Zaan Hardmode (Scalecaller Peak) needs LOTS of adjustments and some bug fixing

Letho2469 · February 2018

Hey, first of all: I love the dungeon, it's really great. I love the general concept behind Zaan Hardmode, too. BUT the deeper I digged into the mechanics, the clearer it got to me that the current implementation is utter rng. There are some problems with the dungeon that need fixing. I'd differentiate between two problems: actual bugs and concept flaws.

Bugs:
1. During Peryite's tripe poison zone, the petrifying beam often fails to petrify players running into it.
2. Whenever she dies while stuned (happens on application of 'burning' status effect!), no geyser will spawn.

Design/concept flaws:
The main issue with the fight is, that there are many combos that can kill you without any chance of avoiding it: Generally spoken, there are too many mechanics that can incarcerate people if they are occuring at the same location: Like some ranged DD getting targeted by the boss's fire beam and the petrifying beam and/or the frost atronach's spike zone blocking the way for the tank to react => ranged DD is dead. no chance of surviving.

1. Zaan's fire beam
Tanks/melees, that must interrupt/block the beam, have no time to run around other harmful and important AOE's that block their way, before the target gets killed.
=> The beam must either do far less damage (not preferred as it would be outhealable) or it has to build up for a longer time before the killing pulse comes (double the time)!
=> The beam should prefer players that are further away from the boss, so tanks and melees don't get surrounded, caged in them or get they path blocked.

2. The safety zones (petrifying beam, boss shield, gush spring, moving spike field)
The zones CAN STACK during periytes triple breath. Players are guaranteed to die from that.
=> Just needs a plain fix, not a change of concept.

3. The petrifying beam
The beam vanishes/gets recast after it has been active for a specific amount of time and respawns on another location shortly after. This often happens when you need it (periyte tripe breath phase). If that happens, it's a guaranteed death.
=> The beam may not respawn unless a player got hit/petrified.

4. Periytes NORMAL breath (1 line)
It comes FAR!!! too quickly. You have no chance to react to it, if you don't stand at it's edge. Problem is: If you position yourself at the edge, there are the other mechanics that will push you out of position. Keeping your position is nearly impossible, especially if you bring melee DDs. The way this works currently, is extremely unfair.
=> Increase the time until the breath ticks after the telegrapher is displayed or display the telegrapher earlier (it's actually the same). This mechanic is extremely unfair the way it currently is.

Don't get me wrong ,I love difficult and sophisticated boss mechanics and it was high time that hard modes could deliver what their name promises, but the current combination of rng mechanics and the lack of reaction time is not making this fight hard, but simply unfair. Please retune the timings and fix mechanics that are guaranteed to kill players if they happen at the wrong time.

resdayn00 · February 2018

I completely agree with the conal breath attack. The time to react is way too little, it’s basically RNG, either you’re at the right place or you’re dead. No chance. Roll dodge is of zero use. Combined with some latency issues I’ve never had before, these things made the fight impossible and eventually my group failed.

runningtings · February 2018

Yeh the conal breath did for us every time last night, apparently the statue about to breathe lights up just before it triggers but it felt so random we couldn't get past it.

Greydir · February 2018

To iterate on that in addition to previously stated Problems:

Bugs:
The Firebreath of the Boss cann bug out and target a Dead Player, resulting in a Situation where said player cannot be Ressurected.
The Problem with the Leminide Mechanic not spawning with certainty is another critical flaw.
Also there is a problem with Synergys as the Synergy to free someone from the Fossilise beam overrides the Synergy of the Spellbreaker, resulting in two deaths if someone gets the wrong synergy.

Next Design:
1. Big Problem is the Rolldoge. Since the player is registerd at the Start of the Rolldoge, trying to rolldoge out of a conal Breath attack is often deadly. This could easyly be fixed by tracking player positioning while rolldoging.
2. Big Problem is the Displayed AOE Box. The displayed AoE Boxes for the conal attacks feel very unfair, since the Player hitbox is not 100% Clear while moving, resulting in deaths that feel quite unfair, since the Corpse clearly is positioned outside of the aoe after an unjust death.
3. Slightly Smaller Problem is the displayer AoE Box of the Geysir. The Geysir draws a player in while the player is not even touching the Hitbox, resulting in a dying player.
4. Slightly Smaller Problem is the disappearence of the Saving Mechanics after a set (short) amount of time. Resulting in some amazing saves turning into wipes again, since the Mechanics have disappeared. This feels double punishing
5. Slightly Smaller Problem, is the fact that slow effects are not reliably purgable. Please fix that.