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I'm not sure if the size of his summons varies with group size. If it does, well, it's just stupid. [/color]
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I'm just going to confirm that, yes, the spawn size increases with team size... you list that you got an ambush of like... 12 with half bosses? On a 7-man team, that entire room filled completely. It was the most horrible thing ever. After one team wipe, we then spent 20 minutes just pulling as many from that room as we could. We ended up beating him just fine after that. That is a ridiculously hard final encounter though.
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Thanks for the guide.. .it was quite handy. One point is that he did indeed summon mobs at about 50%. We wiped, came very close to just quitting, but then battled our way to him again. The second time, he did NOT summon anybody and was actually not that hard to kill.
Spoiler:
For leading the SF, the leader gets a temp power: Essence of Serafina.
What it does is give all teammates around you psi-resistance and adds psi damage to their attacks. You get 10 uses of it. Right now it seems broken as I didn't notice it taking effect after I cast it.
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I think everybody in my group got the temp power; unless I got the star without noticing for some reason late in the mission.
I've only used it once, and didn't notice much effect either.
We also all got lvl 44 SO enhancements; which were briefly amusing and then sold. :-)
Just for reference, the mission can be done with four MM's as the whole group. Not an ideal team on paper, but I'll take good players over "ideal mixes" any day. It was a lot of fun.
Yikes, what a final mission.
We experienced three summons from the final AV. It seemed to me that each summons happened at the same times the AV summons of the respec trial (Tree of Life) i.e., at 75%, 50%, 25% health of the AV. Each time we wiped and had to go back in skirting the outside of the summoned spawn to clear them (precisely because the summoned spawned had so many bosses). If you others did not get three summons, could it be that you were so successful in hurting the AV that you got all three summons one on top of the other (could explain why the whole ground level was full of spawns)? The good news is that, like the Tree of Life, the summons don't respawn if a fully healed AV goes back down in health. So, if you can accept three team wipes, then this is the SF for you!
Alternatively, you can immediately retreat when a spawn comes and carefully re-engage it.... who am I kidding... no one's going to run in the middle of an AV battle.
I'm guessing that if the AV is successfully held (not immobilized) he can't summons. Unfortunately, our AV kept breaking the hold in short spurts that were long enough to summons.
Like many Strike Forces (and Task Forces), the level of the mission is hard coded to the upper level (40). This goes up with large groups and a higher difficulty setting. (Again, we return to the debate of whether it's just the leader's difficulty level or the team's average difficulty level which is significant. Anyway, since leadership can be passed to other members if the original leader logs off or disconnects, it's best if everyone sets their difficulty level to easiest, i.e., Villainous).
This means that if the level of all the members of the SF are 35, you will die... often, and be unable to complete the SF. In fact, since SFs are inherently much more difficult than regular missions this isn't the time to let a lowbie leech. Get everyone lackeyed up to at least 38. There will be, at the minimum, level 41 bosses and Archvillain (higher if the team has more than 5 members). If a player can't land powers on these foes because he or she is too low a level, then your team will be severely hampered.
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Just to re-affirm. Do NOT attempt this trial without at least a few level 38's on your team. Even if you survive all the way to the bottom of the crystal pit, you just won't be able to do enough damage to the AV at the end.
just finished this sf 2 days ago with a 40corr(me) 35stalker, 37brute, and 36brute(sk'd to 39)
we all charged the last AV did pretty good until the 1st summon, then obviously the 35stalker went down followed by the 37brute, i cast the missle thing that improves damage and regen and kept healing and hitting fulcrum shift while the brute popped off a few defense inspirations
in 60 seconds the AV dropped(and 2 more summons were fighting us also) then i dropped and started looking around as the brute was trying to take em out anyway, i counted 8 bosses(3 succubus and 5 death mages) and 25 lieutenants(behemoths), lol
overall didnt seem 2 bad even though i had a pretty lousy team set up, it still worked great so with a good team i bet it could be really easy, the hardest part for us was the clear all tsoo mission, they were just 1 shotting our brutes left and right
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I was in a group of one level 40 MM, myself (39 MM), one 38 brute and one 38 stalker. He summoned two succubi, three death mages, and four behemoth lieutenants. We wiped 3x without killing him. I'm not sure if the size of his summons varies with group size. If it does, well, it's just stupid. We're going to try tomorrow with a corruptor in the mix, and possibly a dominator. I'll let you know how it goes 
[/ QUOTE ]heh... i did it with 5 people, when the ambush came.. "all you can see are wings" talk about 0 fps...
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I'm guessing that if the AV is successfully held (not immobilized) he can't summons. Unfortunately, our AV kept breaking the hold in short spurts that were long enough to summons.
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thats cause u cant perma hold an AV anymore... thats an old issue change.
they have suppressed periods they cant be held
i am on the last mish of this TF as we type.. we have including me
lvl 35 brute
38 MM
38 Dom
38 Brute
38 MM
38 Corr
some have lvld up already so we didnt start that way, howeve i am leader on vill and we are fighting lvl 40 and 41's... so far we have killed with ease and have had 1 team wipe when the dom was afk, vs a huge mob of Tsoo all with kinetics... damn tsoo bastages.
Is this the second respec?
Mystic
No this is the St. Martial SF.
If at all possible bring a /kin with you on this fight. perhaps I'm bias but when he summons all those mobs fulcrum is a godsend.
The tsoo mission is pretty hard if you lack some support, having 4 siphon speed on you is horrible as well as seeing 3 ancestor spirits open up with a KoBlow at the same time on you.
The first time I did this SF with my em/ea brute the AV really summoned a bunch of stuff, even with tactics and a breakfree running I was still getting confused with all the succubus. Only when you come back from a wipe, you realize that this is one big battle with 5-7 succubus, 10-15 behemoths lt and few minions and death mages.
Otherwise, this AV is one of my favorite fight Overload is just a godsend. Alone, out-numbered and loving all 3 minutes of it.
In response to the post about needing lvl 38's minimum or your doomed
finished Ice Mistral with the following....
3 lvl 36 brutes ( em/ela , em/stone, elec/ela )
2 lvl 36 corrs ( dark/dark, energy/rad )
1 lvl 37 stalker ( em / ninja )
1 lvl 35 mm ( bots / ff )
it can be done, but your team has to sync really well.
btw most mobs were lvl 40, including the AV.
Thanks for the guide. Was very helpful today on my first attempt at this SF. For the record, we successfully completed the SF with the following team:
50 thugs/dark MM (me) - mal'd to 40
40 ninja/dark MM
42 thermal corruptor - mal'ed to 40
37 bots/FF MM - lk'ed to 39
The AV was a real toughie. We were literally fighting him for about 30 minutes before we successfully defeated him.
The thermal and dark empathy buffs were a huge help, as were the FF defenses. Additionally, the thermal and dark rezzes were absolutely necessary in order to keep the fight going continuously. There were about 4 deaths during that 30 minute AV fight, and when deaths did occur, the dead were rezzed within seconds to resume fighting.
A brute would have been handy for the final AV fight. But, in the end, our team of 4 pretty much breezed through the TF and eventually overcame one badass AV. 
Fun stuff. And, as team leader, got the temp power, in addition to getting the Megalomaniac accolade. 
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This is a level 35-40 Strike Force. Most of the things you will be defeating will be 39, but there are some 40s and 41s in there too. When you're ready to start, go in the western door of the golden giza. Ice Mistral will be there to give you your first mission. The missions are like so:
1. Destroy all mages in Temple. This is in Nerva, and is all Circle of Thorns. It really sucks if you have a mastermind, because of the current bug with portals and the henchmen not following. This wouldn't be a big deal if all it entailed was dismissing and resummoning, but when you go through the portals, there's large amounts of Circle on the other side. This is by far the second hardest mission of the set. If you can't do this one without too much trouble, quit the SF now, cause the final mission is going to ruin your day.
2. Locate the Crystal . Kill 50 Circle of Thorn, in any zone, at any level.
3. Destroy the network . This is located in Sharks and is a cave mission. Ah, but it's a troll cave, so MMs aren't too bad to have along as they are on, say, a Council or Tsoo cave mission. Enemies are all Circle of Thorns, and overall this is a very easy mission (just destroy the two or three crystals).
4. Destroy the network in Primeva . This is located in Nerva, but is a boat mission in the docks district. It's prety easy since it's a canal mission. Mostly Circle of Thorns with some Devouring Earth mixed in for flavor.
5. Defeat Everyone in Ship . This is a Boat mission in Cap au Diable against Tsoo (and one group of CoT). Pretty standard faire, as you've probably been doing boat missions against Longbow and Family in the process of getting to 35-40 anyway.
6. Defeat everyone in office . This is a door mission in the "The Hard Way" district of St. Martial. It's against Carnies, and the Ring Mistresses make it a decent challenge. However, it's not near as hard as the next one. (oh - and by the way, if you haven't figured it out at this point, the crystals explode when you destroy them, doing damage to friendlies and enemies. Use them as an alpha against the enemies, or clear away from them when destroying them after the enemies are defeated).
7. Defeat Archus . Archus is a level 40 Arch-Villain. But this mission gets even better. You start in a standard CoT temple mission on the Thorn Isle in Nerva. Clear it out, and you don't see anyone left, right? Inside the main temple building is a big black hole. Drop into it, and you find yourself in a pretty cool little area. (well, not really little). You can do this area in one of two ways. The first is to work your way down to the bottom slowly, but having MMs with you will make this difficult as the pets like to fall off of the walls and train mobs up to you. Or you can stealth down and TP everyone down to Archus. Use the crystals as an alpha against him (once you've used a few to clear out the mobs surrounding him), and hit him hard. at about 50% he starts summoning mobs.
I was in a group of one level 40 MM, myself (39 MM), one 38 brute and one 38 stalker. He summoned two succubi, three death mages, and four behemoth lieutenants. We wiped 3x without killing him. I'm not sure if the size of his summons varies with group size. If it does, well, it's just stupid. We're going to try tomorrow with a corruptor in the mix, and possibly a dominator. I'll let you know how it goes