Protean: A completely unfair fight. AND I LOVED IT.

So I recently got to fight Protean for the first time as my KM/SR scrapper, and didn't really know what to expect going into it. I just figured I would waltz up to him, pop all my inspirations and mash the 1-5 keys until he died, just like every other EB. So I do just that. The first thing I notice is that "boy, this guy sure has a lot of defense", but continue to pound away. And then I see "PROTEAN IS READYING HIS POWER SIPHON! GET AWAY!" appear, and have just enough time to think "what the hell does that mean?" before I have no endurance, he has healed up to full health, and I am tasting the floor.

I tried again, and tried to keep my distance whenever he fired off the siphon. No good. I do manage to get him down to about 25% before he KO's me again. Finally, after another two attempts, I head to ouro, load up on insps, use my mission TPer to get back in, and do the old "jump around like a flea on Amphetamines" routine while smacking him in the face until he died.

I let out a triumphant whoop, and realized that that was probably the most fun I had had soloing an Elite Boss in years.

Why can't more Elite Bosses be like this? I love having to use some actual strategy and planning to take these guys down rather than just trading punches to the face until one of us keels over. Would it be possible to add some of these tactical wrinkles to old elite bosses? I would love to see Nemesis for example split into ten duplicates when he hits 75, 50, and 25% health and make you guess the correct one in ten seconds or else all the fakes charge you and explode. Or maybe have Doctor Vahzilok drop icky tumor blobs all over the place that you must avoid or contract wasting disease. Or have Requiem be tailed by a slow moving invulnerable Nictus that you must lure him away from in order to damage him.

Little things like that would make Elite Boss and Archvillain encounters so much more memorable and fun, and while I am glad to see that the devs have recently started taking all AV's in this direction (Reichsman, Romulus, Lord Recluse, ect.) I wish the old foes would get some retroactive love too. Even if it was just one additional power, just to make things more interesting.

I know. That is probably the best fight in the game aside from some TF's. Need I mention the cutscene at the end? (This was blueside, correct?)

There was a thread a while back regarding improving the Mothership raids in that aspect too. I think the idea was something like every so often while fighting on the ship it would give you a 5-10 second warning before the ship blasted a huge repel effect at everyone on it, blasting all heroes/villains in all directions. It got a great response from everyone too.

I think you should take this improvement to the suggestion board, Squid. I'd be all for it. Bare-knuckle boxing AV's can get redundant for sure, and it would make things much more interesting for those Scrappers that love hunting AVs. Actually, there is a thread floating around right now about redoing arcs.

Protean's Power Syphon seems to have slowed down its activation considerably. I remember when I'd get hit with the thing before the warning pop-up had even faded, meaning that if it caught me animating ANYTHING, I was SOL. Right now, he gives around five seconds' worth of warning, which is enough to actually give us a fighting chance. For instance, a couple of days ago, his Power Syphon popped up mid-way through my Knockout Blow, and I still managed to back clear out of range before it fired.

I will disagree, however, with calling it "the most fun EB fight," since I disagree on that definition of fun. I am perfectly content on pressing 1 through 5 and basically ramming my way through tough opponents in what is essentially a stat-based game. I appreciate the attempts at clever design, I really do, but Protean is really skirting the line between "clever" and "cheap" in a big way. Much more "clever" than that and you start getting irritating.

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.

Once you figure him out, he's extremely easy. Ranged classes walk over him. And if you're melee, simply hit and run. I'd imagine a hover blaster/corruptor would just laugh at him. I've faced him with a blaster with combat jumping, a tank and a couple of scrappers. I only had difficulty the first time. After that, the fight is trivial.

The Preatorian Vanessa and Belladonna are also fun fights. Vanessa is practically a mini-Hamidon

I vote for more of these type of fights, especially the ones where you think you're going to be in for a real hard time until suddenly at 50% or 25% HP the EB concedes or falls unconscious.

The Devs haven't really scratched the surface of fun or bewildering enemy fight mechanics. I'd be up for things like a mini version of Lord Recluse from the STF, where you need to damage things around the boss to make them beatable (the Rogue morality mission does this in a small way).

Bosses who ask riddles before you can beat them. Bosses who force your controls to reverse so up is down, etc...bosses who turn off all the lights in the map suddenly, bosses who stop you using inspirations or change you into a banana for 5 seconds (hitting you with a "weaponised" version of the devolution power). Bosses who grow to the size of Faathim and need ot be defeated one limb at a time...

All sorts of fun. Bosses who in one way or another require a little lateral thinking to defeat. Of course, we have lots of this in the larger-scale content (Thorn tree, Reichsman, Lusca, Crystal Titan, Hami etc) but some smaller-scale versions would also be nice.

I can see that this is exactly what the Devs are trying to do with Preatorian missions. It works really well, the only problem bieng that any veteran player breezes through the "gimmicks" like a freight train.

I'd rather not have bosses who rely on the cheap gimmick of removing my powers. The Purple Triangles of Death are bad enough. Interesting should not be confused with cheap.

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.

I took my blueside DP/Traps corruptor to fight him last night and walked all over the guy. He was down before he could fire off his first power siphon. I'm not saying this to brag (he smeared some of my characters to the point where I had no chance of doing it solo even popping inspirations) but I was honestly wondering last night if he got nerfed or I just got really lucky.

I too thought this was a great fight and would like to see more like it.

Practically all EB's melt to my Blasters when I'm at the damage cap, to be honest, and while I agree the melee types have it easier overall, I know how to play the game to my benefit on any AT that I play, and I hardly have elite builds.

So I personally have enjoyed all the Praetorian content - though to be fair, the first time I went through it I was like "WTH" a few times - because I wasn't used to the paradigm being torn to shreds like it was.

Once the content gets tweaked I think we'll hear less complaints. I do feel that a few of the complaints are totally legitimate, however, and I don't think it's fair to bash those who find matter-of-fact issues with any part of this game.

I think this would be as good a time as any to mention that I love Ghouls. Finally, an enemy group that you want to scatter.

Protean's kind of a jerk, but abusing the elevator shuts down his gimmick pretty quick.

I'm really happy with the new design of boss fights in some missions.
Adds a sense of strategy that had sorely been missing all these years.

Protean proved to be much fun on my blasters, though he gave my scrapper a bit of a workout, which is good cause it's usually the other way around!

Belladonna was fantastic. I didn't see it coming! Kept me on my toes, even though she was no match for my blasts. It's these kind of dynamic battles I hope to see much more of.

Even though it's been around longer, the redside Marshall Brass arc is still probably my favorite mission to solo.
The 1st time I ran into Prof. Echo my jaw dropped! I survived, thanks to inspirations. But it was Wonderful!

More like these please.

It's mission design like this that makes me that WarWitch is in charge!

During his warnings, I would get caught in an animation due to attack sequence and get killed on my main SPines/SR scrapper. It took me several tries. It was not very fun. The lag and the issue with the animations were very frustrating.


I see the idea and realize it can be good, but it needs to be balanced enough around animations that lock you down when you can't away, or do to lag get killed. Those are very frustrating.

Even I was on a Melee Humanform PB, I didn't have much trouble.

I just popped a few blues.

I've tried with PUGs too many times to like him. Be nice if his warning has changed a little - fraction more time - was always getting someone caught mid animation.

He destroyed me on my kin/elec scrapper, i dont mean just killed me i mean destroyed me. I used inspirations wisely, i never got hit by his siphon power and i did the good old hit and jump and run technique, however one or two hits and i'ld be back down to running away.

After four attempts i think i had to give up and auto complete it, not complaining though because its the only character i've had problems with him on and everyone should have a weakness

I must be the only person who had little trouble against Protean on a melee toon who didn't even bother to avoid the Siphon. Just popped some insps and kept on a'poundin'. He was a ridiculous joke on my Blaster and Mastermind, took him down like a pathetic Hellion only with more HP.

So I agree with the OP. That fight was extremely unfair -- for him.