U23 Quest Feedback - Epic Black Abbot Raid

[Monkey_Archer]

First off I'd like to say I absolutely love how challenging this raid is. Got a chance to play around with a full group on EE (previously we've only been shortmanning/soloing). I'd like to see the challenge kept about the same as it is now, but I think we need the proper tools to actually deal with the challenges properly (instead of finding workarounds/safe spots/cheese). Its definitely completable as is though.

The first obvious problem is the abbot using encase/inferno before its even possible to get ice wands and boulders. IMO the first room should give goggles, boulders and wands. Just let us deal with the challenge the proper way from the start.

The second problem is beholders. If anything starts to go a little bit wrong its just too hard to recover. Cant cure con damage, cant cure neg levels, cant heal, cant even raise dead people. They just respawn too fast to deal with effectively. I'd rather see a single spawn with 4+ beholders or even a named beholder, rather than constant respawns making the raid miserable.


In exchange for these "nerfs" I'd suggest the following to preserve the challenge:

• Force the tile puzzle to be run legit. Possibly add a wall or obstacle all the way around the tile puzzle so you cant just swim to the ddoors.
• If the first room gives ice wands you could remove the safe spots from inferno on the main platform.
• Fix the abbot's magic missile damage (currently isn't applying meta magics or spell power or both)
• Remove the safe spots from the 3 sarcophagi rooms

[maddmatt70]

First off I'd like to say I absolutely love how challenging this raid is. Got a chance to play around with a full group on EE (previously we've only been shortmanning/soloing). I'd like to see the challenge kept about the same as it is now, but I think we need the proper tools to actually deal with the challenges properly (instead of finding workarounds/safe spots/cheese). Its definitely completable as is though.

The first obvious problem is the abbot using encase/inferno before its even possible to get ice wands and boulders. IMO the first room should give goggles, boulders and wands. Just let us deal with the challenge the proper way from the start.

The second problem is beholders. If anything starts to go a little bit wrong its just too hard to recover. Cant cure con damage, cant cure neg levels, cant heal, cant even raise dead people. They just respawn too fast to deal with effectively. I'd rather see a single spawn with 4+ beholders or even a named beholder, rather than constant respawns making the raid miserable.


In exchange for these "nerfs" I'd suggest the following to preserve the challenge:

• Force the tile puzzle to be run legit. Possibly add a wall or obstacle all the way around the tile puzzle so you cant just swim to the ddoors.
• If the first room gives ice wands you could remove the safe spots from inferno on the main platform.
• Fix the abbot's magic missile damage (currently isn't applying meta magics or spell power or both)
• Remove the safe spots from the 3 sarcophagi rooms

Sounds to me like you want an easier raid. Boo to that. Of course fix safe spots and cheese by all means.

[Monkey_Archer]

I just see it as a pugger death trap. I'd rather see it be legitimately hard, than have 6 people cheese out a victory while 6 puggers rack up 100 deaths.

[Yalinaa]

I just see it as a pugger death trap. I'd rather see it be legitimately hard, than have 6 people cheese out a victory while 6 puggers rack up 100 deaths.

This. On live, you can 4 men EN Fire and Shadow raids filling the group with ANYONE, doesn't really matter. So, for epic Abbot, you can't pug like for the other "end game" raids, 'cause you can easily wipe on... epic NORMAL??!!

[LightBear]

So instead of a unique raid ala For its just abbot with Vol?
With the stupid puzzles?

If it is, then it's a fail and hard at it.

[JOTMON]

First off I'd like to say I absolutely love how challenging this raid is. Got a chance to play around with a full group on EE (previously we've only been shortmanning/soloing). I'd like to see the challenge kept about the same as it is now, but I think we need the proper tools to actually deal with the challenges properly (instead of finding workarounds/safe spots/cheese). Its definitely completable as is though.

The first obvious problem is the abbot using encase/inferno before its even possible to get ice wands and boulders. IMO the first room should give goggles, boulders and wands. Just let us deal with the challenge the proper way from the start.

The second problem is beholders. If anything starts to go a little bit wrong its just too hard to recover. Cant cure con damage, cant cure neg levels, cant heal, cant even raise dead people. They just respawn too fast to deal with effectively. I'd rather see a single spawn with 4+ beholders or even a named beholder, rather than constant respawns making the raid miserable.


In exchange for these "nerfs" I'd suggest the following to preserve the challenge:

• Force the tile puzzle to be run legit. Possibly add a wall or obstacle all the way around the tile puzzle so you cant just swim to the ddoors.
• If the first room gives ice wands you could remove the safe spots from inferno on the main platform.
• Fix the abbot's magic missile damage (currently isn't applying meta magics or spell power or both)
• Remove the safe spots from the 3 sarcophagi rooms

Would like to see beholder eggs spawn (similar to fire elemental eggs in VON6).. break the eggs and get mana back .. break them quick enough and you stop the beholders from spawning.
The mechanic of draining SP and taking SP on beholder zone antimagic field is detrimental to all casters and turns this into a potfest.. or just don't bring a "blue bar" Raid..
Doubly bad for clerics with the combined quell/beholder threat..

[Razor_Wit]

Two suggestions regarding neg levels:

1.What if there was a certain "charged mob" (lets say a divine beholder?) which would not spawn as often but when defeated would generate an aoe greater restoration burst. Players would recognize that mob as a priority and the group could gather. Even completely disabled players could run to the fight and be ready to step into the aoe for the benefit. This would be a supplemental benefit and could be easily balanced buy the devs buy simply controlling how often the "charged" mob spawns.

2. What if similar to ice wands, which players are tasked to be responsible for, there was also 1-2 Greater Restoration wands (no umd/are effective in anti-magic fields) which have an appropriate cool-down

[HatsuharuZ]

It would solve my own concerns if the beholders' main eye simply *suppressed* player buffs, instead of dispelling them. I believe that there is a spell and a House C raid boss that both do these things.

[hi_sa1nt]

Either all the fleshies are going to be running this in Shadowdancer for Sealed Soul... or I'd love it if the devs made it a t4 enhancement so I can twist it.

Probably one of the easier tweaks.

[the-collector]

Well I agree with the solo. I got through phase one no problem, the only thing that hits hard is his blast attack the mm was dodged by my shield. The dispell and neg levels on a non-rusty does make it challenging. Now when I was in a raid group testing out the quest it was a different story. I was thinking that the quest would have more than a tport here and tport. I guess its like FOT a small area fighting the toughest. I like Von 5 though it is a short non-challenging raid it requires the party to actually do more than two things. Another spin off would be Tempest Spine. That is a very fun raid, why not add to that? So you made the thunder helm and two raids, why not expand more on the story line? The storm horns is a huge area why not expand with that? I did enjoy necro and undead fun Epic levels would be very entertaining, but why copy heroic stuff? Why not expand? Other than that, I have to say the new raid is challenging for sure and takes a bit of experience for completion. Even with some of the best gear on the lam server, and the ability to become completionist it was a challenge raid all together. That I like!

[harry-pancreas]

Are people complaining that the supposedly hardest raid in the entire game is too difficult?

Pff...

@Robot Argument
Devs, right now, the only real advantage to being a War/Bladeforged is Neg Level immunity. That and Reconstruct but that's another topic.

no, they're complaining because it excludes certain types of characters. Add that it favors a payed race claimed to be OP and the store pots.
Reasonable complains IMO, specially the excluding part.

[Silverleafeon]

I set off some pitchfolks and torches in the Player's Council Forums and Steelstar and the Player's Council members voiced off a nice discussion. Considering he was not at work that was noble of him. I have a great deal of respect for Steelstar having worked with him.

_{Note that when the PC and the player base say similar things they are more likely to be listened to at times. You are important.}


End result:

_{subject to instantaneous error and change / other disclaimers / etc... nothing here is a direct quote or the like..}

Steel will be twitching some things and turning some knobs, and testing buttons.
He agrees that EN is a soul stone festival atm, and will adjust things.

The raid itself will likely remain a raid that favors melee damage over spell damage as a whole.
After all this is the Amor Up Update for MELEE.


Tips:

Pally = fear immunity
KotC or Shadowdancer or Bladeforged = level drain immunity
Divine Crusader = petrification immunity (tested by me already)
Silver Flame potions or Consecrated Ground or Light the Dark = healing while in anti magic.
Enlarge = casting range further than normal anti-magic field range (untested by me on doomspheres)
Rage = more damage while in anti-magic zone

[Portalcat]

The raid itself will likely remain a raid that favors melee damage over spell damage as a whole.
After all this is the Amor Up Update for MELEE.

Bleh as someone who primarily plays casters, but fair, I guess. I don't really mind if my casters aren't a key source of DPS as long as they're doing something other than forcibly piking for most of the raid.

Heroic Abbot is not exactly friendly to casters either, given the sheer number of things to which the Abbot is immune.

[Wizza]

So, to summarize, this raid has:

Constant beholder respawn, dispelling deathward and casting anti-magic.
Constant quells respawn, with their Intercession debuff or whatever it's called now.
Inferno that drains SP.
A debuff that debuff your attack speed of melee and range of about 5%
The same debuff makes your spells cost 10% more per stack. And you can have 10+ of them, thus every spell costing 150 SP.
No shrine at all.

Sounds fun for casters. Said noone ever.

[Iriale]

I set off some pitchfolks and torches in the Player's Council Forums and Steelstar and the Player's Council members voiced off a nice discussion. Considering he was not at work that was noble of him. I have a great deal of respect for Steelstar having worked with him.

_{Note that when the PC and the player base say similar things they are more likely to be listened to at times. You are important.}


End result:

_{subject to instantaneous error and change / other disclaimers / etc... nothing here is a direct quote or the like..}

Steel will be twitching some things and turning some knobs, and testing buttons.
He agrees that EN is a soul stone festival atm, and will adjust things.

The raid itself will likely remain a raid that favors melee damage over spell damage as a whole.
After all this is the Amor Up Update for MELEE.


Tips:

Pally = fear immunity
KotC or Shadowdancer or Bladeforged = level drain immunity
Divine Crusader = petrification immunity (tested by me already)
Silver Flame potions or Consecrated Ground or Light the Dark = healing while in anti magic.
Enlarge = casting range further than normal anti-magic field range (untested by me on doomspheres)
Rage = more damage while in anti-magic zone

What does an improved game mechanics for melee with a raid? A raid should be fun to play for all classes and all classes should have something to do there. If there is a mechanic that penalizes certain classes, then should have other mechanic that favors these classes in the same raid, in other part of the raid. It is wrong to exclude certain classes: the raid will be less played and that's bad for the game and for all players.

Content playable = / = game mechanics. Make playable content fun for ALL classes. Or do you think is better penalize the casters than penalize the melee? Not better, create quests that penalize a class/type of toon is bad, and is triple bad if that quest is a raid.

This game needs to promote the play of the raids. What we need is not further penalize creating raids that exclude classes. Creating new raids that will be hated by the half the players is wrong. A raid less played--- a lost for ALL players.

Heroic abbot is not a loved raid. Why repeat the same mistakes with the epic counterpart?

As someone who loves raiding I ask: no more classes excluding!!! More raids where all classes are fun to play and welcome!! We need to revitalize the raiding scene, not penalizing it even more.


A raid where casters can't cast 80% of the time is bad designed. No, it’s horrendous designed. You can’t create a raid where half of toons of the game will be pikers, turbine. Soon we will see lfms excluding the casters. What are you thinking, turbine? One thing is to favor some type of toon, and over this. This raid is a terrible mistake.

[Nascoe]

Bleh as someone who primarily plays casters, but fair, I guess. I don't really mind if my casters aren't a key source of DPS as long as they're doing something other than forcibly piking for most of the raid.

Heroic Abbot is not exactly friendly to casters either, given the sheer number of things to which the Abbot is immune.

I guess a top end raid being VERY tough and meaning you have to go to some lengths to complete it at all, even on EN is good. Would be nice if respeccing to EK for the raid would help, although that doesn't get you too far with the wrong stats and especially being drained of SP and your defences dispelled. But still, I hope this raid becomes something that needs a balanced group where you need planning and coordinated group play.

[Steelstar]

Steel will be twitching some things and turning some knobs, and testing buttons.

To paraphrase what I said to Player's Council, because it's also relevant here:

For the next Lamannia build, we've reduced the frequency of Beholder and Quell spawning. We're also investigating the rate of SP drain from Inferno (it's meant to be the same drain rate as the Heroic raid), the cooldown on the Doomsphere's Enervation (which is what is causing most of the negative levels flying around), the cooldowns on Inferno/Encase, and the bug where Intercession Ward isn't blocking Intercession properly; these may not be in the next build, but if we find issues in those we hope to address them before the Raid goes live.

The Raid is intentionally meant to cause some difficulty in casting. What's there now is too much, and we're looking to tone it down.

[Monkey_Archer]

For the next Lamannia build, we've reduced the frequency of Beholder and Quell spawning. We're also investigating the rate of SP drain from Inferno (it's meant to be the same drain rate as the Heroic raid), the cooldown on the Doomsphere's Enervation (which is what is causing most of the negative levels flying around), the cooldowns on Inferno/Encase, and the bug where Intercession Ward isn't blocking Intercession properly; these may not be in the next build, but if we find issues in those we hope to address them before the Raid goes live.

The Raid is intentionally meant to cause some difficulty in casting. What's there now is too much, and we're looking to tone it down.

I don't think the cooldown on encase/inferno/enervate is the issue. We are just spending so much time trying to get the beholders under control that by the time we get a chance to advance the raid (attack the abbot, etc..) we have to deal with inferno/respawns again. Reduced beholder spawns will probably fix both issues (which is think is more perception than an actual problem with cooldowns).

Is there any plans to make "legit" strategies worth using? From my experience it is much easier just to jump in the water/use safe spots/spell abosoption than to actually bother with ice wands for inferno. Its also much easier just to swim to the ddoors than to use the goggles for the tile puzzle.

[Steelstar]

Is there any plans to make "legit" strategies worth using? From my experience it is much easier just to jump in the water/use safe spots/spell abosoption than to actually bother with ice wands for inferno. Its also much easier just to swim to the ddoors than to use the goggles for the tile puzzle.

The damage from the water has been greatly increased for the next Lamannia build. There may be other changes later as well, pending feedback from the next Lamannia round.

[Rys]

The damage from the water has been greatly increased for the next Lamannia build.

I hope this does not mean that the water will one shot you now...