Dev Discussion Episode 46: Cursed House Of Mystery Alert

Always a source of the unexpected, the House of Mystery never disappoints!

Etrigan has taken control of the House and is preventing Zatanna and Constantine from entering. They've sent for you to get inside and convince Etrigan - one way or another - to take down his demonic wards and relinquish control of the House.

This is the feedback thread for the Episode 46 alert, The Cursed House of Mystery. Please leave feedback, thoughts, and comments on your experiences in this zone. Thank you, and have fun!

- Shadoweaver

Could you PLEASE add rage crash protection for rage tanks during the whisp phase where you have to get your symbol?

Is there a way to alter this phase some what? It makes no sense to have the tank turned, but then Deadman is still hitting the tank when you have to get your symbol. Or have Deadman drop aggro while you're getting your symbol because you can't reaggro him in the form.

You could have him teleport to the middle then have some kind of timer so there's urgency to match your symbol and turn back, or have the tank not get turned. Idk. I don't like it. It hasn't stopped our groups from getting past this fight, but it's a super odd mechanic that doesn't make any sense.

100 renown elite alert? Did I miss a drop?

Seems like all tanks are destined to die during that phase. As Earth I lost my health buff and got 1-shot every time I got transformed.

I think this alert is intended to be run tank free maybe?

I just want to send my compliments to whoever designed and decorated the House of Mystery-it's an absolute visual treat and I just had to go back and explore after it ended. I'm impressed how mostly normal size base items were used to fill manor-sized areas without looking out of place. It was also neat to spot things from the original JLD raid along the way to each fight- like an open door to the galaxy room but it was not the same location. Def meshes with the HoMs ability to transform and move rooms around. Fingers crossed there will be a HoM-inspired base or league hall down the line!

Not a fan of Swamp Thing gaining counter immunity once he grows. One of the fun aspects of tanking for me is correctly doing counters against bosses, having that removed from the fight is annoying.

Thanks! Yes, I will see about addressing this issue.

Okay, I was holding off my review of this instance until I did the elite version.

The instance is amazingly visually pleasing. I do love the effort that was put in there. Even the easter egg of the boss figurines in the hallway. Props to the map and art designer! My wife was looking over my shoulder and she was amazed by it and thought it was a lair. Which is a huge thing, because a lot of maps were built in the last many years to try and avoid too much load. This was well done!

With that said, the bosses are just sponges. The health creep is real and reminds me of the old T6 problem we had. Where it just created long instances because of how much health is on the bosses and there is a huge difference in health between regular and elite. It also doesn't help the small amount of renown achieved as rewards.

Etrigan encounter - The two decoys kinda feel like they should be able to be aggro'd at least. They just wander around and can go through a full combo on a non tank... Which is a significant amount of damage in Elite. The encounter itself is kinda fun and the mechanics for the fight is actually at least engaging enough to keep everyone on their toes. (Fire at your feet or the aoe on your teammates.)

Deadman encounter - My least favorite of the 3 bosses. It's not because it's overly difficult, but really just the mechanics of the fight is just not great for me.
The ghost transformations are just annoying, especially if you are a pet build. It would be nice if we could just have our hotbar suppressed and not changed. At least then, our pets wouldn't despawn, like in the last fight of the raid.
The furniture is just annoying. If there were better indications of where furniture will be heading, it would make that part better, but as it is, what is the point of the yellow beams if not for the furniture paths? Which they don't follow.

Swamp Thing encounter - My favorite of the 3 and the most interesting battle. I do like the urgency of working together to do the mechanics from hitting the cogs to burning adds so he doesn't heal too much. I wish the encounter wasn't a dome though. It's a beautiful map, but we can't use it fully. The only one that has a lot of room, is Deadman, now that I think of it and even then, that room is huge.

BTW, my league really wants the beard style on ol' swampy available for players. Maybe make it an accessory item.

Agreed, furniture seems to drift off it's path towards where I rolled to in an attempt to avoid the path shown by the line. Also, I took damage from a passing globe in what should have been a safe area based on the lines. Visually, the globe did not touch me but, as it passed, it "popped" like it had made contact and I lost health, but our group still got the feat for no one getting hit by furniture? Something unusual about that.

I really like the alert. Going for the spore feat was a pain but rest was great fun. Regarding the furniture phase, what I found is that yellow lines are targeting mechanic and not lock ons. Once they disappear you should roll. Not before then as they are still in the process of locking on, once they are gone they are targeting where you are. Aside from that Etrigan fire pits sometimes are rng in elite phase. As they do not always spawn on the player and his fire breath indicator of direction sometimes disappears as well.

Way too much health in eleet. Take a few points off will ya. I’m there to play, not…zzzz.

First boss is fine. Last boss is fine. It’s the second boss that is not fine. More specifically, the damn furniture. What’s the point of the yellow lines if it’s meaningless??? Is there a secret to this part or is it pure garbage luck to not get hit?

I've run & passed the elite but I'm in agreement with BumblingB. Instead of single immunity just for rage, may you please still allow us to use our powers even when transformed? I hold agro pretty well but it seems a bit unfair the 2nd boss can sit there & beat us in the back as we helplessly try to roll to our color dial lol. It can sometimes lead to unnecessary ko's.

Or at least allow 1 support role to be able to use their powers for a shield specifically for that phase.

Last Boss couple timing issues:

Spore cloud and magic cog. They both pop at same time and now someone will be stuck and suffocating horribly!! Please make sure these two mechanics do not overlap.

Piranhas. I see the feat for knocking them out before they grow up into walking house plants…with legs. However, how do they grow up? How long should they have before they mature? I ask because I just ran eleet and one spawned and instantly became big! I’m sitting there like…well then, humph, there goes that feat. Is it proximity to the boss, does Mr swamp guy grant puberty to the fishies?

Hibernation shell. After he emerges, he loves to target someone other than the tank and go ham on them and kill them. Is this intended?

Dialogue issues. I notice the bosses will say stuff such as what they will be doing, but can the action taken have a slight delay so we can get out of animation and try to perform the correct response? I find it pointless if etrigan talks about spices and instantly pops a fire aoe under everyone. Perhaps he can talk and then at mid sentence he can spawn the fire. Same with trapeze attack, spore cloud attack.

The ghost/whisp dialogue is good. How would you like to be ghosts? Few seconds later… hey look, we ghosts.

I do listen for the dialogue queued and move accordingly, but this alert doesn’t really allow for that. Pwease fix?

In the first boss (Etrigan), we receive renown, but it is not added to the inventory... is this a bug?????

You won't get killed with a decent healer. Also, as a healer myself, I always try to draw Deadman to me, so the tank can solve the puzzle.

I noticed that too. The fire appears before he mentions the fire pit. It doesn't make sense, since it's a spell, it should appear after he finishes his line.

Actually, I like that. It adds risk. If you don't save the healer or the tank in time, you might lose them because the gas ignores shields. It makes dps care about support roles, even if it's just an alert. The gas is the only real threat to turned people, since we keep all our powers, we just aren't able to move.

Trapeze attack on deadman fight. I move and get like 15ft away and he kicks the ground and somehow I still get hit. I feel that this pbaoe move is way too big. How would we even be able to avoid it if we still get hit…

Idk if this has been reported yet, but, there is a bug with the loot rewards on the first boss: in the loot summary pop up, it lists a purple commendation, but it never drops to the player inventory. This alert should be giving 150 renown but is only giving 100 renown because the commendation reward on first boss isn't making it to the player inventory.