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Tactical 5 x 5 Tiamat need their own zerg free entry time
tbhdk2
Member Posts: 78
On behalf of all those that prefer to team up and do 5 x 5 Tiamat runs - I urge zergers to allow a window of 20-60 seconds where tactical people can join without having our runs swarmed with zergers.
Apart from the first days of Tiamat where no one knew how to - all my failures have been in zerg games.
All my tactical runs have been successes without a single fail!
Let me illustrate why from two last runs.
1. Run was a success and was mostly a zerg run - but we were five that took on blue dragon and brought him down in the first round - though we were only 14-16 k gs and had a gf in party. But no one died and all had gems so dragon went down - no time wasted running - no time wasted dying.
And the 15-20 zergers? What did they manage in first round - 2 dragons!!! Oh yea zerg rules so hard. /irony
Next round we took white, zergers started at red - after we brought white down we went to help with green and what do we see there - 10 dead people or so - Oh dear zergers not only blue dragons takes gems.
2. Run. Total zerg and totally fail: It all went pretty smooth until blue - oops I was apparently the only one with a blue gem - sorry had to use as the bulk of people entered the platform because dragon made the nasty aoe. Then we start to fight - boom all dead - Guess noone had a second blue gem - Around middle cleric same story - people dying like flies - no one had blue gems and few had white gems as well so did not go to well around the white area cleric either.
Strong dps need less strategy - sure - I been in strong high gs 5 man teams that could kill 1½ dragonhead in just one round. Its all about dps - but zerg is not a good strategy just because it was the first that worked.
If you think that zerg makes up for bad dps especially with the total absence of coordinated gem taking and use. think again.
People walking unable to mount dont dps. Dead people because no gem coordination dont dps. People lagging so extreme their keyboard dont respond dont dps.
So we who dont want to do zerg - WE NEED A WINDOW of 20-60 seconds where zergers dont enter. Plz.
Apart from the first days of Tiamat where no one knew how to - all my failures have been in zerg games.
All my tactical runs have been successes without a single fail!
Let me illustrate why from two last runs.
1. Run was a success and was mostly a zerg run - but we were five that took on blue dragon and brought him down in the first round - though we were only 14-16 k gs and had a gf in party. But no one died and all had gems so dragon went down - no time wasted running - no time wasted dying.
And the 15-20 zergers? What did they manage in first round - 2 dragons!!! Oh yea zerg rules so hard. /irony
Next round we took white, zergers started at red - after we brought white down we went to help with green and what do we see there - 10 dead people or so - Oh dear zergers not only blue dragons takes gems.
2. Run. Total zerg and totally fail: It all went pretty smooth until blue - oops I was apparently the only one with a blue gem - sorry had to use as the bulk of people entered the platform because dragon made the nasty aoe. Then we start to fight - boom all dead - Guess noone had a second blue gem - Around middle cleric same story - people dying like flies - no one had blue gems and few had white gems as well so did not go to well around the white area cleric either.
Strong dps need less strategy - sure - I been in strong high gs 5 man teams that could kill 1½ dragonhead in just one round. Its all about dps - but zerg is not a good strategy just because it was the first that worked.
If you think that zerg makes up for bad dps especially with the total absence of coordinated gem taking and use. think again.
People walking unable to mount dont dps. Dead people because no gem coordination dont dps. People lagging so extreme their keyboard dont respond dont dps.
So we who dont want to do zerg - WE NEED A WINDOW of 20-60 seconds where zergers dont enter. Plz.
Post edited by tbhdk2 on
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And yet another failed zerg can be added - I think I was the only one grabbing a blue gem - Nice dps group obviously could easily have succeded - but like I said dead people dont dps or protect cleric.
Really highest successrate? I tried joining at 2.35 - I tried joining at 0.50 - 0.30 etc. But i had more zerg failures than successes for some reason I had 8 zerg successes yesterday and only one failure - but usually its more failures than wins - including today with 4 failures in five - just one cause bug.
Like i said I never failed in a tactical 5 x 5. Now tactical are impossible to do cause everybody wants to zerg.
Try to notice alone how many seconds goes by walking around. Add to that lag and general ignorance as to who has what gems - no its really a bad tactic.
If most people want to do it - so be it - but there should be a window where those that want to do 5 x 5 teams can enter and be free of zergers.
I joined this channel and hope more will do.
Idiot proof? like in the game where I was the only one picking up a blue gem? or the game where I saw 10 people wiped by green?
- Group formation: This is where it fails earliest and hardest. Five groups of five have to form. Some people are, for whatever reason, absolutely obsessed with being on a certain head and will not join another team; you'll be yelling BLUE FULL and they're still spamming 'inv blue' or following you to the summoner/fighting the head. The last five or so times I saw people try to use tactical, at LEAST one group didn't form, often two, and at that point you are in a failed instance.
- Group composition: Who you get willing to do a given head is not necessarily a group that can actually do anything with that head. A recent white team I formed ended up with two GFs, my CW, a DC, and a SW who got disconnected thirty seconds in and never reconnected. Guess how our DPS was, even with me using tab Ray Of Enfeeblement. Go on, guess. You end up with horribly squishy groups, or tanky groups with no DPS, etc. And of course this is assuming groups form.
- Group flexibility: Who can go where, when, and who knows when they need to. Who can provide DPS to a needy head but not leave the party without enough DPS to handle their own? Can anyone? Are you going to a head you can survive/quickly reach? For example, blue can easily and quickly shift to white head since it's a quick jump down and the white gem is not actually vital; but the reverse does not hold true and a white going to blue has to run back and around, and hope whoever is at blue, if anyone, has and is intelligently using the gems. If white and blue both have fantastic DPS but green and black are lagging, the run time is awkward. Depending on your location and composition, you may not be able to do anything even if you see it needing to be done but not being done.
- Coordination: Everyone absolutely has to at least understand enough English to get directions. People have to take leadership roles - Forming the parties is just part of it; recognizing where things need to be directed to and directing them there is another part. Nobody actually wants to be a drill sergeant, though, and typing out directions takes time during which you could be attacking. Further, everyone has to actually be with the strategy. Just five zergers will ruin an attempted tactics run, because they will never fall in line and will just try to zerg anyway. They will not join or form parties, they will not listen to directions to go to a specific head, they will simply go to black and try to zerg even though nobody else is.
All of these are huge failure points. Any one of these alone is enough to sink a run.
So, the thing with Zerg is, if you get a zerg with at least some intelligent people in it, it's actually difficult to fail. The zerg requires only a few things to succeed:
- Green and blue soul gems: Black, red, and white are of course nice to have, and you do usually end up with at least a couple each of those, but you need to make very clear at the outset that green and blue are vital and get at least a couple of each in the hands of people who know what they're doing. When this is reminded and acted upon, this alone will save a LOT of death and lost time.
- An order: Black to white is the most common. Split works too(People at white and black, meet in middle) but is harder to coordinate. This is the easiest part to get right; most people default to starting black by now anyway.
- Knowing when to stop: 'Stop at 15%/4 bars of health/whatever marker' is a good instruction but not always understood by non-English speakers; however almost everyone understands someone yelling 'STOP'. Watch the HP. Bear DoTs in mind. Before it gets to the actual stop point, yell out stop. Others will join, since others know this too, and enough people yelling will get the zerg to cool it. Honestly, most zergs know this by now anyway.
- Knowing when to do nothing: So all the heads are at 15% and you've got 30 seconds left on your second head phase. You aren't killing them all now. Don't try; start directing people 'Don't kill'. A semi-decent zerg knows this and will pull back and derp around for the 30 seconds or whatever until third Cleric phase, clear that, and go for the kill 3rd round just like a decent tactics run.
- Cleric distribution: Tactical has a big advantage here; it's easy enough to say/know that white goes to Dreamer, Blue/Red/Green go to Linu, and black goes to Moondancer. But zergs still pass cleric phase. Watch what's lagging. Remind people to fight off the clerics. Go where you need to go, call for more where it needs to be. If Linu is lagging call for more to Linu, if the Dreamer has like two people on it go over there and maybe call for a couple more to help.
- Coordination: There will be zerg. Too many people want it at this point. You cannot avoid it completely. If enough are calling for zerg in your instance that it will destroy a tactical run, then go zerg - But coordinate it. Watch life totals, make sure gems are acquired and used, know when to stop, etc.
The thing with Zerg, in the end, is that it's as much a tactic as the tactical 5x5 approach, and needs to be handled the same way - With an eye to the tactics of what's going on. I spent over a week pissed off at zergers until I realized that honestly, it doesn't matter how Tiamat dies as long as she dies. And the way to ensure she dies is to make sure everyone is on the same page. If 12 people are stubbornly clinging to tactics while another 13 zerg, that's going to fail an instance. Both tactics are completely valid and can lead to success, if they are handled right.
So, if your instance won't form parties and people are shouting zerg and insisting on zerg, adjust. Zerg. But zerg smart.
I believe this encounter is largely devoid of any tactics though especially when you compare it to any other raid in any other MMO
I've heard people express this thought before, I don't understand it. You'll only be able to queue as a party of 5 from my understanding which means you're still being stuck with 20 random puggers that may decide to do anything. I don't understand how that even has the potential to change anything. Can you explain your thoughts on why it will make a difference?
It will be similar to how certain groups of parties sync their queues for Gauntlgrym. The party leaders will communicate on raidcall or through a custom channel or by pms.
I wish Cryptic would just expand the party system to more than 5 players like a regular MMO but this method works in the meantime.
Yea this fails about every run. I seen it again and again it just never have meant the whole run fails - since there basically always are 1-2 strong groups that can go to the nearest. If there are two blue teams - it just means that enough has the most important gem. I take that over to few any time.
Like I said I never failed a tactical run outside the first 3 days of Tiamat, where no one had a clue. All you mentioned I have experienced - its no where near as big a drawback as lag, wasting time walking - lack of gems both in boss and defend cleric phase.
Today alone I been in 4 failed zergs - yesterday it was only 1 fail and 8 succeses - the day before it was 7 failures and 1 success.
I dont know how many times I have to repeat that in 20 tacticals I never had one failure. For all above reasons I had a lot of failures in zerg.
People are dying like flies all the time in zergs because to few use gems at cleric - split movement towards green meaning that some dude walk up there alone - dragon starts his aoe just as the bulk of other people come. Lag so bad that encounters fail.
It works smooth when a lot of dps is present, so much that only one gem is really needed. If more gems are needed - you cant count on them being there.
Basically if a group of 5 can kill 1½ dragon head in one round - then 10 high dps can ensure any run being a success. On the opposite a full zerk group that cant even kill black dragon first round or just that - will never succeed. Yea I actually experienced that.
Let me put it like this: If we have a case where the dps is just about enough and not much more- I think tactical would be the only chance of success - because if people are dying more because of bad coordination of gem use in both dragonheads and clerics phase - on top of spending 30-50 % of the time walking between dragons. Then any collective buff can not make up for it.
Actually if you notice some zerg runs fails in the last phase though dragons are broght down in first two. Due to low dps and long walks.
Zerg or not, I typically form a strong DPS party and then go to blue and drop blue to 15% then work on white. The other 20 should be able to drop the first 3 dragons to 15%. Then in 2nd phase just kill all dragons and switch to another instance for another shot at favor.
Most of my fail instances happened because of bugs, and most zerg and 5x5 tactics worked successfully.
I've had this experience several times. Look if you are stuck in a zerg go tactics blue. 5 tactics players can drop vlue and most of white without much difficulty. Let the herd handle the other three. On a side note? When 20% of the players do 40% of the damage you tend to score really high.....
With the current setup, it's 24 people screaming "zerg, no tactics, no zerg, no tactics..." and repeat ad infinitum.
With the proposed 5 party queue, that's still only reducing the number of cats to herd to 4--and that's assuming the rest of your OWN party will listen.
Either strategy has its pros and cons. The biggest issue, though, is coordination of said strategies. NW is not a raid-centric game...this was devised to respond to the cries of larger group content, and does not--and I will repeat, DOES NOT--have the mechanics to support a full on 25-person guild only party; and any experienced raider would know that to set up such a party is a migraine in the making. Most people would be turned off also by the idea of joining what would amount to a "hardcore raiding" guild where they literally have to sign away blocks of their lives to participate in this on the hour, every hour they are playing.
But I digress there. Bottom line is that unless everyone can get on the same page, any suggestion is still a roll of the dice.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
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If Tiamat encounter changes then 5 player group or other real tactics are welcome, now just need do what instance want.
I've done 95 successful runs so far. I've gotten my off-hand and my two boons with favors. There were around 4 times where I got 2 favors in one event.
The only times I succeeded were by zerging, but I would usually play with 3-7 guildmates.
The benefit of zerging is that even people with no gear will actually be able to do SOME damage, because of all the debuffs in place.
The most frustrating for me was people stacking on the clerics, holding mob aggro on them and slowing down the cleric phase.
It depends on the group. If you have a lot of notable PVP guilds in your instance, that is a good way to know you will be successful.
(YES! in a PVE environment, top PVP guilds are still the best players)
I think if you wanna zerg you better of forming a good team for green alone or starting with green to white first round - then split in two groups next round - white and black.
Well the pvp guilds usually have high gs - but they rarely lead the dps table - cause they are often specced for pvp.
Yes I am referring to "guilds" and not individual players. There is a pattern though with PVP guilds and very fast clears. To be honest, I have a hard time rationalizing the dps table. Half of what you are doing is control the mobs from the cleric.
I do get your point that a BIS PVE player will outperform a BIS PVP player in dps.
your zerg runs have been full of dumbs then (don't worry its not uncommon, and the reason why everyone zergs anyway)
half the zerg should grab green gem (the other half should grab blue), there will always be a straggler or 2 that grabs the other colors (not really needed but they do). as you are charging up the ramp you drop a row of protective shields leaving a clear path through the poison cloud all the way up to melee range (about 6-7 green gems used to get all the way to melee range under the head). By the time the poison clears you should be done with green head, if done before the field is gone then the other ppl with gems can just make a pathway out. You will only need to use green gem this one time in round 1 and then in Round 2 (or 3 if scrub dps zergs) when you are finishing off the heads. If it takes you longer than ~40 seconds per head (iirc the current cooldown on dragon's breath) then your zerg is fail anyway. you should be able to drop at least 3 heads to 15% in the first round.
I am very sceptical, having had the precise opposite experience. I earned my offhand and cloak in a couple of days, and most of the kills were in the second head phase too.
5x5 is too vulnerable to idiots. Heck, get a GF or two in a group, and that particular head will lag badly behind the rest, due to lack of DPS. Travel time between the heads means it's quite hard to recover from a screwup with 5x5- and they happen far more often.