Aetherblades CM

[Tyson.5160]

Raiders,

 

What are your thoughts on the new Aetherblade CM?

[Sniper.5961]

I like the bossfight and its mechanics, the cone attack from Mai trin could have a charge up animation though, like the Shockwave from scarlet does, to make it more clear when to dodge. Every single player has to know the fight and can randomly get key mechanics that can cause a wipe if failed, also if you don't dodge certain attacks you get punished by taking more dps, I like both of these aspects of the fight. In the end you have to keep track of several mechanics at once, but they are all executable at the same time so even though it's not easy it's fair and fitting for a CM. The timer is reasonable and the difficulty is imo harder than some of the raidbosses, if not most of them. 

 

I have however one big issue and that is the rewards of it. The rewards are so bad it gives you no incentive for replayability, once you have the archivements, I think it will end up like Dhuum CM, most people will do it once for the archivement and then never again, and that's a pity.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Sniper.5961

[Exonfang.6784]

Overall I am very pleased with this strike CM. It's a relevant step up in difficulty from normal EoD strike missions, and includes mechanics that increase individual player responsibility and group coordination requirements. It also significantly reduces the margin for error via the green mechanic and enrage timer, which is a great thing for encouraging players to improve their output on an individual level.

The stacking exposed mechanic, with achievements to encourage players to perform well, are extremely nice touches that will go a long way to making the fight play out smoothly for pugs.

Anet will need to be careful to address any strategies that might circumvent existing mechanics, but I feel like this is a great first step into strike CMs. Well done Arena Net!

Edited April 20, 2022 by Exonfang.6784

[Asum.4960]

I can only echo previous sentiments, gameplay wise Anet did a fantastic job here. 

Lot's of fun and interesting mechanics to learn and coordinate, challenging without anything feel cheap or overly convoluted, and personal responsibility in mechanical knowledge and execution remains a strong focus. 

 

Reward wise, while not personally my focus, I'm afraid the content (and that includes normal EoD Strikes, but especially CM's) will be fairly abandoned by players long term.

[Ombras.2853]

I will speak of it and its replayability if and when Anet finally realizes how terrible rewards are for the new content.

EoD Strikes (all of them) and CM need a HUGE buff rewards wise.

Not a buff, a HUGE buff.

It’s simply ridiculous, as it is right now.

 

[maxwelgm.4315]

This is not unlike Dhuum and Fractal CMs (currently after they removed mystic coin) - absolutely amazing content that's among the best of Anet's design, yet they give nearly no rewards for it for some reason. Also this is harder than several of the raid bosses because it emphasizes individual responsibility (can't wait to see how much more of this they will pull off in Kaineng Overlook). Unfortunately everyone should get to play it ASAP this week because if no more rewards are introduced this is going to be dead on arrival due to how tight the mechanics are.

[Shiyo.3578]

2 hours ago, Ombras.2853 said:

I will speak of it and its replayability if and when Anet finally realizes how terrible rewards are for the new content.

EoD Strikes (all of them) and CM need a HUGE buff rewards wise.

Not a buff, a HUGE buff.

It’s simply ridiculous, as it is right now.

 

It's like they want to spend resources/money on content that doesn't get played. It makes absolutely no sense.

 

[rune.9572]

Like the mechanics, don't like the implementation.

It's a massive visual cluster****. It's already bad with effect spam, the boss hitbox taking half of your screen, overall scenery having bad contrast, and mechanist golems running around. And then you get 20 overlapping aoes and bullet hell *on top of it*, meanwhile the actual punishing mechanic (exposed waves) looks completely innocent.

Ever since we got the new orange AoEs I feel like designers have lost sense of consistency. So we get faint overlapping old-style dotted-border AoEs where the ground telegraph is basically useless due to all the overlapping, and the new orange ones for mechanics that 80% time originate from offscreen, at the same time. 

Also feels like anet has given up and surrendered to the "2 barrier heals" meta, because I can't see how anyone could complete this encounter within the time limit using just their personal healing skill. XD Might as well remove the restriction and let us put a 4th utility in that slot now.

Edited April 20, 2022 by rune.9572

[IAmNotMatthew.1058]

The new CM mechanics are interesting. Turning the "just ignore" slams and such into something you need to avoid is a nice touch. The bombs at the revolver mechanic is a bit of a mess at first sight, but it's rather simple in reality. 

The rewards could be better, it's an improvement over normal, but improving that wasn't difficult to begin with.

31 minutes ago, rune.9572 said:

Also feels like anet has given up and surrendered to the "2 barrier heals" meta, because I can't see how anyone could complete this encounter within the time limit using just their personal healing skill. XD Might as well remove the restriction and let us put a 4th utility in that slot now.

Healers existed and were used in squads before Aetherblade CM, you never had to heal yourself in instanced content using your heal skill. If you have to constantly use your own heal skill you should have a short meeting with the healers. Besides, if you are struggling with surviving even with healers you should try to bring a HFB instead of a hMechanist, way more healing and utility.

[Zychuu.7294]

I like the fight, liked the mechanics, rewards still non-existing but you get an Li, which is nice I guess? Our squad was caught off guard by the enrage timer.

We had what I thought was a reasonable squad on voice, with some people who had raiding experience and okay damage, but after we took our time to figure out how mechanics work we spend a couple of wipes trying to get past the timer. I'm not saying our squad was anything close to DhuumCM clearing dps, but I wouldn't count on your usual pug to hit the dps check if you get like ~2 people slacking. When we hit it first time I kinda hoped for some cool enrage where she gets pumped up, applies a ton of exposed and it's just a fight for like to get these last 5% in... but you just explode and insta wipe, lame.

Edited April 20, 2022 by Zychuu.7294

[Linken.6345]

33 minutes ago, Zychuu.7294 said:

I like the fight, liked the mechanics, rewards still non-existing but you get an Li, which is nice I guess? Our squad was caught off guard by the enrage timer.

We had what I thought was a reasonable squad on voice, with some people who had raiding experience and okay damage, but after we took our time to figure out how mechanics work we spend a couple of wipes trying to get past the timer. I'm not saying our squad was anything close to DhuumCM clearing dps, but I wouldn't count on your usual pug to hit the dps check if you get like ~2 people slacking. When we hit it first time I kinda hoped for some cool enrage where she gets pumped up, applies a ton of exposed and it's just a fight for like to get these last 5% in... but you just explode and insta wipe, lame.

Well Strikes have always been insta wipe if timer runs out tho so dont see why you thought that changed.

[ArjukKagrim.6049]

I really like the design of the CM, the mechanics and also that each player has some responsibilities and this is not just a golem where mechanics are disabled by firebrands. Huge thumbs up for the developing team!

 

However I totally share the concerns of previous posts that the rewards of EoD strikes, especially the new CM which has (and should have!) a high probability to fail, is totally lackluster. Probably many players enjoy the content, but are put off by the horrendous rewards. If you feel you wasted your time progression-wise all the enjoyment is marred. Why invest time and (probably several) attempts to solve it when you can go half-afk to auric basin and have more than 10 times the rewards in the same time?

[Sena.2761]

I liked it, if I had to complain about anything it would be the big Scarlet balls being too much and pushing the fight into the "too much going on, too cluttered" camp.

 

The mechanics are fine. Not much to say. As people get better at Greens and the Bomb phase we'll start seeing more random PuG clears. I think the timer is probably just a tad too low but that seems to be a theme for EoD.

 

It was the first CM anything I'd ever done so I have no point of reference. Took me roughly 3 or 4hours with a PuG open to all. though still sorting for roles, on day 1 with no references, so that will probably go down as time goes by. Figured things out as we went along and the bombs definitely took the longest to figure out.

[Feilou.7395]

I like the fight. It is fun to do for the first times and it feels good to get punished for mistakes, but I also think it still has problems.
In my eyes the main problems are:
1. the exposed debuff that accumulates if a mechanic is failed, gets removed on down. So heal scourge/other rezz classes invalid that mechanic.
2. The bomb/cricle phase is on a hard timer. It is a nice puzzle for the first time, but once you understand the mechanic it is always the same and staying around for 10 or more seconds, waiting for bombs to explode is not fun. I also really dislike that it does not matter which bomb gets killed, as it makes the whole phase as brain dead as the normal mode one (well I guess the people with the special action key have to think a little bit).
3. The Mai Trin phase feels useless. The part is not hard. It is just annoying as she dashes around and doges attacks.

So, it probably does not become my most favorite boss over time, but I have faith that the next CMs are going to be great if they are as big of a step up form the NM as this one (well the last two, I have little faith for ankka).

[lissiandra.1357]

exposed stacking up is very very punishing, especially if you don't have a bloodmagic scourge. they could stand to take it out of a few attacks like Mai cone or the spread bombs and just leave it on the shockwave

if you have a healscourge, then it barely matters since only they have to be good enough to yoink everyone out.

 

orbital lasers could stand to be a tad more telegraphed (why not keep yellow like VG/Harvest/Cairn/literally every other raid boss?) but it's not a huge deal

 

dps check is a tad high for the level I think it was intended to be at. You basically need about 100k squad DPS, mid to low end groups might struggle especially if you need to switch out one of the DPS for a heal scourge (high dps squads wont have this issue at all, but high dps groups don't need a heal scourge either)

especially since anet has repeatedly been nerfing squad-wide buffs (10man might *cough*, and later loss of sun/frost/banners/etc) it just makes it harder for lower end groups to meet 100k as a dps check (this is also extra punishing if anyone dies early, which is very easy with everything stacking up in the background. this fight is already extremely punishing as far as early deaths go)

 

bomb mechanic is kind of open for griefing, ex. if you just hate your group and are really bored, you can put the bomb in the wrong spot and guarantee a wipe. even slothasor poisons can be dealt with (ish, eat more mushrooms?) and well, you can technically res after a bad Dhuum bomb.

It's not hard or a bad mechanic imho, just doesn't happen until very late in the fight and is ripe for griefing.

 

scarlet projectiles alternate between the most annoying things ever or basically nonexistent if you stack enough projectile destruction.

 

rewards are garbage, especially first clear. you go through all of this and... that's it? clearing literally any raid boss for the first time gives more (yes, repeatably I'm aware the rewards are on par with raids, I'm saying the first-time rewards are... nonexistent).

 

also please for the love of god make the mech immune to the spread mechanic

Edited April 20, 2022 by lissiandra.1357

[Sarius.9285]

11 hours ago, Linken.6345 said:

Well Strikes have always been insta wipe if timer runs out tho so dont see why you thought that changed.

but you don't wipe if the timer runs out. we just did it after the time already expired.

 

https://dps.report/gHbm-20220421-003515_trin

[Kozumi.5816]

On 4/19/2022 at 8:30 PM, Sniper.5961 said:

I have however one big issue and that is the rewards of it. The rewards are so bad it gives you no incentive for replayability, once you have the archivements, I think it will end up like Dhuum CM, most people will do it once for the archivement and then never again, and that's a pity.

 This is an issue with all of EoD. We have content, and no reason to do any of it after a few times.

Edited April 21, 2022 by Kozumi.5816

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

17 hours ago, Shiyo.3578 said:

It's like they want to spend resources/money on content that doesn't get played. It makes absolutely no sense.

 

Anet is a company.  These strikes probably have 30 different hands that go in to designing them.  Somewhere along the way certain notions of accessibility and rewards enter into conflict, and the end result is the EoD strikes having a "unique" but otherwise low reward.  I'm reminded of when this happened to dungeons many years ago, which had their rewards more than cut in half.  The reason being that players didn't like grinding dungeons or speedclearing dungeons... except for the ones who were good at it and would do it all day.  Anet balanced them for the latter, and that is where they stayed.

-------------

As for the strike itself... I haven't had a chance to do it yet.  In fact, I haven't had a chance to do any of them this week.  LFG has been empty each time I checked.  

[Kozumi.5816]

50 minutes ago, Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

As for the strike itself... I haven't had a chance to do it yet.  In fact, I haven't had a chance to do any of them this week.  LFG has been empty each time I checked.  

Always a good sign.

[Cyninja.2954]

Overall so far: positively surprised. Both the normal strikes as well as the first CM are fun.

 

Let's break this down though as to why and what issues arise.

 

1. The meta setup and flexibility. A huge part of the enjoyment comes from the larger flexibility for more boon providers. I hope this will improve even further with warrior and ranger changes. This is no strike related though and has to be viewed separately. Meanwhile over homogenization can and will be bad for the game. Other MMOs have been down that road and it was never pretty. I'm not afraid of this to much so far, given the rather unique game play between professions and elites, but a lot of uniqueness was already lost and some classes are shadows of their former self in that regard.

 

2. Strikes are fun and see play because they are new. It's the new toy. People are giving it a try. The newness will wear off. Currently, EoD strikes are not valuable enough to see continued play. The first CM strike is harder than many raid encounters due to far more do-or-die mechanics paired with individual player responsibility. The actual mechanics are not as hard as some raid mechanics, which usually only 1-2 people need to do.

 

3. Me personally, I love playing supports of any kind (heal support, boon dps support, wacky off meta builds, etc.). I also love doing mechanics or taking responsibility for stuff in fights, as long as I am able to do them at my age without feeling I am holding back the team. This is NOT a mentality shared by all players. Many players shun responsibility for many different reasons (which is perfectly fine standpoint wise). This will pose a challenge for this content and its design in the long-run. Design wise, strike CMs have a good chance to become less accessible than even raids atm.

 

4. Strike and CM strikes share resources design/development wise with story content. Great. Probably one of the main benefits and well done so far. Even the Aurene buff in story missions to even further simplify the encounter is a nice touch (and yes, I have used it myself on some characters after getting all the achievements. I've completed the EoD story multiple times by now). This will hopefully reduce the bar and effort to provide steady challenging PvE content even for a niche community.

 

5. Rewards are abysmal. In fact, rewards for strikes and strike CMs feel as though they are placeholders and the developers want to see where and how everything pans out before adjusting them. There is no arguing here. This content is weekly rewarded. It is being completed by a niche part of the playerbase. Strike CMs could easily reward 20 gold per strike per week and not make a dent in this games gold generation given how lucrative some open world metas are and even afk farming (which is around 10g per hour). Most importantly rewards need to encourage repeated completion even 1 year down the road, which they do not now.

[Kozumi.5816]

33 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

In fact, rewards for strikes and strike CMs feel as though they are placeholders and the developers want to see where and how everything pans out before adjusting them

Unacceptable.

[Krzysztof.5973]

They could have invented new types of AOEs that would improve visibility and reduce particle clutter. 
You can barely see red aoes under her https://imgur.com/a/Kj9DG8R
Difficulty wise, it's ok. Nowhere near a "challenge" once you figure out that single mechanic. 
And don't even start me on the rewards cause it's not funny anymore, it's just pathetic. 

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Krzysztof.5973 said:

You can barely see red aoes under her https://imgur.com/a/Kj9DG8R

By the six that's a giant HuD. Is that with Effect LOD off and post processing on as well?

[Linken.6345]

13 hours ago, Sarius.9285 said:

but you don't wipe if the timer runs out. we just did it after the time already expired.

 

https://dps.report/gHbm-20220421-003515_trin

That is strange my group wiped at 1% due to timer ticking to zero.

[Nash.2681]

Biggest difference to (most) raids imo: each and everyone is responsible to pay attention and execute mechanics properly. On many raids, critical mechanics can be distributed to 2-4 players and the rest can basicly just concentrate on smashing the boss while paying little attention to anything else.

I'm still not sure wether I like this change in direction or not since it seems to even lower the accessability for strike CMs even compared to raids (I personally like to be responsible for crucial mechanics, but in my experience many players don't).

Coupled with the laughable rewards, this might kill the interest in strike CMs pretty fast.