Was Ambuscade too popular?

[Urmom]

Okay, I like to think I'm less-biased on this one.

I was a bandwagon BST in the aby area (the age of lowman loved a solojob that could do almost anything, and could do anything teamed with other BSTs). I didn't particularly love the job but the pets were invincible, especially in Abyssea. (For a while, pets in Aby could have -100% DT or PDT, it might have just been PDT). So for a while, they were literally unkillable.

I left the job alone since before adoulin.

BST used to play like SMN, you sent your pet in, made it do its thing, and you stayed safe. Unlike SMN, your pets could tank quiet well and be healed.

Prior to the BST nerf, The very good BSTs were soloing Avatars on D and VD. They were doing this because they could exploit terrain and stand at a safe distance from the bosses while still in range of their pets to order attacks and Reward. I believe that I could have done this too, all it takes is sitting in your best Pet-DT gear gear, using the right pet, and swapping for Ready commands.

Now I've been playing BST because my friends want to screw around on pet jobs. Generally it's fine, I don't mind it. It does get a bit irritating when you're meleeing with your pet, it switches target to something within melee range and it's suddenly too far away to command. BST pets are just like smn pets in that they hit the last thing to hit them (although they don't care what hits you, unless you Snarl and have actual enmity on the mobs). So it can be difficult to keep your pet focused and within range. If you're dealing with a LOT of mobs, it can be quite frustrating finding your pet.

Does the range need to be as long as it was? I don't think so. 10 or 15 should do. I shouldn't just be safe from all AOEs, freely Ready'ing without regard to TP (my tp or my pet's). I do have to say that I don't really see a problem with how far a BST should be able to Reward from. I'd leave Ready, Sic, and Snarl at a shortened range though.

100% pdt was pretty easy but you could do 100% dt as well but it required a very specific set of atmas that killed you and your pets DD capabilities and the right gear and keeping pet hp between ~25-50% with one of the atmas giving 30/tic dot... and yeah dots could still kill the pet. But definitely had a high lvl of survivability before the nerfs

Wouldn't say that avatars can't tank... they can to an extant if you use the same dt gear and choose the right ones. A bit less hp but more built in pdt and huge resistances if you can use the right ones. The lack of healing except on a couple of them is what makes it hard for anything longer... though that said a lot of those harder bst solos involved using a few dawn mulsums which any pet job can do. And note you can still use them though they don't stack so kills your invent. Though at the time smn had to be more like 17ish away to issue commands which made things with big AoEs like avatars a lot more dangerous to the master than for bst.

And of course the very good people on other jobs have been soloing VDs as well. Usually jobs like rdm, sch and blu. No surprise as all have always been good solo jobs

[OmnysValefor]

Yeah, very skilled players on many jobs can do a lot of things. (Other jobs, like say mnk, just don't have the resourcefulness regardless of skill.)

The problem with BST was that it was basically a guaranteed win. If you brought enough mulsums.

Because players do depend on TP (as bst pets once did), they can't just idle in -50% PDT gear and wait 10-20s for some powerful JA to be ready. They also have about one third to one half the HP of BST pets.

The mechanics were overpowered. Now they're underpowered.

[Pixela]

I hope the devs listened to feedback and saw how few people are doing ambuscade with the horrible choice for monster(S), hopefully this months ambuscade won't punish players for soloing as severely as this did this month. Yes I know less wait times suit a minority but bored players won't retain their sub, this was one of the few things "scrubs" could do in this game.

I do ambuscade once a day now and no matter what time I go I can walk right in with zero wait on Asura because ITS DEAD. Killing the popularity of content isn't fixing congestion anymore than putting your puppy to sleep is a good cure for its tummy ache.

[Diavolo]

I do ambuscade once a day now and no matter what time I go I can walk right in with zero wait on Asura because ITS DEAD. Killing the popularity of content isn't fixing congestion anymore than putting your puppy to sleep is a good cure for its tummy ache.

I disagree with you on a great many things, but this made me laugh because I find it to be somewhat true. The change in difficulty from one month to the next was drastic and seemed odd given how Ambuscade was content aimed at helping new/returning players obtain gear that gave them a fighting chance.

[Ketaru]

I do ambuscade once a day now and no matter what time I go I can walk right in with zero wait on Asura because ITS DEAD. Killing the popularity of content isn't fixing congestion anymore than putting your puppy to sleep is a good cure for its tummy ache.

A little context is needed. The first is the fact the armor this time around is less than stellar and only applies to a very select group of jobs, none of which are particularly popular right now. Also, a CP campaign is going on. Many of the most active players on the server right now are getting JP.

[Olor]

Ambuscade is really not fun anymore. Can there please be an option that is doable solo or in a duo on normal? I don't think that's too much to ask. As is, you need a full party of people in proper job slots to do normal with average 119 gear. Tried difficult with a full party and the weird gimmicks are hard to deal with when you have a group full of people who don't really know the fight/not everyone on optimal jobs.

Of course it would have helped if we had dropped the non BLU DDs because, frankly they added negligible or even NEGATIVE damage (by interrupting the BLU's skillchains) - but that's really a crappy place for the game to be in, where someone with about the same level of gear as someone else is not welcome because their job isn't able to do the one thing that is expected of them - deal damage.

Please consider making Ambuscade more accessible for all jobs next month. We should not be forced to exclude people on most jobs just to get wins.

Also can the event be slightly less punishing for WHM? Being a WHM is hard enough without draw in, AOEs, silencega and multiple mobs popping up and eating your face. I'd like to be able to get whm gear this month.... I am willing to WHM to do it but this event is really BS.

In the meantime if folks could respond with strategies/setups that work - I'd like to try to get some parties this month. I have BRD WHM for support and BLU (NQ) and BST (NQ) for DD.

[detlef]

Ambuscade was never fun. Not now, not ever. It's just that it was particularly easy the 1st month and maybe it had the benefit of being new.

As a healer, you can stand out of range of the Gravitic Pull move. Adds can be slept (if you're BRD, use Troubadour Horde Lullaby). Also if you're not familiar with the fight, try an easier difficulty.

[Olor]

Ambuscade was never fun. Not now, not ever. It's just that it was particularly easy the 1st month and maybe it had the benefit of being new.

As a healer, you can stand out of range of the Gravitic Pull move. Adds can be slept (if you're BRD, use Troubadour Horde Lullaby). Also if you're not familiar with the fight, try an easier difficulty.

Good to know lullaby works. Maybe I can get an invite as a BRD, WHM was a real pain. Any idea how much MACC I'd need to be rocking to make that work on higher difficulties? I haven't played in a long while and stopped focusing on gearing it. I'd really hate to get an invite as a sleeper and not have what it takes to make it work.

I kept getting my face eaten by the adds when I stood back, not sure how that was able to happen since I don't see anyone else posting about it, maybe my group was just fail at crowd control, but that was definitely making my life harder as whm.

In terms of fun I actually found the first month fun, but I find being able to make progress at my own pace fun, so mileage may vary. It would have been more fun if I didn't need to spam it 1000 times to get gear, but that's the trade off for being a soloer/duoer and I am willing to accept that. But if I need to group up just to do normal the points are waaaay too low and the event goes from being fun to being a crummy nightmare.

I'd be happy (frankly) to do lower difficulties and just spam it and get it done but it seems others would mostly rather lose a whole bunch of times (at which the better players quit often) bashing their heads against the wall. The only reason I got any points at all is because I asked us to switch to normal because difficult wasn't happening. But people sneer at doing normal.

That said, people might be more willing to try lower difficulties if you didn't need 160 runs to cap out on gear on normal...

[OmnysValefor]

Time to show off my MS paint skill



As a tank, I pull the boss like so. I pull him to the corner we start in, have him face east, with me facing west (my back to the east).

WHMs can stand at max range off me and curaga on me when they need to.

The most important part is generating aoe hate when the adds pop. All so far have had "party-hate", meaning that the mobs will go for whoever has generated the most overall enmity. The adds will spawn all the same time, as soon as the tank sees any, they should start generating aoe hate (Warcry is good for this. I go all out Sentinel > Warcry > Rampart and start popping personal stuff like cures). If necessary, the whm and bard should run in at the same time so that if they do get agro, all the adds are together in lullaby range.

Sleep them, run back out. Once the adds are slept, I step backwards (eastward) so the slept adds are in front of me, so that if they DO wake, I can parry/block them.

I generally want mages to be east of me but some will stand northeast and so the red line represents them, the green dots represent DD positioning. Barstonra + Barblindra help.

Edit: And yes, Bard is wonderful here. "Nitro" should allow any decently geared bard to sleep effectively.

[Olor]

Thanks so much. I appreciate that help. It's hard to do a group when folks don't know what is going on.

So is the general strat to sleep the adds and just burn down the boss with them out? My group was killing the adds.

Do you just drop GEO from the party in favour of bard or do you do something lik WHM GEO BARD PLD BLU BLM?

And, hopefully I am not being a pest here but what buffs would a 3 song bard generally do?