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Post by iw5000 on Jan 26, 2015 13:11:03 GMT -5
Yeah, not only that, but also the SwordKnight's position in the video, each time he comes out. In the video, the knight comes out, and then mostly stays in the middle. When we tried it, that knight almost immediately busted a move off to the one of the far sides, pretty much rendering everyone on the ledge useless. When the knight stays middle, that strategy works great. When he doesn't? It's a fail.
From how I remember it last night. The sword-carrier knight seems to follow three patterns.
1. 70% of the time. Come out and directly move towards the left steps. Direct route.
>>> 1a. Then moving either right (our right) of the steps maybe 30% of the time >>> 2a. Then staying middle, or moving around left pillar 60% of the time >>> 3a. Then moving far left, past the bottom steps, and ducking into that bottom room for a few seconds, 10% of the time
2. 20% of the time. Circle around the middle pillar, and then move directly towards the left steps
3. 10% of the time. Circle around the middle pillar, and then get hung up going the other way, or going down into the middle bottom hallway.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 26, 2015 13:15:24 GMT -5
Yeah...that dude got ridiculously lucky to not die there. Then again, he did take a horrible exit path that pretty much baited the Boomers into shooting him. There were several times last night where your and THebb's bubbles expired and the Boomers started shooting at me as I was trying to get back, and I never had anything like that happen. Plus, if the bubble strat accompanying the fancy map above works, it should hold Boomer aggro enough to take that out of the equation. I'd like to at least try that and see if it works -- if not, we waste 5-10 minutes testing it, if so, we might save ourselves hours of aggravation in the future. We know for sure the double bubble strat works well when we have 2 Titans, but I'd like to find something that's viable for the times when we may not have multiple Titans available for whatever reason.
I've also seen two other off the wall strats for dealing (or not dealing, more accurately) with Boomers today, cuz cheesers gonna cheese.
1. Send a guy into the room below the right Boomer tower. Have him get up on one of the caskets or a doorway and shoot at the ceiling. That draws Boomer aggro and they spend the whole fight shooting into the floor. This player is then useless for anything else in the fight except Ogres.
2. Send someone to the back of the Boomer tower, into a space that should probably be outside the map but isn't. Have that person shoot into the wall. That draws Boomer aggro and they spend the whole fight shooting into a wall behind them. This player can still jump up and rocket Crota, too, so they won't be a complete decoy.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 26, 2015 13:17:15 GMT -5
That anti-ogre strat is by far the best I've seen yet. Fantastic find G. I'm still not convinced of the middle ledge strat because of things that usually happen like 8:41 of that video. P.S. if my power doesn't go down I'm ready for another go tonight. This blizzard is so real...I'm not normally into weather but you guys should check it out...supposedly it is the biggest since 78... haha. My class got cancelled. Yeah...they're saying likely a top 5 snowfall storm ever for both New York and Boston. Possible 50 mph winds. F that noise LOL, I know I wouldn't be leaving my house if I was anywhere near that.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Jan 26, 2015 13:17:44 GMT -5
I do love performing science. @ the middle strat bit....not the snowfall For a repeatable strategy we will need to A) figure out a way to ensure the safety of the swordrunner (the bubble strat suggested by G. might work) B) Ensure the kill of the swordbeater. For B I have a few ideas personally... The first involves a striker titan and some flashbangs. The second involves a defender titan with a blindly bubble on the spawn point. Silly....perhaps.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 26, 2015 13:24:47 GMT -5
Yeah, not only that, but also the SwordKnight's position in the video, each time he comes out. In the video, the knight comes out, and then mostly stays in the middle. When we tried it, that knight almost immediately busted a move off to the one of the far sides, pretty much rendering everyone on the ledge useless. When the knight stays middle, that strategy works great. When he doesn't? It's a fail. First, everyone has to be ready to snipe the Swordbearer down as soon as he comes out. If everyone's shooting him, he should stun lock and then it's not an issue. With 6 people on the ledge, somebody almost has to have an angle to shoot him. Second, if the Swordbearer does move to a position where nobody has a good shot, then the designated swordrunner has to be ready to drop rockets/super on him to take him down quickly, and the rest of the group has to shoot Boomers to draw aggro from them to keep them off the swordrunner. Honestly I don't know if it's a better or worse strategy than what we did last night, I just don't think we've spent anywhere near enough time attempting it to say it doesn't work or to totally dismiss it.
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Post by iw5000 on Jan 26, 2015 14:21:32 GMT -5
I think any strategy is viable, if you practice enough. Like that most recent video mentioned...people get hung up on certain 'truths' in this game, and don't think outside the box.
Take our bubble strategy. It works. Once we got it going, it was almost bombproof on the first Crota hit. If we had any failures, they seemed to mostly be coming from Crota glitches, where shots weren't making him kneel, or slight mis-timings. That strategy gives us a good base to get into the next part of getting Crota.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 26, 2015 14:47:11 GMT -5
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Post by iw5000 on Jan 27, 2015 7:52:42 GMT -5
Quick congrats to everyone who was part of things last night. Very well deserved. We had to work for that one.
few other thoughts:
- After spending the better part of two evenings/nights working to take down Hard Crota, i was just simply amazed at how easy Normal Crota felt when we did a quick run afterwards on that level. I guess having to play without a revive, going against Majors, other ramped up things, really fine tunes one's skills. That or just makes you highly tuned-in to everything going on in the game. So like when you play easy mode again....everything just feels like it's in slow motion. I thought the Normal Crota runs we did after, were just so freaking easy feeling.
- Back to the HARD mode. We struggled a bit early last night, just like last night. But after a while, you could see the cohesion kicking in, as we kept getting deeper and deeper into the runs again.
- Setting aside the glitching Hard Crota does, Hard mode is...truly hard. You really do get put to the test. That makes the finish you get later, ultimately very rewarding.
- I thought our experiment with the middle strategy was frustrating. Not from our end, but from how those videos out there play it up as being so easy. Just go to the middle, and shoot the swordbearer!!!! So easy!!!! Uh... no. It's not. The first time we tried that fvcker was off to the races and shifting right out of the shooting lanes. I would not want to depend on that tactic over three or four tries, hoping you can contain him in that small lane.
- I liked this about the process. How the game gets a group of guys to form up a 'team', and then over time, gets that team working together well through practice. Very CoD like feeling. Most all of us have been playing together for a while, so there was some very nice cohesion going on at every point, even when things weren't working well. That's probably the most important part. Any 'team' can work well, when things are going well. A true test of a team is during those rough patches. I'm pretty sure a lot of Destiny raid groups would have quit at some point over the last two nights. Our group didn't, even with mistakes and glitches. We just calmly analyzed what we needed to do, and then did it.
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Post by iw5000 on Jan 27, 2015 10:41:19 GMT -5
Another thought. Here's what I think is a good tip to help others, and also us as even we got a bit confused/mixed up towards the latter stages of the raid.
You have to view the Hard raid as seven 'Acts' (or stages, whatever word makes it work for you). By memorizing and deeply understanding the seven stages, you can avoid confusion on where to go, and also avoid silly mistakes like going 'rambo' during the process. I think that is something that can wreck a lot of teams, when players try to do to much. I caught up kind of doing this a bit. When you are in a 'Rest & Regroup' stage....just do that. Chill out. Don't go sticking your head out or wandering off. When it's time to regroup, regroup. Make sure you are ready to leave the room as ONE unit, rather than wandering around looking at sh1t. The whole key to making the Hard mode work, is playing conservative, stay in your role, and do nothing more. And know what stage of the process the Raid is in.
I think stages 5 & 6 really throw groups off.
For example:
Stage 0 - 'Hallway' - Clearing out the crap upon spawning into the game. Goal here is to not go Rambo, and just take the extra 20 seconds and hug the wall, playing it safe. With shooters down, then just pick away at the knights, so the orb looping process can start.
Time 0:00 - Start. This is when you exit the inner hallway and first go out into the large, open Crota area.
Stage 1 - Crota is CENTER. 'Attack Stage'. The group has the 20 seconds to take out the SwordBearer. Then the actual attack. (Rockets, sword, rockets, sword). This stage will last approximately 1:10 when Crota then moves at 1:10 to 1:12. And then finishes moving up around 1:20 on the running clock, with Crota then shifed away, to the Right.
Stage 2 - Crota is RIGHT. - 'Rest & Regroup Stage' - With no attacks on Crota, he won't stay over here as long. This stage will be shorter, only be around 0:50 or so, and end around 2:00. Crota then starts shifting back to the Center, wrapping it up around 2:10 on the running clock. Do nothing here. Recharge your super. Shoot boomers or wizards. Prepare.
Stage 3 - Crota is CENTER. 'Attack Stage'. - The group has the 20 seconds to take out the SwordBearer. Then the actual attack. (Rockets, sword, rockets, sword). This stage will last approximately 1:10 in length (same as before). Then Crota then moves at 3:10 to 3:20. And then finishes moving up around 3:25 to 3:30 on the running clock, with Crota then shifed away, to the left.
Stage 4 - Crota is LEFT. 'Ogre Attack Room Stage' - With no attacks on Crota, he won't stay over here as long. This stage will be shorter, only be around 0:50 or so, and end around 4:20. The key here is to move fast to the Ogre room, DURING the end of Stage 3. So you can get a free kill on Ogre #1 in the far bottom room. With a quick kill there, it makes killing the second Ogre even easier too, as you are now set up. Whether or not this gets done before 4:20 on the clock...doesn't matter. See the next stages. At 4:20.... Crota then starts shifting back to the Center, wrapping it up around 4:30 on the running clock.
Stage 5 - Crota is CENTER. 'False Attack Stage' - Seeing Crota in the middle, this can trick people into rushing into an attack. Ignore it. Just do nothing. Stay in the hallway. Why? More than likely you took a tad bit to long on the Ogre stage, and have already lost time on attacking Crota in the middle. No worries. Wrap up the mob in the hallway and rest up. At 5:20, Crota will start shifting right and be over there at the 5:30 mark (rolling clock)
Stage 6 - Crota is RIGHT. 'Rest & Regroup Stage'- This is the stage where everyone is overly anxious to just 'go'. You are close to finishing and want to smash something. The urge is to just go busting out. Don't. Sit tight over in the left side of the long hallway, and just peek out at the boomers. Wait. Use the 0:50 secons to 80 Seconds to plan your attack on the boomers. Regroup. At 6:20, Crota will start shifting back to the center, and be there at 6:30.
Stage 7 - Crota is CENTER. 'Finish the MotherFvcker Stage' - It's go time. Take out one or both Boomers (or just stun them, whatever)Set up bubbles. Kill SwordBearer. Then set up the final attack. Note - there is no rush when starting this stage. By waiting in Stage 6, everyone should be fully loaded with supers and organized. This part is actually easier for the sword-carrier too, as EVERYONE will be unloading everything they got in this last section.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 13:05:13 GMT -5
Good breakdown there, Stone.
Here's yet another strategy I saw on Reddit, and it's pretty different from anything I've seen so I thought I'd share. That's one cool thing about this fight -- people have come up with a multitude of methods that can all be used effectively, whereas in the Atheon fight there was only one real strategy that was used by pretty much every group.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Jan 27, 2015 13:41:41 GMT -5
I got a new super safe strat....you never ever have to deal with boomers or wizards with bubbles ever. EVER. even the swordrunner. When im done with my raids I'l post a tell-all.
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Post by thebb22 on Jan 27, 2015 14:15:52 GMT -5
And now I can't get the Monty Python and the Holy Grail "He's Going to Tell" song out of my head...
FML
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jan 27, 2015 14:28:03 GMT -5
Echo HebbNH's comment on the coolness of CE HM for offering richer options of beating it. At first the community hated it, but looks like now the opinions are shifting to the positive direction.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jan 27, 2015 14:53:38 GMT -5
Heads up: reports from the community are coming in on significant higher drop rate of "Crux of Crota". Time to take your dust-covered Husk of Pit from the vault and start upgrading it...
I was using a half way upgraded Eidolon Ally with stability perks last night, it is fairly usable. Hopefully the Crux of Crota should turn it into a new star in the exotic line up...
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Jan 27, 2015 14:57:34 GMT -5
I wonder if this is the magic RNG but not quite RNG of CE's loot system kicking in. I wish they would retcon that code into VoG loot and upgrade the VoG armor to at least 33 light. The raid is clearly still fun, they should keep it relevant.
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Dumien
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Post by Dumien on Jan 27, 2015 15:58:46 GMT -5
Alright... so this one involves pathing manipulation. Fun stuff. 5 people start on left. 1 person starts on right. A level 30- could do this part. You time it so everyone leaves at the same time. We danced when we were ready. The 5 people on the left move to the center windowsil. The person on the right parkours around to the back outside ledge of the boomer room. From this ledge hug the wall closest to the boomers and just sit there. For the entire fight. Not moving. It is important that the person on the right gets there before the boomers get to the spot because once they get to their spot it is hard to get them to aggro you in the back ledge.
The boomers on the right side will now always be aggroing the back wall and thus not be focusing on anything else. Everyone kills the swordbearer. Swordrunner jumps onto the rightmost ledge and owns crota from that side. Rinse repeat.
On Ogres the person on the back ledge still doesn't move. Everyone runs to the rightmost ogre room. Rockets. Careful. Everyone runs back up top. Waits for Crota to be in center. Finish him off.
For the final sword the person on the back ledge can assist in shooting rockets and can pick up the sword if something terrible happens.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 16:21:12 GMT -5
Ha! So the super cheesy decoy behind the boomer tower thing does work. That's hilarious. I was hoping to test that last night but we never got around to it. I wonder how long it'll take before Bungie decides to patch it out?
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mannon
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Post by mannon on Jan 27, 2015 16:29:31 GMT -5
*Gatekeeper spawns on ledge...*
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Post by iw5000 on Jan 27, 2015 16:31:37 GMT -5
Good breakdown there, Stone. Here's yet another strategy I saw on Reddit, and it's pretty different from anything I've seen so I thought I'd share. That's one cool thing about this fight -- people have come up with a multitude of methods that can all be used effectively, whereas in the Atheon fight there was only one real strategy that was used by pretty much every group. Interesting. They are just flipping the attack stages around. Using my chart, going on stages 2, 4, and 6. When he is on the far left and right sides. That seems pretty simple. The bubbles there eliminate any hassle with killing boomers (and then by default, no wizards. But here's a question. This method just assumes that the sword bearer is just going to walk right on over and into the doorway of the bottom side rooms. Will he? What if the SwordBearer breaks middle and then lingers there for an extra ten seconds? You can't get to him very well or shoot at range, while hiding in those rooms. I do wonder if like this method, ..we are seeing the end result of like fifty attempts, and that is the one try where the SB actually did what they wanted.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 16:47:01 GMT -5
Yeah, hard to say as any video always shows when a tactic works, but not how many times it fails. From the Reddit comments though, it sounds like Swordbearers running and hiding is a non-issue, or at least not any more of an issue than it is the way we do it. One more thing to try next time I guess, although Post's "boomer decoy" method probably renders other tactics irrelevant until it inevitably gets patched out.
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 16:56:17 GMT -5
Also, in fairness, the same doubts could and would be raised about our strategy if somebody made a video based on our one successful run in probably 100 attempts.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jan 27, 2015 16:58:13 GMT -5
Alright... so this one involves pathing manipulation. Fun stuff. 5 people start on left. 1 person starts on right. A level 30- could do this part. You time it so everyone leaves at the same time. We danced when we were ready. The 5 people on the left move to the center windowsil. The person on the right parkours around to the back outside ledge of the boomer room. From this ledge hug the wall closest to the boomers and just sit there. For the entire fight. Not moving. It is important that the person on the right gets there before the boomers get to the spot because once they get to their spot it is hard to get them to aggro you in the back ledge. The boomers on the right side will now always be aggroing the back wall and thus not be focusing on anything else. Everyone kills the swordbearer. Swordrunner jumps onto the rightmost ledge and owns crota from that side. Rinse repeat. On Ogres the person on the back ledge still doesn't move. Everyone runs to the rightmost ogre room. Rockets. Careful. Everyone runs back up top. Waits for Crota to be in center. Finish him off. For the final sword the person on the back ledge can assist in shooting rockets and can pick up the sword if something terrible happens. Questions: what about the boomers on the left side? They can't hit the people at the center window?
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 17:25:25 GMT -5
No, center ledge is out of range of the Boomers for both sides. That's the main reason that strategy is so popular.
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Post by iw5000 on Jan 27, 2015 17:27:36 GMT -5
Also, in fairness, the same doubts could and would be raised about our strategy if somebody made a video based on our one successful run in probably 100 attempts. In fairness to us, I would throw out a guess that our actual FINAL strategy wasn't even really formulated until the last few runs. We didn't work out the kinks for boosting orbs until late the first night. Take the Ogre room. We didn't start doing that until even until the 2nd night. And even up and until the last run we succeeded, we still hadn't entirely worked out the kinks for taking out the boomers on the final assault. You take that last run we did....package it up with us, script it out and have us follow it to the letter....our odds of finishing quickly are pretty high next time. What we did, the final version...I would say it's weakness is this. #1 is that it's still very dependent on the timing of the sword-carrier picking up the sword, jumping on the ledge, and then timing his 2-3 hits with the missiles, two times per cycle. Then pulling that off three times. That's the hardest par (for obvious reasons). #2 is timing. Making sure we have both people running out of the room at the same time, placing the bubbles up on the boomer ledge. There's a lot to go wrong on that step too.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jan 27, 2015 17:27:55 GMT -5
No, center ledge is out of range of the Boomers for both sides. That's the main reason that strategy is so popular. Got it, so the idea behind the decoy player is to free sword holder from any boomer concerns.
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 17:30:03 GMT -5
No, center ledge is out of range of the Boomers for both sides. That's the main reason that strategy is so popular. Got it, so the idea behind the decoy player is to free sword holder from any boomer concerns. Correct, but not only the swordholder, the entire team. Everyone can completely ignore Boomers in that strategy.
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wittyscorpion
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Post by wittyscorpion on Jan 27, 2015 17:33:49 GMT -5
I thought our main problem with the center window strategy was we can't easily locate the sword bearer to kill him in time. Is that not the case?
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hebbnh
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 17:57:42 GMT -5
Also, in fairness, the same doubts could and would be raised about our strategy if somebody made a video based on our one successful run in probably 100 attempts. In fairness to us, I would throw out a guess that our actual FINAL strategy wasn't even really formulated until the last few runs. We didn't work out the kinks for boosting orbs until late the first night. Take the Ogre room. We didn't start doing that until even until the 2nd night. And even up and until the last run we succeeded, we still hadn't entirely worked out the kinks for taking out the boomers on the final assault. You take that last run we did....package it up with us, script it out and have us follow it to the letter....our odds of finishing quickly are pretty high next time. I'd agree, but the same could probably be said regardless of what strategy we started with. If you keep at it long enough, everything is eventually going to fall into place. I'm sure many other teams experienced the same frustrations that we did but were using totally different strategies that they eventually got to work out. We've found something that works for us and that's great, but it's not repeatable without at least 2 Titans who know exactly what they're doing. That may or may not be an issue depending on who we have available, but my reasoning for posting all these other ideas is to find something that isn't so dependent on a specific team makeup. I mean, we've basically completely dismissed the middle ledge strategy after less than 10 half-assed attempts at it, most of those with Aroc doing sword and I don't know if he'd even done sword before. We never even gave it a fair chance. I'm not saying that strategy isn't without it's issues, but where would we be if we dismissed our eventual successful strategy after 10 attempts? It sounds like Post may have a great solution with what he laid out earlier with the decoy thing, so hopefully that'll all be a moot point anyway soon enough.
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Post by hebbnh on Jan 27, 2015 18:06:46 GMT -5
I thought our main problem with the center window strategy was we can't easily locate the sword bearer to kill him in time. Is that not the case? That was the case, but see my comments above. I don't think 10 or so "attempts" at that strategy is enough throw it out. There are ways around not being able to snipe the swordbearer, but we never really did anything other than say "oh can't see swordbearer, strategy is bad, let's do something else."
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malgato
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Post by malgato on Jan 28, 2015 0:22:51 GMT -5
You guys are making me sad with my failing internets. Not only am I in Sacramento (ugh), by my hotel Internet sucks donkey balls. And you are all getting awesome loots...
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