Let’s face it. Sanctuary is way too steamrollable, and almost impossible to complete in an unoragized group if you don’t know most the stuff about the dungeon and its enemies. So here i’ll try to suggest how to fix these issues.
General Changes
Raiding discords abuse “Wizard Strat” WAY TOO MUCH. HP scaling abuse is a bannable offense for Oryx 1, so it must be mitigated. My suggestion is to flatten out the curve of adaptive hp scaling, so the difference of hp scaling from 1 player to 2 players and 84 players to 85 players isn’t larger than 100% of its value. To further incentivize all players heading into Sanctuary immediately, the portal itself should disappear after 2 minutes, just like the Wine Cellar portal.
Part 1 - Accessing the Dungeon
Instead of three, there should be four runes, one for each miniboss.
Axe Rune, color Green - drops from Lost Halls, corresponds to Chief Beisa.
Portal Rune, color Red - drops from Exaltation Dungeons (Nest, Shatts, etc.), corresponds to Chancellor Dammah
Chaos Rune, color Blue - drops from Ream Event Gods and Court of Oryx, corresponds to Archbishop Leucoryx
Gem Rune, color Yellow - drops from Late-game Dungeons (DDocks, Davy’s, etc.), corresponds to Treasurer Gemsbok
One any of the runes is used, the portal to the Sanctuary will open. Additionally, there is a small chance for a rune altar to open by itself, granting the randomly chosen miniboss.
Part 2 - Clearing to the Miniboss
I feel like the enemies in Sanctuary aren’t very creative. Quoting Hyeperion, the enemies here are just a bunch of “Don’t sit on me”. Instead, they should be a bit more creative, like in Lost Halls or Fungal and Crystal Cavern. Most enemies in here are anti-melee and incentivize high reqs groups, since they buff themselves or activate certain behaviors if they haven’t been killed in time, like the Oryx Judge’s Giant Miasma Portal, or Oryx Major’s self-buff and chase. Also, the enemies inflict a variety of annoying status effects, such as Slow, Paralyze and Sicken. While the third isn’t as deadly, the previous two could force a death or nexus of a player really easily, and therefore should be at least toned down. If an enemy has a jumping/rushing behavior, there should be a red telegraph before they jump, like the green Mushroom Berserker in Fungal Cavern. Also, if an enemy teleports or explodes into large, lethal shotguns (like Gemsbok minions), there should be a telegraph as well.
Part 3 - Minibosses
All the minibosses have the mechanic of Counters, and three of them have the mechanic of Staggers as well. Whereas Staggers serve as a reward for knowledge of the dungeon, the counters are completely unnecessary and serve as a punishment for the lack of knowledge (aside from those who occur after a stagger), or a lack of DPS. Not only they are almost unavoidable in incompetent groups, they also make the dungeon less fun overall, especially because of how some of them can be unimaginably punishing.
3a - Archbishop Leucoryx
This fight is fine for the most part, aside from the Arrowheads phases, as there is only one safespot there that doesn’t allow players to deal damage to the boss. In this phase the safespots should be larger and more clear. The other aspect is his Staggers. When an enlarged Orb is present, Leucoryx would “bond” to it, and when it reaches him, instead of launching a counter, he would smply do nothing. When the said orb is killed, he would be staggered for 3 seconds, or 10% of his health instead. To compensate for this drastic drop in difficulty, in the regular phases, the Archbishop Candles would serve a much more lethal purpose, striking anyone too far from the boss with Holy/Chaos Beams (depending on the phase), telegraphed similar to Oryx Deacon’s beams.
3b - Chancellor Dammah
One unnecessary thing in this fight is that there’s a minimum time cap on some phases, such as the two phases 1B. If Dammah simply was pushed to the next phase instead of staying invulnerable for a while, the fight could be faster and more enjoyable. Another annoying thing is that the Giant portals from phase 1C explode into a ring of shots after the phase ends, creating clutter for the upcoming Knife phase. Yet another thing is the status effect that the Giant Miasma portal inflicts. Slow. It chases at a speed that for most players makes it impossible to outrun, and makes tricksters very abusable. Instead, it should inflict either Sicken, or a new debuff, that would reduce any healing by a half. The last aspect is the Stagger/Counter mechanic in the Chancellor fight. As much as i enjoy the first counter, because you actually have to listen to what the boss is saying, the further ones only serve a purpose of rewarding groups with extreme damage, allowing for a bit of extra damage to be inflicted, since the knife phase isn’t anything special, and its difficulty lies only within the player’s computer and game’s optimization, which is decent for what it aims for.
3c - Treasurer Gemsbok
I’m gonna say this one thing: TRICKSTERS ARE HORRIBLY ABUSABLE. If the fight consisted of more omnidirectional shotguns, or simply unaimed shots, it would be far more enjoyable, since the state of the fight currently is “Stay bottom left and hope that the priests and tricksters have high magic heal”. Also, there is a safespot in the Rotation “Counter”, which must be eliminated. Speaking of this phase, Gemsbok should be damagable there, although having the Armored buff, to limit the damage potential of it. The Counter/Stagger mechanic there is flawed as well, as when the boss goes to the middle of the room, it is obvious that the group should damage him. While this isn’t too annoying, the actual counter of choice is rather dumb. Weakening the group will always make the fight not as enjoyable as without the debuff. Instead, Gemsbok could launch a powerful attack, or throw out four coins that follow the same behavior as in his Last Phase. For the Stagger mechanic, it is very unclear. It is fine for the most part, just could be telegraphed better. The damage required to stagger isn’t a lot, and the damage cap isn’t too high.
3d - Chief Beisa
Oh boy, people hate this boss. It has a potential of being far too long, too annoying and too punishing. The main issue is the Counter/Stagger mechanic, which in itself is actually good, but the Counters could be separated from the Staggers. First of all, the Counter would be triggered as it was before, but wouldn’t launch a Stagger immediately afterwards. Instead, the minions would have lower health, and if four members of Beisa’s forces are defeated, he would go to the middle of the room, and then launch a counter, placing a Giant Beisa Banner, preceeded by a special taunt. There would be no invulnerability, as that just enlongates the fight. For the status effects Beisa and his minions inflict, Slow, Paralyze and Sick should be all replaced with Pet Stasis or Expose, as that would still punish players for not dodging well, but not make the fight last terribly long. One final things are the Oryx Elite Falcons. When they are about to explode into a ring of shots, instead they should just go back to their owners, as dying instantly to something is never fun.
Part 4 - Oryx the Mad God 3
Again, the mechanic of Counters and Staggers is just not balanced. Instead of Oryx being staggered or him launching a counter, it would just cause him to switch phase, and if that is done three times in a row, he would be forced to reset, which is enough free damage as is.
4a - General Changes
In all Chase Phases (Armor Crumples, Nowhere to Run, Fate, Beyblade and Shield Bashes) Oryx should stay in place for 1 seconds before chasing, this would mitigate instant deaths post-celestial, or instant deaths overall. In Fury Jumps, he should shoot out four shotguns instead of three, all to make the first one fire when Oryx is standing still. This should further mitigate instant deaths. In his Fireball Chase phase, the Fireballs should inflict Pet Stasis instead of Weak. The only phase with instant deaths that should stay in its current form is Cosmos, as the shots are very clearly telegraphed. In Slashes, he should wait a brief moment before slashing, as this can lead to some unexpected deaths.
Since there are now four runes, instead of three, there are also four Messengers of Oryx, now found at the Cardinal Directions, or on the four Carpets. Each one corresponds to a Buff or a change in attacks, casted upon their lord.
Messenger of Greed (Gem rune) - All messengers move clockwise around the room
Messenger of Gluttony (Axe rune) - All messengers shoot out rings of Weaken Shots
Messenger of Lust (Chaos rune) - Holy beams change into Chaos Beams, dealing 100 additional damage
Messenger of Sloth (Portal rune) - Portals of Oryx deal extra damage
A number of active Messengers also casts a Buff on Oryx:
4 - Invulnerable
3 - Armored
2- Nothing
1 - Exposed
0 - Armor Broken
When Oryx exalts, the buffs change as followed:
4,3 - Invulnerable
2 - Armored
1 - Nothing
0 - Exposed
4b - Pre-Exalted, Dominance, and Dance
In some phases, the Portals of Oryx can deal massive damage to players if sat on, or even instantly kill them. This should be telegraphed by the middle red part flashing white. In Dance, the Dance Artifacts periodically switch places, which could be telegraphed as well.
4c - Exalted
Here, the Portals of Oryx gain the ability to instantly kill any class. This must be telegraphed as shown in part 4b to prevent confusion and punishing deaths. The only phase change here is the Stationary Tornado phase, where the shots could instead shoot out in random directions (although still in equal distances).
4d - Celestial
The Celestial phase used to be very menacing. Now people treat it as breaktime and an opportuinity to score a few free hits. My suggestion to make this phase great again is to add a four-armed spiral of shots similar to what the Meteors shoot out in Cosmos. The gap between the shots would be larger than what the Portals of Oryx give, but since Oryx is constantly on the move, they could overlap, forcing players to squeeze in the gaps of the Pet Stasis shots. In this phase, no Messenger of Oryx can be active, and all are automatically activated after the phase ends. This is the only time that Oryx would be staggered.
4e - Post-Celestial and Heavens
After the first Celestial Phase ends, and Oryx comes back up from his stagger, he gains a new ability: Teleportation. In between each phase, he teleports to the nearest player, and starts a new plahse from there. When he resets after a phase chain, instead of walking to the middle allowing extra damage, he just teleports there, and stays vulnerable for a much, much shorter period. When he is pushed to the Heavens phase, he resets as stated before.
I hope that DECA addresses this topic to the best of their ability.
The Dex/Att buff though, can help too.