In an odd twist of fate, I’ve ended up fighting the Crimson Wurm three times and the rest none. So this is the sum of my experiences with it. For those that don’t know, Crimson Wurm is all about scents. The game calls them “Phytotoxins,” but ultimately, they’re the same.
The Escort Mission
Good
The event tries to show the new mechanics. For the scents, it largely succeeds at this. I’ve seen very few people ask what to do, but I’ll admit it does happen.
Bad
The event tries but fails to properly explain the nutrient mechanic and the champion mechanic. The npc does not help with this. “Wurms like black mushrooms” doesn’t mean the food would be beneficial to non-wurms. In addition, it’s quite possible to not realize he’s talking about the mushrooms. Likewise, the npc doesn’t really note the husk’s resistance to damage.
Crimson
Good
The scent mechanic works fine and the color coding seems quick to pickup on. The location of the three colors over a player’s head seems to help those with color blindness as well.
Another sorta good thing thing is the game is broadcasting when the wurm is going to be open to attacks. I say sorta because I’m not sure how many people are picking up on that. But at least, it’s trying.
Bad
Just about everything else. For starters, there are a ton of adds. The champions are worse of the lot because they can only be killed by condition damage. Many of these champions are spawned, and the condition cap applies to the boss. That means any condition-users brought in will have issues harming the boss. Beyond that, I’ve seen more veterans and champions there than there are players.
In addition, some attacks will remove all scents from a player. My guess is the Nutrients/Black Mushrooms are suppose to give players some protection there. This doesn’t work well as the attacks that remove scents also hit multiple times especially with the crowd control skills the champs use on players. Nutrients only block on hit. Finally, it’s extremely easy to not notice one has been hit and lost the scents.
Next up is Crimson itself. The Caledon Wurm has 2 target points on it: one in the head, one closer to the ground. From what I can tell, Crimson only has the target point on it’s head. That can create massive issues targeting the wurm. The only luck I’ve had targeting it was when I clicked the head.
Crimson also seems to have way to much hp. My general impression is the game is expecting there to be as many players fighting one wurm as there are fighting all of them. Despite the issues, we’ve been able to consistently knock Crimson down 3 times with the 3rd time being around when we’re swarming with adds. Even with me typing when to attack on first knockdown, we still have issues doing sufficient damage to account for all 3 rounds with 0 adds.
Finally, the 3 wurm kill timer. I’m torn on this. I know how easy it is to type = instead of +. On the other hand, it’s a very visible timer and I don’t know how this got past quality control. It also negates the “focus on one then another” strategy. As is, I think this issue alone renders the wurm fight unwinnable. I just don’t know if this was a mistake or intentional.
Maybe one or two servers will be able to pull this off. I’m doubtful beyond that.
(edited by Fenrina.2954)