Heroic Adventure Named Tuning: Level 85-90

Not entirely sure this is the appropriate place to post this, but couldn't think of a better place.

CoTF Heroic Adventure named tuning for sub level 100 is really unforgiving. It's far, far easier to kill a named with level 100 characters (tuned for 100s) than it is with 85 or 90 characters (tuned for 85s or 90s, respectively).

3 basic areas of concern.

1) Melee damage output. This part is most accurately tuned for 85-90ish characters among the three. However some mobs still have way too high damage outputs. This is a level 91 tuned mob for example:

[Sun Apr 06 04:37:27 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 31269 points of damage.

A fully aug'd, fully HoT T3-T4 (group) geared tank can't tank that mob at 91. It's unkillable. We all know a well (group) geared level 100 tank is in no danger of being 1-rounded by a CoTF namer, even without discs (had armor of the inquisitor, 3rd spire, and honorific going for that nice 31k hit). You don't see hits that high on tanks in SS or Convorteum raid instances.

2) Spell damage output. Horribly tuned. Level 90:

[Sat Apr 05 00:02:41 2014] You are caught up in a reaping! You have taken 31479 points of damage.

That mob may be killable with a group of 90s but it's going to require a full group including a real healer (probably two). These are supposed to be tuned for 2-3 real players plus mercs.

Here's what the level 100 version of that mob does:

[Wed Mar 19 16:48:45 2014] You are caught up in a reaping! You have taken 48369 points of damage.

3) Hitpoints. They have about 2-5 times as many hitpoints as a level-appropriate named from Underfoot and HoT.

Underfoot T7:

/GU Tani The Fire Alchemist in 78s, 886k @11363dps
/GU Tani The Fire Alchemist in 121s, 889k @7349dps
/GU Hungry Earth in 73s, 698k @9563dps

HoT T1:

/GU Nightscale in 104s, 575k @5528dps
/GU Fearsniffer in 121s, 641k @5298dps

HoT T2

/GU Maggotscalp in 83s, 852k @10263dps
/GU Raze in 65s, 709k @10906dps

HoT T3:

/GU General Jyleel in 105s, 1160k @11048dps

These are CoTF nameds tuned for between level 86 and 89:

/GU Bloodsucker in 216s, 2693k @12467dps
/GU Bloodsucker in 234s, 2858k @12214dps

That's about half the amount of hitpoints that a level 100 CoTF namer has.

/GU Deathcaller Xylok in 75s, 5690k @75861dps

A level 90 group is doing a LOT less than half the DPS of a level 100 group, so the nameds shouldn't have half the hitpoints.

1 DPS character can obliterate a level 100 namer before a tank's discs are going to fade (not that a 100 tank in CoTF gear needs to disc for them). An entire group of well played, well geared level 85 characters can probably drop some of the CoTF namers before discs fade (and they're absolutely necessary for these mobs), but some of them are going to lose DPS characters to AE damage within 3 minutes (I've had wizard mercs go from 100 to dead from reaping, the spell above) and some are going to lose their well geared, discing tank to a 32k facestab.

............

Part of the problem is the 100 tuned mobs are way too easy. They require no skill or gear to beat, I bet a buffed wizard merc and a cleric merc could kill some CoTF namers with no other help from PCs. You don't need a slow or a real healer or more than 1 dps character to kill level 100 CoTF namers. But that's basically what they're trying to do with this expansion: cater to more casual players, tune the mobs for 2-3 players and mercs, etc.

It's a *radically* different experience when you try to kill these mobs tuned for level 85-90 characters, where they vary from unkillable to require raid gear to require a full group of 6 real players including a cleric. That's not really in the spirit of the expansion don't ya think?

One possible explanation for the difficulty is they all drop level 100 loot. Perhaps instead of dropping a CoTF level 100 item, they drop a Solteris style clickable +360 Mark of Valor item (I'm making the number up), so whoever wins the roll gets to pick whatever they want from the merchant or save it to buy 100 gear (but it takes 3 level 90 namers to get 1 piece of level 100 gear instead of 1, a tradeoff I'd gladly make for namers that are tuned to actually be killable with 3 reasonably well balanced characters and mercs). Alternatively they could add a set amount of marks to the completion reward.

Anyway, proposed fixes:

1: Split the hitpoint difference between what we're seeing now in HAs and what Underfoot/HoT namers have at level 85/90 (1.5 mil for 85, 2 mil for 90).

2: Across the board 30% reduction in spell damage output for namers under level 96.

3: Reduce melee DPS output on a case-by-case basis such that they're tankable by an appropriately group geared, discing tank. Most of them you won't need to touch.

This is really a middle of the road type approach to tuning them, they're still going to be a decent challenge to 3 well balanced characters and mercenaries unlike the level 100s where you put your face on the keyboard and roll it across a few times and they're dead. But 3 skilled players could kill them. More often than not 3 skilled players can't kill these mobs as they're currently tuned. That's not supposed to be right.

Honestly I thought I saw this problem when I ran into a named in a HA on my level 88 SK. I could have sworn he was dark blue, and then turned red and started hitting harder after I rezzed, but since I didn't think that was right I never bothered to complain about named tunings, as I never saw another named in 85-90 HA's (I've only done a handful of them). And no, I didn't have a higher level character task-added or zoned in so him turning/being red really made no sense.

I'm still not sure if my case is true, but nonetheless I had tried 4 times and the named just plain ate through carapace, mantle, deflection, visage, everything. I even had my enchanter keeping runic aura up and spam casting runes. I had most buffs on me as well (shm/chanter/cleric). I wasn't really the best geared tank but I was a lot better off than a level 88 tank merc. Once my discs dropped I pretty much got one rounded and we hadn't even gotten him to half (I think maybe 93%, my dps was awful though since I was running it sk/ench and had a necro AFK while I was test tanking it). The named in particular I encountered was at the end of one of the Neriak HA's, don't remember which or what his name was.

Appreciate that you shared your analysis on similar encounters, feedback like this is much more likely to get a response than someone complaining "MUNSTER 2 HARD NERF PLEZ" like I would have done lol. While we're at it, if a dev decides to look can you please remove the stupid dps test from Assault the Main Hive: Step 7: Stop the butterfly slaughter? It's not possible whatsoever to CC or tank those things (I tried everything in the arsenal of an SK and ENC). You don't need to punish people for not picking DPS classes: they're already punished by doing the mission much, much slower...it feels pretty awful to spend an hour doing it just to come up to a step you may or may not get that you can't get past. I've heard their HP is also a little high for 85-90 but since I have awful dps I can't attest to that.

Something is very wrong with this particular NPC.

Level 85 warrior, 5845 AC / 42697 hp unbuffed. My jello here. Everyone else in the instance was also level 85.

First, some reasonable damage. I confess that I didn't bother discing up front because I wanted to see how rough of a fight it was:

[Thu Mar 20 07:35:24 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 1534 points of damage.
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:25 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 1534 points of damage.
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:27 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 6210 points of damage.
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:27 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 6469 points of damage.

This is, so far, a yawnfest. I woke up a second later, though:

[Thu Mar 20 07:35:27 2014] A sharp blade slips between your ribs. You have taken 25015 points of damage.

Which is where I started taking Harlow seriously:

[Thu Mar 20 07:35:28 2014] You forego caution and steel yourself for a final stand.

...but it didn't help:

[Thu Mar 20 07:35:32 2014] Harlow the Blackguard quickly picks through the pockets of his victim without remorse.
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:32 2014] Harlow the Blackguard pierces YOU for 31269 points of damage.
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:32 2014] You have been knocked unconscious!
[Thu Mar 20 07:35:32 2014] You have been slain by Harlow the Blackguard!

Now what's weird about this number is two things:
First, it's the same number as you got at 91. So something is odd about the scaling.
Second, this is on a warrior instead of a paladin. We should never have the same max hit, especially since I was under Final Stand.

This particular named's regular melee output is perfectly appropriate, and the 25k nuke is Precision Shank, which looks like:

Slot 1: Decrease Hitpoints by 53450

So it being only a 25k nuke says that it's also properly scaling. I'm not fussed about it because, well, a named SHOULD have an occasional surprise like that.

That 31k hit though... I do not think that was intended for an 85 tank. I would hazard a guess that he's a rogue who has learned to frontstab, but that alone wouldn't explain the exact same hit on two tanks of different classes with a six level difference.

It's not just named. I've done Assault the Main Hive a few times succesfully at lvl 90 with my warrior/bard box. Then I leveled up to 91 and the quest mob The Master Philosopher turned from a doable fight into a .
Also requested HAs in which all or half the mobs were red cons, killing my warrior in 5 secs. So, pretty much giving up on HAs for now, will check again when I'm lvl 100.

Yeah that attack even if its meant to hit through defensive and the like isn't scaling it seems.

WRT the spell damage, its hitting you for 25K and its a 53450 DD, but you have 30% spell shield so its actually casting at 35735 at level 85. They reduced the spell by 33% from the level 100 version. Do level 85 characters have 67% of the hitpoints that level 100 characters have? No, not nearly. They don't even have 50% of the hitpoints.

Spells may be scaling as intended, but, again, they did it wrong. The spell damage we take from HA namers is a lot more devastating than the spell damage level 100s take. The problem is exacerbated by the additional spell damage we're taking because it takes a lot longer to kill namers at 85 than 100 due to the hitpoint problem described above.

Edit: WRT backstab there's always a message indicating you're getting backstabbed rather than pierced when you're being backstabbed (or facestabbed).

[Wed Mar 26 23:26:17 2014] A Sheartooth marauder backstabs YOU for 46383 points of damage.

Sort of beside the point, though, as that 32k hit we're taking from that named is clearly intended to be some sort of special attack.

Gear bump at 92 was enough to box some of the nameds. Taken down the 3 Gribble namers so far, still can't kill Doomscale Diabolist or the one in the first Marla HA. Takes basically a bar of wizard mana at max burn to drop these things. They're not as tough as VoA named but closer to VoA than HoT. At level 100 they're still not as hard as VoA named. In several cases you could take the level 92 version, stick it in a level 100 HA and the group would hardly notice that they got the level 92 version.

Here's a level 94 tuned named that I got to 14% before running out of disc and dying: /GU Burning Bones in 372s, 4848k

4848000 / 0.86 = 5.6 million hitpoints. No noticeable difference between this and a level 100 HA named. No way this is supposed to be right.

VOA named had that much health. But yeh I agree with you in comparison to how normal HA's at 100 are thats messed up. I think most of the level 100 HA namers have 6 million health? Something like that

*** O and funny sidenote: I brought this up in Beta, I was told its working as intended

VoA named weren't supposed to be killable with 2 players and mercs and tuned for casual players. I know these still aren't as bad a VoA named but you don't see 2 level 94s and mercs taking down namers in T3 VoA. We're supposed to be able to do these with 2 characters and mercs.

Another level 94 tuned mob this one from a gribble HA: /GU Deathcaller Xylok in 173s, 4033k

Seems like the DH heroic named are well more in line with the intended difficulty than the ETWK ones. But this sort of holds true at 100 too (DH namers are easier than ETWK namers, not that either of them are difficult at all).

no i wasnt disagreeing with ya I am sure somewhere they missed a calculation or didnt think through the backwards scaling in relation to the massive increase in mob hps since VOA.

Ya I know you know just laying the case out there in case someone misinterprets what you said.

Heh. Yea me and my gf each 2 boxing... we went in at 89 war, 89 rog, 88 sham, 88 dru... we dinged the war, rog to 90 and dru to 89 during the HA, we had Deathcaller Xylok up, so after we dinged and finished (and esp now we were 2 90s, an 89 and an 88) we figured we should be able to slam this named, he was yellow to us at 90... we didnt have new spells with us but we still got AA and stuff... since it was the last thing of the night (and we had wiped horribly on him earlier) we decided to go for broke! We would all 4 of us pull out our Steadfast Servant AA healers (and I should mention besides from the boxed WAR/ROG/DRU/SHM we also have J5 mercs healer and wizzy out.... We got him to 40% and as soon as Final Stand combat ability was down on the tank she went splat FAST... now we aer not super twinked but EVERY slot on all 4 toons is with 80-85 or 85-90 stuff, full set of paragons armor adn weaps on all, etc. We should have OWNED this like nothing. We both have played with 300+ days each, full raiders in the old school days, we have spent a few months back now relearning our classes.... I think the bosses in these HAs for anything lower than 105 is really crappy, not remotely doable without (maybe) a full group of 6 full time players that all know their class and are supertwinked.... MEH

That HA was Scouting Ahead btw... ^^^^

btw the war has about 43k hps, and that guy quads 8656... just LOL. I guess we wont kill any named in any HA until we level up... sucks

He hit you for 8656 with a disc going... or without.

Thats an important question.

no no it was after the disc was over. So if we can dps it in 3 minutes we win, otherwise not a chance. We got him to 64%, 54% and 46% in 3 consecutive tries

I guess they retuned it. I box three; warrior (lvl89), shaman (lvl88) and druid (lvl88). All heroic characters with auto-grant aa. I geared up the warrior a little better, but not much. Some 25ac augs in 8 slots, nothing in the rest. I tried the mosquito named, when all at lvl85 and 87 and had to evac after only getting the named to just under 50%, read about the nameds for Gribbles HA and decided I should wait till I am over lvl92 with better crap gear to try again.

However, I got mostly raid buffed sitting in the guild hall before porting to Gribbles and my warrior was sitting at 6500+AC and 63,000+HP for that HA run. Deathcaller Xylok was up and I gave it a try. I run a healer merc on my warrior and both my druid and shaman have rogue mercs (whole lot easier to keep agro on my warrior! and not ping pong around which the extra DPS from caster mercs would not make up for in my opinion). I kept whatever defensive /disc up on my warrior the whole time, had agro locked down. Started the DPS mercs at balance, then switched to burn after 90% on the named. My healer merc was at reactive the whole time. I have a hot key for druid and shaman to slow(with heal)/snare and cast three different DoTs. Kept a heal over time up on my warrior using the shaman. It was pretty uneventful. Took some time, but solid kill.

Did a couple more times with just buffs my boxes/merc have and it wasn't as solid of a kill, but doable. Think warrior is sitting at 6600ac (got a lot more augs with the marks of valor merchant) and 55,000hp buffed with my little group buffs +sureity.

The thing is, with all of the lowbie gear and also cotf lvl 100 group gear being available through vendors, and the fact that the gribble ha names only drop a few different slots, it may be best to avoid these mobs until you have the beef to take them on. I believe the first time I molo'd bloodsucker or the war priest I had my lvl 97 pet in full gear and shammy buffs. Just saying it can be done pre 100.

As for the tuning, perhaps the namers are tuning down because the DH HA's were intended as a quick way to grind exp. not saying that lower toons shouldn't try to get ha groups, just that ideally, you need to be 100+ and then depending on what class you play you can stomp all over these cotf missions. Btw try fighting trash on Dino island that has 7 million hp per for progression. Lol not very much fun either.

Thats how I am with my SK, given up till I level some more, the lower level HAs just hit too hard.

Sorry I meant the reason the namers AREN'T tuned down. Anyways, what servers are you guys on? I'm on luclin and always willing to add Any level player that is high enough level to pick up the HA's, feel free to shoot me a tell on luclin, characters name is Sifonin