Today I was instagibbed by.. *Help us Balance Random Elites*

[supermini]

Telugoroth/teluvorta alchemists, archmages, and ranged attackers in general. Due to the way that level is designed, it becomes really, really nasty. If I was melee I'd be dead.

[supermini]

Ran into a really nasty one. Necromancer/paradox mage bloated horror, in the farportal room. It managed to kill me once, and I barely beat it the second time by getting it into fearscape. It was difficult even getting close enough to fearscape it. It had chill of the tomb and darkness rays to blast me from afar, some debuff to reduce my stats, bunch of minions that would turn into will of the wisp and would chain confuse me in the meantime, as if ignoring the 50% confusion resistance I had... It also had a damage shield and a heal of some sort. Just insane.

[supermini]

Level 19 black mamba berserker on the bottom of Lake Nur. Seriously, berserker snakes are insane.

[Sirrocco]

I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but on the flip side of balancing random elites... don't give elite molds a melee-only class. It's just kind of embarrassing. I see a shining mold with that little purple outline, i check his effects, I see shield wall, and I know that I'm perfectly safe while I plink him to death as long as I'm more than one square away That's not how elites and rares should be.

[edge2054]

I just want to chime in and say that this thread is meant more for instagibs (or near instagibs) and not simply hard fights. To reiterate if an NPC manages to lock you down so you don't get a single action in between the time your hit points go from 100% to 0% that is an instagib and please report it.

Saying a paradox mage/necromancer or a teluvorta with any kind of classes made the game hard isn't the point of this discussion. If a teluvorta spawned with Haste and Slow and locked you down (no actions) while it hammered away with a few spell casts then that is a broken combo and should be reported. If you would have died if you'd been playing melee that's still not an instagib unless you would have died in a single turn (or possibly two turns with no way out).

Feeling that teluvorta and telugoroth's should be exempt from having random classes may be a valid point but it's not the point of *this* thread and should be moved to another discussion.

Specifically, we're looking for talents or combinations of talents that result in quick, unavoidable deaths for the player. And please be as specific as possible.

[SageAcrin]

Incidentally, I'd like to note a lack of any major problems with them, lategame, for me. (Again, granted, running rarer rares, so I'm not seeing as many as I could, but still seeing a fair deal.)

This isn't to say they can't be competent-I had a shockingly fast degradation of life when I ran into two in close proximity in the Mountains of the Moon dungeon. This is made even funnier by the fact that is definitely one of the simplest dungeons in the game outside of it's finale, which was not where this was(not necessarily easiest, but very consistent about its difficulty). But, it wasn't anything I couldn't handle with reasonably good play.

I strongly doubt Rares are going to be major problems for anyone that can make it East, even if they happen to show up at bad times(such as the Pride entrance areas). They do, however, make the more boring East areas much less boring. This makes me more confident that the earlygame nerfs are a good direction to go in.

[bricks]

Good point, edge, but kind of confusing since the title says two different things, and the most dangerous talent combinations show up on random bosses, not simply random elites. There are also instagibs that involve multiple NPCs (for example - Dark Portal to Rush x3 by Wretchlings + a bunch of other casters; that was a pleasant surprise) which probably deserve their own discussions. Apart from low-level elites, which have been addressed, I don't think I've encountered any random elites that even come close to insta-gib strength, with possible exceptions like mobs that are already very powerful on their own (Skeleton Master Archers) or mobs that have increased speed (snakes and the insect swarms).

[SageAcrin]

As a lategame boss note:

A few days back I was effectively instagibbed by a Daelach Corruptor/Reaver boss in High Peak.

He had 9600 HP and Fearscaped for 120 healing a turn, then did incredible damage and had 70% resists.

This was effectively better than either final boss. I got it down to half life before it finally stopped being locked in place by Spydric Poison-which I was out of-and came around the pillar in the Fearscape-which I was able to attack around thanks to Goedaleth Rock Ring-after which it opened up on me and killed me in about ten turns, through multiple heals/barriers.

Since I was Fearscaped, there wasn't a way to escape.

I've heard Forge Giants can appear too. Perhaps they should get less benefits from randomboss bonuses, or just not appear in the randomized roulette. I don't mind a boss I couldn't run from, or a boss that I have to run from to survive, but when they're one in the same...

(Incidentally, if you're wondering how I got Fearscaped despite demon ESP, I believe the answer involved thinking there was a wall between me and the boss, and said boss having more than 100% speed thanks to Urh'rok. Can't recall the details otherwise.)

[richardhawk]

Autoexplored into a 1312 damage arrow in High Peak 9, which was more than my max life. Completely unavoidable death.

From the log, the randboss was a Bandit with 17 ranks in bows/slings/weapons, 9 in precise strikes, 9 in steady shot, then toss some Lethality in there. Oh and as a fun fact he had 81.4 stealth rating.

[darkgod]

Overly high talent levels is being fixed

[Parcae2]

Not a rare, but I was just instagibbed by Subject Z, who did close to 800 damage at level 21 before I had a chance to react:

http://te4.org/characters/150/tome/f2e8 ... f8aacdf715

I was at full health before the shadowstep dazed and the flurry killed me.

[azrael]

Although this wasn't an instagib, I was killed three or four times as a Yeek Doomed in Lake Nur by a Paradox Mage Water Imp. The reason I'm putting it here is because I not only couldn't hurt him, I never even saw him- he always attacked from outside my visual range, and with gravity well I was unable to move and escape or find him.

[stinkstink]

Necromancer fire drake that spawned close enough to The Master as to make killing one without waking the other impossible. Spent most of my time between psychoports running away waiting for the charm to cool down, and any time an unlucky port put my only path of escape in their line of sight, I'd get splattered. Seriously, please no rares on the boss levels, shit like this is bound to happen.

[qui]

http://www.te4.org/characters/9679/tome ... 3a324e5a5e

Lake Nur 3. Something got me, didn't even see it. Was resting, didn't even get a turn to do anything.

[Peppersauce]

Necromancer fire drake that spawned close enough to The Master as to make killing one without waking the other impossible. Spent most of my time between psychoports running away waiting for the charm to cool down, and any time an unlucky port put my only path of escape in their line of sight, I'd get splattered. Seriously, please no rares on the boss levels, shit like this is bound to happen.

I got something way worse in the same level: http://te4.org/characters/19173/tome/dd ... 4e0af794d3

This character found itself against the Master, Aletta, a Reaver armored skeleton warrior, a shadow-focused Doomed naga myrmidon and a bunch of wretchlings, wraiths, an orc master wyrmic and other random mobs all at once. Of course it lost its last 3 lives just trying to run and psychoport away from that huge mess.

The point of this post is: without both rares the character would have stood a chance in that situation, since there was no way I could fight with both the Reaver and Aletta bringing my damage down to -40% and the Doomed blasting me while its shadows started dominating and blindsiding around.