The problem with allowing Turn 2 Rage strat

[megaman]

Lol at all the elitists in this thread. Do you have a life? Because if you did I don't think you'd be crying over 'casuals' clearing T2 with the enrage strat. It in no way shape or form affects you. Get off your high horses and gtfo. You are crying over OTHER PEOPLE paying to play a game how they choose. We got a response; enrage is okay. If the Devs are okay with it why must you insist on trying to show your epeens and how cool you think you are for doing it normal. All you people crying are probably like this in real life if you care that much about how others play:


Pro tip: Go outside once in awhile.

[synaesthetic]

I don't consider this strategy to be an exploit simply because Square could not possibly have let this get past QA unintentionally. The boss stops using all of its abilities when it "enrages," and only casts a pulsing AE that does not instantly kill anyone.

Think about that for a second. They had to intentionally turn off those abilities during the enrage. If they just added "have the boss start dropping massive AE damage after 12 minutes," don't you think it'd still be doing Allagan Rot, Gravity Field and Ballast, not to mention High Voltage and Piercing Laser?

It's not an exploit, since you are not actually taking advantage of a programming or logic error. I'd say it was intended as an alternate strategy, and so does Square-Enix.

[Vodomir]

I don't consider this strategy to be an exploit simply because Square could not possibly have let this get past QA unintentionally. The boss stops using all of its abilities when it "enrages," and only casts a pulsing AE that does not instantly kill anyone.

Think about that for a second. They had to intentionally turn off those abilities during the enrage. If they just added "have the boss start dropping massive AE damage after 12 minutes," don't you think it'd still be doing Allagan Rot, Gravity Field and Ballast, not to mention High Voltage and Piercing Laser?

It's not an exploit, since you are not actually taking advantage of a programming or logic error. I'd say it was intended as an alternate strategy, and so does Square-Enix.

No, they merely didn't expect people to bring 3 healers and only 1 tank. It's not an exploit,because SE has already said they don't see it as an exploit, but pls stop talking yourself into this being an intended strategy. Simple common sense will tell you that is non-intended gameplay. This whole thing reminds me of the discussion about that infamous tree that was placed in the room of the first boss in AK, where one could jump up to avoid most damage, while still being able to range DPS the boss or heal others. Of course people were on the fence saying that this had to be an intended strategy, because in no way SE would have placed that tree there if it wasn't meant to be used for jumping up on it, and as SE never said it was an exploit, the whole bunch of grey zone surfers felt that they were right in doing so. A patch later that tree was gone, plain and simple. How much of intended gameplay has this been, what do you think?

[synaesthetic]

They're not causing mechanics to fail by exploiting the scripting. The mechanics stop once the "charge complete" message appears. They had to specifically code it that way. Turn 4 has a similar mechanic, except the waves of enemies still fall and all of their attacks still work. I doubt very seriously that this was unintentional; if they wanted to make the twelve-minute timer impassable, then the "charge complete" should have killed everyone instantly. Or the damage of the unavoidable AE would have ramped up after each tick. Or the ADS would continue to use all of its abilities.

It's not an exploit. Is it "cheesing" the encounter? Sure it is. Is it ignoring or bypassing mechanics using specialized gear or class composition? Again, yes. But that's not the same thing as an exploit, such as the Titan HM exploit that would render Titan unable to use any abilities whatsoever.

It's no different than burning Demon Wall down in AK before the adds spawn, or ignoring plumes on Garuda HM during the cyclone phase. It's even less of an exploit than locking mobs out of boss rooms in WP. As an MMO gets older, people get better gear and can ignore mechanics that they were previously unable to ignore.

We should not want Square to punish people for finding creative ways to clear content. My company recently accepted a new member and helped them with their Titan HM run to complete their relic quest. We wiped several times due to the newbie being nervous about performing around people he just met, and as a result he felt very pressured and played poorly. We reset the instance and changed things up, this time using a 1/4/3 instead of a 1/5/2 composition (I switched from BLM to SCH). The newbie had the pressure taken off, and performed considerably better (didn't eat landslide or weight and stayed alive for the entire fight).

If players continue to pressure Squee to restrict how we're "allowed" to clear content, then we'll be considerably more limited in what we can do and how we can do it. The change to the limit break based on class stacking was a heavy-handed way to "force" players to play a certain way. That's poor design. How would you like it if all dungeons, Duty Finder or not, required that your Full Party composition always had to be 2/4/2?

Edit: In the interests of full disclosure, my Coil group does not use the "rage strat." We deal with the mechanics and kill him normally, usually without any problems whatsoever. However, you can't always find two bards. I always have to switch to bard for Turn 2, and if someone's missing then we're boned on interrupts. Having more composition flexibility is a good thing.

[Vodomir]

They're not causing mechanics to fail by exploiting the scripting. The mechanics stop once the "charge complete" message appears. They had to specifically code it that way. Turn 4 has a similar mechanic, except the waves of enemies still fall and all of their attacks still work. I doubt very seriously that this was unintentional; if they wanted to make the twelve-minute timer impassable, then the "charge complete" should have killed everyone instantly. Or the damage of the unavoidable AE would have ramped up after each tick. Or the ADS would continue to use all of its abilities.

It's not an exploit. Is it "cheesing" the encounter? Sure it is. Is it ignoring or bypassing mechanics using specialized gear or class composition? Again, yes. But that's not the same thing as an exploit, such as the Titan HM exploit that would render Titan unable to use any abilities whatsoever.

It's no different than burning Demon Wall down in AK before the adds spawn, or ignoring plumes on Garuda HM during the cyclone phase. It's even less of an exploit than locking mobs out of boss rooms in WP. As an MMO gets older, people get better gear and can ignore mechanics that they were previously unable to ignore.

We should not want Square to punish people for finding creative ways to clear content. My company recently accepted a new member and helped them with their Titan HM run to complete their relic quest. We wiped several times due to the newbie being nervous about performing around people he just met, and as a result he felt very pressured and played poorly. We reset the instance and changed things up, this time using a 1/4/3 instead of a 1/5/2 composition (I switched from BLM to SCH). The newbie had the pressure taken off, and performed considerably better (didn't eat landslide or weight and stayed alive for the entire fight).

If players continue to pressure Squee to restrict how we're "allowed" to clear content, then we'll be considerably more limited in what we can do and how we can do it. The change to the limit break based on class stacking was a heavy-handed way to "force" players to play a certain way. That's poor design. How would you like it if all dungeons, Duty Finder or not, required that your Full Party composition always had to be 2/4/2?

Edit: In the interests of full disclosure, my Coil group does not use the "rage strat." We deal with the mechanics and kill him normally, usually without any problems whatsoever. However, you can't always find two bards. I always have to switch to bard for Turn 2, and if someone's missing then we're boned on interrupts. Having more composition flexibility is a good thing.

I never said it was an exploit and SE has already officially confirmed that they don't see this as an exploit on their end. That still doesn't make the rage method an "intended" strategy in any way.

Comparing this to demon wall or Garuda HM doesn't really fit, as you bypass mechanics in those fights by simply having outgrown the iLvl requirements by a fair margin, so you DPS those encounters fast enough to skip certain mechanics/portions of the fight. That doesn't hold true for the enrage tactic, as you don't DPS too fast for this encounter. You deliberately DPS slowly or even stop DPS completely for the sole reason to bypass mechanics (it's not like this happens accidently or because you are just too fast; you plan on bypassing the mechanics). And to achieve this goal, most groups don't go with a regular setup, but with 3 heals, 1 tank and 4 DPS. That's also for the sole reason to bypass mechanics, not because it fits the fight mechanics better this way. There is a reason for the debuff on the tank, as the fight was actually designed to be played with 2 tanks. I can't see how anyone can refuse to see that is clearly non-intended gameplay. But hey, it's not an exploit, so everyone is free to do what they like, just please stop telling people that this is an intended way of playing this particular encounter, because it's simply not.

As for your Turn 2 anecdote. Why would you need 2 Bards for this fight? We always clear this with just 1 Bard, as your PLD can silence as well. My group runs all of the coil with the exact same setup without any issues.

[Shirai]

Will either side ever realize that noone is going to win this argument?
Isn't it time to move on? SE isn't going to "fix" it, and neither side is going to change their tactics because the other sais so.

I've been reading the same arguments over and over, mostly by the same people, and the only difference I see is that the posts are becoming longer and longer.

[Githiun]

I have to admit that I did the rage strat for the first time last night because my group had a monk that just couldn't get the interrupts down. We ended up just doing rage strat to get through it....I feel dirty. i'm shamed!!! /cry.

I actually do feel bad doing it..We ended up doing it with two healers though instead of three. Tank went DPS and me and the other healer felt confident we could handle it...well...I had no clue being my first time but eh, it was easy enough. 3 healers woulda been a snooze-fest.

[Noahlimits]

I have to admit that I did the rage strat for the first time last night because my group had a monk that just couldn't get the interrupts down. We ended up just doing rage strat to get through it....I feel dirty. i'm shamed!!! /cry.

I actually do feel bad doing it..We ended up doing it with two healers though instead of three. Tank went DPS and me and the other healer felt confident we could handle it...well...I had no clue being my first time but eh, it was easy enough. 3 healers woulda been a snooze-fest.

I think any party that relies on a MNK to silence is doomed for failure in general. It's not that a monk can't do it, but to constantly be in that stance waiting for the high voltage to come will make your DPS really low.

[Githiun]

I think any party that relies on a MNK to silence is doomed for failure in general. It's not that a monk can't do it, but to constantly be in that stance waiting for the high voltage to come will make your DPS really low.

Fair enough but we had a bard as secondary too. I don't know much about the silence mechanics as I don't know the monk class or brd class for that matter. But i'd guess with Monk and Bard we should have been able to handle voltage.

Doesn't change the fact that I seriously feel dirty for doing the boss that way..but....i did get an upgrade sooo...lol. Happy for that!

[Vodomir]

... because my group had a monk that just couldn't get the interrupts down.

Fair enough but we had a bard as secondary too.

You had a bard? Then what classes have your tanks been? If one tank was a PLD then you would've been set and done, as Palas can silence, too. We always do this with one BRD and one PLD who alternate on silencing the high voltages.