Changed to Adamastor

[Arc-Mage]

Whatever changes that have been made to Adamastor need to be rolled back. A pick up team of 5 can no longer take him down.

 

I've experienced multiple team wipes now which has never happened before. 

[Psyonico]

The changes to GMs happened quite a while ago (I think at least a year and a half).  I have noticed I can't solo GMs on my Beam/traps anymore, or at least the ones I've tried to, but I think you're being a bit hyperbolic when you say a 5 man team can't take them down.  I've duo-pugged Adamastor and Scrapyarder still.

[srmalloy]

I've been part of five-character groups that have swatted Adamastor just in the last week. If he's a more challenging opponent, then that is a good thing, rather than him being just another roadbump in leveling. Could it be that your five-man PUG doesn't have the tactical sense to back away from Adamastor before he pulls his soul drain to heal himself?

[biostem]

40 minutes ago, Arc-Mage said:

A pick up team of 5 can no longer take him down.

And?  What makes you think any random selection of 5 players *should* be able to take down what is supposed to be a significant zone enemy?

[Glacier Peak]

I was struggling to solo him the other day and someone was nice enough to join me. I like that there's something out there that's challenging, even though it's designed for teams or larger. 

[tidge]

The major functional changes to Adamastor are IIRC (and if anyone wants to link to the details, please do! I can't seem to find the notes):

• It is a little bit tougher (resistance, health) than previously
• It has improved attacks, but nothing too crazy, except for
• It has a PBAoE self-heal, so standing in PBAoE range once it starts its Soul Drain is a bad idea.

Adamastor is one of the better GM revamps IMO. Some of the GMs have the most noticeable change that they appear to simply have been given more/stronger Resistances and more Health, so they've become more of a slog. Paladin has a clever trick for Endurance Drain/Damage, and Eochai is a flat out jerk now that it learned the player's trick for Bonfire slotting.

[Arc-Mage]

14 hours ago, Psyonico said:

The changes to GMs happened quite a while ago (I think at least a year and a half).  I have noticed I can't solo GMs on my Beam/traps anymore, or at least the ones I've tried to, but I think you're being a bit hyperbolic when you say a 5 man team can't take them down.  I've duo-pugged Adamastor and Scrapyarder still.

Yes, they did. But they just made the tougher. Or, Something broke. They are not the same as they where before the last update. 

[tidge]

1 minute ago, Arc-Mage said:

Yes, they did. But they just made the tougher. Or, Something broke. They are not the same as they where before the last update. 

 

As I wrote above: The biggest across-the-board change to the zone Giant Monsters (and I don't think all of them changed, or some didn't change much, aside from reward scheme *1) is that they survive fights longer, and in some cases got an upgraded attack (usually with a long recharge time).

 

Specific to Adamastor, because it takes more damage to defeat, it gets more opportunities to hit back... and now it's got some harder hitting attacks, plus a self-heal. That is it. The way RNG works, and the way ToHit works means that it is very likely that Adamastor will hit somebody after enough attacks... so somebody needs to be able to hold its attention and be able to survive its attack. This is a classic "Tanker" job, but because of the self heal (IIRC starts at 50% Health, then its on something like a 60 second timer) the "Tanker" can't stand toe-to-toe with the GM without risking it healing back up.

 

So yeah, strategy.

 

Also specific to Adamastor: there was some player-generated grief specific to it, related to camping, that you should know was a thing. Of all the Giant Monsters, it offers some the best rewards, although they are time-locked.

 

(*1) Babbage is as much of a punching bag as ever. If feels like Scrapyard only got more health. I didn't notice anything different about Goliath War Walker, Caleb or Deathsurge, and I am skeptical that the Kronos Titan got any changes made to it, as it isn't a standard zone monster.

[Ukase]

5 what? We took him down with 3 of us this morning. He's just so easy. He's like a pinata. But, to be fair, we were all level 50, and had incarnate stuff. With lore pets. 

 

[Shin Magmus]

On 10/19/2024 at 1:43 AM, Arc-Mage said:

Whatever changes that have been made to Adamastor need to be rolled back. A pick up team of 5 can no longer take him down.

 

I've experienced multiple team wipes now which has never happened before. 

     Adamastor "feels fine to me".  I've never failed to kill him a single time since the changes, and he's completely reasonable to solo as well.  If you need help, I can send my Illu/Traps Controller your way.  You could also just use Envenomed Daggers on those small pickup teams and be fine.  Groups actually were taking down the GMs too quickly and easily, so the devs buffed them after the initial changes!  GMs have a new auto power (Colossal) that causes them to gain Max HP in relation to the number of players around them; this is to directly counter big teams and leagues.  A small team of 5 circumvents Colossal and keeps Adamastor at base Max HP, so you actually had a fine shot at taking him down.  Maybe everyone on the team was just insanely weak?

[Snarky]

I recently noticed i cannot solo GMs and AVs the way that people say they do

 

 

Please change it so I can.  Now. Thank you. 

[Shin Magmus]

8 minutes ago, Snarky said:

I recently noticed i cannot solo GMs and AVs the way that people say they do

 

 

Please change it so I can.  Now. Thank you. 

     Done: the easy video game is now even easier so that there is no incentive to actually try to be good at it.  Everyone is Super!

[Snarky]

1 minute ago, Shin Magmus said:

     Done: the easy video game is now even easier so that there is no incentive to actually try to be good at it.  Everyone is Super!

[AmrasNotHere]

Perhaps you could go check out the benchmark to see if it's a separate issue other than the AV/GMs themselves. I haven't had any issues even after the changes.

Unless your character is specifically built to obliterate AVs/GMs then I see no issue, especially if the other 4 characters were lacking in the build/level/combo/attack chain department.

 

Good luck to your future attempts.

[Dev Unitas]

On 10/20/2024 at 1:30 AM, tidge said:

(*1) Babbage is as much of a punching bag as ever. If feels like Scrapyard only got more health. I didn't notice anything different about Goliath War Walker, Caleb or Deathsurge, and I am skeptical that the Kronos Titan got any changes made to it, as it isn't a standard zone monster.

Many of them are subtle, but we actually touched on every outdoor GM, including Kronos Titan.

 

Each one had the health increase (except Lusca), and almost every power's numbers were re-tuned significantly, with quite a few gaining a new power entirely. Some of the changes were certainly more subtle than others though; we didn't want to change GMs that were already decently powerful too much. GWW, Lusca and Kronos were good examples of that. In terms of some more general sweeping change examples, I believe all mezzes were increased in magnitude, and all summons were increased in their quantity.

 

I've been hopping into GM runs from time-to-time myself, to assess the strength of them in-context, and honestly my feelings have been that they've probably got more work to be done eventually - but not in the direction of making them easier.

 

Some GMs unfortunately still fall over a little too fast for the changes to be evident, or the powers are still a little too undertuned to be noticed- I think Kraken is a good example of that, with its new DoT aura (which was much scarier during earlier testing!), as may Jack be with his big Ambush attack, where he summons a number of Red Caps per player around him. Open to feedback on cases like those, where perhaps the power exists but its impact may be too subtle to be noticed. Eochai's bonfires were actually a good example of that- many people I've talked to or heard from think that the bonfires are new, when they were simply too low-impact to be noticed before the GM sweep.

 

Adamastor/Paladin are probably the ones I'm actually most happy with, since I spent a LOT of time working on those big telegraphed attacks, tweaking their tuning and clarity (not to mention Adamastor's 'tank buster', Begone!). If I'd change anything on those two fights on a whim, it'd probably be bumping up the impact of the team health scaling slightly.

 

By the way, as a tip on how to handle those two a little easier: They both have a type of mez that they're extra vulnerable to during the window between them beginning to use the power, and the power activating.

[tidge]

58 minutes ago, Dev Unitas said:

By the way, as a tip on how to handle those two a little easier: They both have a type of mez that they're extra vulnerable to during the window between them beginning to use the power, and the power activating.

 

[Shin Magmus]

    Somewhat related: we had 3 Paladins up simultaneously earlier in the month (not the only instance of GM spam) and formed a League to fight them all at once.  After beating Paladin #1, they lowered Paladin #2 and #3 to 50% health both in unison.  I had seen this coming and backed far away, but it happened: they BOTH activated Coil Drain at the same time.  This doubled the frequency of the Nega-Repel pulses so that people who normally jump back on reaction couldn't get away.  I saw at least 7 people instantly die and it was quite hilarious.

 

[tidge]

I want to write: I think the monsters are in a pretty good place, design-wise, right now. I especially like the Perception change to Kraken, and the limiting of rewards for Scrapyard and Adamastor, as those were out-of-control... Scrapyard more than Adamastor, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

 

The areas I think perhaps ought to be looked at next, before considering any combat tweaks relate to interaction with the game engine and game world. The sore spots for me:

1. The Arachnos Flier gets 'stuck' between point Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 landing zones.
2. Caleb has a little too much stealth.

Both of those being fliers, are IMO the source of the issue... being fliers is ok, but the AI pathing of fliers in the game is... peculiar.

 

Finally, the Grim Vale event is easy to mess up. Again, flying Cabal that are not defeated and prevent the event from respawning is a thing, but the other mobiles can end up far from the vale too.

 

I have also noticed that during the Halloween event the following issue: Outside of Halloween, defeating the Giant Monsters and then any stragglers would reset the Grim Vale event (via the zone message about Monster activity). Recently, it appears that the if the Giant Monsters are defeated in the Grim Vale before any of the level-less spawns, defeating the level-less spawns does not reset the vale (no message about Monster Activity is sent). I wonder if this is because the zone also has timers for supernatural activity and Zombies, plus whatever the timer is for Sally and the two zone wanderers.

[Arc-Mage]

On 10/20/2024 at 8:04 AM, Snarky said:

I recently noticed i cannot solo GMs and AVs the way that people say they do

 

 

Please change it so I can.  Now. Thank you. 

Snarky, You know you're really only funny when you're making fun of anyone other than me? 🙂

[Shin Magmus]

For reference, and since it's SPOOKtober currently, here's my Illu/Traps Controller soloing Halloween Eochai in just under 2 minutes (in Boomtown).

 

I used Amra's Build Benchmarks restrictions as well, so:

No Insps

No Active Incarnate Powers (except Destiny for survival)

No Active Accolade Powers

No extra temp summons or attacks of any kind

No passive temp powers that boost Damage or Recharge

 

 

[Videra]

You used Phantasm, so clearly this invalidates your solo. 😇

[Jacke]

17 hours ago, tidge said:

1. The Arachnos Flier gets 'stuck' between point Gamma 1 and Gamma 2 landing zones.

 

Anyone taken down the Arachnos Flier in Mercy Island?

 

 

[Rudra]

15 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

Anyone taken down the Arachnos Flier in Mercy Island?

 

 

You can't. It can't even be targeted.

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, Rudra said:

You can't. It can't even be targeted.

 

You can target the Arachnos Flier in Mercy Island.  However, you can't attack it, you can't even use Power Analyzer on it, and as it flies around, it sometimes disappears, to show up later elsewhere.  It's also called a Transport.

 

 

Edited October 22 by Jacke

[Rudra]

18 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

You can target the Arachnos Flier in Mercy Island.  However, you can't attack it, you can't even use Power Analyzer on it, and as it flies around, it sometimes disappears, to show up later elsewhere.  It's also called a Transport.

 

 

Odd, because I could never target it. And I flew to it to make sure it wasn't anything on my end. (Edit: And while it has been a bit since I last tried, I'm rather sure I was hitting the Tab key to try to target it, not an attack key.) (Edit again: Scratch that "rather sure" part. I was definitely hitting the Tab key to try to target it.)

 

Edited October 22 by Rudra