[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Granyala]

Higher difficulty should grant better gear.

Not with a delta in player power of 100%+ across a bonanza of difficulties.
That's plain simply ridiculous.

I didn't raid for 8.5 years because "Epixx". I raided because I had fun. Gear was a tool of the trade, stuff I need to have a shot at the next big bad.
Sure, there were raid exclusive looks that I really wanted and that added motivation on top.
I always hated the post clear phase of the last raid of an expansion. Saw it as a waste of my time and ducked out accordingly.

[Faroth]

I could easily see pugs and LS's created to do it for sure. It's just dungeons with a little more difficulty and randomized mechanics. Not sure it draws any conclusions to brawlers guild, since it's mostly dungeons.

I could see the PF and LS, sure. I just meant the Brawler's Guild's increasing challenge (I thought there were modifiers, but I could be wrong) in regards to that comparison.

Enemies still have cast bars. You just don't see the areas that are affected by the attacks so you need to think quick on your feet (i.e. for Titan, you know WotL spawns underneath players. You wouldn't know who or which so you'd need to be aware and adjust. You'd know the edge of the room falls off each time, but you wouldn't know exactly where, so safer to be safe and eat a tiny bit extra damage. The harder piece would be determining landslides location. You'd need to look where he faces and be fast and safe. This is a good example that maybe if you got that modifier you'd use your points to reroll the debuff because you don't feel like dealing with a no telegraph, 50% faster cast speed, 30% damage and hp Titan.

That hairless dog lizard monster thing didn't have a cast bar! He just lifts an arm and after a bit he smacks you! They're also in Yanxia, the ugly buggers. They do it there too, but the SAM one I was in SB starter gear so it hurt more.

In your Titan example, the WotL is worse than landslide. You know he's about to cast it and you have to get out of an unknown radius beneath you while also not moving into the unknown radius another person may have been standing in when it triggered nor the other unknown radius that's overlapping that unknown radius and ---wait, nevermind, you got double plumed. You're 1 shot dead. I don't think that's remotely a good or fun design. Titan as it currently is caused so much trouble because it was designed without any remote concept of lag being a possibility. I think the plumes are a proper example of indicator. You could remove the outer ring and landslide and still manage.

I suppose no indicators on plumes are possible, just requires the entire group to stack and perform the waltz together properly in time.

And I just remembered what this all reminds me of.... Fan Fest.

At Fan Fest and other such events, they have the Primal Challenge. You spin a wheel and get a restriction and have to beat the primal with that restrictions. These are all synced, but I don't think min ilvl, but past examples are:
1 tank (also was 1 healer)
1 tank, no shirt
First Person mode
Naked run (no left side gear)
1 tank, 1 healer
NO HUD

Just applied to dungeons and adjusted some. Have to admit, the challenge is fun at Fan Fest.

Wouldn't replace roulettes at all. You'd have people who like challenges doing these possibly, and people who like watching netflix, doing regular roulettes etc. Very well could impact queue times somewhat, but not the end of the world IMO.

So you're removing players from running roulettes and you've already noted this would need a carrot, but you don't think that would notably decrease players running roulettes. Can't follow the logic there. If this reward is better, people will do this. They will not do roulettes. It's that simple.

Mind clarifying what piece you found insulting? I didn't see anything there, but it's possible I missed it. Was it this my last post or an older one?

This:

people would rage its gated behind content that you have to keep your eyes open to succeed

Implication being anyone who isn't savage raiding is a second rate player (at best). No room for considerations of player skill levels, just total dismissal of anything not savage can be done with your eyes closed, so therefore anyone who isn't acing everything with their eyes closed must be horrible.

Fair enough. I just never bought into the "early" puller notion. I just treat it as I'm late. What may be early to you isn't early to someone camping, and so on. What may be early to the dude who got there in 10 minutes wasn't early to the dude who got there in 5.

On this, it depends on the chatter in shout regarding the early pull. American Steak Theory gathered, coordinated, shouted they were pulling in x time. People would respond they were on the way, AST would give updates on time to pull. If it was "pulling in 3 minutes" and some jackwagon pulls immediately after they get there and land, that's an early pull. They weren't camping, they weren't there waiting, and it's clear that the gathered players are trying to coordinate this to benefit as many as possible. It's a jerk move.

[Kazgrel]

I found much higher success in learning groups than 'clear' groups. Clear groups and farm parties are like literally rolling the dice to see what you get and because of the expectations it devolves extremely quickly. Learning parties are always people who are trying to learn and are infinitely more coachable.

- - - Updated - - -



There's actually a bug with this. If you're a BLM and you leave a PF group the slot you left will say BLM only. So it's possible in the process of farming, or vetting, they kicked/left and their job lock stayed.

Been a mixed bag for me; I've had learning parties beat their head against the wall only to have a clear group 1-2 shot it, and I've damn near had vice versa, at least with Susano. Some of the dps (or lack thereof) I've seen from people in clear/farm groups has been astounding, to put it very nicely.

I have encountered that very bug, too, namely when running hunt groups. I'm pretty certain that with at least one party I kept seeing relisted, it was intentional, because the job locks remained the same. Only the ilvl was adjusted. So I'm fairly certain in this particular case, it was intentional.

[lawow74]

Not with a delta in player power of 100%+ across a bonanza of difficulties.
That's plain simply ridiculous.

Pretty much agree, raiders should get gear faster than through other methods, but it should never be exclusive to them in terms of power. Tomestone gear and the wide number of ways you can go about earning the currency is a major attraction for me in FF 14. I wish they weren't so stingy about the weapon upgrades, but I can live with it as long as I get an alternative.

[Kazgrel]

As far as your dream MMO, it's not a bad idea, where skills are accrued rather than player power and those skills make content more and more trivial, but the enemies are still threatening, you just have far more tools and more effective tools in dealing with the threat so as long as you're using your brain and paying attention it should be trivial, but if you're not you can still get pretty chewed up. You still feel a progression. In the enemy scaling scenario, at least in Oblivion, you didn't ever feel a progression since the enemies were meant to scale to what your power was so no matter what your tools were they were essentially scaled and changed to adapt to them so you felt just as powerful at level 50 as you did at level 1...which is stupid IMO.

Artifact weapons are a great idea with their horizontal progression, but the vast majority of the abilities you get from them are passive which doesn't feel great sometimes, some aren't and those are great, but as I said, MOST are passives. The things that I like are the new skills and abilities that change how you play, add a button to your rotation, add a decision to make at some point in your play time. Gear simply increasing your power level but not changing how you play gets a pass, because you're getting new gear and changing how your character looks (unless you choose to glamour/ transmog over it) and there are several pieces so it's meant to be a gradual progression of power which at some point CAN change how you play since you get more procs, enemies die faster, or in WoW's case makes one build more powerful than another.

As to the enemies not having telegraphs, those abilities actually do not have a cast bar whatsoever currently. Second boss of Sohm Al (Hard), that one big add in between the second and third boss of The Aery, that enemy in the level 56 SAM quest...no cast bars on those, just physical animation tells.

I play on Excalibur, which is on the Primal data center. Much obliged.

With your Oblivion example, I remember noting around level 25 that I was becoming far more powerful than the enemies encountered; by the time I finished the game, I was level 35-37ish, and I could pretty much sneeze on anything and kill it, all the while barely taking any damage (that would get healed by something I had equipped). It was painful to reach that point, but once I did, the game became rather boring...fortunately, it only reached that point right as I finished the main story and the arena/gladiator pit/whatever it was.

As for the scaling thing, I can see how on one hand a developer would like something like that, where any and all areas/creatures are something of a challenge, but at the same time, as you've noted, in any sort of vertical progression game, it can lead to players simply going "what's the point?"

[Granyala]

Pretty much agree, raiders should get gear faster than through other methods, but it should never be exclusive to them in terms of power. Tomestone gear and the wide number of ways you can go about earning the currency is a major attraction for me in FF 14. I wish they weren't so stingy about the weapon upgrades, but I can live with it as long as I get an alternative.

I think a small power advantage for doing the hardest stuff the game has to offer is totally okay. It shouldn't be character defining though.

[Wrecktangle]

As far as your dream MMO, it's not a bad idea, where skills are accrued rather than player power and those skills make content more and more trivial, but the enemies are still threatening, you just have far more tools and more effective tools in dealing with the threat so as long as you're using your brain and paying attention it should be trivial, but if you're not you can still get pretty chewed up. You still feel a progression. In the enemy scaling scenario, at least in Oblivion, you didn't ever feel a progression since the enemies were meant to scale to what your power was so no matter what your tools were they were essentially scaled and changed to adapt to them so you felt just as powerful at level 50 as you did at level 1...which is stupid IMO.

Yep that's a well put way of understanding the systems I thought up. The idea would be that it's not necessarily hard, but you have to make decisions, lots of them, and they change and grow as you do, thus creating a perpetual dynamic progression system. I'm not familiar with Oblivion's systems enough to draw a parallel, but again these day's I'd take that gameplay over what vertical themeparks are doing.

Artifact weapons are a great idea with their horizontal progression, but the vast majority of the abilities you get from them are passive which doesn't feel great sometimes, some aren't and those are great, but as I said, MOST are passives. The things that I like are the new skills and abilities that change how you play, add a button to your rotation, add a decision to make at some point in your play time. Gear simply increasing your power level but not changing how you play gets a pass, because you're getting new gear and changing how your character looks (unless you choose to glamour/ transmog over it) and there are several pieces so it's meant to be a gradual progression of power which at some point CAN change how you play since you get more procs, enemies die faster, or in WoW's case makes one build more powerful than another.

Agreed. I had actually read a pretty convincing post here on MMO champ about how even though the vanilla trees had a bunch of bland % bonuses that it felt fun to get a point every level and put it in (regardless of mathed cookie cutters). I actually have to agree. I'd personally argue the best system would utilize both aspects and combine it in fun and meaningful ways. My Ret artifact had a lot of really boring bonuses. I'm not super keen on +% damage stuff, but things that reduce cooldowns, or lengthen buff durations, add to resource that previously didn't are passable.

As to the enemies not having telegraphs, those abilities actually do not have a cast bar whatsoever currently. Second boss of Sohm Al (Hard), that one big add in between the second and third boss of The Aery, that enemy in the level 56 SAM quest...no cast bars on those, just physical animation tells.

I know there are a handful of mobs that also do this as well, Ogres notably. Personally it doesn't phase me since you guys know I HATE overeliance on telegraphs.

I play on Excalibur, which is on the Primal data center. Much obliged.

PM me your info. I'm not around tonight, but I'm around tomorrow. (Then in VA Beach for vacation for a bit).

I could see the PF and LS, sure. I just meant the Brawler's Guild's increasing challenge (I thought there were modifiers, but I could be wrong) in regards to that comparison.

Ah ok. That makes sense. BG didn't have any modifiers IIRC. It didn't when I did it.

In your Titan example, the WotL is worse than landslide. You know he's about to cast it and you have to get out of an unknown radius beneath you while also not moving into the unknown radius another person may have been standing in when it triggered nor the other unknown radius that's overlapping that unknown radius and ---wait, nevermind, you got double plumed. You're 1 shot dead. I don't think that's remotely a good or fun design. Titan as it currently is caused so much trouble because it was designed without any remote concept of lag being a possibility. I think the plumes are a proper example of indicator. You could remove the outer ring and landslide and still manage.

Honestly, if you think about it, no telegraph WotL is basically just T5 Twisters. I don't see an issue with that, in fact I welcome it (post nerf twisters that is LOL). I do however agree that Titan specifically seems overtuned on response time. I noticed post server migration I would get clipped once in a blue moon by WotL despite being out of it, and the cast bar is still up). They could likely give a small ms bump to his cast times to accomodate that. Let's say there's almost no chance of escaping a WotL with that modifier so the solution would be to spread and everyone soaks a single one. If you stack and anyone ate 2, gg wp. This actually succeeds in accomplishing what I set out to when designing the system. It forces you to think and adjust strategies.

I suppose no indicators on plumes are possible, just requires the entire group to stack and perform the waltz together properly in time.

And I just remembered what this all reminds me of.... Fan Fest.

At Fan Fest and other such events, they have the Primal Challenge. You spin a wheel and get a restriction and have to beat the primal with that restrictions. These are all synced, but I don't think min ilvl, but past examples are:
1 tank (also was 1 healer)
1 tank, no shirt
First Person mode
Naked run (no left side gear)
1 tank, 1 healer
NO HUD

Just applied to dungeons and adjusted some. Have to admit, the challenge is fun at Fan Fest.

Ha didn't know that. Yes very similar to that idea, just more fleshed out.

So you're removing players from running roulettes and you've already noted this would need a carrot, but you don't think that would notably decrease players running roulettes. Can't follow the logic there. If this reward is better, people will do this. They will not do roulettes. It's that simple.

Not everyone will be able to do them well enough. There's risk/reward and time metrics that will inevitably draw players away from it and that's ok IMO.

Implication being anyone who isn't savage raiding is a second rate player (at best). No room for considerations of player skill levels, just total dismissal of anything not savage can be done with your eyes closed, so therefore anyone who isn't acing everything with their eyes closed must be horrible.

I think you're reaching a bit here. I'm merely stating that the content required for previous relics involved spamming exceptionally trivial and non-engaging gameplay to acquire 1% drop rate tokens. If the design paradigm suddenly switched to being asked to enter dungeon runs with harder modifiers and run them in succession people would not be happy. Think about how the old relic started. People were gated behind a engaging boss fights and it had to be changed.

On this, it depends on the chatter in shout regarding the early pull. American Steak Theory gathered, coordinated, shouted they were pulling in x time. People would respond they were on the way, AST would give updates on time to pull. If it was "pulling in 3 minutes" and some jackwagon pulls immediately after they get there and land, that's an early pull. They weren't camping, they weren't there waiting, and it's clear that the gathered players are trying to coordinate this to benefit as many as possible. It's a jerk move.

Fair enough. Can't argue with that specific example.

I'm pretty certain that with at least one party I kept seeing relisted, it was intentional, because the job locks remained the same. Only the ilvl was adjusted. So I'm fairly certain in this particular case, it was intentional.

Certainly possible. Can't argue with that lol.

[Faroth]

I'm not familiar with Oblivion's systems enough to draw a parallel, but again these day's I'd take that gameplay over what vertical themeparks are doing.

I played FFXI.... If MMOs went back to being incapable of soloing something that's 5 levels below you, the genre is dead. Not going to die, not going to shrink. It's dead. Over. There will be nobody to support that crap. You think people whine about a 30 minute queue? Try logging in and spending 45 minutes shouting "looking for group" and then logging out because you don't have time left to play.

I mean, zero progression. That's more appealing to you at this point? NO CHARACTER PROGRESSION? Your character sucks at combat at level 60 as much as they did at level 1. You've defeated dragons and demi-gods, but a wolf cub or a young boar kicks your ass. THIS IS BETTER? o.o;

Agreed. I had actually read a pretty convincing post here on MMO champ about how even though the vanilla trees had a bunch of bland % bonuses that it felt fun to get a point every level and put it in (regardless of mathed cookie cutters). I actually have to agree. I'd personally argue the best system would utilize both aspects and combine it in fun and meaningful ways. My Ret artifact had a lot of really boring bonuses. I'm not super keen on +% damage stuff, but things that reduce cooldowns, or lengthen buff durations, add to resource that previously didn't are passable.

I wish an MMO could pull off true EverQuest attempted stat allocation. Being able to play a tank that puts all your points into strength, all points into vitality, or all points into dexterity and all resulting in viable, very different, tanking styles. Or being able to do a mix of them. Though, people will want the ability to re-roll into a totally different version of what they've built at the drop of a hat because flavor of the month dictates something new. People are why we can't have nice things. And technological limitations.... but mostly people!

[/quote]I know there are a handful of mobs that also do this as well, Ogres notably. Personally it doesn't phase me since you guys know I HATE overeliance on telegraphs.[/quote]
The ogres have a cast bar that's reasonable and tells you swing vs swipe. Even then, I've been killed a good 50+ yalms away from a 1 shot that lag said I never got out of in Coerthas on numerous occasions. It's not the same as the "his arm's up, wait when did it go up? Well F me, there's no point now, I'm screwed."

Ah ok. That makes sense. BG didn't have any modifiers IIRC. It didn't when I did it.

Woops, thought it did. My mistake!

Honestly, if you think about it, no telegraph WotL is basically just T5 Twisters. I don't see an issue with that, in fact I welcome it (post nerf twisters that is LOL). I do however agree that Titan specifically seems overtuned on response time. I noticed post server migration I would get clipped once in a blue moon by WotL despite being out of it, and the cast bar is still up). They could likely give a small ms bump to his cast times to accomodate that. Let's say there's almost no chance of escaping a WotL with that modifier so the solution would be to spread and everyone soaks a single one. If you stack and anyone ate 2, gg wp. This actually succeeds in accomplishing what I set out to when designing the system. It forces you to think and adjust strategies.

Twisters are very small, about the size of one character's stance in a massive room with plenty of maneuverability.
WotL is about 4-5 times the width of a character's stance in a very small area for movement. Unless you do the everyone stacks and always moves left method, there is no other chance you're going to smoothly clear that with 0 indication of where the plumes are.
If the solution is everyone just spreads out and eats one, there's no danger to it. It's just a healing requirement. Everyone spreads out and does their job the entire fight outside landslide and stomp. But screw melee DPS, those guys can suck it because they can only spread out so much and have to move back and forth for positional requirements unless you're okay with them not worrying about maximizing DPS. And if they're in a move when plumes trigger, well, there went 2 DPS with no indication they were in the wrong place.

Seriously, going Savage mode raiding with 0 indicators for any abilities whatsoever is a guaranteed way to kill your game. Nobody is going to play that save an excessively small number of players. It's like the old WoW paradigm of having 10 million players, but exclusively designing all your content for under 500k of them.

It was the philosophy that WildStar proudly proclaimed was their guiding philosophy. What was their max player base at their peak?

Ha didn't know that. Yes very similar to that idea, just more fleshed out.

We got the First Person view. You want to really give your raid a challenge? Sync a current content EX primal and make everyone try it in first person view. Or no HUD. That one is just cruel....

Not everyone will be able to do them well enough. There's risk/reward and time metrics that will inevitably draw players away from it and that's ok IMO.

Fair point, I'll concede that.

I think you're reaching a bit here. I'm merely stating that the content required for previous relics involved spamming exceptionally trivial and non-engaging gameplay to acquire 1% drop rate tokens. If the design paradigm suddenly switched to being asked to enter dungeon runs with harder modifiers and run them in succession people would not be happy. Think about how the old relic started. People were gated behind a engaging boss fights and it had to be changed.

When relics first went in, Titan was one of the hardest raid fights due to that ridiculous tight tuning and no accounting for lag. The relic was designed, in concept, to be something that non-raiders could work for over a long stretch of time to stay somewhat in step with hardcore raiders. The equivalent would be expecting Savage raids to be the minimum starting point for non-raiders to have a weapon that's not as good as Savage raid weapons. How does one conclude that's a reasonable design for something that is specifically meant for non-raiders to pursue?

That's just one example, likely rubbed wrong moreso because of your past comments that regularly come across as disparaging anyone not up to your perceived level as lesser and your frequent claims that everything in this game can be done without even watching the screen the day it comes out.

I've pointed out it sounds arrogant, others have pointed out it sounds arrogant, if you want to disregard that, it's up to you. It doesn't help your presentation when you sound like you look down on other players as beneath you. I feel you and I have gotten to a point we have some understanding of one another I can say bluntly, whether you mean it or not, that's how it often comes across.

Also, you never pitched your full blown "Design an MMO" thread in the general video games forum. "Son... i r disappoint!"

Fair enough. Can't argue with that specific example.

And do note, I say it depends on the zone chatter. It's hard to gauge with complete certainty. Just saying there are instances of being being legitimate jerks. American Steak Theory was the greatest thing to happen to Elite hunts on Gilgamesh, though. Love those guys.

[Graeham]

160/200 PvP wins in Feast for the mini airship mount. The final stretch. ;_;

[Kazgrel]

Oh how EX primals hate to cough up a weapon that I could use.

WAR weapon last night, PLD shield the night before. Naturally, I lose greed roll on the DRK weapon. No sign of BLM weapon.

Now if farm group would live up to their name, I'd have at least 10 totems by now (currently at 6). Got Omega done for the week, though, so I should have more time to sink in some runs tonight. Hopefully enough to where I can at least get the BLM weapon via totems if I have to.

[StrawberryZebra]

Seriously, going Savage mode raiding with 0 indicators for any abilities whatsoever is a guaranteed way to kill your game. Nobody is going to play that save an excessively small number of players. It's like the old WoW paradigm of having 10 million players, but exclusively designing all your content for under 500k of them.

It was the philosophy that WildStar proudly proclaimed was their guiding philosophy. What was their max player base at their peak?

When it comes to indicators, there are other indications they can give you rather than just a telegraph like Wildstar did. You also don't have to go all the way to Dark Souls level watching the boss to see whats up either - That would be awful in FF14 where you can barely even see the boss under all the particle effects.

Audio cues for example. The boss shouts something and you all group up/spread out/whatever. They're something that everyone is going to realise if they're paying even the slightest bit of attention. FF 14 has Chimeras which do something similar too with the whole red/purple thing, and i'm pretty sure there's a boss or two that use the old +ive and -ive charge mechanics from all the way back to Thaddius when he was new and interesting. You don't always need to turn the floor into a telegraph disco to get vital information across to the player.

When it comes to upping the challenge doing it by witholding information from the player is just as lazy a way to do it as turning the boss into a damage sponge. It takes very little forethought or skill on the developers part to create that kind of "challenge".

[Faroth]

When it comes to indicators, there are other indications they can give you rather than just a telegraph like Wildstar did. You also don't have to go all the way to Dark Souls level watching the boss to see whats up either - That would be awful in FF14 where you can barely even see the boss under all the particle effects.

Audio cues for example. The boss shouts something and you all group up/spread out/whatever. They're something that everyone is going to realise if they're paying even the slightest bit of attention. FF 14 has Chimeras which do something similar too with the whole red/purple thing, and i'm pretty sure there's a boss or two that use the old +ive and -ive charge mechanics from all the way back to Thaddius when he was new and interesting. You don't always need to turn the floor into a telegraph disco to get vital information across to the player.

When it comes to upping the challenge doing it by witholding information from the player is just as lazy a way to do it as turning the boss into a damage sponge. It takes very little forethought or skill on the developers part to create that kind of "challenge".

I can definitely dig the audio indicators. Like with Leviathan, you had the visual indicator of the splash, but the big tip was the sound. Because if you're looking at one end and don't see it, you better run when you hear it.

And I'm not opposed to removing some indicators, or shortening their visibility. You could get a short flash instead of a permanent-til-cast indicator.

I think some indicators are good to have, like the stack indicator on a target for everyone to pile on.

Others could be altered.

I'm just not in favor of removing them all.

[StrawberryZebra]

I'm just not in favor of removing them all.

I would be all for adding more of them. Mix things up with audio and visual ones, the "Stack on this guy" ones and so on, as long as they're consistent then I don't see them as being a problem.

As I said above, I don't consider directly witholding important information from the player to be a challenge. You should know why you failed a mechanic, and you should know how to go about fixing it. The content should still be a challenge, but it shouldn't be difficult because you didn't move out of the invisible lava pool immediately.

[Graeham]

I'm down for more audio cues. Lakshmi and Susano having voice acting that signals specific abilities being used is very, very useful. I hope to see more that in the future.

I do wish that Omega's bosses had voice acting too, though. Or at least the ones that are humanoid, anyway. Then again, even monster bosses can roar and growl.

[Well]

I will be reaching 60 soon with my main class. I'm lvling via MSQ. I want to level other jobs, mainly RDM, BLM & AST and haven't purchased Stormblood yet. How do? Is my only option to spam dungeons?

[Granyala]

Did Omega now.
Didn't get when to use the levitate on second boss. need more exposure to figure it out. Only know that I am NOT supposed to use it when yellow voids are up.
Exdeath sucks. I dislike bosses where I have to watch their animation in order to see whether he is scratching his scrotum or his beard so I know what the spell does.

Esp since I have major problems with all these spell effects and always having to deactivate everything is so lame. We need "animation light" for raid settings so we're able to see the bosses properly.

[Deleted]

I will be reaching 60 soon with my main class. I'm lvling via MSQ. I want to level other jobs, mainly RDM, BLM & AST and haven't purchased Stormblood yet. How do? Is my only option to spam dungeons?

PvP, POTD, Dungeons especiallz daily dungeons.

[Aruhen]

hese spell effects and always having to deactivate everything is so lame. We need "animation light" for raid settings so we're able to see the bosses properly.

The only thing you have to pay attention to is when he's sucking in the void which is easily seen. Aka if he's doing thunder 3 without sucking in the purple drank then it's a tank buster but if he is then it's the big aoe around him. Same goes for the other abilities.

[Granyala]

The only thing you have to pay attention to is when he's sucking in the void which is easily seen. Aka if he's doing thunder 3 without sucking in the purple drank then it's a tank buster but if he is then it's the big aoe around him. Same goes for the other abilities.

What about the ice attack that freezes you? Can that be avoided? IIRC it gives vuln stacks, so there has to be a way.

My pojnt regarding the animations still stands though. Easily seen on the expert boss that does attacks to front/sides. At times, there is so much clutter and smoke that I cannot see the circle, let alone the mob in order to determine where he is facing. (Granted it's trivial if you get hit, but it still annoys me. I don't like to gimp)

[Kaelwryn]

What about the ice attack that freezes you? Can that be avoided? IIRC it gives vuln stacks, so there has to be a way.

My pojnt regarding the animations still stands though. Easily seen on the expert boss that does attacks to front/sides. At times, there is so much clutter and smoke that I cannot see the circle, let alone the mob in order to determine where he is facing. (Granted it's trivial if you get hit, but it still annoys me. I don't like to gimp)

That blizzard attack is just like the first boss in Snowclock, you avoid being frozen by moving.