Ms Liberty Task force

[cgilm2526]

Hi All,

 

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this. Some friends and I attempted to complete the Ms Liberty Task Force yesterday. It was pretty much a moderate level TF with a few deaths in the first 4 missions. Where the issue came in was killing Recluse. All the research we had done showed that 1 tank and 2 healers would pull Recluse over into a corner while the rest of the team destroys the Red Tower. Our tank (Fire Attack, Will Power Defense) had a lot of issues holding aggro. It seemed Recluse randomly attacked anybody in our team. We couldn’t even get the first tower (Red) down to half before we were all dead. We continued to try but he was one-shotting everyone, including the tank.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to complete this TF?

Thank you

Chris

[Crysis]

Don't know anything about how your Tanker was slotted, or how your buffers were supporting same, but Willpower should be enough if the tanker was well slotted, which would allow softcapped +DEF to all Typed damage (other than PSI) and max +RES for S/L at a minimum.

 

I've done the TF several times WITHOUT a tanker, and we always end up having to deal with both LR at the towers -and- the tower healers.  Someone has to be able to distract him away from tower attackers or its just really hard to get the red one down as that red tower as you know is where he's getting his ability to drop greater than 1000 pts of damage in a single blow.  If you are taking incoming fire from arachnos while taking on him and trying to take down red tower all at same time, then yeah you will have issues without a strong taunter.   You didn't mention flyer but I'm assuming you dropped it before moving in?  

[MunkiLord]

Sometimes going for the blue tower first is the better strategy because that gives Recluse a huge to hit bonus, and extra speed and recharge. Plus I'd go in with lots of purple and orange inspirations for anybody tanking him. I don't know the exact numbers needed, but bring enough to max out resists and defense. Once he can't hit as often, then the rest will generally be easier. If your healers are debuffers, then I'd make sure they focus their abilities on the towers so they go down as quickly as possible. Any Incarnates can use their Lore pets there as well for the added DPS and potential buff/debuffs. When going after the towers save any AoE attacks not a part of your normal attack chain for the repairmen that pop up.

 

If the team is strong enough, a lot of people skip the blue tower altogether(I do too quite often), but that to hit buff can cause issues if defenses aren't high enough.

 

A lot of recent advice you find on this TF may be assuming a team of all or nearly all Incaranates, and a team like that could likely just overpower the final battle.

 

Paragonwiki also has a couple alternate strategies for him: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Ms._Liberty_Task_Force#Stop_Lord_Recluse.21

[cgilm2526]

59 minutes ago, Crysis said:

Don't know anything about how your Tanker was slotted, or how your buffers were supporting same, but Willpower should be enough if the tanker was well slotted, which would allow softcapped +DEF to all Typed damage (other than PSI) and max +RES for S/L at a minimum.

 

I've done the TF several times WITHOUT a tanker, and we always end up having to deal with both LR at the towers -and- the tower healers.  Someone has to be able to distract him away from tower attackers or its just really hard to get the red one down as that red tower as you know is where he's getting his ability to drop greater than 1000 pts of damage in a single blow.  If you are taking incoming fire from arachnos while taking on him and trying to take down red tower all at same time, then yeah you will have issues without a strong taunter.   You didn't mention flyer but I'm assuming you dropped it before moving in?  

Yes, we did drop the flyer before we starting in on Recluse.  Another issue were the adds. Not that they were tough. But, trying to kill them before the healed the Red tower didnt help. 

 

[Crysis]

1 hour ago, cgilm2526 said:

Yes, we did drop the flyer before we starting in on Recluse.  Another issue were the adds. Not that they were tough. But, trying to kill them before the healed the Red tower didnt help. 

 

Having someone who can drop a toggle debuff on LR will prevent him from calling in the additional forces.  Radiation debuffs, etc.  And the additional Arachnos forces will stack the -DEF debuffs on you.

 

The healers aren't a threat directly, but you gotta get them before they get off their heals on the towers.  Dropping a bonfire, Caltrops or any other "keep away" barrier kind of powers around base of tower will keep them away.  Even good old Repel is decent.

Edited April 20, 2020 by Crysis

[Intrinsic]

Lord Recluse is tethered to the platform with the towers.  If you try to drag him too far away, he will run back and you will lose aggro.  That may have been the reason the tanker couldn't keep aggro on him.  When tanking LR I drag him near the building in the back, equidistant from the rear towers, and don't have problems.

 

I had to tank LR a lot back during the retail release,  usually with my blaster or dominator or some other squishy character.  My strategy is to:

 

• Use a jetpack to fly just outside of LR's melee attacks.  This is just for the tower phase, to limit the frequency of attacks LR can land on me.
• Use inspirations.  Lots of them.   Purples to raise my defense to at least 75%, and greens to heal quickly when I get hit (very important while the red tower is still up).  I'll even email extra greens to myself beforehand just in case I run out during the fight.

The game's mechanics prevent a character at full health from being OHKO-ed, so even though some of LR's attacks could do more damage than my total health, I would still live as long as I healed back up to full in between hits.

 

Even on a squishy character, I could generally survive long enough for the rest of the team to take down at least one tower.  If I'm prepared (and a little lucky) I could go the entire fight without dying.  If I'm playing an actual tanker, then it's a breeze.

[Heraclea]

On 4/20/2020 at 1:13 PM, cgilm2526 said:

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this. Some friends and I attempted to complete the Ms Liberty Task Force yesterday. It was pretty much a moderate level TF with a few deaths in the first 4 missions. Where the issue came in was killing Recluse. All the research we had done showed that 1 tank and 2 healers would pull Recluse over into a corner while the rest of the team destroys the Red Tower. Our tank (Fire Attack, Will Power Defense) had a lot of issues holding aggro. It seemed Recluse randomly attacked anybody in our team. We couldn’t even get the first tower (Red) down to half before we were all dead. We continued to try but he was one-shotting everyone, including the tank.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to complete this TF?

I generally don't attempt to tank Recluse on a tanker or brute until they have Barrier to at least t3.   Without that my best recommendation would be a whole tray full of large inspirations (16 purple, four orange) and to keep them up until the towers are down.  Pocket buffs for the tank, both for defense and for healing, should also be there,  No tanker primary has the defense or resistance to stand up to Recluse without assistance. 

 

 I don't know how to glitch Recluse by hover tanking him, and it probably requires twitch skills that I no longer have. 

[tidge]

59 minutes ago, Heraclea said:

I generally don't attempt to tank Recluse on a tanker or brute until they have Barrier to at least t3.   Without that my best recommendation would be a whole tray full of large inspirations (16 purple, four orange) and to keep them up until the towers are down.  Pocket buffs for the tank, both for defense and for healing, should also be there,  No tanker primary has the defense or resistance to stand up to Recluse without assistance. 

 

 I don't know how to glitch Recluse by hover tanking him, and it probably requires twitch skills that I no longer have. 

Nothing special follows, just my personal experience: The only character with whom I was able to tank a Master of Lord Recluse run with was an Invuln Tank, using flight to avoid standing toe-to-toe with him (sigh, Invincibility). Dull Pain was on auto (perma, even if Hasten is not) with a T4 Radial Rebirth ready for the healing/regen. Some purples were consumed as well.  I couldn't really 'glitch' him and it was a more stressful run than I care to repeat. Tip o' the hat to those that have built to do it regularly.

[ZekeStenzland]

Had similar issues with my tank this weekend. Bio/Rad, can handle lots of things with ease, but not LR. Didn’t think to try piles of inspirations. But we had other things going against us. I was only 45 at the time, and not even close to end game build. Also, I think we only had empathy and storm for support, so not much in the way of debuffing. 
 

Didn’t have much trouble on my Sav/Inv brute, once I switched from jet pack to super jump. But I’m pretty sure he was incarnated at the time, so hardly a fair comparison. 

[Mr. Vee]

2 hours ago, Heraclea said:

 I don't know how to glitch Recluse by hover tanking him, and it probably requires twitch skills that I no longer have. 

no twitches needed. just jetpack high up near one of the poles around the middle and keep taunting him. he'll run up the pole and try to hit you but most of his attacks can't. Repeat until the team's done with the towers. I've done it on an underleveled brute.

[SuperPlyx]

I just tanked LR with my Rad Armor tank a few days ago.I didn't have any problems with him,stood in the center of the towers with him while team knocked them out. I don't recall needing Barrier to do it....Can't say exactly what team buffs I had on me. Guess I need to do it again and see what I was using.

[Infinitum]

Something different I have noticed recently is a wicked end drain when tankimg recluse, but mine was strong enough to survive the toggle drop, maintain agro and retoggle once i clicked ageless.

 

Still something I havent seen before and,I have went toe to toe with him with elec armor brutes with no insp use, shield tanks, invul tanks, and rad tanks.

 

This was with a shield that had facef him before with no issue.

 

And when I say end drain I mean, like it wad 3/4 and I looked away for a sec and I heard toggles dropping.

 

Never had any issues tanking him toe to toe solo, no insp use before this incident though.

[macskull]

2 hours ago, Infinitum said:

Something different I have noticed recently is a wicked end drain when tankimg recluse, but mine was strong enough to survive the toggle drop, maintain agro and retoggle once i clicked ageless.

 

Still something I havent seen before and,I have went toe to toe with him with elec armor brutes with no insp use, shield tanks, invul tanks, and rad tanks.

 

This was with a shield that had facef him before with no issue.

 

And when I say end drain I mean, like it wad 3/4 and I looked away for a sec and I heard toggles dropping.

 

Never had any issues tanking him toe to toe solo, no insp use before this incident though.

His Channelgun attack has some pretty serious -end/-recovery and it'll catch you with your pants down if you're not expecting it. He's had that attack since the TF was added to the game, so maybe you've gotten lucky.

[Olly]

On 4/20/2020 at 1:13 PM, cgilm2526 said:

Hi All,

 Our tank (Fire Attack, Will Power Defense) had a lot of issues holding aggro. It seemed Recluse randomly attacked anybody in our team. We couldn’t even get the first tower (Red) down to half before we were all dead. We continued to try but he was one-shotting everyone, including the tank.

Any thoughts or suggestions on how to complete this TF?

I tanked LR on my scrapper. To tank LR, you need a few things:

(1) Accuracy -- if you don't hit him, you won't keep his aggro.  Ideally you have a toggle attack power. If not, even your fastest attack power will help. Use 1-2 small insps to get past the red tower and give your tank some breathing room.  Note that wiping after red tower is down and all repairmen dead, or running away back to the boat, is a fine strategy.  Also note you can go back out and grab more insps from the AH/hosp at this point for your tank.

 

(2) Defense -- If you're not kiting him, you need about 70% S/L defense until the red tower is down. Either pop inspirations or get your teammates to up your defense.

 

(3) Some backup blue insps. As someone mentioned, his end drain power can sometimes hit and take 85% of your end away.  You want to carry 1-2 blue insps just in case he hits you before red tower is down. 

 

Losing aggro can also be caused if the other team members (like a kin healer, for example), target and hit LR while your tank is whiffing.  So keep him far enough away from any AOEs being used for the tower while tanking and make sure your tank isn't missing their attacks.

 

With regards to the repairmen, they start to spawn after a tower is 50% damaged. And 1-2 will spawn sporadically after that. You have 2 seconds to kill them before they heal a tower. Either have someone on repairman duty or spam knockdown/flee attacks like bonfire or rain or sleet.  Again, you can disengage after each tower. I love (hate) when teams just keep trying to rez and return from the boat to get a tower down.  That is almost always a fail tactic.  Reset, get your tank the insps to hit their acc & defense numbers, and reset again @ 50% tower health if your tank needs an insps refill.

 

I am a big fan of the tower order: red, yellow, green, with blue optional. Especially for teams with tanks on the ground. If you're kiting, the red isn't as big a deal. 

 

I'm also a fan of using the center alcove once all towers are down. If the flier respawns, it won't get aggro if your team is whaling away at LR in the alcove; whereas sometimes even in the corners I've gotten flier aggro on teams. But the alcove is almost a guaranteed no-flier-aggro spot.

 

None of this matters if you have 8 vet level 20 or whatever on your team, but it does matter if your team is short on dps one way or another.

 

 

 

[Razor Cure]

6 minutes ago, Olly said:

(1) Accuracy -- if you don't hit him, you won't keep his aggro. 

You NEED a taunt. An auto hit one.

 

Honestly, this whole thread does make me laugh. I mean, it is one thing for an unprepared team to be doing it and wipe, but now, the chances of having EIGHT people who have zero idea about teh task force all being on the one team? Pretty low.

And considering how easy it all is, compared to RSF (still, even with IOs and incarnates)...oh no..4 AVs at once. Oh no..1 AV at once. Oh bigger no, one AV at once that you can FLY over and spaz out.

Also, empowerment buffs are your friends. End drain, energy res, and recovery. ALl will help.

 

[cgilm2526]

Thanks everyone for the replies. It is definitely appreciated. A lot of things to look at when trying this again. Thank you

[tidge]

11 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

 ALl will help.

 

I should hope Ali will help!

 

[Shred Monkey]

If the tank monitors tohit he can see if LR is at the floor of his hit chance.  (not sure in this case the exact number for LR in this TF but I think it is going to be something like 11.8 or 12.5... if it's higher than that, the tank should pop more purple inspirations)  I usually have chat tab where i monitor only tohit rolls.  I don't always use it, but in high end AV fights I'll pull it up.  It shows both outgoing and incoming attacks but with a little practice you get used to spotting the incoming attack rolls quickly to see if the defenses are working at maximum.  He's probably going to need 2 small purples if not 3 on at a time if the tohit bonus tower is still up.

 

Definitely kill the repairman as fast as possible.  The towers don't regen on their own, so there's no benefit to DPSing them so hard you can't pause to hit a repairman.

 

Also, be careful what advice you follow and ignore the criticism.  I don't see any bad advice in this thread, but I expect see some.  This TF gets run by high end toons a lot, and there a ton of shortcuts that work if the team is fully loaded.  My best advice is you stick to what you're doing, use more inspirations, and enjoy the ride.

 

[Intrinsic]

16 hours ago, Olly said:

Accuracy -- if you don't hit him, you won't keep his aggro.

Accuracy isn't really necessary.  I can keep LR's aggro if I go in before the rest of the team, and keep him well away from the towers.

 

Note that I may not be hitting LR, but I do attack him at least.  I haven't tried holding his attention just using proximity aggro.

16 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

Honestly, this whole thread does make me laugh. I mean, it is one thing for an unprepared team to be doing it and wipe, but now, the chances of having EIGHT people who have zero idea about teh task force all being on the one team? Pretty low.

On the retail servers, I'd say about 1/3 of the time I ended up having to tank LR during the tower phase with my blaster or other squishy character.  The brute or tanker on the team couldn't do it (and didn't want to listen to tanking advice from a blaster), and everyone else on the team was unable or unwilling to step up.  On Torchbearer, I think I've only had to do it once.  Mind you, these were all PUGs, and I suspect the retail servers had a much higher percentage of casual players than the Homecoming servers.

 

[drbuzzard]

2 hours ago, Shred Monkey said:

Definitely kill the repairman as fast as possible.  The towers don't regen on their own, so there's no benefit to DPSing them so hard you can't pause to hit a repairman.

 

I would suggest the easiest way to do this is just toss a couple of AOEs into your attack chain when taking out the towers, and you won't have to worry about the repairmen. They will just die without you noticing. 

[Olly]

19 hours ago, Razor Cure said:

You NEED a taunt. An auto hit one.

 

You don't need a taunt. Otherwise, we wouldn't have AT's that have no access to taunt able to tank him. (scrappers, blasters, etc.) You just need to hit him enough. And I did not have taunt on my scrap whilst I tanked him next to the towers.

[Olly]

2 hours ago, Intrinsic said:

Accuracy isn't really necessary.  I can keep LR's aggro if I go in before the rest of the team, and keep him well away from the towers.

I haven't tried that. I assume it works because no one else is within LoS of LR. 

[Intrinsic]

Could be, or maybe it's because I was the first to get on his hate list.  I'm not really certain how those game mechanics work.  I'm sure a determined teammate could easily peel him off of me.  One could argue that I'm not so much 'tanking' LR as 'keeping him occupied' while the rest of the team goes to work on the towers.

[Zeraphia]

A huge tip (I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but you can buy a temp power Jet Pack from P2W (get the tanker to do this), have the Tanker use a large purple or two, have said Tanker fly up to one of the 4 poles. On that pole, there are essentially four little "spikes" tell the Tanker to situate himself between two of the spikes, close to the pole but not ON the pole. 

It will look sort of like this if you are standing above, the little cross is the pole's spikes, the dot would be the tanker. The Tanker needs to stay in this position between the two spikes.

 

Doing this will cause LR to repeatedly jump on the pole to try to "catch" the player, but because you are in an awkward position, LR will repeatedly fall down the pole, and he will not be able to use his attacks. You essentially "hold" him hostage by doing this strategy until all of the viable towers are done. 

 

There's the big Tanking trick way to cheese LR.

 

I took a trip to Grandeville to give a more detailed guide on how to do it!

 

These are the poles I am talking about that the tanker will fly toward with LR (this tanker needs to grab LR's attention for a brief minute, one large purple is all that's really needed provided you have decent res (40+ to E/S/L) and 20%+ def, taunt him, make sure when you taunt him, you get him before and after someone on your team hits the first tower. 

 

After that, fly toward the pole in this EXACT position

 

LR will never hit you again after that and your team can safely take down the towers with ease. 

 

Basically why I think this works is because enemies will try to hit you with the most damaging power they have that is in their range, when you fly up to this tower, you are just inside of his theoretical "melee" range, meaning the higher hitting attacks would hit you, but not far enough away for him to use his channelgun power. So he keeps trying to get you on this pole, and just keeps falling down, because he gets so close to using his hardest hitting melee attack, but unfortunately, because you're in the air, and he keeps falling down, he doesn't quite "get in range" to do it because he keeps trying to take the pole.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Zeraphia

[cgilm2526]

On 4/23/2020 at 7:26 AM, Zeraphia said:

A huge tip (I don't know if it's been mentioned yet, but you can buy a temp power Jet Pack from P2W (get the tanker to do this), have the Tanker use a large purple or two, have said Tanker fly up to one of the 4 poles. On that pole, there are essentially four little "spikes" tell the Tanker to situate himself between two of the spikes, close to the pole but not ON the pole. 

It will look sort of like this if you are standing above, the little cross is the pole's spikes, the dot would be the tanker. The Tanker needs to stay in this position between the two spikes.

 

Doing this will cause LR to repeatedly jump on the pole to try to "catch" the player, but because you are in an awkward position, LR will repeatedly fall down the pole, and he will not be able to use his attacks. You essentially "hold" him hostage by doing this strategy until all of the viable towers are done. 

 

There's the big Tanking trick way to cheese LR.

 

I took a trip to Grandeville to give a more detailed guide on how to do it!

 

These are the poles I am talking about that the tanker will fly toward with LR (this tanker needs to grab LR's attention for a brief minute, one large purple is all that's really needed provided you have decent res (40+ to E/S/L) and 20%+ def, taunt him, make sure when you taunt him, you get him before and after someone on your team hits the first tower. 

 

After that, fly toward the pole in this EXACT position

 

LR will never hit you again after that and your team can safely take down the towers with ease. 

 

Basically why I think this works is because enemies will try to hit you with the most damaging power they have that is in their range, when you fly up to this tower, you are just inside of his theoretical "melee" range, meaning the higher hitting attacks would hit you, but not far enough away for him to use his channelgun power. So he keeps trying to get you on this pole, and just keeps falling down, because he gets so close to using his hardest hitting melee attack, but unfortunately, because you're in the air, and he keeps falling down, he doesn't quite "get in range" to do it because he keeps trying to take the pole.

That is awesome. Thank you for the great strategy.