If the Queen of Chardok change was intended I am not sure the developers fully understand how damaging this is. Edit: I forgot in the context of the barrage of DPS nerfs it's even worse, as each nerf dramatically hurts more and more due to the extremely high HP regen on some of these events. This is a matter of kicking players downward months into the expansion. For emphasis, since May just a single guild other than mine recorded a victory over this event: http://elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/encounter.php?id=233 What's worse, NO guild has beaten Vault that reports wins on the site since March! http://elitegamerslounge.com/home/progress/encounter.php?id=234 My guild was getting very, very close to beating the Vault event. Now this lovely change was timed with losing one of our strongest players and we also have to contend with reinventing the wheel for an event we already had on farm. Does it really make sense to kick people in the teeth when it's already so obvious people are not sailing through this expansion? Firstly, I'm well aware guilds farmed this not knowing she didn't kill the captains. Obviously they wouldn't have a problem if they could power through the event as is. It's a wildly damaging change however for forces that do not possess such dps that the adds are trivial to begin with. Regardless of how set in stone this is, PLEASE I hope developers read this! Firstly some possible alternatives: a.) The same captain should not be able to spawn multiple times. Ensuring each captain is unique and cannot appear more than once would introduce several angles of attack. Would a force want to kill each captain right away, dealing with the repops at the start or would they rather the Queen kill most of them for them? Perhaps her mechanics could be based on how many captains are dead rather than HP% as it is currently, so killing the captains would mean dealing with the periodic runes, emotes, etc. earlier. b.) Are the warcasters intended to be potential instant raid wipes? They are wildly disproportionately dangerous compared to all other add types in the event. The amnesia effect on their large DoT makes it even worse. Oh, then there is the massive nuke if you don't kill them within 45 sec or so. And then more of them come than every other add type as well. That's the thing that's really a kicker with the same captain coming back more than once. My guild handled the first unexpected pop very well one time Sunday. Then we got more warcasters again. I really don't think it's fair an event is dictated that heavily by randomness. Seriously, I cannot emphasize enough how bonkers their danger is in comparison to everything else in that entire event, and the sheer randomness of them is silly. c.) After the initial set of adds that already exist prior to starting the event, perhaps an instant timed add pops with a captain popping but not necessarily an entire set in addition to the timed waves. Again, the extra attrition this change can cause for a less ideal force is enormous, and the severity of more mobs is dramatically increased the weaker a force due to the high HP regen, even before considering the warcaster randomness issue. d.) This is all in relation not to a brand new event in beta, but a live event that has been this way for over half a year and has suddenly changed. Thoughts on the situation for this event: A great many events have had scripts that kill or despawn mobs in the past. It was not at all unreasonable to think dropping a captain to near death was intended, because it gives an element of strategy and I would have thought it would take more effort to script than just outright killing them. This is a boss that tries to run away after all. This is many months after expansion launch. How on Earth does it make sense to stomp on the fingers of the mid/low tier guilds that beat this event but are still working on progressing in the expansion. How is this fair to any guild to shove them off the cliff and force them to relearn an event they already mastered? This change will very likely kill guilds if not reconsidered, because as I said it is a very large change. I'm actually absolutely floored to see no guild (on the progression site) has beaten the Vault since we first beat the Queen in May. I mean I know it's a very difficult event with extremely large tanking, healing, and dps requirements but I'm still surprised. What exactly is the angle here? Is design now made completely in regard to only the top couple guilds, as it clearly has been for the last few special event raids? No the raid game should not be super duper trivial for everyone but how does it make sense to ignore the people that have stuck around for 5, 10, or even more years? I'm just absolutely floored looking at that progression chart. I had no idea the vault was such a brick wall, and now some forces have to relearn the Queen before even having the chance to try beating that again. ...and I hear the end zone is more difficult still. I just cannot fathom how this change seemed like a good idea if it was on purpose, when progress through the expansion has already halted since May from the looks of it unless a ton of forces don't report their wins. The worst part about this is it makes me really regret being a goodie two-shoes. See, there is a point in the Vault raid where you can recover. The event is 100% time-based (without any arbitrary fail timers), so if you make it to a certain point the event only resets if people leave the event rooms. This means if you make it far enough you can recover before re-engaging to trigger the final boss. Well silly me. "We aren't desperate." was my thought. It seemed questionable if it was intended you can recover, though considering how difficult the first parts of the event are checkpoints aren't at all unprecedented. See the second and fifth Sepulcher events for reference. Still we seemed to be fairly powerful for the summer, so we did not take advantage of this. We just outright let the event reset, despite the fact we could recover. This change has me seriously regret that. Now coming here to ramble about this I did not at all expect to be in one of the last two guilds that made it past the Queen. I knew this change was harsh but I had no idea virtually no guild has progressed in T2 EoK all summer. PLEASE do not go back and nerf the Vault too. It's quite hard enough as is, even with the potential breather. It just makes me really kick myself for not doing it, just to be a goodie two-shoes, only to be kicked all the way back to May having to re-learn an event all over again, with summer numbers, and forfeiting the potential surge in numbers a new win would have brought, as such things usually remind/inspire players to log in more again. I really cannot express how happy I am people have turned out as they have. I never take raid numbers for granted. That is a luxury many (most?) raid guilds do not have, as more and more players must play alts to heal and such to fill in the gaps. I'm sure some would be all "why would you post that" but really looking at it we aren't that terribly off right now. It's not uncommon for guilds to have trouble with numbers in the summer. The high HP regen and amount of things to tank and heal through make the Queen and Vault among the most difficult raids of the last couple expansions (and I can't speak as to T3, which I'd imagine is likely more difficult). If this change was intentional, I'm just absolutely flabbergasted and really hope the devs didn't understand how severe of a change it could be. Combined with the massive DPS nerfs (which compound the HP regen) it's just not good. While what was initially intended is totally irrelevant to the point I am making above, you have to admit that same emote means it makes absolutely no sense the same captains can repop.
Mechanics that reward skill and finesse as opposed to brute force are so rare in EQ these days. It won't make any difference for the guilds that have already outgeared the warcasters. But for those who are still at that point in progression, the option to play smarter and win by finesse is gone. Sad pandas.
Said it before and I'll say it again. EQ's developers clearly do not play their own game. If they did they would know how bad the experience is. It should be mandatory that every developer and designer have a raiding character and raid, and keep their identity a secret from the guild so they get honest feedback.
They'd probably be hard pressed to find a raiding guild to take them IMO. Just curious but some other top-end people have claimed it was never supposed to be that way in the first place sooo... which is it? Genuinely curious if someone actually knows. While we've dealt with Warcasters 2 in a row and I think 3 once, I can say it's pretty stupid being able to get back-to-back. I feel they are OP or at least OP in the spawn mechanic. Sure, leave the current AE in but inhibit back-to-back spawns. If not that, reduce the AE and allow it. I think the former option would be easier unless you are healer heavy. Personally, I think it's a bit much to ask for spawn reduction AND AE reduction though. I know the original poster wasn't asking for both but just saying in general. On a side note... I'm just curious what guilds are going to ask for on Vault once they beat Queen (if that raid was changed to their advantage). I mean... where does it end? That's the dangerous part.
Well, I imagine a cooling down of Vault's only mechanic, enemy regen. There's basically nothing else going on in that raid.
You don't accidentally script it to set the mob to 100 hp instead of simply killing it. From what I understand, it was created by one dev (Absor) and tuned/adjusted by another (Prathun). Prathun says he wanted to change the captains every 20%. But he apparently didn't notice how it was scripted, and he tested it with a guild that did it in a way where they always died. Either way, the event retained the original scripting that let you save the captains if you could prevent any and all damage to them until they regen'd. And in return for such finesse you could control the adds. Until now. Also, if Prathun wanted the captains to change, then it's not working properly even now: you get a random captain when one dies, and it's the same one with 1/3 chance (even though the Queen clearly says 'somebody else').
Core of Flame's aura pulsing out damage once per second might be a roadblock. Not even sure if it was intended to be that way, considering how much less frequently the other auras fire off.
That's just asking for disaster there. Absor's events have been some of the absolute worst the last few years. They seem to all expect a certain specific group composition for the smaller scale ones, and are difficult to impossible if you deviate from that by a single class.
I am also getting very tired of having to skip queen because it requires specific classes, i.e. range dps, enough healers and enough tanks, or its not even worth trying. My guild has had a total of 1 mnk/beast claw drop in like 6 months of doing this event because it doesnt get beat often due to the difficulty and required classes. You can go look at any guild and even the top ones are still paying 2 weeks worth of dkp for the ear drops. It is pretty frustrated when you are clearing tier 3 but have to skip a mid tier 2 event every week because it is designed so terribly and every damn patch seems to just nerf dps more and more. Maybe instead of killing existing dps to "balance" classes in an already difficult raiding situation you could add dps to the classes you have made virtually useless on raids.
You dont need to have any ranged dps for queen. As gor tanks you need 5 of any mix sk/pal/warr and thats if your half geared. I whould suggest your guild makes better use you the tools your offered. A good way to make the event way easyer and so you need alot less healers for example is for your main tank to comumivate with a shaman for shammy Alliance (it has the biggest ae range) so you can use you main tank as a ae healer as your spamming him. This makes gaypileing thru the aes alot easyer together with other ae healing wile warcasters are up
Aye, raid is worse if you try to stay at a distance cause you'll miss out on all the group and AE heals. Time to tighten up the bootstraps and jump into the gaypile! lol
You definitely do not need range dps for Queen at all. Everyone should be standing close enough that they could melee so they are in range for ae heal and the actual melee then do not have to run around chasing the target ring. It's a pretty straight forward raid. Trying to get cute with the Queen and over think it is when you get into trouble.
Willing to give me a few more hints on Vault? We are finally "farming" the queen, but I'm still a bit confused on the vault.
ranging for the Queen is just asking for pain and misery, not to mention the greater chance of a loss. just my 2cp
Like, event mechanics? There's plenty of details to go around regarding who tanks what or kills when here & there. My statement regards this forum thread we're in, the one about event difficulty, specifically event mechanics that feel unfair to some. Once Atrebe's Vault is "solved", the only thing for a guild to lose to [besides internal raid failures], and so the only thing for someone-inclined-to-nerf-events to nerf, is enemies' high regen.
When the three auras spawn, hold off on DPS initially until you position them in separate corners. When the emote comes that auras have regenerated, then go all out full burn to kill all three before they regen again. Depending on your guild you may need anywhere from an entire guild full burn to one group full burn. IMHO that is the hardest part of the event, killing the three auras before they reset. Although I suppose if you have casters who do not understand the concept of "keep mana between 35 and 70" then that could pose a wipe as well...
I'm sure its like the queen. When we started we couldn't beat the queen unless we had a perfect balance and then it was questionable, but now that we have the mechanics we're beating her without that perfect turn out.
I have passed the link to this thread on to our raid leaders, hoping they give it a look and theres a new method this week for queen
