So a question to those guilds that beat the heroic tank raid regularly

Treadhead2017

I know there are guilds that do it. My question to you is this: how much of your ability to beat that raid is due to the power of your collective toons, and the amount of coordination/cooperation you have?

My guild whips the epic Rancor in no time; I mean, in less than 20 minutes most of the time. But we still take the best part of a day to beat the normal tank raid. My feeling is that's because we have no coordination. No one wants to do phase 1 or 3; so when the raid starts, a few of us (myself included) will do phase 1. That might take a few hours to do. Then phase two comes along and gets cleared in minutes. Phase 3? Hours again.

So for those guilds that win, how do you organize things, if at all?

Eightys

We have to limit members to 1 attack per phase and we clear HAAT pretty quickly.

But when we first started it was more of a FFA plan, but as our members have gotten much stronger we had to initiate limits.

1AmYourFath3r

Phase 1 sucks, but most guilds can do it without full participation. P2-P4 is the bread and butter of the Raid, and I don't understand why people don't want to do it. The issue with P3 on normal is that EP is just too powerful to do it like it would be done on Heroic - you basically have to strip his mods and make him as weak as possible to get a good score.

You just have to make participation mandatory, using phase appropriate toons (meaning you shouldn't bring in Rebels for each phase). If you want to do Heroic, people need to at least go through the motions in Normal, and should be willing to do some mod swapping to get their highest score possible. From the sounds of things, all your members are interested in is padding their scores to get better rewards - they are selfish. To complete Heroic (for the first few times), you need members to put in maximum effort - that requires mod swapping, and multiple restarts to get the best RNG possible. The great thing about Heroic Tank is that the rewards are no different from 10th to 50th, and vary very little in top 10, aside from the number of GK shards for T3.

Treadhead2017

All good advice. Our problem is mostly people sitting out the more difficult phases to get high scores on the easy ones. No coordination.

Lithalan

We've always had a plan in place. Originally, we were very careful with phase transitions, and allowed extra hits after the first to clear a phase, but only after a certain length of time had passed (ensuring participation if able). We had defined start times for the phases, and suggested squads for people to use, as well as %-damage goals for everyone, including varied goals for people with different strength squads. That got us through the first few HAATs.

Now that the guild has become even stronger, we have a limit of one hit per phase, which is way more than enough to drop the HAAT. In fact, the biggest complaint we get now is from members who missed phases because they ended too quickly.

leef

everyone prides their superior strategy and coördination, but it's not that important tbh.
just don't waste teams in phases that aren't well suited for that specific team and you should be good. Obviously participation is key aswell. Having 10/20 members with jedi teams who quickly finish p1 is favourable, eventhough jedi probably do more dmg in any other phase than phase 1. It's called not being a d!ck

1AmYourFath3r

Treadhead2017 wrote: »

All good advice. Our problem is mostly people sitting out the more difficult phases to get high scores on the easy ones. No coordination.

And you can't let them do that, unless you can complete the phase easily. It's a different ballgame when it comes to Heroic, and sitting out is just not going to work (when you first start).

A good strategy is to leave free time between each phase to allow players to practice (on airplane mode)

Indominable_J

Our first couple of clears were heavy on the coordination. We assigned teams for each of the phases. When phases were in the last 10%, people weren't to send squads without checking in first, so we could send one team at a time. We asked for screenshots so we could track damage for various teams and try to figure out what was or was not working. Our very first came down to the wire, each progressive raid got easier. Maybe two weeks after the first clear, we were certain we had it down (and this was after losing a member who had the deepest roster in our guild), and we eased up. Everyone already knew what teams got sent to what phase, we didn't need screenshots, and we didn't need to worry so much about over-damage. Maybe a week after that, we had to institute raid rules to prevent it from being beaten too quickly.

Here's what we really did as far as organization: my guild has a forum and uses kik to communicate. Myself and other officers studied up on the raid -- we read forum posts, watched videos, discussed strategy. We went through each player's roster, drew up team compositions, and created a detailed strategy post, broken down by phase, identifying the teams and the waves in which they would go (i.e., when we launched, top X teams attacked immediately. When they were done, we sent reserve teams in appropriate quantities based on what remained). We did our first attempt, failed horribly (didn't get past p2). We set a target date for our next run (iirc, about 3 weeks) and let everyone know. About a week before that run, we did the full roster review again, tweaked the strategy, and managed to run it successfully.

For normal, to combat the issue you have, what we did was a 24 hour registration period where you could send a full team at p1 (only one team though) to do damage. If the raid got to p2 before the 24 hour period was up, you could only send a single toon to register. At 24 hours, it went to FFA.

Tigzie

Limit to 1 wave per phase and boot anyone who's doing the trick of missing phase 1 and using another squad on p2-4 it's sneaky and you don't need players like that.

EventineElessedil

When we first started HAAT, our leaders asked everyone to use specific squads in each phase:

1. Jedi
2. Droids
3. Anything you wanted to throw at it (Palpatine + taunts!)
4. Wiggs Rebels

Once the raid was open, we were free to attack whenever, but save the listed teams for their phases. When a phase was reaching the end (<10%), we would coordinate to make sure nobody else was in a run before attacking to make sure we didn't waste damage. We finished HAAT in just under 48 hours. Teams continued to improve, more Aaylas and Anakins made their way into P1, more people got Palpatine up in P3 ... now we have teams that can hit 10% or more in each phase. Beating it just isn't an issue anymore. Now we have to impose time limits on when phases start, because each phase goes by so fast that some members could miss the whole raid if we didn't.

Everybody must farm the four teams above (note: there are other teams as well, especially now with zetas!). If you must, split the guild into groups that concentrate on the teams for one particular phase, based on their particular roster strength to make superteams. Have them focus on getting their superteams up to g11 with speed mods. With 10 guildmates focusing on teams that can clear >7% each per phase, and 30-40 other guildmates cleaning up the rest, you will succeed.

Yes, it takes time to build up all those squads, but you should have been building multiple squads already for GW, mod challenges, and special events anyway!

CaptainRex

It is equal parts power and coordination. If our guild had 100% participation (actively attacking), we could beat the HAAT in less than an hour, easy. As is, we usually clear it in under 2 hours with around 40 members attacking (all limited to 1 attack per phase).

Having a 1 attack per phase is a good rule. It might annoy the selfish members of your guild, but they can suck it up. You might have to replace said members. Find people who are willing to work as a team. It might set you back slightly now, but when your guild eventually reaches HAAT status, it will be much easier. (Also, if you're not already, get everyone on Discord or some other third-party app to communicate. Not only does this make coordinating raids a breeze, but you become a lot less selfish when you get to know your fellow guild-mates).

kello_511

EventineElessedil wrote: »

When we first started HAAT, our leaders asked everyone to use specific squads in each phase:

1. Jedi
2. Droids
3. Anything you wanted to throw at it (Palpatine + taunts!)
4. Wiggs Rebels

Yes, it takes time to build up all those squads, but you should have been building multiple squads already for GW, mod challenges, and special events anyway!

Basically, this. We gave our guild warning that these were the teams to be working on for heroic AAT and we even had each guild member assigned to an officer who would help advise them on what teams to build for each phase. That also meant that the officer would see their progress.

Once we got to the point where we could actually do heroic, we did some coordination. It was one phase per person, using the above teams. If they missed the phase, then they missed the opportunity to use that team. You can ask for screenshots of each phase to ensure compliance if needed.

But generally, if people know that saving their Jedi for a future phase won't help (as they can't use them), they realize pretty quickly that using them in phase 1 is to their benefit. Getting 100k out of them is still better than leaving them on the bench.

Nikoms565

Most of what is posted above. The guild I'm in originally ran a 12 hour window for each phase (attack with 1 team and only one) - with the recommendations outlined above. Worked great. Then of Phase 4 it was FFA - empty all your ammo and bring it down. Not only was it fun, but it gave everyone a chance, taught everyone how the different teams work (and why) and went fairly smoothly.

We kept that model for a little while, then slowly shortened the phases. Now we run a 12 hour - 0 damage registry, then FFA. Most of us (at least me!) still like the 1 team per phase thing. It's fun and different. I much prefer running HAAT than Rancor.

WrathofCaedus

Treadhead2017 wrote: »

All good advice. Our problem is mostly people sitting out the more difficult phases to get high scores on the easy ones. No coordination.

Don't let ppl get away with this type of behavior, this is not the type of person you want in your guild. Call them out, make them attack & take screen shots if need be, and boot them if they don't. Clearing heroic tank takes great teamwork at first, eventually it gets easier, but you still need to work as a team

Edit: rewrote to nullify pointless censorship

Tavanh

My guild had the same issue on normal but that was due to our squads. You'll see larger numbers in phase 2 and 4 because you can topple whereas in phase 1 and 3, the boss doesn't lose TM. We made it clear to our members that if we want to do Heroic some day, we will need to aim for specific squads. Those who did not comply were eventually replaced.
Our first 3 Heroic raids required the help of Mercs at phase 4, but they eventually became part of our guild which boosted our effectiveness of the guild. Just remember that guild swapping was recently changed and you are more likely to get Mercs to help on Friday - Sunday morning rather than the start of the week.

Dhoey321

Treadhead2017 wrote: »

I know there are guilds that do it. My question to you is this: how much of your ability to beat that raid is due to the power of your collective toons, and the amount of coordination/cooperation you have?

My guild whips the epic Rancor in no time; I mean, in less than 20 minutes most of the time. But we still take the best part of a day to beat the normal tank raid. My feeling is that's because we have no coordination. No one wants to do phase 1 or 3; so when the raid starts, a few of us (myself included) will do phase 1. That might take a few hours to do. Then phase two comes along and gets cleared in minutes. Phase 3? Hours again.

So for those guilds that win, how do you organize things, if at all?

Everyone in the guild wants to contribute and get better in each phase. Some focus on 1 or two phases but everyone should be able to do a certain percentage in each phase.

Treadhead2017

Again, all great advice! Many thanks. I'll have to take this back to the guild. I'm not a guild leader, so I can't do much more than make suggestions.