Keyes Island for Controllers

Did the beta run yesterday (on a Dominator actually) but thought some notes might be helpful on what to expect on your Controller. Anyone else who has run it can feel free to provide info as well. The raid is still not "official" so it may or may not be changed between then and now. I also apologize because this is really, really long. And I'm sure I got some details wrong, which hopefully someone can correct.

I'll start by saying, at least as it stands right now, this trial is significantly harder than either Lambda or the BAF. It is essentially a beginning to end AV fight with several phases, and lots of ways for you to die. This is not intended to be a detailed guide; there are some guides already floating around. I wanted to share some specific takeaways for Controllers so you aren't caught unaware.

Basically this fight takes place at an outdoor "reactor" facility. It's populated by level 54 the IDF and Warwork robots familiar by now from the last few trials. Unlike the BAF reinforcement waves, the spawns here are not all-bosses, so most Controllers can deal with them reasonably well. This is true throughout most of the encounter, minus some Elite Bosses that show up later (but who appear to be surrounded by enemies of various ranks). The AV himself is of course more or less immune to controls.

After the first (fairly easy) segment where your team fights some IDF, you get introduced to something called the "Anti Matter Pulse Ray." The Anti-Matter Pulse Ray is not your friend.

Basically the AMPR goes off every 30 seconds, and hits every player in the zone for 50% of his or her HP. This cannot be dodged or resisted. It goes without saying that Empaths, Therms, Kins, Rads, anyone with Rebirth Destiny, and anyone I've forgotten need to throw their weight into keeping people's HP buffed. You can see the pulse countdown in the raid action window.

Pets are immune to the AMPR. However, uou will probably not get much opportunity to test this out, because:

The AMPR is tied to Anti-Matter's health. The more he loses, the harder the AMPR hits. I have no idea how much damage the AMPR is capable of at max strength. However with the AV at about 70% health I'm pretty sure he hit me for over 60% of my HP per pulse. He does not regenerate health during this phase, so if he gets hurt, your league has to deal with that damage every pulse until it is possible to actually kill him. Under all circumstances you must avoid doing damage to him. For most Controllers this probably means not summoning pets. The AV will be very close to you in certain portions of the trial and any damage the pet does in its blind zeal to protect you increases the AMPR.

Winning the next 3 segments of the trial involves finding "power cells" temp power drops around the map and using them to charge up "terminals" that disable each of the three reactors. Each reactor gets increasingly more complex to locate the power cells and/or activate the terminals. At first you just have to kill the enemies around the terminal, and power the cells up (I believe all enemies within a certain radius must be dead for it to work, so your team will concentrate on the area around the terminal they are working on). In later segments, the enemies have to be dead and the AV must be pulled within a certain distance of the terminal for it to work.* In the final phase of all this, the "power cells" are located inside "bunkers" and can only be gotten by either busting down the door and attacking the things inside, or stealthing it (not sure how the stealth works but probably Illusionists can pull it off).

[*He's a flyer BTW, so depending on what is happening -Fly may be a good or bad idea (usually bad if damage is attached). One of my teammates accidentally drained his endurance and he fell and hit the ground.]

After all of this is done, its finally time to take on the AV head on. The AMPR is gone, but in its place the AV has a power called Disentegrate. As you probably guessed, this power is also not your friend.

Disentegrate is a single-target damage over time power with a twist. If the person hit with it dies, the AV gets a massive self heal. When a team member calls out that he or she is being disentegrated, you should throw every buff, heal, and shield you can spare to keep him or her alive. (The notice is fairly hard to see.) If someone dies near the end of the fight, it could be like a reset button.

While this is going on, you also have to look out for the AVs "Entanglement" ability. Entanglement surrounds you in a globe that is either red or blue. Anyone with a red globe standing next to a person with a blue globe takes damage. I was not able to evaluate how much damage this power actually does. It did seem less deadly than many other abilities going on.

The AV also has a power called "Obliteration Beam" that I know very little about. I believe it works like the Halberds in the Apex TF. Supposedly there is a marker on the ground where it hits, but due to all the chaos, I never actually saw it. He also has a power similar to Marauder's Nova Fist thing that will pretty much one-shot any squishy who wanders too close.

His final ability is "Time Stop." This goes off when he hits certain health numbers. It is basically a huge magnitude auto-hit Hold. I don't know if you can take damage during this segment (I assume you can though). When the Hold wears off, the AV runs and jumps on top of a "generator" surrounded by power terminals, and begins healing himself. Destroying the terminals interupts his healing and resumes the fight. I believe he does this 4 times before he dies.

My group was lucky enough to have a great leader who had also done the raid before. My Ice/Fire Dominator (lvl 53 after level shifts) died about 4 or 5 times. I would have died many many more times if not for having Aid Self though, which dealt with the damage pulses pretty well. I only had 1 hospital trip, due to having Rise of the Phoenix. It took us about 45 minutes to complete the trial. I would say most team members were excellent to good players with several incarnate shifts under the belt.

Terrific overview, O. Just the level of detail I was looking for, not too much to spoil the funs. Thanks!