Magisterium: The Really Hard Way - Sunday, August 19

If I knew the strategy, I'd offer to run it -- or at least herd the cats :-P

If or when you do decide to give it another go be sure to hit me up. This is the last badge I need aside from about a year's worth of Day Jobs so I'm quite literally chomping at the bit

As a side note - I've been reading other success stories and a common theme (aside from 4+ kins and many corrupters) seems to be leagues dropping pets and everything else right out of the gate and pounding Tyrant into the dirt in 5 minutes or less. I can't help but think that if we did this we might have succeeded since our Achilles heel seemed to be losing focus after dropping Lore.

Honestly it doesn't make a lot of sense pragmatically, but you can't really argue with the results.

The important bits of strategy:

1. For what to bring, see the first post.
2. Keep Ultimates up at all times during the Tyrant fight.
3. Everybody gets into melee range. Stacking Barriers should protect the league from Tyrant's resistible attacks.
4. When the air crackle warning appears, everybody backs away from Tyrant. When the lightning spawns, everyone gets back into melee.
5. When Tyrant hits 30% or so or the league's damage isn't outpacing Tyrant's regen (one or the other, don't wait for both), summon Lores, hit Hybrids, and (in general) use anything that's being held in reserve.
6. If it becomes obvious you're not going to win without taking out the lights, it's better to finish the trial and get The Hard Way (which should be assured at that point).

If you (or anyone else) does do this this weekend, I'll try to make it, but no promises.

Edit:

I thought about that while I was writing the strategy notes. You're right, we were winning but never got the swing back once we stopped to summon Lores. And if it doesn't work, but the league can stay in the fight till the five-minute mark, they can summon Lores for one last push, with plenty of time left to give up on RHW and finish the trial if it doesn't work any better the second time.

It's definitely something to consider.

The issue breaks down to DPS - the stronger the league's dps - the lower we get his HP. However, the lower we get his hp, the higher his regen. It makes sense to bring the lores out initially because at that point - we haven't even started on taking down his health, and we don't lose dps by stopping to spawn lores. And, if the league is strong, and we have lores out already - not only do we not lose dps, but we have the lores out to add to our dps.
Seems worth a shot - at least in theory. The key to each of the successful RHW runs I've been on is survival - -to keep the dps going. If folks cannot avoid defeat, it really does limit the chances of success.

Precise Imbuements, Protection Imbuements and now amplifiers all seem like a very wise investment to aid in this effort.

It's also worth noting that a second build with Assault AND Tactics is a good idea - Assault for the increased damage - and tactics for the increaseed toHit - quite useful against a +5 AV.