so, recently we have a nice discussion with my team-mates on about the most common causes of wipe in legend…and we got to the conclusion that except for extremely unlucky AI-director we wipes due to Bad kiting on Boss fight or Attrition.
Boss Fights in legend are 70% times with an horde spawning…fighting both at the same time is almost impossible so you have to pick up a “rabbit” to kite the boss when the other members clear the way…ofc is not easy on every map and you have to kite away from the horde…but if you managed this you win. Kiting is one of the most underrated skills in this game and in many maps you don’t need to use it…so many players are unable to “master” it due to inactivity. There are few guides on you tube that can help you though. some bosses are a lot easier to be kited than others ofc (spawn is the worst, stormfiend the easiest) but thats it.
Attrition is the continue loss of health due to greedy plays/absence of tagging/lack of coordination…meaning that when a boss/horde spawn hou are already in a bad situation: one or two members has low health and can be taken down in 1-2 hits…and that is a problem…
Greedy players are a thing and ofc some careers “enhance” this behaviour…have you ever seen a greedy slayer? i haven’t…anyway you can manage this playing with your friends but if you pug a lot there is a good chance you will encounter this situation…good luck!
Abscense of tagging it’s a real problem and one of the common cause of health loss…so many times we wiped because nobody tagged this marauder in the midts of the wavr or a packmaster…a fast tag is the difference between life/death in creepy situations…unfortunately a low% of the player tag everytime…thinking is useless to tag an elite you have in front of you…yeah the same elite his charging is attack that you will parry…but maybe your team-mate on your back hasn’t seen him…health loss!!1
And then, the lack of coordination…that is something really difficult to acquire in pugs group BUT you can improve a lot…costantly checking your team mates and try to support them as you can…this is a common mentality for “tank” players but dps generally has a little “vision” of the battle, looking forward and thinking there is alway someone on their back…wrong!!!
I must admit i have found some really good players in pugs…but every run can turn into a nightmare in a matter of second…and all these things i have mentioned can make the difference…
I’d rate the spawn as the 2nd easiest kite, personally. My hardest is the bile troll. He is just a lot more annoying, with his bile pools and his block penetrating axe sweep (and you can forget slowly taking his health down while doing it). Rogre/Spawn are fairly easy to kite without taking any damage comparatively, as long as you don’t get caught on geometry while they are going for that overhead, also i’d say easier to animation lock.
I’m probably greediest on slayer, just because of how much fun it is to jump into a horde and solo it. Also has one of the higher tolerances due to 50% damage reduction talent (highest of all careers i play).
Playing FK/WHC (and HM to some degree) i’m a lot less greedy and often content to just side aside and joke around while watching our ranged dps’ back.
and your party needs to be able to deal with all of them. The higher the number - the bigger the threat, with bosses being the most common party wiper, but under certain circumstances even waves can kill you - I’ve seen a lot of people, that could deal with last three threat types, but at waves they either always lost a lot of HP or just helplessly stood in block.
Also those threats usually combine for even greater challenge: waves usually bring ambient elites, specials keep spawning during waves and bosses die so long, that 90% of the time you have to fight them and a wave at the same time.
Another common cause of wipes is overconfidence, an insidious and fast killer in case of Vermintide. Everything goes well, people relax and chasing green circles, spread out and then boom, several threats appear at the same time and wipe the party.
I think overconfidence killed as many players in VT2 as Chaos Spawn, if not more.
I don’t like the concept of calling names or putting labels, like calling players “greedy” or saying that DPS players “generally have little vision”. Yes, there is a lot of people, that only care about kills and green circles and don’t care about teamplay, but there is also a lot of people, who don’t know how to teamplay or who just have different vision of the game and also think that you’re doing something wrong. And I don’t like idealizing tanks either - I’ve seen to many Pistol Bardins, who didn’t even bother ever switching to melee.
I think everything can be easily explained with these 4 threats types and coordination. If you can deal with them, if you cooperate and cover each other - you will beat Legend. If you’re not good enough at dealing with 1 of them or if your coordination is bad - you have a very big chance of wiping. If you have both problems, coordination AND dealing with threats, or you have problems with more than 1 enemy types - then only RNGesus can save you.
On my group, it seems to be most often bad positioning, being too far from each other. Sometimes a Globadier forces it and we cannot recover, other times a boss drives someone separate, and sometimes it’s just plain not paying attention to others’ actions. Secondary would be a sudden stacking of threats: A boss in difficult environment, a horde and a few disablers can do it. Someone (too often myself) can’t dance with the boss well, and takes useless hits, then a strangler grabs another from middle of a horde. Now you got half the group out of the action, and others getting slowly overwhelmed.
There is a third reason that I’ve noticed (and so have my friends), but it’s somewhat rarer: Getting greedy not with kills, but saving friends. One gets grabbed by a Slaver, horde prevents shooting so we rush to help - and get into bad position. Someone gets downed, another tries to help - and gets his stamina beaten down just as the other rises. Both out of commission, at least one completely.
I can only imagine these being far worse (with other problems) when playing with randoms whose playstyle and equipment you have no idea of and who do not (ability or willingness aside) communicate a lot, and who may well have gotten used to different defense spots from you.
Not a criticism on your topic or anyone posting but I do sort of wish people would let go of the ‘‘dps/tank/etc’’ mentality, there are sturdy and squishy characters and generally they all can perform the same functions - not all at an equal level of efficiency no, and that’s okay - it adds flavour to the game.
Misconceptions that there are DPS and tanks and that it isn’t a case of ‘‘Playing with mostly yourself in mind, while moving as a group’’ (e.g. self-preservation while trying to be a teamplayer) breeds problems like a footknight/WHC/ironbreaker that just raise their weapon during a horde and stand there waiting for other people to kill everything - essentially turning them into a non-participant while they think they’re helping.
Or things like melee/ranged classes that tunnelvision so hard and get so focused on kills because they’re ‘‘obviously dps classes’’ so they eat hits and cry that nobody protects them; all of these are issues that kind of crop up when people start harshly labeling classes/careers and characters. At the end of the day it’s a survival-game, a co-op one at that, and sure it’s fine for a tankier career to hold the line in some situations but in most you’re going to want to have everyone on the team keeping an eye on whatever is within their sphere of influence and deal with it accordingly.
This especially goes for pugs, where people just flat-out seem to demand/expect certain things for some reason… it boggles me.
tl;dr:
yes footknight/ironbreaker/etc is a ‘‘tank’’ (note; tanky character), but not your babysitter.
yes pyro/waystalker/BH/etc is a ‘‘dps’’ (note; damage-focused character), but you still have to mind your own safety.
I actually like playing legend pugs it has its downsides sure but in the end I feel like a better player for not having to rely on people I know to make sure I am safe. You can really gauge how good you’re and how your play style evolved playing by yourself in a team of randoms.
Those people learn quickly when they die and the other 3 guys who are sticking together on legend chew them out for it or get kicked. If you played legend you would know that.
I have nearing 1200 hours on this game. I am not here to have a flame fest. I will quote one thing you said. This is the downfall of 80% of legend pugs…
“…playing by yourself in a team…”
You may believe that you are adding to the team, but you aren’t. At all. In many cases when players join with that attitude, they die and rage quit. Either way, in my experience, which is no doubt more than yours, that is the case.
I have played Left 4 Dead 2 for years and years. Its ‘work together to accomplish a goal’ co-op play approach is similar. In that game, the guy that goes off on his own is most often better replaced by a bot.
I am not trying to be rude. Just outline that tho you may think that is a good tactic. It isn’t
Yes, you play by yourself in a team in a pug without your friends doesn’t mean you go out and leave everyone else to go your own way stop twisting words around it makes you look like the one flaming and being pathetic.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with playing with a premade some of the pugs I have played in by my self were with groups of friends who communicate on discord and ask to invite people to join their discord or they communicate in game mic/chat or they just flat out don’t say anything. I just wanted to point out the pros of playing by yourself in a pug but I cannot speak for those who make stupid decisions and get themselves killed by being selfish/greedy chasing green circles.
There IS no pro to ‘playing by yourself in a pug’. This is EQUAL to ‘those who make stupid decisions and get themselves killed’
A skilled player (and I have played with many), can ‘chase green circles’ and STILL be standing right next to you being a great team mate. The issue only arises when they prioritize dps over teamwork
Playing by yourself in a pug is the main reason pugs fail. Period.
If you want to succeed in a pug by yourself you must work together with your teammates even without communication you can still stick with them and watch their backs. This is the pro to playing by yourself in a pug and how you learn. In a pug you will encounter selfish people who wont heal you even with 1/4 hp so you learn how to manage your hp make the most out of temp health and dodge/kite better another pro. And playing solo in pugs lets you experience different players mentalities some of them are jerks and some of them are the best teammates you will ever have. Playing by yourself also doesn’t equal pugs failing as well its how you play and what you do that does.
Aside from unlucky AI RNG, the majority of wipes for me come from quickplay or even some friends who like to play the waiting game. I.e sitting behind your ranged(sienna especially) and letting them slowly clear stuff. Nothing drives me more insane. Keep moving and clearing, means less time for more stuff to spawn. The ranged meta really promotes poor gameplay, and puts bad players into situations they can’t handle.
I can’t count how many times I’ll be playing slayer or any other melee, and the group says “stay here so sienna can beam everything”, eff that, I’ll clear it twice as fast, beam me in the back I don’t care lol. Seriously, it has become an issue in quick play. They even have memorized locations for camping, it’s like taking baby steps the entire map when you could finish 20 minutes sooner by just moving and not being bad.
Eh, to each their own I suppose. We all have different experiences. Mine is definitely the ‘hero’ types that say things like ‘we got this’ figuring they can clear the map solo, only to find out that they cant fight their way out of a hook rats grapple or assassins pounce that cause the wipe. Maybe I’m unlucky.
Tho I have also seen some very skilled players who are consistently able to keep a high health throughout a run and still lead the charge without the need for much support from the rest of the team. These players are rare, but they also know what they are risking.
Prioritizing dps over good teamwork in this co-op game is counter productive to a successful mission. Relative positioning is a thing lol
People need to understand their role first before playing legend. More than often i see a BH, Pyro or WS engaging into the horde or some ambiente enemys during a tagged blightstormers ritual, without even reacting to it. I have to basically equip a ranged sniper weapon with every career, because you can never trust the anti-specials in this game.
People also need to understand, how to position during a horde. Like its a perfect idea to hear a horde coming but still pushing forward to aggro as much elites as possible. NOT.
But most commonly, is the fact that people arent aware of their team at points of no return. Most of them just jump down and let someone behind who is still fighting with an enemy, because they dont care and think everyone is always in their back. I rarely see anyone watching out at a point of no return for the latest member of the group. This should be standard behaviour on legend.
Probably feels about as bad as a rattling gunner that spawns already-firing from an angle you can’t counter and have no ammo to retaliate against nor the time (attack-wind-up) to fight against.
Or other specials that spawn and completely skip any idle-phase/wind-ups like assassins that spawn mid-pounce, so as they enter the game they’re already flying at your face with no warning - then as they hit you the sound of it spawning finally comes up. Gas rats that spawn and throw 2 orbs in a row. Etc.
As for dual-assassins I guess I’ll just learn to live with the fact that I’ll end up dodging one and getting hit by another that I did not even know existed/spawned before then. ><
It’d be nice of coordinated attacks had a separate spawn-cue or combat music. Or that double-spawns had a different cue all of their own. I really don’t mind double-assassins if I know what I’m fighting.
Hmm… Giving a secondary spawn cue to disablers (and possibly other specials), clearly different but still similar, then playing the secondary only when more than one of the same type spawn at the same time or very closely could work very well. Likely a headache to sound designers, though, and still needs that the sounds work overall better than they do now (at least for some players; I haven’t noticed significant problems lately but I can’t honestly pay that much attention to them in the middle of action anyway).
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