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Cromm sucks hard - why is this a Special raid?!
Special raids, as they exist anyway, are seemingly cop-out stop gap content, made as lazily as possible. At least the idea of combining two bosses together was novel, but then it became just recycling with zero changes besides stats to make them on par with endgame content. The type of raid you couldn't pay me to play generally speaking. So when this new event popped up, the prospect of doing new ones was as appealing to me as getting my wisdom teeth pulled. But something unexpected happened - Colru was fun.
I've been around since the first Glas raid (2011) so I remember doing Colru when it first came out. This raid turned out to be a great trip down memory lane. Camping beforehand, staffies always going top-left because they could do damage on the sub-boss and stay out of range of the AOE spam (mostly). The raid was fairly easy and being an eight person raid, it was a rare look back to the old days of Vindy raiding without ATT limit lobbies and small limits on departs.
And then this week rolled around and Colru was taken down for Cromm Cruaich. I also remember this one from the pre-Rise days with multiple versions of each raid. The 70-80 version was frustrating, awful, and not worth the effort. After that I only ever did this raid after the Rise update nerfed it into oblivion, and even then it was only for powerleveling a character or getting a daily for a monthly mission.
Who was clamoring for the return of this raid? Who has nostalgia for garbage, frustrating S2 era content, the content so popular that most of it was reworked and is wholly different from how it was when it came out? The type of raid representative of the game as a whole now-centered around milking microtransaction money out of the community's whales.
No one enjoyed chipping Cromm's health down, only for him to fly into the sky and send two 'shadows' down, or spamming attacks at statues, or dodging the goddamn AOE spam waiting for his final health bar to fall off to mercifully end the raid. So why? Why is this the one you guys decided to stick us with? Why keep the annoying end sequence AND revert to it being a four man raid despite the original being an eight man raid? My guildie and I feel obliged to run this a few times a day for the chance at good drops but when you're turning the game into work, you're taking advantage of people's fear of missing out.
Thor and Titan as RARs? Great nostalgia bait. Colru Special raid? Great. What about Kraken Special raids? Liono RAR? Just mix up things from the golden age. Why *Cromm* of all things? I've run it three times and talked in the mega about it and the consensus is that this raid is absolutely trash and should stay in the past with the boat depart tokens.
Comments
I don't mind Cromm too much... but only because I just tell myself "at least it's not Bark".
As for his shadows, at least they're not as frequent and annoying as Aes.
His last phase takes too long and the circles aren't clear, get hitting by "nothing" is very annoying.
Cromm actually felt like a season end boss when he first came out.
The first part of Colru is mildly entertaining but once the four golems are down, the party just takes turns chaining their holding skills till Colru dies while everyone sandbags the crap out of him. His break-off is fairly easy provided everyone attacks his left arm while he's down. His attack that sends 2-3 black homing orbs to everyone used to be a scary attack which would make people frantically get behind a barrier.... Apparently the dev's didn't scale this attack up at all and it only deals ~1400dmg. Colru has some novelty, but it's pretty much a brain-dead sandbag raid considering the power creep.
Cromm on the other hand is much more entertaining and engaging. He moves around quite a bit which prevents him from turning into an outright sandbag. His breakoff is harder to get and requires the use of secondary weapons depending on party composition. He mixes it up with clones every so often which can punish a party if not dealt with, but shouldn't be an issue with how powerful people are nowadays. The statue mechanic can be annoying but it's easy to prevent statues if the party knows what they're doing. The statues themselves are not hard to deal with if parties actually split up to handle the mechanic. If he happens to stack both clones and statues, a single person transforming solves the problem.
As for the last phase, it only lasts a whopping 2:10 which is less than the original final phase time of 3:10. I won't deny that Cromm's final phase waves could use some visibility tweaks though as that is something that I feel they should have fixed. They apparently tweaked Cromm so that he'll break out of a lockdown for the last phase and prevents people from bypassing it which is a welcome change in my book. Forcing players to do the intended mechanics instead of powering through them, I love it.
So yeah, I personally looked forward to Cromm's special raid. He was my favorite S2 raid, aside from Kraken, and I'm glad to have him back. The environment, the music, and the varying mechanics make for a grandiose experience. Compare that to Colru where all you do spend three minutes sandbagging a giant rock..... yeah, Cromm is definitely more fun for me.
Oh and @Nokaubure
Statues are fairly simple. Starting at bar 8, he'll try to summon them after which he'll try again every 2:30. When he hits his 5th bar, the statue timer is immediately reset , and the cooldown time is lowered to 2:00. If you have characters like Hurk/Lann in party, statues should never be a thing.
Forcing players to do something never goes good. Imagine you could skip those annoying cinematics (macha, selren), you'd be pressing the ESC button every fight. They gave every char a stun skill but lately bosses are just imune to that. So why you have it if you can't use it?
* And what about arcana kick phase. You can only kick her but why? Because for the time you forgot how to dodge and use your weapon. Yea nice immersion.
* So you are totally ok when there will be next boss and you will be able to use only kicks and nothing else during 10 mins of whole fight...
* I don't think ppl are playing this game for boring minigames... Would you like to have more alban festival updates in the future? No1 runs that...
My point is that colru doesnt have boring mechanics at least and you should be able to chose if you want to play mechanics or just skip it if you are able. The more options the better IMO.
That all depends on what the player is forced to do.
If you're talking about the cut scene between Macha's first and second phase, then yeah I'd be in favor of skipping it. However the move she does at 2bars with the whole swords falling from the sky, I'd be in favor of making players unable to skip that. Selren doesn't really have a cinematic worth skipping since they're all super short and don't really break the flow of battle.
It's to keep players from exploiting the power of their lockdowns to prevent intended mechanics. To name a few: Regina can't be stunned when she's increasing the area of the corruption zone; Glas can't be stunned while his barrier is up; Eochaid can't be stunned from bar 8 to bar 1 unless the parasite is ripped out; and Dullahan can't be stunned while his shield is up.
Arcana's kicking phase is kinda weird and it feels out of place, but to me it's something that shakes up the fight a bit and I'm alright with that.
I'm not gonna bother with this as they're extreme and arbitrary hypotheticals that don't have any relevancy.
This is where we're going to have the biggest clash of opinions. I agree that the more options a player has the better, but sacrificing the necessity of intended mechanics for the sake "player freedom," isn't worth it. I mean look at Dullahan and Abomination; both of them were interesting fights that required mechanics to be performed. Dulla had the bombing/ghost mechanics and Abom had the bell ringing, albeit the chainhooks could be glitchy if the host was bad. Players had to perform these mechanics, and successfully pulling them off added a sense of satisfaction to the fight. Now the fights have devolved into just smacking the boss till it dies with nothing special being required anymore which detracts from the experience imo. I know I'm in the minority, but I'd be in favor of restoring Dulla/Abom's mechanics with the added change to make them 99% dmg resistant while their shields are up which would make the mechanics necessary again. I enjoy fights that are more than just mindlessly hitting the boss till it dies.
Oh yeah, I loved those lobbies when people sucked at the chainhooks and bombs and they took 20 minutes to clear. They're all neat in theory but in practice people will suck hard at that. Also what does any of this have to do with Cromm? Cromm's final phase you just run around spamming health pots, hoping you don't fail because it's a trash ass raid.
Oh bullshit. It isn't a 'mechanic' to work around, it's spamming unavoidable (since I'm a Staffie) AOE attacks, contrived to do max damage because it lowers your armor durability to zero when it starts, where you can't use feathers because the circles chase you around and you lose arbitrarily if everyone goes down. It's contrived imaginary difficulty because it just decides to change the rules solely to screw with the player. Just like the last three bars of Dulla where I just get teabagged for five minutes because every attack is an undodgable stunlock and there's barely enough time for me to wind up an attack (literally doing it right now and got four times by one single AOE red circle-wow such skill much mechanics).
"Oh hey, this phase of the boss, you need to hop on one foot through these burning hoops and spam i-frames because S K I L L F U L." Stupid me, maybe I like things that are *fun* and not just hard for the sake of being hard. I love Cuphead, beat it on Expert and have been working on pacifist mode for the run-n-gun levels. That's a game that's hard but fair. Hard just to **** me around isn't *quite* the same thing.
Assuming that the host is good and that lag isn't a factor, people shouldn't suck hard at them if they practice and learn the mechanics. If the run took 20+ minutes, that's because of a player's poor performance/ignorance, not because of the mechanic itself. Parties that master mechanics will clear much faster, and the satisfaction from doing so is immeasurable.
As for what this has to do with Cromm, my point is that allowing people to bypass intended mechanics makes the game more boring and braindead. Thankfully they didn't do with Cromm. My quote that you replied to wasn't even aimed towards you but rather Vladino who brought up the topic of other boss mechanics through mentioning Arcana. If you want to read my reply that was indended for your original post, see my first reply on this thread.
Lastly, In Cromm's final phase, I rarely ever use pots nor do I run around. For the most part, I'm calmly walking without worrying about failing b/c I'm confident in my ability and know I will not die. I only dodge when I need to, and I try to stay properly spaced away from my party members. It's like @Emerthyst said; the last phase isn't so bad once you master it and know what you're doing. It was easy back then, and it's even easier now.
Unavoidable huh? Looks like this Staffie has no issue dealing with the waves and this was 2014 before your mana amber got changed. As far as I know, you can now mana amber in the middle of your hop which should make waves easier. People call it a "perfect mana amber" I think? But the point is that if a Staffie could do it years ago with less options available, what's stopping you from doing the same today?
I even personally asked one of our Evie's about this and he says that he has no issue with Cromm's waves.
Yes you can if you know the timing window to squeeze one in. Maybe you should learn it instead of concluding that it's impossible just because you can't do it.
That used to happen back in Season 2 because not everyone had bottomless pockets of GG's like they do today. So I don't see how this is a relevant issue anymore. Still, if the party is bad enough to wipe during the last phase, they don't deserve the clear. Poor play should not be rewarded, but actively discouraged with consequences such as the boat failing. This however just my opinion.
This is only your opinion but I respectfully disagree and say that it's not contrived but rather fits the fight. Cromm knows he's going die, and the last phase is his attempt to take the player down with him. It's cool in my opinion.
You do know that you could always walk away from Dullahan and let him walk to the middle right? You don't have to facetank his last 3 bars. Sure it's gonna extend the fight by a minute b/c of the whole Blizzard/Ghost phase, but what's an extra minute of your time worth? Doing so would solve the issue of you getting tea-bagged for five minutes which is an exaggeration in and of itself. If the party is capable of skipping Dulla's last phase, it won't take five minutes but rather only 1-2 minutes. Since you're apparently in such a hurry and don't want to let Dulla's last phase play out, you have to eat those red aoe circles to the face which is the price you pay for trying to bypass his last phase. A prime example of poor play being discouraged.
EDIT: Regarding Cromm's last phase. Ima team up with the Evie I spoke to and record them doing last phase for you
@FlameSama1 Tell me again how Cromm's waves are "Unavoidable as Staffie." All it takes is proper hops, mana ambers, and positioning. Our staffies don't seem to have an issue
Ohh sure, I would be confident too if only I could see all those stupid circles... But guess what? I don't. I get hit by invisible things. How do you dodge invisible things?
Fix these graphical bugs and I will call that last phase acceptable, but until that happens, I will just lay down on the ground the moment it starts, not wasting potions on a bugged mechanic.
Other than that, I don't have issue with Cromm, but I do like Colru more, mainly because it is way more nostalgic to me than Cromm times.
I mean, yeah the big waves that close in can turn invisible, but their spawn in effect still shows up which makes knowing where the invisible waves are feasible. The light blue wave itself disappears but the blue/black smokey effect at the wave's edge is always visisble, at least for me.
However, that's no excuse for graphical bugs. Just saying that despite the invisible wave issue, there's a reliable way to predict their location based on other factors. +shy Again, I'm not trying to make excuses, but rather say that there is a workaround. I still wish they'd fix it though.
Back now. Hopped through the final section, dodged a handful of the big AOEs but got hit by others so I'll concede they aren't undodgable. They ARE, however, a hell of a lot easier to dodge for every other character I'd say. People replying to my mega post the other day said that they understood why I personally had an issue with it. It's an annoying stressful time kill that rewrites the rules of the entire raid so my points mostly still stand.
As far as 'endless pool of GGs', if you don't understand why having cash shop items act as a crutch in a raid is an issue, there's not really anything I can tell you. Yes you can earn some during events and the AP shop but that's besides the point. Just like adding arbitrary timers to normal pots (but not on mercs, almost like they wanna encourage you to spend money huh...)
As far as Dulla, "YOu dOn't HAvE tO faCetAnK HIs LAst 3 BaRs" I want you to find me a Dulla lobby that doesn't just facetank him. It's been months, if not years since I saw people actually try to bomb him. Hey in that respect I'm on your side - I'd rather bomb him and just deal with the phase if it was a one time thing. But if you let him do it once and don't finish him off very quickly, he'll just do it again. The running around avoiding ghosts phase leading me seemlessly to...
This game has a fetish for f---ing the player about with unskippable hands-off sections, see the multiple cutscenes in level 100 raids like Agares (the worst offender) or Claire (at least that one is relatively easy and short). It's a hack and slash RPG, just let me hit some ****, the less interference the better really. I like the addons if they actually involve the player. I was good at the Aboma chains (for example) and that's a proactive addition. Passively walking around dodging a constant wave of attacks while watching the bosses health go down on its own is just dumb. Just like the phase of Macha (without the threat of failure though, thankfully), it's just the game's way of saying "hey not so fast, dance around for a minute or two for me". Macha spearing section? Good. Macha AOEs of bullshit while you wait for her to come back down? Bullshit.
(second Cromm ending didn't go as well-almost wiped) I did six Colru a day, I'll stick to the three max a day of this other crap raid.
Over-qualifying my argument doesn't mean I started from a losing position. The reason I went so far is because I was taught that if ever you make an argumentative claim, you're supposed to back it up and thoroughly explain so that the opposing person can understand your point of view.
Regarding the perfect timing with a good connection not convincing you it isn't BS, bad connections mess with nearly every character in one way or another. Next you're gonna tell me that Vella's CC mechanic is BS because it has a chance to fail if the connection is bad, or that Lann's glides are BS b/c they're not consistent if the connection is poor. I ran with you yesterday and if I recall, you were the host and it was fairly good. If you want to take the connection variable out of the equation, just host it yourself. Do that and the only variable at play is your skill as a Staff Evie; problem solved.
Glad to hear that you've retracted your claim about the AoE's being unavoidable as Staffie. I applaud and respect you for admitting your mistake there. That takes guts. I will agree that Cromm's waves are easier to dodge for other characters, and I too was one of the people that replied to your mega post yesterday commenting about Evie's dodge vs Cromm's waves.
However, you just have to accept that not every raid boss is going to favor every character's strengths. You don't see SS Arisha's, GS Hurks, or TS vella's complaining about how they get gimped in Braha. You also don't see Bow Kai's complaining about smaller bosses like Arcana/Macha/Neam being harder to hit than bigger bosses.
The point is that not every character is a perfect matchup for every boss. Some bosses will favor characters while putting others at a disadvantage. Your disadvantage just happens to fall on Cromm's last phase, but yet you wanna call it BS just because your the one at a disadvantage this time around. That's not a valid reason in my eyes.
I don't really get what you're saying here based on the phrasing. Are you trying to say that having people rely on GG's as a crutch is an issue? If so, I agree and was personally hoping they'd be disabled during Cromm's last phase. Being able to easily erase death lessens the time people have to reflect on their mistakes and thus their skill development is slowed.
I don't really see how they're encouraging people to spend money on GG's though. If you take the time to practice a raid and learn from your mistakes, both of which don't cost you anything but time, there's no reason to ever need GG's.
Also, the "arbitrary timer" on regular potions was needed to balance out the removal of the potion drinking animation when RISE hit. Merc pots were always instant with no cooldown from the very beginning. So the topic of comparing reg pots vs merc pots here is moot.
I think you're conflating two of Dulla's mechanics. Years ago, people would do the whole bombing mechanic but that's because it was necessary. After the devs nerfed the damage reduction on Dulla's shield, there was no longer a need to do the bombing mechanic.
^But that's not the mechanic I'm referring to.
At 3 bars of HP, Dulla will repeatedly spam red aoe's in order to push people away from him so that he may walk to the center of the map. After he gets to the middle, he casts a snowstorm to which players must remain in the safe zone while dodging multiple ghosts. He does this again for his final bar of HP. However, people don't like this because the two blizzard phases last ~30 seconds each which is apparently too long. So they opt to facetank his last three bars in order to bypass this last phase. Complaining about having to facetank the red aoe's is worthless because you're the one that made the choice to facetank through it. Don't wanna deal with it? Let him walk at bar 3.
A lot of people nowadays just view raids as a chore and just want to kill the boss ASAP so they can get their loot and go. Gone are the days where the majority of players raided just for the sake of enjoying the thrill of battle with loot being an afterthought.
Agares is the worst offender? Really? When he initiates his pillar phase he goes immune for ~10 seconds, and when it ends he's immune for ~6 seconds for a total time of 16 seconds. There are parties that are strong enough to only see one pillar phase, but on average, I usually see two. So let's see.... two pillar phases only wastes 32 seconds of your precious time. If someone gets marked and executed, it wastes ~15 seconds per time this happens. However, this is not the fault of the battle mechanics, but rather the fault of the person that played poorly and got hit while marked.
Now lets look at Claire. You said her cutscene is relatively short when compared to Agares? Her cutscene at bar three is only 12 seconds. A 12 second Claire scene vs 16 seconds from Agares's pillar phase. Wow what a time save, a grand total of 4 seconds! But wait, there's more! Claire's little running phase where you have to dodge arrows lasts ~10 seconds for each of the three times she runs off the stage. A total of ~30 wasted seconds which is double the time of an Agares execution.
So let's assume that in an Agares run, you see two pillar phases and no executions vs a Claire with one running phase plus her bar 3 cutscene. Agares wastes a grand total of 32 seconds while Claire wastes 42 seconds. So it seems like Claire wastes more time even though you said Agares is the worst offender. It's only when Agares starts executing people that he starts wasting more time than Claire, but this can be prevented by playing tactfully. Even if he wastes more time due to executions, it's not the boss mechanic's fault; it's the fault of the player(s) that got killed.
Look, I'm probably going to come off as an ass here but I'm going to speak my mind. You say that you enjoyed Abom's chains as well as sword tossing in Macha. You claimed that you were good at chain hooks in Abom and I can only assume that you're good at throwing swords back at Macha too. But you seem to hate Cromm's waves as well as Macha's last phase, both of which you're not good at. I believe the only reason you don't like these is because it's something you couln't quickly grasp and become good at.
Let me tell you what I've gathered from re-reading your first post. You're a veteran player that's been around for a while. When Cromm came out, I'm willing to bet that you tried him a few times, and after being slaughtered repeatedly during his final phase, you gave up. You didn't want to put forth the effort to practice and learn the final phase b/c it wasn't something you could quickly pick up. Had you persevered through Cromm back in the day to the point of mastering his last phase, you probably wouldn't be here complaining about him today, nor would you dislike Macha's last phase.
I'm not trying to insult you, but this is just my impression of you. You strike me as a person that wants to take the simple and easy road. You even insinuated this when you mentioned Claire's phase not being so bad because its "easy and short." You also portrayed a dislike for mechanics, claiming that you "just wanna hit some ****, the less interference, the better." This shows that you're not interested in added complexity, but are rather in favor of easy fights that don't require much thought. This is supported by you saying that you didn't start doing Cromm until after he was nerfed, IE: after the difficulty and need for mechanical thought was removed.
I'm willing to bet that this is the underlying reason as to why you like Colru better. He's a raid that you're already good at, and he doesn't require any thought b/c once the golems are dead, he's just a 3 minute sandbag. All you gotta do is stand at mid range and fling spells while only having to dodge or re-position on rare occasion. Compare that to Cromm where you actually have to try, I can see why you probably don't like him.
Again, I'm not trying to offend or insult you. This is just the type of person you seem like to me, and you have my sincerest apologies if this upsets you in any way.
As @FlameSama1 said this is Hack&Slash game and the main part (fun) is that you constatnly attack the boss.
If there is mechanics that let you do more dmg to the boss it's ok - for example enraged elschu 7th bar: you dont have to grab him, you can stay on the ground.
If there is mechanics to slow down the progress? Ok but at least don't reduce things you can do (like you can't attack boss, you can't move, you can't use 2ndary items, you can't use skills). Add something instead...
Back to crom. When he flies up and summon illu it's ok mechanics. Why? Because you still can fight something. The only thing I have against it is that he is invulnerable. Why can't kai, teide hurk, stafie shoot him? Just to be fair?
@Cloakshire you said that you skip mechanics and play braindead. No it requires teamplay and brain to skip mechanics. Because after 50-100 times those mechanics become braindead. Devs are just lazy to implement good and imersive mechanics. It's easy to just set boss invulnerable and "ok nao go do something".
@Valdino
Yes, the act of skipping a mechanic is not braindead as it requires coordination with your party. However, what I'm trying to say is that skipping mechanics often reduces most bosses to a braindead experience. Yeah, let's lock-chain Macha's last 2 bars and reduce the experience into everyone mindlessly wailing on her until it's your turn to lock her. The only non-braindead part of this is act of using your lockdown at the right time. Compare that to letting her fly up, dodging some swords/waves, fighting her naturally for another bar, then dealing with the waves again while still fighting her to the death. I'd much rather the latter of these two choices as it's much more involved and fun for me personally.
Then again, I'm probably one of the few players that raids purely for the sake of enjoying a good fight and to push myself as a player. Since loot is nothing more than an afterthought bonus to me, I'm not in any hurry to clear like most people are. I like taking my time and enjoying the experience of battle no matter how many times I've done it. This is probably why I dislike it when people skip mechanics as it robs me of the full battle experience.
I like proactive aspects of raids. Have a new version of Liono where we can bomb him off for stuns and damage or Kraken where you have to attack the tents. Those are things involving players attacking the boss in a way. Wandering around dodging AOE spam for two minutes is like playing an especially shitty rhythm game where you press the spacebar to win. I'm not actively participating in anything at that point except some contrived endurance test.
You don't see me complaining the same way about Redeemers, far and away harder than Cromm and something I'm also far and away worse at, because the rules don't just change arbitrarily at the end to screw with the player. From the get go, Neam gates kill if you don't dodge them (usually) and if your party wipes at any point you lose, bam. I respect that because it's constant. It doesn't introduce those mechanics right at the end to artificially pad the raid's difficulty.
I misspoke with the Dulla thing. I meant to phrase it like, people don't take the slow route in that. They want to facetank the start of it and keep him out of the middle at the end. If 3/4s of my party doesn't want to do it the slow way, I'm not gonna single-handedly convince them to take the extra time out to do it, especially not in the era of 2000 ATT Cap Removal whale-types who average 40% damage a run-they don't wanna take an extra minute or three to let the phase happen.
Dunno how you draw the conclusion that I don't like additional complexity when you start that post off by recognizing that I like Abom chains and Macha spearing (which I do like). If you're gonna take control of the pacing from the party, at least add something to do like Arcana's kicking phase. It changes the mechanics, presents a way to fail, while also giving the player something to do by letting you kick her to end the phase quicker. Zec raising his power, the latest Elchy and his flying phase, hell every dragon and its flying phase gives the player something to do.
What's the first thing you do when you get into a raid, actually jump into the fight after campfire and everything? Mash the ESC key to skip the cutscene asap. Because all it does is just drag the fight out. These AOE dodge sessions are like that. Overly long segments that slow the pace of the game down to a halt and highlight your frustrations if you happen to have a bad run or some reason.
Go solo it all then. Full battle experience right there, literally 100%.
Basically all bosses are braindead even for solos. You get good enough at redeemers they become semi brain dead too. I have more fun smacking them then I do watching them float around though. I'd be more than fine getting rid of all cut scenes. Only hinders my chars already RNG dps. Once you run the new raids like 5 times they're more or less braindead already, don't put me to sleep with the same cut scene over and over.