Post by HolyEvil on Feb 5, 2005 1:28:08 GMT -5
This is a copy of the post Prolix generously put up on the Pinnacle forums to help us out. This details Liberty's exact strategy to take down Hamidon. This will undoubtedly help us, though I also don't doubt that we'll require several attempts before we get all the nuances down and adapt to the resources available to us on Pinnacle.
"Hey guys,
Just wanted to wish you all the best on your Hamidon raid this weekend, and I thought I'd try to help by letting you know all my observations from Liberty's successful raid last night. I was there from start to finish, so I'll just cover the crucial tactics that I noticed being used.
The first thing that was done was reducing Hamidon's aggro on the mito-killing superteam that would be sweeping through the blob soon. To do this, 2+ special Hamidon Death Squad supergroup members aggroed Phantom Army onto Hamidon. So this part would require a specific build -- though it's not likely to be uncommon: a Controller with Illusion for PA+Concealment for Phase Shift. PA was cast outside Hamidon's range, then the `troller would Phase & lead the PA in to tank Hamidon.
One of the trolls in this roll said he had PA slotted with 6 Rchg for the event, but I know they still had at least 2 heroes doing this anyway, probably because when one hero had to leave the blob to de-Phase & recast PA, the other hero's PA would keep Hamidon's attention. Then they'd continually cycle in & out of Hamidon's range -- at least, this is how I think it worked. I don't know how they kept PA from attacking mitos or anything, so I don't have much detail on this part of the raid.
Meanwhile a superteam of all the remaining heroes in The Hive was formed. My team consisted of mixed AT's, but I know there were some all-Scrapper or all-Defender teams formed. IMO, I do not believe the composition matters, as everyone will be moving as close together as possible, and obeying the targeting orders of a single raid leader. In fact, it may be beneficial to mix people with resurrection powers in with others, because some Defenders have mentioned how hard it can be to target fallen heroes in the middle of everyone else. But by mixing Defenders in, there's at least a chance that a dead guy might be on your team roster for easy targeting.
Anyway, people need to form up on the raid leader and prepare to enter the blob area for mito street sweeping. At this point anyone with a PBAoE heal power (Healing Aura, Radiant Aura) needs to start using it. The hero in charge of all Defenders helped them get their timing down though: you don't need 20 heals going off one second, just to have everyone get shot the next! No, instead they staggered the activation of their heals so there was a pretty constant spam of heals firing off (this, IMO, was the coolest part of the raid to see; all those Defenders/trolls using their heals & working on the timing was like listening to a high-performance engine rev up , and you could literally tell from the sound when they had their heals evenly distributed over time). Force Field powersets also turned their Dispersion Fields on, mainly for the status effect protection.
Then the goal was to have this troupe of dozens of heroes march through the mito fields killing. And that's pretty much what we did. The raid leader would call out targets, and everyone would /assist off of him (they reminded us many times to make a macro by typing in /macro assist "assist" and putting it in our power tray for ease of use). I don't know what mitos have priority, I'm sure some of you know that by now; I thought we were giving the Mending ones the most attention at first, but I'm not positive. To clear the high-hovering mitos, one Kinetics hero with Inertial Reduction can cast it so the Scrappers/Tankers without SJ or Fly can reach to attack. Be careful while flying through the air (with the greatest of ease) to not wander into Hamidon...
We were reminded many times during this clearing portion of the raid to NOT TOUCH HAMIDON. He has a very nasty AoE power that he'll throw at the superteam (even with PA in his face) should someone AoE near him or touch/attack him directly. It was not only a powerful attack, but it had Disorient and Knockdown capabilities.
The superteam was ordered out of the blob when there were 3 mitos left who were all extremely high in the sky. Blasters & Defenders only reentered to polish them off.
With the mitos gone, we were ordered to clear the DE Monster spawns that were anywhere near Hamidon (a radius of 500 feet or yards was mentioned, but I know it was just a guideline). Someone explained to me that it was just so a Monster didn't get aggroed/trained into the blob while we were pounding on Hamidon & ruin everything for us (Lattice have that nasty Throw Spines cone attack, and if your trolls get one-shotted, then Hamidon stops being held, and the mitos will repop -- raid over ). So it's important to: a) clear any Monsters even remotely close by Hamidon, b) not have any griefers who could possibly get your people with Hold powers killed.
Finally everyone with a Hold went in to face Hamidon, along with all the Defenders who had been casting their PBAoE heals. Now this is the cool part, because even outside of Controllers, there are so many Hold powers to be had... Dark Miasma Defender pets are awesome; there's Tesla Cage; Scrappers can respec into the epic/ancillary power pool Darkness Mastery > Petrifying Gaze (although personally I'll be d**ned before I ever have a power in common with a Tsoo Sorcerer ); Tankers also have an EPP hold available; of course Ice Blasters have their Freeze Rays -- there are just a ton of holds available! Anyone who can access Power Boost should also get it to increase their holding power, and the Vanguard accolade is an alternative that everyone could conceivably attain. Everyone with holds was ordered/begged many times to go slot them with 2 Accuracy SO's and the rest Hold Duration (the hold that misses could very well be the one that lets Hamidon break free!); Rchg is not nearly so necessary with all the Accelerate Metabolisms that you'll hopefully have active on you (empaths: at this point don't neglect to Adrenal Boost your nearest Controller: the +Recharge buff it gives will also help them cycle holds faster).
So everyone with a hold went to face Hamidon. Once he was successfully held, the raid leader ordered everyone in so we could start doing significant damage. Holding Hamidon does prevent him from spawning new mitos at 50% and 10% HP, which makes things a boatload easier. Others also say it cuts his +Regen rate -- I wouldn't know, but we did down him extremely fast. Just have the people with holds absolutely spam them (even to the exclusion of everything else!) while the remaining heroes let loose their highest DPS attacks.
With so many heroes around, Hamidon did disappear from my screen, and at times many of us were unable to target him. At this point, tips about hitting the Tab key or targeting through another hero were brought up. Now, what I would recommend is not to target through another hero (because many times I tried to /assist someone & they didn't have Hamidon targeted either!), but instead target through a PET! There were several Phantasms and PA's around as Hamidon was being damaged, and even when I couldn't see Hamidon, when I would click a summoned pet they never failed to have him targeted. That will make sure you can always get your attacks/holds off.
This portion of the attack might look like this demo, if you're interested. The people healing have their powers going off with nice timing, so you can get a feel for that, and the people with holds are obviously using them, and then there are us attackers.
Barring anything disasterous, you should be able to just beat him down like a sucker at the end. If your holds fail and he's under half health though, you'll know it He won't fail to repop mitos and make your raid much more difficult.
The most crucial stages appeared to be...
1. Well, I'm not sure what was involved with keeping PA near him for aggro management, so I can't rank that
2. Moving the 'healing bubble' along with the superteam. You have to stay really tight, which is quite awkward with dozens of heroes. Also, you can't have rogue or even just plain laggy people accidentally aggroing Hamidon; his attack is far worse than the mitos, so it stands a better chance of overcoming you; while you might survive, it just makes sense to not tank him if you don't have to. And if the group splits in two at any time while you're defeating mitos, you're in grave danger of losing the whole thing (it happened once to us, unfortunately, but thankfully we recovered somehow). Honestly, everyone should learn by their first TF that splitting up a team in a challenging situation = death.
3. Holding Hamidon. I still don't know if it's 'documented' at all how many holds we were throwing at him(?). I have no clue how many trolls, etc. we had in there or what his magnitude of hold protection & resistance must be. But if you can't hold him, then your raid won't be as easy as ours was. If you have to deal with a mito respawn, you're on your own since I don't know any tactics for dealing with it.
That's about all I can think of. Hope this information can help. "
"Hey guys,
Just wanted to wish you all the best on your Hamidon raid this weekend, and I thought I'd try to help by letting you know all my observations from Liberty's successful raid last night. I was there from start to finish, so I'll just cover the crucial tactics that I noticed being used.
The first thing that was done was reducing Hamidon's aggro on the mito-killing superteam that would be sweeping through the blob soon. To do this, 2+ special Hamidon Death Squad supergroup members aggroed Phantom Army onto Hamidon. So this part would require a specific build -- though it's not likely to be uncommon: a Controller with Illusion for PA+Concealment for Phase Shift. PA was cast outside Hamidon's range, then the `troller would Phase & lead the PA in to tank Hamidon.
One of the trolls in this roll said he had PA slotted with 6 Rchg for the event, but I know they still had at least 2 heroes doing this anyway, probably because when one hero had to leave the blob to de-Phase & recast PA, the other hero's PA would keep Hamidon's attention. Then they'd continually cycle in & out of Hamidon's range -- at least, this is how I think it worked. I don't know how they kept PA from attacking mitos or anything, so I don't have much detail on this part of the raid.
Meanwhile a superteam of all the remaining heroes in The Hive was formed. My team consisted of mixed AT's, but I know there were some all-Scrapper or all-Defender teams formed. IMO, I do not believe the composition matters, as everyone will be moving as close together as possible, and obeying the targeting orders of a single raid leader. In fact, it may be beneficial to mix people with resurrection powers in with others, because some Defenders have mentioned how hard it can be to target fallen heroes in the middle of everyone else. But by mixing Defenders in, there's at least a chance that a dead guy might be on your team roster for easy targeting.
Anyway, people need to form up on the raid leader and prepare to enter the blob area for mito street sweeping. At this point anyone with a PBAoE heal power (Healing Aura, Radiant Aura) needs to start using it. The hero in charge of all Defenders helped them get their timing down though: you don't need 20 heals going off one second, just to have everyone get shot the next! No, instead they staggered the activation of their heals so there was a pretty constant spam of heals firing off (this, IMO, was the coolest part of the raid to see; all those Defenders/trolls using their heals & working on the timing was like listening to a high-performance engine rev up , and you could literally tell from the sound when they had their heals evenly distributed over time). Force Field powersets also turned their Dispersion Fields on, mainly for the status effect protection.
Then the goal was to have this troupe of dozens of heroes march through the mito fields killing. And that's pretty much what we did. The raid leader would call out targets, and everyone would /assist off of him (they reminded us many times to make a macro by typing in /macro assist "assist" and putting it in our power tray for ease of use). I don't know what mitos have priority, I'm sure some of you know that by now; I thought we were giving the Mending ones the most attention at first, but I'm not positive. To clear the high-hovering mitos, one Kinetics hero with Inertial Reduction can cast it so the Scrappers/Tankers without SJ or Fly can reach to attack. Be careful while flying through the air (with the greatest of ease) to not wander into Hamidon...
We were reminded many times during this clearing portion of the raid to NOT TOUCH HAMIDON. He has a very nasty AoE power that he'll throw at the superteam (even with PA in his face) should someone AoE near him or touch/attack him directly. It was not only a powerful attack, but it had Disorient and Knockdown capabilities.
The superteam was ordered out of the blob when there were 3 mitos left who were all extremely high in the sky. Blasters & Defenders only reentered to polish them off.
With the mitos gone, we were ordered to clear the DE Monster spawns that were anywhere near Hamidon (a radius of 500 feet or yards was mentioned, but I know it was just a guideline). Someone explained to me that it was just so a Monster didn't get aggroed/trained into the blob while we were pounding on Hamidon & ruin everything for us (Lattice have that nasty Throw Spines cone attack, and if your trolls get one-shotted, then Hamidon stops being held, and the mitos will repop -- raid over ). So it's important to: a) clear any Monsters even remotely close by Hamidon, b) not have any griefers who could possibly get your people with Hold powers killed.
Finally everyone with a Hold went in to face Hamidon, along with all the Defenders who had been casting their PBAoE heals. Now this is the cool part, because even outside of Controllers, there are so many Hold powers to be had... Dark Miasma Defender pets are awesome; there's Tesla Cage; Scrappers can respec into the epic/ancillary power pool Darkness Mastery > Petrifying Gaze (although personally I'll be d**ned before I ever have a power in common with a Tsoo Sorcerer ); Tankers also have an EPP hold available; of course Ice Blasters have their Freeze Rays -- there are just a ton of holds available! Anyone who can access Power Boost should also get it to increase their holding power, and the Vanguard accolade is an alternative that everyone could conceivably attain. Everyone with holds was ordered/begged many times to go slot them with 2 Accuracy SO's and the rest Hold Duration (the hold that misses could very well be the one that lets Hamidon break free!); Rchg is not nearly so necessary with all the Accelerate Metabolisms that you'll hopefully have active on you (empaths: at this point don't neglect to Adrenal Boost your nearest Controller: the +Recharge buff it gives will also help them cycle holds faster).
So everyone with a hold went to face Hamidon. Once he was successfully held, the raid leader ordered everyone in so we could start doing significant damage. Holding Hamidon does prevent him from spawning new mitos at 50% and 10% HP, which makes things a boatload easier. Others also say it cuts his +Regen rate -- I wouldn't know, but we did down him extremely fast. Just have the people with holds absolutely spam them (even to the exclusion of everything else!) while the remaining heroes let loose their highest DPS attacks.
With so many heroes around, Hamidon did disappear from my screen, and at times many of us were unable to target him. At this point, tips about hitting the Tab key or targeting through another hero were brought up. Now, what I would recommend is not to target through another hero (because many times I tried to /assist someone & they didn't have Hamidon targeted either!), but instead target through a PET! There were several Phantasms and PA's around as Hamidon was being damaged, and even when I couldn't see Hamidon, when I would click a summoned pet they never failed to have him targeted. That will make sure you can always get your attacks/holds off.
This portion of the attack might look like this demo, if you're interested. The people healing have their powers going off with nice timing, so you can get a feel for that, and the people with holds are obviously using them, and then there are us attackers.
Barring anything disasterous, you should be able to just beat him down like a sucker at the end. If your holds fail and he's under half health though, you'll know it He won't fail to repop mitos and make your raid much more difficult.
The most crucial stages appeared to be...
1. Well, I'm not sure what was involved with keeping PA near him for aggro management, so I can't rank that
2. Moving the 'healing bubble' along with the superteam. You have to stay really tight, which is quite awkward with dozens of heroes. Also, you can't have rogue or even just plain laggy people accidentally aggroing Hamidon; his attack is far worse than the mitos, so it stands a better chance of overcoming you; while you might survive, it just makes sense to not tank him if you don't have to. And if the group splits in two at any time while you're defeating mitos, you're in grave danger of losing the whole thing (it happened once to us, unfortunately, but thankfully we recovered somehow). Honestly, everyone should learn by their first TF that splitting up a team in a challenging situation = death.
3. Holding Hamidon. I still don't know if it's 'documented' at all how many holds we were throwing at him(?). I have no clue how many trolls, etc. we had in there or what his magnitude of hold protection & resistance must be. But if you can't hold him, then your raid won't be as easy as ours was. If you have to deal with a mito respawn, you're on your own since I don't know any tactics for dealing with it.
That's about all I can think of. Hope this information can help. "