Darkhold really "easy" or merely what we were warned about by Matsui?

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

I disagree.

The purpose of my previous thread was to illustrate that a good encounter in a video game should be one that challenges players even after doing it a thousand times.

Learning a fight takes very little time and provides very little content if the fight itself proposes no challenge.

Batraal is a good example. It took us a few tries to learn the fight, and now we kill it regularly with no degree of difficulty.

Batraal however could have been a very challenging fight had he been reworked to provide a bit of randomness to the fight. Maybe he should have run into the eyes on a whim, that would have made it interesting. Or something, ANYTHING that would give the fight something to make a player who had done it fifty times go "oh crap"

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They definitely could have made better use of the eyes. Why is that light to stop the eyes moving even there? The eyes aren't anywhere near the fight if done right except for an unlucky hit when popping the 0 damage or sword light. If the eyes moved everywhere in the room then you'd have to factor them in and stop them moving when they're away from Batraal.

I think SE tried to cater to both the casual and hardcore crowd by adding the speed factor. It might not be the best way of adding hard mode to a dungeon but it's not bad. What they could have done is had multiple pathways with optional extra bosses that open up more chests at the end but by doing so you make the Batraal fight harder. That way the casuals can still complete the dungeon and get some nice loot, but the hardcore have a challenge for even better loot. They could even make all the drops on the hard run HQs of the normal run.

Problem with this dungeon is they had to design the content to fit in the map rather than design the content and the map together. We'll have that issue for quite a while since there's a dozen or so dungeons still locked off. The raids will have to be tailored to their layouts.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Which would be fine, but couldn't they just fix the ghost blind spot/up ghost damage requiring the tank to move and suddenly the fight becomes more difficult to execute since the tank has to joust between two spots (and a healer with them), while making sure batraal stays pointed away from that healer/group. It wouldn't be quite as random, but I believe that is how batraal was intended to be fought, and it is significantly more difficult to execute.

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I misunderstood edit:

Upping ghost damage would just encourage the moving of Batraal even more, but we do it anyway so it wouldn't matter...

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Originally Posted by Delsus

I will admit I have done batrall once but in that fight I was killing skeles, once they are dead hitting the lights then engage batrall untill the skeles repop the repeat, didnt get hit by anything except the skeles and the healer assigned to us could cope, until the tank died and we got raped, but that was only because the tank died.

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You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

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Originally Posted by Murugan

You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

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The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

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Originally Posted by DoctorMog

Actually, that would make the fight easier. Not having to move it and not having to heal the damage the ghosts cause would make it the easiest endgame fight thus far. Maybe I misunderstand; but I don't see how you think that would make it easier.

I would genuinely like to know.

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What are you talking about? Not moving batraal means that you don't factor in the ghosts, unless that is your tank is mispositioned and getting hit by all the ghosts. It is also unfairly punishing your melee DD. It makes it simpler because you are negating an important mechanic of the fight (the dynamic ghost popping).

If the ghost damage could not be soaked (or blind spotted) then the tank would have to joust them. This coupled with Batraal's laser spam makes the repositioning require coordination and finesse because if the mage steps ahead of the tank/batraal's 180 frontal span they risk being killed.

I define difficulty in MMO raid encounters by the amount of coordination required. Anyone can play any singular MMO role with one hand tied behind their back, it is only through coordination that any amount of difficulty in PvE shows through.

The standard pick up group static tanking method requires significantly less coordination so I think it is much easier.

Easy fix for the ghosts would be so that they never spawn directly on the Ogre or Batraal, but spawn in a 360 perimeter around them. Inside the perimeter would put you in harm's way of AoE dmg from Ogre/Batraal, outside the perimeter puts you out of ranged attack or spell casting range. The way it is now, melee basically suffer double jeopardy for most parts of the fight while mages just move about to avoid damage from the ghosts entirely. This change would put more pressure on mages/ranged and simultaneously make melee more desirable, with less penalty.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

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This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

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Originally Posted by Murugan

This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

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To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

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Originally Posted by Delsus

To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

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Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

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Originally Posted by Murugan

Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

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If its whoever has hate on the tank, im sure that if the tank is decent they should always go to the tank if its whoever has hate its not hard to manipulate to win.