Epic Feedback: The Chamber of Raiyum

[Tolero]

Tell us about your experiences in the new epic difficulty of The Chamber of Raiyum quest!

[Shade]

Did did one today.. Was pretty good.

We had me (Barbarian)
2 clerics
spellsinger bard
wizard
sorcerer - tho wasnt around long

Monsters:
Immunities and stat damage resistance seemed fully function per the bio description. Regular weakening never worked, but enfeeblidn on crits would do 1-2 dmg, so I guess 4 points of stat dmg DR, seems good. Functional is good, unlike the stat dmg resistance the giants of Stealer of souls are meant to have. (epic ward makes them immune to death effects, charm, energy drain and mindfog)

Gnolls - Not too bad.. Tons of hp (think 10,000+ per on the big ones), lots of immunities,, good stuff for epic mobs. We used ottos irresistable dance, worked pretty good.

Skeletons Warriors - mmm.. Epic immunities + undead immunties.. Not much you can do but web them. Crazy hp.. Bout the same as gnolls I guess ,but since you cant crit, they take forever.. Me - max DPS frenzy berserker with fairly ideal weapons - min2 maul and double pos maul.. Takes a good 60+ seconds of constant DPS to take one down.. And constant DPS is tough as they have mega AC and the casters types pretty well ignore me and focus on killing the clerics/casters, making me chase em around. Maybe drop the hp by a good 20% and they should be ok. Maybe a small drop in str too, so there is some chance to trip them on a max str char.
Clay Golem - Very annoying cuz they only hit casters again... and 10,000+ hp, with a pretty well ideal wep (min2 maul, so bypasses there heavy DR) they still take way too long. Drop there hp a little, 20% would be fine.
Mummies - also quite crazy hp, but at least the casters could do wall of fire, doing 4x dmg on them, so they are ok.

Havez - Beat him.. After many many deaths from everyone getting 1 shotted by 500+ pnt cometfalls hehe. Tough fight but managable.

King Raiyum and his Death Hex Wraiths..
Raiyum himself isnt too bad, ~250 dmg chain lightning, ~200 dmg DBF, ~500+ disintegrates, nothing I cant handle.
But his Death Hex Wraiths took us out. There dmg is crazy, ~40-50 + 150+ soul drain damage, and 18 second cant-heal curse. By the time we got to him we only had 3 people left tho - as clearing the trash takes an incredibly long time with only 1 melee heh.... We couldn't beat him with just 3. Full group of strong well geared players could probably take him.

Loots:
We got a few chests. Each one had lots of lvl18+ weapons, lvl19 accessories. Good stuff, but no epic named stuff or epic crafting things. Guess there from the end chests.

Bugs:
Mummy Guardians did not seem to scale.. Same stats as elite, kill em in a few hits. Kinda good since they respawn indefinetely heh.. Tho some scalign would be appropriate, just not 10k+ hp,, maybe 2-3k.

Traps:
Traps dmg seemed the same as elite.. not an issue. Did not have a rogue to see if there harder to disabled.

Monsters CR:
Kinda overboard. CR38 on basic trash mobs, with Raiyum being 42. While they should be rated as really tough.. This has a really bad side effect on crushing my weapons into dust. Even tho I had no deaths until the first boss encounter, I had pretty much destroyed my mineral 2 maul from beating down trash mobs.. And thats a higher then normal hardnesss weapon. Other weapons I used broke incredibly fast.
Adamantine ritual will help here, but only so much.. Maybe drop there CR a tad to help the weapons last longer and not require recalling out ot the tavern to fix them.

Also looking at the epic whirlwind greatsword.. weak hardness, that would break in 5minuits!

[Spisey]

Excellent breakdown Shade!

[Tuney]

This brings up the question... I wonder if Music of the dead/maker would work in epic level hehe.

[Shade]

This brings up the question... I wonder if Music of the dead/maker would work in epic level hehe.

could be a great way to avoid those crazy trash mobs.. our bard never had it.

Mob saves were increased, tho from waht I saw spells were still landing fine, especially reflex save stuff.

[sirgog]

Sounds good - although I wish that there were *some* charmable foes in there (you make it sound like there's none).

For example, the fact that the Frost Wolves in Prey on the Hunter can be charmed allows for different ways of taking on the fights in there - you can use Heightened Web, you can charm the dogs and use them as portable webs, you can CK or Enervate the giants until you can land Flesh to Stone, or you can just belt them up.

Making the lowest CR gnolls be only resistant to (rather than immune to) Charm effects, and doing likewise for the lowest CR undead, would IMO make these dungeons more fun. Maybe have Charm spells be fully functional, but drop their duration by 80%?

Oh to have a level 20 on Llamania...

[Shade]

Sounds good - although I wish that there were *some* charmable foes in there (you make it sound like there's none).

Every monster in the quest from the weakest dogs to the most powerful boss has epic ward. It's described as heavy training against adventurers, so there ready for all our tactics.

I think they should keep the ward up on all mobs.. But give some mobs a low caster level version, which can be taken down with a good roll on greater dispell, then u can enervate, charm, stone, FoD, whatever u want. Just add another step to increase difficulty.

[Mjesko]

Every monster in the quest from the weakest dogs to the most powerful boss has epic ward. It's described as heavy training against adventurers, so there ready for all our tactics.

I think they should keep the ward up on all mobs.. But give some mobs a low caster level version, which can be taken down with a good roll on greater dispell, then u can enervate, charm, stone, FoD, whatever u want. Just add another step to increase difficulty.

I think this is a great idea and should be applied to many monsters with immunities. It would be much more fun if a caster could disable the immunities with dispel magic or disjunction for around 10 seconds.

[sirgog]

Every monster in the quest from the weakest dogs to the most powerful boss has epic ward. It's described as heavy training against adventurers, so there ready for all our tactics.

I think they should keep the ward up on all mobs.. But give some mobs a low caster level version, which can be taken down with a good roll on greater dispell, then u can enervate, charm, stone, FoD, whatever u want. Just add another step to increase difficulty.

Absolutely brilliant idea.

Give the easiest mobs a caster level 17 ward - dispellable with an average of three tries of Greater Dispel or 1.5-2 tries of Disjunction.
Give some of the midling ones a caster level 22 ward - takes 10 shots of Greater Dispel (average) or three Disjunctions.
And give the hardest mobs (orange-named bosses, etc) a caster level 27 ward. Good luck with that one.

[Borror0]

(immune to death effects, charm, compulsions, energy drain and a few others iirc)

Eladrin, you remember that discussion we had about immunities being, overall, bad for the game?

I don't mind greater resistance against the effects you deem too powerful but simply preventing spellcaster for landing many spells is not fun since is basically means that we are removed a large quantity of options. While immunities can be a good tool to create a greater range of experience ("X does not work here so I'll have to find another solution"), you're abusing them.

[Mjesko]

Eladrin, you remember that discussion we had about immunities being, overall, bad for the game?

I don't mind greater resistance against the effects you deem too powerful but simply preventing spellcaster for landing many spells is not fun since is basically means that we are removed a large quantity of options. While immunities can be a good tool to create a greater range of experience ("X does not work here so I'll have to find another solution"), you're abusing them.

Yep that is exactly the reason why i think Shades idea of disabling the immunities of monsters should be applied to all monsters, because i think that the combination of immunities and over 10,000 hp monsters will make casters useless.

[sirgog]

Yep that is exactly the reason why i think Shades idea of disabling the immunities of monsters should be applied to all monsters, because i think that the combination of immunities and over 10,000 hp monsters will make casters useless.

One is having (daydreaming) nightmares of fighting a mob like this that has a permanent Fire Shield on, one that's strong enough to deal retributive damage through resists.

*shudder*

[ariel7]

From what I understand about the epic upgrades none of them are really worth it, IMHO. I mean woopity-do it's almost as good as dt and only applicable to loot in the one area? Still think shroud weapons AND accessories are so much better by a mile (though possibly upgrading torq and greenblade might be ok) and makes doing that grind not even close go worth it. Shade nearly broke greensteels after breaking other weapons (plural) and described the deaths as "many many". The thread talking about upgrade mentions numbers of color correct tokens in the 25 and 30 range some with being specifically raid tokens. All to have greater false life or protection +4 or something on a weapon likely to at least sometimes be unequipped?

Seriously, I'm quite possibly missing somethng here but it sounds like the only thing epicc is the quest difficulty and the time wasted to grind for little or no benefit.
Sorry for spelling iPhone not autocorrecting in all places

[sephiroth1084]

Eladrin, you remember that discussion we had about immunities being, overall, bad for the game?

I don't mind greater resistance against the effects you deem too powerful but simply preventing spellcaster for landing many spells is not fun since is basically means that we are removed a large quantity of options. While immunities can be a good tool to create a greater range of experience ("X does not work here so I'll have to find another solution"), you're abusing them.

Yup.

Epic should be hard, yes. Fights should take longer, yes.

But giving every monster more HP than the frost giants in Prey, and immunity to nearly everything just isn't fun. It means that every group is going to want a cleric/FvS, bard, and 4 high-dps melees (maybe an intimitank if the monsters hit very hard). Bard improves DPS and can haste and toss GH, which apparently is all that a caster would be doing in there anyway.

I like the dispelling idea--would mean that Disjunction would have a use other than breaking our equipment.

Can the devs please start seriously experimenting with alternate solutions to the abilities they have given us, rather than simply slapping on 10,000 HP and immunity to everything?

[Gordo]

It seems to me that if "EPIC" essentially just means longer "beat down" times, then that is just making the quest epic instead of making an epic quest...

Final boss beat downs are one thing. Making everything (all stats, DR, AC, HP, etc...) inflated seems less an epic issue of your character's skill and more an issue of the player's epic patience.

[sirgog]

From what I understand about the epic upgrades none of them are really worth it, IMHO. I mean woopity-do it's almost as good as dt and only applicable to loot in the one area? Still think shroud weapons AND accessories are so much better by a mile (though possibly upgrading torq and greenblade might be ok) and makes doing that grind not even close go worth it. Shade nearly broke greensteels after breaking other weapons (plural) and described the deaths as "many many". The thread talking about upgrade mentions numbers of color correct tokens in the 25 and 30 range some with being specifically raid tokens. All to have greater false life or protection +4 or something on a weapon likely to at least sometimes be unequipped?

Seriously, I'm quite possibly missing somethng here but it sounds like the only thing epicc is the quest difficulty and the time wasted to grind for little or no benefit.
Sorry for spelling iPhone not autocorrecting in all places

I'll still run these quests on Epic even if the loot all blows (I expect some will and some won't). Also we don't yet know how many epic tokens are awarded per run - it may not be just one.

The changes I'd like to see from what Shade says, however, are cutting back on the 'ooze factor' of breaking our weapons; and allowing us to dispel Epic Ward, or at least removing it from a minority of the foes in there.

[sirgog]

...It means that every group is going to want a cleric/FvS, bard, and 4 high-dps melees (maybe an intimitank if the monsters hit very hard). Bard improves DPS and can haste and toss GH, which apparently is all that a caster would be doing in there anyway.
...

My first run of these, I'll be trying for a quite different group - one warchanter specced for melee DPS, three battleclerics or melee FvSes (optionally replace one with an Exploiter build or similar, if this is done make sure the Warchanter can use Heal scrolls without fail), one nuker/buffer arcane with a mean Web, and one hybrid Intimitank/melee DPS with trapsmithing (like the Hurtlocker build on the Rogue forums).

But that said, that's pretty much what I'd consider an optimal group for *any* 6-player content. Solid but unspectacular DPS, incredible survivability, and lots of utility.

[SirShen]

I played the Wiz in the group i felt useless. All i could do was web then web then web. Buffs thats all i was good for.

Spells that worked - Firewall, Web, Disintegrate and Otto's Irresistible Dance.
All other spells are useless.

I really think Epic is made for fighters only. It was just stand back and watch the fighter kill mobs. I feel this game is starting to head that way now. Why not get rid of all classes and just have fighters and healers because thats all is really needed for epic.

Trash mobs with over 30,000 hp and Disintergrate doing about 80 at most you just burn up your mana.

[sirgog]

I played the Wiz in the group i felt useless. All i could do was web then web then web. Buffs thats all i was good for.

Spells that worked - Firewall, Web, Disintegrate and Otto's Irresistible Dance.
All other spells are useless.

I really think Epic is made for fighters only. It was just stand back and watch the fighter kill mobs. I feel this game is starting to head that way now. Why not get rid of all classes and just have fighters and healers because thats all is really needed for epic.

Trash mobs with over 30,000 hp and Disintergrate doing about 80 at most you just burn up your mana.

Bleh, so it's as anti-Arcane as mod 9 content.

Come on Devs, listen to the players on immunities and make them dispellable.

Let Wizards deal with a mob by chaining Disjunction, Energy Drain, Enervate, Dominate Monster; let the Sorc have the same option (if they want to spend that many spell slots on non-damaging spells), or give them some way to deal non-trivial amounts of damage without burning mana.

[Junts]

Bleh, so it's as anti-Arcane as mod 9 content.

Come on Devs, listen to the players on immunities and make them dispellable.

Let Wizards deal with a mob by chaining Disjunction, Energy Drain, Enervate, Dominate Monster; let the Sorc have the same option (if they want to spend that many spell slots on non-damaging spells), or give them some way to deal non-trivial amounts of damage without burning mana.

Mod9 is only anti-bad or poorly equipped arcanes, mine doesn't have any problems with it, nor do many, many others.