Miragul's Planar Shard: Combat

[Reahov]

<p>Please express your thoughts on general mob difficulty and boss fights/strategies.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>Haladan - probably close to right - his big melee AOE is doable if people joust. It seemed to have a lot of HPs - probably could do with less.</p><p>Library Fight - probably needs to be harder - maybe even 2x harder. The book adds should have a lot more HPs and the front 2 names should probably have more also. On the last name, adds should have more HPs but the name itself should have much fewer.</p>

[Undorett]

<p>Trash - copy and paste from YIS with a graphical change.  Constant agro drops are not hard, not inventive, not engaging.  Oh, and more trash mobs that target lock abilities do not work on.</p><p>Named in the snow room (Haladan) seemed like he had too many hitpoints, but yes a doable fight with a joust.  Fairly straight forward from the part of the fight we saw.  If you have the little wand you buy for 36 gold from the dude at the front you do not get adds during the fight, presumably if you do not have the wand you will get the adds to make the fight harder.</p><p>Named in the library - easily done with a pickup raid.  Seemed to have an excessive amount of hitpoints but the only difficulty in the fight was not having enough power regen in the pickup raid to maintain high dps to get the encounter down faster.</p><p>Edit:  At Fan Faire we were told that when you fought the easier version of the mob in this zone, you would not really be fighting the same encounter, but the named may send his minion to dispatch with you or something.  This encounter would be completely different from the encounter on Hard mode.  This didn't seem to be the case.  The item just took one aspect of the fight out of the encounter.  By the mob's emotes and red text across the screen, it seems as though during the library fight you do not have to deal with 1 of the AOEs the main named has, and during the Haladan fight you do not need to deal with the adds he seemed to be trying to spawn every 30 seconds or so.  I would have really liked to see them be different encounters =(.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>They said at Fan Faire it <em>could</em> be drastically different. They didn't say it would be.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p></blockquote><p>If the zones are meant to be between Thet-em-aua and Xebnok difficult, what you describe is perfectly normal. Without a lot of crit mit gear, and without a lot of HP gear and mit/resists in general you <em>will</em> get your butt handed to you by close range AEs in this expansion. Typical AEs this expansion do upwards of 20k damage at point-blank range, with some bosses doing twice that much (that's before mit, resists, and crits are factored in mind you).</p><p>TSO zones are also balanced around having mythicals. I would not expect a non-mythical monk to even stand a chance in a TSO raid trying to take an AE, much less tank.</p><p>Looking at Ouka's gear on EQ2Players, you're pretty much too undergeared to set foot in this zone. Has nothing to do with the class, as raid equipped monks are capable of taking the point-blank hits.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Please, please, please do NOT leave the mobs immune to aggro lock as they are now.  Remember that it's more than just coercers and dirges that can target lock--the single biggest and best aggro tools of both brawlers (peel and divide & conquer) are both aggro locks, and preventing us from using these abilities is equivalent to spontaneously deciding that Paladins don't get to use amends in your raid instance without giving them anything to compensate.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They said at Fan Faire it <em>could</em> be drastically different. They didn't say it would be.</p></blockquote><p>Yep. Specifically they said it would be a mix... some may be the whole minion sent to fight you, while others would be a reason for the fight to be weaker (be it blocking adds, blocking an ability, 'stubbing its toe', etc.)</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p></blockquote><p>If the zones are meant to be between Thet-em-aua and Xebnok difficult, what you describe is perfectly normal. Without a lot of crit mit gear, and without a lot of HP gear and mit/resists in general you <em>will</em> get your butt handed to you by close range AEs in this expansion. Typical AEs this expansion do upwards of 20k damage at point-blank range, with some bosses doing twice that much (that's before mit, resists, and crits are factored in mind you).</p><p>TSO zones are also balanced around having mythicals. I would not expect a non-mythical monk to even stand a chance in a TSO raid trying to take an AE, much less tank.</p><p>Looking at Ouka's gear on EQ2Players, you're pretty much too undergeared to set foot in this zone. Has nothing to do with the class, as raid equipped monks are capable of taking the point-blank hits.</p></blockquote><p>I'll admit I haven't been able to raid since much since Faydwer, but I try my hardest to keep myself with the best gear I can get my hands on. I knew I was gonna get my butt handed to me, but still, raids shouldn't be that hard by any means.</p>

[Barx]

<p>If it's supposed to be closer to Thet, then it shouldn't be that bad. Thet can be pick-up-raided if folks know what to do and cure. It's not a huge crit mit or resist fight, really.</p><p>Now if it's more to be like Xebnok, then yeah people are going to be getting one-shotted unless they have decent gear. Xebnok is not a pick-up-raid kind of mob, he is (to me) sort of the start of the non-pug content, TSO progression wise. That's not saying pick up raids can't kill him, just that it's more unlikely because now you're starting to need gear more. If this zone is starting off around that level (or reaching in later mobs, I don't test it until Friday) then one-shots are not going to be too unlikely. In fact, they should probably be expected depending on the group makeup (ie availability of wards and hp buffs) and individual gear.</p>

[Macross_JR]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p></blockquote><p>If the zones are meant to be between Thet-em-aua and Xebnok difficult, what you describe is perfectly normal. Without a lot of crit mit gear, and without a lot of HP gear and mit/resists in general you <em>will</em> get your butt handed to you by close range AEs in this expansion. Typical AEs this expansion do upwards of 20k damage at point-blank range, with some bosses doing twice that much (that's before mit, resists, and crits are factored in mind you).</p><p>TSO zones are also balanced around having mythicals. I would not expect a non-mythical monk to even stand a chance in a TSO raid trying to take an AE, much less tank.</p><p>Looking at Ouka's gear on EQ2Players, you're pretty much too undergeared to set foot in this zone. Has nothing to do with the class, as raid equipped monks are capable of taking the point-blank hits.</p></blockquote><p>I'll admit I haven't been able to raid since much since Faydwer, but I try my hardest to keep myself with the best gear I can get my hands on. I knew I was gonna get my butt handed to me, but still, raids shouldn't be that hard by any means.</p></blockquote><p>if properly geared it's not that hard.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I'll admit I haven't been able to raid since much since Faydwer, but I try my hardest to keep myself with the best gear I can get my hands on. I knew I was gonna get my butt handed to me, but still, raids shouldn't be that hard by any means.</blockquote><p>Getting your mythical and a full set of the T3 fabled from Wards would be the very first step for you with regards to raiding at this point. There's PUGs running VP these days, and with the reduced lockout on Wards, it's not difficult to get geared out so that your critical mitigation isn't in the basement.</p><p>There's just no two ways about it, as a fighter you need gear. What you're saying is akin to someone arguing that they should be able to play college football in shorts and a T-shirt and not get hammered by the defensive line.</p>

[Cusashorn]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I'll admit I haven't been able to raid since much since Faydwer, but I try my hardest to keep myself with the best gear I can get my hands on. I knew I was gonna get my butt handed to me, but still, raids shouldn't be that hard by any means.</blockquote><p>Getting your mythical and a full set of the T3 fabled from Wards would be the very first step for you with regards to raiding at this point. There's PUGs running VP these days, and with the reduced lockout on Wards, it's not difficult to get geared out so that your critical mitigation isn't in the basement.</p><p>There's just no two ways about it, as a fighter you need gear. What you're saying is akin to someone arguing that they should be able to play college football in shorts and a T-shirt and not get hammered by the defensive line.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not trying to defend myself here. Even I know my gear sucks for raiding, but I still try my hardest. You know, I've only been on ONE WoE raid. It was a pick up raid, and I was lucky that they considered a monk. I'm fortunate enough to get a group when I can because of the mentality of my server. :/</p><p>VP? I still need Levi first.</p>

[Purrcey]

<p>Didnt look like the post was about you Cusahorn...</p><p>The post was the required level of gear VS this level of raid encounter.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>I was in the test raid that ran Monday. I felt, in comparison, that of the two fights we tested, the library fight was easier than Thet. The barbarian/mammoth fight was probably harder than Thet but likely easier than Xebnok. Thet and Xebnok have some very specific mechanics you need to understand and "beat". Both encounters we tested seemed more simplistic.</p><p>Crit mit will help significantly on these fights. 2 or 3 of our raid members were killed fairly constantly - they were the ones in T2 or earlier gear. Those of us that were in T4 raid gear had very few issues once you knew the mechanics. We didn't have much time to discuss AOEs and timers and not everyone was running ACT so not everyone was jousting. Many of the bad AOEs did range-based damage, but weren't any different than those you see on things like Xebnok or Tythus.</p><p>These are my opinions.</p>

[Rocc]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</p></blockquote><p>Are you talking about turtle shell where the recast is 3 mins?</p><p>And what does this have to do with conjs?</p><p>Actually [Removed for Content] are you talking about ....furys and conjs  do nothing to prevent or mitigate  that kinda damage... nothing more then  any other class.</p><p>Guy needs gear plain and simple.</p>

[Rocc]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</p></blockquote><p>Are you talking about turtle shell where the recast is 3 mins?</p><p>And what does this have to do with conjs?</p><p>Actually [Removed for Content] are you talking about ....furys and conjs  do nothing to prevent or mitigate  that kinda damage... nothing more then  any other class.</p><p>Guy needs gear plain and simple.</p></blockquote><p>I would say use your brain, but I realize who I'm talking to. I'm shocked you asked ROFL!!! And you wonder why nobody likes to group with you....</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</p></blockquote><p>Are you talking about turtle shell where the recast is 3 mins?</p><p>And what does this have to do with conjs?</p><p>Actually [Removed for Content] are you talking about ....furys and conjs  do nothing to prevent or mitigate  that kinda damage... nothing more then  any other class.</p><p>Guy needs gear plain and simple.</p></blockquote><p>I would say use your brain, but I realize who I'm talking to. I'm shocked you asked ROFL!!! And you wonder why nobody likes to group with you....</p></blockquote><p>I did use my brain and the guy needs gear.</p><p>Dont try to start a flame war with me cause you will go down in a burning mess sir.</p><p>I get plenty of groups every day........</p><p> Did mommy hurt you much when she dropped you on your head because a conj doesnt do anything for the guy to prevent 32k damage.Stop with the nonsense and use your brain...but since you seem to lack certain things<like  common sense> wouldnt help anyway.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Were you jousting out?</p><p>I'd assume the 16k hit was from range, and the 34k was from up close. If thats the case, its a fairly easily managable AE for a raid that is raid geared.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</p></blockquote><p>I'd like to know why your thinking there is anything here to get conjurors in to a raid as well.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>So furies and conjurors find their way back into a raid...... I LIKE IT!! Good strat to bring some usefullness to other classes and mix it up a bit. Fury has AE protection (recast 30 seconds I think). Whats the timer on the AoE anyone parse it?</blockquote><p>I'd like to know why your thinking there is anything here to get conjurors in to a raid as well.</p></blockquote><p>Or Furies for that matter. There's other classes that have AE prevent, and in general terms of critical damage, Wardens would be the preferred Druid class with the critical debilitation AA. Furies are basically mini-Wizards that heal; nice for the mage group, but not an essential healing class in raids.</p>

[Thinwizzy]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p></blockquote><p>If the zones are meant to be between Thet-em-aua and Xebnok difficult, what you describe is perfectly normal. Without a lot of crit mit gear, and without a lot of HP gear and mit/resists in general you <em>will</em> get your butt handed to you by close range AEs in this expansion. Typical AEs this expansion do upwards of 20k damage at point-blank range, with some bosses doing twice that much (that's before mit, resists, and crits are factored in mind you).</p><p>TSO zones are also balanced around having mythicals. I would not expect a non-mythical monk to even stand a chance in a TSO raid trying to take an AE, much less tank.</p><p>Looking at Ouka's gear on EQ2Players, you're pretty much too undergeared to set foot in this zone. Has nothing to do with the class, as raid equipped monks are capable of taking the point-blank hits.</p></blockquote><p>I'll admit I haven't been able to raid since much since Faydwer, but I try my hardest to keep myself with the best gear I can get my hands on. I knew I was gonna get my butt handed to me, but still, raids shouldn't be that hard by any means.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>Yes, I parsed the AOEs. Yes, I have timers. Yes, they were range-based. Yes, they need to be jousted. No, the people in question were not jousting them. It wasn't much different than Void Slide or Zarrakon's AOE.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes, I parsed the AOEs. Yes, I have timers. Yes, they were range-based. Yes, they need to be jousted. No, the people in question were not jousting them. It wasn't much different than Void Slide or Zarrakon's AOE.</p></blockquote><p>Well beyond the crappy gear...that explains it all right there.</p>

[Barx]

<p>Yeah, not jousing a ranged-based AE when you're not intended to be in close is a good way to keep your rezzers busy. DPS is a lot better alive but waiting 10s for the AE to fire than dead and getting rezzed / rebuffing. On some content you can ignore it if it's not too bad and you have the gear (Maestro back in the day with Chains comes to mind) but more and more the ones they want you to joust, you need to joust.</p>

[Kordran]

<p>Yeah, I just looked at her gear and ... ouch. No wonder she was getting absolutely owned in there. Goose is absolutely right, if they balanced this new raid zone against that, might as well just release it as a heroic instance because any competent raid guild would have it cleared and on farm status within a few hours.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>hinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p></blockquote><p>She has 5 T2 shard armor and she might have T2 bp as well. She didn't use it because it's not good for dps so that she used the Gi from maiden.</p><p>T2 is about the same as VP gear. It's more than enough for most classes to beat first 3 named in Tomc with T2/vp gear.</p><p>You can say her issue is that she has to joust aoe but she didn't. </p><p>However, I kinda agreed with her point of view; mobs and aoe hit too hard in TSO raid. Here is the problem; plate tanks with T2 shard armor can tank and stay in aoe in X2 and easy X4 raid content but brawlers with T2 shard armors have hard time tanking and have to joust aoe.</p><p>For casual brawlers, it means you are screwed in TSO because even with full T2 armor, you are not a perferable tank and your dps is poor because you have to joust aoe but plate tanks and even chain classes can stay in with better dps. </p>

[Thinwizzy]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>hinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p></blockquote><p>She has 5 T2 shard armor and she might have T2 bp as well. She didn't use it because it's not good for dps so that she used the Gi from maiden.</p><p>T2 is about the same as VP gear. It's more than enough for most classes to beat first 3 named in Tomc with T2/vp gear.</p><p>You can say her issue is that she has to joust aoe but she didn't. </p><p>However, I kinda agreed with her point of view; mobs and aoe hit too hard in TSO raid. Here is the problem; plate tanks with T2 shard armor can tank and stay in aoe in X2 and easy X4 raid content but brawlers with T2 shard armors have hard time tanking and have to joust aoe.</p><p>For casual brawlers, it means you are screwed in TSO because even with full T2 armor, you are not a perferable tank and your dps is poor because you have to joust aoe but plate tanks and even chain classes can stay in with better dps. </p></blockquote><p>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, some of which is an expansion old?</p><p>Seriously, the raid progression is there for a reason. If you want to live through harder hitting AoEs, go get the gear you need to do so. Don't expect to just jump in to a new raid zone after taking alot of time off raiding and do just fine.</p><p>Let's stop trying to dumb down zones and encounters so you can wear whatever gear you happen to have, just so no one's feelings gets hurt.  Believe it or not, if you actually put some time and effort into bettering your toon, you just might perform better to.</p><p>Better gear = better survivability, period.</p>

[Gaige]

<p>Ya just look at Ouka's gear, its not that great for heroic grouping not to mention raiding.  Adjusting raid mob AE damage for that type of gear setup is silly, because you won't see any <em>raiders</em> wearing gear like that.</p><p>I'm fine with everybody providing feedback and stuff, and I know Ouka only tested it for the title, but actually adjusting <em>raid content</em> for non-raiders is pretty silly.</p><p>Lack of raid knowledge (what/when to joust, for example) + lack of gear + lack of experience + test PUR = lots of deaths. This is no surprise and is par for the course and expected.  Nothing needs to be changed.</p><p>This entire thing stems from Ouka's insistence that raid gear is required for heroic zones and his inability to form his own group or do anything at all constructive with his own playtime.  He believes what random players say about gear requirements and difficulty, even though by his own admission he hardly ever does heroic dungeons or instances until they're gray, let alone raids.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>hinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p></blockquote><p>She has 5 T2 shard armor and she might have T2 bp as well. She didn't use it because it's not good for dps so that she used the Gi from maiden.</p><p>T2 is about the same as VP gear. It's more than enough for most classes to beat first 3 named in Tomc with T2/vp gear.</p><p>You can say her issue is that she has to joust aoe but she didn't. </p><p>However, I kinda agreed with her point of view; mobs and aoe hit too hard in TSO raid. Here is the problem; plate tanks with T2 shard armor can tank and stay in aoe in X2 and easy X4 raid content but brawlers with T2 shard armors have hard time tanking and have to joust aoe.</p><p>For casual brawlers, it means you are screwed in TSO because even with full T2 armor, you are not a perferable tank and your dps is poor because you have to joust aoe but plate tanks and even chain classes can stay in with better dps. </p></blockquote><p>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, some of which is an expansion old?</p><p>Seriously, the raid progression is there for a reason. If you want to live through harder hitting AoEs, go get the gear you need to do so. Don't expect to just jump in to a new raid zone after taking alot of time off raiding and do just fine.</p><p>Let's stop trying to dumb down zones and encounters so you can wear whatever gear you happen to have, just so no one's feelings gets hurt.  Believe it or not, if you actually put some time and effort into bettering your toon, you just might perform better to.</p><p>Better gear = better survivability, period.</p></blockquote><p>Woah, when is T2 shard armor an expansion old? You must come from the future.</p><p>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</p><p>T2 shard armor is not an expansion old, learn to read, period.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, <span style="font-size: small;"><strong>some of which</strong> </span>is an expansion old?</blockquote><p>Woah, when is T2 shard armor an expansion old? You must come from the future.</p><p>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</p><p>T2 shard armor is not an expansion old, learn to read, period.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure Thinwizzy is the one with reading comprehension problems (see above). If you look at his/her gear, yes there's some T2 pieces but there's also RoK stuff sitting on that toon. As to this particular player's difficulties, there is a certain thread on The Other Forums(tm) where some players from Kithicor shed a bit of light on the situation.</p><p>But this is getting far afield of the actual topic of this thread. Its seems like things are where they should be in terms of difficulty. Because one player got plowed by an AE does not mean it's too difficult.</p>

[Thinwizzy]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>hinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p></blockquote><p>She has 5 T2 shard armor and she might have T2 bp as well. She didn't use it because it's not good for dps so that she used the Gi from maiden.</p><p>T2 is about the same as VP gear. It's more than enough for most classes to beat first 3 named in Tomc with T2/vp gear.</p><p>You can say her issue is that she has to joust aoe but she didn't. </p><p>However, I kinda agreed with her point of view; mobs and aoe hit too hard in TSO raid. Here is the problem; plate tanks with T2 shard armor can tank and stay in aoe in X2 and easy X4 raid content but brawlers with T2 shard armors have hard time tanking and have to joust aoe.</p><p>For casual brawlers, it means you are screwed in TSO because even with full T2 armor, you are not a perferable tank and your dps is poor because you have to joust aoe but plate tanks and even chain classes can stay in with better dps. </p></blockquote><p>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, some of which is an expansion old?</p><p>Seriously, the raid progression is there for a reason. If you want to live through harder hitting AoEs, go get the gear you need to do so. Don't expect to just jump in to a new raid zone after taking alot of time off raiding and do just fine.</p><p>Let's stop trying to dumb down zones and encounters so you can wear whatever gear you happen to have, just so no one's feelings gets hurt.  Believe it or not, if you actually put some time and effort into bettering your toon, you just might perform better to.</p><p>Better gear = better survivability, period.</p></blockquote><p>Woah, when is T2 shard armor an expansion old? You must come from the future.</p><p>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</p><p>T2 shard armor is not an expansion old, learn to read, period.</p></blockquote><p>You are the one that said she was wearing the chest from maidens. Maidens is from RoK. RoK is last xpac. Learn to remember what you type.</p><p>Jumping back off that rabbit trail, I havent seen any actually raiders saying this zone is to hard. I'm sure if this was the case, we would have heard it by now.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>hinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Sorry, but after looking at your gear on eq2players, I would say it would be a dreadful shame if the AoEs where not wrecking you.  Rather than complaining about a zone being to hard, maybe you need to reevaluate what your character is capable of surviving.  How much crit mit do you even have?  If this zone where to be balanced around someone with your gear, it would be cleared within the first 2 hours of going live.</p></blockquote><p>She has 5 T2 shard armor and she might have T2 bp as well. She didn't use it because it's not good for dps so that she used the Gi from maiden.</p><p>T2 is about the same as VP gear. It's more than enough for most classes to beat first 3 named in Tomc with T2/vp gear.</p><p>You can say her issue is that she has to joust aoe but she didn't. </p><p>However, I kinda agreed with her point of view; mobs and aoe hit too hard in TSO raid. Here is the problem; plate tanks with T2 shard armor can tank and stay in aoe in X2 and easy X4 raid content but brawlers with T2 shard armors have hard time tanking and have to joust aoe.</p><p>For casual brawlers, it means you are screwed in TSO because even with full T2 armor, you are not a perferable tank and your dps is poor because you have to joust aoe but plate tanks and even chain classes can stay in with better dps. </p></blockquote><p>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, some of which is an expansion old?</p><p>Seriously, the raid progression is there for a reason. If you want to live through harder hitting AoEs, go get the gear you need to do so. Don't expect to just jump in to a new raid zone after taking alot of time off raiding and do just fine.</p><p>Let's stop trying to dumb down zones and encounters so you can wear whatever gear you happen to have, just so no one's feelings gets hurt.  Believe it or not, if you actually put some time and effort into bettering your toon, you just might perform better to.</p><p>Better gear = better survivability, period.</p></blockquote><p>Woah, when is T2 shard armor an expansion old? You must come from the future.</p><p>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</p><p>T2 shard armor is not an expansion old, learn to read, period.</p></blockquote><p>You are the one that said she was wearing the chest from maidens. Maidens is from RoK. RoK is last xpac. Learn to remember what you type.</p><p>Jumping back off that rabbit trail, I havent seen any actually raiders saying this zone is to hard. I'm sure if this was the case, we would have heard it by now.</p></blockquote><p>And I have also said that T2 bp is not good for dps and that's why she used it instead of T2 bp when she was not tanking.</p><p>T2 bp is not going to make her alive from 32k hit.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>Don't think anyone should be vilified for wearing less-than-raid gear and trying those raids. The result confirmed that what should have happened did. The library was easily survivable by T2-geared toons if you joust the AOEs. It is easier than Thet and jousting is a mechanic that's easily learned/overcome.</p><p>My suggestions were to up the HPs on the "secondary" names and to decrease the HPs of the "main" name. Lower-tier raid guilds clearing up to Thet in Tomb should be able to defeat this encounter the first night of raiding it. Better raid guilds should be able to defeat it in the first hour.</p><p>The elephant encounter is more difficult and will hinge somewhat on crit-mit. It was stated that these two encounters would be about Thet and Xebnok difficulty. I think this is a pretty accurate estimation - although this encounter is probably more similar to Kultak with added mechanics and no curses (that I saw). T2-geared toons will have problems with Kultak and Xebnok and they will have problems trying the elephant encounter.</p><p>I also felt the barbarian had a bit too many hps  - the AOE is fairly brutal also. If you're not jousting it, it's pretty much a one-shot. It was even one-shotting T4 geared mages at range occasionally. Not sure if I would suggest toning down the AOE a tad but it does make things more difficult. Lower-tier raid guilds should have trouble with this one but better raid guilds should be able to defeat it in the first night of raiding it.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Woah, so what you are saying is that an AoE off of a RAID mob is alot harder to live through when you are wearing heroic content gear, <span style="font-size: small;"><strong>some of which</strong> </span>is an expansion old?</blockquote><p>Woah, when is T2 shard armor an expansion old? You must come from the future.</p><p>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</p><p>T2 shard armor is not an expansion old, learn to read, period.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure Thinwizzy is the one with reading comprehension problems (see above). If you look at his/her gear, yes there's some T2 pieces but there's also RoK stuff sitting on that toon. As to this particular player's difficulties, there is a certain thread on The Other Forums(tm) where some players from Kithicor shed a bit of light on the situation.</p><p>But this is getting far afield of the actual topic of this thread. Its seems like things are where they should be in terms of difficulty. Because one player got plowed by an AE does not mean it's too difficult.</p></blockquote><p>Lol, there are 7 armor slots. She has 5 T2 armor and 1 piece from TSO heroic instnace. The only armor from RoK is the bp because T2 brawler bp is not good for dps.</p><p>So smart guy, 1 = some, nice.</p><p>Not to say, in her post, she specifically pointed out that the damage from the first 2 named hit harder than same difficulty mobs in tomc mentioned by a developer. How is that too far from this topic?</p><p>Actually, it's your reply went too far of the topic. Stop trolling on her post.</p>

[Thinwizzy]

<p>No one is really trolling anything. We are just trying to point out that she is horribly undergeared (if you go to her eq2players page you can see more than 1 piece of RoK gear) . Someone that is wearing sub-par gear for raiding and not jousting should get plowed by the aoe.</p><p>Like Hecula said, nothing wrong with wearing that gear if that is what you want to wear. If you want to test the raid, by all means test it.  However, do not come here after you get a train ran on you and complain that there is no way it should be that hard.  Get your gear up to par first, rather than trying to get something toned down to your level.</p><p>I think we are just trying to keep something from getting nerfed before its actually proven to need nerfing.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Thinwizzy@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>No one is really trolling anything. We are just trying to point out that she is horribly undergeared (if you go to her eq2players page you can see more than 1 piece of RoK gear) . Someone that is wearing sub-par gear for raiding and not jousting should get plowed by the aoe.</p><p>Like Hecula said, nothing wrong with wearing that gear if that is what you want to wear. If you want to test the raid, by all means test it.  However, do not come here after you get a train ran on you and complain that there is no way it should be that hard.  Get your gear up to par first, rather than trying to get something toned down to your level.</p><p>I think we are just trying to keep something from getting nerfed before its actually proven to need nerfing.</p></blockquote><p>She actually has only 1 rok armor piece on her profile and there is nothing wrong to use it when she wasn't tanking. Please stop lying because she is not horriblely undergeared when she has 5 T2 shard armor. And I tend to believe that she has full T2 shard armor but not every piece is great for dps.That's why she didn't have full set on her profile. </p><p>Bottom line, it's inaccurate to say someone didn't have some gear because it's not shown on his/her profile when most fighters have two sets- dps and tank sets.</p><p>For Hecula, he is wrong. A lot of guilds have killed Xebnok on the first day or 2nd day of TSO with VP armor/ZERO crit mit. You don't need any crit mit to survive those mobs in TOMC. Not to say, T2 armor is better than VP armor for survivability in TSO raid. With 5 T2 set, Ouka is more than enough to survive thet or xebnok in tomc.</p><p>When a developer has stated that the difficulty of first two named in Miragul is similar to thet and xebnok, 16k aoe and 34k direct hit on Ouka, 5 T2 armor or even full set, are too hard. Xebnok and thet hit a lot less. She has a volid point.</p>

[demonwr]

<p>well if she was staying in in dps gear no thos e hits are about right if your [Removed for Content] and cant take a hit learn to joust</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>And I have also said that T2 bp is not good for dps and that's why she used it instead of T2 bp when she was not tanking.</p><p>T2 bp is not going to make her alive from 32k hit.</p></blockquote><p>And it shouldnt  the AE is ment to be jousted.....so she  should joust it like the whole raid....i dont see the issue.</p><p>Of corse if she was  tanking  with the t2  tank BP in a MT group and got hit with 32k hit ...that would be a issue.</p><p>Anyway  [Removed for Content] was she wearing <dps gear> anyway?</p><p>Its a new raid,  testing  anything new or breaking in new content is all about survivability and haveing best gear <t2 in this case>  should be priority #1........since  that wasnt even thought about  that is Failure #1.</p><p>Not following normal common sense raid practice of  staying out or jousting AE  is  asking for trouble........That is Failure #2.</p><p>Comming to the conclusion because the raid got decimated because those first 2 points wasnt followed that  the zone is to hard.......well that would be Failure #3.</p>

[Couching]

<p>The hit on her is still too high even if she was on her dps gear.</p><p>She should have around 45% mit with group buff in offensive and 15% crit mit (mostly from her agi).</p><p>If her number is correct, 34k direct hit on her means that mob can hit up to 42k-43k non-critical and up to 68k critically. (assuming these two mobs can hit critically up to 1.6 times of original damage)</p><p>Seriously, it's harder than most mobs in this game and these two mobs are supposed to be as hard as thet and xebnok. It's just not right.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>And I have also said that T2 bp is not good for dps and that's why she used it instead of T2 bp when she was not tanking.</p><p>T2 bp is not going to make her alive from 32k hit.</p></blockquote><p>And it shouldnt  the AE is ment to be jousted.....so she  should joust it like the whole raid....i dont see the issue.</p><p>Of corse if she was  tanking  with the t2  tank BP in a MT group and got hit with 32k hit ...that would be a issue.</p><p>Anyway  [Removed for Content] was she wearing anyway?</p><p>Its a new raid,  testing  anything new or breaking in new content is all about survivability and haveing best gear   should be priority #1........since  that wasnt even thought about  that is Failure #1.</p><p>Not following normal common sense raid practice of  staying out or jousting AE  is  asking for trouble........That is Failure #2.</p><p>Comming to the conclusion because the raid got decimated because those first 2 points wasnt followed that  the zone is to hard.......well that would be Failure #3.</p></blockquote><p>Learn to read, 32k, actually it's 34k on Ouka's post, is direct hit, not aoe.</p><p>It's way too hard on thet or xebnok level difficulty.</p>

[hellfire]

<p>The ae is suppose to be jousted then like any other ae that has to be jousted... she has VP gear....jousting should come natural.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Good there is no   info why its a 34k hit maybe there is a debuff....maybe focus damage...what ever.</p><p>And dont tell me to learn to read..i can read just fine...how bout you use common fing sense and relize unless she is properly geared   that means t2  gear for the zone  results are  screwed.Who cares if it was 34k or 32 k she didnt survive it.</p><p>Lets see parses.......... what ever but from everything put into this thread...she was under geared...lacked exsperience of common raid practices to come to any legimate conclusion.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Good there is no   info why its a 34k hit maybe there is a debuff....maybe focus damage...what ever.</p><p>And dont tell me to learn to read..i can read just fine...how bout you use common fing sense and relize unless she is properly geared   that means t2  gear for the zone  results are  screwed.</p><p>Lets see parses.......... what ever but from everything put into this thread...she was under geared...lacked exsperience of common raid practices to come to any legimate conclusion.</p></blockquote><p>How about you use common fing sense and realize she is not under geared with 5 T2 shard armor for thet and xebnok level difficulty targets. Learn to read and play this game so you don't need more than T2 gear to kill those mobs.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Good there is no   info why its a 34k hit maybe there is a debuff....maybe focus damage...what ever.</p><p>And dont tell me to learn to read..i can read just fine...how bout you use common fing sense and relize unless she is properly geared   that means t2  gear for the zone  results are  screwed.</p><p>Lets see parses.......... what ever but from everything put into this thread...she was under geared...lacked exsperience of common raid practices to come to any legimate conclusion.</p></blockquote><p>How about you use common fing sense and realize she is not under geared with 5 T2 shard for thet and xebnok level difficulty. Learn to read and play this game  so you don't need more than T2 gear to kill those mobs.</p></blockquote><p>she is under geared hello. And yes  if either of those mobs had ae that need4ed to be jousted and it wasnt guess what you would die.</p><p>Learn to joust the AE ....wow that is new strat there.</p><p>Unless  she is set up for tanking in a tank group with non dps gear and not knowing what the hell else the mob  does...34k direct i can see.</p><p>Stop the stupidity and just relize your wrong  and until there is more info  as well as her wearing the proper gear.....and use common raid  mechanics....she will continued to get decimated</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Also, a developer already stated that the first 2 named is about the same difficulity of first 3 named in Tomc. They are supposed to be entry level raid mobs.</blockquote><p>Just because the mobs are easy, doesn't mean they have to be entry level mobs.</p><p>They are easy mobs that just happen to require a bit of crit mit gear...</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The ae is suppose to be jousted then like any other ae that has to be jousted... she has VP gear....jousting should come natural.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I thought that a lot of successful jousting didn't come fully natural in EQ2, rather that it usually requires someone with timers and a third-party program like ACT calling out to let the melee squishies know when to pull back from the danger zone.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Did any of the Testers notice if the new raid mobs gave some sort of visual warning of an impending killer AE that players on "extreme performance" settings could see and react to?</span></p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The ae is suppose to be jousted then like any other ae that has to be jousted... she has VP gear....jousting should come natural.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I thought that a lot of successful jousting didn't come fully natural in EQ2, rather that it usually requires someone with timers and a third-party program like ACT calling out to let the melee squishies know when to pull back from the danger zone.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Did any of the Testers notice if the new raid mobs gave some sort of visual warning of an impending killer AE that players on "extreme performance" settings could see and react to?</span></p></blockquote><p>Well normally if learning new encounter/testing first step is to getbase of ae damage as well as timers.Useually everyone stays out of  range which generally is max distance of 35 meters with MT grp at 20 for heals so you can get data.</p><p>Of corse since its a play test they shoulda just asked the dev/csr for what to exspect  and timer of ae so they could prepare and have a base to test off of.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Good there is no   info why its a 34k hit maybe there is a debuff....maybe focus damage...what ever.</p><p>And dont tell me to learn to read..i can read just fine...how bout you use common fing sense and relize unless she is properly geared   that means t2  gear for the zone  results are  screwed.</p><p>Lets see parses.......... what ever but from everything put into this thread...she was under geared...lacked exsperience of common raid practices to come to any legimate conclusion.</p></blockquote><p>How about you use common fing sense and realize she is not under geared with 5 T2 shard for thet and xebnok level difficulty. Learn to read and play this game  so you don't need more than T2 gear to kill those mobs.</p></blockquote><p>she is under geared hello. And yes  if either of those mobs had ae that need4ed to be jousted and it wasnt guess what you would die.</p><p>Learn to joust the AE ....wow that is new strat there.</p><p>Unless  she is set up for tanking in a tank group with non dps gear and not knowing what the hell else the mob  does...34k direct i can see.</p><p>Stop the stupidity and just relize your wrong  and until there is more info  as well as her wearing the proper gear.....and use common raid  mechanics....she will continued to get decimated</p></blockquote><p>Stop your idiotic assumption that she was debuffed so that she got hit up to 34k direct hit.</p><p>There is nothing wrong for her to post her feedback so that developers  can check if these two mobs were hit too hard and right in line on difficulty.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Cusashorn wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Speaking strictly as a non-mythical monk, I am NOT happy with getting constantly 1-shotted by pretty much every AoE in the zone. At least 16K damage... At the most, I took 34K damage from a direct hit.</p><p>This level of difficulty is not very encouraging for my class.</p></blockquote><p>Good there is no   info why its a 34k hit maybe there is a debuff....maybe focus damage...what ever.</p><p>And dont tell me to learn to read..i can read just fine...how bout you use common fing sense and relize unless she is properly geared   that means t2  gear for the zone  results are  screwed.</p><p>Lets see parses.......... what ever but from everything put into this thread...she was under geared...lacked exsperience of common raid practices to come to any legimate conclusion.</p></blockquote><p>How about you use common fing sense and realize she is not under geared with 5 T2 shard for thet and xebnok level difficulty. Learn to read and play this game  so you don't need more than T2 gear to kill those mobs.</p></blockquote><p>she is under geared hello. And yes  if either of those mobs had ae that need4ed to be jousted and it wasnt guess what you would die.</p><p>Learn to joust the AE ....wow that is new strat there.</p><p>Unless  she is set up for tanking in a tank group with non dps gear and not knowing what the hell else the mob  does...34k direct i can see.</p><p>Stop the stupidity and just relize your wrong  and until there is more info  as well as her wearing the proper gear.....and use common raid  mechanics....she will continued to get decimated</p></blockquote><p>Stop your idiotic assumption that she was debuffed so that she got hit up to 34k direct hit.</p><p>There is nothing wrong for her to post her feedback so that developers  can check if these two mobs is right in line on difficulty.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah but what is wrong is decideing the zone is to hard based off a undergeared toon with lack of minimal raid knowledge with  zero information of what the mob does.</p><p>2  first posts in this thread said  the mobs are easy/doable  if people used   normal raid practices and had some crit mit.Seems like only a couple of people was haveing problems........ so all signs point to those certain people haveing problems.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Well normally if learning new encounter/testing first step is to getbase of ae damage as well as timers.Useually everyone stays out of  range which generally is max distance of 35 meters with MT grp at 20 for heals so you can get data.</p><p>Of corse since its a play test they shoulda just asked the dev/csr for what to exspect  and timer of ae so they could prepare and have a base to test off of.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Good advice - that sounds like a very sensible approach to evaluating a new encounter, so perhaps the next time they run in a pick-up Test raid, maybe they can try not to let excitement be too distracting - even though it must be a lot of fun going in early!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">It might also be nice to see more in-game encounter clues to follow and react to - after all, detrimentals do give you time to react with the appropriate cures, so perhaps a killer AE could give a better in-game/visual warnings to respond to... assuming lag doesn't make that an issue. </span> </p>

[hellfire]

<p>More often then not the big bad a**  AE that can kill you will have some kinda indicator weather it will be  a  emote or text...or visual indicators.But do agree some of the ones with graphic type idicators need to be able to be reconized on lowest setting...which so far the game fails at   for the most part.</p><p>Also  when breaking in content you want max survivability so   best to set up groups towards that as well as players equiping max HP defensive gear...dispersion/stoneskin/ward so on and so forth.</p><p>Besides just having a easier time of staying alive for say ae timers... you will have easier time of getting time to examine the detrimential effects will be dealing with if any.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">I found that encounters with bigger visuals like Digg were excellent for helping to train up inexperienced raiders, mostly because Digg's AE had that very obvious build-up that everyone could see and respond to, even when playing in Gumby-mode settings.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">However, if a mob is only using something like a repetitive sword-slash visual the entire pull, and then an AE hits out of the blue without the character visually demonstrating a build-up to it, it seems like an overlooked opportunity for adding in something fun and fitting for the action. </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">For instance, as Haladan is in Testing phases right now and perhaps not all emotes are complete, it would be relatively easy to set up an effective visual in-game warning.  Since the MT naturally turns the mob away from the raid, we normally would not see Haladan's front and any visual emotes in that direction are of limited use, so then something seen from behind would be key...</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Perhaps if SOE nick-named the mob "Haladan the Fragrant", and when you see a green vapor starting to emanate from his breeches, you KNOW it's time to back away!  No timer call-outs required, just a natural clue from the mob that players need to get out of range fast!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></span></p>

[Lader]

<p>the only clues that i recall were in text from the mobs and it was telling you how NOT to pull the encounter <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For Hecula, he is wrong. A lot of guilds have killed Xebnok on the first day or 2nd day of TSO with VP armor/ZERO crit mit. You don't need any crit mit to survive those mobs in TOMC. Not to say, T2 armor is better than VP armor for survivability in TSO raid. With 5 T2 set, Ouka is more than enough to survive thet or xebnok in tomc.</p></blockquote><p>Guilds that killed Xebnok in VP armor know how to raid intimately. They were jousting AEs.</p><p>Ouka was not set up to tank - she/he was in a DPS setup with DPS healers.</p><p>So you're saying that someone in VP armor in a DPS role could stay in for Xebnok's Spinning Fury or Winds of Asyphyxia and not get owned (without use of blockers or Advanced Warning)? Your statement is either false or it doesn't account for all factors and is therefore flawed and false. So, no, I am not wrong. You are wrong sir.</p><p>I said before that this fight is more like Kultak than Xebnok in the AOE mechanics. Crit mit will help on this fight. If you don't understand what I'm implying, then I can't help you. But others will understand.</p><p>I'm looking at the logs now. Our MT took one hit of 23K, one of 18K, two of 15K and one of 16K the whole raid. Everything else was 10K or less.</p><p>Would you like to tell me more how I'm wrong since I've got logs here and was actually in the raid?</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Basically t2 armour should not be considered undergeared for easy raids. It is the best available non raid gear most classes can get.</p><p>The issue then becomes either t2 set gear needs more crit mit, or the encounters crit damage is to high.</p><p>although i think cusa died from not jousting but its hard to say that since no one confirmed that was the case.</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Lader wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>the only clues that i recall were in text from the mobs and it was telling you how NOT to pull the encounter <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">It seems like it's still a little unpolished if raiding success is more often determined by players paying more attention to a third-party log monitoring program catching text, and not by letting those players pay attention to the related visual actions of the mob in the encounter.</span></p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Basically t2 armour should not be considered undergeared for easy raids. It is the best available non raid gear most classes can get.</p><p>The issue then becomes either t2 set gear needs more crit mit, or the encounters crit damage is to high.</p><p>although i think cusa died from not jousting but its hard to say that since no one confirmed that was the case.</p></blockquote><p>Well  it depends what the starting diffuculty of the zone is.IIRC it was stated the starting  at the thet/xebnok level..and if that is true you will have some t4 armor.</p><p>So probably its a mixture of t2-t4 gear as a base.This is not a entry level raid/zone....its actually intermidiant  starting level.Atleast thats what i gather from what is known atm.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Basically t2 armour should not be considered undergeared for easy raids. It is the best available non raid gear most classes can get.</p><p>The issue then becomes either t2 set gear needs more crit mit, or the encounters crit damage is to high.</p><p>although i think cusa died from not jousting but its hard to say that since no one confirmed that was the case.</p></blockquote><p>Right now, there is a progression in the game that was expanded with the release of WoE. After hitting level 80, and getting some RoK gear and fabled epic. You start with the easier heroic TSO instances to get your T1 legendary. You also start running the more difficult instances, getting the T2 legendary. You then start running WoE and upgrading to T3 fabled, work on getting your mythical and you start doing the entry mobs in TMC, PAO and YIS which gets you the T4 wrist, boots and gloves.</p><p>This is at the point where the devs have indicated that you should be, gear-wise, with Miragul's. So someone who's followed the gear progression path layed out (particularly that we're <strong>8 months</strong> into the expansion), they should have at least 2-3 pieces of T4 fabled, the rest T3 fabled and they should have their mythical weapon. While I'm sure there will be ways for folks to work around the limitations of individual players and how they're geared, this seems like the general benchmark that players who want to raid this zone should be at.</p><p>If you're running around in T2 legendary, you are not geared for anything beyond entry-level raiding, and AFAIK, this is not meant to be an entry-level raid zone, but rather one of medium difficulty. Try to take shortcuts through that gear progression and you're going to be penalized, and that's how it should be.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For Hecula, he is wrong. A lot of guilds have killed Xebnok on the first day or 2nd day of TSO with VP armor/ZERO crit mit. You don't need any crit mit to survive those mobs in TOMC. Not to say, T2 armor is better than VP armor for survivability in TSO raid. With 5 T2 set, Ouka is more than enough to survive thet or xebnok in tomc.</p></blockquote><p>Guilds that killed Xebnok in VP armor know how to raid intimately. They were jousting AEs.</p><p>Ouka was not set up to tank - she/he was in a DPS setup with DPS healers.</p><p>So you're saying that someone in VP armor in a DPS role could stay in for Xebnok's Spinning Fury or Winds of Asyphyxia and not get owned (without use of blockers or Advanced Warning)? Your statement is either false or it doesn't account for all factors and is therefore flawed and false. So, no, I am not wrong. You are wrong sir.</p><p>I said before that this fight is more like Kultak than Xebnok in the AOE mechanics. Crit mit will help on this fight. If you don't understand what I'm implying, then I can't help you. But others will understand.</p><p><strong>I'm looking at the logs now. Our MT took one hit of 23K, one of 18K, two of 15K and one of 16K the whole raid. Everything else was 10K or less.</strong></p><p>Would you like to tell me more how I'm wrong since I've got logs here and was actually in the raid?</p></blockquote><p>No body ever said Ouka should not joust or main tanking with dps gear. What she said is these two named hit too hard and they shouldn't in their difficulty level.</p><p>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</p>

[Rocc]

<p>Anyway, back to the subject at hand....</p><p>Did the raid tonight. The library strat that worked for us was to joust the 2 elemental AE's. The timers are off but usually hit after the time we had preset (40 or 45 seconds). We would eat the first and cure with potions then joust the second. This would have been an ideal situation to have a druid in each group to pop tortoise when the AE's are close together and the timers run late. Tortoise is 30 seconds I think and would eat both AEs in an emergency situation. Conjurors equipped with the group stoneskin might help in the MT group also but its really not that difficult of a fight that a standard raid setup couldnt tackle. Power is a problem on the last of the three named in the library. So a mana pump would be handy. A must have for this room is elemental potions!!</p><p>The library is a tricky pull. We wiped 6 times trying to grab a single target. With 8-10 (didnt count) trash mobs it helps to have an AE tank for this room. Even on a successful pull you'll have adds so AE tank a must. I was half on the phone during the successful pull we had but I think they nuked the named in the back and he sent his adds. Cant really comment on that because I wasnt paying attention. Named drops agro from time to time but I dont think we had any timer on that (or at least I never heard one).</p><p>Final room is a named and his elephant. He is non agro. Nuke him and he sends a group of wolves. One group on each side of him. Easy fight and could prolly use an AE tank again.</p><p>Ok now the named. He has a NASTY AE !! The elephant (mammoth) has stoneskin and resists all damage. We tried to seperate them and I think it could have worked with a good single target tank (guardian) holding the elephant from across the room. The elephant kicked our [Removed for Content] every time. He has a knockback and I'm not sure if the off tank ever had agro because he just runs all over the place killing everyone. Even when the OT had the elephant, he was standing in the same corner as the MT and named. Bad idea in my opinion as Tuskers (the elephant) has a nasty frontal attack. I'm not sure how and if its possible to truly seperate them and keep Tuskers attention but one thing is for certain, you have to kill the named first. Theres no way thru Tuskers stoneskin and it prolly drops once named is down. We only got 3 shots at this fight and it was time to go but I'm very interested in learning the strat when someone finally figures it out. Please keep us posted.</p><p>Overall my opinion of the zone was mixed. Knowing the strat on the library makes it almost too easy. I would rather have roaming mobs that can be pulled and clear the room before the final named fight in the library. Make him harder and increase the loot to compensate..... just my opinion.</p><p>The center room between the library and final room could use a named. Perhaps one that spawns once the library is cleared. Running back thru to the next fight makes this kinda boring and a two room raid which kinda sucks. Adding something in the middle tundra might make this alot more fun in my opinion. Maybe some kind of named wolf or something to prepare you for the final fight.</p><p>The final named.... hmm let me see. The stoneskin on Tuskers, the agro drop, the frontal, the knockback and the AE from the named make this almost too challenging. The elephant should be allowed some kind of damage weather it be melee or nukes. Allowing melee damage would help the MA hold agro on Tuskers. Something to make this fight actually possible even with 4 mana pumps in the raid would be slow damage on Tuskers while the raid is on the named. I dont know, maybe once the strat is out there it might make more sense. But right now I just hate the elephant, mammoth, Tuskers or whatever you want to call him. Once this hits live your going to need tons of cash for the repair bill on this one. LOL</p><p>Thanks Reahov for the raid. It's very challenging indeed but once the strat is out there this will be a quick raid. This is just my opinion and comes with little or no discussion from any other testers tonight.</p><p>Recommendations -</p><p>Elemental potions</p><p>AE tank and a good single target off tank</p><p>Druids will make this much easier</p><p>DPS and heals at max range</p><p>Seperate Tuskers from the named while keep his back facing the raid party and as far away as you can get him while keeping healers at max range. Perhaps have healers right in the very center with max range on MT and OT on either side of room. We didnt try that but it just might work.</p>

[EasternKing]

<p>Final named?</p><p>they are the first 2 named in the zone on the first floor, you kill leftside, rightside(complete script), then a big icegolem spawns in the centre room.</p><p>kill that and it unblocks the icewall allowing you access to the 2nd floor, with 2 more named and more trash encounters.</p><p>we got stuck with a named on the 2nd floor that was missing components of its script, but im sure after that its onto the 3rd floor for more trash and either boss or another named and boss of zone.</p>

[Rocc]

<p>Oh woops. Thought that was it. My bad. What was the strat you guys used to kill the named and dumbo?</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</p></blockquote><p>No dev said they should hit just as hard as Xebnok or Thet. Maybe you take "should be just as hard as Thet and Xebnok" to mean "they can't hit any harder than Thet and Xebnok" - I didn't. There's more that makes an encounter than just AOE hits. Both encounters have much simpler scripts and dynamics. But thanks for another incomplete response that doesn't take the whole picture into account.</p>

[Macross_JR]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</p></blockquote><p>No dev said they should hit just as hard as Xebnok or Thet. Maybe you take "should be just as hard as Thet and Xebnok" to mean "they can't hit any harder than Thet and Xebnok" - I didn't. There's more that makes an encounter than just AOE hits. Both encounters have much simpler scripts and dynamics. But thanks for another incomplete response that doesn't take the whole picture into account.</p></blockquote><p>well hecula, I'm sorry, but to keep mobs in line with what they want, they either make the script more complex or make the mobs hit harder.  It's been like that since t5.  From what I hear, and will confirm tonight, these mobs are pretty spot on with where the difficulty was stated to be.  Ouka's crit mit probably isn't where it needs to be to survive a critical attack and so that is why he/she got plastered.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</p></blockquote><p>No dev said they should hit just as hard as Xebnok or Thet. Maybe you take "should be just as hard as Thet and Xebnok" to mean "they can't hit any harder than Thet and Xebnok" - I didn't. There's more that makes an encounter than just AOE hits. Both encounters have much simpler scripts and dynamics. But thanks for another incomplete response that doesn't take the whole picture into account.</p></blockquote><p>Lol, what is so called complex scripts in thet or xebnok? Adds during the fight? Wow, how complex it is and I guess there was no adds in your so called simple script. Oh wait, there are!</p><p>The fact is that scripts of these two named and thet/xebnok fights are easy. (How hard is it to figure out the aoe timer and kill easy killable adds? )</p><p>But those mobs hit 1.5 time to 2 times harder than thet and xebnok (6.5k max hit from xebnok and 8k max hit from thet on our MT). They are much harder than thet or xebnok espeically for casual raiders after figuring out the simple scripts.</p><p>Thank you for another clueless response.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite><a href="mailto:Couching@Crushbone">Couching@Crushbone</a> wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</blockquote><p>Thats an interesting made up story you've got there, it really is.</p><p>To quote Patherpanchali, aka, the guy that made the zone, <em>"You may have to learn them, and they won't appear as easy at first, but once learned they should not prove much harder than the Naga or Xebnok in ToMC."</em></p><p>Now, it seems to me that something like timing a joust may be considered "learning an encounter". Further, it seems to me that when this is done propperly, the encounter will be somewhat easier than it would be when it is not done. Even further still, in my experiance, jousting an AE is one of the simplest things you can ask a raid force to do, so once the encounter is learnt, with this joust in place, it is still on par in terms of difficulty with the snake.</p><p>Even if the AE outright one shotted anyone that didn't joust, it would still be easier.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Lol, what is so called complex scripts in thet or xebnok? Adds during the fight? Wow, how complex it is and I guess there was no adds in your so called simple script. Oh wait, there are!</blockquote><p>Thet has a rolling curse to deal with that makes the fight more dynamic but is otherwise easy. So is the library. Xebnok, besides adds (with a failure condition) and jousting 3 seperate AEs, has a tank charm, power drains and salting. I would call these things additional "complexities" to the Xebnok script or did you conveniently leave them out of your argument once again to try to prove your point?</p><p>The adds are the hard-mode component of the fight and can be eliminated with a device. So on easy mode, this fight has:</p><p>- a name with an AOE</p><p>- an add with a short range AOE or frontal and some agro drops.</p><p>That's it. You want it even easier? How about a big red "loot" button?</p><p>It's sad how people want these encounters toned down before even running them on the advice of someone who has done no appreciable raiding in years and in inappropriate gear all on a PUR.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thats an interesting made up story you've got there, it really is.</p><p>Even if the AE outright one shotted anyone that didn't joust, it would still be easier.</p></blockquote><p>What part did I make up? Because what you said is exactly what I said.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Gimbel@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>well hecula, I'm sorry, but to keep mobs in line with what they want, they either make the script more complex or make the mobs hit harder.  It's been like that since t5.  From what I hear, and will confirm tonight, these mobs are pretty spot on with where the difficulty was stated to be.  Ouka's crit mit probably isn't where it needs to be to survive a critical attack and so that is why he/she got plastered.</p></blockquote><p>Let's clarify: I'm arguing that these encounters on test are where they should be or need to be made slightly more difficult (library). Couching and others are arguing that since they can one-shot a non-jousting monk in a DPS setup with inappropriate gear, that they are defacto more difficult than stated levels and should be toned down.</p><p>So, yes, I agree with everything you say.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>What part did I make up? Because what you said is exactly what I said.</blockquote><p>Quote fixed.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Lol, what is so called complex scripts in thet or xebnok? Adds during the fight? Wow, how complex it is and I guess there was no adds in your so called simple script. Oh wait, there are!</blockquote><p>Thet has a rolling curse to deal with that makes the fight more dynamic but is otherwise easy. So is the library. Xebnok, besides adds (with a failure condition) and jousting 3 seperate AEs, has a tank charm, power drains and salting. I would call these things additional "complexities" to the Xebnok script or did you conveniently leave them out of your argument once again to try to prove your point?</p><p>The adds are the hard-mode component of the fight and can be eliminated with a device. So on easy mode, this fight has:</p><p>- a name with an AOE</p><p>- an add with a short range AOE or frontal and some agro drops.</p><p>That's it. You want it even easier? How about a big red "loot" button?</p><p>It's sad how people want these encounters toned down before even running them on the advice of someone who has done no appreciable raiding in years and in inappropriate gear all on a PUR.</p></blockquote><p>3 seperate AEs to joust in Xebnok? Lol, I didn't joust those AEs and I haven't got killed once by those AEs since day one in TSO raid with 9% crit mit (inner) to 100% crit mit. With VP or T2 gear, there is no point to joust Xebnok AEs unless you want to lower your dps.</p><p>1 big hit AE >>> 3 small damage AEs that you don't need to joust.</p><p>For tank charm, is your OT AFK? Otherwise, it has nothing to do for most people in the raid.</p><p>Salting? We have 2 designated people to cure anyone in the raid.  Is it too hard for anyone to watch his det window and see if he needs a cure? I fear not.</p><p>Power drain? When is power an issue in the raid?</p><p>The more you said about xebnok, it proved my point that xebnok is an easy kill mob with simple script.</p><p>Or do you think it's a fair trade to make a named hit twice hard than xebnok because it didn't have fluffing <em>complex</em> script? LOL</p><p>Not to say Thet, a complete joke encounter; Very weak poison Ae and very easy killable adds.</p><p>It's sad that you have no clue of how to evaluate difficulties of raid encounters. </p>

[Gaige]

<p>Elysium struggling that bad this expansion, that you need entry mobs toned down?</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Rocc@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The final named.... hmm let me see.</p></blockquote><p>Pretty sure Miragul is the final named.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite><a href="mailto:Couching@Crushbone">Couching@Crushbone</a> wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Thank you for backing up what she said that these two named hit too hard. They hit a lot harder than xebnok/thet and their aoe hit harder than xebnok encounter as well. Xebnok or thet won't hit your MT for 23k or 18k occasionally.</blockquote><p>Thats an interesting made up story you've got there, it really is.</p><p>To quote Patherpanchali, aka, the guy that made the zone, <em>"You may have to learn them, and they won't appear as easy at first, but once learned they should not prove much harder than the Naga or Xebnok in ToMC."</em></p><p>Now, it seems to me that something like timing a joust may be considered "learning an encounter". Further, it seems to me that when this is done propperly, the encounter will be somewhat easier than it would be when it is not done. Even further still, in my experiance, jousting an AE is one of the simplest things <strong>you can ask a raid force to do, so once the encounter is learnt, with this joust in place, it is still on par in terms of difficulty with the snake.</strong></p><p>Even if the AE outright one shotted anyone that didn't joust, it would still be easier.</p></blockquote><p>Why is it a made up story when I used the number from Hecula?</p><p>Look at what you said, why is it on par with the snake when the named hit twice hard than snake? Just because there are very easy killable adds in the snake encounter?</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>It's sad that you have no clue of how to evaluate difficulties of raid encounters. </blockquote><p>You evaluate it by how hard the mob is to kill, how hard it is to screw that up, and how much of the encounter is random. You do not evaluate it by how hard an AE is hitting people that should not be getting hit by it. That is akin to evaluating the snake by wtfever the name of the AE is when an add gets through.</p><p>The first few mobs in this zone are easy.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>It's sad that you have no clue of how to evaluate difficulties of raid encounters. </blockquote><p>You evaluate it by how hard the mob is to kill, how hard it is to screw that up, and how much of the encounter is random. You do not evaluate it by how hard an AE is hitting people that should not be getting hit by it. That is akin to evaluating the snake by wtfever the name of the AE is when an add gets through.</p><p>The first few mobs in this zone are easy.</p></blockquote><p>When you let an add get through, it's a fail condition and you gwt raid wipe aoe.</p><p>Then why do you let an add get through? Those adds can be killed by anyone easily in sec. The poison AE from snake itself is a joke and everyone can cure it by pot without a healer.</p><p>All of those above are so easy to overcome after you learned the script.</p><p>The only way to wipe to thet is because the stupid people let an add to snake.</p><p>However, making a named hit incrediblely hard is different.</p><p>23k or even 18k to a well geared and fully buffed MT is too much and out of the progression in difficulty.</p><p>Last, what I care is if they are much harder than thet or xebnok instead of how easy they are.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>23k or even 18k to a well geared and fully buffed MT is too much and out of the progression in difficulty.</blockquote><p>No its not, not by itself at least.</p><p>If it were hitting for that much every swing, then yes, it would be. If it hits that much once or twice a kill, its acceptable.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>23k or even 18k to a well geared and fully buffed MT is too much and out of the progression in difficulty.</blockquote><p>No its not, not by itself at least.</p><p>If it were hitting for that much every swing, then yes, it would be. If it hits that much once or twice a kill, its acceptable.</p></blockquote><p>No, it's not acceptable when max hit from thet or xebnok is in half or even less.</p><p>Making challenge by RNG is a poor design.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Gage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Elysium struggling that bad this expansion, that you need entry mobs toned down?</p></blockquote><p>Since they are entry mobs, we were discussing if they are right in the progression. That's the purpose of this thread. Or should I ask to make those entry mobs to be as hard as munzak?</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Since they are entry mobs, we were discussing if they are right in the progression. That's the purpose of this thread. Or should I ask to make those entry mobs to be as hard as munzak?</p></blockquote><p>Just seems weird when other people are saying they're comparable to Tomb's mobs that you're here fighting for nerfs because some crummy geared monk got one shotted.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Gage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Since they are entry mobs, we were discussing if they are right in the progression. That's the purpose of this thread. Or should I ask to make those entry mobs to be as hard as munzak?</p></blockquote><p>Just seems weird when other people are saying they're comparable to Tomb's mobs that you're here fighting for nerfs because some crummy geared monk got one shotted.</p></blockquote><p>Learn to read, I was talking how hard hitting was on MT instead of crummy geared monk got one shotted.</p>

[Couching]

<p>double post</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Making challenge by RNG is a poor design.</blockquote><p>More like making challenge by no debuffs, but whatever.</p>

[jjlo69]

<p>ok i tested this zone last night with soe qa</p><p>heres what i got from it and im a decently geared tso raider</p><p>the first named and trash was about spot on for a pu raid(note i said PU raid). the only thing i noticed in this encounter was the cloak was procing more then the 8% as on it discription.</p><p>the second named we did not get a chance to do too much work on since the tanks were dying a lil fast(once again i dont have an issue with this since imho the second named should be harder then the first and tank should be a lil better geared for it)  but i would like to add the cloak on the named was seemed to be procing a lil too much for the 8% chance.</p><p>Uncle</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>23k or even 18k to a well geared and fully buffed MT is too much and out of the progression in difficulty.</p></blockquote><p>It's funny how you dismiss Xebnok as a simple fight because you have no issues with it. That fight has a complex script mechanic - it's not a raw AOE/DPS fight. The guilds now learning that fight would agree. Boldly stating that the script is "simple" because you've blown past it is a mistake because you have not lowered your perspective.</p><p>I'm going to ask one question and I want you to answer - true or false - nothing else:</p><p>Switchmaster hits harder than Xebnok yet is considered by most to be an easier fight in TSO raid progression.</p><p>True or false?</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>It's funny how you dismiss Xebnok as a simple fight because you have no issues with it. That fight has a complex script mechanic - it's not a raw AOE/DPS fight.</blockquote><p>Um, say what? I've been on-board with most of what you've been saying here, but this really doesn't make a lot of sense. The Xebnok fight isn't really complex at all. You have one AE (spinning fury) to joust, some weaksauce adds, and you have a couple of bards salt whoever's crying. The only "complexity" is really for the MT and OT, coordinating the aggro swap so the OT can eat the charm.</p><p>Seriously though, if you consider Xebnok to be a complex fight, what is Anashti? To my mind, Xebnok is less complicated than Switchmaster; heck, I think he's even less complicated than Thet-em-aua.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Um, say what? I've been on-board with most of what you've been saying here, but this really doesn't make a lot of sense. The Xebnok fight isn't really complex at all.</p></blockquote><p>Put yourself in the perspective of a guild just learning it. A lot of lower tier guilds get stuck on Thet. Compared to Thet, Switchmaster is more complex and Xebnok even more so. It's not complex to you or me because we've blown past that content. Xebnok is about a 2m45s fight now - there are guilds that can do it faster - but for those guilds just learning the fight - coming from Thet and Switchmaster, the script will seem complex.</p><p>But coming full circle, the Haladian fight doesn't even have a complex script - it's simply about jousting one AOE, offtanking a big add (plus killing a few little adds on hardmode) and having healers that know when to cast a group ward/reactive. It's going to be a speedbump for guilds that can blow past Xebnok - just like Xebnok currently is.</p><p>In fact, all this junk about Xebnok is stupid anyways - the fight is just supposed to be around the level of Xebnok in difficulty. It is. Move on.</p>

[Couching]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Couching@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>23k or even 18k to a well geared and fully buffed MT is too much and out of the progression in difficulty.</p></blockquote><p>It's funny how you dismiss Xebnok as a simple fight because you have no issues with it. That fight has a complex script mechanic - it's not a raw AOE/DPS fight. The guilds now learning that fight would agree. Boldly stating that the script is "simple" because you've blown past it is a mistake because you have not lowered your perspective.</p><p>I'm going to ask one question and I want you to answer - true or false - nothing else:</p><p>Switchmaster hits harder than Xebnok yet is considered by most to be an easier fight in TSO raid progression.</p><p>True or false?</p></blockquote><p>Actually switchmaster was much harder encounter than xebnok until it's aoe was seriously nerfed. A lot of guilds have beated xebnok before switchmaster.</p>

[EasternKing]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>It's funny how you dismiss Xebnok as a simple fight because you have no issues with it. That fight has a complex script mechanic - it's not a raw AOE/DPS fight.</blockquote><p>Um, say what? I've been on-board with most of what you've been saying here, but this really doesn't make a lot of sense. The Xebnok fight isn't really complex at all. You have one AE (spinning fury) to joust, some weaksauce adds, and you have a couple of bards salt whoever's crying. The only "complexity" is really for the MT and OT, coordinating the aggro swap so the OT can eat the charm.</p><p>Seriously though, if you consider Xebnok to be a complex fight, what is Anashti? To my mind, Xebnok is less complicated than Switchmaster; heck, I think he's even less complicated than Thet-em-aua.</p></blockquote><p>lol you guys make me laugh, im in a top end avatar killing guild, and yes i know its easy for people to forget the benefit of the gear you are wearing, but seriously stop already, yes to me xebnok is a joke fight, i end up tanking him on my brigand when he charms the MT more often than not, so ya to me its a total and utter joke encounter.</p><p>How ever i happen to be full mastered, decked out if the best gear in game, in a pretty perfect buff grp, with other full mastered, decked out best gear in eq2 players, of course xebnok is a joke to us, to the rest of the eq2 populace xebnok is a fight that takes them dedication, co-ordination and team work eveyr time they fight it.</p><p>Xebnok does not just have 1 aoe to joust,he has an aoe power drain that is brutal, not to me, and not to players like me, but to the rest of eq2 that power drain is a nightmare, he also charms every 25secs or so, that means 2 compentent tanks, that means 4-6 healers that can keep them tanks up, it means tanks that can get back to the top of a hate list quickly to either eat the next charm or ensure that xebnok doesnt go running into the raid killing the next highest class's on his hate list, his power drain is also range based, so if your unlucky and the 2nd tank has no snaps up, thats xebnok in your raid draining all the important people ie your healers of a ton of power.</p><p>so for raids that are not totally decked out, dont have perfect buff grps, maybe only have 1 dirge and 2 troubs in a raid with 1 coercer and 1 illu, this mob is no joke, he has adds that start with him, they need dealing with, he has adds that spawn through out the fight and if they do not die in the alloted time span the raid wipe the raid, that means dedicated dpsers that can burn them down asap, that means power, this is in a fight where they get power drained every time his drain aoe goes off.</p><p>Xebnok also punts/kbs, fears he has a damage shield that lowers crit chance lowers hit accuracy, reduces your chance to land ca's, even when you are up against a wall tanking this guy, its all to easy for melee dps and tanks to be feared and they either die to his aoe, or the tank gets punted across the room, out of heal range and dies before he can get back in place.</p><p>So yes, say its a joke, belittle it if you wish, but do not forget for 1minute that its your gear that allows you to trivialise this enconter to the extent you can come here and post "hes got 1 aoe and some poxy adds, whats so tough about xebnok?"</p>

[Macross_JR]

<p>well, after finally going into the playtest on my defiler I will say this.  do not do this zone in t2 armor, get your hp's up, get your crit mit up(t3 armor+).  casuals(meaning people that raid like 2 times a week) that raid for giggles and don't care about actually killing stuff, this raid is not for you.  we only worked on haladan and tusker for reahov(thanks for having us).  He is a mix between Strangestalker and Kultak, with some TXD from maiden's thrown in.  Can't kill Tuskers until Haladan is dead.  Tuskers mem-wipes.  Brutal trauma based ae from Haladan. A decent ae from Tuskers.</p><p>We were druid heavy tonight so we had some hp defunct groups that would get owned(also due to some having only t2 gear).  It also appeared that someone had purchased something to nerf the encounter, would get a red text message that a tinkered device had destroyed something.  If this had been a raid guild that was up to Xeb and Kultak I could see this encounter being done.</p>

[Clowd]

<p>Having run it tonight (7/31), I will say that it does fit in line with being near Thet and Xebnok difficulty wise.  I was in Gimbel's raid, and I will say that the fight's difficulty would probably be one step abouve Kultak the Cruel in YIS.  If you can defeat Kultak consistently, chances are you can beat Haladan without much issue.  Bring a Brigand/Swashy for this fight, debuffs will help a lot!</p><p>I did feel that the trash memwiped a little too often though.  Don't entirely memwiping trash, nor the memwipe mechanic, just feels like a cheap way to randomly kill of a couple of raiders and make the fight last a little longer and increase repair bills.</p><p>Also, I think Haladan is easier than Xebnok, it's a much simpler fight without as much going on.  Definitely harder than Thet though.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>so for raids that are not totally decked out, dont have perfect buff grps, maybe only have 1 dirge and 2 troubs in a raid with 1 coercer and 1 illu, this mob is no joke ...</blockquote><p>Oh come on, now. You might as well say "for raids that only have 2 healers, this mob is no joke!" Part of raiding is building proper groups, and making sure the people in the raid are geared appropriately for the fight. You're making Xebnok out to be far, far more complicated than he actually is. Anyway, this is far afield of the topic at hand; it sounds like they have the encounters in MPS reasonably placed in terms of difficulty.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Almost every server had xebnok dead the first day or at most the second day after TSo went live. Dont pump the mob up more then it really was.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Basically t2 armour should not be considered undergeared for easy raids. It is the best available non raid gear most classes can get.</p><p>The issue then becomes either t2 set gear needs more crit mit, or the encounters crit damage is to high.</p><p>although i think cusa died from not jousting but its hard to say that since no one confirmed that was the case.</p></blockquote><p>Right now, there is a progression in the game that was expanded with the release of WoE. After hitting level 80, and getting some RoK gear and fabled epic. You start with the easier heroic TSO instances to get your T1 legendary. You also start running the more difficult instances, getting the T2 legendary. You then start running WoE and upgrading to T3 fabled, work on getting your mythical and you start doing the entry mobs in TMC, PAO and YIS which gets you the T4 wrist, boots and gloves.</p><p>This is at the point where the devs have indicated that you should be, gear-wise, with Miragul's. So someone who's followed the gear progression path layed out (particularly that we're <strong>8 months</strong> into the expansion), they should have at least 2-3 pieces of T4 fabled, the rest T3 fabled and they should have their mythical weapon. While I'm sure there will be ways for folks to work around the limitations of individual players and how they're geared, this seems like the general benchmark that players who want to raid this zone should be at.</p><p>If you're running around in T2 legendary, you are not geared for anything beyond entry-level raiding, and AFAIK, this is not meant to be an entry-level raid zone, but rather one of medium difficulty. Try to take shortcuts through that gear progression and you're going to be penalized, and that's how it should be.</p></blockquote><p>Um actually they said it was meant to be easy using the item. It even was compared to 2 named that were killed the first day TSO went live on most servers. Pretty much your whole post is wrong.</p><p>Bottom line is the gimped version of the first 2 named should be not 1 shot people in tier 2 gear. The new difficulty scale feature will pretty much be useless if the easy version is not easy.</p><p>You are pretty much jsut making stuff up. Seriously acting like WOE is a needed raid progression zone needed before you attempt tier 1 raiding is laughable since woe/kurns just came out like 3 months ago.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Gage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Elysium struggling that bad this expansion, that you need entry mobs toned down?</p></blockquote><p>There is a [Removed for Content] version and the real version most competent guilds will pull.</p><p>The [Removed for Content] version shouldnt 1 shot people in tier 2 gear. ( unless of course the person didnt joust etc etc)but the [Removed for Content] version should be survivable in teir 2 gear.</p><p>If the [Removed for Content] version requires a decent amount of t4 raid gear. Then the difficulty scaling feature is useless.</p><p>I could care less if each encounter on hard was 25 min munzok type fights. But the easy version shouldnt require t4 set gear.</p>

[EasternKing]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Almost every server had xebnok dead the first day or at most the second day after TSo went live. Dont pump the mob up more then it really was.</p></blockquote><p>So because the guilds with full eof avatar gear killed xebnok that invalidates what i said? i mean really thats pretty dense even for you gungo.</p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Almost every server had xebnok dead the first day or at most the second day after TSo went live. Dont pump the mob up more then it really was.</p></blockquote><p>So what you are compareing the elite top end guilds that steam roll stuff to normal guilds?</p><p>Your jokeing right?</p><p>Xebnok with everything that it entails is a intermediant  encounter it aint easy and it aint super hard.He is diffucult and a good challenge for most guild and does require a mix of t2-t4 gear to beat him.</p><p>Dont compare what the  top end guilds decimate and set this as the norm ...what is the matter with you?</p>

[demonwr]

<p>well i was in tonights raid i and i can tell ya tuskers and his little buddy kinda equate to kultak with an add around for extra fun instead of a curse.</p><p>yes he has a brutal aoe like kultak but with properly buffed groups taking care of your squishys and proper debuffs its is survivable.</p><p>is the mob dificult no not realy i wouldnt say he is but you will need some gear and a proper raid i would definatly expect anyone wh is killing xebnok kultak switchmaster dificulty mobs to have a fairly easy time with him after a few runs and geting it down.</p><p>we had a number of mages sitting under 9k hps total and a overabundace of druids so there wasnt much help for them thay simply went splat as would be expected on a phisical aoe thats was averaging 10k</p>

[Lleren]

<p>If t2 shard gear is not enough for anyone  to do thier job in a starter/mid tier TSO raid, then something is wrong with either the gear or the difficulty level. </p><p>All the starter to mid tier TSO raids have been tanked and beaten in t2 or worse gear.  It is not smart loot patterns, some folks went months before thier first t4 pattern, just luck of the draw.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Bottom line is the gimped version of the first 2 named should be not 1 shot people in tier 2 gear. The new difficulty scale feature will pretty much be useless if the easy version is not easy.</blockquote><p>Can you or anyone else provide me a link to a dev post that explicitly states that this raid content is designed for players in T2 void armor and their fabled epic?</p>

[Kordran]

<p>On second thought, I'm not going to bother.</p>

[Xao June]

<p><cite>Noih@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If t2 shard gear is not enough for anyone  to do thier job in a starter/mid tier TSO raid, then something is wrong with either the gear or the difficulty level. </p><p>All the starter to mid tier TSO raids have been tanked and beaten in t2 or worse gear.  It is not smart loot patterns, some folks went months before thier first t4 pattern, just luck of the draw.</p></blockquote><p>There are two feasable responses to this, and each has merit.</p><p>The quick one first... if T2 void shard gear was enough to kill entry level x4 mobs, what is the point of T3 gear?</p><p>Second, this zone is not a part of TSO raid progression that just gets slipped in seamlessly with the rest. It is content added 10 months after TSO was released, and so requiring a level of crit mit gear that is higher than content that shipped with TSO is not only acceptable, but expected.</p><p>Just because the mobs are tagged as "easy", it does not mean they have to be entry level mobs. Absatalius is a perfect example of this. It is an easy mob, easier than the snake in Tombs, yet since you need to kill Switchmaster to get to it, its obviously not an entry level mob.</p>

[EasternKing]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Bottom line is the gimped version of the first 2 named should be not 1 shot people in tier 2 gear. The new difficulty scale feature will pretty much be useless if the easy version is not easy.</blockquote><p>Can you or anyone else provide me a link to a dev post that explicitly states that this raid content is designed for players in T2 void armor and their fabled epic?</p></blockquote><p>if the dev says he is same place in progression as Xebnok, its pretty straight forwards to work out</p><p>Xebnok drops helm patterns, that means before you kill xebnok you have access to THREE t4 set pattern peices, Gloves, Forearms, Boots, that means most people that this content is aimed at are in fact going to have no more than 20 crit mit, no more than 3 tso set peices, wearing a mix of eof/rok Fabled, Tso Legandary.</p>

[Avirodar]

<p>I was in a Pick-Up raid, which had a wide range of players. The raid was short on utility and healers, and had a couple of no-shows. A few participants were not wearing any t4 set pieces, and very few had beyond the foreamrs+boots+gloves combination. 2 of the 4 groups could have really used a lot more hp, but have to work with what you get.1) Kervis : After a handful of pulls, the first named (Kervis) had been worked out and killed. About right for the first mob of the zone.2) Haladan, did not bode well for the raid I was in.Spinning Fervor was only hitting for an "average" of 12k (min 0, max 27k). Shy of people being in too close, and pets, not many people were taking the melee AE for more than 13k, but unfortunately this was enough to kill most people in G3 and G4 every time. We gave the mob a few good shots, but the amount of people that were dying around me, every time his AE hit, quickly shown the raid needed better gear to beat the encounter.It would have been nice to see how the raid I was in, could fare against Haladan if everyone had at least 3 pieces of T4 TSO fabled, and better options for group setups were available.  From the angle I got, Haladan seems about right for where he should be.  A raid full of people who all have 3 pieces of T4 TSO set gear, and good group setups, should be able to beat it.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>EasternKing wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Bottom line is the gimped version of the first 2 named should be not 1 shot people in tier 2 gear. The new difficulty scale feature will pretty much be useless if the easy version is not easy.</blockquote><p>Can you or anyone else provide me a link to a dev post that explicitly states that this raid content is designed for players in T2 void armor and their fabled epic?</p></blockquote><p>if the dev says he is same place in progression as Xebnok, its pretty straight forwards to work out</p><p>Xebnok drops helm patterns, that means before you kill xebnok you have access to THREE t4 set pattern peices, Gloves, Forearms, Boots, that means most people that this content is aimed at are in fact going to have no more than 20 crit mit, no more than 3 tso set peices, wearing a mix of eof/rok Fabled, Tso Legandary.</p></blockquote><p>Right, and if balanced for people already having 2-3 pieces of T4 fabled, then it's not an entry-level raid. Xebnok is not considered to be an entry-level raid mob. It seems fairly clear to me that if people went to that raid with no T4 pieces and no mythical, they were undergeared for the encounter and should have gotten owned.</p><p>I'm seriously not understanding all the whinging here. You have a random group of people, most of them apparently inexperienced and undergeared, and they actually managed to kill some stuff. And yet, there's still the chorus of "it's too hard! it's too hard!" from the peanut gallery. Do we seriously need another raid zone added to the game that will be cleared and on farm status two hours after its released?</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Do we seriously need another raid zone added to the game that will be cleared and on farm status two hours after its released?</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Well, considering that the zone is supposed to present a choice of: <strong>"easy", "normal" </strong>and<strong> "hard"</strong> - then yes, I expect this zone will naturally be cleared and farmed within a few hours of raiders going in - as designed.  I am assuming that the settings are roughly: "easy = pick-up raiders", "normal = casual raiders", and "hard = organized farmers"</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">A well-balanced raidzone with difficulty setting choices in theory should allow fun times for a broad spectrum of playstyle, meaning that almost all types of raiders will find something worthwhile inside.  If the zone isn't going to be popular, it's a failure.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">After all, if this zone has the "easy" setting balanced at too high of an upper tier of raiders only, it will exclude the rest of the raiding playerbase and then it becomes ignored/seldom used content which would be a waste of Dev time and $$$ that could have been better allocated to fixing bugs. </span></p>

[hellfire]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Do we seriously need another raid zone added to the game that will be cleared and on farm status two hours after its released?</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Well, considering that the zone is supposed to present a choice of: <strong>"easy", "normal" </strong>and<strong> "hard"</strong> - then yes, I expect this zone will naturally be cleared and farmed within a few hours of raiders going in - as designed.  I am assuming that the settings are roughly: "easy = pick-up raiders", "normal = casual raiders", and "hard = organized farmers"</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">A well-balanced raidzone with difficulty setting choices in theory should allow fun times for a broad spectrum of playstyle, meaning that almost all types of raiders will find something worthwhile inside.  If the zone isn't going to be popular, it's a failure.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">After all, if this zone has the "easy" setting balanced at too high of an upper tier of raiders only, it will exclude the rest of the raiding playerbase and then it becomes ignored/seldom used content which would be a waste of Dev time and $$$ that could have been better allocated to fixing bugs. </span></p></blockquote><p>Thought it was  just 2 settings...normal and easier then normal?</p>

[Neskonlith]

<p><cite>Bigron@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Thought it was  just 2 settings...normal and easier then normal?</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">It's still in Testing, so I really don't know exactly how it will end up quite yet which is why I qualified my initial assumption.  If the zone ends up with 2 settings only, then it will probably roughly shake out to: "easy = casual raiders" and "normal = organized farmers".  </span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">If the zone "easy setting" is balanced for players in the higher end of the raiding spectrum, then it is quite likely the zone will be left seldom used and not nearly as popular as something like SoH which offered something for a broad spectrum of raiders... if the target audience is too narrow, it might end up as another Kurn's ignored by most players as being not worth the effort.</span></p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If the zone "easy setting" is balanced for players in the higher end of the raiding spectrum, then it is quite likely the zone will be left seldom used and not nearly as popular as something like SoH which offered something for a broad spectrum of raiders... if the target audience is too narrow, it might end up as another Kurn's ignored by most players as being not worth the effort. </p></blockquote><p> Kurn's is ignored because, aside from a few exceptions, the loot absolutely <strong><em>sucks</em></strong> there. Now, apparently this is being addressed, but right now it's just a waste of time.</p>

[BleemTeam]

<p>I would agree with what Avirodar said mostly.</p><p>Haladan seemed like a /yawn encounter, the only problem is the people that show up to these raids are like beta-buffed or whatever. T2 and Epics. It was pretty clear after the first few pulls that people need the basic t4 items or at least woes'd out.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Brailyn@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I would agree with what Avirodar said mostly.</p><p>Haladan seemed like a /yawn encounter, the only problem is the people that show up to these raids are like beta-buffed or whatever. T2 and Epics. It was pretty clear after the first few pulls that people need the basic t4 items or at least woes'd out.</p></blockquote><p>Agreed. I went there with one of Reahov's play test groups and the mixed set of folks made that fight harder than it actually is. When you have folks barely in T2 and barely with 9k health and your raid is mostly druids you are not going to get any where. We burned it down by more than 10% before it did the second AE, so Haladan drops pretty quick and felt right difficulty wise. Of course you're not going to get past him when several folks die each AE and heal the mob back up. But you definately only need a few pieces of TSO raid set (which I will not call T4 because it has nothing to do with T1-3 shard armor) or at least full T2 and some decent HP/wards. I got a screenshot of it, the AE is actually very weak in comparison to what you see in other zones. Since it's trauma based you do see those low-hp mages going down.</p><p>They should do a playtest with folks the content is more intended for... IE a "You must have killed Xebnok" playtest and then see how far into the zone you get.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Neskonlith wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kordran wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Do we seriously need another raid zone added to the game that will be cleared and on farm status two hours after its released?</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Well, considering that the zone is supposed to present a choice of: <strong>"easy", "normal" </strong>and<strong> "hard"</strong> - then yes, I expect this zone will naturally be cleared and farmed within a few hours of raiders going in - as designed.  I am assuming that the settings are roughly: "easy = pick-up raiders", "normal = casual raiders", and "hard = organized farmers"</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">A well-balanced raidzone with difficulty setting choices in theory should allow fun times for a broad spectrum of playstyle, meaning that almost all types of raiders will find something worthwhile inside.  If the zone isn't going to be popular, it's a failure.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">After all, if this zone has the "easy" setting balanced at too high of an upper tier of raiders only, it will exclude the rest of the raiding playerbase and then it becomes ignored/seldom used content which would be a waste of Dev time and $$$ that could have been better allocated to fixing bugs. </span></p></blockquote><p>Ding ding ding we have a winner!!!!!</p><p>The easy version should be [Removed for Content]... PERIOD.</p><p>That is the entire point of the difficulty scale.</p><p>If the EASY scale is not EASY the difficulty slider is USELESS.</p><p>I dont expect hard or at least the last named in the HARD version to be killed for a few weeks.I expect every single establishd raid guild to clear EASY.I expect crappy pickup raids to clear at least half the zone on [Removed for Content] (EASY) mode.</p><p>If pick up raids can not kill the first 2 named on test then EASY is a failure. Then this idea is a complete waste of time.Then the amount of dev time wasted on this feature is pointless.The amount of dev time adjusting 2 diffrent version is pointless.The amount of time creating 2 diffrenent loot tables is pointless.If they intend to do something like this then GET IT RIGHT. Don't waste time on a pointless mechanic.</p><p>Maybe I got the intended fuction of this mechanic wrong.Is the Hard version meant for the top 1 maybe 2 guilds per server and the EASY version for the other 2-4 established guilds on a server?or Is the Hard version meant for the top 2-4 guilds per server and the EASY version for the other 10+ casual guilds/raid alliances/pickup raids on a server?</p><p>Seems to me people posting here is saying its fine pickup raids (1/2 geared and half ungeared) can't clear the first floor entranced named. I thought this entire feature was meant so more people can raid, not reflect the same "issues" already in game that this feature was suppose to fix.</p><p>To tell the truth I don't think this mechanic will work. I think its a complete and utter waste of dev time. I rather they just make the zone HARD because that is the content I am going to play regardless. But since they are intent on adding in this feature. Then they should get it right instead of wasting their time and our money.</p>

[demonwr]

<p>think we kind a needa clerification of the target for the diferant dificultys of the zone</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>demonwrym wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>think we kind a needa clerification of the target for the diferant dificultys of the zone</p></blockquote><p>I have a few more questions then that for this feature, because I think the idea and implementation of it sucks.</p><p>1) What is the purpose of this feature (diffculty scaler)? (to allow more people to raid?, to make harder content for avatar geared players?, etc)2) How much developement time does it take to implement this?(itemization, development, coding, adjusting, testing, etc)3) Does this new Feature add anything to the game?(basically does this change do anything? Are more guilds going to effectively raid?)</p><p>4) Is the amount of time wasted on this feature add enough to justify adding this feature?5) Final and most important one, Does this feature accomplish those goals?</p><p>If this zone goes live and the same people are clearing the same content, If guilds are bypassing the easy version and just killing the hard version becuase it has better loot then the developers just wasted a ton of time and money and a worthless feature.</p>

[Macross_JR]

<p>Reahov thanks again for hosting these.</p><p>We attempted the first encounter to the left.  I say attempted cause Reahov is a great guy and is looking for volunteers and we get what we get.  This zone is not for t2 shard armor people.  It's that simple.  You will need T3 Fabled Shard gear or the x4 sets.  The ae's crush people with low hp's and no wards or reactives.  We ran out of time on the raid to try and get further.  I still think any guild killing kultak and xebnok will be fine with at least the two encounters I have been a part of.</p>

[Acknar-EF]

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;">This all boils down to what the distinct targeted audience is for the zone. Having done the zone a few times, both with pickup(signups) as well as guild raids, it does seem like the intended starting level would require min 3 pieces of T4 (20 to 30% crit mit) to survive. This isn’t to say it cannot be done with less, but from the Haladan fight viewpoint, it seems as it would require at least this amount to survive/make progress on the mob. We indicated this on our feedback, but I don’t think anyone has knowledge of what the indicated target audience is besides the Devs. The zone as it stands, is clearly not intended for beginning guilds with legendary/T2/T3 gear.</span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “make it easier mode” is a single item bought from the vendor which precludes adds on each encounter. That is the only thing that differentiates from easy to hard mode up until you reach Miragul himself.</span></span></p>

[feldon30]

<p><cite>Xao June wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>if T2 void shard gear was enough to kill entry level x4 mobs, what is the point of T3 gear?</p><p>Second, this zone is not a part of TSO raid progression that just gets slipped in seamlessly with the rest. It is content added 10 months after TSO was released, and so requiring a level of crit mit gear that is higher than content that shipped with TSO is not only acceptable, but expected.</p><p>Just because the mobs are tagged as "easy", it does not mean they have to be entry level mobs. Absatalius is a perfect example of this. It is an easy mob, easier than the snake in Tombs, yet since you need to kill Switchmaster to get to it, its obviously not an entry level mob.</p></blockquote><p>T3 gear was added as a bridge for folks who were not able to get enough crit mit through their three T4 pieces and three T2 pieces to survive the harder T4 mobs. It was added mostly at the right time (maybe a little late, but launch would have been too ezmode and distracting in my opinion). And it's turned out to be a great zone for guilds who can field 2 groups and want to farm some significantly better loot. With the loot changes in Kurn's x2, there is now a solid progression from T1-T4. The original step up from T2 to T4 (what was originally called TSO pattern gear) was steep for guilds who were not already clearing VP -- referring to skillset and guild coordination, not gear.</p><p>I am not sure what makes Thet hard unless you have people in your raid force that refuse to listen to strats, refuse to do what they're asked to do, don't have their detrimental window in a prominent location, and don't use nox pots when told to. Yeah going and killing the adds prevents me from topping the parse, but I can kill them solo, so I buckle down and do it.</p><p>Switchmaster is the Venril Sathir fight of this expansion. Give us excruciatingly bad zone geometry with sharp edges, steps, outcroppings, and ledges designed to make sure you get stuck running to the portal, and then add random single-target Root detrimentals that strike when you are 3 feet from the cure portal. I am betting it will take 16 months for them to change this fight, and rather than fix the annoying random part (the random root), they'll do something [Removed for Content] like increase the time you have to cure it to 30 seconds.</p>

[Morghus]

<p>The thing that makes Thet hard is that there are apparently people who cannot solo the single up arrow mob. Also, I dont think I've ever seen a root with Switchmaster unless you are in melee range when enthralling flames is off.</p>

[circusgirl]

<p>Some notes from our visit today:</p><p><ul><li>Haladen heals on player death even if above 45%.  Presumeably this is just because test hasn't been patched recently, but I thought I would point it out.</li><li>Tuskers--His damage output seems alright, if maybe just a little high.  However, given that he is immune to all damage, and as a result DPS CANNOT be used to hold aggro here, I think his immunity to target locks needs to be reexamined and removed.  Several classes are going to have an extremely difficult time OTing him because of his immunity to damage (amends is worthless, manhandle and dragon rage are worthless, etc.)  Since snaps are the only effective means of regaining aggro, it is unfair to penalize those tanks whose snaps come in the form of locks instead of position increases.</li><li>This zone is definetely not easier than Xebnok.</li></ul></p>

[Tehom]

<p>Mostly focused on testing Haladan with us. Had about 2 group of avatar geared people, though weak class mix (only 1 dirge, no paladin, 1 templar who was afk, etc), and then 2 groups of people in t2 and so on.</p><p>Going by the assumption he's supposed to be around Xebnok difficulty, then Haladan's physical AE could probably use some toning down - I think unless you had paladin/bard for the mit buffs along with 4-set mitigation casters will normally be one-shotted unless they're in stacked healer groups. Xebnok's physical AE can be ranged, so I would consider Haladan's much more threatening, and it seems like Tuskers is a lot harder to hold than Xebnok's charms make him. Tuskers might need his frontal AE slightly toned down, or his memory blurs made more infrequent - pretty hard time holding him with brawlers, it felt like.</p><p>Haladan was still healing on deaths above 45%, also, which I'm not sure was intended.</p><p>If I had to rate him, I'd probably put him somewhere between Pentaclypse/Ultaclypse and Field General Uktap in difficulty right now.</p>

[SageGaspar]

<p>On Haladan:</p><p>As a mage on the 8/13 raid wearing seven pieces of set gear and close to the best instanced gear available otherwise, I got one-shotted as far back as in the entrance hallway when I wasn't in range of the priest in my group. With templar buffs I survived but it took me down into the orange/red. It really depends on what the crit mit requirement is for this fight (I'm assuming I was above it) to say whether it could fit into progression, but the trauma AE was a little strong for something that is essentially unjoustable beyond the one drop-off outside of point blank range.</p><p>On a broader scale I might rethink all the massive unjoustable trauma AEs you're putting on mobs these days, it forces you into specific setups if you're looking to support mages at all. It's one more strike against druids, too, which is a class you've said you're looking to help out.</p>

[Ashmen_Skimmerhorn]

<p><cite>SageGaspar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>.....</p><p>On a broader scale I might rethink all the massive unjoustable trauma AEs you're putting on mobs these days, it forces you into specific setups if you're looking to support mages at all. It's one more strike against druids, too, which is a class you've said you're looking to help out.</p></blockquote><p>QFE</p><p>These unjoustable physical AEs are forcing 2 things to happen:</p><p>1. Bring less cloth wearing classes. Which means only bring 4 chanter and sorcerers and summoners get to sit the whole time.</p><p>2. 1 Cleric and 1 Shaman in all four groups, thus eliminating Druids.</p>

[BChizzle]

<p>On the hard version of the miragul fight its possible for you to get the red text curse and get the charm curse at the same time thus casting ca's/spells while charmed you have the detrimental causing the raid to all lose target and wipe.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>BChizzle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>On the hard version of the miragul fight its possible for you to get the red text curse and get the charm curse at the same time thus casting ca's/spells while charmed you have the detrimental causing the raid to all lose target and wipe.</p></blockquote><p>That's awesome.</p>

[BChizzle]

<p>Easymode for miragul is a really fun fight I like it.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>In the Haladian/Tusker encounter - in the script when he begs for mercy for his elephant - is that the choice between easy and hard mode? We know what happens when you don't grant his plea. It would be nice to know if not granting him surrender is a fail condition or a way to make this encounter harder for better loot. I don't want to beat my head into a wall trying to kill something that is designed to not be killed that way.</p>

[Jonnytom]

<p>Ok this is probably a stupid question but since all was new our guild went in last night after update but we were unable to figure out how to set the zone.  Can some on enlighten me on how to do this?</p>

[arksun]

<p>Can we come up with something more challenging than every mob in the zone memwiping every 5 seconds? I mean seriously that has to be the worst design I have ever seen.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>Haladan Moonrunner's AE is hitting for a crazy amount even at range against mages (13k damage non-crit). Druids will not be able to solo heal a mage group on this fight.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Haladan Moonrunner's AE is hitting for a crazy amount even at range against mages (13k damage non-crit). Druids will not be able to solo heal a mage group on this fight.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, but druids can't solo heal many mobs in this expansion, not really surprised they can't do so in this zone either.</p><p>The encounters are scaled to high in both hp and base damage of the aoe's for the stated difficulty level.  Add to that rewards that aren't as good as vp gear, and this zone might as well have gone unreleased.</p>

[Hecula]

<p>The large physical AOEs in this zone take certain planning to overcome. Guilds that have made progression into YIS past Kultak and those that are doing Avatars know how to survive these AOEs. Generally guilds that are just progressing past Thet and Xebnok are not set up to or have experience mitigating them. The Haladian encounter and the stuff past it requires a shift in setup that guilds don't usually do until later in the progression. Once guilds learn how to deal with physical AOEs the fight becomes much easier. But rather than admit that perhaps these encounters require more in planning and setup than slapping 24 people with average gear into a raid and going out and 2-pulling them, a lot of people I see just want them nerfed.</p><p>Just think of Haladian as good training for most of the upper-end of TSO.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The large physical AOEs in this zone take certain planning to overcome.</p><p>Just think of Haladian as good training for most of the upper-end of TSO.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, cause bringing more hp buffing healers, wards, and 4 set bonuses is a skill.   And almost requiring 4 set bonuses to do mobs that were to be scaled at thet/xeb level was the right difficulty setting...</p><p>I agree, when you've GEARED past the trauma aoe check, the fights aren't too bad, but they're not dropping rewards on par with that gear check.</p>

[Tehom]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The large physical AOEs in this zone take certain planning to overcome. Guilds that have made progression into YIS past Kultak and those that are doing Avatars know how to survive these AOEs. Generally guilds that are just progressing past Thet and Xebnok are not set up to or have experience mitigating them. The Haladian encounter and the stuff past it requires a shift in setup that guilds don't usually do until later in the progression. Once guilds learn how to deal with physical AOEs the fight becomes much easier. But rather than admit that perhaps these encounters require more in planning and setup than slapping 24 people with average gear into a raid and going out and 2-pulling them, a lot of people I see just want them nerfed.</p><p>Just think of Haladian as good training for most of the upper-end of TSO.</p></blockquote><p>The fact of the matter is that physical AEs make encounters harder, and you can't just blithely ignore the health and dps of mobs in comparative balance. Most of these fights are roughly the same in terms of health/dps to the middle MMB fights like Ozyk and Umzok, which puts them a bit above their intended difficulty.</p><p>Telling people that they don't know how to deal with trauma AEs is simply foolish, as that's a roster check - if they have a paladin, they'll run one. If they have doubled bards, they'd use them. If they could have templar/shaman stacked groups, sure. There's not a whole lot else to do besides get all your healers byzola belts, and everything else is just a gear check.</p><p>Mind you, I'm not really in favor of nerfing the mobs - given that we can obliterate them, I'd personally just like to see the loot massively upgraded so they're worthwhile farm targets. But they need to be itemized at least at the MMB level given the fights they're equivalent to.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Telling people that they don't know how to deal with trauma AEs is simply foolish, as that's a roster check - if they have a paladin, they'll run one. If they have doubled bards, they'd use them. If they could have templar/shaman stacked groups, sure. There's not a whole lot else to do besides get all your healers byzola belts, and everything else is just a gear check.</p></blockquote><p>It's also gear (like you said only bigtime) and skill - what about mit adorns? Temp mit buffs? STR debuffs? There are also other mit-proccing gear healers can find. You seem to know what it takes to survive them (although your comment about not being a whole lot else that will help was missing all the above) - the majority of people who fail won't be doing all of these things. They will think stacking healers and T4 set gear is enough. I'll stand by what I say. Most raids will fail because they do not set themselves up to survive the physical AOE. Then they'll come here and complain for the encounters to be nerfed. As a mage set up to survive them (mit adorns on Forearms and both wrists + Paladin in raid and jousting properly) I was getting hit for 3-5K unwarded. That's a piece of cake to survive.</p><p>I will add that I too feel that some of these encounters have too many HPs and the rewards are utter garbage. These things should be corrected. Reducing damage output and/or changing the AOEs is not needed.</p>

[Tehom]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It's also gear (like you said only bigtime) and skill - what about mit adorns? Temp mit buffs? STR debuffs? There are also other mit-proccing gear healers can find. You seem to know what it takes to survive them (although your comment about not being a whole lot else that will help was missing all the above) - the majority of people who fail won't be doing all of these things. They will think stacking healers and T4 set gear is enough. I'll stand by what I say. Most raids will fail because they do not set themselves up to survive the physical AOE. Then they'll come here and complain for the encounters to be nerfed. As a mage set up to survive them (mit adorns on Forearms and both wrists + Paladin in raid and jousting properly) I was getting hit for 3-5K unwarded. That's a piece of cake to survive.</p><p>I will add that I too feel that some of these encounters have too many HPs and the rewards are utter garbage. These things should be corrected. Reducing damage output and/or changing the AOEs is not needed.</p></blockquote><p>I took all those for granted, because there's no reason not to use mit adorns or hp adorns - mages should be capped anyway, so a mage using int adornments on wrists or forearms is foolish. Things like gynok belt are out of progression for the intended audience of the zone (and worse than byzola anyway), so I didn't bother to mention that or similar items. I can't think of many temporary mit buffs that'd be useful in AE situations - warriors aren't typically placed with casters, a fury stifling himself means you're screwed anyway due to having a fury, etc. Similarly mentioning debuffs is redundant, unless you don't have a scout using enfeebling or other players who don't know what they're doing, but the overall value of how much you debuff by is again a roster check based on random variations of subclass differences.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>Lemee put it this way.</p><p>I have my full T7 set armor on my Conjuror. Over 11,000 HP solo.</p><p>I cannot reliably survive Haladan Moonrunner's trauma AE without another 2000 HP even at max range. The AE cuts right through physical mitigation like it's not even there. Even when I'm raid buffed and I have 50% mitigation (which is a lot for a mage) I still take up to 13k damage at maximum range, non-crit.</p><p>According to my logs Tusker's AE is also hitting harder than it's supposed to. I took 11.9k hits non-crit, and it's only supposed to hit for at most 9884.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>I'm going to guess the level of the mobs probably is causing most of them to do a lot more damage than intended. They're all level 88(I think?), but probably have copies of AEs from mobs 3 levels below them. I'm not sure if giving them all about 10-15 more million health than they should have was a typo or what.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I cannot reliably survive Haladan Moonrunner's trauma AE without another 2000 HP even at max range. The AE cuts right through physical mitigation like it's not even there. Even when I'm raid buffed and I have 50% mitigation (which is a lot for a mage) I still take up to 13k damage at maximum range, non-crit.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure what the issue was then - I looked at your gear - you shouldn't be taking that high of hits. Our caster group was being solo-healed by a Inq and noone was getting one-shotted by the AOE. Not even close. Only deaths were when Tuskers aggro dropped onto someone. Our caster group doesn't have much better gear than you do so not sure why you were getting hit that hard without being there.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I cannot reliably survive Haladan Moonrunner's trauma AE without another 2000 HP even at max range. The AE cuts right through physical mitigation like it's not even there. Even when I'm raid buffed and I have 50% mitigation (which is a lot for a mage) I still take up to 13k damage at maximum range, non-crit.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not sure what the issue was then - I looked at your gear - you shouldn't be taking that high of hits. Our caster group was being solo-healed by a Inq and noone was getting one-shotted by the AOE. Not even close. Only deaths were when Tuskers aggro dropped onto someone. Our caster group doesn't have much better gear than you do so not sure why you were getting hit that hard without being there.</p></blockquote><p>I'm assuming your inq has his 4 set and aa in tenacity giving him the extra 2000 hp roughly that he mentioned.</p>

[Xao June]

<p>If developers insist on including physical AEs on raid mobs, they need to provide mages with a means of obtaining chain armor mitigation values without sacrificing DPS in any form.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm assuming your inq has his 4 set and aa in tenacity giving him the extra 2000 hp roughly that he mentioned.</p></blockquote><p>I would assume. But we didn't experience people dropping into the red at all on the AOEs. Not even dropping by 50% health. Tenacity alone doesn't account for that. It could be they were set up a bit too close to the name on the AOE - it is range-based. Also, you shouldn't be dealing with Tusker's frontal or PBAOE (whichever it is) at all if you position him correctly. Perhaps people were dying to a stackup of factors and not just the single AOE? Did you check ACT for the damage sources or are you just going by the fact that it looked like you died to the big AOE and you had about 13K health?</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Hecula wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm assuming your inq has his 4 set and aa in tenacity giving him the extra 2000 hp roughly that he mentioned.</p></blockquote><p>I would assume. But we didn't experience people dropping into the red at all on the AOEs. Not even dropping by 50% health. Tenacity alone doesn't account for that. It could be they were set up a bit too close to the name on the AOE - it is range-based. Also, you shouldn't be dealing with Tusker's frontal or PBAOE (whichever it is) at all if you position him correctly. Perhaps people were dying to a stackup of factors and not just the single AOE? Did you check ACT for the damage sources or are you just going by the fact that it looked like you died to the big AOE and you had about 13K health?</p></blockquote><p>Act reports mages getting hit in 10-12k hits from trauma aoe's on this fight.  They were positioned behind healers at max heal range, well past the break point on the smaller damage amounts.  To note, I've got scouts getting hit at 9.5k who are at the higher range break point.</p><p>Someone else suggested the level con is causing mitigation to not be calculated effectively, as if you examine the effects, they are actually hitting non-crit for more than the raw damage amount listed.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>There are three possibilities here:</p><p>1.  The mobs can bug and that's what some of you are seeing.</p><p>2.  Some folks are not being completely honest about their range to Haladan.</p><p>3.  Some folks are not completely aware of the location of both mobs, and are getting both AE's.</p><p>We didn't have any Mage surviveability problems really, one we got both mobs positioned properly.</p><p>We set up in such a way that the mobs were pretty far apart.  Far enough that healers were max range from the tank they were healing, and between the two sets of healers there was a "safe" zone for Mages that was more than max heal range from both mobs.</p><p>I dunno, once we figured out the positioning and made sure that everyone stayed there, using walls and stuff to backstop the knockback, it worked out ok.  Only a couple deaths.</p><p>This is NOT the Enraged version mind you.  Just the regular.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Banditman wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>There are three possibilities here:</p><p>1.  The mobs can bug and that's what some of you are seeing.</p><p>2.  Some folks are not being completely honest about their range to Haladan.</p><p>3.  Some folks are not completely aware of the location of both mobs, and are getting both AE's.</p></blockquote><p>It's difficult to explain, but we're tanking Haldon right where he spawns, with the mamoth at the next pillar over on the outside wall.</p><p>Healers can then stand near the cusp of the mound in the center of the room and be at roughly max range to both tanks.  Mages are then standing behind them so they are at 20 or greater to both mobs.</p><p>Its pretty clear they're outside of the close check, and if/when someone was foolish enough to be inside the close check they aren't hitting for 10-12k they're getting 20k+.  So, well, its fairly clear to differentiate the near/far damage break point on mages.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>People also tend to have a little trouble realizing when they're actually taking warded hits since it's usually not explicitly stated in ACT, so that usually throws anecdotal evidence completely out of whack unless people know how to read closely. A spiritual shrine or two, hateshield procs, zarr ear/mree ring procs, and others are pretty massive swings, and much moreso are alert shamans taking care to single-ward casters in other groups.</p><p>In any case, I think most of the bosses need to have their level reduced to match their intended difficulty. I think most of the fights are kind of structurally fun, though. They just need to be both made easier and their loot massively upgraded to achieve their goal of providing a stepping stone to guilds mired on the Xebnok stage of progression.</p>

[Hecula]

<p><cite>Chath@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>People also tend to have a little trouble realizing when they're actually taking warded hits since it's usually not explicitly stated in ACT, so that usually throws anecdotal evidence completely out of whack unless people know how to read closely. A spiritual shrine or two, hateshield procs, zarr ear/mree ring procs, and others are pretty massive swings, and much moreso are alert shamans taking care to single-ward casters in other groups.</p><p>In any case, I think most of the bosses need to have their level reduced to match their intended difficulty. I think most of the fights are kind of structurally fun, though. They just need to be both made easier and their loot massively upgraded to achieve their goal of providing a stepping stone to guilds mired on the Xebnok stage of progression.</p></blockquote><p>I agree to the extent that any evidence is anecdotal - I'm not going to dig up and post ACT data - it's not that important for me. But since we're not in court, anecdotal should be fine. Generally, I didn't think the AOEs were a big deal. I think others are with me on that. Who knows why Xalmat's Conji wasn't able to survive the AOE and our casters had no problem. But by the fact that they are not only survivable but easily survivable *somehow* tends to lend weight to the idea that they don't have to be adjusted.</p><p>I rather think the loot should be tuned to the encounter. Something as difficult as Xebnok should drop loot in line.</p><p>BTW - be careful putting people up near the center of the room - there are bad LOS issues there and someone kicked back over the lip may be out of sight for the healers and that will make the AOEs a problem.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>My logs clearly show me getting hit for more than max damage on Tusker's AE. Non-crit.</p><p>Tusker's AE does not have a range differential, it's the same amount of damage as long as you get hit.</p>

[Tehom]

<p>I think it's more or less okay if Tuskers' AEs aren't survivable for mages since they shouldn't be hit at all by them. Haladan's AEs seemed far more threatening than mobs at equivalent stages of progression, however, and I generally feel that Tuskers' blurs make him a much more challenging fight than Xebnok is. The health of the mobs is clearly out of line, though, and their loot is ridiculously bad.</p>