Ignore Pain heals for about half of what it did pre-patch.  Unknown if it was intentional or not.

Please post any found patch issues here for todays patch.  Thanks!
- Poco

Having the global cooldown removed and a 4/3/2 cooldown added (different ranks) are being looked into by the development team.  So this petition is not needed.  Also, you must remember that they will NOT balance the game for PvP.  They have said this over and over again.  In honestly, I would be happy they haven't removed it from us already, as the original thought behind it no longer works.  As far as Shaman/Clerics go, just shush and stop being a baby.  They are fixing classes 1 by 1, right now it is Shaman and Clerics, monks will get their turn.  Just wait.

That is being fixed also, already fixed just needs to be pushed to a patch.

Everyone else -- (point scale is not accurate, but it is good for example)
The way itemization works is such:

Level 50 Blue: 50 points
+15 stat = 10 points
Lower Speed = 25 points
+ 15 Resistance = 5 points
Proc = 10 points

Level 50 Yellow: 75 points
+15 stat = 10 points
Lower Speed = 25 points
+ 15 Resistance = 5 points
Proc = 10 points
Higher dmg range = 25 points

Level 50 Orange: 100 Points
+30 stat = 35 points
Lower Speed = 25 points
+ 15 Resistance = 5 points
Proc = 10 points
Higher dmg range = 25 points

Level 50 Legendary: 125 points
+30 stat = 35 points
Lower Speed = 25 points
+ 15 Resistance = 5 points
Better Proc = 35 points
Higher dmg range = 25 points


With this system, every tier of an item, HAS to use all its points, so if an item gets upgraded to rare/heroic/legendary etc it HAS to get a stat boost, otherwise the game wont allow it in.  Now wether or not we feel it's stats are worth legendary or not, is up to personal opinion, but all points have been used.  This is the first mmo that has done a system like this, and it allows for more itemization and balancing.

Build 1840 May / 30 / 2007
Vanguard Build 1840 Patch Notes 5/31/2007 – TEST SERVER

GAMEPLAY NOTES
- Cash loot and gear values have been changed slightly. All merchants will now give top dollar for gear players wish to sell. An internal change to how cash loot is calculated may result in slight fluctuations in its worth. If anything out of whack is discovered please report it.

 ADVENTURING NOTES
- Bard – Energizing Embellishment and Cirel’s Counterpoint of Clarity now properly restore energy.
- Bard – Asilam’s Anti-Venom Aria is no longer an embellishment and is now a shout type ability.
- Bard – Strain of Purification is no longer an embellishment and is now a shout type ability.
- Bard – Upgrades to Asilam’s Anti-Venom Aria and Strain of Purification are now available on trainers.
- Bard – Slightly increased the damage added by Humming Blade above level 20.
- Bard – Lowered the energy reduction on humming blade gradually.
- Bard – Humming Blade now specifies that it increases melee damage.
- Bard – Swirl of the Tempest is no longer limited to 4 targets.
- Bard – Fox Overtakes the Hare II and III now have a refresh timer of 20 sec.
- Cleric – Ethereality was supposed to be trainable at level 30.  This has been fixed.
- Cleric – Ethereality now works as intended.
- Cleric – Aspect of the Destroyer no longer increases cast time.
- Cleric – Wraith Touch now returns the correct amount of hit points
- Cleric – Increased the power of Wraith Touch.
- Cleric – Affinity removal quests are now available.  Please visit the trainer that gave you the initial affinity quest.
- Cleric – Absolution no longer affects those NPCs that are not currently attacking you.
- Psionicist – All versions now state that this spell does physical damage.
- Shaman – Increased the critical hit bonus on Tearing Claw
- Shaman – Decreased the refresh timer on Throat Rip to 45 seconds, down from 2 minutes.
- Shaman – Bloody Fang will now deal more damage when exploiting the Bitten weakness.
- Shaman – Lowered the cast time of Aegis of life to 3.5 seconds, down from 4.5 seconds.
- Shaman – Lowered the refresh time of Ritual of Scarring to 2 minutes.
- Shaman – Bosrid’s Gift has been added to trainers at level 26. Upgrades every 8 levels.
- Shaman – The healing effectiveness debuff of Gnashing Bite now lasts for 45 seconds, up from 20 seconds.
- Shaman – Deafening Roar now costs only 20 END.
- Shaman – Spear of the Ancestors has had its functionality changed. It now deals less damage, but heals endurance over time. Has a 45 second refresh. (fear not Fist of the Earth is now available to fill the no refresh, nice damage chain slot that Spear of the Ancestors used to).
- Shaman – Removed the howling when you cast a spell while in Skin of Rakurr
- Shaman – Vicious Bite now displays its damage in combat window
- Shaman – Feedback has been added to Throat Rip.

CRAFTING NOTES
- Shandrel’s Robe now has a proper graphic.
- Dark Venom effects should now give the proper feedback

 

DIPLOMACY NOTES
- Diplomacy Cash Loot rewards have been modified to make them more compatible with Adventuring and Crafting cash loot.

 

WORLD POPULATION
- Gorgalog Swamp – The Hardened Wood plate armor components are no longer shown as cleric usable.
- Gorgalog Swamp – Skull Plated, Impervious Chitin, and Shimmering Silverbark armor is no longer cleric usable.
- Gorgalog Swamp – Fae Fire, Magic, and Nature wisps will no longer instantly despawn upon death.
- Gorgalog Swamp – Players dying or evacuating within Vsurog Moor will now be sent to the appropriate altar location.
- Gorgalog Swamp – The quest “Symbols of the Flordiel” now correctly requires that a player have the appropriate favor with the Ichtakhta.

 

CODING NOTES

- You can now zoom the camera out much further from your character.
- Some hitching caused by the UI's ability processing (e.g. hotkeys) has been eliminated.
- Fixed a bug with chat channel filters not getting added and enabled properly.

 

~The Vanguard Team


Overall, very disappointing.

I would expect it to get upgraded again to Legendary sometime soon.  Or so a little birdy told me

Actually, from my testings, the character sheet's dps for off-hand isnt correct.  Using Handwrap of Torchbearer and Afrit Ulak or 2x Afrit Ulak is the best for dps overall.  Since the crit% on the SOTA Legendary is only giving us 2% at level 31 (confirmed from devs, just tooltip bug currently), at level 50, that equates to like .03% of a crit chance.  Hardly worth losing the extra dps or str from Afrit weapons.

I'm glad its back this way, the "pause" was rather annoying in all reality.

I imagine I could change that.......

To put another note to backup soluss kinda. 

I am a 50 Dragon Monk Currently (switch all the time, drunken at heart), with all heroics level 50+, all lucent heroic rewards (2 rings, 2 earrings, face, cloak), Afrit weapon quest completed, and the 72 DPS handwraps from Rhaz.  I get out damaged by DK's of comparable (and worse) gear, hands down.  Currently, my guild is not even considering DK's as tanks as their DPS/Utility is far superior than them tanking. 

Yeah I removed most of the quote for obvious reasons.  As a fellow pvp lover, I understand your feelings.  However, as a vanguard player, I must quote Brad and Talisker back in Beta.  This game WILL NOT be balanced around PvP.  They allow PvP servers as a "service" but they do not support balancing of pvp.  This game has bigger issues atm than dealing with 2 3 servers that demand balancing for pvp.  I hate to say it, but I would not expect pvp anytime soon in this game.  The way current balancing is, there would be 1-3 classes that would just completely own everyone else.  If you want PvP I would wait for Age of Conan or Warhammer.

My point is that we should not be tanking, nor have utilities to do so.  The idea with bonds was not to help us tank better, but to help a real tank, tank better.  Or allow a sorcerer for instance nuke their little heart out without getting aggro.

I figured out the whole reason they added in the cleric overpoweredness.  If you think back several weeks, fellowships went live in a patch on the test server.  However, they did not go live with the recent test->live push.  I went back last night and looked at all of the test patch notes on vgspheres (official test server site), and any/all notes regarding fellowships are gone.  I bet they added in the cleric stuff to keep us busy and forget that they ninja-removed fellowships.  lol

The initial idea behind the bonds is to NOT have monks tank.  Period.  Not at all, never, end of discussion.  Monks are horrible tanks end game, and will be even worse in raiding.  With the evasion nerfs within the first 2 weeks of live, we cannot tank at all.  Evasion is far less dependable and far less powerful as mitigation.  Yes we may be able to evade 100% of melee attacks, depending on what endurance regen buffs we have, and depending on how fast the mob attacks, but it is impossible to hold aggro from even a bard slightly dpsing this way.  The whole idea behind the new drunken bonds is to have it as an aggro-management utility class, the initial idea submitted to QTM actually had the aggro-generating bond unable to work on self as defensive target, and have all of the rescues etc taken away.  However, if they do put it in, how it will work is entirely up to the Developers, and not the initial idea. 

I don't know what they did, but honestly I liked it a lot better pre-patch. I am having it resist a lot more now overall, rather it be 1 mob or 25.  I also had it get resisted 15 times in a row inside Khal last night.  Now, keep in mind, I was not in combat, nor was not attacking anything, just sitting in the Bank in Khal fd'n.  From what testing I've done, it is harder to split now than before, as the mobs may not go back instantly, but they just sit there for 5-10min, all of them, including the one I wanted to split.  I had a mob inside Gorgaluk (horrible dungeon btw), stay ontop of me for 45min yesterday before I finally just /quit out.  (I went to eat dinner), and I was not still in combat, out of combat just standing ontop of my body.