Underground Trial Strategy

Thanks for posting this, I hope you keep expanding and updating it. The underground trial is HARD right now until more people figure it out.

Let's talk about strategy for the final boss, Avatar.


Problem 1: Will of the Earth (WotE) - whoever is targeted by this attack has a big yellow disc around them. When it goes off after a few seconds, it heals the Avatar for every player in range. Basically, if targeted, you have to run off to the corner by yourself. Not hard, but it means no one can be indispensable. There must be redundancy - if particular buffs/heals/abilities are required then several people must have them.


Problem 2: Confuse - this affects everyone on the map randomly, even out of line-of-sight. It happens a lot, to multiple players at once - without extra mez protection, you may be mezzed as much as 50% of the time. Essentially T3 Clarion is required; since deaths and WotE will happen we need lots of players to have it for redundancy. And to stay buffed, players will have to remain grouped up (possibly several groups).


Problem 3: Cripple - cone attack, end drain and -recovery are the biggest problems here. If this is weak enough to be overcome by SB/Heat Loss/Transference then maybe it could be ignored with enough buffing. I rather doubt it, in which case we cannot afford to have everyone hit. That means we need an 'Aggro Group' of several tanks (who all have T3 Clarion); they would take aggro one or two at a time and keep the Avatar facing into a corner or against a wall. After one tank is debuffed another would jump in to take aggro, continually swapping out as needed. Everyone else will stay behind the Avatar.


Problem 4: Infection - pbaoe stacking debuff to resistance and defense. I've only done the trial with ranged characters so far - I don't have personal experience with it, but based on the description, we can't afford to have most of the League in melee. We'll need the Aggro group, a Melee group behind the Avatar and a Ranged group further back behind the Avatar. If so, melee is pretty well screwed because all the heals/buffs will be in the ranged group. Maybe with enough defense buffing this debuff can be ignored? Need more input here - I'm not sure how the exact mechanics will work out.


Problem 5: Corruption - Avatar drains Desdemona's life. The effect worsens when her allies are close to her. I have no experience seeing this in action so more information on the exact mechanics would help. She can be healed, so keeping her with the Ranged group and letting her soak up aoe heals may be sufficient. If not, things are likely to get complex.


Problem 6: Damage: there's several attacks here, some dealt to random targets, some in pbaoe, some random ranged aoe and some that hits everyone in the chamber regardless of range. Simply put: stay grouped, have aoe heals. Of course we'll need multiple people with aoe healing since WotE could remove any one of them at any time. The Aggro group will likely need dedicated ranged healing. Desdemona does have a short range aoe buff to help with Seedling damage, but how we use it will depend on our solution to Corruption above.



That's all I have so far. Looks like we need lots of people to farm T3 Clarion and leagues will need good tanking/healing with ranged damage preferred. Hopefully someone can come up with ways to simplify this for PuG leagues; I really hate encounters that are so choosy that leaders get anal about who they invite. I have several unpleasant LRSF memories.

Thought I'd post here to say I've written a walkthrough for the trial, using both Voodoo Girls Guide here and the official one. I dont want to redirect you for no reason but I thought I'd present all the information.

I'll repeat the info from the Union guide on here:

The confuse attack from Avatar is 20mag.

4 Break Frees (5mag each) will clear it for 30 seconds.
2 Emerge (15mag each) will clear it for 60 seconds.
1 Escape (20mag) will clear it for 90 seconds.

If you don't have Clarion, then bring several rows of Emerge or Escape. Break Frees, while good for normal content, are a bit iffy on this as when they fade, they don't blink, and you can only hold 2 and a half minutes of protection on a full tray. We had a trial where only a few people had Clarion, and when the group kept getting confused, we started to have a few quitters. Luckily, the hospital in-mission has a contact who sells inspirations. We just had to kept quickly dying to stock up when we ran out. There's a glowing gold portal outside the hospital area which takes you to the final room's corridor, so it's not a long trip back.

Aside from the Confuse issues, as noted above, my experience as an SR scrapper was that massive autohit damage means all I get to do in the final encounter is die, over and over. On last night's attempt, it got to the point where I felt like I might as well just sit it out in the hospital.

Also to help with Confuse in addition to Clarion, people should be running Tactics (Leadership Pool) and Steamy Mist (Storm Summoning) if applicable. Clear Mind (Empathy), Clarity (Sonic Resonance), and Thaw (Thermal Radiation) should be used generously as well, especially on people that are running Tactics and/or Steamy Mist.

How about Step 1 (or Step 1A) - read your League Chat. I've now been on a couple of PUGs that failed to defeat the LIWW because 3 or 4 people didn't pay attention and kept attacking the LIWW in the middle of the map for 10 minutes until the timer almost ran out while the rest of the people were posting in League Chat for them to stop attacking so the LIWW could be pulled to the corner. This is with everyone being instructed about this strategy before the battle even started with the SRWW. Even if they weren't reading their League Chat, you'd think it wouldn't take them 10 minutes to notice they weren't doing any damage to the LIWW and that the rest of the league/team was halfway across the map, lol.

Anyone had a lot of difficulty finishing the trial since the recent patch?

In two out of two attempts I've been part of recently, Desdemona has bugged during the final fight and stopped doing anything or vanished completely. We'd had several successful runs before and know what to do, but any time Desdemona has bugged, it's been a disaster of leaguewipe after leaguewipe.

that is what just happened to us des just poofed on us and we could not move her. Were were screwed those from the start though as nobody had clarion so we were perma confused. even popping a row of puples was not removing the confuse.

In my experiences with this trial specifically, if the final fight is what we re discussing, you just need to stay tight and stagger Clarions. It is a basic "Ground and Pound" AV fight. Yes, the attacks are a little more varied, and yes a little more potent, but with 24 people, of which at least 3 or 4 with a T-3 Clarion or better, there should be no problems.

What is the range on the regen lichens for the LWW? I know we've had people trying to kill all of them, and others say when he's in the corner only the top two matter, and others who say it's line of sight. What is the reality?

Also, on the avatar's heal power, other than the yellow ring, is there any other sign? Because I've been on multiple teams and no one could figure out how he was healing. So some way to identify the person and tell them to get away would be a huge help.

Last, on the avatar's damage dealing and the spawns, several of my ranged characters flew over the battle and avoided a lot of the problems. He doesn't look up often and the DE and IDF have far more painful melee attacks than range. It's just rough if you're not getting the clarion love =)

Thank you all for the feedback/input everyone! I just started a new job and haven't had the time to go through and reincorporate some ideas and suggestions brought up here.

Map with bombs marked: tinyurl.com/UGtrial

Slash command to monitor confuse protection: /monitorattribute confuse protection

Bind for bombs: /bind <key> "targetcustomnear demolition"

I added those slash commands - ty Zombie Man!

Would it be possible to mark on the map or describe where the hospital is and where the teleport ring drops you off? The last one I was on (only my second), I had a hard DC when clicking on my first lichen, and by the time I was back, couldn't figure out how to join up with the league. I died and found the teleport zone to deeper in, but didn't recognize anything or see the rest of my team. Several others who died also couldn't figure out how to get back, apparently nobody had Recall Friend, and it ended in failure as they were fighting the Hamidon when Des died. Not necessarily because I wasn't there, but the league was light on support, and I had a cold/sonic defender, so it might have helped swing things if I could have returned.

VoodooGirl, you might need to add a warning that Desdemona can't be teleported. This is especially true with the new Destiny Incandescence power. It is possible to teleport the entire league away from Desdemona and fail the trial.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Added note about Desdemona's inability to teleport.

I would like to add some bits.

Best way to keep Des up is with regen over heals.
The Hami Avvi is easy enough. He will summoning exploding seedlings that will do big AoE damage to the raid unless Des is nearby.
He does alot of confuse and if you heal while confused he will heal a big %, so Clarion is a good way to go.
3 break frees will break through his confuse.
He will put the Will of the Earth on someone. It looks like a big pinky browny vortex (similar to Time Manipulation) on someone and it will heal the avvi and damage the league, so that person has to run away.
Tanks should always try and keep Hami facing away, as will use an ability (signified by red text) that will do huge damage in a frontal cone.

few things that are working for me on Exalted.

Avatar Fight:
Have all the tanks as a group keeping the Avatar turned. Prevents him from turning to the group if the main tank goes down.

I have everyone (minus tanks) target Desdemona and follow. Whoever has her leads her up behind the avatar while the tanks taunt. This puts the league in the correct position for the fight and close to her for the seedlings. RA or rebirth and the normal heal bubble keeps Desi alive.

Walker fight:
1st pull it to the corner with the group following a few steps behind so the tank can pull. After the respawn (which is always back down the hall) I call the group the the corner. This gets desi away from the walker and ID's the "problem" children quickly. Once they are good I pull the AV the the corner on the other side of the tracks and kill as usual from there.

3-4 Spikers on each demolition is enough, just jump the mobs on the side rooms and clean up after the bomb is down. For the corridor I spilt the league in half and send them up each side in one big rush. Its easier to explain than a Zig Zag pattern and seems much faster and reliable.

If anyone gets desi who doesn't want her I have them self destruct and hosp. The switch is random, not by proximity, so anyone can wind up with her. I like her on the lead tank if possible.