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Tweaks to Shadowguard Rooms, specifically Belfry

Restless

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@Kyronix I know it has been mentioned before in some other threads about some issues with some of the shadowguard rooms and some tweaks have been made (such as the overwhelming spawn in the fountain) but I know a lot of people have been having issues with the belfry and was seeing if a change or 2 could be made with it. Here is the issue with it... if u take 1 guy in there, then u ring the bell and kill the 2 drakes, get a wing (hopefully) and fly up to fight a mean greater dragon that is a tough fight for 1 person. I tried with my tamer, after 25 mins I got the greater redlined but couldn't finish him off because he heals too much. if u take 2 or more people then u ring the bell, 2 drakes spawn per person, and u get a wing, hopefully a couple or more, but if u only get 1 then u have to go up to fight the dragon alone (since it has a 1 minute timer and u have to use it then) and that person has to contend with the dragon (unless they have hiding) while the others on the ground ring the bell again, with more drakes, and some of those drakes spawn on the person on the ledge also, so that person has to fight the dragon and the drakes (unless they have hiding) while the rest of the group keeps trying to get a wing from the drakes... then, if the entire group gets up there, and someone gets knocked off, they have to ring the bell again and a bunch more drakes spawn all over the place as that person attempts to get a wing again. the whole encounter is a pain.
there are a few possible tweaks to make this encounter a little less irritating:
1- just spawn 2 drakes per bell ring. u may need to ring a few times to get the keys u need in the beginning, but if someone gets knocked off then they just have to contend with a couple drakes to get back in the fight.
2- make timer on the magic drake wing significantly longer, this way the group can collect the wings and fight the dragon all at once
3- make the dragon knockoff thing have a timer on it, if u manage to stay on the ledge for 5-10 seconds without falling off then u get to stay on the ledge
4- remove the dragon's healing, trying to do all this mess in 30 minutes is hard enough, a lot harder when he is healing as much as he is at the end.

I know there are certain players that can do this fight, a disco tamer probably does well at it, but I would like to think that the 1st 5 rooms of shadowguard are like gathering keys to a peerless and would like it if most players and templates can handle them solo or with 2 characters. and then a bunch of players that have completed them on their own time can team up and take on the roof together. if the arty droprate on the roof was 100% then the room and roof difficulty may be worth the time, but currently I know a good amount of people that won't bother spending all the time and frustration for a chance at nothing.
 

Smoot

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how powerful is this dragon? maybe try a different character or bring a group with a mix of templates. normal greater dragons only take around 20 seconds to kill on sampire / thrower / archer.
 

Restless

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Significantly harder than normal. Took my greater about 25 mins to get it close to dead but couldnt finish it off because of it's healing, and my dragon is a fully trained 4.2 and i had to constantly heal him with spells and bandies the whole fight. The encounter is just a few too many variables to deal with, almost no leeway, everything has to go almost perfectly to succeed.
 

drcossack

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Significantly harder than normal. Took my greater about 25 mins to get it close to dead but couldnt finish it off because of it's healing, and my dragon is a fully trained 4.2 and i had to constantly heal him with spells and bandies the whole fight. The encounter is just a few too many variables to deal with, almost no leeway, everything has to go almost perfectly to succeed.
You were doing it wrong then. I don't know what shard you play, but I'd guess you have easy access to SDI pieces. I managed the other night on my tamer with 75% SDI & a Dragon Slayer spellbook. It did take a while, but my GD (a 4.3) was only there to keep its attention off of me, since I did more damage, at roughly 130 per EBolt.

If you're a mystic, you'll get the job done even faster, since you have Hailstorm. However, I would recommend you do it on a myst/tamer - when the Belfry's Greater hit me with its firebreath, I took 86 damage with 57 Fire Resist.

how powerful is this dragon? maybe try a different character or bring a group with a mix of templates. normal greater dragons only take around 20 seconds to kill on sampire / thrower / archer.
It's got the normal range of skills and resists for a greater, but much higher HP (somewhere over 10k, but only slightly.) An Archer & Thrower would be able to do it easily as long as they keep moving. A Sampire should too, but it'd probably be a little difficult given the enhanced HP.
 

Merus

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Just increasing the drop rate for the wings would be enough. Going in with a party of 5/6 it can take most of the encounter time to get enough wings to keep people engaged with the dragon.
 

Ender

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The greater seems really difficult to me. All 120 skill Bushido paladin with 100 HLL but no healing, and even popping evade then confidence I end up dying. I've been on a long break but still, I didn't think I'd gotten that bad. It's more than just absurd HP right?
 

Lord GOD(GOD)

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The Greater Dragon in Belfry is a Parragon.

The problem I've been having is the Fountain encounter, there's not enough spawn to connect the pieces in the time limit, tried 3x now, unless I'm just being really unlucky with the distance of the drains and the pieces that drop.
 

Ender

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I thought so. I don't really remember ever having issues with those either. Maybe it's just all the extra health?
 

DJ Diddles

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I agree on most parts, but I think the biggest problem with the belfry is something you didn't mention. I understand it's part of the challenge that the dragon has to push you around when you're hitting it, but does it really need to unflag you, every single time? If we could just stay flagged without having to re-initiate attacking the dragon (especially at low life, when he will almost constantly bounce you back), this just seems beyond the scope of difficulty here. I'm already solo'ing a paragon GD. I'm already managing to not get knocked off. Just let me keep hitting it. :)
 

Merlin

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2 people can do Fountain very easily. No changes needed there, IMHO. One person focus on killing and the other focus on building. Good to have atleast one mage who can throw up EV's. (and I've done this with some rather poor players).

Belfry needs more wings to drop.
 

drcossack

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2 people can do Fountain very easily. No changes needed there, IMHO. One person focus on killing and the other focus on building. Good to have atleast one mage who can throw up EV's. (and I've done this with some rather poor players).

Belfry needs more wings to drop.
Seconded. I first cleared the Fountain with a Cu, although it didn't one-shot very many of the water eles...or hit them as often as I would've liked @ GM Wrestle. When I helped a sampire with his Belfry, wings were hard to come by. In my solo run, they weren't. Could just be confirmation bias though.
 

Merus

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2 people can do Fountain very easily. No changes needed there, IMHO. One person focus on killing and the other focus on building. Good to have atleast one mage who can throw up EV's. (and I've done this with some rather poor players).

Belfry needs more wings to drop.
The problem with the fountain room isn't that it cant be done with fewer people, its that it cant be done with a full party... go in with 6 or 8 people and see how long you last. Yes you can bust up the party and go in small groups... but isnt that a little counter intuitive for an MMO?
 

Merlin

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The problem with the fountain room isn't that it cant be done with fewer people, its that it cant be done with a full party... go in with 6 or 8 people and see how long you last. Yes you can bust up the party and go in small groups... but isnt that a little counter intuitive for an MMO?
In orchard, one person can do all the work and everyone else can just sit back and get basically a free pass on the room. I think its a nice mix that some, like fountain, you have to do in smaller parties. Armory is more difficult in largers numbers as well.

Aside from the lack of Drake Wings that drop in Belfry, most of the Shadowguard rooms have good balance overall.
 
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Merus

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In orchard, one person can do all the work and everyone else can just sit back and get basically a free pass on the room. I think its a nice mix that some, like fountain, you have to do in smaller parties. Armory is more difficult in largers numbers as well.

Aside from the lack of Drake Wings that drop in Belfry, most of the Shadowguard rooms have good balance overall.
To me, I think the objective should be to have the right balance so that it isn't really harder or easier based on the size of the party.

For all of the lower level encounters you can have one person completing the encounter:
Bar: 1 person can gather and throw bottles while the remainder of the party fights the Pirates.
Orchard: 1 person collects and documents apples while the rest fight spawn.
Armory: 1 person purifies phalactories while the rest fight spawn.
Fountain: 1 person lays canal while the rest fight spawn.
Belfry: 1 person fights dragon while the rest fight drakes or heal from the floor.

For all but the fountain, we had no issue with parties of 5-7... But the fountain room was really not manageable with a party that size. IMO, it is out of balance.

The belfry could also use a tweak to the wings... Longer timers or increased drop rate... If you have a large party but half are up on the pedestal it leaves a lot of drakes for only a few people to kill... Which usually means you stop ringing the bell and they just wait for the ones up top to kill the dragon... Doable, but could be improved on.
 

Riyana

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The belfry is irritating on a tamer. The only way to get your pet up there with you seems to be to relog.
 

CovenantX

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The Drake Wing is 100% drop-rate per ring of the bell, one of the drakes WILL have it.
 

Restless

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Well only 1 wing per bell still sucks. And sucks a lot more for larger groups
 

fajico

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1) It would be nice if the drake wing has brighter hue so it can be more visible in the messy corpse.

2) It would also be nice if drake corpses decay faster. They quickly pile up around the bells and make opening each corpse a bit annoying.

3) Timer on the feeding bells to be reactivated should be cut by 10 or 15 seconds.

4) I died by the GD's breath when i was falling off the platform and my corpse got stuck between the platform and the floor and I couldn't reach my corpse from either the platform or the floor.

-----
5) Can the devs fix the issue that you get off mount every time you go back to the lobby after leaving the rooms ? This is very annoying.
 

sirion

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Definitely a lot harder to solo (myst/mage/bard). I discorded the GD, dropped RC on it. Dragon was almost constantly dispelling RC's! Mana can run low real fast.
Took me several rounds going down and up. Almost had the GD...but then 30min timer was up. Gonna switch tamer next.
 

Dot_Warner

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Malag and I tried Shadowguard tonight...

Bar - Kinda boring, IMHO.. Just way too repetitive.

Orchard - Not every wrong throw needs to spawn a treefellow, it quickly gets silly, but is quite doable.

Armory - Not mage friendly, but doable. I'd lower the armor spawn rate downward slightly.

Fountain - This was actually fun. I'd like to see more of this in UO. But then I like the pipe games.

Belfry - Ugh. Up the spawn rate of wings, sextuple their lifespan. Halve dragon HP regen rate.

Each tower boss should have the potential for a drop.
 

MalagAste

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Malag and I tried Shadowguard tonight...

Bar - Kinda boring, IMHO.. Just way too repetitive.

Orchard - Not every wrong throw needs to spawn a treefellow, it quickly gets silly, but is quite doable.

Armory - Not mage friendly, but doable. I'd lower the armor spawn rate downward slightly.

Fountain - This was actually fun. I'd like to see more of this in UO. But then I like the pipe games.

Belfry - Ugh. Up the spawn rate of wings, sextuple their lifespan. Halve dragon HP regen rate.

Each tower boss should have the potential for a drop.
I agree by the time I got a wing Dot wouldn't get one.... then I'd go up there last second and I couldn't even scratch the thing.... then when I die there is no way back to my corpse since it's up there and I'm down below.. had to waste charges on my staff not really nice. But even in Enemy of One with AI and a dragon slayer bow I wasn't even moving it's healthbar at all.
 

Dot_Warner

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More Belfry - The drakes seem to get tougher the more you have to call for, which makes it all take longer... which saps the fun.. what little there is in this tower
 

Promathia

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Did it for the first time the other night with a group of 8 people

Belfry: Had no issues whatsoever

Bar: No issues again

Orchard: I think this one is my favorite.no issues

Armory: Again no issues

Fountain: We had to split into groups of 3. Anything over that resulted in the room within seconds getting completely out of control. Our first attempt with the full group of 8 was hilarious.

Roof: No issues here either. Anon was the toughest by far, but each boss was handled pretty well by following mechanics.

4 out 8 people got a drop.

Besides the Fountain, everything scaled to our group well. The drop rate seems good vs the number of people there. The whole encounter seems quite worthy to be considered the top of UO's PvM endgame.

I also appreciate the fact that you have to complete the full encounter to get an artifact, and you cant just try farming one of the easy wings.
 

fajico

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Overall, Shadowguard is unreasonably time-consuming and frustrating in some points.

The roof alone takes 1 or 2 hours or even more, so what's the point of forcing players to complete those grindy 5 encounters every time they try it...??? Also, if your party failed to complete the roof, then all your work is just wasted. If it's only 30 mins or so, it's fine you can accept it and try again, but if it's 1 hour or 2 hour... no, you're just left with a huge disappointment and you can't accept it.

The Bar: Liquor bottles should spawn more and faster. Bottles should be able to thrown directly from the table. Sometimes I hit myself in like almost 15 times in a row, not sure if it's just RNG or there's some trick, but the rate is simply outrageous and should be lowered.

The Orchard: I like this, it's fun, the puzzle is random and gets fresh every time you try it. You don't have to kill mobs at all to meet the objective, it's purely a puzzle. You can finish it in 5 mins, no force wait, no frustration. All the other encounters should be like this.

The Armory & The Fountain: Spawn seems to be on a timer basis and that's a bad idea because if you can kill them faster then you have to wait till the next batch spawns, if you can't handle them well and once you start failing then the spawn quickly gets overwhelming and out of hand. Just change it to the normal spawn mechanism - new one spawns when the previous one is killed. Then adjust the maximum amount of mobs that spawn in the room accordingly to the party size. This way you can solve the balance/difficulty issue and also remove the frustration factor(force wait).
It would be nice if hurricane elementals dropped straight pieces - chance to finish the encounter faster by taking on harder mobs.

The Belfry: Just let the GD die when its HP goes below 500. This way you can remove the last minute huge frustration while still keeping it reasonably challenging.

The Roof: Anon and Ozymandias's wrestling skills are just crazy, should be lowered a bit. Maybe they're designed as more defensive type bosses, but they seem to just end up being super time-consuming and the fight is not fun at all. There should be a limit or a cooldown for the bosses's ability to summon mobs, I don't know exactly how the bosses AI's are working, but you shouldn't leave it entirely to RNG, sometimes 20+ mobs are summoned in just 10 seconds or so... impossible.

I'd willingly accept even lower drop rate for the arties as a trade-off if the amount of time required to complete the whole Shadowguard encounters are drastically reduced.

Lastly, I'd like an official comment on how exactly the party size affect the difficulty of The Roof encounter and also how exactly luck affects the drop rate of the arties, is it the top damager's total luck when the final boss is killed ? How is the top damager is determined in this case ? Only the last boss or the 4 bosses combined ?
 

Merlin

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4 out 8 people got a drop.

Besides the Fountain, everything scaled to our group well. The drop rate seems good vs the number of people there. The whole encounter seems quite worthy to be considered the top of UO's PvM endgame.

I also appreciate the fact that you have to complete the full encounter to get an artifact, and you cant just try farming one of the easy wings.
Wow... that's excellent drop rate!

Overall, Shadowguard is unreasonably time-consuming and frustrating in some points.

The roof alone takes 1 or 2 hours or even more, so what's the point of forcing players to complete those grindy 5 encounters every time they try it...??? Also, if your party failed to complete the roof, then all your work is just wasted. If it's only 30 mins or so, it's fine you can accept it and try again, but if it's 1 hour or 2 hour... no, you're just left with a huge disappointment and you can't accept it.

The Bar: Liquor bottles should spawn more and faster. Bottles should be able to thrown directly from the table. Sometimes I hit myself in like almost 15 times in a row, not sure if it's just RNG or there's some trick, but the rate is simply outrageous and should be lowered.

The Orchard: I like this, it's fun, the puzzle is random and gets fresh every time you try it. You don't have to kill mobs at all to meet the objective, it's purely a puzzle. You can finish it in 5 mins, no force wait, no frustration. All the other encounters should be like this.

The Armory & The Fountain: Spawn seems to be on a timer basis and that's a bad idea because if you can kill them faster then you have to wait till the next batch spawns, if you can't handle them well and once you start failing then the spawn quickly gets overwhelming and out of hand. Just change it to the normal spawn mechanism - new one spawns when the previous one is killed. Then adjust the maximum amount of mobs that spawn in the room accordingly to the party size. This way you can solve the balance/difficulty issue and also remove the frustration factor(force wait).
It would be nice if hurricane elementals dropped straight pieces - chance to finish the encounter faster by taking on harder mobs.

The Belfry: Just let the GD die when its HP goes below 500. This way you can remove the last minute huge frustration while still keeping it reasonably challenging.

The Roof: Anon and Ozymandias's wrestling skills are just crazy, should be lowered a bit. Maybe they're designed as more defensive type bosses, but they seem to just end up being super time-consuming and the fight is not fun at all. There should be a limit or a cooldown for the bosses's ability to summon mobs, I don't know exactly how the bosses AI's are working, but you shouldn't leave it entirely to RNG, sometimes 20+ mobs are summoned in just 10 seconds or so... impossible.

I'd willingly accept even lower drop rate for the arties as a trade-off if the amount of time required to complete the whole Shadowguard encounters are drastically reduced.

Lastly, I'd like an official comment on how exactly the party size affect the difficulty of The Roof encounter and also how exactly luck affects the drop rate of the arties, is it the top damager's total luck when the final boss is killed ? How is the top damager is determined in this case ? Only the last boss or the 4 bosses combined ?
Almost all of your suggestions call for making this encounter easier... and I simply have to disagree. It's nice that all of the encounters vary in difficulty and take a fair chunk of time to complete. This new content shouldn't be something we can just completely steam-roll over in an hour. Larger groups want a challenge in this game and these new Shadowguard encounters represent that. Also... after you do it a few times... the time it takes to do all the encounters should be dropping drastically. Took my group full 8 hour day the first time, and now we can do all encounters (including roof) in 2 - 2.5 hours if all goes right and we efficiently complete all of the rooms.

If you want easy, there is plenty of other farmable content.
 

Kyronix

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Lastly, I'd like an official comment on how exactly the party size affect the difficulty of The Roof encounter and also how exactly luck affects the drop rate of the arties, is it the top damager's total luck when the final boss is killed ? How is the top damager is determined in this case ? Only the last boss or the 4 bosses combined ?
There is no direct scaling in the roof for party size, having more helping hands will certainly make the encounter less challenging, especially if you are well coordinated.

Each individual that winds up on the final legend's top attacker list as a result of damage taken, damage dealt, and damage healed from that legend has their own chance at getting an Artie. The luck stat of the individual can help to increase that chance.
 

Merus

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Each individual that winds up on the final legend's top attacker list as a result of damage taken, damage dealt, and damage healed from that legend has their own chance at getting an Artie. The luck stat of the individual can help to increase that chance.
Does being in/out of a party impact each individual's chance? What about luck in a party? Calculated individually, random party members luck applied to all, or group luck average?
 

fajico

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Almost all of your suggestions call for making this encounter easier...
No. Actually, I'm fine with "difficulty level" of Shadowguard. What I'm asking for is making it less frustrating and time-consuming. "Difficulty level" and "time required" to complete a content are two separate things.

Took my group full 8 hour day the first time, and now we can do all encounters (including roof) in 2 - 2.5 hours if all goes right and we efficiently complete all of the rooms.
2 - 2.5 hours for me is simply too long. And as I pointed out, if you spend 1 hour to kill the first 3 bosses and died to the final boss, your 1 hour is just wasted. If this happens to you 3 or 4 times in a row, I don't know if you can still retain your opinion.

If you want easy, there is plenty of other farmable content.
I don't want anything "easy". I actually like PvM contents that's hard and challenging but I don't like it if it's too time-consuming. If being easily farmable is something not desirable for the devs, then I suggest put a limit or a cooldown on it. I'd be completely fine if Shadowguard can only be completed once per day or even once per week.
 

Kyronix

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Does being in/out of a party impact each individual's chance? What about luck in a party? Calculated individually, random party members luck applied to all, or group luck average?
Individually calculated regardless of party.
 

Riyana

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No. Actually, I'm fine with "difficulty level" of Shadowguard. What I'm asking for is making it less frustrating and time-consuming. "Difficulty level" and "time required" to complete a content are two separate things.


2 - 2.5 hours for me is simply too long. And as I pointed out, if you spend 1 hour to kill the first 3 bosses and died to the final boss, your 1 hour is just wasted. If this happens to you 3 or 4 times in a row, I don't know if you can still retain your opinion.


I don't want anything "easy". I actually like PvM contents that's hard and challenging but I don't like it if it's too time-consuming. If being easily farmable is something not desirable for the devs, then I suggest put a limit or a cooldown on it. I'd be completely fine if Shadowguard can only be completed once per day or even once per week.
I disagree with throttling it. If someone wants to do it 6 times a day, and somehow can, more power to 'em.

I do agree that it is brutally time consuming for many players though. If each mini-boss had a chance of a lesser reward (only the FIRST time you did it before completing the roof to discourage farming the easier ones) it might help make it less grindy. Working through the entire Shadowguard, then the roof, and getting nothing at all is pretty discouraging.
 

Merlin

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2 - 2.5 hours for me is simply too long. And as I pointed out, if you spend 1 hour to kill the first 3 bosses and died to the final boss, your 1 hour is just wasted. If this happens to you 3 or 4 times in a row, I don't know if you can still retain your opinion.
I guess you never played any original Nintendo or other games where this is exactly what happens. Sometimes you fail and don't get anything for it. Not every encounter or piece of content should have a trophy waiting at the end of the road.

2-3 hours is fairly short. More difficult encounters should take extra time. Just my opinion, but no part of the Shadowguard encounter should be nerfed so as to be able to be totally completed in one short sit down. As with other things, if you can't invest the few hours, you're S.O.L. There is other content available you can do in less an hour.
 

Ender

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I think the only tweaks that are really necessary are spawn rates and artifacts need to have a reduced chance of dropping in the pre-roof encounters. Just make it so if they're green for you arties won't drop.
 

drcossack

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No. Actually, I'm fine with "difficulty level" of Shadowguard. What I'm asking for is making it less frustrating and time-consuming. "Difficulty level" and "time required" to complete a content are two separate things.


2 - 2.5 hours for me is simply too long. And as I pointed out, if you spend 1 hour to kill the first 3 bosses and died to the final boss, your 1 hour is just wasted. If this happens to you 3 or 4 times in a row, I don't know if you can still retain your opinion.


I don't want anything "easy". I actually like PvM contents that's hard and challenging but I don't like it if it's too time-consuming. If being easily farmable is something not desirable for the devs, then I suggest put a limit or a cooldown on it. I'd be completely fine if Shadowguard can only be completed once per day or even once per week.
Really? I did two runs (second one start to finish) with @sibble and a few of his guildmates yesterday and it didn't take us very long. The roof took us the most time, but even that wasn't bad, all things considered. I think the second run took us about 1:30-ish?

For Ozymandias, Virtuebane, and Juonar, you can just beat the hell out of them. Anon is only "hard" until you figure out how his Earth Elemental form works.
 

sibble

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Your progress is saved through server restart. You don't have to do The Bar all the way to The Roof in one sitting as opposed to some other games where you're forced to grind it out or fall behind.
 

sibble

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BTW, to address topic.

I've done Belfry both by myself and with a full party in ~3 minutes. If I had to rate rooms on their difficulty, Belfry would be by far the easiest room. This is also based on what character template I run - sampire/tank. I could imagine Belfry being a more difficult room for tamers.

You guys really need to keep attempting and figuring out strategies before saying things need to be adjusted. It's just too early to post strats. We're on week 2.

Not every character template is going to be the "right" template for every room. I personally do not think this entire encounter was made for people to run up and solo it. I think it's made to make people play together. However, the rooms leading up to The Roof *CAN* be solo'd. Some character templates will have a hard time soloing certain rooms, where others will excel at, but isn't that like everything else in the game?
 
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Xanthril of LA

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BTW, to address topic.

I've done Belfry both by myself and with a full party in ~3 minutes. If I had to rate rooms on their difficulty, Belfry would be by far the easiest room. This is also based on what character template I run - sampire/tank. I could imagine Belfry being a more difficult room for tamers.
I hope you are not saying that you have soloed belfry in about 3 minutes. That doesn't seem possible. Even in a group, I can't see doing in about or under 3 minutes.. Perhaps a typo? I have attempted belfry on my own multi-clienting and have not yet been successful with a variety of templates. But tamers are the focal point of the damage, which does present its special challenges. I tried on my best dexxer (no necro, but otherwise similar to a sampire tank) and I quickly dismissed that as an option given the beating he took. Perhaps I was rusty with him or have forgotten a strategy that I should remember, but I didn't see that as a decent option. I guess I'll give it some thought and think about what I am forgetting. Please feel free to PM me if you want to enlighten me. Thanks.
 

MalagAste

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BTW, to address topic.

I've done Belfry both by myself and with a full party in ~3 minutes. If I had to rate rooms on their difficulty, Belfry would be by far the easiest room. This is also based on what character template I run - sampire/tank. I could imagine Belfry being a more difficult room for tamers.

You guys really need to keep attempting and figuring out strategies before saying things need to be adjusted. It's just too early to post strats. We're on week 2.

Not every character template is going to be the "right" template for every room. I personally do not think this entire encounter was made for people to run up and solo it. I think it's made to make people play together. However, the rooms leading up to The Roof *CAN* be solo'd. Some character templates will have a hard time soloing certain rooms, where others will excel at, but isn't that like everything else in the game?
While I could solo most of these fine on my Bushido/Chivy/Archer there is no way I can even do the Belfry on him. I stood up there and couldn't even scratch the dragon with EoO and AI and he took all of 2 bites to drop me like a rock.

The big complaints I have about the Belfry are if you die up there there is no way to get back up to get your corpse without getting another wing which is almost impossible without your bandages which are of course on your corpse... As a Tamer I found this annoying as all get out since then I was reduced to just casting heals on my pet... until I could get another wing.. and the drop rate on the wings is abysmal.... basically ONE wing in each batch of mobs from the bell. Which means if you bring more than one person well you'll be there ages to get everyone up on the pedestal and then if anyone dings the bell while someone is up there then you sometimes get the ONE with the wing spawning up on the pedestal with the person already up there. Which is totally useless. Was extremely difficult to get more than one up there at a time if you don't have hiding either... and the wings don't last long enough in your pack to wait and get one for other party members. Would be ok if you were with people who could do something from below like a mystic casting a colossus up there or whatever but an archer standing toe to toe isn't going to happen. Might have gone better with an archer and a tamer if the tamer went up first but again only being able to go one at a time is just insane.

And Yes it takes the right templates blah, blah, but think about places like Siege where you only have ONE character and therefore ONE shot at doing it and you really don't have much choice as to what template you can take. And it's not like I can do the rooms on who's the best for each room I have to do them all on ONE character... Which given my choices I chose to use my Tamer.... But then the end bosses on the roof were just too much.

I had fun for the most part with much of it just some of it is more frustrating than fun. Likely I'll wait to finish the roof till there are more folk to go with... but like others I won't want to spend 1.5 hours doing it and get nothing. I'll do that once maybe twice after that I'll be as done with that as I am with Despise and Covetous.
 

sibble

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Correct, 3 minutes....

I'm just not willing to give information out freely yet. I've been farming this hardcore since before release, there's a reason why. To be honest, there are still undiscovered things that I don't know yet that would make The Roof encounter easier. No one's going to know everything right off the bat. Unless you're @Kyronix :p
 

drcossack

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I hope you are not saying that you have soloed belfry in about 3 minutes. That doesn't seem possible. Even in a group, I can't see doing in about or under 3 minutes.. Perhaps a typo? I have attempted belfry on my own multi-clienting and have not yet been successful with a variety of templates. But tamers are the focal point of the damage, which does present its special challenges. I tried on my best dexxer (no necro, but otherwise similar to a sampire tank) and I quickly dismissed that as an option given the beating he took. Perhaps I was rusty with him or have forgotten a strategy that I should remember, but I didn't see that as a decent option. I guess I'll give it some thought and think about what I am forgetting. Please feel free to PM me if you want to enlighten me. Thanks.
On his sampire, it is VERY possible, and I personally saw him do it.

On a tamer/mage, it sucks. You NEED a pet to tank, and there's only one thing that really can do it/do a respectable amount of damage: your own greater dragon. Unfortunately, your pet will be pushed off the roof, and it doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as you could. I use an SDI suit for the Belfry and I far exceed the damage capability of my Greater (120-130ish damage on EBolts with 75 SDI and a Dragon Slayer book); however, using that suit does have its risks: You've basically got the durability of a wet paper bag, so if it targets you, you WILL die.

Once your pet gets knocked off the roof, the dragon will eventually go after you. Once you're up there, you need to do as much damage as you can while your pet's being shoved off the roof, and repeat the cycle until it drops. It's just EXTREMELY inefficient to do the Belfry w/out a Sampire, although it can be done.
 

MalagAste

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On his sampire, it is VERY possible, and I personally saw him do it.

On a tamer/mage, it sucks. You NEED a pet to tank, and there's only one thing that really can do it/do a respectable amount of damage: your own greater dragon. Unfortunately, your pet will be pushed off the roof, and it doesn't do anywhere near as much damage as you could. I use an SDI suit for the Belfry and I far exceed the damage capability of my Greater (120-130ish damage on EBolts with 75 SDI and a Dragon Slayer book); however, using that suit does have its risks: You've basically got the durability of a wet paper bag, so if it targets you, you WILL die.

Once your pet gets knocked off the roof, the dragon will eventually go after you. Once you're up there, you need to do as much damage as you can while your pet's being shoved off the roof, and repeat the cycle until it drops. It's just EXTREMELY inefficient to do the Belfry w/out a Sampire, although it can be done.
Did notice that if you dragon is shoved from the roof if you run about shouting "All Follow Me" your dragon will eventually get smart and seems to use the hops to hop back up on the pedestal. It will come back up without you have to log in and out.
 

Old Vet Back Again

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The encounter is fine as is. The time it takes with the current drop rate will allow this content to actually have a life expectancy longer than 3months. Prices will hold and the player initiating the time will be rewarded for their efforts.
 

Xanthril of LA

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Correct, 3 minutes....

I'm just not willing to give information out freely yet. I've been farming this hardcore since before release, there's a reason why. To be honest, there are still undiscovered things that I don't know yet that would make The Roof encounter easier. No one's going to know everything right off the bat. Unless you're @Kyronix :p
Now I'm very intrigued by what I'm forgetting or what I just don't know! Thanks for invigorating my inquisitive juices.
 

drcossack

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Did notice that if you dragon is shoved from the roof if you run about shouting "All Follow Me" your dragon will eventually get smart and seems to use the hops to hop back up on the pedestal. It will come back up without you have to log in and out.
I'll have to try that. Thanks!
 

Old Vet Back Again

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Wow... that's excellent drop rate!
I would assume that @Promathia and his group were extremely lucky, or I am extremely unlucky. I have done the encounter now with 8 people 4times and we have probably only pulled 2 arties. I have gotten 0, but I am completely fine with that. For once this game is actually allowing content to be earned through hard work rather than easy mode dead shard farming afk bullsh**.
 
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