Immolation Blast also seems to be able to critical which is probably shouldn't, raise the damage of it to compensate
I respectfully disagree. There is a reason for critical avoidance as a stat to exist, and critical strikes as a mechanic in general, and I think every enemy attack should be able to crit, just like the player's. The issue would be if the critical hit is unrealistic to survive - so when tuning, as long as the case of "critical hit, non deflect" is considered and made to be survivable, then there is no issue with critical hits occuring.
The situation with content in the old stat system is probably why a lot of boss attacks don't crit - if they did, players could just prevent all critical hits by capping critical avoidance, and essentially avoid most of the attack's damage every time and imbalancing the mechanic. Critical hits in general were just less meaningful in a system when a player could avoid them every time with comparably small effort.
Removing ability to critical hit in the current system, on the other hand, leads to imbalance in a new way - gear such as the boots that give -25% critical avoidance to the player essentially go unpenalized in ToMM and ZCM, as the important DPS mechanics seldom crit. (recall that to preserve the impact of mechanics in the old system, and prevent players from completely avoiding the crit, base damage needed to be raised and the attack made not to crit).
I dont know if i've clearly understood how Necrotic Blast works, but sometimes it can be triggered three times in a row, even without any debuff. Videos:
You're currently able to cheese the Minotaur by kiting him around the arena. Though he moves quickly, when he stops to perform an attack, it gives enough time to maintain a lead distance where he won't hit you. However, I think the changes have mitigated the issue to have limited impact, because for DPS to attack him efficiently he will still have to be held still and tanked properly.
Necrotic Blast is still occuring on targets that do not have a Withering Ray debuff icon. Additionally, at one point two such icons were observed on a player simultaneously.
Once, we had a tank waiting on top of the purple artifact with the Obliterate AOE to destroy it, but then we phased to P3. We were all teleported to the same position as part of the phase transition, and Obliterate detonated on the whole group. The purple artifact debuff was still active (Obliterate was teleported away from the artifact and could not destroy it, and the phase transition had not (yet) cleared the debuff). This resulted in mass permadeath and a wipe.
Storvald is casting Permafrost on companions, not just players.
Valindra's Defiling Beam can occur at the same time as Storvald's Winter's Fury, and with 4 people covering runes for the latter mechanic, the Defiling Beam becomes too much for the remaining players. Both mechanics feel balanced on an individual basis.
Surprise Beholder Bingo did not disappoint
I am a bit surprised how committed tanks have been to the Minotaur kiting. I'm considering putting a stop to it but he's still managing to put pressure on the tank and the phase isn't necessarily meant to be particularly challenging on the main tank, so I might leave it where it is.
The issue with Necrotic Blast seems to be a bug I have fixed where cleansing the debuff wouldn't create the explosion at that point, but rather at the time when the debuff would have been removed naturally. As for two stacks, that was just Gzemnid casting the spell again and hitting the same target.
My initial attempt to prevent obliterate from entering Phase 3 failed, it's fixed now.
Storvald's permafrost now ignores companions and it was also only affecting targets close to him.
Defiling Beam and Winter's fury are intended to be stacked on top of each other on occasion. It might require a strategy adjustment or the people you had sharing the damage had accumulated res sickness to the point where they couldn't survive.
Getting turned into a chicken during phase 3 with Halaster and Palha is very frustrating as a Healer, when you cannot do anything, but watch your Tank die. Heatwave seems to hit for a bit much with this combo too.
We had Atropal activate the push-pull mechanic without any animation.
We've had the green line "chains of Undeath" brought into phase 3, and since your bunched together, it immediately kills people.
Fowl Play is cleansable. If the healer decides not to bring a cleanse then they will have to cover for their feathered ally.
Yeah, we have some issues with enemies sometimes not playing their animations in various places in the game that our animators are trying to track down.
You had the chains do this during the most recent build?
After Halaster returned to the platform in P3 with Death From Above, I was unable to move him from the center of the platform throughout the entirety of the subsequent "ice phase" he did, so people had difficulty hitting him as a result of the dragon's hitbox.
Halaster should be relatively easy to move for the tank that has aggro on him from before the warp. If he's in the middle of doing something then yes he won't budge, but I gave a pretty generous window of time to position him after the Death from Above precisely because Palhavorithyn causes targeting complications. If you have an example of him not moving I would certainly like to see it because on our internal builds I can move him with ease.
If you have an example of him not moving I would certainly like to see it because on our internal builds I can move him with ease.
This is an example of him not moving out of the middle from the very start of an elemental phase, until the group wipes. The clip starts with Death From Above, is from a DPS perspective, and the tank (Bonk) is at the left of the screen. Bonk has had aggro before Halaster warped away and still has it when he comes back. Halaster never budges. https://clips.twitch.tv/FunSpeedyParrotKevinTurtle-D61dWzwYGzqdnojX
Fowl Play is cleansable. If the healer decides not to bring a cleanse then they will have to cover for their feathered ally.
You had the chains do this during the most recent build?
Ah it's cleansable, good to know.
Haven't had chains brought into the 3rd phase as of the recent build and test weekend, so all good there. Just the Tanks Obliterate, which tbh is alright, since we would just make sure to not phase until after the Tanks had it trigger.
Halaster should be relatively easy to move for the tank that has aggro on him from before the warp. If he's in the middle of doing something then yes he won't budge, but I gave a pretty generous window of time to position him after the Death from Above precisely because Palhavorithyn causes targeting complications. If you have an example of him not moving I would certainly like to see it because on our internal builds I can move him with ease.
I found, as the Tank, Halaster won't move if you are a certain distance from him. I always had to move up close to him, and then he would follow me. But if I just stayed far after he landed back on the platform, he never just came to me. He seemed to just be happy to hit me from afar.
There seem to have been some major bugs introduced with the fixes
If you are perma dead but have not released, you are brought back to life from P3 to P4
An artifact (I think Wand of Domination) causes Gzemnid to cancel the mechanic he is doing, like not detonating Immolation Blast or initiating mirrors
Atropal + Zariel seems to get off sync with the 2nd cycle, causing runes to detonate DURING the pull part of pull/push, but this may be caused by Wand of Domination canceling stuff
Charges can form on people who released back to campfire
Gelatinous Cubes are not consistently trapping people fast
It seems like the Hypo mechanic of Ghezmid can crit which makes double hypo extremely unpredictable, sometimes 4 people per hypo group is enough, sometimes it is not, and there is no way to tell beforehand.
Halaster Permafrost isn't properly blocking damage sometimes
The changes to Minotaur make him much more interesting, good job there, but he could probably use more health since the minibosses got their health reduced
The artifacts are still unequal in impact, Draining and Soulshatter are still by far the worst, Hastening doesn't feel very impactful, and Weakening isn't too noticeable. My opinion will likely change since I haven't reached final phase to see how steep the DPS check is.
Even with the Atropal bug fix the Phase 3 bosses aren't even in difficulty. Valindra + Storvald is on the easy side, maybe increase the damage miasma does to make it more threatening Halaster + Palhavorithyn mechanics can easily lead to multiple deaths, but their health may be a bit low Demogorgon + Tiamat is more of a race against the clock rather than a mechanically interesting fight, a very strong group doesn't have many difficulties, could change mechanics to make it more interesting Zariel still attacks during pull/push which makes it hard for tanks and healers to keep up, she also seems to do tank swap during 2nd pull/push which is a pretty stupid, but that could have been caused by desync.
Phase 4 beholders seem to retain aggro across the arena and can hit targets across the arena which means that tanks can sometimes be getting hit by 2 Disintegration Rays and Immolation Blast at the same time, there should probably be a maximum range to their abilities.
I haven't seen anyone 'resurrected' going into Phase 4... that shouldn't even be possible. I'll take a look but maybe you found a really weird edge case.
Wand of Domination was fixed by the Rewards designer
There was some timing issues with the Runes and Pull/Push that I corrected.
I'll add Magnetic Attraction to the list of things I need to remove at the campfire
I thought I fixed most of the problems with the cubes. Do you happen to know if someone had previously died in the cube that wouldn't 'eat' someone?
Everything in the fight can crit. Many boss fights in the past would have mechanics that couldn't crit but we don't want to bypass the stats system in that manner except for very specific purposes.
I'll look into Permafrost issues, I know there's examples of players getting pushed out of permafrost blocks as well
The minotaur will not be getting more hp, the phase is already hovering around the length of time I was hoping to hit and more hp would make it a bit too long.
The intent with the artifacts is that different groups will pick different debuffs based on their own strengths/weaknesses. Soulshatter is a terrifying proposition to most teams at this point because the trial is new and many players are a little too comfortable with deaths because they don't respect Resurrection Sickness since it has not been as impactful as it probably should have been in lots of Master content. For a team that feels confident about avoiding deaths, Soulshatter is a 'free debuff'. Weakening is not a debuff that's likely to be perceivable outside of a parser, but it will complicate hitting DPS checks. That said, I increased it from 10% to 15%. I think a lot of teams are underestimating the Hastening artifact.
Similar to the Artifacts, the hope is that different groups will find different boss combinations in Phase 3 to be varying levels of challenge based on their strengths/weaknesses. Each combination applies pressure to the team in different ways and from what I've seen so far that has been successful. Different teams I've talked to have found different combinations to be the hardest for them. Once teams have gained more experience in the trial, we'll see if that continues to be the case. Storvald's permafrost wasn't functioning correctly which was making that combination easier than it should be. Miasma isn't meant to be high levels of damage when not overlapped so I'm unlikely to adjust it, but I'll review it and see where it's at.
The clones are intended to be able to shoot across the arena, Phase 4 and 6 were made to put a lot of pressure on the tanks. Disintegrate Ray doesn't do a lot of damage to tanks but it actually wasn't supposed to be targeting them, that's been fixed now.
Sword clusters hitting the wrong area is an ongoing issue I've been trying to solve for a while, but I believe I finally got them behaving properly. Our QA team is going to try to break them for me.
Some unfair combinations of mechanics I've experienced leading to unavoidable deaths in Phases 1 and 2:
- Ettercap miniboss can pull you in front of the mirror last second; - The same player can be targeted by both Withering ray and Red fire ray. Two dots are a bit too much to survive even with timing the health stone. That is especially unfair when the Red ray targets you 2-3 seconds before Necrotic Blast detonates. - Chains of Undeath can still push you in front of the mirror; - Mr. Minotaur's Axe Throw can push you in front of the mirror. This one is debatable, as you can immunity-frame this attack, however it's almost impossible to tell which player exactly is being targeted by it. - Gaseous Expulsion can still be carried from P2 into P3, leading to everyone but tanks dying immediately.
Disintegrate and Withering Ray being used in tandem is intended, the rest have been fixed.
I haven't seen anyone 'resurrected' going into Phase 4... that shouldn't even be possible. I'll take a look but maybe you found a really weird edge case.
I thought I fixed most of the problems with the cubes. Do you happen to know if someone had previously died in the cube that wouldn't 'eat' someone?
Everything in the fight can crit. Many boss fights in the past would have mechanics that couldn't crit but we don't want to bypass the stats system in that manner except for very specific purposes.
The intent with the artifacts is that different groups will pick different debuffs based on their own strengths/weaknesses. Soulshatter is a terrifying proposition to most teams at this point because the trial is new and many players are a little too comfortable with deaths because they don't respect Resurrection Sickness since it has not been as impactful as it probably should have been in lots of Master content. For a team that feels confident about avoiding deaths, Soulshatter is a 'free debuff'. Weakening is not a debuff that's likely to be perceivable outside of a parser, but it will complicate hitting DPS checks. That said, I increased it from 10% to 15%. I think a lot of teams are underestimating the Hastening artifact.
Similar to the Artifacts, the hope is that different groups will find different boss combinations in Phase 3 to be varying levels of challenge based on their strengths/weaknesses. Each combination applies pressure to the team in different ways and from what I've seen so far that has been successful. Different teams I've talked to have found different combinations to be the hardest for them. Once teams have gained more experience in the trial, we'll see if that continues to be the case. Storvald's permafrost wasn't functioning correctly which was making that combination easier than it should be. Miasma isn't meant to be high levels of damage when not overlapped so I'm unlikely to adjust it, but I'll review it and see where it's at.
1. I believe it was a strange edge case, I think it was from releasing during/right before the transition 2. I believe that is what happened with the cubes 3. It can be a bit frustrating when the same amount of mitigation leads to very different results, specifically with the Hypo, but I understand your reasoning 4. I guess so, makes sense 5. That's a fair point, Valindra + Storvald had several bugs during these tests and Zariel + Atropal had several extremely impactful bugs that made it feel too difficult, we'll see how things shake out once concrete strategies are developed for each of them.
Obliterate often ignores the Paladin's Justicar Palisade (tab+shift). If Tiamat dies as last boss of P3, it can be seen its dying model in P4 Vicious Cleave from Minotaur doesn't match its red area Storvald after its mechanics, sometimes deal 0 damage. P.S:(At the beginning of the video, if players die with Miasma red area, it will still spawn the Miasma in the death location)
I improved Obliterate for tanks without a 360 degree block. If you are standing still or walking backwards it will always hit your shield if you're blocking. If you're moving forward when it activates then you're rolling the dice a bit.
I wasn't able to reproduce Tiamat showing in P4, but I improved some timing that should prevent that from occurring
The minotaur's cleave now tracks the tank and should always hit in the designated area
I wasn't able to reproduce Storvald doing 0 damage hits, I'll be keeping an eye on this
Players that are defeated with a miasma indicator are intended to still create miasma
Here's a list of all of the changes that have occurred between the latest test on Preview and what will release to Live:
Fixed an issue where Atropal's Uncontrollable Turmoil would switch targets midway through its activation
Atropal's Uncontrollable Turmoil will now properly split damage amongst affected targets
Improved Gzemnid's phase transitions so he doesn't 'pop' in and out of existence
Increased HP of Halaster and Palhavorithyn
Fixed issues with Halaster's magnetic attraction and reduced the amount of players affected per cast
Permafrost will now reliably create the safe area from Halaster's Whiteout power
Increased Halaster's Whiteout power to appropriate damage now that Permafrost is behaving
It should now be easier to relocate Halaster
Magnetic Attraction will no longer target players affected by Fowl Play
Fixed an issue where Zariel's Sword Clusters weren't firing towards their intended target
Added additional time between Atropal's Exhuberant Exhalation and the activation of Zariel's Celestial Prominence
Atropal will wait a little longer before attacking after finishing Exhuberant Exhalation
Fixed an issue where Gzemnid's clones were only using Disintegration Ray on their aggro target in Phases 4 and 6
Decreased HP of Demogorgon and Tiamat
Fixed an edge case where Tiamat could appear briefly during Phase 4
Demogorgon's Rot debuff will now persist through death
Increased HP of Gzemnid
Fixed an issue where targetable entities would briefly appear during the Obliterate and Deep Claw powers
Ettercap Miniboss will no longer use Web Spit when Mirror Artifacts are active
Changed the Minotaur Boss' name
Minotaur boss will no longer use Axe Throw when Mirror Artifacts are active
Minotaur Boss' cleave will now track the target
Fixed an issue where the Minotaur Boss' cleave could hit outside of the indicated area
Gzemnid will no longer begin casting Chains of Undeath when Mirror Artifacts are active
Gzemnid's clones are no longer targetable when the fail condition is met in Phase 3
Fixed an issue where Obliterate and Telekinesis Ray could be brought into Phase 3
Duumvirate's debuff will now be removed when entering Phase 4
A variety of debuffs will now be removed back at the campfire from Phase 3 including Magnetic Attraction's collision and Demogorgon's Rot
Fixed an issue where Miniature Scorching Artifacts were prone to missing with their flamethrower attack despite it passing through the player
Reduced the damage of Miniature Scorching Artifacts Flamethrower power
Fixed an issue where Necrotic Blast wouldn't occur after Withering Ray was cleansed, but instead at the time when the debuff would have expired naturally
Fixed an edge case where the same player could end up with two stacks of Withering Ray
Fixed an issue where Withering Ray would sometimes take two cleanses to remove
Storvald's Permafrost will now only target players
Fixed an issue where Storvald's Permafrost would only target entities that were in close proximity
Fixed an exploit where players could get outside of the contained area in Phase 7
Added a prop to fill the gap between scorching artifacts in Phase 4 and 6
Reduced the damage of the owlbear's Claw and Headbutt powers
Gzemnid has received his fancy Boss Bar
Fixed an edge case where Decimation Artifacts could kill players in the safe area at the start of Phase 7
Increased the damage buff on Empowering Artifact from 10% to 15%
Increased the damage debuff on Weakening Artifact from 10% to 15%
Fixed an issue where Artifacts were not playing their destruction FX
Fixed an issue where overlapping Arcane Calamity wasn't properly magnifying damage received
Fixed an issue where tanks without a 360 degree block could have their shield bypassed by obliterate when standing still
There is disconnect with the audio prompts in phase one for the mirrors as well as the voice over box will appear at a delayed time after the mirrors have already gone off. Is very inconsistent and unreliable.
Atropal push pull animation is desynced with the actual movement of the characters.
Was discovered players have the ability to reenter the arena if someone dies out in phase three and activates the door, before the remaining player/players return to the room below so long as group stands in circle on both sides of the door.
Halaster returns to the platform before he does the landing impact damage during phase three.
Weapon drops auto roll when picked up from floor and are unbound.
There are still many mechanics that will transfer over during teleport to phase three & six that will kill the group such as green lines, purple hands and deep claws.
Is it intentional for cubes to transfer into phase 6 if not killed?
Once the group reaches phase 6 of the trial, if they wipe, the teleport mechanic will no longer function correctly in subsequent attempts. The queue has to be disbanded and reformed.
Sometimes the obliteration wave is not destroying the artifacts even when the tanks are positioned directly on top of them when the obliteration wave goes off.
Halaster's magnetic collision debuff remains on players even after a wipe for the duration of the timer regardless of restart/campfire/defeat/dashboard.
During phase 5 and 7 the timing between Gzemnid's slam attack and the spawn of the deep claws is not consistent. Sometimes it is immediate, sometimes it is delayed.
Comments
The situation with content in the old stat system is probably why a lot of boss attacks don't crit - if they did, players could just prevent all critical hits by capping critical avoidance, and essentially avoid most of the attack's damage every time and imbalancing the mechanic. Critical hits in general were just less meaningful in a system when a player could avoid them every time with comparably small effort.
Removing ability to critical hit in the current system, on the other hand, leads to imbalance in a new way - gear such as the boots that give -25% critical avoidance to the player essentially go unpenalized in ToMM and ZCM, as the important DPS mechanics seldom crit. (recall that to preserve the impact of mechanics in the old system, and prevent players from completely avoiding the crit, base damage needed to be raised and the attack made not to crit).
I saw it after the Petrifyng ray.
- Obliterate often ignores the Paladin's Justicar Palisade (tab+shift). Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-30JCwpRzE
- Obliterate can be still be carried in P3, if it spawns during the transition to P3. Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6qu9KW7HyQ
- Atropal sometimes doesn't perform the animation from the "arm attack". Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWNRwbhqJ4w
- I dont know if i've clearly understood how Necrotic Blast works, but sometimes it can be triggered three times in a row, even without any debuff. Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xNhq3Rutjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8EBaVPUYww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x10PmIdh4YU
- If Tiamat dies as last boss of P3, it can be seen its dying model in P4.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyG5fBQJvGI
- Vicious Cleave from Minotaur doesn't match its red area. Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFxQV_5LIuM
- Storvald after its mechanics, sometimes deal 0 damage. Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i31YnWK2QS8
Best regardsP.S:(At the beginning of the video, if players die with Miasma red area, it will still spawn the Miasma in the death location)
The issue with Necrotic Blast seems to be a bug I have fixed where cleansing the debuff wouldn't create the explosion at that point, but rather at the time when the debuff would have been removed naturally. As for two stacks, that was just Gzemnid casting the spell again and hitting the same target.
My initial attempt to prevent obliterate from entering Phase 3 failed, it's fixed now.
Storvald's permafrost now ignores companions and it was also only affecting targets close to him.
Defiling Beam and Winter's fury are intended to be stacked on top of each other on occasion. It might require a strategy adjustment or the people you had sharing the damage had accumulated res sickness to the point where they couldn't survive.
Yeah, we have some issues with enemies sometimes not playing their animations in various places in the game that our animators are trying to track down.
You had the chains do this during the most recent build?
Haven't had chains brought into the 3rd phase as of the recent build and test weekend, so all good there. Just the Tanks Obliterate, which tbh is alright, since we would just make sure to not phase until after the Tanks had it trigger.
Here is a clear example of it, from my perspective as Tank: https://youtu.be/BEZmZTgZaZQ
2. I believe that is what happened with the cubes
3. It can be a bit frustrating when the same amount of mitigation leads to very different results, specifically with the Hypo, but I understand your reasoning
4. I guess so, makes sense
5. That's a fair point, Valindra + Storvald had several bugs during these tests and Zariel + Atropal had several extremely impactful bugs that made it feel too difficult, we'll see how things shake out once concrete strategies are developed for each of them.
Entirely unacceptable.
Atropal push pull animation is desynced with the actual movement of the characters.
Was discovered players have the ability to reenter the arena if someone dies out in phase three and activates the door, before the remaining player/players return to the room below so long as group stands in circle on both sides of the door.
Halaster returns to the platform before he does the landing impact damage during phase three.
Weapon drops auto roll when picked up from floor and are unbound.
There are still many mechanics that will transfer over during teleport to phase three & six that will kill the group such as green lines, purple hands and deep claws.
Is it intentional for cubes to transfer into phase 6 if not killed?
Once the group reaches phase 6 of the trial, if they wipe, the teleport mechanic will no longer function correctly in subsequent attempts. The queue has to be disbanded and reformed.
Sometimes the obliteration wave is not destroying the artifacts even when the tanks are positioned directly on top of them when the obliteration wave goes off.
Halaster's magnetic collision debuff remains on players even after a wipe for the duration of the timer regardless of restart/campfire/defeat/dashboard.
During phase 5 and 7 the timing between Gzemnid's slam attack and the spawn of the deep claws is not consistent. Sometimes it is immediate, sometimes it is delayed.