Dethdlr EQ2Players has a preview up for one of the two new raid zones coming with GU #56: Icy Keep: Retribution. This one was designed by Carlos “Gninja” Mora with help from Cyndi “Xadrian” Johnson.
From the Gninja:
Which raid zones are of a comparable difficulty?
The difficulty should be aimed at the same difficulty as Lair of the Dragon Queen or slightly tougher in the later areas.How many named mobs are there?There are ten normal encounters and one challenge mode encounter. However some encounters might have to be unlocked in order to gain access to them through the questlines or various puzzles in the zone.
What do you think is the most impressive part of the zone?The Chessboard by far is the most impressive. The art team did a fantastic job really capturing what I was going for in there.
Read the entire article at EQ2Players.
through various puzzles in zone?
it might be good doing it for the first time but knowing soe its going to be so stupidly gay after you have done it and know what to do.
As one of the testing raiders of the zone, I am happy about some of the strategies on a few of the encounters. The Chess Board encounter was great, although a bit buggy our first run though, one of my other favorite raid mobs in the zone is a Yeti “that bowls”.
“same difficulty as Lair of the Dragon Queen or slightly”
*spits up coke*
So i guess we should expect to group heal a hell of a lot (and i thought that was bad enough with LotDQ and PoRT), and expect not to be able to take a breath between fights yet again… Really SOE, you need to give us healers, especially druids, more then just 2 group heals that have 5 seconds of downtime before you can use them again (not counting emergency heals which take 15 minutes). Either that or speed up the reuse / cast timers of the ones we have. My raid force can’t keep up with the AoEs because they are just so constant.
Lots of X2 trash, Most of the mobs are fairly easy, although a few have some scripts, to make them fairly fun. Our guild will probably clear the zone and never go back, unless the final mob offers decent farm-able gear. I don’t think I ever went in to “heal” mode on any of the mobs.