Yep, the next Game Update is coming up, and there's going to be more changes to the achievement system. This time the subclass specific ones, so there's a lot. Though there's some great stuff coming, there's also one group who's not as happy with all the changes: The scouts. And with that, to some extend the fighters. This because they're hitting hate transfers accross the board with the nerf bat. I say this will affect raids slightly, people will just have to adjust to the new settings, there's no man overboard.
Anyhow, on to the achievements. They're in the second post on the test update notes for Friday, June 20th. This might not be how they go live, but this is how they are on test now.
Safehouse
There is a lot of uproar over this change. They're changing this spell so that instead of a feign death abiltiy, this now becomes an ability that saves you from death and puts you in a "bleading" state (the state that you lie uncontious on the floor, bleeding to your death), and reduces aggro with the mob. While this definitly won't save a raid from a complete whipe, it might save yourself. I say it's an interesting change, and the brigands should be able to adjust to this.
Luck of the Dirge/Blessings
These two spells both got a small hit. Basically they are the same achievement, so it makes sense that they got changed in the same way. Both from a 25% increase in trigger chance to 20%. Truely I don't think we'll notice a lot from this change, as it's 5% of the original percentage. Say your spell has 20% originally, the difference in this spell's effect is exactly 1% (from 25% to 24%). While there are some higher trigger chances in game, most of them are in fact lower than 20%.
Magnetic note
The only reason I'm listing this is because of the change to aggression. Some dirges seem to be having trouble with their aggression, getting resisted too much on spells on this. What of this is true, only time will tell.
Double Arrow - Double Attack - Unabate - Time Compression - Energy Vortex
All of these achievements had bonusses reduced. Take a while and doublecheck these, and see if they're worth keeping is my advice.
Raid Armament
While this buff got reduced in per-person effectiveness, it got an overall boost, as it now stays on everyone on the raid. As such, it looks like Paladins are the first to get a raid-wide buff in their armament of abilities.
Reaver
This ability got a slight nerf as the health returned from this buff got reduced from 2.5 to 2. I don't know how this spell works, but apparently this is quite a big deal (Shadow Knights wheren't happy about it). Complaining they couldn't solo / duo effectively without this achievement. I find this wierd as they should be able to solo and duo without any achievements, but that's just me.
Lifeburn
The ratio on lifeburn was decreased. In other words: it'll take more life to the same amount of damage you did before. I'm thinking this may be a prep for Kunark, but that's just a wild guess.
Soul Ward
Can no longer be cast out of combat. So no prewarding with this one! Shouldn't be a big deal, probably.
Conclusion
The big conclusion here is that even though all of these nerfs above make for a big negative inpact, there's also a lot of positive things coming in the achievement lines. You may want to respec and change things around, or you may wish to keep your current loadout. Whatever you do, take your time and evaluate whether you need to change your tactics around a bit, to keep fighting efficiently.
Also, there's a lot of things outside the achievement tree that are changing. Take a good look at the notes and take your advantages out of it. There are a lot of fun things coming, and I'm sure you can't wait to try them.
- SG