Soloing Task Forces

[bodenee]

Has everyone tried this?  I've been working on it since HC started and allows it to be.  My main toon to do this with is my Fire/Fire Tank... for obvious reasons.  There's no time limits being set here, though I have Hess down to 26 min or so.  But I've also solo'd on my blaster and sentinel.  Hey I'm taking EVERY advantage here I can... Shivans, PPD, Warwolves, even the expensive signatures... and then I'm running them at -1 and 1... hey, I DID say EVERY advantage!! So far Posi 1, Synapse, Hess, Moonfire, Citadel, Yin.  Those that I haven't cracked yet are Posi2 (dam vomit!) and Numina (Just could NOT do enough dmg quickly enuff to take down Jurrasic!)  I have yet to try Manti... So anyone else's thoughts?.. If you're doing it.  How have you faired?  Any tips or suggestions?... Oh I'm retired and a LOTTA time on my hands so much of the time these will take 3-4 hrs or longer... 'course I'm taking LOTS of breaks during that time as I'm in no hurry... I find it a nice way to kill time!

Edited March 30, 2021 by bodenee

[Soyuz]

Soloed Hess on my blaster just to see if I could. I was in the level range for the TF at the time and on SO's only (and didn't know how to get Shivans), so it could have been a lot easier. Nevertheless, hover-blasting and a tray full of purples did the trick.

 

Some will be a lot harder, of course. Archon Burkholder is particularly vulnerable to the hover-blasting tactic, I think.

[Snarky]

do you have the buff powers from P2W (50 charge end rec, health rec etc) AND the 3 1 hour buffs from P2W (survival assault, and one other, think they are called amplifiers) and the buffs from base salvage machines?  You want every advantage?  Go team temp!

[Sakai]

Nukes from Warburg are also a great advantage. 

[Shred Monkey]

Haven't done this myself to confirm, but don't team inspirations affect pets?  (available from Luna in Ouroboros and on AH)   I know if you pop an Ultimate inspiration, which gives you a temporary level-up, before you summon your pets, they'll be leveled up, too.

[Turric]

Yes I have soloed all of this above with a scrapper, a brute and my sentinel. What I haven't done is Manticore, because I am unsure I can (or want) to tank 2 AV at the same time. I also haven't soloed Numina yet.

 

What I want to do is solo some of the Redside strike forces, but I am unsure which are doable.

[bodenee]

oooo... okay, follow up question... Is it still "soloing" if I triple box?  I did this with the Dr.Q TF... took +22hrs!  'course there was about 8 hrs of sleep in there as well as a few hrs of eating and other breaks... but it was VERY do-able... just time consuming.  Why?  Well I felt better dragging 2 support characters along for the ride to do it ONCE instead of running it three separate times... and the payoff for all three turned out to be very profitable!!  Thoughts?  

 

[EmperorSteele]

So, just an FYI, the -1 setting won't work. All TFs spawn at a minimum of the leader's (your) level.

 

But i've Dual-Boxed a few TFs: Dr. Q, Manti, ITF, MLTF... though it's a drag constantly going back and forth to have my buff bot click a door and set myself back to follow. The buffbot was always a FF/Psi defender, while my mains have been a Mind/Kin controller, Illu/Time controller, or in the case of MLTF, my Invuln/Rad tanker.

 

Good fun, can play at my own pace, but again, it involves a bit of drudgery.

[Shred Monkey]

7 hours ago, bodenee said:

How have you faired?  Any tips or suggestions?

 I did them all on my Beam/devices blaster.  I didn't bother with temp powers as I had enough DPS to handle it without.  Also hovering out of melee pretty much handles any concern about survival.  None of final bosses have strong ranged damage and none fly.  If you don't have soft-capped defense yet at the levels you run the TFs, just load up on purple inspirations.  

[GM Kaiju]

Manticore isn’t too bad but can be tricky. Countess Crey is an ambush so will spawn next to you after her voiceover, so if you move away from Hopkins to another room you can fight here 1 on 1 before going back for him. 
 

The tricky part depending on AT and build is that Hopkins is very resistant to some damage types, and the Countess has fairly strong mez and does high psi damage. Not a big deal with a team, but solo it’s something to think about.

[srmalloy]

1 hour ago, GM Kaiju said:

Manticore isn’t too bad but can be tricky.

I wound up solo'ing Manticore with my Bots/Dark MM back on Live when the team broke up on the first non-kill-all mission, with some members wanting to kill everything for the XP, and others wanting to speed-run for the merits; I figured I might as well try to finish it, as I could always quit. Everything went smoothly up to the last mission, but it took burning most of my inspiration tray to get Hopkins down. I got a good appreciation for the debuffs in Dark, and Howling Twilight was the star of the end fight.

[Olly]

Solo'd every TF and trial on hero-side, and Tinpex. The biggest "buff" you can have is to max out AV -regen for most TF's. Bring out Posi, and load up on envenomed daggers. Buy the P2W buffs. Get your four accolades. Use diamagnetic and Longbow incarnates when you can. Note: You can visit the P2W vendor @ PocketD in the middle of a TF.

 

PS It's not soloing if you're dual or triple boxing...

[Olly]

6 hours ago, Turric said:

 What I haven't done is Manticore, because I am unsure I can (or want) to tank 2 AV at the same time.

 

If you clear a path beforehand, you can separate the Countess from Hopkins by running away from Hopkins prior to her arrival. Iirc one of my toons took her on solo at the entrance, then I made my way back to Hopkins.

[DreadShinobi]

20 minutes ago, Olly said:

Note: You can visit the P2W vendor @ PocketD in the middle of a TF.

Hidden gem

[Coyote]

Good points about the Manticore TF, I also pulled the Countess away from Hopkins.

 

The Admiral Sutter TF is a nightmare to solo, you want to pull one of the Durays away from the other, but it's pretty hard. Apex and Tin Mage were both a lot easier (pulling Bobcat is possible, though you have to pull her 3 times, once each to have her call for the big robots and then again to finish her off).

 

Can the Diabolique trial be soloed? How about the Summer Block Buster? I haven't yet tried either of those.

 

One mission that's way harder than most of the TF missions is the one featuring the Jade Spider... still haven't succeeded at that one, though I think it may just be a matter of figuring out the cone angle for the Psy Scream... stay out of it and let it focus on the PA, and win. Get into it, and get disintegrated fast.

[Ukase]

The p2w ranged summons (positron shadow/simulacron) makes light work of every Task Force Commander Accolade tf, including Sutter. I've done them with a brute, a scrapper, blaster, corruptor, controller, defender. Even Market Crash and ITF. 

I do make liberal use of Super Reds & team reds. The most difficult so far has been that big robot in market crash because of the gens - when you take time to take out the gens, the robot regens. So, had to use a LOT of reds. 

[Coyote]

Oh, one more interesting thing about soloing lower-level TFs... most people consider AVs as practically not worth debuffing because they resist them so much. But the AV resistance to debuffs drops by 1% per level below 50 (it's 85% at 50)... so at 35, it's down to 70%. So the debuffs are twice as strong against a level 35 AV as against a level 50. Most importantly, this is for -Regen, so the -500% debuffs that become -75% at level 50, will completely shut down the regen of a level 35 AV.

 

Another interesting debuff is -ToHit... not really worth it at level 50, but 30% of Hurricane's -44% is about -13% to hit. That's better than any defensive toggle available to squishies. Dark Miasma and Dark Affinity users can do even worse with -ToHit. Heck, at Positron levels, Dr Vahzilok is very much nerfed by some of these -ToHit powers. And the measly -100% from a double-stacked Twilight Grasp is about -45% to him, while a level 50 AV sneers at it.

[bodenee]

15 minutes ago, Coyote said:

Good points about the Manticore TF, I also pulled the Countess away from Hopkins.

 

The Admiral Sutter TF is a nightmare to solo, you want to pull one of the Durays away from the other, but it's pretty hard. Apex and Tin Mage were both a lot easier (pulling Bobcat is possible, though you have to pull her 3 times, once each to have her call for the big robots and then again to finish her off).

 

Can the Diabolique trial be soloed? How about the Summer Block Buster? I haven't yet tried either of those.

 

One mission that's way harder than most of the TF missions is the one featuring the Jade Spider... still haven't succeeded at that one, though I think it may just be a matter of figuring out the cone angle for the Psy Scream... stay out of it and let it focus on the PA, and win. Get into it, and get disintegrated fast.

 

[bodenee]

there is no way to solo the SBB... you'd have to have 4 people to play the roles...

[Turric]

How easy is Beast Under the Mountain to solo?

[Mr. Vee]

1 hour ago, Turric said:

How easy is Beast Under the Mountain to solo?

It's easy enough assuming decent damage and survivability. The AVs are the only challenge (envenomed daggers are your friend as always). You can even get them to fight each other if you do the glowies first and pull BatZul up to where Inferno is.

[Gulbasaur]

2 hours ago, Turric said:

How easy is Beast Under the Mountain to solo?

Apparently, you can kite the two bosses onto each other and let one beat the other then take down whoever is left.

 

Infernal is tough, but has no specific protection against psi, toxic or negative energy damage so some builds will find it easier than others to knock him out.

 

Assuming you've got a tanky endgame build, grab some envenomed daggers to tone down his regen and it becomes a war of attrition.

[Sovera]

I've done most of them while leveling . 0x6 on Posi 1 and 2 depending on the build. Some tackle it at 0x8 just fine. From Synapse onwards it's +1x8. I don't bring temp powers or summons into it and usually just use the insps that drop once I'm past Posi 1 and 2 which require medium purples to counter the incredible amount of debuffing involved.

 

 

Posi 1 and 2 is one of the worst to tackle due to exemplaring stealing so many bonuses. But the vhaz doing exotic toxic damage, radiation bosses who do -defense, the CoT bosses who do -def, a +def bubble AND -ToHit, plus the ghosts doing -ToHit are simply amazing as game design. Basically at a level when we are the weakest is when we have the hardest enemies 😄 If done at (close to) level appropriate we are also slot starved which does not help.  Fighting 8 versions of myself never gets old, but, never try to do it on Radiation Armor since the NPCs will spawn with Radiation Emission instead. Suddenly, 8x Enervating Field. Boom. Even with a tray full of medium purples andoranges i had to suicide a number of times to eventually whittle their numbers one by one. Posi 2's boss is nothing special and just needs to be whittled down.

 

After Posi Synapse is a joke. We leave hard hitting exotic toxic damage and a ton of crucial debuffing to bland energy and smash with -endurance debuffing. Oh noes. I seldom solo this one nowadays since it takes way way way too long. Some builds don't even have access to AoEs which is a strict no no when doing kill alls. I ignore Babbage (who spawns as a true GM) and the boss is simple even on Fire Armor that has no psi resists. A simple medium purple is usually enough to keep me safe since it just hits slowly and mixes attacks with simple smash punches.

 

Yin is just more of the same but with the Super Stunners crippling meleers since we need to kill but when we kill them they explode in a massively large -recovery debuff. Recovery Serum and blues are needed. By Yin most builds have access to their AoE and/or Build-up (level 28) which makes the game much easier as things can be burst down. The AV doing -def radiation attacks + the ton of adds spawning with it can kill most characters who are not prepared to substantially buff themselves with purples.

 

By Yin I found that there is no more challenge to be found in soloing TFs since it becomes rinse and repeat. I would rather duo them since it is still a bit more interesting than steam rolling in a full team.

 

Moonfire is also bland. Vampires will stack -tohit but Build-up will punch through. There is a -ton- of -recharge when we fight the annoying creeps who refuse to come to melee range and need to be picked one by one. But it's more annoying than hard since they are minions.

 

Citadel is 100% easy mode. Council are bags of XP for a reason.

 

Manticore I seldom solo since PPs entering T9 is a drag in kill alls. It can be worked around by keeping them agroed and moving to the next group. The double AV whammy at the end can be difficult to get past and Hopkins is a bag of resists that takes a long time to whittle.

 

Numina I have only soloed a couple of times since the hunts are annoying (and this was back when we had full base access at all times). Despite being tagged as a GM Jurassic is more like an AV.

 

ITF I did a couple of times just to join the cool kid club, +4x8 normal mode and +4x8 with enemies buffed.

 

 

All of this has been done either on Scrappers or Tankers which are CoH's easy mode. Kudos to all of you crazy people doing it on Blasters and such!

Edited March 31, 2021 by Sovera

[CaptainLupis]

20 minutes ago, Sovera said:

I've done most of them while leveling . 0x6 on Posi 1 and 2 depending on the build. Some tackle it at 0x8 just fine. From Synapse onwards it's +1x8. I don't bring temp powers or summons into it and usually just use the insps that drop once I'm past Posi 1 and 2 which require medium purples to counter the incredible amount of debuffing involved.

 

 

Posi 1 and 2 is one of the worst to tackle due to exemplaring stealing so many bonuses. But the vhaz doing exotic toxic damage, radiation bosses who do -defense, the CoT bosses who do -def, a +def bubble AND -ToHit, plus the ghosts doing -ToHit are simply amazing as game design. Basically at a level when we are the weakest is when we have the hardest enemies 😄 If done at (close to) level appropriate we are also slot starved which does not help.  Fighting 8 versions of myself never gets old, but, never try to do it on Radiation Armor since the NPCs will spawn with Radiation Emission instead. Suddenly, 8x Enervating Field. Boom. Even with a tray full of medium purples andoranges i had to suicide a number of times to eventually whittle their numbers one by one. Posi 2's boss is nothing special and just needs to be whittled down.

 

After Posi Synapse is a joke. We leave hard hitting exotic toxic damage and a ton of crucial debuffing to bland energy and smash with -endurance debuffing. Oh noes. I seldom solo this one nowadays since it takes way way way too long. Some builds don't even have access to AoEs which is a strict no no when doing kill alls. I ignore Babbage (who spawns as a true GM) and the boss is simple even on Fire Armor that has no psi resists. A simple medium purple is usually enough to keep me safe since it just hits slowly and mixes attacks with simple smash punches.

 

Yin is just more of the same but with the Super Stunners crippling meleers since we need to kill but when we kill them they explode in a massively large -recovery debuff. Recovery Serum and blues are needed. By Yin most builds have access to their AoE and/or Build-up (level 28) which makes the game much easier as things can be burst down. The AV doing -def radiation attacks + the ton of adds spawning with it can kill most characters who are not prepared to substantially buff themselves with purples.

 

By Yin I found that there is no more challenge to be found in soloing TFs since it becomes rinse and repeat. I would rather duo them since it is still a bit more interesting than steam rolling in a full team.

 

Moonfire is also bland. Vampires will stack -tohit but Build-up will punch through. There is a -ton- of -recharge when we fight the annoying creeps who refuse to come to melee range and need to be picked one by one. But it's more annoying than hard since they are minions.

 

Citadel is 100% easy mode. Council are bags of XP for a reason.

 

Manticore I seldom solo since PPs entering T9 is a drag in kill alls. It can be worked around by keeping them agroed and moving to the next group. The double AV whammy at the end can be difficult to get past and Hopkins is a bag of resists that takes a long time to whittle.

 

Numina I have only soloed a couple of times since the hunts are annoying (and this was back when we had full base access at all times). Despite being tagged as a GM Jurassic is more like an AV.

 

ITF I did a couple of times just to join the cool kid club, +4x8 normal mode and +4x8 with enemies buffed.

 

 

All of this has been done either on Scrappers or Tankers which are CoH's easy mode. Kudos to all of you crazy people doing it on Blasters and such!

I did Numina the other day and I'm prtty sure Jurassic is flagged as a monster in the TF, rather than an AV or GM.

 

But yes, depending on AT and build most of the TFs are soloable without too much trouble I've found. I tend to do them while leveling, rather than as a 50, so I don't have to worry about losing powers, but I don't do them as often any more as I lack the patience for it these days. I'm much more likely to dual box them than solo it, just to speed up the AV fights as they can get rather monotonous at times.

[Snarky]

33 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Posi 1 and 2 is one of the worst to tackle due to exemplaring stealing so many bonuses. But the vhaz doing exotic toxic damage, radiation bosses who do -defense, the CoT bosses who do -def, a +def bubble AND -ToHit, plus the ghosts doing -ToHit are simply amazing as game design. Basically at a level when we are the weakest is when we have the hardest enemies 😄 If done at (close to) level appropriate we are also slot starved which does not help.  Fighting 8 versions of myself never gets old, but, never try to do it on Radiation Armor since the NPCs will spawn with Radiation Emission instead. Suddenly, 8x Enervating Field. Boom. Even with a tray full of medium purples andoranges i had to suicide a number of times to eventually whittle their numbers one by one. Posi 2's boss is nothing special and just needs to be whittled down.

 

My coalition did a Posi 2 a couple days ago.  Two teams of 6 headed through it.  We sped through everything, mostly delayed by finding mission objectives.  However, at the last mission, once inside the doors to get the interior bombs, it got ugly.  We were all exemplared and well versed in the TF.  So we were all spread out.  That room, sigh.  Not a great idea to spread out.  My poor Dark/Dark Brute went in to tryy to Tank for an objective.  3-4 large pulls were on him.  The debuffing accuracy was cruel.  Died 3 times and finally used a P2W ethereal shift to go hide.  It did reinforce my decision to main dark/dark lol.  I normally am debuffing my opponents accuracy! However at that level at that volume I had no chance.  Thankfully we completed the objectives (no idea how much I helped in there) and someone TP formed us up for the final battle.