and given the Idle Hands debuff. Once flagged AFK and given Idle Hands the player will no longer receive rewards and after 60 seconds if the player does not return from AFK they will be removed from the scenario or contested city.

GENERAL CHANGES & BUG FIXES
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues with Renown awarded abilities.
* Fixed an issue in which players could sometimes still repair Siege equipment which was affected by “anti-repair” debuffs.
* Enhance War Engine: Fixed an issue in which players would receive an “Out of Range” message in error.
* Shield the Skies: Fixed an issue in which this ability would affect players outside of the caster’s group.
* Slam: Fixed an issue in with the tooltip of this ability.
* Dead monsters with loot on them have had their decay time increased to 15 minutes inside of dungeon instances.
* Changing your worn equipment will no longer cause the transparency effect to be removed when the camera is zoomed in so close that the player becomes transparent.
* Players who have been turned into chickens can no longer bolster other players.
* Players in the process of logging out that take a flight master will no longer lose control of the mouse when returning to character select.
* Players taking a screenshot while placing a ground target area of effect (GTAOE) targeting cursor will no longer have the GTAOE targeting cursor become stuck on the screen.
* In contested cities buildings in the distance will no longer fade out of view at a closer range than intended.
* Cloak and helm display settings will now be maintainedwhen zoning into a region with a moderate to heavy amount of players.
* Guild Heraldry may now be reset at a cost of 100 gold by clicking the “Reset Heraldry” button at the bottom right of the Guild Rewards tab. This will clear the current heraldry so that a new one can be chosen from the Heraldry Reservation option on the Guild Rewards tab at Guild Rank 10.
* Guild Tactics may now be reset at a cost of 10 gold by clicking Show Tactics on the Guild Rewards page and then the “Respecialize” button on the Guild Tactics List.

COMBAT & CAREERS
 General Changes & Bug Fixes
* When attempting to use a knockback ability against a target that has immunity to knockbacks, the victim will now be displayed as “Immune”.
* The Chosen Career has undergone several improvements. Due to these changes, all Chosen players have had their Mastery points refunded. Please visit a Career Trainer to reallocate these Mastery points. Please see below for more details regarding these changes.
* The Marauder Career has undergone several improvements. Due to these changes, all Marauder players have had their Mastery points refunded. Please visit a Career Trainer to reallocate these Mastery points. Please see the below for more details regarding these changes.
* Pet Abilities: Fixed an issue which allowed players to manually force their pet to use an ability when its target was too far away.
* Fixed numerous damage reduction abilities to reduce damage multiplicatively rather than additively.
* Immaculate Defense: Fixed an issue in which this ability would not play effects or sound.
* The manner in which modifiers to Autoattack Speed are calculated has been changed. These modifiers now increase the number of attacks by the given percentage. In other words, a 50% bonus will now result in the character getting 50% more attacks. Please be aware that the numerical values of all Autoattack Speed -debuffs- have been reduced as a result of this change in order to keep overall effectiveness exactly the same. As an example, a “50% debuff” would previously have resulted in the victim getting 33% fewer swings, and so that effect will now simply be listed as a “33% debuff”.
* Player-controlled pets which are rooted will no longer be able to use their abilities and damage targets which are out of range.
* Fixed an issue that caused effects over time to occasionally “lose” ticks.
* Player-controlled pets will no longer lose their behaviour state after their owner summons a mount.
Archtype Morale Bug Fix
* Siphon Power: The debuff icon of this ability will now display a tooltip.
* The Archetype Tactic “Steady Aim” has been renamed to “Masterful Aim”.
* Riposte: Fixed an issue in which this ability could deal critical damage.

Bug Fixes:
* Balance Essence: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.
* Drain Magic: Fixed an issue in which an enemy could right-click to remove the effect of this ability.
* Funnel Essence: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.
* Transfer Force: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.

Balance Changes:
* 0Bolstering Anger: Increased the value of the heal granted by this ability.

Balance Changes:
* You Got Nuffin’: This Tactic will now heal group mates whenever your War Bellows trigger.
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.

Balance Changes:
* Boiling Blood: This ability will now debuff the target’s Willpower and deal damage at the end of the duration.
* Fuel to the Fire: This Tactic will now increase the value of Boiling Blood’s Willpower debuff, increase the amount of damage dealt, and cause the effect to expire and deal its damage more quickly.
* Ignition: This effect of this tactic has been adjusted. It will now cause Ignite to always reduce the target’s Corporeal resistance, and will also reduce Ignite’s Action Point cost.
Bug Fixes:
* Cauterize: The hotkey for this ability will now only light up when the Bright Wizard is affected by a Hex, Ailment, or Curse.
* Embrace the Flames: The effect granted by this Tactic can no longer trigger more than once every 3 seconds.
* Scorched Earth: The impact effect for this ability will no longer play on the caster.

Balance Changes:
* Impenetrable Armor: This Morale ability is now available at Rank 36, has been moved to Morale Rank 3, and its duration has been increased.
* Sprout Carapace: This Morale ability is now available at 15 Mastery Points into Path of Corruption, and it has been moved to Morale Rank 4.
Bug Fixes:
* Crippling Strikes: The effect from this Tactic will now only be cleansable by abilities that remove Curses. Additionally, fixed an issue where the debuff applied by this ability could be right-click removed by enemy players.
* Repel: Fixed an issue in which the knockback portion of this ability would not fire if the damage portion was absorbed.

Balance Changes:
* Khaine’s Refreshment: Fixed an issue in which this channeled ability would not heal on the initial application.
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.
* Khaine’s Bounty: Fixed an issue in which this ability was not categorized as an “Absorb”.

Balance Changes:
* Electromagnet: This ability will now use Ballistic Skill instead of Intelligence to determine defense chance.
* Friction Burn: This ability is now based on Ballistic Skill instead of Strength.
* Spanner Swipe: This ability is now based on Ballistic Skill instead of Strength.
* Spanner Swipe: This ability no longer requires the victim to be hexed before it snares them.
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.
* Concussive Mine: Fixed an issue in which this Tactic would remove the Stagger granted from “Land Mine”.

Balance Changes:
* Gromril Plating: This Morale ability is now self-only.
* Grumble An’ Mutter: Increased the value of the heal granted by this ability.
Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.
* Away With Ye: The Knockback portion of the ability will now display “Immune” if it affects a target that has the “Immovable” buff.

Balance Changes:
* Conduit of Chaos: Fixed an issue in which the ability would not play effects or sound.
* Daemonic Maw: This ability no longer requires the victim to be hexed before it snares them.
Bug Fixes:
* Daemonic Resistance: Fixed an issue in which having a target sometimes prevented this ability from firing.

Balance Changes:
* Marauders now have standard Dual Wield capability, and will no longer “clone” their mainhand weapon into their offhand. While un-Mutated, the offhand weapon will be displayed, and while Mutated, the offhand weapon’s graphic will be hidden so that the Mutated arm can be shown instead.
* Exhaustive Strikes: This ability will now remove Action Points over time. This effect will not refresh itself.
Bug Fixes:
* Forked Aggression: This Morale ability will no longer go through the combat formula and instead will apply damage directly to the target.
* Terrible Embrace: This ability is now more reliable when cast on the move. In addition, this ability will no longer drag targets inside the Marauder.

Balance Changes:
* Grungni’s Gift: This ability’s heal value has been increased, and its Action Point cost has been reduced.
* Master Rune of Adamant: The heal value of the ability has increased.
* Rune of Burning: This ability now deals slightly less damage per tick, but ticks at a faster rate, resulting in an overall increase in damage. Additionally, its Action Point cost has been increased.
* Rune of Fate: This ability will now heal for 150% of the damage dealt.
* Rune of Fire: The damage of this ability has been increased.
* Rune of Fortune: The ability will now heal for 150% of the damage dealt.
* Rune of Immolation: The damage of this ability has been increased. Also, fixed an issue in which the Damage-over-time would unintentionally deal damage on the initial application.
* Rune of Serenity: The heal value of the ability has increased.
Bug Fixes:
* Rune of Binding: This ability will now show an effect on the Staggered target.
* Sundered Motion: Fixed an issue in which the snare applied by this ability would not always apply to affected targets if the Runepriest was moving.

Balance Changes:
* Swift Strikes: Fixed an issue in which this ability would not always play the hit effect and sound.
Bug Fixes:
* Barrage: Fixed an issue that prevented the arrow animation of this ability from being seen by the player.
* Assault Stance: The armor buff from this ability will now always be exactly equal to the player’s total armor from items. This fixes an issue in which the player’s armor value would be increased by 100% after armor debuffs were calculated.

Bug Fixes:
* Fury of Da Green: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.
* Yer Not So Bad: Fixed an issue with the effect timing of this ability.

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.

Balance Changes:
* Shadow of Disaster: This effect of this tactic has been adjusted. It will now cause Chillwind to always reduce the target’s Spiritual resistance, and will also reduce Chillwind’s Action Point cost.
* Vision of Domination: This tactic will now increase the value of Word of Pain’s Willpower debuff, increase the amount of damage, and cause the effect to expire and deal its damage more quickly. The ability “Vision of Torment” is no longer affected by this tactic.
* Word of Pain: Reduced the damage of this ability.
Bug Fixes:
* Absorb Vitality: Fixed a bug which allowed the healing portion of this ability to occasionally critically heal.
* Doombolt: Fixed an issue in which an impact effect would sometimes show on the Sorcerer.
* Glorious Carnage: The effect of this ability can no longer trigger more than once every 3 seconds.
* Paralyzing Nightmare: The root applied by this Morale ability can now be removed by abilities that cleanse roots.
* Surging Pain: The impact effect of this ability will no longer play on the caster.

Balance Changes:
* Gas Squig: The armor buff from this ability will now always be exactly equal to the player’s total armor from items. This fixes an issue in which the player’s armor value would be increased by 100% after armor debuffs were calculated.
* Squig Goo: The snare applied by this ability is no longer removable by abilities that remove snares. This fixes an issue in which this Morale ability was not consistent with other Morale snares.
Bug Fixes:
* Drop That!!: Fixed an issue in which this ability could be fired without an active pet.
* Squig Frenzy: This ability will now grey out when your pet is out of range.
* Tastes Like Chicken: This ability will now grey out when your pet is out of range.

Balance Changes:
* Bolstering Enchantments: Increased the value of the heal granted by this ability.

Bug Fixes:
* Divine Strike: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.
* Sigmar’s Shield: This ability will no longer heal NPCs.

Bug Fixes:
* Fixed numerous tooltip issues.

Bug Fixes:
* Enfeebling Strike: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be severed by an enemy.
* Ruthless Assault: Fixed an issue in which this ability dealt less damage than intended.
* Treacherous Assault: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be removed by Fleet-Footed.
* Vehement Blades: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be severed by an enemy.

Bug Fixes:
* Burn Armor: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be cleansed off by a friendly player.
* Dragon Gun: Fixed an issue in which visual “explosion” effect of this ability would play before the bullet finished its travel to the target.
* Fanatical Zeal: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be cleansed off by a friendly player.
* Sudden Accusation: The Action Point Cost bonus granted by this ability can no longer be cleansed off by a friendly player.

Balance Changes:
* Boon of Tzeentch: This ability no longer requires you to have an active Harbinger.
* Boon of Tzeentch: This ability will now heal for 150% of the damage dealt.
* Flash of Chaos: This ability’s heal value has been increased, and its Action Point cost has been reduced.
* Leaping Alteration: The heal value of this ability has been increased.
* Ritual of Lunacy: The heal value of this ability has been increased.
* Storm of Raven: This ability now deals more damage per tick, but ticks at a slower rate, resulting in an overall increase in damage. Additionally, this ability no longer requires a Harbinger to activate.
* Tzeentch’s Cry: The damage of this ability has been reduced.
* Warp Reality: The damage of this ability has been increased.
Bug Fixes:
* Aethyric Shock: This ability will now show an effect on the Staggered target.
* Harbinger of Doom: Fixed an issue in which this ability would toggle off when attempting to apply it to a new target.

CONTENT
Features
The rumors started first. Sickness. Deaths. Before long the rumors weren’t just whispers but screams echoing into darkness – The red plague had come.
In response to the virulent outbreak, merchants have abandoned their routes, preferring instead to remain in the perceived safety of larger cities. The Crafting and Training Guilds have issued a decree recalling all guild members to their respective capitals rather than risk the loss of their master crafters and trainers. For the first time since the war began, experienced Order and Destruction forces must now head to Altdorf and the Inevitable City in order to consult with career trainers, craft masters, and merchant kings – for until a cure is found no sane man will travel the battlefields of the land alone.

Service NPCs within peaceful Altdorf have had their respective locations adjusted. The following list now reflects the new home of these service NPCs:
* Temple of Sigmar
- Mailbox
- Career Trainers
- Renown Trainers
* Market Square
- Mailbox
- Auctioneers
- Apothecary Trainer
- Will now also sell Apothecary Goods
- Will now also sell Armor Dying Services
- Cultivation Trainer
- Will now also sell Cultivation Goods
- Hedge Wizard (Talisman Making Trainer)
- Will now also sell Talisman Making Goods
- Butchering Trainer
- Salvaging Trainer
- Scavenging Trainer
- Craft Supply Vendors
- Will now also sell Armor Dying Services
* Lord’s Row
- Mailbox
- Bankers
- Vault Keeper
* War Quarters
- Mailbox
- Renown Gear Merchants
- Medallion Quartermasters
- Emblem Quartermasters
- Mount Vendors
- Guild Registrar
* Emperor’s Palace
- Mailbox
- Name Registrar

Service NPCs within peaceful Inevitable City have had their respective locations adjusted. The following list now reflects the new home of these service NPCs:
* The Monolith
- Mailbox
- Career Trainers
- Renown Trainers
* The Apex (Central)
- Mailbox
- Auctioneers
- Apothecary Trainer
- Will now also sell Apothecary Goods
- Also Offers Armor Dying Services
- Cultivation Trainer
- Will now also sell Cultivation Goods
- Hedge Wizard (Talisman Making Trainer)
- Will now also sell Talisman Making Goods
- Butchering Trainer
- Salvaging Trainer
- Scavenging Trainer
- Craft Supply Vendors
- Will now also sell Armor Dying Services
* The Soul Vault
- Mailbox
- Bankers
- Vault Keeper
* The Undercroft
- Mailbox
- Renown Gear Merchants
- Medallion Quartermasters
- Emblem Quartermasters
* The Breaking Grounds
- Mailbox
- Mount Vendor
* The Viper’s Pit
- Mailbox
- Guild Registrar
* The Eternal Citadel
- Mailbox
- Name Registrar

Encounters
* Bloodfiend Flayerkin in The Inevitable City now animate properly.
* Kyara: This NPC will now maintain her look between Thunder Mountain and Cinderfall.
* Cleaned up excess quest objects in Marshes of Madness.
* Arremar Swiftblade: This Order quest giver has been set as non-aggressive, and will no longer attack Destruction players.
* Sheen Gloomleaf: This NPC will no longer get stuck on nearby trees.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta: This Tomb of the Vulture Lord encounter will now begin when any player in the party steps atop the central platform within the chamber. Once the encounter begins, large sandstorms will form within the doorways leading in and out of the chamber. If a player enters proximity of a sandstorm, he or she will be afflicted with a debuff called “Suffocating Sands”. This debuff is a damage-over-time effect that deals 10% of maximum health in unmitigated damage every 3 seconds. This debuff will persist until the player dies or the encounter ends. Additionally, the following changes have been made to this encounter:
* Curse of the Jackal, Curse of the Asp, and Curse of the Vulture: These applied buffs within the encounter have had their duration reduced to 15 seconds.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta will now teleport all players to the same location after erecting her Ancestral Aegis. Curse of the Jackal, Curse of the Asp, or Curse of the Vulture will be applied 6 seconds later.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta will now mark four players with her Curse of the Jackal, Curse of the Asp or Curse of the Vulture. Each curse will be applied at least once as long as three players are alive within the encounter area.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta will attempt to recast Curse of the Jackal, Curse of the Asp, and Curse of the Vulture every 20 seconds if her Ancestral Shield is erected and a player is not affected by Ancestral Malediction.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta’s Furious Bolt ability can no longer critically strike. Additionally this ability can no longer hit the same target within a three second period.
* The Hierophant Eutra’ta has gained a new ability that is used after the fight lasts for 10 minutes.
* The Heirophant Eutra’ta will now despawn in the event that a party perishes and will respawn in 30 seconds.
* Cousin of the King’s Dervish ability has been redesigned. It is now a permanent aura that cannot be removed by any means. Negatively affecting the movement velocity of the Cousin of the King will stop the ability from dealing damage. Damage will resume once movement velocity is restored to normal.
* Cousins of the King will no longer directly attack players. They will instead travel on a set path and ignore all combat upon spawning.
* Cousins of the King will not be able to be affected with Unstoppable.
* [96488] Uncle of the King’s Cursed Ground ability will not deal damage for the first 3 seconds it exists in the world.
* Added tooltip text to the Curse of the Jackal, Curse of the Asp, and Curse of the Vulture debuffs.
* Added tooltip text to the Ancestral Malediction debuff.

Quests
* A Rock to Remember: The NPC Roland Steinhauer is still up on his rock, but now just wants to get home safely.
* Water Stunties Good Fer?: This quest now utilizes a cave waypoint.
* Georg Olenskaya: This NPC found in Praag is no longer attackable by Destruction players.
* A Shattered Peace: Players will now only receive credit for part 3 of this quest upon using the Purified Shyish Crystal on the Sundered Spirits.
* Ignoble Weapons: The Reaper Bolt Throwers have been adjusted so they now have a death animation.
* Legend and Infamy: Part II of this quest now properly decrements the amount of Shadow Warrior heads from the player quest inventory.
* The Grudges of King Grolmunn: Removed mention of the player being rewarded with a drinking horn at the end of this quest chain since the player is rewarded with experience bonus instead.
* Unmasking the Enemy: The Journal Entry text for part 16 of this quest no longer cuts off.
* Sweeping the Doorstep: The second condition’s waypoint of this quest is now properly placed around the Temple of Ualatp PQ.

Public Quests
* Echoes of War: Additional messaging has been added to Stage II of this Public Quest.
* Hall of the Crimson Shroud: The Stone of Shyish in Stage 3 of this Public Quest will no longer display “Target is not attackable” when taking damage.
* The Siege of Anyerrial: Uthorin Obliterators found in this Public Quest now appear riding on top of their Cold Ones instead of inside.
* Beasts of War: The Ravenherd Raiders found in this Public Quest will now attack the Griffon camp during Stage I.
* Trovolek: Trovolek Hunters found in this Public Quest can no longer be pulled to the Chapter 8 hub area.
* Murgluk’s Gits: Female Dwarfs found in this Public Quest are no longer missing the tops of their heads.
* Temple of Ualatp: The granted ability “Dig” will now be properly removed upon using a Book of Binding.
* Purge the Tomb of the Vulture Lord: This Public Quest has been renamed to Conflict Within the Tomb and has undergone many changes.
- This Public Quest now has three stages denoted as:
- Invaded: This stage begins once an invader enters the instance. This stage has no effect on either Realm other than notifying the defenders that enemy forces are present in their instance. Any direct RVR interaction between Realms will cause the PQ to transition to the Purge stage.
- Purge: This stage is where both Realms battle to the point a winner is declared. If the invaders win the Purge stage, all defenders are relocated to their capital City as the invaders claim their PQ loot and the instance is shutdown (this will not affect lockout timers).
- Secured: If the defenders win the Purge stage, the PQ transitions to the Secured stage where their instance cannot be invaded again for 30 minutes.
- Defenders will now respawn within the instance during all three stages of this PQ and will only be relocated to their capital city if the invaders win.
- Defenders will now have two methods to win this PQ: Outlast the Purge by allowing the timer to run out or by successfully defeating an invader by any means.
- During the Purge stage, players respawning or being resurrected will no longer decrement the non-timed PQ condition of the opposing Realm.
- Players are now able to see the enemy Realm’s status of this PQ.
- During the Invaded stage, if all invaders leave the instance the PQ will immediately end and all invaders will be disassociated from the instance. If all defenders leave the instance during the same stage, the PQ will also immediately end, all invaders will be moved to their previous location, and the instance will be shutdown (this will not affect lockout timers).
- When this PQ is in the Purge stage, all players within the safety of the zone-in location will be moved to the ground level after 10 seconds upon entering the instance or respawning.
* Halls of the Heavens: Players will now properly receive damage with the “Poisoned” effect when falling into the pool.
* The Poisoned effect from the River Mortis and pool within the Hall of the Heavens PQ is now properly removed upon respawning.

ITEMS
Open RvR Currency Changes
With 1.3.5, players will notice that each of their Open RvR Crests have been renamed to “Ancient” Crests. These items are not the required currency to purchase set items, but will instead convert into 5 of their respective crests (e.g. Ancient Conqueror’s Crest converts to 5 Conqueror’s Crest). With this change, the price of armor on the Medallion merchants has been adjusted accordingly.
Crests now convert downwards on a 1:1 scale (e.g. 1 Invader’s Crest converts to 1 Conqueror’s Crest, which converts to 1 Officer’s Medallion). Additionally, all Fused Crests will now convert into 10 Crests. You will also notice that anywhere you were previously awarded a Crest, you are now awarded a stack of 5 Crests.

New to the Open RvR Stores
New unique Talismans are now available from each of the 4 Medallion Quartermasters! These Talismans of Aptitude and Celerity can be purchased with tier-appropriate medallions, and last a certain number of played hours based upon their quality.

New to the Open RvR and the Scenario Stores
Scouring Agents and Bleaching Agents may now be purchased from the Open RvR and Scenario stores, respectively, and cost either Officer’s Medallions or Officer’s Emblems. They can be used to remove dye from a piece of armor.

General Changes and Bug Fixes
* Alchemist Tonic: Fixed an issue with the tooltip of this potion.
* Evasive: Fixed an issue in which the detaunt granted by this ability could stack with the ability “Guard”.
* Firebrew: Fixed an issue in which the granted ability of this potion, “Breath of Fire”, was gaining benefit from the caster’s statistics and could deal critical damage.
* Fixed a tooltip issue with the Shadow Warrior’s Sovereign Armor.
* The bonus to “Radiant Gaze” granted by the Archmage’s Tracker set will now apply to the damage of the ability.
* All Currency items that could previously stack up to 999 can now stack to 9999. As a part of this change, “Fused Golden Scarabs,” “Cluster of Golden Scarabs,” and “Torn Page of Liber Mortis” can now be placed in your currency backpack.
* Armor items found within White, Green, Blue and Purple Chapter PQ bags are no longer career specific. Additionally, both armor and weapon items are now Bind On Equip.
* Armor items that drop from world monsters are no longer career specific.
* Broken items which are Bind On Pickup will now display that information in their tooltips.
* Fixed an issue that caused all Vitalize item proc tooltips to show incorrect chance to proc and incorrect value.
* Fixed an issue that caused Shadow Warriors to see 2 bows as their Advanced Rewards for Empire Chapter 4 Influence. There will now be a choice between a sword and a bow.
* Fixed an issue where Entangled Medallions showed the incorrect number of medallions it would convert to in its description text.
* Items of particular interest will now display item level in their tooltip.
* Magus mounts have been edited to have the correct spelling in the item name.
* Scenario Currency – You may now purchase Satchels of Emblems with higher-tier Emblems in order to down-convert. These new items can be found on each respective Emblem Quartermaster.
* Set Bonus – All Careers: 8 piece Sovereign bonus granted abilities will now display the correct tooltips and buff icons.
* Set Bonus – All Careers: 8 piece Sovereign bonus granted ability will no longer fade after death, requiring you to reapply a piece of armor to gain it back.
* Set Bonus – Blackguard: 8 piece Sovereign bonus will now properly grant the player Unnerving Hate.
* Set Bonus – Bright Wizard: 7 piece Warlord bonus will now work as intended and the tooltip will display the correct AP value.
* Set Bonus – Knight of the Blazing Sun: 8 piece Sovereign bonus will now properly grant the player Slowing Radiance.
* Set Bonus – Pilfer: 6 piece Sentinel and Sovereign proc “Pilfer” has been adjusted to do the intended amount of damage.
* “Silverwind Family Crest”: This item can no longer be converted into anything.
* The Healing Elixir and the Phial of Adrenaline found on the Officer’s Medallion Quartermaster have now been properly named “Officer’s …”
* The movement speed proc effect from a number of Land of the Dead talismans will now be immediately dispelled if you activate an ability. The following talismans have been affected: “Fractured Crystal of Quickening”, “Crystal of Quickening”, “Fractured Crystal of Haste”, “Crystal of Haste”, “Fractured Crystal of Alacrity”, “Crystal of Alacrity”, “Fractured Crystal of Sandstorms”, “Crystal of Sandstorms”, “Odjira”, “Ur Odjira”.
* Weapons that are 2H as well as having a slot type of EITHER have been fixed so they can only be worn in the right hand.
* The 3rd, 4th and 5th backpack pouches are now purchasable any time starting at rank 1 rather than having to wait for every 10 ranks! To purchase a pouch, simply click on the lock icon which appears within the inventory space. Pouch 3 costs 1 gold, Pouch 4 costs 5 gold, and Pouch 5 costs 15 gold. Additionally, players who have already unlocked these backpack pouches will not have to purchase those pouches again in order to unlock them.
* Additional bank vault space has been added! Two full tabs worth of space have been added, and may be purchased one row at a time for a total of 160 additional bank inventory slots. See any Banker in order to take advantage of this additional inventory space! To purchase more vault space and click on the lock icon which appears within each row of the bank space on bank vault tabs 2 or 3. The first row costs 6 gold and the cost of each additional row increases as follows: 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 18, 22, 26, 31, 37, 44, 53, 63, 75, 90, 108, 129, 154 and 185 gold.

Item Stat Changes
* “Ghrond’s Greatcloak”: This item will now display its secondary stat correctly.
* “Notched Tome of Triumph”: This item will now correctly regenerate Righteous Fury.
* “Sigmarite Tome of Thunder”: This has had its resistance stats and the “Barrier” ability proc removed to be in line with other charms in the game.
* “Vanguard Trollsplitter”: This item now has appropriate DPS for its level.

Crafting Changes
* Salvaging
- “Bloody Matchlock”: This item will no longer allow players to salvage stats that are not on the item.
* Talisman Making
- Fixed an issue with “Selfless Crusader’s Soul” talismans that caused improper durations to be displayed.
- “Heroic Hierophant’s Soul” should now be able to be converted into “Massive Heroic Hierophant’s Soul”.
* Apothecary
- Fixed a tooltip issue with the “Liniment of Swift Tergiversation.”
- Lasting Strangulation Bombs should now display the correct effect on the target.

CITY CAMPAIGN CHANGES
Contested Altdorf and The Inevitable City will both be undergoing extensive overhauls with patch 1.3.5. With the contested cities as the capstone to the Tier 4 campaign, the emphasis for this patch was to make the cities RVR driven. To do this, the following changes were made to the Contested cities.
(Unless otherwise noted, the changes below apply to both Contested Altdorf and Inevitable City.)

General Changes
* City sieges will now be a 24-versus-24 battle.
* City sieges will now last a maximum of 2 hours.
* All PVE instances within the Contested city have been removed. The warlords and King are now part of the contested city PQ.
* The City siege is now split into three stages, outlined later in the notes.
* Players in the City Siege are now placed in an instance-specific warband. Looting rules are disabled for this City Siege warband.

Reward Changes
* With the removal of the PVE Instances, the rewards for those instances are now given at the appropriate stage of the City Siege (Stage 1 = Invader; Stage 2 = Warlord; Stage 3 = Sovereign).
* During each stage of the City Siege, both the defender and invader will have a chance to obtain rewards. This means that successfully defending your city can result in winning Sovereign equipment!
* At the conclusion of each stage of the City siege, players on both sides are rewarded for their efforts.
- The winning realm will receive a PQ Chest drop.
- Those who win the PQ chest roll will have to make a conscious decision on what they want from the bag.
- Players on the winning Realm who did not win a bag will instead receive 10x Invader’s Crests in Stage 1, 5x Warlord’s Crests in Stage 2, and 5x Royal Crests in Stage 3. Players on the losing Realm will receive less reward than the winning Realm but will be based upon how well the Realm performed during the PQ Stage.
- In the case of a stalemate, possible in stages 2 and 3 of the City Siege, both sides will receive a “consolation prize” equivalent to the reward normally given to the losing side of that stage.
* At the conclusion of each Stage of the Contested City, any players present will have a reward lockout timer applied to their character. This reward lockout timer will force a character to opt out of loot if they attempt that stage again within the lockout period. Players with a lockout timer can still participate in a Contested City battle; their reward will be spoils in the form of Crests in lieu of a chance at the standard reward bags.
* Upon entering a Contested City a player will receive a “Personal Preparation” buff. While this buff is active, a player may leave the battle without incurring any penalty. After this buff has faded, leaving a battle for any reason will result in the player receiving the “Quitter!” debuff and will be unable to rejoin any city battle for the debuff’s duration..

Zone Control
* Victory Points are no longer a factor in the Contested City stage. All instances of the City Siege will be independent from one another.
* Cities pushed to the Contested City state from the campaign will drop two ranks at the conclusion of the Contested City phase.
The City Siege is now broken up into three contiguous stages within Altdorf or Inevitable City:

Stage 1: Attacker Push
* Setup Phase: ~5 Minutes
* Duration: 15 Minutes (Maximum: 45 Minutes… details included in the description)
* Attacker’s Win Condition: Destroy the Palace Gates
* Defender’s Win Condition: Hold Out Until the Timer Reaches Zero
* Reward Lockout Duration: Approximately 20 Hours

Brief Summary:
During the setup phase of this stage players can prepare while the King briefs them on the battle ahead. Once complete, the invaders and defenders are released into the city and the City Siege begins!
The goal for the attackers is to destroy the palace gates within the time allotted. This is accomplished by capturing a series of chained control points around the city and destroying the palace gate.

* Control Points:
- Control points and their current status are clearly marked on the map.
- Capturing a control point will increase the available time for attackers by 5 minutes.
- Captured points cannot be reclaimed by the defenders during this stage.
- Control points gate access to the palace gate and will affect the final battle in stage 3.
- Control points are chained so that access to the next point is gated by capturing the previous control points. (see below)
- List of control points and how they chain:
- Contested Altdorf
- The Armory and The Siege Workshop are open initially.
- Capturing either of these will open Emperor’s Circle.
- Capturing Emperor’s Circle will open The South Dock, The Library, and The North Dock.
- Capturing The Library or the North Dock will begin the assault on the Palace gates.
- Contested IC
- The Slaanesh Chambers and Khorne War Quarters are open initially.
- Capturing either of these will open Emissary of the Changer.
- Capturing Emissary of the Changer will open Temple of the Damned, The Lyceum, and the Outcrop.
- Capturing The Lyceum or the The Outcrop will begin the assault on the Palace gates.
- Capturing a Control Point:
- To capture a control point, the invaders must first destroy the defender’s siege equipment at that point. Doing so will trigger their realm to send a sapper NPC to take over the control point. The invaders need to protect this NPC until it can make it to the control point and take it over. If the sapper is killed, another will spawn and repeat the process, until either the invaders take the control point, or the time for the stage expires. Sapper NPCs can be stunned, rooted, or snared, but will not directly attack the defending players. Sapper NPCs can be healed by allied players.
- Destroying the Palace Gate:
- To destroy the palace gates, the invaders need to capture at least one of the two closest control points to the Palace. Capturing one of these final points will spawn siege NPCs that will do damage to the Palace gates until they break or time runs out. Players cannot damage the palace gate directly, so taking one or both of these points is essential to winning this stage and taking out the palace gates.
* Altdorf: Capture The Library or the North Dock IC: Capture The Lyceum or the The Outcrop
* Capturing all of the points is not essential to winning this stage for the invaders, but it will give them additional time and give additional NPC to damage the palace gates.
* The goal for the defenders is to prevent the destruction of the palace gate. The defense is successful if the attackers run out of time. The default duration of this stage is 15 minutes, but the attackers can increase the time by capturing control points as noted above.
* After either side meets their winning condition, this stage ends and rewards are given out to each side. (See rewards section for more information on reward distribution.)

Stage 2: Warlords!
* Duration: 30 Minutes
* Invader’s Win Condition: Escort Either Allied Warlord to the Palace Gates or Defeat Enemy Warlords
* Defender’s Win Condition: Escort Either Allied Warlord to the City Gates or Defeat Enemy Warlords
* Reward Lockout Duration: Approximately 44 Hours

Brief Summary:
At this point in the City Siege, each side’s Warlords will take to the field. The goal for either side during this stage is to eliminate the enemy warlords or escort a friendly warlord to the other side’s entrance.
* Warlord Behavior:
- Warlords will spawn at each side’s camp and make their way along a path to capture or recapture control points.
- Warlords that arrive at a control point that is owned by the enemy will stop and take over that control point for their side.
- Warlords that arrive at a control point that is owned by their side will continue on towards the next control point.
- If two opposing realm Warlords cross paths, they will stop all action and fight each other to the death.
- Warlords will ignore combat initiated by players and concentrate only on control points or opposing Warlords.
- Warlords are not immune to any form of damage or crowd control.
- Warlords can be healed by friendly players.
- If a Warlord arrives at the enemy gates, the stage will end and the realm associated with that Warlord will be declared the winner.
* If one side eliminates both enemy Warlords or gets one of their Warlords to the enemy gates, the stage will end and both sides will be given their appropriate level of reward. (See rewards section for more information on reward distribution.)
* If the timer for this stage expires before any Warlords make it to the enemy gates or before one side loses both of their Warlords, the stage will be considered a draw. Both realms will receive rewards based upon their effort as if they lost. Regardless of a stalemate, the City Siege will then progress to Stage 3.

Stage 3
* Duration: 30 Minutes
* Invader’s Win Condition: Defeat the Enemy King
* Defender’s Win Condition: Defeat the Enemy King
* Reward Lockout Duration: Approximately 68 Hours

Brief Summary:
This is the final battle in the City Siege and involves the Kings of both Realms. Depending on who won stage 2, the battle will occur at one of two locations.
If the invaders won, the final battle will occur within the enemy King’s palace.
If the defenders won, the final battle will occur at the main entrance to the City.
When the stage begins the Kings will call forth all of their combatants for a final rally to battle. During this preparation time, the King will explain the situation and call upon four players to serve as his champions in the battle to come.
* King/Champions:
- Each King will select four players to serve as their champion.
- Each King will be immune to all hostile effects will these champions are alive.
- Champions are endowed with special abilities and powers to serve in this role.
- Damage Dealt is greatly increased
- Healing Done is greatly increased
- Maximum Health is greatly increased
- Immune to Guard effects.
- Damage Taken from Non-Champion Sources is greatly reduced
- Healing Received from Non-Champion Sources is greatly reduced
- Gains the stacking buff ‘Building Reprisal’ when struck with a critical strike at a maximum rate of once per 6 seconds and 10 total charges.
- Gains a temporary DoT ability (Destruction: Tornado, Order: Comet – both lasting 20 seconds) that expends all charges of the ‘Building Reprisal’ buff.
- Champions are chosen at random based on archetype. The selection method searches for players based upon acquired Wards. It prefers players with the most powerful Wards earned. In the event that no players with Wards are present, then selection will become entirely random.
- Tank (Black Orc, Chosen, Blackguard, Ironbreaker, Knight of the Blazing Sun, and Swordmaster)
- Healer (Shaman, Zealot, Disciple of Khaine, Runepriest, Warrior Priest, and Archmage)
- Melee DPS (Choppa, Marauder, Witch Elf, Slayer, Witch Hunter, and White Lion)
- Ranged DPS (Squig Herder, Magus, Sorcerer, Bright Wizard, Engineer, and Shadow Warrior)
- Each Champion can only be assigned if a player of the appropriate archetype is present for that side. If no player exists for an archetype, that champion will count as a loss of that archetype.
- Champions will need to remain near the King or they will lose the Champion buff and this will be counted as a loss of that champion.
- Once all four champions have been defeated, the King will be vulnerable for attack.
* Control Points:
- During this stage, the number of control points that each side controlled going into Stage 3 will affect the final battle. For each control point a side owns, that side will receive the following stackable bonus.
- Damage Dealt increased by 2%
- Healing Done increased by 2%

Outcomes:
Once the final champion of a realm dies, their King will become vulnerable. Defeating the enemy king will result in a win for that realm. Once that occurs, defenders will no longer be able to respawn and the surviving King will clean house. At this point, both sides will be given their appropriate level of reward. (See rewards section for more information on reward distribution.)
If the timer for this stage expires before either King is killed, the invading King will call for a retreat. Both realms will receive rewards based upon their effort as if they lost.

ART
Updated Armor Dyes
* [96538]Armor dyes (and the tech behind them) have been updated in order to significantly boost color clarity and accuracy. Shadow Warriors, Arch Mages, and Rune Priests are the first classes to undergo these improvements. More sweeping improvements will be rolled out on a per-class basis in upcoming patches.

New Heads and Hairs
* New face and hair options have been added to the Empire, Chaos, High Elf, and Dark Elf races.

Equipment
* “‘Andsplate of Upset Ithilmar” should now have the correct Black Orcs armor appearance.
* “Bloodharvester Feetsplate” should no longer appear invisible to players.
* “Carapace of Blight” should now have the correct Chosen armor appearance.
* “Primeval Mindstrap” should now have the correct belt art.
* The ‘Recruit A Friend’ Magus mount has been updated, and now has a unique appearance.
* Tomb King cloaks “Funerary Shroud of Settra” and “Funerary Shroud of Khalida” should now display correctly on all character models.
* RvR Weapons: The first round of art updates for the RvR Weapons has arrived! The following RvR Weapons have been updated with new art (listed by currency, race and weapon type):
- Recruit Weapons
- Empire: Books, Shields
- Chaos: 1H Axes
- Scout Weapons
- Empire: Pistols, Books, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Shields, 2H Swords
- Dwarf: Spanners
- Chaos: 1H Axes
- Greenskin: Staves
- RR24 Soldier Weapons
- Empire: Pistols, Books, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Shields, 1H Swords, 2H Swords
- Dwarf: Spanners
- Chaos: 1H Axes, Charms
- Greenskin: Staves
- RR29 Soldier Weapons
- Empire: Pistols, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rapiers, Shields, 1H Swords, 2H Swords
- Chaos: 1H Axes
- Greenskin: 1H Swords, Shields, Staves
- RR34 Officer Weapons
- Empire: 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Shields, 1H Swords, 2H Swords
- Dwarf: 2H Axes, Rifles, Spanners
- RR39 Officer Weapons
- Empire: Pistols, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rapiers, Shields, 1H Swords, 2H Swords
- Dwarf: 2H Axes, Spanners
- Chaos: 1H Axes, Charms, 1H Swords
- Greenskin: Spear
- Conqueror Weapons
- Empire: Shields, 1H Sword, 2H Swords
- Dwarf: 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rifles, Shields, Staves
- Invader Weapons
- Dwarf: 2H Axes, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rifles, Shields, Spanners, Staves
- Warlord Weapons
- Dwarf: 1H Axes, 2H Axes, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rifles, Shields, Spanners, Staves
- Royal Weapons
- Empire: 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers
- Dwarf: 2H Axes, 1H Hammers, 2H Hammers, Rifles, Shields, Spanners, Staves

USER INTERFACE
General Changes & Bug Fixes
* Pressing the ESC key will no longer close an active loot roll window
* The system channels can now be enabled or disabled on all chat tabs instead of being forced on in the Chat tab and forced off on all other tabs
* The tooltip for items which are currently being worn now displays with a different background color and border than tooltips for items the player isn’t wearing so it’s more apparent which item is which when comparing two items
* Weapon tooltips are now clearer about which hand they can be held in. One-handed weapons which can only be held in the Right Hand now display as “Main Hand”, matching the slot location name. One-handed weapons which can only be held in the Left Hand now display as “Off Hand”, matching the slot location name. Two-handed weapons are now displayed as “Both Hands”, and one-handed weapons which can be held in either hand will be displayed as “Main Hand or Off Hand”.
* Two-handed weapons have had their item type on tooltips simplified. For example, instead of Great Swords displaying “Sword, Great Weapon”, they will now simply display “Great Sword”. Staves will continue to be simply referred to as “Staff”.
* With the other changes to item tooltips, the “Skill:” line in the tooltip for worn items is no longer necessary. Instead, the item type will be colored red on worn items if a player doesn’t have the appropriate skill to equip the item. If the player can equip the item in their Main Hand but doesn’t have the appropriate skill to equip the item in the Off Hand slot, the “or Off Hand” portion of the text in the tooltip will appear red to indicate this.
* Items will now display their item level in the tooltip information.
* Quest and Event items with decay timers will no longer show running timers before the player has claimed the reward.
* Players can now bind a key that, when pressed, loots the nearest lootable monster, player or object. Using this key will bring up the loot dialogue for the nearest lootable monster, player or object in range that the player can loot, as if they had right-clicked on it. This “Loot Nearest” keybinding can be found under the Targeting section of Key Mapping.
* Auction Mail is now deleted automatically when attachments are claimed.
* Chapter Hub and Warcamp tooltips now display if they contain these services: Apprentice Career Trainer, Apprentice Renown Trainer, Craft Supply Merchant, Recruit’s Medallion Merchant, Recruit’s Emblem Merchant.
* The Tutorial & Help Tips section of the User Settings window now has tooltip descriptions.
* The position of the Skirmish and PvE listings on the RvR tracker tooltip will no longer switch sporadically.
* Fixed an issue where binding Left and Right Ctrl, Alt or Shift would cause either the left or right binding to not function when pressed.
* Fixed an issue where players who had 17 items in their Quest Items inventory and removed one caused the Quest Items inventory UI to become corrupt.
* Fixed an issue where the in-game map would occasionally show a solid white texture piece instead of the appropriate map texture.
* When Post Processing is enabled, character names will no longer disappear at character select after logging out of the game.
* The results of /who searches and rest XP generation being activated or deactivated will now print to the System General channel.
* The Dungeon Lockout tab has been renamed to simply Lockouts.

AUDIO
General Changes & Bug Fixes
* Added new notification sounds when:
- Tells are received.
- Mail is received from another player.
- Mail is received from the auction house.
* Added an option in the Sound menu to disable communication notifications.
* Added additional UI/pregame audio enhancements:
- Map zoom in/out
- Auction creation
- Background scenes (character creation)
* Fixed issues with weapon draw synchronization.

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

As requested, the full 1.3.5 patch notes

None Found

I’ll read them now, digest and post tomorrow

It’s a huge patch btw and has a LOT of good stuff in it.

Full post: WarhammerFeeds.com

1.3.5 Patch Notes are out

None Found