Upcoming Vex Thal: Beyond the Veil [Raid] changes/fixes

It has a cast bar so you can time your cure well in advance.

You're not supposed to be able to cure it.. it'll keep getting reapplied. Just gotta heal heal heal

I'm a monk, not a healer. All I know is our raid force wiped about 5 times before the healers could actually react fast enough to get the heal down. That's kind of ridiculous.

They can leverage their group death prevents, pact of the cheetah, etc. to give them more cushion.

If you are a Monk then "Stone Cold" spec will definitely help with that. Xakra Fu'un is easy peasy compared to what comes after.

have you considered asking a rhetorical question of why is wiping 5 times on a progression raid mob "kind of ridiculous"?

I'm strictly in favor of challenge, any reasonable flavor of challenge, cause Vex2 is sorely lacking it, as I've already laid out but i'll re-address below. Of course, not all challenge types are born equal if they were of my choosing in a vacuum. A mechanically-complex challenge like Trak or RoehnTheer is obviously a much more rewarding kind to experience, but is also extremely time-consuming and imagination-taxing to produce properly - it's easy to understand why we can't have them often given the size of the team working on them these days.

Higher-but-possible incoming dmg or tight dps checks are types of challenges that are easier to produce (altho not to say that it's easy - as evidenced by their lack - just easier). But at the very least, margin of error there is one-dimensional and incremental post-release tunning is possible unlike a mechanics rework on a fight that's already been released. Historically, that'll just never happen. So it's just me being a realist - i'm not holding my breath for another Trak, but i'll take anything that's challenging.

The fact that some named in Vex2 are hitting too hard for poorly tuned tank classes atm is not an indictment against Vex2 content, but rather that classes are poorly tuned; nerfing content to meet at worst-common-denominator that you're asking for is the wrong move - hopefully i dont need to add another paragraph explaining why.

You're just confused man, tho at least your confusing posts are starting to make more sense now. You agree that pre-nerf Priest was an accidentally fantastic fight - the definition of how dps check challenges should feel - there was lot of player agency there to influence a successful outcome despite that at it's core it was a dps-check type of challenge.

Yet you framed a statement about unfair dps checks in Vex2-as-a-whole (which is clearly false), whereas turns out you only meant Emp specifically. And Emp is not a dps check, it's just bugged at 20% as I've already mentioned. The 3 guilds that killed it (im in one of them) were just able to get around the bugged aspect of it; it'll be fixed in future patch, it's not an intentional dps-check.

Actually you laid out the answer to your own question in the same paragraph without spotting it. Ssaeshza's hallowed halls had challenging fights, so SolEye and PoW being easy to counter-balance it as more content for mid-tier guilds was the right move. This is not the situation we're in with Vex2, so we need the opposite to happen.

edit - nm, didnt see this was already addressed above

I can see all sides of this.

The gear is blah and not worth farming outside Emperor.

The trash is absolutely stupid and draining to morale.

The named encounters for the most part seem okay. They're not the greatest thing I've ever seen, but they're certainly not the worst. Except Emperor. That was a massive let down for an expansion boss.

And to Obanos point, I imagine these zones would be absolutely difficult if you don't have primarily meta classes with p2w. That should speak more to Caiths failure to properly balance classes when everything is based around reducing damage, buffing dps, and t1s that can pump out absurd levels of ENCDPS compared to their peers

Maybe if Caith would step up and do what needs done, we'd be able to have interesting, difficult fights that reward gear worth chasing.

bleh, didn't refresh, deleted this cause it was old

I mostly agree with what you are saying but there are a couple of points I highly disagree with. Not every encounter can be Reohn Theer quality and there is no disagreement there. I understand why DPS checks exist, the raid scene would be a total joke without them but there is a middle ground between two little and too much. You seem to be stuck on this idea that it is all or nothing.

1. Class balance and raid balance are interconnected mechanics. You can't change one without it effecting the other. Remember in CD when Monks couldn't survive a Bulwark without help. It somewhat limited what a Monk could tank. When they severely nerfed bulwark it lead to Monks becoming the meta tank of choice and other tanks became less needed. The Monk class didn't change, it was the raid content and way Bulwarks that changed that made the difference. Other tanks then became less useful because what they had in their toolkit didn't matter anymore. Changing raid mechanics again with nerfing raid boss auto-attacks somewhat would go a long way to leveling the playing field between the tank classes.

It is amusing to hear to hear someone say "maKe tTe gamE m0re challenGing" and then only look at the one mechanic that the meta class can trivialize. Monks trivialize auto attacks. That is a FACT. Adding more of what they can already trivialize doesn't make the game harder for them. It just further locks Monks into that meta position while locking other tanks out.

IF they really wanted to make things challenging for the meta classes they could bring back the old Bulwark from CD. It was 5 death touches in 2 seconds. Monks couldn't really handle that but the other tanks could. It would give guilds a reason to use Paladins, SKs, Guardians, and Bruisers again. All this without actually changing the classes themselves. Just changing what kind of damage raid bosses do changes the class balance. The best balance would be to mix it up and not skew it too much one way or the other. This would prevent one tank class from gaining massive advantages over everyone else.

2. The other major point of disagreement comes from you opinion of Ssraeshza's Hallowed Halls. That zone was somewhat difficult but not as hard as Vex2. The last boss was somewhat difficult to learn for the first time but overall "Halls" was easy peasy for reasonably competent players. The need to balance out the difficult content is actually greater now that it was in BoL.

How does changes/fixes to a raid zone always end up with obano talking about Class Balance?

I mean, he's not wrong. What if every bulwark was magical damage and did 5 100% max HP hits? That would change how you approached things. I think back to tanks throwing a fit they couldn't solo tank Fennin in CD.

Yes, but as I said. Its about Changes and Fixes to a raid zone.

[quote="Obano, post: 6655984, member: 521"
1. Class balance and raid balance are interconnected mechanics. You can't change one without it effecting the other. Remember in CD when Monks couldn't survive a Bulwark without help. It somewhat limited what a Monk could tank.

2. The other major point of disagreement comes from you opinion of Ssraeshza's Hallowed Halls. That zone was somewhat difficult but not as hard as Vex2. The last boss was somewhat difficult to learn for the first time but overall "Halls" was easy peasy for reasonably competent players. The need to balance out the difficult content is actually greater now that it was in BoL.[/quote]



I don't get why you think Monks couldn't tank in CD... You had to be smart and sometimes work with your healer but I don't recall any issues... Naggato can correct me if I'm missing something.

Halls Challenge was much harder than Vex 2. I don't really mean that as a slight to Vex 2 as that tier of difficulty has it's place. I'm just concerned that any further increase in player power is going to make the boss fights completely trivial and dry up raiding for the top 20 or so guilds throughout the ethereal season. We saw that after CD raids were finished and a lot of guilds died in that raid content hiatus.

Having to coordinate with healers adds a level of difficulty to the bulwark mechanic. It is much easier when tanks can handle it on their own. Paladin, SK, Guardian, and Bruiser could survive a CD era bulwark without outside help.

Also please explain why you think Ssraeshza's Hallowed Halls Challenge was difficult. From what I remember it was quite the snoozefest of a zone. There was one boss with a joust and memwipe, another where we were just clicking leavers. The clock room boss basically didn't even have a script and was a loot pinata. There was one boss with an incurable nox that was easy to kill but hard to get flawless because someone would always fall over dead. The two snake skeletons that had to be separated was completely trivialized if you had 4 fighters. The 2nd to last boss was only difficult for scouts and mages who didn't have death prevents or self heals when going into the room to click on their symbols. Overall that wasn't hard fight. The last boss was only hard if you had people who didn't know how to set up the triangles or groups that couldn't follow directions. If people did what they were supposed to it wasn't hard. It wasn't dps check and the damage output was very low.

With Vex 2 we can execute the scripts perfectly and still wipe because the incoming damage was too much (Thall Xundraux auto attacks) or the dps was just a little short on Emperor. Even though my guild has cleared Vex 2 we are still going to end up wiping to these bosses because the zone has "issues." The margins are so tight it is just on the very edge of what is possible. A little bad RNG on the incoming damage and it is a wipe. But again my real concern is Vex 3. If we are just barely squeaking by Vex 2 then how are we going to handle Vex 3. Maybe you are not worried but I am. And what about all the mid-range range guilds that can't even complete Vex 2?

Our casual team (second raid force) is already on emperor. I guess that's my point...

lol why he always writing books too

What exactly is your point. If they are at the emperor why haven't they killed the emperor if it is as easy as you claim.

They raid 2x a week and didn't have time to pull it yet...

It feels like 90% of your concern is that one or two of the mobs are hard to tank. The dps checks on the mobs are not bad at all right now if you have at least a couple p2w t1s...and that is just somewhat expected in the game at this point.