BG recommendations

[Magian]

It is possible that "Devastating Melee Attack" doesn't mean a devastating crit. In other words, a DMA comes in "normal", "large" (critical) and "super-size" (dev crit) varieties.

In that case, groups without LMs maintaining SoP:SAE (or when it resists), and without tanks stacking Melee Critical Defense could see the nastier versions much more often.

Another possibility is that "Devastating Melee Attack" means either a normal critical or a devastating critical (I can't recall seeing wording in the combat log that would indicate a normal, non-dev crit). In that case, 4-5K is the normal critical, and 6-7K is the dev crit, and again the frequency of the dev crit will be greatly affected by SoP:SAE and Melee Critical Defense ratings.

Only way to tell for sure would be to note the floating text graphic displayed when it hits, to see if it is shown as a critical or a "devastated".

This is a good start: gearing and class composition might be the answer.

Comments from those who consistently wipe to 7k DMA's?

[davymaxwell]

This is a good start: gearing and class composition might be the answer.

Comments from those who consistently wipe to 7k DMA's?

We haven't gotten any as big as 7k, but our tanks that are VERY WELL GEARED definitely have gotten several 6k hits once we get down to 1 add. However many of those were in our last 4 attempts in which we had no LM for SOP:SAE, and we didn't have an RK throwing WoE any time a tank got a big hit.

We plan on going in tonight, and we will be having an RK switch to healing for the HM adds. Hopefully w/ the 3rd healer and the ability to put up a 50% bubble once a minute will be what we needed to get over the hump. I think it will do the trick since we were consistently getting him down to ~20k w/ 1 add left before we would wipe...

[davymaxwell]

Also of note, we tend to see more of the 6k hits on our warden tanks as opposed to guard tanks, but then again that is to be expected as they are medium armor.

[Magian]

We haven't gotten any as big as 7k, but our tanks that are VERY WELL GEARED definitely have gotten several 6k hits once we get down to 1 add. However many of those were in our last 4 attempts in which we had no LM for SOP:SAE, and we didn't have an RK throwing WoE any time a tank got a big hit.

We plan on going in tonight, and we will be having an RK switch to healing for the HM adds. Hopefully w/ the 3rd healer and the ability to put up a 50% bubble once a minute will be what we needed to get over the hump. I think it will do the trick since we were consistently getting him down to ~20k w/ 1 add left before we would wipe...

What I bolded doesn't tell us anything. Is melee defence capped? How high is melee crit defence? I do think the lack of a LM for SOP:SAE is very significant, however.

Basically my theory is this: I have seen Wardens never get hit for more than 5k in one swap (outside unmitigated Cleave). If your guardians are -consistently- getting hit for 6k+ (this eliminates any chance of it being a lucky dev crit) then it would seem to me there is a gearing issue.

Unless you want to suggest there is some mysterious Warden hax going on.

[Insan0]

That's not what they said Mav (constant high hits). From all the other posts in this thread, I'm pretty sure those hits are happening when the dread starts to sink in and his damage buff is very high. It's not like they get high hits all the time, but get unlucky with back to back crits.
We've seen Mirden get 2-shotted before, and that was pre patch, so it happens. We know it was cleave that ultimately killed her, but then, we didn't really pay attention to what hit her before that.

[Magian]

That's not what they said Mav (constant high hits). From all the other posts in this thread, I'm pretty sure those hits are happening when the dread starts to sink in and his damage buff is very high. It's not like they get high hits all the time, but get unlucky with back to back crits.
We've seen Mirden get 2-shotted before, and that was pre patch, so it happens. We know it was cleave that ultimately killed her, but then, we didn't really pay attention to what hit her before that.

I could be wrong but I think it was Cleave that got her. Almost every time (almost because I cannot recall every situation) the Warden (or Guard for that matter) goes down it seems to be either a) threat is wonky or b) no mitigation for Cleave.

If I remember right, the argument is this: Durchest's hits, when you execute properly, effectively two-shot the tank. I dispute this and our raids the past weekend confirm my theorizing.

I don't believe there is a two-shot when executing correctly (tanks geared, swapping aggro, and mitigating Cleave DD).

edit: In short DMA + unmitigated Cleave = 2-shot. DMA + mitigated Cleave = you can heal the tank regardless of dread level.

[Insan0]

That's what I said, Cleave ultimately killed her. It was what was posted in raid chat. But then, she's running over 10k morale, there could very well been a first DMA critting before that. Cleave alone wouldn't 1-shot a warden. Maybe we've been lucky on that, others have reported big hits, we just haven't seen them anymore. It has been a while since we lost any of the tanks there.

[Magian]

That's what I said, Cleave ultimately killed her. It was what was posted in raid chat. But then, she's running over 10k morale, there could very well been a first DMA critting before that. Cleave alone wouldn't 1-shot a warden. Maybe we've been lucky on that, others have reported big hits, we just haven't seen them anymore. It has been a while since we lost any of the tanks there.

Right. And I want to figure out why we're not seeing it anymore (beyond luck). I do believe the reason why we're not seeing it is a either or a combination of: gearing, execution, and strategy.

edit: We saw the high morale Cleave's in raid chat. DMA happens, but if the Cleave was at its normal, mitigated, 2.2k does she get two shot? That's an important question, I think.

[dhatcher1]

I logged this weeks Durchest HM kill. I never got hit by a DMA for more than 3.3K, some were 2.2K. I also got a partial evade DMA for only 500.

We had a warden standing with two guards tanking and that seemed to help alot with corruptions. We also seemed to be more disciplined with disable and LM debuffs. My guess is last week after the 175% buff we may have let corruptions build up combined with a gap in debuffs and this week we never let that happen.

For those getting the 6K hits, are you treating this boss like the watcher where corruption removal and debuffs are higher priority than DPS and adds? If not maybe try taking that approach and see if it goes better.

[rawlingsst7]

His corruptions are -% incoming damage and +% outgoing tactical damage. Shouldn't have an effect on DMA.

[dhatcher1]

His corruptions are -% incoming damage and +% outgoing tactical damage. Shouldn't have an effect on DMA.

I'm not sure that DMA isnt tactical damage, regardless of them calling it "melee attack". That or the corruptions are mislabeled. Ill go back to the beginning of the combat log and see if DMAs increase thoughout the fight or not.

[wyldcyde]

I logged this weeks Durchest HM kill. I never got hit by a DMA for more than 3.3K, some were 2.2K. I also got a partial evade DMA for only 500.

that's good news as although i don't consider your kinship casual, i do know you were struggling just after patch and have now managed to adapt.

it's always good to hear when people overcome and don't throw in the towel.

although i understand many things can go wrong in BG and it does wear thin with many people no matter your skill/gear/ability.

[dhatcher1]

that's good news as although i don't consider your kinship casual, i do know you were struggling just after patch and have now managed to adapt.

Other than 115+ radiance we dont have any build/gear requirements and we go in with whatever 12 of us are on, I consider that casual. Fortunately most have at least one alt so we can get pretty good class mixes most of the time.

it's always good to hear when people overcome and don't throw in the towel.

although i understand many things can go wrong in BG and it does wear thin with many people no matter your skill/gear/ability.

That why I would like others who had the 6/7K DMAs to pay attention to corruptions when it happens so maybe we can find a reason for it. I might have just been lucky. At one point I went for a long lucky streak where I BPEd everything he threw at me. It lasted long enough the minnie asked if Durchest was still attacking.

[musicman2000]

Other than 115+ radiance we dont have any build/gear requirements and we go in with whatever 12 of us are on, I consider that casual. Fortunately most have at least one alt so we can get pretty good class mixes most of the time.

There's the proof you're not casual -- casual does not equate to having two toons that are BG ready. I have two toons at at least 130 radiance myself -- I don't consider myself casual yet I've never beaten Lieutenant with my crew and we were trying to get that down as our focus prepatch so we left Hard Modes alone.

A truly casual player would probably have at most one level 65 maybe not even that and most likely wouldn't have a lot of time to do a raid.

I really think there needs to be some what I consider honesty about words like *casual* and *easy*. BG is neither -- it really isn't. It's a raid that less than 10% of the game's population are going to have a chance to beat before the next book update -- that by definition IMO means it's *hard* and the players beating it are not *casual*.

Part of the issue is in the LOTRO community there appears to be some sort of taboo about calling yourself anything other than a casual player since the game is more casually oriented than say WoW or Everquest was. The thing is -- it's ok to be *casual* and it's ok to *not be casual*.

This is a silly thing to enforce but I think we need to set some realistic definitions to the words we're throwing around this conversation. Kins that are beating hard modes, and clearing most of BG and are regularly raiding even just once or twice a week but doing it successfully are not the goal mark for the *casual* kins of LOTRO.

[wyldcyde]

Other than 115+ radiance we dont have any build/gear requirements and we go in with whatever 12 of us are on, I consider that casual. Fortunately most have at least one alt so we can get pretty good class mixes most of the time.

i'm not sure what build/gear requirements you think classes a group as not casual.

In terms of time spent raiding, numbers of raid ready alts, focus on endgame and strategy... nyx could hardly be considered casual.
Hence why when I led nyx i advertised it as semi casual/hardcore.

Only reason I point it out is that it is misleading to claim you're a casual group that is beating durchest hardmode.

In fact you guys raid more than some so called hardcore groups.

[NCecthelion24]

QFT! Thanks for consolidating things here Wyld! Your posts are ALWAYS appreciated by me and I'm sure many others. You are one of the people in the community that I think Turbine is insane for not offering a job!

AMEN!!! +rep for you sir

[Corienne]

I think that part of the casual/hardcore kin issue is the fact that the progressive difficulty of BG pretty much forces a previously casual kin to become more hardcore in order to be successful. For DN, the Rift, even the Watcher, it was easier to take alts or take folks with not the best gear or low raiding interest on an occasional raid to have fun and do well.

With BG tower, we've had to be much pickier about things like having the right virtues, legendaries, traits, runes/relics on said legs than in the past, not to mention the raid's relatively unforgiving class make up expectations. And that's an issue we've been wrestling a lot with in our own kin, b/c the more casual members are getting turned off of raiding, period. Or they're getting frustrated b/c they're having to sit more or getting pushed to work on their character in order to raid. While the more serious raiders get frustrated waiting for folks to catch up or they develop negative attitudes toward the more casual players who aren't "hardcore enough" to "raid well."

For a kin that's always been raid-focused first, that isn't a big deal b/c there won't be that sort of divide in skills and interest. But for a kin that's been casual, or semi-casual in the past, but that still liked to raid and did well on level appropriate raids, the new raid forced a decision: get more hardcore or be prepared for lots of wipes and frustration.

[wyldcyde]

the new raid forced a decision: get more hardcore or be prepared for lots of wipes and frustration.

yup same happened with watcher 2.0 its not something new. and yes it had negative and positive ripple effect back then as well depending on your vantage point.

I really do wonder how many people are struggling with just normal modes. If raid and kin leaders are pushing ahead to hardmodes without necessary preparation they have themselves to blame.

unlike with watcher 2.0 , kinships now have options... if hardmodes are too hard they can revert to normal mode.
now if normals are too hard then that should be highlighted as im pretty sure the devs expect the vast majority of raiders to be able todo 1 and 2 NM within the respawn timers.

[musicman2000]

yup same happened with watcher 2.0 its not something new. and yes it had negative and positive ripple effect back then as well depending on your vantage point.

I really do wonder how many people are struggling with just normal modes. If raid and kin leaders are pushing ahead to hardmodes without necessary preparation they have themselves to blame.

unlike with watcher 2.0 , kinships now have options... if hardmodes are too hard they can revert to normal mode.
now if normals are too hard then that should be highlighted as im pretty sure the devs expect the vast majority of raiders to be able todo 1 and 2 NM within the respawn timers.

Obviously I can't have a count for you but here's some thoughts about this from what I've heard via grapevine type stuff.

Twins NM is usually the easiest kill in the instance -- easier than Gauntlet, and trash from Durchest to Twins. That particular boss fight I'd actually redefine as *easy* to be fair with my original definition of Watcher 1.0 -- I think it's on par with that fight. Now with that said -- a lot of kins never killed Watcher 1.0 even though they tried -- I think on Landroval only about 10 raiding forces tops took down Watcher 1.0 which left a lot of kins without that kill on their belt.

Now I'm still hearing of some kins (good people who know their classes with decent gear) having trouble with Gauntlet intermittently -- that pacing can be difficult to maintain if you haven't settled in to the timing of it IMO -- and are really struggling with Durchest NM. They end up failing enough to have to redo Gauntlet 2 times -- by the 3rd respawn they quit.

Now -- I can't substantiate numbers -- however here's what I'd wager as an educated guess. For most servors 2 to 4 raid groups are capable of Hard Mode kills on bosses 1 and 2. it's probably 2 to 4 more raid crews that are farming normal modes successfully -- and there are a few others that are struggling just to get Durchest down period.

That's more from pre 3.1 -- after 3.1 I think a ton of people have just point blank lost interest -- Watcher 2.0 is a good comparison. That was a kin killer actually -- and I honestly think the 3.1 version of BG could become a kin killer too potentially.

Again this is all grapevine stuff -- only responding with a gut feeling from what i"ve heard and seen to kind of give a sense that at least with Durchest Normal Mode there are crews having trouble. I think the thing with Twins Normal Mode is -- if you can get there you can beat it. The trash is significantly harder than the normal mode fight IMO.

[mdnorris]

I logged this weeks Durchest HM kill. I never got hit by a DMA for more than 3.3K, some were 2.2K. I also got a partial evade DMA for only 500.

We had a warden standing with two guards tanking and that seemed to help alot with corruptions. We also seemed to be more disciplined with disable and LM debuffs. My guess is last week after the 175% buff we may have let corruptions build up combined with a gap in debuffs and this week we never let that happen.

For those getting the 6K hits, are you treating this boss like the watcher where corruption removal and debuffs are higher priority than DPS and adds? If not maybe try taking that approach and see if it goes better.

We got hit by those numbers quite a bit last week. We had a bit more rad this past week, and had a Burglar to Disable. That made all the difference in survivability, as both times we removed his corruptions as soon as he got them.

[davymaxwell]

We finally got our first Durchest HM kill since 3.1 launched tonight(had him on farm before)! It was our 12th attempt total and 3rd of the night.

We had a 2nd burg as we didn't have an LM available. We had 1 rk switch to healing as soon as HM adds started and the 2nd rk switch to healing after the 3rd HM add was killed. Minis used FH when the last add was ~50% health and captains used LS/IHW soon after. We killed Durchest before he could get the lightning attack off.

There's no doubt that this HM is truly HARD, and I would suggest that if your kin/raid group is just wiping over and over and over to just go for normal mode to get some more radiance (preferably give to tanks first). We were actually resigned to do just that if we didn't get it on that attempt. On one hand I'm pretty pissed at Turbine for changing fights on us after we've worked on them for a while, but on the other hand I appreciate having real challenges that give a real rush when you complete them! My biggest problem w/ this HM is that it's so unforgiving that if one of your tanks does go down you have like a 99% chance of wiping.

I think what has gotten many people, myself included, so upset is the fact that they had either just gotten HM on farm status or had just gotten their first HM kill. They had worked hard to do this, and then Turbine just blindsides us by making it MARKEDLY more difficult! It would be one thing if it were this way all along. Maybe people after a bit of trying would have just been satisfied w/ doing normal modes for a while, but I know w/ my kin people had ZERO interest in doing normal mode. If we weren't attempting HM then they wouldn't even bother coming.

Anyways, I'm still not happy w/ Turbine and all they've done and not done in this raid, but at least we know that we can adapt and with some hard work can push through.

[wyldcyde]

good post.

yup. twins hardmode is pretty tough as well. seems to be more puddles than before.




i like twins though tbh, in some ways its more predictable, unlike durchest where you can seemingly execute properly yet still wipe.

[Tartare]

Now -- I can't substantiate numbers -- however here's what I'd wager as an educated guess. For most servors 2 to 4 raid groups are capable of Hard Mode kills on bosses 1 and 2. it's probably 2 to 4 more raid crews that are farming normal modes successfully -- and there are a few others that are struggling just to get Durchest down period.

Well theres more than 4 groups taking them down on BW. not sure about other servers.

as for the DMA thing. im pretty sure its just a normal attack the boss does, that when it crits it crits big. thats why people are seeing 7k hits and some only the 3 and 4k hits. Not too sure how its scripted into the fight or if there is a trigger for it like some people were asking about.

It can be brutal if u have a tank thats got a bit lower radience or you dont have 'assistants' in to spread the cleave dmg out.

There are several ways around this and the reality is whislt you dont need balanced group makeup or specific class etc, it does help especially if you are struggling on the encounter.

Burgs are really helpful, so are lms for curruptions/power and debuffs.
having an extra healer is also key to success if your having difficultys imo. there is no dps race or timelimit, its all about surviving. Rks set up to heal are really handy. having 2 rks throwing mending verse on tank and offtank is essentially an extra 1000max morale for each. this makes geting hit for 6k not so bad when ur tanks are sitting at 11k.
We use 2 rks along with the norm 2 minis and most of the time 2 cappies. The extra heals the rks bring are so valuable. even if we mess up the lightning add and take a death, we have more than enough heals to burn durchest thru the extra 200k even with the 175%dmg.

I thinks its better to have more heals than needed, than be in the situation where u get so close but something bad happens and you have to reclear the gauntlet etc.

[Jamesm429]

We finally got our first Durchest HM kill since 3.1 launched tonight(had him on farm before)! It was our 12th attempt total and 3rd of the night.

We had a 2nd burg as we didn't have an LM available. We had 1 rk switch to healing as soon as HM adds started and the 2nd rk switch to healing after the 3rd HM add was killed. Minis used FH when the last add was ~50% health and captains used LS/IHW soon after. We killed Durchest before he could get the lightning attack off.

There's no doubt that this HM is truly HARD, and I would suggest that if your kin/raid group is just wiping over and over and over to just go for normal mode to get some more radiance (preferably give to tanks first). We were actually resigned to do just that if we didn't get it on that attempt. On one hand I'm pretty pissed at Turbine for changing fights on us after we've worked on them for a while, but on the other hand I appreciate having real challenges that give a real rush when you complete them! My biggest problem w/ this HM is that it's so unforgiving that if one of your tanks does go down you have like a 99% chance of wiping.

I think what has gotten many people, myself included, so upset is the fact that they had either just gotten HM on farm status or had just gotten their first HM kill. They had worked hard to do this, and then Turbine just blindsides us by making it MARKEDLY more difficult! It would be one thing if it were this way all along. Maybe people after a bit of trying would have just been satisfied w/ doing normal modes for a while, but I know w/ my kin people had ZERO interest in doing normal mode. If we weren't attempting HM then they wouldn't even bother coming.

Anyways, I'm still not happy w/ Turbine and all they've done and not done in this raid, but at least we know that we can adapt and with some hard work can push through.

Gratz man glad that you got it. I should be right behind you but still am pissed too at Turbine. Some peeps left the Core Group, so we have made some changes, for sure two cappy's now instead of one. I do know for a fact our strat for Twins Hard Mode still works so if you need that let me know. But can you tell when what method you used to tank Durchest. WE keep trying 2 cappy's in there with the tank way, but for some reason once the tank goes in, one of the cappy's stop getting hit. Please share your thought and thank you.

[dhatcher1]

Gratz man glad that you got it. I should be right behind you but still am pissed too at Turbine. Some peeps left the Core Group, so we have made some changes, for sure two cappy's now instead of one. I do know for a fact our strat for Twins Hard Mode still works so if you need that let me know. But can you tell when what method you used to tank Durchest. WE keep trying 2 cappy's in there with the tank way, but for some reason once the tank goes in, one of the cappy's stop getting hit. Please share your thought and thank you.

Let the cappys build up 30-50% before you step in. Be slightly behind and to their right (facing durchest). That position seemed to guarantee I would not get hit with the debuff. Have people stay fairly close to Durchest so he doesnt move away when he spins to do ranged attacks. We did it with 2 GRDs and a Warden.