The whole Hamidon Raid phenominon is just plain old bizarre to me the more I think about it. It’s not a challenge, really — set, arcane, ritualistic behavior has been codified and passed down from hero to hero across the servers, making the biggest challenge to success in Hamidon whether your connection/graphics card will handle it.
Which is why the current rants about the changes to Hamidon are so amusing in the vitriol they’re eliciting. The changes:
Added to the patch notes:
The Hamidon has been increased in difficulty. It is now capable of using one of its attack powers even when Held, Slept, or Stunned.
Evidently Hammy got a laser beam on it’s head a long time ago but just now figured out how to use it.
The Mitos are AVs and are acting according to this patch note:
AVs/Heroes and Giant Monsters now ignore threat level damage multipliers for different Archetypes. They are still affected by Taunt as before.
The latter meaning that they don’t care whether you’re a Tank or a Defender — if you do the most damage, you draw the most aggro.
There’s some justifiable irk over the missing patch note (a real problem from the CoX team). But people are even more up in arms over the idea that they can’t magically know if Hammy has been Held by its being unable to attack. The horror! The confusion! The old magic no longer works! Blasphemy!
Frankly, I think Hamidon ought to adapt over time. Make it, perhaps, less God-like in power but a tad more unpredictable. Break the old elaborate dance. Let people know that, about once a month (or two, if we’re generous), Hammy will change his tactics — evolve.
50-100 heroes ought still be able to take it down, and the rewards should be worth it. But it should be something a bit more than a magical sequence of teams and tactics that are more or less guaranteed to succeed (assuming your machine doesn’t crash or someone doesn’t summon the Kronos Titan).