Massively^™

If you're anything like most members of Tabula Rasa's Spy class, you were first intrigued by 2 things: the chance to scare noobs in Alia Das disguised as a Thrax, and the immense power of the blade. Seriously, does it get any better than that? In a recent announcement for patch 1.7, we're informed of a reduction in the blade's damage coming soon. It was inevitable that this would happen, as it is general knowledge that the blade is extremely overpowered. It is also inevitable that many people who play the spy would get upset about this change.

Fortunately, the good folks at Destination Games have offset the cons with some pros. For one, we have the wonderful new changes to most of the Spy's best abilities, as well as complete revamps of old, under-used abilities. Cloak Wave will now... well, it will now work. This includes the intriguing concept of the spy's entire squad actually being invisible to other players when in a PvP situation.

So will a high percentage of spies completely ignore the ability buffs and concentrate on the blade's damage reduction on this upcoming patch? Yes, probably, but not this spy. I look forward to the class being more about real stealth and strategy, and much less about hack and slash.

We're pleased to report that this week's Tabula Rasa Feedback Friday is uncharacteristically juicy. The decision was made in the Classes and Combat teams that Rangers and Spies needed a serious looking at in patch 1.7. Their logic was that the two Ranger classes, Spies and Snipers, are too narrowly restricted by their class-defining weapons. Snipers have been struggling with this recently with the changes to Torqueshell rifles. And while Spies have been anything but hindered by their spectacular Blade damage, their effectiveness discourages Spies from trying different tactics.

Among the changes that will be heralded in patch 1.7 (it's worth reiterating here that patch 1.6 is still in testing and has no confirmed release date) is a new ability called Fire Support, which will take the place of Carpet Bombs in the Ranger repertoire. It's different effects at different ranks should give it increased utility for single-target DPS. Another ability with the potential to be quite cool is Tactical Evasion, which, at pump 5, would give the Ranger player the ability to set up a temporary beacon that you will teleport back to after a given amount of time. It sounds like a near way to rush into a crowded area, take out an important target, and get away quickly. To check out the full range of changes, make sure to check it out on the official site.

If ever we wondered whether the Tabula Rasa dev team employed a staggered development schedule (and we have), I think we can finally put that question to rest. No sooner do we get our hands on the patch notes for patch 1.6 then we find out that many of the changes for patch 1.7 are already sketched out. The Alphas over at Tabula Rasa Vault recently took a number of community concerns to the developers and published the findings in a Q&A format. Much to our surprise, these include several things that are scheduled to be included in patch 1.7. We're all about aggressive content development schedules, but we're hoping they remember what happened the last time they pushed a patch out the door without letting it simmer in test for long enough.

In any case, some of the fixes coming in patch 1.7 include a fix to Controlled Fission in PvP, some tweaks to the UI to encourage more player interaction, a nerf to some high level abuse of the Medic's Reconstruction ability, and the addition of repair tools (which are now affected by item rarity) to the loot drop tables. One last juicy detail was the development team is currently working on overhauling the ailing crafting system, but the timetable for release is slotted for a nebulous "future patch."