I loved the challenge of this dungeon back when I was leveled for it. Got me hooked on doing more dungeons, and enjoy that style of play and challenge. Please don't nerf.
It's a controlled burn fight, they have these in raid content in every single MMO out there. Experienced raiders have seen this many, many times. DPS the main target to xx%, deal with the adds, DPS the main target again to xx%, deal with the adds, etc. It isnt rocket science. It just forces the team to be aware of what they are doing.
It's also the laziest and most played out boss mechanic, since the dawn of mmorpgs. All seasoned players have experienced and understand this, because mmorpgs seem to be the biggest sink hole of banal game design. No one here, is somehow bewildered as to what they have to do. We're astounded that this seems to be the sole boss mechanic Cryptic could come up with for every boss until 60.
1. Create a caster type boss, with warrior type defenses.
2. Spam AoE's.
3. Summon adds to give the illusion of depth and length to boss fight.
4. Call it a day.
No rogues performing sabotaging actions.
No environmental effects or interactive scenery.
Just rip off the one, traditional boss set up from every mmorpg, ever.
I wanna go back to being weird. I like being weird. Weird's all I got, oh, and my sweet style. -Maurice Moss, The IT Crowd
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bzzzdMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Q times would be even longer if all groups had to cover the trinity (I'm not saying that it wouldn't be better to have longer Q times, but have all the roles covered - just making an observation).
actually the queue is just ****ed, plain and simple. if you queue with a full premade group, one of every class, it STILL takes ages assigning you an instance - running to the portal works instantly.
It's also the laziest and most played out boss mechanic, since the dawn of mmorpgs. All seasoned players have experienced and understand this, because mmorpgs seem to be the biggest sink hole of banal game design. No one here, is somehow bewildered as to what they have to do. We're astounded that this seems to be the sole boss mechanic Cryptic could come up with for every boss until 60.
still plenty of people having an issue doing it. repetition is a valid form of learning.
Leveling dungeons should be puggable by the average player. This dungeon is not.
This is coming from an experience raider who has played most mmo's to date.
I agree. I've pugged the leveling dungeons so far and the difficulty suddenly ramped up with MD, the pugs I was with wiped again and again. Having got a few more levels I did Idris tonight and it was a much simpler fight so it seems that MD is indeed tougher than it really should be.
I agree. I've pugged the leveling dungeons so far and the difficulty suddenly ramped up with MD, the pugs I was with wiped again and again. Having got a few more levels I did Idris tonight and it was a much simpler fight so it seems that MD is indeed tougher than it really should be.
I'd say that Idris was about right compared to the way the dungeon difficulty has been scaling, MD is definitely the anomaly for pug groups of average players. If MD is going to be a boss + add waves fight then I think the numbers of adds should be reduced to give people a better chance to deal with them but still make it necessary to switch off the boss and burn down the adds.
I'd say that Idris was about right compared to the way the dungeon difficulty has been scaling, MD is definitely the anomaly for pug groups of average players. If MD is going to be a boss + add waves fight then I think the numbers of adds should be reduced to give people a better chance to deal with them but still make it necessary to switch off the boss and burn down the adds.
How can you tell? There's only one dungeon before MD.
edit: two, sorry. But 2 is hardly enough for a proper pattern.
I ran this on my cleric for the first time today and both then 2nd and the 3rd it seemed like some members of the group didn't understand the adds need to die or I will 9times out of 10
the3rd boss the party broke up after only the 3rd try and the GF and myself said which adds needed to die first after the 1st attempt yet there were some that felt it was the mages that needed to die first so I was stuck with all the imps I praise the GF and anyone who did turn to help me but the rest didn't and then just kept spamming their help button when they died
actually a member did that on 2nd boss too when I was running back for the 3rd time and the hitting of the hotkey for "help" caused her to get the cleric loot (which I didn't end up with, even after a few said she should trade it to cleric if it was a mistake)
I thought the difficulty seemed fine but ppl tend to get tunnel vision on boss fights because of being used to other games especially tab targeting games, also I think people don't quite get how cleric works. tonight I am taking a break from DC and lvling my GWF because I needed to clear my head after the dungeon LOL
How can you tell? There's only one dungeon before MD.
edit: two, sorry. But 2 is hardly enough for a proper pattern.
Because I pugged them all at least twice and I've been playing MMOs since EQ launched. MD heavily ramps up the fight difficulty for pugs that are not on voice (i.e. the average casual player), its out of line for all the other content up to that point, including skirmishes, and for content after that.
tonight I am taking a break from DC and lvling my GWF because I needed to clear my head after the dungeon LOL
LOL I did the same. I stopped playing my DC after Mad Dragon because PUGs never bother protecting their healer (yet they constantly cry out for heals...funny that) and healer aggro generator seems pretty much broken.
Rolled a GWF and I'm having a ton of fun there. Went into Mad Dragon with a PUG and things went pretty smooth. Really helps when there's someone sticking to the cleric and killing the adds asap.
Lair of the Mad Dragon's insanely fun. T'is just a shame that a lot of players seem to lack the common sense to fulfill their class roles.
Because I pugged them all at least twice and I've been playing MMOs since EQ launched. MD heavily ramps up the fight difficulty for pugs that are not on voice (i.e. the average casual player), its out of line for all the other content up to that point, including skirmishes, and for content after that.
Admittedly I haven't played past wolf, but isn't wolf just as bad?
daradalMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
Im a GWF and I try to do my job and kill off the adds as best I can. Until the dragon I'm fine. Once in there I'm ok for a bit then I get surrounded by imps and they just burn me down. I think the adds are a level or two higher by the dragon then in the rest of the dungeon. I've tried and I dont know what to do about them, I guess the though never occurred to me to just try and protect a cleric, I can try that. I was trying to run around and kill everything that wasn't the dragon. On top of that I think the potion recharge is too long. I cant tell you how many times Ive died, even not in a dungeon, Where I get hit hard, pop a pot and then somehow I get hit again watch my bar drop like a rock only to hit the pot attend and it say still recharging dying shortly thereafter.
The other annoying thing is that I had a decent group we were taking, tried it once or twice and the everyone was like this is too hard and bailed, leaving me and a GF there. We couldn't get anyone else to come in could invite people or anything, but we wanted to finish. I mean we tried it once, just the two of us, and obviously miserably failed. That was pretty annoying. It was also during dungeon delve too so there was the special chest. So they to do something to fix that, I should get screwed out of loot because my team decides its too tough for them.
Don't think it's "that" hard, but the sudden escalation of the adds in difficulty near the end is completely unnecessary. One minute it's a few magus and imps extra to deal with, suddenly it's packs of devils and a shocktrooper....
Devils and a shocktrooper? I have enough trouble with the seemingly million imps.....
I actually duo'ed this dungeon with a friend. I was a level 35 rogue, and he, a level 60 wizard. His CC was enough for all the adds. He died at one point and I was able to res him, then I died with a sliver of the dragon's health and he finished it off.
I don't even think I'm going to bother with a party. I didn't get jack out of the dungeon for the effort, either. When you kill a dragon, you expect a hoard. Not a single item for neither of our classes.
If you can, get a level 60 or two to run you through it. Way easier than dealing with a pug. That doesn't solve the issue though.
This sums up everything thats wrong with the balance in this game. Im in a five man group as a GWF the adds smoke me
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bpphantomMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Have a rogue focus on the Dragon DPS, the tank does the Dragon AND the big Demon at the end.
The control Wiz black holes all the adds, DONT kill the Magus as they wont spawn more if you don't kill them, as long as theres 2 up at all times.
The game is a scrub game.
Sorry, need to correct you. The clerics tank the dragon and the adds. Everyone else does stuff. Glad I outlevelled it after a couple of pug tries. Looking forward to doing it at 60 though.
- bpphantom
Grace, Tiefling Devoted Cleric
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Then leave the rest to Batman."
I posted this in the Gameplay forum but I figure its relevant here so I'll copy/paste it for you.
Just did LOTMD for the first time. It was a pug group I am a lvl 33 DC, we had a lvl 30 GF, and 3 rogues level 30,32,36. No one in the group had successfully completed the dungeon before. I knew the fight was a real bear and had read up a bit on the mechanics. I knew this was basically an endurance fight that would take quite a long time.
Because the adds are so important I started talking about picking up adds during boss fights from the minute I entered the dungeon. I tried what I could to keep the rogues from tunnel visioning the bosses. We struggled on the first boss and I had to chug some pots to keep alive. After that things got easier as people payed a bit more attention.
When we got to the dragon we tried the standard tank takes the dragon and everyone else kills adds then him. This didn't work very well. We got the boss down to 20% I had died at about 40% due to adds. The rogues weren't really paying much attention and I was getting hit hard and often. While dead I noticed the dragon doesn't really move around a lot and its pretty easy to dodge his stuff.
For the 2nd attempt I told the group to have the 36 rogue tank the dragon while everyone else was on add duty. When all adds were dead they could throw some dps onto the dragon. I explained this fight was intended to be a 15-20 minute endurance fight. This time the warrior did a great job, grabbing all the add aggro he could and the 2 rogues on add duty did a good job burning and or tanking them. I had a lot less pressure on me and was able to keep myself out of trouble. I chugged about 15 of the regular (2000 hp) healing potions during the fight. Mostly anytime I stayed to long in something bad I would have to chug 1 or 2 to get back to full. Since I'm a cleric I had 97 just from regular looting so this wasn't a big deal.
We had 1 rogue that liked to stand in red stuff but everyone else seemed to be good at dodging the bad. I was able to keep up with healing. I used Hallowed Ground as my Daily, My encounters were Sun Burst, Forgemasters Flame, Healing Word. I tried to keep Astral Seal on the boss and any big adds. I would use FF wherever the most amount of people were standing. The boss tank rogue only needed the occasional Healing word and my Astral Seal on the boss. We downed him on this attempt which was our 2nd try.
So the boss wasn't that bad. I was lucky to have a group that listened to a change of plan and execute on it. I'm fairly certain some potions were chugged but I don't think anyone used any premium items. I would suggest you go in with a plan and keep a positive attitude with your group. The fight is hard and more of a brick wall than I would expect at these levels but definitely doable with a standard level, standard geared pug.
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degraafinationMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
Tried this for the first time last night and the boss owned us twice. We got him down to 25% but the last spawn of adds really messed us up. It was the first dungeon that gave me trouble, however. Hellfire Magus are rough. It took me a while to learn how to dodge their fire because there is so little warning.
Going to try this again (hopefully today) and see how it goes with a plan.
Ok, FYI to everyone..this is a difficult fight. It is a huge leap from the previous two dungeons and bosses. For people saying "This isnt difficult for a coordinated group that knows what they are doing and knows how to communicate and--blah blah blah". Yes. Sure, it wouldn't be all that difficult if the group was coordinated, communicating, skilled, knew the fight and what they were doing in the fight..sure. Thanks for saying the kettle is black. For 90% of PUGS that are trying this boss for the first or second time and obviously have not played together in a group with little communication, this is going to be a wall.
So yes, with your highly organized guild or group of friends that know the fight and are able to communicate with ease, sure this would be easier. But for the pick up group of players that have never played together before and have not seen the fight before with little communication, this is difficult.
In my eyes, this needs to be scaled down a bit...reduce the # of adds. Is cryptic crazy to think that by adding many adds to every encounter they are making it a good one?
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okottekonekoMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I tried to do this through the que last night and my group wasn't able to even scratch him. I play a GF and I held aggro on the dragon but the issue seemed to be adds. Our group was myself, a healer and then all mages. I was wondering if it was an issue with the group makeup? Is it impossible to take down adds fast enough without a rogue? The group I was in tried twice and then everyone left.
Any constructive information about this instance and doing it with a que'd pickup group would be appreciated.
this is the issue, its not a boss fight its an adds fight with a boss in the middle, compared to the adds the boss is pathetic.
most people including myself just leveled past this failed attempt at a boss encounter.
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kina1991Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
i actually had gazillion potions and buffing potions as well, never actually died and did support the clerick with my CW, but the generaly pub players are usually clueless or dont want to use potions(cos it seems like waste of money to them) LOL.
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daradalMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited May 2013
I use potions plenty the problem is Ill use one get hit again and the die while waiting for the recharge to be up. I'm not really sure why the potion recharge is so long.....
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zombieelvisMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 9Arc User
edited May 2013
So I finally finished this dungeon tonight and I gotta say I'll never do it again. For the time it took and little reward it was not worth it.
I thought at least I'd get a title for my efforts, since we got a title for the first two dungeons, but apparently not this one.
I use potions plenty the problem is Ill use one get hit again and the die while waiting for the recharge to be up. I'm not really sure why the potion recharge is so long.....
I understand that but its still too long. When I'm fighting normally and I get low and pop a pot...get hit see my HP dropping like a stone then I have to run only to die because I have three seconds left on my pot thats a problem.
First who cares of people spam the pots, they will run out eventually. Second I'm not saying take the timer off completely, but I think it needs to be shorter. Or at least leave it but don't have it so it locks all the other ones out too.
Yeah, this dungeon completely killed the urge for me. What an colossal waste of time. If this is what there is to look forward to for all 30+ dungeons, I'm done.
Had to keep at it but finally completed this dungeon. I play a Cleric so you can imagine my frustration as I got flattened by the armies of adds . It took a solid group with one guy tanking the Dragon and everyone else clearing the adds as they popped. Gather them up and AOE them down. Still some close moments and what felt like a 30 minute fight but we did it... and I felt like I accomplished something afterwards. BUT, I think this encounter is ridiculous for mid level people and will turn people away from dungeons altogether. Tone down the difficulty in the lower level one. Save the tougher encounter for the Epic version with better rewards.
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xirriMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 27Arc User
edited May 2013
There you go folks, I'll just leave this here. The mad dragon fight from the eyes of the cleric and the literal ****ton of dodging they need to do to survive.
4 manned it after giving up the first night. Here's what worked for our diminished group...
1. Pick someone to tank the Dragon, give the GF something to do.
2. The Mages aren't important, don't kill them, only 2 will spawn. CC or kite them up to you.
3. Kill Imps first always, gives your Cleric a better chance to move. Kill Erenyes second. Kill all other adds.
4. When the Shock Trooper spawns kill him LAST, he is easy enough to kite, kill other adds first except the two mages.
5. DPS the dragon when you have breathing room, kill the two mages AFTER the Dragon.
6. KILL THE ******* IMPS ALREADY!
Comments
I play a GF and after I picked up a healing comp I've steamrolled every other encounter in this game. Not a single braincell expended.
Finally there was a fight that actually required some minimum of cooperation
It's also the laziest and most played out boss mechanic, since the dawn of mmorpgs. All seasoned players have experienced and understand this, because mmorpgs seem to be the biggest sink hole of banal game design. No one here, is somehow bewildered as to what they have to do. We're astounded that this seems to be the sole boss mechanic Cryptic could come up with for every boss until 60.
1. Create a caster type boss, with warrior type defenses.
2. Spam AoE's.
3. Summon adds to give the illusion of depth and length to boss fight.
4. Call it a day.
No rogues performing sabotaging actions.
No environmental effects or interactive scenery.
Just rip off the one, traditional boss set up from every mmorpg, ever.
actually the queue is just ****ed, plain and simple. if you queue with a full premade group, one of every class, it STILL takes ages assigning you an instance - running to the portal works instantly.
still plenty of people having an issue doing it. repetition is a valid form of learning.
I agree. I've pugged the leveling dungeons so far and the difficulty suddenly ramped up with MD, the pugs I was with wiped again and again. Having got a few more levels I did Idris tonight and it was a much simpler fight so it seems that MD is indeed tougher than it really should be.
That, or Idris is easier than it should be. :P
Also, buff Idris encounter!
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
I'd say that Idris was about right compared to the way the dungeon difficulty has been scaling, MD is definitely the anomaly for pug groups of average players. If MD is going to be a boss + add waves fight then I think the numbers of adds should be reduced to give people a better chance to deal with them but still make it necessary to switch off the boss and burn down the adds.
edit: two, sorry. But 2 is hardly enough for a proper pattern.
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
the3rd boss the party broke up after only the 3rd try and the GF and myself said which adds needed to die first after the 1st attempt yet there were some that felt it was the mages that needed to die first so I was stuck with all the imps I praise the GF and anyone who did turn to help me but the rest didn't and then just kept spamming their help button when they died
actually a member did that on 2nd boss too when I was running back for the 3rd time and the hitting of the hotkey for "help" caused her to get the cleric loot (which I didn't end up with, even after a few said she should trade it to cleric if it was a mistake)
I thought the difficulty seemed fine but ppl tend to get tunnel vision on boss fights because of being used to other games especially tab targeting games, also I think people don't quite get how cleric works. tonight I am taking a break from DC and lvling my GWF because I needed to clear my head after the dungeon LOL
Character handle:@skylia120410
(www.gwfnw.weebly.com)
GWF GUIDE SITE: Still being worked on not 60 yet
Divine Misfits (one of the Guild Leaders)(Guild Site Manager)
www.divinemisfits.guildlaunch.com
Because I pugged them all at least twice and I've been playing MMOs since EQ launched. MD heavily ramps up the fight difficulty for pugs that are not on voice (i.e. the average casual player), its out of line for all the other content up to that point, including skirmishes, and for content after that.
LOL I did the same. I stopped playing my DC after Mad Dragon because PUGs never bother protecting their healer (yet they constantly cry out for heals...funny that) and healer aggro generator seems pretty much broken.
Rolled a GWF and I'm having a ton of fun there. Went into Mad Dragon with a PUG and things went pretty smooth. Really helps when there's someone sticking to the cleric and killing the adds asap.
Lair of the Mad Dragon's insanely fun. T'is just a shame that a lot of players seem to lack the common sense to fulfill their class roles.
Admittedly I haven't played past wolf, but isn't wolf just as bad?
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
Lol priceless XD
The other annoying thing is that I had a decent group we were taking, tried it once or twice and the everyone was like this is too hard and bailed, leaving me and a GF there. We couldn't get anyone else to come in could invite people or anything, but we wanted to finish. I mean we tried it once, just the two of us, and obviously miserably failed. That was pretty annoying. It was also during dungeon delve too so there was the special chest. So they to do something to fix that, I should get screwed out of loot because my team decides its too tough for them.
Devils and a shocktrooper? I have enough trouble with the seemingly million imps.....
This sums up everything thats wrong with the balance in this game. Im in a five man group as a GWF the adds smoke me
Sorry, need to correct you. The clerics tank the dragon and the adds. Everyone else does stuff. Glad I outlevelled it after a couple of pug tries. Looking forward to doing it at 60 though.
Grace, Tiefling Devoted Cleric
"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. Then leave the rest to Batman."
Just did LOTMD for the first time. It was a pug group I am a lvl 33 DC, we had a lvl 30 GF, and 3 rogues level 30,32,36. No one in the group had successfully completed the dungeon before. I knew the fight was a real bear and had read up a bit on the mechanics. I knew this was basically an endurance fight that would take quite a long time.
Because the adds are so important I started talking about picking up adds during boss fights from the minute I entered the dungeon. I tried what I could to keep the rogues from tunnel visioning the bosses. We struggled on the first boss and I had to chug some pots to keep alive. After that things got easier as people payed a bit more attention.
When we got to the dragon we tried the standard tank takes the dragon and everyone else kills adds then him. This didn't work very well. We got the boss down to 20% I had died at about 40% due to adds. The rogues weren't really paying much attention and I was getting hit hard and often. While dead I noticed the dragon doesn't really move around a lot and its pretty easy to dodge his stuff.
For the 2nd attempt I told the group to have the 36 rogue tank the dragon while everyone else was on add duty. When all adds were dead they could throw some dps onto the dragon. I explained this fight was intended to be a 15-20 minute endurance fight. This time the warrior did a great job, grabbing all the add aggro he could and the 2 rogues on add duty did a good job burning and or tanking them. I had a lot less pressure on me and was able to keep myself out of trouble. I chugged about 15 of the regular (2000 hp) healing potions during the fight. Mostly anytime I stayed to long in something bad I would have to chug 1 or 2 to get back to full. Since I'm a cleric I had 97 just from regular looting so this wasn't a big deal.
We had 1 rogue that liked to stand in red stuff but everyone else seemed to be good at dodging the bad. I was able to keep up with healing. I used Hallowed Ground as my Daily, My encounters were Sun Burst, Forgemasters Flame, Healing Word. I tried to keep Astral Seal on the boss and any big adds. I would use FF wherever the most amount of people were standing. The boss tank rogue only needed the occasional Healing word and my Astral Seal on the boss. We downed him on this attempt which was our 2nd try.
So the boss wasn't that bad. I was lucky to have a group that listened to a change of plan and execute on it. I'm fairly certain some potions were chugged but I don't think anyone used any premium items. I would suggest you go in with a plan and keep a positive attitude with your group. The fight is hard and more of a brick wall than I would expect at these levels but definitely doable with a standard level, standard geared pug.
Going to try this again (hopefully today) and see how it goes with a plan.
Join Essence of Aggression: PVP-ing Hard Since Beta!
So yes, with your highly organized guild or group of friends that know the fight and are able to communicate with ease, sure this would be easier. But for the pick up group of players that have never played together before and have not seen the fight before with little communication, this is difficult.
In my eyes, this needs to be scaled down a bit...reduce the # of adds. Is cryptic crazy to think that by adding many adds to every encounter they are making it a good one?
this is the issue, its not a boss fight its an adds fight with a boss in the middle, compared to the adds the boss is pathetic.
most people including myself just leveled past this failed attempt at a boss encounter.
I thought at least I'd get a title for my efforts, since we got a title for the first two dungeons, but apparently not this one.
Also a bug ( http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?241101-Daily-Quest-Gone-Missing ) took away most of my dailys, so no AD either
@headlesshorseman
Obviously so that you can't spam potions to win.
This is an open beta. Start treating it like one.
I understand that but its still too long. When I'm fighting normally and I get low and pop a pot...get hit see my HP dropping like a stone then I have to run only to die because I have three seconds left on my pot thats a problem.
First who cares of people spam the pots, they will run out eventually. Second I'm not saying take the timer off completely, but I think it needs to be shorter. Or at least leave it but don't have it so it locks all the other ones out too.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xzlcvt_neverwinter-lair-of-the-mad-dragon_videogames
I still have the emotional scars of figuring out I picked THE tanking class in the game. Taunt? Pffft. I have a heal!
1. Pick someone to tank the Dragon, give the GF something to do.
2. The Mages aren't important, don't kill them, only 2 will spawn. CC or kite them up to you.
3. Kill Imps first always, gives your Cleric a better chance to move. Kill Erenyes second. Kill all other adds.
4. When the Shock Trooper spawns kill him LAST, he is easy enough to kite, kill other adds first except the two mages.
5. DPS the dragon when you have breathing room, kill the two mages AFTER the Dragon.
6. KILL THE ******* IMPS ALREADY!