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Alert System improved Ao'Qephoth still broken
guyhumual
Posts: 2,397 Arc User
I love the new alert system, it's something that we've needed almost from the start, but why this stupid contest winning villain is still in the game remains a mystery. I don't blame whoever created him, it's a neat looking villain, but someone made some mistakes when they were coding him and putting him in the game.
Seems like a simple fix to me: recode him or remove him from the game.
Seems like a simple fix to me: recode him or remove him from the game.
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Seems it's the most favorite set among the villains....
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
If anything its going to hurt Alert queue numbers...Can I be in favor of keeping him?
I tried him with a level 40 pestilence character. Didn't work. Kind of why I made the thread.
I love the changes we're seeing with CO these days, I really appreciate the work, but this dude is broken and not doing you any favors. I know enough to avoid this guy in the queue but supposing someone a few weeks new to the game joined Radiation Rumble with this stupid villain . . .
It was a great idea to get the fans involved with these villain designs, I would love to see more stuff like this in the future, but whoever put him together for the game made some serious mistakes somewhere.
1. The alert will definitely fail if it is a burst or
2. The alert may fail depending on how much DPS there is.
I've taken him as a level 40 in a dockside dustup w Ebon Ruin mostly - I didn't detect any Skarns Bane and we did win (though it was very marginal).
I don't regard him as broken just challenging in a hit or miss sort of way. Any prepared team would bring the right tools for the job and trounce him and I'm not sure they would need to be 40s either.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
I think broken is maybe too strong a word, theoretically given the very finite number of players we will all eventually learn and fight AoQephoth with the right builds. Lolz hopeless optimism as usual!
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The one who can't shut up formerly known as 4rksakes
About the @handle - it's a long story.
Profound quote.. "I'm not a complete idiot - several parts are missing."
I solo'd Ao'Q with a lv 10! No Passive, No Heals, No Attacks!
This chump needs a buff!:biggrin:
second drain- break line of sight. the walls are good for this
third drain- trauma but blocking still helps.
You CANNOT simply stand near him and keep attacking. If he targets you, you MUST STOP and block, move or trauma(or hope someone else can.) Otherwise he heals. Too many people just keep attacking and then complain it's not doing anything.
Don't have pets out, he can drain them too.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Sadly, I couldn't beat him solo on the Radiation Rumble
"There is only one way to support a PFF tank: Send Cyrone lots of money weekly... because he's the only one to successfully be a true PFF Tank." - chuckwolf
Yeah yeah I know, in a lot of peoples' minds that makes him broken.
A fight isn't exactly challenging if all it takes is for one person who has aggro to know what they're doing.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Just like all the contest villains, he doesn't drop a costume. That alone kills most of my desire.
He can be brought down consistently with decent teams, something I also don't expect to see in general alerts of 5 random solo queuers.
Plenty of people struggle with the easier villains as is, why make things harder? The only reason I used to run elite so often was for the better drops. Now that elite rarely impacts drop rates or rewards save for a few instances, why bother?
People may defend him on the basis of providing a challenge, but let's be real here, if extra challenge isn't rewarded, there simply is no lasting appeal.
Let me introduce you to a simple concept.... doing stuff for the fun of it.
I know I know! You don't find it fun. But some people do, and that's why it's in the game.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
If people found it fun it would pop more often. No other villain can match the worm's nearly empty q that frequently.
And some people do things for the bonuses, for completion's sake, for great justice and simply because it's there, etc. I know I know, people playing the game for different reasons is a hard concept to wrap your head around sometimes, right?
Seck's concerns aren't unwarranted. Ao'Q's self healing now is at least what Demoiselle Nocturne's healing used to be. When Alerts were first introduced on the PTS her self healing was just crazy, especially in Burst Alerts. It was so crazy overall that it had to be nerfed. Ao'Q doesn't get that treatment because his character, as it was submitted, is supposed to be a self healing nightmare.
In Ao'Q's bio that was submitted along with the character design the creator stated it's supposed to be some sort of life-siphoning leech creature. He even put emphasis on how the thing is supposed to primarily use drain abilities because of concept. While it's nice that the devs were able to follow that to the letter it made this one villain a massive p.i.t.a. because of it. It also doesn't help that Life Drain has always laughed at blocks too. Blocking will stop the healing component but you'll still take more damage while blocking it than anyone really ought to be taking from such a short maintained ability.
But the passive's shadowfeast is a primary suspect, and why Skarn helps beat him since it removes his passive. Shadowfeast allows him to regen some health each time he attacks, Shadow Destroyer suffered the same bug in NemCon at one point.
Please don't assume, you know what they say about people that assume
I had agro, I was blocking his drain, but with 10 stacks of deadly poison and four other toons pounding away on him, he was just healing every single point of damage dealt to him. This also happened the last time I met him in Radiation Rumble almost a year ago with my ice tank. Back then I assumed that it might have partly been because of lower level players, sadly my tank being a tank couldn't dish out that much damage between blocks, but his disgusting healing ability defiantly isn't because of his life drain power.
Besides he'd need to be less then 100% health for the life drain to make a difference and the two times I met him he never dropped below 95%
So, you've met up against him a total of two times, and you consider him broken?
Here's a hint: Get a better team.
Here's another possible hint: Maybe you need to be higher than level 10?
I was level 40, normally doing between 400 and 1500 a tick with my epidemic, but because this was radiation Rumble I was getting upwards of 6000 a tic. Now I'm sure some folks here can deal a lot more damage but I consider that pretty good, and that's not counting the stacks of deadly poison, all that plus four other toons pounding away at him for a minute and we couldn't deal more damage then he could normally heal. I'm not even bringing up the life drain. His regular heal was regenerating that fast.
Last time I fought him was with a level 38 ice tank, can't remember how much she did, but her damage was respectable for a tank. It was the same story.
I've been playing this game for over two years now, I've gone from silver to lifetime subscriber, I've got 49 alts, I've done almost every mission, and I know when something is broken. But please, tell me I need to block or have a higher level character or learn to play the game or whatever makes you feel smug. Honestly it's this sort of toxic environment that drives people from these forums and from the game.
When one assumes they make an ****(out of)u(and)me
I like it that he's "that one boss" where everyone has to pay attention. You can often tell the players who don't know the various methods of fighting Ao'Q when they just charge in and activate their favorite Maintain ability and wonder why he won't die.
Personally, I think they should keep him as is, but perhaps implement a sort of 'difficulty rating' for Alert bosses. It would only be a guide, but it might say something like "Ao'Qephoth is a difficult boss who heals with every attack!"
Thats a bit grim. Cause some player designed him suddenly he is stupid. Ao'Q is a great design. The problem is he has a healing factor that puts Wovlerine to shame :P
All Ao'Q needs is his healing nerfed.
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!
No, it's actually not a hard concept for me to wrap my head around... because that concept is the exact point I was making with my comment
That word "some", it's a cool word ey? ~_^
400 ramping up to 1500? ...my suggestion would be to switch to a single-target power so you're actually doing a decent amount of damage
I dunno.. the problem here is, your experience with him isn't the same one others are having. I mean, can it really be possible that the majority of the times I've gone to fight him I've just gotten lucky and always had a good team? Yeah sure, I've failed him before, but not as much as I've beaten him.
And no, I'm not some "leet pro gamer haxxor phatloot min/maxxor" ...hell ask around, most people wouldn't even rank me average.
Feh, if you nerf him then you might as well remove him... and replace him with this
If anything, leave him as is so people appreciate the free wins they get in every single other alert more.
These kids nowadays! Get off my lawn Nepht or I'll put you over my knee!
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I didn't assume.
The other was a "Possible Hint" seeing as how you only ran against him twice, it felt like it could be a possible hint to your problems.
I don't blame whoever designed him or even whoever coded him into the game. I just want him fixed or removed (until he can be fixed).
Now maybe I've experience a bug 100% of the time I've fought him, maybe others are just better or on better teams, but how many times should I get burnt before I conclude that fire is hot? Two times is more then enough for me to conclude something isn't working as intended.
Normally I would for when there's only the villain remaining, but I needed to maintain my stacks of deadly poison in hopes of countering his passive heal and block against the life drain, and so there wasn't time to do much else except try to counter the insane heal and prevent more healing from the life drain.
The other thing is, yes, my experience is the same as other have been having, these reports aren't new. This is a known issue. I have no idea if this is how he always behaves, maybe sometimes his passive behaves as it should, but the two times I've queued for him he was broken.
Now if this is how he's supposed to behave, and if I was twice on a poor team, then maybe he needs to be moved to a elite or special alert status and taken out of regular rotation? If a level 40 (that has never failed a Gravitar PUG), plus four other toons (minimum of 15th level now), couldn't handle Ao'Qephoth then maybe we aren't the problem.
I'm kinda surprised honestly that so many people seem to think Ao'Qephoth is broken. I mean... I know, he heals a lot, when he's allowed to heal, though as we're aware, all you really have to do is block his drains. The only problem cases I see might be Radiation Rumble and Pyramid Power which MIGHT possibly increase the percentage of healing he gets (which I believe is less than a 5% chance) from Shadow Form, but that's about it. I haven't seen many failures against him.
'Course I'm also carrying Skarn's Bane on me, but there've been times when people just dished out so much damage that even a life-leecher like Ao'Qephoth couldn't recover.
Personally, I actually like that there's a villain who requires a bit more thinking to defeat, but I might be one of the black sheep in this herd.
You fought him twice. You read that some other people have failed at him (without any ability to discern how much they're exaggerating). You seem pretty certain that he's broken for having so little to go on to support that idea.
Yes, people fail Ao sometimes... you know what that means? That means he's the most normal encounter in this game. All the other encounters "that you never fail even with a pug" are what's broken.
Exactly when did "I win 100% of the time, or there's something wrong with the game" become a standard?
Yeah yeah yeah, we come here to feel super heroic. Superman's dead, what's your point?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
SOmetimes we win, sometimes we lose. With built teams with roles specificially chosen, sometimes we win sometimes we lose. Sometimes with skarn bane we sometimes we lose, with all 40s sometimes we win sometimes we lose. Even with many combinations of levels from a level 6 to 36 sometimes we win sometimes we lose.
Even with the same team that failed prior and decided to try again, we lost first time, won second time (no skarn's bane)
Ao' to me is tough as hell, and quite refreshing that it takes a bit more than the usual rush in spam favorite power and win.
Usually the teams that I been on that win, doesn't discount the blocks, yes he still heals some through the block with some powers, and teams with members that make use of that vehicle in the middle of the smash arena to break lien of of sight. Most of his heals are target based it seems. I could be wrong. But the point is even random or formed teams, the most cases of victory comes using tactics that are rarely used in the other alerts. Even then sometimes failure still happens. He don't seem unbeatable. Does this mean he isn't broken? I don't think so. The question is if that is intended functioning process. If it is, then he isn't broken even if he is trouble to defeat. If it is not how he supposed to work, then he is broken even if he has been defeated.
Usually I que up for Ao' just as often as I que up for any other alert because the rewards and stuff are merely a side effect to me. I probably wouldn't even noticed if they removed the rewards. And many times I exited an alert without even claiming the reward. Others, he may be too hard, or they are there for the rewards or there to only win, or hell they may not simply like fighting a worm headed leech dude and may not que for it. Ao' is hard, he's ugly, he is not usually a sure 100% easy win, and that cuts out many people that otherwise would be rushing to que.
Like imagine if there was a way to know which nemesis is popping up as soon as you que. Many people would drop the que as soon as they realize it wont be their nemesis.
I really don't think you understand what I'm saying. I've failed many alert missions since it's inception, heck I've even been on teams that failed against Blackfang, I queue for gravitar, I solo lairs, I don't mind a challenge, but in order for it to be a challenge there needs to be a chance to beat him. If a team needs specific powers and doesn't have said powers and that means you auto fail him how is that a challenge? Perhaps with Ebon Ruin this guy becomes trivial? A mission that fails or succeeds based on what powers someone has isn't a good mission and shouldn't be in the rotation in a PUG.
I am nice. I just disagree. This isn't snobbish. I think anyone can do anything I've done, and many who can do it better.
But I don't discount something just because I haven't done it. And I don't discount people just because I've tried and failed and they say they've done it. I just keep trying. *shrugs*
Seriously, if Ao'Q is thought to be to hard, just don't queue for it. Queue for a different alert. Or just go in and have fun pressing buttons...that's pretty much how I look at it.
"YAY! HOLD DOWN TWO AND FIRE TO PISTOLS! WHEEEE!"
As I was telling Gradii in game, only beaten FM twice myself. I've tried many more times than that.
I still try, still enjoy it. Alerts are all optional. You don't have to queue for any of them. I have a friend who won't queue for Pyramid of Power because she hates them. She considers them to long for her to enjoy it.
Now with the new alert system, this might mean waiting longer. But does one really lose anything for trying and failing? Not really.
You don't seem to understand that people are telling you that the fight can be beaten without ebon ruin, without skarns bane and without "forum builds". However, it seems like you just plain don't want to believe it. That's fine though... you don't have to que for Ao, and he's only one alert out of many.
Why is it so bad that there's one alert that you won't do?
The fact that people are successfully completing him means he isn't broken. Sure, you may not agree with the particular playstyle that that one alert caters to, but why does every alert have to cater to your playstyle?
Why is it so bad that there's one alert that you won't do?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Yeesh... Aren't you coming off as a "snobbish loser" because your uber-build or whatever can't rofl-stomp him? Yes, Ao'Q is a crapload more punishing on people who just sit there and mindlessly spam attacks than Baron Cimetere. I'd say Ao'Q would be Rampage Alert material if it weren't for its crippling weaknesses even if Skarn's Bane and heal debuffs were taken into account. People can solo the burst version if they know what they're doing.
If you don't want to touch Ao'Q, that's fine. Leave Ao'Q for the kind of people who get off to soloing Gravitar and Vikorin and whatnot.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
Why is it bad that there's one possibly broken alert in the game? Gee I don't know. I mean if level 40 and 4 minimum level 15s can't hurt him and quit after a minute of frustration that's solid challenge!
Or it means they've never faced him in Radiation Rumble, or it means they had the very specific powers that allowed them to beat him, or, if it is a bug, it means they've never encounted this bug.
And what playstyle would that be? I tried him as a tank and I tried him as a hybrid support. I suppose I never played him as a pure DPSer, maybe this is what you mean, because god knows the game as very little content for DPS builds.
I'm elitist but you wouldn't see me say a word of it on a random team - you'd probably hear me spouting off in trade =P.
It depends on how we define "broken". Is his challenge rating well above other alert bosses. Very much so. Most alert fights are typical tank and spank, the worm requires more than what's required of a typical alert.
I don't see him as "challenging" so much as needing a more specific team makeup. Just like "Duraclad" in Malvanum, the challenge isn't so much the fight but the team comp. A single player can do everything right and an alert boss will eventually go down regardless of other teammates (short of them feeding horribly in a recruiting drive). The worm can leech off your teammates and completely negate your output.
A capable/balanced team can wipe the worm out without breaking a sweat. Solo queue isn't know for that as far as any alert goes.