Tomb of Annihilation Console Primer: Campaign, Story and System Changes
Console folks, you do not have to wait much longer! Neverwinter’s 12th expansion “Tomb of Annihilation” arrives next Tuesday after the PC version was already able to roam the jungle for the last seven weeks. You know we don’t want you to get lost in the jungle or eaten by a raptor. That’s why our patented primer will brief you on everything you need to know before the launch!
Today we’ll start with some general stuff on the story, campaign and system changes. Until Tuesday we’ll also talk about the new adventure zone and the many gear additions of the module!
Story and Campaign
Tomb of Annihilation’s storyline starts at Sergeant Knox, who sends adventurers to investigate strange happenings in Helm’s Hold. As the story unfolds you are going to assemble a team and travel to Chult, a jungle island in the southern part of the Trackless Sea, off the coast of Calimshan. We don’t want to spoil anything here, but let’s just say not everything goes as planned. The jungle is dangerous and such…
Port Nyanzaru
If you’ve done everything right, you’ll find yourself in Port Nyanzaru, the new social hub of the game. It has all relevant vendors and outside a few quest givers serves as full-fledged replacement to Protector’s Enclave. The port is your starting point to travel the jungles and advance in the new campaign. Players can only enter the corresponding adventure zone Soshenstar River through the city, not the overworld map. All information about Port Nyanzaru is available in our preview article below!
Jungles of Chult Campaign
Your main quest giver for the Jungles of Chult campaign is the Merchant Prince Wakanga O’tamu. The key change of this campaign is that daily progression has been shifted to a weekly one. Similar to Underdark the main currency Totems has a weekly cap, and it’s up to you whether you want to farm progression on one day or split it. It’s absolutely viable to cap the currency on a single day, which makes this one of the better campaigns for alts in case they meet the recommended item level of 12,000.
The devs also continued their approach of giving players more choices within a campaign. There are three paths that players can advance in separately. One path unlocks the Hunting feature, which we’ll talk about at a later point. The second one progresses the story and eventually leads to the new dungeon “Tomb of the Nine Gods”, and the third one unlocks the boons. Our preview and guide about the campaign describes all the option and boons and also walks you through the progression quests. That way you should be able to make the right decision for your toon(s).
- Tomb of Annihilation Jungles of Chult Campaign
- Jungles of Chult Campaign Guide: Structure And Progression
- Jungles of Chult Campaign Guide: Repeatable Progression Quests and Forgotten Totems
Tomb of the Nine Gods
The Tomb of the Nine Gods endgame dungeon challenges parties like never before. In a trap-rich environment you need to watch every step or die! Well… the truth definitely doesn’t keep up with the lore, but “TONG” or “T9G” is definitely the most difficult content to date. The bosses feature several DPS and skill checks and are well designed. That being said, endgame to best-in-slot adventurer’s that are running the usual buff meta shouldn’t run into too much trouble. Lower geared toons could get frustrated however, which is why we definitely recommend average item levels slightly higher than the advertised minimum of 12,000.
- Tomb of Annihilation Preview: Tomb of the Nine Gods
- Thanks to Bugs, Charm of the Serpent Starts With a Bang
- Tomb of the Nine Gods Strategy Guide
System Changes
The bosses in the tomb however are not the only new obstacle that’s thrown towards PVE players. Debuffs are getting reworked significantly and the Armor Penetration requirements slightly adjusted. Debuffs in Tomb of Annihilation not longer cap at +100% damage, but are subject to a 300% cap with diminishing returns. Additionally all debuffs work the same, which makes comparisons a lot easier.
While this means that debuffs are no longer wasted no matter how many you bring to a fight, it’s a nerf to top-end damage. We’ve touched on the math on our PC preview article, but in the end the meta hasn’t changed significantly. It’s just that one tier below your usual 2DC/OP/GF/DPS power composition a lot more classes and variants make sense.
DPS need more ArPen, Tanks more DR%
In addition to that, mobs in Chult feature more resistance ignored and damage resistance, meaning players need to counter with higher Armor Penetration and Defense themselves. The new caps are at 85% (RI) and 105% (DR).
Quality of Life Changes
Tomb of Annihilation will get rid of some long-term bugs and introduce quality of life upgrades. The most important one of those is the quest journal improvement. After this has been a request for quite some time, you’ll finally be able to sort and filter the journal. The article below has all the things that will make players very happy!
PVP
For PVP there is unfortunately not a lot to look forward to in Tomb of Annihilation. A private queue option however finally allows for arranged matches of custom sizes and there are also quite substantial changes to how Armor Penetration and piercing damage works. Overall this module is more of a harbinger of things to come. The devs have started working on PVP and the next mid-module update will finally see more love for the game mode.
That’s the first part of our massive Tomb of Annihilation primer for consoles! Have any questions or remarks? Don’t hesitate, comment below and visit the corresponding thread on our message board!
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