Tiers 9 through 11 balancing (See post #4 for current status)

The squishes can no longer be ignored but still only get 1 wipe recovery chance which is needed if you do not dps the troupers down fast enough as thier ae gets big fast.
 
Atada of Resurgum. T9 farm status, pushing T10.

So far we have found all tiers up through 9 to be fair and adequate for the most part. The problem weare having is competition for T9 and T10 targets due to the higher encounters getting buffed. This is having a ripple effect on us from progressing, causing us to look hard to find things to kill which may be having the same ripple effect on lower tiered guilds.

Tha has been quite interesting due to all the bugs - roars, etc. Fingers crossed on seeing bugs worked out. Abyss shouldn't have been touched. For one, Hellhound has too many HP for what on tier DPS does now. The mechanics are fine.

I'm not going to belabor the point of the buffed encounters, I just want to point out the ripple effect is has on Resurgum, Prophecy, FA, Companions.
 
My statement regarding spires vs. prime is actually a pretty significant one in terms of the concept of "tier".

When considering how hard an encounter is, there are two primary kinds of components. One kind is components that contribute to determining the minimum gear necessary to complete the encounter (gear check). The others are things that you can avoid (like dispellable poisons or AEs that can be outranged) or mitigate (like the portions of some AEs you can avoid by killing adds that reset the AE damage). The first ones determine the "Tier". The latter ones are more of the "player skill check" things.

A zone boss like Prime Enchanter Sil`rel`din is fairly hard on the gear check. He's also pretty rough with the mechanics like the concerns of having a second wizard archaic nuke land during the absorb/flare mechanic. He's a rather epic zone boss and he's got some great loots, but you're probably not going to want to farm him. For the zone that follows, the encounters there should start out with requiring the same gear check that you'd have if you executed Prime perfectly (you didn't, nobody did, probably nobody will), they should have some mechanics so they aren't tank-and-spank, but they should feel a little easier from having less of the second type of mechanics.

With this, you still need to be on tier to do the next zone, but you should feel okay to move on past that zone boss. In some sense, you could say Prime Enchanter Sil`rel`din is harder than The Void Worm, but the actual Tier /slash/ gear check should not be lower for The Void Worm. In that mindset, you still could have a raid that wouldn't be able to manage Prime Enchanter Sil`rel`din that would manage The Void Worm.


Hello, This is Jeanval the mage from companions. The officers of our guild have given great insight, I just had a particular question about boss design, that may help or may not.

My question is how is the gear check determined? I understand there are many factors, and they fit in archetype. A phantom strike is easily a hp check on the entire raid, aoes are resist or hp check if unresistable, you have to get the mob down in a time frame, a dps check. Many of these guys can be mixed and matched.

From what I have read, everyone agrees that tiers 1-9 are fairly linear and there is no real problem there. From looking at the wiki list there are easily 20+ for each tier except maybe t2 and t7 which are 20. It would seem with all of these data points, an equation could be created to assign a gear check value. If the equation seems to do ok, with the tier 1-9 mobs, then maybe it could be applied to find any significant gaps in t10 and above?

This would allow an ability measure the difficulty of half of the battle. The mechanics which add their own twists and turns would still be open for variation.

TL;DR - Could we come up with a metric using t1-t9 data to help gauge t10+ encounters.

P.S. I got to go eat, will be back to edit this, please don't tear it apart too much in the mean time.
 
I'm taking these posts to heart and looking at the scripts of the encounters in question. I'll respond once I can do so accurately.
 
Storm tyrant never seems like it was balanced. I know goon squad attempted it and wiped a few times and it was really hard. Maybe there is a strat involved but we never figured it out. I think the times it was actually killed was when high tier dudes just powered through it.

Gegen(monk) - t10/11 Goon Squad
Aakadar(cleric) - T7? Prophecy


Honestly since goon squad isn't raiding t10-12 content anymore, and my cleric is still undergeared/tomed, I can't comment on any of the events, I really just wanted to bring up storm tyrant


When we attempted it in Goon Squad we were very solid t9/10 and had Slaariel watching us so he could balance/fix the fight.

Pretty sure the fight was in some way bugged or not balanced properly, and the only people that actually beat it were over-tiered people powering through. I'm sure there was a mechanic we couldn't figure out, but slaar did mention there were issues with it when we did it. We attempted it like 5-6 times in a row, slaar made some tweaks and then we never went back because we figured it was still messed up and never had the chance to meet with slaar again for it.

Honestly I am not sure if it's still broken/bugged slaar would need to comment on that, it could have easily been changed since GS tried it a year or so ago, but I'm doubting it since people never want to try new things.

:fakeedit:

Also, MONK ZONE, I only know of one person that finished the key quest, Lheo/oehl from GS. I know how to finish it, but I don't know who made the zone and I heard it's horribly broken currently, and would honestly want to have whoever created the zone be there while attempting to kill it, but would gladly raid it with Prophecy (or goon squad if we get to the point of raiding t9+ content again). So I guess, who made monk zone? I'm fairly certain it was supposed to fit into t9/10 but I could be wrong, but if so we could add it in here.

Unless the zone was removed then ignore comments
 
We did monk zone a long time ago in Pwny Express, we did the key quest and farmed it for probably 3 weeks off and on. It was hard, the trash hit fast for like 3000 damage or something dumb like that but had about 500 HP, so you had to pull them and burn them before they go to you cause they'd wreck your tanks face off.

The fights had some mechanics, some were hard some weren't so hard.

Then all our gear got turned to muffins and the zone got buffed, we watched Sacred Band wipe hard in there one night and give up, so we never tried again.
 
We did monk zone a long time ago in Pwny Express, we did the key quest and farmed it for probably 3 weeks off and on. It was hard, the trash hit fast for like 3000 damage or something dumb like that but had about 500 HP, so you had to pull them and burn them before they go to you cause they'd wreck your tanks face off.

The fights had some mechanics, some were hard some weren't so hard.

Then all our gear got turned to muffins and the zone got buffed, we watched Sacred Band wipe hard in there one night and give up, so we never tried again.


Well that sucks, was there 6-man and 18-man stuff in there? I know some guys went in from GS and killed some things, and some things were changed while they were there possibly in efforts to fix.

This could help (along with thaz) to open up the 10ish stuff if that's what the zone is designed for.
 
When we did it it was all 6 man. The super awesome BoE poker Ethereal Epee, I recall it being similar or just lesser to the cmal 3.2 dagger ratio-wise. It came from there also. Only saw one or two ever for sale but they were like 25-30k plat.

Another drop was http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Absolute_Zero - if it's truly a tier 8 zone, that item is amazing. From what I've heard though the zone now plays closer to tier 9-10 in difficulty, making that BP average for the tier. We farmed it just to put those BPs on our tanks and clerics, I think we had 3 or so before they were taken away.

After the changes and item muffin-ing it was made into an 18 man zone.

The entry quest / lore is really *really* cool. I would recommend doing it and I would ask that it's kept secret, because when we heard whispers of it it started a guild wide hunt for the QPs. It was considered a "Secret Zone" in guild chat and we kept it as hush hush as we could, it was honestly one of the most "exciting" shards times I've had, exploring that place.
 
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If you want to talk about other things, please feel free to start a thread on The Ethereal Dojo, 6man content, 12man content, farming archaic frags, farming ritual frags (although this one is on-topic if discussed conceptually and not in the "let's go form a raid" sense), or whatever. I do like that these side conversations are being started, and I'd love to see those conversations on the forums outside of the Balancing Discussion subforum. I'll soon clean up this thread to keep it streamlined, on-topic, and easier to read.

I'm a bit stalled at the moment while looking deeply at the The Void Worm encounter. As I've said before, the fight looks fine on paper. That means digging a bit to find the issues, and your input so far as been helpful for directing my search. I've found at least one thing that I think is making the encounter more challenging than intended. Sadly, for resolving this issue, playerbase input won't be helpful. That said, if someone happens to have a parse of the melee damage this guy was putting out on the tank post-change they'd be willing to PM me, that would help save me quite a bit of time once this thing I still haven't specified is resolved.

In other news:

Discussing tweaks to the entry to Temple of Elael. The whole deal for entry is actually pretty novel and fun, but some parts of it are getting "lost in translation" for lack of a better term for how it's received by individual players interacting with it, and the raw numbers of items involved may warrant tweaks. We're still talking within staff about it, but the input so far from the playerbase has been helpful in those talks.

Also, the ceiling thing with Fer`din... there might be a nice elegant solution to that that retains the spirit/integrity/flavor/intent of the encounter. We'll see, and we'll keep our fingers crossed for now.

Haven't even looked at Old Overgrowth yet. Might move that on the post #4 list. I'll probably look at the Ancient Guardian trio before it. For now, though, The Void Worm is proving to be a bit to tackle.
 
Old Overgrowth as an encounter is fine, it's more the loot table being lackluster.

For ferdin, flying out of the ceiling doesn't seem to fit imo, although falling through the floor does.

Companions hasn't attempted Temple of Elael yet, theres been alot on the agenda lately with breaking into Sanctum so farming the absurd amount of qps has taken a backburner. Although I am hoping eventually the 3rd and 4th encounter will be added for when we start attempting that content.
 
Still looking at The Void Worm... with optimistism and a sense that the fight should be where it needs to be very soon. The basic idea is that the fight needs to be appropriately difficult that some Tier 8 raid wouldn't beat it, but given that it's the first boss of the zone, the mechanics shouldn't be many and difficult. In all honesty, the "get rid of the debuff" and the AE lifetap are the only mechanics other than "mob does damage to the tank", and that's okay. The "get rid of the debuff" concern in the fight is intended to be one that requires you to put in some effort during the fight and require that every member of the raid be aware of the debuff and act appropriately if they are affected. You won't be able to cast "Cure Disease" once or just have a bard singing to cure the debuff. There are quite a few solutions, actually, and I'm still toying with the numbers to try to reach a sweet spot where there's deliberate effort and perhaps planning in removing the debuff but not an overboard amount. Once that (and that still unspecified issue that is being worked on) is done, the fight should be back to being not a complete headache but back to appropriate for the first encounter of the zone and not really doable at Tier 8.

Oehl of <Prophecy>
(snip)
We currently only get 3 to 4 solid attempts in earth wing which is rumored to be the easiest.

I'm curious about this rumor that earth wing is the easiest. Replace "easiest" with "largest" or "easiest to get the key for", and I might agree. Is this something that is floating around from something someone on staff said? Is this just the general sentiment because the mini has been killed by multiple guilds?
 
Atada of Resurgum.

Is this just the general sentiment because the mini has been killed by multiple guilds?

Na, just that it's the least buggy therefore easiest since you can actually kill stuff there.
 
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Putting aside The Void Worm for now (being worked on), I'd like to investigate another fight in Spires that I'm not understanding the complaints about: the "an ancient guardian" trio.

I'm hearing claims that this fight was made much harder on the tanks and that you need 3 really beefy tanks. What I'm seeing on my end doesn't match up with these claims. I'm also not seeing any changes to damage output made to this encounter. That leaves a few possibilities:

(1) Something was broken or in the middle of being changed and for a temporary period, the fight was indeed rediculous. In this case, the fight is back to "correct". Awesome.

(2) Something sinister and below the surface is wrong with the encounter now, and it's unintentionally difficult. In this case, I need some help from people with experience and/or parses and/or the willingness to let me watch them attempt the encounter so we can find the problem and fix it.

(3) There's been some type of miscommunication or misunderstanding and the idea that the gearcheck of the fight was adjusted at all in the changes is a minconception. I hope this is the case, but we can't know until we eliminate (2) as a possibility.

At any rate, on paper, the ancient guardian trio encounter looks good, thematic, and at the same difficulty level it always has been. It was fine before; the changes didn't impact that. I'd go so far as to say the changes were thematic ones that depending on your outlook may actually make the encounter a tiny bit easier. If you can help with input or something so we can address (2) above, this fight should be an easy one to solve.
 
Hp was significantly increased on trio. As the healers run lom the ability to keep all tanks topped enough to survive the random dbs faulters. Raxton always tanked one without problem before (even on tier) but that doesnt work now.
 
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I'm not seeing an increase of the HP of the ancient guardian trio encounter to speak of. That's not a script-based thing, so I don't yet have the exact numbers, but my current estimate on the increase of the HP of this encounter is about 1.8% and within parsing error. (To be a little more forthcomingly honest than I usually am, I wouldn't be suprised if the HP of this encounter actually was decreased by 25,000.)
 
Hmm I dunno. If the hp wasnt increased, was something changed that made it seem that way? Or maybe the encounter has since been reverted to its original form? I dunno, but this makes me want to attempt it again next time we backgear in Spires.
 
If the hp wasnt increased, was something changed that made it seem that way?

If I'm seeing this correctly (and I think I am), the fight was only slightly adjusted. Things that were NOT changed include but are not limited to: the combat abilities, melee damage, AE damage, conditions for the triggering of triggerable AE damage, resists, AC, frequency of non-triggered combat abilities and spells, and how they interact with the chest npc.

I see a change to the chest NPC, but that is part of the announced change to how the "spires bracers" drop. What I do see as interesting is that the sum total of the HP of the three ancient guardians is divisible by 25,000 but not by 50,000... but that's not really helpful information since I don't know yet if that was true before. It was my assumption from having done this encounter as a player (and from wiping a raid once from a unfortunately timed primal blast) that the mobs each had about 450k health.

tl;dr -- I think the encounter is actually fine and that any issues that were with the fight's change are either misunderstandings or things that were immediately fixed. I'd really love to see people try the fight again and parse it for me and/or allow me to raidstalk and parse it myself.
 
From Tao....
Things to be discussed thoroughly, but not just yet:

Thazeran's Tower lower wing timers (this will be a long talk, but I don't think many players understand how the timers work yet)

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but I would like to discuss this more in depth Tao. From our experience there is only two possibilities on the timers and since we were there while Jumbers/Slaar were there watching/tweaking things the first couple of times I'm not sure which is correct. But in either case the timers are too short. Unless this last closure of Thaz fixed a bug that was affecting the timers....I would like to discuss this in tells or PM's if possible.

Xoranath, RL of Companions(T10)
 
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