Heists: Ouch!


Assailant

 

Posted

A little gripe, and question on whether other soloing MMs have found better tactics for dealing with this...

My Bots/Poison MM tends to solo, and can normally cope with ambushes well enough - send the bots after the ambush group as soon as you see it, the bots grab the aggro, stand well back while the opposition gets a kicking. All par for the course for a MM.

The ambushs on the "Steal loot then defeat guards" heists don't seem to work this way though - the mob aggro starts on the MM (me!!!) and stays there. Even the mob the bots are targetting continues shooting me, despite the hammering he's getting from my boys, and you can forget any chance of losing aggro from the rest of the group.

As I have no self- or minion-based heals, and defenses are limited to a FF from the Protector Bot and any Insps I eat, standing and fighting just isn't an option. A single spawn of 3 guards will take the squishy MM down before the bots can take all of them (and even if they don't, quite, the next 2 followup groups will finish the job).

The best tactics I've found for dealing with this is to have a tray full of purple insps, and use these in pairs to avoid most of the guards' hits. That works, but the Insps run out before all the guard groups have been cleared. So, the first thing I do after stealing the loot is dash for the door so I can escape outside and restock after my defense boosts run out. Then I have to come back in and re-spawn the bots under fire (the guards camp the door - griefers! ). Rinse and repeat a few times, and the mission's finally clear.

This works, but takes a good while with the repeated Insp runs - has anyone found a better alternative for soloing these missions?


(I understand heists are vanishing in I7 anyway - hurrah. But for the time being they're here, so my question stands... )


 

Posted

I do alot of the heists, am a bot/poison too

The trick is quite easy.. use obstacles. Once you get into the main room with the vault, let your bots clear the room and shoot the door untill about 10% left. Move your bots to the main entrance of the room while you go click the glowy.

Once you see guards come running in the long corridor, go stand behind the wall next to the broken vault-door. This way they need to run all the way up to you, before they can attack you. Your bots will start attack a few they see, help them a bit with forced attack to those who they didnt attack yet. They will overtake the agro and then you can run up to them to support em.

If 1 can slip trough, get your hold power ready and keep the guy hold untill your bots can help out again

So once again, use walls/obstacles to 'hide' from their 'line of sight'. This way they have to run to you, time enough for your bots to arrest em.


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Posted

[ QUOTE ]
So once again, use walls/obstacles to 'hide' from their 'line of sight'. This way they have to run to you, time enough for your bots to arrest em.

[/ QUOTE ]
Hmmmm - thought I'd tried this, or a close variant of it.

I've taken the door down, then placed the bots just outside the vault's outer chamber. Left in aggressive mode they should start shooting the approaching ambush at the earliest opportunity.

Then I go and hide inside the vault, just round the corner of the door as you say, and wait...

A bit of shooting sound fx, then all of the ambush (including the guy(s) the bots have been blasting as they run up - can tell as their health's down) pokes its head round the vault corner and opens up on the cowering MM.

I don't have the Poison hold power yet, so am limited to debuffing as much as possible - it helps, but not to the extent that the ambush doesn't do serious damage.

As far as I can tell the ambush just won't switch its aggro to the bots; even if they all open up on the one guy he'll continue shooting me in the head as long as he's on his feet.

Perhaps Statesman hates me especially?

Edit: Fixed mismatched brackets (it would never have compiled...)


 

Posted

I know the problem from my now shelved Merc/poison MM, and later again from my dominator. If you take out the vault door to fast it seems that the ambushed will come to close together. If you take down the vault door slower, you can trigger some of the ambushed, which leaves only one or two close together, for when you break the vault and steel the loot.
With my MM, I normally just shot the door up my self with burst, so I could control it better. If nothing else you can order you bots to attack and then pull them off the door and in to passive mode after every attack. In another game I use to play the tactic was called tapping.


 

Posted

My way of dealing with this is to watch out for the message the guards give you before they approach. They always say something like "protect the vault" or "stop Zura".

Then I watch the corridor. When they approach, I set my pets on one and immediately target the other one and hide behind the wall.

When the pets have dealt with the one they are attacking (watch the messages), I set them on the other mob which I still have targetted.

If you deal with one group at a time it'll be a lot easier to handle than just taking the door down immediately and waiting for them all to come at once.

Clear the rest of the place before entering the vault room. If you watch what happens in the vault room, the moment you step up to the vault door, you get a spawn of mobs after you. Deal with that spawn first. Step up to door again, you'll get another spawn (usually) so deal with them. Then you'll get another spawn when you take the door down and a few more after you've grabbed the loot.


 

Posted

Well as i have now tried 3 mm's bot/dark ninja/poison and ninja/ff i can tell u my bot/mm was never bothered, a non interuptable heal which i didn't often need, mostly i lay out a tar patch hide behind a wall so i can just about see and tab enemys for bots to attack.

With the 2 ninja mm's i started off having a bit of trouble no self heals other than insp no slows and things, i can force push 1 mob away but when they come down in 4's i often find myself in a lil trouble (i am only lvl 10 with that one and im sure when i get personal forcefield i'll just be pointing and laughing at the mobs,

With the ninja/poisons one i had to w8 for the 2nd teir ninja and his slow move, but after that it was clear sailing, though with the debuff u get at the start i did get hit less/take less dmg than my ninja/ff at the same lvl


 

Posted

dunno what lvl you got to yet, but if you got neurotoxic breath, its a great helper. Also, burst and iirc the drone single blast got a knockback. What I often did before i got assault bot or single target hold: unleash havoc on the vault door first, then watch dialogues that warn for an incoming ambush.

Quit attacking the door, and get ready to defend yourself. Once you see the mob of guards rushing in, immediately send all your pets on 1 target at a time. Once your pets start running, run ahead of em and use neurotoxic breath on the guards. Some will stand and choke for a while, some will miss, but most will be slowed. At that point, run back while your pets keep pummeling the guards.

Let your pets (and your own attacks/debuffs) focus on the ones you missed with breath first. The ones you have hit will be a while till they reach you anyway. After that, just keep debuffing and shooting the rest.

Of course, use pillars and walls as cover so they have to travel even farther to reach you.

Hope this helps a bit. However indeed it is very annoying when ambushes aim for the MM and no way you can get it away from you. However these ambushes come on the nr 3 spot of annoying MM cases in my list. On nr 2 are those damn door ambushes (you know, you enter a mish and you immediately get ambushed before you get a chance to summon your henchies). Yet the most annoying has to be that AV/EB that keeps aiming for you ignoring your henchies... almost no way you can survive that without running around in circles hopefully staying out of his/her reach


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Posted

Non-Bank Heists are different.

In banks clear the map before getting to the vault, then when you do get there clear the room first make sure you don't go into the room itself yet. Once all the guards are dead, let the pets take out the door. Get everyone healed and buffed, only then enter the vault room. 90% of the time the ambushes won't happen until you actually enter the room where the vault is (not the vault). Then you can set you pets as a defense while you stroll in and get the loot, if your really lucky you get a misson complete then if not kill some guards.

Reason I always do it this way is that you're more likely to get killed while you plit your forces between door and ambushes. Plus most of the time as ong as no player character enters the vault room (room containing vault door) the ambushes don't spawn.

Done this for a Bots/Dark for most of 38 levels, not failed me yet.


 

Posted

Thanks to all for the suggestions; I've tried some of these before (or variations on them), and don't currently have any slow/mezz powers (unless you count attack knockback) but there are a few things I can try and I'll give these a go when my MM's making her next withdrawal.

Evil Overlords FTW!