How to beat the Sewer Trial in 10 mins or less

How to beat the Sewer Trial in 10 mins or less
This is a guide for how to beat the Sewer Trial in 10 mins or less. After taking down the Hydra twice yesterday and having to explain the entire procedure to a group of level 50s the first time and smaller team of 40-42s the second time I decided to put this together. I hope this helps people who are having trouble beating this trial. Before we go on, I want to assure you that it is possible, with as few as 4 players, to take 10 minutes or less to go from from entering the door to Mission Complete. I have done it twice already.

Since I ran out of room in the title, here is the spoiler warning:
SPOILERS BELOW!!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!! SPOILERS BELOW!!!!
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Ok, now that we got that out of the way, go check out the excellent sewer trial guide by StabbinPayne:
The 30 Minute Sewer Trial Guide
It is less of a walkthrough and more provides more detail about the trial in general.

1) Team Composition
This is fairly crucial. You want everyone in the 40+ range if possible. The trial can be completed with as few as 3 people but I recommend 4-5.

You must have at least 1 controller and 2 are better. If you do not have at least 1 controller and then 1 other player of any AT with a ranged hold you can forget this strategy entirely.

I will lay out an ideal 4 player team:
A) Primary Controller:
Build: Ideally we want Gravity/Radiation as the primary holder. Why? Because Grav/Rad is the best holder in the game. Both Grav holds are ranged and they also have pets which control and knock enemies away from you while you are attacking the main hydra head. Radiation allows for debuffs on the Kraken and EMP pulse to lock down all the tentacles in 1 shot. Next best thing is to have Gravity/*. In a pinch, any controller with repulsion field or repel will work.
Role: The primary controller's job is to hold the hydra head and lock down tentacles and the rikti ambush that happens when the head reaches 30% life. By having gravity pets or repulsion fields all ambushing rikti will be bounced away allowing you to finish off the head and then clean up the rikti afterwards.

B) Primary Tank:
Build: Most any tank will do here but Stone Tanks are ideal because of their ability to resist psychic damage. You need someone to take the initial hit from the Hydra Head before the controller(s) lock it down and you need someone to occupy the kraken while you kill it. If you cannot get a tank at all then a level 42+ regen scrapper can substitute fairly well. In a pinch, an illusion controller can take the place of your tank (even though the kraken pull is hairy). How can Illusion replace a tank? The Phantom Army can tank the Hydra head while the controllers lock it down. This in fact works very well in combination with a non-stone tank.
Role: The primary tank's job is to pull the one kraken that must be killed to clear a path to the hydra head and also to hold aggro on the hydra head and also hold aggro when the rikti ambush comes. This will be easier if the tank has taunt but I don't think it is required.

C) Primary Damage:
Build: Ideally we want a blaster, either Fire/Energy or Energy/Energy, here. Strong single target attacks combined with a good Nuke are fairly critical here. You will need the single target damage to take out the Kraken in under 2 mins and kill the tentacles and rikti bosses in the ambush. The nuke will be used to clear tentacles and minions/LTs in the rikti ambush. Any blaster with strong single target attacks and a nuke is ok here. Without the nuke you will have trouble clearing the tentacles and rikti ambush quickly. In a pinch you can use a scrapper here but I doubt you will be able to clear the mission in under 10 minutes.
Role: Kill everything. In specific, take out the Kraken in under 2 mins and kill the tentacles and rikti in the ambush. Maintain continuous particle cannon fire on the hydra head.

D) Auxiliary Buffer/Healer:
Build: The idea build here is any defender or controller with the ability to heal and buff endurance. This means empathy most likely but kinetics can work here as well. Force field is ok but without end buffs the fighting will slow down and finishing in under 10 mins will be very difficult. Having grant invis or invis is critical here to avoid aggroing the other 3 kraken while fighting the tentacles and hydra head. At least one member of the team must have recall friend and typically this is the one.
Role: Keep the team in good health and keep end maximized. Make everyone invisible while fighting and get the team to the bottom (or enable the teleporter to reach the bottom by granting invis to him). Maintain particle cannon fire on the hydra head.


2) Beating the Mission
Beating the mission is a multi-part process. You have to be quick and cannot waste time. I will lay out the steps and then explain what to do at each point below them.

A) Obtain particle guns; skip to the bottom of the pit - 1.5 mins
B) Kill 1 Kraken to clear path to Hydra Head - 2 mins
C) Hold hydra head; nuke tentacles - 30 secs
D) Attack hydra head with particle cannons; defeat head - 4-5 mins
E) Clear tentacles; complete mission - 1 mins


Now, in more detail.

A) Obtain particle guns; skip to the bottom of the pit - 1.5 mins
Enter the mission door, time is ticking so everyone should enter at the same time. The key player here is the one with recall friend and TP. As soon as you are inside the key player needs to be made invisible. The glowy boxes in the shaft leading down to the bottom contain particle cannons or thermite cannons (see the guide I linked above for more detail). Key player grabs a particle cannon and then TPs the next player (who is also invised) to the next particle cannon. Key player uses TP to jump from one glowy box to the next pulling people so they can get particle cannons. Once each player has particle cannon they head to the bottom. Stay to the outside of the shaft to avoid aggroing the Hydra Head early. Once everyone is on the bottom, assemble near one of the kraken. The best one is the kraken that is furthest from a generator (he also is about the closest to the hydra head).

B) Kill 1 Kraken to clear path to Hydra Head - 2 mins
Key player here is the primary tank. Primary tank aggros the kraken as soon as he reaches the gathering spot. Kraken does a ranged AOE so stand at least 20 feet from your teammates. Pull the kraken so you do not aggro tentacles while fighting him. Controllers should hold the kraken once he is in position. A kraken can be chain held be a single controller stacking holds. The key player shifts from primary tank to primary damage. Keep the kraken held, buff the damage dealer and take down the kraken as fast as possible. I have seen Krakens drop in as little as 60 seconds with rad debuffs on them. Not having a blaster here to do heavy single target damage will hurt you at this step.

C) Hold hydra head; nuke tentacles - 30 secs
All players are key for this part. Doing this right is critical to completing the mission quickly and timing is very important. First, make everyone in the team as invisible as possible (even the tank). This is crucial because we do not want to aggro the other krakens. Send in the Phantom Army or tank to take the first hit from the hydra head and distract the tentacles. Keep in mind that the hydra head does 1000+ pyschic damage so non-tanks should avoid getting hit at all. As the tank/PA takes the first hit from the hydra, the primary controller (and anyone else with a hold) should attempt to hold the hydra head. Once the head is held, the blue shield will drop. Once the shield is down the hydra head is vulnerable and we are ready to take it down. The primary damage dealer should use a nuke or other AOE to clear as many nearby tentacles as possible.

D) Attack hydra head with particle cannons; defeat head - 4-5 mins
At this point, controllers will want to summon any pets they have and everyone except for the primary controller should use their particle cannons on the hydra head. Each player should do something between each particle cannon shot. Healers should toss an AOE heal, anyone with a hold should hold the hydra head, buffers should do quick buffs, pets should be summoned, etc... (this is crucial to keep up the attack safely). Everyone should stay close together to ensure buffing is easy and avoid pulling extra aggro. Staying together is critical for the rikti ambush. On a side note, the particle cannon damage cannot be buffed and it never misses so do not bother attempting to increase it.
As the health of the hydra head approaches 30%ish the damage dealer should be buffed for end and prepare to nuke. When the health hits 25-30% a big rikti ambush will TP on top of the group. The primary controller should attempt to AOE hold this group as much as possible while the damage dealer nukes it. The tank should aggro the bosses that are left while the damage dealer finishes them off. Go back to using the particle cannon on the hydra head as soon as you can. Continue firing until the hydra head dies.
Occasionally you will see multiple rikti ambushes. Handle them all the same way.

E) Clear tentacles; complete mission - 1 mins
Once the head is down you have to clear all the main tentacles. Do not bother killing the spawned minion tentacles. The easy way to tell is by level. There are 3 levels of tentacles and you must kill the 2 highest levels. At 42 the ones you must kill will be yellow and white. The ones you can skip will be blue. Be careful not to aggro the kraken while killing the tentacles. Once you kill the last one the mission completed message will come up and you can celebrate.

Hope you have fun with this mission and are able to complete it in under 10 minutes. It is a rush and one of the most fun times I have had in the game.

-AZ

You dont need to take out the shield?



edit: sry just read the other guide....

So holding the hydra you dont have to bother with the generators? Just trying to clarify. thanks

I've seen 3 controllers lock down the Hydra, shield didn't even come up. 3 Particle Cannon Bursts later, she was gone.

well this is a good thing to know since my alts are getting to that trial quick

RIGHT ON!!!

What is the visual indication of a Hydra being held? Does it quiver?

Have everyone in the team get the mission. After the first time through, the important people will have particle cannons. You don't need to get them for the next several runs. That will let you shave off about 1.5 minutes from your time.

But let me ask a question. Why bother finishing it in 10 minutes? If you can do that, then you have a good team with decent builds. Therefore you don't really NEED the special Enhancements you get for finishing the mission. In fact your Enhancements will be white or yellow when you hit level 41, and can't get the mission yourself anymore. If you keep doing your teammate's sewer missions till 42, the Enhancements are only slightly better than SOs. Given the massive XP you get from doing this trial repeatedly, the Enhancements are quickly useless.

If you take some time to smell the roses and defeat the other 5 Krakens, you'll get more than 3 times the XP in about twice the time (based on your numbers). If you take into account the time it takes to get the mission again from the contact in FF (even doing it 4 at a time), your method looks a bit worse. If you have a team of 8 that can all get the mission, so you only need to leave the sewers once every 8 runs, your method looks even worse. Take into account that 8 people can defeat Krakens MUCH faster and more safely than 4. Last night I was on a team of 7 that was doing the trial in 15 minutes and defeating 5 Krakens. That included getting guns for everyone because we only did it twice (had other things to do). Granted the XP is divided by more people for defeating the Krakens, the team XP bonus is higher for the bigger team. And the mission completion bonus doesn't change.

So let me present...

How to maximize your XP and time in the Sewers

1) Get a decent team of 8 that can beat the Sewer trial.
2) Have everyone get the mission from the contact in FF.
3) Defeat the 150 Rikti in the sewers, this counts for everyone.
4) Back to FF to get the actual Hydra mission.
5) Head to the Sewers, do the mission 8 times.
6) Go back to Step 4 as often as you want.

I dunno...maybe because some people, you know, actually want to do the trial and not farm it for XP?

I know, crazy isn't it?

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I dunno...maybe because some people, you know, actually want to do the trial and not farm it for XP?

I know, crazy isn't it?

[/ QUOTE ]

Totally. I mean, who'd want to, you know, finish the mission?

Besides, it's not as if the reply suggested that they don't finish, just that they also get all the krakens, and do it multiple times, once for each team member. Completely different story to do a mission multiple times, than to reset to farm.

really whatever happened to not ummm exploiting the fact that a held hydra drops the sheilds. I did the trial a while back with my main (38 at the time) and the mission wasn't impossibly hard to do the right way. Sure it took awhile, and sure we had some tense moments, but hey these days I doubt I'll ever see another team that wants to do the sewers with out holding down the hydra.
Also is it just me or does this method, ie holding the head, not only require a type of character but eliminate nearly any reason to ever take a scrapper incapable of hardcore tanking with you.
One more final comment, why not a dark armor scrapper. I know you mentioned Regen, but a DA scrapper is one of the only classes currently capable of maxing their Psychic Resistance (or very nearly maxing).

Peeps: No need to take out the shield or bother with the generators, holding the head takes the shield down

BlackSly: Assuming you are not messing with the generators, the indicator is that the blue shield will vanish. There is not really any other visual indicator because the effects are covered by the mass of the hydra itself (at least in my experience)

TopDoc: Your points are valid, however, gathering the weapons on a pervious run is not really in the spirit of the guide. The idea is to beat it in a single run in under 10 mins.
You could easily farm the mission without ever beating it but the point of the guide was to cover the fastest way to beat the hydra head in a single pass.

CosmicAvatar: I understand where you are coming from but again, this guide is simply to explain the fastest way to beat the mission in a single pass. If a team wants to beat the mission the normal way (taking down the generators) that is fine also but much more difficult.

Have fun, kill lots of hydras!

-AZ

I wanted to address your question about team compostion seperately. It is true that my suggestions leave out scrappers in general, but I don't really see this as a big problem. Scrappers tend to be great at soloing and pretty good in most teams. The fact that they are not crucial to a single trial in the game (and only to my method of completing it) is not exactly saying they are garbage.

Almost any scrapper will be one shotted by the hydra head (except maybe */dark if they slot their armor and are high enough level or a high level regen scrapper). In my experience, */dark scrappers tend to get killed by the hydra head which is why I did not suggest it. Even */regen scrappers go down sometimes during the initial hydra head attack but with dull pain (or dual dull pain) I rarely see that happen.

This is just my experience. Keep in mind that I have a scrapper (and a fairly high level one). I think my scrapper is great but he is not ideal for a small hydra team. On a side note, a scrapper IS ideal as the 5th player on a team like this because he is perfect to stand there blasting away with the particle cannon with little to fear from tentacles or the rikti ambush. Having a 5th player to blast away will drop the hydra a full minute faster in my experience.

-AZ

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Peeps: No need to take out the shield or bother with the generators, holding the head takes the shield down

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So the hydra is broken, check. I guess everyone should go exploit the heck out of it before it gets fixed, as usual.

I had the mish twice. The first time we tried to take out the Hydra head ( I was level 37), we had good leadership, but a team that didn’t act like one. All members died so much we had to Krack off the debt, then disbanded.

The second and last time I had a strong team to take out the head… we get in the mish, take out the Krackens… now they want to farm! Our controller bailed when he found out it was to actually complete the mish as well as half the team. Frustrated, and very irritated I didn’t renew the mission. I’m past 41 now, so I guess it’s pointless to argue a mute point.

Yeah, there were two players on the last team who wanted to farm rather than complete. One a controller who seemed to be phase shifted the best part of the mission.

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So the hydra is broken, check. I guess everyone should go exploit the heck out of it before it gets fixed, as usual.

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This has been publicly known to be broken for a long time but no changes have been made and apparently no post describing how to do it has ever been deleted. As exploits go it's pretty weak - it gets you a trivial amount of mission complete xp and a trial enhancement that boosts multiple things by a pathetic amount and gets outleveled very quickly. Considering that you can still bring lv50s along, exemplar them to grab the weapons and then unexemplar, or just forget all that and farm the krakens for amazing xp, I wouldn't even put this at the top of the list of things to fix.

Even with holding the head it isn't easy...it still takes solid execution to make it happen.

If you want XP, farm krakens. If you want to complete the trial for a badge and enhancement, bring over-level people and hold the head. If you want a challenge, keep your entire team at 41 or below, clear the entire pit on the way down, destroy the generators, and kill the head. I've done it that way several times...it's fun and not really hard with good teamwork.

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Peeps: No need to take out the shield or bother with the generators, holding the head takes the shield down

[/ QUOTE ]
So the hydra is broken, check. I guess everyone should go exploit the heck out of it before it gets fixed, as usual.

[/ QUOTE ]
Broken? Because there are ways of doing it that, for once, benefit from single target holds? I take it you don't play controllers or appreciate how much we're just spectators for almost any monster or AV fight. I'm thrilled that we've got ONE such fight in which we can usefully do what we're supposed to do. I'm happy to have at least one sop thrown to us for the near-uselessness of the AT in such epic fights.

Broken? Not the sewer trial. Maybe every other AV or monster fight.

Dude i must hae been that stone tanker you were talking about...I got on another team and they didnt get a controller...I eventually had to leave...they just kept trying to take out the stupid generators and couldnt get anywhere...I'm glad you made this guide ....I told my team i was leaving so that they could get a controller and have a chance at finishing....They didnt believe me when I said that if they got a controller that the hydra could be held right through the force field...

The team we did it on had a dark armor scrapper and a stone tanker(myself)...I taunted the hydra and he killed the ritki...

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Peeps: No need to take out the shield or bother with the generators, holding the head takes the shield down

[/ QUOTE ]
So the hydra is broken, check. I guess everyone should go exploit the heck out of it before it gets fixed, as usual.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just FYI, this method of taking down the Hydra has been known since October. When my main was in range in November, we found a guide on the forums about holding the hydra and being able to beat the mission in 30-45 with no problem. That was fighting your way down to each box and killing all 6 krakens, though. Someone with invis and recall friend helped a lot.

So the holding method has been going for at least 5 months. I think if it was really an exploit they would have changed it by now. And it's funny since the last month or so everyone has been holding Hamidon the same way.

As to the main topic, I do agree with others. Completing the mission in 10 minutes is fine, but you might as well mop up the remaining krakens before leaving. All the annoyance of getting the mission and getting to the sewers, might as well get better xp while you're down there. Back when I did it, it was hard as hell to find a team that wanted to finish and not just farm. But once I explained to them we could hold it and not have to do the whole generator thing, people started coming around. Beat him 3-4 times back then. Getting alts near that range again, so looking forward to returning to visit the sewers soon.

Can anybody who claims that "holding the head takes down the shield" is intentional explain why the generators exist at all?

Without head-holding, the generator/shield sequence represents a very tough exercise in coordination for a large team.

With head-holding, the generator/shield sequence seems like basically a kick in the face to groups that don't have controllers.

I wouldn't call it a kick in the face. Like most missions controllers make things easier. In this case much easier. But I'm not willing to hold it against the devs, considering what they've done to Controllers.
1. Not giving them an attack power to solo with thereby forcing them to group to advance with any speed.
2. Making them go to contacts to get DO and SO enhancements.
3. being the most fragil of all the heroes.
etc... Given that they have to endure hardships from day one I'm kinda glad the are strongly encouraging the rest of us to seek them out on this high exp trail, cus they don't get many breaks. And don't forget that the trial CAN be done with out them, it's not impossible just extreamly hard.

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Can anybody who claims that "holding the head takes down the shield" is intentional explain why the generators exist at all?

Without head-holding, the generator/shield sequence represents a very tough exercise in coordination for a large team.

[/ QUOTE ]

I kinda hve to agree with the rest of the people here. As much as this kinda seems like an exploit, I don't think it is. Just a controller, doing their job. At least the devs gave teams w/o controllers a way to work the trail.

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With head-holding, the generator/shield sequence seems like basically a kick in the face to groups that don't have controllers.

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With such an insane regen rate of AVs and Monsters, the slow, whittling down process basically seems like a kick in the face to groups that don't have scrappers/blasters.

With such high damage output that Warrior Hewer Elite bosses have, the hit/run process basically seems like a kick in the face to groups that don't have tankers.

... see where I'm going with this?

[ QUOTE ]
With such an insane regen rate of AVs and Monsters, the slow, whittling down process basically seems like a kick in the face to groups that don't have scrappers/blasters.

With such high damage output that Warrior Hewer Elite bosses have, the hit/run process basically seems like a kick in the face to groups that don't have tankers.

... see where I'm going with this?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, I honestly don't. The regen rate of AVs and the damage of Warrior bosses is just a piece of data that they can change in a spreadsheet somewhere. The linking of the generators with the Hydra shield is clearly something that required special programming just for this Trial (there's nothing similar anywhere else in the game, AFAIK). If the head was intended to be held to death, that's a lot of effort to go to...and for what? They could easily have said "You have to hold the head, period, so you need a controller for this trial." I just don't see the point of them spending so much time designing a complicated system, just so it can be meaningless if you have a controller.

And controllers already had a point in the trial. They handle the Rikti ambushes while everyone else is attacking the head. They've also got a use against AVs; we took on Malaise last night and we would never have made it if we didn't have an Earth controller sending in Animated Stone to tank him. I don't think there's anything wrong with encouraging controller use, but I don't think they would (or should) do that by letting you skip the entire generator system and making an insanely hard, barely-finish-it-in-time Trial into a ten-minute Controllerfest.

One thing that anyone here forgot to mention, if you are ABOVE LEVEL 42, you CANNOT pick up the special weapons to kill the HYDRA! There it's said, with that information, have fun!