This has been a really interesting trip through the time machine.
Seeing this as a non-trivial fight really calls back to older design philosophies. Mechanics are simpler in a way, but not necessarily easier. Phases are pushed not on a script, but depending on the party's DPS. And the boss has a rotation rather than a strict timeline of events that will happen until enrage.
But the thing that stuck with me most was how much I had to plan out my healing.
Now checking the logs for the raw amount heal, it's not that much higher than, say, pre-5.0-savage Innocence EX* (but it is still higher). But the way it is structured, I did really have to think about exactly how I was going to have to deal with the raid nuke spam, which CDs I was going to have to save for the tanks during certain moments, and so on.
(* I use this example because we were about the same ilvl then as Unreal's sync)
Even savage hardly does this. Oh, there's big hits - but with the exception of a few things like Shiva Savage at the very end - the damage is so infrequent there's just very little challenge to it. Pop an oGCD - maybe use some kind of augmenting CD - and back to DPS.
There's plenty of time for DPSing in Unreal too, but at least healing was much more on my mind and I was using more GCDs.
--
With that said, I also want to thank the devs for making such a well-tuned fight. I was worried that, with no new mechanics/changeups, it would be pretty faceroll. Instead the challenge is right where it feels like it should be - and in concept the mechanics aren't hard, but they do need to be respected - and while unforgiving in some ways, there's also a fair bit of room for recovery instead of being pass/fail party-wipe checks.
And thank the twelve we can play it without losing so many of our abilities.
The new EX trial is pretty fun too and, hey, at least it has a heal check at the beginning. I hope to see more of this...
Continue reading...
Seeing this as a non-trivial fight really calls back to older design philosophies. Mechanics are simpler in a way, but not necessarily easier. Phases are pushed not on a script, but depending on the party's DPS. And the boss has a rotation rather than a strict timeline of events that will happen until enrage.
But the thing that stuck with me most was how much I had to plan out my healing.
Now checking the logs for the raw amount heal, it's not that much higher than, say, pre-5.0-savage Innocence EX* (but it is still higher). But the way it is structured, I did really have to think about exactly how I was going to have to deal with the raid nuke spam, which CDs I was going to have to save for the tanks during certain moments, and so on.
(* I use this example because we were about the same ilvl then as Unreal's sync)
Even savage hardly does this. Oh, there's big hits - but with the exception of a few things like Shiva Savage at the very end - the damage is so infrequent there's just very little challenge to it. Pop an oGCD - maybe use some kind of augmenting CD - and back to DPS.
There's plenty of time for DPSing in Unreal too, but at least healing was much more on my mind and I was using more GCDs.
--
With that said, I also want to thank the devs for making such a well-tuned fight. I was worried that, with no new mechanics/changeups, it would be pretty faceroll. Instead the challenge is right where it feels like it should be - and in concept the mechanics aren't hard, but they do need to be respected - and while unforgiving in some ways, there's also a fair bit of room for recovery instead of being pass/fail party-wipe checks.
And thank the twelve we can play it without losing so many of our abilities.
The new EX trial is pretty fun too and, hey, at least it has a heal check at the beginning. I hope to see more of this...
Continue reading...