Cactus rethread

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Jadenpain, Jan 17, 2018.

  1. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    And don't forget this is supposed to be an easy group mission.
    Yinla likes this.
  2. Tucoh Augur

    A lot has been said in this thread about how difficult it is, and I agree with pretty much all of it. This doesn't invalidate any of the complaints in this thread but I just beat it with my group-geared 6box group.

    I know it's just a group mission and one that I did like 15x before it got buffed, but I'm pretty proud of getting it done.

    [IMG]

    For anyone who is trying to get it done, as was said in this thread already it's very DPS intense. Additionally there's a lot of variability which sounds bad, but it can work in your favor. Unlike say, end of empires, this is less of an execution fight and more of a team setup/dps/synergy fight. Just kill Cactiki when he's vulnerable, kill sprouts adds when he's not, and don't die on agonizing needles. When you've got enough DPS you'll wonder why everyone is having trouble with it, when you don't it'll be clearly impossible.

    The team I had was war, brd, ber, sha, bst, rng. Their gear/aas range from my warrior who has all AAs and just got his last T2 RoS item this morning, to my ranger who hit 110 this morning and has 18000 AAs and fairly haggard gear. My warrior has 205k HP and 5308 AC unbuffed, the ranger has 157k HP and 3762 AC unbuffed.

    I haven't described my beastlord/ranger, but the setup for the rest of the characters are described here:

    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/tucos-setup-critique-welcome.240258/

    Like others said, you really want over 1 million DPS over a few minutes to get this done. Below is my DPS summary:

    /GU Combined: A monstrous succulent in 178s, 234133k @1315354
    --- Tucos + pets 61303k@(348313 in 176s) [26.18%]
    --- Tucoh 41288k@(231956 in 178s) [17.63%]
    --- Lelentos + pets 36254k@(204826 in 177s) [15.48%]
    --- Tucolord + pets 31995k@(180765 in 177s) [13.67%]
    --- Tucosha + pets 30831k@(186852 in 165s) [13.17%]
    --- Tucob + pets 20236k@(114328 in 177s) [8.64%]
    --- Tucocat 8809k@(50052 in 176s) [3.76%]
    --- Tucodog 3324k@(18995 in 175s) [1.42%]

    Here's a few specific tips:

    1. I tried planting it just inside the city gate, and that worked OK. When I beat it I planted it in the building with the pottery wheel and that was terrible because the sprouts spawned outside and I had to move the whole team around. If I tried again I'd try planting it inside the bank building's south wing, but just inside the city gates worked best so far.

    2. Luck has a lot to do with it, because:
    A: Your tank/healer/top DPS can get ported away. My zerker got ported twice on my kill (and once while blind!!!!) but his furious leap and battle leap helped get him back.. Planting it inside the city helps mitigate the ports.

    B: Your tank / top DPS can get hit with the damage shield and you'll splat before reacting. Or maybe you're extra stupid and hit 'em heroic blade while you have the damage shield on and take 161k damage like a :

    Or maybe your berserker gets it and takes like, 40x 4k hits in 3 seconds from your berserker just going nuts before you realize what's going on.

    The best way to avoid this is to set up gina triggers for "You hurt yourself" for when you get:

    Agonizing Needles
    Duration: 18s+ (3 ticks), Dispelable: Yes
    1: Decrease Current HP by 6500
    2: Lifetap from Weapon Damage: -5%
    3: Decrease Chance to Double Attack by 50%
    4: Decrease Accuracy by 100
    Text: You are struck by agonizing needles.

    and either stop attacking to save your life, or pop something to stay alive. I know Blood Sustenance (ber) is blocked by agonizing needles, but I don't know about blooddrinker's coating.

    I don't know if Wurmslayer's permanent rune protects against it, but it'd be something to test.

    In the round I won, my bard and warrior got hit with it, but I think everyone else avoided it, not really sure.

    3. As you can tell from the log, my shaman was the only healer and carried his own weight by putting 187k DPS via a single round of DoTs on the cactus. Otherwise he was pumping out heals for the team. A non-boxed shaman should be able to get much higher by pumping more DoTs, recovering from resists and re-applying them midway through the fight. Same with the bst/rng DoTs.

    Combined: A monstrous succulent on 2/11/2018
    Tucosha - 77
    --- Ancestral Aid XXXI - 1
    --- Ancestral Guard XXXIII - 1
    --- Ancestral Guardian Spirit IX - 1
    --- Call of the Ancients XIII - 1
    --- Chaotic Venom Rk. II - 1
    --- Cloud of Renewal - 2
    --- Cry Havoc - 14
    --- Erogo's Curse - 1
    --- Fleeting Spirit (Decay) V - 1
    --- Focus of Arcanum VI - 1
    --- Group Pact of the Wolf XIII - 6
    --- Hemocoraxius' Pandemic - 1
    --- Jinx Rk. II - 1
    --- Radiant Cure X - 1
    --- Received Auspice of the Hunter - 1
    --- Received Bard Epic - 1
    --- Received Bestial Alignment - 1
    --- Received Dichotomic Fury - 3
    --- Received Fierce Eye - 1
    --- Received Paragon - 1
    --- Received Quick Time - 1
    --- Received Ruaabri's Fury - 1
    --- Received Shaman Epic - 1
    --- Reckless Regeneration Rk. II - 11
    --- Reckless Rejuvenation Rk. II - 15
    --- Reckless Restoration Rk. II - 6
    --- Rejuvenation of the Ancestors - 1
    --- Roar of the Lion - 3
    --- Savage Growth Rk. II - 1
    --- Spiritual Blessing IX - 1
    --- Spiritual Swell Rk. II - 1
    --- Third Spire of Ancestors IV - 1
    --- Union of Spirits XXV - 1
    --- Wind of Malosinete IV - 3

    Tanking looks about what you'd expect. You can see each reckless heal from the shaman, and a pretty consistent 10 to 20k DPS from the mobs:
    [IMG]

    4. This is probably old news to raiders and a lot of other people, but one thing that I've been experimenting with lately is using 2x Conflagrant Rods on each of my bard, ranger and beastlord:
    http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129385

    This causes procs to heal for a base value roughly equal to how much a competing weapon would proc for damage, which I find to be a lot. From playing the last couple weeks with it, I really enjoy it both because it seems to work very well at supplementing the healing of my shaman, and because it creates a sort of lifeleech build like you might find in Path of Exile or Diablo, where you've got to be hitting the mob correctly to stay alive.

    I charted the rolling 5 second average of healing I got from the procs, as well as a scatterplot of the procs below:
    [IMG]

    Cactikii is not ideal for this method, because I think they may not proc while he's invuln, and you have to switch targets. This explains some of the big gaps you see in this plot. Those big gaps coincide with me taking less damage as well, so it evens out a little.

    I'd be interested to see whether it made sense to have a way to trigger my bard's Flurry of Notes, my bst's bloodlust or my ranger's imbued ferocity (proc every melee round) when my shaman was dotting, or I needed a bit of extra juice. If I chained those three abilities together I'd be able to fill the one minute gap between fierce eye (9: Increase Worn Proc Rate by 300%) casts.

    I'm also planning on creating a way to switch their weapons between heal ToT and DD weapons. (<3 hoarded blood orchid katana) because while being able to hit 100k+ healing per second is pretty cool, it's all wasted if it's overhealing, and fights like these are all about damage.

    So, if you're a WAR RNG MNK BRD ROG BST trying to get this done, consider getting a pair of those to switch to and give your healer a bit of backup so they can feel comfortable enough pump out DPS. I can't recommend trying to farm them from the emblaming goo....

    5. When you try to damage Cactikii while he's invuln, you get a message like:
    Lelentos tries to crush Cactiikii, but Cactiikii is INVULNERABLE!
    I hit him for quite a bit while he was invuln, and if I did it again I would create a gina trigger for it.




    That's about all I can think of. I know a lot of the above is probably obvious to folks. It really is just a a matter of finding a few other DPS that can play their class and synergize well and trying it enough times to get lucky on spawns, shadowsteps and agonizing needle debuffs. I'm expecting they'll nerf it in February's patch, so waiting until they do might make sense!
    Pirlo, IblisTheMage, Sheex and 6 others like this.
  3. Thancra Loladin

    The mission is still bugged and doesn't merge the adds properly for the achievment.
  4. Horyuken Augur

    The atrocious achievement works, you just have to get 3 of the same cacti that spawn from the seedlings, the ones that start with a B won't work. Make sure the boss is low before you spawn the atrocious because you need to kill the boss with it up to get the achievement, don't try and kill it.
  5. Fohpo Augur

    How easy is the mission post patch? Haven't had time to do it yet.
  6. Tucoh Augur

    Easy. Burn boss when he spawns, if your DPS isn't great you'll have to kill an add then go back to boss.
  7. Fohpo Augur

    Thanks homie
  8. Ofearl Slayer of all things Stupid

    Engage, kill the burgeding thing, let the sprouting things spawn till you get three pitifuls up, off tank them, kill thenother crappy adds. It works but takes way to long for the achievement...
  9. Darsh Journeyman

    So is this a dead issue and will not be changed again? Many think its still overpowered for a group mission
  10. Pistols4Pandas Elder

    Tucoh is an exceptional and determined boxer playing a nearly full / full group. He boxes at a level equivalent to average player-played characters, which is a great compliment, because boxing mechanics with 6 characters is ridiculously intense and difficult. He has undoubtedly spent hundreds of hours optmizing his socials and creating unique ones for individual encounters.

    The fact that he beat it does not change my opinion that the missions in this expansion are inaccessible to most players, I don't have a problem with the difficulty, I like the difficulty, but I disagree that the only missions offered are at this level of difficulty.

    Offer more missions / ha's or varying difficulty level with lesser/fewer rewards, as content is slim for those who cannot beat these sorts of encounters and boxers who do not play 6 characters, and really really well, at that. Nice job Tucoh,
  11. Pistols4Pandas Elder

    Not as bad since being toned down. 3-Boxed it.
    Tucoh likes this.
  12. Vaeeldar Augur

    Raid geared or wizzy main? Struggling to picture how this is 3 boxed from a pure strategy perspective. Can't picture enough DPS even with a wizzy.
  13. Zamiam Augur

    3 mages im guessing
    Pistols4Pandas likes this.
  14. smash Augur

    A thing that i find bad is the delay on the vulnerable when you have killed the additionel mob, can be 10-20 sec.
  15. Sokki Still Won't Buff You!!

    Yes, I've noticed this several times while doing the Atrocious Achieve. There were times when adds spawned and locked his HP, we would burn the adds and he would never unlock before more adds spawned.
  16. Pistols4Pandas Elder


    3 - 20k AA Mages.
  17. TheStugots Augur

    I box this mission. I don't have my setup even close to Tucoh's. It's not that difficult.
  18. Belkar_OotS Augur

    I could use some help in figuring out how to box this mission. My issue seems to be that I don't have the dps needed to kill it before I get over run by adds. I usually get to about 25% ish when I get the 4th and 5th adds, but before I can make him vulnerable again I've gotten even more adds and wipe.

    My group is a warrior, monk, shaman, druid and bard. I generally don't dps with the healers though I didn't manage to do better running dots since... well reasons. I started having mana issues since the event was going so long so made healing a bigger issue. Last spot is a mercenary maybe a friend who plays a rogue. However they have a low threshold for failing and retrying.

    All characters are max level. The warrior and monk are raid geared. Mostly EoK but some pieces of RoS on the warrior. The others have mostly older raid gear and EoK group gear. Mostly over 20k AA. I don't use [Unmentioned 3rd Party Software]. I do have separate computers for each character.

    I tried swapping the bard for a lower end wizard but didn't seem to do better. Anyone happen to have a time period and dps needed before it goes to crap?
  19. Zamiam Augur

    I'm not an expert especially at this particular mission , however just from my experience and knowledge of boxing .. imho from what i can tell from your 5 box setup .. your doing too much and not enough dps .. firstly if your not dps'ing with your healers they are being under utilized .

    warrior prolly not much dps since your tanking and not alot of dps with the bard.. boxing a heavy mellee group is hard at least to get the dps you want ..

    its been said many times the more you box (as in the more toons you add to your box setup ) the less efficiency they become.. you can get more out of 2 wizzy mercs than you can 2 additional boxed toons

    ..tank is good ( either a normal tank war,sk,pally or mage pet) I would go druid for ports , heals and tracking and dps .. if you are gonna stick with warrior id throw in a mage for dps backup tank and CoH and for 4th id go wizzy .. so war, druid, mage, wizzy with 2 wizzy mercs (or 1 wizy 1 healer merc) .. if gonna go mage as tank and ditch warrior id go mage, druid, wizy, Ench ^ then the above merc setup.
    and personally unless your doing Raiding Id ditch warrior and go with SK or Pally .. Sk better at AE agro than Pally , but Pally could be your sole healer with healer merc then you could ditch druid and go with another mage :p

    I 3 to 4 box and I use 1 computer and (unmentioned 3rd party software) and makes things alot easier ..

    those are just my opinions and views take it with a grain of salt and maybe a lime and shot of Tito's
    hope it helps but GL on your journey and above all else Play what you like and have fun
  20. Tucoh Augur

    Just some general advice:
    1. Have the shaman/druid toss as much DoTs as you can on cactikii when it spawns. Pop fortitude/wade into battle on the warrior at the start if you need to in order to focus on DoTs.
    2. Keep your warrior in dual wield mode. You should be able to have heroic rage up the full encounter, That + shaman's epic + bard's melody/quicktime/fierce eye and your warrior will be putting out serious DPS. Just watch out for the reverse damage shield debuff (agonizing needles).

    The fight is short enough that you'll get pretty good uptime on culminating stand, roaring / dicho shield, pain doesn't hurt.

    3. If you can, have your bard shoot out vainglorious shout every 30s while they run their melody.

    4. If you find that you need to focus a lot on healing, one thing I've been having good luck with is using Conflagrant Rods on my melee ( http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=129385 ) to supplement my healing. You can also pop the bard's flurry of notes for a pretty long period where they'll be putting out ~40k healing a second by procing every round. If you can keep your monk/bard swinging at cactikii with them, it should give some cover for your shaman/druid to maintain their DoTs.

    5. This fight has a lot of random stuff to it, with a boxed setup it's easy to get derailed and wipe, so sometimes you just need to get lucky (or just not get unlucky). I know what you mean about having a buddy who doesn't have much tolerance for wipes. Even though a rogue would help out a lot with DPS, sometimes you just need to practice on your own to get good enough to bring in backup.