8.2.1.4 - Systems Change Cont'd

The individual changes here on a micro level ended up being significantly more than I had originally thought they would, but on the whole this needed to happen. This is another installment of changing how things look and their ability to be understood by the player. Today, the focus is on new icons and changing Skills to reflect those new icons so the overall text used is less.

At a glance, there are new icons for: elemental & state resistances, multi action & attacks, dual wield, off hand, no off-hand, drain hp, and others that I've forgotten in the last 24 hours.

This update marks the completion of Weapons and Armor changes for now, so anything obtained today and moving forward will be current and accurate to all the new back-end changes. Gear obtained previously that utilize Air Current, Shear, Poison, Bleed, or Burn are considered a lesser tier than their new counterparts - where Poison Bleed and Burn can all be applied until end of battle rather than 5 turns tops.

There is still work to be done on Skills - I'm on ~#250 out of 500 or so, and the remaining changes will roll out either later today or over the next few days. Elemental abilities - like Poisonstrike, Firebolt, etc - have not been touched at all yet and still use the previous state effects. Applying any new effect will clear and grant immunity to the older effects.

IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT SKILL CHANGES IN THE NEXT PATCH: Skills don't function the same as Weapons and Armor do, so any changes I make to skills will be live for everyone even if you've already learned the skill, unlike gear where changes only apply to newly acquired gear. With the completion of Weapons/Armor, that's why I'm rolling this out. I haven't even looked at items yet.

8.2.1.4 Notes

• Ended the Basic and Tattered event test.

• A new version of Shear I-V has taken the place of Air Current & Shear I-III. The previous versions are now deprecated in the database and still function amongst themselves, but cannot be obtained on new gear and cannot be applied by skills moving forward. Applying any of the new Shears will grant immunity to the full deprecated set. Each tier of Shear increases wind damage dealt to the afflicted target by 50%, capping at +250% on tier V. (To clarify from previous patch notes, this is 50% greater than the previous Shear III, which capped at "*300%" which is the same thing as "+200%".

• Weapons no longer indicate their status application chance or act again chances. This removes the "Chance on Hit" tooltip data.

• New icons for Act Again / Act Twice, which are the Physical icon with 2 swords crossed for a chance to act again (1%-99%) and 3 crossed for Act Twice which is a guaranteed second action per turn.

• New icon for Dual Wield - represented by crossed scimitars.

• New icon for Off-Hand - represented by a downward facing scimitar.

• The tooltip phrases "Act Twice" "Act Again" "Dual-Wield" and "Off-Hand" are retired.

• New icon for "Seal Equip: Off-Hand" represented by crossed scimitars with a red X over it. This effect was mainly prominent on Axes, but also appeared on a handful of other weapons.

• New icon for Normal Attacks Strike Additional Times represented by the normal attack/physical icon with a +1, +2, +3, or +4 in near it.

• With weapons showing icons for what elements they strike with on Normal Attacks, the "Elemental" tooltip has been deprecated.

• All weapons which apply statuses now apply the higher tiers at half rates extending to the highest tier. Tiers which would be applied at less than 1% are omitted entirely.

• Liquefier+ no longer deals Physical damage.

• Penetrator no longer deals Physical damage.

• Rending Wand no longer deals Physical damage.

• Fairytooth no longer deals Physical damage.

• Mindcleaver no longer deals Physical damage.

• True Rod no longer deals Physical damage.

• Pupil's Wand no longer deals Physical damage.

• Dark Insect Wand no longer deals Physical damage.

• Flamewind Battle Gear updated for new Shear.

• Galebrand updated for new Shear.

• Yuleslayer's Wisdom no longer deals Physical damage.

• Anemo Plague Wand no longer deals Physical damage.

• Azure Rod no longer deals Physical damage.

• Tidestroll no longer deals Physical damage.

• Slime-Crusted Wand no longer deals Physical damage.

• Slime-Crusted Sword & Dagger & Wand updated to new Poison & Burn tier I with chance to apply increased to 10% (up from 2%).

• Slime-eye no longer deals Physical damage.

• Every weapon has been updated to reflect newest changes, with most wands removing Physical as a type. Now, Magick Shock will deal equipped elemental types without physical included in the damage calculation.

• Adjusted the first 250 skills to display less erroneous text and include Mastery benefits. I am uncommitted to this path forward, but I want to see how it looks for a while in the live environment before either walking those 52 back or spreading it through the rest of the skills. For right now, multi-strike is outlined with repeated symbols rather than the text "Strikes Twice" or other similar text.

• Sludgebolt & Mucus Shot can no longer be 'used' in the field.

• New icon for HP absorb, also used for Soul Drain.

• Reave state now indicated by new icon.

• Changed icon for Leech.

• Distinct icons added for Null skills&states.

• Evade Action Speed increased to 250 from 25.

• Charge no longer has a variance, but can still critically hit.

• Double Slam no longer has a variance.