Dev Discussion Episode 36: The Phoenix Cannon (Raid)

Hi all! This is the feedback thread for the Metal Part II: The Phoenix Cannon raid.

The Thanagarians think that blowing up the Earth with their Phoenix Cannon is the only way to stop our universe from sinking into the Dark Multiverse. We believe they're wrong...that there's another way. The time has come to prove it.

Please post your thoughts, feedback, and issues encountered for this raid. Be sure to let me know which version you were playing: event, normal, or elite.

Thank you!
- Quixotic

The tethered mechanic is still buggy in Elite. We've had attempts where the tether was completely invisible and in other attempts, pairing up with a tethered teammate still caused the tether to explode. As of right now, its 100% RNG and that's whether you survive the tether while being paired or the tether even appearing.

EUPC here - this raid is suffering from the same cutscene issues as the duo. None of the iconic NPCs showed up in the cutscenes for me, and there was no audio for them either. Same for the others in my group. The cutscene at the start of the last boss fight was a bit different though - the Dark Knights NPCs did show up, but none of the heroic ones and again no audible dialogue.

In the first boss fight also after the cutscene finished the only enemy that materialised was the Thanagarian that spawns with Lady Blackhawk (can't remember the name of the NPC, Thrasher maybe?). The heroic iconics that were supposed to assist us also did not spawn. After we killed the Thanagarian enemy NPC we were just stuck in the room with no enemies to fight. We all warped to rally and when we came back the fight worked properly.

Well we just beat phoenix Elite we killed all bosses and doors oppened and nothing happend the timer on scoreboard its still goin no loot no nothing also many bugs inside the raid specially on last boss

No loot, no cutscene, nothing...Batman is just playing with the console and doing nothing :\. When Legacy beat it about an hour before us, their instance completed but for some reason ours did not.

@Quixotic
Elite- Bug


I join in on Last boss fight, we beat it but there is no loot drop and the boss fight seems like does not end correctly..there is no cut-scene too. Can you check it out, hope this can be fix and won't happen again to other group that able to complete it.

Shouldn't this be in the bug forum?

Thanks for the feedback. Our engineers are looking into the cutscene issue(s).

I think something with the ending cutscene not playing prevented loot from dropping in the elite version you guys reported. Based on your video, I'm pretty confident that the encounter correctly detected that you beat the fight. But none of the things that are triggered when the cutscene starts or ends happened.

I'm adding some safeguards that will trigger everything regardless of whether a cutscene works correctly or not. As an example, this should mean that even if the final cutscene doesn't fire, loot will drop and the raid will wrap up.

- Quixotic

I'm disappointed that the tether FX is still not consistently appearing. I can't expect you guys to try to execute a mechanic that isn't visible, but I have no way of guaranteeing that the FX will appear. One of our engineers is investigating, but so far he hasn't had much luck getting the tether to not appear in his test environment.

At this point, I think I probably need to reduce the damage the tether is doing so that it's only a relatively minor boss mechanic.

- Quixotic

Like other people are reporting, there was no cutscene or loot drops for my group after defeating the Dark Knights. That was a real downer on an otherwise decent run.

No one in my group ever saw the tether.

To be clear Quixotic, we could see the tether but there were times were it simply failed to work. Two players would come together, stay together for a few seconds, the tether would never disappear, and then fire off the one-shot mechanic as though the tether was never performed.

Just went through it with my league and there is an issue with friendly NPCs glitching into walls which make finishing the fight and getting loot impossible. They teleported into the hallway that would be open after the Blackhawk fight before it had started. So we had to wipe and get them to reset properly.

Then knowing there was an issue with non-present friendlies for the second fight, someone noticed that Batman had gotten stuck in the hallway between the glass and the railing where there is a recess and he can't walk out. Someone had to sit on one end while another had the gorilla toy and threw barrels at him until he "popped out" onto the main walkway. And even then when he got walked to the encounter door, he and lady blackhawk glitched into the wall beside the door for the final fight. So we had to wipe again to get them to reset. We were able to finish it then.

Forgot to add that the tether mechanic from Red Death doesn't resolve every time even if you're touching the person to whom you're tethered.

I'm looking at that as well. I don't yet know why that part can fail...especially if it only happens some of the time rather than always.
- Quixotic

Idk, but we can be face to face, out of movement mode standing as close as possible, and it won't work sometimes. It's going to happen 5+ times before you finish the last 2 sub bosses, so it's just a very rng mechanic that wipes a group 90% of the time.

I also have a suggestion that the Dawnbreaker's Ring of Light (circle) mechanic should bypass shields if people don't make it. Supplement it with maybe the ring lasting 3 seconds longer, since the add tank can get cc'd and not make it in time (quite often actually, unless they're acro). Just an idea of a way to make the boss slightly more difficult and coordinated after the tether fix.

I think that's a good idea. I was considering a few low-impact updates that could counter the tether fix reducing the difficulty of that raid and that seems like a good one.
- Quixotic

dont reduce the dmg, its supposed ot be a group wipe mechanic and should be treated as such.

From what I have noticed is that if the two people who are tethered are too far away from each other it doesnt show up.

The tether is still detonating even while being paired up with the effected teammate. There's been no noticeable change since yesterday. Please add a safeguard so that the tether doesn't explode when people are doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Agreed man, I don't think the damage should be nerfed. Its the only thing in the raid that makes it challenging. But that tether needs to be fixed ASAP. Its incredibly inconsistent and its been responsible for so many wipes that we can't control.

@Quixotic
Elite (Bug)


The Tethering still not cleaning properly. we so depends on luck to finish the raid now just because of it.