Event begins July 31st, at 2pm Pacific Standard Time
Basic Event Information:This event consists of an epic battle with Rallos Zek, and some of his most famous disciples. It is an incredibly challenging fight, and will require some coordination between the player groups in order to successfully complete. In order to allow some preparation, here are a few things to expect:
•Teamwork•○ For this event, your group will be grouped up with several other player groups. This will require that you coordinate amongst yourself the various aspects of a more dynamic fight than you are accustomed to on EZ. This means aggro control, off tanking adds, healing coordination etc.
•Preparation•○ Several parts of this fight may require some modifications to spells, speedkeys and abilities that you may be used to using. If your normal attack key has a taunt component built in, that may become inconvenient, should you taunt something immediately before a frontal AE rips your group's face off. Mass resurrection is blocked, so creating a button for your healers to rez downed party members might be smart as well. This event is by no means designed to completely ruin your speedkeys, however the rewards are quite good, so the little bit of preparation and coordination will be worthwhile.
Additional Notes:• As we found with our test this past Sunday, the zone cannot handle the number of players we expect at one time. So players will be grouped together, and will be required to work together to get through this fight.
• This fight is quite different than what you are used to on EZ, but before anyone panics, this type of complexity is only because it was planned to be a server-wide event, so this won't be the new normal for boss encounters. That being said, I have learned quite a bit on what does and doesn't work with bosses, and boxed groups, so certain ideas will certainly be used in the future, and boss difficulty will be elevated. This was planned in VP, however the mechanics tended to break down there, and are typically irrelevant. I have found more reliable mechanics.
• Level 75 required to join event* -- this has a bit of a caveat, in that the items available to be purchased with the awarded tokens is max level gear, with the exception of a few things. While a level 75 group may not be very effective, they can still provide utility with rezzes and healing, and whatever DPS they can provide. Because of the expected value of the tokens, anyone 75+ who can attend, and is does what they can to help, will be rewarded either way.
• Underpowered groups. As I have mentioned, somewhere, if a group turns out to be a little underpowered for the event, I have several players who will be available to provide additional DPS, healing, or tanking, to increase the chance of success. However, success in this fight is not guaranteed, and some of the mechanics, adds and overall damage are very unforgiving.
• Loot distribution will be a bit clunky this first time, but will get sorted out for future events.
• This isn't a stand around and wait for your group to kill the boss for you-type fight. If you are not active during this fight (from information gathered via parsing), you will receive less, or no loot depending on your characters activity. This will require the collective group to give maximum effort, and that will be looked at prior to loot distribution.
• Finally, this type of fight may not be for everyone. I know that many players enjoy EZ because while grindy, it's not overly complex...this fight is. It's nothing that I believe can't be overcome with proper coordination, but it's closer to a raid encounter than anything we've done before on EZ.
I hope everyone enjoys themselves, it was a lot of fun to work on, more content will continue to be released as we work towards T11.
For Akkadius & Rent,
-Draca
EZ Admin Team
