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Day at the Mall: good alert, bad boss selection
guyhumual
Posts: 2,395 Arc User
Now I'd like to talk about a certain encounter I had yesterday with one of the fan designed villains, but I can't discuss that thread as there's already a locked thread about that that's already had posts in the last 30 days, so I'm unable to talk about it there and I can't start a new one for 30 days. Good forum rules BTW. Very helpful.
Anyways, here's the old thread Here.
Now, while I wait 30 days so I can talk about something that happened yesterday let me just say this: I like every villain used in day at the mall with the exception of one. I'd prefer if they only had Vibora bay centric villains but I'm not ultra fussy, I do however like villains that can be defeated by a random group of five players at the level that the alert is gated for. In this case level 10s. I feel at least one certain villain doesn't meet that criteria.
Anyways, here's the old thread Here.
Now, while I wait 30 days so I can talk about something that happened yesterday let me just say this: I like every villain used in day at the mall with the exception of one. I'd prefer if they only had Vibora bay centric villains but I'm not ultra fussy, I do however like villains that can be defeated by a random group of five players at the level that the alert is gated for. In this case level 10s. I feel at least one certain villain doesn't meet that criteria.
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So as he said, you are free to start a new one. Less melodramatics would be nice.
However, I can assure you that any Grab villian is defeatable by any random group of players. I always pug grabs, and have done so with characters at a variety of levels, and have never encountered a boss that has been consistently unbeatable. I feel the need to mention: I do not use min/max'd characters, I use theme characters that most min/maxers would agree are terrible.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Ao'Igiveup.
What he's advised me to do is break the forum rules as doing as he suggest would violate: "Creating Duplicate Threads (A Duplicate Thread is defined as a thread which discusses the same topic as another thread, which has had a new post within the last 30 days.)"
Now please don't try to derail the thread. Let's talk about Day at the Mall and the villain selection please.
Your thread was derailed from post 1. By you. This thread is a thinly veiled attempt to criticize a forum moderator, and you're not fooling anyone.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I tend to disagree as I don't think a random team of level 10s would be able to handle someone like Ao'Qephoth. Many other villain sure but there's something wrong with that guy's passive. He needs to either be fixed or removed from the rotation.
Just skip this alert. *shrug* I've heard he's liked by dev's, so he's very unlikely to be fixed.
What I want to talk about is something that happened yesterday, but because I can't post in old threads, and by the forum rules I can't start another one about this particular villain, I'm stuck talking about Day at the Mall and the villain selection. Thankfully this gives me the room to talk about Ao'Qephoth as he is one of the villains in Day at the Mall.
I would also like to state that I'm not looking to criticize any of the moderators. The rules yes. They make it very, very hard to discuss anything or keep track of anything if we need to do a search and then start a new thread when we're talking about persistent problems with the game. Why should I have to look through a dozen Ao'Qephoth threads to find a post that's relevant to me if I could just add to the discussion?
Since he's liked by devs, here's another one to avoid, like Gravitar.
I quickly just skimmed over the first post and I was like 'what, 30 days? huh?'
So then I then I noticed foxi posted this and before reading it thought 'oh foxi may have a sarcastic comment that will make it easier to understand...'
Apparently, I was wrong.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's (starting from post nerf PTS team duels)
Groups consisting entirely of level 10s aren't the norm. If we balance alerts around a team of lvl 10s, then it's going to become laughable for the average pug group.
My advice is to either not que at level 10, for the express purpose of avoiding a group that is entirely composed of level 10s. OR if you must que, press O and if you see only level 10s in the group, exit and re-que.
Or just do some missions for the brief few minutes that Ao is in the que.
The problem you're having is not one that is being universally had, which would indicate that the boss is not broken.
That's not what Biff told you at all. He in fact encouraged you to open a new thread about the topic. Hell, he practically ordered you to.
No, because there are players who like facing him in Grabs, and he's beatable in Radiation Rumble. Hell, I bet there's even someone who's beaten him in Pyramid Power.
Fact is Ao Pyramid Power is such a rare occurance, that it's hardly worth complaining about.
Complaining about Ao in Grab is just... silly.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
The problem is not universal since players might be packing Skarn's Bane and/or a Trauma-inflicting move. Which is essentially the only way to beat Ao.
Wrong again! People keep telling you that you're wrong about this... when you gonna listen? You don't need skarn's bane, you don't need trauma. You don't even need a particularly well built dps character. You just need to know how to block and how to move.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
For crying out loud. Nobody advised or otherwise told you to break any forum rules. You're entire line of reasoning here is that because the now-closed thread contains posts less than 30 days old that you can't discuss any of the points that were made there. I can't even begin to describe how really freaking dumb that is.
That said, Ao'omgwtfbbq can be a tough customer but he's been beaten numerous times in PuGs that lack the "required" debuffs. His self healing can, and has, overwhelmed incoming dps before and will continue to do so as long as the group's DPS output isn't at a certain level.
In other words, bring your A('o) game and expect the group to be bad when you queue.
Here's the thing though, I sometimes play in short bursts, and that might mean I got 10 minutes to play. The other day I log in and Ao'Qephoth is sitting there in two alerts: the burst and the grab. Now what I could have done is just turned off CO instead of playing as by the time the Alerts cycled I'd probably have been out of time anyways, but rather I queued for the grab as I'd never had a problem with Ao'Qephoth in a grab before. Also I should add that I like Day at the Mall, it's nice and short, and I like the way Vibora Bay looks if not the missions you get there. Now to my surprise the mission pops and we blow through the first half. We did have one death (which might have been a clue, but I managed to agro everything else, and my toon can take a beating) but till we hit Ao we were looking good. 4 minutes later and I'm running out of time and we haven't made a dent in him. Well we'd made dents but they were quickly patched up.
I would have liked to have had the grab xp bonus, the toon is level 39 and the sooner I get her to level 40 the sooner I can get a new character slot, but what you're saying is to bad, so sad, a few people like Ao so let's leave him in Bursts and Grabs because everyone can wait for the alerts to cycle.
In short, yes. This scenario should not happen very often. I find myself hoping for a queue with Ao to pop up, and I don't think he's in the rotation enough for my tastes.
There was a saying that I took a liking to from my Dark Souls PvP days. "Git gud." I don't mean to insult anyone that think Ao is too tough, but he goes down like any other alert boss a majority of the time. The rare times I'm in a group with low DPS, I just need to actually incorporate thought and tactics into gameplay - something I really enjoy doing and I wish I needed to do more often outside of PvP in this game.
My last post in that thread was today before it was locked. I can't continue the discussion there and I can't start a new one for 30 days. That's how the rules are worded. Maybe you can show me where the exception is but having a moderator say I can start a new thread doesn't give me protection against infractions. Perhaps my posts in my old thread might be overlooked but I'm not going to risk breaking forum rules again no matter how much I wanted to talk about Ao.
I'm not doubting that he can be beaten, I've had success with him in the past, and I only PUG. What I'm doubting is that he's a good villain selection for Grab or Burst Alerts. Smash I don't care about, those are the level 40s, if anyone can handle Ao'Qephoth they can. Also, further more, those are timed missions, there's an actual way to fail besides give up.
Umm, aren't you the person who necroed that other thread, creating the, "posts in the last 30 days," situation ?
Even so that thread is locked and so not open for ongoing discussion and so, as indicated by a moderator, you are free to start this new thread.
Ao can be a pain. I've seen randoms defeat it. I've seen premades fail to beat it. I don't think that a single foe that requires some very basic degree of team coordination and/or build consideration to defeat is a bad thing.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
"So should we just give up?" another asked
"YEA, I GUESS" I answered.
Then one left, maybe an experience gamer, another went to the power house. And I watched the other two wander around sadly for a bit before I decided to shut the game down.
Good times.
Difficulty isn't a bad thing. I like it. I like gravitar. I don't always beat gravitar but I get the feeling of challenge with her. The same can't be said about Ao. Sometimes he's fine, a challenge, but other times his self regeneration from his darkness passive is far too much.
Yeah in my experience this particular villain is very binary. Either a win, or a not even a scratch on him.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
You're contradicting yourself.
And again.
So sometimes you beat him... sometimes you don't. What's the problem?
Failing is a "bad gaming experience"? Then why was Dark Souls so popular?
You failed. Move on. They shouldn't have to change the game just because you want guaranteed success during the 10 minutes a day that you play.
And yes I know that there are some people who can only have fun when they're winning; as a pvper, I meet them far too often.
Let me guess... now you're going to claim that beating the fight has nothing to do with it.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Skarn's Bane and Trauma makes it much quicker to beat Ao, but they are not compulsory to have to actually beat him. There just needs to be a certain level of DPS output from the team to overcome his healing. Unfortunately this means that a team of just lowbies without any attack buffs face the best chance of failure. Players also must also know to anticipate his soul drains and to block them. That's really just it.
I don't think you've been listening to me. I said he's broken. SOMETIMES his passive seems to be in over drive and he heals far more then he should. If his passive behaved that way all the time then I could assume that he's acting as he's designed. Do you understand me now?
This is why I think he's broken. Sometimes he's a hard fight, but he's beatable, other times his passive heals way more then I figure it should. This isn't a case of sometimes losing to him, this is a case of sometime not even being able to hurt him.
Have you considered that maybe not all random alert PUGs you're placed in will automatically be equal to each other in terms of overall DPS?
A challenge that is meant to be a challenge is one thing, but a challenge that was created artificially by a bug that requires a specific set of circumstances to overcome is another.
ranged drain - break line of sight. walls, trees, etc
any pets out, he feeds off them too.
I've had groups fail with everyone about 30.
The people would just attacking while he was targeting them and he quite happily healed himself, despite people yelling TO BLOCK
People with dinos out, get aggro and he drains them.
other pets, same
success
people block as soon as he targets them and stay blocking till he targets someone else.
everyone carpet bombs him.
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A direct hit!
I fought him several times today and yesterday. He went down. I guess I'm just lucky. I'll let you know if I run into your bug though.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Sadly, still no bug. I closely monitored how much Ao'Qephoth was healing himself, and there was nothing unusual about it. He heals ~4k hp every ~4 seconds so long as he's dealing damage to someone (as expected of Shadow Form), occasionally critting for more than that (it's very uncommon, he clearly has a low crit chance).
The group simply wasn't able to put out enough damage to counter his 1000 healing per second. Not surprising for my character which is a fairly low damage telepathy tank, and I had aggro so I spent a lot of time blocking and outranging his life drain. I didn't catch the levels of everyone involved, but ultimately what matters is that it wasn't due to Ao being broken, it was just the group couldn't put out enough damage.
Another interesting thing I noticed is that while you can Line Of Sight his Life Drain, it will still count as you being damaged by him for purposes of the Shadow Form's 4k per 4 seconds heal, so the best option is to get out of range since that interrupts it.
So there's no bug, it's just one of those encounters that requires a certain level of damage output. Namely, a combined party dps of 1,000 dps minimum, in addition to blocking and running out of range of life drains (both Drain Life and Devour Essence).
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Thanks for the feedback, I have to wonder about that concussion though, my tank usually hits in the 450 range but often crits into the 1500, so if we assumed that I had a very bad sting of bad luck, which isn't impossible, it would mean that the other four players would only need to supply 550 between them.
I should ask though, is this 1000 you calculate every second or every tick?
That is based on the fact that he healed ~4000 every ~4seconds. Since I just counted out the seconds, I could be off up or down. It's technically already over 1000 by a variable amount, depending on how often he crits. If I'm off by a whole second, it shoots up to 1333 dps minimum.
It's short range, so melee just has to pay attention to his animations and gtfo when he starts it. Yes, this means melee will have to spend a lot of time jumping out of their attack range, and it also means that melee tanks have a lot more to pay attention to when tanking this fight. No secret that the game hasn't been very melee friendly lately though.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
I'd say that this is worse then my suspicions that shadow form was healing more then it should. It means that a basic fundamental game mechanic isn't working.
Also, I'd like to thank you again for looking into this spinnytop, I don't think we can agree on what should be done about Ao' but I do appreciate you crunching some numbers for us.
I see the Ao'Q day at the mall as little bit more tricky version for higher levels. We dont want them all being cakewalks.
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!
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I'll admit i like seeing them when 'm on my main, a freeform level 40 with skarns bane. I know from the forums and from bad days that he can be a pain, So its kind of a "bring the kryptonite" thing for me.
There's your problem right there for one what you should have said is any time you see him pull his heal moves block and don't stop blocking (if you have more time explain that only the person targeted need do this)
Also thanks to screwy lvl scaling you may well find those low levels are kicking out the same if not more than there lvl 30 team mates.
I'm still trying to find the dev post that acknowledges it, but there are a lot of archived topics, and I don't think all of the posts from the old forum made it over.
Its not really a bug if I remember correctly shadow for heals for a percentage of total max HP on a player its not all that much but on a high lvl villain it can heal for a few thousand HP
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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"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, that's why running out of range is the best strategy. It's one of those weird fights that requires the use of the S key
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
There is nothing in the game that warns you that Ao' is for higher levels or DPSers only, or warns you that he can heal himself though the blocks, and so I really feel he's a determent to the game in Bursts and Grabs.
Around the time Nocturnal was put into the game the shadowform bug was acknowledge, I can't find that dev post though and the dev tracker hasn't worked since, well I don't remember the last time it was used for anything.
This would be a good point for one of our CMs to acknowledge if it is or is not a bug at this point though.