Upper Thaz Reevaluation

[Notpit]

Rorne, I appreciate you getting real. But didn't Rovans provide that in the original post? Again, he is not asking for a major over-haul here. I agree that it should be challenging. What drives me crazy (speaking personally) is that too often on the trash it is a matter of luck. A single mez resist was mentioned as part of this luck.

Having so many of the trash pulls being linked takes away from the challenge of the pull. And again, I am not saying change it all back to the way it was. But I do think it would be good to make some of the more difficult linked pulls into pulls that takes super pulling skills would make the zone more fun while still keeping the challenge.

The upper air timing, I think you know what he is talking about. I don't think changing that delay somewhere between the original and the current delay would really make that easy street.

 

[Salarus]

As it stands now, much more of that zone is tier 10. If that is the intent of the devs, then it is functioning as intended.

If you view UT as tier 10, i'm curious as to what else you view as tier 10. Would you mind providing a short list of other zones/encounters?

Personally, I put Gens, Thaz 1, on a t10ish level, and ALL of the UT wings are *significantly* easier than those.

 

[Notpit]

I don't want to divert the conversation with the tier 10 comment. I don't think my posting is helping this thread at all. So, I will just shut up.

I just wish people would read the OP and not assume that he is whining or wanting to revert the zone back.

 

[Obscenitor]

I just wish people would read the OP and not assume that he is whining or wanting to revert the zone back.

......

with a on tier tank and on tier raid its much more difficult.

syduck:

 

[fuwok]

Let me break it down for you in simple terms: There are 100 hot dogs in my kitchen, and every 4-6 days the supply is replenished. If it's just me eating the hot dogs, there will be on average many more there at all times than if there were 3 or 4 people eating said hot dogs.

Man if only this were happening to me.

I think thaz should be pretty hard based on the quality of the loot. It is better than the alternative which I see -- nerfing the loot.

If you look at thaz plate/leather BPs and then look at undercity plate/leather BPs which are roughly equivalent, and I say roughly because the Thaz BPs are probably better. Comparing those encounters, Thaz can be made pretty darned hard, at least hard enough so that people consider the undercity a viable alternative.

 

[Rovans]

If you look at thaz plate/leather BPs and then look at undercity plate/leather BPs which are roughly equivalent, and I say roughly because the Thaz BPs are probably better. Comparing those encounters, Thaz can be made pretty darned hard, at least hard enough so that people consider the undercity a viable alternative.

I am not disagreeing that making Thaz more difficult was a bad idea as you can see from my original post. However when you implement or make a change to things like raid encounters its usually followed by reevaluations to see if it is where it should be difficulty wise. If nobody is doing these events outside from upper tier backgearing/raids with lack of better targets then I feel a reevaluation is a fair thing to ask for, this is all.

 

[Ravik]

After finally going through all of the revamped UT/LT (with the exception of UT air) I can finally post on observations of the revamp.

UT earth is 100% fine the way it is , both the mini and the boss , I have boxed Behn for Ulkag twice, able to CC both waves of adds , if you don't have a archaic chanter... then off tank or better yet , step back and get his arch mez done , Make the Resist Check and you are home free.

LT earth -If a guild is progressing into Thaz for the First time , without archaic clerics, without Thaz loot in the raid , the initial break of the 3 pull + the 5 pull in the lobby + the fast repops of the lobby is to much to ask of guild coming out of IP/Valorb/Rust/ with Thaz mez in its current state IMHO( this is assuming a progressing guild)

UT Fire -looks good to me ,but having Thaz mez not cost 655mana a cast would be nice.

LT fire -100% fine as it is( you can skip the lobby if you are smart with your engage)

UT water -looks good to me. I agree that Naktal =/autofollow and let none critical boxes die.We dont use vent , we just expect everyone to pay attention.

LT water -looks good to me.

LT Air , I have not done the mini since the Thaz mez changes , pre changes we mezzed the 2 adds at mini and killed as normal , post changes I am assuming just the same with Arch mez ( have not confirmed)

UT air -- after the horror stories I received from a handful of people we haven't gone into UT Air yet.

And no , we have not gone into Thaz with Generals loot , we got our first Generals kill two days ago.

 

[smadcatc]

Honestly I think UT is where it should be. LT trash is too hard, and the bosses are still too easy. Imo make LT trash a bit easier and beef up the bosses. LT bosses are still easy as hell once you figure out the strat (or are given it).

Thaz is STILL easier than most of undercity and the loot from LT/UT replaces or at the very least is an alternate for most of undercity loots. As a druid wearing thaz gear, I have not yet wanted a single piece of undercity loot. That should tell you how powerful thaz gear is (and hence the difficulty of obtaining it). The same goes for most of PoFrost (which imo has the same amount of time to clear to per named, compared to the way thaz is now).

Essentially, farming LT over and over gives you loots superior (in general) to most of tier 9, and it should not be easy to get it, although I really do think some LT trash pulls are too hard for guilds breaking in to thaz. It seems that LT minis and bosses were all designed around figuring out the strategy, but once you did, it was cake. Now it actually requires a bit more. Adding a few adds to LT nameds does so little compared to how much the trash was ramped up. Should make the trash easier and ramp up the bosses. Most Thaz gear is gear that you'll wear until sanctum (minus a few pieces of tier 10 and random farhag pieces), why shouldn't it be hard to obtain?

p.s. Just because something stays up for a long period of time, doesn't mean its too hard. It could be that the guilds capable of doing it don't want the loot. Also, many guilds just broke and are re-gearing to their tier.

 

[wolfwalkerEci]

Man if only this were happening to me.

I think thaz should be pretty hard based on the quality of the loot. It is better than the alternative which I see -- nerfing the loot.

If you look at thaz plate/leather BPs and then look at undercity plate/leather BPs which are roughly equivalent, and I say roughly because the Thaz BPs are probably better. Comparing those encounters, Thaz can be made pretty darned hard, at least hard enough so that people consider the undercity a viable alternative.

to each their own but I choose Undercity plate bp over thaz plate bp myself.

 

[Rovans]

And no , we have not gone into Thaz with Generals loot , we got our first Generals kill two days ago.

I meant geared to kill Generals, not necessarily that you have most of his loot table as rots. You may have killed Generals last week but im sure you could have killed him with the gear you had 2 or 3 weeks ago when you were doing UT. And Bane do you not consider yourself over UT tiered? b/c via fomelo alone (I dont know all your members but based on the ones I could think of) you seem well above it and most of your guild (atleast the key people) seem they wouldnt even benefit from UT loots. I mean if they revamped ValorA and my guild raided it a couple times I dont think my opinion of its new scaled difficulty would hold much weight as we are geared beyond that zone. Unless we all deiceded to take some gear off while raiding it then yes everything would and should be easy.

 

[Sofresh]

Ravik are you saying you have no issues with Thaz mez time ? lasting like 15-17 seconds from my experience that's what it seems to last with that kinda time its hard to even keep 2 targets locked. If you get a reisist usually your fucked thaz mez is my only issue but then again im biased because i play a chanter but i do think they shouldnt have tweaked with it the zone revamp was enough imo

 

[Dinadass]

Having to med for 5 minutes after every pull for your enchanter to med from 0 to 100 is working as intended, to prevent guilds from being able to do more than one wing a night and get gear they don't deserve.

 

[Dinadass]

Listen I'm gonna get real in this thread and break it down. Getting items that are upgrades is supposed to be challenging - if you think thaz is too hard now for the items that drop there please state which zones/fights are easier which provide equal/better gear (please please someone class armor). Maybe if we name names we can get somewhere.

This isn't a troll, this isn't me calling person/guild whiney bitches. I just think this discussion could benefit from being less nebulous and I want to know where people feel like they can get comparable gear for less effort.

Since I know monk gear better than other classes, I'll leave that to other people. I also think LT is okay difficulty wise, except for the very start of the earth wing being retarded (Seriously, remove the mob that is just inside to the right. The hardest part of a wing should not be the first pull.) And also thaz mez either needing a mana cost decrease or a duration increase.

For monks (and physical dps in general)-

UT Earth staff- Greatmaul of Hoarfrost

spire of dripping plasma- gornisht ear, hoop of obstinate

nashtavs cheekbone- ice spinner mask, concubinage mask

wind worn neck- cajaf, ansaag neck

teardrop bead- LT air haste ear, valorb boots, IP neck or boots

As far as class armor pieces, the only piece that really stands out for monks is the chest. Clockwork chest is decent but monk thaz chest is like the perfect item so meh.

Ulaz pants, porlint arms, ice spinner or valorb boots, deyranni or gornisht gloves, taeshlin helm or even headband from CoD.

Thaz class armor does have slightly better hp/ac than prior tier equivalents, but you also don't have to step foot in UT for the class armor.

 

[Kazimir]

thaz augs need considered when looking at thaz class armor as well

 

[Dimmi]

I think the biggest problem with thaz is that for so long, it was so....eventual. Your guild is progressing, and sooner or later, everyone tells you, "Have fun farming thaz for life"

It's not exactly as....I'll say it again, eventual. Now there's PoFrost, Undercity (Aeternus was spending a lot of time in undercity before we could kill farhags, if you could do old thaz, you can do undercity/pofrost. Some other guild progression options available that weren't around so much until lately or were always overlooked: 6 man content. Emberflow (pyromancer, weaponmaster, baphomet, I'm lookin at you) H-mal 6-man and 18-man content yields some nice rewards, as does c-mal 4.1/4.2. It used to be you farmed CoD for a while, OP and IP for a few kills, then wasted away in LT/UT forever.

There's also ikisith content now, and lemme tell ya, there's stuff dropping already in ikisith that people are hanging up their thaz-phats for.

I haven't been in UT Air since the revamp, it was hard enough to get people to do it before the revamp b/c of a few occassional bugs, or b/c after clearing a few LT wings and the rest of UT, people said "no I'm going to bed, screw air." (Yeah, I've been a couple raids where we killed everything in thaz tower except thaz 1 and 2 pre-revamp in one raid without rotting a single drop, lol) As far as the rest of it goes, I agree with Ravik, everything looks pretty-much fine except breaking into LT earth, and I've seen PILES of <TU> bodies outside LT earth to support that.

On the whole, I'd say take a couple months and go explore new(er) content, then see if you really care about thaz quite so much.

 

[Ravik]

do you not consider yourself over UT tiered? .

Yes for the most part , our newer priest can still use Thaz gear in several slots though. And we still need at least 1 BP for a main.


And yes ,Thaz mez is mitigated so much that on any lvl 65 cons like the goos in LT water and whirlwinds in LT air I now use Archaic. The inability to reliably CC two+ mobs with Thaz mez is really a big hit to chanters and I for one would like to see Thaz mez returned to its former state, if not, then at least changed from 655mana a cast.

As far as the difficulty of Thaz , I have to agree with many of the posters in the multiple threads about Thaz being a bit to easy for the rewards. The revamp has done a nice job in correcting that ( LT earth break aside , thats a bit harsh). Thaz mez in its current state IMO needs a tweak.

 

[Dinadass]

I've done UT Air since the revamp, and it was a pickup-ish raid. About 6-8 TU toons (good TU, not scummy alts/casuals), the rest being Bane/CW/Exo.

The raid was without a doubt over geared for upper thaz. The items that dropped all had 1-2 people max roll; I won my neck and the leather helm uncontested. This raid did PoFrost before UT Air and killed a roaming rapemachine construct at the same time as Frozen Burning Spirit (for real).

Zalnok still insta-killed multiple people each time he reappeared, and the last 20% was ringo, 2 healers, and 2-3 casters burning him. No way in hell could an actual tier 8/9 guild do him without getting very lucky and just throwing themselves at him for hours before one attempt finally happens where everyone gets really lucky on resists.

Not to mention how retarded UT air trash is. Having people die by getting summoned under the platforms, a few people getting randomly knocked literally across the entire zone, etc.

 

[Rovans]

I'm all for raiding the content thats not considered 'standard' progression. Due to 2/3 of Amicii's raids starting at 7pm pst, we're usually stuck with raiding said content. Amicii as im sure is same for the other guilds effected can do frost (in our case we've done all except Orator) and Undercity. But we should be able to have the option to raid upper thaz despite there being other on teir raid zones available.

Somebody mentioned that these zones are also up all the time due to guilds dying and yes alot of the upper-upper teir guilds have died but those guilds effected are beyond UT content for the most part and would only do those zones in backgear/alt gearing attempts. The guilds that I consider on tier for UT are all still around and actively raiding (Amicii, Ethereal, Sacred Band) between them and PR/Bane/the occasional pickup or TU raid backgearing there is plenty of raiding going on to not have UT named up for weeks at a time.

As is I as im sure is the case with the other on-tier guilds, look forward to lower Thaz wings being up instead of a upper Thaz wing for just the immaculate armor pieces when most of the loot-loots in that lower wing are rots. I can imagine that all this attention given to the lower wings has to effect the guilds that would be breaking into lower Thaz now.

About lower Thaz, I agree. Amicii aswell has fallen numerous times to that first pull in LT-Earth. Theres also a couple other trash pulls that I recall us having a bit of difficulty but being able to just power through on, not quite sure if other guilds that would be breaking into lower Thaz would have had the same results on.

Even when you argue that Thaz's gear was too good for the difficulty, every other guild that has gone through upper tier raiding in the past (what, 2-3 years? how long has Thaz been around?) has used alot of that Thaz armor as the backbone of their progression through ToT.

On the whole, I'd say take a couple months and go explore new(er) content, then see if you really care about thaz quite so much.

I am not bringing this up because its a recent problem. I know that the staff is pretty busy with Iksith and have other things both in game and in their lives to deal with and that is mostly why I waited a month (or slightly over/under a month, I forget when exactly the changes took place) to post this. Also I wanted to give time to test the majority of it a couple times to get a good feel for it before making a formal request.

 

[Rovans]

Ha, took me so long to make that post while cooking that 2 other posts were done in the meantime. Thank you Ravik for your insight on Thaz mez. I am not an enchanter so I did not know the details of what was changed with Thaz mez nor was the guild enchanter online at the time I made the post. I agree that some sort of change to Thaz mez and maybe a couple tweaks to certain rough pulls like LT-Earth's first pull, the 4 pull on the way to UT Fire mini (unless the other monks I have talked to were also wrong about in it being a 4pull) would make the zone alot less of a time sink.

I just wish people would read the OP and not assume that he is whining or wanting to revert the zone back.

Forgot to comment on this but yeah, I am not saying that it was better off the way it was. I was actually stoked when I first heard about the changes because before all you would really need for a Thaz pickupraid was a over tiered tank, some decent healers, a slower and whatever low tiered dps you could muster and it was pretty crazy seeing half a raid of people that would otherwise be having difficulty with planes named all going through Thaz named like a hot knife through butter. And this easy availability to slap together a pickup raid for Thaz was for the most part locking the other guild raids trying to get in. Not to say you cant make a pickup for Thaz now but atleast you need more then half a raid of on/over tier people to do so.

 

[Salarus]

Just for reference, I don't know the gear of most of SB, but i'd say that if they are geared at the same level as Tyvec (valor A + B, IP, even an OP item, LT, some ToT, PoF) that that's about where UT should be starting.

As per UT fire, i've heard conflicting stories about how to pull it, i'd port up 2 monks and investigate further.