So when people say they solo at +4/×8...

[Frosticus]

On 5/30/2020 at 10:41 AM, leeowensoas said:

I Or am I expecting too much from a Shield Defense scrapper?

 

My sav/shield stalker can do most things at 4/8, but I dont think it would do as well if the aoe damage wasnt as superb as it is. The combo only has to face bosses as everything else dies in the aoes almost instantly. I struggle if spawns are dispersed widely.

 

shield is super sturdy but with no built in healing/regen/recovery when faced with enough foes they will wear you down. It isnt the best choice if you are going in to battles of attrition. 

 

Cycling melee hybrid with OWtS has allowed my /shield character to do many things that would otherwise require a heavy inspiration loadout. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Another point I’d like to bring up.  There’s a big difference in my mind between blindly zerging at +4/x8 and playing strategically at +4/x8.  You can get away with the former against some enemies but the more complex groups require strategy and sometimes frantic retreats.  Also, I generally don’t play 4/8 against AVs.  There are a lot of AVs that I can’t beat, especially if I retreat into a mob I didn’t clear.

 

I suggest heartily playing at whatever level you enjoy and don’t worry about what anyone else is doing.  I don’t play my 50s much because as noted 4/8 can be a real chore, and for me 2/8 is too much like Andre the Giant against a bunch of first-graders, so I spend almost all my time on lower alts.

[Lockpick]

On 6/3/2020 at 5:17 PM, Frosticus said:

 

My sav/shield stalker can do most things at 4/8, but I dont think it would do as well if the aoe damage wasnt as superb as it is. The combo only has to face bosses as everything else dies in the aoes almost instantly. I struggle if spawns are dispersed widely.

 

shield is super sturdy but with no built in healing/regen/recovery when faced with enough foes they will wear you down. It isnt the best choice if you are going in to battles of attrition. 

 

Cycling melee hybrid with OWtS has allowed my /shield character to do many things that would otherwise require a heavy inspiration loadout. 

 

I have been doing 4/8 DA missions with my Savage/SR stalker.  I've never really done 4/8 before, but I was trying to T4 my incarnates, so I decided to try it to speed up the vet levels and was shocked how easy it was.  I will occasionally take some hits where I have to do a strategic withdrawal before finishing a mob and I have been defeated a couple of times, but overall I do fine.  The DA missions are all Banished Pantheon, so not sure how I would fare against other mobs.

[leeowensoas]

Thanks for the replies all! Sounds like a lot of folks really kicking butt out there! Definitely looks like a range of standards people hold for their definition of "can solo +4/×8". I think honestly my expectations (that my character should be able to solo as passively, safely, and stress free at +4 as at +2 and never die and never have to retreat and never have to use inspys) maybe was just a bit unrealistic.  I think my personal definition of soloing is influenced by old school scrapper rules and challenges, and maybe I should give my poor character a break haha there's a big difference between "CAN solo +4/×8" and "SHOULD solo +4/×8" and even "IS FUN to solo at +4/×8".

 

Kinda makes me want to come up with some sort of ultimate survival challenges. Like an AE mission that puts you against +4/×8 spawns of each enemy group in the game and you have to be able to survive them all. Would be interesting to have a passive one where only your defensive set can be used and it's just straight enduring the enemies for some amount of time, and a more active one where you can attack so your killing speed and primary mitigation will help the survivability. I wonder if there's any build in the game that could AFK against every enemy group at +4/×8? Maybe just including passives, toggles, set boniii, and whichever click power you set to auto-fire

 

Edited June 6, 2020 by leeowensoas

[Sovera]

6 hours ago, leeowensoas said:

Thanks for the replies all! Sounds like a lot of folks really kicking butt out there! Definitely looks like a range of standards people hold for their definition of "can solo +4/×8". I think honestly my expectations (that my character should be able to solo as passively, safely, and stress free at +4 as at +2 and never die and never have to retreat and never have to use inspys) maybe was just a bit unrealistic.  I think my personal definition of soloing is influenced by old school scrapper rules and challenges, and maybe I should give my poor character a break haha there's a big difference between "CAN solo +4/×8" and "SHOULD solo +4/×8" and even "IS FUN to solo at +4/×8".

 

Kinda makes me want to come up with some sort of ultimate survival challenges. Like an AE mission that puts you against +4/×8 spawns of each enemy group in the game and you have to be able to survive them all. Would be interesting to have a passive one where only your defensive set can be used and it's just straight enduring the enemies for some amount of time, and a more active one where you can attack so your killing speed and primary mitigation will help the survivability. I wonder if there's any build in the game that could AFK against every enemy group at +4/×8? Maybe just including passives, toggles, set boniii, and whichever click power you set to auto-fire

 

There are a few of those around already. There's one that is just *nuts* that can be searched as '801' in the AE.

[Floride]

I was inspired to make a totally stereotyped list. Mostly loosely based on actual events. Enjoy!

 

I only run +4/x8 says the Scrapper...

 

- who kills the entire end room, but then realizes he also has to click a glowy somewhere in all those massive purple mobs he ghosted past. All four floors.

- as the rest of the team replies "sure you do" while defeating all the 'blue' enemies in the first mission of the ITF he's leading.

- who convinces you to set your Frostfire mission to this difficulty, then gets "real life" agro and has to log out.

- with one of Snaptooth's Gnomes pounding on his head as he misses with every swing of his main weapon - the Nemesis Staff.

- who is tanking Hamidon. Impressive, but he's lying. He hasn't actually run a mission in months. He's been mostly playing his other favorite video game - "Mids".

- who unveils the truth of this statement by hitting his "Inner Inspiration" power every 15 minutes.

- while his second account spams heals on him.

- who conveniently leaves out "...on the Beta server".

and...

- while spinning around helpless in midair above Ghost Widow, as the Team Lead of this MO attempt types "WHO F**KIN CARES! HIT YOUR BASE MACRO! NOW!"

Edited June 7, 2020 by Floride

[Sir Myshkin]

On 6/6/2020 at 4:49 AM, Sovera said:

There's one that is just *nuts* that can be searched as '801' in the AE.

Any time someone talks about wanting a "challenge" in the game, I inform them of this mission and advise they take a box of tissues for their tears and a full Incarnate team to stay alive.

[Sovera]

34 minutes ago, Sir Myshkin said:

Any time someone talks about wanting a "challenge" in the game, I inform them of this mission and advise they take a box of tissues for their tears and a full Incarnate team to stay alive.

I tell ya, I have a new fun character which is a Fire/Claws Tanker. Loads of damage, fun, but I'm 100% sure it would be TERMINATED if I tried to tank that mission. Even one or two sappers kill its endurance in five seconds so that mission would be repeated murder.

[tidge]

On 6/7/2020 at 4:54 PM, Floride said:

I was inspired to make a totally stereotyped list. Mostly loosely based on actual events. Enjoy!

 

I only run +4/x8 says the Scrapper...

 

- who convinces you to set your Frostfire mission to this difficulty, then gets "real life" agro and has to log out.

I think I witnessed this one.

[Rathulfr]

49 minutes ago, tidge said:

I think I witnessed this one.

Right, "witnessed".  😉

 

[Werner]

On 6/7/2020 at 2:28 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Any time someone talks about wanting a "challenge" in the game, I inform them of this mission and advise they take a box of tissues for their tears and a full Incarnate team to stay alive.

I tried 801.1 for the first time this morning. I just hadn't gotten around to trying these missions.  I took my Katana/Dark Brute's beta build and went in at +4x1, figuring I'd ease into it, and it still offered up a challenge a few times. One time I even had to run. Well, or take inspirations, but let's not get silly. 😉 I liked it!

[Sir Myshkin]

4 hours ago, Werner said:

I tried 801.1 for the first time this morning. I just hadn't gotten around to trying these missions.  I took my Katana/Dark Brute's beta build and went in at +4x1, figuring I'd ease into it, and it still offered up a challenge a few times. One time I even had to run. Well, or take inspirations, but let's not get silly. 😉 I liked it!

Try going the other direction of lower level, larger group size. I found that amplifying the amount of enemies made it harder than increasing the general level difficulty. I've thrown a couple different things at it, mostly in a duo with a friend. My solo attempt was on TW/Regen Scrapper and running into little groups at +3 or +4/x1 didn't quite compare versus increasing the team sizing because of the debuffs. The custom enemies in those maps throw a lot of abnormal debuffs around, and there's a ton of Beam Rifle use for -Regen, and I think I remember getting hit with -Dam among some other weird things. Having 17 things hit you with -20% Regen versus 3-4... really changes the passive dynamic of things. At +4/x8 I felt like I was walking into a room filled with Crimson Prototypes.

[InvaderStych]

On 6/7/2020 at 1:54 PM, Floride said:

<snippity-snip>

 

- while spinning around helpless in midair above Ghost Widow, as the Team Lead of this MO attempt types "WHO F**KIN CARES! HIT YOUR BASE MACRO! NOW!"

 

Wait ... What?  Base Teleport works when Ghost Widow uses her Cheat Code?  How did I not know this?

[Apparition]

15 minutes ago, InvaderStych said:

 

Wait ... What?  Base Teleport works when Ghost Widow uses her Cheat Code?  How did I not know this?

Unfortunately.

[archgemini24]

On 6/7/2020 at 5:28 PM, Sir Myshkin said:

Any time someone talks about wanting a "challenge" in the game, I inform them of this mission and advise they take a box of tissues for their tears and a full Incarnate team to stay alive.

Just made an attempt on my PB, and actually cleared the first spawn, but then I got the attention of a second spawn before I got a chance to breathe and got gibbed. Clarion for the extra mez protection might have helped more than Ageless, but that was not too much of a problem.

 

Mostly, my tactics revolved around removing all the little people as fast as possible while chain flopping (Nova, Solar Flare, Luminous Detonation) harder targets in order to reduce the sheer number of debuffs flying around everywhere. That mission is nuts!

[Werner]

This is definitely not the same as soloing, but some friends and I did all three missions at +4x8 with a Tanker, two Brutes, and a Blaster. It went pretty smoothly. No deaths until the final room of the final mission, when the Tanker charged in and aggro'd three groups for... fun? Let's call it fun. Not quite a team wipe, but close.

[Bill Z Bubba]

That's really all it comes down to, isn't it? Why run at max diff? Cuz I can. If I can't, I don't.

[Sir Myshkin]

13 hours ago, archgemini24 said:

That mission is nuts!

The part that was the best for me was discovering, after many multiple attempts while duo with a friend on different builds/ATs, the one thing that absolutely neuters that mission:

 

Spoiler

You didn't really think I was going to tell you the secret did you? Ha, no.

 

[nihilii]

On 6/20/2020 at 7:31 AM, Sir Myshkin said:

The part that was the best for me was discovering, after many multiple attempts while duo with a friend on different builds/ATs, the one thing that absolutely neuters that mission:

What a tease! Now I had to go and try 801.1 to figure it out.

I didn't figure it out. I'm not smart.

 

But I have an insp addiction. The universal catchall survivability solution worked for my fire/rad sent on +4/x8/bosses (stack defense, defense, defense, avoid everything bad). Full tray of T1 lucks, + drops. Took 33 minutes... and 6 deaths.

The difficulty felt on par with +4/x8 inspless MoITF (or +0/x8 IOless MoITF). That being said, the sentinel runs capped slow resist and ample tohit. Watching all these time and cold powers flying around, the caltrops and the Rages and Elude, I can picture a different outcome for a no insps barely softcapped character running just enough accuracy to 95% +3s and little to no slow resist.

 

It's also another situation where what is considered a drawback of the sentinel in normal play (no aggro) becomes a boon, as enemies scatter when minions are wiped out by the initial alpha, making for less buff/debuff stacking from their end. Although this can go both ways: in the one spot of the map where there's a lowered platform at a corner between the normal floor height, I got stuck down there webnaded while bosses were shooting at me from upstairs.

This was quite the workout. The missions feel really well designed to challenge you in interesting ways. I don't think my sent can afford more hospital bills just yet but I'll definitely try more of these later.

[marcussmythe]

1:20 here on an Invuln/EM.  5 Deaths.  This thing definitely would reward range and CC, I think.  Confuse or other powerful CC effects would seem ideal here - like most 'hard endgame content', much of the focus is turning off defense and resist.  If I didnt have CC tools on my tank, it would have been impossible.

 

My approach involved a lot of hit and run and let the debuffs fall off, leaning on immob and stun effects.  That thing is brutal.

 

 

Edited June 22, 2020 by marcussmythe

[Sir Myshkin]

16 hours ago, nihilii said:

What a tease! Now I had to go and try 801.1 to figure it out.

I didn't figure it out. I'm not smart.

Now it almost feels like a riddle as I was thinking about whether I could offer a hint that still makes it aggressively random...

 

Hint:

Spoiler

Fair warning:

Spoiler

And just in case someone clicked twice on accident:

Spoiler

And because I'm somewhat curious how many times I can embed these:

Spoiler

And once to make sure you really want the spoiler:

Spoiler

Yeah, no, I decided against giving it out. Or did I?

_{^{Any character can create the effect, but only a few can own it in excess. Those that hold the answer true, are ones who walk fearless through.}}

 

 

 

 

 

[marcussmythe]

Without guessing, and without anything incarnated to test it, I can only imagine confuse would be aggressively hilarious in that debuff fest.  I anticipate any form of hard CC would go a long way - like most 'endgame' content, theres a focus on debuff that makes a mockery of any sort of survival approach other than 'dont let the other team act'

[Hirumakai]

So reading this thread, I decided to try 801.0 on my Tanker at +4/x8 solo.  Nanotech Knight is a Shield Defense/Dark Melee/Soul Mastery tank, fully set IO'd out.  Incarnates abilities were T4 Agility Core, T4 Barrier Core, T1 Degenerative Interface, T3 Warworks, T1 Assault, T1 Void Judgement.  So +3 level shift.   I did use inspirations, but only the ones that dropped from inside the mission, which is generally how I play.  If the game is going to throw them at you, might as well use them.

 

Took 1 hour and 9 minutes and had 1 death.   

 

Between the utility of Dark melee (heal and end), and the synergy of Barrier + Shield Defense + Darkest Night + Dark Melee -to-hit, it was survivable.  Without any click abilities, just toggles, the base defense is 53% to all positionals.  Agility + Barrier during the last minute bumps that to 59%.  Defense debuff resistance hits 90% with active defense doubled up.   Enemy to-hit is generally debuffed by about 27% with AoEs (Obliteration, Dark Maul, Darkest Night), providing a cushion. 

 

The one death was due to multiple stacking to-hit buffs from a large pack of Lieutenants and not waiting for Barrier to recharge and start fresh on that pack.  An extra 30 seconds waiting for barrier to be up fresh would have likely avoided that death in hind sight.  Used standard tanker corner pulls with barrier up to get them grouped up, dropped Darkest Night on a boss or Elite Boss, and then did a standard AoE combo - Soul Drain, Shield Charge, Dark Obliteration, Void Judgement, Shadow Maul.  Between dropped red inspirations, Against All Odds, and Soul Drain not quite perma, damage output was high enough on a tanker to move at a decent clip I think.

[Doomguide2005]

If I'm not mistaken AE 801 is a series of missions -> 801.1, 801.2, 801.3 and I believe 801.4.  If I understood @Linea correctly each is designed to create increasing challenge and stressing different aspects of mitigation.   All I know is running my HC Claws/SR thru them as a sidekick was ... brutal, but as the build went from upper 30's to 50 I went from dying/barely hanging on to "faster, stronger, better".

[Bill Z Bubba]

Took BZB Tank into 801.1. No deaths, 33 minutes. Max diff. Insps that I showed up with were used. Combined what felt like too many for yellows cuz I hate missing.

SR/Claws Tank. Fully T4ed. Musc, Degen, Assault, Pyronic Core. Carnies, Rebirth Radial. Started with Ageless instead of Rebirth but rapidly saw that the +heal would be helpful.

 

Edit: Don't want to come across like it was a cakewalk. It wasn't. Especially when double-spawns got aggroed. There were certainly some oh crap moments including one where I was down to like 2% health, terrorized and was spam clicking Rebirth. Luckily, it went off.

Edited June 24, 2020 by Bill Z Bubba