So we just did all three Devil Raids on Elite . . .

[grodon9999]

Ghallandda group ran all three devil raids on elite, channel run consisting of members of Captain's Crew, Ghallanda Rerolled and Elitist Bricks. Beat all three raids, all were fun and none were a blood-bath.

Vod elite: Seemed easier than pre-U11. I tanked on my fighter with ~40ish point grazes and 85ish point hits when U11 Elite Sulu would break 100 almost every shot through 10 DR. Chain lightnings were hitting about the same. Lots of loot dropped, got the new ring, sword, shield and about 5 old items.

Shroud Elite: BY FAR the hardest of the three. The blades hit for a stupid amount of damage but we were for the most part able to handle it in part 4. All our melees were far with 600-900 HP and many still died, I think we finished part 4 with 5-6 people still alive. It's brutal now, the blades are nuts. Part 5 was fine.

Again, this was by far that hardest of the three.

Elite ToD: Much more reasonable in U12, it was as if you took our feedback from http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=341277 and scaled accordingly. Two of our heavier hitters died but even without the barbs the part one bosses died in a reasonable amount of time. Part 1 is way less silly, thank you Turbine for replying to our feedback. I didn't notice any difference in part 2 and three from our U11 runs.

The loots stunk though, two bad rings. We'll get a bigger sample size as we're adding Elite ToD back to our weekly raid menu.

Once again . . . Shroud was BY FAR the hardest of the three which is a little out of whack. We had fun doing them, thank you Turbine for making Elite Tod less silly.

[Chette]

The shroud blades are incredibly nasty, the roughest aspect of part 4. Even moving out of the blades is difficult, as some will still follow, and blades spawn whenever you kill a trash, and can follow you around.

I got a large ingredient out of one of the extra chests, and somebody else got larges out of both extra chests, so it looks like they have reasonable drop rates. Elite is not something I am going to run with any but the best parties, but there could be incentive to run hard on a regular basis.

Elite ToD wasn't too bad at all. Though as usual these guys brought their A tanks. I'd like to see how it goes with a non-AC tank before I decide to run it on a regular basis.

Thanks for having me along :)

[kaleid0star]

As advertised with the increased difficulty in shroud, there was a slight increase in shroud ingredients so thats a plus in my book. Vod had a lot of drops too (3 pairs of tharnes bracers plus the new loots). Tod drops still suck as always.

[Merlocke]

they went overboard with the blade damage on elite shroud.

[stainer]

they went overboard with the blade damage on elite shroud.

Maybe a little. It was fun trying though.

[Carpone]

they went overboard with the blade damage on elite shroud.
85-95 damage/tick is a bit much from the blades.

Also on part 5, we saw what appeared to be Arretrikos meleeing six times in a row. We suspect it's only supposed to be two or three times per attack, but due to lag it all gets applied in a very small time window when the server and client sync up. We completed, but there were too many deaths from it.

[grodon9999]

LOL . . . finished the night off with an eChrono. Elite Shroud is harder than that :)

[mystafyi]

LOL . . . finished the night off with an eChrono. Elite Shroud is harder than that :)

elite shroud is lvl 19 raid. epic chrono is level 25 raid... makes total sense to me ;)

[Shinjiteru]

85-95 damage/tick is a bit much from the blades.

[...]

Think that's a reasonable amount for elite shroud since they are dealing up to 60 damage on normal already. Compared to normal I am surprised that they only deal 95 damage on elite. :D

But yeah... maybe 80% of the current damage would have been better.

Part 3 is even more fun now with people walking across the yellow signs/symbols on the floor. :D

The only thing that really worries me are the first life rogues... they usually have a hard time to get to 300+ hp and often end up with around 270 HP at level 20... :S

[Lehmu]

About that hard time breaking 300+ hp thing on rogues...

120 from being a rogue
60 from +6 con
30 from GFL
40 from not being clueless and dumping con
22 from toughness
20 from toughness enhancements
20 from minos legens/bracelet of thaarak
20 from rage
0 from tomes, since we can't expect every newbie to walk around dressed like a christmas tree.
0 from GS HP items, since we can't require shroud loot to run shroud.
332 when in part 4 already.

The only things that might be a bit grindy or require a certain pack are the 20 taps and/or the bracelet of thaarak, which aren't really required to break 300 limit. Everything else can be gotten from forums & AH.
Oh, and shipbuffs for 20 more if the rogue happens to run in a group where there's a decent level guild involved.

But seriously, though. If the blades hit too hard, don't stand in them. 2 years ago, it was a common strategy in pugs I ran in to back away from the blades to keep people alive for part 2. Why can't we just go back to that old strategy?

[Shinjiteru]

I know the math and I also know that it's possible to get over 300hp if you know what you are doing... but when leveling up your first char in ddo you often don't know what you are doing. Sorry that my last post wasn't clear enough that I was talking about this first character/toon rogues.
DDO is completely newbie unfriendly und it's hard to get into the game mechanics, especially if you didn't play PnP or this is the first MMO/MMORPG you play.

Whatever... I don't say 'Doom! Shroud is evil and unbeatable now!' I just worry about the fun for people with their first toon which often isn't following a good build from the start and also often doesn't have +6 con, GFL and especially no toughness on item right after hitting level 20. ^^

I also think that 100 dmg on elite is not too much damage for the blades, but I really would like the normal raids to be easy enough that even first char/life toons without maxed out HP items can have fun in the raids and won't be booted from the party because of lacking some HP.

(I don't have any rogue character ;) )

[Sarisa]

Because the hit box is so ridiculously wide on these blades, and you can't effectively jump over them; it's not easy to back out of the blades and survive.

[RandomKeypress]

I second the point about Rogue HP. Your calculations are for a level 20 rogue - these days people want to start grinding their GS around level 17 (okay, they want to start sooner, but it's much harder to get in a raid as a level 16 first life rogue).
You recommend items that are only available from purchased packs - fair enough, and they're not essential as you say, but even so...
It is possible for a first-life rogue to get 300hp in time - just harder than for other melee classes and for second and third toons.

[mute_mayhem]

Yeah, it's really messed up that elite Shroud is harder than elite ToD or VoD...

There needs to be some way to reduce the damage those blades do besides shield mastery feats, although one idea I had was to make each one only able to hit you once, kinda like how blade barrier works. As it is now, you take way too much damage from the blades.

[JOTMON]

I also think that 100 dmg on elite is not too much damage for the blades, but I really would like the normal raids to be easy enough that even first char/life toons without maxed out HP items can have fun in the raids and won't be booted from the party because of lacking some HP.

(I don't have any rogue character ;) )

100 damage would be ok if it was like walking through a blade barrier, however these are blades that follow you and hit you for 5-10 times at 100 per hit with no reflex save, so is hitting for 500-1000 hp of damage in 2 seconds over and above any damage you are taking from the boss or trash. So even with heals being applied death from blades is a real hazzard. Avoiding the blade hits are difficult but not impossible, unfortunately this also forces you to separate from the party putting you in a no heal situation when you or someone else ends up outside of the mass cures.

perhaps a party of casters and arcane archers may do better with ticks and ranged damage.

[joaofalcao]

elite shroud is lvl 19 raid.

A lvl 17 quest/raid on elite is not a lvl 19 quest.

The 2 levels higher are there for the purpose of generating xp and loot.

Theres no comparison between a lvl 17 quest on elite and a lvl 19 quest.

Lets stop this missinterpretation please.

Edit: Wich leads me to the point: a lvl 17 elite quest should challenge lvl 17 toons. Not epic geared min-maxers.

[budalic]

About that hard time breaking 300+ hp thing on rogues...

120 from being a rogue
60 from +6 con
30 from GFL
40 from not being clueless and dumping con
22 from toughness
20 from toughness enhancements
20 from minos legens/bracelet of thaarak
20 from rage
0 from tomes, since we can't expect every newbie to walk around dressed like a christmas tree.
0 from GS HP items, since we can't require shroud loot to run shroud.
332 when in part 4 already.


You forgot 20 from heroic durabilty (autogranted to each char at lvl 1)