Discussion - Upgraded The Lord of Blades (Elite/Epic)

[Shade]

Ok well the other thread is official 110% derailed now.. So making a new one to give everyone some info on our post patch elite/epic runs, and make room for general discussion on the raid on higher difficulties.

Death grip'd:



Didn't fair too well on epic. Lots of players new to the raid and unfamiliar with some of his special attacks, as well as being taken by surprise by the new death grip mechanic.. Plus strategy wise we just went for it, as in the past the power of the forge wasn't too major and we never bothered killing the pillars..

Now it seems you really must kill them, as he now gains MAJOR power from them. Check the SS of his dmg output, insanely increased.. Think he may have had 5 stacks of power of the forge there. Really only tankable without blocking after the pillars are down on epic.

So ranged dmg output it's place in this raid for sure now.. Taking down those pillars FAST with ensure less initial deaths and smooth things out.

So actually getting those optionals on epic? hahah.. Gona be an insane achivement if anyone can pull it off.

We went again on elite. Death grip is down to 90 seconds on elite, so getting tons of rezes is much more managable. We probably could of won elite with some enhanced planning and strategy, but we died with him sitting at 33% due to a combo of rain of blades and dog spit.. Thinking killing the hounds sooner is a bigger priority now (They now have more hp, and regenrate to full when rezzed, not 5-10%.)

Third time we were losing ppl and it was getting late.. So a quick and easy run on normal just to check out the loot upgrades. Normal is ultra easy imo. Far easier then normal ToD for example. Or even normal MA. Tho it's something new, so first timers on normal will still have trouble while learning the mechanics.. Perhaps mostly where it should be. The optional will be challenging for newer/ungeared players at least on normal. His damage output drops down to weakling levels, and his dogs have almots no hitpoints... Killed hounds in maybe 5-10 seconds. Killed all pillars. Went for optional and kill him 5-6 times.

Loot upgrades:
3 chests now:
1 main - similar amount of binding frags.
1 optional - now has binding frag stoo, tho very few. 1d10 perhaps.
1 locked - The spirit mechanic has changed.. You now have to beat all 4 elementals, then the chest unlocks and just drops random spirits for everyone. So no more silly - i have to solo this room.. You can send 4 teams of 3 each and do em all in teams at once.

Also this chest dropped both normal and refined.. So that kills the theory of you have to run hard/elite.. It probably drops exquisit too, just at a lower rate.

Also token cost of T3 upgrade now 5..

So with this new setup.. T3 alchemica wepaons are now a joke to get. 3-4 weeks of grinding a not very hard raid, and a few runs of an easy epic, and there you go.

I hope epic has some more incentive to run it, since getting the upgrades on normal will probably be the way to go.

Screenshots:
2 minute grip of death
Ultra power of the forge epic damage output now quite high
Not so bad on elite with the pillars down dmg output
Easy mode check for loots
All 4 optionals complete.

Unrelated but found all the rares and even ransacked 1 chest in the pre area.. It has no named loot.

[Genasi]

Also this chest dropped both normal and refined.. So that kills the theory of you have to run hard/elite.. It probably drops exquisit too, just at a lower rate.

Actually, exquisite shards and spirits are Epic-only. You'll also notice the refined fragments/spirits drop a lot more often on hard and elite than normal- the reason for including them on normal at a lower drop rate was so that you could obtain loot similar to (and in some cases slightly exceeding) Greensteel weapons without having to run on higher difficulties than normal, since that's what people are used to with the Shroud. But to craft the final tier of your Alchemical weapon, you'll have to run the raids on Epic, and reaching tier 2 is going to be a good deal slower if you never run anything higher than normal.

[The_Brave2]

Actually, exquisite shards and spirits are Epic-only. You'll also notice the refined fragments/spirits drop a lot more often on hard and elite than normal- the reason for including them on normal at a lower drop rate was so that you could obtain loot similar to (and in some cases slightly exceeding) Greensteel weapons without having to run on higher difficulties than normal, since that's what people are used to with the Shroud. But to craft the final tier of your Alchemical weapon, you'll have to run the raids on Epic, and reaching tier 2 is going to be a good deal slower if you never run anything higher than normal.

Fair enough, but why is there no bacon in your Developer tag?

[Shade]

Actually, exquisite shards and spirits are Epic-only. You'll also notice the refined fragments/spirits drop a lot more often on hard and elite than normal- the reason for including them on normal at a lower drop rate was so that you could obtain loot similar to (and in some cases slightly exceeding) Greensteel weapons without having to run on higher difficulties than normal, since that's what people are used to with the Shroud. But to craft the final tier of your Alchemical weapon, you'll have to run the raids on Epic, and reaching tier 2 is going to be a good deal slower if you never run anything higher than normal.

mm well thats cool I guess.

Still prefer the old shard/seal/scrol/raidloot thing tho. Too much crafting lately.

[Gimpinator]

Actually, exquisite shards and spirits are Epic-only. You'll also notice the refined fragments/spirits drop a lot more often on hard and elite than normal- the reason for including them on normal at a lower drop rate was so that you could obtain loot similar to (and in some cases slightly exceeding) Greensteel weapons without having to run on higher difficulties than normal, since that's what people are used to with the Shroud. But to craft the final tier of your Alchemical weapon, you'll have to run the raids on Epic, and reaching tier 2 is going to be a good deal slower if you never run anything higher than normal.

Couple questions..

1) Can we expect anything other than Alchemical Crafting out of these raids? They're rather hard on epic right now and it may be a bit before Revenants shows us the lootz, despite having infinite resources.

2) The third tier on the Alchemical weapons (specifically melee) are a bit lackluster. Any chance you could review them and consider a little buffage? The DC's in particular on the Blast effects are quite low and pitiful. If I didn't have a character with Stunning Blow, I would care less about Epic completions at this point.

[Tinco]

1 locked - The spirit mechanic has changed.. You now have to beat all 4 elementals, then the chest unlocks and just drops random spirits for everyone. So no more silly - i have to solo this room.. You can send 4 teams of 3 each and do em all in teams at once.

This is really good news. Looking forward to test this next week if Lama is still up then.

[Shade]

Yea I agree the t3 is lackluster.

It's the same as original crystal cove.. All the power is front loaded.

Epic is mega hard.. So leaving t1/t2 and adding something more to T3 would be nice..

Tho it probably shouldn't be DPS related.. I think DPS wise they are ok.. Top top DPS weapons should be lots of work to get like ESoS.

An these are not hard like that.. T1/2 = very easy. T3= very hard raid, but a single lucky run can do it for ya. (you just need the spirit far as I know, the empty esquitis shard is optional because they are craftable)

Non dps stuffs:
Maybe upgrade the stun/seeker stuff to +12.
Or add some non dps stats. say exceptional con +3.
Two slots for 2handers.. That was a pretty common thing we had in the past.
Regeneration stuff:
Regenerating bard songs
regeneration clr turns
Regeneration bbn rages

[Gimpinator]

Couldn't agree more. My initial thought when I walked into the raids for the first time was Crystal Cove. I couldn't help but think about the "New Tech" they were experimenting with when the Crystal Cove was initially introduced. This has Crystal Cove written all over it.

But the changes they made yesterday were nice. Loving the death penalty. A few of us popped our head into LoB on normal this morning to test a few things. It seems his Impale attack has been upped in total damage. I was hit three times total for practically 650 on the dot.

Edit: Power of the Forge's description was changed and now reflects what it does exactly. I won't spoil the surprise, but it should make the raid a little more linear!

[Tinco]

I agree with Tier 3 being a bit lackluster.

What about CL 20 3/3 clickies for tier 3?

Air = Haste
Earth = Stoneskin
Water = FoM
Fire = Fireshield

[edragoon148]

Still prefer the old shard/seal/scrol/raidloot thing tho. Too much crafting lately.

This ^.^ and I was hoping with the House Cannith addition we might've seen Epic Twilight Forge (with Scrolls/Seals/Shards of course) . . . /sadpanda.

[Neouni]

Healers used to pay attention to their surroundings and keep the party up.

Now they need to pay attention to voicechat, textchat and keep names and timers in their head while doing all that to raise anyone that gets hit by the insane damage lord of blades can spew out.

That's a big bump in difficulty.

[The_Brave2]

Healers used to pay attention to their surroundings and keep the party up.

Now they need to pay attention to voicechat, textchat and keep names and timers in their head while doing all that to raise anyone that gets hit by the insane damage lord of blades can spew out.

That's a big bump in difficulty.

It might actually even make sense to just healbot on my Mele FVS. Weird.

[QuantumFX]

Has anyone confirmed the Adamantine + Good DR bypass?

[Shade]

Edit: Power of the Forge's description was changed and now reflects what it does exactly. I won't spoil the surprise, but it should make the raid a little more linear!

eh spoil it.

I tried to get it several times during our 3 runs and it just never gave it to me. Seems way harder to get it now.

I know what it does for him.. Massively ups his dmg output now.. Thus wh you saw him doing those crazy impales.. they go down to ~300-400 evne on epic after the pillasr are all down.

[Glenalth]

Has anyone confirmed the Adamantine + Good DR bypass?

With the weapons I had to test it either had to be Adamantine + good or Adamantine + evil.

[gloopygloop]

Actually, exquisite shards and spirits are Epic-only. You'll also notice the refined fragments/spirits drop a lot more often on hard and elite than normal- the reason for including them on normal at a lower drop rate was so that you could obtain loot similar to (and in some cases slightly exceeding) Greensteel weapons without having to run on higher difficulties than normal, since that's what people are used to with the Shroud. But to craft the final tier of your Alchemical weapon, you'll have to run the raids on Epic, and reaching tier 2 is going to be a good deal slower if you never run anything higher than normal.

Is there any chance that you folks would consider changing the drop rates for Shroud to a similar mechanic?

I'm willing to bet that most people would be happy to see a lower ingredient drop rate on Shroud Normal (maybe 0% chance of a Large on part 4 on Normal with the 50% chance of a large on part 4 only occuring on Hard/Elite) than we have now in exchange for a higher ingredient drop rate on Hard/Elite (always at least 1 Large on part 5, 50% chance of 2 Larges on Hard, 100% chance of 2 Larges on Elite).

With the Hard/Elite bosses being amped up significantly after U11, this might be a nice encouragement to actually run Shroud on Hard/Elite - especially since people will be a lot less enthusiastic about running Shroud in general once LitII is no longer the king of all weapons.

[Darkshire]

Is there any chance that you folks would consider changing the drop rates for Shroud to a similar mechanic?

I'm willing to bet that most people would be happy to see a lower ingredient drop rate on Shroud Normal

Stopped right there, I'm pretty sure otherwise, given I see 1 a day max public lfms with a difficulty other than normal. But, I guess there could be other methods of determining the mindset of the playerbase, anyone know what those'd be?

[mystafyi]

wrong post ;(

[budalic]

I agree with Tier 3 being a bit lackluster.

What about CL 20 3/3 clickies for tier 3?

Air = Haste
Earth = Stoneskin
Water = FoM
Fire = Fireshield

FoM and Fireshield are more rare/valuable than first two. Though, I guess, more haste clickies are always welcome. That leaves Stoneskin as something most people would probably pass up in this situation.

[gloopygloop]

Stopped right there, I'm pretty sure otherwise, given I see 1 a day max public lfms with a difficulty other than normal. But, I guess there could be other methods of determining the mindset of the playerbase, anyone know what those'd be?

The reason why I rarely see an LFM for anything other than Normal is that there really isn't any reason to run it on Hard/Elite unless you want the favor or the bonus XP for completing on Elite (and you only get each of those once per character life).

I'd be willing to bet that we'll see a pretty even split between Normal/Hard/Elite Shroud runs, especially considering the fact that most people pretty much sleepwalk through the Shroud on Normal now. I'll admit to turning on autoattack and alt-tabbing to the Forums during parts 4 and 5 on occasion.