As part of the Barbarian Training update we have reworked a number of skill sounds so they are timed more accurately. This means that when you swing your pick to mine, or cast your rod into a Fishing spot, you will hear the sound of the rock being hit exactly when it should happen, these changes may also very slightly reduce lag when you are involved in these skills. The skills with updated sounds are Firemaking, Fletching, Mining, Fishing and Woodcutting.
As a side effect of this, you'll notice that the Mining animation has changed. Getting the Mining sounds to match up was a bit of a tough job, so we put some work into the animation to iron out those problems. The result is a really nice bit of work from the Graphics team that should make Mining a bit more enjoyable.
In other news...
We've fixed a bug that was stopping the dragonfire shield from performing its special attack while you were autocasting spells. As a bonus, these shields can now be charged by the breath attack of skeletal wyverns.
The wyverns themselves have had a very old bug fixed that was allowing the Protect from Melee prayer to block damage from their ice breath. The ice breath isn't melee, so that prayer was never meant to have any effect on it. The wyverns' attacks are now as follows:
- Bite / Tail-lash - These are simple melee attacks. Their damage may be blocked completely by the Protect from Melee prayer.
- Ice Breath - This is an incredibly powerful middle-range attack. Its damage may be substantially reduced if you are wielding an elemental shield, elemental mind shield or dragonfire shield (because the dragonfire shield is now recharged by the breath), but NOT the anti-dragonbreath shield. If you didn't have an appropriate shield, the Protect from Magic prayer will also reduce the damage, although it is not as effective. The ice breath also has a chance of freezing you so that you cannot walk for a while.
- Iceball - This is a long-range attack. Its damage is prevented by the Protect from Missiles prayer.
Although Charlie the Tramp is described as a red-haired tramp in the Shield of Arrav quest, he's actually had grey hair ever since the Varrock update! The barber has now been brought in to work his magic, and Charlie is ginger once more.
Finally, we've fixed the bug that a few of you spotted that was causing the Blast Furnace pump to turn up in random events!