U42 Preview 2: First Sharn Raid

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Masterminds of Sharn is expected to feature 2 Raids. One will release with Update 42 and the second will make it's way to live in a followup patch sometime after (just like the release schedule for the two Mists of Ravenloft Raids: "Curse of Strahd" and "Old Baba's Hut"). This preview contains the first Masterminds of Sharn Raid currently named "Too Hot to Handle". Players can gain access to this by speaking to "Lord Poincelot" in the center of the test dojo and then purchasing the "Masterminds of Sharn" adventure pack in the DDO Store. The questgiver and raid entrance can be found in "Alcorin's Forge" the raid staging area public space located within the Cogs. Players can either traverse the Cogs Explorer area to reach Alcorin's Forge or they can speak to the "Cogs Guide" in the clifftop tower district of Sharn in order to teleport directly there.

Quest Known Issues

• Experience has not been set, and will change.
• Dungeon decoration, character appearances, and lighting in the dungeons are not complete.
• Text should be complete, but may contain typos.
• There is a stuck spot behind the left furnace.

[Strimtom]

So my guild did the first raid last night on normal. If you want a point of reference, I posted a video of it here.

My first few thoughts were as follows...

• The stacking fire damage is insane and seems way too strong. It stacks too fast and reaches 25 stacks nearly instantly while working on the puzzle.
• The red named forgewraiths have too much health to be killed.
• Instakills work and are required but not necromancy (RIP Palemaster)
• I think turn undead in this raid could be bananas (didn't test it)
• The normal mode raid was beatable with basically no defensive optimization other than twisting in Energy Sheathe Fire. I think high difficulty requires more fire resistance.
• When you get even 2 forgewraith giants in the second phase of the boss fight you can't realistically remove them without insane DPS since more keep spawning. Unless there is a secret mechanics to remove them this might be an issue.

After finishing the raid on normal, we tried Reaper 1. We knew what to expect, and has these difference realizations:

• The puzzle room isn't really that hard. We had 2 people who knew how to puzzle and didn't even get to 5 stacks.
• Instakills are extremely important, get ready for mass frog monk meta.
• We wiped at the first boss phase because we go overrun by forgewraiths and the skulls were doing almost 4k damage when you randomly get hit by them.
• Sometimes you just get killed even without anything travelling to you or being visible, but the combat log reports it as a forgewraith skull attack.
• Everything has a lot of health. Like, a lot. I think that on normal our group could clear it in maybe 14 minutes, but man on R1 we spent 2 minutes on the boss and he was down maybe 5%. Insane HP. I get the idea that PRR/MRR reduction is a thing now but melee does so much more damage than casters that I don't think you could do this as a caster. You run out of mana trying to do damage here.
• Crazy magic damage. Our tank had 450PRR/300 MRR and was getting straight murdered by the skulls and the boss.

Overall, really fun. We experimented with many things and had a good time. I like the raid, it's pretty quick and not too tough to grasp. I think it might be a nightmare for pugging but really all you need is 2 people who know the puzzle, 1 tank for the boss, and maybe 2 healers. The rest of the raid does itself. I'm looking forward to finding the secrets to beating this easier.

[HastyPudding]

Our guild ran the raid three times, tonight: twice on normal and once on reaper 1. The raid is fun but it gets chaotic and unmanageable very fast with even the slightest error. I love the undertones of quiet panic through the boss section, but things can rapidly spiral out of control in an instant.

- The puzzles were very confusing (to me anyway), but I think that will get better once we learn the patterns.

- The fire damage stacks ramp up very, very quickly. We had two full time healers and a spellsinger bard healing and we were mostly huddled in the center trying to stay alive (even with fire absorption and fire energy sheathe) while the puzzlers were busy doing their thing. This quest is a healer's nightmare and the amount of SP pots some people are going to have to chug is excessive, even with a spellsinger in the party constantly restoring SP.

- The forewraiths can quickly get out of control. By the second phase of the boss fight we had to have a second tank kite the forgewraiths around because there just wasn't enough DPS to be both on the wraiths and the boss and kill the trash mobs that spawn from the elevators.

- The normal runs were manageable, but we have a pretty good guild with several people with reaper wings, top notch tanks, discord for communication, and several good healers. The average pug isn't going to be able to complete this on anything over hard difficulty and even then it's going to be difficult to communicate properly.

- The reaper run was crazy. The amount of fire damage being taken from the stacks quickly got out of control and the targeting skulls one shot anyone that was in light armor in robes/outfits (my bard has 100 MRR and he got one shot for over 2000 damage). The forgewraiths quickly got beyond the ability to kite or even control and the raid wiped.


Some suggestions:
- Allow people to duck behind those columns holding up the top level to avoid the flying skulls (like In the Flesh with the mindflayer's orbs and the cocoons). That's the primary source of death in the raid, and they deal significant amounts of damage and are virtually unavoidable. This stops people from frantically running amuck (adding to the chaos) to strategically ducking behind columns when they're being chased before going about their roles.

- Reduce the number of forgewraith spawns, but increase the amount of fire fanatic spawns from the elevators. This switches the tone of the raid from constant panic and assault from the forgewraiths to having to focus specifically on their roles (tank, boss dps, healing, crowd control/trash detail). That way we keep the amount of mobs, but makes it manageable and occasionally frantic when those little fanatics slip past you (and gives the crowd controllers something to do, since the forgewraiths are seemingly immune to everything but petrification).

- Conversely, you can keep the spawns as they are, but give us a method of disposing of the forgewraiths (like some place to lose them like a cooling tank we can dunk them in or a secondary puzzle that freezes all forgewraiths for a short time). Quickly having to kite 10+ red-named forgewraiths just makes things spiral wildly out of control.


Overall, the raid was a lot of fun, just dial back the chaos and add some strategic elements. It's fun to have things get a little chaotic but there have to be methods of dealing with that chaos.

[Alcides]

Is it intended that you can click on the levers quickly to cycle through the colors on the color puzzle with all the levers?

[Zites]

So my guild did the first raid last night on normal. If you want a point of reference, I posted a video of it here.

My first few thoughts were as follows...

• The stacking fire damage is insane and seems way too strong. It stacks too fast and reaches 25 stacks nearly instantly while working on the puzzle.
• The red named forgewraiths have too much health to be killed.
• Instakills work and are required but not necromancy (RIP Palemaster)
• I think turn undead in this raid could be bananas (didn't test it)
• The normal mode raid was beatable with basically no defensive optimization other than twisting in Energy Sheathe Fire. I think high difficulty requires more fire resistance.
• When you get even 2 forgewraith giants in the second phase of the boss fight you can't realistically remove them without insane DPS since more keep spawning. Unless there is a secret mechanics to remove them this might be an issue.

After finishing the raid on normal, we tried Reaper 1. We knew what to expect, and has these difference realizations:

• The puzzle room isn't really that hard. We had 2 people who knew how to puzzle and didn't even get to 5 stacks.
• Instakills are extremely important, get ready for mass frog monk meta.
• We wiped at the first boss phase because we go overrun by forgewraiths and the skulls were doing almost 4k damage when you randomly get hit by them.
• Sometimes you just get killed even without anything travelling to you or being visible, but the combat log reports it as a forgewraith skull attack.
• Everything has a lot of health. Like, a lot. I think that on normal our group could clear it in maybe 14 minutes, but man on R1 we spent 2 minutes on the boss and he was down maybe 5%. Insane HP. I get the idea that PRR/MRR reduction is a thing now but melee does so much more damage than casters that I don't think you could do this as a caster. You run out of mana trying to do damage here.
• Crazy magic damage. Our tank had 450PRR/300 MRR and was getting straight murdered by the skulls and the boss.

Overall, really fun. We experimented with many things and had a good time. I like the raid, it's pretty quick and not too tough to grasp. I think it might be a nightmare for pugging but really all you need is 2 people who know the puzzle, 1 tank for the boss, and maybe 2 healers. The rest of the raid does itself. I'm looking forward to finding the secrets to beating this easier.

Thanks for making this video as i didn't have time to test much, the raid looks fun but it in no way lives up to Ravenloft. I really hope you guys take more time on the next raid I want to be blown away like I was when I first entered The Curse of Strahd, Baba was not as good but it is better than this latest offering thanks.

[Torc]

Is it intended that you can click on the levers quickly to cycle through the colors on the color puzzle with all the levers?

Yes!

[Claver]

Torc

I understand there is a color puzzle

I have not yet run the raid

If there is not yet color indicators for color blind people like myself would you please add another means of color identification...floaty words, differing blink rate, different audio tone, etc

[Cocomajobo]

Torc

I understand there is a color puzzle

I have not yet run the raid

If there is not yet color indicators for color blind people like myself would you please add another means of color identification...floaty words, differing blink rate, different audio tone, etc

The colors are placeholder for symbols that weren't ready for the preview. Fear not, the raid is not intended to require the ability to differentiate colors.

[mikarddo]

Instakills work and are required but not necromancy (RIP Palemaster)

Instakills are extremely important, get ready for mass frog monk meta.

This part scares and annoys me quite a bit. If a dev could comment on one set of insta kills working very well (frog, implosion) while other do not work at all (finger, wail) it would be very welcome.

[Eldried]

This part scares and annoys me quite a bit. If a dev could comment on one set of insta kills working very well (frog, implosion) while other do not work at all (finger, wail) it would be very welcome.

Most monsters in the raid are Undead, thus Necro insta kills won't work on them.
There is some use for necro spells -> killing the fanatics that try to jump into the lava before they can turn to Undead.

[HastyPudding]

With the skulls being shot out from the boss: how about you slow them down and have them fly towards specific locations, denoted by the usual circles on the ground, indicating a danger area? That way we're not running wildly around and it provides more strategy and positioning. At present, they are way too fast and there's too many things for you to focus on without having to look up at the sky every few seconds to see if you're being targeted.