Doomlord

I finally finished one.

Mission name: Ghosts of the Brass Crusade

Mission ID: 9736

Recommended difficulty: Invincible (Unyielding with small teams)

Recommended team size: 8 (Will be very easy on small teams)

Background story (if you so chose to): Ever wanted to know where the Doomlords came from? No? Well, if you're going to play my arc, too [censored] bad. The arc has two basic plot elements: background info on my characters and a Nemesis plot.

Enemy powers ( again if you want people to know): Mix of standard Nemesis mobs and customized ones for some variety.

Your Global name: See sig.

[ QUOTE ]
Epic thread rez.

Srsly tho, this topic died around the end of the last Rikti Invasion.

[/ QUOTE ]
And through the wonders of thread necromancy, it lives again!

[ QUOTE ]
Base Repricing
1) How will the repricing of bases affect you personally?
2) Will you dismantle your base to gain the additional prestige from the repricing?
3) How long would this process take you if you were to engage in this practice?
4) What are the positive and negative concerns regarding repricing?
5) How will this feature affect you long term and short term?

[/ QUOTE ]
1. I'll probably experience joy laughing at the flame wars started over it but... I always do that.
2. Yes, for the most part. Some particularly expensive-to-craft items will not be (such as the dual fusion generators in the main SG base that I'm in charge of editing). That's the only real problem I can see - that the crafting materials won't be refunded and that makes some items rather expensive to recraft.
3. I'd estimate about 20 hours of work total (between me and some of the SG's other editors) if we were to simply do that. However, with the reduced cost, bases are being redesigned completely, so this really doesn't apply to us.
4. Positive: Base builders are no longer punished for making their bases physically bigger because of the rent increase. Negative: As well as the issues involved with recrafting base items, this means that personal SGs used for storage will now have rent. Although this rent will still be small, it will be disproportionately large compared to a standard SG base, which generally has less storage.
5. In the short term I plan on disappearing into the base editor for a few days. In the long term, it means bigger, better bases for my SG's various groups and my own personal base. In the long term, I'll have to start running the characters stored on that personal SG roster in SG mode to get the rent paid, which is kind of annoying as they aren't played consistently and now I'll have to drag them out on some sort of regular basis.

[ QUOTE ]
Base Salvage Exchange to Invention Salvage
1) What is the negative effect on your base for this feature implementation?
2) What is the positive effect on your base for this feature implementation?
3) How long will it take you to adjust to learning this new system?
4) What side effects to this system do you currently see from transitioning the old to new system?
5) What security concerns do you have regarding this change?

[/ QUOTE ]
1. None, effectively. The only base I'm involved in editing is sitting at 170 something million prestige, and with the price changes, we can build a new max-plot size base without reselling the items we already have crafted. If we didn't have that kind of prestige and had to truly consider the advantage of recrafting all the base's items, things would be different, as all the work done to get the rare base salvage (Unstable Rad Pistols and Nano Fluid, anyone?) would have been effectively for naught.
2. No more long hunts for rare base salvage and relatively low costs with the invention salvage recipes.
3. Not long at all - negligible for all intents and purposes.
4. Anyone who's been playing the market with the rare base salvage hopefully sees this coming, or it's going to hurt. Other than that, there's really not much to transition. I just need to find one (easier to find) type of salvage to craft base items instead of another (harder to find) type.
5. None. Base security continues to be as hard to use effectively as ever. I'm still hoping to see permissions for individual containers in... well, Issue 14 now.

Name: Doomlord ______mann.
Global Contact: @Doomlord, @Doomlord 2, and @Doomlord 3.
Level of Classification: OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!
Origin: Technology
Super Rank and Super Group: 2nd in Command, United Heroes Brigade

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't need to put an anti-Blapper rant in this thing, do I?

[/ QUOTE ]
I hope not, but if you told me to keep my Fire/Fire blaster at range, I'd cry.

[/ QUOTE ]
Keep your Fire/Fire blaster at range.

[/ QUOTE ]

A blaster with max HP, great Regen, and as much resist as possible can stand right next to those AVs. I've seen it; I've even done this myself.

[/ QUOTE ]
They most cetainly can. They're called Scrappers.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I don't need to put an anti-Blapper rant in this thing, do I?

[/ QUOTE ]
I hope not, but if you told me to keep my Fire/Fire blaster at range, I'd cry.

[/ QUOTE ]
Keep your Fire/Fire blaster at range.

[ QUOTE ]
The flier respawns every 20 minutes from the time the first person enters the mission. I find it very helpful to push a timer as soon as I enter. If after clearing the 4 AVs I look and notice we are near 20 or 40 minutes, we just call a break until the thing respawns. Saves having to beat it down twice, gives a nice leg stretch and beverage refill. Also useful if we catch the flier in the middle of its spawn period and decide to start right away, and then after clearing a tower or two we notice the time is getting close we will pull out and wait for it to respawn in safety.

[/ QUOTE ]
But... but it's so cool to watch when it explodes!

...

It's not a bad idea to keep a timer on it. I'll throw this in at some point.

[ QUOTE ]
Vine Room - after clearing the CoT, we move around to a position about 9-10 o'clock on the map near the outer wall (west side, slightly north), there is a nice rock there and it is plenty far from tree aggro. We dole out buffs and then have most of the team move out and kill vines working clockwise, while the Tanker(s) and possibly a tough scrapper move counter-clockwise. This generally avoids squishy tree aggro. Buffers of course need to understand that they cannot go help said tanker(s) and/or scrapper, and those armored characters need to understand they are on their own after the initial buffs (although they can always pull out of the tree area and run around the tree to get rebuffed, but usually the squishy team is already almost all the way around by the time buffs are wearing off). The squishy team needs to be aware of when they hit 3 o'clock and be cautious to avoid tree aggro.

[/ QUOTE ]
This should be covered under Strategy 1.

[ QUOTE ]
Mission 4: Strategy 1 - its proper name is Door of Doom! (also Happy Fun Time!)

[/ QUOTE ]
It has an auto-hit Invoke Panic on anyone who's never done it this way before.

[ QUOTE ]
GW - you mention mag 5 immobilize, however, I have noticed that she often still moves, no matter how much immob stacking we have. I think it would be worthwhile to mention in the main section that the tanker needs to STAY at range by backing up as GW occasionally tries to enter melee, instead of it just being a footnote.

[/ QUOTE ]
I've never had a problem keeping Ghost Widow in one place with the Immobilize strategy - the Purple Triangles don't effect Immobilize, so she should stay put. Something to test sometime, perhaps?

[ QUOTE ]
I also think it is worth mentioning that no one, other than the tanker, should be in front of GW, ever, since her hold power is a cone. Attacking her from behind is preferable.

[/ QUOTE ]
I would think flipping around the AVs is kind of a standard thing for a Tanker, but... I spend a lot of this guide stating the semi-obvious about how to play the game, so it might as well go in somewhere.

[ QUOTE ]
It might also be worth noting that if the tanker gets Black Holed, the rest of the team should probably pull out of melee and they need to be careful in case she turns around.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is an ugly little situation, but I would actually advise remaining in melee. Widow might get a heal off on the melee builds, but they'll be beating the [censored] out of her which should (hopefully - grey area here) generate enough threat to keep her on them instead of attacking the squishies (the Rad most likely, in this case) which would in all likelyhood constitute an MSTF failure.

So, basically, I didn't mention it because you don't change anything when the Tanker gets phased.

[ QUOTE ]
If a second tanker is on the team, it is very helpful if the taunt tanker also has some range attacks, in order to build some damage on top of the taunting, just to make sure gauntlet doesn't get lucky and override the taunter (also the melee tanker should turn off any taunt aura, and scrappers with taunt auras should do likewise).

[/ QUOTE ]
This is why I don't recommend taking a second Tanker, but you're absolutely correct.

[ QUOTE ]
I have seen PA take aggro off a taunting tanker as well, but that is dependent on how well slotted Taunt is and how many range attacks the taunter is using.

[/ QUOTE ]
Never seen this happen, but I suppose it could if the Tanker really screwed up and six-slotted Taunt with End Redux or something. I think the need to use a ranged attack to raise threat is a good thing to put in there, though.

[ QUOTE ]
Mako - Mako will occasionally go crazy and start running a lot. I recommend the tanker not chase. If you don't chase, Mako always comes back, and the team doesn't have to try to reposition to avoid his cones. It might be worthwhile to mention that just before he Eludes he uses a nuke that stuns for a long time, so status protection after you get him to 50% can be very helpful.

[/ QUOTE ]
Agreed on the running thing, but he doesn't seem to do it very often for me. Good positioning should also fix the nuke issue... everything in melee of him should have the requisite status protection. I don't need to put an anti-Blapper rant in this thing, do I? *Sigh*

[ QUOTE ]
Scirocco - his AoE hold can be killer, and he likes to use it near the beginning of a fight and then if he lasts longe enough, occasionally throughout the fight. I'd recommend a note that while fighting him, status protection buffs (or BFs) are important for the squishies. He also has a tendency to drain End, although most teams can cover that pretty well.

[/ QUOTE ]
Again, these issues get fixed with good team positioning.

Thanks for the feedback.

[ QUOTE ]
I read it. You never suggested killing it twice before engaging recluse or the towers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Um...
[ QUOTE ]
The Flier spawns once every 20 minutes whether or not it is currently on the map. Be aware that it may come back within seconds of being taken down. If you want to give yourself the maximum available downtime on the flier (recommended if you have the patience), take it down once, let it respawn, and take it down again. You will now have 20 minutes to get Recluse, minus whatever time it took to take out the flier, which is usually sufficient time."

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
The flier is on a timer. If you happen to kill it near the beginning of its timer, you will have plenty of time to kill the towers and recluse. If you catch it near the end of the timer, it will respawn as you are fighting the towers/recluse, and can easily kill one or more people. To avoid the possibility, we kill it once. Then we wait for it to respawn, and kill it again. That way we know we killed it right at the beginning of the timer.

[/ QUOTE ]
Correct. This is all in the guide on page 12 in the paragraph right below the screenshot of the Inner Circle.

[ QUOTE ]
Your guide takes too many risks, in my opinion. (particularly with the flier)
Our group always kills the flier twice before engaging recluse to be sure it is at the beginning of its timer.

[/ QUOTE ]
Care to elaborate?

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

On LR, you can prevent his bane spawn (except for the "pet nuke" at 25%) by having one of the debuffers toss a toggle debuff on him, his pet summon is interruptable. The tanker's aura will serve the same purpose (as long as it has an autohit component, sorry Fire & Dark) if he's in melee range, the debuff just makes sure.

[/ QUOTE ]


The thing about this is that debuffing Recluse with a rad toggle generates a LOT of agro. If the Tank hits a lag spike, guess what happens? I left this out based on my experience with him ganking the Rad. It's only happened to me once in all the runs I've made of the TF, but I think if the Tanker aura is sufficient then the Rad is more of a danger than it's worth.

I should probably spell that out a bit in the guide though, if people want to use a Tank without the autohit aura etc.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, in all the STF's I've tanked I've never lost LR's aggro, although to be safe I always auto taunt for the purpose... and I keep him in melee range as a double whammy with my aura. I've also run several STF's with my Rad/Rad and I've never had him loose interest in the tanker and go after me... but I've had competent tankers I could trust.

[/ QUOTE ]
I guess my philosophy on this is basically "if you can guarantee the auto-hit aura will work, why risk the Rad debuff?" But that's been spelled out now, so we're good.

[ QUOTE ]
Oh, one trick we discovered by accident a couple-three months ago, LR seems to have a maximum altitude that his AI functions... we discovered this by having a Rad anchor him and fly to max altitude. LR hopped up the side of the building behind him to a high ledge... then just stood there and completely ignored us as we took out the towers then pounded on him on the ledge. Undoubtedly a bug, and it may have been fixed since but it was the easiest takedown of LR I've ever had.

We haven't tried to repeat those circumstances to see if the bug's repeatable... interestingly enough the Fire controller's Imps just stood there as well and would not attack.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's indeed repeatable, but it's a pain in the [censored] to get Recluse up there because of the spastic nature of his AI. The only semi-reliable way I've found is snipe-pulling, but Recluse has a long range, and the puller isn't going to last very long against him. So it's both a bug and a very risky/unreliable maneuver.

[ QUOTE ]
Pretty good overview. One thing I didn't see, you didn't mention Ghost Widow's worst aspect, her MAG 100 Cone Hold. The safest method to handle that is to make sure that the Tanker has, AT ALL TIMES, at least 8 Clear Mind/Increase Density mez buffs on him. Absent those stacked mez buffs the tanker has to rely on purple insps and hope that the random number generator doesn't take a dislike to him. You touched on this earlier in the description but it probably bears spelling out in the writeup on GW.

[/ QUOTE ]
Must have accidentally edited this out - it should have been in there. I'll throw it back in.

[ QUOTE ]
On LR, you can prevent his bane spawn (except for the "pet nuke" at 25%) by having one of the debuffers toss a toggle debuff on him, his pet summon is interruptable. The tanker's aura will serve the same purpose (as long as it has an autohit component, sorry Fire & Dark) if he's in melee range, the debuff just makes sure.

[/ QUOTE ]
The thing about this is that debuffing Recluse with a rad toggle generates a LOT of agro. If the Tank hits a lag spike, guess what happens? I left this out based on my experience with him ganking the Rad. It's only happened to me once in all the runs I've made of the TF, but I think if the Tanker aura is sufficient then the Rad is more of a danger than it's worth.

I should probably spell that out a bit in the guide though, if people want to use a Tank without the autohit aura etc.

[ QUOTE ]
We generally have the tanker pull LR to the back corner way behind the Green tower, that way we don't have to worry about the Flier if it spawns during the beatdown of LR.

[/ QUOTE ]
The formation I spelled out won't agro the Flier (to the Tanker anyways) and it keeps the Empath within close proximity to the tower team the entire time, meaning buffs can be interchanged. Again, putting the corner-pull formation in as an alternate strategy might not be a bad idea, but I don't like it as much as the one I put in there.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll post an edited version when I have the chance.

EDIT: Revision is up. Let me know what you think.

[ QUOTE ]
Good work. Simple, to the point, yet reasonably comprehensive. I am a bit suprises that you didn't mention BS or MA in the section on single target damage, tho- that is where those two pools rule.

[/ QUOTE ]
I was emphasizing single target DPS for the most part, which isn't really so much where those sets are as strong (MA does alright, BS is sluggish). Perhaps a more in-depth discussion of burst vs. sustained damage is in order for the next revision - burst being important for the priority targets and cleanup and sustained for the hard targets etc.

Doomlord's Guide to the MSTF Challenge, 3rd Edition [I12]

This, of course, replaces the 2nd edition, which I posted here a while back.

The third edtion of my MSTF guide is up and ready to go. Since it weighs in at 4637 words, I've once again decided not to post the full text of the guide on the forums. It is available at the link below as a .pdf file, and in the future may also be available as a webpage (we'll see). Comments and suggestions are always welcome. I'm especially interested in any alternate strategies you've come up with for taking on this TF. Enjoy the guide.

Download the guide as a .pdf here:
Doomlord's MSTF Guide

Changes for 1st revision:
<ul type="square">[*]Added the instructions back in for keeping enough mez resistance on the Tanker during the fight with Ghost Widow. Apologies to anyone who tried to do the MSTF without that. [*]Clarified the mechanics involved in preventing Recluse from spawning his Bane Spiders.[/list]
Changes for the 3rd edition:
<ul type="square">[*]New introduction, complete with shameless rip on a certain other MMO's development team.[*]Reworked powerset recommendations that better outline teams without a Stone/ Tanker and include I12's proliferated sets.[*]Rewritten strategy for Mission 1 to clarify WEB piece strategy.[*]Rewritten vine room strategy in Mission 3 to clarify positioning of squishies.[*]Heavily revised strategy for taking down Recluse.[/list]

[ QUOTE ]
I use Firefox normally (with Foxit for PDF's) but I uninstalled the Foxit plug and installed Adobe Reader. No good. I tried downloading it and opening with Adobe Reader. No good. I tried IE and Firefox. No joy.

I'm done mucking with software.

[/ QUOTE ]
If you PM me an Email address, I can send it to you in another format. Let me know.

[ QUOTE ]
Downloaded freshest version. Says the file is damaged or corrupted or not a PDF.

[/ QUOTE ]
I had a SG-mate with the same issue. Turned out a Firefox .PDF plugin was screwing it up. Might that be it?

[ QUOTE ]
It shows as being corrupted when I download it.

[/ QUOTE ]
Still working fine for me. Do you have the latest version of Adobe Reader?

A slightly tweaked version is now up. I mostly added page numbers and a table of contents, but I managed to correct a few spelling/grammar errors, so spelling/grammar police, please take note.

Doomlord's Guide to Team Composition [I12]

Download as a PDF here:
Doomlord's Team Composition Guide

[ QUOTE ]
WTF, Elf has become a Necromancer??

[/ QUOTE ]
Apparently.

Oh, and Doomlord __________mann x13. I feel special now.

[ QUOTE ]
Since you are using a free geocities account, I would recommend converting it to HTML, it should be much smaller and more people should be able to see it before your site shuts down.

[/ QUOTE ]
It's not supposed to be a free account - that's the thing. Somehow it got downgraded.

EDIT:
For now the guide will be here: http://www.fileshack.us/get_file.php...nd_Edition.pdf

[ QUOTE ]
"Sorry, this GeoCities site is currently unavailable."



[/ QUOTE ]
Figures.

...

Alright, fixing it ASAP.

The new edition of my MSTF guide is available here:
@Doomlord's Guide to the MSTF (2nd Editon) [I12]

EDIT: Just to clarify, same thread, new version of the guide.