makerian

We had a good run last night. Ramblings follow. Here's the basics:

DEATHS
Approximately 7 deaths (I have some moderate sized gaps, so not positive). That's pretty damn good, of course we could be better.

We had occasional death snoozers waiting between 8-20 seconds before rezzing, but most rezzed by the next screen shot. Also, I didn't bother trying to determine how long before they get back in the action.

I think it's rule of thumb is about 30 seconds are lost per player per death and about average 30 seconds lost per afk defeated.

So that's about 11 delays or 330 seconds out of a 13,800 second fight (~600 second fight with 23 people), or about 2.4% loss of DPS. It's not much, but I suspect there were some halfhearted DMG dealers (myself included since I was doing screenies and using Surveillance and hitting lights). Also, after dying, you lose toggles, buffs, and pets, so the extent of the loss can be magnified quite a bit.

The best news is that only 2 people died during the Favor of the Well phase and they got back up pretty quick it looks like.

LIGHTS
I guesstimate that we took out about 50-53 lights based on the screen shots. If I run before FRI, I would like to try not to take out lights until the 50% mark and see how feasible it is.

We'd have to get like 20% of those lights to get The Hard Way, which is the failsafe backstop if everything hits the fan on FRI/SAT.

TIME
It took us about 9 mins (assuming the timer really starts at 20:00 or 19:50), we made him go mini-T around 10:53 left. However, that's with random level shifts being tossed out.

SCREENSHOTS
During my screenshots, I recorded 19 data points where the FAVOR of the WELL tracked with his HEALTH. I can easily extrapolate to the entire range:

Favor = 00 Health = 100-50
Favor = 02 Health = 49
Favor = 04 Health = 48
...
Favor = 50 Health = 25
Favor = 60 Health = 20
Favor = 70 Health = 15
...
Favor = 98 Health = 1 [Theoretically]

During the testing, the lowest we had Tyrant's health before he became mini-T was 11.9% according to Combat Attribs and 13% according to trial window.

Favor = 74 Health = 13

That occurred about 11:13 remaining. His Health fluctuated between 13 and 18 until 10:54. The last screen shot I had before he went mini-T his health was 17% at 12:55:45.
Within 4 seconds, 12:45:49, I had a screen shot with a countdown timer at 0:08 seconds.

Based on that, I can assume that the timer is 10 seconds long before he respawns as mini-T.

Which means we decreased his health from 17% to 13% or less in about 2 seconds. Pretty impressive, but not sure what's going on there. Maybe he despawned at 15%, but I definitely have a screen shot of his health at 13% and the fight raged on for 20 more seconds.


Let me give you another perspective on his Regeneration based on the Favor.
RegRate = -0.07 (102.26) Health = 100-50%
RegRate = -0.20 (274.31) Health = 44
RegRate = -0.24 (329.50) Health = 42.9 [ODD it's more negative, should be less hp/sec]
RegRate = -0.25 (334.60) Health = 42.7 [...]
RegRate = -0.26 (349.66) Health = 46.9 [notice the HP jump, but RegRate goes slightly more negative and HP regen goes slightly up]

I think if you make -.24 etc a positive number, the correlation seems much stronger.

ROUGH GUESSTIMATES
each 0.1 increase in RegRate = ~ 14 hp/sec increase
each 0.1 decrease in Health = ~ 25 hp/sec increase

Next Run I will keep the Base open more completely, so I can see everything affecting him. I had it minimized and just monitored the top level categories so I could focus on Resistance stats this run.

Importantly, his health % in the health window and in Combat Attributes doesn't always track very well, specifically when he seems to get a 4-5% heal buff to his hp every once in a while. I couldn't make sense of when the heal bump occurs (e.g., is it on a timer every 30-45 seconds or something else), but it's noticeable and occurred it appears to have occurred at least 9 times starting around 17:45.

It didn't seem to coincide with the lights respawning or with people dying. Perhaps the Olympians give him a health boost when he absorbs them or something?

Also, let me put a rumor I started to bed. I saw no change in his resistance based on how many Lights of the Well were active. That's good in the sense that disabling Lights appears only to Shift Level UP and not diminish or augment him in any way.

Conjecturing, The Really Hard Way is intended to be done at 53 (54 with Ultimate) or maybe as high as 55 (56 with Ultimate) when the Incarnate stuff is over with.

We tried Barrier + Rez and it helps, but not much. For example, if you died in a lightning patch, you can't be rezzed until after. If you're alive and with Barrier, you might be too far from the goofs that died when you cast it, etc.

The hosp isn't too slow. Part of the delay is retoggling/rebuffing after dying.

I suspected heal umbrella isn't enough, but it would have to be a constant stream of heals if it could work at all.

You're right that steady DMG (esp. once he hits 50%) seems to be king here.

The real key still seems to be moving out and then in at crackles so the lightning flow doesn't affect other players and the patches are far from Tyrant melee range.

What seems most important, is getting away from tyrant for lightning spawn so we can get back in the fight asap without dmg.

I'd wonder if a heal heavy league might be even better if it meant being able to stand toe to toe with Tyrant, just not sure even a league with lots of heals could stand there the whole time without moving because of the lightning flow effect.

Good luck Kotchie, let us know!

Also from Arbiter Hawk and something worth considering before summoning PETS:

Additionally, he runs out of Olympian Guards when his health hits 40%, which means that a minute after he dips below 40%, his buffs from Power of Tartarus will expire.

I would assume that's again why the intuition of summoning at 30% is sound, that would usually be about 1 minute after his DMG/THB buffs disappear hopefully resulting in more survivability for summoned PETS.

Thanks for confirming EoEs DON'T WORK. On to other strageries...

Intrinsic, thanks for concluding what I was afraid of. It seems his Regen DOES NOT GET DEBUFFED BY PLAYERS AT ALL. Also, I copied the text from Arbiter Hawk in the 3rd post of this thread, but it's good to keep it in mind.

And, I did notice that his Regeneration rate was either:
-.07%/sec (101.47 hp/sec) (I BELIEVE THIS IS THE RATE ALWAYS BEFORE THE FAVOR KICKS IN AT 50%)
OR
+.57%/sec (780.87 hp/sec) (THE RATE AFTER FAVOR KICKS IN)

every time I did a screen cap it was one of those two numbers, REGARDLESS OF WHAT ELSE WAS LISTED AS DEBUFFING HIS REGEN.

Also, once the favor of the well kicks in, the entire rest of the time his regen will be like that, even if he hits 100% health again. Which also goes a long way to explain why either it's all or nothing. Once he goes <50, you have to sustain DPS on him or you're just making the fight a lot longer.

Which, incidentally is why not blowing yer wad at 100% is a good idea and why summoning LORE at 30% is good (actually it should be at 50% probably assuming everything is going smooth).

I did notice his RESISTANCES fluctuate from around:
+5.72% BEFORE FAVOR
-37.03% BEFORE FAVOR
+61.12% AFTER FAVOR

While it's not simply summing up the numbers and there isn't a SCALING item, it does seem RES DEBUFF has an effect. Theoretically when he was at +51.76 he benefited from +50% (Temp Invuln), +8.52 (Unyielding) and +10% (Resist Physical Damage). That should equal +68.52%, but he was debuffed to +51.76 (this is for SMASHING, others were similar).

I think the number of connections might affect the amount he's debuffed (like apply a DEBUFF RESISTANCE %), but I didn't get enough quality screenshots to determine it. I think I could get better info with another run.

Interestingly, his Resistance to just about everything beside S/L is around 5.87% even when his S/L RES was 61.12%

I do believe that what will work best is player DMG buffing, not Tyrant debuffing at this point. Keeping the League near DMG cap and alive is probably a winner.

Term, not sure if HP debuff resistance is listed in Combat Attributes, but I agree that all of our INCARNATE powers should be geared to increasing DMG, not debuffing any of his attributes.

So, brainstorm what boosts DMG, things like:
Alpha:Musculature
Interface:Reactive
Lores: Any with Fortitude or equivalent; Cimerorans for DMG
Hybrid: Assault, Support

also consider things like
Call to Justice
Team Inspirations
Team Inspirations
Team Inspirations :P

Of the things that are measured I see:
Regeneration Resistance: 100% (167%)
Recovery Resistance: 100% (112%)
To Hit Resistance: 87%
Recharge Time Resistance 100% (10,000%)
Defense Resistance: 100% (137%)

So, I think it's safe to say DEBUFF is DISABLED for this fight.

One of the working theories I would use for final fight is:
Don't use any long recharge buffs at the start of the fight, save them for <50%

Right around 55% would be a good time for PETS

At 50%, use every long term or short duration buff you have.
That would be a good time to pop:
Ultimate Inspirations
Team Inspirations (but stagger them so there's some for the end)
Fulcrum Shifts, Acc Metabs, Forge, Fortitudes, etc.

Kotchie, my schedule varies, sometimes I'm home by 3pm EST and sometimes by 7pm EST. If the latter, I usually can't iTrial until around 9-10pm. If I'm in before then, I'll look for you.

Can you do an experiment without an EoE popped during lightning and Laser Eye beam and with an EoE popped? If you do experiment with it, can you report back the results? If it does mitigate dmg, that could be huge.

A couple things I'd like to pay more attention to before the weekend is when the Olympian Guards spawn and roughly how many and how often. I don't think it's a game breaker for badge, but it might be nice to know. At one point, I had heard they show up when players either die or hospital, but that seems unlikely now.

Another thing that might be worth figuring out is how to keep Tyrant better aggro'd. It seems there are times he's flying and moving too much. Might not be much that can be done about it, but any aggro managers with enough experience might be able to see a solution.

I think our league is shaping up pretty good. It's a good mix of dmg/debuff/melee.

Remember, pick up some Ultimate Inspirations, maybe some EoEs (presumably they help mitigate his dmg).

Speaking of EoEs, if anyone has the urge to gather up some more, that'd be sweet.

One last note before I go to bed. Regarding doing a The Hard Way instead of The Really Hard Way. If we can't get TRHW, I recommend the following:

If the 16 person buff isn't fixed, I might split this up into two 16 person leagues instead of 1 24 person. If players behave and don't summon pets, we should all get the buffs. That could easily make the difference between slow success and outright beat the snot out of him success.

However, I am hopeful that there will be a patch before Friday evening, as Arbiter Hawk mentioned he checked in the fix as soon as he found out about it.

Let's hope he either increased the size to like 100 or ensures that pets don't steal the buff from real players.

Another one I'd like someone to decipher for me:

Note:
Tyrant's health: 29/100
Tyrant's favor: 42/100
Time until defeat: 11:47
Time until Light of the Well: 00:29
Connections to the Well: 4/6

Partial Stats:
Regeneration Rate: 0.57%/sec (780.87 hp/sec)
*Base: 0.33%/sec (454.04 hp/sec)
*Diamagnetic Interface: -0.03%/sec (-35.42 hp/sec) from Bettie Page
*Plasma Blast: -1.58%/sec (-2043.19 hp/sec) from Cataphract Essence
*Transfusion: -0.17%/sec (-227.02 hp.sec) from Plutonium Quake
*Drain Psyche: -1.68%/sec (-2284.44 hp/sec) from Psalm 23
*Heat Exhaustion: -1.08%/sec (-1475.64 hp/sec) from DarkOrangestop
*Favor of the Well: 0.50%/sec (678.84 hp/sec) from Self
*Scaling: -0.26%/sec (-352.01 hp/sec) from Self

Those numbers don't seem to add up ... Not sure why. Anyone?

Tuesday night, successful PUG run, no AT powerset requirements, took around 10 mins to defeat?

Main problem I saw was that people were staying too close to Tyrant after Air Crackled.

I think it's going to be critical to treat The Really Hard Way like an Avoids the Green Stuff badge run.

The good news is that if we get far enough away, the ground around Tyrant should be relatively free of lightning, so we can go right back to pounding on him.

I still like the idea of Incand, but it will move pets too far away each time and might also bunch the lightning so close that people get near insta-killed from the flow effect.

So, instead we're going to have to rely on users to move themselves. That keeps pets near center.

The test run tonight with people going to the hospital was pretty smooth.

What I did realize is that you can't have someone camp inside, once the portal is down, everyone in ports out. Oh well, it doesn't take too long. At least that method was explored. I didn't hostpial on Tyrant because of the superstition, but I see what it's like and it's better than waiting for Barrier Rezzes!

I also did some surveillance screen shots. Will update in the evening with info.

Basic info:
HP: ~ 161991
Regen Resistance: 100% (Resistance: 87%; Resist Physical Damage: 80%)

Not quite sure how to interpret the regen resistance? Anyone have clues reading the combat attribs? That suggest to me that he's immune to Regeneration Debuffs unless you debuff him more than 67% (then he starts to go under 100%). Is that true?

Will take more screenies throughout the fight if I can run tomorrow or Thursday. I did get some interesting information around 99%, 50%, and 30%.

I updated the roster. Up to 10, but still 0 Kins <.< >.>

Isulkian, what are you powersets?

I was thinking of doing a trial run tonight and having one SCR/STK be on hospital duty. I am curious if we have 1/24 people dedicated to keeping the hospital clear (if possible), whether that will allow people to get back in the action fast enough to make deaths more trivial.

I'd also like someone to take notes about what happens inside the hospital, do spawns increase based on deaths, is it random, is there a steady flow of mobs, etc?

I'm also going to respec a build into Munitions:Surveillance for some combat info tonight and try to pore over some demorecords for anything useful tomorrow.

Thanks for the information! Nice to put a couple theories to bed.

Some PROTIPS

Monitor Combat Attributes

There are a few things that might be worth monitoring, even if you don't normally do so.

Go to Powers on power tray, click on Combat Attributes, under Base:
Level Shift
Regeneration Rate
Recovery Rate
Damage Bonus
Recharge Time Bonus

Clearing Dots before the iTrail

Go to chat window, click on LFG, select Incarnate Trials tab, make sure nothing is selected in that window).

Graphics settings

You might want to lower graphics settings.

Go to Menu -> Options (\o), select Graphics and Audio tab.

World Texture Quality: Very Low
Character Texture Quality: Very Low
World Detail: 50
Character Detail: 30
Max Particle Count: 100

Some news on Magisterium mechanics from Arbiter Hawk

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=290804

Hello all,

I hope you're enjoying the Magisterium! I wanted to pop in to clarify some mechanics of the final fight:

1.) Your deaths have no effect on Tyrant at all. He has no mechanics that trigger on player death

2.) There is currently a bug where only 16 players/pets will receive the level shift from destroying Light of the Well. We’ll be fixing this in an upcoming patch as quickly as possible – I checked the fix in as soon as the issue was discovered.

3.) Tyrant does not have a self heal. He does have a self-buff power which consumes his Olympian Guards, killing them, and providing him with bonus ToHit and Smashing Damage for each guard consumed in this way. This has a visual effect which looks a bit like a heal, but is meant instead to connote “Powering up off dark energy”.

4.) There is no direct negative effect to “Being in the hospital”. I have seen several people postulate that Tyrant heals or grows in power when people are in the hospital, but the only effect hosping has on him is that you’re dead and not DPSing, and therefore his regeneration is healing him better.

I hope this information helps you, and good luck in your endeavours to bring Tyrant down!

To join in via thread, just give me an idea of your main and alts.

E.g., Makerian Prime (Fire/Cold COR), Arbiter Makerian (Fire/Ice BLA), Apophenia Prime (FORT/WIDOW).

PLEASE CHECK THIS POST FOR UPDATES

ALPHA TEAM AND ALTERNATES

01. Arbiter Makerian (Fire/Ice BLA)
02. Eisen Mann (Stone/Stone TAN)
03. Atomic Saint (Rad/Rad DEF)
04. Transcendent One (PB)
05. Isulkian (Kat/SR SCR)
06. Faethura (Mercs/Dark MM)
07. Caliburst (En/En BLA)
08. Destiny Morna (Emp/Psi DEF)
09. Lil Bug (Ele/Ele BRU)
10. Sly Witchy Woman (Fire/Dark COR)
11. Pyroman MM (Fire/Ele BLA)
12. Motopsycho Nitemare (Psi/Ment BLA) (RAD ; KIN)
13. Kino' (Fire/Kin COR) (RAD; COLD; DARK); Memnoch' (Fire/Shield BRU)
14. Chatty Cathy (Fire/Ice BLA)
15. Sage Solarius (Ene/Ene BLA)
16. Myrdinn (BLA?)
17. Cloud Dearchangel (BLA?)
18. Das Bones (Fire/Rad CON)
19. Dresden Blackspider (SOA)
20. Red Tape (Earth/FF CON)
21. Ion Sky (Fire/Fire DOM); (Fire/Time COR)
22. Lucrezia (Dark/Dark DEF)
23. Kotchie (Stone/Stone BRU)
24. Tamerlayne (Mind/Psi DOM)

FULL LEAGUE:
Buff/Debuff: RADx2, DRKx3, EMP, KIN, FF
RNGDMG: FIRx5, RAD, ENEx2, PSIx2, DRK, LET, ??
Melee: Granitex2, Elec

ALSO TAKING ALTERNATES, but be aware that people on the above list get priority. Also note, though, that a couple were iffy on either Friday or Saturday, so there might be a natural opening not related to unexpected events.

DualpistolsChick (DP/Ment BLA)
Dormant (Ice/Rad COR)
Dr. Turgenev (Ill/Storm CON)
Phantom Quark (Ill/ CON)
Maxwell Blast (Inv/SS TAN)
Xyzor (Staff/Ele or DM/Regen ?)
Eris Enyalios (SS/WP BRU)
Slimgoodie: Freezor Burnz (fire/cold corr), or SlimGoodie (nrg/nrg blaster)

TEAM STRATEGY

I read this from the Union successful The Really Hard Way run, and I like it.

We will do a couple test runs with the league to practice on Marauder in LAM. If we can avoid his fist strike effectively, we should be alright with Tyrant as well. I would like to try this Thursday.

Other advice from that run (http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...=290653&page=3):
The general tactic we seem to have worked out for the last phase is:

1. After nuke hits, everyone is gathered together. Stay together so the people with heals or rebirths can heal you. Buffs may or may not happen at this point, if they don't, they'll be activated around Tyrant
2. Regardless of what AT you are, go into melee range against Tyrant (if he's not making the air crackle). This is so buffs and heals can reach you easily.
3. Every so often, a group of Olympian Guards will be spawned to attack the league. Unlike normal EB Olympian Guards, these are boss-class, but they can fly and still pack a hefty punch. Since everyone is together next to Tyrant, AoEs and PBAoEs are usually enough to take them out before they start hurting the league too much.
4. Tyrant's Beam Sweep attack is autohit, but is a cone in front of him. Since everyone is together, people can usually survive it and get healed and continue attacking.
5. Tyrant's Hammer of Justice is a 60ft PBAoE which can be used in midair and deals quite a bit of damage. There's no message for it, so don't bother attempting to fly out of range if everyone is fighting him in melee range. Buffs and heals will hopefully keep you alive, and if you fall, hopefully someone has a resurrection power to use.
5. As soon as Tyrant makes the air crackle (big message) every 35 seconds, everyone without exception must move. Not only is this to avoid the initial PBAoE from Tyrant's Zeus' Lightning Bolt, but also to spread out the Flow Lightning which will spawn at player locations away from Tyrant. Since people should be moving, at most, they'll take around 1-2 ticks of damage and survive it. If everything went as planned, no Flow Lightning should be around Tyrant, and so everyone immediately goes back to smack him. This is also a good time to save range judgement and normal range attacks for attacking Tyrant at range when nobody should be in melee. Flying is fine here as long as you flew away from him (and other players). Pets appear to be immune to Flow Lightning, but not to the initial PBAoE, but leave them to attack anyway.
6. Go back to step 2. :3

TEAM COMPOSITION

Of course, I think it would be nice if we could all bring our highest badgers first. However, I think we need to prove we can do this even if that means taking a character that's not first on the list to get the badge.

In that spirit, please bring your best Regen debuffer, DMG buffer, Group rezzer, or Group healer.

PRIORITY GOES TO:
KINS (Fulcrum and Transfusion)
DARK MIASMA (Howling Twilight)
AOE HEALERS (Emp, Thermal, etc)
RADS (Lingering Radiation, EM Pulse (esp with Burnout..))
COLD DOMINATION (Benumb (esp with Burnout..))
REGEN TANKS with TAUNT (people who can hold the aggro and withstand the dmg)

Other useful powers:
Super Speed, Super Jump, Teleport (to spread away from Tyrant quickly)

Recommended INSPIRATIONS:
1) Med to Large Green inspirations
2) Ultimate Inspirations
3) Essence of the Earth (Titan Destroyer mentioned it in another thread that it works, we can certainly try)

Note: Ultimates and EoEs are in short supply on the market right now.


Recommended INCARNATE SLOTTING, in order of priority:

DESTINY
Barrier (Radial 2xRez)
Rebirth (Radial preferred)
Clarion (Radial + RNG) [only for method B]
Incandescent (Core + Heal) [only for method C]

LORE
Longbow + Cataphract (and ideally Warden)
Robotic Drones
Cimerorans
Warworks

INTERFACE
Reactive
Diamagnetic

ALPHA
Musculature

HYBRID
Hybrid: Assault

JUDGMENT
doesn't matter

PLEASE LOOK AT ROSTER POST FOR UPDATES

Master of Magisterium Run this Friday and Saturday, June 8th and 9th.

I will be running MoMAG runs on Friday and Saturday around 10pm EST.

In particular, we will be running for the following:

<8 min for Swan
The Really Hard Way

I would like to try three methods:

METHOD A: MELEE and RUN

Picture this in your mind. All 24 players roughly evenly spread out in a tight circle around Tyrant, directly facing him. We attack with our best ST attack chain (or PB/AOE when Olympians are present)

Air Crackles.

We all backpedal (s key) straight back. So we're all still facing him, but we've spread out like spokes, far from him and far from each other.

Let lightning strike us. Immediately run back in. Heals, buffs, continue with DMG.

In order for A to work, no one can queue powers when air crackles. You MUST STOP AND RUN STRAIGHT BACK.

If done correctly, it could be a mostly deathless way to do the fight.

Alternately, we have melee in front and ranged in back of Tyrant (to avoid the eyebeam). That might require several repositionings during the event. I like this, but I think it will be more error prone.


METHOD B: CLARION+RNG

Picture this. Team of at least 12 with Clarion+RNG (Radial). All of the ranged players are far enough away that lightning doesn't strike.

League casts 2 Clarions at a time, giving us sufficient overlap to maintain a long range. The ranged players should be able to maintain steady DPS without having to run or do anything unusual.

A few melee and healers keep Tyrant occupied. They will probalby have to run from lightning like the MELEE&RUN method, but they run in opposite direction of league. Their job is not DPS, it's aggro control, so the goal should be keeping Tyrant occupied, not hurting him much.

Pets could be used for this phase, esp if a couple AOE healers are near the fight, since pets will be up close to Tyrant.


METHOD C: INCANDESCENCE

I will try to test this out earlier in the week, maybe tonight. The idea is to see if you have at least 1 person far from the action that Incands the entire league once air crackles. I'm curious if the league ports far enough away, does the lightning just go around him, to the league, or something in between?

Picture this. 23 people fighting in close on Tyrant. 1 person far away.

Air Crackles

League gets ported to far away person. Lightning drops (but not sure where).

League takes no dmg. Runs back in to fight Tyrant.

A different person stays behind to use Incand the next time.

Alternately, someone Incands us back to Tyrant and another away, etc. That would speed up pet travel for example.

Rinse and Repeat.


While I like B and C in theory, I think A is the likely winner, so I'll be running A first.

My sense of MAG is that it's either broken, there are hidden tricks, or it's not scaled properly. I was excited after the article, but stumped after my first couple runs of the trial.

I think nothing else would need to be adjusted except the lightning attack. It's either too big, repeats too often, or lasts too long. Yes, there are ways around it. But there's nothing simple about 24 random players in a PUG running around with their heads cut off every 10 seconds either to get a light or to avoid the lightning. If players didn't get rooted when attacking, it might be different.

As it stands, this has been a very unfun experience. It didn't feel epic, it feels like I don't understand the game mechanics. Rather than being simple, it feels exceedingly complex (or just obfuscated so that the absence of clarity results in confusion). There are at least 5 major mechanics going on: his tendency to fly and move around, his lightning strike, his eye beams, the lights of the well, and the favor of the well. Potentially, there's something about Olympians buffing him, dying when health is >50% or <50%, etc, but I haven't confirmed it.

I do hope this was just released prematurely and it's being evaluated.

I do understand that first week trials can be hard and people get better. Unlike almost every trial so far, though, I don't see what we're supposed to understand.

With BAF it was understanding that LT prisoners don't get mezzed and turrets are bad so stay away from them (or disable them).

With LAM it was a fix that made him easier to defeat combined with players learning how to use the temp powers.

With KEY it was not to attack AM during reactors, how to use temps, how terminals stopped his regen, how dying during last fight really boosted his health.

etc. There were mechanics added in almost every trial that may not have been intuitive, but could be taught.

I suppose if the only lesson in this trial is keep running around and neglect dedicated damage because dying is worse than attacking once in a while, then maybe I can teach that to new players. But to expect entire leagues of PUGs to be able to avoid being killed as often as I'm seeing on my trial runs, then you've just set a very high bar for PUGs for a game mechanic that is very hard to teach. I'd rather them have to use 10 different temps in sequence within 20 seconds or something than have people survive for 15 minutes running around without dying despite massive unresisted dmg being sprayed all over the screen every 30 seconds.

Perhaps when mostly players are +6, this might be more enjoyable.

Glad to hear the anecdotal evidence of the flying misses DOT ticks debunked.

I'll be running more on the weekend too, but if there's some weaknesses to exploit, I'd like to figure them out before the weekend.

I do think there's some hope for either a heavy clarion+rng team or a heavy healing bubble team, although avoiding the lightning is probably better than surviving it, same with the eye beam.

Uber Guy, any tips and advice or things worth testing to figure out in these next few runs?

I had been thinking about what went right and (mostly) wrong with some MoMAG runs. Kinji mentioned some of our experience.

One of the strong impressions I recall:

I decided we would try to maintain a close proximity to Tyrant and also summon pets at the beginning. We did summon the pets, got close, and almost immediately got hit by the lightning. Most of the pets probably died, several of the players, and some of us were scattering. As we were reforming, we tried to beat on Tyrant for a while and his health was hovering between 98-100%.

I suspect either his regen or damage resistance, or both were affected by players dying, even before the <50% mark.

If that's the case, a good team of petless players should be able to make some decent progress hurting him.

I think a league like that could probably summon pets at the <30 or <20% mark, particularly Longbow Cataphracts or Robotic Drones (more the former). Although, at this point I'm a little skeptical that it even helps, since any of them dying could set us back.

I think a good rule of thumb is something like:
1. Do not summon until Tyrant <40% [or 30, etc]
2. Do not summon unless you have a +9 [or 8, etc] shift
3. Once pets are summoned, cast a Barrier around the pets or be ready to use Rebirth
4. Try to keep pets away, either through use of Aggressive / Go To, or some similar method.


I considered a couple other gimmick methods. For example, have a group of ranged players grouped away from Tyrant with stacked Clarions for snipe-range DPS to keep them away from the lightning.

I also considered having a bunch of Rebirth and players would just alternate using it so we could stay in the lightning field.

Also, anecdotally, someone observed that they didn't get DOT ticks on the lightning when they were in the air, but not sure if that's repeatable.


BTW, Snow Globe, I think Mal was just pointing out that the Combat Attrib Monitor for Level Shift will indicate your level up to +9, not that the shift always happens.

When I was monitoring, I seem to recall noticing like +8, +9 and maybe even +5? But in any case, it would come and go, and I thought it might have to do with proximity to Tyrant, but it also happened when I was camping on lights.

There's a pattern to the buffs that I haven't figured out. It does make sense that the lights might randomly buff players, since it seemed sometimes I would get a buff when I used Jocas on lights and sometimes not. Also, sometimes using Jocas on a light near Tyrant even didn't seem to buff me, so I think random makes sense. How many get buffed per light is unclear to me as well as why some buffs don't seem to bring me to +9.

I'm gonna try to run a couple tonight on Freedom, in particular paying attention to the NO PET method and hopefully the CLARION method and see if there's any noticeable changes.

I replicated what might be a similar situation. I made a Test AE mission.

Create a basic AE arc, in Mission Details -> Advanced Mission Goals create an Escort (I used the following options either because they were the default or the first options unless I put them in Bold):
Escort Group: 5th Column
Character: 5th Column Krieger
Surrounding Enemy Group: 5th Column
Enemy Group Alignment: Rogue
Combat Abilities: Non Combat
Destination: Mission Entrance
Arrival Behavior: Run To Nearest Door
Betrays When: Does Not Betray

Once inside the mission, the NPC (captive) was surrounded by two captors.
As a captive, he had an orange reticle, but could not be attacked.
If I went far enough away, he stood up. If I got close, he went back to the captive animation (hands on head, kneeling).
If I got farther away or stealthed (SS+Stealth, Arctic Fog), he would stand up.
If no stealth, he would go back to crouching/captive.
I could not lead him out of the mission.

Sounds similar to what you saw. I suspect it is a bit of an issue with how the Escort works with Rogue/Non Combat settings, but it's probably just a mistake on the mission designer's part that the escort had those settings instead of more common ones that work appropriately.

I do think that combination of Rogue Enemy and Non Combat Escort should result in the Escort following you out the door, though.

My main, Arbiter Makerian, is at 1308.

My Fortunata, Apophenia Prime, is at 1292 (with about 12 more she can earn, which would make 1304).

Thanks, I am more inclined to believe someone would update the MOTDs before they were up as opposed to not being current. I do use pwiki for the schedule as well.

I guess what I didn't know is whether there's an independent way to determine the WST from an official source (not global channels or pwiki, but coh.com for example)? And not just the date ranges, but when they are actually enabled.

Maybe it doesn't require a server downtime, but if not, I assume they would be effective around midnight. I remember a while back there were issues with WSTs updating and people would do them and get no credit.

[Edit: should've refreshed before posting, but looks like the questions were answered above. Thanks all.]