Aarklash completed Feedback and Spoilers inside

I just finished the game on Medium and I liked it. It was awesome. Well I would like to mention some of my opinions abou it :
- act 1 was great, beginning of act 2 was also great but then I got into the labyrinth (?) and things started to get little bit boring since I went through the same rooms again and again..., in act 3 also the puzzles started to be boring (especially those repetitious in the tower)

- bosses were quite easy, as someone already mentioned here : "position yourself right or die". But anyway it was fun and I liked it. There were much harder groups to defeat then bosses...especially till I mentioned that all non-instant heals can be taunted by my tank (I used Knokka with no-CD taunt

- debuffs...it is hell. I mostly died because I did not mention that my tank had healing-dmg conversion debuff. I was too lazy to check the debuffs everytime I wanted to heal

- items : I liked the idea of crafting in this game at the beginning but after few hours of playing it also started to be boring little bit. Good idea was to choose what type of item you want to craft (the last item type you put on the anvil will change in the epic item), I appreciated it.

Nevertheless I really enjoyed the game. My overall rating would be 9/10.
Im looking forward to seeing a datadisk soon
Thank you guys.

Wanderoo struck me as the only underpowered character, you have to spec into max. mana feast to make here a healer with some staying power and while leech grain is an awesome ability it has a too high cooldown imho. in general i found Motcha a much better healer and support.

Must say I disagree 100%. Wendaroo has a better heal than Motcha with half the cooldown and zero mana issues. Motcha's single target heal is slightly more effective, but with Wendaroo's added immunity effect and the ability to heal the whole party minus herself at once, she comes out way ahead. It's not like Motcha is out of mana often but at least it's possible with him if you're not careful and don't spec him for less mana use. Meanwhile wendaroo can just throw an immunizing heal and tap the immune targets, which doesn't do damage then, AND adds a heal as well if you specced for it. It's also insanely much easier to organize the party into a row for Wendaroo's heal than for Motcha's bouncing regen heal. It's really no contest between the support characters.

At least when it comes to tanks Bo Lahm makes up for his slightly lesser raw survivability with ample control etc, but the healer imbalance should really be rectified. I'd do something like double Star of Vitality cooldown and make Gift of the Lizard able to bounce much further. Maybe a 5s cooldown on Sacred Feast too so you can't spam it on immune targets all the time, or at least make the damage raw.

[Izno]

Nice to see some passionate discussion

On a personal level, I have a preference for Motcha, but I do see your point with Wendaroo. I think he is more a classic healer, the one I would have expected to have from the start. But this very fact makes Wendaroo interesting.

For me, she is harder to use properly early on but the learning curve is very rewarding as her level increases.

I'm curious to hear more point of views !

How can you defeat the Hydra ??

The combo of Bo Lahm (less survivable) and Motcha (longer heal cooldown) is proving very challenging for me on Rag difficulty. I'm powering through it so far but definitely less stable. I'll see if it stabilizes more with some more points in talents but so far the Knokka/Wendaroo combo far excels. Kind of a shame, as I like the Shaman healer / Ogre tank theme (why I played them on medium difficulty on first play through) -- they just seem to be less equipped to handle the tougher fights. We'll see though - adjusting and may get it to where it feels stable.

To above poster, if I recall, Hydra was mostly about running out of bad zones and running into green zone when required. If you have a good tank/healer character and skill setup, don't remember that one being too rough.

The combo of Bo Lahm (less survivable) and Motcha (longer heal cooldown) is proving very challenging for me on Rag difficulty. I'm powering through it so far but definitely less stable. I'll see if it stabilizes more with some more points in talents but so far the Knokka/Wendaroo combo far excels. Kind of a shame, as I like the Shaman healer / Ogre tank theme (why I played them on medium difficulty on first play through) -- they just seem to be less equipped to handle the tougher fights. We'll see though - adjusting, adjusting and may get it to where it feels stable.

To above poster, if I recall, Hydra was mostly about running out of bad zones and running into green zone when required. If you have a good tank/healer character and skill setup, don't remember that one being too rough.

I'm in Act 2 in the bit where you're forced to use 3 of the new characters.
Personally, I don't think I was able to use Wendaroo in the best possible manner, since I found her fairly useless as a specialist character. The next time I've an option to switch back to her, I'll take another look and respec her if necessary.

My opinion about Wanderoo : Frankly said when I finished the game (on Normal) I thought that she is just OP. I used the spec with Star of vitality + immune. I usually used combination of Star + Leach grain (+ sometimes Mystic predator), then I used Sacred feasts with HoT on one of my "immune" character (anyone I just healed with Star). I did them no harm and Wanderoo refilled all her mana.
At first I thought it must be a bug but then I realized that it also could be a wanted "hidden feature"
The only drawback is that she is able to heal (+immune for 5 sec) everyone but herself. But I think that it is a really good prize for such a powerful combination.

[Izno]

. I usually used combination of Star + Leach grain (+ sometimes Mystic predator), then I used Sacred feasts with HoT on one of my "immune" character (anyone I just healed with Star). I did them no harm and Wanderoo refilled all her mana. At first I thought it must be a bug but then I realized that it also could be a wanted "hidden feature"

Working as intended

Just beat it with the Bo Lahm, Motcha, Leck Lorus, Frinz group. Was definitely a fun and different experience than my "stable" group above. With this group, my goal was basically to burst down as much of their offensive pressure early as possible so that I could keep Bo Lahm up with Motcha. That tank/healer pair is definitely not ideal. Bo Lahm plus Wendaroo would probably work more stable (may try that) and I'm pretty sure Motcha plus Knokka would also be pretty stable -- but Motcha plus Bo Lahm definitely can't take as much offensive pressure without Bo Lahm falling over.

Ended up with this:

Bo Lahm - Ogre Vocabulary maxed with increased armor, Um, Boom maxed with larger zone size, and 6 points into Anger of the Ogre. This gave him as much control/damage mitigation as I could get and some good offensive output to help Leck and Frinz drop things in the initial rush. The knockdowns/blinds, and increases to miss are very helpful.

Motcha: Ointment of the Mokoru maxed to where he can heal himself. Mystic Essence maxed to reduction of cooldown, and 6 points into Wrathful spirit for healing reversal and getting bad stuff off of Bo Lahm / immunizing him. Biggest problem with Motcha is the length of cooldowns between heals -- that reduction on Mystic Essence was a difference maker but still tough. Just point blank, Wendaroo can output far more heals and mitigation.

Frinz: Saturation Mechanism maxed to where it doesn't do damage to ally. This is due to giving Bo Lahm more armor (he needs all the defensive help he can get) and also getting the damage punch without hurting Bo. With a different tank/healer setup, I'd probably go more aggressive with him and do Fragmentation Mechanism tree with low cooldown.
Then either Thermo Shattering maxed to reduced SP/increased zone and 6 points in Thermo-Compression OR 6 points in Thermo Shattering and Thermo-Compression maxed to 3 targets knocked down. This one depended on if I needed more initial control to deal with their incoming offensive pressure or not.

Leck Lorus: Punishment of the Cursed maxed to removing support effects (my new favorite spell in the game -- so very, very good). Death Wish maxed to increased duration. 6 points in Fearful Puppet for those oh crap moments but didn't use this too much.

I have to say Leck's boomerang nuke can be abused as much as Wendaroo's boomerang heal -- so much burst damage especially when coupled with a kill shot on a Death Wish target. Add in Frinz's Defensive Bomb -- if you time everything up right, it's incredible how quickly you can decimate a large group of enemies.

In fights I knew were going to be tough, I'd start Frinz's bomb on Bo Lahm before engaging and let it tick for 10 seconds, have Motcha put on his heal-over-time at about 12 seconds of bomb time, and then charge in to a central creature for maximum early pressure.

Overall, it was a little rough around mid-levels 8-12 or somewhere in there, but once talents started to fill out, it became very manageable until a few pulls in Act III that were just miserable with the amount of initial incoming damage plus enemy crowd control. Basically everything they had nuking Bo and my offensive pressure crowd controlled. Two particular pulls I had a larger number of reloads on. But, most fights, it was surprising how quickly this group dealt with. Chimera pulls in particular were easier with this group because Chimera = dead in first 5-10 seconds

All in all, having played all eight through all Rag'narok content now, I'd probably say Wendaroo, Knokka, Leck Lorus, and Frinz would make a devastating grouping that was also very stable. If I wanted to edge more aggressive, may be able to sub Bo Lahm for Knokka (I think Wendaroo could handle him being slightly less tanky). I may try that in a run to finalize some achievements.

Anyway, having a bunch of fun building the different groups and trying out different synergies -- good stuff, get working on the expansion / sequel

Bravo - that is all I can say.

I regularly have my backside handed to me on Medium and I don't quite like the game splitting the team and forcing me to go with a predefined set of characters in Act 2 - I understand why they do it though.
When I first got Leck, Frinz and Motcha with Knokka I had no clue what to do with them, having played with my initial group up until that point, but by the time they finished their little segment I got them working well as a team.
Now I have Bo and he is terribly underpowered compared to Knokka and a few of his early fights have been tough.
I love the etheral healing projectile from Wendaroo but find it very difficult to get my team aligned well.

Yesterday I ran into this group - 2 Paladins, a Questor of Acheron (not 100% sure on the name, but this a caster) , 2 Flesh specters and 2 Skeleton archers. I went for the Questor first no problems and I think I should have gone for the Specters next, instead I went after a Paladin and lost the fight. Once any of your characters go down mid fight against a fairly decent sized group it gets difficult. Most of the guys on the Team are Level IX on average, except Bo who is Level II I guess.