Does anybody else notice a PUG issue with Savage lately?

[zuzu-bq]

I'm talking about not being topped off before the stone aoe goes off. Normally you'd have a regen anyways and it wouldn't be an issue (how far you have to run depends on the path of the other person targeted with it), but, in my own personal experience with this mechanic, there are instances where that simply hasn't been the case, and I die from Demonic Howl.

Yeah but I still don't get it. If you're doing the mechanic right you shouldn't be dying. If you're dying it's because you're getting hit by it thus doing the mechanic wrong. Meaning it's your own fault.

[KaivaC]

I'm talking about not being topped off before the stone aoe goes off. Normally you'd have a regen anyways and it wouldn't be an issue (how far you have to run depends on the path of the other person targeted with it), but, in my own personal experience with this mechanic, there are instances where that simply hasn't been the case, and I die from Demonic Howl.

I'm slightly confused. Are you talking about normal or savage?

[Sinh119]

I'm slightly confused. Are you talking about normal or savage?

Savage. The mechanic, Demonic Stone I believe, is present in both.

[Sinh119]

Yeah but I still don't get it. If you're doing the mechanic right you shouldn't be dying. If you're dying it's because you're getting hit by it thus doing the mechanic wrong. Meaning it's your own fault.

So if I take AOE damage I was doing a mechanic wrong? Obviously that's not what you intended, but the logic is demonstrably fallacious.

There is unavoidable damage in this game, and while it's not required to top off everyone's health due to shielding, the Demonic Stone kiting is immediately followed by a Demonic Howl, meaning that you won't make it to AOE shielding in time to mitigate the damage. The solution to this is to make sure whoever is kiting Stone is topped off before they have to kite it. I've had experiences where I'm simply not topped off and have to eat the full damage of Demonic Howl, leading to a death. I don't see how this is a point of contention.

[Vaer]

Savage. The mechanic, Demonic Stone I believe, is present in both.

If the dps gets hit by any of the stone pillars (They are all avoidable) and the Howl kills them, that is mostly the dps' fault. Healers can spot heal and save them but that is a mechanic mistake on the person targeted most of the time.
If the dps dodges all the pillars taking 0 damage and still dies to Howl that is on the healers/mitigation. This is assuming 0 vuln stacks and their max HP isn't lower than minimum ilvl ofc.

[Sinh119]

If the dps gets hit by any of the stone pillars (They are all avoidable) and the Howl kills them, that is mostly the dps' fault. Healers can spot heal and save them but that is a mechanic mistake on the person targeted most of the time.
If the dps dodges all the pillars taking 0 damage and still dies to Howl that is on the healers/mitigation. This is assuming 0 vuln stacks and their max HP isn't lower than minimum ilvl ofc.

I don’t know how else I can articulate this, but never did I mentioned getting hit by the actual stone. Now this explanation is dripping with condescension, and trust, I hate myself for it far more than anyone, but it’s the only way that I can see to get this point across, because this seems to be a point of contention, undeniably due to poor wording on my part. Normally you are at full health before the stone goes out, you move out of the group and kite it around the arena, then you take a little extra damage from Demonic Howl because you’re out of Sacred Soil/Passage of Arms/Collective Unconscious etc... yes? Now, let’s posit a scenario where you aren’t topped off before stone, say my hp is at 29k relative to my max hp of 38k, you kite the stone around the arena, and you just so happen to be out of range of the healers. Demonic Howl comes in. What is the result in this scenario? My experience has usually been death. This scenario is the one I was referencing in my original post, and is but one anecdote out of all the ones I provided.

[Squintina]

The main point of contention for me would be you somehow getting out of range.

Because I'm a healer main and have never had someone out of range for o6s demonic stone, you don't have to keep going far away, you just need to not hit other players, so you can walk in a curve (around the group) and not get out of range. Of course that's assuming the non-stone players aren't spread out in such a manner that this wouldn't be possible.

The other anecdotes aren't being mentioned because there's nothing to disagree on regarding them: you're right, those healers were not anticipating the next mechs properly in those other anecdotes. These fights require healers to know what's coming up, rather than react after an attack.

Personally most of the wipes I've seen though are from dps not doing mechs right giving either a direct wipe (failing to kill their o7 airplane add in time, not moving out of dada beam range even though the person who was marked is in the correct spot, getting hit by missiles, etc..), or an indirect one from healers running out of mp from having to rez too much.

[Ghishlain]

In spite of my prior threads and my own little confidence issue, this is not an elitist post. Or toxic in nature. This is more or less an observation and a question for more experienced members, though anybody could pop in. Now, I wasn't around for Alex Savage, but with Deltascape, I noticed a huge difficulty spike with V3S...and I could understand the issue when pugging it. I missed out on V4S because I couldn't consistently join good pug groups til I figured out after a month that the best times to go into Savage was Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

I'm somewhat seeing the same issue with the current tier...except that starts with V5S. Personally, I'm stuck on V7S. I can clear the fight myself with a tank, SMN, and DRG...but a huge portion of the time, ink gets messed up by others, or someone gets hits consistently with a missile during chakras, or searing wind gets messed up. The few groups that I have joined that made it further were statics that needed a temporary fill in, and with those, we just hit enrage due to deaths. On V5S...well...I dunno what the deal with that one is.

Now again, I'm not speaking on this as a means of saying randoms are bad. I just wonder if others who do raid have noticed this. Does it compare at all to the Alex Savage raids? This was a question that popped into my mind, as I spent the weekend going through V7S. Has it always been like this, or is this something of a recent trend?

O5S is more of a mechanical nightmare versus O1S. It's not tough per say but given the limited amount of space the team has to work with, badly placed lights / green marks can really mess up the groove and getting hit by a ghost post passenger car phase brings down the DPS against the boss considerably, especially if that phase is done as intended therefore any ghost after this phase has 8 stacks of HP bonus. Healer's have their hands full already with dealing with the varying mechanics so I can see where a less skilled healer can get overwhelmed and this leads to cascading deaths. I personally absolutely abhor Head On to the point where I'm a WHM main and I intentionally go SCH for this fight just to deploy Adlo cheese Head On + subsequent mechanic. Overall, I feel the gate keeper for Sigmascape is definitely more taxing than it was for Deltascape.

O7S has more team jump rope mechanics versus O3S that lead to raid wipes. Animal Farm failure in O3S won't lead to a wipe but may lead to hitting enrage during progression and library phase may result in two deaths during getting book buffs but not a full on wipe. This is versus O7S where messing up mechanics during Virus, Bibliotaph circles, or missiles + circles during second Dadaluma will basically be a wipe. Also, O7S is more randomized with how the fight progresses so there is more onus on player fight knowledge since a lot of PuG groups won't have a dedicated shot caller / voice server to keep up with the fight.

[zuzu-bq]

Snip

First: you HP is hella low. Second: in this scenario you described it's your fault for being out of healing range.

[Vaer]

What is the result in this scenario? My experience has usually been death. This scenario is the one I was referencing in my original post, and is but one anecdote out of all the ones I provided.

That's what I meant though? So if you are dodging the pillars perfectly and you die to the Howl that is somewhat on the healers. It isn't all black and white though.

Now being out of range can cause it to kill you depending on the healing style. One of the more efficient ways to do things is to float non full hp (yes, people don't need to be full 24/7) and let regens/natural regen tick while the healers dps. Missing regens will kill you in that case if they don't give you extra attention.

Who's fault that is depends on the context. Are you the only one dying and the other guy marked with stone doesn't? Are you standing too far away from the group in the first place? After the pillars are you moving in to get healed or just staying out of range?

If you are too far from the group then it is partly your fault.