Why Aurum Vale is Loathed

[kikix12]

Tanks struggle to pull without grabbing too many extras while backtracking to pick up accidental enemies.

Sorry, but huh?! They wouldn't struggle if they used their tools. They have 15 yalm attack for a reason. Use it and you won't get more than one group.

Also, it's a good place to learn situational awareness. The only reason why this dungeons first room is so bad is because players never gave a darn about where they stand. "I'll pull two or three more mobs? Who cares, the tanks will pick them up.".

It's a level 49 dungeon. Everyone can make a mistake, but no run should die a second time on it. It's easy to avoid death doing basic, fundamental things that you are taught in the first minutes of just about any action game in existence. Why people here are excused from learning it?!

The bosses in Aurum Vale abruptly introduce three new mechanics: Stacking damage over time, no telegraphs and ignoring enmity.

Ignoring enmity is nothing new by the time Aurum Vale hits. It's as early as Copperbell Mines on the last boss where he ignores the tank to wham the wall, same with the spawns.

In a party-wide context it's as early as Halatali, with the last boss throwing the fireballs at random party members during his immunity phase if I remember correctly. It's also present in Haukke Manor and Brayflox Longstop among many others.

As for no telegraphs...sorry. Though its swings and swipes may cause a problem (the swing in particular is huge and can catch a melee even if one runs away as fast as possible due to PING issues)...but glower and eye of beholder are really basic. Why would anyone fall for glower past the first time? If a boss, any boss, looks at you at any time, you run. It's simple. The only question is whether to run to the back/front (eye of beholder) or to the side (glower), but again...that's just looking at the skills once. He does have literally four skills. Out of those skills only two have a chance of hitting you generally. Swing and glower for melee, eye of beholder and glower if ranged and swing and swipe if tank. If you fall for any other skill past the first time you see them then you are doing something fundamental horribly wrong. And if you don't, then there are only two skills you need to remember. Cannot be easier than that.

Stacking DoT is especially insidious because it is not obvious, drains the healer's MP trying to keep oblivious members alive and kills assisting pets.

This is the fault of the game for not making Esuna significant. I don't know how a stacking debuff may not be "not obvious". It's a debuff, it's got a number by it and people keep getting more and more damage without being attacked. That's as obvious as it gets. What is a bit less obvious is how to deal with it, but that's already common knowledge.


Let's not assume people that play the game have zero learning ability, yes? The majority of problem in this dungeon comes from people having overblown ego and dropping the fault on others instead of admitting to screwing stuff up and adapting. There's nothing fundamentally hard in this dungeon. Just the fact that making mistakes affect the entire party more often than not. THAT'S something really new.

PS: The first room can be "cheesed" if the tank and healer know what they are doing. Just go hugging the left wall all the way to the boss room (the healer needs to be right on the tanks tails) and behind the corner of it. That will pull the ranged mobs since they have line of sight just like players do. And voila. You have pulled two or three groups of mobs that can easily be tanked and killed by AoE in one go and you're already at the boss room. But have the healer lag behind and the tank is dead due to THEM losing the line of sight.

[Mirakumi]

AV is relatively easy. You can stun Coin Counter before he does the 2 handed one shot.

[Vaer]

Coincounter doesn't really "ignore" enmity. He dumps the entire hate list. It's an ability called "Animal Instinct," his eye glows red when he uses it. There is also an on screen message when he does it. "Coincounter takes a moment to reconsider..." If a tank is paying attention (even if they are a new tank, if they are watching the enmity list they will see it completely reset when it is used) they can grab it back before it goes after someone else with Provoke and another action or simply hate combo.

Glower just targets someone else and is less obvious but it's really the same as any other targeted ground aoe circle.

He can actually be stunned, so you can mitigate 100 tonze or any other problematic skill that people can't dodge for whatever reason 2-3 times by just stunning him before diminishing returns kicks in.

Eye of the Beholder (In)
100 tonze Swing (Out)

Same as Chimera in Cutters' Cry who also has no telegraphs for similar abilities.
Dragon's Voice (In)
Ram's Voice (Out)

You can even outrange eye/dragon's by being really far away but it's intended to be a donut. I want to say 100 tonze is larger than Ram's, but the same principle applies.

[Zephera]

Aurum Vale isn't too bad for the most part, it's just that the first room is awful in comparison to the rest of it, I blame the frogs specifically as their pulling move can be quite obnoxious even at the best of times.

[RokkuEkkusu]

I was with you on some points until you said this:

• Mechanics
...the difficulty suddenly spikes with no warning. The bosses in Aurum Vale abruptly introduce three new mechanics: Stacking damage over time, no telegraphs and ignoring enmity.

Stacking DoT is especially insidious because it is not obvious, drains the healer's MP trying to keep oblivious members alive and kills assisting pets. Even seasoned players can forget and end up with extra damage.

No telegraphs is a hard departure from everything the game teaches new players. Avoiding telegraphs is so fundamental it is taught in the Hall of Novices; changing that mechanic should have been a dungeon all by itself. But what makes it so over the top is the penalty for error: A single Glower nearly kills non-tanks and the angle of attack is wider than belt sizes at a buffet.

There are 2 mandatory story dungeons that already have the specified qualities.

For stacking dots, the last boss of Brayflox's Longstop poison can stack up to 4 levels. It only occurs when people get hit by too much aoes and/or the fight drags too long to where the healer doesn't have enough MP to esuna the poison off.

For the telegraphs, the first boss of Stone Vigil has an attack called "Swinge". It has no aoe indicator either. It must be avoided by not being in front of the boss.

[melisande]

was just thinking today how much I loved Aurum Vale and Cutter's Cry (particularly speed runs) in 1.0. Oh well.

[Gralna]

For stacking dots, the last boss of Brayflox's Longstop poison can stack up to 4 levels. It only occurs when people get hit by too much aoes and/or the fight drags too long to where the healer doesn't have enough MP to esuna the poison off.

I remember this boss being annoying to heal through as a Sch in ARR, only way to get rid of the stacking poison was with selene, since Sch didn't learn Leaches (esuna) till lvl 40.

[Iscah]

Coincounter doesn't really "ignore" enmity. He dumps the entire hate list. It's an ability called "Animal Instinct," his eye glows red when he uses it. There is also an on screen message when he does it. "Coincounter takes a moment to reconsider..." If a tank is paying attention (even if they are a new tank, if they are watching the enmity list they will see it completely reset when it is used) they can grab it back before it goes after someone else with Provoke and another action or simply hate combo.

Oh, is that what that message means? I thought he just did it before using one of his eye-beam attacks.

Eye of the Beholder (In)
100 tonze Swing (Out)

Same as Chimera in Cutters' Cry who also has no telegraphs for similar abilities.
Dragon's Voice (In)
Ram's Voice (Out)

The chimera doesn't display floor AoE marks, but it has the "[creature]'s eyes glow [colour]" messages on-screen every time it happens. So it's not really comparable for learning how to respond.

[Vaer]

The chimera doesn't display floor AoE marks, but it has the "[creature]'s eyes glow [colour]" messages on-screen every time it happens. So it's not really comparable for learning how to respond.

They both have cast bars and if you stay in the in between range there is more than enough time to react.

[Gemina]

Most players want the path of the least resistance. AV is not a dungeon that lies on that path. Anyone who bails at the start of this instance instantly lumps themselves in this category of players.