Highlights

New Adventure Zone: River District

Face off against the armies of powerful wizards in this new zone.  Take control of strategic points throughout the River District, and reclaim riches, weapons, and magic for the betterment of Neverwinter as a whole.

• Monsters of the River District
• Instances of the River District
• River District Environment

 

Cloaked Ascendancy Campaign

Learn the true aims of this sinister cabal, and foil their attempts to lay claim to Neverwinter before it's too late.  Stabilize Neverwinter's trading routes, confront your foes, and claim a portion of their power as new Boons.

 

Skirmish: Illusionist's Gambit

An illusionist has begun experiments within the sewers of Neverwinter, setting adventurers through trial after trial in settings old and new.  When completing a wave, players may vote to continue for greater challenge and new twists to the experience!

• Skirmish Environment

 

Weapon Enhancement Changes

Smite your foes with a greater variety of weapon enhancements!  We've increased the damage output of some of the weaker weapon enhancements to bring them into the same realm as certain well-scaling enhancements.

 

Updated Early-Game Experience

After leaving the Sleeping Dragon Bridge, the player will now be brought to an instanced version of Neverwinter and be greeted directly by Sergeant Knox.  The fashion items awarded will be more fashionable than the previous peasant apparel.

 

Devoted Cleric Updates

The Devoted Cleric has received some balance changes and functionality improvements in this build, and will receive a free respec as a result.  More details below!

 

 

Release Notes

Content and Environment

Storm King's Thunder

• Character behavior has been improved for the final cutscene in Red Ice.

 

Dungeons and Trials

• Castle Never: The AoE radius of Annihilation Spheres has been reduced to be in line with their splat effects.
• Demogorgon: Players may now queue for this trial at any time.
  • As a result, Drizzt no longer runs to Demogorgon's cave entrance in Mantol-Derith.
• Svardborg: The damage over time effect from Hailburst can no longer damage players outside the arena.
• The Rage of Demons hourly event no longer exists.
• Tiamat: Players may now queue for this trial at any time.

 

General

• Contests in many zones now give XP.
• Icewind Pass: Certain Barbarian enemies as part of Heroic Encounters now properly have Heroic Encounter level difficulty.
• PvP Tutorial: This quest now states that players do not need to engage in PvP in order to complete the tutorial.
• Rothé Valley: Edge of the Underdark: Sarkon'Iss is no longer invisible after the introductory cutscene.
• The "Storming the Keep" achievement now properly shows the "Storm the Keep" skirmish name in its description.
• The frenzied cry of "Look out, a dracolich!" has been removed from the first cutscene after creating a new character.

 

Future Events

• A new PvP Leaderboard season has begun.
• 2x Enchants & Runes: The event text no longer refers to places where Enchants & Runestones don't drop.
• 2x Profession Resources & XP: All ranks of Salvager enchantments now properly double during this event.
• 2x Profession Resources & XP: The event text now mentions Masterwork Profession resources.
• Call to Arms: Gate Crashers: Players may no longer attack enemies from the respawn area with ranged attacks.
• Coupons for Fashion and Dye no longer drop during Protector's Jubilee, as those are no longer available in the Zen Market.
• Portobello's Game: The foot race should act more reliable when warping players to their starting points.

 

Combat and Powers

Classes and Balance - General

• Certain triggered effects can now activate off Impossible to Catch and certain other instant-cast powers.
• Control Wizard: Chaos Magic: Chaotic Nexus now properly grants +30% armor penetration to the caster.
• Player characters who are immune to Knock effects, e.g. Paladins channeling Sanctuary, are now properly immune to Knock effects.

 

Devoted Cleric

• Due to the breadth and severity of these changes, Devoted Clerics will receive a free respec upon logging in after this build goes live.
• The following powers have had their damage increased by 30%:
  • Break the Spirit
  • Chains of Blazing Light
  • Daunting Light
  • Divine Glow
  • Flame Strike
  • Forgemaster's Flame
  • Hammer of Fate
  • Prophecy of Doom
  • Sun Burst
  • Searing Light
• Ancient Warding
  • Fixed a bug where this power was not triggering after Anointed Army expired.
• Anointed Action
  • Fixed this power to proc correctly for Divine Armor, Anointed Army, and Guardian of Faith.
• Anointed Army
  • The amount of damage absorbed by each charge of Anointed Army has been capped at 20% of the target's maximum Hit Points. While the bug for this power was that it was mitigating 100% of incoming damage rather than the original 90%, the power will be left at 100% absorption for damage amounts at 20% of the target's maximum hit points or below, now that the amount absorbed has been capped.
  • The power transferred from the Cleric to party members has been reduced from 50% to 33%. This is due to there still being too much group contribution from a single power that is exclusive to one paragon path. This reduction will be partially offset by their ability to use it in conjunction with Hallowed Ground more easily, now that AP can be generated while it is active.
  • This power no longer grants CC immunity after all blessings have expired.
• Chains of Blazing Light
  • This power no longer grants AP in Divine mode.
  • Corrected tooltip to communicate that this power increases damage by 15% per charge consumed, not 10%.
• Condemning Gaze
  • Fixed a bug where this power could debuff more than 15% damage resistance to targets in certain cases.
  • Corrected tooltip to communicate that this is an area effect.
• Divine Armor
  • Clerics can now gain Action Points immediately after using Divine Armor.
  • Divine Armor no longer grants Damage Resistance. Instead, it grants targets 50% of their maximum hit points as Temporary Hit Points (up from 20%) for 5 seconds, plus an additional 10% per rank, to a maximum of 80% of the target's maximum hit points.
  • Fixed a bug where Divine Armor was not granting additional Temporary Hit Points at additional ranks.
• Divine Glow
  • Fixed this power to correctly increase in duration per empowered charge consumed.
  • Fixed this power to correctly proc weapon enchantments, racial abilities, and certain set bonuses. This fix should apply to several other powers in the game, specifically those that could target enemies but also had healing components.
• Flame Strike
  • This power now properly triggers weapon enchantments.
• Geas
  • Fixed a bug where this power was not granting AP on use.
• Gift of Haste
  • Fixed a bug where this power could stack in some situations.
• Guardian of Faith
  • This power now heals targets for 500% of its original amount.
• Hastening Light
  • Fixed a bug where the Off-Hand Artifact Class Feature for this power was not granting AP to allies. It has also been adjusted to give 5% AP to allies over 15 seconds, down from 10% instantly.
• Hallowed Ground
  • Clerics can now gain Action Points while Hallowed Ground is active. To compensate for this adjustment, this power now has a 45-second cooldown (can be shortened with cooldown reduction). Ideally, we would like to get rid of these "AP gain blocks" from most, if not all, Daily powers. In cases where the intent is to make a Daily non-spammable, a cooldown allows players to at least have the option to build AP to use their other Daily, if they so desire.
• Lance of Faith
  • The third hit of this power now deals damage to nearby targets.
• Living Flame
  • This power has been changed to grant a 5/10/15/20/25% buff to damage dealt for 8 seconds when taken below 30% hit points, rather than only granting the buff while the Cleric is below 30% hit points.
• Piercing Light
  • Fixed this power to rank up correctly with ranks in Piercing Light.
• Prophecy of Doom
  • Fixed a bug where this power was not granting AP on use.
  • Fixed a bug where this power did not instantly recharge when it killed an enemy.
  • Fixed a bug where this power did not increase in duration while empowered.
  • Fixed this power to instantly recharge if the target is killed during its duration.
  • Fixed this power to correctly grant AP.
  • Fixed this power to correctly increase in duration per empowered charge consumed.
• Prophetic Action
  • This power now shields the Cleric against one attack for up to 100% of their maximum hit points, and additionally shields all party members against one attack for up to 25% of their maximum hit points, every 30/27/24/21 seconds.
• Repurpose Soul
  • Fixed a bug where this power would not proc from certain powers.
  • This power now correctly grants 5/10/15% as described in the tooltip, up from 3/6/9%.
• Searing Light
  • This power no longer grants AP in Divine mode, as it is not intended for any encounter powers to generate AP in this mode.
• Templar's Domain
  • Fixed a bug where this feat could only proc once every 5 minutes. There is no longer a limit on the amount of times this feat can proc, and successive procs will refresh its duration (does not stack).
• Terrifying Insight
  • This power no longer decreases the damage resistance of the Cleric's target. Instead, it now increases the damage dealt by all party members by 8%, with an additional 4% per rank, for a maximum of 20%.
• Warding Flare
  • This power now shields targets for 10% of their maximum hit points for normal, divine, and empowered versions, rather than an amount based on your weapon damage.
  • This power now ticks every second, improved from every 1.5 seconds.
  • This power now affects up to 5 targets inside the affected area per tick, up from 1 randomly chosen target.  The Divinity version of this power still only affects one target.
  • When empowered, this power also heals targets periodically in addition to shielding them, with the heal increasing by 35% per additional empowerment charge consumed.
  • The empowered version of this power also heals targets in addition to shielding them. The healing amount increases with each charge consumed.
  • The empowered version of this power no longer increases in duration per charge consumed.

 

Great Weapon Fighter

• Unstoppable no longer becomes unusable if the player gained a significant amount of Determination in the split second between activating the power and gaining its effects.

 

Guardian Fighter

• Supremacy of Steel: This power no longer prevents AP gain while active.

 

Hunter Ranger

• Plant Growth no longer has a delay between activation and when damage takes place.

 

Oathbound Paladin

• Fixed Aura of Radiance and Aura of Truth to scale properly with additional ranks.

 

General

• Eye of the Giant: When this Artifact's power is used outside of combat, it now properly grants 5% damage resistance.
• The Mount Insignia bonus, Artificer's Persuasion, can no longer be activated if an artifact power is cancelled before activation.
• Weapon enchantments, set bonus procs, and racial procs now properly activate from powers that have both healing and damage-dealing components (e.g. Divine Glow).

 

 

Enemies and Allies

General

• Aboleth Servitors are now able to use their melee attacks.
• Aboleth Servitors now use heavier slam attacks while buffed by the Aboleth.
• Mimics now have identical interaction text to treasure chests.
• Plaguechanged Maw: The radius of this creature's PBAoE / Burst power now more closely matches the range of the danger indicator on the ground.

 

 

Items and Economy

Bounty Stores update

• Bounty Stores have been updated with more rewards for a leveling adventurer!  The zones with bounty store changes are:
  • Tower District
  • Blackdagger Ruins
  • Neverdeath Graveyard
  • Helm's Hold
  • Ebon Downs
  • Vellosk
  • Pirates' Skyhold
  • The Chasm
  • Rothé Valley
  • Mount Hotenow
  • Whispering Caverns
• The Bounty Treasure Cache packs now only give class specific gear.

 

Companions

• Certain Companion powers that were not triggering Insignia bonuses now properly do so.  The list of addressed powers follows.
  • Lillend's Audio Drain
  • Barbarian Shaman's Howling Wrath
  • Paranoid Delusion's Rogue Melee Attack
  • Siegemaster's Shield Wall
  • Cleric Disciple's Sacred Flame
  • Ghost's Spirit Touch
  • Deva Champion's Smiting Blows
  • Ice Sprite's Twin Ice
  • Regenade Evoker's Pillar of Flame
  • Regenade Illusionist's Mirror Image
• Energon: This companion now properly plays appropriate animations when affected by crowd control.
• Remorhaz: This companion now properly gives additional relics when they have an Archaeologist's Trowel.
• Damaran Shepherd: This companion's loyalty can now be purchased in the Wondrous Bazaar.
• Lightfoot Thief now properly triggers appropriate Mount Insignia bonuses.

 

Weapon Enhancement Update

• Weapon Enhancements that deal damage based on a percentage of a player's weapon damage will now scale with things that affect a player's damage (like Power).
  • This should make these Weapon Enhancements a better chance to be competitive with those that in effect scale already (Dread, Vorpal).
  • Affected enhancements include: Bilethorn, Feytouched, Flaming, Frost, Holy Avenger, Lifedrinker, Lightning, Plague Fire, Terror
• The different gems now use similar wording for their basic damage bonus effect.
• The tooltips for Weapon Enhancements have been cleaned up.
• Feytouched
  • The base damage dealt by this enchantment has been reduced by about 40%.
  • Its damage output should still be increased from previous modules once Power scaling is taken into account.
  • The damage siphon is still as powerful as it once was.
• Flaming
  • The AoE portion of this enchantment's effect now consistently triggers, and the damage value is now listed in the tooltip.
  • The base AoE damage is now 80% weapon damage, increased from 6%.
  • Applying a stack of the Flaming Weapon Enhancement's DoT will now refresh the duration of any existing stacks. This will make it easier for players to maintain stacks of the DoT on their target.
• Frost
  • Reductions to recovery, deflect, and power have been simplified and replaced with reductions to recharge speed, damage resistance and damage dealt.
  • Dev Note: Though enemies in PvE do not actually possess player stats like Recovery and Deflect under the hood, damage resistance and damage dealt were already being affected - They just weren't displayed in the tooltip.
  • The overall effectiveness of this enchantment's Damage Resist / Damage Dealt reduction debuff has been improved, up to 30% at Transcendent rank.
• Lightning
  • The base damage dealt by this enchantment has been reduced by about 30%.
  • Its damage output should still be significantly increased from previous modules once Power scaling is taken into account.
  • Floating combat text for this enhancement is no longer quite as spammy.
• Plague Fire
  • Reductions to defense and power have been simplified and replaced with reductions to damage resistance and damage dealt.
  • Dev Note: Though enemies in PvE do not actually possess player stats like Recovery and Deflect under the hood, damage resistance and damage dealt were already being affected - They just weren't displayed in the tooltip.
  • The AoE portion of this enchantment's effect now consistently triggers, and the damage value is now listed in the tooltip.
  • The base AoE damage is now 60% weapon damage, increased from 12%.
  • The duration of all stacks of this enchantments debuff are now refreshed on a new application.
  • The number of targets affected by the AoE portion of this attack now has a maximum of 5, increased from 3.
• Terror
  • Reductions to defense and power have been simplified and replaced with reductions to damage resistance and damage dealt.
  • Dev Note: Though enemies in PvE do not actually possess player stats like Recovery and Deflect under the hood, damage resistance and damage dealt were already being affected - They just weren't displayed in the tooltip.
  • The base weapon damage dealt by this enchantment is now 30% at Transcendent, up from 25%.  Lower ranks have seen proportional increases.

 

Enchantments, Enhancements, and Runestones

• Barkshield Armor Enchantment: Amount shielded dramatically increased (at all ranks).
• Enchantment effects no longer interfere with Control Wizard Chill stacks.
• Frosted Glyphs should no longer strike targets you haven't been attacking for 0 damage. This should resolve issues where companions would attack these enemies for no apparent reason.
• Partially-used overload enchantments can no longer incorrectly stack with unused overload enchantments in certain occasions.

 

Mounts and Insignias

• Magistrate's Consideration: This insignia combo power no longer bypasses damage immunity.

 

Trade Bar Store

• Eye of the Giant (Artifact) has been added to the Trade Bar vendor.
• Manticore (Companion) has been added to the Trade Bar vendor.

 

General

• Aurora's Whole Realms Catalogue: This artifact now sells rare rings at the first rank.
• Bloodlord's Visage: Hair no longer clips through this head slot item.
• Contests now give Experience and Bounty Currencies as additional rewards!
• Endurant Shard of Permafrost has seen a few updates.
  • The effect now persists through death.
  • The cooldown now properly decreases even when logged out.
  • Other combat consumables no longer go on a brief cooldown when the shard is used.
  • In order to prevent locking a consumable tray slot for 18 hours, it is no longer possible to slot this item, it can only be used from the inventory directly.
  • The buff icon now indicates what it does.
• Eye of the Giant: The cooldown times on this artifact are now consistent with other artifacts.
• Jarl's Gaze: This helm now properly shows its visual effects (VFX) on Dragonborn characters.
• Jarl's Gaze: This item is now item level 160, increased from 150.
• Many companions and mounts found in lockboxes can no longer be sold to vendors. They should still be tradable or discardable.
• Mimics now drop more loot!
• Most healing potions now scale in effectiveness in level-scaled content if the character's level is being increased.
• Ostorian Relics now grant about 50% more voninblod.
• Rings introduced by the Underdark expansion, received from Demonic Heroic Encounters, no longer apply their bonuses to companions or the player when equipped by companions.
• The drop rates of Superior Marks of Stig/Ild/Uvar from chests in Svardborg (Master) have been significantly increased.
• The drop rates of Greater Marks of Stig/Ild/Uvar from chests in Svardborg (Normal) have been significantly increased.
• The seal vendors in various lower-level zones no longer offer items for Seals of the Lion.  Instead, they now properly sell the standard stock for Seals of the Adventurer.
• When attempting to drink a potion while at full health or in PvP, the error message has changed to emphasize the "full health" case first.
• Zulkir's Dreadnought: This item now gives a Regeneration buff with a Skeletal Dog summoned, rather than a Maximum HP on Enemy Kill buff.

 

User Interface

Auction

• Item names that have a built-in word wrap now display properly in all parts of the Auction House, rather than showing a "wbr" string surrounded by angle brackets.
• New categories are now visible in the Auction House: Companion Equipment, Mount Packs.
• The "Click Here" box now shows a grid-based item picker rather than a long dropdown menu.  This view shows the contents of the main inventory, Currency bag, and Useful Items bag.

 

Change Appearance

• The Tower of Alteration now has its own background.

 

Character Sheet

• Players can no longer swap out equipment slots while in combat.

 

Collections

• The Artifact Equipment pages have now been condensed.  This will affect players' Collection Points.

 

Companions

• Certain passive stat buffs in Companion power lists now properly apply to their visible stats.  For example: The 300 Critical Strike provided to the Blue Fire Eye by its power, Focused Attack.

 

Controls

• If the player holds the Jump button and doesn't release it until after they land, they can now properly jump again before moving.

 

Fishing

• Text referring to "your action point gem" has been replaced with the "the fishing bar" in fishing tutorials and quests.
• The spinning effect on certain fishing abilities now only appears when fishing and able to use that ability, instead of when the player has full Action Points.
• While on a khyek, the "sprint" icon now changes to a more appropriate icon for seafaring instead.

 

Guild Bank

• The Guild Bank UI now allows players to remove items that are restricted to certain inventory tabs (e.g. dungeon keys in the Useful Items tab).

 

HUD

• The bonus reward window on gaining XP past the level cap no longer overlaps certain other parts of the UI.
• The controller no longer loses responsiveness when kicked from a queued map for being AFK.

 

Inventory

• Certain items will now pop up a special confirmation prompt when the player attempts to delete them.
• Item Appearance: Long item names more consistently read and display well in this pane.
• Quest items, such as Dark Fey Keys, now consistently display their Bind status.
• Stacks can now be consistently split when moving items from the inventory, including from the Useful Items bag.
• Thayan Lair Keys are now stored in the Useful Items bag.
• Useful Items can now be moved to the guild bank (if unbound).

 

Map

• When zooming is disabled for a map, the zoom key label now shows as disabled in the UI.

 

Mounts

• Mount tooltips now properly display in the Mount picker window, regardless of which slot they're in.

 

Powers

• Players may once again swap powers while in a power tray replacement mode (for example, while on a khyek).
  • Instead of the previous behavior where it would display the overridden power name (e.g. Reel Left), the power swap dialog now displays no power name, and explains as such.

 

Queues

• On the first visit to the Instance Management pane, class icons now consistently display.

 

Zen Market

• Knox's Adventurer Recruitment Order: Hunter Rangers will no longer incorrectly have six extra inventory slots when created using this purchase.  Existing characters should not be affected by this change.
• Knox's Adventurer Recruitment Order: This purchase now more clearly states that the recruited adventurer can be any race the player has unlocked, rather than just any race.
• The Featured category is no longer as crowded, and the New category is no longer as dated.

 

Art, Effects, Animation, and Audio

Animations

• Minor updates have been made to fishing and sailing animations.
• The Gelatinous Cube promo companion now has appropriate animations when affected by control abilities.
• Timing on various Control Wizard powers has updated so the enemy reacts much more closely to when they're hit.  Examples:
  • Enemies no longer take extra time to die when defeated by Chill Strike.
  • Magic Missile no longer causes the enemy to die before the missiles strike.

 

Character Art

• Certain head items, including Dragon Cult masks and Orcus' mask, now fit better on more character races.

 

Visual Effects (VFX)

• Devoted Cleric: Lance of Faith no longer impales the player in the cutscene where Wilfred meets Valindra.
• Devoted Cleric: Punishing Light's beam is now consistent in width regardless of the weapon wielded.
• Kenku Archer: This companion now shows an arrow in hand when using Hide and Shoot, as well as Malicious Shot.
• Legendary Flail Snail: The solid shadow that occasionally appears on this mount is now properly diffused.
• Orcus' deadly sphere attack now consistently displays, regardless of the number of visual FX currently displaying on the client.
• Various contact icons now consistently display over the character's head.

 

Audio

• Certain companions no longer play defeat audio multiple times upon being defeated.
• Gas Spore: This mount now consistently plays its Flourish audio.
  • A Flourish is the animation played when pressing the Jump key while standing still.
• Pseudodragon: This companion now consistently plays its Bite audio.

 

Graphics, Performance, and Stability

Graphics

• Certain props no longer flicker on a GTX 560 card.
• The Camera Shake setting now properly remembers its setting after the player logs out and back in.

 

General

• A crash in dynamic lighting has been addressed.
• A crash when clearing a slot in the Item Refinement UI has been resolved.
• Several client and server memory leaks have been addressed.
• Various other crashes and performance issues have been resolved.