Any chance we'll get a challenge heroic instance?

[Yimway]

Where is the PoF/ Nizara / Nek3 / etc type instance for this expansion?

Nothing really feels even mildly challenging this xpac for heroic progression.  Are we going to see something challenging in any of the upcoming GU's?

[Banditman]

Erudin Royal Palace is it, I think.  Certainly nothing like PoF in this expansion.

[Dasein]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Where is the PoF/ Nizara / Nek3 / etc type instance for this expansion?

Nothing really feels even mildly challenging this xpac for heroic progression.  Are we going to see something challenging in any of the upcoming GU's?

ERP is on par with PoF, save for Varsoon. Cella and Vig 3 are still fairly challenging for non-raid-geared groups

[Yimway]

Dasein wrote:

ERP is on par with PoF, save for Varsoon. Cella and Vig 3 are still fairly challenging for non-raid-geared groups

I disagree with that entirely.  ERP is easily cleared with no real challenging encounter anywhere in it.   Cella is only mildly challenging for certain tank types, and doesn't present a challenge for a geared group or a non-geared one with the right makeup. 

Vig3 is probably the most challenging zone I saw this xpac, and it felt not as difficult as Guk's the first time we ran them.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but it seems all the 'hard' heroic content this xpac I'm doing in a half conscious stupor.  It feels to me you can take 1 moderately proficient tank, one moderately proficient healer, and 4 random pugs and clear every instance.

Honestly, thats what 95% of the content should be and I'm fine with that.  Just traditionally we had one challenge zone out there to cut our teeth on that you wanted to bring proficient players with and have some sort of challenge completing.

[circusgirl]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Dasein wrote:

ERP is on par with PoF, save for Varsoon. Cella and Vig 3 are still fairly challenging for non-raid-geared groups

I disagree with that entirely.  ERP is easily cleared with no real challenging encounter anywhere in it.   Cella is only mildly challenging for certain tank types, and doesn't present a challenge for a geared group or a non-geared one with the right makeup. 

Vig3 is probably the most challenging zone I saw this xpac, and it felt not as difficult as Guk's the first time we ran them.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but it seems all the 'hard' heroic content this xpac I'm doing in a half conscious stupor.  It feels to me you can take 1 moderately proficient tank, one moderately proficient healer, and 4 random pugs and clear every instance.

Prawn & Co. are a decent dps check.  Maybe not to the extent that the trio in the library in Palace were, but its enough to make it so the other members of the group matter and you can't just heal through it.

[Olarad]

I couldn't agree more here.  Palace of ferzul was a real challenge, and took a solid group.  No zone this xpac even comes close.  Also the signature quest for this xpac was lame with a lame reward compared to the TSO sig quest

[Banditman]

Definitely nothing in this expansion "scares" you the way Outer Stronghold or Palace of Ferhzul did.

The hardest zones in this expansion compare most reliably to something like Lower Corridors or perhaps Atrebe's Lab.

[Yimway]

Banditman wrote:

The hardest zones in this expansion compare most reliably to something like Lower Corridors or perhaps Atrebe's Lab.

Yeah ERP felt about as hard as Atrebe's when TSO launched (pre nerfs).

I think many of us have come to expect just one hard zone laying out there in each tier to work out, was just hoping one might come in the GU in the summer.

[Dasein]

Part of it is that since this expansion raised the level cap, there need to be zones that are intended for the sub-90 crowd, like Library, Conservatory and DB. Thus, there are fewer resources available to create really hard zones, and such zones would likely lead to lots of complaints, so there is little incentive for the devs to bother with something very hard right away.

[Obadiah]

I would rather see multiple versions of zones/encounters a la the raid zones.

While nothing in this expansion is at the difficulty level of Varsoon, overall the heroic zones are harder than the TSO zones IMO. Not in a bad way, but I will never ever ever go with a PUG to any Vigilant (OK, maybe #2) or to ERP. I would opine that ERP is the most difficult zone. But 3-4 zones I'd never PUG is more than TSO had (YoS, PoF).

Maybe that number will diminish over time since more people than ever are getting raid gear for plat. Maybe not. But I'd wager the percentage of players that are never able to finish all of these heroic zones will be on par with what that percentage was in TSO.

[Crismorn]

No one is ever happy with heroic content.

You either get some challenging zones/encounters with good rewards like TSO or you get neither like SF

[Obadiah]

Crismorn wrote:

No one is ever happy with heroic content.

You either get some challenging zones/encounters with good rewards like TSO or you get neither like SF

Well, SOME people are happy. But you sure can't please everyone. I was extremely pleased with TSO. I don't think the game ever had heroic content that good. (Unfortunately this was somewhat lost in that to get much of the good shard gear you didn't need a group)

I think the heroic content in SF is great. Not quite up to snuff with TSO, but a solid mix of easy, moderate, and no-PUG. And even the easiest zones have potential fabled drops in them that I'd wear (at least situationally) on my raiding main. I haven't seen any of the new drops added with the upcoming GU, but that seems like a good idea too.

I should have also mentioned in my other post that although I think there is plenty of challenge and variety in the current zones, I too would love to see more added with a GU, preferably on the less-cakey side.

[Detor]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Dasein wrote:

ERP is on par with PoF, save for Varsoon. Cella and Vig 3 are still fairly challenging for non-raid-geared groups

I disagree with that entirely.  ERP is easily cleared with no real challenging encounter anywhere in it.   Cella is only mildly challenging for certain tank types, and doesn't present a challenge for a geared group or a non-geared one with the right makeup. 

Vig3 is probably the most challenging zone I saw this xpac, and it felt not as difficult as Guk's the first time we ran them.

Maybe I'm just jaded, but it seems all the 'hard' heroic content this xpac I'm doing in a half conscious stupor.  It feels to me you can take 1 moderately proficient tank, one moderately proficient healer, and 4 random pugs and clear every instance.

Honestly, thats what 95% of the content should be and I'm fine with that.  Just traditionally we had one challenge zone out there to cut our teeth on that you wanted to bring proficient players with and have some sort of challenge completing.

What do you know about Erudin Royal Palace that I don't?  The 4 goat encounter alone is WAY harder than Vigilant 3.  If you have the gear to make Erudin Royal Palace pose no challenge I really don't see how Vigilant 3 can be any kind of obstacle to you.

[Kunaak]

not one single instance in this expansion is difficult.

I tanked, and completed every zone in the game - first try, with TSO gear, and no SF gear, and only level 90, and about 210 AA, and old tier masters.

nothings hard.

el'arads a joke, he goes down in less then a minute.

vigilant rescue is no challenge - just alot of people over think the last name, and screw up trying to do 10 things at once.

the hole instances arent even worth mentioning.

nothing in heroic instances this expansion is hard. the closest might be the queen in cella - but thats not hard either, its a control fight. once you know how to do it, its easy to do with 4 people.

[Dasein]

Kunaak wrote:

not one single instance in this expansion is difficult.

I tanked, and completed every zone in the game - first try, with TSO gear, and no SF gear, and only level 90, and about 210 AA, and old tier masters.

nothings hard.

el'arads a joke, he goes down in less then a minute.

vigilant rescue is no challenge - just alot of people over think the last name, and screw up trying to do 10 things at once.

the hole instances arent even worth mentioning.

nothing in heroic instances this expansion is hard. the closest might be the queen in cella - but thats not hard either, its a control fight. once you know how to do it, its easy to do with 4 people.

And what percentage of the population is able to do that? Just because you claim the zones are easy does not mean that the general population is going to find them easy.

[Tehom]

It's worth noting that pretty much every time they've added challenging dungeon content, it wasn't coupled with a level increase. Nizara, Ferzul, Outer Stronghold, etc, were all added after we'd been at a given level cap for a while. I generally think it's more difficult for them to estimate player capabilities when we're getting a level increase, so we'll probably see something like this along later once players have had appropriate gear progression at the new level cap.

[Kunaak]

Dasein wrote:

And what percentage of the population is able to do that? Just because you claim the zones are easy does not mean that the general population is going to find them easy.

so because some casual guild cant muster together a strat for the 3 minotaurs, the rest of us have to trudge through a expansion that is basically no more difficult then crucible was in TSO?

there use to be something for everyone in SF, if you really sought a challence, you had outer stronghold and varsoon.

if you wanted easy, you had deep forge and OOA.

now the entire expansions selection of instances, range from being duo'd, to barely requiring 4 people to get it done. thing is, a instance tank, has more crit bonus, more ward gear, and more potency, then I did when starting to tank SF zones in a few pieces of raid gear, and little AA, and no 81+ masters.

thing is, nothing in these instances is actually hard - unless you have no idea what to do. the minotaurs that some say is so hard.... is only hard if you over think the encounter. you dont need anyone to mezz, root, or a warlock, or swash, or 2 healers, or raid gear or anything else. infact - the more AOE damage you got, the faster you should expect to die.

I just think this expansions instances have went far to "Hello Kitty Adventure Island" and lost all challenge.

[yadlajoi]

Dasein wrote:

Kunaak wrote:

not one single instance in this expansion is difficult.

I tanked, and completed every zone in the game - first try, with TSO gear, and no SF gear, and only level 90, and about 210 AA, and old tier masters.

nothings hard.

el'arads a joke, he goes down in less then a minute.

vigilant rescue is no challenge - just alot of people over think the last name, and screw up trying to do 10 things at once.

the hole instances arent even worth mentioning.

nothing in heroic instances this expansion is hard. the closest might be the queen in cella - but thats not hard either, its a control fight. once you know how to do it, its easy to do with 4 people.

And what percentage of the population is able to do that? Just because you claim the zones are easy does not mean that the general population is going to find them easy.

Pretty much 70% of the population. are you part of the 30% minority?

Fact is these instance need to all be harded by a huge amount hole being somewhat as hard as repository/atrebe and then increase the difficulty way above outer stronghold or  PoF because we have 50 more aa now to make it easier.

[Gungo]

The challenge of heroic content this expansion is where it should be. You shouldnt require raid gear to clear content that drops subpar loot. That doesnt even make remotely eany sense. If you think ERP and Vigilant rescue are a easy move onto the next progressive zone Vigilant x2. Being someone who does alot of pickup groups. There are many players who still cant handle the Praun and Co in ERP.

[Yimway]

Detor wrote:

What do you know about Erudin Royal Palace that I don't?  The 4 goat encounter alone is WAY harder than Vigilant 3.  If you have the gear to make Erudin Royal Palace pose no challenge I really don't see how Vigilant 3 can be any kind of obstacle to you.

What made it hard?  First time in, just aoe tanked it, don't recall doing anything special or anyone dieing.

Since the first time in, we've adopted a kill order, but the first time just took longer as we figured it out.  There was no scripted fail condition.  Just a matter of keeping 4 mobs pointed at the tank and sustaining heals is all I noticed.

The last name in ERP has a scripted fail condition, but in my opinion it is vastly easier than the scripted fail conditions in TSO dungeons.

In my estimation, V3 was harder as you could easily have issues with positioning one shotting people, porting and getting spear thrown at you simultaneously, and it was significantly difficult to solo heal.  Granted, it may have been nerfed since I did it initially.  I've had no reason to go back and repeat this content as of yet.

[Yimway]

Gungo wrote:

If you think ERP and Vigilant rescue are a easy move onto the next progressive zone Vigilant x2. Being someone who does alot of pickup groups. There are many players who still cant handle the Praun and Co in ERP.

And there were many people that couldn't handle the teleport beast in Atrebe's pre-nerf.  It didn't however prevent there being atleast one hard zone out there.

I too feel most of the Heroic content this xpac is where it should be, I just feel its missing the last final zone.  I've come to expect a heroic zone as hard or harder than Vx2 with each tier, and this tier seems void without one.  I'm just curious if there is one in the works for a near term GU to give us something to do other than raid.

[Xill]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Detor wrote:

What do you know about Erudin Royal Palace that I don't?  The 4 goat encounter alone is WAY harder than Vigilant 3.  If you have the gear to make Erudin Royal Palace pose no challenge I really don't see how Vigilant 3 can be any kind of obstacle to you.

What made it hard?  First time in, just aoe tanked it, don't recall doing anything special or anyone dieing.

Since the first time in, we've adopted a kill order, but the first time just took longer as we figured it out.  There was no scripted fail condition.  Just a matter of keeping 4 mobs pointed at the tank and sustaining heals is all I noticed.

The last name in ERP has a scripted fail condition, but in my opinion it is vastly easier than the scripted fail conditions in TSO dungeons.

In my estimation, V3 was harder as you could easily have issues with positioning one shotting people, porting and getting spear thrown at you simultaneously, and it was significantly difficult to solo heal.  Granted, it may have been nerfed since I did it initially.  I've had no reason to go back and repeat this content as of yet.

We went in a cleared Vig: Rescue about a week and a half into the expac. Couldnt get the Praun encounter down until recently. Albeit we stopped trying for awhile, and the last time we did get it on the first try it was significantly harder then anything in the vigilant zones including the final named in rescue. Hardest part of Praun was we had a monk tank that couldnt keep AoE aggro long enough for our low DPS to kill them off. But with the same setup and some raid gear it was easy as hell. But thats with raid gear so it should be easy as hell.

Funny enough, we clear rescue easy and hit vigx2 to get totally blocked by the dogs even now.

[Crismorn]

Gungo wrote:

The challenge of heroic content this expansion is where it should be. You shouldnt require raid gear to clear content that drops subpar loot. That doesnt even make remotely eany sense. If you think ERP and Vigilant rescue are a easy move onto the next progressive zone Vigilant x2. Being someone who does alot of pickup groups. There are many players who still cant handle the Praun and Co in ERP.

No heroic zone in TSO required raid gear, they were all cleared by people using level 80 RoK gear I know cause I was one of them.

You CAN have difficulty in heroic zones without needing raid gear, Palace of Ferzhul was fairly difficult at the start of TSO and you were rewarded appropriately for your time spent along with the difficulty.

The loot would be better if there was challenge involved, its either one or the other.

[Detor]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Detor wrote:

What do you know about Erudin Royal Palace that I don't?  The 4 goat encounter alone is WAY harder than Vigilant 3.  If you have the gear to make Erudin Royal Palace pose no challenge I really don't see how Vigilant 3 can be any kind of obstacle to you.

What made it hard?  First time in, just aoe tanked it, don't recall doing anything special or anyone dieing.

Since the first time in, we've adopted a kill order, but the first time just took longer as we figured it out.  There was no scripted fail condition.  Just a matter of keeping 4 mobs pointed at the tank and sustaining heals is all I noticed.

The last name in ERP has a scripted fail condition, but in my opinion it is vastly easier than the scripted fail conditions in TSO dungeons.

In my estimation, V3 was harder as you could easily have issues with positioning one shotting people, porting and getting spear thrown at you simultaneously, and it was significantly difficult to solo heal.  Granted, it may have been nerfed since I did it initially.  I've had no reason to go back and repeat this content as of yet.

I've got a regular guild group that's got Marus Xand down to the point of no deaths now, yet we still aren't coming close to doing the 4 goat encounter.  Paladin tank.  You have to kill Z first or he'll just heal anybody else.  Tank's on Z, then Warlord goes for somebody else, tank uses holy ground (half the time it doesn't work to get aggro off other person and they're being pulverized by an orange con named so he has to use rescue too).  Then when warlord is back on him he goes back to Z.  Then Praun memwipes, he has to use his only other snap aggro tool (I don't remember the name he said).  Usually praun kills whoever he's on, but on the rare occasion praun actually goes back to the tank just 5 seconds later warlord's back on somebody else and the group wipes.  He's of course using sigil of heroism, and putting amends on our higher DPSer (15k DPS). In my personal experience Queen is the easiest, then Marus Xand, and then the goat encounter is what fighting 5 marus xands would be like.

[Tehom]

I'm not sure why you find Praun so much harder than queen or marus xand - are you triggering more than one wave at a time? Doing that was the only time I felt it was pretty rough with a non-raid geared tank.

[Kunaak]

Spoiler: how to beat the Minotaurs....

since so many seem to have trouble with this encounter, I'll give you a simple hard to fail with strat. when I said "most groups tend to overthink the encounter", what I meant is, they make it far harder on themself then it needs to be.

the only real thing to deal with, is the adds, the adds come after about 30 seconds, and the closer each name is to being dead, the more adds come. so no AOE's, no Hurricane, no berserker whirlwind, no SK stuff, no warlock crazyness.

each name has a chance to spawn 4 adds, the encounter itself doesnt hit hard, as long as the tanks the one getting hit. if you go single target DPS, all the tank has to do, is actually hold aggro. now, you burn the name down as much as possible till 4 adds spawn, swap to the adds, get them down, get back to the 1 name you were killing.

rinse, and repeat.

if you sit there and get all 4 names half dead, and the adds spawn, you get 16 adds...

its not a DPS fight, its a control fight, and they have little hit points on thier own. I've done this strat a dozen times myself, I've taught other tanks to do this strat, as I healed the zone, or ran it on my troub, cause the same thing seems to happen everytime. most tanks want to try and mega burn the entire thing down - and only get the group killed as the adds spawn. or they want to mezz everything, and then no AOE's... or 100 different kooky ideas. the way to handle it is simple. control the adds, kill the name - rinse, repeat.

[feldon30]

Gungo wrote:

The challenge of heroic content this expansion is where it should be. You shouldnt require raid gear to clear content that drops subpar loot. That doesnt even make remotely eany sense.

So you want to take away player choice. Your preference is that zones like Nizara, Nek 3, and Palace of Ferzul should never have existed?

I don't know about your guild, but in my old raid guild, after the raid, a core group of 6 players would go to the hardest dungeon available and try to run it as fast as possible to blow off steam. There's no such option this expansion. It's all ezmode if you have raid gear.

Considering each group zone in TSO had at least 1 fabled item that was comparable to raid fabled, and the x2 raid zone in SF has some of the best charms and weapons in the game, your point about trying to stick with some preconceived notion about itemization progression is rather moot anyway.

If every group zone, x2 zone, and x4 zone fits a certain mold with no variation, the game gets boring. Making really hard group zones, really accessible x2 zones, making tradeskill zones, making duo/trio zones, making ezmode, hardmode, contested raid content, instance group zones, open sprawling dungeons, are all interesting to me.

Player choice is good.

[Notsovilepriest]

I miss Nizara challenge heroic zones. Right now I loath running instances and basically only raid and BG, but if there was a Nizara like zone, I would run that every day.

FLAME CLAW!

[steelbadger]

yadlajoi wrote:

Pretty much 70% of the population. are you part of the 30% minority?

Fact is these instance need to all be harded by a huge amount hole being somewhat as hard as repository/atrebe and then increase the difficulty way above outer stronghold or  PoF because we have 50 more aa now to make it easier.

I'm unsure about this, ever been in a pick-up-group?  Seems to me that 90% of the people not on my friendslist/in my guild/on the friendslists of those people are so bad it hurts.

[Couching]

Kunaak wrote:

Spoiler: how to beat the Minotaurs....

since so many seem to have trouble with this encounter, I'll give you a simple hard to fail with strat. when I said "most groups tend to overthink the encounter", what I meant is, they make it far harder on themself then it needs to be.

the only real thing to deal with, is the adds, the adds come after about 30 seconds, and the closer each name is to being dead, the more adds come. so no AOE's, no Hurricane, no berserker whirlwind, no SK stuff, no warlock crazyness.

each name has a chance to spawn 4 adds, the encounter itself doesnt hit hard, as long as the tanks the one getting hit. if you go single target DPS, all the tank has to do, is actually hold aggro. now, you burn the name down as much as possible till 4 adds spawn, swap to the adds, get them down, get back to the 1 name you were killing.

rinse, and repeat.

if you sit there and get all 4 names half dead, and the adds spawn, you get 16 adds...

its not a DPS fight, its a control fight, and they have little hit points on thier own. I've done this strat a dozen times myself, I've taught other tanks to do this strat, as I healed the zone, or ran it on my troub, cause the same thing seems to happen everytime. most tanks want to try and mega burn the entire thing down - and only get the group killed as the adds spawn. or they want to mezz everything, and then no AOE's... or 100 different kooky ideas. the way to handle it is simple. control the adds, kill the name - rinse, repeat.

Good strategy but not for every type of tank.

Unless tank has aoe/encounter rescue, with low dps and kill adds everytime whenever they spawn, tank is going to run out of single target snap tools on 2 mem wipe goats. 

I can see how this encounter is easy for some classes such as zerker, bruiser and crusaders. 

As a monk, full burn on 4 goats and ignore adds before running out of single target snap tools is a better way to beat this encounter.