Chain Trials, three new bosses, and the raid board rebalanced

A full day of raid work and four player reports, one patch. Update your addons through the launcher; the server side is live now.

Chain Trials: the whole ladder in one arena

Too much of a raid evening was spent loading in and out of zones between bosses. A chain trial fixes that. Press the new Chain Trial button under the difficulty ladder (or type !raid enter tidebound chain, with any trial's word in place of tidebound) and the run starts exactly as Easy does -- but when the Easy boss falls the run does not end. You are paid for that rung at the kill, exactly as a single trial pays: the base, the repeat ladder, the first-of-the-day bonus, the element day and the variety chain all apply rung by rung. Whatever the rung left standing is swept, fifteen minutes are added to the clock, and the next difficulty's boss spawns on the same spot. The run is won when the fight's highest rung falls: Savage, or Promyvion on a Chains of Promathia trial when everyone in the party has finished the story. A party with someone short of that chains to Savage and is told so at the door. Every boss on the board chains, the splitting Maelstrom Sovereign included.

Three new bosses, and the Fell Shadow Lord lands

The roster is eighteen trials across thirteen venues now, and under the base item level every element on the wheel has a boss.

• The Fell Shadow Lord, announced last patch, is live in the Throne Room: the siphon on a clock, at every quarter of his health, and on his blade.
• The Moonlit Carbuncle waits at Full Moon Fountain, the light trial. On a clock his ruby glows, and five seconds later he heals himself with his own Healing Ruby unless he is stunned or asleep at that moment, in which case it gutters and heals nothing. Every quarter of his health drops a Meteorite, half health throws Banishga, and his body shrugs off light -- bring dark and steel, and a stun for the ruby.
• The Verglas Shiva waits in the Cloister of Frost, the second ice trial. Her aura is ice spikes that bite harder the more you hit her and can paralyze the swing that lands. On a clock the cold takes the whole arena -- everyone, wherever they stand, is paralyzed for thirty seconds. A Bar-spell up at the beat halves it, Paralyna clears it, and a stun on her at the beat shatters it outright. Every quarter of her health drops Diamond Dust.
• The Keraunos Ramuh waits in the Cloister of Storms, the lightning trial. His aura is shock spikes that stun the hand that hits him. On a clock the judgment falls on the whole arena for a share of everyone's maximum HP -- over half of it at Savage -- and it can kill. Barthunder up at the beat halves it; a stun on him at the beat grounds it. Every quarter of his health drops Judgment Bolt.

The board rebalanced

Every fight was measured on the same scale and the floor was raised: the Tidebound Colossus, the Gravegaze Medusa, the Cragmaw Basilisk and the Avalanche Tzar now weigh what the middle of the roster weighs, and the Tzar's fuse finally bites -- 300, 240, 180 and 120 seconds by tier, ninety at Promyvion. The wind pair stays the strongest on the board by design. Two Fell Shadow Lord bugs from launch are fixed: an Implosion owed while he was mid-cast was lost for good, and a long buff-up let his first pulse land unwarned. His siphon now reaches the whole arena, and a rounding slip that shaved a point off several bosses' defense at every rung is gone.

Three new leaderboards

By request: Highest Chocobo Digging Skill, Most Drift Coins Earned and Most Driftmarks Earned. The two currency boards count what an account earned -- refunds, GM gifts and coins bought with gil do not count -- and credit it to the account's most-played character.

Blue magic, three times as fast

Every eligible kill now rolls three times the stock chance to learn the spell, so the base roll is all but certain and any learning gear makes it so.

Player reports

• Gambit share codes now carry the bard rows' Sings to and Seconds left cells, so an imported bard sheet arrives intact instead of reset.
• A squad summoner resummons on its own recast instead of waiting thirty seconds, and two summoners no longer take turns calling their avatars.
• Haste II was measured and is correct: it replaces Haste at thirty percent and never stacks. A party at every haste cap does swing faster than Hundred Fists, and that is how the game is built.
• The DWPolitics Elections tab no longer closes the window when opened.

Launcher 0.35.0

The controller editor can now bind Target Nearby NPC, along with Jump, Map and Shut Down. The retail pad tool always had those slots; the launcher's table did not.