Dear Sarlonian Wizzards

[Darthbadger]

QFT!!!
+1

OP, please don't join my shroud runs, ever ...
30 minutes is a very slow run.

My LFM always read, Shroud: min buffs, fast, break crystals, no d-door, starting when full. (or something close to that)

Guess what? They fill fast and we are done in less time than it takes most Pugs to even fill.

I have absolutely no problem with you running shroud the way you want to run it. I run fast shrouds too, i think 15 minutes normal is my lowest. But I like teamwork, and I like running it under level, in hard or elite with pugs. Bad habits are bad habits, and running overgeared can teach bad habits. That is what is happening. And when I lead a raid and say no wail, it means no wail. You can always start your own lfm and complete faster than me. Have fun.

This is why I always told my guildies that nearfing the blades was a bad idea. Not a fan of autocomplete on all runs.

[LazyTigerLily]

Yea, I'm the ONLY one allowed to kill Guildmates!

I thought that was the point of the blades in part 4. I get points and devil scales for killing the boys!

[Ilindith]

Who cares if people die in the Shroud? Just complete without them, geez.

[Darthbadger]

It's funny reading all these "shroud is ez kills aargh" posts and then checking the Sarlona lfm.

Normal shrouds galore, a rare hard (all of them full of 17-23).

This is not about your guild run, where you have your own system. I'd run elite vod in a second with guildies but never with pugs. This is about pug shrouds. And pugs are running normal on Sarlona. With a tiny bit of teamwork, the vast majority of these should be hard with heroic toons and elite with heroic and epic. But they aren't. In normal? Wail. Idk. I run normal when I'm bored or don't have much time. This is not about normal, and in elite or, to a lesser extent, hard, wail kills pug toons and is totally unnecessary in part four. If a leader says no wail, it means no wail. Form ur own lfm and do a quick normal shroud, that is cool by me.

Funny that I don't see much hard or elite pug shrouds on Sarlona if they are such a cakewalk for out server.

Anyway. Have fun.

[TrinityTurtle]

Honestly, I don't care what the wizards do in part four as long as the other people in my group are doing SOMETHING. Failed out of a NORMAL SHROUD because only myself and the group leader did anything but stand there in part 3. I wish I was joking/exaggerating. No responses to our calls to let us know who needs help and where they are. No responses before we went in when the leader asked if everyone knew what to do. Just...standing, and rainbow walls.

Be glad your wizards are doing SOMETHING.

[LordPiglet]

It's funny reading all these "shroud is ez kills aargh" posts and then checking the Sarlona lfm.

Normal shrouds galore, a rare hard (all of them full of 17-23).

This is not about your guild run, where you have your own system. I'd run elite vod in a second with guildies but never with pugs. This is about pug shrouds. And pugs are running normal on Sarlona. With a tiny bit of teamwork, the vast majority of these should be hard with heroic toons and elite with heroic and epic. But they aren't. In normal? Wail. Idk. I run normal when I'm bored or don't have much time. This is not about normal, and in elite or, to a lesser extent, hard, wail kills pug toons and is totally unnecessary in part four. If a leader says no wail, it means no wail. Form ur own lfm and do a quick normal shroud, that is cool by me.

Funny that I don't see much hard or elite pug shrouds on Sarlona if they are such a cakewalk for out server.

Anyway. Have fun.

Over the weekend, my guildie wants to run shroud, so 3 or 4 of us join a "fast" run. He's on a fighter, I'm on my 20 fvs/1 exaulted angel WF FvS who I just made a 2[2d6] holy burst silver greater lawful outsider bane gs I want to test, and my other guildie is on a 20 FvS evoker. Overall party has 8 melee, 1 arti, 2 fvs and a single sorc, and we enter on hard.

Part 1 is fine, part 2 is fine, maybe a small delay in taking out the bosses and the crystal was a bit slow. Part 3, all puzzles done, but 2 of them took a while to do including a 3x3 that I had to wait a while for someone to pick the lock so I could do it.

Part 4, everyone in asap, trash is killed asap. I'm in melee with mass heals on myself, +dots. Other fvs is dotting and helping heal. Rogue and monk keep jumping out of heals, but managed to stay alive, 1/2 the party runs out of blades, even though we never instructed them too Harry is at like 10%. No death in part 4, however, I note everyone asked for deadly (okay, maybe they all had dr breakers, i don't know for sure), and I've spend close to 3k mana, the other fvs is out, the sorc spent 1500.

This is where my problem lies and this is what I keep seeing in shroud and why I don't run them. For some reason, people are not teaching the arcanes to dump mana. They're not dotting (I didn't see the signs of either dot being triple stacked. Sorcs and wiz's are relying purely on SLA's far too much in shroud, I'm also seeing way too many shroud runs with no wiz's sorcs slots once 2 are in the party. I've got in straight up arguements with them via tell about why they can't dot or dump mana. They think crowd control is needed in part 4, it's not. Dump the mana, deal the damage, get him down asap and make the divines life easier.

While your hold and slower strategy make work well for under level hard/elites in getting ready for the boss fight, it's not as good for over level, epic/well geared players. It's aggrivating for me to dump 3000+ mana healing, dotting, all the while I'm doing melee damage, yet to see that the party leader would only take 2 arcanes and neither one dumps mana. More well played arcanes in the party dumping mana in part 4/5 makes it easier, on all difficulties. So no, I won't pug hard/elite shroud myself on my fvs's, I don't need the headache.

[Chai]

Some of you must really love running Shroud, and farming 4+ year old gear two chests at a time.

No? Ok.

Then why not run elite half as often? I see alot of claims of "pfffft shroud, its so easy, why are we still complaining about this?"

The reason is because people do_not_want to use strategy or in some cases, even want to lead at all. They want to toss it together and just power through it.

Truth is, we play a game where the new raid comes out, and it is beaten handedly within three hours of being released. People spent more time arguing on the forums about who got the first completion than they took actually getting the completion. Players dont want strategy. They want to complain that Shroud is too hard because the blades hit for too much, then take their uber destiny toon in on normal and one round the boss within 20 seconds of everyone cycling through their epic moment ability.

There are some of us who want to run the tougher difficulties, and this is getting harder to do despite the power creep in PUGs because people developed the bad habit of running no effort raids for such a long time that they forgot how to be strategic when needed. When being even slightly strategic means being able to run half as many shrouds in order to make an item, it makes sense to do so. Ridicule that statement all you want - have fun running twice as many normals to get the same number of larges I am running half as many elites to get. While ridiculing, please make as many tough guy comments as possible about how shroud is so easy we shouldnt even be talking about it, because I love tabbing back into the game after reading those posts to take a gander at the plethora of normal LFMs up, while also noting the severe lack of hards and elites. If its soooo easy, YUnO run elite?

[thisgamesull]

Another Shroud thread? Really?
I blame you for the other servers calling us a flower sniffing server
Whats next are we gonna have a thread on the correct way to run water Works?

[Chai]

Another Shroud thread? Really?
I blame you for the other servers calling us a flower sniffing server
Whats next are we gonna have a thread on the correct way to run water Works?

Naaa, the monthly "waterworks needs to be toned down" thread already happened. It was mostly non Sarlonians complaining about the acid tunnel trap.

[LafoMamone]

Dear Sarlonian Wizards (and Sorcs and FVS and anyone else who feels they should be included here) in my shroud groups, please kill all the devils asap, wail, circle of death and implosion are all good for this! While you are at it, feel free to break crystals in part 3. Also, stop buffing the heck out of everyone, most people don't need most of the buffs you give, and if someone really needs a buff they will likely type for it, the mana you save here will also mean there is no reason to go tumbling in the pools! Lastly, to the people who feel the need to exploit and avoid the raid completion timer by leaving early, please leave before harry is dead, rather than making people wait for you or getting cranky when they don't. Happy Shrouding.

Kirris.

This is the shroud rant thread right?

This is only for normal though, right? We all know Kirris gets one-shotted by a portal in phase 1 on elite.

[TrinityTurtle]

Some of you must really love running Shroud, and farming 4+ year old gear two chests at a time.

Actually, I'm not farming gear in shroud. The only thing at this point I could be considered farming other than fun is the 20th completion shots at tomes and larges that make me a decent profit on the ah so that I can buy tod mats for my toons.

Because I actually do ENJOY both raids, I think they are have fun and I enjoy most of the antics that go on. I have done all three difficulties, and have no problem continuing to join whatever level is up on the board. I usually have a blast in the shroud. Especially with a good group with all sorts of sillies going on over the chat. I don't care what spectacular loot you put in a quest, I'm playing this game to have fun. If the quest isn't fun, I'm not gonna do it loot or no.

[Chai]

Actually, I'm not farming gear in shroud. The only thing at this point I could be considered farming other than fun is the 20th completion shots at tomes and larges that make me a decent profit on the ah so that I can buy tod mats for my toons.

Because I actually do ENJOY both raids, I think they are have fun and I enjoy most of the antics that go on. I have done all three difficulties, and have no problem continuing to join whatever level is up on the board. I usually have a blast in the shroud. Especially with a good group with all sorts of sillies going on over the chat. I don't care what spectacular loot you put in a quest, I'm playing this game to have fun. If the quest isn't fun, I'm not gonna do it loot or no.

TOD mats. The one higher level raid thats more obsolete than shroud.

Playing to have fun is the most legit reason to play.

However...alot of the posts I see around these parts, especially in the "make normal difficulty easier" threads, are about not having fun in a raid people already ran kajillions of times. Since most of their posts also carry on about how Shroud is soooo easy etc...I make my point that with a small amount of strategy, people could run it half as much and get the same number of chests if they did it on elite...theres no reason NOT to do this, with those two stipulations.

But yeah by all means, if its FUN then do it anyhow, regardless of reward or other benefits.

[sireric]

Over the weekend, my guildie wants to run shroud, so 3 or 4 of us join a "fast" run. He's on a fighter, I'm on my 20 fvs/1 exaulted angel WF FvS who I just made a 2[2d6] holy burst silver greater lawful outsider bane gs I want to test, and my other guildie is on a 20 FvS evoker. Overall party has 8 melee, 1 arti, 2 fvs and a single sorc, and we enter on hard.

Part 1 is fine, part 2 is fine, maybe a small delay in taking out the bosses and the crystal was a bit slow. Part 3, all puzzles done, but 2 of them took a while to do including a 3x3 that I had to wait a while for someone to pick the lock so I could do it.

Part 4, everyone in asap, trash is killed asap. I'm in melee with mass heals on myself, +dots. Other fvs is dotting and helping heal. Rogue and monk keep jumping out of heals, but managed to stay alive, 1/2 the party runs out of blades, even though we never instructed them too Harry is at like 10%. No death in part 4, however, I note everyone asked for deadly (okay, maybe they all had dr breakers, i don't know for sure), and I've spend close to 3k mana, the other fvs is out, the sorc spent 1500.

This is where my problem lies and this is what I keep seeing in shroud and why I don't run them. For some reason, people are not teaching the arcanes to dump mana. They're not dotting (I didn't see the signs of either dot being triple stacked. Sorcs and wiz's are relying purely on SLA's far too much in shroud, I'm also seeing way too many shroud runs with no wiz's sorcs slots once 2 are in the party. I've got in straight up arguements with them via tell about why they can't dot or dump mana. They think crowd control is needed in part 4, it's not. Dump the mana, deal the damage, get him down asap and make the divines life easier.

While your hold and slower strategy make work well for under level hard/elites in getting ready for the boss fight, it's not as good for over level, epic/well geared players. It's aggrivating for me to dump 3000+ mana healing, dotting, all the while I'm doing melee damage, yet to see that the party leader would only take 2 arcanes and neither one dumps mana. More well played arcanes in the party dumping mana in part 4/5 makes it easier, on all difficulties. So no, I won't pug hard/elite shroud myself on my fvs's, I don't need the headache.

I posted a shroud run the other day and since I had 3 spots left and only 3 casters (having already acquired two healers) I switched the LFM to only allow catsters. The lone fighter in the group speaks up and asks me to "fix" the LFM and allow only DPS toons into the group. I tell him casters are dps, the LFM is fine, and he doesn't have to stay if he doesn't agree. This sparks a debate between my guildie and the fighter, who seems to think that shrouds still need to be run like they were 2 years ago with a single caster, two clerics and the rest melee. After listening to this for a few minutes I settle it by telling the fighter that he is right, I need to dump the weakest dps asap. I kick him and fill with a PM, and two water savant sorcs and we complete in less then 20 minutes.
I specifically told all casters to dump sp and dot away. My sorc has well over 3k sp and I dump as much as I can in part 4. sla's should be saved for killing the gnolls if you fail to one round Harry. You are right that people sometimes need to be told to sp dump.

[akash]

[LazarusPossum]

I think part of the problem is hardly anyone is running "teaching" Shrouds on Sarlona anymore. They're simply being exclusive by not admitting non-guild players or booting the ones they don't like instead, to the detriment of the entire player base.
Because of this, noobs remain noobs, and PUG leaders remain frustrated.

I haven't run many Shrouds myself (still less than 20), but I do know that since the level 16 express began, one of the following scenarios arises in most PUGs -- nobody seems to know the most efficient pathing for the portals in part 1, the lieutenants aren't being separated in part 2, a crystal is broken in part 3 (this is happening most often), and sometimes (not so often) it almost looks like it will take 2 rounds to take down Harry in part 4, and this is on Normal.

I think it's time for some more knowledgeable leaders to stop being exclusive and start showing some of the newbies outside their own guilds how it's done, whether caster or melee, and stop fretting over a possible wipe now and then -- as long as people are learning.
Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, repair, and try again. The timer only starts once you make a completion.

[Bolo_Grubb]

QFT!!!
+1

OP, please don't join my shroud runs, ever ...
30 minutes is a very slow run.

My LFM always read, Shroud: min buffs, fast, break crystals, no d-door, starting when full. (or something close to that)

Guess what? They fill fast and we are done in less time than it takes most Pugs to even fill.

ya you just need to run more of them though.

[Chai]

QFT!!!
+1

OP, please don't join my shroud runs, ever ...
30 minutes is a very slow run.

My LFM always read, Shroud: min buffs, fast, break crystals, no d-door, starting when full. (or something close to that)

Guess what? They fill fast and we are done in less time than it takes most Pugs to even fill.

And you run twice as many normals to get the same number of larges as we do running elites, using a minor bit of strategy.

[ZeebaNeighba]

Uh...@ OP anyone who can't survive a couple hits from the blades won't survive aggro from harry either, unless they have evasion or maybe good fire resistances/protection/shield. So it's not really something I worry about that much, casters can stand way back in that corner and not get hit by the blades anyway.

Also I find it funny to see people make such a big fuss over normal Shrouds, I haven't done any shrouds since the update but before that I did about 15-20 on normal and never got close to wiping, with the exception of one part 4 where I was one of the 3 people left alive at the end of it, and that was sort of because there was a favored soul healer, and me on a bard healing, and when I paused my heals for 8 seconds to play any song the melees' health bars hit the fan.

[Kages]

Uh...@ OP anyone who can't survive a couple hits from the blades won't survive aggro from harry either, unless they have evasion or maybe good fire resistances/protection/shield. So it's not really something I worry about that much, casters can stand way back in that corner and not get hit by the blades anyway.

Also I find it funny to see people make such a big fuss over normal Shrouds, I haven't done any shrouds since the update but before that I did about 15-20 on normal and never got close to wiping, with the exception of one part 4 where I was one of the 3 people left alive at the end of it, and that was sort of because there was a favored soul healer, and me on a bard healing, and when I paused my heals for 8 seconds to play any song the melees' health bars hit the fan.

Shroud has a difficulty other than elite? News to me.

[Darthbadger]

Also I find it funny to see people make such a big fuss over normal Shrouds

Which is why, of course, I've mentioned multiple times this is about hard and elite. =)

As far as people dieing with low hp...well, I'm a cleric and I try to keep people up. I usually have no problem on hard with sub 250 hp toons. I'll try to keep that squishy rogue with his evasion and sneak attack up and alive any day. I've seen 600 hp fighters get torn to shreds because of a wail and the misfortune of randomly getting all blades. Tough luck for him eh? In any case, giving up dps because of a lazy wail or "they have low hp let them die" just doesn't make much sense to me. Especially when a teeny tiny minuscule amount of strategy avoids it.

I mean, really, I know it's a game, but how lazy are we to use no strategy?

Hard and elite are pretty fun, sarlona should do it more often....sometimes you fail....but it's not like we're playing dark souls.