So I had this idea. "Play" a squad.
Posted: November 30th, 2016, 12:36 pm
I've been an AC player since Dec 1999. And a fair at best, often having to learn from others to up my game. So you'll not be surprised that about 5-6 years ago, I decided that a few accounts and a "/follow" mentality (WOW influence...) to drag three doogs around behind one, and hope they didn't die. Did it work? sort of. that was then, and pulling for gear was a hassle. they were not in leading-class gear for their time. I look back at one char/suit from that era, and would not want the suit on my latest chars as any other than a stop-gap suit while I work on better. But hey that was 2000-2001.
Roll forward to this year. Yep I had a six month misearable time frame in there 2ish years ago, gear wise. I was in circa 2000 gear when the Tier eight stuff started to appear. in a word, ouch.
Add in a few breaks for other games, a stint trying to be clever live streaming (I'm not), and this summer when I logged of "four" in, I saw a much improved landscape and opportunity to learn from others. In particular, the work around "command" and "control" (Chaos Control and variants thereof) looked promising.
And so we are 5+ months from that realization. I've learned some lessons along the way, some the hard way, some necessary to push to the next level. But, in my own world, I'd set a new goal on paper in the summer of 2016. The game won't be around forever, let's see what all we can do and build, given my own preferences, frustrations, and interests, running a larger "squad" became the thing I wanted to try. And in short, it worked, at least for my tastes.
In that July - Nov interim, I've been able to run colosseum a ton. Even have a small friendly following of folks that are often along for the ride. I run nine or ten doogs out into the wilderness a bit, host a quest every so often, and as a group, can pretty much go kill whatever I want. Limitations and challenges in the Nov timeframe had been staying alive in Rynthid, solved for that with some gear swaps and running Gauntlet for more wards. Getting the full group into several key ideas has made the team *nearly* fool proof @ Rynthid:
Get EVERYONE well over 400 health.
Get the doogs struggling out of one acid and one lightning ward augmenation -- and into two lightning augs. This was a noticeable improvement
Continue to particupate in gauntlet runs, use keys from "completed" doogs on others, and work towards a full set of Gauntlet Jewelry. And while that may sound a tad elitist, "hai doog, I can't run gauntlet"... the object lesson is this: get red rings from colo. improve them. CRITICALLY examine for holes in your gear relative to the fight at hand. If you are doing hoshino's? gear differently from Rynthid. toutou? either you are on top of it, or need some protections. consider a swap in aetheria for more protections.
And at the end of November, my conclusion was this - getting all the doogs to over 30 (now pushing 33? on average) +dmg ratings? winning combination. Note this is not for everyone. YOUR situation may warrant more protective ratings. Soloing? getting hit and know you are? go defensive. Know your role and place in the space. If you are taking a lotta damage, address the issue. If you have ten (or sixteen targets and/or lots of summons around you? go for more dmg). Need wards? get them in your gear. sacrifice some melee def or STR. and push to max/min health.
But the overall lesson that November was about for my squad of ten? Be a student of the game. look critically at not what is killing you, rather, look at what's happening BEFORE you get killed. what's the recipe that sets you up for death? obviously a loss of health is pretty clear to be a problem. But we aren't getting one-shot... okay, what's that "hit" before the one shot? Do we really need to do society tasks a lot and load up on nullification gems? need potions? Be a student of what's keeping you well out of harms' way, and look for trends in what's getting you low on health. Solve for, observe some more. It's worth the energy, and there's no single right answer.
Where am I now? sixteen doogs, on TD, I've come from admiring to doing a little meta work, come from wishing I had resources to now generating extraordinary wealth in game off colosseum in particular.
I'll make a string of posts here in no particular order about the journey and some key lessons learnt. Chime in, ask, maybe we'll all learn some more and gimp a little less.
And yes, this certainly takes AWAY from the purist approach to the game. Next post will wreck what you thought leveling and "doing things the hard/old way" should be like!
Roll forward to this year. Yep I had a six month misearable time frame in there 2ish years ago, gear wise. I was in circa 2000 gear when the Tier eight stuff started to appear. in a word, ouch.
Add in a few breaks for other games, a stint trying to be clever live streaming (I'm not), and this summer when I logged of "four" in, I saw a much improved landscape and opportunity to learn from others. In particular, the work around "command" and "control" (Chaos Control and variants thereof) looked promising.
And so we are 5+ months from that realization. I've learned some lessons along the way, some the hard way, some necessary to push to the next level. But, in my own world, I'd set a new goal on paper in the summer of 2016. The game won't be around forever, let's see what all we can do and build, given my own preferences, frustrations, and interests, running a larger "squad" became the thing I wanted to try. And in short, it worked, at least for my tastes.
In that July - Nov interim, I've been able to run colosseum a ton. Even have a small friendly following of folks that are often along for the ride. I run nine or ten doogs out into the wilderness a bit, host a quest every so often, and as a group, can pretty much go kill whatever I want. Limitations and challenges in the Nov timeframe had been staying alive in Rynthid, solved for that with some gear swaps and running Gauntlet for more wards. Getting the full group into several key ideas has made the team *nearly* fool proof @ Rynthid:
Get EVERYONE well over 400 health.
Get the doogs struggling out of one acid and one lightning ward augmenation -- and into two lightning augs. This was a noticeable improvement
Continue to particupate in gauntlet runs, use keys from "completed" doogs on others, and work towards a full set of Gauntlet Jewelry. And while that may sound a tad elitist, "hai doog, I can't run gauntlet"... the object lesson is this: get red rings from colo. improve them. CRITICALLY examine for holes in your gear relative to the fight at hand. If you are doing hoshino's? gear differently from Rynthid. toutou? either you are on top of it, or need some protections. consider a swap in aetheria for more protections.
And at the end of November, my conclusion was this - getting all the doogs to over 30 (now pushing 33? on average) +dmg ratings? winning combination. Note this is not for everyone. YOUR situation may warrant more protective ratings. Soloing? getting hit and know you are? go defensive. Know your role and place in the space. If you are taking a lotta damage, address the issue. If you have ten (or sixteen targets and/or lots of summons around you? go for more dmg). Need wards? get them in your gear. sacrifice some melee def or STR. and push to max/min health.
But the overall lesson that November was about for my squad of ten? Be a student of the game. look critically at not what is killing you, rather, look at what's happening BEFORE you get killed. what's the recipe that sets you up for death? obviously a loss of health is pretty clear to be a problem. But we aren't getting one-shot... okay, what's that "hit" before the one shot? Do we really need to do society tasks a lot and load up on nullification gems? need potions? Be a student of what's keeping you well out of harms' way, and look for trends in what's getting you low on health. Solve for, observe some more. It's worth the energy, and there's no single right answer.
Where am I now? sixteen doogs, on TD, I've come from admiring to doing a little meta work, come from wishing I had resources to now generating extraordinary wealth in game off colosseum in particular.
I'll make a string of posts here in no particular order about the journey and some key lessons learnt. Chime in, ask, maybe we'll all learn some more and gimp a little less.
And yes, this certainly takes AWAY from the purist approach to the game. Next post will wreck what you thought leveling and "doing things the hard/old way" should be like!