Perfidus

[Mrjunkie]

Noted a change to the Pitfiends aswell as Golugon's, they now have True Sight/Ultravision.

Great add, as prior a good melee and mage could dual they're way threw the outter area.
But now that the Pitfiends ignore darkness, there is no room to manouvre with them, they spam their spells, formost Greater Dispell, and in their groups they will dispell a whole party.
With this they will party wipe quite easily, even well coordinated and diverse parties. They pose a greater threat than half the monsters inside.

Could they be re-evaluated for their merits as now, i see more people running in invisibility past them to go straight for the 'Dungeon' than wasting resources, time, ressurections to fight them.

[APorg]

I agree, the Pitfiends are too strong now; a full spawn mob of 4 or 5 of them is simply not worth fighting.

[The Prophet of Misinformation]

Black Blade of Disaster yourself into their hearts.

[APorg]

You kinda need to have another caster to buff the BBoD to be able to kill pit fiends (or you can try to time your spell-casting between BBoD's concentration checks but I'm fairly sure that's considered exploiting the engine and therefore cheating) but even so, it kinda illustrates the point that the effective tactics for dealing with them are radically diminished.

[Zhernebog]

I think more monsters need true vision, it stops ninja looting which makes people have hurt butts.

[Zhernebog]

and butthurt is wildly op

[Mrjunkie]

Topic isnt about creatures with True Sight, Ninja Looters.

And if only mages with Black Blade of Disaster can do it...where's the fun in that?

[Mrjunkie]

Any input by the Dev team on this?

[The Prophet of Misinformation]

Any input by the Dev team on this?

I was looking at revising Perfidius after a thousand other things.

[APorg]

I was looking at revising Perfidius after a thousand other things.

Please finish Sithicus first though Can't wait for that to be implemented.

[herkles]

I was looking at revising Perfidius after a thousand other things.

Please finish Sithicus first though Can't wait for that to be implemented.

Will there be any towns in Sithicus? I know there will be dungeons but towns?

[shadymerchant]

Perfidus is a great dungeon. The fiends are so difficult that I would rather skip them than ever deal with them, but aside from that it is a great place. The complaints I have heard, aside from the the fiends here, is that the loot at the end is often dissapointing to a party that has used thousands, or tens of thousands, in resources just to get to the end. I don't necessarily agree with that. The XP is often good even if the loot at the end isn't.

Some of my favorite moments of the years have come from Perf trips and its inherent difficulty. It's one of the few dungeons where DM's have the IC instruments to stop a high level party from just rolling over anything thrown at them.


Whatever retooling is done, I hope the core of it remains.

[The Prophet of Misinformation]

I was looking at revising Perfidius after a thousand other things.

Please finish Sithicus first though Can't wait for that to be implemented.

Will there be any towns in Sithicus? I know there will be dungeons but towns?

Yes. Though this thread is about Perfidius. Let's keep it that way.

[Crimson Shuriken]

Perfidus is a great dungeon. The fiends are so difficult that I would rather skip them than ever deal with them, but aside from that it is a great place. The complaints I have heard, aside from the the fiends here, is that the loot at the end is often disappointing to a party that has used thousands, or tens of thousands, in resources just to get to the end. I don't necessarily agree with that. The XP is often good even if the loot at the end isn't.

Some of my favorite moments of the years have come from Perf trips and its inherent difficulty. It's one of the few dungeons where DM's have the IC instruments to stop a high level party from just rolling over anything thrown at them.

Whatever retooling is done, I hope the core of it remains.

Good post, and though I dont frequent Perfidus much I recently did take note of the pit fiends, and they are definitely not worth the trouble anymore, though I am not with any decent idea of how to make them more palatable I hate the whole darkness spam routine, and in general prefer it not be the only way to reliably deal with a particular monster.  Pit fiends as they are now just dispel too often, I think just limiting them to just one per hour or so would help make them better,  or one step further and just decrease their numbers.  I counted a score or more of them exploring the place, that is a ton of dispels.

[APorg]

Good post, and though I dont frequent Perfidus much I recently did take note of the pit fiends, and they are definitely not worth the trouble anymore, though I am not with any decent idea of how to make them more palatable I hate the whole darkness spam routine, and in general prefer it not be the only way to reliably deal with a particular monster.  Pit fiends as they are now just dispel too often, I think just limiting them to just one per hour or so would help make them better,  or one step further and just decrease their numbers.  I counted a score or more of them exploring the place, that is a ton of dispels.

Agreed. A mob of 5 pitfiends each spamming multiple Greater Dispels is eventually going to strip even level 20 spells (17+ roll unless the spell was fixed here; i.e. ~20% of buffs stripped per spell at lvl20), and this really reduces the number of effective party/class combos you can use against them in a worthwhile manner. (In my experience you pretty much need high level Bardsong for it -- and even then it's barely cost-effective.)

Most people just run past invisible to the dungeon.

[Mayvind]

I think Pitfiend are fine as it is, maybe up theirs XP gain to suitable with theirs hardness   

[respawnaholic]

Perfidus is a great dungeon. The fiends are so difficult that I would rather skip them than ever deal with them, but aside from that it is a great place. The complaints I have heard, aside from the the fiends here, is that the loot at the end is often disappointing to a party that has used thousands, or tens of thousands, in resources just to get to the end. I don't necessarily agree with that. The XP is often good even if the loot at the end isn't.

Some of my favorite moments of the years have come from Perf trips and its inherent difficulty. It's one of the few dungeons where DM's have the IC instruments to stop a high level party from just rolling over anything thrown at them.

Whatever retooling is done, I hope the core of it remains.

Good post, and though I dont frequent Perfidus much I recently did take note of the pit fiends, and they are definitely not worth the trouble anymore, though I am not with any decent idea of how to make them more palatable I hate the whole darkness spam routine, and in general prefer it not be the only way to reliably deal with a particular monster.  Pit fiends as they are now just dispel too often, I think just limiting them to just one per hour or so would help make them better,  or one step further and just decrease their numbers.  I counted a score or more of them exploring the place, that is a ton of dispels.

Yeah. I recently visited and it was an eye opener. Ive never been a big fan of darkness spam as far as tactics go, but its hard to argue with someone as far as effectiveeness, and its pretty much been the favorite tactic for uber mobs since the game came out. Maybe instead of giving the pit fiends so many greater dispells give them some other spells that can be just as disorienting / disabling in their own right. Limit them to 1 greater dispell and give them - say- a Word of Faith or two. Im actually suprised i didnt see any of them throw out an implosion (which is good) but maybe give them a Storm of Vengance or two. Those, coupled with their normal spells would wreak havok without utterly stripping a party of their primary means of dealing with such powerful creatures.

[EO]

I'll check the pit fiends' balance..maybe have less of them to make it a little easier. Is the issue in the outside areas or in the hallway leading up to the temple?

[DM Erebus]

Wait. There's more to Perfidus than not killing Pit Fiends and then going home? I had no idea.

In my limited experience the Pit Fiends do seem like a bit much when they come in 3s or more. Heck, 1 is hard enough.

[Lucadia]

One is enough I have say for a balanced party. Maybe changing their spells up a bit over the dispel spam they have now. buffs on the front liner are limited resources and theres nothing more annoying then killing -one- pit fiend to have all sources exhausted and then needing to wait for your rest period.

Give them a few gust of winds for their wings to blow darkness away

Also, their ac might need be taking a look at. even at lv 18+ many tier two ab classes have great difficulty hitting them, unless they was designed for only mages to beat them

[Mayvind]

I'll check the pit fiends' balance..maybe have less of them to make it a little easier. Is the issue in the outside areas or in the hallway leading up to the temple?

It is Outside Area and Pitfiends at MAX spawn are great as it is, people complaining that they just too hard to kill them, why have less of them solve anything ? They are only source for greater fire varnish making them less likely to appear, will result same with Aboleth ( only source of greater acid varnish disapear ages ago and never be replaced ) The problem people have is that they Greater Dispel alot exactly spaming them 8 Greater Dispels i beleive, and they have insanely high AC even with 34 Attack Base I have problem hitting it.

Make them disapeared or less do not solve anything, It would be like before people just skip the outside Perfidus and head straith to Demologist temple. Making them go away solve nothing. I myself solo it and have no problem killing it but it take times to kill them. A Good know how team can do them but most are not know how so they have difficulty in this.

I Repeat the Balance is not in the numbers of Pitfiends but on the STATS of Pitfiend themself be too UBER for most noobs. And the XP reward so little that many skip doing it. The complaint about Reward VS Risk not that it too many of them or even no one cannot do them more like not worth doing them again REWARD VS RISK

[Mayvind]

Also to Explain to Noobs out there. The dungeon system spawn are Categorize in steps i will break down to you. Low Spawn, Near Middle Spawn, Middle Spawn, Near High Spawn, High Spawn, Near Max Spawn, Max Spawn.

Perfidus outside where there are Pitfiends at Max Spawn, while in Near High to High spawn there only 1 or Two Pitfiends per groups among other Devils kind.  There are no Pitfiends at Middle spawn to Low spawn.

If you want to do 1 pitfiend per group spawn then go do it at Near High spawn case solve

[Mrjunkie]

In less of a ranty way, i agree with Mayvind, i would say another Nerf is not nessecarily the way.
As we have seen, many nerfs have taken place across the server with nothing to fill their void, Higher Levels are strapped for choice.

I'd say, up their CR to meet their change and current challenge, lower the amount of Dispells they spam are both great options, their other stats are meant to be high, they are not impossible, but they are -very- challenging, wich should befit a Devil Legionaire, why remove when you can improve..

[tzaeru]

The complaints I have heard, aside from the the fiends here, is that the loot at the end is often dissapointing to a party that has used thousands, or tens of thousands, in resources just to get to the end. I don't necessarily agree with that. The XP is often good even if the loot at the end isn't.

I've heard this too, but I'd say the loot is pretty okay. I think we once got something like 70k from just hauling everything out of there. While it was mostly "junk" to higher levels, it was plentiful in all kinds of +1 stuff and such. Can't expect +2 boots and amulets on every dungeon run.

Whatever retooling is done, I hope the core of it remains.

Agreed.

If there was something worth tweaking, then:

1) Prisoner-Slayer is very, very weak. He goes down in just a few rounds without getting any damage in, yet as I understand he's amongst highest ECL boss monsters on whole server.
2) The Pit Fiends outside are very, very hard compared to anything inside; Actually, I'd go far enough to claim that if the place is at max spawn, the outside is harder than anything inside save Malthor and his room. The Pit Fiends' AC is just sooo high up there. When they didn't have True Seeing/Ultravision, they were too easy though, as you could just buy and collect hundreds of Darkness potions and "abuse" them. I think they should have around 4 less AC or alternatively weaker Dispel. Or have just 1 per spawn.

[APorg]

1) Prisoner-Slayer is very, very weak. He goes down in just a few rounds without getting any damage in, yet as I understand he's amongst highest ECL boss monsters on whole server.

Agreed. With a party of two very high level PCs and two moderately high level PCs we kicked Prisoner-Slayer's butt relatively easily. He's way easier than Malthor.

2) The Pit Fiends outside are very, very hard compared to anything inside; Actually, I'd go far enough to claim that if the place is at max spawn, the outside is harder than anything inside save Malthor and his room. The Pit Fiends' AC is just sooo high up there. When they didn't have True Seeing/Ultravision, they were too easy though, as you could just buy and collect hundreds of Darkness potions and "abuse" them. I think they should have around 4 less AC or alternatively weaker Dispel. Or have just 1 per spawn.

Again, agreed. If anything, Malthor's room is easier because you can pick off the mobs there piecemeal if you're smart. Our party was able to do just that the other day. On the other hand there's no way we could possibly beat 5 Pitfiends. Hell, there's no way we could beat 2 Pitfiends. You can't break them up and you can't fight them piecemeal.