The Tank Gods. . .

[Werner]

On 10/2/2020 at 7:46 AM, nihilii said:

So I guess, if you sit around that door, no ambushes happen.

Similar experience here earlier today doing a minimum difficulty ITF. Took out the fluffies, started on Romulus, and when he spoke and triggered the first ambush, I was reminded of this, and headed to the door to see what would happen. I fought the first ambush, but no further ambushes came out of the door. In case relevant, I had also been curious what would happen if I flew at maximum height over Romulus, then turned off the jet back to skydive onto him. The only thing that seemed a little unusual was that I was able to do that without triggering the cut scene until I was skydiving. I doubt that had anything to do with a lack of ambushes, but it was one thing I did differently from my normal.

 

Also, earlier, despite flying straight up and to the oracle, I triggered the ambush. I'm still not clear what exactly does and doesn't trigger them.

 

Edit: Ran it again. This time went to the ambush door after the first fluffy went down. No ambushes.

 

Edit: Third time. No dive bombing, just straight in, then drag Romulus to the door, no ambushes. It seems to be consistent.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Werner

[Tsuko]

1 hour ago, Werner said:

Similar experience here earlier today doing a minimum difficulty ITF. Took out the fluffies, started on Romulus, and when he spoke and triggered the first ambush, I was reminded of this, and headed to the door to see what would happen. I fought the first ambush, but no further ambushes came out of the door. In case relevant, I had also been curious what would happen if I flew at maximum height over Romulus, then turned off the jet back to skydive onto him. The only thing that seemed a little unusual was that I was able to do that without triggering the cut scene until I was skydiving. I doubt that had anything to do with a lack of ambushes, but it was one thing I did differently from my normal.

 

Also, earlier, despite flying straight up and to the oracle, I triggered the ambush. I'm still not clear what exactly does and doesn't trigger them.

 

Edit: Ran it again. This time went to the ambush door after the first fluffy went down. No ambushes.

hey leave my ambushes alone to heal / buff on them ! 😛

 

More Seriously, for the Oracle just fly to the altar DIRECTLY after you go "out" from the caves :

 

 

If you never walk in the "triggering area", you will never see the Cosmic lobsters of death ambush.

Edited October 4, 2020 by Tsuko

[Werner]

1 minute ago, Tsuko said:

More Seriously, for the Oracle just fly to the altar DIRECTLY after you go "out" from the caves :

 

If you never walk in the "triggering area", you will never see the Cosmic lobsters of death ambush.

The map was very helpful, and I just successfully avoided the ambush. Thank you!

[Werner]

On 10/3/2020 at 9:41 AM, Sovera said:

Though if we want extra challenge there's an option no one has mentioned yet: player is debuffed.

I finally checked on what player debuffed means. It looks like it's -50% accuracy, -50% damage, -100% taunt/placate resistance. So a build with high accuracy and high damage could probably add that to the list, just taking a little longer.

[Tsuko]

2 hours ago, Werner said:

I finally checked on what player debuffed means. It looks like it's -50% accuracy, -50% damage, -100% taunt/placate resistance. So a build with high accuracy and high damage could probably add that to the list, just taking a little longer.

Totally out of subject, Youtube gave me this and i saw you in this 😄

 

[nihilii]

7 hours ago, Tsuko said:

If you never walk in the "triggering area", you will never see the Cosmic lobsters of death ambush.

I think the ambush is specifically tied to the group in front of the Minotaur (coming from the regular path), as Sovera surmised earlier.

I sniped a boss of that group from the altar, and it immediately triggered the ambush. Whereas I was even closer to the red circle before, and it didn't spawn anything.

[Sir Myshkin]

Okay, being the glutton for punishment I am I skipped over to Croatoa with my TW/Regen Scrapper and loaded up ye-ol'ITF and struck up a conversation with the patrons within.

 

They kicked me out. Repeatedly. It was so rude.

 

I knew going in I needed to get a different rhythm down for my attack cycle so a couple of forays (repeats) into the ancient caves was expected, but even after I got myself mentally refocused on keeping up SM > MoG > SM > IH with Defensive Sweep mixed in, all it took was one side way glance from an angry drunkard (Boss) to ruin the good time and bring a bar-room's worth of angry Cims bearing down on me. I know in a one to one match with Requiem or Romulus I'm good, I've pulled each of them separate from a team during different ITF's and can take either down in a swift and judicial hurry, but the waves of angry men in skirts ... even just the single tick delay of Defensive Sweep not immediately syncing after the attack connected was enough of a window to suddenly find myself -30% and dead in the dirt.

 

After a dozen tries and getting nearly out of M1's caves and into the light above, one server tick hang up had me face planted. Their bonus damage handily out paced 177 HP/s.

 

I decided, at that point (and a small break) I was going to try something wildly different and loaded back to my character select screen and loaded up one particular character that has a tendency to lean a bit on the Mad side of things.

 

 

As a sample of what is to come. I'll be revisiting this one as my first run got short changed by an unexpected turn of events. Flew up the back side of the altar and sniped the Minotaur (and gang) to the back. After a tad bit the Minotaur was all that was left but it kept running around like a headless chicken up and down the mountain, falling off and then running back up the front way. Eventually it took a rogue Tornado with it which waltzed right into a spawn of Cimmies and brought them marching back to me unplanned. I fell off the back of the mountain myself at this point and misclicked my base port macro which yanked me out of the mission. When I reloaded and ran through to get outside again the entire horde of Kheldian Nightmares sat waiting for me. Yay. I didn't even invite them to the party.

 

It had taken me nearly 45 minutes to get to that point and just didn't have the time to revisit it, but knowing that it's doable has my encouraged to try it again, but it is a super-tentative process that is very chaotic. I took a few minutes of footage to pull the clip-gif above just to show that unlike many others, this particular lunatic is taking on the entire map at once. For those who might be unfamiliar, that is Mission 1 at the junction which includes a few Sybils to rescue and just after that bend it has another cross junction that leads up (and out, left), into a dead-end (right), and on to the remaining Sybils (forward). I was getting aggro from both the spawns just inside that passage, as well as the left and right rooms.

 

I have two Scrappers who can't handle one single spawn of this Buffed ITF, yet my Mad King (Storm/En) can handily punch the whole thing in the face and laugh about it. Go figure.

 

I also want to point out (for the record) that this character is only equipped with T3 Interface, Judgement, and Clarion, T1 Lore, and a T1 Support Hybrid (which was just to see if the passive would be worth any additional end management). Oh, and the Alpha is a T4 Musculature. Other than the convenience of the single level shift, I'm not really reliant on my Incarnate abilities (and they're not entirely adding much to the fight). My only concern when I revisit this will be getting Rommy to sit in one spot and suffer my wrath.

Edited October 5, 2020 by Sir Myshkin
Fixed Gif

[Lex Talion]

16 minutes ago, nihilii said:

I think the ambush is specifically tied to the group in front of the Minotaur (coming from the regular path), as Sovera surmised earlier.

I sniped a boss of that group from the altar, and it immediately triggered the ambush. Whereas I was even closer to the red circle before, and it didn't spawn anything.

It is tied to the area AND the Minotaur's health. You can walk where you want and slaughter every member of Sister Solaris' captors - as long as you don't bring the Minotaur under 75% health nothing bad happens. Well, nothing bad except for half a metric ton of dog breath on legs vomitting onto you.

It's also noteworthy that there's not one Kheldian ambush, but three, triggered by the Minotaur's health going under 75%, 50% and 25%  just like the ambushes at Romulus Nike.

[Bill Z Bubba]

@Sir MyshkinThat gif is making me giggle maniacally.

[nihilii]

On 10/3/2020 at 6:29 PM, Werner said:

Do we think it's even possible to do a Tanker run with "no incarnates" added to the list? Just the level shift is brutal.

This truly feels like the hard part.

 

My inv/db Tanker is sustainable on everything without incarnates. Even Rebirth is not a strict necessity, ~300% regen and DP carry you a long way on Tanker HP.

 

But... everything being +4 makes their damage stack that much faster, and so much longer to defeat.

 

I'm working through mission 1 - well, I just got mapserved for a minute and died - and I already have to start kiting when the debuffs pile up, although it's still safer than using incarnate scrappers/stalkers. But while incarnates nuke a minion in 2 hits at most, I need to spend at least 6 or 7 seconds of animation for that result. Oof.

 

My guess is, M1 and M2 will be doable, but then I probably won't even have the DPS to beat Mission 3 Romulus in any reasonable amount of time - and/or his own damage will force me to pull back and nullify my progress.

 

--

Edit: 30 minutes to clear just M1. The killing speed wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to pull back as soon as there's 2+ Generals + other mobs, but I do.

 

Then I died in M2. The dwarves/novas aren't so bad most of the time, but if a Cim patrol comes up, if the defense debuffs stack... Those are not impossible problems to avoid with jousting, but there's the rub: when you kill so slow, the gap between what is possible and what is probable becomes a gulf. I simply didn't have the patience to play it as well and carefully as I could.

Now, the character isn't specifically built for the task (even though one might argue a general purpose invul is made for the ITF, anyway). Swapping Typhoon's Edge for One Thousand Cuts would be invaluable, with the latter doing 100% knockdown. Could also add Energy Torrent for even more knockdown, as I'm going Energy for Conserve Power already.

 

Still unsure the character would stand a chance against +4 AVs, however. Well. Perhaps I should load up an AE mission with level 54 Romulus and see.

 

--

Edit 2: Testing in AE, I'm barely above level 54 Romulus regen. Until a string of misses/deflected, or I have to click Hasten/DP/CP, or... You get the idea, and that was just standard Romulus. Nictus Romulus has a self heal and a Soul Drain-type buff. I think my current build already squeezes all the DPS there is to find on inv/db, or close to it. Game over for this character!

Edited October 5, 2020 by nihilii

[Tsuko]

Well, itf +4x8 no incarnate, no accolades, enemy buffed, player debuffed, no temp pw and no inspirations is not hard.

 

 

It's suicide and masochism.

 

 

[Bill Z Bubba]

5 minutes ago, Tsuko said:

It's suicide and masochism.

Point of order: When has this ever stopped us before?

[Bill Z Bubba]

So when yall say no incarnates, does that mean unslotting them all or just not clicking any of them?

[Sovera]

Well... Unslotting seems like the correct choice. Though perhaps baby steps and no clickies first so the mobs are still +3? But if we are going no incarnates then it makes sense to go with no half measures.

 

I think before no incarnates (because Incarnates are here anyway) there is still debuffed player and buffed enemies put together.

[Tsuko]

my toon is a fresh 50 so easy to check with the lack of badges 🙂

[Werner]

52 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I think before no incarnates (because Incarnates are here anyway) there is still debuffed player and buffed enemies put together.

Yeah.  I don't think buffed maxed no incarnate powers is at all is doable for any of my 50s, but maybe my Shield/MA will be able to do debuffed/buffed maxed when he's complete. Worth some attempts. I'll probably start easier with merely a debuffed maxed so that I can check my AV DPS before I start bashing my head against surviving to even get to the AVs. Well, I'll start much easier if you include the -1x6 MoITFs I've done while I'm still working on my incarnates and accolades. Incarnates I can probably buy at any time now, but I hate grinding out the accolades.

[Haijinx]

That is literally my favorite ambush in all of COH y'all are trying to avoid. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

2 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

That is literally my favorite ambush in all of COH y'all are trying to avoid. 

I always gripe when teams skip it. It's a HUGE bucket of xp/inf. Usually a bunch of chaos and teammate faceplants, too, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

[Sovera]

Yep, yep. Too much XP to skip. Plus the chaos yeah.

[Haijinx]

23 minutes ago, Bill Z Bubba said:

I always gripe when teams skip it. It's a HUGE bucket of xp/inf. Usually a bunch of chaos and teammate faceplants, too, but hey, whatcha gonna do?

That's how you know which teammates need to spend moar on their builds, that's all. 

[Bill Z Bubba]

All that said, dang right I skipped what I could on these psycho-solo runs. Have to waste too much time scratching away at the AVs as it is.

[Werner]

3 hours ago, Haijinx said:

That is literally my favorite ambush in all of COH y'all are trying to avoid. 

The space lobster ambush? It’s great! It’s fun! I just want to avoid it if speed running or doing a difficult version of MoITF. But the Cimeroran ambushes while fighting Rommy seem just annoying and tedious to me.

[VV]

On 10/4/2020 at 7:32 PM, Tsuko said:

More Seriously, for the Oracle just fly to the altar DIRECTLY after you go "out" from the caves :

Ah, that is very helpful, thank you!

[Tsuko]

19 hours ago, VV said:

Ah, that is very helpful, thank you!

Happy to help 🙂

 

 

[Tsuko]

On 10/5/2020 at 8:39 PM, Sovera said:

Well... Unslotting seems like the correct choice. Though perhaps baby steps and no clickies first so the mobs are still +3? But if we are going no incarnates then it makes sense to go with no half measures.

 

I think before no incarnates (because Incarnates are here anyway) there is still debuffed player and buffed enemies put together.

 

No incarnates is particulary hard 🙂

 

more than player debuffed imo.

 

i took the time to upload for the fun my "best" run with my SR dark tanker with no incarnate :

 

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Tsuko