JaiJay
LoMS Member
Collaborative Grouping Guide For New Groupies!
Group Requirements
That Swirly Green "Circle of Love" on the ground is Fists' "Wild Surge." It's one of those multi-purpose abilities involving healing and cleansing allies, and slowing and damaging enemies. Since it's a Slow, sometimes the first tick of it can also interrupt. If it lands on you that's a good thing, but don't go out of your way to get into it if you're not damaged. I mostly drop it on Tanks in chokepoints to give them an extra moment to gather up adds coming into the fight, or else on myself (the healer) on those fights where 30 Squiddlies come rushing out from behind us all and immediately make a bee-line to me and start eating my face (which is pretty much just Pol5). The amount of damage and healing it does is not large but it scales with your +Attack and +Heal Ratings, which can be adjusted with your Anima Allocation Slider. The Slow on enemies and Cleanse on Allies still applies, no matter how far you adjust the Slider, though.
The Swirly Red-Orange circle on the ground is Elemental's Fire Manifestation. It's a single-target AoE that will hit the enemy closest to its' center each tick for an apparently decent amount of damage. Ele also has an Electric Manifestation which hits for less, but chains off of the enemy closest to the center, and I believe also purges buffs off of enemies it hits. Then there's also the Ice Manifestation which can be placed, or centered on the Elemental user. This one is used to reduce Elemental's "Overheating" gimmick, but has the added ability to freeze enemies in place for a moment, which can give a Tank an extra moment to grab agro on the mobs or even act as an interrupt.
Basically, the only AoEs to be wary of on the ground are typically broadcast by a white outline before they take effect. If there's a white shape on the ground under your feet you want to get out of it before the inner white lines get out to the edges and any other colors start showing up. (The big exception is the swirly purple~ish circle with a red runic border in Hell Eternal called "Shadow in the Blood," I believe. For every person inside that circle when it pops the damage it deals is multiplied (and it already hits hard enough to one-shot most DPSers), so stay out of that, or, if it's placed on you, move away from everyone else. (A lesser version of this ability, Heka Blast, can be found in Ankh).)
Should I use my--?
Some player abilities end up drawing the effects over top of the enemy abilities, making it hard to see what's about to get us all killed. Grenade Effects are notorious for this, but taking Grenades out of the equation drops the DPS output of AR drastically. Plus certain grenades purge or interrupt, making them extra useful. By no means should you give up the grenades if you want to use AR, just please try to be aware of timing. If you see DW3 casting "Ceremonial Line" please hold off on Grenading him right then if you can, since those lines on the ground decide they want to start moving at apparently completely arbitrary times, and it would be nice to see them when they start. However, once going, they stay going at that speed, so people know how fast they need to keep circling the boss to stay out of them, and it should be okay to drop a grenade then.
The same basic "Just know the timing if you're gonna cast your [Insert Ability Here]" rule applies to other abilities like Hammer's Eruption, and some Elemental powers (Lookin' at you, Blizzard). Just try to be aware of where the effects you're casting appear in relation to enemy casts, and try not to visually block peoples' view at inopportune times.
Oh! Oh! And WINGS! Wings are really only useful on groups of adds in dungeons, and as an "Oh! S**T!!!" button. The effects from them pretty much block everything else happening onscreen. Please use them sparingly and only if it looks like you've got a real chance at beating the boss, if only all those adds would just get out of the way! Remember, if you cast Wings on a boss, and it doesn't die, then that boss gets ten minutes of immunity to the damage of anyone else's Wings, too, meaning after the group wipes and comes back to fight them, any additional Wings used are completely wasted on that boss.
Bu-But Evulsion is so FUN!
General rule of thumb - Everything on the lowest row of Hammer, Chaos and Shotgun Abilities generates extra agro. Those are what Tanks use to keep mobs from chomping on your backsides as DPS. Don't use those unless you're ready to try Tanking, yourself.
Why didn't the Tank---?
In a LOT of PUGs I see everyone expecting the Tank to pretty much do all the work, letting the DPS stand still and just shoot stuff, but that's a good reason why so few players want to Tank. Many people expect the Tank to Interrupt everything, as well as run around managing adds and not dying all at the same time. In order to accomplish the "not dying" part, they need to use Protective Cooldowns, which are basically protective buffs that last between 7 and 10 seconds, but have a 20 second cooldown period. In most fights they have to take 2 of these abilities, or risk getting one-shotted like everyone else. They also have to have a Basic Ability and an agro-generating Attack in order to keep things from turning and killing you. That leaves them only 2 Ability Slots and a Gadget to use for Interrupts, Force Taunts, Purges, Whatever else they might need. And heaven forbid if they mistime anything.
To reduce stress on your Tank it might be helpful to slot some sort of utility ability of your own. Every Weapon (with the exception of AR) has a reliable Interrupt (sometimes several, Elementalists) which often have the added benefit of applying things like Exposed (makes the enemy take more damage) or Debilitated (makes the enemy hit less hard). Sadly, the Hammer, Chaos and Shotgun interrupts are located in the bottom row where the "Come at me, Boss!" powers live, so maybe don't use those ones, but slotting an interrupt from any other weapon can be very handy, even if it's just used to apply those debuffs rather than actually, you know, interrupting. Those abilities also tend to hit for some pretty decent damage; the downside is they're on 20sec CDs, so you can't spam them as attacks. ((For the record, AR actually does have interrupts, but they're in Grenades, and the gimmick of AR means that it might not be available when you need it.))
Any other useful tips?
You can use the little "padlock" in the upper right corner of your screen to move UI elements around and resize them. One of the best things to do is to take the "Target Castbar" out of the bottom right and drag it right up smack in the middle of the Center Top of your screen where you can easily see it, and use the scrollwheel to make it as large as possible. This will tell you when an enemy is casting something important. If that bar has a purple border with a "Nope" circle-with-a-slash in the middle of it, it cannot be interrupted. But if it's just a yellow bar then that ability can be stopped before it hits you.
Gadgets
Superluminal Bridging Device sometimes known as the Lunas killer(item reward bag)
Teleports you 10m backwards.
Handy if your a close combat person to get out of the AOE that Mega Bosses like to drop, not much use anywhere else.
Note if you lag it will sometimes rubber band and throw you back into the aoe just in time to die and sometimes not throw you back quite far enough, temperamental but fun
Shard of Sessho-seki (container key)
Adds a small amount of damage every time you hit something (passive effect)
Does a medium amount of damage if you activate it, but that stops the passive until cd is off (active effect)
The damage scales with your Ip and is effected by gadget damage signet.
Note it is supposed to be per hit, but multi hit ability's only get effectuated once per second.
This is my standard goto gadget when I don't need anything special, just equip and forget.
Asibikaashi's Hoop (container key)
Auto cleanses you every few seconds, at red it is 10 seconds (passive effect)
Cleanses multiple effects, but then hits cd cancelling the passive (active effect)
Note only cleanses you, useful in dungeons with a stacking debuff or Transylvanian lairs.
Will remove filth, fire, poison and many other dots.
Purification Drone Model UW-0 (item bag)
Cleanses one defuf from you or the nearest party member for 6 seconds.
Handy as an emergency cleanse, especialy in Hell dungeons.
Ultrasonic Anti-Personnel Cannon (item bag)
Nocks back mob 10m and hits for a medium amount of damage
Note knock back does not work on bosses, but it still works as an interrupt.
Very handy if you are ranged to get an add away from you and to interrupt effects like Microshock in hell dungeons.
Also useful in scenarios.
Electrogravitic Attractor (item bag)
Pulls mob toward you by 15m and hits for a medium amount of damage.
Note pull does not work on bosses, but it still works as an interrupt.
Very handy if you like to get up close and personal with a mob and to interrupt effects like Microshock in hell dungeons.
Also useful in scenarios.
Electromagnetic Destabilizer (item bag)
Hits for a medium amount of damage and then Purges one effect from the target.
Note the purge can be resisted upon occasion.
Handy purge for removing buffs, good for removing tide wall in Polaris.
The Mistress' Bashousen (sp?)(Tokyo Crates)
PBAoE knockback, for those fights with more than 6 adds at a time (Pol5, DW2/5/6, HR5, etc) since the Tank's agro-generating abilities can only trigger on up to 6 mobs each hit.
Compact Catastrophe Shelter (Rare Boss Bag drop)
"The Catbox," as we call it, places a barrier around your position increasing the protection of everyone inside. Mostly useful in HR4, but handy in other places as well (like those fights with more than 6 adds at a time, too).
Group Etiquette
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, this is very useful! Please keep em coming especially on the following,
*What different skills, buffs, boss damage areas look like and what they do (purple circle, green circle, swirling orange circle!). What to avoid and what to seek?
*Skills that can cause issues (whether that's clogging up the screen or stealing aggro from tank)
*Skills that are most useful in groups and when to use them
*Best gadgets for grouping
*Anything else that would be useful!
Obviously mechanics can be explained during the dungeon/raid etc so this is just to arm new groupies with a little foreknowledge.
All contributions can then be collated into this post. Thanks!
Group Requirements
- We don't care about your IP. Half of us don't even believe that it's meaningful. We HAVE to care if you are allowed by the game to do the dungeon or mission, and there's a bit about glance reduction that can be important, but otherwise we're all here to play.
- If we've called for volunteers on the LoMSGlobal chat, then geez, yes, you can come along. If there's still room.
- If you use AR at all, please equip Unveil Essence at some point. Your healer will thank you.
- If we are in a lair with persistent damage effects, the Asibikaashi's Hoop Gadget will save your life. Even the red version isn't THAT expensive. just equip it and don't mess with it.
That Swirly Green "Circle of Love" on the ground is Fists' "Wild Surge." It's one of those multi-purpose abilities involving healing and cleansing allies, and slowing and damaging enemies. Since it's a Slow, sometimes the first tick of it can also interrupt. If it lands on you that's a good thing, but don't go out of your way to get into it if you're not damaged. I mostly drop it on Tanks in chokepoints to give them an extra moment to gather up adds coming into the fight, or else on myself (the healer) on those fights where 30 Squiddlies come rushing out from behind us all and immediately make a bee-line to me and start eating my face (which is pretty much just Pol5). The amount of damage and healing it does is not large but it scales with your +Attack and +Heal Ratings, which can be adjusted with your Anima Allocation Slider. The Slow on enemies and Cleanse on Allies still applies, no matter how far you adjust the Slider, though.
The Swirly Red-Orange circle on the ground is Elemental's Fire Manifestation. It's a single-target AoE that will hit the enemy closest to its' center each tick for an apparently decent amount of damage. Ele also has an Electric Manifestation which hits for less, but chains off of the enemy closest to the center, and I believe also purges buffs off of enemies it hits. Then there's also the Ice Manifestation which can be placed, or centered on the Elemental user. This one is used to reduce Elemental's "Overheating" gimmick, but has the added ability to freeze enemies in place for a moment, which can give a Tank an extra moment to grab agro on the mobs or even act as an interrupt.
Basically, the only AoEs to be wary of on the ground are typically broadcast by a white outline before they take effect. If there's a white shape on the ground under your feet you want to get out of it before the inner white lines get out to the edges and any other colors start showing up. (The big exception is the swirly purple~ish circle with a red runic border in Hell Eternal called "Shadow in the Blood," I believe. For every person inside that circle when it pops the damage it deals is multiplied (and it already hits hard enough to one-shot most DPSers), so stay out of that, or, if it's placed on you, move away from everyone else. (A lesser version of this ability, Heka Blast, can be found in Ankh).)
Should I use my--?
Some player abilities end up drawing the effects over top of the enemy abilities, making it hard to see what's about to get us all killed. Grenade Effects are notorious for this, but taking Grenades out of the equation drops the DPS output of AR drastically. Plus certain grenades purge or interrupt, making them extra useful. By no means should you give up the grenades if you want to use AR, just please try to be aware of timing. If you see DW3 casting "Ceremonial Line" please hold off on Grenading him right then if you can, since those lines on the ground decide they want to start moving at apparently completely arbitrary times, and it would be nice to see them when they start. However, once going, they stay going at that speed, so people know how fast they need to keep circling the boss to stay out of them, and it should be okay to drop a grenade then.
The same basic "Just know the timing if you're gonna cast your [Insert Ability Here]" rule applies to other abilities like Hammer's Eruption, and some Elemental powers (Lookin' at you, Blizzard). Just try to be aware of where the effects you're casting appear in relation to enemy casts, and try not to visually block peoples' view at inopportune times.
Oh! Oh! And WINGS! Wings are really only useful on groups of adds in dungeons, and as an "Oh! S**T!!!" button. The effects from them pretty much block everything else happening onscreen. Please use them sparingly and only if it looks like you've got a real chance at beating the boss, if only all those adds would just get out of the way! Remember, if you cast Wings on a boss, and it doesn't die, then that boss gets ten minutes of immunity to the damage of anyone else's Wings, too, meaning after the group wipes and comes back to fight them, any additional Wings used are completely wasted on that boss.
Bu-But Evulsion is so FUN!
General rule of thumb - Everything on the lowest row of Hammer, Chaos and Shotgun Abilities generates extra agro. Those are what Tanks use to keep mobs from chomping on your backsides as DPS. Don't use those unless you're ready to try Tanking, yourself.
Why didn't the Tank---?
In a LOT of PUGs I see everyone expecting the Tank to pretty much do all the work, letting the DPS stand still and just shoot stuff, but that's a good reason why so few players want to Tank. Many people expect the Tank to Interrupt everything, as well as run around managing adds and not dying all at the same time. In order to accomplish the "not dying" part, they need to use Protective Cooldowns, which are basically protective buffs that last between 7 and 10 seconds, but have a 20 second cooldown period. In most fights they have to take 2 of these abilities, or risk getting one-shotted like everyone else. They also have to have a Basic Ability and an agro-generating Attack in order to keep things from turning and killing you. That leaves them only 2 Ability Slots and a Gadget to use for Interrupts, Force Taunts, Purges, Whatever else they might need. And heaven forbid if they mistime anything.
To reduce stress on your Tank it might be helpful to slot some sort of utility ability of your own. Every Weapon (with the exception of AR) has a reliable Interrupt (sometimes several, Elementalists) which often have the added benefit of applying things like Exposed (makes the enemy take more damage) or Debilitated (makes the enemy hit less hard). Sadly, the Hammer, Chaos and Shotgun interrupts are located in the bottom row where the "Come at me, Boss!" powers live, so maybe don't use those ones, but slotting an interrupt from any other weapon can be very handy, even if it's just used to apply those debuffs rather than actually, you know, interrupting. Those abilities also tend to hit for some pretty decent damage; the downside is they're on 20sec CDs, so you can't spam them as attacks. ((For the record, AR actually does have interrupts, but they're in Grenades, and the gimmick of AR means that it might not be available when you need it.))
Any other useful tips?
You can use the little "padlock" in the upper right corner of your screen to move UI elements around and resize them. One of the best things to do is to take the "Target Castbar" out of the bottom right and drag it right up smack in the middle of the Center Top of your screen where you can easily see it, and use the scrollwheel to make it as large as possible. This will tell you when an enemy is casting something important. If that bar has a purple border with a "Nope" circle-with-a-slash in the middle of it, it cannot be interrupted. But if it's just a yellow bar then that ability can be stopped before it hits you.
Gadgets
Superluminal Bridging Device sometimes known as the Lunas killer(item reward bag)
Teleports you 10m backwards.
Handy if your a close combat person to get out of the AOE that Mega Bosses like to drop, not much use anywhere else.
Note if you lag it will sometimes rubber band and throw you back into the aoe just in time to die and sometimes not throw you back quite far enough, temperamental but fun
Shard of Sessho-seki (container key)
Adds a small amount of damage every time you hit something (passive effect)
Does a medium amount of damage if you activate it, but that stops the passive until cd is off (active effect)
The damage scales with your Ip and is effected by gadget damage signet.
Note it is supposed to be per hit, but multi hit ability's only get effectuated once per second.
This is my standard goto gadget when I don't need anything special, just equip and forget.
Asibikaashi's Hoop (container key)
Auto cleanses you every few seconds, at red it is 10 seconds (passive effect)
Cleanses multiple effects, but then hits cd cancelling the passive (active effect)
Note only cleanses you, useful in dungeons with a stacking debuff or Transylvanian lairs.
Will remove filth, fire, poison and many other dots.
Purification Drone Model UW-0 (item bag)
Cleanses one defuf from you or the nearest party member for 6 seconds.
Handy as an emergency cleanse, especialy in Hell dungeons.
Ultrasonic Anti-Personnel Cannon (item bag)
Nocks back mob 10m and hits for a medium amount of damage
Note knock back does not work on bosses, but it still works as an interrupt.
Very handy if you are ranged to get an add away from you and to interrupt effects like Microshock in hell dungeons.
Also useful in scenarios.
Electrogravitic Attractor (item bag)
Pulls mob toward you by 15m and hits for a medium amount of damage.
Note pull does not work on bosses, but it still works as an interrupt.
Very handy if you like to get up close and personal with a mob and to interrupt effects like Microshock in hell dungeons.
Also useful in scenarios.
Electromagnetic Destabilizer (item bag)
Hits for a medium amount of damage and then Purges one effect from the target.
Note the purge can be resisted upon occasion.
Handy purge for removing buffs, good for removing tide wall in Polaris.
The Mistress' Bashousen (sp?)(Tokyo Crates)
PBAoE knockback, for those fights with more than 6 adds at a time (Pol5, DW2/5/6, HR5, etc) since the Tank's agro-generating abilities can only trigger on up to 6 mobs each hit.
Compact Catastrophe Shelter (Rare Boss Bag drop)
"The Catbox," as we call it, places a barrier around your position increasing the protection of everyone inside. Mostly useful in HR4, but handy in other places as well (like those fights with more than 6 adds at a time, too).
Group Etiquette
- Stop apologizing. You have as much right to play this game as anybody else.
- If you don't understand something that's going on, ask questions.
- If this is your first time on a lair raid, dungeon, and/or regional boss, ask questions.
- If you screw up something, yes, say "I'm sorry."; but don't beat yourself up over it and we'll figure out how to fix whatever problems there are.
- You probably didn't cause the Total Party Kill. But even if you did, well, everybody you're playing with has done that at least once.
- Stay on task as much as possible....going afk to see to something irl is perfectly understandable and we all do it, but please don't go afk unless you have to and not just chatting elsewhere, and please let the group know if possible.
- If someone needs a minute to take care of something else don't get upset about it, just hold up, and don't rush to spawn lair bosses (etc) until you are sure everyone is ready and with you.
- If you are here as part of a group, have group chat on. If you here as part of a raid have raid chat on.
- If you given instructions like "stay close" and "don't wander off" follow them.
- Finally: ...AND THE STONE. You'll figure that one out when the time is right
..........................................................................................................................................................................................................
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, this is very useful! Please keep em coming especially on the following,
*What different skills, buffs, boss damage areas look like and what they do (purple circle, green circle, swirling orange circle!). What to avoid and what to seek?
*Skills that can cause issues (whether that's clogging up the screen or stealing aggro from tank)
*Skills that are most useful in groups and when to use them
*Best gadgets for grouping
*Anything else that would be useful!
Obviously mechanics can be explained during the dungeon/raid etc so this is just to arm new groupies with a little foreknowledge.
All contributions can then be collated into this post. Thanks!
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