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As a guild we couldnt clear the instance in time before the buff got removed. After the buff got removed, DF NiM is not challenging at all, it is very much like HM. As a tank I didnt have to use a single cooldown at all in Nefra and Draxus fights. It has become boring. We will not be able to clear DP NiM before the buff gets removed also since we couldnt get enough gear from DF NiM. It is safe to assume DP NiM post-nerf will be as boring as DP HM & DF NiM post-nerf.

 

Somewhere sometime ago someone suggested that the raid leader should be able to toggle nightmare power on/off. I suggest this to be implemented because there is absolutely no challenging content till the new op(s) arrive in around December?.

 

I also propose 2 ways of fixing the "Conqueror of Dread Fostress" title problem with the toggling option.

 

1)Either dont permit new title grants to honor the people who killed brontes pre-nerf

or

2) still give new players the chance to get the title if they kill Brontes with nightmare power on by applying what I call "reverse" bolster which downgrades the players' gear so they cant overgear and faceroll the instance. This is the reason why all this nightmare power was created first in my opinion. This can be applied to previous operations as well (EC,EV,KP,TFB,SV).

 

Let me explain reverse bolster on the example of TFB NiM:

For each gear item the player has, check if the item rating is higher than 168 Underworld (UW is what TFB NiM should be cleared in as far as I remember.)

->If the item rating is higher than 168 (for example is 180 Dread Guard) downgrade that item either to the vendor (Verpine) stats or to someting predefined.

->If the item rating is lower or equal to 168, dont make any changes to that item.

 

What are your thoughts ?

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It would be nice to have an option to turn it on. The title should be over and done with, but I'd like to still have the challenge available. As it is now there isn't much of a challenge for tanks/healers, but the dps checks are still similar. It's still a bit challenging for dps, which leaves it a bit unbalanced and less fun for the tanks and healers.
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As a guild we couldnt clear the instance in time before the buff got removed. After the buff got removed, DF NiM is not challenging at all, it is very much like HM. As a tank I didnt have to use a single cooldown at all in Nefra and Draxus fights. It has become boring. We will not be able to clear DP NiM before the buff gets removed also since we couldnt get enough gear from DF NiM. It is safe to assume DP NiM post-nerf will be as boring as DP HM & DF NiM post-nerf.

 

Somewhere sometime ago someone suggested that the raid leader should be able to toggle nightmare power on/off. I suggest this to be implemented because there is absolutely no challenging content till the new op(s) arrive in around December?.

 

I also propose 2 ways of fixing the "Conqueror of Dread Fostress" title problem with the toggling option.

 

1)Either dont permit new title grants to honor the people who killed brontes pre-nerf

or

2) still give new players the chance to get the title if they kill Brontes with nightmare power on by applying what I call "reverse" bolster which downgrades the players' gear so they cant overgear and faceroll the instance. This is the reason why all this nightmare power was created first in my opinion. This can be applied to previous operations as well (EC,EV,KP,TFB,SV).

 

Let me explain reverse bolster on the example of TFB NiM:

For each gear item the player has, check if the item rating is higher than 168 Underworld (UW is what TFB NiM should be cleared in as far as I remember.)

->If the item rating is higher than 168 (for example is 180 Dread Guard) downgrade that item either to the vendor (Verpine) stats or to someting predefined.

->If the item rating is lower or equal to 168, dont make any changes to that item.

 

What are your thoughts ?

 

 

 

I would say guilds that weren't able to get the title in the 2+ month window of 2.7-2.8 definitely do not ever deserve the title but they should have some way of turning on nightmare power to enjoy the challenge. The reverse gear bolster doesn't make any sense. NM isn't just about the gearing its about figuring it out. And 6 months of the reverse bolster is a lot easier than what happened.

 

Real talk Pal. let me do you a favor and give you situation check:

 

In your specific case it sounds to me like your DPS in particular and maybe your entire ops team is just not NM caliber players. If you're making excuses about not having enough gear from NM DF to do NM DP before it expires now it's really not the gear. Its your players ability to competently click the buttons. I mean what is the excuse here "Guys we just don't' have enough 186 chest armorings to get it done durrrrrrr".

 

And if it's more than chest armorings you guys are missing because your were failing before Brontes then I mean you really really don't have what it takes NM DF was not too difficult before that boss. Maybe you're good and your teammates are awful but it sounds like you'd probably have to be awful too to not have figured out that your teammates are awful.

Edited by Hatstandard
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Being able to turn it on (but not get the title) is clearly desirable lest everything be stale and boring.

 

Probably they'd want some small incentive (not the title) to turn it on just because that's how people work, like an extra mmg per boss or guaranteed pet & speeder or even a new lesser title.

 

----

 

Clearing 4/5 has become easily doable by pugs, which is actually fine in a way (the sorts of pugs that do it are bored of hard mode), but keeping content that hasn't been outgeared yet available as long as possible seems like a no-brainer.

 

Some big differences:

 

On Draxus you can let multiple afflictions go off and if your group has trouble with dps you can just skip killing all sorts of adds and heal through whatever.

 

Grob'thok's adds are such a joke it can be 1-tanked now. I did this on my undergeared (like 2/3 180, zero 186) vanguard never having tanked Grob'thok Nightmare before with the help of some people who are now regularly 1-tanking it. Not that there's really a reason to do this, but it shows how far from the previous incarnation it is.

Edited by cxten
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It seems that I have been misunderstood. I am basically saying there should be an option to make any operations harder. Thats why I proposed the reverse bolster, because there is no reason to run non DF-DP NiMs for challenge. By the way, we arent even a semi-hardcore guild so I am fully aware we arent NiM capable. However if we are clearing things this easy, this game isnt hard and NiM shouldnt be called NiM. Operations shouldnt be nerfed because people cant clear them: If they cant clear them, they shouldnt be able to clear them at any time in the future as well.
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It seems that I have been misunderstood. I am basically saying there should be an option to make any operations harder. Thats why I proposed the reverse bolster, because there is no reason to run non DF-DP NiMs for challenge. By the way, we arent even a semi-hardcore guild so I am fully aware we arent NiM capable. However if we are clearing things this easy, this game isnt hard and NiM shouldnt be called NiM. Operations shouldnt be nerfed because people cant clear them: If they cant clear them, they shouldnt be able to clear them at any time in the future as well.

 

What's confusing about your post is the glaring disconnect between the following:

 

"We want to be able to make content harder"

-and-

"We can't clear content while it's hard"

 

I understand that your position is a bit more refined than that but it's confusing that your asking for a reverse bolster to scale down gear for older NiMs, and then claiming you won't be able to clear NiM DP because you weren't able to get enough gear.

 

If you legitimately weren't getting anywhere pre-nerf, and now claim to be able to tank Draxus without a single cool-down. I don't know what to say. There's a glaring hole somewhere in your raid group.

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When put that way, I know it doesnt make much sense however I believe the current nerfs are too much; they should be toned down a little. Let me try to make it clearer by exaggerating. It feels like it was impossible before the nerf but its now more like something like EV NiM. Hope that makes more sense ?
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What's confusing about your post is the glaring disconnect between the following:

 

"We want to be able to make content harder"

-and-

"We can't clear content while it's hard"

 

Things aren't as black and white as your elitist analysis paints them.

 

I have no particular relation to the OP, but I understand the plight he's in. Back before 2.0, I had cleared and titled in NiM EC with a previous guild, but ended up switching guilds into one which was still progressing on it before 2.0 dropped (I think I switched guilds just over 4 weeks before the expansion). Ultimately, because of scheduling and personnel changes, we didn't even get to Kephess until about three weeks before 2.0 dropped. We progressed on the fight rapidly, one-shotting the Trenchcutter phase with ease and moving into the final phases early on, but due to a combination of no-shows and RL scheduling conflicts, we only had one more night (in three weeks!) where we were able to get people together to work on the fight. We came within 20% of clearing it, but ultimately just ran out of time.

 

This happens to a lot of guilds. I know it's very convenient and self-gratifying to paint all guilds who fail to clear content in time as "bad" (and by extension, comprised of bad players), but the truth is much more complex. Scheduling, real life commitments, and just random stuff will often sabotage a guild which might otherwise be extremely competitive.

 

Another example from NiM EC… I had to travel internationally for two and a half weeks, where the release of NiM EC was on the second day of travel! My guild subbed for me (and another guildy who had a week of travel over the same period) and worked on NiM EC a bit, but things just weren't smooth enough to clear very far. The very first week where the full guild was back together again, we cleared 4/4 without having cleared anything other than the Drouks previously. If we had been together as a full guild the first week the content was out, we would have been in the top 5 guilds clearing it in 8 man. But…we didn't. That's ok, and that's just part of the progression race, but people need to understand these sorts of things when judging the play of other guilds and especially other players.

 

tl;dr: Don't criticize the OP or his group for failing to clear the content before the timer expired. Maybe they weren't good enough to do it. Maybe. But we don't have enough information to make that call.

 

Regarding the OP in general, my opinion is that it should be possible to turn Nightmare Power back on, if only to make the content more interesting and more gratifying to clear. The titles should be done though. Conqueror and Deposer exist to give the progression race a sense of urgency. Let's keep that sense of urgency.

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Regarding the OP in general, my opinion is that it should be possible to turn Nightmare Power back on, if only to make the content more interesting and more gratifying to clear. The titles should be done though. Conqueror and Deposer exist to give the progression race a sense of urgency. Let's keep that sense of urgency.

This is my desire as well.

 

Difficult content will eventually become easier as higher tiers of gear become available. There is no need to speed up this process by downtuning Nightmare operations.

 

The title is an excellent reward for good groups that can clear the content in the allotted time. Removing the title after the time period expires is good, changing the inherent difficulty level less so.

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Option to toggle Nightmare Power is good, but reintroducing Conqueror of Dread Fortress title is bad, you had your chance on title but didn't take it, however you should be able to still experience the Operation with Nightmare Power. Edited by RikuvonDrake
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KeyboardNinja and Khevar understood my point of view. I agree with them however I dont get the whole limited time concept and the bad time arrangement of NiM releases. Its summer and people go on vacation. Why release them in the summer ? Why are new guilds that may be formed in the future are banned from experiencing the same content ?

 

The argument against this so far is that other guilds have done it. If the reason people want the titles to be gone is that they have achieved within a specified time limit, others must also do it in the same time period I frankly dont understand this mentality. I thought it was becuse people overgeared and got the same title while others got it with hard work with lesser gear. Hence I proposed the reverse bolster. By the way, why havent Infernal, From Beyond etc havent been removed if thats how NiM progression should be done ?

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The argument against this so far is that other guilds have done it. If the reason people want the titles to be gone is that they have achieved within a specified time limit, others must also do it in the same time period I frankly dont understand this mentality. I thought it was becuse people overgeared and got the same title while others got it with hard work with lesser gear. Hence I proposed the reverse bolster. By the way, why havent Infernal, From Beyond etc havent been removed if thats how NiM progression should be done ?

 

You don't understand the concept of these titles so let me make it simple for you, From Beyond, Dragonslayer, The Infernal and so on are TIMED RUN TITLES, just like Gate Crasher is from Dread Fortress. All of these are still in the game, nothing has been removed from Dread Fortress in terms of those titles, you can still get Gate Crasher in one-two months when you have overgeared.

 

Conqueror of the Dread Fortress however is a title which is given by just killing Brontes before Nightmare Power was initially removed, a time which has passed. Even if the Nightmare Power was reintroduced, it still shouldn't be possible to regain this title due to the fact that the initial timer have passed since quite a while.

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This happens to a lot of guilds. I know it's very convenient and self-gratifying to paint all guilds who fail to clear content in time as "bad" (and by extension, comprised of bad players), but the truth is much more complex. Scheduling, real life commitments, and just random stuff will often sabotage a guild which might otherwise be extremely competitive.

 

Every guild has to deal with those same scheduling issues, so I think it's a bit of a cop out to use that as an insurmountable obstacle for a guild to overcome.

 

The logistics side of progression raiding is downright boring, but it's necessary for success. Part of the progression challenge is ensuring that the schedules of the ideal team lineup as frequently as possible while maintaining a large enough roster of talented alternates for the inevitable absences. If the alternates aren't close enough in talent to the main team to make progression possible while the alts are in the group, then that is an issue with the alternate pool that needs to be resolved.

 

For the OP, I think having the option to toggle NiM Power on is a good idea, but I don't think the Conqueror/Deposer limited titles should be available outside their respective time windows.

 

If you give players an infinite amount of time, even at the higher difficulty, then it removes a portion of the challenge, even with your proposed Reverse Bolster. Think of how exams in school are timed and papers/projects have to be turned in by a due date. NiM Power operations are basically exams/projects for progression guilds with the reward for "passing" being a special title.

Edited by Headpunch
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Things aren't as black and white as your elitist analysis paints them.

tl;dr: Don't criticize the OP or his group for failing to clear the content before the timer expired. Maybe they weren't good enough to do it. Maybe. But we don't have enough information to make that call.

.

 

KBN,

 

At no point did I intend to come across as elitist or rude. My group was only 2/5 w/ NiM power active and still haven't been able to get Brontes down. Due partly to all of the things you mentioned. People being away, real life commitments etc.

 

What I merely pointed out, to which the OP agreed and tried to flesh out their point further was the incongruity between asking for harder content while being unable to clear the hard content in the game currently. In his response, OP clears it up a bit by saying it's he's sort of looking for the Goldilocks "Just Right" bowl of porridge. Which is fine.

 

To me NiM DF/DP were/are hard. To some people, they are not. Currently, the removal of NiM-power only dropped damage going out. HP pools are still the same, so (with certain exceptions), the DPS checks are still the same, or similar.

 

The only thing that was probably a bit critical, was my comment about something being wrong with his group. I just found it remarkable (and somewhat unlikely) that when NiM power was active, his group was unable to make any progress (or little, his posts are not clear where the group was getting stuck) and now that NiM power is off, his group 5/5 one-shots everything (again, which the OP implies by saying the content is so easy). I merely suggested that if they can tank Draxus now without using a single DCD, then there was an underlying issue preventing them from making clears with NiM-power active.

Edited by JMagee
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  • 2 weeks later...

I think i might have to unsub as reading this thread i realized how bad our group is ....

 

We only have 3/5 DF, working on Zero now and its my fault as raid leader not to have enough great players playing past 22.00 at night to join our ranks. I FAIL.

 

For guilds that cleared DF NIM numerous times removal of NIM buff made it easier as their gear improved which helped their DPS on all fights. For guilds not as good that are still progressing (for whatever reason). Fights are still tough:

 

Draxus - harder for average group now then it was with NIM buff. Interrupting every cast from adds is easy, Killing 3 guardians instead of 2 in phase 7 (if you didn't notice Guardian's health was increased by 50%) is what is now making this fight difficult. If you have gear from DF then DPS should no longer be an issue.

 

Gob'throk - we have no problem getting ugly face to do max one pipe smash, but adds last much longer and we have to bring those adds to boss to nuke them. With NIM buff on, adds died from fire debuff within few seconds of removing their shield and DPS was just focusing on the boss. Have not done him on NIM but it seemed like it was not as hard.

 

Zero - not sure what could be different on NIM as we are progressing him but not get to him with buff on - probably outgoing damage from boss and adds. Which seems to affect tanks and healers more then anything.

 

Removal of NIM buff only helped tanks and healers but did nothing for DPS. It made some mechanics less challenging for sure but it didn't make the fight easy like HM. At least not for our group.

 

Back on to subject:

 

switch NIM debuff on - YES - so those that had no chance to clear it in time for different reasons can do it purely for the mechanics and skill check (interrupts, moving out from bad stuff that can insta kill etc).

 

Bolster down ? - NO - this means you would try to clear the instance in HM (180) gear only and i doubt you would get far with no upgrades from each boss (as bolster would tone it down every time) unless you have exceptional players

 

Title - NO - this is and should only be given to those that have time, commitment and skill to do it in time specified. There is something special about title you know only few will get.

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Back on to subject:

 

switch NIM debuff on - YES - so those that had no chance to clear it in time for different reasons can do it purely for the mechanics and skill check (interrupts, moving out from bad stuff that can insta kill etc).

 

Title - NO - this is and should only be given to those that have time, commitment and skill to do it in time specified. There is something special about title you know only few will get.

 

^ That's the way I see it as well

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I merely suggested that if they can tank Draxus now without using a single DCD, then there was an underlying issue preventing them from making clears with NiM-power active.

 

Just that statement, with no judgement of OP... Sounds like a healer problem.

 

Anyhow, my viewpoint is NiM Power Toggle = good, don't mind early kill titles being taken out later when option to toggle NiM off is available.

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Views in this thread are a bit puzzling to be honest. Everyone knows that this game has no 'unique' rewards for those who put in the effort and keep at it on a daily basis. DF / DP are a good step forward in terms of giving people recognition and a unique title for clearing content as they should. There was also a nice patch note for those who killed Brontes with the buff on.

 

I am sorry but I disagree with having the NiM power back or any of the titles. Congratulations to those who got them and I am feel sad for those who did not get them. My group stopped raiding progression because of other commitments and you don't see me opening threads on the forums asking for a nim buff extension. In 4 weeks we pulled bestia 4 times because we could not raid. I won't get the 'deposer of dread master title' and it is not because my team is bad, it is because we can't raid these days.

 

 

The NiM removal did not complicate things at all for those who are covering DF. It actually made things easier and you can make so many mistakes now. Draxus, interrupts are not needed anymore as you can heal through the debuff and if you are short on damage, use 5 damage dealers. If you are having problems at Draxus it is because you did not understand how the fight works or your group needs more practice on optimizing their damage output, positioning and raid awareness. The NiM debuff removal did not make the fight harder, you are not ready to kill it, accept it.

 

 

Grobthok? Are we really going to discuss a boss where you pretty much don't have to kill the adds at all? Two pipe smashes are making this fight child's play. Tank the adds away from the raid, and kill them with two smashes, problem solved. You cannot clear the boss? Please check your fire placement, cc for the adds, tanking position and teamwork.

 

 

Corruptor zero, apart from the usual bugs, it was easy with the NiM buff it is easy without. Know to control the mine, don't get caught in red circles, don't die from lasers, move to brontes.

 

 

As i said a while back, just because BW removed the nim buff, this won't be on farm for the majority. Why? Because they did not put sufficient time to build a working tactic and improve raid awareness. They did not spend the dozens of hours learning how to transition from one shield to the next without dying. They did not focus on 'not panicking' when the raid has balls all around. The NiM power did not eliminate these things but made getting to the final phase easier. You can heal the 6 finger phase now with failed rotations.

 

 

To kill brontes you need to put in the time. She will not kill herself and if your group is not good enough, you go back to the drawing board and you replace people. Not everyone can do NiM. Even after so long, on TOFN there are only 3 guilds who killed Brontes and have her on farm.

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I would say guilds that weren't able to get the title in the 2+ month window of 2.7-2.8 definitely do not ever deserve the title but they should have some way of turning on nightmare power to enjoy the challenge. The reverse gear bolster doesn't make any sense. NM isn't just about the gearing its about figuring it out. And 6 months of the reverse bolster is a lot easier than what happened.

 

Real talk Pal. let me do you a favor and give you situation check:

 

In your specific case it sounds to me like your DPS in particular and maybe your entire ops team is just not NM caliber players. If you're making excuses about not having enough gear from NM DF to do NM DP before it expires now it's really not the gear. Its your players ability to competently click the buttons. I mean what is the excuse here "Guys we just don't' have enough 186 chest armorings to get it done durrrrrrr".

 

And if it's more than chest armorings you guys are missing because your were failing before Brontes then I mean you really really don't have what it takes NM DF was not too difficult before that boss. Maybe you're good and your teammates are awful but it sounds like you'd probably have to be awful too to not have figured out that your teammates are awful.

 

It made me laugh how condescending you sound. You obviously haven't taken into consideration that some guilds are severely struggling with recruiting players capable of clearing NiM content. Our guild for instance, cleared Brontes pre-nerf however spent the majority of the time NiM DF was available trying to fill AFK spots and recruit for open positions. This is also what we have spent the majority of the time doing since NiM DP was released. We have had all of 2-3 raid nights in NiM DP since it is so difficult to recruit people. I personally think adding a title to clear in a limited time-frame is a stupid idea for this game, but that isn't the issue here.

 

Some guilds simply aren't able to clear it in the time-frame due to many other external issues with player absence or open positions and not due to player skill.

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IYou obviously haven't taken into consideration that some guilds are severely struggling with recruiting players capable of clearing NiM content.

 

You don't only need 8 good raiders to form a successful progression team, you need compete leaders who understand to recruit in advance to have 1-2 benchplayers while you make sure that your current raiders are happy with their situation. Every guild struggles with shortage of high skilled players, however it comes down to the leaderships ability to keep the team together while still recruiting new players for unavoidably players losses like new work/sickness/vacations and other reasons.

Edited by RikuvonDrake
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You don't only need 8 good raiders to form a successful progression team, you need compete leaders who understand to recruit in advance to have 1-2 benchplayers while you make sure that your current raiders are happy with their situation. Every guild struggles with shortage of high skilled players, however it comes down to the leaderships ability to keep the team together while still recruiting new players for unavoidably players losses like new work/sickness/vacations and other reasons.

 

Not all guilds run bench players. Absolutely most do, and it's certainly the easiest way to do it, but it's not universal. My guild, for example, doesn't carry any players who aren't assigned to one team or another on at least one of their toons. Subbing is drawn from this pool of players, and we have enough alts to shuffle things around such that other teams can continue to run even when one of their members has been lockout-yanked for another group. It takes a lot more effort to do this, but it makes player retention and sub gearing a lot easier since everyone is always running in at least one group.

 

For that sort of scheme to be meaningful though, you need a *lot* of groups and everyone needs to have a stable of competent alts. Most guilds don't have the player count to support something like that, much less the willingness to go through the scheduling hell required to make it happen. It's much, much easier just to follow the scheme Rikuvan outlines, where you carry a few bench players that sub as necessary and/or as needed for gearing.

 

Your larger point is the significant one though: leadership. Real life happens, and you do lose people regardless of leadership, but the best raid/guild leaders will keep the bulk of a team interested and cohesive through droughts of content and/or success. Recruiting can also be a function of leadership, though often it's more a function of RNG and what server you happen to be on. Sometimes, you just get lucky. Sometimes you get unlucky. There aren't that many talented players in the game, and so localizing those players in a single team can be a very difficult task that is heavily influenced by things not even under your control.

Edited by KeyboardNinja
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You don't only need 8 good raiders to form a successful progression team, you need compete leaders who understand to recruit in advance to have 1-2 benchplayers while you make sure that your current raiders are happy with their situation. Every guild struggles with shortage of high skilled players, however it comes down to the leaderships ability to keep the team together while still recruiting new players for unavoidably players losses like new work/sickness/vacations and other reasons.

 

This is obvious, yes. However when you can't find players that play in your time-zone to fill permanent spots in your main team, then finding capable players who are free to sub-in is even harder. Like KBN said, the game isn't drowning in NiM raiders that will actually turn up.

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