Darkhold really "easy" or merely what we were warned about by Matsui?

[Murugan]

I will admit I have done batrall once but in that fight I was killing skeles, once they are dead hitting the lights then engage batrall untill the skeles repop the repeat, didnt get hit by anything except the skeles and the healer assigned to us could cope, until the tank died and we got raped, but that was only because the tank died.

You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

[Delsus]

You know what's funny is I had like an identical response to the "matsui hates melee" thread that came out shortly after Darkhold. The problem with the stationary tactic on Batraal and melee is that once the ghosts pop (they aren't there at the start of the fight), if the tank does not joust because the ghost are dynamic unlike in Ogre the melee cannot as easily dodge them 100% of the time.

The result of this is that either they are slower on circles, require significant healer attention, or have to stay out of range for periods of time not doing damage. This makes them a hindrance using that strategy, however if the tank does joust the ghosts melee are free to damage more on par with archers.

I know groups that use the static strategy and have melee DD come along, but I honestly think in this case they are treating the melee more as a charity case than anything because I don't see how that strategy really accounts for ease of melee DD (and I'm 100% positive that Matsui did not design a ranged centric fight from the onset).

The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

[Murugan]

The reason the ARC onry idea came around is because ARC could avoid damage from ogres AOE, and this mentality has stuck even when people are completing the dungeon left right and center because the ARC onry tactic has been tested so many times, the melee tactic has not been tested as much because people insist on ARC onry for darkhold, therefore people dont know how to utilise melee for batrall and choose not to use them becuase the see melee as a hinderance.

Its catch 22, people dont use melee because a decent tactic has not been discovered but because people dont use melee they cant get a decent tactic. People want to win the dungeon so they go with proven tactics.

This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

[Delsus]

This is not true, the ogre's AOE can be easily stunned (more easily if you actually have a LNC in melee range). The ARC preferred strategy came about because of the stationary tank method's ability to negate the ghost making the fight significantly less difficult to execute.

To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

[Murugan]

To quote a linkshell member "whats the obvious way of dealing with a fight where a mob uses alot of AOEs, use archers who can stay out of range", the ARC only mentality came around before anyone got to batraal, the first day I logged on after the patch my linkshell were making a dungeon run and asking for archer, it was within a week the ARC only mentality was around which was I believe before anyone beat batraal, and you can tell from the distance the ogre is from the ghosts that you can have melee in there without getting hit.

Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

[Delsus]

Right but haven't we moved past people being ignorant of being able to stun abilities? Batraal does not have static ghosts like the Ogre, they instead pop by the person who has aggro. This is why there is an actual not imagined difference between ranged and melee DD ability during that fight if the group is using a stationary tank method (which is quite popular and the topic of this thread really).

If its whoever has hate on the tank, im sure that if the tank is decent they should always go to the tank if its whoever has hate its not hard to manipulate to win.

[Murugan]

If its whoever has hate on the tank, im sure that if the tank is decent they should always go to the tank if its whoever has hate its not hard to manipulate to win.

That's not the point, the ghosts form a circle around the person with the aggro. It's pretty easy to hold hate on Batraal in comparison to ogre, however the (I think) most popular method of tanking batraal currently is to keep him stationary with the tank standing between Batraal's legs so that he is able to avoid all or at least most of the ghost AOE's. However this creates a barrier around batraal that makes melee DD maneuvering difficult.

What you can do to address this problem is to have the tank completely joust the ghosts, by moving every time the ghosts disappear (since they will reappear at his location when they begin the move). In order to do this method the tank's healer has to move with the tank, and what makes that difficult is that when Batraal ~30% starts doing his frontal which has a wide (180 degree) radius the mage has to carefully coordinate his movement with the tank so that he does not accidentally get hit by this (as batraal will sometimes fire it off during the move).

Or it is possible you could just have the tank move enough while minimizing the healer's movement so that they still get hit by 2-3 ghosts, but the melee are free to do damage.

However I rarely see either of these strategies, most groups simply use the stationary tank method because then they don't have to worry about the ghost movements at all really. I'm saying if people weren't able to overpower these bosses and soak that damage as easily, forcing them to joust the fight would be significantly less simple. It wouldn't be the hardest fight ever, no, but it wouldn't be as insultingly simple to execute as was implied in the other thread "tank batraal in corner, kill skeletons, pop circles" (no mention of ghosts which I consider a/the main intended obstacle of the fight).