Thread: Survival Barrow Downs - Level 75

Hello All Wardens,

It used to be that a warden and 2 other good players could easily survive the 3 man Survival Barrow Downs at level 65. Also, you could pretty much survive the 6 and 12 man versions. Right now it seems impossible to actually survive at Level 75. Has anyone had success surviving the full 60 minutes after Rise of Isengard was released? I can honestly say, I have not. I am sure it has something to do with the warden mitigations but there may be more reasons. If you have survived the full 60 mins doing the level 75 skirmish please share your strategy.

I've tried it twice since RoI and we wiped around the 20 minute mark both times. (I believe both were fellowship size runs, one may have been a raid instead.) Mitigations do play a small part of it, but I have a feeling the crit defense wardens are getting with U6 may help with a few of the problems.

The changes have nothing to do with Warden mitigations. For reasons beyond my comprehension the programmers at Turbine decided they really didn't want anyone to win this raid. The winning strategy involved using a tank, usually a Warden, to kite the surplus mobs and allow the rest of the team to pick them off as they were able. The strategy wasn't always foolproof ... even an experienced group wiped about a quarter of the time ... but with luck, teamwork and tenacity the raid could be won.

But some programmers apparently figured that wasn't how they originally expected things to go, so rather than congratulate the players for using their wits and intellect, along with all the legitimate skills built into the various classes, they decided to change the rules. So they tightened the area, gave the mobs a 300% run speed buff and increased the damage of their hits exponentially. As far as I can tell what they want you to do is stand there and trade blows with mobs that are mathematically programmed to be stronger than you. Thus, you can't win because the deck is stacked against you and what wit and intellect you apply cannot overcome the way the zeros and ones are lined up now.

I love this game and I spend hours a day playing it. I'm a paid subscriber. For the most part I feel strongly that the employees of Turbine want to put a game out there that is engaging and fun. But sometimes I get the impression that at least some of the programmers think of us customers as the enemy. If I was F2P and had spent Turbine Points to unlock this raid I'd be angry. As it is I just have a bad taste in my mouth whenever the subject of this raid comes up.

Whatever. There's a difference between challenging and impossible, between fun and frustrating. What used to be a popular part of the game is now abandoned.