Slavers chain: Good Grief and lets talk.

[RavenStormclaw]

I just finished the Slave Lord Chain on my Hardcore character. Wow.. that chain is ..well difficult to say the least. I actually read an old thread on here about it I won't bring back to life. It's a hard over leveled chain especially parts 1 and 3 when doing it on elite. My level 12 Alchemist barely survived each of my two attempts at elite both of which I had to recall out of. However, it was probably the most fun I have had in DDO in a while. My only real issue is parts one and three have way to few shrines. I could deal with the traps, i could deal with the mass of mobs and the archers with more hit points then Tiamat but what finally defeated me was I just ran out of mana and three pots later and no shrine in sight. I just gave up. I am not asking for a shrine around every corner but part two had plenty why do parts one and three have so few? A couple or even just one more in those two quests would be nice.

[Question2005]

Yea, theres a reason why nobody does this chain in heroics and most people dont do it in epics anymore.

Main issues :

-Each quest is way too long, it should have been a 6 quest chain, not 3.

-Most encounters are just 6+ tanky mobs standing in the middle of hallways. It looks extremely unnatural compared to earlier dungeons where you have patrolling mobs or a few guards placed at strategy points. You don't have 6+ guards standing in the middle of hallways because it blocks access to their own people. Imagine if you had 6 guys just standing outside your house door, it looks ridiculous.

-Trog shamans will one shot people with force missiles. Does the quest tell you that shield clickies are REQUIRED to do this quest? No. When I tried doing this the first time, we cleared the first half of the quest fine, went into the caves, then the party got wiped by force missiles because we had no idea shield clickies were required. We just left after we realised that it was impossible to do this quest without shield clickies.

-Lots of "LOL XD ONE SHOT" traps. Oddly enough, this chain also has some very nice traps like the bee room instead of the usual lazy "okay lets put a bunch of traps here to one shot players who cant tank them with max reaper hp".

-Some mobs obviously have incorrect CRs, like the skeleton archers in the underground waterway. It is WAY higher than the rest of the mobs in the quest, or any other quest at that level for that matter. I remember reporting these more than a year ago, I highly doubt they have been fixed.

-The grind required to get mats is unreal, especially as the 2nd and 3rd quest in the chain have much fewer ingredient chests than the first one for some reason.

-IIRC the final boss fight in the chain has a boss that will constantly become invulnerable (and there is nothing the player can do about it) so it takes forever to kill him. I think it's the assassin that uses a smoke bomb or something and there is no counter for that.

At the end of the day, extremely long quests that nobody wants to bother with in heroics. And there are way easier alternatives for gear in epics now, so no real reason to bother.

It's kind of like Tethyamar, but many times worse.

[CSQ]

Slavers is the worst of the offenders for the "Balancing heroic content by adjusting off of Epic/Legendary power values instead of properly adjusting difficulty for heroic" era of content. There's problems with, for example, parts of ToEE, Tethymar, to a lesser extent the Archons chain, and quite a few other quests being hugely more difficult at level, to the point where you could bump up the actual heroic level of the quest for the content by 2+ levels and still have a hard quest compared to other quests at the new level. Unfortunately, there's no chance that they're going to balance them this far along from release. It's just a quest to ignore in heroics, especially on Hardcore, and just run on Legendary if you even care then. I know balance is a tough nut to crack, and there's tons of content in DDO that's probably too easy compared to current DDO power (even for newbies). However, there's a lot more harm done by a quest that's basically not possible at level than a quest that's a cakewalk at level, and especially if I bought Slavers for heroic and then found out it was basically unfinishable without perfect builds, leaning on the wiki, and a full afternoon of trial and error, I would be pretty upset.

[CSQ]

-Most encounters are just 6+ tanky mobs standing in the middle of hallways. It looks extremely unnatural compared to earlier dungeons where you have patrolling mobs or a few guards placed at strategy points. You don't have 6+ guards standing in the middle of hallways because it blocks access to their own people. Imagine if you had 6 guys just standing outside your house door, it looks ridiculous.


Oh, right, I forgot about that too. It's definitely one of the worst offenders of arbitrary mob placement in DDO (coupled with the fact that they're all super beefy, so every pull takes longer than it should unless you're really cheesing them with DC casting). Some quests have weird mob placements, but slavers definitely struck me as one of the most obviously "Put mobs here for players to fight" design priority.

[Saekee]

It was THE endgame for a while. Hence since it was BiS people grinded it
and put up with it. (I did not). They reduced the mats needed, thankfully.

You didn’t run it in heroics with heroic characters; that is now a purely HC issue.

With game changes and powercreep, quests that were grindy and blah now have nothing going for them.

[Bjond]

Wow.. that chain is ..

IMHO, the difficulty is nicely tuned. It's the mat rate and perceived slog that are the problems.

It's got MANY natural break points where instead of halting the quest and starting another quest, it just continues on and on and on. And, it takes FAR too many arcs to make one item (3~4 arcs on epic, always due to splinters lagging behind by about 50%).

If it had been broken into 6 separate quests at the natural pauses, it could have a little more story, take roughly the same time overall, address the sp issues (via exit/entry refill), and feel less like a single long trudge. Remove the exit/entry doors and make them exit only for a breath of air and fresh scenery.

The mat rate should be tuned to about 1 item per arc in epic and likely 2 per arc in heroic, too. Epics just use them as gap fillers and you have to make a new one from scratch every time you get a new nice raid drop that makes you twitch your gear around. Heroic doesn't use them at all mostly (most have tons of banked RL & Sharn for that), but I can definitely set full sets being attractive in HC -- guaranteed farm rate beats RL/Sharn grind on a fresh account.

[boredGamer]

It was THE endgame for a while. Hence since it was BiS people grinded it
and put up with it. (I did not). They reduced the mats needed, thankfully.

You didn’t run it in heroics with heroic characters; that is now a purely HC issue.

With game changes and powercreep, quests that were grindy and blah now have nothing going for them.

Eh, I often run it on racial zergs assuming I'm on a decent AOE build, if for nothing else than chance at reaper blanks. And xp isn't great but isn't bad, still at / above 1k / minute.

So speak for yourself I guess, I don't ever feel like I "put up with" slavers. The end fight of 3 did raise the heartbeat on HC for sure though.

[kmoustakas]

I found it super doable with my barbarian but there's a couple of spots you gotta be careful otherwise you'll get toasted.

There's places where you can draw two different groups of mobs by accident, resulting in instant alert. There are a few traps that can kill you slow and steady if you are not already aware of them. And then there's part 3 end fight, which if you go randomly, the bosses will kill you.

But yeah, having played through the pen and paper modules last year, I must say it's a great conversion I loved it.

PS: AFTER they fixed the pressure plate traps. Again, 100 random respawning traps who came up with that :/

[A-O]

Eh, I often run it on racial zergs assuming I'm on a decent AOE build, if for nothing else than chance at reaper blanks. And xp isn't great but isn't bad, still at / above 1k / minute.

So speak for yourself I guess, I don't ever feel like I "put up with" slavers. The end fight of 3 did raise the heartbeat on HC for sure though.

1k/minute was *oooold* standard. Nowadays you run things like fire caves for 10k/minute at level 4. And repeats at 3-5k/minute. SC for 30k/minute with a split. etc.

Worst quests done now are still 2.5-3k/minute.

Slavers would need to be X2-X2.5 exp to be worth it time-wise alone. Let alone difficulty.

[RavenStormclaw]

1k/minute was *oooold* standard. Nowadays you run things like fire caves for 10k/minute at level 4. And repeats at 3-5k/minute. Sc for 30k/minute with a split. Etc.

Worst quests done now are still 2.5-3k/minute.

Slavers would need to be x2-x2.5 exp to be worth it time-wise alone. Let alone difficulty.

sc?

[boredGamer]

1k/minute was *oooold* standard. Nowadays you run things like fire caves for 10k/minute at level 4. And repeats at 3-5k/minute. SC for 30k/minute with a split. etc.

Worst quests done now are still 2.5-3k/minute.

Slavers would need to be X2-X2.5 exp to be worth it time-wise alone. Let alone difficulty.

I don't disagree - but I ran it for a while for reaper blank chance, as I said. That plus *decent xp* plus, oh, I like it. I run the twelve quest for reaper hats sometimes too, not because of great xp, but fine xp + item is worth it to me. And bonus if I like the quest.

Not to mention I literally wrote "And xp isn't great but isn't bad, still at / above 1k / minute."

And don't pretend fire caves and SC are comparable quest xp per minute, what a crock of bs. Also, not to mention, those are in no way "nowadays". I would've guessed most heroic run quests are 2k/minute - but I normally don't run pots, so I guess we should clarify numbers.

So, maybe I do disagree.

[HungarianRhapsody]

-IIRC the final boss fight in the chain has a boss that will constantly become invulnerable (and there is nothing the player can do about it) so it takes forever to kill him. I think it's the assassin that uses a smoke bomb or something and there is no counter for that.
.
If you listen to/read the dialogue in that fight, it tells you what’s up.

the boss shields himself while his friends beat on you. Then once you’ve hurt his friends a bit, he moves the shield to them instead of protecting himself. And then he switches again once you’ve beaten on him some, etc.

You just have to attack whichever section doesn’t have the shield at the moment.

[Mindos]

sc?

https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shadow_Crypt

https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Fire_Caves

[RavenStormclaw]

https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Shadow_Crypt

https://ddowiki.com/page/The_Fire_Caves


Thanks how does that come out to 30k/minute xp. Its base is only 12k on elite?

[Sunnie]

Thanks how does that come out to 30k/minute xp. Its base is only 12k on elite?
First time bonuses probably. Do on reaper, toss in Aggression, flawless, persistence, and a 50% tome and you're looking at 36k. Then drink a potion and be VIP on top of that. Still, finishing that quest in 2 minutes is highly optimistic even if you split the party and get only the bare minimum of gears. And there's absolutely no way you can keep getting that much xp/min on subsequent runs.

[A-O]

I don't disagree - but I ran it for a while for reaper blank chance, as I said. That plus *decent xp* plus, oh, I like it. I run the twelve quest for reaper hats sometimes too, not because of great xp, but fine xp + item is worth it to me. And bonus if I like the quest.

Not to mention I literally wrote "And xp isn't great but isn't bad, still at / above 1k / minute."

And don't pretend fire caves and SC are comparable quest xp per minute, what a crock of bs. Also, not to mention, those are in no way "nowadays". I would've guessed most heroic run quests are 2k/minute - but I normally don't run pots, so I guess we should clarify numbers.

So, maybe I do disagree.

I run pots, and I don't run quests without getting at least 2.5k/minute. In fact, if I check my next life I'd wager most of it is more than 3.5k/minute. The fact that 1k/minute is manageable in SL just means that that's a really low level of exp expectation. On the back of my hand, I can't think of many quests worse exp/minute than slavers. Because even a level 30 running in there and killing everything in one hit takes about 15-20 minutes per part. And the fact that they're listed as "long" rather than "very long" is just another finger up the bum for people running it R10 at cap.




Thanks how does that come out to 30k/minute xp. Its base is only 12k on elite?

With all bonuses and 50% pot it's about 85-90k first time. Takes about 3 minutes on a good split on reaper 1.
Repeat runs drop it to 35-40k ish or whatever, can't remember exact numbers. Normally do it r/EEEEE/H/N and it's about half an hour for 300k exp give or take.

[boredGamer]

I run pots, and I don't run quests without getting at least 2.5k/minute. In fact, if I check my next life I'd wager most of it is more than 3.5k/minute. The fact that 1k/minute is manageable in SL just means that that's a really low level of exp expectation. On the back of my hand, I can't think of many quests worse exp/minute than slavers. Because even a level 30 running in there and killing everything in one hit takes about 15-20 minutes per part. And the fact that they're listed as "long" rather than "very long" is just another finger up the bum for people running it R10 at cap.


Well, since you can't compare like for like numbers, even when pointed out, and then compare it to r10 for some reason, I'm pretty sure this won't be a reasonable conversation.

There are definitely worse xp / min quests.

Again, do I do it for levelling only? No. But if you still need mats or reaper components? Doesn't hurt to throw it in. And again, I like wrecking it from time to time, which was my original point.

Of course *not* being on pots makes me feel like I'm not wasting a pot. Yet another plea to the devs to make pots *total experience earned* based instead of *percent over time based*.

[A-O]

Well, since you can't compare like for like numbers, even when pointed out, and then compare it to r10 for some reason, I'm pretty sure this won't be a reasonable conversation.

There are definitely worse xp / min quests.

Again, do I do it for levelling only? No. But if you still need mats or reaper components? Doesn't hurt to throw it in. And again, I like wrecking it from time to time, which was my original point.

Of course *not* being on pots makes me feel like I'm not wasting a pot. Yet another plea to the devs to make pots *total experience earned* based instead of *percent over time based*.

What do you mean "like for like numbers". I'm just saying, they're the hardest quests in the game (by far) going from 1-20, and they're the longest quests in the game (by far), and they also give insignificant exp. What's wrong with wanting the devs increase that exp by a significant portion? Also, what's wrong wiht wanting the longest quests in the game by marked as "very long", when quests like WK is listed as "very long" but takes <5 minutes to complete. "very long" is an important label, not only for new players, but also for Rexp, since it scales off the length of the quest (the labeled length that is).

There probably are worse quests for exp/min, e.g. probably kobold assault but I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. Still can't really be sure. And perhaps that's good enough reason to increase it.

There are naturally reasons to run the quest. They're fun. They're challenging. They provide great crafting. But can't they also provide at least exp worth even half the effort you put into them?

I'm also all for exp/total exp earned. Even though that would probably significantly hurt me, since I run 1-20 in about 6 hours as it stands. I.e. 1 pot. Doubt that'd be the case with "per exp earned".

[boredGamer]

What do you mean "like for like numbers". I'm just saying, they're the hardest quests in the game (by far) going from 1-20, and they're the longest quests in the game (by far), and they also give insignificant exp. What's wrong with wanting the devs increase that exp by a significant portion? Also, what's wrong wiht wanting the longest quests in the game by marked as "very long", when quests like WK is listed as "very long" but takes <5 minutes to complete. "very long" is an important label, not only for new players, but also for Rexp, since it scales off the length of the quest (the labeled length that is).
.

I mentioned I don't run a pot, you mentioned you do, then still compared to non-pot estimate. Because ... hyperbole?

Then in this post you make all these arguments about there's no reason not to increase XP - I completely agree. I never said I didn't. Where would you even get any idea I would be against it?

For the record though, corrupt a wish is really just going to smash SC and fire caves XP, it is completely off the charts.

Anyway, again, I don't expect a coherent or logical on track response at this point.

[GramercyRiff]

I really dislike these quests. They're more insane than any Xoriat quest. That's bad. Nothing makes sense at all. The only good thing about this stuff is the end fight in part 3. That's great.

[Question2005]

If you listen to/read the dialogue in that fight, it tells you what’s up.

the boss shields himself while his friends beat on you. Then once you’ve hurt his friends a bit, he moves the shield to them instead of protecting himself. And then he switches again once you’ve beaten on him some, etc.

You just have to attack whichever section doesn’t have the shield at the moment.

I'm not talking about the shield thing. That one is obvious and it's clear what the party is supposed to do.

IIRC, one of the bosses constantly goes invulnerable with some kind of smoke bomb mechanic, the same thing that ogre magi use. There is no way to counter this, true seeing, search, spot, whatever, does not work. I might be remembering wrongly but i seem to recall one of the bosses in the final fight doing that constantly, so dpsing him took forever. Same reason why most people don't bother to fight the bugbear assassin in WPM.

It's an awful mechanic. Constantly going invulnerable every few seconds is just ridiculous.

[GramercyRiff]

I'm not talking about the shield thing. That one is obvious and it's clear what the party is supposed to do.

IIRC, one of the bosses constantly goes invulnerable with some kind of smoke bomb mechanic, the same thing that ogre magi use. There is no way to counter this, true seeing, search, spot, whatever, does not work. I might be remembering wrongly but i seem to recall one of the bosses in the final fight doing that constantly, so dpsing him took forever. Same reason why most people don't bother to fight the bugbear assassin in WPM.

It's an awful mechanic. Constantly going invulnerable every few seconds is just ridiculous.

I really dislike these mechanics too. Nothing is worse than when it feels like the DM is cheating. I think you're right that one of the SL's do go in and out of reality (I can't recollect 100% because I don't usually run this). I still love that end fight despite this. I really like it because it's no nonsense slug fest. It's very refreshing after the absurd slog of the previous quests.

[A-O]

I mentioned I don't run a pot, you mentioned you do, then still compared to non-pot estimate. Because ... hyperbole?

Then in this post you make all these arguments about there's no reason not to increase XP - I completely agree. I never said I didn't. Where would you even get any idea I would be against it?

For the record though, corrupt a wish is really just going to smash SC and fire caves XP, it is completely off the charts.

Anyway, again, I don't expect a coherent or logical on track response at this point.


So 1.5k/minute with exp pot then. Great. Glad that's settled.
~5k base exp for 20-30 minutes of work. Similarly rated quests in the same(ish) level range (oath of vengeance, raven at the door, tear(ish), Bloody crypt, Xorian, etc) all take 1/4-1/2 the time. It's not like there's a lack of quests that give huuuuge amounts of exp in that level-range. E.g. if you're getting 1k/minute without a pot in SL part 1, then a good split in Oath of vengeance gives you 4k/minute without a pot, or xorian, or raven. Or 2kminute/tear, etc.

Those numbers "like and like" enough?


I wouldn't expect SSG to corrupt that wish. They did an exp pass on some quests, what, 5 months ago? First one in basically a decade. And their definition of "significantly increase/decreased exp" was 10%. They won't x2 a quest, and they won't 1/2 a quest. And frankly, FC and SC could use a nerf. A bit boring running those quest every life. But they're just so efficient.

[boredGamer]

So 1.5k/minute with exp pot then. Great. Glad that's settled.
~5k base exp for 20-30 minutes of work. Similarly rated quests in the same(ish) level range (oath of vengeance, raven at the door, tear(ish), Bloody crypt, Xorian, etc) all take 1/4-1/2 the time. It's not like there's a lack of quests that give huuuuge amounts of exp in that level-range. E.g. if you're getting 1k/minute without a pot in SL part 1, then a good split in Oath of vengeance gives you 4k/minute without a pot, or xorian, or raven. Or 2kminute/tear, etc.

Those numbers "like and like" enough?


You're on a better track, a little weird to go to base xp from a xp/minute comparison. 20-30 minutes sounds long, but I have no one in heroics at all at the moment. But the conversation has never been "is it on par with other quests for xp" - here - I'll repost my statement for you :

"I don't ever feel like I "put up with" slavers."

Again, I'm pretty sure you won't stick with the topic, but have at it.

[A-O]

You're on a better track, a little weird to go to base xp from a xp/minute comparison. 20-30 minutes sounds long, but I have no one in heroics at all at the moment. But the conversation has never been "is it on par with other quests for xp" - here - I'll repost my statement for you :

"I don't ever feel like I "put up with" slavers."

Again, I'm pretty sure you won't stick with the topic, but have at it.

You also said


And xp isn't great but isn't bad, still at / above 1k / minute.

And that's what I based my discussion on. And I strongly disagree that it "isn't bad". I'd argue it's god **** awful. In fact, I'd argue it's probably one of the worst quests in the game (for exp).

Base exp is a good measurement, since then we can remove things like exp pot, count up reaper bonus etc. We get black on white. Which quest gives what, and how long does it take. And I can assure you I can do e.g. Raven at the door in less than 3 minutes for the same base exp as SL p1. And I encourage you to do it under 20 at level 8-10.

[Tlorrd]

There was a time long ago before reaper and the subsequent power creep of updates just prior and thereafter when LE slavers was end game as previously mentioned. It was also able to be completed by a Level 20 Warlock flawless and solo too within Warlock's first 6-8 months of release. Thus the impetus for Reaper came and the mangling of the rest of the game.

Pretty much ...

1. Release new class
2. It's OP
3. It's abused
4. Forumites complain
5. Devs say its not OP to their calculations
6. Devs then nerf class forgetting that they thought the class was fine to begin with
7. Devs release new shiny OP class
8. Rinse and repeat

[boredGamer]

You also said

And that's what I based my discussion on. And I strongly disagree that it "isn't bad". I'd argue it's god **** awful. In fact, I'd argue it's probably one of the worst quests in the game (for exp).

Base exp is a good measurement, since then we can remove things like exp pot, count up reaper bonus etc. We get black on white. Which quest gives what, and how long does it take. And I can assure you I can do e.g. Raven at the door in less than 3 minutes for the same base exp as SL p1. And I encourage you to do it under 20 at level 8-10.

And you continue to disconnect one supporting pillar from the rest of the point, and then compare it on it's own. If you think base xp is suddenly a good measurement, why didn't we just start with it? Stop moving around, it really doesn't matter which metric we use, as long as you stick to one.

Speaking of raven at the door: I need zero items from it, and it's pretty middling in terms of a quest I enjoy. Shall we talk about those things ? Nope ? Because you are clearly only focused on one, single, thing in this game, how much xp per minute.

You are 100% right, slavers isn't the best xp per minute. But I still like the chain, I even still run it for ingreds on occassion, and hey - the "god **** awful" xp is some icing on my cake (and apparently no one elses)

Happy to run it next heroic life - at level 10 - pretty sure part 1 is in the 15-18 minute range (r1). Part 2 is better xp/min (still not awesome, and maybe "dog **** awful", and I forget part 3.

You're for sure right that super zerg mode you shouldn't run it. Don't. I don't care.

[devashta]

Even though that would probably significantly hurt me, since I run 1-20 in about 6 hours as it stands. I.e. 1 pot. Doubt that'd be the case with "per exp earned".

Oh wow! This is amazing. Now I understand why devs don't change xp penalty for second life+ toons. Do you have a list of quests pinned somewhere we can see? Also do you solo or have a static TR group because from my HCL3 experience, that sped up my levelling time a lot, but not in 6 hours lol ;)

[HungarianRhapsody]

And you continue to disconnect one supporting pillar from the rest of the point, and then compare it on it's own. If you think base xp is suddenly a good measurement, why didn't we just start with it? Stop moving around, it really doesn't matter which metric we use, as long as you stick to one.

Speaking of raven at the door: I need zero items from it, and it's pretty middling in terms of a quest I enjoy. Shall we talk about those things ? Nope ? Because you are clearly only focused on one, single, thing in this game, how much xp per minute.

You are 100% right, slavers isn't the best xp per minute. But I still like the chain, I even still run it for ingreds on occassion, and hey - the "god **** awful" xp is some icing on my cake (and apparently no one elses)

Happy to run it next heroic life - at level 10 - pretty sure part 1 is in the 15-18 minute range (r1). Part 2 is better xp/min (still not awesome, and maybe "dog **** awful", and I forget part 3.

You're for sure right that super zerg mode you shouldn't run it. Don't. I don't care.
I got some XP for it. That’s more XP than I got for anything I ran after I hit level 30. XP in a quest that you’re running for crafting materials/loot is a nice bonus.

the first time XP bonus makes even the worst XP/minute quests at least tolerable compared to what we used to run.

[AbyssalMage]

With game changes and powercreep, quests that were grindy and blah now have nothing going for them.
Which is a shame. Things shouldn't be "difficult" simply because, "It is end game." Eventually it will not be "End game" so it should be done correctly the first time. For me, Slaver's was a huge miss from the start. Actually a lot of the stuff they released have been huge misses because of the lack of care they designed them with. I've only recently warmed up to Disciples of Rage pack and that is because I ignore the last two adventures unless I am grouped/helping others. The first 3 are actually semi-enjoyable and dare say, "fun."

[Matuse]

Slavers chain is good to run on elite once per life while WAY overlevel for the favor and level 8 crafting mats.

...and yeah, that's about it.

[Weemadarthur]

Oh wow! This is amazing. Now I understand why devs don't change xp penalty for second life+ toons. Do you have a list of quests pinned somewhere we can see? Also do you solo or have a static TR group because from my HCL3 experience, that sped up my levelling time a lot, but not in 6 hours lol ;)

Just to make something clear here this isnt so much due to the quests you run as how fast you run them. having done a few speed runs 1-20 in under 10 hours play with a few friends that wanted fast xp for a few weekends you will actually bypass some of the bigger xp quests that are traditionally run in favor of quests you can zerg to the end and complete with as little fuss as possible. It just requires a few good players that dont waste any time and know the quests well enough to be able to apply a divide and conquer tactic as needed.

So the simplest way to explain how this is done is think of every quest in the game you can run with a few friends in less than 5 mins. If that list includes things like gwylans, Tear, amber temple, castle ravenloft, spies and Von 3+4 you will probably have a good chance to pull it off. If those quests take 10+ mins for you to complete then expect 12 hours+ instead.

[A-O]

Oh wow! This is amazing. Now I understand why devs don't change xp penalty for second life+ toons. Do you have a list of quests pinned somewhere we can see? Also do you solo or have a static TR group because from my HCL3 experience, that sped up my levelling time a lot, but not in 6 hours lol ;)

Roughly done (50% pot, vip, guild buff, VoM)
1>3 exp tokens
Ringleader R>E
Stealthy R>E
Durks > R
Butchers > R
Level 4
Fire caves R>E until 5, H, N
Entire 3bc R
Depths R
House D pirates R
Gwylans, Tear, deleras R
Von 2+3
SC R+Ex5+H+N
Ravenloft R
GH R
Sharn R
Cogs R
Docks R
Stormhorns R
Wheloon R

And that's 20

Solo it's about 8-11 hours, duo or 3man with my mates it's about 6-8 hours depending on builds.

But it's all about doing it fast. The quest list isn't as important as the speed of the runs. entire GH, e.g. is less than 1 hour. And most of that time is wasted in Madstone/pop.
That does not include time messing around in town, items etc. But that doesn't tick pots, so it's a wash anyways.




You are 100% right, slavers isn't the best xp per minute.


And that's the only thing we're discussing. I've already said I agree that they're fun quests, challenging, good items. But right now we're discussing the claim that they aren't "bad". I argue that they are. You argue that they're not.
If you wanna support your argument, keep it to that argument. Don't add more factors. If you wanna change your mind and say that "yea they're bad exp", then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The reason why it's important to me is that SSG seem unable to do simple math themselves, so they rely only on what's perceived good/bad. And if people keep saying that SL isn't "bad exp", then they won't find any reasons to buff it. In their mind they buffed it "significantly" 5 months ago (or whatever) and that's all they'll do to it. But if people keep speaking up about their godawful exp, then we might see them revisit that and make them on-par with the difficulty and length they offer.

[SpartanKiller13]

-Most encounters are just 6+ tanky mobs standing in the middle of hallways. It looks extremely unnatural compared to earlier dungeons where you have patrolling mobs or a few guards placed at strategy points. You don't have 6+ guards standing in the middle of hallways because it blocks access to their own people. Imagine if you had 6 guys just standing outside your house door, it looks ridiculous.

Well, for the undead packs it makes sense. Oozes as well, sorta? Even the guard packs, like chilling around the rednames. Hallways are pretty dumb though lol :D


-Trog shamans will one shot people with force missiles. Does the quest tell you that shield clickies are REQUIRED to do this quest? No. When I tried doing this the first time, we cleared the first half of the quest fine, went into the caves, then the party got wiped by force missiles because we had no idea shield clickies were required. We just left after we realised that it was impossible to do this quest without shield clickies.

You can buy Shield wands in the marketplace for basically free if you don't have clickies. Nightshield also works, and like 1/3 of classes have an enhancement that works too. Magic Missile immunity is pretty much mandatory past C/N/H difficulty.


-Lots of "LOL XD ONE SHOT" traps. Oddly enough, this chain also has some very nice traps like the bee room instead of the usual lazy "okay lets put a bunch of traps here to one shot players who cant tank them with max reaper hp".

Most of the traps in Slave Lords are piles of traps close together; if you don't get hit by all of them it's a lot easier :)

But yes, traps are one of the things that kills the most players when you're just getting into Elite/Reaper difficulty for the first time.


-The grind required to get mats is unreal, especially as the 2nd and 3rd quest in the chain have much fewer ingredient chests than the first one for some reason.

I made two 5-piece sets in ~9 hours of questing; not sure how that's "unreal" lol. For Heroic, run overlevel. For Epic, bring a level 30 with modern gear (or a party). I average around 1 Legendary item/life these days, and it doesn't take me more than one run through the chain.


-IIRC the final boss fight in the chain has a boss that will constantly become invulnerable (and there is nothing the player can do about it) so it takes forever to kill him. I think it's the assassin that uses a smoke bomb or something and there is no counter for that.

Just assume he has 400 Hide and call it a day. Players have all these cheese methods, why can't an enemy? If you're at a reasonable difficulty, it's pretty nice that he's not always there, taking some pressure off while you beat down his buddies.


At the end of the day, extremely long quests that nobody wants to bother with in heroics. And there are way easier alternatives for gear in epics now, so no real reason to bother.

Yeah, I'd run overlevel if ever in Heroics. But they're pretty nice for epics, as you can get a lot of nice things (like Quality stats, actual Sheltering, etc) with a lot of slot flexibility. I definitely use ~1/life for the past 5-6 lives.


Slavers would need to be X2-X2.5 exp to be worth it time-wise alone. Let alone difficulty.

If they want it run more commonly, yeah. Right now you only run it for mats lol.


I really dislike these mechanics too. Nothing is worse than when it feels like the DM is cheating. I think you're right that one of the SL's do go in and out of reality (I can't recollect 100% because I don't usually run this). I still love that end fight despite this. I really like it because it's no nonsense slug fest. It's very refreshing after the absurd slog of the previous quests.

I wonder what the DM thinks about things like Meld or Jibbers lol. I think it's kinda fun that the DM can cheat an enemy on occasion, and it's not like the SL boss is healing or anything - he's just a Rogue stealthing out so he can sneak attack you.


...And if people keep saying that SL isn't "bad exp", then they won't find any reasons to buff it. In their mind they buffed it "significantly" 5 months ago (or whatever) and that's all they'll do to it. But if people keep speaking up about their godawful exp, then we might see them revisit that and make them on-par with the difficulty and length they offer.

SL is pretty awful XP/minute. I don't think it should ever be on the high end of the list but it'd be nice to have it at a competitive enough point that people consider 1/done once/life. Would make LFM's a lot easier to fill :)

[boredGamer]

And that's the only thing we're discussing. I've already said I agree that they're fun quests, challenging, good items. But right now we're discussing the claim that they aren't "bad". I argue that they are. You argue that they're not.
If you wanna support your argument, keep it to that argument. Don't add more factors. If you wanna change your mind and say that "yea they're bad exp", then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The reason why it's important to me is that SSG seem unable to do simple math themselves, so they rely only on what's perceived good/bad. And if people keep saying that SL isn't "bad exp", then they won't find any reasons to buff it. In their mind they buffed it "significantly" 5 months ago (or whatever) and that's all they'll do to it. But if people keep speaking up about their godawful exp, then we might see them revisit that and make them on-par with the difficulty and length they offer.

So you're quibbling over "not good" versus "bad", while maintaining there are worse quests. I guess we need to call those "super bad" ?

I hope you're happy with your pedantry, I'm sure you are.

[A-O]

So you're quibbling over "not good" versus "bad", while maintaining there are worse quests. I guess we need to call those "super bad" ?

I hope you're happy with your pedantry, I'm sure you are.

Bruh.

You say they're "not bad". I'm saying "they god f*ing awful". If you think that's just semantics then I don't even...

Again, if you've come to change your mind and think that the quests are, indeed, awful for exp. Then we're done. And if you haven't come to that conclusion, then please make your argument. You've failed to produce a single one so far. All you've done is "quibbled" over semantics.



SL is pretty awful XP/minute. I don't think it should ever be on the high end of the list but it'd be nice to have it at a competitive enough point that people consider 1/done once/life. Would make LFM's a lot easier to fill


I agree! They shouldn't be "let's farm this 5 times a life" exp, but it'd be nice if they were a fat chunk like the Pit, so that when you do run then, you're sure to bring a couple of hundred k exp.

[GramercyRiff]

I wonder what the DM thinks about things like Meld or Jibbers lol. I think it's kinda fun that the DM can cheat an enemy on occasion, and it's not like the SL boss is healing or anything - he's just a Rogue stealthing out so he can sneak attack you.


Cheating is fun cool for you I guess.

edit: that was tongue in cheek in case it's not obvious

[FTPDDO]

The trap skill required for these heroic quests is much higher than other level 8s. I believe this is the only place on my first-life journey to 30 where I blew up a trap box with solid gear, max disable ranks, human skill boost and heroism potion. I blew up a few forgetting to swap gear along the way to 30, but this is the only place where I had the proper gear swaps and still blew it up on a 1. I ran these on elite at level 13 with mostly slave lord gear farmed on hard with quality disable on one of the items. The good news is my evasion was good enough to avoid most of the damage.

I am not complaining or asking for a change - just an observation. Bringing your A game isn't enough for these traps with a first life character - you would need max int, skill tomes, ability tomes, enhancement points spent on disable device boosts or something else if running these at level 10 on elite or above. My base int was 14 with 2 from ship buffs and 5 from gear - so 21 total. The fighting was rather easy since I was 5 levels over.

[Mglaxix]

The trap skill required for these heroic quests is much higher than other level 8s. I believe this is the only place on my first-life journey to 30 where I blew up a trap box with solid gear, max disable ranks, human skill boost and heroism potion. I blew up a few forgetting to swap gear along the way to 30, but this is the only place where I had the proper gear swaps and still blew it up on a 1. I ran these on elite at level 13 with mostly slave lord gear farmed on hard with quality disable on one of the items. The good news is my evasion was good enough to avoid most of the damage.

I am not complaining or asking for a change - just an observation. Bringing your A game isn't enough for these traps with a first life character - you would need max int, skill tomes, ability tomes, enhancement points spent on disable device boosts or something else if running these at level 10 on elite or above. My base int was 14 with 2 from ship buffs and 5 from gear - so 21 total. The fighting was rather easy since I was 5 levels over.

I think anytime you roll a 1 you should fail regardless of skill level, boosts, pots, and what not. I manage to fail saves all the time when I am 30 and run favor off in low level quests and get the old ray of enfeeblement treatment by a CR3 mob like my 85+ save means nothing.

[FTPDDO]

I think anytime you roll a 1 you should fail regardless of skill level, boosts, pots, and what not. I manage to fail saves all the time when I am 30 and run favor off in low level quests and get the old ray of enfeeblement treatment by a CR3 mob like my 85+ save means nothing.

That's a different subject. With disable on a failure you just fail and can try again. On a critical failure the trap box blows up. In every other quest in the game I either succeeded or failed on a 1 if I had good gear for the level and boosts. This is the only chain where I had a critical failure on a 1 and blew up the trap box. Since I have evasion and was soloing the outcome wasn't bad, but in a party with people without evasion things would be different.

I am not convinced "1" always resulting in a critical failure would be a positive thing for the game. It would definitely diminish the value of trapping skills as party members would have to build for the 5% chance the trap box blows up. Traps are a significant source of deaths on hardcore for example - even a balanced static group would now have to factor in the 5% chance of traps not being disabled when building characters.

[NoobCake]

Slavers are the ****tiest quests in the entire game. I know it sounds incredible that anything can be dumber and lamer than Memoirs but Slavers quests manage it. The entirety of that moronic slugfest has one (1) cool moment: the bear. Every other moment you spend doing these worthless quest is an obnoxious waste of your precious lifespan and I ****ing hate it.

This pack should outright be deleted from the game because it's just that ****tily designed. I'm not saying they should fire its designers but they should probably fire its designers. Not even a 5 year old kid would design levels this bad (assuming you explain what level design is to a 5 yo).
[/ANGERY]

[Tsutti]

I just finished the Slave Lord Chain on my Hardcore character. Wow.. that chain is ..well difficult to say the least. I actually read an old thread on here about it I won't bring back to life. It's a hard over leveled chain especially parts 1 and 3 when doing it on elite. My level 12 Alchemist barely survived each of my two attempts at elite both of which I had to recall out of. However, it was probably the most fun I have had in DDO in a while. My only real issue is parts one and three have way to few shrines. I could deal with the traps, i could deal with the mass of mobs and the archers with more hit points then Tiamat but what finally defeated me was I just ran out of mana and three pots later and no shrine in sight. I just gave up. I am not asking for a shrine around every corner but part two had plenty why do parts one and three have so few? A couple or even just one more in those two quests would be nice.

To be fair a lack of shrines in such long quests does encourage party play, which is a good thing.

[SpartanKiller13]

The trap skill required for these heroic quests is much higher than other level 8s. I believe this is the only place on my first-life journey to 30 where I blew up a trap box with solid gear, max disable ranks, human skill boost and heroism potion. I blew up a few forgetting to swap gear along the way to 30, but this is the only place where I had the proper gear swaps and still blew it up on a 1. I ran these on elite at level 13 with mostly slave lord gear farmed on hard with quality disable on one of the items. The good news is my evasion was good enough to avoid most of the damage.

I am not complaining or asking for a change - just an observation. Bringing your A game isn't enough for these traps with a first life character - you would need max int, skill tomes, ability tomes, enhancement points spent on disable device boosts or something else if running these at level 10 on elite or above. My base int was 14 with 2 from ship buffs and 5 from gear - so 21 total. The fighting was rather easy since I was 5 levels over.

Did you up-gear a lot for Sharn, or are those DC's a lot lower? I'd have expected those traps to be similarly boosted, although I'm certainly better-geared at 15 than at 8 (and I don't play trappers).

I just assume newer stuff is harder, and sometimes that's a pretty big spike (like Slave Lords, or Sharn).

[Bjond]

one of the bosses constantly goes invulnerable [..]It's an awful mechanic

It's not an invulnerable. He teleports behind one of two pillars in order to enter sneak mode. Then he tries to sneak up behind someone and attack. Don't show him your back or let him get 1st strike. He likes to teleport again right after he gets his assassinate on someone. It's actually a really cool mechanism for a rogue mini-boss.

If you're ranged, you can keep firing almost nonstop, but he does hit like a truck -- most ranged need to kite him. You'll want v.high spot to see the sneaking or you can lay down ice to break it as he tries to sneak back if you lack spot or you can dot him (and see him from the numbers flaking from his head).

BTW, that's assuming you're not talking about the basic invulnerability swap that alternates between main boss and minions. Hurt boss until he bubbles, swap to minions until they go invuln .. boss / minion / boss .. until boss is dead. The teleport & sneak don't become tedious until he's the last minion standing.

[FTPDDO]

Did you up-gear a lot for Sharn, or are those DC's a lot lower? I'd have expected those traps to be similarly boosted, although I'm certainly better-geared at 15 than at 8 (and I don't play trappers).

I just assume newer stuff is harder, and sometimes that's a pretty big spike (like Slave Lords, or Sharn).

I ran R1 4 levels over but once I capped out @ level 18 I went right to 20 and finished the heroics including sharn between levels 20 and 23 on elite. So it might be a tough comparison.

[RavenStormclaw]

To be fair a lack of shrines in such long quests does encourage party play, which is a good thing.

I was running it with a full, balanced party. I alone survived long enough to recall out. Running out of mana killed both the Sorc and FVS. It was all over but the crying when they died.

[Tsutti]

I was running it with a full, balanced party. I alone survived long enough to recall out. Running out of mana killed both the Sorc and FVS. It was all over but the crying when they died.

Mb didn't see you mention a party, I figured you were solo. If you don't have any non-mana-using members in the party then it might be difficult. Mana is a huge issue in heroics, runs out super fast on pretty much any build that uses it.

If you guys plan to go to 30, try it again there. Hopefully mana issues become manageable with a little care in the use of spells and conservation of mana. Just need to pay attention to mobs and try to use spells when they will hit the most enemies so you use as few spells as possible to kill things. Use cheap spells for straggler enemies, cheap spells or melee (melee esp for the sorc if they spend 6 points in eldritch knight, even if they normally don't run this way would suggest finding 6 points to move here for slavers if you guys are having mana problems) to finish low hp enemies. Basically whatever you can to reduce mana expenditure.

[Abilbo]

[QUOTE=RavenStormclaw;6357346] what finally defeated me was I just ran out of mana and three pots later and no shrine in sight. I just gave up.[/Q

This was your mistake. Your on HC. Experience is not really your primary goal, and as your 12, doing a level 8 quest, odds are your capped, if not close to being capped at that point. Recall out, run to the bar, drink a broccoli juice and run back to the quest, it doesn't reset for 5 minutes. Enter and exit the quest as many times as you need, to make sure that your not going to die, do that for ANY quest that is going to give a caster issues. If you are soloing you just need to get back before the 5 Minute mark, if your grouping with at least one other player its much easier as you can take turns leaving and coming back.

On another note, trying to solo Slavers on HC is a bad idea. I am not saying it can't be done, and I am not saying that it hasn't been done, I am saying on HC soloing Slavers is something that is a lot riskier than your normal quests. Slavers, as others have stated, was the "endgame" for epics for some time. Even with RL and Sharn gear, Slavers still fills gaps in peoples gear.

[Folker]

I think this chain needs to be reduced in level and difficulty and more importantly the gear needs to be reduced to be item level 26 or 25. The reason is so that the gear would be useful for more then 1 level.

[DYWYPI]

Both 'Secret of the Slavers' Stockade' and 'Slave Pits of the Undercity' have Trap [Disable] DCs, which are about 7 DC higher, than the really old quests. A of lot the newer Heroic quests that have Legendary versions tend to have slightly higher DCs for traps (Bear traps use the base quest level).


[...] The trap skill required for these heroic quests is much higher than other level 8s. ...

Your Character was probably just really "ill prepared" or didn't have a 'Disable Device' skill, at least equal to your Search skills. A Modified Disable Roll of 44 would be fine, i.e. DC:44 should have been plenty for disabling the traps on Elite for those two quests.

Level 10 default Human Assassin Rogue with no Tomes or Ship Buffs would likely have; 15 Disable via ranks, +2 (boost) via Fox's Cunning if you didn't have a +6 INT item, +2 Skills (Heroism potion), +1 Luck (Prayer Scroll), ML10 +12 Disable Device Item (+6 more if insightful), +4 Free Agents Thieves' tools (+6 bonus) then add +d20 roll... Plus there is easy +3 Disable Device from the Mechanic tree, etc.

Being prepared you have to be extremely unlucky (roll less than 40) to 'Critically Fail' those traps or have gaping holes in your Disable Device equipment; 15 + 2 + 1 + 12 + 6 +(d20 roll of 1) = 37. Not using any Insightful; only drinking Fox's Cunning as the INT boost; Rolling: 1; no APs spent. :-)

[FuzzyDuck81]

It's not my favourite chain but I like it well enough & will usually run it on hard at level 9 or so, the XP isn't the best around in itself but I usually end up getting a number of monster manual deeds while running it so that helps make up the difference.

[FTPDDO]

Your Character was probably just really "ill prepared" or didn't have a 'Disable Device' skill, at least equal to your Search skills. A Modified Disable Roll of 44 would be fine, i.e. DC:44 should have been plenty for disabling the traps on Elite for those two quests.

I knew this chain was higher difficulty than other level 8s before ran it so I farmed those quests on hard to get gear before running those quests on elite. When I ran the quests on hard and once on elite at an earlier level I definitely wasn't ready for the trapping and knew it in advance. Once I had the gear I thought it would be ok, but I was wrong.

So my gear at level 13 running those on elite included +10 disable device, quality disable device +2 and +5 intelligence. This is on top of max ranks to disable device. It only happened once when I rolled a 1, but it wasn't due to being ill-prepared. When I ran my level 9 Reaper 1 quests I didn't blow up any trap boxes with the same gear.

So my disable would have been:

16 disable ranks
10 gear
2 quality gear
5 int bonus (14 starting, 2 ship buffs, 5 gear)
2 ship buffs
4 human skill boost
2 heroism potion
Total: 41

Obviously throw in tomes and it would have probably been fine. I was sharing my experience as a free-to-play first lifer.

[droid327]

When the quest came out, the difficulty and length was justified because Slavers gear was BIS and worth that opportunity cost. You justified the low XP/min because you were getting added value from your Slavers mats.

But the value of those mats is severely deprecated now, and so you're stuck now with just an overtuned quest with undertuned rewards.

The fix is simple...if its easy, just scale the mobs back a little, like just take 20% of their HP off across the board. Leave the traps, even, if that's a nuisance to update...they're hard but they're all avoidable with preparation and carefulness.

But even if you cant retune anything...just double base XP, that's the easiest thing in the world and it'd bring the quests back in line with time+effort+risk:reward ratio, people would run them again.

[DYWYPI]

FTPDDO, one of the quests within heroic Borderlands has a very high Trap DC, which first time players may struggle with and fail. There's nothing special about 'Against the Slave Lords' Trap DCs albeit 7 DC is quite a jump and likely the first set of quests, where you'd first notice a larger step (for several traps). Its Disable DCs will nearly be the same as old Level 9 or 10 quests on Elite.

If you had a Modified Roll for Disable Device of 41, those Traps you should not have critically failed - unless one of the trap DCs was bugged! Perhaps you might have been under the influence of a "debuff" or had forgot to swap your gear, etc. Reaper mode does not increase the Disable Device requirements and Bear traps you can retry.

I was illustrating a 28-point default path Dexterity based point Dark Blade Assassin (Level 10) Rogue with no Tomes or Airship buffs - or AP spend - using a random Level 10, Disable Device item and vendor purchasable items, e.g. Fox's Cunning (if you lacked a INT item) and Heroism potions.

Of course by Level 10 you can also get random items with the Insightful bonuses. We can ignore insightful, it's unlikely you'd have Crafting Levels near 175 to craft Insightful if you were new player, etc. Also the odds are as a newbie you wouldn't have any useful wearable named Disable Device items. Furthermore it's quite possible you won't have a random Level 10 (+12) Disable Device item either depending on your funds and luck.

I understood where you were coming from. Although what you posted earlier could have read that you needed to be geared to the teeth or required; Tomes, Guild Buffs a Trapping build and several other advantages. :-)

NB: the required Search DC which I know for certain is DC: 32 would be a larger a hurdle than the Disable DCs because the Search difference is 4 DC greater than older Level 8 quests. The Disable check uses a d20 roll (1-20). Thus Disable Device can be boosted far more easily than Search therefore the suspected 7 DC higher for disable is a minor difference (in comparison to 4 in Search) especially since you also have a "4 buffer" where you can 'Fail' disable (and retry the roll) but not 'Critically Fail'. ;-)

[Amorais]

ToEE and Slavelords are both on my "never do these again" list. Which is starting to get pretty long.

ToEE because its just a bucket of fail with "plonk room" + "copy/paste mob" design and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on. Plus the named loot is utterly dire and the farming required for ingredients is just not worth it.

Slavelords because it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on // and on and on and on.....

Plus the incredible immersion breaker of the obvious "copy 6 mobs" "Paste 6 mobs" design with no attempt whatsoever to try to make the mobs interesting.

Shame because both of these rank among my top ten paper and pen modules of all time.

[Chacka_DDO]

In my opinion, the Slavelords quests are nice to play but the quests suffer from the DDO illness of outdated loot.
If loot is not top-end anymore while the difficulty and effort are still top-end ppl tend to not do the quest anymore, that's just natural.
What DDO needs is a unified system where random named and crafted loot is in principle equally strong and just only different.
I can understand that the developers are tempted to go the easy way to simply add more of the same to loot to make it stronger but this has also downsides and this way should not be taken anymore.
If you have a lvl 28 item that has only 17 str then its natural that ppl dont want it anymore when there are lvl 29 items available with 21 or even 22 str.
And then, of course, they dont do the quest anymore, no matter how nice the quest is unless the quest is very effective for reaper exp/minute and this is in Slavelords certainly not the case.

[FTPDDO]

FTPDDO, one of the quests within heroic Borderlands has a very high Trap DC, which first time players may struggle with and fail. There's nothing special about 'Against the Slave Lords' Trap DCs albeit 7 DC is quite a jump and likely the first set of quests, where you'd first notice a larger step (for several traps). Its Disable DCs will nearly be the same as old Level 9 or 10 quests on Elite.

If you had a Modified Roll for Disable Device of 41, those Traps you should not have critically failed - unless one of the trap DCs was bugged! Perhaps you might have been under the influence of a "debuff" or had forgot to swap your gear, etc. Reaper mode does not increase the Disable Device requirements and Bear traps you can retry.

I was illustrating a 28-point default path Dexterity based point Dark Blade Assassin (Level 10) Rogue with no Tomes or Airship buffs - or AP spend - using a random Level 10, Disable Device item and vendor purchasable items, e.g. Fox's Cunning (if you lacked a INT item) and Heroism potions.

Of course by Level 10 you can also get random items with the Insightful bonuses. We can ignore insightful, it's unlikely you'd have Crafting Levels near 175 to craft Insightful if you were new player, etc. Also the odds are as a newbie you wouldn't have any useful wearable named Disable Device items. Furthermore it's quite possible you won't have a random Level 10 (+12) Disable Device item either depending on your funds and luck.

I understood where you were coming from. Although what you posted earlier could have read that you needed to be geared to the teeth or required; Tomes, Guild Buffs a Trapping build and several other advantages. :-)

NB: the required Search DC which I know for certain is DC: 32 would be a larger a hurdle than the Disable DCs because the Search difference is 4 DC greater than older Level 8 quests. The Disable check uses a d20 roll (1-20). Thus Disable Device can be boosted far more easily than Search therefore the suspected 7 DC higher for disable is a minor difference (in comparison to 4 in Search) especially since you also have a "4 buffer" where you can 'Fail' disable (and retry the roll) but not 'Critically Fail'. ;-)

Appreciate your thoughts. I am comfortable with what I shared earlier. In the few cases I did blow up traps I always checked my gear and buffs to see what I was missing and/or if I forgot a swap item.

The original point you were replying to is my comment that the trapping requirements are higher than other level 8s. That is most certainly the case.