Throne of the Dead is un PUGable

LoL you aren't going to be in a situation where it "either builds better players or weeds them out". The game is free to play what is going to happen is the players that are at the top level don't stop playing they just stop paying.

If they keep it up it's going to get to the point people will be in LFG begging people to question up for holiday events.

If anything was going to change, I'd say it would be the add respawn rate. As a tank on Ares and Adds can become overwhelmed easy as more than 16 adds are out, and start losing agro, it means that 3 tanks will likely be required. Not an issue when the raid originally came out because you had an indefinite amount of re-attempts to make in the future as the DLC was permanent and progression meant it would become easier later. There is no 'later' here as STU will go away in a month or 2, so having to constantly require 3 tanks means less groups can finish the content simply because they can't build a group or spend a lot of time trying to build one...not because the group isn't skilled enough to finish the run.

BTW...not saying that HAS to be changed, but just saying it's the one thing that I WOULD change if any changes were made. This vs nerfing Ares, the adds themselves or changing the Essence mechanics.

It's easier for the match maker to find one role and not 3 roles. Most likely it was filling their group pretty fast.

But it's not very smart, it's basic function works, but it'd be nice if it was more complex.

What has this community come to?

It's possible. I was going to do an attempt with 1 group having DPS/HEAL and the other group as TANK/TROLL..only. While you are right, it's possible, Id say it not probably that every one of those 7 or 8 popped queues were filled with the needed troll, I'd guess that's not accurate...I also don't really care to research it more. I generally run with the role optional ON, so it was more a science project than anything.

This was the first raid I ever ran under stats clamp. It was a pug group form the most part, only 3 of us were in the same league. It took us over 100 minutes to complete after multiple failures, walk-outs, and re-explaining of the mechanics. Getting people to understand that only the tank needs to engage with the Essence proved to be difficult.

We accomplished it but I do not want to run that raid ever again with people I do not know.

I pug everything because i don't run with leagues anymore or ever want to again. I did this raid once,it went ok but it took an hour to find a group so i decided i am not doing this raid again, i'll just run the duo and 4 man for the rest of this dlc.

Thats the point lol. The goal of the elitist is to establish that as many players as possible arent good enough to play with them. Then they go play a different game.

Then they should not listen to the extreme minority should they?

For me its gonna be an incredibly easy an chill month.
Im already full elite on my main and theres no possible way nor a good reason to subject my main to that garbage.
As for my alt, no…… just no. No way am i putting my healer alt in there……
Devs made it a VERY easy decision to not go after extra marks for my main AND to not go after marks for gear n my alt
Thnx for makin sure i can take a break when theres awesome classic raids like Gates we coulda had……devs, its appreciated

Its the separation mechanic, unless thats removed for even then its essentially just as unbeatable. If you have to do it and dont have the understanding, capacity, roles, or skill to do it (which in event i can assure you the team does NOT), then its actually harder than reg or elite most likely

I was thinking the same exact thing lol. My 3 characters just need enough grains of time for 1 more price reduced set of gear per. I would like to keep my elite counter going but not at the expense of enjoyment.

Lmao this is a very foreseeable result when they first confirm they would use throne of the dead as the event raid, you just can't do any count feats anymore unless you got your own group. Tank don't know what to do is a thing, not to mention those dps who go full dps on essense

Throne of the Dead is a raid where communication, understanding and then actually doing it are key to being successful. Sadly, there are people who refuse to listen or think they know better when the mechanics of the game obviously begs to differ.

If I ever play this raid again, (currently boycotting Ep.41), it will be with my league or at least with others I know because I don't the stress of dealing with angry people who refuse to listen and tell me to mind my own business and stop telling them how to play.

I think maybe these kind of players are the ones who are use to "steam rolling the content" and don't appreciate the mechanics of a raid. They still have a pre-stats clamp mindset or they just plain mean.

The event level difficulty is the Tier 3 clamped version, you have to be level 30 to enter.

TotD can easily be a pain even during pre-stat clamp, coz the mechanics is 100% no matter how high you damage output is, it's hard to be efficient when people can't even form a straight line in Olympus

I've always been one to mostly PUG it. In my early days, I didn't even know LFG existed until another kind player pointed it out. Even still, I mostly PUG. I believe that in game such as this one, which draws players via the IP rather than just gamers, any an all content outside of elite should be able to be completed in a PUG group.

Also to note, my overall experience has been better since episode 41 came out for reasons I won't get into here. The STU Supes/Bats content was good, too.

I will, however, be sitting this raid out. The failure rate of a PUG group is just too high due to the Essence mechanic.

As already pointed out by someone, the game itself does nothing to teach players about roles, mechanics or what is expected of them in group content. It provides minimal or no information and then allows a player to mix and match gear, arts, augs across roles. All of this makes any PUG group difficult, but mostly still doable.

Having a raid mechanic with no obvious indications or prompts as to what to do and adding to that the healing from any and all damage and other than one role, the Essence piece becomes the wall you hit every time with this raid unless you group via LFG.

Seems easy enough to communicate, but it is not. I tried this raid once since it hit STU and let the group know tank had to kill essence and other damage would heal it. No one responded at all. No one stopped for even an instant in the fight that was going nowhere. Ignoring me? Maybe. Too many chats going in their window that my message flew by? Maybe. They even have group chat on? Who knows...

I stood around waiting for people to get bored and leave an new people to join until we got a communicative group with two tanks. But it was all just such a waste of time. For one, I don't have time to spend going through all that just for one raid. Secondly, it's frustrating when all you are trying to do is, you know, actually play the game.

Luckily I have my gear and leveled my gloves, so I'm not really missing out by not doing this raid, other than getting behind in my feat counter.

This is all just feedback for the powers that be.

Looks like they are making some adjustments. Good call. We'll see how this plays out, but I'll give it a try!

Ah, OK. Slightly outdated information on my part.

The point still remains however. Should be better for those players after the hot fix.