cdr wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 1:23am:


No

Hate to reveal my ignorance here but can someone explain in detail the collapse method?

First, thanks for sharing.  I've done many HoX runs on Orien and never heard of this.  I really appreciate this.
Second, just to be clear, when collapsing the mind flayers just come to you in the center?  And beholders antimagic never reaches pups to de-charm?

Spelljammer wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 10:32am:


yo spell, you might hear some people on orien refer to this as the east hallway method where they all just collapse to east hallway

With PUGs involved I'd say that the safer method is to collapse. The main problems are PUGs that end up too far out and attracting the attention of the reavers which you are not supposed to do in the collapse method, and PUGs who aren't paying attention to the center group and end up getting bees and screaming for heals or whatever. Another risk of the collapse method is if someone doesn't see any of the mini-beholders in time, because it only takes one anti-magic beam to screw it up. However, the group leader can monitor most of that and yell corrective actions and abuse over the mic as needed.

With the patrol/kill team method, you will get PUGs that cut through the center for heals, inevitably a few of the PUGs will decide to stay at the center and pike and watch rather than being outside with the kill team (and therefore, the kill team becomes too weak to take care of the trash without major healing support, and the center team gets distracted by people screaming about bees or worse, why there's no more dogs), PUGs that are too slow and fall behind the kill team and end up driving up alert by dragging a lot of trash (rather than running in the *opposite* direction to meet back up with the kill team and take care of the trash), or worse, drag it all to the center for heals because they can't catch up to the kill team to get healed, and so forth. I like it for the extra bags but in PUGs I'd say the collapse method is somewhat safer.

From a theoretical standpoint the approach that I like is:

* Center guys (obviously)
* Kill team being everyone except center guys and 2 people
* 2 people that stay 180 degrees away from each other on the outside, running in the opposite direction as the kill team

The 2 people's jobs are to attract aggro, so they should be relatively fast and have throwers to attract aggro from far away. They basically take aggro and drag it into the kill team. Staying at 180 degrees from each other means that there's very little gap in coverage (as opposed to just 1 person running in the opposite direction -- the location where the kill team and that 1 person meets, has the time it takes to make a full lap before it will be covered again). They don't really need to be that self-sufficient, since the healer on the kill team can just pop them a heal on every fly-by.

Of course this is from a theoretical standpoint, from a practical implementation standpoint the problems are horrendous (due to coordination issues) if you have PUGs. HoX is (like Abbot and VoN) one of those raids where a Leeroy Jenkins can easily screw up the raid for everyone, so it's better to go with a low-risk low-reward strategy than a higher-risk higher-reward strategy -- especially since the cost of failure is having to repeat the run through the Subterrane which takes quite a bit of time with PUGs. From a theoretical standpoint I'd also prefer that people split up for portals in part 1 of Shroud to make it go quicker (and more efficient use of boosts, thereby also making it go more quickly), but the practical challenges in getting people to learn a new portal order are also pretty horrendous especially on Orien so we scrapped that idea for PUG Shrouds after some internal discussion. (There simply aren't enough players outside of the guild that are willing to put effort into learning something new to make their playing time more efficient, and of course this being Orien the usual idiots would come out of the woodwork to denounce it as the latest sign of Over Raided's supposed elitism and attention-grabbing, so PUGs run it the same old slow way every time, even though it would mean less time on every Shroud run which becomes significant over the many times that a player runs Shroud in his DDO lifetime. Judging by what's listed on ddowiki, I'm guessing the same thing is true on other servers as well; not enough people on each server want to farm Shroud faster to the point of introducing faster ways to do the portals server-wide.)

In terms of 2x2 vs 3x1, I prefer 2x2 for one reason above all others -- I've been in 3x1 groups where the 3 dogs make Xyzzy's HP go down really quickly, and so everyone thinks it's going well and get complacent, then when it comes time to recharm the dogs everything goes haywire and the raid wipes with Xyzzy at 40%. 2x2 is better for maintaining the pace of the raid so that people get a more realistic idea of where the raid's at in terms of its progress.

Lost_Leader wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 7:49am:

Like to, no, no.  I LOVE to charm momma!

Vanshilar wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 1:54pm:

That is indeed a valid reason to prefer 2x2.
I prefer 3x1 for one reason above all others -- By the time you get beholders (if it even goes that far) you're on the last pup.  This means that if that beholder sneaks in and anti-magics the pup, you only need one more stone rather than two.

Cale wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 7:01pm:


That's also why I prefer 3x1. 

If we don't have someone with the intimidate numbers for big mama, then I'll go with 2x2.  But just because it pains me watching one dog by itself getting tripped when we're watching her health not go anywhere.

Depends, as Lily says, on the group.  And your mood.  And your level of bitchiness.  Collect all 4 stones elite at level Pug with 3 ringers who can complete anyway?  Not my cup of tea, but I have seen it done.  So Wrong question:  Thus is situational.   Depends on what Epoch is wearing.

Just a thought here.  If any of you want to check out the derp levels of Sarlona HoX pugs I will hit you with any stones I have left if you roll a toon and get to 8.

Do it for the LOLZ!

Goaticorn wrote on Jun 4^th, 2012 at 1:31am:



Challenge accepted…oh wait, already did that.

I think Vanshilar needs to move to Sarlona and have
babies with Samulas.  PUG raids would have a way
higher completion rate if that happened.