LE Curse the Sky @ Level 20?

[Tlorrd]

Legendary Elite was a nice attempt by the devs, but when a level 20 can complete with no deaths ...

I say bring on Reaper Mode! (and yes took a heck of a lot of time, but DPS is not great at level 20, killed everything, and got lost looking for levers)





Update: 12/24/15 ... here is my shiradi completion with less time ...

[Wipey]

I can't see images on these boards for some reason in Firefox.
But before I copy the adress into Opera, let me guess. ES borelock ?
Merry Christmas.

[Ghlitch]

It's much easier to nerf warlock than design another level of difficulty. Which do you think they're going to do with the limited development resources available to them?

[BigErkyKid]

Hello warlock!

I found this quest to be funny the first time, but very underwhelming. Mobs don't hit very hard but are annoying (ooze beating with heroic weapons is boring), so the problem is being worn down slowly.

Other than that, I am sure your post will irk a lot of people

[Nightmanis]

I can't see images on these boards for some reason in Firefox.
But before I copy the adress into Opera, let me guess. ES borelock ?
Merry Christmas.

You called it. Honestly I'm not surprised, considering how much warlocks just mop the floor seemingly regardless of who is controlling them.

Man is it fun trying to outkill them, though.

[slarden]

It doesn't bother me and shouldn't bother the devs that a level 20 character with many past lifes in unyielding sentinel is completing the quest in 80 minutes.

That's under 3 kills per minute in a very survivable build in a very survivable destiny. It seems to me the dps loss is a reasonable enough trade-off for the survivability.

There is not much the devs can do to challenge high prr builds without one-shotting unless they tweak the champion system to add effects like mortal fear that are PRR-neutral.

[Marshal_Lannes]

It's much easier to nerf warlock than design another level of difficulty. Which do you think they're going to do with the limited development resources available to them?

Warlocks need another round of nerfs and all past lives need to be removed for the good of the game. This is good proof that you cannot balance gameplay for the 50 past life set.

[BigErkyKid]

It doesn't bother me and shouldn't bother the devs that a level 20 character with many past lifes in unyielding sentinel is completing the quest in 80 minutes.

That's under 3 kills per minute in a very survivable build in a very survivable destiny. It seems to me the dps loss is a reasonable enough trade-off for the survivability.

There is not much the devs can do to challenge high prr builds without one-shotting unless they tweak the champion system to add effects like mortal fear that are PRR-neutral.

I disagree. Cut down 10 minutes for the optional, 10 for wasted time and you have 60 minutes, no deaths.

This is end game. I repeat, this is END GAME! Part of end game, at least. Part of the legendary bunch of quests that are supposed to be where you bring your top characters to be challenged.

If a guy can beat it at 20, what does it mean in terms of challenging top builds at 30?

Obviously there are many builds that won't finish it without a very proficient player, regardless of the level.

But End game is not supposed to be challenging only for "inferior" classes. It is meant to be where you bring your uberest character to have a fun challenge.

[slarden]

I disagree. Cut down 10 minutes for the optional, 10 for wasted time and you have 60 minutes, no deaths.

This is end game. I repeat, this is END GAME! Part of end game, at least. Part of the legendary bunch of quests that are supposed to be where you bring your top characters to be challenged.

If a guy can beat it at 20, what does it mean in terms of challenging top builds at 30?

Obviously there are many builds that won't finish it without a very proficient player, regardless of the level.

But End game is not supposed to be challenging only for "inferior" classes. It is meant to be where you bring your uberest character to have a fun challenge.

The reason is due to survivability not dps. Even if you cut off 10 minutes its still less than 3 kills per minute.

The problem is that 2 things remove risk of dying in this game almost entirely:
- high PRR/MRR and defenses
- ranged/casting kiting or ranged/casting from safe spots

A level 20 character with alot of past lifes in a very survivable build is going to survive better in LE content than many level 30 characters.

The time it takes to complete a quest absolutely matters since it is an indicator of dps and/or safety tactics (pulling 1 or 2 back at a time). There is nothing wrong with these tactics, but they decrease your chance of dying by increasing the time it takes to a finish a quest.

A con based warlock in unyielding sentinel is going to have higher hp, higher prr, higher mrr than a typical level 30 but worse dps. Much like a paladin with an eSos @ level 20 and some other highly survivable builds that will have high defenses. So yeah, completing, but at the cost of time. The fact that it took so long tells me it's not a problem the dps isn't that great which you would expect from a level 20. The fact that there are no deaths has more to do with dumping cha and going con based and being in unyielding sentinel. That doesn't have much to do with level -it's build.

[FrancisP.Fancypants]

I disagree. Cut down 10 minutes for the optional, 10 for wasted time and you have 60 minutes, no deaths.

This is end game. I repeat, this is END GAME! Part of end game, at least. Part of the legendary bunch of quests that are supposed to be where you bring your top characters to be challenged.

If a guy can beat it at 20, what does it mean in terms of challenging top builds at 30?

Obviously there are many builds that won't finish it without a very proficient player, regardless of the level.

But End game is not supposed to be challenging only for "inferior" classes. It is meant to be where you bring your uberest character to have a fun challenge.

This is an endgame toon- a debateably OP class, optimized.

If you want to nitpick that an endgame quest should be impossible for any toon under X level, fine; but you have to strike a balance between making a thing possible for a variety of toons/groups/builds and narrowing your requirements so that only whatever ultrageared FoTM is at the top of the pile can stand a chance.

Then again, until you do the same thing perhaps it's all just insecurity talking.

[slarden]

This is an endgame toon- a debateably OP class, optimized.

If you want to nitpick that an endgame quest should be impossible for any toon under X level, fine; but you have to strike a balance between making a thing possible for a variety of toons/groups/builds and narrowing your requirements so that only whatever ultrageared FoTM is at the top of the pile can stand a chance.

Then again, until you do the same thing perhaps it's all just insecurity talking.

While people like bashing warlocks, truth is a very large part of his high survivability came from

- past life feats - most notably prr
- unyielding sentinel - he is in a tanking destiny
- dumping cha and going con based. I would agree there probably should be more of a down side for dumping char than there is. The TS tree and epic feats should probably improve pact damage rather than base damage so that DC matters more. They should probably decrease base eld damage and increase pact damage. This would fix alot of the balance issues and force warlocks to care about DC.

[MaeveTuohy]

The reason is due to survivability not dps. Even if you cut off 10 minutes its still less than 3 kills per minute.

The problem is that 2 things remove risk of dying in this game almost entirely:
- high PRR/MRR and defenses
- ranged/casting kiting or ranged/casting from safe spots

A level 20 character with alot of past lifes in a very survivable build is going to survive better in LE content than many level 30 characters.

The time it takes to complete a quest absolutely matters since it is an indicator of dps and/or safety tactics (pulling 1 or 2 back at a time). There is nothing wrong with these tactics, but they decrease your chance of dying by increasing the time it takes to a finish a quest.

A con based warlock in unyielding sentinel is going to have higher hp, higher prr, higher mrr than a typical level 30 but worse dps. Much like a paladin with an eSos @ level 20 and some other highly survivable builds that will have high defenses. So yeah, completing, but at the cost of time. The fact that it took so long tells me it's not a problem the dps isn't that great which you would expect from a level 20. The fact that there are no deaths has more to do with dumping cha and going con based and being in unyielding sentinel. That doesn't have much to do with level -it's build.

Nailed it again.

Simply the best writer on these forums, and one of the few to not to use antagonistic language. I make a bee-line for your postings.

[Tlorrd]

The time it takes to complete a quest absolutely matters since it is an indicator of dps and/or safety tactics (pulling 1 or 2 back at a time). There is nothing wrong with these tactics, but they decrease your chance of dying by increasing the time it takes to a finish a quest.

So a couple things on the time.

1. I literally killed all mobs, sniping them all out of the air when not necessary so that increased a lot of time. Also I could have run through killing just what was needed and grabbing the crests then running again or even invising to make things go quicker.
2. I did not need to complete options, but N'elthera significantly increased time.
3. If I used shiradi nerve venom, that would significantly reduce time
4. US destiny was probably overkill for defenses

[BigErkyKid]

The reason is due to survivability not dps. Even if you cut off 10 minutes its still less than 3 kills per minute.

The problem is that 2 things remove risk of dying in this game almost entirely:
- high PRR/MRR and defenses
- ranged/casting kiting or ranged/casting from safe spots

So far we agree.

A level 20 character with alot of past lifes in a very survivable build is going to survive better in LE content than many level 30 characters.

No. With good gear, a level 30 character will destroy a level 20 with the best in slot and all the PLs.

That doesn't have much to do with level -it's build.

The problem again is that they have created a massive disparity between the power that different builds can achieve.

You are trashing the achievement for taking say 60 minutes. However, this is at level 20! How long would it take at lvl 30? Much less. I know because I brought my former level 26 barbarian into the quest with a level30 warlock. Legendary elite, of course. Not a single time the warlock player was in danger using US. Yet, we finished the quest relatively fast, with me picking more than half of it (joke was on me for not bringing proper weapons, my first run).

Again, the reason why it took 60 minutes is because of the lack of DPS. This is not completely inherent to the build but rather due to the fact that this is an end game quest in LE, the top of the top difficulty. He is beating down huge meatbags. At level 30 this would shave off at the very least 20 minutes if not more. And using the time it took on a level 20 against the point it proves is a perversion of evidence. I repeat one more time: would take far less time at level 30. But it was completed within reasonable time at level 20!


No matter how you spin it. This update was supposed to be the new end game. Yet, it was beaten in lama, it was completed in all difficulties on LE live. People have duoed already some of the LE raids. Every single one of those raids has been beaten by several raiding guilds in top difficulty despite the one shooting business. Now to add insult some guy on a warlock did one of the flaggers at 20.....

This is not what I envisioned as end game. This is not about being able to finish it with lots of works and failures, with weeks of training and new gear. No, this is just another grind. If you bring a group of very competent players in very good builds you finish it. Straightforward, from day 1.

Maybe this satisfies some people. It most certainly is not what I want as end game. I don't think it is what all the people asking for somewhere to bring their multi PLs uber toons were demanding.

[Saekee]

So a couple things on the time.

1. I literally killed all mobs, sniping them all out of the air when not necessary so that increased a lot of time. Also I could have run through killing just what was needed and grabbing the crests then running again or even invising to make things go quicker.
2. I did not need to complete options, but N'elthera significantly increased time.
3. If I used shiradi nerve venom, that would significantly reduce time
4. US destiny was probably overkill for defenses

nice--I am curious to see the faster completions you suggest here. Perhaps we need a thread for level 20 LE completions then in achievements--it would be fun to see the people pulling it off.

[MaeveTuohy]

So a couple things on the time.

1. I literally killed all mobs, sniping them all out of the air when not necessary so that increased a lot of time. Also I could have run through killing just what was needed and grabbing the crests then running again or even invising to make things go quicker.
2. I did not need to complete options, but N'elthera significantly increased time.
3. If I used shiradi nerve venom, that would significantly reduce time
4. US destiny was probably overkill for defenses

It is interesting to read the various negative reactions I have seen when you have posted screen shots of the things you have achieved as a lvl 20 warlock. Some of it is probably sour grapes, some of it warlock hate; however I think that of the big problem is the conflicting expectation that it should not be possible. Many players still imagine that level 20 should be significantly less potent than level 30. Now, maybe it should be, but that is not how Turbine has constructed the epic levels. Much of the power comes not from levelling (new feats, better gear) but from the Destinies and PLs, the benefits of which begin immediately. If a lvl 10 toon could walk through lvl 20 quests on elite we would know there was a problem, because there's far more structured progression in heroic levels. However, if many of the class benefits (APs and spells, say) were available at 10th level, you could expect to see the right builds in the hands of the right player soloing HE 20th level quests.

If someone being able to do this is not what players want to see, the design flaw lies principally in granting players the full power of their epic destinies at level 20.

[Blastyswa]

It doesn't bother me and shouldn't bother the devs that a level 20 character with many past lifes in unyielding sentinel is completing the quest in 80 minutes.

That's under 3 kills per minute in a very survivable build in a very survivable destiny. It seems to me the dps loss is a reasonable enough trade-off for the survivability.

There is not much the devs can do to challenge high prr builds without one-shotting unless they tweak the champion system to add effects like mortal fear that are PRR-neutral.

Agreed. The time on this isn't very impressive at all; it's not a matter of the quest being too easy, it's a matter of someone being willing to spend upwards of an hour watching things die from an aura and occasional bursts while hiding behind a shield. Completing this on a damage based warlock (Shiradi or Exalted Angel, not using a shield) or a different build would be impressive; the only thing that caught my attention looking at this was "Wow, that's an hour that guy will never get back."

[sjbb87]

Nice...
I was just curious about the final fight.
The quest itself is not difficult, but the final fight is pretty complicated, to run solo

[Blastyswa]

Overall, my experience with warlock is that it's very easy to achieve decent performance as a player with lower amounts of skill/practice (casual players, older folks, etc.) but has a very high level of performance that can be reached by people who have been effective with other classes/builds (College/teenage people, game is life folk). I don't see any problem with a player being able to take over an hour to complete a quest largely by standing still with an aura; it's not the way most people would prefer to play. Going as a shiradi or exalted angel warlock would have made this run a lot quicker, assuming that the original poster could survive without easy button heals (renewal, lay on hands if he took it) and innate defenses (several hundred extra hp, more PRR).

I played a warlock at cap on my main character for the first week of this update before reincarnating back to my old melee build, and in my experience epic level warlocks main advantage is ease of playing. Hopping into sentinel with a skyvault and aura going once every two seconds is much more power than casual players and unoptimized builds have had access to in the past. However, playing a decent offense based warlock will create the results that cause people to ask for nerfs. Warlock is however balanced somewhat by the fact that much of it's damage comes through resistance to lag, and high burst damage. In example, during the riposte bug, I had multiple LE completions of quests where the tactic utilized was the party was along the lines of watch Dazling stand next to enemies while the aura kills them all. In this situation, warlocks excel. In situations like EN/EH questing for experience, lower level EE's, or basically anything where enemies have 10,000 HP or less warlocks excel; in those situations, I could often lead the kill total with 50% or more of the entire parties kills (assuming a full 6 man group). In situations where HP exceeded that amount, like EE DoJ, EE new quests, and EE new raids, my kill total, on an offense based warlock (Exalted Angel, Thunderforge and insightful radiance weapons, twists and gear focused towards offense), dropped down to basically carrying my own weight, while builds specialized in sustained DPS would pull ahead (Well built palys, barbs, rangers, and mechanics typically).

Warlock's power doesn't come from it being innately overpowered, but from it's abilities to either output constant low levels of damage (my aura did about 1500/second, about a quarter of my melee builds sustained DPS) or to output high levels of damage (10k+ in the first two seconds from both bursts and two aura ticks) but rapidly tapers off from there as sustained damage builds overtake the bursty expertise of warlocks. Because of this, I am not surprised to see such a quick posting of an LE completion of these two raids at this level; I am also not surprised that it was done by a character playing with extreme emphasis on defense, using a build that, if played with a group of good players in other classes, would likely be outdpsed significantly. I expect that difficulty will remain at largely the same level throughout legendary content, with relatively few people suddenly finding themselves unable to make the jump from EE to LE, but hope that a spike will eventually come in the form of Reaper difficulty (If my LE raid group is able to do more than Reaper Casual when it's first released, I will be disappointed.).

[Hobgoblin]

Overall, my experience with warlock is that it's very easy to achieve decent performance as a player with lower amounts of skill/practice (casual players, older folks, etc.) but has a very high level of performance that can be reached by people who have been effective with other classes/builds (College/teenage people, game is life folk). I don't see any problem with a player being able to take over an hour to complete a quest largely by standing still with an aura; it's not the way most people would prefer to play. Going as a shiradi or exalted angel warlock would have made this run a lot quicker, assuming that the original poster could survive without easy button heals (renewal, lay on hands if he took it) and innate defenses (several hundred extra hp, more PRR).
I played a warlock at cap on my main character for the first week of this update before reincarnating back to my old melee build, and in my experience epic level warlocks main advantage is ease of playing. Hopping into sentinel with a skyvault and aura going once every two seconds is much more power than casual players and unoptimized builds have had access to in the past. However, playing a decent offense based warlock will create the results that cause people to ask for nerfs. Warlock is however balanced somewhat by the fact that much of it's damage comes through resistance to lag, and high burst damage. In example, during the riposte bug, I had multiple LE completions of quests where the tactic utilized was the party was along the lines of watch Dazling stand next to enemies while the aura kills them all. In this situation, warlocks excel. In situations like EN/EH questing for experience, lower level EE's, or basically anything where enemies have 10,000 HP or less warlocks excel; in those situations, I could often lead the kill total with 50% or more of the entire parties kills (assuming a full 6 man group). In situations where HP exceeded that amount, like EE DoJ, EE new quests, and EE new raids, my kill total, on an offense based warlock (Exalted Angel, Thunderforge and insightful radiance weapons, twists and gear focused towards offense), dropped down to basically carrying my own weight, while builds specialized in sustained DPS would pull ahead (Well built palys, barbs, rangers, and mechanics typically).
Warlock's power doesn't come from it being innately overpowered, but from it's abilities to either output constant low levels of damage (my aura did about 1500/second, about a quarter of my melee builds sustained DPS) or to output high levels of damage (10k+ in the first two seconds from both bursts and two aura ticks) but rapidly tapers off from there as sustained damage builds overtake the bursty expertise of warlocks. Because of this, I am not surprised to see such a quick posting of an LE completion of these two raids at this level; I am also not surprised that it was done by a character playing with extreme emphasis on defense, using a build that, if played with a group of good players in other classes, would likely be outdpsed significantly. I expect that difficulty will remain at largely the same level throughout legendary content, with relatively few people suddenly finding themselves unable to make the jump from EE to LE, but hope that a spike will eventually come in the form of Reaper difficulty (If my LE raid group is able to do more than Reaper Casual when it's first released, I will be disappointed.).

holy wall of text batman!