Noble Savage NEEDS balancing

[SaltiestStoryteller]

I play a Mind Control/Time Manipulation controller in Praetoria. I'm level 19 and have just taken the Resistance mission to recruit Noble Savage.

 

Thing is, I have reached the point where you have your second fight with him ('Meet Once More With James Noble') and I literally cannot out-damage his regeneration. I have tried every possible approach, including popping as many damage and accuracy buffs as I can carry and while that did allow me to bring him close to half health once, he instantly healed everything I had done to him and by then, my inspirations had run out. I am convinced there there is literally zero possible way for a controller to win this fight and there isn't even a warning in place that you may need more than one player to beat the mission. Noble Savage is just a regular boss for crying out loud and I have blown through my entire stamina bar twice in the course of the fight!

[Major_Decoy]

I did that arc with my Tank. I have two attacks and brawl, I used only defensive inspirations (blue, purple, green). Is it possible that you're supposed to talk to him instead of fight him?

[SaltiestStoryteller]

Talking to him initiates the fight and from there I'm pretty much screwed. You have to beat him into submission before he'll listen to you, but I defy any Controller to do enough damage to counter his regeneration, much less his heal.

[Overclock]

This isn't quite fair to players without influence, but have you tried using Envemoned Daggers? 

 

They're available from the P2W Vendor in Nova Praetoria and they pack an enormous amount of -Regen (500% if memory servers). That should be plenty enough to let you outpace his regen.

 

I'll admit, it's not a great answer since people shouldn't be dependent on temp powers, but it is an option for getting past him if you're stuck.

 

Or you can team with someone and the extra damage they bring should do the trick (though again, not a great option with how sparsely populated the gold zones are).

[50caltech]

there are always a way around hard quests or bosses/ elite bosses etc......,  first lower the difficulty rating of the mission, if needed, down to minus 1, and or out level the quest/mission by one level, so that you are a higher lvl higher with more hit points....

or just auto complete the mission to get thru it....., plus the addition of added helpers if you really wish to fight him that badly.....fyi....you will encounter him at a higher level in the first ward quests as an friend....

[Leogunner]

Are you using the free prestige enhancements with the damage procs?

 

Also, just a general inquiry: does the -regen from Time Crawl stack with multiple applications?

 

You might also be able to slightly cheez the mission by grinding to level 20 and then trying the mission again and it will remain at the level you picked up the mission.  It also comes with the option to pick up Time Stop which is more -regen you can stack with Time Crawl.

[Seigmoraig]

Lower the difficulty of the mission, remove Arch Villians and Elite Bosses when Solo and get Envenomed Daggers from the P2W vendor.

If that fails you might have to group with someone, some content is more tailored to group play

Edited December 3, 2019 by Seigmoraig

[Coyote]

On 11/8/2019 at 11:05 PM, SaltiestStoryteller said:

Talking to him initiates the fight and from there I'm pretty much screwed. You have to beat him into submission before he'll listen to you, but I defy any Controller to do enough damage to counter his regeneration, much less his heal.

Post your build, also. To be honest, Time Manipulation is really not at all helpful with regards to doing more damage, but he shouldn't have AV-style resistance to debuffs, so Time Crawl should seriously gimp his Regeneration.

Go to the P2W vendor and get the power that reveals enemy stats, see what his Regeneration rate is, and see what it drops down to once you apply Time Crawl. You also have access to Time Stop at level 20, if you're willing to do other missions or grind the experience to get there. Combined, the two are -150% Regen, and even if he has higher than normal Regen this should lower it by a good factor.

 

Also, let's see how you have your powers slotted... it certainly should be possible for MOST Controllers to outpace his regen, but it may require options such as buying Damage procs to put into the Hold power(s), Panacea and Performance Shifter procs to maintain the attack chain, etc. I could see an Ice/Empathy being stuck, but Mind does more damage, and while Time Manipulation isn't great, it does help a bit with the -Regen.

 

Lastly, an interesting trick: RAISE the difficulty level in number of mobs, but not level. Like, try +0x4. Try to get a Boss in the area, then Confuse the Boss... pull Noble Savage to the Boss, and you'll get a lot of DPS added. You do have to switch targets and maintain the Confuse on the boss, but the DPS gain is well worth the time to activate Confuse.

[Erydanus]

On 12/11/2019 at 12:33 PM, Coyote said:

it certainly should be possible for MOST Controllers to outpace his regen, but it may require options such as buying Damage procs to put into the Hold power(s), 

General comment regarding controller damage at low levels - actually a low level controller soloing has no need to slot their holds for hold, or even accuracy as they are baseline 90% accurate not 75% accurate. They should be adequate to keep your typical lieutenant and occasional boss locked down completely empty out of the box. A soloing controller should slot them (as well as the single target immobilizes and mind's single target sleep) as blasts, primarily with damage;  with containment this returns 2:1 the benefit. Damage scaling keeps getting less favorable but even in the range of 15-20 stuffing 4 damage DOs into those tier 1-3 controller powers should be pretty reasonable.  You don't even need to mess with procs, though of course that's an option for when you have $$ and are at higher levels where the return people tell me exceeds the value of a damage enhancement. 

 

So, I would expect a mind controller to simply be hitting Noble Savage with Dominate, Mesmerize, and Levitate over and over and waste him handily. However the claim is his regen is bordering on bugged, and that I can't speak to, especially since the OP stated they ate lots of inspirations and generally that is the right answer to a weirdly tough foe.

 

---

 

Update so I hopped over onto test and took a level 20 controller equipped with DOs into Oro and did that arc. His regeneration IS very high, he has fast healing and integration. While I could do good damage to him, he did in fact heal back pretty much all the damage in my Dom-Mez-Lift chain continuously  (24+24+32 and containment - sometimes; keeping him confused so he didn't fight back was easier than holding him.) I was stacking Time Crawl and Time Stop on him as much as I could and that helped but not enough; I was forced to hit him with an envenomed dagger at which point it became a non-issue and he dropped fast.  As you can see from my power analyzer screen shot it doesn't look that high, though once he was injured integration flared up and started healing about 6.5 hp/second. That doesn't sound good but actually - that's almost enough to exceed uncontained controller damage at that level.

 

The thing is, though, you see how fast his regeneration is in the encounter before this, and the envenomed dagger isn't a rare recipe you have to craft anymore, it's stock on the P2W vendor and I think it's there for exactly this type of situation.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Erydanus
added actual test result

[JPax]

On 11/9/2019 at 12:56 AM, SaltiestStoryteller said:

I play a Mind Control/Time Manipulation controller in Praetoria. I'm level 19 and have just taken the Resistance mission to recruit Noble Savage.

 

Thing is, I have reached the point where you have your second fight with him ('Meet Once More With James Noble') and I literally cannot out-damage his regeneration. I have tried every possible approach, including popping as many damage and accuracy buffs as I can carry and while that did allow me to bring him close to half health once, he instantly healed everything I had done to him and by then, my inspirations had run out. I am convinced there there is literally zero possible way for a controller to win this fight and there isn't even a warning in place that you may need more than one player to beat the mission. Noble Savage is just a regular boss for crying out loud and I have blown through my entire stamina bar twice in the course of the fight!

Morana, blue side, try that with a melee pet based MM. It's as bad. She has dark armour's dark regeneration and just...fills back up off of a couple targets, if not a single one.