Reaver Redux

[Lithic]

I just did a reaver this morning and I have to say I am extremely disapointed with how it was changed. I know this is old news to most, but I personally had only been in one reaver since the change (as a caster), and had been killed early on by my own admitted stupidity hehe. I'm going to try to keep this post civil, but I expect much of my frustration to bleed out into my typing.

Now the old complaint was that casters and clerics were all you needed to beat the raid (and only 1 or 2 of each would do it), while the 9 others would sit on their thumbs and wait for their chests. Melees especially were charitiy cases.

There were many fixes proposed for this, which would have led to a very fun raid using everyone in the party. These included varying the elemental type in the big room, though adding more of them and boosting their power.

Unfortunately whoever changed the reaver raid apparently did everything possible to ruin this quest. First the saves of the elementals seem to have doubled (Even a doubly-enervated elemental would often make a DC 32 Finger of Death save, more than half will waltz through even a spellsung enchantment specced caster's Mind-fogged dancing ball). Second is the elementals in the puzzle room are ALL air elementals. The one room where a melee with a greater elemental bane could actually contribute is now a ping-pong fest (with us as the ball). The only way this quest could be more annoying is to make them all red named (which I expect in the next patch to be honest).

Please bring this quest back to something fun to run every 3 days. Change 33% of the airs into fires, the other 33% into earths. Tell the earth elemetals to forget earthgrabbing a target if it obviously is immune to it. If this was done, then their increased saves wouldnt be a big deal. Alternatively since there is the whole "storm" theme which wouldnt really mesh with fire and earth elementals, you could add other plane of air monsters instead of the hated elementals. Djinni would work, maybe those tripping cats (Bezekira or w/e they are called), some wandering chain lightning/ball lightning/lightning bolt living spells, etc.

[Dirac]

No doubt as most I found the quest prior to the MoD 8 easy, but I often had fun. I'm not going to offer an opinion on the current difficulty of the quest (well, it's harder), but I certainly have not found it fun to do. It is also not fun to form a reaver raid anymore. Since one has to get enough casters and clerics, now it takes long to fill like the other raids. I was in a Reaver that failed to fill last week. That had never happened to me before.

Prior to MoD 8, The Reaver was the one raid in the game for which anyone could put up an LFM, accept anyone that wanted to join, fill in a matter of minutes, and have a very, very good chance of success.

Perhaps this meant that the raid was too easy and the disadvantages were worse than the advantages of having such a raid in the game, I don't know. I don't expect any developers to give answers, or even acknowledge the situation; but I humbly ask one thing.

I would like the data collected on the number of Reaver Runs done in the two months before and after MoD 8. Someone should look at that data and at least ask the question if this is a good or bad thing.

[Lehrman]

I love it. I have considerably more fun blasting them on my caster and blade barrier/symbol of fearing them on my cleric. Its still not very challenging, but its a lot more interesting than before.

[Dirac]

I love it. I have considerably more fun blasting them on my caster and blade barrier/symbol of fearing them on my cleric. Its still not very challenging, but its a lot more interesting than before.

I certainly understand where you are coming from and repect your opinion. Because you find it more fun, are you running the quest more post-MOD 8?

[500520]

Am I The Only Who Still Find This Easy? Change your disco balls for solid and acid fogs. Change your FoD for Firewall, Fireball, and Scorching Ray. Have EVERYONE charge ASAP. Clerics should use all the excess mana from charge for Blade Barriers and Cometfalls. If caster gets Reaver aggro just call it out take him out of firewall and shield block with a cleric healing ya while MT gets aggro.

[Uska]

Still running it when I can find the time and while a little harder still havent failed it with any pug I have been in with my cleric even as solo cleric and did a 5 man no problem I do like kyour change ideas though.

[Thailand_Dan]

It is more difficult, but have they increased the drop rate for tomes? I cannot remember how many times I heard people saying (before the Mod), this is my 100,000th run, and I still haven't pulled a +3 tome. I had run reaver (pre-Mod) about 20 times, always on elite, and only seen one tome drop in that time. Since the Mod, I have actually had a +3 CON drop for me, and seen a +3 STR drop for someone else, both on normal difficulty in 4 or 5 runs.

Maybe it is just variance. Who knows. Anyone else seen evidence of increased drop rate?

I agree, it was great pre-Mod to log on and get running within 5 minutes, and now LFM's are few and far between and take a while to fill. However, maybe this was a trade off the Dev's did to increase the drop rate of tomes. I could see the rationale, "If we are going to start giving out +3 tomes a lot more, lets make it hard enough to where no one in the party can just stand there and wait for the chest. Let's make it where tactics are actually used, and class/lvl/build is actually considered when parties are formed."

My first toon got blooded at level 16. My second, at level 13, and there was a level 10 (if I remember right) in the Tor run with me, who was getting reaver ready. Who knows how many peeps under 10 were buying relics off the AH, and getting blooded even earlier. Could you imagine any party leader for Reaver accepting a level 10 in their group now? The guy would be dead after the first wave of eles.

Just a thought.

[Dirac]

No one has said it is hard. It is harder than it was. I have certatinly been in PUGs that have failed, but I have not taken real statistics.

I have not noticed a change in tome drop rate. I have noticed a huge drop off in LFM's, and increase in difficulty in putting together Reaver raids.

I don't have really strong feelings about this, but I'll offer how the change has affected my playstyle: Prior to MoD 8, if I had 30-45 min and a character off timer, I would log on and start an reaver LFM, knowing I could fill and finish in that time. Now, I don't log on.

[Lithic]

I love it. I have considerably more fun blasting them on my caster and blade barrier/symbol of fearing them on my cleric. Its still not very challenging, but its a lot more interesting than before.

Of course it's a fun raid for casters. Clerics too if they don't need to healbot. The problem is there are 7 non-caster, non-cleric classes in DDO. For these 7 classes (well maybe 6 if you discount bard), this raid is LESS interesting than it use to be.

[lobode]

The first 2 times after the change I thought it was kind of fun(well actually funny), but now I won't run it at all. Air elementals are the most annoying thing in the game and the reaver rewards are not good enough to justify dealing with them like that in my opinion.


The Devs should really look into making new quest that add challenges rather than rehashing the old content as it is a waste of time. The player base will learn the fastest and easiest way though every quest and they will either go back to farming them or just stop running them as its not worth risk vs reward. So the only possible change you get out of making them harder(or more annoying) is less people running that quest. The more quest you make people not want to run the more people you have leave the game out of boredom.

[Jay203]

if they change the constant air tossing of the air ele, it's ALL GOOD! :3
now the only way non-casters can contribute is throwing wounding weapons at them eles
why the hell is everything geared towards wounding weapons?!

[Dirac]

if they change the constant air tossing of the air ele, it's ALL GOOD! :3
now the only way non-casters can contribute is throwing wounding weapons at them eles
why the hell is everything geared towards wounding weapons?!

This is so true. If they would just fix the air elementals...

[Sirea]

if they change the constant air tossing of the air ele, it's ALL GOOD! :3
now the only way non-casters can contribute is throwing wounding weapons at them eles
why the hell is everything geared towards wounding weapons?!

Weakening is more effective. Have an evasion toon with WoEs get a charge (for immunity to knockdown) and disable the elles.

[Jay203]

Weakening is more effective. Have an evasion toon with WoEs get a charge (for immunity to knockdown) and disable the elles.

just disabling them isn't enough, you do not want to leave 50+ air ele's running amuck in there >_<

[esoitl]

Meh... they made it so you have to change your tactics and simply not just FoD everything in sight. Not a big deal.

AoE damage from 2-3 casters/clerics is enough to kill the elementals quick enough. The only change I see now is that 1 cleric may have some problems doing the healing so 2 clerics or a cleric and bard are needed and 3 casters works best. The rest of the group can be whatever you want.

Not much change to be honest. A little more caster heavy and annoying but essentially the same thing.

[Jay203]

Meh... they made it so you have to change your tactics and simply not just FoD everything in sight. Not a big deal.

AoE damage from 2-3 casters/clerics is enough to kill the elementals quick enough. The only change I see now is that 1 cleric may have some problems doing the healing so 2 clerics or a cleric and bard are needed and 3 casters works best. The rest of the group can be whatever you want.

Not much change to be honest. A little more caster heavy and annoying but essentially the same thing.

which means the change was an epic failure
i'd rather have him summon some red named earth ele for us to deal with than 20+ air eles with sup'ed up saves and hp tossing everyone around

[Sirea]

just disabling them isn't enough, you do not want to leave 50+ air ele's running amuck in there >_<

Easier to hit them when they just stand there tho, isn't it?

[Dirac]

Meh... they made it so you have to change your tactics and simply not just FoD everything in sight. Not a big deal.

AoE damage from 2-3 casters/clerics is enough to kill the elementals quick enough. The only change I see now is that 1 cleric may have some problems doing the healing so 2 clerics or a cleric and bard are needed and 3 casters works best. The rest of the group can be whatever you want.

Not much change to be honest. A little more caster heavy and annoying but essentially the same thing.

So, about the same. That's cool. Are you seeing about the same number of reaver runs being done then, post MoD 8?

[Jay203]

Easier to hit them when they just stand there tho, isn't it?

nope
not while you're getting tossed for getting into melee range

[Korvek]

For these 7 classes (well maybe 6 if you discount bard), this raid is LESS interesting than it use to be.

And I had previously thought such a thing nigh impossible too.