How difficult is Epic Against the Demon Queen post Update 51?

[Annex]

How difficult is Epic Against the Demon Queen to solo post Update 51 compared to before Update 51? Did any mechanics change?

Epic The Chronoscope became much more difficult post Update 51 and has some changed stuff. I used to solo both fairly easily on Epic Normal from Level 21. Now I dare not try that with The Chronoscope until Level 27 or so. I do not want to step into Against the Demon Queen and get smooshed.

[Enoach]

I haven't noticed any change in difficulty post U51 for either of these Raids.

Can you outline what you feel has changed? Is it the availability of power? Have the mobs been boosted?

[Annex]

Can you outline what you feel has changed? Is it the availability of power? Have the mobs been boosted?

All for Epic Normal difficulty:
Conjoined Abashai Devastator Hit Points increased about 300%. On Epic Normal, he now has approximately half a million Hit Points.
Hit Points of all Abashai making up Conjoined Abashai Devastator massively increased
Hit Points of all Bearded Devils massively increased
Hit Points of Bloodplate massively increased; He now takes significantly more rounds to kill.
Tiefling Armors no longer appear with every round of Bloodplate. Instead, they seem to reappear on a timer.
Bearded Devils no longer appear in pairs each time Bloodplate returns. Sometimes one appears. Sometimes two appear.
The second Orthon Captain also has more Hit Points, but not like Bloodplate or the Conjoined Abashai Devastator.
All Bearded Devils hit harder and significantly more often.
In the second Orthon Captain fight, Tieflings and Bearded Devils show up more quickly, do more damage, and are significantly harder to kill.
The second Orthon Captain seems to kick less.
At least one Abashai forming the Conjoined Abashai Devastator now lands a tail sting attack very often whereas it never landed before. It uses a poison icon but Remove Poison does not remove it.
The Conjoined Abashai Devastator changes color significantly less often.
Hellfire Crossbows used by Orthon Captains hit significantly harder.
Other notes:
Immunity to Level Drain continues to work against the Conjoined Abashai Devastator.
My character has not experienced any massive ability score loss reported by other players, probably at higher difficulties, but I remove status stuff as quickly as it appears.

In sum, monsters stay around much longer, hit harder, and without significant Sheltering and Hit Points, will dig through defenses much faster than previously.

[Fauxknight]

She hits like a truck in Demon Queen if you are playing on Elite or Reaper. Chronoscope feels like they have a lot more hit points but they don't dish out as much damage.

[Nandos]

I did Against the Demon Queen and Zawabi's Revenge (the raid) at level 24 with 2 others on R1. It seemed the same or even easier than it used to be before Update 51.

[marinersfan]

I've run these very little since u51 so take with a grain of salt, and apologies if I lead you astray...

I agree Chrono is tougher now. I brought a gimp druid build into my first one post change and was not prepared compared to what I'm used to.

ADQ doesn't seem to have received the same boost IMO. Ran it r3 a while back with 6-man group and we cruised through with no issue whatsoever. The raid seemed easy too. Granted this was an extremely powerful group (except for the sixth member, me). I don't remember what level I was, but I definitely wasn't capped. Maybe it'd be a little tougher now that ED are level gated but I kind of doubt it...I say try it and see. I don't think there are any mechanic changes, but honestly I was just following the herd in my group. When I ran it there was a glitch that made it impossible to get the loot at the end, verified by many others. I think this has been fixed but haven't run it to verify.

Just to clarify you're asking about the pre-raid and not the actual raid?

[Annex]

Oh good grief. I am such a bubblehead. *shakes head* Zawabi's Revenge. Is Epic Zawabi's Revenge, the raid, more difficult after Update 51? Does Queen Lailat have more Hit Points and stuff? Does she hit harder? Do the spinning blades hit harder? I only care about Epic Normal difficulty. My characters cannot handle higher difficulty stuff. They get smooshed.

[marinersfan]

Oh good grief. I am such a bubblehead. *shakes head* Zawabi's Revenge. Is Epic Zawabi's Revenge, the raid, more difficult after Update 51? Does Queen Lailat have more Hit Points and stuff? Does she hit harder? Do the spinning blades hit harder? I only care about Epic Normal difficulty. My characters cannot handle higher difficulty stuff. They get smooshed.

I can't say for certain, but reaper didn't seem harder, so I think it's really unlikely EN would see a big jump in difficulty. I was playing a sorc and pretty sure the blades caught me a few times, for not much damage. She died as quick, or quicker than I remember from past runs. I think she does hit pretty hard, but always has?

If I hadn't of TR'd I'd hop in to test it, but sadly I'm back on the hamster wheel currently. If you give it a whack let us know how it feels in your opinion.

[marinersfan]

Update:
Still on the hamster wheel but up to level 24. My observations so far:

1) heroic elite and R1 are silly easy to solo. At level it took my caster bard 2 minutes to finish the raid (couple ranged spells and dead. Blades were negligible damage and she didn't live long enough to hit me.

2) just did R1 epic and did not win. It felt like they hit for less than pre update except for the DOT spells, which were devastating. Everything seems to have bloated hp compared to what I remember. I probably did a couple hundred thousand damage to her before leaving and it barely moved her hp. I redid on HE for quick completion.

I'll try EN next time and report back how it goes

[Annex]

Update: Still on the hamster wheel but up to level 24. My observations so far:

Thank you very much, Marinersfan, for remembering this topic, running Zawabi's Revenge, and offering your experience. :)

.....

Since my last post in this thread, a number of my Epic characters have easily completed Heroic Elite Zawabi's Revenge using Level 20 equipment and various weapons.

A few of my Epic characters can still solo The Chronoscope on Epic Normal, so I continue to slowly acquire Epic Tokens of the Twelve.

Over the last few weeks, a number of my characters have reached Level 30, where they will remain. Despite a great deal of effort running various Legendary Quests, I still cannot assemble even one Level 30 equipment set. Due to the way equipment works in DDO, I am not even sure what equipment to look for. Whenever I find something, I stuff it into storage in the hope that, some day, I can assemble a set that fits together, finally allowing me to put aside the Level 20 equipment. :)

I still have not tried Epic Zawabi's Revenge, Legendary Tempest's Spine, or many other things on my To Do List for fear of failing in spectacular fashion. :) My current plan is to take a 6 month break when The Isle of Dread launches and look for a new game. If the new game does not pan out, I will come back here, purchase some points, acquire the Expansion, and try my luck with that for a month or two. :)

[Marshal_Lannes]

The Queen still goes down fast. I've seen many characters struggle in Chrono now. You have to be well-geared/lived to handle the Bearded Devils. Bloodplate is probably the toughest part of the raid now.

[vryxnr]

... for fear of failing in spectacular fashion. ...

but, but, but! but failure is the best way to learn!

...

...I'll go back into my shadowy corner now.

(I haven't run ZR for a while, so I can't comment on it atm. sorry)

[marinersfan]

Thank you very much, Marinersfan, for remembering this topic, running Zawabi's Revenge, and offering your experience. :)

.....
Over the last few weeks, a number of my characters have reached Level 30, where they will remain. Despite a great deal of effort running various Legendary Quests, I still cannot assemble even one Level 30 equipment set. Due to the way equipment works in DDO, I am not even sure what equipment to look for. Whenever I find something, I stuff it into storage in the hope that, some day, I can assemble a set that fits together, finally allowing me to put aside the Level 20 equipment. :)

I still have not tried Epic Zawabi's Revenge, Legendary Tempest's Spine, or many other things on my To Do List for fear of failing in spectacular fashion. :) My current plan is to take a 6 month break when The Isle of Dread launches and look for a new game. If the new game does not pan out, I will come back here, purchase some points, acquire the Expansion, and try my luck with that for a month or two. :)

Happy to touch base. I think EN may be relatively easy, hoping to report back Wednesday.

I think your best bet for a high level gear set may be the feywild, especially if you run in a group (even lfm strangers). Often people are very generous with gear they don't need. It should be fairly easy to get a 3-4 piece set after a few trips through all the quests. Look at the 4 different season sets and see what'll work with your various builds. In a similar vein, most players have all the sharn and ravenloft gear they'll ever need and will happily toss you a few goodies if you let them know what you're looking for. If I were you I'd look through ddowiki and focusing on getting specific sets...IMO too much gear to randomly quest and hope for "someday"

[Annex]

Happy to touch base. I think EN may be relatively easy, hoping to report back Wednesday.

I think your best bet for a high level gear set may be the feywild, especially if you run in a group (even lfm strangers). Often people are very generous with gear they don't need. It should be fairly easy to get a 3-4 piece set after a few trips through all the quests. Look at the 4 different season sets and see what'll work with your various builds. In a similar vein, most players have all the sharn and ravenloft gear they'll ever need and will happily toss you a few goodies if you let them know what you're looking for. If I were you I'd look through ddowiki and focusing on getting specific sets...IMO too much gear to randomly quest and hope for "someday"

Thank you!

I do not own Feywild and now play 100% solo. It's fine. I am not complaining. :) I need to learn to shut up.

[adamkatt]

dq2 EE is and easy 5 min solo run for lvl 30s. with a grp and 2 min. If youre after greater tokens its the best place to go, i keep a couple of toons flagged for it.

[marinersfan]

Thank you!

EN wasn't bad - I say give it a try. My 24 bard dealt with her without too much trouble.

Blade damage was negligible. I have a pretty high reflex and evasion so I'm not sure if it was even hitting me.
Trash spawns didn't do much. I mostly ignored them and just killed stuff that was standing by the queen with my aoe spells
Queen will hit you for a couple hundred HP - I suppose she could kill you if she knocks you over. I had to heal myself 3-4 times during the fight. Otherwise my bard song gave me all the healing I needed.
Queen has a lot more hp than she did on heroic elite

It took me 5-10 minutes to complete. I don't have anything that does massive damage - just slowly chipped away with sonic spells. I'm sure different builds could kill her much faster

Pulled a named item and a full token. I was expecting a partial token running on EN.

[Annex]

EN wasn't bad - I say give it a try. My 24 bard dealt with her without too much trouble.

Thank you again for offering your experience, Marinersfan. The information you provided was extremely helpful.

I decided to give it a try with my strongest character, a L30 Dagger Rogue. She could not hurt Queen Lailat at range. After about 7 minutes I was ready to teleport away, but decided to keep trying until Shield ran out. After exactly 10 minutes, she offers an insult and comes down to attack. As you wrote, her sweep attack with 8 swords inflicts a few hundred damage. She continued to teleport away every so often, but only for a short time. I was successful after about 14 minutes with about half my spell points used for healing.

Based on my experience, I will stop running this one, which is fine.

[Dilbon]

Before the update it was trivial to solo EE at 30 but afterwards new EN feels harder than old EE. It takes significantly longer to do EE solo now. Of course if you're in a group it's still a breeze.

[marinersfan]

I decided to give it a try with my strongest character, a L30 Dagger Rogue.

If you have any characters with some ranged dps options (caster, bow, thrower, etc) it's probably worth trying once more with them. I think spell caster would be best so you don't have to worry as much about bypassing her DR. If all your characters are melee focused, yeah this is not an ideal quest to do.