Sewer Trial - Why isn't this more popular?

@Zartain organised a sewer trial last night which @Hard kindly informed me of as I'd mentioned to him that I'd never done one before. Thanks guys for that btw.

But I have to say, I had an absolute ball with this. Easily my favourite hero-side TF and it was relatively economical in time and merits.

So why is it so rare to see it done?

It's pretty easy to fail if you don't know what you're doing (in terms of discovering everything for the first time), so most of the team has to have run it before, or know what to expect.

Then again, the only time I tried the Sewer Trial was back before merits, and when the "accepted strategy" was to start the trial with level-appropriate heroes, then invite level 50s to use the glowie temp powers. I'm sure there were teams that ran it appropriately, but at the time I had to take what I could get.

Never done it before so im no help

Unless it's changed since I last ran it a very long time ago, the time limit is simply not enough to finish it unless you know what you're doing.

If you start at the top and kill your way methodically to the end, you will run out of time.

Other than the badge tourism trips with 50s that unexemped in the mish, last time I did it properly was 3 years ago and we finished with 30 seconds to spare.

In the four or however many years I've been playing I've done the abandoned sewer trial 3 times: Failed, suceeded before they fixed the auto-exemping, suceeded the legit way.

I think there is also a factor of many people not knowing about it. Everytime I see someone try to organize one, there is always a period of explaining that it is not an atlas park sewer run for new characters, followed by the "so what IS it then?" questioning.

I really enjoy running the Abandoned Sewer Trial because emphasis is placed on working cohesively and within a team framework. Aside, from any Master run (STF/ITF/Reichs/LGTF), this is on my list of favorites.

That said, it can be painful to run especially for the reasons mentioned by others on the thread. This is where an experienced tf leader can put everybody on the same page before the timer starts by providing directions as to how the team will proceed. Having folks who listen is the key piece for success or fail on this trial.

Like Leandro mentions, a team can easily finish around 30-45minutes. The interesting thing is, I've found leading inexperienced teams pretty thrilling as we usually end up finishing in the nick of time literally as in seconds to spare before timer runs out. That's pretty exhilarating imo.

You can clear the shaft quickly if everybody sticks together and still have enough time to take care of the bottom. Again, the experienced tf leader will realize how fast (or not) progressing and adjust tactics accordingly.

The Abandoned Sewer trial requires people be more coordinated and experienced than other TFs/trials.

In a sense, it hearkens back to a time when trials were meant to be difficult if not downright impossible for pug style teams to finish if they weren't prepared.

1. The temp powers need to be organized so players know which ones are effective against the head. Sometimes you have players grabbing the wrong temps for the head or not using it properly or hogging temp powers.

2. The way to keep the field down can be frustrating if the team decides not to coordinate the generators. The mobs that defend them generally are pretty tough for someone to solo so it's not easy to just park someone at each generator and have the remaining 4 jump the head with the temp powers.

3. The level of the Rikti spawns are +2, afair. This means a lot of squishies get squished by the drones seeing everything and the mobs having lots of mez. Of course getting a +2 boss rikti sword to the head hurts a lot too.

4. The rewards kind of suck. Not the merits, but the hydra-Os. I believe that the sewer trial was introduced when the level cap was 40, and the hydra-Os have stayed that way even though the cap was raised to 50. Hami-Os and the hami encounter were bumped to 50 but the fact that you can outlevel hydra-Os make them a relic from another time.

Also for inexperienced teams 29 merits might be low but that's the nature of merits anyhow.