Really Hard Way: The keys to successful completion

The secret to our success: (5 out of 7 so far, and the two that failed were me miscounting my Kins. >.<) Whoever heard of making something other than a fire/kin, hehehe (kidding). I see fire/ I automatically saw /kin. Must be the soda.

Information gathered from lots of forum posts and just doing it successfully multiple times now.

Special thanks to Ukase Rex for his advice on forming and running the RHW runs! He went out of his way to help us plan using Amygdala's strategies.

http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=290590


Special thanks to Hopper, Sundew and DragonQueen and Honou for strategizing with me and letting me have fun running these.

Special thanks to Widowmaker and Nightbabe for providing the awesome community of the best of the best.

Special thanks to all the corrupters/defenders who keep coming back to make this a success for more people and putting up with all the "requirements".


Level of participants: 50 (+3)
League Number: 24 (to get more people the badge)

The Keys to Success

1.) Corrupters
We like to go with a full team of Corrupters, lots of extra scourging damage once u get Tyrant below 50% plus they all bring buff/debuff as well as ranged blasting. Bring -res. You will not effect Tyrant's +regen from the wells.

2.) Kinetics.
4 or 5 Kinetics toons. This is a your dmg is greater than Tyrants regen fight. It is a good idea to have 4 kin's that will be spamming siphon power, transfusion, fulcrum shift, and speed boost on the league as well as attacking. if you have people who have speed boosts +speed effect turned off, tell them to go to Pocket D and talk to Nul the Gull and turn it back on. We need people to see the Crackle message and run back away from Tyrant. The kin's are extremely important as the battle is a fight to have your leagues damage overcome his absurd regen. League members should monitor their DMG Bonus stat. If your not seeing max blue numbers, someone is failing.

3.) 1 Ultimate is necessary at a minimum. If you want to guarantee success 3 or 4 will more than do it. As another league leader had mentioned in the forums, your basically giving yourself a massive damage and accuracy boost by increasing +1 level.

4.) Incarnate paths that help:
a.) Hybrid: Assault Radial or Support
b.) Interface: Reactive, Degen, Cog, Spectral, (anything with a DMG TICK). You want the side of the tree giving extra damage (75% chance for moderate fire/25% -res for example) It is good for individual league members to have 2 Interfaces to try and spread out the damage DOT's since I believe they only stack up to 4 of each type.
c.) Destiny: Rebirth (heal + regeneration), Ageless, recovery + recharge), Barrier (with or without rez). Clarion is worthless during this fight, if you have it please try to slot a Tier 3 of something else, but don't lose your level shift over it.
d.) Lore: Seers Core (get the 2 attacking pets) Anything doing non smashing lethal damage is really good.

5.) A tank is not neccessary but helps during the AV fights.

6.) Our league makeup that works the best, is one full team corrupters, one full team trollers/defenders, the other spots Blasters, scrappers and others. We try not to bring more than the 1 tank per run.


Order of Events
----------------------
1.) Pre-entry

a.) Relay all the information to the team from above.
b.) Make sure people have ultimates and are all +3's (majority of +3's with some +2's is ok).
c.) Tell the league you will call for when to POP Ultimates, and when to use Lore Pets. Do not use Lore Pets prior to that. (It can be done, we killed Tyrant so fast our pets had not cycled yet)
d.) NO one talk to Dream Doctor, except league leader or someone on skype/ts/ventrilo with them when the league is ready.
e.) Tell the kins and buffers you expect to see blue numbers for your stats. Get members to monitor their DMG Bonus at a minimum. You need them spam it and keep the team fully maxed out.


2.) Inside the prep area.
a.) Wait for entire team to assemble inside
b.) League Leader or someone on skype with them will then talk to Dream Doctor starting the counter
c.) League Leader will call for BUFFS!
d.) Wait for portal to open and go in


3.) 250 IDF
a.) Team will move to center of map.
b.) Tank and members that can will pull left, center and right. You want to trigger them so they spawn their battle orbs which go down easy. You can get the 8 minute badge if the team is quick with the 250. The AV's will melt with the league setup. Do not use Lore Pets here. But Hybrids and nukes are on good enough timers feel free to use them. Some leagues like to to do this part moving the entire league up the right, then center then left. Whatever works for your league is good. The 8 minute badge is a bonus not our primary objective.

4.) The AV's: Shadow Hunter, Nega, Chimera, then Black Swan.
a.) Get the league to hug around Shadow Hunter
b.) Call for BUFFS, The league should be pretty maxed out DMG BONUS wise. You will call for BUFFS again before Black Swan. Get those portal down quickly so she drops fast.

5.) Tyrant fight Start (if you have 4 Ultimates pop one now)
a.) Once you spawn and take the massive initial damage, League Leader call for BUFFS.
b.) We usually send one person in quickly to aggro Tyrant so he will Crackle and get the initial one out of the way.
c.) NO FLYING, as lightning patch can spawn in the air and kill people not realizing it. You will be speed boosted the entire fight if your kins are doing their job.
d.) Hug Tyrant spamming siphon power, fulcrum shift and all debuffs (rads: ef for -res). You will be constantly attacking. Please use your non-rooting powers. Do not queue attacks on Tyrant, unless you just came in from a crackle. They are usually about every 35 seconds. We need all people in on Tyrant so they continue to get the buffs. Shield giving AT's should occasionally be re-applying shields (ice/fire/sonic)
e.) You see the 'CRACKLE' message, you run back...be aware of your surrounding there is broken structures down by Tyrant you don't want your back against him. It is very important that your league members get away from Tyrant.
f.) People need to have self-rezzing abilities and inspirations Immortal recovery and recovery are very good. /emp's and people with heals should not be running all over the map to find league member's dead bodies (except for vengeance )
g.) Kinetics toons, should make sure they are keeping the leagues DMG bonus maxed out while also attacking. League recharge rate will be at or near cap so the FS will be applied liberally.
h.) HYBRIDS, should be being used during this fight as often as they are up. Destinys: Hit rebirths on coming back in from a Crackle to keep people alive who have a damage tick on them. Ageless if you notice your Kin's are slacking, pop it and Barrier.

6.) Tyrant fight below 40%

This is where things start getting tough and if you don't have the DMG output you will start to see issues.

a.) The league leader or a designated person will make the call for the first "you must pop an Ultimate NOW! Ultimate". It will be called for directly after you re-hug Tyrant after coming back from a Crackle. We will call for an Ultimate to be popped and then tell you to drop lore pets at his feet and turn them aggressive.

b.) At this point, we need you to be cautious. if you suck at getting out of the crackle and die, you will lose your lore pets. You need to keep alive so your Lore pets stay alive. Alot of leagues will have to use them for extra boost. needed (we did one run without them), they are very beneficial and if too many die you will fail, if the league is not strong enough.

c.) Have a spare Ultimate in case you die

d.) If the team is strong and avoids the CRACKLE, you should easily win the battle.


League Member questions:

1.) I died can someone rez me?

If someone with a rez or barrier or howling twilight is nearby they may, but you are responsible for rezzing. Them taking the time to find and rez you is not going to happen. You should have a self-rez and the really big Inspirations to get up and recover quickly.

2.) Ok so I ran back from the CRACKLE, what then do I do?

After the Lightning comes down, you need to immediately get back in there avoiding the lightning and throwing attacks ranged or melee. If the team did well avoiding it, the lightning patches should be scattered enough that you can get in range to either melee or ranged attack. Feel free to use longer animation attacks right after you come in from the Crackle since he will not do another one for about 35 seconds. The team should be spamming heals to catch people who maybe got a dmg tick on them. You want to rehug Tyrant as soon as possible so you get the speed boosts, heals and the reapplication of any shields.

3.) Ultimates, how many?

You can have as many as you want and reapply them as they drop during the final Tyrant battle. We ask for 2 at a minimum. One for when we call for ULTIMATE and DROP LORE, and another if you die to be re-applied




General Notes:

There is a very specific league make up that helps greatly to improve chances of success. We will get this badge for all people who want it, but we do ask for patience and understanding when we form the league. People willing to drop out and switch to whatever is needed are most appreciated. Occasionally we may have a screw up, invite too many, promised a certain person for a run, so please do not take it personally, juggling 24 people into the right mix is a little tough when lots of people are chatting and sending tells. While not a Badger, my friend El-kun brought me up to be a min/maxer which is both a curse and a blessing in putting together the leagues with Hopper and DQ. Thank you all for the wonderful league members who selflessly switched, dropped, rolled corrs to assist with getting people the badges, it is very much appreciated. I'd like to eventually get the badge on some other toons Everyones positive attitude and willingness to take one for the league by graciously dropping/swapping really keeps this drama free and how it should be. I could not ask for a better group of league mates and friends in game.

Great summary! Thanks for putting this together, Ryo!! (and great leading in general)

Other advice Ukase Rex gave:
-Build or respec your toon for maximum damage. Max out each toon's damage and damage buffs even if the toon is not normally a damage-dealer. For example, every toon on the league can (and ideally should) take tactics as a power.
-Have one player on each team use red/yellow team inspirations (I'm sure they have a name). These continue to give buffs when a toon resurrects after dying.
-A league as small as 12 can get the RHW badge, but on a small league any one death has a much greater effect on the league's ability to damage Tyrant.
-If the league can get Tyrant down to 30% without using lore pets or ultimate inspirations, it can achieve the RHW badge.
-Use revival and return to battle vet powers to rez during the trial.

Well, I'm a week late, it seems to chime in. Kins are super helpful - and if folks can get all bunched up on Tyrant, two is plenty. I got in the habit of keeping Precise Imbuements on me and using them if I dropped below 300%. A lot folks forget (if they knew in the first place - 3 months ago I didn't know it) that you don't necessarily need to be in the "blue" to be capped. Just depends on how you have your powers slotted.

The only props I get are for parroting things I've read and what I saw that worked and didn't work. @Sundew seems like the real star to me - for taking the time to ask questions.

Folks, I'm known to be verbose - no such thing as a yes or no answer for me. So, yeah, @Sundew did indeed take some time getting the answers ...and the questions.

Grats to all of you who got the badge. I still think avoids the green stuff is probably the hardest. (mainly because of one person crashing or goofing can foul it up)
But, The Really Hard Way is hands down the most fun to earn.

Ukase,

Get your toon ready on Infinity so we can bring you along with us next time.

In order for that to happen, there has to be a collection of bodies ready to do iTrials when I zone in. (which is a tough time to pin down - started a new job recently, so game time is mostly limited to the weekends. )

Hard to put trial leagues together during the day on weekends, as folks are out at the beach and doing family stuff (I presume)

Thank you for doing this. I was fortunate enough to hookup with a great team and get the badge. Also got the Master of badge on the same run. Yip yip yahoo!

You're very welcome.


Tonight 8/4 Saturday we are thinking about doing a RHW run for the people who cannot make the Sunday evening runs. So we'll see if we can make it happen tonight depending on attendance of the needed AT's.

This event will be occurring after the Mo UG run at 9pm EST. So we are figuring 10PM EST.