I just don’t understand why embermages (and really all of the ranged attackers) continue to be just awful.
embermages in particular are bad do to the coincident attacks, but most of the ranged attackers attac in groups. The poison throwers for example will attack 3 and 4 at a time, at the same time, across the screen no less, and whittle away life very quickly setting up the kill for another, usually ranged, mob.
I’m going to bail until the next patch. The constant irritation of dying to those attackers on a consistent and continual basis makes game play just plain tiresome.
I know that other people are seeing this problem, or variations on it, so it’s not my imagination.
Have you tried moving to get out of the way AND THEN getting your damage in? If you go against embermages, crystal elementals. abalests etc and don’t 1 shot them from outside their aggro range, you should definitely move first to put their skills on cooldown before doing dmg.
iirc most monster damage was nerfed in 0.8.4 and embermages were specifically addressed by giving them a small but noticeable delay in their meteor cast time.
I think the only thing that merits a change is how monster aggro works in LE. As it stands now, once you have aggro-ed something, it will continue to use its ranged ability on you, even if you have moved offscreen. This is most noticeable for lightning elementals. This is most problematic on multi minion builds since a single skeleton etc can run off and aggro an entire pack of ranged mobs that is just on the edge of your screen.
However, if you are playing melee/mid range skills (where the above problem does not apply) you only have your own player skill to blame if you are consistently getting shredded by said ranged mobs. Just get out of the way dude.
Lastly, have you also paid attention to what mods you had active when you died? Multiple % increased dmg mods tgt with mods that affect monster speed and/or 100%+ armour shred chance is a good way to get yourself sent back to town during high corruption monos.
There’s not a coherent concept in telegraphing the attacks of enemies:
Some enemies have effects that are somehow connected with their attack type, for example the Wengari Matriarchs cast a lightning circle around the area they will leap to
some enemies got just clearly visible effects in the color of their damage type, for example with the content update were Lagon was added, they Rayeh forces got an overhaul and cast orange circles and/or vectors of their attacks. This was the best addition, imho, in terms of telegraphed attacks. Very clear indicators
Somehow EHG then again changed their concept of telegraphing and went back to the - maybe more immersive - version they handled it in the past: Skill effects. For me personally this is a step backwards. I really like the clearly visible telegraphed attacks of enemies of the Lagon update. They prevent screen clutter and are very clean an so give a great indication whether I’m within an aoe or not. This is not the case with just skill effects, because some are animated and/or don’t have clear borders (poison pools).
To me it looks like EHG dont know which direction they want to go.
There are offscreen attacks from very far away
I have an Ultrawide screen so this helps me a bit for enemies that I encounter horizontally. From top or bottom I’m as blind as anybody else
At least in mono or story you first have to get aggro by approaching the enemies. They don’t automatically attack you when you get in attack range.
In Arena you get instant aggro from all enemies no matter how far away. If Embermages spawn they attack from offscreen without you being aware that they even exist.
Some enemies attack simultaneously
Embermages attack all at once so if you fail to move at the right time - because you missed the very poorly telegraphed effect of their attack - you get hit by a volley of the complete pack.
So the solutions are there and already suggested so many times, but still unheard by the devs:
Give them clearly visible telegraphs on the ground
Reduce the range - I’m absolutely no fan of offscreen attacks, especially when also many of my own skills have very limited range (Umbral Blades, Acid Flask,…)
Make them not attack simultaneously. Randomise the time between aggro and attack so they have slightly different reaction times.
I’m not entirely sure if the last point isn’t already addressed. I haven’t payed attention to this lately, but I remember it being a thing in the past.
Yes, there still should be a portion of skill based gameplay. I dont want them to be nerfed to the ground and only act like the test dummy with wings. But enemies in LE are balanced very uneven and the Embermages are an example of where several unfair effects come together, creating an absolute chore of an enemy encounter.
I feel particularly at the bottom of the screen it is a camera angle problem. The camera in LE sits relatively low, and possibly also closer than in other games. At the top/north end of the screen, how much you see is very dependent on the inclination of the terrain, and there are many places where you can see as much or more at the top of the screen than at the side. But at the bottom your visual range is just far shorter than anywhere else.
I also feel EHG knows this, since the level design compensates for this to a degree. In the large majority of combat zones, the player initially enters on the sides or bottom of the zone, and travels toward the other side or the top. Having to travel to the bottom happens but is actually relatively rare.
However that does not compensate for how deadly monsters below the screen can be if they do manage to get on that side.
I dont have a problem with them anymore after multiple nerfs to them.
Maybe being observant when you realise that particular map has them in it, is too much work for you, and you need them to be as dumb as those other trash mob so you can steamroll them.
How to make them challenging and dumb at the same time, solution?
They’ve implemented a slight randomized casting delay among them which certainly helps a lot in the 0.8.4 patch. The biggest issue for me was the simultaneous strikes which punished a player for not seeing and reacting to the first meteorite as they virtually all hit at the same time.
They can perhaps slightly adjust that timer, right now they certainly do feel a lot better than they did before. But then again, I’ve played the game long enough that they are high on the mental threat priority list along with lightmages in terms of damage.
And this comes from an almost pure monos point of view and not arena as well. I think it’s important to make that distinction
this is a very good point, especially in empowered monos. certain combinations of mods can be particularly deadly.
As usual, it’s also build/character/phase-of-the-moon dependent.
However there was one more thing i forgot to mention and that’s the chasing you down problem.
one of the ways i was getting into trouble was chains of ranged attackers. for example you get into the screen, you get an off-screen attack, by the time you get to the mob to kill it (melee penalty) you then draw attacks from ANOTHER off-screen mob. you run, but they chase you, and you get ded, because as they are chasing, they are attacking and you’ve already been whittled down by the first mob.
it’s not that i can’t get through an empowered mono, i’ve done plenty at this point. it’s that it’s become tiresome. it’s become tiresome because i die to the same creatures (ranged) and same situations (offscreen-simultaneous attacks) about 80% of the time.
the game is supposed to be fun, right ? if things become so tedious such that it’s not fun, and i admit this could actually be a problem limited to empowered monos, then not much point in playing. if i want tedious, annoying mechanics, i’ll play PoE.
i have many, many builds. i am an altoholic. but i tried to push a few of them further, and that really requires running empowered monos. and then things got tedious. so now i’m stuck. regular monos with a well constructed character is not particularly challenging. however dying to ridiculous stuff often is not really fun.
so the break is doing me good. i’ll get back in a month or two, or maybe three, or maybe a few more days and check it out with fresh eyes.
and check it out with fresh eyes.