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admcorbin
11-03-2008, 02:10 PM
Interesting dungeon design. Horrid implementation. Basically its almost impossible to finish on normal due to the dragon's less than desirable number of hit points. It forces you to basically make the run on hard so the dragon at least has a chance to have more than 10% by the time you get thru the maze. Secondly, requirements to get the various doors that needs to be opened vary so wildly that its ridiculous. The first time i went through the giant broke through the first door but then on the second door we messed with the giants for 25 minutes before we decided to say screw it and restarted over which then the giants decided that we had to wade through almost 30 minutes of fighting before we said start over. Finally we get through everything and zip thru the maze and when i got in there in advance of everyone else in my group the dragon was down below 15% hit points. Give me a break Dragon fights are supposed to be tough especially an adult dragon. And yes i know white dragons are the runts of dragonkind but she should still be a slight more tougher fight for normal giants. Heck, the white dragon in Reaver is has more hit points and is generally tougher than the dragon in whats supposed to be a more tougher mission?... oh ya and explain to me how if you do manage to get the dragon to survive and you take the kill the dragon mission, she all of a sudden becomes this super wipe the party monster that makes you wonder why she didn't turn the giants she fought into wonderbread the first time around. Sheesh give me a break.

I can see this mission rapidly becoming a "coalescence chamber " mission. One that no one wants to run because of how annoying it is. The events in this mission need to be more consistent and not so wildly variable. It has the earmarks of being a very fun mission because of the elements in the game. You just need to give the PC's a fair shot of actually winning this and not having to rerun the darn thing 5 times because of mission bugs to just even have a very unbalanced shot at things.

admcorbin
11-03-2008, 02:14 PM
I don't have "leet" gear. Hell i just got my first green steel weapon made but not imbued with anything yet.

maddmatt70
11-03-2008, 02:16 PM
I am going to say there should either be armor crafting runes or named items in the dragon chests. After the first time or two people now routinely skip the dragon fight.

ArkoHighStar
11-03-2008, 02:24 PM
I am going to say there should either be armor crafting runes or named items in the dragon chests. After the first time or two people now routinely skip the dragon fight.

agreed 100%, the dragon fight other than entertaining once, is completely pointless.

liamfrancais
11-03-2008, 03:33 PM
I ran it my first time with a really good group of guildies from Lowriders and Neo Skullriders and it was great, as the solo cleric I could have used to stop at the shrine but just kept running and we got through it just fine we did not fight the dragon though so maybe next time. So one more essence and gem and I get to take on the evil lich woot.

akla_thornfist
11-03-2008, 03:39 PM
i remember hearing something about turbine adding some hp to the dragon on normal but i could be mistaken, and with the **** loot in the dragons chest why bother killing them.

Alcides
11-03-2008, 03:51 PM
This quest is next to impossible without a reasonably well geared intimitank. Can be done without one but it's very hard. Flesh to stone is also very handy in this instance. When my guildies decided to take the fight option on Normal it took about 20 minutes of beatdown to finish it off.

ArkoHighStar
11-03-2008, 04:04 PM
i remember hearing something about turbine adding some hp to the dragon on normal but i could be mistaken, and with the **** loot in the dragons chest why bother killing them.

you mean this quote right here


In the next patch we're going to increase dragon's hitpoints slightly on normal difficulty to make the quest more accessible. It'll still be tough to save her, but will give more of a margin of error in case you take a wrong turn.

Turial
11-03-2008, 04:25 PM
This quest is next to impossible without a reasonably well geared intimitank. Can be done without one but it's very hard. Flesh to stone is also very handy in this instance. When my guildies decided to take the fight option on Normal it took about 20 minutes of beatdown to finish it off.

Solid speed and tactics.

1. There is the barrier with 4 giants at it. One of the giants is a cleric. As soon as he dies you need to start your sprint to the end. I have gotten there with the dragon having 50% hp, granted it was a flawless maze run but it is possible, just not likely 25% is a fair starting point. We also took our time once after killing the giant cleric and the dragon died before we even reached the maze.

2. Enervate all of the non-red named giants and FtS them, you will need someone dedicated to doing only this. Only attack the giants that the dragon is attacking. They respawn as they die. If you get there well ahead of the group, you will have to kill off an entire wave of giants unless you can personally stone them.

3. Have the DPS character stay away from the dragon and take on the red named as soon as he appears. If the dragon never gets hit by the red named, the dragon will leave it alone and beat on the stoned guys. A ranger who saved manyshot for this fight will do well with kiting the red-named around. Turn IPS off for this so you dont kill the dragon on accident!

ArkoHighStar
11-03-2008, 04:29 PM
Solid speed and tactics.

1. There is the barrier with 4 giants at it. One of the giants is a cleric. As soon as he dies you need to start your sprint to the end. I have gotten there with the dragon having 50% hp, granted it was a flawless maze run but it is possible, just not likely 25% is a fair starting point. We also took our time once after killing the giant cleric and the dragon died before we even reached the maze.

2. Enervate all of the non-red named giants and FtS them, you will need someone dedicated to doing only this. Only attack the giants that the dragon is attacking. They respawn as they die. If you get there well ahead of the group, you will have to kill off an entire wave of giants unless you can personally stone them.

3. Have the DPS character stay away from the dragon and take on the red named as soon as he appears. If the dragon never gets hit by the red named, the dragon will leave it alone and beat on the stoned guys. A ranger who saved manyshot for this fight will do well with kiting the red-named around. Turn IPS off for this so you dont kill the dragon on accident!

A good point is have break enchantment ready, if you see blade barriers whack em with it will help keep the dragon helathy longer, especially if he is moving around

Turial
11-03-2008, 04:34 PM
A good point is have break enchantment ready, if you see blade barriers whack em with it will help keep the dragon helathy longer, especially if he is moving around

Yes it is a good point. I was to busy that run to see what the cleric was doing cause I got there ahead of the group and was being chased by the giants and a mad white dragon.

I think the party even stopped and watched for a few seconds to take bets on my life expectancy.

liamfrancais
11-03-2008, 04:42 PM
Yes it is a good point. I was to busy that run to see what the cleric was doing cause I got there ahead of the group and was being chased by the giants and a mad white dragon.

I think the party even stopped and watched for a few seconds to take bets on my life expectancy.

Now that is a good group, just having fun and saying well so what if we have to run it again lets see how long this guy lives.

admcorbin
11-03-2008, 04:54 PM
I was by far the first person in there (lvl 15 monks move fast) and by the time i had gotten in there with an almost perfect run thru the maze. she was almost dead on normal. I don't mind having a hard fight but atleast give her some more hps or the ability to heal her.

Lifespawn
11-03-2008, 06:32 PM
i made it in there with the dragon at roughly 75% on my monk and we still failed because no1 else made it through the maze.

I even intimidated everything and killed about 8 giants but the red named came down and it was all over especially when i intimidate and the dragon blows me across the screen by the time i get back it's lost alot of life.

NXPlasmid
11-03-2008, 07:15 PM
Ran it with a good group 3 times on normal, didn't get through the maze the first 2 times, third time with new person in the group who knew how to get through quickly, we took one very short wrong turn and were all hasted. We got there in time to see the dragon dead. To be honest I am surprised they didn't change it prior to release, but on the other hand I would imagine there are many fires to put out and you have to start with the worst ones first. I probably won't try to run the white dragon till after the patch. Plenty of other stuff to do.