Helplessness of Boss Monsters in U9?

[Shade]

Yea yet another unjustified nerf that dumbs dow nthe game.

Getting a red name to helpless is often quite difficult, as its require an rarely used set of spells/weapons combinations.

It's something only used by smart/advanced players.

Taking it out just further dumds down the game.

im all for bosses being difficult, but this isn't an acceptable way to make them so.

rethink this nerf.

[oberon131313]

That's interesting and surprising to me; I'd never tried it on a caster boss (or, when I had cast it bosses that cast, I hadn't noticed them stop), but the melee bosses' offensive capabilities are generally unchanged. I tended to use it against epic bolal, level 25 gregoir (oh god so many times...), the Dreaming Dark bosses, etc.

Even if spellcasters were rendered helpless, it seems like another place where a blanket immunity is applied when a behavioral tweak would suffice.

Still: Sigh.

-Kernal

the way you were using it, you will NOT see a difference. You were using it the way it was intended. The people that will see a difference are the people that were using a combination of strength sapping, ray of enfeeblement, and waves of exhaustion to make a boss mob like the eye of the titan boss unable to cast spells and completely auto crit.

[Schmoe]

Yea yet another unjustified nerf that dumbs dow nthe game.

Getting a red name to helpless is often quite difficult, as its require an rarely used set of spells/weapons combinations.

It's something only used by smart/advanced players.

Taking it out just further dumds down the game.

im all for bosses being difficult, but this isn't an acceptable way to make them so.

rethink this nerf.

I agree. Immunities reduce viable strategies, which makes the game less interesting. Please re-think.

[QuantumFX]

Lame. With the changes to helplessness, lifting the “thou shalt not stat damage a boss to helplessness” nonsense would have been the better option.

Remember kids! If you can’t make it challenging - Make it cheesy.

[Shade]

the way you were using it, you will NOT see a difference. You were using it the way it was intended. The people that will see a difference are the people that were using a combination of strength sapping, ray of enfeeblement, and waves of exhaustion to make a boss mob like the eye of the titan boss unable to cast spells and completely auto crit.

um that one example out of hundreds of possible ones.

For him, he is a 99% melee mob anyways, so even helpless he is still a serious challenge.

For caster type enemies, disabling there spell casting, is a very major detriment to there challenge...

So I could see them having red named still able to cast spells while helpless, but we should still get the extra damage.

That or simply dont add stupid immunities and just increase selected boss stats that you want to be more challenging , to set them to very difficult/imposisble to be helpless.. As is the case for many bosses already.

[voodoogroves]

I like variety.

With as quick as things are gonna be dying now, trying to stat-drain/damage is in danger of becoming irrelevant.

[Junts]

I like variety.

With as quick as things are gonna be dying now, trying to stat-drain/damage is in danger of becoming irrelevant.

However, between a saves buff and mobs not being auto-hit, I suspecct that a random waves of exhaustion into a mob pack will be a very effective way to both boost melee dps and to ensure nuking damage is good (eg relfex save/ac hit from the dex penalty).

[Junts]

um that one example out of hundreds of possible ones.

For him, he is a 99% melee mob anyways, so even helpless he is still a serious challenge.

For caster type enemies, disabling there spell casting, is a very major detriment to there challenge...

So I could see them having red named still able to cast spells while helpless, but we should still get the extra damage.

That or simply dont add stupid immunities and just increase selected boss stats that you want to be more challenging , to set them to very difficult/imposisble to be helpless.. As is the case for many bosses already.

Getting str to 0 is hard, getting dex to 0 is extremely easy as mob dex scores are really poor, waves of exhaust+str sapping weapon autocrits a -lot- of red named mobs at present, and often ones that are rather challenging (frenzied blood etc).

[Crazyfruit]

the way you were using it, you will NOT see a difference. You were using it the way it was intended. The people that will see a difference are the people that were using a combination of strength sapping, ray of enfeeblement, and waves of exhaustion to make a boss mob like the eye of the titan boss unable to cast spells and completely auto crit.

He dies (like most spellcasters it works on) really fast to DPS & is barely even worth bothering using it on. Unless someone is soloing on a bad build, but they'd have trouble hitting now with the helpless change.

Stat damage didn't make him easier - made him harder for me. Because then he keeps touching & paralyzing instead of doing anything else and I get totally owned by the reavers & spiders

Beholders and boss encounters for OOB, Von 2 & 3 though fit your example well. Those are the only spellcasters I can remember it making easier who didn't just lay down and die to DPS. Personally I usually only used them on melee monsters more because they're just a lump of HP we can kill a bit faster - like some of the giants in SoS. Everything else'd be dead before I could land stat damage on it.

edit: Didn't know about the Frenzied Blood guy Junts. He's a good example of a boss who shouldn't be made helpless but I'm sure he'd have stomped half the groups I tried it with even if he was hehe.

[kernal42]

the way you were using it, you will NOT see a difference. You were using it the way it was intended. The people that will see a difference are the people that were using a combination of strength sapping, ray of enfeeblement, and waves of exhaustion to make a boss mob like the eye of the titan boss unable to cast spells and completely auto crit.

This is untrue.
I'm using it to make obnoxiously-high hp melee bosses helpless, which renders them autocrit (now) or +50% damage (U9).

If that is no longer the result, I won't bother with most stat reduction techniques. Waves will still be moderately useful, but that's about it.

-Kernal

[voodoogroves]

He dies (like most spellcasters it works on) really fast to DPS & is barely even worth bothering using it on. Unless someone is soloing on a bad build, but they'd have trouble hitting now with the helpless change.

I didn't dump STR on my wizard, but I find it easier to smack him when he's helpless. Call me crazy.

Wizards ... we don't fight fair.

Stat damage didn't make him easier - made him harder for me. Because then he keeps touching & paralyzing instead of doing anything else

If you're not the master race, you'll need FOM (boots or spell).

and I get totally owned by the reavers & spiders

Kite him back to the entrance, additional spawns won't follow you ;-)

Beholders and boss encounters for OOB, Von 2 & 3 though fit your example well. Those are the only spellcasters I can remember it making easier who didn't just lay down and die to DPS. Personally I usually only used them on melee monsters more because they're just a lump of HP we can kill a bit faster - like some of the giants in SoS. Everything else'd be dead before I could land stat damage on it.

I only use this tactic on bosses mostly today because frankly everything else DOES die quickly to other means.

[Gulnar13]

I rarely agree with Shade, but this time i have to. This change was not needed. It' s a pointless, pointless nerf.

[Shade]

Getting str to 0 is hard, getting dex to 0 is extremely easy as mob dex scores are really poor, waves of exhaust+str sapping weapon autocrits a -lot- of red named mobs at present, and often ones that are rather challenging (frenzied blood etc).

Disagree. Cite more then 1 example.

And str sapping + exhaust is an advanced combo that requires 2 very specialized characters. Given that its not easy to do, it should be powerful and useful.

1 high level caster, often with a good spell pen score, with waves of exhuast. (Not eveyrone evne has the spell as it occupies an important slot)

+melee with enough to hit to land with a crappy +1/2 lootgen weapon.. Vs the cited example? a 60+ AC boss. Not an easy task.

And does it make the encoutner trivial? Absoultely not. His spells were never a big risk, his melee dmg is more devastating, as are the constant fire reaver spawns.

So tahts not a good reason. EVen if its was, its 1 example.

For just 1 eaxmple.. Fix that 1 example, dont nerf the entire game.

give the hezrou 20 dex instead of 12, problem solved. Do not nerf an advanced tactic.

[oberon131313]

Disagree. Cite more then 1 example.

Epic Ahraatz-Ri (dex)
Watcher of Dreams (str)
Sora Katra (str)
Epic Grotkin the Beholder (str)
Galamesh (str)
Manager (str)
Epic Orphne's Shadow (str)

Those are just the mildly challenging ones. Previously, these encounters could be trivialized by this "advanced tactic."

It was an oversight that it worked in the first place, and now it's fixed.

[Junts]

Disagree. Cite more then 1 example.

And str sapping + exhaust is an advanced combo that requires 2 very specialized characters. Given that its not easy to do, it should be powerful and useful.

1 high level caster, often with a good spell pen score, with waves of exhuast. (Not eveyrone evne has the spell as it occupies an important slot)

+melee with enough to hit to land with a crappy +1/2 lootgen weapon.. Vs the cited example? a 60+ AC boss. Not an easy task.

And does it make the encoutner trivial? Absoultely not. His spells were never a big risk, his melee dmg is more devastating, as are the constant fire reaver spawns.

So tahts not a good reason. EVen if its was, its 1 example.

For just 1 eaxmple.. Fix that 1 example, dont nerf the entire game.

give the hezrou 20 dex instead of 12, problem solved. Do not nerf an advanced tactic.

Specialized characters? I have strength sap/pure good picks just for stuff like that on my pick build, and anyone can do it - making the mob autocrit is way better dps than hitting it with ytour sos (which you can do after, you know, it goes autocrit, instead..). Waves of exhaustion is an extremely common level 7 spell, at least among the people I play with. All it requires is the tiniest bit of preparation and knowing who to use it on. Since it deactivates spellcasting its a pretty big dps dropoff even for mostly melee mobs - for example, the chaos hammer spam from frenzied blood and the priestess in deep do a ton of damage to monk/paladins and a decent amount to others (to say nothing of her bbs, cometfalls, etc, all of which deactivate when shes autocrit).

There's a whole thread by mrcow that can tell you which mobs get autocrit from str or dex. I sugest you peruse it.

There's not really any reason not to carry a broker-fodder weapon that can often be acquired, at the high end, for 10k plat (the price of my +4 str sap of pure good picks, as an example.

Str autocrit takes only a little more work, primarily the loading of ray of enfeeblement (so most sorcs can't do it, but most wizards can).

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=297010

I use this tactic more than most (because it makes the quests a couple minutes faster and riskfree), but I get why they want to adjust it: particularly with the tide turns mobs and the priestess in deep it completely removes the challenge of the fight.

With demon of frenzied blood, it just makes him die before more than 2 renders come out of a portal.

[sirgog]

In particular, debuffing boss mobs with -str is great for ac types, and debuffing with -dex is great if their ac is quite high, since its -ac.

/this.

Especially for epic rednameds.

I don't understand why this is a necessary change.
For the red-named bosses that can currently be made helpless, it's not game-breaking. Melees get to do more damage, that it is; the bosses are still active and fully capable of killing the party, it's just a little faster to dps them down. This is already "nerfed" by the helplessness change. Removing the viability this tactic entirely seems totally unnecessary.

Bah!

And I was so excited about those daxes....

Go on Live, and compare the difficulty of the Epic Demon of the Frenzied Deep with a 0 Dex, and without a 0 Dex.

Without giving him the -12 Dex it's a borderline challenging encounter. With the easy button of Strength Sapping and Waves of Exhaustion - it's trivial. Any freshly 20 characters can beat him.


Epic should be tough, not about gimmicks that make fights trivial.

[Shade]

Epic Ahraatz-Ri (dex)
Watcher of Dreams (str)
Sora Katra (str)
Epic Grotkin the Beholder (str)
Galamesh (str)
Manager (str)
Epic Orphne's Shadow (str)

Those are just the mildly challenging ones. Previously, these encounters could be trivialized by this "advanced tactic."

It was an oversight that it worked in the first place, and now it's fixed.

Ahraatz-Ri:
The quest is almost never run anyways. When it is, you take along enough DPS to win, or you dont and you fail.. The tactic wont make the difference, just speed it up.

Sora Katra:
Low lvl boss. Very trivial encoutner either way.

Epic Beholder:
No easy task to land exhaustion and a good roll of ray of enfeeblement on an epic beholder with an anti magic aura. If a player can manage it, they deserve the reward.

Galamesh:
You can do it on almot all dream-stealers.. But it has the oposite effect for most players.. It makes the encounter HARDER. As every melee hit he does is generally much more dangerous they any spell he could use. His ultra high DC paralyze is rather devastating on elite to most melee except maybe paladins.

Manager:
Pure melee mob, does not trivialize the encounter, still as dangerous as before with 0 str.

Epic orphne:
Trivial encounter either way. There's a reason they nerfed this quests 1 quick toek into a pitiful amount of fragments.

So theres some more examples that really don't matter.. and each could and should be looked and maybe adjusted on a case by case basis.. Not as a full on immunity.

We all know how much players love blanket immunities. Yet people who in the past complain about them support this change. Hypocritical.

[Shade]

and anyone can do it

Not the point.

Point is most players don't do it. Because it is an advanced tactic. We can go on all day about how easy it is, the fact is.. People dont do it. It's not easy for them. 95% of pug epic deeps runs if you ask the melee if they have a strength sapper? They wont have one.

If everyone did do it?

Then yes Id agree nerf it.

Nerf the things that make the game repetitive, boring and uninteresting. Don't nerf advanced tactics that require real insight and strategy to perform that are rarely used.

The more nerfs we get like this, the more the game becomes just another boring mmo clone. The fun part of the game is how complex it is, and what a vast array of tactics and special spells/weapons we can use to do well.. this is just one more nail inthe coffin towards making it "MOAR EASY!!!" But less fun.

[Scraap]

Not exactly sure I even particularly like the notion, but just for a left-field idea to get the noggin going:

They recently fixed that bug with waves of exhaustion that was causing half-attack speed and the like.

Perhaps a deliberate re-introduction for rednames that subs in 'burdened' for helpless would serve as an in-your-face 'hey, attacking more than the hp substat actually does do something worthwhile', or would that still be considered too trivializing, even given it would require more than one cast of one spell?

[voodoogroves]

I think I'd prefer (if there had to be a change) for strength sapping to exhaust as the description says and not stack with waves as they both exhaust by their description. That would limit the capability, but not destroy the tactic.