Endgame Optional Content: Redeemers (Neamhain)

Legion of Death (possibly not quite the right translation?) is an upcoming update announced by DOL, Director of Mabinogi: Heroes (Vindictus).

The Content Overall

These battles are designed to be played by the very top of the playerbase, in both gear and skill (allegedly). DOL makes a reference about being able to solo all of S3 with no hits, and I assume this to be a comparison about how much skill is needed to win these raids. He also recommends 26k ATT and 15k DEF as a minimum, and suggests stacking DEF even at the cost of ATT.

In these raids, you are not allowed to bring potions. You are limited to 15 of a special type of potion provided specifically for these raids; this potion heals 3000 HP (4800 with r3 HP Pots). You are limited to 3 revives total per person attempt, with a cooldown enforced between each revive, of approx 8 minutes(?). The first revive applies no cooldown, but the second does. If the full party wipes, the raid instantly fails. Additionally, once a person dies three times, they cannot be revived anymore, at all.

In a surprising twist, Merc Potions and Goddess Graces are stated to be banned as well. There will be no pay2win here.

...Oh, and you can only clear this battle two times a week (three if you can assemble a Guild member only run). - Note that the way these are limited is strange. I'll try to summarize it shortly here:

Per week:
1x Normal run - No restrictions. VIP makes this two per week.
1x Guild run - The entire party must be in the same guild as the host. VIP doesn't affect this limit.
1x Special - The party host needs a ticket for this one. This ticket is tradable, and comes from both Neamhain and the Secret Boxes from the Strange Cat. VIP doesn't affect this limit.

** A very incompetent translator created a belief that the run counters were per attempt, rather than per victory. This is NOT the case. The run is only counted if you win.

The Raid

So far, the area has just one battle, where you fight two enemies: Neamhain and Source of Corruption. Neamhain is another female God, and Source of Corruption is a giant crab thing.

The full battle is not enabled on the Test Server yet, apparently. At the beginning of the third phase, the raid abruptly ends in your victory:
http://www.inven.co.kr/board/powerbbs.php?come_idx=2471&l=33705

The new BGM:

Neamhain

Videos:

Test Server:

8 man party, Staff Evie perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZDCD5c-pjY
8 man party, Lynn perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl0yav3WQfc
8 man party, Arisha perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-3Irh1LE-0
Duo: Lynn and Arisha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmLIlCcU3As

Live Server:

Solos (Chronological order)
Sword Fiona: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1afGTITLT5M
Scythe Evie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcAxWdsHMCs
Arisha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siOp9AyGglk
Sword Vella: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPQMsDsdITU
Arisha - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaFbG7HY5w0
Chainblade Vella - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8D4fEIUB1U
Greatsword Hurk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eW06EeOeems

Sword Lann/Xgun Kai duo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQLkVxHhnHc
8 man party, Arisha perspective, full clear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4vC-rmlWao
8 man party, Scythe Evie perspective, Phase 3 only: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ovTUeaRyI8

Small Clips:

The scene that plays once Neamhain's HP reaches just under 1 bar (and is the end of the raid): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPWYMA6TP2M
Evie - Evading the mass OHKO in Phase 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDZe0BKBLSA
Delia - Dodging the Gates of Babylon-like move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CV0qc8LMCHk
Neamhain's fancy pinball move: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAj2JDjFQBY

Neamhain's Stats:
HP - 15 Million (Nonscaling)
ATT - 22,000
DEF - 17,000
Critical - 125
Critical Resistance - 90

Source of Corruption's Stats:
HP - 99,999,999 (Nonscaling) [You are not meant to kill this, the HP only exists to stop it from dying during the fight.]
ATT - 22,000
DEF - 17,000
Critical - 125
Critical Resistance - 90

As such, the ATT cap for Legion of Death is 26,356. If you have 2000 ATT Limit Release, your ATT cap will be 28,560.

This is at odds with what was stated during the Alpha, about attacks doing chip damage, and an inability to crit. It is plausible Neamhain was nerfed stat-wise since then? These contradictions are noted in the Reactions/Issues section below.

Rewards

For your first completion of the Neamhain battle, you receive an RNG gift. This gift package gives a 3* Lv.70/80 ring or belt, a large sum of gold (10m, which is a LOT in KR gold), or possibly other undetermined items. You only get this reward for the first victory.

As you complete Neamhain runs, a meter gradually fills. Each run will add 1% to the meter, regardless of how well you perform. Previous KR speculations that it was performance-based turned out to be incorrect. Once the meter reaches certain points, you gain permanent stat increases:



5% - +1 Critical
25% - +1000 HP
50% - +500 ATT, +500 M.ATT, +1 Critical
75% - +1 Critical, +300 ATT Limit Release
100% - +500 ATT, +500 M.ATT, +2 Critical

The ability shown in the pic seems to be a reward for 100 completions of the full raid. The abilities text is:

혼신의 일격 LV1
스매시 공격으로 보스 몬스터를 타격 시 일정 확률로
'혼신의 일격'이 활성화 됩니다.
'혼신의 일격' 이 활성화 된 상태에서 '발동 스킬'을 사용하여 적을 타격 시 강력한 힘을 방출시킬 수 있습니다.
'발동 스킬'은 캐릭터별 특성에 따라 지정됩니다.

Yura in Vindictus Discord has translated it to:

Strike interference/interference attack lvl 1
If you use a smash attack on the boss there is a chance to activate this skill
If the skill activates something powerful happens to the boss
This effect depends on the character

Since this takes, at a bare minimum, 34 weeks to unlock (you have to kill Neamhain 100 times, at max three per week, even that assuming VIP works), it will be a long time before we see this ability. This content will likely be in NA before KR unlocks that ability.

Other New Features/Changes

A New Partymaking System: "Quick Battle"

A new UI feature has been added to more quickly and painlessly find parties for raids and normal battles. It has its own button in the main UI menu, and can be pinned to the bottom-left of your UI.

The UI looks like this, credit for the pic goes to a user who wishes to remain anonymous:


In order, the columns are:
* Favorite/Unfavorite
* Season the battle/raid is in
* Battle/raid name
* The "RAID" icon, if it is a raid
* How many parties currently exist for that battle/raid

The favorites tab shows only battles/raids that you have favorited, and you receive notifications when boats for those battles appear. You can use this Quick Battle UI to join a battle, even if you are not in the correct town.*[1] For example, you can join Regina from Malina. You do not have to be at the docks/board to join parties through Quick Battle.

The filter menu allows you to show battles from only certain seasons, only raids, or only AP dailies.

*[1] Legion of Death battles can only be joined/formed in Bell Bay City/Berbhe. This system does not include those.

Armor Enhancement Rebalance

Armor enhancement effects were increased. DEF when Destroyed is increased significantly, and armor enhanced above +5 starts increasing Max HP, based on enhancement level:
http://www.inven.co.kr/board/powerbbs.php?come_idx=2471&l=33703

The table of HP bonuses:
+6 - 50
+7 - 70
+8 - 100
+9 - 130
+10 - 170
+11 - 220
+12 - 300
+13 - 500
+14 - 700
+15 - 1000

DEF when Destroyed:
Syntax:
+6 - Old , New
+6 - 5% , 38%
+7 - 10% , 42%
+8 - 15% , 46%
+9 - 20% , 50%
+10 - 25% , 54%
+11 - 30% , 58%
+12 - 35% , 62%
+13 - 40% , 70%
+14 - 45% , 80%
+15 - 50% , 90%

Side Note Changes

Repair fees have been decreased by a little over 50%. It is not clear if this is a Test Server perk, or an actual upcoming change alongside this update.

Reactions/Issues

Concerns have been recognized by DOL in regards to the functionality of Gliding Fury, and Hurk's Impenetrable/Revenge healing mechanic. Both of these characters run into issues in these raids due to the reliance Gliding Fury has on Critical, Impenetrable on DEF, and Revenge on ATT.

If any changes are made to fix these skills, as was implied, they will likely be in such a way as to remove dependence on stat stacking to use them effectively. An example of this would be how Gliding Fury functioned for Sword Lann in XE a while back, where you could use it whether or not your smash was a critical hit.

Clarifications

The Test Server players have been given access to extremely powerful equipment for free, but it seems to be only for the purposes of testing this raid. Do not expect it to appear in the live game at all. Nonetheless, here are some pics of the stats on them:

Some Gear Images:

---

Special shoutouts to the Vindictus Discord, for helping me to figure out a massive amount of info very quickly on patch launch.

I'm about to sleep, but before I do, I'll post this. If anyone else can help with translating this, it would be appreciated.

As of today, Legion of Death is now on the KR live servers. A copy of the patch notes is posted on Inven here: http://inven.co.kr/board/powerbbs.php?come_idx=2471&l=33780

To briefly summarize what I was able to work out:

* The repair fee reduction is confirmed, it looks to be closer to 60% cheaper now.
* The max durability of skill awakenings was increased from 2000 to 5000.
* A "Senior Guild Member" rank was added. - Finally!
* A "Get All" option in the mailbox, that grabs everything except CODs. Not sure if per page or if it's everything in mail
* It sounds like the server announces when someone fails +15 now. Not sure on this one, need confirmation.

EDIT: There is an event going on in KR that is doubling the effect of Guild level up bonuses. Just to clarify, the doubled effects are not permanent.

KR's Live Server received another update today, with the header image being Neamhain, so this is likely another adjustment to balance the area.

Can someone help translate?

http://heroes.nexon.com/news/update/view?postno=751

EDIT: Known info so far, from Discord members:

Spear Lann's i-frame duration has been increased by 0.13 seconds. At max rank Spear Dash, it should now be 0.79 seconds.

In September, enhancement will be changed so that you cannot enhance things that are more than 10 levels higher than your character level. This is intended to stop AP mules from being able to make endgame equipment.

Additionally, item restoration with AP will be given a level 90 requirement at the same time. The explanation DevCat gave for this one is odd, something about DevCat not wanting AP hoarding alts to be able to use the restoration system or something.

Has there been any movement with the Critical issue for Lanns? I've been following some news here and there, but haven't seen anything mentioned about it apart from the initial "looking into it".

It seems that they just chose to lower Neamhain's Critical Resistance and DEF to accommodate Lann and Hurk.

90 Resistance is only 10 more than Season 3. Comments from the early preview event thing implied she had vastly more Crit Res and DEF, and a lot less HP. So either those testers were lying, or Neamhain was heavily rebalanced.

Congratulations to 남이지원 for being the first to solo Neamhain! (Sword Fiona)

As a player with very mediocre gear I do have a question about the 'minimum requirements' for this content if someone could enlighten me:

The wording says this content is for the 'very top' of players, but then also lists a 'minimum requirement' which to me implies that they think getting over these numbers shouldn't be terribly difficult (although it would be somewhat difficult). I just put together a 3 star +5 'good rolls' Regina set stacking Resistant ES (and other applicable scrolls) with each piece having a DEF infusion, and accessories that all have Warlord/Passion and a ATT infusion, along with a 3 star +15 'good rolls' Regina Weapon (with applicable scrolls) and I more or less end up just on this 'minimum specs' (25.8k ATT and 15.2k DEF). This raises two questions for me:
 
1) Where are they expecting all of this 'above them minimum' ATT/DEF to come from? Since it seems that a more/less totally maxed out gear (which focuses on DEF) set is just enough to break the minimum requirements? I understand that there is a mechanic to max out composite materials that we (in NA) don't have yet, and apparently there is some system to do the same for enhancement (I saw a screen shot of the interface on Discord but I don't have much context for it)? I guess from those?
 
2) Are they expecting players to carry around essentially 'two full sets of maxed out endgame gear'? One for this content  and one for everything else? Because I can't imagine players that have sunk a lot of time and money into setups that max their BAL/AS/Crit will appreciate that their gear is not 'acceptable' for this new content, more or less forcing everyone to use Heavy/Plate armor due to the scroll differences.
 

Any insight / clarification is appreciated.

The "minimum requirements" are recommendations from DOL about what stats you should have. They have no actual relevance to the battle, and from what I hear about KR players running this battle, they actually ask for less on their boat requirements (KR *loves* their stat requirements).

As mentioned in the post, Attack capping Neamhain requires only 26,356 Att. Or 27,000 if the formula is still busted when we get this update. Based on current content, even 22k Att will do just fine. Neamhain hits extremely hard, and has 22,000 Att, so you may want to stack more Def than usual, if you prefer being able to tank a few hits. Though honestly speaking, being able to "tank" her hits is going to require a huge investment in tanky armor.

In short, prepare for Neamhain like you would any other raid. Just be aware that her stats are vastly higher than anything that currently exists, and that you can't realistically expect to max out your offensive stats AND tank her. She is made to be able to demolish any endgame player that isn't skillful enough to keep up with her. Your actual ability to play the game is going to be more important.