U23 Quest Feedback - Epic Black Abbot Raid

[moo_cow]

havent been in the raid, but as far as neg levels goes...can you not scroll resto/greater resto?

If you want to spend 20% of your time trying to scroll your neg levels then sure.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

If you want to spend 20% of your time trying to scroll your neg levels then sure.

i might be one of the few, but i still use umd and bump it as high as i can and always carry swap gear...or are you saying that you get THAT many neg levels THAT fast?

[Wizza]

Another raid with no Shrine!!!! and no way to get SP back? With tons of SP drain mechanics, neg levels, anti-magic fields? Sigh

[era42]

It's the exact same spell point drain as the Heroic Abbot raid, with the same number of Spell Points removed and the same methods of avoiding it. Since the fighting platform's a bit smaller than Heroic Abbot, it's (potentially) easier to avoid than it is in Heroic.

His cooldown timer on Inferno should match the Heroic version of the Raid. If it's significantly more frequent than that, there may be a bug.

And inferno on heroic Abbot is nasty. Total mayhem material. Back in the pre-ED times the actual abbot fight was extremely hard. Killing Abbot in a PUG was **** rare, and it was pretty much always on normal, because other difficulties were too hard. If you didn't get the puzzles in one go, it was pretty much instant recall and restart, because no way the party would survive the infernos if you needed to kill abbot twice.

Even now they are nasty. It's still a race to kill Abbot before your resources (spell absorptions) run out. Mostly the toons are so good, that this is not a problem, but if the infernos are frequent, it will make many casters dead, OOM and useless. So, in a raid that lasts longer, the inferno gets worse and worse the longer it lasts. I have no problem with the damage it does, it's meant to be a nasty effect. But SP-drain, that's just dumb.

If this is compounded with constant beholders, it makes this raid totally unfun for casters. And if no caster is really willing to run it, you have a loser of a raid. Beholders already are bad enough, but combine them with constant manadrain you will eventually probably get hit with, and you have something that is just not fun.

We'd be interested in hearing why you feel the Raid is built for Construct characters; other than Negative Levels and other Energy Drain-type effects (which admittedly show up often here), there shouldn't be much in their favor versus fleshy characters.

Leveldrain is probably the most nasty standard effect a player can get. Mummy curse, meh. Stat-drain, cast heal. Lose 10 levels and fiuu you're out of hp, mana and UMD to use greater restorations. Level drains are nasty nasty nasty. You really don't need more than the negative levels to make that raid bladeforged-only event.

[lyrecono]

We'd be interested in hearing why you feel the Raid is built for Construct characters; other than Negative Levels and other Energy Drain-type effects (which admittedly show up often here), there shouldn't be much in their favor versus fleshy characters.

You answered it yourself (level drain and unable to cast to get rid of these drained levels) - too many beholders/quell, spellpoint drain from inferno. High saves needed not to be encased.

Would you not say that if you are WF or Bladeforged paladin you will be better built todo this raid?

you dont think the neg level immunity is HUGE when you're facing mobs that spam Neg levels? You guys need to tone down the Neg levels dramatically here.


Spell point draining effects are in the same category as escorts. there is nothing fun about it.

They are a significantly penalty to casters. Especially where there is no way to recover spell points other than drink Pots that you are happy to sell in the store.

I haven't been in the raid but i had the chance to step into temple of vol on EE.
i droped in, took the left underwater passage and see 3 quells come up.
Before i took my first swing at them my hp went from 2300 to 150, i had 28 negative levels and i had to run for my life.
not only had they dispelled my death ward, the 28 negative levels(in no time i might add) ate my hp and sp!!! max, i couldn't use the restoration scrolls(due to the neg lv penalties)
i didn't have restoration pots with me, so i had to use the store's "remove all neg levels" potion, only to find that not only takes a while to restore 2k+ hp with heal scroll, i had to go back to the store for mana pots.

this due to 4 seconds with 3 quells.
if this is any indication for the raid i can imagine why people only send in their blade/warforged paladins &centred fighters.
I will be using mine to farm out the decent quest items and distribute them among my other toons.
if the drop rate on fire peaks/shadow raid on live and the necro 4EE quests on lamania are any indication i might be getting a 20th completion for my main
and that's it.
I'm not spending precious time on a pita raid with horrible drop rates, again.(remember CitW?)

edit:

ps, 17k exp for this raid? really?

[Scrabbler]

We'd be interested in hearing why you feel the Raid is built for Construct characters; other than Negative Levels and other Energy Drain-type effects (which admittedly show up often here), there shouldn't be much in their favor versus fleshy characters.

1. Um, if you look at Invaders or the bonus-chest optional in Ghosts of Perdition, those are pretty well-known as Warforged-favoring for this exact reason. In fact, when advising someone on how to solo the Ghosts of Perdition end fight, the first clue is for him to retain Skein, the Warforged hireling. Negative levels + dispelling Deathward without rolling a level check + preventing casting Restoration + debuffing UMD Restoration = ouch.
   
   
2. If you need to pick a midlevel Heroic dungeon that a random fleshy Epic character might be unable to finish, Elite Ghost of Perdition would be a really solid choice.
   
   
3. Remember the Reign of Madness adventure pack with lots of Beholders in it, and yet all but one of them had the antimagic field taken away? Remember why they were all nerfed like that?
   
   
4. Back in the day, "putting Beholders with a raid boss" was a classical example of how monster CRs didn't really represent the danger they caused to players. A CR 12 Beholder helping a big boss would be more threatening than a CR 50 Skeleton. (What I mean is, it was also an example of things that reasonable devs absolutely wouldn't do)

[poltt48]

Sounds like some of his spells may not be scaling properly, we'll check that out. Thanks!



We'd be interested in hearing why you feel the Raid is built for Construct characters; other than Negative Levels and other Energy Drain-type effects (which admittedly show up often here), there shouldn't be much in their favor versus fleshy characters.



Did you find the tiles too easy, or were people just skipping them altogether?



If you're fast, you should be able to get the Wands before he starts using Inferno. The window there may need some adjustment, we'll take a look during the Lamannia Events tonight and tomorrow.



Sorry to hear that you didn't enjoy the Raid when you tried it. I'd be interested in hearing more about your experience.

With all neg levels flying around and warforge being only ones that cannot be neg leveled defently build for warforge. Also people strategy for beating this has been bring very little or no casters cause this raid is so anti caster. You just made a raid with more caster loots then melee that casters cannot run. Reallly something has to be done to this raid to allow casters a chance to run it before goes live and not talking about inferno since remove curse gets rid of that if you get hit by it. Talking about the insane amounts of beholders and quells.

[PsychoBlonde]

Caveat: I haven't been on Lam, so I can't speak to the raid. I can, however, speak to the beholders and the anti-fun-o-matic of their new mechanics. Now that they block SLAs (and dispell ongoing SLAs like RS T5 healing aura), they've become significantly more dangerous. And if the platform is smaller than Heroic, then it follows that it's a lot harder to stand anywhere and not be in their anti-magic. The most important spells a beholder can cast on you are Hold, disint, finger of death, and level drain. the first two can be saved against, and FoD is blocked by deathblock. There is no saving against level drain. There is no (permanent) blocking of it unless you're a paladin or a construct.

Or a Shadowdancer, and ANYONE can run in the Shadowdancer Destiny with negative level immunity. Seems like a good choice for this raid, then.

[moo_cow]

i might be one of the few, but i still use umd and bump it as high as i can and always carry swap gear...or are you saying that you get THAT many neg levels THAT fast?

Well first you can't scroll when you are anti magiced. Second you incur negative levels every 20 seconds or so. It's a PITA

Edit : scroll use can also be disjunctioned

[Scrabbler]

Regardless of the specific Epic Abbot mechanics, it would be a good idea to reduce the effectiveness of negative levels, both on players and monsters. The majority of debuff effects cannot stack with themselves, and for a good reason.

Negative levels would be better if they were harder to block (deathward provides just a CHANCE of preventing), and slower to cure (a 5-second delay before Restoration kicks in), but stacked with diminishing returns: the first neg is -2, two is -4, three is -5, four or five is -6, six seven eight -7, etc.

Unfortunately, how Negative Levels tend to work in the current gameplay is that they are either totally harmless, or overwhelmingly destructive.

Or a Shadowdancer, and ANYONE can run in the Shadowdancer Destiny with negative level immunity. Seems like a good choice for this raid, then.

It's kinda unfortunate that people need to swap out their ED depending on which instance they're heading for. I know that's not exactly a new situation, but still unfortunate.

I suppose if people were allowed to quickly swap their heroic class levels they'd do that too...

[Silverleafeon]

[Yalinaa]

Beholders are shadow beholders? Just asking 'cause on live they are the source of massive lag (Deathwyrm raid)...

[Silverleafeon]

Doomspheres like you see in the orchard wilderness.

[Minrothad]

A suggestion:

Give players a reason to hit Vol: optional chest/xp, quest requirement, anything.

[Impaqt]

edit:

ps, 17k exp for this raid? really?

dont worry! its just a placeholder value. I'm sure when this goes live it will be adjusted!

/sarcasm

[Impaqt]

Or a Shadowdancer, and ANYONE can run in the Shadowdancer Destiny with negative level immunity. Seems like a good choice for this raid, then.

You think running an off destiny in whats is supposed to be the hardest raid in the game is reasonable?

[Portalcat]

A suggestion:

Give players a reason to hit Vol: optional chest/xp, quest requirement, anything.

Seconded.

It would seem like a major missed opportunity not to do so.

[Derana]

Or a Shadowdancer, and ANYONE can run in the Shadowdancer Destiny with negative level immunity. Seems like a good choice for this raid, then.

yea but it can't be the purpose of this raid to have 12 people in shadowdancer just to fit the raid mechanics -.-

[Silverleafeon]

[Nayus]

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.