"Monday News Blast
Get ready... set... GO! NEWS FEED!
Hello and happy Monday night, heroes! After bowing out of Friday's release due to illness (man, I hate doing disappearing on Fridays, but thank you all for the well-wishes!), I am back and full of good tidings to share!

Get Your Two FREE HeroPoints!
Help Stryche celebrate the grand opening of the in-game HeroMart location by completing his quest for two FREE HeroPoints! Once you've gotten yours, you can spend them in his in-game merge shop.

His quest is one-time only, but you can always get more HeroPoints when you buy merch from HeroMar*****m! Currently, the only item that comes with HeroPoints is the new AQ3D shirt, but more HeroMart products will have them in the future!

Note: if you bought any HeroMart merchandise in the past, make sure you check your inbox, as you got an email with a code for exclusive, free HeroPoints! You can redeem those AND do Stryche's in-game quest for the two free points!)

DragonSlayer General Class Buff
MORE good news! The Class designers and balancers, plus Artix and I, watched your feedback and requests all weekend long! By the end of the day Saturday, the designers were already brainstorming on how to improve the class!

In the interest of not releasing a too-overpowered class, the designers created a class that had room for improvement. We always want to listen to your feedback to make the classes what YOU want them to be and now, with the changes made today, it will be.

Those changes are coming (or may already be live O_O), and you can see the full list here!

After speaking with Arklen, the head of our class design and testing team, we are also going to shoot for bringing back the "member preview for new classes" perk in the future to help get MORE feedback before it releases to all players.

Recent unplanned class "nerfs" and other changes
Players have reported changes to several classes (like Abyssal Angel), saying they are doing less damage than before. Adjustments to rebalance those classes rolled out slightly early - on the new server, those are actually BUFFS, but with the current server, people are experiencing lower damage levels.

Other recent class changes:

  • Archfiend now has better mana regain, consistent healing and improved damage.
  • Arachnomancer got a small buff to its survival and we are looking into its DoT damage for when the server rewrite goes live.
  • Alpha Pirate was doing spell damage while being mainly a weapon damage class so we adjusted it to do only weapon damage, which gave it a nice damage boost.
  • The other classes on the "to rebalance" list will be adjusted after the server rewrite, since the effect is too dramatic to release on the current live servers.

Speaking of the server rewrite...
Good news! The server rewrite itself is done BUT Yorumi estimates he has maybe a week left of client-side bug fixes. (Unless something goes unexpectedly awry... which CAN happen *eyes the server hamsters*)

These are primarily small-but-important fixes like:

  • Chat mutes not working
  • PVP Amulets not equipping
  • Facebook link button does nothing
  • He has been making steady progress on those 20+ bugs fixed last week alone! (Thanks, testers and player-testers!!)

For everyone asking about the PTR Sir Ver Bank Pet... you'll need 150 Quest Mission Sprockets to create your very own PTR reward! You can get these by doing ANY of the quests on the PTR Testing servers.

Make sure you report any bugs you find on the Bug Tracker!

Valencia and the Hunt for the Sanguine Garnet Change
Valencia and her adventure in Darkovia have disappeared temporarily while we relocate it. Expect to see that adventure reappear later this month, based out of the Museum in Battleon town!"

https://www.aq.com/gamedesignnotes/mondaynews-5982.