My thoughts on the Sentinel's Fate expansion pack and the update to the game that went alongside it...

I haven't had much time to play around with it; but from what I've experienced so far, it's really good.

They have made some rather large changes to the very core of the game - they changed what the stats do for each class. So now, as a Warden for example, you no longer need Strength to determine how much melee damage you do, and Wisdom for maximum power, and Intelligence for spell damage. Now, you just need Wisdom.

They have consolidated the stats, basically. So, as a Fighter class, you just need Strength to determine how much damage you do (whether it be spells or melee), maximum power, weight you can carry etc. As a Scout, you just need Agility (this is good for Stubble as he was heavily Agility specced and now does MORE damage than before). As a Mage you just need Intelligence, and as a Priest you need Wisdom only.

They have also consolidated melee crit chance, ranged crit chance, spell crit chance and heal crit chance in to one stat called just crit chance. Double attack has also been consolidated, so melee double attack and ranged double attack become one stat. AA lines that improved your melee critical chance now increase your base melee damage. For instance, one of the Warden lines ended in a permanent 75% melee critical chance. This has been changed to a 30% boost in melee damage overall, which works out better especially given the amount of critical mitigation mobs have (and other people in PvP).

There is a new stat called Potency which increases the power of all other abilities directly.

There are some new overland zones, and 50 new dungeons. Of which none I have explored. I swear... I must be the only player...

... To be exploring the new Golden Path...

The Golden Path was made to improve the leveling experience from Level 1 right through to Level 90 (increased from Level 80). The Golden Path is basically a streamlined quest series that smoothly leads the character through various zones. For instance, from Greater Faydark, Darklight Woods, or Timorous Deep to Butcherblock Mountains, Kaladim, Steamfont Mountains, etc... New quest lines have been added in each of these zones. Loads of new named creatures (Stubble gained 2 alternate advancement points from 150 to 152 just killing new named creatures in Sinking Sands) and lots more new loot...

Since this new update, rare name spawns seem to appear more frequently. This is really nice especially when you're waiting for something to respawn in 10 minutes instead of 10 hours.

But I have a worry...

Everything seems INCREDIBLY easy all of a sudden. Maybe it's just me and my hardcore character spec, full masters etc., but all the ^^^ heroics have mostly been downgraded to ^^ heroics or even ^ non-heroic. For instance, Broog the Banished, over the series of about 3 updates, went from a ^^^ Epic x2, to a ^^^, to a ^^ and now he's just a single ^ with no heroic moniker. Meathooks is still a ^^^ heroic (down from an Epic x3 a few updates back...) and he's still reasonably tough, but still downable without the loss of a single HP.

It's very good for power leveling, but I hate leveling.

If any of you want to join me and experience the new update, I have many, many toons that I would love to join you with...

1st account:
Faeward - Level 80 Warden (Qeynos)
Stubble - Level 75 Brigand (Qeynos)
Mezi - Level 56 Illusionist (Qeynos)
Virge - Level 24 Dirge (Qeynos)
Dvyne - Level 16 Templar (Qeynos)
Bigpox - Level 11 Paladin (Qeynos)

2nd account:
Jyzz - Level 58 Dirge (Qeynos)
Vajena - Level 23 Troubador (Qeynos)
Vinegar - Level 17 Coercer (Qeynos)
Mylk - Level 12 Wizard (Exile)
Trubbles - Level 11 Warlock (Freeport)

I can join you with one from the first account and another from the second account at the same time (second account toons are buff bots until Jyzz reaches Stubble).

Oh by the way...

The classes that got nerfed...

• Illusionist (their mythical brings back one third as much power, power regeneration is now worse than a Bard class, they received no DPS boost but their buffs remained the same so they are now a buff bot instead of a high DPS class)

The classes that got the best boost...

• Wizard (they can now ultra one-shot people just in case they couldn't before)
• Warlock (they can infect people and that is awesome)
• Conjuror (most gear available, best AA improvements - getting hit 6 times for 20K damage each time is kind of cool)
• Necromancer (same reason as above)
• Warden (best buff increases, no stuns on temp buffs, changes to AA are awesome but their mythical weapon returns one sixth the power as before but I just found this which sounds awesome)
• Fury (same reason as above except their mythical is still awesome)
• Assassin (they can now bypass stealth requirements increasing their damage by 50%, do the most damage out of any melee class in the game, no class will ever come close)
• Ranger (they can now bypass the range requirement of their mythical, and arrows at level 70 do not stop your mythical from working any more)