Oh come on not more hp. Its only dragging the fight on and making. Hopefully the reworked rewards are really worth it. So how much is it going to be 80 mil like tiamat heads?
The health increase isn't meant to simply pad the boss time. While internally we can complete Fangbreaker, I'll be the first to admit our DPS isn't going to be as high as some of the better groups out there. We knew ahead of time we'd have to increase their health, but wanted to see what made sense once you all got your hands on them.
Fangbreaker's bosses are designed and balanced to be challenging and interesting with a certain encounter length in mind. For instance, the abilities Drufi has access to and the combinations and order she uses them in change as she switches between her ice and wind rune and then they change again once she uses Call of Winter and both runes become active.
As the health was on preview, groups around 3100 were unlikely to trivialize her mechanics by DPSing too quickly. However, groups in the 3500+ range could pull enough DPS that they could fail a number of mechanics and simply burn through her remaining hit points without wiping.
While regardless of how the fight is balanced against groups now, there will obviously be a day where that becomes a reality, however, we'd like to avoid most groups being able to ignore those mechanics now. It's not about the damage they deal and instead simply about how many times those mechanics surface, which in turn means the length of the fight.
Anyway it seems sometimes ice shards do not spawn (when the boss goes middle, then uses freezing push n kill power) so party cannot hide behind enything ;/
This is one such instance where the bosses's current relatively low health values are resulting in a mechanic being misunderstood. Drufi does not cast permafrost immediately before Call of Winter. She will cast permafrost periodically whenever her ice rune is active.
If you are burning her down too quickly, you might skip over her ice phases so quickly that she does not have an opportunity to do so. Although we intended for it to be possible for you to need to pull your punches if your DPS was too high at some point in the future, it shouldn't be so easy to do this in the game currently. Once her hit points have been increased you shouldn't run into this situation.
You'll also need to ensure your party (and Drufi) do not mistakenly destroy the permafrost.
Nothing except OP bubble did work on that. Unless u have toon with maxed DR and 150+ HP or TempHP. And I do not want to limit my party, so we always need to run with OP ;/
We've run through Fangbreaker internally with a Paladin and with a Guardian Fighter tanking (and no Paladin in the group) I can assure you we have not built the fight with a specific class requirement in mind. We've tested and survived Hypothermia numerous times and I can guarantee the mechanic is working as intended on preview. I won't spoil the mechanic, but experimentation or looking around for places where you might be able to find information in game should yield a successful way to deal with the damage.
Bug: Companions Unsummoning. At the 3rd boss, if the permafrost crystals hit your companions, they are dismissed.
Thanks for reporting this. I know there is some speculation as to whether or not this behavior is intended, however, that is not the case. We agree that it is problematic if a companion can replace a tank in a boss fight. However, we do not intend to deal with that problem by dismissing companions in combat.
FEEDBACK: while i agree in putting some worthwhile drops in the dungeons, something that can really change your day with a nice chance to get it...i need to say a thing: THE GAME DOES NOT DESERVE that kind of drop until the debuffs stacking is fixed. Its too easy to say "i finished it i deserve nice things" when average effectiveness of your damage was 300-400%.
We agree that there are some abilities that are more than a bit out-of-hand in terms of providing damage resistance down on enemies or damage potency up on allies. We have been and will continue to address some of those issues with class balance adjustments. A world where the difference in DPS from party to party can be so steep is one where it is very hard for us to balance boss fights, dungeon run times and rewards.
While there should always been a divide between groups with more skilled and prepared DPS, we're working to make that divide a little more predictable so that we can provide a better experience for everyone. In the meantime, we'll still be working to make sure that the content is both challenging and rewarding.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
P.S. We're aware that the crash on the dragon turtle is quite frustrating and really appreciate those of you continuing to test in spite of this bug. We are looking into it. Unfortunately this was not something we saw during our internal playtests, but we are investigating!
Oh come on not more hp. Its only dragging the fight on and making. Hopefully the reworked rewards are really worth it. So how much is it going to be 80 mil like tiamat heads?
The health increase isn't meant to simply pad the boss time. While internally we can complete Fangbreaker, I'll be the first to admit our DPS isn't going to be as high as some of the better groups out there. We knew ahead of time we'd have to increase their health, but wanted to see what made sense once you all got your hands on them.
Fangbreaker's bosses are designed and balanced to be challenging and interesting with a certain encounter length in mind. For instance, the abilities Drufi has access to and the combinations and order she uses them in change as she switches between her ice and wind rune and then they change again once she uses Call of Winter and both runes become active.
As the health was on preview, groups around 3100 were unlikely to trivialize her mechanics by DPSing too quickly. However, groups in the 3500+ range could pull enough DPS that they could fail a number of mechanics and simply burn through her remaining hit points without wiping.
While regardless of how the fight is balanced against groups now, there will obviously be a day where that becomes a reality, however, we'd like to avoid most groups being able to ignore those mechanics now. It's not about the damage they deal and instead simply about how many times those mechanics surface, which in turn means the length of the fight.
Don't increase the HP too much. If high end BIS groups are killing too quickly, then perhaps they should be left without permafrost to hide behind. You say you want groups to coordinate mechanics, then that will actually be a test for the hack and slashers that are so used to just burning their way through content.
For the lower end groups, even with following the mechanics correctly, too much HP drags the fight on for too long, resulting in them wiping which doesn't help the player feeling like they are getting anywhere.
Bug: Companions Unsummoning. At the 3rd boss, if the permafrost crystals hit your companions, they are dismissed.
Thanks for reporting this. I know there is some speculation as to whether or not this behavior is intended, however, that is not the case. We agree that it is problematic if a companion can replace a tank in a boss fight. However, we do not intend to deal with that problem by dismissing companions in combat.
Not just the 3rd boss, 2nd as well. There are times where as soon as combat starts, your companion dies and is unsummoned, and the arenas aren't big enough to get out of combat to resummon. Please make sure you fix this before it goes live.
Finally - dealing with Hypothermia, we followed the instructions, however there were times where even with a full party doing the correct thing, the target (and other members), were taking huge damage hits. Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
Don't increase the HP too much. If high end BIS groups are killing too quickly, then perhaps they should be left without permafrost to hide behind. You say you want groups to coordinate mechanics, then that will actually be a test for the hack and slashers that are so used to just burning their way through content.
For the lower end groups, even with following the mechanics correctly, too much HP drags the fight on for too long, resulting in them wiping which doesn't help the player feeling like they are getting anywhere.
We're keeping in mind the 3100 group first and foremost, so we haven't increased the health to the point that this will be an unscalable challenge for those who have just met the requirements.
Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
If you're not close enough that you take damage, you won't be reducing the damage taken by the primary target, that's working as intended. The damage dealt is purely divided by the number of targets hit. The more party members that huddle together, the less damage they will take, and the easier the mechanic will be to absorb. For healers, this is a perfect time to drop damage resistance up abilities like astral shield or to be prepared with a big heal for the group that's huddled up after the hit.
Edit: Since I imagine this may come up now that the mechanic has been explained: if you use an ability to "dodge" the damage, you will not count as a hit target, and therefore, will not be reducing the damage taken for your teammates.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
If you're not close enough that you take damage, you won't be reducing the damage taken by the primary target, that's working as intended. The damage dealt is purely divided by the number of targets hit. The more party members that huddle together, the less damage they will take, and the easier the mechanic will be to absorb. For healers, this is a perfect time to drop damage resistance up abilities like astral shield or to be prepared with a big heal for the group that's huddled up after the hit.
Edit: Since I imagine this may come up now that the mechanic has been explained: if you use an ability to "dodge" the damage, you will not count as a hit target, and therefore, will not be reducing the damage taken for your teammates.
Okay, so it's just a be as close as possible to split the damage equally between the group. In That case, you might want to check the damage it is dealing - groups with all 5 players huddling are taking enough damage to one shot the squisher classes (TR, CW, SW) even when huddling correctly.
Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
If you're not close enough that you take damage, you won't be reducing the damage taken by the primary target, that's working as intended. The damage dealt is purely divided by the number of targets hit. The more party members that huddle together, the less damage they will take, and the easier the mechanic will be to absorb. For healers, this is a perfect time to drop damage resistance up abilities like astral shield or to be prepared with a big heal for the group that's huddled up after the hit.
Edit: Since I imagine this may come up now that the mechanic has been explained: if you use an ability to "dodge" the damage, you will not count as a hit target, and therefore, will not be reducing the damage taken for your teammates.
Okay, so it's just a be as close as possible to split the damage equally between the group. In That case, you might want to check the damage it is dealing - groups with all 5 players huddling are taking enough damage to one shot the squisher classes (TR, CW, SW) even when huddling correctly.
Hi confusedpoof! Can you provide a bit more information about the group members that were one shot by Hypothermia when the damage was split 5 ways? Their item level? About how much everfrost resistance they had? Was the group topped off or did they otherwise have any active damage resistance bonuses like astral shield?
Hypothermia is primarily a healer mechanic, while also requiring the group to move and coordinate. Ensuring your party members are topped off, and depending on item level and everfrost resistance, also given temporary hit points or damage resistance up might also be critical. We've run a majority of our internal playtests with at least 2 of the classes you specified and they have generally had no trouble surviving when the group has been prepared for the damage.
Keep in mind that there is no everfrost resistance requirement on preview. If you are using less than the recommended amount of everfrost, this mechanic can hit even quite a bit harder.
Here my 2 cents. The dungeon requires a strong and/or experienced party. The groups of giants at the beginning are strong and the only limit we had was...the time: it's time consuming, but not challening in terms of complex mechanic after we saw that drummer down there. We were disconnected before the end of the first boss: very frustrating and we gave up. Paradoxically the first boss is easier than the giants. On a side note and concerning the cleric: - Pure healers could have an important role in some groups but my righteous build was enough to support the party (but I'm 4k and maybe not the best benchmark). - Conversely, some cleric powers and feats are now useless and so outdated in such kind of dungeon. Some examples: 1) Feats: unbreakable devotions, cleasing fire, divine intervation and generally speaking every healing/mitigation feat linked to the weapon damage. When you are hit by ~10^4++ damage intensity, healing/mitigate ~10^3 is worthless. Such feats were not used before, now are definitely useless. 2) Powers: Searing light, Geas, Warding flare and now even astral shield (not empowered) are not effective. Warding flare is probably the worst for the same reasons in 1). I had some expectations about geas: I thought it was good to stop at least one giant at the beginning, just the time to discover that the giants are immune to geas. It would be nice to have this power to work against the giants, at least I would have a reason to slot it occasionally. I tried to use it against the orc sentinel, it worked, but I discover that giants are called anyway, losing the opportunity to invent a different strategy.
In few words, the cleric can perform as a healer or as a buffer or a mix of both, but this class has nothing (or close to nothing) to mitigate the incoming damage in Fangbreaker Island (see the virtuous path): only AA have a limited to capability to mitigate.
For the future I suggest to remove the above feats/powers and improve/rework them (and please consider the DC bug list in the Temple forum as well).
Oltreverso guild leader Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
- Conversely, some cleric powers and feats are now useless and so outdated in such kind of dungeon. Some examples: 1) Feats: unbreakable devotions, cleasing fire, divine intervation and generally speaking every healing/mitigation feat linked to the weapon damage. When you are hit by ~10^4++ damage intensity, healing/mitigate ~10^3 is worthless. Such feats were not used before, now are definitely useless. 2) Powers: Searing light, Geas, Warding flare and now even astral shield (not empowered) are not effective. Warding flare is probably the worst for the same reasons in 1). I had some expectations about geas: I thought it was good to stop at least one giant at the beginning, just the time to discover that the giants are immune to geas. It would be nice to have this power to work against the giants, at least I would have a reason to slot it occasionally. I tried to use it against the orc sentinel, it worked, but I discover that giants are called anyway, losing the opportunity to invent a different strategy.
In few words, the cleric can perform as a healer or as a buffer or a mix of both, but this class has nothing (or close to nothing) to mitigate the incoming damage in Fangbreaker Island (see the virtuous path): only AA have a limited to capability to mitigate.
I had a very similar experience and I actually did use those feats in my virtuous build- I had to spec into Faithful in order to keep up with clutch healing the party for basically their entire health pool since they took such high spike damage. Virtuous DCs appear to be extremely behind in healing now and that is the path I enjoy playing most. The only thing I can do in the dungeon is heal straight up since Astral shield does nothing useful. None of the level 70 unlock encounters are worth using. I imagine I'll end up changing to faithful if I want to run Fangbreaker Island.
Relmyna - AC/DC Righteous + Haste| Nadine - CW MoF (working on it)|Buffy - GF SM Tact| Hrist - Justice Tankadin|Healadin (Wannabe Tank)| Lena -MI Sabo TR (Farmer) | Jeska - GWF SM Destroyer (Farmer) | Maggie - HR PF Trapper (Wannabe DPS)
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Please do not nerf the dungeon. We have been asking for end-game content for years. We finally get it and now it is being rejected. Make a 2.5k one and a 3.1k version if you must. But do not nerf it before I even get to play it.
Worry not! We have no intention of reducing the difficulty of Fangbreaker. The difficulty is about where we were hoping it would be, if any adjustments are made, it will most likely be in the other direction. We know a lot of you have been looking forward to something challenging and our goal with Fangbreaker was to provide that challenge.
Obviously there's a broad range of player total item levels above 3100, so the difficulty of this dungeon can vary quite a bit from group to group depending on the difference in item level. We'll be continuing to watch everyone's feedback closely, and we definitely appreciate those of you who are passionate about having a challenge!
Give my thanks to whoever designed this dungeon though. I absolutely love it. I would just like it if the bosses were tweaked and made harder as currently they are less challenging than the packs of monsters. Over all, it is a great design.
We appreciate the positive feedback Thefarbciant. I built the boss encounters along with our animation, FX and character team, but the dungeon as a whole was a largely collaborative effort. There will be more blogs going up soon discussing the boss encounter design and environment design. I'll pass along your thanks to the rest of the team!
As many players before me said, you should keep the time/ reward ratio in mind. Ppl would like to have a decent reward for time spent playing.
Absolutely! One thing everyone should keep in mind that everything on preview is subject to change. Part of getting a new dungeon like Fangbreaker onto preview is getting data on how fast everyone is playing through this content. That helps us make some decisions about what level of rewards should be available.
Most of the team working on Fangbreaker plays on live at a high level, and believe me when I say we want to make sure the rewards are commensurate with the effort required. We'll be continuing to watch everyone's feedback and clear times, especially when the issue with boss drops is resolved.
We definitely want to make sure that those of you who can complete our most challenging content are properly rewarded, so please keep the feedback coming, we hear you.
Well the ilevel system is wonky, at best. Any player with 2.5k ilevel and rank 12 bondings on a legendary pet is better prepared for that kind of content than a 3.1k guy who gets most of its ilevel from reinforcement kits and rank 12 dragon hoards in utility slots. So could the private queues ignore the requirements at least? It's private, people should feel free to do what they like. I don't really want to have to equip 2x +5 vision rings, upgrade utilities and do other stupid things that would make my characters worse just to enter that thing Thank you.
About rewards: what's really lame is that I could get 25k artifact gear or more RP a day kicking a ball under a bridge during the summer festival, while this new piece of content seems to reward campaign stuff. Campaign stuff is fine, as long as it's not the only thing you give as a reward. Please keep in mind that trade is also a very important part of this game. Getting unbound stuff matters for you and the players. I don't think I need to explain why, you probably know already.
People should be cautious with saying how 'broken' something is. If the devs focused solely on 'fixing' the stuff people call 'broken' you'll have 2 hour CN runs cause everyone is finally 'fixed'. People will get their +1 Regen rings, decide that the game is now a joke and then you'll have empty servers with your 'fixed' game...
Bondings are fine (I'm only at r10 on mine, until 2xp RP), and the majority of the player base thinks so too. They really need to stop 'fixing' things and start working on challenging content for people to play. NOT neutering the players so that the existing content is 'hard'...
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treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
No bondings are not fine, if they are fine so why is it so much harder to complete a dungeon with augments that are companions specialized in stats gift? No bondings are not fine.
The meta has changed for the better IMO. It's so much cooler to have an actual henchman fighting at your side then a little spinny thingy floating around your head.
Granted, the cat would be cool if it was a sleek black wizard familiar kinda thing but even that doesn't have to be an augment.
Bondings are fine. Quit taking power away from players, and make content to challenge that power!
No bondings are not fine, if they are fine so why is it so much harder to complete a dungeon with augments that are companions specialized in stats gift? No bondings are not fine.
Because more investment = more performance? Not exactly news when it comes to MMOs or CRPGs.
Bondings would be fine, if no statbuff towards the companion ( like AA )would be send back towards the owner by a factor of up to 2.85 (3xrank 12 bondings)
I don't now all of the interactions at play but taking a character and making it weaker than it is now shouldn't be the answer. Make content that challenges those stat gains, don't destroy investments to make weak content harder...
Bondings would be fine, if no statbuff towards the companion ( like AA )would be send back towards the owner by a factor of up to 2.85 (3xrank 12 bondings)
Wasn't that fixed already for mod 10 or only weapons of light?
Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
If you're not close enough that you take damage, you won't be reducing the damage taken by the primary target, that's working as intended. The damage dealt is purely divided by the number of targets hit. The more party members that huddle together, the less damage they will take, and the easier the mechanic will be to absorb. For healers, this is a perfect time to drop damage resistance up abilities like astral shield or to be prepared with a big heal for the group that's huddled up after the hit.
Edit: Since I imagine this may come up now that the mechanic has been explained: if you use an ability to "dodge" the damage, you will not count as a hit target, and therefore, will not be reducing the damage taken for your teammates.
Okay, so it's just a be as close as possible to split the damage equally between the group. In That case, you might want to check the damage it is dealing - groups with all 5 players huddling are taking enough damage to one shot the squisher classes (TR, CW, SW) even when huddling correctly.
Hi confusedpoof! Can you provide a bit more information about the group members that were one shot by Hypothermia when the damage was split 5 ways? Their item level? About how much everfrost resistance they had? Was the group topped off or did they otherwise have any active damage resistance bonuses like astral shield?
Hypothermia is primarily a healer mechanic, while also requiring the group to move and coordinate. Ensuring your party members are topped off, and depending on item level and everfrost resistance, also given temporary hit points or damage resistance up might also be critical. We've run a majority of our internal playtests with at least 2 of the classes you specified and they have generally had no trouble surviving when the group has been prepared for the damage.
Keep in mind that there is no everfrost resistance requirement on preview. If you are using less than the recommended amount of everfrost, this mechanic can hit even quite a bit harder.
Sorry for the late response - It seems that the way the battle mechanics read in the lore is that huddling IS the mechanic to avoid the damage, not the mechanic to split the damage (and that you need to then use additional skills to survive). Multiple in my guild read those battle tactics and understood it as huddle to overcome Hypothermia, thats it, end of tactic.
Trying to coordinate positions is hard enough (even when we are all on teamspeak), without needing to add in additional skills and the like at the same time.
After "the fix" they're even more absurd. Earlier we had to choose the fast attacking companion to take the best from them.
Now, we're off to get and range one and just pew pew away. Not to mention that Sudden and Rising rings works on them - that's another stupid thing.
Sure we're using them - all who can afford is using both of above mentioned. This is because we actually like to be powerful and wipe floors with mobs.
I understand both sides of the coin, but saying bondings are fine is a bit off.
Nancy - Dragonborn, SM Guardian Fighter A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based? 2). Yes. I am panzer! 3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen. 4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
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cromejohnsenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 207Arc User
Ok. Some guildmembers tested the patched FBI bosses. Seems that you increased the health of those bosses to a stupidly high amount of 170 mil hp +. Can you tell me how this is reasonable?
The current HP of the bosses is very well calculated in my opinion. I figured out that the first boss has 170mio hp, the 2nd around 200mio hp and the last boss around 230mio hp(no promises here, thats what act said). The fights are finally long enough to see and interact with all mechanics that the different bosses have and they are challenging! If you dont have a strong tank you'll never beat the bosses or the whole dungeon. I really really really enjoyed the boss fights. The fights finally dont feel like a placeholder or just the usual "burn-the-boss-fights". Same with the trash adds. You dont just burn them. Your team needs to coordinate and kill them wisely even as a full 3.5k+ group. In conclusion I totally love the hp changes and all in all it is the first real endgame dungeon since Castle Never (the old version) in my opinion. Well done!
Comments
Fangbreaker's bosses are designed and balanced to be challenging and interesting with a certain encounter length in mind. For instance, the abilities Drufi has access to and the combinations and order she uses them in change as she switches between her ice and wind rune and then they change again once she uses Call of Winter and both runes become active.
As the health was on preview, groups around 3100 were unlikely to trivialize her mechanics by DPSing too quickly. However, groups in the 3500+ range could pull enough DPS that they could fail a number of mechanics and simply burn through her remaining hit points without wiping.
While regardless of how the fight is balanced against groups now, there will obviously be a day where that becomes a reality, however, we'd like to avoid most groups being able to ignore those mechanics now. It's not about the damage they deal and instead simply about how many times those mechanics surface, which in turn means the length of the fight.
This is one such instance where the bosses's current relatively low health values are resulting in a mechanic being misunderstood. Drufi does not cast permafrost immediately before Call of Winter. She will cast permafrost periodically whenever her ice rune is active.
If you are burning her down too quickly, you might skip over her ice phases so quickly that she does not have an opportunity to do so. Although we intended for it to be possible for you to need to pull your punches if your DPS was too high at some point in the future, it shouldn't be so easy to do this in the game currently. Once her hit points have been increased you shouldn't run into this situation.
You'll also need to ensure your party (and Drufi) do not mistakenly destroy the permafrost. We've run through Fangbreaker internally with a Paladin and with a Guardian Fighter tanking (and no Paladin in the group) I can assure you we have not built the fight with a specific class requirement in mind. We've tested and survived Hypothermia numerous times and I can guarantee the mechanic is working as intended on preview. I won't spoil the mechanic, but experimentation or looking around for places where you might be able to find information in game should yield a successful way to deal with the damage.
Thanks for reporting this. I know there is some speculation as to whether or not this behavior is intended, however, that is not the case. We agree that it is problematic if a companion can replace a tank in a boss fight. However, we do not intend to deal with that problem by dismissing companions in combat. We agree that there are some abilities that are more than a bit out-of-hand in terms of providing damage resistance down on enemies or damage potency up on allies. We have been and will continue to address some of those issues with class balance adjustments. A world where the difference in DPS from party to party can be so steep is one where it is very hard for us to balance boss fights, dungeon run times and rewards.
While there should always been a divide between groups with more skilled and prepared DPS, we're working to make that divide a little more predictable so that we can provide a better experience for everyone. In the meantime, we'll still be working to make sure that the content is both challenging and rewarding.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
P.S. We're aware that the crash on the dragon turtle is quite frustrating and really appreciate those of you continuing to test in spite of this bug. We are looking into it. Unfortunately this was not something we saw during our internal playtests, but we are investigating!
For the lower end groups, even with following the mechanics correctly, too much HP drags the fight on for too long, resulting in them wiping which doesn't help the player feeling like they are getting anywhere.
Not just the 3rd boss, 2nd as well. There are times where as soon as combat starts, your companion dies and is unsummoned, and the arenas aren't big enough to get out of combat to resummon. Please make sure you fix this before it goes live.
Finally - dealing with Hypothermia, we followed the instructions, however there were times where even with a full party doing the correct thing, the target (and other members), were taking huge damage hits. Huddling to me is get as close as possible, however it seems if you are too close you end up taking the hit along with the target.
Edit: Since I imagine this may come up now that the mechanic has been explained: if you use an ability to "dodge" the damage, you will not count as a hit target, and therefore, will not be reducing the damage taken for your teammates.
Hypothermia is primarily a healer mechanic, while also requiring the group to move and coordinate. Ensuring your party members are topped off, and depending on item level and everfrost resistance, also given temporary hit points or damage resistance up might also be critical. We've run a majority of our internal playtests with at least 2 of the classes you specified and they have generally had no trouble surviving when the group has been prepared for the damage.
Keep in mind that there is no everfrost resistance requirement on preview. If you are using less than the recommended amount of everfrost, this mechanic can hit even quite a bit harder.
The dungeon requires a strong and/or experienced party. The groups of giants at the beginning are strong and the only limit we had was...the time: it's time consuming, but not challening in terms of complex mechanic after we saw that drummer down there.
We were disconnected before the end of the first boss: very frustrating and we gave up. Paradoxically the first boss is easier than the giants.
On a side note and concerning the cleric:
- Pure healers could have an important role in some groups but my righteous build was enough to support the party (but I'm 4k and maybe not the best benchmark).
- Conversely, some cleric powers and feats are now useless and so outdated in such kind of dungeon. Some examples:
1) Feats: unbreakable devotions, cleasing fire, divine intervation and generally speaking every healing/mitigation feat linked to the weapon damage. When you are hit by ~10^4++ damage intensity, healing/mitigate ~10^3 is worthless. Such feats were not used before, now are definitely useless.
2) Powers: Searing light, Geas, Warding flare and now even astral shield (not empowered) are not effective. Warding flare is probably the worst for the same reasons in 1). I had some expectations about geas: I thought it was good to stop at least one giant at the beginning, just the time to discover that the giants are immune to geas. It would be nice to have this power to work against the giants, at least I would have a reason to slot it occasionally. I tried to use it against the orc sentinel, it worked, but I discover that giants are called anyway, losing the opportunity to invent a different strategy.
In few words, the cleric can perform as a healer or as a buffer or a mix of both, but this class has nothing (or close to nothing) to mitigate the incoming damage in Fangbreaker Island (see the virtuous path): only AA have a limited to capability to mitigate.
For the future I suggest to remove the above feats/powers and improve/rework them (and please consider the DC bug list in the Temple forum as well).
Oltreverso guild leader
Maga Othelma - DC | Svalvolo - SW | Dente Avvelenato- GWF
--
I'll never retrace my steps.
Some of my best friends are Imaginary.
There is a topic in DC forum:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1218468/mod-10-dc-changes
It seems to be not OK, since some of Insignia bonuses work, while others do not.
I'd like to see fixes to DC powers. It was mentioned many times in Bug reports forum, but no respond ;/
About rewards: what's really lame is that I could get 25k artifact gear or more RP a day kicking a ball under a bridge during the summer festival, while this new piece of content seems to reward campaign stuff. Campaign stuff is fine, as long as it's not the only thing you give as a reward. Please keep in mind that trade is also a very important part of this game. Getting unbound stuff matters for you and the players. I don't think I need to explain why, you probably know already.
Bondings are fine (I'm only at r10 on mine, until 2xp RP), and the majority of the player base thinks so too. They really need to stop 'fixing' things and start working on challenging content for people to play. NOT neutering the players so that the existing content is 'hard'...
Granted, the cat would be cool if it was a sleek black wizard familiar kinda thing but even that doesn't have to be an augment.
Bondings are fine. Quit taking power away from players, and make content to challenge that power!
Move the game forward for Pete's sake.
Trying to coordinate positions is hard enough (even when we are all on teamspeak), without needing to add in additional skills and the like at the same time.
After "the fix" they're even more absurd. Earlier we had to choose the fast attacking companion to take the best from them.
Now, we're off to get and range one and just pew pew away. Not to mention that Sudden and Rising rings works on them - that's another stupid thing.
Sure we're using them - all who can afford is using both of above mentioned. This is because we actually like to be powerful and wipe floors with mobs.
I understand both sides of the coin, but saying bondings are fine is a bit off.
A proud member of "mythical horde of DPS GFs"
1). Is SW more dps or tank based?
2). Yes. I am panzer!
3). Get ACT if you want to celebrate your epeen.
4). Horniness will not stand between me and what I believe - "MM"
I figured out that the first boss has 170mio hp, the 2nd around 200mio hp and the last boss around 230mio hp(no promises here, thats what act said).
The fights are finally long enough to see and interact with all mechanics that the different bosses have and they are challenging! If you dont have a strong tank you'll never beat the bosses or the whole dungeon.
I really really really enjoyed the boss fights. The fights finally dont feel like a placeholder or just the usual "burn-the-boss-fights". Same with the trash adds. You dont just burn them. Your team needs to coordinate and kill them wisely even as a full 3.5k+ group.
In conclusion I totally love the hp changes and all in all it is the first real endgame dungeon since Castle Never (the old version) in my opinion. Well done!