Most thrilling fight of my CoH career!!

WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SSA2 PART 3 BELOW!

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I'd like to describe a solo fight I had with a +4 AV if I may. It was thrilling/frustrating/rewarding/nail-biting and forced me to think outside the box. Pretty much what any good boss fight should be. It set a new standard for my enjoyment of this game.

I'll mention that I play pretty much exclusively on my main, a StJ/Nin stalker, and as a consequence I only play on +4/x8 w/ bosses and AVs to try and keep things interesting. I also try not to touch inspirations or temps. Sometimes I bite it but it's worth it just to feel like there's still some challenge left out there.

Flash forward to this morning when, while soloing the new SSA arc, none other than Capain Mako appears having slaughtered a building's worth of Malta. I smiled wide since Mako's my favorite in-game villain and I'd missed my chance to spar with him during Mako Week.

Now normally when soloing +4 AVs it's the same basic narrative - chain until dead while using my self heal and Rebirth whenever a hit manages to get through. It normally takes 8-12 minutes, depending. Death only occurs when the AV gets lucky and my heals are on recharge. THIS was different.

The fight began as normal, but at around 50% health Mako got nasty. First he began using Placate, which meant I had to RUN in case he got a lucky melee hit from hide - an event that's essentially a one-hit KO. I'd kite until the placate expired while praying I got hit with a less damaging Spirit Shark that would break his hide. Staying out of melee was difficult of course because Mako moves like a blur. While I fled he would also take the opportunity to murder my Lore pets if they had the misfortune of still being alive.

Then around 30% health he started using Follow Up, which on top of his 1.5 accuracy modifier amounted to almost half of his attacks getting through my 53% defenses while active. Sometimes he would use Follow Up and THEN Placate, which is basically instant death. My answer was Kuji-In Retsu, Ninjitsu's Tier 9 that boosts your defense for 3 minutes before crashing. I thought 3 minutes would be plenty...

At 20% he began using his notorious Elude power, boosting his defense from 20 to 60. Without the aid of yellow inspirations I was forced either to flee or to to try and scrap with him while only getting about 10% of my hits in. Considering the Follow Up-->Placate combo he was using at this point, I usually opted to flee.

When the Elude wore off I thought it was all over. He'd thrown everything he had, was at 10% health, and now his god mode was used up. But it wasn't. Because you see at this point Mako uses Elude every time it's recharged. Which is every 75 seconds. That meant I had 75 seconds to do more damage than he could regenerate while under its influence, all the while dodging, weaving, T9 popping, crashing, and fleeing.

I died six times before I learned enough to eke out a victory, and every second of that 20 minute brawl was a thrill. At no point did I feel like it was a slog or that his tactics were cheap. The fact that his health hovered between 5% and 15% for nearly half the battle effectively dangled victory in front of me like a crack-covered carrot.

When Mako's face finally hit the ground the rush of reward was immense. It felt like an accomplishment, maybe my character's greatest. I solo'd Lusca the other day and wasn't nearly as elated. That was just a 90 minute slug fest. I spent most of it watching TV.

I realize my style of play is very much in the minority, but I'd like to thank/congratulate the devs for affording me that experience

I had an awesome fight yesterday, too.

SPOILERS FOR DARK ASTORIA - KINDA






Remember that fight where you're given a choice to rescue either both Kadabra Kill and Sigil or one or neither? And you have a minute and a half to kill like five or six hard-as-hell bosses if you choose to rescue them both?

I did it, man. I did it. With less than a second to spare, thanks to a lucky crit from One Thousand Cuts that was built up with two Feints and a Gaussian proc.

One of my more memorable fights was against goddess heqat from sciro's pat arc. I was on my dom w my widow friend. I was about 2 months subbed, a very nooby player, so my ios consisted of whatever drops that I got since I didnt think I needed anything better. I was reluctant to spend my hard earned inf, so I didnt bother to buy any enh from vendors.
It was a long fight. My insp kept me alive and I won by 1 pixel of hp and an empty tray. Unfortunately, my widow friend didnt make it and lay next to the crumpled form of heqat. Still, not bad for subpar slotting against a goddess.

that sounds awesome. i'm much more squishy. one of my most thrilling fights recently was with Diabolique at the end of one of the arcs in DA.

My Ice/Storm corruptor was +3 i think and she was an EB?, i dont rember what level i'd set the mission for, but as the fight began and she jumped in the air, i knew it was going to get interesting. she used her two kb powers a lot [she doesnt have many powers, huh], and i used as much kb/repel as possible myself. it wasnt a terribly difficult battle but it was exciting.

the battle went aerial and the kb and repel sent us both all over the place [me and my pets more than her XD]. Ice Blasts! Snow Storms! Lightning from four separate entities! a Tornado that sure was trying! and her forcing me and my pets in every direction.


when she finally bit the dust and fell i was zoomed out and it was all the more epic.

god i wish i'd gotten a screenie. might ouro it just to grab one from a reenactment ;D

I think my most memorable fight in CoH was the night we ran a 4-man Statesman TF with a spines/invul scrapper as main tank. All four of us were very good players and knew what we were getting into, but the final fight with the towers involved several team wipes and the thought that we were simply in over our heads after all. Then we rallied and finally beat Recluse down. ^_^

I got into that same fight with Mako just yesterday around the time I'm posting this now. Claws/SR Scrapper vs. Mako. It's hard to imagine a better opponent outside of Bobcat, really.

It was a great back and forth affair, and the animations paired wonderfully to look like blocked blows from both sides. And I have to say I love fighting Malta, even the Sappers. There's something about those guys in their paramilitary gear that reminds me of modern action films with the 'shadowy government agents' that the heroes tangle with.

I took down Mako, and it did get tight, I had to pop my Tier Nine to counteract his damage, and then I was all Spider-Man. 'I've fought Lord Recluse! I've fought Praetorians! And on your best day you couldn't lay a hand on me!' Cue lots of me imagining bouncing all over the place, laying hits on him.....


S.

My most thrilling fight is still when Manta the pre-i23 stalker and Ricki the night widow tanked the Eye of the Leviathan. I'm still not sure how we pulled that off.

My best was back in... had to be June of 2006. I was on a Synapse that went bad, with a ton of players dropping. By the time Babbage spawned we were down to three - myself on an Archery blaster, an Illusion controller and a defender that I want to say was Empathy. We were all barely into our teens and we were struggling. We got past Babbage thanks to a lot of zone help and decided to push as far as we could in the last mission.

It was a slog and a half, and while we avoided dying it was really slow going. But we got to the King, cleared a bit of space and figured we couldn't go this far and walk away without at least trying.

We led with PA and unleashed everything we had. Remember this was before inherent Stamina, before IOs, before purchasable/craftable temps. Heck, this was back before Archery was tweaked to speed it up, and so was REALLY slow. We were barely into DOs, had nobody with any real defenses and low damage. After PA faded out, I got to tank, hopping wildly around to try and stay out of the King's melee range while the empath threw everything he could muster to keep me barely alive. I went down - about five seconds before PA recharged and took the aggro again.

We beat the King shortly after PA ended again. We were so damn proud - we'd beat one of the toughest challenges of the early game (at the time) with an incredibly sub-optimal team that was less than half the size it should have been. Probably the hardest fight I've ever been in.

Two days later Issue 7 dropped with a massive +regen buff to AVs that would have made our feat impossible - and that just made it feel all the sweeter.

My most thrilling CoH fight happened just yesterday actually. The enemy itself was far from monumental, just a regular old sniper. (Technically they con the same as a lieutenant, but in practice they're a fair bit easier since they just have the one attack - a high damage but long recharge snipe.) It was the circumstances that did it for me.

I was on my level 43 Energy/Energy blaster street sweeping around Peregrine, when suddenly the sky goes dark... great, banners. It was the middle of the day so there wouldn't be an event team even if I wanted to join one. I start looking for a nice safe spot to log out, when a bullet whizzes past my face. Someone's taking potshots at me! Excellent, I think, one last fight before switching. So I spin around a couple times and spot him: a Crey sniper, standing beside a billboard. You're goin' DOWN, buddy! Just wait till I get th - ohhhh snap. He's level 50.

I sigh and back away. My mouse is hovering over the logout button... but I just can't do it. I've got a full inspiration tray, and no-one else to use them on. I can take this guy. It's worth a shot at least. I mean, pass or fail, standing up to a +7 is a decent story to tell, right? Quick! Do it now before you talk yourself out of it! *toggle on Rambo Mode*

Purples, yellows, reds... couple more reds... build up, aim, queue up Power Burst and zerg rush him till it fires off. Follow up with Power Blast, close in and throw Bone Smasher and Energy Punch in his face. Keep chaining every quick attack you've got, fire whatever's up next, just keep that damage bonus running. He's knocked down! Take the extra couple seconds to give him a nice birthday snipe, he'll really appreciate it. Blam blam! Miss! Blam! Another miss! Oh no the insps are worn off! HAVE A NOVA, JERK!!! Where'd that endurance insp go... okay, never mind, where'd that Return to Battle go. Haha! It was just a flesh wound! Omnomnom, blue candies. More attack chaining... attack chaining... attack thud. Kay, no big deal, where'd I put that Revival. No wait! This time let's be a *tiny* bit more prepared, shall we? After Revival turn Weave and Stealth back on, and use that insp tray again mmkay? They're gonna go bad if you don't, sheesh.

Whoooooom! click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click DID YOU MISS ME PUNK?!? Wham wham! Power Thrust clear across the street... pounce on him... wham wham wham wham You have defeated Special Agent Sharpshooter. *stops to catch breath*

Wedgie him for good measure.

I love hearing these stories!!

If there's one aspect in common it seems to be about a single hero (or villain) tackling insurmountable odds against a single notorious enemy (or small group of powerful enemies).

I have concede that Dear Old Jack may have been on to something with his three-on-one threshold of difficulty. My greatest thrill comes from tackling immense challenges against a small number of powerful foes. It's more personal, more immediate, and at the very least you can see what the heck it going on.

As much as I enjoy running incarnate trials the thrill and immediacy begins to evaporate when you're just one among 24 blurs of FX pounding on an AV you can barely make out.

Sparing mano-a-mano with a notorious baddy exemplifies the super hero experience more than any trial can in my book. CoH is a community experience, obviously. That's why I keep coming back. But reducing the number of personalities while upping the stakes is simply a recipe for good drama, and excitement.

I jumped in on an ITF a little while ago with my Uber Fire/Shield/Fire scrapper. T4 on all 6 slots. At the beginning of the TF I asked the team leader if I could try to fight Rom and Req alone while the rest of the team fights there way to the computer. The team was more than capable without me so the leader said to go for it.

After making short work of Requiem, Romulus soon dropped. I checked my map and saw the team was about half way to me. So I jumped down with my Lore pets and attacked the computer. I took down the computer and then joined the team as they took down the last General.

A few members of the team asked what happened and were quite surprised when I said I took down the AVs and the computer solo.

I was happy!

My experience with AVs has led me to expect them to obliterate me regardless of what defenses I'm packing without the need for them to have any clever powers up their sleeve. I've been up to my eyeballs in Luck and got walloped near instantly. Heck, my Dark/Dark Corruptor got that kind of treatment from a -1 EB Lord Recluse with Dark's debuffs and some Lucks - I ended up hover-sniping him to death. Such challenges don't excite me, and after having some difficulties here and there in prior SSA missions I've pretty much resolved myself to only playing them with my high level Tanks. Hopefully Mako won't be so annoying at EB level.

My most exciting fight... that is a good question. Longest? Hardest? Those are easy. But most exciting? I'm afraid I'll have to think about this.

I'll get back to you in a few days.

The most thrilling fight of my CoX career was when two dragons exploded out from underneath a frozen lake to attack me. They were constantly diving back into the water and breaking back out through the ice. It was great.

No wait....no, that was Skyrim. Huh. I wondered why Kallandra was ignoring me more than usual....