Trapdoor is getting harder.

DPS alone works if you have a decent amount. I'd say the only people that should have trouble with this encounter are those who possess neither -regen nor good damage output AND who do not supplement that with teammates or temps. I've done this on a couple of my stalkers, admittedly well-IOed, but without any -regen ability just by finding and quickly killing his clones.

ONE teammate should be all you need. One person to stay on trapdoor and another to find and kill his clones if you don't have the outright damage to do it all yourself. I don't see why that is such a big deal for some people. The vast majority of content (even most of what tells you to bring a team) is soloable. Are a few exceptions that unacceptable?

As a Member of Vanguard, (after the arcs) on a team, with 2 other full teams and a smattering of others, 700-1000 merits is completely a normal amount for a single raid. And since they're quick, there's usually 3-4 run back to back...at least on virtue.

I'm not sure that the *Incarnate unlocking* missions should be as difficult as the Incarnate missions are purported to be. Slightly more difficult than regular solo content, maybe, but not vastly more difficult.

The problem I have with Trapdoor is that he's a gate to further content, so he shouldn't be so difficult people can't readily solo him. I mean, the mission with the echoes is disappointingly silly, because you get nothing at all from it and they can't even hurt you. You're told because this future you is so Incarnated-up, you're too ubermegapowerful to be dinged by such characters as mad gods and people who are aspects of deities. Essentially that everyone cons gray to you. Well, that's no fun, either, and if the Incarnate system actually goes that way, it'll be a snooze-fest. The reality is that the system *won't* end up like that, so that mission is misleading at the very least.

Three of my four 50s soloed Trapdoor, and I don't have another 50 arriving any time soon, but it is extraordinarily annoying that the Devs removed a perfectly valid tactic that we use in 99.9% of the rest of the game just because they didn't like it. I hate encounters that are scripted and on rails, and for characters who *can't* stand toe-to-toe with a big bag of hitpoints and slug it out, pulling was their only real option. Using Shivans feels like cheating (because, really, it is -- *you* aren't uber, that stupid walking Jell-O mold is) and teaming with just one other person trivializes the encounter so that it's a cakewalk. So either it's too hard or too easy, with zero challenge either way.

Zero challenge = no fun.

As others have said, I don't comprehend how allowing a Defender to pull and defeat Trapdoor in any way lessens the experience you had with your characters. So what? Why do you care? Are you just being the Play Police and demand others do things the way you do? Because that's what a lot of this comes across as, and the reason why I was initially annoyed with TrueMetal and that other dude.

The last raid I was on I earned 99 merits. Yes, Vanguard member. The lagfest was completely unenjoyable, so I haven't done one since. Unless they've significantly boosted the merit drop rate, 1,000 merits sounds like fairy dust and snake oil to me.

I'm pretty sure 700-1,000 is a high exaggeration.
If my memory serves me correctly... I'd say you can bank on getting 150-350 or so on one Mother Ship Raid.

People often do two or three in a row. Then you're likely to reach around those numbers.

And that is still a great amount.
Yes, the discrepancy between earning VG merits any other way is crazy (not saying it needs to be changed. It's just a huge difference).

I just don't recall ever pulling in 700 (not even 500) on one single mother ship run.

As I said though... 200 is a nice chunk for one run.
Maybe my estimate is low.
I think 500 might be possible on one run, but honestly, I haven't looked to see how many I've gotten in a long while (back when I was working on specific things). Now I just get VG merits and don't even check, hehe.

If I am wrong, I apologize, but the 700 number doesn't sound right.

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Yeah, thinking about it, that might have been a session of raids...either way though, merits drop faster than inspirations once you're in the middle of that ship.

Only because it's gated content and they removed the best solo tactic. I don't understand why you guys CARE if people want to solo it. How does that impact your enjoyment of the game? Seriously, why does that matter to you? I don't care if people farm the AE because it's not like they're "stealing my fun" or anything.

I also don't get why some have called the rest of us liars when we report having significantly different experiences when fighting Trapdoor. I think enough people have reported the variations in experience to convince you that we aren't just making stuff up to vex you.

Personally, I want the devs to continue on the path of trying new encounter mechanics.

Personally, I'm surprised that's the only thing people think the Bifurcations do.

I'd rather buy Influence from a gold farmer than do 10 to 12 raids in a row. A boring slideshow lagfest with constant disconnects and asking to be reinvited... yeah, not so much high on the "fun quotient" for me. I don't actually have a bad computer, either, so let's not say things like "buy a better PC." Give me 3 grand and I will. Otherwise, no.

Were you on a team during the raid, Ironik?

Who said 10-12? I said 3-4.

That's similar to my feelings toward Inspirations. Often, our heroes just aren't good enough without a little... bump... toot... snort... splash... hit... taste... or whatever to get them through the tough missions. Just. Plain. Not. Good. Enough. Can't cut the proverbial mustard. Even with all those enhancing enhancements.

Alternately, one might view the 'City of Heroes' as a stage upon which strange otherworldly creatures known as Insps use so-called Heroes to perform their insidious rituals - but to what end? The world may never know...

Looking at it from another angle, wouldn't it be cool if, say, when we used a red inspiration, there was a cool sound effect - bloop bloop bloop! - and our toons got BIGGER, signifying their enhanced damage potential?

Ahem. Ah. Okay. Back to the Trapdoor Man discussion.

I don't think anyone is upset because people would like to solo this mission. I did it solo so I don't care if someone else wants to run this solo. What I have been trying to say is that pulling Trapdoor away from his clones is not the only way to beat him. There are other ways to take him down.

Why? It's the only thing it tells us it does. In big, red, flashy letters.

We only get to run the arc once (edit: per character), so most people aren't going to inspect him, either because they have an in-powerset power that does so, or with yet another temp power. I was planning to inspect him, but I forgot, and now I don't yet have anyone ready/able to run the arc again.

Since you clearly know/believe it does more, would you mind enlightening us rather than just pointing out there's more we don't know?

Now that you mention it I've come to the conclusion that when the Bifurcates are out of sight, they look like Festus from the TV series, Gunsmoke.

There's a good reason it's like that. The devs assume inspiration use. It's not that our characters aren't good enough and have to lean on inspirations. Its that inspirations are considered an inherent part of what our characters can do.

I'm as guilty as anyone can be of running around trying to do everything I can without using inspirations, sometimes to a fault. But at the end of the day, I don't gripe much about it because I understand that I'm running around with my left arm and leg tied behind my back by doing that. That's my choice, and I shouldn't be upset with anyone but me when my choices make my life harder

It'd be cool for some characters and wildly out of character for others. This is one of those things that practical limitations suggest should probably be left largely to the imagination.

I'm not confident of that at all. Not solo.

It's not. (Edit: It's not an exaggeration.) I'm sure it depends on your raiding community, but Justice has gone from 300-500 per raid to 500-900 per raid on a fairly regular basis. The key is to have at least three teams of eight, get in the center of the ship, have plenty of +Def and mez protection (FF, Traps or Sonic bubbles), then have sturdy and/or highly buffed characters pulling lots and lots of Rikti from the surrounding channels into the bowl and apply AoEs until golden brown. Add various AoE ally buffs and Howling Twilight to suit tastes.

Ironically, it seems to have distracted players from watching the big flashy numbers everyone is usually focused on.

Trapdoor's clones also buff resistance. At least, they did when I last ran Trapdoor, which was admittedly before the latest patches. This could be not so easy to detect when there's just one or maybe two clones out there and you kill him fast, but I'm surprised the people that let the clones go nuts didn't notice that. The first time I ran the mission, it was actually the first thing I noticed, even before the regen.

I know when I've been attacking him, especially since the patch, I've been focusing on either my power icons (making sure I'm attacking with as full an attack chain as I can manage to maximize DPS) and then also sometimes firing at him while looking around for clones. You can actually see me do this several times in the video. So I have certainly been distracted away from the damage "floats".

But I also never let him get more than a couple of clones out, so I'm sure that's part of it too.

I wondered if this was what you would tell us. It could explain one report we had in this thread of someone's MM robots doing dinky damage to him.

So it buffs his regen and his resistance? That seems a bit rude, because the resistance makes each point of regen effectively worth more, so the DPS requirement needed to defeat him actually accelerates with number of clones instead of increasing linearly.

That's why we have to kill him before he gets more clones out or we have to kill the clones.

The lava won't hurt him once he has 3 or 4 out.