Elite Weapon Shipment - No snooze for you!

[Solmage]

Elite solo was ..challenging. It was difficult to find a good balance at times between getting mana back and wasting it self healing, so the challenge was to get to the shrine. I'm sure future runs will be better now that I know what to expect. (First time run since the changes on elite, I always assumed ok, now, this has to be the last wave.. what.. what are these succubi doing here?! oh well.. guess we're done.. devils!? etc )

Further supporting this is an Elite duo was a reasonably relaxed 20ish min run that wasn't boring since at least we were doing something, and I ended up with 1 unused shrine. Here the challenge will be to NOT save that much mana and speed things up

[parowan]

I didn't know much about the changes to the quest, I'd just been farming it off and on for a while on my Barbarian (in prep for TR) -- running it solo so I wouldn't have to listen to anyone squeal about a barbarian keeping the bauble.

So Monday morning I waltz in on hard, with the FvS20 hire in my pocket, expecting another ho-hum grind, but thinking to myself, even if I don't get it I'll be TRing tomorrow and won't have to see this stupid quest for a long while. Through the tunnel there's nothing to change my thinking. Then suddenly I'm sitting up straight in my chair. What are there, two dozen archers? Pew-pew galore, it's like Star Wars. And the succubi? It was like they had dropped my maul-wielding horc barb into a Victoria's Secret fashion show. Remind me again how to get blood spatters out of white lace?

Ended up being the funnest time I'd had in a while on DDO. So much so that I had to share, and immediately opened up an LFM for elite. Some heavy-hitters signed on and we completed soon after, taking little more time than pre-u11 but having a ton more fun.


Things I learned:

1) Supreme cleave is your friend. Mash it.

2) Hirelings have pathetic hp numbers - the new UI makes this obvious. On hard the lvl20 cleric doesn't last long in the new weapon shipment, and even the FvS died toward the end (hooray for triple pos raise clickie).

3) Because of dungeon scaling I actually found soloing hard on my barb (with hire) was easier than PUGing it with a full party. I never failed solo but the 6 or so random PUGs I was in failed almost half the time.

4) CC can help, but it also leads to DA. DA is not your friend.

5) When things get rough, like when I had to raise my healerling, you can catch a breather by hopping up to one of the ledges to the side of the entrance. Wow - actually having to use a tactic in weapon shipment? It really has changed.

6) Regarding loot drops: As someone else said, three times zero is still zero.

[zwiebelring]

Many were hoping for the scaling chests like in Lordsmarch chain. But no, just 1, even on elite. Meh...

[Darknark]

Many were hoping for the scaling chests like in Lordsmarch chain. But no, just 1, even on elite. Meh...

Have you even run the quest? What are you talking about?

There ARE three chests on elite, two on hard, one on normal. It does scale with difficulty.

[zwiebelring]

I am referring to people telling me this who I take as reliable source. Even they might be wrong sometimes or I misunderstood. Good to know, anyway I got my Bauble on normal I don't care^^.

[Dwarfo]

I am referring to people telling me this who I take as reliable source. Even they might be wrong sometimes or I misunderstood. Good to know, anyway I got my Bauble on normal I don't care^^.

those people dont sound reliable lol, cause theres 3 on elite.

this is a really fun quest now, and i actually cant wait to get off ransack

[Beld]

WAY more fun than before, but still no boot mats

[EddieB_TBC]

Maybe they should dial the DA threshold back just a bit so a party that is just about breaking even doesn't wind up at orange or red if they have a death or several second of bad luck / timing? Personally I think it is cool that some of the quests are getting beefed up on elite so they are not just stand around and loot runs. At the same time the big brother mechanic of DA might need to be revisited in a few places so it doesn't become an actual quest mechanic rather than some thing that pops up when you are going outside the bounds of a well played quest effort.

[Tinco]

Enchanter AM (Mass Suggestion) + PM (Wail) = win, but fun as hell.

[Lobster5]

Just soloed it on elite on my wf LoB..it's a bit better than before cause you have something to do instead of waiting for respawns, but really, it's as easy as before..i didn't even use the shrine and had to dump my 1.8k sp left on gorgith to get it done faster..

Good job devs in making it less boring, but it's still easy

Don't go anywhere, I'm putting the finishing touches to your medal

[Tinco]

Thing is the scaling, it's still easy solo (6 mobs per spawn), but it gets very messy with 5-6 people where you get 25+ mobs per spawn.

[pHo3nix]

Thing is the scaling, it's still easy solo (6 mobs per spawn), but it gets very messy with 5-6 people where you get 25+ mobs per spawn.

Everything is easier to solo if the other people you bring are just piking or, even worst, are trying to contribute but need a heal every 2 seconds

[Tinco]

It's exponentially easier in the new Weapon Shipment because you have Mob Strength (Dungeon Scaling) and Mob Number (Spawn rate) depending on the number of people in the quest, this is unlike any other dungeon.

This is perfectly fine for me, but a solo eWS and a 6 man eWS is not even remotely comparable in terms of difficulty. 6 man makes most epic dungeons look like a piece of cake.

[pHo3nix]

Don't go anywhere, I'm putting the finishing touches to your medal

No need, it's so easy that i wonder why people are complaining about its difficulty. If you can't do it, well, i don't know what to say

[.Revenga.]

Oh i love this change

had alot of fun running it twice on elite, don't think anyone used pots.

Increased loot chance is very nice too, completion time is comparable with what it used to be, but it seems much shorter because of all the fun you have in the ongoing mayhem.