1) I would also like to add onto what Eric has said here. I too have noticed that when you critical against a companion that has a valor armor on them that bladestorm doesn't activate unless your critical breaks the valor's armor beforehand.

Another unusual interaction that happens with valor's armor as of lately is that if you are hidden and attack a companion with valor's armor that sometimes your hidden will remain even after the attack. This happens when your attack does not do enough damage to break to the valor's armor. My guess is that the game assumes since you did no damage that turn that your hidden should remain, even though you did perform an attack. Interested to know if this is intended or not.

2) As for the boxes, I just came from testing this out and it seems Eric is correct. Prior to the latest update, you could target boxes with poison and other AoE abilities which allowed a players to be able to hit hidden units with AoE abilities as long as they stood next to boxes. It seems this is no longer the case. You can still hit them with ranged AoE abilities, but not with melee AoE abilities like Poison, Dance of Steel or even Goronado's Guerrilla Warfare.

On top of that it seems that as soon as you discard any power from your hand that you become unable to target any box across the whole map with any melee or ranged single target attack. This makes me think that this is most likely a bug since it wouldn't make sense for you to be able to target the boxes at the start of a turn with a basic attack but then be unable to hit them after discarding any power from your hand.

Eric Stormbringer on Nov 16, 2014 wrote:

Howdy Ratbeard I was just in a PvP match where I noticed a few unusual things

1)Bladestorm not activating after a critical- My el toro performed a mega hit against an opponents nausica. However he did not trigger bladestorm despite not activating bladestorm that round. My opponent stated that bladestorm does not seem to activate against units with valors armor on them. Is that intentional or a bug?

2)Can't target boxes- My second point comes when I was trying to poison a hidden unit that was adjacent to a box. However upon attempting to poison the box, my round was skipped. I then tried to target the same unit by attacking an adjacent box with dance of steel and once again could not. I then tried to target the box with a basic melee attack and noticed I could not. Are these changes intentional or a bug?

Bladestorm does not seem to activate against units with valors armor on them. Is that intentional or a bug?

If you are hidden and attack a companion with valor's armor, sometimes your hidden will remain even after the attack.

That's intentional. An attack that does no damage won't trigger abilities that are listening for "On Damage."

Upon attempting to poison the box, my round was skipped.

That is intentional (you should not be able to target objects as a workaround to target hidden units) but it is not intentional that your round is skipped. I'll take a look at the targeting logic and see if we can improve it. You should be able to target objects with a basic melee attack. That's odd.

Bladestorm does not activate upon a critical vengeance strike or even when vengeance strike kills my enemies. I noticed this several times throughout several battles and it has remained consistent. Bug or intended?

It's not a bug, but it's also not intended.

We've been making changes to Vengeance Strike to try to wrangle it into the shape we want-- to wit: an asset, not a liability-- and it is... not cooperating. Let us say that Vengeance Strike is operating "as intended" for now, but it will be changing again, at an appropriate time.

reckless benjamin ... on Feb 2, 2015 wrote:

I also have one, quick draw doesnt seem to activate correctly anymore, was wondering if it on purpose.

No, that's a bug-- we're aware of it and will fix it.

Ratbeard on Feb 2, 2015 wrote:

No, that's a bug-- we're aware of it and will fix it.

Well that's a relief I need that in cool ranch :D.

Nice to keep things refined and tuned for PvP, Ratbeard. I still wish to see ranked PvP in P101 so I can do much more there to clash against many Pirates out there, especially the toughest Pirates yet, & receive PvP exclusive rewards.

Ratbeard, I have to say, you really did enjoy our secret boss hunt spectacle I brought up a while ago, & the Primitive Greatsword is quite a unique custom weapon as that boss' unique loot drop. I'll give you credit for that. I used it to try out what that weapon's capabilities are in battles & I have to say, that weapon is quite amazing for it's proper level. Still, only one secret boss in the game? It's a good find, but that's not that too big of a surprise to me. I would have somehow thought that there would be more.

Well, I'm still not sure if the available secret boss in P101 is either Lord Mixcoatl in the Temple of Toloc or the Aztecosaur Blood Lord in the Gold Mine, but I feel like I should find and defeat more secret bosses with unique custom loot drops, Badges by defeating secret bosses & Second Chance Chests placed in for after their defeats.

You know, I can think of a few empty places in previous dungeons that could use a secret boss. I sometimes wonder what could we find in such unexplored hidden places in previous dungeons... such as what's behind these open halls inside The Master's Lair in Skull Cap Cove or a distant unreachable cave in the Valley of the Gold Monkey, a bit past behind the Temple of the Gold Monkey... I would sure like to find secret bosses in these kind of places added in past dungeons, & of course, new dungeons to come, too.

So, I ask you this, Ratbeard, would we be able to see more new secret bosses added to the game sometime soon? I would really like to find and defeat more secret bosses like the one we have.

You know, I enjoyed Wizard101's secret bosses so much, I can't help but to ask for more new secret bosses in Pirate101, even though we have only one right now. I mean, I'm still all for more new main storyline adventures, but I still crave to find more optional secret bosses. I would be very fascinated to see & face a new challenging secret boss added in the Tower of Moo Manchu gauntlet. Wouldn't that be something, eh?

My apologies for this being mostly off-topic. I got a bit excited. Still looking forward to ranked PvP.