First run-through of Aurum Vale

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Originally Posted by Reinfeld

The Devs have said we will most likely not be seeing any HM versions of AV or Dzemael Darkhold unless there's some huge community outcry for them. Something about the tools they used to create the 2.xx dungeons (tools they did not have back in 1.xx when AV was created) allows them to reuse assets and create Hard Mode versions much cheaper and faster. So to make Aurvum Vale (Hard) would require the same amount of work as creating an entire new instance from scratch.

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That's a pity. Even though I hate AV (I'd rather do AK Hard or WP Hard), AV and DD have interesting trash mechanics. I would like to see more dungeons have something other than long trains of trash spawns that get progressively easier as gear power-creep ramps up.

Though I repeat: I hate Aurum Vale (I main Healer), because people have no patience.

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Originally Posted by KisaiTenshi

AV and DD have interesting trash mechanics.

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Normally I love running dungeons in MMOs, In games like Aion I could run a dungeon over and over as soon as it was off cooldown and not get tired or really mind killing all the trash mobs. AV and Dzemael feel a lot like those more traditional dungeons, but for some reason I absolutely detest running them with every fiber of my being - and I can't figure out exactly why that is.

I personally love Aurum Vale. I feel like it's the dungeon that culminates all the player has learned up to that point, and is the final test if you will before releasing them into level 50 content. I've enjoyed it because it is a lot of fun when done right, but also because it's cool seeing new players push themselves to the maximum to win against this final test. Granted, I've had bad experiences before (I've had at least one bad experience in every dungeon I'd say) but it's far from being my least favorite. :p

Most of the people who loathe AV are people that ran it near 2.0 launch. Back then if you got bad party setup, it made the duty a lot more frustrating than it needed to be.

If you got SMN/SCH in your party, their pets would continuously die to the first and final bosses stacking dots, lowering dps or healing respectively, while also eating up unnecessary mp to resummon them. If your party was weak in aoe dps, final boss would wreck you with it's adds.

Remember doing quite a few runs as a mnk, where dps was smn and healer was a sch, we'd regulary wipe on final boss 2-3 times, or just time out.

Also, Coincounter can be a nightmare if you are suffering from a bad connection. Usually my latency isn't an issue, but every now and then it slows to a crawl. During those times, I end up eating nearly every aoe that boss has.

Coincounter really is a unique and frustrating boss in that even the most skilled players seem to have an issue with Glower. It's just a wonky skill that sometimes appears to be very arbitrary. Prob a latency issue - one not as heavily lamented as that of Titan EX. But it may exist all the same.

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Originally Posted by Gralna

Most of the people who loathe AV are people that ran it near 2.0 launch. Back then if you got bad party setup, it made the duty a lot more frustrating than it needed to be.

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I was one of those and like most i hated it too, I would pray every time that I would get at least one black mage only to get a SMN and BRD or something. After the changes though I loved it, still reasonably annoying while not being overly frustrating.

AV is by far my least favorite dungeon in the whole game. I cried when I had to do it for my Animus books and I cried again when I had to do it for my Zodiac (got the drop first try, thank RNGesus). I have run it no more than 5 times in the year I've been playing and I will continue to avoid it as long as possible.

It could give out instant level 60 when Heavensward comes out and I still won't run it! Never!

The only time I like AV is when I tank it myself, but that's because pull control is everything in AV. I think it's a blast as a WAR as there's a lot of mob management. As a DPS though, I find that things go wrong a little too often. It remains one of the few dungeons that is actually somewhat challenging at this point though, which is because of the harsh level sync and need for tight play.

So yeah, I like AV quite a bit but it draws out the control freak in me. :P

For my WHM zodiac drop quest I always went as WAR in AV to change it up. Now I will gladly admit going as WAR made it a more tolerable dungeon. I blame past experience I guess. Although going as WHM wasn't too bad with the holy spam when it was needed.

On the WAR side of things though when I randomly queued I will admit I saw a lot of poor DPS rotations. Granted this is late-leveling dungeon where most of everyone's bread-and-butter skills are still a few levels away. Still doesn't excuse the fact that the longer everything lives the more painful it feels. Healers were pretty good for the most part when I didn't take a bigger pull that could wet their pants, lol.

It's a fun crazy hectic place to heal.. Especially when the tank and dps pull everything.. Everytime i go there as a healer, i always working out my burr debuff to reach the maximum debuff as many as possible (9 are the max).. And people are calling me crazy.. -_(-_-)_-