Malta

[HeidiMarquedt]

Wasn't sure where to post this, just wondering if there are any tips for building a Malta resistant toon.  

I've been playing my ice manipulation blaster which is actually a lvl 50 (just my 2nd toon so far) Vet lvl 20. 

She's been tough enough to pretty much go through any mobs while soloing with no problem (missions only set at +1). 

Then I started playing Crimson's missions which are all Malta-centric. Endo repeatedly drained completely by Sappers. Then have to run

and use Insp. to toggle back up all my defenses.  Is there anything I could have included in the build to specifically resist endo drainage from these

brats?  Or is it just a matter of taking out the Sappers first all the time?  Sorry in advance if this is a dumb line of questions. 

 

[Dragon Crush]

Well, electric armor is immune to end drain, rooted from stone also grants a ton of end drain resistance. Kin defenders/corroupters/controllers can be drained and immediately refill their end with transference, poison can neuter the end drain if you hit with weaken first, MMs can still send pets to fight if they get drained or let pets eat the drain.

Then there's the strategy of take it slow, target sappers first and either open with control or 1-shot kill. Also can use ageless destiny, refills end when popped and one side offers +recovery, other +end drain resistance (as well as other debuff resistance).

[Yomo Kimyata]

Always kill sappers first.  If you don’t see the sapper, he’s blocked by line of sight and is hiding.  If there are two mob groups close to each other, the sappers will be close enough that your AoE spillover will aggro both.  I’m sure there are many more sapper truisms!

[Call Me Awesome]

Defense is another tactic for Malta... if the Sapper can't hit you he can't drain you.  I find Malta to be fairly easy to handle with a high defense character.  They're something totally different however if you don't have either high defense (Ranged/Energy) or End Drain Resistance.  Sappers are quite overpowered minions unless you can beat their one shot end drain trick.  Those stun grenades the LT's toss are nasty things as well if you don't have Status Protection or high defense... preferably both.

 

Back on Live I remember those stuns having something like 20 second duration... did that change?  I'll admit I haven't run them solo on a non-melee character in awhile and stuns are a non-issue on a Scrapper, Stalker or Tanker.

[HelenCarnate]

Sappers vs baster is a non issue if you are careful.  Most stuff I run in and blow everything up and just keep on plowing through without much regard for what I am targeting first.  With Malta I make sure to look at each group and take out the sappers first.  Instead of opening up with an AoE like I normally do, I find the sapper and either pick them off with my highest damage attack if I can 1 shot them or open with a single target hold.  Every primary has either a snipe that should be able to 1 shot them or enough control to knock them back for a 2nd shot or stun/hold them.   Another thing you can do is get your ranged defense higher (unless you are 45% or more already).  This will reduce the odds of them being able to hit you and give you more time to kill them before they get in melee range.

 

I also run Clarion Core destiny so other than the brief second or 2 for the recast, I have decent status protection to prevent holds. 

Edited December 25, 2019 by HelenCarnate

[boggo2300]

I've come to the conclusion the best way to make a character Malta proof is knowledge, learn the enemy, and make sure you spot the sappers and gunslingers (hilariously just typoed as ginslingers, To the MALTA BAR!)

[Call Me Awesome]

8 minutes ago, boggo2300 said:

I've come to the conclusion the best way to make a character Malta proof is knowledge, learn the enemy, and make sure you spot the sappers and gunslingers (hilariously just typoed as ginslingers, To the MALTA BAR!)

Ah yes, "Know your enemy and know yourself and never in 1,000 battles will you be in danger"

 

Still true thousands of years later.

[Redlynne]

[boggo2300]

5 minutes ago, Call Me Awesome said:

Ah yes, "Know your enemy and know yourself and never in 1,000 battles will you be in danger"

 

Still true thousands of years later.

Yup

 

When I first hit Malta level missions many moons ago on live I really struggled, the combo of Sapper and Gunslinger would often kick my butt, then I learned about how they worked, how their mechanics were triggering, and how they were kicking my butt,  now I farm Malta not for anything but the satisfaction of knowing I have their secrets!!

[HeidiMarquedt]

Thanks for the feedback!

I don't think I made any grossly unwise decisions with my build, so it's re-assuring to hear that the Sappers can be troublesome for most if not combated strategically. 

Dragon Crush thanks for all the info.  I have pretty much been doing what you and Yomo Kimyata and Helencarnate describe, as far as sniping with a 1-shot kill to take the Sapper out first before engaging the rest of the mob. Either I'll hit with blizzard if charged and ready and then follow up with general attacks, or a snipe to finish him off completely first and then follow up with Ion Judgement for good measure. But when there's lots to go through, it sort of takes patience and I get a little antsy wanting to just assault through the way I do with other mobs.  Then I end up paying the price!

And Yomo Kimyata I have also fallen victim to the hidden Sappers who come out and ambush out of nowhere when I had previously seen none within my field of view.  So frustrating!!!  Now I just kinda assume that there is always one present so as to be prepared for the worst. Haha. 

Call Me Awesome, thankfully the stuns aren't problematic as I have Clarion T4'd and set to just keep cycling.  Thank goodness don't have to worry about that! 

 

Thanks guys!!!

 

 

 

[Snarky]

I used to run SS/Invul Brutes back on live. For a year just on SOs when i first started. Great strong characters. Obviously vulnerable to Psi. And REALLY vulnerable to hard hitting end drains. There is no end recovery powers. It is eat blues if you have them

 

soooo. Learn to spot Sappers like a gang member spots the po po. I am nit talking about macros or anything fancy. Use your head. Its malta. Each group prob has one sapper some have 2. A few tough rooms have 3.  Ignore IGNORE everything else. Let time slip away. Hit that blue rifled freak with everything you got. Like he killed your entire family and is about to eat your last relative alive. Keeeeeeel him fast

 

then Malta goes back to being a normal group. Tough. High level mobs

 

Freakshow and Carnies.  Oof. Dont get me started. Similar tactics except try to get away from them as they die. They got bad cooties

[Eva Destruction]

Make a bind or macro to target them so you can take them out and won't be surprised if they're trying to be sneaky and hide behind a robot.  "targetcustomnext sapper."  Then take 'em out; you're a Blaster and they're minions, it'll take like 2 seconds.  Keep a couple of blues on hand in case you miss or you get ambushed.  Once you get into a groove, Malta won't slow you down at all.

[Heraclea]

Make yourself a bind that identifies and targets them.  E.g. /bind numpad0 target_name "sapper".  

 

My current project is an electric armor brute that basically laughs at them, and has been built for recovery anyways.  With this character I worry more about keeping the Operation Engineers from summoning pets.  There will be only one sapper per spawn - it was not always so - but there may be more Engineers. 

[SaintD]

Honestly, knowing which enemy mobs are most dangerous and killing them first is Gaming 101 and you should have been doing it since level 1.

 

Gang Choppers can hit annoyingly hard, Buckshot have damage so low they should be entirely ignored until last.

 

Vahzilok Mortifactors have to die first so they can't resurrect their Cadavers. Catch 22, the Cadavers are OP at low levels and will kill you like a child while the Mortifactors are tanking for them.

 

Council Marksmen always die first, their DPS gets ridiculous if you let the rest of the squad tank for them.

 

Sky Raider Engineers can eat shit, if any of us never see one of their stupid shield robots again it'll be too soon.

 

Circle of Thorns Spectral Daemon Lords can feck off almost as much as Tsoo Sorcerers with all the -tohit bullshit.

 

Arachnos Fortunatas, Tac-ops, and Huntsmen exist only to make the entire mission boring with -recharge.

 

If you're not properly prioritizing targets by the time you're fighting Malta, you need to go back and re-learn how to play the game. When you get back you'll realise that Sappers aren't a problem at all; Gunslingers are. Sappers eat your alpha, so Gunslingers get to stand up long enough to use their huge damage.

Edited December 26, 2019 by SaintD

[Extor Prime]

Malta is the "training pants" group for soloers. Its intent to teach you that the game, in fact, has the capability to punish you for charging into every spawn headlong and hoping to facetank the whole thing.

And of course some characters - in fact a lot of characters - can do just that, but when your blue bar dips unexpectedly because you didn't find and prioritize the sapper, it still should (at least in theory) serve as a notice that there are special mobs out of there that can ruin your day if not prioritized.

Once you learn how to account for sappers, Malta becomes ezpz.

[Outrider_01]

On 12/24/2019 at 9:21 PM, boggo2300 said:

I've come to the conclusion the best way to make a character Malta proof is knowledge, learn the enemy, and make sure you spot the sappers and gunslingers (hilariously just typoed as ginslingers, To the MALTA BAR!)

This.  Blasters got nothing like the other ATs, no status protection, no gimmicks like hide and assassin strike, no massive buffs, and no defense/resistance, no huge group control powers ....this was the old days.  To survive you needed to be smart and knock out the biggest threat first which isn't always the boss, stuns and holds where easier then a single build up / aim as it let you work work the rest of the group dependent on the faction; some had multiple types of NPC with different control powers and a stun drunk sapper isn't fighting back as you kick the gunslingers ass.  Any mez attack knocked off your toggles and before you couldn't even fire your first attacks.

 

You had to learn the biggest threats might be the smallest one out there and target them first.  In short, you got to use your brain as Blasters are the hardest to play as they are the damage AT (not the ranged AT, thats just primary ability of how its achieved.  Blaster is Damage/Damage with controls mostly, other AT are not like that).  Now a days though, IO sets just turn them into mage tanks 🙄

Edited December 26, 2019 by Outrider_01

[Clave Dark 5]

19 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Always kill sappers first.  If you don’t see the sapper, he’s blocked by line of sight and is hiding.  If there are two mob groups close to each other, the sappers will be close enough that your AoE spillover will aggro both.  I’m sure there are many more sapper truisms!

Sappers can smell fear. 

Sappers can see through walls. 

Sappers can turn milk sour and cause your crops to fail.

Sappers speak with the Devil on moonless nights.

A sapper once bit my sister...

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think I found the objectively worst mission yesterday from Tina Mac.  It was a timed mission, on a large Oregano map, Malta enemies, find 12! captives.  And I couldn't auto-complete it.  I just logged.

[KC4800]

There is at least one hero alignment mission against Malta that you have to make it through 4 or 5 sapper led ambushes after you beat the boss. So there's also that one. Was challenging for my EM/Inv Brute. I had to stand by the entry door and pop out if they drained me. Yeah, that felt like cheating but, it kept me alive. However, my Rad/WM tank didn't care. My BeamRifle/Ninja Sentinal didn't care. My Ill/TA Controller barely cared. All depends on your powersets. Resistance based defenses will have more trouble than defense based. Even if you're not at cap, just carry purples so they hit you less. But like others have said, hit them first before they see you, when you can (not always possible). I like to take my time when I do Malta missions so that I minimize mistakes. I am thinking my Beast/Nature MM will find the aforementioned Hero mission a challenge. 

[Nemu]

Rule number 1: Purple inspirations and breakfrees are your best friends. I find purples take priority during leveling when your build has not matured yet but then breakfrees become more important as you go into end game and as your build matures (depending on how you build of course, if you didn't build for any defenses then they are both still your best friends in the end game). Use down time and insp combine other inspirations into those two.

 

Rule number 2: Always have some form of stealth. With the stealth IO being so cheap nowadays there is no reason why any toon shouldn't have a stealth IO in sprint or one of the prestige variants. Bonus points if you take Super Speed or Stealth for full invisibility. It will make your approach a lot easier and you can also just stealth missions.

 

Rule number 3: This is quite subjective but build for defenses. Either softcap ranged or typed. Ranged defense is probably cheaper to build but you are pretty much forced into taking thunderstrikes which have poor set bonuses other than ranged defense and accuracy, and ranged builds tend to be more slot starved and slot inefficient because you end up wasting slots to get the bonus like 6 slotting red fortune into a defense toggle. the benefit though is that you can take a resistance armor for more layered protection, provided you stay at range, which doesn't always happen.. You can build a blaster that is softcapped against S/L/E/F/C which covers a lot more bases but it's expensive, and it requires scorpion shield and a ton of winter IOs. I favor typed defense, with winter and purple IOs you can still have around 30% fire/cold resistance and you can still have around 30% S/L resistance if you toggle tough with the +resistance all uniques.

 

Rule number 4: Monitor your combat stats. I normally monitor lethal, cold, energy, negative energy and psi defense because I have a typed defense build. Debuffs are a thing and things quickly cascade down if you do get hit with a nasty debuff. If you see that you are getting debuffed then rule number 1 will save your life.

 

Now onto target prioritization:

 

If you didn't build for defense but have clarion, sappers first, then anything else. Each mob you face has the potential to disable you, sappers are just the most annoying.

 

If you have softcapped defense and clarion, then sappers are not as big an issue, I find the robots and their burn patches to be more dangerous. If the Zeus titan lands a burn on you that's about half your health and greens are your best friend. As an ice/ice you have ways to put those boys in time out while you deal with the fodder.

 

I think for you though maybe rule number 3 is what will get your over your hump.

[TyrantMikey]

10 hours ago, SaintD said:

Vahzilok Mortifactors have to die first so they can't resurrect their Cadavers. Catch 22, the Cadavers are OP at low levels and will kill you like a child while the Mortifactors are tanking for them.

I've observed an interesting phenomena with Vahz, and wonder if anyone else has observed this.

 

Group of Vahz with zombies, and a mortie or reaper. As long as there's a living member in the group, the zombies are active and will attack.

 

I can take out the mortie and/or reaper, then disengage and withdraw, then wait. After a certain amount of time, the zombies go dormant. I can then move back into melee range and they still won't engage. It's as if they need a human to give them orders.

 

Note that this is not true if I am on a tank or toon with an active taunt aura. But it definitely works for blasters and controllers.

 

Has anyone else observed this?

 

 

[Call Me Awesome]

50 minutes ago, TyrantMikey said:

I've observed an interesting phenomena with Vahz, and wonder if anyone else has observed this.

 

Group of Vahz with zombies, and a mortie or reaper. As long as there's a living member in the group, the zombies are active and will attack.

 

I can take out the mortie and/or reaper, then disengage and withdraw, then wait. After a certain amount of time, the zombies go dormant. I can then move back into melee range and they still won't engage. It's as if they need a human to give them orders.

 

Note that this is not true if I am on a tank or toon with an active taunt aura. But it definitely works for blasters and controllers.

 

Has anyone else observed this?

 

 

This is known behavior since the start of the game, the zombies are brainless and have almost no perception radius.  With the living mobs gone they react like you're invisible... their aggro radius shrinks to just a few feet.

[TyrantMikey]

2 hours ago, Call Me Awesome said:

This is known behavior since the start of the game, the zombies are brainless and have almost no perception radius.  With the living mobs gone they react like you're invisible... their aggro radius shrinks to just a few feet.

That's interesting. For something that's in the game since launch, I've never heard or read anyone mention it as "strategy" before.

[boggo2300]

16 hours ago, SaintD said:

Honestly, knowing which enemy mobs are most dangerous and killing them first is Gaming 101 and you should have been doing it since level 1.

 

Gang Choppers can hit annoyingly hard, Buckshot have damage so low they should be entirely ignored until last.

 

Vahzilok Mortifactors have to die first so they can't resurrect their Cadavers. Catch 22, the Cadavers are OP at low levels and will kill you like a child while the Mortifactors are tanking for them.

 

Council Marksmen always die first, their DPS gets ridiculous if you let the rest of the squad tank for them.

 

Sky Raider Engineers can eat shit, if any of us never see one of their stupid shield robots again it'll be too soon.

 

Circle of Thorns Spectral Daemon Lords can feck off almost as much as Tsoo Sorcerers with all the -tohit bullshit.

 

Arachnos Fortunatas, Tac-ops, and Huntsmen exist only to make the entire mission boring with -recharge.

 

If you're not properly prioritizing targets by the time you're fighting Malta, you need to go back and re-learn how to play the game. When you get back you'll realise that Sappers aren't a problem at all; Gunslingers are. Sappers eat your alpha, so Gunslingers get to stand up long enough to use their huge damage.

Lol, your list matches mine to a spooky level

[boggo2300]

5 hours ago, TyrantMikey said:

I've observed an interesting phenomena with Vahz, and wonder if anyone else has observed this.

 

Group of Vahz with zombies, and a mortie or reaper. As long as there's a living member in the group, the zombies are active and will attack.

 

I can take out the mortie and/or reaper, then disengage and withdraw, then wait. After a certain amount of time, the zombies go dormant. I can then move back into melee range and they still won't engage. It's as if they need a human to give them orders.

 

Note that this is not true if I am on a tank or toon with an active taunt aura. But it definitely works for blasters and controllers.

 

Has anyone else observed this?

 

 

Vahz zombies are short sighted, so once you get rid of the living member of their mob they revert to their own observation distance of you standing on their toes

 

tldr: yes