All of the last 3 posts have some very valid points. The most critical issue we end up running into is what Shade said and that's having LS members in key spots. The problem with that though is how many LS members have mage jobs that are geared and can be fully relied upon? I hate to put it like that but mages really don't have any wiggle room with leniency, the best players are the best mages. That's not to knock on DDs, really the potential of any job is based on the skill of the player. But say when Rwolf is out, he's someone that's difficult to replace and we have really no one in LS able to do it since he's always on mage jobs. If he had to swap from Brd to Whm, now we'd have to find a Brd to rep him and obviously that's been like pulling teeth as of late, server numbers definitely aren't helping that. If I cant make a run like Saturday, were down 2 sch's, who's able to step up w/o having to move Rwolf, Shade, Ksora or whoever move over to cover Sch. That's part of the reason our gathering times take an eternity, we're constantly trying to fill the same jobs. Sometimes life simply happens and people can't make it for runs, I get that, and myself included. It's just an unnecessary burden on the people who handle these jobs to feel bad for not being able to make a run b/c replacing them is painfully difficult.

Personally I don't mind going Sch, but I don't like that Sch is so difficult to rep if I have something come up or sick etc. I'm sure everyone understands that, so the issue comes down to either we need people capable of playing one of the mage jobs very well (since DD jobs are easy enough to shout if needed), we try to recruit again (which has been difficult) or if both of those fail we just end up calling it a wrap on Delve b/c that level of obligation is hardcore enough to feel like a job. And if a game turns into a job, well we should be getting paid for it or no longer play it. Any feedback is welcome.

Remember one thing, big battles are won by small margins.
Playing off Ysb's comment:
Skillchains and Magic Bursts will go a long way in this battle.Helping to remove his aura and accelerating damage during tough to damage periods in his 4 various percentages.
Pair up 1 mnk with the sam(team 1),1 mnk with the drg(team 2) and 2 mnks with VS paired(team 3) to each other to make light skillchains.
During the period from 100% - 75% he resists physical damage yet remains susceptible to magic damage. And while I get that the first rule of Hundred Fist+Formless Strikes on him is to not WS it isn't about the WS damage. The cold harsh reality is that this gives not only bonus skillchain damage, it more importantly will set up Thunder Magic bursts from RDMs that are Chainspelling(and a GEO) (read multiple MBs off the same skillchain of multiple tier IV nukes per EACH RDM within seconds aka a metric ton of damage all at once). I don't care if you're holding TP, it's not all about you, it's about a team effort.

Personally I think we are going in way too melee heavy and need to focus more on the skillchain and magic burst.

More melee (especially monk) means more tp feed to tojil means tojil will ws more means more stuns needed means faster stun resist means dead party.

I feel at this time the appropriate setup is one melee dd party and one mage dd party. The melee party should be a Sam and monk and I guess one more monk. Sam and monk can make all of the appropriate skill chains to drop cloak. There would be a skillchain to burst on every few seconds. If a tsu Sam they will have tp before mages are even done with previous burst. I'm thinking mage party would be 3x blm rdm brd and… Whm? Tojil is at no point resistant to magic. The only difficulty may be at 50 to 25 when light and fire damage is needed to drop cloak. Idk how well that will work, might be best to just light sc and burst thunder.

That's my current thoughts on this fight. I'm becoming more sure that our setup is what is giving us the most problems.

Another thought…. Hate might be a concern.


Why do we fight in that cramped little tunnel. Why not pull it back to that circle room before Tojil. That
lwill give us a little space to spread out. Benefits there would be since expecting everyone to carry and use poison potions to counter sleepga might not happen, the whm could be separate from blm and still in range of everyone. I think just having that bit of open space would keep everyone from getting hit with ga spells. This will also hopefully aid in reaction to lost hate moments.

I've never known big bosses to be fought in such close quarters. That extra wiggle room might make everything at least seem a bit more open and controlled.

Well the problem with that circle room is adds pop there, so unfortunately that's not an option. Wolf mentioned Pld which makes sense considering how poorly our pulls have gone through. Another thought it having a rdm phalanx pull it and then simply sleepga the adds and someone sleep tojil> kill the adds, then brds 1 hour and then fight Tojil. I've found with 2 schs you don't need a brd so long as tojil is silenced so there's less moves to stun so that opens up that slot to either a pld or a 2nd Geo. A 2nd Geo allows more evasion down on Tojil which allows every DD to use red curry bun.

Still the biggest issue for me at this point we've not had anyone offer to step up as a sub for the critical roles and recruitment at this point has been extremely difficult. Most everyone is either in a social and don't care about delve or in a LS that has already established themselves and aren't interested in one that's still building to complete it from all my observations. If this isn't changing we will probably just need to cancel delve b/c these events are becoming a fiasco of a time sink to setup. SE should've merged servers months ago.

I think the shouts are part of our problem and you'll never get me to agree to a server merge, just means twice as many people standing around looking to be entertained. The quality of players we got from shout reached and all time low Friday night as we were unable to kill 4 nms with a full ally. We need more than just slots filled here. Last night we had 22 people on shell at event time and were only able to pull 8 people to start to gather up for this shell's main and scheduled event a delve run. wtf? Irregardless of if they have it already (I do) it is this shell's main event, how narcissistic is that? The answer is recruitment, shouts only work if you just need one fairly mundane spot filled, we can't go in expecting a win if we only have 9 people to seed the ally with.

We went in last night with 11 to get some seat time in there. There was no death except the pld, we killed 4 nms, and there was no spastic behavior like we saw on Friday, which imo was nothing short of a total clustrfk of an embarrassment.
I tend to agree with Demiskus comments, I also think the tp feed is nuts and we pay the price for it. And I agree that a great stunner would fix that but I have to tell you, when missing just one of 30 stuns causes a fail, then we need a different plan. Saying "you JUST need a good stunner" is like saying "you just need 12 k-club drks". Let the first to say that be the stunner.
If the mob has 4 phases of damage, we should have 4 types of damage.

Well on the last post, I already listed all 4 types of damage and jobs needed. But our problem is more then you have seen Shadechaos.

First many ppl do not treat this event as endgame event that ppl do not have the job or equipments for it. For example, are our mages have minimum 2 set of equipments that can do magic damage and enfeeb the mobs? if they do, how good are they. I have see mages did only 1k to 2k damage to the boss which it should be 3k to 4k+. Is our pld have sky legs and Twilight set for kiting mobs and mns ?

Second, with so many fail runs many good ppl may give up or do runs outside of the shell. Recruitment is not the answer to what happen here, problem is we do not have a set group and this is very important. Every week i have seen all different ppl as whm. Whm is counting more then 30% of how likely our event going to win. Each nm have their own moves and whm need to learn how to deal with it quick. Keep on having different whm don't help. with different Brd and cor may slow down our rotation time, i have seen as slow as 3 min+. Sch which count for almost 50% how likely the group going to win, I know you may say this is BS, but how many times ppl rely on stun to kill super nms? Countless, for example, years ago, only way to win ADL is rdm/drk 2hr stun, Einherjar nms and many many more. keep have different sch that don't have equipments and experience to stun the boss is not a good idea.

You may question who am I talking all this issues. I can tell you I have killed all 3 delve bosses before the red Skirmish equipments, 119 and 115 weapons show up. It took a very long time for the same group of ppl to equip their jobs and learn how to deal with the nms to win. What this shell experiences happened to all others and I would say we need to get a set group of ppl on it and start to work on the ws, equipments, and skills that need to win.

It's what I've preached to anyone I've known for a long time, mages make or break events. Mages are the most important jobs in this game, they're the foundation that you need to build around to be successful. We don't have enough, and people coming in on mage jobs undergeared or ones that treat it as if it's easy enough and just a secondary job will 100% cause a fail.

Personally I've mained Whm for a good stretch of this game and I can tell you it is the most demanding job on the field and one of the least appreciated. The people that do appreciate a good Whm are generally other Mages or the successful players who have been in events with poor ones. Pickup Whms and pickup Schs are unacceptable. The good mages are a dying breed in this game and for whatever reason the ones that don't know how to play the jobs will still try to join runs on them. That cannot happen, if you're unable to obtain Whms from the LS that you know are good and Schs for that matter, don't even bother with a run, you'll lose and have an embarrassing run it's that simple.

Shade you may be opposed to a server merge but as it is this game is going to die w/o one. Heck it's already on it's death bed, hence the mage recruitment being near impossible as of late. If you guys are able to recruit good mages, by all means, it's a help beyond measure b/c lately I've been unsuccessful trying. With the absences we've had lately on the critical jobs, until the LS is able to get consistent skilled mages there's really no point to delve. Just ends up being a 2 hour shouting fiasco with frustrating results and will end up making no one want to join. Bottom line, we need good mage depth available or I'll have to ask someone else to lead these events for the LS or just stop them entirely.

And yet I sit here, a 10 year career hnmls WHM main (FifthElement, Yamato) (my first and only job to 75 for several years) fully equipped and skilled (my bars are 187 resist, my unsealed cure V's 1107 without weather) going on every job except WHM just because I have oats or an ochain or (fill in the blank)

Just how many WHMs do we need? If Rwolf is a whm main, and I am a whm main and Nanaku is a whm main, all 3 of which have years of experience in the job… it would seem we have that job covered and should be focusing on other jobs. I agree completely that any ally is only as good as it's WHMs. You'll never hear me say I'm out of mp, I've learned mp management and I carry meds for back up.

We haven't used PLD so that all seems a moot point. Since it seems I'm the only Ochain pld here( I had just finished it a week before I joined this shell, excuse me for getting it before the accessories) I can go get sky legs and twilight gear by myself. It also seems it would be a lot easier to get a PLD with those than it would be to find a skilled WHM. And I'll go one up on Ysb's comment and say that SCH stunning goes for 100% of win or fail. If he isn't stunned, we will fail.

I agree Ysb, I've seen the low damage from the mages but it goes beyond gear. They don't have capped skills, in fact most are horribly under the skill cap. I see it in the damage, I see it in the barspells that have 97 resist, I see it in the GEO Indi-Refresh at a paltry 3 mp a tick. I don't care what gear a mage has, capped skills are more important first, then after they can get the gear.

It's simple guys, I like you all a lot, a really great group of people. But I joined this shell as a result of a shout advertising weekend delve runs. I'm not into finger pointing, I'm in to solutions. It would seem this shell is at a crossroads, in a nut shell go big or go home. I'm here willing to support this shell in any way I can, but quite honestly, frankly and with all due respect…I don't need a social linkshell. I'm enjoying my time off of leading a shell and have no interest in building another. I do have the T-shirt :P