Salvage Strats Review/input from experts

[SamanosukeShiva]

I tried MNK/WAR tanking boss @ my early salvage days, was using DRG/WHM healer @LBC. definetly viable, but not my type of fight.

[mdkuser]

/war was a typo.

[Uzor]

Even with the dusty ethers, my group tethers on MP dryness in Arrapagos too. The first 2 lamias, while likely to drop magic, sometimes don't.

And MNK/WAR for Arra boss? Wouldn't that be a massive MP sponge on boss? Well I suppose enough healers would do the trick but a MR hurts with no shadows.

I give SJ to my MNK/NIN only because we do 1st floor Rampart + Sabotender frequently and depend on holy waters to get rid of curse. Even when we spend 40 min on 1F, we still get to exit with ~15 min after killing boss.

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As for iron laws of Salvage, there are a couple in my opinion - No group can break free from them:
1. Never go without a THF in Zhayolm and Arrapagos or you'll suffer from cell shortage.
2. Think fast, pass fast, lot fast and move fast. (This includes bringing stuff such as sneak oils and prism powders)

Anything else can be improvised and I agree that strategy and tactics should be tailored to your own group.

I merely ment MNK/WAR to speed up first few floors. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a melee without NIN sub to even get close to the arrapago boss, but in all other zones it is fine for a MNK/WAR to melee the boss as long as they don't end up full-time tanking it. Even then it works, but I wouldn't recommend it as /NIN sub makes it a whole lot less painful.

I do, however, prefer to have both MNK's subbing NIN all the time, simply because you can run in to bad luck where one MNK red dots etc.

Either way, there's no set-in-stone strategy that everyone needs to abide by to have success in Salvage. I know of groups that have a MNK/WAR main tank in Salvage, those that have SAM/WAR's main tank, those that run with MNK/NIN's, PLD/NIN's, NIN/WAR's... anything is fine, as long as your group knows what to do, and your group is built around the strategy you use. There's almost as many ways to do Salvage as there are Salvage groups.

[fishstix]

2. The is something funky going on in Arrapago. For some reason I believe that the drop rates of the first floor mobs are determined by how many mobs are already killed.

It'd be funny if this was true for all the floors, or different zones even BUT in respect towards NM drops On my trio AR run where my macha's coat dropped, I've must've only killed 5 mobs prior to the QQth.

/busts out the tin foil hat

[Neosutra]

Why is it..

That when I post a strat detailing how the thf sacs the 4th floor for CC pop in SSR..

And then take the thf to the room and tell them what to sac and where to die..

And then ask them if they understand..

DO THEY STILL FUCKING WALK STRAIGHT INTO THE CENTER OF THE ROOM AND DIE, SAYING LULZ I DIDNT KNOW WHAT TO DO. WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THIS PLANET. Seriously, NO one else can have this problem, at least I hope not, of stupid fucks constantly ruining the SAME fucking sac pull, no matter how simple you break it down.

What is so hard about: "Hey thf, run around this room and die here". Can someone translate this for me into a language a retarded person can understand so I can stop having to sneak into these people's houses at night and murder them.

I wouldnt get so upset, but this is like the 90th time I have taken a new person to SSR and they flail their arms about and run straight into the CC room and die. It's like a fucking addiction to stupidity.

I wish I could kill people with a special button on my keyboard.

[Zidiane]

Hermies + Me on whm, Doing it myself works :D, I let the thf stay with the ally and rdm+brd combo is all the healing they need.

Also I've found if you run and lap the room once (Very possible to do with hermies), you can lap it once and run to the end, deaggroing them, then zombie it back lol. (Rarest of times i've been able to only aggro a single gear running back through the room and avoid the gear train and deaggro it also.

Ope also, Edit: Yeah, after going for so long bringing fresh people into salv isn't the easiest of times, because mostly they are clueless as to what needs to be done D:.

[mdkuser]

had to explain at least 10 times to other THF how to do 5F frog 's sac pulltoo... until they finally got it. lulz. Reminds me of dynamis:

mdk>hey man, go aggro this eye, die NW and I'll claim a NM and bring it to camp.
man> k.
Man aggro the NM stage and brings everything to camp. Mpking the alliance.

All right!

[Valyana]

Powder Boots!

[rithridan]

Instead of saccing the 4F CC room gears, I take a fanatics from one of the chests up to that point in preperation. I pop fanatics and grab all gears/ramparts/chariot and wait till everyone grab his/her rampart. Then I take all thats left away from the group. Just before I reach the next room I usually have ~10-15 seconds of fanatics left and just hit flee and run to where the rest of the group is. Usually by the time I catch up to them they are in the first room before the CC room. By the time their ramparts just exit that room the gears chasing me will deaggro so no linking will commence.

Same thing with 5FN gear room before Madame. I grab all gears and run back to the start while the group goes to Madame. I stand in the corner and wait till the gears catch up, then hit Perfect Dodge and (still on flee) run to the Madame room. To be sure I let my group stand in the corner with Madame not casting any spells till I'm sure I haven't MPKed them with gears. <--- Got that tip from Wizerd, the CC one I'm not sure but I read it somewhere on here aswell.

The problem I run into sometimes is when theres no weather in SSR that people are too early with claiming and I didnt aggro all gears yet, most of them claim using magic and even without it, its possible that I haven't linked the gear thats standing next their target. (I always run from either left to right or the other way around).

[Neosutra]

Instead of saccing the 4F CC room gears, I take a fanatics from one of the chests up to that point in preperation. I pop fanatics and grab all gears/ramparts/chariot and wait till everyone grab his/her rampart. Then I take all thats left away from the group. Just before I reach the next room I usually have ~10-15 seconds of fanatics left and just hit flee and run to where the rest of the group is. Usually by the time I catch up to them they are in the first room before the CC room. By the time their ramparts just exit that room the gears chasing me will deaggro so no linking will commence.

Same thing with 5FN gear room before Madame. I grab all gears and run back to the start while the group goes to Madame. I stand in the corner and wait till the gears catch up, then hit Perfect Dodge and (still on flee) run to the Madame room. To be sure I let my group stand in the corner with Madame not casting any spells till I'm sure I haven't MPKed them with gears. <--- Got that tip from Wizerd, the CC one I'm not sure but I read it somewhere on here aswell.

The problem I run into sometimes is when theres no weather in SSR that people are too early with claiming and I didnt aggro all gears yet, most of them claim using magic and even without it, its possible that I haven't linked the gear thats standing next their target. (I always run from either left to right or the other way around).

This is something that is pretty obvious to do if you happen to get one, but I wouldnt want to write up a plan that involved getting a med that isnt 100%. New thiefs can just know to sac the room. Experienced thfs will know why and can use powder boots or meds to actually survive. Salvage "strats" are really just to give people an idea of what needs to be done, and a tenative way to do it. Hopefully they can think for themselves once theyve done it a few times and form it to their own needs.

[tymora]

Actually the mamool chests on 1F has a good chance of having a fanatics. Think my group managed to get one for most of our runs there.

And lol at the THF understanding problem too. Of all the THFs my group has brought to the run, only 3 (I think) have managed to do it right on the first try(out of 15 or so).

Run clockwise round the room, aggro everything and die at the top of the stairs to the south -> THF goes in, runs anti-clockwise, aggro everything and runs straight into madame room.

-> On 5FN, clockwise is important because it clears out the way to the south corridor first, giving the group an extra second or two to run across.

My group have kicked pretty much the rest because the lack of understanding persists in other areas, though the decision to do so was not made by me but by the rest of the group. My group has also seen THFs who manage to die at the wrong place and at the wrong time even with PD and fanatics.

I personally think that Salvage makes a clear distinction between good and bad players.

Being slow in cell lotting/passing on the first few runs is understandable, doing the exact opposite after a lengthy explanation of what should be done, is not. If unclear, feel free to ask questions, but if after 10-20 runs, you are still asking the same questions, don't blame others for kicking you.

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Finally, in SSR, if you get a fanatics, you can simply stand at a bend in the corridor and /logout to lose the hate on 4F.

[Neosutra]

Most people dont make it 20 runs with me if they arent performing. That's the reason I post lengthy strats and go into detail for people before runs. I also usually walk a person through it once we get to a spot and ask them questions to ensure they understand.

If they fuck it up after that, altana help them.

I think ive kicked about 120 people from my salvage group since we have started Q.Q

There is just a level of stupidity I cant really deal with. If I type up the strats, lead the run, call the cells, detail the jobs, and help walk each member through each phase, then the least a person can do is turn off their TV and pay attention for 99 minutes.