Salvage Strats Review/input from experts

[Neosutra]

Hey guys, I wrote up some zone by zone salvage strats that were pretty simple. Took some maps from various sources and went into what jobs should be doing what for full clear of each zone.

Their intention was that any member that started coming with my group could read them and get a good understanding of what to expect.

I am not posting this here as some kind of alla "hey guys here is my strat i rock", but more of a feedback issue. If a few other salvage junkies can take a few minutes and review them and give some feedback on ways you may do things differently, I would appreciate it. Id like to incorporate lessons learned for each zone and make a really good by floor strat that any new member I get can follow withe ease.

http://homingmissile.wowultra.com/forum6/709.html - ZR

http://homingmissile.wowultra.com/forum6/708.html - BR

http://homingmissile.wowultra.com/forum6/707.html - AR

http://homingmissile.wowultra.com/forum6/245.html - SSR

Any input on how your group does things differently and major lessons learned would be great.

Also if you have recommendations for better maps that would be great.

[drwaffles]

Note that spamming sleep on the madame is a good way to reduce TP moves.

Huh?

[Sady]

For the most part it looks really good but for Zhayolm Remnants I'd mention something about poping the 1F madame just in case everyone in the group forgets to bring an SS card.

[drwaffles]

We kill 1F and skip 3F anyway; it's a heck of a lot quicker to clear Ziz than it is to clear all of the south Mamool, in my opinion.

[MillionDollarMan]

We kill 1F and skip 3F anyway; it's a heck of a lot quicker to clear Ziz than it is to clear all of the south Mamool, in my opinion.

and a shot at 15s..My linkshell kills all NMs in salvage on boss runs but we do it a different way..

[tymora]

Killing 1F also allows you to do 6F if no ranged or ring cells drops.

[Sady]

I think in this case knowing where you're going an how you plan on getting there is more important then the exact step-by-step directions, as people have stated there are many ways to achieve the same goals, which is best will depend on many factors.

You want your salvage members to be flexible and open minded. Being able to analyse the situation and react to it is ultimately much more useful then just following directions blindly.

[Neosutra]

The 1F frog takes a bit longer to kill than I like. Clearing the extra couple rooms of raptors or ziz only takes a couple minutes, but add in relog time, pulling the frog to the group or walking back to its pop location, and kill time, it adds another 10 or so minutes to the first floor if you are fast.

For us, we clear the first 2 rooms on 3rd floor west in a little over 2 minutes, and the last remaining room and large area only take another few. Its alot of mamools but they are paper thin.

By taking the 1F you spend the same or more time hitting that NM as you would for 3rd floor, but with 3F west you at least get all stats/hp/mp for your party members. Not to mention taking first floor means you cant do 4th floor N frog (assuming you were fast on the 2nd floor).

If our timing/luck is good we can do 4FN 5FN 6F and boss in a run, clearing 3 15s, and possibly a 35 or 2 and boss.

With as random as the 15 drop rate is on the 1F frog, the extra added time it takes w/o cell drops, and the fact that the 15s can be gotten in other places guarenteed, I havent found a good reason to continue to doing 1F for any group.

As for the other statements, thanx for the input. I agree with the focus should be making sure my members understand the goal and not just a "you do this here". I will try and amend each section to:

Goal for this floor:
Strats for achieving goal:
Helpful hints/tips:

I figure if i can do this, provide helpful detailed maps, and then start letting people lead some runs with this info, I can more quickly develop newer salvage members into fully contributing assets.

Im just tired of kicking people from my group and cursing alot when the guy that has been going with me for 4 months asks where the god damned portal is..

[tymora]

Your group has relics? Or is strictly 6 people only?

4FN > 5FN > 6F > Boss is pretty darn difficult to achieve.
For another, to pop 4FN, you'll also be limited to what the central 4 rooms have to offer. Not recommended for groups > 6 people unless people don't mind being bored to tears for the next 100 min. Limiting a group to exactly 6 will also put you at the mercy of event cancellation when people are not free. (Well you can still low-man a zone, but I am not considering that at the moment)

Prior to the charm break in last patch, you are also at the mercy of how charming the 2F frog feels like that day.

Even with the random rate of 15 on 1F, it doesn't take that long for any group to cap out of those gears. For most normal groups, 1F would be a far better choice than rushing for 4F.
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Regarding Silver Sea(4F) and Zhayolm(5F) THF sac-ing, it is perfectly possible to do it without anyone dying. But it takes some fancy maneuvering, powder boots and a good team.

In Zhayolm, 1F Mamool Chests have a decent chance of a fanatics. THF can use it, aggro whole room and /logout while fanatics is in effect.

On 5F(N), If a group has a /blm, BLM or SCH, you can have the THF aggro everything for sleepga. Follow up with both members /logout to lose hate on top of the stairs to madame.

Alternatively, if the THF is skilled enough (as to when to use PD), aggro the whole room and bring them to porter room. When all the gears gather at the far corner, flee out and join the rest of the party at the madame. For added safety, you can sleep the Madame first to give the THF more running room. The gears should lose hate. The THF may want to /logout for safety but it shouldn't be necessary.

After the fight, have THF flee to porter while a 2nd person follows behind. (Preferably with powder boots - very useful item to have). 2nd person heads to door while THF kites the aggro around. Alternatively, what I usually do is I flee as RDM (with 2 x boots) to aggro mobs while THF heads to porter. THF with 1 person with +12% movement speed works too.

On 6F, have the THF pop the gears by ranged attack at maximum range. Make sure party members are all in the south tip of the room, where the door to porter is. Gears will pop and some will link on the THF. Have the THF run into one of the side rooms and wait till the Chariot + links are safely in the far corner. Flee once and turn south, hugging the walls, towards the party. Aggro will be lost a safe distance before they reach the SW corner of the room. I have also done this as RDM with powder boots.

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In Silver Sea, having a fanatics is straightforward, aggro all, use fanatics and /logout.
If you are unlucky not to have 1 and you have 2 additional flees for the THF (1 hermes + 1 boots or 2 x boots), said THF can avoid a death. (Doesn't need PD either)

For any group, when they run normally out of the porter room, they will not catch up with the wandering gears. Assign the rampart/chariot pulls beforehand.
1. Have THF use first flee (hermes or boots) round the room to aggro everything. If the THF is worth his salt, he should be able to get everything following him without losing shadows (/NIN required).

2. Wait a little in the middle of the room to ensure all ramparts/chariot to get pulled, PD if necessary.

3. When all are pulled, flee immediately south, bringing all the aggro with him. The THF will run into the wandering gears, so use 2nd flee (THF flee is instant) when the 1st run out and continue running all the way to the porter to shake off the secondary aggro. (This will buy the pullers some additional time to get the ramparts/chariot.)

4. When all aggro is lost, head North to where the party is. You use the 3rd flee (hermes or boots) here to run across the middle room + shake off aggro. Just be careful not to aggro wandering gears again.

Complicated? Yes. But it is ridiculously fun to flee all over the place. Just try it once and you will see what I mean.

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Half the people won't even bother to read strategies that are available. Another quarter will forget what you tell them by the following event. I call this 1/4 Zombie players.

[tymora]

For Arrapagos 1F, you don't have to rush it. Spending 40min there is perfectly fine.
My group will kill every single last pop of Lamia/Merrow that drops ability and will also kill the 1F rampart/cactuar for chance at TH4 (hands for THF) and STR for melee (if no bones are dropping it).

On our best run, my group has reached boss with ~20 min to spare.

We also use RDM/DRK on Bhoot/Flayer on 4F for safety. Chainspell Stun saves lives.

Bring holy waters and always go the NE port to kill ghosts for rings. Having them early helps.

We can usually blaze through all the later floors after spending the time to farm a little bit more on 1F.

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As a side note, we also use RDM/DRK on 5F madame and go all out 2H on it for a faster, safer kill since there is little room to kite when charmed. (Prior to charm bug)

[tymora]

One more post from me for now...

In my opinion, Salvage is not just about killing as many NMs with the smallest group possible. It is a long term event and requires persistence (and lots of cursing at SE for SSR drops) like everything else in this time-sink of a game. Keeping the event enjoyable is key to keeping people with you long term.

Hence my personal strategies always involve minimizing deaths and unlocking as many things as possible for everyone. And I don't scream at people for silly mistakes either. We all have our noob moments after all. The rest of my group may not see it my way but so far things have been going decently well. (We are the longest surviving and most stable non-JP group on Pandemonium.)

Making people sit 100 min in an event and unable to do anything useful is horrible.

[Neosutra]

One more post from me for now...

In my opinion, Salvage is not just about killing as many NMs with the smallest group possible. It is a long term event and requires persistence (and lots of cursing at SE for SSR drops) like everything else in this time-sink of a game. Keeping the event enjoyable is key to keeping people with you long term.

Hence my personal strategies always involve minimizing deaths and unlocking as many things as possible for everyone. And I don't scream at people for silly mistakes either. We all have our noob moments after all. The rest of my group may not see it my way but so far things have been going decently well. (We are the longest surviving and most stable non-JP group on Pandemonium.)

Making people sit 100 min in an event and unable to do anything useful is horrible.

I dont know, I find efficient clean runs to be far more enjoyable. Thats kind of the same mentality as "id rather have a leisurly fun party than a party to gets good xp/hour" when I only really enjoy parties that get good xp/hr.

As for the arrapoga 1f. I guess spending an extra 5 or so minutes on the floor might be worth it for a chance at TH hands, but for a group of 7 the 25 I spend is plenty of time to get all the JA/MA/hp/weapons we need. As for the rdm/drk, we have one healer lol and the brd that is whm sub usually doesnt get SJ till 4th or 5th floor, so its silly to give up paralyna/poisona/cursna/erase just so one of your melee doesnt have to store tp for stun TP move or JA.

Did anyone ever figure out the conditions for popping the rampart? Was it a random Lamia that popped it or a set amount?

Also: to Tymora, 4fN 5fN and 6fN in one run did take luck before, but we could pull it off about 50% of the time depending on charm. With the new charm nerf it is really easy. That being said we dont really do it anymore because no one needs any 15s. Same reason we dont do the 1F.

For SSR, yes there are several ways a THF can stay alive, but it takes some experience to get away with some of these and knowledge of pathing and the gear train. Tis not something I want to toss on a thf his first SSR.

[SamanosukeShiva]

ZR-Floor 2

Upon zoning up to the NE room of the 2nd floor, the brd will pull all the lizards to the melee, and the alliance will clear them out safetly, passing/lotting in order. Note that the 3 members designated to be the "full unlocked" members to pop the 5th floor NM frog will lot the first 3 cells of each type! After the lizards are dead, kill the freshly popped Mamool Ja, and then use either ranged or rings in the Socket to pop the first Madame of the zone.

I usually have someone lot/hold all the ring/ranged/body until we have at least 4, depending on cell drops we usually dupe the body if we have 4 ring/ranged before the room clears.

[chapstick]

Hmm, regarding ZR - one thing I see you note is that you should sac pull the gears in the first room to get to 5F madame. This is unnecessary. You can either safely pull 1-2 gears from the room and kill them to make more room (yes clean pulls are possible), or hug the wall to the left at the correct time. Can even make it all the way to the door without any aggro if whoever goes to the door is careful (May as well have RR up though in case something goes wrong).

[tymora]

Pop condition for Arrapagos 1F rampart is # of lamia/merrow killed. Verified by staring into space while my group cleared the wings.

Always up by the time my group kills the first one in the 3rd wing and since we aim for all the ability dropping ones, this would mean around 7-9. Never bothered to really count though.

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It is really risky to pull gears from 5FN or to MGS through. Why risk a wipe or waste time waiting for a clear pull?

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My group only dupes body cells in ZR 2F if everyone has a ring/ranged cell since other mobs on the level drop that. But whatever rocks your boat on this.
I distro-cells but ask people not to use ranged or rings until we are 100% certain what to dupe.

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Perhaps you can add "Variants" on strategies for each zone, and recommended moves for groups of different sizes.

I have done runs with 5 to 18 people (18 only when it first came out lol) but now I am most comfortable with a size of 8-9 where we can bring a 2nd healer, a 3rd DD melee and a backup.

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Forgot to mention...a BLU is absolutely stunning on Madames - Pun intended.

[Neosutra]

Ya, body is dropped in every other wing, no real reason to dupe over rings/ranged. Obviously the answer is dupe the cells you need, but with the ToAU refresh/regen rings and other good choices, they are hard to pass up. Then again some days we get an overload of rings/ranged, so obviously we dupe something else.

Another option is to save ma/ja/wp/sj till the slot and use them there, to save more time on the first floor.

[Arthars]

zhalyom 4FN 5F 6F isnt hard to achieve since they force u to hit 4F in 30 mins

usually quicker than you farm 3F more and only do 5F 6F boss

u just need a clock to time and warp up at 29.5 mins

by that time you should have enough stats cells for 3 people and HP MP for everyone

remember not to waste time on pets when ur farming 3FS while 1 person run to N once you hit 3F. Pets cant kill you anyway

theres no need for relics, you need members who have initiative and knows what to do so that you wont waste time. some people just wait for /as and slow down things. BE CONFIDENT!

[Ruin]

For the SSR strat, it looks solid, but I see in no way how you could possibly kill the 16 fomor, 4 imps and powderkeg in 15-20mins? Even with 8+ people I dont see it happening in under 25-30

[Arthars]

For the SSR strat, it looks solid, but I see in no way how you could possibly kill the 16 fomor, 4 imps and powderkeg in 15-20mins? Even with 8+ people I dont see it happening in under 25-30

easily do-able in 20 mins
15 seems tight tho

[Crizto]

If pulls are coming in smoothly with no links its doable in 20 min. I've personally never been able to do it any quicker than that however.