Boomslang Raid

I think we should start with wing 5 and move to other kills for the last 40 min or so.

We'll stick with pyro and Mold on chrono. Twisted and Maia on Druid.

Khani on scourge.

We'd like to get more condi soulbeasts on the field, given their strength with ranged dps and the ability to help out with the golems.

So I've been thinking about the first boss more. I feel like I didn't have the clearest concept of the two strategies before, but here's what I see now.

Option 1. Druid/scourge management

1. Group stays together, kites boss around circle "track" right outside of white circles on floor

2. When add spawns wait until it runs to the group

3. Druid steps towards middle and hits glyph of tides to push mob outwards

4. Scourge epis

5. Druid (and other helpers if necessary/available) pushes add further out with LB 4 or whatever else they have

I was doing a bad job of doing this consistently last night which made Khani's job very difficult. I will check my footage to see where I was messing up, but I'm pretty sure it was a positioning issue (step 3ish). I'm willing to try again or someone else can take over.

Option 2: Chrono/Berserker management

1. Add spawns

2. Chrono kites it over to the other side of the platform accompanied by the berserker

3. They position and kill the add and run back to the group

4. Druids use long range heals to keep the offtank chrono/berserker up

Looks like Snow Crows used something similar to Option 2. Until it breaks down around 40% 

I would love to try doing the pushing for option 1 Maia. Not because Id be any better at it but it just seems fun. Maybe we can both take some turns at it. Great breakdown of the steps too, thanks. 

I also think the Scourge/epi process works but it may be even easier to just have a Soulbeast shoot the golem with SB 4,2, aa's if that combo will indeed kill the thing. The shortbow 4 providing cripple and immob seems really good. The dps soulbeast could start AAing the golem as soon as it pops and then hit SB4 once the first KB is done. 

Regardless of what classes we use, I think 2 things are key: The pushing druid needs to anticipate the timing of the add spawns because if it spawns on the group it needs to get bounced right away, otherwise it gets cleaved to fast; and also I think we need to assign a backup pusher, whether that's the second druid (totally viable IMO if we are running 3 healers) or some other class. We were doing that last night with a collective effort but I think it would maybe be better to have 1 person assigned because we are already forfeiting a ton of dps with 5 non dps'ers in the group.

Im also fine with range healing if we want to try option 2. The main issue I have with that strat is putting more on the Chronos who already seem to have enough on their plate for this encounter.

Thanks for that breakdown, Maia. I'm pretty enamored with strat 1. SC's approach just seems much more fragile to me. And I think you're both right that putting more bandwidth toward anticipating the spawns and positioning yourself (as a druid) near the middle, is probably a crucial part of the process. I hadn't thought that through so much last night.

For what it's worth, here's a vid of strat 1, executed pretty well.

52 minutes ago, Twisted said:

I would love to try doing the pushing for option 1 Maia. Not because Id be any better at it but it just seems fun. Maybe we can both take some turns at it. Great breakdown of the steps too, thanks. 

I also think the Scourge/epi process works but it may be even easier to just have a Soulbeast shoot the golem with SB 4,2, aa's if that combo will indeed kill the thing. The shortbow 4 providing cripple and immob seems really good. The dps soulbeast could start AAing the golem as soon as it pops and then hit SB4 once the first KB is done. 

Regardless of what classes we use, I think 2 things are key: The pushing druid needs to anticipate the timing of the add spawns because if it spawns on the group it needs to get bounced right away, otherwise it gets cleaved to fast; and also I think we need to assign a backup pusher, whether that's the second druid (totally viable IMO if we are running 3 healers) or some other class. We were doing that last night with a collective effort but I think it would maybe be better to have 1 person assigned because we are already forfeiting a ton of dps with 5 non dps'ers in the group.

Im also fine with range healing if we want to try option 2. The main issue I have with that strat is putting more on the Chronos who already seem to have enough on their plate for this encounter.

The push timing is definitely tricky. However looking at Molds video again (that's LN I believe) they allow the golem to get pretty close before they push. At least that's what I see when I look at the first few golem spawns.

I totally agree about back up pusher. The fight is hectic and stuff goes wrong. Maybe when we're more experienced we can do without. 

I also like the Soulbeast idea. It would allow us to save Epis for the worms. They re spawn in Challenge Mode I believe.

I don't actually think thats LN Maia, I'm pretty sure thats an NA guild.  I have to double check on character names but I'm 99% sure of the scourges is an old guildie of mine and he's 100% not an EU player.

That being said I would very much prefer strat 1 but with the preface of, and this is a BIG if because I've not been doing the knockbacks so I don't know the timing at all, the druids can sort of direct the offtank I think to make their knockbacks easier.  Not to the degree of the chrono going all the way out like in strat 2 but if say the druid wants to know a golem towards a certain direction, I think that they should be able to plan for that and coordinate no?  A sort of mix of the two strats I guess?

Good to know. Someone said that in a pug of mine, but it didn't make much sense.

I was thinking it would be good if we pushed diagonal behind us, sort of behind and out. Could the off chrono try to stand in the back of the group?

45 minutes ago, Maia said:

Good to know. Someone said that in a pug of mine, but it didn't make much sense.

I was thinking it would be good if we pushed diagonal behind us, sort of behind and out. Could the off chrono try to stand in the back of the group?

Definitely an option! I think we need to try to be right on the circle line if we're going to go this route (in order to keep the golem from spawning too close to group).

I hate to beat a dead horse, but I still think the scourge should consider taking sand swell as an "oh shit" button. If we get stuck in a bad place because of wall rng it could save the run. I've been in a few pugs now where the long wall was approaching and we couldn't easily get to a safe spot because of reds. Especially when the platform is at its smallest. I realize our new golem strat should fix this problem, but accidents happen.

20 hours ago, Mold said:

Definitely an option! I think we need to try to be right on the circle line if we're going to go this route (in order to keep the golem from spawning too close to group).

I was actually thinking of tanking it almost on the edge of the arena to make it easier to get the majority of the red aoe off into the void instead of on the platform.  The golem spawns in the middle of the platform correct? So we'd also have more time to react to it and avoid cleaving it that way.

1) I like the idea of pushing it behind us i.e. where we just were

2) I am a strong believer in having a plan B for mechanics which are often problematic.  Right now I would say that's tricky walls, and add dying on group and condi bombing us.

3) I have a soulbeast but I don't know how to drive the thing.  Happy to swap to that however.

4) If the boss is faced inwards, and the group positions between the boss and the outside of the platform, this might alleviate unintentional cleave damage, especially if people are careful about where they place / angle their fields.

I know some people were saying that looking at the mini map didn't help / wasn't possible. That may be the case, but I was basically just glancing at it to see when the moving wall was almost all the way across the platform, and thus another moving wall was about to spawn. That way I wasn't surprised by the location of the new moving wall because I knew exactly when to look for it. No need to stare at the mini map, just a quick glance to predict the timing of a new wall spawn. Maybe that doesn't help anyone else but I found it to be extremely helpful.

And Im mentioning that because we had a lot of wall deaths on Wednesday. We cant win with wall deaths.

OK. Here's the working plan for tonight:

We have 11, I think. We asked Gavin to sit at the start last time. I'll ask Ser to sit at the start this time. There are some minor comp swaps we could perform to optimize, but I'd rather folks play builds they will succeed with. So, let me know what you think. Best approach from a numbers POV would put Kintari in a pure DPS role rather than a healer.

• Chronos: Pyro, Mold
• Druids: Maia (primary push), Twisted (backup push), Kintari (I guess; If strange, gavin, or khani are able to play heal druid, that would be better. I'd rather Kintari DPS this fight.)
• Banner Warr: Bone (willing to swap Bone and Khani if they prefer;)
• Scourge: Khani (willing to swap with Bone...whatever will give our highest dps. If Khani can play druid instead, I'd put Bone here; that would be ideal.)
• Mirage: Temerity
• Other DPS: Gavin; Strange (ideally Condi SB, but whatever you can pull 17k on. If one of you is comfortable on Druid, that would be a better option (unless Khani can)).

Strat notes based on the various kill vids/threads and on guild discussion over the last few days:

1. We have just 3 pure DPS. These folks need to be entirely focused on dps. We'll probably want to aim for an average of around 17k per player for this to go smoothly. Focus on rotations, avoid scythes, rely on others to call walls.
2. Golems:
   1. We're going to tank at about the circle line to avoid insta-cleaving golems. I don't want to get too close to the outside because of walls.
   2. Maia is primary push; she'll try to move to middle when they spawn and knock them to the outside edge.
   3. Scourge should epi once the add is near the center line on its way out.
   4. Mold will either hang behind group to give the add a path away from cleave or will focus-pull it back there.
3. Walls:
   1. We'll place four squad markers around the circle line - north, east, south, west.
   2. Wall callers should use one of the following calls:
      1. Stay or Sidestep for a safe wall or one that requires minor zerg shuffles
      2. One of the markers for a major movement
   3. Ideally, scourge will bring Sand Swell and call it when we get a big wall. The best approach is to drop the entrance right on boss so that everyone knows where to go and press F.
   4. Mini-map will give the wall callers help in predicting where to go before they lay eyes on the wall models; particularly useful for predicting the big wall (ht: twisted)

Sounds good to me. Given priority to start Gavann, I may roll into tonight fashionably late to take care of some errands after work. I'll plan to be available starting at 9:30 PM. And, honestly, if you guys feel momentum with the starting lineup, don't feel pressure to sub me in.

50 minutes ago, spltscreen said:

Sounds good to me. Given priority to start Gavann, I may roll into tonight fashionably late to take care of some errands after work. I'll plan to be available starting at 9:30 PM. And, honestly, if you guys feel momentum with the starting lineup, don't feel pressure to sub me in.

 

Thanks, Ser. See you in a bit.