Running an Einherjar LS; Changing Policies

[Panthera]

@OP

You did lose a ton of horrible players when the Dragoon left, didn't you?

I find that "Birds of a feather flock together" rings true and loudly when it comes to FFXI. Skilled, well geared players tend to gravitate towards one another, and want nothing to do with those who are not. Similarly, horribly geared, clueless epeeners cluster up like the pile of humping men in the Goo-backs episode of South Park.

Good players tend to recommend other good players. nine times out of ten.

I would say don't let any melee in unless they have a mage job leveled or they are an amazing melee (not just gearwise).

^This, and this goes for any event. The more versatile people are, the more useful they are, in case other people don't show up, the shell can adapt to whatever is needed. If a White Mage can't make it one evening, having someone else able to go as either Warrior OR Dark Knight doesn't help matters.

Rotating BRDs for 4-6 songs and zerging most T3 bosses tend to work well for us. (skipping other technicalities)

I'm with Nitsuj's group, this is what we do. As soon as we started doing this, we started getting consistent wins.

I can't imagine doing Einherjar as a side event in it's own LS or whatever... Seems like it'd be too frustrating to try and constantly teach people the best practices of the event.

Nitsuj's group is just that, more or less. It does have many tactics people, but other people come in as well.

This is everything that is wrong with Einherjar. 30+ players together at the same time who aren't retarded is an outrageous requirement for an MMO that needs a miracle to happen. I really, really, really, really wish SE made it reasonable to win with 18.

AT LEAST it's only 30 minutes long (as opposed to 3 hours... <cough> Dynamis <cough>)

[Yugl]

/breaklinkshell <t> is the only macro you need.

LOL! Yeah, I was going to suggest that you take a lesson from the MODs and learn that the kick button isn't there for show. I like how Neo played this entire conversation though, well done.

My LS is a pick up Einherjar shell too, and I understand what you mean completely. Our leader has been thorough on kicking people that don't follow directions (Sometimes I think he even goes overboard), so members know they better get their act together. Now if only he would enforce a rule for being on time and having consistent attendance.

[Tobatobu]

I believe that every linkshell sees this. Especially linkshells that are open to public invite. Even if your rigidly recuit, you can face this problem when key members are distracted.

I think the best way to handle these situations is to prep your team, and if you have disagreements handle divert them until after the event, or handle them directly. Don't handle them over the shell unless your wish to make an example of the situation, and risk it disrupting your event.

While doing Einherjar, or any zerg, I find it important to review the situation. No matter how many times you do it, a quick reminder of everyones roles will help remind people how to react to the mobs your fighting.

Our linkshell doesn't do this for every run, but the runs that we do it for, are handled so much better than if we just ran in and blind zergged it.

[Leroy]

I think we have our strategy down. I even post them on the ls site, not that anyone fucking reads it. For example, our Behe strategy:

Dendainsonne (King Behemoth):

This will be a TP burn strategy. Positioning should look a little like this:


Dendainsonne Mages
Melee


This is so the mages can heal the melee while staying out of range of Meteor and conal AoEs.


Preparation:

-CORs open with Magus Roll, then all drop party to go to another group, giving all melee MDB, and 2 melee rolls.

-Jumping BRDs will start their SV rotation.

-Reapply Shellra V and Afflatus: Solace Barthundra.

-All Check RR.

-Use food if yours has worn of due to time or Death.


On the Pull:

-Line up as shown above.

-Dia III should be applied ASAP.

-First Angon in Rotation will go. Please call for another Angon when yours goes down.

-First Feint in Rotation will go. Like Angon, please call for the next Feint when you see it wear off.

-ALL MELEE USE TWO HOURS ONCE ENGAGED.


During the fight:

-CORs will Wild Card 30 seconds after first engaging. If you restore Two Hours, please tell the DD in your party to use them again.

-BLMs should let the melee establish a good foothold on hate, then Manafont and spam nukes. AVOID LIGHTNING BASED NUKES. The best idea is to use AMIIs and Tier III ga spells, then Tier IV nukes, to get the most out of Manafont.

-Healers Prioritize Cure on any melee under 900HP.

If we assume Meteor has a normal Damage value of 3000, and it hits 10+ People, the Damage from it will be dropped to 40% of its maximum.

1200 Damage AoE.

Then we Apply the Magic Damage Reduction of Shell V.

900 Damage AoE.

The Magus Roll should provide at least 9MDB barring unlucky Rolls without Snake Eye. This will give us a slight buffer on the recommended 900hp threshold listed above, but not too much.

AoE cure Spam may be needed. There is a 30 second cool down on Meteor so keep that in mind. BRDs and CORs should do everything in their power to ballad/evoker's the party's Healer. This is made easier if you have Troubadour for your SV rotation.


I thought it worked pretty well, considering we got it to 5% with half our melee with 0 buffs because their leader decided to go RDM instead of BRD like I told him and made himself usefu by spamming Bio II on the Mobs/Behemoth with Dia III on it. Just like their WHM nuking it and complaining about not having mp curing, like his banish/holy nuking had nothing to do with it.

I was then harassed by their ls for having a horrible strategy and not Kiting the Behemoth.



Anyway Our standard Skeleton for Tier III is:

DD PT x3:
WHM
WAR/NIN
SAM/NIN
DD/NIN
COR/WHM

There's also 2 BRDs that rotate through those 3 parties singing March x2 + Min/Mad, for the duration of the run.

DRG PT x1:
Healer
BRD/WHM
DRG/NIN x3-4

The BRD in this pt is static and sings March/Min to boost TPing and WS damage, I figure Madrigal would be the less useful of the songs for a DRG. He's also usually the Point man for Hordes since he sings less songs and doesn't have to hassle with jumping.

Utility PT x1:
Healer
THF x2-3.
Spare DDs.
BRD if possible.

I'd personally like to have 3 THFs with Capped Feint here. I think a feint rotation would be of great use. Coincidentally that the night we have shitty feints, we get mobs that spam ACC down and mobs with High evasion. BRD in this PT and DRG pt usually swap parties after SV to try and get 4 songs on the second alliance DD.

BLM PT:
BLM/WHM x2-3
RDM
Myself as RDM Puller.

BLMs are pretty much there for Stuns and some nukes/crowd control. With a Tomahawk Rotation, I don't see BLMs as extremely important for damage personally because the Melee can rape elementals and flans, etc pretty fast with it up. The RDM in this PT is often in charge of Dia III spam on the assist's targets and the boss.

[Suiram]

There is no "out of range of Meteor" while still healing someone in range. Likewise for thunderbolt. It's counter-intuitive, but if you just situate your healers right on top of their PTs and use curaga, everyone stays alive.

Also, you've drastically overestimated the damage taken from Meteor. Just with shell 4 (no magus or damage reduction gear or anything) people should take about 500~600 damage so long as it hits 10+ people.

[Leroy]

There is no "out of range of Meteor" while still healing someone in range. Likewise for thunderbolt. It's counter-intuitive, but if you just situate your healers right on top of their PTs and use curaga, everyone stays alive.

Also, you've drastically overestimated the damage taken from Meteor. Just with shell 4 (no magus or damage reduction gear or anything) people should take about 500~600 damage so long as it hits 10+ people.

I'd rather overestimate the damage of meteor than underestimate it.

As for being out of range of meteor, it's actually not that hard. Since it happened pretty much every 30 seconds, it was pretty easy to anticipate and run back a bit to come back in, I was abe to do it and I don't have the distance plugin.

Though I guess it would be better to sit there and curaga spam. Faster cures after that meteor. I guess you could plan for meteor and start casting Curaga in anticipation?

[Suiram]

I don't know if you even need to do that (plan for meteor and cast in anticipation), since like I said it only does 500ish dmg with Shell, you can probably just keep people near capped and then recap them after meteor. Although I've never been a healer for these runs so I don't know how they do it, I'm just assuming here. I just know that like a lot of LS we had problems with Behemoth for a while after we had successfully mastered T3 in general and the other bosses, and when we tried having healers on top of him casting curaga that was the last piece of the puzzle to winning with this particular boss for us, and we've had success ever since.

And I wasn't saying you were doing something wrong by overestimating the damage, just I happened to know off the top of my head a better estimate, since I had coincidentally asked people what damage they had been taking when we fought him last saturday (because of the meteor debate in the NIN adjustments thread) and everyone was 500ish with shell, 600~700 if shell wore or didn't have for some reason.

[Leroy]

That's good to know.


As for the Creepy Chair Guy, Dvergr, our strategy for pulling him is for me to aggro as RDM/PLD, and have the PLD grab him while I pull back to camp. Is he going to have linked hate or will it go smoothly? I had a different strategy planned but can't think of it atm.

[Killo]

Stop blaming other Linkshells for your lost. If your a fail LS your a fail LS.

[Vendeen]

You just really need like a BLM party who knows their priorities are keeping things slept and not nuking things, 3 BRDs who are able to rotate through 3 parties and 3 healers/leaders who can invite the BRDs when needed. Throw in a melee or 2 who can call mobs without others having to wait on them and you're looking at a pretty easy win.

With that I would think you would be able to clear t3s pretty easily with only about 26+ people, 9 of those people really knowing what's going on and about 10+ melee who just assist someone and mindlessly attack things. Probably would be good to put another smart person in there who is able to pull mobs.

BRD rotation is really make or break in t3s. Although my LS has a few relics and the majority of people have a good understanding of what's going on, we are consistently able to get to the boss with about 2 min to rest before we hit the 10min mark, and rarely even get close to timing out since we've been doing BRD rotations.

[Belkin]

DRK is very good for Einherjar in my experience; not only is it a very strong melee job in its own right and debatably comparable with the top tiers (not opening that can of worms here), it also has STUN. Between BLMs and DRKs you can really stunlock the worst of mobs.

3 Apocalypses is RAPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPE.

Relics annihilate Einherjar.

[Leroy]

I avoided naming your shitty group for a reason. If I wanted a drama thread I'd have posted your names.

[Stromgarde]

Stop blaming other Linkshells for your lost. If your a fail LS your a fail LS.

Replying to your earlier, more personal post; if he was reporting his members' actions truthfully, then the linkshell does bear a fair bit of the burden. Never mind refusing to merit things that would greatly benefit the linkshell such as feint and dia III, waking slept mobs is outright sabotaging the odds of winning the chamber. If he wants to win, fixing problems with unhelpful members is an excellent place to start.

[Killo]

Replying to your earlier, more personal post; if he was reporting his members' actions truthfully, then the linkshell does bear a fair bit of the burden. Never mind refusing to merit things that would greatly benefit the linkshell such as feint and dia III, waking slept mobs is outright sabotaging the odds of winning the chamber. If he wants to win, fixing problems with unhelpful members is an excellent place to start.

Well he didn't blame us for anything till we left.

We left cause we got tired of him blaming us every run.
Saying we are the reason they always lost. Yes I understand fixing the problem but the problem wasen't 1-3 members. It was the Linkshell Starts. In one run he wanted us to "Zombie" the boss with 5 min left. If he didn't want any drama names or not. He shouldn't of posted this. If he wants to honestly change his linkshell for the best evaluate his leadership and starts.

[Yugl]

Well he didn't blame us for anything till we left.

We left cause we got tired of him blaming us every run.

Did you just contradict yourself in two sequential sentences?

Saying we are the reason they always lost. Yes I understand fixing the problem but the problem wasen't 1-3 members. It was the Linkshell Starts. In one run he wanted us to "Zombie" the boss with 5 min left. If he didn't want any drama names or not. He shouldn't of posted this. If he wants to honestly change his linkshell for the best evaluate his leadership and starts.

What the hell is LS starts?

[Killo]

Did you just contradict yourself in two sequential sentences?



What the hell is LS starts?

Sorry I did contradict myself, guess what I meant was.
He blamed certain few members on a run's lost.
But he didn't blame our whole linkshell till we stood up for each other and left as one.

And "Start"

I meant Strategies sorry.

[Indalecia]

Proofreading helps as much as Angon, Dia III and knowing which mob to swing the pointy thing at.

[Leroy]

Well he didn't blame us for anything till we left.

We left cause we got tired of him blaming us every run.
Saying we are the reason they always lost. Yes I understand fixing the problem but the problem wasen't 1-3 members. It was the Linkshell Starts. In one run he wanted us to "Zombie" the boss with 5 min left. If he didn't want any drama names or not. He shouldn't of posted this. If he wants to honestly change his linkshell for the best evaluate his leadership and starts.

I've only blamed your members twice. The first time I take partial blame for not catching your leader's retarded ass coming as RDM instead of BRD like I told him several times. I'll take half the blame for that.

No strategy in the world can compensate for a jackass running around and waking slept mobs that beat your healers to death though.

Then after that having your losers stick up for him, and then spout retarded shit in ls and tells about how Feint should only be merited once, Ambush is where merits should be!, your ls can do einherjar without relying on feint and angon, how we're losing all the talent in our ls, etc.

As for zombieing the boss? Yeah, 5% hp left. Damn straight I'll call for zombie tactics. It's not a pretty win, but a first win is still a win. It's not my fault your dumb ass doesn't know the difference between DoT feeding and Zombie tactics. Zombie tactics are called zombie tactics because the dead get up and keep fighting repeatedly. Holding a mob by DoTing and dying is called feeding.

Also, it's funny because you told me only fucking retards try to tp burn Behemoth, but it seems most of the people here agree that tp burning is a viable strategy.

[Argettio]

Also, it's funny because you told me only fucking retards try to tp burn Behemoth, but it seems most of the people here agree that tp burning is a viable strategy.

I have limited knowledge of T3 (but done quite a lot of the other Tiers) and the only way to deal with the bosses is full zerg.

Pop SV, rotate bards, Dia III, Angon, Feint, 2Hr and go.

CS stun when you can (obviously not going to work on Behemoth).

You simply don't have the time to kite him or SC->MB or whatever other tactic.

@OP
There is always 2 sides to a story, but people not coming on the jobs they are asked and waking slept mobs (I have personal dislike for this type of player) are people you are better off without.

Rant: ON
I don't get how people can wake the wrong mob. You a DD your only job is to hit THE RIGHT MOB. Its not like you are doing much else, maybe you are using a few JAs which have a 1-10min recast timer, but generally there is plenty of spare time to think.

I am busy debuffing the current mob, sleeping others as they wake, refreshing mages, hasting DDs, curing as required and I have enough time to notice there are 2 mobs awake due to some idiot. Yet said idiot is oblivious to any wrong doing and then fail to disengage with the entire LS screaming at them.

And I am done...

[Arthars]

at least your LS is talking

my LS is all me talking, from the start to end and everyone left the LS 5 mins after the event

im like leading a group of productive zombies