What would you do to make Underground better?

That, and a universal "No attacking when you're Confussed"-rule...

I know one of Kestrel's many deaths during our Avatar battle was from someone else's Judgement, and one of our fire blasters nearly killed her again with his snipe attack. o_0

Are you not heeding the warning messages? Every time it says the Avatar is about to do something, I either get behind it or go stand by Desdemona when it says to do that explicitly. The only time getting behind it doesn't work so well is if I actually have its aggro, which I have done once for a UGT league. In that case, I run away, then come back a few seconds later (with the goal that I don't lose aggro completely).

If you can't/don't do these things, I can see there being a problem. I always did them, and had no problem.

This can't just be "experience", because my UGT experience is mostly on melees and it's contrary to yours with respect to how dangerous the Avatar is to melee characters.

If you can't find her, which is perfectly understandable in the middle of as many as 24 players, all their pets and whatnot, target her health bar in the Trial window and hit follow. That's what I do.

There's no question that if you don't have enough mez protection, you're screwed. That's not a design of the trial I like, but until/unless we can convince the Devs to change it, people need to make sure they have enough of something to cover it. The most likely something is going to be Clarion, though a healthy showing of Tactics can help, as it provides both minor Confuse protection and Confuse resistance, which reduces the duration of the effect.

A bad tanker can screw up a lot of stuff.

I wondered how long it would take someone to post a "LRN2PLAYUNOOB" response...

With the Walkers, the problem is, as others have already mentioned, seeing the effects. I certainly move away when I'm the target... I'm not an idiot... But that's no help when I'm not the target myself, and the person who *is* either doesn't notice or doesn't know what to do about it. In a large group all with their special effects going, there's just no good way to dodge a situation like that. It isn't like avoiding getting ringed in BAF or staying clear of the green patches in Keyes.

That said, the War Walkers could potentially be less of a problem than the Avatar as far as melee goes. If everyone was paying attention, they could be dealt with pretty easily I suspect.

The Avatar is a much bigger pain in the rear. Like the war walkers, I've never been able to pick out its effects in that room. With everything else going on and the room's own ambient effects, I doubt I ever will. Again, I know I can move away from the group or behind it if I need to... but I can't avoid someone else who doesn't know what's happening. And yeah, it can be a pain trying to stay behind him. The thing is way too fond of spinning in place. <_<

Add to that problems with finding Des quickly, and a confussion effect that's so over to top it's just silly and it gets messy fast. Even if you manage to avoid being confussed yourself (Which I only managed on my PB due to his Clarion. The WP tank and the stalker didn't have that advantage on their own. They had to rely on team-mates, which wasn't always for the best-), there's always someone who won't be so lucky, or will get caught outside the Clarion and end up smacking you in the back of the head with a Fire Ball. If not a Pyre Judgement.

If you have no problem with any of that... that's nice. You've obviously been very lucky and you're a far more Uber player than I am. But your experience is far from universal. I know I'm not the only one who's had a much more difficult time with melee characters on this trial. The comments in these threads are more than enough to prove that.

Somehow I doubt all of us with similar complaints are noobs who don't know what they're doing.

Fail conditions are a welcome addition to the game. They reward speed, efficiency and strategy over players banging their heads against a wall until it gives way. If anything, I'd make all group content timed and failable. Take more than 2 hours to do the STF? Lord Recluse steals every superpower in the world, you lose. Better luck next time.

Add a message box that pops up at the beginning of the trial, informing people that failure is a part of learning, to enjoy themselves regardless of the outcome, and that time spent playing is not a "waste" just because you did not get video game money at the end of it.

While I realize how that's a way you can take it, it's not how I meant it. I was honestly asking the question. I like to think it's a fair question, because frankly, even though the Avatar does warn consistently as far as I know, it's not clear what the correct response to all its warnings are. For example "The Avatar prepares to cripple the league..." doesn't really tell you what to do. (It looks like that attack - it's the one that screws our recovery - is a cone in front of the Avatar so I get behind it for that one too.)

I was definitely only asking about the Avatar, since that was the comments I was referring to. I get killed a lot by the WWs on pug UGTs, too.

I can't really make out the effects either. I always go by the warnings. When I've been on leagues of people I trust, I don't worry about the one a leaguemate can screw everyone with. When I'm on a PuG and see that warning, I do move away from the league for a bit, even if that means I have to stop fighting. I am not fond of having to do that, but I figure me not dead and able to jump back in the fight is more effective than me dead running back from the hospital, even via the telepad.

I've definitely noticed that on PuGs, or any situation where there was no one to hold his aggro. That turned me into a jumping bean on my melees.

Like I mention, there's not much else to be done about the confuse. It has immense mag and so basically requires multiple Clarions on league for a smooth run.

Full disclosure - everyone I've brought on the UGT has Clarion, meaning they can help both themselves and the rest of the league. On my squishy characters I have Clarion as my "main" or only Destiny, but on several of my melees I have it as a backup pick to what I consider their "main" Destiny. Yes, I run enough trials to have backup Destiny powers on multiple characters. I didn't do that specifically for UGT trials - I take many of my melee characters to Hamidon raids, and I was tired of being terrorized by blue mitos. It just happened to work out nicely for the UGT.

Like I said, I was asking the question. I wasn't drawing a conclusion before I asked it.

If the developers did what you say you want, the game would shut down due to most players leaving.

Get over yourself.

Edit:
From your posting history you clearly want the trials to mark an "elite" status. That opinion isn't shared by most players. That opinion isn't even publically shared with the developers. The developers are annoyed that Keyes and Underground aren't being run, so there is clearly a problem. That problem isn't going to just go away by causing the trials to fail even more than they already are or by telling players to basically "suck it up".

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

There were a lot of decent suggestions made in this post. I've included what I feel is most important above.

However, if nothing else is changed about the Underground Trial, the single most important improvement would be visual indicators for the War Walker fights and Regenerative Lichen. I wouldn't necessarily mind changes to the length of the trial, but I don't think these alterations are as urgently necessary.

I also agree that improvements to the actual trial design should be prioritized over adjusting the rewards of the trial.

This illustrates a common problem. When I lead UGTs, I go over the War Walker fight at least twice (once before the trial even starts and once directly before the actual fight). If the Extinction War Walker fight doesn't go so hot, I'll review it again before the Self Repairing and Lichen Infested War Walkers. So information is most certainly provided as to how this fight works, how to tell if you're targeted and what to do if targeted. Providing this information is not enough, as it is still common for me to see leagues wipe because of Lethal Force. From a leadership perspective, I can't possible identify who is having difficulty, so I can't help them beyond repeating myself in League Chat over and over again. Instead, I find myself basically telling everyone in the league to avoid all other players if they see the "Lethal Force Authorized!" warning. Basically, my strategy has become 'trust no one'.

I'll just point out that your map lacks a few bombs in the spore tunnels:


Courtesy of Zombie Man.

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

Not long ago I had someone with no level shifts beginning to collect his stuff to kit out his Incarnate abilities later, who had accepted an invite to do [I think it was] a BAF.

The leader began complaining about how she was having to accept people with no level-shifts in order to get an optimal number to start the trial.

me: "How are people supposed to get level shifts without running trials?"

leader: "...."

On topic, I love the UG trial but even I will admit that the lichen-infested Walker could stand some toning down. However even if the trial fails its an easy way to open up slots, so I will always line up to do it - while I still avoid Keyes like the plague, and will continue to do so.

You can achieve a +1 level shift by slotting the Alpha slot, earning shards by running regular content, and a weekly strike target once to earn your Notice of the Well.

It's generally a good idea to do so before running iTrials, as at -4 to the minions, you contribute significantly less damage, and have a hard time defeating enemies before they escape during the escapee phase.

That said, usually it isn't a problem, as usually there are enough +1, +2, and +3s to pick up the slack, and some powersets contribute damage multiplication (e.g. Kinetics, etc.) to more than make up for their -4 level to the enemy personal damage penalty.

The obvious solution here would be a "This Side Forward" sign on his face, and a "Kick Me" sign on his back.

Originally Posted by Venture I'd never use a nuke in a superhero universe. You nuke a city, you kill 1.5 million people minus one. The last guy not only gets superpowers from the explosion, but ones that let him survive a nuke...and wow, is he torqued off

On the older trials, yeah. On the newer ones, that's getting worse on the main AVs. All the AVs in the UGT are 54+1. Maelstrom in the TPN trial is 54+2. The message here is pretty clear to me - get some level shifts in the other trials first, then run these.

I'm curious to see how steeply they continue that shifting trend, and whether they continue to offset it with Incarnate Shifts. (If they do, I expect them to create different types of shifts that only work in later trials so that we can't be higher level than the critters in the currently existing trials.)

These are valid points, although if I waited to slot Alpha by earning shards via running regular content it would take me forever to slot.... those things are not reliable drops. I can come out of ten BAFs or one UG run with dozens of threads, some salvage and great progress toward having slots opened up, and that is why I for one never wait.

I run a few trials, start slotting Alpha and go from there.

Getting the Alpha level shift through shards and Notices was easy before the iTrials came around. Level 50s had nothing to do but do the shard giving tasks.

Nowadays its so much easier to fill Alpha by running iTrials its a shame. I miss shards. . .

Its even easier since the ITrials came out, the Incarnate stores anyway. Every Astral can be converted into a shard courtesy of Astral Christy... and claimed by any toon to boot.

Half a dozen BAFs + 1 Kal/WST = instant level shift for any 50 with the slot unlocked. And they can be earned while getting threads and drops on another Incarnate.

Bah. I meant easy as in "not having to run the same two things over and over again for it." Time-wise iTrials is easier. Hence why I'm using them for Alpha as well as everything else.

And yes, I miss shards. Getting a level 50 team nowadays seems to be iTrial or nothing. And I usually don't have time to lead my own teams.

hopefully the upcoming small teams/solo content should fix this.