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Duratok/Ironclad in FM
canadascott
Posts: 1,257 Arc User
This alert was tested and balanced before a lot of the last round of nerfs to certain high DPS attacks. As a result, it's become extremely difficult for all but a team of dedicated DPS specialists to get past this round.
Please consider either adding some temporary damage boost orbs around the arena, or add 15-20 seconds to the timer.
Please consider either adding some temporary damage boost orbs around the arena, or add 15-20 seconds to the timer.
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Post edited by canadascott on
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Got to back up Scott here.
As I recall this alert was tested back when Throwing Blades spam was on all the FOTM builds, and who knows what else people were using then? I don't even know how a regular team of players is supposed to get near to defeating both of them in the short time allowed, even when I bring my own [and have friends bring their] Summon Champion devices, and use vehicles.
Suggestions if you're having trouble:
Keep the duo together. I've seen many a group split them up, you will fail.
AoEs. Stuff like Mental Storm, Storm Sigils, Rimefire, and so on are great for this.
Plasma Beams if all else fails. Line up the shots so both are hit.
I'm tired of the inside jokes and bitter coh vets having a laugh at our expense. Lets remove Duratok from the game. Replace it with a character creation, and have a contest. This time make sure it's someone who cares about CO, and has no other agenda. I'd run the alert just for that.
Queueing for an alert featuring a defunct (and frankly just flat out lame) villian is not and will not ever be fun in this customer's perspective.
For couple of Gs. Or even a Box of Q.
They gave the Firewing Mask for free. That's all what i really wanted of it.
And playing by myself since Aug 2009
Godtier: Lifetime Subscriber
But then my above issue is a bit more general for FM after my few initial runs. On the brightside, as long as you complete a round you do get credit for the daily for some champs recognition.
Right after it was added, when this issue came up, the devs repeatedly said the mission timer had been adjusted for the cutscene and the alert was working as intended.
Umm... No offense, but I've seen that line enough times from both PWE and Cryptic under Atari's management hence my skepticism. Said skepticism isn't directed at you, just those sitting on the Dev side of the equation.
Watching a whole minute plus be shaved off for multiple waves of enemies isn't what I'd call working as intended. Considering most of the timers I ran into were 2 minutes, watching my timer go from 2:40 to 1:40 just before the cut scene started and then down to ~1 min after the cutscene isn't exactly what I'd call working as intended. For Duratok and Ironclad though, the timer is fine and makes sense as it's easier strategy-wise to deal with them vs a variable number horde of mobs.
Sure, I could see that sort of timer making sense if AT damage was higher or people are FF / people all had vehicles / we're a bunch of 40s but seeing as how it's level locked at 30 it doesn't make alot of sense when compared to other alerts. Given the recent changes, this alert either needs to be rechecked or perhaps some of the nerfs need to be rechecked.
Granted the above is just my opinion and it's ultimately more an annoyance than a game breaking issue for me since I'm just hitting it for dailies at present. But, afaik there is gear gated behind FM which some folks may want that they may presently find impossible to get.
Again, nothing personal but I just have a dissenting opinion.
So anything I can get from wining over firewing I could get it from rewards in failing duratok/ironclad challenge? if so, is it similar drop rate?
The fact that you have to build specifically for the one alert is bad design. Kai, I'd normally be with you (I love hard content) but I was throwing 12k non crit cascades. They were hitting for 3.9k. Only actually doing 1/3rd of my dps, on high-hp bosses, with a minute to down both of em is just too much. You could give it double the time and I'll bet most pugs still fail, as of right now? I'd like a screenie from someone to prove it's even possible to do. I'm actually 100% sure if we do see one, it'll be well known theorycrafters wearing at least legion gear if not a piece or 2 of justice.
RIP Caine
H8rd is better crowd having trouble like the rest of us?
Never.
/snark off
I've had members of my SG try this with me and I think we've only succeeded three times out of god knows how many tries.
We're not the uber-leet h8rd crowd but by god we're above average and we can't do this poc.
So maybe it'll get tuned down a little?
Maybe switch one of them to Invul instead?
Knock say 10% off their HP?
I like that last one 'cause my groups have gotten -so- close many times, we were doing everything right but not quite enough crits or what ever..
Here we are now going to the West Side
Weapons in hand as we go for a ride
Some may come and some may stay
Watching out for a sunny day
Where there's love and darkness and my sidearm
In game as @forgemccain
Drops are the same. Completing the alert is supposed to give you a higher chance at a drop, but I have seen no evidence of this over many runs. Even if it's true, you're adding a lot of time to the run by completing it, which will lower your overall droprate over multiple runs.
The timer is not bugged, you are getting the intended amount of time. I'm curious to hear a reason as to why these two need to be toned down. They are beatable, they are beatable without tweaked teams, and they are not mandatory for the mission. So why?
This alert was a missed opportunity. I wish instead of capping the waves out, they would just keep coming and getting harder each wave, granting rewards to the team based on performance once they go down.
Thanks, I thoght it was only resources.
I don't like the alert too much, mainly because the cutscenes get too annoying after a while. At least I can pug it without much remorse of losing my time. I only need the tateklys AF
....
You really don't know the history behind Duratok do you. He's a player creation, voiced by said player too.
EDIT: Specifically, Duratok is a PC that the player submitted to a Create A Sidekick contest years ago. It's awesome of Cryptic to pull that character back for the FM alert.
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Well, I did manage to get a pug that was able to finish and we did get the dynamic duo. Granted, there were also 2 vehicles that both appeared to have Plasma Beam equipped which were only broken out for these guys and the final boss. So that may not exactly be what you're looking for.
But I think Crypticbuxom is right in that they want us to cheat and use vehicles of some variety.
As to the rewards, the only thing I noticed was a much bigger reward of resources.
I would agree that there's nothing really 'hard' about this aside from being a dps/gear/level check. The fight itself is two kinda-hard hitting HW/Might tanks that sometimes use charge attacks. Ho-hum. Firewing himself is at least more interesting (albeit unfair to most ATs that lack healing/defense cds- as is most content in this game).
Plasma Beam and stacking Vehicles is the easiest way to get past the round 8 roadblock for PuGs that aren't guaranteed to be full of optimized dps or max lvl characters. From my experience w/ PuGs and my vehicle, ya need decent dps + 2 PB spamming vehicles at the least, w/ more properly equipped vehicles easing the dps reqs for the rest.
- Be safe and have fun, champs - for science!
Gerber, it's not hard. My squishies tank both of em regularly without an issue, I've only died to duraclad and firewing once each. At this point I'm more arguing for the middle-range players who aren't capable of throwing 10-20k per second and bypassing armor. I mean, you can snark about it, but I'm already beating it and I'm arguing on your side.
Kai, I refuse to believe that the timer's intentional. Every other fight in the timed portion is 2 minutes, except that one. haha if they're gonna have duraclad talk to itself on the timer, I should be able to sucker punch them and start the fight when it's supposed to start. Every time that cutscene plays, I find myself wishing the guy who voices Duratok would speak a bit faster.
RIP Caine
I know the history just fine thank you. I also know why Tishyen made the "decision" that made him the winner of the contest.
It's a space orc, chosen by the worst gm we have ever had, and it should be removed. Obviously this will not happen, but I am entitled to my opinion.
You're better off defeating Firewing if you want at least half a decent chance to get anything.
RIP Caine
This is what I am worried about. If I remember correctly, when the alert was released, the argument was that for getting resources you needed just to be able to go beyond the timing part, but for costumes and action figures beating firewing was required. That's the reason I asked about it in page 1.
Reminds me of characters like Ulik and the like...perfectly acceptable for a comic book setting.
Yeah FM is hard...but as others have pointed out if is not necessary to complete every match to get a reward and finish the daily mission, so that leaves me on the fence about whether or not they should tone down the difficulty. I would probably say they should leave it as is...I've only completed the entire thing once and it felt like an accomplishment...if I could just bash through it all every time it would not.
I enjoy DPS checks, it gives DPS a purpose and prevents players from cheesing out fights with over defensive teams.
I found the firewing fight a lot more dull. His power projections are way too lenient for how little his attacks hit for, his timer is too long for how squishy he is (he's easily soloable), all he has going is that dot of his that kills through cutscenes.
I agree completely. I have a OffTank who can hit for 5-7k noncrit on average just running Mercenary gear. I can solo both Ironclad and Duratok- using only compassion and not get my health below 90%. But no matter what team I've been in I've never once beaten this round.
I've been playing for years now- the character I chose is one of my best overall. I consider my good characters above average in whatever their specialty is- but I chose this one specifically to offtank in hybrid mode to help with DPS. There is no reason players like me cannot beat this content.
DPS checks are fine- but having the whole match depend on one that was set before multiple nerfings is unfair.
This is my entire point.
At this point the whole tournament is pretty strange, sometimes you fight more people like vipers, sometime less like duratork/ironclad or firewing. As far as I know, there is no mention of a justification for so disimilar battles.
And I do agree that it would be nice for the event to be retooled for current damage dealing and *no* vehicles. I'll use them because its the most efficient way to go (especially in a pug) but honestly wish it wasn't set up the current way.
Well, by all means, do allow for using vehicles there, people paid for them.
But also scale it to be more manageable without the vehicles?
It's not really a DPS check if you can panzerkampfwagen it anyway.
If every power set had that potential to attain elite-level DPS, either through power choices, gear, or skill, then sure, make more encounters like this. Currently they do not - not even close.
Pretty much what he said.
'Caine, miss you bud. Fly high.
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!
*eyeroll*
RIP Caine
We just want to be able to get through the fight without having to either use specific builds and devices, open it up a bit so that more builds than a very few specific ones can at least have a place in the fight.
With recent changes to vehicles, much of the vehicle-gated (or vehicle-allowed) content needs tweaking. Sure I can pull together groups to do a 10-round win, even significantly shorter than the timer, and even solo (pets Nighthawk) but such measures shouldn't be necessary in content that's supposed to be the same "tier" as, say, GRAB and Hi-Pan.
Now if LI were to be nuked from orbit and FM were to replace it as is, I certainly wouldn't mind.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
On a positive(?) note, Lordgar did confirm to me when i asked that FM is intended to be a vehicle map.
@Liath | My PRIMUS Page | Altaholics | New Vehicle Models | New Emblems | Flag Tights
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Except for the fact that 100% of runs finish the instance. Maybe only 10% of runs complete the extra stages... but that's how that sort of thing works.
FM is an example of exactly how more content in the game needs to be structured. You have one part that can pretty much be completed by just about anyone, for which you get a basic reward. Then you have extra stages that only certain people will be able to complete, with less and less people being able to continue as you go further.
There's no reason to nerf the instance so that everyone can complete the extra stages.
The intent is pretty obvious. You have stages with no timer, then stages with a timer. If you complete the untimed stages you get a reward, and you complete the mission for the alert. The fact that you could stop right there and the first timed round run out and still satisfy the success condition for both the alert reward and the alert mission means that anything after that is done for "bonus".
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
All good, except that the sequencing of the encounters is totally out-of-whack. I've never seen a team that successfully completes round 8, fail round 9 or 10, when you'd expect that the final boss of the arena be, well, hard.
I usually regret invoking TVTropes, but Duraclad is That One Boss.
Gee, where have I seen that before. DPS Race with a time limit.
Oh right, that's like 98% of all Endgame content in STO. DPS race with time limit.