Epic Elite Raid testing tonight and tomorow! DQ2, VoN5/6, and more Sign up here.

[tygara]

Will try to make it again tonight, Shade
Eather on Mitwo (12mnk/6ftr/2pal/1epic - Ninja/Flowersniffer lol) or Swiizzy (12Ftr/6Rgr/2Mnk/5epic - AA/Shiradi)

[PNellesen]

Any idea if there'll be any devs to bump XP today? Wouldn't mind bringing my capped Cleric along, but it looks like you had the level ranges set around 23-25 yesterday, and if Epic Elite is as tough as it sounds I'll probably want him to be in that range as well before joining (he's only level 20 right now)

[DeadRabbat]

I didn't run with Shade yesterday, but the FVS & Clerics he had were lvl21 & 22. Not sure how much Destiny they had.

Since this is testing Epics Elite, as well as normal bugs & new destiny's...possibly even xp.
I was going to do challenges today to get Rock Boots for LoB (I have on live but not here)...but the scaling is in effect & I don't plan to run 25 runs for each item (was getting 20, compared to live 160+)... but thats not here nor there. Just b****ing.

[Ziindarax]

I will be on Ziind.

[Shade]

Roster updated.

Re: Spell DCs:
Please start a new topic if you want to discuss new maximum spell DCs.
But one big thing you guys missed: New epic bard feat provides +4 to any stat. And our bard did indeed have said feat.

RE: Mana potions:
I am 110% confident that all 3 raids we did were and still are 100% doable with zero mana potions, and not too many scrolls.

How many were used is 100% irrlevant as people are purposely wasteful on lama when they have unlimited free potions. Trust my knowledge as a raid leader who often funds raids and understands healing costs tho.

VoN5 EE would have a high scroll cost, as it does now on live, but with 2 shrines no pots are required. And with the heavily boosted trash loot in the several chests, they could easily cover the plat cost to make the raid cost nothing to run.
The other 2 raids are so short in duration - and not really increased due to our increased DPS that they would not need more resources then live, and atm I run both every 3 days, 99% of runs are done with no potions.

Even if they were made much harder, that fact wouldnt change. The big boss fights are both short, and dragon one features a SP regen mechanic.

Making something like EE LoB longer would probably ask for some pots in many groups, but not these raids we tested.

[Niaobe]

I am up for LoB I will be on Orc if I can join. What time is it? Here now it is 4:56 central

[Shade]

forming now.

[oweieie]

RE: Mana potions:
I am 110% confident that all 3 raids we did were and still are 100% doable with zero mana potions, and not too many scrolls.

For your raids, where you've spent an hour forming, taking only experienced people who already spent tons of pots learning the raid. This, however, is not 95% of the raids. Your "doesn't need pots" only applies to the top 5% of the people running the raid, realistically, they DO require pots, and even your 5% occasionally will have problems, DC or lag typically, where pots ARE required on your "not required" raids.

[Shade]

For your raids, where you've spent an hour forming, taking only experienced people who already spent tons of pots learning the raid. This, however, is not 95% of the raids. Your "doesn't need pots" only applies to the top 5% of the people running the raid, realistically, they DO require pots, and even your 5% occasionally will have problems, DC or lag typically, where pots ARE required on your "not required" raids.

I don't ever recall spending an hour forming for these epic raids. I tend to give up after about 45min tops and do something else. Epic LoB might take an hour some nights, but it takes around a half hour to clear to the thing anyways, so its not like were waiting the whole time.

Most of my raids for dragon/dq fill in 15min or less. If it takes longer its because im busy at the time or afk.

And no it's not the top 5%, thats nonsense. These raids get run daily several times on khyber, all by raid leaders who accept pug members, almost never needing pots. Maybe your server is different. The leaders and strategies used are critical to limiting mana potions, I know a lot of players arent aware of some strategies.. But I do have guides up on the wiki explaining most of these to aid the other servers.

Epic lord of blades is a raid where we need pots when we get hit by lag. Dragon and DQ2? um no.

Come to Khyber and find out if you really dont believe me. I run them twice a week, usually 2x dragon, 1x dq minimum tues and friday. We never use potions and we always take pug members who have basic equipment (none required for divines/arcane, T3 Greensteel weapon for melee), which hundreds of thousands of players qualify for, certainly not the "top 5%".

Infact on most of my Dragons and DQ they tend to be me, 1-2 of my guild healders 1-3 other guildies, rest pug members. If the pug members are healers I generally set them to last/not at all in the heal order to actively prevent it. If they use any, I refund them in all cases if I feel it was warranted, tho thats only in the VERY RARE cases where its a really bad combo of lag/luck/poor performance by pug dps.

And there are at least 5 other guilds on Khyber that do exactly the same as I do. It's not particular tough.

[Shade]

Thanks for coming again tonight guys, good runs.

Epic Chrono:
Had a full 12 man run.

Overall was far too easy, but then again chrono always is imo. Zerg crushed the whole thing with minimal deaths.

Trash:
Hp was up ~30%. But since DPS is up more like 40-50% with the epic levels and destinies, it all died VERY fast.
Damage output wasnt realy up much to any noticable degree, maybe even down due to AC/PRR/Dodge changes.

Bloodplate:
Hit quite a bit harder (maybe ~40% more), but yea we got a lot more hp and defense, so wasnt too hard at all. The same group on live may have had many many deaths due to not having as much power here. We got through with just one i think - myself at the end when he went into rage mode (250+ damage double rage hit). He died within ~10 seconds after he hit rage mode anyways, so some good burst healing from the healers kept everyone else alive.

Razor arm:
Pretty much just went nuts with no real strategy and won. He's always been a pushover.

CAD Minions:
Gathered em up for some aoe/cleave.. Dead in a few seconds.

CAD himself:
One shot him too.. Also not scaled like velah =/

Loot:
Seemed same, 1 token.
XP:
Decent considering we beat it so fast. Think ~40k xp, and maybe ~25min of combat, other 10ish mins was waiting at start and just me explaining the raid mechanics as we had some new players.

However we got a -10% penalty, as the raid was oddly only lvl21 base (23 on EE).. Kinda dumb.. All Epic raids should be minimum 23 imo for loot/xp purposes (25 on EE).

Epic MA:
We only had 7 people left at this point as many were not flagged. Only 1 fvs in the group meant healing was probably too limited to have any real chance at winning the live version, but we tried anyways:

Trash was hitting a bit harder, but again died very fast due to low hp.

We got as far as the lightning golem round and wiped. Result likely would of been exactly the same on live due to lack of CC/healing.

They were lightning us up with Eladars electric surge.. Dont remmeber that on live? Maybe new for epic elite, maybe i just dont remember, its been a while.

Damage was ~160 per tic ignoring my resist/absorp for what i think was triple stack.

XP: XP was set to a measely 18k base. For whats imo the longest raid in the game, thats pretty terrible.

[sirgog]

I'm going to guess that the 1-shotting is due to some form of signed integers in HP.

Perhaps all bosses are scaled upwards by 110% hp, and so a boss with 550k on Live (think that's the ballpark CAD is in) goes over 2^20 which might make it go haywire.

Usually this becomes an issue at different numbers though (2^31-1 is a big one).

[Sarnind]

I'm not happy, this game is becoming too easy, the epic destinies are too strong and the monsters are too weak with few life points.

[Tid12]

I'm not happy, this game is becoming too easy, the epic destinies are too strong and the monsters are too weak with few life points.

Big HP doesn't mean "challenge".

As Shade said, mobs were hitting harder, they were spamming pots. Mobs in MA were doing ~160 dmg with Eladar per tic after resists, pretty big IMHO.

I like the fact they hit for more and they were given more toys in Epic elites, along with the new Empower and Maximize.

[Ape_Man]

So it's looking like the below for raids?

Epic Normal: much easier than now.

Epic hard: Slightly easier than now.

Epic Elite: Harder than now for 20s, but easier for 25s with fleshed out EDs


That sound about right?

[Sarnind]

I'm not convinced I was hoping for something much more difficult, the situation on the live server is tragic, we make the epic raid in less than 6 people, most of epics quest can u doing in solo or 2 people.
I was hoping for something more elitist, but this expansion is too casual player

[oweieie]

Come to Khyber and find out if you really dont believe me.

I'm on Khyber, I've been in a few of your raids, and in plenty of others, and I don't believe you.

I've used plenty of pots in DQ if the DPS is a little low, when there is trouble running the bases in dragon or there is a little lag and the party gets trashed from a breath. Pots in LoB are pretty much mandatory, for epic potless is the exception, not the norm even with an experienced group. I've done it with Prophets and Revenants, and non epic with mixed groups of MAC, KoC and Helpers. I almost always had to pot on my cleric regardless of difficulties, and often on my sorc just to get the job done.

[Ape_Man]

I'm not convinced I was hoping for something much more difficult, the situation on the live server is tragic, we make the epic raid in less than 6 people, most of epics quest can u doing in solo or 2 people.
I was hoping for something more elitist, but this expansion is too casual player

I'd prefer they err more on the casual side and ramp things up for the next release. U11 was so much fun wasn't it?

[WruntJunior]

I'm on Khyber, I've been in a few of your raids, and in plenty of others, and I don't believe you.

I've used plenty of pots in DQ if the DPS is a little low, when there is trouble running the bases in dragon or there is a little lag and the party gets trashed from a breath. Pots in LoB are pretty much mandatory, for epic potless is the exception, not the norm even with an experienced group. I've done it with Prophets and Revenants, and non epic with mixed groups of MAC, KoC and Helpers. I almost always had to pot on my cleric regardless of difficulties, and often on my sorc just to get the job done.

eLoB is the only raid where (outside of lag or really bad luck) pots should be used as a healer, on any difficulty, unless either 1) the party isn't up to par or 2) the healer doesn't know how to heal in an effective, efficient way. I don't know which is the case for you, as I'm on Thelanis, but I've regularly done eDQ2, eVelah, and other difficult raids as a healer without potting....and even on eLoB, many pots being used is the sign of the group not being ready for the quest as a whole (whether some/all of the characters aren't up to it, or some/all of the players aren't). If you have to pot in pretty much every run you do on your cleric...either you're consistently unlucky with groups, are you need to make sure you know how to heal efficiently.

I'd prefer they err more on the casual side and ramp things up for the next release. U11 was so much fun wasn't it?

Yes, it was. I loved the raid changes, myself...especially since there strongest effect was only felt on higher difficulties. Hopefully, elite epic raids are also a good challenge, with good rewards, across the board when the expansion is released. As long as epic normal and somewhat epic hard are accessible for not-as-well-geared players, seems perfectly fine to me.

[Shade]

So it's looking like the below for raids?

Epic Normal: much easier than now.

Epic hard: Slightly easier than now.

Epic Elite: Harder than now for 20s, but easier for 25s with fleshed out EDs


That sound about right?

More like:

Epic Normal:
Complete joke for all players.

Epic hard:
Complete joke for all players.

Epic Elite:
Very slightly harder then curent epic, overall will be easier for geared 25s.