Can you soli

[Dafydd Hywel]

As I like to just Take time to explore and just enjoy the whole ethos of the game I pretty much always play solo. Back in the original game I took various alts to level this way no problem but......apart from the odd Giant Monster I never did any of the task forces or anything.

 

CAN those actually be done solo or do you HAVE to have a minimum number of players to even access them at all?

 

If you CAN access them solo, how hard is it to actually beat them?

 

I assume you would need to be WAY over levelled compared to the normal.

[Frostbiter]

Most of the trials and taskforces have had a pass to make them more solo friendly. I've done a few by myself. This does not include the late game stuff.

Edited July 13, 2020 by Frostbiter

[nihilii]

You can do them solo. You don't need to be overleveled, but you should be at least at the default max level of the task force, because (for example) signature task forces will always spawn enemies at the default max level for the Task Force.

In layman's terms: in Positron mobs will always be minimum lvl 15. If you start the TF as a level 11, you'll fight +4s all the way. Worse still, even if you level up during the TF you'll be "stuck" (exemplared) as a level 11.

 

Signature Task Forces (Positron, Synapse, Penelope, Citadel...) are fairly easy, they're standard mission with 1 or 2 AVs at the end. You can generally defeat an AV on any character by using a mix of luck inspirations (fill up your tray at a vendor if need be) and Envenomed Daggers (you can buy 300 charges at the Pay2Win vendor in Atlas).

Level 50 TFs and newer TFs tend to be harder. Still doable solo, but you'll likely need a minmaxed build.

[ImpousVileTerror]

I do believe that was fixed with New Positrons 1 and 2.  I've run it at level 8, and faced level 8 enemies . . . EXCEPT for a few key bosses, such as Dr. Buzzsaw (who the Homecoming Devs already fixed), and that Clockwork Boss on the second mission.

[Doomguide2005]

As others have said.   It mostly comes down to being able to handle the AV(s) in the TF, if you can take them down then the rest is usually doable

[Dafydd Hywel]

Fabulous😁

Thanks all.

Yet more new fun to look forward to now we are back😁

[Frostbiter]

I soloed the Posi TF twice. Did it the first time through Flashback and ended up short a Badge due to the way it's split into two parts now for the version he offers in SC so be aware.

[Ironblade]

On 7/13/2020 at 1:44 PM, Dafydd Hywel said:

I assume you would need to be WAY over levelled compared to the normal.

You actually can't be 'over-leveled'.  The Citadel TF, for example, is listed as level 25-30.  Anyone above level 30 will be exemplared down to 30 (thus losing a number of powers, including all your Incarnate stuff).

 

The older task forces are EASY to solo.  I would guess that any character could do it with some temp powers.  If you build specifically for soloing AV's, you won't need temp powers for most of them.  The newer TF's are much harder to solo (Dr Kahn, Ms Liberty, Lady Grey).  Fortunately, the 'newer and harder' ones tend to cap at level 50 so you can have your incarnate powers.

[Ukase]

On 7/13/2020 at 12:44 PM, Dafydd Hywel said:

As I like to just Take time to explore and just enjoy the whole ethos of the game I pretty much always play solo. Back in the original game I took various alts to level this way no problem but......apart from the odd Giant Monster I never did any of the task forces or anything.

 

CAN those actually be done solo or do you HAVE to have a minimum number of players to even access them at all?

 

If you CAN access them solo, how hard is it to actually beat them?

 

I assume you would need to be WAY over levelled compared to the normal.

Yes, all task/strike forces can be soloed. But not by all characters. 

Now, is it easy? Are the builds going to cost a fortune? ...I really don't know the answer to that. 

All of my builds have at least: 
1 Numina regen/recovery

1 Panacea +hitpoint/endurance
1 Shield Wall 5% res (All) 

1 Glad Armor 3% def(All)
1 Steadfast Protection 3% def(all)
1 Unbreakable Guard 7.5% Hitpoints
1 Kismet 6% toHit (it says accuracy, but it's toHit) 
Each of the two ATO sets. (6 each) Some builds get one set broken up for the extra recharge or hit point bonus. 
Most get a set of Avalanche Winter O's. 

Some get a set of Blistering Cold 


For a beginning/returning players, I think that will cost you more than what's comfortable. For someone like me that's been playing since..I think late April, or early May.. well, I have enough to make about 100 of these builds easily. Most of it's in my character email from the winter packs being on sale last December, in the form of merits (which I cash in for converters, use the converters and sell the IOs that were converted.  

Positron has two parts. The first part is very easily solo'd. All my characters from a defender to tank has solo'd posi 1. 
My tank had some issues with Dr. Vahz. Just not enough DPS. He wasn't hurting me..but I couldn't get him down more than 1/3. If I'd have been smart, I'd have used the TP macro, entered my base and gotten some large reds...but I don't think the tp macro had been released in the wild back then. My blasters, with a large luck have very little issue with Vahz. 

Synapse and the Clockwork Lord is super easy. Any character can solo this. It's like he gives up when he's at half health. 

Yin and Clamor -- Clamor is fairly easy, too. 

Citadel and Vandal - Vandal is one of those that was a bit hard for my tank to do enough damage, same with my cold/cold defender. My blasters, brutes, stalkers, scrappers, they have no issue. 

Manticore is probably one of the harder ones to solo, simply because there are two av - Countess Crey, and Hopkins after you beat Hopkins the first time. Hopkins is a joke, misses a LOT - but when he hits, he hits pretty hard. Judicious use of inspirations is encouraged. The Countess doesn't hit that hard, but she's still tough. Definitely clear that room so you have room to maneuver if you need to run away. Nobody says you have to stand toe-to-toe with an AV for the entire fight. 

Numina's Jurrassik is not overly difficult. I usually have more trouble with the DE bosses and the toxic spit of theirs. 

Nosferatu as an AV -- the only way I've ever beaten him was with my brute and my blaster's that kite him from out of reach. Crazy vamp just jumps into a tree trying to get me, jumps down, repeats, while I blast away. Yeah, I feel cheap and dirty doing it that way, but merits are merits. 

Nemesis as an AV is a bit of a joke. Just a lot of HP on him. 

Indigo as an AV is brutal and has always killed me at least once. 

Silver Mantis is tough for me. Without some solid inspiration planning, it's not going to go well. 

ITF - Soloing this tf is not overly hard. But, I can't do it in 30 minutes like some folks. But I got the MoITF today on my fire/fire blaster, Ukase Fire just today, Took me about an hour. And I did head to my base after I beat Rommy the first time to get some reds. I'm at level 50, I have t-3 lore pets, with barrier, so not getting defeated was pretty easy. Out damaging the nictus heal was kind of hard, because I couldn't pull him away from the healing nictus, despite my best efforts. Finally, I realized I'd left behind Imperious in the air on my way to the courtyard, so brought him into the fight, and he helped just enough. Probably cheating, but I still got the MoITF. 

 

Eden Trial - This is one I solo'd with my ill/rad. An expensive build with perma PA. I underestimated how many ambrosia I would need, though. On a team, only a couple. With my ill/rad, and only the PA for dps...I needed 12. 12 minutes to beat that Crystal Titan. Took me half that time to get to that point. 

 

I am unsure how I will do if I try to solo Apex or Tin Mage. The spawns are automatically 54, and while my characters would be level 50+3, I'm trying to imagine handling Director 11 and all his proximity bombs, not to mention Bobcat, Neuron, and two War Walker AVs. Pretty sure I can pull Neuron...but not sure how I'd handle it if I got more than two of them. I'll find out soon enough. 

 

So, yeah, you can solo most tfs if you take your time, use inspirations wisely. Until you know you have a solid character, getting a Vanguard HVAC, or Shivan, or a Warburg Nuke - all are viable options, unless you're on a Master of Task Force effort. (No temps, no defeats allowed) 

[Scientist]

On 7/13/2020 at 2:02 PM, ImpousVileTerror said:

I do believe that was fixed with New Positrons 1 and 2.  I've run it at level 8, and faced level 8 enemies . . . EXCEPT for a few key bosses, such as Dr. Buzzsaw (who the Homecoming Devs already fixed), and that Clockwork Boss on the second mission.

It was not, however, fixed on all TFs, a friend and I started Ice Mistral redside, leveled from 37 to 38 during the TF, and were still pinned at 37.  That final AV is no joke fighting +3, with ambush spawns, we had 24 deaths between us when we finally pulled it off, and leaned heavily on temp powers and team insps. 

 

I would suggest if  you want to solo everything in the game and be able to read the content and such, consider a bots/traps MM.  Excellent at fighting AVs if you take Provoke, there are virtually no enemies that really give me a hard time (Malta?  So what if a Sapper saps one robot?).  Back on retail I beat dozens of AVs redside with just SOs and the tiny handfull of IOs you could get redside early on, before the markets were merged.  A MM is also nice because of the occasional mission where an ambush jumps you while you are talking to an NPC or reading mission text or something, and you can just let the pets handle the problem. 🙂  Stalkers are often recommended, but hostage lead-out missions are a pain with them because you have to turn off hide.  

[wolfshadow31]

My MA/SR scrapper has solo'd the first 5 for the TF commander accolade.  I've got Numina up next.  I'm not sure how well that will play out with the Giant Monster at the end...lol.  My def and res arent really a problem, but even with the envenomned daggers, not sure how well I'll be able to dps the GM down.  My current plan, is to buy and email myself a ton of lg red insps, to claim via the in game mail during the battle.  Should work...to cap my dps to be able to do it.  Sometimes you gotta think outside the box on these solo TFs! 

 

So basically, if you already feel comfortable soloing Archvillains...you prolly wont have an issue with the first few TFs.  I'm doing these on a fully IO'd 50 scrapper, exemp'd down to requisite levels...and my only single death so far was on Manticore's.  While fighting Countess Crey, and the resurrected Hopkins at the same time, I ended up dying.  Came back in...dps'd Countess down, then focused on Hopkins again.  

 

Good luck!

[Heraclea]

I'd also point out that the Shadow Shard TFs Dr. Quarterfield and Justine Augustine don't have any final AVs or anything meaner than an EB.  Mez protection or Clarion are strongly advised to avoid frustration.  They are quite long and can be tedious, especially the hunts.   Ability to navigate the Shard is also needful, and  Mission TP and a base TP hub are major plusses.  Whenever one of these is the weekly I usually solo it on a fire/regen scrapper who flies and has Afterburner.   I just quit when I am tired or bored and return to it later.  But at +0/1 they are quite manageable and reward a shedload of merits.   

[Parabola]

8 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I'd also point out that the Shadow Shard TFs Dr. Quarterfield and Justine Augustine don't have any final AVs or anything meaner than an EB.  Mez protection or Clarion are strongly advised to avoid frustration.  They are quite long and can be tedious, especially the hunts.   Ability to navigate the Shard is also needful, and  Mission TP and a base TP hub are major plusses.  Whenever one of these is the weekly I usually solo it on a fire/regen scrapper who flies and has Afterburner.   I just quit when I am tired or bored and return to it later.  But at +0/1 they are quite manageable and reward a shedload of merits.   

Yesterday I had the very humbling experience of trying to solo sarah moore (sp?) on my main at 4/8. He's a fully kitted out ss/ea brute and I had considered him to be basically immortal as long as I manage the rage crashes. I now know better...

 

I was going ok until I hit the first rularuu mission. Those big eyeballs are just plain cheating. I have nearly icap typed defences to everything but psi and around 50% res to everything including psi but excluding toxic. And barrier as a back up. May as well not have bothered with any of it. Monitoring the combat log they were hitting me with 95% accuracy right from the word go. The resistances seemed meaningless and once I hit a room that made it impossible to pull effectively it was all over.

 

I'm now going to spend a bit of time on the test server trying to find a combo that can handle rularuu at 4/8!

[Skyhawke]

I have been needing Citadel for awhile as my last Suriving 8 TF badge for the accolade, but I can never seem to either find or get a team together for it.  Last night, I just said heck with it and set myself to -1/1 and rofl stomped my way though it solo. If you just want the badge and to see the sights, that's the way to go, in my opinion. 

[Coyote]

On 7/15/2020 at 10:14 PM, Ukase said:

Pretty sure I can pull Neuron...but not sure how I'd handle it if I got more than two of them.

 

I pulled Bobcat first. At about half health she yells for a War Walker, and you interrupt the fight (fly way up out of range) until she de-aggroes and goes back to whine to Neuron about how lame-ass heroes are pussies and won't fight a real combat pussycat, then fly down and beat the WW. Repeat with the WW that she summons at 25% health, and she won't summon any more the third time that you call her out by her name. Then you have only Neuron alone.

He was by far the hardest for me, but I was on an Illusion Controller, so his horde of duplicates out-aggroed my aggro management (heh) and I had to tank his attacks on a character who wasn't built to tank AV attacks. Other characters may find him very easy, and Bobcat's huge melee damage, which didn't matter at all to me, the real problem.

[Riverdusk]

22 hours ago, wolfshadow31 said:

My MA/SR scrapper has solo'd the first 5 for the TF commander accolade.  I've got Numina up next.  I'm not sure how well that will play out with the Giant Monster at the end...lol.  My def and res arent really a problem, but even with the envenomned daggers, not sure how well I'll be able to dps the GM down.  My current plan, is to buy and email myself a ton of lg red insps, to claim via the in game mail during the battle.  Should work...to cap my dps to be able to do it.  Sometimes you gotta think outside the box on these solo TFs! 

 

So basically, if you already feel comfortable soloing Archvillains...you prolly wont have an issue with the first few TFs.  I'm doing these on a fully IO'd 50 scrapper, exemp'd down to requisite levels...and my only single death so far was on Manticore's.  While fighting Countess Crey, and the resurrected Hopkins at the same time, I ended up dying.  Came back in...dps'd Countess down, then focused on Hopkins again.  

 

Good luck!

I don't think the end of Numina fight is a "real" GM.  I remember beating it pretty easily with my DM/SR stalker solo anyway.  I think I used daggers, but nothing else special.  I think the only real GM you run into on the "standard" TF's is Babbage, and of course he's optional.

[Riverdusk]

12 hours ago, parabola said:

Y

I was going ok until I hit the first rularuu mission. Those big eyeballs are just plain cheating. I have nearly icap typed defences to everything but psi and around 50% res to everything including psi but excluding toxic. And barrier as a back up. May as well not have bothered with any of it. Monitoring the combat log they were hitting me with 95% accuracy right from the word go. The resistances seemed meaningless and once I hit a room that made it impossible to pull effectively it was all over.

 

I'm now going to spend a bit of time on the test server trying to find a combo that can handle rularuu at 4/8!

I believe those things have built in +100tohit so yeah, you'd need like 145% defense to cap against them?  I think they were specifically built to wreck defense builds.  They also have a lot of psi users, so they like to exploit that hole too.

 

Dark armor or electric armor probably best for them.

[Coyote]

20 minutes ago, Riverdusk said:

I don't think the end of Numina fight is a "real" GM.  I remember beating it pretty easily with my DM/SR stalker solo anyway.  I think I used daggers, but nothing else special.  I think the only real GM you run into on the "standard" TF's is Babbage, and of course he's optional.

 

Jurassic in Numina's TF is mostly an AV with mostly AV stats. The only GM-like stat that he has is that, unlike AVs, he has high protection against Immobilizes rather than just the standard Mag 4. I don't recall if it drops to 4 when his triangles drop.

[wolfshadow31]

22 minutes ago, Coyote said:

 

Jurassic in Numina's TF is mostly an AV with mostly AV stats. The only GM-like stat that he has is that, unlike AVs, he has high protection against Immobilizes rather than just the standard Mag 4. I don't recall if it drops to 4 when his triangles drop.

I guess you were both right.  I just beat it today, solo,  and it only took about 90 seconds to get him down.  He was classified as "Monster", not "Giant Monster" like I thought. All that worrying for nothing! lol 

[Doomguide2005]

On 7/17/2020 at 3:19 AM, parabola said:

Yesterday I had the very humbling experience of trying to solo sarah moore (sp?) on my main at 4/8. He's a fully kitted out ss/ea brute and I had considered him to be basically immortal as long as I manage the rage crashes. I now know better...

 

I was going ok until I hit the first rularuu mission. Those big eyeballs are just plain cheating. I have nearly icap typed defences to everything but psi and around 50% res to everything including psi but excluding toxic. And barrier as a back up. May as well not have bothered with any of it. Monitoring the combat log they were hitting me with 95% accuracy right from the word go. The resistances seemed meaningless and once I hit a room that made it impossible to pull effectively it was all over.

 

I'm now going to spend a bit of time on the test server trying to find a combo that can handle rularuu at 4/8!

Oh my +4/×8.  Brutal yup, cheaty yup.  Wouldn't have it any other way, yup.

 

Welcome to /SR's and every other defense builds world of hurt.  Resistances of the right sort (or enhanced Elude and a diet kora fruit a must) ... or both which is how my "Main, Main" on live, a Claws/SR did it when she first encountered those Eyeballs waay back in issue 5? or so 🤪  

 

 

Edited July 18, 2020 by Doomguide2005

[Crater Kate]

4/8 eyeballs aren't the *end* of the world for my StJ/SR Stalker, but they're rough. I try to pop an orange before going in, which helps a good amount.

 

But yeah, if she couldn't drop eyeballs in just a couple seconds each, there would be a loooot of flatlining. I know there was while leveling and I did Who Will Die. But basically eyeballs are just a DPS race - kill it as fast as you possibly can, and if you can't, well...

 

[ImpousVileTerror]

"Run away."
A solid tactic which is seemingly lost to many.

If a battle turns against a player, there's no shame in popping around a corner and getting some distance from the mob of angry enemies.

"Pulling" is still valid too.  One doesn't need to soak an alpha strike if the enemies are lining up one at a time to boop the player-character.

[Twisted Toon]

3 hours ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

"Run away."
A solid tactic which is seemingly lost to many.

If a battle turns against a player, there's no shame in popping around a corner and getting some distance from the mob of angry enemies.

"Pulling" is still valid too.  One doesn't need to soak an alpha strike if the enemies are lining up one at a time to boop the player-character.

Yeah, but time spent running away is not time spent smashing bad guys... 😋

[ImpousVileTerror]

Time with your face in the pavement even moreso, though.

[Frostbiter]

Don't underestimate the strategic value of repositioning out of the battle. If you don't have control of the fight then you've already lost it. This was my Blaster's #1 rule back in the days of Defiance 1.0. Draw too much aggro? Run away. Didn't see that illuisionis or sapper? Run away. This opens up more options than tasting floor. Picking off too much aggro a few at a time as they catch up is s pretty effective tactic.