Projector

TL;DR Would it be unreasonable or difficult to simply add a Max Teleport Distance: ## feet to each of the power descriptions for Incan? It's a key feature of the power, and my hope is that it's as simple as adding some text, but this would be really helpful. It would be a simple indicator of a tier difference without rewriting the entire description. I discovered a couple of months ago that the Incandescence powers all have different max TP ranges, but that is not noted anywhere in the power description nor the power details, that I could see. And there are scenarios in which that incan TP range is surprisingly consequential in some endgame content. I've been working on a single-run MoKeyes strategy that utilizes a tight grouping of the league and using 6-8 Incans to move the league between two pre-determined waypoints. There is only a 4-second window of time in which you can move out of the Obliteration beam target (from 0:29-0:25 on the Obliteration Beam timer). The idea was that without having to leave the group, my incanners can literally just aim at the next waypoint and fire at 0:29 on the timer. But the green circle is big, so the waypoints are pretty far apart. So, I would recruit some people to use incan specifically, and then I would be confused as to why I would see someone run out from the group to fire theirs off, and many times this would mean they have to leave early, or if they are the one Disintegrating, they are now missing heals at what could be a critical moment. I couldn't figure it out until I happened to play on a toon that had T3 Radial and discovered the range was virtually nothing compared to Core. I hopped on the test server to make all of the T3/T4 incans and tested each to compare, and I believe T1 and T2 Incans are all the same 50 ft. radius, but the differences between T3s and upgrading to T4, as well, are pretty massive, but are not communicated to the player in any way. Prior to this, I could not figure out why it would even be worth upgrading to T4 incan because the power descriptions don't actually indicate any difference from T3 to T4, unlike with the other Destiny Incarnate powers which indicate both a longer effect duration and a wider radius. I would love for the Max TP Distance to be added to the power descriptions for each tier of Incandescence. It would highlight a key difference between tiers and powers without needing any nerfs, description rewrites or anything. I guess the one problem would be players misunderstanding that to mean they can only incan their team that far (like team teleport, for example), not realizing that it actually means that's how far the teleport reticle can be aimed, but even with that misunderstanding, people would still end up choosing the highest range they can, even if they think the power itself is worse than it is lol. Honestly, my fear in suggesting this is all the ranges get somehow nerfed instead, so I'm I'm being selfish in begging for that not to be the outcome of this suggestion. The Incan tactic I described for Keyes is how I help my league win in a situation where literally any one person on a full league just rubberbanding a little can cost the whole league 1-2 badges, whereas the incan approach for MoKeyes lowers that risk substantially since now only one player has to do anything to keep everyone safe. Lowering the effective range of the higher distance incans would also hurt some hardmode tactics too, so I would hate to see the ranged decreased if any changes would be made.

If I am there, there is an additional role on Team 1: AFK. I'm an expert at it, tbh. AMA

Sounds like you hard-carried your team, not the other way around. haha. That Recovery pun call out is beautiful and I respect you forever for it. Even 1*s get hectic, especially a 1* ITF where there are just constant streams of enemies and chaos happening. Aeon and LGTF feel fast-paced in movement, but ITF can be wild. The Shadow Crystal mission is make or break for many teams. lol. So don't feel bad for feeling lost or feeling like you were carried. Regardless of whether you were carried through or not, a player with your mindset, who is seriously trying and wanting to learn and understand it is exactly the kind of player I would want to bring along. I would just make sure you aren't on a pivotal role on the team until you feel more comfortable. It's really hard to play a kin in a situation where you have no idea what's going on, for example. Honestly, my method for LGTF doesn't really involve a whole lot of jousting, or even needing faster reflexes. You can navigate most of these fights with anticipation. If I know an Assault Suit is getting low, for example, I will make it a point to not use any long animation powers. As much as it's within my power, I'm not going to hit "Inferno" right next to a low assault suit. I will reposition first, then use it. You also get clear visual indicators before Kong is going to jump corners in a 4*--the gas stops. Now, he probably won't jump for another 5-10 seconds after that, but you know that it's coming, and you can plan play with that in mind. Not saying that any of these situations happened to you, or that you would do these things, I just mean they are examples of things that people commonly think of "reactive" situations that can actually be approached proactively. Usually the unexpected things that require an instant reaction are things that will kill more experienced/knowledgeable players, too, so don't knock yourself there, either.

Wanted to make a quick correction on this, which I will also add as an edit to the OP. Someone more knowledgeable than me gave me some helpful feedback and pointed out something I wasn't aware of: When K'ong and Dra'Gon are Psi-Protected, their health regen is frozen. That happens each time they get reinforcements, so the Magus, the Suit, and the Scientist spawns all also spawn with a psi-protect field. This actually gives you three really solid checkpoints if you need them. For example, if you can hold out until a reinforcement point, and then a teamwipe happens, they won't regen at all! Whereas, if you wipe and reset inbetween these "checkpoints," it's likely they will have regened either most or all of the damage that's been done to them. Luckily, you won't have to repeat each checkpoint, so if Dra'Gon heals above 75% after you dealt with the Maguses, you won't have to deal with them again. So, don't kill a Psi-Protector Primate until you are confident your team will survive and everyone is in a good rhythm. It's totally safe to pause and focus all your attention on the reinforcements, then take out a Psi-Protector Primate and continue damaging Dra'Gon and K'ong!

Zerg them and intentionally do NOT use holds so that you can still kill it has been the approach of every 4* ITF I've done.

@Maelwys Covered this just fine, but to put it in even simpler terms: I aim for at least 50% Accuracy total in Mids when building for 4-star content specifically. To see this specific stat, click the View Totals button near the top, then go to the second tab, and you will see Accuracy at the bottom under To-hit. This is usually accomplished with 3-4 purple sets that have the 10% Accuracy set bonus dropped into a few slot mules and one ATO set. Two of these mules are usually your T1 blast (like ice or fire blast) and Brawl. On one of my tanks, I actually took Ring of Fire and threw 5 Gravitational Anchors into it as a mule, too. Though, that occasionally does get used when fighting Zoe for the first time in the Aeon SF. Comparing to the Kin I referenced in my first comment, I looked at that Kin's build from yesterday and his accuracy was at 15% and he was also not running Vigor. For a Kin, especially if you're a corruptor, my current understanding is that it's optimal to go Vigor Core, not Radial or Intuition. The healing and accuracy boost is pretty massive, especially considering that out of the box, Corruptors don't heal/buff as much as Defenders do. I am also not trying to be an expert here. This is advice I have been taught, have found clear success with, and have adopted into my own approach to building. I'm sure your build is great for regular content though, so I hope you're finding a lot of success. Hope this helps!

Quick disclaimer: My entire reply is specifically about 4* content, not 1*-3*. I tend to agree on the "just a carry" portion, for sure. The problem with this comes in the fact that many people have been the carry in a 4* team, but did not think they were being carried, so you hear things like, "Yeah, I did a 4* on my regular slotted blaster with no problem! You don't need 4* builds or anything" They fail to realize they missed the majority of their attacks, and the attacks that did hit basically tickled enemies. My rad/fire melee tank that has a 4* optimized build for max dps still once only hit Dra'Gon for like 5 damage with Greater Fire Sword the other day. The resists are just that high. I did my role as a tank, no problem, but I won't pretend like I actually contributed to the dps output for the Omega K'ong fight. So yes, you can play anything on a 4* run, provided you have 6-7 other people that are all optimized and willing to carry you through it. Though, at that point you're basically just a walking Barrier user and that's about it. The exception here being a Tank/Brute with taunt (or scrapper with their ST taunt in ITF/Aeon since it's mostly solo target kills in those). These are the most likely to be able to waltz into 4* content with a non-optimized build and meaningfully contribute through actual tanking skills, such as keeping enemies facing away from the team, or thoughtfully dragging the Assault Suits to where their null fields won't threaten your team at all when they explode. I brought a Kin on a 4* run yesterday who had a regular PvE build that did not have high accuracy, and he was missing critical buffs the majority of the time. We succeeded, but it was way more stressful for the team and it was way less fun for him to see "deflected" the majority of the time. And I think that fun factor is a huge contributing factor. Being a carry in a 4* TF is like being a lowbie on a +4 ITF or a fire farm. Sure, slogging through a +4 KM ITF with your incarnated, fully built 50 toon is fun, but being even level 49 without proper enhancements in that same situation SUCKS. Every time I have brought a lowbie to a KM, even if it had training IOs in it, was just an absolute miserable time. Pretty sure your damage is so low you are actively healing EBs when they use Unstoppable 😂 It doesn't feel good to see such low damage numbers, miss most of the time, and die in 2-3 hits because everything is +5 to you. Some times I have even felt quite a bit of guilt for bringing a lowbie in those situations, thinking I may as well be sitting AFK in a farm for all the nothing I'm contributing to the team. Aside from that, I genuinely don't think the Omega K'ong fight is actually possible without dps-optimized builds and proper debuffing (that needs to actually hit its target, such as Benumb, Heat Loss, Acid Arrow, Lingering Rad, etc.). Even then, if you miss a single heal or are slightly out of position, then someone is going to die, throwing off a lot of rhythm and complicating the fight significantly. The Excalibonk, in my mind, is the single hardest thing to acquire because of the sheer amount of prep work, understanding of movement/timing, and dps/debuffing needed to succeed in that fight. The last thing I will add on this point is that there is one more thing optimized builds do: They show that someone actually cares enough to take the content seriously. It's called hard mode for a reason, and someone waltzing in thinking that it's going to be just another TF is in for a rude awakening. I have encountered some massive toxicity from players like this who thought doing hard mode content should be easy or simple for any AT, and they don't listen, think the leader's instructions aren't a big deal or are optional (such as barrier calls), and don't know how to position properly. And usually the biggest problem players on the teams are those who brought "whatever" into a 4* team. These are the players spamming holds on the green Nictus barrier in an ITF and telling you to STFU when you ask them to stop, or dying to every single Brickernaut despite clear instructions being given and everyone spamming RUN so much that they got chat timeouts, then after the 5th or 6th time STILL raging that they don't know why they keep dying and going on about how their build is so great and something must be wrong with the game. These are the players ignoring Shimmering Essences when fighting Ripplesurge, or getting up close and personal with the Hostless or trying to become one with the Assault Suits in death. And somehow, these are always the players who perfectly time being dear or are too far away from the team when it's their turn to barrier, so the team wipes seconds later. I'm not saying a 4* optimized builds means someone is going to know how to do those things, but it tells me that they likely care enough to listen to direction and be a team player, and they are willing to learn from the mistakes they make. That matters to me more than anything else, because it tells me that you value not only your time, but my time and the team's time, as well. There aren't any badges gated to 4* content that I am aware of. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many people out there that have collected all of the badges without having ever touched 4* content. Any hardmode badges can be gotten at 1* difficulty, and it hardly takes more to do a 1* than it does to do a regular speed. Just a little more knowledge about TF mechanics. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk! This is all my opinion from my experiences doing 4* content with PUGs and with premade teams, so I'm happy to hear other opinions and experiences too! EDIT: Had a sentence out of place lol

Reposting here form the Guides section on the suggestion of @Glacier Peak (Thank you). Didn't realize this section existed. Just autopiloted to Guides and posted it there. Over the last few months, I've gone down the rabbit whole of Hard Mode content and as I both have immersed myself in it as well as tried to help others, I realized there is a not a lot of information on how to actually do the different 4-star content. There aren't even a lot of videos demonstrating any of it, leaving a lot of it a total mystery. So, I started posting video content of some of the runs I feature, including creating a video walkthrough of the Omega K'ong fight from my perspective as the tank. Since there is no way to practice that fight outside of a 4-star context, and it's so busy visually that it can be very hard to tell what's actually happening or why you die at certain moments, I wanted to demystify some of that, set proper expectations for different phases of the fight, and help new people understand the important considerations to keep in mind. It's a longer video because I wanted to explain the context of WHY it's important to approach things a specific way, not just explain what to do. This was done on Excelsior, and I know different shards have different ways of approaching content. This is probably not the only way to do it, but this kind of approach has also resulted in sub-30-minute runs of the 4-star LGTF, and it's the only way I know how, so I wanted to share it since I have found success. Note that you have 25:00 on timer when Omega spawns, and with 4-star optimized builds and no full teamwipes during the fight itself, we still only completed it with 9 minutes remaining (granted, fire/melee on my tank is NOT a great option in this fight). Here are the main points for those who don't want to watch Setup: 1 T4 Incan Core, 1 T4 Clarion Core, 4 Barrier Core Teams (T1: 2 people, T2: 2 people, Flex 1: 1 person, Flex 2: 1 person) Gather in hospital just before Dra'Gon room Lores out, buff Lores (tank does not summon lores as they can pull aggro off of tank. I learned that after this video) Barrier and Clarion timing: Team 1 Barrier and Clarion in Hospital once pets are out Incan runs in and incans onto Dra'Gon Target Lores onto Dra'Gon (VERY IMPORTANT) After 25-30 seconds, Flex 1 barrier is called, this timing repeats every 25-30 seconds in order: Team 1, Flex 1, Team 2, Flex 2. The person calling Barriers should be on Barrier Team 1, as their own Barrier cooldown of 2 minutes can be used to track when it's time to call for the next barrier. Targeting Priority (once Kong spawns): War Priests, Chief Magus, Psi-Protector Primates, Dra'Gon, Assault Suits, Scientists. Positioning: Everyone fights Dra'Gon from behind, but hugs closesly to Dra'Gon for Kinetics buffs, heals, end, etc. Tank always keeps Dra'Gon in a corner after Kong spawns Avoid Omega K'ong whenever possible. He will make whatever corner he occupies an instant death zone. Fight Phases: 100-75%: Focus Dra'Gon (until Kong Spawns, no big AoEs or Judgements to avoid freeing psychicstt 75%-50%: Fold Space Chief Maguses to Dra'Gon, everyone bursts down one Magus at a time targeting through a shotcaller, killing a Primate during this if you can. Tank stays focused on Dra'Gon, Kin still heals off of Dra'Gon. It is not worth waiting to find a Primate before killing the Maguses. 50%-25%: Fold Space Assault Suits so they don't teleswap you around the room or into Kong gas, kill a Primate, and then focus Dra'Gon with single target damage and let AoEs bring assault suits low. As soon as assault suits are low enough to spike, incan or move away from them and spike them before they are able to follow you into the next corner. Rinse and repeat until each Assault Suit is dead. And of course, avoid neural fields until they despawn. 25%-0%: Fold Space Scientists and let AoEs kill them. Kill Primate and focus Dra'Gon until he is dead. Hope this is all helpful for someone! EDIT: Someone more knowledgeable than me pointed out something I wasn't aware of: When K'ong and Dra'Gon are Psi-Protected, their health regen is frozen. That happens each time they get reinforcements, so the Magus, the Suit, and the Scientist spawns all also come with a psi-protect field. This actually gives you three really solid "checkpoints" if you need them. For example, if you can hold out until a reinforcement point, and then a teamwipe happens, they won't regen at all! So, if barrier timers are weird or off because people were dying a lot, or you just can't seem to get into a good rhythm and it feels chaotic, or maybe things are rough and lores are about to come back up! That can be a good opportunity to wipe and reset. That being said, you shouldn't wipe if things are still going smoothly, even if lores are coming back up. Don't take those checkpoints unless you absolutely have to, as they will eat up valuable time. More than 2 wipes and you likely won't complete the fight in time. Whereas, if you wipe and reset inbetween these "checkpoints," it's likely they will have regened either most or all of the damage that's been done to them. Luckily, you won't have to repeat each checkpoint, so if Dra'Gon heals above 75% after you dealt with the Maguses, you won't have to deal with them again. So, don't kill a Psi-Protector Primate until you are confident your team will survive and everyone is in a good rhythm. It's totally safe to pause and focus all your attention on the reinforcements, then take out a Psi-Protector Primate and continue damaging Dra'Gon and K'ong!

Didn't know that existed! Thanks! How do I crosspost when it's already been posted?

Over the last few months, I've gone down the rabbit whole of Hard Mode content and as I both have immersed myself in it as well as tried to help others, I realized there is a not a lot of information on how to actually do the different 4-star content. There aren't even a lot of videos demonstrating any of it, leaving a lot of it a total mystery. So, I started posting video content of some of the runs I feature, including creating a video walkthrough of the Omega K'ong fight from my perspective as the tank. Since there is no way to practice that fight outside of a 4-star context, and it's so busy visually that it can be very hard to tell what's actually happening or why you die at certain moments, I wanted to demystify some of that, set proper expectations for different phases of the fight, and help new people understand the important considerations to keep in mind. It's a longer video because I wanted to explain the context of WHY it's important to approach things a specific way, not just explain what to do. This was done on Excelsior, and I know different shards have different ways of approaching content. This is probably not the only way to do it, but this kind of approach has also resulted in sub-30-minute runs of the 4-star LGTF, and it's the only way I know how, so I wanted to share it since I have found success. Here are the main points for those who don't want to watch Setup: 1 T4 Incan Core, 1 T4 Clarion Core, 4 Barrier Core Teams (T1: 2 people, T2: 2 people, Flex 1: 1 person, Flex 2: 1 person) Gather in hospital just before Dra'Gon room Lores out, buff Lores (tank does not summon lores as they can pull aggro off of tank. I learned that after this video) Barrier and Clarion timing: Team 1 Barrier and Clarion in Hospital once pets are out Incan runs in and incans onto Dra'Gon Target Lores onto Dra'Gon (VERY IMPORTANT) After 25-30 seconds, Flex 1 barrier is called, this timing repeats every 25-30 seconds in order: Team 1, Flex 1, Team 2, Flex 2. The person calling Barriers should be on Barrier Team 1, as their own Barrier cooldown of 2 minutes can be used to track when it's time to call for the next barrier. Targeting Priority (once Kong spawns): War Priests, Chief Magus, Psi-Protector Primates, Dra'Gon, Assault Suits, Scientists. Positioning: Everyone fights Dra'Gon from behind, but hugs closesly to Dra'Gon for Kinetics buffs, heals, end, etc. Tank always keeps Dra'Gon in a corner after Kong spawns Avoid Omega K'ong whenever possible. He will make whatever corner he occupies an instant death zone. Fight Phases: 100-75%: Focus Dra'Gon (until Kong Spawns, no big AoEs or Judgements to avoid freeing psychicstt 75%-50%: Fold Space Chief Maguses to Dra'Gon, everyone bursts down one Magus at a time targeting through a shotcaller, killing a Primate during this if you can. Tank stays focused on Dra'Gon, Kin still heals off of Dra'Gon. It is not worth waiting to find a Primate before killing the Maguses. 50%-25%: Fold Space Assault Suits so they don't teleswap you around the room or into Kong gas, kill a Primate, and then focus Dra'Gon with single target damage and let AoEs bring assault suits low. As soon as assault suits are low enough to spike, incan or move away from them and spike them before they are able to follow you into the next corner. Rinse and repeat until each Assault Suit is dead. And of course, avoid neural fields until they despawn. 25%-0%: Fold Space Scientists and let AoEs kill them. Kill Primate and focus Dra'Gon until he is dead.

So, the reason the barge works if you leave her between crates is she won't go within line of sight of enemies. Though, this seems so have changed slightly because seedlings now spawn more often and tend to float high and may occasionally go across. But typically the ambushes that spawn stay on either side of the barge, so she doesn't see them. I did have one attempt of this method where she dropped to 77% health, but she killed whatever it was that aggro'd and then healed back up just fine. THat's the closest call I've had breaking the tether. As for how I know for sure they don't enter the room, the only thing I can say is that in all cases I've left an escort with her in the trap room, no ambushes have entered. I have personally watched the ambush before leaving the trap room to make sure and I watched 3-4 Olympian Guards get to the doorway and then immediately turn around and run back up. I think it's coded this way since the room is an "event" with the traps. So, I say that ambushes don't enter the trap room with the same level of confidence I say you can tether break des on the barge or that you can make the kill call at 8 seconds. There is only one time I've seen them enter the trap room, and it's because they were chasing a player that aggro'd them. That's it. I, personally, would not leave Des in the trap room with a tether break. I don't know of a positioning that is safe there. It's worth a try, though it's such a minimal difference between doing that and doing the barge method that it doesn't seem worth it, really. Especially since the league is progressing forward while you set up the tether break, and you could have someone else run ahead with incan to the next kill-all room.

Love this written guide! I learned so much about leading UG from running with you, and I really appreciate how much you try to help new players! Wanted to point out a couple of cool things I've discovered in the last few weeks that could be helpful, as well: 1. There are three opportunities to summon lores in this trial if done the way you describe: 1. Once you go down the elevator after the ritual phase at the beginning. 2. At the double War Walker fight. 3. At the Avatar fight. This can make the early part of the trial go much faster since you're doing it as a kill-all anyway. 2. The ambush before the trap room is actually on a timer and has absolutely nothing to do with the door, though I have not yet determined what the actual timer is for that spawn. That being said, giving the instruction to not open the door does keep the league in that hallway and paying attention, so definitely still good practice. However, using lores on Aggressive/Follow after the ritual phase will actually mean that you get to the trap room far before that ambush spawns. When I have done it this way, I notice the ambush either while we are in the middle of the crystal trap or as we are leaving the trap room, so it's a non-issue as mobs do not enter the trap room unless they are already aggro'd by the league. 3. Des does not need to go any further than the trap room. Not only that, ambushes, so long as they are not aggro'd, will not enter the trap room. This means that Des' escort can stay in the far corner of the trap room for the rest of the trial and basically AFK (so long as they have their TP prompt on!). That positioning ensures Des' pets don't see and aggro anything in the halls. Admittedly, it REALLY sucks for the person with Des, unless they have other things they want to do during that time! Note: if you intend to do this method and want to use Lores for the double war walker fight, then the double war walker fight needs to be the FIRST time you use Lores. 4. If you do leave Des and her escort in the trap room, you can actually incan the rest of the league everywhere they need to go--meaning someone can stealth from the trap room to the guard room just before the back to back war walkers and incan the league. This shaves off a good 5-10 min from the run on its own. There are glowies in the tunnel leading to the war walker, so you will have plenty for the first war walker. 5. Leaving Des in the trap room also means that for the blitz/zerg method for the first bomb phase, you can actually just rush down the bombs themselves and skip over all of the mobs. When I do it this way, tell my league to ignore ALL MOBS until I say otherwise, then I give one kill order starting at the first bomb, and tell the league to just keep moving from one to the next, just like the 2nd mission of a speed ITF. I have a macro that says "SIDE ROOM" whenever we get to one so the league knows to go for that bomb and I don't have to type. I make sure to stay slightly ahead of the league, and I do wait until I have 2-3 other people near me before starting a bomb. I have yet to fail a bomb badge in 10+ runs with this method, with full PUGs and with SG mates. Note: zerging this way also means that Lores will not be back up in time for the Avatar fight. That's fine though, because I tell my leagues to dismiss pets at around 25% health anyway, and by not having lores out during the final fight, it allows me to better estimate my teams damage output for the final burst. 6. I keep experiencing that people are too impatient for snipes in the second phase, so what I have found to be effective is telling any melee or anyone lagging to stay put, and all ranged characters to creep forward against the right side wall and attack bombs one after the other. I do make it clear that Melee range of one bomb will trigger the next bomb, so creep forward, don't run forward. Again, in 10+ runs, I have yet to fail a bomb badge with this method. 7. Once the second bomb phase is done, you can stop the league there, give instructions/buff up for final fight, then actually incan everyone into the final room and start the Avatar fight. 8. In my testing, if Avatar is between 3-5% HP, then giving the KILL order at 0:08 before seedling detonation gets the badge 100% of the time. If I make the call at 0:07 or later, we miss the badge. Alternative, when Avatar is at 10% HP, then giving the kill order at 0:03 before Seedling SPAWN will pretty much also guarantee the badge. Lastly, I have 100% success rate when I give instructions in ALL CAPS and I preface before we start that I will be doing so because there's so many people in league that I need to....PROJECT 😄