Suutak' platform in Well of Aldur

So, I already asked for the focus drain system to be removed for good or replaced with something more reasonable, to no avail.

Now I'm kind of negotiating a middle ground

Can you guys add an obvious hint shortly before the zaps go down? I mean, some visual effect on the floor, with the radius of the effect, 2 or 3 seconds before it lands.
The visual effect can be some cool sparkles, or just a bright air magic decal on the floor.
This would make it a bit less frustrating for me and others, I believe.

I think with this kind of design people will find out what's the challenge faster, and the fights will be more fun compared to what people currently do, which is basically stand on a zap spot and don't move at all.

 

Has anyone ever posted their method for defeating the Air Elem's there ?

 

I can get through the first wave using Shield of Air and Passive Stance. The hardest part is getting the lightning started, which seems to require that you kill an air elemental first.

 

The only time I was able to defeat Suutak I was in a group of 8 which had cleared The Breach and went to Aldur after that. Everyone standing on the exact same spot the whole fight and some tanks venturing to lure the mobs closer. When Suutak spawned, healers were overloaded because every hit was 50-75% of HP gone. When it aggro'd me, I got killed almost instantly.
Despite taking a lot of effort and a top level group, it was a fairly boring fight mainly due to the high risk of moving around and missing the next zap.

 

What is this "zap" of which you speak ?

 

The lightning strike that grants a buff bigger than the focus drain debuff. If memory serves me well, its name is zap when you hover the mouse over its icon.

 

You absolutely have to stand at one of the lightning spots in order to survive.

 

Does the spot change from time to time - or is it always in the same place ??

 

I had heard this thing about lightnings/scorch spots - we were never able to find any sort of mitigator for the focus drain, regardless of where we stood, in lightning or no, in scorch mark or no, for any amount of time. Honestly we assumed it was broken and figured the only way to clear this would be to throw enough pets at it to kill-before-killed. This is what frustrates me. There's no sort of indicator of ANY kind that there's ANY way to mitigate what is a bit of a BS mechanic completely crippling your focus pool down to zero (because we needed MORE anti-mage zones!) , there's no hints about it, or puzzle to solve, or even reliable way to "figure it out" - we have walked every inch of that platform, stood in every lightning bolt, and nothing happens and focus never goes up. The fact that this is the ONLY source for a crafting recipe is downright rage inducing. So if there is some sort of "gimmick" or "trick" to it, and its confirmed to be actually working - I'd love to know. Nobody I've spoken to has been able to confirm this, its always been a large group zerg situation.

And if there is actually a working mechanic, I'd love to know how that was worked out, considering we spent hours in here without successfully identifying a reasonable "spot to stand." Which if there is, I ask, has it been tried RECENTLY, because well...its Sota, and things break, and when something doesn't appear to be working, its cause it usually isn't =/


EDIT: I'm actually now getting reports from people that this is indeed broken/not working as intended at last attempt. Guess I missed out on getting this recipe when this was doable.

 

It’s probably not working correctly. Would need a dev to check and confirm it is working as intended.

 

Their positions are fixed but they fire randomly.

 

I don't see this getting fixed anytime soon. The usual practice is to abandon things after they've been in for a week or two, then randomly come back to them when somebody who has a dev's ear mentions it's still broken, triggering responses in the vein of, "It's broken? Why didn't anybody say anything?"

 

well, yes. this thread is the first i've heard about it. nobody's posted in the bug forum.

 

Not many people do that platform because it's not fun.

 

I just went over to test it. The lightning seems to be working as it always has for me solo. You actually need to be hit by the lightning to get the countering buff. And the buff rarely lasts until the next lightning strike.

It has always been finicky in groups. I've seen it where the lightning never showed up and we needed to leave scene and come back for it to work. And even when it seems to be working in groups I've felt like I only got the effect of lightning strikes about half the time- I always attributed this to not being scene master and drank a boat load of potions.

It should be noted though that Chris told us in a stream several months back that he recognized no one wanted to do this wave battle because everyone hated the focus drain and he was going to change the mechanic to make it less punishing. Then as so often happens..... nothing was heard again.

 

I was referring to the second scenario, not the first. I should have been clearer, but my post was dour enough on its own.

 

This ^^^

And this ^^^

And this ^^^

And most especially, this ^^^

 

Ok so!

7 of us (with our trusty crocodiles, wyverns, and earth elemental pets...) have gone out to try this.

The good news -
the zap buff does work


This was not happening last time we tried this (about a month ago). So that's a plus.


The bad news - even if you all stack up and stand right on the spot in the scorchy thing -


The buff is not continuous, and most of the time, you are still staring at zero focus, with someone playing 6stack bard song to try and squeeze enough juice off to keep the menagerie of pets healed.

The really bad news - the drop rate is awful. There's a ton of adds and the only way this has been manageable has been with like, a zoo of pets.

But it at least is working. Sort of.

Still not fun. Standing here watching no focus, hoping for a drip to cast a skill, and getting chainlightning blasted repeatedly...definitely not fun.

 

Agree completely !

 

I got pretty much the same experience as you. Party crammed on a single spot, hoping for the best.

The mobs and boss there are tough enough on their own, the focus drain must have been some dev fever dream.