Correct Mako's Leviathan mission

Hoo boy, someone had a reeeeal bad day when they designed that one.
Ok, premise of the mission is that Mako sends you under Sharkhead to enact the Ritual he had you steal, to siphon power from the wee sleepin' beasty.

SPOILERS!

As expected, given the other patrons do the same, and that Mako is one slippery customer, he attempts to backstab you. Nice guy, huh?

The problem in this mission is...well, not the enemies. Not the spawning. Not the AVs.
Its the Waterspout/Whirlwinds and the Fonts of Doom.
If you haven't played the mission before, I'll explain. It's the standard Leviathan map, with the jaws and the eye. Your objective is the teeth.
This time, however, the tight caves are filled with waterspouts. These things do no damage, but have a ludicrously powerful KB. Note, its not a high mez level, afaik. It just throws you rediculously far, in slower motion than normal.

Now, in the tunnels, this can leave you getting stuck for some time. When you get to the teeth room, with Calystix...it gets a whole lot worse. There are literally a dozen ofthese things. And they move.
What really doesn't help is the Fonts. On this mission, you need to destry 'Four' Fonts. I say Four, it's actually Eight. Because these things come in pairs. They con as Elite Bosses, and they have psionic tornadoe (Oh, more KB!) and Psychic Shockwave. They are pretty tough to kill, and that wouldn't be a problem. But there are two of them for every 'one' in the objective list. Thats a lot of pain.

The teeth room is the worst. Not only do you have to deal with the fonts, you need to deal with Cal. Cal and his ungodly hoard of Coral beasties. Seriously, the guy summons about 4 bosses and 4 Lts. Thats nasty for an AV with psionics and a room full of waterspouts. Killing the fonts in this room is nothing short of a nightmare if you don't have KB protection. And no, 'Get a -KB slot' is no valid arguement here, because you should not NEED a slot to even stand a hope in hell against ONE mission. IOs are not compulsory. Someone obviously thought otherwise (If they thought at all. Our team had a sneaking suspicion maybe Jack built this one >_> ).

Either way, something could really do with being done about this mission. Replace the spouts with normal Corolax spawns, make them do no KB but do DoT like the CoT red crystals. Hell, even rooting them in place would be better, because they seem to like nothing better than homing in on people and hurling them across the whole cave, usually into the rather corally embrace of Calystix and his Rocklords...sorry, Coral Guardians.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

As I recall, the waterspouts move in a well-defined and completely predictable pattern. Yes, that pattern combined with the radius of their KB means they cover the majority of the room through their path. But there are holes in the KB pattern. I don't think the waterspouts are an issue with the mission.

The fonts, on the other hand, are a total pain in the ***. I dont think I've completed the mission without at least a tray of purples for each pair. But be fair; the fonts don't have Psychic Shockwave, they only have Psionic Tornado (though an extremely powerful version...)

I recall helping a Stone Brute with this mission on my DM/SR Stalker. It wasn't horrible... but he had a glaring hole to Psi damage (which is everywhere in this mission) and I had to wait for Elude to be available for each of the Fonts (which, considering the map is 89.8 miles wide, wasn't a big wait). All in all it wasn't that bad.... no wait, it sucked, and it was really annoying, for both of us.


[If you can't tell, I was downplaying the suck factor for comedic effect. If I failed at the funny, go find a joke you like, and pretend I used that one instead.]

I got pressed into helping a coaly with this mish as well with my own Katana / SR stalker... and I have to agree... it was awful. While I'm sort of used to getting knocked about or mezzed when Practiced Brawler comes up and I'm too busy attacking to let it trigger, it was quite a different experience to getting knocked around while PB was active. It was also quite an experience to get slaughtered... repeatedly... after getting knocked into various mobs. I had a very good idea why nobody else in the coalition I was in at the time was interested in helping... so yes, I'm for this mission getting changed somehow... as I'll go running and screaming in the other direction if somebody tries to get me to do it again.

That mission sucks. I've only ever attempted it once and I have no intention of attempting it ever again. This is easily the cheapest bit of content I've seen in the entire game, and attempting it is just not fun.

Here's a big fat warning: If you're on a mastermind, simply do not attempt this mission. The Fonts will insta-kill all of your henchmen before they animate their first attack, and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

I'd love for the whole premise of this mission to be dropped and the battle redesigned, but I'm too realistic to expect anything of the sort.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Eh... I've got to admit, I've run it a few times and haven't found it all that problematic. The fonts are avoidable. I'm generally MUCH more irritated with Scorpion's "Spend 20 minutes a piece whacking away at each mole machine" than those fonts.

See my Guides and Tutorials

Yeah, going back, I realized that. I've got part running through the caves and dealing with the (non-objective) other fonts in mind. I *think* I've run that or helped with it on a MM (thugs) that wasn't too bad, only other one I have with Mako is my en/en brute.

See my Guides and Tutorials

That mission is easily the most annoying mission in the entire game.

All I can say is thank god Patron Pools are no longer locked to the specific Patron badges any more.

What I found very confusing is that when the Fonts are destroyed, it doesn't make the waterspouts go away. At least if it did that there'd be a benefit of destroying them apart from the mission objective.

I guess they're just not designed that way.

And I hate the mission!

And I agree with Memphis Bill on the Mole Machine thingy too. Who thought that one up?!

Given the fonts, nastily enough, con as EBs...AND there are two of them for every One Font spawn (i.e you have to kill two at the spawn to decrease the objective count by 1) it's still pretty out of whack. They seem to be a lot more accurate than player versions, and have high Psi DoT

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Yeah I've done this mission about 2, maybe 3 times. It's definitely hard because of the psi and KB (although to be honest the KB from the little water spouts aren't that bad usually).

I actually kind of like the mission...or at least the concept...I like 'mobs' like the water spouts and the -tohit/percep 'clouds' in Croatoa's missions...just something different. Granted, if you don't have KB protection (which btw, Acrobatics covers you from all that...unless you get more than 2 on ya) it does stink because you can get stuck in an endless loop of KB.

As far as the end room goes...just pull fish sticks lady to the cave/hallway where there are no water spouts/fonts....that's what I always do when I have the mission and/or when I'm helping others out. Much easier in the hallway

I will say the spouts are definitely MM 'killers'...(if you don't fight fish sticks in the hallway that is)...minions/pets go bouncing all around....not so much fun.


That mission and the Black Scorpion, "pound on 3 Nemesis Mole Machines for 20 minutes each" mission should be changed. 1 is hard/painful the other is painful because it's tedious and silly.

I actually want them to stay, i find them a refreshing challenge compared to other missions.