FC.35.20241029.3 - The Flying Dutchman

kaiserin · October 30

The Flying Dutchman
This open mission will be available in Vibora Bay during the Bloodmoon event. The Ghost Ship can be found patrolling around the map.

Phase 1: Defeat Pirate Ghosts in 4 locations.
Phase 2: Defeat Pirate Captains at the docks.
Phase 3: Defeat Dread Pirate Ruperts.

During this fight the ghost ship will attack random players, and as the fight progresses begin to summon abyssal beings that increase the resistance of Dread Pirate Ruperts while active. Defeating these entities will remove the boosts.

Once Dread Pirate Ruperts reaches a certain health threshold, he will begin trapping players in a waterspout, dealing unmitigated damage while trapped. Players can be freed from the spout.

Added Specter Auras as possible drops.
Added Spooky costumes as possible drops.
Added Ghostly Wail, Vapors of the Nether Realm, and Abyssal Wave devices as possible drops.
Added Ghostly Blades power variant device as a possible drop.
Added Ghost Cat and Kitten action figures as possible drops.
Added Ghostly costume transformation as a possible drop.
Added daily mission for this open mission on Dweomer.

Powers

New Power: Wrathful Blade

Tier1 Heavy Weapons
Form
Adds a stack of Enrage whenever you apply a Burning effect. Scales off of Strength.

Devices
Abyssal Wave

Ranged Dimensional damage.
50ft range.
Deals damage to targets within a 25ft sphere.
Summons 3 Abyss Tentacles to attack nearby targets.
120 second recharge.

Ghostly Wail

Ranged dimensional Damage
50ft range.
Deals damage in a cone in front of you.
Chance to apply Fear. If target is feared, chance to snare instead.
Paralyzes targets on full maintain.
90 second recharge.

Vapors of the Nether Realm

Applies 5 stacks of Charged Up to you.
90 second recharge.

Power Variant Devices
Ghostly Blades

Scales off of Eye of the Storm
Deals melee dimensional damage to targets around you.
Chance to Fear targets.
Heals you for every target hit that is affected by fear.

thisiscraftaaa · October 30

The immediate thoughts that come to mind are:

The actual devices themselves are more interesting than the PVD, though their cooldowns are generally stupidly (read: worthlessly) long. To point them out in particular...

Abyssal Wave is a Dimensional version of Hydra. Same 20 second 2-second-ticks patch that spawns a bunch of stationary pets around it that attack nearby targets. The charge time and 2-minute cooldown makes it clear this is supposed to parallel the Portal of Darkness device, though admittedly, it feels to me like Abyssal Wave would have been much better suited (and way more interesting) as a Hydra PVD with numbers more closely matching Hydra, instead of what it is now.

Ghostly Wail is practically just Shadow Embrace. A 90 second recharge is kind-of ridiculous, especially since the Paralyze part of it requires a full Maintain, which is, what, 5 seconds long? I'd argue it should have a 45 second recharge just like Bleak Essence, so that it's actually being used regularly, and because 5-second maintains in content where you'd benefit from Paralyzes tend to be interrupted very frequently by "block this room-wide/200ft sphere or die instantly" type moves and/or endless tap-knockspam from mob waves.

Vapors of the Nether Realm falls into a similar category. 5 stacks of Charged Up is helpful for mobility, but Charged Up only lasts... if I recall correctly, 12 seconds? And most players that are using Charged Up are getting it from using Acrobatics/Athletics, so have a full 5 stacks almost guaranteed when they need it due to the aforementioned "AoEs and attacks flying everywhere in content where it matters." 90 seconds for 5 stacks (12 seconds) for one person is just... too much. I'd suggest reducing the cooldown timer to 30 seconds, or potentially reducing it to 45 and turning it into an AoE that also applies Charged Up to nearby allies similar to every single "5% damage buff to self and allies within 25ft for 30 seconds" device out there. (I wouldn't turn down this being something like a Call to Battle PVD either, but that's a bit more out there as far as ideas go than just "fix silly cooldown pls.")

Meanwhile, Ghostly Blades has a problem. Namely, nobody uses Eye of the Storm, and this PVD isn't really good enough to justify using Eye of the Storm either, except theoretically on some weird sort of healer build, but in that situation you'd be better off using a drain heal of any kind instead, or Devour Essence/Thrash instead, or Brilliant Cleave instead, seeing as Ghostly Blades only has a chance to start self-healing based on Fear application chance. If you want this to actually be used at all then it needs a buff; make the self-healing ticks guaranteed and potentially give it one more small effect, like Snaring targets that are successfully Feared, or guaranteeing Fear application on a full Maintain.

(As an aside, given Blade Tempest specifically got looked at just a week or two ago, I know I was kind-of expecting the upcoming PVD to be, well, a Blade Tempest PVD. A shame I got my hopes up for what turned out to be this thing instead, but oh well!)

On the other hand, I see Wrathful Blade and I like it, though I do also notice that despite being HW, it's a Str toggleform that seems to work veeery well with the new Fire Bestial PVDs in particular, and base Bestial already has a Str toggleform that it works veeery well with. Still, absolutely not complaining, I just find it funny how clearly it's supposed to plug into said PVDs rather than Heavy Weapons, which has to go out of its way to intentionally take advs and out-of-set powers to get Clinging Flames really going.

I can't talk about the new OM properly experience-wise because I haven't actually been around on the PTS testing it, so all I can give are my thoughts from the summary here. From the sound of it, it's going to handle very similarly to the Ghost Shark/Unknowable, by stacking defense and forcing people to kill specific spawned entities to be able to attack properly again while aiming bubbles at random players, with a sprinkling of Kiga/Frosticus tombs on top? It doesn't sound particularly interesting, not any more than Unknowable is, though I'll have to actually see once it hits Live.

A bit of a shame that this is only going to be a Blood Moon OM though; it'd be nice for Vibora Bay to actually have an OM worth doing in the same way Canada has Reign of Frogs, the Desert has ASCIIng For Trouble and Monster Island has Burden of Beastmen. What are the odds this could be kept with some sort of gimmick to it to prevent people from endlessly farming what's supposed to be Blood Moon items outside of Blood Moon proper, like "this OM is only active from 6pm ST to 6am ST every new moon, and constantly during Blood Moon" or the likes?

jaazaniah1 · October 30

All the devices should be regular powers.

theravenforce · October 30

Having tested the OM...

Please consider ensuring that mobs cannot spawn inside the warehouse on the docks, because they can amass in there and then all rush out and its...alot.

avianos · October 30

Powers

New Power: Wrathful Blade

Tier1 Heavy Weapons
Form
Adds a stack of Enrage whenever you apply a Burning effect. Scales off of Strength.

Thank you PVDs for making Elemental Melee REAL and giving us powers like this!

I can think this would be good for Fire Tanks with STR, or Melee with Fire Range characters.

BUG: [Wrathful Blade]
1. Audio Bug: There is no sound effects
2. Animation Bug: The Animation Repeats after activating it (as showed on the Exhibition GIF)

Suggestion: Please make a Melee Fire Toggle for DEX-Focus

avianos · October 30

Power Variant Devices
Ghostly Blades

Scales off of Eye of the Storm
Deals melee dimensional damage to targets around you.
Chance to Fear targets.
Heals you for every target hit that is affected by fear.

Not Impressed with this
It feels underwhelming by its own, unless we get more Dual-Blade PVDS to support it, its pretty MEH

BUG: [Haunted Blades] Audio Bug: The sound effect persists 3 seconds after you stop

Suggestion: In the future can we have a Material Weapon Aura that reverts Melee weapons back to their original materials?
Not a fan of the Ghost-Fog material forced with the PVD

avianos · October 30

VERY LATE BUG REPORT: BUG: [Sanguine Storm] Doesnt have a sound effect while maintaining it

Abyssal Wave

Ranged Dimensional damage.
50ft range.
Deals damage to targets within a 25ft sphere.
Summons 3 Abyss Tentacles to attack nearby targets.
120 second recharge.

"and watch out for those tentacles" 🦑 🐙

Ghostly Wail

Ranged dimensional Damage
50ft range.
Deals damage in a cone in front of you.
Chance to apply Fear. If target is feared, chance to snare instead.
Paralyzes targets on full maintain.
90 second recharge.

Nice use of the Ghost Skull travel power visuals

Vapors of the Nether Realm

Applies 5 stacks of Charged Up to you.
90 second recharge.

Not even gonna Gif it!
Ok but... why tho?
I can feel this being useful only on Speedster-theme builds and mostly on Builds that are using FLIGHT as their rank 3 travel power!
Suggestion: Consider giving Vapors of the Nether Realm a threat reduction as well

theravenforce · October 30

Also to note:

Once the OM fails:

Every 30 seconds or so this happens:

Probably needs fixing in the rare instances that the OM fails...

theravenforce · October 30

Suggestion: Make the Waterspout cages take additional damage from Cold and Fire type damage. :>

warcanch · October 31

What is the cooldown for this Open Mission after success? After a fail?

chimerafreek · October 31

thisiscraftaaa wrote: »

The immediate thoughts that come to mind are:

Meanwhile, Ghostly Blades has a problem. Namely, nobody uses Eye of the Storm, and this PVD isn't really good enough to justify using Eye of the Storm either, except theoretically on some weird sort of healer build, but in that situation you'd be better off using a drain heal of any kind instead, or Devour Essence/Thrash instead, or Brilliant Cleave instead, seeing as Ghostly Blades only has a chance to start self-healing based on Fear application chance. If you want this to actually be used at all then it needs a buff; make the self-healing ticks guaranteed and potentially give it one more small effect, like Snaring targets that are successfully Feared, or guaranteeing Fear application on a full Maintain.

(As an aside, given Blade Tempest specifically got looked at just a week or two ago, I know I was kind-of expecting the upcoming PVD to be, well, a Blade Tempest PVD. A shame I got my hopes up for what turned out to be this thing instead, but oh well!)

I was also under the impression that it was going to be a Blade Tempest PVD.

thisiscraftaaa wrote: »

The immediate thoughts that come to mind are:

On the other hand, I see Wrathful Blade and I like it, though I do also notice that despite being HW, it's a Str toggleform that seems to work veeery well with the new Fire Bestial PVDs in particular, and base Bestial already has a Str toggleform that it works veeery well with. Still, absolutely not complaining, I just find it funny how clearly it's supposed to plug into said PVDs rather than Heavy Weapons, which has to go out of its way to intentionally take advs and out-of-set powers to get Clinging Flames really going.

Yeah I can't really see any reason to use the form on a HW set over enraged. I'm REASONABLY certain it only exists to work with those fire PVD's and put INTO HW because there was presidence for it there. Which I think is kind of a shame because I think this could have been an opportunity to have it grant stacks of frenzy since it COULD work with the fire framework powers also, and this could have been a means to branch between HW and the Fire Framework.

FC.35.20241029.3 - The Flying Dutchman

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