Deimos CM

[Kintari 96]

Did some looking over our Deimos CM runs.  Observations:

1) A lot of greeds are getting to Saul.  On our better runs, Saul is hurting pretty badly, and it's a race against Saul's HP bar (until we screw up a mechanic).

2) Greeds making it to Saul are what mysteriously strip Aegis at times: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/170581913?t=02h25m15s.  It is difficult to see with the camera angle, but watch Saul's HP drop half a second before the mind crush goes off, and group 1 takes it in the shorts.

I think some adjustments to our strategy to more effectively handle greeds and / or avoid the greed explosions are probably in order.

[Mold 43]

Very helpful, Kintari; thanks for reviewing the tape. I confess that I wasn't paying much attention to Saul's hp, given that we were losing to mechanics before it became an obvious issue.

I'm open to ideas about those issues. Bringing a lot more big cleave seems the obvious answer, with tempest an obvious candidate. I know that distorting smashes is part of the speed-clear approach. If we get two--or, better yet, three--tempests in the group, we could try to give that a shot, perhaps, particularly in the first 50%. I've been taking chaos, but I'm sure I can manage with dom instead.

Our experience with necro was pretty bad previously--giving up so much boss dps. But maybe that's worth revisiting? I'm very reluctant.

p.s. nextlevel investigating re: the aegis strips

 

[Kintari 96]

Thanks, I've been working a lot with ffmpeg lately, so here's the gory slow-mo version:

 

[Maia 85]

Yup, that's ugly.

Another option is to take more immobs to give us more time. We could have humans take the Melandru elite, Druids use CA 5 everytime, and rangers/druids use entangle off cool down. I'm not sure what else gives a long AOE immob.

[Kintari 96]

Question:  How did the greed explosion strip aegis if distortion was up?

 

Here are my general thoughts / observations:

- Greeds need to either die quickly to cleave damage, or be slowed / immobilized / chilled so they can die more slowly.

- During green circle phases, it is probably safe to assume that every greed will make it to Saul and explode.  So the best way to minimize damage to Saul during those phases is to burn Saul quickly and return.

- It would be good to have a backup plan for the situation pictured here where a greed makes it to the center at the same time as a mind crush.

- Prides are a pain in the ass.  Having a magi druid managing prides while the rest of the team is in the demonic realm is doable, and also unreliable.  They just don't have enough tools and condi duration.  Possible exception to this would be a druid that runs sword MH for perma cripple.  That doesn't give me the warm fuzzies though.

- I feel that having 1 person (with the proper tools) explicitly assigned to pride management would be helpful, and even if their personal dps is low, could result in a net group dps increase by allowing more focus on the boss and less panic.

- The ideal 'pride controller' would have access to large amounts of movement speed debuffs that can be applied from range, on low cooldown, and preferably in an AoE so as to also help with greeds.  They would also be a condi damage class so that they have the increased duration on these debuffs.  They would also have access to hard CC for use against Saul's clone.

- Assigning a cPS to prides is a no-go because we want to send both cPS up to demonic realm every time.

- Necro and Engi seem like 2 very good candidates.  Condi Ranger / Druid could probably also do it.

- Necro wouldn't have to play the so-called meta build involving GS, even a Scepter / Dagger camping Necro would be very effective in this role.  Epi can be used on cooldown because it's not integral to keeping prides under control.  Scepter 2 and dagger 4 can by themselves lock down a pride pretty effectively.

- Fear is the only tool that can actually let you move a pride further away from the center of the platform.  Fear would be best used against prides when they are not movement-impaired.

[Mold 43]

I definitely did not shatter on the pictured clip, but I presume Strange did. After that event, I was shattering whenever there was an add nearby. I think distorting for every mind crush after the 50% mark is probably the smart play moving forward.

 

No doubt that necro is the best option in terms of add control. Good tips re: deploying that class most effectively. If we collectively want to give it a shot, I'm OK with it. Perhaps having chronos distort all smashes in the first 50% will gain us back a bit of the dps we'll be losing. We're a bit constrained because, of our three dps, one is locked on staff DD. If we have a high-level condi lurking somewhere who's not already locked into another role, I see no downside to bringing that over any of our dps.

No matter what we go with, I think we should

• have chronos distort smashes during the first 50% and distort mind-crush afterward
• tweak the tanking approach to get us closer to center, making it easier to lend a hand with suppression while cleaving boss
• make it the second chrono's job to stay at Deimos's toes to proc blacks as much as possible in a predictable spot (I think strange is already doing this, tbh)

If we do not go with a necro, here's what I'm proposing:

• we dedicate our condi druid to add-control task, keeping that person up with me after 50%.
• we bring two eles for add suppression, taking frost bow and rebound
• we prioritize letting eles go ham in the last 10%.

 

And two questions:

1. re: the last 10%. Does the black proc remain the same? first to boss after the tank? Or is it now just first to boss since there's no more aggro? If it's the latter, then strange should stay with the zerg to help with quickness/breaks and smash distorts.

2. how much breakbar does a headbutt do on Saul?