CoP Trial Red Side Tonight

I will run a CoP Trial Tonight , Red side!

Time: 9pm EST, 8 Central, 7Montaint, 6 West

If we face Red AV, most likely be cake (i'm trying to jinx us).
If we face Purple AV, we give it a try, maybe this time will beat him.

We want balanced teams, and "red side" we do have a trick for that, :P
Corrs are both support/debuff/buff/heal/rez, etc. and Dps Unit. If you have a good corr, bring him, if not bring somethign else, :P
We also want 1 good brute/tank per team, with taunt if possible, and maybe a few doms.

I wont be that picky about AT's, but we do need a minimum.

Also Bring Shivans/HVAS, but dont bother to brign nukes, they about to prevenet us from using those in CoP anyway.

I forgot, all meat in Port Oakes base portal 30, 20min in advance!

Sounds fun, I'll let the X's know about it.

We had the Purple AV, and we kicked his lily ***. Stormy confirmed for beatable.

p.s. by kicked his ***, I mean we won with less than one minute on the timer.

We did indeed defeat the stormy verison of the AV, but it was quite the skin-of-our-teeth fight. Less than a minute to go on the timer, but we got him!

Congrats!

With no nukes, almost all heavies & shivans dead to boot =D.
Excellent team work, leadership, & determination to stay with the plan by all.
~Fortunata Silvermane~

Aiyah! I'm so dissapointed to have missed this one. Just came in after work to see this message.

-Fortunate Prelude-

How about some details?

Team composition (AT's, powersets, numbers)?
General build information (what degree of io-set'ing and bonuses?)
Any insight into specific tactics employed?
How quickly/smoothly did each of the fight phases go?
Where were the difficult spots?

Thanks!

The outdoor part took about 4-5 destruction of the Obelisks.

Once inside, each teams had a Factory Cube assigned to them, with one Brute or Tanker responsable to get there just before the respawns. The yellow lightbulb things on each corner of the cubes are flashing before the respawns. Those Brute/Tankers were basically doing what they do with Yellow Mitos during evac-less Hami raids, getting the agro ASAP so they dont shoot at other people. With all the Rularuu all grouped together, using AOEs was dispatching them quickly, then when your Cube spawns were cleared, people would help on other cubes and then attack the AV right away as the shields were dropping down.

That method was crucial I think. Deaths on our part was limited, and defeating the Rularuu quickly and almost at the same, was giving us a bigger window of attack on the AV.

At some point we got out of synch with the cubes, and we had to retreat outside with about 30 minutes left to the timer. Some people decided to quit but we found replacements for them. At about 20 minutes left or so, we were ready to go back in for one last effort. And not sure why, but from that point on, we totally rocked the place.

Each time we were going back to the AV, his health was lower and lower, and everyone was starting to believe we could beat him, if we had enough time. When we finally managed to get him down to about 10% health (I'd say that took around 10 rounds because he has an insane regen), we had one last go with about 1 minute left. With about 45 seconds left, we defeated him with probably like a few seconds of him becoming invulnerable in his force field again.

I'm not sure about team compositions. Xeaon was asking for lots of corruptors for debuffing. I think we made sure each teams had some heals, rezzes, one tanker/brute for cube agro (they had to have taunt obviously). Also there was another tank responsable for the AV agro, and trying to lure him away when his forcefield was back up. We had lots of -Regen too. People with -regen click powers were told to use them just before the force field would protect the AV again so he would regenless during the clearing Rularuu phase.

I think the main point in my opinion, is the 3 agroers getting under their cube just before the respawns, agroing all the Rularuu and then each teams unleashing AOE damage to clear everything. If all the Rularuu die quickly and at the same time, the AV will regen less, and the window of opportunity to damage him is bigger. Agroing the Rularuu also help protect the squishies since they don't get attacked much.

And my Spines/Regen Scrapper got an Anger Monument. +25% damage for 7 days

Sorry I took my time to write about last night run. Photon did a great Recap.

I asked ppl to bring there corrs, because they are buff/debuff/heal/rez, and a lot of corrs also pick leadership pool as well. They also are DPS units. Its like when I form an STF versus LRSF, on STF (pre i18) I had to make sure we do have few dps units and some debuff. On LRSF, I’m always game to go with 8 corrs.

I asked for ppl to bring there corrs knowing not everyone would be on a corr for sure. And honestly I don’t think we had much more then any other usual CoP run. And I do believe in mixed and balanced AT’s, over 1 AT do it all.

So anyway, we gathered in PO on time, and I asked my team leaders to make sure then have at least 1 brute/tank and a lot of support. We ended up with three well balanced teams.

Everyone zoned in base, and then I started to give instructions about phase 1. Ever since I lead those CoP I only explain phase 1 only before we go. And explain Phase 2 once inside the Cath. There is no real reason , beside me being lazy or make sure ppl focus on 1 task, not being confused with the abstraction of something they never faced on a phase that come later. The down side is loosing time once inside.

I also instructed everyone that the red AV is easier but if we do face purple AV Will give it a try, and at least will learn something.

Phase 1:
We screwed up the obelisk phase, on my team 1 straggler was no where to be found, so we were the team late at task. After a few cycle we got it done.

Note About phase 1: if I understand it right, the mob keeps spawning every X second (I think 60). So assuming all 3 teams kill at same rate but 1 of the 3 can’t kill obelisk in time. You could be stuck in an endless cycle if you hold the obelisk at 25% and not kill it. Say you have 2 teams in sync, with there shield up and down at same time, and the 3rd team 30sec behind, and all 3 teams never kill the obelisk, you will stay stuck with the 3rd team behind. Because the mob respawn rate is not affected. What do affect the spawn rate is killing the obelisk!

All I’m saying is that if you want to put all tree team in sync, you have to toy on what affect the spawn rate.



Phase 2:
We all gathered inside, and I started to give instruction about phase 2.
The idea was to have one team per Forge/Cube. Center (center back cube) team was designed to try keep AV Agroo. It’s not that easy to keep the AV taunted, but they managed.
I explained “–regen debuff click” should be casted just b4 shield go back up, but if in doubt to cast it anyways, earlier. Better cast it early then not at all, or cast it while shield is back up. Also, have 1 brute/tank to move back to his cube a few seconds before shields go back up again. The idea is to secure agro as well as having the mob all grouped in 1 tight location (per cube) so we can AoE them fast. When shield do go back up, teams should move fast to there cube to AoE kill and support the brute, with some heal. When the spawn is cleared, move to help other teams.

That was the original calls.

I also specifically asked that everyone with heals, to cast it each time the power is up. That dark miasma and kin should heal off the AV for the –regen part, but to make sure to not do it when shield is up, cause they will miss.


So we started buffin, using Seraphina shard , AM, RA’s , mind link, name it.

We did pretty well, until all the buff started to grow thin most ppl used there HVAS and shivans on that first strike. No Nukes were used. We did 2 or 3 cycle and then lost our mojo. I called a retreat before all die. I think we managed to salvage 2 HVAS, with that retreat. Personally my HVAS was gone as I died, and had 4 shivans left.

At that point some ppl DC’ed, one guy in my team quitted, some other simply alt’ed. I know that on the center team, they had 1 brute alt to a cold corr, and the trap MM, alt to his kin corr. They told me that made a huge diff on there side, knowing they had to assume AV agroo.

Took us sometime to have all back in zone, and even had a replacement for the 8th in my team. Not sure if other ppl quitted and been replaced, but I know we had 24 ppl to give another try. I think everyone came back, but one, the guy in my team.

We added one extra step to our routine, which I believe helped a lot. Each time we moved back to the AV, I asked in for an AoE buff, with everyone grouped. I think some seraph shard were in play on that time. I used my 3 last charges myself. Since seraph shard is real good psi protection, but have lame cool down, 2 persons could alternate the casting so 1 is always casted per cycle.

Took use a few cycle, I would agree with Photon, prolly like 10ish. Not each cycle were good, but at least we were able to keep his hp lower and lower. At some point I had no more inspirations, and no more shivans. Some ppl were dying too, but we managed to keep up the race. At 60 seconds I called for a “give all you got” as it was obvious we had no more time for a shield cycle. The odds were on our side tho, as his hp was pretty low and we knew the “shield down” window was large (we managed to kill the mob fast).

That was an real epic fight, we were so much on the edge of failing… as soon as he died the rularuu mob spawned !!!! how? I assume that maybe shield got back up and he got killed by DoT …. O.o!!!! or the game mechanism was out of sync or something.


If I have to point out the 2 major points on the technique we used:

- Kill the Rularuu mob on the location they spawn, they are grouped and its faster to kill them versus pull to center and/or allow them to spread. I’m not saying it’s perfect tho, they always manage to spread a little. But we move faster then they do, and the faster you kill them the more time you have to DPS the AV. Having a brute/tank secure the cube before they spawn also help toward that goal.

- Rebuff when everyone group up for the AV. AoE buff that is, single target buff will create some delay, if we stop to cast everyone. I’m not saying not to use single target buff, but those should be apply any time the caster see it fit. For AoE buff, if all grouped, you hit more then the 8 in your team, but everyone in range (or at least 20, as most cap at 20). It takes about 1 or 2 secs to rebuff the whole group, and that will help keep the momentum.


I was really happy about our progress last night I was even careless to win or fail. But we did won, so it’s even better.

Our technique still needs to be tuned if you ask me, but it proved its efficacy. Having more ppl try and learn it, will better it, and as some point those CoP trial will become pretty easy I believe. I remember it was that hard to make a speed ITF below 30min , but these days ppl do those in 16-22min.

Thx everyone who attended, you guys rock!


PS: my English is terrible I know. It’s a mix of me being way lazy to properly correct it and that its not my main language.

I was on the middle team, I was using a rad/rad. There was also two other corrs both fire/dark. I cannot stress how important having the darks mass rez was for the group. I also focused on using my own rez to keep either of the darks up or the brute if he fell.

The storm AVs powers were brutal and would blast us straight through venge and stacked def buffs. I can't add much to the discussion other than the noticable difference adding more buff/debuff to the mix did for kill speed on the AV. Xeaon did a great job keeping us focused and totally deserves the credit for the raid.

I generally do a manual count to 20...somewhere in the next 5 seconds I throw on the HT and send a warning about the pending respawn (so the tank can get ready to grab the them).

Inside the cathedral if you can't beat the mob in time new one spawn on you.

There is no constant 30sec window where the shield is down.

There is a constant X seconds, 45sec ive been told, but never timed it myself, between the time the mob spawns.

Therefore killing the mob in 15sec leave you 30sec window to pound on the AV.
Killing the mob in 40sec, leave you 5sec to pount on AV.
Killing the mob in 46 seconds leave you -1sec.... if that append, most likely you have momentum issue.

I also believe the mob outside, in phase 1, do work the same way. Ive seen mob spawn on us, while killing the last 2 or 3 stragglers.

Nice Guide Amy in your sig, i totaly dig your phase 2 strategy

I was thinking ill write somethign about phase 2 Stategy myself, but im beat tired today and yours is pretty neat

At Sunday's CoP, we had ten cycles of barrier down/respawns and I had a good opportunity to time the cycles.

The respawn timer seems to be set around 1min30secs (90 secs).

The average take-down time on the spawns was about 45 secs. This would explain the apparent 45ish-second downtime on the shield people report (I had timed around 30 secs on some of our early runs).

There was some fluctuation as I was trying to run a dark corr and keep track of the timing too, not to mention my laggy framerate. I'd be interested if anyone else can confirm or improve upon my observations.

90sec sound about right to me, seems 45sec is too short.

Last night CoP was very odd. If we compare to Friday night where we faced the RED AV, he went down in 2 cycle, his hp was down to 45% ish then shield was back , after cleared the first and only 1 respawn we beated him that easy.

While last night we had issues on DPS and/or -regen debuff or something and we had a similar team balance setup. IT was almost as if we were facing the purple AV.

Still i believe we had enough dps, and enough -regen. im all ?!?!?!?!?
In any case it was fun and challenging. It was a good practice for the purple AV.

I timed it again tonight. A friend measured time from respawn to shield up (next respawn) and got several times ranging from 1:06 to 1:16. I measured the length of time the shield was down and consistently got 45s.

So it appears that the time the shield is down is a constant 45s and the time between respawns is X time clearing + 45s.

That make sense to me.

Let see if i get this right?!:
Lets pretend the respawn is rate is 90sec. Then if i get it right, even if you kill all the Ru mobs in 15sec, once the shield get down it goes back up in 45sec , on taht scenario the cycle is 60sec instead of 90.

If you are very slow to kill the Ru mob, say 60sec, that leave you with 30sec left to pound on the AV.