Honoree mission Awful

I'll come back here later tonight or tomorrow and post how I did on my Dark Miasmas. I hate fighting Rikti on them, because of all the stuns and Psi-attack-only holds. The Mesmerist LTs have Fear protection, and the Guardians's AccMet slashes the duration on my holds. I'm still planning to go in on +2/x4. Honestly, I expect the Rikti to take longer than the EBs.

Well, I had a whole big response to this typed out, but then I tried to preview my post and got logged out by the stupid forum software. That said, I agree with Hydrophidian that the arc as a whole is pretty meh. Not horrible, but a bit less epic and... interesting than I'd hope for. As for Honoree, it's probably not the greatest idea to have an EB punching for 1100 damage (that's not so much 'challenge' as it is 'fake difficulty',) but I also don't think it makes him insurmountable for anybody. I pretty much just used Standard EB Operating Procedure* against him and he wasn't much more annoying than a regular EB. And this was on an Earth/ Dominator, so about the only thing I had going in my favor was good damage output. I might try him tonight on my pretty-much-IO-less Rad/Rad Defender tonight... without using her primary. That should be a pretty good test.






*Standard EB Operating Procedure
(Note that while this works on every character I've ever tried it on, which covers almost every possibility, I dunno how it works for Controllers without a ST immob, since PToD can interfere with their damage-dealing capabilities. Fortunately, nor do I care about Controllers.)
Since I still regularly see people referring to EBs in general like they're this big invincible obstacle, here's a guide to soloing 90% of the EBs in the game on pretty much any character.

• Fill your tray 2/3 of the way with purple inspirations. Top it off with a mix of greens and reds.
• Get the EB alone.
• Softcap yourself with purples. If you have no defense, just eat four of them and call it a day. Eat all of the reds.
• Wail on the EB.
• If you get hit, eat greens. When the purples start flickering (keep an eye on this,) eat some more.
• If you die, stock your tray back up and return. Chances are, you won't die.

On my main (Mind/Psi Dominator), I charged into the room with Demonic and domination running, confused the second EB and all the Rikti, killed the second EB 3really easily while he was taking chunks out of Honoree (who wasted his heal, tee hee) then used stacks of 4 lucks at a time while wittling Honoree down. Took all of 4 minutes.

Not all of my alts would have been able to do that, but they'd still have won eventually. It's not that hard.


Funniest thing last night was the number of players who wanted to be an Incarnate but hadn't even unlocked the Midnight Club. Now *that's* lame.

I'll admit it; the first two characters I did the Honoree mish with, I got wiped and stomped but good.

Here's the difference though; I knew I had to change my strategies. Whatever I had done before didn't work in this respect for my Invul/SS Tank nor my Bots/Traps MM. As such, I did change tactics, and although it was a tough fight for both, I overcame, adapted and improvised. I made mistakes even during those last fights, but I learned and applied.

Nontheless to say, both characters got their alpha slot.

I can understand the OP's angst, and I truly felt ticked off getting two to four shotted by Honoree as well, but rather than blame the mish, I turned around and analyzed what I needed to do different; THIS unto itself is one of the reasons I like the direction this game is going. No more click-click-click on the powers tray and going "Leroy Jenkins" on the AV/EB/Portals; change tactics, weapons and/or method of attack as needed. Great input from the beta forums also helped me in devising a better tactic as well (thanks all you die-hard beta testers!).

Nontheless, I know some folks aren't into changing their ways or playstyle; for that, there is the 'autocomplete'. You have the option. Use whichever one you think will make your gameplay more to your enjoyment.

You know I always wondered why Silver Mantis just wipes the floor with me despite stacking Lucks. Now I know

I actually bum rush the the honeree and mobs with my plant/psi and had no issues.........

These elite bosses are business as usual. Characters with the "right" sets will blow them away (and probably come to the boards to post about how easy it was) and others will struggle. The only thing I noticed that was different was two of them lacked knockback protection.

I found the missions overall pretty good. But my god does the AV/elite boss system in this game need an overhaul. It's probably the worst feature in the game. I can't think of a video game I've played in the past 20 years with less fulfilling boss fights actually, which is too bad because the rest of the battles in CoH are pretty good. On a team, half the time the boss is dead before I even realize there's one there.

EDIT: The Trapdoor fight was actually pretty good. And I didn't mind the fight with the two elite bosses. The set up was all there, but the actual mechanics of fighting an elite boss are still a turn off.

I tried this mission with my Kin/Energy Defender, and ended up autocompleting it just because I wanted to see the Incarnate content. But I think I could have managed it if I had known more and prepared properly. Without proper preparation you're doomed.

I snuck in with Invisibility. This caused all the portals to drop one Rikti, who stood there wondering what he was supposed to do. I found a safe position and began sniping the portals away, then dealing with the Rikti who would aggro from that. That tactic worked fine until the Vanguard guy spotted me and hit me with a stun grenade, then killed me.

I went back in and decided to pull the AVs. Started with Honoree. Didn't know what I was in for -- he ignored my Transference and Speed Drain, then slept, then stunned, then killed me.

I still think I could have handled this mission if I had known it was all about status effects. I would have loaded up on break frees and defense inspirations. (I had none -- that character typically carries a loadout of endurance and health, and I was depleted having just come from a Hami raid.) With the correct loadout of inspirations and slightly better tactics I think I would have managed.

So tonight I'll try again. I want my tank to get her incarnate slot, but I doubt she'll have a problem with this mission. I'll have to try one of my controllers and see how well they do. I'm sure a squishy can solo this mission. But it will take strategy and preparation. I'm fine with that.

For the record, I jumped between Ms. Vanguard and the Honoree on my Dark/Dark/Soul and won. Granted, I did so and purposely died to get Soul Transfer. After laying down a mag-30 stun they were cake. The thing to remember is that Dark/Dark/Soul benefits from having more enemies, so those portals were just fuel for me.

BTW to those still struggling with Trapdoor, the trick I used to solo is to pull him, then run or jump to the bottom with your toes at the edge of the lava. Ideally, set it up so the catwalk blocks his ability to shoot you from the platform. He will jump down and try to shoot you from the lava. If you can, Immobilize him there. If not, a knockback (especially a ranged one) can keep him from trying to melee you. The lava will deplete his HP very quickly.

For the fight with the other AVs, I think you can make some of the ambushes appear ahead of time if you go to the end room BEFORE grabbing the glowie. Kill them, go back to the glowie, then go back to the room. If you have ranged attacks, you should be able to pull the first group of portals without aggroing the AVs. Then try to pull each AV back one at a time. Most builds can do it eventually with luck. A few low damage Controllers may be stuck though (I seriously wonder whether my Ice Controllers could pull it off from example because they don't put out a lot of DPS and their pet dies easily).