PTS Update for 15th October 2014

Another ~1GB download hit the Public Test Shard for 15th October 2014. A lot of additions, some that may have appeared in previous updates not mentioned before including updates to the test gear packs and Void Seekers dropping a tier.

Datamining for this update can be found here.

Summary:

• Masteries Changes – Cleric.
• Gear Changes – Void Seeker downgraded; Further Synergy Crystal changes; Favor Infused Accelerators.
• Test Gear Updated – Greater Essences; Onir Weaponry.
• Zone Event Lures

As always, everything below is subject to change prior to hitting Live and some things included below may never make it to Live release.

Masteries Changes

Only Cleric change this time round.

Cleric Masteries Changes [Image]

• Parasitic Miasma. Damage portion changed to “Increases the damage of your damage over time abilities by 8%, your delayed damage abilities by 5% and your non-instant, non-channeled, abilities by 3%.” (no longer a 2% dmg increase for DoTs, stacking to max 2 stacks; given a buff).

If the above images become out-dated, check out the main Masteries article which will always have the latest images. (Thanks to snipebad for keeping us up to date with Masteries changes.) Note: No changes were made to Warrior, Mage or Rogue Masteries.

Gear Changes

A few gear-related changes with today’s PTS Update:

Void Seeker Tier Down

Last update the Void Seeker gear had a significant price reduction as per below. This change also came with a reduction in the stats for the Void Seeker gear.

• Void Seeker (World) Gear has changed to:
  • Gloves/Boots/Belt – 10,500 (down from 21,000) Void Stones.
  • Helm/Shoulders – 14,000 (down from 28,000) Void Stones.
  • Chest/Legs – 28,000 (down from 52,500) Void Stones.

Void Seeker Gear Change

The Void Seeker gear now gives Hit+100 with upgrades of Void Source Accelerators and Advanced Metal Amenders. The new ‘Voidsong’ gear is the old Void Seeker’s gear.

• Gloves/Boots/Belt – 3x Void Source Accelerators + Advanced Metal Amender.
• Helm/Shoulders – 5x Void Source Accelerators + Advanced Metal Amender.
• Chest/Legs – 8x Void Source Accelerators + Advanced Metal Amender.

This effectively means that – to get to Dungeon Gear-equivalent – you would need to spend more Void Stones (after converting Void Source Accelerators to Void Stones) than before:

• Gloves/Boots/Belt – 28,050 Void Stones + Advanced Metal Amender.
• Helm/Shoulders – 43,250 Void Stones + Advanced Metal Amender.
• Chest/Legs – 74,800 Void Stones + Advanced Metal Amender.

(Thanks to Serein and rhaegys for the info!) [It will be interesting to see if the Void Stone weekly cap will be lifted with this change. Daglar mentioned previously that “The quality of the gear from the World Store vendor is equal quality to the expert store vendor. We cannot have one type of currency / reward with no cap, and another with a cap.” [r] World Gear does still upgrade to Dungeon-quality gear, but it should now take longer. At the very least, the weekly cap ‘could’ be raised.

Synergy Crystal Changes

Nightmare Tide Synergy Crystal Changes

A bunch of further Synergy Crystal Changes have been added in on top of the ones aimed at Clerics/Mages yesterday. This time the changes are aimed at Warriors/Rogues. There’s a bunch of Nightmare Tide synergy crystal changes, mainly to the (2) and (4) bonuses:

• Caretaker’s Crystal. (4) bonus changed to an increase bonus of 5% on area of effect healing and absorption abilities.
• Slayer’s Crystal. (2) bonus changed to increase damage of Finishers by 5%. (4) bonus changed to increase single target non-finishers by 5%.
• Reaper’s Crystal. (2) bonus changed to increase base damage of Builders by 5%. (4) bonus changed to increase area of effect damage by 5%.
• Medic’s Crystal. (4) bonus changed to increase healing and absorption of single target abilities by 5%.
• Warmaster’s Crystal. (2) bonus changed to increase base damage of Finishers by 5%. (4) bonus was changed again with its Attack Power increase going from 250 to 350.

(Thanks to snipebad for the info!)

Favor Infused Accelerator

Favor Infused Accelerator

A new Favor Infused Accelerator is available under the RIFT Store -> Equipment -> Upgrade Parts section. It costs 10,000 favor or 75 Credits (67 for Patrons, probably placeholder cost). According to the tooltip it is “used to upgrade goods from Marauder Supply Caches”. There is currently no information on where this Marauder Supply Cache comes from. Warfront dailies and PvP weeklies don’t have these as rewards so this might be the new Level 65 version of the Depleted Supply Crate.

Test Gear Updated

The test gear on the PTS has been updated, perhaps a few updates ago so that – for the most part – it now uses actual gear. The Raid Test Gear pack now contains the new Synergy Crystals, Exquisite-tier runes and Faceless Crusader gear (Upgraded Abyssal Crusader’s gear). You can access the test packs via the vendor in the Master Mode version of the Dummy Foundry (accessed via the bear trap behind Tempest Bay, in front of Sanctum or near Meridian porticulums).

Greater Essences

Tidesource of Loathing Greater Essence Upgrade Path

The test packs now have a bunch of Level 60 Greater Essences. It is unknown at this stage whether the required level is placeholder and will be adjusted to 65 at a later update. The upgrade paths and salvage requirements are clearly Nightmare Tide-based though. Upgrade involves two tiers:

• Tier 1 requires: 1x Void Source Accelerator + 2x Dust of the Void + 2x Ornament Amender + 50x Illusory Mote.
• Tier 2 requires: 3x Void Source Accelerator + 1x Heart of the Frozen + 1x Advanced Ornament Amender + 100x Illusory Mote.

Upgrade Components are obtained as follows:

• Void Source Accelerators are purchased from RIFT Store -> Equipment -> Upgrade parts for 5,850 Void Stones.
• Dust of the Void are obtained from random rift creature drops and from dungeon trash.
• (Advanced) Ornament Amenders are crafted by Artificers using the Savant-level (Advanced) Ornament Amender recipes.
• Illusory Motes are obtained as random chance drop from Nightmare Rift Caches dropped from Nightmare Rifts.

Below are two more examples of the greater essences available in the Expert and Raid Test Packs.

Other Nightmare Tide Greater Essences

An interesting part of these new greater essences is that they provide a bonus if you equip another Greater Essence, encouraging players to fill out their two Greater Essences slots with Greater Essences (instead of Lesser Essences).

Onir Weaponry

Not as exciting as looking at a bunch of stats, but the new test gear also includes a bunch of Onir weaponry models.

Onir Weaponry Models Ingame

There’s quite some good-looking models there. Each one has a blue glow that appears at the start of a preview or when you first equip them. They only last a few seconds, just like the icy vfx from the Glacial weaponry.

Zone Event Lures

Zone Event Lures

New Zone Event Lures and category now appears on the RIFT Store -> Rifts -> Zone Event section. These “Faestone: [Zone Event]” items are Bound to Account and are consumed so as to force the zone event in question to pop. Right now on the PTS they cost 2,250 Credits (2,025 for Patrons) and does not have an in-game currency option. This cost might be placeholder or perhaps the Fatestones are only intended for players desperate to finish achievements. There’s a few restrictions:

• Must be used in appropriate zones.
• A zone event cannot already be occuring.
• Each zone event has an internal cooldown in the associated zone. You cannot use the lure whilst the zone event is on cooldown.

As mentioned prior by Trion, the Fatestone consumable will show the zone event’s cooldown in its tooltip.

Some nice additions to the test packs with actual gear drops. The zone event lures also seem like an interesting addition. Nothing on the Marauder Supply Caches, but I’m sure they’ll appear in another large PTS update at some point.

(Datamining for this update can be found here.)

Nightmare Tide is in Open Beta right now on the PTS, so check all the changes out for yourself on the PTS! For past PTS Updates, click here.

You can also find past datamining and 3.0-related news updates.