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Olthoi are anti-mage.
Tuskers are food.
Virindi are anti-melee
Mutilators are anti-everyone
Lugians are the closest thing to anti-missile
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The only thing that needs to be changed about the K'naths is that they need to do more damage in melee.
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Sword is not getting a bludgeon any time soon, perhaps ever.
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Melee defense remains the least affected skill that was adjusted. Only creatures that needed to have their resistance levels adjusted (re. Elementals) had those stats touched.
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Many monsters had all three of their defensive skills adjusted, some were adjusted in only one category
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Mutilators:
I love the purple little guys. They were ringing my bell something fierce in testing. They are without a doubt proof positive of the Olthoi's might. They might get tweaked downward a little but not likely.
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Some creatures did have the armor lowered, not all.
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There will be some creatures that stay out of reach. They are just supposed to be that way.
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We did not update the loot profiles on the creatures this month.
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Heart Seeker is not going back on bows. I am monitoring the worlds and the boards to garner data about missile defenses, it may change, it may not but at this point heart seeker is not going back onto bows.
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On the whole there were very few changes if any to creatures in the VoD, some where tweaked a little here and there but the majority were where we wanted them. There were several new creatures added to the VoD this month as well.
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Without an indicator of your stats I can't really speak to the changes made to the Platinum or Pyreals. The spells on each were made to fit the area where they live and the drains had already existed on the Pyreals.
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The experience you can earn over a given period of time has increased dramatically. The trade off is that as a solo hunter that has less than Uber skills you will need to hunt creatures that are closer to your level. You'll still earn experience at a decent rate. If you provided more information on your stats I could elaborate more on this vein.
How it aides the solo player is by allowing them to have more survivability against creatures of levels closer to their own. Those creatures now provide a challenge but also have a much greater reward. Creatures that are about 15-20 levels above you and in some cases less will remain very difficult for you to kill but they will also yield more of a reward
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Executors are not melee friendly, they never have been. They are nearly impossible without a phantom weapon and remain so. The difference is that we made them tougher vs melee to reflect their anti-melee nature.
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"Was it really necessary to raise Missile/Melee D so much?"
Yes, for creatures to have a more consistent difficulty they needed to be brought into line with the skill levels of the player populace. If you use crossbow for a damage type that is not available to your main damage dealer, perhaps there is another damage type that deals equivalent damage to those creatures, perhaps acid.
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Further creatures were balanced with the following structure in mind: Specialized skills with attributes at 80 to start. Why? Because we needed to make sure that we didn't hurt the trained only players. What this does mean is that some archers will be making full use of their accuracy bar to add the full 50% bonus to their skill.
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Grievvers have always been more or less archer food. The phantom weapons were meant to assist the main attack capability of your character
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Nothing changed that should affect your crippling blow.
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Horripals are afterthoughts of the creation of their larger cousins, just like flammas spawn from hellfires.
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Thrasher will sometimes use different clubs now. They won't always throw just frost. Enforcer still debuff for frost.
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Manglers/Maulers are much lower level now, living happily in the mid-level areas.
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Those little mutilators are not armor rending. They are just damn tough
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Platinums are the end all be all of Golems, they now reflect that, while it is true that you may have hunted them before it will take you a little while now. However, should you be buffed by a friend with 7's you'd stand a better chance.
Pyreals are just about right, 66-75%. Try varying your attack height on them you might find you hit more often.
The lugians in missile mode is confusing, because that really has no affect on anything. Their missile defense is much higher but then again they are designed for group play at the uber levels.
The main problem is that it is an adjustment to no longer be able to hunt those Platinum Golems because they are just outside of your range
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The accuracy bar is that heart seeker. It moves from no bonus at default to +50% at top end. Higher than any melee can achieve even through tinkering.
I will say this about mages. They are certainly a viable solo class but they pay for that solo play with a much trimmer skill selection. Further the only school of magic that really skewed the rebalance effort is Creature Enchantment
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Granite hearts now drop at the same rate as all other golem hearts.
