October 2020 Megaupdate (part 1)
- Creation of MAJOR EARTH, MAJOR AIR, and MAJOR SPIRIT has been disabled at this time, pending completion of their rework.
- Minor water no longer receives: draught of the seas.
- Minor water now receives: iceshard.
- Iceshard has a new implementation, which makes it properly synergize with various extension skills.
- Minor air no longer receives: controlled flight, dancing sword, gralcian funnel, borrow luck, gust.
- Minor air now receives: blur, suction, tempest, obfuscation, phantom chorus.
- Clinging fog will now weaken or dispel spirit sphere buffs when a character enters a room so afflicted.
- Clinging fog’s room affect no longer allows a save when applying the revealing fog affect to characters so affected.
- Minor spirit no longer receives: weavesense, lethebane.
- Minor spirit now receives: visions.
- Minor earth no longer receives: clay shield, mudfoot curse, tuning stone, reinforce, hone weapon.
- Minor earth now receives: grasping earth, durable magics, shape matter, density, giant strength.
- Many minor earth abilities have been releveled to ease skill progression.
- Density has been rewritten into a multi-stage malady, lagging the victim before placing the classic density affect.
- Grasping earth is a multi-stage malady which rolls up the effects of both earthbind and mudfoot curse.
- Earthbind and mudfoot curse both have new implementations to facilitate grasping earth’s usage of their effects.
- Mudfoot curse’s base duration has been reduced to match that of earthbind.
- Spirit of freedom is now able to counter density and grasping earth, as it does with other same-sphere maladies.
- Durable magics now applies specifically to generic magic (such as armor) and earth sphere spells.
- Smooth terrain is now considered a counter to some abilities which previously were countered by stabilize. Please see HELP SMOOTH TERRAIN.
- Curse has a new implementation, whose duration now scales with level, and can be used like reinforce on groupmates. See HELP CURSE for details.
- Black hole is a rework of the old crush implementation. See HELP BLACK HOLE for details.
- Rune of fire has had its implementation adjusted to make item targeting easier.
- Cinder scry was erroneously missing from mixed scholars with a fire minor, and has been fixed.
- Soothing mist has had its implementation rewritten but should continue to function identically to its prior incarnation.
- Changed how multi-stage abilities are processed, allowing all of them to update simultaneously, instead of one after another.
- Many minor mixed sphere abilities have been releveled to ease skill progression.
- Earth templar no longer receives: earthbind, mudfoot curse, reinforce, stabilize, anchor, whirl, magnetic grasp, quicksand.
- Earth templar now receives: hone weapon, call upon earth, grasping earth, magnetic seal, shape weapon, bend gravity, raise spire, meld with stone, force repulsion, brittleform.
- Hone weapon has a new implementation, and both repairs the weapon it is cast on, temporarily adds the masterwork flag, and has improved targeting.
- While wearing a mantle of earth, the call upon earth spell will continue to function at reduced caster level while not underground.
- Bind weapon is now significantly more effective versus magnetic grasp and force repulsion.
- Call upon earth has been rewritten into a multi-stage heal, with the same general restrictions as the original spell.
- Bend gravity is a roll-up skill including functionality from both anchor and stabilize. See HELP BEND GRAVITY to learn more.
- Various checks for anchor were not properly confirming that the character was on land, and have been corrected.
- Rooms affected by rock to mud/stone to mud now count as underground for the purposes of call upon earth.
- Meld with stone has had its initial mana cost reduced, and its upkeep cost also reduced.
- Petrify has been rewritten into a multi-stage malady, its effects growing stronger with each stage.
- Brittleform has been rewritten into a multi-stage malady, its effects growing stronger with each stage.
- Mantle of earth now offers scaling resistance to illusion damage, in addition to its other modifiers, and its recast delay has been reduced.
- A mantle of earth will provide the same potential weapon breakage as was present in the legacy spell, stone shell.
- Jaws of the mountain now deals bashing damage instead of piercing damage.
- Inertial strike now divides its damage evenly between the original weapon damage type, and bash damage.
- Shockwave has a new implementation, which makes it act as an area of effect attack which dispels air spell buffs. See HELP SHOCKWAVE for details.
- While devotion is present on a weapon, it will parry with the efficacy of a polearm, irrespective of its type.
- Abilities which would limit attacks per round (such as windbind or slow) will now also prohibit automatic counterattacks.
- Momentum has had its functionality changed, and now allows an earth templar to fight normally while their attacks are artificially limited.