Test Discussion Episode 37: The Clock Tower (Raid)

Not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but as atomic tank i can't see my colour (red/blue).
Even worse if i use my atomic shield SC, the whole group can't see their colour then^^

Absolutely agree. As far as I understand the mechanic is based on standing in the pools to negate certain damage, however staying in the fields right now is the worst idea since color changes happen so randomly and current correct execution would conclude in a wipe eventually.

Adding here our run. Someone else in the group recorded:



At 4:50 min. mark you can see how the color change should work, imo. The fields despawned and the window between the resolved field phase and the next field phase is perfect to let a color change happen, however if looked closely we had numerous phases that happened while fields were up. Can't really say what the color change phase gets triggered by. At 2:30 you can see on the left Optimus color changes while fields are up. We do gave up at this point using the fields, otherwise this would be a wipe.

Feedback about the Elite version:

1st boss:
Catwoman:
Catwoman's damage seems nice so far, her whip pull damages the tank for about 100k(not sure if its based on health,if it is,thats about 50% of our tanks health),cat swipe can be lethal if not blocked,whip flurry skull attack also does a good amount of damage.

Although,her skull attack which she lunges to group members is still not a threat to anyone,as of now,even if people dont block it doesnt make any differense,its a slow skull attack and you have plenty of time to block it so it should be buffed to the point that it would 1 shot as a punishment if people wouldnt block.

Also, catwoman doesnt throw her caltrops that often and they dont deal any realistic damage to begin with,people can stand on top of them until they despawn while continuing their rotations(9k dot),our tanks were also able to tank the bosses while standing on caltrops until they despawn and it didnt really make any difference.An ideal change would be to tweak this attack so that people actually get punished for brainlessly standing on top of them for a long period of time.

Poison Ivy:
Poison Ivy's skull attack is still not noticable,it dealt 40k damage to dpses while not blocking.If the damage remains the same then no point to even keep a skull attack.
Poison Ivy is just a weak boss overall,not a threat even when she's on frenzy mode.

Ant-Rage Crash Mechanic
To conlcude about last boss,as a rage tank,if I lose my abilities because of the drones while rage heals are active,I'll keep getting healed for 8 seconds even if I have no abilities in my ladout,a rage crash after those 8 seconds are gone seems fair.As any other tank power if you lose your abilities you're just instantly dead.Also the drone spawning locations arent random so you can prearrange your position, plus you can get rid of the drones thanks to the augments.

Last Boss:

Pools/Fields:
We went from having 3 pool phases at the same time (total 24 pools),to having 1 pool phase at a time (total 8 pools),that seems like an overkill.
The most realistic way to approach this would be to meet in the middle and have 2 pool phases active at the same time (total of 16 pools) since there would still be enough space for people to move & rotate & it would encourage people to stand in matching pools every now and then.Since, as of now,standing on matching pools isnt even worth it because there's too much free space in the room.

Cone Attack:
Last I checked,the cone skull attack will hit players that are within line of sight,but the damage is so insignificant (about 20k) that might aswell not be a skull attack.

Shield Penetrating Attacks:
It seems like every single aoe mechanic in that boss fight hits based on your health & it also penetrates shields.
Ive noticed there's an effort to change the shield meta,which is interesting but you do it in a way in which ice & earth tanks will get handicapped because the only thing their shields can absorb in that bossfight are weapon attacks.

Dont get me wrong,I like shield penetrating mechanics,and as a rage tank I couldnt care less if you added even more of those.But getting 3 overlapping shield penetrating mechanics(one of them is a dot,the other one is the stomp that she brings your health down to 50% and for the last one she scatters a dozen of orbs in less than a second while getting stunned and bringing your health down to 10%) will eliminate the shield meta while it will encourage the rage & nature meta.
A way to balance this is make one of those 3 special attacks able to be absorbed by shields while still hitting based on health

Damage Check:
Last but not least,a damage check mechanic is essential so it encourages all 8 players to participate in the raid.The problem right know is that less people equals less pools which eliminates all threats of this bossfight (less people to heal,less pools to spawn,more space to move,less chances people will get close to each other proccing the colour mechanic) without any punishment other than time.

So in the elite raid currently at last boss fight there are 2 skulls which kind of messes up to know when the boss is gonna pull,sometimes it does 1 skull and it basically does nothing. I suggest making only 1 skull for that boss fight which is for when the boss is about to pull the group to him,that way its less confusing.

Agreeing on all points. There defo needs to be some way to hinder people from staying outside or dying intendedly just to spawn less pools and make it easier. A Damage Check is the correct way in my opinion if its a really difficult one where everyone has to participate, it also adds some variety to the fight since it boss itself isnt a big threat. The Damage Check has to be a tough one where you need everyone to participate in e.g. everyone has to pop an orbital in order to deal enough damage. It cant be a low one where still 4 people with their orbitals are enough to pass the check.

Or making it a fix order as one seems health based and the other time based currently.

Another way to increase difficulty or Duration of the the last boss fight could be "Oracle healing units".
Drones that heal the Boss, as soon as they reach the boss. Slowly following/heading towards the boss, unable to get pulled or stunned.
Basically like the Detonator drones in Darkseids war factory 2nd Boss, but instead of heading towards Players, heading towards the boss.

The only way to keep them from healing the boss would be to kill them fast or the get the tank to run around with the boss and risking to step into wrong AoE's.

In order to force people to stay at maximum amount of members as possible there could be an option to take the terminal at the window into consideration. What if 4 players have to activate some cog(teleporter) to be teleported in one of the sub-rooms, either right or left in order to defeat some subboss, that would otherwise make the group wipe if not being defeated in time. Simultaneously the group will have to avoid placing pools next to the window and not touching others with different colors also making it quiet harder and the straight forward last boss would get some paste.

Quick note to thank everyone for the continued feedback!

I'm going to focus on the challenge level in elite over the next few days, plus a bit of other bugs/polish. But mostly elite challenge...from notes based on your posts.

Thanks!
- Quixotic

Completely agree with everything except Poison Ivy aspect. She seems to apply a 40k dot on tank sometimes, there's also a blow kiss move that applies a 50k dot and that goes up to 70k per tick while she's in frenzy mode. She definitely presents more of a threat than Catwoman for the tank since her special attacks are ranged.

Indeed, most skull attacks aren't doing any harm to anyone in the group, they aren't even worth the warning. Unless it's intended to trick the tank into wasting the immunity on the wrong attack.

It's true, I couldn't see my colour while Density shield was up either. However, knowing how weak Density's BSM is, it should be down soon enough not to forget the colour And most heavy skull attacks go through shields unfortunately for dom/shield based tank powers and water healers

So i just tested earth tanking for this raid in regular and i guess it is pretty similar with elite mechanic wise.
After tanking last boss i got one question. ''What is the point of shields for tank if EVERYTHING goes through shields.''
At this point it is impossible to stay alive for some tank powers if there is like 3 shield penetrating attacks.

Please do something about it.

Nobody wants mind control...it is played out!

At the moment this raids last boss fight is going to tell people to go rage tank because with rage you have a healing back mechanic and can actually tank it with it. I don't want to go a specific power just because some tank power has upper hand. All tank powers should be equal for the last boss fight. Currently last boss has too many shield penetrating attacks,and shields are all useless.

Feedback as of 2020-04-04

Bugs/Issues:

• Elevator bug is still persistent, especially if a new player joins the group and will have to run back to the trap drones
• After wiping on Oracle the group will need to warp rally back to the rally point as npc's are still engaged
• <regular> numerous times at least in the regular attempts there would be 0 colour phases and the fight would just act like it doesn't exist and turns into a <5min fight. On wipe attempts it did have the regular colour phase but I would say through attempts in regular it was 50/50 whether we would properly have the colour change phases
• The exoblast damage completely ignoring shields is still an issue, especially for Ice Tanks. The difference between tanking <regular> as an ice tank vs a rage tank is completely night and day. Ice Tanks presently will be near WORTHLESS in Clock Tower as they will continually take damage that they cannot mitigate and during any regular damage that goes through shields they will automatically have to contend with the exoblast damage at the same time
• Whether it's intended or not the drones that now spawn in the Oracle fight have zero willpower so they can easily by perma-stunned by the controller (could be intended just letting you know)
• <regular + elite> the Oracle-Bot attack that teleports you cannot be stopped by blocking unlike the pull-in skull. I have blocked the skull perfectly fine (or used heat vision on 200 solar amplifier) and not been pulled in towards the Oracle-Bot but in elite I was healing and just sitting in the back of the room specifically blocking so I wouldn't get teleported in and place a pool on the tank (also the tank was opposite colour as me) and I was teleported despite blocking 3s before the teleport even happened.

Not so much a bug but general feedback. With the current mechanics of the last boss fight it is made INFINITELY easier by running 4-6 players instead of the full 8 because of the spacing on the pools and the arc damage from the colour phases. There 100% Requires an mechanic that either prevents or discourages players from running <8 group configurations or as soon as this hits live you will routinely see groups just have players sit out the fight because there is no damage check and all it takes is a few minutes longer as apposed to the time added from multiple wipes etc. It's an 8-player raid and it shouldn't be an option for the group to make it that much easier by running 4 players etc.

*Follow-up

I now realize that the bonus from 2 augments are that you are immune to the exoblast damage. That is fine but my previous point still stands that Ice tanks are 100% worthless in Clock Tower (almost even regular too lol) without max augments? Shattered Gotham's double augment buff wasn't even that powerful, it was certainly advantageous to max them but that exoblast DOT makes it near essential for every single Ice Tank that wants to run Clocktower, not to mention more than likely 100% elite clocktower shouldn't even bother entering until max augments.

that is a bit of a stretch to almost pay-to-win levels with the launch of a dlc.

Not sure if you guys buffed the first boss fight or not, but today in the group that I was in on first boss, our tank was getting basically insta-killed because the damage just goes straight through the shields. Before today this same tank had been doing it solo tanking that boss multiple times before today, and for some reason today he was just getting smoked...

We then tried to double tank, and I was tanking as earth, and I was getting basically insta-killed as well with my shields up and i was still getting hit for over 150k damage sometimes, or multiple hits of like 85k right on top of each other.. And this is damage being done through my shields and through blocking as well... ( I wasn't face tanking either )

With that being said. When we go and try to double tank it, it is almost impossible to taunt the boss when they go in their frenzy mode, and when we try and pull them together they just don't move and they sit there and do massive damage to the tanks and end up killing one of the tanks.. (Even before frenzy it seems way to difficult to taunt the bosses together before they go into frenzy)

So again, idk if the 1st boss got buffed or if we were just having a off day, but that is what I experienced today just on first boss... And if it is a cake walk for other groups then good sh**, but we were getting smoked on that first boss even with trying to double tank it. The bosses just seem way to difficult to pull, or to taunt them anywhere. They seem to have a mind of their own, on top of penetrating right through our shields like we aren't even putting shields up..

I also agree with last boss too, it should not be easier to do last boss with less people. That room is already small enough and the fact that so much is going on in that little room, it is ridiculous that you make it easier to do it with less people. If anything there should be maybe 4-5 pools max in there. This is a 8 player raid, and it's not fair to other group members to have to sit out, because you guys make a cluster of mechanics on last boss..

I am not saying either to just make this raid easy as crap for everyone. It is elite and it should be a higher skill based raid, but I feel like you devs have never found that middle difficulty for content. It is either overly hard for everyone, or it is noob friendly easy.. Something needs to happen where you guys can find that middle ground with your content. I mean in order to complete the raid you basically have to run 4-5 people on last boss and that shouldn't be a thing either..

Continued Feedback:

We ran CTe 1st boss and have feedback but are doing another full run tomorrow for it, if you would like the feedback this type of feedback is better shared in PM's, which I have already sent, not to sensationalize the encounter.

Oracle-Bot <REGULAR> <ELITE?>

Reprogrammed Oracle-Bots Electrosurge needs to be reduced significantly in damage if it is going to be kept as a non-skull attack. Right now at least in regular the actual skulls from Oracle-Bot are not a risk to the tank at all unless they aren't shielded or already really low etc but Electrosurge can easily one-shot you and as you can see from the clip below you literally only have 2 seconds to react before you are taking damage so if you miss the animation from looking at the pools, or your colour change etc by the time you realize what happened you are already dead.

Probably might've been stated already, but today a group mate and I could not see the pools in the final boss of The Clock Tower (Regular) Raid. I got lucky and wasn't standing in the pools that I couldn't see, but he unfortunately could not see them and so didn't know where to move and it got the whole group killed.

Also I must say how ridiculous Oracle's random pull is. I don't mean the one that happens after the skull, but the one that targets someone randomly and pulls them right next to her. You can easily ruin the tank as well as any surrounding players if their of an opposite color or if you get dragged into a pool. The group wiped when she was at 1% Health due to this since the healer (me) got dragged in and trapped by the swarm of NPCs that surround Oracle while standing in a pool. I'd say make some of the NPCs range more because if any pets are there as well and a player gets dragged things can turn quite ugly.