October 2020 Megaupdate (part 1)

 In Updates
  • 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.