Blackhanded

Mini-Guide for the Drop Team/PA Team.

Since Issue 7, decoys will no longer simply follow directly below you. Instead, they attempt to go to the closest spot to you. If you are flying, this means they head to high ground. There are only a few spots in the jello that they will stand around in. Of these few, there are three that are most useful and easiest to hit.

One is SE of Hamidon and probably the easiest to hit. You can fly directly over hamidon and hit this spot without too much troble.

Another is SW of Hamidon and requires you to get into position near the edge of the jello below you. This one is also not too difficult to find.

The third is NW of hamidon and can be tricky. If off by much, you will either land your decoys in the first location or have them standing useless on top of one of one of the stone pillars north of the raid. To hit this spot you will need to get north of Hami, over the jello, near the edge of it.

There's usually plenty of time before the raid to get into position and find these three spots. It is definitely worth doing so, especially when trying to locate the third drop spot. Invis is not needed if at the proper elevation. I like to start out very high up and drop once the raid has begun so that I am low enough to make out the names of those raiding, so that I can track the raid's progress.

If folks are relying on group flight, pair up the non-flyers with a group flyer. Remember that the group-flyer is faster than the non-flyer and will outpace him or her if they don't stay together. To prevent this from happening, have the group-flyer follow the non-flyer instead of vice versa.

Ideally you will have 6 or more PA'ers. This allows for folks to pair up on each drop spot and keep a constant rotation of decoys in all three spots. If you are paired up, watch your partner's decoy buff, when it blinks, drop your phantom army.

The raid itself should enter from the south. Ideally between the SE and SW drop spot, but often times closer to the SW. Your job until the aggro team enters the goo is to keep hami aggroed on the decoys and not the raid.

If the raid comes near one of your drop spots before the aggro tank is tanking Hami, the PA'ers there should shift spots to help one of the other pairs. This is done to prevent Hamidon from killing the raid with his AE due to your PA's gaining aggro in the middle of the raid. Once the raid has passed this spot or the aggro tank is in tanking Hami, shift back.

Once the aggro tank is in position, your job is to simply provide damage mitigation for the raid and aggro team. Continue to drop PA's in all three spots until just a few mitos are left. At this point, it is pretty safe to drop into the goo to join the raid once your decoys have despawned.

Be sure to get into the healing bubble and target off the targetter. You should have no pets out for the remainder of the raid until Hami is dead. Once he dies, throw out he decoys and phantasm to help with clearing the little blobs.

Heroes on Pinnacle:
Sterling, 50 Ill/Rad/Fire
Dreygar Moradinson 50 BS/Regen/Body Mastery
Impudent 50 Archery/Energy/Flame
Cowboy Sun Tsu 35 Mind/Kin

A few thoughts:

1. The mish is bugged atm. Several of the last few times I've done it only the first person to zone into the final mission had a vine counter. If this person dies and/or re-enters the mission he/she will no longer have the vine counter either. If this should happen, just keep killing vines and check the AV periodically.

2. The AV has a limited field of vision. You can stand right behind the wall behind it and be completely safe. We've found that when fighting the AV you can set up a pretty nice camp just to the right and behind him (if facing it). This is a good spot to retreat to in order to deal with the three ambushes that are spawned. You can fight him on that side and be only a few steps from safety.

3. You can skip a lot of content to speed things up with stealth and tp friend. For the kill CoT head to Cap. For the 1st mission fight the EB in the entry room, have your stealther head to next boss and tp party, and do the same for the final EB. For the final mission your stealther can tp you to just outside the final room.

4. If you are having difficulties with the first door mission really rethink things. You are likely to have a LOT of trouble on the final mission.