Trapdoor is getting harder.

My electric/ice tanker had no troubles with Trapdoor. No pulling. Just knocked him into the lava and kept him there.
My WS was stunned and defeated, but rezzed and prevailed in short order. Knocked him into the lava also.

Trying it now with my Widow. So far... he's killed her FOUR TIMES. She's not yet got his health down to half. Had him in the lava once, but he kept running away and eventually got out.

Edit: Okay, finally defeated him. Had to kill 45 clones and load up on reds to do it. No lava - he wouldn't stay in it anyway.

Anybody else done it tonight?

Dear Francises,

Relax.




EDIT:
Just in case anyone mistakes that as trying to rudely take a jab at them... that is not how I meant it.
Just attempting to interject a bit of humor in here as well as an obviously needed step back and casual approach to this entire topic.

That back and forth between some posters seems a bit ridiculous.
People focus on tiny little bits and twist things around and run off on tangents (on both/all sides) until you're no longer discussing anything relevant to the original disagreement.,.. you're just attempting to smear the other in order to discredit them... and there's plenty of ammunition on all sides to pick up and use against the other, so that is no great feat.

Sheesh, hehe... cut it out.

I only ever replied in here to 1) hoping to make someone feel better about the change by discussing and sharing my view of it and why I think it is okay (or possibly to learn something that made me change my tune) and 2) to get some advice.
Both options, clearly, were wasted efforts based on over optimism.

Still...

I thought Wavicle nearly had it right at first...
However, it is not a matter of pulling making it too easy (which has been a main focus of much back and forth), but that pulling into another room just created a hole in Trapdoor's defenses that was not intended/desired.

That, however, does not explain it well enough...

First off, Memphis... As far as I understand, we (and yes, I say we because maneuvering and pulling and ranged blasting is a large part of my gaming) are not losing our ability to maneuver and use that aspect of our powers.
We're not losing that.
They changed it so that he won't be led too far astray and so that his unique power does not get lost due to that simple tactic.

Trapdoor's power is unique.

It is not a stationary effect nor is it a power that is derived from the room he is within. It comes from himself.

Think of it this way...
We cannot pull a /regen scrapper away from his Fast Healing nor Reconstruction nor Dull Pain.
We cannot pull an enemy away from their Temporary Invulnerability or Stamina or any such thing.

However, with this unique power, we can destroy physical manifestations that are a part of his power.
It is somewhat like being able to target a specific target on an enemy. Imagine if you could attack a giant scorpion's stinger in order to disable it so that it could not attack you with it.
It is much like taking out shield generators, however, Trapdoor's clone manifestations are not supposed to be stationary objects that only exist in one location.
It's like punching King Hippo in the belly so that his trunks drop and then you can unload on his chin while he picks them up.

And, again... we do not lose the ability to fight from ranged, to maneuver and to use our powers as we normally can.
He's just not going to be as much of a twit as he was... and his power will not be based on the location.

Clunky fix? Without playing it in it changed state, I can't say for certain.

Something that leads to a slippery slope of not being able to pull anything, not being to hold or drain or blah blah blah... that seems like an utter fallacy to me.

Trapdoor's power is unique and they felt it was not being represented properly the way things were. We really haven't lost any options. They just reinforced what they wanted Trapdoor to be able to do.

I spent a bit of time on Test today with some older copied 50s that hadn't run Ramiel's arc and went a few rounds with Trapdoor. I can't discern any difference between his past incarnation (pun not intended) and this one in terms of difficulty.

Some tips:

Killing his bifurcations as they spawn should be your first priority. If you fail to do so you make the fight much harder than it needs to be. He seems to spawn one at the battle's start and one every 30 seconds thereafter. They're minion class so they shouldn't pose too much of a problem. Tracking them down can be, though. You'll want to retain your mobility throughout the fight.

If you have a damage buff like Build Up, don't waste it on his bifurcations unless you can one-shot them and get back to Trappy before it wears off.

Inspirations are your friends. Purples and reds specifically. Don't grab just one or the other.

If all else fails, swallow your pride and ask a friend to help. Hell, ask a stranger. You'd be surprised how many helpful people there are out there. Not every build will be able to solo him, it's just part of the design of the game. Having another person on hand means one person can kill the bifurcations and one person can stay on Trapdoor.

UPDATE: So I found a way to make the encounter even more challenging: play it on an SO only toon I have mere minutes of familiarity with. During the closed beta testing of Dual Pistols, characters created with that set were bumped to 50 and given the cash to buy SOs. It turns out I had a DP/Mental Blaster sitting at 50, so I decided to send him against Trapdoor. However, I had to set some parameters. Already I was going in handicapped, with little knowledge of the powersets I was using (I haven't yet played either set to 50) and only basic enhancements, but Mental has a -regen debuff in Drain Psyche which would have given me a pretty substantial advantage, so I decided that I would not use it during the fight.

So I got to Trapdoor, popped four small purples and proceeded to attack him. My method was this: use whatever Dual Pistols attacks that weren't recharging. As I expected, he immediately bifurcated. I did a quick scan, found his bifurcation and killed it. Trapdoor followed me so I didn't waste precious seconds tracking him down again. With the small purples I was softcapped, so I could focus on pouring on the damage. I got him to about 50% before he popped his next bifurcation. I'll admit, I got lucky and he spawned right on top of me. I killed it and went back to Trapdoor. At this point my purples had faded so I popped Build Up and hoped I could get him down to 25% before he killed me. Fortunately I did, right as he popped his third bifurcation.

So yeah, armed with little more than my past experience with Trapdoor, without IO sets, without much knowledge of the character I was playing, with DRAIN PSYCHE TIED BEHIND MY BACK, with just four small purples, I beat Trapdoor.

Trapdoor is still a Wimp. I dropped in less than a minute on my DS/Thermal. I buffed them, debuffed him, and told them to attack; while stood back and healed them.

I just solod this arc on both my Widow and my Warshade.

The Widow was on +2/x3 and the Warshade was on +1/x2.


The Widow used Oranges and Reds for every fight. The Warshade used Purples and Reds.

In both cases I killed the clones as soon as they spawned and Trapdoor went down fast enough.

Both toons pulled Holtz and defeated him easily enough.

The Widow defeated the Honoree without a problem.

The Warshade was knocked out by the Honoree several times, but did manage to get him down eventually using only Inspirs and Powers. No Shivans, Nukes or other Temps. I never really expected to be able to solo him successfully, so that was good enough for me.

Echo of Minos was incredibly easy with him eventually running from both toons too slowly to escape and was defeated through his Unstoppable or One with the Shield or whatever he has.


My Widow is mostly lvl 30 common IOs with a few specials like Steadfast +Def, Miracle +Rec, and Mind Link frankenslotted with Def/Rech. She has and used Elude.

My Warshade is frankenslotted with yellow and orange IOs with a few partial sets for +HP, +Regen, +Rec, and +Acc and has only a KB Prot as far as Specials go. He has and used Dwarf form.



You're free to build however you like, but the devs aren't going to balance the game for Every possible iteration of a soloists build. They are going to generalize based on what the various powersets have available to them.

Also, you CAN get unlucky with def and acc. That's just the nature of the game.

This thread, oh wow...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bad_Influence Trappy's not a special snowflake who needs special privileges. If anything, an EB who deserves special privileges would be Honoree. He's been through enough to earn 'em. Trappy ain't nothin' special, he even has a boring costume.

Added some bolds (boldly).

Why is Trapdoor is not special? Just because you say so?
Trapdoor is:
-a boss encounter,
-an incarnate,
-the person our characters steal incarnate powers from,
-part of the introduction arc to end game content (incarnate system),
-the only boss in said arc that cannot be skipped (via Complete mission),
-and he even has his own little story arc
Seems pretty special to me.

And enemies with boring costumes should be easier to beat? Seriously?
All right, I can agree if we turn this around to "really hard enemies should have interesting/unique appearance". But still, interesting/boring is so highly subjective that making this a hard and fast rule seems unfeasible.


Now, some more general comments, not necessarily related to the quote.

This might be my previous experience with a certain uber-popular fantasy MMO talking, but I really thought it obvious that different boss encounters would have different mechanics. On some pulling (or some other tactic) worked, on others pulling was suicide, and on a few well-coordinated pulling was crucial. And this was a Good Thing, that different bosses needed different tactics and the same tactic did not work on every boss. And developers both designed and changed encounters with certain tactics in mind.

Unique encounter mechanics was not part of this games story arcs (as opposed to TFs) until relatively recently (was Protean the first?), most likely due to resource constraints. But now they are here and I for one like that.

*ahem*

I doubt any devs will even read this thread. In fact, in light of the holidays, I'd be surprised if there's even many in the office this week, or last week for that matter. I'm even willing to bet they've been largely coasting since getting back from Thanksgiving.

That being said, I have to laugh at all of this.

I laugh at the designers who got all butthurt that people used long existing tools and techniques to trivialize an encounter in a one-time arc that is...well trivial.

I laugh at anyone who complains about this change, but defended how the devs crap all over melee ATs in the Apex finale and the new Winter Event.

I laugh at the munchkins telling everyone else to L2P. They might not get the joke now, but when they're buying server transfers in a couple months they may.

I also laugh at the devs as a group, because I've seen what comes from using munchkins as the balance point and catering to their whims.

Lastly, there's Positron. After seeing what his idea of "epic" endgame and giving 'moar power' to players involves: Triple digit faceplants, legions of purple mooks, more demonic spiders and old NPCs elevated up even further above player characters.

Indeed, that is the greatest joke here of all. Too bad I'm not laughing at it.



.

I've done Trapdoor with my Warshade (piece of cake), my Mastermind (piece of cake), my energy/energy stalker (worst time ever) and my claws/regen stalker (second worst time ever).

The difference between easy and sucking is whether you can quickly kill his bifurbs. My stalker could not do it very quickly nor could my scrapper as they ran around chasing down and killing his bifurbs while he regened.

In a nutshell it was so mind numbingly boring and annoying I never want to do it again and dread, actually dread, the few others I may choose to unlock the alpha slot for except for my pet summoners and AoE types.

This seems like a bad mission design to have something that you either fly through without a second thought or get done doing and just want to logout and go play something else to "clear the palate" so to speak.

Annoying for some is not meaningful in any way.

I beat Trapdoor earlier on my Crab, kept my usual settings (+0/x4)

*Yawn* fights getting to him were quite simple and fighting him was cake (I walked up to him, shot him a few times beat him and never fought a clone, as the only one I noticed had spawned out of line of sight from me... or was killed by my pets I don't pay that much attention when fighting on my Crab)

Maybe I'm fighting a different mission than everyone else? That's the only explanation I can think of - on a DP/Mental/Elec blaster (no IOs), I ate about 300% worth of variously sized reds, popped Surge of Power and a couple purples, and started unloading all the damage I could into him. He immediately spawned a bifurcation, I took it out, then started actually damaging him. Got him to 50% before his second bifurcation spawned. Seek and destroy the bifurcation, probably took me about 6-7 seconds - bifurcations take me 2 shots to kill as DP, slow animations, etc., plus the time to actually find the thing behind obstacles.

Tab back to Trapdoor... and he's at full HP already.

Suffice to say: there's only two ways I've beaten this fight on any character I've done it on, regardless of build or inspiration usage, and those ways are 'lava' (which I'm convinced the devs will eventually remove as an option) and 'team'.

So either the encounter is being extremely wonky every time I do it, or I'm a terrible player. Considering I've got every single Master of TF badge in the game except for LGTF on my main (and that one is only because I haven't tried) - yes, this includes Apex and Tin Mage - I'm not convinced that it's the latter...

Edit: Mind you, I don't think it's a bad thing we have new, challenging mechanics. I love both of the new TFs and am eager to see more content in their style. And I wouldn't even say Trapdoor is particularly "hard" in his current incarnation - he's an absolute joke for a team of any size (even a duo), and he's an absolute joke if you dump him in the lava. But I do think that if the mission is intended to be done with a team, the mission text should carry the standard warning from Ramiel that you should bring help like every other mission in the game that is difficult for soloists - like, for instance, the very next mission in his arc. And if it's intended to be soloable, *something* needs to be done to make it less frustrating for people who don't like using what could be considered a borderline exploit to win. Dumping him in the lava doesn't feel heroic or epic. It doesn't make me feel like I've earned anything special.

In short: it's not "hard", I'll concede, but it's not "fun" either. See also: Reichsman.