Memory isn't what it used to be...

[Ukase]

So, I thought to myself, I said, "Self, what's your next alt going to be?" 

And Self said, "Why I think it should be a tank. Haven't done one in a while. An Elec/SS tank." 

So, I made one. It's level 42 now. I just finished an MSR. 

So far, the build is pretty good, decent dps for a tank, I suppose. 

But, I attended an "instanced MSR" and I didn't go afk and let my HVAS do my playing for me. After all, I'm on a tank, so it's incumbent upon me to lead the rikti into the bowl. So, I did. 

This is what I experienced. When I'm out of the bowl, I get no vg merits. None. In the bowl - while doing nothing but waiting for some heals and buffs, then I get the vg merits. VG merits are the only reason to do an MSR for me. But, if I'm only going to get 2/3 of what I would ordinarily get, why would I bring a tank? I can bring a blaster and just convert the vg merits to reward merits and send them over to the alt. (If the alt didn't have enough) 

I do sometimes use them for a gr'ai matter, and in those instances, I'd be stuck doing it on my tank, but I know I can't be the only person that's experienced this. And what kills me, is I remember having this issue a couple of years ago, and it's why I stopped playing a tank. I'd forgotten all about this issue. 

I hate it when I realize something I already knew but forgot. 

Still - how can this still be a thing? In the back of my mind, I was thinking the HC devs did do something to address this. But, I guess in my chronic sleep-deprived state, I'm not real sure. 

A damn shame. Full team, all over level 35, and I would have sworn this team would have out-earned a team that was non-instanced, as the non-instanced MSRs tend to let lowbies in as low as level 1. (though level 12 is the lowest I've seen in recent memory.) But there's something rotten with the msr if the characters that are bringing the rikti into the bowl - despite damaging all of them with foot stomp and damage aura - isn't getting the proper amount of vg merits. 

I didn't notice it until the latter part of the raid - no splash "Vanguard Merit Earned"  (or whatever that message is) unless I was in the bowl. On the platform above it - near the grates - zero vg merits earned. It ain't right. 

Not the end of the world, but now I know why folks go afk. They get more merits. 

[roleki]

Far as I understand it, pullers sacrifice some VMs but still pick up off their teammates.  If you were on a team with multiple pullers, you'd probably get even less than usual.

[Snarky]

I always end up pulling in the MSR.  I hate them. I do them for the badges and honestly i cannot recall a single badger that has completed the damn things

[lemming]

I find the most merits I get are with my AOE blasters.  Melee tends to get a lower number.

I don't know what numbers I'd get standing around though.

[Sir Myshkin]

When it comes to earning Vanguard Merits on the MSR, the key is all about max targets damaged. Not killed, damaged, this is important. Melee characters typically have the smallest radi on their attacks (compared to say Blasters), or otherwise are ST focused which means they're spending more time individualized on one Mob than many.

 

For those that AFK, or otherwise just cycle a fast and large AoE on repeat, they will see far greater VM returns because they're constantly, and consistently impacting at least one point of damage on a mass amount of enemies, and that's all that is key to earning a VM off that enemy when it dies. Interestingly in this process once you have that many players in such a confined area all spamming AoEs, it almost really doesn't matter if 40 players are AFK if they all cycle spam 20 points, everything in the bowl will die just as quickly anyway.

 

BUT!

 

This brings us back to Tanks/Brutes bringing adds into the bowl from outside. The only way to increase opportunity of additional net VM for the group as a whole is to bring in my enemies from outside the bowl, otherwise the bowl stagnates and empties quickly making Taunters a necessity. Even being teamed, the team that the Taunter is attached to has to be successfully arresting a large amount to pass VM sharing credit over to the Taunter. The best course of action for the taunter to ensure they get a piece of the VM pie (so to speak) would be to taunt through force, use an AoE, damage toggles, whatever to round out the adds and drag them across versus just a hard taunt.

 

 

[Hyperstrike]

Yes, the team earnings "tether" pretty much ONLY works in the bowl if you're looking for team earnings.

This is why I generally recommend to my aggro-hounds to drag them back to the bowl and not try to continue fighting in the lanes or on the upper mezzanine.

I generally play the central FF generator for the group.

Usually my damage output suffers from it.

For a dedicated support, if your goal is "earnings".  Spread your "love taps" around as many enemies as possible and leave finishing them to the rest of the team and league.

As long as your team has at least 1HP of damage on them, the team earns the VMs too, regardless of which person in the league gets the kill.
You only REALLY need one per team. 

 

[Ukase]

Thing is - I'm just frustrated that the tether isn't larger. 
As I pull rikti from the upper tiers into the bowl, I've often seen Rikti returning to their spawn points. Not mine, mind you. I turn off SS and sprint, ensure they each get a tick of damage or two and lead them into the bowl, if they live that long. I usually give them a good foot stomp once I get them to the ramp, then off for the next bunch. 

Now, it could be that I just had a team of crappy people who weren't doing much of anything. That can certainly happen. It was doubly disappointing because my thinking has always been 35+ in MSR would get more vg merits than a team that had some lower level characters, simply because they die more often, and often just sit there as if it were a fire farm. 

I generally get 1200 vg merits. On my spines brutes, I tend to get more, closer to 1400. I think my best was 1450 or so. But 800...that's really a poor result. Not like it's the end of the world, but I expected more, given the sheer number I damaged. But, apparently, when I leave the bowl, there's no vg merits. Still get xp, which is fine, but not why I'm there. 

Need a longer leash, or what motivation does any tank have to do an msr? 

[Pyriold]

For AFK merrits i think MMs have it best. Just set all pets to aggressive... and collect those merrits.

[Coyotedancer]

Another fun trick for support types....

 

If you happen to have one of those nifty toggle-style enemy-anchored debuffs, put it on one of the grates closest to the bowl. The range on those is long enough to keep it running while you're back down in the bowl, and every group of Rikti that respawn next to that grate will instantly hate your guts and come running down the ramp without ever seeing a brute or a tank. 

[Hedgefund2]

If you did an instanced MSR, then there's no "tank penalty".  One advantage of instanced of instanced over zone MSR is that VMs are shared in the team regardless of proximity to bowl.

 

See point #4:

 

 

I try to make sure when I have a tank (I do 1 and only 1 MSR per character), I do the instanced MSR.  I did this recently and got the usual 1200+ VMs.  If I had to guess why OP got 800-ish that sounds like a team problem.

[Hedgefund2]

10 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Check out the original post. It was an instanced MSR.

Right,  check out my reply, that you quoted.  Perhaps wording was confusing?  Let's try "If one does an instanced MSR, then there's no "tank penalty"."

[Hedgefund2]

 

4 minutes ago, Krimson said:

While we are discussing the ability to read...

  

 

 

I quoted a post from user Apparition who seems to have credibility on the subject on instanced MSRs.  I pointed to a line item they mentioned for advantages for MSRs.  I'll quote it here for simplicity:

 

Quote

4. No matter where you are on the map or how far away from the rest of your teammates you are, you will still get Vanguard merits.  One of the issues with the zone MSR is that pullers typically get fewer Vanguard merits than the rest of their teammates, sometimes substantially fewer.   That effectively penalizes pullers, who are vital to any MSR.  That is not an issue with the instanced MSR.

 

So, there's a discrepancy between the OPs account and Apparition's.  Maybe how VMs are awarded in instanced MSR  changed?  I dunno.  Maybe OP was mistaken.  I dunno.  There is a discrepancy though, hope that helps clarify.

[Ukase]

So, let me be real clear. I got no VG merits when out of the bowl. Now, when I say that - I didn't have my salvage tab opened to monitor it.

 I know the team was doing at least some clobbering. But, I'm not in the habit of literally tracking each teammate to see what they're up to. And to be fair, while my damage aura and foot stomp gets applied to each herd I lead to the bowl, I've only damaged them a little bit, maybe 20-25% by the time they get to the bowl. I think it's possible that my team could have been in a different area of the bowl.

The only thing I can say with certainty is I wasn't getting the vg merit splash message when out of the bowl, and I was getting the message when in the bowl. And it was an instanced MSR. 

Beyond that, the one thing I think that could be an issue is the lack of an HVAS. But, for the first raid for a character, I couldn't bring one. If I add in what those can usually add to an MSR total, maybe that could put me back on track to the numbers I'm accustomed to seeing. 

I'll be attending another, this time with the HVAS and see how things go. 


 

[Trike]

I’ve noticed that my Tanks get fewer drops of everything than Blasters.

 

I really like Frostfire so I do that one a lot, and it’s not unusual for a Tank to get nearly zero rewards (recipes, salvage, enhancements), while a Blaster has an embarrassment of riches.

 

Is this a general function of the game at large, or is it just part of special missions?

[Grouchybeast]

It's just that the RNG hates you.

 

Luckily, there's a guaranteed way to fix it. Start keeping a spreadsheet for drops for your tanks and blasters. The RNG is extremely cunning, and can sense when it's being watched. You'll find that the little pest will start to average out just to spite you.

 

(Seriously, no, there's no difference in drop rates for ATs. Recipes that drop are randomly assigned to a team member.)

[Trike]

On 9/7/2022 at 4:40 PM, Grouchybeast said:

It's just that the RNG hates you.

 

Luckily, there's a guaranteed way to fix it. Start keeping a spreadsheet for drops for your tanks and blasters. The RNG is extremely cunning, and can sense when it's being watched. You'll find that the little pest will start to average out just to spite you.

 

(Seriously, no, there's no difference in drop rates for ATs. Recipes that drop are randomly assigned to a team member.)

I must be a statistical anomaly then, because it happens regularly.

 

Here are two of my most recent characters I’ve taken through Frostfire, a Defender and Blaster. Defender received zero recipes and few salvage, while the Blaster got 3 recipes and lots of salvage. This is extremely common; I have a LOT of alts and I see this constantly.

 

 

 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Trike said:

Here are two of my most recent characters I’ve taken through Frostfire, a Defender and Blaster. Defender received zero recipes and few salvage, while the Blaster got 3 recipes and lots of salvage. This is extremely common; I have a LOT of alts and I see this constantly.

The RNG can be a fickle mistress. When I'm farming, my alt that is getting PL'd once got 3 purples - just sitting, while the poor farmer got only 1. There's never a rhyme or a reason for it that I can tell. 

Anecdotally, I can tell you my tank routinely gets 2-5 uncommon/rare recipes per map, which I run at +2/8 or +4/8, depending on how close I am to leveling. 

I did another MSR, with an HVAS, and still got less than 900 VG merits, and this one was not instanced. 
This is my conclusion: bad luck. I think some teams just have people that are just "healing" instead of firing. A damn shame, too, because when I'm herding the Rikti to the bowl, I'm not getting any buffs at all. 

In any event, I have enough VG merits for the gr'ai matter I'll need tomorrow, and that's all the vg merits I need for now. 
My cold/fire brute holds the record for most vg merits at 1511. Prior to that, I'd gotten over 1400 only twice. Usually, I'm at 1200 vg merits. I'll just not be making any more tanks for a while, lol. 

[Trike]

I just ran Frostfire with my Brute and then Tanker, to test my impressions. Salvage drops are the same at 6 pieces each, but the Brute got 4 recipes while the Tank got 0. I’ll do it again with whoever comes up next, but that’s in line with what I typically see. I’ve always just assumed it has something to do with damage dealt.

 

 

[Grouchybeast]

5 hours ago, Trike said:

I just ran Frostfire with my Brute and then Tanker, to test my impressions. Salvage drops are the same at 6 pieces each, but the Brute got 4 recipes while the Tank got 0. I’ll do it again with whoever comes up next, but that’s in line with what I typically see. I’ve always just assumed it has something to do with damage dealt.

 

If damage dealt was a factor, then door-sitters would get no drops which is clearly not the case (see @Ukase above).

 

Do keep keeping track, though, just in case you've found an extremely weird edge case.  It has happened in the past!

[Hedgefund2]

I just ran an instanced MSR with a tank.  I asked someone on the team to track their VMs earned and the raid leader, Psyheal, graciously volunteered to provide me their beginning and end number.  Psyheal assured me that they spend their raid time in the bowl.  I made sure to spend at least 80% of my time out of the bowl, fetching Rikti.

 

The results:

 

 

	Beginning	End	Raid Total
Me	69	1181	1112
PsyHeal	17	1138	1121

 

 

There's a discrepancy of 9 Vanguard Merits that I can't account for.  A trivial amount but it does annoy me.  My hypothesis is that it's related to pylons, I got distracted early and missed on some pylon kills but this is irrelevant to the greater point that pullers are not penalized for spending time outside of the bowl for instanced MSRs

[roleki]

 @Hedgefund2, any chance your team composition changed during the MSR, and/or both players got credit on all Pylons?  9 is a suspicious number.

Edited September 10, 2022 by roleki

[Hedgefund2]

There is no chance team composition changed, at least with respect to me and PsyHeal, I paid very close attention to make sure we were never split.  I can't say with 100% certainty the other 6 spots stayed static.  As the raid leader PsyHeal did do some juggling, I think, but the two of us were never separated.

 

9 is weird to me in that it's 3 * 3 and you get 3 merits per pylon and I think I missed 3 pylons.  I don't have a paper trail for that so it's speculation, but not baseless speculation.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Hedgefund2

[Ukase]

That's a good idea. I'll have to ask teammates what their starting number is, if they'll help me track and compare. 

 

 

So, I did an MSR on a water/atomic blaster, level 41 yesterday. 
I got over 2000 VG merits. No tanks or brutes on my team. Other teammates got the same, within a few. 

Obviously, I can't draw any scientific conclusions, but anecdotally - the lesson is to not take a tank to an MSR, and to try not have one on the team, if that can be helped. And that's a shame, because without the tanks pulling, then that will certainly limit the merits for everyone. 

But 2000 compared to 800? That's a huge discrepancy. And 2k is an outlier, as most of my characters get about 1200. But still...

Edited September 15, 2022 by Ukase

[PLVRIZR]

On 9/8/2022 at 10:39 PM, Trike said:

I just ran Frostfire with my Brute and then Tanker, to test my impressions. Salvage drops are the same at 6 pieces each, but the Brute got 4 recipes while the Tank got 0. I’ll do it again with whoever comes up next, but that’s in line with what I typically see. I’ve always just assumed it has something to do with damage dealt.

 

 

 

 

 

Clearly those drop rates are as skewed as your monitor.  Due to the curve, maybe😄?