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Everytime I've been on a team that drags rikti into goo, someone seems to die.
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There are a few ways to possibly prevent that from happening, but you are right that it isn't necessarily a tactic that will work for everybody.
Personally, our speed runs tend to have a couple people taking out the Yellow and Blue Mitos while the rest of the team takes out the Pylons at the same time. We mostly just ignore the Rikti (neither purposely killing them nor dragging them into Hami). Then we focus on the greens together, then Hami. Most of the time, we don't have any deaths at all.. but that may be because of several other factors besides just our specific method. Nothing is ever 100% guaranteed.
As mentioned, there are several ways to deal with the situation. Neither one is necessarily wrong. "Different strokes for different folks." Different players and different teams may need different tactics.
I'll go back to saying that a Leader can choose to run his team any way he likes, but then we have the right to /ignore them if they decide to act in a way we don't agree with. Then we wont have to worry about it next time. I hope the OP did so in his situation.
If I run a LGTF on my namesake Grav/Storm I just like Wormholing groups of Rikti into Hami just for giggles. Although I did that and accidently teleported the pylon in as well and it was a pain to get back out. This was just after I19 went live so it was quite recent, I did bug it so don't know if its been fixed.
As for the OP - Ive not heard this myself and the runs Ive been on have all been Pylons, Mitos, Hami. |
It appears that there is something to the idea that the pylons being up keeps Hamidon under better control. Based on this thread, I decided to do a little digging. Here's what I found as a result of that digging.
DevouringEarth.Weakened_Hamidon_Powers.Drain
If I am interpreting this power correctly, it is a power that Weakened Hamidon applies to itself, and which applies a mag 50 taunt to itself (Target = "Caster") for every Friend in range if the Friend is a "Rikti TF Pylon". The radius of the power is 300 feet.
Why would this help? Well, Take a look at Weakened Hamidon's only attack power, Electrolytic Blast. Notice the target line... "Foe". If Pylons are counted as allies (and the "Drain" power can only target "Friends") then Weakened Hamidon has no attacks which it can fire at them.
So the implication is that as long as a Pylon is active, Hamidon is taunted on it but has no attacks it can use on it.
(Another possible reading of the power is that Hamidon is actually being taunted onto itself, but cannot target itself with any powers. I'm not entirely sure how to interpret the effects of a taunt on an NPC when the target is the caster but it involves a second party - the pylon in this case.)
The problem with this interpretation is that a 10.25s mag 50 taunt that refreshes ever 2 seconds is pretty extreme. The Weakened Hamidon will attack those who wander very close, and it will especially attack those who attack it first, even if Pylons are active. Possibly there is something special about being taunted on allies (or ones self) that allows it to easily override the taunt if a foe is nearby. That is theorizing beyond my knowledge of taunt mechanics.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I'm surprised nobody else has mentioned this, so it may be just a freak anecdote, but....
The one time we left the pylons up and started attacking the hamidon, the attacks were ineffective. It just couldn't be damaged until we took down the pylons.
Also, I'm going to have to agree with the "Pylons keep a taunt on the hami so that he ignores you while attacking his mitos" theory. It does seem like we draw his aggro a lot sooner if we take down the pylons before taking down the mitos.
Again, this is all anecdotal experience.
Now, see, the problem with that theory is that after the last pylon goes down, Hami's agro range should be suddenly be expanded and start shooting at everyone... but he doesn't. He does nothing until attacked.
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As for this, "He does nothing until attacked.", that is not my experience. Maybe we had bad luck, maybe something got changed at some point, I dunno. But I've seen people get blasted while taking down the mitos - if the pylons are gone. I've only ONCE seen Hami attack someone while taking out the mitos with the pylons up, and it was because someone lagged and physically bumped right into him.
My observations are entirely consistent with a change in aggro range. Now, it's entirely possible that I'm misinterpreting what I saw. Lord knows we had 20 different theories about how supergroup promotions worked, all based on peoples personal observations.
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Hami has attacked my Stalker that was dragging Rikti into the goo, and he was not even getting that close to Hami. I have no idea why he was aggroed on him at all, but he kept doing it in the whole LGTF run I was on recently with him. He aggroed on him more than he ever has for my Tank that was actually doing a lot more to get his attention.
Pylons and when they are defeated make no difference. Desmodos or someone else on my server wanted to test it once, and it made no change at all to how the encounter went. The tests were made specifically to try out theories tossed about like these in this thread, and they were all shot down.
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Pylons and when they are defeated make no difference. Desmodos or someone else on my server wanted to test it once, and it made no change at all to how the encounter went. The tests were made specifically to try out theories tossed about like these in this thread, and they were all shot down.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
The pylons are like the glowies in the respec trial missions.
They're just there. They don't actually do anything at all. Leaving them up won't make hami any easier or harder. |
As mentioned everywhere else in the thread, it makes no difference if you destroy them before, after or during the Hami fight though.
@Roderick
My first encounter in with this myth came from my LGTF from HELL run (a +4 PUG run) when several of my team members insisted that we keep up exactly 4 pylons. I had no idea why, but I just rolled with it anyway.
Next LGTF I had, several of my team members asked me about the myth, and no one knew what was going on. Only that they saw someone get kicked from the team for it. Third run, wasn't even mentioned by my team members, and we just killed the pylons. I never noticed any difference.
This reminds me a bit of where a lot of superstitions come from, particularly regarding medicine. Since cause and effect have a close temporal relationship to each other, we assume that events that occur closely chronologically have a relationship. This is a flaw in reasoning known as the ad hoc ergo propter hoc, roughly translates to "before the fact, therefore causes the fact". Back when we were exploring the universe by licking toads and placing magnets on our bodies, we would associate two unrelated things together because they happened closely in time. One fine example is that, to cure a cough, you should place a beetle on the sick person's neck.
We in modern day... are not beyond this problem. I caught one of my coworkers reading a book detailing crystal therapy: a guide to healing oneself with diamonds and other assorted gems. Worst part was I think he may have believed some of it at the time. I remember telling him about the above, and gave the counter-example of how it is I cured the last flu I got: by doing precisely squat. No meds, no change in diet, nothing.
However I digress. There is nothing that is incomprehensible, out of our control, or preventing us from objectively testing the myth. Therefore, this issue is scientific, and wanton speculation shouldn't suffice. Here are a few criteria that someone should test to bust this myth:
*Power Analyzer / Bane Spider Surveillance on Nuclues, Antibody, Mender, and Electrolyte with and without pylons. Check for any differences.
Nucleus and antibody damage with and without pylons.
Nucleus range with and without the pylons.
That should cover most things that would need to be checked. It is doubtful I will be able to pull this off myself, since now I only play at night and can rarely ever find a team, let alone anyone willing to let me power analyze then record all the stats of Hamidon.
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Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Have you ever tried Wormholing Hami itself? It works and it is hilarious. Your team will be so shocked :P
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Yep, I was on a team with someone who did this - ONCE. I've only seen it done once. I should have taken a screenshot. Hami was... maybe 80-100 feet outside the goo.
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Nope, that's not a problem with the theory at all. My contention is that, while the pylons are up, you can be as close as the innermost mito and not get attacked. When the last pylon goes down, people are currently outside the goo, at the pylon.
As for this, "He does nothing until attacked.", that is not my experience. Maybe we had bad luck, maybe something got changed at some point, I dunno. But I've seen people get blasted while taking down the mitos - if the pylons are gone. I've only ONCE seen Hami attack someone while taking out the mitos with the pylons up, and it was because someone lagged and physically bumped right into him. My observations are entirely consistent with a change in aggro range. Now, it's entirely possible that I'm misinterpreting what I saw. Lord knows we had 20 different theories about how supergroup promotions worked, all based on peoples personal observations. |
Now that I'm aware of this, I'll probably try to do it that way and be paying closer attention to it for now on though, but either way.. I don't think either one of us would go crying and booting people from the team like the OP experienced. haha
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Just to add my anecdotal evidence, I did an LGTF yesterday where we killed the pylons first and then moved on to the Mitos. Hami himself remained fairly docile and didn't aggro on us while we were dealing with his Mitos, so I'm not sure how true it is that the Pylons reduce his aggro range.
Now as far as I'm concerned, the Pylons do nothing and just exist as a plot justification for why a team of eight can take down a creature that normally takes 50 supers. However, if there's someone who believes that the Pylons somehow help, I have no problem just leaving them up. After all, nobody actually believes the Pylons make Hami stronger, right?
In the end, I'm just not really interested whether the rumor's true or not. If a player's more comfortable with the pylons up we just deal with them last, and if everybody thinks they don't do anything we kill them together with the Rikti. This is hardly an issue that deserves a rigid stance as far as I'm concerned.
Have you ever tried Wormholing Hami itself? It works and it is hilarious. Your team will be so shocked :P
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I did notice that I couldn't wormhole Hami until the pylons were down, all of them. It's been a while since I tested that; things may have changed. And I used to be able to wormhole some of the mitos but can't any more. The pylons, however, are wormhole-able.
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No, this isn't a rumor. I "earned" roughly 13% toward the first healing badge on my main, a TA/Dark/Dark, when I had the proc in Life Drain. 13% in less than three weeks, compared to the 6% in the entire previous three years that I had accumulated between bugs and testing. Needless to say, I was more than a bit tempted to leave it in that power, just for the "free" badge progress I was getting.
Now that I'm aware of this, I'll probably try to do it that way and be paying closer attention to it for now on though, but either way.. I don't think either one of us would go crying and booting people from the team like the OP experienced. haha
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I decided to pay attention this week to pylons first vs pylons last, and seeing what the Hami did. First few days, we did this standard: Wipe each Rikti mob and their pylon, then when clear we moved to the mitos.
With all pylons down, the Hami nucleus seemed far more "free" with its AOE attacks once we started attacking the mitos, from blue to yellow to green.
The last few days, I asked the teams to leave the pylons up last, to test the theory that their design is to aggro the Hami while remaining allied to him, resulting in a no-attack scenario with the Hami unless he were taunted or attacked.
This held up very well to scrutiny. On runs where the pylons were left up in their entirety, we were able to drop the mitos quickly and without interference. The most recent run I did seemed like to break the rule as the Hami aggro'd a scrapper, but this was due to Against All Odds (a self-buff/AOE taunt aura) being up and his passing too close to the nucleus.
Other than that scrap catching aggro a few times, the "pylon last" runs went very smoothly, with no AOE blasts from the nucleus to cause us issue.
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It does nothing, I've seen people shot and killed by hami with pylons up.
The other one I don't understand is leading the rikti into the goo. All this seems to do is deprive the players of shards from the rikti, with very few benefits if you're intelligent enough not to aggro hami while taking out the mitos. |
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All my MoLG runs are done the same way:
* kill pylons and rikti (don't drag them into hami)
* mitos
* hami
Everytime I've been on a team that drags rikti into goo, someone seems to die. So I won't do it. YMMV. The above works for me so I do it that way. *shrug*
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