Herding MSR

[Glowman]

What’s the best way to herd to the bowl during an MSR raid? I struggle to get a good pull and could use some pointers. 

[Sanguinesun]

My understanding is "herding" is more about the upper areas where the bombs were planted to pull down to the group but if too many do it, it can wipe the bowl pretty fast.  Most of the bowl edge mobs just a simple taunt or punch etc then jumping down to the edge of the team to then the opposite side usually gets the mobs down into the area to be decimated by others.

 

Also tanks on some teams are told to focus more of taunting and pulling down the magus more and brutes/scrappers round up  other things.  Depends on the team I suppose.

[sbloyd]

For me, there's two components - getting a mob's attention, and getting them to keep that attention.

 

I'm currently using a Bio/ tank for herding; her AOE taunt aura picks up mobs nicely.  Just run up to/through groups of mobs on the upper hull, and they'll start attacking and following you.  On my Rad/ I have Incarnate powers, so I usually start my gathering-up with an Ion Judgement lightning-bolt, which can hit up to 40 targets.

 

So now you have guys following you... the problem I used to have was that they'd "fall off" of me, so I started doing corner-pulling.  Corner-pulling is where you get their attention, as above, then use geometry to break line of sight; don't get too far away, or they might just return to their spawn positions.  This is good for two reasons: one, if you're out of line of sight, they're not shooting the crap out of you from halfway across the hull.  Second, they gather into a nice knot right where you are, which lets you reapply taunt easily, or slap a debuff on them, or whatever.  All over the hull, along the sides, are places you can do this (the little radiator fins that line the walls the bomb-grates are set into work fine).

 

Once I get them close to the edge, I hop down onto the ramp.  The bowl ramp has a "lip" on the ramp where you can break LOS again, and the Rikti will knot up again if you pause right under that lip.  Then I hop down into the bowl; right around the floor of the bowl is another lip you can break LOS with, and they'll follow you down and your blastery friends can nuke the heck out of them.

 

This is all anecdotal, mind you.  I don't know the inner mechanics of how and why they break off versus stay on you when pulling; I've seen some guys pull a whole wing of the hull in one shot, and they all stick to him just fine (HI, REACTORN!).

[Glowman]

That is very helpful. Thank you!

[Sura]

2 hours ago, sbloyd said:

Once I get them close to the edge, I hop down onto the ramp.  The bowl ramp has a "lip" on the ramp where you can break LOS again, and the Rikti will knot up again if you pause right under that lip.  Then I hop down into the bowl; right around the floor of the bowl is another lip you can break LOS with, and they'll follow you down and your blastery friends can nuke the heck out of them.

This is what I've done as well.  My problem is that as an Ice Tanker I'm slowing them as well as taunting them with Chilling, so it takes much longer to pull.  🙂

[sbloyd]

21 minutes ago, Sura said:

This is what I've done as well.  My problem is that as an Ice Tanker I'm slowing them as well as taunting them with Chilling, so it takes much longer to pull.  🙂

I have the same issue on my Warshade.  I end up having to stop-and-wait in stages or else I get too far away and they lose interest.

[ironjoe]

In addition to the herding techniques mentioned above, I also break each side into four sections where I herd around the agro cap every time.  Looking from the bowl you have: close middle, far middle, upper left, upper right. With the middles they each have a left and right side that can take some consolidation.  So first I hit close middle and taunt/punchvoke both sides and then break los to herd towards the bowl like sbloyd mentioned. I then go back to get the far middle in a similar fashion but breaking los behind some door edges before following the same path as before. I then go back for an upper edge hitting the front group, then the back and then breaking los to hit again and then herd the same path. 

 

What I would like in the future is organizing assigned sides for tanks so we aren't breaking agro on each other like sometimes happens. Like tanks on teams 1&2  take south, 3&4 east, 5&6 west. I've had a few runs where we instinctively got that figured out and we were all pulling some mega herds combined.

 

Attached picture from internet for reference:

 

[Glowman]

This information is incredible. Thanks you every one for the pointers!

[ironjoe]

I thought I'd add something I learned along the way that is super easy to gather agro. Simply pick on of the sides that wasn't used for the bombs and then use brawl on the grates along the way there. You instantly agro all Rikti in the area. I normally hit the agro cap after hitting two grates and then use my normal agro management techniques discussed above to get them back. Just thought I'd share that as the agro generated from hitting the grates had a far larger area of effect than my pbaoe attacks or taunt. So for the initial agro generation it's the quickest way to go. I use brawl for this so I don't destroy grates part way through the MSR. Many of you probably already know this but I felt like slapping my head when I realized how quick and easy this makes herding the MSR. 

[RobotLove]

ironjoe knows his stuff and has all the good stuff covered. Only thing I'd like to add is be patient. Keep boppin 'em to keep their attention and don't be afraid to wait for them to bunch up a bit. Heard them a little at a time, and remember that there are a half dozen or so other pullers working too. Even if you're not the fastest of the bunch, there will be a steady stream of aliens for the raid to nuke.

[Lines]

Try to make sure you can cope with psi. My invuln tanker can have hiccups herding on the MSR if I’m at the aggro cap for too long, so I give myself enough time betweens herds to make sure I have at least one of Dull Pain, Elusive Mind or Barrier Destiny recharged and ready.

 

I have a fire tank in the works but I have no idea if he’d even be up for it unless I slot for it specifically.

 

Definitely going to try that trick with grates, that sounds.... great!

Edited October 7, 2019 by Lines

[JaxLavigne]

I've been playing on Homecoming servers for not quite a week now. I find it really pathetic and more than a small case of arrogant presumption when those wanting to do MSR broadcast, in all caps no less, for everyone not part of the MSR to please leave the zone so that "we can get our people in." I refused to do so tonight when I was called out because I didn't leave. I sent a broadcast message back stating that I needed 9 more defeats/kills to finish a mission before I would leave, and was promptly threatened with being blackballed on the server, in broadcast, and I was called an @$$h*** in private, by a character named Ainsbeth. This is the kind of childish and amateurish behavior that I've seen in many other MMOs, but never in COH, until tonight.  It was aggravating, sad and pathetic. It prompted me to file my first ever report against another player (for behavior/harassments.) in COH 

[VV]

This is a great discussion and one that many people will find useful. 

 

All good suggestions, and I have to second or third the "slow down" recommendation. I have a Fire tank (have courage @Linesthey work great) and normally she just rushes through everything. These Rikti are so slow and so distractable it is ridiculous. They trudge along and if you get more than a few feet away, they go back to picking their toes. Almost like they know you are leading them to the slaughter.

 

So, you do have to be ready to pause a lot and reapply aggro. I use Taunt, Fireball, and Pyro Judgement as ranged aggro applyers. I use Fire Sword Circle to apply it close up. Fire Aura has good aggro, so that helps. 

 

Definitely attacking the grates helps bring them over to you. They are still slow, of course, but sometimes they will actually use their teleport.

 

Pulling the bosses, of course, helps the minions to come along, so I usually focus my aggro builders on them.

[Hyperstrike]

I saw someone note that if too much is pulled into the bowl you'll wipe the raid.
On all the raids I've lead, since the advent of Incarnates, this has NOT been a problem unless a significant portion of the league is sub-35 lowbies.
Indeed, most raids, if you're one of the green machine in the bowl, you're all but unkillable.

And yes, herding the Rikti takes more time.  But you want to pull them down into the bowl, all the way.  Not fight them on the mezzanine levels.
As a tank you also want to do it because of the team tethering.
If you're too far from your team, you don't receive VM credit if they kill something.
Hence, run out, pull, herd to bowl, kill, run out again.

If there are enough aggro magnets in the league, you can team up to pull especially large groups all at once.

[Apparition]

24 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

I saw someone note that if too much is pulled into the bowl you'll wipe the raid.
On all the raids I've lead, since the advent of Incarnates, this has NOT been a problem unless a significant portion of the league is sub-35 lowbies.
Indeed, most raids, if you're one of the green machine in the bowl, you're all but unkillable.

And yes, herding the Rikti takes more time.  But you want to pull them down into the bowl, all the way.  Not fight them on the mezzanine levels.
As a tank you also want to do it because of the team tethering.
If you're too far from your team, you don't receive VM credit if they kill something.
Hence, run out, pull, herd to bowl, kill, run out again.

If there are enough aggro magnets in the league, you can team up to pull especially large groups all at once.

 

It depends on what you pull into the bowl.  If there's only one person with AoE mez protection, and you have a bunch of squishy Blasters in the bowl, and you pull a bunch of Chief Mesmorists/Mentalists/Rikti Magi into the bowl, wiping is a possibility, even if everyone is level 40+.  A third of my raid Saturday wiped exactly due to this.

 

Also, while good advice in regards to herding and pulling all the way to the bowl, the not receiving Vanguard merits if you're too far away only applies to the zone MSR.  In the instanced MSR, you can be a half mile away from everyone else in the league and still receive Vanguard merits.

[Hyperstrike]

8 hours ago, Apparition said:

Also, while good advice in regards to herding and pulling all the way to the bowl, the not receiving Vanguard merits if you're too far away only applies to the zone MSR.  In the instanced MSR, you can be a half mile away from everyone else in the league and still receive Vanguard merits.

I'll have to test this to make sure.  I still prefer the standard raids because they're more inclusive and you don't get the Incarnate Raid load-in jumble.  (It effs with my OCD something FIERCE!  Especially since I try to balance out teams.)

 

[Apparition]

56 minutes ago, Hyperstrike said:

I'll have to test this to make sure.  I still prefer the standard raids because they're more inclusive and you don't get the Incarnate Raid load-in jumble.  (It effs with my OCD something FIERCE!  Especially since I try to balance out teams.)

 

 

I've already tested it twice, once on Pineapple before it went live and after it reached the regular servers.  I've run two or three instanced MSRs every week since October 1st.  The "lack of inclusivity" doesn't bother me because I've always restricted my MSRs to level 35+ since 2009. :P

 

As far as the Incarnate Raid load-in jumble... actually, that hasn't been a problem.  I don't know if the issue has been fixed only for instanced MSRs, or if it's because of the way I form them, but the teams are intact once inside the instance.  The order of the people inside the team is jumbled, but not the teams themselves.

 

In case it matters, the way I form them is: I keep my own team low at first, three to five people.  Then when someone joins, I invite them directly to my team, not to the league.  Once they join, I shuffle them off to the appropriate league team.  I only fill my team up towards the end.  If a team is unbalanced, then I just shuffle people around before queuing.

 

Like I said, I don't know if it's been fixed only for instanced MSRs, or if it's the way I form them, or a combination of both, but I have not experienced any league jumbling.

[ironjoe]

With the raid wipe note I agree with Apparition about what you pull in also really matters. I had a pull once of all Chief Mesmorists/Mentalists/Rikti Magi and I accidentally wiped the raid and it was 35+. I felt pretty bad about that one. That's a really abnormal pull though so it's normally not an issue. The sub 35 raids are more fragile with high Magi counts but it's normally not a problem unless you get an oddly high Magi pull.

[Sura]

I like the 35+ requirement.  In the zone MSR's I've been in some where I felt like 75% of the participants were 30 or below and just flailing around.  It wasn't as much fun.

[VV]

On 11/18/2019 at 5:55 AM, Hyperstrike said:

I saw someone note that if too much is pulled into the bowl you'll wipe the raid.

Just a side note. For anyone playing on Indom, this is not a consideration. Pull as much as you can.

 

Actually, this brings up another point. I have done MSRs on various shards and each one is a little different. (None are bad, I'm not saying that, so nobody get all defensive.) So, when you are pulling, be sure you know the tactics of your League. Some prefer you to pull as hard as you can, some prefer to take it a bit easier. Some prefer you to go certain directions, or sector it out, some just let you go wild. So, definitely, before you get too far into herding Rikti, do one or two of the MSRs with the same lead, just to get the rhythm of it.

[Hyperstrike]

2 hours ago, VV said:

Just a side note. For anyone playing on Indom, this is not a consideration. Pull as much as you can.

 

Actually, this brings up another point. I have done MSRs on various shards and each one is a little different. (None are bad, I'm not saying that, so nobody get all defensive.) So, when you are pulling, be sure you know the tactics of your League. Some prefer you to pull as hard as you can, some prefer to take it a bit easier. Some prefer you to go certain directions, or sector it out, some just let you go wild. So, definitely, before you get too far into herding Rikti, do one or two of the MSRs with the same lead, just to get the rhythm of it.

I'm of the "If we ain't dyin', we ain't tryin' school of thought.

[BZRKR]

Something that I learned tonight is that you can *Taunt* the bomb grates to get the same aggro bump as brawling them. This has the advantage of range and it does less damage to the grates.

 

Also, on Indomitable we have noticed that if the Tanks pull enough Rikti into the bowl that the overlapping mez becomes a problem, then the raid leader will pull the tanks back into the bowl to help kill what we pulled, and we get more merits!