Dread Ring and Icewind Dale campaigns are too hard

dreampagehun · October 2015

Why is it that after many hours of grinding to reach level 70, I get level 72 (DR) and level 73 (ID) enemies in the campaign? And why is it that they're so overpowered that I can barely scratch them? It's absolutely impossible for me to progress in these campaigns because of this. I'm a Guardian Fighter with 2040 Item Level, epic main weapon and rings etc., so I wouldn't call it a weak character. But it's a GF which means my damage is weak, however I get killed very fast in these campaigns. Not fun at all. Can't enjoy the content because it's just too extremely hard.

And yes I'd like to play solo because I can't get into a group every time. But this way 2 of the campaings become basically "locked". I simply can't kill the enemies.

randomdigits · October 2015

I had the same feeling when I started there, but once you learn the maps and enemies, and continue improving your gear and acquire the boons it'll get simpler. For me having Life Steal in a 3,000 range was the best way to ensure the solo survivability.

In IWD your main goal is to do the daily faction quest to acquire reputation. The other quests are somewhat optional and you can skip ones which seems too hard. Notice that IWD is designed as a cooperative multiplayer map. There are lots of encounters and tough monsters, weekly lairs are very hard to solo.

In Dread Ring your primary goal is to run the daily lair task from Sergeant Knox. There you could wait for people near the lair entrance and invite them to a temporary group.

You don't need to be in a guild to complete these campaigns, but you will have many occasions where teaming up with a nearby player would save you lots of time and effort.

TIL could be misleading - people in old epic gear, e.g. Dragon Templar, may have a high enough TIL but their survivability is very low.

davidagaldo · October 2015

Keep at it and keep yourself engaged with the campaigns for each zone. My present focus is acquiring the boons, I am not giving the other trees in the campaigns any attention unless they boost my efforts for boons. Make your boon choice based on yours stats. You will not feel the way you do now when you grab your boons.

I am on in the evening (CST) if you want to run with...

zman81420 · October 2015

Lets agree to say than I don't agree with this Post. If you are interested we can run together some time. I am a GF as well and can teach you the force young Padawan. Our guilds are looking for more tanks to join us as well if your interested and we are always running fungeons and helping with dailies.

deathbringer · October 2015

Main thing I would say is make sure you are geared properly (aside from weapons and rings). You need to increase your HP as much as you can, that will save you a lot of times. I am a TR, so my armor does not offer that much HP. I am currently rocking 3 elven pieces and 1 elemental alliance piece. My HP is only at I think 95k. As a GF with the same gear, I thinking you would have somewhere in the realm of 120k-140k...maybe (don't play a GF, just guessing based of my Pally's stats)

So yea the enemies are tougher. You need to focus on HP and you need to adjust your play style. You can't solo things like you could in MOD 5, its a bit different.

dreampagehun · October 2015

At the moment I do the Sharandar campaign, I want to get all the boons from that (almost got them), then I don't really know what I'll do. I don't have old epic gear, I changed that for new, presumably better but still rare gear. TIL is 2040 at the moment. When I'm finished with Sharandar I'll go to Dread Ring, but those level 72 enemies are ridiculous. But I have no choice. It would be much better to run T1 epic dungeons but so far I could complete none of them, no matter what team I'm in, we get killed. It seems impossible.

zman81420 · October 2015

We are always looking for new members if you need help gearing up we can carry through T2 for gear. Show you the new processes along the way too. Send me a message if your interested. GT same as name. When you start getting your gear you will look back and laugh honestly.

dreampagehun · October 2015

@zman81420 I've looked for you but Xbox Live can't find your gamertag. Thanks anyway, I'm happy to accept the help.

randomdigits · October 2015

Sharandar campaign is the worst - it takes the longest after the first 3 boons.
IWD is the fastest, next is Dread Ring. Dread Ring boons are the best.

deathbringer · October 2015

Dread Ring was the easiest for me, I got it done in half the time of either of the others. Then I got IWD done, now I am one Boon off in Sharandar.

Unknown · October 2015

This content has been removed.

randomdigits · October 2015

True, Dread Ring is technically doable in 31 day, but, buying campaign gear, lair keys and gauntlets delays the boon completion, while in IWD gear is sold for black ice and reputation acquired independently from other stuff.

armadeonx · October 2015

I went the other way round and got my Burning pvp gear, that is fine for Dread Ring but tricky in IWD (still doable but have to be careful - or use a potion).

If you rely primarily on defence I'd say you need 7k for IWD to have no problems. If you can get to 6k just pop a 1k Fortitude potion for your dailies there.

What are your offence/defence stats?

yatzol · October 2015

100,000s have been doing it this way for over 3 years now and have achieved greatness! You can too

armadeonx · October 2015

@dreampagehun send zman a message via ingame post so he gets your gamertag - he can then post u back with a guild invite

billrob458 · October 2015

Once I first flipped to 70, all were impossible. After some grinding got all my gear up which raised my HP from 25k to 88k hp. Now dread is easy. Sharander was the next. Very hard until I learned which guys to hit first (the healers). Extra hard when 3 healers in a group.

I'm a Healing DC so not very high DPS.

I still die every couple minutes in Icewind, so still can't do that yet. I use my guild to run icewind, hopefully the coming boons I'm getting will let me run solo.

fatpob · October 2015

I think the real complaint is the significant change in difficulty. In Mod 5 the game was easy enough to solo most content, however after a hellish grind to 70, the initial content is shocking to solo (yes I appreciate it's an MMO).
I went first ti IWD as the packs hade given me loads of black ice artificers, so I thought I would bob here and get the skill and all that, After being smashed like a rag doll, I read up and started on sharandar, and now do Dread ring which is achievable solo for me now.

What has happened is that our guild has died and the vast majority of players and friends have quit the game- which has been a shame, as we simply cannot run guild groups for this stuff like we planned.

This game has shot itself in the foot really, alienating a significant proportion of their subscribers - the casual gamer.

The end result will be hard core gamers, which will lead to less revenue - as they are more likely to grind out AD in game.

SH is being brought out early probably to combat the exodus of pvp players to the eagerly awaited SWBF next month which will probably take the rest of our guild away up till xmas.

shame really did like this game

armadeonx · October 2015

Yep, as you say difficulty and AD generation will scare off casual players - and casual players are more likely to spend.

dreampagehun · October 2015

Well after reaching 2100 TIL I can say that the game has become definitely more "playable". I can now quite safely breeze through Sharandar, I've got some boons from Dread Ring and one from Icewind Dale too. The latter is still way too hard for a GF I think, I simply don't have the damage to kill enemies efficiently, but Dread Ring is OK now. With the exception of dungeons (which I always need a teammate) I can do the missions without too much difficulty. So there's definitely a progress there, but I still think these campaigns should be somewhat easier, or at least scale to the player somehow.

armadeonx · October 2015

I think once you get your ArP over 50% IWD will become doable for you. As a GF you have the advantage of already being defensive so just get your weapon to purple for base damage stat, plus decent power and ArP and you'll be soloing with no probs.

The issue for a lot of people is they can access all 3 new areas so expect to be able to just go in. That's not the case unless you're an OP.

It's more like; do Sharandar, then Dread Ring, then IWD.

deathbringer · October 2015

I'd say Dread Ring, Sharandar, then IWD. I found Dread Ring much easier, and you can start to get Greater Marks quicker.

randomdigits · October 2015

I'm personally done with IWD, 2 days away from completing Dread Ring and need 10 more days for Sharandar.
These indeed get quite simple once you progress in gear and boons.
Once I'm done I'm not even sure what do I do next. Anything but completing the ToD campaign I guess.
Daily dungeon for the Cache of Protector. And daily leveling dungeon for AD.

Maybe I'll buy the epic black ice pick and mine black ice like crazy till mod 7 ships.

dreampagehun · October 2015

I do the campaigns to strenghten my character in order to be able to complete the epic dungeons. Because they are simply too hard for me at the moment. I know it depends on the team not just myself, but with all those one-hit kills I always feel like I'm extremely weak to be in there. Although I still don't know how a 1600 dungeon can be so hard with 2100+ characters but anyway. I try to get all boons so my character will be stronger. I'd like to run epics in order to get some purple gear.

thefiresidecat · October 2015

randomdigits#2166 said:
I'm personally done with IWD, 2 days away from completing Dread Ring and need 10 more days for Sharandar.
These indeed get quite simple once you progress in gear and boons.
Once I'm done I'm not even sure what do I do next. Anything but completing the ToD campaign I guess.
Daily dungeon for the Cache of Protector. And daily leveling dungeon for AD.
Maybe I'll buy the epic black ice pick and mine black ice like crazy till mod 7 ships.

you'd be better off just getting into a HE farm group for black ice. other stuff drops as well and it's more regular with the black ice than going around hunting for the outcrops and killing the beasts guarding it.

zephyriah · October 2015

thefiresidecat said:

randomdigits#2166 said:
I'm personally done with IWD, 2 days away from completing Dread Ring and need 10 more days for Sharandar.
These indeed get quite simple once you progress in gear and boons.
Once I'm done I'm not even sure what do I do next. Anything but completing the ToD campaign I guess.
Daily dungeon for the Cache of Protector. And daily leveling dungeon for AD.
Maybe I'll buy the epic black ice pick and mine black ice like crazy till mod 7 ships.

you'd be better off just getting into a HE farm group for black ice. other stuff drops as well and it's more regular with the black ice than going around hunting for the outcrops and killing the beasts guarding it.

I must disagree with that. With an Epic Pick you get 450 BI per regular node and over 1K from the large nodes. One regular node out produces 4 HEs for Black Ice. So, it could depend on how one values the additional items and the difficulty of solo kills.

In addition, while following a farming route you can pass through several HEs and trigger them. If someone completes that HE you will often get at least the minimum participation reward and frequently a great success. I farmed for about 30 mins earlier in Dwarven Valley using an Epic Pick and truesilver grip and mined over 7K Raw BI and 2 HE rewards, one a great success for not participating. I had 2 other HE rewards for ones I did contribute while traveling my route. I do stop for any Epic HEs that come up as I still need Black Ice gloves and Artifact.

I'm in about the same position as randomdigits. Finished DR including Adamntine glove, only upgrading to level 5 BI crafting left for IWD (tomorrow) and should get my last sparks for boon 5 in Sharandar on Monday. So, I started mining BI last week. I've followed HE zergs and mined solo. Solo with an Epic pick is more productive for me, by far.

randomdigits · October 2015

If only BI forge upgrade didn't take 15 Unified elements I'll be all for it.

I've already got the BI Gloves, but I don't want any of the artifacts, Lostmauth set works fine me. For now I'm just working on the BiS rings/cloths for me since these are relatively cheap as I can always sell the assets when I'm done.

I've tried going to Tiamat fight yesterday looking for some Dragon Eggs. Too bad, while we had a pretty good 25 people group with lots of power, arpen and average TIL probably above 2,500 so we had no issues with mobs - dragon heads were just too slow dying - we could only kill 2 heads in 1 go and ended up losing eventually.

zephyriah · October 2015

randomdigits#2166 said:
If only BI forge upgrade didn't take 15 Unified elements I'll be all for it.

I've tried going to Tiamat fight yesterday looking for some Dragon Eggs. Too bad, while we had a pretty good 25 people group with lots of power, arpen and average TIL probably above 2,500 so we had no issues with mobs - dragon heads were just too slow dying - we could only kill 2 heads in 1 go and ended up losing eventually.

I've got upgrade to 4 running, but seems I miscounted and I need 3 more Unified Elements, so maybe not tomorrow, but by the weekend I'll get it up to 5. I have 2 alchemy ones running done Sat.

Tuesday was the first time I tried Tiamat since Mod 6. I was in a successful 5 dragon kill zerg for heralds with 4 great successes and was feeling cocky. Waited for a bit to head to Tiamat and ended up in a solo instance. Couldn't even kill a summoner.

randomdigits · October 2015

Do you mean you can actually craft Unified Elements in Alchemy?
I see the wiki says so, but I have level 25 Alchemy and all filters cleared but still see no such task despite the wiki...
I supposed this is an Xbox "feature".

randomdigits · October 2015

Found it! I need to keep experimenting!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/37ykbc/question_about_unified_elements/
Well that was totally unobvious. I would have already got rich if I knew about it.

thefiresidecat · October 2015

zephyriah said:

thefiresidecat said:

randomdigits#2166 said:
I'm personally done with IWD, 2 days away from completing Dread Ring and need 10 more days for Sharandar.
These indeed get quite simple once you progress in gear and boons.
Once I'm done I'm not even sure what do I do next. Anything but completing the ToD campaign I guess.
Daily dungeon for the Cache of Protector. And daily leveling dungeon for AD.
Maybe I'll buy the epic black ice pick and mine black ice like crazy till mod 7 ships.

you'd be better off just getting into a HE farm group for black ice. other stuff drops as well and it's more regular with the black ice than going around hunting for the outcrops and killing the beasts guarding it.

I must disagree with that. With an Epic Pick you get 450 BI per regular node and over 1K from the large nodes. One regular node out produces 4 HEs for Black Ice. So, it could depend on how one values the additional items and the difficulty of solo kills.

In addition, while following a farming route you can pass through several HEs and trigger them. If someone completes that HE you will often get at least the minimum participation reward and frequently a great success. I farmed for about 30 mins earlier in Dwarven Valley using an Epic Pick and truesilver grip and mined over 7K Raw BI and 2 HE rewards, one a great success for not participating. I had 2 other HE rewards for ones I did contribute while traveling my route. I do stop for any Epic HEs that come up as I still need Black Ice gloves and Artifact.

I'm in about the same position as randomdigits. Finished DR including Adamntine glove, only upgrading to level 5 BI crafting left for IWD (tomorrow) and should get my last sparks for boon 5 in Sharandar on Monday. So, I started mining BI last week. I've followed HE zergs and mined solo. Solo with an Epic pick is more productive for me, by far.

oh I thought it just let you go really fast. as rosanna rosanna danna always said, Nevermind.

thefiresidecat · October 2015

randomdigits#2166 said:
Found it! I need to keep experimenting!
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/37ykbc/question_about_unified_elements/
Well that was totally unobvious. I would have already got rich if I knew about it.

It takes three days I think you can get it down to two wiht grandmasters and you only get one. so you can do it.. but it takes days and slots. I guess for those that have large character farms though it's a thing. I'd think you'd make more money making other things more often though.. occasionally the missions on the drowned shore offer the unified elements as a reward.

Dread Ring and Icewind Dale campaigns are too hard

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