Hamidon Raid questions

[Trademarked Name]

I've recently been participating in some Hamidon Raids (Hamikazee style) as a generic DPS machine, but this past weekend I leveled my Fire/Fire tank to 50 and an alpha slot and thinking I'd like to contribute to Hami as a "Taunter". Yeah, I'm feeling cocky! Sometimes it seems like there are crickets when they shout out for Taunters. I haven't offered to take on the role yet as I'm not really sure exactly what is going on in detail. I think I understand that they are taunting the Yellow Mitochondria to distract them from the swarm of heroes doing the concentrated volley of DPS. But my questions are: 

1) When the call goes out for taunters to sound-off they say things like "Back Left" or "Front center". Um....what is the "left" or "back" of an amoeba monster? I've pulled up Hami pictures for the past few days trying to figure out what  "facing" it is, or if the Mitos sort of lay-out in "stage" positions, but they don't appear to be from my perspective.

2) Addendum to #1: Some don't seem to reply with a "position" at all, and seem to respond with "1". Are those taunters just going to figure out which Mito to taunt when they are told to "get into position"? Is there some other hidden chatter they are making with the organizer to set themselves in place or a taunter's channel the rest of us aren't seeing? Seems like an awful lot of experienced coordination coming from 2 commands: "Taunters Sound Off" and "Taunters get into position!"

3) Is Perma-heal required to be a "Taunter"? Or be Hami-O'd to a hairs breath from the soft/hard caps in resistance/Def? Fire/Fire isn't the most defensive tank type, in fact many scrappers are more tankable, but I have 6 -slotted my taunt and pretty good at holding agro but that's also probably because of the dam-voke. But I'm worried if I'm the only taunter on a Mito and I go down, is it certain doom for the rest of the league?

4) What is considered "In position"? In taunting range and taking damage, or do you have to be inside the jello mold?

5) When the taunters get into position, are they just spamming taunt on their Mito and self-healing until the hami is done-in?

6) Is there a Taunter apprentice program available on the Indom?

Edited August 13, 2019 by Rocketeur

[Apparition]

1. Front of the Hamidon is what faces the rock, (where everyone congregates beforehand.)  Thusly, the back is the side facing away from the rock.
2. That depends on which server the raid leaders originally hailed from.  Each server (Freedom, Justice, Champion, etc.), assigned different numbers to the mitos.  The mito numbers Champion Hamidon raiders used may be different than the mito numbers Justice Hamidon raiders used.  Some people who only played on one server or are new to Hamidon raiding may not realize that other servers used different mito numbers, so they just assume.  Ask your taunt team leader, or failing that the Hamidon raid leader.
3. Healing doesn't actually help too much, because if you take enough shots from Hamidon (ten shots, IIRC), you will stop healing for a while.  What does help is regen.  Members of my SG were in a nine person Hamidon raid once several years ago that used a Regen Brute to tank Hamidon.  A Fire/Fire Tanker will do just fine though.  Just be sure you have plenty of Essence of Earth candies, and a few green candies for before healing stops working.  Should you eventually take the Rebirth Radial Destiny, that will help as well.  One mito taunter going down won't doom a league.  I've been on Hamidon raids back before sunset where a very good taunter would cover two mitos if needed.  It's not pretty, but it's doable.
4. I was always an assault team leader for Hamidon raids before sunset, so others would be better suited to answer this specific question.  (I was never one for tanking.)  However, you want to stay just within taunt range of the mito.  Do not enter the goo.  If you taunt too closely to the mito, the AoE attack from the mito may hit and kill the DPSers.  Whatever you do, don't fly or hover.
5. Correct.  Once you are just within taunt range and the raid leader gives the go-ahead, spam taunt on your assigned mito, and eat Essence of the Earth candies as needed.
6. I am on the Excelsior server, so I can't help you with that one.  However, I do recommend reading @Foxfyre's excellent Hamidon raiding guide.

Edited August 14, 2019 by Apparition

[Apparition]

I should also mention that the Melee Radial Hybrid helps as well, both for its additional taunt and its additional regen.  You don't need the Rebirth Radial Destiny nor the Melee Radial Hybrid though.  Fire/Fire Tankers have tanked mitos before the Incarnate system.  They're just very helpful to have.

[Hedgefund]

The best taunter (notice I didn't say tanker) satisfies these 2 conditions:

 

1) Has taunt

2) Has 1-3 EOEs

 

That's it.

 

As for how to taunt a yellow, it's ideal to be positioned outside the goo, creating a straight line that includes you, your yellow and Hami, being as far back as the range of your taunt will allow.  So, to restate, the straight line starts with you, goes through your yellow then ends at Hami.  

 

Most importantly, be sure to get a hit in before he goes down so you get your goodie.  I'd want to do at least 2 attacks, in case you get some 5% bad luck on the first one.  I always use my ranged attack for this.

[Apparition]

Yeah.  For the zerg raids, the Excelsior server Hamidon raid leaders have had the taunt teams go in and get their full attack chain on Hamidon before assuming their taunt positions.

[boxhunter]

Hedgefund narrowed it down and is correct....

But to elaborate, Some of the new Leaders have not specified instructions to new people. Regulars like myself, know what the Lead is asking,  but it can get confusing if you haven't been briefed.

 

Item 1 is covered.

 

Item 2-  using "1"  as a response was just a way for the lead to see who is volunteering to taunt.  Though I think would be a great thing to use a clockwise number system for the mitos, 1-6

1 being Front Left and last  being front Right-- see item 1 answer. That way the Taunters can answer very easily. I'll pass the suggestion for Lead to explain.

 

Item 3-  I would test for your self, but you need taunt right before the Attack team dives in, you need to have EOE's on hand, for me being a Brute and descent Tank, I  need the EOE's or I will go down relatively fast, I have average amount of Regen. I have popped 6 in a row before due to a "Delay". EOE's don't stack so you have to  watch for the drop.

 

Item 4- Hedgefund already mentioned........ I usually get in position directly in front of a Yellow Mito ( see Hedgefund details) and let it agro on me, if you go in too far you will agro the Blue Mitos and then may get End Drained. EOE is not as effective at mitigating Blue Mitos.  On one raid, the Lead told Taunters to get into position and then i was there for at least 3 minutes, waiting and waiting  and getting hit by 1-3 Yellow Mitos, just kept popping EOE candy. The times Ive gone down was because of not paying attention to EOE timeouts due to issues with communications from the Lead. Also if you aggro blue mitos just back up a bit.

 

Item 5- again, slowly decrease range to the yellow mito until it aggros on you, then move forward to your mito so you can get good Taunts a few secs prior to the Attack team dropping in on Hami.

If all the Taunters do this then your fine but if you end up getting too much aggro too early, it could become an issue.

 

Make sure all Taunters are in place and all taunt around the same time.  Ive seen half the team get wiped because 2 taunters were not in place.

Once you see hami drop to about 50% get your hits in just to be 100% sure you get your rewards like Hedgefund mentioned,  just try to keep agro on your yellow mito.

 

During the attack , Mitos may adjust to a particular taunter, I've seen 3 - 4 around me before but never cause an issue as long as i have that EOE up, by then Hami is usually burning down fast.

 

 

A lot of this is just my experience and observation performing the deed,  if my assumptions are off a bit please correct.

 

 

The @Foxfyre's excellent Hamidon raiding guide, is good and give the basic 2 design plan but the one not mentioned is how its being done on Indom.

 

The Hamikaze style is the same as Zerg Hami as in the guide except that we don't bother with killing Mito's we directly destroy Hami after the 6 tanks hold aggro.

This requires between 60-80 toons. We destroy Hami 4 times in a row within approx 30 mins +(takes about 15-20 mins to get toons into 2 leagues) and went on to a 5th time.

Typically Ive seen the leagues do 3-4 depending upon Leads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2019 by boxhunter

[Apparition]

Yeah.  Excelsior Hamidon raids have been doing the same since early July, just @Foxfyre hasn't updated the guide yet.

 

Basically, the two taunt teams go in, get their full attack chain against Hamidon in, then establish aggro against their assigned mito/Hamidon.  Once the taunt teams are in place, everyone else piles into the goo and directly assaults Hamidon until he's curbstomped.  Rinse, repeat twice for a total of three times.  Like @boxhunter has said, that strategy requires two leagues to pull off, but that hasn't been a problem.

[Foxfyre]

@boxhunterHamikaze (We call it Zerg) style is how we do it on Excelsior now as well.  As @Apparitionmentioned, we've been doing it this way since early July.  How does Indom's differ? 
We have tanks taunt the mitos, 1 tank to taunt Hami and then everyone else just beats Hami down.  Hami goes down in a minute or less this way.  My experience is you need at least a league and a half for this method, however we usually have at least 3 full leagues anyway.

Also, if there's anything you guys would like to see added to the Hami guide let me know.

Edit:  I think I see now.  I never added the FULL ZERG method because at the time of writing it we still didn't know if it was possible.  Adding that now.

Edit 2: Updated!  If there are any other suggestions or ideas let me know.

Edited August 17, 2019 by Foxfyre

[Trademarked Name]

Thank you for all the help on this, everyone. Not only did you clear things up, but another Taunter took me under their wing and gave me some tips (Shout out to Pax Americana). Thank you Foxfyre for the Hami write-up. I actually have read it several times over the past few weeks, but the older classic runs (with fewer participants) didn't seem to be what was transpiring. Even then, it gave great informative detail on the different components of the Hamidon and what IT was doing.

Indom is also running the Hamikaze/Zerg form nightly. My one level 50 tank has participated as taunter on two non-consecutive evenings the past week. I haven't taken count of participants, but it's been getting close to or just over 2 leagues full. Last night 2 leagues filled and a call went out to start a 3rd, but I don't know if that happened or if they went on as soloists. As you have observed, it takes about a league and a half it seems to assure this form of take-down. Running 4 runs in 45 mins doesn't appear unusual with the leagues fully mobbing GMs to spawn the hami between the hami runs.

I also participated in a "classic" hami run a few weeks back (not a taunter) where we couldn't get a contiguous full league together and were unable to do anything productive: I now believe due, not only our shallow numbers but to the respawn of the mitos that people were unfamiliar with. Otherwise seemed strategically well executed at the time.

 

P.S. Shout out to all Indomitable players! -Find a way or make one!