Debuffs and Elites/Solos

[ac_noj]

I haven't faced this problem yet but there are some particuarly nasty powers that may be a problem:

Seal of Binding - Combinded with Demigod Regeneration this is an auto-win if it hits.
Certain Justice - When hit the monster Weakened AND Dazed for the entire fight, no save. Also it has a +4 to hit.
Accursed Shroud - Monster must reroll every successful attack, no save, and no attack roll needed.

Are there any more that are really bad?

 

[Anthony Jackson]

I haven't faced this problem yet but there are some particuarly nasty powers that may be a problem:

Seal of Binding - Combinded with Demigod Regeneration this is an auto-win if it hits.
Certain Justice - When hit the monster Weakened AND Dazed for the entire fight, no save. Also it has a +4 to hit.
Accursed Shroud - Monster must reroll every successful attack, no save, and no attack roll needed.

Are there any more that are really bad?

Destructive Salutation (Blood Mage 20). Area effect, targets only enemies, stuns (save ends) on a hit, stuns (one round) on a miss, plus does quite decent damage. It's not specifically a boss-killer; more of an anything-killer. A demigod (level 21) orb wizard can easily have Wis 24-26 and spell focus, for a total of -9 or -10 to saves, which does a fair job of locking down even a solo. This isn't even getting into Blood Pulse abuse. There a bunch of kind of broken higher level wizard spells. However, the debuff problem can pop up even at very low levels.

 

[Runestar]

1) Action Points. In most cases, solos get two actions in the first two rounds of combat..that's a big bonus.
2) Area attacks. Solos generally have ways of hitting the whole party, or at least large chunks of it, with every attack.

If they can get to act, which brings me back to my initial point about the usefulness of action-denial. Wasn't there a thread some time back about a lv30 fight with the tarrasque, and the battle ending with the tarrasque being stun-locked over the course of 7 rounds and never managing to get in a single attack?

At lower lvs, this does not seem to be a problem, since PCs have so few powers available at their disposal. But at higher (especially epic) lvs, each player will have 4 encounter powers and dailies (and means of refreshing them). Assuming they stagger the order in which the disabling powers are used appropriately (eg: each round, 1 PC stuns/dazes etc, the other 4 attack, then swap responsibilities), it does not seem all that hard to keep the solo enemy disabled long enough for the rest to keep beating down on him.

To cite a more extreme example, a wizard gets confusion as a lv27 encounter power, and demigod30 lets him use it every round. So if the solo is not immune to fear (which interestingly enough, the tarrasque is indeed immune to fear), the wizard can just use confusion every round, effectively denying the enemy the ability to do anything but attack itself...

So it seems that even solos need the presence of mooks to help support it, such as helping it get combat advantage, taking some heat off it etc. I think 8 pit fiends would pose a much greater threat than orcus, simply by having 8 times as many actions....

 

[Mengu]

If a Solo is the first encounter of the day, the party is not likely to blow all daily powers on it, because there is more fighting to do throughout the day. And if a Solo encounter is at the end of the day, the odds are they have spent quite a few resources, and the encounter again will not be a cakewalk.

It's only if you know that the solo encounter is the first and only encounter of the day, that the problem might arise. And level+3 or level+4 solos need around 14'ish rolls to hit, and can have abilities that cause their enemies to suffer penalties. Also some like Hydras have ways to mitigate stun effects, at least partially.

If you wanted a solo fight to be particularly difficult, and see stun as a problem, you could give the monster an ability that converts stun to daze at the beginning of its turn. You could make this an at-will, recharging, or encounter power depending on what you feel is necessary.