Should upload a video to youtube. Not just for the demonstration aspect, but also to see how devs will nerf sk's in response
Drogba i know you're a very good player but saying you bring a proper group .. what does that mean as a proper group
And your situation is completely different from a group consisting of group geared people or even lots of raid geared groups. What you think about this mission has no weight in the conversation for a majority of the population. Your input and advise is practically useless. The amount of damage needed to sustain this fight is difficult for a group. The 'atrocious' achievement is damn near impossible with a single healer and I'm sure it's probably difficult still with a 2nd healer (I'm too lazy to even bother trying it at this point). Not to mention this mission essentially alienates half the dps population with the stupid DS. The warping is idiotic to add to the situation. This is no doubt the hardest of the 4 missions. Talendor, skyfire and gorowyn are all cake walks.
Hey atleast someone can do it. The only people I know who have done were 2 guildies in full EoK raid gear with some from another guild in EoK raid as well. They also had a SK with the epic click. If this is what is expected, then great. Seriously the level of difficulty is far far too low in VP for the loot given then. OT mission loot is pretty meh except for the occasional aug. There are 0 upgrades for me on the loot table (minus saber aug), and I would guess none at all for Drogbaa.
I dont think the tanking is a big issue anymore 40k hits max is in par with nameds and co in RoS and what to be expected from a *simple* (read no complex script) mission. The dps req however is really bad, especially when melees are half useless on it (why devs hate them so much?), sproutlings are hard to see, spread all around and everything have high DS. For groups above the dps req the mission is (still) a joke, a big burn and done in 2mins top, groups with dps hanging at the limit may take longer (if they cant burn it dead before adds repop), groups bellow it have 0 chance at all. Basicly if you cant burn it down asap with discs running chance you'll sustain the dps after that are very low. Changing the named hps and dps only matter for groups at the dps limit or above, ie change did close to nothing for groups unable to beat it before, just makes it easier for those who could. If you (devs) want this mission to take longer but doable by more than 10% of the population then put the named hps back (even more than it used to imo) and lower adds hps/repop timer so peeps actually have a chance to dps named inbetween them (and would actually be fun instead of just a big burn). And seriously remove the DS, whats up with that, why do you guys want to punish melees that much? They arent even the top burst dps atm (hello wizards) and already have to run to each sprouts so I cant see what the point is. Wont change anything for top groups (bet it will still die under 2mins no matter what) but will allow the rest to have a longer but manageable way to do this mission as atm there is none.
The bias on this mission towards range DPS is now even more extreme, and deeply unfair. As a monk, on the original version of Cactus, I could at least contribute. I could go full burn from the start and put out some decent damage, at the risk of the lifetap. When/if I got said lifetap, I could purify it and keep going (other melees dont even get that luxury). Sometimes I would get the lifetap again almost straight away, with only a split second to react and turn attack off. I ate a few deaths because of this, but at least I had contributed, and helped the group to win. It seems quite random with the lifetap spell. Some runs I might only get it once, other times it would be cast on me 4-5 times in the space of 40 seconds. And therein lies the problem with the 'fixed' version (not to mention the stupid shadow step). If I get the lifetap cast on me more than once, I can barely help burn down the adds, let alone the boss with his tripled HP. For rogues and zerkers it's even worse. If Caktiikii were to only cast the lifetap on his most hated target, that would be a massive improvement. Or if it were curable. As it stands, I can't see myself being invited to do this mission any more. And even if I do get an invite, my ability to contribute is hugely crippled. Other people have mentioned it in this thread. The amount of named in this xpac who use similar 'anti-melee' DS/reverse DS/lifetaps is very annoying. Our only role is taken away. Can anyone think of a named where healers cant heal, or tanks cant tank?
To sum up: 1. This is 1 of only 4 missions in this xpac, for currency and guaranteed armor drops. 2. This is 1 of only 3 missions in this xpac that don't require a long flagging quest. (discount VP) 3. This is 1 of only 2 missions in this xpac that don't require flagging or EoK progression to realistically win. (discount VP and SF) 4. This is 1 of only 1 mission in this xpac that doesn't require flagging, EoK prog, and isn't T2 difficulty. (discount VP, SF and Goro) Some people paid over $100 for the privelege of playing this latest xpac. Was it really so bad that the average player had a chance at beating 1/4 of the mission content every 6 hours?
In previous expansions, there have been missions designed to favor melee over casters, Grannus in TBM, for instance. In RoS, I haven't killed many named, but I did kill my first T2 named last night, Nureya Arisen. It mezzed the tank for 30+ seconds, so the tank couldn't tank that mob for part of the fight. It may have mezzed someone else if the tank hadn't pulled, though. While I don't like it, I don't think it's horrible to have a mission favor either melee or raged damage. But in an expansion with only three single group missions, I do think it's a big problem to favor one or the other.
As are the designer(s) and, although to a much, much smaller extent, the coders. Lots of guesswork too, since they haven't been telling us why they stuck to that political release-date, nor why they did the recent nerfs (beyond the hotfix). I am angry at whoever it is who's responsible for the changes i do not like - this includes the tanking nerfs (copeable but still VERY annoying), the QM/mana nerf (raid-breaking) and the DPS nerfs (hitting everyone across the board except the (meanwhile) top10 or so, but mostly the more casual raiders - those farther down the "food chain" ) but it doesn't stop there. Equally annoying is the chat-lag issue (especially for us on AB, and that's a network Dev if they have such a function or whoever decided to transition to a new backend system in autumn 2016 when THIS mess began) or the fact that we're back to static zones and mobs what should have been a thing of the past since PoP (Senior Designer again i would guess). I'd be hard pressed if i were asked to make a list of the gripes i currently have and their "impact" on / priority to me. So yeah.. lots of different people to be angry at, for different reasons. The only guys i feel with are the (mostly unnamed i would think) coders that have to implement this mess - often (if professional experience from other fields of IT is applicable) against their better judgement. Not posting often/regularly != not doing anything. And you didn't mention "niente" nor "klanderso" or "Hludwolf" who don't post often (under their profile at least) and when they do, it seems to be on closer-to-the-code-issues. And of course any number of people can behind the "EQDev" account... No, i am SURE there were and are people actually working. And i am also sure many if not most of then want to do more than just a decent job. But sometimes established procedures conflict "bigly" with the needs; there was a longer-than-usual beta period this year (which is good) and open communication (no closed forums, which is better even imo) and i think WE would have been ok with a past-Xmas release if the things mentioned in the beta would have been fixed. But all in all, there were simply not enough iterations during beta. Much like we're seeing with after-beta changes - the removal of the task-NPC (good move), the re-work (meh) and then the overtuning (bleh). it reeks of actionism to me, and as a german i do not particularly like that personality-trait. more "typically german" strategic thinking would do such projects some real good! Without knowing exactly who's doing what, it's hard to direct one's anger where it belongs. Therefore, i think "the Devs" is ok enough for that purpose - those that are meant will hopefully recognize themselves while the others hopefully don't take this generalization too seriously. Owning up to one's mistakes as Absor did with the Cactus-mission is one big thing that counts for a lot with me. But it's also only the first step - and not even half the "work".
If Devs want this task to last more than 1 minute, then add a step to kill X number of roaming adds. Please look into de-tuning this some more to give non raiders a chance. Why can't there be two versions of missions like they did in LDON? Don't make it where people without raid gear can't do any missions in this expansion. Non raiders are going to stop buying expansions they can't enjoy with missions they can't complete.
@Absor, is there any plan to tune this a bit more? Groupers are all feeling pretty hopeless right now, are heroics just designed for raiders? I guess they are called heroic adventures after all, just trying to figure out what we should be doing this xpac if progression is off the table.
People having issues have you tried this, Plant the scion Inside the fort, in the open area as you first enter, this makes it easer to see the sprouts, no adds, and is open for better LoS. Have all the group members running around looking for sprouts, leave only the cleric and MT on the cactus. Get the red discs dead ASAP these are the priority, you will get 2 in-between a belogining that spawns on a timer. When the discs (sprouts) are dead and no static blue mob is up kill the boss, then you see the blue add spawn the red sprouts wont be far behind. Don't focus on the named, focus on the sprouts and the timed spawning cactus, burn on the red sprouts and you should have some of the burn left to get the boss down 10-15% per round. It's not bad if you find the sprouts and are quick to finish them off. A dotter goes a long way on this mission, as they can damage the boss while everyone is moving around killing the adds.
Yes have tried this, there are just too many sprouts. Sprouts have 5 million hp, Burgeoning adds have 12 million hp, you get a new Burgeoning every 90 sec. Even with no sprouts maturing we could not unlock the bosses' hp again after the 90 second mark, sprouts seem to start spawning a lot faster the longer the fight goes.
