Rikis

As much as I love Praetoria, I'm afraid that after four characters, I'll stop using it. See, I'm a 99% villain player, and I love Praetoria because I can finally play Blasters, Scrappers, etc through content I enjoy. I was ecstatic at this opportunity and new development. Sadly though, even though I'm not a badger, I do still care about accolades. +Health, +Endurance, an awesome shield that's like a t9, all good things that I like having my characters enjoy. Sadly, there's one accolade that will be pretty hard to get with my Praetorians; Invader.

Please make mayhem missions doable through Ouroboros! I would love to be able to enjoy Praetoria with more characters, but once I go through all four branches, that will be it. I love fighting the new groups, but that doesn't outweigh the very inconvenient Invader limitation. Sure it's only one accolade, but at the end of the day, 5% health is still an extra 5% health. I'd love to go blueside and get the equivalent, but the content there is simply not fun and the contacts boring.

You know what I always wondered about? The Cape Radio has one of their ads about a romantic movie; the Primal Hamidon and Lusca.

Another important thing to keep in mind; DON'T GIVE UP! Did Battle Maiden regen back to 100% during phase 3? So what?! I've had teams defeat her anyways, it may be demoralizing but it's not a sign that you won't beat her. You have to give people time to get used to the mechanics (and they have to give themselves time too!). Are you down one man? It's STILL doable! Both of those occasions have occurred to me but I didn't let it stop me or my team, we kept going and still got her.

P.S. There's only one AT that can complain about the Nanite Halberds, and that is Stalkers who take Mace Mastery's snipe. It's the only power in the game that has an activation/rooting time as long as the warning fog of the nanite halberds.

I've lead many Apex TFs with a 100% success rate. Every single time, it's been with a PuG. I do not seek out specific ATs or powerset, when I advertise, I do first come, first serve. My fastest time was 37 minutes with 3 buffers/debuffers, my slowest was 1 hour and 13 minutes when we had absolutely no debuffs, only a bubbler and an empath. My team compositions have run the gamut, from 3 Tankers to no Tankers to 3 Masterminds. From 6 melees, to a single debuffer.

Before I start the TF, I tell my teams to stock their inspiration tray with nothing but oranges. The reason for this is because I bumrush the pylons. With this strategy, anyone who refuses to get oranges will die in the sewers. Anyways, before opening the third door leading to the first room, I tell my teams to eat 7-8 oranges (depending on their AT) and to ignore everything, focus down the first Pylon, ignore the Rikti that stay alive and destroy the second Pylon. At this point, I tell them we'll be clearing the first two groups of Hydras, ignoring the third in order to focus down the last Pylon.

For the War Walker part, it depends on whether I have someone who wants the badges or not. They must tell me at the beginning, otherwise I tell my team to click on the boxes and we'll be activating the drones. If we activate them, everyone stays above the stairs on the penny. If we go after the badges, I tell everyone to stay below the stairs and I'll guide the War Walkers down (stupid AI can't handle stairs).

For the Battle Maiden fight, I explain it before accepting the mission so people don't rush in. If I have people who have never done it before, which still happens with some regularity, this is the explanation I use (which I really should macro/bind):

Battle Maiden has 3 Phases. All phases have one thing in common, Nanite Halberds, ie, blue patches of doom. When she targets you with a Nanite Halberd, a blue fog will appear under your feet (not on the ground if you're flying!), at which point you have 8 seconds to move out of the way. After 8 seconds, it turns into a bright blue light and that it means it is activated, you'll start taking an impressive amount of damage. Flyers, I prefer that you fly low; just high enough to ignore the Animated Swords' melee attacks but low enough that those of us stuck on the ground can see the Nanite Halberds that have targeted you.

Phase 1 is straightforward, bring Battle Maiden to 50% health and she retreats. During Phase 1, she spawns a single Nanite Halberd at the person with the highest aggro on her, usually a meleer. This patch does 100 autohit, unresistable damage a second. If you have high HPs, have a self heal, and are NOT being harassed by adds, you can stand in it.

During Phase 2, she spawns waves of enemies, but only the human champions count towards advancing the fight. She also starts using 3 Nanite Halberds, randomly targeting people in the team. No one can afford to stand in them anymore as they'll be doing 200 damage a second. Once we finish off three waves of human champions, Battle Maiden returns to the fight, still at 50%.

During Phase 3, we have waves of enemies, Battle Maiden herself, and *4* nanite halberds now dealing 400 damage a second. Focus down Battle Maiden and stay alive. The key to this fight is not movement nor speed. It's awareness. It doesn't matter how far you jump, if you land in someone else's blue area of doom. It doesn't matter how fast you run away, if you trip over 3 areas of doom. You don't need to continuously move, you only need to move to avoid a nanite halberd. You do not get targeted for not moving, you get targeted because the RNG chose you.

Thanks for putting it together Psibug! I was that brute using the rusty old Goldbricker jetpack . Finally got myself the MoTM. I'm not a badger, but for some reason, getting that one felt good.

I can't quite place my finger on it, but I believe this thread may have took a wrong turn somewhere and become derailed. Not entire sure though...

I love it;

One of my greatest memories in this game was when I was in a team in Sharkhead and we were doing the Barracuda and Metal Shift mission. In the very first mission spawn with Barracuda there were 2 Freakshow Tanks. We started the fight and I was getting low on health so I go around the corner into the little hallway at the entrance and started to rest. Next thing I see after my character kneels and one of the stalkers is knocked straight into the wall and dies. It looked like it was straight from the comic books since I couldn't see any of the enemies and only saw him flying and it looked like the violent crash into the wall did him in.

Did no one think of the strong and pretty for bringing in the New Year? For shame, all of you are not strong nor pretty to make a WM/EA brute.

My Dual Blades/Electric Armor brute regularly solos at +0/x8. Pretty sure my Crab Spider could do it too if I just spent time on her and IOing her out. But those are my only 2 level 50s.

I changed the title! I didn't mean to imply that the game had lost its awesome, but it was late, and I may or may not have rushed to post this thread.