Patch 3.26 Discussion

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Originally Posted by Zari

People need to stop with the "they didnt do this for A3S so why are they doing it for this?"

The fact that they didnt for A3S and what followed is exactly WHY they are doing it this time.

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I'm not upset that they did this for a6s, it's the fact that I spent 3 months of sub time doing a3s and nothing was addressed.

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Originally Posted by jssanderson747

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I really don't have a problem with groups being able to clear it faster or easier its only the 2nd floor and I only mentioned my progress when talking about having enough time and raiding. My issue with it is the timing, it's far to soon for a nerf and really unfair to all of the groups who are on the Swindler and Vortexer at the moment as they are past the hard bit. Also I really enjoy A6S, although I doubt I will need to leave Cleric Stance now -_-

Really this should have been a simple nerf, either loose a mine or nerf the Mirages as they were pure rng and probably what caused the most problems in progression.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

I really don't have a problem with groups being able to clear it faster or easier its only the 2nd floor and I only mentioned my progress when talking about having enough time and raiding. My issue with it is the timing, it's far to soon for a nerf and really unfair to all of the groups who are on the Swindler and Vortexer at the moment as they are past the hard bit. Also I really enjoy A6S, although I doubt I will need to leave Cleric Stance now -_-

Really this should have been a simple nerf, either loose a mine or nerf the Mirages as they were pure rng and probably what caused the most problems in progression.

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Yeah, my static's just started on Swindler but there's times when Blaster just gives us the old middle finger.

The pure RNG in that fight is about as stupid as pre-nerf T7.

I agree with the changes. Been stuck on this fight a since it came out. I have several LS of people I talk to most of them are stuck on A6S as well. This basically is the fight that most groups can not beat, it is similar to A3S when most average groups got stuck on. Everyone was calling this fight the new A3S which isn't a good thing.

The biggest problems with the fight is that its basically 4 separate fights with their own mechanics and they do not build on each other making the learning process hard. Given that some people have problems dodging mirages means his clear rate is somewhere around ~50% or so. So you spend a lot of time wiping to the first boss then you get to brawler who is even harder. The biggest issue I seen with Brawler is the add phase is extremely difficult and the alpha balls tend to hit a lot which causes the most wipes because DPS aren't fast enough taking them down. That was the one thing I would of liked to see nerfed was number of alphas or lower their HP its a huge block to a lot of people. Surprised that wasn't changed as it seemed to me caused the most wipes.

I am glad SE is trying to fix this fight now before it turned into another A3S and caused a bunch of people to leave the game.

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Originally Posted by Rivaille

Argue with me if that’s not true – but I doubt you can give an actual proper explanation without the reasons above.

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Okay, I honestly disagree with the degree to which this fight was nerfed, but your arguments have so many holes that I can't not take this chance. First let's get this out of the way. As someone who cleared A4S before 3.1 came out, you are in a very different demographic than the people these nerfs were intended for. The skill level of your group was such that the problems most groups experienced on this fight would seem far less troublesome, and as such you're in a spot where you can't understand the nerfs properly. So now let's look at the individual nerfs, which we can do very thoroughly since people have gone and done the fight and reported on the exact values of the changes.

Blaster:
Mines: This is a tough one to argue against as someone who agrees the change wasn't necessary, but your claim that no one should find it difficult is blind. Controlling the bounces, popping cooldowns and healing to get through those mines was indeed a challenge. While with practice you can easily get it down as long as you don't get an extremely BS formation, but that doesn't make it so easy that it can be done by anyone without issue.

Supercharges: This, I remain sure, was the one nerf that was 100% deserved. Due to the random elements which can only be mitigated so far due to how the mines placement used to play into this in combination with that it's very difficult to tell the exact angle one of those mirages is facing to know if you're just barely safe or right in its path, it was too dangerous for one of the very first mechanics in the fight. With the mine nerf, it's less necessary, but had the mine nerf not happened this change would have been absolutely necessary going forward to bring this fight in line with where its difficulty should be.

Brawler:
You just straight up misinterpreted this nerf. The nerf was to the big orbs that are guaranteed to make it to the middle and deal raidwide damage, and that damage was nerfed to 12k from 15k. Now, I don't think this nerf is anything to cry over. All it does is make it so that healers don't have to worry about spamming AoE heals and hoping everyone is in range, which they may or may not be depending on Alpha placement, and can instead spot heal people who are further away after the first couple AoE heals to make sure everyone survives. Really it's more a quality of life change than a nerf as far as I'm concerned, specifically it helps AST healers since their range isn't as good on their AoE heals as WHM's.

Swindler:
This is one of the cases where your group's skill is hindering your ability to understand the nerf. While I agree it wasn't really necessary with the gear people should have now, specifically i230 weapons, it wasn't so easy that every group could reliably get only the first round of shots without healer dps before weapons, and since the fight isn't supposed to be tuned around i230 weapons, that was a problem. Again, I still think this change didn't really need to happen, but if you think about it you can understand why it did.

Vortexer:
HP nerf: Yeah, 200k off Vortexer's HP alongside the other uptime increasing nerfs on the previous bots is too much. You're probably saving anywhere between 10 and 30 seconds due to the mine change and the Gunner change before this, which for most groups should be more than enough to make the enrage a non-factor. So adding on top of that a nerf that makes the enrage even less of a factor, possibly to A5 levels of not being a factor? A nerf that will make it so no group on a clean run should ever see a second Ultra Flash? That's too much. Now, your example of your group isn't the norm. Most groups didn't get their first clears with a minute left on the enrage in that little gear. Most groups with that little gear will pre-nerf be cutting it very close to the enrage in straight i220. And the nerf isn't so much that you're going to see an entire rotation less. Again, with the gear people have access to now the enrage should be a non-factor anyway, but considering that it's not tuned for the gear people have now it's understandable that they wanted to lessen the effect of the enrage. All the dps boosting adjustments together are a bit much, but having one or even two of them alone isn't bad for he fight.

Crashing Wave/Thunder: So first to clarify on what the exact changes are, Crashing wave now hits for a total of around 42k split between however many people are stacked. This means a 3 stack is doable, a 2 stack probably isn't unless both people have VIT melds and an adlo. Crashing Thunder now hits for 9-10k in a 2 stack, haven't seen any info on a 3 stack but I'd imagine with just VIT melds and a good healer a 3-stack can be survived, and a 4 stack probably can't. Failing them will still wipe you, but they are now more difficult to fail and the healing they require is less harsh. Honestly, the more I think about this one the more I'm okay with it. Playing it the same way we did pre-nerf will now guarantee success without stressing out the healer, and there are so many other things that can instantly wipe you in here like a misplaced fire stream or ice puddle that I don't think it detracts from the mechanical difficulty. The only issue I have with it is it is yet another subtle weakening of the dps check. By allowing one less person in water and one more person in thunder, a melee can reliably stay within range to keep attacking rather than moving out of thunder passes allowing for yet another overall dps increase to even further remove the enrage as a factor.

A6S vs A7S
Groups won't be stonewalled by A7S like they have been by A6S. The gear check is not so strong that groups won't be able to get through it. I can understand the concern due to all the smaller dps check adjustments meaning that the A6S overall dps check will now be doable for even much lesser skilled players, but I don't think that there are many groups, if there are any at all, that are doing savage that will only be scraping by the enrage in A6S now on clean runs after the nerf. For such groups there might be an argument that A7S will stonewall them, but the number of groups that are like that are so low that it's not something I'd be concerned with. And no, you're straight wrong on A7S not being easier than pre-nerf A6S. The only thing more difficult about A7S is how it punishes you for deaths. If you look at the data available, from the world first to the midcore, groups on average spend at minimum the amount of time in pre-nerf A6S that they end up spending in A7S, and it was very common for groups to spend far more time in A6S than A7S. And when comparing these things between the exact same groups, the ONLY conclusion there is to come to is that A7S was easier than A6S was pre-nerf. And balls are far better telegraphed than mirage dashes, so it's not fair to say that groups will struggle with balls just as much as they did with dashes.

"So when you didn’t nerf in A3S for so long, why are you nerfing A6S now? I simply don’t get it."
The answer is simple. They don't want to repeat the very clear mistake that A3S was. At the time they were adamant about not nerfing 3S while it was relevant, being convinced that with more people would get through it. They didn't, so now SE understands that when difficulty curve problems like that appear, they can't afford to just say "it'll be made easier with gear, so we can just leave it." While it was to a lesser extent, it's an undeniable fact that A6S was proving to be a similar type of wall to what A3S was. So, since they learned from the mistake that was A3S, they nerfed it while it was relevant to mitigate the effect on the overall raid scene. Nerfs of some kind NEEDED TO HAPPEN WHILE THIS FIGHT WAS RELEVANT. Did the nerfs it got take that too far? In my opinion they very much did. However, the appropriate amount of nerfs would have at most made the fight on par with A7S in difficulty, and the devs clearly wanted to correct the difficulty curve entirely and have A6S undeniably be less difficult than A7S. I understand that the nerfs, and nerfs of any kind to a relevant fight, feel like a slap in the face to groups progressing on that fight who will now feel as though they wasted time progressing through the harder version of the fight. It will cheapen the kill for them. But that's a small price to pay for avoiding the second coming of A3S, which is where this fight was headed if it saw no changes.

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Originally Posted by Zumi

The biggest issue I seen with Brawler is the add phase is extremely difficult and the alpha balls tend to hit a lot which causes the most wipes because DPS aren't fast enough taking them down. That was the one thing I would of liked to see nerfed was number of alphas or lower their HP its a huge block to a lot of people. Surprised that wasn't changed as it seemed to me caused the most wipes.

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In my experience, we've only had lacking dps in that phase if one of the dps dies for some reason. Generally using a blood for blood is fine since it'll be back by the time the fight ends.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

Really this should have been a simple nerf, either loose a mine or nerf the Mirages as they were pure rng and probably what caused the most problems in progression.

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You're not even wrong. Like, as of today, we've seen as far as the enumeration after snipers, but I didn't necessarily think we'd ever have a problem killing those in time if there were no errors with height. I'm kinda confused why that change was needed. The beta thing definitely seemed unnecessary as well. It was pretty easy to mitigate and only ever really caused issues with tank healing, never party healing.

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Originally Posted by jssanderson747

You're not even wrong. Like, as of today, we've seen as far as the enumeration after snipers, but I didn't necessarily think we'd ever have a problem killing those in time if there were no errors with height. I'm kinda confused why that change was needed. The beta thing definitely seemed unnecessary as well. It was pretty easy to mitigate and only ever really caused issues with tank healing, never party healing.

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You've basically learnt the harder parts of the fight now then, Swindler is a striking dummy after the adds and the Vortexer doesn't take a lot of work to get used to it's just stack here you have this buff rinse and repeat.

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

You've basically learnt the harder parts of the fight now then, Swindler is a striking dummy after the adds and the Vortexer doesn't take a lot of work to get used to it's just stack here you have this buff rinse and repeat.

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Regardless, I can't necessarily complain. These changes will help cool down people in my group significantly and we'll probably have vortexer down within the week. Oh well if it's easier I guess

It's funny with all the people that essentially argue that A6S should have been left untouched because A3S was never touched (during the last raid cycle). That's like asking SE to not learn from mistakes.
It's also funny to see all the hardcore raiders pretend they're casual and looking down on people that didn't clear yet.
Not to mention all the arguments about "many groups almost had it down"... You can say that pretty much any time in the raid cycle...
I personally approve of the changes. It brings A6S difficulty to a level where it was supposed to be in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Nora_of_Mira

That's considered casual? Jeeze, I'm glad i dont raid seriously. The statics I used to sub for did maybe 4-6 a week.

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my team raid 3 hours 3 times a week. And that what icall casual.

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Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

Shhhh I know that but most people don't realize it. They only see 4 separate bosses of which they keep wiping on the same 2-3. For some reason it causes people to burn out quicker.

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There's a very simple reason for this.
Taking Ratfinx as an example... It has several phases, but the transitions between them are smooth.
A6S, each "phase" is very different from the previous. There is no smooth transition from one to another.

It's very easy to burn out when the transition between "phases" are jerky like with A6S.
T9 had the same problem imo... the transition between meteor phases and heavensfall and later was not smooth.

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Originally Posted by Morzy

Really didnt expect them to go and nerf it honestly. They let Gordias kill teams but no they go and nerf this so quickly and to be completely honest raiders should have i230 weapon by now with a overall ilvl of 225-230 or more so i cant really see these nerfs being viable ornecessary. Meanwhile teams spent 3 months clearing a3s.

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Are you saying that SE should repeat the mistakes of the past then?

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Originally Posted by Miscreant

Also you guys know that Compressed Water can now be passed with two people instead of four. Thats a pretty big nerf right there, you can create a lot of melee uptime with that.

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Two people, if they have 18k HP or more with mitigation up from what I was told.
Meaning VIT melds and mitigation and barely surviving, putting more pressure on the healers where the patch was supposed to lessen the pressure on the healers.

Having read through this and seen support on both sides of the A6S nerf, I have the following to say:

It's time to introduce more tiers of difficulty. Normal mode and Savage mode aren't enough. The old A6S belongs at the top level. The new A6S belongs at the medium level, along with A5S and A7S.

As someone who is disappointed by the nerf to a formerly fun, challenging fight, Savage seems to be getting far too easy, especially while it's still relevant so early in the patch. I hope this isn't a trend...

My group started A7S last week, we're already pretty close to a clear now. Considering how long A6S took us, there is definitely a sort of imbalance in the difficulty level. I think the only thing that needed modifying were the Vortexer's lightning and water debuffs. Then again, from what I've heard it's the divebombs that were giving a lot of other groups issues.

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

Are you saying that SE should repeat the mistakes of the past then?

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Their mistake is having no medium difficulty raid tier

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

There's a very simple reason for this.
Taking Ratfinx as an example... It has several phases, but the transitions between them are smooth.
A6S, each "phase" is very different from the previous. There is no smooth transition from one to another.

It's very easy to burn out when the transition between "phases" are jerky like with A6S.
T9 had the same problem imo... the transition between meteor phases and heavensfall and later was not smooth.

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But that fight is so epic thou....

I can see why they nerfed it. They don't want a server migration repeat. And they are gun shy from the last one. They aught to find a way to fix it. But I guess stemming the flow is what they settled on.

Raid group I am in downed the fight tonight (we were working on Vortexer before nerfs), it is still difficult, people need to be aware of mechanics but it is more forgiving on time and damage, I honestly feel the fight is right where it needs to be now and what it should have been at the start. Little mistakes will cost you greatly, but 1 or 2 deaths now are not a guaranteed wipe on time when you are at the final boss.

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Originally Posted by Wizel

Raid group I am in downed the fight tonight (we were working on Vortexer before nerfs), it is still difficult, people need to be aware of mechanics but it is more forgiving on time and damage, I honestly feel the fight is right where it needs to be now and what it should have been at the start. Little mistakes will cost you greatly, but 1 or 2 deaths now are not a guaranteed wipe on time when you are at the final boss.

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People still seem to think that it's been nerfed down to "pass it in one attempt with all newbies"-level though...

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

People still seem to think that it's been nerfed down to "pass it in one attempt with all newbies"-level though...

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yea but let them think so, its more survivable fight now and it kinda gives people a second chance, people still have to learn mechanics.

It took us one week for a5s, a6s, and 2 weeks for a7s lol :/ a6s wasn't even hard which is why I dont understand the dilemma

Love how everyone is complaining that the nerfs is making things too easy. Look at Gordias. If they make content too difficult, people complain and quit.
Easy content, difficult content. SE just can't win can they?

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Originally Posted by Olympus

Having read through this and seen support on both sides of the A6S nerf, I have the following to say:

It's time to introduce more tiers of difficulty. Normal mode and Savage mode aren't enough. The old A6S belongs at the top level. The new A6S belongs at the medium level, along with A5S and A7S.

As someone who is disappointed by the nerf to a formerly fun, challenging fight, Savage seems to be getting far too easy, especially while it's still relevant so early in the patch. I hope this isn't a trend...

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The alternative is AS3, which caused more people to unsub rather then stick around far more than any other fight or instance in this game. I think this time, SE is choosing to cater to casual players in terms of difficulty, wither if content was originally designed to be difficult to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Velhart

If you are doing raiding just for the gear

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Just look into his profile. He is not raiding at all. Instead he is flaming all around in nearly every thread and throwig out much stuff, that is far from being correct.

He thinks he is the greatest, but in real he isn't.

Thats also some kind of

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Originally Posted by Nektulos-Tuor

Epeen

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But he don't noticed that and maybe will never do.

The nerf was big but honestly the good groups wont even notice it, yeah perhaps faster kills, now you are less on the snipers on swindler and less hp on the last boss. Never had issues with mines or whatso ever on first boss or healing people fast enough on second. People will still fail here, no matter what. Most people stuck on swindler and I have no clue, finding that one the easiest of them all :P

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Originally Posted by Alkimi

Their mistake was thinking that giving out 205/210 gear would get more people through A3S. The difficulty of that fight had very little to do with dps checks.

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It was all about the DPS checks.

Not enough damage during hands of pain? Instant wipe.

Not enough damage to kill the adds while handling all the mechanics? Instant wipe.

Even for the enrage timer there was much optimization needed to overcome it.

Without the DPS checks, this fight would be not much harder than the story mode.

I recently joined my first static still I started playing, we been playing together for only a week and half. Killed a5s 2nd practice session (would of been 1st practice but healer had huge connection issues)

We have had 2 practice sessions on a6s and are progressing just fine, it's sad SE has nerfed this so early and I will never get to experience the full fight pre nerfed but I understand why this has been done.

My friends statics are all stuck at this point, one of the raid groups btw originally beat a4s and had it on farm back when everyone was still slamming their heads against a3s. Admittedly they aren't raiding as much as they should but still for a group of this quality to still be struggling there is a problem. Especially considering that a7s is a lot easier (other raid friends opinions)

The skill jump from a5s > a6s is a giant leap for most people

Whilst this nerf has made 6 more forgiving it is a challenge.

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Originally Posted by KarstenS

It was all about the DPS checks.

Not enough damage during hands of pain? Instant wipe.

Not enough damage to kill the adds while handling all the mechanics? Instant wipe.

Even for the enrage timer there was much optimization needed to overcome it.

Without the DPS checks, this fight would be not much harder than the story mode.

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Failed to move the hands far enough apart/close enough together? Instant wipe
Someone standing in the way of the Embolus or failed to move the boss out of the way? Instant wipe
Fail to swap Digititis correctly? Probable Wipe
Fail to sufficiently mitigate Cascade? Probable Wipe
Fail to interrupt Piston lubricant during Mucilage? Probable Wipe
People out of position during Protean Wave? Multiple deaths
Mispositioned Drainage tether or not enough mitigation for it? Multiple deaths

The DPS checks were certainly there, but it wouldn't be right to say they were the whole fight.

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

Love how everyone is complaining that the nerfs is making things too easy. Look at Gordias. If they make content too difficult, people complain and quit.
Easy content, difficult content. SE just can't win can they?

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Last I recall, Savage is suppose to be the most difficult content in the game.

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Originally Posted by Nekodar

Two people, if they have 18k HP or more with mitigation up from what I was told.
Meaning VIT melds and mitigation and barely surviving, putting more pressure on the healers where the patch was supposed to lessen the pressure on the healers.

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Conversely, you could just do the 5 stack method that makes organizing super easy

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Originally Posted by Vivi_Bushido

Love how everyone is complaining that the nerfs is making things too easy. Look at Gordias. If they make content too difficult, people complain and quit.
Easy content, difficult content. SE just can't win can they?

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Agree totaly with you!

Very happy with the changes. My group has been stuck on A6S for a few weeks now. We have a modest raid schedule, and it seems like the groups that have managed to progress beyond this fight on my server have a very demanding raid schedule. As it was tuned I feel A6S was far more difficult than most of the coil turns, which is not appropriate for the 2nd encounter of a raid tier. Even with the changes A6S will remain a very challenging encounter that 99% of players will not clear, and midcore groups like mine will be able to look forward to progressing up a difficulty curve to 7 and 8. If this change hadn't been made it would have further hurt the raid scene just as A3S had. People who act like the sky is falling because this encounter has been adjusted are being ridiculous.

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Originally Posted by Singularity

The DPS checks were certainly there, but it wouldn't be right to say they were the whole fight.

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They were there the whole fight because of the very tight enrage timer.

The handling of the mechanics got harder because of risky strats and tunnel vision for the sake of DPS.

Just look at the tanks. The switch from full STR to full VIT was surprisingly very noticeable in A3 and A4 for me as a healer.

I notice how 90% of the posts focus on savage Alexander, while few mention the fact that they've made PvP even less enjoyable by nerfing most of our skills in PvP areas. Perhaps I was mistaken in my belief that they were trying to encourage it lately?

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

I notice how 90% of the posts focus on savage Alexander, while few mention the fact that they've made PvP even less enjoyable by nerfing most of our skills in PvP areas. Perhaps I was mistaken in my belief that they were trying to encourage it lately?

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100% honest, haven't read a single PvP patch note - ever. I am not sure if others are in the same boat, but that may be why you see fewer people discussing it.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

I notice how 90% of the posts focus on savage Alexander, while few mention the fact that they've made PvP even less enjoyable by nerfing most of our skills in PvP areas. Perhaps I was mistaken in my belief that they were trying to encourage it lately?

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Severely reduced sleep duration seems like a step in the right direction, to me.

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Originally Posted by Kaurie

100% honest, haven't read a single PvP patch note - ever. I am not sure if others are in the same boat, but that may be why you see fewer people discussing it.

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Most people don't care about PVP.

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Originally Posted by Mirili

Severely reduced sleep duration seems like a step in the right direction, to me.

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This. Nothing wrong at all with the pvp nerfs, they were all needed.