How many hours does it take to get a new Tiamat raid going if you're new?

[Worldspawn]

Hi! Just finished the requirement for Mt Tiamat and thought I'd check it out. It's the first time doing this so started by looking for a raid and found there were none (that were visible) so decided to start my own campaign (for lack of better options).
Since it's my first run my hero pool and ilvls aren't exactly amazing but even so, a few players have for some reason joined the party which is honestly a welcome surprise as this feels like the kind of thing that will get more difficult as a new player the older a game gets.

All that said, it's been about 6 hours and still not a full party. Honestly feeling a bit discouraged atm as it reminds me of older MMOs where certain content is no longer available (in practice) because nobody plays it due to everyone being in the later stages of progression.

How long do people usually have to wait and hope for things to start or is this the type of content where new players are expected to go solo until we reach whatever ilvl (10k? 30k?) everyone else is nowadays?

[Kyouko Tsukino]

From my own experience, starting a non-solo Tiamat run takes anywhere from ten minutes to three days. It seems to be less of an issue at higher (8-10) tiers, but the range in those is "ten minutes to one day" so it's still quite random.

I soloed Tiamat for a while, but decided to try the "right" way of doing these runs when I hit full Legendary level 6 on Vi and saw the requirements to increase those items.

And ilvls aren't really going to weigh much for Tiamat, after all I get second or third-most damage on a tier 7 run with my scrub team where Jim is my main DPS at ilvl 250. But the legendary levels on the "helpers" like Vi or Valentine make even some DPSs I rarely use (Binwin) able to hit a BUD of 300, and Jim and Birdsong are hitting 400-450.

Been around for one year and one month, myself, so compared to some people who's been playing this since <Booming voice>The dawn of time!</Booming voice> I'm a 5k hours newbie.

[kab_reg]

On the lowest levels of difficulty in ToMT you don't even need a full party, having 2-3 other party member is enough.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

With enough total damage on day one (200+ tier 1, 300+ tier 2, and 400+ tier 3) you could even solo it as long as you get all the daily goals done. The downside is that you won't get as many scales (by far) as you could in higher tiers. The upside is, no waiting for other players.

[JC]

I find my groups fill up fastest if i start on Saturday. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but i think there is something to it as every match i start on Saturdays always kick off the same day and typically in an hour. If i try during the week I've had them take 2-3 days. I think folks are starting on the weekend as more people have it off, and the way the trials work even if you finish early you have to wait a few days to start your next. It just seams like it's a weekend start for most people.

You can do the lowest lvl's solo, i waited to start mine and was hitting around area 900-1k on normal missions when i did it, I barely finished it myself. If your hitting lower area counts, like 300-400 maybe 500 which is the area lvl for a lot of the zone, you are going to need more people.

Like Kab said, 3 people should be enough. In the future though try weekends, it works great for me. the lower lvl's i think if you get like 5000 DPS combined that beats it, but i might be off, the higher lvl's are more like 20k DPS, with the highest coming in a bit higher. There might be a guide that has the numbers to hit.

You want to push really far the first day, then the other days you can go as far as you want, or just complete the daily. If everyone does that they finish up days early.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Yeah, the trick is to push on the very first day. Push as far as you can and no matter what restrictions the game throws at you, you'll have it much easier on the following days. I'm right now playing on trial tiers that need zone 700-900 on day one, but I can get to zone 1400 if I use my usual pushers (unless Vi, Nova and Antrius are all somehow not available from the go, in which case 1250 is the wall,) so I can get e50+ favor on day one. That lets me get all the leveling done before area 200 on the following days.

[Abradolf Linkler]

None of the bonuses matter except extra scales, and assault party damage.

If you are trying to start a party and you plop down anyone else that doesn't have one of those bonuses it's going to fill up way slower.

[kab_reg]

Damage reduction is actually desirable. Unless your party is heavy on stunners, you can easily get into situation where your party is evaporated by AoE attacks long before you hit z1950.

Using Makos and Jarlaxle is actually counterproductive for newbie party hosters. There is a good chance that somebody will provide a better champion than they have. For this reason, using them is recommended only if you join a nearly full party without them or if you are ready to start your own run, but the party does not have Jarlaxle or Makos.

Be warned that kicking out undesirable party members can easily glitch the party. That slot will be occupied for several hours by a "ghost", thus making getting a full party nearly impossible. For this reason, it is recommended to disband a bad party completely instead of just kicking out its bad members.

[Flooz]

I rarely need to wait longer than a couple of hours before a new TomT starts but I'm picky in terms of bonuses and usually don't join unless there is enough to be gained so it might take longer than some hours because of that. But it's not really a concern in the early difficulties.

There are more raids available at higher than lower difficulties and a lot more during the weekends than during the week days. I suggest to wait until Friday/Saturday to join/start one.

During the weekends however a lot more funny stuff goes on too. I'm currently in a raid that has two members with zero damage since start, the third didn't continue after day two and now it's just another and me still hanging in there. From my experience, weekday raids were more reliable.

If you have enough dps, you can solo the easier ones. I did for a while but it quickly becomes counter productive. There's a lot more scales to be gained when joining with others.

[JC]

Originally posted by Flooz:

During the weekends however a lot more funny stuff goes on too. I'm currently in a raid that has two members with zero damage since start, the third didn't continue after day two and now it's just another and me still hanging in there. From my experience, weekday raids were more reliable.

I keep track things with screenies so i can see who to go with and who to avoid. There really should be some sort of penalty to discourage this from public matches. Private i don't care, if someone wants to carry their friends that's fine but public matches that is total crap doing that.

[Worldspawn]

Thank you all for all the replies and tips :D

Just realized that back when I started this thread, the party was actually full although it being my first time I just didn't realize it.
Thing is, everyone of us had names except one fellow who was named "???" and the guy hadn't picked a hero and since he hadn't picked one the "Start Campaign" button was gray. Being new to this it took me until now to figure it out because one of the other guys (who had a name) left and then it said "Open" instead of "???" and the button turned green after I manually kicked out the "???" fellow.

No clue if Mr ??? was bugged or if he was simply new as well and didn't know that he had to pick a hero. Either way, learned a few things along the way so thank you everyone :D

[JC]

For some reason there are people that don't pick a quest and hold up the party. It happens at the higher lvl's too. it's one thing if your doing it so others can pick what they want and you check in often, but when you don't bother to check in for day's it's not very cool.

[kab_reg]

If you mean non-hosts not picking their slots, those are "ghosts" I mentioned above. I once saw a party with two "ghosts" of myself.

"???" are just players using non-standard characters (e.g. Chinese or Japanese) in their nicknames. English version of IC does not support such characters.

[JC]

The only time i kick someone is after the mission is full and someone hasn't chosen something, so perhaps the person left caused it, Or they didn't pick.

[kab_reg]

Not picking a slot for a long time is relatively rare among experienced players. It is more common among hosts.

[Flooz]

I wait about an hour when the party is full but the host didn't pick a slot (or set it to manual start) before I'm out again and try another. At the upper end, there are enough raids going on so there's no use sitting in one for half a day hoping the host checks in.

Unless I'm going to bed, then it matters less and I'll see in the morning what happened.