PTS Update 38 - Feedback Thread for Sanity’s Edge Trial

ZOS_GinaBruno

This is the official feedback thread for Sanity’s Edge Trial. Specific feedback that the team is looking for includes the following:

• Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
• What level and build was the character you used?
• Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
• How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
• Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
• Did you complete the Trial?
• Did you have any companions with you?
• Do you have any other general feedback?

bitrock

Cleared the trial on veteran (non-hardmode). I like the trial layout and encounters, especially the surprise trash encounters. Trash seems too easy on veteran. I am enjoying the difficulty of first boss on hard mode, but wasn't a fan of the mechanics that disengage the player from attacking the boss, like the Simon-Says room on 2nd boss, and the maze on the last boss. Haven't seen their hardmodes yet. Historically these kind of battles have been the most unfun encounters in the game, like the 2nd and final boss in Frostvault, and the 2nd boss of Lair of Maarselok.

Dragonnord

Trash and bosses (regular veteran) are way too easy for a veteran last new trial.

I personally thought trials, with the power creep we have, would be more difficult patch after patch.

Also, I dislike the amount of effects that the trial has, way too many bright things going on in the screen, that you can barely see what is happening and several times you can't even see your own character.

Seems we're going to a party or dancing club instead of to a trial.

You guys shold really consider going back to AA, HRC and those type of "clear view" trials, where you could really fight and appreaciate stuff.

Nowadays, it's just light effects (AoE, players skills, enemies skills, mecs, etc.) that flood the screen with effects that constantly *** and interfere along the fights.
 

Razorruk

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes, would rate it a 7/10 at first run through. Some enjoyable and unique trial encounters, with some negatives (visuals, clutter, zone structure).

What level and build was the character you used?

PTS 3600 CP template

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?

Significantly easier than vDSR on first play through - disappointing

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

Not really - Boss 1 took a few wipes to understand the portal/ghost mechanics, otherwise we had a clean run, which was hugely disappointing to see brand new vet content cleared so quickly. Biggest feedback and request would be to re-balance difficulty upwards to give experienced players a greater continued challenge.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes

Did you have any companions with you?

No

Do you have any other general feedback?

Biggest feedback and request would be to re-balance difficulty upwards to give experienced players a greater continued challenge. Didn't have time to try HMs last night, but sincerely hope they are balanced well, similarly to RG/DSR.

ajkb78

Only a quick run-through on normal so far, and it was nearly an all-arcanist pug affair so not at all representative of a proper group setup, but some initial thoughts:

1. The length seemed better. There were add pulls but I was grateful not to be faced with tedious and repetitive stuff between the fights (yes I'm specifically thinking of the endless synchronized lever pulls and lightning dodging in DSR). It's perhaps a bit *too* short given the relative lack of new content this year (it felt considerably shorter than NSS for example). Or maybe there are a whole load of secret bits that we missed that pad it out.
2. Overall the amount of stuns and knockbacks was pretty irritating. Probably partly down to the team doing it blind, but I happened to have the Slippy CP slotted and even with that it was annoying.
3. I particularly liked the second boss mechanic. The first boss was a bit less interesting to be honest, the impression was of lots of adds (the boss being sometimes hard to distinguish from the adds) and not much in the way of structure to the fight. The last boss caught a lot of players out with the one-shot mechanic when the maze forms, but once we'd seen the mechanic once it was fine.

(Edit: I may well only have liked the second boss because I was doing stuff. If I'd been stood around just waiting for others to do their bit, I probably wouldn't have liked it nearly as much. But I do like the concept of forcing the group to split in a trial, as long as they can all be doing something useful.)

The concept of the trial, the ambience, graphics and effects were all top notch. I come from PS and not many of my guildmates use PTS, but I'll be looking forward to doing it on vet when it comes out in the summer.

DjMuscleboy02

Day 1 Thoughts. I will add more as we progress through hard modes.

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Moderately. I definitely do not like it as much as past PTS trial experiences thus far.

What level and build was the character you used?
I used a Stamina Necromancer. - Side note for this class specifically: Blastbones is consistently a 3-4s GCD for me on the first boss despite being right up against the target. This is incredibly frustrating.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Pretty comparable. I didn't think it was difficult, just annoying.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Not difficult. But there are plenty I do not like.

Did you complete the Trial?
Yes.

Did you have any companions with you?
No.

Do you have any other general feedback?
- We didn't spend much time on Trash pulls but the bosses that jump up are pretty awful. If they are truly random then it's make trifecta/score pushing super obnoxious. Disruptors are kinda cringe as well. You can kinda just nuke everything and not deal with it, but I don't think that's a good solution to bad mechanics. The Wamasu are ridiculous, everyone complains about the cats in vSS and these are just those but intentionally mobile.
- Boss 1 seems ok. Hard Mode was fun, the mechanics there seem to be balanced decent enough. I don't have many complaints about it so far.
- Boss 2 was pretty unenjoyable. I think ESO does a great job of keeping all party members engaged in all trial encounters. This fight had half our team just standing there waiting for targets to become damagable. The boss in the puzzle rooms should take damage but not be able to be killed until the puzzle is finished. This way everyone is doing something the entire time and you accomplish the same goal. It takes away nothing from the mechanic but will reward high skill gameplay and coordination.
- Boss 3 was the worst. The maze just leaves me wondering what the point is. Felt like a lot of just standing around waiting or walking through a maze for someone to just be faster anyway. The red aoe that leads to slow people down is just serving to slow the entire fight artificially. You could accomplish the same thing without it.

Visually, the trial is stunning. The aesthetic is awesome, the animations are really well done, and the flow of the ads to bosses is well balanced. There's a couple places with dead time, but nothing too bad.

KiltMaster

General Feedback: IMO the titles are kind of 'meh' - not as notable as 'Godslayer' or 'Planesbreaker' or 'Swashbuckler Supreme'

Razorruk

Entire group has crashed twice in 2 days on Boss 2 HM in Sanity's Edge on PTS. Really annoying to lose progress of the trial instance 2 days in a row , in addition some members of the team took 20-30minutes to be able to log back into the servers....

K_G

KiltMaster wrote: »

General Feedback: IMO the titles are kind of 'meh' - not as notable as 'Godslayer' or 'Planesbreaker' or 'Swashbuckler Supreme'

Agreed. There was a separate thread regarding this - Dreamwalker and Nightmare both were among suggestions from other players that I liked. I've found the raid community likes the one word titles more, they have a bit more gravitas imo. Tormentor's Bane sounds like it comes from a base game dungeon (pls stop putting bane titles in trials zos ). Mind Master isn't the worst I suppose, but it still feels lacking and sounds like an overland title.

Razorruk

[/quote

Razorruk wrote: »

Entire group has crashed twice in 2 days on Boss 2 HM in Sanity's Edge on PTS. Really annoying to lose progress of the trial instance 2 days in a row , in addition some members of the team took 20-30minutes to be able to log back into the servers....

Make that 3 group crashes in 2 hours on 3rd boss. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

WrathOfInnos

We haven't figured out all of the mechanics yet, but I have a few comments.

On 1st boss, the Wamasu charge does not give a charge telegraph (a red rectangle on the ground indicating where it is going). Instead it just briefly shows a red circle under its starting location. This circle looks the same as all the other mechanics going on (ice, fire, etc.) and does not properly indicate the area in danger. It's also not helpful when the wamasu charges in from behind group, as the red circle is never on screen. Please add a charge path telegraph.

Also on 1st boss, our portal team is dying to shrapnel. Is that mechanic intended to hit them after going through the portal?

And on first boss, the freeze mechanic sometimes chooses both of our healers, which leaves nobody to heal them out of the ice. Is this intended? Is it simply random? It reminds me of Lokkestiiz tombs, but in that case you can choose who goes in and when (does not have to be exactly simultaneous).

No comment on 2nd boss yet. I don't love the combat breaks to perform easy memory puzzles, but nothing specifically unclear or buggy that I've seen.

On 3rd boss there seems to be a mechanic where the group must stand in damaging AoE's to save the player with poison. I'm not even confident this is true since there is no indication we are helping. Previous mechanics like this make the red circle turn yellow or green when players are doing it correctly, indicating it is no longer a circle of death. Right now the circles that you should stand in look just like the circles you cannot stand in, please fix this if this is the mechanic. (edit: seems like this is not a shared damage mechanic, I have no idea why sometimes it tickles and other times it one-shots, maybe server lag causing 5+ ticks to hit at the same time?)

Also on 3rd boss. This may be intended, but I don't like the fact that the maze kills you if you get too far ahead. The death wall should only be punishing slow maze runners, not fast IMO. That would make it much more interesting strategically, allowing use of skills like Arcanist portals or Sorcerer streak.

More coming soon.

acastanza_ESO

K_G wrote: »

KiltMaster wrote: »

General Feedback: IMO the titles are kind of 'meh' - not as notable as 'Godslayer' or 'Planesbreaker' or 'Swashbuckler Supreme'

Agreed. There was a separate thread regarding this - Dreamwalker and Nightmare both were among suggestions from other players that I liked. I've found the raid community likes the one word titles more, they have a bit more gravitas imo. Tormentor's Bane sounds like it comes from a base game dungeon (pls stop putting bane titles in trials zos ). Mind Master isn't the worst I suppose, but it still feels lacking and sounds like an overland title.

Would also like to add my voice in support of changing the titles. There are some amazing suggestions here, and the current ones are extremely meh by comparison.

SeaUnicorn

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
Visually amazing. The "RGB" enemies are super cool concept. And the floor texture in Vanton Psyche looks amazing. Did not really get the force field around Ansuul arena, texture looks as if its an incomplete placeholder. Would much rather see that purple forcefield texture that was used for the floor in the trash packs prior to it.
Mechanically it's not as fun as Dread Sail Reef. Mechanics are mostly just RNG area denials to force mobility. Having something cool and collaborative like vDSR Twins HM or vCR HM portals is much more fun I think. The little puzzle rooms are cool 1st time you do it, and then get repetitive.

What level and build was the character you used?
Arcanist Healer 3600 CP

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran / Did 1st Yaseyla on Vet HM and got to execute on Chimera and Ansuul

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
Incoming damage per second to all group members is quite a bit higher than any other trial when comparing boss by boss, i.e. Twins/Oax to Yaseyla, Reef/Bahsei to Chimera, and Taleria/Xalvakka to Ansuul.
Mechanically it is less difficult than DSR, RG, or CR, as the mechanics are not that intricate and challenge comes from incoming DTPs and RNG placement of some of the mechanics.

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?
Most of the difficulties we have are from the de-syncs. Various AOEs can be de-synced around the trial, most noticeable are the ones that also 1-shot you, i.e. Ansuul's little lightning, fire, and the maze AOEs. De-sync can be either spatial, i.e. you stand a step away from it and still get damaged, or time de-sync, i.e. they deal damage before their spawn animation completes. Yaseyla sometimes deals damage with her heavy before animating it with her hands too.

Did you complete the Trial?
Veteran, 1st boss HM and got to execute on 2nd and last boss HM. Feedback if for HM fights.

Did you have any companions with you?
No

Do you have any other general feedback?
There seems to be consistent crashing in the trials at certain time. For my team it is usually is around 10pm EST after 1.5hrs of raid time. When vRG and vDSR came out we did not crash this much, makes me think that it might be something with the patch and not PTS the volume of people.

luchtt

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?
It is alright. The mechanics especially of the 2nd boss are quite unique so I enjoy that aspect.

What level and build was the character you used?
most of these questions are quite irrelevant in regards to actual useful feedback. I played magplar, but also cro tank on 3rd boss. Our group has raided a lot especially on last boss so the group comp is what should really be paid attention to.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?
Veteran HM until boss 3 0.6% (effectively completed, seen all mechanics)

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?
I would put it below vRG and vDSR HM, but also above vKA HM, with the last boss possibly being on vRG and vDSR HM levels of difficulty. The first 2 bosses are not super difficult but this is a step in the right direction. vDSR HM has compareable clear rate to planesbreaker, the vRG HM trifecta. (its way too difficult to really be played by anyone but the absolute top)

Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

The first boss has no real difficult mechanics. Shrapnel hitting players in portal feels unintentional but can be easily outplayed by simply waiting for the percentage at which shrapnel happens. The wamasu can spin around very randomly which is hilarious but also dangerous cause just 2 ticks of the lightning cone channel can kill sub 25k health players.
The fear thing that goes in a circle around the ghosts in portal, it feels clunky. thats all im gonna say.

The second boss's first puzzle entrance feels a bit weird. Surviving the invincible mini-boss inside kind of needs a tank or at least healer to survive.There does not seem to be remotely any consistency to choosing which players get in the first rooms (we've often had 2 tanks in 1 room, and the other 2 rooms just wipe) After the first rooms the wamasu, lion and gryphon spawn which make it controllable however. If there is some way to tell it is quite unclear because all players I've talked to said they do not know a method of determining who goes where in the first descent into the puzzle rooms. The rest of the fight is good.

Third boss HM is where things get quite messy. I do not like this fight's design in some details, but I have well over 10 hours in it by now haha.
first of all, the good stuff:

Banishment is a very interesting mechanic. My group has not really determined the best way to deal with it (3rd tank? or healer with taunt takes it at 91, 71 etc, or even a dps) The methods to deal with it all come with their upsides and downsides which makes for a very interesting thought process on how to deal with it, though it has caused a lot of conflict with differing opinions.

The split at 20% and then instant full throttle complex dps check is very exciting although extremely difficult.

The maze has potential to be a lot better. I like it's inclusion but in my opinion its done a bit poorly.

Now some(a lot) criticism:

The maze is too slow. I would highly recommend making it a bit faster on HM. There is never an instance where my group was not holding block at each corner to not run into the furthest maze aoe (artificially slowing down), its just really boring. There was also never any instance of anyone dying to the maze aoe behind thats chasing you, unless they were going for a risky resurrection in which case going through the maze actually becomes fun. I'd almost recommend removing the aoe in the front or making it go way faster although this has the problem that the arcanist portal could skip the maze entirely. Careful what you do with this mechanic as it has potential to make the fight either hated or loved.

Anxiety's grip is a weird mechanic that I feel was just thrown in there for no real reason other than to add more random damage in haha. It's also heavily bugged, never dissapears and can detonate instantly upon appearing causing random instant deaths. Poison mind and Wrack make it impossible to see Anxiety's grip on the ground especially during execute, in my opinion it has been the main reason we've been unable to clear in execute despite getting to sub 5% very very often.

Speaking of the worst mechanic in the game; poison mind.
The concept is the only good part, it acts similar to flare where you can stack with other players to mitigate the damage, thats where the good stuff ends.
This mechanic can happen on anyone, including people who just got banished (instant death if you do a healer/dps takes boss strat) or dps coming out of portal (literally instant death, its so frustrating) It can also happen when you go INTO portal, your chances of survival are basically 0 when that happens. The aoe also hides every aoe below it despite not really needing to, I'd make it more like an outer line ,very transparant circle, rather than its current extremely large opaque look. As I said earlier, the main problem is that it hides anxiety's grip causing instant death if the highest poison mind ticks overlaps with you randomly walking into basically an invisible land mine. highly consider reworking both the visuals and way this aoe targets people (especially make it avoid targeting banished or coming out of portal players)

Meteors feel a bit out of place but they're workable except for the fact that they randomly dissapear, or desync so hard you roll dodge out of it and die 2 seconds later despite being 6m+ away from it.
It can also spawn seemingly on anyone. if it lands on the main tank in execute you're basically screwed regardless of what happens, frustratingly. We initially thought it was a kite mechanic which would make a lot of sense but its either bugged or we're just wrong.
The aoe also looks similar to poison mind which is a problem because with poison mind you want to stack or die, but with meteor you want to absolutely not stack or you make everyone die. Other than the visual and possibly the speed at which it lands (this can be good), and the fact that it can land on anyone its fine. I'd recommend changing the visual a bit to fully differentiate it from poison mind.

Wrack is in my opinion actually an interesting mechanic. It doesn't seem to have a very accurate targeting system, or at least one that is predictable in any way. Combined with anxiety's grip being invisible, instant detonating and never dissapearing and poison mind + wrathstorm it can seem like the most dangerous mechanic but with good ping (not 250+) and the bugs/issues fixed this mech imo is good. If anything I'd make the aoe like 10 or 20% smaller cause you essentially have to quadruple roll dodge in execute when it happens or get stunned, or stand in the boss's cleave where MT is standing. unless you're playing at range which I cannot imagine is the intended way to do execute.

Wrathstorm is in a similar position as wrack, its very quick though so on my current ping I have to roll dodge before the aoe even appears. You can also get knocked back while outside of the aoe max range which seems to just be a bug. The tiny fire aoes around the outer range seem to spawn before the animation even starts which could be altered, the fire portal boss throws them out similar to for example kjalnar throwing out knives in vUG HM. The main boss kinda just spawns them in with no obvious animation, making it very dangerous to even stand in that mid-range area especially in execute because those fire aoes instantly put ignite on you in addition to their aoe damage. I've had one time where 8 spawn on me at once while rezzing, just out of nowhere since there's no way to determine when or where there gonna spawn aside from ''this large circle around the boss you should stay away from. It essentially forces you to play extremely stacked melee, or very far ranged (and not like olms ranged, like genuinely always 20+ meters away) It makes the close range playstyle extremely risky/dangerous.

The portal mechanics are mostly fine. I would say green and red portal are kind of undertuned actually, and the lightning portal is nearly impossible to survive without a death or 10 (very similar to the maze actually lol, but maze only cause of desyncs). The 17k hit from the light attack impact and the aoe dot he puts on someone makes for like a 30k dot. You need 4+ healing skills as a dps to survive it and even then its a bit rng since if the ticks line up just right you get 1shot. Red portal has a lot of aoes but only really 2 things you can feasibly die to, both of which are simple to roll dodge. Green portal basically has no mechanics aside from the bomb he throws on a random dps which needs to be roll dodged really really fast (before the circle closes it seems to hit, idk if thats a desync or actual wrong timing) regardless its very very easy. It's kind of boring actually, feels way too similar to portal in vSS, less engaging even.


Other than that, I do like the fight. It can be very good but right now just feels clunky. It is week 2 (almost 3) so I expect a lot of this can be dealt with. It also may seem like I'm just complaining about hard mechanics, but I do want it to be difficult, just not as difficult as rockgrove/dsr were. I think it's time to dial back the difficult of the trials a bit since this new trial content is very inaccessible for a lot of the playerbase. This doesn't mean I want it to be neccesarily like *** easy, but definetely want it to be looked at as ''this seems doable but will be a challenge'' rather than ''there is less than 200 people who have cleared DSR HM, we will never get past 80% on first boss'' haha.


Do you have any other general feedback?

The general area in which the trial takes place feels... very empty. It's a super tiny place. Clearly much more effort was put into the boss fights which I like, but it does take away a bit from how ''grand'' the trial feels. Trash is very boring, the bosses showing up mid trash pack I initially thought would be quite interesting but they dont really have mechanics, they're more like elite adds. There's also only 2 afaik and nothing for the last trash packs making the last trash feel especially monotone since they all look identical. I genuinely can't even remember how many trash packs there are in last area, I'd say like 5 but im not sure.

The loading screen is *** sick HOLY. as always insanely well done on the art team with the beautiful loading screen

In general, the boss mechanics are interesting. Some are a bit unintuitive, especially on 2nd boss its a bit confusing when first stepping in there. Overall, assuming the issues are fixed (especially the desyncs/lag aughh) this will be a good trial. Can't say I'd enjoy it more than rockgrove/dsr personally though. Also, pugging 2nd boss will be so bad with the puzzles lmao. I can't wait to see a craglorn pug attempt this. It's like the levers on dsr except 2x worse to coordinate.

luchtt

forgot 1 thing though: the titles.
The titles are not that bad but also dont get me wanting to try to get the achievements either. Very meh.

trust me, make the title ''Insane'' for trifecta (or ''The Insane'' something along those lines). This will be one of the the best titles in the game and makes perfect sense in every way. It's such a missed opportunity.

CE_Nex

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

Yes! I think it's a wonderful trial that's very engaging. Big Kudos to Finn and the rest of the Encounter Team!

What level and build was the character you used?

Close to CP 1800 Necromancer using Elemental Catalyst or Martial Knolwedge depending on the raid necessity.

Did you complete Normal or Veteran (or both)?

Veteran and the first two hardmodes.

How did the difficulty compare to existing Trials on Normal and Veteran versions?

Mechanically the fights are challenging but I believe they are quite easily learnable with some repitition and an observant eye. I am very happy that Sanity's Edge is not as difficult as Rockgrove or Dreadsail Reef during their respective releases on the PTS. I think the current difficulty is a very healthy tuning. Not too hard that it excludes the vast majority of players, but still engaging enough where highly expereinced endgamers still have something to prog.

I am also very happy that the difficulty of the trial is not disporportionate depending on what role you are playing. In both vRG HM and vDSR HM, the amount of brutal punishment tanks and healers are put through is far, far worse than what the DPS have to go through in their time in the trial. It was very unfair, and with an already limited pool of support players, it shrunk the number of tanks and healers who were capable of doing the trial. I believe vSE HM is a big step in the right direction.


Were there any mechanics you had difficulty with?

On Ansuul HM, the Poison Mind AoE is large enough where it utterly obscures the Mine that can randomly spawn. And the Mine can spawn underneath a player and will instantly erupt, leading to an immediate death that cannot be reacted to at all. There is quite literally nothing that can be done in this situation.

Also, during the labyrinth phase on Ansuul, both veteran and HM, the stun from the roaming AoEs is highly incosistent and even desynced. This has lead to many deaths that simply cannot be reacted to or avoided.

Did you complete the Trial?

Yes.

Did you have any companions with you?

No.

Do you have any other general feedback?

As I said, this is a wonderfully made trial. It's mechanically engaging and not egregoiusly overtuned in difficulty like Rockgrove and Dreadsail were. Even now, those two HMs are well out of reach for the vast majority of ESO players. I think Sanity's Edge hits that sweet spot. With just some tweaking of certain mechanics on Ansuul, I do believe it will be a phenomenal trial at launch.

BahometZ

The rewards for completing this look really weak. I don't think any of the titles are inspired, in fact they are quite lamentable. The body/face markings look like any other crown crate markings, just like the Rockgrove one, unremarkable and unused. The Dreadsail markings were quite nice in comparison.
The mount looks like nothing special either, some basic 400 crown gem limited time mount; so many radiant apex mounts have more effort put into them, further ingraining the view of ESO as a greedy RPG, more content to scrape wallets than to reward player effort.

If the rewards for playing were better, more people would play, and would be more inclined to spend money.

SeaUnicorn

CE_Nex wrote: »

Did you enjoy this new Trial overall?

On Ansuul HM, the Poison Mind AoE is large enough where it utterly obscures the Mine that can randomly spawn. And the Mine can spawn underneath a player and will instantly erupt, leading to an immediate death that cannot be reacted to at all. There is quite literally nothing that can be done in this situation.

Some visuals to support this message, there is so much visual clutter because majority of AOEs are fully filled, in many situations AOEs overlap and are either invisible or barely visible. It does not help that existing skills used by the team members add visual clutter to the arena, for example Pets and Standards
I think Poison Mind and Afterburn traveling AOEs should be outlines, not fully filled for better visibility.

IrishOphidia

Boss 1 seems extremely over tuned. The mechanics themselves are enjoyable, but the Wamasu charge doesn’t really give a proper telegraph and is sometimes not even seen by the group as it comes from behind them. The Hemorrhage is extremely obnoxious as it comes from every attack the boss does and emulates oblivion dmg so there’s no way to mitigate it and the only option is to heal through it frantically. Shrapnel on HM is much the same and the group has to stack heavily into defensive skills and even that is inconsistently effective. The fight is just unenjoyable because of these issues. It’s frustrating for tanks when they feel like there’s nothing they can do to survive and inevitably die because they eventually run out of resources just trying to heal themselves.

FantasticFreddie

From a healer perspective the trial on vet and first boss hardmode are challenging without being clutch your resto and cry hard like, for example, Bahsei hardmode
The charge mechanic having a slightly longer or more obvious tell would be good, because that came come out of seemingly nowhere and nuke the group.

TKo_ROUSE

Just want to post a copy of my feedback from a thread I created. Just in case this is being monitored more closely. I did not realize we had a dedicated thread to this.

I want to talk about this change for boss 1 on vSE HM. We have been working on vSE HM 3 times a week since the beginning of PTS. We consistently were clearing first 2 bosses without wipes. We weren't anywhere near deathless but with some res parsing we could power through. These are all 6 or 7 trial trifecta players a very experienced group.

I just want to start by saying RNG mechanics are NOT fun. In hard mode wamasu charges one shot every one including tanks. You need to either roll dodge it or be out of its path. Pre patch once wamasu was in group it would just charge the tank that had taunt. So outside the first charge it did not pose a significant threat. So I am assuming they must have thought this was too easy. The issue is how they changed it adds way too much RNG to the run.

Let me list some reasons this makes the fight not fun (because it can charge anyone):
1. It can charge people with tomb. In hard mode you want to try to stay on edge of hots as the healer has about 5 seconds to get you out of it. So you might catch yourself roll dodging last second to avoid charge and end up tombing someone else with you or killing your healer.
2. It can charge the healer healing tombs, doubly annoying when the healer has two tombs as they still only have that 5 seconds.
3. Portal DPS can get hit by a charge when the add decides to go randomly flying through the room.
4. The wind up time is very short its like 2 seconds. You in general don't get much time to react or adapt. vRG Oax has like 3 times the wind up before he charges for example.
5. The charge being an add mechanic can just happen no matter what the boss is doing. Oax can charge yes but not when he is stomping or summoning a mini, etc. So here you get boss throwing bombs doing her big aoe while the charge is happening. It just becomes a bunch of cluttered AoE's on the screen.
6. Space can be very limited in execute once she has more fire bombs active. The fire debuff is insane and can drop dps like flies if they accidentally pick it up. Not really an option to go running through those at current damage taken rates.

Suggestions:
1. Make only first charge random.
2. Make the charge mitigable by block so we can maybe survive it if not taking other damage.
3. Give us control of the situation. Make it more like oax. If it targets the furthest person we can maybe position it a little better.
4. Give it a longer windup time for sure or make charges happen less frequently then they currently are.
5. Give a nice clear indicator of who has the charge so they can attempt to cancel it.

OR:
6. Put it back the way it was? I don't think anything was broke so why do we need to fix it. Honestly i thought it was a pretty good boss fight. You had a slower safer strat in killing wamasu's. Doing portals, cutting back damage to not push shrapnel until the group is ready. Now the longer adds are alive the more charges we get the more likely people are to die. It just is making this boss safer to do speed strats. Which definitely isn't helping non top end groups. I am not sure on what ZOS collects for data on this. I am assuming they get completion rates and what not and maybe thought the fight was too easy. But I would also consider most groups doing HM on pts are score pushers or trifecta teams getting a head start as they have everything already in game. I would reckon most hard mode teams would struggle to clear the first boss in general before these changes came this week.

I only talked about HM here but I am sure these changes make all difficulties harder as well.Although i dont think they one shot in Veteran it can still knock people into other aoe's or overlap just the same way we see in hard mode.

IrishOphidia

Hemorrhage is absolutely broken. This honestly makes tanking this fight extremely exhausting.

IrishOphidia

Also, the charge mechanic is bugged now. He starts his charge and then starts running in different directions with the circle around him and then will also do his cone at the same time while ignoring taunt because he's "charging".