Why Titan, Why???!!!!

[FinagleABagel]

"Pug is Pickup Group not Duty Finder... "

I'd consider both "pickup groups". Just two different ways of going about it.

[Illusion]

"Pug is Pickup Group not Duty Finder... "

I'd consider both "pickup groups". Just two different ways of going about it.

"if it's true pugging then you are forced into 2 healers / 2 tanks anyway"

Can we stop this now and get back to topic or are we going to have a debate just to have a debate?

[Veurr]

I've had the most success with 2 SCHs actually. One assigned to the tank as their dedicated healer and one to help heal/shield the raid. The reason to bring 3 healers is more incase one gets blocked when everything goes sideways. We had a ton a wipes to that situation when we tried to 2 heal it. Even if dps get the healer instantly there are still animation delays before they can get back in the fight.

Fights not a race better to be safe.

[FinagleABagel]

I've had the most success with 2 SCHs actually. /snip

One scholar shouldn't have any problems keeping the group alive during the rock prison phases. The key is to know when Stomps are coming and to cast Succor early. There is lag between shield creation and shield usage, so you have to be several seconds ahead of the Stomps for max mitigation.

The other side of the rocks is that you usually need the DPS. You also have to break out the 2nd rock prison player during the heart phase prior to the next phase, otherwise that rocked player automatically dies. I prefer not having to assist my DPS with this part so I can focus on stacking as much mitigation as possible because that phase change is the single highest HP check in the entire battle.

As for what a pug is - give me a freaking break. The randomness of the group has NOTHING to do with it. Why you'd even bother arguing with one of the people trying to help (who has actually done this) is beyond me.

[Strelnikov]

Finished this last night 30 seconds before the server came down for maintenance. PUG group.

Good healer, good archer, good thm. Sure we died a few times, but once we got cooking, I moved him to the center of the rock. Faced away from everyone but me. DPS and heals at 90, 180 and 270.

I turned off all all but necessary sound, no music ambiance etc. I turned off all but basic graphics, I was hitting 129 fps, We killed him after the 4th wipe. Everyone understood their role and understood what he was doing.

It was a thrill. I am very happy to have been able to tank it.

ps Try as I might I could never get my Shield bashes to stun him or avert his directional attacks.

[TaitoTots]

I got a really good group going now...Our only issue is the point he does 8 stomps. =/

[Wangstrong]

Titan isn't a fight that can be carried by good players, it can only get sabotaged by bad players. This makes it far too easy/likely for the weakest link to just ruin it for everybody else. It's statistically almost guaranteed that one in eight players will be too slow, unskilled, or simply unlucky to live in an area where the ISP isn't friendly with the damned Montreal servers that they can't effectively do Titan. Basically, if you divide the playerbase into groups of eight and try to distribute the "baddies" evenly, there will be at least one in each group.

In most games, and in most fights in this game as well, one or two particularly good players can counteract the influence of a bad player. The content doesn't become completely impossible just because one guy is below par. On Titan it pretty much does because one death is a wipe 90% of the time, and the fight is designed in such a way that a below-average player will die. If a healer dies, it's a wipe. If a DPS dies, it's almost impossible to come back because the fight is designed in such a way that succesfully ressing someone is nearly impossible, and there's a very tight DPS race halfway through that all DPS must be alive for. If the tank dies, it's a wipe because it's a one-tank fight where you can't afford to bring an emergency off-tank who can take over.

What most of the game's "upper class" does is just ensure that they don't have any bad players. They can't be blamed for this. However, this means that the rest of the playerbase has even more bad players amongst them to ruin their Titan attempts. As I'm sure anyone who tried can confirm, the odds of getting a PUG/DF group for Titan where every single player is individually good enough to never make a mistake throughout the entire fight is basically zero. Coupled with the fact that people who succeed at killing Titan have no reason to ever do it again, the whole design is simply guaranteed to hinder and frustrate 90% of the playerbase.

Every aspect of the encounter and the surrounding circumstances are just so badly thought-out and implemented. A fight with ridiculously high emphasis on twitch-reaction AoE avoidance in a game notorious for poor client-to-server communication? Check. Requires only one tank and has a DPS race that makes a second tank a huge liability to the whole attempt, but the Duty Finder gives you two tanks? Check. The encounter's reward is obsolete, giving people no reason to ever do it more than once and thus removing experienced players from the system? Check.

Everything is just violently against anyone who isn't part of a tryhard guild that does everything by itself and can kick out every player who isn't excellent. Anyone who needs to work with the general population in order to get things done, or is part of a guild that doesn't have the rare privilege of being able to throw out every imperfect member, is just so resoundingly screwed by this Titan roadblock. You'd think these problems would have occurred to the developers at some point.

[Praxys]

I see lots of posts suggesting three heals, I really don't think that's the way to go. I feel 1 tank, 2 heals (SCH + WHM), 5 DPS is the most optimal build. This is what I used to kill titan for the first time (no one in my group had relics) and this is what I use to sell Titan runs (minus 1 DPS for whatever the carry is).

I also disagree with the statement that one bad player can ruin it for 7 others, that's just simply not true, if it was there wouldn't be anyone selling titan runs.

The most important thing to worry about on Titan is the Mountain Buster, with no CD / Virus, it hits for around 3.5k - 4k damage, and there is usually a melee hit right before it too. In short there needs to be something on the tank for it everytime. If you hadn't figured it out, he always does a set rotation after the heart phase. Without going into too much details, the tank hit is ALWAYS right after Landslide, when you see landslide you know it's time to get a CD up. It also helps if the tank is very vocal about calling out CD usage and when he needs healer buffs (virus / sanc). Also, I'm not sure what the bench mark is for MRD, but your PLD should have over 5k health.

Other than that, the only things that will kill you is probably rock mines or weight of the land. For weight of the land we always lined up in a straight line behind the boss and then spread when weight came up, this seamed to work best for us. For mines learn the patterns, when he drops them in lines the middle is usually always the first, so just go to one of the sides and then go mid right after it blows up.

Hope this helps a little , also it's crazy how much easier it is to kill after you kill it once.

[Kyp]

@wangstrong

I have successfully carried several of the less fortunate ones, and my setup is always a 2 healer setup, one of them was a healer with SEVERE isp issues, and another one was a dragoon who was basically dead the entire fight.
Twitch reaction isnt even needed, titan is a anticipation fight, his rotation never changes, if you cant remember it, use voicechat and make your tank call out what is next
Landslide is comming next? finish up casts and get ready to move
Stomps are comming? DPS HARD!!!! HEAL EVERY1!
Pools are comming? finish up casts and stack behind titan so all the pools are in one spot and there is pleanty of room to dodge, and always run in the forward direction to get out of plumes, strafing or backpedeling can mean death
Tableflip comming? spamheal the tank to keep it topped off!
Prison comming? break the prison fast and we have 5 seconds of BURNTIME!!! YEA!!

His rotations are
1) Landslide, stomp, repeat
2) Pools, Landslide, stomp, repeat
3) Landslide, pools, bombs, landslide, pools, prison, stomp, repeat
heart) prison, landslide, pools, stomp, prison, landslide, pools, 1shot
4) tableflip, stomp, pools, bombs +landslide, tableflip, pools, prision, landslide, repeat

If you know the rotation, the only portion groups should have trouble with is in p4, because he will always landslide while bombs are out, and this really messes with people, but he never casts landslide until the first bombs are about to blow


Circle bomb formation, bait the landslide on the center bomb (because that bomb lands last), and then run into smoke of first bomb

X bomb formation, bait the landslide on a edge bomb, and then run into a clear side

Line bomb formation, the only time this one is even a problem is when the last set of bombs land on the tankside, bait the landslide on a corner bomb, then run behind the tank to dodge landslide and then to the middle when smoke appears, you have 5 seconds before he does tableflip which will kill any dps that is still behind the tank. (for this bomb formation and this one alone my groups actually want me to tank titan on the west side, because there is more room behind the tank in this bomb formation

[Fuz]

Problem is, people with the visual latency bug just can't avoid the plumes if they're standing in the center of them.