Random Deimos Stuff

[Kintari 96]

So I was pugging Deimos last night because I was bored.  First we got a normal mode kill then the group decided CM was doable.  Ultimately we did not get the CM kill but here are some things that I found noteworthy:

- On the start of the fight, the group sent 2 condi rangers up (plus whoever got green circled).  Each condi ranger killed 1 pillar.  Whoever the third person was, they either kept fixate off the dpsers or they helped the dpser with fixate.  This made managing pillar health much more predictable, and pretty much guaranteed that Saul was freed after 2 green circles.  This isn't a big deal on normal mode, but on CM, it freed up a lot more people to stay up top and kill the adds before reaching Saul, which is critical in CM.  Pillars were marked up top and assigned.

- Druids started the fight with full CA so that they could CA5 adds close to Saul / shackled prisoner and everybody could cleave them down.

- The group used precog to negate mind crush, and distortion to prevent tears / adds from ripping off aegis prematurely.

- Despite this, the group was on point grabbing tears because of the possibility of them screwing with precog.

- The group used a Necro for add management during the fight.

- Stuns are what turn Prides into Usain Bolt.

- Prides can be feared.

- DPS needs to be a lot higher in CM since you don't have Saul helping.

- When Saul splits into 4 on the main platform, standing in the center of them is really deadly.  We had wipes where many people were insta-downed because of this.

- Flak kiting is significantly harder because you don't have Saul's banner helping you.  Rev can still do it and be self-sufficient but it requires better planning and use of CDs.  Because you are less survivable, you need to spread the flak out a bit more, which means you generally have to start a 2nd half-circle of flak after the first.  I was laying this 2nd circle down inside the 1st circle but it makes more sense to lay the 1st circle down closer to center and the 2nd circle on the edge of the platform, so that when the hands are called to Deimos they don't run you over.

- Warrior's Shattering blow is not a bad choice for CM but the timing is tight.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133088397

[Mold 43]

Awesome recon. Particularly the detailed kiting tips.

I hope we get back to CM soon. In fact, maybe it's time to push for that next week regardless of who's available (we're missing 1-2 regulars pretty much every night these days).

[Bone 26]

Agreed, this is a great repot. I'll resume Boomslangin' on Monday and would love to tackle some CMs.

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

I figured this is a good place to drop this, the latest patch notes included a slight QoL "nerf" to the Diemos CM

 

"Demonic Tears will no longer consume Aegis while Challenge Mode is Active"

[Kintari 96]

That's a bad change IMO.  Why would they do that?  Part of the challenge of the fight.

Here's some further recon on CM.  This was a pug group I joined for lulz (yes I stayed up until 3AM), and they used the Continuum Split bug (as noted in today's patch notes) at the end of the fight.

 

[Mold 43]

Wow; didn't know that was an option. I wonder if portal would work after the patch.

It was helpful to see the zerg rotating around the middle (clockwise, it looked like) during the main fight with Deimos. In some ways, the positioning seems a lot easier in this mode, provided you can burn fast enough to let the kiter stay in the outermost ring. Now that they've removed aegis strip from the tear attacks, the Chrono job seems really easy. No reason to wait until the last moment to drop the aegis well even, just pop as soon as it seems everyone's settled in the same spot.

It also looks like the kiter's life will be easier if we can keep D closer to the middle to avoid causing the smash aoe to overlap with the kiter's path too much. In some ways, having everyone stand close to black would seem to be an advantage in slowing the rotation of the zerg around the platform. Does that seem right? Or would that make it harder to heal and protect Saul?

 

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

I also didn't notice this in the patch notes the first time I read them but apparently they've changed it so that the kiter will not get the green circle if I've understood it correctly.  Soulfeast = hands right?

"In the Deimos encounter, the player targeted by Soul Feast can no longer be selected by the Eye of Janthir to enter the demon realm"

[Kintari 96]

1 hour ago, Mr.Pyropuffin said:

I also didn't notice this in the patch notes the first time I read them but apparently they've changed it so that the kiter will not get the green circle if I've understood it correctly.  Soulfeast = hands right?

"In the Deimos encounter, the player targeted by Soul Feast can no longer be selected by the Eye of Janthir to enter the demon realm"

Yeah thankfully, that was a much needed change

[Maia 85]

That was some serious cheese. I'm happy we will be able to do it with out needing to resort to that (even if it was still an option which it's not.)

I forgot to add thanks Kintari for doing all the research on this CM! Much better than mine too because it's personal experienced based instead of a collection of other people's experiences and info. No need for me to do anything. 

Edited April 19, 2017 by Maia

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

I was going to post this as a comment to Maia's blog post but I think here is more appropriate.  So the strategy that she picks up on in Nike's video where he goes down alone for the final Saul is a strategy I've actually heard of then forgotten due to general tomfoolery happening during the runs from my NA friends.  The way it works is that during the final add teleport, the person who gets assigned the green goes up alone and kites/solo's the final Saul as long as they can or until the group is ready then they /gg.  I will try and bug some people for a better explanation as I'm not 100% sure of what the threshold for the /gg call is but my assumption is that while the person is up kiting the Saul add, the rest of the group super pushes DPS and tries to get Deimos to phase before the person with the add /gg's so that he comes down while we are in that invuln phase right before getting ported for the last 10%.

[Maia 85]

Interesting...

So some questions:

Nike doesn't gg in that video so I'm slightly confused about that part.

What are the advantages? Is it to avoid the damage and havoc Sauls final alter ego does? As far as I can tell this strategy means you still have to deal with him, just in the last phase not the one before. But I guess you don't have to kill him, you can just kill Deimos?

Is this something that can be done for Challenge Mode? Or is the loss of that person who goes down to kite too much for CM?

[Mr.Pyropuffin 32]

When it was introduced to me it was a strategy for challenge mode.  As to the purpose I can only speculate at the moment but I believe that it is to avoid the chaos of the last Saul add during the final stretch to phase Deimos.  My assumption is that you don't actually need to kill Saul to kill the boss and get credit for the challenge mode its simply easier to avoid the add if possible rather than waste time killing it.  I haven't had a chance to ask anyone about it yet unfortunately.

[Kintari 96]

On 6/8/2017 at 6:54 PM, Mr.Pyropuffin said:

When it was introduced to me it was a strategy for challenge mode.  As to the purpose I can only speculate at the moment but I believe that it is to avoid the chaos of the last Saul add during the final stretch to phase Deimos.  My assumption is that you don't actually need to kill Saul to kill the boss and get credit for the challenge mode its simply easier to avoid the add if possible rather than waste time killing it.  I haven't had a chance to ask anyone about it yet unfortunately.

This is consistent with what I have seen / heard in various pug groups.  From what I can tell, the 1 person going up and /gg = group does not have to fight final Saul below.  From Nike's video, it looks like a modified version of that, where you don't actually /gg, you just wait for your compadres to burn and join you up top.

 

[Mold 43]

Reviving this discussion for more Deimos CM planning. A couple of things I'd like to try, tweaking our current strats:

1. For the 50% green, let's have Strange move Deimos out of middle while the zerg is up above. Strange can bring Deimos back in when the dps group calls 60% on Saul. That will put two oils out near the edge of the platform while giving Strange enough time to get Deimos back near middle before the tears are drawn in. In fact, let's have Strange put Deimos right in the middle just there. No reason to keep middle clear. That does a few nice things:
   • we are very unlikely to have the real Saul spawn in a black when he splits. 
   • we'll have, generally, much more room to maneuver in the middle when it gets most stressful. 
   • putting Deimos in middle the moment we return means he'll never eat a tear.
2. Let's have the player chosen for the 25% green simply kite solo up above instead of taking the group. It's time we gave that a go, as it's an obviously superior play. We may have to scramble to get tears when we get ported after 10%, but that's easily accomplished.
3. I'd like to try putting the two condi rangers in my sub-group and invulning smashes until we get to 50%. That should save us a bit of time, especially early before we're moving around a lot. I can continue to invuln smashes later, but our movement probably means we should treat it as a safety net after 50%.
4. Let's continue to try to stay a bit closer to the oils. I know we had lots of dirty toes last time, but we simply can't sacrifice dps entirely by moving around so much. Having reviewed the logs, I noticed at least 3 of those toes were mine. I'll correct that, and Strange had a couple due to CSplits that are easily corrected.
   • So, in other words, Strange will be the only one to run far away the instant an oil spawns. He'll move Deimos out of it asap, drawing Deimos through the group. Everyone else will stand a step or two out of black and keep rotations going as Deimos moves out of the oil and through our group. 

[Maia 85]

Oops should have left this here

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/6o8gs3/sc_deimos_824_left/

 

Lot of good ideas in there. Illustrates a few that Mold stated above. 

Warriors: looks like The SC warriors carry the banner with them if teleported. Seems like an easy thing to do to increase dps.