Two ADV level 90's - dragon slaying difficult

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Nikko, Dec 29, 2017.

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  1. Nikko

    Nikko Avatar

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    My friend and I (both ADV 90, plate-wearing tanks that can go blade and ranged) used to regularly kill the S. Grunvald dragon that resides up on the plateau. That is... we could do this before the recent changes to the defensive buffs (in R48, I think it was).

    We had great fun, and rarely had a death. He generally tanked it with bow for the high chance of critical damage dealt to the dragon, and I also hit with bow and heal him when he takes critical hits. Neither of us could likely solo this dragon, but together, it was great fun, and it worked wonderfully. (I think it normally took us maybe 5 minutes to kill this dragon)

    The tank here used the standard buffs; defensive stance, fortify defenses, and glancing blow, of course. I think he usually uses Shield of Ice for extra damage avoidance. Tank also has the standard defensive innates at 80+, like Bulwark of Earth, Sympathy of Stone (both in Earth Tree), and Deflection (Heavy Armor Tree).

    He normally has his wisp out for the debuffs. He is getting quite good at jumping over the tail swipe, etc. I think he has pretty close to 700 hit points when we begin the attack.

    I have 86 attunement in Life tree, using level 91 Healing Grace, level 83 Healing Blast, and 95 healing ray. My Life innates that help with potency are both at or above 80. I normally hit the dragon with Blinding Shot as much as often as I can while watching my friend's health.

    -------------------------------------------------

    Fast forward to the changes made in R48. I think one of the defensive buffs (Fortify Defenses?) had a bug in which it was doing more for us that it was supposed to. Also, they must have changed something about foes able to land critical hits at higher frequency, and with more potency in these critical hits, right?

    Last night, we tried to do our old tried and true technique, and my friend died after only about 15 seconds. That's not an exaggeration. Before we could do much, the dragon had hit him for 260, 450, and I think maybe even one more critical hit. This had pretty much never happened before. It could not have just been bad luck.

    I'm looking for some guidance on what we should do to adjust our style. I know Mac posted the videos of him soloing this dragon in our post-R48 world. That is definitely helpful (love you and your vids, Mac!), but I'm sure my friend and I *should* be able to kill this dragon together at level 90, and I am sure we should NOT have to be level 120+ to do this. It will take use literally years to get to level 110+, so that is out of the discussion.

    We both use plate mail only. Do we need to have the one that tanks it use a bone chest, and the rest plate, so we get to use "Evade" skill for more avoidance? This seems silly.

    How important are Blind and Fireflies? Is very high attunement necessary in the Sun and Moon trees because of these two skills' importance? I don't even see Mac using those skills in his newer Dragon slayer video.

    Is it critical to have damage avoidance on all pieces of armor that can have this attribute? We both wear a plate chest piece that is quite good with both fire resistance, and damage avoid (Thanks to the wonderful Scoffer and Shimizu!), but we just have "pretty good" armor on other than this chest.

    This difference between R47 and R48+ is so staggering that we're shocked, quite frankly. The game was getting really fun for us, and now I am not so sure. How can it be THIS different in one patch? I think they sometimes go a little too far with adjustments...

    Any feedback on ways we can mitigate these critical hits would be wonderful.

    Thanks.


    *edit* used a wrong word somewhere
     
    Last edited: Dec 29, 2017
  2. Jezebel Caerndow

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    The change that was made to fortify was, it was bugged and did not need to be hit by a crit to give you crit immunity. This was a bug, and very OP. They fixed the bug AND changed it from crit immunity to a reduction in crit damage. Right now there is another bug, and that is death shield is not working on the crit hits. When we used to have crit immunity, it made avoidance insane, but now that fortify is no long crit immunity, if you get hit with a crit, it is not glanced by avoidance, and you take full damage. You also cannot use 3 avoidance skills anymore, so my suggestion is ditch the shield of ice for death shield( even though its bugged) and use glancing and fortify for your avoidance. Make sure to cast defensive stance before you do your glancing, fortify, parry( Yes parry helps reduce the damage), as defensive stance buffs other buffs.
     
  3. Nikko

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    Thanks for your words here, Mac! Parry will not help if my friend is going bow, right? He would need to go blades?

    How do you feel about Fireflies and Blind? Possibly important, if we're still having trouble?
     
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  4. Timmy Vortex

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    If one person tanks.. it's a nice idea for you to debuff with blind and fireflies and heal. At least that's how we used to do it.
     
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  5. Jezebel Caerndow

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    OH right, ok if you have 2 people, one on either side for the bonus from the back, and yes fireflies will help a ton, and blind will help, just sucks you have to cast it every ten second, but with 2 of you there, should make enough of a difference to pay itself off.
     
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  6. Nikko

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    Thanks for the feedback. We'll have to try a few things. Offense is definitely not the concern (having the critical chance bonus of "shoot the foe from behind" is nice, but not what's killing us). Whatever it takes to mitigate the critical hits, we'll try. I just really REALLY hope players, and the glyphs don't continue to get the nerfy hammer just because 0.04% of the players are able to do things we were not intended to do. I can't stress this enough... the game NEEDS to be centered around players that are average, or slightly above average. Not the players that are obviously putting 10 to 15 hours every single day into this game.
     
  7. sgl2586

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  8. Alley Oop

    Alley Oop Bug Hunter Bug Moderator

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    fireflies was bugged in r48.

    that's fixed now, it should help again.
     
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  9. Trihugger

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    @Nikko - Use Heal over Time abilities. Soothing Rain, Elysium Illumination, and whatever the life tree spell is that escapes my very tired memory at the moment all stack. These spells combined with Death shield "feel" like you mitigate a TON of damage. Pain in the ass to recast Soothing Rain with plate armor but not impossible.

    It is a significant experience dump though to make them "good" as both the skill itself and attunement play a large factor in how useful they are.
     
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  10. Spinok

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    Hm if about pair - archer and tank
    Try x5 stacked healing grace, and lock healing touch(for critical situation), use shield of crystal, big ammount of Str and HP on a gear will help a lot, use potions, if you still dont tank use another over time healing stacked x5, ask you friend to put blind in a deck too, attacking glyphs - DOT+poison, Gems - healing/earth, harp +regen used, (For tank)
    Use fireflies, dont use auto attack, use maximum charged hits, dont spam by glyphs like aimed shot, use only X5 rapid shot (rapid usually will agro dragon so u dont need spam it) use x5 glyps ONLY under blind or if you sure that shot will be in the back, finally put healing blast in a deck as emergency for you friend. Gems - Healing, fleet flute. (For archer)
     
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  11. Solazur

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    Definitely one of those POV things.. it was working out just great for the mobs :)
     
  12. Numa

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    Great info in this thread - thank you.

    It sounds to me that it will take 3 lvl 90+ players now to safely tank the South Grunvald dragon. One healing/debuff & two tanks (in case one tank falls).
     
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  13. Nikko

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    Yes. Great info. Thanks all! I hope that we can make this work with 2 lvl 90's. I think we can. We'll keep on hammering at it and see what seems to be the best. Perhaps we're closer than we think...
     
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  14. Nikko

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    I'll try using more of these. I plan on having 80+ in attunement for ALL magic trees anyway. Well on the way to having that now as it is. Thanks for the advice.
     
  15. Nikko

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    Is it the general consensus that Blind, Fireflies, and Blinding Shot can be stacked? I could look, but am at work right now... I would think those three debuffs, combined with the wisp would be the best way to go.
     
  16. Rada Torment

    Rada Torment Community Ambassador (ES)

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    Blind is super usefull because the avoidance debuff (most of the bosses has high avoidance/dodge), but I'm not sure about the real effect of debuffing DEX to mobs. Will the dragon hits less crits with a lower DEX? tried hundred of times and we never saw any visible difference. Same with Blinding shots, these two debuffs are old topic and sadly nobody, literally, nobody in a year and half was able to explain how the stat-debuffs works in pve (mobs).

    One more reason why we ask for more official doc/info about combat explained by designers.
     
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  17. Nikko

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    Lower the DEX of a foe, it SHOULD be critically hitting less. I really hope that is the case.
     
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  18. StrangerDiamond

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    isn't it kinda strange if you can stack life and death buffs ? :p
     
  19. Alleine Dragonfyre

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    Great! I was getting very sad about how easy Dragons were to kill. Even sadder to see Dragon food sold by cooks for a pittance. Not anymore, it seems!
     
  20. Ravicus Domdred

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