Ward: Defend the Midnight Mansion

[Wavicle]

This mission is so stupidly, unfairly difficult. It is NOT properly balanced. It is Incarnate level difficulty at level 40. Fix this absolute pain in this ass trash mission.

[Six-Six]

whaaaat??? no way. It's one of my favourites as it is.

[Wavicle]

I should be more specific: the LAST part of it. Defeat the Ravenwing Cabal. THAT part is bullshit. Everything before that is fine.

[Six-Six]

You can get some of the midnighters to help if you bring it near the mansion. But don't bring it too close to the respawn (hospital) that you'll get insta-killed before you get any toggles up. And focus on him, don't mind the spawns/adds.

[Rudra]

Once upon a time, I would have agreed about the Ravenwing Cabal. Then I figured out how to kite them, even with a melee toon. If I kited them long enough, usually I could separate them, and destroy them individually. If I couldn't, as soon as my health was high enough again, I'd hit the more wounded, and then resume running until my health was high enough again. This was even more true with a ranged character. ... Never tried the mission on a controller or dominator though....

[Wavicle]

Just now, Rudra said:

Once upon a time, I would have agreed about the Ravenwing Cabal. Then I figured out how to kite them, even with a melee toon. If I kited them long enough, usually I could separate them, and destroy them individually. If I couldn't, as soon as my health was high enough again, I'd hit the more wounded, and then resume running until my health was high enough again. This was even more true with a ranged character. ... Never tried the mission on a controller or dominator though....

To me the fact that you had to resort to that kind of tactic is proof that I’m right. The final fight is tuned too hard.

[TheZag]

Does the mission text warn that the mission is higher difficulty then normal and to bring a team?  If it does then its fine.  If not then the text should be added and the mission unchanged.  Its not really reasonable to go in a mission that tells you to bring a team and then be irritated that someone had a hard time soloing it.

Edited January 28, 2022 by TheZag

[MTeague]

I love this mission as-is.

 

I will concede that this mission is *very* difficult to solo unless you drop the difficulty.

I have solo'd it on a Tanker at +2x4.  It also took For-Fookin-Ever.  (not an exemplared 50, a legit lvl 35 Inv/SS tank, although heavily IO'd for his lvl)

My scrapper trying it at +1x3 still got her face ripped right off.       (same, not exemplared 50, a legit lvl 34 scrappy, also twinked with attuned IO's)

 

So if soloing is your thing, this is one of the rare missions where I say you know what, swallow some pride, drop it to +0/+0, and get it done. 

It is not impossible to team it, but you won't find standing teams for it. You'll need to put out a "Hey can anyone help me with this?" call.

 

Re: the Ravenwing Cabal. They do a charge-up / big whammy PBAE. Do not just stand in one place. Joust them. Particularly if your difficulty means you get like 5 of the at once.

Edited January 28, 2022 by MTeague

[A Cat]

Can confirm it is hard. I used cheese strats of hitting and running iirc on my scrapper and stalker solo runs. 

[Wavicle]

4 hours ago, TheZag said:

Does the mission text warn that the mission is higher difficulty then normal and to bring a team?  If it does then its fine.  If not then the text should be added and the mission unchanged.  Its not really reasonable to go in a mission that tells you to bring a team and then be irritated that someone had a hard time soloing it.

I WASN’T solo. The last fight is overtuned.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Wavicle

[golstat2003]

Nah it's overtuned if you're having that much trouble with a team. A warning really should be put on it. 

[Apparition]

This is one of the few missions where I just auto-complete and move on with my day.

[Crasical]

Remind me of what the last fight entails? My memory is saying that that's a fight where you have to take on two Elite Bosses at once, two members of the Ravenwing Cabal, but I might be misremembering an one is only a boss.

[TheZag]

1 hour ago, Wavicle said:

I WASN’T solo. The last fight is overtuned.

 

Sorry, i meant for someone to mean anyone.  Wasnt intending to direct it towards you. 

 

Ive gone solo on this mission and it was really hard and a team of 3 was hard.  Several deaths but the hospital is in the mission.  I cant see a team of 8 having any difficulty at +0 though.  And mission difficulty is meant for +0.  So on a mission that is supposed to be hard,  going above +0 will make it very hard.  I would say -1 exists for this purpose.

[BurtHutt]

I take no issue with harder missions. I am tired of going through stuff where the team blows through it without issue. 

 

I really do feel the incarnate powers are a detriment to the game. I know the Devs wanted to add end-game stuff but that's just it: there will always be a situation where you hit end game. You have to be careful when adding to it. Giving us incarnate powers has, somewhat, broken the game. 

[Wavicle]

This is a mission in Night Ward. It maxes out at 40 I believe. Incarnate powers are not part of the discussion.

 

 The final fight had 4 +1 Elite Bosses. The mission was set on +1 x3. It was me and 1 other person.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Wavicle

[Wavicle]

My teammate and I are level 39, not exd down 50s.

[Wavicle]

We managed to complete the mission using tactics similar to what others described. Pulling and kiting. But it was way harder than it should be, imo, at +1 x3.

[MTeague]

11 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

This is a mission in Night Ward. It maxes out at 40 I believe. Incarnate powers are not part of the discussion.

 

 The final fight had 4 +1 Elite Bosses. The mission was set on +1 x3. 

Yea.  My tanker soloing it at +2x4 had five Ravenwing Cabal on him. Honestly, I wasn't sure he was going to make it at a few points, until I realized I could simply move out of the area of thier big whammy attack. Then gradually the curve started to favor me, and I began to wear one down at a time.  The whole crowd was on me the whole time. I never split them or pawned them off to the Midnighters.  But, that was a tank, and I still had to ration my cooldowns, carefully watch my inspirations, etc. 

 

For a team.... I can definitly see it ripping up a crew of folks who aren't used to the Wards, or who tend to ignore incoming damage because all too often the game lets you get away with that. It doesn't take to much to mentally put a triangle onto the field, and each time they start charging up their big whammy, you move to the next tip of the triangle, fight them there, see them charging, move, fight them there, etc.  Lord knows I dealt with vastly more annoying mechanics in WoW raids. 

 

I still don't feel the mission needs adjustments. 

I do think it's a big challenge, which it advertises itself to be, in the mission text that no one ever reads. 

I do think it's something that may take a small team a few tries until they begin to learn how to coordinate their defense powers, and avoid standing in bad.

Edited January 28, 2022 by MTeague

[golstat2003]

6 minutes ago, MTeague said:

Yea.  My tanker soloing it at +2x4 had five Ravenwing Cabal on him. Honestly, I wasn't sure he was going to make it at a few points, until I realized I could simply move out of the area of thier big whammy attack. Then gradually the curve started to favor me, and I began to wear one down at a time.  The whole crowd was on me the whole time. I never split them or pawned them off to the Midnighters.  But, that was a tank, and I still had to ration my cooldowns, carefully watch my inspirations, etc. 

 

For a team.... I can definitly see it ripping up a crew of folks who aren't used to the Wards, or who tend to ignore incoming damage because all too often the game lets you get away with that. It doesn't take to much to mentally put a triangle onto the field, and each time they start charging up their big whammy, you move to the next tip of the triangle, fight them there, see them charging, move, fight them there, etc.  Lord knows I dealt with vastly more annoying mechanics in WoW raids. 

 

I still don't feel the mission needs adjustments. 

I do think it's a big challenge, which it advertises itself to be, in the mission text that no one ever reads. 

I do think it's something that may take a small team a few tries until they begin to learn how to coordinate their defense powers, and avoid standing in bad.

 

You should not mentally have to do that. The game should show you on the ground where it's going to hit. It's been done before in this game. And other modern games like FFXIV and other single player games do that.

 

Or am I misunderstanding and it does show where it's going to hit if it's an AOE? I vaguely thought I remembered this but reading the rest of this thread after my last comment, it's not the mission I first remembered.

[BurtHutt]

24 minutes ago, Wavicle said:

This is a mission in Night Ward. It maxes out at 40 I believe. Incarnate powers are not part of the discussion.

 

 The final fight had 4 +1 Elite Bosses. The mission was set on +1 x3. It was me and 1 other person.

Yes, I know. I just kinda went off on a tangent. I am tired of easy mode in this game. I say leave the mission as is.

[Rudra]

It's 1 EB plus 1 EB per player or team size setting. So 2-9 EBs. They give warning of their big attack, but no, there is nothing to indicate area to be hit. If you dash back a little, like maybe 10 feet, the big attack should miss. It's the regular hits like a freight truck attacks that keep me running and kiting them. I tend to play squishies though.

 

(I also usually don't have any enhancements except for a few attuned IOs I managed to buy.)

Edited January 28, 2022 by Rudra
Edited to add last line.

[Wavicle]

2 minutes ago, Rudra said:

It's 1 EB plus 1 EB per player or team size setting. So 2-9 EBs. They give warning of their big attack, but no, there is nothing to indicate area to be hit. If you dash back a little, like maybe 10 feet, the big attack should miss. It's the regular hits like a freight truck attacks that keep me running and kiting them. I tend to play squishies though.

Yea, I don’t think the numbers or ranks should change, they just hit too hard.

[Wavicle]

In fact, comparing to the last fight of the last mission of Heather's arc in DA, I rest my damn case. This fight is overtuned for level 40.

[Communistpenguin]

I don't recall having an issue with this on my defender? If its too hard for you, lower the setting, that's why we have adjustable settings.