Table of Contents:
1. Details of the Hamidon encounter
2. History, credits, and stuff
3. Hero strategy overview
4. Individual role details
a) Hamidon aggro team
b) Yellow mito aggro team
c) Yellow mito killers
d) Ranged teams
-----
1. Details of the Hamidon encounter
Hamidon is a level 45-50 raid encounter available separately to heroes and villains in the Hive and the Abyss zones, respectively. Hamidon only spawns when triggered by players. Hamidon spawns when a certain random number of DE monsters are defeated in the Hive/Abyss - the number is between about 8 and 50. After spawning, Hamidon stays up until defeated or server reset. While Hamidon is up, all DE monsters flee to large doors in the zone and disappear - they return immediately upon Hamidon's defeat.
The Hive and Abyss zones have a 50-player limit. They will spawn a second instance for the 51st player. Players can be locked out if they leave zone and someone else enters, so leaving the zone during a raid is not advised.
Since everything in the Hamidon encounter is level 50, players below 50 should be sidekicked up if possible. Level 50s are the most useful, not least of all because they don't care about debt.
The actual Hamidon monster consists of several parts:
- A large purple nucleus (Hamidon)
- 6 yellow mitos (Mitochondria Antibodies)
- 6 blue mitos (Mitochondria Electrolytes)
- 6 green mitos (Mending Mitochondria)
The mitos are arranged in 3 hexagonal rings around the nucleus, with greens on the inside, blues in the middle, and yellows on the outside. All mitos appear to be flying, but are actually perched on small invisible platforms. Mitos do not move and cannot be moved.
All mitos are believed to have mag 100 protection from hold and stun. Effects like sleep, fear, and caging have not been well tested because they are harder to stack in large amounts. Mitos are permanently immobilized, so controllers should always get containment damage. All mitos have extraordinarily high perception, 7845 HP, no damage resistance beyond the scaling they get for being purple con, and not much regen. They do not appear to require endurance for any powers.
The yellows, blues, and the nucleus all have attacks using "electrolytic damage", a special damage type not resisted by any normal powers. These attacks can hit entities under the intangible state, so illusion decoys, phase shift, and hibernate provide no protection. The only source of protection is a special inspiration called "Essence of the Earth" (EoE) that gives a character their archetype resistance max for 60 seconds against this damage (but not any secondary mez effects). There is a very rare bug where an EoE activates but seems to provide no resistance. No steps to reproduce this bug have been found; it appears to be random.
Essence of the Earth can be collected by defeating DE monsters in the Hive, the Abyss, Monster Island, or the north islands of Peregrine. When a monster dies, every player on a team that did damage gets a % chance of getting an EoE drop. Since the monsters always drop one regular inspiration, players must have 2 insp slots open to receive an EoE. EoEs can be traded, stored in SG bases, or bought/sold on the consignment house like any inspiration.
Powers of the individual pieces:
Yellow mitos
A ranged AoE with a massive range and very large area firing every 4 seconds for 522 + 5 ticks of 32 electrolytic damage, a knockback of greater than mag 12 (knockback IOs are generally not useful, but all knockback protection powers are enough), and a mag 6 stun. This attack is not autohit but has a chance to hit of 95% even against a character at the +def cap to all positional types. The yellows also have a PBAoE damage aura that ticks for 32 damage about twice a second and inflicts a mag 3 stun. In many cases, scrappers or brutes with the basic level of stun protection (mag -10.38) have reported sometimes being stunned by the AoE + PBAoE of a single yellow. There may be random duration variations that cause the stuns to stack beyond this level. Tanks, regen scrappers with resilience, or anyone with a clear mind-level buff (mag -12.975) is generally protected, although multiple yellow mitos can add up quickly.
Yellow mitos have very high defense against ranged and AoE. It appears that being at the to-hit cap gives a 95% chance to hit, but anything less will be floored at 5% * accuracy. Geas of the Kind Ones, blaster aim + build up, or other suitably high to-hit buffs can allow ranged attackers to hit.
Blue mitos
A single target attack firing every 8 seconds for 159 electrolytic damage, -20 endurance, -7.16mph movement speed, -50% recharge, and a chance of approximately 25-33% for a mag 7 fear lasting 4 seconds. The attack randomly bounces between targets like chain lightning. The combat log hit/miss rolls suggest that it has a 33% chance to bounce. The blues also have a heavy PBAoE endurance drain aura, possibly with an additional slow or chance to fear component.
Blue mitos have very high defense against melee and AoE, on the same level as the yellow mito defense.
Green mitos
A ranged single-target heal for 1205 that fires about every 5 seconds, and a PBAoE heal for 321 every 7 seconds. The single-target heal range is enough to hit any other mito.
A single-target attack firing every 6 seconds for 102 + 5 ticks of 16 toxic damage, plus a stacking -0.83% regen debuff and an estimated -75% heal debuff. This attack does not generate a hit/miss text in the combat log. It may respect some form of positional defense, because tanks with heavily stacked +def from Fortitude have reported a large number of "deflected" messages that must be coming from blue mito bounces, green mito attacks, or both.
Green mitos have a toggle shield that grants very high damage resistance and regen until the mito is held. This shield is visible as a transparent forcefield around the mito. Endurance drain does not turn the shield off.
Nucleus
A ranged AoE blast for 522 electrolytic damage, plus a knockback similar to the yellows, alternated with a single target attack for 522 plus a DoT of 10 ticks of 80 electrolytic damage. The single-target attack has a long lasting and stacking -0.21% regen debuff and -10% heal debuff. Both attacks are autohit.
The nucleus has 47,120 HP, very high damage resistance to all attacks, and very high regen.
The bubble of protoplasm encompassing the nucleus and the mitos grants a -7.16mph movement speed debuff and a +159.68ft jump height buff to anyone inside it.
The primary defensive power of the nucleus is its ability to respawn new sets of mitos. This ability is triggered when the nucleus reaches 75%, 50%, and 25% HP. When triggered, this power spawns an additional 6 yellows, 6 blues, and 6 greens in the same basic layout - with the rings rotated a bit so the new mitos are separated from any remaining old mitos. Fortunately, the respawn power does not recharge, so when the nucleus is brought down to 75% a second time, nothing happens. The devs have stated that this mechanism is intended to force the raid to take a certain amount of time, and there is no way to prevent the respawn. Therefore, the basic raid process involves defeating 4 sets of mitos in total.
When Hamidon is defeated, every player in the zone who did damage to the nucleus gets a reward screen allowing them to choose a random Hami-O, random pool D recipe, or an SO. The Hami-O and recipe rewards are on separate 24 hour per-character lockout timers. The Hamidon buds that used to spawn after Hamidon's defeat have been removed. Hamidon can be respawned immediately by defeating more monsters.
2. History, credits, and stuff
Issue 9 Hamidon is an enormous change from the old raid encounter, requiring radically new strategy. Many people have been involved in coming up with ideas and testing them, publicly or otherwise. My primary contribution, while I9 was on test, was advocating the idea that all 6 yellows and the nucleus had to be attacked simultaneously. Most of the strategy follows directly from that concept.
Most of the advancements since then, particularly the use of stacked Regeneration Auras and the idea of attacking all 6 blue mitos to divert healing away from the yellows, came from Virtue's raid community.
3. Hero strategy overview
1. Tank Hamidon and each of the 6 yellow mitos separately.
2. Kill the yellow and green mitos. Then kill the blue mitos.
3. Beat Hamidon down to the next spawn point, run away, regroup, and repeat.
Step 1 is the core of the entire strategy. If you cannot accomplish step 1, do not attempt step 2. Multiple yellow mitos shooting at your raid will wipe you, 100% of the time.
Step 2 can be done either yellows-first, greens-first, or just a mix depending on the AT balance. If you have lots of melees, do yellows-first. If you have lots of controllers and ranged damage, do greens-first.
The staging point should be everyone on south rock to maximize the AoE buffs. Some tanks or scrappers may have to travel a long way to reach their targets, but the buffs are more important.
The classic countdown is as follows:
1 minute to go - begin single-target buffs (CM, SB, etc.)
30 seconds to go - oil slick + kinetic buffs if available
20 seconds to go - all AoE aura buffs (RA, AM)
15 seconds to go - Hami tank(s) pop EoE and go
10 seconds to go - yellow mito tanks/scrappers go
0 seconds - main force go
4a) Hamidon aggro team
At least one tank and one empath. Typical public raids will want at least 3 tanks, 2 empaths, and a speed booster.
The following buffs are mandatory:
- EoE at a rate of one per minute. (It would be possible, but not easy, to use a rapid tank rotation and other buffs to do without EoE.)
- Clear mind or equivalent. As the first person into the goo, a hami tank will take a minimum of mag 36 stun from the yellows' alpha strike, and probably mag 14 or 21 fear from the blues.
- Real knockback protection.
The following buffs are recommended:
- Endurance drain protection. 6 blues doing -20 endurance each is 120 endurance lost. If you don't care about your toggles for mez protection, this may not be an issue.
- Slow protection, e.g. speed boost.
- Toxic resistance.
- Very high +def vs. all positional types.
- As much +regen as possible, even beyond the cap.
- A +HP power.
In general, a tank with EoE, 2 power-boosted Fortitudes and Adrenaline Boosts, Clear Mind, and stacked Regen Aura can survive against Hamidon and the green and blue mitos more or less indefinitely as long as most of the yellow mitos are being tanked by someone else and the buffs get refreshed from time to time. The tank will quickly be under a -100% heal debuff, but stacked regen buffs can outweigh the regen debuffs and keep the tank alive. Once the green mitos are down, two Adrenaline Boosts and no EoE is usually enough to keep up with all of Hamidon's damage by simple regen.
Stone tanks with Rooted, Granite, and Earth's Embrace have the most advantages, but Invuln and Ice are fine. Fire suffers because of its lack of +HP and reliance on a self heal that won't work. Ice can use Hibernate to get better +regen at the cost of not being able to refresh any outside buffs.
For less ideal setups, a tank with EoE and enough mez protection to stay upright can usually tank for a minute or two before needing replacement. If the yellow mitos are allowed to shoot at a single tank for more than a few seconds, this life expectancy goes down rapidly.
Punching Hamidon will hold aggro just fine until the raid reaches the point of actually attacking him. Taunt is, as always, the gold standard. Be aware of the position of the other raid teams and keep the AoE away from them. Most of the time a ranged team will start on the south side and circle around.
4b) Yellow mito aggro team
There are many possible configurations of yellow aggro control, ranging from integrating it with scrapper teams who are killing yellow mitos to having a separate team of tanks and support whose only job is to hold aggro.
Anyone trying to hold aggro needs to realize that yellow mitos have very high ranged and AoE defense. Anything other than taunt (autohit) or melee attacks will hold practically NO aggro. Even taunt by itself is often insufficient, because the duration is scaled down against the purple con mitos. When in doubt, punch the mito.
It is possible, by using EoE and very carefully refreshed clear mind buffs to have one tank hold aggro on two or even three yellow mitos. Aside from the increased drain on EoEs, it requires constant running back and forth to keep up enough aggro. Stone tanks generally can't do this because they can't melee the mitos and can't move around fast enough.
In most cases, one scrapper or tank per one yellow mito is a better idea. A scrapper (unless they are /regen with Resilience) will need a bit of extra stun protection from clear mind or O2 boost to ensure they don't get stunned. Clear mind will also protect from fear, which can be a big hassle. After a few minutes, endurance drain will often become an issue as well. Roving empaths and kins handing out buffs can make a big difference.
Ways to survive against one yellow mito:
- Stacked regen aura. For the first 90 seconds, having at least 2 (slotting dependent, so preferably 3 minimum to be safe) Regen Auras on everyone is enough to survive.
- One Adrenaline Boost is borderline. On a tank it may keep up; on a scrapper it usually won't.
- Instant Healing, with Dull Pain up and suitable slotting, can just barely keep up.
- With an EoE, the rate of incoming damage can be overcome by any regen buff or the occasional heal.
- Direct healing. One empath spamming heal other will usually fall behind, but there are lots of tricks like using Absorb Pain to catch up (much easier on a tank, with more spare HP) or even using Geas to just heal faster. Empaths trying to do this need to clear mind each other to avoid blue mito fear or accidental yellow splash shutting them down.
The most common ways used in practice are:
Lone Regen scrapper: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of IH, then EoEs
Other scrapper with empath: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of AB, then EoEs
Tank with empath: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of AB, then healing
4c) Yellow mito killers
Ideally, flying scrappers. Non-flying scrappers can jump to attack at a cost of lower DPS. Spines and claws scrappers need to realize that their ranged and AoE attacks are not effective (this hits spines really hard). Non-stone tanks also work. In more elaborate raid strategies, using ranged attackers with suitably large tohit buffs is also an option.
Any team of yellow mito killers should have 1-2 empaths or storms for stun protection, healing, and maybe a rez. If the raid has tanks taunting the yellow mitos from a distance, the yellow killers only have to endure the PBAoE damage; otherwise they have to look at the above section and figure out how to stay alive against the full damage output of a yellow.
After the yellows are down, this team or teams can help with the greens and blues.
A common setup is 2 yellow teams of 5-7 scrappers + 1-3 support each, dividing the yellows between them. On each team, 2 scrappers (usually regen) are sent to tank one yellow each while the rest of the team focuses on killing the third.
Another setup is a separate aggro team of 4 tanks or regen scrappers with up to 4 support that tank the 4 yellows farthest from south rock, and then 1 or 2 scrapper teams that start by killing the front 2 mitos and circling around.
Any yellow team support characters need to keep a safe distance from any yellow mito AoE blasts, and buff each other to avoid stuns and fears. After the yellows are down they should support the Hami tanks.
If the ranged teams can prevent the green mitos from healing the yellows, a dozen melees can clear the yellows within 2 minutes. If the yellows are being healed, this can quickly stretch out to "forever".
4d) Ranged teams
All remaining controllers, blasters, defenders, kheldians, etc. form the rest of the raid. Pets (except Phantom Army, which can steal aggro and contributes very little in the way of damage), debuffs, and AoEs are all fine, since aggro is being controlled. Spamming AoE heals is not a high priority. If the ranged teams are taking fire from Hami or a yellow mito, the solution is to fix the aggro teams.
The objectives of the ranged teams are to kill the green mitos and prevent them from healing the yellows. These objectives can be separated.
If you have 8+ controllers and 8+ blasters you can kill greens one by one relatively quickly. In this case the constant attacks being directed at greens and the steady decrease in the number of greens alive is enough to stop them from healing the yellows, although a few heals usually get through when the ranged teams go from one target to the next. If the ranged team is not getting the greens down FAST, fall back on the next paragraph.
If you don't have that many controllers or blasters a better tactic is to forget about attacking the greens for the moment and spread out the ranged team to attack ALL of the blue mitos simultaneously. Since greens heal the nearest target that needs healing, a constant barrage on all 6 blues will keep them busy. Actually killing blues is a bonus if it happens, but it is more important to keep all 6 under fire. Once all the yellows are down, regroup and re-focus all of the ranged power on killing the greens.
Or go for a hybrid approach where controllers hold one green (and maybe hammer it with pets or attacks) while blasters spread out to put pressure on all 6 blues.
During the attack on Hamidon, anyone with recall friend should move to a safe distance. Ideally, every team should have a recaller to speed up the regroup.
FashionSense's Issue 9 Hamidon guide v2
Table of Contents:
1. Details of the Hamidon encounter
2. History, credits, and stuff
3. Hero strategy overview
4. Individual role details
a) Hamidon aggro team
b) Yellow mito aggro team
c) Yellow mito killers
d) Ranged teams
-----
1. Details of the Hamidon encounter
Hamidon is a level 45-50 raid encounter available separately to heroes and villains in the Hive and the Abyss zones, respectively. Hamidon only spawns when triggered by players. Hamidon spawns when a certain random number of DE monsters are defeated in the Hive/Abyss - the number is between about 8 and 50. After spawning, Hamidon stays up until defeated or server reset. While Hamidon is up, all DE monsters flee to large doors in the zone and disappear - they return immediately upon Hamidon's defeat.
The Hive and Abyss zones have a 50-player limit. They will spawn a second instance for the 51st player. Players can be locked out if they leave zone and someone else enters, so leaving the zone during a raid is not advised.
Since everything in the Hamidon encounter is level 50, players below 50 should be sidekicked up if possible. Level 50s are the most useful, not least of all because they don't care about debt.
The actual Hamidon monster consists of several parts:
- A large purple nucleus (Hamidon)
- 6 yellow mitos (Mitochondria Antibodies)
- 6 blue mitos (Mitochondria Electrolytes)
- 6 green mitos (Mending Mitochondria)
The mitos are arranged in 3 hexagonal rings around the nucleus, with greens on the inside, blues in the middle, and yellows on the outside. All mitos appear to be flying, but are actually perched on small invisible platforms. Mitos do not move and cannot be moved.
All mitos are believed to have mag 100 protection from hold and stun. Effects like sleep, fear, and caging have not been well tested because they are harder to stack in large amounts. Mitos are permanently immobilized, so controllers should always get containment damage. All mitos have extraordinarily high perception, 7845 HP, no damage resistance beyond the scaling they get for being purple con, and not much regen. They do not appear to require endurance for any powers.
The yellows, blues, and the nucleus all have attacks using "electrolytic damage", a special damage type not resisted by any normal powers. These attacks can hit entities under the intangible state, so illusion decoys, phase shift, and hibernate provide no protection. The only source of protection is a special inspiration called "Essence of the Earth" (EoE) that gives a character their archetype resistance max for 60 seconds against this damage (but not any secondary mez effects). There is a very rare bug where an EoE activates but seems to provide no resistance. No steps to reproduce this bug have been found; it appears to be random.
Essence of the Earth can be collected by defeating DE monsters in the Hive, the Abyss, Monster Island, or the north islands of Peregrine. When a monster dies, every player on a team that did damage gets a % chance of getting an EoE drop. Since the monsters always drop one regular inspiration, players must have 2 insp slots open to receive an EoE. EoEs can be traded, stored in SG bases, or bought/sold on the consignment house like any inspiration.
Powers of the individual pieces:
Yellow mitos
A ranged AoE with a massive range and very large area firing every 4 seconds for 522 + 5 ticks of 32 electrolytic damage, a knockback of greater than mag 12 (knockback IOs are generally not useful, but all knockback protection powers are enough), and a mag 6 stun. This attack is not autohit but has a chance to hit of 95% even against a character at the +def cap to all positional types. The yellows also have a PBAoE damage aura that ticks for 32 damage about twice a second and inflicts a mag 3 stun. In many cases, scrappers or brutes with the basic level of stun protection (mag -10.38) have reported sometimes being stunned by the AoE + PBAoE of a single yellow. There may be random duration variations that cause the stuns to stack beyond this level. Tanks, regen scrappers with resilience, or anyone with a clear mind-level buff (mag -12.975) is generally protected, although multiple yellow mitos can add up quickly.
Yellow mitos have very high defense against ranged and AoE. It appears that being at the to-hit cap gives a 95% chance to hit, but anything less will be floored at 5% * accuracy. Geas of the Kind Ones, blaster aim + build up, or other suitably high to-hit buffs can allow ranged attackers to hit.
Blue mitos
A single target attack firing every 8 seconds for 159 electrolytic damage, -20 endurance, -7.16mph movement speed, -50% recharge, and a chance of approximately 25-33% for a mag 7 fear lasting 4 seconds. The attack randomly bounces between targets like chain lightning. The combat log hit/miss rolls suggest that it has a 33% chance to bounce. The blues also have a heavy PBAoE endurance drain aura, possibly with an additional slow or chance to fear component.
Blue mitos have very high defense against melee and AoE, on the same level as the yellow mito defense.
Green mitos
A ranged single-target heal for 1205 that fires about every 5 seconds, and a PBAoE heal for 321 every 7 seconds. The single-target heal range is enough to hit any other mito.
A single-target attack firing every 6 seconds for 102 + 5 ticks of 16 toxic damage, plus a stacking -0.83% regen debuff and an estimated -75% heal debuff. This attack does not generate a hit/miss text in the combat log. It may respect some form of positional defense, because tanks with heavily stacked +def from Fortitude have reported a large number of "deflected" messages that must be coming from blue mito bounces, green mito attacks, or both.
Green mitos have a toggle shield that grants very high damage resistance and regen until the mito is held. This shield is visible as a transparent forcefield around the mito. Endurance drain does not turn the shield off.
Nucleus
A ranged AoE blast for 522 electrolytic damage, plus a knockback similar to the yellows, alternated with a single target attack for 522 plus a DoT of 10 ticks of 80 electrolytic damage. The single-target attack has a long lasting and stacking -0.21% regen debuff and -10% heal debuff. Both attacks are autohit.
The nucleus has 47,120 HP, very high damage resistance to all attacks, and very high regen.
The bubble of protoplasm encompassing the nucleus and the mitos grants a -7.16mph movement speed debuff and a +159.68ft jump height buff to anyone inside it.
The primary defensive power of the nucleus is its ability to respawn new sets of mitos. This ability is triggered when the nucleus reaches 75%, 50%, and 25% HP. When triggered, this power spawns an additional 6 yellows, 6 blues, and 6 greens in the same basic layout - with the rings rotated a bit so the new mitos are separated from any remaining old mitos. Fortunately, the respawn power does not recharge, so when the nucleus is brought down to 75% a second time, nothing happens. The devs have stated that this mechanism is intended to force the raid to take a certain amount of time, and there is no way to prevent the respawn. Therefore, the basic raid process involves defeating 4 sets of mitos in total.
When Hamidon is defeated, every player in the zone who did damage to the nucleus gets a reward screen allowing them to choose a random Hami-O, random pool D recipe, or an SO. The Hami-O and recipe rewards are on separate 24 hour per-character lockout timers. The Hamidon buds that used to spawn after Hamidon's defeat have been removed. Hamidon can be respawned immediately by defeating more monsters.
2. History, credits, and stuff
Issue 9 Hamidon is an enormous change from the old raid encounter, requiring radically new strategy. Many people have been involved in coming up with ideas and testing them, publicly or otherwise. My primary contribution, while I9 was on test, was advocating the idea that all 6 yellows and the nucleus had to be attacked simultaneously. Most of the strategy follows directly from that concept.
Most of the advancements since then, particularly the use of stacked Regeneration Auras and the idea of attacking all 6 blue mitos to divert healing away from the yellows, came from Virtue's raid community.
3. Hero strategy overview
1. Tank Hamidon and each of the 6 yellow mitos separately.
2. Kill the yellow and green mitos. Then kill the blue mitos.
3. Beat Hamidon down to the next spawn point, run away, regroup, and repeat.
Step 1 is the core of the entire strategy. If you cannot accomplish step 1, do not attempt step 2. Multiple yellow mitos shooting at your raid will wipe you, 100% of the time.
Step 2 can be done either yellows-first, greens-first, or just a mix depending on the AT balance. If you have lots of melees, do yellows-first. If you have lots of controllers and ranged damage, do greens-first.
The staging point should be everyone on south rock to maximize the AoE buffs. Some tanks or scrappers may have to travel a long way to reach their targets, but the buffs are more important.
The classic countdown is as follows:
1 minute to go - begin single-target buffs (CM, SB, etc.)
30 seconds to go - oil slick + kinetic buffs if available
20 seconds to go - all AoE aura buffs (RA, AM)
15 seconds to go - Hami tank(s) pop EoE and go
10 seconds to go - yellow mito tanks/scrappers go
0 seconds - main force go
4a) Hamidon aggro team
At least one tank and one empath. Typical public raids will want at least 3 tanks, 2 empaths, and a speed booster.
The following buffs are mandatory:
- EoE at a rate of one per minute. (It would be possible, but not easy, to use a rapid tank rotation and other buffs to do without EoE.)
- Clear mind or equivalent. As the first person into the goo, a hami tank will take a minimum of mag 36 stun from the yellows' alpha strike, and probably mag 14 or 21 fear from the blues.
- Real knockback protection.
The following buffs are recommended:
- Endurance drain protection. 6 blues doing -20 endurance each is 120 endurance lost. If you don't care about your toggles for mez protection, this may not be an issue.
- Slow protection, e.g. speed boost.
- Toxic resistance.
- Very high +def vs. all positional types.
- As much +regen as possible, even beyond the cap.
- A +HP power.
In general, a tank with EoE, 2 power-boosted Fortitudes and Adrenaline Boosts, Clear Mind, and stacked Regen Aura can survive against Hamidon and the green and blue mitos more or less indefinitely as long as most of the yellow mitos are being tanked by someone else and the buffs get refreshed from time to time. The tank will quickly be under a -100% heal debuff, but stacked regen buffs can outweigh the regen debuffs and keep the tank alive. Once the green mitos are down, two Adrenaline Boosts and no EoE is usually enough to keep up with all of Hamidon's damage by simple regen.
Stone tanks with Rooted, Granite, and Earth's Embrace have the most advantages, but Invuln and Ice are fine. Fire suffers because of its lack of +HP and reliance on a self heal that won't work. Ice can use Hibernate to get better +regen at the cost of not being able to refresh any outside buffs.
For less ideal setups, a tank with EoE and enough mez protection to stay upright can usually tank for a minute or two before needing replacement. If the yellow mitos are allowed to shoot at a single tank for more than a few seconds, this life expectancy goes down rapidly.
Punching Hamidon will hold aggro just fine until the raid reaches the point of actually attacking him. Taunt is, as always, the gold standard. Be aware of the position of the other raid teams and keep the AoE away from them. Most of the time a ranged team will start on the south side and circle around.
4b) Yellow mito aggro team
There are many possible configurations of yellow aggro control, ranging from integrating it with scrapper teams who are killing yellow mitos to having a separate team of tanks and support whose only job is to hold aggro.
Anyone trying to hold aggro needs to realize that yellow mitos have very high ranged and AoE defense. Anything other than taunt (autohit) or melee attacks will hold practically NO aggro. Even taunt by itself is often insufficient, because the duration is scaled down against the purple con mitos. When in doubt, punch the mito.
It is possible, by using EoE and very carefully refreshed clear mind buffs to have one tank hold aggro on two or even three yellow mitos. Aside from the increased drain on EoEs, it requires constant running back and forth to keep up enough aggro. Stone tanks generally can't do this because they can't melee the mitos and can't move around fast enough.
In most cases, one scrapper or tank per one yellow mito is a better idea. A scrapper (unless they are /regen with Resilience) will need a bit of extra stun protection from clear mind or O2 boost to ensure they don't get stunned. Clear mind will also protect from fear, which can be a big hassle. After a few minutes, endurance drain will often become an issue as well. Roving empaths and kins handing out buffs can make a big difference.
Ways to survive against one yellow mito:
- Stacked regen aura. For the first 90 seconds, having at least 2 (slotting dependent, so preferably 3 minimum to be safe) Regen Auras on everyone is enough to survive.
- One Adrenaline Boost is borderline. On a tank it may keep up; on a scrapper it usually won't.
- Instant Healing, with Dull Pain up and suitable slotting, can just barely keep up.
- With an EoE, the rate of incoming damage can be overcome by any regen buff or the occasional heal.
- Direct healing. One empath spamming heal other will usually fall behind, but there are lots of tricks like using Absorb Pain to catch up (much easier on a tank, with more spare HP) or even using Geas to just heal faster. Empaths trying to do this need to clear mind each other to avoid blue mito fear or accidental yellow splash shutting them down.
The most common ways used in practice are:
Lone Regen scrapper: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of IH, then EoEs
Other scrapper with empath: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of AB, then EoEs
Tank with empath: 90 seconds of regen aura, then 90 seconds of AB, then healing
4c) Yellow mito killers
Ideally, flying scrappers. Non-flying scrappers can jump to attack at a cost of lower DPS. Spines and claws scrappers need to realize that their ranged and AoE attacks are not effective (this hits spines really hard). Non-stone tanks also work. In more elaborate raid strategies, using ranged attackers with suitably large tohit buffs is also an option.
Any team of yellow mito killers should have 1-2 empaths or storms for stun protection, healing, and maybe a rez. If the raid has tanks taunting the yellow mitos from a distance, the yellow killers only have to endure the PBAoE damage; otherwise they have to look at the above section and figure out how to stay alive against the full damage output of a yellow.
After the yellows are down, this team or teams can help with the greens and blues.
A common setup is 2 yellow teams of 5-7 scrappers + 1-3 support each, dividing the yellows between them. On each team, 2 scrappers (usually regen) are sent to tank one yellow each while the rest of the team focuses on killing the third.
Another setup is a separate aggro team of 4 tanks or regen scrappers with up to 4 support that tank the 4 yellows farthest from south rock, and then 1 or 2 scrapper teams that start by killing the front 2 mitos and circling around.
Any yellow team support characters need to keep a safe distance from any yellow mito AoE blasts, and buff each other to avoid stuns and fears. After the yellows are down they should support the Hami tanks.
If the ranged teams can prevent the green mitos from healing the yellows, a dozen melees can clear the yellows within 2 minutes. If the yellows are being healed, this can quickly stretch out to "forever".
4d) Ranged teams
All remaining controllers, blasters, defenders, kheldians, etc. form the rest of the raid. Pets (except Phantom Army, which can steal aggro and contributes very little in the way of damage), debuffs, and AoEs are all fine, since aggro is being controlled. Spamming AoE heals is not a high priority. If the ranged teams are taking fire from Hami or a yellow mito, the solution is to fix the aggro teams.
The objectives of the ranged teams are to kill the green mitos and prevent them from healing the yellows. These objectives can be separated.
If you have 8+ controllers and 8+ blasters you can kill greens one by one relatively quickly. In this case the constant attacks being directed at greens and the steady decrease in the number of greens alive is enough to stop them from healing the yellows, although a few heals usually get through when the ranged teams go from one target to the next. If the ranged team is not getting the greens down FAST, fall back on the next paragraph.
If you don't have that many controllers or blasters a better tactic is to forget about attacking the greens for the moment and spread out the ranged team to attack ALL of the blue mitos simultaneously. Since greens heal the nearest target that needs healing, a constant barrage on all 6 blues will keep them busy. Actually killing blues is a bonus if it happens, but it is more important to keep all 6 under fire. Once all the yellows are down, regroup and re-focus all of the ranged power on killing the greens.
Or go for a hybrid approach where controllers hold one green (and maybe hammer it with pets or attacks) while blasters spread out to put pressure on all 6 blues.
During the attack on Hamidon, anyone with recall friend should move to a safe distance. Ideally, every team should have a recaller to speed up the regroup.