Iron_General

For our (somewhat accidental) MoTPN run, we went with four teams, two groups of 6, a group of 4, and a group of 8. The two six-person groups were well-balanced and their role was for the inside buildings, with two tanks to taunt spawns away from techs, and two designated people whose role was killing techs only. The four-person group had ST damage specialists for hunting telepaths, each equipped with a "targetcustomnext Telepath" bind. The eight-person group was an AV killer group with a tank, debuffs (two rads), buffs, healing, and damage. Everyone was inside on phase 2, the four-person team was outside on phase 3, and the four- and eight-person teams were outside for phase 4. During phase 4, the inside teams used lore pets to beef up their damage (since they were 8 people lighter).

We cobbled this together with about ten people from our regular group and the remainder pick-ups from our server (Protector). We didn't bother checking for level-shifts. We just made sure each team understood their role, keeping instructions to a minimum. We had four team leaders who knew what they needed and then they traded the players who showed up between teams until they had compositions that would fulfil the roles they had to play.

One or two bad experiences does not a bad trial make. One or two (or ten) failures does not a bad trial make. If all trials were winnable on the first go round, that would represent as much a (or possibly even greater a) failure than trials that take time, patience, and experience to succeed at. Imagine the devs having the gall to think players would have to learn how to do something before being able to do it well. For context, the individual members of our regular group ran 2-4 failed TPNs (public and private) each before we had this success, and each time we learned something new. Our collective experiences conferred the required expertise to devise our strategies that ultimately resulted in our first and many subsequent successes. Did we nuke a few cameras and civilians? Of course we did. But we learned, and we didn't let it happen again. Did we let H.D. die because we didn't know we were protecting a television? Of course we did. But we learned, and we didn't let it happen again. Did Maelstorm whoop the pants off us with his steroid infused vorpal judgement a few times? Of course he did. But we learned, and we didn't let it happen again.

There's nothing wrong with TPN, or any of the trials. I actually enjoy TPN a lot, and it is a refreshing change from BAF and Lambda and Keyes, a good option when there isn't time for a UG or if there are too many players for a MoM.

MoKIR was the hardest one, only because one tiny little mistake in the last phase ruined two badges. We got that one the day before they fixed the pet bug.

TPN wasn't difficult. We were trying for the news flash badge and got all the other ones by accident in one run.

Yep. Although on many days right now, I'm too tired to realize it is one of those days.

Woo! And that's Master of TPN, with all five badges in one run. Great work everyone who was on that league!

Success at new trials, or new anything else, is a function of several different factors, and the entire enterprise is always complicated by the steepness of the learning curve and how well (or poorly) people adjust to it. As the trials get more difficult and more complex, more "introductory" runs will be required to learn what techniques and strategies will work... and failure is part of that learning process. It has always been this way - we used to fail Lambda collections and BAF prisoners too - and now those are pretty much a non-issue. But it isn't fair to make global statements about the quality of players on the server because a few runs fail. At the same time, there has to be an understanding that the learning curve will always be too steep for some - there are players who still don't know the layout of the Lambda maps, as there are some people who still can't multiply numbers with exponents despite years of math, or play a French horn well despite six-years of school band, or earn the highest rank in MW3 despite months of play or whatever. Some of us are good players, others are not. Some of us play seriously, others do not. All of us need to learn, and some of us learn faster than others. The same variability will exist on any server.

It took our group 3 or 4 failed MoM's to figure out the gimmicks, and then we walloped that trial, both in private and public runs. Excepting that annoying Dreamkiller badge, we had MoMoM in two runs through, both privately and publicly.

Similarly, our group ran 3 or 4 TPNs both in public and private groups, all of which failed, but in each case we learned something. So last night we took all that knowledge, hosted a public TPN, and got four badges in one shot.

There is nothing discrepant about either of these scenarios. They are, in fact, entirely typical of any situation where an individual or group is attempting to master something new.

Keep running your event, and don't become discouraged. Just like Impyre ran the nightly KIR just expose players to the trial and start building some experience with it, continued UG, TPN, and MoM runs are the only way people will learn and improve.

Yeah, we've been so focused on getting all the stupid nightmares that we really haven't done much with TPN yet. Did I mention how obnoxious that badge is?

Congratulations! You earned the Master of Minds of Mayhem badge.

That Dreamkiller badge was supremely annoying.

Now I can finally play someone else in that durned trial.

Yep. Still not repaired. They're probably rushing to cobble together the next update. I don't even want to log any of my other toons in.... most of my characters use a minimum of 7 trays.

Happy birthday! I hope you have a Rhino free day!

I'm fairly tolerant of these sorts of things, based on the fact that I really have no idea what it takes to be on the developer side of this process, but in the middle of dXP and during prime time? After dXP was canceled and rescheduled? After the server was already down this morning? I'm callin' shenanigans.

Woo! Anti-Anti Matter, Bunker Buster, and Avoids the Green Stuff in one run that time. I think perhaps we've got this down now! Far less stressful that time.

Wow, they pushed the "green stuff" fix through the test phase fast... looks like we just snuck in our Master badge just before that one got... easier.

Our group on protector scored "Green Stuff" and the MoKIR badge tonight. We went with a combination of careful management of hitpoints so that time freezes occurred on our terms, and hyper alertness with respect to the Oblit timer and targets. It (green stuff) was easily the toughest of the four badges for us to get, and perhaps the toughest badge any of us have gotten. However, with the pet bug on the docket to being fixed, perhaps it won't be as hard soon.

Woo! that "Avoids the Green Stuff" badge is brutal!

Master of Keyes Island earned!

Thanks to Kidengineer, Elric, Vega, Nomme, Tsuki, Rollo, Sooner, Frosty, Vyx, and T! Awesome team!

Hey thanks everyone!

MoBAF? Straightforward. Now for Mo Lambda...

Invulnerability is a very nice tanker set that is so easy to get above softcap that it almost feels like cheating. The trick here is remember the enormous defense bonus you get from invincibility, especially in a herd. This quick build that I made had so many extra slots that I just started dropping them in random places just to suck up more bonuses.

I use a similar brute build (brutes require a bit more work to softcap than tanks) that is pretty much untouchable to everything but psi. Not much you can do there, of course; psi is invulerability's nemesis.


Click this DataLink to open the build!


| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1398;686;1372;HEX;|
|78DAA594CB52134114867B920921C924210612AE09092244C 2402CADF256E542B00|
|A251A08B252A901DB64340EA96440E2CA8D3B575E57EEBC3E 82E55B78171F663C97|
|862A70E954CDFFF5749FFEFBF4E99929EFCC19423CBA2034E 362C36AB7D7562CE79|
|E6C05CA56CDDE10412144867BD6E6E41DE9B4A5B9E06C6F35 1CD9B2D6ED86ED7686|
|D4705936A434AB5B4D6857DD96746A6E3DB1E0D425345D73A F615436371BE6A2B49|
|AB653E3874BB6EBC8763BAA1E6A751786C2F4546D4A793B39 DFB437CC7958B1D659|
|2B5B6D57B63AFD905701EE2F21100D6EE1099186C68828868 5BAA0CB834B7C0BA91|
|8E1E9DA15689584AFCCB84A085F231CAD104C30F0AB707F05 9017FA126399D05F25|
|4C9C07E87E9182220538073D901168D1D54B4E5D7D84E95D1 FE10FE107641354E1C|
|10C3426447796912384F384D8182100EE21B5C3D034B97F05 87887288B08391A5BD|
|1BEC1063871E7648834394F7A3450FA4128491B8328A5FE63 90B84C212655EBC4E2|
|8AD127EC1BA090DE33D5FE2146FFEC821768365922D03C9A7 B44AEF33C67342EE05|
|61E625E315A10425EF5325EFE392A7B8E4A90325CFA992CF4 07C5AC5A7EB6451B00|
|9C7EF321A8CFB84DF90F80027E51BE0131A3C8013E03744EF 8817187A437386DF31|
|DE1232EF191F181F09BE20D69C8F6684DE343FF4645541B37 C32A37CB6A37C32A37|
|C32393E191DC2F3AA58F930D5782CC23018517E31638C38E1 24243BAE668D6F53FE|
|C71E3076181DC2C443C6634A360F6B4D72B2BEC9291A29308 A8C9F50A429B6D5A68|
|A3CC2D88511534D3539788651627C878059357596E79418C3 FAE18F71F19F9E8ABE|
|FF790A8D7A0AFAFE57FD5FD727636FADD032FE1556502A28A B2837506EA2DC42B15|
|0D6513650BCCFFBB3E3A731A133286751CEA13CC1A0600424 8262A0445162287194|
|1E94244A0A6510E5358AF717BD87F855|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

You may consider trying to cap your melee positional defense rather than smashing/lethal as an alternative. In theory, this should be more potent than capping S/L defense as melee would cover more attacks. This also does not require as many kinetic combats (the triples run at least 80 million each) and wastes less slots (4 slotted brawl... meh). Regular use of consume will be necessary in this build. I have a WP/Axe with Oblit sets slotted in Cleave, Pendulum, and Whirling... I pretty much cycle exclusively through those 3 attacks, and they burn end like no other. Part of this is that Oblit has high recharge but almost no end reduction.


Click this DataLink to open the build!


| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1385;700;1400;HEX;|
|78DAA5934B4F534114C7A7ED2DB5B4A585022DAFF2A614E88 5EE7C2C0C0A2446AA1|
|5918502CD958CA55A0B696B023B3F0051A389AE8C1BDFDFC0 B8F1F9710C3E57A2F5|
|9CF31F58E8D29BF6FFBB33F79CFFCCB9736E766B26A8D4CDE 3CA153C5972AAD5FCA|
|253BEA62BDEAC5328AE299F52AA0333F9197D4597ABDA9E2B EACA767EFA46C58999|
|27595DD2DA3EE1D46A259D9FDED2CDA7CAEBBAA2CB357BFF2 698DBD828D9F3DAD92|
|C960B18CC156B655DAD86CCA0B05EA347018C4A3C8CCE6E16 D7ECD9B2AE14B6F359|
|A75AA365E3B49F14FDDFFA495CF457754B25E826A9DCBD40B FC01A0006059F385CA|
|E3AFDE852EFFC269F0C5CA7E92EA31ACE080E6581B382C69C 6097C23D08F7787284|
|01D5705ED0784E105C10BCA7382FF6E5F2C6E9A64735C504E DF42A7D78E2F625149|
|B36B58A77A44DE0A5003F02943F2D011FC92D60AA0CA0CA20 0A8AA0D81614DB8262|
|63E41032558646C5E1333984CDBEC3EB6E9E6A2D0ADAAF02D 7053E4A6D36BB6B1E9|
|2D4F805D956E7125E07054411E089DE85D10341E73D41F77D C1075AB04DDE6CDD6A|
|DB91A9C42DE0B6A0EF0E302E8B7CA5F018F6E78D5D545C45F C9220B12CE85B11F4A|
|F0279C117CAEA30591D8FC56FF009F0147826187A0EBC10BC A1AC2E93D5F5139BE6|
|43A5803D371FD1C82F991CF90DD405DFFCFC08593DC8EA475 6724F464964A590954|
|2969B5E57AF398A5E69B8EF7EEE0FF80CC027099F31F88CC1 670C3E13F0F94159C3|
|266B185913089F40781AE16984A7E1E8A1D5474DDF8CA26F5 268984934CC241A661|
|2CD6451F8B839DBF1881C7706AD99416B66A28247646E9BA2 6C9CDF4BEAB729D3B4|
|537D32D56DFDFDADCDFF3393B30EBE3EE592999475F041FFD 7F52AB8BF967FA1917|
|49125C7B2C4B2CCB2C2B2CAE2B05C665963A9BF3EC80E1FE6 0D1D6139CA728C6587|
|837C0192004B9025C4D2C4126689B04459DA593A591EB2D4F F00FF9B05E5|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

Soft capping a WP is tricky because they rely primarly on typed vs. positional defense, for which there are fewer set bonuses. It is possible to get fairly close with the understanding that the to-hit debuff in RttC, while small, will stack indirectly with your defense.

I'll go easy on you: throw out that scary build.

In this build, I have focused on getting energy/negative/fire/cold defense as high as possible for a couple of reasons: (1) they are easier to cap than S/L and (2) because your S/L resist will be decently high (and will cap with SoW). There isn't too much of a trade-off for this. Even with RttC, FH, and Health at ED caps, your regen would only increase by 4 HP/second (assuming one RttC target). On the other hand, the additional defense and to-hit debuff should abrogate the need for that minor amount of regen.

This is an expensive build, primarily due to the use of three sets of Kinetic Combat, which provides the best S/L defense bonus of all melee sets.

Endurance could be an issue in this build. You might be able to mitigate that somewhat by reslotting QR and Stamina with an Common Endmod/Perf Shifter Endmod/Perf Shifter +end, which would slightly lower your recovery over time but give you bursts of end periodically. You could also drop resurgence and pick up CP from the Energy Mastery set.


Click this DataLink to open the build!


| Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1390;692;1384;HEX;|
|78DAA593C952135114866F27DD864C040C10C600610801D22 1960BA72A178255569|
|1AA4050372A15F19A4463934A62293B1FC09556B973E7F802 8EAFE3AC6FE0D09E73|
|FE0B1B9776A5FFAFFBDC7BCE3D43BA747735A6D4BDD3CA8A9 D69563B9DEDADAA775|
|3B79D52B5D6D85121A5D4302CDBABFABAF63ADABDD868365B BB77747BCC2C947453|
|6BB772BB45CF956E5B7BB56EBDFF9C57D7F4D875F71F62E5D DDDA67BB6D1F574A78|
|397755D6D35BC5ADCACD4EA5D7A8BC85BA5A5F5B5E45AABB1 E3AE79BA5DDBDB2E55|
|3B5DDDDE1BA68C72747F089358742BDF51697AC8AAC024302 DB033C08CE0508A30A|
|19623CA5C7E5095091955DC0036818AE01345B710DDB26609 4575087029421011EC|
|2022F420420F22441021728A6007D5678AE4983C9D88C5216 2512026E88D03BD82B|
|E84E00B79852401DF09BD0AC8CA6BC1E137C03BC1C0866C1F 382F70685C619CA5C2|
|794977884C519802D1344C03B279685090A20D71D4A3E20BB 2E12B1D9E303E89877|
|2CEF003E09120443EFDA63BFD68CB28D0432B49E39A84EB28 5CC7E15AA4F60D9AF6|
|0DA27DE3685F1AED4BA37D69D3BE8F944B0A01ED14C63C853 14F61CC5318F334C65|
|CA0F02326FC485D4E9C6E003704334DE096E0086D1F5368F3 D813AC3C15CC3E039E|
|032F04F32F05DF28A70933D2098C741E239DC748B31869162 3CD62A4016ACDA469F|
|4A44F970A9225636ACBA0B61C6ACBA1B61C6A5B446D4729D9 390470E67E4A268BBF|
|80DF82E53F800FF0DFB4A86C3A64C124BB8064F348368F64F 348B680640B4836435|
|E4B38CB5A5A92D116801F54BC6BCA7097C5F49D4C2BC6B482 5DE3F6C177463F2E76|
|FD1F4BD9361F30592CB1E4EC836FFABFAEB7B1FDB3C29BFCC 16FB194592EB05C62B|
|9CC7285A5CA72956587C57F7FE09D38C6091D6739C17292E5 3E6F0A4549A22C3196|
|384B2F4B82A58F25C932C432CAF298C5FF0B20B1F2C4|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

I’m looking at the second posted build, and there are significant issues.

Because shield tanks have no heal, getting defenses well above softcap (45%+) is a priority. There has been a lot of effort there to trim down recharge values at the expense of defense. Recharge will not keep you alive with these powersets. You need to be looking at places where you can leverage defense bonuses and getting your defenses in order first.

An SD/SS tanker does not need many attacks to do his/her job well. You will basically be alternating Haymaker, KoB, and footstomp and using SC when available. Slotting jab and kick are a waste of slots that you need in other places. I personally think hurl is a waste as well. Six slotting OWtS is awful. That power needs one resist at best.

I argue that slotting Deflection for resist is a waste. SD is a defense set. You need to work on your defenses before your resists. Also, slotting True Grit for health is a waste. At ED cap at level 50, TG will give you 150 HP. TG needs to be slotted for resistance as this becomes a major source of your smashing/lethal mitigation especially based on my argument for Deflection.

Here is my build, which, while expensive, is pretty much invincible, can sustain a continuous attack chain with three attacks (+occasional sands of mu), SC every 23-27 seconds, has no endurance issues, and rarely ever has to pop OWtS. CP is in the build merely to mitigate the OWtS end crash/repeated Rage downers. Note the defense values which are almost at 50% to each position even when solo. You can bring melee defense above 50 easily by sacrificing some AoE defense (Titanium for Aegis, Oblit for Scirocco) but I wouldn’t bother. As a tank, your main concerns are melee and AoE damage.

You could squeak out a bit more recharge by dropping a slot out of Phalanx and using it to put a Force Feedback Proc in footstomp, or switching ToD in Haymaker for Kin Combat (at the loss of 1.88% melee defense) for the extra slot, but I haven’t found recharge to be an issue.


Copy & Paste this data into Mids' Hero Designer to view the build |
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|
|MxDz;1402;706;1412;HEX;|
|78DAA593CB52134114867B928981644288E10E1172C110122 6045978AB7221A028A|
|98A045928900A3026A371A03211892B37EE5C6995AE2C375E 1FC1F24DD437F1124F|
|9FBF6359E5D2A99AFF9B39DDE7F43F3DA78BC74B86108F2F0 9CDB8DCA8BA6E65A3E|
|ADCB39ABE62B566EF09BF1022864865C9BA6339AE6596EBB6 D5D8EFBE8EABD1A2D5|
|B068ECC1213D975B4DCBA9B5EA9155A76ED163CBEC3E18A58 38386B962B71CCB750|
|3FC523EB4ACFD908AD7EA2DDBA945F86DD539B25D7BD76ED8 AD7674F9D0DE33971D|
|AB596B578A55B76535DB23E42D43F7528844A35B747C22400 F05E1090206430F017|
|D8C1361462E20D4D511E222411762852A69AA9236CBD38C2C A32F07CC314EE61971|
|936152252F2AF9BCB70969D1B3056C33023B408531758B718 5D6F2214BF365053B0|
|3AED2885F0BB0337F1C23F41F7A614CF4CE702841A120425A 10890690A491102A7B|
|425F3C6CF81B63EE2BC34F13C248F584539CD37F933FA57F9 3B14AE911DED28E161|
|9E4D0DC00A38752A348F5469F73B58117C03346E12540F607 E1411F2C111262E806|
|B0CE182903BCF35E91A7F9C36AFE709D4BC4EF33666DE02EB EA0C1B84E0647D5968|
|FFEE0D0D84FE017E3548731257F0C257FE7B7055A641C9FE5 1B7FC3A189B7C03B64|
|BD073E30321F19CBB4564C35450CED3585BE8AA3935268B61 4BA2C852EF3D0464DA|
|A3F36F9840B5DA342095528814249A4269193448534AAA751 7D914C4FAB9D993EE2|
|9F75FA21700CB419E9470C2FAD3BA3169999E70A990270067 DBFC8282C00C38498D|
|0292BABB2B2B09683B51CCCE4612D0FA379587B4D9B6BAA23 64A2F7D6E81BE75568|
|3EC7A109FDAF83D6A14BACFD1329E9EA04534443A58CFEE75 4FFD7F5C9E8D6E95D9|
|7676A434A49CAA6942D29DB5276A454A5EC4AD9E303F8D9E8 5A0D9F9586CE49392F|
|E58294A772923F48129462480949E9931296D22F252A6548C A989457523ABF01563|
|DEC72|
|-------------------------------------------------------------------|

The third build by New Dawn (which appeared while I was writing this) is better but lacks focus in set bonus slotting and consequently is not as strong as it could be. It also suffers from a lot of wasted slots and ignores the use of cheap and simple sets that provide easy-to-get defense set bonuses.

I would love to see this Trial sped up. I agree that the last room is boring. Perhaps if the waves came in on a set timer so that teams that could clear each wave quickly would have an easier time... but of course, that also means non-ideal teams (the kind that may really need respecs) would fail too often. Not sure where the balance lies there.

3 EndRed and 1 Taunt. It requires nothing else to fulfill its role.