Test Discussion Episode 34: "JLD: Darkness Rising" 4-Player Operation

The Etrigan fight is feeling overbuffed at the moment. If you have multiple Etigans start their flame breath all at the same time, things get ugly in hurry.

I can scale back the Etrigan Copy flame breaths a bit. I'll probably leave the real Etrigan alone.

The Etrigan fight is a lot easier if you DON'T bring a tank along. That way the Etrigans stay spread farther out and you don't concentrate their flame breath. You also get the Defensive buff. If you do bring a tank along, all of the Etrigans seem to gravitate toward the tank. If that happens, it is impossible to tell which one is the real Etrigan based on all the Visual FX pollution. It also becomes really difficult to counter all of the Etrigans if they decide to use flame breath at one time. If they do use flame breath at one time, rallying a knocked out team member is difficult.

The Vampire Overlord fight is much easier compared to the Etrigan fight.

@Charon
Do you want videos uploaded for any of this?

Question
In the Turret Room, are the ARGUS soldiers supposed to suffer from the effects of the Nerve Gas?

Sure. Videos always are of assistance.

Nope. Will look into that.
EDIT - If you're talking about at the door there when they spawn, that's their spawn animation since they are "whammied" by Faust.

Feedback

1.
3 DPS/1 Tank fight (with Etrigan starting at Half Health)


You can see examples at 20 and near the end of multiple Etrigans using Flame Breath in close proximity to one another.
At 2:37, why does Constantine's bubble blow up so quickly? Usually you get a "Progress Meter".
I don't like how the skulls at 2:50 look too close to the accessories that were released at couple of weeks ago.

2.
3 DPS/1 Healer fight (full fight)

Feedback
Vampire Overlord Fight:


At 3 seconds, I don't like how the pool appears under me with no warning.
At 48 seconds, why do the Vampire Lord and Shadow Monster have healing debuffs on them? Did someone use a consumable?
At 2:04, why is the Vampire Lord focusing our DPS? Shouldn't the healer be at the top of the hate list? Also, the Vampire Lord seems to ignore my Decoy most of the time it is out in the video.

I'm not sure what feedback to offer on this fight. You get pulled a lot and the Vampire Lord loves to spend the fight standing on his Darkness Pools.

Should the Vampires be casting shadows on the European Castle map?

These changes should go up on Monday.

- Reduced NPC density in Event Mode.

- Adjusted Turret beam damage slightly upward in Normal Mode.
- Added a progress Rally Point in the Black Room after the Etrigan fight begins.
- ARGUS Medics will no longer spawn in Event Mode.
- Reduced the damage needed to provoke Etrigan's Armour in Event Mode.
- Lowered stats for Etrigan's Armour adds in Event Mode.
- Adjusted damage downward for Etrigan Mirror Image Flame Breath attacks.
- Etrigan's Mirror Images have a longer delay before using their Flame Breath attack for the first time.
- Etrigan's Mirror Images now attack random targets between NPCs and Players, spreading out their potential focused fire.
- Etrigan's Mirror Images now can take a bit longer before choosing their first random target.
- Etrigan's Mirror Images are easier to dispel in Event Mode.

- Occultists will not heal allies in Event Mode.
- Removed Grasping Hand attack from the Vampire Lord.
- Disintigration Beam now splits the the Area of Effect damage evenly between all available targets.
- Disintigration Beam does less damage in Event Mode when blocking.
- The Vampire Lord's damage buff has been increased while within the Pools of Darkness in Normal Mode.
- The Vampire Lord is slightly more prone to do his leap attacks more often.
- The Vampire Lord will no longer suck in NPCs into the Pools of Darkness.
- Constantine and Steve Trevor will follow the Vampire Lord less while it is inside the Pools of Darkness.
- Steve Trevor and Constantine will no longer do actions that can knock down the Vampire Lord, especially when he is in his Pools of Darkness.
- Pools of Darkness now take time to grow instead of being immediately fully formed and functional upon engagement.
- Reduced stats on Shadow Monsters in Event Mode.

ran alert, was fire tank with 259 cr, 261 sp, 3 160 artifacts (new tank one, manacles, eye). group was initially 259 healer and a 259 and 258 dps along with me. healer dced after first boss and etrigan was tried with me and 3 dps all either 258 or 259.

wiped on turrets tanking between them because even though I asked the group to have 2 ppl on 1 turret and 1 person on the other turret to capture them while I held everything in the middle, the 2 dps didn't quite understand that concept and dpsd away from the turrets. so the 2nd attempt we grouped up by the nearest turret to the door and then I pulled everything towards the door so we could capture just one turret, but the healer kept running back and forth trying to capture both turrets while again the dps didn't bother to stand by the turrets. finally the healer realized he only need to capture the one turret nearest us and we finished the turret phase. people who don't know or pay attention to mechanics will not get past this at this gear level

etrigan was even worse. we wiped the first time at 1% but when [BUG} we came back to do it again the sandstorms were still up. so all subsequent attempts had sandstorms right of the bat [/BUG]. one of the dps continually died to etrigans fire. I tried tanking the mirror images and etrigan so they did not face the dps, but the one dps probably died to etrigans flame breath at least 20 times across the 5 attempts we did. I am not sure if he felt he could stand in it or if it just burned his health so fast that he had no time to move.. also the first 2 attempts the dps did not burn down the armored images attacking Constantine and subsequently died when the shield exploded.

this seems doable with a coordinated group who has an understanding of the mechanics. but pug groups especially 3 dps ones will probably struggle with this until they get better gear/understand the mechanics. as we could not defeat etrigan, everyone left and we could not test further

ran alert, was nature healer with 258 cr, 260 sp, 3 160 artifacts (cloak, eye, fang). group was 3 dps (265, 259. 259) and me

wiped on all bosses once.

turrets we fought everything by entrance at 2nd attempt. had to 3 man it because 1 person decided to go to the furthest turret to solo dps and died instantly. he left and we replaced him after we beat the turrets. took long to burn everything but door was safe area. as healer with no tank had to do a lot of kiting the entire run.

second boss we wiped on first attempt because group spread out too much. we stayed on the same end as Constantine the 2nd attempt and beat it with a lot of kiting by me and the dps really focused on burning down images and armored images. I think shield only blew up on us on the first attempt.

3rd boss we wiped right before he died when he spawned all the extra adds. the 2nd attempt we used the various flames to stun them and saved our orbitals to use on those adds. again huge amount kiting by me the healer because of no tank

I would say overall as long as everyone knows the mechanics this is beatable. the moment someone strays from the mechanics it is very punishing. no tank means the healer will have aggro the entire boss fight, every boss fight. as nature kiting wasn't too much of an issue but combo powers like water and celestial may have some difficulty

also lighting on vampire lord was much better than it has been. the room was a lot easier to view

Ran the 4-man again. Turret part was significantly easier from last week. Etrigan was WAY harder. Died randomly a few times-- I think it was all his images hitting me at once, but the combat log flew by in a hurry and I didn't save it. There were a bunch of pick-ups in that fight. There might need to be some extra warning for some of the big attacks there.

Adds in the castle went much faster. We skipped the optional parts.

Last fight was WAY easier. Could see the pools clearly. Boss' attacks were well telegraphed.

Difficulty overall seemed about right. We had a tank and a heal, so that helped, but some of us were min CR.