Is anyone particularly happy with the new gear from New Salvage?

[saevel]

I had two friends deactivate because they saw new Salvage as yet another easy grind fest instead of the 6-man, difficult event that we hoped for.

Good we're better off without them.

They don't have to Legion-out on the difficulty, but it would have been nice to see an event that I can't essentially do solo.

Not possible.

If six casual people can do the event, the one hardcore asshat can tri-box the event by min-maxing. This is essentially what we have now. Also the only zone your going to be tri-boxing with any level of effectiveness is Bhaflau Remnants II and maybe SSR (plans only). Zhayolm Remnants II and Arrapago Remnants II will eat you alive, you'd be forced to skip NM's or not kill off both MB's. Stop downplaying the difficulty cause you know some people who use secret ninja magic and AI assisted players to farm ~5 plans every night. The event's difficulty is set perfectly, just hard enough that casual players will have to develop skills and utilize strategy yet not so hard that it requires relics and emp's to successfully beat.

Actually thinking about it, how the hell do you get off thinking this event is "too easy"? Have you even fought Dvergr or Hydra and their HQ counterparts? Dvergr will do always TP move -> nuke and after 50% that TP move tends to be Necropurge / Necrobane followed by Fire V / Firaga III. If you don't have a MDT set on when that happens your going to die. A Fire V to the face when your maximum HP is ~700 isn't nice. Hydra is worse though, it triple attacks for 300~400 each and I've seen it kill a fully buffed MNK in 4s. The highest I've seen it hit for was a crit for 795 damage, thankfully I had on Dread Spikes and got that HP back, otherwise I have to ride full DT the entire fight. And our WHM still needs to occasionally use vert / viles. And where do you get off saying Khimaira Prideleader is "easy"? Not only does it have the chessy Fulmination but it also has the even cheesier Lithic Breath (weakness + damage). Those NM's are not impossible to beat but they do require the players have proper gear sets and coordinate a strategy. They need to be on the ball and actually know their job instead of being AI robots.

Your just pissed that there is no special super rare gear that you can walk around PJ in and brag about. Every piece of gear is accessible to every player provided they put in some effort to acquiring them. The event doesn't have the single most important thing for "elite" players, exclusivity.

[Jaall]

After just doing another Arrapago Remnants II and our party of 6 eating 5, yes 5, fulminations and only just surviving due to having 2 rdm (1 was a back up mule just because we could)... I don't see how anyone can tri-box this unless they are only going for plans, in which case that's not maximising Salvage II's potential, so they have no right to comment or be used in an argument. That's my opinion.

[Byrth]

Oh okay, I guess I didn't get Skadi's Visor +1, Skadi's Bazubands +1, and Skadi's Chausses +1 by doing Arrapago II runs with DNC/DRK, WHM/THF, and BRD/BLM then. Finished killing Armored Chariot at 55 minutes one run where I got lucky on the starting chest. This includes all NMs along the Skadi path. If you stun Fulmination (which a BRD/BLM with Ajapamas II or a DNC with a MAcc build can do), the Khims are just a matter of casting Cure/Erase/Viruna over and over.

I started doing Bhaflau the other day and, as you say, it's perfectly doable with three characters. I'm even doing the Cerberuses on DNC/SAM and using Aeolian Edge to reduce his PDT. I timed out on my second run with Cerberus Seether at either 1 or 2%. First run I took JAs with my WHM accidentally and had to do the whole first floor without WSs (derp), but still killed all the NMs along the path up to the HQ Cerberus. This will only get faster/easier as I get more used to it and figure out what ratio of physical to magical WSs I can get away with on the Cerbs.

Zhayolm is also not an issue. I did it a few times to get Idi's Trousers with friends and think I'd have no problems multiboxing it. The Hydras are somewhat difficult and did one-shot me once (Tarutaru), but I can just sub NIN and play it defensively if I try to go solo. They are not very accurate and making the fight two minutes longer with Dragonfoe Mambo/Victory March isn't going to kill me as much as Nerve Gas -> DA would. I do not anticipate any real issues here, but I also don't foresee having to do this zone considering most (all?) of the 45s that didn't drop from Arrapago do drop from Bhaflau and I don't really want any of the Ares pieces.

SSR would probably be the most difficult to lowman. I've done it once with friends, but I was on Scholar and there was not a lot of information on the zone when we did it so we kind of meandered on the way to the bosses, both of which we popped pretty much purely out of luck. My impression is that it just takes too many kills and Fomor defense is too high for me to handle this zone as the only DD. I might have to partner up if I want Morrigan's Feet/body +1 because farming those plans in Bhaflau is not practical.



Still, one out of four zones requires more than two hands? Um, okay? I'm happy enough with it (as I said, I do the event and feel it is one of the best ones SE has released in a long time), but the feeling I got when I steamrolled Zhayolm and Arrapago on the release day wasn't joy as much as disappointment. 4 people for Zhayolm, 3 people for Arrapago. We popped and killed literally every NM and NQ/HQ bosses both runs with no information at all going in to it. "Oh look, a gear in a room of Lamia. Lets kill it!", "What's this chigoe doing here? It won't aggro!" etc. They might as well have put <KILL ME TO POP NMs> as some of the monsters' names.

When I think of Salvage, I think of Frogs being a mystery for over a year because no one can figure out how to force them to pop. I think of the first LAC strategy being 5 Rangers death zerging it. I don't think of a DRK, MNK, THF, and recently reactivated WHM having an optimally efficient run on release day with no prior information. I think of heated arguments over whether MNK + SAM is better than MNK + MNK as primary DDs for Salvage, whether Monk should be given weapon cell priority, etc. It was part puzzle, part min/maxing extravaganza.

Admittedly, when I think of Salvage I also think of 1 AM runs that never dropped anything, but I remember that I gladly did them anyway because it was fun being part of such a well-practiced team. I got a Macha's coat on my first Arrapago run and didn't get another Morrigan 35 for something like 8 months (and then it was head, the worst piece of the set). I didn't even care, though. Salvage was my justification for playing the rest of the game. There is no reason to min/max jobs if endgame could be done without min/maxed jobs. Currently Legion is the weak justification for min/maxing. If Salvage II had been as challenging as the original Salvage, it would have become the new justification and I wouldn't have to do Legion anymore.


Edit: Update-
On Run 3 (just now) I killed Cerberus Seether with 27 minutes remaining. This net me 6 plans (5 Ritualistic, 1 Tutelary), 113 Alexandrite, Neit's Cuffs/Crown, and was done without so-called "ninja techniques." I got good starting cells today (Body + AGI), but I bet it gets even faster in the future as I get more used to the zone. I'm finding that I can use a much higher ratio of normal WSs to Aeolian Edge against the Cerberuses than I initially did.

[Yenecol]

Your just pissed that there is no special super rare gear that you can walk around PJ in and brag about. Every piece of gear is accessible to every player provided they put in some effort to acquiring them. The event doesn't have the single most important thing for "elite" players, exclusivity.

False. I have acquired the legendary skadi gloves+1 and beastmasters everywhere marvel at them for their awesome pet haste. I get to walk around with pride and have people check me in PJ. This is the one piece SE got right. But yes, it took tons of effort because so many other pieces they got wrong (making it hard to attract people to the event) and it feels exclusive to me since so many others are not going to bother with it. I see that denali (excuse me, THAUMAS) set everywhere but very few people sport skadi+1.

To get people for this event, I had to beg, plead, give away all the alexandrites, etc. I had one guy quit because 300k in alexandrite wasn't enough for him. Why would he waste 100 minutes to get that amount of gil when he could run a 30 minute NNI and get his cut of 10mil? (Yes, he is in one of those elite merc groups that spam NNI for other people). Fortunately, I found enough people willing to help but it was not easy. People seem to think it is easy to find people for this event but, unless you have good friends that help for the sake of helping, that is false too. That is why the other rewards should be better - to entice more people to do this fun event.

[detlef]

After just doing another Arrapago Remnants II and our party of 6 eating 5, yes 5, fulminations and only just surviving due to having 2 rdm (1 was a back up mule just because we could)... I don't see how anyone can tri-box this unless they are only going for plans, in which case that's not maximising Salvage II's potential, so they have no right to comment or be used in an argument. That's my opinion.

It's possible to 3-man these zones, but you'll have better results with certain setups.

[Demon6324236]

One thing I honestly don't understand is that people are saying they are going with WHM or RDM, where are your SCHs? Regen, AoE Phalanx, Enspells, Storms, highly powerful cures for low costs, Regain, Embrava for the HQ... Really I find this event to be another wonderful place for SCH just like NNI was, however not just for Embrava, but actually playing the game and job.

I know this is a little off topic but I just wanted to point it out because unless I am missing something, SCH seems superior to WHM or RDM for this event in basically every way.

[Camiie]

It isn't a single event because if you don't have the gear from 1 you must do it before being able to complete your +1 armor. If you could get Salvage 1 gear in 2 then I'd agree it works as a single event. While you might (I haven't tried to do both on the same day) be able to do them in a 200 minute span in the same day if you have enough points you're still doing 2 events not 1 as given drops are exclusive to each event.

That's why Salvage is a single event IMO because you must do "1" to get anything worthwhile out of "2." The new zones are simply an addendum to the originals.

Your just pissed that there is no special super rare gear that you can walk around PJ in and brag about. Every piece of gear is accessible to every player provided they put in some effort to acquiring them. The event doesn't have the single most important thing for "elite" players, exclusivity.

Yeah, not being a supposedly elite player myself, I'd prefer SE err on the side of too accessible or too obtainable than make stuff that's purposefully impossible to get. What's the point of making gear/events only for hardcores when they are A) A minor segment of the overall population and B) Prone to cheating their way to victory thus nullifying the supposed accomplishment.

[Zagen]

That's why Salvage is a single event IMO because you must do "1" to get anything worthwhile out of "2." The new zones are simply an addendum to the originals.

Kinda how a squeal extends a franchise, while still being it's own entity under said franchise... do you realize you just argued my initial point which you said didn't apply?

[Jaall]

Sorry, it might have seemed like I was saying you can't trio Arrapago, but you can I was just saying it's very difficult if you have to focus on 2 other characters. Probably possible if you're the type of person who uses hacks to get what they want and thus has the best gear possible, but then I don't really care much about them. I actually find it rather sad that people would want to be like that but that's a different matter. I have done Arrapago Remnants with 3 people easily, even when fulmination lands, but it's much safer and much more efficient to take more people and especially safer to have others in control of the characters.... as the game was intended.

[saevel]

It's possible to 3-man these zones, but you'll have better results with certain setups.

Definitely. I've three or four manned each zone, though we really don't need a fourth player. We're still refining our setup / strats for the individual zones. So far it's

WHM
THF
BLU or DRK
Maybe MNK

For Bfau I go BLU, SSR is kinda of a toss up, Saline Coat makes the boss much easier but my DRK's DT set has capped MDT and does more damage. Either way I'm bringing a stack of holy waters. Zhao is DRK with Twilight scyth and PDT sets otherwise Hydra will eat you alive. Arapago is definitely DRK, makes the boss a breeze.

Byrth go reread my post, I never said the zones were impossible only that they require skill and coordination to do. Three manning something is not the same as tri-boxing and you know it. You are not tri-boxing HQ hydra, not with that setup anyhow.