Gorgons, Bandits, Animated Armours and other monsters

[Gorgon]

Gorgons have been a source of free experience for a while. Their HP is so low that they're easily killable. Also, death gaze is useless. their attack is so high that death gaze doesn't even trigger.

On the other hand, Animated Armours are famous for being absurdly strong. A lvl 10 AA is much stronger than the hard version of The Indomitable.

Bandits are annoying too. Not only bandits, but every other enemy that has more than 5% lower resists (to tell the truth, there are no enemies with less than 15% lower resists). This makes them completely untouchable.

Feel free to talk about other seriously unbalanced monsters.

[gjaustin]

Gorgons don't bother me. They force you to pay attention when cleaning up low level monsters. SOMETHING has to be easy to kill from a lower level.

[The Avatar]

Yeah, they are hell to clean up, especially if you have life steal. You attack to life steal them, and it kills you.

My question is why did they give AA's absurd damage? Why not just make it normal or 75% damage? They have as much tanking power as a meat man and have a 200% damage.

[Darvin]

Bandits are untouchable if you have resists, but if you don't have resists they're jokes that can reasonably be taken on when you're 4 or 5 levels lower then them. The worst offender, though, is Tomithy. He remains one of the weakest and most laughable bosses as a stand-alone, but as part of a lineup like in Naga City he absolutely cripples any resist-dependent character and the other bosses will have no difficulty cleaning you up.

Gorgons are a relatively weak monster, but so are Goats for that matter. I don't see a huge issue, though making them stronger would certainly be justified.

As for an animated armor nerf: please. These guys have positively absurd damage output to the point at which the assassin (swift hands) is the only class that can even consider knocking them out. The fact that we can now knock off two layers of death protection with one fireball has reduced their difficulty, but they remain by far the hardest standard monster in the game. At level 7+, they're harder than the vast majority of hard-difficulty bosses.

[The Avatar]

A level 9 one is stronger than the old 20 protection Indomitable. Speaking of the Indomitable, he's a laughing matter compared to other AA's. He has no bonus over a level 10 AA and has crappier stats.

[Lujo]

I'm really not sure why have the AA's been the way they are for so long. I've said this before, and I'll say it again, they took a monster from alpha, and given it stats from the alpha "Boss Hive" dungeon. In other words - we've been fighting BOSS AA's since forever.

Have the dev's ever explained why this is so?

I know why they have huge damage, they originaly had 1 HP at every level. I know they needed more HP than that because of some of the features introduced in the beta. But why in the world give them so much HP and let them keep the glass cannon humongous damage?

And I hear they also do magic damage now, when phys resists were sort of mandatory if you wanted to take them on at all in the beta? Why, for the love of god? This was discussed to death by the community, and I don't remember hearing anyone who gave a good argument for having boss stat AA's as default VICIOUS enemies around.

This is a huge issue concerning the power level of VICIOUS. The AA's are part of a "theme" only in Hall's of Steel, a supposedly HARD dungeon, but theyre everywhere and they are a really cheap way of making any level difficult. I'd love to have a chance of playing the game for a week with AA's completely removed, just to see how difficult some of the "difficult" stuff is without them. I bet it'd be interesting.

[The Avatar]

Well, they are Vicious...

One nice thing is Binlor is now handing out magic res when you use a boon, and stone heart and converting out is standard Vicious, Veteran tactics.

[Ara]

Sissies! They are fine if you compare them with Doom Armors & Illusions!

Seriously speaking, I think it's part of the difficulty to get less XP (since some monsters are better left alone). And they could still be cleaned up without much resources: prep bear mace and JJ (for WEYTWUT) and you can smash other monsters into them. PISORF shine there too. It's just a matter of how much you value XP.

Bandits are fine too. I skip them until I can one shot them or don't have to touch them. The boss is also really easy: you just need a high enough total damage (which is easy to come by with the current *cough*cheated*cough* Trisword), a reflex potion and a way to dodge/first strike or even both for 3 or 4 hits! GETINDARE, WEYTWUT, a timed quicksilver potion, EM's entanglement... If you're short in damage: a BURNDAYRAZ or 2 before et voila!

[The Avatar]

Perhaps, but he doesn't belong in naga city. Plus, a bandit isn't even really a monster, so why would it be one of the princes pets? I propose Jormungadnr instead.

[gjaustin]