Need help with vCR+3

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

Hi forum.

I need your help please, with vCR+3 clear.

Background first, I am the 3-year lasting trial leader of my group. My philosophy is that I never, ever ask people to play with characters they don't like (to not reduce enjoyment of the game), so we are a class-unoptimized group (usually 2 templar healers, 2 DK tanks, 1 magplar, 1 magnecro, 1 magDK, 1 magden and a bunch of magsorcs/magNBs).
For the same reason, I am very strict with build optimization so it is common in our group that we have tank with Galenwe+Yolna+Enkratis, magcro with Catalyst, Magden with Minor Brittle build, Zen magDK, Jorvuld+RO healer and so on.

We managed to beat all trial hard modes this way, along with Immortal Redeemer and Tick-Tock Tormentor titles.

We have 1 trial night reserved for main progress (Dawnbringer currently), and the rest is for HM clears for new members.

Our struggles came, when wanted to finish vCR+3 achievement for new members. We can consistently clear any trial HM except vCR+3. We've beaten it in the past like 4 times, but I feel it was a coincidence (easy creeper spawn, easy flare in execute, ...) rather than focused clear.

So I am here to ask for any advices. We don't aim for score, our only goal is learning it and finishing it, so we can consistently clear it anytime we need (I ask for help because despite countless attemps, we don't do any better). We don't have damage to burn and skip mechanics. For the same reason, our portal groups consist of 1 tank and 2 DDs.
We usually do it like this:
1) Keep minis in the center of the room and focus them till they die,
2) Immediately kill all 3 orbs at spawn along with Creeper. Our target priority is Orb > Creeper > Monstrosity > Mini > Zmaja,
3) Calling flare position via voice chat.
4) Calling frost dropping position via voice chat.
5) Standard execute, two groups on flare. Creeper/Orb kill without leaving poisition at Zmaja's back.

We can rather easily get through Siroria and Relequen, but Galenwe is our destroyer. Any death during Galenwe when portal group is downstairs means a wipe. So many things happen at that time - orbs, creepers, flare, frost, voltaic overload, ice comet mechanic on 4 people, galenwe AoEs, Yaghras everywhere. It's nearly impossible to recover when someone dies at that time (you have only 9 people available so anyone down is a big unrecoverable loss). Even chaining Barriers didn't help.

Do you have any advices please?
I heard that dedicating 1 person to Orb-killing being his sole role helps due to orbs not dying at the same time resulting in damage spreading over time.
I also thought about having portal tanks forgetting about Ele Draining crystals, but rather focusing on chaining Yaghras.

Thank you in advance for any advices.

colossalvoids · March 2021

Will keep an eye on the thread as last time I've raided last year we had exactly the same situation with our last group composition, same trifectas and problems with just +3 clears.

AyaDark · March 2021

Have you got some logs or video, to see the problems in runs ?

AyaDark · March 2021

If I understand it right - +3 spawn 2 bosses on 75/50 and last one is on 25 ? Or some thing like this.

May be problem is to much targets because roots + mini boss makes a lot of problems.

Is it possible to try stack all mobs and mini boss on roots (creapers) and use more AOE skills ?

Do not use ultimates and only discharge destro ults on stacks of it ?

AyaDark · March 2021

AyaDark wrote: »

If I understand it right - +3 spawn 2 bosses on 75/50 and last one is on 25 ? Or some thing like this.

May be problem is to much targets because roots + mini boss makes a lot of problems.

Is it possible to try stack all mobs and mini boss on roots (creapers) and use more AOE skills ?

Do not use ultimates and only discharge destro ults on stacks of it ?

If I see it correct 3people are in portal -> 2 tanks and 2 heals are on UP.

You only have 5 DD upstairs, thats why it is hard.

Just to many targets to kill solo.

600 k HP orbs + run, creaper, yagra, mobs.

To many targets to kill with solo dps.

You can or open DPS window on stuck, or try to DPS itwith just more AOE skills.

May be 1 time do not kill spheres, and use antistun potion on them. To save some DPS for creapers and adds/mini boss.

AyaDark · March 2021

Portal tank can try to help bring orbs. If he has crashen shock like skill. But it is not easy task.

Then faster portal close than better - help comes faster. So do not really know about drain.

Sanguinor2 · March 2021

To be honest: Most of what you are already doing is how I have gotten 3 Gryphon hearts. Your target priority is right, allthough as you said I´d suggest having 1 or 2 people do orbs and the rest keep doing mini/main boss or creeper. I dont know if it will help you since you say your struggle is with galenwe but usually we stacked the minis on the mainboss since cleaving the mainboss all the time can result in skipping 1 portal, That being said I havent done vCR+3 since the CP changes so CP changes might be a reason for deaths happening. You will obviously want to keep an eye on everyone staying at zmajas back at all times except for spreading galenwes meteors.
One thing that might help you with orbs is that, unless it got changed recently, you can actually dodge when an orb gets destroyed and you see the dot projectile fly at you and you wont get the dot on you which would reduce incoming damage by quite a lot especially during a busy phase like the last 25%.
As someone that played every role in vCR+3 except healer the adds from the portal shouldnt be an issue at all.
Chaining every add as it spawns shouldnt be a problem for the mini boss tank and if you just stack them on the mini they will die in Aoe. Should be even less of a problem if you tank the minis close to the portal since the mini tank can even melee taunt the adds as they spawn.
Otherwise it sounds like mostly execution errors, you will want to make sure that you dont have the person with the ice in the flare if possible because that can lead to a pretty quick wipe. If you try to recover two things to keep in mind are that the shades can be chained by a tank and you can use them for the flare stack. It might not be a problem in your group but in one of my groups we had 2 people that would rarely if ever pick up the ice which led to issues during portal phases so maybe its worth taking a look at that?
One thing Im wondering is how clear are your voice comms? Because if you have multiple people calling out different stuff that could also be an issue.
One thing to keep in mind during execute, which you may already be doing but idk, is that you keep both tanks and healers a little bit further from the boss than the dds, that way neither the tanks nor the healers will get the debuff on them, maintank excluded obviously.
How is it that people die exactly during the galenwe phase? Is it orb dot+meteor spread and not standing in healing maybe? Do people go too far from each other when going for the creeper? Might be a silly question but your dds are running shields right?

code65536 · March 2021

Haha, welcome to Cloudrest. The final phase with Galenwe is the toughest, and hardest to get down consistently. It's not uncommon to see groups that have cleared +3 struggle to get more clears consistently. And I guess the best advice that I can give is to just be patient. As your people do it more and more, they will become more and more consistent. There isn't really a silver bullet here. It's just practice, as Cloudrest has a bigger gap between clearing and clearing consistently.

That said, there are a few things to note:

Yes, I would recommend a designated orb killer. Malicious Strikes come out whenever an orb dies, and having all 3 die at around the same time is a pretty substantial spike of damage. As long as your single orb killer can consistently get all three before they charge, you'll be fine.
The tanks should continue to run Ele Drain downstairs. Since you say that your tanks are DKs, there is one trick to keeping the Yaghra from coming up (this is also useful when going for the Blockade achievement), and that's to put an AoE snare on them. If your portal tank downstairs keeps Cinder Storm up on the portal, the Yaghra will just get stuck on the portal and they won't go through.
The hardest part about that phase is the combination of meteors and flare. Meteors forces the group to disperse. Flare requires the group to stack. Discipline is required to manage this consistently; specifically, people should disperse only as much as needed (i.e., only people with meteors should scatter, not everyone), and people need to regroup quickly as soon as the mechanic ends. And this just comes with practice.
Good callouts can help. Clear callouts of flare locations and reminders for people to restack whenever a mechanic disperses people.
Don't tolerate deaths. If someone dies, don't just shrug your shoulder and move on. Figure out why they died (if you're on PC, LGM's death recap feature is very nice, and in fact the author of that addon made that feature specifically because he needed something to diagnose Cloudrest problems). And figure out how to avoid it in the future. Was it because of too much incoming damage? If so, why was there too much incoming damage? Loose adds? Orbs? Hoarfrost drops? Player error? Or was it because of insufficient healing? If so, why was there insufficient healing? Were the heals focused on the wrong location? Was the group too dispersed to be effectively healed? Was the player standing outside of heals? Etc. Mistakes will happen--it's Cloudrest, after all. But make sure that people learn from those mistakes.

BlueMoonRising · March 2021

If you want to clear +3 consistently you need pretty much everyone to do their role properly - do mechanics, take care of themselves to not die and at the same time people need to play well as a group.
Cloudrest is probably the trial that is most dependent on DDs and how they play together.

Having a warden offtank or a healer is pretty useful because of the defensive buffs they give.

OT should probably be the one taking care of brittle so dds can go full damage. Also consider dropping Z'en if you're struggling with clears. If you put people on buff/debuff sets they might focus more on keeping up buffs than doing mechanics. Galenwe is a really mediocre set in vCR (and also in general).

Having a lot of damage helps a lot. More than 1 or max 2 orb killers is a big dps loss. You should be aiming for max 3 portals in the whole run but preferably 2. If you have low dps I would focus on that, there are a lot more ways to *** up in 15 min fight than 7 min fight.

Chaining Yaghras in portal is useless, offtank can easily taunt them upstairs and they should die in seconds to cleave.

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

Thanks everyone for advices. I'll analyze logs deeply (impossible to post them here as they are not public) and try to figure out what's the problem.

@BlueMoonRising
That's why I specificaly put debuff sets on DDs that do not need additional inputs (magcro - catalyst, magDK - Zen. No additional inputs needed, no build adjustments needed, just put them on and regular gameplay is enough to work with them). But the thing is Galenwe, the set proved to be excellent in our Dawnbringer progression with +-60% uptime on Empower. What is good replacement for that (and I mean in general, not only Cloudrest)? Powerful Assault affects 6 people and anyways, seems much weaker after +1k WD/SD buff last patch. Also, we already have Worm on the OT. So I can't think of better alternative.

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

Also, I forgot to mention that we have 2 OTs (Yolna + Galen) and 1 MT (Ebon + Worm). The MT has 100% Zmaja until execute, then he turns inti back kiter. It's not standard from what I've seen but I don't see changing this being the breaking point to clear vCR+3 consistently.

WrathOfInnos · March 2021

I agree Galanwe is a good option since you don’t have a Necro healer to give Empower.

Deaths can really cause problems in vCR+3, so defense is key. Make sure you have a Warden giving 100% frost cloak uptime for Major Resolve. Combat prayer should be keeping high uptime on Minor Resolve. For CPs, everyone needs at least 10 Quick Recovery and 40 Preparation, if you have enough CP’s the additional 40 points for 4% additional magic mitigation is helpful. I’d also recommend using Max Health/Max Magicka food, don’t believe the hype about Ghastly Eyebowl it will cause deaths. Note the high health pools this patch will make it more difficult for healers to health through Baneful in execute so everyone should have a shield slotted to avoid chip damage while they are getting healed to full (or use some barriers if you’d prefer).

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

I agree Galanwe is a good option since you don’t have a Necro healer to give Empower.

Deaths can really cause problems in vCR+3, so defense is key. Make sure you have a Warden giving 100% frost cloak uptime for Major Resolve. Combat prayer should be keeping high uptime on Minor Resolve. For CPs, everyone needs at least 10 Quick Recovery and 40 Preparation, if you have enough CP’s the additional 40 points for 4% additional magic mitigation is helpful. I’d also recommend using Max Health/Max Magicka food, don’t believe the hype about Ghastly Eyebowl it will cause deaths. Note the high health pools this patch will make it more difficult for healers to health through Baneful in execute so everyone should have a shield slotted to avoid chip damage while they are getting healed to full (or use some barriers if you’d prefer).

As I wrote earlier, I never push people to play characters they don't want and we don't have single Warden healer main in our guild. But one of our tanks is a Warden, which is usually suficient to have defensive buffs when we need them. Major Resolve is active all the time, but Minor Toughness not so much (Warden tank capabilities are limited with this buff in mobile encounters).

I 100% agree with defense being key, that's why I run SPC + Combat Physician (along with Bastion CP) combo. I am the kite healer. Combat Physician is very underrated and usually ends as top 3 healing ability when analyzing logs. I tried playing without Combat Physician, but trust or not, the difference was noticeable.

Baneful is easy to heal through as we Barrier through them. The extra seconds from Horn might speed up execute a little and push score forward, but holds no value in progression group

BlueMoonRising · March 2021

I think going with 2 main tanks and 1 offtank is a lot better. This way you only need 2 people that have actually tanky build, as you take a lot of damage in portal. And then your offtank can focus a lot more on buffing and helping the group.

If you only have 1 warden then put him as the only offtank. He should be able to get decent uptime on defensive buffs and they make a big difference.

You have a lot of options for tank builds atm but there are very few heavy armor sets that are useful. You definitely don't want to put Yolna and Galenwe on offtank as they're reliant on taunting stuff/blocking and as offtank you wouldn't get a great uptime on this in vCR. If you have people using parse food you don't need Worm. What I would do is this: both MTs Yolna+PA, OT Ebon(if people are using parse food, otherwise some other heavy armor set like maybe Drake's rush or Galenwe if you're really set on using it)+Catalyst, group healer RO+Jorvuld(+vateshran resto) with Symphony, kite healer Olorime+Hollowfang(+brp resto optional)+Troll king/Earthgore/... Your offtank should be taking care of brittle and your magden can then go full dd.

DDs should be using Siroria or BSW+Mother's Sorrow or Acuity and parse food.

Doing all of this should give your group a lot more damage and having a lot of dps makes the fight a lot easier.

code65536 · March 2021

BlueMoonRising wrote: »

I think going with 2 main tanks and 1 offtank is a lot better. This way you only need 2 people that have actually tanky build, as you take a lot of damage in portal. And then your offtank can focus a lot more on buffing and helping the group.

If you only have 1 warden then put him as the only offtank. He should be able to get decent uptime on defensive buffs and they make a big difference.

You have a lot of options for tank builds atm but there are very few heavy armor sets that are useful. You definitely don't want to put Yolna and Galenwe on offtank as they're reliant on taunting stuff/blocking and as offtank you wouldn't get a great uptime on this in vCR. If you have people using parse food you don't need Worm. What I would do is this: both MTs Yolna+PA, OT Ebon(if people are using parse food, otherwise some other heavy armor set like maybe Drake's rush or Galenwe if you're really set on using it)+Catalyst, group healer RO+Jorvuld(+vateshran resto) with Symphony, kite healer Olorime+Hollowfang(+brp resto optional)+Troll king/Earthgore/... Your offtank should be taking care of brittle and your magden can then go full dd.

DDs should be using Siroria or BSW+Mother's Sorrow or Acuity and parse food.

Doing all of this should give your group a lot more damage and having a lot of dps makes the fight a lot easier.

The extra health people have this patch is not free health. It's there to compensate for a loss of mitigation. A group that is struggling for consistency in +3 should not be using parse food. The first priority in vCR is to stay alive. Higher damage will result in a shorter fight and fewer opportunities for mistakes, but that is a secondary priority.

Any buff sets on the MT should be long-range ones. Galenwe is only 15m, and PA is only 10m. Either of those sets make sense on a MT only for a group that is stacking all the minis on Z'Maja, but they're not doing that and are instead holding them in the middle of the room (which is the right call for a group that's not reliably clearing).

For a 1MT/2OT setup, I'd do Yol/Worm on the MT and Galen/PA on the OTs. (This assumes you're using bi-stat food, as it drops Ebon*).

For a 2MT/1OT setup, I'd still use the same sets: Yol/Worm on the MTs and Galen/PA on the OT. But with a 2MT setup, the OT can be less tanky, and there are more options for them to play with (e.g., PA/MK).

* I do not recommend using Ebon in Update 29. The combat changes this patch have indirectly nerfed Ebon in two ways. First, the amount of health provided by Ebon is less, because it is no longer buffed by the max-stat amp from old-CP. Second, each point of health in U29 is less effective because there is less mitigation. So Ebon is providing fewer points of health, and each point of health that it does provide is less effective.

BlueMoonRising · March 2021

Code's idea is also good. There are some issues - you will definitely have less damage, I'm pretty sure your sustain will suffer and healing 30k hp dds might not be that easy in execute. But if you can deal with all that dds should really not die to anything but oneshots so maybe that's the way for your group to go.

As far as my idea with PA on MTs - if dds stack on Zmaja's tail it would be possible for MT to proc it even if mini is tanked in the middle. Also, having 2 people on PA should give you a decent uptime even with all mechanics happening and even if each individual player wouldn't be able to have an amazing uptime on it. It's not really ideal because of the range limitations but there are not many useful tank sets. If you wont go with parse food then you should put Yolna+Worm on MT.

code65536 · March 2021

If you can heal a 42K tank who's taking damage out from Baneful, a 26K DD taking little or no damage should be pretty easy. I haven't noticed there being issues healing DDs out of the mark during the Siroria dagger farm runs that I've been in this patch.

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

code65536 wrote: »

BlueMoonRising wrote: »

I think going with 2 main tanks and 1 offtank is a lot better. This way you only need 2 people that have actually tanky build, as you take a lot of damage in portal. And then your offtank can focus a lot more on buffing and helping the group.

If you only have 1 warden then put him as the only offtank. He should be able to get decent uptime on defensive buffs and they make a big difference.

You have a lot of options for tank builds atm but there are very few heavy armor sets that are useful. You definitely don't want to put Yolna and Galenwe on offtank as they're reliant on taunting stuff/blocking and as offtank you wouldn't get a great uptime on this in vCR. If you have people using parse food you don't need Worm. What I would do is this: both MTs Yolna+PA, OT Ebon(if people are using parse food, otherwise some other heavy armor set like maybe Drake's rush or Galenwe if you're really set on using it)+Catalyst, group healer RO+Jorvuld(+vateshran resto) with Symphony, kite healer Olorime+Hollowfang(+brp resto optional)+Troll king/Earthgore/... Your offtank should be taking care of brittle and your magden can then go full dd.

DDs should be using Siroria or BSW+Mother's Sorrow or Acuity and parse food.

Doing all of this should give your group a lot more damage and having a lot of dps makes the fight a lot easier.

The extra health people have this patch is not free health. It's there to compensate for a loss of mitigation. A group that is struggling for consistency in +3 should not be using parse food. The first priority in vCR is to stay alive. Higher damage will result in a shorter fight and fewer opportunities for mistakes, but that is a secondary priority.

Any buff sets on the MT should be long-range ones. Galenwe is only 15m, and PA is only 10m. Either of those sets make sense on a MT only for a group that is stacking all the minis on Z'Maja, but they're not doing that and are instead holding them in the middle of the room (which is the right call for a group that's not reliably clearing).

For a 1MT/2OT setup, I'd do Yol/Worm on the MT and Galen/PA on the OTs. (This assumes you're using bi-stat food, as it drops Ebon*).

For a 2MT/1OT setup, I'd still use the same sets: Yol/Worm on the MTs and Galen/PA on the OT. But with a 2MT setup, the OT can be less tanky, and there are more options for them to play with (e.g., PA/MK).

* I do not recommend using Ebon in Update 29. The combat changes this patch have indirectly nerfed Ebon in two ways. First, the amount of health provided by Ebon is less, because it is no longer buffed by the max-stat amp from old-CP. Second, each point of health in U29 is less effective because there is less mitigation. So Ebon is providing fewer points of health, and each point of health that it does provide is less effective.

That's actually very good swap. Thank you for that.

Galenwe on 2 off tanks makes sense, because both, mini boss and our DDs are stacked in the middle which makes Galenwe procs pretty consistent. And in execute, MT just turns into back kiter proccing Yolna on dead Zmaja (which can be attacked even on 0 health) and 2 OTs will keep swapping boss, allowing us to fully benefit from Galenwe in execute as well.

We use Clockwork Ctirus instead of Ghastly Bowl, as I believe that CWC is the best all around food now. I don't think that some extra magicka regen and 2k magicka is worth the loss of 3300 hp (which even buffs shield size by 2k) in stressful encounters such as vCR+3 or Falgravn HM. We've tried using parse food on Falgravn HM and people kept dying even on 1 Instability.

Olupajmibanan · March 2021

@code65536 @WrathOfInnos
Sorry for bothering, but I forgot to ask. Is it good idea to stop damage before 25% on Zmaja and wait till portal guys come out and then immediately push Zmaja to 25% and spawn Galenwe? I though that this way, we could take Galenwe down before another portal spawns, but not sure if this is possible and if it is of any improvement.

code65536 · March 2021

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

@code65536 @WrathOfInnos
Sorry for bothering, but I forgot to ask. Is it good idea to stop damage before 25% on Zmaja and wait till portal guys come out and then immediately push Zmaja to 25% and spawn Galenwe? I though that this way, we could take Galenwe down before another portal spawns, but not sure if this is possible and if it is of any improvement.

I've never tried doing that, so I don't know how effective that would be.

Sanguinor2 · March 2021

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Sorry for bothering, but I forgot to ask. Is it good idea to stop damage before 25% on Zmaja and wait till portal guys come out and then immediately push Zmaja to 25% and spawn Galenwe? I though that this way, we could take Galenwe down before another portal spawns, but not sure if this is possible and if it is of any improvement.

I cant say that I have ever tried that but just try it imo. Its not like you are going for speed. You dont even need to kill him before the portal spawns, if he is in execute he should still die within seconds of the portal being spawned. Its probably an improvement for you if you manage it in such a way that you have to spend less time dealing with galenwe with only 9 people instead of 12.

IonicKai · April 2021

Some tips that help a lot is knowing what will actually kill people. There's a lot of visual chaos while galenwae is up and it can be easy to just get in the mindset of "get of of red" or whatever your AOE color is. You can technically take two galenwae meteors and the flare explosion if heals are down on the location meaning that people shouldn't be so worried about scattering for meteors. They just need to block.

Also make sure DDs are not ever standing right on top of galenwae. His ice ring is too fast to dodge and does a ridiculous amount of damage.

And the biggest struggle I see is the target transition between galenwae and creepers. I've watched creepers solo groups because they were too busy trying to kill galenwae and ignored the callout. Creeper silence is one of the highest causes of support deaths and is why they are second only to orbs in kill order. As others mentioned though a dedicated orb killer is a better idea so that you have people in stack more reliably for dealing with fire stacks because you need at least 3 people stacked or it's instant death.

I also saw that you asked about waiting to push to 25% until portal team came up. I would advise against this though I have seen a strat of pushing galenwae to 67% (before he drops meteors) then waiting for the next portal to complete before annihilating him. This was done to ensure you get as few meteor phases as possible (should only be one if you have solid burn). I don't know if I consider it the best strategy (my team never uses it) but it had sound logic for dealing with one of the tougher visual mechanics in the trial.

HappyDan · April 2021

Saving horns + colossus+ dd's ultis to when mini's are stacked and not on off times when mini's are dead.

satanio · April 2021

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Our struggles came, when wanted to finish the vCR+3 achievement for new members. We can consistently clear any trial HM except vCR+3. We've beaten it in the past like 4 times, but I feel it was a coincidence (easy creeper spawn, easy flare in execute, ...) rather than focused clear.
.

/lurk

The first was lucky, the other 3 were consistent.

We were doing it with 2 Z'maja tanks and 1 off tank if you remember. I am still strongly against 2 off tanks as it didn't feel logical because of what a tank could do with its CP two years ago. But times could've changed I guess, with the CP 2.0...
Anyways, I don't feel like the problem would lie in the tanks - have you tried inviting a guy with the name that starts on 'J' and ends on 'upinho" as a dps?