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Ao'Qephoth (Worm Guy) health regen.
wacky99
Posts: 115 Arc User
I'm a little concerned that Worm Guy seems to have incredible healing powers. At first I thought I was simply not doing enough damage, but tonight I captured a combat log during a Soul Siphon Alert, and the results are... well, astounding.
You have to bear in mind that in this particular alert, the group members unilaterally bailed out by the time there were 8 civilians left, so what you're seeing is Worm Guy's healing over only a fraction of the full alert (the first third? I can't remember how many civilians you start with).
Heal Subtotals:
Dark Life Drain 5628
Devour Essence 94117
Shadowfeast 150971
Yeah that last one is 150 THOUSAND HP.
Average heal per tick:
Dark Life Drain 562.8
Devour Essence 7239.77
Shadowfeast 4193.64
These last figures are the total of the healing divided by the number of spots I had in the combat log.
I know some builds can get through or negate this sort of crap, but seriously devs, you go and reduce Sentinel Aura by 70% then pull this sort of joke?
I'll avoid this boss for the time being until this is addressed, I suppose. Unless anyone has any strategies to ameliorate this?
EDIT: forgot to add, the group was level 18 to high 20's. 2 x Fire, Devastator, Might and Munitions. Should have been able to complete it, I'd have thought.
You have to bear in mind that in this particular alert, the group members unilaterally bailed out by the time there were 8 civilians left, so what you're seeing is Worm Guy's healing over only a fraction of the full alert (the first third? I can't remember how many civilians you start with).
Heal Subtotals:
Dark Life Drain 5628
Devour Essence 94117
Shadowfeast 150971
Yeah that last one is 150 THOUSAND HP.
Average heal per tick:
Dark Life Drain 562.8
Devour Essence 7239.77
Shadowfeast 4193.64
These last figures are the total of the healing divided by the number of spots I had in the combat log.
I know some builds can get through or negate this sort of crap, but seriously devs, you go and reduce Sentinel Aura by 70% then pull this sort of joke?
I'll avoid this boss for the time being until this is addressed, I suppose. Unless anyone has any strategies to ameliorate this?
EDIT: forgot to add, the group was level 18 to high 20's. 2 x Fire, Devastator, Might and Munitions. Should have been able to complete it, I'd have thought.
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
Post edited by wacky99 on
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Ahem! How to beat Ao'Qephoth 101.
Chapter 1: Lifedrain
This is a 50 feet range darkness power that deals dimensional damage and heals the user every half second. When he uses this power, he will always say "Your soul will be mine!" as he thrusts his arm forward. This is your only warning and he says it just as he begins the attack so be ready.
How do I stop him from healing for insane amounts when he uses it on me? Block. Just hold block for its duration, and it will completely nullify the healing portion of the power. It's that simple.
I've watched players foolishly continue their assault while he drained their life and resorted 1/3 of his max HP. Do not underestimate how powerful Life Drains healing ability is. It's not built for damage first so players ignore it and keep attacking without thought. Failure to block this attack deals a severe blow to the teams progress. 1/3 or none. You decide. Your teammates decide.
Chapter 2: Devour Essence
This is a melee range infernal attack that deals toxic damage and heals the user every half second. Are you sensing a pattern here? Unlike life drain this has no text tell. You deal with this in one of two ways. Either you simply stay out of his range so he can't use it, or if you're melee just block.
It is critical that you block as quickly as you can when he tries to drain/devour. So pay attention. Aggro can be finicky when there is no dedicated tank so always be ready to block his drain/devour at a moments notice. You'll have to count on your teammates to follow through with this. When everyone does you'll severely cut down on his healing ability.
Chapter 3: Shadowfeast and his Overall ability to potentially restore his HP
So we've covered how to handle his two main self healing attacks, but what about his passive healing ability that is built into his shadow form passive. This is a bit trickier and will require a certain tool. This one tool will make the fight many times easier.
The heal debuff. More commonly known as Trauma. This debuff is available as an advantage on brute strike and haymaker. It comes built into ebon ruin. The pestilence passive also has the very same effect. This will essentially cut his healing strength in half.
Even if you don't have someone to apply a minus heal on him as long as you keep up steady DPS and block/kite his life drain and devour essence attacks you'll down him in no time. Just hope you don't get a bad pug that doesn't know how to block.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
Trauma or the like is VERY rare in PUGs so overall it's just another silly alert boss no one is ever going to play, because for most situations it's just not doable .. theres no preparation time to explain, no real chance to select someone with a heal debuff ..
It might be a fun boss for other situations but for a smash alert? Thats just ridiculous. There are groups out there that can't even handle 5k DPS so how are they supposed to take that boss down in 2 minutes if they can't even get him down to 95% .. simply not all all, blocking or not.
You can't expect every smash alert group to be pre-selected, because the point of smashs overall is to not worry about group selection and be able to just join a PUG.
With the current player selection this means it has to be doable with even 3 supports or 3 tanks or the like in the group, who are not geared to the high end point .. just your average equipped guys. It happens quite often that the group consists of just 1 or 2 real DPS chars and 3 mixed ones or tankish/supportive chars.
For such a group, the damage output necessary with the pauses in order to block is not doable, as such I totally agree with the topic starter, it's just one of the avoid it if you can bosses.
Its kinda like watching folks murder themselves when fighting the Baron and his silly voodoo doll block.
That part is not there anymore... :c
=^ _ ^= Kitty Lives!
Thanks Elenahall.
Yeah, I've played since beta, I know how to block. Without any communication amongst team members - who are randomly selected - you have buckley's chance of downing Worm Guy as he stands. Thanks for the information about Shadowfeast though, I figured there had to be some way of negating a big chunk of his healing.
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
We trounced him btw there were something like 2 x 40s a 38 and some lesser mortals.
[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."
Those hits, are your hits. He is simply returning your damage to you.
He actually starts glowing before he starts reflecting... if you start blocking when the glow starts, you won't take any damage.
Not sure why I'm trying to help you though... I think it's hilarious watching everyone but me get slaughtered by their own leet dps :biggrin:
Champions Online: Be the hero you wish you could be in a better game.
Strange, I get hit even after I start blocking so he must have a ton of my hits stored up.
I meant when Defender yells: BLOCK!
:biggrin:
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
I think I was in that one with you. I got sick of yelling "BLOCK FFS" at everyone and bailed after a while.
It's Rakshasa in smashes all over again.
Quite possibly
Where you playing with a ice tank called Sophia La Mort? Looked a bit like a female version of Mr Freeze? The problem there wasn't a lack of blocking, I'm sure it would have been a problem if the villain's passive healing wasn't so out of whack, but if you can't make any progress when he isn't using his life drain complaining about people not blocking it when he does use it is pointless IMO.
I don't mind tough fights, the additional reward I guess the feeling of accomplishment you get when you take them down, but they have to be within reason. The other night in Radiation Rumble wasn't reasonable.
Excellent list of tips & tricks! There is an issue though, a compounded issue actually:
1. It's a RANDOMLY formed team most of the time. This means the odds of having both competently skilled players, players that even speak english or read their chat window, players with such a specific set of counters, and that everybody on the team blocks as your ideally indicated... Yeah... You've got about as much chance of getting a Harmon Catalyst from a grab bag! In short, nope.avi
2. There's little incentive to beat him, giving how annoying enemies like him and neo-Kevin Poe are. Epic challenges, epic rewards; as I have often said on gaming forums. I don't mind a selective, near-impossible challenge, if the reward is worth it enough, that finding a team of maxed-out & experienced players isn't to hard. But it's a crap reward for the challenge level, especially as a level 40 getting nerfed heavily by sidekicking down to 30.
How to fix?
1. Lower his damage resistance %, make him vulnerable to those who have high burst DPS that they charge up (i.e. sniper rifle, dragon's wrath, TK lance, gigabolt, ego annihilate, force cascade). Small ticks of damage he may be able to heal, but synchonized blasts of damage and good blocking by the team (as suggested by xerios) should be an alternate method to victory and can be undone by people not blocking, but make him feasable to beat without having to have trauma.
2. Educate the players. Spread the message on how to defeat that SoB and reinforce early & often that some things in this game need to be blocked. (Therakiel's spinning-sword AoE, Teleiosaurus radiation breath, life-draining bosses, Takofanes's AoE blast, etc.)
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HAHA! You know when you word it like that it's actually kind of funny. Thanks sockmonkey! :-D
And yes, it's very disappointing the majority of people STILL don't understand that attacking him while he's blocking is what's killing themselves.
Consolidate the currencies! (Please!)
Does your Champion have a theme song? (share it!)
Got a funny in-game screenshot? (share it!)
Please fix the Overdrive energy unlock! (Should help promote thematic build diversity!)
The Shadow Feast can be serious but what really screws your chances is some melee monkey not bothering to block devour essence.
Yes this is hard to detect but in light of that I would suggest Block and Spank rather than tank and spank. Just block up wait for his aggro to go elsewhere then start attacking again. By just blocking you deny him a substantial self heal ergo you increase the probability of success massively.
IMO the damage for Devour Essence and Lifedrain needs to be substantially increased so that players learn to block the dratted things. Nothing teaches blocking like death if you don't!
[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."
Catch 22 though, if you're blocking then you're not doing damage. And the clock is ticking! (just like his regen, as we established on the first page).
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
As regards catch 22 you can't do any damage while your blocking but at least you're not just a gigantic self heal for the villain.
[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."
It's... nevermind.
People are broken. - Lum the Mad
I think I was also there with you playing with an exact "Judge bot" free form build..that build is chock full of resist debuffs and I was trying everything in the book..that was nuts!
At some point I think he bugged somehow and didnt go after anybody, and we managed to deal some 200000 hp damage to him, then he woke up and healed that to full in couple seconds!! This guy is utterly broken.
I dont normally go for drastic nerf rant, but now I do. Lifedrain powers on a boss villain need to be handled carefully. Ao'qephoth is an example of it done wrong.
Very funny, too bad it doesnt help.
I don't think it's lifedrain in Radiation Rumble that is causing the issues. He has some sort of passive health regen that's doing it.
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Yeah, it's what I reported when I started this topic. His Shadowfeast passive is off the charts.
I don't know if that Trauma debuff that Xeiros mentioned on the first page would keep pace with his healing in a Radiation Rumble. Someone was reporting in Zone two days ago that he was healing 480,000 every few seconds. Now even if they've mis-read that figure and it is 48,000 instead, that's still a hell of a lot of passive healing to burn through.
I wouldn't have started this topic unless something was seriously screwed up.
Stuffy on the old CO forums. PWE ate my username.
On the other hand, alert bosses have well over 100k HP (I can't remember exactly how much Ao' has), meaning the heal suddenly becomes more than ten times as effective as it was before. Take that to a burst alert, and it's multiplied even further.
He is defeatable (In normal alerts anyway, never managed it in a burst), but he really does need to be toned down somehow. As other people have mentioned, he'd be fine as-is if her was a lair boss or something you had to prepare for, but to throw him into alerts, which are designed for PUGs, and require everyone to work cohesively together with no preparation time is a little much. You basically need either a team with collectively high DPS who knows how to block, or someone with the powers that can negate or reduce the effectiveness of his healing to even stand a chance (And both to be able to win reliably), which just isn't realistic to expect from a random alert PUG.
The one time I tried him in a burst, I didn't see his hp move, however the first time I fought him in a normal alert I had no clue what people were complaining about.
Considering I was running ER, trauma didn't seem to do a thing during the fight, I'd say that's a bit much.
Ao's heal NEEDS to be taken off,hes practically invincible to us with that thing on!
At least with Tako,clarence,grond and so on,they cant heal,and just take a mob to take em,Ao however,well...Im not sure if even a Takofanes sized mob can take him
Consolidate currency!
Munitions additions
Petition to take in game report spam function out
Why not to do surveys and free offers
Does his block also reflects ranged damage or only melee ones? I died on his alert with one hit yesterday so I assume it reflects ranged damage as well. Just trying to be sure. Unluckily with all that shiny fx and pets and huge characters it is really hard to see if he is blocking or not, let alone seeing his person.
Oh, lawd-a-mighty, does he reflect ranged damage. I found that out when he threw that block up while my Orbital Cannon w/ Anvil of Dawn was warming up. "Hey, what's that voodoo doll for?"
/huge red number
//faceplant
They're not there in the beginning, but when your story ends / Gonna last with you longer than your friends
Life is too short to PUG Ao'Qephoth.
When XP earnings during a Double-XP Weekend still feel like I'm underperforming,
there's something terribly wrong with the reward system...
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Original Join Date: Feb 2010.
Pretty much this. If I had time and pre-made I'd be all over him.
But NOW with a 2 year old+ and nearly none of the time I used to have, yeah pass.
There's other Alerts for XP that can be done. :biggrin:
If there had never been a COH there would never have been a CO. :cool:
Give him a test run when you have the time.
I agree with the previous posters that he should be made into an event or area specific super-villain or monster. With more damage from an open group, he should fall.
But right now,I say that anyone who has the patience and tenacity to bring down Ao'Qephoth should get some big fat reward - like a rank 8 mod or something!
RIP Caine