Samarog Challenge Mode

[Maia 85]

Hi all. 

This is the next installment in my research on challenge modes. I've been looking onto Samarog and this one is no joke. I'm sure some of you know more about it than me, so please feel free to add to this post or correct anything I've got wrong. 

New mechanics:

Invulnerable spears now appear in a set pattern every 5 seconds. After the entire grid is full, Samarog eats them and the group needs to avoid the red arrows that appear on the ground.

Choose your friends wisely: The person who gets the large circle is now immobilized and the person with the small one needs to run to them. A spear spawns where the person with the large circle is standing, so the group needs to be aware not to stand on the large circle.

 

Strategy: 

I found this lovely map by Derior (I think Mold will be a fan).

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/P2N7tmi

Druids: Considering the large amount of deadly area, S&R and spirit of nature seem helpful.

Because tanking is crucial, we may want to assign people to take aggro (by standing furthest away from the boss as cc phase finishes). The tank should also make sure the swipe attack won't kill the person immobilized by the friends mechanic. A possible strategy is to have the tank move to the next position without the group and have the group follow after.

 

Videos:

Video from KING that goes with this map:

I've got a few others. I'll post them ASAP.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Maia

[Maia 85]

Hi all. I've found a few new videos that are helpful. Honestly I haven't found any strats that are significantly different. The chrono PoVs seem the most helpful.

 

[Mold 43]

Some ideas. Feedback welcome:

• I think Strange and I will have to be primary kiters for this, given the nature of chrono's support. Maybe we can have a druid be the third kiter.
• We'll definitely a druid with ranged kb for the mini-game phase. Chrono's will need to shatter through spears to position focus pulls. Maybe warriors can bring throw bolos to help with immob?
• It looks like nature spirit is a good idea. And one warrior banner might be worth taking too. Given the length of the fight, a warrior might be able to use them twice. 
• Should we be aiming to bring some frequent stability to cut down on the # of launches and pulls we face? Maybe one or more guard is a good idea.

[Kintari 96]

Many of the Samarog CM LFG's I see are looking for condi mes.  Did we talk about this in voice during the raid?  I forget.  Condi mes with stability mantra I think.

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

Makes a lot of sense to me, Condi Mes has 1 essentially free utility slot that won't decrease their dps to bring the group stab and they do legit dps on fights where motion is paramount.  Though I think the dps varient rather than the chrono we were talking about during the raid would be the better choice. Bring the normal 2 chrono's to focus on their quickness, alacrity and tanking when applicable and then keep the condi mes on baby sitter duty for the poor sucker who gets selected for the spears.

[Mold 43]

Brilliant. Hopefully we can swing 2 of those. Regular chronos could probably get away with taking a mantra over recall well (won't be super effective in this fight, anyway).

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

So having done this now with some friends of mine, I have to say I'm sorry Mold but I don't think that the 4 condi chrono idea is going to pan out the way we want it to.  You just end up needing so many pulls and res's that I believe stacking condi rangers is the way to go.

A Few Observations from my attempts this morning, number one and the most important being that this is a true and proper challenge mode.  When we get back to CM nights this is one's likely going to take as long if not longer than MO did, simply through the virtue of its an incredibly chaotic and unforgiving fight.  That being said, I know a lot of you don't agree with my taste in difficulty but I loved every minute of it.  It feels like a true and proper challenging fight rather than just an extra gimmick or two tacked on to be called a "challenge".

The biggest thing that I want to point out sounds like it would be self evident but in the heat of the moment its very easy to lose track of your positioning and we can not afford to do that in this fight.  If people start spreading out and doing their own thing not only do they not receive the healing and buffs they will need but they can screw over the entire run by getting a spear to spawn in the wrong spot on the map.  Along those lines I definitely think that it would be a wise idea to spend 10-15m before doing the CM just talking over what the exact plan of action for the fight is because honestly the videos do not do it justice as to how chaotic the fight really is and just how easy it is to get caught up in the wrong pace and find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Also chrono's, I'm sorry. You're getting a huge extra load of work dumped on your shoulders.  There does not seem any good way of mitigating the lock and key spears positioning wise, you simply don't have enough room to move the boss far enough away that his other attacks won't hit those doing the lock and key so the chrono's are going to have to be on their game with distorts/stability mantra's.

Another fairly self apparent but still good to brush up and check up on thing I noticed was that the dps in this fight is insanely low just through virtue of the mechanics, so when you have the opportunity you have to be ready to throw as much burst as you can at him before you have to run to the next awkward position.  My suggestion is a quick read if you're not sure on the skill priority rather than the rotation for each class that you'll be playing as it really is a burst and kite fight rather than just doing a rotation around mechanics.

In addition to knowing how to burst on the boss, it is also incredibly useful for the split phase.  Since the lock and key spears keep falling during the split phase as well as the regular pattern we really can't afford to mess up and detonate Rigom in the wrong spot as not only do we have a limited window to position properly to push him but because the enrage timer on the boss will be close just through the nature of the fight.  I strongly recommend everyone get a feel for how to stow-cancel your auto attack or just flat out be ready to turn it off for this fight.  For those who might not know what I'm talking about, you can bind a key to stow and draw your weapons and using this key during a skill animation will cancel the skill the same way weapon swapping would but stow-cancelling does not rely on having a cooldown available like weapon swap does.  Whatever way you choose to go about it, I sincerely recommend having a way to completely stop your damage, including auto attacks, in case we do mess up pushing Rigom a bit.  It is much better to take longer to push him than to detonate him in the wrong spot and have people go down because they had nowhere to dodge.

We will also need to be very observant of our pets during the split phases.  As Khani enlightened me to the other night there is a bug where if Rigom explodes while he is knocked down then he will bug out and run around invulnerable for a while.  We really, really, really do not want this and the easiest way to avoid it is to make sure that all wyverns are pulled off of Rigon immediately so that they do not have time to use their wing buffet attack and knock him down.  It happened to us a few times while we were working out our runs and one Rigom bug was essentially a wipe, it too too long to recover from it to still meet the enrage timer.

 

I loved doing this fight, and while I'm being all doom and gloom in this post since the eventual goal is to succeed, I honestly can't wait until we get a crack at it since I think you guys will get a kick out of it as well.