Martial Arts for Blasters

Originally Posted by Diellan_

For fun, I decided to try this out again, ArcanaVille, with a real +4 mob: aka without any Incarnate powers. Man, it's been a long time since I faced Carnies at +4x8 (I run at that diff all the time, even solo DA, but I've got Incarnate powers with level shifts, so it's never actually that high) and I've gotten rusty. Just my luck, given what I said before, the first spawn I encountered had two Dark Ring Mistresses and I faceplanted. I can't count on one hand the number of times I've actually had to use Darkest Night in the last year, but when running this +4x8 Radio Mission, I had to use it in order to stay alive. The next spawn had both a DRM and an MI, and I managed to wipe the entire spawn, including the DRM, then died due to running out of endurance and having all my toggles drop; I actually could've prevented this, but I wanted to create the exact test we were talking about, so I let it happen.

The fight itself was basically: A) set Darkest Night on the MI; B) kill the Dark pet as soon as it comes out, because the Chill of the Night debuff is devasting; C) ignore the Illusionists, letting AAO, Dark Obliteration's -Tohit, Shield Charge's knockdown, and Darkest Night turn them into whimpering babies; D) wail on the MI. The MI's pets actually would despawn after a set time, which is something I don't remember them doing in the past, and the Illusionists simply couldn't land their mezzes in the time they were around. I used blue pills and a large yellow, and no other.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

On my MA/SR, that's usually what gets me also on high level Carnie spawns: they don't so much kill me as drain me and force me to burn up blues. One spawn I can always take, but its generally the case that before I reach the end of the mission I run out of the right kind of insps, and then poof.

That, or aggroing another spawn out of sight and having the fluffy sneak up behind me and debuff me to the floor.

Illusionist pets do expire, and if you fight the MI long enough she'll recast them. At one time people used to farm them for the Illusionist badge.