I went into this mission to start working on it and check it out. I first checked around and noticed that most mobs I conned were levels 121-124. On the second step of the quest, "Kill the diseased rats following the creature" I got wiped out by a red-con diseased rat before my merc healer even had time to react. I am sure this mission was intended to scale and be run by a group, but I am not sure the scaling is working as intended.
Please also be aware that ALL * mobs in these zones- including the rats, bears, etc, have such an excessive amount of hitpoints that they verge on being raid mobs, each and every one. This can't possibly be intended.
I was going to make my own thread in a different area since I'm not sure you can call these things "bugs". Nevertheless, here's some feedback with solutions surrounding this mission and the other similar ones released earlier in the year which I assume will make an appearance again next year. Design these around the lowest common denominator if you want all to be able to have equity in accessing them. Expect 3-6 group-geared players; i.e. half whatever the max AA is, T1 gear from current or previous expac, augs from the last 5 years, no tribute, no power source, no stat food, 0-3 mercs. The NPCs have about double the HP they should have--cut the HP. The NPCs are not splitable, but were mezable. The NPCs agroed before anyone in group could see or cast/arrow/throw on them. NPCs should not agro unless you, too, can agro them. Using evac/succor, escape type abilities; the NPCs would automatically re-agro. Even a rogue in SOS got agro--this is a bug and needs fixing. The only way out of agro is via death, rez, and run back. Due to high HP, casters went OoM and since they could not stop getting agro, they were of no use unless they left the zone to med and re-enter. This mission drops a face-slot item as a reward. We already had a face reward in the slug/snail event this summer. A different slot we did not already have should have been chosen instead. Overall these events have been fun in their story and their occurrence throughout the year, but the mechanics need revising. As they stand, they are fine for raiders--but raiders really don't need the gear and groupers will struggle for little reward.
What you are describing are not group-level players. What you are describing is freshly bought PL'd characters from commercial PL-teams. Power sources, stat food, augs, T3 current expansion gear, Hero AA's from previous expansions and so on, are very much a group-level features. Most of group-level players in my guild have all that above. This mission rewards with a gear item equal to ToL T3 gear, which can be made with ore dropped from ToL nameds and in mission chests (doh, I am being a captain obvious here). So the difficulty should be compared to a difficulty of a named in ToL. Well, this mission is EASIER than T2 nameds in ToL. The rats have around 130 mil HP (nameds have 320+ mil HP, and ToL T2 trash has 70+ mil HP), do not hit as hard as nameds, a mage earth pet tanks 2 at a time with ease. Yes, 2-3 rats at once may need some form of CC with a weaker tank, but so do many nameds in ToL, which summon adds during fight (both T1 named skellie in UP, and T2 Avaricious Mass in Shadow Valley and a few others have some other nasty effects) Rats auto-aggroing is actually a nice feature - the group may position quite at a distance from the fat mob and rats will rush to the group, so the players will have time before the combat starts. I did just that - it was a convenience: kill the spawn, wait a few secs, new wave spawns at the distance and I had time to assign tanks and off-tanks for the rats before the melee began. The final fat mob was actually easier than a wave of rats, it was similar to a single rat with some annoying AE. Overall - the mission is easier than a ToL T2 named and has a guaranteed T3 reward, while a named may or may not drop an ore. Definitely a good way for a group-level players to get some T3 gear.
I don't know when you did this task but your description doesn't sound accurate against the current state of this task. I know when this task came out earlier the mobs had far less hps than they do now. I also understood that getting gumdrop meant finishing the entire quest in less than 30 minutes- absolutely not possible in its current state. Maybe if you're raid geared but probably not. I thought I heard it took someone an hour and a half to kill the boss. Regardless the mob hps need nerfing.
