Echo Buff and Duty Roulette (Trials)

I was divided on the announcement that the Echo buff would follow us into certain instances and Coil, but last night I finally unlocked Duty Roulette (Trials) and happily registered, but then thought, "Oh crap, Titan HM is in this too, right? Well...I guess there are a lot of other trials and most people are entering this with a full party, right? Good thing I'm over-geared, but I really don't think I'll get it..."

Duty pops and of course I get Titan HM.
And naturally the message "One or more members are new to this duty..."

Healer and tanks are raging to go, I say, "we should explain the fight."
"Dodge!"
I start explaining, the healer threatens to leave if we don't start right away, so we start.

Long story short: We wiped three times before killing him.

Now, the Echo Buff will not help people who are, to put it politely, "beyond saving" (though honestly for first-timers on Titan HM they did decently). What it DOES do, is allow the rest of the party to not be dragged to the depths of the seven hells along with the one or two new/bad players. In essence, your damage, heals and endurance are boosted to offset the poor performance of others in your group.

What ended up happening was that no one quit, the experienced players carried the less experienced ones thanks to the Echo Buff (only 2.5 DPS needed to break the heart) and we ended with only one healer, one tank, and one gaoled DPS left standing.*

Without the Echo Buff, I guarantee people would have quit after the first wipe (we didn't even break the heart that time). And in general I wouldn't be shocked to see others drop from the instance the minute that riff starts playing.

Without Echo, the presence of Titan HM would likely break the whole Duty Roulette for Trials, which would screw over the people attempting to pass Cape Westwind, Leviathan HM, and the previously-somewhat-now-totally-outdated King Moogle for story.

So while I'm not quite sure what to think of Echo for EX primals, I'm glad it's available for Trial Duty Roulette, and more specifically Titan HM. Now before this turns into a discussion about "bad" players being carried or handed content on a silver platter...think about it from a more selfish perspective. Do you really want to "insta-lose" by rolling Titan HM in Duty Roulette? Do you want to waste up to an hour waiting for a queue, 15 minutes wiping to no avail, then having to requeue for another hour to maybe get placed in yet another doomed Titan HM?

So yeah, Echo buff gets an A from me as far as DR Trials go.

*"But what happened to you?!" -- I died with Titan at like 0.5% health to tumults. Understandably, the healer was occupied with solo healing tank etc.

I agree; I think adding the Echo buff was a good move. It helps people who are having difficulties progress through content, and people who insist on not using it can just remove the buff.

Yesterday I did trial roulette and new players we told them,what to do and beat it,first run easy

I joined my friend in a DF Ifrit Extreme. 5 people beat it the first time thanks to 25% Echo buff. It's not roulette but it's one of the examples where echo helps less-experienced players get through the fights.

On top of helping less experienced players get through content it seems to give the more experienced players the incentive to help the less experienced ones. Knowing that after a few wipes you can just carry the party is good incentive to stick around.

It sounds to me like the echo buff is only really helping the experienced players. The new players are getting carried, and aren't learning very much, because they don't have to. I know it could possibly be counterproductive to the point of the echo. But maybe they should consider a system where you don't win the fight unless your alive or at least don't get credit? That way new people have to survive/learn something, while the experienced people can still go along there merry way.

Heh, Titan HM was my first attempt at the trial duty roulette as well, though I think our group fared a little worse than that.

That said, I think it's a plus that the Echo is there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by givemeraptors

that riff

---

that riff (f•ckin love it) is the reason (I'm sure of it) that new people die immediately after heart... drives people nuts!

btw, does the Echo buff apply to the extremes as well?

So I got my third relic the other day. Having rolled dps before, it was my first time tanking the HM primals. Each time, I was either the only one or one of two members that had done Hm primals before.... the echo buff helpled out a lot.

After finally killing Titan, I was thanked for the carry..

I think the echo buff is a good thing. I hate when it's needed but it does help a lot.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Judge_Xero

On top of helping less experienced players get through content it seems to give the more experienced players the incentive to help the less experienced ones. Knowing that after a few wipes you can just carry the party is good incentive to stick around.

---

There is learning a fight, and learning a fight.

Various mechanics are set to punish instead of to teach. Not being able to meet a dps check or instant deaths make learning curve much harder then it should be. Some fights have to be near perfect, and echo helps that near perfect down to, doable.

Not stacking in a titan EX will 1hit KO anyone even with echo. But just a little slow and getting love tapped for 90% HP, means a death to the follow up stomp. With echo, they will not die to the follow up stomp, same with weakness. You can not survive a gero crush weakened, but with enough echo, you can.

Getting double tapped is a signature mechanic in EXs. But echo makes a double tap livable, and thus much easier to learn the fight. Being able to see all the phases is very important, even if you don't win.

#2: It also helps make Parties faster. Finding 2 tanks and 2 healers that have experienced in EX is like pulling teeth, but with echo, you can have part time tanks and healers that sub in doable. "Hey I know the fight but I've never done it on XyZ job" is generally a fail in 2.0 and 2.1 Not in 2.2

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Drako

It sounds to me like the echo buff is only really helping the experienced players. The new players are getting carried, and aren't learning very much, because they don't have to. I know it could possibly be counterproductive to the point of the echo. But maybe they should consider a system where you don't win the fight unless your alive or at least don't get credit? That way new people have to survive/learn something, while the experienced people can still go along there merry way.

---

It sounds like that, but with experienced people deciding to stick around for a few wipes, the newbies get much more practice than an abandoned run because the tank and healer dropped. People improve noticeably within 20-30 minutes. First time the newbies died before we got to heart, second time it was during heart, third time they died post-heart. That's a heck of a lot of improvement, and even though ultimately they were "carried", they are better players now than before (if not as good as a Titan HM clear would/should indicate).

On the side note, can someone say what are the requirement for Duty Roulette trials? I still see it locked.

I finished stories mission, finished Leviathan... finished all new dungeons...

what the heck am i missing?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Synapse

On the side note, can someone say what are the requirement for Duty Roulette trials? I still see it locked.

I finished stories mission, finished Leviathan... finished all new dungeons...

what the heck am i missing?

---

Did you do the Bridge Quest with Gilgamesh?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

btw, does the Echo buff apply to the extremes as well?

---

Yes, but not a heavily. Instead of increasing by stacks of 10% (max 50%) it stacks in increments of 5% (max 25%).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Lord_Zlatan

btw, does the Echo buff apply to the extremes as well?

---

The older extremes do give the buff, though the buff received is not as substantial as the one you get for lower tier content. I think Hard Modes gave about a 50% buff and the Extreme Modes give 25%. Something like that. The new trails and raid (Leviathan Hard and Extreme, Thornmarch Extreme and The Second Coil of Bahamut) don't apply, for obvious reasons.

I'm a fan of it and think it was a good idea. Especially in the HM roulette trials where you've rouletted and the experienced ones can simply put on some sunglasses and deal with it after a couple wipes.
In the EX trials is certainly doesn't replace learning the fight. Titan remains all about the dodging. Buffs don't help if you fall off a platform. Apparently echo can drive Titan EX's phases too quickly and fubar a run.

So you may help some bads get through the content. The fact remains they'll still get stuck at "current" content and won't get through maintaining one's feelings of superiority. Or they are good and were just stuck with crap parties and now you've got a new potential static member. Yay.

Yea my only real beef with it is it screws up the timings of everything that we're used to. Phases get pushed in a weird way that causes things like jails happening during a jump phase. Or you accidentally cause Ifrit to push past 5% and wipe the party during nails. It also creates a false reality where people think that they're ready for Leviathan ex because they finally beat old primals.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Timethiuas

Did you do the Bridge Quest with Gilgamesh?

---

/facepalm....

Thanks... i forgot about that. Never thought Hildbrande story line would merge with DF.

During roulette just like the op we wiped to the 30% buff. On our last try we were down to me, the 2 tanks and 1 healer. The healer lagged and got hit by a landslide followed by the MT. The OT who was new picked him up and lasted long enough to for me to LB. Thumbs up for me also for my 2nd relic and the epic story.

The Echo buff will help people progress, but it doesn't really teach them the mechanics of the fight. Right now it's "we'll keep trying until we beat it" (which is a fair attitude to have) but if you don't know why you're dying or how to fix what you're doing wrong, you're really not learning from your mistakes (like those of us who did running the fights 10s or even 100s of times) and this won't help people when they start to make their way into Coil when mechanics are much less forgiving.

I like the Echo buff if only for the bit of gloating that comes along with it. I went into Titan HM with my BLM from the DF and we wiped a bunch to get the Echo to 50% (i was the last one standing on almost all the runs). As a result I managed to crit on a flare with 2020. I shouted that into my linkshell to which a great friend screamed "OMG I want 50% echo and a 2k crit!" and immediately queued up for Titan. She managed to do a flare crit over my own at 40% Echo, but had a blast doing so. I would still like to beat Titan while not spending the end of the round on the ground (plumes just don't like my connection speed), but at least Echo doesn't make that fight the gateway it once was to parties that might not be completely up to par, but want to see the stuff that follows like coil, exs, or the atma grind.
That being said, I managed to jump off the edge of my last Titan HM run avoiding a plume and felt miserable to be carried through one when I was there to carry someone else.