How can a solo Stalker complete a Mayhem mish?
By
Blind_Minotaur,
Posted on: 2007-10-16 11:24 in Stalkers
Inspis? Villainous difficulty? Tier9? Many ways for me.
Insapirations, in the amount needed, are either too expensive to make the thing economical or else you can't hold enough of them. Shifting levels down to Villainous? Perhaps - but it does seem rather cheap. Tier 9, not an option for most.
I completed my first Mayhem missions with my scrapper in about two minutes flat. However villain Mayhem missions do seem unduly and unfairly weighted against the solo stalker.
I haven't found mayhems any trouble at all on my Stalker. Occasionally I'll get a semi-troublesome Hero at the end, but not very often, and those occasional times are what the Demonic accolade is there for... 
The best advice is to STOP AND FIND COVER when you see the blue text of an incoming longbow ambush. Having to deal with an ambush when you're fighting a mob of PPD cops is much harder than having to deal with that same ambush when you're disengaged and far away from any PPD that could aggro you during the fight.
With ease. Dont set your diff too high (doing them on relentless like the rest of your papers is a nice way to burn through insps). Vicious is good though or Villainous.
Go to Vidiotmaps.com and check out the maps for each mayhem there. It gives all the side mishs, great for getting extra time. Also, have your global pane open so that you can see ambush messages. When you see one, stop, take them out, and move on. Also remember that when you stand infront of the vault, it triggers and ambush, when the door gets to half health and buckles, it triggers another one, and i think there might be one for when you bust the door too. Clear all these, then when the hero turns up, AS the minion and dance with the boss. Great fun, nice and easy.
Just take your time, deal with ambushes as they come, and dont run straight to the bank, and grab the cash. Doing this is a nice way to get the debt badges, but not complete them. Take your time.
Never had much problems running mayhems with my stalkers as far as I remember.
1) You want to have a rather "scrappy" build. In order to create a large amount of damage on your way to the bank, you need to be able to keep a sustained level of damage. Burst damage helps little vs lots of cardboard boxes... 
That means: (A) Have a good attack sequence besides Assassins Strike, and (B) make sure you can manage your endurance while keeping up your damage. There is little time for resting in a Mayhem.
2) Avoid the most common failure of Mayhems: DON'T GO DIRECTLY TO THE BANK. Going directly there ensures that you get lots longbow ambushes at once, something that can be hard to handle as a Stalker. A brute might be able to handle it, or even thrive on it, but not a stalker. Make sure you create a long, wide path of destruction on your way there instead, destroying lots of things and gaining lots of time, so that you dont have to rush the bank job. See "sustained damage" above.
3) Use the proper difficulty level. Mayhems are filled with Longbow. Longbow cheat - they are at least a difficulty level harder than advertised; level 27 longbow are more like level 28 of any other opponent faction. And they come in ambushes pre-triggered at you, which means you have to scrap the fights against them.
Oh well, thank you all for your advice. I will try to put your principles into practice though I am not necessarily convinced.
I wish:
- You were allowed a little more time fotr the mission; say 20 minutes
- The cops and superhero pursuing didn't automatically 'see' you. I mean, our 'hiding' is the whole rationale of a stalker.
Easily.
Cough
First, destroy some stuff to get more clock. And be prepared for the first ambush which is inevitably coming. Waiting for the first ambush first before going to bank is recommendable imo so you dont get caught between 2+ mob spawns. After you dispatched the first batch of longbow, stealth to the bank. This is very straightforward imo. After grabbing the money, wait at the vault to avoid any extra aggro. If you have trouble with the hero, use insps (4x defense insps is a generic solution to most tough opponents. mini-elude without crash for 1 minute). The second ambush should come after you have defeated the hero with good timing. Personally I never had trouble with mayhems, as long as you pay attention to the ambushes and avoid aggroing more when the ambush is coming. You can see when the ambush is coming from the NPC chat.
ps. Imo mayhems are ALWAYS easier solo than in group, because the spawn sizes stay small. Also the extra time from destroying stuff seems to bug out or something in a group. when I solo I usually end the mayhem with more clock than I started with. The key is to take your time, and destroy stuff for extra clock when you have the time. (and make sure you destroy different kinds of items)
Hmmm, let's say mayhem missions are easier to solo than to complete in a random PUG. Our SG has some teams running that murder anything in a mayhem in no time.
With my stalker I never had problems in mayhem missions solo or otherwise... after I met my first Longbow Eagle Gank Squad of Doom that is.
You just have to ambush the ambushers first, i.e. wait behind a corner for incoming longbows etc. And if you are at least somewhat able to scrap you should be fine.
If it has eyes, you can blind it, if it has blood, you can make it bleed, if it has a mouth, you can make it scream.
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- You were allowed a little more time fotr the mission; say 20 minutes
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That's why you need to start increasing the time available immediately, instead of rushing to the bank and wasting your precious minutes on fighting ambushes. It's been sometime since I've soloed a mayhem, but I think I remember typically having 30-40 minutes by the time I enter the bank, through massive destruction and judicious use of side missions...
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- The cops and superhero pursuing didn't automatically 'see' you. I mean, our 'hiding' is the whole rationale of a stalker.
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Thus the importance of being able to scrap well. Remember, AS is not the only attack in your primary, and Hide is not your only defense in your secondary - the rest are also there to be used!
I look at the 15 mins and immediately walk my way, allowing for ambush spawns to come in their own time and then dealing with them at different points before proceeding. The Safe door is not something to open straight away it something to take my time on. It triggers spawns as its reduced and I wouldn't want all of them together. Have done an all stalker one of these, mad fun, no jail time as someone happened to have caltrops 
He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
Roll a */regen stalk...run to bank, pwn everything, pop DP and IH if in trouble, pwn hero, leave mayhem and don't bother with them again unless you're a badge hunter...
Man i should write guides
They are a walkthrough with stalkers, never had any trouble with them at all, with the only troubling part being endurance loss as most my stalkers at low levels really do burn the endurance.
I personaly go straight to bank, wait inside the lobby, kill the first mob as they come through the door usually with a cone attack from hide to inflict as much damage as possible, then take down the others.
Then ghost to vault, kill off any mobs near the vault if I am feeling fragile I will pick off some other enemy to give my self running room if needed.
Then Take down the vault,REST,get the money.
Then kill who ever comes to get me.
At low levels on the multi level bank this is even easier as you can ambush them as they come down the lift.
And use the lift to escape if things look to bad.
The key I think is to not overly rely on being in hide, we have many other melee powers and can still scrap things to death
My main tactic for dealing with ambushes in general (same goes for non mayhem ambushes) is to use line of sight to your advantage.
I lurk close to a corner or some cover and the second the ambush gets close I hit BU then hit the first mob with my heaviest hitting auto-crit attack. That's one down two to go. Two is easy. Scrap one then placate & AS the other (or if you're feeling daring placate one and AS the other leaving just one to scrap). The main thing is to pay attention to the ambush warning text and choose where you are going to make your stand carefully.
Easy huh?
Low level stalkers have a tendency to over-abuse of their primary and take none of their secondary. Even a single well-slotted armor can make a difference if you have to make a stand without cloudcover.
Or are we not supposed to?