Titan/Bio Scrapper STF solo: tactics

[Olly]

Wrote this guide up for soloing Statesman's Task Force aka Ms. Liberty's Task Force. It's definitely one of the most challenging solo attempts I tried. Once I figured out the mechanics and buffs I needed, I was able to finally solo the STF/MsLTF task force using a melee, ground-based approach. I’ve focused my detail on the spots that gave me particular trouble. I ran it on the lowest difficulty setting, but because it’s a TF, I don’t think it makes a difference with the boss spawns. For sure I had a level 54 Lord Recluse to contend with. In before the nerf! Text in spoilers, thanks for reading massive wall of text.

 

 

A. Build notes and mission prep

Spoiler

Some notes on my build: Titan/Bio, used the “Offensive” Bio armor build almost throughout the TF. With that build, I am at about 42% Smashing/Lethal defense. To up my survivability, I used the super group (SG) buffs for smashing, lethal, and increase attack speed. I often used increase knockback and increase knockback resistance as well. I bought the offensive and defensive buffs from the P2W vendor but I don’t think you really need them until Aeon (mission 3) and the final mission (mission 4). This brings my defense up to ~47% without inspirations. My inspiration kit out was usually ~16 medium purple (+25% defense for 1 minute), and 2-3 med/large greens. Unless otherwise stated, my incarnates were ageless, musculature, diamagnetic, cataphract longbow, assault, and cryonic. I had one force feedback proc in my build, in arc of destruction. Important: for this TF guide, you *absolutely need* caltrops as an epic pool power choice. You *might* get away with using Banished Pantheon lore pets, but I didn’t have them and so they weren’t an option for me. Either one is needed for taking down the pylons in the final mission.  I bring along the Black Wand temp power for the last mission, and have my sprint slotted with Stealth. I bought about 10 applications of Manticore (support) and Positron (ranged, -regen) each to help with some of the tougher fights. Lastly, I monitor my % defense. My normal UI has smashing defense % and resists, so I just went with that.

 

Mission 0: stock up your base or auction house inventory with a whole bunch of medium purples. You probably want to plan for 2-3 sets (32-48 purples) for missions 1 and 2, and 1 set for mission 3 (16), and 3-4 sets for mission 4. Mission 5 has got insane requirements. I had at least 16 ultimates, 4 sets of purple/greens for the 4 av’s, 1-2 sets for the flier, and about 6 sets of the tower insps loadout (greens, reds, large purples, 3-4 ultimates per tower, see section below). I don’t think I used all the insps, but you do need to stock up. Also stock up on the materials you’ll need for the SG buff station. Lastly, buy envenomed daggers from the Pay2Win store and restock after major fights.

 

B. Missions 1-3

Spoiler

Mission 1: Pretty easy. Nothing special, just defeat Arbiter Sands. Possibly use 1 purple per minute so that I had ~ 70% defense. Refill inspirations after the fight. I can’t recall if I used pets. But if I did, it would be Seers because that’s the unkillable pet I have. The ambushes might wreak havoc on their aggro.

 

Mission 2: Again, pretty easy and nothing special. Defeat the 4 mini-bosses just like you would in a team. I did make sure to defeat all the adds in the group before I tackled the mini-boss, *just in case*.  Refill insps after the fight.

 

Mission 3: Rolling right along. Switch to defensive bio armor when I entered the mission, fly/super jump into the right door (about 1 o’clock from the big tree), then semi-stealthed my way down to the thorn tree room. Did not pause to engage any aggro’d adds. Also didn’t engage any adds while killing the vines, just any that I happened to aggro. 

 

C. Mission 4

Spoiler

Mission 4: Where it starts to get tough. Mail yourself 12 purple inspirations before you start. Kill all the ambush adds for each security chief before moving on. Then kill the four mini-bosses. I didn’t need anything special to do so.

 

Fighting Dr. Aeon: After you defeat Ice Mistral and clear out the adds in the room with Dr. Aeon, don’t engage him at once. Exit the mission to refill your insps and envenomed daggers. Iirc, here I switched my destiny lore from ageless to barrier in preparation for Aeon boss fight. Pet was switched to seer (unkillable) lore. Mail yourself some purple insps if you feel like it. I also bought all three buffs from the P2W store at this point, and some grenades for extra knockback powers.  It is *very* helpful to add knockback increase from your SG buffs. Make sure you have fear and hold resists, in addition to the other SG buffs you should already have. You might decide to replace 3-4 purples with ultimates as well. Lastly, create and activate a chat tab strictly to monitor NPC dialogue, and no other channels. You need to know when Aeon hits his super buff. All ready? On to Dr. Aeon.

 

Dr. Aeon has a really strong Alpha strike and buff. I make sure my s/l defense is at 70% plus, and use the Bio defense armor to start the fight and take the alpha. Once engaged, Aeon will be unaffected and take zero damage unless you hit him with the thorn tree temp power. Do that. Then switch to efficient or offensive bio armor and whale away at Aeon. Every once in a while, hit him with envenomed daggers and grenade his radiation clone to stop him from debuffing you so much. Make sure you stay above 45%, and ideally 60% defense. At some point, Dr. Aeon will use his massive buff, with which he can nearly one-shot you. Aeon will say something in chat before he uses it.  “Preparing Temporal..” something or other. The moment you see him say that in chat, run away as fast as you can. Kite him around the room, but keep out of his attack range. Dr. Aeon will have a purple aura when he has the buff. Just wait and try not to get hit by him. When his aura disappears, go back to business. I use my lore pets at around the 20% hp mark, as it takes a while to chip away at his health. I can’t recall if I used any Pay2Win pets here, but if you do, I think melee would be the most effective, if just to soak up debuffs from the Aeon clones while at least doing some damage to Aeon. Ranged and support are useless, as they get tagged by the clones’ AOE attacks, mezzes, and other debuffs. If you run low on purples, use the ones you mailed to yourself. Spam caltrops to annoy his clones and stop them from casting.

 

 

D. Mission 5, up to the four villains

 

Spoiler

Mission 5: Definitely the toughest. If you’ve done a lot of STF’s in teams, you know this is where a team can hit a brick wall even though they’ve been cruising through the first four missions. The difficulty is ramped up significantly, and you’ll want to prepare accordingly. I clear out all the adds between the boat and the four AV’s, mostly because I don’t want to deal with them if AV pulls get out of hand. Plus, I’m solo, so it’s not like there are a ton of adds anyways.

 

After you’ve cleared the adds, go out of the instance and prepare your buffs and inspiration load outs. Make sure you have all the SG buff resists you need, including holds and mezzes. I didn’t need the Pay2Win buffs until Scirocco and Ghost Widow, but go ahead and use them now if you want. My incarnates were diamagnetic, ageless, and seer (along with assault and musculature). I used cryonic (-50% speed/recharge), though maybe void (-50% damage) or vorpal (+30% defense) would be ok too.

Black Scorpion, Mako, Scirocco, and Ghost Widow. In that order. You need to solo each alone. For BS and Mako, my inspiration load-out was 20 medium purples. I found I didn’t need to refill until after BS. To pull Black Scorpion, I turn on sprint to engage stealth, turn off any toggle AOE attacks, turn on my travel power (SJ) and lurk like a stalker next to the right side of the center column, out of LoS from Scir & GW.  I use black wand to tag BS, then run back almost to the end of the platform and dash out of LoS behind the third or fourth pillar down. If I do the pull right, BS comes by himself. If Mako shows up, I run all the way back to the boat, and either reset the pull or lurk until both of them run back and then I tag BS again. Once I have BS solo, I start the fight and keep going from there. Do the same for Mako, again making sure you are out of LoS from the remaining villains. Mako does high lethal damage, so you want to make sure you plan for that.

Once Mako is down, refill your insps and daggers, and make sure you have at least 2 large greens for Scir. Change to Seer Lore, for heals if Scir hits you badly. Mail yourself about 12 purple insps. I used the Pay2Win buffs here, too. You can re-apply your SG buffs now if you want, but usually I waited until GW to do so. (just delete the temp power from the “Powers” window so that you can restart the timer on them.)  Make sure you have lethal resist buffed. I pull Scirocco from the same place I pulled BS and Mako, making sure to be out of LoS of GW. Scirocco is very dangerous. He has a power that can drop your defense % to zero, at which point you are one or two hits away from wiping. If I see my defense % go below 50%, I run away, wait for my numbers to go back up, then re-engage Scir, much the same way as Aeon. Alternately, eat more purples to get up to at least 50%. I pop seer lore at about 70% of Scir’s hp. I didn’t need Ultimates, but certainly they would make the fight easier. I usually end up running all over the place with Scir, which is why I clear out the field at the start.

 

On to Ghost Widow. Once Scirocco is down, make sure you have the fear, holds & mezzes resist SG buffs. I used the Pay2Win buffs here, as I really didn’t want her to hit me with either a leech heal attack or her holds. I didn’t use an ultimate, but again, it doesn’t hurt. Pull GW back to the platform to avoid engaging the flier. Run around a pillar if you need to pull her back from the edge. I found lore pets useless against her. If you are going to use a Pay2Win pet, go with Manticore. The rest will go melee, which is harmful as she can do really big heals off them.  Because of GW’s heal factor, it’s critical that you keep your defense way up; around 60% or 70% range – she can’t heal if she can’t hit you. And also, her Soul Storm hold is brutal. I can survive it if I have the SG holds resists buff, but I rather just avoid it entirely as it eats a ton of my insps at that point.

Refill with purples for the flier. I usually just go and use small instead of medium ones.

 

The flier. Nothing special, just take it down (maybe eat some purples as you do). You do need to kill the adds it spawns and can’t just ignore them, though.

 

E. Mission 5, taking down the towers

Spoiler

The Towers, part One. For incarnates, go barrier, and void. For the first rounds to get all four to 50%, I use an inspiration loadout of 1-2 medium blue, 2 healths, 2-4 reds, and rest medium purple.  Before you rush a tower, make sure you use 2 purples, have a shield (ablative carapace), and in defensive bio armor to take LR’s alpha strike. Keep popping 2 purples at a time as you take down the tower. Either stay in defensive bio or go offensive. I stayed defensive and took my time, having LR trying to whup me the whole time.

 

The key thing to note is that you can chip away at a tower until around 50% of its health before repairmen show up.  So….do that.  Once you get to 60% on a tower, or your purple insps run out, run away, lose LR aggro, and refill your insps. 

 

Check on the flier. You want to destroy it again before you take on the red tower.

 

The red tower. Downing the red tower is critical to surviving ground-based combat with LR. At this point the red tower should be down to 50% health. Go out and refill your Pay2Win buffs, and SG smashing, lethal, and end drain resist buffs. At this point, I used ageless, and changed lore to Seer (you can try BP here). I changed from Diamagnetic to reactive to help take down towers. Possibly Void might be better than cryonic, but I used cryonic at the time.  Inspiration loadout is: 2 ultimates, 1-2 greens, 2 blues, 2 red, and the rest large purples.  Pop your incarnates (save lore if it’s up) and defensive insps, and your ultimate insp before rushing the tower; making sure you are well over 70% -- use two large purples at a time. Get ready for repairmen to show up almost as soon as you get there. Your first attack should be caltrops on the tower. When the repairmen arrive, you have 2 seconds to defeat them. So prioritise your AOEs accordingly. Once LR has finished his alpha, take out your pets. I used Manticore here, because Positron likes to sometimes come in close and kill himself on LR’s AOEs.  You can’t afford that happening on the red tower. Keep an eye on your defense % and the cooldown on your AOEs. Spam caltrops and make sure you always have one AOE ready to execute should repairmen show up. Go efficient bio armor when you need, but I found I didn’t. Pop another ultimate if the first one runs out on you before you’re done.

 

The Towers, part Two. Use the same inspiration loadout, incarnate, and SG buffs as for taking down the red tower, and take them down one by one. Here I felt safe to use Positron and his penchant for going melee. Make sure all repairmen are dead, and go out and refill whatever you need for the remaining three towers. If/when the flier reappears, go kill it. It will be a serious annoyance and can kill you if it shows up while you’re on yellow or blue tower. And if you die.. repairmen will do their thing. I like to go in ‘classic’ order, so: yellow, green, and blue last. Though possibly yellow, blue, green might be a better order (for flier purposes). Remember repairmen will come out almost immediately for each tower @ 50%. If at any point you die, there is a chance they will repair any towers nearby as well, so be careful. If a tower does get repaired to full health, no worries, you just have to repeat the strategy for Towers Part One. 

You might notice I don’t talk about LR much while taking down the towers. That’s because I pretty much ignore him completely with the exception of keeping an eye on my defense % and making sure I hit him as little as possible with any AOE attacks. I don’t know if you really have to worry about that, but I did find he seemed to hit me less if I didn’t catch him with a Titan attack like Arc of Destruction.

 

 

F. Mission 5, Lord Recluse

Spoiler

Lord Recluse. Towers done? Time to get out, have another inspiration refill, and renew your Pay2Win, envenomed daggers, and SG buffs (smashing, lethal, end drain, attack speed). Change your Incarnate back to diamagnetic, and swap from seer to longbow. My inspirations loadout is similar to that for red tower @ 50%: 1x blue, 2x health, 2x red, 3x ultimate, and the rest large purples. Use 1 large purple at a time for LR as the fight will be longer. You might want to mail yourself some extra ultimates, purples and reds, depending.  If you see the flier, ignore it.

 

The Lord Recluse fight is fairly straightforward at this point. Take him out of flier range – either the center alcove, or the two spots behind either the red or green tower.  Get your defenses set to 70%+, pop an ultimate and a red insp, then go hit LR. Right around 40% hp, use your pets, including positron. Bane executioners will show up at around the 30% hp mark. Use caltrops at that point then ignore them, save for a defensive sweep or two to up your defense %. At this point it’s a race between how many insps you need to finish the fight, and how many you have.  But… that’s not a problem if you’ve mailed yourself some. After you defeat LR, take your screenshot, sit back, relax, and have a beer.