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Comments
But, originally, BHS made IOD for Solo content.
While this content was meant for soloing, and I appreciate that (as someone who tends to fight alone), there is no reason to punish people for choosing to party up. Many a time it has been a hindrance whenever I did choose to work with another or help someone else out there, especially when it's for a daily quest I haven't completed or have finished already, only for the person I'm helping to only get credit for every other kill, meaning that often my helping them makes little to no difference, unless they're a class that has a harder or longer time killing these enemies.
Of course, the solutions are simple. Keep them at 65, no higher than that, and make it so kill credit is shared across a party, so that those who choose to party up aren't forced to do so.
While there are other problems that I probably don't see right now, those are the two I feel are most probelmatic at this time.
As for the party aspect... while I understand that this is an MMO, and people like to party up for things, and that should absolutely be encouraged, what I'm afraid of is that if they make IoD a party thing, they will essentially be locking me out of being able to do it as a solo player. Any time open world content, particularly something like daily Vanguard quests, becomes party content... every single channel ends up getting dominated by parties, and solo players don't stand a chance of getting a kill in edgewise. In fact, solo players are explicitly told to "[filtered] off" any time they even attempt to complete their own dailies, because apparently Party X owns all of Y channel, and you're supposed to "wait your turn"... even if you were in fact there first. Because parties are more important than individuals, and [filtered] you for showing up alone and trying to do your [filtered] Vanguards. Get in line, take a number, etc. I absolutely despise that mentality. If you want to play with your friends, great. But what if I don't have any friends? I shouldn't be punished for that. I'm just trying to do dailies here.
As for the idea of making the IoD BAMs doable by parties, I would agree with @TheGreyWolf in that it would inevitably shut out solo players and even though most content should be directed at party play there should be solo content for those times when either your friends aren't around or you just feel like doing stuff on your own.
As I said in my original post, the problem as I see it isn't how tough the BAMs are or whether you can do them in a party, the problem is that the ease of the quests is directly related to the tankishness of your class, even more so that DPS rate, the more that you can simply block movement, evade or simply ignore the BAMs' mechanics the easier it is, which is why Mystics have such an easy time doing them. I think the only solution that would suit everyone would be for BHS to show a little more imagination in the design of endgame solo quests and make content designed for healers and non-tanky DPS.
Sure. I know I'm not giving anyone hope with this, and I can't use the "old Tera bams" card here because that's past and this is present. But still, maybe realizing all the rewards you get for this may make the task seem not that hard in the end.
@Lilithyne more channels would help, but honestly, back in the days when we had 10 channels, it still wasn't enough for party Vanguards. They would probably need to set some channels as "solo only" to make it viable for everyone.
@BrofessorX idk man, I remember on the old forums reading posts from priests who could solo hydraths faster than my archer (they also posted YouTube vids as evidence). Now maybe they were just really really good and I'm really really bad, but regardless, they proved that priests can do it (maybe not in healing gear; might have to pick up a second set with dps stats).
don't think priest can solo the top 3 bams in a reasonable amount of time.
i was with a slayer in full SF and it took us forever to kill bams.
To fight hydras i usually save stuns when it's going to do the lightning aoe(ethier reaping slash or backstab), and it makes life easier.
I think it's more than just balance, it's also circumstance. I did top tier BAMs on my Warrior (until I got bored) and killing Nagas was easy and relatively quick but it was horrible doing the giants and Hydraths. It's not just the DPS rate a class puts out that's a factor, it's how well class style fits in with BAM mechanics (or can control BAM mechanics), For the Nagas, a Warriors Evasive Roll -> Vortex Slash -> Blade Draw combo wasn't just a good DPS rotation but also all you needed to evade/maintain back time, so the kills were quick and easy. For the other two BAMs evasion and repositioning were much mroe of an effort and so DPS rate dropped drastically. So even if Warrior average DPS was brought in line with Gunner, for example, the BAM killing rates would still be uneven due to BAM behaviour because gunners just hit from range (and can get back hits if they're withn 15m) while Warriors will always have to work to maintain position on agile BAMs.