Today we will be launching the Citadel Hardmode raid around 12 PM CST (Noon). During the 2 week beta we made some changes to mechanics as well as scaling based upon community feedback and are excited for players to go through the full raid, as it will be the most challenging content we have in game so far. The bosses will drop +6 gear and weapons, with a chance at a +7 legendary. You can also earn an Enraged Sephotep pet, mount, cape, as well as achievements and a title. As with the normal mode raid you will receive a token for that specific gear every time you kill the boss if you do not receive a armor/weapon drop. These will be Citadel Hardmode tokens that you can redeem at the Hardmode Vendor inside of Highsteppe.
This patch also includes the second round of balancing for the tank/healer/support classes, with the changes we have made based upon player feedback.
Hardmode Raid Notes
Brynjua (Boss 2):
Lowered chain tick damage (hard mode)
Geruvi (Boss 3):
Reduced level of elites (hard mode)
Reduced sun bomb damage (normal and hard mode)
Sephotep (Boss 4):
Reduced shadow DOT tick damage. (hard mode)
Class Balancing
Warrior
Added significant aggro boost to Sword Rush.
Reduced Sword Rush cooldown from 8 seconds to 6 seconds (16 to 12 with the talent.)
These changes should provide warrior with a significant aggro increase on demand, letting you tank swap more easily, grab aggro on single monsters more quickly, and also help build up aggro over time.
Charging up a combo now applies a 30% reduced incoming magical damage buff, lasting for 5 seconds.
Numbers subject to change based on feedback and usefulness, and this is also currently triggered for free by the Counter Attack talent.
Bard
Swapped the Chorus and Song Sword talents.
Making song sword compete with encouraging note didn’t really make much sense mathematically, and now should both be a more significant decision.
Fixed the Instrument of Inspiration Crescendo to properly apply to Bard ultimate duration.
Paladin
Fixed the snapping back to hand behavior when reaching the max throwing distance. Hammer should now try to fly back to you normally upon reaching that distance. We’re open to additional feedback (and gameplay videos would be fantastic) after testing if it still creates any issues.
Boss 2 still has issues: Boss appears to be RNG hell with the things he does on different timers making predictions or strategies nearly impossible, Pools don’t go to who clearly has chains but the people who have just got chains for 0.01 seconds, 2 pools can spawn on 1 person instakilling them and whoever they stand with.
There seems to be 3 things he can do: jump and place pool on the person he jumped to, put pools on chained players, and do both at the same time. We have wiped seemingly randomly due to him putting 2 pools on chained players and jumping at the same time. The only way it seems to be able to be done is jumping at the correct time to dodge both like we did boss 3 oldgame however there is no indicator for his jump making the prediction imposible to do consistently. There are also no indicators for if he is placing pools on the chained players and even then it can still jump to the chained player (or previously chained player because it swaped to another player for a tenth of a second giving no protection if you get chain damage into jump.
Boss is just way too unpredictable and requires insanely good RNG with a stacking strategy at the moment and the beta should have been pushed back to allow more testing time.
Got killed in one shot on an 11 from a stafrage with warrior magic defense buff and bard shield. Was unable to grab aggro at anytime with the sword rush ability even with two charges. No noticeable difference with warriors ability to grab aggro from a healer or another tank even with good communication.
I wouldn’t say its overtuned but with how it randomly does one of the three attacks there should be a pretty obvious way to tell the difference as of now there is no way to tell when chains are going to go out or if/when the boss is going to jump/place pools
