Dev Discussion Episode 44: Rock of Eternity (Raid)

Join Black Adam, Shazam, and Deadly Isis as they try to find a way back to Neron's Underworld within the Rock of Eternity. This is the feedback thread for the Rock of Eternity raid. Leave your comments and let us know what you think of this raid.

- Quixotic

This is really easy in elite. Can be done in under 10 minutes with last episode's gear, even with 1 or 2 wipes under 15 minutes.

Besides Lazy Blast, Arc Lightning and the Ankh bombs there really is nothing happening to the group. Even then Lazy Blast is a simple mechanic to follow and just spread out for lightning.

The health of the bosses are quite low considering this is a new raid imo.

Ideas to improve elite (and for elite plus if applicable):

- Have Felix Faust do Lazy Blast more frequently. For example he can teleport 3 times in succession and prepare a Lazy Blast on each teleportation. In addition, elite players should be expected to know this mechanic so the red text can disappear after the initial time this occurs.
- Higher boss health in general.
- Have a Egyptian add spawn with a timer above his head during the Felix Faust fight. He will walk around the map. When the timer runs out he will do a large raid wide AOE attack, doing large damage to all group members and spawning other adds (outside of the add phases). The group will have to KO this add as soon as possible.
- Have Felix Faust perform a trick and do a Reverse Lazy Blast. Felix Faust will do a no way emote while doing Lazy Blast. What this will mean is players don't stand close to Felix during this as it will affect the area close to him rather than the rest of the room. Players will need to watch out for this emote. This can occur in amidst a succession of Lazy Blasts so players will need to pay attention and respond quickly.
- During the add phase, have Felix Faust's shield be a reflect mechanic.
- Add sand storms to the fight which will follow a random player and do damage over time and knock them away, like Spinning Blades from Source Wall second boss.
- During Shazam phases, have Black Alice blink to the middle and prepare a Shazam skull attack. All players will have to block or this will KO anyone not blocking.
- Can Black Alice absorb other powers? Like Isis from the alert? Any other character who appears in the episode?
- Have Black Alice prepare a trail lightning attack on several players, similar to the gem beam mechanics from Mordru in CUE/Judges from Throne of the Dead/Queen Diana's curse from Royal War alert. When a player gets a red lightning icon above their head, they have to keep moving or lightning bolts will hit them and do considerable damage over time. They should avoid other players during this.
- Have Black Alice teleport to one side of the room and prepare an electric AOE attack - this will affect the entire room apart from the side of the room immediately close to or behind Black Alice. Anyone hit by this will take massive damage. This can happen multiple times in succession.
- Have Black Alice spawn Ankh enemies, kinda like the fire adds from Forgemaster Hackman fight in DME or the weapons from second boss False Idols. These Ankhs will proximity aggro on random players, so they can either be killed or players will have to keep dodging them.

In general, I prefer when the devs err on the side of more instructive text rather than less. Especially in a raid, I often have trouble even finding targets amid the overlapping effects, let alone being able to see a toon’s tell. And since I often tank, I tend to have to be zoomed out to see adds, which makes it harder.

This would be specifically for elite versions. Normal would stay as it is.

Thanks for the feedback and ideas! I'll likely consider things like these mostly for the elite plus version.

- Quixotic

Other ideas for elite plus:

During the shield/add phases for Felix Faust, spawn 1-2 random large adds with higher health, each with special abilities. 1 in the first add phase, then 2 in the second add phase.

- Croc Monstrosity will spawn.

- Croc Monstrosity will do a Call of the Deep skull, similar to The Drowned in Source Wall. This will KO players in range unless the player blocks.

- Bird Monstrosity will spawn.

- Bird Monstrosity will do a War Cry stun attack on the group before charging the furthest player. If the player doesn't block they will take massive damage from the charge and this will also trigger Spinning Winds AOEs around the map, which do heavy damage over time to affected players. (Similar to Lady Blackhawk from Phoenix Cannon)

- Jackal Monstrosity will spawn.

- Jackal Monstrosity will have a skull icon before doing a pull on the group (like breathing in). This will be followed shortly after by a Howl attack. Both of these should be blocked, as the pull will defence debuff and stun players as they are pulled towards the boss, and the howl (at mid range) will KO anyone with that debuff.

- Mummy Monstrosity will spawn.

- Mummy Monstrosity will do a skull attack that will KO anyone who looks directly at the boss. To evade this, players should simply look in the opposite direction to the boss.

One more idea for elite plus :

During Felix Faust's Lazy Blast, he will spawn illusions of himself as well as the real Felix, who will teleport just before. The fake Felix Faust will no way emote while having a fake safe zone. The group will need to figure out the real Felix Faust and go to his safe zone. If they go to a fake Felix Faust the safe zone won't count and they will be KO'd from Lazy Blast.

Micro nap feat in elite version is not workin for me and other ppls. We did 6 sec feat in normal without any problem. Any1 else got same problem?

Yeah, we had a couple attempts where we were pretty sure we should have gotten it. One of them I was the only questionable one because I got put to sleep while in stealth and didn't immediately notice but still about 95% sure I broke out within 4-5 seconds.

I haven't been able to reproduce having Micro Nap (Elite) fail when it's not supposed to. I'm thinking that at least means the cause is very uncommon or a fringe condition of some sort.

Or maybe that someone was a bit too late in breaking out and you didn't realize it (probably a pipe dream but...). Everyone has to break out of Rude Awakening within 5 seconds every time Felix Faust uses it - just one miss during the fight means no feat.

Either way, I'll keep an eye on this and see if anything else comes up that might help me find a potential cause for it to fail when it shouldn't.

- Quixotic

Please can the Ankh Bombs during the Black Alice fight have a red AOE tell for a very brief time just before they are about to explode?

It can be tricky to work out how far away from the Ankhs you have to be to not get affected directly by them when they explode - making gauging the furthest range of them a guess.

(For all versions of the raid)

Did you test the sleep mechanic happening when someone is in stealth or invis. I know a couple times we expected it to pop but didn’t I was in stealth during one of the sleep procs.

You're onto something - I did more testing and being in stealth or invisible when hit with Rude Awakening can cause the fail condition regardless of when you break out. Nice catch!

I have a fix for that in what I believe should be in the next update.

- Quixotic

I know of also sometimes the autobreak out elite mod has made some feats on this genre not work. Have you investigated this issue?

Also this should be working as long as a tank is using a group breakout on time as well correct?

The solution is that no-one should be running auto-breakout elite mod. Can be deadly in several raid examples.

Hello,

Is there an ETA for when Elite Plus is coming out? With last episode we had elite plus around a month into the episode, we are almost a month into Sins of Black Adam and we still haven't had elite plus even on test.

(Elite plus had been confirmed from certain feat descriptions for this episode)

I hope never lol
Same raid in 3 different difficulties, x3 feats. What's the point? Never understood. Oh and no die feat, I can't wait for that...

If you don’t like something in this game doesn’t mean they shouldn’t release it, most of us in the end game community are literally only thing we are looking for each dlc added difficulty and feats etc. it’s like me saying i hope they never release the event version because i never play it and don’t like it, it’s not very nice of me now is it. Same goes to to you sir.

Quixotic it’s been over 4 weeks now with no communication what so ever on elite plus and no dates to go with it. Half my league has gone inactive because we completed all the feats of this dlc and are craving for the challenging content. We are missing one third of the current dlc I thought you’d have some sort of priority regarding plus.

Can we please get a reply Of an update or a date Q cheers.

That's the point, endgame players are waiting for hard contents after 1 month of dlc launch (not me, as you said we are different people). You mentioned, half of your league has gone because elite plus isn't out yet. Don't you feel something is wrong then? And that's not your fault. That's why I suggested to make elite plus like an SM content with special rewards.
Don't get me wrong, I get it, people like to spend several hours or days or weeks in e+ to complete it or achieving feats. In same raid, but extremely difficult version of it. If that's the only thing you play for, so be it. But there were no e+s before and we had so much fun in this game.
I know devs have not an easy job to make everyone happy but e+ contents are fun only for 10% of the playerbase (correct me if I'm wrong). And when that 10% gets everything from e+, they leave the game again until next dlc. The 90% wants those feats and rewards as well but they can't complete it due different reasons so they keep playing for fun or also leave the game until next dlc.
You get it what I'm trying to say?