Guide to the Imperious Strike/Task Force
By
Alexandria2000,
Posted on: 2008-05-15 24:15 in Player Guides
Team: 1 Debuffer (Dark Defender); 7 Damage (1 Stalker, 1 Brute, 1 Blaster, 4 Scrappers).
The damage dealers were able to take out Romulus #1 quite handily without the -Regen.
For the final quartet, we all gathered together and didn't bother to even try to separate them. As long as everyone was on the same target, it went down quickly. What hurt us was the death-stun which allowed Romulus to beat up on us without the Dark heals. But, that's what Dark Rez is for.
So, the tactic of separation isn't always necessary if you can outdamage the heals.
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one thing to remember about the healing nictus. it gets aoe power from all nearby units including your team. the closer more people are to it, the more heals will go off. this makes having everyone pull out their pets tough if the healing nictus isnt taken down first.
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This clarifies something I've been curious about.
I've done the ITF 4 times on 4 different toons, all successful though all were a slog at the end. Some have reported being unable to defeat the Nicti no matter what they did. Many have claimed to be multi-year vets with more of the same on their team and STILL are unable to win the final round.
So what if their problem is popping out every temp pet they have (a perfectly sound strategy in most AV battles) which increases the Nictus healing rate? Now I have yet another thing to test lol...
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Mission 3:
(Facing the cliff wall)
- Pull Romulus to the right side of the cliff ledge above him. This will single pull him guaranteed.
- Pull Requiem to the left side of the cliff ledge where there is a small V-shaped indention. Pull Requiem into that indention and he won't slide off like he does at other parts of the cliff.
Mission 4:
Healing Essence
- Heals itself for double what it heals it's allies, so targeting it specifically is pointless
- Heal strength varies based on number of players hit in it's 70 ft radius
- 100% immune to debuffs so don't even bother trying to -heal debuff it.
Strategy: Ignore it, let Romulus consume it when he dies and resurrects
Mire Essence
- does a high damage and EXTREMELY accurate PbAoE damage attack that variable buffs Romulus's ToHit and Damage
- once again 100% immune to debuffs so don't even bother
Strategy: separate it from Romulus if your team is very melee heavy, otherwise ignore it since it's the first essence that gets consumed by his Rez.
Spawn Essence
- Spawns a bunch of nictus essences to attack, identical to what Shadow Cyst Crystals do
- 100% immune to debuffs, but it does help to use it as an anchor for debuff toggles since you'll automatically debuff it's spawns when it activates it's power
Strategy: Kill this Essence first if you have a lot of squishy players or not enough +DEF or +RES buffs. Otherwise ignore it.
Romulus
- NOT immune to debuffs and goes down fast because of this
- When he dies, he will Resurrect by consuming of the Nictus Essence AVs. When an Essence dies it will do a large radius stun. Distance yourself at least 80 ft from any essence to avoid getting hit by it since there is a delay before Rom rezes
- at certain points of his HP he will cause up to 3 ambushs of Cimerorans to spawn. This only applies to the first time you kill him.
Strategy: place debuffs on Romulus and focus fire entirely on him until ambushs come. When the ambushs spawn eliminate the Surgeons IMMEDIATELY. Romulus should fall easily. Repeat 3 more times.
My VG/SG has just been killing the TG'ing Nictus first, followed up with the other 2, no particular order. Last ITF was finished in 48 min for the entire thing.
I'm finding it easier than killing Romulus 3 times, but we'll give that a go. We've yet to develop a strategy that we're completely happy with.
Baseline setup is:
Fire/Psi Dom
Fire/Rad Corr
Dark/Cold Corr
Fire/Rad Corr
We'll fill in slots as people are available. After we've done it 10 times, I think we should be able to post our strategy here also.
The essences are immune to -res debuffs, so it's in your best interest to focus on Romulus who isn't immune to them. You're only worry should be surviving the mire and spawn essences and killing the surgeons in the ambush spawns (who do percent based Heal Other).
Here is the order in which he consumes essences:
- Mire essence
- Spawn essence
- Heal essence
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Here is the order in which he consumes essences:
- Mire essence
- Spawn essence
- Heal essence
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I dunno, I think it's random, on a run or two I've done I've seen the healing essence get absorbed first.
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Here is the order in which he consumes essences:
- Mire essence
- Spawn essence
- Heal essence
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I dunno, I think it's random, on a run or two I've done I've seen the healing essence get absorbed first.
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might be. past 3 times though it was always the heal one last for me.
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I did the ISF the other day, the healing nictus wasn't healing itself at all, or any of the other Nicti. Considering we saw spams of over 1000 points healed per heal cycle on it, that would of easily meant any damage we did would of been nullified.
However I did notice that while the healing nictus was up, the other Nicti seemed to have an increased regen. I was too busy spamming debuffs with my Spider or else I would of actually opened up my combat window to look at this.
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the nictus was definatly healing itself.
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Well we defeated this again last night, team had myself as Rad Corr, 3 tankers and an Empath, others dropped.
After a few minor complications, the tanks were able to effectively split the nicti and Rom and keep them apart. Then we did things in this order:
1. The Spawn Nictus went first
2. The Mire Nictus went 2nd.
3. One Tank kept healer away from Rom but within line of sight of Rom
4. Rest of us smashed Rom and the ambushers.
5. Healer merges with Rom to restore him
6. Smashed Rom again.
7. Killed the remaining 300 that we needed.
Did the run tonight. The original guide was great, but did want to add a 'fair warning'.
We did ours tonight with 4 tanks, 2 blasters, a /kin defender and a bots/poison MM.
We got hit much harder than expected when we approached the AVs because the NPC Imperius decided to do a Doc Delilah and charge in, thus stomping on our initial strategy.
We regrouped and implemented our initial strategy, which was to focus through one tank, let our meat walls take the heat, and whack each Nictus in turn. Worked like a charm. We did toss out some shivans and a couple of nukes, but that's about it.
So, note: *Don't* take Imperius with you on the last charge. Lose him somewhere, let him die, but don't take him with you unless you want a meltdown.
Thanks for the guide and for all the suggestions thereafter! It was a huge help!
Edit: For the record, this is a FANTASTIC task force. Lots of work, takes some strategy, but workable by thinking through it and using good teamwork - our favorite kind of TF.
~Elizabeth
Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so! -Elastigirl
The SOLUS Foundation - http://www.solusfoundation.com
A Liberty-based bastion, seven years strong.
Nictus healing itself. Having a team of melee and pet users made this excessively difficult despite relative ease in the rest of the missions.
so far i did this 3 times successfully with different toons. what we always ended up doing is just killing romulus 4 times. have a brute or tanker keeping romulus busy, and another brute/tanker keeping the nictuses busy and away from romulus. then keep whacking rom till he dies, rinse repeat 3 more times. this is by far the easiest way to do it, in my experience.
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so far i did this 3 times successfully with different toons. what we always ended up doing is just killing romulus 4 times. have a brute or tanker keeping romulus busy, and another brute/tanker keeping the nictuses busy and away from romulus. then keep whacking rom till he dies, rinse repeat 3 more times. this is by far the easiest way to do it, in my experience.
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Yep we generally just ignore the essences entirely and complete it just fine doing it this way.
Did the TF 3 times so far and tried the "kill Romulus 4 times" way instead of "kill 3 nictus then romulus" on the 2nd run!
What strike me is that i joined total Pug team with "agains the odd" AT setup! and all the runs where shorter then expected and had no issue completing it at all!
After reading the initial guide, i was expecting team to "get" the point on "the mez" thing pretty fast! Well, was more like :
- 1st team, quote "that guide is innacurate all 3 nictus stunt m
mag12 or somthing"
- 2nd team , quote "Romulus stunt everytime he die" (that time we went to kill Romulus 4 times, i think the guy had no idea there is the "kill 3 nictus" way!
- 3rd team, tank agroed, we had no plan... tank kept Romulus busy, rest of team killed the nictus pretty fast... That was an interesting team btw, 3 tank, 1 scrapper, 1 emp, 1 blaster, 2 widow (and 1h38 run),
On that 3rd team... was pretty much of a mess(for the last fight), but we had no issue staying alive, i think noone died in fact. So in that mess ive no idea witch one of the nictus we killed first, im pretty sure we killed the spawner last, and we got stunt each time, ... well by then i learned to pop a breakfree b4 they blow, when i have one!
Question: do they all do an aoe mez mag12 on dying on there is just one, like stated in the original guide ?
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I only noticed one massive stun, so would assume that is the case.
~Elizabeth
Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so! -Elastigirl
The SOLUS Foundation - http://www.solusfoundation.com
A Liberty-based bastion, seven years strong.
Romulus activates a power that targets a Nictus Essence and Kills it.
Nictus Essence triggers Howling Twilight when it dies and thusly resurrects Romulus only (since Essences don't leave corpses) and stuns the team at the same time. If you kill a nictus it still casts HT and stuns the team but Romulus of course doesn't rez since he will obviously would already be alive.
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- 100% immune to debuffs so don't even bother trying to -heal debuff it.
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Have you tried?
Yesterday I had the /cold corr on our team use benumb on it, and it was doing 100 ish heals instead of 200ish. I'd say that means debuffs are working.
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One more question.
In LGTF, if you have a mixed team (hero/villain) and try to leave the zone, you get kicked from the team. Not a problem; you can buy inspirations there.
However, we've been looking around Cimerora and haven't found anyone who can sell inspirations. I'm told there are contacts inside the Midnight Club, but we weren't certain if going there would break up the team or not (and weren't going to experiment when we were on the AV of the last mission).
We decided to just do some additional mobs for the drops and combine what we got, but it would definitely have been quicker to restock, if we could.
Does anyone know if going to the Midnight Club mid-TF will break the team, and if the contacts there will sell during a TF as they will in the RWZ? Thanks.
~Elizabeth
Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so! -Elastigirl
The SOLUS Foundation - http://www.solusfoundation.com
A Liberty-based bastion, seven years strong.
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- 100% immune to debuffs so don't even bother trying to -heal debuff it.
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Have you tried?
Yesterday I had the /cold corr on our team use benumb on it, and it was doing 100 ish heals instead of 200ish. I'd say that means debuffs are working.
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Also, I laid down a Tar Patch and was doing more damage to the Essences. So, -RESIST is working.
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One more question.
In LGTF, if you have a mixed team (hero/villain) and try to leave the zone, you get kicked from the team. Not a problem; you can buy inspirations there.
However, we've been looking around Cimerora and haven't found anyone who can sell inspirations. I'm told there are contacts inside the Midnight Club, but we weren't certain if going there would break up the team or not (and weren't going to experiment when we were on the AV of the last mission).
We decided to just do some additional mobs for the drops and combine what we got, but it would definitely have been quicker to restock, if we could.
Does anyone know if going to the Midnight Club mid-TF will break the team, and if the contacts there will sell during a TF as they will in the RWZ? Thanks.
~Elizabeth
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I can confirm that TPing into the D does not break the team, so I would assume that the Club works the same way.
The killing of Romulus three times works wonderfully. And the stun time really wasn't all that bad, even for my toggle heavy team.
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I can confirm that TPing into the D does not break the team, so I would assume that the Club works the same way.
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Awesome. Thanks so much. We're going to run another mixed team this afternoon, and it's a lot easier to stock up that way.
~Elizabeth
Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don't think so! -Elastigirl
The SOLUS Foundation - http://www.solusfoundation.com
A Liberty-based bastion, seven years strong.
My testing on Romo (mission #4):
Easily confused and will attack Nictus but couldn't finish them off (barely dented the things)
They can NOT heal off of PA (Had a little argument with the team leader about that one. Nice to be right.)
This was done after the rest of the team left and I was the only one in the mission. I recommend 1 RANGE in Confuse so that you fly above but just out of the healing Nictus' agro range.
Small hint - if Romulus's ambush spawns cause you problems, try beating him until he summons them and then run away, breaking their aggro.
Once you lose aggro, the ambush returns to its spawn point to the left of the temple, and does not stick by Romulus. From now on, any time Romulus gets to low health he'll try to bring in the ambush, but since one has already spawned nothing will come.
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Just defeated it again, seperated Romulus from the Nictus and pummeled him while a tanker kept the Nictus occupied.
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Emphasis mine. I can see how just smishin' Romulus four times could be an effective way to go about finishing the TF.
But that's assuming the group has a way to keep the Nictus occupied. Our group didn't really have that option.
So, in a case like ours, goin' after the Nictus first does work.
But if anyone has to do it that way, I strongly suggest tackling the Healing Nictus first... and debuff the crap out of its accuracy if you can.
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