I will tell you if you send a tell to the zones people at your lvl usually play in and say,
"Please help I have failed respec 5 times and have a gimped character."
I will guarantee you will get help. I took my lvl 41 tank EX to 27 to help someone that said exactly this. I had no debt so did it for free. He did get thru and with zero deaths. So it is possible to get quality help.
Here is a guide I made to this mission:
I have done both of the first 2 TF's multiple times.
I will try and help people to understand the "What do I do?" and "How do I do it?" parts of this TF.
Team design
I have done this with MANY different team makeups and I will start with a team designed to thru for the Respec Goal.
Respec Team - will usually have 2 members that are weak designs. So you MUST KEEP THE TEAM SMALL.
No more than 5 in a Respec Team. Follow this basic team blueprint:
1) 2 Damage Doers - Scrapper or blaster types
2) Tank with Provoke
3) Controller or Defender
Have all within 1 lvl by SK at least. Highest level should have 2 or more of same level. Everything you fight will normally be 2+.
*note - you can use 2 tankers or controllers with imps. But in the final Core you must kill FAST. With 6 or more you will face MANY more Skiffs or Freak Tanks, so take this to heart.
The Missions
Lvl 24-33
1) Get mission from Contact on Valor Bridge
2) Talk to Jason in Terra Volta (TV) - self explainitory.
3) Defeat 25 Sky Captains - over the edge of the TV door and to the right are easily this many Skys. I have seen team have deaths on this step as they scatter all over TV.
4) Defeat Clayton and his men - this is defeating ONLY Clayton and his men. You DO NOT need to fight everyone. In fact Invis go to Clayton, TP group beat Clayton and his immediate followers and Mission Complete.
* note - Incinerators and Assault Bots EXPLODE as they die. They will kill a blaster, def, controller if they are beside you.
5) Go to Contact at Valor Bridge
6) Terra Volta Reactor
There are 3 parts to the Reactor - Entry and Main Room - Hallway - Reactor Core
Entry and Main Room
Introduction to Skiffs
Entry - Will have as small as 1 bad guy to as large as 10-12. DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR until all mobs are dead. A scientist will give you a key.
*note Skiffs will EXPLODE as they die. Also killing a blaster,def,controller.
KILL THE MINIONS FIRST, less damage to absorb.
Open the door- and a mob of about 15-20 will be there - Do not go to them. Open 1 door only and Provoke the mob to the door with a tank blocking it and blasters target ON THE TANK. This will lessen Sky TPers getting in behind you. The Skiffs normally won't won't stay in range and must be defeated after the minions.
* Note DO NOT GO NEAR THE OTHER DOORS YET. Sometimes Sky TPers will come thru the closed doors.
Do the same thing here open 1 door at a time and Provoke them to you and defeat each room.
*note - I have seen this work where all you need is the keys and you can Invis to the Reactor and win. I have seen where you have to defeat all mobs. I would defeat all mobs in all of the rooms.
At the front door is a Prox Bomb. if you are near it without stealth it will explode. Invis the tank send him to the front stand by bomb and Provoke as many minions as you can. Then attack the bomb and kill most of the minions.
Hallway
You will find more Prox bombs and I have seen most of the deaths come in this hallway or in the very first door in the main room. Careless movement will kill all but the Tank by Prox bombs.
Slowly defeat these mobs and try not to aggro more than 1 group. If you do run back into the main hall and regroup. They we seperate again into 2 mobs usually.
The Core
You will open the door to see about 10-15 mobs fighting. You will see a rack with belts and a chamber with red light. defeat the mobs and have the defenders and tanks get a belt. If any are left have all get one. Tanks are vital here to have a belt because I have heard tales where only the tank was left healing the core while the rest of the team went to the hospital.
Then use the red light chamber to get a protective radiation bubble. This bubble must be renewed as it lasts about 2-3 minutes.
A Force field Defender/Controller can bubble the Core. Then this is an easy mission. There will be 8 -10 waves coming.
The room is a big circle with 8 doors. I stand between doors 2 and 3 and I can see all 8 doors. Have your Tank/scrappers attack the first 6 or 7 waves from up on top at the doors. KILL THE MINIONS FIRST. Then drop down and help heal the Reactor and finish the other mobs.
Keep Blasters, Controllers and Defenders away from the Center of the core area. AoE is terrific at the center. Skiffs will stay back and lob cannon fire into the middle.
Near the end I found it is easiest to let them attack the Reactor and kill them from behind. They do not easily lose Aggro on the core and unless I laid a burn patch on them they would not stop attacking the Core.
To heal the core you must be close and click on the white X on your Temp power and then the Reactor. The last wave has a 1-2 minute delay. I quickly get a buble recharge at this point aswell so my bubble makes it thru the last wave.
Once successful!
Option #1 will be RESPEC - OPTION #1
The other Options will be for an SO and experince. The Experience is VERY GOOD. At lvl 34 I got 9600 XP and 6400 INF.
That is about it any questions?
I know one player who needed to try something like 11 times before she managed to complete it. I have completed it once (first try - without dying) - but because I was noobish then, I didn't take respec (doh). Now I have tried to complete it at least 3 times - and allways same result. It seems like that I allways manage to find at least one bad player to my team 
(maybe it is me)
It is starting to be pretty boring to try this mission again and again...
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Does it seem odd to anyone else that the trial necessary to fix a GIMPED character is the hardest [censored] mission in the game?
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Play more of the game. You could not be more wrong about that if you tried. Is the respec trial challenging? Yeah. A bit. Well, not really if you play with a team that knows what they're doing... But, is it the hardest trial in the game? Oh good god no. Not even close. There are story arc missions that are harder... Not to sound all elite and all, but this trial is tough, but it's FAR from the hardest trial you will encounter.
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I just lost the trial for the FIFTH TIME IN A ROW! Every time we've had a very efficient team, and every time we got our [censored] handed to us by the last wave or two of enemies.
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Then I would argue you didn't have a very efficient team. What was the team make-up? What were their levels?
If you have a level range that's too large, you will likely fail. If you don't have a balanced team, you will likely fail. The key is to make sure everyone is in a tight level range near the highest level character and that the team has a little of everything. That maximises your chances of success.
Also, playing with good players that know how to work as a team helps. Even gimped characters can succeed when they know how to work together as a team.
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It was fun the first time or two, but after breaking 50K in debt at level 25 from ONE MISSION it immediately ceases to entertain.
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If debt is going to bother you this much, at this point in the game, stop playing. I earned 450k of debt on Halloween night while participating in attacks against level 50 monsters (who hit very, very hard). 450k of debt. Even at that level (44, at the time), that's a HUGE amount of debt. It was gone the next night over the course of normal, non-power-levelling play, in about four hours. Debt goes away. Stop worrying about it. Just play the game and have fun.
Syphon Strike
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50 Kinetics/Psychic Defender - Virtue
Back after two years of WoW!
I guess for a truely gimped build, it may be difficult. I can't say that for sure, though, because even a gimped build in a halfway-decent team can come through without problems. I did the trial last night with my level 24 bubble defender and the core never once dipped below 95% health. We never once needed to use the coolant belts or heal it (indeed, we didn't even have a healer in the group.)
Our team consisted of 2 blasters, a tank, a scrapper, and a defender (me.) Even though one or two of the builds in the team weren't "optimal," we cleaned house on the sky raiders.
If you're on the Freedom server, look me up- my bubbler loves to hang out at the IP trial starting spot looking for pickup teams and I would be more than happy to help you through it if you're in level range (or willing to be ex'd) to do the first trial.
Also, for difficulty purposes of the Rikti version of the trial, it's not that difficult, either. I've duoed it with 2 controllers being the only people in the core and it was cake. 
Official Bureaucrat of Freedom
Ignis-Daemon-Lvl50 Fire/Rad
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Lady of Ice-Lvl50 Ice/Ice
Mihoshi Sato-Lvl50 Katana/SR
Cyborg Warrior-Level 40 Robots/Poison
X Syndicate Officer
Sure it can be done, but I wonder if its really doable for those that need it most
people who made mistakes and now need to fix them so they dont have to start over.
I just ran it again last night, for the first time not as a scrapper, very different as a controller
in fact our team had not one scrapper and I was sure it was doomed, but I needed to drop some powers that sucked (I made some mistakes) and TP had to go it was killing me for real!
But with 2 Tanks that knew how to Tank, 2 Blasters (one that didnt care about dying total for 5 I think), 2 Controllers (we both had aura and the other guys was for 300+), 3 Defenders only one of which was empath we did well. A little on the slow side but well and every one of us was level 24 too boot.
The Key is to make sure at least 2 people are watching the reactor and to cool it when its down about 4k! Also let them come to you, say in a group dont spread out
you will lose that way.
Just in reply to the original poster, I love this TF. It's one of the few where teamwork really pays off...and for the most part is required to have any bit of success. I would enjoy more missions like this and less of the frilly stuff that is in the game now. 
As a point to all the people moaning about how easy it is.. which Trial are you talking about? The freakshow trial is a LOT easier than the sky raider one. I've done the freak trial at least 6-7 times and never come close to failing it almost irrespective of what team I was in. I took my Fire/fire tank on the raider trial last night in a team of 4 and we failed on the final wave in the core.
I'd be interested on the breakdown of success/failure in this trial by which version of the trial it was... I'm certain the failure rate is much higher for the raider trial and this is offset by the almost perfect completion rates on the other 2 trials
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... and I'm going to add my name to the list of others who agree with me on this...
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No offence, but I wish you had added your name to the list instead of starting a new thread :[
Did the lvl 24 respec last night. One tank, one scrapper, one controller, one blaster and one defender (me). Had three deaths (one of them was me). But finished it. Had one real hairy point in the reactor towards the end (both the blaster and I went down) but we made it through.
Difficult, yes, impossible, nope. And fun? Oh yeah.
(edited: it was sky raiders, my first respec, so don't know about the freak show)
I attempted the respec TF 3 times this weekend. The first two times the team(s) had too big of a level spread.
My question to all of the posters that keep saying all it takes is a good team. Are you people charismatic magnets or what? 
Except for a few short breaks I SAT at the TF contact most of Sunday. As I mentioned I got on 3 teams - all of which failed. The last one failed because we lost one member during the first mission and another in the third and even then we never made it past the first room in the Reactor mission...I had my doubts as to our ability to complete the actual 'Reactor' portion anyway.
So I 'get' the level spread issue. Here is the problem with that. Because only 1-5% of players read this forum VERY few people know how to complete the TF. And worse yet, even fewer care to listen to someone that seems to know what they are talking about. This issue arose during the 2nd team...had a member that I played with eariler and she tried in vain to tell the rest how the SKs and Exemps should be done so that we we're closer in level, but IQ was at a premium and everyone wanted to be SK'd so they we're powerful. 
And someone previously posted that they faced GREEN con mobs???? What TF was this? I've never seen less than purple bots and skiffs in the third mission. And that was in the Reactor mission (not Reactor itself) when I WAS the highest level on team.
Finally, what tactics are you all using? If you DON'T have a frickin' tank (as that was the RAREST AT on Sunday). Saw MAYBE two in the entire time I was there.
I'm on the fence as to saying the TF is too hard as is. It seems that a lot of people are able to complete it (though a solid C grade for completion is a bit questionable to me ).
Obviously the biggest issue is a solid team. This is also the most difficult aspect to accomplish (as my experience of yesterday can attest).
Tactics...hmmm...I'll be honest. I'm frickin' lazy. I'd rather not stand around for 15 minutes while 4 people bicker about which bot, skiff or engineer to attack first. I'm not saying that I don't use tactics at times, but not on the level required for this TF or at least it seems that way. Now, if a team has a good leader that knows what the hell is going on I'm always for being the good little pion that does exactly as they're told.
Oh well, I'm pretty easy going so with my 5 deaths yesterday and 30k+ debt (yes, I know that is a minimal number, but it's like over 10 times the most I've ever had), I'll keep trying the TF until I hit the debt cap and then it won't matter one way or the other. 
Bloody Axe Inv/Axe - Champion
Dying Cooper Spi/Reg - Champion
Power Rock Stone/EM - Justice
Mistress Magma Fire/Kin - Freedom
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Just to give you a stat side...
The success rate on the respec is a tad over 75%.
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That's umpossible! 100% must be achieved or else this game sucks.
j/k of course. I guess there goes the "The respec is impossible" threads. Well, now I'm really kidding because people will ignore this number.
I've got a 3 out of 5 record on the Sky Raider respec trial. One terrible member can ruin an entire team, from the healer that thinks they're a blaster, to the blaster that thinks they're a scrapper. My most successful team was:
Lvl 24 DM/Invuln Scrapper (Me)
Lvl 24 Invuln/SS Tanker
Lvl 24 Emp/Elec Defender
Lvl 24 Illusion/Emp Controller
Blaster heavy teams get owned, as they get as much aggro as scrappers and tankers but can't take the damage.
Last night I did the Respec mission for the first time. We started out with a 5 man team. 2 contlers, 1 Blaster (leveled down from 28 to 24) 1 Scraper and 1 Tank (me).
the closest thing we had to a death was on the street part were our blaster forgot he was exempted down and almost got himself killed.
At just over the 1/2 way point we lost 1 contoler and the blaster cause the contoler that was exempting him crashed out and didn't come back so it was down to 3 of us. We desided to give it a shot anyways and with great team work we got to the core and pushed back the Sky Raiders!
To anyone thats having trouble doing this mission I would suggest keeping your group 3-5 in size from all I have seen posted but this is totaly do able with 3 people if they work together.
Great job LittleLost Girl and the controler whos name has slipped my mind sorry. We all went in level 24 and me and the scraper came out level 25 that kinda helped as well
Steel lvl 25 Tank (Inv/Sup Str)
Deathtoll hit it right on the money. The real key is building a respec team is for everyone to be close to each other in levels. Anytime you have only one high level character, say a lvl26 and everybody else is 24, the mobs will be keyed off the 26 making it difficult to battle hoards of 28s.
However, if you snag a lvl27 and if willing, he/she could exemp down to 24 and then the mobs will be much more easier to arrest. Now comes the next part, communication.
I ran through a few respecs over the weekend. I've been on teams where we've lost and others we have won. Arguably, my best experience was with my SG. We completed with one scrapper, 3 blasters (one exemped down to 25), 2 controllers and we were all close to each other in levels (24-26). We had no emp controllers/defenders so we were surprised we won the trial.
With Teamspeak, we were able to communicate easily without having to message the whole team.
Lastly, its very beneficial to have members (especially the team leader) who have already done the respec before. They help provide experience to those who are embarking on their first one. I've been on a few bad respec teams where the leader would not take charge. These teams usually do not go on to finish the trial successfully.
So back to the topic, the respec is fair once you understand how the trial is set up. Get in a group that has a decent mix of damage dealers, control and healing and you've already improved your chances.
The Mentor Project - Because we were all new to the game at one time...
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=212083
I've done this probably a couple dozen times too, mostly with my pure fire tanker. He's gone from lvl 24-30 almost exclusively doing the respec trial. What's better, a bubble defender or controller also adds high defense to my already high resist powers of defense, making me untouchable all the time in every circumstance. I have a friend who logs his bubbler when my fire tanker is on and we help groups get their respec badges (or really nice XP) in the Terra Volta trial.
I've taken 4 others characters through it, too, 1-2 times each, but a fire tanker with provoke will breeze through that trial.
I too have done this mission quite a few times. Unlike the genital wagglers out there who then say, This mission is too easy, you suck!, I will present a different observation:
The difficulty of the Trial is variable, and unpredictable.
My roommates and I experimented with this for quite a while, but the gist is that the difficulty seems to waver between fun and totally freaking NOT-FUN!
If doing this at 24, I recommend 4-5 people, everyone being the same level (or none who are 2 levels from anyone else), and if you go into the plant and see a single group with red minions, and more bosses than party members: quit, and try again!
In a game where 3 even-con minions = 1 hero*, what the hell is one double-purple boss, and 6 red minions? [censored], thats what.
Hunt those Sky-Raiders until the mobs in the plant dont spawn at suicide difficulty, and then the mission will be fun, not totally ******.
* Not a quote but a paraphrase.
** Apparently, in America homosexuals are second-class citizens, so it must be okay to use the term derogatively.
I wonder if any of the people saying missions are too difficult have higher level toons. I have been on several upper 40's missions where half the team got whacked at the mission entrance.
I for one like the difficulty of the trials. It is called a trial for a reason. If were meant to be easy it would called a cake walk.
If the one's complaining are complaining about Sky Raiders, wait until they get to the Freakshow trial. OMG! Talked about difficult. I had to try it 4 times before completing it.
Just remember, it is called a Trial not a cakewalk.
on a side note:
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** Apparently, in America homosexuals are second-class citizens, so it must be okay to use the term derogatively.
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Tolerance is greater than ever before. Social adaptation doesn't happen overnight. Through slow changes over time adaptation occurs. I would comment further but don't want to hijack the thread.
Just remember Trials are not cakewalks.
Since a trial is a major ordeal why would a team want a big level spread? It is real dumb for taskforces so why should a trial be any different.
Also the only gimps that will fail this trial or cause failure are in the head not in your toon because of a mistake you made in slotting cause it was 4 am or because you want to switch out a few powers that were real usefull early on but aren't now.
Ah yes Nemesis snipers at the door are always fun with teams. Or a big [censored] patrol that came walking by.
Honestly the only time I have ever lost the trial was when we tried to do it with my rad defender and 3 blasters. We even made it to the reactor room, just got overwhelmed a couple times and the reactor ran out of health on the last wave.
The main problems that are going to make it more likely that you will fail are an unbalanced team makeup (like mine above) and people who do not listen or have any tactics. It is a tough mission but it seems comparable to every task force I have done. I am sorry to hear you have been unable to complete it so far, here are a few things I try to do to ensure a successful trial:
- Keep everyone within 2-3 lvls of each other. If you have one lvl 26 and 5 lvl 23s, the mission will set for the lvl 26 and you will likely be in for a very rough ride.
- Make sure the group is willing to stick together. One dimbulb running around aggroing multiple groups and setting off proximity bombs or just doing his own thing playing cowboy is more trouble than he is worth
- Make sure your teammates know how they will work together, and take a few minutes to cover tactics. i.e. Let the tanker go in first, try to kill debuffed mob last, I can do this to disorient the minion, you need to be close to me for heals, try to stay within the bubble, whatever. Sometimes it is better to cover stuff that is simple or obvious to you just to make sure everyone is on the same page
- balancing team, it's good to try and have a variety of archetypes, all of my successful teams have had at least 3 different ATs.
Anyway I hope this advice was helpful to some, best of luck on a successful respec
@Persona Non Grata
Fallout Girl (Def) 50 Rad/Rad || Persona Non Grata (Corr) 50 Fire/Dark
& others.... http://cit.cohtitan.com/profile/18064
It's not simple. It's not undoable. It is fairly easy to screw up and boot the respec, if you have one of those disorganized groups (but so is any other TF). But it's possible even for gimps to finish this.
I disagree with the op, my personal vote for the most difficult missions would be the Hollows missions (if you try to do them at L6-7 they're a freakin nightmare--a L8 boss with pets? Puh-leaze devs, *try* to play by the same rules we do).
Still, they too can be completed sucessfully...soooo...the point is to get stubborn, get help if you need it, and blow through it. You'll feel better afterwards.
Did it last week with one of my SG members and 5 random teammates. We had 3 blasters, 1 tank,1 scrapper and an emp defender. The 3 blasters died a couple times each in the big room before the reactor (the one with all the doors) we died because we aggroed to many skiffs at once. other than that I would say the trial was almost too easy.
The final protect the reactor part was almost boring. We spent as much time waiting for the next wave as we did fighting it. The reactor didn't even get any noticeable damage. I will admit that we all seemed to have decent builds to begin with, most wanted to make some changes,but nobody was a total gimp.
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Yep, I'm still perplexed by people who don't have 2 hours. Heck, that's just going from 6 hours sleep to 4 hours sleep in a night, and there's this magic drug called "Caffeine" that I'm still addicted to from my 60 hours work + 50 hours EQ weeks...
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First of all I regularly play games for more than 2 hours so I am not defending myself here, but..
Just because you are able to get by on caffeine and 4 hr of sleep does not make it reasonable for someone to have to do it for a game.
Just because YOU like to play in 2 hour blocks does not mean everyone does.
Just because YOU can play in 2 hour blocks doesn't mean that people who want to respec should have to do so.
This is just another way for the leet kiddies who have no lives or don't know how to prioritize their lives (and thus put a GAME first) to lord it over the people who have lives, families, and priorities they put over 2 hours of straight nonstop gaming.
F
odd i didn't find the hollows harder then my regular missions.
My scrapper had his [censored] handed to him by red named bosses a few times but I either leveled up or came back from the hospital and whupped him even con.
Frostfire at level nine was a joke. I leveled to ten on the last minion before getting to him and he barely took me to 75% health. I could have soloed him easily enough even con. He didn't summon pets at all. Even then I have meet tanks who soloed him with the pets.
Atta at level 11 I found much harder since he knocked me back constantly and did a hell of a lot of damage to boot. I leveled to 12 and had a hard as hell fight. Had to burn every inspiration I had and with dull pain he nearly got my scrapper.
Its perfectly possible to go through it with 2 healers (who keep the reactor topped up), a blaster and 2 scrappers all of whom in the level 27-30 range. The issue with this trial is basically organisation.
Don't focus on killing everything, just focus on drawing aggro away from the reactor and then being able to handle it. You CANNOT do this without tankers or scrappers who can sustain signifcant damage. Yes, its a hard trial. Damn hard. And infact I'd say the reactor raid is a little too long to be fun, it should be shortened by around 4 waves and just reach its creshendo sooner.
As statesman said, of everyone who has attempted the trial roughly 25% have failed due to the reactor blowing up. That is a very low figure considering how much fuss some people make over it. Sure a character can be gimped, but a whole team cannot and certainly not to the extent to make it impossible.