Dev Diary: Ost Dunhoth

Joe “jwbarry” Barry is the author of the latest Dev Diary focusing on the new raid, Ost Dunhoth, in the Echoes of the Dead (update 2). Since the most common question we get is “When is Update 2 coming?” I’ll start out this post with: We still don’t know. No date has been released, yet but we suspect it is soon!

This is a great developer diary and how I know that is that I’m not even a raider and I’m totally pumped to see this new dungeon. Jwbarry talks about how much testing was put into this raid (the most of any dungeon to date) and how the focus is to win by skill, not by a unlucky roll of chance.

Losing because of random numbers isn’t fun. Losing because you screwed up and can learn to do better next time is the path to fun. Overcoming a challenge because of your determination to learn and grow into a better player — that’s the definition of fun.

Jwbarry also shows some story and background on the new guant-lords who are tearing up Middle-earth.

Ost Dunhoth

Ost Dunhoth features:

• Six bosses
• 15 trash fights
• Two Difficulty Tiers
• Six challenge quests
• 17 Deeds
• Zero radiance required
• 46 different trash and boss monsters
• Over 150 new skills
• Hundreds of effects
• Millions of little player deaths
• Some of the most epic story and drama moments in all of LOTRO.

The dungeon itself is split into 3 wings. You must defeat the bosses in the two of the wings to open the final wing.

Each wing features two sequential bosses and themed areas. Wing A is Wounds, then Fear. Wing B is Disease, then Poison. Wing C is the Crypt, then Gortheron himself.

They’ve also thought carefully about the trash mobs that are in between bosses:

There are only two or three trash fights before each boss. The goal of the trash in Ost Dunhoth is not to be a time sink. The goal is to present unique little puzzles and prepare your group for the communication and coordination necessary for the boss fights. If you can’t manage the trash fights, boss fights will not go well.

Difficulty Tiers

Jwbarry also touches on the difficulty tiers that was also discussed in the earlier dev diary this week on the new instances. Basically tiers work slightly different when it comes to the Ost Dunhoth raid.

Trash monsters get new skills, bosses get new skills and mechanics, timers get shorter, windows of error get smaller, and the communication and coordination required for success takes a big step up.

Further challenges sit above Tier 2 difficulty. These are the tasks that are asked of the players on the highest level of LOTRO. You’ll be asked to do it faster, better and harder than anyone else. To beat the challenges, perfection is expected of you.

It sounds like hard mode isn’t just a slightly beefier version but will require more planning, extra attention and more coordination for groups to complete. I think this is good and hopefully the LOTRO raiders are excited to give this new raiding twist a try!

Automated Raid Markings

Raid markings are those lucky charm type icons that the raid leader can place over mob’s heads to give a kill order or special instructions based on symbol. Perhaps you haven’t seen them because the system to assign markers is a bit time consuming and we can be an impatient bunch.

These markings can be very helpful in orchestrating a complicated fight and so Turbine is simplifying the marking process by pre-marking all the trash mobs in Ost Dunhoth. Now you can march up to the next group and call out kill orders, off tank assignments, etc with the markings already there.

Class Skill Cooldown Resets

They are removing the cooldowns on any class skill for all boss fights. No more “I got 14 more minutes until my X skill is ready” and have the raid wait for this useful skill to reset.

In Ost Dunhoth, we’re giving you full access to all your class skills every time you attempt a boss fight. We’re doing this by resetting the cooldowns on all of your class skills. There are three situations in the raid where we will reset all the cooldowns on all of your class skills: when you first approach a boss, when you wipe on a boss and when you defeat a boss.

I have to say that this seems a brilliant idea to me. I have a very low tolerance for waiting.

New Forms of Crowd Control (CC) Defense on Monsters

They are also giving the monsters in the raid new forms of CC defense.

Anger
Anger is a new style of CC “defense.” Think of it like a CC “shell.” Monsters with Anger will now carry a buff that gives them a set of red floating shields around their body. When the monster is CC’d, the CC will stick for a moment before being broken as the Anger buff is dispelled. This is how the CC “shell” is broken. The monster can then be CC’d at your leisure. 50 seconds later, the Anger buff will return. When Anger returns the monster will remain under whatever CC he has until it expires. The next CC cast on the monster will then be broken in the same manner as the first, and the cycle will continue.

Bloodlust
Bloodlust is a new style of kiting defense. A monster under the influence of Bloodlust desperately wishes to attack players. If it goes too long without being able to make an attack, it will go into a frenzy mode and gain large bonuses to run, attack speed and damage. Please note that the monster does not have to land an attack to keep out of frenzy, it only has to attempt it. If you do wish to kite a mob with Bloodlust, make sure you slow down every now and again to let it attack. Otherwise, things might go very badly for everyone involved…

Conclusion

Like I said in the beginning, I’m not even a raider and this dev diary has me excited to give this dungeon a try!

It seems like the entire experience is set up to increase challenges and earning that win while removing some of the annoying wait time that until now has just been a part of raiding.

Visit the discussion thread for this dev diary.

Ketani has shared some photos of outside and in Ost Dunhoth from the Bullroarer server if you are interested in some visuals!

PDF version of the complete dev diary.

View the complete Dev Diary at LOTRO.com