FlyingCodeMonkey

My recollection from the last time I stalked a UGT (weeks ago) was that BU + SJ/Crushing Uppercut from Hide was worth maybe slightly less than 50% of the health of a bomb.

Matching Bright's preception, I don't think the spore damage was breaking Hide, in the same way that I seem to recall the Keyes death pulse doesn't break Hide or glowy collection progress anymore, either. I think they're making an exception for that kind of purely environmental damage.

So yes, I suspect two or three coordinated Stalks beginning with AS could probably handle bomb phase one very capably. I'd be glad to bring my assassin droid for purposes of testing that theory, if the timing worked out (would have to be later evening or weekend for me, though).

Maybe not all that much. Raze still runs probably the best MoM leagues I've ever seen. I'm just trying to emulate bits of that success while filling in the details that I've observed so everyone knows what to expect. Though perhaps I could get in the habit of a regularly-occurring MoM after at least one of the usual UGTs.

I have a case of lingering star burn. Back when all we had were BAF and Lambda, and when unlock progress was slower, I ran a lot of trial leagues ... a LOT. As a result, I got really burned out on the recruiting and have never really recovered. It's sort of like eating so much candy until you get sick from it.

I doubt we'll much luck we'll have luring Bright into the Mayhem trial. Sometimes she's a mystery to me. Aren't ya?

That's an interesting point. I've never personally been with a league where the leader was all militant about choke groups staying together tight, or got hostile when someone would chase a stray that made it through the mass of damage, but such leaders do exist. In my mind, chokes only attain a perfect score when a few shifted damage ATs are attentive to strays, because a few Lieutenants are going to get through the pack. That's all but assured, even under good conditions.

I actually think this is an important assertion with which to disagree. I drove a MoM trial last weekend (someone else was kind enough to recruit, I just conducted the briefings). We had very few defeats in Phase 1, because everyone had been coached to keep an eye on the World of Anguish timer. It's easy to avoid being killed by pink when you know it's about to occur, and not to start any long animations (hello, Thousand Cuts) then. We also had a panda helpfully shouting "move!" on cue, a couple of regular rezzers (no Barrier rez), and with each pink spawn our tank would taunt the AV target to a new location where melee could engage safely.

This is a difficult stage for MMs. Fine control is essential. Because of the environmental damage and frequent area-affecting psionic attacks from the AV, a petless MM is not merely a weak defender, he will also die incredibly quickly. Having pets out is essential to MM survival in Stage 2. However, that comes with a caveat: many MM pets have knockbacky attacks. As long as pet attacks are focused on the AV, many of those are not an issue (Gargoyle demon melee). However, many pet KB/avoid attacks are area-affecting (Assault robot swarm missiles, Mercenary grenade, Arsonist thug fire patch, Oni ninja rain of fire), which have the potential to scatter Storm Voids.

Typically, MM pet area-affecting powers come with the upgrades. So in many (if not all?) cases, it's technically possible to address that problem by summoning, applying no upgrades, and having them focus attacks on the AV. They can be present to provide damage mitigation, but not complicate Storm Void movement. It's a lot of trouble to go through, though.

So far as I know, attacking them at range does nothing. They do not close in response to aggro. If anything, they're more likely to run away. I've heard it suggested that Tempest Gyros also cause Storm Voids to run (i.e., taunt the Voids, be careful not to pull Gyros), but I don't know if that's true.

It's critical to have the next Storm Void present and ready to pop just as the bubble from the previous Void is expiring. Environment+AV damage can easily overwhelm the league in the absence of the Void bubble, if the tank is off trying to bring another. Corollary, you don't want to pop them too early and waste your resources with overlapping bubbles. It helps to designate a few damage ATs to pop one nearby Storm Void (preferably the league leader's target) on cue, and have everyone else focus all attacks on the AV.

Also, be careful of controllers using slows and immos. Mezzes are useless against Penelope, but they can easily prevent the Storm Voids from getting close to her. When in the middle of an AV dogpile, she's quite difficult to move, so anything that inhibits Storm Void movement toward the AV is very bad. Singular immos keeping them right next to her (Stone Prison? Really?) would probably be great, on the rare occasions you see those powers.

Definitely not mandatory. A Thermal Mastermind, to pick an odd example with which I have personal experience, can just about keep up with damage to Aurora as long as he does nothing else, unless the Mother clones are being killed so quickly that it isn't an issue.

With respect to the portal, I've seen it stated more than once that the portal can be targeted and healed. I still haven't noticed either statement being accurate. I've neither been able to select a portal as a target, nor been able to heal it by standing nearby (I just get phased over to the Aurora side). I wonder if this was originally true in beta, but was changed before live, because it's a point of confusion. The portals do lose health, and you only get so many (four I think), and should the AV fight go on for a long time, it is technically possible to be cut off from the Aurora side. I think an AV fight that lasts that long is unlikely to be won, though.

With respect to the AV, a few more observations. First, she seems to have the same heavy pbaoe psionic attack as the Penelope AV, which is incredibly painful if you stand too nearby without good resistances or solid healing/regen in the area. Second, people often forget to mention Suffer in Silence/Shared Suffering before entering the zone. Shared in particular is unusual; we have lots of "get away from the league" effects, but not nearly as many "gather together" effects. Finally, and I didn't even know about these until last weekend, the AV side is also populated by Reflections that can cause serious problems for any lone squishy standing away from the AV to avoid her local attacks.

Immobs also work extremely well (as you noted later). This phase of this stage exists to emphasize the role of controls; I know of no other way to stop her from reaching the well.

Not a chance, unfortunately. At that point I'm not even thinking about leaving work, yet. What happened to Saturday?

I can think of at least three individual people for whom "do not pass the designated point man" would not work, for various reasons. I'd like to say this should be feasible, but I have little confidence. Some folks are mischievous, others inattentive.

Yep. Des and pets would be very dangerous near the side room bombs, where other mobs are present.

Recommend the Des handler stays in the room with two staircases while the league clears that last hallway of the three mob spawns within it. That would be the room just past the final gate, which I believe is also the last hospital teleporter destination. It simply had never occurred to me until yesterday that we can't necessarily trust Des in that hallway. Clearing those three groups is quick enough, so it should be no worse for the handler than waiting to enter the trap room. If we aren't already doing something similar at the room before bomb phase two, we should. That last mob group spawns at the entrance to the bomb hallway, and if a critter ran down that hall her demons could theoretically pursue it just like they ran into the Avatar room. I hate for Des duty to be any more of a burden, but she's quite the wild card.

Indeed, lots of folks have wondered that same thing.

I can attest that on more than one occasion, I've received a Very Rare drop on characters that waited in the pre-bomb room, casting no powers on teammates or mobs. On a Mastermind under those conditions, even.

So while I can't say whether bomb team membership increases or decreases your chance of the best drops, I can say for certain that waiting on the bomb teams to do their thing does not prohibit your getting a VR.

[edit] Also agree with Raven, it should be plenty possible for the bombers to stay ahead while the league follows a safe distance behind with Des. Waiting for phase one bombs is very dull, and catching up takes a while since Des can't be rushed.

Ahh ... were the tanks on the Nucleus with us during the last bloom? If so, I guess that would be part of the problem. Historically, the taunt tanks should approach the nucleus and get a few hits on it while we're working towards either the 75% or (more often) the 50% bloom, then quickly back to their posts before that bloom actually occurs. If we're going to press through the 25% bloom to victory, then they need to be at their Yellows already waiting for the 25% bloom to happen. Otherwise, yep ... all six yellows will be firing into the crowd. Ouch!

That would make sense. It seemed like we were doing well, perhaps for right about sixty seconds, at which point even the folks who had eaten an EoE at 25% would be in rapid trouble. The last time I was a tank on Yellow taunt, we ran in once between 75% and 50% to throw a few hits on the nucleus. We spent the rest of the raid at our stations so as to get them taunted asap. Ideally, it's a rather dull task.

Switching topics, Ukase raises useful points. I often forget that draw distances vary tremendously. Standing at the rock, I can see and target any Mito, even the ones on the back side of Hami, but not everyone can even see the near ones. It's not something we can really overcome since different folks have to keep their settings at different levels, but it is a detail we should keep in mind.