First time in Salvage

[Neosutra]

Drop the whm, get another brd or cor, and kick ass. MnkX2/Thf is fine, However Mnk/Sam/DD3 works as well.

Many combinations work, as you have read already. Ive always found a whm useless in salvage when a rdm and a brd can keep everyone alive just fine.

[Fridell]

I always found all jobs useless beside THF for Salvage.

[Neosutra]

True enough, the only job you 100% need to bring to salvage is thf. Everything else is just about getting the thf to a location in the zone so he can work his magic and be blamed for armor not dropping.

[Fridell]

This is what I always tell new groups, and no one believes me from start.

[Aksannyi]

I disagree that WHM is useless. WHM is great in Salvage. Esuna on gears (gravity spam diaf) and Auspice on the boss is pretty damned amazing, also, perhaps it's just this server but I've found a lot of RDMs don't know how to use their subbed spells (Paralyna, Poisona, Erase) so you need to rely on a dedicated mage. Also, having played both jobs in Salvage, I've found it's a lot easier to keep people alive on WHM than it is on RDM. When I don't have Cure V and Divine Veil, I miss them quite a bit, in addition to a host of other great things WHMs have that RDMs don't.

Regens also get a lot more mileage for me in Salvage. If you're going for boss, I would always recommend having a WHM, for a lot of reasons. If you're gonna lowman farm some zones, sure, WHM isn't necessary, but I've always found Salvage to be a lot smoother with a WHM than without.

[Neosutra]

You cant really compare a good whm to a mediocre rdm. Obviously if your rdm doesnt know how to keep a party alive and buffed/erased/para'd/etc, then you shouldnt be relying on them as a sole healer.

The point was: If you can survive with just one rdm as main healer (and brd/whm as backup), and through experience rdm has -no- problems with this, then you will be better served by replacing the extra healing spot with another support role that will add to your kill speeds.

[liggy 0]

Get ventrilo and use it for cells. It helps a TON when you're new~

^
learn cell names, priority, who gets what and have everyone pass quick

for beginning groups it will save you 5/10mins of you're time in salvage to have cells passed out quickly and to the right people... to ruining a run

[Uzor]

I disagree that WHM is useless. WHM is great in Salvage. Esuna on gears (gravity spam diaf) and Auspice on the boss is pretty damned amazing, also, perhaps it's just this server but I've found a lot of RDMs don't know how to use their subbed spells (Paralyna, Poisona, Erase) so you need to rely on a dedicated mage. Also, having played both jobs in Salvage, I've found it's a lot easier to keep people alive on WHM than it is on RDM. When I don't have Cure V and Divine Veil, I miss them quite a bit, in addition to a host of other great things WHMs have that RDMs don't.

Regens also get a lot more mileage for me in Salvage. If you're going for boss, I would always recommend having a WHM, for a lot of reasons. If you're gonna lowman farm some zones, sure, WHM isn't necessary, but I've always found Salvage to be a lot smoother with a WHM than without.

I agree, I personally love WHM in Salvage. Cura is so awesome on Zhayolm boss, and Esuna on gear and soulflayer is <3. I mean, sure, I can keep people alive on RDM just fine, but I prefer WHM.

[Wolfknight]

I agree, I personally love WHM in Salvage. Cura is so awesome on Zhayolm boss, and Esuna on gear and soulflayer is <3. I mean, sure, I can keep people alive on RDM just fine, but I prefer WHM.

this, auspice is really nice too. I only really prefer rdm if I am blu for ZR frogs or AR Flayer/Bhoot run.

[pchan]

If all you need is haste and cure take WHM .. doh. They are much better healer than rdm but crappy debuffer which can speed a boss fight tremendously.

[Aksannyi]

So bring both.

I remember back in the day, WHM + RDM team was the best healing combination in the game. And I must be weird because I have a full enfeebling set on my WHM.

[pchan]

So bring both.

I remember back in the day, WHM + RDM team was the best healing combination in the game. And I must be weird because I have a full enfeebling set on my WHM.

It's still. Whatever I do endgame I always have a whm and a rdm in the party.

[Uzor]

So bring both.

I remember back in the day, WHM + RDM team was the best healing combination in the game. And I must be weird because I have a full enfeebling set on my WHM.

I do too I just take pieces that my WHM can wear from RDM and add Marduk and BAM, head shot.

[Wolfknight]

If all you need is haste and cure take WHM .. doh. They are much better healer than rdm but crappy debuffer which can speed a boss fight tremendously.

I disagree I've seen whm/sch with decent enfeeble set[torque/AF+1 body/relic hands + misc stuff] land slow and para on bosses though obivously not as potent as rdm, but whm can still land the debuffs.

[Uzor]

I have 'em body, relic, torque, cape, marduk, nashira. Rarely use them though as there's always a RDM, and if there isn't I go RDM. Usually don't have much problem landing enfeebles if I need to, but due to WHM's naturally lower enfeebling skill, thus having to stick on +skill over +MND, they're a lot less potent.

[cdgreg]

Hey, just wanted to chime in and say gl, it's nice to see a new salvager who actually does his research instead of complaining how hard it is and saying it's dumb.

[Neosutra]

Never had a problem with just a rdm and a brd main healing on all floors and all bosses and always prefer rdm over whm for phalanx2 and Dia3/para2/slow2.

Add convert/refresh and it isnt really a competition.

[pchan]

phalanx2 is useless past 1st floor and a rdm never converts in salvage pretty much

[Argettio]

The zones are more farmable, than before but that doesn't make the gear that much more attainable. Hopefully your group has some understanding of the Salvage drop rates and have some realistic expectations about what it will take to complete different pieces of gear.

As long as you don't get discouraged easily, and you enjoy the company of the people you're going with, it can be a lot of fun.

You miss understand.

Most players see salvage gear as impossible to get, too expensive and needing a super leet group etc.

Whereas reading the guides here and seeing the people who have the gear I can see that any group of 'good' players have a decent chance at salvage. Sure the drop rates suck, the time taken to complete items is crazy (even if you go 6+ times a week), we all know that.

But I now know my friends and I have good enough gear and enough ingame experience to pull it off (I hope).

Thanks for the advice, I think I will take the WHM for now. If it is over kill I may consider switching it around. As we are likely to make a lot of mistakes, the extra healing maybe important.

[Argettio]

A few people have expressed and interest in how this went, so I thought I would post here (sry for the wall of text in advance)

OK we did it last night

Started off badly when a few ppl couldn't make it, so had to mix it up a bit:
MNK
SAM
BRD
COR
WHM
RDM

We planned to try and pop every rampart and see how far we got.

1F
Cells... Cells.... Cells.....
Trying to work out the right people to to get each cell was difficult (for people with no experience), due to this we went through most of the floor with a brd with no magic and a cor with no abilities, so kills were slow and messy.

We started following a 'Dynamis Style' of fighting, carefully pulling a few at a time, sleeping, killing the group, pulling again, slowly clearing each room and moving to the next room.

Which was a mistake, there was a lot of mobs we should have skipped once we had enough of those shells (ended up with like 10 ranged cells in the pool that no one needed). We needed to be more selective with the pulls and more like a merit party in style (faster and constant).

Mad bomber wasn't around (or at least we didn't see him) so once we got magic for every one off the moths and we zoned up.

2F

Cells weren't so much of a problem here, most people had the ones they critically needed (Cor = ranged + abilities, SAM = abilities + weapon etc), and the drop rate was slower so we could manage it better.

Our pulling improved here, we started pulling the Flans and killing them. We killed the first 2 with no problem, but some how the 3rd we killed one without spikes up. I think it was an accidental skill chain, but I am not sure, either way, no rampart here. We killed the 4th for practice (and we had already pulled it)

So we farmed our way to the teleporter.

3F

This was the most 'successful' floor but also the most messy. We struggled to pull the triple gear, it was surrounded by single gears.

The east pull from the bard was a link and killed the bard and rdm. We RR and grabbed the triple as it walked back. Took it to 1% and slept it.

The west pull was attempted by the cor, but with a 600 delay weapon, a safe pull became a dangerous pull before he got a shot off (we need low delay pulling weaps in the future). We pulled a few singles trying to work into the triple.

We got the other triple, took it to 5% and then timed WS from the SAM and MNK killed it within a second of each other. YAY rampart time.

It started popping colibri, it was faster than I expected. we had difficulty re-engaging the mobs, so next time it will be 1 DD per mob.

@ ~85% he popped the NM :D at which point we really didn't know what to do. We had 5-6 colibri alive and more on the way, so we slept everything and killed the rampart (thinking that would allow us to kill the NM in peace). I now know this was stupid. We got warped back. Should we have slept the rampart? or just killed with the extra pops as they happen?

Teleporter time.

4F

We tried to do this properly, pulling the gears without aggro, but after a few links and warping before we killed them we gave up and ran through them. We took on the chariot that weakens defence and killed it and then made a move for the boss floor.

Mid way through this floor we got the 10min warning.

5F

We knew we would never kill him in time (and doubted we could ever kill him with 6 ppl and only 2 DD). So we just charged him just to try it.

The AOE TP moves were pretty harsh, and without any stuns i think we would have run our of MP before the boss ran out of HP (given more time). I think if we could get to the boss quicker; with 6 it would be difficult.

We timed out ~85-90% on the boss.

Aftermath

I learnt a lot, and if I was to do it again there is a million things I would do differently or just handle better. A few of the members had no idea about the zone at all, so they will be a lot better next time.

A few people enjoyed it, a couple really didn't like it. So I will go again some time (swapping those that don't want to do it again) and if I find a group that like it then I may continue it as a regular event, but for now I am just going to count it as an interesting experience.

It is a fairly unique event, a bit like assaults, a bit like nyzul a bit like, einherjar, a bit like dynamis and a bit like nothing else.