Monster Champion Feedback

[Aelonwy]

I probably just jinxed myself

Magic 8 Ball says: Yes definitely.

[Dread131313]

The spawn rate, lack of rewards, and deadliness of their buffs. I hate champions. They add nothing to my game. They ruin my fun, with abnormal speeds. Soul of Cruelty wipes me dead so often it is insulting at the speed to which that particular version can cut anyone down in seconds. It fills me with rage and disgust.

I hate them all, I think they are pathetic, posing as added content and challenge. The game would be no different without them. We do not need champions and Reaper difficulty. Champions have no worthy added rewards. Their random drop chest drop so rarely as to not drop at all. The random loot is trash 99% of the time. They would not need to exist if DDO had not broken the loot tables with power creep.

I want an option to play DDO as it was without them. The developers can not make them balanced.

I 100% agree. I am beyond frustrated. My wife and I just spend a pretty good bit of money buying XP tome boosts and different **** to try some builds and we are now level 8 trying to do irestone inlet on elite and we are gettng 1 shot by champions in that quest.

Said screw it, went to do the very first STK quest in MP (the level 3 one). Entered it on Elite (level 5) and theres CR9 MOBS IN THERE...
5 minutes in, and what to we encounter - a ****ING CHAMPION. Guess what he does, he 1 shots us both.

This is utter friggin BS. I remember back in 2006-2009 I could duo with someone in elite and as long as we were careful would be ok, now we have to deal with champion ****!

Why didnt you just enable it as an OPTION ffs!!!!

I was right when I made that post saying that you are destroying your game.

And all you veterans who have been here for 13 years that have like 200 TR's and are basically invincible now can go to hell.
Dont you ever ask why theres no new players here.

Enjoy your broken game.

[Kriogen]

...
Why didnt you just enable it as an OPTION ffs!!!!

I was right when I made that post saying that you are destroying your game.
...

You are 100% right about "option for champions". I disagree with "nerfs".

Has been suggested before, option to turn off champions, but:
- no response from devs
- super vets say "if you are *****, run on Normal"

Fun part is, that super vets dont do Hard/Elite anyway. They do Reaper. They don't even know how it really is to be new or casual or returning player.

Anyway, I do agree, Champions on Hard/Elite do kill game. A simple option, toggle would fixed it.

[lyrecono]

I 100% agree. I am beyond frustrated. My wife and I just spend a pretty good bit of money buying XP tome boosts and different **** to try some builds and we are now level 8 trying to do irestone inlet on elite and we are gettng 1 shot by champions in that quest.

Said screw it, went to do the very first STK quest in MP (the level 3 one). Entered it on Elite (level 5) and theres CR9 MOBS IN THERE...
5 minutes in, and what to we encounter - a ****ING CHAMPION. Guess what he does, he 1 shots us both.

This is utter friggin BS. I remember back in 2006-2009 I could duo with someone in elite and as long as we were careful would be ok, now we have to deal with champion ****!

Why didnt you just enable it as an OPTION ffs!!!!

I was right when I made that post saying that you are destroying your game.

And all you veterans who have been here for 13 years that have like 200 TR's and are basically invincible now can go to hell.
Dont you ever ask why theres no new players here.

Enjoy your broken game.

You are 100% right about "option for champions". I disagree with "nerfs".

Has been suggested before, option to turn off champions, but:
- no response from devs
- super vets say "if you are *****, run on Normal"

Fun part is, that super vets dont do Hard/Elite anyway. They do Reaper. They don't even know how it really is to be new or casual or returning player.

Anyway, I do agree, Champions on Hard/Elite do kill game. A simple option, toggle would fixed it.

So this thread still lives?

Anyway, its what i said back then, cordo said the power players got due to gear (often rerolled, locked behind vip or packs), higher tomes( from the ddo store due to low drop rates), reaper cores working in non reaper, store bought epic pl working in heroics, store bought broken op classes, etc was the reason why champs weren't optional.
It was bassicly an admission they screwwed up the balance.

In the mean while many vets lost touch with reality because they mostly run tr-s or twinked new toons for bank favor at best.
Hence the, take it down to normal attitude.

Sadly its a case of, cope with it or leave, ssg is addamant about their champs.

[hp1055cm]

I 100% agree. I am beyond frustrated. My wife and I just spend a pretty good bit of money buying XP tome boosts and different **** to try some builds and we are now level 8 trying to do irestone inlet on elite and we are gettng 1 shot by champions in that quest.

Said screw it, went to do the very first STK quest in MP (the level 3 one). Entered it on Elite (level 5) and theres CR9 MOBS IN THERE...
5 minutes in, and what to we encounter - a ****ING CHAMPION. Guess what he does, he 1 shots us both.

It's not the champions, it's you if you are level 8. Try using a fortification item for defense.
If you want advice about strategy or builds then ask for it - much better results than making excuses.

Fun part is, that super vets dont do Hard/Elite anyway. They do Reaper. They don't even know how it really is to be new or casual or returning player.

Actually, no. We know exactly how it is to be casual or new because we have all been through it. We just don't complain as often; or tolerate people who do much.

[Alcides]

If you're dying on hard or elite you need better gear stats or build. Fortification is a must...and some extra health doesn't hurt. This game takes time and patience to get decent at. I came back 2 years ago and it took some time to make some more viable toons. Range is what a lot of people use for farming past lives or warlock. This is not an MMO that you turn your brain off and mindlessly farm out of the chute. It takes understanding of game mechanics quests and a whole lot of other stuff. Learn and grow or if that is not something you want to do then this is probably not the right game for you.

There is always running a tank and healer duo. You'll definitely find people to run with if you both get good at that.

[count_spicoli]

I 100% agree. I am beyond frustrated. My wife and I just spend a pretty good bit of money buying XP tome boosts and different **** to try some builds and we are now level 8 trying to do irestone inlet on elite and we are gettng 1 shot by champions in that quest.

Said screw it, went to do the very first STK quest in MP (the level 3 one). Entered it on Elite (level 5) and theres CR9 MOBS IN THERE...
5 minutes in, and what to we encounter - a ****ING CHAMPION. Guess what he does, he 1 shots us both.

This is utter friggin BS. I remember back in 2006-2009 I could duo with someone in elite and as long as we were careful would be ok, now we have to deal with champion ****!

Why didnt you just enable it as an OPTION ffs!!!!

I was right when I made that post saying that you are destroying your game.

And all you veterans who have been here for 13 years that have like 200 TR's and are basically invincible now can go to hell.
Dont you ever ask why theres no new players here.

Enjoy your broken game.

Really? Lvl 8 Irestone and struggling? Some people are just bad at this game.

I'm just guessing but this is probably what devs are thinking

[gunner2]

This game used to rock for me. When it first started it was difficult and you needed a balanced group to run most quests. Then people started complaining that it was too hard so the devs made it easy for anyone to solo it. Now it was to easy so they made game play more difficult through many mechanisms and when it was too hard again, they started giving out equipment loot that was insane for the level of character starting out. Then it was too easy again so they came up with the champion monsters which sucks.

I played with groups when I first started and it was fun. I joined guilds and it was fun. Then the game got taken over by uber players and more casual players started fleeing the game. A few like me have hung in there but all I want to do is relax and play solo

Normal should be all right for a solo player but i find that gaining favor is next to impossible and playing on hard is getting to be unenjoyable because these champion monsters are too numerous and overpowered. I don't care what anyone else thinks. This is my opinion. I have read yours and you are entitled to your opinion but don't try to fit us casual players into your little box of how the game should be played by everyone.

A simple solution would be to scale down the number/difficulty of the champions based on the number of players in the group or just simply let me opt out of playing with champion monsters in the game.

I payed for the game when it first came out, and have paid my yearly fee all these years but feel left out because of all the uber players *****ing and devs responding only to their concerns. The end result is so many fewer players than there used to be and a lot more players wanting to just play solo. So go ahead and tear me down, let me know how superior you are, and keep watching as the player base goes down and down.

I love the playing mechanics and the way I can customize my characters. As soon as I can find a game to match this experience, I will finally quit this game and move on.

[spyder7723]

This game used to rock for me. When it first started it was difficult and you needed a balanced group to run most quests. Then people started complaining that it was too hard so the devs made it easy for anyone to solo it. Now it was to easy so they made game play more difficult through many mechanisms and when it was too hard again, they started giving out equipment loot that was insane for the level of character starting out. Then it was too easy again so they came up with the champion monsters which sucks.

I played with groups when I first started and it was fun. I joined guilds and it was fun. Then the game got taken over by uber players and more casual players started fleeing the game. A few like me have hung in there but all I want to do is relax and play solo

Normal should be all right for a solo player but i find that gaining favor is next to impossible and playing on hard is getting to be unenjoyable because these champion monsters are too numerous and overpowered. I don't care what anyone else thinks. This is my opinion. I have read yours and you are entitled to your opinion but don't try to fit us casual players into your little box of how the game should be played by everyone.

A simple solution would be to scale down the number/difficulty of the champions based on the number of players in the group or just simply let me opt out of playing with champion monsters in the game.

I payed for the game when it first came out, and have paid my yearly fee all these years but feel left out because of all the uber players *****ing and devs responding only to their concerns. The end result is so many fewer players than there used to be and a lot more players wanting to just play solo. So go ahead and tear me down, let me know how superior you are, and keep watching as the player base goes down and down.

I love the playing mechanics and the way I can customize my characters. As soon as I can find a game to match this experience, I will finally quit this game and move on.

They dont cater to the top 5% uber players. Quite the opposite because If they did all new content would be level 30. When in fact there is only a handful of non raid level 30 quests to run for reaper xp. The top 5% are running high skull reaper level 30 quests on capped characters.

Question: why is gaining max so important to you? Outside the bank and back space which is very easy for even the most casual player to achieve there really isn't any big favor rewards except the plus 5 tome, which should be VERY difficult to get.

[slarden]

The top 5% are running high skull reaper level 30 quests on capped characters.

The top 5% left the game. The dedicated grinders are cherry picking quests with the best rxp per minute.

Question: why is gaining max so important to you? Outside the bank and back space which is very easy for even the most casual player to achieve there really isn't any big favor rewards except the plus 5 tome, which should be VERY difficult to get.

It's not up to you or I to determine what is important for other people to get.

The problem with the champion system since it's inception is that it over-rewarded 2 forms of defense - hp and prr. For that reason I always supported the idea to include a champion rate scaler that people can adjust to decrease or increase the rate of champions and resulting remnants. The problem is even worse now since there is such a massive gap in hp and prr based on all the grinds in the game.

SSG would have reduced alot of attrition if they put the scaler in for at least hard and elite difficulties. For reaper you should only be able to adjust the rate up and not down.

In the mean while many vets lost touch with reality because they mostly run tr-s or twinked new toons for bank favor at best.
Hence the, take it down to normal attitude.

Sadly its a case of, cope with it or leave, ssg is addamant about their champs.

Agreed.

[Ron]

Peeks my head in. Sees Champions are still a thing. Sighs. Walks away.

[hp1055cm]

I'm writing this because I really want to enjoy the game, I really do. The dungeons are great, I like the story lines, and I enjoy the fair difficulty of elite, and the game has a lot going for it. Yet the current state of champions combined with the utter lack of difficulty on normal or even hard makes the only one difficult setting outright frustrating due to terrible implementation of this mechanic. Reaper I'm not even mentioning, it isn't for me.

The situation requires better strategy, and an understanding of what you need to do to improve your character.

Trolls (and Ogres) hit hard; their swings will often critical so it is imperative to have high fortification when getting into melee range with them. Moderate fortification (75%) is available at level 6 and is the lowest amount you should have when engaging trolls in melee. More fort is better. You can get a Sapphire of heavy fort (100%) at level 8, and there are other sources that can get you higher.

When Trolls attack watch their animations. They have about 3 behaviors, the swing once, stop and use a bow, or wind up and hit 3 times. The last one is the one you need to avoid. You can move closer then jump away a few times to induce the Troll to use his bow - that is when you move in and pound him a few times then move away. You can't avoid getting hit, but you can reduce how often you get hit.

There are a variety of champions and some are more dangerous then others. Monster_Champion

LOOK at your defensive stats and try to improve them. A Paly has good saves (or should), can use heavy armor and you want to max your sheltering (PRR and MRR) for the level. Natural armor, parrying and protection improve your AC (so they miss you more often). Heal amp helps. Poison resistance is helpful. Blur (or Dusk) is helpful. Paly's should have high constitution and decent HPs.

Offensively you need good weapon(s), deadly, armour piercing, accuracy, double strike, and a speed item (or alacrity) among other things.
Max Charisma, Strength and Constitution are essential at a minimum. Dexterity and Wisdom are important too.

__________
Monks have Stunning Fist (and or jade strike) to help deal with champs. When I play warlock I use Web at lower levels for CC. On an Arti I can kite tougher foes when needed.
You need a strategy to deal with Champs. If you are strong enough you take them out first; if not you avoid them while culling the mobs. On a caster you use CC to slow them down.

I don't play Palys so I am not sure what the best strategy is for them - I assume you should heal well so get heal amp, a devotion item and maybe positive lore so your heals (lay on hands) have max effect.
Paly's can use serious healing wands, potions, and scrolls as a cleric so healing should be fast on Elite difficulty.
You should have decent DPS on Elite, even with sub par weapons. You should be able to isolate 1 foe and hurt them. Look for ways to increase your damage. You are using Smite Evil against champs/bosses right?

_________
As for the Hires you have to learn to manage them to keep them alive. Park them when necessary out of harms way. You should only pull them into a situation where they draw aggro in emergencies.
I still use hires often and mine hardly ever die, even on Reaper 3 at level. They are a headache and they act stupid or possessed sometimes but you can use them effectively with good management.
In my experience the FVS hires are generally better than the Cleric hires. Some I just avoid because they are so prone to disregard commands.

Well I don't know if you will ever come back to read this, or even find it helpful, but Elite can be done without a lot of past lives on most content once you understand the mechanics of the game so don't bail on it.