MentalMaden

To echo this: benumb (solo) didn't make a dent on him with the bifurcations up. With a team and decent damage he's still pretty easy, but solo -regen powers don't have much effect on him until the last of his furcations goes down. [Tested on Illusion/Cold controller solo]

Note after yesterdays patch and new(ish) strategies for Trapdoor:

After I read the patch notes I took my Illusion/Cold/Ice. Note: benumb


To test his pullability I pulled him all the way to the end of the hallway just below the drop from the previous level. His regen stayed full on. So it doesn't mean he won't pull, it means you can't pull him out of the range of his buffs. Loading him up with my debuffs (note: benumb.....and all the other stuff cold has to offer) and unloading my attacks and pets we had a stalemate. Couldn't get past his regen.

So I pulled him into the lava. Same as above: stalemate. Couldn't get past his regen even with lava damage and benumb. I could get him back to about 75% health then he'd regen back to full.

I finally had to take down his bifurcations while the pets kept him busy and he went down like a chump once the last one was gone.

***Side-side note: with a team I didn't really see any issues with Trapdoor, but solo on a troller it was significantly difficult to take him down even with significant -regen before his bifurcations went down.

Follow up:

I pulled him (easily) over halfway down the hallway, had my pets, debuffs, attacks on him for long enough to realize that it wasn't going to work so it now seems distance doesn't remove his debuff.

I altered strategy and pulled him to the lava. Same thing and even in the lava it was a stalemate. Couldn't ever get him below 75% health using all pets and debuffs available. As soon as I took out his bifurcations he went down like any other NPC. So it seems that now (solo at least unaided by temp pets or heavy buffs) that you do need to take out the bifurcations in order to take him down after todays patch. *Note- even benumb didn't seem to matter while the bifurcations were still up.

Just a friendly fyi, no opinion as to the changes or encounter.

Just ran the arc with my Illusion/Cold/Ice troller. For what it's worth I was able to pull him with ease all the way to the spot where you drop down from the previous level. While I didn't ever see any of his bifurcations in the entry room or the hallway his regen was still powerful (I'd even say it seemed stronger than previous) and was unable to drop him. So I assume the last line in the notes on this mission means the range of the buff has been increased like it was with Recluse in the STF. Going to switch my strategy out a bit and tweak a few things and see how much of a change this is to the mission. At this point it looks like his regen has increased but will check and see for sure.

Given the fact they've had a very similar issue before (Recluse in the STF being weakened by being pulled from his "buffers"), it seems to me that them putting a range limit on the buff would be the way the encounter was intended. Otherwise they would have just given it unlimited (or big enough for the map, however it's coded) range like Recluse. It's not about "did they miss something" and more about 'how can they miss that ?' when a very similar situation was changed in the past. It just seems to me that someone either really screwed up or they are taking back their original intent. I'm not whining or moaning really though, it's still possible to get him out of that room and even if you don't the encounter isn't really that hard to pull off. I'm just stating what it looks like to me.

And just like every year, I'll be trying to top your scores on the slopes!

Fixed that for you, Schis.

It wasn't the ending, but really the set up for the story. It's an excellent movie, but be warned if you don't like long movies that move at their own pace.

I am, but don't call me Thorly.

You can say all of that again!

So far I've unlocked on 12 or my 50s and respec'd about 5 and actually slotted alpha powers on my two mains. (Def-blue, corruptor-red) Ugh...and yes I need to get Sentinal for sanities sake. I spent a lot of the weekend (when not TFing) just looking over the builds and seeing what powers "made sense" and wouldn't disprupt my current builds too much. For the most part most there is usually a couple of single slotted powers that do prove helpful to builds. Typically these end up being on melee types though. Controllers seem (from me at least) to be some of the toughest to find those few powers that make any real difference from a single slot (or the carefully rearrange one or two).

Spiritual does seem to be the default way to go for controllers as recharged controls means safer world, plus with many secondaries having heal powers the little extra boost will be nice in upper tiers. Cardiac seems to be the default second choice for sets like fire/storm that tend to be toggle/end heavy. I'm also thinking of going that way on my Mind/Sonic to boost the strength of my resist bubbles and it tends to run a little end heavy.