Upcoming Torghast Changes

[Lumy]

Upcoming Torghast Changes

Since the launch of Shadowlands, we’ve been constantly evaluating and reacting to the player experience in Torghast, Tower of the Damned. In previous weeks, we’ve made surgical changes to address pain points. This week, with the opening of a much more difficult section of the tower, we’ve seen a great deal of feedback from players that we feel is best addressed with a whole slate of updates. Some of these changes have already gone live with hotfixes over the last 24 hours, and the rest will be applied to the game today (and possibly tomorrow).

In summary, we want to reduce the length of a Torghast run, increase players’ success rates for a few specializations that are struggling more than the others, and give players more options in dealing with the challenges that Torghast presents. Here are the changes we’re making:

Torghast, Tower of the Damned

• Health and damage of all creatures in Torghast reduced by 6% at Layer 1, increasing to 26% at Layer 8.
  
  • Developers’ note: The net effect should be that Layer 8 is now roughly as difficult as Layer 6 was prior to this change, with other Layers’ difficulty is reduced proportionally.
• Health of all creatures reduced for players in groups by up to 25%.
• Damage of all creatures reduced for 4- and 5-player groups by up to 20%.
• When the Empowered enemy at the end of a floor is a spellcaster, they should now have a longer delay between their basic magic damage spells.
  
  • Developers’ note: The goal of this change is to make powerful spellcasters less punishing for specializations that lack a frequent interrupt.
• For all classes, major cooldowns will now reset when you transition to a new floor.
  
  • Developers’ note: This functionality should mirror the way cooldowns reset at the end of a raid encounter, or when starting a Mythic Keystone dungeon, affecting most abilities with a cooldown of 3 minutes or longer.
• Anima Powers/Cells
  
  • The starting Anima Cell in Torghast now offers a stronger selection of Anima powers.
  • Anima Cells dropped by rare creatures within Torghast now always have at least 3 choices to choose from.
  • The chance for an Anima Cell to drop from a creature on any given floor has been increased.
  • Unnatural Power no longer provides immunity to crowd controlling effects at 10 stacks.
• Enemies
  
  • Massive Crusher’s Armor Plating cast time increased to 3 seconds (was 1 second) and can be interrupted and/or dispelled. Recast time increased to 16 seconds (was 8 seconds).
  • Tower Sentinel’s Oppressive Aura haste reduction and slow now scales up to 10% (was 25%).
  • Deadsoul Chorus’s Death Blast now reduces healing received by 15% and stacks 5 times (was 25% and stacks 4 times).
  • Skeletal Remains and Lumbering Creation’s Bone Shrapnel now marks the ground and then explodes after 2 seconds, giving players time to move away (was instant).
  • Deadsoul Stalker now fades away after 15 melee attacks (was 7) and remains hidden for 15 seconds (was 30 seconds).
  • Deadsoul Devil now reincarnates with 15% health remaining (was at 40% health).
• Bosses
  
  • Elder Longbranch’s Bounty of the Forest cast time increased to 4 seconds (was 2 seconds), time between casts increased to 45 seconds (was 30 seconds), and Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
  • Decayspeaker’s Hardened Shell now only requires 6 attacks or skills to remove (was 9 attacks).
  • Goxul the Devourer’s Health and damage decreased by 10%, and time between casts of Mass Devour increased to 36 seconds (was 18 seconds).
• Torments and Upper Reaches
  
  • Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies’ health and damage reduced by 50%, now increase assassin health by 5% per stack (was 10%).
  • Fracturing Forces and Eye of Skoldus enemies will no longer ambush players who have recently been in combat.
  • The Jailer’s Directive now increases health by 10% (was 50%).

You’ll find all of the changes above noted in our ongoing Hotfixes Update post soon after they go live.

[Yarathir]

All I need for them is to make Torghast a little less RNG dependent. I don't want my or anyone else's success to depend so much on whether they roll dice really well. Surely that can't feel rewarding for anyone?

EDIT: This is just a generalized message on how I see Torghast as a system in its current incarnation. Not a judgment of the specific changes outlined here. They look pretty good.

[bloodwulf]

Looks great. Giving more powers and giving larger selection of powers should easily make the runs feel smoother. Also the CDs reseting per level is huge.

[Daedius]

Making it quicker is a win.

[ro9ue]

Awesome. Hoping to see some additional tuning around classes. My DK walks in and facerolls everything but on my Rogue I'm sweating.

[holyfist]

Step in right direction. Now need to test it to see does Torghast feel fun again or still like a chore.

[Acidbaron]

The tower sentinel nerf and this; Skeletal Remains and Lumbering Creation’s Bone Shrapnel now marks the ground and then explodes after 2 seconds, giving players time to move away (was instant).

Good move might make skeletal remains no longer lethal but they were a pain in room stacked on top of elites as melee where you had to kite them as a result the elites had several stacks on them making them harder to impossible to kill.

Going to say something unpopular but any endless mode with rewards should scale with ilevel and reward accordingly *ducks*

[MrKnubbles]

Good. Hopefully, Torghast will start being fun soon.

[kiramon]

Making it quicker is a win.

It’s like committing to a raid every Tuesday. Ergh. So many floors per layer. Ergh. Argh.

[Yarathir]

One thing I'd like to see reworked is Unnatural Power. It just turns stuff into DPS checks. Not particularly engaging if you ask me.

[shadowmatrix]

It’s like committing to a raid every Tuesday. Ergh. So many floors per layer. Ergh. Argh.

Just how many floors are you running, my runs seem more like running a dungeon in terms of time commitment.

[sirmalta]

All I need for them is to make Torghast a little less RNG dependent. I don't want my or anyone else's success to depend so much on whether they roll dice really well. Surely that can't feel rewarding for anyone?

EDIT: This is just a generalized message on how I see Torghast as a system in its current incarnation. Not a judgment of the specific changes outlined here. They look pretty good.

You could not be more wrong. The entire point of torghast is RNG. It's a rogue-like. Bad run? Do it again.

I think they should remove some of the absolutely useless powers, but everything needs to be RNG.

[Rageadon]

Remove it or dont make it forced.

[Asrialol]

It's like the Cata heroic dungeons all over again. Wait what, people can't mindlessly kill shit 24/7? Gotta nerf that!

Honestly I'd be fine if all the toxic, whiney kids who complained that Torghast was too difficult stopped playing. Would be better for the game than endless nerfing.

[shadowmatrix]

You could not be more wrong. The entire point of torghast is RNG. It's a rogue-like. Bad run? Do it again.

I think they should remove some of the absolutely useless powers, but everything needs to be RNG.

Which ones are useless? Some basic perks become OP when combine with others.

- - - Updated - - -

Remove it or dont make it forced.

It's no more forced then raiding is.

[sirmalta]

That's too many nerfs... Blizzard, no one asked for all this. The knee jerk reactions are wild.

Mobs had too much health. That's all. It was unfun because it didn't matter what powers you had, shit took forever to kill. You didn't need to Nerf the whole thing into the ground. Let it be hard. Hard is good. Time does not equal hard. That's all we've been saying about pretty much the entire game for 16 years.

[Easo]

It seems that they have listened, at least partly, to the recent complaints.
Torghast was supposed to be fun, not balanced.

[Nephod]

Make it harder, not easier. I had to try twice to solo layer 8 upper reaches and it was fun to have a challenge. Felt good completing it. Making it easy will only lessen the fun imo. Oh well.

[Toppy]

Make it harder, not easier. I had to try twice to solo layer 8 upper reaches and it was fun to have a challenge. Felt good completing it. Making it easy will only lessen the fun imo. Oh well.

Whats your spec and ilvl?

The major problem is that its damn near impossible for some specs.

[Nephod]

Whats your spec and ilvl?

The major problem is that its damn near impossible for some specs.

Feral druid, ilvl 179 (main spec is resto). And I understand hybrid classes have an advantage.