DDOCast 471 - Update 35 Review

[pjstechie]

This week we take an indepth look at Update 35 and review it with Asheras & Voodu!

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Update 35 Review - 1:50
Game News - 1:12:00
Community News - 1:26:39
Lightning Post - 1:30:28
Closing - 1:35:41

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Players Council Applications
DDO Chronicle 233
Micki’s Dilirium: How to Flag for Caught in the Web

[FuzzyDuck81]

One of my main criticisms of the newer quests (not just this update) is the mob placement, where its the same kind of arrangement & groups each time - understandable in places (like ToEE) which use the encounter type mechanic so it effectively rolls on a chart of what you'll find, but in static quests it's really more noticeable that shortcuts have been taken with the ol copy & paste tool, vs. other quests where there will be some wandering, a few in bed, others on specific guard posts etc.

Newcomers I find the more enjoyable of the 2 quests, the platforming room is pretty fun & if you don't have wings or similar then the timing on switching the last air jets can be pretty challenging when soloing. Black & blue I find to be somewhat more tedious & repetitive, with a lot of boring empty space used as padding vs. newcomer's which has more variety.

Only tried the new raid once on EN before the update to reduce the HPs & we failed after spending over 3 hours in there - however, I liked the mechanic overall though it probably could do with some extra tweaking & think it looks phenomenal, will be nice to try it out again some time with the changes. Adding some extra way to mitigate the lightning damage would be nice, eg. something similar to how you're given the boots of grounding in haunted halls, maybe an item with a number of charges, either auto consumed for a switchable, or an activated clicky that lets you manually ground yourself out safely to clear your stacks a set number of times, perhaps even just a couple of items that let you count as sheltered when not moving & out in the open, which would be great for the puzzle solvers to use.

I like that the skeletons are turnable in the raid and I suspect this might be with an eye to forthcoming improvements for Ravenloft & divines in general by reducing the number of hit dice on undead & adding an extra flat number of hitpoints instead to compensate, allowing more character special abilities to be valuable (since turning is meant to be central to clerics & important to paladins, but are currently not all that useful in higher levels & difficulties) & rewarding more tactical play.

The new loot is great, I like that they have a stronger specific theme to each item rather than having a more mismatched set of effects.

Really like the dragonborn race, they just look phenomenal & the racial tree has some nice abilities. The breath weapon is pretty fun but seems more gimmicky than a practical thing without a lot of spellpower & metamagic investment.

Other racial changes were really nice, I love the memories of the last war enhancement that makes vanilla warforged more even with bladeforged. I like that the shadar-kai's spiked chain is actually viable now it scales with melee power & haven't tried drow darkfire yet but it's on the radar for a forthcoming TR.

I suspect certain things appearing on buff rather than debuff bar might be due to some backend categorisation thing, where if something is treated as a buff then it means there'll be less way to have it not effect someone when it's supposed to, preventing potential exploits - iirc something like that was an issue with holy aura back in the day, where it meant the blindness portion for mobs was no save allowed, granting a huge advantage.

[Steve_Howe]

I agree with Patrick regarding the frequency of the lightning strikes in the new raid. The amount of damage they do is pretty high but it is survivable if you are prepared for it. The number of times you can get struck by it is a little much, though. Maybe cut the rate by a quarter or a third.

[Steve_Howe]

stupid double post

[Livmo]

I agree with Voodu. I don't think the raid deserves a bad rap.

I had a blast. I was one of the 7 noobs to the raid and I only died allot in the end fight, because I wanted to test. I enjoyed the puzzles.




I figure it will take me a few runs to get it down cold. Perhaps a seasoned crew can split up, but definately safety in numbers if new to raid.

Good times!

TY all for waiting for me. I got on right after work and landed in instance 2 of Market.

[Vooduspyce]

I agree with Voodu. I don't think the raid deserves a bad rap.

I had a blast. I was one of the 7 noobs to the raid and I only died allot in the end fight, because I wanted to test. I enjoyed the puzzles.




I figure it will take me a few runs to get it down cold. Perhaps a seasoned crew can split up, but definately safety in numbers if new to raid.

Good times!

TY all for waiting for me. I got on right after work and landed in instance 2 of Market.

I'm glad you had fun in the teaching raid Livmo!

[pjstechie]

For those looking for an answer: Yes the skeleton priests in riding the storm out do cast a lightning strike that acts like the storm (and they do so rather rapidly if they can't get to you)

[Livmo]

For those looking for an answer: Yes the skeleton priests in riding the storm out do cast a lightning strike that acts like the storm (and they do so rather rapidly if they can't get to you)

This lends to taking them out ASAP, and perhaps if a group splits up, one or 2 small teams do puzzles, and the others seek and destroy?


I did learn in my 2nd run this week at the start to kill the small bags of HP skelies 1st and then the big one.