Deadly Apocalypse relies too much on debuffs.

Short version:

The banners are too hard to defeat without debuffs. Resetting the timer to 20 minutes when they become vulnerable would fix this, while not adding time to the event if people have no interest in it.

Long version:

Now that the craziness of release has calmed down and there's not 100 people hitting the banners every time they appear, it's becoming very apparent that the event relies too much on debuffers being present. This was not evident in the Training Room runs because we all brought our "main and best" character there, so there was no shortage of debuffs. On live, though, even two teams are not enough unless there's at least one rad present.

The first phase, defeating enemies at all 4 points at once, works fine. Even when it was just one team, we managed to do it within 6 minutes, leaving 10 minutes for the banners. It's the banners themselves that are proving a problem.

I ran the event in Peregrine Island 2 with my Radiation/Sonic defender, a debuffing beast. I had one full team, and there was another team with 5 people on it. I did not see other debuffers. We destroyed the four banners incredibly easy, and had time to spare.

Then I changed to my Claws/Willpower scrapper and ran the event in Croatoa, Peregrine Island 3, and Independence Port. Every time, we failed to defeat the banners in time. In Croatoa, there were no debuffers present, but we had two full teams dishing damage. In Peregrine Island 3, we had a Sonic Resonance character using Disruption Field on me, which is a 22.5% base resistance debuff. It still was not enough, and we only got two banners down in time.

Finally, in Independence Port, we had 10 people; one full team and a duo. The full team had a dark defender and a kinetics controller. We destroyed the first 2 banners very quickly; however, I made a massive error in judgement: because the final banner was very very far from the first 3, I asked if anyone had the Team Recall power, and asked the person who said "yes" to head there and port us when blue (the third one) was down. That person, I didn't realize, was the Kinetics controller.

So after defeating the first two banners in a minute each, we spent 5 minutes on the third one, and that was still with the Dark Defender on the team. The Kinetics controller was making a huge difference with Transfusion and Fulcrum Shift.

Since the problem is that we simply ran out of time, after making the banners vulnerable, I suggest that the solution is to give us more time. When the banners become vulnerable, we usually have less than 3 minutes to defeat each banner. Resetting the timer to 20 minutes, givin us 5 minutes per banner, would make all the difference. And, if players have no interest in the event, the banners still go away, undisturbed, after the first 20 minutes.

Just pointing out that there's more to defeating the banners than just debuffs and damage. Each banner has 0-4 symbols on the ground when they become vulnerable. The more symbols, the harder it is to hurt. Also, the color is supposed to indicate the type of protection, according to the wiki, though no one seems to have figured out the meanings yet.

I don't quite understand this thread since I can't shake a stick without hitting a rad, thermal and/or cold with the first swipe. Could just be my awesome luck. Hmmmmm <buys ticket to vegas>

I don't know what servers people are on who can't kill these banners, but I have still not seen a trace of this.

Even on the villainside, where populations are smaller and a little more coordination needed, I've still not seen anything remotely resembling the "need" for any such thing.

*remembers union - atlas's first attempt at a banner invasion*

the horror . . . . . . . . . Entire zone didnt have a clue what to do Great fun though! I was at one of the banners and was defeating the mobs surrounding it solo on my fire/dark scrapper, then a passing emp joined in on the battle too before gradually every 30 seconds another hero kept joining in on the battle!

Think in the end no-one bothered with the banner and we just went on the mob surrounding it Sod the zone! We wants our xp!