Aiming to solo +4x8 ITFs with no insps, amps, or temps. Not there yet. Any advice?

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Tried soloing a +4x8 ITF tonight with an electric / SR / mu sentinel. Used no insps, no temps or amps or any such things. T4 musculature core, T4 ageless radial, T4 assault radial hybrid, T4 Ion radial judgment, T3 Vanguard radial lore, T3 reactive radial interface.  

 

The first two missions weren't particularly quick, taking about 30 minutes in total. But, they were straightforward and safe. 

 

Very inefficient in mission 3, took about 40 minutes to get the first four generals down and to destroy the computer. Attempted to solo Requiem by leading him to one side in the hills, well away from other mobs. Got him to about 40% hit points and then he seemed to heal up fairly quickly almost to full health. Not sure how he did that as no power with that capability was listed on the wiki. So, not sure if I made a mistake or how to correct next time if I did. Was working him down a second time when he got several hits through in a short time spawn. He may have used power drain on my lore pets, which I had summoned a little while earlier to try to speed things up, and perhaps the higher to hit total and some very good luck helped him get several hits through in quick succession. After my sentinel died to Requiem he was brought back into the mission for more practice at that fight. But, Requiem was nowhere to be seen. So, I tried soloing Rom for a little while. Eventually the hour grew late and I gave up. This time. 

Requiem ran a lot through all phases of the fight with him. Not sure how to keep Requiem from doing that, or at least how to minimize it. Rom ran a lot as well. Not sure how to keep Rom from doing that, either. 

Ideas considered include soloing at +0 a few times to get a better sense of how the AV fights go and how to manage them. Also, I may need to take a closer look at lore pets to ensure they have substantial -regen. Or not, not sure. Lore pets probably should have been used on the computer because it takes a fairly long time otherwise. 

Still, it could take a long time to figure things out mostly on my own, so any advice would be most appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Edited August 10, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Uun]

I believe this is the correct version (you have to look at the Condition pull-down). He has Dark Regeneration, which is a massive heal. He also has Life Drain. 

https://cod.uberguy.net/html/entity.html?entity=5thcolumn_requiem&cond=57757ac41f1af3991e723ec396180398

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Based on the damage values showing up on screen your link shows the correct powers and damage. He probably landed dark regeneration and perhaps a life drain shortly afterward to make his life leap upward from 40%-ish to near full. That gives me helpful information to consider when thinking about positioning relative to Requiem. It also makes it clear that having lore pets out in that battle can potentially backfire if he keeps healing off of them. 

Thank you for the link.

[Bionic_Flea]

If you think Requiem runs a lot, wait until you get to final Romulus.  Although it eats into DPS, you may consider throwing electric fences into your rotation.  If you had temps. I would suggest web grenades and other stuff.  But even if it's a loss of DPS to use it, you lose even more chasing him down.  You might have to slot fences for recharge and immobile to get stacks, not sure.

 

If you are using flight to stay out of range, you may want to consider using Robotic Drones.  They fly, do -regen in their attacks, and like to stay at range so if you all stay at 26+ ft he won't be able to heal.  At 41+ ft he loses Tenebrous Tentacles.  You'll have to go 200+ to avoid all ranged attacks . . . good luck with that.  😄

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by Bionic_Flea

[EnjoyTheJourney]

Finished a practice run at -1x8. It took about 1:30 after subtracting out some afk time spent chatting with my wife. 

Left with mixed feelings afterward. It was a good learning experience concerning positioning and influencing AV AI. It was also a good opportunity to work on smoothing out attack chains to make them more efficient. Parts of it were quite fun. The interesting and fun parts were somewhat counterbalanced by the length of the AV fights. Also, the final four AVs sat there and did almost nothing until the first Nictus AV went down (more on that further below). 

 

For the Requiem fight I just stayed high enough in the air that his melee range attacks couldn't land (no dark regeneration for you, Req!). Also stayed quite a bit near cliffs / rock outcroppings so he would dance around trying to hit me in melee range. That cut down on running a fair amount. Running away from him as he ran away from me sometimes seemed to draw him back, sometimes not. 

Following in-game advice received via PM that DOTs can make the AVs run I moved electric fences and ball lightning in my power trays for the final mission AV fight so I wouldn't use them by mistake. Rom still ran, but not as much as I often see him run. 

 

The final four AVs fight started out in an unexpected way. I targeted the middle Nictus AV first from as far away as possible with only single target attacks. Shock still did light damage to the AV to Rom's left from time to time, but otherwise the middle AV was the sole target. The healing Nictus to Rom's right tried a couple of times to land an attack. But, other than that all four AVs just stood there until after the first AV (the middle AV) went down. 

If how I started the final AV fight was a regularly successful solo tactic it would probably be on the forums. But, I've not seen or heard of that before. Perhaps it was a quirk of this run or perhaps it's something that happens so seldom that nobody counts on it or even bothers to mention it. 

 

Edited August 10, 2023 by EnjoyTheJourney

[Zect]

What you encountered is very nice when it happens, though not reliably replicable through any means I found. It was fairly common in early-mid 2008 for teams who could not outdps the healing nictus and/or tank Rom and the mire nictus to attempt to pull just one of the AV's away using ranged attacks, with results that are charitably described as mixed.

 

I used the oldschool way of Longbow lore pets, one of the better pets that deal -regen. Plant Lore Longbow pets (command to stay, otherwise the Cataphract tries to melee) some distance from Rom and immobilize him within their range with epic immobs. However, in the ITF this is still a very torturous process since every 25% of Rom's health the ambush spawns, and they inevitably kill the lore pets, so I would then retreat and wait for them to recharge. You further need to attract aggro from the mire nictus before the longbow cataphract can damage it with its aoe grenade and then kite it around while shooting rom. If the cataphract grenades aggro it, it will kill the lore pets in a single hit. I used a 2nd build specifically for it, because sentinel epic immobs are extremely costly. There are very likely more efficient strategies out there; however, I've long since lost interest in no insps no temps soloing of anything.

Edited August 10, 2023 by Zect

[EnjoyTheJourney]

2 hours ago, Zect said:

What you encountered is very nice when it happens, though not reliably replicable through any means I found. It was fairly common in early-mid 2008 for teams who could not outdps the healing nictus and/or tank Rom and the mire nictus to attempt to pull just one of the AV's away using ranged attacks, with results that are charitably described as mixed.

 

I used the oldschool way of Longbow lore pets, one of the better pets that deal -regen. Plant Lore Longbow pets (command to stay, otherwise the Cataphract tries to melee) some distance from Rom and immobilize him within their range with epic immobs. However, in the ITF this is still a very torturous process since every 25% of Rom's health the ambush spawns, and they inevitably kill the lore pets, so I would then retreat and wait for them to recharge. You further need to attract aggro from the mire nictus before the longbow cataphract can damage it with its aoe grenade and then kite it around while shooting rom. If the cataphract grenades aggro it, it will kill the lore pets in a single hit. I used a 2nd build specifically for it, because sentinel epic immobs are extremely costly. There are very likely more efficient strategies out there; however, I've long since lost interest in no insps no temps soloing of anything.

It probably would have taken a fair number of hours to figure these things out on my own if I ever figured them out at all. Thank you for sharing your insights. 

I can empathize with why soloing AVs without insps / temps can be a phase that somebody enjoys doing for a while, but then wants to eventually stop doing. It can be a pretty big time sink. And, enjoying the game with others is usually more fun (at least for me, perhaps for a fair number of others).