Median XL 2016 Announced

[ForkMe]

So kind of like in Aftermath or Hell Unleashed?

[Loluthinks]

So kind of like in Aftermath or Hell Unleashed?

i dint play those mods, so i cant say if is the same , but the main idea is improve the reward after you kill the main bosses in each main quest and make thoughter the main bosses as well

[suchbalance]

The act bosses already give good rewards - the opportunity to progress to the next act and all that entails (access to more uberquests, better drops, more xp etc.), they also always drop uniques and on destruction the final three can drop SU & you get a fancy title from Baal. Also on terror and destruction they drop dogmas which are more extra rewards.

So no extra reward is needed. I'm all for tougher act bosses however. I think all terror bosses should be buffed in general, just more damage on skills & higher hp/damage reduction (but not resists because of 2016) accross the board. On destruction the first 4 could use some extra buffs on top of that to make them relevant. For example:

• Make Andariel's meteor shower a 1hko - it is telegraphed perfectly and so the best candidate for such a mechanic
• Make Duriel have really high hp & resists / weak heroic shield so he has time to use his fortress skill & the void archon aura actually impacts the fight
• Mephisto (no idea here all his skills kind of suck in all honesty)
• Diablo - remove the monster summoning ability (which does not fit Diablo at all) and give him his iconic lightning inferno back, make it a 1 shot on destruction.

These changes would make them tougher and way more interesting to play against, especially on destruction. An extra consideration would be to move dogma drops to Destruction only - this way the difficulty of the task matches its great reward better.

[RequiemLux]

I think all terror bosses should be buffed in general, just more damage on skills & higher hp/damage reduction (but not resists because of 2016) accross the board. On destruction the first 4 could use some extra buffs on top of that to make them relevant. For example:

• Make Andariel's meteor shower a 1hko - it is telegraphed perfectly and so the best candidate for such a mechanic
• Make Duriel have really high hp & resists / weak heroic shield so he has time to use his fortress skill & the void archon aura actually impacts the fight
• Mephisto (no idea here all his skills kind of suck in all honesty)
• Diablo - remove the monster summoning ability (which does not fit Diablo at all) and give him his iconic lightning inferno back, make it a 1 shot on destruction.

These changes would make them tougher and way more interesting to play against, especially on destruction. An extra consideration would be to move dogma drops to Destruction only - this way the difficulty of the task matches its great reward better.

I agree with suchbalance except for the 1hko mechanic, I find it a "lazy" way to make things harder... I would prefer a strong debuffing aura or something on those lines. I think this way is also simplier to get closer to the "longer-epic-fights" concept of 2016 with the removal of heroic shields and charms nerf.
In my opinion summoning powerful skeletons, "blood style" magic and earth shacking fits Mephisto well considering the fact that you challenge him in an underground chamber full of blood and bones.

[hellgrind]

I think all terror bosses should be buffed in general, just more damage on skills & higher hp/damage reduction (but not resists because of 2016) accross the board. On destruction the first 4 could use some extra buffs on top of that to make them relevant. For example:
[list][*] Make Duriel have really high hp & resists / weak heroic shield so he has time to use his fortress skill & the void archon aura actually impacts the fight

I don't wanna whining here but:
A situation like this (happen to me a lot of times), i go in, hit him 1 time with my attack (range,melee, spell) he instantly spawn fortress + IoS combo. I die (who would thought huh), i go back, he charge at me + IoS combo again. Die again. So with your changes you have only one option (two to be specific). You 1hit ko him or you tank those combo and than 1hit ko him.

[suchbalance]

I think this way is also simplier to get closer to the "longer-epic-fights" concept of 2016 with the removal of heroic shields and charms nerf.

Heroic shields are not getting removed in 2016, from what we know so far. Why? Because the reduction of charm stats is not enough to reduce damage output to levels which make this possible. Even if Marco halved ALL stats on charms (probably a much harsher reduction than what he's planning) there will still be certain abilities that deal monster hp cap in damage within a second.

Telegraphed (important) one shot mechanics are necessary as they are the only true way to test reflexes in the current game environment. I.e. if something takes away 80% of your hp in one hit and is cast once per 10 seconds it is practically harmless because of 1) potions aka "infinite rapid regeneration" and 2) people can TP home and heal whenever they want / leave the combat area. Thus to punish players for failing we need something abrupt. Telegraphed one shots are the best mechanics that combat both 1) and 2).

Other good mechanics are debuffs and burn damage - for example messenger volley in Triune. A hit brings you to 1hp and disables potions regen, another hit in the next X seconds is fatal. This is of course preferred to one shots because it counters potions and is not as punishing as a telegraphed 1hko. The only problem is it can get countered by 2).

I don't wanna whining here but:
A situation like this (happen to me a lot of times), i go in, hit him 1 time with my attack (range,melee, spell) he instantly spawn fortress + IoS combo. I die (who would thought huh), i go back, he charge at me + IoS combo again. Die again. So with your changes you have only one option (two to be specific). You 1hit ko him or you tank those combo and than 1hit ko him.

Here's the thing. Currently whenever you reach any act boss in any difficulty (apart from Baal Destruction) they always die in 20 seconds or less, most of the time they don't even get to use any skills! My whole point is that bosses on terror & destruction should not be "1hko-able" by the time you reach them.

I don't get what you wrote by the way - you're saying that you went in unprepared and the boss killed you. And somehow this is making you upset? You don't deserve to kill any boss past Normal if your char is not prepared or not micro'd correctly. At the end of the day the "story" mode is normal. The later difficulties are all about challenging players. It doesn't feel right that some of the greatest evils in the game world are total pushovers.

[whist]

It doesn't feel right that some of the greatest evils in the game world are total pushovers.

This. I always thought the three prime evil act bosses should be replaced by some lower class demons of the lore, and the three primes converted into high difficulty ubers. After all they are the prime evils, it doesn't really makes sense that some lower demons such as Bartuc or Assur are more powerful than them. Maybe that's something that could be worth reviewing in Sigma?

[RequiemLux]

Heroic shields are not getting removed in 2016, from what we know so far. Why? Because the reduction of charm stats is not enough to reduce damage output to levels which make this possible. Even if Marco halved ALL stats on charms (probably a much harsher reduction than what he's planning) there will still be certain abilities that deal monster hp cap in damage within a second.

Thank you for clarifying, didn't know that. I thought that with a new balance for the skills, removing the heroic shields, would have been possible already in the 2016 version. I guess it's waaaay more problematic to get rid of those shields than expected. I agree on the rest but still prefer a debuff mechanic instead of the 1hko even if can be countered with the TP, in the end TPs can be used to evade an Andariel's 1hko meteor barrage too...
Don't know if possible but could be nice to implement a mechanic that makes the boss restore to full health if leaving the map with TPs or make an aura that don't allow the player to use one.

Maybe that's something that could be worth reviewing in Sigma?

That would be amazing, as everything else in Sigma so far.

[Marco]

These changes would make them tougher and way more interesting to play against, especially on destruction. An extra consideration would be to move dogma drops to Destruction only - this way the difficulty of the task matches its great reward better.

Well, while I agree bosses need buffs on terror/dest (in hatred they're well balanced), I'm not really in favor of instakills. All this achieves is somewhat ruin the HC experience. Also you have to consider that when lag is taken into account, all instakills are even harder to dodge. I think most of these issues can be simply achieved by increasing damage and defense. The mechanics all seem pretty fine and unique for all bosses.

Heroic shields are not getting removed in 2016, from what we know so far. Why? Because the reduction of charm stats is not enough to reduce damage output to levels which make this possible. Even if Marco halved ALL stats on charms (probably a much harsher reduction than what he's planning) there will still be certain abilities that deal monster hp cap in damage within a second.

Heroic shields are a fine mechanic. The only problem is the amount of bosses that have it. The other problem is that it doesn't work as expected, because people just need one drop to terminate a monster thanks to the massive amount of -%% res. This forces bosses to drop resistances less often, or drop resistances for really short amount of time, eliminating any possible strategy and just leading to spamming. With the reduction of -% res stat, heroic shields will be a lot less frustrating to fight against.

Also the charm stats reduction is no longer a plan but a reality. I have finished this a while ago, and they got lowered beyond half of their original stats if you take the total amount of stats.

Telegraphed one shots are the best mechanics that combat both 1) and 2).

I find high damage skills alright (see diablo's flamestrike). But oneshots really don't look well. A lot of players, mainly new people, are not all aware of what's happening, they won't recognize these 'telegraphs' and this will only bring a lot of frustration. This recent topic shows what I'm saying. Sure we all old players be like "man, that's obvious", but for a lot of people it isn't. You have to consider some people cannot even beat terror. Instagibs will only make this worse, and if you consider bosses natural healing, it can become even worse.

I know this game isn't exactly designed towards total newbs (like current blizzard games are) - but as I mentioned before, regular acts are just meant to be a transition to get to 120 before you start doing ubers. Contaminating this with instakills doesn't achieve much.

High damage spells, like flamestrike as I mentioned before, or meteor shower, are great because they don't necessarily kill you, and when they do, you can see your life go down instead of immediatly being dead (well, not meteor shower, but that one never kills you if your hp globe is full). So this is good because then people can realize "hey, I could get more fire resists", so there is something they can do to make the fight easier, which is a good thing to learn in median. On the other hand, you cannot simply "learn to be a good kiter", because it's a process.

Again, I think making bosses harder is a good idea, just not with instagibs. We will see a lot of QQ threads. Let the newbs be able to finish the difficulties and have a sense of achievement

[Jaedong]

entering median is quite an overwhelming amount of informations needed,but most of the new players dont even read the info on the statue.......