City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Avoiding Team Wipes with Underground Trial War Walkers

Amygdala

By Amygdala,
Posted on: 2012-01-04 11:39 in Player Guides

 

Posted

Background

This is a very focused guide on pretty much a single mechanic in one Incarnate Trial. In the Underground trial, you face three custom Goliath War Walkers. Each of them has slightly different tactics required to defeat them, but all of them posses the same offensive capabilities. The War Walkers have an array of standard attacks that are pretty much the same as the War Walkers found in the Apex and Tin Mage TFs, the Keyes trial, etc. I won't cover those more standard attacks here. I'll be focusing on four abilities possessed by these War Walkers that are currently unique to the Underground trial.

The main powers of interest are:

  • Targeting Reticule
  • Lethal Force Authorized
  • Arrest Mode
  • Crowd Dispersal
They are very dangerous abilities that, if not approached properly, can cripple or wipe out the entire league. Unfortunately, details of these effects are also very mysterious to most players - most folks have no idea how they work mechanically. This is no fault of the players, as the game does little to help us out - we get flashing big red warnings that these effects are happening, but they tell us nothing about how to react. That's where this guide comes in.

First, I'm going to lay out my understanding of how these effects work. Then, I'll offer suggestions for how to deal with the effects, but hopefully that will be obvious to everyone if I explain the effects themselves well.

How the Special Attacks Work

Targeting

The Targeting Reticule power is not an attack in the classical sense. It is something that the War Walkers have to hit people with in order to make them eligible to be affected by their other special powers. Periodically, while issuing more standard attacks against players, the Underground War Walkers use the Targeting Reticule power. This power has the following critical attributes.
  • This is a power they aim at one target.
  • It has a 120' range for reaching that one target
  • Critically, it has a 30' burst radius around the one target.
  • It can hit a maximum of 16 targets.
  • The effect applies a status "tag" to everyone it hits which makes them eligible for the other special effects these War Walkers use.
  • The effect puts the status message "TARGETED" in your status tray.*
  • The effect can miss, but it has no attack types (only Base defense works against it, which we mostly can't get), and a very high 2.0 accuracy (multiplied by the Walkers' AV rank modifier and the fact that they are at least +2 to any existing Incarnates). It is therefore unlikely to miss.
Note! If you are near the Walker you will sometimes see a red warning message saying "Targets Acquired!" Seeing this message does not necessarily mean you were targeted. It is just a warning letting everyone know that the Walker is attempting to target someone (and people around that someone). If you are actually targeted, your status tray will have the word "TARGETED" in it.

Attacking Targeted Foes

Once you're targeted, the Walkers can hit you with their other effects. I'll get into the specifics of the effects they can apply shortly, but I want to start with the common attributes of all these attacks.
  • These attacks only affect people who are "TARGETED", as described above.
  • These attacks will never affect Desdemona. They explicitly exclude her as a valid target.
  • Which attack the War Walker uses is random, and basically equally weighted at a 33% chance each of being used.
  • The attacks are PBAoEs centered on the War Walkers, with a 300' radius.
  • The attacks ignore line of sight. They can affect you even if you hide behind a wall.
  • The attacks can affect up to 255 targets.
  • The attacks can miss, but also have no attack types and a 2.0 accuracy, like the targeting effect.
  • When a TARGETED character is hit by these attacks, the effect is a burst AoE centered on them.
  • The burst affects up to 16 other targets in a 30' burst around the TARGETED character, again with no attack types and a 2.0 accuracy. (The attacker in this case is a "Pet" ranked entity, not an AV, but that may be worse, as such entities have a base 75% chance to hit players. Like the War Walker, it will be at least +2 to existing Incarnates.)
This last point is perhaps one of the most critical. If multiple people are TARGETED and stand near one another, they will be affected not only by the attack targeting them, but by the effects from other TARGETED characters. When the effect is damage, the results can be impossible to survive.

Here are what the three effects do.

Crowd Dispersal - this is a 10 second base duration, mag 1000 Terrorize. (Duration is modified by level difference, and the AVs will be at least +2.) This is a resistible effect. Just before the Walker unleashes this attack, everyone near it will see "Crowd Dispersal" flash on screen in red text.

Arrest Mode - this is a 10 second base duration, mag 1000 Hold. (Duration is modified by level difference, and the AVs will be at least +2.) This is a resistible effect. Just before the Walker unleashes this attack, everyone near it will see "Arrest Mode" flash on screen in red text.

Lethal Force Authorized - This is a DoT comprised of five ticks of Energy damage delivered every 1 second. Each tick will cause 30% of your max HP in damage to you (15% of max HP to NPCs). This damage is resistible. Add that up and you'll notice that this is 150% of your base HP in damage. If you can't resist this or heal it back part way through, it will defeat you. Just before the Walker unleashes this attack, everyone near it will see "Lethal Force Authorized" flash on screen in red text.

How to Avoid The Effects

The simplest way to survive all this is to not get TARGETED in the first place. This is actually fairly simple, if you know what to (not) do and you have a sturdy taunter on the league.

The league should assign someone to be the lead "tank" for the War Walkers. They have to be pretty durable, whether that be via innate durability and/or via support from the league, but they need to be able to survive focusing the War Walker's full attention on themselves. Other characters should not taunt the War Walkers. Naturally, if you can appoint a back-up taunter this may be wise, in case the lead does get defeated.

During each War Walker fight, the league and the taunter should try and stay away from each other. If the taunter is at least 30' from anyone else, the War Walker will only ever hit the taunter with its Targeting Reticule. This does mean the taunter will suffer the full effects of the War Walker's special attacks, in addition to its more standard attacks, which is why support and/or a stand-in taunter may be important.

This isn't a guide on how to tank foes, but I want to mention that the designated taunters need to understand aggro and taunt mechanics well enough to ensure they can keep the Walkers' aggro focused on them. An Underground trial has a max league size of 24 players, so there are fair chances that multiple people in the league will be good at pulling aggro, via things like a taunt auras or "Gauntlet" taunt effects on their attacks. Some of these can be turned off, but others can't, or doing so is unwise. Try to make sure the designated taunter is actually one of the most likely people to hold the Walkers' aggro. If you're that taunter, make sure you're both taunting and using some sort of attacks, because damage dealt combines with taunt to make NPCs hate you. If you only use a taunt power, your damage-dealing leaguemates may still outrank you and take the War Walker's aggro, with potentially disastrous effect.

How to Survive the Effects

Stuff happens, and the best laid plans sometimes go awry. You may get TARGETED slapped on you despite efforts to avoid it. Or maybe you're the taunter? What do you do now?

The first thing you need to do (and this is pretty common knowledge now) is get away from your leaguemates. If you don't, whatever is coming your way is going to land on them too. The negative effects of this could range to loss of DPS on the Walker as everyone is mezzed to a massive wipe of the league due to Lethal Force.

If you're the taunter, you're hopefully already doing this to try and avoid getting other people TARGETED to start with. You just want to try and move out of that 30' range of your leaguemates, perhaps trying to lead the Walker in a small circle as you move around. After all, the Walker will probably try and chase you, unless it gets hemmed in by the league. One thing I often see, especially with the Lichen War Walker, is that the taunter gets the War Walker to press up against the wall as far as possible from any Regenerating Lichen. While this is wise, it's important to not position yourself such that the league has to surround you to fight the War Walker. Everyone will be slathered with targeting and Lethal Force will stack to unmanageable levels. Keep moving if the league presses in too close. You can keep the War Walker mostly against the wall without staying in one place.

If you're not the taunter, you are free to try to flee for the hills when TARGETED. To completely avoid follow up attacks you have to get 300' away. Don't bother trying to hide behind walls - it does nothing. Now 300' is pretty far away, so it's a lot more efficient to just try not to get targeted to start with! But there are other options.

If running that far away isn't viable or you'd rather try not to be taken out of the fight, taking on buffs to resist the mezzes or the Energy damage are your next best bets. Break Free and Robust class inspirations are decent self-help here, but league/ally buffs are really your friend. Barrier and Clarion are going to improve your lot in life a lot - something to remember when supporting that taunter who's eating these effects every time. Also, a well-timed Rebirth, fired right after the warning for "Lethal Force Authorized" can avoid a lot of defeats of people.

Clearly, the two mez effects Walkers can fire have immense magnitude. If you are hit by them, you can't use Clarion to try and break out of them; at its peak, the strongest Clarion protection is mag 30 protection, so you would need more than 30 people using it to break out of the mezzes, assuming no other mez protections. However, these are resistible effects, so Clarion and other powers that provide appropriate mez resistance do reduce the duration of the mezzes.

In Summary

In summary, assign lead taunters, keep them and the rest of the mass of the league at least 30' apart, and be ready with buffs that resist holds, terrorizes and energy damage, plus heals. A league prepared with these tactics can make short work of the War Walkers, ensuring 60 Threads and a good shot at the Avatar later in the trial.

* Your status tray is the area underneath your power icons where indicators for status effects appear. This includes things like "HELD", "PLACATED" and "BLINDED".

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Nice guide, hopefully this can help cut down on those frustrating sudden trial failures.

One thing I think you might want to emphasize slightly more is the difference between the 'targets acquired' giant float message and the 'targeted' state that shows up underneath your health bar. I find that some don't seem to realize that there's a difference; thinking that the 'targets acquired' message is the cue to run, and not knowing that the effect that's the important one they need to watch for is actually the much less noticeable words in the effects tray.

@MuonNeutrino
Student, Gamer, Altaholic, and future Astronomer.

This is what it means to be a tank!

 

Posted

That's a good point, and it never even occurred to me before. I've now added it in.

Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA

 

Posted

Great guide, bookmarked for reference.