The realm of Khur'obaros
This post will serve as an in-depth view of the challenges that will be awaiting you in the newly added dungeon, the Realm of Khur'obaros. As explained on beforehand
here, there was a certain level range that could have used more content. Therefore we introduced this dungeon, desgined for levels 200~240, to offer a challenging teamplay option for players that reached this levels, but are not ready yet to face the challenges of the hellish realm.
One of the challenges of creating such an area occured when designing the rewards of said dungeon. Most of the top-gear items are obtained very soon after this level range in the hellish realm, which would make most types of rewards obsolete shortly after obtaining them. We addressed this problem by targeting different niches of equipment, so that the rewards obtained on this dungeon are complementary to the ones obtained in hell.
When creating the concept of the dungeon, we strived for two main objectives. First of all, a non-linear dungeon model, similar to Orc Domains, to give players a higher degree of freedom on how they complete the dungeon. Secondly, a unique monster behaviour with synergies between different creatures, where players got the feeling that the monsters were actually cooperating to defeat them. We will now give you one example of a regular creature and one of a boss creature, without making too many spoilers about the dungeon itself.
Creature behaviour: The hook spell
One of the regular creatures you will encounter has a special ability that when retargeting to a different player, launches a hook towards them and drags them into melee range. When grabbed by a hook, the player will also be stunned for a short duration. However, this creature can be enraged in the presence of another monster. When enraged, the hook spell will deal a great amount of damage and the stun duration is increased to almost twice the original value. Also, the chance of the creature casting the spell is higher.
Boss: The healing debuff and bleed
A certain boss in the dungeon will have, among others, two special abilities. One of them is an aura debuff that reduces the received healing of all players by 50%. The other one is also an aura, that makes players bleed, slowly taking damage over time. While obviously the damage of the boss is balanced around these mechanics, healers will still struggle to keep their team alive. Spells, equipment and potions that increase your received healing become specially useful in this scenario. The same goes for other non-healing defensive spells like Arcane Barrier, and battle potions that have similar effects.