I thought I would take a moment this week to briefly speak about recent changes to the Bureaucrat profession.
First off: Yes, the stun procs have been "nerfed".
They will now function as non-removable roots and their durations have been adjusted down to make sense with the fast pace of AO pvp...and return some of the challenge to AO pvm.
The power of the stuns in pvp was removing the fun for others and was handcuffing us in respect to being able to update/upgrade other areas that needed improvement in the Crat toolset. The change of the stuns to roots has allowed us to add more damage to Crat accessible perk lines and make pistols a more attractive choice for the profession. With respect to the change from stun to root...this is going to remain a powerfull tool when we follow this up in "Coming Soon" updates to all pets for all professions to make them more in line with the defensive abilities currently enjoyed by players. Not being able to run away from the pets of the near future is going to be very significant. Accompanying changes to the nano-damage boost procs will also help in making Crats remain a powerfull force in PVP...but require more reactive play from the Crat themself.
With respect to PVM...having a Crat in the team will still be a very significant advantage with the serious effect the profession's init debuffs have on monster damage. Chain-stunned boss monsters are not fun for anyone...
While I don't expect everyone to be happy with these changes I do hope for understanding in that it really had to be done for the good of the game. Thank-you to all the reasonable Bureacrats who helped us work through these issues. More significant pvp/pvm changes will be incoming in the near future that will hopefully get us to where AO really deserves to be.
We are currently working to get a new version on Test dimension this evening. This version will require you to re-duplicate your live clients to patch to Test as there were significant issues with the Database conversion (in rare cases) that we want to be certain of eliminating before taking this update to Live. Thank you for your understanding and help in getting this tested right.
I'll be in Stockholm for the weekend (at least when I am not in the car on the way there and back with my wife, 2 kids, and a large dog.) if I survive I will be back on Tuesday. If I'm not back on Tuesday...go on without me.
Have a great weekend everyone!