Vendetta_x360 said:
I gotta say man, your group knows what the heck they are doing. That was one of the most smooth VoG runs on hard I've had in quite some time. I friended them all. Thanks for the run too. Granted I didn't get anything but it is always fun running through when it is painless like that.
And we were missing probably the best player from our group (the "Bahamat" they kept referring to when joking around). I'm pretty much the scrub of that group - so you see why I've latched on to them

. They always invite me to stuff, though, so I must not be
too bad of a scrub...
But yeah, as for LFG or destinyteamfinder or any of those other places, I used to use those all the time back when I was first doing VoG on Normal. Since most of the guys here couldn't run it late at night and we usually just did one CAG run Tuesday evening I used to run my alts via those sites. I had experiences that ran the gamut. I had smooth runs, and I had runs where they could barely get the damn gate open at the beginning. But probably the worst was with some guys that were really good but rushed through everything. They got to the exotic chest before me, and instead of waiting they rushed on to Gorgons and got killed which locked me out of the chest room. I almost quit then. At least we cleared the rest fast and I was done with them. Plus their inane babble (crude jokes, swearing for no particular reason, bodily noises) was driving me nuts. Oh yeah, and there was that one time where an Australian guy went AFK mid-raid when he got in an argument with his girlfriend - guess he forgot his Kinect was on or something... And on another we were trying to cheese Atheon and the guy leading us was getting frustrated after a few wipes and called us all incompetent and rage quit. I then successfully cheesed Atheon on the next try.
But I never used those sites for Hard mode - I just figured that would be too frustrating.
Crazyglitcher said:
Interesting tactic. Do you guys try to get that second sword bearer or is it just about speed?
We've never gotten the two. I thought they patched that anyway? Though it seems like their patch was less than they claimed it was. Anyway, if you have a level 32 swordbearer and you down Crota 3 times, you can get him killed before the ogres even spawn. At worst, if your sword guy screws up you can get it done in a few more tries after ogres. We've had the swordbearer die, killed the oversoul, revived the swordbearer, and still beat Crota. But really the level and skill of the swordbearer is critical. I tried it once and since I kind of suck at the jumping stuff I couldn't get up there quickly enough. I'm sure with practice I could get it done, but when 5 other people are depending on you it is just easier to go with the people who are better at it.
That brings up an interesting point. Rememeber way back when groups would organize at Atheon with the away team and portal defense teams? And then Bungie made the teleports random because that's not how they intended it to be played. Then everyone had to learn how to do all the parts (portal defense, relic, oracles). Well, Crota is the polar opposite of that with the ultra-specialization of having one sword guy, maybe a boomer sniper (that's usually my job), and the rest taking down his shields. I wonder if they will mix that up for Hard and make the swordbearer have to be different people each time? That would make it incredibly difficult.
Vendetta_x360 said:
Also io's group had a great strat in my opinion for Crota. Essentially what one of the guys was explaining to me was, as soon as they clear the side rooms, go for chalice, kill sword guy ASAP. Then everyone fires on rocket and shoots primary. If you do it quick enough, you can get three downs on Crota with the first sword. So for you guys that I tried to help with Crota last night, if you want to give it another go lets maybe try this? I'm done raiding for the week but am always open to helping out!
Yeah, speed is the key really throughout the whole Crota raid. You want to rush through the first part just so you don't have everyone scattered around in various places. The second part (if done legit) needs some speed because the longer you take getting people over the bridge just means more chances for someone on either side to die and screw it all up. Of course there's the timer on Deathsinger. And then there's a pretty short enrage timer on Crota not to mention that he moves to the right if you don't get that Swordbearer pretty quickly.
With the CAG group last night I think we couldn't get it done because we were spending too much time picking off adds when the Swordbearer was out. A couple of times Crota moved right before we even got one attack in, let alone 2 or 3. Yeah, you gotta take him down quick. Also I think the guy running the sword was 31, so when he did do damage, it wasn't all that much. You ought to be able to get him nearly half way down with the first sword if you are 32. Even when I tried it and couldn't get that many hits in because I didn't get up there quickly enough I took 1/4 of his health. We also weren't getting Crota's shields down fast enough. Supposedly a level 32 with G-horn can take them down in 2 shots.
Also, with everyone on the left side there is more danger of someone dying from the boomers. In my other group everyone goes to the lower chamber. I think that does make the swordbearer's job a little tougher, though, because they have to jump from right below Crota usually. That's what I couldn't do reliably (at least with my Hunter - might be easier with the other two). The left side strategy maybe makes the swordbearer jump a little easier but has the trade-off of leaving everyone exposed.