Banished Cells 2 final fight might need some adjustments.

kojou · May 2020

I was PuGing pledges yesterday and ran City of Ash 2 and Banished Cells 2 with a random group with players of various levels. City of Ash 2 was cleared without too much fuss, but the group wiped quite a few times on Banished Cells 2. We did eventually clear, but given that this Dungeon was a VR1 or VR2 level dungeon back in the day (equivalent to CP 10 or 20 now) it really seems a bit over tuned.

If the DPS of the group isn't high to kill Rilis fast enough then the tank will get overwhelmed with stomping dinosaurs. Also, If the DPS isn't high enough then killing said Dinosaurs is also impractical because they have so much health. Basically if your group doesn't have enough DPS on Rilis this dungeon is impossible even if you are going for a "Normal" mode clear. I've also noted that a lot of people skip this one when it is the pledge for this reason.

That said... when I am with a group that knows all the mechanics, has reasonably high DPS, and has a tank that can manage the stomping dinosaurs then this fight isn't that hard.

I think the fight needs one of 2 adjustments.

1. Rilis should stay stationary for a little bit (10-15 seconds) longer. Part of the reason he is harder to put some damage on is that he jumps out of ground DoTs. I think this would keep the fight reasonably hard, but make it less of a DPS check. This would also make it possible to leave some ground DoTs under him while stacking the Dinosaur on him if hard mode wasn't desired.

OR

2. Add a scroll that upon reading sets the fight to how it is now, or if not read slows down the spawn rate of the stomping Dinosaurs and lowers their health a little.

Anyone else have fun times with Rilis in Banished Cells 2 last night? What were your strategies for completing with a PuG?

Dagoth_Rac · May 2020

They changed something with the Daedroth adds a year or two ago, I think. The challenge used to be not killing them. If they were near boss, they would die to AoE and you would lose out on hard mode. Then suddenly the Daedroth got super-buffed with tons of health and resistance. There is no longer much risk of accidentally killing one, but now you basically need to kill boss really fast or you will get overwhelmed with adds that are nearly unkillable for an average group.

I think this change was made so hard mode was easier to get for high DPS groups but ignores how difficult it made the encounter for average groups.

kylewwefan · May 2020

Oh yeah. I’ve got some experience on this one for ya.

If your group has the damage to kill the boss before tank gets overwhelmed with Daedroth, go for it. This doesn’t happen very often. Then you simply get the boss to execute and wait for 4 daedroths to come out before killing the boss to get hardmode.

And the boss ping pongs around the room at will so use your Ult’s wisely.

If the group doesn’t have the burn for this, kill the Deadroth’s and the balls that heal the boss. Your slow burning the boss in aoe. Then, when you get the boss to within execute range, you wait for 4 deadroths to come out. Still kill the balls that heal the boss because they heal him up massive. And you get the 2 keys.

When there’s 4 deadroths, your tank is gonna be starting to struggle. I’ve held as much as 8 and it was rough. Actually most likely ended in a wipe.

I had a much harder time dealing with this with a dedicated healer. 3 dps is the way to go.

Don’t feel bad. I’ve seen this dungeon fail numerous times. The fault here is on the tank and possibly healer. If your group doesn’t have über burn, the tank needs to have dps kill a few deadroths and get the boss health down to a manageable level.

If you’re constantly getting nuked by the bosses flames, and you have a “healer” well they’re not doing a very good job are they. If the healer is bringing some decent damage to the table, we let it slide. If they have green balls floating around them, know they are steaming poo and a hard carry at best.

Damage dealers need to take some accountability for themselves. If they keep dying to the bosses flames, they need to gtfo of the flames quickly. The boss does like to launch a flaming skull at someone every now and then. Block.

brennz · May 2020

Ran this dungeon twice last night for key farming. First run w/ me on tank went fine, but we had killer group DPS (120k+). Second run we swapped toons around and I went in on DPS and another went on a DPS they knew hit fairly low but our group dps was still around 50k and we knew the dungeon well so we figured it’d be slow but fine.

NOPE.

The entire dungeon was a cakewalk until the end. Between the boss moving every 7 seconds, fire AoE, and the curse, we wiped about 5x with 16 member deaths throughout. We finally got HM done completely by accident because at this point we just wanted it DONE. My CMX showed I had 98% uptime on the stupid curse. I had to walk the entire dungeon. By the time I got to the boss he’d move, or the fire would spawn under me and I couldn’t get out in time because the curse slows you down so much. It was freaking brutal. I imagine it would have been a little easier if I weren’t a stamina DPS, but since I had no real way to do ranged attack except arrows, I spent half the dungeon just trying to get ANYWHERE. Frustrating as hell. This dungeon has a killer dps check that I don’t really think belongs in a dungeon this early in the list.

kojou · May 2020

kylewwefan wrote: »

Oh yeah. I’ve got some experience on this one for ya.

If your group has the damage to kill the boss before tank gets overwhelmed with Daedroth, go for it. This doesn’t happen very often. Then you simply get the boss to execute and wait for 4 daedroths to come out before killing the boss to get hardmode.

And the boss ping pongs around the room at will so use your Ult’s wisely.

If the group doesn’t have the burn for this, kill the Deadroth’s and the balls that heal the boss. Your slow burning the boss in aoe. Then, when you get the boss to within execute range, you wait for 4 deadroths to come out. Still kill the balls that heal the boss because they heal him up massive. And you get the 2 keys.

When there’s 4 deadroths, your tank is gonna be starting to struggle. I’ve held as much as 8 and it was rough. Actually most likely ended in a wipe.

I had a much harder time dealing with this with a dedicated healer. 3 dps is the way to go.

Don’t feel bad. I’ve seen this dungeon fail numerous times. The fault here is on the tank and possibly healer. If your group doesn’t have über burn, the tank needs to have dps kill a few deadroths and get the boss health down to a manageable level.

If you’re constantly getting nuked by the bosses flames, and you have a “healer” well they’re not doing a very good job are they. If the healer is bringing some decent damage to the table, we let it slide. If they have green balls floating around them, know they are steaming poo and a hard carry at best.

Damage dealers need to take some accountability for themselves. If they keep dying to the bosses flames, they need to gtfo of the flames quickly. The boss does like to launch a flaming skull at someone every now and then. Block.

If I am doing pledges with friends then yes... we just burn the boss and the tank can hold the dinosaurs at bay. Easy-peasey. The people I usually play with were doing other things, so I decided to just PuG the pledges.

The problem I have is that for a "base content" Maj al-Ragath dungeon this one feels a bit over-tunned. This one is in the company of:

Spindleclutch II
Banished Cells I
Fungal Grotto II
Spindleclutch I
Darkshade II
Elden Hollow I
Wayrest Sewers II
Fungal Grotto I
Banished Cells II
Darkshade Caverns I
Elden Hollow II
Wayrest Sewers I

Out of these, which final boss fight Hard Mode do you hate the most? I mean Darkshade 2 can also be a little tough for low level/inexperienced players, but I feel like Banished Cells 2 is an order of magniture more difficult than all of the dungeons Maj hands out.

Firstmep · May 2020

Stomping Dinasours xD.
I'm sorry but that just killed me lol.

kylewwefan · May 2020

Hands down Banished Cells 2 has caused me the most headaches.

Spindleclutch 1 is an oddball. Breeze through the whole thing then the boss starts one shoting unsuspecting players. Ruining your no death run in an instance. Way rest will do that too. She’s got a vicious teleport strike.

Fungal Grotto 2 is an entirely different beast than 1. And most problems there are the second boss with the tethers.

But remember, these dungeons were made when the max top dog dps was 25k. It strongly suggests a large portion of player base (the filthy casual unwashed group finder pug peasants) are nowhere close.

And I champion for the filthy casuals. Seemingly can’t get enough of the despair and regretful feelings of playing with them. (Being one of them even)

These dungeons have mechanics. That can be skipped with enough burn, or try and play them out. If you enjoy a challenge.