So frustrating


Aura_Familia

 

Posted

Why does it seem like everything post lvl 45 has Epic Bosses in it?

I like teaming, but I also like playing solo, but it seems as though higher level missions are designed not to be soloable, at least for certain ATs, unless you have your powers uber slotted.

Why, when I am set to the lowest difficulty level, am I getting missions with two or more Epic Bosses in them? I'm looking at you Sister Airlia. Even if a mission is the final part of a story arc, multiple EBs on villainous? Seriously?

So basicially, I have two missions out of three that I am either forced to find someone to complete them for me, or I drop them, or I go do other stuff until I have outleveled them and therefore have a chance at completing them.

I neither expect, nor want, everything to be a cake-walk, but I'd like to think I have a chance of soloing an arc on the lowest setting without getting my butt handed to me multiple times.

I would also, for the record, LOVE some cheese with my whine.


(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon

 

Posted

Elite Boss*


If an arc or mission is supposed to have an Arch-Villain in it, they downgrade to the easier, more solo friendly, yet still challenging Elite Boss.

There are many ways to easily deal with Elite Bosses while solo depending on your archetype, bring a shivan, pop a few purples and carry greens.


 

Posted

Difficulty level has no impact on EBs except to demote AVs to EBs. By your upper 40s, you should be able to solo EBs fine no matter what your AT, though...

( I think this is different for MA missions. EBs get lowered to Lt's? Bosses? )




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Avatar art by Daggerpoint

 

Posted

Well some may be a royal PITA while soloing even as EBs. Nosferatu for one, Madame of Mystery is another.


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Posted

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Well some may be a royal PITA while soloing even as EBs. Nosferatu for one, Madame of Mystery is another.

[/ QUOTE ]

And don't forget the Envoy of Shadow. My Fire/Energy Blaster was proving to be an unstoppable force up until that point. It was soooooo humiliating being spanked by 2 tons of roast beef.


 

Posted

Pffff. I can solo Envoy on an emp.

Okay I kept *falling off the damn cliff* every time... lol.


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Repurposed

 

Posted

I must be really gimped or something then because even with

domination up
demonic and charged armor running
fiery embrace popped
three small purples
two small oranges
a medium yellow
a medium red
and a confused Immunes Surgeon healing me

I can't get Polyphemus down below half his hp before he kills me. And it's the same story with all the other Elite (knew that, was just tired last night) Bosses I've run across in Cimeroa. Are they all super resistant to mind control and fire damage or something?


(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon

 

Posted

When in doubt eat more lucks. Of course there was the time my 45 storm/dark was trying to solo the Psi clock king EB and he killed me 8 times in a row, the last time with 7 lucks before I could even finish dropping my initial debuffs on him. Sometimes you're just cursed.

I can't tell if you're Mind/fire or plant/fire from your post but if Mind can't you just confuse the EB? My Mind/rad troller could solo anything with that since it's non aggro and so easy to stack, plus if I needed more damage I could just "borrow" a nearby boss or Lt from the EB's group.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
When in doubt eat more lucks. Of course there was the time my 45 storm/dark was trying to solo the Psi clock king EB and he killed me 8 times in a row, the last time with 7 lucks before I could even finish dropping my initial debuffs on him. Sometimes you're just cursed.

[/ QUOTE ]
The Psychic Clockwork King is a scary EB. My Claws/SR took him down by pushing his tohit down to 5% (toggles, elude and lucks) and attacking him in a frenzy, praying that he wouldn't get a lucky hit with Psychic Wail, since I knew from previous attempts that if he hit me with that it was game over.

An ocassionally effective tactic I've used on tricky EBs (like Positron) is to carry a wakie and make sure that I'm out of aggro range when he kills me. EBs don't regen nearly as fast as AVs, and if you can get back in the fight quick enough they're already weakened from your first attempt. Not very dignified, but it does work. Sometimes.


 

Posted

If the EB in question has a heavy alpha, like the Clockwork King, doubling up oranges with the lucks makes it safer.



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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
I must be really gimped or something then because even with

domination up
demonic and charged armor running
fiery embrace popped
three small purples
two small oranges
a medium yellow
a medium red
and a confused Immunes Surgeon healing me

I can't get Polyphemus down below half his hp before he kills me. And it's the same story with all the other Elite (knew that, was just tired last night) Bosses I've run across in Cimeroa. Are they all super resistant to mind control and fire damage or something?

[/ QUOTE ]

What powersets? I'm assuming mind/something.

Joust more--if you stand there and take it in the face while you try to build up enough magnitudes to take the guy, you're going to lose. Instead, bounce around like a crazy monkey, hop back, hop forward, and keep yourself out of reach while you stack holds / sleeps / confuses until something takes.

If worse comes to worse, SLEEP the guy. Most AV/EBs don't resist sleep at all and so sleeping them is a good way to gain a second or two of breathing space.

(Cimeroran mobs are actually psychic vulnerable--they're generally equivalent of invuln tankers--the only soft spot in their protection is psionics)


 

Posted

Another thing is lucks are kinda useless against the cimerions because most of their attacks do minus defence so you would be better off popping oranges.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Another thing is lucks are kinda useless against the cimerions because most of their attacks do minus defence so you would be better off popping oranges.


[/ QUOTE ]

... sort of. If they hit you it cascades fast. If they don't hit you they won't hit you.

Four small lucks will floor the chance-to-hit of your typical anything. Now floored chance, for an EB, still means they'll hit you 7.5% of the time, more if they have ToHit bonuses [as a few EBs do]. So about 1 in 15 times, WHAM.

In 60 seconds, when your luck runs out, take four more.

One medium luck = 2 small lucks. If you can't buy medium lucks at the Black Market, buy [for instance] three medium accs and convert them to one medium luck.

I'm about 50/50 soloing EBs on most of my villains so far. They go down on either the first or the second try. I may be some sort of superhuman CoX genius but... I don't think I'm that good. If I can do it, you can do it.


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So you think you're a hero, huh.
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Posted

Thanks for all the replies and the suggestions. Yes, this is a mind/fire dom, and Power Surge is the next toy on my shopping list.

I hadn't tried Confusing the EBs, but I can try that next. I am hoping the I15 buffs will help me out. What's funny is, until I hit the early-mid 40s, I used to solo on Vicious because Villainous was too easy. I miss those days.


(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon

 

Posted

Be happy you weren't here earlier in the game's life. Back when AV's didn't use to downgrade to EB's when solo. AV's made doing the high level arcs solo just about impossible for most. AV's downgrading to EB's was probably the most solo friendly change they ever made to the game.


 

Posted

Amen! to that.

I remember trying to solo Maestro back in the day and having to wait 3 levels before I even came close to finishing him. *Shakes head and sighs*


There is always a lot to be thankful for, if you take the time to look. For example, I'm sitting here thinking how nice it is that wrinkles don't hurt. ~Author Unknown

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Your problem is you play Dominators. Anything with PToDs is gonna cook your goose real quick.

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That's what I thought the moment I saw you say "Domination up." Elite Bosses, like AVs, resist mezz effects. That's what the little purple triangles (of Doom™) indicate. The net effect is to neutralize control sets -- which leaves Dominators with just their lackluster Assault attacks and no mitigation to speak of.

I guess it's a conundrum for the Devs. Control tends to be all-or-nothing, they don't want their AVs and EBs neutralized, but making them immune to control really impacts control ATs.

Hrm. Can you confuse other mobs and use them against the EBs?


If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
----------------------------------------------------------

The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog

 

Posted

I don't know why Dominators get such a bad rap. My Dominator is probably my second favorite character, and by FAR my favorite villain. These levels are brutal, but like I said, I went through the 20s and 30s solo like a hot mental knife through butter. Granted, this is the only Dom I've played above lvel 20 so far, but until I hit this wall, I loved her.

Yeah, I can try confusing the mobs to fight the EB, but I have found that to rarely be effective. If I pull one mob over and confuse him, he's usually WAY less effective against the EB than I am. If I find a bunch of them and mass confuse them, one of two of them attack the EB and the rest just wail on each other. If only I could direct them to attack who I want.

I'm hoping the I15 Dom buffs will make this a little less frustrating, although it looks like I'm going to need to respec or at least rearrange my enhancements to get a lot more end reduction in my powers. either than or finally push for perma-dom status; or both.


(Sometimes, I wish there could be a Dev thumbs up button for quality posts, because you pretty much nailed it.) -- Ghost Falcon

 

Posted

There's nothing wrong with Dominators per se. They can solo quite a bit of content in this game.

But I will mention something to you that you probably don't want to hear. The Devs have gone out of their way over the years to make huge amounts of this game soloable by nearly every AT. But they have never once promised or guaranteed that ALL content can or even should be soloable by any AT. Sometimes you just have to have a team, period.

I'd suggest that your source of frustration is simply an unwillingness to accept that every once in a while even mighty Dominators can't solo everything. Scrapper-jockeys are usually the ones that have the most trouble dealing with that concept, but clearly anyone might need to be reminded of that from time to time.

Just remember most people fail to realize that every AT has certain level ranges they solo better at than in other ranges and what these ranges are can be very different from AT to AT. Just because you had an easy time of it in your 20s and 30s does not imply your 40s must be just as easy.

Good luck...


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Posted

I do not play villz much but there is a tactic that works extremely well against all AV's and EB's. Someone mentioned bringing a Shivan, that actually works. I never pop a bunch of inspirations, i use those for emergencies, such as Mu draining my endurance.

If you are having a hard time with AV's. just bring some mechs (or whatever the vill equivalent is) and shivans! I solo AV's with no effort and now have 8 member teams who get stuck actually drop a member to have me come finish off the AV for them.

I have a darkness power that lowers their accuracy, toss in tarpatch to reduce resistance, throw a moonbeam at them once in awhile, let the mechs and shivans do all the hard stuff.

I AM DIVINE : I AM AV KILLER

There are lots of temp powers that can help you overcome tough opponents.


 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
If you are having a hard time with AV's. just bring some mechs (or whatever the vill equivalent is) and shivans! I solo AV's with no effort and now have 8 member teams who get stuck actually drop a member to have me come finish off the AV for them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. Any team of 8 that can't take down any regular AV must suck like a tornado.


Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
Thanks for all the replies and the suggestions. Yes, this is a mind/fire dom, and Power Surge is the next toy on my shopping list.

I hadn't tried Confusing the EBs, but I can try that next.

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to stack two confuses on them (sometimes three.. confuse, confuse, mass confuse will do it), but it will work. Once you have them stacked, as long as you refresh it whenever it comes up, it should be pretty perma. Since confuse doesn't generate aggro, you can toss the first one, wait for recharge, toss the second, then attack. Oh and pack Yellows. You miss one of those confuses, it's hard. Remember Sleep as an "Oh SH!" button. Most EBs can't resist your sleeps. I can keep Cimmeroran EBs in slumberland indefinitely if need be.

Some EBs, you can stack holds on them while they're confused to switch to holds instead of confuses once the minions are dead, but this doesn't work on all of them. Experiment!


Quote:
Originally Posted by eltonio View Post
This is over the top mental slavery.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you are having a hard time with AV's. just bring some mechs (or whatever the vill equivalent is) and shivans! I solo AV's with no effort and now have 8 member teams who get stuck actually drop a member to have me come finish off the AV for them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. Any team of 8 that can't take down any regular AV must suck like a tornado.

[/ QUOTE ]

QFT.


Quote:
Originally Posted by eltonio View Post
This is over the top mental slavery.

 

Posted

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
If you are having a hard time with AV's. just bring some mechs (or whatever the vill equivalent is) and shivans! I solo AV's with no effort and now have 8 member teams who get stuck actually drop a member to have me come finish off the AV for them.

[/ QUOTE ]
Wow. Any team of 8 that can't take down any regular AV must suck like a tornado.

[/ QUOTE ]Tornado blows. Empaths suck


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