What keeps YOU buried in the Catacomb?

[Fal Vorad]

I’ve seen some interesting comments from players who find Catacombs manageable and players who don’t, both on these forums and in the game. But I’ve seen people who find the raid manageable being more vocal on the forums and people who don’t being more vocal in the game, so I’d like to share my “not so manageable” perspective here to make sure the devs can hear from both sides. If you’re struggling with something in catacombs I haven’t touched on, please weigh in!

Thames is too difficult. Having him harder than “comparable” raid bosses isn’t in and of itself a problem; having him so much harder is out of proportion and is a problem. He’s not an end boss but he is harder than most of the actual end bosses in raids. He’s harder than Zikiti, Egan, Ravelle, possibly Lilith, and even his own end boss Isretta! He may be a faster kill than Red Prince, but he wipes more players in the process (Red Prince doesn’t have cannons). In a group, Thames may be easier than Zell, but I’ll still take Zell if I want to spend less than half the fight dying/respawning/running back.

Cannons: first of all, Thames doesn’t need them – his damage and other mechanics are at end boss level and he lasts long enough for those to matter. Honestly, I hope he keeps the cannons in a more manageable state. But if he’s going to keep them, something needs a nerf. The cannons are awesome but right now they are way too awesome. Visually, they’re too big. While one next to you is firing, it’s very difficult to see Thames, his blasts to the ground, his adds, other players, the edge of the floor, or which cannons are going to fire next. I find them noticeably harder to see around than the cannons in last year’s Oasis ladder. I’m not sure why, but maybe they are the wrong scale for the room they’re in. And damage wise, they’re excessive. You could take a group through Thames on gold and take the same group with the same gear/buffs/dungeoneering through a not-crazy raid on gold, and watch Thames mop up the floor with as many players per round of cannon fire as the end boss of the other raid did total. That is way out of proportion, no matter what dungeoneering the group is at.

Now, you might be thinking “Just dodge the cannons!” Well, that would be great, but if you can’t see anything but the cannon currently firing, you have lag, and the cannons are hitting hard enough that one shot = dead, you are going to have a lot of skilled players dying in a way that is totally out of their control and totally not fun. Being killed by a one-shot because the game graphics don’t let you see where to move to, or because the game lags too hard for you to move in time, has no gameplay value. None at all.

I could also question whether my level 95, 5 rebirths character with all legendary level 95 gear, carefully selected stats, the best buffs I can access without spending real money, and high 30s dungeoneering should really be getting killed with one shot at gold tier before the end boss. It seems a bit much, especially when compared to the other gold raids. But even if I should be facing hits that hard, I should at least have the possibility (not expecting it to be easy, but it should be possible) of avoiding most of those lethal shots.

Running back: this is pretty darn cool! But, like most new stuff, it needs some kinks worked out. It’s pretty simple how it works solo. Check the tomb and run; once you’re back, boom, finished. In a group, it’s more complicated. Some comments I’ve seen regarding running back in a group (I’ve done some paraphrasing):

“I’ve been on X number of group gold catacombs since the last update and all of them have failed, is there a bug keeping group catacombs from succeeding?”
“I ran back but it didn’t count me as back until I went into the second room again, then it finished.”
“If I die and revive in the vestibule just before the tomb is opened, does it count me as back?”
“I died after I got back and I didn’t want to risk the raid for all of you, so I left the raid.”
“If you die after you get back, just stay dead, you’ll get credit if you don’t revive back to the tomb.”
“I disconnected before Isretta and everybody else got back in time but it failed, did it count me as not getting back because I disconnected partway through?”
“Can we get most people back before we open the tomb so we don’t have so many boulders to dodge on the way back?”
“Being in the vestibule doesn’t count unless you run out and then back in.”
“15 man raid with everyone else milling around in the vestibule dodging boulders while waiting for the last person to get back.”
“We should have a wizard run back last – nah, they’re too squishy, one boulder and dead.”
“If I get back, die in the vestibule, revive at the tomb and then the timer runs out, does that fail the raid?”
“I thought we got everybody back, did we fail because of a bug or because we were wrong about what constitutes back?”
“I was running back and I got hit by a boulder for 40k more than my max health, that’s excessive.”
“It’s not having to run back that sucks, it’s having the entire raid fail because one person didn’t make it back in time that sucks.”
“Having to run back and dodge boulders is enough work without having mobs attack where you’ve already killed them on the way.”
“Sorry! I died/fell off the bridge/got hit by a boulder/got lost. Running back again.”
“Getting this many players back all at once is like herding cats.”
“If you’ve made it back you can come help escort”
“Playername died and is still running back.”
“We’re not finished until everyone’s out!”
“I got killed in the vestibule.”
“How many are back?”
“Who’s not back?”
“(Expletive deleted)!!!”

So I’m seeing at least two problems with the running back objective. One, the confusion, and two, the inconsistencies of requiring everybody to get back. To reduce the confusion, the raid objectives should specify exactly what “Escape the Catacombs” entails. For example, a statement like “Get X players back to the vestibule. X out of Y are back. You are/are not back” would be quite helpful!

And then there’s the inconsistency. Somebody killed Isretta, objective complete. Somebody checked the tomb, objective complete. Somebody reached the vestibule while we’re dashing back, raid complete, WAIT NO! Everyone has to do it individually! Imagine how ridiculous it would be if every single person had to complete every single objective on their own for a raid to succeed. “Whoops, Fal got lost in Swamp again and didn’t get back in time to hit the boss, guess we all fail this one”* or “Fal stop running into lava and solve Nicodemus’ puzzle, everybody else has done theirs and we’re all going to fail if you can’t figure yours out in time.”*
*Both hypothetical scenarios were inspired by actual occurrences.

All the other raid objectives have some leeway – the objective has to be completed, but it doesn’t matter who solves the puzzle or how many people take down the boss, it counts if the puzzle has been solved or the boss has been taken down. That is the beauty of playing together which is so valued in this game. Some players aren’t good at puzzles. Should their entire group raid fail just because somebody else has to “memorize Orla’s pattern” for them? No, put someone else on puzzles and everyone is happy. Failing a raid of 15 people because only 14 of them were capable of an objective is a huge threat to collaboration. Forget about the teamwork of having puzzle masters do the puzzles and tanks take the hits and healers keep people alive while the mad dps go boom boom! If you’re not good enough at a mad dash between falling boulders and over gaping holes in the floor, everybody in the raid fails and they might not want you joining them again no matter how good you are at anything else!

Hopefully I’ve made it clear why requiring everyone to run back is a bad idea. So let me suggest some alternatives:

– At least one person has to get back, and it must be someone who either was in Isretta’s room when she died or ran back to it after she died (because sending one person back in the middle of the fight would be too easy). This option is probably too easy for large raids.
– Some portion of the raiders need to get back, such as 1/3rd (rounded to appropriate whole numbers). This is hopefully a large enough portion that trying to send that number back halfway through the fight will jeopardize the raid. Example: for 1-3 players, at least one has to get back; 4-6, at least 2; 7-9, at least 3; 10-12, at least 4; and 13-15, at least 5.

In any case, the requirement should not be tied to one specific individual, because it’s not fair to the rest of the group if 14 people fail because one person is unskilled in the fine art of skedaddling.

A final note: it’s really weird that the people who have made it back to the vestibule are still being bombarded by falling boulders. Surely the point of running back was to get out the collapse zone? If getting to the vestibule constitutes “escaping the catacombs,” then I certainly should not be getting killed there! The boulders have people wondering whether being killed in the vestibule and reviving in the tomb (in group raids) makes you no longer “out” of the catacombs. It would be truly bizarre if being killed after you reached the “you have escaped” zone meant “oops, guess your escape doesn’t count for raid completion after all,” but either way, no boulder bombs in the safe zone please!

I love Catacombs. It’s new, it’s different, it’s wild, and it officially blew my mind on a level I haven’t experienced elsewhere in the game, maybe in any game. But still: see below.

TL;DR:
– Thames is big and bad enough to have his own raid
– “Haul yer butts!” should not be this difficult

 

[Kilgharrah]

Thanks for posting this Fal! This needed to be expressed, and especially about the cannons. I am needing to adjust the build of my level 95, five-rebirth shaman to get through gold tier solo, just because of Thames. This is with a carefully curated set of legendary gear which makes me able to solo everything else at gold tier while halfway distracted, and enabled me to solo everything at heroic levels last season. I always thought that gold tier raids should be possible to run solo for a well-built character of any class, and not necessarily level 95, but that is not the case with this one. It's too far above the difficulty of the others at the same tier, and largely just due to the Thames fight.

I am happy for a tough new challenge and think it is a really fun and creative raid overall! As Fal said, the cannon mechanic in the Oasis ladder was great: punishing if you didn't dodge, but very possible to see what was coming and dodge. Against the cannons during the Thames fight, half of the time, I am randomly guessing which direction to run to have a chance of escaping the blasts during the three seconds before they annihilate me. I'm not sure if PC players somehow get better visibility during that, but it's really bad as an iPad player at least.

And, I definitely agree with these points about the escape. That is currently among the reasons I've so far avoided running Catacombs in any group larger than three.

 

[Grz]

That is a very long post!

I only see Antavious here, mostly, who is very vocal about how everything is A-OK in the Catacombs and you just ....uhm... .... ...need to learn how to play it and respect the mechanics whatsoever. For the record I haven't failed any heroic run on Catacombs yet but I am a tank with both high defense and high offense but I can see how this is a problem for those who aren't tanks and not crazy about min-maxing gears and making sure as if they are geared for PvP (grins). This is a casual game don't forget, with a sizable old age population. I am more worried about my blood pressure than failing this raid mind you?

Much has been said about how to reduce its difficulty without nerfing the damage if the Otters so wanted it to be an uber-difficult map such as:
1. Add a warning zodiac circle under bosses 1-second before they teleport so that you are warned, much like how the alluring song in the Rookery and the blood pool at the Palace has a warning circle before going off, and they are nowhere nearly as fatal as insta-death from falling.
2. Make falling boulders not spawn on the door itself. Sometimes when conditions are bad it can take 1/3 of my health just loading from-and-to the next door, how much more for the others.
3. Make the cannons go off a little more slowly with space for breathing. I doubt you will change the map layout to make Thames map wider although I think that is the way to go.

Hopefully I’ve made it clear why requiring everyone to run back is a bad idea. So let me suggest some alternatives:

– At least one person has to get back, and it must be someone who either was in Isretta’s room when she died or ran back to it after she died (because sending one person back in the middle of the fight would be too easy). This option is probably too easy for large raids.
– Some portion of the raiders need to get back, such as 1/3rd (rounded to appropriate whole numbers). This is hopefully a large enough portion that trying to send that number back halfway through the fight will jeopardize the raid. Example: for 1-3 players, at least one has to get back; 4-6, at least 2; 7-9, at least 3; 10-12, at least 4; and 13-15, at least 5.

Or the player who opens the tomb is the designated player who has to make it back alive. That is enough pressure for everybody rooting for one person and sure a lot more pressure for the runner himself. To add some lore flavour you can even add some 4 elder magic stuff(Marat and co's intervention) near the entrance, that the designated player has to activate, to stop the whole building from collapsing and it makes sense since this is Mallok we are talking about.

 

[Marcus Fury]

Catacombs tombs is the best boss imo! It has a little of everything and yet it’s not the end boss?? The end boss is the worst ever! I’m sitting here not being able to dodge the constant red laser beams losing health and I can’t do anything about it but kill mobs for souls to unlock!!! Personally make tombs mechanics the last boss fight, stick the tomb run to the rook raid and there we go a better raid! Really think it’s way overboard in the last tomb and needs to be toned down! So my idea is to delete tombs dude, delete the silly run back, and delete the final boss mechanics. Then with the final boss have the tombs replaced with the boss and keep it to that!
Oh the red prince doesn’t need his heath back and maybe his sword can be a laser sword with laser beams!! Tada!!! Lol


Ok my opinion aside, thank you for the op and was a good read!!!! Hear them that!

 

[Lia Light]

My opinion is after going through all the lags, all the dodging and fighting in catacombs plus all other raids, the gold tier camel has no speed boost. Previous season without catacomb we got hound that has speed boost. The previous previous season without catacomb and veldt they got horse that has speed boost also.

So we are basically rewarded with a pure cosmetic mount after all that raid work. So would you drop catacomb for us and get the raid mount back with speed boost? That sounds more fair

 

[Antavious]

To be fair there are very few things in this game that push people hard and challenge there survival as a result the player base in general have all opted (rightly so) for more dps and less def but content in recent years has been more demanding(empowered vale ladder, oasis ladder Christmas bash to name a few) and as a result validating more balanced specing that keeps def in mind. This new content isn’t gonna stop coming and rethinking ”glass cannon” type specing is probably the best way to go. Some will adapt and some will be set in there ways but I’m the kind of player who is always questioning/rethinking my build. i also don’t mind if I’m slow that’s why I had no problem lvling as a lightning warrior with only 3 feats till I was 95 and rb5 but a lot of players won’t like that kind of play so I do worry how they will fair but generally speaking the newer stuff is a lot richer in play experience so we want it even if it means having to change our ways.

 

[Marcus Fury]

My opinion is after going through all the lags, all the dodging and fighting in catacombs plus all other raids, the gold tier camel has no speed boost. Previous season without catacomb we got hound that has speed boost. The previous previous season without catacomb and veldt they got horse that has speed boost also.

So we are basically rewarded with a pure cosmetic mount after all that raid work. So would you drop catacomb for us and get the raid mount back with speed boost? That sounds more fair

It does seem pointless to do a lot of raids to get a cosmetic item after hearing tales of past that they got raid mounts with speed and jumping.. Maybe make the mount a heroic tier achievement? But with some changes that I think that needs to be


Personally think the combat additions are over top with little reward in the time we spent as a lower level player. If end game content is introduced and it takes over 7 months to get to end game, then makes the lower/gathering people less active and feel they are included. I would favor lots of end content if its possible to get there in 3 months or less.

Trust me end came combat is fine but making it a slow game to get there isn’t cool.

The gathering safe zones are not exactly in some cases safe to get too! And lvl 75 items of gathering are non existent but need safe zones!

Could go on but I really think it’s pointless at this moment.

 

[Xantia]

I’ve seen some interesting comments from players who find Catacombs manageable and players who don’t, both on these forums and in the game. But I’ve seen people who find the raid manageable being more vocal on the forums and people who don’t being more vocal in the game, so I’d like to share my “not so manageable” perspective here to make sure the devs can hear from both sides. If you’re struggling with something in catacombs I haven’t touched on, please weigh in!

Thames is too difficult. Having him harder than “comparable” raid bosses isn’t in and of itself a problem; having him so much harder is out of proportion and is a problem. He’s not an end boss but he is harder than most of the actual end bosses in raids. He’s harder than Zikiti, Egan, Ravelle, possibly Lilith, and even his own end boss Isretta! He may be a faster kill than Red Prince, but he wipes more players in the process (Red Prince doesn’t have cannons). In a group, Thames may be easier than Zell, but I’ll still take Zell if I want to spend less than half the fight dying/respawning/running back.

Cannons: first of all, Thames doesn’t need them – his damage and other mechanics are at end boss level and he lasts long enough for those to matter. Honestly, I hope he keeps the cannons in a more manageable state. But if he’s going to keep them, something needs a nerf. The cannons are awesome but right now they are way too awesome. Visually, they’re too big. While one next to you is firing, it’s very difficult to see Thames, his blasts to the ground, his adds, other players, the edge of the floor, or which cannons are going to fire next. I find them noticeably harder to see around than the cannons in last year’s Oasis ladder. I’m not sure why, but maybe they are the wrong scale for the room they’re in. And damage wise, they’re excessive. You could take a group through Thames on gold and take the same group with the same gear/buffs/dungeoneering through a not-crazy raid on gold, and watch Thames mop up the floor with as many players per round of cannon fire as the end boss of the other raid did total. That is way out of proportion, no matter what dungeoneering the group is at.

Now, you might be thinking “Just dodge the cannons!” Well, that would be great, but if you can’t see anything but the cannon currently firing, you have lag, and the cannons are hitting hard enough that one shot = dead, you are going to have a lot of skilled players dying in a way that is totally out of their control and totally not fun. Being killed by a one-shot because the game graphics don’t let you see where to move to, or because the game lags too hard for you to move in time, has no gameplay value. None at all.

I could also question whether my level 95, 5 rebirths character with all legendary level 95 gear, carefully selected stats, the best buffs I can access without spending real money, and high 30s dungeoneering should really be getting killed with one shot at gold tier before the end boss. It seems a bit much, especially when compared to the other gold raids. But even if I should be facing hits that hard, I should at least have the possibility (not expecting it to be easy, but it should be possible) of avoiding most of those lethal shots.

Running back: this is pretty darn cool! But, like most new stuff, it needs some kinks worked out. It’s pretty simple how it works solo. Check the tomb and run; once you’re back, boom, finished. In a group, it’s more complicated. Some comments I’ve seen regarding running back in a group (I’ve done some paraphrasing):

“I’ve been on X number of group gold catacombs since the last update and all of them have failed, is there a bug keeping group catacombs from succeeding?”
“I ran back but it didn’t count me as back until I went into the second room again, then it finished.”
“If I die and revive in the vestibule just before the tomb is opened, does it count me as back?”
“I died after I got back and I didn’t want to risk the raid for all of you, so I left the raid.”
“If you die after you get back, just stay dead, you’ll get credit if you don’t revive back to the tomb.”
“I disconnected before Isretta and everybody else got back in time but it failed, did it count me as not getting back because I disconnected partway through?”
“Can we get most people back before we open the tomb so we don’t have so many boulders to dodge on the way back?”
“Being in the vestibule doesn’t count unless you run out and then back in.”
“15 man raid with everyone else milling around in the vestibule dodging boulders while waiting for the last person to get back.”
“We should have a wizard run back last – nah, they’re too squishy, one boulder and dead.”
“If I get back, die in the vestibule, revive at the tomb and then the timer runs out, does that fail the raid?”
“I thought we got everybody back, did we fail because of a bug or because we were wrong about what constitutes back?”
“I was running back and I got hit by a boulder for 40k more than my max health, that’s excessive.”
“It’s not having to run back that sucks, it’s having the entire raid fail because one person didn’t make it back in time that sucks.”
“Having to run back and dodge boulders is enough work without having mobs attack where you’ve already killed them on the way.”
“Sorry! I died/fell off the bridge/got hit by a boulder/got lost. Running back again.”
“Getting this many players back all at once is like herding cats.”
“If you’ve made it back you can come help escort”
“Playername died and is still running back.”
“We’re not finished until everyone’s out!”
“I got killed in the vestibule.”
“How many are back?”
“Who’s not back?”
“(Expletive deleted)!!!”

So I’m seeing at least two problems with the running back objective. One, the confusion, and two, the inconsistencies of requiring everybody to get back. To reduce the confusion, the raid objectives should specify exactly what “Escape the Catacombs” entails. For example, a statement like “Get X players back to the vestibule. X out of Y are back. You are/are not back” would be quite helpful!

And then there’s the inconsistency. Somebody killed Isretta, objective complete. Somebody checked the tomb, objective complete. Somebody reached the vestibule while we’re dashing back, raid complete, WAIT NO! Everyone has to do it individually! Imagine how ridiculous it would be if every single person had to complete every single objective on their own for a raid to succeed. “Whoops, Fal got lost in Swamp again and didn’t get back in time to hit the boss, guess we all fail this one”* or “Fal stop running into lava and solve Nicodemus’ puzzle, everybody else has done theirs and we’re all going to fail if you can’t figure yours out in time.”*
*Both hypothetical scenarios were inspired by actual occurrences.

All the other raid objectives have some leeway – the objective has to be completed, but it doesn’t matter who solves the puzzle or how many people take down the boss, it counts if the puzzle has been solved or the boss has been taken down. That is the beauty of playing together which is so valued in this game. Some players aren’t good at puzzles. Should their entire group raid fail just because somebody else has to “memorize Orla’s pattern” for them? No, put someone else on puzzles and everyone is happy. Failing a raid of 15 people because only 14 of them were capable of an objective is a huge threat to collaboration. Forget about the teamwork of having puzzle masters do the puzzles and tanks take the hits and healers keep people alive while the mad dps go boom boom! If you’re not good enough at a mad dash between falling boulders and over gaping holes in the floor, everybody in the raid fails and they might not want you joining them again no matter how good you are at anything else!

Hopefully I’ve made it clear why requiring everyone to run back is a bad idea. So let me suggest some alternatives:

– At least one person has to get back, and it must be someone who either was in Isretta’s room when she died or ran back to it after she died (because sending one person back in the middle of the fight would be too easy). This option is probably too easy for large raids.
– Some portion of the raiders need to get back, such as 1/3rd (rounded to appropriate whole numbers). This is hopefully a large enough portion that trying to send that number back halfway through the fight will jeopardize the raid. Example: for 1-3 players, at least one has to get back; 4-6, at least 2; 7-9, at least 3; 10-12, at least 4; and 13-15, at least 5.

In any case, the requirement should not be tied to one specific individual, because it’s not fair to the rest of the group if 14 people fail because one person is unskilled in the fine art of skedaddling.

A final note: it’s really weird that the people who have made it back to the vestibule are still being bombarded by falling boulders. Surely the point of running back was to get out the collapse zone? If getting to the vestibule constitutes “escaping the catacombs,” then I certainly should not be getting killed there! The boulders have people wondering whether being killed in the vestibule and reviving in the tomb (in group raids) makes you no longer “out” of the catacombs. It would be truly bizarre if being killed after you reached the “you have escaped” zone meant “oops, guess your escape doesn’t count for raid completion after all,” but either way, no boulder bombs in the safe zone please!

I love Catacombs. It’s new, it’s different, it’s wild, and it officially blew my mind on a level I haven’t experienced elsewhere in the game, maybe in any game. But still: see below.

TL;DR:
– Thames is big and bad enough to have his own raid
– “Haul yer butts!” should not be this difficult

Even though I LOVE CATACOMBS, I agree with your constructive criticism. Thanks for explaining so well.

This new content isn’t gonna stop coming and rethinking ”glass cannon” type specing is probably the best way to go.

I agree and I think the main reason level 95 players resist trying new builds, is because of how difficult it is to gather enough Blight Motes to craft Epic/Legendary Mythic gear, with good stats and max runes.

If the Devs are going to continue adding challenging content (and I hope they will)... then they need to update our 95 recipes and make it easier for players to acquire enough Blight Motes, to try different builds.

Personally, I enjoy gear-crafting and don't mind gathering/refining for mass crafting (which is the only way to deal with the fickle gods of RNG). What I find frustrating, is the snail's pace of Blight Mote collection. Even if I wanted to try a new Raid build, the season would be over before I can collect enough Blight Motes.

 

[Antavious]

I mostly use dropped gear now, I tried building around crafted but I found the main stats and glyphs that benefit me most heavily can’t be crafted on armour so I had to decide between slightly more stats from my mythic legendarys or more useful ones from dropped epics. I crafted a whole perfect set over the course of about 8 months only to ultimately reject them lol

 

[Carly]

I have a suggestion, could we possibly remove Thames ads “slow” that make dodging the cannons harder. I’m already running liberty dram, trying to juggle incoming damage from 4 ads and Thames’s chucks of deadly aoe fire balls, while trying to keep an eye out for the cannon preglow warning. On mobile. Our camera views are already a pain & limited, with constant automatic zooming in and out of view, and visual graphics of attacks while camera zoomed in make it almost impossible to always be 100% aware of where prewarn light is. And when you do try to dodge, all of a sudden you’re moving sloth speed.. In my opinion, adding that is overkill & shouldn’t affect a person using liberty.

 

[Mynyari]

I find all three of those middle bosses very difficult. As melee, I actually find Icarus more challenging than Thames. I can usually keep an eye on the generators and position myself where I don't get hit. And even if I do, because I am a tank, I can take quite a bit of exposure there. I have a hard time killing the acolytes quickly, but really, Thames is manageable for me.

Joth'tech is not tooooo bad... but if I don't kill him very, very quickly and handle those healers, the fight quickly becomes unwinnable and I either need to /die or restart altogether.

Icarus... is a nasty SOB. I want to think that ranged would have an easier time with those totems, but even as a tank, when Icarus hits me, he hurts a lot. I can't see most ranged being able to manage him without being able to stun him. But those totems and the aoe I get while killing totems is off the charts. But I do see that most of the top 10 is wizards/s priests/hunters.

My mentality at this point is just that I need more dungeoneering.

 

[Antavious]

I find all three of those middle bosses very difficult. As melee, I actually find Icarus more challenging than Thames. I can usually keep an eye on the generators and position myself where I don't get hit. And even if I do, because I am a tank, I can take quite a bit of exposure there. I have a hard time killing the acolytes quickly, but really, Thames is manageable for me.

Joth'tech is not tooooo bad... but if I don't kill him very, very quickly and handle those healers, the fight quickly becomes unwinnable and I either need to /die or restart altogether.

Icarus... is a nasty SOB. I want to think that ranged would have an easier time with those totems, but even as a tank, when Icarus hits me, he hurts a lot. I can't see most ranged being able to manage him without being able to stun him. But those totems and the aoe I get while killing totems is off the charts. But I do see that most of the top 10 is wizards/s priests/hunters.

My mentality at this point is just that I need more dungeoneering.

This is very similar to my own experiences with those bosses in regard to Icarus I take micro breaks from killing totems wile the aoe clears or use more of my immunity/healing cool-downs to power through it But yer I had seen geb cannons before so the 1 or 2 times I went down to new mechanics wile learning were to him not Thames. 1st time that demon guy had healers I wasn’t expecting it and he built up too many causeing a stalemate but I /die came back and they were down so I had a second chance and pwnd him quick but that was it.

 

[Lalocat]

I'm not sure if PC players somehow get better visibility during that, but it's really bad as an iPad player at least.

Draw distance on mobile is a really big problem in this raid. On the other route (without Thames), I had difficulty seeing the last set of pillars. It was my first time through and I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. Only the first four pillars were reliably visible.

Thames... almost killed my priest on bronze. He is ridiculous to the point where I expect to just drop the whole raid at higher levels when I see him and hope to roll one where he doesn't spawn.

 

[Antavious]

People seam to get quite funny ideas about raid difficulties this is because of dungeonering lvls, if your having trouble with a raid it might simply be your d.lvl isn’t up to snuff for the tier your on. For instance at the start of the raid season gold would have been tricky for me but now heroic is basically a walk for me. I don’t see how anyone can accurately judge wether or not a high tier raid will be possible or not based on how well they do there first bronze.

 

[Carly]

People seam to get quite funny ideas about raid difficulties this is because of dungeonering lvls, if your having trouble with a raid it might simply be your d.lvl isn’t up to snuff for the tier your on. For instance at the start of the raid season gold would have been tricky for me but now heroic is basically a walk for me. I don’t see how anyone can accurately judge wether or not a high tier raid will be possible or not based on how well they do there first bronze.

I’m dungeenering lvl 70.. and catacombs heroic ain’t no walk in the park for me! I think most of it is mobile limitations, as someone previously stated some things aren’t visible, and screen rotations and zoom ins/ outs can be life or death.

 

[BBlue]

I have 2 95 toons doing raid both are struggling fire wizard and holy healer with the op mob attacks and thames on attack from a mob is over 30-45k on gold, Thames cannons go off to fast theres no time to dodge and on gongs as mobile player I can only see the first 4 columns not the back 2 unless I jump to see them, then there's few times someone didn't make the run back in time resulting in a fail, then other time in a group of 7 everyone made it back but 1 due to dc whole group penalty was failed raid since this raid been out I have had 16 fails on wizard and on priest 3 after constantly being to difficult on gold level to point I can't go any further , others don't seem to have any problems dung levels for the wizard is 38 and still can't stop dying on anything.

 

[Antavious]

I’m dungeenering lvl 70.. and catacombs heroic ain’t no walk in the park for me! I think most of it is mobile limitations, as someone previously stated some things aren’t visible, and screen rotations and zoom ins/ outs can be life or death.

That’s probably more about class limitations more than anything wizards aren’t built to be tanks and are only so-so with self healing basically heroic solo will only run smooth with a combo of healer/tank/dps (some classes can function rather well as a kind of fake all three) and a fairly good d.lvl (probably 50. It’s not that they can’t do it but by comparison they probably need a lot more premium consumables and every run will be a struggle. I play exclusively on I pad and I see nothing wrong with the visual effects but maybe a tiny device is super bad.

 

[Lalocat]

People seam to get quite funny ideas about raid difficulties this is because of dungeonering lvls, if your having trouble with a raid it might simply be your d.lvl isn’t up to snuff for the tier your on. For instance at the start of the raid season gold would have been tricky for me but now heroic is basically a walk for me. I don’t see how anyone can accurately judge wether or not a high tier raid will be possible or not based on how well they do there first bronze.

Other bosses simply do not do that kind of damage. The actual problem with him is the four mobs he spawns. Four mobs plus boss is what the old Lilith fight was like and both hunter and wizard needed premium heals to get through them starting at gold. I do know what is going to be too much at higher levels with how it looks on bronze.

It's actually worse than the Lilith fight because there is nowhere to run, the mobs are too spread out to stun, and the cannons will force you into his gigantic aoes. He does a lot more damage than Lilith on his own, plus four mobs, PLUS cannons, PLUS aoe that takes up 70% of the fight area. Come. On.

 

[Antavious]

Other bosses simply do not do that kind of damage. The actual problem with him is the four mobs he spawns. Four mobs plus boss is what the old Lilith fight was like and both hunter and wizard needed premium heals to get through them starting at gold. I do know what is going to be too much at higher levels with how it looks on bronze.

It's actually worse than the Lilith fight because there is nowhere to run, the mobs are too spread out to stun, and the cannons will force you into his gigantic aoes. He does a lot more damage than Lilith on his own, plus four mobs, PLUS cannons, PLUS aoe that takes up 70% of the fight area. Come. On.

To be fair you’re probably right you have a hunter and from what I can see only universalists (toons that can do dps, tanking and healing) can handle cat gold solo. Most will have to go in groups to do gold +. I’ll also concede in the fact that it is a demanding fight with multiple elements I’ve been comparing cat as Orla puzzles+ a ladder but once you learn it it’s better. I find it the easiest of the two possible bosses as the other hits harder and is harder to doge the aoe at least for melee as it lingers when your going for the towers.

 

[marty57]

Cats have combs? who knew.