A DH HA should be able to be done within 20-25 minutes easily, that's without a full group. The reality is these people who are taking 30 minutes per HA or longer aren't playing their class correctly, or aren't really trying to push through the HA. The changes they made were an increase to the mobs damage output and I believe they added a little more HP, not 100% sure on the HP thing as they seem to die just as fast as normal. ( 5-15 seconds per mob ) The reality is there are always going to be those people who find easy ways to get EXP and get upset when said ways get changed...Look at all the head shot threads or beam kite threads.
Not everyone has access to an all-star group. Personally, I still blow through these in about 15 mins, but I'm not gonna say how cause they will nerf that next. But I see a lot of people sitting around begging for DH runs, even offering krono for a 3-gribble run. They only thing they have done is make it harder for the little guy, and make others be really picky on who they bring with them.
I suppose it will depend upon level and gear, but I can still run them in under an hour with heroic characters between 85-89 (all I have tried so far), using 2 characters and 2 mercs (usually both healers). I have heard from others that a full group of raid-geared 105s could plow through a DH HA in very little time, but that's way beyond me. Also, there are some tricks apparently to use at that level that speeds things up a lot. So from my perspective, an admittedly casual player one, the changes did not add time. In fact, given the heroic gear and HoT augments, I would say that it now takes less time than previously to complete a DH HA.
With all due respect to raiders, but it is easy to say Gribbles were too easy when sitting at max AA and 150k hp and 13k AC. This changes again hurts the filthy casuals. I still have not seen it answered are Level 100 Gribbles harder now too?
30-40% increase in hp and dps would be my guess. And yes, harder on the little guy so to speak. A raid geared tank with a decent healer and 4 good dps will blow through them with ease.
One of the big things that I have noticed in pick up groups with HA's of all sorts not just DH, though those are the most common, is the fact that most "filthy casuals" as people love to call themselves, is the fact that they are casual with their button pressing. If you learn to maximize your class, don't hold back, and always have some disc or aa running, it makes the HA's much much faster. That is the difference between most of what people consider "raiders" vs casuals. These were also set up with the mindset that 2 people + 2 mercs could do it, and they can, it just takes longer than a full group of real people. If you want to log into the game, sick your pet on it, and expect an instant win, well this game is not for you. Learn how to maximize your dps, and you will see that in group gear your time clears will only be around 25% at max longer than a raiders. That means their 15 minute clear times makes yours 20 minutes, and that is fine. That also means that everyone in the group has to learn to maximize, the tank has to max agro + dps, the healer with healing + dps, and the dps with well.... dps. If your group of 2 + 2 mercs is doing less than 75k dps, figure out why, see what can can be done. If you are a tank + healer and have 2 mercs on burn they will do 50-75k dps alone. If you are 2 dps classes with a healer + tank merc, you should be doing even more! Also pulling is an art (in DH its in its easiest form) and makes sure that there is always a mob in camp, dead time = lower overall dps because discs ware off during the down time and you lose a ton of dps because of it. Almost every class can pull or do some sort of CC to make sure there is no down time. When the group that I normally plow through stuff did beta testing we first did it on our raid geared toons, then switch to beta buffed toons to see the difference, and honestly other than a couple missions there was almost no difference in time or difficulty. In those few, as the tank I just have to be more aware and click a couple more buttons, the dps still did their thing, and we did it all with a merc healer.
That's part of the problem though, you have a familiar plow-through group. You trust them to do their jobs. A lot of people (including me) don't have that. I'm used to boxing since no one ever asks for a cleric and I've been doing 1 cleric and 5 burning wizzys, but since it's all me, I know everyone is doing their job. I open up my group and brought a few in this weekend and what I got was 1 necro who's aggro meter never went above 1, another necro who insisted on keeping their merc healer out even though there's a TDS raid geared cleric in the group, and 1 sk that just kinda wandered around. I can't imagine the horror of being forced to group with random people in the new version of Gribbles, an hour or more seems likely. I just don't understand their thinking, if they wanted to slow everyone down, this isn't the way.
Yes, I always welcome random people. I give them up to 3 opportunities: 1 - to see how the are 2 - to improve 3- to show the improvement IF they are good at any point in those 3 they can join me again, if not, well, find another group. Ironically a bad group member can make things take longer than soloing it Also, you need to send us tells, I haven't been on a lot recently because of life, hate that little thing sometimes, but you are always welcome in our groups as we always run around with a merc healer cause no healers are available it seems. And yes, I am a bad person because I don't send you tells either and its a 2 way street
Well there ya go. I mean, the game can't be tuned for that level of play. Well, it can, and Gribble was pretty much it, but look at the end result: those players got to 105 (I presume?) and accumulated a butt load of AAs and now you had that experience with a pick-up group. It's horrible, it just ends up being painful for everyone, including those Gribble babies that may one day decide to get out and see what else the game has to offer. You see the threads on here from people complaining about Cooper, or TDS, or whatever, and I feel bad for them, cause there is some cool stuff out there they're missing, aaaaand I don't want everything to be nerfed to Gribble oblivion to satisfy them. If there was more challenging content to have to work through from the start, in most cases I expect players would up their game to beat it (as opposed to rage quitting), whether they're casual or not, because beating stuff is fun. And by the time they get to 105 they're going to be wholly better players, worth grouping with and they're going to enjoy and be confident with a whole bunch more content as a result. When you've got a Gribble on offer though, well, the temptation is just too great ... Come to think of it, I actually wouldn't mind it if each Gribble task was on a 1 week lock-out timer though. Nothing wrong with throwing a cookie every now and again .... just not the whole experience of getting to 105
to go above 1000aa, play in cotf more than a week ago and/or level to 105 means the person is paying money to help keep the lights on. having rewarding candy crush level content appeals to a broader audience. raiders talking about how fast they do gribbles is a reminder that candy crush is popular, so popular some people say assume dh ha means gribble. these people playing candy crush are not only revenue for dbg but might also try other content and rise to that level of challenge after they mindlessly grind the levels and aa required to do that content and even if they don't since repeating gribbles at the aa cap is pretty pointless there is a really good chance those players are a source of revenue while playing candy crush
Group geared level 105 war + group geared level 105 mage + merc healer + wiz merc on burn = 15-20 minutes depending on which version. I wasn't even pushing hard with the mage nor trying to do any sort of dps on the war beyond /attack with sword and shield. Very casual play by my standards. The other two spots were non-contributing low level alts I was leveling up out of boredom. This was last week before the change. Have not tried since as I've been in the new expansion.
There's more aspects to the "EQ is too difficult" problem than some want to admit. Franklin Teek dailies of kill 5 mobs in 3 zones for a pile of xp/aaxp has given a number of people unrealistic expectations. Although the Teek dailies are a great way to catch-up it's also a trap that people fall into when they think what playing the game is really like. When playing one of my baby toons I deliberately try and do something out of the ordinary in order to put myself in a sticky situation. A few times when grouped with others I tell them what's about to happen. A good player will take the challenge and try to succeed with me while a lousy player will give up and die and/or leave the group. The tutorial (level 1-12ish) is fantastic when it comes to teaching people all the commands and whatnot but as above, it gives unrealistic expectations to people concerning what the end game is like. This trend continues through level 60 with an unstoppable tank merc and defiant gear. Hero's journey through CR and Blightfire grant some sweet rewards for the effort involved but just like the Teek tasks above they don't really require somebody to learn different things about their class. Next up are heroic characters. The number of people I've met that "played" their toon to 60 then purchased the 85 upgrade is jaw dropping. Granted many people playing have been around for quite awhile and know the basic mechanics of every class. What I'm getting at however are the people that have played one or maybe two primary archtypes then believe they can play a third or fourth to full effectiveness by going this route.....when in fact they're pretty bad at it. I do have an idea of how to alleviate at least some of the problems mentioned here. First is to extend the tutorial up to say level 50 or so. Granted this is sorta done with the hero's journey through cresent reach but I'm thinking about a tutorial with one dedicated server. Next grant rewards but if possible make players use their toons abilities in order to accomplish a mission/task successfully. Tone down the merc's so the tank merc isn't godmode. If possible update some of the older quests and port them over to the new tutorial with current rewards. For example I still use my old Temple of Solusek Ro clay bracelet. Stuff like this would be an awesome reward. If possible start auto granting AA's much earlier. Auto granting AA's say 5 levels after the spell is available would be a start. Also start auto granting some AA's at level 30. Auto grant a new activatable AA every 5 levels rather than dump several of them at each level starting at 60. Of course none of this will help unless the current batch of people actually put any effort into learning what they can do. I'm willing to admit that the mindset of people playing this game is more detrimental than anything else but the game simply will not survive unless something changes.
Interesting perspective, that. I've done both, although my highest leveled character is a 94 Paladin, fully played. An HC toon comes fully equipped with Abstruse level gear and max skills. Those are fairly good reasons for a level 60 to "press the button." Moreover, an HC can run through all of the HoT quests and get many 20AC/+heroic stat augments, leaving them in better position to move through Grounds or progressions. The biggest problem in my mind to what you've described is not the HC lift, but that it is extremely hard to get non-DH HA groups in the 85-100 range (well, 94 for me, but I've heard it's also tough to 99 or so). So many of the DH HA "groups" are boxers only. Therefore, players do not develop the skills (discing, etc.) to which you refer. Also, the prevalence of boxing limits the amount of discing a player does, especially if it involves melee characters such as Paladins and Monks, and Bards (if they want to be good ones). Given the top-heavy nature of the game and level restrictions to receiving many tasks, I don't see the situation changing any time soon.
While I agree with you Picaresque it's what I call the golden rule. Tweelis has been around since 2001. Level 105, 12k AA's, decent gear/augs, etc. I'm not good enough player to run with the elite crowd but know enough to adapt to most situations. Some of my former guildmates got frustrated when grouped with me so instead of pitching a hissy fit like some entitled gribble babies I silently left. I'm now playing with others that share my skill level and we have fun together. When playing my sk I'm nearly as competent playing him as I am Tweelis. My sk is a HC upgrade but only because I didn't feel like doing all the CoA trials and DoN progression. Otherwise he's been fully played to 87. I can relate to getting HA's at under 100. So far I've done 2 on my sk, both pick-up groups. Chances are I won't be doing more HA's for awhile due to frustration from others. It isn't that I want others to not be able to play their toon. However if I get "shut up, you're the tank and I'm dps" while I'm trying to provide information my fun goes down and frustration goes up.....I play this game to do the opposite. I'd love to play in a full group of 85-90 and will do so once in awhile when my mindset is where it needs to be in order to deal with the "I'm 85 and anything that goes wrong is not my fault" person. Next up is my baby shaman. I box him with my sk but he's put away if anybody else plays in my group. Some people think that if they let their merc handle things to 60 then they hit the magic 85 button they will be a better toon. I think the opposite due to I can admit there's several things that happen between 60 and 85 that are unfamiliar. Could a level 85 shaman be a group healer? Yes! Could I effectively play my 85 shaman as a group healer in Feerrott or House of Thule lower? Not yet. Simply put I will not subject another group of people to my lack of ability. That doesn't mean I won't try my best when playing whichever toon I'm playing. If I'm not confident in keeping up with group mates skill level I will either try and improve to match their skill level or quietly slip away so as to not hinder their enjoyment. It would be very nice for everybody involved to have this attitude. tl;dr Play your toon to the best of your ability. Learn your class. Accept instruction and change your play based on that information. Bow out if you can't match your groups/guilds level of play.
You're right, which is why I suggested a heavier lockout on them, so people aren't tempted every 3 hours to do the same content over and over. I don't really do many CotF HAs any more, but when I did a lot I was always trying to put together groups for HAs other than Gribble, and almost always people were fine with it. In many cases they didn't even know there were other options. My advice is to take some initiative and when you've got a group going say you need to do some Bixie HAs or something, most people are actually cool and will give it a crack, and when you get good at it you'll even find some people will appreciate you showing them how those HAs work. Good way to make friends imo. Fair warning, some of them will require a bit of thinking or strategy, but if you've got a tank (you), and a puller, you're golden, just add a healer and some dps (players if you can, mercs if you have to), and voila.
Dang this is the second time they have made changes to CotF HAs which have resulted in some rather lengthy threads with people having lots of issues with the change. Again people pooring out there feelings on the topic and im sure nothing will be changed? Why change this old content anyway? Why did it scale up to 105? There was no rewards other than exp over then level 100 gear..
I love how the raiders in this thread are lecturing the casual players. The extra hit-points, mana, heroics, foci, and ac make no difference! You are just playing your class wrong! The pretentiousness is laughable.
It's not being pretentious. The casuals realllyyy don't know what they're doing. When a dps class casual can't out dps a merc on burn, they don't know what they are doing. Tank casuals that need a puller in gribble, like really? Caster casuals that don't burn at 100% uptime, priest casuals that pop a cleric merc... That's the kind of stuff then casuals do that increase their gribble time.
Not really sure how they can say that. It does make a lot of difference.. Tank wise for sure. Now if you have old raid gear with focus cap at 100 then casters are probably better off if they are using the highest end group gear. But if you cruising with TDS raid gear vs say CotF group gear lol.. hell even CotF raid gear was so much easier when i got those items.
