How is one supposed to beat Silver Mantis?

[ZemX]

8 hours ago, Ultimo said:

This is me playing at -1 level, no less.  Just stupidly overtuned.

 

Not overtuned.  Broken.   Nothing you said in your post should be possible for a mid-upper-30s EB (or even a level 50 EB) at -1 notoriety vs. your at-least 26% psi res.  There is absolutely no way short of a bug she can be hitting you for 1400.

[Ultimo]

17 hours ago, ZemX said:

 

Not overtuned.  Broken.   Nothing you said in your post should be possible for a mid-upper-30s EB (or even a level 50 EB) at -1 notoriety vs. your at-least 26% psi res.  There is absolutely no way short of a bug she can be hitting you for 1400.

What about the adds... do the Fortunatas or other Arachnos debuff Psi resistance?

[MonteCarla]

I defeated her the other day using the Complete Mission button.

 

I totally hear you. She is insanely hard, even for characters who should be able to handle her.

[Lockely]

Calvin Scott I think is nearly just as bad an offender. He shows up at the very end of The New Praetorians arc and you have to fight him inside a volcano base where he drops endless trip mines. Problem is he also beats the tar out of you and shows up with a group of EBs, and if you die he just... keeps setting up mines. Once you do the hospital->return loop you spawn directly into a mountain of mines and immediately explode.

I had to eat like 6 full trays of purples AND cheese his range from a ledge to beat him.

[ZemX]

6 hours ago, Ultimo said:

What about the adds... do the Fortunatas or other Arachnos debuff Psi resistance?

 

None of the rank-and-file Arachnos I'm aware of do any -RES at all and I've never noticed any res debuffing myself.  I most often play Rad Armor Tankers, so I'd notice.  Arachnos does defense, endurance, recovery, and perception debuffing that I'm aware of.  The AVs might do more, but ordinary adds?  No.

Serafina also does not debuff Resistance.

 

The red con EB is a clue something is wrong there.  Like I said, should have been yellow or orange at -1 notoriety.  Unless this arc has some special exception for the level of the EB here.  Are you entirely sure you didn't have AVs turned on and were actually trying to solo her as an AV?  Not sure what else would explain it.  Even as an AV, she'd have to be level 50 at least to be reaching numbers like 1400 damage for Psychic Wail.

[Uun]

59 minutes ago, Lockely said:

Calvin Scott I think is nearly just as bad an offender. He shows up at the very end of The New Praetorians arc and you have to fight him inside a volcano base where he drops endless trip mines. Problem is he also beats the tar out of you and shows up with a group of EBs, and if you die he just... keeps setting up mines. Once you do the hospital->return loop you spawn directly into a mountain of mines and immediately explode.

I had to eat like 6 full trays of purples AND cheese his range from a ledge to beat him.

I like the New Praetorians arc and have done it a bunch of times on all ATs. The best way to approach the Calvin Scott fight is to ignore him when you're on the volcano top and focus on taking out the 2 groups of loyalists first. You shouldn't need more than 4-6 medium or large purple inspirations (used 2 at a time) for this. Once the loyalists are all defeated, Calvin teleports you inside the volcano and you can buff up and take him out 1 on 1. Assuming you're fighting him as an EB not an AV, he goes down pretty quickly. 

 

I usually wait until I have T3 or T4 Incarnates fitted before running the Calvin Scott mission. You only get a +1 level shift (I usually set the mission to +3), but the Destiny and Hybrid powers make things go easier. Lore pets will eat dirt pretty quickly if you bring them out at the beginning of the fight, so you might want to hold them in reserve. 

Edited April 3 by Uun

[Lockely]

5 minutes ago, Uun said:

 

I usually wait until I have T3 or T4 Incarnates fitted before running the Calvin Scott mission. You only get a +1 level shift (I usually set the mission to +3), but the Destiny and Hybrid powers make things go easier. Lore pets will eat dirt pretty quickly if you bring them out at the beginning of the fight, so you might want to hold them in reserve.

 

The issue is that questline is offered to players at level 30, so most won't have those options. I ran it on my MM as I was leveling as I treated it as a normal contact and my bots could not survive more than a moment.

[Uun]

12 minutes ago, Lockely said:

The issue is that questline is offered to players at level 30, so most won't have those options. I ran it on my MM as I was leveling as I treated it as a normal contact and my bots could not survive more than a moment.

It's a mistake to run this arc at the level it's first offered. You just don't have the slotting in place. I tried this once when HC first launched and couldn't get past Silver Mantis in the first arc. It's much more enjoyable to run it at lvl 50.

[Lockely]

6 minutes ago, Uun said:

It's a mistake to run this arc at the level it's first offered. You just don't have the slotting in place. I tried this once when HC first launched and couldn't get past Silver Mantis in the first arc. It's much more enjoyable to run it at lvl 50.

 

Perhaps, but it IS offered, and the balancing needs to be looked at because of it. The redside version (Mr. G) isn't nearly as egregious.

[ZemX]

16 minutes ago, Lockely said:

The redside version (Mr. G) isn't nearly as egregious.

 

You're kidding, right?  Mr. G's second mission has you fight five EBs/AVs from the New Praetorians at once while being ambushed by PPD after robbing the Brickstown bank.  The similar mission from Provost Marchand gives you four B-List villain EBs (same losers you fight in Safeguard missions) you can fight one at a time with their associated goons while working your way through the bank,   It's a total joke by comparison.

 

I'll give you Calvin Scott is a problem for anyone who can't handle his mines but he's nothing close to fighting ALL the New Praetorians at once while being ambushed repeatedly. 

[Lockely]

9 minutes ago, ZemX said:

 

You're kidding, right?  Mr. G's second mission has you fight five EBs/AVs from the New Praetorians at once while being ambushed by PPD after robbing the Brickstown bank.  The similar mission from Provost Marchand gives you four B-List villain EBs (same losers you fight in Safeguard missions) you can fight one at a time with their associated goons while working your way through the bank,   It's a total joke by comparison.

 

I'll give you Calvin Scott is a problem for anyone who can't handle his mines but he's nothing close to fighting ALL the New Praetorians at once while being ambushed repeatedly. 

 

I know thats what the Wiki says, but I ran this on my most recent villain and I had to only fight one of them, and there was only one ambush in the middle of the fight. Either it bugged or it was changed and not documented.

I went in fully preparing for major problems, and instead it ended up being one of my favorite missions from the entire set.

Edited April 3 by Lockely

[ZemX]

31 minutes ago, Lockely said:

I know thats what the Wiki says, but I ran this on my most recent villain and I had to only fight one of them, and there was only one ambush in the middle of the fight. Either it bugged or it was changed and not documented.

 

Not sure I've tried soloing it to be honest.  I suppose it's possible it scales down the number of New Praetorians you face based on the team size but I can't think of any other mission that does that with named NPC enemies like that.    On a full team, it's a heck of a challenge compared to its blue counterpart.

[Uun]

It depends on your team size setting. Did it recently set to x3 and got 3 EBs at once.

[Hyperstrike]

Just be aware, she like that kind of rough play.

So unless you want a psycho hose beast girlfriend, be careful...

😉

[Ironblade]

On 3/16/2024 at 12:26 PM, Etched said:

One of these could help. Should make her a Yellow EB for 60 Seconds.

 

 

 

Good news:  they actually last three minutes.

[High_Beam]

What I did to beat her was re-calibrate the Rogue Isles Med-Com Teleport system to trigger a transport attempt but to only transport the metal in her body.  So when it activated she was turned to a puddle of goo.  All the copper in her blood; gone.  I didn't even realize calcium was a metal.  The smell of Chlorine was overpowering afterwards.

[Greycat]

I'm personally shocked nobody's said "take her to dinner first."

 

But yeah, she's a rough fight. The very last one in Night Ward can be tough, too. Been a while since I've done either, but my general strategy is to "bring distractions." Pets, teammates, anyone she can share the love with so it's not all focused on you.

[Ultimo]

So, went in with a full tray of purples, and I even discovered there was an ally Fortunata in the mission I'd missed before.  Every little bit helps, you know.  Did manage to take her down, even though she was a L37 red EB.  Unpleasant, to say the least.  But, got my Mu Mastery, so that's good.