PTS Update for 7th August 2014 – HP Inflation + 3.0 Achieves

A large ~1.8GB update hit RIFT’s Public Test Shard (‘PTS’) on 7th August 2014 with a major change to everyone’s HP, a new GUARD ability, the removal of TOUGHNESS and new 3.0 Achievements revealed.

Quick Summary:

• Endurance and Tank Stat Changes: Lots more HP; new GUARD – removed TOUGHNESS.
  
• New 3.0 Achievements for Zones: Goboro Reef; Draumheim; Tarken Glacier, Dungeons: Gyel Fortress and Fishing.
• 3.0 Zone Event: The Ravenous Devourer

Endurance and Tank Stat Changes

The biggest change to the PTS with the latest update is to HP. The above image shows my HP on my Cleric in 61INQ/10CAB/5DEF spec. All stats are the same as on Live except my HP has been doubled. HP has also increased on my Tank spec and this seems to apply to all classes.

GUARD/TOUGHNESS

As mentioned in the recent video by Seatin, Techie Will and Baramos (Summary) of their visit to Trion HQ, the PTS has now removed TOUGHNESS from both the Stat window as well as from Tank gear. There is now a new GUARD stat which works as follows:

• GUARD will affect party members and allows players standing within x meters of the tank to benefit from a kind of positive effect. It’s an aura.
• No information was given on what this ability will actually do.
• If two tanks have GUARD stats on their gear, the one with the higher stat gets applied.

None of the existing Tank gear seems to have the GUARD stat on it yet so it may not have been added to the PTS yet (or perhaps only for 3.0 gear currently).

DEFLECT has been removed from the Stat Screen (for Rogues and Mages which use DEFLECT, not BLOCK. Instead it shows BLOCK for them) although it still applies (also still on gear; thanks to Hilosx for the info). It may just be a bug though.

PARRY is also missing from the Stat Screen (thanks to Techie Will for the info!)

New 3.0 Achievements

A whole bunch of 3.0 Achievements have been added onto the PTS. As always, everything on the PTS is subject to change and may not appear on Live as is. Chances are there’s still (hopefully) missing rewards for some of the below achievements that haven’t been added in yet.

You can access the Achievements window via default key “h” or via the ‘player’ icon in the mini menu-bar on your in-game screen.

Achievements -> Zones -> Goboro Reef

A large amount of achievements have finally become visible for Goboro Reef, found under Achievements -> Zones -> Goboro Reef. This increases the achievement points that were up for this sub-category from 75 to 210.

Achievements -> Zones -> Draumheim

New Achievements have been added in for Draumheim under Achievements -> Zones -> Draumheim. Total achieve points have gone from 45 to 110.

Achievements -> Zones -> Tarken Glacier

A few Tarken Glacier achievements have been added in under Achievements -> Zones -> Tarken Glacier. The amount of achievement points have gone from 15 to 110. There’s also two ’empty’ achievements.

New Locations

A few achievements. An expansion of some of these achieves reveals new locations within zones:

It looks as though the 3.0 zones have a lot of locations. Some interesting location names include:

• Landquarium
• Shadow Scion
• Prison of the Old Gods

Landquarium was included in the 3.0 Whiteboard and it’s great to see it is still being added into the game. It sounds like the opposite of an Aquarium where instead of humans looking at fish in tanks, it might be fish looking at humans in tanks. Perhaps even a nightmare production facility.

Shadow Scion is likely a drowned version of the district used in The Battle for Port Scion.

Prison of the Old Gods could refer to where the Akvan slumber, or it may even be referring to the Bloodstorm Dragons, the predecessors of the Vigil or some other group that hasn’t been mentioned yet.

Achievements -> Dungeons -> Gyel Fortress

New Achievement sub-category: Gyel Fortress found under Achievements -> Dungeons. 75 Achievement Points.

Bosses shown include Kytus, Admiral Nezavar and even Lady Glasya.

Achievements -> Character -> Fishing

A few fishing achievements have been added under Achievements -> Character -> Fishing. A total of 15 points added.

The Ravenous Devourer

Not much; just the 4th 3.0 zone event shown on the PTS public announcements. “The Ravenous Devourer”, this time in Draumheim with objective: “Vanquish Ojingeodon from Draumheim”.

There doesn’t seem to be any other changes visible to non-testers currently on the PTS since the last update. Checked Warrior’s Reaver soul but it hasn’t been updated yet with Vladd’s changes to make Reaver into a DPS soul.

Interesting to see why everyone’s hp has been boosted so much.

For past PTS Updates, click here. You can also find past datamining and 3.0-related news updates.