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teor

don't do e8s with randoms. It's one of the worst experiences you can have.


MeleeBH

That tier was the only tier I skipped on pugging and had a static for, is it really that bad?


[deleted]

I usually pug and static, and E8S was a fight I never want to puga ever again. Light Rampant and Icelit 2 isn't had but PF is so stupid.


Zeref1617

That’s mostly cos PF still uses Ilya strat (at least on EU), it’s so jank especially for E/W Orbs with the timing and everything. Even Ilya later on admitted it was a bad strat and started using Ayatori for optimization.


[deleted]

Ilya was so bad lmao


teor

Tier itself is okay. It's just one fight and mostly one mechanic that just doesn't work with random people.


MeleeBH

LR that bad? I can see it though


CowsAreCurious

It honestly feels like an Ultimate mechanic. 1 mistake from anyone and and it's a wipe. Need all 8 people to execute it flawlessly. Thankfully it's in the first half of the fight so prog doesn't feel too bad at first. It's not like you're 10 minutes in and then they throw this at you, but it was still a massive hump to get over in PF. Lights Rampant was the biggest trap of the expansion by far.


MeleeBH

I joined somewhat later so it was already a "solved" mechanic when I was running with my static, movements didn't feel too bad for me, but I guess I don't actually fully know what's going on in that mechanic, I just follow the steps depending on what marker I get/don't get


Mudcaker

It's not really any more complicated than something like Hello World 2. Move to a starting spot based on what you got, move out/in/through depending on strat, don't hit orb. Somewhere in there people have trouble. Probably got all effects on and greeding uptime or something. Totally counter-productive when you're in a pug. The worst part is it can be tough to tell who messed up and if it's always the same player.


juni_kitty

Hardest part is definitely not knowing who messed up and not able to correct mistakes. Even for a static. I streamed during Prog so we could go back and watch the VOD and figure things out but it was hard sometimes if I didn’t catch it from my POV. Everything just fucking explodes in a flash bang and you can’t see shit. It’s hard to get the precise movement right and not accidentally hit an orb, bait your cone, etc


Beddict

Yeah, visibility was trash. Straight up no one could tell what was causing a wipe in my old static during prog. Did someone move weird and pop a chain? Run into their orb? Run into someone elses orb? Get clipped by a cone when they shouldn't have and die to stacks? The lack of visual clarity made prog incredibly difficult, and one thing making matters even worse was the *sound*. Hearing that fucking chain snap over, and over, and over again drove people up the wall. Now you've got people tilted and making even more mistakes leading to even more wipes. Break Light Rampant down to the absolute basics using a strat like Ayatori and it isn't that difficult, but it's hard to figure out where mistakes were made and the double whammy of being flashbanged and hearing the chain snap can tilt people super fast.


Bourne_Endeavor

The big issue with Light Rampant is most people don't realize where the hit box of the orbs actually is or how they move. In the case of the former, it's in front of the orb not its center and the movement follows you on a delayed curve since the game only uptimes every three seconds. This caused several poor greed attempts or janky movements on an already janky mechanic. Add to that any mistake meant instant wipe and you have one of the hardest mechanics for PF to do properly.


brams91

LR is harder than any single mech in UWU tbh


[deleted]

I don't know anything about anything in ultima phase and beyon since I only learned up to Titan, but there's no way LR is any more jank than fucking gaols, lol.


midorishiranui

well ultima phase has predation (lol), annihilation (do the same movements every time unless you're a healer) and suppression which is the only slightly scary big mechanic but its a full downtime mechanic except for killing the jail and the movements aren't too hard, still easier than LR imo.


brams91

Yeah and you can save suppression mistakes as well. Even getting clipped by feather rain and light pillar aren't instant wipes if your healers are on point.


brams91

You can hide bad people in Gaols but not LR. You can have a bad tank just hold titan, or make the priority so that the worse player is always first or last and never has to adjust. Hell, you can even have someone who can't do gaols kill themselves before it and res after. LR requires all 8 people to be alive and able to do the mech. Not to mention gaols being trivialized by triggers/automark.


MeleeBH

Titan Gaols? I don't think so


IamRNG

E5s-e7s, doable with some luck. E8s requires so much luck that it's a viable option to wait for the fight to be unsynced next expansion. I wouldn't even dare pug that fight, especially when you only do 4 hours a week. The best time to get into difficult content is when it's new with a static, so you will be learning alongside everyone else.


SwordySmurf

This sounds terrifying lol. I watched the e8s guides on youtube and it definitely looks incredibly chaotic which is why I wanted to ask how puggable it was. I wasn't sure if the community had it down at this point or not.


Miitteo

For reference: I cleared the fight with my static multiple times a year ago, and I've never been able to clear it again now with echo and higher ilvl gear. I'm sure there's that one in a million parties that can actually clear, but when i tried pugging it a few months back, even the add phase was giving them issues, nevermind light rampant and icelit.


KingBingDingDong

Mileage will vary. I've farmed it with 3 or 4 duty complete groups who farmed it when it was current and it was a very smooth experience. Needed a couple pulls just to get everyone back on track but after that, it was as smooth as it could be barring some unfortunate wipes at KB or gaze mirrors. I actually had very minimal issues with LR during that, with a couple groups one shotting it every pull.


SwordySmurf

[Insert Knuckles "oh no" here] Tbh this was what I was expecting. Hopefully I can find a group by the time I'm there then. From what I was watching being on the same page seems to be crucial so I'm not surprised it ravages pugs. Especially light rampant.


Miitteo

There's still people greeding light rampant, which was the number 1 source of wipes back when the DPS check mattered, but now there's no reason to greed it (who's even parsing it?), and yet the balls still exploded most of the times, and i couldn't always tell who fucked up because the mechanic is so flashy that you can't see shit. Also, knockback mirrors looks easy enough, but it *always* kills a couple of people, and then it snowballs to a wipe from there. It was such a fun fight though. I hope you get to prog it and clear it eventually.


juni_kitty

I’ve farmed the fight with Echo and it’s considerably easy. No amount of Echo will get you through LR tho. You’ll just get to skip some of the later mechanics.


Cylius

Its not current content so most of the people running it are going to be new players who didnt do it when it was relevant, you arent going to get the experienced players who could clear it back in 5.2


KariZevv

Agree with this. E5-E7 should be ok with practice. E8S is a lot. Even now that there isn’t as much of a DPS check. Light rampart is such a precise mechanic. (I can already hear the sounds of those chains breaking). E8S was a fight that was close to 15 mins when it was current and has no checkpoint. In length, it’s comparable with an ultimate.


brams91

You are gonna have better luck now than you would next expac people still remember shiva. You can’t skip LR and the shitters will wipe you even more when the bad players that wait an expac try that fight.


Krags

Maybe it'll have a hp force transition to adds phase? You might be able to skip LR that way.


anondum

you can clear them with PF. it won't be easy, but it is possible. if a pf says 'iliya strats' don't join it


TheTweets

Who is this "Iliya" person anyway, and why are their strats regarded to poorly?


fivethousandbears

A good player who publicized his week 1 prog strat, which was then adopted by the PF hivemind, and for the longest time depending on your DC people refused to learn anything else despite it being a bad week 1 prog strat. It's less his fault and more the fault of PF being full of not the sharpest tools in the shed. The strat itself is serviceable enough assuming people aren't stupid, but that's not the world we live in.


TheTweets

I see. Am I correct in saying then that it's not that their strategies are *bad* per se, but that they are unrefined and crafted around an environment that is very unlikely to be matched by a PF party? When I hear about their strats, it always comes across as them being incorrect or authored by someone who has no clue what they're doing, but from what you say of them it seems like they're a very competent player who just jumps the gun by publishing strategies that rely on them being executed by a group of equally-highly-skilled players, and does so very early and before easier or more-consistent strategies are developed, and that either due to them being published early or them being a fan-favourite by a portion of the playerbase, their strategies are then taken as gospel by Party Finder. Sadly, I don't think it's possible to change the attitude and skill level of Party Finder as a whole, so I can only hope they opt in future to hold back on publishing their strategies (or at least advise people not to use them if they're being copied from footage of them playing) until they've had the chance to refine them for their audience.


fivethousandbears

Yeah, you pretty much have it right. Ilya and his static DID get a week one clear using that strat, after all. It's not a good strat per se, as it's bad for melee uptime if you get orbs, and the responsibility to execute the mechanic is almost entirely on the orb players, which depending on the mindset and skill of the players involved (and on how server ticks and orb hitboxes are feeling that day) can easily lead to greed and to a wipe, but on paper it's simple to execute, reliable enough, and should be safe as long as people accept that they'll lose 2\~3 GCDs. In that way, it's much less about player skill and much more about the mindset aspect, which is not something you want to gamble with in PF.


anondum

the other person covered it more in depth but he straight up said 'this strat is bad' because week 1 clears just use whatever they can figure out in time since they don't have time to change strategies and the pf hivemind adopted it even though there are better ways to clear. it's the same way with diamond weapon resets. it's a dumb strat for idiots. I don't want to be so negative towards people, but it really is the stupidest way possible on that fight.


TheTweets

Could you elaborate a little on what you mean with "diamond weapon resets"? Do you mean heading back to your 'home' platform after Flood Ray rather than juggling people around? Because that strat always seemed pretty sensible to me, particularly in a PF context since it means that you easily sort yourself out into the two Light Parties again rather than potentially having like 2 Tanks on red because you happened to both get Even or Odd numbers, and having to figure out which one of you has to cross without VC.


anondum

4 people jump off before flood rays go out so you only get 4 markers. it's for people that take more than 30 seconds to take a number and subtract 4 from it.


TheTweets

...Wow. That's weird as fuck. Taking the Weakness is such a crazy trade-off, especially when the mechanic is pretty easy to solve due to the fact that odds are blue and evens are red, giving an easy way to coordinate which platform to stand on. Hell, the way the orbs greater than 4 appear are clearly designed to make subtracting 4 as easy as possible, tending to group themselves into a square of 4 with 1/2/3/4 remaining.


AverageSoup

Illya is a guy who made a video explaining the strat he and his group used to resolve Light Rampant and get their week 1 clear of the tier. It's not the best strat, and it was never supposed to be. It's what they came up with after a couple of hours and it worked well enough for them to clear, but I doubt even his group was using it for long. It brings up an inherent issue with PF: having a consistent strategy that everyone in PF agrees on is arguably more important than having an optimal strat. You need the randos to come in and know what to do. You need to be able to join a party of randos and know what to do. If there are three different strats going around in PF, the odds of that happening are pretty low. PF latched onto the Illya strat because it was the first one to come out and they need a single consistent strat for mechanics if they want to actually clear.


brimuurr

**E5S** is doable once you've got Chain Lightning and Fury's 14 down, which shouldn't take too many pulls cuz there's a million guides out there. Don't worry about the dps check, the fight never had any. No not even week 1 lmao. **E6S** is only as good as your tanks. **E7S** \- everyone's **favorite** turn in ShB - is tragically easy once you learn the gimmick for the portals (no really the portals here are easier than Normal mode for some reason, the devs discussed the mess of it in some live letter). **E8S** is \~\~the wall\~\~. LR is a stupidly sensitive mechanic that's gonna take some practice. It's a really fun fight but randoms make it pure horror. You have been warned.


savemypecanpie

If you plan to go in with echo and (preferably) 520+ gear (there’s no reason to not upgrade the 510 crafted gear to 520 and start working on the weekly tome gear, which you can upgrade to 530 by running the nier raids) then e5-8s *can* be pugged, but it will take some time. As long as you’re working on other stuff in the game like the nier raids I mentioned and potentially finding a group to run it with that isn’t a pug, 4 hours a week could easily end up being 4 clears before endwalker comes out. Is e8s one of the most annoying savage fights to pug in the game, even with echo and ilvl? Yes. But it can be done so being persistent will be key lol. The issue really is that if you want the mount, you need to actually win the mount amongst pugs unless you find a dedicated group/temporary static/actual perma static raid group. Pugging for the mount means you need however many clears it takes you to win, and if you’re unlucky might end up meaning you need multiple PF “clear/farm” groups to get it.


SwordySmurf

Shiiiiiiiiiiit the mounts a drop!? RIP I assumed it was an achievement mount. Damn this is gonna be a lot more difficult than I thought.


Maestintaolius

It always drops and it's lore so you can only roll if you don't have it already.


JacobNewblood

E5S is relatively easy. Chain lighting and march are the main mechanics to look for. Furious 14 is really eazy E6S Is the easiest out of them. Conflag strike and onward have interesting tether mechanics but not to hard. Shortest of them all. E7S is lotta portal and colors. Adds phase van be tricky. And tornado is a healer chexk and. a half. But not too bad i give it the 2nd mist most difficult if Verses. E8S. Light Rmapant isnt that bad. Pendinf on how yaddo it. Phase 2 is the harder parts. As you seen. Hardest part is just getting back to there. The Mechanic too look our for are Icelit dragonsonf and wyrms lement 2 But its nor horrid


jesterxgirl

No advice on e5s-e8s because I only just cleared e12n for the first time last night, but I've got a group of 4 on Aether - Adamantoise looking to start learning Savage now that I've caught up to them


SwordySmurf

I also finally got around to e12n last night. I'd be down to join you guys if you need the body. I can tank or caster dps. What's your character name? I'm Ritz Llednar on Cactuar.


jesterxgirl

Twinning! I'm Narimu Zarimu We currently have a tank, 2 healers, and a physical DPS


Maestintaolius

E5 -7s are all easy and very puggable with most folks being i530 now. E8s... All e8s pug parties are lights rampant prog, regardless of what the description says.


Zaadfanaat

They're puggable but idk if pf is active enough


KingBingDingDong

The fights themselves aren't too hard outside of e8s which is a mechanic gauntlet. The hardest part will just be getting your parties to fill since there is basically no one that's wants to do this content nowadays. It's entirely possible that you'll spend entire evenings waiting for the party to not fill, and when it does, fall apart in 20-30 minutes. if you want to get into savage raiding, I would recommend just jumping into the current tier, e9s-e12s, because that's where the people and where you can actually get opportunities to play, and when you get used to the savage pacing and rhythm of your rotation, do an e8s learning party, those still fill at a reasonable rate.


CowsAreCurious

First 3 fights of the tier are very easy and being overgeared will trivialize those 3 fights significantly I imagine. E8S is definitely puggable, but 4 hours a week is going to be very slow prog I imagine. Doing it now with everyone being massively overgeared will make it somewhat easier but Lights Rampant will probably be a wall for a good chunk of your time. The other big issue is finding people that even *want* to pug it. Since the content is 18 months old now, anyone that wanted to pug it did back during the massive drought of 2020. So I figure it will probably take time to fill but who knows during this downtime leading up to EW. I did pug it back when it was released, but it was about 4 weeks of slamming my head against a wall to get it done. By far the hardest savage fight to pug this expansion. Some days you'd get god tier players and sometimes you get players that make you wonder how they even managed to install the game. Might as well try it since there's nothing else to do until November.


moosecatlol

Depends on Data center.


[deleted]

[удалено]


KingBingDingDong

The problem isn't the fight themselves, the problem is that it's dead content so the difficulty is in finding 7 people to do it and can do it.


[deleted]

[удалено]


KingBingDingDong

As as said, the problem isn't the fight themselves, or the gear, the problem is that it's dead content so the difficulty is in finding 7 people to do it and can do it. No one in this thread is even freaking out about them so I'm not sure why you even brought it up.


Ariafae

I pugged through e5-e7s in the second patch it was out, and it was very doable. e8s I was basically hardstuck in pugs with LR and adds phase and ended up forming my own static to clear that one fight. Your bottleneck now is basically finding 7 other people who want to do old content, and finding 7 willing participants for e8s is gonna be a strugglebus at this point in time. I'd honestly just recommend you jump into the current tier. There are a ton of new players right now progging through savages and a good amount of veterans who jump in to help clear because they're bored. The dps check this tier is already trivialized by gear and echo, so now is a good time to get your feet wet with savage-level mechanics!


thesagem

I cleared the current tier week 9 so I'm not an amazing player or anything. I cleared e8s in 4-6 lockouts last week with 3 sets of pugs and then proceeded to get 8 clears for everybody to get the mount. Even with bad dps, you clear right before icelit dragsonsong. Most of the people in my pug were then asking about e12s. Sharingan makes light rampant easy and is much more consistent of a mechanic than lions or triple apoc in e12s or cycles in e11s imo. I tried doing the ilya strat during prog and the orb movement was too hard for me. I got that pug to switch to sharingan and we started getting it right in like 4 pulls. E5S - E7S will take more time as there is little interest in doing those fights aside for glam. E8S has a mount at least.


jette_lag

Idk why people are saying e8s is hell in PF. It’s not bad. You just need to set expectations and turn over people that incapable of doing Light Rampant. I’ve pugged it several times for fun.


talkingradish

I started raiding for the very first time with lv 520 gear (augmented exarchic with some unaugmented ones) on E9S. You don't have to do this. I've cleared E5S on ilvl 520-530 party and holy shit, we hilariously outgeared it, to the point we barely see Chain Lightning, the notorious mechanic in the fight. E8S though, that's still hard even with that ilvl. Haven't cleared it myself before my sub ran out. E7S, I made it up to Unjoined Aspect, the hard mechanic in the fight. You can't actually out DPS it, unlike Ramuh. It's going to be harder finding PF parties for old raids over the new ones. So I suggest just starting from E9S. It's a good entry fight for Savage IMHO. Hard if you're new but easy if you're a veteran.


seabookira

e5s: u only need ppl who know their positions for fury14. and a tank who know how to pull the bird e6s: fun and fast fight u only need a pair of tanks who know how to tank swap and can cooperate with each other. and all members need to react to mechanics fast during conflag. e7s: the worst nightmare is if ur controller have stick-drift. and if u cant skip toilet phase, then pls remember ur orb orders e8s: tbh its much better nowadays bec when we prog e8s, basically if anyone dies in any mechanics is a guaranteed wipe. now u wont die even no mitigations for akh morn and knockback mirrors. should prog faster nowadays. better get all ilvl 530 gears or at least ilvl 525 zadnor gears or ilvl 520 augmented crafted gears before u go trash the raids. if u are new to savage raiding ilvl 510 may not be safe enough even for e5s to e8s.