Are they too hard for target audience? And by Target Audience, I mean 3 Group Geared Players + 3 Mercs in about an hour Some of those named chew up a merc tank or group geared tank badly. Mechanics like 4+ adds calling for help are almost impossible for a Merc Tank to handle. Even some of the trash seems to kill a Group Geared or Merc Tank with only a healer Merc on it. If your a Raid Geared Tank/Group.... of course they are easy. If you are in a well balanced 6 player group ... you should be okay. These missions are NOT hard for a good group in least. Keep in mind my question is only in relation to the Target Audience Anyone having much success without a Raid Tank and with only 3+Mercs?
duoed a few as grp geared paladin along with a sk friend and mercs ) have only done 2 of the nameds so far though and they have been easy
Yeah, it's the nameds that gank me. Multiple pops have been...random. Sometimes charmable, it's... risky! An enchanter would /really/ help me on most of the ones I've tried so far (Bixie mostly).
These are definitely too rough for a merc tank to handle. These are supposed to be aimed at 3 players and 3 mercs. But 2 healer mercs cannot keep a tank merc up. Either these need a retune or the tank merc needs a boost. There is no reason why the DPS mercs can easily do the same if not more DPS as a group geared player and yet the poor tank merc is a long way behind player tanks. And what is with the undead in the Dead Hills missions backstabbing for 54K?
I've run into the same issue. I'm a seasoned 3 boxer Ench/Dru/Mage and have used Healer/Tank/DPS merc consistently. Ench is T3/T4 raid geared, Druid is T2/3 and Mage is group geared. I've had no problem in the past doing almost all ROF missions with a merc tank (includes EW, CH and Xorbb 1/2 for example). There are some exceptions where there is just too much going on to 3-box it, but with more real players a tank merc would suffice. The tank merc WAS fine for ROF if you didn't try and do insane stuff that most groupers these days would probably avoid anyhow. However, with COTF... my tank merc dies 5X as much as in older content. I get this is supposed to be new content, but it was also a sidegrade. With minimal gains from merc AA and gear - I don't see that helping much at all. Some of the issue seems to stem from the fact that HA have swarms of mobs that bum rush you / a target, and given the hike in HP, it's close to impossible for the *TARGET* audience to kill quickly enough to prevent getting overrun. A lot of missions also are unforgiving if you have to evac or you wipe. A sidenote on having to evac in HA's - the zone-in locations are probably some of the most ill-determined spots ever... It's kindof funny if you look at the beta forums - depending which dev made the particular HA gives a rather good indication of whether or not it will be easy/manageable/annoying/ridiculous. Elly's are straightforward, quick, and easy (and a tad linear/boring) but at least it gives an easy option to get currency - honestly, it was enjoyable to have something rather simplistic without being trivial - it reminded me of OLD EQ missions/quests. Dzarn's are a bit annoying but also very manageable - there is definitely an upgrade in difficulty compared to Elly's though (if you've done Dead Hills Merc Arc you probably agree). Aug's HAs are borderline ridiculous - again - for the target audience. Most of Bixie Warfront HAs have mobs with insane amounts of HP, tons of adds, and excessive/broken mechanics. It is almost as if they've revived the trinity with COTF which is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing at this stage of the game. Personally, my box team/group isn't a huge DPS powerhouse but the increase in HP is blatantly noticeable. This just punishes groups who have less that amazing DPS capabilities. If you go in thinking you can win with an endurance battle strategy you'll quickly realize that you will be overpowered/overrun by mobs. Now, I get the argument "go get real players and it's easy". Sure. That would be great and work IF that was what we were told COTF's target was. However, they made the mistake of saying 3 players + mercs. Given the items on the vendors are GROUP quality, I would imagine that target is for group-geared players as well. I think they had some great ideas (with HA at least) but the disparity of difficulty dependent on the dev who designed them is astronomical. To OP - If you are looking to rake in marks of v as easily/quickly as possible - I suggest running El's HA in Dead Hills.
i did They've Gone Too Far last night. What a lame mission. Most of them are. But that one, when I got to the part where I had to kill 10 infected explorers, after the first one and the adds popped, I was really just tempted to just quit. These are just tedious, mundane and just plain not fun. Most of these will be one and done. Zero interest in replaying them. The chance of named spawning in HA is so low that Ive only seen one since the release. The loot isnt exciting and why aggravate myself when more is just around the corner, meaning I wont be under powered or not having the best I can get for too long. Sad.
The new Heroic Adventures are great IMO. A lot of killing so it's great AA's. I like how they intertwined the partisan missions for The Dead Hills/Bixie Fort with the HA's. It doesn't seem too hard to tank with 2 beastlords and a monk with 2 healers mercs and a dps merc, although we are raid geared. Sometimes we run 2 dps mercs with 1 healer merc and beastlord back up heals are great.
For those who weren't in beta, I'm guessing you mean Into the Hills and Scouting Ahead from Gribble Grobblenobber? These were the most straight forward HA's I've run into so far. P.S. Dude's name has "nobber" in it.
Yes As well as Disrupting the Ritual (from the same NPC) - those were all El. And IMO if I were to be more specific, Gribble #1 and #3 are probably the "easiest". Again, I actually appreciated having an "easy" option - I usually try and go for fun and exciting but a lot of the HA border on tedious... so knowing I can just go to Gribble, kill for 30 minutes, get currency, collection pieces, and maybe some named - well, ya can't beat that. During beta the devs posted an approximate "completion time" and group makeup for each HA that they designed. Most of the HA were 2 - 3 PC + mercs (as advertised) with a completion time of ~30 min. So far, I can say the only ones that hit this mark was Ell (a few others, but the only consistent arc seemed to be that series of HA). I really think it's just a matter of mob HP. Given the lack of DPS upgrades I don't understand the rationale for making COTF mobs have the HP boost. To agree with FVR above - the vast majority of HA I will never repeat. I never felt that way about different LDoN camps. While things were more simple then, there was consistency. Now, they have all the devs working on a certain parts of the same project/idea and then promote the feature as if it was a single, consistent feature. The disparity between HAs just goes to show how there are very different perceptions of the game and player base.
Bixie HA's usually take me about 45 minutes to an hour with a ranger, cleric, 2 wiz merc combo. It depends on how many tasks I get that make me kill non-aggro mobs that the mercs can't help kill. Last night, I was doing them with a guild berserker/cleric merc and finished them usually in 30 minutes. Those time-frames even include an occasional death because we're reckless and end up with 3 quite often.
You might be the only one who likes the idea of -intertwined partisans and HA-. It may seem cool at first, but when you grab a friend to go do the HAs in the Dead Hills partisan and he realizes he cant even get the task to do with you because he hasnt done Ethernere or Bixies, it sucks for everyone. Ultimately, a few active people end up having to help friends out and end up doing the tasks 4 or 5 times as much as what they should because a group of people can almost never move as one through multiple tasks with locks. I thought this kind of stuff was to end with VOA. It sucked being locked from requesting tasks due to low alaran language. This is essentially the same thing but without the skill points. Makes you wonder if the partisans for the higher tiers will be locked behind T1 too.
I run a Wiz/War + 2 Healer Mercs box and I've been doing okay with these. Except for one part which I think is ridiculous. In the Russel line of the Dead hill's HAs there are times you have to open a chest. You are given a device to sense, disarm and pick lock. Unfortunately this item needs drops from within this HA to be effective and after turning in many drops it still can't disarm the chests. Not too bad though, I can just beat on the chest. But when I do I get 2 to 4 aggro-linked Mobs with a HUGE aggro radius that just MASSACRE my VoA t3 Raid geared tank. Why give us a device that is ineffective, even after several turn ins doesn't work and why aggro-link these mobs and then give them a HUGE aggro radius? It's such a road block in these particular missions. Yes, I often will recruit a bard chanter, rooter, punter to help. But they aren't always online. Jeanique
Many of the HA's were thoroughly tested on Beta by the population....the Devs who made them took suggestions. Some suggested that certain parts be tuned down, some suggested that certain parts be tuned up. For the most part, the community accepted the difficulty level of the HAs.
This is not even remotely close to being accurate. If you had access to the beta boards, check again. If not, Ill post their quote for you.
WDwilf those adds from the chest are HP% based. As a group geared Sk i've had no problem tanking these missions with my dps setup (2hander) may including the named, my normal 4 man group clears the Grobblenobber missions in 25 to 35 minutes and that's with one of those 4 being an under leveled/geared toon. I can't even fathom a raid geared tank batting an eye at these
On the off chance someone will read this and note it, (even bugged it in game.) In the mission "They've gone too far this time" when killing the bixies in the beginning I noticed that my PC and Beta Neutral faction was lowered.
Please post the quote. I just went back through the beta forums again and checked - MOST of the posts for HA said the target was 2 - 3 Lv. 95-100 PCs + Mercs with completion time ranging from 30 - 60 minutes, usually between 30 - 45. There was one or two that had 3 - 6 PCs as the recommended group. I don't have an issue with the level of difficulty (unless it's due to a bug such as the matriarch adds for example). I just don't think they don't match up with the intended "goal" that was posted.
And this possibly , could be part of the problem. I totally respect you and your opinion but I have the exact opposite belief. I will never set foot in Dead Hills again. The HAs are way overturned, mobs with bloated HPs, 2 hour completion rate, named fearing and dotting you down before you can blink etc. Ellyra created on the hard side. Now I personally tested Bixie Warfront and talked with Augur. Sure some bugs need squishing, but I found those HAs fast , mobs died quick, named were not killing machines. I thought Augur did fine. Dzarn is the measuring stick, his missions are fun yet challenging at the same and innovative. (Have you ever seen an ending to For the sake of the Forsaken like what Dzarn did? That mission alone ALMOST justified buying the expansion, it was that mind blowing) So if you are a Dev, who do you listen to? I am also a seasoned 3 boxer. The answer is all of us, but they don't have the time to do so Hence you get something like CoTF
