Strategy for the Behavioural Adjustment Facility Trial

Strategy for the Behavioural Adjustment Facility (BAF) Trial

After completing the BAF Trial, on a few occassions I reckon I can give a fair approximation at a guide to the Behavioural Adjustment Facility (BAF) Trial. At least until another (better) guide surfaces.

Remember, there are also dev-made guides located here and located here as well.

Overview
The BAF Trial is a lot simpler in premise than the Lambda Trial - requiring no collection of Temporary Powers to achieve its goals. It consists of three AV-fights (one with 2 AV's simultaneously) and (what the community have dubbed) a "Tower Defence" section.

Map of Key Points


Stage One: Defeat WarWorks
This stage is non-timed and allows you to go around and take on some Praetorian WarWorks. The spawns are solid, but easy enough with the critical mass of PBAoE Buffs, etc. a League can pack. You will need to defeat a total of 40 units.

Special Mechanics: None

Failure: Impossible at this stage as there is no timer in action.

Tactics: Spawns are far enough apart that you can stay as a single massed unit, and plow through the spawns. Ideally (IMO) you should head to the right and clear a path towards and around the Tennis Courts (so you're in position for a safe zone for the next stage, or at least heading towards the bivouacs where Nightstar spawns).

Stage Two: Defeat Nightstar
In this stage, all the WarWorks from the previous stage despawn, sentry turrets become active and Nightstar spawns at the eastern Bivouacs and in range of several turrets. She calls for reinforcements (Mark VI Victorias) every 15 seconds and they come running in (not just appear next to her).

Special Mechanics: Nightstar (and later Siege) will use an attack called "Sequestration". If this stacks on you three times, you and any allies around you will be automatically held (regardless of protections). If you get a "Second Warning", you should move away from your allies.

Failure: This section can be failed due to the introduction of a timer - a common failure cause is due to a critical mass of reinforcements.

Tactic #1 (Safe Zone): As soon as the first stage is over, the League heads straight for the tennis court, while one designated puller goes and brings Nightstar over (preferrably a Mastermind Henchman). This tactic means that no player is in range of the tower lasers at any stage during this part and defeating Nightstar should be relatively painless. Take note of where Nightstar's "corpse" is as you will need to return to it.

Tactic #2 (Spawn Point): With sufficient Destiny/Judgement powers you will be able to rush Nightstar at her spawn point and ignore the bulk of the attacks by the turrets, relying on Barrier and Rebirth to keep the team standing and Judgement to clear the MkVI Victorias. Take note of where Nightstar's "corpse" is as you will need to return to it.

Stage Three: Stop the Mind-washed Escapees
After a brief delay, from all over the map the mind-washed Resistance spawns will appear and begin to head for the exit(s). These are all marked on the ingame map as waypoints. This has been termed a "Tower Defence" section, as the League acts as the towers, stopping the Mind-washed from escaping the base.

Special Mechanics: The Resistance Commandos are fully immune to all forms of controls - from holds and immobilises to cages and sleep. They are literally immune to everything except damage.

Failure: This section is subject to a failure condition of allowing 20 escapees of any class.

Tactics: As Commandos can not be mezzed, but everything else can, heavy hitters (like Scrappers/Brutes/Stalkers/Blasters) should go after the Commandos, while other characters with control abilities lock down the regular minions. Positioning is important, making sure all the spawn points are controlled, while the main pathways are patrolled.

Those patrolling/looking for commandos may find it useful to create a bind/macro using the /target_custom_next command (e.g. /macro Com target_custom_next alive Commando or /bind x target_custom_next alive Commando)

The escape routes are as follows (thanks to Zombie Man for seeking permission to reproduce & Arkyaeon for the original image)


Stage Four: Defeat Siege
In this stage, the sentry turrets become active again and Siege spawns at the western building entrance and in range of several turrets. He calls for reinforcements (9CU WarWorks) every 15 seconds and they come running in (not just appear next to him).

Special Mechanics: Siege will use an attack called "Sequestration". If this stacks on you three times, you and any allies around you will be automatically held (regardless of protections). If you get a "Second Warning", you should move away from your allies.

Failure: This section can be failed due to the timer - a common failure cause is due to a critical mass of reinforcements.

Tactic #1 (Safe Zone): As soon as the tower defense stage is over, the League heads straight for the tennis court, while one designated puller goes and brings Siege over (preferrably a Mastermind Henchman). This tactic means that no player is in range of the tower lasers for long during this part and defeating Siege should be relatively painless. Take note of where Siege's "corpse" is as you will need to return to it.

Tactic #2 (Spawn Point): With sufficient Destiny/Judgement powers you will be able to rush Siege at his spawn point and ignore the bulk of the attacks by the turrets, relying on Barrier and Rebirth to keep the team standing and Judgement to clear the 9CU's. Take note of where Siege's "corpse" is as you will need to return to it.

Stage Five: Defeat Nightstar and Siege Simultaneously
In this stage, the sentry turrets remain active and both Nightstar and Siege will respawn at the location of their corpses (you noted where they were before, right?). Both call for reinforcements (Victorias and 9CU's as appropriate) every 15 seconds and they come running in (not just appear next to them).

Special Mechanics: Both will use an attack called "Sequestration". If this stacks on you three times, you and any allies around you will be automatically held (regardless of protections). If you get a "Second Warning", you should move away from your allies. Additionally, once you defeat either of them a ten second timer will begin - if you do not defeat the second within that timeframe then the one you did defeat will respawn with full health.

Failure: This section can be failed due to the timer - a common failure cause is due to a critical mass of reinforcements or inability to get the simultaneous defeat timing correct.

Tactics: This is possibly the most difficult stage of the Trial, not in terms of the mechanics employed but in terms of the timing of the defeats needing to be dead on. There is sufficient time for a couple of attempts within the timer given if you mistime and a AV respawns but with sufficient practice this should be very doable.

The League should split into two teams which each fight an AV each. Keep any eye on the Objective Health bars and switch to attacking the reinforcements if one team falls behind on damage.

Once one AV is dropped, the entire League should ruch to drop the other AV as quickly as possible - if this fails, then the League should switch fully to the freshly rez'd AV until the health bars are even again.

Nicely done, hope everybody reads it otherwise there will be a fair few hours of my life wasted on it that I can't get back.

In order to keep the reinforcements from building up there ought to be a few people or one of the three teams, dedicated to wiping them out while Siege and Nightstar are whittled down. We got them down to 15% HP on ours, and then we were overrun when we had several people have to hospital at once, thus being unable to get rid of the bosses.

Quote:

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

BAF is definitely the easier of the two IMO. Except when you get to Nightstar & Seige at the end, and you drop Nightstar and kill Seige within 5 seconds and she respawns while he is dead and then respawns him. Just want to give a shout out and a thanks for that bug.

A couple of basic points I'd like to make based on two failed incarnate trials last night:

1) Make sure you can see and communicate in the League Chat. I saw too many people who weren't doing this, didn't quite catch on to the new interface, and they stood around doing nothing in the wrong place.

2) Be willing to join an in-progress trial. These things start when the minimum number of people needed are ready to go. This typically isn't enough people so more are always welcome. It will also cut down on your wait time.


And, yes, both of these trials are hard. They're meant to be. I welcome this. And it will get easier once we start getting some more Incarnate slots opened up and slotted.

Depending on the strategy you want to use, you may want to cover spawn points. Some ppl have other ideas for this like cover exit points... im not debating what is best.

If you want to cover spawns points, specialy with doms/trolls, you may want to make sure everyone know which spawn point they should cover.

So i tagged each of them on this map:



If you have 3 teams, you can call each teams like this : Team #1 on A's spawn points, Team #2 on B's, Team #2 on C's. Then each team leader can tell half his team to cover A1 and A2.. etc

If you have 2 teams, and dont want to redistribute into 3 teams, you can call : Team #1 on A's and C1, Team #2 on B's and C2

Well you get the basic idea.

I just wanted to share the map.

It may or may not be useful.

I think it might also be worth nothing that when your dealing with the escapees, it's not always a good idea to defeat the commandoes yourself. What mean is, deal them damage of course, but don't follow one and hunt it down to the point of leaving your position, because you might miss the next mob. Generally there will be someone else to help clean up the commandoes. Think Zone defense as opposed to Man-to-Man, to use a sports analogy. The runs I was in where the group was successful for this part of the trial, I was finishing off commandoes coming towards me that were at half to 1/3 their HP.

For Phase 5, one strategy is to have Siege and Nightstar real close to the other.

For that, you may want to Kill Nightsar near Tenis court on Stage 2, And Siege next to her on Stage 4.

If both are grouped, you can just have everyone in the league swap target to damage the two evenly.

A personal tip...

Look at the maps, and identify a spot where there are two groups passing through (i.e. two different colours) and the mobs have to turn a corner. Spotted one?

Great. Park a Forcefield user with Force Bubble right on top of it. Now stop worrying about ANY minions that take that route. Got three Forcefield users with Force Bubble? Great, park them right and you've stop ALL minions escaping, leaving EVERYONE else free to chase Commandos, exclusively.

I ran across computers positioned at the base of each tower that deactivates the sentry turrets, they do however reactivate after a period of time. I found that helpful when the teams where not really moving Siege to the courts.

Well that's good to know....

I always stress the need to kill the 9CUs as soon as possible, since in addition to accumulating in numbers they get more powerful the longer they're around. My most recent runs have all gone smoothly, but my first batch were all failed because of 9CUs getting out of hand.

Can the commandos be tp'ed with TP foe?

Force Bubble only slows the minions down at level 50 +2.