Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

This is really confusing us. We are taking out Sabetha as we always have each week, but now she is behaving extremely weirdly.

We have one team member who is responsible for running at a distance to catch all the napalm, and every week before this, it’s worked flawlessly. This time, she decides to randomly ignore that person and fires ALL of her napalm at random members in melee range.

This usually happens as soon as she changes phase and re-appears after Kernan. We’ve been experimenting for a while now and cannot decipher why she behaves like this. She has been targeting our Mesmer who has 0 extra Toughness and isn’t the closest or furthest, and then sometimes targets the furthest. It makes no sense whatsoever. First phase has no napalm in the middle, and then post-Kernan phase has the middle COVERED in napalm and murdering all the melee with no change to gameplay.

Overall comp is Druid, Chronomancer, 2x Berserker, Engineer, Daredevil, 2x Reaper, Tempest, if that makes a difference.

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

Update: We swapped one of the Necros for a Guardian, with the same amount of extra Toughness (0), and it suddenly worked correctly. Very strange.

Might it have something to do with the possible number of targets increasing? Both Necros were using builds with increasing numbers of minions as the fight progresses, and perhaps that eventually causes Sabetha’s AI to go berserk? Just a theory.

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

I discovered recently with my guild that things like the Revenant’s Hardening Persistence trait was affecting aggro. What we do is run everyone at 1000 toughness (pure DPS) and have the tank run marginally more, and we were finding that when a Revenant had upkeep sufficient to put him over the tank’s toughness it caused aggro issues. Of course, this also meant that the bosses were bouncing between targets as the Revenant would change toughness constantly.

I think you just need to be careful with these traits as they definitely are affecting boss aggro.

[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

We’re managing Toughness values fine – everyone is in DPS gear and no Revenants use the Toughness upkeeps while the Necro who was kiting used Flesh of the Master so always had more than everyone else as minions never die. The thing is that this is very phase-specific. It only happened after Sabetha drops back down with Kernan, which means something is occurring over time or something else weird occurs during a phase shift that suddenly transforms her AI.

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

(edited by Auesis.7301)

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

If the Necromancer(s) are using the Death Magic specialization and are using Lich Form to build up more minions over time, there is a trait that will gradually grow their toughness potentially to levels that would overtake the tank’s toughness and cause an aggro shift. I only mentioned the Revenant’s trait earlier because if that one is affecting aggro, the Necromancer one might be doing the same.

[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

That was the point, though – the Necro is specifically using Flesh of the Master while in the kiting role (which is basically the tank for Sabetha). We don’t have any other tank. Everyone is DPS.

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Rising Dusk.2408

Rising Dusk.2408

Hrm… Well it could be that maybe the minions are dying and that is causing a lower toughness value? I’m not sure. The trait may also not be consistent, either. Maybe relying on base gear toughness to achieve aggro control is a safer bet. Sorry I can’t be more help!

[VZ] Valor Zeal – Stormbluff Isle – Looking for steady, casual-friendly NA raiders!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Casino Brawl.1249

Casino Brawl.1249

Our necro’s weren’t running flesh of the master when the “bug” was occuring I should note.

Everyone was 100% 1000 toughness.

Matt Cowie

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Mega Skeleton.8259

Mega Skeleton.8259

We had the same thing happening below 50% sunday. No idea why. 25-0% was particularly bad, I was on napalm duty and standing right about on the edge of the metal/wood, and she was ignoring me with basically all of the napalm. Earlier in the fight it was working fine. I was running blood magic, not death.

Also worth noting that I was getting the majority of our green bombs as well, it was very consistent.

[EG] is recruiting!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: fishball.7204

fishball.7204

This happened to us this week, we had standard druid kiter and everyone else was DPS melee range but she still plopped the napalm on us.

FOR THE GREEEEEEEEEEEEN

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Crystal Reid

Crystal Reid

Game Designer

Sabetha’s AI doesn’t include any toughness behaviours. Her Flak Shot should simply be looking for the furthest target as stated. If this is not the case, it sound like a bug may have been introduced unintentionally. I’m sending this over to QA to get some repro on this (if you guys had videos that would also be helpful).

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Auesis.7301

Auesis.7301

Sadly, my recordings are corrupted :/ The biggest thing I would look at is what happens during phase changes, as 100-75% is perfectly fine and then it falls apart once she returns with Kernan.

I would suggest trying to repro

1) Effects of swapping characters. Our Mesmer was being singled out for a long period of time despite the kiter being a long distance away, but one of our Necros swapping out to Guardian suddenly fixed the behaviour
2) Large numbers of possible targets. We had 2 Reapers at the time, both of which were using extremely large amounts of minions. Maybe that breaks her AI somehow?

Gnome Child [Gc]
Resident Thief

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: cocowoushi.7150

cocowoushi.7150

Sabetha seems to be full of questionable quirks. Many times her Flamewall will jump a whole 20 degrees in rotation for no reason.

She’s also very fickle about who gets the timed bomb after her Flamewall. She should target the closest person, but even being practically on top of her doesn’t ensure she will target you after Flamewall. The one/s she uses after that work as intended.

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: spoj.3175

spoj.3175

Yes i noticed this and its not a recent thing. Ive been kiting on condi necro every time and it works flawlessly until the final phase after she returns after the champion. She starts shooting the napalm in the middle and ignoring me a for a while. Not sure if it continues for the rest of the fight. Never paid that much attention to it after that because it never caused us much of an issue.

Ill record this weeks Sabetha kill for a better idea of what exactly happens. But im pretty sure this has been happening since raid release.

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Mega Skeleton.8259

Mega Skeleton.8259

I have a recording from sunday night (not my POV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRpSBSumTeM

You can see me standing on the edge for most of the final phase, yet not a single flak shot goes my way, instead messing up our melee pretty badly. During the rest of the fight the source of bad flak usually comes from players returning from cannon duty, it seems there is a little delay between her picking a target for flak and actually firing it, but that’s fine. In the last phase she just seems to pick whoever.

I just assumed it was a fight mechanic to add chaos to the final phase. Akin to VG’s blue AoEs that it puts on targets further away in the 33-0% phase.

[EG] is recruiting!

(edited by Mega Skeleton.8259)

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Mega Skeleton.8259

Mega Skeleton.8259

Recorded a pretty good example tonight, in the 75-50% phase it was hitting all melee and seemingly random targets, it worked normally by the time she comes back in 50% (this isn’t always the case).

Fight starts 1:00 in, Flak Shot gets messed up around 3:20.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBf128dE14U

Also in a separate bug you can see how if you try to glide from the launch, it sometimes freezes you in place at the end of the video.

[EG] is recruiting!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Snowball.3497

Snowball.3497

This sounds like a planned limitation on the size of the consideration list in the AI.

My guess is that prior to any attack the agent collects a list of the, say 50, closest hostile agents to consider. With the new necromancer’s minion master build that list gets capped with minions which prevents the player furthest away to be taken into consideration.
The flake shot will now be aimed at the target furthest away that is in the consideration list, which could be anyone in melee.

Particlar – Desolation – [Hs]
World First Wurm KillRaid Sells on Twitch
Origin of Diboof

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Mega Skeleton.8259

Mega Skeleton.8259

Some others in my guild have said that it definitely is the necro minions causing issues, so you’re right, probably. That said, NPCs shouldn’t even be considered in this instance, but I guess it’s complicated by the cannons being out of flak shot range (say if all 10 went up to a platform). Still, in that case she should just cancel/fire the ability wherever.

[EG] is recruiting!

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Nuggi.7861

Nuggi.7861

Any news for fix on this bug? Had it today again, and several times last week (however, the weeks before last week were fine).

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Dinosaurs.8674

Dinosaurs.8674

Would like to add to this that I now know that this bug affects sabetha’s timed bomb attack as well. I’m not sure if no one noticed before because it is a new aspect of the bug or because the minion threshold to bug out the timed bomb is higher, but my group has had multiple runs where the timed bomb affects someone who obviously is not the closest person to sabetha. The bombs also seemed to appear with higher frequency than normal, so maybe the same person can be the target of both timed bombs with this bug? I’ll post a video of this later tonight where I get bombed 4 times consecutively at the outskirts of the arena after coming back from a cannon.

It’s honestly pretty sad because the sabetha fight is the one raid boss where necro really truly shines. Double necro is insane dps, and necro is probably the best class for kiting napalm (besides arguably druid). But this bug – which has been around since the first day of raids over two and a half months ago – is single handedly keeping them from participating in what should be their best fight. It even managed to make it through the recent major quarterly patch without so much as a mention. I would like to think I’m used to things like this taking forever to be fixed but come on anet, this is supposed to be your premier hardcore pve content. Show it a little love.

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: fishball.7204

fishball.7204

They haven’t even fixed Gorsavel’s randomly moving around thing either. Honestly I just don’t expect them to ever fix it, meh.

FOR THE GREEEEEEEEEEEEN

Bug/Change to Sabetha's behaviour?

in Fractals, Dungeons & Raids

Posted by: Dinosaurs.8674

Dinosaurs.8674

They haven’t even fixed Gorsavel’s randomly moving around thing either. Honestly I just don’t expect them to ever fix it, meh.

TBH even though it probably was unintentional I actually like the gorseval behavior where he sometimes targets the furthest person away. It adds a layer of complexity to the fight since you get punished a little bit for trying to “run away” from him. And at least that one affects all classes equally.

There are also a couple bugs with Vale Guardian’s movement but I’m not sure what causes those. They’re much less common and impactful anyway.