Shattered Kingdoms

It's true that finding the "correct" starting items will be more important now. You cannot start over or "reforge" as it was said. However, that was already the case previously, as clearing an item of innates meant that the item's usable potential was reduced. So I believe these changes make only a small difference in maximum power level of worn gear.

Now that upper end equipment has largely been refactored, this should not be a huge issue. But if you find equipment that you think missed re-evaluation and/or should be reconsidered, please do typo log it.

There will be more of a reduced power level in the area of weapon bonuses. But that's also intentional as we wanted to try to do some things to improve tanking and slow combat.

Because of the way the ceiling for bonuses has changed, I believe that enchanters will quickly gain a feel for what they can do and can't do, and have little need to try to "push the envelope" and thereby blow things up nearly as often as they used to.

You could improve tanking by reversing a change that made prone knock people out of stances. Problem solved.

Hedgehog stance is not good enough to merit that change.

Still waiting for the answer if an item is 'faded' if it resets only the innates or does it keep the alignment restricted items, alignment restricted?

Yes, as per Meissa's quote, I think you must have missed my first reply. But to be even more clear, "fading" an item now resets it to exactly the way it was when you got it off the original NPC.

Sorry, somehow missed that, thanks!

There are more things in the works associated with prone for the next update. There are a lot of things in the works actually, but I wanted to get this set out before I leave for vacation.

I have only one qualm about this statement. This is a blanket 'debuff' to weaponry. However, the only weapons to date that are guilty of making tanking incredibly difficult and making combat end lightning fast are massive polearms.
Admittedly I have yet to test, but I would hypothesize that those massive weapons will be even more depended on due to this blanket reduction to weapon's enchant capacity.

Not necessarily.

This ties in nicely with my original post about the update, with the impact being dependent upon builders and how they choose to itemize or provision the innate enhancements on weapons. For instance, if we assume that each weapon is given a budget of innate enhancements based on the item's level - it stands to reason that budget can be used in a way that makes the weapon more powerful or less powerful relative to other weapons of the same sub type and other sub types.

An inefficient use of the budget, for example, would be an innate enhancement to speed on a fast weapon, like a rapier, or an innate enhancement to damage on a slow, high damage weapon, like a glaive or halberd. Conversely, an effecient use of the weapon's budget could make it relatively more powerful: a slow, two-handed weapon with innate speed enhancement or a flail with innate accuracy enhancement.

The power of weapons going forward will not only be relative to other sub types, but also to other weapons of the same sub type depending on material type and how the builder chooses to use the item's budget for innate enhancements. You are now at the mercy of builders because you can no longer customize a weapon by removing a sub optimal innate enhancement (i.e. fading).

- Updated taunt to include similar costs as heckle

This may be a dumb question because im running on minimal sleep atm.

I assume this means that taunt has PE or mana costs now and that it does not grant an accuracy debuff like heckle?