The constant disbanding of Steps of Faith

[Nalien]

Its the strategy that requires the least amount of communication, which is the weakest link in the DF.

Well, it requires "do NO AOE OR PARTY BUFFS", which after many a sac pull in many a dungeon, is not something I'm confident the Duty Finder can pull off.

I don't really see how it requires less communication, either. Things like cannons and Dragon Killer/Snare are essentially the same, but you have to communicate to avoid the adds while still having the tanks deal with some of them. That seems like more to explain to me.

The only real benefit seems to be that you can completely ignore the big adds. Both strategies let you ignore the little ones, since they die so easily to cannon fire if herded anyway. As long as people are actually dealing with the big ones they go down easily enough to cannon fire and a little bit of DPS focus. That results in you having a horde of NPCs on Vishap and three party members not otherwise busy, overall that seems like a significant gain in DPS to me.

when DK time happens, the dps on cannon hits snare, then sprints and hits other snare, while the healer on cannons sprints up the tower and gets DK.

Is there a particular reason for doing it this way? Having both players on cannons hit their respective Snares while one of the free players hits Dragon Killer means you get a fair amount of extra cannon fires in while he is immobile. Fairly sure the cannons offer more damage than a DPS is capable of so keeping a DPS down to melee him while one cannon goes unused seems like a mistake to me.

[tocsin]

its generally less communication, in that the adds simply aren't there, anywhere near the boss. they spawn, and if the healer and tanks do their job, they just run right for the entrance to the dungeon. no worries of cannons to use stuns and slows, no worries of dps to stay out of all the aoes, its all just pew pew pew for the 4 dps and healer, and the kite team just runs in circles while being chased by a large pile of mobs, and avoids everything.

Is there a particular reason for doing it this way? Having both players on cannons hit their respective Snares while one of the free players hits Dragon Killer means you get a fair amount of extra cannon fires in while he is immobile. Fairly sure the cannons offer more damage than a DPS is capable of so keeping a DPS down to melee him while one cannon goes unused seems like a mistake to me.

its mainly to avoid having the other dps interrupt their rotations. less communication of a third person, and by the point of the snares, the people on the cannons should be getting out of the way anyways, for the aoe.

the strategy utilizes the two main mechanics of the fight:
1. All the adds share threat tables, regardless of location in the map
2. adds despawn after barriers.

[Nalien]

its mainly to avoid having the other dps interrupt their rotations. less communication of a third person, and by the point of the snares, the people on the cannons should be getting out of the way anyways, for the aoe.

The other DPSs rotation isn't going to come close to dealing as much damage as the extra cannon fire though, more so if they're barely passing i90. There should always be two people on cannons IMO.

Avoiding the extra communication is perhaps the only selling point there, but that's also probably why I'm starting to turn off the idea of this strategy. The Duty Finder sucks when it comes to people communicating, sure, but I see that as behavior which should be fixed, rather than embraced. Although I haven't gotten Steps in a good while, so I'm probably just forgetting how damned frustrating it is when someone doesn't do as I tell them, lol.

[tocsin]

snip.

I think the question here is whether 5 seconds of cannon fire before the AOE timer requires leaving the cannons(about 1-2 actions) is worth pulling a dps off their rotation, sending them up the tower, hitting the DK, and heading back down,. repositioning, and restarting rotation (maybe 20 seconds).

I think a lot of people vastly overestimate the dps of the cannons, especially when they are firing as single target instead of AoE on adds. its ~2k damage, every 2.5-3.5 seconds, which, although slightly better than dps, isn't a huge amount more.

Yes, it shines brightly if you are killing adds, as 2k for every mob is like 40k dps, but 750 dps on single target is not off-the-walls amazing.