You went overboard with elite Abbot: 303k health + Evasion, really?

[Carpone]

As of U12, Abbot's health:

Normal: 135k
Hard: 209k
Elite: 303k

Credit belongs to Vanshilar for determining the HP.

Before U12, arcanes could contribute somewhat to damage. The Abbot now has Evasion with a pretty good reflex save, making Delayed Blast Fireball and Meteor Swarm not worth casting at him. Arcanes were already gimp enough since he's immune to electricity and cold, and there aren't enough acid spells to justify those enhancements. Now they are relegated to waving wands for inferno, and keeping the trash mobs off the healers. Arcanes now stack poorly against the Abbot. You don't want to bring more than one, and you can do just fine without one at all. Has Turbine learned nothing about class stacking from other MMOs? Go do some research about EverQuest where this was a huge problem with Enchanters, and how it was addressed.

Artificer's ranged piercing damage is gimp against Abbot's blunt DR. The triple positive heavy repeater I crafted is a complete waste, and the homonculous is more of a detriment from dying compared to any benefit it brings.

If you aren't bringing a divine or a monk to Abbot, then you're a drain on this raid. I could almost accept that if the loot was BtA instead of BtC, but it's not. Monks have the best damage profile with unarmed attacks and they bring Evasion as well, letting the divines focus on keeping Divine Punishment stacks up instead of healing.

Pre-U10 when they Abbot had 50k health on elite, he absolutely needed adjusting upwards. U11 bumped Abbot to 135k HP for all difficulties. However with U12's changes the Abbot is way overtuned. All the well known and frequently successful pug Abbot raids on Orien have dried up. None of them are completing now.

[Ytteri]

Use disintegrate, he has a mediocre fort save.

[sirgog]

135k was a good amount for Elite (albeit 135k with the new elite's feats).

Abbot has a de facto +33% HP (due to the raid mechanics), and a lot of defenses - 100% fort, DR that blocks a lot of the best weapons in the game, and a very high AC for a dispeller.

IMO 60/90/135 would have been about right.


On the tactics front though - have you tried Disintegrate spam after melees stack 4-5 stacks of Trauma (the Imp Sunder debuff)? Disintegrate is lackluster if mobs save on a 10, but if they save only on a 20 it looks a little better.

[wax_on_wax_off]

135k was a good amount for Elite (albeit 135k with the new elite's feats).

Abbot has a de facto +33% HP (due to the raid mechanics), and a lot of defenses - 100% fort, DR that blocks a lot of the best weapons in the game, and a very high AC for a dispeller.

IMO 60/90/135 would have been about right.


On the tactics front though - have you tried Disintegrate spam after melees stack 4-5 stacks of Trauma (the Imp Sunder debuff)? Disintegrate is lackluster if mobs save on a 10, but if they save only on a 20 it looks a little better.

The weird disintegrate shield puts a dampener on this. I'm not sure if it's WAI but sometimes I can't land any disintegrates at all (and sometimes they all hit).

I'll just leave my sorcerer as earth specced until I pull what I want out of this raid and then I'll respec to air/cold. I might 7/1/1 acid on my PM just for this raid (and DQ too I guess).

Despite all that, I do love this raid, it is so challenging and the puzzles are so much fun.

[Sarisa]

The raid loot is HEAVILY skewed toward casters, so it needs to be a raid that casters can effectively do damage to.

60/90/135k I agree would be fine, with Evasion only on elite.

[Blackmoors]

Completely agree, I think there is a lot of unreasonable changes to bosses all around, but the one done to Abbot is by far the worst. Lately ive run it only on normal unless we have a optimal party with the "perfect" setup and filled with experienced players! Pugging the Abbot now is a no no even on normal (and people used to complain about pugs before). As for the seals - they are so rare that running it on elite its not time and resource viable! Im not one for complain but the Devs have a hard time balancing stuff, either is too easy or too hard, theres no "in between" really...

PS - I only comprehend the changes if the reason behind it was people complain about the puzzles because now, i mean, people dont complain now because (a) theres no new players running it and (b) players that run the quest now the puzzles and only complain about the changes to boss...

PSS - Not to mention that 20th (and so on) completions are giving bugged rewards so yeah, you made a raid that was runned by only a few, runned by fewer (if that makes sense)

[mystafyi]

All the well known and frequently successful pug Abbot raids on Orien have dried up.

orien is drying up. right now there is less then 300 online. down about 50% from last month. Its a bad time slot for players, i agree, but orien's concurrent players online is down at all times recently.

[Sarisa]

The initial 135k Abbot dried up the Abbot PUG's on Sarlona, making it go from 2-3 a night down to 3-5 per week.

This new Abbot, you might see 1-2 per week, if they can even fill. Very few want to have to drink pots to complete this raid, only to see yet another skunked chest.

Horrible drop rates. High rate of failure, especially with each increase in health AND evasion. No trash loot chests to help recover expenses. Sensitivity of the raid to latency. Busted 20th list. Huge resource cost on the healers. Massive difficulty in learning the raid.

[Fancy_A_Fling]

Well, On G-Land, we throw together successful abbot's 2-4 times a day, pre u12 was upwards of 7 or so. All im saying is you need a semi experienced group, and change difficulty to hard if group doesnt look good enough. Casters are still effective, his hp isnt to bad and its usually very successful first attempt for us. Elite abbot, is kind of a pain atm, but hard drops seals too + all items.. so honestly we only run it on elite now if someone is desperate for elite streak / favor.

[Claymorep]

Sincerely some more hp and evasion added is not a great problem for a good party but so much is a bit exagerated. Normally our tactic was to stay all near the Lich and divine casting mass heals for a better damage on Abbot / healing party combo with Divine punishment as long as it refresh. Melees and ranged beating him like a pinata as in all raids happens and casters spamming all damage they can with fireballs and meteor swarms.

Last attempt after U12 in Elite (All endgamers 9 guild and 3 pugs):
2 fvs and 1 cleric
1 Arti
1 Monk
1 mage and a sorc
Rest barbs and fighters
In first part the artificer pug with little more than 400 hp died 3 times and a bit long to reach first portals... All casters (2-3) ended this part with half mana.
We had a bit long time in completing the ice part (we remembered a spawn of wands at entrance) and after "some year" we had to remember how we did before (a fvs with 620 hp and a 950+ dps/tank and no fear... we did).
Some problems at roids as we putted them pugs and a dead in googles cause a "brainstorming" of the googler that at half run started to think about a gived university text.
Not so hard till now...
When inside we ressed the 3 deads and we started to beat him in our normal tactic. All was working when He called inferno. The 950+ hp did our islands as mine was shooted perpendicularly (I did a usefull island at roof). All on island without great problems. We started the count: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 ALL JUMP!!!.

We found ALL stoned on the island even if near all of us were jumping (me using wings). just the time to hear the equivalence of english ***, S**T, Motherf*****r, Noooo, and We were all dead in water.

Wipe. The Abbot was at 85% of his life. and someone was near sure that He increased the frequency of his spells.

Is the new all stoned/automatic failure mechanic working as intended or a bug? cause I don't see how this should give any possibility to complete the raid unless there is something at Store...

[deadkitty]

I agree his hp is a little high, but it's still as easy as before. Casters still effective with disintegrate. Divines still have divine punishment. A few guildies and I puged one out last night. 3 casters 2 clerics (me and a guildie) and the rest mediocre dps. First try completion, minimul deaths, no pots chuggd. Player quality and compitence is just a must for the quest. His hp is less of a problem then groups going in with no experience.

[grodon9999]

Well, On G-Land, we throw together successful abbot's 2-4 times a day, pre u12 was upwards of 7 or so. All im saying is you need a semi experienced group, and change difficulty to hard if group doesnt look good enough. Casters are still effective, his hp isnt to bad and its usually very successful first attempt for us. Elite abbot, is kind of a pain atm, but hard drops seals too + all items.. so honestly we only run it on elite now if someone is desperate for elite streak / favor.

Or we form an ubber-group/dream-team tailor-made to crush elite . . . and fail on the friggin puzzles. Sigh . . .

[voodoogroves]

Well, On G-Land, we throw together successful abbot's 2-4 times a day, pre u12 was upwards of 7 or so. All im saying is you need a semi experienced group, and change difficulty to hard if group doesnt look good enough. Casters are still effective, his hp isnt to bad and its usually very successful first attempt for us. Elite abbot, is kind of a pain atm, but hard drops seals too + all items.. so honestly we only run it on elite now if someone is desperate for elite streak / favor.

Yeah, the elites disappeared but the hards are now common. I do still see them on the LFM panel daily as well, so it's not just guild and channel groups.

I should probably run it more on my FVS(s), but I'm not the best mario player on the keyboard setup I'm on usually so I tend to avoid Abbot.

[redspecter23]

It's obvious from the changes that the devs were not happy with the way Abbot was dealt with before. You could take multiple casters, nuke and heal through inferno and have a very short, easy completion. The difficult part was making sure you have 2 people that can lead through tiles. That was about it.

Now, healing through inferno will cost you pots because his hp is so high. Use of islands is very much encouraged, but could spell instant death if there is any lag so you have a choice of pot consumption or possible instant death. Not a fun choice. Again because of the high hp and his new defenses, casters are discouraged and melee is encouraged. This I believe is very sloppy quest design. Instead of buffing up the melee role and giving melee some genuine awesome loot comparable to the caster loot, they choose the "nerf casters" approach. The end result is the same, melee becomes a more optimal choice, but the circumstances leading up to our realization of that fact is covered in nerf instead of lined with hopes of new shinies. This heavy handed approach to "play our way or else we'll nerf you until you do" is getting a bit old now. Instead of nerfs to casters, work on buffing melee in general, not just in specific settings simply because casters are suboptimal due to SP vs boss HP limitations.

[munificence]

I agree with this thread, the devs went way overboard with the changes to this raid. The only spell that arcanes can now effectively damage the abbot with is black dragon bolt. I've had no luck getting disintegrate to land, and the Abbot's blanket immunity to low level spells plus reflex saves and immunities to electric and cold relegates arcanes to tossing boulders at the abbot.

I don't understand why they would make the least run raid in the game more difficult and more annoying. Honestly, the upgrades to the loot don't justify the amount of increased difficulty. Right now, I think elite abbot is where Epic abbot should be, and so the upgraded loot should have epic slots on it.

[Kmnh]

What's the issue? Run the raid on normal, like you do with every other one.

Leave the elite content for people who like long, difficult fights.

[somenewnoob]

I am cross referencing this thread to see if anybody complaining about Abbott difficulty said that they liked the Shroud blades because raids should be hard........

[Jaid314]

What's the issue? Run the raid on normal, like you do with every other one.

Leave the elite content for people who like long, difficult fights.

i didn't like that raid enough to run it on elite very often before they started the recent changes, and that was when you didn't have to farm it for a seal in addition to farming it for the base item.

now if i wanted to get the gear out of abbot, i would have to farm it on the equivalent of much harder than old elite, to get worse gear. bearing in mind that i already didn't like the raid, and it was already damned near impossible to pull any named loot out of the raid.

the more likely solution people are going to come up with is "don't run the raid at all, it's stupidly hard to the point of being likely to cost major resources and never drops raid loot anyways".

certainly, that's the policy i've adopted myself. i certainly was not the most likely to run the raid - i probably have less than 30 completions across all characters... and in those 30 runs, i'd say probably about half had no raid loot, and a quarter had raid loot that nobody cared about (the bow, for example). it simply isn't worth my time to farm it from a loot perspective, and what little enjoyment i've had running it in the past is long gone. i'd rather just farm something else.

and i suspect pretty soon that's going to be the trend across all servers. it's just a nuisance to run it, so go do something else.

[DeafeningWhisper]

What's the issue? Run the raid on normal, like you do with every other one.

Leave the elite content for people who like long, difficult fights.

My guess is they want to upgrade the named loot with a seal elite?

From what I hear some items where more powerful before U12 without upgrading and only get back to their normal power with a small bonus with a seal.

[Bakarne]

I never understood why there is only one chest in Elite Abbot, yet four chests in Elite Reaver's Fate.

I also agree that Elite Abbot as it stands right now should be labeled Epic, and at least give an Epic Raid Token and a chance for BTC +4 Tomes or Unbound +3 Tomes.


I did not have trouble completing Abbot Elite before U12. Hard Abbot post U12, doesn't seem all that different from U11 Elite Abbot. As long as puzzles and a dedicated wander were covered, the main fight with the Abbot was never all that painful. The addition of Evasion does change everything, especially in a caster-centric raid.

Also, bows are completely useless right now versus the blunt DR. Even with point blank shot the base is 0 on elite - only holy, disruption, bane, and slayer arrow effects register. I think it was a poor decision to cripple several classes in this raid.