Trial-palooza

[Niteflier]

Mkay. Now who to bring to this...?

[Star Ranger4]

Hmm. Well, It looks like I'll be bringing the pain then, either in the form of Blapper me... unless Terr wants to do work on Anon Citizen in which case I'll swap out for Shorty to help provide tankage.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Logan Darklighter]

OpMegs wrote:

I'm not really planning on locking in a specific team the whole way through, so swapping out alts as we hit different trials is perfectly fine. About all I can say is that the higher level shifts will help when we get to later trials like MoM and DD where the enemies automatically level in higher.

Hmm. Sounds then like I should start with my minors and save the big guns for the latter trials. So noted.

[Bob Schroeck]

Okay - wow? Normally Comcast doesn't give a flying rip and will let their customers hang no matter what the problem. Granted - it's taken them the better part of 3 months to get to this point. But that they've even been doing anything AT ALL frankly astounds me. So my opinion of them has up-ticked by a fraction of a percentage. 

Well, during my last service call, I did invoke the magic incantation "FIOS and Dish Network" after complaining that I've had connection problems for more than two years.  Apparently losing even a single customer in our area is something they can't endure...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Ankhani]

I can most likely make this. I'll be ready with tank or damage, as appropriate; though my scrapper could likely get more out of it.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

[Bob Schroeck]

I should note that if I do make this -- and I am hoping to -- I will be bringing Evangelia.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Matrix Dragon]

I'll be bringing Priss for pretty much the whole thing, except for MoM, which I need to have Alice do. (RP reasons, I'll admit, but still...)

[Sweno]

I have allotted the time to make this. And will probably be bringing Decay (fire/rad controller).
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Niteflier]

Well. I just want to say that this, right here, was a wonderful idea. I'm glad I got to be a part of it.

BAF was a fun, easy time. Lambda was the usual stealth/die-my-way-through-the-maze. Keyes... Well, we had heapings of bad luck for stage four. Still enjoyed it. UG, well, for my very first time through it, it was fun. Got turned around a bit sometimes, and the massed confusion was a bit annoying, but overall, quite a fun long challenge.

Then theres TPN. My review of TPN is in spoilers, cause, well, there's a lot of capslock:
RANT WARNING!

Spoiler

I'm still not sure if it was because I was tired from nearly four straight hours of Trials, or if I just didn't get what the instructions being relayed were. Don't hit the civvies, go for the terminals, just cycle through the buildings. Oh, and don't worry about the MINIONS that ONE-SHOT you. At all. Because that's what I remember most about this trial. the Minions. That deal more damage to me that my max health. Now, I know I'm not spec'd for a high health. As a controller, I don't really feel I have to be. However, once I start getting ONE-SHOT by MINIONS, I feel there' something slightly wrong. Yes, I understand that we were under a constant debuff from the 'pacification'. But what sense is there in that debuff could drop my res down that far? This is not even going into the mode for the trial, which, unlike the previous ones, has you doing the EXACT SAME THING six to ten or MORE times! We probably went through those buildings seven or eight times doing the exact same thing the exact same way. In Keyes, you do something three times, in NEARLY the same way. That's not so bad. But when you have to do it the EXACT SAME WAY more than two or three times? That's the hallmark of bad scripting. What determines the 'Public Opinion' score anyway? Is that ever explained? And Maelstrom. Don't really have a problem when he shows up. But what kind of craptastic power does he have when he can force half or more of a trial to break off and go into hiding for 15-30 seconds? One of the few times I wasn't tagged with Marked for Death, I noticed that everyone seemed to abandon Maelstrom for a good 15 seconds leaving just Demo (who I think was tanking him) and maybe one other to keep on him. I can't understand why anyone would find this Trial fun. At all. While yes, it does have a few interesting quirks to it, they are either not fully explained, or implemented in such a way that is annoying or frustrating. So much so that several times when in the 'raise public opinion stage', I died inside of a building, hospitaled, got notification to go to the next building, and died on its doorstep. I looked through my logs. I died more times on TPN than I had in the first four Trials combined.

I can't say that TPN is fun. At all. I hope I never have the requirement to do it again. I do want to say that Yes, I'm tired, and Yes, this is my first, fresh impression of it. I still don't think I'll ever do it again.

RANT OVER.

Anyway, Ops? This was a great idea, and I hope we can do it again sometime!

[Sofaspud]

So, the breakdown:

BAF: Win
Lambda: Win
Keyes: Fail (stupid hold-nuke combo)
UG: Super-win
TPN: Win
MoM: Fail

A crapton of rares and very rares dropped for a lot of folks.  I'm making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[Matrix Dragon]

I went from Tier 1 to Tier 3 on three separate powers today.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction.

[dark seraph]

Neph: I was stabled, shot at, set on fire, iradiatated, stepped on and mind ganked, Not even Rasputain had it so hard! So now, I shall get drunk to forget it all!

[OpMegs]

What determines the 'Public Opinion' score anyway? Is that ever explained?

Basically, whenever we have all 4 terminals up, it gives us a huge Public Opinion buff. Whenever the IDF are controlling the terminals, it slowly decrements. Other things affect it to make it go down faster.

- When Maelstrom is tele-ganking people, he steadily depletes public opinion. If you go out and KO him, it briefly stops his teleganking, as well as the PO decrease.
- While the Telepathists (who also cause the Pacify debuff) are turning the citizenry against you, you constantly lose PO in small amounts. Killing them stops this. It also can prevent the citizens from going hostile, as they actively cause this while they're alive. Without them, the outside has no attacks aimed at you besides Maelstrom.
- After the 1st Maelstrom fight, only three terminals are required to complete a broadcast. Activating both C and D (or any two) at the same time so you get all 4 up boosts your PO gain.

And Maelstrom. Don't really have a problem when he shows up. But what kind of craptastic power does he have when he can force half or more of a trial to break off and go into hiding for 15-30 seconds? One of the few times I wasn't tagged with Marked for Death, I noticed that everyone seemed to abandon Maelstrom for a good 15 seconds leaving just Demo (who I think was tanking him) and maybe one other to keep on him 

- Marked for Death is actually a two part power. The Marker would simply make you vulnerable to his second power, which is "Time To Die". That's announced when the warning "Maelstrom prepares to kill those marked for death!" pops up. After that, he kills anyone Marked For Death within a set radius.

For our problem Trials....

- Keyes was just a self imposed challenge problem. We had a lot of DPS, but our debuffs were light, and we lacked an entire 3rd team that we could've grabbed. With all those problems, and Anti-Matter being rather nasty a few times (Disintegrate and then Orbital Beam Strike at the same time getting him lots of health back), we didn't have the AV burn down rate we could have.

- MoM was hard, because we were all tired, and we had a few new people who may or may not have had level shifts. MoM's final bits *really* benefit from Level shifts where the Nightmare bosses are merely red con instead of purple with all 3 shifts. I think that was the main difference between that and our other Legendary run. Also, we could've used more control, but nothing for it.

Overall, I think our problems were potentially solvable with planning, and we could probably next time do less overall trials in a row. But I think that, even if we didn't meet our goal, it was a decent success. I know a LOT of people got lots of Incarnate swag, and we generally had fun. Hell, we *nearly* got a Master Run on the UG trial. So overall, thumbs up.
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

[Sweno]

and crap. I thought it was next weekend. sorry for the no-show :/

well it sounds like you had fun regardless
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy

[Star Ranger4]

The only one we didnt get in the UG was the bubomba's, wasn't it?

That and I'd like to arange for actual badge runs on some of them, though clearly during a trial palooza isnt the time.
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Matrix Dragon]

Yeah, the bomb badge is the only one we missed. I don't think I've ever had a UG go that well before, mind you. The Lichen War Walker went down HARD.

[Ankhani]

It was good fun all the way through. I got more Rares and Very Rares than I've seen in practically my whole trialing career; 2 consecutive VR followed by 2 consecutive Rare.

The only thing I was miffed with, with the plethora of Psi Damage in MoM (i.e. *everything*), about halfway through I figured it would better just to run Minerals and Rooted. Also, we were cutting it pretty close on the Aurora segment. Me and DS were doing what we could, but she was down to 15 by the time Mother clocked out.
---

The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."

>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI

[dark seraph]

Neph: *fights the army of strippe- er, Mother clones* Gah, why are they all after me!

[Matrix Dragon]

Yeah, I think we actually forgot that part of the trial. I know I completely forgot about it until after we won.

"... Geez, how'd I miss that? THAT was lucky."

[dark seraph]

Yeah, I think we actually forgot that part of the trial. I know I completely forgot about it until after we won.

"... Geez, how'd I miss that? THAT was lucky."

I blame the power of Yin's hypno butt and Mothers Hypno boobs

[Matrix Dragon]

Or anticipation towards watching Calvin Scott utterly LOSE HIS MIND :lol

[Logan Darklighter]

It was overall a very enjoyable run, except for where mentioned. 

Cyberman 8 continues his 100% failure rate on Keyes. *sigh* I don't think I'll attempt Keyes again personally. Not because I think it can't be done. But because at this point I've become convinced that Cyberman 8 is cursed when it comes to that one. I think that no matter what happens, no matter how good the team, no matter how well prepared - something is going to screw the pooch and the trial will fail. Murphy has it in for me and C8 on that one. I might try it on some other character though. But not any kind of melee toon. Lily's not going near that one either. 

Though in fairness - everything up to the final fight with Anti-Matter went pretty well. I was being overly cautious though, and probably didn't help with the DPS as much as I could have. 

TPN. Several of us today were talking about it and though I thoroughly agree with your rant Drogen, there is a pro-active set of actions we can take to mitigate the Pacified stacking debuffs. 

The telepaths generating that are on the map and can be found and defeated. They'll re-spawn of course. But slowly enough that a dedicated sub-team can keep them down. There's even a badge associated with it! 

Badge: "Fair & Balanced"

Do not allow a single Telepathist to convert 4 or more citizens for the duration of TPN Campus, and then finish the trial to earn this badge.

Naturally you can't hit the civvies while doing this. Have to make sure the majority of attacks in your chain are NOT AOE. Because those telepaths will be in and among the civvies. But that's okay! Cyberman 8 is ALL ABOUT the single target damage. Pair him with another single target specialist or two and maybe have someone buffing them just a bit and they can take down the telepaths and stop that "Pacified" debuff cold! 

Note: Come to think of it - Stalkers would likely be ideal for this duty. Especially martial artists. Anything where you don't do a lot of AOE. But focused damage on a single target. 

But the stupid debuff can be dealt with.

I was really impressed with the Underground trial. Freaky and beautiful at the same time the deeper you go. In retrospect, though I didn't consciously think about it at the time, you know what the final room reminds me of? The Forest God segment from Hellboy II: The Golden Army. 

And the revelation at the end? Whoo... I'd suspected something like that for awhile. I need to take Sassinak through this trial. Some definite RP material there.

I hope to do the Trial-Palooza again sometime. Or almost any of the others singly. It was actually a lot of fun!  

(Despite any impression my whinging snark near the end of the TPN trial might have given anyone otherwise. (I was getting tired there. So I hope you'll extend to me some slack for that.)

[Star Ranger4]

I'd happily join you on the psi hunters team. The team leads just dont GET how much that Pacification debuff hurts the non tanks. A LOT of us die even before our getting to the control room but every lead still insists "NO NO, just run for it"
Hear that thunder rolling till it seems to split the sky?
That's every ship in Grayson's Navy taking up the cry-
NO QUARTER!!!
-- "No Quarter", by Echo's Children

[Sofaspud]

That's because "run for it" *works*, Star.  Many many successful runs have proven that it is the fastest viable method.  There are other viable methods, to be sure, but that one is the fastest and least likely to result in sudden death.

And before you claim I was playing a non-squishy -- I was on an empath defender.  Only thing squishier is an empath controller.

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs

[dark seraph]

TPN is how Fiona, my Emp/Sonic fender got her salvage to make a T4 Alpha (yes, she did TPN with no level shift) and she lived.

And before anyone says that's because I spamed the PBAoE heal, yes a did... in the middle of the biggest mob the league could find. (I had to get the medic badge some how)