A note on what's next: The next major update will take a bit more time than usual, and is roughly planned for the end of November or the start of December. It will be content heavy and bring new areas, including a new level 30 to 40 zone. A lot of work will also go into optimization, and that needs time to test and fine-tune properly before it's ready.
Summary of this update: A new playable class arrives: the Hunter, who fights with bows and crossbows, switches to melee up close, and can tame a beast to fight alongside them. Weapons get a big overhaul, with a new Ranged slot, two-handed swords, axes and maces, auto attacks that now come from the weapon you're holding, and about 25 new weapons. Two new questing areas also arrive: the Veilpiercer Staging Grounds, with a 10-quest story against the Vehlari demons of Korr'Vael Hold, and The Grey Harvest, a new six-quest chain in Oakenvale. On top of that, Adventurer's Supply Packs now draw from world loot, the Dungeon Finder gets a queue icon and smarter tank recruitment, crafting uses your cast bar, window positions are remembered between sessions, and there's a new Field of View slider, along with major performance improvements and a range of fixes.
New Class: The Hunter
Available to Humans, Dwarves and Orcs.
Shoots with a bow or crossbow from up to 25 m, and switches to a melee weapon on its own when enemies get close. Melee options are one-handed swords, axes, daggers and fist weapons, or a two-handed sword or axe. Hunters can dual wield.
Uses Agility and cooldowns, like the other classes.
Three specializations, plus a Heroic Ascension tree:
Packwarden: tame a beast and fight together (Pack Command, Pinning Pounce, Pack Surge, Heart of the Pack).
Longsight: marksman (Drawn Shot, Threefold Flight, Farline Lance, Arrowfall, Kill Shot, Chimera Lance).
Trailcraft: melee skirmisher and trapper (Raptor Strike, Mongoose Bite, traps, Feign Death, Wyvern Sting, Fury of the Eagle).
Free talents (0 points): Tame Beast and the beast commands (Call, Dismiss, Revive, Mend and Release Beast) in Packwarden, and Breaking Step (a leap of about 10 m backwards) in Trailcraft.
Beasts: tame a wild beast of your level or lower. It bites, can taunt enemies off you, grows stronger with your ranged weapon and levels up with you.
Starting kit: leather armor, a hunting knife, the Ashwood Trailbow and the Ironleaf Crossbow.
Weapons
New Ranged weapon slot
Your character now has three weapon slots: Main Hand, Off Hand and Ranged.
Bows and crossbows go in the Ranged slot (Hunters only for now). New weapon skill: Crossbows.
Two-handed swords, axes and maces
Two-handed swords and axes can be used by Shieldmasters and Hunters. Two-handed maces can be used by Shieldmasters and Druids.
Two-handers are held in both hands in combat and carried diagonally on your back otherwise, with new animations for every race.
If an off-hand item no longer fits next to a two-hander, it is moved to your bags when you log in.
Auto attacks now come from your weapon
Melee weapons swing, staffs fire bolts, and bows and crossbows shoot.
A staff with an element fires that element. A plain staff fires your class element: Fire for Wizards, Shadow for Necromancers and Nature for Druids.
Battle-mage weapons (Intellect swords and the new Druid mauls) strike in melee but deal magic damage of their element. Their damage grows with Intellect, and they cannot be dodged, parried or blocked.
With no weapon equipped, every class punches.
Your class's auto-attack talents keep working whatever weapon you hold. Druid forms are unchanged.
Slow weapons (two-handers, bows and crossbows) get more from your main stat per hit, so they keep up with faster weapons.
New tooltip line showing damage, damage type and whether the weapon is melee or ranged, for example "13 - 22 Slashing Damage (Melee)" or "42 - 70 Fire Damage (Ranged)", with speed and damage per second below.
New and reworked weapons
About 25 new weapons for levels 1 to 30: bows, crossbows, and two-handed swords, axes and maces, including Agility two-handers for Hunters and two Intellect mauls for Druids. Find them as world drops, at the Apprentice melee weapons merchant, as quest rewards ("Explosive Escape", "The Thing That Drinks the Song" and "Still the Sporelord"), and the Veilpiercer Longbow from Vaelgorath, the Rift-Warden.
Reworked weapons:
Crystalfused Greatsword, Felglass Greatsword and Forsworn Warmaul (now a two-handed mace).
Goblin Slayer, Crystal Axe and Pyrestone Splitter are now two-handed axes.
The Hunter bows and crossbows have new stats, models and icons.
New Content
Veilpiercer Staging Grounds
Level range 15 to 30. Enemies scale to your level within that range.
The White Crucible has raised its banners beneath the old cathedral in the south to hold back the Vehlari demons pouring out of Korr'Vael Hold.
Getting there: speak with Knight-Recruiter Aveline Harte at the Oakenvale crossroads. She sends you on "Call of the Crucible".
10 new quests: the six-part story chain The Siege of Korr'Vael, which ends at the rift with Warmaster Zhar'goth; the two-part side chain Light of the Crucible; and two standalone quests, including a delivery back to Oakenvale.
New quest givers at the camp: Marshal Oswin Harrowmere, Scout-Captain Renna Voss, Sister Maelis Dawnvale, Ser Gideon Ashcroft and Supply Sergeant Hamm Ironkettle. High Priestess Velyra in the cathedral can now be spoken to.
Finale reward: your choice of two Rare level 20 rings, the Signet of the White Crucible (Strength) or Veilpiercer's Seal (Intellect).
The Grey Harvest (Oakenvale)
Level range 15 to 30. Enemies scale to your level within that range.
Farmer Edwin Bramblefurrow's story continues. Once you've finished "Purge the Plagued Field" and "Cleansing the Crop", a new six-quest chain uncovers why Oakenvale's grain went bad, and what it is doing to the people of Coalway Woods.
Follow the trail from the old silo to the Oakenvale cemetery, the fever-stricken village of Ashway and beyond, and confront the one the cult calls the Grey Harvester.
New characters: Dorna Quernhammer, Oakenvale's dwarf miller; Ugrak Gravehand, keeper of the Oakenvale cemetery; Healer Maren Holloway in Ashway; and a frightened young man named Tobin.
New enemies: the Pallbearers of Morrigath cult now fields Acolytes, Gravediggers, Bonegrinders and Grave-callers, and the dead of Ashway rise as Fever-Risen Villagers. Morrigath cultists anywhere, including Coalway Swamp, count toward the chain's Pallbearer objectives.
Rewards and Loot
Adventurer's Supply Packs now contain 1 item, with a 20% chance of a second, different item. About half of the items now come from world loot: gear that fits your class's armor and main stat, or gems and recipes, never more than 2 levels above you. The rest is your class's gear, gold and supplies, as before.
A pack you opened before this update but haven't emptied keeps its original contents.
Quests now pay the gold amount shown in the quest window. Characters above level 20 previously received less gold than shown.
Enchanting gear or socketing a gem into gear you're wearing now updates your stats immediately.
Item names in the loot window are now colored by rarity.
Adventurers
Adventurers now follow the same weapon rules as you and stay about as strong as before.
15 Hunter adventurers (Marksmen and Survivalists, without beasts) arrive in the world over time.
Adventurers can now get bows, crossbows and two-handers. Damage-dealing Shieldmasters may switch to a two-hander.
Dungeon Finder
While you're queued, a Dungeon Finder icon now appears on your buff bar. Hover over it to see the queue type, your time in queue, how many group members have been found (x/5), and each seat's role with the member's name or "Searching...".
Sounds now play when you join the queue and when your group is ready.
Your role now defaults to DPS, and each character remembers the role you last picked.
Hunters queue as damage dealers only.
Adventurer tanks recruited by the Dungeon Finder now also need gear suited to the dungeon's level, not just the right character level. If no tank qualifies yet, the finder says it is waiting for a geared tank and shows the average item power needed.
Adventurer tanks now favor Stamina, Defense, avoidance and Armor when choosing gear, and may roll Need on such items in your group.
Three adventurer tanks now wear stronger tank sets: Agra Emberhide (level 10), Brielle Dawnfield (level 20) and Eldeth Goldvein (level 30). These sets are adventurer-only.
The mail and Dungeon Finder icons now use the same tooltip style as buffs.
Classes and Combat
Mounts: using any ability other than a mount while mounted now dismounts you, and the ability goes off. Previously, many abilities, including Shieldmaster and Wizard ones, could be used without dismounting. NPCs casting the same abilities never dismount you. Mounting up now stops auto-attack.
Necromancer: Summon Skeleton, Skeleton Pyromancer and Pestilent Globule no longer expire after 5 minutes. Right-clicking the pet's buff to remove it now also dismisses the pet. Skeleton Pyromancer now shows as a buff instead of a debuff.
Druid, Quickening: the heal-over-time effect on your target is now consumed when the 4-second cast finishes, not when it starts. If the cast is interrupted or cancelled, the effect stays. If the effect runs out or is dispelled during the cast, Quickening fails.
Crafting
Crafting now uses your normal cast bar, showing the recipe's name and icon, instead of a progress bar in the crafting window. When crafting several at once, the cast bar shows how many are left.
Like other casts, crafting is now interrupted by moving, jumping, starting another cast or dying. This also cancels the remaining crafts in the queue. Materials are only used when a craft finishes.
Interface
Window positions and sizes are now remembered between sessions. Settings > Reset User Interface returns them to their defaults.
New Field of View slider under Settings > Controls (50 to 90, default 80).
Loot All and Auto Loot now move items into your bags one at a time, each sliding out of the loot window. With Auto Loot on, the window stays open for a moment so you can see what dropped. Items that don't fit stay in the window.
Right-click an item in a merchant's list to buy it. This also works on the buyback tab. The buy and sell cursor now shows reliably.
Lifesteal, Nature Damage and Arcane Damage are now listed in your character stats, with tooltips. They also show when you inspect an NPC.
Quest icons on the world map now shrink with the map when you zoom out, but never below half size.
The mailbox now shows the "press key to interact" prompt like other objects, and tells you when you're too far away.
Toolbar button tooltips and the new-mail tooltip are now translated.
World
Flight paths can now be taken while mounted or shapeshifted. You're dismounted or returned to your normal form before the flight.
During Lirael Nightshade's quests, Lirael now only joins you inside Coalway Swamp and leaves when you exit the swamp.
Sound effects for doors, chests, picking plants, explosions, golem attacks, molten pillars, plasma impacts and slash hits, along with random ambient sounds, now fade with distance instead of playing at full volume everywhere.
Performance
Characters off-screen no longer animate. In a busy part of Coalway Swamp, this cut character animation time by about a quarter and character mesh updates by about a third.
Fewer far-away NPCs are kept active. Most NPCs now appear when you come a bit closer. Patrols are unchanged, and adventurer groups appear a little closer than before.
World streaming, distance culling, clickable objects, nameplates, quest checks and enemy pathfinding all run more efficiently.
Less stutter: small interface changes, like a ticking cooldown, no longer rebuild the whole interface, and closed windows are no longer drawn in the background.
Map and loading-screen images are now compressed and use far less video memory.
Adventurers now arrive in a zone one at a time instead of in bursts, avoiding hitches when you enter an area.
Bug Fixes
Tutorial cave: Druids no longer drop out of their forms while Darian follows.
Skipping the tutorial now takes you to Aradia's camp in Coalway Swamp instead of Coalway Woods.
Damage and healing over time: refreshing an effect before its next tick no longer stops it from ticking. Effects kept up by refreshing now tick at their normal rate.
Dead enemies no longer turn their heads to follow you.
Tooltip fixes: percentage heals show their percentage, crowd-control lines and damage types are translated, and default effects are no longer labeled "Talent:".