The new PoF abilities and the Library Elites

[Ayakaru.6583]

Heya Anet,

 

I wanted to share my opinion on this thing called the _library elites_ and the special abilities introduced in PoF.

First and foremost, praise for the elites. They were not just health sponges, but interesting fights. Well soloable,

but they didn’t leave any room to slack. Choose your skills ahead of the fight and fight them seriously.

Thats how a challenging solo-fight should be. And I can only hope you will use them as a future bar enemy difficulty

in story instances.

 

And part of their glory comes not just from the right balance, being between a veteran and a core elite, but also their unique abilities.

One Shade was different the next Shade, meaning you were always on guard.

This diversity added to the difficulty of the fights in a positive way, and I hope you’ll introduce abilities of these kinds to future fights,

as well as maybe retroactively add random abilities to older enemies in Core and HoT as they really diversify the fights.

 

That said I also have a small feedback on 2 or 3 of these abilities.

First being _phased_. (Officially called _Phase Shifted_)

A phased boss will alternate between a medium sized arena in which you must stand, or an outer ring.

The problem here is melee and ranged combat.

I believe ranged classes are not punished properly in comparison with the melee classes.

The melee ring is so large that any ranged class can still stand safely on the edge and maintain a good distance from the boss,

continuing the fight whilst completely ignoring the ability, while in retrospect a melee class is just completely disabled

during this phase transition. I think the outer ring ring is fine, but the inner ring should be halved in size to really make it a melee zone,

and force the ranged classes to prepare equally as much for this change. Especially for warriors, if you dont want to be left in the dirt, you have to equip a longbow or rifle, which can have severe debilitating effects on the class’ functioning and skill synchronity (to a lesser extend if you’re a condi warrior which does utilitize the longbow).

 

Which brings me to the second special ability with a similar issue: _Signaler_.

Red: don’t move to be eligible for damage

Green: keep moving to be eligible for damage

Just like before, ranged classes get a green pass, they can keep firing a barrage of shots, magic missiles and burning arrows while

either moving or standing still, whilst the melee classes are again disabled half the time during red phase. However, unlike before with *phased* i dont know how this can be levelled between ranged and melee and ranged classes.

But since projectiles allow you to ignore this ability, it might be fair to say ‘*projectiles are less effective when you’re not allowed to move, since projectiles are moving/travelling things as well*’, would that be a fair fix?

 

The third being an ability I wanted to suggest, to add to the existing pool: *chaos armor*.

In which the boss phase shifts his barriers. The red barrier will build up stacks which gives it resistance to condition damage.

The blue barrier will build up stacks which will resist raw damage.

The stacks can then be removed by killing adds and throwing magical projectiles dropped by the adds.

//or//

The boss shifts between the red and blue barrier every 20 seconds which gives the boss a 66.66% resistance to damage or condition damage, and reflecting 15% of the damage done back to the assaulter.

 

Sorry for the long post, but here’s a skritt:

[https://i.imgur.com/jM0i2Y5.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/jM0i2Y5.jpg "https://i.imgur.com/jM0i2Y5.jpg")


 

[Zaklex.6308]

Are you sure you're talking about the Elites in the Library, as I don't remember ever coming across Phase Shifted or Signaler when fighting any of them(ignored the Fleshreaver so can't comment on that particular one)? Also, each Shade I fought was exactly like the other Shade before it, same with the Aatxe...perhaps you're talking about the PoF Bounties, which do use those mechanics? In that case I can confirm you're assumption about Ranged classes during Phase Shifted is incorrect, I play an core Ranger, and unless I get within half the distance of the melee circle I won't do any damage, at all...and not, it's not being blocked or anything, just comes up with zeroes. So you do have to be closer to the enemy than just standing on the outer edge of that Melee circle...at least that's what I've encountered.

[Chyro.1462]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> Are you sure you're talking about the Elites in the Library, as I don't remember ever coming across Phase Shifted or Signaler when fighting any of them(ignored the Fleshreaver so can't comment on that particular one)? Also, each Shade I fought was exactly like the other Shade before it, same with the Aatxe...perhaps you're talking about the PoF Bounties, which do use those mechanics? In that case I can confirm you're assumption about Ranged classes during Phase Shifted is incorrect, I play an core Ranger, and unless I get within half the distance of the melee circle I won't do any damage, at all...and not, it's not being blocked or anything, just comes up with zeroes. So you do have to be closer to the enemy than just standing on the outer edge of that Melee circle...at least that's what I've encountered.

 

He's talking about the Elite mobs in the Library instance for unlocking the Griffon Mount (where you have to defeat the elites to collect keys for chests). Not the story instance.

[AliamRationem.5172]

As I recall, the elites in the library do have unstable magic. You may not have noticed it if you were playing a DPS build because I think there's a bit of a delay before unstable magic sets in after engagement. It may be that you just burned the elite down before unstable magic even happened! I don't recall it being much of an issue myself.

 

As for unstable magic, I think the idea is that it's different for each enemy. Phase shifted may not punish ranged damage dealers as much as melee, but exploiter is the opposite!

 

[Conncept.7638]

I don't recall these being difficult at all, I killed all but one on my elementalist without any effort or forethought, they weren't any more difficult than normal vets. And that one was only an exception because I was wielding a sword/dagger and rolled that moronic instability that makes it flipflop between invlunerability to melee and ranged, and it flipped on the invulnerability to melee and stayed there until I was dead. Still cannot believe that bullkitten made it into the game while one class has no weapon swap and one is _supposed_ to be able to build without a weapon swap.

[Zaklex.6308]

> @"Chyro.1462" said:

> > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > Are you sure you're talking about the Elites in the Library, as I don't remember ever coming across Phase Shifted or Signaler when fighting any of them(ignored the Fleshreaver so can't comment on that particular one)? Also, each Shade I fought was exactly like the other Shade before it, same with the Aatxe...perhaps you're talking about the PoF Bounties, which do use those mechanics? In that case I can confirm you're assumption about Ranged classes during Phase Shifted is incorrect, I play an core Ranger, and unless I get within half the distance of the melee circle I won't do any damage, at all...and not, it's not being blocked or anything, just comes up with zeroes. So you do have to be closer to the enemy than just standing on the outer edge of that Melee circle...at least that's what I've encountered.

>

> He's talking about the Elite mobs in the Library instance for unlocking the Griffon Mount (where you have to defeat the elites to collect keys for chests). Not the story instance.

 

That's what I thought, but as I stated I don't recall them having any Unstable Magic abilities, which is what Phase Shifted and Signaler are, that was the basis of my original post...if they had Unstable Magic abilities from the beginning then I just didn't notice them...and it wasn't because I killed them so fast they didn't activate either.

[Ayakaru.6583]

> @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > @"Chyro.1462" said:

> > > @"Zaklex.6308" said:

> > > Are you sure you're talking about the Elites in the Library, as I don't remember ever coming across Phase Shifted or Signaler when fighting any of them(ignored the Fleshreaver so can't comment on that particular one)? Also, each Shade I fought was exactly like the other Shade before it, same with the Aatxe...perhaps you're talking about the PoF Bounties, which do use those mechanics? In that case I can confirm you're assumption about Ranged classes during Phase Shifted is incorrect, I play an core Ranger, and unless I get within half the distance of the melee circle I won't do any damage, at all...and not, it's not being blocked or anything, just comes up with zeroes. So you do have to be closer to the enemy than just standing on the outer edge of that Melee circle...at least that's what I've encountered.

> >

> > He's talking about the Elite mobs in the Library instance for unlocking the Griffon Mount (where you have to defeat the elites to collect keys for chests). Not the story instance.

>

> That's what I thought, but as I stated I don't recall them having any Unstable Magic abilities, which is what Phase Shifted and Signaler are, that was the basis of my original post...if they had Unstable Magic abilities from the beginning then I just didn't notice them...and it wasn't because I killed them so fast they didn't activate either.

 

Maybe you had a lucky roll of abilities which were hard to notice, i dunno.

But i liked them. They made the fights more unique, and since two of the same enemies could have different unstable abilities no two fights would be the same.

 

But the point was more about when the abilities do kick in, melee classes get the short end of the stick while the ranged classes can ignore most of them.

The few instances it is favourable for melee classes, ranged classes can also come in close.

But the opposite does not work (well) when you're a melee class and are forced to keep distance.

 

> @"Conncept.7638" said:

> I don't recall these being difficult at all, I killed all but one on my elementalist without any effort or forethought, they weren't any more difficult than normal vets.

 

Well, I'm not talking raid difficult, obviously.

It was more.. they're between veteran and elite.

Veterans take a few hits, and regular elites are just health sponges.

But these had a nice balance inbetween.

But i guess it differs between people and how fast they burn the enemies away.

[Tanner Blackfeather.6509]

> @"Ayakaru.6583" said:

> But the point was more about when the abilities do kick in, melee classes get the short end of the stick while the ranged classes can ignore most of them.

> The few instances it is favourable for melee classes, ranged classes can also come in close.

> But the opposite does not work (well) when you're a melee class and are forced to keep distance.

 

Given how many base mobs in PoF are anti-ranged, I find it kind of fair that a few Unstable Magic modifiers punish melee more thsn ranged...