The Ideal AE Buster Team, and the Ideal AE Buster Team Team Buster
By
Arcanaville,
Posted on: 2011-03-08 03:40 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Originally Posted by Doomguide
@Oedipus_Tex, just for discussion I'll point out one reason I think the team I mentioned above was so potent was the fact it was buff vs debuff heavy. Not saying I'd want nothing but buffers but buffs typically don't suffer from foe resistances ... an advantage more pronounced vs +4 AV's than elsewhere. Buffs also usually don't involve the risk of getting them in play as can be the case with debuffs (though many patches like QS, Sleet and FR can be used from around or behind cover).
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Such teams are potent, but the environment in an AE Gauntlet (as I've come to think of them, due to their resemblance to the insanity of that old game from the 1980s) is quite a different environment than the STF. Just glancing at your lineup, the lack of an Illusion Controller would worry me greatly. You also do not have enough -Recharge resistance to overcome the likes of 2 or 3 Ice Control/Storm enemies--god forbid an entire boss level ambush full. And although I am possibly missing it, I think Fire/Kin is a poor pick for a Gauntlet. The enemies are virtually guaranteed to have mezz protection via bubbles, which eliminates ALL of your controls (well, except Bonfire), and its too dangerous to get close for Hot Feet. Not saying your group wasn't great, and might even do ok on a blind Gauntlet like this, but I don't think the STF is really comparable at all.
EDIT: Re-read what you wrote and realized I was responding to the wrong point. I agree that buffers would be very useful because of their ability to act pre-emptively. I still think you'd want a very heavy dose of debuff and control too though.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
On the subject of maps: I would rather challenge the players with the critters, and not exotic map locations. I want to balance giving the players options without letting them dictate the fight completely. That's why I like those ship maps for challenge missions. Each compartment isolates the different parts of the map from each other, which means the players cannot always see what's coming or what's next until it approaches. Conversely, high ceilings mean things like flight and hovering are not nullified like they are in caves. If teams can literally destroy anything I can put in a map like that, I would consider using map geometry to further reduce the options players have. But for now, I think the ship maps are a relatively even playing field.
This isn't so much a question of fairness, as it is the point is to give a strong team a challenge for their abilities, not constrain their abilities. A fight in a phonebooth can be advantageous for the players if they choose it, but it can also eliminate options and give the critters a huge advantage by taking away one of the areas players excel over them: smart movement. |
If you want to really throw the hammer at Controllers, look for some way to prevent or limit immobilizing AVs. You just cut their damage in half.
P.S. is that Famine enemy from the LGTF available in the AE? I'm not sure if he's the one who's hit me for -300% Recharge before, but something in that Task Force is able to floor me.
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The Master badges continuously elude me, but I've been on many teams that have just literally charged the four AVs in the STF including Ghost Widow and just taken them out like they were medium grade LTs. That sort of thing is in the back of my mind when I'm designing something intended to be really tough for such a team.
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Originally Posted by Doomguide
Well the team I mention above elected, on their Master attempt, to essentially zerg the 4 patrons as we had been mowing down the mobs up till then. I'm told someone flashed momentarily red but I missed it it was so brief (and I was on one of the Emps ... though probably scrapperlocked). Makes me wonder how many AV's that team could have handled at once, the four Patrons were certainly doable.
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Granted no indestructible pets on the team. What else do you believe is missing from that team Illusion would bring?
Adrenaline Boost is not only a potent +recharge (+100%) buff but has substantial resistance (80%) to recharge debuffs, run speed debuffs, jump height and distance debuffs, and fly speed debuffs. There's 4 Emps on that team (and a Kin).
Hmmm ... started big reply here, but it boils down to the team wasn't very reliant at all on mez ... defender secondaries are blasts, the team is 6 defenders and 2 controllers one of whom was Mind. Our insane mitigation had far more to do with mowing everything over than any mez the controllers might have been dropping, including Flashfire. Doubt my Emp/Rad really cared if the Tarantula Queen or Bane Spider Executioner was mezzed or not (not entirely true of course but), first they will likely miss me, if she does hit the non-psi portion of the attack hits sonic shields and my own Dark Embrace, what gets by that hits a defender with 2000% regeneration and likely can't be mezzed by anything said the foe(s) have (since I have 2 or 3+ CM on me at all times). And that said --->
Nope the Gauntlet (good choice in name 
) is no STF ... better not be or that team will destroy it.
And yes on my ideal team I'd probably want to swap in ... maybe an Ill/Cold. I'd probably keep the Kin at least initially (some fairly unique buffs like ID in the set) and drop one of the 3 defender Emps. Two is all one needs to crank out near constant 1800%+ team wide regeneration buff to go with capped defense. If it gets by both defense and resistance it still needs to then overcome rather potent +regen (enough to send my health bar from bottomed out to topped out in around 10 seconds without me otherwise lifting a finger). I posted that team not so much cause it is an 'ideal' team as much as it was basically a bunch of folks grabbing their favorite character and running a Task Force. In other words not hand picked to beat the Gauntlet per se but a very potent 'normal' PvE team and I'd be curious just how well they would do. Outside of mezzing the foes in one shot to prevent retaliation, which by and large they didn't do, that team had some incredible mitigation levels. Not sure I've ever been on a team before or since with that sort of mitigation capability which is saying something.
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Originally Posted by Doomguide
Granted no indestructible pets on the team. What else do you believe is missing from that team Illusion would bring?
Adrenaline Boost is not only a potent +recharge (+100%) buff but has substantial resistance (80%) to recharge debuffs, run speed debuffs, jump height and distance debuffs, and fly speed debuffs. There's 4 Emps on that team (and a Kin). Hmmm ... started big reply here, but it boils down to the team wasn't very reliant at all on mez ... defender secondaries are blasts, the team is 6 defenders and 2 controllers one of whom was Mind. Our insane mitigation had far more to do with mowing everything over than any mez the controllers might have been dropping, including Flashfire. Doubt my Emp/Rad really cared if the Tarantula Queen or Bane Spider Executioner was mezzed or not (not entirely true of course but), first they will likely miss me, if she does hit the non-psi portion of the attack hits sonic shields and my own Dark Embrace, what gets by that hits a defender with 2000% regeneration and likely can't be mezzed by anything said the foe(s) have (since I have 2 or 3+ CM on me at all times). And that said ---> Nope the Gauntlet (good choice in name ) is no STF ... better not be or that team will destroy it.And yes on my ideal team I'd probably want to swap in ... maybe an Ill/Cold. I'd probably keep the Kin at least initially (some fairly unique buffs like ID in the set) and drop one of the 3 defender Emps. Two is all one needs to crank out near constant 1800%+ team wide regeneration buff to go with capped defense. If it gets by both defense and resistance it still needs to then overcome rather potent +regen (enough to send my health bar from bottomed out to topped out in around 10 seconds without me otherwise lifting a finger). I posted that team not so much cause it is an 'ideal' team as much as it was basically a bunch of folks grabbing their favorite character and running a Task Force. In other words not hand picked to beat the Gauntlet per se but a very potent 'normal' PvE team and I'd be curious just how well they would do. Outside of mezzing the foes in one shot to prevent retaliation, which by and large they didn't do, that team had some incredible mitigation levels. Not sure I've ever been on a team before or since with that sort of mitigation capability which is saying something. |
The STF is not a particularly hard Task Force. It has the brick wall at the end that is the AVs, but not so much because they throw a train at you. They are big bags of HP and, IMO, kittens compared to what the AE could do to you. Recluse is a tank and spank that happens to require killing 4 other objects before attacking him, but standard fare none the less.
The AE is capable of throwing out ambushes of Illusion/Fire Blasters who are armed with: Confusion, Group Invisibility, Phantom Army, Aim, Inferno. Then there are the Ice Control/Storm Summoners who are able to hit you with -400% Recharge each and are invisible, have confusion protection, three autohit slows, -fly, and capped exotic damage because of stacking Steamy Mists. There are Ninjitsu Dominators, Masterminds with Kinetics, ambushes of all-Earth Control Dominators with autohit -Defense, enemies with PBAoE heals, 16 mezz protected bosses running Hurricane and casting Tornadoes, and all other forms of nightmares. Oh, and that thing we call the soft cap? It's five times higher than what the Tank needed to deal with Recluse...
Addition: The reason you need mezz, specifically, is that without it the enemies are free to buff each other the same way your team can buff itself. There are restrictions on how many enemies can attack a player at a time, but none at all on how many can stand around buffing their allies. And the attack powers of AE creatures outstrip anything in the game by a HUGE amount. You have to shut them down if you can--altho if the mission is almost entirely AVs, that won't be (as) possible. The strategy would probably begin to revolve around groups of Illusion and Mind Controllers stacking Confusion on the AV prior to the fight (some people would suggest a Mind Dominator but IMO its not worth losing the buff secondary).
Not disagreeing with you at all and yes I've seen some of the insane stuff you are talking about. My main, a claws/SR scrapper, has eaten the floor on both Arcanaville's Scrapper Challenge as well as several other challenge type missions (including the original Aeon mentioned up thread).
So what does this team have vs the challenges one could face.
By far the most significant adjustment the above team would face I think is the change to how much mitigation they'll likely get out of defenses. On the otherhand stop and think just how much +defense the team above had, roughly:
2 or 3 Fortitudes, FF shield and big bubble, Cold Shields and stacked Maneuvers potentially 8 times. That's +100 or more. Granted AE mobs (and DE, Rularuu etc., in PvE 
) can chew that all to heck but that has to be kind of hair pulling endeavor to design against without appearing to be deliberately trivializing defense.
Of course the above team is a bit like your IO'd to heck and gone WP tanker or maybe DA tanker. Lots of layered mitigation. Cut thru the defenses like a blow torch vs butter and run into the Resistances. Maybe not quite as hefty on this team as could be but not trivial either (50+ vs anything but psi? plus APP/PPP shields). And last what gets by that runs into AT capped Regeneration (about 2000%).
Mez effects. Heh, if you can mez the above team you can mez anything that moves, period. This team would not even notice Soul Transfer go off. 2+ Clear Mind apiece, 1 Clarity as needed, both Sonic Dispersion and Dispersion Bubble and trivially easy if the team wished for some specific purpose to boost that a good bit more on several members.
Unless there's some foe mez out there doing 40'ish mag confuses or sleeps that I'm unaware of.
Similarly Invisibility/Stealth is a non-factor vs stacked CM and Tactics. I have seen Flash Arrow stacked to insane levels though.
End Drain ... well given some of the end drainers out there if this was combined with strong -recovery it might be an issue. But again if you can drain this team dry across the entire team, well you are likely going to do it to any team. Stacked Recovery Auras and FF Insulation Shield is going to make this a very problematic method for challenging this team, I think. Never mind the Emps under AB.
Recharge Debuff ... that could get painful particularly for team members not getting AB. Speed Boost and AB are only going to counter so much -recharge.
So what did I miss?
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I'm not saying I'm using it, and I'm not saying I'm not using it, but Energy Aura Energy Drain is autohit. You can't use +DEF against all the drain out there.|
Originally Posted by Doomguide
So what did I miss?
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On the subject of Soul Transfer: you can protect yourself against one of those going off if I were to give it to a boss. What would happen if I were to give it to the minions?
There are lots of angles to explore here, and I don't claim to have really thought them all through carefully. And I haven't yet taken the step of seeing where standard critters would synergize very well with custom ones. I will say that at one time I had thought to make the minions 50% nemesis LTs and 50% custom critters with soul transfer, then thought the better of it. But I'm not promising I won't use that sort of synergy to some degree.
I am promising that now that custom critters are compressed encoded, there's going to be a lot of variety of threat in there. I'm up to sixteen different critter types, and only about half done. The idea is to make sure no matter what you blanket them with, some of them will be immune to that effect. If you can construct a team with the ability to simultaneously high mag hold, sleep, confuse, terrorize, placate, and knockback everything in a wide area, well then I might run out of ideas except SS/Will. But we'll see: this is as much a learning experience for me as any team that might try this thing.
PS: Rad debuffs (the custom versions of the toggle debuffs specifically) also autohit. If I were to just create a mission with nothing but Rad/Rads, defense would probably be worthless in it. I won't do that, but I most definitely *am* making tactical use of Rad debuffs.
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So, from looking at this thread, the ideal AE buster toon designed to adapt to as many buster-buster missions as possible would be a Fire/Cold Corruptor with the Leadership Pool, primarily for Tactics and Vengeance.
This, if memory serves, offers several vital tools:
-Recharge protection
Strong defense boosts
Some unique flavor debuffs from Cold that are rarely resisted directly
A primary damage type that is not heavily resisted, except by one armor set
A kickass -Res -Def power that can't really miss
Vengeance to protect against cascade effects from characters getting unlucky/surprised/burst-DPSed and causing the whole team to fail due to defensive buffs falling apart
And a flashy nuke, because when all else fails, blowing yourself up in a wall of flame is extremely satisfying.
In a fit of bizarro, I just realized you could purposely slot a build like this to have ED-level acc enchancements in your single-target attacks in order to specially target uber defense enemies. Doesn't high base acc benefit more from boosted To-Hit from Leadership: Tactics?
Nota bene: Obviously this is a team-support toon, not a solo one. In case anyone thought I was suggesting that a bubbler was a great solo char.
Also, nobody has suggested a VEAT instead of the straight-eight def/corr/troller setups? I would think the better leadership toggles, mind link, or pets/omega maneuver would be welcome additions for the bizarre, highly artificial situations you'd encounter in AE challenges.
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Originally Posted by Emgro
So, from looking at this thread, the ideal AE buster toon designed to adapt to as many buster-buster missions as possible would be a Fire/Cold Corruptor with the Leadership Pool, primarily for Tactics and Vengeance.
This, if memory serves, offers several vital tools: -Recharge protection Strong defense boosts Some unique flavor debuffs from Cold that are rarely resisted directly A primary damage type that is not heavily resisted, except by one armor set A kickass -Res -Def power that can't really miss Vengeance to protect against cascade effects from characters getting unlucky/surprised/burst-DPSed and causing the whole team to fail due to defensive buffs falling apart And a flashy nuke, because when all else fails, blowing yourself up in a wall of flame is extremely satisfying. In a fit of bizarro, I just realized you could purposely slot a build like this to have ED-level acc enchancements in your single-target attacks in order to specially target uber defense enemies. Doesn't high base acc benefit more from boosted To-Hit from Leadership: Tactics? Nota bene: Obviously this is a team-support toon, not a solo one. In case anyone thought I was suggesting that a bubbler was a great solo char. Also, nobody has suggested a VEAT instead of the straight-eight def/corr/troller setups? I would think the better leadership toggles, mind link, or pets/omega maneuver would be welcome additions for the bizarre, highly artificial situations you'd encounter in AE challenges. |
Cold is a almost required set because of the -Recharge resistance. I'm much more skeptical of Fire Blast. Fire Blast's best ability would probably, IMO, turn out to be Rain of Fire. In an ideal setting I'd favor Ice Blast over that, for the stacking slows, single target hold, and two ranged placeables, one them being a nuke. But I still wouldn't want more than 2 or 3 Colds. You're left too wide open to some of the more exotic attacks, and have no mezz protection or heals to speak of.
In terms of damage resistance, the assumption should be that many enemies will have very strong resistance to most attacks period. I don't feel like any set really has an advantage there.
Vengeance, of course, applies to any character. The Corruptor version of it is about equal to a Controller or Mastermind, and somewhat weaker than a Defender.
VEATS might be an effective class to consider. I've looked at them but don't know all of their actual strengths and weaknesses. Widows are basically like someone just copy-pasted all of the best powers from 4 or 5 different Psi sets, gave it mezz protection, removed the nuke crash, and soft capped it to everything. I still probably wouldn't use them for the whole team though I can see how they might have a place. Their major weaknesses are the lack of endurance recovery or healing, sleep powers (particulary Mass Hypnosis), or exotic mezzes like Fears or knockdown patches enemies have trouble coping with.
I also wouldn't call the AE "highly artificial." It's a different environment, and it would be silly to say that any character is the most or least powerful based on their performance in it, but at the same time the STF, ITF, Apex and the rest are arbitrary in the same way, and people DO say those things based on performance there. Erroneously, IMO.
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| If you can construct a team with the ability to simultaneously high mag hold, sleep, confuse, terrorize, placate, and knockback everything in a wide area, well then I might run out of ideas except SS/Will. But we'll see: this is as much a learning experience for me as any team that might try this thing. |
I may be dooming myself by informing you of what my default strategy recommendation would be for the team, but it may give you insight to holes you can plug in the pilot version of the mission. My apologies, because this post is a little rambly.
My assumption going into this is that what the enemies are tossing at you is far too dangerous for the team to stand toe to toe in. In whatever ways possible, the players need to minimize their contact with the enemies and keep away from them.
The first thing players need to consider is how they are going to keep the fight on their terms. We know some basic things about the AE. Firstly, because the AE has such a large tactical disadvantage, nearly all difficult fights will likely begin as ambushes; the AEs strategy needs to be turning as many things as possible into a fire fight. That means ambushes, ambushes, ambushes. Ambushes cannot happen unless the players complete or partially complete an objective of some kind. This means that for the players, the first step needs to be identifying any likely triggers. Specific things to look out for would be:
- any obvious bosses hanging around
- glowies
- defeatable objects
Defeatable objects and bosses are capable of triggering multiple ambushes. Care should be taken to limit the rate at which damage is done to them. But before even doing that, players should take the time to eliminate any minions they can identify, and take them out first. If the players are unable to tell the actual boss from the other enemies, the difficulty increases extraodinarily.
In any case, the sheer amount of horror enemies are capable of throwing at you means kiting them around an obstacle is probably a requirement. Even a team with +300% defense will go completely red if more than 5 or 6 Earth/Rads show up. On the ship map specifically, I would probably want to fight in the narrow corridor room. Someone with Force Bubble would stand around the corner, blocking enemy entry as much as possible. This won't keep everything out--most armored creatures can waltz through it, as can AVs. But it keeps out anything with ranged/debuff combos, or at least slows them down. This strategy isn't absolute, and can backfire if the enemy group turns out to feature massive number of buff-bot sets (Empathy, Kinetics, Force Field, Cold Domination, Thermal, Pain Dom, mostly.) But it limits the possibility of enemies simply one-shotting you.
On the other side of the wall, players need to work to create a "wall of hardship." Ice Slick, Earthquake, Quicksand, etc. This is to make it so anything trying to reach them is slowed down enough that Force Bubble has a chance to eject them. This won't stop everyone--Teleporting enemies especially. But it's at least creating a buffer to slow enemies down. Pets should be kept in this region to whatever degree possible to encourage enemies to blow long recharge cooldowns on them. This frees you up to single target (mostly) enemies that make it through to you. The reason this is a good idea is it limits the AEs ability to trick you into destroying a boss/objective that allows the AE to throw more ambushes at you.
Enemies should always be pulled. ALWAYS.* To whatever degree possible, this should be done with pets. The reason for this is simple. Enemies in the AE have insane abilities that are far stronger than anything encountered in the main game. You want them to blow as many of these attacks as possible on a pet. A player simply will not survive getting hit by 16 Aim + Infernos no matter what his defense and resistance look like.** You may be able to relax this rule some on multiple runs once you have an idea of what enemies can do to you. In any case, Phantom Army is a godsend here due simply to the fact that it is 100% immune to anything the AE can throw at it.
[*EDIT: Rethinking this, I'd pull them after attempting to confuse them first. Reasoning is the same for a pet pull: you want them to blow long recharge powers, and you get the side benefit of them possibily obliterating each other. However, there is the risk that they might blow away a creature that spawns multiple ambushes. Mind, Illusion, and Electric Control and I think also Fortunatas are the sets most suited for this. This specific strategy is also why I think confusion resistance/protection is such a must-have for enemies. Sticking snipers or enemies that see through invisibility in the pile make this a lot harder to do.]
[**Actually, you could survive, but I still wouldn't try it.]
Ambush spawns are a total dice roll and IMO by far the most dangerous and unpredictable part of the mission. If they spawn on top of the team, the team might end up in a very bad predicament, especially if there are a large number of additional enemies still hanging around from the spawn that triggered the ambush. The only real strategy I can think of here is "everyone throw a mezz at them and hope to hell it lands." This is one situation where Black Hole is potentially very useful, for buying time if nothing else. But Black Hole can also make all the other mezzes miss, so that could backfire. If there is a Tanker present, s/he could try to grab aggro as fast as possible. Depending on what the enemy is, he or she is also likely to die. The goal here is almost damage mitigation via death triage; try to limit the number of people hit by the enemies, and resurrect everyone else. Most enemies don't have teleport protection, so if all else fails, a fast moving Gravity may want to try throwing the new group around the wall outside Force Bubble.
For groups of AVs, or loads of enemies with armor secondaries, you are pretty much forced to take them head on. I'm at a total loss to think of a default strategy, because it depends so much on the powersets they have. For the bosses, you can at least be reassured that enemies can't combine a buff set with an armor. A buff/debuff AV on the other hand could be a thing of such terror that I'm at a loss to think of an effective strategy, other than: engage via Phantom Army and hope it didn't ambush you. If it's a group of debuffing AVs... well hopefully you have a lot of resistance to whatever debuff they're selling.
[EDIT: If you actually read all of that, the other significant factor players have to account for are patrols. To my knowledge, patrols can't trigger an ambush, but they can definitely turn up at the wrong times. The existence of patrols makes me question whether fighting in the narrow hallway is a good idea at all. But I don't really know of anywhere where patrols are unwilling to go. One sick possibility that I'm not sure would work is to have one player suicide into the patrol, and then teleport him or her back. Does the patrol stop moving then? If not, this doesn't work. And it's kind of an insane "tactic" in any case. The alternative is to scout the map and kill the patrols early, but sheer map size combined with the right "filler" enemy group could make this impossible.]
A very solid summary of how to handle AE arc challenge mission.
Quick question, I'm not following you here- "Cold is a almost required set because of the -Recharge resistance." Cold has recharge resistance? My Cold/Ice/Power defender has only 20% from a Winter's Gift proc and he has all 9 Cold powers in the latest Mids build.
Update: about two thirds done. I've taken some fragments of a follow up mission arc to my Secret Weapons arc and cranked the difficulty up to eleven. This gives me a framework to design the encounter around: it will be designed around taking out the three bosses I originally conceived for that arc, only way, way more powerful. I've been amping up the critters and the bosses, which is in and of itself fun. I could just fill the mission with generics, but its more fun if there is at least something of a theme.
If you haven't played my Secret Weapons arc, the original story (which has been clipped and pruned over the years due to AE patches that I never got around to fully reworking around) the arc centers around a villain named Dr. Murnau and his Lieutenant the Necrocaster. Murnau was written to be a Rikti War-era war criminal that conducted experiments to create super soldiers. It was really a cover for his own forays into finding a power beyond the five origins - this was intended to be my answer to Origin of Power. He was a master of technology and magic, and was seeking a technomagic fusion. His Lt, the Necrocaster, was a villain that sought the ultimate in dark power through death and soul manipulation. Between the two of them, there's lots of opportunities to create strange followers and foot soldiers. I'd probably be done by now if I didn't try to give the critters all names and backstories and costumes, but I'm funny that way. I'm not going to lie and call the critter "Energy Meleer" and have it turn out to be a fire dominator, but neither am I going to call them "Fire Dominator" either in this one. You'll be able to guess what they are from names and descriptions, though:
Gaian Incinerator
The Gaian Incinerators are a highly specialized and feared group of Murnauan followers that practice magical control over organic matter and fire. This seemingly counter-productive combination creates highly unstable and chaotic warriors in both mind and body.
Necrocaster Void
The Voids are Necrocaster followers that have lost their souls in failed experiments with the darkspring of power that the Necrocaster commands. They exist only to rip the living energy from their enemies in a futile attempt to replace what they have lost. They are extremely dangerous and difficult to kill, as their bodies are animated by nothing but their sheer animosity.
Actually, coming up with the names and descriptions is half the fun.
I'd say the first fight is Scrapper Challenge-level difficulty, maybe slightly higher. The second is a lot higher, probably in the range of AAEH but at even con. The last - that's what I'm trying to dial in now. I'm testing certain combinations to see if the AI does what I want it to do: its not just about picking powers, but about seeing if the critters will use them effectively in the way you want them to. That's important for standard critters, but especially so for custom critters. As counter-intuitive as this might sound to some, in some cases I've deliberately taken powers away to make the critter more dangerous, because they were less effective with the whole set. I also need to make sure if I use different ranks in different groups, they will spawn in the right way.
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Originally Posted by Doomguide
A very solid summary of how to handle AE arc challenge mission.
Quick question, I'm not following you here- "Cold is a almost required set because of the -Recharge resistance." Cold has recharge resistance? My Cold/Ice/Power defender has only 20% from a Winter's Gift proc and he has all 9 Cold powers in the latest Mids build. |
Yes, it's in Arctic Fog. Controllers, Defenders and Dominators all have the same resistance value (60%). It also protects from -Speed. Unless the description is bugged, that is (wouldn't be the first time for that particular power).
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Patrols can't accept any objectives. However, one sneaky thing to do is use a patrol instead of an ambush. Simply, an ambush comes straight at you while you have no clue where a patrol may be, especially if spawned without text.|
Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
[EDIT: If you actually read all of that, the other significant factor players have to account for are patrols. To my knowledge, patrols can't trigger an ambush, but they can definitely turn up at the wrong times. The existence of patrols makes me question whether fighting in the narrow hallway is a good idea at all. But I don't really know of anywhere where patrols are unwilling to go. One sick possibility that I'm not sure would work is to have one player suicide into the patrol, and then teleport him or her back. Does the patrol stop moving then? If not, this doesn't work. And it's kind of an insane "tactic" in any case. The alternative is to scout the map and kill the patrols early, but sheer map size combined with the right "filler" enemy group could make this impossible.]
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Actually, coming up with the names and descriptions is half the fun.
I'd say the first fight is Scrapper Challenge-level difficulty, maybe slightly higher. The second is a lot higher, probably in the range of AAEH but at even con. The last - that's what I'm trying to dial in now. I'm testing certain combinations to see if the AI does what I want it to do: its not just about picking powers, but about seeing if the critters will use them effectively in the way you want them to. That's important for standard critters, but especially so for custom critters. As counter-intuitive as this might sound to some, in some cases I've deliberately taken powers away to make the critter more dangerous, because they were less effective with the whole set. I also need to make sure if I use different ranks in different groups, they will spawn in the right way. |
Also, it's cool to see you knew one of the little known secrets of critter design by removing powers so they are more prone to use what they have.On the fence on the concept of using a ship map. While it does have a number of advantages it still has problems. I have to wonder if it gives players too much movement space. The other possible concern is that it potentially gives snipers a huge line of sight advantage. Only Superior Invisibility and Hide would overcome that and I'm pretty sure people would shun Stalkers from this kind of challenge.
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Thanks, played a lot of Colds and never noticed that! Or glossed over it as frankly most of the time I'm the one slowing everyone else to a crawl not getting slowed. Then again maybe this is a case of not getting noticed because it was doing its job.
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Originally Posted by Oedipus_Tex
Yes, it's in Arctic Fog. Controllers, Defenders and Dominators all have the same resistance value (60%). It also protects from -Speed. Unless the description is bugged, that is (wouldn't be the first time for that particular power).
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Monday update: trimmed down mission and shuffled things around to fit into AE limits. Will probably be balancing final encounter tonight some time late.
PS: did you know Stone armors are not exclusive in the AE? I must have known that in I14 because I made a custom critter using that fact specifically: the Murnauan Golem.
The AE limits mean the difficulty ramp up should be a little steeper. The first encounter should be a bit less difficult than the scrapper challenge: its a warm up. The second should be pretty difficult, but theoretically swampable. The last one is where I'm pulling out all the stops. Nothing but EBs and AVs. Mostly AVs. But no indestructible AVs for a superteam.
I've also decided to lower my aim slightly. I'd like to see if I can hit a mark where a superteam can beat it but with a lot of difficulty. I'm leaving room to crank up difficulty but I don't want to simply vaporize every team that enters the mission right away. I'd like it to be a real fight.
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Tuesday update: ok, so the early alpha of the challenge mission is published. I'm still tweaking it and testing different things, but enough of it is completed to be testable. I've thrown a lot of different things in there designed to test for different weaknesses, or occasionally to defuse certain strengths. Its designed to wear down a team, not just insta-kill them. A really, really strong team could probably take it down. Or I haven't dialed in the strength correctly yet and a basic steamroller team could take it down. Hard to say when you're testing solo, because the mission acts totally differently with eight people than with one, due to way things are designed.
Arc 491922: Extreme Challenge version 0.9 alpha
Feedback appreciated. Heck, run it at 0x1 with bosses and AVs turned off if you want to try to solo it. A couple of notes:
1. Just like the Scrapper Challenge, there is a computer you can use to bail out at any time. Its there so that a team that cannot finish it can still exit normally and get their tickets. Although what crazy person would run this for tickets I have no idea. Even if you do finish it, you need to use the computer to end the mission.
2. Its intended to be fought in sequence, the Forward Commander first, then the Necrocaster second, then Doctor Murnau last. That is the correct level of escalating difficulty, or at least the intended one.
3. The patrols are placeholders. But interesting placeholders.
4. The mission tends to strive for a balance between overwhelming stacking (which requires a bunch of one thing) and variety of threat (which requires lots of different things). Sometimes it throws a lot of variety at the player, sometimes a lot of one thing. But because of the random nature of spawning, the threats involving variety will be randomly different every time the mission runs. Sometimes it will skew in one direction, sometimes another. I can't help that.
5. The choice of rank for every single critter is deliberate. Sometimes there are mixes of ranks, sometimes not. There's generally a method to the madness. I could just make everything AVs, but I'm trying to use AVs only when I need to use AVs. Which is often, but not always. Expect most things to be EBs or AVs, though, except the cannon fodder.
6. As the mission says, there are no rules except to run it at least 0x8 or have a full team. Temp powers, inspirations, Incarnate abilities, level shift - use it all. If its not strong enough, I have ways to dial it up a few more notches.
7. The entire mission did lock up completely on me a couple of trial runs through. After I rebooted my computer it stopped doing that, but please report such occurrences also. If something in this arc can kill the AE, I'd like to know what it is and report it to the devs.
And even though the mission is weaker against a solo player than a full team, if someone can actually solo this thing I would really love to see that: demorecord please. And send me your build, because I'm making one.
My guess is that some teams out there can beat this, but I'd like to see how much effort it takes before I dial it up more.
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Hmm...|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
And even though the mission is weaker against a solo player than a full team, if someone can actually solo this thing I would really love to see that: demorecord please. And send me your build, because I'm making one.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Heck, run it at 0x1 with bosses and AVs turned off if you want to try to solo it..
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Does your challenge bit include if AVs are disabled?
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The mission falls to a trivial exploit of sorts if AVs are disabled and you attempt to solo it. You could pull the three bosses individually into "soft" parts of aggro, and then kill them without incurring the wrath of any of the incoming reinforcements. You could probably also do that with AVs turned on, but it would be much harder. Its sort of intended that you actually kill what the mission throws at you, rather than kill the bosses out from under their guards. I tried to make that difficult to do, but I could not make it impossible and I could not make it a mandatory element of the mission because if I did that I couldn't provide a "bail out" computer. Without the bail out computer, any team that tries this has no choice but to quit for zero rewards if they fail to complete the entire thing.|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
Hmm, does that include if AVs are disabled?
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As I said when I was building the Scrapper Challenge mission, you'd have to be insane to play this for tickets, but I'll still try to give them if I can. Technically, the mission should be a "mandatory kill on all three bosses plus escorts" mission but that seems unnecessarily cruel for a fun challenge mission.
If you can *clear* it solo even with AVs off, that's pretty good though. I have trouble doing that while invincibility mode is on but it is possible. Which is something I tested for. Everything in the mission is killable, even the AVs. If you can live long enough to kill them, and if you can neutralize their help. I know its not impossible. Just kinda hard. If it turns out to be stupidly hard, I'll basically leave it alone. If it turns out to be hard, but eventually doable with a tough team, I will crank it up a few notches. If people say there are teams that can steamroll it, I have a specific set of very nasty additions I will try to add to attack those teams head on.
Having said all of that, its there for people to have fun with. Run it any way you want, at any settings you want, and report back. Its *intended* to be run by a strong full team at even con. It can be run by a strong full team at +3. It can be soloed with bosses and AVs turned off (keeping in mind EBs don't downscale with either setting) set to -1x1. I'd like to see if a full team can beat it at 0x8, because that is what I'm aiming to challenge. But this is all just for fun either way.
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Well, my experience running it at +0/x1 with AVs and bosses turned on on my Earth/Fire permadom:|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Having said all of that, its there for people to have fun with. Run it any way you want, at any settings you want, and report back.
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The normal spawns were slightly tricky, but fairly trivial once I figured out how to handle them: Drop Quicksand, Earthquak, and Volcanic Gasses, then start hitting the guys with dispersion bubbles with Fossilize. With Scorpion Shield running and most of them stuck in Quicksand and Earthquake fighting my pets they usually weren't much of a threat to me while I did this, but if they were, I could duck around a corner. Once the bubble guys were locked down, it was pretty easy to lock down and take out the others.
The Forward Commander himself seemed like a pushover. I'm not sure what his other set was (Mind Control? Something in his spawn briefly confused Animated Stone), but he seemed obsessed with his dual pistols. He didn't manage to take out my Animated Stone before I could get him held, which is pretty rare--most AVs I've faced drop pooman in a few hits. The ambush that spawns when he gets low on health, though, made the fight a no-go for me. I wasn't able to get a good look at it, but it included a bubbler and I think something that was spamming Twilight Grasp, which was enough to make the Commander stage a comeback. Plus, well, the second AV. I managed to last a good minute and a half or so after the ambush arrived, but I couldn't kill the Commander with guys defending him. It's possible that if I'd softcapped myself with purple insps long enough to take out the Elite Bosses in the ambush, I could have turned back to the Commander, taken him out, then focused on the second AV, but I suspect I would die before I could get the second AV held.
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That was sort of the intent. The "minions" are there to cause trouble if you don't have control. If you do, and you use it wisely (or just superstack control all over the place) they can be picked apart like a puzzle.|
Originally Posted by Kelenar
Well, my experience running it at +0/x1 with AVs and bosses turned on on my Earth/Fire permadom:
The normal spawns were slightly tricky, but fairly trivial once I figured out how to handle them: Drop Quicksand, Earthquak, and Volcanic Gasses, then start hitting the guys with dispersion bubbles with Fossilize. With Scorpion Shield running and most of them stuck in Quicksand and Earthquake fighting my pets they usually weren't much of a threat to me while I did this, but if they were, I could duck around a corner. Once the bubble guys were locked down, it was pretty easy to lock down and take out the others. |
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| The Forward Commander himself seemed like a pushover. I'm not sure what his other set was (Mind Control? Something in his spawn briefly confused Animated Stone), but he seemed obsessed with his dual pistols. He didn't manage to take out my Animated Stone before I could get him held, which is pretty rare--most AVs I've faced drop pooman in a few hits. The ambush that spawns when he gets low on health, though, made the fight a no-go for me. I wasn't able to get a good look at it, but it included a bubbler and I think something that was spamming Twilight Grasp, which was enough to make the Commander stage a comeback. Plus, well, the second AV. I managed to last a good minute and a half or so after the ambush arrived, but I couldn't kill the Commander with guys defending him. It's possible that if I'd softcapped myself with purple insps long enough to take out the Elite Bosses in the ambush, I could have turned back to the Commander, taken him out, then focused on the second AV, but I suspect I would die before I could get the second AV held. |
Also, not giving the FC strong defenses is there to almost double-dare teams to kill him quickly, and as a consequence face multiple ambushes simultaneously (edit: I meant to say multiple groups simultaneously: his surround group and the ambush he spawns).
Plus, he's the amuse bouche.
So tell me: if you had a team of eight of you running it simultaneously, do you think it would it be a lot easier, or a lot harder? There would be more of you to stack, but more of them to stack also. My guess is that eight permadoms would be able to wipe out the minions and the FC. The next fight might be the harder challenge for them. I do give players a three second head start on that fight. You'll know it when you see it.
Edit2: I forgot to ask: what did you think of the "second AV?" He's an AV to make sure he doesn't die too quickly, and take out his pets with him, but he's not intended to have too much damage beyond that Of course, he's an AV, so he's going to hit hard with almost anything. I thought he would be an interesting foil: his offense is easy to take out large chunks of, but he himself is hard to take out. He's sort of an AoE hedge: AoE can partially but not totally neutralize him, particularly in a big team.
My big thing when it comes to design is "minimize binary effects." I want control to be useful, but not overwhelming. I want AoE to be useful, but not trivializing. I want defenses to be helpful, but not completely neutralizing. He's an experiment in AoE damage and control of sort. I have limits based on what the AE allows me to do, and I'm trying to see how far I can push those limits.
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My guess would be easier. With a little more damage and the ability to focus on damage rather than cycling a hold every couple of seconds, I could probably drop FC before his reinforcements arrive... I got pretty close as it was, and that was with a single character. That's just the FC fight, though. I haven't looked at the rest of the mission too closely.|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
So tell me: if you had a team of eight of you running it simultaneously, do you think it would it be a lot easier, or a lot harder? There would be more of you to stack, but more of them to stack also.
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| Edit2: I forgot to ask: what did you think of the "second AV?" He's an AV to make sure he doesn't die too quickly, and take out his pets with him, but he's not intended to have too much damage beyond that Of course, he's an AV, so he's going to hit hard with almost anything. I thought he would be an interesting foil: his offense is easy to take out large chunks of, but he himself is hard to take out. He's sort of an AoE hedge: AoE can partially but not totally neutralize him, particularly in a big team. |
I might have to see if I can round up a team of eight to tackle this. I'd be interested in seeing how the mobs scale.
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Unfortunately I'm out of town this week and can't try the mission til I get back on Friday. I'll post a preliminary play by play around then if no one else gets to it first.
Preliminary difficulty report. I've had a couple of reports that the mission can be soloed by perma-doms when set to 0x1 and no bosses or AVs. That makes sense because when scaled down to minimal levels and spawn sizes enough stacked control can neutralize enough of the threats to make it doable. Although its still apparently very difficult even under those circumstances, which is a good sign.
No one has yet told me of a successful conventional melee archetype character run through at any difficulty, or a successful run-through by anything with bosses and AVs turned on at any slider setting. I'm wondering if it could be done by a very strong melee character set to -1x1 with bosses and AVs on, and slotted with level shift making everything in the mission -2.
Also, no reports of a superteam making a run at it yet.
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@Oedipus_Tex, just for discussion I'll point out one reason I think the team I mentioned above was so potent was the fact it was buff vs debuff heavy. Not saying I'd want nothing but buffers but buffs typically don't suffer from foe resistances ... an advantage more pronounced vs +4 AV's than elsewhere. Buffs also usually don't involve the risk of getting them in play as can be the case with debuffs (though many patches like QS, Sleet and FR can be used from around or behind cover).