Horrific Visions - The jump in difficulty between 7 and 8 masks is insane

Community General Discussion
1

You’d think if you can clear 7 masks, then 8 is no big deal, but holy hell… the combination of both Multitudes and Daredevil is just ridiculous, and the HP gain of bosses is just enough that you can’t really burst through them to avoid their undodgeable attacks.

7 masks was actually pretty easy for me, I did it on my second try right after doing a 6-mask run (which was first try), but 8 masks just gives me so much trouble.

  • Almost every trash pack is lethal, and since regular sanity drain is slow, it’s best to always wait for cooldowns (especially in the Old Town there are consecutive hard trash packs and a miniboss inbetweem), making it pretty tedious.
  • Some boss attacks are literally unavoidable, like Alx’kov the Infested’s circle that follows you, but the worst for balance druid at least is Umbric. He keeps spamming Entropic Missiles which is -300 Sanity, and your interrupt has a 45 sec cooldown. The best I could do is interrupt the first, just take the second hit, stall as long as possible while he does the ice attacks and hope your cooldown comes back so you can interrupt the next one, AND also kill Umbric right after that before he does a fourth one, which is just barely possible.
  • The Mage District in general is awful with the (feels like) infinitely spawning small mobs that can really throw off your Hogger timings, and Boundless Corruption is also a death sentence if you accidentally pull something else and/or the split personality affix spawns.

Should I just wait and get better gear (I’m already at ilevel 666) to at least be able to better burst through stuff?

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Might be easier pairing up with other DPS.

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But for the last achievement you need to do it solo anyway.

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If you kill Zardeth (the mage to the right of the entrance) the small trash mobs stop spawning. Otherwise they will keep you permanently in combat and permanently slowed due to the corruption.

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Planning out your orbs where you think you’ll take sanity damage isn’t a bad idea (like where you can’t stop a cast). Also learning stuff like how to stop mobs spawning, you’re saying its hard but not doing things in your control to make it easier.

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Define lethal. The only Lethal packs should occur during Shaw and Umbrics areas. You do not pull adds into the mini bosses anywhere unless you have AoE Burst and you’re sure you wont get obliterated by a buffed to the heavens mini boss. The dwarven mini boss you’re also better off killing the trash infront of the AH/Fountain first just so you don’t have to pay attention to dodging his jump without pulling extra.

You mean the circle with the tentacles coming out of it? You can dodge that. You may end up getting screwed by the stunning mirror images however if you get unlucky timing.

Umbric is a pain for practically everybody since hes casting too often. This was already the case in BFA. If you cant burst him down after a single cast so he moves over you may have to pop a orb eventually to deal with him.

Thats because thats whats happening if you don’t start clearing. The portal master surrounded by 3 blobs is spawning crawlers as long as hes alive. The caster mini boss as well I’m pretty sure (or they are all tied to the caster boss. I usually go for the Squid+blob first and then the warlock).

Your best bet is to await the initial onslaught of mobs until it slows down a bit and then proceed to the portal master

It will help at least.

With the current sanity drain you can get away with not popping a orb until Umbric/Alleria. Otherwise Shaw Orb, Umbric Orb, Alleria orb.

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I tried couple of times mage district as feral, can barely get past first two packs.

It’s overtuned and not really fun. Other districts i can do with ease with 8 masks.

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8

Yes, it’s mostly those two areas, but some of the others can be troublesome too, like when there are 2 big tentacle monsters with 4-5 other adds who die way too fast, buffing up the big ones. And in the Old Town it really is basically all the trash packs. Like, there are 2-3 Informants which cast Touch of the Abyss, and if that gets you, you are basically dead. There is another mob that pulls you to him, and if that happens during a “split personality”, you are defenseless exactly when you are pulled into the onslaught. You really need your burst cooldowns for them.

No, there is some big circle that spawns around you. Or does that only happen when you are hit by another attack?

That’s useful, thank you. I noticed that the spawns slow down / stop after a while, but it’s good to know what to prioritize.

Yeah… we’ll see.

Btw in the meantime I have done parts of the run that, if combined would give me a clear. Once I cleared the Mage district using 2 orbs and the emergency revive, then died to the trash before Shaw (I got greedy, feeling like I can’t waste more time)

And once I actually cleared all other 3 areas with only using 1 orb, but died to Umbric…

So I can definitely do it, it’s just a very long process with so many parts where I can get unlucky with the “split personality” spawns especially. Convoke, while a fantastic burst ability also has a lot of variance in its effectiveness, and it really does make a difference if it kills Umbric after the 2nd teleport, or leaves him with 5% HP.

At least Shaw is actually not that bad, he doesn’t do that much damage, and you can stall pretty well if you just run away from the eyes and the swirly attacks, while looking outward, and when you get the opportunity, you can lure Shaw away and step back 45 degrees (to avoid “burnt bridge”). Also Convoke can hit him when you look away which is nice.

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I’ve pretty much given up trying to do it on my Priest, getting screwed over due to my long interrupt CD… specifically to that damn Mage in tower, Torrent does 75 sanity loss per tick, I just don’t have enough sanity for the full run.

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To me it feels like ilvl was a waste of time. Mobs simply died faster in week 1 than they do now (where I’ve finally upgraded everything).

Then I’m having trouble with my mana, to the point where I thought ‘whatever let’s bring the NPC as a healer, I can deal with the extra hp.’ Which sure, but the NPC isn’t healing, so that was a waste, too.

Personally, the one that has always been a pain is Umbric. Because Entropic Missiles is one thing, but then there’s the Tainted Polymorph to consider, too, and you gotta choose which one to interupt - even a 15 sec CD isn’t gonna help you all that much, especially not at half sanity. Same deal with Inquisitor Darkspeak who’s all to fond of casting Agonizing Torment all the time.

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Btw definitely would gear up.

To be fair, if that is your experience with a 666ilvl char, then i think it would be quite easy when fully geared.

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Yeah, it’s hilarious that being a druid that’s immune to polymorph, that spell doesn’t even affect me, but it doesn’t matter too much because Entropic Missiles still happens too often.

It’s true, but at least he has less HP. In fact I can usually kill him with one big burst (set up dots at the beginning, then interrupt the cast, then do trinket + DPS potion + Celestial Alignment + Convoke + everything I have.

With Umbric that’s impossible because of the higher HP and the fact that he teleports away.

Small update, in the meantime I’ve done 4 tries today, in one of which I got to Alleria (with no recharges or the resurrect left), and of course I rushed and panicked, so I died to the big explosion attack when the place behind the pillar I was close to had the “burnt bridge” goop and tried to inch away a little, hoping that it still counts as behind the pillar (it didn’t).

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I gave up.
I tried it with forst and arcane, tank npc and without…
I just don’t feel like bothering myself with that lazy recolored crap worm mount anymore. The 5 masks go smoothly, I’m okay with that.
Next year they will bring it back (again) under the name revisited revisited, only then there will be 15 masks…pure bs

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gone in with my 664 DK, reached alleria finally with 2 orbs remaining, encounter starts all good, then she refused to leave fireground, i LOS her she shoots through walls, i try to pull her through fire trying to kite etc. nope, i die to sanity, deleted character uninstalled wow removed the ssd drive and burned it…

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I feel sorry for DPS specs, mostly. I barely managed to 8 mask Stormwind this morning on a guardian druid, 881 Ilvl.
I haven’t got to worry about dieng for the most part, haven’t gotta worry about interrupting poly in the mage quarter either.
I have the disadvantage of not doing as much damage to the mini bosses and main bosses who’s sanity draining casts are impossible to do anything about though other than prey.
Plan out your orbs and cheat death, best advice I can give. Don’t reley on the cheat death to save you in a pinch, plan it out as part of your orbs, think of it as a 4th orb.

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If I were you I’d grab an agi hero track weapon from the vendor and do it as feral. Still immune to poly and your interrupt only has a 15s cooldown and I’m fairly certain the self sustain should be noticeably better.
Also since Umbric and Shaw are your only likely fail points, I’d take a small hit on the efficiency and run mage quarter first and old town second - if the run is gonna fail you might as well go again at minute 5 rather than 25.

afaik you’re supposed to LoS that, as for the inquisitor - kick the first one, bubble the second and burst him before it runs out.

The explosives are clickable before they detonate. If you click them, it pushes them away.

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Event is extremely unbalanced for certain classes and specs yes, i recommend unholy dk very easy 8 mask solo.

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you have to interrupt her when she casting to make her move if she standing in fire but you shouldn’t make her stand in fire in first place, kick the barrels away.

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How do you propose doing that in a straight line room? Sure, I could go towards the entrance, but at that point I’m never going to get close enough to him to be in range.

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…cripes! and here I am trying to get 4 masks done :flushed: - I did put all 8 on to see what it was like and nope, not having that! My eyes with everything happening at once, plus my hand, eye coordination is not what it used to be - getting 5 is my aim purely for the achievements, but will accept it if I can’t manage that.

Curious - what 5 masks do you recommend for me/BM Hunter :thinking: