Blue Magic overhaul, 35% gear haste, and a Puppetmaster pass

A big one. Thank you to everyone who sent reports this week; nearly every line below started as one of them.

The short version

• Every Blue Magic spell on the server now casts. Twenty-eight spells that could be learned but never cast, Fantod, Leafstorm, Mortal Ray and Harden Shell among them, now work.
• Venom Shell, Cold Wave, Thermal Pulse, Spinal Cleave and Hysteric Barrage can be learned. Erratic Flutter, Restoral, Rail Cannon and Diffusion Ray are new to the server.
• Gear haste now caps at 35 percent, up from 25, for you and your squad.
• Deploy's recast is 20 percent shorter, automatons skill up at the player's rate, and Animator Z gives its automaton stats.
• Overkill now does what it says: a double or triple shot on every shot.
• Spaekona's Coat returns MP from your nukes again.
• An Unleashed boss can no longer fall before a kill counts, so a fast crowd always gets paid.

Blue Magic

Spells you can finally cast. These were learnable but answered "cannot cast": Acrid Stream, Blazing Bound, Demoralizing Roar, Leafstorm, Vanity Dive, Magic Barrier, Benthic Typhoon, Osmosis, Fantod, Winds of Promyvion, Everyone's Grudge, Reaving Wind, Barrier Tusk, Mortal Ray, Water Bomb, Dark Orb, Vapor Spray, Thunder Breath, Orcish Counterstance and Barbed Crescent, plus all eight Unbridled Learning spells: Thunderbolt, Harden Shell, Absolute Terror, Gates of Hades, Tourbillion, Pyric Bulwark, Bilgestorm and Bloodrake. If you already learned one, it is ready to set now.

Spells you can now learn.

• Venom Shell: the Uragnites of Bibiki Bay.
• Cold Wave: the Snolls of Uleguerand Range and Pso'Xja.
• Thermal Pulse: Wamouras use it in normal combat now.
• Spinal Cleave and Hysteric Barrage: Qutrubs and Lamiae break their weapons again, and a broken weapon is what brings the move out.

New spells. Erratic Flutter (a Haste II on yourself, from the Wamouras of Mount Zhayolm), Restoral (a strong self cure, from the Apex cogs of the Alzadaal Undersea Ruins), Rail Cannon (a light nuke, from the same cogs) and Diffusion Ray (a light cone, from the Chariots in Salvage).

The job abilities work as written.

• Efflux now adds its TP bonus and extra damage to your next physical spell.
• Convergence adds its damage and magic accuracy.
• Burst Affinity bursts on every target of an area spell, not just the first.
• Diffusion gives every party member the full merit duration.
• Unbridled Wisdom lasts its full 60 seconds.
• Magic Barrier, Pyric Bulwark and Fantod behave like their descriptions.

Every one of these is covered by a test that casts all 161 Blue Magic spells through the real game each time we build, so they stay working.

Gear haste: 35 percent

The gear haste cap is now 35 percent, up from 25. That leaves room for a full 25 percent from equipment plus the 10 percent from Ascension's Celerity line. Squad members, hired mercenaries and Battle tab duelists follow the same rule as you. The magic haste cap and the job ability haste cap are unchanged.

Update: the overall delay cap is now 85 percent, up from 80. With enough haste from all sources, your attack round can now drop to 15 percent of your weapon's delay instead of 20. This applies to squad members and mercenaries too.

Puppetmaster

• Deploy comes back after 3 seconds, down from 8.5.
• Automatons skill up at the player's rate. They now get the same catch-up bonus you do, they roll on missed swings and shots like you, and a fight against a weak monster no longer stops their skill-ups early.
• Animator Z (and Neo Animator) now gives your automaton +89 to all seven stats, like the other level 119 animators. Animator Z still needs 50 job points spent on Puppetmaster to equip, as in retail.

Everything else

• Overkill forces a double or triple shot on every ranged attack and halves your ranged delay for its duration.
• Spaekona's Coat refunds 2 percent of your elemental magic damage as MP again. The +4 and Seidr Cotehardie now carry it too.
• Unleashed: for its first 90 seconds awake, the boss takes a tenth of the damage and cannot fall, so a strong group can no longer kill it too soon to be paid. The rally broadcast tells you when it is braced and when it lifts.
• Espers: each paid kill prints a Magicite line in the kind's colour, in the second chat window.
• Crafting: HQ crystals count toward a recipe's crystal.
• Aht Urhgan missions: Confessions of Royalty and The Black Coffin can always be finished, and a failed Shades of Vengeance can be retried.
• Stability: a long list of rare map crashes are fixed, and warehouse pulls into a full bag no longer stall the server.

Addons update through the launcher as usual.