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I've only used this to get the achievements for Revenants and Jinn, because fuck those guys and their shitty respawn rates. The Jinn achievement takes 2-3 weeks of grinding, and that's assuming you're there 24/7. Complete bullshit, and I'm happy to cheat a little.
Spoit, the anima shot spam you're thinking of was from the Golden Event, because fuck those boring golems.
Uh... anyone want to try out the first one with me? In Kingsmouth?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
the looking for group tool works alright to find people for dungeons in normal and elite mode
Finished the investigation mission from Dr. Vargas (Besieged Farmlands) earlier, that one was absolutely great. Love these investigation missions; I think I missed a couple in blue mountains -- might go back for them at some point.
Action sequence like the one two phases ago- go into portal, fight baddies. Except this one is tuned for groups, and exists in a normal and "Nightmare" mode. Apparently NM mode is very hard.
Cooldown of 30 minutes, but the two versions do not share it. So you could run both one after the other. Normal nets you 2 fragments, NM 3. There's two new lore pieces as well, both inside the instances. (Confirmed that you can get both in the normal mode.)
Guys wanna take this on tonight?
Funny, I heard the opposite.
Have to say, I did not expect combat or the dungeons in TSW to work out so well; I had low expectations. Bought the game for the questing. I'm quite impressed. Going to fight the gatekeeper and then get my hands dirty on Elite until I get tired of it. Glad I picked tanking, as it's quite interesting in tsw. My build has been doing fine, can keep aggro without a trouble and my defense is alright even for first time healers.
What wolf in SH?
Also, join the channel Noobmares. Very helpful people that will take someone new to NMs on the first 3 dungeons and give advice about the Gatekeeper and such.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Alright it's not a wolf, it's a .. monster? The experiment. Cybelus or something. Goes into a rage now and then and eats whetever is near him (scientist or player).
/chat join #noobmares? Will do, thanks for the tip
@Regina Fong when does your cabal run quarry? would they take a filthy scab?
It's totally an ad hoc thing that forms up when one of the people in the cabal who have a farming tank build are online and desiring AP. And yeah, we do pick up stray people all the time.
This left me quite annoyed. Bit difficult to get started in NM, I've met some really nice people but many seem less helpful.
Did you find the group through LFG?
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
Now that I think of it, I grouped with that leader for elites a few days ago so he was starting out just as well. That explains.
I'm also going to set up a shotgun/AR for ranged I think, to have more options for joining groups and explore NM from a different perspective
I) tanking is stratospherically harder than dps. It is in every game but the gap is wider here. You have to do everything DPS does plus tanking plus interrupts. It's a lot to manage. Tanks tend to have a billion different specs and gear sets, dps basically have 'normal dps' and 'cleanup duty'...
II) dps have very little to do except their rotation, and so expect the tank to fix everything. Again, this always happens but is more pronounced because they expect the tank to pick up *everything*. They honestly have no comprehension about how fights work or what is required. I got bawled at for apparently not tanking HR5 in the right place - because dps didn't understand she moves...
It really shows in the difficulty as well. Outside of Ur-Draug and his silly randomness, the only fights that ever go wrong are ones where dps has to do something other than stand still and hit buttons in order. Polaris 5, DW 3 + 5, HR 5 + 6. There is nothing more infuriating that Dps dying on Machine Tyrant and losing to that blasted enrage, because the fight is so much easier for them!
Also, because of the way Rising vigour works, you *really* want co-ordination and control over the use of impairs. In a tightly disciplined group you could easily cover it between folks, but it's far easier just for everyone to drop those abilities and rely on the tank completely to pick them up.
DPS, of course, don't tell you about it because they don't know. They never have to worry about positioning her so they never bother to learn how. All they know is that the OTHER tank they had that one time positioned her THUSLY, and demand it be done the same without explaining how its done.
Because if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself? :P
Actually I think its a combination of the fact that tanks have interupts, tanks are the first effected by failure to get an interupt off (insta-death or aggro loss is the usual result), and the DPS can get away with not using them.
Not to be insulting to all people who play DPS, because I know as well as anyoen that many DPSers are skilled and focused individuals. However, there are many DPS who only focus on doing damage. They just don't focus on other things, like cast bars, which you need to be extremely focused on in order to get the interupts off in time. Since the tanks immediate survival is dependant on watching those cast bas and stopping those abilities, it falls to the tank to save their own life.
Hell, ever run HR NM and seens DPS die to the reflect shield? I mean, there's a counter right there on MTs showing when his shield is coming up, but people don't watch it. People, other than the tank, that NEED to watch it in order to get him through the wells at the right time. They could stay alive by simply watching the counter and not shooting, but they don't, and blame the tank when they die.
Hell, if Tanks could run a build using cleanup, they'd probably be responsible for that too
You must get some really awful groups.
I honestly haven't found tanking hard at all. At times I find it easier or more relaxing than DPS. I don't have to do much at all.
Also stuff like HR6 is harder for DPS since they do have to maintain a lot of awareness of whats going on. As a tank on HR6 all I worry about is finding a well and pulling the boss through. Everything else is up to my DPS to not stand in the barrage, to not get cleaved, to not die to the little AoE circles when the boss goes mid, to not shoot the shield if I'm late on a well or if a well suddenly decides it doesn't want to pop up.
Also SH 2 and 3 pretty much fall entirely on the DPS. Though the group itself has to pull about 6k DPS, if the DPS don't do decently there is no advancing.
The big reason for this is because no matter what a tanks weapons are they have impairs. Most DPS run a combination of shotgun, pistol, and AR (none of those have impairs). They also run elemental (not sure if it has impairs but I don't think so) and blood (cardiac arrest is the only one I can think of). So it isn't really possible for DPS to impair in the first place. Going melee DPS in dungeons which will give you impairs if you run swords, hammer, or fists is hard even when you know all the fights in and out, it isn't really a viable option.
Also, I'd like to mention that DPS need to run impairs in HF.
Shotgun/Hammer is a strong tank build and allows the tank to use Cleanup if the DPS happen to be short on it. I've done it and I've had other tanks do it.
I once had a group where the healer and myself were the only ones with Cleanup. It is very hard to run HR6 with a Leech Healer who has to worry about the shield, worry about keeping the tank up and worry about popping CU. Also just hard to do HR6 with 2 CU. The healer did amazing but we didn't end up completing the fight in the end.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
SH 2... it can be done with bad DPS, but it's just really not worth trying. SH 3 is perfectly doable with low DPS. The tesla coils deal most of their damage in the form of unshielded current, which is blocked entirely by blood barriers. The healer is more than capable of protecting the whole team while they transition back to the left side. Did it just fine with a group that could only pull about 3k DPS.
To be fair, you can run Pistol/Chaos and get a build that is almost exactly the same as pistol/shotgun. Pulling the Strings is basically Out for a Kill. All you really lose out on is Breaching Shot.
This is basically why I always run Cleanup during the Machine Tyrant no matter what I'm doing.
I am very confident that I'm a better DPS because I started out tanking. I have a much better idea of what is going on in the fights, what the tank is going to impair, how the tank is going to move.
If a DPS dies to a cleave it is definitely not the tanks fault. The only time I see DPS die to a cleave is when the tank is moving MT to a well so if a DPS is positioned badly that is on them. Though I've also seen DPS die in the well which is possibly the dumbest way to die on the MT fight.
Pistol/Chaos might become a thing when issue 8 hits since they are nerfing DA and BS. But Blood/Ele is also a really popular build and DPS still don't impair. I've had tanks get furious at DPS who impair.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
It's like ... okay. You've done Machine Tyrant, and you know about the timing of Cleanups and the need to have a set rotation of who does it when and everything, right? Expecting the three DPSes to Impair means that they need to have the same sort of rotation for damn near about every boss, where any accidental doubling means a wipe, and you have to drop important DPS actives to do it. It's simply easier for the tank to handle the Impairs, since there's never more than one tank can handle.
I do know this...
It's just that even running away from her she *will* sometimes not run after you immediately, but turn and macro shock someone else, or be in the mid cast and finish that before moving. That plus her "run away from you" AI makes it trickier than on other fights, and not something you can do instantly which is what people seemed to expect.
Some groups are great, some are terrible. Its the joy of pick up groups...
But when it comes to difficulty, I can only think of 2 fights off the top of my head where the dps has a harder job than the tank. Polaris 5 and the NYR - bearing in mind I haven't done Ankh, Facility, Hell Fallen or Slaughterhouse. Machine Tyrant is far trickier for the tank than for dps because you have to avoid the red circles, you have to avoid the orange circles, you also need to watch a timer for anima depletion, you also need to avoid demolish, and you have to position yourself for the end of the middle barrage phase fast. (Which to be fair is fun with rocket jump wheeeeee!)
And on MT I've found the only time dps *ever* live with an early shield or well not appearing is if I shout it in party chat. And these aren't bad players - some of them are very good. They just don't look at fights in the same way.
Also, because the weapons with interrupts are the same ones with the tanking skills. And there are only a handful of ranged interrupts (the whip, the chaos one that's like the whip, a couple dash ones)
The groups I get through noobmares are always pretty good. Even the people who are actual noobs to nightmares do really well with some direction.
I don't know, I really feel like MT is way easy as a tank. Demolishes are easy to dodge, I only have to worry about barrage if someone else dies, the orange circles aren't even something I care about. Also, following the anima depletion counter is pretty pointless with the stuff switching around so often. Eths buff bars make it real easy though. Also I don't need to impair anything for MT so I get to use stupid stuff that I wouldn't normally use.
When I DPS MT (I spent a majority of my time DPSing) I feel a little more stressed.
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
There are some more complicated decks I want to try out, but of course they require ludicrous amounts of AP to get into. I really want to play around with the AR more but it doesn't seem anywhere near an optimal idea until I get these higher-level abilities unlocked, since I'm doing solo play unless I can finagle one of you god-like vets into steamrolling a mission for me. ;-)
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable? ~ Mario Novak
I never fear death or dyin', I only fear never trying.
You don't need to be matching threat. You can use provoke & confuse (or mass confuse) to control the swaps totally reliably. Or you can use mass provoke and art of war and do a more main tank, off tank role. Entire fight was just hitting an ability on time and dodging the AE. At least dps have to burn pods and drop the filth piles somewhere rational.
I'm sitting here thinking of what to post, but I realize it doesn't matter. Everyone plays differently, everyone has their ideas of how things should go. But I also think that taking a few personal experiences and applying them to everyone in general is faulty and bad.
I'm playing around with a chaos/blood deck right now. Decent, mostly blood for EC. Dropping liquidation and amor fati is kinda fun though.