The New Bilithu of the Old Ways

[Bawang]

<p><span style="font-size: small;">From the Test Notes: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Charasis: the Maiden's Chamber<i>Bilithu of the Old Ways:</i><b>Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities.</b>Bilithu's power pool has been reduced.</span>__________________________________________________ _____________</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm somewhat at a loss as to how to interpret this.  Does it mean: "Bilithu will summon and do his high damage AE regardless of whether he has mana or not".  If so, why would they go through the trouble of reducing his power pool?</span></p>

[Ama]

<cite>Bawang wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small;">From the Test Notes: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Charasis: the Maiden's Chamber<i>Bilithu of the Old Ways:</i><b>Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities.</b>Bilithu's power pool has been reduced.</span>__________________________________________________ _____________</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm somewhat at a loss as to how to interpret this.  Does it mean: "Bilithu will summon and do his high damage AE regardless of whether he has mana or not".  If so, why would they go through the trouble of reducing his power pool?</span></p></blockquote><p>Heh guess they decided to make him tougher and nerf him along the way.  Course it doesn't really matter since you can do another "long route" method if you so choose to do so. </p><p>Have a dirge and druid in group.  Just have the druid hit TS when the monster hits 75% wait for the AE to go off then go back to pounding it.  At 50% have the dirge use their AE blocker then mezz the thing while the druids AE blocker regenerates.  Sure it'll take a bit longer, but it'll be the safer method than just pounding away on it.  </p>

[Soulforged_Unre]

<cite>Bawang wrote:</cite><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small;">From the Test Notes: </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Charasis: the Maiden's Chamber<i>Bilithu of the Old Ways:</i><b>Summons of the Feaster is no longer affected by mana draining spells and abilities.</b>Bilithu's power pool has been reduced.</span>__________________________________________________ _____________</p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">I'm somewhat at a loss as to how to interpret this.  Does it mean: "Bilithu will summon and do his high damage AE regardless of whether he has mana or not".  If so, why would they go through the trouble of reducing his power pool?</span></p></blockquote>What I understand from the change is this:Continue with the mana drain before doing damage. The summons of the feaster ability was *only* the port, the ae that happened after that was the Twin Tail Thrash. so from what I see: if you drain the power, it will take less time to drain, but you can't stop being ported, but you will still avoid the big ae hit that he would usually include in the teleport.

[RanmaBoyType]

The big AoE this guy does is not difficult to avoid.  AoE blockers are not necessary, just need to think about the encounter.  It is actually much quicker to fight him straight up using the proper strat than it is to sit and wait for power drains. 

[Soulforged_Unre]

<cite>RanmaBoyType wrote:</cite><blockquote>The big AoE this guy does is not difficult to avoid.  AoE blockers are not necessary, just need to think about the encounter.  It is actually much quicker to fight him straight up using the proper strat than it is to sit and wait for power drains.  </blockquote>Saying's like "the proper strat" really irk me. The power drain is a proper strat, and a straight up fight, going through the port as well as the ae is also a proper strat. They are not mutually exclusive, they are both "proper strats".

[Bawang]

<cite>RanmaBoyType wrote:</cite><blockquote>The big AoE this guy does is not difficult to avoid.  AoE blockers are not necessary, just need to think about the encounter.  It is actually much quicker to fight him straight up using the proper strat than it is to sit and wait for power drains.  </blockquote><p>My purpose in asking this is to possibly get someone from test to reply with a short report about Bilithu's new behavior.  Coming here to lecture us about needing to think about the encounter has nothing to do with the question asked and amounts at least to derailing, if not outright trolling.</p><p>For some reason this particular mob has the tendency of bring out the ideologues out of the woodwork.</p>

[Rijacki]

<cite>Bawang wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>RanmaBoyType wrote:</cite><blockquote>The big AoE this guy does is not difficult to avoid.  AoE blockers are not necessary, just need to think about the encounter.  It is actually much quicker to fight him straight up using the proper strat than it is to sit and wait for power drains.  </blockquote><p>My purpose in asking this is to possibly get someone from test to reply with a short report about Bilithu's new behavior.  Coming here to lecture us about needing to think about the encounter has nothing to do with the question asked and amounts at least to derailing, if not outright trolling.</p><p>For some reason this particular mob has the tendency of bring out the ideologues out of the woodwork.</p></blockquote>The simple truth is that power drains (while a significant part of coercers spells in all tiers) are supposed to have ZERO effect on a mob's ability to perform any of it's "spells" or abilities.  The power pool can be drained to zero and still you will have all the major effects from the Named since those don't require power to cast.  For Bilithu, you'll still have the tail lash and the teleport you just won't have the life tap no one has even mentioned in any thread as being noticable anyway. Draining the power pool will be pointless but will still be possible for those who get kicks from seeing the blue line go down.For those, like coercers, who have power drain spells or for anyone with power drain items (i.e. soulsiphon pants), that's only for fluff, the actual effect is the power gain or stun or stifle or whatever non-power drain effect there is for the spell or item.  Nothing will be done, too, to ever make power drain something that has any impact in the PvE game other than as pure fluff and for the "enjoyment" of watching a blue line go down.  (Heck, I don't even know if it has an effect at all in PvP.)From <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=60&topic_id=404549�" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...404549�</a>:<cite>Ilucide wrote:</cite><blockquote>I'll take a moment to weigh in on the changes here, since I made them, and I made the zone. =)Bilithu -    Straight up, power drains weren't supposed to stop the chomper's teleport and subsequent tail lash. My bad, I just missed it. That's just part of the fight that groups were meant to find another way around. Bringing a power drain class is neat for the other part of the fight, which is the AE lifetap. But since I didn't like a group having to sit around for a few minutes while all the power was drained, I shrunk the size of Bilithu's pool, so power drainers, rejoice - less time to do that if that's your game. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Drusella -    The changes to her really don't make the fight easier or harder. They make the fight more engaging, as you're able to try and squeeze out every last second of DPS before she throws the shield up. They allow all classes the appropriate use of their abilities. Shadowknights do draw a significant portion of their taunting ability from DoTs. Taking that away (or forcing them to right-click cancel their dots when the shield goes up) just isn't all that great. Also, it was just annoying to have tanks unequip their weapons and face the other way. It didn't add challenge to the fight, and it wasn't really intended to work that way. Drusella will still continue to cast her other spells and abilities while in her bone cage. It's not as though she's helpless while it's up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/908627bbe5e9f6a080977db8c365caff.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Also, keep in mind that these fights really were designed to be a challenge for non-raiders, not for people geared in full fabled with max AA. =)</blockquote>

[Bawang]

<blockquote><cite>Ilucide wrote:</cite><blockquote>Bringing a power drain class is neat for the other part of the fight, which is the AE lifetap. But since I didn't like a group having to sit around for a few minutes while all the power was drained, I shrunk the size of Bilithu's pool, so power drainers, rejoice - less time to do that if that's your game. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></blockquote></blockquote><p>That answers my question perfectly.  Thx for bringing this quote which was buried deep in that other thread.  </p><p>It's rare when a developer comes here and clarifies something.  Much appreciated.</p>

[Signal9]

<p>Rijacki, you state that power drains wree never supposed to have any effect on gameplay.  What pray tell is their purpose then?  the only concievable purpose is to indeed reduce the mobs abilities to perform spells or combat arts, which are supposed to require power to perform.</p><p>That this mechanic was broken from the start, and has never been fixed (and honestly gives us too much power over the mobs abilities) is besides the point.  they were included in the game design for a reason, and not just for a visual effect of watching a meaningless bar go down.</p><p>I understand that the developers have and will do nothing to make this ability useful, but your statement that it was never intended to do anything is erroneous, IMO.  That's one reason why Bilithu was such a nice surprise, an ability that is part of at least 4-5 of our spell lines (approx 20% of our spells have a power drain/power tap as a secondary effect) was usefull after 3+ years.</p><p>It's pointless to argue bout the ability, as it is plain that it will never be worth using in a primary sense, or even in a secondary/tertiary sense.  But is makes as much sense as a tank's secondary taunt effects doing nothing.</p><p>this brings to mind the situation where a Coercer was observed with 2 mobs of a 3-mob encounter mezzed while he burned down the 3rd.  A Dev made a statement that a coercer shouldn't be able to do that.  /boggle  It's nonsensical on its face that we even have the ability if it's intended to do nothing.</p>

[TheLopper]

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote>  (Heck, I don't even know if it has an <b>effect</b> at all in <b>PvP</b>.)</blockquote><p>Yes, it has an absolutely <i>outrageous</i> effect on PvP, depending on the class(es) that you're battling.  Let's say that I, as a Fury, fight an illusionist...I'm going to lose because A) Illy's can keep people stunned/mezzed for minutes on end, and B) even if I find a way around that mezz/stun/stifle lock (FoM pot's ftw!), I still have to deal with the fact that most of my power is gone <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/1069449046bcd664c21db15b1dfedaee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>The same thing goes for healer vs. healer...the healer with the most power-draining/procing items will win- <b>eventually</b>.</p><p>Just wanted to clear that up a bit...the mechanic of power-draining items/spells is most certainly not fluff on a PvP server.</p>