guide Running the Abandoned Sewer Trial

[Robotech_Master]

RUNNING THE ABANDONED SEWER TRIAL

or

HOW TO GET A HEAD IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING

Newcomers to the game who run the Death From Below trial may not be aware that this trial is essentially based on a much older trial, the Abandoned Sewer Trial (titled “Descent to the Hydra” in the LFG menu but almost no one ever calls it that) that was at one point considered one of the hardest things to do in the entire game. That older trial is still around, but I don’t often see it run anymore. 

This is a real pity, because the Abandoned Sewer Trial still offers a unique challenge, and is a great test of team leadership abilities. It has a 29-merit reward that can be scooped in less than an hour by a prepared and experienced team, as well as a badge for completion and an exploration badge for those badgers out there. (And, really, any handsome or attractive character really ought to have access to that completion badge, "Charmer.")

On the theory that few people run it anymore because few people who might have the interest know or remember how, I’m going to show you how a successful run works for me. Hopefully this will lead to me seeing more calls on the LFG channel, “I’m putting together an Abandoned Sewer Trial, anyone wanna come?”

ABANDONED SEWER TRIAL PREREQUISITES

Under the old live version of the game, the Abandoned Sewer Trial was for level ranges 38 to 40, with an exemplar down to 40 if you were higher level. However, on Homecoming, the Abandoned Sewer Trial runs at level 50, offering full access to Incarnate powers should you have such available. I highly recommend bringing at least a few Incarnates along, because they’ll make the trial that much easier. (I don't know if other new versions of CoH have had the level cap lifted, too, but if you play there and they haven't, you can just ignore the parts where I talk about about Incarnates.)

This is a blue (hero) side trial, so any alignment except Villain can participate.

INGREDIENTS FOR A SUCCESSFUL TRIAL

Here are the things you should have before you start the Trial, if at all possible. I wouldn’t go so far as to say they’re a requirement, except possibly the first one, but they’ll all make certain aspects of it go a little more smoothly.

 

Before starting, try to have:

• At least one character with a taunt and a good ability to stand up to ranged psychic damage (be that via defense, damage resistance, or just good healing), to tank the hydra head and distract it from the rest of the team. For the rest of this guide I’ll refer to this character as your Tanker, though it can also be a Brute, Scrapper, or any other character who meets the requirements.
• At least one Incarnate character with Incandescence Destiny. You might be able to get by with Assemble the Team once or twice, but if you are Incarnate, given that you’re not going to need an Incarnate level shift for this, you might want to go ahead and craft the 60-Thread level 1 version for use during this trial. It’s a lifesaver for fixing team splits, or rescuing someone quickly if they fall off a catwalk. Recall Friend is nice to have, too, but being able to summon the entire team instantaneously every two minutes is incredibly useful.
• The ability to rez. Doesn’t have to be a Defender/Corrupter or Controller—their rez powers are the best available, but the ally rez powers you can get from P2W, Day Jobs, or Super Packs will be sufficient. (And a tray of Awakens can help, too.) You may want to suggest all team members without their own innate rez powers buy at least a few charges of Resuscitator at the P2W. Even on a well-run Abandoned Sewer Trial, there can be a number of faceplants—and the nearest hospital is very far away.
• Jet packs for anyone who doesn’t have inherent flight. This trial takes place in a vertical map with narrow catwalks that it’s easy to fall (or be knocked) off, and a jet pack could let people catch themselves before they fall too far, or else avoid falling in the first place if they use them rather than walking. They’re also useful for letting buffers and ranged attackers hover out of the way while the melee fighters do their thing. Jet packs are cheap enough at the P2W store that anyone high level enough to run this trial should be able to afford an hour or so.
• Mission Teleport or Team Transporter for everyone on the team. This trial pre-dates the habit of putting in-zone hospitals in hard-to-reach trials. Hence, if someone intentionally or accidentally goes to the hospital or their supergroup base, they’ll end up all the way outside the Abandoned Sewers. Having one or both of these powers will give them a speedy way back to the mission if that happens (once every half-hour for each power, at least); otherwise, they’ll have to spend several minutes making it back on their own, or someone in the mission with teleport will have to fly all the way up to the exit to go out and fetch them once they hit the zone.

FORMING UP THE TRIAL

I strongly recommend forming up Abandoned Sewer Trial sorties in Pocket D and using the LFG teleporter to get to the contact, for a couple of good reasons. First, this will provide handy access to a P2W store, which players can use for purchasing some of the handy items I mentioned in the last section, as well as ensuring that their 2XP is topped off if applicable.

Of course, there’s also a P2W in Atlas Park, where the trial starts—but the other big reason is that this also provides access to Null the Gull, who participants may want to visit first for a number of reasons:

• Making sure their alignment isn’t pure-Villain.
• Disabling Speed Boost’s run-speed effect if there’s a Kinetic buffer on the team. This trial involves lots of narrow catwalks, and even people who don’t ordinarily have a problem with getting superspeed conferred upon them might want to keep the best possible control over their maneuverability for this. They can always turn it back on again afterward. Disabling the run speed boost doesn’t affect the recharge rate and endurance recovery effects of Speed Boost.
• Disabling Group Flight’s effect on themselves, if they haven’t done it already and the team includes a Mastermind who uses it to make their pets fly. People should depend on their own jet packs to keep from falling, given that it’s easy to leave Group Flight’s area of effect.

If you’re the team leader, you may want to suggest these things while you’re getting everyone together.

Consider the relative levels of everyone on the team when setting Notoriety. If there are few level-shifted Incarnates and a lot of lower players, or you’re not very experienced with the trial yet, stick with +1 or +2 at most. If you’re mostly level shifts, you can go higher if you want.

Going +4 makes the enemies tougher, which can make an already hard challenge even harder—but it also makes the generators at the bottom tougher, and less vulnerable to accidental damage. So it is a trade-off. For at least your first few runs you’ll probably want to go with low difficulty regardless.

Before you queue up the trial, remind everyone that you will need to talk to the contact, Mairenn MacGregor, just outside the Atlas Park Sewer Entrance, and you need everyone to be in the same zone for that, so please do not run off into the sewer immediately. If you don’t make that clear before you queue up, then sure as shooting at least half your team will run off into the sewer from pure Pavlovian reflex before you can even tell them not to, and it’ll be that much longer before you can actually get the trial started.

INTO THE SEWERS

Once you’ve spoken to the contact to start the trial, the first mission will be to defeat 100 Rikti in the Abandoned Sewers. The first thing you should do is lead the team into the Atlas Park sewer entrance, and direct them to the door set into the right wall. It’s possible some of your team members might not be experienced enough with the sewers to recognize they need to go through a second door, so you might want to make sure they all get through it before you go in yourself.

(And you may also want to spare a smirk for all the lowbies gathered to form Death From Below teams. They don’t know what real “death from below” even looks like!)

While most of your team works on the 100 Rikti hunt, one member of the team with Assemble the Team, Incandescence, or Recall Friend should make their way through the Abandoned Sewers toward the mission door. It’s at the same location as Hades Aspirant. Vidiotmaps marks the shortest path to the center, then north to the badge location.

I don’t know whether it was by accident or design, but the next mission on the trial after the hunt is not the door mission, but clicking a glowie located next to the mission door. So, Mission Teleport and Team Transport won’t work to get anyone there until someone visits the site in person to click the glowie. (They will work to get people to the door after that happens, though.) The person heading there should arrive at about the same time the hunt finishes, so they can then port all the others to that location.

Clicking the glowie will also start a 90-minute timer, so if you plan to give the rest of the team a briefing or pep talk before you start, you might want to request ahead of time that no one click it until you’re ready. You shouldn’t need anywhere near 90 minutes, of course, but it could make some people too nervous to listen to you if they see that timer start ticking, plus not having the door unlocked yet will prevent people from rushing into it before you finish briefing them.

Once you’re all ready to enter, click the glowie, and in you go.

DESCENT TO THE HYDRA

As with the Eden Trial and Terra Volta Respec Trials, there’s no map for the interior of this instanced mission. Close your map window, get it out of the way, and do your best to keep track of where the rest of your team is without it. That’s about to become a challenge.

Beyond the door is a circular antechamber, and once you move around the circle, you’ll see the entryway to the trial zone itself—with a spawn of Rikti in it waiting for you.

 

At this point, I like to ask any Incarnates in the team to go ahead and summon their Lore pets now, but don't summon them again after that until I call for them. This lets them get some good out of those pets early on, gives you an extra boost dealing with the first few Rikti and Hatched Kraken, and makes sure that they'll probably not be out later on, when pets can become a liability. (More on that a couple sections from now.)

Once you’ve cleared the Rikti, you can move forward into what awaits you: a vertical well laced with catwalks and platforms, which wind gradually down to the hydra at the bottom. Those catwalks are full of Rikti and a couple of Hatched Kraken monsters, and they also hold the chests that contain temp powers you need to defeat the hydra at the end so you can’t just skip it and go right to the bottom. (Be sure you advise your team of this, because team members in the habit of stealthing missions might otherwise be inclined to try it.) 

This part of the Task Force will consist of making your way gradually down the catwalks, collecting chests and defeating Rikti and the Hatched Kraken along the way. Your best strategy is to move slowly as a group, using flight or jet packs as much as possible to avoid falling off (and mez protection to keep from getting mezzed out of the sky by Rikti). 

Masterminds who don’t have Group Flight abilities for their pets may want to dismiss them and play Defender during this phase, just because it’s so easy for pets to get knocked back or fall off the catwalks. If they don’t die after they hit bottom, they may make their way back up the ramps, bringing a bunch of new “friends” along with them.

People who fall off and die should be ported back up and rezzed. Don’t try to go down to them; bring them back to you. (If nobody has a teleport power, well, they’re on their own until you make your way down there.) Also remind them that if they hit hospital and don’t have Mission Teleport, they’re going to have a long walk back to the mission.

Along the way down, you’ll encounter two Hatched Krakens on platforms at the center. (There are four more waiting at the bottom, but I’ll get to those later.) These monsters are similar to the one that shows up in Perez Park from time to time—weak vs. fire, and with a toxic damage spit attack. 

Back in the early days of live, these monsters gave a decent, AV-scaled chunk of XP each—but that made it attractive to powerlevelers to farm the Abandoned Sewer Trial just to kill those six Kraken and then reset the mission. The developers didn’t like that, so the Krakens’ XP was nerfed to where they don’t even give as much XP as the Rikti bosses they spawn alongside now. Which is annoying, especially since the new sewer trial for lowbies has five full-fledged AVs in it that they can kill over and over again as much as they like. (If you’d like to see that nerf undone now that there are much easier ways of powerleveling available, drop a supporting comment on this thread in the Suggestions forum.)

Also along the way, you’ll run into a series of chests, colored either bright green or mustard yellow. The contents of these chests are key to completing the trial.

THE WEAPON CHESTS

Four of these chests should contain particle cannons, and the rest should contain thermite cannons. It’s supposed to be that the mustard yellow chests have particle cannons and the bright green ones have thermite cannons, but at least one of the chests is mis-colored. If you select the chest from a distance, you should see a notice in your target window calling it either a "Rikti Thermite Crate" or "Rikti Particle Crate." That should be accurate regardless of what color it is.

The particle cannons are crucial when you get to the bottom of the map, because they do heavy damage to the hydra head. You want to be sure you have all four of them. Ask that when someone gets one they let you know, or else every so often ask for everyone with one to sound off. Once everyone gets a particle cannon, they should be sure that it's available for them to fire at need. It should be in their system tray (the temp power tray that appears above your normal trays), but some people don't like that tray and have Null the Gull disable it. Ask them all to make sure the temp power is accessible, because they are going to need it in a hurry.

The thermite cannons are just cone attacks that do fire damage, and they’re good but not crucial for attacking the Hatched Kraken or the tentacles at the bottom.

The most important things are that no one should get more than one particle cannon, and your Tanker should not get a particle cannon.

Each person can only fire one particle cannon at a time, so to do the most damage at once to the hydra, those four particle cannon temp powers should go to four different people. You might ask that no one get more than one chest until you’re sure all four particle cannons are in separate hands. (The game will let people grab more than one, so make sure that the members of your team know not to do that!)

Someone firing a particle cannon can’t do anything else while that cannon is going off, and your Tanker will need to be taunting that hydra head continuously. It would be fine for them to have a thermite cannon, but you don’t want to risk them getting a particle cannon by mistake because they can’t taunt while they’re firing it. (For that matter, if there’s anyone who plans on healing that Tanker while they taunt the hydra, they should probably forego a particle cannon as well for that very same reason.) So if you’re not sure which chests are which cannons, have the Tanker hold off on getting any until you’re sure the four particle cannons have found good homes.

 

If someone makes a mistake and gets two cannons, it's not necessarily the end of the world. It's actually very easy to restart the trial from within the trial, and it'll only take a couple minutes to get back to to the mission again. The leader just needs to activate the LFG port to Mairen MacGregor like they did to get there from Pocket D. That will cancel out the trial and put everyone back at Mairen again—but anyone who already got a particle beam temp power or thermite temp power will still have it until the timer on it runs out. In fact, if you want to take the hydra down extra quick, you could intentionally restart after four people have the cannon, and let the other four people get it so all eight of you have a gun. Theoretically, with all eight people firing, you might be able to take the Hydra down without having to reset the generators again.

HITTING BOTTOM

Once four people have particle cannons, you’re free to proceed to the bottom. The simplest way to get there safely might be to have someone who can teleport other people go ahead to a safe spot and teleport the rest of the team to them.

The bottom of the well is a circular area, with the force-field-enclosed hydra head in the center, a few dozen tentacles surrounding it, and four alcoves with force field generators and a spawn of Rikti located at the cardinal compass points. There will also be a Hatched Kraken in the vicinity of each generator alcove.

There will be a number of rocks and ledges between the alcoves, providing safe spaces out of line of sight of the hydra where someone can port the team without aggroing anything onto them. Once the team is assembled and ready, you can move on to next steps.

CLEARING THE AREA

There are two critically important pieces of advice to keep in mind while clearing out the space around the hydra. First of all, the hydra has a nasty psi tornado attack that it will cast at anyone who strays too near. Stay out of line of sight of it as much as possible; when taking out the Hatched Kraken, lure them behind one of the ledges blocking you from the Hydra’s view.

The other thing is that the force field generators should not be damaged prematurely. When clearing the Rikti, taunt them away from the generators before engaging (and make sure Controllers know not to hold or immobilize while they’re still next to the generator). Masterminds and Incarnates should set their pets to Passive and direct them to attack any individual targets manually. Classes who can’t control their pets should dismiss them. It is crucial that the force field generators not be destroyed yet, and if there’s only one fact you can get across to your players, that should be it.

 

(It may actually not matter so much this first time, because by the time you're done clearing the tentacles and Hatched Kraken, any generators that were accidentally destroyed now should have respawned—though they'll bring spawns of Rikti back with them, which will take some extra time to deal with. But it's best to form the habit of leaving the generators alone regardless.)

Keeping those facts in mind, your next step here is to clear out the Rikti surrounding the generators (without damaging the generators), the Hatched Kraken, and the tentacles. The Rikti and Kraken will be relatively simple; just pull them to somewhere away from the generators and out of line of sight of the hydra and clobber them. 

Some of the safe areas have passages on the ends to let you through to the next area where the next generator alcove is; others do not and you’ll have to make your way across in the open. Try to minimize your exposure to the hydra as much as possible while you’re clearing the generators. If you get faceplanted, hopefully someone else will be able to port and rez you.

But once the generators are clear comes one of the more “fun” parts of the trial—you’ll have to clear out the tentacles around the hydra, in plain view of it. And while it’s under its force field, the hydra can’t be directly taunted.

About all you can really do is have your Tanker run out first to try to draw its fire, and stay as close to the hydra as possible in the hopes that it will like them more. Otherwise, station someone with teleport in one of the safe spots, and have them port and rez anyone who needs it. Try to kill the tentacles as quickly as possible to minimize your exposure. The thermite cannons do decent damage to them, but so does any other fire-based attack or regular attacks in general.

Once the area around the hydra is clear, you can retreat to a safe spot to plan the next move.

DROPPING THE FORCE FIELD

This is the part that often gives teams the most trouble. The Abandoned Sewer Trial is one of very few pre-Incarnate trials left anymore that requires team members to complete multiple goals simultaneously, and coordinating that can sometimes be a little tricky.

To drop the force field covering the hydra so that you can damage it with the particle beams, you have to take out the generators. Once taken down, the generators will respawn in a couple of minutes, along with the Rikti that were guarding them. The force field will only stay down until the first generator to be destroyed respawns, so it is vital that all four generators be taken down at as close to the same time as possible for the field to stay down as long as possible.

You could try to take down each generator to a sliver of health so everyone could then kill theirs at exactly the same time, but there’s a lot of potential for that to go wrong if someone damages just a little too much and takes their generator down early. The generators don't have all that much HP anyway, so it shouldn't take any damaging class much time to deal with. The most efficient course is probably just to try to balance the amount of damage capability available at each generator and have people start attacking simultaneously. They may not all go down at exactly the same time, but it'll probably be close enough.

When it comes to balancing that damage, you could assign specific team members to each alcove—but in practice, it’ll probably take about the same amount of time if you just let people find their own preferred spot, then do spot-checks on all alcoves to make sure there’s a good balance of damaging capabilities at each one. Once everyone's arranged everywhere, call out a countdown, and then on zero unleash hell. (It’s okay for people to summon their pets at this time, as long as they remember to dismiss them before the next time they need to clear the Rikti from the generators. Indeed, this would also be a good time for Incarnates to summon any available Lore pets and set them to Aggressive.)

Good communication is vital at this point, because if someone misunderstands your order to get ready to attack as the order to attack, they could have their generator down before anyone else even starts attacking theirs, cutting down the amount of time you’ll have to attack the hydra considerably. But if you’re all on the ball and kill the generators more or less simultaneously and start firing immediately, you’ll have plenty of time to make sweet, sweet love to that half-a-melon with your particle beam cannons.

KILLING THE HYDRA

The instant that force field drops, your particle cannon holders should point them at the hydra head and fire it, while your Tanker moves to taunt the hydra and keep its psi attacks focused on them. (Ideally, your Tanker should be some ways around the hydra from any cannoneers, because the hydra’s attack is an AoE.) Healers should be ready to keep him standing up. Kinetics casting their heal from the hydra head itself can be particularly effective.

The particle cannon will go off for about twenty seconds, at which point it can be fired again. If you were on the ball with the generators, you should be able to get off four or even five blasts before the force field comes back up again. (If it comes up in the middle of firing a blast, the blast will still do its damage until the cannon stops shooting.)

After that, it’s simply a matter of lather, rinse, repeat—dismiss any uncontrollable pets and set controllable ones to Passive, taunt the Rikti away from the generators and take them out, synchronize destroying the generators, Tanker taunt, and cannons blast.

 

Incidentally, here's another area where communication matters. When the field comes back up, some players' first impulse will be to run right back and take out the generators again, ignoring the Rikti that spawned around them. If some do that and some don't, it could cut down on the amount of time you'll have to beam the hydra, delaying the end of the trial. Make sure everyone knows that you will again be pulling Rikti away from the generators without harming the generators, and to dismiss or set pets to passive before approaching so the pets don't mistakenly go after them. (Or, conversely, if you do want to try to just bull through it and kill the generators as quickly as possible while leaving the Rikti adds alone, make sure everyone knows that, too.)

When the hydra’s health reaches 50% and 25%, large groups of Rikti will spawn in. If you were really on the ball with the generators and cannons, you will probably reach that point just before the force field comes back up for the first time. (Which is another good reason to summon pets and Lore pets when you take those generators down.) 

When the mass spawn happens, your Tanker should switch to taunting the Rikti, and you should clean them out after the force field comes back up, and before you go back to pulling the Rikti away from the generators.

If you got to the first mass spawn after your first generator takedown, it should only take one more like that to take down the hydra head completely. Make sure to advise the particle beamers to keep shooting the head while everyone else deals with the Rikti. Kill off any remaining Rikti from the second mass spawn and you’ll get the mission completion notice. Otherwise, keep on lathering, rinsing, and repeating until you do.

Who says it’s hard to get a head these days?

WHAT TO DO AFTER YOU GET A HEAD

After you kill the head, remind everyone on the team to go to the center of the room and stomp around in the hydra guts to make sure they get the "Head of the Hydra" exploration badge. (Your Tanker may have gotten it already just from being right up against the hydra.) Anyone who didn't do the trial before should check their recent badges listing to see if they got it and didn't notice.

When the reward panel comes up, I would recommend taking the 29 reward merits rather than the special enhancement. It’s just a multi-purpose enhancement like the one you get at the end of the Eden Trial. Those Enhancements aren't really desirable anymore now that Invention sets offer considerably better bonuses, and even if you did the trial at +4, it’ll only be level 48 anyway. You might be able to sell it for something on the AH, especially if it buckets with Hami-Os as I’ve been told it might, but you’d probably rather have the merits.

And that’s that. Thank your team for coming, and if you can manage it before they start summoning Ouroboros portals, LFGport them all back out to the contact again to get them out of the sewers.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this guide, and that it might make you inclined to try a run at this trial yourself.  If you have an eligible character on or could transfer one to Torchbearer, I’ll be happy to give you a practical demonstration on an evening or weekend. Just global @RobotechMaster and see if I’d be up for it!
 

Edited February 8, 2020 by Robotech_Master

[SlimPickens]

Been a looooooooong time since Ive run this trial. Back when those Hydra-Os were actually worth something, and the lvl cap was 40.

 

Might be fun to revisit it for nostalgia sake. Next time you run it send me a tell.

[Apparition]

Very good guide.  One thing I would add is that a Force Field or Sonic Resonance character or someone with Clarion Core Destiny would be very handy as well.  Danged Rikti Mesmorists and Mentalists.

[Coyote]

On 8/23/2019 at 10:30 PM, Robotech_Master said:

After you kill the head, remind everyone on the team to go to the center of the room where it was to make sure they get the exploration badge. (Your Tanker may have gotten it already just from being right up against the hydra.)

 

 

Another option is to get Stunned out of the sky by a Rikti Drone that saw through your Invisibility, fall the entire length of the shaft while missing every catwalk, and land on the Hydra's head with 1 HP left from the fall.

And survive to get up and run to a safe place, since you were lucky enough to have Group Invisibility up and not a toggle.

True story... my first Sewer Trial, and the Charmed badge by going "thump!" on top of the Hydra's head. It's probably used to hero and Rikti bodies falling on it from the sky, though.

[Generator]

This is reminding me that I never actually completed this back in the Live era. I'll have to give it a spin. Thanks for the guide, and the jog to my memory!

[Robotech_Master]

Woohoo, this Trial is finally getting its day in the Weekly Strike rotation! Can't wait to run it some more…

[Mister Mass]

Great guide.  I led a trial team last night without taking the time to read this (because a friend wanted to run the trial & it was getting late) - but luckily one of the players on the team was familiar with the Trial & supplied us with good advice, & we got through under the 30 minute time challenge that I set.  It was a struggle to get everyone to understand that dropping the FF pods as nearly to simultaneously as possible was a good idea, but we muddled through nonetheless. 😉

 

As a Tanker, I ended up with a particle cannon, so I was unable to taunt the head, since I was intent on laying down as much beam damage as possible when the FF was down.  Your advice that you can ID which type of cannon is in a crate before you open it will be useful in future runs. 🙂

 

Having multiple incarnates really makes this trial less of a trial.  We could just muscle through spawns & ambush waves without blinking an eye.  But with a less high level group, all of the advice in this guide is worthwhile.  Thanks! 😎