Salvage Alliance Size Question

[Judah]

Seeing a few posts of people saying with 18 people salvage becomes really caca. Noticed a little bit of this first hand 2 runs ago - some people didn't really get cells untill there was 15 or so minutes left.

Question becomes - anyone actually go with 18 solid every time? and those with experience in both - do you find it easier to do with a smaller group or a larger group?

and.. AND.. if ur usually running with 18 - what methods do you use to make it run more smoothly?

Note: i had originally made up a tier'd grid for cell lotting to try to remove 'typing of each persons name when shit drops' but it seemed more trouble than it was probably going to be worth... end up just naming ppl off as cells drop, and having them lot.

(and if by chance there is some thread i missed of someone asking the exact same question - plz lock or delete kthx)

fire away.

[Blackice]

We usually run with 8-10 ppl max, works quite nicely and effeciently. We've been able to kill the LBC 4 times with that team.

[Kaylia]

Seriously, there is no way with 18. The only place where it would be possible is bhaflau, if you select your path carefully and have a good distribution between melee and mage. (1st East, 1nd south west I think)

[Faranim]

If you go with 18, I hope like 10 of them are MNKs. Because they won't be getting any cells at all.

The problem with most zones is the lack of magic cells, which mage jobs need to function at all. WHM, RDM, BLM, BRD, SMN are 100% useless without a magic cell. You need to plan your group in such a way that you aren't too dependent on any single cell type.

The mobs/drops don't scale with # of people so going with 18 usually means you get about 10 useful players and 8 cheerleaders/potion bazaars.

[Uzor]

yeah, I'll tll you tight now that going with 18 doesn't work very well in arrapago and silver sea...

I think I'mma tell my shell to split up next time <.<; Too bad you can't do like in Limbus though. Invite people that needs a specific drop even if they're not doing the same route =/

[safer]

my group is pretty small... we get about 7-10 people to come, i'd like to get like 1 more fulltime blm and mnk.. but there isnt that much interest im afraid
my group looks something like this:
whm nin nin thf mnk
blm whm blu

occasionally we've had an extra mnk/blm/war attend, but never all at the same time

blackice can you please post your group setup and strat you take for LBC? ive been hearing pld/nin works better as a tank, and we can have one of our nin's change to pld if it'd make things smoother

[Blackice]

We've been killing with 1-2 PLD/NINs (usually 1 now since I've been going MNK) 2-3 RNGs, 2-3 BLM, 1 RDM/WHM and a THF/NIN which is 2boxed standing in the corner after it gets an initial hit in.

[divisortheory]

I go with 18 to Bhaflau, it works fine if you know in advance all 18 people and their jobs, and you use Vent so you can call out a specific person's name to lot instead of just a job.

Did Silver Sea with like 12 and it wasn't too bad, I don't think it will be much worse when we go with 18. We have about 4 MNKs so that knocks out a few slots right there. As long as you have 1 MNK for every 3.5 people it isn't really a problem since you can kill stuff faster and get more cells.

[Ehran]

Seriously, there is no way with 18. The only place where it would be possible is bhaflau, if you select your path carefully and have a good distribution between melee and mage. (1st East, 1nd south west I think)

Zhayolm might also be doable with a large group if you have a balanced alliance. We had 16 last night, and if we take that many back again we're going to split and have two groups farm each wing separately. The mobs on the first floor were much weaker than we were expecting. Even with a large group killing quickly it's easy to spend too much time on early floors getting each member the basics. I'm much more in favor of getting a smaller group and only pulling the mobs you need and moving up to the next floor as quickly as possible.

I tired making a spreadsheet for cell drops, but I haven't found a format I like that will be flexible enough to accomadate all the zone/path options that you have. TeamSpeak works miracles as far as distribution goes, but even that isn't very smooth. We do our best to make sure everyone knows the general plan before we enter (i.e. tanks > melee for stat/equip cells, RDM gets the first magic cell, etc) and we work from there.

The next step for us on the organizational side is to have someone (probably a BLM since, depending on the zone they have the least to do at the start) keep a check list of who has what unlocked.

[Kaylia]

Seriously, there is no way with 18. The only place where it would be possible is bhaflau, if you select your path carefully and have a good distribution between melee and mage. (1st East, 1nd south west I think)

Zhayolm might also be doable with a large group if you have a balanced alliance. We had 16 last night, and if we take that many back again we're going to split and have two groups farm each wing separately. The mobs on the first floor were much weaker than we were expecting. Even with a large group killing quickly it's easy to spend too much time on early floors getting each member the basics. I'm much more in favor of getting a smaller group and only pulling the mobs you need and moving up to the next floor as quickly as possible.

Yes, it could be doable for zhayolm since drop rate on first floor is decent, and there is a ton of mobs. Could probably get close to 18people geared with weapon/magic and no armor

[Ayn]

13 is the most I've ever gone in with.

8-10 is what I usually prefer to work with. The extras lately are mostly to accomodate the mass of people that want to do Salvage, but either haven't set up their own groups yet, or apparently just like hanging out with my tyrannical self that much.

[Sci]

We split on the first floor of Zhayolm with just 10 people. Guaranteed weapons and magic so early make farming really easy.

I don't think bringing 18 to any zone could possbily hurt a run unless you're trying to equip everyone with everything. You should do every run with a goal in mind. For example, you want to fight the chariot in that zone. So figure out ahead of time who is going to need what cells against it, and what drops those cells. If you end up getting to your goal with not enough time, then you have to figure out what you can skip the next time.

For my group, our biggest problem seems actually what to do with Paladins. We usually bring Ninjas because they need less to contribute. They have a decent H2H skill, so they can help with killing at the start, and even with just weapons they can hold hate fairly well (assuming you keep them better equipped than the other melees) and even without magic, they tend to evade attacks. And then with just weapons and magic, they're pretty much a full tank as far as the first floor/second floor is concerned. Point is, it just seems that Paladins require a lot more cells to start tanking, and don't provide much of a benefit over a Ninja. I guess it could just be a matter of preference, but it almost seems like debating bringing a ninja or a paladin to a merit party.

[aurik]

We split on the first floor of Zhayolm with just 10 people. Guaranteed weapons and magic so early make farming really easy.

I don't think bringing 18 to any zone could possbily hurt a run unless you're trying to equip everyone with everything. You should do every run with a goal in mind. For example, you want to fight the chariot in that zone. So figure out ahead of time who is going to need what cells against it, and what drops those cells. If you end up getting to your goal with not enough time, then you have to figure out what you can skip the next time.

For my group, our biggest problem seems actually what to do with Paladins. We usually bring Ninjas because they need less to contribute. They have a decent H2H skill, so they can help with killing at the start, and even with just weapons they can hold hate fairly well (assuming you keep them better equipped than the other melees) and even without magic, they tend to evade attacks. And then with just weapons and magic, they're pretty much a full tank as far as the first floor/second floor is concerned. Point is, it just seems that Paladins require a lot more cells to start tanking, and don't provide much of a benefit over a Ninja. I guess it could just be a matter of preference, but it almost seems like debating bringing a ninja or a paladin to a merit party.

Paladins can self-cure on the chariot boss, and generally have higher defense, taking advantage of the chariot's low attack. Not saying that ninja can't tank it (they can) but PLD/NIN just looks like a superior option for the boss imo.

[Lordwafik]

pld/nin were great imo for Bhaflau's boss, we had 2 pld/nin.

To the teams who kill it as 8-10, do you do it with nins? We took a ninja but he said he couldnt evade it, LBC was too accurate, so he had to stick to his -dmg% and eat the dmg while getting curebombed.

[Lhexh]

We killed it with 8 on Monday ( well 9 if you include the AFK THF Ruk was 2 boxing ) and really the way we do it doesnt require a tank. We brought 3 RNG/NIN, 2 BLM, RDM, MNK, PLD and 2boxed THF. PLD works nicely for us over a NIN because he uses invincible at start on boss and positions on its side and we execute an all out zerg including Hundred Fists from the MNK and can usually drop it to 65-70% before starting to kite it around and just have it bounce between RNG and BLMs.

Homing Missile will hit us from time to time but isn't really crippling at all and LBC doesn't really hit properly geared players all that hard at all so its easy to survive before next DD pulls hate off you. As a BLM/RDM last run I took between 140 and 210 damage a hit and pretty much any DD while kiting can reduce their damage to that if they are fully geared which is quite easy to do with only 8 people on the run.

[Sci]

pld/nin were great imo for Bhaflau's boss, we had 2 pld/nin.

To the teams who kill it as 8-10, do you do it with nins? We took a ninja but he said he couldnt evade it, LBC was too accurate, so he had to stick to his -dmg% and eat the dmg while getting curebombed.

We've beat it with 11, I was solo tanking as NIN/WAR. I never needed to get curebombed, and I meleed it the whole time until the very end when I switched to Earth Staff because of the TP spam was too much. Just make sure Elegy and Slow are on it at all times, and you really shouldn't get hit much.

But I could see the benefit of PLD/NINs for the chariots because of all the magic damage being taken, and it does have pretty high accuracy. I guess we could try PLD/NINs on runs we're going for the chariots. But on non-chariot farming runs, or general exploring NIN seems to work more efficiently.