Team cooperation in combos *long post*
EDIT: There are a few mistakes in my original post. I mistook pulverize as an AOE combo, but its not. The final trigger is break armor which is single target. My entire discussion on the sequence is sort of irrelevant since only one of the combos is AOE.
Further, a mistake in the information I pulled from other posts. *Crushed* happens with bird leading with break armor, not shattering scream. This is a little annoying because the break armor animation and sound is much more difficult to pick out and so its harder to chain off it.
AFTER TESTING ANALYSIS:
Unfortunately, pretty much my entire hypothesis was wrong... making this entire post an interesting read, but pretty much a waste of time... Here were my findings when testing these mega combos with friends:
1. The only really "easy" combo to pull off consistently through active coordination is the hellfire combo. Naturestrike + Hellscream. It is easy to see the roots grow around their feet, its easy to see the lightning come down and hellscream isn't an essential skill like stomp or beckon as much, so you can hold on to it if you really want to. That being said, actively trying to do the hellfire combo was a waste. As noted below, just doing regular combos kills the enemies FAR quicker. The problem actually is that the mega combos don't seem to actually add much damage. I get the feeling they just give stronger debuffs... but I don't know how to measure that.
2. The pulverized combo is kind of useless (at least in my mind...) Here is why. You rely on an ability that bosses/mini bosses are largely immune to in order to do a single target combo. Ice storm doesn't seem to work on many bosses, and there is no point in trying to do a single target mega combo on a regular, easy to kill mob. A regular attack of any kind would just kill off the mob instead, or you could just wait a few seconds and let your auto attacks do it (assuming you are the bird presented with a *shatter* combo and deciding what button you want to press next.) I wish STS changes the final trigger for pulverize combo to Shattering Scream. It would just make so much more sense!! Break Armor just will never get used in this situation!!
3. The pwned combo is really hard to actively coordinate due to break armor being the first trigger and being difficult to see/hear during the heat of a boss fight. That being said, after we played around with mega combos for a while and then transitioned into doing some sewer maps for fun (maybe about 10-15 total?) we had usually about 3-4 PWNED combos on each boss. The reason is our 2 mages were only hitting drain life after seeing the combo pop up. They didn't look for the little white text, but this still greatly increased the percentage chance that drained was being used after a *crushed* combo happened as opposed to if mages just spam it randomly. Drained is on the longest CD and is the limiting factor, whereas crushing blow is on an extremely short CD of only 4 seconds, and break armor is also on a relatively short CD of 5.5 seconds. Both of these are core boss fighting abilities and are generally used every time available. The chance of the crushed combo occuring is actually quite high, especially when you have 2 birds spamming break armor and you have a relatively long window for when the combo can occur. If you play a mage and want to help with the PWNED combo, I recommend you only use it after you see the large COMBO words pop up. If you have really good eyes and love the challenge, then you can look for the tiny *crushed* text to appear. The window for you to press the drain life button is pretty long.
4. The combos really don't do much damage either. I BARELY saw an increase in damage, whereas if you cruel blast vs. regular blast shot you see a HUGE increase in damage. I think these mega combos must just increase debuff strength, but its hard to tell.
5. I have a new theory based on my experiences tonight. These mega combos, instead of trying to foster more active coordination and teamwork are really an incentive to create a good balanced party. What is the ideal party? 1 bear, 2 mages, 2 birds. At least, this is my favorite set up and one which I have found provides the best amount of healing, rez protection (if 1 mage dies you still have another to rez), single target boss damage, AOE damage, and of course tanking/positioning (bear). With a set up like this, you will have a significantly higher chance of hitting the mega combos (even on accident) than if for example you have 1 bear, 1 mage and 3 birds, or if you are missing 1 class completely (no chance to do mega at all!)
6. I really would have preferred an actively coordinated mega combo. It raises the skillcap on the game and gives the hard(er) core players something to work toward, while at the same time not penalizing casual players at all. The only way to really coordinate now would be to get on ventrillo/skype with your buddies and perhaps call out actions... but really if you are going to get that hardcore about playing PL, may as well play World of Warcraft!
**Also wanted to thank Karmakali, Laaz, Ieversori, and Jackychiu for taking the time to test the mega combos with me and for running boards with me**
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Sorry for the extremely long post... Reader beware, you may fall asleep before finishing.
TL;DR: Are you guys coordinating to do Mega combos? If so, which one/how are you trying to pull off?
The new mega combos have me really excited because they now give you even more incentive for teamwork and cooperation, and really that is what I find "fun" about this game. Running around on your own spamming buttons is okay... but just can't really compare to an efficent team that works well together.
BEFORE MEGA COMBOS:
My favorite kind of DPS to play with are the ones that follow me to the beckon/stomp location and hold all abilities (even auto attack) till they see the mobs fly into a little clump and then unlease their combos.
Mages: Ice storm + fire storm, lightning
Birds: Thorn wall, Shattering Scream + Blast Shot
Bear: Stomp and Hellscream.
Everything dies in a wave of combos and everyone moves on.
Since no one else but the bear has aggro, 90%+ of the time, all the mobs will be pulled into the group and they can be all cleared at once and no one is in danger of dying since the mobs are stunned for a few seconds during the Beckon + Stomp, Hell scream duration. If there is a straggler or two, the birds can single target them and kill them while running to the next group.
AFTER MEGA COMBOS
Now that we have the new Mega combos, I am wondering if any of you are coordinating with your core group of friends that you run with. I've been sitting here thinking about what would be the best way to coordinate with the people I play with and I figured I'd just write up my thoughts in this post and get some feedback as well...
This is how to perform the mega combos, which I know is listed in many locations on the forum, but just to make things easy, I am copy/pasting it here as well:
--------------------
HELL STORM!
Nature Strike + Hell Scream = Hell Storm!
First Bird- Thorn Wall-
then Mage- Lightning
then Bear- Hell Scream
PULVERIZED!
Shattered + Break Armour = Pulverized!
First Mage- Ice Storm
then Bear- Stomp
theb Bird- Break Armor
PWNED!
Crushed + Drain Life = Pwned!
First Bird- Shattering Scream (or cruel blast= shattering scream + blast shot)
then Bear- Crushing Blow
then Mage- Drain Life
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Looking at the set up of the 2 AOE combos, I think it would be possible to do both combos together. This is the sequence i have in mind:
1. Bear, bird and mage run together into a room. No one attacks as they make their way to the first "beckon spot".
2. Bear taunts on the way to the spot. No one will take any damage except for the tank, since no one is attacking.
3. Everyone gets to the beckon spot.
The sequence of abilities at each available "button push" would be as follow:
Ability 1:
- Bear: Beckon (0.5 seconds before everyone else)
- Mage: Ice Storm (as soon as the mobs slide into place)
- Bird: Thorn Wall (as soon as the mobs slide into place)
Ability 2:
- Bear: Stomp (hit mobs into the wall/corner)
- Mage: Lightning
- Bird: Avian Scream (this is a filler, but will help keep the enemies stunned)
Ability 3:
- Bear: Hell Scream *This will trigger Hell Storm mega combo*
- Mage: Fire storm (filler again, but does some more damage)
- Bird: Break Armor *This will trigger Pulverized mega combo*
Ability 4: (if everything isn't already dead already)
- Bear: Slash (but honestly, whats the point? Just head to the next beckon spot)
- Mage: Heal (why not?); Drain Life/Frostbite (a little damage, again... prolly unnecessary)
- Bird: Blast Shot (Cruel blast combo - killing any regular mobs left)
FURTHER ANALYSIS:
It looks like the cast sequences required to pull off double mega combos are pretty consistent with the standard sequences most people use.
Bear:
1. Beckon
2. Stomp
3. Hell Scream
I use this sequence a lot. I used to hell scream after taunt, on the way into position, but I generally use it after now because of the additional stun. Using it before helps you land Beckon more easily and you take less damage, but it seems unnecessary to me when fully geared at 55+.
Mage:
1. Ice Storm
2. Lightning
3. Fire Storm
This was a very common mage sequence before GCD, with Lightning as a mini "delay" to help people time their fire storm appropriately. After GCD, I assume most mages go Ice Storm -> Fire Storm, but it would not be difficult to put Lightning back in between there as most people are used to it from before.
Bird:
1. Thorn Wall
2. Avian Scream
3. Break Armor
4. Blast Shot (clean up)
I think bird's have the biggest sequence "adjustment" to make since I some birds don't use Avian scream. Most birds will blow thorn wall if its up, then follow with cruel blast combo. In order to pull off the mega combos, birds will have tame their itchy trigger finger and throw in a filler talent before going into it.
FURTHER ANALYSIS II:
Besides whether or not it would be possible to time everything well with lag and latency, the question that comes to mind is: Is it worth it to even do the AOE mega combos?
Whenever I run with friends, we usually don't have any problem killing the individual groups that are beckoned into a group. Mages do their hot flash combo, birds do their cruel blast combo and usually everything dies anyway. If you are able to kill all the mobs easily anyway, why go through the effort of adjusting your play style and coordinating, besides seeing the cool "mega" word pop up?
Besides the "fun" factor, I can only think of:
1. Running with a smaller group. If you get good at doing mega combos, you can probably clear everything with just a group of 3 pretty easily. Sometimes people aren't online, or they are tied up in other games. You won't need to wait for randoms to join!
2. This will make a bigger difference when new content comes out. Right now at max level, enemies are easy to kill and performing mega combos (not on bosses) is basically overkill. However, if the new level cap is 61, or higher, when we first enter the more difficult new content, doing mega combos will add DPS to kill mobs in 1 sequence of attacks.
3. Low level (lvl 50-52) Sewer runs for orange, greens and purples: I don't know how many people actually do these, but I find them incredibly fun (TY RICCITS). They are fun because #1. They are more challenging, #2. You actually are excited for every drop you get! Since everyone is less powerful at this level, doing Mega combos will add the extra firepower to kill mobs!
PWNED MEGA COMBO (For bosses):
I haven't really thought about the best way to coordinate the PWNED combo on bosses. This seems like something worth doing no matter what (so I probably should have first thought about this one.... lol)
Since it opens with Bird doing shattering scream, I think it is basically on the bear and the mage to watch for shattering screams. The bear can just "save" crushing blow for whenever they see shattering scream go off, and the mage can save Drain life for shattering scream as well. Drain life has a small delay so if the bear and the mage hit it at the same time when they see Shattering scream go off, it *should* hit in the appropriate interval and do the combo right?
When looking at the cooldown timers, you can do the combo fastest every 12 seconds because you are waiting on the drain life CD.
Shattering Scream: 5.5 second CD
Crushing Blow: 4 second CD
Drain Life CD: 12 second CD
I plan on testing all these combos tonight and see if we can reproduce them consistently. It was be awesome to be able to repeatedly drop coffins on bosses every roughly 12 seconds.
Looking for feedback, thoughts, comments, experiences, etc!
Originally Posted by Justg
Just lady..tigerizstar..mivida..ladyhadazza..ladyhadasa
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