Surprise! MoM

First, I want to thank several people who have helped make hosting the UGT a lot more fun that it otherwise would be.

@Cinder Frost
@Brightfires
@FlyingCodeMonkey
@Karmaa

I'm sure there are others - but you four seem to be on every run.

Please know your efforts are not unnoticed.

I think that we've run this trial enough - and though I hope to keep running it, I'd like to start having MoM at a regular time as well.

By now, most have gotten the badges out of it, so all we have to do is plow through it.

I will need a day or so to make the macros - (hey, a new toon, I'll call him Macro-Man!)

I'm still reading about TPN, and it doesn't seem that popular - except to people who've never run it. But, TPN can wait.

MoM is short enough that I think two runs are doable. It would be nice if we could hold one half the team accountable for bringing +3's and the other half +1s. I would think that only an empath or a rad could probably get away with being a regular 50. I'm undecided on this. I'd like for people to bring whatever they want, provided they can read and follow instructions.

Tax mentioned something about the Hami Raids being on Tuesday or Thursday - and Tanker Tuesday is Tuesday --- So, I'm thinking MoM should be Saturdays and Mondays at 10:00 pm

In turn, I express my gratitude for the pile of threads, good incarnate salvage drops, coveted badges, and occasional tons of ixp.

Unfortunately, my attendance will be less consistent after work starts up again (January 3rd), and during the week I frequently am not home until about 9:00pm pacific time. I'm free most weekends, though, and can usually be present for most trials on saturday or sunday. I've been enjoying long weekends (or better) since November, but that will be ending soon.

The other nice thing about UGT is that at this point we have a critical mass of people who know the routine with respect to the lichen temps, regenerative lichens, etc. There's still some occasional prodding necessary for bomb corridor behavior, Will of the Earth, and so on, but nothing like it was when everything was unfamiliar.

I'd love to run MoM some more, as it's quite a fun, varied, and visually interesting trial. Having attended several successful attempts, I like some aspects of the Raze approach of choosing a few specific people for certain tasks, like (1) Storm Void collection, (2) Storm Void popping, (3) Aurora duty, and so on. He tends to pick people who already understand those roles, which is (1) good for success but (2) bad for anyone else trying to learn the trial mechanics. I don't have a good sense for how shifted we must all be overall, except that teams with too few shifts tend not to even get past stage one. I've been bringing my +3s to MoM since I'm not working on any new incarnates at the moment, so I have no idea how tempting/alluring it is from an IXP perspective.

Would you believe that even after so many UG runs, I still don't have the Master Of- on anyone? Sola, Mist, K and Han are all still missing one or more of the badges, and my actual badge-collector is the tank that I refuse to take anywhere near the thingl! It's been a lot of fun doing them, though, and as always thanks for cat-herding.

Re: MoM... I'm not a fan of that trial, I'm afraid, so I'll just wish you good luck on those, and pass on joining them myself.

I think I have two Master-of-UG people now, both of whom randomly got Avatar Assassin early on, and who just needed to pick up the bomb badge later. I don't get the trick to AA. I swear we should have gotten it yesterday evening. Weird.

I just realized that running a MoM on Saturday would be a futile effort. I hadn't realized it would be New Year's Eve.

Sorry about that folks-- Next Saturday. Give some of you a little more time to get another level shift or two.

I'll be trying to get a few MoM trials going in the early evening times - when there are no other server events going on, such as Cinder Frost's trial times on Wednesday's.

I'm thinking about a concrete time of Mondays and Thursdays 6pm Central Time in RWZ.

But, I will use no macro's - they'd be useful, but there's a staging area where the league will have a chance to stock up on inspirations and hash over what's to come. For the most part, if you plan on attending and want to be super helpful:

1. If you have surplus salvage, or it makes little difference what you're choosing for your destiny power, please try the right side of the barrier tree, with the built in rez. Honestly, at tier 4, if a few of these are staggered when spammed, it makes things so much easier than using them as a rez. (but only if you already have your clarion for ugt)
2. If you're prone to making second builds, consider rotp as a possible choice. There are simply a lot of defeats, as the pink patch can sneak up on you when it gets bigger. The less you lay on the ground useless, the likelier we are to advance to the next round.
3. Honestly, this is not the trial to earn iXP. It IS a fun trial, a few badges that are not overly difficult to get, but it is a very challenging trial unless the whole league is balanced with control, aggro management, buff/debuffs, and damage. And it helps if everyone knows what to expect, and thus, what to do.

Preparation is part of the key to success. Familiarity with the trial will also help.




In a lot of ways, the first part is the hardest.
Beat down an AV. When the AV hits 50%, he disappears, leaving you with three nightmares. Some nightmares are harder than others! Beat the nightmares, AV comes back, beat him down, go on to the next phase.

If you get defeated, you have to use your wakies. If too many people use the desdemona rez, the time allotted shrinks. Bear in mind that if too many people lie dead on the ground, that doesn't help anything either!

Be prepared for some frustration - it is challenging.

Phase 2 is very simple, provided that storm voids can be pulled or taunted towards the av (or vice versa) Because of aggro management being critical, I'm not exactly sure how the play of MMs will be effective in this phase. Perhaps some of you who play MMs can chime in with your opinions. An MM without pets is just ...an M, right? Doesn't seem the same to me. For now, the only strategy I'm familiar with is pulling the storm voids to the av, via taunt. I've not yet determined if using a ranged attack to pull would be as effective, if at all.

Although an emp is best suited for phase 3 with protecting Aurora Borealis, that doesn't mean it's mandatory to have one.

The room is like two instances of the same room in the same place.
In one instance is an AV, in the other, is Aurora Borealis. To get to Aurora, you have to simply stand next to a portal in the room that has the AV. You may "phase" in and out of that room. If you find yourself being assigned to help Aurora, and after helping for a moment see the rest of the league battling an AV, simply look for a portal to "rephase" into the other instance.

If you're on the team that has to clobber the av, watch for some debuffs. One you need to be alone, the other you need to be with the league to dissipate its effects. The names of these will make it pretty clear what to do.

I've been on teams that had an emp for aurora, but the emp died, but it didn't matter because the others had clobbered the av to death before Aurora got clobbered to death.


Because of the nature of phase 4, we're going to need some holds - doesn't matter to me where they come from - but the equivalent of two controllers should do it. Gravs! This is a place to shine, 'cause your pet singularity also holds.

In phase 4, there an AV again, and we have to beat him down to 50%, then he'll fade away and Shalice Tillman will spawn as an AV that is trying to "drink" from the well. We stop this by pulling bosses to her, killing the bosses near her, which make her susceptible to holds, slows, immobs. She can be damaged enroute, but I don't think any team has been able to beat her outright before she got to the well - I know of no other strategy than using holds, slows or immobs.

Lore pets, strategically are reserved for the last minute and 30 seconds before the last fight - a single 3 minute round. Damage dealt to the av is pitifully low until the morale progress bar builds up - what causes it to do this remains unknown to me, but it does seem to grow over time. Suffice it to say, every bit helps. Lore pets, judgements, clarions, barriers, debuffs, fulcrum shifts, Accelerate metabolism, plus a range of other buffs/debuffs too numerous to mention.

Hope to see you on Mondays and Thursdays at 6pm Central (7pm Eastern, 4pm pacific)

The morale bar is raised by putting the beat down on the AV. So the more dmg dealt(aka, pets out, everyone on AV), will raise the morale bar. But if we stop, or to many die the morale bar will reduce.

Various comments:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex There are simply a lot of defeats, as the pink patch can sneak up on you when it gets bigger.

I actually think this is an important assertion with which to disagree. I drove a MoM trial last weekend (someone else was kind enough to recruit, I just conducted the briefings). We had very few defeats in Phase 1, because everyone had been coached to keep an eye on the World of Anguish timer. It's easy to avoid being killed by pink when you know it's about to occur, and not to start any long animations (hello, Thousand Cuts) then. We also had a panda helpfully shouting "move!" on cue, a couple of regular rezzers (no Barrier rez), and with each pink spawn our tank would taunt the AV target to a new location where melee could engage safely.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex I'm not exactly sure how the play of MMs will be effective in this phase. Perhaps some of you who play MMs can chime in with your opinions. An MM without pets is just ...an M, right?

This is a difficult stage for MMs. Fine control is essential. Because of the environmental damage and frequent area-affecting psionic attacks from the AV, a petless MM is not merely a weak defender, he will also die incredibly quickly. Having pets out is essential to MM survival in Stage 2. However, that comes with a caveat: many MM pets have knockbacky attacks. As long as pet attacks are focused on the AV, many of those are not an issue (Gargoyle demon melee). However, many pet KB/avoid attacks are area-affecting (Assault robot swarm missiles, Mercenary grenade, Arsonist thug fire patch, Oni ninja rain of fire), which have the potential to scatter Storm Voids.

Typically, MM pet area-affecting powers come with the upgrades. So in many (if not all?) cases, it's technically possible to address that problem by summoning, applying no upgrades, and having them focus attacks on the AV. They can be present to provide damage mitigation, but not complicate Storm Void movement. It's a lot of trouble to go through, though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex Doesn't seem the same to me. For now, the only strategy I'm familiar with is pulling the storm voids to the av, via taunt. I've not yet determined if using a ranged attack to pull would be as effective, if at all.

So far as I know, attacking them at range does nothing. They do not close in response to aggro. If anything, they're more likely to run away. I've heard it suggested that Tempest Gyros also cause Storm Voids to run (i.e., taunt the Voids, be careful not to pull Gyros), but I don't know if that's true.

It's critical to have the next Storm Void present and ready to pop just as the bubble from the previous Void is expiring. Environment+AV damage can easily overwhelm the league in the absence of the Void bubble, if the tank is off trying to bring another. Corollary, you don't want to pop them too early and waste your resources with overlapping bubbles. It helps to designate a few damage ATs to pop one nearby Storm Void (preferably the league leader's target) on cue, and have everyone else focus all attacks on the AV.

Also, be careful of controllers using slows and immos. Mezzes are useless against Penelope, but they can easily prevent the Storm Voids from getting close to her. When in the middle of an AV dogpile, she's quite difficult to move, so anything that inhibits Storm Void movement toward the AV is very bad. Singular immos keeping them right next to her (Stone Prison? Really?) would probably be great, on the rare occasions you see those powers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex Although an emp is best suited for phase 3 with protecting Aurora Borealis, that doesn't mean it's mandatory to have one.

Definitely not mandatory. A Thermal Mastermind, to pick an odd example with which I have personal experience, can just about keep up with damage to Aurora as long as he does nothing else, unless the Mother clones are being killed so quickly that it isn't an issue.

With respect to the portal, I've seen it stated more than once that the portal can be targeted and healed. I still haven't noticed either statement being accurate. I've neither been able to select a portal as a target, nor been able to heal it by standing nearby (I just get phased over to the Aurora side). I wonder if this was originally true in beta, but was changed before live, because it's a point of confusion. The portals do lose health, and you only get so many (four I think), and should the AV fight go on for a long time, it is technically possible to be cut off from the Aurora side. I think an AV fight that lasts that long is unlikely to be won, though.

With respect to the AV, a few more observations. First, she seems to have the same heavy pbaoe psionic attack as the Penelope AV, which is incredibly painful if you stand too nearby without good resistances or solid healing/regen in the area. Second, people often forget to mention Suffer in Silence/Shared Suffering before entering the zone. Shared in particular is unusual; we have lots of "get away from the league" effects, but not nearly as many "gather together" effects. Finally, and I didn't even know about these until last weekend, the AV side is also populated by Reflections that can cause serious problems for any lone squishy standing away from the AV to avoid her local attacks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex Because of the nature of phase 4, we're going to need some holds - doesn't matter to me where they come from - but the equivalent of two controllers should do it.

Immobs also work extremely well (as you noted later). This phase of this stage exists to emphasize the role of controls; I know of no other way to stop her from reaching the well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ukaserex Hope to see you on Mondays and Thursdays at 6pm Central (7pm Eastern, 4pm pacific)

Not a chance, unfortunately. At that point I'm not even thinking about leaving work, yet. What happened to Saturday?

It's a chick thing.