U40 Preview 2: New Raid "Killing Time" Feedback Thread

[Shadow_Jumper]

I hope you don't make it too ez DC casters already dominate 90% of the game its kinda nice that raids give tanks a place too.

Having a use for DC casters and a tank are not mutually exclusive.

Tanks are already going to be very important don’t worry:

[Renvar]

Just jumping in to let people know that Torc is working on some stuff to make sure DC casters have a role to fill in the raid after having read the feedback.

Bookmark this for all those times when players say that giving lama feedback is pointless and nothing ever changes. That and the 50% HP boost reduction to 25% make two recent large examples of responsiveness to player feedback.

I happen to disagree with both those changes. I wish you guys would pick other feedback to be responsive to, but at least it's clear you all are reading feedback and incorporating it in your designs. So that's a positive.

[Ladywolf]

Fun parts were seeing the older quests and raids again.
Not so fun parts were the redundancy of dragon beat downs, and the very anti-climactic ending (but I’m assuming there will be another final fight on live).
Hopefully the perma dot that sometimes sticks on the toons is fixed

[MistaMagic]

2 thing on testing

1) Being Colour Blind I could not see that some of the wisps had a shield and could not work out why my attacks were returning zero until another party member told me it had a shield on
2) My Echo of Ravenkind ceased to give me good damage due to the bug where I needed to relog to get it back

[Odysseus2011]

Just jumping in to let people know that Torc is working on some stuff to make sure DC casters have a role to fill in the raid after having read the feedback.

The question in my mind is how such changes could best be implemented. I don't think removing 1 or 2 of the Kor Kaza fights and replacing them with trash that can just be instakilled will be enough justification to bring casters. In both the Ravenloft raids casters are useful; in Baba Lysaga having casters to Mass Frog the totems and scarecrows expedites those portions of the raid; yet these potions of the raid can also be done very successfully with groups that bring more brawn than brains. In my opinion this is a good balance of usefulness that makes casters appreciated however not absolutely required; also since this is a raid with a raid boss having an overabundance of casters is not a good idea; since someone still has to kill Baba Lysaga and/or the mounds.

The Curse of Strahd is a little less tilted towards favoring casters than Baba Lysaga in that most of the objectives are straight beatdowns; however bring 1 or 2 casters is still very appreciated for the portion of the raid that takes part at the top of the stairs. having someone who can control the spawns in that location where there is very little room to maneuver as well as being attacked by Strahd himself makes things much smoother and beneficial to the party, while at the same time having an overabundance of casters is a detriment to groups in these raids. In my opinion those raids do well to balance the need/reliance on casters making them useful; but not absolutely required.

As for Killing Time at the moment there is literally zero reason to bring any caster other than a cleric/favored soul; when we ran it reaper 1 on lammania my wizard felt next to useless other than just providing heals to the group with consecration/divine wrath. In fact for later runs I swapped out many of my caster based twists of fate (Spell Penetration, DC Bonuses) for more healing options since there was literally nothing else for me to do for the group. However I think the solution to such an issue should not be to just give casters a platform that they can play around with PK/FoD/Wail but something more intrinsic to the raid's objectives.

As for what such changes might look like I have to say I'm not sure, but I'm all ears to suggestions; I do think that this would be a good topic for further discussion about the raid.

[Aelonwy]

As for what such changes might look like I have to say I'm not sure, but I'm all ears to suggestions; I do think that this would be a good topic for further discussion about the raid.

Well I have a suggestion but I don't think anyone is going to like it. For a long time now Dispel, Greater Dispel and Mordenkainen's Disjunction have been largely useless because of the mechanic of enemy CR (i think) versus the way these spells work so its incredibly effective for enemy casters and not useful at all for us except for lowering Spellwards. If these could be used on the red ball spell mobs (I'm sorry I don't remember what they were officially called) to reduce their interference during the fights that could be actually useful. Might also give the L. Adversion a reason to exist.

[Sam-u-r-eye]

The question in my mind is how such changes could best be implemented. I don't think removing 1 or 2 of the Kor Kaza fights and replacing them with trash that can just be instakilled will be enough justification to bring casters. In both the Ravenloft raids casters are useful; in Baba Lysaga having casters to Mass Frog the totems and scarecrows expedites those portions of the raid; yet these potions of the raid can also be done very successfully with groups that bring more brawn than brains. In my opinion this is a good balance of usefulness that makes casters appreciated however not absolutely required; also since this is a raid with a raid boss having an overabundance of casters is not a good idea; since someone still has to kill Baba Lysaga and/or the mounds.

The Curse of Strahd is a little less tilted towards favoring casters than Baba Lysaga in that most of the objectives are straight beatdowns; however bring 1 or 2 casters is still very appreciated for the portion of the raid that takes part at the top of the stairs. having someone who can control the spawns in that location where there is very little room to maneuver as well as being attacked by Strahd himself makes things much smoother and beneficial to the party, while at the same time having an overabundance of casters is a detriment to groups in these raids. In my opinion those raids do well to balance the need/reliance on casters making them useful; but not absolutely required.

As for Killing Time at the moment there is literally zero reason to bring any caster other than a cleric/favored soul; when we ran it reaper 1 on lammania my wizard felt next to useless other than just providing heals to the group with consecration/divine wrath. In fact for later runs I swapped out many of my caster based twists of fate (Spell Penetration, DC Bonuses) for more healing options since there was literally nothing else for me to do for the group. However I think the solution to such an issue should not be to just give casters a platform that they can play around with PK/FoD/Wail but something more intrinsic to the raid's objectives.

As for what such changes might look like I have to say I'm not sure, but I'm all ears to suggestions; I do think that this would be a good topic for further discussion about the raid.

dat is some phat pheebak

[caberonia]

Just jumping in to let people know that Torc is working on some stuff to make sure DC casters have a role to fill in the raid after having read the feedback.

So trash mobs to instakill is the likely solution here. Although preferred would be to make raid bosses Vulnerable to DEBUFF spells.. think slow etc as well as making Spell BUFFS useful again rather than giving out bigger NON stacking bonuses on equipement. Maintaining debuffs and buffs to reduce incoming damage, increase outgoing dps, make hate management easier etc etc. All the things you see in other MMos that somehow got thrown in the trash in DDO due to blanket immunities and equipment power creep giving the SAME type of bonuses as spells. Give use to those underpowered schools of magic as well as make casters desirable but not absolutely necessary unless the fight was balanced with constant debuffs in mind.

I can dream.

[Souless]

A couple things seemed to hit too soft or too hard.

The whisps were hitting for 1k on R1 which felt a bit overtuned compared to the dragon.
The chaos damage from the "Moving Walls" felt like we could ignore it on R1. It should probably be 2-3x higher.

The purple circles felt good---they were obvious and did lots of damage. (The ToD shadows fight is super fun IMO.)

Speak for yourself!!!

Since I have noticed no other place in the Forums for feedback on the raid I'm posting here.

The incoming environmental damage seems to come in 4 flavors:

1. Chaos balls that cannot be avoided (disruption in time). Boots of anchoring have no effect for mitigating this damage (WAI) I guess. Even though in the boots description it specifically states that the purpose of preventing time-related damage. Additionally, there seems to be a minimum threshold of MRR to completely ignore the balls (as stated above). However, on my Rog w/43 MRR this damage CANNOT be dismissed. There is no evasion save for the ball to "miss", if the ball is near you, you are ticked for damage. For me it is 250+ points per tick. And it seems to tick at a minimum of 4 ticks (usually about 1k of damage). With casters @ 2k HP's and rapid healing, Tanks w/5k HP's that can ignore the effect. But my lowly Rog can't! Please add an evasion save for at least partial damage even if the save is required for each tick.

2. Circles. Like the Chaos balls there is no evasion save. If you are in the circle you take damage. Once again this punishes my toon for his class. I have even been floating the idea of bringing a suit of plate to switch into for the island fights. The only positive thing I can say about this damage is at least there is a warning. However, the dragon often trips you with the tail whip (NO EVASION SAVE or BALLANCE CHECK) and you are stuck to ride out the damage (usually in the form of a stone).

3. Lightning storm/meteor swarm. These spells also have NO EVASION SAVE. Have you noticed a point yet. The only mitigation is MRR which my toons is near maximum @ 43. On R1 I can't survive a single strike. For my mechanic (ranged) build, the is no place to hide on the islands. The healers are busy with healing the group, to target me for individual heals=death for everyone else. So if I want heals I must stay with the melee.

4. Trash mobs. My issue here is: they seem to ignore dodge, laugh at my ghostly presence, and don't even blink at my blur/smoke/lesser and full displacement. The archers tare though my HP bar like tissue-paper.

So my question is: what's a Rog to do? Earlier in this thread players were asking for something for the DC-casters to do. Killing Trash mobs seems to be the answer.

There are almost no trap boxes (I did disable the 2 in the Wiz King penalty box). Stealth is useless (except for maybe the Pit penalty box), which I am unsure of as every time I've gone there was a reaper to activate the trash.

This does not even address the issue of champs and reapers. Which are a separate issue. And may be (WAI).

I'm not sure what all this adds up to, but it feels like in order for the Development Team to make the raid challenging for everyone else, they have to completely crush my class to uselessness.

The Bytcher~

Souless/Valice/Spectyr/Xbow/Xindao/Tazzor-----Ascent

[irnimnode]

Are they going to open Lamannia? My launcher just did down all of the updates. Can any of the Dev's respond to this are you opening or what?

[JOTMON]

Speak for yourself!!!

Since I have noticed no other place in the Forums for feedback on the raid I'm posting here.

The incoming environmental damage seems to come in 4 flavors:

1. Chaos balls that cannot be avoided (disruption in time). Boots of anchoring have no effect for mitigating this damage (WAI) I guess. Even though in the boots description it specifically states that the purpose of preventing time-related damage. Additionally, there seems to be a minimum threshold of MRR to completely ignore the balls (as stated above). However, on my Rog w/43 MRR this damage CANNOT be dismissed. There is no evasion save for the ball to "miss", if the ball is near you, you are ticked for damage. For me it is 250+ points per tick. And it seems to tick at a minimum of 4 ticks (usually about 1k of damage). With casters @ 2k HP's and rapid healing, Tanks w/5k HP's that can ignore the effect. But my lowly Rog can't! Please add an evasion save for at least partial damage even if the save is required for each tick.

2. Circles. Like the Chaos balls there is no evasion save. If you are in the circle you take damage. Once again this punishes my toon for his class. I have even been floating the idea of bringing a suit of plate to switch into for the island fights. The only positive thing I can say about this damage is at least there is a warning. However, the dragon often trips you with the tail whip (NO EVASION SAVE or BALLANCE CHECK) and you are stuck to ride out the damage (usually in the form of a stone).

3. Lightning storm/meteor swarm. These spells also have NO EVASION SAVE. Have you noticed a point yet. The only mitigation is MRR which my toons is near maximum @ 43. On R1 I can't survive a single strike. For my mechanic (ranged) build, the is no place to hide on the islands. The healers are busy with healing the group, to target me for individual heals=death for everyone else. So if I want heals I must stay with the melee.

4. Trash mobs. My issue here is: they seem to ignore dodge, laugh at my ghostly presence, and don't even blink at my blur/smoke/lesser and full displacement. The archers tare though my HP bar like tissue-paper.

So my question is: what's a Rog to do? Earlier in this thread players were asking for something for the DC-casters to do. Killing Trash mobs seems to be the answer.

There are almost no trap boxes (I did disable the 2 in the Wiz King penalty box). Stealth is useless (except for maybe the Pit penalty box), which I am unsure of as every time I've gone there was a reaper to activate the trash.

This does not even address the issue of champs and reapers. Which are a separate issue. And may be (WAI).

I'm not sure what all this adds up to, but it feels like in order for the Development Team to make the raid challenging for everyone else, they have to completely crush my class to uselessness.

The Bytcher~

Souless/Valice/Spectyr/Xbow/Xindao/Tazzor-----Ascent

The raid is different than other raids.. no rest time to regroup, clear death timers.. or any sort of pause.. have to keep the dragon engaged or fail rather quickly..

Portals are 1 way..
Split party that goes into the portals cant get out until their fight is finished and once it is the shrine is only accessible by those in that portal fight.
Causes issues if there is a problem on the outside portion since dimension lock is enabled, so no ddoor either.


1. yeah.. whatthe…we are taking time distortion damage


2. damage is only reduced by MRR from all these attack sources.. definitely no love for the non-tanks.. gottta beef up your HP in this one..

3. why the unlimited range on the lighting strikes..
I was way out of line of sight and getting lightening strike spams trying to get back to the dragon after getting knocked off, clearing the prison, porting back to the center and couldn't heal fast enough to offset the spam strikes.
basically you are screwed.

also WTXF is the deal with elemental absorptions.. what stacks .. what doesn't.. most of the descriptions don't show a type and there is no character sheet view for absorption numbers..
Its frustrating that we have to randomly screw around mix/matching items to maybe figure out if something stacks.
Especially when its multiplicative stacking not additive... its been years of lacking information with dev driven changes behind the scenes...
I crafted a3x Legendary GS absortion item to discover that the tiers are not stacking only the highest applies and it only increases by incremets of 5.. T1-25%, T2-30%, t3-35%
Heroic greensteel 3x absorption stacks.. but doesn't show in the effects log anything for t2/t3.. ultimately it gives 45% absorption which is better than the epic Greensteel which does not stack and maxes at 35%
[expletive] waste of time and resources building that Epic GS near useless piece of junk...Heroic GS, Cannith crafting and random scraps have better absorption numbers..

.

@Lynnabel… please fix the loot descriptions to better show what type of defense this stuff has.. enhancement, insightful..etc…. this no description BS needs to end..
especially when we do not have a display to show what our actual numbers for defense are.

You are the loot maker/fixer now.. are you not...