Monster Champion Feedback

[Nestroy]

Try doing any quest with beholders on elite at level, champs or not, by using tactics that dont work (since the tactics have not been developed yet), and you are likely to fail.

And you are talking about one quest, not a real sample since the quest may be just too hard in itself.

Ok, how about this - beholder rays going thru walls in Terminal Delirium? We had these. Hitting for 1.6k damage on a defensively geared, specced and tank based pally. With Deathblock and Deathward actve and Beholder Optic Nerves still not depleted. Now tell me about tactics.

The usual tactic for beholders is ranging, pulling or evading. Evading is calculated against the DC of the spell / effect. Our lv. 23 rogue is a skilled evasionist (monk splashed, stick monkey, high reflexes) and even that rogue had a hard time evading the champ rays on HEROIC ELITE. Terminal Delirium does not give lanes long enough to hit the beholders with long range spells or ranged weapons w/o getting hit by antimagic and their rays. So basically this limits the tactics that might be applied. We tried several approaches w/o success. Our approaches had been: Ranging (lanes too short, we had been in range of beholders rays), pulling (being especially problematic with the traps in the back) into BBs and firewalls, Assault (hitting hard as fast as possible), tanking (not adviseable, since the tank = my pally got rayshooted within seconds). Yeah, with enough patience and resources we would have made it past them - but where is the fun there? I am no masochist and my group mates are neither. And I prefer not to summon altars of repair or using up my stack of shards for repairs. And that´s exactly what happens - you have to wear down the beholders in there, getting killed several times.

We completed the quest on EN easily by the way. No champs, only a few beholders and these being evadeable and saveable on default. The quest is lv. 26, we did it with our lv. 23 toons and had no problems at all. I am looking forward on EH today. After all I have seen that will be a good run - and will be much easier than the same quest on Heroic Elite.

[geckosith]

Oh man, I didn't even think of that scenario. Coyle dies if he gets licked by a poodle, I can't imagine the frustration of trying to keep him alive now.

[Tholgrin_Stoneforge]

I will just add the following to this thread.

Two days ago, at this very time, there were 24 LFMs for various quests.

Right now, there are 4.

One of which is for Korthos and is, as far as I can tell, a first-life brand-newbie. Seems pretty bleak for that person to walk into, dunnit?

[Scrabbler]

Evading is calculated against the DC of the spell / effect. Our lv. 23 rogue is a skilled evasionist (monk splashed, stick monkey, high reflexes) and even that rogue had a hard time evading the champ rays on HEROIC ELITE.

What kinds of Beholder rays was that Rogue trying to evade?

[Nestroy]

Oh man, I didn't even think of that scenario. Coyle dies if he gets licked by a poodle, I can't imagine the frustration of trying to keep him alive now.

Well, since NPCs can be champs too, we will have to wait for Coyle becomming one. This should happen quite often (even normal mobs have a base 30% chance ) and will give him 100 instead of 50 hit points . Then perhaps he stands a chance.

And his damage output will increase too, from one point to two points of damage. :P

[Tholgrin_Stoneforge]

Well, since NPCs can be champs too, we will have to wait for Coyle becomming one. This should happen quite often (even normal mobs have a base 30% chance ) and will give him 100 instead of 50 hit points . Then perhaps he stands a chance.

And his damage output will increase too, from one point to two points of damage. :P

Oh come, now, let's not get crazy.. it'll be 2/3 style, like old pen-and-paper. He'll do one point on the first hit and two points on the second hit, provided he's still alive for that. Which he won't be. But that's just being greedy.

[Nestroy]

What kinds of Beholder rays was that Rogue trying to evade?

I did not care to ask, but according to the cryout it must have been an instakiller. I would say, Disintegrate or Death Spell. Disintegrate rays hit me twice in that quest from champs with about 600 damage each (non-critical, I would suspect, or they are always critting), and I have MRR of 149. So idk if the roge wasn´t hit by one of these disintegrates.

[phillymiket]

Could everyone who's posted in this thread do me a favor?

Go run Hold For Reinforcements

We need 17 pages of "Frakking COYLE gets one shotted by champions!"


Because there hasn't been enough griping about Coyle in the past 8 months. I miss it.

COOOOOOYLLLLLLLE!!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!

Ya, there may be a few frustrations in "protect the guy" quests.

Random is random.

And the thing about Coyle is that he scales with difficulty so I find Normal "Hold for Reinforcements" harder than Hard or Elite - and Casual, I find almost unsolvable because Coyle is so weak ans squishy on that setting.

Funny I just ran that the day before the update on an alt I'm TRing. Thank God! :-D

But seriously, there are very. very few quests like Coyle - thank the old gods and the new - so I don't see too much issue with "unsolvable" quests like that one has the potential to be.

I foresee CC becoming vogue again for just such things as making Champion Minions to protect Coyle.

Party hats everywhere!

[Koshei]

Could everyone who's posted in this thread do me a favor?

Go run Hold For Reinforcements

We need 17 pages of "Frakking COYLE gets one shotted by champions!"


Because there hasn't been enough griping about Coyle in the past 8 months. I miss it.

That quest has been changed. If coyle dies you just don't get optional xp.

[Ayseifn]

Could everyone who's posted in this thread do me a favor?

Go run Hold For Reinforcements

We need 17 pages of "Frakking COYLE gets one shotted by champions!"


Because there hasn't been enough griping about Coyle in the past 8 months. I miss it.

Just keep re starting til you get a champ Coyle that's resistant to melee, buff him and then let him solo the quest.

[Albinosaurus]

That quest has been changed. If coyle dies you just don't get optional xp.

Now it's not even "optional," is it?

[bartharok]

Point made... although it could have been a little more clear in your original post.

I admit freely to it being obscure in my original post.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

love champions, dont change em.

if you cave and remove the damage that they deal, then you need to buff them in some other way, because right now only the damage is keeping my from playing half afk with one hand.

[Nestroy]

One thought, not sure if that helps - might it be that champs from heroic AND epic use the same random tables?

So might it be that on HE and sometimes HH we face champs that basically use epic ED-like effects?

THIS should be changed immediately. Either give us our ED twists even in heroic (officially, not by *bannable word*ing) or give heroic champs heroic tables, not the epic ones.

[phillymiket]

That quest has been changed. If coyle dies you just don't get optional xp.

Really?

REALLY??!??

/Brass Band Music

/Dance99

/Pop Bubbly

i just ran that and was sweating it out for 15 minutes, literally chomping my figurative nails.

Lose XP? Meh.

Sorry Coyle you on your own.

Back to topic. One thought, not sure if that helps - might it be that champs from heroic AND epic use the same random tables?

So might it be that on HE and sometimes HH we face champs that basically use epic ED-like effects?

THIS should be changed immediately. Either give us our ED twists even in heroic (officially, not by *bannable word*ing) or give heroic champs heroic tables, not the epic ones.

that's interesting...

Maybe that could account for why some are seeing astronomical damage that I'm, frankly, not seeing. Just a rare, random buff bug. Hmmm.

Ok, how about this - beholder rays going thru walls in Terminal Delirium? We had these. Hitting for 1.6k damage on a defensively geared, specced and tank based pally. With Deathblock and Deathward actve and Beholder Optic Nerves still not depleted. Now tell me about tactics.

Yeah, I had things that should have been absorbed not seem to as well.

Maybe the wall piercing beams is to prevent people from throwing down AOEs at range and dragging the beholders into them and standing behind something, like a wall, while the beholder stands there and sucks up the damage until dead?

[bartharok]

Ok, how about this - beholder rays going thru walls in Terminal Delirium? We had these. Hitting for 1.6k damage on a defensively geared, specced and tank based pally. With Deathblock and Deathward actve and Beholder Optic Nerves still not depleted. Now tell me about tactics.

The usual tactic for beholders is ranging, pulling or evading. Evading is calculated against the DC of the spell / effect. Our lv. 23 rogue is a skilled evasionist (monk splashed, stick monkey, high reflexes) and even that rogue had a hard time evading the champ rays on HEROIC ELITE. Terminal Delirium does not give lanes long enough to hit the beholders with long range spells or ranged weapons w/o getting hit by antimagic and their rays. So basically this limits the tactics that might be applied. We tried several approaches w/o success. Our approaches had been: Ranging (lanes too short, we had been in range of beholders rays), pulling (being especially problematic with the traps in the back) into BBs and firewalls, Assault (hitting hard as fast as possible), tanking (not adviseable, since the tank = my pally got rayshooted within seconds). Yeah, with enough patience and resources we would have made it past them - but where is the fun there? I am no masochist and my group mates are neither. And I prefer not to summon altars of repair or using up my stack of shards for repairs. And that´s exactly what happens - you have to wear down the beholders in there, getting killed several times.

We completed the quest on EN easily by the way. No champs, only a few beholders and these being evadeable and saveable on default. The quest is lv. 26, we did it with our lv. 23 toons and had no problems at all. I am looking forward on EH today. After all I have seen that will be a good run - and will be much easier than the same quest on Heroic Elite.

As said, the quest may be too nasty. And my tactic for beholders is rush, stun, kill. Or maybe assassinate.

[lethargos]

Well, since NPCs can be champs too, we will have to wait for Coyle becomming one. This should happen quite often (even normal mobs have a base 30% chance ) and will give him 100 instead of 50 hit points . Then perhaps he stands a chance.

And his damage output will increase too, from one point to two points of damage. :P

See ? He's adapted to new tactics already !

Now someone just post a similar ingenius new beholder tactic.

LOL =)

[J-mann]

Champion mobs get "randomized buffs". Apparently in your ONE TEST your champion Shaman didn't get the buff that other people have witnessed. I KNOW, it is hard to believe that a sample size of ONE didn't net you the same results. But perhaps you should run it a few more times before you dis other players...

This. His Kobold has cold immune ts and the standard damage buff. The numbers might be exaggerated, but at least find a shaman with 3 damage buffs instead of one defense, one utility, and the standard damage buff. That being said, some of the damage buffs are out and out crazy. Ran VoN 1-4 EE, Had trolls hitting for 300 damage a swing vs 130 some odd prr, thats ridiculous and so blatantly anti-melee (as I said this system would be on lama) that its stupid. Oh and these trolls had 35-45k hp.... yeah so much for not hp inflating the mobs devs.

In EE VoN 2 I was the one to be beholder fodder (had sealed soul and a deathblock items and saves in the 60s in my group of lvl 20-21s) and one of them spawned as a champ and hit me for 290 damage with his bite.... a beholder......

In EE VoN 3 the first door, our stalwart vangaurd opened the door, and dropped dead instantly. 3 of the 4 archers were champs and the mage spell caster was too. Each Archer had 2 damage buffs and were hitting for 2-250 on a sword and board mostly stalwart, and the mage cast burning blood that was ticking for 75+ a tick. So in short a 900 hp tank dropped dead just from opening the door because he took 4 arrows and one spell right off. Was kind of funny, but totally stupid at the same time, there was literally no way to get in there without the first one through dying. Later (at the part you open the door and all the scorps come up) 2 of the scorpions spawned as champs and one of the two was doing 600 damage a swing (other was about 230), this isnt fun, its just stupid and makes melee unplayable.

On the plus side, we didnt get anything too crazy in part 4 except one iron golem that spawned that took forever ( about a minute to a minute and a half) for a full group to kill.

In total, I like the idea of champs, but they spawn far too often, some of them hit FAR too hard, are VERY antimelee biased, and boost mobs hps too much.

[Neomarica]

1) Uber immunities in all but one or two areas. For example, high fort saves, deathblock, immunity to level drain, 300% fortification, High AC, High PRR / MRR, True Seeing, high DPS, but a laughably low will save. So you can dance them like a monkey with a shock collar on, but FoD? Fuggetaboutit.

So you want to make soloing impossible?

[TechknowCat]

There is a "checkbox", normal/hard/elite >.>

have you ran normal lately its brain dead boring! and I was digging the champs in hard till most of the mobs spawning were champs

I just started a brand new rogue and was running everything on hard on the island with no trouble get to Misery's Peak and there were challenges but not to bad. then I got to a room that all the mobs save maybe 2 were champs, angry angry champs, and they weren't playing

I only made it out of there alive because I was lucky enough to be able to rez once out of their line of site, and was able to sneak past them.

I am a little traumatized after all that, I may have ptsd

seriously Turbine might want to have a look into the spawn rate, the AI that controls it might be a little wonky, or possessed by a maniacally evil spirit that hates halfling rogues

P.S I massacred 100's of champs in the last 2 day's, and not a single chest

P.P.S. To all those saying just go back to normal mode, have you played normal mode lately? there is little to no challenge in it. we may not have the uber skills you do, but we still would like a challenge, and I agree befor the champs hard mode needed a bit more challenge in most cases, but a few times with these champs it was not a challenge it just felt unfair and no fun
Basically what I am saying is just because we are not on your level doesn't mean we don't want a challenge and normal ain't it