Question; is it possible to get a Bronze key from either of the two new pledges if you do only the minimum in the Normal version dungeon, or is Silver the lowest you can get anyway?

My impressions of the vet dungeons:

White Gold Tower is amazing. Beautifully designed graphically. The encounters are very unique and fun. They are pretty difficult, but not impossble for a decent group. The flame atro boss is pretty tough and will probably be the largest hurdle for most groups.

Prison - What I have seen looks pretty cool. I have now been in vet prison on 4 different nights- 3 of them being with the same group. I have a group of people that can do anything on the live server with extreme ease. We have attempted the 2nd boss of Vet Prison at least 100 times using every strategy we can think of. The only strategy that has come close to working is ignoring all mechanics and burning the boss as fast as possible using 3 dps and 1 tank no healer.
The most successful that we have been on any other tactic is having 2 people throwing bombs at the humanoids and 1 person dpsing the atros and the boss. This way is very flawed though because of tenderize. If any group member gets tenderized, it has the potential to go bad very quickly. If it's one of the bomb crew, you fall behind on the bombs and get overrun with atros. If it's the atro dps, then the atro enrages. If it's the tank, then he can easilly die while being tenderized and beat on by an atro.

It is not worth throwing the bombs at the atros unless you can wipe out humanoids in the process. The bombs simply don't do enough damage to warrant losing a dps to them unless it's for the humanoids.

I can frankly say that if my group was having this kind of trouble, it will be impossible for 99% of other groups.

I don't think either of these dungeons will be doable by any sort of pick up group for a long time. They take a lot of coordination that make voice chat all but mandatory.

omfgitsbatman wrote: »

My impressions of the vet dungeons:

White Gold Tower is amazing. Beautifully designed graphically. The encounters are very unique and fun. They are pretty difficult, but not impossble for a decent group. The flame atro boss is pretty tough and will probably be the largest hurdle for most groups.

Prison - What I have seen looks pretty cool. I have now been in vet prison on 4 different nights- 3 of them being with the same group. I have a group of people that can do anything on the live server with extreme ease. We have attempted the 2nd boss of Vet Prison at least 100 times using every strategy we can think of. The only strategy that has come close to working is ignoring all mechanics and burning the boss as fast as possible using 3 dps and 1 tank no healer.
The most successful that we have been on any other tactic is having 2 people throwing bombs at the humanoids and 1 person dpsing the atros and the boss. This way is very flawed though because of tenderize. If any group member gets tenderized, it has the potential to go bad very quickly. If it's one of the bomb crew, you fall behind on the bombs and get overrun with atros. If it's the atro dps, then the atro enrages. If it's the tank, then he can easilly die while being tenderized and beat on by an atro.

It is not worth throwing the bombs at the atros unless you can wipe out humanoids in the process. The bombs simply don't do enough damage to warrant losing a dps to them unless it's for the humanoids.

I can frankly say that if my group was having this kind of trouble, it will be impossible for 99% of other groups.

I don't think either of these dungeons will be doable by any sort of pick up group for a long time. They take a lot of coordination that make voice chat all but mandatory.

I did not try vet WGT so i can t talk about that.
But I Agree with all what you say on ICP. I ve experienced the same.I think that the mechanics are great in this fight but it may miss a bit of structure. I don t know what exactly...something like the wave of zombie poping on bossshealth % could be an idea.
Maybe we are just doing it wrong. I m in a hurry to get feedback on this fight. I only find 1 vidéo on YT of a group clearing it since the last change. Was under the impression that the number of zombie has been tuned down but nothing about that was stated.
In anycase i wonder if the lack of stream is in itself a feedback .

So we gave Imperial Prisons another shot today. Having a very tough time beating the second boss with the intended mechanics. The additional damage to the flesh atros from the grenades helps but we seem to get overwhelmed too easily. We're still experimenting with different strats but this fight seems too demanding with no room for error. You might want to revisit this some more in my opinion.

[*] What did you think about the difficulty in Normal mode?
[*] What did you think about the difficulty in Veteran mode?
[*] What did you think of the loot?
[*] What was your favorite boss (in either Dungeon) and why did you enjoy it?
[*] What gave your group the most frustration?

A.

I play as a tank and normal mode was lame. I didn't really feel like I was contributing because of how easy the dungeons were. That being said, it is normal mode, a mode I will not be doing, and has an important place in helping players get better.

B.

The adds and trash had too much health on Veteran mode. I really felt that when my group had just 1 low dps player. Fights against trash dragged on forever.

In White Gold Tower the Daedroth did way too much damage. It is a trash mob. It shouldn't be wiping the group. Yes, the content should be harder, but that obnoxious enemy is more powerful than the giant daedroth from the Banished Cells. The Titan in the the White Gold Tower also felt more powerful than his counterpart in Elden Hollow and even City of ash. At least the Titan wasn't as idiotic as the daedroth warriors.

C.

I'm not excited for the loot. Random traits and random armor types is frustrating, not fun. Not everybody likes the Diablo 3 drop system @ZOS_RichLambert . You all know that people want trait changes and you want people to feel good about their gear, but in a contradictory act have compounded the loot problem.

D.

My favorite boss fight, by leaps and bounds, was the veteran White Gold Tower Elite Guard battle. Some of the best fights to tank involve controlling multiple enemies; fights like Longclaw, the Hive Lord, Yokeda Rok'dun, and the Axes of the Aetherian Archive Mage fight are all fights that really test a tanks mettle. Tanks need to manage their resources, manipulate multiple enemies, and watch out for powerful attacks - the Elite Guard didn't let down in any of those respects.

Philosophically, you know where I stand on the stamina regeneration nerf. I predict we will see less of these interesting fights, with multiple enemies, because it will be to hard for many tanks to maintain their stamina while tanking multiple enemies. Would you have made the Elite Guard a 4 enemy fight? It would be darn cool to have a 4 versus 4 battle, each side with a tank, healer, and 2 DPS, but I don't think tanks would be able to handle that many enemies after the nerf. I think the current best strategy will be for tanks to only hold two of the Elite Guard and that is fine, but think about how design space can be limited by the nerf.

Mechanically, it was nice to chose a target to focus on. The Elite Guard all seem to compliment each other in some way and that makes dividing to conquer a nice option. They also could deal damage that would be enough to kill players, but it didn't feel cheap like the Adjudicators traveling hands or Planar Inhibitors blue flame. There were also no gimmicks in the Elite Guard fight. I don't like having to lock pick in the middle of a battle and I don't like having to touch a magic sphere to get aggro. Those 'mechanics' are flawed attempts at makings players not just stack and burn, but the Elite Guard didn't involve any dinking around in order to not just be another tanks and spank. Gaining aggro on the enemies, being careful of losing health, and interrupting the enemies really made me feel that, unlike with the Adjudicator and Planar Inhibitor, I was making a difference as the tank. By the way, thank you for letting us crowed control boss enemies - that isn't something that we are ever able to do, but it really worked here. The only thing I would change mechanically is to have the remaining Elite Guard get stronger or do new attacks when one of their allies dies. That would keep the fight interesting as enemies fall and there is precedence for such a mechanic with the Flesh Atronarch Trio of Spindleclutch. Oh, I also don't think that one enemy should have out three Dragon Knight Standards, by themselves, at the same time.

Aesthetically, this fight was a real gem in the dirt pile of the new veteran dungeons. The start of the fight was swell. There was actually story that told us what was happening and why we were fighting the boss - they weren't just guarding a door. There is also something dreadful, but in an immersing and fun way, when waiting for a boss fight to start and watching allies turn into enemies. The same effect has made Praxin Douare if Veteran Spindleclutch one of my favorite battles. Most importantly was that, well, the Elite Guard members talk. The new veteran dungeons are really lacking in that department, but content needs memorable quips and taunts to stay engaging; the sayings are great for the ruby throne, for the empire, for Clivia Tharn!

E.

What gave my groups the most frustration was the Planar Inhibitor fight. The frustrating part to me was that I had to reconcile that fight with some of the developers opinions on tanking. Again, you already know that I don't think the stamina regeneration nerf is fun for tanks, but let's take a step beyond that. What makes the Planar Inhibitor fight fun for tanks? Not a single thing in my opinion and that is because tanking that fight isn't really viable. The orb aggro mechanic means that a normal tank is useless for long durations of the battle and a normal tank will not have enough DPS, reach, or maneuverability to reliably destroy portals. My groups put hours into this fight and I eventually switched to DPS, which I greatly dislike, but it made the fight much easier. We still didn't finish the battle.

Take this away - you can't claim to want tanking to be fun, but continue to make content where a tank isn't needed. You should already know how tanks switch to DPS on the Engine Guardian fight, but we have advanced past that mistake and you should know better. It isn't fun to have to totally switch roles during a dungeon and if you continue to make content where tanks aren't useful, then you words about wanting tanking to be fun and interactive are meaningless and just a cover for the truth of why you made the stamina regeneration nerf. If anything tanks not being needed or not having a big impact on battles in out-leveled content is the real reason why some people aren't having fun as a tank and it isn't because the tank has too much stamina. Trust me on that one.