Cactus rethread

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

  1. Ratbo Peep Augur

    Yes. Several tests have shown that a well balanced *raid geared* group using "raid focus and attention" can beat this mission now. Retune=fail. PLEASE try again.
    -R
  2. Ratbo Peep Augur


    Ya? How did that work out for you?
    -R
  3. Natal Augur



    Beta is primarily for finding bugs, players doing their thing is not used for tuning. What the devs want is to find glitches or design logic flaws that result in an unexpected outcome, such as making an event super easy or super hard.

    Devs do on occasion ask players to take a shot at a particular event and after ask what they think (I have personally experienced this a few times in beta over the years), but mostly they do not require technical input since they know what the intent of an event is and how much damage can be delivered/received from it. What they are looking for primarily in those sorts of testing events is the feel for the level of difficulty/challenge/fun the event has. And that is because their job involves providing entertainment to their customers. If it is too easy or too difficult, people will stop logging on and they will be in the unemployment line. On the technical side of things they are far more knowledgeable than any player when it comes to the big picture (in spite of what many players seem to think), because they have access to the inner workings of the game, all of the data and they know what the intent of a particular scenario/event/mob is.
  4. Natal Augur



    My 3 toon box squad could not do this encounter even before the revision (could not do enough dps), so it is pretty much out of the question completely now. As far as I am concerned, the new event was a giant F you.

    And if the mobs scale into future expansions, out of the question forever.

    And for those who might feel the unrequested need, please don't lecture me about a boxed team, I don't like playing with other people and it works for me, so shove your opinions of that where the sun don't shine :)
    Cloudia likes this.
  5. Wulfhere Augur

    I never did this event before the retune.

    Last week I was invited to tank this when it was retuned by Absor to be "impossible". What the hell let's give it a try! The group was all raid geared and the dps was top tier. We got Cactiikii to I think it was 15% on our best run, before our dps (2 melee + 2 caster) stalled out and wiped. We tried a few times and these were my own first attempts at the event (not so for the others in my group). From that experience, I bet that only a top tier raid group featuring 3+ caster DPS could have beat it then. Absor knows if anyone beat it during that week before the hotfix, and how many of those were group geared attempts.

    Since the hotfix, I've tanked it four more times and "our raid group" is 2 for 4 beating it and even with mostly (3 of 4) melee dps. It's still a 2 minute or fail event mechanic and I would not call it fun, just furiously spamming of abilities with a dose of desperation before the next add spawns that locks the bosses hitpoints.

    As for the shadowstep, aye it has caused our attempts to loose dps but careful choice for the battle site does minimize loss of tank and healer. I've not been ported out of melee range since we found a good spot for the battle.

    In it's current state, I would say that tanking it is not a problem for a raid tank. Tank probably needs 5.5k ac and 225k hp buffed on the low end to avoid being spiked (assuming you're tanking Cactiikii plus a mature add). Are those stats attainable in group gear? If not then tone it down a bit Absor. The DPS check is a bit extreme though and almost surely exclusive to raid geared and max AA toons who know how to burn. A bit more time between adds, like 10-15 seconds, and a bit more friendly to melee should bring the dps requirement in line with "balanced groups".
    mmats and Kolani like this.
  6. Cicelee Augur

    Tried it last night with five raiders in high end guild. We got named to 45 before wiping.

    One issue I saw was when named spawned, it comes with a burgeoning add. We burned burgeoning then moved to named. Now named is all alone so it should be vulnerable. However it went a good ten seconds real time before it dropped the invulnerability. I know I wasted about three twincasts spells on a named that should be vulnerable, but was not.

    Several other times in the script we would kill an add that was up, thus supposedly making the name vulnerable to DPS. Again there was around a ten second delay before the named went back to vulnerable. Not necessarily saying we would have won, but that is an issue with the script where a long delay like that (especially multiple times) is a concern...
    mmats likes this.
  7. Ratbo Peep Augur


    It might help a bit there, to detect and kill the "sprouting succulent" as fast as possible - before it turns into a full grown mob. (it looks like a "puck" on the ground). It will not appear on agro window till it grows up.
    But even getting the mechanics done right, it's still grossly overtuned for group players as the entry level mission of the expansion. Absor said he wanted to it be the easiest one to do - just not AS easy as v1.0 was. If version 2.0 was tuned up to 11 - then this version 3.0 is dialed back to 10. But the mission is still miserable and in-fun, even knowing the correct strats.
    -R
  8. Kolani Augur

    Since it's apparently trolling - I even got a warning from Roxx! - to point out that a certain developer has been trash at tuning group content for several years now, I won't bring it up, or his mess of a Grounds anniversary mission. However, as Wulfhere pointed out, that sort of gear check isn't easily obtainable for a group geared player. I can hit that on my shadowknight, but my shadowknight also has two pieces of Velazul's, Reaper's Ward and a couple more pieces that were left to me by a retiring friend. There's no way I'd be close in strictly group gear.

    However, someone needs to sit Absor down and remind him that raid gear and group gear are two different things. If people in raid gear are complaining that group missions are too hard, they're absolutely too hard, especially for tier 1 content. T1 should be as close to a Monty Haul as raiders get.
    Pirlo, Cloudia, Slippry and 3 others like this.
  9. Cicelee Augur

    So I do not want to come across as mean because maybe I just do not know the event mechanics. But I am talking about a ten second delay where the named becomes vulnerable when it should have been done ten seconds prior. You are talking about killing sprouts before they hatch into adds.

    How exactly are these two identical and relevant to each other?

    I am aware of killing the sproutlings before they hatch into adds. Is the event mechanics that the named is invulnerable while there is a sprouting trying to come to life? I am not aware of that. Maybe I am wrong. But to my knowledge, named goes invulnerable only when an add is up. I am finding after killing an add the named is still invulnerable for 10 seconds.

    That is the issue. Unless I am wrong on event mechanics...
  10. Wulfhere Augur

    Cicelee,

    Aye the sprouts count as adds towards invulnerability. As a tank ya may not even see a sprout on ETW while getting INVULNERABLE messages.

    Once Cactiikii spawns, ya have this sequence of timing windows
    0.00 - C plus burgeoning spawns. Land big dots on C.
    0.10 - Sprout makes C invulnerable. Find and BURN Sprout.
    0.20 - Carry BURN back to C

    When that fails (and it will), burn lowest HP Burgeoning (if ya have Renegade ya already lost) and ...

    .... Carry BURN back to Spout
    .... Carry BURN back to C for the win.

    A winning sequence looks like this:
    1. Monstrous dies (start clock 0.00m)
    2. Sprouting
    3. Burgeoning
    4. Sprouting
    5. Cactiiki (2.20m from 1)

    I'm sharing this "strat" because I think the event needs more balanced tuning for group players.
    Zhaunil_AB likes this.
  11. Wulfhere Augur

    ps: I should add this strat only gets you a win plus Brown Thumb achievement. Green Thumb and Atrocious (i.e. Drogba's point) are still well out of reach of a "balanced group" ... to Absor.
    Yinla likes this.
  12. Gyurika Godofwar Augur


    I highly doubt that anyone outside of your close friends in game gives a damn what you find challenging or wants your input on anything whatsoever with your conceited selfish elitist attitude.
    Cloudia likes this.
  13. kizant Augur

    I don't see Drogba ever calling people names or telling them that they're opinion is worthless. Who here has the elitist attitude again?
    Sancus, Fehu and Drogba like this.
  14. Gyurika Godofwar Augur

    Apparently RoS actually stands for Raiders Only Suckas!
  15. Gyurika Godofwar Augur

    Yeah I'm very elitist and conceited because I had the fortitude to call him out on his completely irrelevant post...
  16. Gyurika Godofwar Augur

    For the record my problem was the way he expressed himself. It seemed like he was implying that anyone who had trouble with the task basically sucked and that he was the best player in EQ.

    That's really not something that should be posted right now with all the angry players cancelling subs and either not buying or out right avoiding ROS at the moment.

    I understand taking pride in your EQ characters but in 2018 with everything else out there across the gaming landscape it seems like a better idea to be more empathetic with the casuals and low/mid tier raiders than to add more fuel to the fire.
  17. Drogba Augur

    I'm sorry that that is your perception.

    I went and did the mission a few times after the patches, with various groups of full raid geared players that were already very familiar with the mission. I took a lot of damage, but that was it. I was genuinely surprised to read that it was more than mainly groupers having issues with it, and posted my experiences/testimony like everybody else. I'm sure a lot of raiders are or can be beating this. I'd love to hear of a group geared group beating it, but i don't know if that's even possible.
  18. Fehu Journeyman

    Drogbaa is prolly the least elitist player I know, he slums with me alot!
  19. Cleaver Augur


    I doubt it is. The healing and tanking is doable, but you will be hard pressed to find the group geared toons that can meet the DPS requirement here especially since its a caster specific event where melee are basically useless.
  20. mmats Augur

    Drogba is that wingman uncle who is always telling great stories and is a total bro to you despite being 20 years older. Then one day he falls off the wagon and is filmed running a train on 8 of the filthiest most unmistakable trannies anyone could find in Virginia for a $50 bill on a truck stop steak. Its not long before the video goes viral on social media and he becomes a pariah. He loses his job at the auto repair, but your parents take pity on him and let him spend 6 months rent free on the family couch. He is eventually kicked out after slapping dad in the mouth for using spicy mustard instead of Dijon on his classic Reuben, but his odor is somehow still being emitted from that couch.

    You still see him sometimes, behind the corner gas station, or sleeping in his favorite drainage ditch. You would like to say hi and gift him a bar of soap, but youve never forgiven him for getting SK's nerfed err I mean bringing shame upon your family.

    Thats what Ive heard from the people that know him anyway...
    Kwushnasty likes this.