The entire zone is a joke. Its not hard its just annoying. Mechanics put in to make it look hard but they're just annoying. The stonewood bow staff is just the start of annoying.
I'm not a raider anymore, but I've got to disagree that raiders are typically better players. The 'core' of your raiders are, I agree. The core group, that also tend to be clique and group together outside, knowing each other both in and out of the raid.. tend to carry the ones who arent that great. SOME raiders are extravagantly good, yes. Some group layers are as well. We can pretend that gear does not have some of that role to play too. A medicore raid tank is going to perform as well as a good non-raid tank in the same group content.
That's because Beimeith dies a lot. And omg, have you seen how long it takes him to open a chest? It's like 43 rounds of melee just to get raid loot, no wonder RoI beat us by 9 minutes!
I said 'on average'. There are some bad players in raiding guilds, and there are some excellent casual players too. But the average skill level is day and night in comparison. Not in the least because most good players tend to end up joining raiding guilds. When the whiners talk about group content tuned for raiders, what they really mean is that it's tuned for good players. And the ones complaining about it are usually 'the opposite of good'.
I agree and disagree because it all depends what you define as raiding guild. I will agree with you that a bleeding edge "We can beat all raid content" will have mostly good players because they can cherrypick nothing but the cream of the crop. There are also be guilds that cannot progress well and those have lots of terrible players. Both kinds of guilds technically are raiding guilds because they have raid gear above and beyond what can be accomplished in group content. It's only content for raiders if it requires raid gear and 54 man teams. Otherwise it is not. I think good players is correct that is content is tuned for. Raiding has nothing to do with it as you probably don't need the gear for it. The only time skill is day and night is bad player vs exceptional players. Lots of bad players in raids at least in my experience. Then there are people who are used to easy mode content with their box crew destroying all content that complain every time there is ever a challenge and say its anti-boxer or some bs like that.
everyone cried that rof / cotf was way too easy , content blown through in a week or less. no challenge , etc etc. so the devs listened and gave us a zone that is difficult and will take awhile to finish. if you cant do it with one group , try two. the progression will take a bit, but not a lot of stupid running around or collections. i like the mechinics, get away from the old chain stun / instant summon / immune to magic , etc with the gear available from merchants with heroic currency and the gear in powar ( rof t3 raid _) casual / non-raiders should be rejoicing. the devs are working hard to lessen the gap.
So those who don't raid, should rejoice that in order to do this zone we have to mini raid? Did people not see how few groupers did the aptly named "A Huge Mistake"?
The first defense people will give to that is "but his loot wasn't worth the risk" The thing is though, even with the quality of loot these named mobs in the plane of war, several of these named mobs simply will not be done by groupers (mini raid or not) I also think it will be a long time before enough people are flagged to do the grandmaster. We may see a few 6 man crews be able to down it by flagging their crew in the coming weeks and splitting into 2 groups + 3 mercs per a group but other than that I'd be surprised if we ever see pickup groupers ever doing it, same goes for a few of the castle named (to a ,lesser extent) Challenge can be fun but there are several aspects of this zone in dire need of retunes (not the entire zone just certain parts, mainly things beyond the first two fields)
The path of least resistance is to beg/cyber/bribe a raid geared tank to help you with a difficult mob. No matter what other mechanics and adds exist having whoever the main mob is beating on not die makes any encounter so much easier. That's something that has always been part of the game and always will be, especially if a wipe means you need to wait for a long time to attempt again or would need to redo steps or re-farm items to trigger a mob again there is clear incentive to wait until a raid geared tank is available.
If they would fix the pet mechanics, Stonewood staff drop and XP issue, sure this zone would be 10x more popular. Since even pet toons in groups still have aggro issues, Still hearing stories about being in PoE all day with 1 person per tree hoping to get lucky and the XP in there is a joke, even AA xp 10 years ago went faster then PoWar's does. OH and to fix hates attraction also.
It kind of makes me feel better that many classes got screwed and not just the people using things like Hate's Attraction.
I think having to revert to the old style group setup is a very nice touch. Nothing they've released in awhile has made players NEED other players the way PoWar does. Stop complaining about flagging, it's been apart of EQ for ages and until recently it's never been easy. I also love the fact you can't CoH to get loot on the other side..DT's are a great bonus. I like hard games though, so of course I love this zone. For those of you who feel it's tuned for raiders only..Maybe you forget how hard group content used to be compared to now. To OP, I personally think it's worth it.
Raiders are also used to weird mechanics, scripts and higher pressure situations. We get bombarded with emotes, shifting immunities, auras and all kinds of crap like that every raid night. Independent of skill, there's fewer novel things in EQ for raiders. So when presented with a 'new' thing, there's a higher chance we can relate it something we've encountered in the past and have an idea of how to deal with it.
Not everyone likes to group or just to group with select people. One thing that so many loved about EQ over the years is multiple ways to play this game. Like with me during the day, I am a stay at home dad, so I AFK a lot, people after awhile find that annoying in a group, why I usually just 3 box and upto now was always a viable option for me. Most people are complaining they have to flag, its just the Stonewood bow part that have a issue with. PoP is still once of my favorite expansions. Most like a challenge, but for how rare the drops are in PoWar and for the size of the groups / raids needed to get it or kill most mobs in under a min with very crappy XP, kinda stinks. I got the 10% aug tonight, was happy about that, once I get the 50ac aug, doubt i will spend much time in there.
I don't have a lot of sympathy for a stay at home dad who has to afk a lot while he plays video games. I'm a dad who doesn't get to play video games during the day; I'm working. My wife, a stay at home mom, doesn't get to play video games either because she's doing what stay at home parents generally should be doing: paying attention to her children. Derail aside, this zone is fantastic. It is hard, and it encourages people to play together. For those without enough time, skill, or gear ... There's a huge game out there for you to enjoy. I applaud there being a zone that is unfriendly to boxing and encourages a return to what made this game great: making you interface and work together with other people. The only bad part is the stonewood requirement - farming grey cons from a decade ago is anything but fun or challenging.
Friends of mine in group gear are able to tank here fine. Not single tank some mobs, deaths happen, but they're able to get it done with their friends, and loot is rolled on. A good time is had by all. The issue you're whining about tells me you have other problems...
I'd be VERY interested to see how many people that are claiming "group geared tanks handle this zone just fine" have actually travelled past the first two fields and done some castle quests and castle named..... I'd wager that the answer to that is a whopping ZERO lol. Don't base impressions of this zone on the first two fields.
