A Small Change to Syrcus Tower

While my preferred solution to the whole Crystal Tower issue is to give them similar level sync to the reworked MSQ dungeons, there is one mechanic in Syrcus Tower that is not only trivialized by gear and stat reworks, but is actively detrimental to new players going forward. I am speaking of Xande's triple stack marker that he does before Ancient Quaga.

Literally every other mechanic in the game that has multiple stack markers will wipe any players that stand in overlaping markers. However, Xande's is so undertuned, that not only can a single player tank a stack marker on their own, but even stacking all three of them does negligible damage. Anyone who has done Warrior of Light or P1N in roulette that has seen party members *sprint* to stack these markers can see the result of level 50 content that is meant to train players on mechanics that has utterly failed.

Please fix this. Update Xande's attack so that it is mechanically the same as the other content that it is meant to prepare you for.

Yes please. It either needs to be one single all-in stack marker or have some kind of mechanism (or degree of damage) that forces the players to separate the stacks.

Even reverting to the old unique "black circle" marker would be better than the standard stack marker that isn't actually teaching players how to correctly handle multiple stacks.

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Originally Posted by Sacae

While my preferred solution to the whole Crystal Tower issue is to give them similar level sync to the reworked MSQ dungeons, there is one mechanic in Syrcus Tower that is not only trivialized by gear and stat reworks, but is actively detrimental to new players going forward. I am speaking of Xande's triple stack marker that he does before Ancient Quaga.

Literally every other mechanic in the game that has multiple stack markers will wipe any players that stand in overlaping markers. However, Xande's is so undertuned, that not only can a single player tank a stack marker on their own, but even stacking all three of them does negligible damage. Anyone who has done Warrior of Light or P1N in roulette that has seen party members *sprint* to stack these markers can see the result of level 50 content that is meant to train players on mechanics that has utterly failed.

Please fix this. Update Xande's attack so that it is mechanically the same as the other content that it is meant to prepare you for.

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There are a few other stack markers that you can stack. E12N, for example.
This should not be the case. At all.

There's a stack marker you can stack in m2s too to no detriment, which is kind of funny (and definitely feels like an oversight, due to how the mech works).

But yeah, I feel like they should make Xande's give a vuln or something to blow up people who get venn diagrammed.

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

But yeah, I feel like they should make Xande's give a vuln or something to blow up people who get venn diagrammed.

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Perhaps freeze or bind the player for a few seconds so it doesn't hurt but they do notice?

But then the challenge with any "punishment" is making the player understand that it's from taking multiple attacks and not just the attack itself. Maybe they would need to be slightly staggered so you can recognise that you were fine after the first one, the second one hurt a lot and the third one killed you?

Either that or go with the flow and make it just one stack marker for the entire alliance because that's what players are doing with it anyway.

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Originally Posted by Iscah

Perhaps freeze or bind the player for a few seconds so it doesn't hurt but they do notice?

But then the challenge with any "punishment" is making the player understand that it's from taking multiple attacks and not just the attack itself. Maybe they would need to be slightly staggered so you can recognise that you were fine after the first one, the second one hurt a lot and the third one killed you?

Either that or go with the flow and make it just one stack marker for the entire alliance because that's what players are doing with it anyway.

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Most of the time, this kind of attack is *slightly* staggered, with the first hit giving you a phys/magic vulnerability debuff, which is what causes the second hit to kill you. That would do it.

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Originally Posted by Akonyl

There's a stack marker you can stack in m2s too to no detriment, which is kind of funny (and definitely feels like an oversight, due to how the mech works).

But yeah, I feel like they should make Xande's give a vuln or something to blow up people who get venn diagrammed.

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I imagine this is an oversight, the one in M2N does kill you if you overlap.

Honestly, I'd love to see them fix scaling on lower level dungeons and raids. I don't think 90%+ of the playerbase even knows that there are mechanics in there. Scylla add phase? Glasya Platforms? I'm pretty sure these haven't been done in years. Adds on Amon are mostly just ignored and die from incidental damage or a couple of DPS targeting them, etc. Damage taken is non-existent, etc.

But yes, the stack markers are to blame for a lot of wipes in later content. It always amazes me to see people in level 100 content who don't know not to double-stack those markers. Every time, I'll say something like "Syrcus Tower strikes again." in chat and explain the phys/magic vuln stacks and how to do it properly, etc.

That being said, they'll never change it. I'm pretty sure that they have a deathly allergy to balancing or fixing older content, which is unfortunate because there are so many mechanics and phases that people just never see anymore. (lol, what's this "Balance" people talk about on Nald'thal?)

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Originally Posted by Sacae

I imagine this is an oversight, the one in M2N does kill you if you overlap.

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There are two different stack markers in savage. The same ones from normal, which do have a vuln, and the heart-dividing stacks that don't.

They're referring to the heart stacks in Honey B. Live 2, where the strat is basically to have all four players with 0 hearts stack both of the 4-heart stacks together, thus giving those four players 2 hearts each, which resolves the mechanic. I assume they just left the damage values/vuln properties alone to allow for multiple solutions of the mechanic.
The normal unstackable stack markers come out a little later.

It's been a while since I've done the normal mode, though, don't really remember if it had the heart stacks or not.

When Syrcus Tower was new, you could stack all 3 of those and no one would die. That said, at relevant iLVL, one player tanking the stack marker solo would get 1-tapped from full health.

She Syrcus on my Tower 'till my World is in Darkness