Need advice for clearing Nidhogg EX

My FC and I have been to Nidhogg EX a few times (spent 3 hours so far), but have yet to clear it.

The current situation is:
1.) One or two people always die to cauterize.
2.) We sometimes wipe at add phase due to low DPS, people hit by Were Dragon, especially his fireball attack.
3.) Always wipe at Claw / Fang phase.


We have only cleared the Claw / Fang phase once, but then wiped at tower phase because tanks went to the wrong towers.

Basically, I need advice on how to clear that Fang / Claw phase first.
From what I can tell, the reason for our defeat is:
1.) Blue orb players stand too far south / north and are near spawning orbs.
2.) Blue orb players don't move when an orb is near them, and get caught in splash damage.
3.) No red player goes to the north to grab orbs which spawn there.
4.) Only 1 or 2 red players go to the center to absorb the shared damage. When only 1 is there, they die.

I am a healer, so I am either red or have no tether. If I have no tether, I not only heal, but Stoneskin blue players. If I have tether, it's hard to find time to Stoneskin.

Anyway, here is what I think we need to do, but I am not sure if this is correct. Please advise.
1.) Orbs don't seem to the spawn on the far right side. Blue players should stand to the right side to avoid spawning orbs. Only 1 moves to the center to share damage.
2.) At least 1 red player needs to be up north to grab orbs which spawn there.
3.) As as soon as red player pops an orb, they should move to the center to share damage from a blue player with marker.

The Claw always dies, but the Fang always has HP remaining.
I gave this advice to the FC, but no one seemed to follow it. Is this bad advice? What are we doing wrong?

I think the DPS "should" be enough. Or, blue players are just getting hit by the orbs. How can they avoid the orb better? Is going to the far right a good idea? Or bad idea?

1. Cauterize. His first dive always comes from the North or East. His second dive comes from the South or West.

2. Stack the adds, bringing East to West in a plus sign shape. Have a healer stand far away from the group to bait fireball from the stone(?) dragon (it targets the player farthest away from him). Players have to watch out for the cleave on their own.

3. You've got the right idea. Blue avoid damage, each red takes one orb/damage. The 3 red and the 1 blue that gets targeted share the stack damage. Mitigating is useless unless you mitigate it all. The blue gains 10% health for any and every instance of damage on a blue (except tank. Idk about that. Seems to be 2% at a time)
If you're still failing dps checks, you can either get better players, have these players refine their rotations, or sit on cooldowns until fang and claw.
To clarify, red tethers do max dps on the blue add (I forget the names lol) also; everyone does, tanks too if needed.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Anubis_Nephthys

Mitigating is useless unless you mitigate it all. The blue gains 10% health for any and every instance of damage on a blue (except tank. Idk about that. Seems to be 2% at a time)
If you're still failing dps checks, you can either get better players, have these players refine their rotations, or sit on cooldowns until fang and claw.
To clarify, red tethers do max dps on the blue add (I forget the names lol) also; everyone does, tasks too if needed.

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Thank you for this especially. I didn't know that the Fang (blue) gets 10% for any damage taken.

I also didn't know red tether do DPS on blue add too. Maybe they are doing DPS or maybe not. I didn't notice it because I am just healing.
The next time we go, I will ask if the red tethers are doing DPS on the Fang too. That could be one of the problems.

I'd like to know a good method for blue tethers to avoid the orbs though. It seems that they keep getting hit by them, or get hit by splash damage.

Would having the blue tethered players stand to the far right work? I haven't seen any orbs appear there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FinaSel

Thank you for this especially. I didn't know that the Fang (blue) gets 10% for any damage taken.

I also didn't know red tether do DPS on blue add too. Maybe they are doing DPS or maybe not. I didn't notice it because I am just healing.
The next time we go, I will ask if the red tethers are doing DPS on the Fang too. That could be one of the problems.

I'd like to know a good method for blue tethers to avoid the orbs though. It seems that they keep getting hit by them, or get hit by splash damage.

Would having the blue tethered players stand to the far right work? I haven't seen any orbs appear there.

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The red add only takes damage from red tethered players taking damage. The blue does the opposite and must be dps'd down. As for orbs, the best way is for the blue players to locate and try to avoid (melee get on Southwest side of add if orbs spawned north and east-ish. This isn't an exact science, just move where you can to give red players a little more room.) while the red players each get one ASAP. The orbs slowly move toward a random blue or the blue add, idk which, so the red players must pop them rather quickly.

Your reds are not reacting fast enough is all this is, the blue orbs pop randomly across the map, usually one will pop right next to the blue fang. When the orbs pop they will stand still for two seconds, more than enough time for a red to intercept unless your reds are standing max distance away from the fang, which shouldn't be the case, especially with how slowly you depict your team grabbing orbs. Normally the orbs shouldn't even move when they blow up which mean the blue tethers don't have to adjust anything.

A tip is to keep your team relatively bunched up on the blue fang when it's time for orbs, one player, normally the red tethered frontline dps grabs the closest orb Pop and ranged grab the outplaying orbs.

To help with clearing DPS checks, have the non-tethered tank grab hate on nidgoon and than have him hit the blue fang, nidgoon in this phase does not do a cleave so having him up lose is fine.

There's no clear cut strat for dealing with the approaching orbs as far as I'm aware. It basically just falls down to raid awareness on the part of each individual player. Reds need to swiftly run to orbs to pop them, while also being aware of their own HP levels (give the healer a chance to throw a heal your way before you attempt to pop a second one for example).
Like wise the blues on the blue spear should be aware of the orbs approaching them if one gets too close they need to move out of range so that a red can pop it safely without damaging them. Also if a blue or two gets hit by orbs don't be afraid to Limit Break the blue spear it to get it dead so you guys can start practicing on the later phases :)
Also as far as i remember orbs do potentially spawn and approach from the South East so having everyone stack to the right of the spear could be very dangerous.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WeekendSoja

To help with clearing DPS checks, have the non-tethered tank grab hate on nidgoon and than have him hit the blue fang, nidgoon in this phase does not do a cleave so having him up lose is fine.

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Thank you. I didn't know that he didn't have a cleave and I don't think the others know this either, because our tank is always tanking Nidhogg far up north.

It seems our red players need to be closer to the blue fang and then move out to get orbs immediately as they appear. Usually our red players have been standing closer to the red claw.

I know our blue casters need to be more aware when a blue orbs pops near them. I've had a blue orb pop near a summoner and black mage before, and I couldn't pop it because the player wouldn't move out of the splash radius.

It seems we all need more practice.