Wanderer's Palace (Hard) Squad Dungeon

Why is this dungeon even accessible with squadron? It's impossibly unfair and downright annoying. The first boss, as a tank, isn't too bad if just a little too trigger happy with the placing of totems (like 1 every 5 seconds?, with a real group I've never seen more than 2 up at one time)

The 2nd boss? What can I say, this boss wasn't designed to be done with npc's. Every single attack he does, no matter what class you're on, is aimed at you and you alone. You get turned into a frog, which is unavoidable, npc healer doesn't heal you because you're a frog and it seems they don't like frogs.

Then you get your ass fried because his dmg just keeps increasing.

I know you can use the standards he puts down to your advantage, but what kind of advantage is it when 99% of the time you end up with stacked fire damage on you before you even find the damage buff, and just end up getting 1 shotted anyway.

If you ignore the standards because it's completely random which does what, he'll get a damage boost again and 1 shot you anyway so I ask again, wtf is this even a squad dungeon?

You collect all the different colors at the first time and you have to remember wich color is the damage buff. Every color is always the same buff from then on, so the next time you can grab the damage buff without stepping into the fire damage buff. Also one of the colors turns you into a frog - but it also can dispell the frog. So run into that color when he turns you into frog. It is always the color wich is missing the first time when you collect all the colors to find out where the damage buff is.

Maybe not the way you want to do this but I found farming Offensive rank 5 and then just setting everyone to that made most content reasonable if not regularly faster than the actual DF lol.

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Originally Posted by Tint

You collect all the different colors at the first time and you have to remember wich color is the damage buff. Every color is always the same buff from then on, so the next time you can grab the damage buff without stepping into the fire damage buff. Also one of the colors turns you into a frog - but it also can dispell the frog. So run into that color when he turns you into frog. It is always the color wich is missing the first time when you collect all the colors to find out where the damage buff is.

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I've done this too, getting the standards to start with, if you get the fire dmg+ one you can kiss your ass goodbye because you'll be dead long before it wears off. If you get the frog you're equally as screwed, so unless you get lucky enough to get the damage +1 first time and nothing else then your luck is better than mine.

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Originally Posted by Shougun

Maybe not the way you want to do this but I found farming Offensive rank 5 and then just setting everyone to that made most content reasonable if not regularly faster than the actual DF lol.

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All of my npc's are Lv60 and they all(excluding the whm) have aggressive 5, I should probably also point out that I've done this as various jobs, including a lv72 War in Ilv341 gear and it makes no difference at all.
I've also ran this dungeon multiple times with real players and it's nowhere close to being this difficult.

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Originally Posted by Mageala

All of my npc's are Lv60 and they all(excluding the whm) have aggressive 5, I should probably also point out that I've done this as various jobs, including a lv72 War in Ilv341 gear and it makes no difference at all.
I've also ran this dungeon multiple times with real players and it's nowhere close to being this difficult.

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What class are your team members? Archer seems like a solid choice, I think the AI has problems as the other jobs sometimes- if they cancel their moves or what have you. I remember the goblin boss being a bit annoying when on a job with bad aoe, but I don't recall this guy being too bad- he hit like a truck but I just decided to plan my existence around those spells xD. I take your spell and raise it Hallowed Ground, bite me.

You're right though that sometimes the squadron feels like it's not equipped to deal with certain mechanics. Sometimes you've got to come up with weird solutions lol.

I do most squad runs with 2 brds and whm, it's always served me well. I've beat every squad dungeon so far except this one. The only reason it's annoying me is because I know it's not even hard, which just pisses me off all the more when that damn mamool pulls out the cheatcode lol

I'm not sure how you're supposed to deal with being turned into a frog though, it's unavoidable and he'll 100% cast it on you at least once, the question is, how are you supposed to survive if it takes him 2 OP nukes to end you because the healer doesn't want to heal a frog?

In a standard run he casts it on a random party member and will only use fire spit on the tank, but with squadron you're his one and only target for both those spells, which I think is a stupid mechanic.

I dunno I just mashed my face on my keyboard through all of these squad instances one & done on tank.

During the first set of totems, he ONLY puts down fire resistance down, damage down, and damage up. Whatever color is not put down in the first round will always be the frog totem. Bam, now you know how to remove frog status before it ever becomes a problem.

So i cleared this one as an under-geared healer. It was a bit painful having to come up with a work-around for each boss since i couldnt count on my squad to do or take any mechanics(also, i suck as a healer so it was just painful in general). I tried him a number of ways. What ultimately worked was making sure i got the damage up flag every time(if i didnt he eventually 1 shot me - usually shortly before the squad would have ended him), healing myself back up as soon as frog expired(the fight i won i didnt get the color for the frog totem - would have been easier), and trying to keep at least 1 regen on myself for frog times. I dont think its that the NPC doesnt want to heal a frog, its that the frog state lowers your max hp so you arent "hurt" until it expires and your hp goes to normal.

OP, the really baffling part is (as I understand it, if I'm wrong someone please correct me) that the NPCs in trusts are programmed to respond to general situations in certain ways (so the devs are freer to put them into more duties going forward).
But the NPCs in Squadrons were programmed to respond to the things happening in the dungeons they can go into (which is why you can't just take a squadron into any ARR or HS dungeon, only for a select list).

So, like, yeah. Why are they SO wonk?

It's fairly useless to run the lv50 dungeons anyway, since level cap dungeons give greatly reduced EXP. Aurum Vale -> Sohm Ahl is the fastest leveling progression by far.

EDIT: So I tested this and I'm surprised no one spotted it. Your squadron are fairly badly geared for Wanderer's Palace Hard. Mine had 4k-4.2k health with the healer at 3.4k. This is identical to their stats in the regular Wanderer's Palace. Even in Aurum Vale, they have 3.9k-4k with the healer at 3.3k.

Considering Wanderer's Palace (Hard) is a big jump from Wanderer's Palace Normal (45ilv minimum requirement vs 90ilv requirement), the fact the Squadron have zero increase in stats must be an oversight.

Yeah, I found the same issue in pretty much all of the Hard Mode dungeons with Squadrons. It's not really too terrible if you're a tank because you can take all of the hits/mechanics yourself without a lot of issue. As a healer, though, it can be brutal. It's not necessarily hard it's just not really set up for one party member (aka You) to do be the target of all of the mechanics.. and the Hard modes all add in more punishing mechanics than the original versions.

As someone who generally enjoys Squadrons, I'd love to see this get updated in the future. I want more Squadron content (yeah, yeah, I know it's not likely to happen) but I would very much like if they worked the AI out a bit compared to what you're expected to deal with.

First of, you not doing mechanics is not really the squadrons fault.

1 Color turns you into a frog ... or back depending on your current status and another gives you a damage boost ... if that one is not taken, the boss will eat it.
Which means in first round you figure out what does what and then you eat damage+ ones to give you the boost and know where to run to when your a frog.

Saying ShB trusts are programmed is a lie as an AI is wrong, they have handpicked things they do when stuff happens which is more like.

When AoE X happens run to position Y rather then "avoid the aoe to the closest clear postion"
Which is not a AI but a script, something that is fixed before you start rather then variable.

Creating an AI which could be copied to squadron would take a lot of work but just programming them to do 1 more dungeon per 3-4 months is not that bad.
This is why its unlikely we will see them copy their "trusts" to squadron ... the thing is not smart, its just man hours into telling them what to do.

Tbh, I suffer so much in that dungeon with a squadron that I finally accepted I just need to heal for it. The healers half the time don't do anything right and the tanks are almost always engaging new things 24/7 for keeping that aggro. They just need to raise the level cap some imo or allow them to have "jobs".