WoF on the Styx Wyrm

[Twohand]

Has anyone here tried adjusting their tactics before facing the WoF Dragons, Abazzur and the Styx one? How did it go?

[ReverentBlade]

Has anyone here tried adjusting their tactics before facing the WoF Dragons, Abazzur and the Styx one? How did it go?

I've been able to manage it by clearing up them with a crappy summon 9 elemental and popping conduit after baiting out the WoF. Its doable, but it makes the dungeon minions a -lot- more tedious. I do have to basically empty my spellbook of all damage and healing spells to kill the dragon once there. Have to hoard every spell for it. Not much I can spare to help the poor water elemental slap its way through the trash. I enjoyed solving the puzzle for a few days, but I won't lie, I don't prefer the changes personally.

[AstralUniverse]

Havent went there since the changes, but I imagine I'd just move my remove blind wand to the front hotbar and eat the wof while my summon is waiting in the corner of the room. if the dragon's stats are more or less the same, it should be just about as easy as before to a warlock, invoker, defiler and all that jazz. Personally the annoying part of the encounter for me was always the igms spam, not the dragon. edit: the Abazzur one.

[ReverentBlade]

Maybe its my imagination, but he's never targeted the character itself with the WoF. He'll melee me to death until there is a summon to use it on. Hiding them around a corner didn't work for me.

[Kalthariam]

Has anyone here tried adjusting their tactics before facing the WoF Dragons, Abazzur and the Styx one? How did it go?

Yes I've learned that if your not an infinite caster, your basically useless, and should just recruit other people to do the work for you, because your existence doesn't matter, and the people that would do the killing, would do the killing whether you were there or not.

Only warlocks are apparently allowed to have Conjurations anymore. Wizards and Clerics should just simply give up, shelve and roll into one of the new pretty warlocks or infinite casters, because that's simply the direction the server is going towards.

[PowerWord Rage]

Sarcasm aside.
Non-infi caster which mostly refers to wizard / sorcerer, have access to Mord's disjunction, Greater Sanctuary and instant Timestop.
These 3 spells are game changer, no matter PVE or PVP.

Casters are designed to play smart, infi or not.
There're sufficient spell slots for resummoning and even allocate adequately for burst damage.
Especially Wizards, there's a reason for their versatility.

Wizard / Sorcerer are better designed still, for PVP and they are not lacking in PVE.

Having Planar Conduit designed for your main PVE purpose isn't wrong.
Having Planar Conduit designed for your -entire- PVE purpose is.

Many players probably don't quite understand how truly powerful the above three spells are, especially Mord's disjunction when casted by an epic abjurer.

[PowerWord Rage]

Has anyone here tried adjusting their tactics before facing the WoF Dragons, Abazzur and the Styx one? How did it go?

I'll be severely impacted by this as well but I'll be objective, if the entire purpose is to spike up the difficulty and avoid having 're-summoning' spam of summons as 'tank'.
Apart from WOF, Devs should also consider adding spells that restricts re-summoning, such as Banishment against both Summons/Undead which the restriction usually last a Minute or so.
And usually, this particular -minute- could be the true hurdle.

[Anomandaris]

I ran shadow cordor crypts the other day and the lich threw mords right out of the gate instead of a few spells down the list. It took my vamp feast off and made the encounter a little rockier than my usual clean takedown. Honestly it was awesome, it’s a lich and should be savvy/formidable in its application of the arcane.

I’m all for the ramping difficulty in PvE and think we shouldn’t benchmark content on “can I solo it.” It’s nice to have some soloable runic content I s’pose as playtimes are tricky for some folks, but by and large it seems we feel entitled to be able to solo everything with relative ease.

Lastly don’t forget scrolls are a thing. I carry a big stack of gate scrolls, mords scrolls and others. I try not to use them unless I have to because they’re costly, but it should cost resources to hunt an ancient wyrm. It also allows you to save spellslots in your book for more of other things like damage spells etc. Get creative and adapt!!

[-XXX-]

Apart from WOF, Devs should also consider adding spells that restricts re-summoning, such as Banishment against both Summons/Undead which the restriction usually last a Minute or so.

Summon warding doesn't stop undead summoning, just FYI.

But let's not get overzealous here. While I do realize that some players have 0 respect for summons and regard them with irrational disdain, it'd be best to keep in mind that crit immunity, physical DR and DI also exist - should those be applied to any and all boss encounters guarding runic shrines as well?

That only serves as a reminder that dungeon designers can just as easily shut down melee builds as they can do it with summoners. Giving WoF and planar turning to random spawns is akin to randomly giving them 100% slashing immunity - could always argue here that your cookie-cutter WM can swap their weapon of choice for a club so they're not being completely hosed, but what's the point of them being a weapon master at that point?

Bottom line, while increased PvE challenge is generally welcome and mostly appreciated, content that aims to straight up shut down arbitrarily handpicked builds doesn't necessarily result in a very enjoyable gameplay.

[Shadowy Reality]

Bottom line, while increased PvE challenge is generally welcome and mostly appreciated, content that aims to straight up shut down arbitrarily handpicked builds doesn't necessarily result in a very enjoyable gameplay.

But it's not really arbitrary is it? WoF is very much directed at planar conduit builds that don't get spell resistance. It bothers me a bit that there was this much backlash over this. Hitting things is a WMs whole kit, Planar Conduit is not a summoner's full kit. Saying WoF kills summoners is like slashing immunity killing WMs is just wrong. WoF is more akin to crit immune bosses to WMs, of which there are plenty.

We all know planar conduit is the easiest (and usually the fastest) way to solo high level content, why is giving them a bump such a big issue when pretty much all other builds have a far bumpier ride in PvE? Planar Conduit summoners are not the benchmark for PvE difficulty they very nearly stand at the top.

I have a pure Hexblade that could make it to the Styx dragon and beat it (I am not sure I could do it after the change). But you know what, I spend so many heal kits (and sometimes heal potions) and time on my way there, that the whole journey is barely profitable and quite dangerous at times. Anyone with planar conduit breezes through without effort.

There's still plenty of runic content that's very easily soloable, it's fine if some parts of the server specially dragons, are not.

[AllPizzasArePersonal]

I mostly main a mundane WM. I was a little surprised running Styx when I got slapped with the WoF, but overall the fight is about as easy to solo as it used to be for a WM. Whether intentionally or not, this change is just going to make life way harder for non-infinite casters (and only them)

[Twohand]

I'm removing Word of Faith from Abazzur and the Styx Dragon. Not precisely sure when the update will be online, but expect it some time soon.