Slot 9. Best choice is still Alia ?

[taniwhat]

I need to unlock a champion in Slot 9 so I can unlock Zariel.

I have Makos, Drizzt, Uriah now.

Just a sanity check on the best option to spend time gate pieces on please. (Things change often, guides, not so often :) ).

Thanks

[Derpykat5]

That largely depends on the rest of your roster, but if you're focusing specifically on seat 9, then Birdsong, Aila, or Nordom are good choices.

Aila is a great tank and good debuffer of the Aerois affiliation. If you use that team definitely go for her.

Birdsong is a great DPS/support with a lot of power, and is super easy to use at that. If you don't use Aerois and want raw support power get her.

Nordom isn't a very good support, but they will help you level your modron core(s) faster. If you care about that, get them.

[WhatZit]

If you're ever going to join the dork side and play an Artemis meta formation, then you'll choose Birdsong on any day that ends with a "Y".

She's one of his BFF's (after Valentine and, ugh, NERDS):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jLA6XZubkvS0cAtj_BM9sLT7Lg30oz2BKyGvCJfuDVM/edit?pli=1#gid=2103748333

[Derpykat5]

Even outside of Artemis comps Birdsong is still the best support in her seat, especially if you run an unaffiliated-heavy formation.

[taniwhat]

Thanks for the input.

It's unlocking Slot 9 and accessing more TG and modron pieces has the priority for me at this point. I need more raw power and unlocking more champions and levelling cores faster would seem to be the best way to get me that. I don't have Artemis, Valentine or NERDS at this point so building parties around Artemis has prereqs of quite a number of TG's - I think I have my priorities right there.

Nordom seems the best option for me, and again thanks, I didn't realise he levelled cores faster.

There are obviously people awake now, which was a surprise :). I'm at the point where I probably could start doing Tiamat (poorly :P) but my TZ is GMT+10 - and I was thinking finding people anywhere near that TZ was going to be a problem.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Tiamat can be soloed pretty early (not talking about time of the day, but about "newbieness" so to speak.) I've been soloing Tiamat at the lowest level for about two months now, started when my Jarlaxle was a scrub at ilvl 70 and now he's at 360 and rising. I'm almost at the point where I could solo the second tier of Tiamat, maybe one day when Artemis and Val are high ilvl enough I'll tackle the third tier.

I was never someone to care for multiplayer as a whole, so the idea of having to wait on/depend on other players in an idle game sound beyond ridiculous. Then again, this game's pretty much built on ridiculous mechanics and time-wasting choices, so, par for the course?

[taniwhat]

Thanks once again. I didn't realise you COULD solo Tiamat, I got the impression it was mandatory MP :), so knowing that is very much appreciated.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

I was completely uninterested in the Trials because of the game making it sound like "MP or GTFO," but then I read about soloing it and went "wait a moment..." I'm the kind of crazy person who will solo in Battle Royale games just because I don't want a squad. >_>

Anyhow, Tiamat is not too easy to solo, on my first try I finished it with twenty minutes remaining, but as I discovered later on, having a good enough DPS on your first day (above e200) helps.

To know how high your DPS is, check the Tiamat map (it'll make sense once you see it) and keep on pushing until your party does at least e200. Less than that can be, well, "twenty minutes left" so it's better to get as much DPS on your first day.

[Jack]

Originally posted by taniwhat:

I need to unlock a champion in Slot 9 so I can unlock Zariel.

I have Makos, Drizzt, Uriah now.

Just a sanity check on the best option to spend time gate pieces on please. (Things change often, guides, not so often :) ).

Thanks

Birdsong Best choice in 9 slot

[taniwhat]

Thanks, relatively low level. My best core is level 5 :). So boosting those ASAP, getting more patrons unlocked (Time gate pieces and modron components) THEN working on more conventional champions/parties seemed the win to me.

Nordom will hopefully help with levelling modrons while I collect more champions where Birdsong wasn't going to give me an immediate boost (need other champions to make the best of that). Having four champions in each slot was needed to unlock that last core.

I have a few more Avernus quests to do and I can unlock Zarial, possibly tomorrow if I can be bothered making the effort.

[kab_reg]

Keep in mind that Magic Core is powerful for magic-using DPS, but it is exceptionally bad for tanking. It does not have any health nodes at all.

[WhatZit]

Originally posted by taniwhat:

I didn't realise you COULD solo Tiamat,

Yep. All you need to do is go bananas on day 1 with whoever you have available (after the restrictions). Push as far as you can, then you'll only need to meet the zone requirements for the remaining days (e.g. z250 for Day 7 on Normal).

Your own personal contribution to DPS is calculated weirdly (I don't understand it), but it appears to be based on some combination of the largest hit and the BUD. Just use your heaviest hitter and you'll be fine. Regardless of how it's measured, the game remembers your best DPS from previous days, and adds "bonus" DPS onto that for each day you complete, so the only day that really requires maximum effort is 1.

Each trial starts with 0 favor, just like a timegate, so you can do a second deep push for more favor (easier days 2-7) if you want.

To solo the first 3 ToMT levels, you need to have the "Party Total DPS" on the far right of the bottom green bar showing these numbers on or before Day 7:

NORMAL: 675
HEROIC: 1250
MASTER: 2150

Of course, the downside to soloing Tiamat is that you'll typically lose out on scales. The other 4 players add their own champ bonuses, hopefully useful ones. When soloing, you've only got the one champ bonus. Without a beastly formation, that'll usually be Assault Party Damage when you get to Master difficulty.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

Only 675 on normal? I've been heavily overestimating Tiamat, then. I should do another try for the Heroic difficulty, since 1250 is about as much as I get in Normal at day 7.

[WhatZit]

Originally posted by Kyouko Tsukino:

Only 675 on normal?

The formula I use is:

Tiamat Health (400,000,000 @ Normal)
divided by Seconds in an Hour (3600)
divided by Hours in a Day (24)
divided by Days in a Week (7)
rounded up to Something easy to Remember

Frankly, I don't trust that dark green "catchup" bar, which supposedly lets you reach the DPS target anytime during a day and it counts for the whole day, supposedly.

So, getting that DPS before Day 7 is the preferred option.

[Kyouko Tsukino]

I'm at day 6 with 1030 DPS right now, in normal, and I haven't even completed the daily DPS mission. I'll have to give Heroic a go since it has a lot more daily DPS than Normal, so it should be easy to get to 1250 before day 7.

[WhatZit]

Hang on, I might inadvertently be a big fat liar, because I used the AVERAGE daily number required instead of absolute DPS shown on the bar. Let me check...

EDIT: YEP! I'm a dimwit. Sorry Kyouko, I used the average! What that means is that you need to get that DPS target shown on the green bar on Day 4, not day 7!

Bloody hell, what a dingdong I am. Ahh, I could go back and edit the original post, but I'm going to live with the embarrassment.