Please bring back auto-crits on Holds or....

[Yaga_Nub]

...reduce mobs to-hit and stats in Epics.

I think that one intended or unintended side effect of U9's changes, at least on epics, is that damage mitigation, already very important if you didn't want the healers to drink any pots, became even more important because mobs will now live through a mass hold. Of course some people will just say that I'm not in a high dps party but that's not a true statement at all.

Taking away auto-crits increases the time to kill mobs by anywhere from 20% to 30% on average and it means that more people need to beat on one mob to kill it before the spell ends or it breaks free which leaves other mobs at full or mostly full strength when they are free. It's true that the caster could cast mass hold again but that's more mana being used. Plus we have higher saves to deal with so those mass holds/dancing balls/CC of your choice are possibly affecting few critters per cast.

Since mobs are staying alive longer, they are able to dish out a lot more damage since their stats are pumped up so high that no AC attainable in the game helps against even the lowest trash mobs in epic. There is no reason to have trash mobs able to hit a 80 AC or higher on a roll of 2. Yes it may be EPIC but it doesn't mean that every mob is epic.

Because the mobs are staying alive longer, the damage they are doing is much higher and the devs haven't balanced the quests with that thought in mind. Nor did they do the spell point cost/spell point effect balancing with this in mind. For instance, while I understand that Power Word Kill can be very powerful it still has to bypass SR which in Epics can be a problem. Because it's powerful they decided it needed a 5 minute cool down but that might be way to long. If it didn't have to bypass SR then it might be ok but fail and you've wasted SP, you have 5 minutes before you can try that spell again, and, more importantly to my current argument, you still have an angry mob that wants to beat on your party.

There's a few solutions to this issue:

1) Reduce the cost of all healing spells to account for the increased damage a party is taking. (PS - Why did most healing spells' costs go down except for the Heal spell?)

2) Reduce the number of mobs in epics quests. In some cases this could mean the removal of just one or two mobs throughout the whole quest and in some cases it could make a much bigger culling.

3) Reduce the stats (not saves) of all epic mobs. Not a lot but definitely some.

4) Increasing the vorpal threshold from 1000 to 2000 would certainly be a possibility but I'm not sold on the idea.

My question to everyone is this - Have you seen healing costs going up in epics since the U9 update? Maybe this is just a knee-jerk reaction to my limited playing time since U9 went live. I hope it is and that everything is actually fine but it definitely seems like all the changes at once have created something that the devs didn't really think through and may not have even intended.

What do you think?

[Aurora_nyx]

Aren't epics supposed to be really hard? Taking away hit points, mobs, making things easier to kill, etc would make it like a hard run then wouldn't it? And yes, being epic does mean the mobs are epic, again would defeat the purpose of it supposed to be a very difficult quest if on epic the mobs weren't harder to kill

[ORIGINALBAG0]

Yaga, I wish I had answers that came from experience, but I have taken U9 as my cue to start leveling a couple more toons to 20 and grind out some greensteel. In my head, no autocrits+higher saves=tons of resource expenditure. Until stuff gets fully balanced, I have no desire to try my hand at epics. I've been the one chugging dozens of store pots to keep the party up through a rough epic on a number of occasions, and I have to desire to put myself or someone else through that at all. Until other players or the devs figure out the new epic situation, I'm gonna keep leveling every stupid abomination my crazy little head can come up with.

[Indoran]

/not signed

Epic is fine atm... being 20 is not the same as being ready for epic imho. Go get most of the non epic stuff you want for your toon then run epics.

Also start with the easier epics like carnival or VoN 1-2 until you are fine with those move onto real epics...

[Malky]

Either i'm mistaken or you haven't run an epic quest with a competant necromancy-specced arcane yet

[grodon9999]

Though I am a proponent of mob to-hits being lowered so AC is useful in all content I have to say that the new epics are EASIER than they used to be. Sure we can't auto-crit with picks anymore but the mobs have their HP cut in half.

[Yaga_Nub]

Either i'm mistaken or you haven't run an epic quest with a competant necromancy-specced arcane yet

No I definitely have and it's nice to see FoD and Wail actually be useful. It's great that the devs finally allowed more spells to be useful in epic.

[ORIGINALBAG0]

/not signed

Epic is fine atm... being 20 is not the same as being ready for epic imho. Go get most of the non epic stuff you want for your toon then run epics.

Also start with the easier epics like carnival or VoN 1-2 until you are fine with those move onto real epics...

I lol at people telling Yaga he isn't ready for epics. I have run ALOT of epics with this guy (some uglier than others), and he knows what he's doing and is geared to the teeth. I assure you, Yaga is ready, and has been for YEARS. If he says something is whack, he might know what he's talking about.

[Cam_Neely]

Though I am a proponent of mob to-hits being lowered so AC is useful in all content I have to say that the new epics are EASIER than they used to be. Sure we can't auto-crit with picks anymore but the mobs have their HP cut in half.

This, mobs were dropping very fast in the Epics I ran.

Also don't decease the cost of heal. In most MMOs and games in general, the more efficient way to heal is using the weaker heals, which have a better HP to SP ratio. It requires more thought about the urgency of the situation ect then just using heal. I like the Sp changes they made for heals and cures.

[Yaga_Nub]

Though I am a proponent of mob to-hits being lowered so AC is useful in all content I have to say that the new epics are EASIER than they used to be. Sure we can't auto-crit with picks anymore but the mobs have their HP cut in half.

Some of them are definitely easier. The longer ones though are still tough from a resources standpoint.

As for lowering to-hits, I only think that the cannon-fodder mobs should be reduced some. Yes it's epic but when the fodder mobs are hitting at the same ratio as the bosses and for only slightly less damage per hit then there's an issue. Fodder mobs, IMHO, should be more of a time waster than a resource waster. They are there because the devs don't want a 5 min quest whether epic or not but they shouldn't be there so that when you hit a mini-boss or end boss you've went through every shrine and are at 10% resources. That's generalization of course, the devs did see fit to put a lot of shrines near end fights in newer quests but they aren't there for a lot of older quests and it's older quests that are mostly the epic quests.

[voodoogroves]

I think you style was impacted. Saves increased, auto-crit gone and the durations on the spells severely decreased.

We don't need auto-crit. I would welcome an increase in durations though; maybe not back to pre-U9 but somewhere in the middle.

[Hendrik]

I lol at people telling Yaga he isn't ready for epics. I have run ALOT of epics with this guy (some uglier than others), and he knows what he's doing and is geared to the teeth. I assure you, Yaga is ready, and has been for YEARS. If he says something is whack, he might know what he's talking about.

I know of nobody uglier then Yaga.

[Scraap]

What do you think?

Honestly, I think it would be more fun if they simply removed the enchantment length debuff, or only applied it to those spells which tell mobs to stand there and take it.

But then, I enjoy turning them on each other. (Even if that does mean it's suboptimal timewise).

Probably not very likely to happen, but it is one side-effect that keeps getting looked over in discussing the latest spell-pass that was ostensibly intended to add variety to approaches, not just graphics.

[grodon9999]

Some of them are definitely easier. The longer ones though are still tough from a resources standpoint.

As for lowering to-hits, I only think that the cannon-fodder mobs should be reduced some. Yes it's epic but when the fodder mobs are hitting at the same ratio as the bosses and for only slightly less damage per hit then there's an issue. Fodder mobs, IMHO, should be more of a time waster than a resource waster. They are there because the devs don't want a 5 min quest whether epic or not but they shouldn't be there so that when you hit a mini-boss or end boss you've went through every shrine and are at 10% resources. That's generalization of course, the devs did see fit to put a lot of shrines near end fights in newer quests but they aren't there for a lot of older quests and it's older quests that are mostly the epic quests.

I like what they did in Amrath and should copy over that model. Some of the mobs hit harder but have lower to-hit (orthons) and some have better to-hit but don't hit as hard (Bearded Devils). The to-hits we see in Elite Amrath (maybe give them 5 more) would work since I think you still get grazed on a 12.

[Yaga_Nub]

I lol at people telling Yaga he isn't ready for epics. I have run ALOT of epics with this guy (some uglier than others), and he knows what he's doing and is geared to the teeth. I assure you, Yaga is ready, and has been for YEARS. If he says something is whack, he might know what he's talking about.

Thanks for the support.

It's definitely just a feeling right now but I want to throw it out there to see what other people think. Whenever you have a lot of systems changes going on at once there can always be unintended consequences and Turbine has a long history of changing so many things at once that it's hard to pinpoint causes for issues. I'm much more of the opinion that the spell point cost change should have been put in and allowed to go for a few months before any other major changes to things like epic quests were put in or vice versa.

[Hendrik]

My question to everyone is this - Have you seen healing costs going up in epics since the U9 update? Maybe this is just a knee-jerk reaction to my limited playing time since U9 went live. I hope it is and that everything is actually fine but it definitely seems like all the changes at once have created something that the devs didn't really think through and may not have even intended.

What do you think?

TBH Yaga, think it is just knee jerk reaction. Found healing to be much easier in Epic and Cam does have a point, lower healing spells can and are better then just Heal and Mass Heal - least in my experiences.

Now, back to your cage!

[voodoogroves]

Thanks for the support.

It's definitely just a feeling right now but I want to throw it out there to see what other people think. Whenever you have a lot of systems changes going on at once there can always be unintended consequences and Turbine has a long history of changing so many things at once that it's hard to pinpoint causes for issues. I'm much more of the opinion that the spell point cost change should have been put in and allowed to go for a few months before any other major changes to things like epic quests were put in or vice versa.

Yep and these are impacted by multiple changes. I think the auto-crit is the wrong one to unwind.

(1) Save boosts
(2) Enchantment durations reduced / re-save times shortened
(3) Auto-crit


I'd rather see #2 get rolled-back somewhat than the others.

[Phidius]

Aren't epics supposed to be really hard? ...

As far as I understand it, "Epic" is the way they chose to reuse old content to give people something to do with their capped toons. It was intended to be an inexpensive way to allow Turbine to retain their established clientelle while they focused on bringing in the new players.

I really wish they wouldn't have used the word "Epic"... people see that word and think "Oh boy, finally something to show that I'm head-and-shoulders above the rest". Unfortunately, the majority of capped players (myself included) are not in the top 1% of the playerbase (duh). If they truly wish to cater to the top 1%, they are excluding the other 99%.

Which is not to say they aren't trying to exclude us - I just don't think it's a good idea.

[wonkey]

...reduce mobs to-hit and stats in Epics.

I think that one intended or unintended side effect of U9's changes, at least on epics, is that damage mitigation, already very important if you didn't want the healers to drink any pots, became even more important because mobs will now live through a mass hold.

...

What do you think?

I think that if you could avoid just about all trash because nothing ever lives through a mass hold, that means it was broken.
The devs changed it so that various strategies are more equitable. If mass hold still meant insta-win encounter, they didn't accomplish very much.

Sure, it might be harder, especially when using the same strategy. But I think it's MEANT to be.

[Gol]

Epics are easier now IMO. Far less HP means any decently geared melee can actually kill 1-2 trash mobs fast enough to not get themselves killed in the process.