Man, this raid…

I’m gonna preface this with some apologies;

Vortech was totally right about linking both red and blue tethers to the boss extending the damage phase; I went and looked it up this morning, and every guide I found claims this to be the case.

I got a bit punchy towards the end of the session, and I had no good reason to imply our failures were any particular team’s fault. I caused at least as many wipes as anyone else, if not more. Hope you guys don’t take what I said seriously.

The Raid

Garden of Salvation is so close to being a masterpiece of game design up there with the Vault of Glass. It introduces mechanics in a gradual fashion, and then combines them to form really hectic, climactic encounters. As frustrating as it can seem at times, I really really enjoy the tethering mechanic. I would have loved to see more mandatory combat-light encounters that made use of this, similar to how some of the Divinity puzzles work.

The garden environment itself is… wow. Probably my favourite environment in all of D2, no contest. I can’t do it justice with words.

I guess Nessus comes pretty close. Really, I’m learning that I want Bungie to just build more locales featuring Vex architecture.

Having completed the final encounter twice now, I can totally understand why people hate it. It’s unforgiving in a way other raid encounters aren’t, where a single missed callout or ill-timed death will inevitably snowball into a state where continuing the fight isn’t feasible. It actually reminds me a lot of Oryx in that way.

One of my chief complaints is that a lot of the anchors you connect the tethers to are just far enough away that they can’t reliably be completed with two players, at least not in the middle of combat. I feel like with just a little bit of iteration, that encounter would go from dreaded to one of the best in that game. Oil one or two of the encounter's moving parts, preferably some of the more buggy ones like mote collection.

I would still love to pop in and do this one more every couple months or so, if only to do the Divinity puzzles again and finish that quest.

Man, this raid…

I’m gonna preface this with some apologies;

Vortech was totally right about linking both red and blue tethers to the boss extending the damage phase; I went and looked it up this morning, and every guide I found claims this to be the case.

FWIW, it used to be that one tether was far more efficient, but they changed something when Beyond Light dropped that made one tether end so damn quickly.

As frustrating as it can seem at times, I really really enjoy the tethering mechanic. I would have loved to see more mandatory combat-light encounters that made use of this, similar to how some of the Divinity puzzles work.

Isn't the second encounter (opening the Hydra arena) exactly that, though?

One of my chief complaints is that a lot of the anchors you connect the tethers to are just far enough away that they can’t reliably be completed with two players, at least not in the middle of combat. I feel like with just a little bit of iteration, that encounter would go from dreaded to one of the best in that game. Oil one or two of the encounter's moving parts, preferably some of the more buggy ones like mote collection.

The beacons actually move around every damage phase. This is what usually throws off builder duos most of the time. The original configuration only has 2 anchors that are impossible to two-man and another 2 that are hard if you're in a rush. Every other configuration is much harder to reliably two-man.

Man, this raid…

I’m gonna preface this with some apologies;

Vortech was totally right about linking both red and blue tethers to the boss extending the damage phase; I went and looked it up this morning, and every guide I found claims this to be the case.

I got a bit punchy towards the end of the session, and I had no good reason to imply our failures were any particular team’s fault. I caused at least as many wipes as anyone else, if not more. Hope you guys don’t take what I said seriously.

Speaking for myself, I never felt offended. (I mean it's certainly better than the time in crucible when you yelled at me to "stop dying" ?) And so long as we are clarifying intent whether it's needed or not, I really wasn't trying to push for one strategy over another. I was genuinely enjoying seeing how the Xbox folks approached the raid (although I still maintain running the bases backwards is downright un-American </Sam_Eagle>). Relying so much on raid mods for DPS is something I never would have thought of because the group I figured it out with had to cement a strategy before we had those mods. I find that sort of thing fascinating. And cross pollination!

Having completed the final encounter twice now, I can totally understand why people hate it. It’s unforgiving in a way other raid encounters aren’t, where a single missed callout or ill-timed death will inevitably snowball into a state where continuing the fight isn’t feasible. It actually reminds me a lot of Oryx in that way.

It's not just that it is unforgiving, it's that it takes so long to kill you that it gives you false hope you can overcome the error that was made. Crushing, really.

I would still love to pop in and do this one more every couple months or so, if only to do the Divinity puzzles again and finish that quest.

I'm very happy to help with the quest.

I like raids.

Man, this raid…

I’m gonna preface this with some apologies;

Vortech was totally right about linking both red and blue tethers to the boss extending the damage phase; I went and looked it up this morning, and every guide I found claims this to be the case.

FWIW, it used to be that one tether was far more efficient, but they changed something when Beyond Light dropped that made one tether end so damn quickly.

Interesting. Kinda funny that it always seemed like they were equally likely to work for us and the single tether is how we got the job done, then.

Having completed the final encounter twice now, I can totally understand why people hate it. It’s unforgiving in a way other raid encounters aren’t, where a single missed callout or ill-timed death will inevitably snowball into a state where continuing the fight isn’t feasible. It actually reminds me a lot of Oryx in that way.

I like to think of the final encounter in Garden as a "best practices" encounter. I find it very similar to the final encounter of Crown of Sorrow. It seems like a very difficult encounter where even the slightest error dooms you, but in reality, the true problem is that you are probably doing all the things you think you are doing just fine at an "okay" level, and if you were doing them better you'd have a lot more leeway to recover from actual errors or unexpected circumstances.

In the Garden fight, what is truly important is efficiently collecting the motes. And by "efficient" in this case I mean you and your partner should be ready to come back almost as soon as it is possible for the home team to bring you back. The best way to do this is through ad-clearing supers, and also having a lot of experience doing it with the same person, with whom you've developed a sense for who will be picking up what motes in what situations (at least 4 permutations on each island). Of secondary importance is the home team and temporary defenders efficiently protecting the confluxes and breaking shields without getting in each other's ways, which is an ongoing "do this, unless this" mental calculation. Of tertiary importance is actual boss damage. Whether this kind of hierarchy is truly the best formula for a final boss encounter of a raid is debatable, but I do think these kinds of encounters that reward mastery beyond DPS are nice to have every once in a while.

DPS is the most boring encounter design.

I also wish they would get away from damage phases. Stuff like having the boss always able to take damage but having to deal with mechanics because they will kill or otherwise hinder you could be interesting—or having the option to do something to make the boss take increased damage.

Despite their mechanic differences, every boss boils down to doing the mechanic then huddling in a Well to blast the boss for 30 seconds and I just think there’s room to do something else.

It’s why I liked SotP so much. It’s was ultimately the same thing, but having to actively break components off the boss the make him less lethal to the team was an interesting twist.

I feel like going fast on Gambit might overwhelm the builders. But yeah, rhythm in general is key here.