That seems to be its main power, attracting morons.
Been in there several times.
Work my butt off to get it down and then fools start in shooting the frags and healing it. We keep telling them not to hit the large frags that spawn the small healing frags. But they just keep blasting away!
Total waste of time with idiots like that playing. I'd kill for a group in there that has a freaking clue what they are doing. Sick of being penalized for fools that don't have a clue.
Would kill to kick them out of the instance or something.
There's so much misinformation in the zone chat about what do do. Nonsense like "mines heal it." Sure, mines can be a bad idea in there for other reasons, but they don't directly heal the thing.
It's the small shards heading back to the entity that heal it. Also, I think maybe ships getting too close might heal it as well, but I'm not completely sure. I am pretty sure though that shards hitting ships don't heal it.
The one and only time I was in there, they kept shouting on the local TO shoot all the frags or they'll return to the entity and heal it. That shooting the fragments prevented the entity from healing.
Must be why after a half hour I said TRIBBLE it and left.
I was under the impression, that everyone needs to be around9km away, have power into engines, maxxed (reduce shields to compensate), go clockwise around The Crystaline Entity, All fire on CE, in one big group and if thats done correctly, it would be a doddle.
Or something of the like, the problem I seem to be seeing is, well not everyone has the same definition of clockwise and its something spectacular, to be evading the fragments only to have some TRIBBLE litterally fly into you, with a half dozen or so trailing.
Large frags will break up into small frags. If small frags get back to the entity, they heal it. Those are the ones you want to shoot. All other ones should not be shot.
I'm pretty certain that exploding them with your weapons doesn't heal it. we had a team of guys clearing frags with phasers and another team focusing all fire on entity. Almost had it done until some fool dropped mines.
This is where it gets hard to tell whats going on. The fragments heal the thing when they smash into something and explode. Like a player's ship. Whenever anyone takes damage from a fragment, it heals.
Guess what's going on when it hits your mines. Mine's are one of those weapons that show up as a target. The fragments then target them, ram them and explode, causing the mine to explode. The fragments are dealing damage to the mine's, not viceversa.
That being explained I'll some up the problem as I've observed it in one sentance. I'm not claiming this to be accurate, maybe I've correlated my observations wrong, but this is my conclusion based on hours of trying.
The Crystalline Entity heals whenever the fragments deal damage.
I was under the impression, that everyone needs to be around9km away, have power into engines, maxxed (reduce shields to compensate), go clockwise around The Crystaline Entity, All fire on CE, in one big group and if thats done correctly, it would be a doddle.
Or something of the like, the problem I seem to be seeing is, well not everyone has the same definition of clockwise and its something spectacular, to be evading the fragments only to have some TRIBBLE litterally fly into you, with a half dozen or so trailing.
This is the strategy that I use. It doesn't matter if you round it counter or not, so long as everyone's on the same path. I like to stay at different altitudes in relation to the entity as well.
It's OK to shoot the "large" fragments. In fact, doing so will help keep the noobs from getting hit by them. It's when the large ones hit a ship that they break into "small" fragments which fly back and heal the entity. You MUST shoot the small ones on sight or else each one will heal 1 or 2% of the creature.
The CE doesn't start spawning the "large" fragments until it gets down to 35% health, and the small ones only come from the large ones impacting on ships.
I'm pretty certain that exploding them with your weapons doesn't heal it. we had a team of guys clearing frags with phasers and another team focusing all fire on entity. Almost had it done until some fool dropped mines.
This is where it gets hard to tell whats going on. The fragments heal the thing when they smash into something and explode. Like a player's ship. Whenever anyone takes damage from a fragment, it heals.
Guess what's going on when it hits your mines. Mine's are one of those weapons that show up as a target. The fragments then target them, ram them and explode, causing the mine to explode. The fragments are dealing damage to the mine's, not viceversa.
That being explained I'll some up the problem as I've observed it in one sentance. I'm not claiming this to be accurate, maybe I've correlated my observations wrong, but this is my conclusion based on hours of trying.
The Crystalline Entity heals whenever the fragments deal damage.
What peope are missing is that it acts differently under 40%. When it is above that number you can shoot frags all day. Get it down to 40% and the "large fragments" come out. Shoot those and they make small ones that heal it. A few takes it back to full health in no time after half hour or more of knocking it down.
THAT IS THE WORST PART. You work like mad to kill it and one fool comes in shooting large frags and you are right back to square one. One idiot can set back 25 or more good pitlots.
The complete irony of the situation is that (usually) the people who are trying to take charge of the situation are giving all the wrong orders. If left to their own devices, people would normally just shoot everything comming at them, including those large shards that produce small shards when they collide with players. If they would stop trying to complicate matters by trying to tell people to kite the shards (which is possible, but why bother when you don't have to?) and just shoot down all shards period especially any small shards that're produced, the instance would go on much smoother.
And just a point of clarification, large shards do not produce small shards if shot down. They only make them if they successfully hit a player ship.
Failure defined in a post. Man you're bad at logic. This player and those like him are the reason this thing can't be pugged.
It's really a pity.
How is that wrong?
The thing heals when small fragments are killed. If you avoid killing any fragment, and state so simply, then you can't go wrong at all. Avoiding making contact with any fragment, be it with a weapon or your hull and you're in the clear.
Sure, you CAN kill small fragments, but why even make the distinction. I found it easy to avoid all fragments no matter what size... why differentiate? Make it foolproof.
The complete irony of the situation is that (usually) the people who are trying to take charge of the situation are giving all the wrong orders. If left to their own devices, people would normally just shoot everything comming at them, including those large shards that produce small shards when they collide with players. If they would stop trying to complicate matters by trying to tell people to kite the shards (which is possible, but why bother when you don't have to?) and just shoot down all shards period especially any small shards that're produced, the instance would go on much smoother.
And just a point of clarification, large shards do not produce small shards if shot down. They only make them if they successfully hit a player ship.
Kiting IMO is a waste of time. I sit mostly in one place and do great damage that way. Pop up shields if going to get hit. Take the damage.
You should NEVER shoot large frags. Always shoot small frags (contrary to my last post). Of course you only have too if idiots are attacking large ones. The others don't matter at all avoid them. kill them. Does not make a difference.
The thing heals when small fragments are killed. If you avoid killing any fragment, and state so simply, then you can't go wrong at all. Avoiding making contact with any fragment, be it with a weapon or your hull and you're in the clear.
Sure, you CAN kill large fragments, but why even make the distinction. I found it easy to avoid all fragments no matter what size... why differentiate? Make it foolproof.
The thing heals when the small fragments make it back to the entity, not when they're killed.
Also, it's more fool-resistant to tell people to just shoot everything than to expect new players to even understand the concept of kiting.
The thing heals when the small fragments make it back to the entity, not when they're killed.
Also, it's more fool-resistant to tell people to just shoot everything than to expect new players to even understand the concept of kiting.
NO, NO, NO.
Shoot everything and you get a percentage of the, Not all. Since people will be creating small frags by shooting large ones, it will get healed. The most fool proof approach is the shoot no frags method.
BUT... If you do not create small frags, you have no need to hunt them down befoe they heal. Just do not make them in the first place.
THE REAL KEY IS NEVER SHOOT LARGE FRAGS. DON'T DO THAT AND IT DOES NOT GET WHAT IT NEEDS TO HEAL.
and (in reply to that issue) mines do not heal it. But they do hit large frags all them time and create the healing small ones. Do nt use them in entity ecounter.
Then say shoot nothing BUT the entity and avoid everything else. Foolproof.
So foolproof that yelling it zone chat gets everyone to follow it right?
Kiting strategy:
Requires everyone to cooperate. One mistake causes a cascading effect of the entity healing as too many small fragments are created from all the large ones hitting 1 kiter at the same time and people don't react fast enough to shoot down the smaller ones before they go back to the entity.
Shoot everything:
Everyone acts independently. Mistakes have less of an effect as shards are actively being shot down so less smaller fragments will be produced to heal the entity. Since people are actively shooting shards, the smarter ones will also keep an eye out for the small shards to shoot down.\
THE REAL KEY IS NEVER SHOOT LARGE FRAGS. DON'T DO THAT AND IT DOES NOT GET WHAT IT NEEDS TO HEAL.
The small shards go down in one burst. The key is to deny letting those shards get back instead of the inevitable kiter being bombarded by 10+ large shards and producing 30+ small shards that people can't react fast enough to shoot down.
You assume that a competent kiter can handle all the shards. Too bad that there are several groups of large shards that one group will inevitably target a player that can't kite to save his life.
edit: and just some anecdotal evidence, when the entity was first buffed and no one knew any "strategy", every instance that i was in that successfully took it down in less than 30 minutes decided to just TRIBBLE it and fire at will. Now, with everyone yelling "shoot just the entity!", i've yet to be in an instance where the entity's been taken down.
What a mess of a post. So many opinions, wrong ones.
Funny how you didnt bother to actually post any kind of useful information.
Must be fun telling everyone their opinions are wrong, yet providing no reason why. No logic as to why, no winning strategy that you obviously MUST know since we are all wrong.
Comments
It's the small shards heading back to the entity that heal it. Also, I think maybe ships getting too close might heal it as well, but I'm not completely sure. I am pretty sure though that shards hitting ships don't heal it.
The one and only time I was in there, they kept shouting on the local TO shoot all the frags or they'll return to the entity and heal it. That shooting the fragments prevented the entity from healing.
Must be why after a half hour I said TRIBBLE it and left.
Divert all power to engines. Makes you fly fast. Outrunning the shards is a good thing.
Fly in a circle around the Entity avoiding shards and outrunning the rest.
Hit the entity itself with everything you've got until it explodes.
Do NOT shoot at the shards.
Do NOT sit still and shoot at the thing.
So simple, yet so hard to understand for some I guess.
Or something of the like, the problem I seem to be seeing is, well not everyone has the same definition of clockwise and its something spectacular, to be evading the fragments only to have some TRIBBLE litterally fly into you, with a half dozen or so trailing.
This is where it gets hard to tell whats going on. The fragments heal the thing when they smash into something and explode. Like a player's ship. Whenever anyone takes damage from a fragment, it heals.
Guess what's going on when it hits your mines. Mine's are one of those weapons that show up as a target. The fragments then target them, ram them and explode, causing the mine to explode. The fragments are dealing damage to the mine's, not viceversa.
That being explained I'll some up the problem as I've observed it in one sentance. I'm not claiming this to be accurate, maybe I've correlated my observations wrong, but this is my conclusion based on hours of trying.
The Crystalline Entity heals whenever the fragments deal damage.
This is the strategy that I use. It doesn't matter if you round it counter or not, so long as everyone's on the same path. I like to stay at different altitudes in relation to the entity as well.
Very succinctly put.
Never blow up shards, only target the entity.
Simple.
The CE doesn't start spawning the "large" fragments until it gets down to 35% health, and the small ones only come from the large ones impacting on ships.
Failure defined in a post. Man you're bad at logic. This player and those like him are the reason this thing can't be pugged.
It's really a pity.
What peope are missing is that it acts differently under 40%. When it is above that number you can shoot frags all day. Get it down to 40% and the "large fragments" come out. Shoot those and they make small ones that heal it. A few takes it back to full health in no time after half hour or more of knocking it down.
THAT IS THE WORST PART. You work like mad to kill it and one fool comes in shooting large frags and you are right back to square one. One idiot can set back 25 or more good pitlots.
BOOM goes the dynamite!
NEVER SHOOT FRAGS PEOPLE! Just don't.
Simple.
And just a point of clarification, large shards do not produce small shards if shot down. They only make them if they successfully hit a player ship.
How is that wrong?
The thing heals when small fragments are killed. If you avoid killing any fragment, and state so simply, then you can't go wrong at all. Avoiding making contact with any fragment, be it with a weapon or your hull and you're in the clear.
Sure, you CAN kill small fragments, but why even make the distinction. I found it easy to avoid all fragments no matter what size... why differentiate? Make it foolproof.
Kiting IMO is a waste of time. I sit mostly in one place and do great damage that way. Pop up shields if going to get hit. Take the damage.
You should NEVER shoot large frags. Always shoot small frags (contrary to my last post). Of course you only have too if idiots are attacking large ones. The others don't matter at all avoid them. kill them. Does not make a difference.
The thing heals when the small fragments make it back to the entity, not when they're killed.
Also, it's more fool-resistant to tell people to just shoot everything than to expect new players to even understand the concept of kiting.
No. WAY too powerful for a single, even 5 or 10. Need a bunch of folks in there.
Then say shoot nothing BUT the entity and avoid everything else. Foolproof.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzySCmaTLNQ
this was put up before Cryptic removed ramming speed damage.
NO, NO, NO.
Shoot everything and you get a percentage of the, Not all. Since people will be creating small frags by shooting large ones, it will get healed. The most fool proof approach is the shoot no frags method.
BUT... If you do not create small frags, you have no need to hunt them down befoe they heal. Just do not make them in the first place.
THE REAL KEY IS NEVER SHOOT LARGE FRAGS. DON'T DO THAT AND IT DOES NOT GET WHAT IT NEEDS TO HEAL.
and (in reply to that issue) mines do not heal it. But they do hit large frags all them time and create the healing small ones. Do nt use them in entity ecounter.
They removed ramming speed damage? Time to remove ramming speed off the toolbar
Hey, a self-proving thread title. Thats kind of cool
I expect since you seem to thing you know the thing. How about you fill people in rather than pointlessly snarking?
Then we could all see what you do or do not know and maybe you could be useful.
:rolleyes:
So foolproof that yelling it zone chat gets everyone to follow it right?
Kiting strategy:
Requires everyone to cooperate. One mistake causes a cascading effect of the entity healing as too many small fragments are created from all the large ones hitting 1 kiter at the same time and people don't react fast enough to shoot down the smaller ones before they go back to the entity.
Shoot everything:
Everyone acts independently. Mistakes have less of an effect as shards are actively being shot down so less smaller fragments will be produced to heal the entity. Since people are actively shooting shards, the smarter ones will also keep an eye out for the small shards to shoot down.\
The small shards go down in one burst. The key is to deny letting those shards get back instead of the inevitable kiter being bombarded by 10+ large shards and producing 30+ small shards that people can't react fast enough to shoot down.
You assume that a competent kiter can handle all the shards. Too bad that there are several groups of large shards that one group will inevitably target a player that can't kite to save his life.
edit: and just some anecdotal evidence, when the entity was first buffed and no one knew any "strategy", every instance that i was in that successfully took it down in less than 30 minutes decided to just TRIBBLE it and fire at will. Now, with everyone yelling "shoot just the entity!", i've yet to be in an instance where the entity's been taken down.
More pointless snarking? Pitch in or stop wasting everyone's time. Seriously.
:rolleyes:
Funny how you didnt bother to actually post any kind of useful information.
Must be fun telling everyone their opinions are wrong, yet providing no reason why. No logic as to why, no winning strategy that you obviously MUST know since we are all wrong.
FAIL