Neverwinter – 6 September 2023 | Massive Update: New Quests and Rewards!

Release Notes

Content and Environment

General

• Minor visual improvements and fixes have been made to the Narbondellyn zone map.

Abyssal Hunts

• Additional messaging has been added to help groups determine when an Abyssal hunt is on cooldown.

Campaigns and Adventures

• Icespire Peak: A hole in the Goblin Warrens has been patched up.
• The Avernus Legacy Campaign missions now properly direct players to Avernus.

Combat and Powers

Classes

• Fighter Dreadnought At-Will Update
  • Heavy Slash
    • No longer allows sliding/strafing during the animation.
    • Can be exited slightly sooner without cancelling.
    • In general should animate more smoothly.
  • Reave
    • No longer allows sliding/strafing during the animation.
    • In general should animate more smoothly.

Developer Note: We’ve made a few tweaks to Dreadnought At-Wills to try and solve some longstanding animation / sliding issues with Reave and Heavy Slash. We know this slightly lowers the mobility of Heavy Slash, and we’ve tried to make it slightly more responsive as a result.

• Cleric At-Will Update
  • Blessing of Light
    • Effects are applied later in the animation, requiring more time to pass before the power can be cancelled for full effect.
  • Scattering Light
    • Effects are triggered later in the animation, requiring more time to pass before the power can be cancelled for full effect.
    • FX revised; the power has much less delay before the damage applies and should feel more responsive.
    • Devout and Arbiter paragons now use the same power timings.
    • Is now considered an area / multi-target attack for triggers like Vistani’s Curse.
    • Magnitude increased from 65 -> 70; Arbiter Judgement scaling increased 6.5 -> 7.0.
  • Conflagrate
    • Is now considered an area / multi-target attack for triggers like Vistani’s Curse.
    • Judgement scaling fixed to function like other Arbiter powers.
    • Magnitude increased from 130 -> 150; Arbiter Judgement scaling increased 5 -> 15.

Expanded Developer Notes on Cleric At-Will Updates

Two of the Devout Cleric’s At-Will powers could be interrupted to greatly increase their Action Point gain, and in the case of Scattering Light, their damage. While most players were only achieving small gains, some players had setups that allowed them to interrupt these powers at rates far above balance targets. We’ve updated Scattering Light and Blessing of Light such that they can still be interrupted, but provide less benefits for doing so.

Scattering Light also had some long delays built into its FX and damage components, and we’ve sped those up and generally tried to make the power more responsive.

Power Interruption

When power interruption (AKA: animation canceling) provides small benefits (+25% over baseline), it is fine. Neverwinter was built on allowing players to interrupt powers with other powers, and eking out small gains from clever interrupts is an important skill expression we want to maintain. Rarely does a single power having strong interrupt potential skew the overall class balance in any significant way.

When power interruption provides large benefits (50%+ over baseline), we have an issue. The power is functioning very differently from its original design, and unfortunately, likely has a bug (or oversight) that is allowing it to skew class balance and intent. We understand that some classes are only ‘competitive’ because specific powers can be interrupted in this way (we’re looking at you, Sentinel Slash), and we hope to make those classes/paragons less reliant on those mechanics when updating them.

In the case of Devout Clerics, we did not feel that their kit was underperforming in a way that justified them also having access to incredibly high action point gain via interrupts on Scattering Light and Blessing of Light. We also know that some players were using tools to extremely optimize the interrupts (primarily on PC), and that is something we do not want to encourage.

We will be making some improvements to Devout Cleric Daily powers in the near-future as well, expanding their targeting to affect nearby friendlies (not just party members). Other healers, such as the Warlock Soulweaver, will also be receiving updates, so please understand that we are actively working on buffs and quality-of-life fixes to healers while simultaneously trying to balance out some rough edges

Items and Economy

General

• The various elemental Unawakened Heart and Awakened Heart items have been updated to clearly state they are from an obsolete system and no longer track Heroic Encounter completions.

Appointment Store

• ‘Food’ consumables can now be purchased in bulk.
• ‘Food’ consumables cost has been reduced.

Audio

General

• The Celestial Bear is no longer experiencing an identity crisis that made it sound like the Cosmic Pig when summoned.