The Arachnos Flier, White Whale of Grandville.
By
Ang_Rui_Shen,
Posted on: 2008-10-24 10:33 in Player Guides
"Rogue" <-- "Rouge"
Thank you for this brief yet informative guide.
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Nice read.
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"Rogue" <-- "Rouge"
[/ QUOTE ]
*facepalm* And here I am making fun of people who make this mistake! EDITS AHOY!
I find that if 2 to 3 team members are of the tough Brute (or equivalent thereof) type, they can keep the Flier diverted to attacking them on the ground while a 4th also handles the ground troops. The remaining team members should get to the air and however around or above it and attack at will.
Powers like hasten, or a kinetic's speed boost to boost attack rate or even Force of Nature accolade can be quite useful.
Also when I faced it on a team using my Turbo Stoner, someone from above used an attack that knocked the flier down to ground level so that I and other ground pounders could also smash the flier.
Well written. I'm still looking to grab this badge with my Stalker.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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Excellent short-guide, this will help me alot, and I know it will for others, too.
Just off doing it many times ive learned a quick way to find it is (if u have SJ or fly) jump up or fly into the air and hit tab a few times as you spin around. You should find it if you are at the Lord Recluse Statue. If nnting ot than start hopping around
Happy Hunting =)
In the one time that I actually had a decent chance to get the badge, I found out the Flier is extremely squishy. Well, extremely squishy compared to something like Deathsurge. 
It was my Brute, 1 Widow, and 1 /Thermal Corr. Between the three of us, with 2 Shivans out, we got it down to about 1/2-1/3rd life left on one stopover location, before it scampered off for parts unknown. Had we a bit more time or maybe 1 more Corr or Shivan, we would've gotten it taken down.
This is one GM that doesn't really need a full team to take down.
What is the Arachnos Flier?
The Arachnos Flier is a heavy combat/transport helicopter used primarily for troop deployment. Arachnos Fliers are seen commonly throughout the Rogue isles, having become Arachnos's primary method of transporting troops. Arachnos fliers are also quite capable in combat scenarios, posessing a heavy quad-barrel plasmatic channelgun turret, as well as a swarm missile projector and drone bay.
Of particular interest is the squadron of four Fliers that patrols the area of Grandville known as "The Gutter". Due to the large scale Arachnoid infestation, Arachnos has seen fit to periodically send one of four fliers into the gutter to eliminate Arachnoids en masse .
Okay, that's nice but what is it?
Sorry, got caught up in backstory there. Anyways, the Arachnos Flier is the Grandville zone event. Every 2-12 hours (real time) and at dusk (in game time), the Arachnos Flier spawns and begins a patrol of the gutters. Killing the Arachnos Flier awards the much coveted heat seeker badge, as well as a sizable amount of experience and infamy. Of particular note, the Arachnos Flier was bugged for a very long time, causing it to spawn only once per server cycle, or sometimes not at all. In addition, the Arachnos Flier is the only giant monster in the game capable of running away and despawning. Thus, the Arachnos Flier has garnered an almost mythic reputation for being notoriously difficult to kill. However, I hope to dispell those myths.
Cool, so where do I find it?
Locating the Arachnos flier is half the challenge, for while it always spawns in the same place (that big red window in the Grandville watchtower), it will move to one of several locations first based on its name. After all, there are actually four fliers (Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta) and each one has a completely different flight path. The Locations are:
<ul type="square">[*]South Ward: 237 yards southwest of the Spider City dot.[*]East Ward: 434 yards due northeast of the Spider City dot.[*]East ward 2: 692 yards northeast of Spider City dot.[*]North ward: 650 yards northeast of the Spider City dot.[*]East Beach: 700 yards directly east of the Spider City dot.[*]South Beach: 557 yards southwest of the Spider City dot.[*]North Beach: .62 miles northnortheast of the Spider City dot.[/list]While it is moving from location to location it will activate a power shield which renders it invulnerable to all attacks. When it arrives at a location it will stay there for approximately 3-5 minutes before moving to the next one.
Note that when it leaves this location it will NOT activate its power shield, meaning it is possible (but not likely) to get in a few shots and kill it while it is flying away. Eventually it will fly past the zone wall and despawn.
FLIGHT PLANS
Alpha:South Ward, East Ward 1, East Ward 2, North Ward.
Beta:North Ward, East Ward 2, East Ward 1, South Beach.
Delta:East Ward 1, South Ward, North Ward, East Beach.
Gamma:East Ward 2, South ward, East Ward 1, North Ward, North Beach.
So how do I kill it?
Ah, now we come to the heart of the matter. You see, because it works differently then other giant monsters, the traditional perceptions about fighting monsters do not apply. In short, you must realize two things:
THE KEY TO DEFEATING THE ARACHNOS FLIER IS SPEED.
You cannot approach the Arachnos flier with the same sort of trepidation that accompanies most other Giant Monster fights. You simply don't have the time to form a well balanced team, buff up, upgrade pets and all that. You have to form a team QUICKLY. Find your server's badge hunting channels and as soon as the zone event message for the flier appears, immediately start sending out broadcasts. Hopefully you should be able to assemble a team very quickly. Also turn to your supergroup, coalition, and broadcast channels. Don't worry about getting together a large well balanced team. As long as you have some aggro management, you could take down the flier with six people or even less.
When the flier moves from location to location one member of the team should activate fly and set it on follow (a jetpack will work fine also). Ideally the entire team does this, but if not the team member (or members) who are following should teleport the rest of the team to its new location (be it recall friend or the assemble the team veteran reward). If nobody has teleport, then the follower should just call out the location of the fliers next stop. If you can manage to get these steps down, you should have one half of the equation down, the other being realizing that:
THE ARACHNOS FLIER IS NOT A VERY TOUGH MONSTER.
Technically speaking, its not even a monster at all. Its classification in the target window says "transport". Whereas other giant monsters have very high regeneration rates, the regeneration rate of the Arachnos Flier is comparatively low. You dont need tons and tons of debuffs to kill this thing. All you really need is some aggro management, be it from a brute, MM pets, Arachnos Widow (who I hear make pretty good tanks), or hell, anyone who has lots of purples. Lets take a look at what this thing can actually do.
<ul type="square">[*]Energy blast: A quick single target pulse from the channelgun turret. Does moderate energy damage. This is honestly pretty wimpy as far as monster attacks go. A brute with enough toggles on should be able to shrug it off no sweat.[*]Energy Saturation: A cone spray of energy pulses from the channelgun turret. Does heavy energy damage. This one on the other hand, HURTS. However, its on a fairly long recharge timer so you should be able to heal before getting nailed with it again.[*]Swarm Missiles. A barrage of, well, missiles. I have honestly only seen the Flier use this attack once. Generally when engaged at close range it will just alternate between energy blast and energy saturation. The only time I ever saw it use this was when I was running away. I cant tell you much about it, but I can tell you that it hurt. Still, as long as you dont go running away, you shouldnt have to worry about this one.[*]Summon Bane Spiders. Generally the Arachnos flier will use this the first time it is aggroed on a drop point. It summons 7-12 level 50 Bane Spider Commandoes (via a very cool animation) who will then begin to attack anybody attacking the Flier. In all honesty, Bane Spider Commandoes are pretty wimpy. They only have two weak melee attacks and a weak ranged attack. However, they do also have web grenade, which can create problems. Because web grenade has a fly component, it can prevent you from following the Arachnos flier when it moves from site to site. Therefore, one member of the team should focus on taking out the Bane Spiders as quickly as possible before they web up the entire team (preferably one with heavy AOE capabilities.) Two more things about this attack. One, it will only use it once per drop site. Two, the bane spiders are level 50. So while any level villain can attack the flier and contribute equally, anyone under 45ish is going to get massacred by the bane spiders.[*]Summon Drones. The only time I have ever seen the Flier use this attack is when foes have moved out of range of all of its other attacks. Usually this means that you will only see it when it is leaving its final drop point on the beach and flying off into the wild blue (er red) yonder. All it does it summon a swarm of floating mines that will home in on any targets nearby, be they player or arachnoid. (They resemble the crab spider attack Omega Maneuver). Get close to them and they explode, doing LOTS of damage.Thankfully the mines move quite slowly, so all you have to do is steer clear.[/list]
So as you can see, the Arachnos flier only really has two attacks that it commonly uses, Energy blast and Energy Saturation. One of those is a single target and one is a cone. So in other words, the Arachnos Flier cannot directly attack every member of the team at once. All you have to do to avoid the cone attack in other words, is not to stand by the person who it is currently aggroed onto. One more thing about the flier. Because it is a FLIER, it will never completely touch down to earth during its patrols. Therefore, anyone who relies heavily on melee attacks is either going to have to hover near the flier (via fly, hover or a flight temporary power) or jump to hit it.
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