Greetings everyone! A couple of observations I have made while testing the most recent live build.
First is the most obvious change that I noticed about the Avatars “buff”. It seems Set in particular has far more power than the others, and not by a small margin. I tested on several structures and Set is not only able to attack up to 30 times in the duration of his summoning (standard 1 minute summon), he simply one-shots every tier of foundation. Now this may not be a bug but intended, and if that is the case it should be noted that I also tested every other Avatar available to the live build.
Ymir took 3 attacks to destroy the same section that Set was able to destroy in a single attack. The results were similar with Mitra. Yog’s damage was slightly higher than Mitra and Ymir’s. However, Yog’s slightly higher damage may be due to his constant “standing on target” destruction cloud ability.
Either Set is accidentally over-tuned or the other Avatars are extremely inferior in damage and (aside from Yog) mobility. If this is intended, Set is always the avatar to summon. You get 30 attacks (if you do not have to move him - 1 attack every 2 seconds) and a high degree of mobility.
Silent Legion Boss - First thing I’d like to mention here is how impressed and happy I am with how @Devs you guys made the fight so much more interesting with the AI and animation fixes. Trying to fight him melee is a lot more fun now, and deathy. So on to the observed issue with his encounter… You can stand on the railing (ample supply within his arena) and just shoot arrows at him and he will stand still while accepting each arrow you gift to him without complaint.
I understand it is a choice to either “cheese” him or fight him up front (I did both for testing), but as I doubt it is the intent of the designers for his encounter to be so easily relegated to a non-encounter that the devs consider giving him another way to attack players he can not reach, but otherwise engaged in. I do not know the complexities of coding required to make it so he doesn’t “forget” he is being attacked and just stands still, but would instead get close enough to use his AoE attacks. – Personally I liked EverQuest’s solution to the “cheese” of players… Each powerful boss in the game could just summon you to them if they couldn’t reach you. However that may prove too strong for the Silent Legion Boss, as he is a mean ■■■■■■■ in melee.
Tier Building Damage Resistance - Not much to say on this one other than every weapon (including unarmed) of every tier can currently damage every tier of every structure. I’m not certain if this is intended or not, but if it is… It causes a major security concern for non-offline raid protected servers. – I can see instances of people just setting up a simple keyboard macro or mouse macro to have their character punch through a tier 3 base, it may take a couple of hours, but if no one is online the damage will be done, granted people should have thrall defenders, but unless people know to build their security out with the new damage changes… it could cause some serious issues.
TL;DR
-
Set Avatar is overly powerful right now, able to attack once per two seconds and each attack destroys any tier it hits, whereas the other avatars require at least 2-3 hits and each get far less attacks.
-
Silent Legion Boss AI does not react correctly (or at all really) while someone is standing on the railings in his arena to shoot him with arrows. The player is completely safe from any harm as he just accepts arrows to the kne-- I mean face.
-
Tier Building Damage Resistance needs consideration imo. Even unarmed attacks damage Black-Ice structures.