How can epic be made better?

[LeLoric]

I like running Epics. I like some of the challenges. I liked going back to content that I haven't run in a long time. I like getting to experience new content with a challenge rather than taking a lev 20 back to a lev 10 quest. I liked pulling out some of my favorite old items that had been stashed in my bank and getting to use them again. I like not having 50% or more of the mobs I fight be devils.

All that said there are some issues that need to be fixed:

1. Stop borking your loot tables and preventing things from being able to be made. 3 updates in a row now this has happened.

2. Look into drop rates. Some things are great some are really bad. Desert explorer area items are pretty impossible to get a shard for. Make ADQ a guaranteed shard for everyone just like Epic big top and Epic into the deep. Raid item scrolls inthe desert have insanely hard drop rates. The only reason there are what there are out there is there used to be a pretty fast way to farm scrolls but those people got one or two of each raid and like 15-20 of each other scroll. There should be no difference in these drop rates imho.

3. Make the items useable. Red fens sentinels and carnival packs have very few even useable items. Creativity works here if the item isn't better then what is out there it at least has to offer something unique. Give some new effects on epic that aren't available elsewhere. Don't just copy and rehash old effects.

4. Epic trash loot has to be improved. When desert first went epic there were quite a few ml 18 and 20 items dropping. Now ml 16 is pretty much the max except a few rare times. I get better trash loot from running TOD on normal and this is really sad.

5. End rewards need to be scaled. Nothing more fun then doing an epic quest and when your done you get to go get your lev 7 end reward. The items here need to be level appropriate and also should have a chance to contain epic upgrade items.

6. Review the augmentation slots. Some of these need to be improved. Some more options need to be added. Make this a better system.

7. Give reasons to do optional fights. The lack of seals in all chests for the last three updates have dropped all interest in doing these on epic which sadly are some of the better fights. Better trash loot would help here but these should also drop seals or maybe scrolls.

8. More fun fights less tedious fights. ADQ 1 Lailat fun, Big Top Malicia not. There need to be a serious threat of dying in these fights to give some thrill. Making a boss have way too many hp and ac but really doesn't ever do anything to kill anyone is not a fun fight it just drags things out. Lesson up on the global immunities and have different immunities per mob so tactics are always not the same. Allow us to do some thing sto certain mobs but others require different tactics cause the first strat don't work. Use creativity and let the players use creative solutions.

9. Don't neglect the non-epic end game. All the epic content added is fun for some but there will always be some that just don't want epic. Even those that run epic a lot still like to step out of that world for a bit. There are so many things left to flesh out. There's more to shavarath, demon's and archons. Theres other planes you've teased us with, Shavarath and Doluhr. There's a lot to do here and I know it can't all be done at once but don't neglect the non-epic end game stuff.

[oweieie]

Monsters should have new abilities, not just be gigantic sacks of HPs. Monsters should be more differentiated, not just painted with one giant epic ward brush. Epic has 0 flavor, it's pure grind.

[Sweyn]

All that said there are some issues that need to be fixed:

4. Epic trash loot has to be improved. When desert first went epic there were quite a few ml 18 and 20 items dropping. Now ml 16 is pretty much the max except a few rare times. I get better trash loot from running TOD on normal and this is really sad.


All of what you said was great, but i want to bring attention to this point. On the XP sheet it says these are level 25 quests, the loot gen stuff from the chests really needs to be upped.

Another point i can add (and you said something about the inflated HPs ect..) is :

The inflated HP of mobs in the Red Fens totally takes the fun out of it. While i agree an epic end boss needs to have some HP, i think turbine went a little too far with this pack. Take for example the named water eles in "Into the Deep." I love the idea behind them, that with careful timing, they can be avoided. But their inflated HP just takes the fun out of it. Turning auto attack on for 2 minutes is horrible. Same thing with the cube in the ancient ziggurot, great idea, but having a 5 minute auto attack fight is, for lack of a better word, stupid.

[MrWizard]

allow 8, 10, or even 12 to go in


allow us to upgrade our current gear that we slotted...not what is going on now with equipment we do not use

[zztophat]

Get rid of epic ward.

Replace it with spells that essentially do the same thing. This would give casters a reason to carry dysjunction and dispell.

Moreover, epics could be given immunities granted by items they drop on death. Can't FoD or vorpal a mob? That's because he's wearing deathblock robe, kill him and it's yours. It makes sense that the epic monster, having so much experience fighting adventures would have some of their loot. Found yourself suddenly dead? You just met a kobold with a vorpal longsword, every hit causing you con damage? Wounding rapier in that pirate's hand.

Give say, 1 out of 5 mobs some kind of item.

This would make fighting many mobs more challenging but also more rewarding.

[Hollowgolem]

7. Give reasons to do optional fights. The lack of seals in all chests for the last three updates have dropped all interest in doing these on epic which sadly are some of the better fights. Better trash loot would help here but these should also drop seals or maybe scrolls.


This is my pet one. I -really- like the optionals in most of your quests, Turbine devs. You did them -well- as a rule. I absolutely love doing them almost all the time. But no party wants to run optionals in an epic quest if there's no chance of seals.

Epic Wiz King was an epic done almost flawlessly in my book. Hella challenging, all optionals involved, SCARY death-hex wraiths. That should be the template from which -all- other epics are designed.

[phalaeo]

Great suggestions, OP and well worded and thought out. Absolutely agreed on all and /signed with the hope our suggestions will be heard. :)

[LeLoric]

Wanted to add one more I thought of.

10. Make a trade in system. Give an npc in each zone that let's us trade 5 unwanted seals scrolls or shard for that zone for a random generated list of the appropriate item type. EX. 5 scrolls gets list of 5 new scrolls to choose from or something similar. I know for me I have lots of scrolls/seals from desert areas that I will never use but still missing just a few specific ones to make items that I do want. Farming for these few and still getting lots of ones I don't need is not really productive and has caused my desire to run these quests to lessen quite a bit.

[moops]

Agree as well as Allow level 19s to play it.

[Ovrad]

Wanted to add one more I thought of.

10. Make a trade in system. Give an npc in each zone that let's us trade 5 unwanted seals scrolls or shard for that zone for a random generated list of the appropriate item type. EX. 5 scrolls gets list of 5 new scrolls to choose from or something similar. I know for me I have lots of scrolls/seals from desert areas that I will never use but still missing just a few specific ones to make items that I do want. Farming for these few and still getting lots of ones I don't need is not really productive and has caused my desire to run these quests to lessen quite a bit.

Now that one I don't agree with. For a very simple reason: no one will ever give away stuff they don't need. You'll be one seal away from crafting some epic item, and some jerk will not want to hand it over, even if he doesn't need it, because it's 1/5 of a seal he might use.

[LeLoric]

Agree as well as Allow level 19s to play it.

I used to be against this but I'm becoming more and more open to the idea of it only because of the lack of things to do for xp at higher levels for TR's.

I don't think someone who is levelling their first character should hop into epics as soon as they hit lev 19 and I think quite a few would try. I even think a person on their first character hitting 20 shouldn't hop into epics. Theres other things to do and being ill prepared and having a really bad experience can make you not want to run epics at all.

I think more non-epic content at high levels would cover the issues of xp and keep epics to lev 20's only.

[LeLoric]

Now that one I don't agree with. For a very simple reason: no one will ever give away stuff they don't need. You'll be one seal away from crafting some epic item, and some jerk will not want to hand it over, even if he doesn't need it, because it's 1/5 of a seal he might use.

Your point is valid and could be a reason not to do this. I mostly run epics only with friends and guildies and for the most part people don't mind giving up an item that another could use to make an item. Plus theres many of us all in the same boat with no use for another seal that drops that we each have 4 or 5 of. But I do see your point and could see that as a reason to not implement something similar.

[Traeon]

Epic quests are too time consuming due to the excessively high monster hp. Make the monsters in there more dangerous (by increasing speed, damage and giving them better spells and feats) while reducing their hp to fun levels.

Epic quests are boring because exploiting the AI isn't fun. The AI needs to recognize when it's being blocked by a wall of players at a chokepoint while standing in a firewall.

Epic Ward giving death ward also makes things boring. Instant death effects should still have some usefulness. Epic Ward makes all epic runs the same. Perhaps there should be different "ward" effects that favor certain tactics and spells and thus help create more diversity in gameplay?

Epic loot is too random.

I haven't seen many epics yet, but my general impression is that the risk/reward could be upped quite a bit. Higher risk, higher reward. Make them truly challenging, not an exercise in exploiting the AI.

[LeLoric]

Epic quests are too time consuming due to the excessively high monster hp. Make the monsters in there more dangerous (by increasing speed, damage and giving them better spells and feats) while reducing their hp to fun levels.

Epic quests are boring because exploiting the AI isn't fun. The AI needs to recognize when it's being blocked by a wall of players at a chokepoint while standing in a firewall.

Epic Ward giving death ward also makes things boring. Instant death effects should still have some usefulness. Epic Ward makes all epic runs the same. Perhaps there should be different "ward" effects that favor certain tactics and spells and thus help create more diversity in gameplay?

Epic loot is too random.

I haven't seen many epics yet, but my general impression is that the risk/reward could be upped quite a bit. Higher risk, higher reward. Make them truly challenging, not an exercise in exploiting the AI.

Most epic quests aren't really that time consuming for good groups. This is one of the reasons I don't want lev 19's to be allowed in as poorly geared players tend to make the situation more frustrating. The exploiting ai tactics you talk about are the ones that generally also increase the time it takes to complete by quite a bit.

90% of the epic quests should take anywhere from 15-30 min to complete those taking longer either mean you should look at the way you are running it and find more efficient ways to complete it or you maybe could use some better gear/build choices to complete.

Yes there are a few exceptions in both specific quests and specific individual fights that could use some fine tuning as they are both long in nature due to high hp or ac and the mob really presents no danger to the group leading to fights being just tedious not fun.

A good example is crateos in epic snitch. I've never seen a group in danger of wiping here but the fight just takes so long, many times fully breaking a greater construct bane weapon. This fight coulda been a lot more fun if say there was a point when he lost some of his body parts in the fight if instead he threw that body part at a party member doing some massive damage.

Also fights with different stages would be nice to have you change up the tactics. Maybe crateos should be fire vulnerable the first 20% of the fight and have high melee dr. After he loses the crates on his legs or something have him switch to fire immune less dr. Later in the fight could have him get a big rage buff that does 100% melee damage +25% attack speed unless dispelled. Fights like this would lend themselves to being more interactive and fun rather than just surround and auto-attack for 5 min till dead. Turbine could do this sort of thing with many of their bigger fights.

[Ranmaru2]

Get rid of epic ward.

Replace it with spells that essentially do the same thing. This would give casters a reason to carry dysjunction and dispell.

Moreover, epics could be given immunities granted by items they drop on death. Can't FoD or vorpal a mob? That's because he's wearing deathblock robe, kill him and it's yours. It makes sense that the epic monster, having so much experience fighting adventures would have some of their loot. Found yourself suddenly dead? You just met a kobold with a vorpal longsword, every hit causing you con damage? Wounding rapier in that pirate's hand.

Give say, 1 out of 5 mobs some kind of item.

This would make fighting many mobs more challenging but also more rewarding.

First suggestion, fully agree with. Why do we have dysjunction as a learnable spell if its actually not something we can use. You can't even dysjunction the DQ's shield spell in the raid.

The item portion would require them to completely revamp their monster creation system, which I actually agree is the #1 thing they need to do in order to fix this game. This would actually allow them to create monsters like our characters in dungeons. Maybe not as decked out in raid loot and shroud gear, but this would allow for much more creativity with the monster creation tools and allow for more abilities per monster (why the enemy bards in this game never sing a song when there's dungeon alert I have NO CLUE).

[moops]

I used to be against this but I'm becoming more and more open to the idea of it only because of the lack of things to do for xp at higher levels for TR's.

I don't think someone who is levelling their first character should hop into epics as soon as they hit lev 19 and I think quite a few would try. I even think a person on their first character hitting 20 shouldn't hop into epics. Theres other things to do and being ill prepared and having a really bad experience can make you not want to run epics at all.

I think more non-epic content at high levels would cover the issues of xp and keep epics to lev 20's only.

I got to lvl 17 without even stepping into the vale. . .Im on my 3rd life--its ridiculous how much midlevel content there is compared to high level, and MOSTLY there is nothing new to do at the high levels, right now most my guild is running EPIC u6 and seeing new content--but not me as I m trying to get my TR to 20 so I can TR for my 4th life--so stuck seeing the S O S.

I think that most people who are having a harder times with Epics, would not take a 19 unless they knew them, just like they would not take a 20 unless they knew them. And sure those people who are already soling and shortmanning the Epics might take lvl 19s on their first life just to help them level--but that is no different then them Soling Amrath and IQ quests while their friends wait at the door.

[Asketes]

for lower levels entering epics:

a first time TR should be allowed in at lvl 19 (has some gear remaining from his/her first life)

a second time (or higher) tr should be allowed in at lvl 18 (they should be geared and up and fully ready to function at lvl 18)

[Irinis]

Now that one I don't agree with. For a very simple reason: no one will ever give away stuff they don't need. You'll be one seal away from crafting some epic item, and some jerk will not want to hand it over, even if he doesn't need it, because it's 1/5 of a seal he might use.

This already happens. I am one seal away from an item, and someone looted it despite not even having the original item it was for. It's called pugging. (I certainly HOPE this doesn't happen in guild runs!)

What would happen if that suggestion was implemented, is that people watching other people loot the one thing they need, don't have to stop playing with the jerk because the useless second seal of something else can be traded for the one you do need. Because they wouldn't be a jerk for it anymore.

[moops]

for lower levels entering epics:

a first time TR should be allowed in at lvl 19 (has some gear remaining from his/her first life)

a second time (or higher) tr should be allowed in at lvl 18 (they should be geared and up and fully ready to function at lvl 18)


But let's be honest, barring U6 which I personally have not seen yet--what does anyone really need to do Epic?

I suppose it depends on how one personally runs EPics--Our groups use alot of invis/FW/Jump and stunning--and none of these require any high level or Epic gearr--20 - 30 HP doesnt matter as Melee never have the aggro for the most part--except in Epic DQ if one is not good at avoiding blades. My Kensai still has all the same gear she pretty much had at lvl 16--My Tempest UMD Ranger could do the same things at 19 that she does at 20. . .My FVS and Clerics the same barring DI which I dont use in Epic anyway.

Epic, really isn't all that hard--if there were a ton more insta death spells and debuffing, I could see perhaps needing better gear. But as it stands, I think any good player who is level 18 and 19 could do Epics--barring u6 which I have not seen yet.

[Crazyfruit]

I'd love to see more harder, shorter fights. Or at the very least some where I don't turn autoattack on and browse the forums instead.

Currently writing this post doing that...

Would also like to see practically invulnerable player perches & "stand block so we kill with firewall/no aggro" lameness removed. Or to put it better, I'd like to answer yes when I ask myself: "Is this fun?" "Is this challenging?" "Is this rewarding?" .... "Should I just log off instead?" without asking people not to do that.

And harder optionals that actually remain optional (but rewarding) - the big Fens epics I consider unpuggable because that hezrou is needed for the chest & lord knows it's hard enough at level to get a group who doesn't wipe to it in 20s.

Re: Malicia, I did have a group wipe to that lump of hp. But that is because it took so long to duo her both our cleric hirelings ran out of sp... gah.

I'd also like a giant gong sound or something whenever a scroll drops so everyone knows one was ninja looted :|


Lesson up on the global immunities and have different immunities per mob so tactics are always not the same. Allow us to do some thing sto certain mobs but others require different tactics cause the first strat don't work. Use creativity and let the players use creative solutions.

They did do a lil of that. For example, the Marks of Shadow in Partycrashers could be banished, dispelled or smited. Some also got weaker when the monsters were killed.

But most people spent 20 minutes kiting monsters around and ranged for every single mark instead of realizing that (even with DM text!) and they got super HP reduced to being practically pointless now.


Epic Wiz King was an epic done almost flawlessly in my book. Hella challenging, all optionals involved, SCARY death-hex wraiths. That should be the template from which -all- other epics are designed.

That one's the only epic I fell asleep in.

So boring & easy besides the end fights, so repetitive, and you have to do it -all-. I always skip that unless people aren't fighting everything/soloing or splitting up for the towers, otherwise it'd take the average pug a couple hours.

[Junts]

My two cents:

The way they attempted to make ac useful on epic was very ineffective. This is because of the three following facts

1: AC working well on trash mobs is when ac starts to get brokenly overpowered (eg ignoring 10+ mobs at once), so ac doesn't work reliably even when it does work
2: The mobs have so many hp that its necessary for every party member to contribute to damaging the held/stunned stuff, leaving many ac-based strategies (like shield and combat expertise use) a very bad idea
3: The only time on DDO when people are willing to strategize around armor class are boss fights, where ac is still prohibitively bad.

Epic would actually work better if it was the bosses that got the 1d20 to hit penalty so ac could be used against them, instead of the minions. Most people aren't wiling to use an ac mode vs the minions becaues it makes the quest too slow.

[sirgog]

Really love these suggestions, and have one more.

10) Add more 'instant-gratification' loot - epic items (like the Epic Helm of the Red Dragon) that you can pull out of a chest and equip immediately without having to craft them first.

I don't care if they are weaker than the seal/shard/scroll crafted epic items.

Part of the appeal of raids like ToD/VoD/HoX is that you have a chance to get a real item upgradeon your first run (and your second, third, and so on). Epics, however, give almost no chance to improve your character until you've run them five times (if lucky) or 20+ (if unlucky).

[oweieie]

Most epic quests aren't really that time consuming for good groups.

Most epic quests are exceedingly time consuming for good groups. Most epic quests don't get run very much.


90% of the epic quests should take anywhere from 15-30 min to complete those taking longer either mean you should look at the way you are running it and find more efficient ways to complete it or you maybe could use some better gear/build choices to complete.

I'm going to assume your 90% doesn't include Chains, DQ1, Wiz King, Von 5, Fens 4, OOB, final sentinels. Some are pretty questionable for 30 minutes, like black loch and von 3 and von 4. Nor are you including the time to make a party. Nor the time to get to the quest.

At the end of the day running an epic OOB consumes more than an hour of my time getting the party together, waiting for people to come back from the inevitable memory leak crash on entering the desert, running to the quest, buffing and then actually running it. And after all that I end up with... well... nothing. Which is why people have run epic OOB every day for months straight and quit the game in frustration.


A good example is crateos in epic snitch. I've never seen a group in danger of wiping here but the fight just takes so long, many times fully breaking a greater construct bane weapon. This fight coulda been a lot more fun if say there was a point when he lost some of his body parts in the fight if instead he threw that body part at a party member doing some massive damage.

On the plus side we've run snitch without a healer because of how ****ing stupid having all mobs being sacks of HPs is and how cheap and easy heal scrolls are. Waiting for a healer to join the party can add HOURS to an epic run if you really need one.

[Junts]

Most epic quests are exceedingly time consuming for good groups. Most epic quests don't get run very much.



I'm going to assume your 90% doesn't include Chains, DQ1, Wiz King, Von 5, Fens 4, OOB, final sentinels. Some are pretty questionable for 30 minutes, like black loch and von 3 and von 4. Nor are you including the time to make a party. Nor the time to get to the quest.

At the end of the day running an epic OOB consumes more than an hour of my time getting the party together, waiting for people to come back from the inevitable memory leak crash on entering the desert, running to the quest, buffing and then actually running it. And after all that I end up with... well... nothing. Which is why people have run epic OOB every day for months straight and quit the game in frustration.



On the plus side we've run snitch without a healer because of how ****ing stupid having all mobs being sacks of HPs is and how cheap and easy heal scrolls are. Waiting for a healer to join the party can add HOURS to an epic run if you really need one.


I've done epic wizking in 35m.

Epic oob shouldn't take more than 40 including formation. And anyone who claims to have run it that much and got nothing is lying. Myabe not exactly what they wanted, but they've got stuff and seen stuff drop at that point.

We did our very first epic fens 4 tonight in about 40m with the optional, and we could easily have been a lot faster.

[Kromize]

Monsters should have new abilities, not just be gigantic sacks of HPs. Monsters should be more differentiated, not just painted with one giant epic ward brush. Epic has 0 flavor, it's pure grind.

This statements holds true for all content after level 3.

This. (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=215030)

[AyumiAmakusa]

Get rid of the Dungeon Token Fragments and just drop a token every epic.

[Bigrtt]

One thing that struck me when I first started running epics was how they're not so.....epic. Yes, the mobs have a ton of HP, yes they hit hard, yes it takes a while to complete.

Proof in the poison at-level is what I was expecting Epics to be like. Instead a lot of it is just, run, drop a FW, hide, melee beat on the trash, rinse repeat. Now that's not a bad thing, that's the strategy, but it is very boring after a few epics.

I disagree with the making carival/red fens things better, there's very little named items that can be epicised from there so they're MUCH easier to get epicised than say something from VoN or Sands. They shouldn't be seriously epic. But, having a look at SOME of the items they do need some work.

Sands/VoN - scrolls/seals/shards need to have their drop rate upped a bit. There's just so much in each of these places than can be epicised it's a very long grind if you're not lucky.

[Wrendd]

As to Sentinel's and Red Fen's epic items, and Carnival especially... I tend to agree that they should be slightly less "Epic" than Desert and VoN. But I think many (if not most) of the items need to be improved.

I think the improvements should be along the lines of making them narrower in scope with their increased power.
You could have a weapon that was an incredible Skeleton smasher but was merely "good" against other undead.

My point is that the last 3 epic item roll-outs have many items that are not even as good as other non-epic gear. Each epic item should have a "niche".. you want to have the best illusion spells in the game.. get the Epic Illusionists Garb (right now the garb is one of the weakest items IMO)

[Sparky21]

Better Enemy AI.

When a mob cannot reach the player that has dealt the most damage (drawing its aggro, but causing it to stand there in lala land, much like harry did in part 4 of shroud bug a few months back), it should REALIZE IT AND SWITCH TARGETS.

[MysteryNotes]

Get rid of epic ward.

Replace it with spells that essentially do the same thing. This would give casters a reason to carry dysjunction and dispell.

Moreover, epics could be given immunities granted by items they drop on death. Can't FoD or vorpal a mob? That's because he's wearing deathblock robe, kill him and it's yours. It makes sense that the epic monster, having so much experience fighting adventures would have some of their loot. Found yourself suddenly dead? You just met a kobold with a vorpal longsword, every hit causing you con damage? Wounding rapier in that pirate's hand.

Give say, 1 out of 5 mobs some kind of item.

This would make fighting many mobs more challenging but also more rewarding.

Awesome suggestion, i'd love to see this implemented.

[moops]

Most epic quests are exceedingly time consuming for good groups. Most epic quests don't get run very much.


Oh please, we run OOB with all chests in 15- 20- mins depending on how many casters we have. Von 1-2 are usually solo'd with us joining in the end and the quest time is 15--20. Wiz king with most mobs killed is about 30 - 45 again depending on casters. Von 3-4 is 30 - 45. DQ1 about 45--which is the same time as a pug Coal Chmber usually lol.

Im newer to the U5 content and have not run the u6 ontent yet so Im not sure what the average is there, though I know people that pretty much solo all content in those.

[LeLoric]

Most epic quests are exceedingly time consuming for good groups. Most epic quests don't get run very much.

I'm going to assume your 90% doesn't include Chains, DQ1, Wiz King, Von 5, Fens 4, OOB, final sentinels. Some are pretty questionable for 30 minutes, like black loch and von 3 and von 4. Nor are you including the time to make a party. Nor the time to get to the quest.



Chains: 1 hour this is one of the more problematic quests for time.

DQ1: best time I've had is 40 minutes so a mildly problematic quest for time. As I mentioned in the OP it would be nice to see this one get a guaranteed shard for desert explorer items. They do guaranteed shards for both big top and fens 4 so it's not a question of unbalanced.

Wiz King: easily completed in 30 min if you group is good enough to split up.

Von 5: 1 hour but you are getting twice the tokens so the same as a regular 30 min.

Fen 4: haven't run it that much but easily done in 30-40 min and time could drop. Guaranteed shards make this time spent worth the effort.

OOB: 15 min runs are common, if your going over 30 min might wanna look at what you are doing. I can't help you with the time it takes to form an OOB. Generally if someone mentions one it's full within about 3 minutes for us and some are often left out.

Tide Turns: This is easily completed within 30 minutes.

Black Loch, Von 3, Von4: Von 3 can be long but still doable in 30-45 min. Von 4 people have soloed in about 12 min. Black loch I haven't ran a ton but it shouldn't take more than 30 min as the few pugs I've joined where I didn't know the other people were took about 30 min.

there are things you can do to help make these not so time consuming.

1. Refine your tactics. Certain spells in certain situations are going to help you speed up things. Have the ability to stun mobs. (I recently dropped toughness for SB on my barb and he went from me never wanting to play him in epic to being one of my favorites.) If you can't stun get two earthgrab heavy picks, these are cheap to make and do the job.

2. Look at build/gear choices. Sometimes you may wanna revamp a character to help him transtition to Epic content. Sometimes it may be a simple gear swap (ditching ac gear for more offensive stuff). Maybe enhancement points into to-hit if your having issues. Sometimes a feat (see my barbarian story above).

[Gunga]

I'm not sure what number you guys are on, so I'll just push down from the top.

#1 Way To Make Epic Better:

Give Gunga a Marilith Scroll.

[grodon9999]

The inflated HP of mobs in the Red Fens totally takes the fun out of it. While i agree an epic end boss needs to have some HP, i think turbine went a little too far with this pack. Take for example the named water eles in "Into the Deep." I love the idea behind them, that with careful timing, they can be avoided. But their inflated HP just takes the fun out of it. Turning auto attack on for 2 minutes is horrible. Same thing with the cube in the ancient ziggurot, great idea, but having a 5 minute auto attack fight is, for lack of a better word, stupid.

Pretty much, in the recent epics Turbine's gone "Full ******" on the HP.

[zztophat]

Awesome suggestion, i'd love to see this implemented.

I would too and it actually gets better the more you think about it because monsters with random aventurer gear are very dangerous. Imagine going in to bargain of blood, and beating a mob and taking cold damage. Oops, turns out he was wearing a +1 ice guard breastplate (1d8 fire damage a hit really adds up fast). Even items that are normally considered vendor trash can be dangerous in the hands of epic mobs, in a quest where no one expects fire damage a mob carrying flaming burst short sword greater plant bane would be a pain, because no one expected or was ready for fire damage.

And normally useless vendor trash can be made in to your worst enemy; dwarf bane, human bane, elf bane, construct bane, greater friggin' halfling bane in the hands of your enemy? Ouch. I mean it just makes sense, we carry greater undead bane or greater evil outsider bane, why would a mob experienced in battling us not carry "us" bane?

[Thriand]

I'm not sure what number you guys are on, so I'll just push down from the top.

#1 Way To Make Epic Better:

Give Gunga a Marilith Scroll.

Give Thriand some of those red scales you won the other week and we could definitely make that happen

[Gunga]

Give Thriand some of those red scales you won the other week and we could definitely make that happen

If Third Person Man only wanted 2 of those Red Devil Scales instead of "some", Gunga would no longer need a Marilith Scroll.

[valorik]

excellent ideas lelo

[nicro]

Still waiting to see an Epic Puzzle.

[LeLoric]

I'm not sure what number you guys are on, so I'll just push down from the top.

#1 Way To Make Epic Better:

Give Gunga a Marilith Scroll.

Nice my thread just became the Ghallanda marketplace forum.

WTB all gunga's gear for 100k plat. So anyone with his login info please pm me.

[Auran82]

Couple of suggestions on how to improve epics.

1 - Do something about the AI to make the fights more involved, if the mobs were smarter they wouldn't need to have so many HP, make them more dangerous, not just take longer to kill.

2 - More other options for completing fights in epic, the Vulkoor quest was a good start for this, but it would be nice to see stealth parts for most of the epic quests, sneak in and do something or do it by brute force, whichever works for your group.

3 - Get rid of epic ward or make it different for different mobs, give abilties like assasinate a use. See 4 mobs? Get the rogue to sneak in and assasinate the caster while the other melees distract them, hit them before they deathward. Maybe randomise the mobs a bit so you have to plan a little in some fights instead of just run in, mass hold, stunning blow, epic hp beatdown.

4 - Allow the purchase of at least shards and scrolls with epic tokens, shards could go either way imho, wouldn't hurt to have some things that need to be gotten from chests with no other option. Seals are just frustrating though, and scrolls can at least be traded for if you put enough out for them.

5 - Let things like completed epic items drop from chests as rare drops, let BTA augment crystals drop from the raid, even give a chance for rare loot only ones to drop (colourless +2 exceptional stats, Special Green/Violet crystals, Gtr Arcane Lore Blue crystals, gtr/superior resist crystals of whatever colour etc)

6 - Allow *something* good to drop from optional quests in the lower level packs, whether it be epic fragments (maybe which cannot be traded like renown) or the above augment crystals, maybe even give scrolls a chance to drop from optional chests.

7 - Speaking of scrolls, dump the scrolls drop from mobs, first click wins rubbish, either implement some kind of need/greed/pass rolling system like other games have when someone clicks on them (and putting something in loot/chat showing who won) or have them as rare drops from the epic fragment bags that drop when mobs are killed.

8 - Lastly as others have said, proper end rewards from epic quests and even quests run on difficulties other than normal, make the end reward giver know what difficulty you ran the quest on and give seals/scrolls a chance to show up in end reward lists, maybe have a 10/20/30 etc counter which gives a list of epic related items on each multiple of 10 (or whatever number)

[visionary1977]

Epic

1. Surpassing the usual or ordinary, particularly in scope or size
2. Heroic and impressive in quality

How does running Offering of Blood on an Epic Difficulty measure to the definition of Epic

Yes it is harder then Offering of Blood on any other difficulty, but why is this..

a) Blanket immunities
b) silly HPs
c) Trash mobs as hard as many quest bosses on any other difficulty

Does the above really in your minds fit the definition of epic, in my mind the simple fact that you are running a quest that you have run upto 100 times before in your search for spectral gloves.. takes away any of the "Epicness"

Epic to me would be a quest as hard, but something new.. unrelated to a quest we have done before.. to add a new lvl of difficulty to a old quest, and to then call that quest epic.. is misleading.

I love madstone, coal, sins.. but if you tap Epic difficulty on to those quests.. does that make it epic.. no its just the same quests on a higher difficulty... do i feel legendary or especially heroic by completing epics.. NO...

Dont add another level of difficulty to a quest and call it epic.. because it isnt.

I understand peoples enjoyment of what is named epic, people like a greater challenge.. call the difficulty level "Hard Core" but make epic quests new quests with new challenges, make them EPIC in scheme and plot, then i will run them all the time.

If you get a toothpaste you buy everyday and re-brand it does it make it anything else then the toothpaste you have always used... NO

sorry.. my opinions are quite strong about this topic of epic.