alright, we've been here twice now, and one of those runs was a pretty solid attempt at a win. the first run was an optional farming run and we were way understaffed so don't think of it as an attempt, cause i don't. so that leaves the second run, which was tonight.

windurst is obviously the hardest of all the dynamis we've tried, and we all have first-hand experience of that now. but guys, it ain't that hard. these are, in my sexy opinion, the main reasons why we didnt close in on a victory:

One- we were missing a few of our bigger damage dealers and a handful of mages (no worries, absences happen). We cant really plan around this, but I would say this is the main reason we didnt see that mega-boss. now in saying this i'm not trying to place blame or make people feel bad, schedule conflicts HAPPEN. you have to look at the flipside: short a couple sloppy pulls, we did everything right. all we need next time is more manpower (and ladypower), and some strategy adjustments. when thats your biggest problem, you are sitting in a pretty good place for the next run.

TWO- our strategy. yes I just said we did most everything "right". no I am not bi-polar. quetre and i have spent several hours each researching various strategies for windurst (just google 'dynamis-windurst strategy' if you're interested). the one we liked the most, and felt would best fit shogun's style, is the one found at this site:

http://www.dynamisbums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15

if you read through that, you can see exactly how close we were to popping the mega-boss (we finished around Map E). actually i'm going to go ahead and require that you read all of that walkthrough, as the bigger the picture you see, the better in dynamis you'll be (see what i did there). we didn't follow this strategy to the letter but it was our basic guideline. add a handful of attendees, remove a couple wipes, clean up a couple pulls, and we're fighting the mega-boss. windurst is well within our reach.
also its worth noting that their maps are not 100% accurate; some statues are in different places or have a different behavior. i'd say this is due to small random differences in each dynamis run which i've also noticed in bastok. hello luck. thanks squareenix, you guys are top dollar. moving on.

the main difference between windurst and the other cities that i've noticed, as far as shogun is concerned, is that windurst requires more micro-management and more strategy pull-to-pull than the other cities. its really not any more difficult. what i'm saying is, bastok, sandy and jeuno have maybe 4 or 5 pulls en route to victory that require special attention, be it a sacrifice pull or special item usage (ie poison pots), or just timofh dying to appease the dynamis gods. windurst, however, requires quite a bit more attention if our run tonight was any indication. there are many 'traps' (as they are referred to); an example of which is where you (the puller) cross a long bridge, aggro a statue on an island, and 1-5 statues pop behind you on an earlier segment of said bridge. tonight these things caught us by surprise and we wiped a few times due to it (thundaga III + thundaga III, waterga III + firaga III, halp please gad) these situations are probably easily avoided by prepping the BLMs and the alliance, an advantage which we did not enjoy tonight as it was our first run. this brings me to another subject:

STRATEGY

ok its not a new subject, but i'm turning a corner. we have a handful or two of people in Shogun who have quite a bit of dynamis experience. i want everyone in shogun to feel that they can suggest strategy adjustments for the important runs (or any of the runs really). of course we'd all prefer that these suggestions surface here, in the forums, as opposed to in the linkshell during the run. not a problem.

that being said, AND seeing as how dynamis veterans have had several runs with Shogun and therefore might/should have a good feel for Shogun's style, don't be shy with suggestions. post it here or send /tells to a sackholder, whatever you're comfortable with. as long as its not 10 minutes before we break the hourglass. we have many good ideas about how to do this but we are always open to suggestions. wow, am i leading up to a point?

No. I thought i was, but i'm not. Listen. i talk on teamspeak with quetre and several other people during every run. before we enter, we know our goals and we know our strategy. are there adjustments made to that strategy as we progress through a zone? you bet. shit happens. bad pulls, spell resists, timely 2-hours by mobs, it all happens. i know that we don't discuss it in /linkshell or /party chat but thats cause either a) we're already talking about it on teamspeak or b) we've planned for it (ahahah fat chance).

i bring this up because i know that windy requires a lot of attention to detail and strategy. it seemed that tonight, besides the inadequate attendance (guilt trip), we were lacking in a common strategy for the linkshell to unite on. did quetre and I have a strategy we were working? of course! but the rest of the linkshell didn't hear any of it, mainly cause it was our first run in windy and we (I) were busy trying to not fuck up every pull. i remember several times where i was thinking pull-to-pull, and simply telling the linkshell to "move up" as required. thats not how i want our next run to go. I want everyone to see what we're trying to do on every pull and what our milestones are. cause really, this shit is not hard. we just gotta fine tune to Shogun's style. ;)

and speaking of which, heres a strategy change i'm suggesting. if you read the above link or if you have prior dynamis-windy experience then i'm counting on you to find the fatal flaw in this. srsly. be honest.

i'm talkin about the auction house pull. its always a big link, and we wiped once to it during this latest run. the benefits of pulling the auction house mobs are:

1) 20 minute time extention
2) mega-boss pops in front of the auction house

(for refernce, here is a map of windurst)
heres the thing. all the guides i've read say to clear the mobs in H-11 (the 3 statues on the hill), then clear the auction house mobs, then move on to clear H-10 and move the camp up there.

now, i've ran this idea past some exiles (enk osco sup), and we agree that it is a logical idea and quite possibly sexy.
clear the mobs in H-11 (the 3 statues on the hill), clear all the mobs in H-10 (basically everything on that big island). move the alliance up to H-10. then just sac pull the +20time statue back to the alliance (thf pops the statue, a voker vokes it to H-10 while the thf just flees over the bridges to the south, no 2-hour needed). the alliance is alll up in H-10 so theres no links, and we get 20 minutes without killing a single thing at the auction house.

of course, the mega-boss pops in front of the auction house. thats the only other thing we have to worry about in that area yes? if we're already sac pulling the mega boss then it doesnt matter that all the original auction house mobs are still there (right?). sac pulller pops Timofh Dodge and flees towards mog house while the quetre vokes the boss, same exact shit.

if this works, and i'm counting on experienced windy dynamis people to sound in here, that basically adds 30-40 minutes to our run. one, we dont have to spend 15-30 minutes killing auction house mobs. two, we get the +20 time extension without lifting a finger (but maybe you could raise 3 the thf).

any input is welcome. what do you think?


-- Edited by timofh at 02:15, 2006-08-21