Tiers 9 through 11 balancing (See post #4 for current status)

Tao edit: Lindstrom of <Companions>

A lot of those Tarhyl mobs are considered mini-bosses. Their strategies, difficulty, and loot are generally less epic than zone or wing bosses. Zone bosses tend to have huge loot tables like DoTo, Versikol, Thaz, Saitha, whereas the mini-bosses offer less loot for an easier kill. Every mini boss cannot possibly be harder than the previous zone boss. I would keep Tier 10-11 sanctum out of this presumption because I believe the difficulty scales up pretty evenly from Gongoerth to NZ and then Custodian. That is only within itself though, I don't know what I would compare sanctum to since content elsewhere around its tier was designed vastly different from it.
 
Anvyl, from Companions

I would consider our guild to be t10, most of our gear is from this tier or the tier below just due to that slot not having a new "on tier" item yet, at least from things we've managed to kill, generally this slot tends to be pants or shoulders.

We've killed most of the t10 targets before the recent edit to the wiki which now has Spires mobs listed and Sanctum bosses for that matter that were previously listed as t11.

"Do you think your guild is ready to try some new encounters that are more challenging?"

Each new t10 target is generally a new challenge/learning opportunity, this has never scared us off before, so see no reason we wouldn't be ready to try more challenging targets in the future.

"Do you think your guild spends enough time raiding to attempt new challenging encounters and still get some upgrades from encounters you've killed a few times before in a given 2 week period?"

Yes and no, I mean, we are casual, so we only raid twice a week though we have some more active members who wouldn't mind raiding more. But we do generally kill a target or two a week that we've killed numerous times before to get upgrades for people still lacking the items.

"What encounters have you done recently that you really struggled with and had the loot rot?"

This tends to only occur with mobs that have items with *very* select classes on them, like when we first whacked Animation in Yclist and rotted the mnk/bst weapon. The encounter really coming to mind though is in Abyss.... (2 spears, many a curse word was spouted by me)

Really looking forward to trying the almighty Prime and Sanctum bosses.

"Are there any encounters where you think some part of the encounter is unfair?"

The mechanics in t10 seem to be pushing more and more towards having no boxxed toons, so its hard to say a part of an encounter is unfair, although a number of times we are stuck with having one or two people box and this doesn't really make the bottle-necking Ferdin possible due to the earthquake action (17%, sigh)

"Are there any encounters that you enjoy doing even if they don't provide any loot that you could personally use?"

Old Overgrowth, I don't know if he has more loot then the 3 that were previously listed, plus the arms I added to the wiki. You have to think a little outside the box to kill him, but I have not seen a single item I would want.
 
I will appologize right now, this is going to be a long thread, I have a lot to say on this topic.

(1) Who are you? What guild are you in? (remember all of your posts in this thread must include this information)
Shimone <FwF>
Moraelin <Sacred Band>

(2) What tier would you consider your guild to be?
Shimone (13)
Moraelin (11?)

(3) Do you think that most of your guild's regular raid force has gear that is pretty much from that tier you listed or the tier before, or do you think there are a lot of members with numerous pieces from 3-4 tiers back?
Core raiders yes, entire force no. We have some newer members due to people quitting and needing more numbers, but still have available toons that they can play when thier toon is not beefy enough.

(4) Have you killed some/many/most/all of the encounters that the wiki lists as being that tier you consider your guild to be?
Yes
Yes

(5) Have you killed any of the encounters in the next higher tier, according to the wiki's current listings?
No
Yes

(6) Do you think your guild is ready to try some new encounters that are more challenging?
Not in the current state of things

(7) Do you think your guild spends enough time raiding to attempt new challenging encounters and still get some upgrades from encounters you've killed a few times before in a given 2 week period?

Yes

(8) What encounters have you done recently that you really struggled with and had the loot rot?
None recently due to backgearing somewhat.

(9) What encounters are you looking forward to trying?

Akarn, Kaltan, Ghan and Gan

(10) What encounters are you thinking "I don't even want to try that", and why do you feel that way about them?
Conglo, voidworm, Gruinet, all of thaz.

(11) Are there any encounters where you think some part of the encounter is unfair?
yes, will detail this out later

(12) Are there any encounters that you enjoy doing even if they don't provide any loot that you could personally use?
yes, most of spires, all of IS, gens, well, and all of yclist.

Now is where it is going to get a touch length I will go by tier and by encounter and gove my opinions on the fights. I may have a touch of spoiler alerts so do not read if you do not want strats. I will try and be as nonspecific as possible with still getting the point across.

Plane of Frost (the end of this zone) - This entire zone is ok as is
The Orator of Frost
The War Scholars

Grobb Undercity (minus perhaps the welcoming committee) - This entire zone is ok as is. I think the fights are balances and decent difficulty/progession wise
Primalist Zelia
Barrel Event
Leech Lord Xenar
Ganlak the Reaver
Serizus Blacktongue

Tower of Tarhyl (plus well) This entire zone is ok as is. I think the fights are balances and decent difficulty/progession wise. I really like the progression through the wings and the 'mini's' and 'bosses'
Bloodfire Wing
Mephar Wing
Farhag Wing
Eternal Well
Generals

Yclist, the Veiled City - This is where things start to get a touch hairy but in the end I do not think it needs any balancing
High Enchanter Yk'sil - Resist and tank check
Guardian of Yclist - tank/healers check, caster check, hp check on entire raid
High Enchanter Zo'rel - dps check and coordination check
Animation of Sil`rel`din - tank check somewhat and entire raid paying attention
Enchanter Apprentice Klikil - dps check
High Enchanter Fer`din - coordination and somewhat gear check
Prime Enchanter Sil'rel'din - gear and coordination check

Spires of Saitha
The Void Worm - unbeatable currently even with severly overtiered toons. In original form about what was expected from the first boss in a new zone. Fairly straight forward 1 little gimmick that makes it easier but still able to wipe on tier. It does hit fairly hard so need to pay attention.
Conglomeration - incredibly difficult on tier and the strat behind it is very intensive. Requires lots of mana from healers and the 'burn' phases and thier are multiple are devestating if you dont output the correct dps and you are unable to recoup if you miss any of the said burn phases. At the end of the day unless it is for a certain frag for a certain persson it has been the thought of the guild it is not worth the time investment. I would lighten the dps burn phases and reduce the effect of not burning fast enough
A failed golem - about what it should be. Straight forward and eats tanks. Tanks need ac and hp, healers need mana.
Researcher Thek'rak - one of my favorite bosses in the zone even though it can go very smoothly or very ugly just depending on RNG. You need dps/solid tank/and good healers but coordinatin and strategy is very important. If anything i would put a larger delay in the shielding emote and when the adds pop/bad things happen when you dont follow directions. Also with recent changes hps could be tweaked some.
A reanimated priest - fairly well balanced, with recent changes hps could be tweaked some.
A perfected bone golem - wonderful fight need strats and good gear. Ok as is
A warped slave - hits like a truck on steroids.
The Ancient Guardians - requires coordination 3 tanks and good healers all in all I would say balanced.
An unbound shadow - Pretty rough especially with recent changes, might consider tweaking mob hps.
Iskkath the Mindful - requires strong tank/healers and good coordination. With the recent changes would tweak hps some but all in all about where it needs to be.
Iskkath's Experiment - FUN!!! It was never too difficult just trading 1 gimmick for another but I enjoy the fight both ways. I think it is better in original form and much more difficult.
Spires Twins - I do not know what was changed from when we were doing these originally and if/what changed around the time of the iskaath/VW change but damn. Originally we could beat these 2, and on a good night end with 14 or so people and 5% mana. On a bad night 4 or 5 ppl all OOM and Call of the blessed blown all shoes thrown nothing left remaining. Now/few weeks after changes we cant even get the dread captain to 50% life or so without wiping. They both hit harder/faster? and have way too many hps. Originally it was a long fight, think gongo long on tier if not longer and with the current hps on those 2 I think would need FwF type raid to have a clean win and dont even know if they could.
Akarn - Have not beat since changes. Before changes it would usually take 3-4 attempts and some luck to win but was doable. Post changes with mob ae'ing harder and 'gimmick' removed/changed havent figured it out but have put some decent time into it. I would really like to see this one go back to original otherwise I do not see any guild 'progressing' through to even come close. Originally it would take us usually 2-3 attempts of the ghost to beat the mob and now we struggle to get to/past the second. It is also very hard to try and derive a new strat craft with the difficulty of this event and everything going on and figuring out where what is coming from.
Mistress Saitha - if anything drop the hps slightly do to the dps nerfs. Still very duable but at any time can go through your tank so you need a second/third ready and high on aggro.

Tur`ruj (the front three tribes)
Tar`loc Tribe - could use the timer bumped up to maybe 45mins or 1h. On tier dps has areally hard time winning in time. It usually takes us 2-3 tries to beat this tribe. You essentially get 1 wipe/med break and thats it.
Ju`bor Tribe - Havent tried in new form was fun/pita in old
Ok`tar Tribe - Needs the timer changed dramatically I would say doubled at a min but most likely tripled or even removed. On tier dps has 0 shot at beating this in time, and you only get 1 shot at it. I would be a big fan of removing the timer. There are enough factors that limit how long you can tank esp with an on tier tank it takes 1 cleric 1 shaman and 1 druid/pal and a bard auxing to keep the tank alive. If your tank is awesome can do with 1 cleric and 1 shaman but it gets iffy.

Prison of Admyrrza (some of sanctum) - I would say this is perfect and balanced as is no tweaking necessary.
Gongoerth the First Wyrm
Eyes of the Father
Essence of the Mother
Master of the Pack
Nylastra'Zara, The Firstborn - super fun

Temple of Elael- I have 0 experience with this zone so I withhold comments
A menacing temple guard
Guardian of Elael

Thazeran's Tower (the lower wings) - From my experience the timers are absurd, traps and mobs very unforgiving of mistakes. I would reduce trash hps, and increase the timers by 2 or 3 fold, as well as have the timer reset when the mini dies.
Lower Air Miniboss
Lower Air Boss
Warden Dagrath (earth mini)
Vordrek the Earthen (earth boss)
Flamelord Koltar (fire mini)
Lower Fire Boss
Lower Water Miniboss
Lower Water Boss

Miscellaneous
Storm Tyrant Jor - never done
Cauldron of Dawn orc event - ok as is
Old Overgrowth
Heli`ze (should this be included?) - ok as is

As i progressed through these zones(turruj) originally and backgeared through some spires on shimone these zones were difficult and we still had some problems. As the guild as a whole went from T11-12-13 spires and the front of Turruj became infinitely easier. I remember wiping to Oktar and numerous other Turruj bosses on a more frequent that I would like to admit basis. I think the biggest problem and reason why it was seen as an issue to increase the difficulty was because how nice the highest end gear was and what it could trivialize. This is no different though from having full prison/tot gear and going back to valor a/Sepulcher.

Now on Moraelin we have progressed into turruj and killed every boss in spires at least once. Some have been SUPER difficult and we only on due to a little bit of luck, and some have been more easily farmed. We have had a much better time on the mobs that require coordination and strategy to that require gear. We cannot beat Oktar even with 'bigger help' and people boxing toons that are bigger than thier own. I think a lot of the higher end things will be dramatically affected by the recent changes, esp BW gloves and monk nerfs but that is for a different post. There has been a general shift of power away from the higher end that makes things considerably more difficult and a lot of people have left many from frustrations. I think the biggest things that need to be looked at are as follows and have allready been stated before:

1) Revert spires to its original or somewhat original form
2) Reduce mob hps to reflect the lesser dps being done

Notes* The extra healing that was taken away from the priests is more noticeable in exp groups than in raids and the ae dmg is still manageable. There are some fights where it is pretty high and might be out of line but that again is for a different post.

Sorry for the lengthy response.
 
Evye From Accounting

T9 seems fine, it is a pretty thick tier, lots of targets and plenty to progress and farm, nothing sticks out as a problem. As others have said T10 starts the issues. If you look at the wiki tier list you find that t10 simply doesn't have as many targets as previous tiers AND many of those targets are not accessible till you are rather deep t10. Spires and sanct both having flag requirements which basically leaves generals and yclist as the t10 content. Having to go back and farm IP as a t10 guild is silly and screws over the t6-8 guilds that actually need it. The zone boss of ycilst is apparently very hard and not killable without a very strong t10 raid force.

(2) What tier would you consider your guild to be?
t9 farm status and breaking into t10

(3) Do you think that most of your guild's regular raid force has gear that is pretty much from that tier you listed or the tier before, or do you think there are a lot of members with numerous pieces from 3-4 tiers back?
I would say most people have a pretty solid amount of t9 gear with maybe a sprinkling of t8 stuff, doubt anyone has more than a unlucky piece or 2 more than 1 tier behind

(4) Have you killed some/many/most/all of the encounters that the wiki lists as being that tier you consider your guild to be?
think we have killed all of t9

(5) Have you killed any of the encounters in the next higher tier, according to the wiki's current listings?
several t10 mobs down

(6) Do you think your guild is ready to try some new encounters that are more challenging?
Yes

(7) Do you think your guild spends enough time raiding to attempt new challenging encounters and still get some upgrades from encounters you've killed a few times before in a given 2 week period?
yes

(8) What encounters have you done recently that you really struggled with and had the loot rot?
Not really struggling with much, we 1shot several brand new bosses and downed generals on I think our 2nd or 3rd try and animation after 5-6 but some t9 stuff we have farmed awhile is starting to rot, seeing the same item rot 4 clears in a row and never even seeing other loots is annoying but thats random for ya

(9) What encounters are you looking forward to trying?
Doing the 6mans and abyss is what I most look forward to, besides those I would say outer and mid sanc is what I would most like to do, specifically Nylastra'Zara, The Firstborn.

(10) What encounters are you thinking "I don't even want to try that", and why do you feel that way about them?
Thaz, buggy/crashes having to reclear trash after 1-2 boss attempts and not impressive loot vs effort makes me not really care to go there, also having farmed old thaz a lot just makes the zone feel stale

(11) Are there any encounters where you think some part of the encounter is unfair?
None come to mind

(12) Are there any encounters that you enjoy doing even if they don't provide any loot that you could personally use?
most fights are fun the first few times regardless of loot, if someone is getting upgrades its all good, after farming it for weeks most fights get old if they are simple gear checks, fights with cool/fun mechanics can stay fun.

I think at least abyss should be included in this thread and probably 6mans as well, I don't think anyone is going to get through t10 without heavily farming them, the content simply isn't there. Bosses being buffed/gear being nerfed after years and years and years of it being farmed is a really common and really annoying thing in sod. Abyss was pugged by solo years ago, why some bosses in there just got there hp doubled is weird and confusing, what is the point? Do you think t10-11 is too hard or too easy? From a players perspective it looks like the devs feel it is far to easy all of a sudden because a lot of mobs are harder then they used to be but the real challenge of t10 is finding a t10 mob to kill. We basically get to backfarm t9 farm stuff and snipe generals until we have a non heavily boxed progression raid on and pray yclist is empty, if its not its more back gearing anyway. Maybe finishing sanc flag will change things, idk.

Edit: problem with sanc is the flag is gotten 3 tiers before you need it and is spread out over multiple people/classes, if you managed to get them all while on tier(unlikely) you have to retain all those members for the months of going from t7 to t10 to use it, if 1 person quits you have to go back 3 tiers and farm trash.
 
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Tao edit: Fidel of <Fair Weather Friends>

Tao asked a bunch of stuff and I didn't really read it and have trouble fitting into a rigid format but here is some words.


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Hi i am Fidel I am some guy and I have played in a bunch of guilds and have done non-ringer progression from teir 3 to teir 13. I no longer play very much and I currently occupy my time mostly by making fake dating profiles on German dating sites to hit on Nwaij. (logs on request)
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I actually created this list for spires over a year ago before the recent nerfs at the request of one of the devs and happened to still have it so I feel like here is a place to post it. Keep in mind that this is a list of changes that reflects old spires.


Spires recommended changes worksheet I made for Slaariel like a year ago:

Overall trash in spires is pretty solid, and the pacing is good, some of the bosses have a little bit too much clearing and so get skipped often, For instance there are probably too many mobs in the way to the perfected bone golem and in his room. And the third floor twins room is extremely slow and tedious to pull because of the very high dmg low resist spells the mobs in the room cast. I like the room and I like the pulls but maybe one of the pairs could be removed to help with pacing.

Bosses:

1)Void Worm: this guy is kind of a joke but it is the first fight in the zone so /shrug. I think the debuff could be cast more frequently.

2)Failed golem: This seems right on Teir and is a good fight and gear test for breaking into the zone.

3)Conglomeration: This also seems right on teir and is a pretty solid fight

4)Reanimated priest: Guilds seem to have more difficulty with this guy than most of the fights on this floor though, fwf skips this mob usually because of the difficulty and required raid make up, but i think it’s ok or at least i don’t know what i would change about it.

5)a perfected bone golem: this fight is good and on teir but maybe the clear to it is a little bit long like i said.

6)unbound shadow: good fight, on teir

7)Warped slave: this fight is probably the easiest in the zone, even on teir, I would recommend making it root the main tank and giving it gharontosh style ae so raid would have to move to each side of it instead of main tank flipping it. it needs another gimmick to make it interesting.

8)Iskkath: this fight is probably slightly too easy also, I would make the wisps less forgiving and give the melee something interesting to do during the fight because they mostly just stand there and punch the mob and the wisps aren’t much of a deterrent. maybe give the mob less life also the fight is a little long. this fight doesn’t need huge adjustment.

9)experiment: little bit of a gimmick mob that is probably a little too easy once you know the gimmick.

10) Spires twins: great fight on teir

11)Researcher: great fight on teir

12:ancient guardians: I guess this fight is ok, seems maybe a little easy can’t recall ever having much trouble with it or wiping to it. (put monk on the earing)

13:akarn: great fight on teir

14: Saithia: good fight, good gear check, really a bit of a luck fight since she can 1 round any tank on the server, but that is probably ok for a zone boss and gatekeeper to the next zone. at the begining of the fight fwf ae’s down all of the shadows which is probably not how they are intended to be dealt with. may want to adjust resists on the melee clones shadows to make this part done as intended.

I want to point out that the only mob on this list that i said really needed to be made significantly harder(warped slave) is also the only mob that I myself need loot from. There is no part of this list or these changes that would benefit my characters progression.
 
Narvil here, also of Companions.

Echoing what Anvyl said basically. I think it's important to recognize that the tier system itself is somewhat limited. On one hand, it provides a basis for determining overall progress, but in another sense, it also gives some false impressions.

In particular, I think everyone would agree that not all tier mobs are cut from the same cloth. Compare Murkflower to Murkwater in Abyss - the former is quite simple, while the latter, when on tier, is a substantial challenge. Yclist has similar issues, with certain mobs that act as a sort of backstop to progression (Animation, Fer`din as two examples). Whenever I consider our place in Tier 10-land, I think of these latter mobs differently. Internally, I refer to them as T10.5, or T10-elite really. Animation is an easy kill for us right now. Fer`din, I don't think anyone would say, is even remotely close to that.

However, this is fine.

We've taken the approach of slow-but-steady progress, occasionally getting stuck on a given mob for awhile, which is by design. Nothing wrong with that. We aren't really hung up on tiers, but rather with encounters overall. There's some T11 stuff (or even high-end T10) that we can handle. Eventually, all of T10 will fall. But getting stuck on the number 10 is, to me, rather a ridiculous thing. What if we beat Forest Gloom before Fer`din? What "number" should then be assigned? The truth is, it doesn't matter.

As players, we can do everyone a favor by remembering a few things:

- No one is entitled to win a fight after X time in a tier. Some encounters will be, and SHOULD be, substantially harder, and will require a lot of gearing and learning techniques to get by them. Those in T10 can appreciate this I'm sure.

- If we feel a fight is broken or out of line, we should be able to report that constructively, and have it listened to (assuming it's reasonable). Note the operative word "constructively".

- We should recognize that there are larger issues at play than simply "yeah Prime is too hard, you should knock it down quite a bit". Trivializing content will ruin this game. I believe that 100%.

For the dev/balance team:

- You need to listen to player feedback, and take it to heart when it's appropriate. It doesn't mean you have to agree or act on it, but understand where the player base is coming from.

- Hopefully tuning should be done in response to current players of a tier, not because something is easy to backfarm, or even farm on-tier.

- When a "nerf" (or upgrade) *is* necessary, tell us why. You have a reason, I don't doubt that, and it's probably reasonable. Explaining what was done, and why it was necessary, helps a lot. We may not always be happy about it, but it's better than surprises, believe me.

Pretty simple stuff on both sides if you ask me. I think communication, on both sides, fosters trust and openness, which strengthens the game.

Finally, I encourage other players, particularly those encountering T9-11 (there's a lot of us these days!) to chat on the boards. I've noticed more and more people willing to speak up, and that's a great thing. As long as it remains respectful on both sides, I'd love to see it continue.

Narvil
 
Shimone's post is A+ and I agree with everything.

My name is Susvain<FWF> and I'm a dirty bad t13 tier hopper.

Tao edit: more thread cleanup to keep things moving
 
I dont think Shimone is aware that Ancient GUardians has been severely buffed. I think its only been killed once by a stacked CW force since it was buffed, and CW has also failed to kill it with a someone less stacked force since then, and I've never seen it missing from track since that time.
 
We have not killed it recently we have no tanks that need the ear nor rogues that need the piercer so there are better mobs for our time investment. If it was buffed that is another dumb mob to buff as it could easily wipe any raid
 
So far so good. I would like to hear some more opinions from more players in all of the guilds in this range.

I do have a couple suggestions:

(1) Put your character name and guild affiliation(s) in every post. This is one thread where that information is pertinent to your posts.

(2) Since I'm really opening up a dialogue here, any complaints of "you don't communicate enough" come across as "I will never be satisfied because I'm not happy with how communication was in the past". Let's look forward with optimism.

(3) Blanket statements of "revert the hp in zone XXXX" are well-intentioned, but those suggestions are equivalent to "the zone's too easy, just double the hp and see what happens" changes that are just not good things to do.

(4) This is a chance to complain about specifics. I'm hearing Fer`din, Void Worm, Spires Duo, and Akarn mentioned a bit. I don't recall a change to Fer`din (though it might feel like it was changed when Animation and Klikil were changed), but changes were made to the other three. This is a chance for you to talk in specifics about things you have issue with in these encounters.

Here's an example. I'm hearing "Spires Duo was made too hard", but I'm hearing vague generalities and not "making it so you have to kill dread captain first makes the fight too long to heal through" or "there are too many high damage unavoidable AEs" or "pure melee classes spend too much of the encounter unable to assist with killing the bosses" or "the mechanic that makes Velnir do an AE each time a rogue's poison lands on the dread captain is frustrating and doesn't seem right". We'd all like for the fight to fun and different, have on-tier gear check, and not be a complete faceroll. If that's accomplishable by reducing the HP of Dread Captain by 40% and the HP of Velnir by 20%, then awesome, but let's actually discuss the idea of the encounter how it is now and see what can be done to make the fight doable without turning it back into "kill the dread captain in 1 minute and spend 12 minutes with one wizard targetting the first of the invisible adds and determining its color alone and calling it out to the raid to dps cautiously and slowly and stopping every time an emote happens".

Sorry for that long paragraph, but I'm not looking for a kneejerk bandaid to the concerns raised. I think we can do better, and I think it's the right course of action to get the opinions of the people that are currently doing the content in question. I also think that most of these encounters can be tuned well without sacrificing their current mechanics.
 
Matbar of Companions here.

I hesitated to post because I am not the one who is always studying the mechanics of each given fight to within a hair's breadth. I do have a couple of things on the topic I would like to add.

One idea would be adding a few completely new encounters at around the T10 level. It seems to me that thus far the discussion has picked out a few spots that could stand improving, but overall people seem to believe that having a variety of difficulties within a tier is not just fine, it's fun and challenging. What I have heard said in game and here that people get bored doing the same few over and over at T10 in particular, since it's not uncommon for a guild to be at that level for a while. I could see where adding a few encounters that are harder than Mob A but easier than Mob B would help a bit since you'd work your way through the tier instead of going from "that dude was easy" to "holy bleepword!" This may be a huge pita, if so just toss the suggestion on the fire, but I figured it was worth throwing out.

Secondly, instead of tweaking just the difficulty of a few mobs, what about expanding or editing the loot table? I've seen at least twice in this thread already where someone said they either quit doing a mob because they didn't need the one or two pieces of loot, or something dropped with a really high chance of rot because it was good only for two classes. This could be either equipment upgrades or some sort of questy bits that were maybe scattered throughout T10ish raid mobs. I think some of your encounters would be more popular if people felt they had a good reason to be there. Which would mean more ideas for strats, and more input when it comes to something like this discussion. A current example of good use of something cool that doesn't get old are the blades that drop off Animation. Any of your pet classes would love to have one, and they could actually make the difference in a few raids if you had enough fellows equipped with them.
 
There's certainly two arguments to be made there, Matbar.

For the "add content" argument, I would respond "we just did that" and point to Thazeran's Tower.

For the loot table expansion argument, I provide a two-pronged response. The first prong is "there's a lot of gear nobody in game has because Thazeran's Tower has unbeaten encounters". The second is that if there's quite a bit of loot rotting from an encounter, then you should be moving to new encounters.

The immediate reaction I would expect from what I just said is "but we're still somehow not ready for new encounters". This has at least two possible causes, and neither of them are necessarily the case, but this dialogue should help shed some light on whether they are the case: (1) you're just not good enough to do content that is more difficult to execute (2) there's a difficulty and/or tier gap that is larger than a gap should be. In case (2), perhaps a couple fights could be adjusted to serve as stepping stone aids within that gap to ease the transition a little.

As far as right now goes, though, we need to consider and possibly address the difficulty of the content that exists now before a judgment call of whether there's a need to add more content to fill certain specific gaps. One thing at a time.
 
Fidel <kitten mittens>Tao edit: and also formerly <Fair Weather Friends>

So here are some specifics then:

Conglomeration was a great fight and didn't need to be changed at all from it's original form, I am not sure why it was messed with.

Akarn was one of the harder fights in the zone already, I am sorry that Jumbers saw me solo him onetime with Solosolki but the response of nerfing absolution was probably a sufficient in and of itself. Akarn is a very very hard fight on teir it just gets much easier if you go with a high dps overtiered raid.

Voidworm was more or less ok where it was, it needed maybe the slightest adjustment upwards. You have to go out of your way to kill it anyway.

If spires twins have been changed recently that was probably a mistake also, they were a pretty tough fight before and their room is awful awful to pull. There is plenty for melee to do during both twins if you are doing it right.




Also for thaz, we have done water mini a few times with a full teir 13 fwf raid. we might be missing something major and dissregard if we are but the amount of damage that fight puts out is obscene and we were not able to make any significant progress with several different strats even going so far as to wipe with call of the blessed running. It may be that there is a really great strat that we just can't figure out but the fight may need to be looked at. I thought the earth mini was fun though.


THE BIG REASON PEOPLE ARE NOT IN THAZ is kind of obvious: no one wants to figure the mobs out.

Since it isn't an end teir zone and there are other progression options people are going to choose the path of least resistance. I don't think there is anything wrong with the zone besides some balancing issues that every new zone has and I though a lot of the stuff was really cool at least in concept if nothing else.
My recommendation for the dev team here is to adjust the difficulty down significantly for at least a little while and get some people in it then bring it back up gradually to where it needs to be. This is a cool zone and it needs to get used.

Maybe have a thaz week where the devs who have done the encounters would try to be available to watch people do them and make changes as they progress. It is very frustrating to fight through a zone and figure it out only to get to a broken mob that is not killable and have no recourse except to leave. (this is pretty much why fwf stopped doing thaz, see water mini above)

Tao edit: removed some Tier 12 discussion to keep the thread on-topic
 
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Tao edit: In keeping with the optimistic idea of "we're creating the dialogue and balance that we wish would always have existed", some pessimistic reminders of the past have been edited out.

I am glad that we are talking about it now, I think this is a good step. But i think that whatever is decided the devs that implement it should have a very open dialogue with some of the players who have done the content ad nauseum. When you have people like eisley and bango who in spite of their whole awful personalities thing know the game mechanics better than anyone else alive and are willing to offer input then I hope someone takes them up on their offer.
 
Shimone/Moraelin Tao edit: with raiding experience with <Fair Weather Friends> and <Sacred Band>

Responding to Tao post about spire twins:

The incoming damage from dread captain is too high and the hps are too much for on tier melee dps to burn through. We even tried using a way over tiered tank and he got blown up. The caster mechanic on that fight focusing on the orbs seams reasonable casters focus on killing the caster mob and melees the melee mob. The problem is we run 3 clerics 2 Druids 1 Shaman and 1 non tanking paladin oom or not enough heals on Zorr tanking DC and an on tier tank tanking velnir. There is enough incoming damage from Velnir and DC in the original form that was really rough on tier. With whatever changes were made to the fight have blown it way out of proportion.
 
Breigon, The Official Underground Supplier of Candy Canes for Prophecy

THE BIG REASON PEOPLE ARE NOT IN THAZ is kind of obvious: no one wants to figure the mobs out.

We have not been trying thaz recently because
1) We have been trying to gear up more since our most recent brutal beatings that we received in thaz
2) Since no one goes to thaz, it is up fairly often so when targets that are usually not up are up, they take higher priority

I suspect though once Thaz is unlocked again, we will be back in thaz. I know I am interested to see how the new thaz compares to the old thaz. Oh the memories.
 
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Tao edit: Narvil of <Companions>
> (2) Since I'm really opening up a dialogue here, any complaints of "you don't communicate enough" come across as "I will never be satisfied because I'm not happy with how communication was in the past". Let's look forward with optimism.

I wanted to be sure to make clear that, when I spoke of communication, it was not at all with the intent of saying that I won't be satisfied. I apologize if it came across that way, I really did not mean it to be so.

My suggestion simply is to make things more transparent a bit going forward, and I certainly know its a fine line to walk between giving away encounter details and not relaying what's going on. I think some of the over-the-top "zomg nerf!11! why do you hate freedom!?!?" discussions become (more?) moot once that additional transparency is added.

So no badness intended - I tend not to get riled up about such matters and just go with the flow anyway. It's merely something I think will help, and much less a reflection of things up to this point. I definitely fall into the optimism camp on this. :)

-Narvil
 
Matbar of Companions

There's certainly two arguments to be made there, Matbar.

For the "add content" argument, I would respond "we just did that" and point to Thazeran's Tower.

True, and I certainly wasn't saying we have nothing new to play in, my thought in suggesting new content was more of a transitional fight rather than top end, like below where you explain case 2. That's exactly what I was referring to.

For the loot table expansion argument, I provide a two-pronged response. The first prong is "there's a lot of gear nobody in game has because Thazeran's Tower has unbeaten encounters". The second is that if there's quite a bit of loot rotting from an encounter, then you should be moving to new encounters.

Also true in most cases, but I was thinking more of experiencing having killed a mob for the first or second time only to already have rots. Loot with only one or two class is a bit of a ballbuster in T10 and up content imo.

The immediate reaction I would expect from what I just said is "but we're still somehow not ready for new encounters". This has at least two possible causes, and neither of them are necessarily the case, but this dialogue should help shed some light on whether they are the case: (1) you're just not good enough to do content that is more difficult to execute (2) there's a difficulty and/or tier gap that is larger than a gap should be. In case (2), perhaps a couple fights could be adjusted to serve as stepping stone aids within that gap to ease the transition a little.

In regards to case 1, I have no problem with that. Our guild enjoys learning the new encounters, especially the harder ones. There are some we're not ready for yet, either we haven't figured out the strat, or we haven't quite got enough people equipped up to it. I guess my thought when it comes to new encounters was so we'd have more than one or two options for something to do in the meanwhile. That case 2 thing again :)


As far as right now goes, though, we need to consider and possibly address the difficulty of the content that exists now before a judgment call of whether there's a need to add more content to fill certain specific gaps. One thing at a time.

Fair enough. I appreciate the staff involvement in this game, and tweaking existing content may work just as well as adding anything. I can't imagine how hard it must have been for you guys to willingly open this can of worms.
 
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(1) Who are you? What guild are you in?
Cambrai - Companions

(2) What tier would you consider your guild to be?
T10

(3) Do you think that most of your guild's regular raid force has gear that is pretty much from that tier you listed or the tier before, or do you think there are a lot of members with numerous pieces from 3-4 tiers back?
Currently 90% of our raid force has T9-10 gear. However, we sometimes get recruits right out of DB. At the beginning of this year we had 2-3 people with much lower tier gear on raids.

(4) Have you killed some/many/most/all of the encounters that the wiki lists as being that tier you consider your guild to be?
We have killed all but Storm Tyrant in T9 and bit over half we are keyed for in T10.

(5) Have you killed any of the encounters in the next higher tier, according to the wiki's current listings?
Nope.

(6) Do you think your guild is ready to try some new encounters that are more challenging?
Yes, but to be honest I find what we are doing now very challenging. We don't have anyone in our gulid that has ever done any of the mobs we are working on before. So, just like the guilds that went before us, we have to learn our own strats from trial and error and I find that challenging.

(7) Do you think your guild spends enough time raiding to attempt new challenging encounters and still get some upgrades from encounters you've killed a few times before in a given 2 week period?
We are a pretty casual guild and only raid twice a week. Usually we try to do something new one night (Thaz, Outer Sanctum, Fer'din) and something we've done before and make sure we get the upgrades we need on the second night. This balance seems to work alright.

(8) What encounters have you done recently that you really struggled with and had the loot rot?
Old Overgrowth - A lot of the stuff isn't an upgrade.

(9) What encounters are you looking forward to trying?
Outer Sanctum mobs since we just got everyone keyed.

(10) What encounters are you thinking "I don't even want to try that", and why do you feel that way about them?
Speaking personally and not as the guild here, Thaz. The whole timer thing is a big put off to me. We've gone a number of times, pulling trash, learning their little special abilities only to finally get to the mini boss with the timer mob at 90%. So we have to hurry for attempt on that mob and wipe. If we want another go at it, we have to reset the timer and start all over again.

The first time we went to Thaz it seemed the timer was a lot longer. I'm not sure if the Devs knocked the timer's health down for us to give us more time, but ever since then the timer has been significantly faster. I'd rather use our limited time on other progression targets that we can make multiple attempts on to learn.

(11) Are there any encounters where you think some part of the encounter is unfair?
Not really unfair but I'm not too keen on Old Overgrowth since you need to stack certain classes and other classes are pretty much bystanders (at least the way we kill it, maybe there is another, shrug).

(12) Are there any encounters that you enjoy doing even if they don't provide any loot that you could personally use?
My favorite is probably Generals. I enjoy doing Ganlak and Primalist in UC too.
 
(1) Who are you? What guild are you in?
Xoranath, one of two main RaidLeaders in Companions

(2) What tier would you consider your guild to be?
T10

(3) Do you think that most of your guild's regular raid force has gear that is pretty much from that tier you listed or the tier before, or do you think there are a lot of members with numerous pieces from 3-4 tiers back?
Most are t9-10 geared with a few pieces here and there being lower.

(4) Have you killed some/many/most/all of the encounters that the wiki lists as being that tier you consider your guild to be?
We kill 5 off the list regularly(plus all of Abyss, except for Sorrow, regulalry) We have fought 3 others(one unlisted, the water mini in Thaz) multiple times and are close to killing two of them. Killed a lot: Gens(ToT), Animation(Yclist), and Serizus(UC). Killed multiple times: Klikil(Yclist) and Old Overgrowth(OG). Very close on Fer'din(Yclist) and Koltar(Thaz fire mini).

(5) Have you killed any of the encounters in the next higher tier, according to the wiki's current listings?
Not as a guild no, but a few of us have helped other guilds in a few fights.

(6) Do you think your guild is ready to try some new encounters that are more challenging?
Yes, as others of my guild have stated, we do not shy away from a challenge. We do tend to not like banging our heads against a wall for long periods of time though, there is a difference.

(7) Do you think your guild spends enough time raiding to attempt new challenging encounters and still get some upgrades from encounters you've killed a few times before in a given 2 week period?
Yes, we raid twice a week plus we do 12man and 6man regularly as well as one back gear night per week(Yes, we back gear for things like frags for Archaic and Ritual that helps on tier raids)

(8) What encounters have you done recently that you really struggled with and had the loot rot?
Old Overgrowth is one(definitely a specific raid structure to win that we have found so far) but limited loot

(9) What encounters are you looking forward to trying?
More Sanctum and Thaz

(10) What encounters are you thinking "I don't even want to try that", and why do you feel that way about them?
Thaz due to the timers being too short. I think that if the timers were bumped up by 1/3 to 1/2 of what they are now it would be ok and more people would attempt it. The learning curve for the mini's is too steep in comparison to the time frame you have to learn without having to reclear over and over. Too time consuming. Pretty much one mistake in clearing means you will not get the named down. That is too strict of a timeline.

(11) Are there any encounters where you think some part of the encounter is unfair?
Old Overgrowth due to what you must have in classes in your raid force(ton of pet classes)

(12) Are there any encounters that you enjoy doing even if they don't provide any loot that you could personally use?
It would be easier to say which ones I don't like because I enjoy most of them thoroughly.

Ok, with all of those points out of the way.... I would like to say that most of these posts have been very good. I think that Shim and Fidel in particular have been very informative on the actual encounters(especially Spires).
I agree that Plane of Frost, ToT, UC, Yclist and Outer Sanctum are all spot on. I agree that the trouble seems to be in Spires, Tur Ruj, Thaz, and Abyss(I know it's only 12man but agree that it's importance to progressing is vital).
I do not pretend to know enough about Spires, and definitely not Tur Ruj, to really comment on them. I already made my suggestion for Thaz on the timers, don't change anything else for now, but the timers and then see where that goes. I am not sure why there was any change in Abyss(except for Murkflower) when those fights are challenging enough.
I will say that I appreciate all of the time that the devs, gms, and players put in that have made this game what it is....Fun! I hope that this discussion helps to foment better understanding between players and devs and where we all want to see the game progress to. Hope my little two cents help, thanks.

Xoranath the wayward cleric.
 
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