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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:30:06 GMT -5
This thread will break the current raid plan into a series of posts. At this point, I believe that we have locked in the general strategies that will be tested in this raid. If you have any suggested modifications or questions about the raid plan, please post below.
I would like to thank the innumerable heroes who have helped me flesh out the original plans. The following plans represent an evolutionary step in Hamidon raid strategy, not a revolutionary one. The ideas incorporated below are the fusion of suggestions made on these forums, public posts on the official boards, sharing of strategies from other groups and servers, and many conversations I've had in game.
Note that while the general strategies will likely remain the same, this raid plan may be revised all the way up through Saturday morning. While any significant last minute changes will be reviewed in the briefing immediately prior to the raid, I strongly encourage you to swing back here before logging on on Saturday to review the plans one last time and to check for any changes.
I know this is a bit long (4000+ words, I think), but I prefer to erring on the side of giving out as much information as possible. A lot of this should look familiar to those of you who have been on past Hami raids.
Non-Trivial Modifications since intial posting:
1) Added a "arriving late or leaving early" section to part II.
2) Added a comment about adding the raid coordinators to your friends list in section II.
3) Added an appendix for mini-strategies and information specific to certain powers or builds.
4) Added an appendix for ways to work around the limitations of the client.
5) Added pets to the list of unnecessary powers in sections III and IV.
6) Added an overhead image of the staging area for Strat I in part IV.
7) Added that heroes are encouraged to build their teams ahead of the raid and can use this forum to help organize that effort.
8) Finalized coordinator positions
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:32:30 GMT -5
I. Before the raid: your personal preparations.
Create and wear a costume that has no aura and no cape.
Turn down all of your graphics settings.
Find or build a team. If you want to join a team at the raid, arrive a little early in Eden. Feel free to post in this forum to organize any such efforts. Teams should follow the basic guidelines in section II.
Slot your snipe attack with sufficient range SOs so you can fire at targets at distances of 100 yrds or more (if applicable). Experimentation with an electric blaster demonstrated that 5 even level range SOs should be significant. Powersets with shorter range snipes should adjust accordingly.
Read the entire raid plan, and post any questions or suggestions you may have about it below. The time to do so is now, not during the raid.
Download and set up teamspeak (optional). Server details will be provided prior to the raid.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:34:58 GMT -5
II. Immediately before the raid: setting up the teams and reviewing the command structure.
All heroes will meet in Eden immediately outside of the Hive at 4:00 pm EST on Saturday, Feb 5, 2005. If you do not have a team (or only have a small team), come a bit early to put one together.
The raid leader (Balshor) will review Strat I of the mito clearing at this time. If we need to switch to Strat II, we will take a brief breather to perform recovery operations and review that strategy. There will be a similar break after the mitos are cleared to review the strategies we'll be using against Hamidon.
Team leaders should send me a tell identifying themselves and the type and number of heroes on their team. To simplify recovery operations, teams should contain a maximum of six or seven members (so you can invite a tper to recover your dead bodies). Additionally, you should have enough 50s on your team to sidekick all the sub-50s up to level 49.
Initial teams should have one of the following focuses:
1) Sniping team: comprised mainly of blasters or non-healing/debuffing defenders with their snipe attacks slotted to 100 yrds of range.
2) Debuffing team: comprised of rad and storm defenders and controllers.
3) Healing team: comprised of empaths. Possibly filled out with other defenders/controllers with AoE heals, depending on availability.
4) Close-range team: comprised of heroes willing to assume mass amounts of debt taking hits so the snipers can keep firing. Will hopefully get a chance to wail on the mitos up close and personal.
5) Outrider team: comprised of non-sniping heroes responsible for taking out giant monsters.
The coordinating team consists of the following heroes:
Raid Leader: Balshor Main Assist: Nuke Reactor Healing Coordinator: Kit Malone Outrider Coordinator: Soul Strike Short-Range Coordinator: Night0wl Debuffing Coordinator: Radition Ranged Coordinators: Alloric and Fire Curtain Communications Coordinator: Zero Hero
All members of the coordinating team should be on your friends list. Throughout the raid, we will rely on your ability to easily target these heroes. The easiest way to do so is to simply click on the appropriate name on your friends list. This way, you can also use the friends channel to communicate with the raid leaders or easily select one of them to send a tell to.
What if I arrive late or leave early?
The 4pm est start time was chosen in order to offer our European players a chance to swing by for at least part of the raid and to enable the raid to end before it gets late on the East Coast. However, we understand if you are unable to arrive on time or must leave early. Here are the procedures for that:
If you are arriving late: Please make sure that you have read and understand the raid plans. If you're already late, an extra 10-15 minutes isn't going to make a difference. As you'll be joining us midway through the raid, there probably won't be time to review them with every latecomer. If you have friends with room on their teams (and it's a type of team you can contribute on, of course), go ahead and join them. If you do not have a team, come to the Hive, turn on your LFT flag, and use the broadcast channel to advertise for a team. Have your teammates fill you in on what's going on. Please be sure to get on a team. If you are unable to get an invite, send a tell to the raid leader (Balshor) or the appropriate coordinator and they will either find you a spot or instruct you to start a new team (in the event that all teams are full).
If you are leaving early:: We're sorry to see you go, and thanks for coming along as far as you could. If you are a team leader, please promote somebody on your team and send the raid leader (Balshor) a tell informing him that you're going. Also, if you are a debuffer, healer, outrider, etc., please make sure the appropriate coordinator knows that you are leaving so he or she can assign somebody else to any specific duties you may have.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:38:13 GMT -5
III. Important things you should know and remember
This is just a brief recap of important information about the encounter that you should keep in mind throughout the raid.
1) Remember that this is a test raid. In addition to testing the strategies, we are also testing our ability to carry them out. Thus, if we try something and it doesn't work the first time, we'll try it again. The raid leadership will keep in mind all available options, but we won't write off any tactic until we're fairly certain we can't make it work.
2) The *only* way to make these strategies work is if we work together. Keep a close eye on the request channel, and follow all orders from the raid leader and coordinators. Additionally, in general heroes should try to stay in as tight of a cluster as possible in order to increase the effectiveness of AoE heals and buffs. If you disagree with the raid plan, the time to air your concerns is *before* the raid. Major changes to the raid plan will not be made mid-raid unless the raid leadership deems it absolutely necessary.
3) Stay off of the request channel. This channel is reserved for the raid leader and coordinators to communicate with the entire raid. If you want to chat, use broadcast, team, local, or any of the other channels. If you want to say something to the raid leadership, send a tell or use broadcast. Because the request channel is used to pass down orders, keep an eye on it. We may also use the friends channel for one-way communication to team leaders.
4) Turn all of your graphics settings down. If you're still experiencing graphics lag, use an overhead view combined with the following commands: /camdist 999 /vis_scale .5
5) Please refrain from using unnecessary powers. These include (but are not limited to) any travel powers when you're not moving and damage mitigation powers that rely on specific types of damage (steamy mist, shadowfall, all force fields, pretty much any tanker primary powerset, etc). Additionally, with the sole exception of phantom army as a distraction tool, do not use pets until specifically instructed to do so. Besides creating more graphics lag, their semi-independent nature can pull extra agro onto the raid. On the other hand, the following buffs are definitely useful and should be used as often as feasible:
Recovery Aura Regen Aura Accelerate Metabolism Tactics Vengence Fortitude Speed Boost
A useful bind for single-target buffs is the following:
/bind [key] "target_friend_next$$powexec_name Fortitude"
6) Remember that this will be a long battle. Set aside at least 4 hours, preferably 6-8. Hopefully we won't actually take this long, but you might want to reserve some time to celebrate afterwards, too. Remember that the main goal of this raid is not to defeat Hami but to practice the tactics we need to bring him down on a future raid.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:44:54 GMT -5
IV. Phase One: taking out the mitochondriaThe main change between Hami I2 and Hami I3 is that Hami's attacks can now hit snipers firing from the maximum range (barring use of the boost range power). For that reason, the main focus of this raid is to test and practice the following two strategies that can be employed to take out the mitochondria. As Strat I has higher damage potential, we'll try it first at least a few times. If the raid leadership decides Strat I is not working, we'll switch to Strat II. We may switch back to Strat I after we have cleared out a significant number of mitos. Throughout this period, the outrider teams will be making sure that we don't have stray wandering monsters taking out the raid. If Strat I works and giant monsters no longer are an issue, the outrider teams will join in the general melee fray with the rest of the raid. Remember to confine power usage to those that are actually useful (see section III) and to not use pets unless specifically instructed to do so by the raid leaders. STRATEGY I - Close and Dirty ( You can't kill me; I have an empath!) The idea: Get the team in close so the blasters and scrappers can use the full range of their attacks to take out the mitos. Use tanks and Phantom Army to pull as much fire off of the attackers, and keep a healing umbrella going to keep the heroes alive. The advantage of this is that we can use all attacks from all heroes, maximizing our damage output. The disadvantage is that it requires a fair amount of coordination to get in position for each mito and will put us in easy range of the entire range of Hamidon's defenses. 1) The raid will gather at the edge of the crater due east of Hamidon. (Approximately at (-648.6, -130.4, -2242.0) -- this location is out of range of all mito fire. It is also out of maximum enhanced range of all attacks.) Job number one is for all heroes to clear out giant monsters from the immediate area. Heroes should endeavor to stay outside of Hami's agro range at this stage (marked by a rather flat rock that is the due west of the starting position.) Heroes should gather as closely together as possible. Outrider teams will continue to engage nearby monsters for the duration of the raid. an overhead view of the rocks marking the initial staging area and the agro range of the mitos2) Setting up the healing umbrella and closing in. We will start with at least 2 teams of 6-8 empaths (filling in with rads for now if necessary). Each team will position their members in a rough grid formation to cover the entire group (or as much of the group as possible). The rear team will advance approximately the length of their grid in front of the rest of the snipers, then the snipers will move up into their healing umbrella. The leapfrogging process will continue with the other team (previously the forward team, now the rear one), advancing slightly in front of the other healing team. All advances of the healing teams will be coordinated by the healing coordinator (Kit Malone), and the rest of the raid will move up into the more forward healing umbrella at the signal of the raid leader (Balshor). The following bind may be useful to the empaths. (Modify it appropriately if you're a rad.) Target the next person on the team and use: /bind [key] "tell $target Your turn to heal$$powexec_name Healing Aura" After the heals have been appropriately offset, all empaths can switch to auto-firing their heals and concentrate on positioning and buffing. Note that at this point, nobody should be firing on the mitos as we will be concentrating on moving in as a group rather than doing damage. Also, if we don't agro the mitos, we can close an additional 60 yrds before coming under fire. Additionally, at this stage, heroes with phase shift or Phantom Army should be distracting as many of the mitos as possible. 3) Killing mitos. The leapfrogging process will end roughly underneath the closest blue or yellow mito. This should be close enough for the debuffers to land their debuffs and the blasters to use the full spectrum of their attacks. All attackers should be assisting off of our Main Assist (Nuke Reactor), so as to minimize the agro from the other mitos. Mito kill order will be chosen by the Main Assist (Nuke Reactor). After each mito, the group will reposition using the leapfrog technique to the next mito selected by the Main Assist (Nuke Reactor). 4) Dealing with Hamidon in the meantime. While we can (hopefully) absorb the amount of firepower the mitos will be throwing at us, Hamidon's attacks are a different story. His AoE not only hits as hard as the mitos but also disorients. Thus, we'll use Phantom Army and tanks supported by healers to take as many of Hami's shots as possible. STRATEGY II - Attacking from Range ( and trying not to get hit) This strategy is more along the lines of our previous Hamidon strategies. The two main advantages of Strat II over Strat I is (first) we can hopefully avoid a large part of the return fire and (second) we do not have to move the attacking team very much at all. The downside to all of this is a greatly reduced damage output (as we are reduced to sniping only), and the melee is basically constrained to suicide charges. 1) Establishing a position. We will set up our initial position at approximately 100 yrds away from the target mito. If necessary, we will use the leapfrogging technique from Strat I to move our team to that location. Snipers will begin firing on the mito, again assisting off of the Main Assist (Nuke Reactor). 2) Debuffing the current target. The debuffing team will use various tactics to land EF and FR on the current target. The debuffing coordinator (Radition) will organize the debuffing efforts to maximize the number of successful debuffs landed. After activating their debuffs, debuffers can withdraw either behind a rock or into the healing umbrella. 3) If damage output is low, we will have herders bring in low level (42-45) DE mobs from the monster walls. Controllers will hold them while kineticists use fulcrum shift. Note that this is the *only* situation where we will pull in small mobs, as this tactic causes a great deal of additional lag. 4) At this point, the melee coordinator (Aurora Spark) may choose to lead any interested melee heroes on suicide charges into Hami. These charges should be coordinated with the debuffing team to make use of their distraction value. 5) Again, mito kill order will be decided by the Main Assist (Nuke Reactor). Except for possibly shifting to the other side of Hamidon, we shouldn't require large respositioning of the snipers. Small adjustments should be easy to make provided all heroes try to stay as close together as possible.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:47:11 GMT -5
V. Phase Two: Taking Out Hamidon
After we clear the mitos, we will take a short break to review the strategies for the second phase of our attack. As with the mitos, we will start with what we consider to be the most promising strategy and switch to another one if it does not work. Note that at no point during the testing phase should Hamidon become significantly (>25%) damaged -- we want to trigger the respawns only when we're ready for them.
All of these strategies begin with a tank or scrapper, supported by healers, taunting Hamidon so we can test with impunity.
STRATEGY I - Holding Hamidon (Everybody needs a hug.)
If strategies were FotM on the forums, this would be the current one. The basic idea is that every mob in this game has a mag resistence to holds. If we can overcome this, we can prevent Hamidon from using his respawn ability.
Once Hamidon is held, it is vitally important that he not break free, or he can trigger the respawn. For that reason, we will use a "EMP cycle" similar to the one used in the healing umbrella for these slow recharging but powerful holds. This sequencing will be organized by the debuffing coordinator (Radition). The more usual, faster recharging holds will be spammed by the rest of the controllers (and other heroes with holds). We will ensure that we can keep Hamidon continuously held for a significant period of time before asking the rest of the raid to pile in and attack.
Because a single wandering monster interfering at the wrong moment could cause the controllers to lose hold, all tanks will form a perimeter around Hamidon with instructions to prevent interference at all costs.
STRATEGY II - Minimizing the Respawn (Bermuda? Why not the Hami Triangle?)
Again, if there were a FotM strategy for the mito respawn, this would be last month's. The range of Hamidon's respawn is just under 6xlvl++ ranged snipe attacks. By pulling out all heroes except for the snipers before the respawn, we can minimize the number of mitos spawned and make sure that they're located in an out of the way location. The raid then regroups and resumes the attack from a point 120 degrees around Hamidon. The strategy is repeated at the second respawn, and the group relocates to the final point of the imaginary triangle around Hamidon.
The key thing to test at this phase is whether the snipers can overcome Hamidon's regen rate without the help of the melee group. This strategy also relies on everybody leaving the crater *immediately* upon being ordered to so as not to spawn extra mitos.
STRATEGY III - Alpha Striking the Respawn (And all that AoE street sweeping finally pays off.)
This strategy falls in the category of "wild things to try if nothing else works". The idea is that we try to force the mitos to spawn as close to Hamidon as possible (preferably inside of all the EFs that will be layered on him). Trip mines are laid around Hamidon, and everybody clusters as close to the big blob as possible to attack. When the respawn happens, everybody fires off their biggest AoE in an attempt to alpha-strike the mitos. A dark defender rushes in when the mitos (and likely the heroes) are all dead to AoE rez the raid and continue the attack.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 3:48:28 GMT -5
VI. Preparing for Success
In the event we succeed in killing Hamidon, a mini-Hami will spawn for each hero within range. These drop the Hamidon enhancements when killed. As final distribution will be very random, here's the procedure we will follow to try to come to as equitable division as possible. The goal is to minimize the amount of enhancement passing needed while at the same time try to make sure that every hero receives a reward.
1) Every hero is entitled to *one* Hamidon enhancement. If you got more than one drop, the extras probably belong to heroes who didn't receive any.
2) Balance out your team first. If there are members of your team who didn't receive a drop and you received multiple ones, give them one.
3) Any enhancement surpluses or deficits on a team will be reported to the raid coordinators. The coordinators will gather the surpluses and distribute them to heroes who did not receive an enhancement. If there are not enough surplus enhancements, the heroes who receive an enhancement at this stage will be chosen randomly.
4) If there are not enough enhancements to go around (likely if heroes were either out of range or dishonest "heroes" take more than one), unfortunately, there's not much that can be done. You're welcome to petition the GMs, curse CoH's PRNG, or whatever, but please remember that we all agreed that we're here because we want to take Hami down, not because of any ub3r l00t.
5) In the unlikely event that we have leftover enhancements at the end, we will distribute them randomly among the teams that contributed extra enhancements to the redistribution process (no more than the number that team contributed will be returned to that team).
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 12:40:21 GMT -5
Appendix I: Tactics, Slotting, and Other Information for Specific Powersets and BuildsFeel free to post below any other build-specific questions or suggestions you may have. I do not profess to know every powerset in the game in sufficient detail to know all the little tricks available. Use these mini-tactics if you can do so within the structure of the overall plan. The most obvious specialized slotting is for snipers to slot sufficient range to be able to fire at targets 100 yrds away. The electricity snipe requires 5 range SOs for this -- other snipes may have slightly different ranges, so experiment beforehand. Additionally, we will want to divert as much agro as possible from the raid. We will do this using three methods: phantom army, phase shifters, and suicide tanks. Illusionists should slot their PAs for recharge, as we won't be using them for damage at all. If you have phase shift, you can summon your PA out of Hamidon's range, phase, run in, and run out to a safe location when they expire before repeating the process. If you don't, you can run in and pray that PA takes all the hits and you don't. Freezing rain can also be dropped from above Hamidon down onto his mitos. Phase shifters should try to slot for endurance reduction so they can stay phased indefinitely. Rise of the Phoenix apparently grants a short period of invulnerability. Players can try using this to self-rez, throw a taunt/provoke/etc at a nearby mito, and hitting phase shift. Even if you don't have enough time for phase shift to activate (or simply don't have phase shift), you should be able to divert a significant number of shots that way.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 12:57:37 GMT -5
Appendix II: Technical Considerations and Client Tricks
As per section III, turn down all graphics settings before entering the hive. Wear a costume with no cape and no aura. Avoid the use of unnecessary powers.
The client has a relatively small upper limit of the number of heroes/mobs it can render. If Hamidon disappears suddenly, it's because of graphical limitations, not because he's cut and run, been defeated, or anything else. Besides keeping everybody on target, this is one of the primary reasons all targetting should be done via the Main Assist (Nuke Reactor). If you lose target on the Main Assist and cannot retarget him from your friends list, wait a few moments to see if the client fixes itself. If the Main Assist stays derendered, send him a tell informing him that you are unable to target him. Note that you may lose target if you move too far away from the Main Assist, although that range is far longer than the attack ranges we are at.
The friends list is your friend. Its greatest utility is that you can target heroes by clicking on their names. Without the friends list, it will be very difficult to pick out specific heroes in the raid. Make sure all the coordinators are on it.
Remember that you can also assist a pet. Except for phantom army, there shouldn't be any pets until the final attack on Hamidon, but remember this in case you lose the ability to target Hami.
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Post by Night0wl on Feb 3, 2005 16:23:23 GMT -5
Appendix I: Tactics, Slotting, and Other Information for Specific Powersets and BuildsIllusionists should slot their PAs for recharge, as we won't be using them for damage at all. If you have hover, you can float high out of range above Hamidon and drop your PAs straight down into his gullet. If you have phase shift, you can summon your PA out of Hamidon's range, phase, run in, and run out to a safe location when they expire before repeating the process. Unfortunetly this will not work as the Phantom army will spawn at the nearest point, which often time is a really tall rock near hamidon. Additionally they will not seek out there owner, and sit where they where spawned. Casting Phantom army outisde of the main group, on a ground level, and flying up and towards hamidon will how ever pull the army into the aggro range. Additionally suicide illusion debuffers can drop fly on top of there target, and que up a debuff. Once they're ground born they can throw on Super speed if you have it, and make a mad dash for a rock. I would advise a rock of course to avoid AoE from Hamidon if he decides to fire upon the army.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 16:55:09 GMT -5
d**n, I was sure I used to be able to summon mid-air jack frosts, but apparently I was mistaken. Edited main plans appropriately to reflect reality.
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ForgottenPawn
New Member
Forgotten Pawn lvl 50 fire/dev Heated Flames lvl 50 fire/fire Rorek invul/fire
Posts: 8
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Post by ForgottenPawn on Feb 3, 2005 19:12:36 GMT -5
V. Phase Two: Taking Out Hamidon Trip mines are laid around Hamidon, and everybody clusters as close to the big blob as possible to attack. I wasnt too sure what you meant by this so i figured id asked. I dont know if you know that when trip mines are set they go off withing 2 sec if they are near a villian. So, if your plan was to go to where hamidon is you could only lay one at a time. there is no possible way they could be stacked unless i just missunderstood you in that we would be placing them far enough away from him.
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Post by Balshor on Feb 3, 2005 19:57:02 GMT -5
Right, the mines would be laid far enough out from Hamidon that Hami himself would not set them off. They're there to take out respawning mitos, not to attack Hamidon. Other groups have verified that when the mitos spawn in, they do set off the mines.
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ForgottenPawn
New Member
Forgotten Pawn lvl 50 fire/dev Heated Flames lvl 50 fire/fire Rorek invul/fire
Posts: 8
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Post by ForgottenPawn on Feb 3, 2005 20:05:25 GMT -5
oooooooooohhhhh ok hehe Thanks for explaining. I didn't realize the mines were for the mito's. So the ppl with trip mines would just be planting them until the mito's respawned and set them off. ok, gotcha
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Post by Chengery on Feb 3, 2005 21:41:03 GMT -5
The Liberty Server has defeated Hamidon tonight. I read an interesting comment on their board that said "I didn't think it was possible to hold him" so maybe that is a strategy we need to strongly look at to minimize the mito respawn.
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