Anthem Changes — Beyond the Patch
The February 22nd Day 1 Day -1? patch came out yesterday, in advance of the launch for all comers today.
It has a wide array of changes and fixes, with the official list of changes from BioWare here. It seems an incredibly positive list overall, and my experience with it so far would back that up. A PSA though: If you’re using nVidia drivers 418.91 (The latest as of Feb 22nd), this version of Anthem does not like it.
I personally had issues with the game hanging on quit with a black screen until force-terminating the game. Others though have reported jittery framerates and micro-freezes that reverting back to 418.811 seems to resolve.
Besides that, I also found a few changes not in the patch notes! I’m sure there are others, but here are some of the big ones I found not covered in the notes.
Alliance Ranks Provide More Coin
Not an insignificant boost. In the old screenshot one of my friends was at the time Rank 9 (of a possible 10) and was providing 540 coin.
Now you earn more than double that amount from at least Rank 6 upward.
A very positive change, but one I had momentarily thought was in place of what were previously pretty good coin rewards from basically any daily/weekly/monthly challenge available.
Thankfully the missing/reduced coin from these challenges is a bug. Hopefully one we’ll see resolved soon!
Stronghold and Legendary Contract Completion Bonus
Completing a Stronghold or Legendary Contract on Grandmaster 1 or higher difficulty now guarantees a Masterwork (with I assume, chance at a Legendary).
So even if you’re incredibly unlucky during the mission itself and don’t manage to get any MW’s to drop for you — just know one will come in the end.
A positive change and one that should keep people sticking around to the end. :)
Grandmaster XP Buffed
If you made it to Grandmaster difficulty before the patch, you might’ve noticed that the XP gain was tiny compared to what you would get on any other difficulty.
I had wondered if this was perhaps intentional to prevent dragging lower level characters along with you and power leveling them. (No idea if this is viable btw, you can take lower people in with you, but not sure what their XP would be like now.)
Turns out not though, and GM xp has been buffed by a factor of 8-10x.
Ranger’s ‘Pulse Blast’ is Amaaazing now
OK, this one might’ve actually been in the patch notes. But it’s just too good not to mention.
Pulse Blast is an absolute shield destroyer now. Don’t leave Fort Tarsis without one of these in your party for near on instant knockdown of Scouts, Hunters, Elementalists or any other pesky shield-wielder you care to name.
How’s my Build Coming Along?
Alright so not exactly patch related, but the MW drop increase from Grandmaster Strongholds and Legendary Contracts helped… so…
OK, just a tease then. Separate post detailing it all later. But here’s a screenshot showing what I’m wielding at the moment. :)
I can push the gear level up into the ‘Masterwork’ tier, but while (slightly) more survivable, it’s far less damage. So until I can get a good enough component to replace the Epic Armor one, or even better, a Masterwork or Legendary Bulwark Point — I’ll be happy with an Epic Javelin rating. :)
…Although I miiight have pushed myself into Masterwork ranked Javelin and done a mission just to get the achievement. *cough*
