The Freedom Phalanx wiped my LRSF team.

[Lens Perchance]

Last night I ran a PuG LRSF, and most of the team, including myself hadn't done it before. Despite that, our gung-ho attitude carried us to the face off with the Freedom Phalanx with minimal casualties.  

My toon was lv.46 and up until then mobs and bosses were 50 and below. The Phalanx however were all lv53 and we could barely make a dent on a team of +6 Heroes. Due to it being a strike force, we were unable to reset, and we were forced to quit.  

The team was very understanding, given that it was a first time for a lot of us, but there was disappointment in the air.  

Is this normal, are the Freedom Phalanx in LRSF hard coded to lv53?

 

[Lazarillo]

29 minutes ago, Lens Perchance said:

Is this normal, are the Freedom Phalanx in LRSF hard coded to lv53?

Yes, they are.  Same with several of the AVs in Mizz Libby heroside, too, just as an FYI.

While you can generally smash through the LRSF these days with a heavily Incarnate-d team, bear in mind, it was originally designed to be the villain equivalent of a Hamidon raid.  So crushing a team that's sub-level-50 is, for better or worse, entirely what that fight is designed to do.

[Mezmera]

Yes it was even kind of a tough fight even for level 50's with IO'd builds.  Things changed with incarnates but even a good team of 50's minus incarnates would have to tread carefully on the last fight.  

[EmperorSteele]

Omph. Yeah, get to 50+ and try again, I guess =(

 

But hey, you made it that far, that's pretty impressive for a group of underleveled first-timers!

 

The general strat is trying to draw one at the time, or having a Mind Dom/Trollet use Mass Hyp until they're all asleep and grab one at a time that way.

[siolfir]

Echoing what @EmperorSteele said, you can try to separate them and take them out one at a time when underleveled. In the original version they were hard-set to level 54 and pre-IOs that was (one of) the common strategies, with the other being a zerg rush with Warburg nukes and/or Shivan shards, often using stacked Vengeance at the beginning of the fight if the nukes were lacking. Set bonuses and the extra level shift from alpha combined with lowering the level on the Phalanx made this a fairly standard fight, but the purple patch is still going to hurt you when you're going up against +6s. It could be a fun challenge if you separate them, though - my first 50 (Ice/Rad Corruptor) hit level 50 during a LRSF while fighting them at +5.

Edited May 7, 2021 by siolfir
adding anecdote

[Snarky]

Read my companion thread for late game hard TFs, +4, and newer players.  

 

*gets out of dusty coffin and wanders to the porch  "You kids have no idea how hard some of the content in the game can be.  We used to fight the Phalanx with Single origin enhancers!  You get here and we give you I/Os and builds and you trash everything.  Yeah, then a real challenge comes along and you got no idea what to do!  Grrrrr.  Oh, and get off my lawn!!!"  *sits down in rocker on the porch

[Apparition]

There are three Task/Strike Forces that you absolutely want to be level 50 for, and LRSF is one of them.  The other two are MLTF and LGTF.

 

Strategy for the Freedom Phalanx:

 

Take down Numina first.  Positron second.  Penelope Yin third.  Back Alley Brawler fourth.  With those four down, the rest are easy.

[Mr. Vee]

We run it with sub-50s no problem all the time, but I wouldn't want to run it with all sub-50s. I think being IO'd might be even a bigger factor than level but if you throw some lore pets and maybe a barrier into the mix it becomes much easier even for the lowbies on the team.

[Greycat]

... also, you know those "useless" sleeps? They work *wonders* for separating the AVs out so you only face one at a time.  Even if you have to reapply single-target over and over.

[Mezmera]

6 hours ago, Greycat said:

... also, you know those "useless" sleeps? They work *wonders* for separating the AVs out so you only face one at a time.  Even if you have to reapply single-target over and over.

 

Before IO's I used to run this sf with my mind dom using the perma sleep method and 2 kins to keep me perma.  Understanding that this thing might actually be hard especially if you don't have any level 50 teammates might have been the first indicator of potential failure.  

 

Nowadays my dom can just alpha zerg it so out went that sleep.  But yeah for sure try to separate them and at the very least Numina HAS to go down first even if it costs all of you you're demise.  

[Lens Perchance]

I appreciate all the responses. In my defense, I was operating under the assumption that a SF offered at 45-50 would afford at least a slim chance of victory.    

I am an oldschool player, fwiw, since we used to show up to Hami raids with no game plan.  

I did take a villain to 50, AoE Rad/Rad corruptor around 2009, but I don't recall if LRSF was open then, I mostly soloed then.

[Draeth Darkstar]

The Heroes/AVs in all of the Signature TF/SFs (the ones from the "main characters," basically) have their levels set not to scale down. As a rule of thumb, you at least want the leader of the team to be the max level for the content you're doing to protect you from situations like that.

[Clave Dark 5]

Meanwhile this game has gotten too easy!  😃

[Snarky]

7 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Meanwhile this game has gotten too easy!  😃

In Horse racing I am given to understand they add weights to fast horses as a balancing factor.  Maybe this does not happen anymore, I know squat about horse racing.  

 

On Freedumb, errr Excelsior we have some great players.  As balancing factors to the high end builds and knowing mostly what we are doing we add dead weight to most TFs and Teams in the form of clueless AFKers who bring the difficulty back up and lower the rewards.  You never know exactly the handicap you are under, but trust me, on any team formed on LFG you got yourself some dead ass weight.

[tidge]

While not precisely the same experience as LRSF / MLTF, I've had a few of my freshly-minted level 50 characters experience a similar reaction to Mender Ramiel's arc while solo. I find it to be a nice reminder that not all level 50s are created equal, and that just because a character was soloing x8/+4 Unai Kemen content that they may not be ready to do the same with incarnate content.

 

It was some time ago that I helped a fresh-faced lvl 50 "fire farmer" finish that arc. I tried to explain what was happening and how to shift not just tactics but to also consider difficulty settings... I am not sure that either piece of my advice was considered.

 

[ZemX]

On 5/7/2021 at 6:37 AM, Snarky said:

"You kids have no idea how hard some of the content in the game can be.  We used to fight the Phalanx with Single origin enhancers!  You get here and we give you I/Os and builds and you trash everything.  Yeah, then a real challenge comes along and you got no idea what to do!  Grrrrr.  Oh, and get off my lawn!!!"  *sits down in rocker on the porch

Heh... I just discovered HC a couple months back and last night was the first time I'd run LRSF since Live.  But it was neat arriving at that Freedom Phalanx mission and thinking to myself...

 

"Didn't we used to go to Warburg for bio nukes and Shivans on this one?"

 

Or am I remembering a different one?  I kind of remember the sleep tactic too now that I'm reading it here.  But anyway, I was on a similar team that didn't really know the right way to tackle that fight.  Fortunately, there were enough incarnates on the team to just brute force it.  My ninjitsu stalker took one instant dirt nap in that mess, I don't even know from who, in there somewhere, but I got back up with Unrelenting and the team finished the fight relatively quickly.  Certainly way less trouble than I remember.

[Hedgefund]

Yes Warburg nukes + Shivs was a frequent approach to LRSF back in ye olden days.  Not every team had the mind dom + kins necessary for the sleep technique and this was an alternate technique to better your odds.

[jojogladco]

On 5/6/2021 at 4:08 PM, Lens Perchance said:

Last night I ran a PuG LRSF, and most of the team, including myself hadn't done it before. Despite that, our gung-ho attitude carried us to the face off with the Freedom Phalanx with minimal casualties.  

My toon was lv.46 and up until then mobs and bosses were 50 and below. The Phalanx however were all lv53 and we could barely make a dent on a team of +6 Heroes. Due to it being a strike force, we were unable to reset, and we were forced to quit.  

The team was very understanding, given that it was a first time for a lot of us, but there was disappointment in the air.  

Is this normal, are the Freedom Phalanx in LRSF hard coded to lv53?

 

This is a chance to bring back the time honored tradition of getting curb stomped in the LRSF and having the whole team go load up on Warburg Nukes and Shivans, then go back and ROLFSTOMP the Heroes in 20 seconds after you have the whole team unload their temps on them.