Hard to Kill Thread

[knockcocker]

On hard epic levels in FR seemed to me they have about that of our current quasi-epic? Maybe a little more but round there, On elite however they have more.

See the release notes (this is pertinent to our discussion yesterday as well ) - only epic normal is working
correctly right now. As such I'd be hesitant base an opinion on observations made in epic hard/elite as things
are liable to change.

[anto_capone]

20 Human PM. Maxed INT (18 base + lich + yugo + 3 tome + ship + all level ups + all enhancements + 3 exc). SF: necro? Check. GSF: necro? check. Greater necro focus item? Check. So, could be a bit higher with drow, and a +4 tome. But overall, I think I got all you listed.

Now, please, Shade. Call Turbine and ask them to take a look into my character. Apparently your 100%-certain math does not work for my toon, I don't know why. Maybe is a bug only affecting me!

Epic Small Problem. Farming scrolls. I run to the waterfall, cast a symbol of death, then kite the trash a bit through it. When the Symbol vanishes, web. Then CoD. Then Wail. And yet they are most of the time, stuck in the web, but alive. Turbine, check it! Shade is clear, I should be killing them all at first sight!

lol so true. According to some people, first life pale masters with a 40 necro DC are soloing every epic as we speak! They don't even drink pots, they are just so uber!

These silly assumptions people make, when the only time I ever get 80% success rate on my DC's are against low fort mobs like casters....

My caster must be broken too, but I guess he wasn't broken enough for some people!

[Emili]

Now wizzies are not needed at all - its better to take bard for CC and their songs, and sorc for dps ;p

Noooo, Kaalil (pm) was running with my Einin (tempest) last night and gues what? He did crowd control, aoe damage and insta-kills (yes wails) in -The Lost Thread - on hard.

Reminds me... I wish they'd bleedin' fix manyshot.

[Vellrad]

Right, an AoE that already has a 30 second cooldown for Wizard's need's to go up to 50 seconds. That would make the spell more useless than it is now. Implosion already has a 60 second cooldown and hits like... 5 mobs or something. Circle already has 2 saves and is already capped at 4 kills maximum.

If they really wanted to tone down instakills, then they would probably just have to stop giving away DC's. On Lammania my 3rd life Wizard with a +4 INT Tome and pleanty of gear hits a 49 DC standing. That's completely broken. If I factor in a ship buff for +2 INT, and Yugoloth Potions for +2 INT then I'll be at a 51, and then if I hit Arcane Spellsurge for funzies I'll be at a 56. Yay brokenness.

I remember devs saying somewhere that EDs are optional.
Eh, it looks like its a mandatory p2w now...
I mean, it would be a mandatory p2w, if not that nerf

[Emili]

See the release notes (this is pertinent to our discussion yesterday as well ) - only epic normal is working
correctly right now. As such I'd be hesitant base an opinion on observations made in epic hard/elite as things
are liable to change.

Epic normal is easier than epic hard atm unless you're speaking bout the raid.

[Nick_RC]

I don't think thats the case.

I think it's more so they just decided it, and are just now starting on working on tweaking epic hard and elite to be where they should be.

Epic hard and elite as you know were pretty much jokes in closed beta, they were near identical to epic casual/norm.. So obvious work was still being done.

And its still beta, nothings finalized yet.

Hmmm yeah maybe you are right and they just changed it on the fly. We did tell them h/e was way to weak.... I just dont get how this was the solution. Out of left field. Such an awkward change though. I don't think it's a good idea changing rules based on difficulty setting. It makes it really difficult to build characters around. Be kickass on norm...then play completely differently under a new 'rule set' on hard and elite.

Meh whatever. Il adjust and adapt. I will have 25 past lives soon triple stacking all the best melee and caster ones. I'm nerf proof! Well nothing 20 tokens can't fix...again(barb pl)... And again(lifting of epic ward)...and again(reinstatement of semi epic ward...maybe).

Time to go figure out how to beat the system again.

N

Oh and meteor swarm is awesome(for the people saying its terrible). If you arnt using it you are silly play around with it some more, turn off quicken, cast at the limit of ur jump and profit.

[nivarch]

I'm expecting a dev post tomorrow or the day after saying that they revert the change, and will instead give an increase to saves against insta death
something along the line of ((mob current HP%)-50%)/0,05, which would give +10 saves to mobs at full life, +8 to mobs at 90% and so on ; until +0 at 50% HP.

After the amount of doom of this thread, people will be relieved and won't even think to doom the new change.

[Belfaze]

For all the people who say the wizards instakills trivialized content. Well if you were looking for more of a challenge simply don't invite the wiz to your party, no one's forcing you. So why did you do it if you didn't enjoy it?

I do agree that the cooldown on wail and CoD should be increased. On live now it is currently possible to run around and instead of waiting to kite 20 mobs using wail, CoD, FoD, and PK it is possible to pretty well kill everything on sight. A limit of affecting 6 mobs with aoe intsakills would be acceptable, but it should depend on max caster level, something similar to the way turn undead works. If you have a stronger caster level in a certain school it should show benefits to All of the main purpose of spells for that school. IE. if a spells purpose is to instakill having a higher caster level in that school should make it better at instakilling, the damage on a save is a minor effect and damage amplication their should not matter. No instakill spell is used with the hope that the enemy will save so that they take 350 damage instead.

If something like turn undead is implemented though, make it easy to determine how many mobs it will affect. Saying the spell will affect monsters up to a total of 50 HD is not easily determinable. Very few people walk around with the monster manual (which we don't actually have yet) open reading up on the HD of every class of monster that they can currently see.

Debuffs are rarely needed on live as is. Why not make it so that debuffs are actually applicable. Inserting a mass ward does nothing to make debuffs more relevant.

Making epic content more difficult by boosting saves is applicable. If a caster is required to cast a debuff or 2 to have over 50% spell success chance than it is difficult content, that will benefit from teamwork. Have the melee go in and grab and hold aggro so that the caster can pass out debuffs or put up symbols at which point the caster can finally CC or instakill.

[SableShadow]

I just dont get how this was the solution. Out of left field. Such an awkward change though. I don't think it's a good idea changing rules based on difficulty setting. It makes it really difficult to build characters around. Be kickass on norm...then play completely differently under a new 'rule set' on hard and elite.

I agree.

I think something along the lines of what they did with vorpal (e.g. extra damage instead of death effect) is really what they want to be shooting for.

Maybe a % of current health effect?
Maybe a % of current con or level drain, with the appropriate regen timer?

A simple blanket immunity, *again*, seems ... forced.

[Ape_Man]

I'm expecting a dev post tomorrow or the day after saying that they revert the change, and will instead give an increase to saves against insta death
something along the line of ((mob current HP%)-50%)/0,05, which would give +10 saves to mobs at full life, +8 to mobs at 90% and so on ; until +0 at 50% HP.

After the amount of doom of this thread, people will be relieved and won't even think to doom the new change.

I said same thing, I bet we're right.

[knockcocker]

Epic normal is easier than epic hard atm unless you're speaking bout the raid.

No, I'm quoting the release notes. Epic Hard/Elite are not working properly at the moment regardless of relative
difficulties. By implication, these difficulty settings are in a state of flux hence making definitive observations from
playing on these settings is flawed:

"All quests that offer Epic content now feature it in multiple difficulties! Note that during Open Beta, do not select difficulties other than "Normal". Other difficulty options will be available later during Open Beta."

All I'm saying is that we should probably wait for these settings to be officially available before the 'constructive
criticism starts'

[Jasparion]

I think something along the lines of what they did with vorpal (e.g. extra damage instead of death effect) is really what they want to be shooting for.

A simple blanket immunity, *again*, seems ... forced.

Even this wouldnt be accepted though, would it? Longer CD, less mobs, cap on damage, or anything else.

Very few people would farm multiple lives to get a vorpal weapon, but they certainly do to get crazy high DCs.

Really what Turbine should be doing is coming out and saying why. I saw one post about the displacement change which said "for more info you should check this other thread" which only had generic info. For a change like this, far more should be provided.

If its reasonable then Im sure most would understand. Certainly a few will howl and rage, but if it actually makes the game better overall then that is a fair trade.

If they really have no logical response beyond "we never really should have let it get out of hand" then the rage is certainly justified.

Give out candy, get people addicted, take money for more candy, then switch the candy for cardboard.

[brzytki]

Wow, welcome back to blanket immunities.

So basically we already had nerf to vorpal, now's the time to nerf all insta-kills: FoD, Wail, Implosion, Assassinate, QP and so on, not to mention 3 new insta-kills from Shadowdancer ED and maybe epic moment from GMoF.

*claps*

Well done, Turbine...

[MrkGrismer]

I have to agree with many of the others here the Deus Ex Machina Ward is completely unnecessary. If you want mobs to be resistant to death and negative energy then give them death ward clickies or make sure their clerics have Mass Death Ward. Shoot, many of the mobs have impossible to obtain mixed spell lists as it is where they can cast both divine and arcane spells anyway, why not just tack Mass Death Ward onto the list. They spam their spells with no concentration checks and unlimited SP anyway but at least a group could in theory dispell and/or disjunct them.

Or possibly even an assassin could sneak up on the casters and slit their throat before they got a spell off. Oh my what clever team gameplay that would be!

Instead we get a DM that is like "No, this is an hard epic dungeon so everything is immune to instant death spells because I said so, nyah!"

I'll be sticking to normal where the GM isn't (as much of ) a jerk if this stays in for live.

[Jasparion]

All I'm saying is that we should probably wait for these settings to be officially available before the 'constructive
criticism starts'

26 June?

[Lormyr]

I am pretty well at a loss for words here, Devs.

This game, your game, has two major strengths too it. The first is the fun interactive combat system. The second is the immensely fun multitude of possible character builds that are viable. The more you whittle down and narrow the amount of viable character builds and player strategies, the more you hurt this game.

We did not like the original epic death ward at all. We do not like it's half-cocked redheaded stepchild any better. It's not fun guys. Not fun. And that is what we all are doing here - looking for fun.

We beat this issue too death a few years ago over the original epic death ward, and I thought that would have led to a settled understanding regarding such issues in the future. Apparently that is not the case. We, your players, want this game to keep moving forwards - not backwards. This is a big step backwards. A big unwanted step.

This entire issue is extremely disappointing, and was handled quite poorly all around.

[Carpone]

Nice.

A way to slow down zerging instakillers and involve the party more often in groups.

Spell wards already punish zergers.

[knockcocker]

Oh and meteor swarm is awesome(for the people saying its terrible). If you arnt using it you are silly play around with it some more, turn off quicken, cast at the limit of ur jump and profit.

QFT. It's much easier to boost now the spell level based potency mechanics are gone.

[Emili]

No, I'm quoting the release notes. Epic Hard/Elite are not working properly at the moment regardless of relative
difficulties. By implication, these difficulty settings are in a state of flux hence making definitive observations from
playing on these settings is flawed:

"All quests that offer Epic content now feature it in multiple difficulties! Note that during Open Beta, do not select difficulties other than "Normal". Other difficulty options will be available later during Open Beta."

All I'm saying is that we should probably wait for these settings to be officially available before the 'constructive
criticism starts'

That's fine am just saying norm is even easier... any decently geared caster can handle it simply

[Xaxx]

What I dont understand is why hard to kill doenst cover enchant spells to and tactial feats.... if they're resistant to death effects, shouldnt they be resistant to any hold effect to... like stunning fist and stunning blow.... and lets not forget cleave/great cleave/supreme cleave/lay waste etc... those shouldnt work until below 50 % either.

The change is bs.... but if the devs are going to make a change like this, impliment it across the board and screw everyone not just one or two classes.... no death spells, control effects or combat abilities till below 50%. Seems fair to me if they're gonna let this stand.