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One big problem with ED is that a single Hami tank is now impossible. So you can't have a team with 1 Regen Scrapper and 7 Empath Defenders anymore. I know Justice & Victory used a StoneTanker pre-ED, so I'd be interested in the sucess of that.
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On the last Raid, we used exactly 1 Regen scrapper, and 5 Empaths. That is all. Five was actually overkill, but I *like* redundancy
I had two tanks on standby, but the poor bastards had nothing to do. Kudos to them for being willing to just stand around for 5+ hours, which was roughly the duration of the last raid, in case they were needed.
For the record, I've had an Invuln tank, Stone tank, and Ice tank stand in for me, and everyone one of them was able to tank Hami with the right backup. Only the Invuln was pre-ED, but I gaurantee they could do it post-ED as well. I haven't had the opportunity to test a Fire tank yet. I suspect they will be able to do it as well. The main component of the Hami aggro team is STILL the empaths.
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Anyone thought of asking the Dev's if you are barking up the right tree? They may just tell you that the brute force way is the only way...or they may hint around something else...
[/ QUOTE ]I PM'd Statesman himself, waiting for an answer(unlikely to come, tho...)
Don't you think it would be more likely that these are remnant entrances from the underground Portal Corp research facility to the north-west?
When developing hami, and the story line that accompanied it, did they just plonk hamidon at the end and leave it, or did they think of how he could be beaten.
When the current clear/hold/damage tactic was shown to work, this was the norm and pretty much no-one else thought of another way to take him down until now.
Did the 27 devs take him down post ED. If so,there must be an alternative tactic. A story or set of predesigned tasks to do in the hive before attempting hami. (3 teams of 8 plus 3 extra - could the other 3 been the 'tank' group - 1 tank and 2 empaths alternatively spamming heals...Q: is that enough to keep alive the hami-tank?)
Why are cryptic so tight lipped when asked. Is that they haven't thought of a proper strategy when designing and are keeping stumm, or is there are proper designed strategy that just hasn't been discovered by the player base yet.
How long has hami been around? A year or more? It's quite shocking that however many players there are around the world haven't discovered this strategy.
When designing originally did they think about how many heroes the player base could get grouped together and what the minimum number of players are needed to complete this.
27 seems remarkably small, but also remarkably high considering even in one sg, 27 online at the same time is not that frequent.Was it originally designed for 1 sg of mixed at's to take down.
Think of the infinity gauntlet. How many heroes were involved in that battle.
Brute force was always going to work, i'm sure Cryptic knew that, but i'm fairly sure there is a 'designed' way of doing it too.
Also the biology analagy is quite interesting. They do just describe what each does cell does and might just be a by-product of the story of hami. i.e. something to call them related to proper biological terms. But there could be something further in it.
Ok, i'm rambling now.
Suffice to say, i'm sufficiently interested to help out discovering an alternative way of taking down hami.
I think that there MUST be another way to take him down, because otherwise they would look far too much silly by talking of balance between ATs but making an end-game challenge doable only with massive amount of only 1 AT(controller to hold him), they must've thought of something where every AT is involved, plus, the Hive is far too big and there's too many suspicious things about it..
But then again, it might be just my overextended imagination 
I so hope that there is a 'clever' way to take Hami down. I can't see why the Devs would put those doors in there other than for content that was never added.
What about clicking all 9 doors at once?
Edit:
My first thought was the walls were there to contain water and that the doors might release the water into the bowl. I can't think why that would hurt Hami though.
Nah, i've always thought there was something else about the Hive. For one, how eeeire does that abandoned facility look? Has anyone been inside and looked around? Where else might it lead?
they aren't clickable.
Anyway, I have some thoughts. These are just imagination rolling out, but don't ignore it like in the disco raid.
1) How about terrifying the hell out of Hamidon? We can all pick up the Fear power from the power pool, and it *might* prevent the spawns. Plus, most of us will have it, so...
2) How about confusing the GMs wondering around into the blob to help us? I know for a fact that these creatures can do a lot more damage then one of us can do, so confusing the GMs with a couple of illusionists might add to the fire power, and some of them can hold.
@Double
Double Flame 50 fire/devices
Double Shade 50 tri-form warshade
Double Light 50 dwarf-human peacebringer
Double Control 50 earth/rad
Use time travel to get back to the point where Hami first began. Maybe take him on in human form. Bowl would form the portal itself.??
The mental wanderings of somone who will never have a 50 to try it out himself 
Time travel... Hamidon appears where time travel was being engineered... The Hydra is in Paragon due to the Portal Corp research... Anyone know how and when the Hamidon appeared?
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Use time travel to get back to the point where Hami first began. Maybe take him on in human form. Bowl would form the portal itself.??
The mental wanderings of somone who will never have a 50 to try it out himself
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I was thinking along the same lines, maybe take him down just as he turned into a blob. I doubt it'd need 27 or more if he was a 'human'.
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I so hope that there is a 'clever' way to take Hami down. I can't see why the Devs would put those doors in there other than for content that was never added.
What about clicking all 9 doors at once?
Edit:
My first thought was the walls were there to contain water and that the doors might release the water into the bowl. I can't think why that would hurt Hami though.
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Those aren't actual WALLS, are lines of GM that don't wander around like ALL the other GMs in the Hive, they just stand there, blockin the ground path to Hami.
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Use time travel to get back to the point where Hami first began. Maybe take him on in human form. Bowl would form the portal itself.??
The mental wanderings of somone who will never have a 50 to try it out himself
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I was thinking along the same lines, maybe take him down just as he turned into a blob. I doubt it'd need 27 or more if he was a 'human'.
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Maybe 27 people are needed to solve the riddle tho..
And as an end-game challenge they cud've made him so that those 27 ppl are needed to take him down, even if in human form or half-human.
27 people and 9 doors has a nice symmetry.
Minimum of 3 people per door perhaps. 3 clickies per cave all to be done at the same time? Nah too easy.
each cave has a portal at the end leading to different time periods. You have to search all of them to get to the point where Hami was human.???
So... The Hamidon was once a human?
Where can i fond more information on this? I have a theory forming...
I thought I read that in an earlier post. I personally don't know.
Hmmm, no matter, i've just PM'd Bridger and asked where i can find published material on this subject. Should hopefully prove fruitful
Good stuff Del. I was going to ask the same thing.
I didn't pay a great deal of attention to the text in my DE arc, nor did i complete it i don't think down to not particularly liking DE. Anyways, point us in the right direction once you get a link.
You can read the entire story arc on nofuture.org
for info.
Spoillers
Group alligns itself with DE, one of them gets a love letter form Hamidon, she gets rescued but has a drug that lowers immunity in her system, she gets captured by DE again, mutated in to DE Queen who along with Hamidon would be able to produce vast amounts of DE, heroes capture her and put her in hospital.
highlight above, this is what I read anyway.
From what I know the Devoured are former human corrupted by Hamidon, I read aswell in a previous post or maybe in the US post that he was once human, I don't know that for sure tho.
Bridger has just replied, and he doesn't seem to think there is any 'published' information available outside of the game, but he is going to look a little further into it. In addition to this, i'll read through all information on nofuture.org. I think i'm on to something, but won't mention it until i know for sure 
yeah he was a brillant scientist and eco-terrorist, accidentically turned him self into a sentient blob of jelly and the arc is about you saving his girlfriend from the DE - he sends her love letters to draw her into a trap so he can turn her into a DE and procreate. Hence why you end up fighting the Terra AV. Interesting story but don't remember it giving any clues to how you can beat him.
I was thinking more along the lines of the involvement of the original portal corp station before it was 'devoured'...
This is a crazier storyline than Lost!
Another tactic you may want to test:
From Cycloid on the Liberty server
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All the Warburg nukes work fine in the Hive. My impressions of the test are as follows:
Biological: Offers a really useful health regeneration boost and a fair damage buff as well. With one, I was able to tank a Thorn without my health bar budging significantly and do respectable damage to it. It lasts, as I am sure you all noticed, a pretty long time (5 mins?). This will come in handy for buffing the taunter or taunters holding Hamidon's aggro while everyone tries to get him held, and will mean fewer full-timers such as Empathy defenders need be tasked with this. Using one on the tight group just before entering the "goo" would probably be wise as well.
Chemical: The debuff was noticeable, and will be most useful for letting non-debuffers help to keep Hamidon's defenses floored. Worth having as part of a "burst damage" phase against Hamidon himself.
Nuclear: Probably the least valuable of the three to this effort, as Hamidon's Hamidon-ness means the "Extreme" DOT will not be especially extreme (2 per tick, perhaps? 3?). Still, they will help and are best saved as the second part of a one-two punch against the big H when fast damage is important.
I'd recommend that everyone use the Vanguard accolade shortly before he hits 20% health and then go for broke with high-damage moves, up to and including the nukes. If there's trouble dropping his health when he's held earlier on, some of the debuff ones could be used at that time.
It can only benefit things if as many people as possible do bring the missiles with them, and then it will require some skillful personnel management to make sure the right number of each type are deployed at the right time. I'll be in Warburg at gathering time to assist anyone who wants to get them as best I can.
Hope to see you all there and in the Hive!
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The raid on liberty is planned tonight and they're about 5 hrs? behind us? so check the Liberty pages tomorrow for the results of their nuke on hami.
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Also... Behold the cave of mystery
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well i actually done some more research into it. There are 8 hills surrounding hamidon which are surrounded by "super swarms" On all those 8 hills but 1 (the one with the tiny forest on it) I found those cave doors. However they arent clickable. I've mapped em all here: clicky - the cyan lines are the lines of super swarms, the red dots are the doors.
Maybe something triggers em to open? I'm pretty sure on that one hill where i havent found it is one as well. If there isnt.. well that one also has the tiny forest, hasnt it? If you add all those doors up you get 9 doors mapped, with possible more.
EDIT: found more doors and mapped it
"god, how many devs did hami have to sleep with to get ED?"
Total Cat @Stagefright