Advanced Mode Lady Grey Task Force

[TomatoPhalanges]

Made this thread for discussing the new Hard Mode LGTF- specifically strategies and things to be aware of when engaging with the content!

 

I'll start us off by talking about the most persistent hurdle in the TF - the Heavies. Personally, I think what people need to pay attention to most is not the teleswap nor the field when they die, but the combination of both. I believe they teleswap the first enemy they target, so it's wise for the tank to try and anticipate this and position ahead and in a place that will mean the Heavy isn't smack-bang in the middle of the group after the swap.

 

Another tip about the field- it REALLY hurts. Like, really hurts. You want to be out of it as fast as you can possibly move, or you're not unlikely to eat pavement the next time an enemy swings at you. You'll always know when you're in it from red status text up beside your buffs (in the same spot the 'Hidden' line shows up for stealthy types)

[twozerofoxtrot]

17 hours ago, TomatoPhalanges said:

it's wise for the tank to try and anticipate this and position ahead and in a place that will mean the Heavy isn't smack-bang in the middle of the group after the swap

 

Great point. Another thing that helps when pugging is if the other members cool their jets a bit behind the tank, especially during the Riders mission. Hard impulse to curb but I've consistently noticed this while running that everyone wants to be up by or even ahead of the tank. Rude awakening during a teleswap.

 

17 hours ago, TomatoPhalanges said:

You want to be out of it as fast as you can possibly move

 

One of the fiendish things about it that I really feel on my Invul tanker is the Terrorize. Especially if they overlap, it can really stutter movement out. Plenty of fear resist but the lack of any fear protection means I get hit and it sticks for atleast a second.

[macskull]

Playing with enemy names and health bars always showing is really helpful. Yes, the heavies have a different FX below 25% but it's not immediately obvious and doesn't really tell you how much HP they have left, so it's not useful as anything other than a general "hey, watch out" warning.

[Spaghetti Betty]

Heavies are also extremely susceptible to holds! This can act as a double-edged sword. If they're already on top of the team and held, it can really ruin the group's positioning. But a coordinated group can safely hold and plink a heavy from afar to reduce the danger from the field!

 

I also feel Clarion is a must-have for this TF. It reduces the risk of Terrify, Teleswap, and Stuns from affecting the team. 2 is even better if you can get Barrier rotations tight!

Edited April 6 by Spaghetti Betty

[macskull]

FWIW Teleswap is handled through Lua so there's no way to prevent the teleport from happening (unless you have the Hamidon temp power on the last mission), but Clarion will at least mitigate the confuse. Granted, it's not super important there because odds are pretty good at least six people on your team are running Tactics. While Clarion may not be particularly useful for that scenario, I would consider it damn near mandatory for a 4* LGTF run. Between Rikti and Hamidon there's so much mez flying around that things can go sideways real quick.

 

On the flip side, the assault suits have a particular vulnerability to being teleported, which can be useful if you're quick with a TP Target to get them away from the group just before they're defeated.

Edited April 7 by macskull

[Ukase]

17 hours ago, macskull said:

because odds are pretty good at least six people on your team are running Tactics

I am not certain what circles you run in, but I don't think I've EVER seen a team with most having leadership toggles running. Certainly not a pug. 

I could see a fairly cohesive SG that relays various build suggestions prior - but certainly not a pug. 

[macskull]

On 4/7/2024 at 2:19 PM, Ukase said:

I am not certain what circles you run in, but I don't think I've EVER seen a team with most having leadership toggles running. Certainly not a pug. 

I could see a fairly cohesive SG that relays various build suggestions prior - but certainly not a pug. 

That's probably it then, I would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty melon baller than run hard mode content with a PuG.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, macskull said:

That's probably it then, I would rather gouge out my eyes with a rusty melon baller than run hard mode content with a PuG.

Amazing! You captured pretty much how that entire effort felt - except for the hami part. That was fairly straightforward. 

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

Amazing! You captured pretty much how that entire effort felt - except for the hami part. That was fairly straightforward. 

Yeahhhh... getting people on the right characters with the right builds is only half the battle. Player skill matters a whole lot more with determining whether a run goes smoothly and stacking the deck via team composition will only get you so far.

[Ukase]

In the interest of...well, my own self-interest, really. 
I apologize for what is really a rambling mess of my experience doing the 1star lgtf on Brainstorm, taking full advantage of the buff/damage toggle macros found in the freebie menu. There is no way I would have been able to observe anything without these tools. Even as it was, some parts were quite chaotic, and hard to really get a feel for what's actually happening. You get these messages that pop across the screen, but in some cases, you've no idea what the message means, or what can be done to avoid the doom that awaits. 

 

Get your beverages, take a read at this rambling mess. It's likely every bit as chaotic as the TF itself. 

I am currently on Brainstorm, taking advantage of what I would call some fantastic cheat codes, known as the QA commands and powers. Insta-win buttons, practically. 

The motivation is, having been on 2 LGTFs, both 1* efforts, there are a number of details missing that would allow me to lead one of these with any measure of confidence, let alone competence. 

 

First mission. 
Since I'm set to 0/1, the adventure here will be much different. Easier to stealth, speed than it otherwise would be. 
Suits: 
In the standard LGTF, it's customary to tackle Famine first. Something about the end drain, I imagine, but just going off what every LGTF effort has led to - take out Famine first. 
What's the prevailing wisdom on this strategy for the 1 star? And does it change with the 4 star? 

The nullifier fields are the same for each suit. Let me elaborate - suit for the named Assault Suits, War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. 
When you defeat one, it produces a nullifier field that gives you a -60% resist debuff to all categories, and a -32% defense debuff to all categories - at least, that's what it looked like in my combat stats. It also floors regen, recovery, toHit.  So, good advice is to avoid being in the nullifier field. Take courage, melee friends. When you leave the field, the debuff goes away. It takes a second or two for your stats to come back up. 

The AV Death Rider seems to dish out negative energy damage. Add to that, once you enter the mission, you begin to take a small amount of damage every 5 seconds. Maybe a 4.5% of your hp? My hp is 1847.3, and the pulse I'm taking every 5 seconds is 83.41. So, that's like 4.5%...but not sure if that's what the number is based on. It's not the regen rate, I don't think. 

I am unclear if the usual strategy applies - focus on Famine, Pestilence, War, and then the AV? Team composition might make a difference in what order. 
Death Rider does seem to have some serious regen. 28,272 hit points, I guess even his base regen is pretty good.

After completing the mission with the death rider, I find myself with the option to rescue 6 psy chicks (or was it psychics?) that provide some advantage. I'm not clear as to what that advantage is just yet. 
Anecdotally, most folks seem to dislike the chattiness of Infernia when she's rescued. Who knew she lived in Overbrook in an apartment before the invasion? But, she's making her rescue worth my while - she's gonna buy me a steak dinner. If I can just learn to listen, it might not be such a bad time. 

The cut scene, presumably helping to tell the story, occurs when Glacia is rescued. 
The fight with Kong is interesting. I did find the 4 psychics I was looking for, in the same room as Dra'gon. I'd looked all over the map for them, and then there they were. 
If/when you get defeated, it may be smart to use the hospital to rez - but when you do - you're stunned. It's not immediately evident, but all you have to do is leave the "chamber" you spawned into, and the stun goes away. 
From the hospital, there are two doors - a hallway exit and a lab exit. No idea which way I'm supposed to go, because the only thing the map shows is the hospital. 
Using the lab exit, there was some green field there. If you see that - don't use it - it kills you. Hallway exit was safe. When you are in the hallway, there's a portal. You click to enter, get a warning and ignore it and enter anyway. 

There's a ton of monkeys. There's Kong. And there are these Primate Psychic npcs. Use a macro to find the Primate Psychics. It may be useful to have a couple of folks specifically using AoEs on the monkeys, and a couple of folks looking for primates, while the rest dodge Kong and attack at range. It's a very confusing battle - this part. Even with the insta-win buffs, there is no insta-win. Sure, I could have just 3 shot Kong, but I wouldn't have learned anything. And, the only thing I can grasp from this fight is you go in, you use AoEs for efficient clobbering of monkeys and clobber the primates - all while avoiding Kong until the primates are down. Then focus on kong. And pay attention to the messages on the screen. 

I suspect it will take folks like myself multiple runs to get comfortable with this chaos. 

Next up is Hami. The drop ship is a bit of nonsense in my opinion. It's not apparent, what can be done, if anything to avoid it. Perhaps not disturbing the pylons. Pylon take down seems to be the trigger. But, there's nothing that beats me over the head and says -"Hey - do this, not that". 
In any event, hami is still weakened, just like the standard lgtf, and, it's mostly familiar - as I've done hami raids countless times, and maybe 20-30 lgtfs total in my time playing CoH. It is not a TF I enjoy because even when you speed it, it's a bit long. And Rikti are not my favorite npc to fight because of the constant mez. But, sometimes, we have to "embrace the suck". 
Just like in real life, in game, we can do difficult things. Not sure why we want to in a game, but I think for more than a few folks, doing the hard things in game provides a measure of interest that a mindless button mashing of a no-lag zone event cannot provide. It's easy for me to forget that some folks have done everything in this game hundreds of times with hundreds of characters. 20 years is a lot of time playing. Although, for me, I didn't have access to the secret servers, so it hasn't been that long for me. But, I digress. 

Finale: 

This is a bit  very confusing. While it's evident we have to defeat Ukon Gr'ai and Hro'Dotz, the events going on during this battle are truly chaotic. I don't understand how folks are supposed to do this with discord, let alone without it. I mean, I'm buffed to the gills with the super macro/toggles, and I'm still getting clobbered because I don't want to kill the AVs, because I'm trying to get some sense of what's going on in this room. It's just mass chaos. Monkeys, psychic primates, feral krakens, oh my! I don't have red slippers with this costume. Where's the Wizard? Wait..that's a different adventure. 
It was easy enough with the insta-win buttons to defeat these AVs. But, what's not so easy is determining what's supposed to be done during this 30 second timer, or was it 1 minute? Can't recall. I had no idea what I was supposed to do during that time. 
Then Hero 1 makes an appearance. I don't even remember him in the legit run this morning, prior to maintenance. There's a lot I must have been carried through in that run. Still, I've learned a lot more than I knew before. Hero 1 seemed to be a straightforward fight - finally. 

I'm still not clear on how to get the badge "Doesn't look at explosions". My understanding (probably a misunderstanding) was that you were supposed to follow some green line out of the mission. I was unable to do this. Thankfully, I ran it this morning on the Excelsior shard and got this badge, but I'm still not clear what's required here. 

I saw some green lines, I followed one, an odd, ominous looking object in the center of the room. So, I click and it has a lot of words, something about well of furies and incarnates..but nothing that says Do this or that. 
I go another path - I get instantly dead. I go back to the red thing, notice some kind of pylon looking structure, kill it, and the tf ends. For all I could tell, the timer expired. I was like a rat in a maze. I just had no idea where to go. I mean, I never even found the original map. Guessing from a lore perspective, I was on Delta 294 Mothership. 

Look folks, I'm not the smartest guy in every room. But, in real life, I make a good living being the smartest guy in the room.  (Do I mention I work from home and am the only person in the room most of the time?) One disadvantage for me is CoH is the only MMO I've ever played. I strongly suspect many folks are pulling their knowledge and experience from other games to manage the chaos in this TF, but I can't say that with any degree of certainty. 

My gut tells me that on the closed beta, various players gathered and got talked through this and most of the information was passed along. It just hasn't gotten to me yet. I do not think most players would enjoy it very much without that walk-through from someone. But that's just my opinion. 

I'm really looking forward to a legit guide to this advanced mode tf that will help me make sense of the more chaotic parts. 
So far, I haven't seen any guides to this by anyone who has any insights. 

But, I remember when The Underground iTrial came out. The Dev who created it essentially wrote a guide for it, detailing everything from the 150 foot remote triggering of the detonation charges to the discordant spheres that would trigger every 30 seconds and leave you confused for 15 seconds - essentially confusing folks for half the time if they didn't have clarion or stacked tactics or fairly large break frees. 
Now, there are probably some folks who really find the problem solving part the most interesting. I understand that. For me - the most fun I have during this game are 2 distinct times - hunting for that last hostage to rescue on a large map, whether it be a city section or a cave map, and dodging pink patches of psionic damage in the MoM, light blue patches in Apex, or the crackling lightning from Tyrant in Magisterium. 
Problem solving is fine for me at a desk. Problem solving while playing dodgeball, I'm not so sure I'm up for that. 

The creativity that went into this advanced mode is on a very high level, I'll say that. But, I do think I'm not alone when I say we could use some more information. 

[Snarky]

Dont look at the explody thing is awarded for getting out of the mission AFTER the win before the timer runs out.  just make it back to room where the old last AV fight happened.  by running, teleport, ruby slippers.

 

i am not good at this TF yet.  heck, i still havent gotten some regular TF really good.  the tactics of the big fights are beyond me.  i just kill everything i can and buff/debuff "staying alive' song

 

There is a lot to be learned about flow with a regular group.  like most things in CoH/V, a strong group of teammates clobbering everything goes a long way to solving issues.

 

 

[Ukase]

So, I just need to say this - just ran 2* with someone who actually had the /loc commands of where the other player with incan should port us. 

I died once. We had fewer team deaths than I think I got alone on my first run on the 1star. 

It's like it wasn't even the same task force. Everything was calm, relaxed, and I kind of thought it was some kind of mind trick, where it must be that the 1* is the hardest and the 2* isn't quite as challenging. 

I swear, sometimes folks are playing a different game than I am. It was almost like some of them had the instant win buttons from brainstorm. Those AVs went down like they were level 54 lieutenants. Now I understand why some folks are shaking their heads, wondering what my issue was. 

I got terrorized once, and slept once. And I was unaware that I could only use medium or small inspirations - all I had were the large ones - which went unused. 
I learned a lot. I'm gonna run that a few more times, because there's still more to absorb, but with a solid team, a blaster can actually blast instead of running for his life.