EBs in lowbie arcs?

So, I've got a level 5-14 arc. I intended to have it be easily doable by most people, but didn't want it to be too much of an effortless cakewalk either.

The final encounter is an Elite Boss. At one point I got some feedback complaining that people couldn't handle it, so I toned it down to a Boss...

...only to get feedback that it went down so fast as to be boring and depressing. Yeah.

I don't really know which to go for, at this stage. What do you think? Do Elite Bosses have a place in a 5-14 arc? Should I just bump the minimum level up to 10 or so in case people with too few powers are the ones having trouble? Should I keep it as a boss that may get steamrolled by certain ATs, or teams?

It's a Thugs/Dark, for the record. Summons punks and an enforcer, no gang war or bruiser, no fluffy. I'd like to keep him as an EB because the fight has ambushes at boss health phases - the ambushes are set to Easy and are standard mobs, plus they're of Rogue alignment so the ambushes and the EB can end up fighting each other, too.

I would say to bump it up to maybe 15 if there are a lot of lowbies playing your arc, but dont lower from an EB to a Boss. I think bosses are better off in the middle of a mission or beginning of an arc. EBs and AVs are much more fun to fight.

At 5, no. But at 10-14, a good soloing-capable toon like a scrapper or a powerhouse like a MM can overcome an EB with insps (MMs may not even need them lol).

At low levels, 5-14 is actually a huge gap in character ability. Either bumping it up to 10-14 or lowering it to 5-9 would be best. The difficulty also depends on the EB. I'd be wary on using custom EBs at a low level though some may be feasible since lower levels have the most freedom in XP benefits.

Apparrently the guy/gal doesn't play villains.

EBs are in Billie Heck and Angelo Vendetti and those missions are lvl 5 to 10. I think there are 2 in Billie's.

Low-level bosses are barely tougher than lieutenants though, so that could be the big thing. I believe that EBs have better resists/defenses also.

Level 5 HP
Lieut: 112
Boss: 176
EB: 293

By comparison,

Level 50 HP
Lieut 867
Boss 2,570
EB 5,354


So going down to a boss at very low level, you're barely having more of a challenge than against a lieutenant. For a damage dealer, that 50hp only ammounts to 2 or 3 extra attacks. But the big jump against an EB you will feel, even on a scrapper or brute.

So you really want to leave it as an EB. Bosses at low level are just too weak to be a good threat. I use them a lot for levelling with my defenders and tankers and other very bad-damage characters.

As Blood Beret pointed out, there are dev-created EBs in missions at that level range anyway.

But I would be careful with his powers. Dark at low level is kinda cruel. Tacking on accuracy penalties against characters with unslotted attacks? I think that's really the issue. Also, does the EB have and use dark's heal? That might be pretty brutal on the wrong PC.

Can you make him Poison without hurting the concept? That's pretty close in having a good utility set without totally flooring the hero's ability to fight back, and its heal is not as uber as dark's.

You're using a Mastermind, which can be difficult, especially for low-level characters, many of whom get into trouble when fighting more than one or two guys. Then you give him a secondary with autohit debuffs. THEN you add ambushes. Yeah, I can see how a lowbie could easily become overwhelmed.

The "too easy" complaints may have come from players with bosses turned off, which would make your end "boss" into a lieutenant. The same setting downgrades EBs to bosses in AE...which can be tough for a lowbie but not nearly as tough as an EB.

I think level 5 is too low to be expected to handle an Elite Boss. At level 5, you really only have 4 powers, one of which you were forced to take (and might suck). You might have TOs slotted. Most players I know, however, don't bother even slotting TOs, so they would have nothing slotted.

It's true that there are canonical level 5-10 villain arcs with EBs in them. However, I don't think the fact that the devs did it, makes it acceptable.

I do think a level 14 should be able to handle an EB just fine.

With the caveat that I know nothing about the particulars of your arc or your mission, in my opinion the Big Bad Guy of a level 5-14 arc should be a Boss. Or if you'd prefer to keep him an Elite Boss, I might suggest you raise the min level to around level 12 (for DOs).

After having written several story arcs, I find that you will always get some people who leave feedback saying it's too easy, and other people who leave feedback saying it's too hard -- no matter how easy or how difficult you make the opposition. My personal belief is that you want to strike a balance, but lean towards the easy side (like, 3 people who think it's too easy for every 1 person who think it's too hard). This is because "too easy" may be mildly disappointing, while "too hard" means either the player ragequits, or wins only after dying repeatedly (leaving the player with more of a negative feeling).

Also, players can usually fix "too easy" on their own, by raising their difficulty level. It's not usually possible to fix "too hard" this way.

Well... I dunno. Call this a cheap self-promotion if you will, but I'd certainly appreciate it if anyone has a level 10-14 toon that they wouldn't mind taking through my lowbie arc and giving me an opinion on difficulty. Opinions on other aspects are welcome, too, but I'm mostly interested in difficulty.

I did tweak it in various directions tonight.

Arc ID: #405106

One thing to keep in mind in all this is that you're likely to get comments all over the map from "are you crazy?! This guy was waaaay over-powered !" to "Yawn-fest, waaay too easy." I usually get a range of both on the same arc.

My advice would be to wait and see which direction the wind blows on this (meaning which end of the spectrum of comments seems to predominate), and then make a gut check. It's a tough call. :/

That's odd. The ambushes are all set to easy.

Minions added.

Should I give the EB access to more powers? He's Standard/Standard right now for Thugs/Dark Miasma.