Let's talk about the Avatar of Hamidon

Which do you think is more unfair: the massive Confuse that practically mandates you fill your trays with Break Frees from the hospital to have any reliable shot of contributing to the fight, or the Infection debuff that will floor your defense and resistance and allow him to one-shot your Tanker *** if you spend more than one attack in melee range?

Or maybe your favorite part of the Underground Trial comes earlier, with the Extinction War Walkers' Lethal Force that does unresistable autohit damage in a AoE around anyone targeted by the War Walker. Oh and it stacks for more damage the more targeted people are nearby.

I would say the confuse.

Having your protections hammered into the ground is nothing new. Not to mention Unresistable attacks being nothing new either when they want to stick it to the Players to drive home just how dangerous and special an enemy is.

Meanwhile, a full area full of confusion status is just insane. It leaves anyone without built in protection punished (I'm currently leveling an elec/elec tanker to eventually make up for all the help my Controller Got in trials, and they won't be any good for the UG because Elec armor has no confuse protection built in).

It means if you had a buff or heal queued up, and you get confused in the meantime then congratulations, you have just healed and/or buffed the Avatar instead.

Though the worst part is it takes away choice, or at least many people seem to believe you have no choice and if you don't act accordingly then they will spend the last end of the UG screaming about Clarions. The Incarnate system is supposed to be a wonderful extra, to make you feel good about having some new power, power you have worked to build and picked what you like best.

Nobody has ever complained when they get buffed with a T4 Rebirth, or a T4 Ageless during the rest of an UG trial that I've ever seen. But the second the Avatar fight starts up, these same people who were enjoying your buffs turn around and start ranting over the fact everyone in the leauge didn't make and bring nothing but T4 Clarions.

Of course, the worst thing about the UG trial to me was a bug. When my last UG trial attempt made it to the avatar fight, Desdemona became unargetable even though she was still alive and the Trial Window's health listing showed her as still standing. Not to mention would not follow those marked as her leader. So nobody could ever find the lady to survive the seed bombs. (No, she did not die when nobody was looking, right before the trial ended from everyone quitting I ran across her again).

Sure, that last bit is clearly a bug. But it was the worst thing to me. Even though it's not any form of insanity that occurs by design.

There is only one reason I would ever run a UG trial now. To build up Incarnate experience for a fresh lv 50. However, with the current mentality around the UG right now, I doubt you'd avoid getting kicked from most of them, or invited in the first place as a fresh 50 unless they were desperate for members.

Gently put, these trials may require us to slot and use powers other than what we generally use. I made and slotted Clarion for this trial, and I am glad I did. I made and slotted Rebirth for the Keyes trial, and I am glad I did. Did I cry bitter tears when I had to unslot Ageless? No, I did not, because I recognize that challenges may require me to change my approach. Future trials may require other alterations of my Incarnate powers; I welcome this as a refreshing change of pace.

Clarion isn't even a good solution to the confuse since it only gives enough Confuse protection for the final room for 15-30 seconds. You need at least seven stacks of Clarion to be Confuse protected for the full duration of the buff.

And it doesn't help at all with Infection. My Tanker, simply put, cannot go into melee with the Avatar because of it, since if he does, he will die.

leadership
enforced morale
steamy mist

and others will help against confuse, plus i make "escapes" using the merit vendor.
the league leader normally jiggles teams so the anti-mez is balanced out around the teams

hard but doable when not bugged,lol

Nobody was talking about kicking people without Clarions. And you're missing the point; while there's lots of powers that give some confuse protection, none of them are enough on their own, or even together in amounts you're likely to find with a random group. The only way to have any reliable protection from Confuse is Break Frees. You can't cover a whole league with Steamy Mist, Clarion doesn't last long enough, and leadership only affects teammates.

But that's not what I'd consider the worst part. The worst part is Infection. If its debuffs and the Avatar's attacks are enough to one- or two-shot a Tanker (and not just a regular Tanker, a defensively built tanker with the soft cap from IOs and all the fixins) then what hope does a Scrapper or Brute or Widow have to contribute?

gonna have to try this on my main tank, only have taken squishies. We had more trouble wuth the infected regening war walker than AoH.

I'll tell you what's unfair: I went through the whole arc and didn't ANY HAM.*




*I haven't done the TF

Don't forget the PBAoE Life Drain in Devour that stacks with the stacking -res debuff. Unless you've got a team that's heavily favoring buffing/debuffing, the melee on the team might do more harm than good.

Edit: His Confuse is easily beaten with about 4 people with Clarion. Just take turns using it. On the runs I've seen successful we number people with Clarion (1, 2, 3, etc.) and call them out in Request when it's their turn to fire it off. Everyone fights behind the Avatar except for the taunter(s), who either have Clarion themselves or a fair amount of Emerges. It works well.

It can be hard at times, but it'd beatable.

Well, I do understand some of the philosophy behind it.

My current incarnate is a Broot. SS/WP.

Mez effects are rarely a problem for him, unless the Mez is particularly powerful.

As for confuse... I was Confused for the first time in months today in First Ward. I was on a Corruptor.

Adding a rarely used mechanic to a Trial is interesting.

I think the issue here isn't the fact that this effect exists. It's the fact that it is so difficult to avoid.

Typically, when such a powerful effect is added to content, it is either A) Single Target (Ghost Widow's Soul Storm, EB Maelstrom's Time to Die), B) Avoidable (Marauder's NOVA FIST, Battle Maiden's Fire Patches, Anti-Matter's Obliteration Beam), or C) Has some form of nonstandard mitigation (Hamidon's Essence of The Earth Insps, The Various Reichman Temporary Powers, Etc)

But AoH's confusion effect doesn't have those. It affects multiple targets, it doesn't seem avoidable, and there is no built in mitigation.

Yes, -Confuse powers help, and yes, having them is encouraged.

However, they are a lot less common that healing powers. If there was some thing Desdemona did that blocked Confusion, and a badge for doing the trial without it, then people would be cool.

But right now, they just seem frustrated.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Hami's confuse a (really huge) cone?

In which case, turn the ******* around.

Wow a level shifted AV that is meant to embody the most powerful thing in the CoX universe, and you are upset it is too powerful? I see why that is just an outrage. Obviously it should just be a bag of hp with 'normal' attacks that can be killed in under 30 seconds.

I have done 3 UG trials. The first, I ended up escorting Dessy, and so stayed outside the main room. The Avatar was dead before I even got through tying out my questions about the fight.

The second trial, I was on my MM, and the Avatar was dead BEFORE his freezing rain recharged after the first use. And I dont think I saw anyone get confused on tanks being one shot.

Are the mag 20 or whatever confuses annoying? Yes. Are they gimmicky..yes, but no more so than keyes pulse damage, Marauders nova fist,etc etc.

The third keyes I did, took about 25 mins to kill AoH, and I am postive that was because we had very little support. remember those early bafs with too little support, how the bosses wiped people..same thing.

Also, if you think about it, all these trials and AVs need a gimmick or special attacks..to stop them being trivial. A lvl 54 av with 200k hp, but nothing special, will die in a blink vs 24 incarnates.

Clarion and break frees for the win.


The Extinction WW isn't the problem... The lichen-infested one is. Even pulled to where the lichen regen is weakest, unless you have a team who REALLY knows who has what role (you destroy mushrooms, you taunt, you heal, you damage the WW, you keep the DE off our collective butts by either buffing us to all heck OR killing the adds ASAP), you can time out there.

***And, as an afterthought edit, this IS what incarnate stuff is all about... Getting into the thick of it with uber-ZOMG-teh-$uxx0r bad AVs with a million hit points and unresistable THOOM attacks that would liquefy your teeth in situ oro were you 'merely' a hero.

I have no problem with it. We gamed the BAF and now that is the incarnate trial with the most "Master of"s. They made the Lambda relatively straight forward UNLESS you want THAT Master of... then it gets nasty. The Keyes requires big time strategery and a further clarification of "know your role." The Underground, I'd be willing to wager, was a thrilling combonation of math problem, Dev gripe, and NCSoft hazing incident: "Let's see... what is the least taken incarnate ability? Hmm... How can we make them pay for their insolence? Winner DOESN'T have to do a bodyshot of Patron off Posi!"***

Okay, back to your thread.