Feedback:User/Konig Des Todes/The Underworld


 * This suggestion assumes that my normal mode and hard mode suggestion takes place

I'm separating this suggestion into three parts: quests, enemies, and Dhuum (fight). It should be noted that this suggestion is for the quest and quest enemies alone - with the exception of Skeletons of Dhuum and Wailing Lords.

Quests
There's two issues with the Underworld's quests:
 * 1) A group has to take precautions with taking them, if you overlap quests or grab them before you're ready, it's practically an automatic failure to the mission. Every single quest shouldn't be like this, because one griefer could easily screw up the entire run for everyone.
 * 2) Too many quests requires the group to either split or be somewhere away from the quest giver instantly (prime examples: Servants of Grenth, The Four Horsemen, and Imprisoned Spirits).

Because of these two things, Underworld caters to the speed clears and farmers. Why? Because normal groups don't know every in and out, but the speed clearers do. Yet some things were changed to make it harder... and these changes just made the Underworld more catering to the speed clears. My suggestions should change this if implemented. And quite honestly, they're simple things.

I do not see a need to change Terrorweb Queen or Demon Assassin other than making builds more interesting to fight against - this will be covered in the section.

Clear the Chamber, Escort of Souls, and Unwanted Guests
These two quests would only get a very small change, and not to the quest itself. Rather, it'd be on how to get access to it. Other than the three "big bads" of the quests (mentioned prior), these two have the easiest chance to cause an accidental wipe - simply because if they are grabbed too soon, the party may not be prepared for it.

As such, the only change to them would be to give them a requirement to fulfill prior to being able to accept them:
 * Clear the Chamber: One must kill the nearby Bladed Aatxe groups (I believe there are four - 2 stationary, 2 patrolling) before it can be accepted.
 * Escort the Souls: One must do Wrathful Spirits and/or Unwanted Guests - Unwanted Guests should be needed to be completed first, but Wrathful Spirits poses a good threat to the spirits and one normally wouldn't send new souls to a place not managed, so lore-wise needing to complete Wrathful Spirits (or at least have the Forgotten Vale reaper spawn) would make perfect sense.

Restoring Grenth's Monuments
The change to this is solely due to Chaos Plains and the Spawning Pools. In both situations, it's very easy to kill the quest dryders before the enemies are all cleared - for the plains, due to the 3-6-9 spawns of the spectres, for the pools, because every enemy in the spot are the dryders so you can't tell which are the ones you need to kill last to keep the reaper safe.

As such, there is one direct solution, and one indirect solution.

Directly: Reapers don't spawn until a spirit range (half the compass) of enemies are gone (this could be due to patrol or death).

Indirectly: Alter the quest dryders so that they are different from the normal dryders (be it appearance or name) and remove the single Banished Dream Rider which is right at the statue in the Chaos Plains.

Wrathful Spirits
Ever since October 2009, this quest has made no sense to me. Previously, both allied and hostile spirits spawned and you needed to protect the allied spirits. Now, however, only hostile spirits spawn. What's that you say? Green spirits still show up? True, however they will turn evil.

Whoever re-designed this quest didn't read the dialogue. The way it is set up makes no sense at all. You're told to protect spirits and killing already evil spirits, yet only Tormented Spirits spawn and they turn evil? Huh? I do like how the Mayor can no longer be attacked, but how the rest of this quest is set up is silly.

The current situation in terms of NPCs in the area:
 * Allied spirits who wonder around and attack enemies - these are they guys you must protect, they are always there and can be killed off by the grasping darknesses and the skeletons of dhuum, thus allowing you to fail from the very beginning.
 * Spirits which spawn instantly hostile - in groups of four.
 * Spirits which spawn allied, do nothing, then turn hostile when a whole group of hostile spirits are killed - also in groups of four.

How to change this:
 * Allied spirits not tied to the quest will only spawn after the grasping darknesses are killed. They will act like they act now, however are not necessary to be kept alive to not fail.
 * The quest will spawn 2 kinds of ghosts - those hostile and those allied.
 * The allied spirits will merely double the previous allied spirits, have a different name than the others, and if all are killed the group will fail.
 * Hostile spirits, spawned in groups of 4, once a group is killed another group spawns (instead of the spirits always being there). There will be the same amount of groups as currently, and the spawning will act the same as when spirits become hostile.

Imprisoned Spirits
This quest suffers from the fact that when it starts, you must be somewhere other than where the quest giver is. Not only this, but the enemies also spawn very close to those you must protect, with heavy kd and aoe skills. Currently, the spawns are as shown:



As one can see, the spirits you need to protect are too far away from the reaper compared to where the enemy spawns are. My suggestion would merely be to push back where the enemy spawns come from. The northernmost group would be pushed to the edge of the trail, at the cliff, and the two spawn points to the south would be merged into one and pushed to the ramp just underneath the cliff where the northern most group would be moved to. Effectively, the three spawn locations could make a straight line from reaper to enemy spawns with the spirits in between.

In essence, here's a comparison from current situation to my suggestion:



The Four Horsemen
In my opinion, there is one simple fix to this quest, and I'm sure it's been suggested by many many others: Script the horsemen to move one after the other, not all at once. And by that I don't mean "the next won't move until the previous is dead" but rather "horseman 1 moves at 0:05 after accepting quest, horseman 2 moves at 0:25 after accepting quest, horseman 3 moves at 0:45 after accepting quest" etc. etc. (not those specific times mind you - the times should be only figured out via trial and error testing).

Along with this, I would suggest that the groups become a little bit stronger to compensate the fact that you're fighting 1/4th of what you did previously. Likewise, I would alter the skill bars of the individual horsemen so that they aren't all the same copies of giant Banished Dream Riders. This will be covered in the section.

Servants of Grenth
The issue with this what both of the above suffers: It has what you need to protect too far away from where you start (in fact, with your enemies between you and what you need to protect), and it requires splitting (but worse, it requires splitting 3 ways instead of the 4Horsement's 2). What's worse is that you have to defend the Reaper, and nothing is mentioned of that in the quest dialogue.

What I suggest would be to switch the spawn locations of the enemies and King Frozenwind. The Dryders and skeletons would spawn on top of the ramp and head north/south to the king, who would be at the bottom portion directly between the Reaper and the enemies. However, because there must be a challenge, not every group that heads north will go straight for the king's front - they will loop around the the structure to the northwest of where the king would be placed and sweep around - attacking the king (and the group) from behind while still having the same origin location. To help illustrate what I mean:



Key:
 * Yellow=Reaper
 * Blue=King Frozenwind
 * Black=Enemy spawns and their paths.

Enemies
As I do not find myself that grand with creating enemy builds, for now I will merely show a suggestion for re-organizing/changing professions of enemies. This section will be separated by area.

There's one primary thing which the Underworld is lacking, in my opinion. Diversity. It is a core area but with the exception of two enemies, acts as if it's solely accessible to Prophecies.

The Underworld, and by extension the Fissure of Woe, should have its enemies redesigned on a scale so that in Normal Mode it is capable of being an elite for any one (just one) campaign - and in Hard Mode, it should assume all campaigns (as per my NM/HM suggestion linked at the top).

As such, I think that monsters should have redesigned skillbars to assume the possibility but not necessity of non-Prophecies skills being brought. In Hard Mode, it should assume such are brought.

The Labyrinth
Vengeful Aatxes can easily body block and aggro the reaper in attempting to get un-body blocked. My suggestion for this would be akin to Boro's suggestion by having the Vengeful Aatxes remove their invulnerability - however, instead of "the keepers now resurrect them" have a self-auto resurrect 30 seconds after death (akin to False Death but 100% instead of 25%).
 * Unwelcomed Guests

Forgotten Vale
Both the allied spirits and the enemy spirits have the same name. It's annoying. I don't see an issue with their skills so I merely suggest renaming them - Wrathful Spirit works great since that's what they are - wrathful spirits. I wonder why the quest was named such...
 * Wrathful Spirits

Twin Serpent Mountain
In my opinion, the Demon Assassin should be changed to... an assassin. Only fits, right? Unique skills
 * Demon Assassin

5 1/3  4
 * Touch Skill. Target foe takes 50 shadow damage, and an additional 100 dark damage for every 3 enchantments on target foe.
 * This skill is meant to discourage the enchantment buffs by dealing 100 non-physical non-elemental damage for every multiple of 3 enchantments (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.) on the foe. Originally I wanted this on skeletons of dhuum's replacements (see below), but I thought that since this guy is also a skeleton by look, he could be given it too.

5 30
 * Shout. This creature emits an earsplitting howl to call for help from other allies.
 * Skill translation: If under 50% health, Slayer will use this skill to teleport all allies (e.g., NPCs spawned for this quest) within radar range to his location. This skill is added to make up for the fact that Slayer runs faster than the other enemies, thus making him encountered before the rest. I also thought that a howl fit his dog-like form.

Chaos Plains
Special enemies that are copies of other enemies are dull and boring. Let's make them unique! In doing so, instead of giving them monster skills like most unique bosses (especially in NF and on), I'm giving them multiple elites.
 * The Four Horsemen

Spawning Pools
The Terrorweb Queen suffers the same fate as the 4 horsement skill wise - they're just copies of the normal enemies (this case: Terrorweb Dryders) and is a really easy boss because of such.
 * Terrorweb Queen

Skeletons, Minions, and Champions of Dhuum
These were implemented as a deterrent to speed clears. They have attacks which "go through all defenses" (e.g., cannot be blocked, damage cannot be reduced, etc.) which effectively makes them the worst kinds of enemies for monks... simply because protection prayers is worthless against them. Not only this, but the purpose behind this is now moot since the skill they were designed to counter has been nerfed to where attacks still hit. They are also annoying when they get into the groups of 3 or 4 or, worse yet, when quest spawned skeletons are in the same place as normal skeletons (happens at least with Unwanted Guests).

As such, I propose two courses of action:
 * 1) Alter the skills, since as stated they're obsolete for what they're intended to counter.
 * 2) Alter the spawns of the enemies.

I would suggest their two skills to be changed to something akin to the following:

15 2  10
 * Bow Attack. A flurry of Bone Splinters shoots out, hitting target foe and up to 5 foes in longbow range for 35 damage per hit over 3 seconds. Bone Splinters cannot miss.

This one isn't so bad except for the countering of protection prayers, so merely removing that would be fine. However, I added the "cannot be missed" (which imo is what it should of been in the first place) so that it's still an "above the rest" kind of skill.

5 1  5
 * Bow Attack. A Bone Spike shoots out, dealing 100 damage to target foe. The Bone Spike's damage cannot be reduced.

What this means would be that it can be blocked and missed (via blind, for instance), but if it hits it'll always do 100 damage. I also added an energy cost to allow mesmers to be of some use if they go energy drain. With expertise, this shouldn't affect the skeletons much.

For the spawns, I wouldn't touch the normal groups. Instead, those spawned by quests I'd replace some (not all) with some Minions of Dhuum and the occasional Champion of Dhuum.

Now, of the MoD's and CoD's that spawn during quests (note: this suggestion would not effect those spawned by Dhuum himself), I would suggest giving them actual skills.

5
 * Unique skills
 * Shout. You deal 50% more damage but have 33% less Health. This skill fails and recharges instantly if you have more than 50% health.

5 1/3  4
 * Touch Skill. Target foe takes 50 shadow damage, and an additional 100 dark damage for every 3 enchantments on target foe.
 * This skill is meant to discourage the enchantment buffs by dealing 100 non-physical non-elemental damage for every multiple of 3 enchantments (3, 6, 9, 12, etc.) on the foe.

Expansion Enemies
Being a core area and accessible from all three campaigns, I feel that this area should be home to assassins, ritualists, paragons, and dervishes - even in Normal Mode (they'd have such either way based on my NM/HM suggestion linked at the top). I suggest the addition of 1 enemy, return of 1 but altered, and alterations of 2. From last to first of that list:

Wailing... How could he not be a paragon? Nuf said, tbh. But other than this, these guys are just ecto cows - they have no skills, easily pulled, easily killed, no damaging. So why not alter them to be ranged wailers?
 * Wailing Lord

Originally made for Wintersday Cheer, now used for A Good Deed, I propose a dervish varient. These guys would mix in with the Grasping Darknesses.
 * Grasping Night

Taken from my ToPK suggestion. It's the return of the Cursed Dream Rider, but won't spawn Mindflayer Spectres and is now a ritualist. Like before, these guys will be in the Chaos Plains and will, in fact, replace the patrolling Banished Dream Riders (those that did not spawn the Spectres).
 * Cursed Dream Rider

Also taken from my ToPK suggestion, these guys replace Chained Souls and Dying Nightmares.
 * Shadow Nightmare

Dhuum
Overall, I don't mind how things work here, but there's a few things which could use changing.

I can only say one thing for this skill:
 * Encase Skeleton

It's a trap!

This skill is a team killer and is probably the worse designed skill ever (yes, I mean worse than Smiter's Boon (PvP)).

However, the solution to this would be very simple: Make it so the skill no longer turns the minion/champion allied. Keep the damn things hostiles, they're our enemies anyways.

Since getting 60% death penalty turns one into a ghost through Touch of Dhuum, I would suggest a form to get morale in the fight without the use of consumables. I'll be taking and altering Boro's suggestion (my inspiration for this aspect) for this. One can go to the link to see his suggestion on the matter.
 * Morale

For me, I say killing a champion rewards 2% Morale.

Unlike Boro's suggestion, the amount of dp removed isn't so great that Touch of Dhuum becomes no threat at all, it reduces the dependency on consumables, and also allows gaining a morale boost.

I find it funny how there's so much talk about how "Dhuum gains power from deaths in the Underworld" but in the end, how much you kill has no effect on Dhuum. To make things interesting, I propose a connundrum for players:
 * Dhuum, former God of Death and gainer of power from deaths

For each enemy killed, Dhuum gains 5 max hp - minions, skeletons, and champions give Dhuum 10 max hp. We know that the areas can keep track of enemies killed thanks to Vanquisher, so this is possible. Along with this, his initial programmed health would be lowered to an amount so that if one were to kill just quest NPCs (but every one), his health then would be a little lower than now.

Why is this a conundrum? If you want Dhuum weak, you can't kill as many enemies - and the more minions and champions you kill during the fight, the stronger he gets - but people like money! They like getting the most desired material ever, and that means killing more is good. So what do people want? Harder Dhuum or more money?

For those who don't intend to fight Dhuum, this changes nothing; for those who do intend to fight Dhuum, it may or may not change things.

The Curse of Dhuum is deadly. And it should be. It's a lot like the lore for the bloodstones in the Maguuma and Ring of Fire ("no magic will ever bring them back"). But for those who don't know everything there is to know about Underworld, it can be causing a wipe.
 * Resurrecting the fallen

I suggest an additional clause to the Encase Skeleton and the Curse of Dhuum. If a dead party member (dead as in either a spirit or a dead spirit) is within earshot range of 4 encased skeletons (I chose 4 for 3 minions+1 other), said person is auto-resurrected.

I'd like to add a clause to this: Those under the effects of Curse of Dhuum cannot be under the effect of more than one consumable.
 * Curse of Dhuum

The point of this is to simply not ruin the fight with the unholy trinity, while still allowing use of Scroll of Resurrection and dp removal/morale boosters.

I'm wanting to fix and promote the use of Encase Skeleton and make the Dhuum fight less of "die, spam 5, then spam 1" and dependence on consumables and more tactical.
 * Overall