Auf Haven suggestions from a frequent runner

rebuff simulator

i guess shaving the bottom part of the orb dp would be a nice addition. It happen really quickly so it would be still relatively hard to pull it off just like it is to with iframe in its current state. It would also allow to not get stunned on body aftter rushing into her to iframe on the dp/stun animation then who know the sed comming after haha

 

For properly washed ranged, the dispel orb doesn't make the fight harder, just more annoying. Dispel only makes the fight harder for unwashed/low-washed characters and mages, which seems like a weird group to try to punish.

Also in terms of drops and profitability, I'm going to take some wild assumptions here (maybe you have been tracking drops and can provide better info here?)
Let's assume Auf drops an average of 1 pouch a run for an average of 15 coins and 1 Equip at an average of 18m each run, for an average of 2.5 coins and 3m mesos per runner. If we value the coins at 3.4m each, this is a total revenue of 11.5m mesos per run.

If we assume this is a run of average-strength but well-washed players and each non-Bishop player is using 3 apples each (valued at 3m mesos each), and it's a mixed composition of 1 Warrior (1000 Hons), 1 Bucc (600 Hons), 1 Shad (300 Hons), and 2 Ranged (600 Hons each) and a Bishop (0 Hons) for a total of 2500 Hons (10.5m mesos total), and lets assume the runners are all equally splitting the costs of the run (1.75m mesos per runner for Hons, 9m for apples), this is a total of 10.75m mesos cost per runner per run.

Let's finally assume the run takes 1 hour exactly to clear.

Because it's difficult to value the helm, I won't include it here, but we are now looking at an average profit of 750,000 mesos per run per runner for an average-strength run, or 750,000 mesos per hour. Even assuming an extraordinarily strong run using 0 apples and a 40 min run, we're still looking at a profit of barely 15m mesos per hour.

The suggestion to up the Pouch drop from 0-2 to 0-3 changes very little in terms of how wildly unprofitable this fight it. You would be better off farming snails in HHG2 for gacha tickets.

 

I do have 2 wishes for Auf:

1. Especially as the end game boss For Melees™, I wish Auf was more profitable. Most folks who can PB pretty much try to PB off cooldown - we're not seeing the same demand to fight Auf. If I had to guess at balance intentions, I'd say selling Auf helm is meant to be a revenue source. But since the level req. on Auf is so high, any potential helm buyer might as well join as an attacker. That's assuming any squads are even able to sell helm service.

2. The Dispel Orb: I might just be too boomer for mushroom game but IMO this mechanic is too hard to outplay. The animation is really fast - you might be able to rush into body if you're really paying attention but IME if you're in middle of an attack, even with a Fast(4) weapon, you're very unlikely to move in time. And if you're a ranged attacker, good luck out there lol. Making it duck-able could be a feasible adjustment but that would mostly benefit ranged attackers due to the travel time on the orb projectile. I think just making this dispel more like PB music notes in terms of outplay-ability would be a nice level of difficulty; Right now it's mostly suffering.

 

Listen Lin, he know alots!

 

Actually I wanted to add in one note here that I'm not actually sure if the best way to balance the fight is through profitability, as variance on how profitable the run is swings wildly with composition, gear, and player skill, and I think honestly the most detrimental part of the fight isn't necessarily the loss in expected profits but rather how tedious of a fight it is. It's a long fight filled with constant rebuffing, and I'd imagine even if the fight were decently profitable most players would be hesitant to run it regularly due to how mentally taxing the fight is (and not necessarily in a way of "this fight is challenging and fun" but more in a "this is a mind-numbing task" way).

There's also the issue that if the fight became profitable for regular runners (say, 35m per hour revenue, 25m per hour profit), it now becomes obscenely profitable for excessively strong and optimized 0 apple 40 min runs (>40m per hour profit).

 

Very nice post lin, it has been a lot of time since I last ran auf (the boss was so cancer I immediately quit hosting as soon as I finished my helmet), so some of my statements might be outdated.


I very much agree with you that it is a "melee" based boss, but I think that this isn't the greatest design. I think that instead this boss should favor "cleave" a bit more. When I last ran, the two best classes were buccaneer and paladin, and even though 3 clones would be summoned, it was actually more efficient to take them down 1 by 1.

The reason for this is that the clones appeared to heal each other, as well as the auf boss. So, the extra cleave damage dealt on the clones ended up being negated by the extra healing from the other clones.

Perhaps a change where the clones can only heal the main auf, or healed clones at a reduced rate could help with this and make the cleave damage matter a bit more.

The dispel mechanics made it feel like mages underneath a certain HP threshold were essentially unplayable.

As a warrior, you can counter the dispel by tanking auf to get iframes to dodge the orb attack. As a range, you are pretty much forced to hope that the attack results in a miss. You can also rework your base stats so that you can wear your weapon / equipment without maple warrior - so that you need to rebuff 1 less thing before you start attacking again. I think ducking to avoid dispel, or reducing the dispel orbs hitbox size can help. It would definitely be positive if some kind of character movement could be used to reduce the amount of times you get dispelled.

 

Removing the one-of-a-kind limitation would add replay value to runs for a BiS item with an overly restrictive and RNG-based scrolling system. Giving players a chance to upgrade their helmet without dropping their currently usable/fully scrolled one would add a lot of incentive for players to keep running for the marginal improvements (sense of progressive growth), rather than the current practice we see of upcycling (NPC HTP, Zak Helms, Scar Helms once it's been replaced by something higher).

I also agree with blen that profitability shouldn't be the main incentive (especially comparisons of EV/time as that would have a ton of variability between comps/parties), but increasing the floor value would make things feel better for everyone. I've always been a fan of bossing points as a means to track progress, but having one specifically for Auf might be too convoluted of a solution.

I'm hesitant to suggest things since I haven't run Auf myself, but my first thought was to have pouches shifted so that it drops Pouch 3 and Pouch 4 instead of just 2x pouch 3s. Another would be to increase the total exp gained from Auf so that it could at least compare to Horntail, which is also being run mostly for exp with a low chance of splits.

 

Actually last week we tested whether it was actually more efficient to take the clones down 1 by 1 (since this was the prevailing belief), but we actually got through the triplets much quicker (a few minutes faster for the triplet phase) when the pallies were cleaving rather than blasting. For context, we would have one bucc handling aggro for auf while two pallies, a corsair, a bm, and a bishop would be attacking the clones.

 

Interesting, I suppose I thought otherwise because my group originally only had 1 paladin, and rest single target (2x bucc, 1x paladin, 1x sair, 1x bishop). It looks like auf is more balanced than I thought. I guess only changes that are really needed is some more counter play against dispel.

 

Well, I'd say balanced as far as cleaving classes which still target well (pally elemental abuse and shad avoid efficiency). Using actual "cleave-identity" classes would still lead to significant time losses on the single target portions (the rest of the fight).

 

Add in a chair drop!

While yar at it, give Royal Guard and Core Blaze a chair too!

 

Do ya sit on her lap? Her head? o.o