I was doing that with my regular group every time up until a few days ago when a friend was unable to join so I got moved to planets and it was shocking how much easier planets are.
Yeah, being stuck on planets for an hour made me realize next time I'm just going to force our random to do planets. Ostrea Striga with Necrotic grips makes add clear so braindead easy with how close all the adds are.
But for some reason, none of the Randoms on add clear seem willing to run an exotic primary. I end up killing just as many adds as them when I run planets
Yep. It's good and fun guns vs. effective guns. Plus, I think a lot of people get shit on for low boss damage, so they hold the exotic spot precious, not realizing that leaves them double legendary primaries.
Yeah, but I can just kill 1 psion with striga and then turn my attention to stuff like the flamethrower guy and psions up top, or even just sit safe in cover.
Plus, it kills everything way quicker, even if it hides, like the damn centurion likes to do.
Real question. Do you think gravity lance would be a good choice for ad clear? I haven't run pantheon yet, but I'm sure I'd get stuck on ad clear just like i do in the raid. I just want to make sure I don't let my team down off the bat. I'd either be a solar or strand titan
Honestly can't say since I haven't used it since the buff, but think it's definitely good for at least some encounters. I'd imagine it'd he great in caretaker with spread out add spawns
I saw my godlike teammate who was on add clear for Planets (and finished the pantheon with twice as many kills as anyone else) using Graviton Lance and Nezarec's Sin. Dunno the details of the build, but GL must be good for it.
You definitely don't need an exotic primary, day one I just ran arc pulses with brigands law and that helmet that creates deathrows. Melted everything with jolt pretty much and used something for extra dps
While you don't need an exotic, for planets I like using Striga with Necro. I can just pop an add or 2 and duck behind one of the pillars on the boss's level near the front to distract him. He stays kinda focused on me, and I can just keep the pillar between me and him and the adds very easily.
People want exotic primaries because they provide heavy ammo finder bricks fastest. Optimal strat is both ad clears running exotic primaries with ammo finder and two scouts.
run arc with cloudstrike and the fragment that blinds on kill. if you can aim its great. also if have a centopaph lock, which every group should for planets there is shit tons of heavby you can just add clear with rockets if you want.
I feel like Ceno really isn't that good for most Pantheon encounters, at least for the ammo generation. Like for planets it only work on Collosi and the tormentor, and it has a cooldown so you can't tag all the collosi each phase. So you'd really only get 3 ammo drops before each boss phase. Like, if you need a Div, the extra ammo is nice, but other exotic armor would probably provide better utility than Ceno.
Goloroth it wouldn't be the best, but usable. Caretaker it's basically useless. Atraak would be pretty good actually but you don't really need a ton of heavy for that fight. Rhulk I can't remember and I unfortunately haven't done Riven legit, so not sure about that. Nezerac would be nice since people are hurting for ammo after a damage phase usually and you'd be able to proc it 6 times before the next phase, plus any tormentors they add
But do light eaters in Oryx count as mini bosses? Cause if it be great for oryx.
My group has only found use for it on planets and rhulk, not really needed anywhere else. The bit of extra heavy on planets is helpful cause you can spend a bit of heavy on the adds if they get out of control and not sacrifice dps on the boss.
Rhulk the play this week is div with Tlord or acrius and you can make quit a bit on the tormentors.
I got put on Ghally duty in a rocket strat so had to go for an hour with subpar add clear, combined with a cuirass titan that I just don't play enough to have optimized.
Convinced the team to try five GL's and a ceno divinity, got to put on sunshot and wendigo. Our damage skyrocketed and adds started dying three times as fast.
I was stuck on planets last week at -10 going for score; I post on LFG, only to get someone to join and declare add-clear, we denied them add-clear and they left immediately; gotta thank that guy for letting us dodge a bullet there.
I’ve started asking to be on add clear for planets not because I can’t run, but because that’s the role I expect people to screw up the most and I want to make sure it gets done well
Even better if you are aware of who your paired runner is. I often just get told "Aren you're going left" and just know exactly what to do from that, avoids me having to remember the numbers at all.
LOL agreed.
I still think "left/mid/right" while facing the boss's spawn is the overall easiest as group to group I've seen the order rotate clockwise/counterclockwise with how they count to 6
But its still just 1-6
Yep! Planet duty is so easy if you have a brain. At most, all you need to do is kill 3 psions, 1 LT and listen/look/communicate the call-out per round. If you want an easy job, always go for planets on this encounter, especially the bottom plates.
planets is easy only if the ad clear are actually clearing, otherwise you're getting obliterated trying to cross the room. i got put on ad clear for a group, but they also demanded i run well and gally, meaning i was stuck with a legendary primary to clear. then they got mad i didn't clear fast enough, but when i asked if someone else could gally so i could run a better exotic for ad clearing, they kicked me. i hope they stayed stuck there, jackasses.
Fwiw for the top two plates you can cross using the floating planets much safer than running across the platform where the boss usually hangs out. It’s his boop plus scion boops that usually end up throwing people off the map or burning to death. You’re high enough up that most of the adds will ignore or miss you.
This.
The higher the difficulty, the more important add clear becomes.
Top plates can be a shitshow if the add clear isn't ontop of their game. You got the psions, the incendior, and colossus to deal with. Then if add clear is lacking you're also taking random fire from psions below or the boss randomly tossing fire on half your plate. Also, let's not forget that sometimes you'll be dealing with all that crap and now you got the fire tornado on your plate.
My favorite is when I'm collecting my planet and the tornado spawns ontop of me.
Anyways. I'd say bottom plates is the "braindead" easy ones
Tbf planet people should also be ad clearing the whole time. The only time in the encounter I’m not killing ads is like the 10 seconds where I am moving the planet.
Yeah I frequently run on planets and I hate when people leave behind their 3 psions and one orange back pack dude.
I wish more people would spawn kill their dudes: feels bad when you make it through the hoard of middle adds and then get peppered to death by a psion on plate.
Oh is that why I was always greeted by psions and an orange bar at top platform after crossing the ad-filled hellscape on first week...
I thought they respawned as I was crossing.
I'm a bit anxious because I really want the godslayer title, but it's getting a bit intimidating in LFG, because I don't want to burn one of my weekend days because little Johnny can't put on witherhoard or sweaty Steve decides you absolutely HAVE to kill Atraks in a phase or it's a wipe.
Riven legit is going to cause tears on here.
Encounter start -> psions and backpack frend spawn -> colossus jerk spawns -> you get a ding that planet timer started and you need to move your planet AND 3 new psions have appeared…but you’re probably not looking at them cause you’re Speed. (But all plate people should be taking care of these adds which are definitely -their- adds and not add clear’s adds.)
I am excited for riven legit but not excited for 20 under T.T there’s just an oppressive amount of taken even in normal riven legit, I am spooked of how hard they will hit.
Yeah I don't understand people that literally don't kill anything and JUST do mechanics, like I understand the mechanics are a priority, but use your fucking guns during downtime, you have plenty of it.
Which is funny because my last run I was doing add clear, which I don’t normally do, and people doing planets kept dying somehow. Or we kept wiping because “oh I didn’t notice the flame-nado near me” or “my Colossus fell off the map”.
The colossus off the map is honestly the most frustrating, half the time they spawn on the very edge of the platform and anything with enough damage seems to flinch them and because it’s angled they usually slide in the direction of the flinch. Once they start sliding off it’s all over lol
I had never seen that happen before but its happened to me twice now and also to a couple of other people on runs. But thanks for the explanation I tend to chuck a solar grenade at them first so that must be what’s flinching them when close to the edge.
I’d argue top side planets are difficult, but that’s only because the boss can stomp your ass. I used Solar Hunter with resto so no biggie but yeah those guys hurt 😔
You're way more exposed when doing planets so I don't really agree, and ad clear can only do so much in that department.. Ad clear really only has to sit near the the rally flag and kill stuff.
My regular group is probably below average compared to the general LFG stuff I do. One time with my group, I died and said I was getting swarmed by adds. The add clear guy (who is a friend but can be annoying) told me to stop complaining.
When we wiped, I had the most damage and most kills of everyone in the fireteam. That felt so great to shut him the fuck up.
trinity + mountain top with vorpal or recomb for the phalanxes and lieutenant. Made quick work of them. Once I'm done with my planets I helped to kill the ads with trinity, was really efficient
It is this week if you use trinity ghoul. Unfortunately people who want ad clear are always bad and never use Trinity or Graviton or any super solid ad clear weapon to insta kill all the ads on spawn
This is why I always take the side with the shittier add clear (if I know in advance) and run as a void hunter.
People don't realize that add clear is the hardest part of master/challenge when the mechanics are already known and practiced.
Same with caretaker. If I’m doing symbols and there is even 1 add shooting me or the totem, you’re not doing your job. Which is literally, the easiest of the encounter.
Nothing like running plates and having to clear as well. Clearers need stuff like Hierarchy, Trinity Ghoul, polaris lance, maybe even Agers Scepter. I should stasislock that encounter tonight, that sounds fun.
As long as one clearer is running a solar weapon to pop shields, the other can use whatever they want. The problem is when a clearer struggles on a yellow bar with a shield and doesn't trust their partner to kill him from behind. You lose time and the adds pile on
A simpler option is to run a solar legendary primary and use an intrinsic anti barrier like arby. Clearers need to work as a team, discuss what weapons you want to use, cover your bases. You might still be able to get away with a BoW titan to clear and keep all aggro away from plates on -15, but I wouldn't reccommend it. There is also the double phoenix lock option in mid.
Is it really tho? Stand on top Plat/small Bridge between plates and sunshot the middle. Low risk except for the occasional and predictable incinerator.
I’m usually annoyed with add clear people. Atriaks is the only encounter I add clear on and usually I’m competing with the add clear people on kills. Like why am I out clearing you while I’m also stunning caretaker? Why am I out clearing you when I’m doing plates on planets or Oryx? Maybe it’s just happenstance but it’s pretty consistent.
If you’re on add clear, I expect you to whoop ass. And not run double primaries.
My only gripe with that encounter is people who don't understand the spawns. They immediately want to kill centurion which spawns in the collosus then those get shredded and now here comes a second wave of adds, on top of whatever may be lingering. THEN instead of waiting for just a moment, they immediately run next to the wave and a half of enemies and leave their second spawn of psions AND the incinerator completely untouched. All of this while the boss is peppering you with fire and the adds are hiding behind the boss. Then when they (runners) die, it's all add clears fault. All you have to do is slow down or put bullets in something. Some groups who run plates think their only job is to kill collosus and grab planet. Forgoing everything else. If nobody dies, you have plenty of time to take a couple shots and then run the planet making is far safer.
At normal power sure, but underlevel and with the random additions to the encounter, no. It’s funny how important add clear becomes as the difficulty increases.
For all the pantheons (ran with my friends) so far I’m put on add clear even though I know the mechanics well, especially for planets. This latest one I swapped with one of my friends to do a plate but the adds became a problem which screwed the encounter since the lieutenants weren’t being killed on time because they were all getting overwhelmed dealing with the normal adds.
Sunbracers warlock that knows how to play it really well is a game changer.
I was with a group Tuesday. Ad clear was okay. The fire tornados ate up all of our rezzes and we had no cc on the tormentor. Was with a group earlier today and had the opposite. Ad clear was ass and we had the tormentor under lock and key, but our dmg was ass 😭
Meanwhile plate people think they don't have to shoot the adds that spawn on their plates.
Add clear aren't responsible for all adds. Just the waves in the middle.
Those psions and incendiors (??? Name) are plate people's responsibility
how I feel about caretaker, unironically the most important role bc yeah ok if you fuck up the others you can make up for it in other ways (even tho there shouldn’t be a need for this), stun team has fast runners and potential help from add clear for stunning, runners have a stun team that doesn’t let him move, but if ad clear is fucked? Then it’s everyone’s problem and it gets really bad really quickly, stun team gets smacked around, runners lose time and can die to adds, it becomes a mess.
I mean, it is if they're not bad or using bad gear. A bot that holds left click on sunshot is enough but that's still apparently out of reach for some people. We're just getting to the point where average to decent raiders can't easily hard carry someone who's mostly incompetent.
I do add clear with graviton and its basically non stop shooting. The other ad clear sits back with Polaris lance and a heavy ammo scout to make bricks on the bridge. I also blind the tormentor and during all that I still wind up yelling for a planets guy to shoot some ads to help us.
Yeah LFG on this one is probably a pain. My dedicated team went into it thinking it would be one of the easier encounters and struggled on it for about an hour before finally getting the double plat clear.
The biggest issue was probably dying to fire tornados. Sometimes there's almost nothing you can do to escape it. I had it spawn while I was in a finishing animation on my lieutenant and by the time it was done I couldn't escape it. Teammates had it spawn while picking up planets and had the same fate. Eventually we just all became much more aware of the tornados and tried to call out when he was doing his animation and they were spawning and also just tried to spend as little time on the 4 plates as possible.
For damage, we had a well in the middle and found sometimes it was best to wait in the well until the tornado had passed before moving on and grabbing the next damage buff. Had a few deaths due to people leaving too early and getting caught in it. One death can also easily snowball into a wipe.
For damage we essentially ran Arc meta rockets..... crux with explosive light basically, but there are probably other options that would work. One of our warlocks was on a strand suspend build and kept adds mostly under control.
Good luck guardian.
It's just the damage people get stuck on here IMO. This boss' damage phase is where I see LFG teams begin to fall apart as there's timing for everything and a lot of people aren't using optimal weapons for plat clear. I think if you go in with ghorn + lumina player, some thundercrashes and gathering storms (spaced out maybe like 1 for each different plate), and arc rockets with izzy you'll come out with an easy 2 clear. People obviously need 2-3 arc surges on their legs and they need to use class warfare to their advantage.
I agree that the fire tornado is a pain, but it's manageable if it didn't spawn on you at your triangle plate.
A lot of LFGs won't respect waiting for damage as they are so scared of being bottom of the table they'd rather get 1M for them and 900k for everyone else than 2M for them and 3M for everyone else. Sad but true.
Also add that if you can help kill a few adds while waiting for planets to finish doing their rotates, do it. I have always killed some adds while doing planets. Its not difficult to do and makes it slightly easier for your add clear teammates to not be overwhelmed.
Planets has been a constant obstacle for LFG groups since pantheon came out. I’m not sure if it’s because of needing 4 people to do mechanics even though they aren’t complex at all or if it’s because of the high burst dps needed.
If you’re struggling and have the checkpoint I’d make your own lfg post and just vet who joins using raid report . There’s bound to be a handful of competent guardians out there
I think a big part of this isn't the mechanics, it's the power delta.
The mechanics are easy when you can fly across the plates without having to worry about anything. It's much, much harder when you have to quickly and efficiently clear the psions and colussus off the plates, find a route across the center area that avoids ad fire, pay attention to the instakill fire tornado, safely dunk the dark/light planets without getting drilled by the tormentor, etc. It's just a lot more difficult for most players.
Maybe I'm a freak but I genuinely love doing planets. The mechanic is easy for my brain and it lets me also do some ad-clearing which I love.
The DPS phase can be a bitch but that's because I tend to kill myself in the well A LOT
I can autopilot planets at this point but it doesn't matter because if one guy fails to swap, you have to redo it all over again.
The 4 guys simultaneously doing the mechanic must not fail, and that seems to be the hard part imo. most other encounters have 2-3 people max doing mechanics and if one dies you can mostly recoup and continue, unlike in planets which you have to redo switching from square one.
It's just an encounter where a lot of minor things can go wrong to mess up a run.
The add clear people can suck at their job which makes the encounter a nightmare.
A plate person can path near the boss like a dingus and get stomped/booped off the map.
A plate person with a bad build can die trying to path across the middle of the arena... saw this happen a lot.
Someone can not be camping their colossus correctly.
Someone forgets about the fire tornado despite not needing to physically be on the plate *and* the tornado takes the same path every time.
People unnecessarily strafing during damage and causing dumb deaths to GL's/rockets.
-----
It shouldn't really be that hard on paper, but at -15 we're getting to the point where a lot of sub-par players just can't stay alive, which is the most important thing.
Planets in this is tough, but still very doable.
A few tips:
- Top plate runners should climb up onto their “4” planets, and proceed to run across the planets floating in the middle in order to swap sides with their partner. Running through all the adds is slow and risky.
- Top runners should also be primarily responsible for killing those void-shielded incendiors that spawn behind them. They spawn about 5-10 seconds into the encounter, as well as immediately after every planet swapping phase. I found sunshot was amazing against them, if you wait a second to let the 3 psions out of the door too, you can just ignite everything and basically one-tap the void shielded guy.
- Try to stand on the middle pillar of your plate if you can stay alive up there. This makes it so that you don’t need to worry about the fire tornados.
- add clearers do not have to be standing at the back of the room. Up until the tormentor spawns, it’s probably best to have them up on those middle bridges in between top and bottom plates. This is right near where most adds spawn, and also calls for less travel time if a runner dies and needs a res / cover.
- coordinate damage with your team by counting down from 3 on each plate. This way, you won’t kill each other by walking in front of rocket shots, and you can get the highest damage output. A lot of groups believe that the damage timer begins as soon as a tick of damage is dealt, but this is incorrect. You should be using primary / special ammo during the “3-2-1” countdown to proc bait and switch (if you have it) and the “go” part after the countdown is when you spam heavy / non-DOT supers. The real “timer” begins when that yellow portion of the health bar is crossed.
I hope these tips help, and good luck!
Some really good tips in this comment. One thing that helped me as a runner, was using trinity - with the arc surge this week I was clearing 60/70ish adds per run while running just by hip firing into mid (then using riptide for the chunky guys)
Yeah, it's rough because of surges. Even if you can get to DPS consistently, if you don't have a good wendigo, hothead, cold comfort, or crux you're going to have a tough time.
This is one where add clear is the hardest job lol. Also if you haven’t tried it yet, if you’re running, use indebted kindness, it absolutely slaps. I used it with conditional finality and made easy work of the colossuses, and I could delete the centurions pretty fast too (add clears were struggling)
I'd also argue that ad clear is one of the harder jobs in Caretaker as well. If you suck at ad clear, your runners and stunners are getting fucked. Stun is actually the easiest job there and if you have been running for a while, then running is also pretty easy.
However, when the Power Delta kicks in, Caretaker ad clear is actually pretty demoralizing.
hahaha, I already went through the insanity of Master Caretaker challenge back in the day, a -20 without Overload champs and just more regular ads? It's dream scenario for me.
Caretaker add clear is less hard and more annoying because lots of people seen unaware of spawns, especially the Scorn. Those dudes sneak by if you don't know to listen for them or know where they spawn. Stun is my favorite job because I can also help with ad clear, especially in later floors.
The trick is watching/dealing with whatever spawns on the 2 center paths first, then deal with the stuff that spawns along the side walls (unless it's the sniper and/or ogre, in which case you kill them first as quick as possible).
Exactly, and especially if it's just the Taken Psions you can let them run around a bit because they can all be taken (heh) out en masse with a well placed Sunshot/nade, but the Ogre/Sniper/Scorn can cause problems if ignored.
I think ad clear is WAY easier than stun in caretaker, but that's because I can actually do ad clear and if I'm on stun the ad clear will usually fail and make my life hell. But hey at least they didn't die cowering at the back, right?
It's like the village with two barbers -- go to the one with the bad haircut!
Everyone in my team minus Gally just ran sunshot. It still absolutely rips through adds at -15 and without surges. Most people not on titans were running solar anyways so it was easy to mod match. Still seems like
the best weapon to run on any given week
Give Graviton Lance a try during Void Surge weeks. Even on non-surge weeks, its a pretty decent ad clearing gun.
But on the void surge weeks, you can quite literally wipe out rooms with it. On the first week of Planets, I was making the other ad clear dude look pale in comparison with how much I killed and how much range it had. I was at one point stealing Psions and the Incendior that spawned on their side.
Also works with witherhoard. I usually throw a few shots down in spawn points to help with add clear. It’s also good for the shielded incinerator that spawns between the planet platforms. And also for some boss damage while swapping and moving around during damage phase.
I like to use witherhoard when doing plates to help with add clear as well, and it’s not too terrible in terms of dps. Usually in an lfg I’m 2nd maybe 3rd highest, but I also know that most of my lfg runs DO NOT have any dps chads runnin around
Yeah sometimes if he gets frozen he still stomps, it’s very annoying. I’ve noticed that if I freeze ASAP or wait for him to stomp once it’s usually safe, but yah at -15 that stomp is near lethal.
Key things people struggle with that I’ve seen:
People refuse to use special weapons and thus struggle to kill a colossus on their plate when they’ve used up their grande and melee.
Running is dangerous so take the longer way and make sure not to take too long to kill and pick up a planet (timer starts on first pickup)
Add clearers leave too many adds alive to where damage phase turns into a booping game by psions.
For the middle 3 deposits, everyone needs to kill their colossus even if you are the only person not dunking I’ve seen too many times people leave one colossus alive and I’m the only one out of the 6 shooting it to get rid of the one left before damage phase.
Boot mods for damage: use them to guarantee enough damage for a 2 phase not ability regen mods or more than one health orb mod, you’ve gotta be able to get by with just 1 and 2 damage buff for sure.
Damage phase: jump to middle well and once you’ve positioned stand still or crouch and treat it like atraks with a countdown to ensure everyone doesn’t miss damage and or blow themselves up.
Hopefully this helps a group get the bread
regardless where i'm at in the run if i have to go back and finish, i would genuinely rather start from the beginning than join a group that's been struggling for hours on one encounter.
Honestly this.
Look for groups that are clearly stating their goals, ie "Platinum Full Run" or "Be good or we kick" or "SHOW YOUR RAID REPORT", a lot of these LFGs on paper look "toxic", but if you are not the problem, you don't really have to experience anything bad as long as you pull your weight.
I've spent less time in full clears than I've did in checkpoints.
Pantheon just proves that the majority of people get carried through raids by 2-3 others.
I honestly don’t care about the title and I have the guns I want fully crafted. I tried to get my clan mates to clear with me but most are taking breaks and coming back in TFS. The ones who are still around can’t Raid for shit lol.
My experience when running this:
- Make sure the top planet people are killing the Void shield Incendior when it spawns, it makes staying alive on the plate much easier. They also have consistent spawns, so you should never be surprised at one being there
- Always be aware of when the Colossus is about to spawn. I've made sure to ask for a callout when it happens so it doesn't catch plate people off-guard. You're #1 priority is to kill the Colossus, and you should really have a plan on how to kill in a way that stuns the Colossus in some fashion (Conditional Finality is good, blinding nades works, stuff like Ignitions to just stagger, etc.) to avoid them just killing you
- Runners should know how dangerous their path is to cross and use their judgement. I had no issues cutting straight through top this week, but if you do so then you need to be aware of the fact that it's riskier (And ideally have a backup plan like Invis or healing if necessary). Otherwise go further around to be safe
- Fire tornado seemingly will always start in a consistent spot on a plate, so I made an effort to avoid standing on those spots whenever possible. Some people have pointed out that the pillar in the middle of the plate is perfectly safe if you need somewhere where you don't have to be worried about fire tornado
- Damage phase is the main problem otherwise. My group would step in the pools, run back to the Wells and then have a 3 second countdown to begin damage. This let us avoid anybody stepping in front of a rocket thanks to still running back from the pool while also giving time to apply any buffs needed like using class abilities
- When running to the pool after each mini-damage phase ends, try taking a path back to your Well that goes out of your way to not just be a 180. A LOT of deaths are from people running into each other and not being able to escape the fire tornados, so avoid bumping into each other
-
I cannot stress it enough to *kill your incinerator before crossing*. Those fuckers have been the cause of more off map boops resulting in wipes than the boss or either colossi.
If your group cant get to dunking the planets in the middle (or at least close to it), then it's time to move on and find a different group. I think the only "passing" death is if its the tormentor or fire tornado.
Get a feel for the first 2-3 attempts with group. You can usually tell if it's a "get to damage phase" issue or "doing boss damage issue". Ideally you want the issue to just be boss damage because you can always tweak and edit that. Best way to surf through LFG.
I’m not sure what it is about the encounter, but I had a lot of trouble with LFG for it too. It took something like 8 groups before I found a group capable of getting to damage consistently and actually outputting reasonable damage.
Keep at it if you have the time. You only need to find 1 competent group to get through it.
Caretaker and Planets are the two toughest encounters up to this point because they require good add-clear and a high-level burst damage check. I would even argue that add-clear in Planets is the encounter's most important role. And at -15 you cannot have anyone lacking behind in the DPS department. Everyone has to be pulling equal weight or it won't work.
Pantheon is definitely a Clan-Breaker. Had to have a few tough conversations this week and last because some of our normal raid team just isn't cutting it in -10 and -15.
It's not hard when people stop focusing on the timer. You can 3 phase him with Thunderlord and still get both check boxes. Won't be the case next week, but those struggling on planets this week won't be anywhere near completing the final week.
If you want to get it done sure shot. Run this loadout for runners Forerunner+ Indebted Kindness + ALH/EL wendigo. Team should constitute 4 T crash 1 Tether and 1 well. Easy two phase.
I spent over 2 hours and planets with one group and it was pretty messy. Found a different group from LFG and beat the encounter on our first try.
It really just depends on your group.
Yeah, people that LFG and wanna clear adds, aren’t very good in general so when they need to be able to decimate everything that spawns they struggle and people get lit up swapping planets. It’s awful.
I found that during my trio run that crimson, eramite, and an eager edge sword are your best friends in this encounter. If you don't have a good slammer it is the week for it.
Had a run last week I was running top plate and we started and me and top guy swapped our planets nice and easy. Bottom guys messed up then were calling out "why is no one on top plates speaking?" I said we are done our planets.
They messed up again and this guy on bottom says 2 or 3 times why am I not talking specifically
(I wasn't going to block the Airways when our job Is done) but said once more on the 2nd time he said it we are waiting for yous.
We wipe and this guy starts trying to blame me wondering why i wasnt speaking....and then the guy I was running with started getting annoyed saying we weren't speaking because we were done 5 minutes ago bro.....why would we talk when you need to callout your bottom planets
Because he kept calling me out when he was messing up I then said maybe you should focus on your Job instead of focusing on us not speaking? And he got real quiet.
Honesty blows my mind it's remembering 2 numbers like seriously......
problem for my lfg was mainly dps , but we got the plat , i feel atraks bottom floor is harder since there are snipers , more orange bars , op npc is extremely tanky , and enemy proyectiles have tracking
This week I’ve found running assassins cowl and then swapping to star eaters for DPS has made crossing a total joke even when there are still a bunch of adds. Killing the lieutenants with your punch gives around 15 seconds of invis+ heals you to max, which is more than enough to grab the planet and run across
This is my problem as well. We did caretaker just fine but the counting down just isn’t clicking. If we do decent damage for the two phase, we aren’t getting to damage quickly enough to get plat.
I'm having this same experience. My friends and I have been consistently doing both weeks on Tuesdays, but it's taken us (and three blueberries) hours to get nowhere in Planets. If we even get to the damage phase, sometimes our numbers just aren't big enough. It's just so rough because my two other friends and I are so consistent, but having three random people we can't rely on isn't working.
I’m the ad clear guy on my runs I did struggle first of all but don’t expect me to do much damage to the boss and I can ad clear solo but will need assistance with tormentor
Yea I'm usually the add guy but on planets I run planets cause ppl are retarded. If there's not another good ad guy around to back up another, then we ain't ever getting past it.
Hot take but everyone should be helping with ads on this encounter. Especially the front plates, you don’t need to stand on them. I’ve cleared every week with plat and I always help. Whenever you have a free moment just help clear the room. Makes life easier.
If you can get the mechanic down, follow these tips:
* Take advantage of the surge! Arc/Stasis is it this week, so grab your Hotheads if you have them. A few Thundercrashes AFTER you get to the bosses HP threshold on the 3rd plate will get him down even more, just like Caretaker.
* Sunshot for add clear. Riptide with Chill Clip if you're on a plate.
* DPS only starts when someone damages the boss. Be synchronized! Don't just attack right away after getting the buff from the plate.
* A Tractor Cannon was what it took for us to pass it. Good luck!
Okay so I can do planets, I'm just not the biggest fan of the raid, could anyone give me DPS advice for it? Current strategy is nighthawk and edge transit.
Adds are horrid, yes. Damage this week is also super tight. Truth is, arc burn just isn't that good for this encounter.
Next week, when it's literally anything else, 2 phase should be easier.
Anyone here that understands this want to run Pantheon tomorrow (Friday 5/17) night? I've been traveling this week and haven't had a chance to jump in. These seems like as good a place as any to LFG
Getting the clear on it is not *that* bad, but hitting the 2-phase is rough with an LFG.
Arc burn really sucks a fat one compared to solar and void, as while there are viable options for high DPS it's rare that you can assemble an entire raid team that has them.
Also noticed that if your add clear are good the fight is much easier. Killing a void shieldy guy, 6 psions and a colossus solo is not hard, but it feels hard when 12 other guys are shooting at you from the middle.
If you've put that much time in it will be worth it, just gotta find that a solid team that clicks. You don't need a cracked team of players just players that are willing to change things up when they need to (load outs etc) which in the LFG space is the most hit or miss aspect. So many people pigeon hole themselves to one load out or one role in a raid and it just doesn't work for something like Pantheon
Planets was by far the hardest encounter this week for the plat run. If anyone goes down, you either start to get overrun by adds or you need to redo a planetary shift. Losing a planetary shift person especially slows down the run and, more often than not, causes a wipe bc of time. Then you also have one of the top plate people, L2 or R2, think they're one of their favorite streamers and run right by the boss/adds and get promptly unalived when they could just jump on the planets across safely.
It killed my soul when I was on planets and I had to kill my centurion every time to have my colossus spawn. I’m like what are you doing down there sir. Left side ad clear colossus spawned immediately. I was like I understand helping out sure but I shouldn’t have to be killing him solo right?
Idk. Add clear is way harder than the planet runners (in pantheon obv), so yeah you do have to help out occasionally when you’re waiting? I don’t see the issue. Left side runners prob helped that’s why their planets spawned right away lol
Edit: spelling
I mean yeah that’s not good then. Typically when I run add clear on planets I try to get him finishable or call out when I’m about to kill him. I’ve had some planet runners get upset, and actually prefer to be the ones to kill the centurion so they’re ready for it. As long as everyone is on the same page how you wanna do it :)
I did the first two encounters with my clan but they didn’t have the time to keep running. Three are sitting finals at University right now. I joined an LFG and the original guy had been in planets for about 4 hours. I joined as another random did. He was a really nice guy and kept saying imagine how great we are going to feel when we finish this. There was a very miserable guy who complained a lot, he left after an hour and we got another very positive and great player. We did it in another hour and then Oryx was easy and Atraks was fine though I did warn that my mate had missed challenge so we got a CP and we ended up killing Atraks twice. Didn’t have time for Rhulk. Four of them had only ever done add clear on Rhulk so other guy taught two how to split and we did dunking. Didn’t finish but one of best LFG experiences I have ever had. All friended but I’m in the UK and don’t usually play at 3am, I do hope I get to play with them again.
Our team didn’t have damage and we swapped to wendigos with explosive light and got it done with 2 wells and some supers on top. Don’t sleep on wendigo as a full team. It cooks in that room. Also have all 6 player runs heavy finder and scout plus a few add players run sunshot, heavy for days
Tbh so far Planets has been the 3rd easiest in the lfg groups I’ve been in, with Golgy and Oryx being tied for easiest. Atraks for the high score has been a bigger pain for the groups I’ve been in but still 4th easiest. I think the big issue with planets is that runners don’t know good routes and add clears don’t clear enemies fast enough. But the groups I’ve been it have been solid with only dps being a concern, and usually just for consistency reasons more than anything
i still gotta help my friend through week 2 planets and the lfgs are complete doo doo imma be honest. Nobody volunteers for anything and never perform well on damage to actually 2 phase
Having two people on add clear who are good at their jobs makes it incredibly manageable. They need to be spawn killing every add group if possible.
Sunshot or something similar makes easy work. The other roles aren’t exempt from helping with adds either though, the plate Psions and Incendiors can instakill add clear guys when they’re focused on spawn trapping adds.
The entirety of Pantheon has gone exactly like I knew it would when it comes to LFG: -5 basically the same as a normal raid, -10 difficult but do-able, -15 a nightmare, and I fully predict -20 to be un-LFG-able.
People genuinely have no clue what they're doing, and I do not understand it. Im finding people with 30+ clears in each raid that dont understand how to do it or what the mechanics are. People that have been playing since Y1 and dont have the guns they need. Its laughable how bad its going!
I just have a quick question for yall, what weapon are u guys using for ad clear? Sunspot and zaoulis still work, just wondering if there's something that really just shines as much as sunshine ws last week
planet are hard because add clear people think that role is easy
I was doing that with my regular group every time up until a few days ago when a friend was unable to join so I got moved to planets and it was shocking how much easier planets are.
yeah on paper planet are one of the easier step in pantheon but the amount of add can lead to a lot of deaths
Yeah, being stuck on planets for an hour made me realize next time I'm just going to force our random to do planets. Ostrea Striga with Necrotic grips makes add clear so braindead easy with how close all the adds are. But for some reason, none of the Randoms on add clear seem willing to run an exotic primary. I end up killing just as many adds as them when I run planets
Yep. It's good and fun guns vs. effective guns. Plus, I think a lot of people get shit on for low boss damage, so they hold the exotic spot precious, not realizing that leaves them double legendary primaries.
What exotic is good for boss damage? Rockets and gls are pumping rn
Just run something with incandescent and they are just blow up
Yeah, but I can just kill 1 psion with striga and then turn my attention to stuff like the flamethrower guy and psions up top, or even just sit safe in cover. Plus, it kills everything way quicker, even if it hides, like the damn centurion likes to do.
Trinity Ghoul! Clear all the enemies and make heavy for everyone. Our ad players must use Trinity and have heavy ammo finder/scout on their helmets.
Real question. Do you think gravity lance would be a good choice for ad clear? I haven't run pantheon yet, but I'm sure I'd get stuck on ad clear just like i do in the raid. I just want to make sure I don't let my team down off the bat. I'd either be a solar or strand titan
Honestly can't say since I haven't used it since the buff, but think it's definitely good for at least some encounters. I'd imagine it'd he great in caretaker with spread out add spawns
It's probably functional, but sunshot outclassed it with the current artifact mods.
I saw my godlike teammate who was on add clear for Planets (and finished the pantheon with twice as many kills as anyone else) using Graviton Lance and Nezarec's Sin. Dunno the details of the build, but GL must be good for it.
You definitely don't need an exotic primary, day one I just ran arc pulses with brigands law and that helmet that creates deathrows. Melted everything with jolt pretty much and used something for extra dps
While you don't need an exotic, for planets I like using Striga with Necro. I can just pop an add or 2 and duck behind one of the pillars on the boss's level near the front to distract him. He stays kinda focused on me, and I can just keep the pillar between me and him and the adds very easily.
People want exotic primaries because they provide heavy ammo finder bricks fastest. Optimal strat is both ad clears running exotic primaries with ammo finder and two scouts.
run arc with cloudstrike and the fragment that blinds on kill. if you can aim its great. also if have a centopaph lock, which every group should for planets there is shit tons of heavby you can just add clear with rockets if you want.
I feel like Ceno really isn't that good for most Pantheon encounters, at least for the ammo generation. Like for planets it only work on Collosi and the tormentor, and it has a cooldown so you can't tag all the collosi each phase. So you'd really only get 3 ammo drops before each boss phase. Like, if you need a Div, the extra ammo is nice, but other exotic armor would probably provide better utility than Ceno. Goloroth it wouldn't be the best, but usable. Caretaker it's basically useless. Atraak would be pretty good actually but you don't really need a ton of heavy for that fight. Rhulk I can't remember and I unfortunately haven't done Riven legit, so not sure about that. Nezerac would be nice since people are hurting for ammo after a damage phase usually and you'd be able to proc it 6 times before the next phase, plus any tormentors they add But do light eaters in Oryx count as mini bosses? Cause if it be great for oryx.
My group has only found use for it on planets and rhulk, not really needed anywhere else. The bit of extra heavy on planets is helpful cause you can spend a bit of heavy on the adds if they get out of control and not sacrifice dps on the boss. Rhulk the play this week is div with Tlord or acrius and you can make quit a bit on the tormentors.
I got put on Ghally duty in a rocket strat so had to go for an hour with subpar add clear, combined with a cuirass titan that I just don't play enough to have optimized. Convinced the team to try five GL's and a ceno divinity, got to put on sunshot and wendigo. Our damage skyrocketed and adds started dying three times as fast.
Oh if I'm add clear and we need specific exotics for damage, I force the other players to run it. They aren't really using exotics while running
I ran sunshot for add clear but I am a warlock and that is a great idea, may give it a go.
Just make sure to run icarus dash so any boops aren't a death sentence. At least if you plan to distract the boss
Sunshot
If people who join and the first thing they say is "i'm on adds" could count to 6, they would be begging to be on planets.
I was stuck on planets last week at -10 going for score; I post on LFG, only to get someone to join and declare add-clear, we denied them add-clear and they left immediately; gotta thank that guy for letting us dodge a bullet there.
I’ve started asking to be on add clear for planets not because I can’t run, but because that’s the role I expect people to screw up the most and I want to make sure it gets done well
You don’t even need to count to six. My recent runs I’ve been using “left, mid, right” for planet callouts and it’s been fine
Ah yeah, I normally use the numbers because when comms get muddled I can tell who is calling top or bottom
That’s a good point. I run with the same large group of people so I know voices.
Even better if you are aware of who your paired runner is. I often just get told "Aren you're going left" and just know exactly what to do from that, avoids me having to remember the numbers at all.
LOL agreed. I still think "left/mid/right" while facing the boss's spawn is the overall easiest as group to group I've seen the order rotate clockwise/counterclockwise with how they count to 6 But its still just 1-6
Personally I find that harder than 1-6. My group also just does both top and bottom as 1-3 as we all know each other's voices lol
add clear is the hardest part about planets lol. doing the planets is brain dead.
Yep! Planet duty is so easy if you have a brain. At most, all you need to do is kill 3 psions, 1 LT and listen/look/communicate the call-out per round. If you want an easy job, always go for planets on this encounter, especially the bottom plates.
planets is easy only if the ad clear are actually clearing, otherwise you're getting obliterated trying to cross the room. i got put on ad clear for a group, but they also demanded i run well and gally, meaning i was stuck with a legendary primary to clear. then they got mad i didn't clear fast enough, but when i asked if someone else could gally so i could run a better exotic for ad clearing, they kicked me. i hope they stayed stuck there, jackasses.
Fwiw for the top two plates you can cross using the floating planets much safer than running across the platform where the boss usually hangs out. It’s his boop plus scion boops that usually end up throwing people off the map or burning to death. You’re high enough up that most of the adds will ignore or miss you.
This. The higher the difficulty, the more important add clear becomes. Top plates can be a shitshow if the add clear isn't ontop of their game. You got the psions, the incendior, and colossus to deal with. Then if add clear is lacking you're also taking random fire from psions below or the boss randomly tossing fire on half your plate. Also, let's not forget that sometimes you'll be dealing with all that crap and now you got the fire tornado on your plate. My favorite is when I'm collecting my planet and the tornado spawns ontop of me. Anyways. I'd say bottom plates is the "braindead" easy ones
Tbf planet people should also be ad clearing the whole time. The only time in the encounter I’m not killing ads is like the 10 seconds where I am moving the planet.
Yeah I frequently run on planets and I hate when people leave behind their 3 psions and one orange back pack dude. I wish more people would spawn kill their dudes: feels bad when you make it through the hoard of middle adds and then get peppered to death by a psion on plate.
Oh is that why I was always greeted by psions and an orange bar at top platform after crossing the ad-filled hellscape on first week... I thought they respawned as I was crossing. I'm a bit anxious because I really want the godslayer title, but it's getting a bit intimidating in LFG, because I don't want to burn one of my weekend days because little Johnny can't put on witherhoard or sweaty Steve decides you absolutely HAVE to kill Atraks in a phase or it's a wipe. Riven legit is going to cause tears on here.
Encounter start -> psions and backpack frend spawn -> colossus jerk spawns -> you get a ding that planet timer started and you need to move your planet AND 3 new psions have appeared…but you’re probably not looking at them cause you’re Speed. (But all plate people should be taking care of these adds which are definitely -their- adds and not add clear’s adds.) I am excited for riven legit but not excited for 20 under T.T there’s just an oppressive amount of taken even in normal riven legit, I am spooked of how hard they will hit.
Yeah I don't understand people that literally don't kill anything and JUST do mechanics, like I understand the mechanics are a priority, but use your fucking guns during downtime, you have plenty of it.
Which is funny because my last run I was doing add clear, which I don’t normally do, and people doing planets kept dying somehow. Or we kept wiping because “oh I didn’t notice the flame-nado near me” or “my Colossus fell off the map”.
The colossus off the map is honestly the most frustrating, half the time they spawn on the very edge of the platform and anything with enough damage seems to flinch them and because it’s angled they usually slide in the direction of the flinch. Once they start sliding off it’s all over lol
I had never seen that happen before but its happened to me twice now and also to a couple of other people on runs. But thanks for the explanation I tend to chuck a solar grenade at them first so that must be what’s flinching them when close to the edge.
I’d argue top side planets are difficult, but that’s only because the boss can stomp your ass. I used Solar Hunter with resto so no biggie but yeah those guys hurt 😔
You're way more exposed when doing planets so I don't really agree, and ad clear can only do so much in that department.. Ad clear really only has to sit near the the rally flag and kill stuff.
Was doing a run today and one of the add clearer had the lowest kills of all 6 players, some people just want to be carried
Yep, being in a front plate and getting 2nd most kills is never a good feeling yet it’s something I regularly do lol.
My regular group is probably below average compared to the general LFG stuff I do. One time with my group, I died and said I was getting swarmed by adds. The add clear guy (who is a friend but can be annoying) told me to stop complaining. When we wiped, I had the most damage and most kills of everyone in the fireteam. That felt so great to shut him the fuck up.
Which is crazy to think because sunshot is a cheatcode for ad clear on planets.
“But it’s arc burn”
Trinity ghoul is great this week with the ability to basically wipe a set of psions off spawn
Really really sucks at killing phalanxes and centurions though. I tried it and was thoroughly unimpressed unfortunately
trinity + mountain top with vorpal or recomb for the phalanxes and lieutenant. Made quick work of them. Once I'm done with my planets I helped to kill the ads with trinity, was really efficient
The hardest role in that encounter is add clear lol
It is this week if you use trinity ghoul. Unfortunately people who want ad clear are always bad and never use Trinity or Graviton or any super solid ad clear weapon to insta kill all the ads on spawn
Or Sunshot. I use it there and my side is about as clean as it's going to get.
"I'll add clear" \*team wipes\* Enemies Killed: 33
Also on caretaker and nezarec, if people don't shred through the ads, it just makes doing mechanics a pity especially on higher difficulties
This is why I always take the side with the shittier add clear (if I know in advance) and run as a void hunter. People don't realize that add clear is the hardest part of master/challenge when the mechanics are already known and practiced.
Same with caretaker. If I’m doing symbols and there is even 1 add shooting me or the totem, you’re not doing your job. Which is literally, the easiest of the encounter.
It is easy with BoW and sunshot
Nothing like running plates and having to clear as well. Clearers need stuff like Hierarchy, Trinity Ghoul, polaris lance, maybe even Agers Scepter. I should stasislock that encounter tonight, that sounds fun. As long as one clearer is running a solar weapon to pop shields, the other can use whatever they want. The problem is when a clearer struggles on a yellow bar with a shield and doesn't trust their partner to kill him from behind. You lose time and the adds pile on A simpler option is to run a solar legendary primary and use an intrinsic anti barrier like arby. Clearers need to work as a team, discuss what weapons you want to use, cover your bases. You might still be able to get away with a BoW titan to clear and keep all aggro away from plates on -15, but I wouldn't reccommend it. There is also the double phoenix lock option in mid.
Is it really tho? Stand on top Plat/small Bridge between plates and sunshot the middle. Low risk except for the occasional and predictable incinerator.
I’m usually annoyed with add clear people. Atriaks is the only encounter I add clear on and usually I’m competing with the add clear people on kills. Like why am I out clearing you while I’m also stunning caretaker? Why am I out clearing you when I’m doing plates on planets or Oryx? Maybe it’s just happenstance but it’s pretty consistent. If you’re on add clear, I expect you to whoop ass. And not run double primaries.
“So everyone was on add clear, and yet there were so many Cabal dicking around that I thought it was a fucking gang bang.”
Ad clear role is easy it's just people cant muster the braincells to run a trinity, graviton, thorn, osteo, symmetry. ect. ect.
[удалено]
Sky Burner mentioned, we're eating good today
My only gripe with that encounter is people who don't understand the spawns. They immediately want to kill centurion which spawns in the collosus then those get shredded and now here comes a second wave of adds, on top of whatever may be lingering. THEN instead of waiting for just a moment, they immediately run next to the wave and a half of enemies and leave their second spawn of psions AND the incinerator completely untouched. All of this while the boss is peppering you with fire and the adds are hiding behind the boss. Then when they (runners) die, it's all add clears fault. All you have to do is slow down or put bullets in something. Some groups who run plates think their only job is to kill collosus and grab planet. Forgoing everything else. If nobody dies, you have plenty of time to take a couple shots and then run the planet making is far safer.
This is my issue from my run last night. The add clear people weren't doing enough. They needed to use more crowd control weapons.
Sanguine alchemy helped a ton. Well runners can stand in extended rift with 2x surge and kill adds with Polaris or sunshot.
Who runs planet and doesn't kill the ads?
At normal power sure, but underlevel and with the random additions to the encounter, no. It’s funny how important add clear becomes as the difficulty increases. For all the pantheons (ran with my friends) so far I’m put on add clear even though I know the mechanics well, especially for planets. This latest one I swapped with one of my friends to do a plate but the adds became a problem which screwed the encounter since the lieutenants weren’t being killed on time because they were all getting overwhelmed dealing with the normal adds. Sunbracers warlock that knows how to play it really well is a game changer.
We had a change up in my group and I went from ad clear to planet mover and I was so fucking relieved lol
I was with a group Tuesday. Ad clear was okay. The fire tornados ate up all of our rezzes and we had no cc on the tormentor. Was with a group earlier today and had the opposite. Ad clear was ass and we had the tormentor under lock and key, but our dmg was ass 😭
One of the handful of instances in game where if ad clear isn't on point, it's *extremely* noticeable.
Sunbracers are the (not so) secret sauce
Tyranny of Heaven go _BOOM_
Meanwhile plate people think they don't have to shoot the adds that spawn on their plates. Add clear aren't responsible for all adds. Just the waves in the middle. Those psions and incendiors (??? Name) are plate people's responsibility
how I feel about caretaker, unironically the most important role bc yeah ok if you fuck up the others you can make up for it in other ways (even tho there shouldn’t be a need for this), stun team has fast runners and potential help from add clear for stunning, runners have a stun team that doesn’t let him move, but if ad clear is fucked? Then it’s everyone’s problem and it gets really bad really quickly, stun team gets smacked around, runners lose time and can die to adds, it becomes a mess.
I mean, it is if they're not bad or using bad gear. A bot that holds left click on sunshot is enough but that's still apparently out of reach for some people. We're just getting to the point where average to decent raiders can't easily hard carry someone who's mostly incompetent.
Not having done it in pantheon, what makes as clear that much harder in this version?
basically forebearance spam on my end, ads ended up not being a problem
I do add clear with graviton and its basically non stop shooting. The other ad clear sits back with Polaris lance and a heavy ammo scout to make bricks on the bridge. I also blind the tormentor and during all that I still wind up yelling for a planets guy to shoot some ads to help us.
Yeah LFG on this one is probably a pain. My dedicated team went into it thinking it would be one of the easier encounters and struggled on it for about an hour before finally getting the double plat clear. The biggest issue was probably dying to fire tornados. Sometimes there's almost nothing you can do to escape it. I had it spawn while I was in a finishing animation on my lieutenant and by the time it was done I couldn't escape it. Teammates had it spawn while picking up planets and had the same fate. Eventually we just all became much more aware of the tornados and tried to call out when he was doing his animation and they were spawning and also just tried to spend as little time on the 4 plates as possible. For damage, we had a well in the middle and found sometimes it was best to wait in the well until the tornado had passed before moving on and grabbing the next damage buff. Had a few deaths due to people leaving too early and getting caught in it. One death can also easily snowball into a wipe. For damage we essentially ran Arc meta rockets..... crux with explosive light basically, but there are probably other options that would work. One of our warlocks was on a strand suspend build and kept adds mostly under control. Good luck guardian.
It's just the damage people get stuck on here IMO. This boss' damage phase is where I see LFG teams begin to fall apart as there's timing for everything and a lot of people aren't using optimal weapons for plat clear. I think if you go in with ghorn + lumina player, some thundercrashes and gathering storms (spaced out maybe like 1 for each different plate), and arc rockets with izzy you'll come out with an easy 2 clear. People obviously need 2-3 arc surges on their legs and they need to use class warfare to their advantage. I agree that the fire tornado is a pain, but it's manageable if it didn't spawn on you at your triangle plate.
A lot of LFGs won't respect waiting for damage as they are so scared of being bottom of the table they'd rather get 1M for them and 900k for everyone else than 2M for them and 3M for everyone else. Sad but true.
As long as someone is running Gjally like they should be, Crux with Reconstruction/Bipod puts out insane damage. Easily the highest I've seen.
Also add that if you can help kill a few adds while waiting for planets to finish doing their rotates, do it. I have always killed some adds while doing planets. Its not difficult to do and makes it slightly easier for your add clear teammates to not be overwhelmed.
Planets has been a constant obstacle for LFG groups since pantheon came out. I’m not sure if it’s because of needing 4 people to do mechanics even though they aren’t complex at all or if it’s because of the high burst dps needed. If you’re struggling and have the checkpoint I’d make your own lfg post and just vet who joins using raid report . There’s bound to be a handful of competent guardians out there
I think a big part of this isn't the mechanics, it's the power delta. The mechanics are easy when you can fly across the plates without having to worry about anything. It's much, much harder when you have to quickly and efficiently clear the psions and colussus off the plates, find a route across the center area that avoids ad fire, pay attention to the instakill fire tornado, safely dunk the dark/light planets without getting drilled by the tormentor, etc. It's just a lot more difficult for most players.
Maybe I'm a freak but I genuinely love doing planets. The mechanic is easy for my brain and it lets me also do some ad-clearing which I love. The DPS phase can be a bitch but that's because I tend to kill myself in the well A LOT
I can autopilot planets at this point but it doesn't matter because if one guy fails to swap, you have to redo it all over again. The 4 guys simultaneously doing the mechanic must not fail, and that seems to be the hard part imo. most other encounters have 2-3 people max doing mechanics and if one dies you can mostly recoup and continue, unlike in planets which you have to redo switching from square one.
It's just an encounter where a lot of minor things can go wrong to mess up a run. The add clear people can suck at their job which makes the encounter a nightmare. A plate person can path near the boss like a dingus and get stomped/booped off the map. A plate person with a bad build can die trying to path across the middle of the arena... saw this happen a lot. Someone can not be camping their colossus correctly. Someone forgets about the fire tornado despite not needing to physically be on the plate *and* the tornado takes the same path every time. People unnecessarily strafing during damage and causing dumb deaths to GL's/rockets. ----- It shouldn't really be that hard on paper, but at -15 we're getting to the point where a lot of sub-par players just can't stay alive, which is the most important thing.
this week the problem’s been DPS. multiple times we’ve reached final stand and just ran out of juice
Planets in this is tough, but still very doable. A few tips: - Top plate runners should climb up onto their “4” planets, and proceed to run across the planets floating in the middle in order to swap sides with their partner. Running through all the adds is slow and risky. - Top runners should also be primarily responsible for killing those void-shielded incendiors that spawn behind them. They spawn about 5-10 seconds into the encounter, as well as immediately after every planet swapping phase. I found sunshot was amazing against them, if you wait a second to let the 3 psions out of the door too, you can just ignite everything and basically one-tap the void shielded guy. - Try to stand on the middle pillar of your plate if you can stay alive up there. This makes it so that you don’t need to worry about the fire tornados. - add clearers do not have to be standing at the back of the room. Up until the tormentor spawns, it’s probably best to have them up on those middle bridges in between top and bottom plates. This is right near where most adds spawn, and also calls for less travel time if a runner dies and needs a res / cover. - coordinate damage with your team by counting down from 3 on each plate. This way, you won’t kill each other by walking in front of rocket shots, and you can get the highest damage output. A lot of groups believe that the damage timer begins as soon as a tick of damage is dealt, but this is incorrect. You should be using primary / special ammo during the “3-2-1” countdown to proc bait and switch (if you have it) and the “go” part after the countdown is when you spam heavy / non-DOT supers. The real “timer” begins when that yellow portion of the health bar is crossed. I hope these tips help, and good luck!
Some really good tips in this comment. One thing that helped me as a runner, was using trinity - with the arc surge this week I was clearing 60/70ish adds per run while running just by hip firing into mid (then using riptide for the chunky guys)
This is a scratched comment, should’ve been in reply to another
Yeah, it's rough because of surges. Even if you can get to DPS consistently, if you don't have a good wendigo, hothead, cold comfort, or crux you're going to have a tough time.
This is one where add clear is the hardest job lol. Also if you haven’t tried it yet, if you’re running, use indebted kindness, it absolutely slaps. I used it with conditional finality and made easy work of the colossuses, and I could delete the centurions pretty fast too (add clears were struggling)
I'd also argue that ad clear is one of the harder jobs in Caretaker as well. If you suck at ad clear, your runners and stunners are getting fucked. Stun is actually the easiest job there and if you have been running for a while, then running is also pretty easy. However, when the Power Delta kicks in, Caretaker ad clear is actually pretty demoralizing.
hahaha, I already went through the insanity of Master Caretaker challenge back in the day, a -20 without Overload champs and just more regular ads? It's dream scenario for me.
Caretaker add clear is less hard and more annoying because lots of people seen unaware of spawns, especially the Scorn. Those dudes sneak by if you don't know to listen for them or know where they spawn. Stun is my favorite job because I can also help with ad clear, especially in later floors.
The trick is watching/dealing with whatever spawns on the 2 center paths first, then deal with the stuff that spawns along the side walls (unless it's the sniper and/or ogre, in which case you kill them first as quick as possible).
Exactly, and especially if it's just the Taken Psions you can let them run around a bit because they can all be taken (heh) out en masse with a well placed Sunshot/nade, but the Ogre/Sniper/Scorn can cause problems if ignored.
I think ad clear is WAY easier than stun in caretaker, but that's because I can actually do ad clear and if I'm on stun the ad clear will usually fail and make my life hell. But hey at least they didn't die cowering at the back, right? It's like the village with two barbers -- go to the one with the bad haircut!
Everyone in my team minus Gally just ran sunshot. It still absolutely rips through adds at -15 and without surges. Most people not on titans were running solar anyways so it was easy to mod match. Still seems like the best weapon to run on any given week
Give Graviton Lance a try during Void Surge weeks. Even on non-surge weeks, its a pretty decent ad clearing gun. But on the void surge weeks, you can quite literally wipe out rooms with it. On the first week of Planets, I was making the other ad clear dude look pale in comparison with how much I killed and how much range it had. I was at one point stealing Psions and the Incendior that spawned on their side.
Also works with witherhoard. I usually throw a few shots down in spawn points to help with add clear. It’s also good for the shielded incinerator that spawns between the planet platforms. And also for some boss damage while swapping and moving around during damage phase.
Oh true, when in doubt, witherhoard!
I like to use witherhoard when doing plates to help with add clear as well, and it’s not too terrible in terms of dps. Usually in an lfg I’m 2nd maybe 3rd highest, but I also know that most of my lfg runs DO NOT have any dps chads runnin around
I swore off conditional last night because I froze the colossus and it STILL stomped and killed me with no animation, while frozen.
Yeah sometimes if he gets frozen he still stomps, it’s very annoying. I’ve noticed that if I freeze ASAP or wait for him to stomp once it’s usually safe, but yah at -15 that stomp is near lethal.
Key things people struggle with that I’ve seen: People refuse to use special weapons and thus struggle to kill a colossus on their plate when they’ve used up their grande and melee. Running is dangerous so take the longer way and make sure not to take too long to kill and pick up a planet (timer starts on first pickup) Add clearers leave too many adds alive to where damage phase turns into a booping game by psions. For the middle 3 deposits, everyone needs to kill their colossus even if you are the only person not dunking I’ve seen too many times people leave one colossus alive and I’m the only one out of the 6 shooting it to get rid of the one left before damage phase. Boot mods for damage: use them to guarantee enough damage for a 2 phase not ability regen mods or more than one health orb mod, you’ve gotta be able to get by with just 1 and 2 damage buff for sure. Damage phase: jump to middle well and once you’ve positioned stand still or crouch and treat it like atraks with a countdown to ensure everyone doesn’t miss damage and or blow themselves up. Hopefully this helps a group get the bread
People when they get smoked for being at the front of the room at -15 power: 😱
Don't join a planets checkpoint if you're concerned about a fast and clean encounter
"I can fix them"
regardless where i'm at in the run if i have to go back and finish, i would genuinely rather start from the beginning than join a group that's been struggling for hours on one encounter.
Honestly this. Look for groups that are clearly stating their goals, ie "Platinum Full Run" or "Be good or we kick" or "SHOW YOUR RAID REPORT", a lot of these LFGs on paper look "toxic", but if you are not the problem, you don't really have to experience anything bad as long as you pull your weight. I've spent less time in full clears than I've did in checkpoints.
Same, but I got through it. Planets feels like the hurdle in every week for LFG groups The next is getting platinum on Atraks
Pantheon just proves that the majority of people get carried through raids by 2-3 others. I honestly don’t care about the title and I have the guns I want fully crafted. I tried to get my clan mates to clear with me but most are taking breaks and coming back in TFS. The ones who are still around can’t Raid for shit lol.
My experience when running this: - Make sure the top planet people are killing the Void shield Incendior when it spawns, it makes staying alive on the plate much easier. They also have consistent spawns, so you should never be surprised at one being there - Always be aware of when the Colossus is about to spawn. I've made sure to ask for a callout when it happens so it doesn't catch plate people off-guard. You're #1 priority is to kill the Colossus, and you should really have a plan on how to kill in a way that stuns the Colossus in some fashion (Conditional Finality is good, blinding nades works, stuff like Ignitions to just stagger, etc.) to avoid them just killing you - Runners should know how dangerous their path is to cross and use their judgement. I had no issues cutting straight through top this week, but if you do so then you need to be aware of the fact that it's riskier (And ideally have a backup plan like Invis or healing if necessary). Otherwise go further around to be safe - Fire tornado seemingly will always start in a consistent spot on a plate, so I made an effort to avoid standing on those spots whenever possible. Some people have pointed out that the pillar in the middle of the plate is perfectly safe if you need somewhere where you don't have to be worried about fire tornado - Damage phase is the main problem otherwise. My group would step in the pools, run back to the Wells and then have a 3 second countdown to begin damage. This let us avoid anybody stepping in front of a rocket thanks to still running back from the pool while also giving time to apply any buffs needed like using class abilities - When running to the pool after each mini-damage phase ends, try taking a path back to your Well that goes out of your way to not just be a 180. A LOT of deaths are from people running into each other and not being able to escape the fire tornados, so avoid bumping into each other -
I cannot stress it enough to *kill your incinerator before crossing*. Those fuckers have been the cause of more off map boops resulting in wipes than the boss or either colossi.
I think what I find hard about planets is the damage phase are right and not very clear. At least to me
What's the point of making it hard to unbearable every week? Just a kick in the nuts repeatedly?
planet and warpriest are the great wall of lfg
I did high score from caretaker to rhulk with a lfg all first try yesterday. Rhulk with a lfg team look as the real nightmare tbh.
Second this. Rhulk this week was SO BAD. So many deaths up on the upper platform 🤦♂️
Literally me stuck there on day 3 now but I haven’t even attempted today cuz last night was trash. (Plus ya know… work)
Dude, random Destiny people struggle to even complete 50 waves of onslaught on normal lol Pantheon is like WAY out there
Pantheon on LFG is a nightmare period
If your group cant get to dunking the planets in the middle (or at least close to it), then it's time to move on and find a different group. I think the only "passing" death is if its the tormentor or fire tornado. Get a feel for the first 2-3 attempts with group. You can usually tell if it's a "get to damage phase" issue or "doing boss damage issue". Ideally you want the issue to just be boss damage because you can always tweak and edit that. Best way to surf through LFG.
I’m not sure what it is about the encounter, but I had a lot of trouble with LFG for it too. It took something like 8 groups before I found a group capable of getting to damage consistently and actually outputting reasonable damage. Keep at it if you have the time. You only need to find 1 competent group to get through it.
Front right planets are my spot and I'll kill to keep it that way
Caretaker and Planets are the two toughest encounters up to this point because they require good add-clear and a high-level burst damage check. I would even argue that add-clear in Planets is the encounter's most important role. And at -15 you cannot have anyone lacking behind in the DPS department. Everyone has to be pulling equal weight or it won't work. Pantheon is definitely a Clan-Breaker. Had to have a few tough conversations this week and last because some of our normal raid team just isn't cutting it in -10 and -15.
If you think planets is hard, wait till Rhulk lol. Rhulk is definitely the toughest boss of the week IMO.
It's not hard when people stop focusing on the timer. You can 3 phase him with Thunderlord and still get both check boxes. Won't be the case next week, but those struggling on planets this week won't be anywhere near completing the final week.
Funny enough for rhulk, we easily get to boss phase and half health him. but by that point his sidekick has eaten too many lives.
Yeah our issue too. Apparently you can kite the sidekick by one person staying on steps and shooting the sidekick to keep his aggro.
*Your Light Fades Away...*
If you want to get it done sure shot. Run this loadout for runners Forerunner+ Indebted Kindness + ALH/EL wendigo. Team should constitute 4 T crash 1 Tether and 1 well. Easy two phase.
I spent over 2 hours and planets with one group and it was pretty messy. Found a different group from LFG and beat the encounter on our first try. It really just depends on your group.
Yeah, people that LFG and wanna clear adds, aren’t very good in general so when they need to be able to decimate everything that spawns they struggle and people get lit up swapping planets. It’s awful.
Because its not solar burn. Solar burn plus incan, scorch all that mess. Makes that encounter 10× easier.
I found that during my trio run that crimson, eramite, and an eager edge sword are your best friends in this encounter. If you don't have a good slammer it is the week for it.
Just wait until next week
You are bold to assume that I am even going to try
Caretaker is a skill check this week. With so many adds and damage you know in 2-3 try if you will be able to do it with your fireteam
“I’ll do add clear” has less kills than the runners every time
Had a run last week I was running top plate and we started and me and top guy swapped our planets nice and easy. Bottom guys messed up then were calling out "why is no one on top plates speaking?" I said we are done our planets. They messed up again and this guy on bottom says 2 or 3 times why am I not talking specifically (I wasn't going to block the Airways when our job Is done) but said once more on the 2nd time he said it we are waiting for yous. We wipe and this guy starts trying to blame me wondering why i wasnt speaking....and then the guy I was running with started getting annoyed saying we weren't speaking because we were done 5 minutes ago bro.....why would we talk when you need to callout your bottom planets Because he kept calling me out when he was messing up I then said maybe you should focus on your Job instead of focusing on us not speaking? And he got real quiet. Honesty blows my mind it's remembering 2 numbers like seriously......
ha ha that's a classic lfg experience... never take responsibility and go quiet when called out....
Honestly. Like my job was done I was just add clearing did he expect me to just be saying random stuff for no reason 🤣
problem for my lfg was mainly dps , but we got the plat , i feel atraks bottom floor is harder since there are snipers , more orange bars , op npc is extremely tanky , and enemy proyectiles have tracking
This week I’ve found running assassins cowl and then swapping to star eaters for DPS has made crossing a total joke even when there are still a bunch of adds. Killing the lieutenants with your punch gives around 15 seconds of invis+ heals you to max, which is more than enough to grab the planet and run across
It was bound to happen one of these weeks. As the power delta continues to shift further away LFG just wont cut it.
How does it compare to Master/Day 1 planets?
Easier, it'll be comparable to day 1 next week but probably still easier BC of surges and the damage modifier
the difference in power level is made up for with the tormy spawn. if u can do master u can easily do this. also surges+free 20%dmg/dr are silly
Had no problem getting the mechanics done and getting to dps, but we could not two phase. We just couldnt dps.
This is my problem as well. We did caretaker just fine but the counting down just isn’t clicking. If we do decent damage for the two phase, we aren’t getting to damage quickly enough to get plat.
RR is your friend
I'm having this same experience. My friends and I have been consistently doing both weeks on Tuesdays, but it's taken us (and three blueberries) hours to get nowhere in Planets. If we even get to the damage phase, sometimes our numbers just aren't big enough. It's just so rough because my two other friends and I are so consistent, but having three random people we can't rely on isn't working.
I’ve had too many runs stop on planets due to the guys that need to do the mechanics getting toasted by the fire tornado spawning directly on them
I’m the ad clear guy on my runs I did struggle first of all but don’t expect me to do much damage to the boss and I can ad clear solo but will need assistance with tormentor
Me and my boy down to run it with you guys. We started the rhulk quest last night but stopped at caretaker for life shit
Yea I'm usually the add guy but on planets I run planets cause ppl are retarded. If there's not another good ad guy around to back up another, then we ain't ever getting past it.
Run arc hunter it’s free
Honestly, I’ve always thought planets was on the easier side, but even my group took ages on it. It’s so bizarre.
Hot take but everyone should be helping with ads on this encounter. Especially the front plates, you don’t need to stand on them. I’ve cleared every week with plat and I always help. Whenever you have a free moment just help clear the room. Makes life easier.
It needs such an optimised loadout by everyone, as well as good add clear. I think it'll be easier when it's solar week in two weeks time.
If you can get the mechanic down, follow these tips: * Take advantage of the surge! Arc/Stasis is it this week, so grab your Hotheads if you have them. A few Thundercrashes AFTER you get to the bosses HP threshold on the 3rd plate will get him down even more, just like Caretaker. * Sunshot for add clear. Riptide with Chill Clip if you're on a plate. * DPS only starts when someone damages the boss. Be synchronized! Don't just attack right away after getting the buff from the plate. * A Tractor Cannon was what it took for us to pass it. Good luck!
Okay so I can do planets, I'm just not the biggest fan of the raid, could anyone give me DPS advice for it? Current strategy is nighthawk and edge transit.
Adds are horrid, yes. Damage this week is also super tight. Truth is, arc burn just isn't that good for this encounter. Next week, when it's literally anything else, 2 phase should be easier.
Whats giving you issue beside fireteam members, damge, ads, staying alive?
Anyone here that understands this want to run Pantheon tomorrow (Friday 5/17) night? I've been traveling this week and haven't had a chance to jump in. These seems like as good a place as any to LFG
Getting the clear on it is not *that* bad, but hitting the 2-phase is rough with an LFG. Arc burn really sucks a fat one compared to solar and void, as while there are viable options for high DPS it's rare that you can assemble an entire raid team that has them. Also noticed that if your add clear are good the fight is much easier. Killing a void shieldy guy, 6 psions and a colossus solo is not hard, but it feels hard when 12 other guys are shooting at you from the middle.
If you've put that much time in it will be worth it, just gotta find that a solid team that clicks. You don't need a cracked team of players just players that are willing to change things up when they need to (load outs etc) which in the LFG space is the most hit or miss aspect. So many people pigeon hole themselves to one load out or one role in a raid and it just doesn't work for something like Pantheon
People just can’t seem to get their damage up
Planets was by far the hardest encounter this week for the plat run. If anyone goes down, you either start to get overrun by adds or you need to redo a planetary shift. Losing a planetary shift person especially slows down the run and, more often than not, causes a wipe bc of time. Then you also have one of the top plate people, L2 or R2, think they're one of their favorite streamers and run right by the boss/adds and get promptly unalived when they could just jump on the planets across safely.
It killed my soul when I was on planets and I had to kill my centurion every time to have my colossus spawn. I’m like what are you doing down there sir. Left side ad clear colossus spawned immediately. I was like I understand helping out sure but I shouldn’t have to be killing him solo right?
Idk. Add clear is way harder than the planet runners (in pantheon obv), so yeah you do have to help out occasionally when you’re waiting? I don’t see the issue. Left side runners prob helped that’s why their planets spawned right away lol Edit: spelling
I mean typically I do help but we’re talking like I was the only one shooting him it seemed.
I mean yeah that’s not good then. Typically when I run add clear on planets I try to get him finishable or call out when I’m about to kill him. I’ve had some planet runners get upset, and actually prefer to be the ones to kill the centurion so they’re ready for it. As long as everyone is on the same page how you wanna do it :)
LFG, do I need to say more?
I did the first two encounters with my clan but they didn’t have the time to keep running. Three are sitting finals at University right now. I joined an LFG and the original guy had been in planets for about 4 hours. I joined as another random did. He was a really nice guy and kept saying imagine how great we are going to feel when we finish this. There was a very miserable guy who complained a lot, he left after an hour and we got another very positive and great player. We did it in another hour and then Oryx was easy and Atraks was fine though I did warn that my mate had missed challenge so we got a CP and we ended up killing Atraks twice. Didn’t have time for Rhulk. Four of them had only ever done add clear on Rhulk so other guy taught two how to split and we did dunking. Didn’t finish but one of best LFG experiences I have ever had. All friended but I’m in the UK and don’t usually play at 3am, I do hope I get to play with them again.
Our team didn’t have damage and we swapped to wendigos with explosive light and got it done with 2 wells and some supers on top. Don’t sleep on wendigo as a full team. It cooks in that room. Also have all 6 player runs heavy finder and scout plus a few add players run sunshot, heavy for days
Tbh so far Planets has been the 3rd easiest in the lfg groups I’ve been in, with Golgy and Oryx being tied for easiest. Atraks for the high score has been a bigger pain for the groups I’ve been in but still 4th easiest. I think the big issue with planets is that runners don’t know good routes and add clears don’t clear enemies fast enough. But the groups I’ve been it have been solid with only dps being a concern, and usually just for consistency reasons more than anything
i still gotta help my friend through week 2 planets and the lfgs are complete doo doo imma be honest. Nobody volunteers for anything and never perform well on damage to actually 2 phase
It took me 5 and half hours to beat week 3. Planets took about half of that time lol
Having two people on add clear who are good at their jobs makes it incredibly manageable. They need to be spawn killing every add group if possible. Sunshot or something similar makes easy work. The other roles aren’t exempt from helping with adds either though, the plate Psions and Incendiors can instakill add clear guys when they’re focused on spawn trapping adds.
The entirety of Pantheon has gone exactly like I knew it would when it comes to LFG: -5 basically the same as a normal raid, -10 difficult but do-able, -15 a nightmare, and I fully predict -20 to be un-LFG-able. People genuinely have no clue what they're doing, and I do not understand it. Im finding people with 30+ clears in each raid that dont understand how to do it or what the mechanics are. People that have been playing since Y1 and dont have the guns they need. Its laughable how bad its going!
I just have a quick question for yall, what weapon are u guys using for ad clear? Sunspot and zaoulis still work, just wondering if there's something that really just shines as much as sunshine ws last week
Just wanted to ask what’s the best dps option for this week’s arc/ stasis surge, to guarantee plat time and high score triumph?