Unofficial interserver 9 Trials competition Nov 9-Nov 15

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

This is an interserver competition/comparison of progression in the still new 9 Trials instance. Make what you will of it, if response is good, I or I'm sure somebody else will try to keep an updated weekly tracking for entertainment or bragging rights purposes. If there's Enough response, I'll try to keep records updated daily or more as to how each server's top 3 factions are progressing in the 9 trials.

If the GMs would be willing, something official like this with potential for winning faction to get a small reward (such as a charm rewarded to each member) or the winning faction's server to get a 2x drop event for the following weekend seems like a great idea, to me at least.

For ease of tracking, only factions on the second cycle of trials or better will be recorded, but feel free to post before that point in case 3 factions on your server haven't gotten to the second cycle, first to a point will show for the end of the week. To avoid accusations of falsification, try to post a game dated screenshot of the boss of the trial you're claiming to have completed with a picture of the boss of that trial with your character icon and that boss's hp visible.

Tracking preparation (by server age PvP->PvE)

Vengeful-LC 9T 2-8
Fac2-LC 9T 2-?
Fac3-LC 9T 2-?

GoldDigrz-HT 9T 3-6/7
Fac2-HT 9T 2-?
Fac3-HT 9T 2-?

Legendary-Sanc 9T 3-1
Fac2-Sanc 9T 2-?
Fac3-Sanc 9T 2-?

Fac1-HL 9T 2-?
Fac2-HL 9T 2-?
Fac3-HL 9T 2-?

Regenesis-DW 9T 2-5
Fac2-DW 9T 2-?
Fac3-DW 9T 2-?

Fac1-RT 9T 2-?
Fac2-RT 9T 2-?
Fac3-RT 9T 2-?

Fac1-Arch 9T 2-?
Fac2-Arch 9T 2-?
Fac3-Arch 9T 2-?

Please keep this thread on topic with only honest reporting of how far along your faction gets in The 9 Trials after tonight's reset until the end of the Week's trials. If your faction doesn't do the 9 Trials, I'm sorry for you.

9T 3-2 boss Feel free to marvel at the clutter I play in. And yes, that's approx 240M hp. If 9T 1-2's boss has 240m, then the higher hp bosses each cycle belief is debunked and posting the entry text for the next trial after the claimed completion will be the screenshot of choice, if not, it's supported.

ResMePls - Heavens Tear

First pers0n t0 ask why Disa's name is n0t cr0ssed 0ut fails....

Disarmonia_X - Heavens Tear

o.o; This should be a interesting read...

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

GoldDigrz 9T 1-2 argument about increasing hp settled.

krittycat

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

GoldDigrz 9T 1-2 argument about increasing hp settled.

That's a lot of balls.b:shocked

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

KrittyCat wrote: »

That's a lot of balls.b:shocked

Only 5, there were like 9 last Saturday during the second cycle

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

Anybody farther than 9T 1-9 yet this week

Wadzio - Lost City

Vengeful (Lost City) starting round 2 now.

Im starting to think that going further than finishing round is pointless... The rewards are the same, but the charm **** and difficulty of round 3 is not propotional... I guess we will finish the 2nd round and maybe 2 trials from round 3 as going further seems pointless atm...

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

GoldDigrz-HT on 9T 2-6 strangely enough my screenshots aren't saving properly sometimes, still getting the screenshot saved popup, just no screeny. So here's 9T 2-2.

Update: 8:46 pm 2-6 finished starting 2-7 any minute now Okay, so, apparantly, taking the quest and d/c'ing= quest doesn't start and can't be picked back up... Stuck at 2-7 for the moment. ZZZ

In the meantime, for those whose factions don't do the trials, or can't complete them to get to all nine stages, here's some pictures without interface:

9T x-1 Water Room
9T x-2 Boss Room
9T x-3
9T x-6
9T x-7
9T x-9

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

Well GoldDigrz-HT has now complete 3-2 for this week, and aiming to at least get to 3-9 this go round if not beat it.

More people/factions need to post on this thread, regardless of your success/failure, it'd be good to see how the trials are going as a whole.

Wadzio - Lost City

We got to 2-8 yesterday... Got screwed with 2-1, because we had 50+ on each elements and the number was not divided by 5. We had to wait on saturday 5h to reset this trial as paying 1m was not changing the count and we had always the wrong ammount of elements.b:angry This made us only reach 2-8 yesterday, instead of getting to 3-1 which is our goal for everyweek. I believe cuz of charm use we wont be going further. If the rewards from bosses/quests would be higher it would be worth it, but the way it is kinda pointless.

On side note I wanted to ask You, if You have recasted any item on Heavens Tear? By now You should have more than enough mats to make it and im still wondering what is the cost of keeping shards/refines etc.

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

Wadzio - Lost City wrote: »

We got to 2-8 yesterday... Got screwed with 2-1, because we had 50+ on each elements and the number was not divided by 5. We had to wait on saturday 5h to reset this trial as paying 1m was not changing the count and we had always the wrong ammount of elements.b:angry This made us only reach 2-8 yesterday, instead of getting to 3-1 which is our goal for everyweek. I believe cuz of charm use we wont be going further. If the rewards from bosses/quests would be higher it would be worth it, but the way it is kinda pointless.

On side note I wanted to ask You, if You have recasted any item on Heavens Tear? By now You should have more than enough mats to make it and im still wondering what is the cost of keeping shards/refines etc.

I haven't personally, but there was a shop buying trial mats at ridiculous prices that's gone now. But the owner of that shop's a **** and would probably give misinformation for his own entertainment. I think my girlfriend only needs the non-memorial coin mats for her first recast, so should hopefully be done with that next week unless the trial end packs are unkind to us.

Don't see why stop at 3-1, it's easy, and the boss isn't that bad if you allow one person to hold aggro constantly. 3-2's relatively easy as well, it just becomes a ***** from 3-3 to 3-5 which is where it seems we've stopped this week (3-3). Will hopefully have the chienkun info for you on sockets at least next week, though I'd assume it'd be about the same as second nirvana recast. Sadly it doesn't seem like there's enough server wide interest in the trials (some factions actually trying to keep it secret from their members when they're doing the trials) so they'll probably die out in 3 months or so, which is sad to me, 'cause I'm really enjoying them, and the challenge is better than anything other than tw currently in the game.

Wadzio - Lost City

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Don't see why stop at 3-1, it's easy, and the boss isn't that bad if you allow one person to hold aggro constantly. 3-2's relatively easy as well, it just becomes a ***** from 3-3 to 3-5 which is where it seems we've stopped this week (3-3). Will hopefully have the chienkun info for you on sockets at least next week, though I'd assume it'd be about the same as second nirvana recast. Sadly it doesn't seem like there's enough server wide interest in the trials (some factions actually trying to keep it secret from their members when they're doing the trials) so they'll probably die out in 3 months or so, which is sad to me, 'cause I'm really enjoying them, and the challenge is better than anything other than tw currently in the game.

Well its not abt the mobs part that we can deal pretty easy with, but the boss part. Some of the bosses go berserk at some point and hit very hard with AoE's. Holding agro part is kinda hard when You have so many +12 R9 ppl in a guild. On side note its funny to have mages, psychics, seekers tanking bosses. Anyway the tank part is fine, the AoE sux a bit :P

I'm actually an optimist. I remember when GMs implemented Nirvana back in the days. It looked pretty much like now with Trials. Ppl had event gears from anni packs, were thinking that Nirvana is useless, farming it takes too long (dont forget APS builds werent that popular yet), so to complete 1 nirvana You needed like 20-30minutes and You were getting 1 rapt and 3-4 unc. But once ppl started to get those items, others realised how good and helpful it can be, so more and more ppl were interested to get nv gears, more ppl started to farm it. I believe the same thing will happen with R8 recasted items - once they start appearing on the servers, more ppl will be interested in getting them.

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

Wadzio - Lost City wrote: »

Well its not abt the mobs part that we can deal pretty easy with, but the boss part. Some of the bosses go berserk at some point and hit very hard with AoE's. Holding agro part is kinda hard when You have so many +12 R9 ppl in a guild. On side note its funny to have mages, psychics, seekers tanking bosses. Anyway the tank part is fine, the AoE sux a bit :P

Tip to keeping aoe for 9T 3-1 (or anything essentially) let your r9 +12 sin with the most DoTs be the only DD for the first 10mil(about 45 seconds prob) (other than debuffing) if they keep aggro, the aoe should only happen twice from what I saw.

3-2 never saw the boss kill anybody.

Oh, and apparantly GoldDigrz is still going this week, attempting 3-5 tonight(3-6, 3-7 will be easy after 3-5), hopefully we have enough, and enough of the right, people on in the middle of the week.

Wadzio - Lost City wrote: »

I'm actually an optimist. I remember when GMs implemented Nirvana back in the days. It looked pretty much like now with Trials. Ppl had event gears from anni packs, were thinking that Nirvana is useless, farming it takes too long (dont forget APS builds werent that popular yet), so to complete 1 nirvana You needed like 20-30minutes and You were getting 1 rapt and 3-4 unc. But once ppl started to get those items, others realised how good and helpful it can be, so more and more ppl were interested to get nv gears, more ppl started to farm it. I believe the same thing will happen with R8 recasted items - once they start appearing on the servers, more ppl will be interested in getting them.

I hope you're right on this... cost at current prices for a weap first reroll: approx 350 mil, if you can find sellers, very glad to be among the farmers atm (though we're keeping the mats, most of us at least)

In any case, any determined faction that can get 50 eligible players on at once to do trials should be 100% capable of doing 9T 1-1 thru 2-2 once they figure out how.

Zarni - Dreamweaver

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear wrote: »

Sadly it doesn't seem like there's enough server wide interest in the trials (some factions actually trying to keep it secret from their members when they're doing the trials) so they'll probably die out in 3 months or so, which is sad to me, 'cause I'm really enjoying them, and the challenge is better than anything other than tw currently in the game.

This is the situation on Dreamweaver as well (I don't know about the factions keeping it secret thing, though I wouldn't doubt it). Even with a faction sign up and schedule posted we're having a hard time getting more than 15-20 people interested at any one time, that's out of 50+ average online and about 190 total active members. Perhaps people have yet to see the profit they can make, perhaps it's just easier to farm tt/nirvana all day with their normal 3-4 person squad than try something challenging that takes more effort than spark-macro.


We did get a bit of a late start since our trial didn't reset till a day and a half after maint last week, but we're currently stalled on 2-5 with plans to resume tomorrow. As far as I know we're the farthest in on Dreamweaver, but I haven't really tried to find out for sure.

Valirah - Sanctuary

Legendary on Sanctuary finished up 3-1 today. Interest already starting to drop off. b:sad

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

After much time organizing, and about 1 1/2 hours killing, 9T 3-5 is completed by GoldDigrz! At around 30% health he started doing a nasty aoe that was one shotting several people. Personally I think one of the archers started getting aggro due to sin/barb/bm deaths and the boss was aoeing when it would get ranged aggro. Also it seems this is another boss like the 9T x-3 boss that buffs itself when anybody dies, so make sure to have a veno handy to purge rather than rely on purge bows.

Prettier pic 9T 3-5 Metal room:

Oh, and we beat 9T 3-6 today too: Nice trick to be shared with everybody, one strong (under+12) psy should be responsible for the Wicked Bise Adds. Hit once with a nice large AOE, I suggest sandburst, and let them start heading towards the psy. Once they're far enough from the tanks, the psy spams other aoes on them and whammo, splodey with no deaths. Side note: make sure all other range DDs and healers are standing on opposite side of the Bise Killer.


I'm going to bed, but the fac's gonna attempt 9T 3-7, if they don't finish this one, I 100% blame maintenance ;D

Valirah - Sanctuary wrote: »

Legendary on Sanctuary finished up 3-1 today. Interest already starting to drop off. b:sad

Yeah, can be difficult for us to get people motivated as well beyond 2-8, unless they see a couple choice people joining in, then they know it's gonna be an easy go and speak up willing to go as there's much less chance of failure.

Tip for those doing 9T x-9, getting through the mobs and failing to kill the boss in the 50 minute time limit. Make sure to have a seeker available at the initial aggro of the boss, his first hit is a 20% hp debuff which the seeker can quid pro quo right back onto the boss. At 9T 2-9 that's 75m of the bosses hp gone instantly.

Wadzio - Lost City

@Aneurysmal

Im not saying 3-1 is difficult. We passed it already too. Your suggestion to have a r9+12 sin to tank boss for 45seconds wont work in our guild. Simple as it is - all are getting the blessing of the gods which is significantly increasing Your dmg while using skill. Im 100% sure that 99% of sin during trials just use 3 spark macro. Even 45 seconds of sin solo hitting boss wont be enough to hold agro for longer than next 45 seconds... Im not sure what kind of characters You have in Your guild and their equipement, but we have way too many R9+12 psychics, mages, eas, etc to waste time with a sin trying to hold agro. I rather use the old fashion way of tanking bosses, with a r9 barb using fresh ream and holding agro. Still it doesnt prevent bosses from doing the AoE's.

Also not sure abt prices on Your server but I dont think the cost will be so high. On side note if You can implement a system to farm for those R8 recasts at guild lvl the farming is pretty much for free and the pace is not bad.

As for Trial 5 I already see we have different strategy by looking at Your screen. 1st of all we dont tangling mire, dont zhen, dont AoE (we avoid this in trial 6 too). 2nd thing we pull boss to the other side of the room, so in case any1 die can easily come back to the room without getting smashed by the boss, cuz his party is unprepared. You can tell me but then You dont have dragons etc. We do if You play it smart You can dragon the boss, just setup it in different way

Anyway gratz for going so far.

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

Wadzio - Lost City wrote: »

@Aneurysmal

Im not saying 3-1 is difficult. We passed it already too. Your suggestion to have a r9+12 sin to tank boss for 45seconds wont work in our guild. Simple as it is - all are getting the blessing of the gods which is significantly increasing Your dmg while using skill. Im 100% sure that 99% of sin during trials just use 3 spark macro. Even 45 seconds of sin solo hitting boss wont be enough to hold agro for longer than next 45 seconds... Im not sure what kind of characters You have in Your guild and their equipement, but we have way too many R9+12 psychics, mages, eas, etc to waste time with a sin trying to hold agro. I rather use the old fashion way of tanking bosses, with a r9 barb using fresh ream and holding agro. Still it doesnt prevent bosses from doing the AoE's.

Also not sure abt prices on Your server but I dont think the cost will be so high. On side note if You can implement a system to farm for those R8 recasts at guild lvl the farming is pretty much for free and the pace is not bad.

As for Trial 5 I already see we have different strategy by looking at Your screen. 1st of all we dont tangling mire, dont zhen, dont AoE (we avoid this in trial 6 too). 2nd thing we pull boss to the other side of the room, so in case any1 die can easily come back to the room without getting smashed by the boss, cuz his party is unprepared. You can tell me but then You dont have dragons etc. We do if You play it smart You can dragon the boss, just setup it in different way

Anyway gratz for going so far.

9T 3-7 boss:

First, any sin with half a brain should be powerdashing every 30 seconds in PvE. At r9 +12 4.0 that's generally between 6 and 10m per spark. At r9+12, all debuffs on a boss(including soulshatter), a psychic will be hitting for about 12m if every single hit crits, and about 75% of the battle will be out of spark and unless you've got 20 seekers, also without soulsever which the r9+12 psy will average about 1-2m per 15 seconds. Even a +12 full r9 demon strength barb will lose aggro to a sparked equivalent sin, so, that may explain your large numbers of aoes on 9T 3-1.

GoldDigrz does have a system in place to earn the r8 mats from the faction, but for quickest achievement, there's still interfaction purchasing. Right now on the market shops are buying adamantine whetstones for upwards of 500k (which should go down hopefully) and oricalcum ores for upwards of 7.5 m. Hence very expensive first roll.

Trial 5, the only reason for the zhen was to compensate for mistakes and build up the points in that room (metal was kinda low with 180 when the boss got spawned). It also frees up more allowance for subseas and heavens flames on the boss as mobs won't be aggroed (they hit for a lot more in 9T 3-5 than they did in 9T 2-5 or 9T 1-5). Unless there's a feature of the game I don't know about, I'm assuming by dragons you mean heaven's flame. In any case our tactics for 9T 3-5 were a lot more specialized than they were for 9T 2-5 or 9T 1-5, as we learned from our mistakes last week.

Also for 9T 3-6 the reason for my above listed tactic is the Wicked Bises will actually explode and hit an aps geared bm for upwards of 20k each, the bm in my squad actually tested with his low mag res gear and phys marrow and got hit for over 120k by one explosion. Also pulling them away allows for the freedom of the additional debuffs like tangling mire and a much quicker boss kill.

And wow, my punctuation in some of that was dumber than ever, oh well, WTB grammar police!

Retsuko - Heavens Tear

I don't really get this thread or the purpose, nor did i keep count of how many trials radiance did so far b:surrender

Aneurysmal - Heavens Tear

It had the intent of knowing what trial each server's factions completed, and how each server measured up to the others, considering response was low, well, it flopped. Nobody needed to know what trials their faction did to respond to this thread, all they had to do was go to the trial teleporter in the center of guild base and figure it out. 1-x I still have no clue what it says, 2-x it says increased difficulty, 3-x it says only for the elite. And the second number is governed by trial title: (1)Balance (2)Defense (3)Towers (4)Duty (5)Elements (6)Eternity (7)Sacrifice (8)Exodus (9)Salvation

Wadzio - Lost City

Vengeful already on round 2 this week. Went extremely fast and smooth. If no glitches we might try to go ham this week on round 3 too just to see how nasty it will be (god bless the charms sale).

Though it pretty much sux that no other guild on our server passed 1-9 yet... Just weird...