Monster Champion Feedback

[phillymiket]

Champions should do more damage to legends and TRs.

Lets say champions hit Z% harder. This % harder should increase X% per past life the target has for melee and ranged, and Y% for spells and cap out. This will provide scaling difficulty to match various players power and gear accumulation. This will prevent first life characters from being 1 shot, and provide both first life and legends with appropriate challenge at the same time, while grouped in the same dungeon.

Hmm, maybe the entire dungeon should scale damage higher against legends and TRs instead.

Which is more powerful, a multi-TR who plays traditional old-school builds, or a 1st life using the latest FotM build with the latest buggy not WAI thing?

Which is more powerful, a multi-TR who plays traditional old-school builds, or a 1st life with unlimited SP Pots, tornadoes and surface-to-air missiles from dupe'ing?

It's not accurate to say TRs are the only, or even the most important, factor.

There is a lot at play, with no one being super game-breaking by itself.

But put together the TRs, the FotM builds, with all the gearz, using the buggy what-nots, and the dupe'ed this-thats and you have a prime quest ROFLstomper.

Some people bought or dupe'ed their PLs, but for some those 3x WIZ 3x FVS PLs were hard earned and it seems unfair and ineffectual to scale for that when a Shiraldi combo designed to wring as much DPS as possible from the system, trumps the PLs by a long shot, even on a 1st lifer.

[Hendrik]

We have tried to be clear from the start that the main impetus for the addition of Monster Champions was to increase game challenge on Hard and Elite difficulties. We've been making some changes in the past year in particular that have decreased game difficulty for many players, and have heard quite a bit of feedback suggesting that the game needed a boost in overall challenge. Our internal game analysis found those perceptions to have merit in many cases. Additionally, Monster Champions were added to bring some variety during questing, and to give us additional tools that we can use for various things.

Year?!?

A simple search shows the requests for challenge and the game getting easier goes back more then three years.

[DarthCaedus]

As much as people have talked about being 1 shot...it is still very uncommon. Every new group I join in game I always ask what people think of champions and most aren't bothered by them. Literally a couple people mentioned being 1 shotted and each time the rest of the group was surprised it was happening.

So yes you can be 1 shot...but then again I was 1 shotted at times in EE content before champions so...who cares?

I was never one-shotted in EE outside of raids before champions.

I am starting to wonder if the one-shotting is from a combination of complete fort bypass + bigger damage + crits + another buff.

To me one-shotting isn't adding difficulty - it's adding metagaming which I don't view as a desirable element because it results in only one outcome - limiting my build choices. I view this as an undesirable element in a game that's key strength is customization and flexibility.

Boosting the damage back up is fine with me if the source(s) of the one-shotting is eliminated.

[Nestroy]

Had more thoughts about this.

There are different opinions in the monster champions feedback since players play different classes.

Players who ask more difficulty play toons that very rarely get hits since they:
- kill monsters at a distance (mobs not immune to any of these attacks)
- or can reliably CC
- or kill monsters fast (mobs have too low hp)

For these players increasing damage of mobs won't make any difference, but they would like mobs to be more dangerous (hit harder) so that they would be the saviors of the party, i.e. fun to play for them (less fun for others).

So how Devs should increase game difficulty?
Immunities is the a way to do this imo!

I don't mind other ways too, but the mentioned players should be also affected.

I am of your opinion here.

Champs should be built from certain tables.

One table alters the damage - gives them more damage (adrenaline, elemental additions, passive on hit damage, vorpal...).
One table gives them added defenses (elemental immunities, more hit points, more PRR and MRR...).
One table should give them one single immunity for a certain type of attack, e.g. arrow deflection, melee dodge, arcane or divine immunity.
One table should give them a nasty perk of some kind (stun, slow, casts spells for non-casters, can buff nearby mobs...).
And one table should give them a general set of buff-ups, like DW, TS, more hit points, better stats.

Every champ gets exactly ONE out of every table on elite levels and 3 out of 5 tables one each on hard levels. No double taking of anything.

And ofc champs should give at least some reward for killing. Not a chest for perhaps every 3rd orange named containing thrash.

[JOTMON]

I am of your opinion here.

Champs should be built from certain tables.

One table alters the damage - gives them more damage (adrenaline, elemental additions, passive on hit damage, vorpal...).
One table gives them added defenses (elemental immunities, more hit points, more PRR and MRR...).
One table should give them one single immunity for a certain type of attack, e.g. arrow deflection, melee dodge, arcane or divine immunity.
One table should give them a nasty perk of some kind (stun, slow, casts spells for non-casters, can buff nearby mobs...).
And one table should give them a general set of buff-ups, like DW, TS, more hit points, better stats.

Every champ gets exactly ONE out of every table on elite levels and 3 out of 5 tables one each on hard levels. No double taking of anything.

And ofc champs should give at least some reward for killing. Not a chest for perhaps every 3rd orange named containing thrash.

This would work.
Could add a tierd point system within the tables, so better effects from each table is worth more points, set a point value for chest vs no chest.
Weak champions = no chest, tough champions.. get a chest. ( and fix the chests so they don't spawn in the air out of rach, or in a wall, or under the floor)

a side note: One thing that should not exist is complete fortification bypass, remove this. Nothing should be able to ignore fortification completely..
I have no issue with giving a high value bypass, but to completely ignore fortification results in one-shot kills which shouldn't happen coming from trash mobs against decently built/geared toons.

[weyoun]

Overall I love the new champion mechanic. It re-introduces difficulty back into the game.

That said, I did elite Enter the Kobold the other day. We had two respawning champion meteor swarms at the end and could not finish the quest on toons with improved evasion. Spamming 700 points of no-save poison damage per hit reduces a level 17 toon pretty quickly. I don't mind an occasional one-shot, but this was absurd. Maybe limit it to one champ meteor swarm.

Edit: This was a pre-update wipe. I have not tried EtK since.

[weyoun]

Champions should do more damage to legends and TRs.

Lets say champions hit Z% harder. This % harder should increase X% per past life the target has for melee and ranged, and Y% for spells and cap out. This will provide scaling difficulty to match various players power and gear accumulation. This will prevent first life characters from being 1 shot, and provide both first life and legends with appropriate challenge at the same time, while grouped in the same dungeon.

Hmm, maybe the entire dungeon should scale damage higher against legends and TRs instead.

This is an awful suggestion. It defeats the purpose of doing past lives. When I am TRing a toon in an off-class, I don't always have the best gear for that toon and am relying on game knowledge to get through. I'm just trying to get through the life as quickly as I can. Who has single-lifers these days anyways?

[Faltout]

I have written feedback in another thread too, but I guess it's good to have it here too.

First of all, my thematic vision of champions: A monster that has previous experience in battle (not because it killed its mates, but because it has fought battles before) and has developed techniques proved effective in battle (like using buffs). These champions are a rare unexpected thing from for adventurers.

And what I hope the champions to achieve: By using a combination of buffs, they should be able to pose a significant threat to varying types of players.
For example types of players include sneaky types picking their fights, invisible types avoiding all combat, head rush types charging in a room ready to face whatever is in there, crowd eliminators that prefer to gather many monsters and use AOE attacks to save resources, clever pulling of enemies using bluff or sources of noise, elemental damage dealers, piercing damage dealers, slashing damage dealers, bludgeoning damage dealers, heavily fortified characters that rarely get hit and have little HP because of that, supporting characters that leave the fighting to others to focus on support, crowd controllers, eternally healing characters, ailment dealing characters, characters that deal little damage but can survive long fights, etc.
There can be buffs to challenge a specific type of player while being vulnerable to others (I'll provide a list of ideas for each type I listed). That should encourage different types of players to group up because there's a chance that you will go in a dungeon and face a counter to your only tactic. It's good to have other tactics available when the one you're using fails.
The above all assume that those champions are rare, random and don't appear in spots where the only tactic you can use against them (because of quest mechanics) is the one being countered.

Feedback based on the current spawn rate of 9% for regular monsters.
The champions are not so common anymore, but not especially rare. You can anticipate that a champion will be around the corner. Also, they are not especially dangerous. Sure, there are some combinations that will absolutely kill you but most champions are treated like regular monsters because either they are too common to have different tactics for them, or they are too weak to have different tactics for them.

- Increase the danger a champion poses. That absolutely does not mean more HP or damage. Every player is prepared to face HP and damage from monsters and when those are extreme, no player is prepared. What they need is countering one playstyle while still being vulnerable to another.
- Further decrease the spawn rate of identical champions. They still need to be more rare. Currently almost every champion I face has similar buffs. I feel extremely lucky when I encounter a special buff on a champion and it's not even dangerous.
- Do not have totally random buffs. The tables with different category of buffs previously proposed are a pretty good idea.
- Do not let any creature become a champion. When designing a quest you should declare if monsters in some encounters can be champions or not. For example the champion wolves in the Tomb of the Tormented are a bad result of random championization.
- Further study how being a champion interacts with a creature's abilities because I've encountered several weird things like champion skeletons being spawned with 20% of their total HP. Or a fire elemental adding extra damage in its attacks even when I was evading the attacks.
- Don't apply all buffs at all levels. The champion buffs need to scale with levels or be different for each level to reflect what a player can do at this level.
- The buffs need to be more visible. A nice solution would be to have the champions announce their active buffs (to their comrades) with texts above their heads. Like: "I will use my high bludgeoning resistance to mitigate their attacks", "Don't worry, they can't use negative energy on me", "I see everything", "My newly acquired elemental resistance will be no match to them", "Don't worry, I'm searching for intruders. They won't pass undetected", "I will smash those puny creatures with my high damaging attacks".

Proposed buff list for the types mentioned (I tried to be matching):
- increased spot and listen skill to spot sneaky types and maybe alert nearby monsters to their presence.
- true seeing seems to work very well. Maybe alert nearby monsters to the presence of an invisible creature too.
- Use of some crowd control to an adventurer that came close to the champion
- Strength in numbers. The champion has an aura giving extra benefits to nearby monsters
- Different interaction to noise or bluff. Alert nearby monsters instead of following the bluff or head the other way to search for any adventurer trying to create a distraction
- immunity to some element
- immunity to a damage type
- full player fortification bypass, clever strikes to bypass dodge, true sight to bypass blur
- Aggro on characters that deal the least damage
- high bonus to saves
- apply penalty to healing amplification (even to negative numbers) with hits
- death ward
- fast regeneration

[Aletys]

Awesome. That is exactly the impression I got, but it was clear that many folks just were not going to get it until you guys spelled it out.

I'm sure there will still be a few that will completely ignore this post,but at least its out there now.

Nope, we got it, just didn't agree with how it was done. Quests are no longer unique or interesting, requiring different skills & approaches. Champions now trump bosses & rares in each & every case. And they're not the least bit rare (which they should be at when they're trumping the rares & bosses). They're in nearly every mob in some quests. Instead of making the monster HP, buffs & damage appropriate to the quest, level & monster, they all draw from the same table, with no differentiation at all. Oozes giving slashing damage? 10X health for a yellow named champion? Yes, I know that the 10X HP is supposed to be an aberration, but I saw it twice on two low level quests yesterday (& yes, I'm bug reporting it).

The devs just did an across-the board implementation on every quest of exactly the same thing, so now every quest is pretty much the same, since the champions are the biggest challenge in the quests. The champion mobs are all the same, they just have different skins. What is interesting about that?

It just seems to me that for whatever reason, the devs took the lazy way out here. "What can we do for the least amount of cost that will up the difficulty?" I understand that they have limited resources, and are under time constraints like everyone else, but frankly, this could have been done a lot better. Tailor the buffs to match the monster characteristics. Don't give fighter buffs to spell casters; don't give caster buffs to melee & ranger mobs; don't give buffs that should be reserved for monsters using weapons to non-weapon bearing mobs. Don't make the champions be stronger/more difficult than the bosses. Make sure they are level appropriate.

If they couldn't do it properly, then they should have saved the expense and not done it at all. At this point the best solution would be to make a new difficulty level with the new champions in it for those that want the darn things. That would allow the CM lovers to run the quests with CM's in them, and the rest of us would not be forced to do so. Those people who are opposing a new "champion" difficulty seem to be afraid they won't be able to get anyone to pug with them in that difficulty. That in itself should tell you that the whole implementation is seriously flawed. Forcing everyone else to do something just so that a few can do it is simply wrong.

[Aletys]

Last time I reply to you directly cause this is becoming boring.

As you admit 6k and 4k incoming damage is inside terminal delirium in special parts of the quest where you are extremely vulnerable to melee hits from monsters. The last one you say is from another quest and is a 2,192 points of slash damage.
I've seen raid bosses do 3000ish damage on party members. Specifically in fire on thunder peaks and Mark of death you can see raid bosses crit for way more than your 2000 damage which is by the way a huge amount for a trash monster but still lower than raid bosses.

Yes, but he wasn't playing raids, he was playing quests. Raids are supposed to be considerably more challenging than quests at the same level. Also, the raids you mention are all level 30. Are you suggesting that all quests should now deal out damage that is approaching or exceeding that of level 30 raids?

[Aletys]

well. not everyone. Turbine would of NOT gotten what they wanted. and its kinda their game.. so....

Well, yes, it is their game. But, they want to make money, as any business would, so they need to please the majority of their users, or they won't be in business for long.

[Spoonwelder]

My experience last night - two different scenarios:

Scenario 1 - playing with a somewhat gimp group - second lifers on iconics, playing a zombie themed static group. We were Cleric, PM, Arti, Pally (all with at least 3Wiz splash for zombie)....we are light on melee DPS (see Zombie attack speed). We had hit 20 last week and decided to fill in our House K favor in VON1-4.....well we got into VoN1 - just on EH so our first experience for all of us with Champions. First attempt - ran into a Champion minotaur (freedom, TS, DW, and another) along with the first named minotaur....took alot of extra work to kill the champ versus the named minotaur. We moved on then ran into 2 of 4 bugbears in the next group....not a real problem one did get instakilled (didn't have time to check buffs)....next is the 4 ogres by the deathmatch....we got a little split up (one guy trying to get the chest behind the locked door - another doing breakables on the other side). I (cleric) was able to instakill three of the ogres (prepped with necrotic ray) but another was champion (DW, Ihit harder, another where if HP hit 50% he hits even harder). Triple hit about 140hp each killed me (only have 430hp on this gimp). Another person goes down....my deathpact fires and I am back up - anotehr person goes down...at this point I realize I have no res scrollls, no SP and no pots (gimp). So we release and rebuff, I get some scrolls we try again.

Attempt 2 - goes better a few less champions, nothing to worry about - but I am out of SP just before the silver key so Invis - I run and get key skipping those fights (in that room were 3 champions of the maybe 8 plus miniboss - only one followed me so only one had TS)....we clean him up and make our way to the fight at the shrine - we look in through the bars and see 3 troll champs - one is the divine....oooo joy for us. Door opens and we clear the trash - one instakill on a champ then the other 2 have DW so no help there - after various attempts - use of shrine - both me(cleric) and wizard are out of SP and the two trolls are still up.....we just release and call it a night for the group - basically thinking we will have to shelve these guys or just play Enorm from now on.

............Snip.................

Recommendations:
On EH - tune them down a titch - as they are basically an EE mob in an EH quest - and make sure no more than 1 spawns per group of mobs, maybe 2 if tuned down. Potentially keep them out of boss fights as in the boss fight the boss should be your most dangerous foe not the 'trash'. Ensure there is some benefit for dealing with them - ie. tune up the chance for chest drop - ie. like 25% on EH and 50% on EE. Over the night I dealt with probably 30 Champs and didn't get any chests.

......................snip........................ ..

Quote above is referencing my initial results from last Thursday.

Well a week has passed since my static group (zombeh themed) got beat up by the champions last week.....this week we were apprehensive but decided to give it a go. The set-up wasn't entirely the same as our fifth (swashbuckling zombeh bard) came along AND we decided to step down a quest level and do the Big Top chain instead of VoN.

We succeeded where we failed last time - there were many near deaths(i hate the targetting issue of Harm) and a one actual death throughout the chain - specifically a champion based deaths (my cleric got tripped by a panther champion and another panther was there so the two of them beat me up good). That said spawn rates seemed reasonable and the added difficulty felt about right for this group. With all the elementals being orange named in Small Problem we got a few extra chests but nothing that I remembered from any of the random champs.

Overall I think the change is now about right for the EH crowd. Increased risk isn't so much that you get po'd since the reward is nominal (trash loot if anything). My personal recommendation would be to not up the risk (damage, spawn rates) until you have added the reward system and even then do it slowly.....(side note possibly make the risk match the reward ie. Hit harder worth 2 widgets, second wind worth 2, blunt/slash absorb 1.5....etc... then make it multiply so a mob with 2x2x1.5x1.25 gets 7.5widgets or whatever where as one with only a couple of lesser 1.5x buffs would only produce 2.25 widgets. That way reward directly ties to the risk and you might relish a tougher champ.....you could even add a 2x or 3x multiplier for doing it on Heroic and Epic elite respectively).

Thanks for listening.

[Aletys]

We have tried to be clear from the start that the main impetus for the addition of Monster Champions was to increase game challenge on Hard and Elite difficulties. We've been making some changes in the past year in particular that have decreased game difficulty for many players, and have heard quite a bit of feedback suggesting that the game needed a boost in overall challenge. Our internal game analysis found those perceptions to have merit in many cases. Additionally, Monster Champions were added to bring some variety during questing, and to give us additional tools that we can use for various things.

The problem is that Monster Champions are not bringing variety to questing. Just the opposite. Since Champions are now the overriding challenge in quests, more of a challenge than the rares or bosses, the uniqueness of the quests has disappeared. Champions are now the main challenge, and they are exactly the same in every quest. Their buffs and damage outputs are not tailored to what's appropriate to the quest, level or monster type; they're all drawn from the same table.

All monsters, regardless of monster race, regardless of whether they're casters, rangers, melees, or non-weapon mobs, all seem to get the same buffs (hence oozes with slashing damage). They just have different skins. So, players no longer need to prepare for the particular challenges designed into a quest, as those pale in comparison to Champions. All quests are essentially the same, the geography may be different, but that's pretty much it. That's not variety, or more challenging, that's boring.

[Connman]

I have been trying to keep up on all the champion threads I can. I think this is one of the best list of ideas I have seen yet.
And seriously, Faltout, you should click this link http://www.turbine.com/careers Because I would love to go into any dungeon you designed.

I have written feedback in another thread too, but I guess it's good to have it here too.

First of all, my thematic vision of champions: A monster that has previous experience in battle (not because it killed its mates, but because it has fought battles before) and has developed techniques proved effective in battle (like using buffs). These champions are a rare unexpected thing from for adventurers.

And what I hope the champions to achieve: By using a combination of buffs, they should be able to pose a significant threat to varying types of players.
For example types of players include sneaky types picking their fights, invisible types avoiding all combat, head rush types charging in a room ready to face whatever is in there, crowd eliminators that prefer to gather many monsters and use AOE attacks to save resources, clever pulling of enemies using bluff or sources of noise, elemental damage dealers, piercing damage dealers, slashing damage dealers, bludgeoning damage dealers, heavily fortified characters that rarely get hit and have little HP because of that, supporting characters that leave the fighting to others to focus on support, crowd controllers, eternally healing characters, ailment dealing characters, characters that deal little damage but can survive long fights, etc.
There can be buffs to challenge a specific type of player while being vulnerable to others (I'll provide a list of ideas for each type I listed). That should encourage different types of players to group up because there's a chance that you will go in a dungeon and face a counter to your only tactic. It's good to have other tactics available when the one you're using fails.
The above all assume that those champions are rare, random and don't appear in spots where the only tactic you can use against them (because of quest mechanics) is the one being countered.

Feedback based on the current spawn rate of 9% for regular monsters.
The champions are not so common anymore, but not especially rare. You can anticipate that a champion will be around the corner. Also, they are not especially dangerous. Sure, there are some combinations that will absolutely kill you but most champions are treated like regular monsters because either they are too common to have different tactics for them, or they are too weak to have different tactics for them.

- Increase the danger a champion poses. That absolutely does not mean more HP or damage. Every player is prepared to face HP and damage from monsters and when those are extreme, no player is prepared. What they need is countering one playstyle while still being vulnerable to another.
- Further decrease the spawn rate of identical champions. They still need to be more rare. Currently almost every champion I face has similar buffs. I feel extremely lucky when I encounter a special buff on a champion and it's not even dangerous.
- Do not have totally random buffs. The tables with different category of buffs previously proposed are a pretty good idea.
- Do not let any creature become a champion. When designing a quest you should declare if monsters in some encounters can be champions or not. For example the champion wolves in the Tomb of the Tormented are a bad result of random championization.
- Further study how being a champion interacts with a creature's abilities because I've encountered several weird things like champion skeletons being spawned with 20% of their total HP. Or a fire elemental adding extra damage in its attacks even when I was evading the attacks.
- Don't apply all buffs at all levels. The champion buffs need to scale with levels or be different for each level to reflect what a player can do at this level.
- The buffs need to be more visible. A nice solution would be to have the champions announce their active buffs (to their comrades) with texts above their heads. Like: "I will use my high bludgeoning resistance to mitigate their attacks", "Don't worry, they can't use negative energy on me", "I see everything", "My newly acquired elemental resistance will be no match to them", "Don't worry, I'm searching for intruders. They won't pass undetected", "I will smash those puny creatures with my high damaging attacks".

Proposed buff list for the types mentioned (I tried to be matching):
- increased spot and listen skill to spot sneaky types and maybe alert nearby monsters to their presence.
- true seeing seems to work very well. Maybe alert nearby monsters to the presence of an invisible creature too.
- Use of some crowd control to an adventurer that came close to the champion
- Strength in numbers. The champion has an aura giving extra benefits to nearby monsters
- Different interaction to noise or bluff. Alert nearby monsters instead of following the bluff or head the other way to search for any adventurer trying to create a distraction
- immunity to some element
- immunity to a damage type
- full player fortification bypass, clever strikes to bypass dodge, true sight to bypass blur
- Aggro on characters that deal the least damage
- high bonus to saves
- apply penalty to healing amplification (even to negative numbers) with hits
- death ward
- fast regeneration

[redoubt]

Champions should do more damage to legends and TRs.

Lets say champions hit Z% harder. This % harder should increase X% per past life the target has for melee and ranged, and Y% for spells and cap out. This will provide scaling difficulty to match various players power and gear accumulation. This will prevent first life characters from being 1 shot, and provide both first life and legends with appropriate challenge at the same time, while grouped in the same dungeon.

Hmm, maybe the entire dungeon should scale damage higher against legends and TRs instead.

Please no.

I've spent a couple years now gathering past lives because the build I want can't take the hits already. I'm building it up. If suddenly I take and extra 50% damage because I have a bunch of past lives, then why did I do so many past lives to get all that prr and extra hp to survive?

This seems counter intuitive to me.

[redoubt]

I have written feedback in another thread too, but I guess it's good to have it here too.

First of all, my thematic vision of champions: A monster that has previous experience in battle (not because it killed its mates, but because it has fought battles before) and has developed techniques proved effective in battle (like using buffs). These champions are a rare unexpected thing from for adventurers.
/snip

Great ideas.

My one point of disagreement is in 100% fort bypass and giving too many mobs the ability to counter concealment (I don't care if they counter invis run, just don't make all counter stealth, displace and blur. Some yes. Partial bypass yes. Not all with all.)

On the fort issue. We as players get 35% from a feat and 15% from items. These seem like appropriate buffs to bosses. Remember they have innate fort bypass already. A CR50 mob already bypasses 50 fort. Add another 50 and the mob bypasses 100 fort. At that point you need 200 fort to still be crit immune. If you have 200 fort, then you worked at it and should still be crit immune.

[redoubt]

Yes, but he wasn't playing raids, he was playing quests. Raids are supposed to be considerably more challenging than quests at the same level. Also, the raids you mention are all level 30. Are you suggesting that all quests should now deal out damage that is approaching or exceeding that of level 30 raids?

Stinging Bee and the others claiming that either the high damage hits did not exist or that they are not as tough as raids don't want to actually talk about numbers nor game mechanics.

I replied to his post a bit ago talking about how all the high damage attacks he mentions are telegraphed and avoidable. I've heard nothing back.

[Faltout]

Great ideas.

My one point of disagreement is in 100% fort bypass and giving too many mobs the ability to counter concealment (I don't care if they counter invis run, just don't make all counter stealth, displace and blur. Some yes. Partial bypass yes. Not all with all.)

On the fort issue. We as players get 35% from a feat and 15% from items. These seem like appropriate buffs to bosses. Remember they have innate fort bypass already. A CR50 mob already bypasses 50 fort. Add another 50 and the mob bypasses 100 fort. At that point you need 200 fort to still be crit immune. If you have 200 fort, then you worked at it and should still be crit immune.

The reason I went all out on the buffs is because I'm arguing that those champions should be rare and different. Like 1 champion with fort bypass in a quest, 1 with increased awareness, 1 with immunity to slashing, etc. What you say is true if many monsters have the bypass ability. No monsters having this ability means that you can indeed achieve no-fail fort for all the monsters of the dungeon. The point of the champions is to strike you where you expect less. You are just face-rolling all the monsters in Lords of Dust for example and nearing the end of the quest, a hound bypasses your fort and strikes you for a critical hit that kills you. You were soloing and didn't pay attention. Too bad, better luck next time. But if the monster warns you that it can bypass your fortification you can equip your dodge ring, activate uncanny dodge or a boost (damage, haste, whatever), equip your ranged weapon and avoid contact with that particular monster.

A well geared toon should not be without challenge. Sure, it should mitigate the threat most monsters pose, but there should be a case that a well geared toon for defence will fail where a well geared toon for attack will succeed and vice versa. This is what balance and roles are for. A not well geared and not prepared toon (like the zombeh party from some posts above - no raise scrolls?!) should fail whatever the occasion.

[redoubt]

The reason I went all out on the buffs is because I'm arguing that those champions should be rare and different. Like 1 champion with fort bypass in a quest, 1 with increased awareness, 1 with immunity to slashing, etc. What you say is true if many monsters have the bypass ability. No monsters having this ability means that you can indeed achieve no-fail fort for all the monsters of the dungeon. The point of the champions is to strike you where you expect less. You are just face-rolling all the monsters in Lords of Dust for example and nearing the end of the quest, a hound bypasses your fort and strikes you for a critical hit that kills you. You were soloing and didn't pay attention. Too bad, better luck next time. But if the monster warns you that it can bypass your fortification you can equip your dodge ring, activate uncanny dodge or a boost (damage, haste, whatever), equip your ranged weapon and avoid contact with that particular monster.

A well geared toon should not be without challenge. Sure, it should mitigate the threat most monsters pose, but there should be a case that a well geared toon for defence will fail where a well geared toon for attack will succeed and vice versa. This is what balance and roles are for. A not well geared and not prepared toon (like the zombeh party from some posts above - no raise scrolls?!) should fail whatever the occasion.

Hmm... I generally like your concept and its something I am pondering. Maybe its the old game in me where 100% was 100%. Now I see the need to go well above 100% to survive already (even before the champion fort bypass.)

Maybe its analogous to deathblock. Should mobs have deathblock bypass?

Its similar to the spotter drones that cut AC in half. It hits AC characters harder than someone who doesn't do AC at all. I'm okay with a specific debuff, but the percentage and total bypasses that negate hard work in a specific area are overpowered to me. A tank that gets 200 AC (which can finally matter some) gets debuffed to 100AC and gets obliterated. The character that had 50 AC gets debuffed to 25AC and doesn't care because he still has 30 dodge, displacement, ghostly.

So, I totally get wanting a way to get to each of these characters, but I'm not sure a total bypass is the right level... still thinking though.

[Faltout]

Hmm... I generally like your concept and its something I am pondering. Maybe its the old game in me where 100% was 100%. Now I see the need to go well above 100% to survive already (even before the champion fort bypass.)

Maybe its analogous to deathblock. Should mobs have deathblock bypass?

Its similar to the spotter drones that cut AC in half. It hits AC characters harder than someone who doesn't do AC at all. I'm okay with a specific debuff, but the percentage and total bypasses that negate hard work in a specific area are overpowered to me. A tank that gets 200 AC (which can finally matter some) gets debuffed to 100AC and gets obliterated. The character that had 50 AC gets debuffed to 25AC and doesn't care because he still has 30 dodge, displacement, ghostly.

So, I totally get wanting a way to get to each of these characters, but I'm not sure a total bypass is the right level... still thinking though.

A beholder can already bypass your deathward. But you're talking about deathblock. I guess a disjunction of your items bypasses your deathblock (at least it SHOULD work that way heh :P).

If you're talking about a deathblock bypass without a disjunction that you can avoid then there's the situation of a caster that you haven't yet seen or been able to attack before he attacks you. In the complete fort bypass example before I gave a way out of the situation. A way to mitigate the threat with smart playing and there always needs to be one. I can't think of any way to save yourself from a caster that as soon as he sees you will kill you (that means before you are able to kill him, or even reach him). If you can think of a way to save yourself from that situation (and it doesn't require a super rogue with assasinate - because that's pretty rare) then why not?

As I said before, that's why that dude with 30 dodge, displacement, ghostly is playing in your party. Because there are a couple of champions in there that will easily bypass his 30 dodge and displacement. He will need you to tank those champions and you will need him to tank those drones.