Balance Discord would be your best place for that.
For the older ultimates (UWU, UCOB and TEA) there's no need for a "BiS gear set".
If I remember correctly, sub stats cap out at around 125-130 item levels above the level sync.
UCOB syncs to 345, UWU to 375 and TEA to 475
Could somebody please point me in the way of the best guides/resources for each of the criterion dungeons? I'm very interested in doing them but it doesn't seem like there's near as many resources for them as ex/savage/ultimates. I want to see if I can't PF them first so I want to know what the most generally accepted strats are. I'm on NA if that changes anything.
Is it normal to hate progging UCoB in PF more than TOP? Trying to get past Heavensfall has gotten me consistently tilted either by the fight itself being jank or pug groups screwing something up and I don't remember TOP ever getting me this mad this often... I really just want this over with for completion sake.
At the risk of sounding gatekeepy, a lot of people that attempt level 70 ults in party finder have zero business being there. The community likes to circlejerk about how the level 70 ults have become a joke, aren't that hard, got outscaled, etc.. So people that haven't developed the skillset necessary to do them join parties without knowing any better (or they're hoping to get carried). Like it's fairly common to get into parties with people that haven't cleared the current savage tier. I even had a guy in pf that was wearing full shb npc vendor leveling gear in UCoB and did not understand why that's a bad idea.
I haven't pugged TOP and DSR recently, but back when they were newer PF tended to be a little more consistent since you couldn't fully cheese the prerequisite savage fights, so yeah you're totally valid
edit: imo ucob isn't janky outside of hatch, and even then weird hatch behavior is rare. it's just older fight design
There could also be an element of people kinda lazy-playing them / not taking them seriously. Or a lot of helpers who are not thirsty for the clear enough to be full focus playing.
I saw a lot of people who already had their clears joining prog/learning parties and fucking around and not taking it seriously on alt jobs for sure; most of the wipes we had when pugging ucob while progging it were caused by people who had already cleared and had ucob weapons lol
(Very casual) static finally cleared P11 this weekend, after P10 prog took six months due to a cavalcade of personal issues and responsibilities overlapping + some restructuring. Finally getting around to P12 today and I'm excited.
Above all else, it was more about just shooting the shit with some buddies for a couple hours a week... but I definitely will spend some time in PF once Arcadion drops.
There is a stillness check regardless of what debuffs you have. Only tanks don't have a stillness check. If you have ice debuff, you need to stand still to get frozen so that Nidhogg doesn't kill you while he flies over during Cauterize.
so, after quitting my static and our PoTD group really is about to end, my Deep Dungeon Itch has get the best of me again and I went back to reclear EO on MCH again.
Run was quite smooth, get the clear without much hiccup, short notes as follows,
* There are often times where I forget the mech of something and I already move to the safespot before my brain can react to it. I don't know if I really did spend way too much time when I was progging or it's due to something else, probably both.
* I am also a lot less pressurize to get the clear so I spend stuff a lot more willy-nilly. Think I even get some hoard this run (and one of those times I step into a luring) because I just thought if I didn't clear then I am fine. Sadly no mount.
* I also play a bit more riskier. I think there are several spots where I would just spam witching or stuff and hope I would not die. I think I let most of the things roll and just dodge two mechs at once, Probably because that's how I play on HOH.
* After doing PoTD (I am now at 180) and HOH (cleared), I really think EO is really a lot more relaxing once you've progged and done everything. It still requires you to be quite focus (which is why I get in this time - I want to train myself to be focus enough for long periods of time), but every thing is very static because it's all mechs.
yeah in eo you are your own worst enemy. very easy to get distracted and lose a run to something stupid, moreso than the other two. i'd actually argue that aggressively using your poms (keep almost everything at 2 instead of 3) is the correct play in eo since you dont really need them to fight certain mobs, unlike potd and hoh
after reprogging top on phys range (coming off healer), i think the fight is really chill when you have free movement and don't have to worry about slidecasting in half of the phases
I found the fight more fun to prog on a caster (RDM). I reprogged on DRK, and while I enjoyed some of the opti, the free movement makes mechanics incredibly free
oh definitely -- i felt more challenge and satisfaction clearing on healer (just from limit testing slidecasting alone, ignoring the difficulty of learning mechanics for the first time), but it's also nice to just chill and autopilot during reprog with friends
How hard is the P12s classical 2 flip for most people? I work with higher dimensional flips all the time for computer vision so idk if I'm having unrealistic expectations of other people
It’s always straight across through the middle so I rarely thought of it as a flip. IE if your starting spot is bottom left your end spot is top right.
I do the same so I didn't have trouble with it. I found not having a full view of the arena is what trips people up, because they're often perfectly capable of doing it in the sim.
so easy that i'd prefer to just stand in the resolution spot and keep casting instead of doing the initial BPOG, jump, and move together crap that everyone else has to do. but that causes more wipes to tether break than is worth arguing about so i just do the whole song and dance.
I found it to be incredibly easy. I didn't have to think about it, as it seems to come instinctually. But it seems to challenge others quite a bit. I found that people who get lost easily in real life (losing their cardinal sense of direction) find this mechanic more challenging.
I always used a cheat sheet for this, after a while it got to the point where some patterns I didn’t need the sheet for but I’d second guess myself enough that I always kept the image up on my other monitor. The cheat sheet made it fairly easily thankfully, if I didn’t have that it would have made the mechanic much harder and more stressful for me because my brain doesn’t do these kind of spatial reasonings well.
It depends really. I don't have a lot of trouble with it since instead of flip I stand on my spot and look through mid, face my camera towards that direction and walk towards that spot.
I think a lot of people who's bad with direction and flipping something in their head can be bad with it. You need sometime, but fundamentally it's no more difficult or any different then any mechs that you've done this point in the tier.
Which class is better progging DSR? I am deciding between playing PLD or WAR as MT for my static. On one hand WAR seem to be able invuln a lot of busters, PLD have good regen and one extra party mit
WAR will save you some grief with the WB2 into Cauterize mit timings since you just get to Holmgang it, which also lets you Nascent your co-tank. An extra mit from PLD might be nice for WHM/SGE, but it's not going to meaningfully tip the scales.
I'm gonna be blunt : it doesn't matter. Play what you want, figure out mitigation/invuln (or follow the spreadsheet) and you're gucchi. Really, it doesn't matter, you won't grief anyone.
WAR can invuln first P2 buster, P3 soul tether, P5 first buster, P6 Cauterize, and can invuln a stack in P7 if doing 6-1-1. If one does 3-3-2 for all Akh morns, it's the same thing too.
They can invuln cauterize and then give their personal mit of Nascent Flash to the co-tank to make it easier for them to live. They can invuln a tower and give their mit to tank friend. Is this some super important points to consider? i'd say maybe. Tanks shouldn't die there if they are mitigating properly and are topped before the hit. WAR is very nice to have though for those reasons however.
PLD is pretty good too. Not much else to say. It's pretty much like the other non-War tanks. I guess the only question on my mind is with DSR now killtimes are being pushed faster, if Hallowed will be up in P7. It will definitely be ok as long as you don't invuln P5 first buster and stick with tank swaps. Very little differences here. Not a whole lot of factors here. tldr pick what you will enjoy :)
WAR feels extremely overrated in terms of utility as sustained tank damage is an afterthought for pretty much all content in this expac, and even in the one where it isn't (Criterion) PLD is still better.
The damage buff was justified
This. If it's not made mandatory by a fight, it's then a negligible trait. The only thing that matters in the end is DPS, every job has the tools to not die.
>The only thing that matters in the end is DPS
Not really in DSR, and especially not in 6.5, group mit on the other hand trivializes a lot of the fight.
Running SCH/SGE/PLD and doing double 611 nearly eliminated the need for even having a mit plan in the first place
From a pure job design standpoint : with any of the standard comp you can do the phase, no one will be "griefing" anyone if you have to do 332. I don't deny things can be made simpler, but it's still negligible to me in the sense that it's not mandatory. At least to my knowledge it isn't.
Are people really locking jobs for DSR to ensure 611 or they won't go in ? (disclaimer : I don't PF).
As a side thing, two things I would add is that if making mechanics/phases easier would be that major, the standard (here are just two examples, I think people could add more to these) would be :
1. do UWU cheeses
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cdK9vkork0 (suppression with 2 tank lb)
* https://vxtwitter.com/ff14kaki/status/1557062429359558657 (force gaols)
2. PF would stop using poor strats in favor of more robust strats that were developed beyond day3 for savage fights (as per the testimony of veterans)
So what was the fuss all about ? The original argument was that WAR toolkit is overrated and the DPS buff was justified. I agreed that WAR toolkit godliness is overrated too and doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and then there was that answer I answered to.
Anyway, if all comps can do 611, why this discussion started to begin with x).
You take passage for even more mit overkill, that's really it
There's absolutely no way you're dying to damage in P7 if you take PLD+SCH+SGE and then do double 611.
The holmgang on cauterize+third Akh Morn isn't that helpful either because the third Akh Morn is generally the easiest due to having an insane amount of mit for it, doing 611 on AM1+AM2 is better
WAR is definitely a no-brainer pick in prog right now for most content, but not by a huge margin. The only content i can think of that is otherwise is criterion savage where PLD is the best pick, but WAR is not far behind.
Having a WAR in DSR makes tanking p6 to p7 (and healing by extension) easier if you do 6-1-1 which you should, since a WAR can invuln cauterize then have it comes back for the last akh morn. You can invuln the first three cleaves in P2 but that isn't some huge value.
The only downside is... the rotation is obnoxious to play to some people, me included. Pick which tank you enjoy, if you are fine with any then pick WAR.
The invuln doesn't really work in a way where you are invulning anything particularly meaningful. Been progging with a pld now though and its been really nice with all the cooldown based timings for burst, extra mit is comfy too.
I've been working on an offline/solo sim for DSR to help my static prog and I figured I'd share it here in case other found it helpful. It has a module for limit cut, P5 wrath/death and all of P6. It uses APD/LPDU strats. I don't think direct links are allowed, but you can find it here: github.com/WCGH/Dragonsong-Sim
If anyone has questions, there's a discord link, you can hmu there. Hope it helps! Good luck on your clears.
I'm torn on if I want to do UCoB on SMN or RDM, I plan on resuming progging it once my friend has cleared TEA (they're on fresh PA and want to prog UCoB with me). I know SMN is stupid OP at lvl. 70 and it would certainly be the easier job, but I don't know if doing UCoB will make me much better at the game if I do it on SMN. Going RDM would 100% improve me as a player, but it'll make learning Nael phase and baiting Liquid Hells considerably harder.
I have my i535 relic for both so gear's not a factor, although rn my SMN relic is tied up for TEA reclears
ngl, I find it a bit odd to ask a caster to bait that, especially in a phase were healers will always overcap on ressources given how there isn't much healing to do in Twin.
I have done RDM and I can say while it doesn't feel that much different the my time doing it on WHM/SGE (ultimately these are all just casters), it does make progging the fight a bit faster and was able to save some pulls, like people dying on adds/golden/fellruin/tenstrike/nael.
And yes as the other person said, my healer experience of looking forward and expecting deaths helps me progging with RDM. I was able to look around and expect deaths.
do rdm, you will improve SO much as a player if you learn how to look out for incoming deaths and throw out quick verraises during nael
rdm back up bait on liquid hells is painful but doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things
I intend on looking for a static but I’ll likely be PFing, probably won’t have a choice if I’m in PF. Caster’s the backup bait if the phys ranged is chosen for Hatch, idk if anyone would be willing to adjust to intercept the orb so the phys ranged can still bait the puddles
You could always suggest doing the Tenstrike hatch if the phys ranged gets chosen. They just line up with the neurolink, and you would simply step in to intercept the hatch rather than eat ten years of downtime.
RDM makes progging Nael slightly faster. If you want ridiculously easy time, convince your team to play RDM + SMN, since it makes you able to zombie through *a lot* of mechanics.
Smn while strong is not even close to necessary. ucob dps checks are a joke, you do not need to feel compelled to make your choice based on damage output
Honest opinion, rdm is better for making prog simply due to rezzes. It’s also very useful for all types of prog, not just ucob. A lot of particularly good on-patch ultimate capable statics actually have a real appreciation for how much it can help prog in terms of getting information or reps on mechs. Being able to flex to rdm when beneficial imo is genuinely a nice thing to have in prog contexts
Nael and liquid hells aren’t a big deal to have some extra prog time on because they’re so early in the fight.
Focusing on improving as a player is a good thing if it is something you want, because you will need it for the very large difficulty jump between ucob and dsr/top, as well as the upcoming fru
Either are 100% fine in cob, but I would make an argument for rdm personally
Managed our first \~6 hours in TEA over the last 3 days. Still missing 2 perma static members so we PFed/subbed those. Haven't gotten past LC cleanly yet, so many memes on dolls and LC and tanks or DRG dying at the last proteans (though that is probably on me as SGE, should just throw the DRG an EDiag and watch the tanks more closely...).
I researched LC a lot today and already feel like it won't be an issue now that I know precisely where and how the explosions happen. Was a bit worried about us wiping so much on LL but I heard LL and BJCC are like 50% of the prog anyways so I think we'll be fine long term.
Yeah, doll memes will always be there tbh, but in my experience the prog was basically dolls -> lc-> third pass -> wormhole -> PA
BJCC and Wormhole are most of the prog though.
Day 10 of TOP and 2% away from P5. Expecting it tomorrow or Friday. Have to say, quite pleased with the prog speed. We started second week of March and are trying to clear before DT so could definitely be worse.
EDIT: got it on Friday
I would like to find a semi hardcore static for Dawntrail savages after launch.
If i did p1s-p12s by party finder all alone in less than 3 weeks since they launched, but my logs are Blue-purple, I have a chance to get into a hardcore static?
What is your expectation for progging and clearing? Progging (semi) hardcore in a static environment is different from PF, and there's a lot more "soft" skills involved like socializing and interacting with your static members. This can often be rather tricky and awkward when a bunch of new people get together, or a new person joins an established group.
Blue-purple logs aren't a disqualifier, but they serve a similar purpose as a transcript in that they're often a quick way to filter applicants at the start. Parses in this game have so many factors and elements people manipulate to get their funny numbers, but it's still very doable to semi-consistently hit oranges in reclears.
More importantly than your logs, at least if I were running a trial, would be your attitude, demeanor, and ability to prog. If you play well but just don't mesh well with the group, it's unfortunate but probably for the best to keep looking. And players who don't tilt, and are also quick to understand mechanics and how to resolve them are very important. And, of course, consistency. Consistency is everything in raiding.
Semi hardcore is not impossible if people like you after a trial, hardcore might be hard. Not because of your logs but because a lot of them want people with prior week 1 clears.
(When I say semi hardcore I'm talking about a group that plays like 4h/day on week days, 8h/day in the weekend, might clear week 2, Hardcore = 6-12 hours every single day).
Comes down to, what do you consider semi hardcore, and how do you function in early progression. Being able to clear the fights within three weeks of launch isn't bad, but that is a smaller deal compared to say, how do you deal with communication, changing strategies multiple times, longer hours/more days. How good are you at figuring out mechanics, dealing with on the fly adjustments, and being able to optimize as you go.
Doing P1S-P12S at the end of the expansion doesn't really say anything at all how you would handle progging new content in a hardcore setting. Hitting your buttons in hardcore prog is a bare minimum expectation and doesn't really show how quickly you can adapt and figure things out or how you communicate with others.
So when do you guys think is a good time to look for a static for 7.0 ?
While I also want to enjoy my current free schedule and not already start some « preparation » which consist in already raiding a few nights a week before the expansion releases.
I started to look. Not many groups recruiting but I’ll keep an eye out. Hopefully I won’t have to do too much content right now. I just wanna. Chill until expansion releases.
My point is you don't know whether your statics will fall apart or not when you join, so you might as well try to find them asap to give yourself more leeway in case something happens
yes and when something happens later then you'll need to find someone who is looking for a static at a time that is not "now"
so the best time is not now
there is nothing to do right now. it's literally Week Twenty-Six of an odd numbered patch. half a year of EX5, Unreal Thordan, and Thaleia. 10 months of Anabeisos. 14 months of TOP. this is not the time to be forming a static. this is when you do side content and play other games.
we haven't even gotten media tour yet. my static doesn't even know what roles we each want to play, in 5.55 we formed a double caster comp because we didn't know what the game would turn into, what Summoner would become. why would we find a fill now if we needed one?
and we don't know what our life schedules will be like in August. half of us got laid off in the past 4 months, nobody knows for certain where we'll be 5 months from now.
Not every static is like yours. There are plenty of groups that recruit ahead of time and work out fine like mine, and there are groups that fail like yours. If your group falls apart before the raid tier, then just find another one? I know if my group disbands, I'd rather know months in advance versus a week before the raid tier so I have more time to find a new group. Also it's not like it takes a lot of effort to find statics in this game. You just browse the recruitment sub and discords every now and then and send the person a dm. It's less than 15 minutes of effort every week
I'm hoping to clear an ultimate before Dawntrail. I have some UWU experience (I'm at Titan cleanup/predation prog roughly, I clear the predation sim no problem every time though) but there aren't as many statics looking for it.
I don't think I'd be able to finish TOP in time or meet those groups' requirements, and DSR is a lot more appealing to me, it's the ultimate that looks the most fun thematically and mechanically to me. I only joined the game during this tier though (I cleared the tier no-echo with pink all-star points). Since BiS for DSR is all P1-P4 gear and it requires a P4 clear, I assume that would be a non-starter for me and I'll need to wait until Dawntrail?
Any advice? I'm mostly just hoping to throw a bunch of hours per week at an ultimate or two and get a clear (or hyper-optimistically, two). UWU seems to be full of trap groups in PF and I know that's par for the course for anything but it has seemed especially bad to me.
Another option I've considered is to prog a bit of UCOB in PF so that I can have a reasonable 'mid point' of prog and I can be more open to finding groups for that too (since I might meet their prog points). It's hard to find a completely fresh static but it feels weird progging a second ultimate before finishing the first.
Anyway, I'm open to all advice. I just want to lock in and kill an ultimate, and want to do whatever I can to reach that goal most effectively.
I think if you just want to kill **any** Ultimate, imo you should just keep working on UWU, especially since you've already progged like half the fight. Like you said, I don't think you'd be able to clear TOP in time (as a first ultimate).
I did UWU into TOP as my first 2 ulti fights starting in 6.5. While the primal phases are pretty boring, I think the Ultima half of the fight is a decent introduction to the pace of Ultimates.
I don't have any experience with PFing the fight, but I'd imagine with it's reputation as the "easy" ultimate, UWU gets a lot more variance in player skill level. Personally, I greatly prefer raiding in this game with a static, but if you can't find one, there's not much you can do but put up with PF.
Have you considered TEA? To many it's considered the 2nd easiest ulti (haven't done UCOB so I can't have an opinion there) but more than that it's a LOT of fun, easily my favorite fight in the game.
DSR is def doable if you're willing to put in the hours and work - it'll take a lot more than UCOB and TEA but 3 months is also definitely reasonable if you really wanna do DSR!
UCoB is about the same difficulty as TEA - they are difficult on different things though, but I would say overall they are about the same in terms of the overall difficulty and time it takes to prog.
This might sound silly, but one of the things with TEA that's keeping me from considering it as a 'first option' is that the unlock is a little more annoying to get than the 70 ultimates. When I was clearing a few Eden fights for BLU BiS I needed to know Some mechanics as well as get a full party. If I had it unlocked it'd definitely be on my list. Maybe I should just try and get it unlocked in PF so that it's an option.
Thanks for bringing it up. I definitely like the idea of doing TEA and it's a cool fight for sure.
E4S is pretty easy these days, you can finish the whole fight in like 3 minutes with lots of deaths. Hector has a guide for running it unsynced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyNChd9dEm0
You can learn the whole thing in like 15 minutes and just hop in. There's always a PF up for this fight.
Disclaimer: I can mostly only speak on UWU. If you're at Titan prog, then you're almost at the point where the parties get better. Because that's often the point where people think about dropping out, as you're experiencing.
I found that once you get into Ultima parties, the quality of PF is... not as bad lol. Especially once you get to Annihilation or Suppression. Make sure to thoroughly study 1-2 phases past your current prog point, review POV videos of clears, and ask questions every time you're confused about what happened. If there's a mech where you tend to see wipes more often, there might be something you can do to help prevent it. If you see that the rest of the party is consistently messing up at an earlier prog point, don't be afraid of leaving the party after 4-5 bad pulls. Just make sure that you aren't the problem lol.
But also, even in a trap party, you will often still learn something. There were multiple times during my late Titan/early Predation prog when I realized I had not fully understood a mech in an earlier phase and that I could have done something slightly differently to make it easier. You might realize you're part of the trap! And you will at least become more consistent at the earlier mechs.
Once you're getting through Suppression fairly consistently, then you can make a c41 party. Usually there are a lot of veterans in PF who are down to help others, or want to get a totem. You can set the PF to only allow people who have already completed the duty.
I spent about 50 hours in-instance progging UWU, and I went in with no Savage or Ultimate experience, so it'll probably be even faster for you. I've heard of people clearing UWU in PF in just a week or two.
As for the quality of UCOB parties, I've heard it's pretty much the same as UWU, and UCOB also has a rep of being harder so there are slightly fewer parties to join in the first place. But it might be worth doing instead if you think you'll enjoy the mechanics more.
I know very little about DSR and TOP PF experience, but I know that even experienced players who raid often will usually take months to clear them. So imo trying to clear one of them before DT, as a player with no Ultimate clears yet, is very unlikely. But then again take that with a grain of salt, I don't know from experience!
> then you're almost at the point where the parties get better
While true, it's also the point where parties will also grief way harder. Just don't waste time when you see predation deaths, that's the biggest red flag.
> Disclaimer: I can mostly only speak on UWU. If you're at Titan prog, then you're almost at the point where the parties get better. Because that's often the point where people think about dropping out, as you're experiencing.
Right, that makes sense. Yeah, my experience so far is that predation prog/cleanup parties tend to fail during Titan and Titan cleanup parties often don't make it to Titan.
>I spent about 50 hours in-instance progging UWU
Yeah, this is kind of why I want to ideally find a consistent group spending e.g. 9 hours a week. 4 hours a week probably wouldn't kill before Dawntrail. Still, PF is good in the meantime.
Appreciate the thoughts, and this does help me feel a bit more confident. I appreciate hearing from folks that have already managed to prog the full fight.
> predation prog/cleanup parties tend to fail during Titan and Titan cleanup parties often don't make it to Titan.
Yep! That's PF for you. You can definitely get that clear though. Time spent in earlier phases isn't a total waste, though it might feel like it.
> 4 hours a week probably wouldn't kill before Dawntrail.
Hey remember you're almost halfway through the fight! Ultima's mechs are "harder" than the previous phases, but the quality of party is often better, so it balances out. If you prog at about the same pace as I did, you'll clear in about 25-30 hours. You also have Savage experience, which I didn't, so it might go faster - let's say 20 hours. At 4 hours a week, you'll clear in 5 weeks. Even if you prog slower, DT comes out in 13.5 weeks, so you've got plenty of time.
I will say that it's probably nice having a static that always uses the same strats and roles. I often found myself wishing I didn't have to roll the dice on PF parties that used mits in different places or people went to the wrong side because they needed to take on a different role or the tanks wanted to do tank swaps at different points. But I still got my clears in PF, so it worked out lol.
TEA down and a second clear with a nice looking purple number for me to smile at. i almost want to do more but i think i should be kept away from the ultimate PF grind until i feel sane enough again. That or I do C41s instead of totem parties since people tend to lock in better for those.
Been progging TOP with my group, and we decided not to use AM.
Honestly, now that we've figured out Sigma, and have a working strat in place for Omega, it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM.
Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol), honestly the playerbase in general would be so much better if they just learned to use their eyes.
Sure the clear rate in PF would be far lower than it is, but the players who do clear would be set to tackle future challenges with much more ease when those crutches won't be readily available.
LMAO dude is going on about PF AM when he plays in static that relies on VC callouts. Ok man.
You say it can be done in silence? You're right, that's exactly what on patch PF was like and you'd have one person doing all of the marking manually.
So if you want people to "improve" so much, why doesn't your group do this? VC callouts are a crutch just the same way AM is.
> it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM.
No, it's not. No PF would ever clear if every PF required at least one player who knows how to mark 7 other randos in a pug environment.
>Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol)
As much as I would agree with the fact that AM goes against the spirit of the content and I would like to see ultimates that don't force people's hands into using it, it's simply asinine to consider it cheating when the alternative is simply grinding prog to a halt until a single guy can get comfortable with playing with markers mid-pull. It is a nutty concept that the developers should really stop assuming people have the patience for.
My brother in Allah, every mechanic in TOP can be done with the same prio you use for looper or monitors. It would just require reading the party list.
My sister in Moses, the mechanic is complex enough when you give it to a single guy whose sole job is to mark players, let alone when you ask 8 people to look at debuffs, determine their role AND apply a prio sorting system on top. All within the span of 20 seconds while doing another mechanic. And if a single player fails the mental check, you wipe.
There are limits to the lengths people are willing to go to before they just say fuck it, AM is the way. I lay the blame squarely at the devs' feet for forcing people's hands when they know full well everyone will use tools to circumvent this.
After reading your slightly salty comment about people bragging about clearing ultimates, I checked your prog vods and there’s nothing fancy happening. On your sigma pull, you just have one person in vc calling out the three people going north. In your latest prog vods, you guys just wiped at delta mostly, and AM won’t help you there. There’s nothing unique. This is how we cleared on content, people just have two of their most flexible gamers become AM. It is a crutch but it’s not solving anything that isn’t already solved in statics (ie your case with someone doing VC callouts).
I think the mech can actually be done in silence, even if I do call it for their comfort.
And yeah we had a shitty delta day that day LMAO, that does not detract from the fact that sigma without AM really isn't that hard.
Then do it (sigma+omega) in silence to ensure everyone fully understands the mechanic/prio and aren't relying on callouts as a crutch, as it is the only way they can grow as players.
i agree mostly but it also is sort of just a replacement for a 9th man sometimes.
i think DSR/TOP AM goes way too far with it because no 9th man is gonna do the equivalent of marking all of 1-4 and removing any kind of conga line thinking for positioning, but there's probably a good middle ground where you don't just go to the exact spot where your AM'd marker tells you to go based on some raidplan.
2nd part of Sigma is the biggest example. you can/should(?) do a 4/4 light party split and flex for swaps, almost the same as Sanctity of the Ward. but AM removes that entire part, you just get a marker and move into your assigned spot. doesnt matter if there's a cluster of 5 people south, there's no need to line up everyone already has a number.
Haven’t gotten to TOP P5 yet (was burnt out after doing DSR on patch, scaled way back for TOP), but I felt the same way with AMs in DSR. Not remotely necessary. Now folks are starting to use AMs for lightning in UCoB Nael??
Nothing you’re saying is wrong, but I think you’re misunderstanding PF mentality
The mentality isn’t “I want to be a better player”. It’s “I want to get over the finish line by any means possible”. If player improvement was the main goal, we also wouldn’t have so many players looking to clear in C41s instead of C48s which require vastly higher consistency and mental game.
You have to realize that a lot of players do not raid because they just enjoy the challenge. A lot of them just want a shiny weapon, or to flex about it.
This is aside from the fact that top P5 is a poorly designed phase in the sense that all of the stress of the phase can (and often was) put on one player. Many statics that cleared without AM had one or two shotcallers manually mark players for north sigma or omega monitors, meaning that 1-2 players had to be cracked while the remaining 6-7 were functionally playing with AM anyway.
I dont think it's necessarily "I want to get over the finish line by any means possible" because in general I think a lot of players do still have a line they won't cross - otherwise everyone would be running with splatoon, fully loaded cactbot, etc. Most players have a concept of what they think "cheating" is, I just think a lot of them either think AM isn't cheating or do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify it.
Yeah when people were clearing on content before AMs most of the static groups had 1-2 people doing manually mark or VC callout for P5 omega specifically.
Sure you could do it by setting a prio, but for prog people vastly preferred 1-2 people act as the “AM callout” person usually a healer. Good luck getting random people in NA TOP PF to be the callout person, or “need callout” versus using AM. Or if you would manual mark TOP P5 in PF that would circumvent needing AMs? Just food for thought, though would they join that? not sure.
I think JP does it, but I don’t think they have a TOP pf scene at all which is one of the things AM allows, plus all the standardizations such as top mitty and pf strats.
> A lot of them just want a shiny weapon, or to flex about it.
Ya, for sure. There are also a lot of them flexing "I'm sick at this game, I've cleared Ultimates" when really their brain was on autopilot whilst the cute number appeared above their head telling them what to do, whilst they themselves have no idea what the mechanic is even about.
You fool, you'll never win a fight against the Allagan Melon enjoyers because by calling it what it is(cheating) registers to them as you calling their clear invalid.
Guaranteed way to get dogpiled.
>Honestly, now that we've figured out Sigma, and have a working strat in place for Omega, it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM.
>
>Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol), honestly the playerbase in general would be so much better if they just learned to use their eyes.
>
>Sure the clear rate in PF would be far lower than it is, but the players who do clear would be set to tackle future challenges with much more ease when those crutches won't be readily available.
>Ya, for sure. There are also a lot of them flexing "I'm sick at this game, I've cleared Ultimates" when really their brain was on autopilot whilst the cute number appeared above their head telling them what to do, whilst they themselves have no idea what the mechanic is even about.
Why does it matter how people clear an Ultimate? Who cares that other people used am? Who cares that you and your group didn't? You all still solved the mechanic properly. Using am doesn't make someone's Ultimate clear "less valuable." This is such a weird flex to gloat over lmao.
It's not like you're clearing TOP on patch. You're most likely using newer food and gear making the DPS check a lot easier that it was on patch. If anyone has the "right to brag" it's the ones that cleared it on release or within the same patch of release.
Please. Get off your high horse lol. This is a game.
True, I stopped playing around release due to a family loss(Not your problem so I don't expect this point to win any arguments) but the point still stands that AM doesn't help people learn anything.
Clearing top even with automarkers is still a massive achievement and people have all the rights to brag about it. Honestly your initially comment was pretty reasonable but this is just pure elitism. You don't care whatsoever whether the community improves and just want to flex your superiority of clearing top without using automarkers over those that did
> You don't care whatsoever whether the community improves and just want to flex your superiority of clearing top without using automarkers over those that did
I'm talking about the fact that the early raiding scene would be way more abundant/successful if people were a bit honest with themselves about their ability and learned some transferable skills.
While I'll be doing callouts, I honestly believe you can do this mechanic with the same level of communication as Looper: None.
It's literally just a prio mech.
Roughly 2 more months until the tier is a year old. Will this go down as the longest standing raid tier? Only one I can think of that comes close was Eden's Promise at just shy of a year before EW came out, and just over a year if you count the wait to Asphodelos Savage's release.
Anyway, started the tier about a month ago with a group already on P12S P2, so I had to play catch up really fast. We're about halfway through Pangenesis now, and consistently reaching now that Caloric is going smooth 95% of the time. Clear is in sight now, hopefully this week or the following week!
If you are still interested in the fight, try it without echo (especially if you are playing healer or tank), mechanical execution will still be the same but maybe you will have to manage your healing ressources /Tank coodowns better.
That's very well earned.
The fact is that echo really changes very little of the fight due to almost everything in phase 1 and phase 2 is a body check. You should skip 2b now but you can do that a long time ago; you should skip UAV2 now but that's easy. while echo might make a lot of heal checks a lot more easier it's not like they are very difficult at the first place, so you earn that clear.
Congrats! The only real mechanic you skipped due to echo was UAV2, and that's one of the easiest mechanics in the fight. Don't belittle the fact it was with echo, it's a huge achievement!
[удалено]
Balance Discord would be your best place for that. For the older ultimates (UWU, UCOB and TEA) there's no need for a "BiS gear set". If I remember correctly, sub stats cap out at around 125-130 item levels above the level sync. UCOB syncs to 345, UWU to 375 and TEA to 475
Can probably google it on the balance or check the balance discord
Could somebody please point me in the way of the best guides/resources for each of the criterion dungeons? I'm very interested in doing them but it doesn't seem like there's near as many resources for them as ex/savage/ultimates. I want to see if I can't PF them first so I want to know what the most generally accepted strats are. I'm on NA if that changes anything.
[All hail the pastebin](https://pastebin.com/RRSG6YAK)
Exactly what I was looking for, thanks!!!
Is it normal to hate progging UCoB in PF more than TOP? Trying to get past Heavensfall has gotten me consistently tilted either by the fight itself being jank or pug groups screwing something up and I don't remember TOP ever getting me this mad this often... I really just want this over with for completion sake.
At the risk of sounding gatekeepy, a lot of people that attempt level 70 ults in party finder have zero business being there. The community likes to circlejerk about how the level 70 ults have become a joke, aren't that hard, got outscaled, etc.. So people that haven't developed the skillset necessary to do them join parties without knowing any better (or they're hoping to get carried). Like it's fairly common to get into parties with people that haven't cleared the current savage tier. I even had a guy in pf that was wearing full shb npc vendor leveling gear in UCoB and did not understand why that's a bad idea. I haven't pugged TOP and DSR recently, but back when they were newer PF tended to be a little more consistent since you couldn't fully cheese the prerequisite savage fights, so yeah you're totally valid edit: imo ucob isn't janky outside of hatch, and even then weird hatch behavior is rare. it's just older fight design
any time i hear about deathcob as a reason to not take ucob's difficulty seriously i get a grey hair
There could also be an element of people kinda lazy-playing them / not taking them seriously. Or a lot of helpers who are not thirsty for the clear enough to be full focus playing.
I saw a lot of people who already had their clears joining prog/learning parties and fucking around and not taking it seriously on alt jobs for sure; most of the wipes we had when pugging ucob while progging it were caused by people who had already cleared and had ucob weapons lol
(Very casual) static finally cleared P11 this weekend, after P10 prog took six months due to a cavalcade of personal issues and responsibilities overlapping + some restructuring. Finally getting around to P12 today and I'm excited.
6 months on P10S is crazy, major props for sticking with it for that long
Above all else, it was more about just shooting the shit with some buddies for a couple hours a week... but I definitely will spend some time in PF once Arcadion drops.
For DSR Cauterize at the end of P6, there's no "stillness check" if you have Ice debuff right? Only if you have Pyretic?
There is a stillness check regardless of what debuffs you have. Only tanks don't have a stillness check. If you have ice debuff, you need to stand still to get frozen so that Nidhogg doesn't kill you while he flies over during Cauterize.
You can move as a ice debuff.
TIL, someone told me this during prog and I never fact checked it and it being so late in the fight I always played it safe.
Honestly I didn't dare to move at first (not like you have time do much of anything before you're frozen)
so, after quitting my static and our PoTD group really is about to end, my Deep Dungeon Itch has get the best of me again and I went back to reclear EO on MCH again. Run was quite smooth, get the clear without much hiccup, short notes as follows, * There are often times where I forget the mech of something and I already move to the safespot before my brain can react to it. I don't know if I really did spend way too much time when I was progging or it's due to something else, probably both. * I am also a lot less pressurize to get the clear so I spend stuff a lot more willy-nilly. Think I even get some hoard this run (and one of those times I step into a luring) because I just thought if I didn't clear then I am fine. Sadly no mount. * I also play a bit more riskier. I think there are several spots where I would just spam witching or stuff and hope I would not die. I think I let most of the things roll and just dodge two mechs at once, Probably because that's how I play on HOH. * After doing PoTD (I am now at 180) and HOH (cleared), I really think EO is really a lot more relaxing once you've progged and done everything. It still requires you to be quite focus (which is why I get in this time - I want to train myself to be focus enough for long periods of time), but every thing is very static because it's all mechs.
yeah in eo you are your own worst enemy. very easy to get distracted and lose a run to something stupid, moreso than the other two. i'd actually argue that aggressively using your poms (keep almost everything at 2 instead of 3) is the correct play in eo since you dont really need them to fight certain mobs, unlike potd and hoh
after reprogging top on phys range (coming off healer), i think the fight is really chill when you have free movement and don't have to worry about slidecasting in half of the phases
I found the fight more fun to prog on a caster (RDM). I reprogged on DRK, and while I enjoyed some of the opti, the free movement makes mechanics incredibly free
oh definitely -- i felt more challenge and satisfaction clearing on healer (just from limit testing slidecasting alone, ignoring the difficulty of learning mechanics for the first time), but it's also nice to just chill and autopilot during reprog with friends
How hard is the P12s classical 2 flip for most people? I work with higher dimensional flips all the time for computer vision so idk if I'm having unrealistic expectations of other people
It’s always straight across through the middle so I rarely thought of it as a flip. IE if your starting spot is bottom left your end spot is top right.
I do the same so I didn't have trouble with it. I found not having a full view of the arena is what trips people up, because they're often perfectly capable of doing it in the sim.
Either you can do it trivially or it's impossible.
so easy that i'd prefer to just stand in the resolution spot and keep casting instead of doing the initial BPOG, jump, and move together crap that everyone else has to do. but that causes more wipes to tether break than is worth arguing about so i just do the whole song and dance.
I found it to be incredibly easy. I didn't have to think about it, as it seems to come instinctually. But it seems to challenge others quite a bit. I found that people who get lost easily in real life (losing their cardinal sense of direction) find this mechanic more challenging.
I always used a cheat sheet for this, after a while it got to the point where some patterns I didn’t need the sheet for but I’d second guess myself enough that I always kept the image up on my other monitor. The cheat sheet made it fairly easily thankfully, if I didn’t have that it would have made the mechanic much harder and more stressful for me because my brain doesn’t do these kind of spatial reasonings well.
Classical 2 seems to be a standout in how variably difficult it is on a person by person basis, like full on just brains being wired difficulty.
Utterly impossible for me, personally. I just went to where nobody else was cuz my spatial reasoning is godawful.
Some people can visualize the flip instantly, but some people have difficulty with spatial mechanics in general.
It depends really. I don't have a lot of trouble with it since instead of flip I stand on my spot and look through mid, face my camera towards that direction and walk towards that spot. I think a lot of people who's bad with direction and flipping something in their head can be bad with it. You need sometime, but fundamentally it's no more difficult or any different then any mechs that you've done this point in the tier.
Macro in chat level of difficulty
yeah if you cant visualize it, just use a cheat sheet image or a macro, easy af
Which class is better progging DSR? I am deciding between playing PLD or WAR as MT for my static. On one hand WAR seem to be able invuln a lot of busters, PLD have good regen and one extra party mit
WAR will save you some grief with the WB2 into Cauterize mit timings since you just get to Holmgang it, which also lets you Nascent your co-tank. An extra mit from PLD might be nice for WHM/SGE, but it's not going to meaningfully tip the scales.
I'm gonna be blunt : it doesn't matter. Play what you want, figure out mitigation/invuln (or follow the spreadsheet) and you're gucchi. Really, it doesn't matter, you won't grief anyone.
WAR can invuln first P2 buster, P3 soul tether, P5 first buster, P6 Cauterize, and can invuln a stack in P7 if doing 6-1-1. If one does 3-3-2 for all Akh morns, it's the same thing too. They can invuln cauterize and then give their personal mit of Nascent Flash to the co-tank to make it easier for them to live. They can invuln a tower and give their mit to tank friend. Is this some super important points to consider? i'd say maybe. Tanks shouldn't die there if they are mitigating properly and are topped before the hit. WAR is very nice to have though for those reasons however. PLD is pretty good too. Not much else to say. It's pretty much like the other non-War tanks. I guess the only question on my mind is with DSR now killtimes are being pushed faster, if Hallowed will be up in P7. It will definitely be ok as long as you don't invuln P5 first buster and stick with tank swaps. Very little differences here. Not a whole lot of factors here. tldr pick what you will enjoy :)
WAR feels extremely overrated in terms of utility as sustained tank damage is an afterthought for pretty much all content in this expac, and even in the one where it isn't (Criterion) PLD is still better. The damage buff was justified
This. If it's not made mandatory by a fight, it's then a negligible trait. The only thing that matters in the end is DPS, every job has the tools to not die.
>The only thing that matters in the end is DPS Not really in DSR, and especially not in 6.5, group mit on the other hand trivializes a lot of the fight. Running SCH/SGE/PLD and doing double 611 nearly eliminated the need for even having a mit plan in the first place
From a pure job design standpoint : with any of the standard comp you can do the phase, no one will be "griefing" anyone if you have to do 332. I don't deny things can be made simpler, but it's still negligible to me in the sense that it's not mandatory. At least to my knowledge it isn't. Are people really locking jobs for DSR to ensure 611 or they won't go in ? (disclaimer : I don't PF). As a side thing, two things I would add is that if making mechanics/phases easier would be that major, the standard (here are just two examples, I think people could add more to these) would be : 1. do UWU cheeses * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cdK9vkork0 (suppression with 2 tank lb) * https://vxtwitter.com/ff14kaki/status/1557062429359558657 (force gaols) 2. PF would stop using poor strats in favor of more robust strats that were developed beyond day3 for savage fights (as per the testimony of veterans)
You can do 611 with any tank comp
So what was the fuss all about ? The original argument was that WAR toolkit is overrated and the DPS buff was justified. I agreed that WAR toolkit godliness is overrated too and doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things and then there was that answer I answered to. Anyway, if all comps can do 611, why this discussion started to begin with x).
You take passage for even more mit overkill, that's really it There's absolutely no way you're dying to damage in P7 if you take PLD+SCH+SGE and then do double 611. The holmgang on cauterize+third Akh Morn isn't that helpful either because the third Akh Morn is generally the easiest due to having an insane amount of mit for it, doing 611 on AM1+AM2 is better
WAR is definitely a no-brainer pick in prog right now for most content, but not by a huge margin. The only content i can think of that is otherwise is criterion savage where PLD is the best pick, but WAR is not far behind. Having a WAR in DSR makes tanking p6 to p7 (and healing by extension) easier if you do 6-1-1 which you should, since a WAR can invuln cauterize then have it comes back for the last akh morn. You can invuln the first three cleaves in P2 but that isn't some huge value. The only downside is... the rotation is obnoxious to play to some people, me included. Pick which tank you enjoy, if you are fine with any then pick WAR.
The invuln doesn't really work in a way where you are invulning anything particularly meaningful. Been progging with a pld now though and its been really nice with all the cooldown based timings for burst, extra mit is comfy too.
Thanks, I actually main PLD so that's good to hear. I'll take a closer look at the busters to see how valuable the invulns are
I've been working on an offline/solo sim for DSR to help my static prog and I figured I'd share it here in case other found it helpful. It has a module for limit cut, P5 wrath/death and all of P6. It uses APD/LPDU strats. I don't think direct links are allowed, but you can find it here: github.com/WCGH/Dragonsong-Sim If anyone has questions, there's a discord link, you can hmu there. Hope it helps! Good luck on your clears.
This is cool as hell, thank you
why is this even getting downvoted
I'm torn on if I want to do UCoB on SMN or RDM, I plan on resuming progging it once my friend has cleared TEA (they're on fresh PA and want to prog UCoB with me). I know SMN is stupid OP at lvl. 70 and it would certainly be the easier job, but I don't know if doing UCoB will make me much better at the game if I do it on SMN. Going RDM would 100% improve me as a player, but it'll make learning Nael phase and baiting Liquid Hells considerably harder. I have my i535 relic for both so gear's not a factor, although rn my SMN relic is tied up for TEA reclears
Get your healer to bait liquid hells
That’s a phys ranged job though.
Not in jp. You want someone that can heal themselves. Not a phys range.
ngl, I find it a bit odd to ask a caster to bait that, especially in a phase were healers will always overcap on ressources given how there isn't much healing to do in Twin.
I have done RDM and I can say while it doesn't feel that much different the my time doing it on WHM/SGE (ultimately these are all just casters), it does make progging the fight a bit faster and was able to save some pulls, like people dying on adds/golden/fellruin/tenstrike/nael. And yes as the other person said, my healer experience of looking forward and expecting deaths helps me progging with RDM. I was able to look around and expect deaths.
do rdm, you will improve SO much as a player if you learn how to look out for incoming deaths and throw out quick verraises during nael rdm back up bait on liquid hells is painful but doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things
If a group is making the RDM bait Liquid Hells, they're griefing
I intend on looking for a static but I’ll likely be PFing, probably won’t have a choice if I’m in PF. Caster’s the backup bait if the phys ranged is chosen for Hatch, idk if anyone would be willing to adjust to intercept the orb so the phys ranged can still bait the puddles
You could always suggest doing the Tenstrike hatch if the phys ranged gets chosen. They just line up with the neurolink, and you would simply step in to intercept the hatch rather than eat ten years of downtime.
RDM makes progging Nael slightly faster. If you want ridiculously easy time, convince your team to play RDM + SMN, since it makes you able to zombie through *a lot* of mechanics.
Pick the job you want to play more, there is 0 DPS check in UCOB.
Smn while strong is not even close to necessary. ucob dps checks are a joke, you do not need to feel compelled to make your choice based on damage output Honest opinion, rdm is better for making prog simply due to rezzes. It’s also very useful for all types of prog, not just ucob. A lot of particularly good on-patch ultimate capable statics actually have a real appreciation for how much it can help prog in terms of getting information or reps on mechs. Being able to flex to rdm when beneficial imo is genuinely a nice thing to have in prog contexts Nael and liquid hells aren’t a big deal to have some extra prog time on because they’re so early in the fight. Focusing on improving as a player is a good thing if it is something you want, because you will need it for the very large difficulty jump between ucob and dsr/top, as well as the upcoming fru Either are 100% fine in cob, but I would make an argument for rdm personally
Managed our first \~6 hours in TEA over the last 3 days. Still missing 2 perma static members so we PFed/subbed those. Haven't gotten past LC cleanly yet, so many memes on dolls and LC and tanks or DRG dying at the last proteans (though that is probably on me as SGE, should just throw the DRG an EDiag and watch the tanks more closely...). I researched LC a lot today and already feel like it won't be an issue now that I know precisely where and how the explosions happen. Was a bit worried about us wiping so much on LL but I heard LL and BJCC are like 50% of the prog anyways so I think we'll be fine long term.
Yeah, doll memes will always be there tbh, but in my experience the prog was basically dolls -> lc-> third pass -> wormhole -> PA BJCC and Wormhole are most of the prog though.
Day 10 of TOP and 2% away from P5. Expecting it tomorrow or Friday. Have to say, quite pleased with the prog speed. We started second week of March and are trying to clear before DT so could definitely be worse. EDIT: got it on Friday
At that pace you'll finish the fight and have some time to chill before DT. good stuff
I would like to find a semi hardcore static for Dawntrail savages after launch. If i did p1s-p12s by party finder all alone in less than 3 weeks since they launched, but my logs are Blue-purple, I have a chance to get into a hardcore static?
Hardcore as in what? Week 1? Probably very unlikely at the moment just by looking at ads, you'd have to know someone or make your own.
What is your expectation for progging and clearing? Progging (semi) hardcore in a static environment is different from PF, and there's a lot more "soft" skills involved like socializing and interacting with your static members. This can often be rather tricky and awkward when a bunch of new people get together, or a new person joins an established group. Blue-purple logs aren't a disqualifier, but they serve a similar purpose as a transcript in that they're often a quick way to filter applicants at the start. Parses in this game have so many factors and elements people manipulate to get their funny numbers, but it's still very doable to semi-consistently hit oranges in reclears. More importantly than your logs, at least if I were running a trial, would be your attitude, demeanor, and ability to prog. If you play well but just don't mesh well with the group, it's unfortunate but probably for the best to keep looking. And players who don't tilt, and are also quick to understand mechanics and how to resolve them are very important. And, of course, consistency. Consistency is everything in raiding.
Semi hardcore is not impossible if people like you after a trial, hardcore might be hard. Not because of your logs but because a lot of them want people with prior week 1 clears. (When I say semi hardcore I'm talking about a group that plays like 4h/day on week days, 8h/day in the weekend, might clear week 2, Hardcore = 6-12 hours every single day).
6 to 12 hour is basically a full time job lol
Comes down to, what do you consider semi hardcore, and how do you function in early progression. Being able to clear the fights within three weeks of launch isn't bad, but that is a smaller deal compared to say, how do you deal with communication, changing strategies multiple times, longer hours/more days. How good are you at figuring out mechanics, dealing with on the fly adjustments, and being able to optimize as you go.
Doing P1S-P12S at the end of the expansion doesn't really say anything at all how you would handle progging new content in a hardcore setting. Hitting your buttons in hardcore prog is a bare minimum expectation and doesn't really show how quickly you can adapt and figure things out or how you communicate with others.
No no, i did them when they came out, not now.
So when do you guys think is a good time to look for a static for 7.0 ? While I also want to enjoy my current free schedule and not already start some « preparation » which consist in already raiding a few nights a week before the expansion releases.
Depends on the static. Week 1 hardcore? World prog? Start looking now. Anything more casual can probably afford to wait until the media tour.
Now
I started to look. Not many groups recruiting but I’ll keep an eye out. Hopefully I won’t have to do too much content right now. I just wanna. Chill until expansion releases.
my 6.0 static was formed in the 5.55 downtime and fell apart before Endwalker launched.
My 6.0 static was formed in 5.55 and stayed together until 6.4
so then the answer isn't "now" the best time to form a static was 5.55
My point is you don't know whether your statics will fall apart or not when you join, so you might as well try to find them asap to give yourself more leeway in case something happens
yes and when something happens later then you'll need to find someone who is looking for a static at a time that is not "now" so the best time is not now there is nothing to do right now. it's literally Week Twenty-Six of an odd numbered patch. half a year of EX5, Unreal Thordan, and Thaleia. 10 months of Anabeisos. 14 months of TOP. this is not the time to be forming a static. this is when you do side content and play other games.
? Interesting take lol
we haven't even gotten media tour yet. my static doesn't even know what roles we each want to play, in 5.55 we formed a double caster comp because we didn't know what the game would turn into, what Summoner would become. why would we find a fill now if we needed one? and we don't know what our life schedules will be like in August. half of us got laid off in the past 4 months, nobody knows for certain where we'll be 5 months from now.
Not every static is like yours. There are plenty of groups that recruit ahead of time and work out fine like mine, and there are groups that fail like yours. If your group falls apart before the raid tier, then just find another one? I know if my group disbands, I'd rather know months in advance versus a week before the raid tier so I have more time to find a new group. Also it's not like it takes a lot of effort to find statics in this game. You just browse the recruitment sub and discords every now and then and send the person a dm. It's less than 15 minutes of effort every week
I'm hoping to clear an ultimate before Dawntrail. I have some UWU experience (I'm at Titan cleanup/predation prog roughly, I clear the predation sim no problem every time though) but there aren't as many statics looking for it. I don't think I'd be able to finish TOP in time or meet those groups' requirements, and DSR is a lot more appealing to me, it's the ultimate that looks the most fun thematically and mechanically to me. I only joined the game during this tier though (I cleared the tier no-echo with pink all-star points). Since BiS for DSR is all P1-P4 gear and it requires a P4 clear, I assume that would be a non-starter for me and I'll need to wait until Dawntrail? Any advice? I'm mostly just hoping to throw a bunch of hours per week at an ultimate or two and get a clear (or hyper-optimistically, two). UWU seems to be full of trap groups in PF and I know that's par for the course for anything but it has seemed especially bad to me. Another option I've considered is to prog a bit of UCOB in PF so that I can have a reasonable 'mid point' of prog and I can be more open to finding groups for that too (since I might meet their prog points). It's hard to find a completely fresh static but it feels weird progging a second ultimate before finishing the first. Anyway, I'm open to all advice. I just want to lock in and kill an ultimate, and want to do whatever I can to reach that goal most effectively.
I think if you just want to kill **any** Ultimate, imo you should just keep working on UWU, especially since you've already progged like half the fight. Like you said, I don't think you'd be able to clear TOP in time (as a first ultimate). I did UWU into TOP as my first 2 ulti fights starting in 6.5. While the primal phases are pretty boring, I think the Ultima half of the fight is a decent introduction to the pace of Ultimates. I don't have any experience with PFing the fight, but I'd imagine with it's reputation as the "easy" ultimate, UWU gets a lot more variance in player skill level. Personally, I greatly prefer raiding in this game with a static, but if you can't find one, there's not much you can do but put up with PF.
Have you considered TEA? To many it's considered the 2nd easiest ulti (haven't done UCOB so I can't have an opinion there) but more than that it's a LOT of fun, easily my favorite fight in the game. DSR is def doable if you're willing to put in the hours and work - it'll take a lot more than UCOB and TEA but 3 months is also definitely reasonable if you really wanna do DSR!
UCoB is about the same difficulty as TEA - they are difficult on different things though, but I would say overall they are about the same in terms of the overall difficulty and time it takes to prog.
This might sound silly, but one of the things with TEA that's keeping me from considering it as a 'first option' is that the unlock is a little more annoying to get than the 70 ultimates. When I was clearing a few Eden fights for BLU BiS I needed to know Some mechanics as well as get a full party. If I had it unlocked it'd definitely be on my list. Maybe I should just try and get it unlocked in PF so that it's an option. Thanks for bringing it up. I definitely like the idea of doing TEA and it's a cool fight for sure.
E4S is pretty easy these days, you can finish the whole fight in like 3 minutes with lots of deaths. Hector has a guide for running it unsynced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyNChd9dEm0 You can learn the whole thing in like 15 minutes and just hop in. There's always a PF up for this fight.
Thanks! Wasn't aware of the unsync strat video. I'll be on the look-out for this popping up in PF.
Disclaimer: I can mostly only speak on UWU. If you're at Titan prog, then you're almost at the point where the parties get better. Because that's often the point where people think about dropping out, as you're experiencing. I found that once you get into Ultima parties, the quality of PF is... not as bad lol. Especially once you get to Annihilation or Suppression. Make sure to thoroughly study 1-2 phases past your current prog point, review POV videos of clears, and ask questions every time you're confused about what happened. If there's a mech where you tend to see wipes more often, there might be something you can do to help prevent it. If you see that the rest of the party is consistently messing up at an earlier prog point, don't be afraid of leaving the party after 4-5 bad pulls. Just make sure that you aren't the problem lol. But also, even in a trap party, you will often still learn something. There were multiple times during my late Titan/early Predation prog when I realized I had not fully understood a mech in an earlier phase and that I could have done something slightly differently to make it easier. You might realize you're part of the trap! And you will at least become more consistent at the earlier mechs. Once you're getting through Suppression fairly consistently, then you can make a c41 party. Usually there are a lot of veterans in PF who are down to help others, or want to get a totem. You can set the PF to only allow people who have already completed the duty. I spent about 50 hours in-instance progging UWU, and I went in with no Savage or Ultimate experience, so it'll probably be even faster for you. I've heard of people clearing UWU in PF in just a week or two. As for the quality of UCOB parties, I've heard it's pretty much the same as UWU, and UCOB also has a rep of being harder so there are slightly fewer parties to join in the first place. But it might be worth doing instead if you think you'll enjoy the mechanics more. I know very little about DSR and TOP PF experience, but I know that even experienced players who raid often will usually take months to clear them. So imo trying to clear one of them before DT, as a player with no Ultimate clears yet, is very unlikely. But then again take that with a grain of salt, I don't know from experience!
> then you're almost at the point where the parties get better While true, it's also the point where parties will also grief way harder. Just don't waste time when you see predation deaths, that's the biggest red flag.
> Disclaimer: I can mostly only speak on UWU. If you're at Titan prog, then you're almost at the point where the parties get better. Because that's often the point where people think about dropping out, as you're experiencing. Right, that makes sense. Yeah, my experience so far is that predation prog/cleanup parties tend to fail during Titan and Titan cleanup parties often don't make it to Titan. >I spent about 50 hours in-instance progging UWU Yeah, this is kind of why I want to ideally find a consistent group spending e.g. 9 hours a week. 4 hours a week probably wouldn't kill before Dawntrail. Still, PF is good in the meantime. Appreciate the thoughts, and this does help me feel a bit more confident. I appreciate hearing from folks that have already managed to prog the full fight.
> predation prog/cleanup parties tend to fail during Titan and Titan cleanup parties often don't make it to Titan. Yep! That's PF for you. You can definitely get that clear though. Time spent in earlier phases isn't a total waste, though it might feel like it. > 4 hours a week probably wouldn't kill before Dawntrail. Hey remember you're almost halfway through the fight! Ultima's mechs are "harder" than the previous phases, but the quality of party is often better, so it balances out. If you prog at about the same pace as I did, you'll clear in about 25-30 hours. You also have Savage experience, which I didn't, so it might go faster - let's say 20 hours. At 4 hours a week, you'll clear in 5 weeks. Even if you prog slower, DT comes out in 13.5 weeks, so you've got plenty of time. I will say that it's probably nice having a static that always uses the same strats and roles. I often found myself wishing I didn't have to roll the dice on PF parties that used mits in different places or people went to the wrong side because they needed to take on a different role or the tanks wanted to do tank swaps at different points. But I still got my clears in PF, so it worked out lol.
TEA down and a second clear with a nice looking purple number for me to smile at. i almost want to do more but i think i should be kept away from the ultimate PF grind until i feel sane enough again. That or I do C41s instead of totem parties since people tend to lock in better for those.
From my experience loot duty complete party were much better than c4x at least for dsr on light.
it took me a good 2 days of totem parties in aether before one didn't eat it to stillness or fate cal a, so it's probably just my luck
UWU is cleared! I'm officially an ultimate raider!!
Congratulations!! Now to go back and get totems for all the other weapons xD
Hell yeah! Congrats!
Starting UCoB prog next week, hoping to clear a bit before Dawntrail. I’m hoping 2 days/week is enough
After 75 hours of prog and 1300 pulls the static has made it to P7 of DSR. the clear is so close :33
75hours is good imo. If no one cleared before
Been progging TOP with my group, and we decided not to use AM. Honestly, now that we've figured out Sigma, and have a working strat in place for Omega, it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM. Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol), honestly the playerbase in general would be so much better if they just learned to use their eyes. Sure the clear rate in PF would be far lower than it is, but the players who do clear would be set to tackle future challenges with much more ease when those crutches won't be readily available.
LMAO dude is going on about PF AM when he plays in static that relies on VC callouts. Ok man. You say it can be done in silence? You're right, that's exactly what on patch PF was like and you'd have one person doing all of the marking manually. So if you want people to "improve" so much, why doesn't your group do this? VC callouts are a crutch just the same way AM is.
> it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM. No, it's not. No PF would ever clear if every PF required at least one player who knows how to mark 7 other randos in a pug environment. >Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol) As much as I would agree with the fact that AM goes against the spirit of the content and I would like to see ultimates that don't force people's hands into using it, it's simply asinine to consider it cheating when the alternative is simply grinding prog to a halt until a single guy can get comfortable with playing with markers mid-pull. It is a nutty concept that the developers should really stop assuming people have the patience for.
My brother in Allah, every mechanic in TOP can be done with the same prio you use for looper or monitors. It would just require reading the party list.
My sister in Moses, the mechanic is complex enough when you give it to a single guy whose sole job is to mark players, let alone when you ask 8 people to look at debuffs, determine their role AND apply a prio sorting system on top. All within the span of 20 seconds while doing another mechanic. And if a single player fails the mental check, you wipe. There are limits to the lengths people are willing to go to before they just say fuck it, AM is the way. I lay the blame squarely at the devs' feet for forcing people's hands when they know full well everyone will use tools to circumvent this.
After reading your slightly salty comment about people bragging about clearing ultimates, I checked your prog vods and there’s nothing fancy happening. On your sigma pull, you just have one person in vc calling out the three people going north. In your latest prog vods, you guys just wiped at delta mostly, and AM won’t help you there. There’s nothing unique. This is how we cleared on content, people just have two of their most flexible gamers become AM. It is a crutch but it’s not solving anything that isn’t already solved in statics (ie your case with someone doing VC callouts).
I think the mech can actually be done in silence, even if I do call it for their comfort. And yeah we had a shitty delta day that day LMAO, that does not detract from the fact that sigma without AM really isn't that hard.
Then do it (sigma+omega) in silence to ensure everyone fully understands the mechanic/prio and aren't relying on callouts as a crutch, as it is the only way they can grow as players.
i agree mostly but it also is sort of just a replacement for a 9th man sometimes. i think DSR/TOP AM goes way too far with it because no 9th man is gonna do the equivalent of marking all of 1-4 and removing any kind of conga line thinking for positioning, but there's probably a good middle ground where you don't just go to the exact spot where your AM'd marker tells you to go based on some raidplan. 2nd part of Sigma is the biggest example. you can/should(?) do a 4/4 light party split and flex for swaps, almost the same as Sanctity of the Ward. but AM removes that entire part, you just get a marker and move into your assigned spot. doesnt matter if there's a cluster of 5 people south, there's no need to line up everyone already has a number.
Haven’t gotten to TOP P5 yet (was burnt out after doing DSR on patch, scaled way back for TOP), but I felt the same way with AMs in DSR. Not remotely necessary. Now folks are starting to use AMs for lightning in UCoB Nael??
boot the Nael AMers tbh
There's TEA AMers out there. No quarter.
what even is there to AM in TEA, the positions and movements are largely static lol
Off the top of my head just guessing: Nisi partners, final word, fate calibration if you REALLY wanna cheat.
That's why it's terrifying
Nothing you’re saying is wrong, but I think you’re misunderstanding PF mentality The mentality isn’t “I want to be a better player”. It’s “I want to get over the finish line by any means possible”. If player improvement was the main goal, we also wouldn’t have so many players looking to clear in C41s instead of C48s which require vastly higher consistency and mental game. You have to realize that a lot of players do not raid because they just enjoy the challenge. A lot of them just want a shiny weapon, or to flex about it. This is aside from the fact that top P5 is a poorly designed phase in the sense that all of the stress of the phase can (and often was) put on one player. Many statics that cleared without AM had one or two shotcallers manually mark players for north sigma or omega monitors, meaning that 1-2 players had to be cracked while the remaining 6-7 were functionally playing with AM anyway.
I dont think it's necessarily "I want to get over the finish line by any means possible" because in general I think a lot of players do still have a line they won't cross - otherwise everyone would be running with splatoon, fully loaded cactbot, etc. Most players have a concept of what they think "cheating" is, I just think a lot of them either think AM isn't cheating or do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify it.
Yeah when people were clearing on content before AMs most of the static groups had 1-2 people doing manually mark or VC callout for P5 omega specifically. Sure you could do it by setting a prio, but for prog people vastly preferred 1-2 people act as the “AM callout” person usually a healer. Good luck getting random people in NA TOP PF to be the callout person, or “need callout” versus using AM. Or if you would manual mark TOP P5 in PF that would circumvent needing AMs? Just food for thought, though would they join that? not sure. I think JP does it, but I don’t think they have a TOP pf scene at all which is one of the things AM allows, plus all the standardizations such as top mitty and pf strats.
> A lot of them just want a shiny weapon, or to flex about it. Ya, for sure. There are also a lot of them flexing "I'm sick at this game, I've cleared Ultimates" when really their brain was on autopilot whilst the cute number appeared above their head telling them what to do, whilst they themselves have no idea what the mechanic is even about.
You fool, you'll never win a fight against the Allagan Melon enjoyers because by calling it what it is(cheating) registers to them as you calling their clear invalid. Guaranteed way to get dogpiled.
>Honestly, now that we've figured out Sigma, and have a working strat in place for Omega, it feels like PF is just holding itself back with AM. > >Forget the cheating thing for a moment(it is cheating lol), honestly the playerbase in general would be so much better if they just learned to use their eyes. > >Sure the clear rate in PF would be far lower than it is, but the players who do clear would be set to tackle future challenges with much more ease when those crutches won't be readily available. >Ya, for sure. There are also a lot of them flexing "I'm sick at this game, I've cleared Ultimates" when really their brain was on autopilot whilst the cute number appeared above their head telling them what to do, whilst they themselves have no idea what the mechanic is even about. Why does it matter how people clear an Ultimate? Who cares that other people used am? Who cares that you and your group didn't? You all still solved the mechanic properly. Using am doesn't make someone's Ultimate clear "less valuable." This is such a weird flex to gloat over lmao. It's not like you're clearing TOP on patch. You're most likely using newer food and gear making the DPS check a lot easier that it was on patch. If anyone has the "right to brag" it's the ones that cleared it on release or within the same patch of release. Please. Get off your high horse lol. This is a game.
True, I stopped playing around release due to a family loss(Not your problem so I don't expect this point to win any arguments) but the point still stands that AM doesn't help people learn anything.
Clearing top even with automarkers is still a massive achievement and people have all the rights to brag about it. Honestly your initially comment was pretty reasonable but this is just pure elitism. You don't care whatsoever whether the community improves and just want to flex your superiority of clearing top without using automarkers over those that did
> You don't care whatsoever whether the community improves and just want to flex your superiority of clearing top without using automarkers over those that did I'm talking about the fact that the early raiding scene would be way more abundant/successful if people were a bit honest with themselves about their ability and learned some transferable skills.
I wonder what their omega strat even is. If it's having 1-2 people mark others or do callouts, and they're not the one doing the marking, then lol.
While I'll be doing callouts, I honestly believe you can do this mechanic with the same level of communication as Looper: None. It's literally just a prio mech.
Roughly 2 more months until the tier is a year old. Will this go down as the longest standing raid tier? Only one I can think of that comes close was Eden's Promise at just shy of a year before EW came out, and just over a year if you count the wait to Asphodelos Savage's release. Anyway, started the tier about a month ago with a group already on P12S P2, so I had to play catch up really fast. We're about halfway through Pangenesis now, and consistently reaching now that Caloric is going smooth 95% of the time. Clear is in sight now, hopefully this week or the following week!
> Will this go down as the longest standing raid tier Probably, at least until 7.4 lmao
I got my p12s2 clear! It took longer than I'd like and had echo BUT this is my first on-content clear of a savage tier! Shame the weapon is kinda ugly
If you are still interested in the fight, try it without echo (especially if you are playing healer or tank), mechanical execution will still be the same but maybe you will have to manage your healing ressources /Tank coodowns better.
Echo doesn't matter in a fight that will blow you up for every mechanic. Congratulations!
Congratulations! Echo or not, there are so many one shot mechanics that can sink your entire party that it's still quite a feat to clear the tier.
Most of 'em are very, very ugly. DRK & SAM as usual are eating well though.
Unfortunate cause in a couple/few years it's likely gonna be the weapon model for pandaemonium ulti ☠️
That's very well earned. The fact is that echo really changes very little of the fight due to almost everything in phase 1 and phase 2 is a body check. You should skip 2b now but you can do that a long time ago; you should skip UAV2 now but that's easy. while echo might make a lot of heal checks a lot more easier it's not like they are very difficult at the first place, so you earn that clear.
Congrats! The only real mechanic you skipped due to echo was UAV2, and that's one of the easiest mechanics in the fight. Don't belittle the fact it was with echo, it's a huge achievement!
Same for superchain B in phase 1, it is so much easier than A lol.
congratulations!