Pulling to the courts in BAF

[Specifically, HOW to pull to the courts. I recognize this isn't anywhere near the most efficient place to pull to, but for better or worse many PUGs insist on pulling to the courts.]

This might be a bit preaching to the choir, as most people browsing the forums are experienced, but then again I see plenty of names from the forums in trials... And I sometimes see those names doing pulls wrong.

Now I'm not claiming there is one true way, but when I see tankers with taunt taking 3 minutes to pull Siege to the courts whereas I only take 2 without, I think there's a problem.

Most people seem to taunt the AV once and then, are vaguely running around while waiting for them to catch up. The problem with that is Siege and Nightstar have very long range. If you just stand still 60 feet from them, even if you Taunt, most likely they will stop, shoot you, move a bit forward, stop, shoot you, and so on.

Instead, you can break line of sight by hiding behind a wall. That way the AV goes straight to your position .

For Nightstar, this is fairly straightforward - you can hug the wall of the building near the helipad. It's about 40 feet away from the courts, so once she gets there, she's almost where you want her to be.

Nightstar also seems to fly, and she moves much, much faster when she flies than while on the ground. I don't have Fly myself and only pulled her once like that by accident (maybe by jumping high with GvE pack activated, I'm not sure), she zipped from her spawn point to the courts in about ten seconds.

For Siege, personally I hide behind the wall of his own building first, then the helipad one again. It's not a straight line to the courts, but it at least goes faster than standing in range.

Fighting the reinforcements also aggroes the AV, so if whoever is pulling dies and there's nobody else around, you can make sure the AV doesn't head back to its spawn point by hitting reinforcements.

Once you're at the courts, their range doesn't magically shrink either. You don't want to sit right where you want them to be, but farther away (i.e. if you want them middle of the court and they're at one side, you should probably be at least at the other side of the court). Keep in mind in PUGs people will start throwing slows on the AVs regardless of what you tell them, so at some point it's best to call it good enough and attack. Spending a full minute to get an AV to move a few feet isn't worth it when the actual time saved later on will be maybe half of that time.

There might be better ways to do this. I suppose ideally with Taunt you should be able to ignore LoS completely and stand at long enough range to pull them in a straight line to their killing point. Feel free to correct me and post better tactics if you have some.

What's important is there is really no reason to spend two minutes pulling Nightstar or three minutes pulling Siege, yet I see that happening on 2 BAFs out of 3.

something else that also helps when trying to grab either is to use Darkest Night with proc, like the chance for recharge slow.

That being said, don't forget that there are extra badges / astral merits in the BAF for fighting Seige and Nighstar at their spawn points, rather than fighting them together in the tennis court.

I prefer pulling them to the doorway by the helipad, where all the adds spawn out of. Easy management of AVs and adds, plus everyone gets a piece of the action (read: iXP and drops). Sure there's a turret, but it's just 1 and can be ignored to get that astral. Also, if you're able to kill the spawns quick enough you'll have a high chance to get Strong and Pretty for more merits.

I agree that Mo is best - no time spent pulling, more astral merits, what's not to like - and pulling to the doorway by the helipad is better than courts (easier pulls on top of sharing xp and easier management as you mention), just made this post to specifically address the way people pull to courts, for teams that prefer doing so. I definitely am not suggesting pulling to courts is the way to go.

Oh I've seen what you've been mentioning too. Sometimes like 5 minutes to pull with multiple pullers, too. I try to find trees or something to hide behind while pulling with my tank but taunt doesn't seem to last too long, either. Maybe i'm just imagining it.

Actually, if you're going to pull, pull to the wall near the tennis court, not the tennis court themselves.

All the squishies, especially the ones dealing with the adds will appreciate it since they'll have a corner to work with.

This seems to be a server culture thing.

I play on Union.

We don't pull the AV's in the BAF anywhere, and I don't recall seeing any mention of it being done on Defiant, either.

1) Beat up Warworks
2) everyone jumps on Nightstar
3) one team north, two teams south, beat up escaping prisoners.
4) Two teams to Siege, one team on 9CU's (sometimes all three on Siege, let AoE deal with 9CU's)
5) 9CU team stays put and deal with ambushes, one team moves from Siege to Nightstar
6) sync AV damage at 20%, 10% 5% 2% defeat both when all ambushes gone from map
7) Profit!

And this is on semi-PuG groups formed from whoever turns up in Pocket D looking for a trial.

Seems a little odd that it looks like it could be a US/EU split in approach to the Trial. I'm not saying it's necessarily a *bad* approach to get the AV's together, since there are potential advantages (sharing debuff patches, larger buff/healing blanket etc.), but it strikes me as curious that it appears to be 'cultural'

Canine: I think it's more player comfort than a cultural thing.

The method you describe is the general master of method that many organized groups in the US pull off.

For the most part groups in the US will tend to go a step further given that exp and drops are not shared across the league (yet). The #8 players on Team 1 and 2 will go deal with add-ins along with Team 3, while Team 3's Player #7 and #8 will split up to go to Siege and Nightstar.

On several of the servers I play on, p.u.g. groups are far too disorganized to pull off synchronization. That is also presuming that the p.u.g. groups bothered to look at the chat during the event. I've been on several b.a.f.'s where players simply have not read the chat boxes. In one particular case a player expressed confusion as to why they should even pay attention to anything else on the screen while beating down an AV.

Given this, I highly doubt there is a cultural context. It seems to be a context more derived from players willing to listen and be flexible in the events. I suspect that the smaller EU player-base forces players there to be more comfortable in dealing with each other, which leads to better cohesion in a group.

Am inclined to say its Master method or gtfo Time to do master is probably longer than the farm method, but atleast you are giving people greater experiences and greater number of shots at all the badges. There is cover where the AVs spawn and where the reinforcements spawn so why not?

My beef with it is the way Brutes tank. Honestly make the AV face a wall not the team, keep AV inside of the cover for melee and try to have it so you and the tanks are always on the same side of the AV (as close to having the AV face a wall as poss and the team is behind them. I would try to give the team the space with the most cover.

Last night did a series of BAFs with a team leader who wanted both AVs on the helipad. Worked like a charm, and the leader says everyone gets better Incarnate exp that way. No idea, I am working on my tier 4s. But I do know this, We mowed those spawns like ringing a bell. Whenever the timer clocked down you shoulda seen the AoEs and Nukes pop. We never broke stride from killing the AVs either.

It's all situational.

If you have a league that doesn't know what to do, pulling to the court is simple and easy to explain quickly. It can turn a failure into a win.

And yes, I play on a high-pop server and still find the occasional PUG that has a lot of first-timers. I was on one last night, failed miserably on the escapees. I took over star, explained it, second attempt using this method went fine.

Doing it stepwise with pulls to court works like a charm.

Now, with a better crew, by FAR the most rewards come from careful league composition and fighting the AV's in-place. Place toons with AOE's/mezz and Knockdown in spots 7 and 8 of all three teams. Spots 7 and 8 of all teams kill adds, team 1 and 1-3 of team two kill AV 1 in place, team 3 and spots 4-6 of team two kill AV 2 in place.

Nice and even that way.

High population servers take a while longer to reach that level of coordination, but I suspect most folks will eventually settle down to some variation of that scheme.

I've had pretty good success pulling Nightstar with my blaster. The tank died and I volunteered so I got into range of my snipe and fired off one shot...Then ran like heck back to the far end of the tennis court and she followed. THANKFULLY when she arrived the teams jumped on her and she forgot how ticked off she was at me LOL

the other option is don't pull at all. We have been doing a lot of that lately with great success and of course even if you already have the badge it still awards an added Astral you can convert into threads. Okay if you are determined to hang on to them until Posi actually tells us what we can BUY with them fine.. I convert mine and it makes slotting go MUCH faster LOL

I hit either one with fireball and back up just within their range to the courts.
The only way to lose aggro really is some trigger happy puglet trying to 'help' you pull.

-> TT MA Arc ID 1755 -> Join TankHQ -> Media -> @AceMACE

I stopped doing any except master attempt BAFs for that very reason. I teleport out, shoot nightstar, teleport behind raid group...

Then wait 3 minutes while 4 tards walk slowly backwards from nightstar's position, making her attack the whole way.

It's a good post, but unfortunately lost of most players.

Even the best puller will completely lose when anywhere from 1-4 other ADD addled morons will run up and attack the AV that is already pulled.

Then, they will run around within the absolutely massively long range of the AVs slowing down the entire process.

You can only be so lucky as to have someone drop LR on the AV when they are not even halfway to the helipad/tennis court/wall.




I've tried for a week to convince pulling method groups to allow me to at least pull to the helipad so we can munch adds and AVs at the same time, but everyone seems obsessed with the tennis court.

Between the barracks iirc you should have cover from all but one turret but still there should be somewhere inbetween them barracks a area of safety. Thats where the team should be positioned, opposite side of AV. When I've tanked it I've been where Siege is or where the reinforcements come out so its only as a less armoured character that I have fought from between the barracks. I've had to find that cover and fight from there.

I think that one turret has full line of sight between the barracks but it has limited range then two turrets have the field aside of the barracks so, just go halfway into road between the barracks and only slightly out the front but stay tucked in to the barrack walls.

This started last night and I like it. Pull the AVs to the helipad where the ADDs spawn. It allows everyone on all three teams to damage and get credit for ADD defeats and to work on taking down each AV with any AoE attacks. It also ensured that the few players with heals were able to hit more league members so fewer trips to the hospital.

We actually "FARMED" the AVs last night. Taking one to zero and then the other until we had just enough time left to take them both out together to complete the trial. This allowed us much more time to defeat ADDs gaining more IXP and Oh by the way using this game plan I managed 2 straight Very Rare component table, a rare component table and then a third Very rare. The funny part was we actually had players leave the league when they heard what we intended to do and one even said .. "I have all my slots open I am really only concerned with the reward table at the end"

Quote:

Using this game plan I managed 2 straight Very Rare component table, a rare component table and then a third Very rare.

Okay fine you go do a "NORMAL" BAF and spend half the night complaining about getting common or uncommon tables. I'll take your rares and very rares THANKS!

Oh one thing .. the towers don't seem to be an issue by the time you get to Siege but it's best to stay close to the building while waiting for Nightstar to arrive. They can't hit you if your close to that big roll up door. For some reason when you pull Seige they don't attack that area anymore.

OH did I also mention IF you are still working on opening a power this is a much quicker way to accomplish it. I am on my 4th character striving to gain all 4 new powers. The first three did nothing but the traditional BAFS and at best I averaged a little over 10% of the IXP needed per trial. Last night I did my first "FARM" run needing 27% to open Judgement. By the end Judgement was open and I had 13% of what I needed for Lore. Two farm runs later I was at 99% complete on Lore. Yeah I had to do ONE more BAF to get that last 1% LOL Do the math.. at 10% on a normal run it would probably have taken me 13 trials to accomplish what I did in 4 and for whatever reason, added defeat(?), I got 3 very rare components and rare instead of a bunch of commons and uncommons. Now to go finish off Lamdba and I will take my 50 (+3) back to work on her tier 4 powers

Opps figured I better add this.. I can't promise that if you do this you will see nothing but Rare and Very Rare components all night. I didn't ask anyone else what they got and it may have just FINALLY been my turn. What I do know is the other three characters I have run through the trials NEVER got a very rare drop and only a couple got rares.. I had to build most of the rares I had with uncommons and INF. Now the rumor is reward is based, sort of.. maybe(?), on performance???? Well on a normal BAF you'd defeat 4 AV and since you did it as fast as possible who knows how many fewer ADD bosses. On a Farm run we took down a single Av as fast as possibe and then started on the other.. By the end we may have taken out as many a 8 or 9 AV and spent the full 16-17 minutes defeating as many ADDs as possible. So I don't know .. Maybe a LOT more defeats/damage = better reward drops?