Introducing... Septipheran's Saturday Shenanigans!

(Before you ask, yes this was the catchiest title I could come up with.)

The purpose of this thread was to let everyone on Protector know that I would like to lead "Master of" Incarnate trial runs every Saturday.

I know we only have a select few trials available to us as of now, but that works out well for:

A.) People who miss a certain week.

B.) People who would like a certain badge on more than one character.

I would have added a C.) If we fail, But you guys know better than that. No failing allowed!

Tonight, I lead a successful Master of BAF. Next weekend, Saturday October 29, I will be forming a Master of LAMBDA. The weekend after that, I will be forming a Master of the Underground. The weekend after that, I will be forming a Master of Keyes Island Reactor.

Once they've all cycled through, I'll be going back to BAF and repeating. This will be happening every Saturday at ~8:00 pm Eastern Time, but time is definitely flexible- If people need a certain badge but aren't available at a certain time I am more than willing to work that out. I just wanted to start this thread up to let everyone know that I planned to continue doing this.

I will be reserving a couple of posts to elaborate on the strategies I use for Master runs on all trials currently available to us. I know that other people have their ideas on how to do things, and that's perfectly alright, but I plan on leading these runs based on what works best for me, after many a horrible and fantastic experience. If you plan to participate, this is how things will be run.

Master of the B.A.F. Strategy

Alright, so this is pretty simple if you know what you're doing but not everyone does. I know there are different ways to do this but this is the way that I'm most comfortable with and that I feel has the highest rate of success.

First I'm going to talk about team assignments and makeup: I like to have debuffers and single target DPS characters on teams 1 and 2, and AoE heavy characters on team 3. I'll go more into detail for this reasoning later on. I also prefer to have everyone in the league at +2 or +3 as it does help things go much more smoothly.

The first part is a no-brainer: You kill stuff until Nightstar spawns- That's 40 Warwalkers to be precise.

The second part is where you'll start noticing a difference from the run of the mill BAF runs, but it's not at all more difficult. Nightstar will spawn at the bivouacs and we'll fight her at her spawn point: No pulling. This is necessary for the Keep Them Separated badge. I like to leave team 3 on the Helipad for this phase fighting off add spawns. Killing these before she drops does not affect the Strong and Pretty badge, but it's a nice way to gauge team makeup, ie: If team 3 feels they'll need additional support to handle the adds at the end this is a good way to feel that out. It's also a safety measure for the debuffers and DPS characters, allowing them to focus more on killing Nightstar.

Now for the third part, this is where things start to come down a little more to personal approach. There is a very certain way I like to run the Escaped Prisoners phase and that is by not deviating from the choke points. Team 3 North and team 1 and 2 South.(edit: I got dyslexic and remembered my directions backwards for a second- It's been a long afternoon.) This works out well as the largely AoE makeup plus the lighter amount of escapees at the North point tends to leave things balanced. Lore pets deploy at the 5, and I like everyone to stay very close at the designated points.

There's nothing that I hate more than a bunch of melee characters chasing down runners when if they concentrated their damage in a consolidated area the amount of runners is cut down so drastically that ranged attackers can pick off any who get through from the choke point: Keep this in mind if you are playing a ranged set. It is your responsibility to keep your eye out for prisoners who get through. Successfully completing this phase with no escapes awards the Not on My Watch badge.

Next up, Siege will spawn at the Administration building. This will work just like Nightstar did: Teams 1 and 2 fight him at his spawn point while team 3 sits tight on the helipad. Last time I ran this, it was successful with team 3 helping on the AV's but in the future I'd like to do it this way for reasons I mentioned earlier.

Final phase: Once Siege is at 5 health, team 1 will head back over to Nightstar and wait for her to revive while team 3 continues focusing on the adds on the Helipad. If one AV's health is dropping significantly faster than the others, I will send one person from whichever team is ahead to balance them out. When they approach the ~30 health mark I'll start conversing with team 3 on how they're handling the adds. At 5 health it is very important that we wait for team 3 to give us the "all clear" before finishing the AV's off, as if they die while there are adds alive we won't get the Strong and Pretty badge.

If all of these instructions are followed clearly we should have no trouble completing successful "Master of the B.A.F" runs. Master of LAMBDA is a little more tricky and requires some more specific team makeup, but really is not very difficult. I will be updating my next post later on with the approach I plan to use.

Master of LAMBDA Strategy

Okay so like I said in the B.A.F. section, this one is a little trickier. Technically it requires three different runs, one for each of these badges:

-Antacid
-Well-Stocked
-Lambda Looter

Synchronized can be picked up with Lambda Looter.

For all three runs, we will be starting off the same: We'll hop the wall into the courtyard and "arrest" IDF until we spawn the security guard. After that, we'll head straight into the building with the elevators to fight him. No destroying guns... We're already going to be doing three runs so I'd like to get through them as quickly as possible. After the Security Guard is defeated is where things will differ from run to run.

Run #1, Antacid: "Complete the Lambda Sector Trial having acquired 10 Molecular Acids but using none of them."

The thing this badge description doesn't mention is that we also must not collect any Grenades in order for it to award. This means that both teams will head up to the lab to collect Acids. After we have all 10, there will be extra time before Marauder spawns. During this time, we'll continue to clear the lab of adds so that our participation ratings don't drop.

Run #2, Well-Stocked: "Complete the Lambda Sector Trial having acquired 10 Pacification Grenades but using none of them."

Once again, this means we can't get any acids either. Same deal as the run before except we'll be going to the warehouse instead of the labs for Grenades.

Run #3, Lambda Looter/Synchronized: "Complete the Lambda Sector Trial having acquired 10 Pacification Grenades and 10 Molecular Acids but using none of them. "

"Destroy a Weapons Cache and an Incubation Pod within 2 seconds of each other during the Lambda Sector Incarnate Trial. "

For this one we'll need to split into 2 teams during the Sabotage phase, one each on Acids and grenades.Synchronized usually happens naturally, but if we still haven't picked it up and one of the teams is on their last object, we will coordinate its' destruction in league chat.

For all three runs

Once Marauder spawns, it's pretty straightforward: We have to kill him without using any temps. If you have Barrier, bring it along for this- The adds will accumulate quite a bit so we need all the help we can get. Weapons deliveries will be made, but the containers cannot be destroyed.

Team makeup

Master of LAMBDA requires a bit more specific of a team makeup than B.A.F. Marauder has very high resists and is therefore hard to kill without the temps. This can be countered a few ways:

1. A fully level shifted league. I would like for everyone participating in these runs to be 50+3 if possible.

2. Resistance debuffs. If you have a Cold, Radiation, Time, Sonic, or Trick Arrow character or a character with Fury of the Gladiator/Achilles' Heel procs it is a plus. Unfortunately, Traps and Dark aren't on the list as both of their resistance debuff powers are at fixed locations and Marauder likes to hop around a lot.

3. Bringing Psionic damage and minimizing Smashing or Lethal damage. Marauder is less resistant to Psi than any other damage type, and extremely resistant to Smashing and Lethal.

In this situation, for example, Seer Lore pets will be most effective although they have the lowest DPS numbers, and Cimerorans will be least effective although they have the highest DPS numbers.

The same philosophy will apply to player characters: Your Dual Blades scrapper might be achieving high end Pylon numbers, but you'd actually get better damage out of a Psionic Blaster in this situation.

4. Communication. If we remain organized and everyone in the league knows what they're doing, we should have no trouble completing any of these objectives.

If anyone has anything to add, please let me know. I'll be writing up strategies for Underground and Keyes soon.

Master of Underground Strategy

Alright, so doing this trial as a master run pretty much comes down to just knowing how to do the trial, period. The badges are extremely straightforward .

Regenerate This: Defeat the Self-Repairing and Lichen Infested War Walkers within 8 minutes of starting the fight.

So, collect temporary powers and make sure you put them in your tray. Don't everyone spam them at the same time, try to space it out- I'm going to play this by ear from run to run and see how each league is comfortable, but I've considered having just a couple of people in charge of getting temps and coordinating their use so that they aren't wasted. Basically if we get that right, the Self Repairing Warwalker will go down smoothly.

For the Lichen Warwalker I'll be dedicating a few people to destroying glowies and one person with taunt to proactively pull the AV away from any glowies that might be regenerating it. These guys have some pretty outrageous attacks, but with preparation they really go down quite easily.

Tour Guide: Don't let Desdemona's health go below 50%

This is really quite easy too- Once again, usually happens by accident. If she sticks to someone who isn't support, I will be asking the person in question to play conservatively and be mindful of not leading her into excessive danger. You won't need to sit out or anything like some people seem to think... Regardless, I'd like to assign a second person with healing abilities to be mindful of her health and proactively mitigate/heal/etc. to ensure that we get the badge.

The only really tricky part for this badge is the trap room phase. We can't heal Desdemona until after we destroy all 4 crystals, and the crystals can't be destroyed with Devouring Earth near them. For this I'll probably once again assign a couple of people to proactively taunt/kill any Devouring Earth spawns near crystals.

Preservation Specialist: Don't let any of the IDF bombs detonate.

This badge is really not hard. I've seen leagues struggle clumsily through the bomb phase, but it should honestly be something you have to put effort into to mess up. We get a 10 second warning to destroy each bomb, and they go down very quickly. As long as no one goes into scrapperlock during this phase and starts running around on their own, there's no reason we should have trouble with this.

Avatar Assassin: Defeat the Avatar of Hamidon at the same time as a Seedling.

I think this is the only badge I don't have from Underground, but it only takes a little coordination. Pretty straightforward, so I don't know how to explain it further... Just mind the health bar, and we'll communicate in league chat.

<<Reserved>>

Do i get to reserve a spot too!
<< reserve>>

Btw TY for the MoBAF last nite! everyone should come to sept's trials because he made it look eassssy.
kissy!

In contrast, I was on the worst BAF league I've ever seen tonight. It was over on infinity... so if you ever want to see how bad PUGs can get go over there.

Updated the second post with B.A.F. strategy- Will type up LAMBDA in a little while.

Check your email - sent you an invite to edit the server calendar.

You'll be able to add / modify the events as you see fit.

Also, sign me up for MoKeyes.

(Reserves a spot on team 2)

I will take a spot on that if available- this Sat at 8 pm est? correct?

hey Sept? This Saturday, Oct. 29th, is the zombie invasion of Union. Any chance you can hold off the master Lambda run til we finish there? I know I can't be the only one who wants to do both.

If possible, I'd like to reserve a spot on that MoLambda (and would be more than happy to join that MoKeyes later on, too). I needs those badges <.<

I'm not organizing the Union invasion, just participating, so I dunno how long we'll be. I'd say not more than an hour though.

I'm so glad to be able to do both! My badger needs MoLambda!

I guess there is some confusion about when the MoLAM was happening today for some reason, so let me quote the OP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy (This will be happening every Saturday at ~8:00 pm Eastern Time, but time is definitely flexible- If people need a certain badge but aren't available at a certain time I am more than willing to work that out.

That's 8 PM eastern.

Thanks for putting this together, I got the Mo Lambda badge tonight.

Take care.

--Curtis

It was kind of insulting to get a common for each run.

We didn't do half bad though, eh?