Preliminary patch notes up.

[Dree-Elle]

First impressions: 1) Omnicrafting is dead past an increasingly irrelevant lv. 50. This seriously hampers my ability to provide for my tiny guild. I don't want to feel cornered into recuiting based solely upon numbers/skillsets or force others to invest in classes in which they have no interest. 2) To me, it looks like Lootmaster means I never get loot unless a) leader of the party, a role I abhor, or b) it is an all-FC party (an impossibility due to FC size and player region).

I prefer having a small FC that emphasizes friendship and family over base numbers (quality > quantity), but it looks like it's leaving little choice in the matter.

(random observation: they "nerf" every step of the Relic *except* the one that causes us the most consternation... KA-CHING!)

I look forward to virtually everything else, though.

[Voltron_HD]

imsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcitedimsoexcited

except we MNK's get Final heaven as our LB......mannn really? everyone else gets new ones and we get the same worn out one.......I hope it looks different.

[NorthernLadMSP]

Not everyone gets a new LB. WHM, PLD and BLM also retain the existing LBs.

[Drako]

Stuff

I may need to go back over the notes again. But I thought the exp was only removed if you were running it lowman/uncapped. Doesn't the exp still exist if you run it normally? Otherwise you would be correct in how this would be completely broken. Queue times would be unbearable, and the new players would suffer.

2 dungeons for expert roulette? WTF! Furthermore, if 3.1 comes and the new dungeons are the only ones in expert roulette, I am seriously going to be pissed. I put up with it in 2.3 and 2.4. It got to be too much in 2.5 as it became AKHM roulette and I left the game for a while.

Ya the way they been handling the expert/main roulette has been kind of bad. Only allowing for 3 dungeons in expert is a real pain. And now apparently there will only be 2? I'm confused because I thought we were getting several more dungeons. But to my point I wish they would leave the old experts in for at least awhile longer. That way there is more variety. And they do need to return high level back to how it was at the beginning, where it was something unlocked after just a couple dungeons. I have no idea why they locked it down to begin with. Maybe it was a mistake, and has been overlooked, because it's just very odd to have it setup this way.

And Yoshi did say in a interview they were considering low-level where you can queue with a friend. Did they change their minds?

[NorthernLadMSP]

Wait, where you getting there will only be 2 dungeons in expert roulette? The expansion is starting out with 8 new dungeons. Why are you thinking that only 2 of them are included in expert?

[Drako]

Likely due to the 2 ??? in the patch notes. It's a bit misleading if you ask me.

Also all the changes to zodiac are great, but what about materia? I figured they would change the acquisition of materia in some way. I mean I guess they are assuming sense most people aren't after it, that it would deflate considerably? I guess we'll have to see. Also I noticed the airship missions can get materia, I wonder if it will be able to pickup T4s. Only time will tell..

[NorthernLadMSP]

I think that people are reading into that way too much. Why on earth would they add 8 new dungeons, but only put 2 of them into the roulette?

[Nyalia]

I wish we heard something about what they're doing to existing skills in the patch notes <_< I'm impatient and don't want to wait a day to find out! I'm most curious about my two favorite defensive skills, Manawall and Perfect Dodge. As much as I love Manawall, I can totally see it being nerfed again. It's super powerful, and I love it for that. They could change it to have a shorter duration, only block one attack, limit the damage they can block instead of being 100% immunity, or something else. Same with Perfect Dodge, except they wouldn't reduce the duration, but they might increase it? Or maybe they're just changing both skills to cause a physical attack to completely miss instead of doing 0 damage? Whatever the changes are, I bet it's because PLDs are getting essentially the same skill, and they want to balance the existing skills with the new skill.

I'm wondering what WHMs will get instead of Proshell. I would expect every class to continue having the same number of traits. If they remove WHM's proshell, maybe they're giving something in return? Or maybe they're making Stoneskin II into a trait? Oooh, what if they remove Stoneskin II entirely and change Proshell to make Protect cast Stoneskin (or a Stoneskin-like effect that benefits from Enhanced Stoneskin and doesn't stack with Stoneskin) if cast while out of combat? That'd be nifty!

I guess speculation is worthless and we should just wait for the real patch notes in 1-2 days <_<


In other news, I don't see anything in the patch notes about gardens during maintenance. Do we run the risk of all our plants dying if we don't water them at ~4:45am(EST) on Thursday morning and/or ~5:15am(EST) on Friday due to the 24h maintenance? Being awake at even one of those times is really hard when you work 9-6...

[Urielparadox]

Black mage new skills, all of them require a Blm to move less then ever before and give huge penalty for moving, they better be restoring man a wall to its former glory or blm will die.

[bettomendes]

I think that people are reading into that way too much. Why on earth would they add 8 new dungeons, but only put 2 of them into the roulette?

I don't mean to be rude, but are you serious? It's literally written in the patch notes.
The other new ones are listened in the High Level Roulette.