Today's EQ Patch

It was a pretty big one [insert that's what she said joke here]. We dodged the Veteran AA nerf bullet, which was good. A couple upgrades, a couple nerfs. Here's the juicy bits:

*** AA ***
- All - Refunded Identify as this ability is redundant now that item descriptions are displayed when inspecting items at level 50+.
- Multiple - Renamed the non-pet class ability 'Pet Discipline' to 'Companion's Discipline' to be in line with the naming used for pet classes.
- Bard - Granted the ability to use Double Riposte as Bards were the only class with the skill that did not have access to this ability. [I havent looked to see what level Bards get this yet -Loze]
- Bard - Refunded all ranks of Tune of Pursuance and increased the base tracking skill cap for Bards for levels 65 and 96-100+.
- Druid - Refunded all ranks of Advanced Tracking and increased the base tracking skill cap for Druids for levels 65+.
- Ranger - Refunded all ranks of Tracking Mastery and increased the base tracking skill cap for Rangers for levels 66-70+.

*** Miscellaneous ***
- You can no longer block, parry, dodge, or riposte an attack that would have missed.
- Made multiple adjustments to Tribute and Guild Tribute:

*** UI ***
- Made improvements to taunt messages:
- - Taunt messages are sent to all players in the area, and include the name of the NPC being taunted.
- - Added a new chat filter for taunt messages.
- - Failing to capture your target's attention is more clearly indicated as a partial success.
- - Added a message when a player obtains aggro using an aggro lock ability (Ex: Undivided Attention).
- - Taunt spells are no longer blocked by spells locking an NPC's aggro.
- - Sends a single message to players in the area when someone uses an area effect taunt (Ex: Area Taunt).

The biggest nerf that effects us is placing the check for block, parry, dodge, and riposte AFTER the check to see if a mob's attack was a success. They claimed that it would be slightly easier on the servers to do those checks after a successful attack by a mob instead of after every attempted attack. This should really only effect the tanks, but we Shadowknights rely on procs and this will drop the number of chances we have to proc a lifetap. How bad is this nerf? People are screaming about it on the forums, but I'll have to see what the parses say. The nerf to the Bard AA Vainglorious Shout is probably the worst, but we won't have to deal with that for a while. Sounds like they may re-think the fading memories nerf though, which is good.

Check out the full length [That's what she said] patch notes here.