Age of Conan patch notes for June 26th

The patch notes for today's Age of Conan update are now available, and a few of the fixes that we've seen talked about in recent times have made it in. There's nothing significantly game changing unless you're a Necromancer, or are waiting to get into Alchemy (and it's not the big PvP patch unfortunately) but Funcom's to-do list is now a little shorter. There's also an interesting tidbit about level 70+ solo mobs being "more of a challenge" -- something we'll need to investigate. Here's a rundown of some of the bigger updates:

• Some of the Necromancer buffs we looked at earlier have been implemented.

• Changes to Active Blocking: it now has an initial stamina cost, will give a shielding bonus instead of evade chance, and causes a buff icon to be displayed when used.

• Melee pets will do splash damage.

• The Black Castle zone in Khopshef Province has been completely redone, and groups around level 30-35 are encouraged to check it out.

• Solo monsters, minibosses and bosses have been made more challenging for level 70 and up. This does not affect group and raid monsters.

• You can cast certain spells while mounted again.

• Alchemists will no longer crash when opening their books, and the previously discussed solutions for this tradeskill's component issues have been implemented.