Mold

2 hours ago, spltscreen said:

So, there's this great Italian place across the street from me that's doing a special dinner that night. Shrimp Bisque, Crab-stuffed Salmon, and Chocolate Cannoli cake. Stomach says that's a slam dunk. But, I'd be rolling solo. Is it worth carrying a social awkwardness debuff for an hour of culinary bliss?

Get a table for two...order two identical meals as a "romantic gesture"...wait 20 minutes...take both home...dolefully accept the compassion on your way out.

I'll be on; happy to fill in if needed

Random stuff!!! Harumph. My event announcements were always carefully curated and topical....

PS: sorry for the continued absence from the game; I'm working way the hell too much right now. I planned to be on for pickup raids only to be thwarted by a thorny email or surprise request from the boss. I hope to be back in the swing soon.

Sounds good:

Heal Rev: Bone

Druid: Khani

DH: EVERYBODY ELSEEEEEE

That Rev shortbow skills is pretty OP for this application. I like it.

5 DHs....trap city; that seems fun. Are the guards all using GS pulls for breaks?

I guess if you have enough Feel My Wrath, and don't care about alacrity, then you probably don't need chronos. That makes sense. So, if we can get 4-5 DHs, then I'm down with 0 Chronos. If we can only pull 2-3, then I think we need to keep a chrono.

Hey folks! We have a bit of squad business to discuss at the start of raids tonight. We'll plan to get as far as we can with wing 5 after we've had a chance to talk things over. We'll try to wait to get everybody in TS for that conversation. Ser and Bone both might be delayed due to meetings, so this might be a slightly slower and choppier start than usual. Apologies in advance for that.

Now that Maia has had the pleasure of pinging me back for negligence.... here's the plan:

Three statues (starting with eater of souls) --> at least a few Dhuum pulls.

Statues comp:

• Chronos: Pyro (tanking); Mold
• Druids: Khani & either Maia or Twisted. We'll have Maia or Twisted keep half an eye on Pyro.
• Warr: Bone
• DPS

Statues strat notes:

• We probably want power dps on Eater and Darkness; the other fight favors range dps a bit, but it probably doesn't matter whether condi or power
• We'll need 4 people to do green circles on Eater; 2 groups of 2. That should probably be Bone + 3 dps
• We need 2 light-tossers for Darkness who are (1) power dps, (2) ready to call what they're seeing, and (3) ready to use squad markers
• Is it worth bringing two warrior for the Darkness event? LMK whatcha think

I believe we have 10 for tonight, assuming @Kintari, @Strangelove, @Bone, and @Gavann are all in.

I think we may be 1 short of our ordinary crew at the start. I'm presuming @Maia and @Kintari are both in. That puts us at 9. Paging @Fred T W to see if he's available for the first half tonight. Let us know, Fred. @Twisted will likely be joining us when the bedtime circus is finished?

Let's start with Wing 5 again; same comp as last time to see if we can get a quick kill and move onward. If you have time, please skim a guide or watch a vid on the three statues encounter. I'd like to be able to get that down and taste Dhuuuuuuuuummmmmmm (shitty, 3-statues Dulfy guide here)

• Druids: Khani, Maia, and Fred/Twisted - Maia and Fred/Twisted on KB duty
• Banner Warr: Bone
• Reaper: Kintari
• Chronos: Pyro & Mold
• DPS: Temerity, Gavin, Strange

PS. thanks for teaching me that @ was a thing on this here website, Pyro.

1 hour ago, Mr.Pyropuffin said:

 So this seems to be something we'll have to watch out for @Mold, seems to be a wash on what causes/fixes it

Thanks, Pyro. I'll read up on that before tonight.

Gross, Bone, sorry. I'll see if I can get Fred or Odd to join us.

That all-middle strat does sound too good to be true. And it doesn't really seem to align with my memory of events. But it is worth trying to have everyone stay just a knuckle inside the circle to see what happens. 

I think Maia's right about the proposed druid comp & strat; quick-drawing LB4 would be huge, and doing 1st and 2nd KB (with the quick-drawn #3 to knock it all the way off) would simplify things considerably.

I'm also willing to try to push the golem toward the corners rather than straight NESW, but I think that's going to prove to slow and cumbersome. Getting it out instantly, and knocking it all the way off the platform seem far more important to me than placing it carefully. That's especially true if we're staying anywhere near the middle of the platform.

I may be 15 minutes late!

Assuming Kintari and Gavin are both in, we'll be set with 10. Not sure if you want to stick with w5 the whole night, but when we do get to it, let's tentatively go with the comp below. I'm going to ask Khani to swap to druid. I think it's our best chance, but I'm willing to be talked out of it.

• Chronos: Pyro, Mold
• Druids: Maia, Kintari, Khani (pure healing)
• Warr: Ser
• Scourge: Bone
• DPS: Strange, Temerity, Gavin

Walls are our biggest issue right now, but less chaotic add control and higher overall dps will make our lives much, much easier.

A few strat notes based on our conversation Monday after the raid was over:

• Gavin pointed out that we might be moving more than we needed to, so we'll try to tank as stationarily as we can. That should improve group dps and quickness/alacrity. To support that, Chronos will try to take aggro in such a way as to avoid unnecessary boss movement.
• Everyone will try to stay closer to boss; if we manage that, we'll have much more alacrity on average than we're getting right now.
• Kintari and Maia will both bring LB & the piercing trait; primary pusher brings glyph of tides and tries to pop into CA for group heals as soon as the LB push and tides are spent.
• Off tank will try to stay closer to the group. Just behind rather than way out there.
• We need to get epis off earlier then we were on Monday. Either primary pusher will call for it sooner or scourge will pop it as soon as the add is in a favorable position. We need the scourge to call epis and shout if it's not going to happen.
• Temerity is going to try to call the safe spots for walls, but any contribution on that front is good. I think it would be best to call "safe" instead of wall if the group doesn't have to move. In other words, only calling wall if there's danger. If you see wall and it's dangerous, call it even if you don't know where to go right away.

2 hours ago, Twisted said:

Dang guys, once again sorry about last night. I will rotate to the bench for the next few raid nights and should be available to fill around 9 or 930 if needed. Hopefully things settle down over here soon but until they do I don't want to eat up a slot for someone who can reliably commit the time. These kids really cramp my style ! Good thing they're cute.  

No worries, Twisted!

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.

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)

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).

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.

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.

3 minutes ago, Strangelove said:

I can bring a power DH w/e weapon set is best.

Perfect. Have a hammer ready, but I think the usual setup might work.

1 hour ago, Twisted said:

I'm watching boss 1 videos on the plane so I won't gimp the runs

Nice! And no worries if the girls need some extra attention.

1 hour ago, Twisted said:

If I'm bringing dps how is condi FB? I'm totally fine playing Druid too. I'll update on my status in game tonight. I'll be home but we've been having some bed time issues with one of the girls lately so I can't commit 100% yet.

FB would be fine, I think. The aegis would be useful. But I don't really know. EDIT: it seems like power DH with hammer is popular for the KBs on the golems

Pyro, we might consider bringing the signet heal for the bonus blocks and evade. I don't know if that's stronger than the condi removal, but it's worth thinking about.

I think Gavin is in for tonight, but we'll try to get Odd or Fred if he's not. If Twisted and Gavin are both in, we'll need one person to sit for a bit.

We're going to start with Wing 5. To avoid having an hour of fumbling, let's stick with the basics of the comp we had last night. Strange, that's going to include you on dps rather than Chrono. DH would work fine if you want to return to that, but it's up to you. I want to roll with me and Pyro for a bit on the chronos, as there's a double-tank mechanic that took us some time to adapt to.

My instinct is to go with two Druids rather than the heal ele. At least the second druid can bring stone spirit & good breaks. And if we adopt the strat of kiting the golems to the edge of the platform, we'll need more ranged healing. Happy to hear other opinions, though. Maia linked Ren's kill video, in which they kite golems out very effectively.

• Chronos: Mold & Pyro
• Druids: Maia and...Kintari I guess?
• Warrior: Ser
• Scourge: Khani
• DPS: everyone else (including Strange)

Get your necro ready, Khani.

Oddgo is in, which makes 7 confirmed.

I'm hoping Gavin is back and available, which would be 8. Khani would be 9, if she's in. We'll have to see about getting Fred or another guildie in to round it out.