Trick or Treat EB's despawning too fast

[MistressOhm]

I've been soloing EB's off of the Trick Or Treat spawns, and I've noted that they tend to despawn mid-fight.   I haven't narrowed it down to how long the fight goes on (seems to be random), but there's some factors that might come into play here:

 

• By design, they're supposed to despawn if no longer aggro'd.  This doesn't appear to be the case here, however.
• I'm fighting them predominantly on a Storm/Elec defender, L39-40 range, and as such, I have the EB's Slowed (Snow Storm), -Acc debuffed (Hurricane), Endurance drained (Short Circuit + electrical attacks) and often Feared (Thunderstorm, Freezing Rain).  This means they're not attacking, but actively trying to run/fly away, for most of the fight.  
• The ones that tend to 'vanish' are the Matriarchs and the Ghosts.  The Mummies usually stick around, as do the Vampires.  The Ghost Werewolves are iffy - sometimes they vanish, other times not.  
• I have had EB's duck into a handy doorway if debuffed and tossed nearby.  I'm assuming this is another way they despawn. 
• No matter how much damage is done, no XP is granted if they simply despawn or duck thru a door.  

[Faultline]

For documentation, every Halloween door spawn, from minions to EBs, spawn using the same AI string; there's no special handling of EBs and it couldn't be realistically added without rewriting the way TOT spawns work, which we didn't have time to this year:

 

FeelingBothered(100), RunOutOfDoor, Combat(NeverForgetTargets, TargetInstigator, EndCondition(TimeSinceIAttacked > 60)), RunIntoDoor(Timer(20)), DestroyMe

 

The first two commands make it run out of the door while aggroed. Then it enters Combat Mode, targets a player and refuses to let go of that player no matter what -- but if the critter doesn't attack for 60 seconds, the Combat situation ends. When the combat phase ends, it spends 20 seconds trying to run to the nearest door, then it despawns. Despawning in this way does indeed not grant any rewards.

[MistressOhm]

OK then that explains how this is happening, I'm debuffing the EB's to the point where they're UNABLE to attack for 60 seconds (no end, recovery nerfed, speed nerfed, Acc nerfed, ragdolled/KB'd, feared.) 

 

If I successfully shut them down right off, and then spend the rest of the encounter whittling down their health, they despawn mid-fight, but if they manage to get a few attacks off during that time, their timer resets and I can keep pounding them down.  This is why the behavior seemed 'random' in terms of health meters and time.

 

The minion/lieut/boss mobs don't last the full minute healthwise, so they never try to disengage.

 

It also explains why the Mummies are unlikely to despawn - they are very melee-centric, and immune to Repel, so they still try to engage even when debuffed.  The Matriarchs, OTOH, work from range, and most of their attacks have a high End cost.  Same with the Specters.

 

It's likely a serendipitous occurrence, seeing as the Storm Summon/Elec sets together do so much debuffing as well as End drain.  Most other powersets could accomplish some of that, but not all. 

 

SO... perhaps their debuff resistances need to be improved?  End recovery boosted?  Something that lets them fight on when a Stormfender shows up and tries to reduce them to a gym sandbag?  Increasing the Combat timer to a higher value would force them to fight on, but at the same time, being able to completely lock an EB out of attacking is a bit overpowered for a single character, too.  (No I'm not saying Nerf Stormfenders! just make the EB's harder to debuff.)

Edited October 12, 2022 by MistressOhm

[Faultline]

Nerf Stormfenders, got it. 👍

[MistressOhm]

... damnit, no.  That's not... ergh.  

 

SORRY GUYS.  PARTY'S OVER, HEF'S KICKING US OUT.

[Greycat]

Kinda-sorta related.

 

Remember the "If you get an EB you can't handle, run away and they'll despawn?"

 

Well, apparently the "run away" range also means if the *EB* is running away and your'e chasing and attacking... they'll duck into the nearest door after some point. Which is *really irritating.*

[MistressOhm]

2 minutes ago, Greycat said:

Well, apparently the "run away" range also means if the *EB* is running away and your'e chasing and attacking... they'll duck into the nearest door after some point. Which is *really irritating.*

 

Yah once the Combat phase ends for whatever reason, they have 20 seconds to reach a door.  Which for most ToT locations, there's doors all over the place (altho I did see an EB make a beeline for a door across one of the Founders Falls canals, even though there was a door ... right next door to where the battle was! So apparently 'door choice' is semi-random.)

 

If you keep it from reaching a door, it'll just poof once the timers run out... which is REALLY frustrating, because you're wondering, "did I drop it? Oh. It despawned. Phooey."

[lemming]

Not entirely sure it's related, but today was ToT in a league just working on the EB badges and occasionally, an EB would just disappear.  Not defeated, just fade out.  At first thought I was having targeting issues, but then traced them.   It was very similar to the bugged Winter maps in AE where the mobs despawned.

iirc, the PI instance on Excelsior was pretty full.

[SuggestorK]

7 hours ago, Greycat said:

Kinda-sorta related.

 

Remember the "If you get an EB you can't handle, run away and they'll despawn?"

 

Well, apparently the "run away" range also means if the *EB* is running away and your'e chasing and attacking... they'll duck into the nearest door after some point. Which is *really irritating.*

Yeah had that happen with one of the EB witches on my Bots/Dark MM, she eats EB for breakfast ^^ the -acc debuff seemingly was enough in that case