lol... thanks for this sound advice! Yes i am sure, that must be it, because we suck so much at playing our mains (and our regular boxes outside raid days).
Just my 2 cents.. there is core of players that still press the keys.. and there are others that don't press the key for the command.. via mouse loop, audio fire, key board repeater, the gina discord cheat with audio command recorded.. Todays eq if you are pressing the keys.. you are behind. So far behind I'm think I'm ahead of the curve .. but the players are about to lap me..
I tried out a new combo tonight so this was a bit of a learning curve. All group geared, no boxing software, 5 separate computers the old fashioned way. The Mage and Enchanter parses are a bit lower than I'm used to with my normal group setup. The Monk suicided on spines in 13 seconds. Only healer was a merc. Cactiikii in 83s, 87875k @1058737 | Beastlord + pets 27043k@325818 [30.77%] | Magician + pets 21536k@259475 [24.51%] | ShadowKnight + pets 19466k@234532 [22.15%] | Enchanter + pets 15878k@191305 [18.07%] | Monk 3951k@47608 [4.5%] | Unknown Class 0k@0 [0%] I'm not sure what you and your friends are doing, but this is not hard with group gear or boxing. The previous iteration where the hp locked with one add and the shadow step still used I'd understand. This version is slightly harder than the original, but still fairly simple. There are more hp and an extra add. Can still burn through without killing the adds unless you want achievements.
Personally, i am leaning towards the suboptimal setup and lack of synergies for the reasons of this being hard for us. Looking at your group, the BST supports the MNK and SHD - SHD self-heals lots, so not much healing needed most likely (4taps+epic and multibind?) and our raiding SHDs at least are better DPS while tanking than my WAR when i tank too. And your ENC supports both the BST and MAG for their burns. RU using that bolt of many? What does the MAG use, assuming he's the mainstay of your DPS with the BST? How is the ENC set up to support him? Socials using /pauses to time burns or multibinds? Yes, i guess we'd gain a little DPS too if we weren't ALT-Tabbing but using 2machines each - at least for me, as i could effectively use my cleric to main-heal which could open other options in regards to melee-DPS added in. Our NEC i guess needs some time to unload his DMG potential so not too "fit" for a 90s burn i think. His MAG, i don't know how many AAs he has, but he uses it regularly so i'd guess he knows how to play him - but we have no support for the MAG. Likewise, the boxed SHM knows what he's doing but WAR in tank-mode isn't at his best DPS ofc. I am sure we'll keep on trying to better our group-setup some - our BST isn't on/available for this kind of fun as often as i'd like but would certainly help big-time. Your MNK suiciding is exactly what happened regularly to our melees, which is why i said that this mission (in my eyes) were geared towards casters. Our ROG(s) had much the same fate as your MNK, and overheal wasn't really possible (no live healer in that setup). On the tanking side, both WARs are mains and (i'd say, but i am biased) know their class - but i guess there's some potential for improvement too, e.g. if i can "count" on the burn i can use my buttons somewhat differently than when i have to cover 10mins... Or it might be worth looking into a "tankswitch" after the initial 3mins for the other WAR to go full def while the tanking one can then go into DPS mode - that's something we did NOT try yet for example... When we tried for the burn so far though, we failed miserably at that goal and later adds simply overran us (before patch). Now, we just might give that another try, if we can somehow "up" that burn-potential. The important thing to me was that we didn't miss any key part really... Not that i thought we were, but the "very, very easily" above made me wonder - as did the remark about spines just being overhealed which proved impossible for us so far. Between sprouts and regular adds, there doesn't seem to be MUCH HP-unlocked time for these burns for us and melee DPS seems to be mostly negated :/ It was two adds that caused the HP lock (now, post-patch), with sprouts counting, right?
Thanks - that could be another thing then, as i think we're killing the sprout - even the first one - as soon as it pops. I say "i think" because it's been last weekend or so when we last did it and i'm quite tired right now, so i do not recall the details on that particular setup. If i'm right though, then the time we need to kill that sprout is time we're actually NOT using for the named, very possibly making it harder than it need to be (minus that sprout-related achievement) above and beyond the suboptimal setup. Thanks for another thing we can try
I succeeded the Atrocious achievement after the patch with only some melee DPS. War, Cleric, Rogue, Ranger, Beastlord and one shaman boxed, all raid geared. As we speak of just beating the mission without going for the ach, it's clearly easily doable by a group of pure melee people.
Have your Necro pop full defensive pet AAs before Cactiikkii spawns, and off tank the Add with the pet. Might need an HoT or 2 but there are 3-4 defensive AAs for pets that work quite well and should keep the pet up for the duration. If your shaman isn't dotting heavily he needs to be. Focus all dmg on named and ignore / off tank the 2 adds. Your Necro can probably swarm-pet the 2nd add, too.
If you have 2 wars, a tank switch wouldn't be a bad idea just for increased dps. Have one open with furious + 2h then go into tank mode while the 2nd blows his 60 seconds worth of dps buttons then ae taunt and furious with 2h letting the first war then blow his dps buttons. (obviously timing/luck so they don't suicide themselves to spikes)
My mages are in EOK T2 group gear, with Conflagrant arms/legs/robe only. EM 18. 2 of my mages Have 20+ empty aug slots.
I'm not Piemastaj, at least I finished my Artisan's Prize! I'm holding out for the >300 skill TS AAs to be autogranted though... I feel like Sancusjr is going to catch up soon if he hasn't already...
Tradeskill AAs haven't been autogranted in the past so I wouldn't be surprised if the new ones are exempted as well. But who knows.....
That was a request by the players that was actually taken in to consideration. Many in the forums raised the concern that having those AA autogranted would make maxing (300) tradeskills take longer as the popular fast tract was high trivial items with the salvage potion.
