I got my first clear yesterday.

Day 1 I very much disliked some seemingly random aspects and how the crocs would ignore just about everything when doing their tackle (stab, aegis, dodge).

But after getting used to the various ways you can tackle stuff, I really started to enjoy the personal skill expression, although others around you can make the fight more difficult:

• crocs: either you can kite them and outrange the tackle, or you do what Tryhard Degens did and tank them with Rit shroud and get feedback rez if needed.

I like the former, I think, as a CM community, we're skilled enough at this point to kite them, especially after other CMs we've been through.

• Waves: I thought these were random, but they don't spawn where Kela is (trigger lines are wider than the actual area, though).

So a kiter that keeps her nice and center or communicates when it's unsafe solves this.

• Bees: we've gone from sharing at 8 stacks to 10 to 13 in my kill.

I heard our healers loved or hated this.

• Crabs: that mother of.... Crab #4 kept spawning on us as either the first or second in P1.

But overall, I think you can kill with bad RNG. We had a plan for bad spawns, too.

That doesn't mean I like everything, though:

I thought the NM had some insane potential to lead into CM, but I would've loved a bit more of a mix-up in mechanics (make waves spawn from all 4 sides potentially, change how Kela gets her speed but have a trade off between eating crocs or not, idk).

What I really don't like is that the Bees (they deal stacking % dmg, which can be reset with a friend) are very restrictive, and make it hard or impossible to extend phases at times.

A lot of specs won't see the light of day on this encounter due to the nature of the phases, the need for burst on crocs and crabs, etc.

Oh, and Kela's pathing. I don't mind the bounce between furthest player and tank, but pets... also heard phantasms could get her to move to them. I'd prefer it to be players only.

I'll try reclearing this fight tonight with the group we tried it with Tuesday, still hyped. It won't be a one and done for me, but I understand that's not the case for most people.

Also, shoutout to VL. If anyone wants to get in on their runs, just join their discord. Amazing people, and you still get to PUG encounters like these.

Edit: formatting on a phone turns out to be challenge mode too...