2023 - Swarm Mother Monster set not working?

BMedussa8 · April 2023

Has anyone tried to use the Swarm Mother monster set recently? I tried yesterday and could not get it to work on any monster in any dungeon or overland in different areas, etc, I actually tried with the light, medium and heavy paired with heavy pauldron since it took me to the third try to get my complete heavy set. I'd block an enemy/monster and nothing would happen. Might as well be wearing a regular helmet and pauldrons, although believe was getting the 1 piece boons to Magicka and Stamina. Anyone else? I have not tried today. Have there been changes to this set and how it is supposed to work?

virtus753 · April 2023

Are you sure the enemy is between 8 and 22 meters? They will need to be ranged, since melee mobs will come closer to you than that in order to hit you, but not too ranged.

It is currently functional on the PTS, at least.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

yeah the set does have a fairly narrow window of where it works

most melee enemies are too close for it to work, and some ranged enemies could be hitting you from outside the 22 meter range (standard "ranged" attacks are 28 meters)

against monsters it also only works on the ones which are not normally cc immune (so wont work on elites or bosses for example)

it also wont work even on trash mobs if they got cc'd by something else, since npcs do get cc immunity after the cc applied to them ends

BMedussa8 · April 2023

So I do believe the enemies were between 8 and 22 meters when it was not working at all. As I tried it many times against many enemies at various distances and it just would not do anything. But yesterday I got it to work a time or two very sparsely...for instance if I came up on some enemies I'd be able to pull one - but never several and trying to zapped too much stamina. It was still very much hit or miss.

Like holding block when I came up on enemies at range did not work. But if I targeted a ranged enemy with a singular block - assuming they haven't already engaged, then I got it to work a time or two - it was very hit or miss though. Any ranged enemy like an archer or mage or healer that had already engaged in a range attack, would not pull. Where, of course a chain, or silver leash would on those.

So either I'm doing something wrong...or my expectations of what the set is supposed to do is wrong. But on Tuesday, I'm pretty sure the set was not working at all.

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

the set also does have a cooldown between pull procs (like 1 sec i believe), so it cant pull stuff super fast either (1 sec is a short cooldown, but it would still be noticeable if you had a mob of 6 ranged enemies)

it works kind of similar to the necromancer beckoning armor, except it has conditions (requires you to block an attack, and the enemy has to be within the specific range)

a good way to get used to gauging the range is using something like the templar cleansing ritual which is 8 meter aoe, if you are standing at the center the the edge of that circle is the minimum distance

for maximum distance, that would be the range of shorter ranged attacks such as magnum shot from the bow or shrouded dagger from dual wield

previously this set used to not have the range limitation, but i think it was due to pvp that it got nerfed and had the effective range added, since then i dont see it being used as much because its such a narrow range that it works

virtus753 · April 2023

BMedussa8 wrote: »

So I do believe the enemies were between 8 and 22 meters when it was not working at all. As I tried it many times against many enemies at various distances and it just would not do anything. But yesterday I got it to work a time or two very sparsely...for instance if I came up on some enemies I'd be able to pull one - but never several and trying to zapped too much stamina. It was still very much hit or miss.

Like holding block when I came up on enemies at range did not work. But if I targeted a ranged enemy with a singular block - assuming they haven't already engaged, then I got it to work a time or two - it was very hit or miss though. Any ranged enemy like an archer or mage or healer that had already engaged in a range attack, would not pull. Where, of course a chain, or silver leash would on those.

So either I'm doing something wrong...or my expectations of what the set is supposed to do is wrong. But on Tuesday, I'm pretty sure the set was not working at all.

Understand that “Block” means you block an attack from them. If they are not hitting you, you are not blocking them. Just holding block is called Bracing now.

BMedussa8 · April 2023

Ok, thank you for the replies and information. So in order for it to work, they (the enemy) has to be attacking....and from a distance that would be some form of ranged attack. Otherwise it would be hand melee and that would be too close and wouldn't work anyway. So an archer - should work on them and a Mage....but you can't block arrows and magic casting from those types of animations anyway. So is the set limited in both range/distance of the enemy and the type of attack? Since merely holding block (bracing) doesn't proc? What type of ranged attack can be blocked?

I guess I should add that I'm guessing that the set won't work on mini or main bosses so what types of enemy ranged attacks would it work on? Or should it work on a mage and an archer?

Necrotech_Master · April 2023

it should be able to work on any enemy that does a ranged attack that is not cc immune that hits you while you are blocking (and you take reduced dmg)

DoT is not blockable, so if an enemy hit you with a dot then you tried blocking, it wouldnt proc this set because the dot doesnt trigger block

most npcs use direct (single target or aoe) dmg so as long as you were blocking when the attack hit you, and the enemy was the correct distance, and also not cc immune (for whatever reason) then it would be pulled