If you want a challenge...

I made myself a challenge mission in Architect and I'm quite happy with it. It uses no AVs or custom enemies but is far harder than the RWZ challenge.

If you want to give it a spin, it's called Aeon's Army.

Any summary or would that be a spoiler?

I haven't played in weeks, but a challenge? I'm in.

Oh, come on! At least let me get in the DOOR! That's just MEAN. At least I toggled up before going in. I often toggle up only after entering a mission.

Hmmm, this mission IS interesting. I've taken down Cheating Cindy McCheaterson and the gunslingers. OK, with a couple of deaths. I just found the hiding space where the snipers can't get me, though it was a little too late. So, uh, I know I can plow through the first group. Yes, folks, the first group. And I need to get to work. Still, I want to at least beat ONE group before I leave.

If the rest of the mission is similar in flavor to the first part, hats off to you, mang. It's like a little puzzle trying to figure out where to stand, who to kill, and so on. And then you've got the time limit, so there's only so much hit and run you can do.

Oh, and I'm running +4x8. It looks like it's automatically +4, but I'm probably making it unnecessarily difficult on myself with the x8.

OK, I cleared the first group on x8 with only two deaths trying to get in the door. Do I win a booby prize?

I'll need to return to this at a more opportune time. I need to get to work, and I have friends coming over tonight.

(Summary for Enigma Black: Ow! Ow ow ow ow ow!)

I did solo it at x8, but I spent 100 large insps and used the base buffing thing to do it. I don't actually expect anyone else to do that heh; it should be a challenge as in harder than the RWZ challenge, at x1.

I lasted 1 minute in the first group without dying

Harder than the RWZ challenge? I'd say this is harder then soloing the STF.

I'll give it a whirl on Cheat Code as soon as I'm done with my running around doing errands today.

Honestly, it is in many ways harder than the STF. There's no mag 100 hold, but I used all the enemies that cheat hardest in the regular game and made them level 54. There's also a couple enemies that don't really cheat, like one rikti magus, the snipers in the start, and a few other ordinary enemies, that beat people up pretty good.

I really expect everyone to fail this set at x1, but if you beat it be sure to report it here!

So I just got through talking to @Elfis on global.

This is a very tough mission, but fun. Very challenging.

At level 50, after reading Werner's comments, I set it at +1/x1 with no bosses or AVs, I still died 5 times on a claws/sr.

After Johnny killed me (and I loved the Short Cicuit reference) I pretty much gave up trying to beat this till I get my last 8 LotGs.

5 stars! I love a challenge!

Indeed, a very nasty challenge. At +0/x1 with bosses, no AV, I got a fair ways on roughly the 3rd try. Used my stalker to take a sneak peek at a chunk of map on try one, then grabbed my main, a claws/SR, who bit it in the first mob on her first try. Getting as far as I did on the 3rd try without dying did require a silly amount of inspires and accolade usage though compared to what she would normally use solo at +2/x8, with bosses vs Rikti.

A stone brute just beat it on x1, bosses on in an hour 30, so my mission didn't go undefeated as long as I'd hoped.

Well make him go back and do it at x2

None the less well done by him. Stone Melee or Stone Armor (or both?)

Both he and I use teleport to bypass overseers and such, which is kind of cheating compared to not having teleport on that map, but we'll see how I do with my hover scrapper when I finish it.

Oh yeah, and for the vanguard, make sure they attack to someplace out of the way, and die to shed their agro heh

Indeed it was the vanguard that got me on the 3rd try. Things had been going well until then, beating on the EB ritki when the first bunch of Vanguard showed up. Very naughty cheaty vanguard bosses with nasty To Hit buffs leaving my poor soft capped /SR looking at his combat log going "they rolled that and hit!"

Well I know the stealth IO in sprint didn't help me any, and that's my only stealth ability.

Big congrats to the brute!

I was alright with the Rularuu but only just, I got as far as taking on the ambush vanguard for about a minute or so with my claws SR. I could of done better but my glass was half full considering how everything else was,went, so I felt lucky. I do regard the Vanguard as the best NPC group to fight. The Vanguards went well after that. Little while later after the sappers an Overseer spawned 3 and I was locked in practise brawler. Really hate them vanguards..Oh it's timed and there is me having dinner XD . Aeon bit was easy, half hour left and 6 deaths approx, Jonny is badass as he practically autohits and one shots me.

This mission has all my Villain nightmares wrapped up in a pretty pink bow.

Well, I sort of just completed the mission on x1 with no temps, no inspirations, in sort of 1 hour 20 minutes with sort of 8 deaths on my Katana/Dark Armor.

I say "sort of" because Gamebot was stuck in a wall, so there was no way to pull him to position the Vanguard spawns. I think I was at 1:07 or so with 6 deaths when I finished the second-to-last named boss. I figure another 13 minutes and 2 deaths would have been enough to take out Gamebot as well. I've beaten level 54 Heavy Assault Suits with no temps, no insps before, so I'm confident I could have pulled him to position the spawns and taken him out if he wasn't stuck.

One key was having both Cloak of Darkness and a stealth IO. As long as I was moving quickly, I could reliably zip past both Overseers and Vanguard spawns, often without getting any aggro, and I think in every case without dying (as long as I wasn't already in combat and trying to run).

The Knives of Artemis could see me, though, and were really inconveniently placed. I ended up fighting them all. They killed me once when another Knives spawn wandered by while I was fighting the first spawn. I can't remember if they caused another of my deaths.

Dark Regeneration wasn't nearly as useful as I'd have liked. As long as I kept soft-capped defense, it was hard for them to put out the damage to take me out quickly. But if they got through and started piling up the defense debuffs, even a full heal every 14 seconds wasn't going to help. It just delayed the inevitable. And against the two Master Illusionists, I only got in trouble when they dropped my tohit to 10% or so, at which point Dark Regeneration couldn't hit anyway.

Cloak of Fear was completely useless, so I left it off. Death Shroud was situational, since I didn't want it on while trying to stealth through groups.

I suppose I'll have to try again to get an actual success, but I think I met the spirit of the challenge. Stupid bugged bad guy.

Looks like a no-go on my Dark Melee/Super Reflexes. There simply isn't enough room to stash the Vanguard spawns when my only stealth is a single stealth IO. I got about halfway through, and there were only a few clear spots left on the map. I had nowhere to stand to pull Johnny, and got vaporized in seconds when I tried to attack him in sight of the Vanguard. Even if I still got through him somehow, Dr. Aeon was in the same room, so yeah, hopeless.

So I'm going to say likely impossible for my Katana/Regen for the same reason, even without trying. I suppose I should TRY. Maybe Moment of Glory will let me live long enough to burst kill a single Vanguard boss at a time before the rest vaporize me when it drops. That would be slow, death by death progress. It'd probably run the clock out. But I might give it a shot some time. Might not.

I might be missing something strategy wise. But I can't pull anything to an existing Vanguard or Rularuu spawn, or I'll be vaporized. So I have to pull each named boss to a new location each time. And without mega-invisibility to lower the Vanguard's gigantic perception radius, I simply run out of space trying to Tetris them together.

Unless inspirations are a strategy. Pop enough of them, and I could probably take out a Vanguard spawn and get the space back that way. But I built for no-inspiration challenges, and it's what I can do with no temporary powers and no inspirations that I care about.

Haven't been able to play so much since college started up again but I had to pop in and say Werner you're the most hardcore of hardcore to do that with no temps and insps. I use both freely and designed the mission to be a challenge while doing so.

Yeah the carnie was tough. Did fine until the damn vanguard ambush. Very challenging. I don't know about fun, but its challenging