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Rattlebones Exalted Duel fixes?

AuthorMessage
Survivor
Dec 15, 2009
18
This instance is fun, but it is time-consuming with a good team it's taken me about 20-30 minutes at minimum. It takes all of my time on Wiz usually to find players for it and then actually doing the fight. But here are a few things that would maybe make it less time consuming.

1: Probably the most obvious. I don't want a giant nerf or anything but maybe lowering their damage a few hundred points it seems like their spells have twice the damage per pip of like Kraken, or Storm Owl.

2: I feel like this could be glitched easily unfortunately but team-up for all housing instances would be very helpful. If it consumed each player's copy of the duel, only the owner being able to team up from that instance. This has probably been suggested before but just thought I'd throw it out there had it not.

3: Removing the enfeeble cheat; this is probably the most hindering part of this fight that makes it difficult.(Every time you blade there's a chance the boss will enfeeble you, hence wasting a round.) But I think either the chance should be lower for her to remove blades, or just removing this cheat entirely. I am aware you can trap instead but as a death wizard trapping is just as risky because they both can remove them with one sacrifice.

4: Removing the mana-burn cheat/lowering it's dealt damage. Sometimes when this cheat activates it's basically like an instant loss, as it removes your pips wasting several potential rounds AND it removes 50-60% of your health, by this point of the fight if someone of the right level dies you're half way through the fight or more so you can lose easily 20-30 minutes of trying this housing gauntlet.

I am not begging for a nerf to make it easier, I like the fight being tough. But there's a bit of artificial difficulty with this fight and that is frustrating. I'd also like to point out I WOULD NOT like all of these changes at once. I think one or two of them would make the fight faster, maybe a little easier, but mostly faster. If someone disagrees and has a better idea than please share them.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
Finding people to do runs is the hardest part of this fight, in my opinion. There are a few steps you can take to make this battle much easier though. The biggest key in my opinion is first round casts. Cast Death dispel on Rattlebones followed by a heal or ideally followed by Sanctuary then a heal. This will disable his doom and gloom on healing cheat for the rest of the battle. It tricks him into thinking the doom and gloom is still up so he never recasts it. Makes managing your health a lot easier. Casting Storm dispels on the Dark Fairy takes care of the enfeeble cheat. Casting Ice dispels on either of them takes care of the feint switching cheat for that boss.

Survivor
Dec 15, 2009
18
*2: also adding level scaling and a special warning for housing instances warning" You use team up with this instance at your own risk, as players may leave the duel." or something.

Mastermind
Mar 13, 2010
328
fruit salad on Aug 5, 2016 wrote:
This instance is fun, but it is time-consuming with a good team it's taken me about 20-30 minutes at minimum. It takes all of my time on Wiz usually to find players for it and then actually doing the fight. But here are a few things that would maybe make it less time consuming.

1: Probably the most obvious. I don't want a giant nerf or anything but maybe lowering their damage a few hundred points it seems like their spells have twice the damage per pip of like Kraken, or Storm Owl.

2: I feel like this could be glitched easily unfortunately but team-up for all housing instances would be very helpful. If it consumed each player's copy of the duel, only the owner being able to team up from that instance. This has probably been suggested before but just thought I'd throw it out there had it not.

3: Removing the enfeeble cheat; this is probably the most hindering part of this fight that makes it difficult.(Every time you blade there's a chance the boss will enfeeble you, hence wasting a round.) But I think either the chance should be lower for her to remove blades, or just removing this cheat entirely. I am aware you can trap instead but as a death wizard trapping is just as risky because they both can remove them with one sacrifice.

4: Removing the mana-burn cheat/lowering it's dealt damage. Sometimes when this cheat activates it's basically like an instant loss, as it removes your pips wasting several potential rounds AND it removes 50-60% of your health, by this point of the fight if someone of the right level dies you're half way through the fight or more so you can lose easily 20-30 minutes of trying this housing gauntlet.

I am not begging for a nerf to make it easier, I like the fight being tough. But there's a bit of artificial difficulty with this fight and that is frustrating. I'd also like to point out I WOULD NOT like all of these changes at once. I think one or two of them would make the fight faster, maybe a little easier, but mostly faster. If someone disagrees and has a better idea than please share them.
The entire point of this duel is to be tough. Making any one of these changses (except Team Up) nerfs the instance to a difficulty far below the value of the gear rewarded. It's supposed to be difficult, time-consuming.

If you don't want difficult, time-consuming, do something else.

If they implement these nerfs, they need to take Malistaire level gear out, then.

Survivor
Dec 15, 2009
18
I am aware of all those strategies but they do not slow the time of the fight down, I'd argue they may increase the time it takes to do the fight.

Survivor
Dec 15, 2009
18
None of those "nerfs" make this much easier the mana burn, and enfeeble, are bad game design, time-consuming isn't challenge it's artificial difficulty. They wouldn't ruin the fight if you only added 1-2 like I VERY SPECIFICALLY said. Is it just me or do some people on forums just contradict people in order to sound like they have something to add?

Mastermind
Mar 13, 2010
328
Of course cheats are artificial difficulty; that's their entire purpose. If there were no cheats, the duel would be straightforward and simple. It's not supposed to be. That's why it exists; to add a different dimension to the game. One that required a modicum of strategy. I'll be clear what the problem with your unneccessary solutions are:
  • They don't do enough damage to warrant nerfing it; unless you don't have appropriate to your level gear on. In which case, that's your mistake.
  • Remove the late entrance cheat, and voila, hitter doesn't join until third round - and oh. No chance of him dying - but he can kill with one round of buffs. Wow, challenging, huh?
  • Remove the enfeeble cheat, and woah. Four blades, easiest dungeon ever, done. Dead. Reward for no thought, skill, challenge? Malistaire gear.

I believe that employing any of these suggestions to this duel eliminates the entire challenge. The duel gives arguably the best gear in the game. It should take more than one round.

The duels take no more than ten to fifteen minutes as it is? How short do you want them? If they're taking you longer than that, you aren't doing it right.

Don't like the duels? Don't do them. Don't turn them into Unicorn Way.

Survivor
Dec 15, 2009
18
Artificial difficulty is the adding of something fake than hinders the fight, it is usually not well thought out and not well planned it's like putting a wall in a fight that has no other reason to be there than to consume time and make you go around.

I have some of the best overall gear in the game excluding an amulet for my school. Rattlebones' Mana burn does 3000 damage to a player and wastes several rounds of pips, I'd be fine with the damage if they'd not remove the pips. Should someone just heal the people getting hurt with mana burn back up? No. Rattlebones would just doom and gloom. I said that the enfeeble chance should be lowered because it takes an entire round of time. This fight has no more thought than any other fight, dispel, dispel, dispel, buff, buff, buff, hit, gg. If you have a bunch of pvp friends with pay to win gear then it's no problem. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

Archon
Sep 17, 2012
4162
fruit salad on Aug 9, 2016 wrote:
Artificial difficulty is the adding of something fake than hinders the fight, it is usually not well thought out and not well planned it's like putting a wall in a fight that has no other reason to be there than to consume time and make you go around.

I have some of the best overall gear in the game excluding an amulet for my school. Rattlebones' Mana burn does 3000 damage to a player and wastes several rounds of pips, I'd be fine with the damage if they'd not remove the pips. Should someone just heal the people getting hurt with mana burn back up? No. Rattlebones would just doom and gloom. I said that the enfeeble chance should be lowered because it takes an entire round of time. This fight has no more thought than any other fight, dispel, dispel, dispel, buff, buff, buff, hit, gg. If you have a bunch of pvp friends with pay to win gear then it's no problem. So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.
Don't join the battle late and if you did the steps I said above that take ONE round you'd be able to safely heal and never see a doom and gloom. Sounds like you just don't want to follow a battle strategy and just want things nerfed