Now that Pandaemonium is done, what are your thoughts on the raid series?
I started raiding in Eden's Verse so I don't have a ton of experience compared to others. I will say I think as a single tier Anabaseios is the one I've enjoyed the most. 11 is a bit lame and I'm still not a huge fan of body checks, but I absolutely loved 9/10/12. Abyssos was alright, I loved 5 and 8. Asphodelos was kinda meh overall. What did you all think about it?
The fights themselves were all pretty good. I think a lot of lessons were learned from how the Eden raids interacted with all of the job changes and they took that forward into Pandemonium. People would complain about easy tank busters, Abyssos had them be DoTs. Healers had nothing to do, fine throw in Harrowing Hell, etc etc. Only big issue my group had was P8S P1. We cleared P5-P7 week 1 then spent 5 weeks on P8S…
Story wise I think it started strong then just got weaker and weaker. I was really hoping for a better story then what we got. The last sets story just felt so weak in comparison to the last set of story for Eden, Omega and Alexander. Here’s hoping we get something like that next expansion.
All in all, good set. My group enjoyed our time with it!
I was looking forward to the conclusion of the story and felt a little let down as well. I understand the idea though, they wanted to tie up some of the dangling leftover loose ends.
So there were answers, but it lacked a certain satisfying catharsis. At least for me.
I feel like this impacted the theming of Anabaseios the most where it all seemed very sudden. Like a TLDR with a lot of hand waving.
It wasn’t bad mind you and I probably simply set my expectations too high!
In terms of top tier fights relative to floor, I think P3S, P5S, and P10S take the cake here. I think P12S P1 is one of the more fun phase 1 execution-heavy two part fights, whereas I think P4S phase 2 is actually the best second phase. But second phase, I'm probably a little biased because Curtain Call is just significantly better than Dominion and Gaiochos 2 as far as soft-enrage damage mechanics go.
Anabaseios probably had the most even spread of enjoyable fights, with P9S being a slightly worse P5S (which is fine, because P5S is great), and P10S being just the best second floor fight this whole tier. P11S is worse than P3S by a longshot, but it's not a bad fight - it's just an overly safe, comfy design. P12S is fun even if I think phase 2 is largely just a remix of P8S phase 2.
I didn’t play Abyssos but I have played Asphodelos and Anabaseios. I’m enjoying Anabaseios overall. I felt that 9 and 10 both had a weird distribution of difficulty in their mechanics. Levinstrike and Harrowing Hell both feel like mechs I’d expect in a 3rd floor, not 1st or 2nd. 11 would be better imo if it had less rng. I like the theme and aesthetic, but 11 minutes of coin flips isn’t really exciting to me, especially in a fight that is essentially e11s 2: electric boogaloo. Personally I’m still working through 12, so I can’t comment too much there. Excellent boss design at least.
Asphodelos would’ve been a lot better without Phoinix. That bird can go die in a hole. 1 felt like a typical 1st floor. Easier than e1s was for sure. 2 was a lot of fun, since I enjoy arena manipulation. 4 was interesting, since I started raiding in Eden’s Gate, it was only the 2nd door boss I’d seen and the first to be a continuation of the first phase instead of an entirely new boss like promise & oracle. It felt true to its theme and knew what it wanted to be, unlike 9 and 10.
I'm of the opposite opinion when it comes to P3S. I think P3S is the best designed fight of the whole tier, and actually probably still a top tier fight across the whole expansion.
Unfortunately, my static had to take a step back due to some scheduling conflicts, so we have gotten to raid Savage yet this tier. That being said, we ran through the last set just before this set dropped.
I have really enjoyed pandemonium! It has been a ton of fun and the mechanics feel like just the right balance of challenging but absolutely doable for most folks. I think that the run when our group finally nailed the sleepo strat for P7 was one of the most satisfying experiences I've had raiding since BCoB.
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