Monster Champion Feedback

[Ancient]

How does your Nova build stand up to 2 back to back swipes from a fortification ignoring champion of 1k damage each along with a spattering of 100 hp's of damage from regular mobs. in the level 24 range.. not endgame.

I play in heavy armor (ada body actually) with a tower shield AND avoid getting hit, especially when there is a champion around. In addition, death aura keeps me near max health. I'm not uber raid soloing superman like many posters (whom I hold in very high regard). In fact, I don't even consider myself that great a player... I have to rely a lot on having a build that can survive the mistakes I make. But you don't have to take my word for it, I post EE videos on a regular basis. The last two EE videos I posted were just after champions were introduced and before they got nerfed.

All that said, I am now curious if the immunity to critical hits feat stops fortification bypass... giving up positive healing wouldn't exactly be much of a worry for me

So this is just going to promote the ranged keep-a-way builds and kiting casting.
Is this the direction the game wants to go, eliminate tanks and toe to toe builds and play runaway pew-pew-ers.

If you want to wear pajamas then you can't act like a toe to toe tank. If you want to act like a toe-to-toe tank, then you need to modify either your build or your gear. I don't see the problem. The "real" toe-to-toe tanks now have way more than 1000 hp.

[JOTMON]

I play in heavy armor with a tower shield AND avoid getting hit, especially when there is a champion around. In addition, death aura keeps me near max health. I'm not uber raid soloing superman like many posters (whom I hold in very high regard). In fact, I don't even consider myself that great a player... I have to rely a lot on having a build that can survive the mistakes I make. But you don't have to take my word for it, I post EE videos on a regular basis. The last two EE videos I posted were just after champions were introduced and before they got nerfed.

All that said, I am now curious if the immunity to critical hits feat stops fortification bypass... giving up positive healing wouldn't exactly be much of a worry for me

If you want to wear pajamas then you can't act like a toe to toe tank. If you want to act like a toe-to-toe tank, then you need to modify either your build or your gear. I don't see the problem. The "real" toe-to-toe tanks now have way more than 1000 hp.

The Improved fortification: Improves your warforged fortification, granting you immunity to sneak attacks and extra damage from critical hits. However, you lose the ability to be healed by spells from the healing subschool, such as Cure Light Wounds.

Would make converting to Bladeforged (or the now lesser Warforged) more appealing... but does anyone know if this actually works against the Champions that ignore fortification.

Generally I am ghostly/ethereal/displaced/high dodge.. constantly moving with CC and AOE from Draconic when insta-kills are not effective.
It should be a good counter point to an armored tank build and normally is.
now when I get back to endgame I run over 1khp and better PRR/overall damage mitigation... but that is endgame,.. not xp farming..

I am looking at my build which is generally quite solid in all content and levels.. when I see myself getting one-shotted in level 24 content on a level 27 toon..
It doesn't bode well for most players.
not to say I don't die.. a lot.. but this is generally due to inattention, or trying to push that last spell before heading back to a shrine, or starting a fight that really should have been avoided or prepped in advance..

[Vargouille]

We're continuing to monitor Champions and will keep making adjustments. We want them to threaten player characters, but generally should not be one-shotting most characters in most situations. There are some individual cases we may still need to investigate. Thanks for the continued feedback.

[EllisDee37]

I have steadfastly been a huge supporter of champions, and liked it much better at launch when there were way more of them. (Just for context.)

Big fan of the change that "moved" the True Seeing champion buff over to See Invisibility, since that has the same effect against invisi-zerging (which is a good thing) but it no longer bypasses a legitimate, non-cheese player defense. (Concealment.)

Similarly, I have to agree with JOTMON. Fortification is a legitimate, non-cheese player defense. Mobs should not be able to simply ignore it. The change from a couple years ago when sneaky mobs could bypass x% based on mob CR was a great change, but giving any mobs a blanket "ignore fortification" buff is total cheese. Uncool.

[count_spicoli]

We're continuing to monitor Champions and will keep making adjustments. We want them to threaten player characters, but generally should not be one-shotting most characters in most situations. There are some individual cases we may still need to investigate. Thanks for the continued feedback.

Right now they are not threatening player characters in heroic AT ALL! On upper level ee like stormhorns you Def need to pay attention but are not really that bad either. With every gimp tripping and stunning now it has really reduced their threat. I really wish you would go back to pre nerf on elite and leave hard and lowered as is.

[Sehenry03]

Right now they are not threatening player characters in heroic AT ALL! On upper level ee like stormhorns you Def need to pay attention but are not really that bad either. With every gimp tripping and stunning now it has really reduced their threat. I really wish you would go back to pre nerf on elite and leave hard and lowered as is.

+1

[FestusHood]

All that said, I am now curious if the immunity to critical hits feat stops fortification bypass... giving up positive healing wouldn't exactly be much of a worry for me

I would be pretty surprised if it did anything but provide 100% fort. It was made at a time when there was no fort bypass.

Remember, undead and constructs are described as being immune to critical hits, but we can now crit those all the time. There is even an explanation as to why they are immune, not having vital spots to hit. Not sure how having fort bypass suddenly makes them have vital organs, but whatever.

[HatsuharuZ]

When running "The Portal Opens", I noticed that some of the statues in the halls of the temple were crowned as champions. However, unlike other statues, these one never went hostile. Same thing with the kobold slaves in Shan-To-Kor.

[Ancient]

Similarly, I have to agree with JOTMON. Fortification is a legitimate, non-cheese player defense. Mobs should not be able to simply ignore it. The change from a couple years ago when sneaky mobs could bypass x% based on mob CR was a great change, but giving any mobs a blanket "ignore fortification" buff is total cheese. Uncool.

I'm in the middle. I don't like the ignore fortification buff, BUT, I do think that pajama wearers should be very nervous around a pack of champion melee mobs... and ignore fort seems to be the only item that accomplishes this. Thus, I'm in the middle on removing it because without it... champions aren't even a speed bump for most casters.

[Braegan]

Similarly, I have to agree with JOTMON. Fortification is a legitimate, non-cheese player defense. Mobs should not be able to simply ignore it. The change from a couple years ago when sneaky mobs could bypass x% based on mob CR was a great change, but giving any mobs a blanket "ignore fortification" buff is total cheese. Uncool.

I can agree instead of a Blanket Ignore all Fort, that Champ mobs be given Armor Piercing %.

EE/HE mobs should have a higher percentage. As well it can be scaled to level. A level 5 character is likely to have mod fort, whereas a level 28 character would be around 150 to over 200.

Perhaps a formula like:

HH/EH: Armor Piercing 50% + 2 % per level of the dungeon. A level 5 quest Champ would get 60% Fort Bypass, a level 30 quest would get 110% Bypass.

HE/EE: Armor Piercing 75% +5% per level of the dungeon. A level 5 quest Champ would get 100% Fort Bypass, a level 30 quest would get 225% Bypass.

Numbers of course could be tweaked but used as an example to show what I was thinking.

[MonadRebelion]

I'm in the middle. I don't like the ignore fortification buff, BUT, I do think that pajama wearers should be very nervous around a pack of champion melee mobs... and ignore fort seems to be the only item that accomplishes this. Thus, I'm in the middle on removing it because without it... champions aren't even a speed bump for most casters.

Not at all on the fence here. Champions should have abilities that make them threatening. Casters getting one shot killed by powerful melees is dnd. Casters unafraid of being toe-to-toe with melees is some other kind of game I don't want to play.

Note: This isn't to say there shouldn't be melee "caster" at all. It's just to say that such a build should be exceptional, rely on clever/tricky building, and not have the casting ability of a straight caster.

[EllisDee37]

I can agree instead of a Blanket Ignore all Fort, that Champ mobs be given Armor Piercing %.

EE/HE mobs should have a higher percentage. As well it can be scaled to level. A level 5 character is likely to have mod fort, whereas a level 28 character would be around 150 to over 200.

Perhaps a formula like:

HH/EH: Armor Piercing 50% + 2 % per level of the dungeon. A level 5 quest Champ would get 60% Fort Bypass, a level 30 quest would get 110% Bypass.

HE/EE: Armor Piercing 75% +5% per level of the dungeon. A level 5 quest Champ would get 100% Fort Bypass, a level 30 quest would get 225% Bypass.

Numbers of course could be tweaked but used as an example to show what I was thinking.

I wouldn't want to go much above the current heroic fort bypass scaling.

Mob CR as the % chance to bypass feels about right to me. How about just give ALL champions the "sneaky" flag so that all of them can bypass a % of fort equal to their CR.

[Braegan]

I wouldn't want to go much above the current heroic fort bypass scaling.

Mob CR as the % chance to bypass feels about right to me. How about just give ALL champions the "sneaky" flag so that all of them can bypass a % of fort equal to their CR.

That could work as well. I just plugged in numbers to show what I was thinking.

But I think either system (provided the numbers got to be tested some) would be an improvement. Some way to give champs a means to bypass fort that increases with level and difficulty.

[Rys]

EE WGU, 39 PRR

[Braegan]

That's right, they were bad enough already...

and that only emphasizes the point...tone down the champs and get rid of them from low level content. After years of working on a toon i have earned the right to play elite content at low lvl with little difficulty. My 3rd life was difficult enough with plenty of challenge to scrape thru elite content with my partner and 2 hirelings. Just before Champions came along, my partner and i were making steady work of elite content with plenty of challenges along the way not needing 2 hirelings anymore most of the time. I earned that thru grinding gear and buying tomes from the store to beef up my toon. That being said, being one shot is not a challenge. I say put another lvl of dungeon out there for the peeps who love this new addition to the game or make champs an option. These peeps who complained the content wasn't hard enough have forgotten what it is like to build a toon from scratch with no twinking involved and having to claw there way thru dungeons with loot gen gear and no tomes. The balance was right on there. Now I need twice the HP that i cannot get to have a chance of surviving. So i call bulls--t.

Mhmm.

Well they did get rid of champs in low level content. They don't exist below level 5. So that's a moot point unless you wish to debate what constitutes as low level.

I question your phrasing of "earned it," there again that sense of entitlement rears its head.

Being one shot is a challenge, so I disagree with you. It's not like there are not a bunch of ways to render a mob unable to fight back. I guess mindflayers in general are also cheap because they can blast you and suck out your brain while you do nothing...kinda like a slow motion one shot. Also, to clarify by your statement. You were not one shot. You were three shot. I see no problem in game mechanics where you went up to an elite champ mob at level and he hit you three times and laid you down.

I haven't forgotten what it was like to start anew in the game. I've done it twice, seriously - a few other servers for fun, but once when game launched and once when Cannith server launched. And I still am in favor of champs. They reduce the roflstomp thru quests and bring back some of what the game used to have, a nice fight that required at least 40% of your attention to the game.

You don't need twice the HP. You could try tripping the Ogre next time, I hear it works fabulously well atm. Mayhaps a stun blow/fist, a well placed Charm, oh my I could just go on and on...

[Qhualor]

put a worthy challenge in front of a player after several years of face rolling content by most on the hardest difficulty and they don't know what to do when there is alternative methods available.

[Braegan]

put a worthy challenge in front of a player after several years of face rolling content by most on the hardest difficulty and they don't know what to do when there is alternative methods available.

You mean there are more buttons than W and right mouse click?!?!!?

Burn this witch!

[Sehenry03]

How long did it take for most people to adapt to champions? 1 day? 1 week? 1 month? I got slaughtered in Proof is in the Poison the first week of champs before the nerf. **** casters kept double bolting me for over 200 damage and it happened 5-6 times that 1 run. I STILL want the original champs back though because I did have to start thinking. Now its almost back to the same old roll everything content with 1-2 exceptions in a quest when you see a champ caster/ogre/mind flayer/etc and all you do is trip/stun/charm/etc but you barely slow down. I ran Proof is in the Poison with the same toon after I Tr'ed a few days ago and I didn't even come close to dying 1 times again. Same exact quest and same exact toon with same exact gear. I miss the old champs =(

[Braegan]

How long did it take for most people to adapt to champions? 1 day? 1 week? 1 month? I got slaughtered in Proof is in the Poison the first week of champs before the nerf. **** casters kept double bolting me for over 200 damage and it happened 5-6 times that 1 run. I STILL want the original champs back though because I did have to start thinking. Now its almost back to the same old roll everything content with 1-2 exceptions in a quest when you see a champ caster/ogre/mind flayer/etc and all you do is trip/stun/charm/etc but you barely slow down. I ran Proof is in the Poison with the same toon after I Tr'ed a few days ago and I didn't even come close to dying 1 times again. Same exact quest and same exact toon with same exact gear. I miss the old champs =(

For me, less than a day.

Not meant to sound elitist or anything, but my characters were build to handle a variety of things, often going against the FoTM grain. I had some shaky encounters where I went thru a lot of mana and had to readjust, but it came quickly to me. My fighter experienced much less pains to transition as he is used to using tactics and healing himself.

To be honest, I do understand that some folks feel a certain way about not being able to kick in the door like they were Billy Bad Azz and getting into every mobs face like they were Samuel L. Jackson demanding that they say "what" one more time so they could go full postal on them.

But really how long can you do that before it gets old. I mean sure, when I was four I loved playing the game "I win." But since then a bit of a challenge is nice. And now that champs are reduced in power it's not as much as it was. I mean I want some cool epic fights like Achilles and Hector fighting outside the gate of Troy kind of stuff. That to me is fun, to play off every angle my character is built for versus something else that is equally dangerous.

I think now the spawn rate for champs is about right, now we should beef them back up a bit. Perhaps revisit the Ignore all Fort thingy and some other tweaks, but overall champs need a buff.

Hmm. All this has gotten me thinking. I wonder if all the mobs I one shotted today using Energy Burst are currently complaining that player characters are OP and need to be tuned down because being truly one shot isn't fair to them.

[tangledone]

Right now they are not threatening player characters in heroic AT ALL! On upper level ee like stormhorns you Def need to pay attention but are not really that bad either. With every gimp tripping and stunning now it has really reduced their threat. I really wish you would go back to pre nerf on elite and leave hard and lowered as is.

If this were true I would not have cancelled my VIP subscription.

The answer is simple 1. Get rid of the Champions from heroic level quests entirely 2. Remove scaling from all quests and leave it set to the highest 'scale' 3. Remove level restrictions from heroic quests.

That way the Elitists can create their own challenge and brag how they solo'ed The Pit elite on a Level 3 toon or they 2 manned Heroic elite Stormhorns chain on level 12 toons. Then those of us that elite at level is challenge enough will be happy and the elitist's will have their extreme challenge. I don't want to be an elitist I just want to enjoy the game I have paid for in the past and will happily pay for in the future if a change like this was made.