The server will be down briefly tonight for a fast maintenance and to apply the following updates:

BEGINNERS
New players now receive boxes containing full sets of Unique quality armor and weapons at level 40 and level 60.


BATTLE PETS
Jack'o'Lantern
Corrected an issue with pet area of effect skills, like Jack's main attack. He is the first pet to have an area skill and there were some issues that caused the skill to hit friendly players or even yourself, causing you to lose Karma and become PK enabled.

Pet Threat
When monsters are damaged by players, the monster remembers how much damage and any additional threat (from some tank class skills) each of them has done and uses this information to decide who to attack next. Generally, monsters attack the one with the highest threat.

Previously, all damage/threat caused by a pet was transferred to the pet's owner, which is why a monster attacked by your pet would attack you instead of the pet.

Changes
The amount of the pet's threat that is transfered to it's owner has been reduced to 20% of the damage.

Monsters now keep a record of pet damage, just as they do with players, meaning a pet can now tank monsters as long as they do more damage than anyone else that is attacking the monster, and they will be targeted by monsters when they look for a new target if their threat is higher than the player or party members.

There are some caveats:
Some monsters (usually bosses) have skills that are designed to choose a target based on other things. For example, the player with the 2nd highest threat, the player that is furthest away, a random player, the player with the lowest or highest HP, etc. etc. These types of skills will always target a player, not a pet, so the pet will not be able to tank these types of skills.

Other than the tank and healer classes, it's unlikely your pet will be able to maintain higher damage than you, so it's not going to be tanking for long if you are both attacking, unless you have some -Threat stat (Soothing Presence passive skill, Crispy Octopus/Toasted Worm-Worm/Painted Egg food, Gloomy tarot buff, some armor set bonuses, Threat Reset Potion etc. etc.)


DUNGEONS
Catacombs
The General Manu encounter no longer uses the Tainted Air aura.

Hell Mode Dungeons
The bonus that monsters receive to their Attack Speed has been reduced again. The previous reduction was not enough.
The bonus to Hit has been reduced considerably.
The bonus to Evasion has been reduced considerably - you will not need as much Hit as previously.

Laioha Hell Modes
All monsters Max HP and Defense reduced slightly.

Decomus Hell Modes
All monsters Max HP and Defense reduced.

Humbaba, Sharlach, Zaras and Frecky skills that target a random player, the Humbaba and Frecky skills that targets a random player and do damage to anyone standing between them and the target player, and the Gigantes skill that targets the player furthest away, had their damage reduced and now have a fixed amount of Armor Penetration so they will not be affected by the Hell Mode Buff of 10% Armor Penetration per Hell Mode level (50% at Hell Mode 5).


MONSTERS
Namazu
Corrected the Thunder Chunder skill (the one with the red circle that follows you). It was not always doing it's damage and was sometimes causing the game client to crash.




FIGHTER/MERCENARY
Final Promise and Final Flash had their cooldowns reduced but also their durations. This will make the skills more flexible to use.

Final Promise 1/2
Cooldown reduced to 60s (was 180s) and duration to 10s (was 30s).

Final Flash 1/2
Cooldown reduced to 60s (was 180s) and duration to 10s (was 30s).


SOUL BLADER
All Soul Blader characters have had their skills and Skill Points reset.

Some skills have been moved out of the Soul Blade: Assemble tree making them much more flexible and not prone to waste if you were disabled with an Immobilize, Stun, or Skill Paralysis when it was activated. Cooldowns and durations of some of these skills have been changed as they are no longer limited by the cooldown and duration of Assemble. The Assemble skill itself has changed to grant Ignore Defense to all skills that do not have any Ignore Defense on them, so the Soul Blader is not so dependent on getting lucky with Chilled Tempest Penetration's invoked effect.

Several skills that were upgraded versions of the Fighter/Mercenary skills and share cooldowns and buff slots with them have been renamed to reflect that and keep things simple.

The result of these changes is a dramatic increase in sustained damage output due to the improved flexibility of the skills, the additional Armor Penetration, and a reduce Defense skill that is no longer restricted by the Assemble buff - but the class will need to start paying attention to their Hit as they do not get so much of it for free as before.



Focused Attack 3 (was Path of Oblivion)
No longer depends on learning Soul Blade: Assemble.
Now depends on learning Focused Attack 2.

Focused Protection 3 (was Path of Eternity)
No longer depends on learning Soul Blade: Assemble.
Now depends on learning Focused Protection 2.

Final Flash 3 (was Soul Blade: Flash)
Depends on Final Flash 2 and Focused Attack 3 to learn.
No longer depends on or requires Soul Blade: Assemble to be active.
Physical Hit reduced to 15/30% and Attack Speed reduced to 18/20%.
Cooldown increased to 60s.

Final Promise 3 (was Soul Blade: Promise)
Depends on Final Promise 2 and Focused Protection 3 to learn.
No longer depends on or requires Soul Blade: Assemble to be active.

Iron Grip
Now causes Stun for 1/2/3s (was Immobilize).

Ruin (was Soul Blade: Ruin)
No longer depends on or requires Soul Blade: Assemble to be active.
Now depends on learning Tempest Slice 2.
Level requirement increased to 95/100.
Cooldown increased to 15s.
No longer ignores 40% defense.

Soul Blade: Assemble
Now causes all attacks that DO NOT have their own Ignore Defense built into the skill to ignore 40/50/60% defense (like the Berzerker's Destruction skill).
No longer increased Hit.
Cooldown 60/50/40s.
Duration 10s.
Level requirement increased to 80/85/90.

Soul Blade: Omen
Still requires Soul Blade: Assemble to be activated.
Cooldown reduced to 4s so that it can still be used two times every time Assemble is activated.

Soul Blade: Abyss
Still requires Soul Blade: Assemble to be activated.
Cooldown reduced to 4s so that it can still be used two times every time Assemble is activated.
Level requirement increased to 90/95/100.

Soul Blade: Execute
Now depends on learning both ranks of Soul Blade: Abyss.


WARRIOR/BARBARIAN
Final Promise 1/2
Cooldown reduced to 60s (was 180s) and duration to 10s (was 30s).

Final Agression 1/2
Cooldown reduced to 60s (was 180s) and duration to 10s (was 30s).