Add Undead Dragongut Strings to non-UDB Trakanon Please...

WITH the DZs? I'd challenge that assertion. Not every epic would - SK and ENC would still be annoying, but BRD/WIZ would be drastically reduced for one, and even others like CLR would have tedium removed.

The tweaks were great when you had 2000 players on a server fighting tooth and nail over them with single target bottlenecks though. DZs though removed that for a bunch of the bottlenecks though.

Why is this not the case? It was added to help bards get passed this silly bottleneck. Now it does the opposite.

Exactly. With all the scales most raid bards will be stuck at Undead Bard now, making it very crowded the further we move along.

I just started musing doing the bard epic for my alt down the road once the competition for it dies down - and it dawned on me that especially with MOTM Trak in open world Sebilis, it's going to get more and more out of whack over time.

In Velious+ very few guilds will have reason to kill open world MotM Trak, especially since the DZ will allow a more consistent version to access for the handful that want to bother with him.

And if he's not being killed (which sensibly he won't very often) - UDB will be killed every single spawn by Trak preventing him from ever being usable.

It's not clear to me what the right fix is for that problem - but I can't think of a single other epic that gets completely bottlenecked when interest in a moderately challenging MOTM raid mob diminishes. Perhaps the best fix is simply to throw the strings back onto MOTM versions of Trak so that there's a consistent (but harder) version available to Bards - but then to still allow the UDB to spawn between open world Trak spawns.

Otherwise, you're basically asking Bards in Velious+ to convince guilds to kill Trakanon (one MotM) multiple times for a single bard epic - assuming interest in him does wane. (Which frankly it should - only a few BPs are better than much easier to attain Velious ones, and VP key is a ton of work for little reward at that point)

That has ever been the case, Vaclav, ever since the live servers first moved to Velious. I remember bards complaining about it back in the day. Although, Trakanon won't be simply abandoned for a while.

However, the bard epic is one of the more durable epics, so a good guild will kill Trakanon and come back for udb for their bards. And they will bank scales for future bards too.

Before picks I'd have agreed with you Kiani, back then BP mobs weren't that easy to farm since there was only X mobs up and such. (I remember distinctly Sleeper being delayed a little because of a BP being THAT rare for Velious unlocks that it took over a month to show)

Now with pickzones basically making them far more plentiful this time around, that demand is going to wane a bunch.

Also keep in mind previous versions of Trak weren't MotM - so you could go knock him out with a dozen or so people to remove him from bothering the UDB - I'm not sure you could even beat Trak without going a bit over double that. Also keep in mind that with DZs no "lesser guilds" will be forced to do old content in order to fill out their schedule with things to do.

Don't get me wrong, it's an amazing epic (part of why I'd even consider it for the alt) but it's really punished because of the nature of instancing on Phin.

(And UDB didn't go into existence until basically Luclin I thought? I remember getting guts off normal Trak until we were doing epics again on Stromm....)

I'm not really sure when udb came in, Velious or Luclin. I had assumed it was around the same time as VSR, which was definitely during Velious.

At the time, whether Velious or Luclin, people were obviously still killing Trakanon. Some guilds were happy being 1 or 2 expansions behind. Things are much more compressed on progression servers, even more so on Phinny because of the instanced content.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be better to change it now, because of this
Likewise VP key (already changed somewhat) and other epic bottlenecks, in order to compensate for the compressed nature of the servers and allow more people to do these things in era - after all, they will become obsolete at some point.

But whatever happens,I think most guilds would still be happy to support their bards to get their epics if they can.

Having 1 bard complete their epic every single day, and on some days 2 bards, sounds pretty terrible. Man that is rough. Only 1 epic everyday?? How can that class take it. They have it so hard.

Wiz and SK are awful too, but they'll both only get easier with time, rather than harder in this case.

Also remember that killing Trak used to open UDB to spawn for a few days. On Phinny, it's only one day.

And sometimes the real Trak eats the UDB and no bard gets. So, on avaerage, it will be 1 per day.

I managed to complete mine after some sockings amd competitions, which I didn't expect to be on this server. I am more concerned how a bard can finish this during velious and PoP. Telling your guild to come killing Trak and come again in possibly a day later to kill the UDB and hope no one else took it already? This is ridiculous and has to be fixed.

The game is how many years old? A bottleneck like this has no place in a progression server. This and Wizzy seem to be the only classes with such a horrible time getting epics. There isn't enough time for everyone to get epic'd if we have to poopsock for every bard and wiz. I'm not sure about Enchanter, since no one is doing it but I suppose their's may be just as bad. Either way, it's an unnecessary waste of time that brings no enjoyment to anyone involved.

For all that is holy just add the strings to trak. It is that simple. An minor adjustment to table drop for one mob would fix everything.

There's not really a reason for guilds to kill instanced trak over open world trak if open world trak is up and they have guild bards (even alts) that need udb...

Only if no guild kills UDB. Which, if this is really the logjam that people are saying, shouldn't ever happen.

Pretty sure he is saying they will be too busy doing instanced Kael, ToV ect to bother with OW trak.

Either way UDB literally spawned today with nobody watching for it, that would never happen with any of the real bottlenecks to epics like Vessel, BG or Marl. Gratz random bard channel guy on your epic. Over 100 bards should finish their epic in Era, there isn't 100 active 55+ bards on the server.

Most guilds don't want to do a batphone on this server which is understandable. So when UDB pops at around 8am-9am EST (which he has multiple times) it's hard to get people there that are working/asleep. I guess you could make the argument if you want it bad enough....Bottom line is the changes to raid mob timers, and the removal of UDB spawning in picks due to broken mechanics is royally screwing the pooch on this part of the epic..

No, it happens when no guild kills Trakanon or if the windows overlap. Which actually happens a lot.

This is incorrect. Once I was forming a pick-up raid when UDB spawned. In the middle of mobilizing, the real Trak spawned and ate UDB. Also witnessed another UDB eaten by Trak while another guild was doing preparation on it. If you stayed in the lair for a week, you would like all can happen. And this is Phinny. People want to have things scheduled. Requiring a people to convince the guild to sock or mobilizing can be hard.

Edit: Add one more, I also saw one jugg group killed UDB for fun or whatever reason.

My friend was waiting on VSR and it spawned. A guild moved in and attempted to kill the remains as is; with a ranger in their raid needing it for the epic (So its not like they were just doing it to spite my friend). Some people are just not well informed. UDB should be unattackable; but I didn't design this game.