Okay, starting off with team basic dynamics, and my disclaimer... any
spelling errors I will claim as part of my nationality, even if they're not
true. I will be updating this post as new information is learned, and more
efficient uses of powers/inspirations/team setup are learnt. Again this
comes from the Virtue Server's dedicated meat shields
*********************************TEAM BUILD:*********************************
5 tankers: Ice/invuln/Stone (Primaries) prefered since they have a + MAX HP BOOST
- Note: Invulns might be the best for this one IF they have unstoppable
Unstoppable besides giving you nearly maxed Toxic resist for 3 minutes
(EoE's only last one minute, and unstoppable doesnt give a - accuracy
or a minus for recharge that granite does, it also comes with a nice
+recovery to boot, which helps cause something in the goo gives -
recovery). The average lifespan I've noticed with tankers who pop EoE's
is approximately 2 minutes tops. The EoE's do a wonderfuljob of keeping
you alive, but there is a point that no matter how much Heal and/or regen
you have, that you will simply die from it being debuffed to 0.
Fire Armor does have the awesome Self Heal every 20 seconds... but with
both the debuff from Hamidon and greens, the heals get reduced to 0 very
fast.
Ideally, tankers should have all of the + HP allocades, as well as have
some IO sets that give inherent + regen, + recovery, and + Max HP. It
doesnt add up to a huge difference, but can be the difference between death
and living for another 5 seconds, and that matters alot in the long run.
2 Empaths: Well yeah, empaths for the initial double Regeneration and Recovery
Auras which really help while they're active. Plus with two Empaths,
They can cast Adrenaline boost on eachother to speed up rezzes if needed
or can use them on the tankers for another 30 or so seconds of life.
The empaths also should talk with eachother and take turns rezzing, so
that a double rezz doesnt happen. Ideally the Empaths should also have
recall friend, so they can teleport the bodies themselves and rezz em.
Recommended that both have teleport, or atleast one HAS to have it.
1 Kinetic: This person's job is to speedboost + increase density on the tankers.
It's semi-common place for the mitos to group up on one tanker, and mezz
em through his protection. Plus the Kinetic tosses a speedboost on the
empaths to help recharge their buffs and rezz. Prefered to have teleport
if only one empath has teleport.
That concludes the basic team setup, and has room for variation as long as you
cover the basics elements of the group.
**********************************STRATEGY******** **************************
Firstly, make sure you have level 50 tankers who are fine with dying time and
time again.... cause it's going to happen!
Firstly, figure out who will have taunt priority... yes every tanker MUST have
taunt, or a damn well slotted provoke. Take your 5 tankers, and assign them
a taunting order. This basically means that Tanker A taunts until he dies or is
teleported out, Tanker B taunts until he dies or is teleported out, etc, etc, etc.
Now as they die it is the job of the empaths to teleport and rezz them, so they
can go back into the fray, and taunt some more! Something NEW that we have figured
out to improve the tanker no die rate, is to teleport them out when near death.
Once a tanker hits red with an Essence of Earth still active on his buff bar, it
is the job of the teleporting Empaths / Kinetics, to teleport him to safety and
try to keep em alive. If the tanker doesnt have an active Essence of Earth in
his buff bar, once he hits yellow the teleport should be had.
Once you have your taunt order decided, it's then time to explain the usage of
Essence of Earth. Now, when all five of the tankers initially enter the goo,
they will ALL need to use ONE Essence of Earth to deal with the inital aggro
from the insertion, but afterwards, the usage of Essence of Earths will drop
dramatically. From here on in, once the first Essence of Earth expires, only
the active person taunting Hamidon will need to use an Essence of Earth. I
say this because, at this point a minute has passed, and the Scrapper teams
should have the Yellow MItos being delt with, and the assault team will have
engaged one, perhaps two green mitos and that means alot less stuff for the
tankers to worry about. Now as Tanker A holds aggro, it is up to him to
determine if he will live long enough after his first Essence of Earth expires
if he will use another one. Regardless of choice, he will die or be teleported out
, and it is then the job for tanker B, to judge the timing properly, fire his
second Essence of Earth, and beging taunting. During the entire time tanker A is
taunting, the rest of the tankers should be doing as little as possible to
draw attention to themselves. Yes this means standing around in the goo,
not attacking, not taunting, just being bleh. This idea of doing nothing is so
that you can get as little aggro / debuffs on you as possible so that you will
live longer. That rule applies to all tankers who are not taunting, meaning that
even when tanker D is taunting, the rest are doing nothing. Now if you're an
active tanker who can pay real good attention and are around 4th or 5th on the
taunting list... you COULD, and I MEAN COULD (if you talk with the leaders
and explain what you're about to do) attack a yellow mito with one of the
scrapper teams to help a bit if you dont wanna stand around doing nothing.
This can result in you drawing yellow aggro as well as other colours on
yourself, which might cause you a pre-mature death and could cause a bit
of disturbance in the taunt cycle
Now, that your team understands the taunt cycle, generally you all should
get one chance at taunting Hamidon, then all the green and yellow and
most of the blue mitos should be dead. At this point you no longer even
use Essence of Earths, and just continue the taunt chain. The reason for
this is, that you only have X amount of Essence of Earth, and with NOTHING
else but Hamidon hitting you, the two Empaths with a Kinetic, can keep
rezzing people at a rate that equals Hamidon's kill rate! This is a big
help to saving your Essence of Earth's, as well is establishing a known
taunt cycle. A new addition we found out recently is that it is possible
to keep one tanker alive for several minutes at a time when all the mitos
are dead. Once all the mitos die, you continue the taunt cycle as normal
without using Essence of Earths... BUT, you also call out to the raid and
have a few Empaths cast Adrenalin Boost on the Tanker who is taunting.
Hamidon's - regen isnt as bad as once believed, and with 2 adrenaline boosts
on the tanker, he can out regen the damage for quite some time. This
greatly reduces tanker death, increases moral, and makes for happy times.
From here on in, the taunt cycle is set, the essence of earth usage
is minimized, and now you just have one thing left, to help kill Hamidon!
From here on in, when you're NOT taunting Hamidon, the Mitos are dead,
and the assault team is beating on Hamidon directly, you CAN engage in
melee combat under the following conditions to help Weaken Hamidon:
1) You turn off any/all taunt auras
2) DONT use your uber tier 9 (or anything with a BI of 6+) attacks
3) DONT use Taunt!
By not doing your powerful attacks, not taunting, and no taunt aura,
you're contributing damage to Hamidon, with a much lowered risk of
pulling aggro. I say this because not everyone has their taunt 6
slotted for duration and recharge.
4) You're not the designated taunter (but the designated taunter can
use ranged attacks)
Curtosey of your short and angry Canadian,
Cannukk
It's a fun attack chain, and allows for smash. But yeah, add in fire epic to the Shield/Axe or Mace or SS build and you'll be happy.