Leave this game, stop playing it, show some backbone. It is not like Neverwinter is the only game available. When they see how much they ruined stuff then continue going forward. Right now the game is worthless to play. Literally worthless. It will take at least 6 months to fix all of this.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
I'd like to remind folks here about zombie hordes. They hit hard. If you get surrounded by a bunch of zombies, you are going down fast. The hardest part of this area was in the very beginning when you have to go into the houses and relight the fireplaces.... watch out for that! Zombie hordes in some of the houses can spring up and surround you in a couple of seconds, and it's going to be a problem for you. In the houses, you have limited mobility and no real way to escape aggro. If you aren't prepared with a LOT of control, a couple of the houses are near-guaranteed deathtraps! Meanwhile, some of the houses are a couple of skeletons who pose no threat. Go figure.
As a corollary to the above, it stands to reason that your priority in a fight where it applies is obviously the Wight Summoner mobs. Anything that can conjure zombie hordes and keep throwing them at you is dangerous, especially in a confined area where you can't fall back easily and regroup.
In stark contrast to the dire peril posed by zombie hordes and zombie summoners is: the entire rest of the area and every single other enemy you will face. trashGWF tore through everything else like it was made of paper. After seeing how dangerous the Shadarkai mobs were in Ebon Downs, I'm not too worried about Vellosk now. Although... if you recall, the enemy buff powers from Blackdagger Ruins cast by the Gnoll mobs were surprisingly strong before, and technically, werewolves are self-buffers. Werewolves might be tricky for me. We'll just have to see.
Most other players I saw in Ebon Downs were absolutely fine. Watching a couple of wizards and a ranger kinda made me jealous of how they handled the zombie hordes with no issues. The ranger took no damage from the zombies because he kept them rooted at range pretty much the whole time. Same with the wizards I watched. Untouched. Meanwhile, a warlock who charged into the thick of it with BoVA didn't fare so well. Just saying.
I ran Cloak Tower on a 26k character to see how bad it is.
Conclusion: Not bad at all.
It certainly takes more time, Cloak Tower is a real dungeon now. As long as you use proper group tactics, let tank pull, attack from behind, kill one encounter at a time etc even very low-gear groups should get through without much issues.
Cloak Tower endboss requires some tactics, which has been mostly forgotten before rework where she was more or less one-rounded. The adds at CT endboss spawns as the boss hp goes down. So all you need to do is to kill adds before you dps the boss any more. Done right CT endboss should not be hard.
I think this goes for many dungeons: All dungeon endbosses have mechanics that requires some tactics. Those tactics are to a large extent forgotten since we used to be so overpowered. Now we need to relearn and execute proper tactics at the endbosses. That is as it should be.
I ran Cloak Tower on a 26k character to see how bad it is.
Conclusion: Not bad at all.
It certainly takes more time, Cloak Tower is a real dungeon now. As long as you use proper group tactics, let tank pull, attack from behind, kill one encounter at a time etc even very low-gear groups should get through without much issues.
Cloak Tower endboss requires some tactics, which has been mostly forgotten before rework where she was more or less one-rounded. The adds at CT endboss spawns as the boss hp goes down. So all you need to do is to kill adds before you dps the boss any more. Done right CT endboss should not be hard.
I think this goes for many dungeons: All dungeon endbosses have mechanics that requires some tactics. Those tactics are to a large extent forgotten since we used to be so overpowered. Now we need to relearn and execute proper tactics at the endbosses. That is as it should be.
This is really encouraging to hear, thank you for posting.
A couple of relevant questions: was the rest of the team 80s or lowbies? A mix? I'm trying to get a sense of the scaling based on your guys' input here and I wonder if lowbies might be scaled better than 80s for the dungeons. It seems so far like multiple 80s might be a bad thing, with how scaling is working... given the feedback so far on this thread from guys like Regenerde. Maybe the tactics thing was a factor? Hmm.
Edited for my dumbness
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arazith07Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,719Arc User
Well, i did another Cloak Tower run with my Fighter, we had 2 level 80 in there with decent equipment/IL, and we really struggled to finish it. So, if a group with way above the required IL players is having problems with getting through this dungeon, how on gods green earth are a group of level 20 with IL around 5k going to finish it for their main quest line?
And the rewards are still as crappy as they were before the change - the rewards (from the dungeon itself and the RDQ) were fine before, when we could simply blast through the dungeon, but now they're only adding insult to injury.
I did it myself, we had 2 30s, 2 50s, and me (healer) at level 80. It seemed very easy to me. Vansi died in maybe 20 seconds tops. Yeah the Orcs had more HP, but it wasn't crazy amount or anything. We weren't spending more than 20 seconds with each group and no one was getting hurt that much. I was hardly healing.
Well, congratulation on having one hell of a magical group there, since normally characters do get hurt and even die when they rush forward into enemy groups in that dungeon.
And for burning down Vansi within 20s you need some serious dps plus either someone killing her minions really fast too, or at least someone kiting the adds around like a maniac, but that's going to stop working that well, when Vanis jumps right into the middle of her followers and you can't even target her properly anymore or some of the adds start ganging up on you...
Safe to say that i haven't seen that kind of magic happen to me, and i run that dungeon at least once per day right now for testing and hoping that they fix this HAMSTER at some point.
louchristanMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 50Arc User
edited January 2021
As far as balancing is concerned, this game is now toally out of control. Some areas are ok and some areas are not, some dungeons are doable and some don't. Even some classes seem not affected much by the patches but some turn out really bad. Your level and IL won't matter much because we all have the same problems. I had tred a new toon as well. This is so bad that I don't know how to describe it. In general, you will fare much better in a group than going solo.
Vellosk: trashGWF is 7.2k lev 40, still no health pots.
The only time I ran into real trouble here that wasn't caused by random lag or sloppy aggro management was in one of the instances: Xinkar Enclave. At the end of that one, you fight this giant undead thing who looks suspiciously similar to one of the instance bosses from Neverdeath Graveyard. Instead of Thayans, this one is engaged with bandit graverobbers who keep spawning and spawning and... there's like 15 of them or more. They don't all stay focused on the boss and will come after you. A lot of them are archers. Long story short, I jumped the boss and then got swarmed before I could run away. They despawned afterwards, so basically another kamikaze for me.
In contrast, the other instance bosses were manageable as long as I focused on the adds when they came. It's a lot easier for a trashGWF like me to manage 4 or 5 adds at a time instead of 15. Giggles' AoE is pretty huge for that slow spell, but 15 adds spread all over a big area is asking too much of the poor guy. Plus, a lot of them were ranged trash anyway, so all the slow is going to do is make them comfortable while they shoot me.
Also notable here are the normal wolf packs in the open world area and instances. Previously, I paid them no mind... but now they are a real threat for the unprepared. I would advise players without a lot of control abilities to be wary of pulling more than one group of normal wolves at once. They aren't bugged, per se -- they just aren't weaklings anymore.
The Werewolves' buff ability that I was worried about before turned out to a red herring. Sure, they got tougher, but I had the tools now to deal with them, and it ended up being not enough to make any difference.
> @"ultramath#3953" said: > Ebon Downs report: > > I'd like to remind folks here about zombie hordes. They hit hard. If you get surrounded by a bunch of zombies, you are going down fast. The hardest part of this area was in the very beginning when you have to go into the houses and relight the fireplaces.... watch out for that! Zombie hordes in some of the houses can spring up and surround you in a couple of seconds, and it's going to be a problem for you. In the houses, you have limited mobility and no real way to escape aggro. If you aren't prepared with a LOT of control, a couple of the houses are near-guaranteed deathtraps! Meanwhile, some of the houses are a couple of skeletons who pose no threat. Go figure. > > As a corollary to the above, it stands to reason that your priority in a fight where it applies is obviously the Wight Summoner mobs. Anything that can conjure zombie hordes and keep throwing them at you is dangerous, especially in a confined area where you can't fall back easily and regroup. > > In stark contrast to the dire peril posed by zombie hordes and zombie summoners is: the entire rest of the area and every single other enemy you will face. trashGWF tore through everything else like it was made of paper. After seeing how dangerous the Shadarkai mobs were in Ebon Downs, I'm not too worried about Vellosk now. Although... if you recall, the enemy buff powers from Blackdagger Ruins cast by the Gnoll mobs were surprisingly strong before, and technically, werewolves are self-buffers. Werewolves might be tricky for me. We'll just have to see. > > Most other players I saw in Ebon Downs were absolutely fine. Watching a couple of wizards and a ranger kinda made me jealous of how they handled the zombie hordes with no issues. The ranger took no damage from the zombies because he kept them rooted at range pretty much the whole time. Same with the wizards I watched. Untouched. Meanwhile, a warlock who charged into the thick of it with BoVA didn't fare so well. Just saying.
In my previous posts I said this was the area I was struggling in with my ranger, specially the starting area where you mention the zombie hordes everywhere. Managed to get a few more levels then I returned to this place to do quests again and I just went around every corner carefully and constantly stayed on alert. I managed to finish the annoying starter quests in that area but boy was it annoying, I like to relax and take my time but now I have to constantly stay on alert with what's happening. Personally for me I don't like playing that way it's too stressful and if I want stress ill go back in the real world. This is supposed to be fun and chill game not keep me on my toes around every nook in this game.
So while yes people can manage this difficulty a good portion of players do not like to play this way. However I played this far into the game so I feel it would be a terrible loss if I stopped now. I'm still hoping they adjust enemies more or buff our defense in some way to ease the situation.
In my previous posts I said this was the area I was struggling in with my ranger, specially the starting area where you mention the zombie hordes everywhere. Managed to get a few more levels then I returned to this place to do quests again and I just went around every corner carefully and constantly stayed on alert. I managed to finish the annoying starter quests in that area but boy was it annoying, I like to relax and take my time but now I have to constantly stay on alert with what's happening. Personally for me I don't like playing that way it's too stressful and if I want stress ill go back in the real world. This is supposed to be fun and chill game not keep me on my toes around every nook in this game.
So while yes people can manage this difficulty a good portion of players do not like to play this way. However I played this far into the game so I feel it would be a terrible loss if I stopped now. I'm still hoping they adjust enemies more or buff our defense in some way to ease the situation.
Was this a couple of hours ago? LOL I wonder if I saw you.
The ranger I saw was taking on hordes by himself. He used roots and shot them at range with at-wills and interspersed ranged encounters as well. He never got near enough to them to get hit. When his roots let go, he shifted back, kept shooting, and then rooted them again.
I found two changes that seem to work ... a bit. 1) augment companions are done, only use combat companions; 2) only fight mobs with your back to a wall, cliff, lumber pile etc. anywhere the mob cannot get combat advantage. Yesterday my lvl 80 barbarian with good equip and stats died quickly in War Makers camp in Sharandar, but switching from an ioun stone to Soradiel and only fighting with my back against walls, cliffs did the trick. It was tough but I made it through. Strategy: I ran up to a mob and then kept running to a nearby cliff and then waited for them so they could not surround me and it worked. I hope this helps.
I found two changes that seem to work ... a bit. 1) augment companions are done, only use combat companions; 2) only fight mobs with your back to a wall, cliff, lumber pile etc. anywhere the mob cannot get combat advantage. Yesterday my lvl 80 barbarian with good equip and stats died quickly in War Makers camp in Sharandar, but switching from an ioun stone to Soradiel and only fighting with my back against walls, cliffs did the trick. It was tough but I made it through. Strategy: I ran up to a mob and then kept running to a nearby cliff and then waited for them so they could not surround me and it worked. I hope this helps.
trashGWF does the same thing. You figured it out! LOL
Combat Advantage is of utmost importance for melees like us. Not just having it, but especially AVOIDING IT. One way to "force" your comp to help you get CA when you are a melee is to run "through" the group and engage them from the opposite side of your companion who has now tackled the mobs in the front. This basic maneuever puts the mobs between you and your comp and you get some free swings in the purple zone.
If the mobs reposition after this point, you have to move too. Don't get surrounded. Stay at the edges of the grouping -- being in the middle of a group of mobs is going to make you take more damage than you should. Remember that range is not important for CA! One lone enemy archer at the outskirts of a battle could be enough to give all the rest of your enemies CA against you if you are positioned between that archer and the rest of the mobs. It could be a long ways away. Doesn't matter.
Nothing is so much as NEW in this area as it is... differently significant? The starting section in the swamp is now perilous in a way that before it simply wasn't. Well... kinda. Basically, the roving packs of lizardmen that patrol the area amongst the tightly-packed groups of stationary mobs never really mattered because you could just overpower them anyway. What's three more wimps? More XP for meeeee!
But now, if you don't mind yourself and have some situational awareness, it is very easy to overpull mob groups in this area. Also, most of the groups in the area are actually bigger than they appear because some of the enemies are stealthed. Melee Lizardmen have a lunge attack that ignores slow. This attack can be dodged. Lizardmen Mystics can heal themselves and their allies about every 10 secs or so. Lizardmen Trappers are immune to damage and CC while they are in their "slide back 20 ft and throw net" animation. None of these special abilities are new, but you never cared before because you just slaughtered them no matter what.
The next section with the rope bridges is perhaps even more dangerous if you don't exercise common sense. The mob groups on the little islands are very close to each other. If you start a fight with one of them, you're probably gonna pull everybody. This can be avoided by pulling a mob group into a safe zone -- like the ones conveniently provided by the rope bridges. Fight on the bridges! Plus, it's easier to manage Combat advantage if everything is all lined up for you...
In stark contrast to the inherent dangerousness posed by the lizardmen, the pirate undead enemies are little to no threat as long as you don't go around pulling every single mob group you see and try to fight 30 enemies at once. And yes, I saw a player doing just that. After I picked him up for the second time, he kept doing it. LOL I have no idea why. I stopped trying to help him after that.
As for the instance bosses, they all summon adds. Yes, the adds are dangerous. Yes, you should prioritize the adds and ignore the boss until the adds are gone or almost so. I found it especially helpful to drag boss fights into hallways with traps and corners (Commander Hames in Skull Fortress) or out of the very large areas where archer adds could be spread so far out and provide nearly guaranteed CA to all of my enemies no matter where I was fighting them (Captain Kayliss at the end). Just spoiling their CA made an immediately noticeable difference in that fight.
Pretty much nothing out of the ordinary. No bugged mobs that I could tell. Goblin Archers are a pain, if you are taking too much damage here, maybe prioritize them? The ice trolls are very easy to kill. The ice giants are also easy to kill, even Skrymir at the top of the mountain, but it felt like more of a real fight for once because I wasn't able to burn him down with one rotation. Ice wolves weren't especially bothersome any more than they are already -- in fact, I would rather fight a bunch of them instead of a bunch of spread-out goblin archers.
The instance bosses were not crazily difficult. I pulled Mawcram out of his room with all the floor traps and burned him down in the hallway. I hate those stupid traps. The War Troll I had to kamikaze only because I didn't have health potions, and he regenerates. Anyone else could have handled him just fine. The Rime Hound I had to pull back from to spread out the adds. At one point I had to do a full retreat like 4 rooms back to break away and heal out of combat (yes, you can run away from combat temporarily in instances) before they caught up with me. Again, if I had potions... wouldn't have had to do that.
It seems like the game is tuned pretty well for a trashgeared character like me to need to chug one health potion per boss fight. Maybe two. Now I don't know if that's serendipity or by design, but there it is. Maybe I will hit a wall in the Chasm? Guess I'll have to see.
Hallo @ultramath#3953 and friends! I spent about 4 to 5 hours at most leveling my female elf wizard seen here to level 80. I went to the Undermountain and the fighting wasn't all that great. I grabbed a random player and we did Wells End to the first Expedition. I took a break and went back to hit up the Kuo-Toa for Saturday. I did all that solo, yes I died a lot but that was to be expected. I mean look at her gear. Next Today I did Wyllowwood up to finding the dead body and poof! Level 80.
Just because a role-player such as myself, who seldom engages with combat systems, can do this and you are still having issues, doesn't mean this system is broken. Take time to learn it, I do a lot of dodging myself. I had a lot of practice being a meat shield for hire. Remember the red areas are warnings to block, move, or dodge. I got her to level 80, I will be running her, with my friends, on February 9th to Sharandar. If you are dying a lot, use the buddy system. Hire a meat shield today!
It is my understanding we get the fake item level 40K for getting a character to Sharandar before the 23rd. After that if your character is not in the door, you are locked out until you get to 40K for real. Tell your friends, your guild, and your enemies this so as many of us can be there.
It is my understanding we get the fake item level 40K for getting a character to Sharandar before the 23rd. After that if your character is not in the door, you are locked out until you get to 40K for real. Tell your friends, your guild, and your enemies this so as many of us can be there.
Hey, thanks for the head's up!
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darthpotaterMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,259Arc User
Combat Advantage isn't a joke anymore. Most of the time, the mobs are jockeying for position to get it on you or avoid it from you, and it HURTS now. There is no clear indication for you to know when you are vulnerable that I have seen other than my health bar plummeting drastically in response to being between two mobs. And they don't have to be close, either. CA works at range, all they care about is the angles. Same for you --> you don't have to be close to the mobs to get CA you just need a comp or any other ally to be in combat and generally on the other side from you, and you will be hammering them.
While I am evaluating if a mob is bugged or not during my travels here I am careful to not be in CA to them because everything hits so much harder in that situation, and everything seems too strong to you to be fair. In other words, everything looks bugged and OP if they have CA on you. That's one of the main reasons why control abilities that slow, stun, root, or KD (less so for KB except as a "get out of trouble" button) are so valuable right now. You can maintain or avoid CA so much easier.
I think this is one of the main sources of the problem. There are mobs that arent adjusted, but the CA thing is a problem.
In the progress the developers did, they changed the damage formula, to make defense less impactfull. In the initial formula, combat advantage was good (For us, and the enemies) but not so good because you could get up to 90% REAL damage reduction. But I bet they didnt review the progress in leveling areas after this change in the formula.
In the actual formula, CA has an impact to damage similar to power (when you have CA), so a critter with CA can hit for near 2x (with no crit) and mobs are looking all time to get CA. Archers can have CA easy also.
One crit with CA in low level areas can be a sure death.
I suggest that minions in the leveling areas should have 50% CA damage instead of 90%. Maybe reducing mobs crit severity also. New characters wont have much awareness and the same with crit avoidance.
In dungeons is another history, because you should have a tank, healer, etc. And when people understand better the new system, will be better. But leveling areas need a look.
Okay. You screwed up with the changes. Do not try to say otherwise or defend the actions. Now what? How about some new quests at a lower difficulty so I can build with the new situation. Neverwinter is one of the best games I've played and look forward to reasonable changes.
I suggest that minions in the leveling areas should have 50% CA damage instead of 90%. Maybe reducing mobs crit severity also. New characters wont have much awareness and the same with crit avoidance.
This is a good idea. Me likey. Could do wonders for all the ranged trash that seems to be so dangerous all over the place. I still say the hurler mobs are truly bugged, though. That wasn't CA doing that to me, that was just pure raw pain. And they had more health than the ogres in the same area. C'mon, that's a BUG.
In other news, trashGWF has cleared the Chasm. Just under 7.7k lev53
In keeping with the "ranged trash is now dangerous" tradition, we have the blue Fire Eyes of the Chasm. These guys are a pain in the butt. They don't hold still for melees, like EVER. I noticed I got them to stop if I let them have CA on me, or if they had no more allies to give CA to. I ended up having to save them for last a lot of the time, because prioritizing them just let the other mobs pound on me while I was chasing this greased pig around to smack it with my sword. This means they did a lot of damage to me that could have been avoided if I was simply ranged. Even a Rogue has throwing knives! Man, that would have been nice to have a ranged at-will. You can really take that for granted if you don't play pure melees a lot.
Aside from the troubles I had due to my choice of class and my lack of health pots, I ran into some grief in the Blue Fire Keep area with the Senobith the Corruptor boss. In that keep are 4 little side areas behind loading screens that you have to enter to kill Senobith's flunkies before you can summon her. And yes, this is just like back in Ebon Downs with the houses and the fireplaces. Two of the Senobith flunky areas are overpopulated with mobs, and you don't really have any way to get away from them if you get overwhelmed, which is likely. Be ready with some Injury Kits. Luckily, the trash mobs don't respawn if you die, so it's not like you can't whittle them down eventually. Senobith herself is one of the easiest bosses to kill in the entire game -- which feels very anticlimactic after the hell you went through to get to her. Yeesh.
The last instance in the Chasm is Twisted Fane. You can overpull mob groups here on accident in a couple of places, as the groups are very close together. Also, when you get to the boss, it will conjure two mirror images that follow it around and try to eat you and your companion. It will also summon more and more as its health drops, but don't worry, you can kamikaze this boss safely as all the mirror images vanish after it is killed.
Okay. You screwed up with the changes. Do not try to say otherwise or defend the actions. Now what? How about some new quests at a lower difficulty so I can build with the new situation. Neverwinter is one of the best games I've played and look forward to reasonable changes.
Really? How did I screw up the changes? What changes did I make to the game?
You have got to love these one post wonders -who never realize- this thread is about players helping other players. Sorry we have no developers in this thread, I doubt you will see any for some time. I ate them for breakfast!
True to form, the most irritating enemies in this area are somehow the ranged trash mobs (imagine THAT!). In particular, for this part of the game we are talking about the little yellow spitting spiders. You can kill them fast enough -- so no worries there -- but ignore them at your peril. They will load you up with damage nice and fast if there are more than one or two of them.
The Drow in this area are not a legit threat unless you overpull, just like any other mob we've seen. As long as you stick to one group at a time, it should be smooth sailing. Driders take some time to kill, but telegraph their attacks enough to let you avoid the really bad stuff they throw at you.
The first instance boss for Rothe Valley that you find in the Night Raid area (Kashoggi the Slavemaster) made me laugh because I was not ready for what happened when I cleared the instance and he came out to fight. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that this encounter is kinda different from how it used to be before the patch. Make sure you run as fast as you can to fight him after you release the last prisoners from their pens so you don't miss it!
The Spider Nest instance was filled with spitting spiders in some spots. Watch out for that. The boss spider the Daughter Of Lolth was a lot more... jumpy... than I remembered her being before the patch. Maybe that's just me forgetting.
The last instance is the Edge of the Underdark, and just to troll us, there are DOZENS of spitting spiders scattered throughout the level. And let's not forget the dozen of them in the room with the Drider Boss Sarkoniss at the end --- yikes! I was careful to pull them away from the drider and burn them down in little fights before I took on the big guy. No problems, right? Easy peasy.
Just curious on all these supposed success stories as to how much $$$ have you spent for your companions and such. It seems to me based on other threads advising about which companions to choose, not all of us have those options for cash tos spend. My best char is L63 and still has an Item level under 10k.....This character can no longer even survive in Black Lake because he is take out by a single hit with or without CA....My next best is slightly lower and has an even lower item level. As he cannot survive in blacklake...even with stealth, dodging a single hit and am dead.
I started a new toon and same story once hit level 20.
I was challenged plenty under the old system. I struggled with the Rimewolf....and don't get me started about the first boss in the Chasm. (It took 20 tries before I finally succeeded.
As it stand now there s no joy in this game, no fun, thus no motivation.
my main toon which is a paladin is kinda HAMSTER soloing now (4200 damage rating) just because it doesnt have a damn dps path, thanks to forte its a pain to play with it especially with the chicken nerf, not to mention that tanking is pretty HAMSTER right now
my HAMSTER alt which is a fighter now does well in soloing, with a 3600 damage rating, wtf is with that? how did capping power resulted in such a HAMSTER update? also where are the account wide companions? also no free mythic companion when introducing the mythic rank? just a 20 comp token which is definitely enough to make a damn mythic
> @"ultramath#3953" said: > Hey guys, so lots of dismay I'm seeing all over the place in chat and here on forums about "the rework". ... > > So, rather than wish or DEMAND that the rework could get reversed (because they clearly aren't going to do that -- this has been going on since November in the preview shard)
lol... Judging by the amount of player rage and people quitting neverwinter... I wouldn't be so sure about that. The previews were probably run by people like you looking for some reaper level thrills. Well that's not everyone's cup of tea. Why is it that a lvl 55 toon's attacks do little tiny dents on lvl 25 trash mobs, and the same level 25 trash mob takes out 1/3 of lvl 55 toon's hp per hit. What kind of messed up scaling is that ?
A lot of people prefer a more casual dungeon crawl... The imbalance and level/scale flat lining has ruined the game for most people. If people like you were looking for tough challenge, they should have allowed for a reaper difficulty setting that increases difficulty.
True to form, the most irritating enemies in this area are somehow the ranged trash mobs (imagine THAT!). In particular, for this part of the game we are talking about the little yellow spitting spiders. You can kill them fast enough -- so no worries there -- but ignore them at your peril. They will load you up with damage nice and fast if there are more than one or two of them.
The Drow in this area are not a legit threat unless you overpull, just like any other mob we've seen. As long as you stick to one group at a time, it should be smooth sailing. Driders take some time to kill, but telegraph their attacks enough to let you avoid the really bad stuff they throw at you.
The first instance boss for Rothe Valley that you find in the Night Raid area (Kashoggi the Slavemaster) made me laugh because I was not ready for what happened when I cleared the instance and he came out to fight. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that this encounter is kinda different from how it used to be before the patch. Make sure you run as fast as you can to fight him after you release the last prisoners from their pens so you don't miss it!
The Spider Nest instance was filled with spitting spiders in some spots. Watch out for that. The boss spider the Daughter Of Lolth was a lot more... jumpy... than I remembered her being before the patch. Maybe that's just me forgetting.
The last instance is the Edge of the Underdark, and just to troll us, there are DOZENS of spitting spiders scattered throughout the level. And let's not forget the dozen of them in the room with the Drider Boss Sarkoniss at the end --- yikes! I was careful to pull them away from the drider and burn them down in little fights before I took on the big guy. No problems, right? Easy peasy.
I've been progressing well and im lvl 50 now! I can root my enemies and keep them in place as I shoot them down with my ranger. Melee mobs are piece of cake but when im getting hammered by 4+ ranged enemies it's so annoying lol
Just curious on all these supposed success stories as to how much $$$ have you spent for your companions and such.
Zero. That was the whole point of the playthru. The reason I keep posting my item level and character level in the beginning of each area report is so you can see that I am doing it with no $ investment of any kind. I am using only found items (not even bounty gear!) but even worse, I am not allowing myself to use any healing potions! For a Barbarian, this is basically suicidal. To do DPS with this class I have to get in the mobs face and stay there and I am constantly taking damage. My comp is the white rarity freebie companion they give you after the Tower District. My horses are all free horses you get from the leveling chests. The only thing I have bought for myself are injury kits so I don't have to stand at a campfire for 30 secs when I bite off more than I can chew during an evaluation of a particular encounter, and I have also died quite a few times in certain instances when overwhelmed by either the level design, my own sloppiness as a player, or simple random lag issues.
Let me tell you for a fact: if I HAD spent money, I would be blasting through the leveling areas no sweat. The reason I am having trouble when I do can be traced directly to being very low TIL or not having healing potions. You can also read my entries where I complain incessantly about being a barbarian in general, as they have no ranged abilities that can be relied on for much more than filler or instigation and I am spoiled by playing ranged characters so much in the past.
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Leave this game, stop playing it, show some backbone. It is not like Neverwinter is the only game available. When they see how much they ruined stuff then continue going forward. Right now the game is worthless to play. Literally worthless. It will take at least 6 months to fix all of this.
I'd like to remind folks here about zombie hordes. They hit hard. If you get surrounded by a bunch of zombies, you are going down fast. The hardest part of this area was in the very beginning when you have to go into the houses and relight the fireplaces.... watch out for that! Zombie hordes in some of the houses can spring up and surround you in a couple of seconds, and it's going to be a problem for you. In the houses, you have limited mobility and no real way to escape aggro. If you aren't prepared with a LOT of control, a couple of the houses are near-guaranteed deathtraps! Meanwhile, some of the houses are a couple of skeletons who pose no threat. Go figure.
As a corollary to the above, it stands to reason that your priority in a fight where it applies is obviously the Wight Summoner mobs. Anything that can conjure zombie hordes and keep throwing them at you is dangerous, especially in a confined area where you can't fall back easily and regroup.
In stark contrast to the dire peril posed by zombie hordes and zombie summoners is: the entire rest of the area and every single other enemy you will face. trashGWF tore through everything else like it was made of paper. After seeing how dangerous the Shadarkai mobs were in Ebon Downs, I'm not too worried about Vellosk now. Although... if you recall, the enemy buff powers from Blackdagger Ruins cast by the Gnoll mobs were surprisingly strong before, and technically, werewolves are self-buffers. Werewolves might be tricky for me. We'll just have to see.
Most other players I saw in Ebon Downs were absolutely fine. Watching a couple of wizards and a ranger kinda made me jealous of how they handled the zombie hordes with no issues. The ranger took no damage from the zombies because he kept them rooted at range pretty much the whole time. Same with the wizards I watched. Untouched. Meanwhile, a warlock who charged into the thick of it with BoVA didn't fare so well. Just saying.
Conclusion: Not bad at all.
It certainly takes more time, Cloak Tower is a real dungeon now. As long as you use proper group tactics, let tank pull, attack from behind, kill one encounter at a time etc even very low-gear groups should get through without much issues.
Cloak Tower endboss requires some tactics, which has been mostly forgotten before rework where she was more or less one-rounded. The adds at CT endboss spawns as the boss hp goes down. So all you need to do is to kill adds before you dps the boss any more. Done right CT endboss should not be hard.
I think this goes for many dungeons: All dungeon endbosses have mechanics that requires some tactics. Those tactics are to a large extent forgotten since we used to be so overpowered. Now we need to relearn and execute proper tactics at the endbosses. That is as it should be.
A couple of relevant questions: was the rest of the team 80s or lowbies? A mix? I'm trying to get a sense of the scaling based on your guys' input here and I wonder if lowbies might be scaled better than 80s for the dungeons. It seems so far like multiple 80s might be a bad thing, with how scaling is working... given the feedback so far on this thread from guys like Regenerde. Maybe the tactics thing was a factor? Hmm.
Edited for my dumbness
The only time I ran into real trouble here that wasn't caused by random lag or sloppy aggro management was in one of the instances: Xinkar Enclave. At the end of that one, you fight this giant undead thing who looks suspiciously similar to one of the instance bosses from Neverdeath Graveyard. Instead of Thayans, this one is engaged with bandit graverobbers who keep spawning and spawning and... there's like 15 of them or more. They don't all stay focused on the boss and will come after you. A lot of them are archers. Long story short, I jumped the boss and then got swarmed before I could run away. They despawned afterwards, so basically another kamikaze for me.
In contrast, the other instance bosses were manageable as long as I focused on the adds when they came. It's a lot easier for a trashGWF like me to manage 4 or 5 adds at a time instead of 15. Giggles' AoE is pretty huge for that slow spell, but 15 adds spread all over a big area is asking too much of the poor guy. Plus, a lot of them were ranged trash anyway, so all the slow is going to do is make them comfortable while they shoot me.
Also notable here are the normal wolf packs in the open world area and instances. Previously, I paid them no mind... but now they are a real threat for the unprepared. I would advise players without a lot of control abilities to be wary of pulling more than one group of normal wolves at once. They aren't bugged, per se -- they just aren't weaklings anymore.
The Werewolves' buff ability that I was worried about before turned out to a red herring. Sure, they got tougher, but I had the tools now to deal with them, and it ended up being not enough to make any difference.
> Ebon Downs report:
>
> I'd like to remind folks here about zombie hordes. They hit hard. If you get surrounded by a bunch of zombies, you are going down fast. The hardest part of this area was in the very beginning when you have to go into the houses and relight the fireplaces.... watch out for that! Zombie hordes in some of the houses can spring up and surround you in a couple of seconds, and it's going to be a problem for you. In the houses, you have limited mobility and no real way to escape aggro. If you aren't prepared with a LOT of control, a couple of the houses are near-guaranteed deathtraps! Meanwhile, some of the houses are a couple of skeletons who pose no threat. Go figure.
>
> As a corollary to the above, it stands to reason that your priority in a fight where it applies is obviously the Wight Summoner mobs. Anything that can conjure zombie hordes and keep throwing them at you is dangerous, especially in a confined area where you can't fall back easily and regroup.
>
> In stark contrast to the dire peril posed by zombie hordes and zombie summoners is: the entire rest of the area and every single other enemy you will face. trashGWF tore through everything else like it was made of paper. After seeing how dangerous the Shadarkai mobs were in Ebon Downs, I'm not too worried about Vellosk now. Although... if you recall, the enemy buff powers from Blackdagger Ruins cast by the Gnoll mobs were surprisingly strong before, and technically, werewolves are self-buffers. Werewolves might be tricky for me. We'll just have to see.
>
> Most other players I saw in Ebon Downs were absolutely fine. Watching a couple of wizards and a ranger kinda made me jealous of how they handled the zombie hordes with no issues. The ranger took no damage from the zombies because he kept them rooted at range pretty much the whole time. Same with the wizards I watched. Untouched. Meanwhile, a warlock who charged into the thick of it with BoVA didn't fare so well. Just saying.
In my previous posts I said this was the area I was struggling in with my ranger, specially the starting area where you mention the zombie hordes everywhere. Managed to get a few more levels then I returned to this place to do quests again and I just went around every corner carefully and constantly stayed on alert. I managed to finish the annoying starter quests in that area but boy was it annoying, I like to relax and take my time but now I have to constantly stay on alert with what's happening. Personally for me I don't like playing that way it's too stressful and if I want stress ill go back in the real world. This is supposed to be fun and chill game not keep me on my toes around every nook in this game.
So while yes people can manage this difficulty a good portion of players do not like to play this way. However I played this far into the game so I feel it would be a terrible loss if I stopped now. I'm still hoping they adjust enemies more or buff our defense in some way to ease the situation.
The ranger I saw was taking on hordes by himself. He used roots and shot them at range with at-wills and interspersed ranged encounters as well. He never got near enough to them to get hit. When his roots let go, he shifted back, kept shooting, and then rooted them again.
Combat Advantage is of utmost importance for melees like us. Not just having it, but especially AVOIDING IT. One way to "force" your comp to help you get CA when you are a melee is to run "through" the group and engage them from the opposite side of your companion who has now tackled the mobs in the front. This basic maneuever puts the mobs between you and your comp and you get some free swings in the purple zone.
If the mobs reposition after this point, you have to move too. Don't get surrounded. Stay at the edges of the grouping -- being in the middle of a group of mobs is going to make you take more damage than you should. Remember that range is not important for CA! One lone enemy archer at the outskirts of a battle could be enough to give all the rest of your enemies CA against you if you are positioned between that archer and the rest of the mobs. It could be a long ways away. Doesn't matter.
Nothing is so much as NEW in this area as it is... differently significant? The starting section in the swamp is now perilous in a way that before it simply wasn't. Well... kinda. Basically, the roving packs of lizardmen that patrol the area amongst the tightly-packed groups of stationary mobs never really mattered because you could just overpower them anyway. What's three more wimps? More XP for meeeee!
But now, if you don't mind yourself and have some situational awareness, it is very easy to overpull mob groups in this area. Also, most of the groups in the area are actually bigger than they appear because some of the enemies are stealthed. Melee Lizardmen have a lunge attack that ignores slow. This attack can be dodged. Lizardmen Mystics can heal themselves and their allies about every 10 secs or so. Lizardmen Trappers are immune to damage and CC while they are in their "slide back 20 ft and throw net" animation. None of these special abilities are new, but you never cared before because you just slaughtered them no matter what.
The next section with the rope bridges is perhaps even more dangerous if you don't exercise common sense. The mob groups on the little islands are very close to each other. If you start a fight with one of them, you're probably gonna pull everybody. This can be avoided by pulling a mob group into a safe zone -- like the ones conveniently provided by the rope bridges. Fight on the bridges! Plus, it's easier to manage Combat advantage if everything is all lined up for you...
In stark contrast to the inherent dangerousness posed by the lizardmen, the pirate undead enemies are little to no threat as long as you don't go around pulling every single mob group you see and try to fight 30 enemies at once. And yes, I saw a player doing just that. After I picked him up for the second time, he kept doing it. LOL I have no idea why. I stopped trying to help him after that.
As for the instance bosses, they all summon adds. Yes, the adds are dangerous. Yes, you should prioritize the adds and ignore the boss until the adds are gone or almost so. I found it especially helpful to drag boss fights into hallways with traps and corners (Commander Hames in Skull Fortress) or out of the very large areas where archer adds could be spread so far out and provide nearly guaranteed CA to all of my enemies no matter where I was fighting them (Captain Kayliss at the end). Just spoiling their CA made an immediately noticeable difference in that fight.
Pretty much nothing out of the ordinary. No bugged mobs that I could tell. Goblin Archers are a pain, if you are taking too much damage here, maybe prioritize them? The ice trolls are very easy to kill. The ice giants are also easy to kill, even Skrymir at the top of the mountain, but it felt like more of a real fight for once because I wasn't able to burn him down with one rotation. Ice wolves weren't especially bothersome any more than they are already -- in fact, I would rather fight a bunch of them instead of a bunch of spread-out goblin archers.
The instance bosses were not crazily difficult. I pulled Mawcram out of his room with all the floor traps and burned him down in the hallway. I hate those stupid traps. The War Troll I had to kamikaze only because I didn't have health potions, and he regenerates. Anyone else could have handled him just fine. The Rime Hound I had to pull back from to spread out the adds. At one point I had to do a full retreat like 4 rooms back to break away and heal out of combat (yes, you can run away from combat temporarily in instances) before they caught up with me. Again, if I had potions... wouldn't have had to do that.
It seems like the game is tuned pretty well for a trashgeared character like me to need to chug one health potion per boss fight. Maybe two. Now I don't know if that's serendipity or by design, but there it is. Maybe I will hit a wall in the Chasm? Guess I'll have to see.
Just because a role-player such as myself, who seldom engages with combat systems, can do this and you are still having issues, doesn't mean this system is broken. Take time to learn it, I do a lot of dodging myself. I had a lot of practice being a meat shield for hire. Remember the red areas are warnings to block, move, or dodge. I got her to level 80, I will be running her, with my friends, on February 9th to Sharandar. If you are dying a lot, use the buddy system. Hire a meat shield today!
It is my understanding we get the fake item level 40K for getting a character to Sharandar before the 23rd. After that if your character is not in the door, you are locked out until you get to 40K for real. Tell your friends, your guild, and your enemies this so as many of us can be there.
Just killing time...
In the progress the developers did, they changed the damage formula, to make defense less impactfull. In the initial formula, combat advantage was good (For us, and the enemies) but not so good because you could get up to 90% REAL damage reduction. But I bet they didnt review the progress in leveling areas after this change in the formula.
In the actual formula, CA has an impact to damage similar to power (when you have CA), so a critter with CA can hit for near 2x (with no crit) and mobs are looking all time to get CA. Archers can have CA easy also.
One crit with CA in low level areas can be a sure death.
I suggest that minions in the leveling areas should have 50% CA damage instead of 90%. Maybe reducing mobs crit severity also. New characters wont have much awareness and the same with crit avoidance.
In dungeons is another history, because you should have a tank, healer, etc. And when people understand better the new system, will be better. But leveling areas need a look.
Caturday Survivor
Elemental Evil Survivor
Undermontain Survivor
Mod20 Combat rework Survivor
Mod22 Refinement rework Survivor
In keeping with the "ranged trash is now dangerous" tradition, we have the blue Fire Eyes of the Chasm. These guys are a pain in the butt. They don't hold still for melees, like EVER. I noticed I got them to stop if I let them have CA on me, or if they had no more allies to give CA to. I ended up having to save them for last a lot of the time, because prioritizing them just let the other mobs pound on me while I was chasing this greased pig around to smack it with my sword. This means they did a lot of damage to me that could have been avoided if I was simply ranged. Even a Rogue has throwing knives! Man, that would have been nice to have a ranged at-will. You can really take that for granted if you don't play pure melees a lot.
Aside from the troubles I had due to my choice of class and my lack of health pots, I ran into some grief in the Blue Fire Keep area with the Senobith the Corruptor boss. In that keep are 4 little side areas behind loading screens that you have to enter to kill Senobith's flunkies before you can summon her. And yes, this is just like back in Ebon Downs with the houses and the fireplaces. Two of the Senobith flunky areas are overpopulated with mobs, and you don't really have any way to get away from them if you get overwhelmed, which is likely. Be ready with some Injury Kits. Luckily, the trash mobs don't respawn if you die, so it's not like you can't whittle them down eventually. Senobith herself is one of the easiest bosses to kill in the entire game -- which feels very anticlimactic after the hell you went through to get to her. Yeesh.
The last instance in the Chasm is Twisted Fane. You can overpull mob groups here on accident in a couple of places, as the groups are very close together. Also, when you get to the boss, it will conjure two mirror images that follow it around and try to eat you and your companion. It will also summon more and more as its health drops, but don't worry, you can kamikaze this boss safely as all the mirror images vanish after it is killed.
You have got to love these one post wonders -who never realize- this thread is about players helping other players. Sorry we have no developers in this thread, I doubt you will see any for some time. I ate them for breakfast!
Just killing time...
True to form, the most irritating enemies in this area are somehow the ranged trash mobs (imagine THAT!). In particular, for this part of the game we are talking about the little yellow spitting spiders. You can kill them fast enough -- so no worries there -- but ignore them at your peril. They will load you up with damage nice and fast if there are more than one or two of them.
The Drow in this area are not a legit threat unless you overpull, just like any other mob we've seen. As long as you stick to one group at a time, it should be smooth sailing. Driders take some time to kill, but telegraph their attacks enough to let you avoid the really bad stuff they throw at you.
The first instance boss for Rothe Valley that you find in the Night Raid area (Kashoggi the Slavemaster) made me laugh because I was not ready for what happened when I cleared the instance and he came out to fight. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that this encounter is kinda different from how it used to be before the patch. Make sure you run as fast as you can to fight him after you release the last prisoners from their pens so you don't miss it!
The Spider Nest instance was filled with spitting spiders in some spots. Watch out for that. The boss spider the Daughter Of Lolth was a lot more... jumpy... than I remembered her being before the patch. Maybe that's just me forgetting.
The last instance is the Edge of the Underdark, and just to troll us, there are DOZENS of spitting spiders scattered throughout the level. And let's not forget the dozen of them in the room with the Drider Boss Sarkoniss at the end --- yikes! I was careful to pull them away from the drider and burn them down in little fights before I took on the big guy. No problems, right? Easy peasy.
I started a new toon and same story once hit level 20.
I was challenged plenty under the old system. I struggled with the Rimewolf....and don't get me started about the first boss in the Chasm. (It took 20 tries before I finally succeeded.
As it stand now there s no joy in this game, no fun, thus no motivation.
my HAMSTER alt which is a fighter now does well in soloing, with a 3600 damage rating, wtf is with that? how did capping power resulted in such a HAMSTER update? also where are the account wide companions? also no free mythic companion when introducing the mythic rank? just a 20 comp token which is definitely enough to make a damn mythic
> Hey guys, so lots of dismay I'm seeing all over the place in chat and here on forums about "the rework". ...
>
> So, rather than wish or DEMAND that the rework could get reversed (because they clearly aren't going to do that -- this has been going on since November in the preview shard)
lol... Judging by the amount of player rage and people quitting neverwinter... I wouldn't be so sure about that. The previews were probably run by people like you looking for some reaper level thrills. Well that's not everyone's cup of tea. Why is it that a lvl 55 toon's attacks do little tiny dents on lvl 25 trash mobs, and the same level 25 trash mob takes out 1/3 of lvl 55 toon's hp per hit. What kind of messed up scaling is that ?
A lot of people prefer a more casual dungeon crawl... The imbalance and level/scale flat lining has ruined the game for most people. If people like you were looking for tough challenge, they should have allowed for a reaper difficulty setting that increases difficulty.
This game's current state is garbage.
I've been progressing well and im lvl 50 now! I can root my enemies and keep them in place as I shoot them down with my ranger. Melee mobs are piece of cake but when im getting hammered by 4+ ranged enemies it's so annoying lol
Let me tell you for a fact: if I HAD spent money, I would be blasting through the leveling areas no sweat. The reason I am having trouble when I do can be traced directly to being very low TIL or not having healing potions. You can also read my entries where I complain incessantly about being a barbarian in general, as they have no ranged abilities that can be relied on for much more than filler or instigation and I am spoiled by playing ranged characters so much in the past.