Celtic Heroes

In response to player feedback, here are some changes we are looking to make to improve the fun of boss kills and to reduce things like instant kills of tanks and lack of spawns, but still keeping them a challenge.

falgren bloodbinder:
storm of wrath damage halved, chance of casting it doubled, now can be interrupted
follow range increased from 30 to 40 (so he has less chance of resetting)

starspell:
storm of wrath damage halved, chance of casting it doubled, now can be interrupted
follow range increased from 30 to 40

spirehoof:
death charge damage havled, chance of casting it doubled, range increased from 5 to 8, now can be interrupted
follow range increased from 30 to 40

chillmist:
frost lance damage halved, chance of casting it doubled, slightly less interuptable
follow range increased from 30 to 40

fellfire:
firestrike damage halved, chance of casting it doubled, made more interruptable
follow range increased from 30 to 40

all bosses:

spawn frequency increased by 50%
average dicsc drop reduced by 50%

Any feedback feel free to post, we will be implementing the changes in a patch tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

I know this doesn't have much to do with this but, how about adding some other loots? So that bosses can drop weapons/ armour as well as dropping fragments?

I support these changes.

I know this doesn't have much to do with this but, how about adding some other loots? So that bosses can drop weapons/ armour as well as dropping fragments?

I agree, although it would have to be either the same or better then disc armour which could pose a problem. Also, I'm not so sure I'd like increased spawn rates if you're going to reduce the disc drop rate in the same way. It seems the statistics would still be the same in terms of drop rates. Other then that, I'm glad to see the attacks being reduced because getting one hit is no fun.

In order to improve bossfights you might need to change some mechanics like:

• Monster skill casting bars
• Skills that instantly interrupt (not just random attacks, its for both players and mobs)
• Decrease casting times for buffs/heals
• Increase casting time for powerfull boss attacks
• Skills are set in cooldown when interrupted
• Much, much faster energy regeneration (I will keep saying this because after 1 minute the fight is just a boring gamble without energy pots)
• Lose skill cost energy while being interrupted
• Move while casting (crowd control and positioning is a fun element in MMO's)
• AoE attacks/spells for both players and bosses (encourages positioning)

Now this would really create a boss fight that requires skill, and is fun at the same time. A random fight would look like this:

A clan is killing some random mobs while they stumble upon this giant Druid. As the giant Druid starts to cast a spell that would damage all nearby clan members for 50%, the Rogue teleports to the boss and interrupts his cruel spell. The Rogue receives a heavy blow and tries to get to his healer. The two Mages unleash a firestorm on top of the Druid, but the Druid tries to walk away. The Ranger reacts by crippling the boss (never put a 100% stuck spell in a game, makes combat boring. Just 50% is ok for tactical gameplay). As the friendly Druid heals the Rogue, the evil Druid casts a sandstorm at the frienly Druids location interrupting all spells forcing him to leave the Rogue to die. One Mage freezes the giant Druid for a few seconds, giving the Ranger a chance to revive the Rogue. As the giant Druid comes back to his senses he starts to cast the cruel spell again. This time the Rogue fails to interrupt him because teleport was still recharging. The party is heavily damaged and the friendly Druid has a hard time keeping up with the heals.

As the giant Druid gets near the friendly Druid, the Mages cast a shielding spell on the Druid to avoid damage and interrupts. The Ranger uses his Light heal to deal with the pressure as finally the Rogue strikes his final blow.

I know, I keep saying the same things over and over. But really, the ideas aren't that bad are they?

I sure hope this works. We have been struggling with the big bosses in Sulis, using way too many Idols.
Thanks for the tweaking,
Tog

As someone who fights a fair number of bosses, many of the suggestions would help. One hit kills obviously are tough to heal for.

Some other things to consider.

1. Boss drop of discs has been considerably lower since patch. Last 6 bosses we killed on corm only dropped 1-2 discs and moon is most common. Reducing disc drops from that would just stink. You will get lots of complaining I suspect if it is typically just 1 all the time. Be better to just drop the warden armor verse 1 disc.

2. Fellfire is probably most difficult boss because of the fire shield. Essentially you can't melee him. Two Druids full time healing can't keep up over time with that. He has high resist to fire and ice, which he is normal to, is a slow spell.

3. Make them not move so much. We can not dynamic attack on the move, so this makes tanking hard. Also, point 4 will talk about bolo and root.

4. the other bosses require good tactics and healers. My problem is that the Bolo skill is essential it seems for all bosses. Maybe with less damage that will change, but according to forum and our servers, bolo is must. Doubling cast rate most likely means it will become even more important. For the record I do have a ranger and this skill is great, but lets be honest. If pvp comes, rogues and warriors will be useless. Either root or bolo, kill at leisure.

Some thoughts only.

The proposed improvements sound great and should make it a lot easier for players to get their hands on the best gear in the game.

One thing I would like to point out is that all of these bosses have been killed without using potions or elixirs even after the recent patches. Here's a pic of our recent kill (bottom of the page). It was frustrating for a while to figure out a strategy that worked but to me that makes the victory all the more enjoyable. The reason I bring this up is because I enjoy the challenge and hope that bossing doesn't become super easy and unchallenging.

Halving the damage of the "instant-death" attacks sounds reasonable.
- With 300+ magic resist and around 2000 hp I've been able to tank a Storm of Wrath hit before but more often than not it meant instant-death.

Doubling the chance of casting "instant-death" attacks makes sense to balance the halved damage.
- In many boss fights the heavy damage skill is cast right after a lighter damage skill in a sort of 1-2 combo. So that combo will still be formidable, which is a good thing.

Allowing the instant-death attacks to be interruptible sounds pretty good too.
- As long as they still have the chance to be cast while taking damage from multiple players it shouldn't be too big of a nerf.
- But don't make it too easy, we still want a challenge.

Increasing the follow range should help tremendously with Kiting.
- But it could make the Ping-Pong strategy a lot harder, especially on Falgren. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Doubling the spawn frequency sounds perfect! This is easily my favorite proposed change.

Halving the average number of disc drops doesn't sound so hot.
- For most boss kills we get 1 disc with the rare chance of getting more than 2.
- This means the maximum number of discs dropped per kill will be 3 instead of 6.
- Instead consider making the drop rate fixed at 3. Just a thought.

i kinda think if we get interuppted in stuff we cast because somethings 1/6 times it actully casts maybe it should be same for bosses

I agree with the several other people who mentioned that the reduced disc drops would not be such a good idea. Even as it is now, two discs is usually the most that bosses drop (on gwydian at least). It can get frustrating when people put so much time and effort into killing bosses like bloodbinder and then are lucky if they get 1 disc out of several boss runs.
But anyway the reduced skill damages from the bosses sounds like a good idea. However the thing is, if the damage is halved, and speed doubled, the damage output is basically the same. The only advantage it would be adding is a bunch less of one hit kills. But in the end, i suppose even that is better than nothing, so it works for me.