Ruhnuk World Boss: Kithrawl Feedback

[JackieKo]

• If you fought the world boss, what were your impressions?
• How many players did you fight the world boss with?
• Were you able to defeat the world boss?
• Did any abilities do too much damage? Did any seem like they could be ignored?
• Did you understand the abilities the boss used? If not, please provide details about what caused you trouble

Known Issue: Some animations for attacks do not currently play as intended

[RuneJS]

Hi @JackieKo

I have fought the new world boss Kithrawl three times. I was able to solo this world boss on my Sith Marauder. 

The first battle was with a team of 8. 1 DPS geared Sorcerer in heal spec and the rest of the team were DPS in 330 DPS builds. We then attempted the battle a second time outside of a group using the new tagging system, with the benefit of our companions. You can see the fight on the link below. 

Multi-player kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA6bvXSXObM&t=37s

Solo with companion kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYtBf5hWLk4

Observations

• This boss is far too easy. The team takes almost absolutely no damage. 
• The stun ability is notable and is the main source of damage to the player. 
• There are no phases or adds active on the PTS
• The boss as is stands can be attacked by companions.
• The achievement and mission did not complete for all members of the team right away, requiring a second kill.

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by RuneJS

[Anysao]

I second what RuneJS second:

This boss is simply just too easy. I was able to perform a kill in a duo with someone outside the group- I tanked as a Guardian, and did not need a healer companion (And I finished the fight at 76% health). I have 330 gear, but I really doubt gear will make much of a difference.

Companions can also be used in the fight, which is wrong for a World Boss. In fact, speaking of companions: the closest thing to too much damage was my ranged damage-dealing companion getting caught in Eruption AOEs.

In addition to adding a buff that stuns companions, tripling the boss HP and the damage output would be a good start. Some Elite Hidden Chain "Glory-Hunter" adds would make the fight more exciting. They could show up, try and attack the Ops group with the implication that they are there to steal the kill.

And I implore to make these potential changes soon, because I would like to test the fight!

There are two other things worth stating:

1: The boss' model: It's just a Varlax from Dxun. Which may be fitting, given that Mandalorians have a relationship with Dxun- but this is supposed to be native to Ruhnuk, correct? It should probably have a more unique model. Or maybe at least something more iconic? Zakkegs are from Dxun and are iconic beasts that Mandalorians try to bring down... or at least a different color for the boss.

2: Could the World Boss be an instanced Lair Boss, like Golden Fury? It is hardly a big deal, but why allow for public competition for boss kills? The Kithrawl is also tucked away in an alcove, so why not put a Lair entrance somewhere in the pipes that lead to the boss' nest?

 

Bottom line: this could be a fun fight. But it needs to be scaled for an Operation group, not a Flashpoint. Make it harder!

 

 

Edited November 11, 2022 by Anysao

[ufion]

• If you fought the world boss, what were your impressions?

Impression summary: The boss is extremely easy and uneventful, it needs tuning upwards to have greater difficult/complexity. It can be solo'd with a companion.

Also, presumably a bug, but it's missing the buff that prevents companions from engaging the fight, like other world bosses, trivialising it further.

 

• How many players did you fight the world boss with?

Two, with two companions.

 

• Were you able to defeat the world boss?

Yes easily.

 

• Did any abilities do too much damage? Did any seem like they could be ignored?

No, the damage output was trivial. We were two dps and took hardly any damage. Boss's damage, and boss's health, should both be upscaled.

 

• Did you understand the abilities the boss used? If not, please provide details about what caused you trouble

Very simple abilities, and one that was interruptable. Nothing difficult or complicated to understand. Also, as reported already, the conal effect on the boss is bugged.

[euroDSMtuner]

There was something I had happen to me all 3 times I fought it, once in that 8-man ops group, once in the 8-man companion mob, and once in a 2v1 with companions; after the boss was dead, I would remain in combat and the map showed like there were adds speckled throughout the floor, almost like a minefield or something. Had to /stuck or jump off the ledge to exit combat.

[Pandoras_Jar]

So I did the world boss as a Merc Healer with Shae DPSing (50 Influence).

• If you fought the world boss, what were your impressions?

It was way too easy. Very little damage going out except for one ability (Chomp/Chomped?) that nearly killed my comp but I was able to heal her back up no problems.

• How many players did you fight the world boss with?

Up until the boss had around 30% health, it was just me Healing (Merc) and my Companion Shae (50 Influence) DPSing. Then another player, a Vengeance Jugg (from memory) showed up with their healing companion.

• Were you able to defeat the world boss?

Indeed.

• Did any abilities do too much damage? Did any seem like they could be ignored?

Pretty much all damage was minimal and was pretty easy to keep on top of with my heals and chomp/chomped(?) was pretty easy to recover from since the bosses regular damage was minimal.

• Did you understand the abilities the boss used? If not, please provide details about what caused you trouble

From memory yes, although chomp/chomped(?) was a bit of a WTF moment for me to experience the first time haha.

Anyway, I'm assuming it's unintended that companions can help with this world boss. But in any case once companion bug fixed, this boss will easily be able to be 2-manned with a heals and DPS. Definitely need to up the damage and mechanics to make it more of an 8-man boss encounter at the bare minimum (ideally more it's a world boss after all!)

Edited November 11, 2022 by Pandoras_Jar

[Quendorite]

8 hours ago, RuneJS said:

Hi @JackieKo

I have fought the new world boss Kithrawl three times. I was able to solo this world boss on my Sith Marauder. 

The first battle was with a team of 8. 1 DPS geared Sorcerer in heal spec and the rest of the team were DPS in 330 DPS builds. We then attempted the battle a second time outside of a group using the new tagging system, with the benefit of our companions. You can see the fight on the link below. 

Multi-player kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA6bvXSXObM&t=37s

Solo with companion kill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYtBf5hWLk4

Observations

• This boss is far too easy. The team takes almost absolutely no damage. 
• The stun ability is notable and is the main source of damage to the player. 
• There are no phases or adds active on the PTS
• The boss as is stands can be attacked by companions.
• The achievement and mission did not complete for all members of the team right away, requiring a second kill.

 

 

Can confirm: I was the healer and this is what I did:

- Put Static Barrier on group members pre-fight

- Heal one once 

- Shoot lightning once to the boss so it would count for achievement,

- Stand there eating pistachios irl because no health bar reached 98%

[Anysao]

1 hour ago, Quendorite said:

Can confirm: I was the healer and this is what I did:

- Put Static Barrier on group members pre-fight

- Heal one once 

- Shoot lightning once to the boss so it would count for achievement,

- Stand there eating pistachios irl because no health bar reached 98%

How were the pistachios?

[Quendorite]

1 hour ago, Anysao said:

How were the pistachios?

Great! A bit too salty for my taste, but I hate how expensive they are, I could eat them for hours at a time

[euroDSMtuner]

9 hours ago, Pandoras_Jar said:

• How many players did you fight the world boss with?

Up until the boss had around 30% health, it was just me Healing (Merc) and my Companion Shae (50 Influence) DPSing. Then another player, a Vengeance Jugg (from memory) showed up with their healing companion.

Sorry, that was me, didn't know you were performing a test. I was trying to see if after a kill I'd still remain in combat with the weird red dot map minefield glitch...and I still did for some reason.

[Pandoras_Jar]

2 hours ago, euroDSMtuner said:

Sorry, that was me, didn't know you were performing a test. I was trying to see if after a kill I'd still remain in combat with the weird red dot map minefield glitch...and I still did for some reason.

It's all good! I was glad you showed up! It was kinda getting tedious killing the boss on my own haha

[LadyAdmiral]

Why was he so easy and boring

Difficulty - Went with a group of 5 for fun, even after hearing you could solo it. 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DPs, in various gears (tank in about 330). Barely took any damage even when specifically not interrupting casts. Was really hoping to have another world boss I could bring big groups to, if not hard or crazy like the Ossus world bosses. As of running it, I didn't even have an interest in running it a second time after it Respawned. Video/Livestream - https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1649713377?t=00h36m59s 

Timer - I think I like the 5 min timer? 

Rewards - 50 Daily Resource Matrix for the weekly yay!

Weird Red Dots (see video) - https://i.imgur.com/NhfCkzJ.png

[Dekibra]

On 11/10/2022 at 7:24 PM, JackieKo said:

If you fought the world boss, what were your impressions?

way too easy - didn't feel like a dangerous World Boss at all

On 11/10/2022 at 7:24 PM, JackieKo said:

How many players did you fight the world boss with?

just me (shadow) and HK-55 (on heals)

On 11/10/2022 at 7:24 PM, JackieKo said:

Were you able to defeat the world boss?

yup, no problems at all (though a little tedious doing it alone ^^)

On 11/10/2022 at 7:24 PM, JackieKo said:

Did any abilities do too much damage? Did any seem like they could be ignored?

the stomped-thing was surprising, but nothing really happened, I didn't seem to be damaged while stomped... the other were easy to interrupt, but could mostly be ignored (I let HK stand in those little fire thingies, which hurt him a bit (took around 25% of his health each time) but still I saw no need to pull him out of there)

On 11/10/2022 at 7:24 PM, JackieKo said:

Did you understand the abilities the boss used? If not, please provide details about what caused you trouble

yes, pretty straight forward - apart from the stomped thing... I don't think that it was channeled, it just kinda happened... so maybe a bug/unfinished?

[Lakemine]

Agreed with everyone else here. Its way too easy, I solod with my companion (trooper commando gunnery with Elara lv50 healer) Also after he died, was still in combat with many red dots around. What are those? The 3 abilities I understood. 

Also one more question, what are the hazardous material containers for? I tried stacking both his AoEs on them but they didn't blow up. I'm guessing they are supposed to be similar to the oil thingys at the spider droid on Ossus?

Edited November 13, 2022 by Lakemine

[lessandracassidy]

I would also like to confirm/agree.

I pulled the boss for a laugh, like I did on Ossus when that was released, thinking I might see the first 3% of the boss. And then I just killed it. It took a second to chew through all 12 mil but I was DPS, my comp was not disabled and was healing, and it was very uneventful.

I avoided the red circles, but my companion stood in a few, as well as in the conal, and it didn't look like it took any damage. The boss did "Chomping" (? if I remember correctly) twice, getting me to 10 stacks, and I still took no damage.

I assume something is not triggering correctly, because right now it's just a beefy trash mob.

[RuneJS]

I have once again killed the Ruhnuk World Boss this evening to observe the 15th of November changes listed by @JackieKoin the changelogs/known issues topic. 

Link to solo kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn6aFKnnvzM&feature=youtu.be 

         Observations 

• It remains possible to solo the World Boss with your companion. While we know the odds are companions won't be used on live servers, this shows us how easy the boss really is. You could replace the companion healer with a fresh level 80 healer. I would be willing to bet that a level 75 healer and a 80 DPS would be enough to kill it for now for the casual player.
• The damage increase in the last patch is noticeable 
• Loot is now dropping from Kithrawl as intended
• It is clear what abilities Kithrawl is using and what they do
• There remains no adds or environmental interactions as of yet in this boss fight

        Assumptions

• Kithrawl appears to be an easy fight for ranged compositions 
• There are containers around the boss arena that the player cannot use - I imagine they will be usable at a later date
   

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by RuneJS

[LadyAdmiral]

After today's update:

• He still seems very weak. I wanted to go take some screenshots so I fought him a bit, on my undergeared tank with level 50 companion healing, he was barely hurting me. I got him down to 80% before I got bored. I didn't get to test chomp though.
• On my well-geared DPS with my level 50 companion, he killed me at about 95% so that's cool.
• The fight feels cooler now that the red circles turn into lava. Will his other abilities look cool too? Right now he has a big red circle knockback which seems normal, but the backwards triangle thing I can never visually figure out what it's doing.
• We are having a giggle over his new molerat look.
• Was that cool sword lore object in the rubble pile there before?  

[DarthEndonae]

I checked out the world boss after the update today. Very happy to see he has an (adorable) updated model. Seems like he could be a distant cousin of the Writhing Horror from TFB. 

The biggest issue I see with the fight right now, is that it's very unfriendly to melee while ranged don't have to deal with much. I recommend making the Eruption ability more of a ranged-only mechanic where they don't appear near the boss but appear underneath everyone further than 10m away from him so those within Tail Swipe range won't have to deal with it. 

Seismic Slam is a really cool idea, but it should be accompanied by other specific areas being unsafe like he can just do cleave basic attacks so people can't stand in front and specific attacks that only deal damage on his sides, like tackle/body check type stuff. It's also weird that he turns during Seismic Slam, like I would think you'd want to incentivize players to stand there, but then occasionally make it so they can't. Otherwise, maybe invert the damage so everything but the tail is safe. 

Also, while I like the animation and attack for Tail Swipe, it would make a thousand times more sense if Seismic Slam was called Tail Swipe since that's where the area of danger is while Seismic Slam makes way more sense as proximity-based AoE attack. Maybe rename Seismic Slam to Tail Slam instead. 

You also forgot to give him the Terrifying buff so companions can't fight him. He doesn't deal enough damage either and it seems like he's soloable if you're patient enough.

[RuneJS]

I killed the Ruhnuk World Boss to test out the changes made on the 22nd of November. I can confirm that I could solo the boss once again. 

Link to new solo kill: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZd2cqxgb50

Observations 

• It once again remains possible to solo the World Boss with your companion. My previous comments on this remain the same.
• The damage and health increase is noticeable. The time to kill while soloing has effectively doubled.  
• It is clear what abilities Kithrawl is using - the changes to the AOEs are visually  impressive and welcome.
• There remains no adds or environmental interactions as of yet in this boss fight. 
• As it stands, positioning doesn't really matter provided you're not standing back to the ledge. I would welcome the boss to have to be in specific spots in the area to keep tanking and DPS fresh. 

        Assumptions and recommendations

• Kithrawl remains to be an easy fight for ranged compositions. 
• If you doubled the damage he does now, you would only need two player healers for this fight. 
• This boss fight has potential to be one of the best World Bosses if more depth is added. 
• Kithrawl could be used to promote other aspects of the game to new or returning players such as operations. I would consider allowing Kithrawl to drop Columi items, or even a lower chance of Rakata at a base level of 324 (no higher) to participating players. This could open the help introduce players to the world of operations and hint the rewards of that content.  

 

[EricMusco]

Hey folks,

I wanted to circle back to this thread with 7.2 out the door and talk a little bit about our philosophy on Kithrawl. A few notes:

• We didn't build this boss with the intention of it being on the radar of progression groups. As a boss players can run into in the open world we didn't want its difficulty to be incredibly high. We would love for world bosses like this to be a touchpoint for players to start experiencing larger group content.
• It is intended that you can use your companion! I know that we block this off for some world bosses but we feel being able to have your companion out, especially in the open world, feels better.
• This may lead to the fight being easier, or at least easier to beat in situations where players can't get a big group together. That is also totally fine and intended.

My apologies for not putting out these details as you were giving us PTS feedback. Jackie put this across my desk and I just missed it in the shuffle of everything going on with 7.2. Please keep the feedback coming around Kithrawl and how we have treated its balance as it can help us in the future with any other world boss plans.

Thanks all, I hope that you are jumping into 7.2 today!

-eric

[Nee-Elder]

11 minutes ago, EricMusco said:

I wanted to circle back to this thread with 7.2 out the door and talk a little bit about our philosophy on Kithrawl. A few notes:

My apologies for not putting out these details as you were giving us PTS feedback. Jackie put this across my desk and I just missed it in the shuffle of everything going on with 7.2. Please keep the feedback coming around Kithrawl and how we have treated its balance as it can help us in the future with any other world boss plans.

-eric

Thanks for the extra  behind-the-decisions  type insight.  ( i wish you & Keith  & Devs  would do this type of thing more often like the ole days!  )

Whenver you have a moment, please see my coding question here: https://forums.swtor.com/topic/926398-very-disappointed-with-the-power-station-decoration-bundle/#comment-9732388

Edited December 13, 2022 by Nee-Elder
Reason: he might not be allowed to answer my ?

[RuneJS]

1 hour ago, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

I wanted to circle back to this thread with 7.2 out the door and talk a little bit about our philosophy on Kithrawl. A few notes:

• We didn't build this boss with the intention of it being on the radar of progression groups. As a boss players can run into in the open world we didn't want its difficulty to be incredibly high. We would love for world bosses like this to be a touchpoint for players to start experiencing larger group content.
• It is intended that you can use your companion! I know that we block this off for some world bosses but we feel being able to have your companion out, especially in the open world, feels better.
• This may lead to the fight being easier, or at least easier to beat in situations where players can't get a big group together. That is also totally fine and intended.

My apologies for not putting out these details as you were giving us PTS feedback. Jackie put this across my desk and I just missed it in the shuffle of everything going on with 7.2. Please keep the feedback coming around Kithrawl and how we have treated its balance as it can help us in the future with any other world boss plans.

Thanks all, I hope that you are jumping into 7.2 today!

-eric

Hi @EricMusco

That's an interesting decision. I agree with your philosophy. 

Does this mean you will be removing the debuffs from the older World Bosses to allow companions to be used? If so, would this include Ancient Threat and ( on certain stacks) Dreadtooth? 

Cheers

Edited December 14, 2022 by RuneJS

[LadyAdmiral]

We took a group of 21 in on the live server. It seems pretty fun and in-line with other world bosses that are on the easier side. He had enough health that he didn't die immediately so I'd still want a big group, but he didn't really hurt anyone.

[limenutpen]

I managed down to 29% (in like 15 mins) solo with companion 50/50 healing, Sentinel Concentration with PvP gear and augmented, before it enraged. 

Is that good or bad....

[streunekatze]

23 hours ago, EricMusco said:

Hey folks,

I wanted to circle back to this thread with 7.2 out the door and talk a little bit about our philosophy on Kithrawl. A few notes:

• We didn't build this boss with the intention of it being on the radar of progression groups. As a boss players can run into in the open world we didn't want its difficulty to be incredibly high. We would love for world bosses like this to be a touchpoint for players to start experiencing larger group content.
• It is intended that you can use your companion! I know that we block this off for some world bosses but we feel being able to have your companion out, especially in the open world, feels better.
• This may lead to the fight being easier, or at least easier to beat in situations where players can't get a big group together. That is also totally fine and intended.

My apologies for not putting out these details as you were giving us PTS feedback. Jackie put this across my desk and I just missed it in the shuffle of everything going on with 7.2. Please keep the feedback coming around Kithrawl and how we have treated its balance as it can help us in the future with any other world boss plans.

Thanks all, I hope that you are jumping into 7.2 today!

-eric

I understand what you say, but this is ne newest world, even when you skip all story getting to that planet will take some time and a lvl 80 char. If the Kithrawl is the first time you go into group content, that seems wrong.
And isn't it in the name, this is the World Boss, the strongest enemy, but you can solo it with your companion, sure it takes a long time, but it is quite easy. I'm okay with not needing a 24 people group, but beind able to solo a world boss feels wrong to me.

oh yeah and the weekly does not progress even when killing the wb, and if I remember right, doing the weekly should give you an achievment.

Edited December 14, 2022 by streunekatze