Sister Solaris's arc needs reworking with the new Incarnate Cimerorans

[Vanden]

Imagine my surprise coming back to CoH after about a year off to find that the Minotaurs and Cyclopes in Sister Solaris's arc have a bunch of new powers, including Rage. The finale of this arc requires you to clear out 4 groups of 8 of those guys, and a fifth spawn at the end that includes 6 of them. I can only assume that not a single person remembered this arc when the new mobs were introduced for testing, because asking players to fight 8 elite bosses with Rage simultaneously in what is supposed to be a soloable arc is absolutely insane (I admit I would've been one of the everybody who didn't think to check). I even tried the mission set to the lowest difficulty with Bosses turned off, which downgrades them to Lieutenants, and 8 of those guys with Rage running were still able to kill my Scrapper and all the NPC allies the game gives you to help clear the mission. On my normal difficulty settings, even Barrier Core Epiphany couldn't keep me alive against them. This level of difficulty is way out of line.

Edited August 12, 2022 by Vanden

[Coyotedancer]

In before "You should just bring a TEAM!" and "It's Incarnate content so it's supposed to be that hard on base difficulty!"...

On a supposed-to-be-the-Solo-path Incarnate arc,,,

That may be run by people who won't even necessarily have all of their level shifts yet...

 

Which is to say, I agree with you. Those beasts are pretty over the top at the moment.

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Astralock]

33 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

In before "You should just bring a TEAM!" and "It's Incarnate content so it's supposed to be that hard on base difficulty!"...

On a supposed-to-be-the-Splo-path Incarnate arc,,,

That may be run by people who won't even necessarily have all of their level shifts yet...

 

Which is to say, I agree with you. Those beasts are pretty over the top at the moment.

To be fair, some people have been complaining for years about how easy the Dark Astoria content is once you have Incarnate abilities slotted.

[Rudra]

EBs don't scale down to lieutenants. If bosses are turned off, EBs scale down to bosses. That said, I haven't tried the Sister Solaris arc since the Minotaurs got Rage.

[Coyotedancer]

And I would argue that it isn't really fair to tune it to challenge characters that are already fully Incarnate equipped, since it is supposed to be the solo progression path. It just can't be balanced around the "end result" when it's supposed to be what you use to get TO that end result. 

 

First learn walk, Then learn fly. 😝

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Vanden]

I would also point out that I as I posted in the OP, I tried using Barrier Core Epiphany, the single strongest "keep me alive" incarnate power there is, and these guys still killed me through it.

[Vanden]

29 minutes ago, Rudra said:

EBs don't scale down to lieutenants. If bosses are turned off, EBs scale down to bosses.

 

[Rudra]

Never seen an EB scale to lieutenant before. I sit corrected.

[lemming]

I've run it a few times since the change.  yes, they're tougher, but worked Ok as long as I wasn't leroy jenkins.   (Twice with melee, once with a blaster. Blaster was T3, and I ran it at +3/1)

[Coyotedancer]

21 minutes ago, lemming said:

I've run it a few times since the change.  yes, they're tougher, but worked Ok as long as I wasn't leroy jenkins.   (Twice with melee, once with a blaster. Blaster was T3, and I ran it at +3/1)

 

Separating them makes it less dangerous, but we may want to go try it out on beta... The new aggro revamp may make it harder to take them on in smaller groups, unfortunately.

 

(I was testing something else with one of my Sents the other day and found it almost impossible to pull part of a group from range without instantly aggroing the whole lot.,, That was an Arachnos mission, not a herd of monsters, but it's probably still worth someone checking before we decide that pulling groups apart is the obvious answer to potentially over-tuned opposition.)

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer
City of Typos

[lemming]

Just now, Coyotedancer said:

 

Separating them makes it less dangerous, by we may want to go try it out on beta... The new aggro revamp may make it harder to take them on in smaller groups, unfortunately.

 

(I was testing something else with one of my Sents the other say and found it almost impossible to pull part of a group from range without instantly aggroing the whole lot.,, That was an Arachnos mission, not a herd of monsters, but it's probably still worth someone checking before we decide that pulling groups apart is the obvious answer to potentially over-tuned opposition.)

good point. I'll go check that now.  I can throw a few different chars at it

[Coyotedancer]

Spiffy! I'm committed elsewhere for awhile, but hopefully I can throw White Thorn Kai at it later tonight (She's the one in my crew who's still wearing the "Knows No Fear" badge. 😆 ) along with my less-incarnated SS Brute-

 

ETA:  Actually, I think I'm going to queue Shonokin and Aegis, too. Dark Sent and Illusion/Time Controller. I want to see how a ranged character and a squishy one fare.

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[lemming]

My Fire/Bio tank did terrible and I had to do a lot of running.

My Elec/MA Blaster did alright.  Kept at range and wore them down.  Less incoming damage that way. 

[Coyotedancer]

Taking them at even-level (So at +3 with bosses on-) Kai was able to survive two of them at a time pretty handily. Three or four was dicey and any more than that was a *very* quick flattening... And that's as a well-built full Incarnate with T4 toys. For comparison, prior to the revamp this little KM/Bio stalker was able to solo DA from start to finish, including this arc, at +4x8. It wasn't quick, but it WAS possible.... It's one of her Diary entries... With the arc as it is on beta, I seriously doubt she could do it again. 

 

I was completely unable to pull the monsters one or two at a time with her. The smallest group I managed to peel off of a herd was four,

 

When I went in with Shonokin (Dark/WP Sent) I had enough spare salvage bits to make him some new toys, so decided to fake being an Incarnate newbie and switched out his usual iToys for some T2s. He only had an Alpha level shift and I set the difficulty to -1. He ate the Talons for lunch. But again, I was completely unable to get the monsters in small chunks. I always got either the entire herd's attention or the nearest 5. Even with his mobility and Dark being Dark, there was just no clearing the things. He got flattened in a hurry.

 

I haven't had time to try it with the Illusion/Time controller yet, but given the difficulty separating the mobs into smaller groups, I'm not holding out a lot of hope, even if I set her on -1 and let her keep all three of her level shifts. (Aegis has T3 toys-) Not being able to pull them in as singles or pairs makes this mission a royal pain in the rump.   

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[Uun]

12 hours ago, Rudra said:

Never seen an EB scale to lieutenant before. I sit corrected.

They're bosses, not EBs, which makes the difficulty even more nuts. Part of the problem is that the spawns in this mission don't scale with team size. If you could set the mission to x1 and get only 2 or 3 in a spawn, it would be doable. 

 

[Coyotedancer]

Yep. They are definitely bosses, not EBs.

[Uun]

I successfully soloed it on a Mind dominator with significant (ab)use of Confuse and Mass Confusion (bosses can be confused in 1 shot with Domination up). Same strategy would work on a Dark dominator, although not as quickly. Note, because the Minotaurs and Cyclops have Unyielding, they cannot be held, stunned or slept.

[Coyotedancer]

Oof,.. My try with the Illusion/Time 'troller was total chaos. 😝

 

She has a full set of T3 toys, so I ran her at +3 with bosses off for an even-level though somewhat easier time of it. She was able to pull apart a full herd into two groups of four the first time around. That actually didn't go too badly between the Time effects, her pets and some luck.

 

The second try, though, we got the entire herd. That was a knock-down, drag-out, stuff-running-everywhere hot *mess*. Which ended with a flat Aegis when her PA went down and a couple of cyclops got lucky with their thrown rocks faster than she could resummon. With better timing she might have survived it, but it wouldn't have been what you would call a graceful victory.

 

Just for fun. I also tried it with Kestrel... a DB/WP Scrapper rebuild of my old Stalker main from the Liberty days. (She's a bit of an over-engineered nightmare, with a perma-summoned Adept companion for extra damage.) I took them in at +4, but kept bosses off just to see what would happen if I played "Slightly-overconfident Leeroy who's heard that this mission is dangerous but thinks They Can Handle It". (Your Stereotypical Scrapper? 😆 ) She also has an actual snipe attack from her Patron pool, so could pull from better range than Kai could.

 

Doing a "bunny hop" fast snipe from behind a rock she *DID* manage to pull one monster at a time a couple of times. It wasn't consistent, and the rest of the time she got from two to four at a time as usual, but she's the first one I've tested who managed a one-off at all, so there's that. Do it using a real snipe, from cover, and you MIGHT be successful. 

 

With bosses off, they had no trouble with groups of four or five. These beasties seemed to have a rougher time with Cardinal's electrical attacks than they did with Kestrel's swords. 

 

Just to be silly, the last group I jumped with them, I went Full Leeroy just to see what would happen. 'Fired the Barrier, the Support hybrid and Rune of Protection for Cardinal, Kes' Strength of Will and dove into the middle of a herd. I had to use a few green inspirations when the Barrier started to fade and I definitely got lucky that Cardinal decided to hover-blast instead of getting right up in the monsters' faces (As is his usual habit. Yes, let's just HUG that Warwalker why don't we? <_< ), but when the dust settled they won. So, it can be done on a melee character. You just have to go in with a solid character that loaded for proverbial bear and hope that the RNG is with you. And that you remembered to set the mission to "no bosses".

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by Coyotedancer

[FrauleinMental]

21 hours ago, Uun said:

I successfully soloed it on a Mind dominator with significant (ab)use of Confuse and Mass Confusion (bosses can be confused in 1 shot with Domination up). Same strategy would work on a Dark dominator, although not as quickly. Note, because the Minotaurs and Cyclops have Unyielding, they cannot be held, stunned or slept.

 

This is how I did it with my Mind Controller--stealth and liberal use of Confuse.

 

I'm not concerned that the Church of +4/x8 hits an occasional wall.  Sometimes when you're solo, you're not worth eight people. 😎

[biostem]

Maybe we need an EB -> Boss option, like we have for AVs...

[Coyotedancer]

10 minutes ago, FrauleinMental said:

 

This is how I did it with my Mind Controller--stealth and liberal use of Confuse.

 

I'm not concerned that the Church of +4/x8 hits an occasional wall.  Sometimes when you're solo, you're not worth eight people. 😎

 

The issue is that this particular mission is x8 rather you want that many goons or not. Your difficulty setting doesn't affect the size of the mobs.

 

It assumes that you'll have the helper NPCs... Unfortunately, those helpers may or may not (Too often not-) survive the first half of the mission (buckets of Talons-) to help your character with the second (the herds of cyclops and minotaur). It's not a great design to assume they'll be there.

[Uun]

25 minutes ago, biostem said:

Maybe we need an EB -> Boss option, like we have for AVs...

See above. They're bosses, not EBs.

[arcane]

Did you try reducing your difficulty settings??? Like not just the no bosses part, but the level etc? I see a 54 in a picture?

Edited August 14, 2022 by arcane

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, biostem said:

Maybe we need an EB -> Boss option, like we have for AVs...

The No Bosses setting in difficulty typically knocks EBs down to bosses.

 

(Edit: And before someone else pops on with a response to me that they aren't EBs, please see the comments further up that the minotaurs and cyclopses are bosses, not EBs. So the No Bosses setting knocks them down to lieutenants normally.)

Edited August 14, 2022 by Rudra

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, arcane said:

Did you try reducing your difficulty settings??? Like not just the no bosses part, but the level etc? I see a 54 in a picture?

 

I've been trying it out over on Beta with characters at all kinds of different levels, stages of incarnation and boss/no boss settings...

 

Even in cases where the level was effectively -1, pulling a sizeable group of the monsters (Which was typical with the aggro changes in Page 4. My test pulls most often got four at a time.) tended to be problematic if the characters weren't already solidly-built full incarnates. That was particularly true with the one I took in with just an Alpha shift and some T2 toys, which wouldn't be an unusual situation for someone using the arcs to build a character's goodies.

 

Even turning bosses off in addition to flooring the monsters' level didn't solve the issue completely in the cases where Shonokin ended up with a full mob of eight rather than a partial pull. The monsters still got lucky often enough to make those fights a matter of "How many inspies did you bring?" 

 

Granted, that was on a Dark/WP Sentinel... But I picked him to test the "Incarnate whose iToys are still in-progress" situation BECAUSE Sents are very middle-of-the-road characters. Even a well-built one isn't going to be an UberToon. They're somewhere in between being great and being paper tigers.... so... a reasonable average "Everyman" sort. 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by Coyotedancer