Six unique new skills full of abilities, three revamped professions - many are the wonders of Imperian! After several months of intense work, the Bonding revamp is now finished and ready for you to play with.

Thanks go to our hard-working volunteers for their immense help with this project - to Fasler, who has used his considerable coding abilities to get Wyrmriding and Shapeshifting ready, and to our awesome Gods for preparing and running the release event. I'd also like to thank the players who have participated in the beta testing, whose help has been invaluable in balancing, polishing, and preparing the professions for the today's release.

The Druid, Hunter, and Outrider professions have seen the bulk of the changes. The Druid profession now has a 'nature mages' theme, with the new skills of Evocation, Naturebinding, and Pioneering. Evocation allows Druids to evoke the formidable powers of earth and air for a variety of effects, while Naturebinding gives them control of the great trees that have persisted from the days of Naturalism, and to call forth their roots and use them for various purposes. Finally, Pioneering offers a collection of various utility abilities, as well as a significantly altered version of groves.

Hunters remain thematically closer to their origins, with their skills of Shapeshifting, Supremacy, and Pioneering. Despite the thematic similarities, the profession plays very differently than previously, however. Shapeshifting provides the ability to shapeshift into a mighty Wyvern - unlike Bonding, this is an actual shapeshifting, not merely a spiritual bond - while Supremacy allows a shapeshifted Hunter control over the mysterious basilisks. Pioneering is the skill that is shared between the two professions, which means that Hunters now have access to groves as well. Additionally, Hunters no longer wear any armor, relying on their Wyvern skills for protection. Functionally, Hunters saw the biggest change of the professions, and are now primarily an affliction-oriented profession, with several unique concepts in play.

Outriders have gained the skill of Wyrmriding, which allows them to summon and ride an immense icewyrm. This is their primary combat skill, and it contains a lot of the Bonding utility that wasn't already replicated in Trailblazing. The profession also keeps usage of spears and tridents, with a significantly expanded assortment of abilities. Hunting and Trailblazing remain, but several changes have occured:

- Trident/spear skills are now in Wyrmriding, rather than Hunting, and there is a new Axetoss ability

- Most of the animals have been reworked, and each of them now has two different attacks, the stronger of which needs to be actively called with the SURGE ability

- Darts traps have been reworked, they now contain six darts instead of 25 to provide a short-term boost instead of a long-term advantage; existing traps remain as they were

- You can now use SUMMON A B C to summon multiple, or all, animals at once


Other changes had to be done as a part of this transition, these will be detailed in subsequent posts.


Garryn


Penned by My hand on the 7th of Naturalis, in the year 674 AD.