PTS Update + Datamining 8th July 2014

A new 130MB update is up on the PTS and there’s a handful of additions in-game as well as tidbits datamined by TehFrank. As there’s not many additions, we’re putting them in quick summary form again:

Quick Summary:

• New Achievement categories and additional points; no new actual achievements.
• SL Artifact Set Turn-in XP reduction (coming with this week’s hotfix).
• Mage Pyromancer changes as per previous announcements.
• Two more Concept Art Contest Capes skinned.

New Achieve Categories

A few new achievement categories and additional achievement points added – no new actual achievements though.

• Achievements -> Dungeons -> Glacial Maw is a new category with 50 achievement points.
• Achievements -> Dungeons -> Shadow From the Beyond has added achievement points from 0 to 80.
• Achievements -> Character -> Minions is a new category with 95 achievement points.

The amount of achievement points are likely not final but simply placeholder for now.

SL Artifact Set Turn-in XP Reduction

As mentioned in this week’s RIFT 2.7 Hotfix #13, Storm Legion Artifact Set Turn-ins have reduced XP (and gold reward). Those changes have already hit the PTS:

If you aren’t saving up turn-ins for 3.0 and still have plenty of Planar Attunement to level up, it might be a good idea to turn them in prior to this week’s hotfix.

Trion will be updating RIFT with RIFT 2.7 Hotfix #13 at 7:30AM PDT on 9th July 2014 (NA) and 1AM GMT on 10th July 2014 (EU).

Mage Pyromancer Changes

Further Mage Pyromancer changes as announced by Mage and Cleric class dev Kervik should be up on the PTS now.

Changes are as follows:

• Internalize Charge charges are now consumed on cast instead of on damage.
• Scorch is now correctly set as an interrupt. It will no longer generate “Silenced” floater text.
• Increased the damage of Fireball by ~20%.
• Fire Storm, with a point spent in Smolder, will now attempt to spread Countdown with each tick of damage. (This may end up needing a different PTS update in order to function correctly.)
• Fiery Concentration now also reduces mana cost for Fire abilities by 3/6/10%.
• Pyromancers can now move while channeling Fusillade.
• Heat Wave now reduces mana cost for non-Instant Fire abilities by 30%.
• Updated the description for Accelerant to indicate the damage buff only affects the caster’s damage.
• Accelerant now increases damage from the caster by 4/8/12%. Up from 3/6/9%.

[Source: Kervik]

• Accelerant is now a separate debuff from Countdown. Increased the duration of Accelerant to 10s.
• Reduced the internal cooldown of Wildfire to 20s.
• The buff from Wildfire now lasts 20s.
• Fireball no longer consumes stacks of Pyromancer’s Fury while Heat Wave is active.
• Reduced the cooldown of Fulminate to 30s.
• Pyromancer’s Fury now also reduces the cast time of Fireball by 0.5s.
• Increased the damage of Flame Volley, Countdown, Cinder Burst, Inferno and Searing Bolt.

[Source: Kervik]

According to the forums these changes should provide quite a buff to the Pyromancer soul.

If you have any feedback, please post them in the 2.8 Pyromancer PTS Thread.

Concept Art Contest Capes

Previously TehFrank had datamined Koldir’s cape skin from last week’s small PTS update. This week we have two more capes added in from the  “Savage Swords and Noble Staves” RIFT Concept Art Contest (winners’ entries).

The one at the top is Bobgarner’s cape (2nd place) and the one below is Eiphis’ cape (3rd place) designs. The left are their entries and the right are the skins.

Obviously since they are skins, they’re likely stretched out compared to what they’ll look like in-game. However, you can get a pretty decent idea of how they look.

• Bobgarner’s cape skin has held relatively true to the original design although the shoulder areas seem less metallic and more cloth-like (which I guess is inevitable given the capes are cloth).
• Eiphis’ cape skin has made some considerable changes to the bottom-half. Personally I prefer Eiphis’ original design for the bottom-half. The tip felt sharper, but perhaps there were issues with that design being converted in-game.

Look forward to these capes in-game at some point in the future! Can’t wait to see the other designs, especially the 2-handed swords and 2-handed staves’ winners’ entries.