So how does the new Winter Event actually work?
By
CaptainMoodswing,
Posted on: 2009-12-15 11:27 in Victory
Basically, you have to run around a zone that has presents, opening them. There is some chance for the Winter Lord to spawn in (the GM from past years, so he's nothing too special to drop for just one team, even). After you defeat him, a big present will show up, and a 2 minute timer will start ticking down.
At the end of the 2 minutes, you can click on the present, and you will be teleported to the Winter Lord's Realm (basically a snowy Croatoa map, based on the SW part of the Croatoa zone... with all the barns, haystacks, etc.). Apparently, you can have so many people in this zone that more than one version of it will come in.
The Winter Lord is there, as well as a lot of random snow beast spawns. You have about 15 minutes? (might be 20... no time to waste though) to defeat him. However, it's not just as simple as beating on him until he dies. At three points as his health goes down, he will phase out, and summon a GM snow beast to defend him. You have to defeat the GM before you can keep attacking the Winter Lord. Also, more snow beasts spawn in as you fight the Winter Lord, as well as "Northern Lights." These annoying things look like the glowing sprites of the Cabal, but they shoot energy beams like the Peacebringers have, which can mean a lot of AOE damage and -def debuffing. Oh, and they can also phase. What fun, eh? 
Anyway, you want to keep focused on your main target, but drop those if you can as you fight, as they can cause headaches. I think you get 8 merits and 20 candy canes for defeating the Winter Lord, as well as one of this year's new badges. Might be the new "in" event for getting candy canes, which may be more popular since you can purchase a respec with 500 of them this year (not sure how much that snowflakes emote is), as well as the other usual goodies.
*added*
Oh yeah, Snow monster/beast defeats randomly drop candy canes now, so it's worth clearing this map if you beat it, and helping rescue the Baby New Year. At any rate, I enjoyed the new event... a bit of strategy and the location is fun. Just don't farm it to death and get bored with it!
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Quote:
Actually, there's about 5 different snowy Croatoa maps that are randomly available.|
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
At the end of the 2 minutes, you can click on the present, and you will be teleported to the Winter Lord's Realm (basically a snowy Croatoa map, based on the SW part of the Croatoa zone... with all the barns, haystacks, etc.). Apparently, you can have so many people in this zone that more than one version of it will come in.
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Quote:
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The Winter Lord is there, as well as a lot of random snow beast spawns. You have about 15 minutes? (might be 20... no time to waste though) to defeat him. However, it's not just as simple as beating on him until he dies. At three points as his health goes down, he will phase out, and summon a GM snow beast to defend him. You have to defeat the GM before you can keep attacking the Winter Lord. Also, more snow beasts spawn in as you fight the Winter Lord, as well as "Northern Lights." These annoying things look like the glowing sprites of the Cabal, but they shoot energy beams like the Peacebringers have, which can mean a lot of AOE damage and -def debuffing. Oh, and they can also phase. What fun, eh?
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Thanks, GP and Zam. Now I'm up to speed. 
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
Also, it's easy with two teams, hard with one. :P
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Fixed. The first time I ran it (during the live test), we entered from Atlas park. There were maybe 4-5 level 50s, a couple in the 40s and 30s, and probably about 10 people under level 20. There were at least 15 people in the zone, and we still failed by a pretty wide margin. |
Originally Posted by CaptainMoodswing
Also, it's easy with two high-level teams, hard with one. :P
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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Yeah, you also need people to use their heads. I had one team fail because silly Controllers were getting in range of the Winter Lord's foot stomp, weren't switching to the GMs like they should, etc. I suspect some of them were fairly low level, as well.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Winter_Event_2009
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Note:
All the winter zones are linked. If you defeat a Winter Lord in Galaxy and another Winter Lord is defeated in Steel 20 seconds later, their portals both go to the same zone.
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Which is helpful when your SG is too stubborn to join you in Steel. |
Originally Posted by Satanic_Hamster
Note:
All the winter zones are linked. If you defeat a Winter Lord in Galaxy and another Winter Lord is defeated in Steel 20 seconds later, their portals both go to the same zone. |
I like the twist of the new event, but it seems pretty simple when you have enough people. And, with the all the presents pointing to the same winter zone, it seems pretty likely that you'll have enough people to make it easy.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
Not sure if this is the thread to do so, but being totally new to this whole Winter Event thing, I have to ask: can the Father Time missions be run solo?
The mission text was unclear and I'd hate to find myself trying to put together a team without prep.
Depends on your AT and build, but yes. Snaptooth can be a pain, so you might want to turn down the diff.
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
Quote:
Snaptooth is a Red Cap EB, so you need to be able withstand that nasty damage Red Caps do. I've soloed it on Tankers and Scrappers plenty, but I haven't tried it with any others. You'll also run into Tuatha and snow creatures, so you have a variety of damage and encounters. One trick, you don't have to defeat all the snow creatures on the open map to get the key to open Snaptooth's lair. Just look for the snow creature boss that says "winter guard" (all the other snow creature spawns will have a winter lord boss) and defeat that spawn to get the key.|
Originally Posted by Nestor
Not sure if this is the thread to do so, but being totally new to this whole Winter Event thing, I have to ask: can the Father Time missions be run solo?
The mission text was unclear and I'd hate to find myself trying to put together a team without prep. |
MG, depending on how things are going, it can be hard to find enough people for that WL encounter... I've had it fail a few times... it's really not worth attempting unless you have a lot of people or a team and a half with a good level and power makeup.
Guide: Tanking, Wall of Fire Style (Updated for I19!), and the Four Rules of Tanking
Story Arc: Belated Justice, #88003
Synopsis: Explore the fine line between justice and vengeance as you help a hero of Talos Island bring his friend's murderer to justice.
Grey Pilgrim: Fire/Fire Tanker (50), Victory
Quote:
....which is just like anything else in this game.....*shrug*| but it seems pretty simple when you have enough people. |
I will say that debuff is essential, mainly the -RES variety. You can throw all the damage you want at it, but you'll barely make it if at all in the time limit without debuffs going. Had 2 full teams of mostly blasters/tanks/scrappers going at it and we managed to get him down to around 25% HP before the time ran out. Did not see much, if any, debuff going at that time.
The other encounters were more varied and much much quicker/easier.
Curious if a maximized team can do it alone. I would imagine so if given enough time, just not sure the given time would be enough.
I've already forgotten about most of you
I tried it with only two teams earlier yesterday; we were overwhelmed by hundreds of of winters nights or whatever the wisps are called.
Other times? Barely any of the little bastards.
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Northern Lights. And boy, are they annoying for squishies (I didn't even know they were there on my /Invul Scrapper, but on my 'Troller I sure did!).
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Originally Posted by Satanic_Hamster
...we were overwhelmed by hundreds of of winters nights or whatever the wisps are called.
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Quote:
Thanks for the info.|
Originally Posted by Grey Pilgrim
Snaptooth is a Red Cap EB, so you need to be able withstand that nasty damage Red Caps do. I've soloed it on Tankers and Scrappers plenty, but I haven't tried it with any others. You'll also run into Tuatha and snow creatures, so you have a variety of damage and encounters. One trick, you don't have to defeat all the snow creatures on the open map to get the key to open Snaptooth's lair. Just look for the snow creature boss that says "winter guard" (all the other snow creature spawns will have a winter lord boss) and defeat that spawn to get the key.
MG, depending on how things are going, it can be hard to find enough people for that WL encounter... I've had it fail a few times... it's really not worth attempting unless you have a lot of people or a team and a half with a good level and power makeup. |
I'll give the old man a try.
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They don't seem to lose aggro, even if you die. I had that problem on my trollers. They would keep one shotting me every time I got back to the fight, but seemed to be ignoring the melee people. :0
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Originally Posted by Eric Nelson
Northern Lights. And boy, are they annoying for squishies (I didn't even know they were there on my /Invul Scrapper, but on my 'Troller I sure did!).
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Chief Hamster of the Fist of Justice / Shadows of Victory
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Yup, that's pretty much the experience I had on my 'Troller. I think I died 10+ times times each run I've attempted with that toon due to that pattern.|
Originally Posted by Satanic_Hamster
They don't seem to lose aggro, even if you die. I had that problem on my trollers. They would keep one shotting me every time I got back to the fight, but seemed to be ignoring the melee people. :0
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Oh well, it was still fun even so.
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Last night (on Triumph) we had a run with a very annoying problem: Lord Winter ended up standing inside the 'hospital' area; my Empath would die again before standing up from the previous death.
I guess there really is no way around that...if the hospital had drones, it would be too easy to drag him into them.
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I wonder if that was done to put more emphasis on aggro control. Would be "a reason to bring more than one tank" thogh most melee people will probably be concentrating on Lord Winter.|
Originally Posted by Satanic_Hamster
They don't seem to lose aggro, even if you die. I had that problem on my trollers. They would keep one shotting me every time I got back to the fight, but seemed to be ignoring the melee people. :0
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Originally Posted by Thug_Two
Last night (on Triumph) we had a run with a very annoying problem: Lord Winter ended up standing inside the 'hospital' area; my Empath would die again before standing up from the previous death.
I guess there really is no way around that...if the hospital had drones, it would be too easy to drag him into them. |
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| I like the twist of the new event, but it seems pretty simple when you have enough people. |
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Originally Posted by VoodooCompany
....which is just like anything else in this game.....*shrug*
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I don't mind complexity. I like the Reichsman SF a lot, and that's about as complex as we get here (not counting Hami). What I don't like is when complexity can be overcome just by packing more people (including a number of debuffers) into the mission/zone/whatever.
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Originally Posted by Zamuel
Which somewhat worries me. It seems like any attempt at actual complexity or requiring real teamwork will be met with "why can't I solo this with my poorly slotted empath?"
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Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."
Quote:
I think it's more "bring a few blasters." The individual Christmas tree lights aren't that tough; they can dish out good damage but have lot hit points, low resistances, and tend to bunch up.
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Originally Posted by Zamuel
I wonder if that was done to put more emphasis on aggro control. Would be "a reason to bring more than one tank" thogh most melee people will probably be concentrating on Lord Winter.
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Chief Hamster of the Fist of Justice / Shadows of Victory
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I saw the post for the 2009 Winter Event, but nowhere in there does it actually have a description of the new content. Can someone give me the 411 on Lord Winter's Realm and what's involved there?
Agua Man lvl 48 Water/Electric Blaster
"To die hating NCSoft for shutting down City of Heroes, that was Freedom."