Let's talk about the update 11 raid

[Shade]

Ok update 10 is done, has been done a while.. And should go live any day now.

So lets focus on what turbines actaully working on now - the first TRUELY high level raid in 2 years by the time it's released (Last one being ToD)

Given the insane developement time between new high level raids (2 years...), I think we'd all really like to see this one done right and provide us with a lot of playtime. We really don't want to another reaver (10min raid that we get al the raidloot for in a week)

What we want:
A shroud like raid. I think most everyone can agree Shroud was by far the best done raid. In terms of scope, length, design, mix of puzzles/combat, and overall challenge, Shroud and Module 6 in general was when imo DDO truely hit its peak and delivered us what we all really wanted. A long, fun raid, that provides us with a reason to go back time and time again.

How do we do this today, where players have so much more power and resources available to tackle whatever is thrown at us?

Heavily Tier the raid. Yea i know, this means more grind and blah blah that other mmos do. But lets face it, thats what we need. If we want this new raid to last us another 2 years until we get another one, it has to provide a reason to do over a lot.

How:
Instead of just the usual slew of difficulty settings were used to, where the monsters stats just go up a bit.. Make the raid truely harder in terms of tactics, player gear required, player skill required, and knowledge required to win as we go up the difficulty settings.

And mostly importantly - GIVE US EPIC. You absolutely cannot seriously be considering giving us the only new high level raid after waiting 2 years only to leave out a very popular difficulty setting. Get it in Fernando, it has to be done.

My idea to tier it:

Normal - defacto default difficulty for most players. Easy enough, beatable with fresh level20s without too much gear - but would present a major challenge to them. And likely require many runs to figure out the strategy to win. Runs with at least a few well geared veteran players could be rendered trivial, but oh well.. All the usual raidloot will drop on this mode. Tho not epic parts.
Thats what the next modes are for:

Hard - default veteran difficulty. Sersioulsy challenges well geared veteran groups. Taking along a few ungeared fresh 20s would be possibly, but definetely would pose a major challenge to those players. Everyone in the raid must be challenged, tasks must be provided that keep the players well split up and not allow a small core of players to drag along weaker ones. End Boss should be at least 3 major bosses at once, or major amounts of respawns that cannot easily be handled by 1-3 players.

To make this actaully worth doing, the rewards needs to be significantly better too. I'd say double chests. Meaning double raidloot at the end too.

Elite - For Top Tier veterans that have beaten this raid already many times on hard. Has new scenarios that require you not only to beat the same bosses you did on hard, with higher stats. But randomly provides extra ones that are insanely tough.. This will make guarenteed victories in top tiered guild runs never a sure thing, and keep things exciting, never knowing for sure if that uber-boss will appear.

In addition to the required additional strategy and stats.. Equipment would be pushed up by massively scaling the damage reduction of the boss:
Give him a weird arbitrary DR that our regular weaponry simply cannot handle.. Like Byeshks or Crystal. Set it to a high enough value to make it straight impossible without getting that weaponry - say 50 points.
The raid itself on hard should drop some of these weapons..
Thus the progression and tier'ing is created:
Do hard X times tell your geared for elite.

Rewards would be 2 chest slike hard, with slightly enhanced drop rate. and some more unique items otherwise not available on normal..Nothing too powerful, but things mainly designed to prep you for epic.

Epic:
Give us another titan/abbot. We loved those raids, and while we still love the current slightly toned down verisons, the initial shock was fun.
We want it to be impossible. We want to try anyways to proove otherwise. Set some required objectives taht simply require insane twitch timing, along with character stats thaht are near the maximum limits. It should be like a whole new raid on epic. Only for the truely epic geared players - The "best of the best" just as the entry window says.
In addition to the heavy boss DR from elite.. All trash monsters on the way to the boss would gain:
DR100/Epic
This would serve a block, preventing non epic geared players from even reaching the boss.
Now ofcourse epics weapons dont even actually bypass epic DR atm.. But that can/should be fixed:
Either give all current epics DREpic bypassing.... Or add this which you alreayd put in the game files into the actual game:
http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Item:...f_Epic_Strikes

And ofcourse also have enough foes with enough HP/resist to make killing them by casters possible - but simply not cost effective (would not be enough shrines to have the SP to do so)

Oh yea, and add this debuff to all players on entry on epic too:
Mneumonic brain hemorhage:
While under this effect, if you consume any item that provides mnenomic enhancements, your brain will expload.
(Drinking mana pots instantly kills you)

Those are my thoughts on how to make the raid fun for all player, and offer a lot of replayability in the same raid, thru difficulty settings being tier'd.

What do you want the new raid to be?

[Calebro]

All trash monsters on the way to the boss would gain:
DR100/Epic

I'm not even kidding, I laughed so hard that I think I pulled a muscle.

Oh yea, and add this debuff to all players on entry on epic too:
Mneumonic brain hemorhage:
While under this effect, if you consume any item that provides mnenomic enhancements, your brain will expload.
(Drinking mana pots instantly kills you)

But how are your 4 wizards 3 bards and 4 clerics going to keep you alive and buffed if they can't drink pots?

[Grandesa]

I'm not even kidding, I laughed so hard that I think I pulled a muscle.

But how are your 4 wizards 3 bards and 4 clerics going to keep you alive and buffed if they can't drink pots?

ok on these thoughts.. lets change it up a lil.. the Epic DR. I like that thought, make the fight challenging..

the Head explosion thing if you drink a SP pot?
LMAO..
go with this idea instead,
1. you can consume only one Health Potion at anytime during combat
2. apply the same as above with spell point potion.
This will present a challenge and maybe make all those blade swinging happy DPS, aggro grabbing peeps to pay more attention to their healers, bards, etc.. so when your healer yells (excuse the WoW reference) OOM!! that means your dead. so DPS is fine just watch your own HP and realize what the healer has, he has to make last across the whole raid.

[altrocks]

ok on these thoughts.. lets change it up a lil.. the Epic DR. I like that thought, make the fight challenging..

the Head explosion thing if you drink a SP pot?
LMAO..
go with this idea instead,
1. you can consume only one Health Potion at anytime during combat
2. apply the same as above with spell point potion.
This will present a challenge and maybe make all those blade swinging happy DPS, aggro grabbing peeps to pay more attention to their healers, bards, etc.. so when your healer yells (excuse the WoW reference) OOM!! that means your dead. so DPS is fine just watch your own HP and realize what the healer has, he has to make last across the whole raid.

We have a no healing restriction in Abbot on asteroids and despite it being the easiest minigame in there, It usually fails the most. In an actual full raid something like that would make people not want to run it, which means no one buys the pack which is not what Turbine wants, I'm sure.

[sirdanile]

We have a no healing restriction in Abbot on asteroids and despite it being the easiest minigame in there, It usually fails the most. In an actual full raid something like that would make people not want to run it, which means no one buys the pack which is not what Turbine wants, I'm sure.

I can solo asteroids, but add a big half orc blocking my view and jumping around like a frenzied idiot and **** am I gonna miss a few...

What I want to see out of a new raid is... wait for it.... DRACOLICH!

[sirgog]

Tiered yes, but not at all in the way you suggest.

I agree with casual-accessible on Normal, and brutal on the highest setting.

But as for 'you can't use any weapons not from this raid' - we actually have that silly mechanic in one quest in DDO. It's an unpopular quest and seldom run to completion above Casual.

Not to mention that some people would get the Elite flagging lottery over on their first Hard run, and others would not be flagged for Elite after 20+ runs.

Let players use the best equipment they have - and tune the raid around that, rather than irritating lottery mechanics like the Boots of Anchoring or the boring "DR/UpgradedDreamsplitter". And make the loot worthwhile for all content, not just for one raid.

[Cardtrick]

But as for 'you can't use any weapons not from this raid' - we actually have that silly mechanic in one quest in DDO. It's an unpopular quest and seldom run to completion above Casual.

I'm sure I'm going to feel like an idiot when you tell me . . . but which quest are you talking about? The only quest I can think of that's usually run on casual is Prey, and that has no special weapon requirement.

As for Shade's suggestions . . . it mostly sounds good, but the DR100/epic suggestion is just bad. For all intents and purposes, that's an immunity, which I'm never a fan of. The normal DR 15/25/35 approach to raid DR already provides plenty of incentive to use a DR-breaker on higher difficulties. Also, restricting it just to epic damage is silly and elitist. The only non-DR breaking weapon it usually makes sense to use on elite in the current game is an eSOS, anyway -- and with your proposal that's going to break the DR.

Really, I agree with the spirit of the suggestions and with Shade's goals, but not the proposed methods. This part is solid, though:

What we want:
A shroud like raid. I think most everyone can agree Shroud was by far the best done raid. In terms of scope, length, design, mix of puzzles/combat, and overall challenge, Shroud and Module 6 in general was when imo DDO truely hit its peak and delivered us what we all really wanted. A long, fun raid, that provides us with a reason to go back time and time again.

How do we do this today, where players have so much more power and resources available to tackle whatever is thrown at us?

Heavily Tier the raid. Yea i know, this means more grind and blah blah that other mmos do. But lets face it, thats what we need. If we want this new raid to last us another 2 years until we get another one, it has to provide a reason to do over a lot.

[Sarisa]

I'm sure I'm going to feel like an idiot when you tell me . . . but which quest are you talking about? The only quest I can think of that's usually run on casual is Prey, and that has no special weapon requirement.

Probably Dreaming Dark. The bosses DR is Crystal+Good, which means Upgraded Dreamspitter only. Holy damage temporarily shuts off his regen, or at least used to, so he CAN be muscled through as long as the group healer is efficient with his or her Mass Heal's.

As for the new raid, there are a few things I would like to see:

• Raid loot where every major and most minor builds and playstyles will find something they like. This is unlike say Hound (what is there for non-tanking melees?), VoD (very little worthwhile for divines), and ToD (many set bonuses are horrible, and not all combinations of stats are available, while many others are duplicated across rings).
• A boss fight design where one or two people are not forced to foot the bill for the whole raid. Make sure it's not like ToD in all but the best private groups have to resort to dozens of Heal scrolls and usually a Mnemonic or two.
• Make sure it's accessible on normal, while still being a challenge on elite. The game doesn't survive by completely alienating the newer player base. Normal shouldn't be a cakewalk (like Reaver's Fate) but it also shouldn't require multiple Shroud items and other high end raid loot just to have a chance of succeeding. Elite should require great equipment and good teamwork.
• Involve everyone. Puzzle areas/aspects are a nice break, but they need to be done in such a way that ALL players in a raid do something. Tempest Spine, where 1 or 2 people do the puzzle while 1 person tanks and gets healed, and everyone else backs against the wall until he's vulnerable is not the way to go. Titan, where most of the raid sits on a ladder and pikes, is DEFINITELY not the way to go. Abbot is probably the closest to this goal.
• Too much randomness is definitely not the way to go. This is one thing that makes elite HoX one of the most annoying raids. Even when you perform all the roles right, you're dependent on the roll of the dice whether your buffed up dogs hit, or do enough damage. Then it depends a bit on just how the big dog moves around, moving too close to one of the hallways can cause issues. And with the change to Intimidate, it's not possible to control her positioning once the dogs attack her. Sargata is borderline, but I think still acceptable. His randomness is on the way to the boss, and is far more easily overcome. Too much randomness in a boss fight is not fun. A three-Inferno-in-a-row Abbot is boss randomness gone wrong.

Since this new raid will be coming out in update 11, with the House Cannith enclave, I'm expecting it to have some sort of construct or warforged basis to it.

[crazydamage]

Tiered yes, but not at all in the way you suggest.

I agree with casual-accessible on Normal, and brutal on the highest setting.

But as for 'you can't use any weapons not from this raid' - we actually have that silly mechanic in one quest in DDO. It's an unpopular quest and seldom run to completion above Casual.

Not to mention that some people would get the Elite flagging lottery over on their first Hard run, and others would not be flagged for Elite after 20+ runs.

Let players use the best equipment they have - and tune the raid around that, rather than irritating lottery mechanics like the Boots of Anchoring or the boring "DR/UpgradedDreamsplitter". And make the loot worthwhile for all content, not just for one raid.

What he's proposing wouldnt even hold players back.

I would simply collect all my trash shard/seal scrolls for trash epic weapons

(Sands, House P, D etc) and slot each of them with a different augment (Crystal Byshek etc).

[Dunklerlindwurm]

You forgot the most important thing.

How do you think can Turbine sell this pack to the major crowd if its...challenging ?

[DnD3]

You forgot the most important thing.

How do you think can Turbine sell this pack to the major crowd if its...challenging ?

WoW's raids are A LOT more challenging and complicated than DDO, that doesn't keep it from being the number one MMO...

[sweez]

If you were the lead designer Shade, DDO would probably be the most challenging MMO on the market, and all twelve people playing it would be considered Gods Of Gaming.

[Thrudh]

If you were the lead designer Shade, DDO would probably be the most challenging MMO on the market, and all twelve people playing it would be considered Gods Of Gaming.

If he was lead designer, there would be only two classes to play (barbarian and healer), only one way to win all fights, and this game would failed years ago.

[sirgog]

Oh and keep the hyper-randomness out of the harder fights.

Remember when Shroud was new? Groups going for server firsts on Elite recalled if Sagrata was present because he made the part at least twice as hard. Hell, some PUGs recalled at sight of Sagrata for the first two or three weeks.

Getting a completion should be about skill, not about 'we won the dice roll before any other group on the server, we were first to get no Sagrata and no fast movers and then not stuff it up later'. And no matter how it's done, some random combinations will be harder and others easier.

[Thrudh]

Oh and keep the hyper-randomness out of the harder fights.

Remember when Shroud was new? Groups going for server firsts on Elite recalled if Sagrata was present because he made the part at least twice as hard. Hell, some PUGs recalled at sight of Sagrata for the first two or three weeks.

Getting a completion should be about skill, not about 'we won the dice roll before any other group on the server, we were first to get no Sagrata and no fast movers and then not stuff it up later'. And no matter how it's done, some random combinations will be harder and others easier.

NO! This is what made the Shroud great! Keep hyper-randomness in!

Let the losers start over if they get a bad roll... Let the good players take on the challenge. Maybe match the rewards with the challenge...

[sirgog]

NO! This is what made the Shroud great! Keep hyper-randomness in!

Let the losers start over if they get a bad roll... Let the good players take on the challenge. Maybe match the rewards with the challenge...

Uh - at the time of the first completions, it was THE GOOD PLAYERS that were recalling at sight of Sagrata on hard or elite runs. They knew they could just faceroll part 1 again and have a good chance at a better part 2 pull, and were smart enough to do so.

The bad ones didn't attempt Shroud above normal at that time, and even on Normal they often wiped to him. (Remember, you couldn't be raised in part 2 at the time, and player HP were much lower than now). This was back when PUG runs were mostly parts 1-3.

First completions mean a lot more when they are 100% skill, not 50% skill, 50% 'w00t we got the lucky pull before anyone else did'.

[Thrudh]

Uh - at the time of the first completions, it was THE GOOD PLAYERS that were recalling at sight of Sagrata on hard or elite runs. They knew they could just faceroll part 1 again and have a good chance at a better part 2 pull, and were smart enough to do so.

The bad ones didn't attempt Shroud above normal at that time, and even on Normal they often wiped to him. (Remember, you couldn't be raised in part 2 at the time, and player HP were much lower than now). This was back when PUG runs were mostly parts 1-3.

First completions mean a lot more when they are 100% skill, not 50% skill, 50% 'w00t we got the lucky pull before anyone else did'.

Who cares about first completions bragging rights? I want the randomness so it's not the same fight each time...

I took great pride in getting one of my guys good enough to solo the fire elemental (back when that was hard), and another one good enough to pull Sagrata into the NE corner without letting him see anyone else... And even if he DID see someone else, I could lock him down with intimidate...

I loved being a group, we'd pull Sagrata, half the group would groan and say, let's recall and reform, and I'd say, "No way, I can handle him... let's do this"..

And then I handled him and we did it...

[I_Bob]

Who cares about first completions bragging rights? I want the randomness so it's not the same fight each time...

I took great pride in getting one of my guys good enough to solo the fire elemental (back when that was hard), and another one good enough to pull Sagrata into the NE corner without letting him see anyone else... And even if he DID see someone else, I could lock him down with intimidate...

I loved being a group, we'd pull Sagrata, half the group would groan and say, let's recall and reform, and I'd say, "No way, I can handle him... let's do this"..

And then I handled him and we did it...

I remember those runs - they were awesome - a real challenge - it's why I play!

[Shade]

Wow 114 replies in a day.. We are exicited about the U11 raid indeed!

Oh and keep the hyper-randomness out of the harder fights.

Remember when Shroud was new? Groups going for server firsts on Elite recalled if Sagrata was present because he made the part at least twice as hard. Hell, some PUGs recalled at sight of Sagrata for the first two or three weeks.

lol..
Your on my server and im sure your well aware of what I've done with the shroud. And sorry I couldn't take ya along, not sure you were around back then.. But the "good" players were in my group. And we did beat shroud on our very first attempt, on normal, hard and elite - gamewide first. And we did face Sargrata, and we kicked his ass just fine. We never recalled, we wouldn't even consider it. We were all about the challenge. We ran Shroud on elite almost every run post of that too, even tho we knew the rewards weren't worth it, we just did it anyways. For the challenge, for the fun. Having Sargrata showed up just added to that, tho we never really considered him that big of a deal.

Getting a completion should be about skill, not about 'we won the dice roll before any other group on the server, we were first to get no Sagrata .

Where other failed (Legion) we succeeded. Not because we didn't get Sargrata, I think we actuallly did get him. But because we wouldn't accept defeat as an option.

Shroud was about skill, planning and strategy. Even with Sargrata being so much harder then the other luitenants. Adding in some randomness, thats still possible to win ,but much harder then otherwise not getting him. Just adds fun.

Im not suggesting we get some 100% unkillable unwinnable scenarios. Just ones that are FAR more difficult then your average run, to mix up the tedium that tends to set in after you beat a raid on elite X times.

RE: People that want raids more like ToD:

ToD was a fun raid to me.. But the issue with it was it wasn't really tier'd and didn't last us. I had every single ring on everyone of my 5 chars I wanted to bring there within a couple months.. Just wasn't enough content/challenge to last us 2+ years like the Shroud could do.
And yea the extra optional boss for an extra chest was great. (Well once it was fixed, it was just an annoyance that encouarged lower difficlty before it worked on hard/elite)
But that extra chest never had extra raid loot.. Just +4 tomes, which are great and all.. But far too rare to make it clear line that doing that provides the better reward.

Using chrono as a example.. Ugh please no. imo that is the worst designed raid yet. Every boss fight there is boring tank and spank.. The minor wrickles of special abilities or teleporting away doesn't create for any challenge, just breaks up the fights slightly..
Abishai is a great example of a boss fight done WRONG.
Why?
Several MAJOR important features missing that make it trivial no matter what, even on epic:
No lockout. "Ohh party whipe.. no problem lets get our alts and win"
1 boss. Tank and spank.. Well he has a devastating fire special? Who cares. If the tank dies, use the next guy with agro as the new tank, he is a joke of a boss to tank.
Weak trash respawns that 1 player can handle .. Meh a raid 2-3 people can win yet again, trivial and boring.
No penalty for dying.. ToD got this right with the health regen.. Zero penalty at all just isn't acceptable.
If they fixed each of those points, it could be a good fight. As it stands now, it lacks anything that makes a raid truely challenging.

What it needs as far as those points go:
Lockout. Every real raid needs a lockout, you should absoluely not get a 2nd chance without restarting from the begining.
Multiple bosses. 1 boss, 1 tank and 10 players to help that tank is just way too easy. Requiring more players to be well built to handle bosses and more healers makes for a great challenge, that one part ToD did right (even if the 2nd boss is optional, he should be present)
Trash respawns:
Either - A) VERY TOUGH - hard enough to require more then 1 player handling them.
or B) Not fixed respawned, but rather they must be killed since they continue to pile up if not killed.. Example that gets this right: Velah, 2 claws at first easy enough, soon enough you have 4, then 6.. and it can easily overwealm one unprepared player. (tho imo they could be harder to kill for casters, being weak to ice and unresistant to most everythign else makes them a bit too easy for casters to solo)
Penalty for death:
ToD style of healing the raid boss is good, simply replicating that can work.
Ravers Penalty box i really like too.. Tho for an ongoing non puzzle mechanic fight, there should be some very difficult way to rescue them..
Abbots style of potentialy making it very difficult to rez if soulstone gets lost in the water due to death on a ice island. As well as healers potentially getting encased/quelled.
That one works, but is too specific to abbot mechanics to replicate.

Let's hear some more opinions on what people want and less "I disagree" tho please. Just stating that without giving your thoughts on what you want isn't really helpful.

I get that some players dont want a challenge, and thats why I offered normal as that setting, but just saying u want it all easy isn't productive.. Tell us why you want it all for free, and why you think you are more important then me, or anyone else that wants a challenge.

[sirgog]

(comments re randomness, not going to argue the point)

RE: People that want raids more like ToD:

ToD was a fun raid to me.. But the issue with it was it wasn't really tier'd and didn't last us. I had every single ring on everyone of my 5 chars I wanted to bring there within a couple months.. Just wasn't enough content/challenge to last us 2+ years like the Shroud could do.
And yea the extra optional boss for an extra chest was great. (Well once it was fixed, it was just an annoyance that encouarged lower difficlty before it worked on hard/elite)
But that extra chest never had extra raid loot.. Just +4 tomes, which are great and all.. But far too rare to make it clear line that doing that provides the better reward.

Using chrono as a example.. Ugh please no. imo that is the worst designed raid yet. Every boss fight there is boring tank and spank.. The minor wrickles of special abilities or teleporting away doesn't create for any challenge, just breaks up the fights slightly..
Abishai is a great example of a boss fight done WRONG.
Why?
Several MAJOR important features missing that make it trivial no matter what, even on epic:
No lockout. "Ohh party whipe.. no problem lets get our alts and win"
1 boss. Tank and spank.. Well he has a devastating fire special? Who cares. If the tank dies, use the next guy with agro as the new tank, he is a joke of a boss to tank.
Weak trash respawns that 1 player can handle .. Meh a raid 2-3 people can win yet again, trivial and boring.
No penalty for dying.. ToD got this right with the health regen.. Zero penalty at all just isn't acceptable.
If they fixed each of those points, it could be a good fight. As it stands now, it lacks anything that makes a raid truely challenging.

What it needs as far as those points go:
Lockout. Every real raid needs a lockout, you should absoluely not get a 2nd chance without restarting from the begining.
Multiple bosses. 1 boss, 1 tank and 10 players to help that tank is just way too easy. Requiring more players to be well built to handle bosses and more healers makes for a great challenge, that one part ToD did right (even if the 2nd boss is optional, he should be present)
Trash respawns:
Either - A) VERY TOUGH - hard enough to require more then 1 player handling them.
or B) Not fixed respawned, but rather they must be killed since they continue to pile up if not killed.. Example that gets this right: Velah, 2 claws at first easy enough, soon enough you have 4, then 6.. and it can easily overwealm one unprepared player. (tho imo they could be harder to kill for casters, being weak to ice and unresistant to most everythign else makes them a bit too easy for casters to solo)
Penalty for death:
ToD style of healing the raid boss is good, simply replicating that can work.
Ravers Penalty box i really like too.. Tho for an ongoing non puzzle mechanic fight, there should be some very difficult way to rescue them..
Abbots style of potentialy making it very difficult to rez if soulstone gets lost in the water due to death on a ice island. As well as healers potentially getting encased/quelled.
That one works, but is too specific to abbot mechanics to replicate.

Let's hear some more opinions on what people want and less "I disagree" tho please. Just stating that without giving your thoughts on what you want isn't really helpful.

I get that some players dont want a challenge, and thats why I offered normal as that setting, but just saying u want it all easy isn't productive.. Tell us why you want it all for free, and why you think you are more important then me, or anyone else that wants a challenge.

Biggest issue with ToD was that except for part 1, Normal, Hard and Elite are too similar in difficulty and have identical rewards. The biggest change to Horoth is that the orthons are more threatening on the higher difficulties and the fight goes longer - Horoth and Suulo are basically the same monsters with a little more melee damage and better To-Hit.

ToD part 3 should have been harder on Elite (part 1 is pretty well done on Elite) - Orthons should spawn without limit, and Horoth should have some unique abilities that change the fight - maybe something where he gives a warning, then five seconds later casts a Mass Trap the Soul on everyone (regardless of range) he has line of sight to. No matter what you are doing, when he gives warning, you've got to run behind something.

Suulo doesn't make the fight any harder, just longer - that's more time to run out of mana or screw something up, but he doesn't really change anything. Horoth should gain a new ability when Suulo dies to change things up a bit.

I think TOD should have dropped rings without +1 exceptional stats on Normal, the current rings on Hard, and the Elite versions should have been +7 to the stat they had on them. Suulo's chest should have dropped weapons or something unique that also gets a little better on Hard and Elite - something the quality of a Lit 2 on Norm, a +7 Lit 2 on Hard and a +9 Lit 2 on Elite.

Penalty boxes are good but skirt around the real issue - DDO should just bite the bullet and nerf all three raise spells to be out-of-combat only (10 second cast time, no Quicken allowed, any damage interrupts the spell). That would make death something worth avoiding. Maybe change True Res to be the one in-combat res, but put it on a 5+ minute cooldown.