Most of them feel fine. However, there are two in particular that I’ve noticed - Mother Phestis and Akkaris, that take far too long to die, and unlike usual, where more people make things die faster, more people actually make these two die slower due to how their health scales. A group of 5 can down Akkaris in 2-3 minutes. Whereas my raid group of 40 took 10 minutes.
Likewise, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there is one rare that dies WAY too fast - The Engulfer. I know you guys just hotfixed his health scaling, but it’s no where near enough.
I’d also like to point out that Helmix for some reason takes significantly longer to spawn than any other rare. We’ve worked out it’s based on killing the worms in the area, but I had a group of like 12 clearing out the worms for a good hour before it spawned. But I’ve also had him spawn almost immediately after he died because we killed a worm that aggroed with him.
And finally, a last comment on rares - Rhuv. Why is the Mawrat mount on Rhuv and not Iska? Rhuv dies literally within 10-15 seconds of spawning. It’s incredibly hard to find a group where it isn’t already dead.
I’d also like to see a way to tell if a rare is currently spawning. Like, for instance, we can see Xy’rath is up if there’s broker corpses in his spawn area. But for other rares on rotation like Chitali, Vexis, etc. I’ve seen no noticeable way to tell if they’re spawning.
A suggestion I had in general was simply make Shandris able to talk to in Haven, and have her say something like “The Sentinels have been tracking high profile targets in Zereth Mortis, but we recently lost track of a few of them.” then a dialogue you can press where she lists them. That way players aren’t stuck camping something for hours before realizing it isn’t on the rotation.
I would also like to talk about the swords that drop in Zereth Mortis. They were very obviously meant to be transmog. This is reinforced by the fact you made it so the agi swords can drop for str users and vice versa, as well as letting both the agi and str swords drop for warlocks/mages.
However, neither appear to be dropping for hunters (I’ve asked every hunter I know, communities, etc.), even though we are capable of using swords, so we could add them to our transmog wardrobe.
And finally, pocopoc:
I actually like pocopoc. I’ll be at Cypher level 5 tomorrow (I would be now but I’m saving Cyphers for the 4th row to make him a stronger fighter). Thoughts:
- The Jiro Buffs are borderline useless. They’re good to get once a day for Cyphers then never again. It feels like a genuine waste of cyphers to ever put points into those until we have no other option.
- The enhancements are fun, but some are very strong. For instance, the Healiac and the Toxicialic. The Toxicialic melts certain rares, as they aren’t elites. So their health goes down 6% every 5 seconds per person with the power. Perhaps make it so the strength of the power is reduced if more than one person has the power engaged with it, scaling with how many? Also, is it intended that this power is meant to aggro everything within 40 yards if you are in combat? IT also breaks CC when this happens. I’ve killed quite a few people on accident cause I ran by and my power broke their CC.
- The Pocopoc controlling: These are fun, and some are very strong.
However, the Tarachnid’s power doesn’t work 99% of the time. It uses an energy but nothing happens. The Scarabid’s power is so weak a melee attack does more, so why ever use it for 1 energy?
The Helicid, Geoelemental, and Vombata are great though. It’s just the first 2 that I fail to see much use for.
Can’t comment on the 4th row as I haven’t unlocked it yet.
- And finally, Perceptive Pocopoc. Can you please make it so Pocopoc stops pinging the minimap for lore concordances you’ve already added to your console, or lore concordances you can’t decipher yet? Also, you can only unlock one of each type of puzzle chest a day, but Pocopoc will continue to ping the area of a puzzle chest you can’t do - even though it won’t be visible for you. He also pings Jiro for me, even though I haven’t unlocked the ability for him to ping Jiro?
I think that’s all for now. I try to avoid critiquing things until I’ve fully experienced them. As such, can’t talk about the raid as I’m waiting for LFR, and I do not have interest in the solo queue PVP, because as a PvE player, I have zero chance against someone in PvP gear.
EDIT: On the topic of alt-friendliness - any chance you can make it so cyphers and protoform synthesis items can drop on alts who haven’t advanced that far in the campaign/pocopoc research? Feels bad looting treasures/killing rares and not getting cyphers cause I still haven’t unlocked pocopoc. Likewise, missing out on account-bound items my main can use sucks.
To add to this, even just adding a bank to Haven would make this significantly better. As well as double-checking all protoform synthesis items can be put in the reagent bank. Some can’t, according to a few communities I’m in.