Mob balance

[Mercurion]

Turned lvl 33 healer, got my fresh lvl 31 chainmail armor teched and have that quest in my questbook to explore the death pool.

On my way in i kill several elite cabal guards without much trouble and make into the gate and turn left. There i pull some blighted spectres and survive with some heals quite ok.

Now lets try this Pool Guardian, lvl 31, should be doable.

Hits you with syphon for 66 spirit
Hits you with critical strike for 223 slash

ok lets cast a heal to fill me up again..

Hits you with Eviscerate of Life for 564 spirit.

your face is in the dirt and the human at the other side of the screen starts cursing...

what the hell is that - how can a lvl 31 mob hit a player 2 lvl's above with an attack that hits for 80% of his life.

And this is not the first time that i get hit for such unimaginable dmg spikes.

Restless Shade - lvl 24 hits you with Gold Strike for 250, 240, 230 and silver xyz for 200 - nearly insta death

So please check these mobs and fix them to their true lvl. From a game thats in the market since 2003 i can expect that basic mob balance exists.

[AmonGwareth]

This is not an unbalanced monster, but rather one that you need to learn and adapt to. It is a ghost so it is attacking as an ethereal creature (that is, your standard physical armor is not going to provide any defense again its attacks).

You will need to get help from other players, acquire some ethereal armor protection, or find new strategies.

[Ssilmath]

This is something that has kind of been bugging me for a while, Amon. Not a pressing, rage inducing bugging, but something of a quiet frustration. There is not a whole lot that I have seen that explains the different damage types, or what to expect from a mob. Until you just posted that, I had no idea that ghosts did ethereal damage, and I have been playing for years. Nor do I have any real grasp on what mobs are weak to what, other than that Fire kills Ice, and Spirit trumps everything. I don't know how it could be included in the tutorial, but something to explain that would be useful.

Also, some mobs are unbalanced. The ghostly hatchlings on the Dalimond peninsula are ridiculous, being able to one shot my little mage even when she outleveled them by quite a bit. The fact that the damage is ethereal makes them equal to everybody, and it is hard even at higher levels to have ethereal armor even a fraction of what the main armor is. I eventually had to group with Ssil and let it kill the ghostly hatchlings to complete the quest.

[Garfonso]

The biggest issue with balance is that this game is all about dragons. A dragon very much more powerful than any biped that is trying to learn its first school. This is an issue that can't be solved (other than extremely nerving current dragons and let them require multiclassing, too).

Of course fighting dragon mobs makes the thing much worse... so better, don't do it.

What Sslimath says is valid, too. There should be hints (maybe quests?) that try to explain to you with what kind of damage or tactics you can hurt specific mobs. How about integrating something like this into the Town Marshal quests? Or is there something like this in there already? Not sure...

But a quest requiring a new player to kill some ghosts should at least warn that they can do ethereal damage (if that really is true for all ghost, I'm not so sure about that, tbh).

[Ry]

Why not have etherial damage reported in the combat messages? We get told if its fire damage etc, so why not just add in etherial to the description when it is that type of damage?

[Garfonso]

From what I know spirit damage = ethereal damage. Would be nice to know if that is really true, though.

[Northwind]

Spirit is not ethereal.

And to be on topic - yes, at lower level mobs are not balanced - lowbie toons, bipeds especially but dragons too to a lesser extent, are really weak, they lack equipment and skills.
Ofc, it is not the case for the lvl15 cleric that has under the hood lvl100 warrior and 100 mage - i'm talking about pure lowbies - newcomers

[Merrik]

Spirit is not ethereal.

you would be meaning "not all spirit is ethereal"? some are, at least 1/2 the spirit type attacks are ethereal.

[Akrion]

you would be meaning "not all spirit is ethereal"? some are, at least 1/2 the spirit type attacks are ethereal.

Technically Northwind is correct here. Spirit magic doesn't imply Ethereal damage, it just implies Spirit damage. Some things that do Spirit damage also do Ethereal damage, but they're not mutually inclusive. Ethereal isn't really a damage type either; it essentially works like a tag that means the damage is working off Ethereal Armor instead of normal Armor.

[Krinharth]

actualy good to know, who deals etherial dmg, who undead or not, e.c.t.
to build any tactic.
isn't it wrhiten somwhere?

[Mercurion]

So turning lvl 35 healer/lvl 34 mage and going back to that quest:

Relic Hunter: Locate Artifacts within the ruins

you have to gather 10 ancient dragon artifacts from lvl 24-25 restless shades.

My evasion skill is at 300 now and my magic evasion at 446 and i turned more TP's into health to buff my hit points.

There are 2 types of restless shades - primalists and conquerors

The primalists cast some spells on you and are really easy to kill.

The conquerors are melee type and attack you with Gold Rage II (Triple Strike that hits for 200-280 spirit per hit) and Silver Strike II (double attack).

I have enough health to survive one Gold Rage II and start casting my teched heals to fill me up again.

Yeah i survived their burst - now lets tear him down - most of my heals are on cooldown, but i have 75% health and the dragon just used their uber burst ability and that must have some lengthy cooldown (at least my multicast II as mage has 5m)

Then i see my death animation and in the log is the next Gold Rage II series for more then 800 damage total - that bloody dragon ghost has only 40s Cooldown on that ability, what freaking ghost hoard is feeding that thing anyway?

[AmonGwareth]

Then i see my death animation and in the log is the next Gold Rage II series for more then 800 damage total - that bloody dragon ghost has only 40s Cooldown on that ability, what freaking ghost hoard is feeding that thing anyway?

Monsters have the same cooldown on abilities that players have. *cough* Gold Rage is totally unbalanced *cough*

[Northwind]

heh, Mercurion... my dragon which was well equipped could safely battle with the restless shades at around lvl 50
No wonder that at at lvl 34/34 you were having... troubles.

Edit: I did pay them a first visit at about lvl 30. They put me down rather easy, at first date and without even buying me dinner. Had to visit a tavern keeper later on and buy my own

[Tcei]

I tried them at about the same level on my alt. Kind of a shocker having your own abilities used against you, heh.

[Garfonso]

Monsters have the same cooldown on abilities that players have. *cough* Gold Rage is totally unbalanced *cough*

Yes. I'm happy that you don't do more dragon mobs... please keep it that way.