Monster Champion Feedback

[Ancient]

The only death I had was because I was zerging jungle and ran into a Beholder champion without my Mantle/PLIS on & got hit for about 340 point disintegrate while on half health.

That was my one champion death yesterday. On EE, ran into a champion beholder + named beholder, didn't bother to equip my PLIS and rolled a 1 vs disintegrate. I have no issues with that being a fatal mistake.

[FestusHood]

I'd be willing to see champions go away if we reverted all the player buffs, specifically the ones in the last three updates. Nerf bards, nerf paladins and rebalance prr/mrr.

I see a lot of people claiming that the game didn't used to be harder, so surely reverting these buffs won't mean much, since they haven't made the game easier.

Once we're back at that place, I'd like to see a rebalancing of classes where the most OP classes and fotm builds are nerfed and brought back into line.

I think once this happens, we won't need such things as champions to overcome the power creep. We can say goodbye to them forever.

Deal.

[Ayseifn]

This actually a good point about red alerts. Melees are at a greater disadvantage than casters. Casters can still mass kill or land individual spells just as easily without alert.

Always been this way and not sure how to fix it. It's kind of like the extra blitz stacks on death of enemies thing IMO, casters get more out of zerging to yellow/orange/red alert, mass holding and then bursting. Much more mana efficient for them, but can be rough on melees grouping with them.

[Robai]

Just Stun, Trip or use other crowd control on the Champ in the pack. If there are too of them let another player Stun, trip or use other crowd control on the other mob.
The crown just shows u wich target u should get while hitting the crowd control Buttons. The Game has tonns of that stuff. An Adrenaline trips the mob and makes him Helpless. No Save!

The last few updtes cut the incoming damage for many melee builds in half and pretty much doubles the incoming heal as well. Thats 4 times the survivability they had before.
By adding a few mobs wich do 3 times the damage of a normal mob the survivability is still increased in compare.
All the Defense upgrades and the new Healing Amp buff totally makes a well build and geared melee able to survive the rest of the pack if u are able to focus the dangerous ones.

If u are not able to pick the mob with the crown out of the pack and focus it EE is maybe not a fitting difficulty mode.

The Champions do not push the melees back to the status they where a few updates before. Its just simply less trivialized AOE dps spamming.
Just use your ability's to take champs out of the game quick.

Yes, if you can CC mob then Champ or not won't make a difference, but usually CC is limited (DC is not high enough, limited uses, timer, etc.).
Anyway, the danger from Champs was increased only for melee toons (not all melee toons can reliably CC).
My casters didn't notice a difference (Champs are as dangerous as non Champs, i.e. all can be safely killed in most cases).

[Claver]

Please run some quests, give it a bit of time, and provide us with your feedback on the Monster Champion system.

Champions are an awesome addition to the game and have increased my enjoyment immensely. From my point of view, this is one of the best changes since MOTU. Having said that some minor tweaking is needed.

First the good:

(1) I'm now using tactics and a broader skill set as are other players. I've used Turn Undead repeatedly to immobilize Undead Champions (I don't think I have bothered to turn undead in several years). Web is suddenly useful. Charm is amazing. Warchanter frozen attacks are now much more useful, and more people in the party are taking the trouble to trip and stun.

(2) Smashing everything repeatedly with my face at a full run is no longer the most efficient tactic (see item 1 above). Suddenly, I am compelled to move around rather than just stand toe-to-toe as I mow through mobs. I even now use the environment to my advantage - stepping behind pillars to divide and conquer two ranged champions.

(3) I am now 1000% more likely to hit an LFM or start one myself. I solo way too much. In a Mutliplayer game it is good for the community to have an incentive to be social. If I need to solo for some reason I can still run Normal or go more slowly through Elite for the challenge of possibly failing (which almost never happened before).

(4) The cooperation among LFM parties I have run with thus far since champions (Elite Tear, Elite Drooam Series, Elite Spawn of Whisperdoom) has been much better. Players seem more likely to stick together, communicate and coordinate tactics. My LFM experience before champions seemed more like individuals zerging together (including me).

(5) I can now differentiate between Epic Normal and Epic Hard. I am enjoying Epic Hard much more and am now opening the LFM up to others rather than soloing Epic Hard exclusively. I can still solo Epic Hard thus far but now find it more efficient rather than a detriment to allow others to join while the quest is in progress.

(6) The game is becoming more fun. The lack of options for challenging content was leading to boredom. I now have the option of choosing Elite for a different play experience than existed before.

The Bad:

(A) There needs to be logic added to prevent too many Champions from spawning in one location. I was soloing Heroic VON 1 on hard with a level 11 character and a hireling. I ran into five!!! troll champions in ready room one (the room with the door requiring a key right before entering the arena). Five champions at one is way too many. It seemed every monster in the room was a champion. I counted 5 troll champions walking away from my soul stone. I know there were 5 because I took screen shots.

This is where I wiped. Five Champions at once is too many. Even a moderately full party probably wouldn't have overcome this.

Having said this, the experience of wiping is what is making me more likely to group now for Elite runs.

[Blackheartox]

Many people raised many points about the Champion system and guess what.

The devs agree with us. So no need to keep insulting, the devs have validated that some of the complaints are valid. Stop trying to intimidate people to stop raising their concerns. People should continue raising any concerns they have and ignore these type of posts by Calinthus and others which simply try to silence the discussion.

Arent you playing neverwinter if they dont remove champions entirely?

I dont see them removed at all, but tweaked which we all knew would happen with ammount of spawns/spawns on nps/constant spawns on orange named.

Also yes as i reported and buged alrdy, tacticals work all the time, example im a sorc pure sorc with 8 starting str and i can trip mobs no fail in ee.
Makes sense, right?

[Glascanon]

Yes, if you can CC mob then Champ or not won't make a difference, but usually CC is limited (DC is not high enough, limited uses, timer, etc.).
Anyway, the danger from Champs was increased only for melee toons (not all melee toons can reliably CC).

Every Toon can be made to make those feats work. As i said: Some are just a feat and or Destenie choice and equipment.
The balance of the Game should not be about "every toon with Randomized feats and gear is able to solo EE".
If u want to have crowd controll u might need to invest something.
If u don´t have crowd control because your toon is all about DPS Feats u might need a Party to run EE.

[DarthCaedus]

Arent you playing neverwinter if they dont remove champions entirely?

I dont see them removed at all, but tweaked which we all knew would happen with ammount of spawns/spawns on nps/constant spawns on orange named.

There you go with the wacky assumptions, statements and posts again.

The devs just validated the 2 major concerns addressed by people in this thread. Why are you trying to turn that into a negative?

[Hendrik]

Great! about the reduction in champ spawns. Where I can get behind SOME champs in a dungeon, I am getting tired of 3-5 per group of mobs.

However. I think it would be more beneficial to do it in Tiers.

Dungeon Level 1-10. No Champs. This will help newer players get acclimated to the game. No one is expecting a challenge under lv 10.

Dungeon Level 11-20. Champs with +30% HPs/Damage/Stats/Buffs

Dungeon Level 21-30. Champs with +60% HPs/Damage/Stats/Buffs

And Sev/Varg, can you guys just do something with the hires in general? They honestly do nothing most of the time. Simplify the code? Optimize their Logic? Something? I dont need more bells and whistles on them, I just need them to Work.

This is not a bad idea.

However, I would suggest L1-10 be 10% chance. Players need to be introduced to Champs early IMO to prepare them for later levels. Give them a little taste on what to expect later.

[Hendrik]

1. I am not testing thresholds.
2. I cannot fight less at a time when I just walked into a room with this many in there.
3. I already lowered from elite to hard I am not about to run normal. I shouldn't have to be forced to break a BB.
4. Grouping is NOT an option for me as I have to go afk a lot due to real life.
5. Improve as a player huh? I invite you to the cannith server to run with my characters then you tell me how I can improve as a player. I have been playing for 3 almost 4 years. 6 or more hours a day everyday.

I don't understand.

How can you be forced to break BB when your not forced to take on the BB challenge?

BB is a personal choice.

[CaptainSpacePony]

While I really appreciate the extra loot, this was kinda ridiculous: a vampire room in Litany of the Dead on Hard mode (High Priest section) in which 4 vampires appeared. All were Champions; all dropped chests. I'm probably 2/3rds through this section of the dungeon and this makes 7 chests to drop here. I could imagine this happening, but clearly should only be from the equivalent of rolling 40 on a 2d20 about 4 times in a row.

Nice festivult coin farming, though

I don't have an opinion on the number of chests but don't like how they spawn. They are often hard to see, and sometimes unreachable (spawning in a wall etc).

Maybe these champion chests could sparkle or give an audible clue when they drop?

Sure would like them to stop teasing me by hiding in the terrain--maybe introduce a shovel so I can dig them out?

[Hendrik]

I don't have an opinion on the number of chests but don't like how they spawn. They are often hard to see, and sometimes unreachable (spawning in a wall etc).

Maybe these champion chests could sparkle or give an audible clue when they drop?

Sure would like them to stop teasing me by hiding in the terrain--maybe introduce a shovel so I can dig them out?

BUg those chest with a /loc, Quest Name, difficulty, and MOB that spawned it.

They cannot fix these errors without us informing them properly.

[Robai]

Every Toon can be made to make those feats work. As i said: Some are just a feat and or Destenie choice and equipment.
The balance of the Game should not be about "every toon with Randomized feats and gear is able to solo EE".
If u want to have crowd controll u might need to invest something.
If u don´t have crowd control because your toon is all about DPS Feats u might need a Party to run EE.

Yes, my newly rolled lvl 20 Clr shouldn't be able to easily kill a group of 10 mobs (3 Champs) in lvl 32 EE quests (I mean having agro from all at once).
I think that toon still has lvl 15 gear (morninlord stuff), no past lives, no EDs, he just got to lvl 20.
And he has kinda randomized feats (I don't even know which feats he has taken, gimp for sure, no optimization did on him).
Champs or non Champs make no difference for him.

[SlowDM]

Let me start by saying in the dungeons and dragons monster manual they often say larger more powerful creatures of that type exist and dragon magazine often had unusual/special creatures. How often has anyone who plays PnP met one of these sort designed by their DM. In my PnP sessions i often had the monsters actually using magic items against the players not sitting in the treasure chest at the end and my players love that. A lot of monsters in groups have a leader of some sort and maybe a couple of bodyguards, this is what champions are, they make perfect sense to me.

I like the new champions BUT they are'nt 100% perfect. It seems like the bigger the mob the more champions quite often. I was shocked to see them on 'snowy-side korthos' but they were not to difficult I do like the randomness that they are not all the same. some can be killed easy, have energy drain-disintergrate some while others that just dented their armour. GREAT. being 1 shoted isn't fun though so that needs to be toned down.

Its time for a change the game has got a bit stale same same same every quest. I've only been playing about 3 1/2 years but i remember groups having to use tactics and communication to complete some quests. I do hope that people calm down give the devs time to read all the feed back and adjust things slighty

I play a FvS and don't like being a nannybot. Stopping killing the trash to heal characters when they hit a damage spike or big mob is fine and enjoyable. So i really enjoy grouping with players who are self sufficient. So last night with 2 other guildies we joined an EE kings forest then underdark quest run. It was great. We were having a pretty easy but challenging at times run so in The Portal Opens we split, Ha while 1 half smashed through their half, my half ran into lots of champions and yes you guessed already Ding ding ding, but it was fun and the joke about the school bell ringing made us laugh. No one got upset or complained and accepted it as part of the game. after we finished for the 1st time for a long time i got a tell saying thanykou for the run and the heals. I don't remember the last time anyone did that even better when it was off prob the most powerful character in the group. Not that is how it should be. The balance is great, if i a have a weak or unskilled or lower level player in a group i can concentrate on him/her/them without worrying that the other party members will die. Brilliant.

I do hope champions bring back some party spirit and communication about doing the actual quest not about their build next tr or whatever. I dont want to know about that i want to have fun playing a game i like with a group.
Recently far to often i join a group of powerful players and might as well sit at the entrance and go make a coffee. I want to play the character/class i like and be a help to the party not build and play some min/max toon (goodnes me i hate that term they are characters!!!) that i don't find fun. I hope champions make healers ( NOT nannybots) wanted and loved again.

Thumbs up for Champions, people just calm down relax and let the devs do some adjustments

[Blackheartox]

Every Toon can be made to make those feats work. As i said: Some are just a feat and or Destenie choice and equipment.
The balance of the Game should not be about "every toon with Randomized feats and gear is able to solo EE".
If u want to have crowd controll u might need to invest something.
If u don´t have crowd control because your toon is all about DPS Feats u might need a Party to run EE.

No no, you dont get it, tactical feats are currently broken.
With 0 investment they work no fail.
Example you need around 85+ fort save on stunin blow to make it work in horns on orcs for example.
You can do it with 20 dc now, since it seems as the dc has been invalidated.
Also scorps and trip, they have crazy resist against trip, its practically impossible to trip em, you can do it now.
After this update all tactical feats are screwed, only thing i am wondering if that works for all feats or no.
Aka if it works for all then qpalm monks just got a really nice comeback

[CaptainSpacePony]

if you are soloing - use another tactic than zerging, if you are party playing - think twice now which classes you want to see in teamplay.. or really drop down difficulty from EE to lower one.

This is the what has made champion introduction the most fun for me. It's made me take a closer look at what's around and what I'm doing.

For example, yesterday I was shortmanning HE Madstone. At one point I saw a pack of 5 champions ahead and chose NOT to jump in the middle of them (what I'd normally do). Instead I initiated with a ranged attack and used the space to my advantage before going melee.

Later, while I was running invisible ahead of the party to quickly activate the third seer I saw another champion-enriched pack and decided to engage rather than leave them for the rest of the party.

I have seem lots of veteran players fail to make these adjustments and die (myself included).

It reminds me of the very first time I ran a quest on Elite, the dreaded Haverdasher! (It may have also been the 1st time I figured out how to join an LFM.) Another player and I had just cleaned up that "MONSTER" of a quest on hard and he asked if I wanted to do Elite. Sure, why not? I figured. They made arachnid fodder out of us faster than... well something real fast.

[Vargouille]

All over. But Amrath specifically is very apparent, you can see what people are talking about there. Gensis Point has regular orthons with 600ish hp, and champion orthons with 5000. Other mobs like the devils are similar, just rarer. Running around the top loop its pretty easy to see this. Party scaling may significantly affect this instance of it, its not like I went in there dozens of times to check. Same deal in Sins, go train a hallway, get 20 mobs, check the champs vs regular, often very close to or past 10x the base hp. Im sure, from play-feel, that other places are similar.... but it seems to be mostly related to elite scaling in higher level (but maybe not epic) quests.

To clarify my earlier comment: If you see a Champion monster with clearly 10x as many hitpoints as an identical monster standing next to it in the same instance and party, that's unintended. This is not intended as a discussion of party or difficulty scaling. That can certainly be a discussion but will only the muddy the feedback in this thread, where some players seem to be reporting Champion Buffs giving x10 hitpoints, which shouldn't be happening. (For the purpose of discussing Champions, please don't report that your solo Casual monsters had a lot less hitpoints than the Elite version with a full party.)

[Giblett]

To clarify a possible misconception: The reduction mentioned in Severlin's earlier post is compared to how many Champions are spawning right now. So a 40% reduction in a dungeon with 10 Champions would mean there would then be 6 Champions, for instance

I find myself having to post here with my experiences. But this quote seems reasonable.

Running elite Cerulean hills quest; orange named mini boss with 5 lackeys. Orange boss - Champion, 3 trash mobs and 2 more Champions. An 'OMG' moment as I was killed earlier by an Champion ooze :P yeah laugh, cause I did! These spawn stats are definitely excessive and make it very difficult if not impossible to solo/duo or in my case Multi-box. My suggestion would be to limit the number of Champions able to spawn at one time. I certainly enjoy the Challenge of Champions for sure so keep them but on a leash please
I would post a pic but that's at home.....

[Robai]

No no, you dont get it, tactical feats are currently broken.
With 0 investment they work no fail.
Example you need around 85+ fort save on stunin blow to make it work in horns on orcs for example.
You can do it with 20 dc now, since it seems as the dc has been invalidated.
Also scorps and trip, they have crazy resist against trip, its practically impossible to trip em, you can do it now.
After this update all tactical feats are screwed, only thing i am wondering if that works for all feats or no.
Aka if it works for all then qpalm monks just got a really nice comeback

Thanks, good to know!
Will definitely test that when I can.

[Monkey-Boy]

To clarify my earlier comment: If you see a Champion monster with clearly 10x as many hitpoints as an identical monster standing next to it in the same instance and party, that's unintended. This is not intended as a discussion of party or difficulty scaling. That can certainly be a discussion but will only the muddy the feedback in this thread, where some players seem to be reporting Champion Buffs giving x10 hitpoints, which shouldn't be happening. (For the purpose of discussing Champions, please don't report that your solo Casual monsters had a lot less hitpoints than the Elite version with a full party.)

Would it kill you to just ONE TIME tell us what's intended so we can report what's not intended? Guessing what the heck you guys think is correct is extremely frustrating.

I haven't seen 10x HP (that I know of, but somebody did post a screenshot of a 1600 HP mobs in a level 6 quest) but I have seen 5x. Is 5x WAI?

What the heck is WAI?