Tales from Duty Finder: Some make you laugh, some make you cry. Let's vent.

[Avatre]

In many fights the arena design gives a hint to how some mechanics are to be handled. The multiple branching paths in that fight would suggest multiple targets being pulled to the end platforms, like for example, the skeletons. Originally, that’s how the fight was intended. Pull the skeletons to the end. Kill them when they respawn before they reached dragon in the middle. So when you started doing it, it wasn’t being done as intended.

Funny how there are as many branches as there are skeletons... almost like they correlate or something>.>

Most arena's if you have the camera at just the right angle you can see the exact lines that the AoE will follow. If it's not centered on the boss, or the boss moves to the middle before casting, it tends to perfectly line up with the "breaks" in the ground for where it will hit.

[WrenElessedil]

In many fights the arena design gives a hint to how some mechanics are to be handled. The multiple branching paths in that fight would suggest multiple targets being pulled to the end platforms, like for example, the skeletons. Originally, that’s how the fight was intended. Pull the skeletons to the end. Kill them when they respawn before they reached dragon in the middle. So when you started doing it, it wasn’t being done as intended.

It was always both that got pulled, the skeletons and the dragon. I started doing it day one as well, and for the first few weeks when it was out before I took a break from the game, and it was always done that way.

[Odd]

Expert roulette the other day. Me as WHM and a DRK tank. He stopped at the first pack. I tried to coax him to pull the next one, which was just up the stairs from the first. He wouldn’t, so I grabbed them and pulled them over to the tank. He started to single target the first pack, which led to my death, followed by the dps (who were using aoe appropriately). Then the tank said “ I will only go slow because I hate Holy spam”

??? WHAT?!

That’s a new one, not to mention I will even spam Holy on single packs. Somehow I still had aggro on one mob even though we wiped, but I told them I was leaving as soon as it died, and I got out of there the second it died.

[Cheremia]

Because Stat Squish has made any skeletons getting to the dragon take off a lot more HP. It's a very noticeable difference. It's gone from fairly easy to solo heal in the middle to nearly impossible if your team lets too many live (and you have 0 shields). And in Lab, you'll always have people who don't know how important it is to kill them, or don't care, and 1-2 healers who don't know what's coming. And people standing in that one AOE. That's the biggest issue, sometimes.

Perhaps you have good luck, but I haven't had a pull with it in the middle post-EW that hasn't gone very poorly. It ends up saving a lot of time and hassle for it to be pulled to the end (doesn't need to be pulled all the way to the end, though).

Thats giving stat squish way more credit than it deserves. I really dont see the difference in pulling it back other than tanks and every melee and or healer that went with the dragons not doing anything while the skeletons go around and just wait for them to be gone. Instead of them all running to the middle and them dying before aoes can go off.

If people WIPE to it, then its not the fault of it being in the middle or not. People not attacking skeletons happens regardless and it doesnt take many people to aoe to kill them either. Its literally peoples fault, not the strat. Its easier to see who just waits for the skeletons to go away if its in the back tho, which is a lot of people. Not their problem, why would the melees run around trying to kill something all the way back there?

I've yet to notice stat squish that much? If it takes longer, its low dps/people dying. It goes just as fast as usual and doesnt give that much more damage?

I'm not lucky because i also had the worst Wiping city run in years with 90% of the people not getting in puddles despite it being said a lot and not knowing where LEFT/BACK are despite them being marked in the color of the alliance right there. Had enough dps/tanks not aoeing in dungeons either so... i mean, not aoeing is a thing that is just not on some peoples hotbars.

Not trying to be hostile, but there is a fair chance that people just dont bother attacking (especially people who dont need targets to aoe)

[Rinhi]

I thought 50 and below stuff wasn't touched by the stat squish?

[Katie_Kitty]

Pugging Savage is making me distrust lalafell players. Every deliberate griefer has been a lalafell so far.

Weird! :O In my experience, Lalafell are the ones who try to be ElItE gAmErS who get super toxic and rude when they witness imperfection. :P

[Cubsbane]

(clipping for space)

All I can say is I ran LotA a lot right before and right after EW dropped, and I noticed the increase in damage immediately. I was pro-tank-it-in-the-centre before, because I could just easily heal through it even with my co-healer dozing off, but now it's a struggle when skeletons go off and the ground AOE hits everyone.

You're right about people not bothering to attack, though. Yes, it's the fault of people not playing very well, but 1. Sprouts in LotA are going to be the most confused because this is the first Alliance Raid you can unlock (I know I was). 2. Non-sprouts really phone it in and that's with the average skill level, or effort level, in this game being not great to begin with.

If melee switched to AOEing or just targeting the skeletons while in the middle, it WOULD go better, but that simply does not happen. Instead, moving the dragon back a little seems to give people who are killing them more time to do so, and keeps more people out of the AOE, or at least that's what I've found.

This is all anecdotal, of course.

Edit: I don't think stat squish is limited by level range? Was that ever announced?

[Cheremia]

snippy.

Edit: I don't think stat squish is limited by level range? Was that ever announced?

I didn't notice any more damage than before? Like, in general. Any dungeon, any raid yet.
Even in Shadowbringers, people not attacking any of them could result in lots of damage tho, i know that.
And of course, new people. But that goes out of the window if there are no new people or just 2-3. They dont make a difference. If like, 5 people actually attack that is.

I had the exact opposite always happen when it was pulled all the way back. Skeletons running around to gods know where and the few people that bothered having to run after them and find them and them, including skeletons, running around like headless chicken. While over half of the raid waits at the dragonbutt. Healers having to deal with them because they got targeted.

To the stat squish: i dont know? Was it ever explained much? I just thought it was because the hp if enemies became more and more ridiculous and stuff?

Just put this on your aoe and you'll be fine:

[Cubsbane]

As a result of the stat squish, we take more damage, and enemies might take longer to die. While normally I'd say yeah, it's new people and returners, I'm comparing to before EW, when the free trial and people who'd recently bought the game (post-WOW exodus) were factors.

And this is as-intended. In fact, something YoshiP said in an interview suggested that Alliance Raids might be more in line with how they used to be, but sadly that turned out to not be true. I was kind of hoping you'd actually have to do something in Syrcus now...

But yeah no, we are 100% taking more damage from synced content now. Not a bad thing. Just can result in frustration.

[Rinhi]

But yeah no, we are 100% taking more damage from synced content now.

I disagree big time here, especially in the 60s and 70s range
before, it was dicey to w2w bardam's and required both healer and tank to be decent (in my experience), but now it's an actual non-issue and can be easily done with a healer seeing the dungeon for the first time and within the use of a single rampart and reprisal