tips for squishies on Lambda split phase

I've seen/heard a number of complaints from squishies about the glowy busting phase in Lambda. I've taken a number of squishies through (Dom, Cont, MM, Corr) and, after some adapting, don't have much of an issue with it these days. Since I still hear complaints, I figured maybe folks could use some tips.

* Inspirations.

Seriously. Grab about 2 rows of purples (depending on your defense), a row of break frees, (if you don't have mez protection), 2 awakens (2-3 blues for post-rez) and the rest heals. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO USE THEM. Especially if you get tagged by a Fear/Hold effect while you are trying to run to the next spot.

I rarely use inspirations in casual play. Maybe once or twice a mission, generally I just forget about them (except for farming), so this was a bit of a switch for me.

Seriously, stock up before joining the trial - do some planning and pretend you are doing something more intense/difficult than running a normal mission. Because you are.

IF you have to hospital, fill up on your insps again. You'll need to get fast at opening that window and clicking like a madman before the doors open. Generally I can do it within the 10second window.

RE: Awakens: There is often enough time to awaken+BF+pound purples and GTFO out of Dodge while everyone is focused on a brute/tank. I generally used this 1-2 times on my Controller & Dom until I got into a rhythm and got my last 2 level shifts.

* Don't try and tank the alpha. I shouldn't have to say it but....

Of course, if your team lacks a tank, brute or sturdy scrapper then you do what you gotta do...

* Invisibility (stealth proc + SS, etc.). AS far as I've seen, nothing in these areas will see through SS+Mist/proc/etc. It won't help much once you're seen, but it's great for zipping between the glowies.

If you're going this route & have pets you might want to keep them unsummoned, except to absorb alphas and do some minor damage (ie mms don't bother doing your full setup, just throw them out there and let them die, rinse & repeat).

*Memorize the layouts. The glowies never move. If you know where you're going, you'll run around headless a lot less. You're going to be running this thing probably at least 5 times per alt, so you might as well .

There are a couple paths I've seen people take through each one. My preferred paths are the west going loop on the Acids and the North->East loop on the crates.

Also, keep your map open. Make sure you know where the rest of your team is. I constantly have to remind new folks when I see them zooming off by themselves then whining about dying.

Hope those help!

Domination + Mass Confusion is extremely useful on that section of the trial, it allows me to pretty much solo Crates/Containment Units. The only thing I haven't been able to verify yet is what happens temp-wise if mobs destroy a container without any player interaction...

Here's one for non-invisible squishies:

If the team insists on skipping enemy groups to get to the grenades (chances are they will) and you don't have invisibility, it's still possible to slip by without getting attacked much. Just follow slightly behind whichever tank/scrap/brute/whatever is running ahead first. The enemies will take their token pot-shot at that player, leaving you enough time to sneak through unmolested.

With SS/+Stealth I find it easier to just skip 2 or 3 objectives ahead and solo them. All groups are positioned in one direction for some reason so all you have to do is get several feet behind them, target the objective and blast away with single target ranged attacks. As long as you only target the objective the mob won't notice you. Only issue with this strategy are the patrols can wander by but you can take them out if you have enough damage.

Completely fill up on purples, maybe one row of greens.

learn to use the 'monitor combat attributes tool' if you can see your defense, you can maximize the amount of time you're fighting at or around 60% defense (the new softcap).

Learn the layout (Here's the layout, from another thread, from some guy) http://i663.photobucket.com/albums/u...thoflambda.jpg

Let your teammates take the first hit and then completely throw in with them (you're more likely to knock out the minions and LT's completely if you do).

For some reason the weapon crates can be hit from a distance without alerting the surrounding mob.

Break LoS if they look at you.

Think about getting super speed if you have hasten, being able to use super speeds stealth component is HUGE when rushing through these corridors.

Travel with the largest group (if your team is bad at sticking together)

Get Destiny

Get your level shifts

Don't worry about dying, just hosp, what a wonderful opportunity to refill on defense insps (5 will get you as close as you need to be to safe).

Judgement.

If you have fly always fly as high and to the corner as you can, that minimizes the time in the 'strike zone' (i'll call it)

find a way to be stealthy

avoid big groups

ninja run still works if you don't have a travel power for some reason.

Don't freak if you die, tell your team if you died on a container.

Oh yea, about the teams that don't stick together try telling them to stick together because that way you live, they live, and everyone moves faster.
You will find they gave you PLENTY of time to do this section if you're methodical (IE: Not totally friggen lost all the time).

/tips.

Heh.

All excellent advice so far!


Now, I've done these a lot, and I have a confession:

I'm one of "those guys" who runs off and solos the darn things.

Yeah, I know, I suck, be a team player, etc.

But that said, here's my advice for squishies:

Look at the knuckleheads on your team that are plunging in. If they're NOT dying on the first one, the odds are good they're plenty tough to keep the aggro off you. So pick one of those guys, and use him like your rented aggro mule. Ghost along, let him soak up the punishment, he isn't gonna mind.

Toss a few buffs, or heck, a few purples in his tray. I promise, if you're soloing these things, you're chewing candy.

Check out what he's doing incarnate-wise. If he's got barrier, he is gonna use it, so be close by when the timer is about right. If you see him pause close to a glowy, he's punching candies or self-buffs, toss a few in there too if you have them and it's not too scary.

In other words, USE the tough guys. They like it.

Oh, yeah, and be all stealthy and fast and stuff. Because if a hard-shell toon is soloing glowies in the Lambda, he is NOT going to be moving slow, and it's quite possible you'll lose him. At that point, it's sneaky-time.

And if the knucklehead dies? Well, the hospital has candy vendors.

When I did Lambda on my FF/Rad defender, I stuck close to her team's tank (or the brute playing tank, as the case may be-), made liberal use of inspirations, turned on her personal force field and flight for faster, safer travel between the mobs (She also has a stealth IO, which helped-), and used ranged, single target attacks on the boxes and tubes from as far away as I could while still keeping said-tank inside my bubble and Leadership toggle radius. I only used her AoEs or attacked things OTHER than the glowie on those occasions when the mob seemed be giving my tank a rough time, but when he left... I left. No lingering around. That'll get you killed.

There's a reason why my squishies battle cry is Nom Nom Nom RAAAGH!
Inspirations, eat four purples (50%) and four oranges (40%) and bring along two green's and two break free's in the last row. That gives you 120 seconds of protection, if your a defense build bring more oranges and only eat two purples.

The hospital is in mission, abuse that fact, you don't WANT to die but if you do I typically buy a full tray of purples "eat" the top two rows, buy oranges, eat the far coloum then buy my two break free's and two green's, I've gotten to the point I can buy, eat a tray and buy it back to full in about nine seconds. Once you leave the hopsital you'll be at some absurd 150% defense and by the time you get back into the mission with the two zoning's you should have 10 to 30 seconds left on that first batch, zip past the first few mobs with sprint then eat your first tray of 4 purples/4 oranges and keep going. It's quite possible to solo them even when your playing anything but a defender standing toe to toe since you have 50% defense plus whatever you had before. You'll get hit, instantly eat a green once you hit 2/3rd of your heath and you'll be able to solo them just fine.

My controller did just that, soft capped range defense to begin with, had 2 ACU's a vicky some IDF and a Warworks giant robot beating on me via this strategy ignoring them and doing nothing but spamming my aoE immoblize and hold over and over again with an occasional sleet/ice storm. I soloed my box, my inspirations ran out as I started to run away and I faceplanted, that's okay Hopsitaled it, bought a second tray of insps, and soloed a second box, faced planted and got back just in time to help fight Maurader still got a rare despite three trips to the Hospital.

Really good teams with lots of Judgements and some level shiftery can actually get away with steamrolling the facilities; it's standard MO with one of the groups I run with. Gets you tons of iXP and doesn't leave the squishies to die repeatedly.

Still, it's not something I'd try to rally a PuG around.

In some of the more open areas you can hit the glowies from range without aggroing any of the spawns around them. You still need to be careful and watch where you're shooting from, and watch patrols. And when the glowy explodes you're going to get spotted, more than likely.

The best advice I can give for squishies in lambda, though, honestly is not to run it. Like alot of other things in this game, vote with your feet if you want it to be changed.

One I haven't seen somebody mention yet: If you have powers like Tar Patch, Volcanic Gasses, Ice Storm, Caltrops... drop them in the hallway behind you while moving between crates. Really helps slow down the giant horde of Praetorians that end up chasing after the group if you don't kill them all.

my issue with Lamda is that specific part. unfortunately I don't know the layout yet, and inevitably I get seperated from my team, and get lost in there. I admit, I preferred the steam roll method that I did in one of the times I did it, in addition to not getting seperated from my time, it did net more threads.\