This is unfortunately pretty difficult, as you say many people are looking for the achievement and I had the same issue until I finally cleared with a good group - now I can get in any group pretty much.

I had the same issue that you do in that we could get maybe 3-5 people from the guild who were geared and ready to do trials. In the end I just watched chat for people announcing they would take "randoms", when I found a couple of good people we would then set a time to try again (those that had the survivability and dps required) and joined up with a few people from each guild and then filled the last 2-3 spots with randoms and got it cleared on the 2nd attempt.

It gets really frustrating sometimes in the PUGs when you have 4 DPS running around in HA with 2H swords and you know that there is no way you can beat the 3rd boss (DPS race), but my suggestion is to try and befriend everyone who knows what they're doing - good tanks, healers and DPS who seem to know what they're doing. (note: LA+resto/destro does not necessarily mean good DPS, but there are few other builds that can beat boss nr. 3).

As for builds I'm not certain when it comes to DKs but someone else probably has a good idea, in general Evil Hunter (Expert Hunter) from fighters guild is nice as most bosses are undeads, you need to do animation cancelling with instant cast abilities and use Spell Symmetry (preferably with the Might of the Guild passive) for max DPS + sustain.

Having a large health pool is helpful, we usually require a minimum of 2,4-2,5k health because it helps avoid one-shots if people aren't careful and makes it easier for healers on raid-wide damage. Other than that I just recommend you find a build that does preferably 700+ dps sustained and you should be fine in pure numbers.

Unfortunately I'm EU DC otherwise would have been happy to invite you whenever we're short (pretty much always!).

The achievement isn't the problem. If there was no achievement, groups would still only want those who are already experienced. The newcomer would be faced with two choices. 1. Confess the are new, and maybe get kicked out. 2. Hide the fact they are new, and get the group wiped. Not an issue with the achievement, but rather a problem that exists in every mmo community.

I also think that the DPS race design is a big reason for the "link achievement" stuff, the sad thing is I would probably do the same if I need to take in 4+ randoms. I've been in so many groups that have wiped over and over on that boss because 2-3+ people could not do the DPS required. I was very happy last night to actually finish AA twice with 2 stamina DW users, but they were very experienced and could actually pull their weight with a perfect rotation. Most of the times we've taken stamina users, sadly this has not been the case.

I don't know what to do about this, as when joining groups that require achievement link it's a 90% success rate - when joining other (random) pugs I don't even think it's 10%. It's a good way to find a match, but it sure makes it harder for people who have not yet got completion.

schroed360 wrote: »

Just wander where do you guys make your dps test. I try to do this on some 11k daedroth in bankorai but i have à question when you say "sustain dps" does this include your ultimate i mean in rotation and if so where to find a boss with enought hp to be able to stop the clock when second ulti is up...?

The only true test for 'sustained dps' in this game is indeed going into trials (maybe CoH) and watching your dps on the bosses that allow you to sit there for the longest period of time and do damage.

However, conventionally speaking this isn't a very effective method of testing dps, (since people like to do it on their own time, and for multiple instances for better results).

So what most do to simulate this is basically testing on a mob like you described (I use mammoths), and merely gauging what kind of numbers you can achieve whilst you can maintain a steady flow of stamina/magicka regen, depending on you use. If you can maintain whatever dps value you see without ever running out of your resource pool, congrats, you're getting close to knowing your sustained dps.

After that all you need to figure out is the general uptime on your chosen ultimate. This is quite easy for caster nightblades, as they have the ability to keep veil of blades up 100% of the time, so they can test on the mobs like mammoths or daedroths while using their ultimate and have an accurate sustained dps number to boast.

However, for those specs with non-spectacular ult gen like the caster nightblade, they'll have to find their sustained dps without the ultimate, figure out how often the ultimate is actively contributing, and divide the dps the ultimate gives alone by that number. Add the results to your no-ult sustained dps, and bam! You have a general sustained dps number to boast.

While I realize some of that isn't as east as it sounds, and requires some field work and measuring ultimate uptime, that is still the basics of how one would determine sustained dps in this game.

For example, personally, I'm a bow/2h nightblade. I always test without an ultimate up, since I know I can't get 100% uptime. The results generally end up with me being able to sustain (under ideal conditions) anywhere from 750-850 dps.

I happen know offhand from prior estimations of my own ult generation that I have about 40% uptime on veil of blades. VoB can do anywhere from 150-250dps based on lucky crits, so lets say 150x0.4=60 sustained dps added to my previous total of 750 minimum, that gives me a minimum of 810 sustained dps and a theoretical max of 950(250x0.4=100... 100+850=950).

So I can assume my sustained dps, if executed correctly, sits comfortably between 800 and 950 dps.