Bad_Influence

Went in with a full compliment of insps, thanks for the advice. I've been in the game since 2006 and I don't go face an EB without inspirations. Ever.

Once again, being forced to exit a mission to get more insps is a failure of design, not least because while you're out there scrounging for inspirations, the EB is regenning back up to full health. I know a lot of you think this is the coolest thing ever, but not all of us do.

Sooooo.... how many inspirations drop when you are alone in a room with an EB whose health-bar is made of solid adamantium...? I know for my Def the answer was "zero," but perhaps you have secret techniques for getting insps to drop without NPC deaths involved.

Being forced to leave a mission multiple times to restock on insps is the definition of "failure of design" to me, but whatever.

Bullhockey. The only one of those any of my people has is the Fire nuke, and I am considering respec'ing him out of even that.

I do not consider the flatlining of my Endurance to be worth the damage output of most nukes; especially on a team. Nukes are at best a situational power, if one likes them fine but to state that they are the sole reason one picks a set, well.... lol. Blackstar is especially laughable. I could not respec out of that one fast enough. I will grant you that I was experimenting with it as a Corruptor, not a Blaster but still.

150 merits for an entire ship raid? ...are you on ship raids by yourself? LOL....

Last raid he was on, my Tank netted 800+ Vanguard merits from two back-to-back runs. There were people in the zone saying they had netted 1000.

For best results you find out when "raid night" is on your server, you show up and you raid - with breaks in between - until everyone is worn out or the fat lady sings, whichever comes first. You need a full zone with people actually working, not lying around dead, and you too can net 800+ Vanguard merits for an hour or so's work. Easy peasy. This is also a great way to level 45+ alts; a few raids and you're 50 before you know it.

Thereason you are running ship raids and netting 30 merits is because your character has not run the extremely short-n-easy Member of Vanguard arc. Running this arc means the difference between netting 30 merits on a ship raid, and 700-1000 merits.

Those merits are mighty handy, not only for HVAS but for purchasing costume parts, including but not limited to the glowing Talsorian weapons.

Its really easy, that's why I suggested taking the raid route. I will admit grinding solo through RWZ story arcs for merits can be really tedious, especially on anything prone to sleeps or mezzes.

The Member of Vanguard arc takes about ten minutes total to do. All of my people run it the instant they hit 35.

An HVAS costs 250 Vanguard merits. Which is a lot, true, but what you do is find out when your server hosts Rikti ship raids, and get on one of those. Its not unheard of to come out of one of those with 800 or so Vanguard merits.

Saturday night is a popular time for those.

I hate the Polar Shift tip mission with a passion. Clear the map, THEN hunt through three floors of map for objective 1, THEN hunt through three floors for objective 2, THEN hunt through three floors of map for objective 3. I find it to be a tedious time-sink, but mileage will vary.

Ill be declining this one unless I just have to have it from now on.

There is another one whereyou have to clear a three-level map hunting for "bomb" glowies which are stashed in the most obscure corners of the map imaginable. This would be less of a problem if the glowie sound had not been recently reduced. Even turning up the sound is of limited utility in finding them. I forget the name, but I know it when I see it and thats another one I skip unless forced.

I like the Save the Bane Spider morality one though.

More hairsplitting: the entire point of pulling Trappy is to remove him from proximity to his clones, so sorry, what you are indeed saying is that pulling is "cheating."

I find that hilarious, myself and I think it is dangerous to have the developers thinking this is a good idea - but YOU like it, you and I think Nalrok AaaChoo likes the idea too, so who cares what the rest of the playerbase thinks, you have it like you want it so all is right with the world. Yay!

Tenzhi, go get a Vanguard HVAS. With your setting at -1 and a HVAS this is definitely completable. And my sympathies.... I've know how disenheartening this encounter is when you are using a relatively low damage character.

He is not difficult on a Tank. My DB/elec Tank lured him down into the lava, backed him into a corner and proceeded to tear him to shreds.

It was on unshielded alts that I was having problems with him, because he hits extremely hard if you are unshielded. I am having some difficulty accepting StarKitten's anecdote that she went in there on a Controller with many empty enhancement slots, no IO sets and beat him in 10 seconds flat.

I am actually more tolerant of SB than I used to be, although I still hate being SBed in caves with the firey intensity of a dozen supernova-ing suns.

But even so, you get SB duration lengthened when the rest of us have the option to dismiss.

Villains should stomp 'em and steal all their LotGs just because their costumes are so ugly.

Pfffttttttttttt.... dude, you were the one who trotted out the entire concept of pulling being "cheating" and how dare we try to pull Trappy away from his clones, we were all a bunch of cheaty cheaters who deserved Awesome Punishments O'Doom because we Have Erred From The Path Of Righteousness by trying to evade Our Just Deserts.

That particular wild claim was one of the things making this thread o-so-entertaining. Now where is that .gif of Michael Jackson eating popcorn when we need it....

Speaking of making things up, when have I ever claimed, in this or any other thread, that NPCs ever had less than a 5% chance to hit? This has nothing to do with the points I have made in here. Nothing.

If he hits right through purples, then this makes hash of everyone's boast to "just bring 50 Lucks in there and you'll be ok!" If he can hit through Lucks they are of limited utility - in fact I did not find them very useful. If the Curse of Weariness can run through an entire tray of blues in two minutes, this makes blues not all that useful when fighting Holtz. Elementary concept.

If Trappy never lands his Total-Focus [or whatever it is]-O'-Doom on any of your alts, outstanding. I am happy for you. That does not mean 1. That it does not exist, and 2. that he cannot land it on you multiple times during the same encounter. He sure landed it on my Defender and also on my Stalker, more than once. Everyone else without heavy shielding brought a temp power when solo and BOOM, "mission complete."

Problem solved. And intent of mission? Massive fail.

Thanks, Captain Obvious. The subject at hand is a mission in the Mender Rameil arc, not grey-conning NPCs trying to land brawl on me as I stand around in Atlas conversing with a friend via tell. As if anyone cared about such a thing, least of all me.

Dude, I am sorry to inform you: when the PvP changes went into effect, diminishing returns made it more difficult to beat the firebase without turrets respawning on you. I used to never have anyone without shivans, who was of appropriate level; no one. I was in there several times a week getting shivans for this one, that one and the other.

I never bother nowadays due to diminishing returns. Maybe you do, hats off to you. I never do. When I go in with a team to get them for a special task, we're always the only ones in the zone. Yep.... diminishing returns sure was a nifty idea. It completely revitalized PvP zones!

Or not.

I'll get back to you when a grey-conning Hellion is a problem for me on a mission arc, or when I have to consume four Lucks in order to try & stop him from hitting me. Until then, I don't really think Brawl from a grey-con is that big of a deal, nor does it validate your idea that this somehow, some way has a thing to do with my feedback regarding the Mender Ramiel arc.

I might, if I were looking for a fight over such a trivial idea. But not today.

...I hope this is a joke post. I really do.

Go do that; that way you won't be attempting to put words in my mouth/on my keyboard that I never said.

I call complete and utter BULLHOCKEY. That is completely untrue. It most certainly *is* five minutes.

*****

We have been told many times that people have "been told how to complete this mission with no problem whatsoever." In case someone new to the thread missed the actual strategies that work on very squishy characters with no +KB powers, here they are:

*Prior to beginning the arc, turn your difficulty down to -1.

*Bring one or more of the following: 1. Friends, if you have any on at the time you want to run this who are not busy doing other stuff. 2. Shivans. 3. A Vanguard HVAS. 4. Both shivans and a HVAS. Boom, "MISSION COMPLETE."

Ignore all sternum-beating, "I iz l33t!" wild unverifiable claims, etc: just do this and problem solved.

Never said that, sweetie. What I did say was that some powersets, esp. those without +KB, can have a lot of problems with Trappy. This mission is VERY doable: bring shivans and/or a HVAS if one has trouble. Problem solved.

Now being forced to go get temp powers is pretty silly IMO, for people so powerful they are about to become Incarnate, but whatever works.

*Annoyed* I'm not "making up" the fact that Trappy can be extremely difficult on some alts, especially those without a shivan or two up one's sleeve. I love how some of you people act like you know more about what goes on in someone else's mission than the player who was actually there.

You weren't there, you know nothing about what went down when [for instance] my Claws Stalker went through this mission. Please stop acting like you do, because you and I both know you were not there.

Also tired of this assumption that one can carry enough blues to overcome 5 minutes' worth of the Curse of Weakness, or to overcome Trappy's +regen. Perhaps your people have a 50-inspiration tray, mine sure don't and so non sequiter. Thanks.

...because no change in the entire history of this game has ever been revised or outright reversed, nosirree!

Might want to keep that inconvenient little factoid in mind.

Oh. My. God. Are you serious?! Are you really serious?!!!!!

I point you to the upping of difficulty of getting Shivans, to limit their use by solo players. [And this worked, because I never bother going to get Shivans nowadays, due to increased speed of respawn times on firebase turrets].

I point you to the several places that Warburg nukes have been disallowed, the Cathedral of Pain springs to mind as well as.... gosh, didn't they *just* make it to where nukes could not be used in Apex and Tin Mage? Perhaps I am remembering that wrong.... but yes, nukes have been disallowed in several instances.

Y'might want to rethink this stance of yours.

Trappy's not a special snowflake who needs special privileges. If anything, an EB who deserves special privileges would be Honoree. He's been through enough to earn 'em. Trappy ain't nothin' special, he even has a boring costume.

If only inspirations stopped things like the Curse of Weakness and Trappy's 100% chance-to-hit [? sure seems like 100% chance] Ubermelee one-shot-wonder! Unfortunately TRAPPY CAN INDEED HIT THROUGH A *TRAYFUL* OF PURPLES. My Defender can testify to the veracity of this statement.

BZZZT, WRONG! please point me to where I have said, in this thread or in any other, that no one at any time has beaten Trappy solo. I have never said that, and I don't appreciate you saying that I have said it.

I'm sure it happens. I'm equally sure that Trappy kept one-shotting my Defender every time he got close enough; and really, now that I think back he did the same thing to my Claws Stalker, the one toon I have who I really thought would cakewalk through that mission. Didn't turn out like that.

I therefore give a dismissive wave to these claims that everyone in the entire game, on any AT, can snooze through an encounter with Trapdoor. Maybe you can, I don't watch you play so I don't know. The amount of requests I see for help with Trappy on my server's global channels leads me to believe otherwise.