Is a vVH mechanics overhaul something you'd like to see?

spartaxoxo · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Bat wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Those things are all intended to happen within 20 seconds of each other, leaving just 20 seconds to deal with all of those mechanics?

Flame shaper is time based, he (she?) will appear 20 seconds after you killed him(I think, it feels like 20, I might be wrong) light attack you twice(or was it trice?) And start spinning.
Colossi are % based only. She will have them spawn when boss passes the threshold of 80 60 40 20%, if you dropped all your aoes on boss, and she was channeling one of her other abilities (and therefore postponing summoning) and drop her from 80% to 38% in one go, u will get 3 colossi, and it is on you. Additional thing that might trigger colossi early is if your AoEs hit them, orb is a known offender. For example if you dropped boss from 81% to 59% while she is channeling, and get 1 colossi hit by a stray orb (or light attack) u will have 3 colossi. Still your fault.

I make use of tab targetting, and I was focusing on the one colossus she already had spawned when all of a sudden there was another one, and then another one, and then the flameshaper, and then the tether, all within just a few seconds. She was already down from around 50% (as her stats were when I finished the last portal) to around 20% when these things happened in quick succession. In the last phase. I managed to disrupt the flameshaper, but the tether got blocked by 3 colossus.

Also, I of course make sure to position myself so that I don't have colossus behind any of my targets and close enough to an edge that I can drop my AOEs down on adds in front of me and kite in towards the middle to bring any eventual moving targets through the WOE, but far enough from it that I can reposition if the tether comes up. As well as select the tether bearer that has no colossus close to it, just to avoid bringing up more colossus than what she summons.

If she went from 50 to 20 then you triggered the collossi yourself by burning her too much. It sounds like she got too much aoe damage on her or something.

When you come out of that last portal, don't do any damage at all to her. Don't aoe attack a single thing, only light attack. If she's not already doing her tether attack, she will soon and then summon a colossi. After the tether, kill the adds that have been summoned. You may have to push her to 40% at that point but it will probably happen naturally from aoe. Then aoe down the adds but pay attention to her health. Don't put down more dots if she's close to 20 and you haven't cleaned up yet.

Do it this way and you'll never have 3 collossi at once

Starlock · February 2021

Not going to vote in the poll, but I really liked this arena up until the last boss with the instant death mechanics.

I hate instant death mechanics.

I especially hate instant death mechanics that rely on activating synergies, which is fussy to do on console.

Jaimeh · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Bat wrote: »

Not even Alcast did it for his guide video for magDK, if that's a yardstick by which we can measure this nonsense.

OP, Alcast has done a trifect run (no death, speed, no sigil) on a sword and board Mag DK...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZXkdhyjeVM

The arena doesn't need tuning down... if anything it needed to be harder. There's nothing for end-game soloers anymore, if they want a challenge they have to turn to solo'ing vet dungeons, enough with the cries for nerfs. Trifectas has been achieved with all sorts of builds and classes, vet clears have been done even without skills on, and though it's true that if you want an easy mindless farm run, you go on magsorc/magblade (that's the same with vMA), that doesn't mean the mechanics need changing.

fred4 · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

EDIT: I note belatedly that you appear to be playing a mag DK. Sorry, I have no experience with that. Below is my experience with stam DK, which should transfer to any stamina class for soon to be obvious reasons. /EDIT

I had problems with my stam DK and left some salty posts in these forums at the time I learnt the arena. In the end, the solution was simple. Very simple. Play a Master's 2H Brawler build and even the last fight is (almost) a piece of cake. You practically WANT other adds to get in the way of killing those "void comes for you" adds, because the more targets there are, the stronger your Master's 2H Brawler spam becomes. This is NOT like playing a magplar spamming Sweeps. I've done that too. It's BETTER! It hits EVERYTHING in front of you hard, not just the main target. It feels subjectively stronger than my magplar. Furthermore the Brawler shield plus Pale Order or Brawler shield plus Crit Surge (no need for Pale Order on stamsorc) feels tankier than Puncturing Sweeps plus Pale Order. No need to expend ultimate either. You can do that on the boss. You positively do NOT want to kill adds with your ultimate, because the more of them hang around, the stronger your Brawler damage and shield becomes while you're hitting the boss. Master's 2H Brawler turns everything on it's head.

I currently run through in about 42 minutes, blue section first, then red, then green, no sigils, no deaths (last run), Spirit Slayer achieved. I get the red and green buffs, but don't do the side bosses and I don't hunt down every available 1K buff. I'm a PvPer, by the way. I don't specialize in this stuff.

This is my current build: https://en.uesp.net/wiki/Special:EsoBuildData?id=306920. Yes, that's pretty optimal, but please believe me that the Master's 2H (perfected or not) and the Pale Order ring are the main ingredients. Vicious Ophidian and the Maelstrom bow are optional.

By the way I haven't yet found / made a stamsorc build that matches my DK in the PvE damage department, albeit I'm not looking very hard. I think the DK DOTs are rather good and their duration of 14s perfectly matches Endless Hail's duration, leading to a very easy check on your rotation. Once Endless Hail runs out it's also time to refresh the DOTs.

Solutions for different classes tend to differ. They also change substantially when you specialize in PvE and your build, rotation and experience are such that you insta kill bosses. It happens in vMA - I watched a stamblade with a Thrassian / Acuity build for truly monstrous results. I do NOT play at that level. People who go for top scores play squishy builds. I play builds that make me somewhat tanky. Unfortunately mag DK is one of the classes I don't play at all, thus I don't know what the solution is.

Bat · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Those things are all intended to happen within 20 seconds of each other, leaving just 20 seconds to deal with all of those mechanics?

Flame shaper is time based, he (she?) will appear 20 seconds after you killed him(I think, it feels like 20, I might be wrong) light attack you twice(or was it trice?) And start spinning.
Colossi are % based only. She will have them spawn when boss passes the threshold of 80 60 40 20%, if you dropped all your aoes on boss, and she was channeling one of her other abilities (and therefore postponing summoning) and drop her from 80% to 38% in one go, u will get 3 colossi, and it is on you. Additional thing that might trigger colossi early is if your AoEs hit them, orb is a known offender. For example if you dropped boss from 81% to 59% while she is channeling, and get 1 colossi hit by a stray orb (or light attack) u will have 3 colossi. Still your fault.

I make use of tab targetting, and I was focusing on the one colossus she already had spawned when all of a sudden there was another one, and then another one, and then the flameshaper, and then the tether, all within just a few seconds. She was already down from around 50% (as her stats were when I finished the last portal) to around 20% when these things happened in quick succession. In the last phase. I managed to disrupt the flameshaper, but the tether got blocked by 3 colossus.

Also, I of course make sure to position myself so that I don't have colossus behind any of my targets and close enough to an edge that I can drop my AOEs down on adds in front of me and kite in towards the middle to bring any eventual moving targets through the WOE, but far enough from it that I can reposition if the tether comes up. As well as select the tether bearer that has no colossus close to it, just to avoid bringing up more colossus than what she summons.

If she went from 50 to 20 then you triggered the collossi yourself by burning her too much. It sounds like she got too much aoe damage on her or something.

When you come out of that last portal, don't do any damage at all to her. Don't aoe attack a single thing, only light attack. If she's not already doing her tether attack, she will soon and then summon a colossi. After the tether, kill the adds that have been summoned. You may have to push her to 40% at that point but it will probably happen naturally from aoe. Then aoe down the adds but pay attention to her health. Don't put down more dots if she's close to 20 and you haven't cleaned up yet.

Do it this way and you'll never have 3 collossi at once

Thanks for your input, but that's confusing me more I'm afraid. Some say "burn her", others say "don't burn her". I will try to allow her to heal all the way back up when I'm in the last, red portal on my next round, sounds like that could ease things up a bit.

Bat · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

Starlock wrote: »

Not going to vote in the poll, but I really liked this arena up until the last boss with the instant death mechanics.

I hate instant death mechanics.

I especially hate instant death mechanics that rely on activating synergies, which is fussy to do on console.

Oh, I can barely imagine what it's like playing that phase without being able to bind other buttons for synergies. I've put my synergy use on press LS and RS simultaneously, it's really helpful in certain situations. I know that the "press triangle and circle" or xBox equivalent is extra iffy and often just isn't viable in tight spots.

zvavi · February 2021

Bat wrote: »

Thanks for your input, but that's confusing me more I'm afraid. Some say "burn her", others say "don't burn her". I will try to allow her to heal all the way back up when I'm in the last, red portal on my next round, sounds like that could ease things up a bit.

Always burn her if you can. If you can't then slow down and kill adds. That's the only 2 options. You either have enough dmg to skip half the mechs, or u focus all your dmg on the adds that are alive. But for the love of God don't let her heal too much you are making the last phase longer than it needs to be. (Adds, flame shaper walls spawning on timer, colossi on %)

Bat · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

Jaimeh wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Not even Alcast did it for his guide video for magDK, if that's a yardstick by which we can measure this nonsense.

OP, Alcast has done a trifect run (no death, speed, no sigil) on a sword and board Mag DK...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZXkdhyjeVM

The arena doesn't need tuning down... if anything it needed to be harder. There's nothing for end-game soloers anymore, if they want a challenge they have to turn to solo'ing vet dungeons, enough with the cries for nerfs. Trifectas has been achieved with all sorts of builds and classes, vet clears have been done even without skills on, and though it's true that if you want an easy mindless farm run, you go on magsorc/magblade (that's the same with vMA), that doesn't mean the mechanics need changing.

Thanks for your input. That build is a stamknight, not a magknight. They are similar in terms of animations of some skills that are used throughout a rotation, but the morphs are different, the gear is entirely different and so on.

I agree, for people who want even harder content, there could be an option to increase difficulty in solo arenas, kind of like how the difficulty can be changed in veteran dungeons.

I do not agree with your notion that there is not anything for "end-game soloers anymore". There is plenty of end-game solo activities, such as roleplaying, housing, fishing, soloing veteran dungeons, soloing veteran arenas (you can make them more challenging by nerfing yourself, if you want), soloing newer world bosses, soloing dragons, so many challenges for solo end-game players.

I also am of the opinion that vVH can use looking over in mechanics to make them not necessarily less challenging, maybe just less unforgiving for those who want a trifecta run. I am a split between relief and "meh" over hearing that for instance colossus will have less health and die quicker, rather than preventing some of the mechanics from happening all at once - in which case we can kiss that perfect run goodbye.

A way to make it more challenging for those of you who long for something something extra could be to add a scroll where if you'd read it you'd have 3 colossus up at all times (if you kill one, another would break lose, if you kill all they would be summoned again), and more frequent void tethers to nuke (maybe one every 30 seconds) and some extra sturdiness on and damage from portal bosses for instance, for those who are not satiated with all the mechanics already in place.

Bat · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

fred4 wrote: »

EDIT: I note belatedly that you appear to be playing a mag DK. Sorry, I have no experience with that. Below is my experience with stam DK, which should transfer to any stamina class for soon to be obvious reasons. /EDIT

Hi, no problem! Thanks for your input.

spartaxoxo · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Bat wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Bat wrote: »

Those things are all intended to happen within 20 seconds of each other, leaving just 20 seconds to deal with all of those mechanics?

Flame shaper is time based, he (she?) will appear 20 seconds after you killed him(I think, it feels like 20, I might be wrong) light attack you twice(or was it trice?) And start spinning.
Colossi are % based only. She will have them spawn when boss passes the threshold of 80 60 40 20%, if you dropped all your aoes on boss, and she was channeling one of her other abilities (and therefore postponing summoning) and drop her from 80% to 38% in one go, u will get 3 colossi, and it is on you. Additional thing that might trigger colossi early is if your AoEs hit them, orb is a known offender. For example if you dropped boss from 81% to 59% while she is channeling, and get 1 colossi hit by a stray orb (or light attack) u will have 3 colossi. Still your fault.

I make use of tab targetting, and I was focusing on the one colossus she already had spawned when all of a sudden there was another one, and then another one, and then the flameshaper, and then the tether, all within just a few seconds. She was already down from around 50% (as her stats were when I finished the last portal) to around 20% when these things happened in quick succession. In the last phase. I managed to disrupt the flameshaper, but the tether got blocked by 3 colossus.

Also, I of course make sure to position myself so that I don't have colossus behind any of my targets and close enough to an edge that I can drop my AOEs down on adds in front of me and kite in towards the middle to bring any eventual moving targets through the WOE, but far enough from it that I can reposition if the tether comes up. As well as select the tether bearer that has no colossus close to it, just to avoid bringing up more colossus than what she summons.

If she went from 50 to 20 then you triggered the collossi yourself by burning her too much. It sounds like she got too much aoe damage on her or something.

When you come out of that last portal, don't do any damage at all to her. Don't aoe attack a single thing, only light attack. If she's not already doing her tether attack, she will soon and then summon a colossi. After the tether, kill the adds that have been summoned. You may have to push her to 40% at that point but it will probably happen naturally from aoe. Then aoe down the adds but pay attention to her health. Don't put down more dots if she's close to 20 and you haven't cleaned up yet.

Do it this way and you'll never have 3 collossi at once

Thanks for your input, but that's confusing me more I'm afraid. Some say "burn her", others say "don't burn her". I will try to allow her to heal all the way back up when I'm in the last, red portal on my next round, sounds like that could ease things up a bit.

It's because whether or not to burn her depends on how survivable you are when that many adds are up. If you can kill her before she kills you even with that level of adds, then the best thing to do is just burn her. If you cannot, the best thing to do is control the add spawns so that you cannot get overwhelmed by adds.

I myself cannot do just burn her, because I will also die to the adds like you did. So I have to control the add spawns. You don't have to wait til she's 100 percent. Just know that she unchains collosi at percent health thresholds or after a timer, whichever comes first. Which is why she should at unchain the collosi after the tether even if you haven't damaged her. If your dps is strong enough you can control the flow of adds by quickly killing them in between collosi breaks so long as you keep an eye on her health and don't let her drop below the next 20% threshold when you're not ready.

karekiz · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

My Nightblade using Pale Order + Almalexia's Mercy + Medusa + 1 Domihause got trifecta. Was able to burn the boss.

Side buffs are very nice and make the bone giants manageable. I tried with 0 side buffs on same build and got thrashed so take it as you will.

LadyLethalla · February 2021

VoidCommander wrote: »

You realize they are nerfing almost every aspect of the arena next patch right? Colossi are specifically getting their health drastically reduced is just one of the nerfs. Arena will be much easier to complete in a couple weeks.

As someone who has managed one flawless clear only of VMA, I say TFFT. Otherwise I would never go back into VVH. Ever. I don't have the DPS, apparently, and can't see myself ever finding the motivation to "git gud".

Jaimeh · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Bat wrote: »

I do not agree with your notion that there is not anything for "end-game soloers anymore". There is plenty of end-game solo activities, such as roleplaying, housing, fishing, soloing veteran dungeons, soloing veteran arenas (you can make them more challenging by nerfing yourself, if you want), soloing newer world bosses, soloing dragons, so many challenges for solo end-game players.

I also am of the opinion that vVH can use looking over in mechanics to make them not necessarily less challenging, maybe just less unforgiving for those who want a trifecta run. I am a split between relief and "meh" over hearing that for instance colossus will have less health and die quicker, rather than preventing some of the mechanics from happening all at once - in which case we can kiss that perfect run goodbye.

End-game in terms of combat, not RP, it'd be obvious from the nature of this thread. Plus, dungeons are not solo content by default, but since there isn't many end-game combat content available, solo'ers turn to them to up the challenge. Again, the arena mechanics are fine, part of the issue (which most of the testers, including myself, had mentioned on the PTS thread) is that the difficulty rises dramatically in the last boss, compared to the previous wings, and throws you off at the start. The stam example is still relevant, since that fight is particularly hard for stam (movement-wise: the minotaur, and fire spin cones especially, the need for ranged interrupts, etc.). There are different ways to deal with the colossus mechanic, however, as mentioned: if burning is not an option (ie., dropping her health before she summons the shades, or at least before the shades have closed in on you, so that she does the big AoE, and you can teleport to the islands), because of dps reasons, then you can absolutely draw out the fight at the beginning, and kill each all the colossi without pushing the boss, you'll just get one after the coming back from the islands, the only issue with this method is that you will have to deal with the shade circle, because you are not burning the boss fast enough (and when the circle comes, position yourself towards one shade, aggroing everything there, and use your ulti if you're worried you won't be able to take it down in time). With this strat can get through the last boss with literally heavy attacking between casting DOTs.

Lintashi · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

I wish it was either every class could bypass ring mechanics, like sorcs do it with streak, or no class could bypass it. This mechanic gives unfair advantage to some classes, while other have no substitute for it. I also hate when collosus stays in front of ring shade, so the only way through is to spam aoe. I generally dislike current game direction, where dps is the key for skipping all mechanics, since different people have different internet, different health conditions, different setups. And make an arena for healers or tanks!

Grandchamp1989 · February 2021

Yes, for the love of Mara, that last phase is killing my motivation to even try

Bat wrote: »

That automatic censoring was odd btw. I made sure not to use any language that would get my post in trouble. Here's the word, maybe needs looked over if this is really supposed to be censored.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/***

lolol my thread also got censored for quoting the title of a very popular beatles song XD

It's a bit... much.

spartaxoxo · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Lintashi wrote: »

I wish it was either every class could bypass ring mechanics, like sorcs do it with streak, or no class could bypass it. This mechanic gives unfair advantage to some classes, while other have no substitute for it. I also hate when collosus stays in front of ring shade, so the only way through is to spam aoe. I generally dislike current game direction, where dps is the key for skipping all mechanics, since different people have different internet, different health conditions, different setups. And make an arena for healers or tanks!

Every class can bypass it with Undo. Also every class has an advantage that makes some fight in the game easier for them than other classes that don't have that skill. I really don't see how that's unfair. It's natural part of having classes not be cookie cutters

AyaDark · February 2021

Bat wrote: »

I'm writing this as someone who has cleared the arena several times, but damn, that last boss fight is so much *** RNG luck bull, that I can't help but feel I'll never have the title on my main. I had the Lich down to 20 percent in the last phase and of course, because why not, she decides to throw 3 colossus at me right before the flameshaper starts his shenanigans and the tether comes up. At this point I'm thinking, it's not difficult to clear because if we have luck on our side we clear her, but I'm thinking it's damn near impossible for someone playing a dragonknight DD on a controller to get trifecta. We have desyncs of skills (Flames of Oblivion and Eruption going off several seconds after they have been activated for instance, causing major flow disruption on the rotation). I play on a solo build with Pale Order ring and I have a self-shielf and self-heal and can pretty much lolrun all the way up to there. But you know what? It's not possible to kill 3 colossus, keep an eye on the flameshaper to manage the disrupt, and then have that freedom to move on a void tether enemy needed to create a hole to slink through, all in the span of a mere 20 seconds.

You see that leaderboard? See anything but sorcs on it?

I would suggest this arena gets an overhaul on mechanics; for instance don't allow her to summon up 3 damned colossus at the same time at the end phase (if you hit one, it's your fault, but why should she be allowed to summon up more than 1 at a time in that phase, it's chaotic enough), because you'll have plenty of other things you need to focus on, don't allow the flameshaper to cast fire donut while the tether is up, because you'll have to have focus on the tether (you might have a colossus up at during this, 1 colossus is difficult enough to avoid, 3, not nearly a chance).

It's small things, but when they pile up all together at once it brings the possibility to clear a trifecta run, probably on most builds, down to around a flat zero. Not even Alcast did it for his guide video for magDK, if that's a yardstick by which we can measure this nonsense.

Alcast is not a good player in my opinion, so if he do or do not something is nothing to watch too.

ON DK - use magma armor
On NB use jump to shadow
On warden use jump to bear.
On sorc use strick
On ALL classes use barrier + vampire cloud.

Or just DPS or do by mechanics.

https://youtu.be/35I3SzdyrzE

https://youtu.be/TrFLhFJM0YQ

Skullstachio · February 2021

Other (Feel free to specify)

Lintashi wrote: »

I wish it was either every class could bypass ring mechanics, like sorcs do it with streak, or no class could bypass it. This mechanic gives unfair advantage to some classes, while other have no substitute for it. I also hate when collosus stays in front of ring shade, so the only way through is to spam aoe. I generally dislike current game direction, where dps is the key for skipping all mechanics, since different people have different internet, different health conditions, different setups. And make an arena for healers or tanks!

Uh, Psijic skill line ultimate “Undo” and morphs would like to chime in.

Any class can bypass the ring mechanic using Undo provided your ultimate upkeep is good enough, pretty sure it will be hard to juggle between rings and angry mobs.