Shadowstep is the insta-fail mechanic we are finding. If tank or Clr gets punted, quite often thats insta-wipe, or 1 toon dies, which means we fall behind in DPS, so same thing. Rez time, redo. If no Tank port, we win. That particular mechanic, with no backup for the avg group, is just incredibly frustrating, with NO way a group can work around it by just 'good play'. I'm refering to groups of group geared people tha can't self tank the named like some raiders can.
Can add that we just did this and had 5 pitifuls up for a fair bit of time and they did not turn to an atrocious.
Apparently, it takes 6 of them, not 5. Absor fails at math? That's a massive overkill for a group achievement though. Even 3 of them would be a pain for most groups. By the time you spawn 6, even if you are able to sustain that, the task is almost unwinnable because the adds spawn in droves, and you need mega DPS to kill everything. And that shadowstep is simply evil. You can get shadowstepped to the bottom of the ravine. Better have a Mage in group!
That evil shadowstep never puts you that far in the raid. But in the mission you can end up half a zone away, e.g. in the scorpikis canyon. Compare the raid version (45342) and the group version (45481) of this spell. Other than 2s vs 1s spinstun duration, the only difference is Range: 245 on the raid version, but 1200 on the group one. Looks like the Range parameter controls how far you can get shadowstepped? Need to fix that 1200 number then.
I haven't even noticed it in raid, but maybe I've been lucky. There are 53 other people it can hit vs 5 other people.
It’s currently (even after hotfox) way to hard. 3 would maybe be able to be handled by a group geared group but even then it’s certainly not easy peasy.
So not unreasonable to surmise that someone typo’d on the shadowtep range, and input 1200 rather than 120.
The speed of the adds spawning after you spawn the atrocious is something i consider to be another 'problem' with the task right now. Maybe the Atrocious is not meant to be hp locked in the same way that Caktiiki is? I went with sk/clr/clr/brd/wiz/wiz. We had both wizards burning at the end, but weren't close to keeping the adds down to unlock them. Maybe i can get away with changing a clr to a dru, and the brd to a enc/mag/wiz, but even if that makeup manages to survive to the atrocious, i'm not confident that it will be enough dps at the end. So far I've been tanking all of them. I'm thinking if a mage pet (or my own) is tanking Caktiiki and i'm kiting the adds, we can drop a healer slot completely for another dps. So the group could end up looking something like sk/clr/mag/mag/enc/wiz. That's quite a bit more firepower. If the mage pet tanking works well, maybe even a dru in place of the clr. It really is requiring some kind of perfect setup in it's current state, not sure that the extra dps will be enough either, will post here after i try it again.
Revert all changes and just add a kill 30 mobs in beginning of task (makes it also similar to raid). Then revisit the amount of mobs needed for achievements and such. It’s okay to be easy it’s the first zone and mission. Just make the total time be longer thru clearing the field a bit.
once you get shadow stepped tho it goes down hill quick. I find myself tanking/weaponshielding at least 2 or 3 times during the course of this event cause theres just no other option when the tank get kicked really far out. my group was doing ok, up till we had about 4-5 of the pitifuls then when the blue cons poped it got crazy. we actually managed to get the 6 pitifuls to merge but we were all hitting the ground when it happened seems the trick is being able to mitigate that insane amount of dmg long enough. and someone who can backup heal while the healer is running back from shadow step is needed often. DPS wise we did fine with a ranger, rouge, bst
Shadow step is what made it even worse on our last attempt. Right when we needed to burn the most I got hit twice and moved out around that max 1200 range. That said, I think Atrocious is the perfect name for this achievement.
That sounds like an exploit. Can't plant there in the raid instance, and why else would the mission have a zone full of trash unless you were intended to deal with some of it.
Considering how many places you can plant the thing you would think trying to find the 'safest' spot would be one of the goals.
Now how could that be an exploit if its lets you plant the seed there? Its their exclusion mechanic that determines where you can or can not plant it. Really you should be able to plant in the city walls considering the NPC that gives the task has cacti sitting right next to him. It was his experiment.
Either way you still get Chaotic Shuffle in or out. Just that its more convenient to do it inside away from possible extra adds or been shadow stepped at the bottom of the ravine.
IMO planting inside isnt so much to prevent adds as it is to prevent the obviously brokencode shadowstep.