Some thoughts on what Turbine sees as difficult (Wheloon and Storm Horns Epic Elite)

[Kyshara]

First of all, I'm not here to QQ because I can't complete these quests on EE, yes I can, can solo as well, not an achievement anymore, I know.
But here are some of my thoughts about what the devs see as difficult.

I'm on my 14th life, 1 life after I got completionist, running as an elf, Fighter 14/Paladin 4/Monk 2 working on epic trs at the moment.

Sometimes I run my EE content and sagas with 2 or 3 friends who like EE, sometimes I run solo.

I have no difficult in running all packs and saga but Wheloon and Storm Horns. I know, it's because the other packs are lower level etc etc.
But let's start talking about what I DON'T SEE as difficult, but like a Dungeon Master who had lost control over characters power and starts to make weird things in order to try to give the characters some difficult.

Everything here is "IN MY OPINION", just to discuss about some other people's thoughts and mine of course.

WHELOON

Friends in Low Places: When I used to run this, even on heroic, boss came with 389,172,389 mobs who brought me to Red Alert. While red alert is something well designed so you don't ignore all mobs in the quest and kill everything with some spells, it's kinda ridiculous for a boss fight. I mean, traps are there, if you want to get over them without a trapper it is your choice, if you want to kill the drow-scorpion guy in Drow Monastery it is your choice, but here you have NO choice, you get red alert.

PS: This quest used to be like this, I don't know if they changed it because I was 6 months away from DDO but when I ran it yesterday I didn't get red alert, but got orange alert 1 week ago in a full party, so my confusion here for me is about the quantity of mobs according to the number of players.

Army of Shadow: This is one of the most ridiculous in my opinion. The quest is easy and would be quick if there wasn't a shadow worm with a ******** amount of HP. Seriously, make something with 150k hp without scaling (solo run) is cool. I don't know how much hp the worm has but I'm pretty sure it's more than that. I ran that yesterday for my saga under 50% armor piercing (if black robe is working as intended with thunderforge 35% armor piercing weapon) and it took like 15 minutes to kill it.
If you don't have a monkcher or shiradi with joy it takes forever and gets really boring, not that difficult but BORING.
I mean, this is not difficult, it's a TEDIOUS fight, and tedious is a different word from challenge and from difficult. Unless devs think challenge includes challenge against your patience. I know quests were not made to be soloed but that HP only increases in a group and yes, it still takes too much time to kill.

Thrill of the Hunt: This is one of my favorite (irony). We all know "don't stay close to a shadar-kai chain, bla bla bla", ok, we know. The quest runs smoothly but and the boss? Again, what happens if you aren't a ranged toon to hang over the ledges or to stay semi-safe in boxes (or if your group doesn't have ranged players)?
What happens i you are melee? You don't want to switch to you bow/thrower to do bad dps, do you? You're a melee and you want to play as a melee.
Ok, you got displacement, you got 25%/28% dodge, you got 10% incorporeality, you got around 70 PRR, you got around 170-180% fortification and you got around 1k health.
You are a melee, right? So you try to melee the boss and run when he swirls his chain. You see that pretty handsome shadar-kai starting to swirl it and you jump back like there's no tomorrow....results? If you got lucky you took only one hit, and that weak hit means 500+ DAMAGE.
I know you need to be prepared to run epic content, but I'm sure Turbine didn't make UMD a mandatory skill for displacement scrolls (I got UMD, but does everyone do?), I'm pretty sure the game is not designed in a way that everyone has to roll elves for displacements or wiz/sorc/bard. What happens if you have a poor blur? Man, if you try to melee you are probably dead.
The fight is well designed, I have to agree, he opens the cages and brings howlers to the fight and etc. But man, that damage I took in a 2-man group.
500 damage is ********, no matter what you say. EE TTO and EE Nevalarich (without the buff) got jealous.
Making a shadar-kai who seems like Hercules is not wise and difficult in my opinion, it's just like making a "HUMAN" npc in pen and paper with 300 strength to kill your melees in 1 or 2 hits.

A Lesson in Deception: What in DDO/D&D can stack coming from equal effects but from different sources? I mean, does my ray of enfeeblement stack with the ray of enfeeblement of my wiz friend? NO.
So what's the point in putting 250 howlers howling and bringing you to 0 Wisdom and making you a Dummy for a few seconds with the same effect?


STORM HORNS:

Tracker's Trap: The quest is very cool and the boss fight is well designed as well, but. Why did Turbine put that giant in the temple where Goku (Dragonball Z) trained? Or did he train with Chuck Norris? I mean, the guy gets around 350-400k health in a full group. His damage isn't the problem, it's ok for its level and stuff. But man, he doesn't even give a chest, he's a red name, which means no stun, no CC, no nothing. He isn't an optional and it takes more time to kill him than to kill the boss, PROBABLY.

Breaking the Ranks: This one is very "laughable". It's an arena, I know, but why do we have to keep killing the bands after their leaders are killed? What's the logical part on this? The more reasonable thing to happen in my opinion is to stop spawning peons after the leader is dead.
I'm always too busy to check if the dragon's breath hits the mobs as well, anyone can confirm this?
The quest would be more fun if the mobs came in waves and then the boss along with the last wave, it would be more reasonable.

A Break the Ice: What's the point in making a DDO player/monster cause raw ice damage with an attack? Did Rungnir got a Final Fantasy weapon where it changes to elemental damage? I know this is DDO and not D&D pen and paper, but that's is completely ridiculous.
Rungnir really looks like a Final Fantasy boss. You want to make his damage unvoidable? Give him dodge bypass and True Seeing, jesus.

What Goes Up: I'm glad they changed the spawns and stuff. But, do Shadovars have Blackguard levels, H-elf paladin enhancements, resistance items, great heroism or what? I got a 70-72 Stunning Blow DC in full dps mode, I know it's not that awesome but man, they save like 95% on Epic Elite, and even 70% of the time on Epic Hard, and 25% on Epic Normal. Don't tell me they are not mentioned to get stunned, if they are orange-named they surely are mentioned to get stunned, or else they would be Red-named.
But compared to the next, this is not a problem at all.

Another issue, if I got a great VGA am I not supposed to get better results than someone with a bad VGA?
Shadowfell in the glacier is really annoying, I have to put my graphic settings on Very Low or I can fall because I can't see the ground. On very low settings I can see everything pretty much well.
Another thing, people on my server are complaining about glacier's lag (and I got lag spikes too), but once I brought my setting to Very Low the lag was almost inexistent.
So, what I'm supposed to do? To break my VGA and buy a low budget one so I don't have lag?
In other words, What Goes Up favors bad VGAs, great!

PS2: I know there are safe spots for both packs and blablabla. But I don't like to sit in a safe spot while my ranged mates kill stuff, also I don't want to hug my Pinion because I didn't roll a ranged build. And that means as a melee I would like to see more options in some fights.



That's my opinion regarding these 2 packs. Again, I'm not asking for changes but I know devs are aware of people's posts so I'm here just to share my thoughts with you guys and for them to read. I'm a player and I think this is a place where I can express my feelings :P hahaha

[Powskier]

great syapsis of some of the gameplay....I just tried a favor run in Drainage Culverts/heroic elite. Pretty easy ,Except for the end Spawn. Couldn't even move, was only an orange 3 alert..but even my lay on hands wouldnt go off,I guess a bard or caster could take on the problem easily enough,but this toon is melee,and should easily be able to hackout of a heroic mob. And,if I coulda moved and finished ,was it fun? hell no ..not the end fight!this happened 4-5 runs since release..I did fin elite once by lowering settings like stated above.Really Devs; there isnt enough wood in wheelon for all those ranged dudes to keep a full quiver.

[Catteras]

I just recently went through the Wheloon quests solo on my melee FVS (so I actually remember it) as opposed to zerging in a group (who knows what happened there...). I think I agree with almost everything the OP says.

WHELOON

Friends in Low Places: I knew about the stupid mob spam before I went into this, so I kitted the boss back down the hallway - I mean way down there (for some reason he/she doesn't rubberband at all) and killed it there. Then I went back to clean up the crazy mob. I was blitzing and I still had to do some kiting, pick off the the first three to catch up, kite some more, killl a couple, kite some more, otherwise they would have simply overwhelmed me. I HATE instant-red-alert boss fights. This happens in the new Summit Top raid, too.

Army of Shadow: Yup, that worm is dumb. It wasn't even doing any damage to me, it just had a crazy amount of hp. I would have put auto attack on and walked away for 10 minutes, but every so often it knocks you back, so you have to stay there and move back up to it every so often. Now I think that the purple worms are cool in general. This one just needs fewer hp and possibly more damage output to make the fit interesting and not tedious.

Thrill of the Hunt: I have always hated the dumb damage of Shadar-Kai in general. The last boss was nasty. I had to dot him up, ping him with throwing knives from atop the boxes, and then run away every time he climbed up the boxes next to me and started to chain swing. Took awhile.

A Lesson in Deception: I didn't have any trouble with this one, but I have 2 paly splash, so maybe I was just making my saves.

STORM HORNS:

Tracker's Trap: Yup, giant with crazy hp is just dumb.

I don't know the others well enough to comment.

[Kyshara]

Ya, the alert is one of the most stupid things.
Yesterday I went in a deathwyrm EE run, and guess what? Aurgloroasa hits for 400ish without buffs.
Again, I say: EE Dragons are jealous of you Karleth...just ******** xD

[Spoonwelder]

I am mostly posting to confirm info on Breaking the Ranks.....yes the ice dragon will eventually kill the mobs. I had a group fail in there on EH (my CC failed at the giants when my non-quicken using wizzy got swarmed)....anyway I stuck around in dead form to check out the space and noticed that the giants were getting damaged. I told the group and they got back just in time for us to kill the last one and get into the last phase.

As for the rest of your comments - pretty much agree - massive sacks of HP are never fun nor a challenge.