Spells: Full audit of class spells for timeline correctness (all casting classes)

[Glasken]

Originally Posted by Dolalin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In other news I've found a Japanese site that has all the beta patches and lots of missing early 99 patches. Lots of interviews and letters from Smed and Brad too. Click a date range....

http://web.archive.org/web/200010061...i/news/old.htm

Translation view:

https://translate.googleusercontent....EZoZUwIzhkc-Bw

Been adding the patches slowly to:

https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes

This is a hell of a find. Thank you for putting this list together. I have a much more messy one for my own notes but yours is much more helpful.

I am curious about the state the devs are going for, or are willing to put in changes. I will paise them forever for their dedication to a classic experience, but changes especially to spells and pets have been more on the...lets make it more challenging! side of things, rather than true classic.

Examples: Mage pets wielding weapons and casting spells, pets not taking the delay of the weapon they are handed, charm/beguile not being implemented, whirl being in its fixed state etc..

At least we now have true night blindness back again. That alone is worth all the rest. Salute the next hum/eru/bar you see on green, for their path to max level is dark and filled with terrors.

[Dolalin]

I thought I'd return to this on the subject of Necromancers because leaving it incomplete has been bothering me.

I found this interview with GZ on Stratics after some digging, it references all of Vampiric Curse, Circle of Death and Lich. He is talking about them on the day before/the day-of the July 1st patch that implemented the first two:

Vampiric Curse / Bond of Death (formerly Circle of Death) (Necromancer) has a new effect.

Vampiric Curse and Circle of Death (Bond of Death) spent a month between June 7th and July 1st patches in a broken state.

From June 7th patch:

Wave of Enfeeblement (now Vampiric Curse) and Circle of Death (both Necromancer) will not work for the next week or so while we make a fix on them.

And from the article:

> Vampiric Curse level 29 DOT that gives you health (so like a drain over
> time) and damages.
> Circle of Death level 49 DOT that gives you more health over time and
> damages. I did not understand their functionality because they didn't
work
> previously (tomorrow's patch should fix this).

On Lich (which was new, though I can't tell for sure which patch it goes in on (gotta be either June 7 or July 1st)) there is the following:

Posted by Mortuus Mortezzah on July 01, 1999 at 9:36:03 AM CDT:

...

Note: Looks like my guess that Lich is the final in the 'Dark Pact' lines was correct. I assume we take on Lich form (similar to how COB we take on Dread Bone form), and perhaps a few other traits as well... (i.e. in Dread Bone form we gain their sight, etc).

Again I'd like to applaud GZ for taking the time to answer these questions. I doubt he will continue to be able to do so, as more and more people are inundating him with similar messages
--------------------
> Can you explain what the Lich spell does?

Call of Bones, but a lot more so.

Now what pisses me off is that he doesn't mention Leach anywhere. Leach is the level 12 necro drain, and is missing from the May 5th 1999 EQLizer spell listing, but it is not mentioned in any of these patch messages.

I would have to assume it was added in one of these spell updates, perhaps the June 7th one that added Vampiric Curse and BoD? That would make sense. But I can find no proof of this. All I can see is that it suddenly popped into existence.

Also, on Charm/Beguile removal, which is only provided because it's kinda interesting:

The spells were removed because Necromancers (and Shamans) could not
charm anything near their level - the pets that they can summon are almost
always better than anything they could hope to charm (because of the charm
level limit). Because of this, and because of some of the inherant trouble
that can come with the charm spells, I decided to remove them from the
Shaman and Necro. I did not remove the undead charming, which works very
well. On a similar note, Shamans did not lose their animal charming. I
will make sure to replace it with something interesting.

http://web.archive.org/web/200003030...16313520.shtml

And lastly, on July 1st patch, both Shaman and Necro disease dots had their damage doubled and durations halved. Necro poison spells also had this done. From the July 1st patch message:

* Necromancer's poison magic doubles damage and cuts duration by half. The total amount of damage is exactly the same, but the time has been halved.

* Necromancer and Shaman's disease-based magic now has a shorter duration. Instead, damage increases.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#July_1.2C_1999

There are a few other class changes here too:

* Increased recovery amount of Word of Healing (Cleric).
* Harmony (Druid / Ranger) is slightly more effective.
* Incapacitate functions as Enchanter (lvl44) magic.
* The Dark Pact (Necromancer) AC specification has been removed. The effect of layering other magic has been improved.
* Wizard's damage magic “casting time” has been slightly shortened.
* Improved Magician Burnout magic.
* The secret medicine used for Burnout III (Magician) has been removed.
* Added new Wizard magic "Bonds of Force" to Wizard clerk.
* Changed to Mana Sieve (Enchanter), now has immediate effect instead of DOT (persistent damage), and reduced Mana consumption (also reduces effect).

Remaining questions on the Necromancer side though:

* What did the 29th and 49th drains do before they were changed away from Lifetap AoE spells? Did they work or were they broken?

* When was Leach added?

I will try to find answers as time allows.

Hypothesis so far:

Level 12: Leach added (June 7th(?))
Level 29: Previous lifetap spell changed to Vampiric Curse (June 7th [added but broken], July 1st [fixed])
Level 49: Circle of Death changed to lifetap drain (June 7th [added but broken], July 1st [fixed, renamed to Bond of Death])
Level 49: Lich added (June 7th(?))

Note that BoD/Lich weren't researchable until September 13th (recipe was broken).

I'm also going to limit the scope of my list to spell additions and removals only, and *very* significant changes in spell function, otherwise things are going to get crazy.

[Dolalin]

I have decided to add Bards here since I've come across the entire Bard list of songs from 1-43 that existed in early May 1999 and have reconciled that with additions up until Kunark.

A full list of songs available as of May 3, 1999:

Level		Title 					Location

1	Chant of Battle 				Any Bard Guild
2	Chords of Dissonance				Any Bard Guild
3 	Jaxan's Jig O Vigor 				Any Bard Guild
4 	Lyssa's Locating Lyric 				Any Bard Guild
5 	Selo's Accelerando 				Any Bard Guild
6 	Hymn of Angels 					Any Bard Guild
7 	Jonathan's Warsong 				Any Bard Guild
8 	Kelin's Lament 					Kelethin
9 	Elemental Rhythms 				Kelethin, Qeynos
10 	Anthem de Arms 					Freeport, Qeynos
11 	Cinda's Charismatic Carrillion 			Kelethin
12 	Brusco's Boastful Bellow 			Freeport, Qeynos
13 	Purifying Rhythms 				Kelethin, Qeynos
14 	Lyssa's Cataloging Libretto 			Erudin
15 	Kelin's Lucid Lullaby 				Kelethin
16 	Tarew's Aquatic Ayre 				Highhold
17 	Guardian Rhythms 				Kelethin, Qeynos
18 	Denon's Disruptive Discord 			Freeport, Qeynos
19 	Shauri's Sonorous Clouding 			Erudin
20 	Largo's Melodic Binding 			Freeport, Qeynos
21 	Melanie's Mellifluous Motion 			Highhold
22 	Alenia's Disenchanting Melody 			Kelethin, Qeynos
23 	Selo's Consonant Chain 				Highhold
24 	Lyssa's Veracious Concord 			Erudin
25 	Psalm of Warmth 				Erudin, Kelethin, Qeynos
26 	Angstlich's Apalling Screech 			Kelethin
27 	Solon's Song of the Sirens			Kelethin
28 	Crission's Pixie Chase 				Kelethin
29 	Psalm of Vitality 				Kelethin, Qeynos
31 	Agilmente's Aria of Eagles 			Highhold
32 	Cassindra's Chorus of Clarity 			Kelethin, Qeynos
33 	Psalm of Cooling 				Erudin, Kelethin, Qeynos
34 	Lyssa's Solidarity of Vision 			Erudin
35 	Denon's Dissension 				Freeport, Qeynos
36 	Vilia's Verses of Celerity 			Freeport, Qeynos
37 	Psalm of Purity 				Kelethin, Qeynos
40 	Syvelian's Anti-Magic Aura 			Kelethin
41 	Psalm of Mystic Shielding 			Kelethin, Qeynos
42 	McVaxius Berserker Crescendo 			Freeport, Qeynos

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...s/messages/417

These songs were added on these dates (already added to Nilbog's spreadsheet):

Lvl	Song Name					Era Added			Evidence

30	Song: Fufil's Curtailing Chant		May 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1098	

38	Song: Tuyen's Chant of Flame		May 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1098	Added in May 24th patch: "New bard songs have been added to the vendors". (https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#May_24.2C_1999)	

39	Song: Solon's Bravura			April 2000			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/topics/17507		

43	Song: Denon's Desperate Dirge		May 1999			https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#May_24.2C_1999	Added in May 24th patch, "New bard songs have been added to the vendors". Nerfed to require mana in next patch on June 3rd: https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#Spell_Changes. Kendrick talks about it here after the May patch: "Rumour has it there is one 40+ song yet to be found. It may even make some of the nuking classes grumble." https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1174	

44	Song: Cassindra`s Elegy			May 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1174	Added in May 24th patch: "New bard songs have been added to the vendors" (https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#May_24.2C_1999)	

45	Song: Jonthan's Provocation		April 2000			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/topics/17507		

46	Song: Tuyen's Chant of Frost		May 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1098	Added in May 24th patch: "New bard songs have been added to the vendors".(https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#May_24.2C_1999)	

47	Song: Niv's Melody of Preservation	February 2000			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/15168		

48	Song: Selo's Chords of Cessation	May 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/1174	Added in May 24th patch: "New bard songs have been added to the vendors (https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#May_24.2C_1999)	

49	Song: Shield of Song			November 2000			https://wiki.project1999.com/Patch_Notes#November_29.2C_2000		"Bards of the land, hark unto me: The notes have been scribed on tattered parchment, two score and nine, for you they are meant. Abandon your mates, though they may fume, and follow the call of the seafarer's tune. (the level 49 song is now available)."

50	Song: Verses of Victory			June 1999			https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/2720	Also: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eqbards/conversations/messages/2714

[Hokojin]

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/hist...es-2000-1.html


------------------------------
June 6, 2000 8:00 am
------------------------------

Updates Not Included in This Patch Message:

* Banshee Aura has had its duration increased.
* Scale of Wolf and Spirit of Scale will no longer be canceled by being
the target of a melee attack. Ranged attacks and spells will still
cancel the spell.
* Shaman can now cast Charm Animal
* Some enchanter and shaman spells have had their casting times/mana
costs altered.
* Augment, Glamour of Kintaz, Rapture, and Clarity II have had their
mana cost lowered.
* Root spells that cause damage (Druid roots, Hungry Earth) now work
properly.

[Dolalin]

Cheers for that.

I have the Necro spells all figured out now I think, but I am going to turn this into a public Google sheet instead. Give me a few days.