Pumpkin patch needs a severe nerf

[Dev Unitas]

Separately from the Lusca stuff I wanted to confirm that the damage ticks for the Pumpkin Patch will be getting a minor reduction for players and significant reduction for pets in an upcoming patch.

[Sunsette]

4 minutes ago, Dev Unitas said:

Separately from the Lusca stuff I wanted to confirm that the damage ticks for the Pumpkin Patch will be getting a minor reduction for players and significant reduction for pets in an upcoming patch.

 

Appreciate your openness to input, clarity about the fact that you would look into it whatever the result, and the information about steps that ended up being taken. It's very nice to see. Thank you. 

[Lockely]

4 hours ago, Dev Unitas said:

 

After assessing the power with my co-devs, I'd say Tentacle Smash is WAI in terms of how hard it's hitting and its general behaviour. In this case, the tank of the team should be facing the tentacles away, communicating that they're the tank, and people who are going to complain about group fly should have it disabled via Null (and that's their fault if they haven't).

 

From what information you've given me there's also the possibility that the issues you're having are actually to do with Lusca's head shooting ink (which was retuned during the GM sweep), not the tentacles, could you clarify if that is being considered?

 

It's possible, A lot of times I'm flying above my bots without Group Fly and I'm not seeing exactly what is nuking them, only they're there literally one second and gone the next very shortly after engaging. There's often so much going on that it's very hard to tell what effects are coming from the boss vs players. I am targeting *only* the tentacles though and I keep the bots on Defensive. I usually never have any trouble once we get to the head option.

I will say that on Everlasting at least, the coordination for taking down Lusca is very often "[LFG] Lusca is up in IP, who wants to go beat up a big octopus?" and then people pile into the zone and just join a league. A scant few words are shared for newcomers and then we just take her down one tentacle at a time with basically "Here" or "Same" being the only communication at that point forward.

If you consider the fight working as intended, then it is what it is and I'll have to be content spending most of that GM simply resummoning and popping blues while everyone else actually gets to fight, as I simply cannot control the direction my PUG tank is going to aim it and I don't have a telegraph to react to, and my bots clearly cannot tank it for us. Thanks for looking into it!

[Dev Unitas]

24 minutes ago, Lockely said:

I will say that on Everlasting at least, the coordination for taking down Lusca is very often "[LFG] Lusca is up in IP, who wants to go beat up a big octopus?" and then people pile into the zone and just join a league. A scant few words are shared for newcomers and then we just take her down one tentacle at a time with basically "Here" or "Same" being the only communication at that point forward.

As someone else who plays on Everlasting predominantly, while that definitely does happen, it's not the only way it can happen, even in PUGs, and individuals in groups should encourage the selection of a specific tank, who players pay attention to the direction of.

 

Regarding MMs on a more general level, I can't say anything regarding hypothetical changes to them because I'm simply not a Powers Dev, it's not the area I work in. I can say that we are aware of their particular set of issues, though.

[Shin Magmus]

1 hour ago, Dev Unitas said:

As someone else who plays on Everlasting predominantly, while that definitely does happen, it's not the only way it can happen, even in PUGs, and individuals in groups should encourage the selection of a specific tank, who players pay attention to the direction of.

 

Regarding MMs on a more general level, I can't say anything regarding hypothetical changes to them because I'm simply not a Powers Dev, it's not the area I work in. I can say that we are aware of their particular set of issues, though.

I appreciate your work on the GMs.  I also play on Everlasting, but I don't GM Hunt on a random character who is subject to the rules of what the enemy does.  Instead, I GM Hunt on my Ill/Traps where I play by a set of unfair rules that greatly disincentivize even having something like a Tank, because they'll just overlap with my Phantom Army and be subject to taking dmg (pointlessly).  I'm sure that with a more evenly balanced (or random) mix of ATs, it might be necessary to strategize like you mean and aim the Tentacle Cone for example.  I definitely think that such strategies are cool in theory and appreciate the work you did on the fights.  But anecdotally... I can power through and ignore the mechanics of almost every GM this patch and only have to respect 2 or attacks in any way (such as Paladin's Coil Drain, which I dodge).  Even the Arachnos Flyer, which should be VERY difficult for Illu Control because of the swarm of adds, was not hard for me to solo.  I haven't even finished my Incarnates all to T4 yet, nor are they truly optimized for DPS, because I still play the character on some other content.  Here is a recent video of a GM that people maybe don't fight as often, Deathsurge:

 

I am glad you're listening to the player feedback and nerfing Pumpkin Patch in relation to MM pets, and I'm glad that multiple people are getting what they want.  However, I just want to make it known that against the power level of players with optimized builds... GMs are still too easy.  What I personally think after hunting every GM inn the game multiple times over the past 2 weeks... I think GMs need to be buffed even more both offensively and defensively.  Several of them should also have Hamidon-esque properties where they can damage Phantom Army directly or do something like forcefully phase out a Player, thus truly requiring teamwork from multiple players.  It's my opinion that the ability to casually solo almost every GM in about 3 minutes still, means they have not been tuned upwards harshly enough.  Is that a consensus among all players and all devs: certainly not!  Yet, I feel my video speaks for itself.

[Parabola]

4 hours ago, ShinMagmus said:

I appreciate your work on the GMs.  I also play on Everlasting, but I don't GM Hunt on a random character who is subject to the rules of what the enemy does.  Instead, I GM Hunt on my Ill/Traps where I play by a set of unfair rules that greatly disincentivize even having something like a Tank, because they'll just overlap with my Phantom Army and be subject to taking dmg (pointlessly).  I'm sure that with a more evenly balanced (or random) mix of ATs, it might be necessary to strategize like you mean and aim the Tentacle Cone for example.  I definitely think that such strategies are cool in theory and appreciate the work you did on the fights.  But anecdotally... I can power through and ignore the mechanics of almost every GM this patch and only have to respect 2 or attacks in any way (such as Paladin's Coil Drain, which I dodge).  Even the Arachnos Flyer, which should be VERY difficult for Illu Control because of the swarm of adds, was not hard for me to solo.  I haven't even finished my Incarnates all to T4 yet, nor are they truly optimized for DPS, because I still play the character on some other content.  Here is a recent video of a GM that people maybe don't fight as often, Deathsurge:

 

I am glad you're listening to the player feedback and nerfing Pumpkin Patch in relation to MM pets, and I'm glad that multiple people are getting what they want.  However, I just want to make it known that against the power level of players with optimized builds... GMs are still too easy.  What I personally think after hunting every GM inn the game multiple times over the past 2 weeks... I think GMs need to be buffed even more both offensively and defensively.  Several of them should also have Hamidon-esque properties where they can damage Phantom Army directly or do something like forcefully phase out a Player, thus truly requiring teamwork from multiple players.  It's my opinion that the ability to casually solo almost every GM in about 3 minutes still, means they have not been tuned upwards harshly enough.  Is that a consensus among all players and all devs: certainly not!  Yet, I feel my video speaks for itself.

I'm wondering if this isn't better evidence that phantom army is a problem rather than that the GM's need more buffing?

[Shin Magmus]

It's both.  There are regular old Melee builds who can just grab some Envenomed Daggers and solo most GMs as well.