Cathedral of Pain 11/13/10 7pm

OK 3 trials all getting the Storm/purple AV and 3 failures.

This trial is not worth attempting until they fix the AV. Succuess in the trial should not be determined by luck of getting the red AV.

All that work and time for nothing... what a waste of time.

All 3 raids failed.

Storm AV = failure 3x

Raid 2(teams 4-6) and Raid 3(Rest of people who stayed)

Raid 2 and 3 had 6 rads, 2 or 3 kins and 6 range damage 3 tanks 3 scraps and couple dark and emps = 24people.

I'd like to use the failures as a learning experience. That being said, I ask this in ignorance.
When we're in the same room as the AV, there are three "cubes" which have a number of baddies. When the baddies are defeated, the AV's barrier "shattered". Then, we all attack the AV. I could be wrong, but it seems like the barrier was erecting after less than 30 seconds. At most, maybe a minute, but I am aware how time flies when you're mashing fingers repeatedly.

When the barrier goes up, we're supposed to go back to our assigned cube. I know that I had a hard time figuring out where that was after the hurricane blew me up and out. I should have used a thumbtack, but it never occurred to me that with the av there, I would need a second frame of reference. But, even so, I found myself looking around in circles, searching for a rularuu to clobber. After the initial spawns, we were taking them down pretty quickly.
One thing I'm sure of, it's not a lack of debuff. We had plenty, and we only got him down maybe 10% the whole time. But, then again, maybe some of the debuffs missed.
I just wish I was sure that it was the av. My team only had a blaster and a scrapper for damage.
Anyone else have 2 cents to throw in?

Weirdly I think we may have actually overdone it on support. A few fewer rad controllers replaced by blasters/soldiers/kheldians for more damage might have given us a bit more of an edge. Alternately, at least four people with fully-slotted Tactics might have let us get through the hurricane a little better.

Not that I'm convinced either of these things would have actually let us WIN, mind, but they're the thoughts that occur.

Here's a unique idea! Find someone that has led a successful raid against the storm AV and sort out the tactics.

No charge for that advice.

Heh, Thanks Fitz. I keep asking myself what would I do without you. If there's no one else on the planet to remind me to stop taking things so seriously, it's you, Fitz.

Hmm.... you got a book or a guide I could read somewhere? I did your AE arc. And though it was filled with wisdom, I still find myself lacking common sense.

You think there's any hope for me? Ooh. Maybe ya better not answer that. I'm a mite sensitive, too. :P

Oh the AE arc, it was done once AE came out just to see what was possible. I haven't touched it since.

My response wasn't to you, it was to the few posting that storm av = failure or the fact that it was a huge waste of time.

It's a challenge, figure it out and beat it.

And I don't think your problem is that you're too sensitive. I think the issue is that yo're too old. I don't think they make a pill for that.

On the last try it seemed to me that we had more than enough debuffs but not enough damage and our team +to hit buffs were lacking. Players were also taking too long to shift targets when he would shield himself and go back to the cubes. I'd often times find myself and like 1 or 2 people at most attacking the spawns at a cube.

Overall I think we could of won this one if the spawns would be dropped quicker. I don't think his shield can be up very long at all if you want to beat him. He regens alot very quickly in just a few seconds.

I wasn't there on the 2nd and 3rd tries, but the first try seemed to me a lot like your #2 and #3.

I think there needed to be a little more coordination in the AV room. I wasn't on vent so I don't know if it was talked on vent but it sure seemed like instead of 3 teams (this happened in both raids I was in) there turned out to be 2 'teams'.

When the shield got put back up it seemed 2 out of the three teams took care of their cube but the '3rd' team (whoever that was) was not doing their own cube. That could be from getting lost (I know in the first raid I thought I was helping out in my own cube but turned out I wasn't...).

I think it'd help if each team's melee person would go back to their cube right before the shield comes up (shield comes up every 45 seconds according to the guide). This allows everyone to look to their melee person and follow them to their own cube. Or even better, if there are 2 melee toons in a team, 1 stays at the AV and the other stays at the cube.


In the second raid/retry I think the lowest we got the HP down to was like 56k and there were a few times where again, one cube never got touched (mob wise) until 2 of the cubes were cleared (for the most part)...by the time we defeated the mobs the AV was at full health. In the first raid, the lowest we got the AV down to was like 76k (or was it 70k?).


So maybe once all are in the room state in the request (or broadcast) channels that team 1 is at x cube, etc. Also, by that time you'll know if it's purple or red AV man, if it's the purple AV, say, "all ranged toons stay out of hurricane range...stay in one spot." This helps so that for the Kinetics toons that use Siphon Power and/or Fulcrum Shift, the ranged dmg toons get the +dmg buffs (or their shivan/vanguard pets too).

Also should be of note, the hero power (Call to Justice: +tohit +dmg) should be used when we're grouped up together. I used it a few times but...again, not a huge deal but sometimes it can help.

Sorry to hear it didn't work out last night.

Just from reading the comments posted here, I have a few suggestions:

1. Re: Getting lost in the AV room. A good way to avoid this is to click on the portal entrance on your map prior to entering the room. This will select it such that once you're inside, the entrance will be highlighted as a waypoint. When the raid leader assigns your team to a cube, check to see where it is relative to the entrance, and this makes it much easier to go back to the right cube once things get started.

2. Re: Defeating the spawns too slowly. I can't stress this enough, it is really important to take out the cube spawns as soon as possible. There are 3 things that will potentially stop you from doing this quickly: 1) people are too slow to switch targets from the AV to the cube, 2) people don't go to the right cube which causes 3) spawns to scatter, fly around, etc. The best way to keep the Rularuu from flying around is to physically be at your cube and fighting them. Usually when I lead CoP runs I will call out in Vent and in Broadcast when the barrier is shattered and when to head back to the cubes. If you find this still isn't happening fast enough, then leaving one melee toon at the cube can help (but isn't necessary).

3. Re: Not enough damage. I want to emphasize that the team compositions I posted in my guide are meant to be a rough estimate of what you will need. I'd also like to add that when I wrote that section of the guide, the AV was still attacking through his shield and more support was needed. This bug is no longer occurring, so by all means, if you feel you need more damage, then bring on more damage. That team set up had worked for me in the past vs the Storm AV, but the idea was that people would tweak the teams as needed.

4. Re: Shield not down long enough. I've timed how long the shield is down on several occasions and always get 45s. It can seem shorter or longer depending on how things are going, but if you actually measure it, you should get 45s.

I hope that answers some questions!

I have to agree with the one assessment that the teams might have to stick to one cube and one only for each team. I had never done that TF till last night. I could be wrong in my thinking, but perhaps a scrapper and a tank should each be placed at a cube to take on the regenerated baddies. Perhaps for each cube three or four team members out of 8 should concentrate on the boxes and the rest concentrate on the AV. Again, I could be wrong, but its my only thought I could think of to kill baddies faster and get that shield down

The storm AV doesn't equal an instant fail. Sounds like there was a breakdown in communication.

Cold as Ice is correct. And, sadly, there was a breakdown in communication. Draygos was unable to get his ventrillo set up or working right, so that kind of led us to rely on typing. Typing and fighting is tougher than fighting and talking.

I think the way to speed up the demise of the three spawns of baddies near the cube is for each participant to mark their respective cubes as a waypoint on their map. That way they know where they are supposed to go when the AV barrier goes back up.

The speed of killing (on the first run) didnt' seem to be an issue from where I was sitting. I would go back to what I think was my cube and there would be next to none of them left. I would spin around to the other cubes and help with heals/rez and what damage I could do.

Our problem on the first run was that we didn't get much of a dent on him except that 1 time. The barrier went back up, he regen'd and then we hardly made a scratch after that.

On the Call to Justice, sadly, my toon didn't have that on this run, and that could have made a large difference, particularly if everyone on the COP had it and used it. As far as I know, they should stack.

Thanks go to Dream Weaverz and Project Obsidian Operations for organizing this event.

Although not successful, it was good experience. IMHO, I think better coordination would have helped with clearing mobs quicker in the AV room. We seemed to be able to clear mobs very quickly and with no problems during the Obelisk phase. But in the AV room, we seemed to be slow switching targets back and forth between cube mobs and AV. This gave the cube mobs (and some teams) ample time to scatter, especially the last run.

Thanks again,
Paul
aka Makurokurosuke

Sorry for the fail. We'll beat it next time I'm sure.

To me, the teams seemed very uneven in their ability to clear the Rularuu from the cubes. I was on team 1 and my cube was always cleared MUCH faster than the other two. My team and I would clear our cube, turn to look at the AV and see the other two cubes still having fights going on. I would run over to help, fight a bit, and then find that the Rularuu at my own cube had respawned already. It was often taking us two cycles of cube spawns to take down the shield, which is far, FAR too long.

I'm not sure what the composition of the other teams were, but we were obviously unbalanced.

Interestingly, when we were taking down the glyphs we had the same problem. My team almost destroyed our Glyph before the others even got started, despite a coordinated start. By the time the other teams were working their glyphs down, we had another spawn of enemies we had to defeat before we could destroy our glyph.

Another small concern I was having was the fact that none of the Rularuu leave bodies. I was playing a Warshade, and was unable to make any fluffies to assist. Now for the Storm AV it doesn't matter much, as the hurricane will render them moot, but I was still rather disappointed, and with the non-storm AV they would provide some much appreciated extra damage. I also faceplanted a couple of times when Stygian Circle would have been quite handy. It would be nice if in some future iteration of the CoP trial, the cube would spawn the occasional Natterling or Brute.

I had a lot of fun during the 1st run, and I enjoyed participating, but I will say that it seemed to me that not many people have fought Lanaru the Mad. There were a few things that stood out to me.

1) I saw a number of people standing in the Rains. Lanaru has Freezing Rain, Ice Storm and Blizzard, all of which have a -Recharge debuff (and Blizzard has a minor -ToHit to it), which would have lowered the total amount of damage output available.

2) I saw too many ranged characters that were too close to him. I was at the edge of Hurricane, so it was easy to see who was too close and being hit with the -ToHit debuff. Also, any summoned pets that got too close would have also been debuffed by Hurricane's -ToHit, making them less than useful.

3) As has been pointed out, it took too long to switch from the AV to the Factory Cubes, which in turn, caused it to take too long to defeat the summoned enemies.

4) There didn't seem to be enough -Regen, at least from what I could tell. I could be wrong here though, with everything going on it was hard to tell what all powers were affecting Lanaru. I really wish the Devs would add the buffs/debuffs to the Target window, at least the debuffs (let's get Pohsyb on this!).

Also, just as an FYI, Lanaru also has Thunderclap and Snow Storm, so keep that in mind for future runs. I didn't see a Disorient that often, unless it was when we were fighting the Rularuu from the Factory Cubes. As for Snow Storm, just keep an eye out for the graphical effect and move away from the group when you get it.

Overall though, I wouldn't call it a terrible run, I would consider it more of a learning experience. Personally, I had a blast, even though we didn't win. I just love fighting Rularuu and Lanaru is my favorite AV in the game. For those of you who think he is too difficult, just be glad he doesn't move! lol

Like Cyclone said, Blizzard stacked on hurricane =80+ -tohit. 57.6 from Hurricane and 28.8 from blizzard.

What few said, "not enough coordination in the AV room." I agree, but we learn from our mistakes. Just need to post a strategy(amygdala's guide and someones guide on Guardian Server.) With the other AV, which is a lot easier doesnt really need much of a strategy*imho*.

I'm looking forward for another CoP, with the Stormie AV. Tackle it down this time.