test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
Difficulty of epic Karrundax dungeon
yokihiro
Member, Neverwinter Beta Users Posts: 510 Bounty Hunter
I've tried this dungeon several times in pugs and in those groups we hardly manage to beat first mob. This dungeon is way too hard for the GS it is designed. I have a GS of over 11, purple gear, the group I was in in the last run was around 10-11k. But yet no way to even closely beating Pyraphenia.
Seriously, the bosses in a dungeon should progress with their difficulty. If the first boss is so **** hard, that only premades with voice communication can beat them, then it is really a bad game design.
The Pyraphenia boss battle is in so many ways just over the top:
1. Mobs are immune to CC, if you want to push them away you have no chance.
2. Red areas everywhere. Not only round ones, but also very long stripes, crossing, next to each other - you hardly can dodge them, and if you manage to dodge 2 times you will be caught in the next area just a second later.
3. Boss with nasty pull assault - even if you are not even close she pulls you to her and you take lots of damage.
4. Mobs with ranged attacks. Well you can run, but they don't care - you are hit anyway. That iis really fun as a healer. You cannot build up divine or AP because you try to run and dodge all the time.
5. A giant that spawns! Yeah, as if it would not be enough to beat her with the things under 1-4, no a giant will ruin everything when you have finally managed after 5 tries to get her health down.
And if you manage to beat Pyraphenia then the Hand of Magera will even top the first fight with an even more ridiculous difficulty.
Karrundax himself one the other hand is totally easy, but you hardly ever reach him, because the two first bosses will lead to 9 of 10 parties disbanding after several tries AT FIRST BOSS or if they ran out of kits.
And it is not only the bosses - I joined several parties where already at the very first fight people wiped. And that happens regularly because every mob in this dungeon places huge red areas everywhere! No wonder that this dungeon was always exploited (Pyraphenia bug until fixed, run and die somewhere exploits etc.). Who really wants to play this dungeon just for fun???
Really, this dungeon is HAMSTER. 8300 GS? ROFL! Dream on! While Malabog is listed with 9200 GS and is like a walk in the park, Karrundax at current state should be listed with like 12000 GS. The dungeon can be kept as it is, but then raise its GS and remove the armor set piece there please, too. It really becomes a pain if you want to gear up and try to get the arms piece and you hardly every beat the first mob! How motivating is this???
Seriously, the bosses in a dungeon should progress with their difficulty. If the first boss is so **** hard, that only premades with voice communication can beat them, then it is really a bad game design.
The Pyraphenia boss battle is in so many ways just over the top:
1. Mobs are immune to CC, if you want to push them away you have no chance.
2. Red areas everywhere. Not only round ones, but also very long stripes, crossing, next to each other - you hardly can dodge them, and if you manage to dodge 2 times you will be caught in the next area just a second later.
3. Boss with nasty pull assault - even if you are not even close she pulls you to her and you take lots of damage.
4. Mobs with ranged attacks. Well you can run, but they don't care - you are hit anyway. That iis really fun as a healer. You cannot build up divine or AP because you try to run and dodge all the time.
5. A giant that spawns! Yeah, as if it would not be enough to beat her with the things under 1-4, no a giant will ruin everything when you have finally managed after 5 tries to get her health down.
And if you manage to beat Pyraphenia then the Hand of Magera will even top the first fight with an even more ridiculous difficulty.
Karrundax himself one the other hand is totally easy, but you hardly ever reach him, because the two first bosses will lead to 9 of 10 parties disbanding after several tries AT FIRST BOSS or if they ran out of kits.
And it is not only the bosses - I joined several parties where already at the very first fight people wiped. And that happens regularly because every mob in this dungeon places huge red areas everywhere! No wonder that this dungeon was always exploited (Pyraphenia bug until fixed, run and die somewhere exploits etc.). Who really wants to play this dungeon just for fun???
Really, this dungeon is HAMSTER. 8300 GS? ROFL! Dream on! While Malabog is listed with 9200 GS and is like a walk in the park, Karrundax at current state should be listed with like 12000 GS. The dungeon can be kept as it is, but then raise its GS and remove the armor set piece there please, too. It really becomes a pain if you want to gear up and try to get the arms piece and you hardly every beat the first mob! How motivating is this???
Post edited by yokihiro on
0
Comments
So how did I get to the point where encounters are doable? Practice and tactics. It took many many attempts for me to learn how to handle these packs. There was a lot of trial and error along with self examination in how I approached each encounter but eventually, because I put in the work, Im able to handle this dungeon despite my "low" gearscore.
It sounds like what you need is a solid group that wants to learn how to handle the various encounters. I highly recomend you dont pug these dungeons. Find yourself a guild, or at least a group, that wants to do it together and then learn from your failures. Eventually you'll learn how to handle each pack and the bosses if youre willing to put in the time to do so
Find a guild, OP.
Most t1 and t2 dungeons could use a good cut on the difficulty, since by now all the exploiters already have all the items and all the money, Cryptic could at least let new players and more casual guilds actually play the content.
I am in favor of a difficulty cut on t1 and t2 dungeons after the new content, letting only CN, MC and the new ones with the same difficulty level and fix the exploits of course.
seriously, there is no reason for mad dragon and wolf den be that hard, they are t1 for God's sake!
yep, I know, learn how to play and all that HAMSTER, but the problem is not me, is that we should be able to do it with any group, not only people "good" or over-geared for the dungeon level.
Tank and TR on boss. CW on adds(ideally two, one with singbot setup and one with OF) - kill archers as they appear to prevent them from overwhelming the boss party. DC does DC job.
When giant spawns, TR goes to help kill it, tank stays on boss.
Job done.
NB: Don't fall though the hole in the floor.
It's not that simple. The adds are partially (mostly?) CC immune. Then what? The adds are scattered all over the place and the CW(s) cannot round them up.
Don't be flippant about this. It is a challenging encounter.
It really irritates me when people talk about dungeons as if they are SOO EASY when they probably only finished themselves via exploits. I would love to see a video of these people doing Karrundax, legit, in 8300 GS gear.
I agree that Karrundax in its entirety is way out of whack. The final boss is easier than the first boss, and some of the trash mobs are insanely difficult. Now I see why people sneak past certain mobs! Really, *four* forgemaster giants at once? Srsly? That's just ridiculously stupid.
These being said, I can do Pyraphenia legit as the only CW, happened quite a few times. The "secret" is that the CW goes with sing and OF setup and full CC abilities (EF tab/shard, Steal Time, Icy Terrain) on the left with adds, rest on right with boss, DC stays between groups with the priority to keep CW alive. CW sings all adds away from the boss group and AoEs them down while doing their best to keep them CCed. Don't get hit by thew smaller red circles that will prone and expose you. When the giant spawns, finish small adds and zerg boss. More CWs, easier task. Important note: if you die, you run back, fast.
If you have a decent team, this method is faster than any exploit.
This cannot however be said about the 2nd boss... if you know what I mean
Again... the GS requirement should be ignored by players (most already do) and reworked by the devs. At 8300 GS 99% of the players will have R4 enchants and no armor/weapon enhancements, they will barely tickle the mobs and have huge troubles surviving.
What's with this insanity? Why would somebody want to get inside a dungeon, if not to clear it? Look at the mobs and the design? Wipe 20 times at a boss?
These are not things desired by anybody I know.
Now, an example of proper Gear Score gating in an MMO:
Zul'Aman, Cataclysm iteration, WoW.
- Min. avg. item level needed: 346. Dungeon challenging, but very doable at the intended 346 gear level.
- Dungeon Special Event: Kill all bosses in a specific time frame to save their prisoners. Not doable at 346 item level. Very challenging even at much higher levels of gear, special reward at the end: a cool epic bear mount in a chest that everybody rolls for.
This is how you do things the right way - you make dungeon accessible (but challenging!) to the intended MINIMUM gear level, and offer ADDITIONAL rewards and challenges for players that are better geared.
Much to learn, Cryptic, much to learn...
Regardless, the first boss in a dungeon shouldn't be harder than the last one.
They could simply add a "recommended" gs for each dungeon as not all dungeons are the same difficulty. But under no circumstances should they nerf the already simple dungeons any further.
Frozen heart seems to be only PUGgable T2 in game. GG set seems to be good enough for me.
No, it does not. Sometimes the only thing it drops are GG Coins and it too for fresh 60 pugs is not easy (though it is a LOT easier than Karru).
You forgot Pirate King. It's quite easy, can be completed within 20-25 minutes. We did it recently even without throwing adds off a cliff at the second boss.
Honestly, I'd be ok with difficulty of all T1/T2 dungeons, if there were a guaranteed T1/T2 BoP item drop from the chest or guaranteed T1/T2 random gear BoE drop from a boss.
On the one hand - yaaaay.
On the other hand - bye bye pugs, now you're deep in brown substance even more .
We were a premade formed in lfg channel. Just five randoms, not strategies discuss, no playstyle match.
We were lucky enough to be well-equipped, especially our rogue. Solid cleric, pretty tanky. And three wizzies (including my thin tiefling butt).
When we realized that now we must kill those two bosses, we didn't develop some sort of tactics. We just went full single-target DPS and melted each boss asap. And it worked, mostly thanks to our gear and therefore high stats.
Can pugs with 8300 gs do that? I highly doubt it. And whatever people might say - not everyone can develop any kind of strategy for specific conditions. Not everyone is good at this. Yet the dungeons are supposed to be fun for everyone, even for an ordinary player that won't play this game many hours a day. How come?
And yes, today i finally got my HV greaves. Lucky me. But my previous ~20 runs i got like...nothing worthy. So i do support the idea of all dungeon runs to be more rewarding.
And yes, there is still a way to exploit the second boss fight. It has been known since spring! (Yes, at the very beginning of open beta). Still not fixed.
@Devs: I really would like to see statistics how many pugs can beat this dungeon! This is becoming a motivation killer, seriously.
I will say I agree with you and can get very frustrated in the first two boss fights. It's a mess for every reason you have stated and I have said numerous times in numerous threads they need to re-evaluate those fights but I can also say it is also very much doable with the correct group comp.
First off, bring a good GF to kite everything.
Then simply have everybody burn down the boss but the GF hums Benny Hill.
The good ol' DPS race. Kill the boss before the GF dies. I hate it, I don't like advocating it but it works. And even then it's still a challenge.
One of these days I really do need to record myself doing those two bosses. It should at least give people an idea how to treat those bosses as a GF because especially the second one is quite easy as a DPS race.
1. The vast majority of karrundax mobs aren't immune to CC. They are however all resistant. This is pretty unusual since every other dungeon in the games all mobs have zero control resist. But yea - my max wisdom CW can indeed CC them - a bit. They still resist around 50%. In module 2 they are adding pets with "active bonuses" - basically amounts to 5 more equip slots for us. One of them has a nice big bonus to control resist, so that may address this, to some degree. But yea essentially right now, the best of the best CW will not be able to control them for long (I can handle it for maybe 15-20 seconds tops),
2. Yea everything shouldn't be dodgeable. Thats why theres guardians. A well directed block counters most of them.
3. Cool. Most bosses in NW are insanely weak and need to be boosted.
4. Yea, thats what makes this battle very hard. Again tho, a solid guardian on them means the healer doesnt get hit much tho.
5. Pretty much yea once the giant spawns for 99% of grps, its game over. The idea is to kill the boss before that happens. (You have around 30-45 seconds iirc)
But yea I agree the fights way too difficult for the tier of this dungeon/fact its the first boss.
I think the strategy to do it is fine, just even if you perform it with a good group, you could fail if your gears not quite high - and quite a lot higher then 8300 high is required for the key players.
I've also done this the kill everything way.. GWFs are pretty key to that since the mobs are spread and too hard hitting for a rogue to easily pull off. Think we had 2 gwf, me on CW, 1 tr on boss and 1 dc. But yea that ways near suicide.
having the guardian kite stuffs doable in a variety of groups, but said guardian does need to be tough as hell, and the dps needs to be decent.
But yea the whole game will get a bit easier in mod 2 with the addition of companion bonuses, artifacts, etc.
-Epic Dread Vault Crushed.
Characters (Dragon): Axer (60 Guardian, Leader of Crush It!), Controller (60 Wizard), Warlocker (60 Warlock)
Just tried Karrundax once, we (PUG) did not even pass the first pack of mobs. Not the first boss, the first mobs. Red circles everywhere, if you run you die, if you don't run you die, if you're ranged you aggro and you die.
Dwarf King on the other side seems comparatively easier. Also in a PUG, after 3/5 ppl died in the first five minutes the Cleric and little me kept fighting for more than half an hour, brought DK to 10% life, then Cleriric miss-clicked and I died while trying to revive him. The 3/5 other ppl were waiting patiently at campfire, they left when we died.
The tactics always work at the Dwarf King:
TR on the boss.
Everyone else on adds.
If you have good GF and CW - leave GF, CW and DC fighting adds, send other party member to help your rogue on boss.
DC should use Astral Shield at the boss to help TR survive accidental boss hits (as his ground aoe is bugged and hits before the animation ends).
We did it in 9-10k GS PUG party (only me TR and my friend GWF were premade), didn't wipe even once, me and my friend were on boss.
1) Get a GF/GWF/DC/CW to kite the adds while you kill the boss.
2) Everyone on boss, ignore all the adds. Should be dead in about 20~30 seconds with a good party. That's how we usually do it. The big add that spawns at 10% can't do anything.
3) Make the boss run off the cliff.
4) Get the boss near the cliff and kill her from range. Grab the loot and wipe.
5) Similar to the first one : kill the adds as they spawn and then jump back on boss. Kite the big guy at the end.
As for the second boss :
1) Kite the adds just like earlier, bring the boss near the 'stairs'.
2) Have the CWs kite and dps the boss at the same time; singing on boss will make this quicker with the shards. That's how we usually do it; the adds are dead by the time the boss dies. There's usually only one add left (the one throwing the fire balls, which isn't an issue at this point).
3) Bug it from range.
I do have to agree that a full pug group will most likely fail, wheter they have 8.3k or 40k gs. Your party setup is probably wrong too, bring 4 CWs and 1 DC instead (or 3 CWs and 2 DCs, this should be your setup for ANY dungeon in the game, except CN where you want 4 CWs and make the DC do the runs). It'll be much faster and easier since most dungeons in this game are all about the quantity of adds and, sadly, the other classes are pretty bad at dealing with a large amount of adds. Once you start using that setup, you'll realise that all dungeons are in fact extremely easy and that the CW class is overpowered.
Wiping to adds should not be a legit strategy to succeed in a dungeon imho, I know it is often the easiest way to do it, but for me this is very bad game design. A dungeon never should force or encourage you to die. In contrary, surviving should be the main goal. When ppl focus on the main boss only and then wipe to the dozens of adds that have build up in the meantime it just shows that the system has flaws and should be adressed.
All FH bosses (may be except the first, not sure) spawn adds endlessly, even if the boss is already killed. So the only strategy there is to wipe. Sometimes you can reset them by pulling them away from the boss area, kill those that still alive and return, and they shouldn't spawn anymore.
Depends on your TR. Ours yesterday was all in blues and we nearly all died of old age. Fortunately we all died for real when the boss popped out of his armour for the second time. DC's Astral Shield had been left in the broom cupboard too, which didn't help. GF was great though. If he could have held aggro on the boss we'd have made it. Not his fault.