Guide to the Imperious Strike/Task Force
By
Alexandria2000,
Posted on: 2008-05-15 24:15 in Player Guides
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You can also just kill the crystals and run away. The ambushers stop where the team was standing when the crystal died. If you aren't standing there they won't come looking for you.
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not always true. We've had them spawn on far off AFK teammates instead and directly on top of us as well.
The strategy for our first time through mirrored Rial's group.
We tried it once by taunting away the Nicti; didn't work. We put our heads together and decided to just bring in what we had and all of us target through our lead tank, who held the aggro and beat 'em down with whatever range we had.
Things went very smoothly after that.
However, the lack of inspirations for a mixed team is still a problem. I have not tried going to the base to see if that breaks the team, but it's a real pain (and rather silly) that we can't buy them there. Someone mentioned going to Pocket D. While you can teleport to the D and not break the team, but there's no way back to the zone.
~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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The strategy for our first time through mirrored Rial's group.
We tried it once by taunting away the Nicti; didn't work. We put our heads together and decided to just bring in what we had and all of us target through our lead tank, who held the aggro and beat 'em down with whatever range we had.
Things went very smoothly after that.
However, the lack of inspirations for a mixed team is still a problem. I have not tried going to the base to see if that breaks the team, but it's a real pain (and rather silly) that we can't buy them there. Someone mentioned going to Pocket D. While you can teleport to the D and not break the team, but there's no way back to the zone.
~Elizabeth
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Cimeroa is a co-op zone. If you go to your base you will break the team. You CAN return to the Midnight Club since it is a Co-op zone but I dont recall the store there providing inspirations.
Unless your team is all one faction, there is no inspiration store available during the Strask Force, except through the kindness of strangers or second accounts willing to donate or sell insps to you in Cimerora or the MC.
Hey, waitasec, I have an idea for a business...
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Couple of things to add.
Romy, besides, black hole, can be dention fielded. Seen that work like a charm. Oops more useless powers working well or better than expected...lol. (Alot of that useless power thing, I really think came from the old i4 days of tankers herding, and the game has changed) I suspect you could Dimension shift him too.
On a co-op Tf, if you zone or base it, you will be kicked. If you have a all faction team, then you can shiva run or do what ever. The co-op teams will kick if you zone.
I've done the ITF several times using both the 'Kill Rom 4 Times" and "Kill the Nictus" strategies. Killing the nictus seems to take longer. Can the nictus actually be debuffed enough to make a significant difference? And if so, which corr power does the best job?
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I've done the ITF several times using both the 'Kill Rom 4 Times" and "Kill the Nictus" strategies. Killing the nictus seems to take longer. Can the nictus actually be debuffed enough to make a significant difference? And if so, which corr power does the best job?
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My rad corr was use the last time I tried the Nictus first strategy. As I recall the Nictus were either highly resistant to debuffage if not outright immune. Romulus however is another matter.
Nowadays I just pummel Romulus into the dirt 4 times, much for satisfying. 
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My rad corr was use the last time I tried the Nictus first strategy. As I recall the Nictus were either highly resistant to debuffage if not outright immune. Romulus however is another matter.
Nowadays I just pummel Romulus into the dirt 4 times, much for satisfying.
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Not only more satisfying but more rewarding. You don't get xp, inf or drops from the nictus as far as I know. And yes, Rom can be debuffed and held. I've heard that some of the powers from the Cold Domination set (corr secondary) work on the nictus. I'm just trying to find out if that's true and how effective it is.
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My rad corr was use the last time I tried the Nictus first strategy. As I recall the Nictus were either highly resistant to debuffage if not outright immune. Romulus however is another matter.
Nowadays I just pummel Romulus into the dirt 4 times, much for satisfying.
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Not only more satisfying but more rewarding. You don't get xp, inf or drops from the nictus as far as I know. And yes, Rom can be debuffed and held. I've heard that some of the powers from the Cold Domination set work on the nictus. I'm just trying to find out if that's true and how effective it is.
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The Nict are virtually impervious to any debuffage from what I've seen. Better to just smash Romulus 4 times.
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My rad corr was use the last time I tried the Nictus first strategy. As I recall the Nictus were either highly resistant to debuffage if not outright immune. Romulus however is another matter.
Nowadays I just pummel Romulus into the dirt 4 times, much for satisfying.
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Not only more satisfying but more rewarding. You don't get xp, inf or drops from the nictus as far as I know. And yes, Rom can be debuffed and held. I've heard that some of the powers from the Cold Domination set work on the nictus. I'm just trying to find out if that's true and how effective it is.
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The Nict are virtually impervious to any debuffage from what I've seen. Better to just smash Romulus 4 times.
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It depends on what archetypes you have in your team how you go about doing this. All the guides I have read have a different strategy and claim it to be the best. I have done the TF three times (not claiming to be an expert) and each time went about it differently. First time we took out the nictus and then Rom last. It was quick and easy. Though I should explain that it was during beta, and at the time the healing nictus was not healing at the time. Second run we tried that and went for the spawning nictus first. We then took out the mire nictus and attempted at the healer. We were there for the longest time. Some of the team left. In the end we then went to rom and defeated him, let the nictus suicide res him and beat him up a second time. Third time we were in there for hours dying left and right. Everyone argued, "healing nictus first, healing nictus first." But he healed himself and every other av within the healing range. And I don't care what people say, you can argue with me till the end of time. That nictus healed himself and the others. And I checked the attributes of that twilight grasp, it's pretty wicked. So after six or seven wipes I decided to take charge and told everyone to get the summoning nictus first. If you are going to take out the nictus first I believe the spawning one is the primary target in debuff/buff heavy teams. People argue all the time about it, but taking it down first was our reason for victory in this instance. My reasoning: those nictus blasts have slow effects. The heals, taunts and holds were all affected by the slow and we just couldn't hold out. After that one was down everyone decided to go after rom again. We did, and got him down, the mire nictus ressed him. There was a surgeon, and the team argued who ressurected rom, but it was the nictus because at this point it was only rom and the healer. We then had a tank solo the healer while another tank pulled rom around the corner while close enough so the healer wouldn't follow him. Being around the corner, we were "blocked" targets and the nictus couldn't feed off all of us. We defeated rom again. At this point, he was out of range for the nictus to res him. At this point we all charged the healer and took it down VERY slowly. I would have preffered letting it res rom and fight him again.
There are many ways of going about it and I think any tactic that leads to victory is a good tactic. I don't believe there is a "perfect" way to do it after all I have read and experienced. You should go about it how it works best for your team whether you go for either of the nictus or rom first. Either way, it takes a bit of time and can be extra challenging. Just don't give up because it's obviously not impossible. Best of luck to everyone!
if i were to take down a nictus first, i agree, it should be the spwaning nictus. then the pbaoe nictus, then the healing nictus.
i think another alterante is kill the spawning, then the pbaoe, then rom, make him rez, then kill rom again. seriously though, the healing nictos is a PITA, so if you're down to rom and the healer, kill rom, then kill him again.
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My rad corr was use the last time I tried the Nictus first strategy. As I recall the Nictus were either highly resistant to debuffage if not outright immune. Romulus however is another matter.
Nowadays I just pummel Romulus into the dirt 4 times, much for satisfying.
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Not only more satisfying but more rewarding. You don't get xp, inf or drops from the nictus as far as I know. And yes, Rom can be debuffed and held. I've heard that some of the powers from the Cold Domination set work on the nictus. I'm just trying to find out if that's true and how effective it is.
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The Nict are virtually impervious to any debuffage from what I've seen. Better to just smash Romulus 4 times.
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It depends on what archetypes you have in your team how you go about doing this. All the guides I have read have a different strategy and claim it to be the best. I have done the TF three times (not claiming to be an expert) and each time went about it differently. First time we took out the nictus and then Rom last. It was quick and easy. Though I should explain that it was during beta, and at the time the healing nictus was not healing at the time. Second run we tried that and went for the spawning nictus first. We then took out the mire nictus and attempted at the healer. We were there for the longest time. Some of the team left. In the end we then went to rom and defeated him, let the nictus suicide res him and beat him up a second time. Third time we were in there for hours dying left and right. Everyone argued, "healing nictus first, healing nictus first." But he healed himself and every other av within the healing range. And I don't care what people say, you can argue with me till the end of time. That nictus healed himself and the others. And I checked the attributes of that twilight grasp, it's pretty wicked. So after six or seven wipes I decided to take charge and told everyone to get the summoning nictus first. If you are going to take out the nictus first I believe the spawning one is the primary target in debuff/buff heavy teams. People argue all the time about it, but taking it down first was our reason for victory in this instance. My reasoning: those nictus blasts have slow effects. The heals, taunts and holds were all affected by the slow and we just couldn't hold out. After that one was down everyone decided to go after rom again. We did, and got him down, the mire nictus ressed him. There was a surgeon, and the team argued who ressurected rom, but it was the nictus because at this point it was only rom and the healer. We then had a tank solo the healer while another tank pulled rom around the corner while close enough so the healer wouldn't follow him. Being around the corner, we were "blocked" targets and the nictus couldn't feed off all of us. We defeated rom again. At this point, he was out of range for the nictus to res him. At this point we all charged the healer and took it down VERY slowly. I would have preffered letting it res rom and fight him again.
There are many ways of going about it and I think any tactic that leads to victory is a good tactic. I don't believe there is a "perfect" way to do it after all I have read and experienced. You should go about it how it works best for your team whether you go for either of the nictus or rom first. Either way, it takes a bit of time and can be extra challenging. Just don't give up because it's obviously not impossible. Best of luck to everyone!
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I think the key here in all of your situations was to take Rom away from the fight period whether that's by not targeting him, or pulling him away out of aura range. I only base this off my latest ITF run where I occupied him while the rest of the team nailed the healing nictus first. I suppose the healing nictus only reacts to damage going to Rom, but otherwise has no feelings of self-preservation it seems.
Anyways, whatever works and gets the job done is all that matters.
Once again, if you're trying to take down any of the Nictus Essences then you are doing it wrong. Fastest and safest way to complete this encounter is to focus entirely on killing Romulus 4 times after pulling him to the top of the left/right tower.
I have done the ITF several times on both test and live. I've used a fire/thermal/soul corr, ice/thermal/mu corr, ice/ice/mu dom and a dark/dark/mu brute. The next time I'll use my dark/ice corr.
Results: I cannot hold the minotaurs or cyclops with soul storm or any of the ice holds. I can hold them with my dark brute's fear powers though. The bosses in the black and gold armor with the red capes were seldom held with the ice powers or soul storm, but were slowed. They were immob with the midnight grasp. Romans seem to have less resistance to negative energy than they have to fire or ice.
I've heard the nictus can be debuffed with cold powers like benumb...still waitng for confirmation. Anyone? Or maybe I'll have to find out on my own. 
I disagree with those who say there's a wrong way to do this TF. I just think there are different ways that work better depending on which ATs you have on your team.
P.S. Whenever I've died on the last mission, it's been from the summoning nictus' pets. (Or is that something I shouldn't admit to? 
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Once again, if you're trying to take down any of the Nictus Essences then you are doing it wrong. Fastest and safest way to complete this encounter is to focus entirely on killing Romulus 4 times after pulling him to the top of the left/right tower.
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I agree with Turbo_Ski, Romulus is the one that can be debuffed and easiest to take down. Plus people have problems targeting the correct nictus. Either way, you are killing four of something.
Are you saying that if your tank pulls Romulus to the top of either the left or the right tower the Nicti cannot follow and if you break line of sight between the Nicti and Romi he will not rez? I have tried this TF twice and ech time we could not separate Rom and the Nicti in any significant way. I would like to know. I would also like to know has anyone tried detention field or the sonic equivalent on either the nictus or Romi? I made an alt specifically to use those powers for this fight and want to know if it is worth leveling the toon.
Master Gabriel
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Are you saying that if your tank pulls Romulus to the top of either the left or the right tower the Nicti cannot follow and if you break line of sight between the Nicti and Romi he will not rez? I have tried this TF twice and ech time we could not separate Rom and the Nicti in any significant way. I would like to know. I would also like to know has anyone tried detention field or the sonic equivalent on either the nictus or Romi? I made an alt specifically to use those powers for this fight and want to know if it is worth leveling the toon.
Master Gabriel
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Well Detention Field as I recall doesn't last very long on powerful foes but again it's been sometime since I dropped it on a respec so I can't be sure.
If Romulus is out of line of sight of any Nictus he will not rez, thus leaving you to contend with the Nictus themselves, which is not always a good thing and can be very bad if your team's DPS can't overcome the Heal Nictus' healing rate.
If Rom and the Heal Nictus are pulled too far apart the Heal Nictus automatically returns to him and must be split from him again.
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Are you saying that if your tank pulls Romulus to the top of either the left or the right tower the Nicti cannot follow and if you break line of sight between the Nicti and Romi he will not rez? I have tried this TF twice and ech time we could not separate Rom and the Nicti in any significant way. I would like to know. I would also like to know has anyone tried detention field or the sonic equivalent on either the nictus or Romi? I made an alt specifically to use those powers for this fight and want to know if it is worth leveling the toon.
Master Gabriel
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no, the nictus will follow but the Cimeroran ambush that Romulus spawns will not and the sharp corners of the building allows the team to break line of sight with the nictus but still be in line of sight of Romulus. The nictus will still be in Romulus's line of sight but not with the players' line of sight.
Okay here are a couple of things that I have learned from running this 22 times on live now. I have failed miserably 6 times and 2 of those times was because we lost key players. My toon that i use for this itf is Icemindz a non-perma dom, Ice/psi/MU.
I dont post here often and have been gone a while but there are many different ways to do this tf i have found out. I dont like TF's that favor certain AT's more than others for most of the team slots but when you do this TF you should have at least 1 healer and a kin or kin/healer, Debuffer and or buffer. 1 meatshield and one Dominator.
So thats one buffer, one healer type, one meatshield. One Dom or good control type toon. OR at the very least one meatshield and one healer, then anything else. Needless to say Kins make wonderful buffers paired w/dark primary or dark secondary toons. An emp helps out a lot with its ST heals. BUt as long as you have toons that meet these requirements you should have little trouble with the first 3 mishs IMHO. I aoe hold,we kill, AOe hold immobilze, we kill, wash rinse repeat up to last mish.
Here are the ways that we have Killed Romulus:
if you have 1 kin and one tank who can hold the healer nic aggro and /psi toon ( doesnt have to be but Drain psi makes a notable difference on how fast the av (ROm ) goes down) and the rest are Melle toons you can actually fight anyway you want as long as you stay close together. The damage output exceeds the healing rate of the nic and transfusion helps with the heals when you time it after the AOE hit mire attacks. Oh and god forbid the spawns are around when you hit fulcrim shift, lmao. BUt anyways that ended up being my fastest time yet at 1:37 min.
The longest run took us four hours because the tank did to good a job of holding the healer type aggro and when Rom died he was out of line of sight of the Nics and he despawned. WEll it took us forever to kill the healer since the team makeup only had one melle toon and kept healing off of everyone. I finaliy decided to have just the Robot MM attack at range with the Tank till he died. All the other toons just waited or jumped in and out and attacked between heals. So rememeber to have the person holding NIC aggro to run to ROM if it seems the other nics are to far away from him.
The other run we did was with more controller type toons, We Ran through the first 3 mishs the fastest but the last mish was a pain because we had Rom despawn again. 2 hours 16 min.
Another run had us at 2 hours but same setup as the before but in this case we had rom rez 3 times. Much faster btw.
All the other setups adhered to having a buff type toon, debuffer, meatshield and Dominator. Slows work well on all the mishs. And if you have Accolades its even better, probably more i want to to say and write but since Im in Japan atm I have to finish taking some calls cuz im stillat work, you can reach me here or at @lifewind. Hope what ever the hell i just wrote makes sense lol, im a bad typer. you all have a nice day.
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. I dont like TF's that favor certain AT's more than others for most of the team slots but when you do this TF you should have at least 1 healer and a kin or kin/healer, Debuffer and or buffer. 1 meatshield and one Dominator.
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I disagree. Any random assortment of fairly competent players can easily accomplish this Task Force. No tank, healer, nor dominator required. Don't even need to be "competent." Merely "close to competent" is enough.
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. I dont like TF's that favor certain AT's more than others for most of the team slots but when you do this TF you should have at least 1 healer and a kin or kin/healer, Debuffer and or buffer. 1 meatshield and one Dominator.
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I disagree. Any random assortment of fairly competent players can easily accomplish this Task Force. No tank, healer, nor dominator required. Don't even need to be "competent." Merely "close to competent" is enough.
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Gonna have to respectfully disagree there.
Level 35/36 team everybody set to heroic. All seemed to be good players, above what I would consider average pugers.
1 Necro/Storm MM
3 Crabs (all with team buffs)
1 Bane (with team buffs)
1 dark/dark stalker
Everybody I looked at had at least a few IO set bonuses, so I would think they have a bit more knowledge of the game than most.
We ran around with +60% def to all, and about +30% tohit. Some of the EB are slow because they hit their tier 9s, but it was pretty much a cake walk.
Until we hit the very end.
The nictus that does the mire.... it looks like its auto hit or has a super high tohit. Without a taunter we could not split the group up, without our defense we got chewed up. The closest we got was bringing 1 nictus down to 50% health before 1/2 the team died. With no rezzer, the trip back and regroup means the AV was fully healed back up. If the mire nictus didnt have such a high chance tohit we could have won, but this one AV breaks def based toons hard. I hope its damage is unresistable so its fair, if not Castle you SUCK!
One person dropped after the fourth attempt at just trying to kill one nictus. I then dropped because I needed to go to bed (3 hours, I had heard this only took 2).
None of us looked at the guides because we didnt want to spoil the TF. Now it looks like I need to try it again with my 50 Ill/Rad just to get on a team. For the 30 minutes looking to join an ITF in the zone on Freedom, the 2 l50 teams that were trying to setup only wanted level 50 EMPs, or RADs. One of us level 35s got tired of not getting into a team, so we made our own. Only 4 of us, had to find 2 others out in the other zones to play. Its not as bad as the LRSF, but I imagine the more people fail the more they will cling to the must have sets.
I dont want this ITF to become easier for all... but I do think a few tweaks need to be made for the ... non optimal groups.
If the level of the ITF is 35-40, the end AVs get a -1 level mod.
level 41-45 level +0
level 46-49 level +1
level 50 level +2 (purple IOs FTW)
If the group size is 2-5, the end AVs get a -1 level.
6-7, level 0
8, level +1
Check out to make sure the mire nictus is fair for def based tons versus resistance based toons.
Bots/Traps Guide for I19.5
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So all you had to do was shoot Romulus and not stand next to any of them. Keep moving, keep shooting. Victory!
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So all you had to do was shoot Romulus and not stand next to any of them. Keep moving, keep shooting. Victory!
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We didnt read the guides so none of us had any clue about the kill romulus and he will rez minus one nictus. If the game had given us a clue about this then that would have been a good strategy.
The run and gun doesnt work so well when your buffs are all about staying close to each other. We all cant 6 box solo the ITF like you can.
Anyway either your statement of a group of any ATs with slightly competent players can solve it is a bit off... or you state that our group was not competent. To which I say :P
Our group was better than most PUGs I have been on in terms of normal zone mission content. Even taking 2 AVs out in the second to last mission was cake.
The near autohit high damage AOE mire in this case is probably what broke us.
Bots/Traps Guide for I19.5
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If you have a tank taunt run up the left side and taunt the healing nictus, and immediately fall off the top step to the left side, you can pull the healing nictus out of line of sight of romulus. At the same time, the rest of the team should aggro romulus and prevent him from following (easy if you have a second taunter).
With the healing nictus out of line of sight, romulus wont be healed by the nictus, and you can put rom down four times easy.
Just as a warning, before romulus goes down the third time, you need to bring the healing nictus back into line of sight of rom. If you do, rom will rez and the healing nictus will disappear, which makes for an easy fight. If the healing nictus does not have LoS to rom, then rom dies, does not rez, and you have to fight the healing nictus instead.
The healing nictus is a much more annoying fight than rom. I'm not sure what this business is about the healing nictus not healing itself; I'm darn sure it works like stygian circle power that works on living enemies because the more characters in range of it (i.e. in melee range), the more green healing numbers above it.
There are no hard iTrials, only hard peo-... er... wait.
You can also just kill the crystals and run away. The ambushers stop where the team was standing when the crystal died. If you aren't standing there they won't come looking for you.
Also, I added the Team Cheaty Face method which isn't going to work for 99 out of 100 pugs. Video and Guide included