The High Road, Part One

The High Road climbs past dhurrite. Two new tiers of gear, the lands from level 60 to 74 filled with new creatures and resources, Enchanting and Jewelcrafting rebuilt from level 1 to 99, a steadier way to level every skill, and a big step for playing together: Guard grows into Protection and every dungeon gains a Normal difficulty built for groups.

Protection and Groups

• Guard is now called Protection. Your levels and gear stay exactly as they were.
• Plate armour protects more than before, and every plate piece you wear also shortens stuns, roots and slows from other players a little.
• Blocking gets steadily stronger as Protection climbs.
• Every block or parry leaves you Braced for a moment, taking less damage from everything, even blows a shield can't meet. At Protection 99 that's 16% less.
• A shield you take up mid-fight now starts with half its guard instead of none, and a shield you put away remembers how much guard it had left.
• Tanks have new tools against other players: a challenge, drawing fire, a tether and a decoy. Each one wears off faster the more often it lands on the same player.
• Fights between players now last longer, so there's time to read your opponent, block and turn a duel around. Plate and Braced protect you just as well against other players as against monsters, and a shield-bearing knight in full plate makes for a long, hard fight.
• Heals now scale with the health of the ally you heal. A heal on a tank in heavy plate mends more than the same heal on a lightly armoured friend, and healing over time works the same way without overreaching on a much bigger ally.
• Every dungeon now offers Lone, Normal and Lamplit. Normal is for groups of 2 to 5 and is the default when you enter with a party.
• Normal bosses scale with how many of you are inside and bring new mechanics: heavy blows aimed at the tank, wide frontal sweeps to step out of, and strikes that land on anyone in the group. Stay in the fight too long and they grow stronger as their fury builds. A pair of players gets a little longer before that happens.
• Normal rewards your group: one bonus roll on each boss's loot for every extra player, and a group chest with extra coins when three or more of you finish together. Normal rewards need at least two players inside and taking part.
• Clear a dungeon on Normal and you earn its title, and every boss you bring down leaves a trophy for you to keep. Lamplit pays the same group rewards, titles and trophies.
• Lone is the dungeon you already know. It keeps its tuning, timers and loot exactly as they were, so solo runs are no harder and drop just as much.

Two New Tiers: Cinder and Veilspire

• Cinderite (level 60) and Veilsilver (level 70) join the ladder between dhurrite and aether, with full sets of weapons, plate, shields, tools and upgrades up to +3.
• Each tier comes with its own wood, hide and cloth: Ironbark and Veilwood for bows, staves and wands, Gryphonhide and Duskmane leather, and Windweave and Veilweave cloth for robes, vestments and tomes.
• Mine cinderite and veilsilver, chop ironbark and veilwood, and forage cloudflax and veilthread in the high lands. Gryphons drop their hides in Skyreach, and duskmanes roam the slopes of the Veilspire.
• New fishing rods, harpoons and sickles for the new tiers make your gathering faster as you climb.
• Your dhurrite tools still open the aether veins, aetherbloom trees and starstone rocks. Cinderite and veilsilver tools work them faster.
• Cinderite and veilsilver gear now have their own looks: Cinder in blackened iron with banked embers, Veilspire in moon silver and starlight. Plate, hide, Warhide, robes and vestments each get their own shapes, and every upgrade glows a little brighter.
• Aether gear has a look worthy of the top of the ladder: pearl and gold plate with violet inlays, crystal wings and halos of light, blades that float free of the hilt, and crystal-crowned staves, bows and shields.
• Hoods, cowls, coifs and the Warhide helms sit snugly on the head, with no gaps to see through.
• Seventeen sets that had no shoulder piece now have one, from Fenhide spaulders and Crawlerplate pauldrons to the Barrowlight stole. Crafters make the crafted sets' shoulders at the same bench as the rest of the set, and the dungeon and boss sets drop theirs alongside their other pieces.

The Lands from 60 to 74

• Thirteen new creatures fill Skyreach, the Veilspire, the Frostmarch, the far side of Hollow Barrow and the Sunscar glass, from cliff gryphons and crag hurlers to veil hunters and spire constructs.
• Gryphons, duskmanes, bellmetal wardens, sunglass beetles, veil hunters and spire constructs each have a body of their own, and the new ores, trees, plants and gem outcrops each have their own look.
• Keeper Isolde Varr keeps a new Bounty ledger at the Veilspire Observatory from Bounty 65. Brother Anselm at Windbell Abbey now hands out contracts up to level 70, and Maeve Corrow at Lastlamp still covers everything from 72 up.
• The Fallen Dome Run is a new agility course for level 70.
• The deepest parts of the Thornwood and the other thick woods are a little thinner. The trees along roads, paths, camps and clearings are just as they were.
• The higher a resource's tier, the further it sits from the nearest bank: from 150 m at level 20 up to 400 m for veilsilver and aether. Where monsters of its level stand guard, it can sit closer.
• Ironbark and veilwood logs burn longest of all on a campfire.
• New fishing spots: Emberscale Char in the warm pools of the high lands (Fishing 65, with a rod) and Veilfin Tuna off the cold coasts (Fishing 70, with a harpoon).

Cooking and Potions

• Simmer cheap fish into fish stock and steep herbs into a herbal base, the staples of the new dishes and potions.
• New dishes for levels 60 to 74, and two feasts that make four plates at once, so one cook can feed a whole group.
• Weapon oils (Cinderglow and Veilsheen) strengthen your style of fighting for 15 minutes.
• The Mighty Health Potion fills the gap between Superior and Grand, and the Veilglass Tonic restores focus and stamina together.

Enchanting and Jewelcrafting, Reborn

• Enchanting now runs from 1 to 99. Press faint runes from whisper dust, inscribe runes from cut gems, and write Whisper scrolls for every tier, four at a time. Shatter a Scroll shard into runes of the grade you need.
• Read a Whisper scroll over a crafted piece to enchant it with its Whisper. Tool scrolls make a gathering tool bring in a little extra.
• Enchant your gear at an enchanting altar and set gems at a jeweller's bench, in the new last tab of the crafting window. Pick a piece, pick a scroll or gem, and see what changes and what it costs before you commit. The list shows only what fits the piece, one row per Whisper or gem with its grades side by side.
• Click or tap a scroll or gem in your satchel to pick the piece it goes on. You see only the gear it fits, what each would gain and what it costs, and away from the station it tells you where to go.
• Whisper scrolls, tool scrolls and gems show what they do on their cards: the stats they give on each kind of gear, which tiers they fit and where to use them. Hold Shift to see the exact effect on the gear you're wearing.
• Upgrade an enchanted or socketed piece to its next +1, +2 or +3 and it keeps its Whisper, its gems and its maker's mark, with their stats rising to match the stronger piece. A new socket from the upgrade starts empty.
• Jewellers grind a focus orb for every tier from a bar and two cut gems, and casters out in the world sometimes drop the orb of their lands.
• Bind a Bound Torch from level 1 and light a Whisperlit Lantern from level 8. Both burn far longer than the plain ones.
• Jewelcrafting now runs from 1 to 99 too. Shape rings, amulets and circlets of every metal, each with a socket for a gem, and polish them up to +3.
• Every gem can be cut from Jewelcrafting 1. Fuse three into a fine, flawless or perfect stone at 40, 60 and 80.
• Gem outcrops now dot the early lands, and deep gem seams that give two or three stones a hit sit in the high regions from Mining 40. The old gem rocks all stay where they were, with the outcrops beside them.
• Crafted gear takes enchants and gems. Gear from monsters and dungeons takes them once a crafter has reworked it.
• Tamsin in Hearthmoor has a new short quest, A Word in Stone, that shows you how it all fits together.
• Enchanted pieces you already own keep their enchant and their stats.
• Jewellery now needs a level in your highest combat skill to wear. The old gem rings, amulets and circlets keep their stats but are no longer made. Any you are wearing below their new level move safely to your bank.

A Steadier Climb

• Every skill now levels on a new curve built around time played, so each level takes a fair, steady amount of effort all the way to 99.
• You keep every level and your progress toward the next one. Only the xp numbers change.
• Gathering pays less xp per action than before and crafting pays more, so both take about the same time per level.
• Vitality keeps pace with whichever style you fight in.
• Fletching the new bows pays more xp at each tier than the one below.

Modded Items

• Enchanted and socketed items now work everywhere: you can wear them, bank them, trade them, use them as tools and list them on the market, where they sit under their plain item.
• Shops buy a modded item at its plain value, and quests take your plain copies first.
• Item cards show each enchant, gem and empty socket, an enchanted tool's extra yield, and a jewellery level you haven't reached yet in red.
• Bank notes for several enchanted items keep their full count. Redeem them at a bank, one piece per slot.
• The crafting window's tier rail fits all the new tiers and keeps the one you picked in view.