Strategy for the Minds of Mayhem iTrial (MoM)

So the Minds of Mayhem (MoM; yes…get ready for the “your mom “ jokes to come) iTrial was released today it seems (ahead of schedule/ahead of what I thought it would come out).


So I did a quick write-up for the phases/strategy of/for MoM. Hope it helps!


MoM trial:

Story behind it: Releasing the information from the TPN trial didn’t have the effect that you thought it did…wonder why?! Oh it’s because Mother Mayhem was mind controlling everyone with other psychics help!

Setup (Tips): Nothing too special about this trial as far as league needs. It’s best to have at least two “healers” (either empathys, thermals, pains, etc…). In one of the phases you need to keep 2 targets alive (one is a portal and the other is Aurora Borealis).

Also need a “tanker” of some kind…with Taunt of course.

This trial is different from others; basically you are “freeing” certain other psychic AVs in Praetoria to have them help you defeat Mother Mayhem in the Seer Network. So you actually start out in a sewer and there are multiple teleporters for each phase.
After each phase is completed the league is teleported back into the sewers where you can go get everyone ready for the next phase. The next phase starts when someone talks to the freed AV that you helped in the previous phase.

So this trial should be a lot “easier” to coordinate what happens in each phase; no time limits; there is a inspiration vendor in the sewer so everyone can stock up; etc…

Also of note, Desdemona is “helping” you but not directly. What happens is when the league goes into the next phase (in through the teleporters), she rez’s fallen leaguemates every 10 (15?) seconds. However, when she rez’s someone it takes away a few seconds of the time to do that phase. So after 10 or 15 resurrects you fail (not sure of exact numbers here)

This number is for each phase individually; so if you use up 8 rez’s in phase 1 it doesn’t carry over to phase 2, 3, etc…


Destiny power of choice for the MOM trial: Barrier, Rebirth or Clarion are best. Barrier definitely helps with the psychic dmg DoT patches (so people don't die from running into it by accident/etc because of the +res to all from barrier). In the last phase when fighting MM for the last time; people said they were getting confused a lot...so Clarion might help here.

You can swap out Destiny powers between phases. Tested this tonight; I swapped from Rebirth to Clarion after phase 3. So if you want/are able to; you can do so

My Mind/Emp. toon that I was leading with had Rebirth for the Destiny power and it helps but...he had a t3 Clarion too but...will see if I can swap after phase 3 is done.


Phase 1: (20 mins total to complete this phase I think)

Defeat Malaise. So everyone goes into the portal and you’re in an outside map; Malaise is by a waterfall/pond and just beat him up.

Warning, there are pink psychic damage DoT patches that spawn during this phase while fighting the AV(s)…so when you see the pink patches run away! The patches do grow in size fyi! These pink patches only start after Malaise goes away and you start to fight the 3 GMs.

This is where maybe someone with Incandescence may help out. J

So after you get Malaise down to 50/100 health, he disappears and then you have to fight 3 random Giant Monsters (ie. Nightmares); nothing special just defeat 3 GMs, one at a time.

After those 3 GMs, Malaise comes back and just defeat him; again nothing new except for the pink DoT patches.


Phase 2: (20 mins. total to complete this phase I think)

This phase is where you free Penelope Yin.

This is an indoor room (2 rooms really); the 2nd room is where her and other boss class mobs are. Now all other mobs in this phase are “storm cloud” like enemies (like Rularuu storm clouds but different).

There are 2 boss type mobs in here. One is called Storm Devil (Gust?) or something similar and the other is Storm Void. You need to defeat the Storm Voids (and only the Voids) near the AV so that the bubble/aura allows you to hurt/defeat the AV.

When you first get in the room with the AV; she is invulnerable (always is); only way to hurt her is to have the Storm Void blow up (‘die’) and when the Storm Void dies it creates a “wormhole” that allows you to hurt the AV.

The wormhole , as far as appearances goes, makes a white’ish FF bubble around where it died. It only lasts for a bit but all you should need is 4 Lts at the most (since there is a badge for defeating the AV with only using 4 LTs/wormholes).

This phase can be a bit confusing because everyone’s screen will have a weird fog like aura across their screens plus all the “storm clouds” makes it hard to see what’s going on at points…but no real huge damage dealers (even the AV is mainly “meh” powered)…


Addition: I would suggest having the tanker go in first to taunt/stand near the AV and then everyone else dog pile and jump in on the AV; the tanker then taunts any Storm Voids to her (just keep taunting voids until there are no more left). Usually the Storm Voids spawn near where the AV starts out at so it's a bit easier to fight her there.

Also, the AV (and other boss clouds) don't do too much damage especially if everyone is inside the wormhole effect from the Void(s). I can't say for 100% certainty but the first time we did a MoM last night; we taunted the AV outside near a wall edge and never finished phase 2 because the PBAoE (or just TAoE ?) that the AV does was pretty much one-hitting everyone (not quite but put a good 50% of the league into the red health meter)...so I think being in the wormhole helps keep damage down.


Phase 3: (20 mins. total to complete this phase I think)

This can be a “hard” phase. This is where you go up against Mother Mayhem but also have to save (ie. heal) Aurora Borealis. This phase also has a weird fog/mist effect on the screen throughout the phase.

This is where you want to have 2 good “healers”. One to stay with the league and help heal the portals that spawn randomly in the map (it’s an indoors map too).

What happens is this, while fighting MM there are portals to Aurora Borealis (only 1 portal opens up at a time) and there are only a total of 4 portals that open up during the phase. MM does go after the portal and destroys them. So if she destroys all 4 portals; you fail the trial (unless you defeat her before that happens).

So while most of the league is beating up on MM, a portal opens; 1 “healer” goes to the portal; NOTE: you do NOT have to click on the portal; after 1-2 seconds it teleports you inside (it’s the same room/look of the room above; in my first run of the MOM trial I didn’t think I ever got tp’ed but…come to find out I did.)

AB looks exactly like MM in this phase but she’s caught up in a “bind, can’t get out and struggling” animation look (pink hoola-hoops immobilization effect on her) in the middle of the room. There will be “Mother Mayhem duplicates” (shadow copies?) that are attacking AB. Just have the healer heal AB (having Adrenaline Boost on her does wonders too with just the +regen).

I will say that my mind/emp that I did this with has invis. (SS + stealth proc) and the clones never attacked me unless I attacked them by mistake…not sure if this is intended or not).

So really the only person (unless they don’t have invis.) that needs to go inside is the healer. Also of note, after 30-60 seconds you are automatically tp’ed back outside where other people are EVEN if the portal is open; if it’s still open you can go back into it….don’t know why that happens but it does.

To help select AB and the portal to AB; you can do

/macro AB targetcustomnext Aurora (or however you spell her name…I think that’s it).

The portal’s actual name is: “portal to Aurora Borealis’ Mind” and Aurora is called….. Aurora Borealis. So the macro above targets both (there are no portals if you’re in AB’s mind; just AB herself).

The outside healer should be able to use the macro and just heal the portal; also note that any PBAoE heals work too if you’re close enough to the portal without getting tp’ed into it.

So now for the notes for the outside teaming beating up MM; nothing too special here but there are 2 special attacks here that she uses.

One is called Suffer in Silence (?). If you have this (noted by the red text below the HP/end bars) you want to be alone (not near anyone else); if you are near others they die too (once the attack actually happens). I think it’s a timed thing; the effect gets put on you then 10 seconds later, pain!

The other is “Shared Suffering”….this one; if you get it, be near others; you take a lot of damage if you are by yourself but if you’re next to leaguemates they share the damage (kind of like MM bodyguard mode).


Only addition to this is this: For the "healer" that stay outside to heal the portal(s); use your targeted heals only; for the PBAoE heal to land/heal the portal you are too close and will be teleported into the room where AB is....which of course means you can't heal the portal.

Phase 4: (15 mins. total to complete this phase I think; possibly 15 mins)

This will be the “hardest” of the phases. This is where team (league) coordination comes into high priority…you’ll see why later.

So this is a “defeat AV” phase again; The AV is "Mother Malaise"; the title or mission objective in the nav bar is “Defeat AV and the 3 Control Rods.”

This room is a cave room/entrance and the AV is in a small circular room with a fountain in the middle of it.

So while you are fighting this AV; you get the pink DoT psychic dmg patches again so be careful!

After “defeating” the AV, a “control rod” (looks like Shalice Tilman (ie. Aurora Borealis)) as an AV lvl enemy appears in one of 3 spots. Also 4 “Nightmare Bosses" spawn.

What happens is ST (Shalice Tilman) is walking (very slowly) to the middle of the fountain; you have to defeat ‘her’ before she reaches the middle of the well to defeat her. The problem is you can’t do enough damage before she gets to the well (not able to be mezz’ed either).

What you need to do is have the tanker (“taunter”) taunt one of the 4 “nightmare” Bosses next to ST and defeat the Boss. Doing so will have an “explosion” effect and make ST able to be mezz’ed.

Then when you defeat ST, the main AV (Mother Malaise) comes back and you have to defeat her (him? ) again.

Repeat and rinse until you defeat all 3 “control rods” and then the AV again.

The hard part is getting the nightmares to ST. She does spawn in 3 diff. spots…so if there are lots of MM pets or pets in general make sure to have people put them on Passive for the time being.

Hopefully the bugs where the nightmares getting stuck in geometry have been fixed but…there were issues with that in beta


Addition:

In this phase as you enter the circular room; there are 3 statues that are made of earth/in the walls themselves. The statues are where Shalice Tilman (the control rod) will spawn. The first spawn point is the one to the right (as you walk in); the second is to the left (as you walk in) and then the final spawn is across the fountain (as you walk in).

The 4 boss mobs spawn in between those spawn points.

The "tanker" (taunter) should be taunting the Boss mobs to ST all the time; tanker shouldn't worry about damaging ST or anything; just bring the bosses to ST and then hopefully the league leader will tell the people to defeat the boss when it's close enough to ST. Then beat up ST.

In the run I was leading last night; we failed the control rod part 3x but was still able to beat this phase with like a minute left or so. So if you don't get the Control Rod/ST the first time or two; keep at it!

Also a quick note; as long as you have a good taunter (tanker/whatever) then no one else should be trying to pull/push (with force bubble) any of the bosses to ST. Just keep attacking ST until a boss is near her and then go for boss; then back to ST.

If it helps:

/macro ST targetcustomnext Shalice

Will target Shalice when you click on the macro


Phase 5: (3 mins. total to complete this phase I think)


This is the last phase; you’re automatically tp’ed to just a dark room (tp’ed into MM’s mind supposedly); it’s just you (the league) vs MM for the final showdown.

You have 3 minutes to take her down and at first everyone is doing like 1 or 2 damage to her because you’re “debuffed by being scared of what’s happening/going on”….but over time you “gain momentum” and do normal damage…

The one time I did this on beta we beat her with like 1 min left…so wasn’t too hard but again not sure if we had lots of debuffs/pets/etc…or if you can fail it (I’m sure you can fail it by just standing there but…).

No special attacks here……just smack her down.

Ta-da you win!


Hopefully that helps a little bit!


Edit:

Added times for each phase.


Also, a general note; in beta, we did this trial in about 40 minutes total. The first time we did it, we failed at phase 3 (not knowing how the portals/healing AB worked, etc...). So if you fail because it's crazy out there, don't fret, it happens, know why you failed and then take action/steps to prevent it (if you can).

The second time we did it (right after we failed it the first time) we did it in about 40 minutes; granted we had one of the QA dev people auto-kill the "control rods" because by the time we "got it" and knew what to do, we had like 7 mins left and we tried once to get the nightmare EB to the control rod AV but it got stuck on geometry so that's when the dev auto-killed the AVs for us (since he wanted us to see the end).

So if you can get the league (and the mobs) to cooperate I can see this trial being done in 20-30 mins at the tops when everyone knows what to do/how it works.


But expect 40-60 minute runs; again nothing is rushed (except from phase 4 to 5 when there is no "breather" between phases); so the league leader can tell everyone what to expect in the next phase, etc...get everyone stocked up on inspirations/etc.


2nd Edit:


Oh and you can go http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=279588 <--- there for a list of badges for both the TPN and MOM trials.



3rd-5th edits:

Added (or modified) the following to the original post:

in phase 1

These pink patches only start after Malaise goes away and you start to fight the 3 GMs.


phase 2

There are 2 boss type mobs in here. One is called Storm Devil (Gust?) or something similar and the other is Storm Void. You need to defeat the Storm Voids (and only the Voids) near the AV so that the bubble/aura allows you to hurt/defeat the AV.

When you first get in the room with the AV; she is invulnerable (always is); only way to hurt her is to have the Storm Void blow up (‘die’) and when the Storm Void dies it creates a “wormhole” that allows you to hurt the AV.

Addition: I would suggest having the tanker go in first to taunt/stand near the AV and then everyone else dog pile and jump in on the AV; the tanker then taunts any Storm Voids to her (just keep taunting voids until there are no more left). Usually the Storm Voids spawn near where the AV starts out at so it's a bit easier to fight her there.

Also, the AV (and other boss clouds) don't do too much damage especially if everyone is inside the wormhole effect from the Void(s). I can't say for 100% certainty but the first time we did a MoM last night; we taunted the AV outside near a wall edge and never finished phase 2 because the PBAoE (or just TAoE ?) that the AV does was pretty much one-hitting everyone (not quite but put a good 50% of the league into the red health meter)...so I think being in the wormhole helps keep damage down.


phase 3


Only addition to this is this: For the "healer" that stay outside to heal the portal(s); use your targeted heals only; for the PBAoE heal to land/heal the portal you are too close and will be teleported into the room where AB is....which of course means you can't heal the portal.


phase 4


Addition:

In this phase as you enter the circular room; there are 3 statues that are made of earth/in the walls themselves. The statues are where Shalice Tilman (the control rod) will spawn. The first spawn point is the one to the right (as you walk in); the second is to the left (as you walk in) and then the final spawn is across the fountain (as you walk in).

The 4 boss mobs spawn in between those spawn points.

The "tanker" (taunter) should be taunting the Boss mobs to ST all the time; tanker shouldn't worry about damaging ST or anything; just bring the bosses to ST and then hopefully the league leader will tell the people to defeat the boss when it's close enough to ST. Then beat up ST.

In the run I was leading last night; we failed the control rod part 3x but was still able to beat this phase with like a minute left or so. So if you don't get the Control Rod/ST the first time or two; keep at it!

Also a quick note; as long as you have a good taunter (tanker/whatever) then no one else should be trying to pull/push (with force bubble) any of the bosses to ST. Just keep attacking ST until a boss is near her and then go for boss; then back to ST.

If it helps:

/macro ST targetcustomnext Shalice

Will target Shalice when you click on the macro



This will be the “hardest” of the phases. This is where team (league) coordination comes into high priority…you’ll see why later.

So this is a “defeat AV” phase again; The AV is "Mother Malaise"; the title or mission objective in the nav bar is “Defeat AV and the 3 Control Rods.”

This room is a cave room/entrance and the AV is in a small circular room with a fountain in the middle of it.

So while you are fighting this AV; you get the pink DoT psychic dmg patches again so be careful!

After “defeating” the AV, a “control rod” (looks like Shalice Tilman (ie. Aurora Borealis)) as an AV lvl enemy appears in one of 3 spots. Also 4 “Nightmare Bosses" spawn.

What happens is ST (Shalice Tilman) is walking (very slowly) to the middle of the fountain; you have to defeat ‘her’ before she reaches the middle of the well to defeat her. The problem is you can’t do enough damage before she gets to the well (not able to be mezz’ed either).

What you need to do is have the tanker (“taunter”) taunt one of the 4 “nightmare” Bosses next to ST and defeat the Boss. Doing so will have an “explosion” effect and make ST able to be mezz’ed.

Then when you defeat ST, the main AV (Mother Malaise) comes back and you have to defeat her (him? ) again.

Repeat and rinse until you defeat all 3 “control rods” and then the AV again.

The hard part is getting the nightmares to ST. She does spawn in 3 diff. spots…so if there are lots of MM pets or pets in general make sure to have people put them on Passive for the time being.

Hopefully the bugs where the nightmares getting stuck in geometry have been fixed but…there were issues with that in beta




Destiny power of choice for the MOM trial: Barrier, Rebirth or Clarion are best. Barrier definitely helps with the psychic dmg DoT patches (so people don't die from running into it by accident/etc because of the +res to all from barrier). In the last phase when fighting MM for the last time; people said they were getting confused a lot...so Clarion might help here.

You can swap out Destiny powers between phases. Tested this tonight; I swapped from Rebirth to Clarion after phase 3. So if you want/are able to; you can do so

My Mind/Emp. toon that I was leading with had Rebirth for the Destiny power and it helps but...he had a t3 Clarion too but...will see if I can swap after phase 3 is done.

Finally, the mystery is revealed.


Years ago, I took a software engineering course. I washed out because I couldn't do the higher math stuff. But, even though I found this trial fun overall, there were a lot of things that weren't intuitive. I'd asked a leaguemate after our second or third washout how they fared in Beta - and how they knew what to do. Because the games mission objectives don't make it clear. A shame, really. Because it IS a fun trial.

For you folks that know me, I pretty much am "meh" at almost everything new. If I say it's fun, you all should think it's better than donuts!

Thanks for taking the time to post this.

Any other badges besides one for completion and the 4 storm things that make the pink bubble for Penelope?

Okay after failing 2 MoM runs; I'll be updating my strategy a little bit (adding bits of info/etc).

More to come after I go to sleep!

Edits have been made!