Sunday Sunday Sunday

[Wiregeek]

I have the Sewer Trial mission on Roy, I'd like to take a swing at it sunday.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Bob Schroeck]

What levels is that again? If scheduling works out, I might want to bring someone in on that, probably Eva exemped.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Wiregeek]

36-40 (or 42, depending on who you ask) for acquiring the mission, and getting the glowy-gun.

any level that can get into the abandoned sewer (35+, I think) can join.

If I can get Sofaspud online, HINT HINT, I'm gonna try and speed-level him up a wee bit and get this on one of his toons as well (I want the Hydra badge on
Mag and Pooky)
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sofaspud]

I'll be on today, tonight, and tomorrow night, and a good chunk of Sunday. The rub for me is I have to go pick up my son on Sunday evening, so I'll be
offline then... if you want to run this Sunday, and you want me involved, just keep in mind I can do any time except from about 8pm until 9:30 Pacific.

I'd love to be there, but obligations, y'know? So gimme a timeframe already, sheesh.

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

[Wiregeek]

sunday morning/midday?
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Sofaspud]

Sounds good to me. I should be un-zombified and sufficiently caffienated by... hmm, I'll say 10:00 am Pacific. That work?

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

[Wiregeek]

sure.

I'm gonna reanimate at prolly 9am AKST, so I'll be 'in' for a couple hours when you show. should work good
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Acyl]

I'll probably be online if you're doing this earlier in the day - it'd actually be a sane hour
for me, accounting for time zones. ZOMG. Unheard of. If you need to omg-powerlevel Sofa, run the trial, or whatever, I have my usual stable of blueside
characters - 50 defender, 50 scrapper, 40 blaster, 26 scrapper, 24 tank, etc, etc.

-- Acyl

[Wiregeek]

Sewer trial was a success.

Roy and Emerald (me and @sofaspud) both have the mission, but you only need one mission.

You REALLY need two 40s though. and a rack of 50s.

The Hydra does not appear to regen much, if at all.

Basic strat is to send a porter down to the door and just ferry everyone to the Trial door - it's a pain naving through the maze of twisty little passages,
all alike.

Once through the trial door, clear Rikti until you get both your 40s the guns. I _believe_ it's Particle for the head. A 50 can click the crates from
outside of activation range to target them and tell what they are.

Once you're gunned up, drop past all the platforms and catwalks to the bottom.

Clear the bottom. There are four mobile 'Monster' units, and many Rikti, as well as Hydra tentacles.

Position a 50 at each generator, or a team - Pooky was able to keep his Generator clean, but it was closer than I liked. Another blaster may have been able to
do better, or not. There are four Generators.

All the Rikti should be down at this point. Fold the generators in half, then the 40s open fire with the Particle cannon on the Hydra.

Rikti will spawn at the generators - kill them.

The 40s should keep firing until a generator pops back up, which should be announced in team. They then stop to save gun, any rikti are cleared, and the
generators are dropped again.

The closer you get to simultaneous on the generators dropping, the better off you will be.

Here's the kicker. There's no map available for this zone. That REALLY cramped my style.

we won, though, thanks to Acyl's leadership. Pooky has his Charmer badge, and we found a nasty bug - the 40s didn't get TF rewards.

I'm willing to go on Roy for whomever would like to setup, maybe on TF friday, maybe during the week.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Bob Schroeck]

I didn't show up for this due to sudden (non-critical but important) family obligations coming up. I hope we can do another run at this...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Wiregeek]

'S why I kept the mish on Roy, Bob, we do think of ya even when you aren't there.
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies

[Bob Schroeck]

Many thanks!
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Sofaspud]

It was pretty fun, though the lack of TF rewards is a bit... disappointing. Not a show-stopper, by any means, just frustrating. "I kicked the
Hydra's ass and all I got was this lousy t-shirt?!?" kind of frustrating, heh.

As a total n00b on this TF, I'd like to add to Wiregeek's list of Things To Do. It appears to work fine to have the sub-40's sidekicked to
50's, which is good -- I'd have dropped many more times than I did, otherwise -- but for the sake of whatever deity you hold dear: SKs, stick to your
mentors; mentors, stick to your SKs! I discovered that it's possible to stay within gun range of the hydra head (very close, as it happens) and still be
in SK range of a mentor babysitting a generator, but it's a *very* close thing. Pooky zoomed off to put down a Rikti uprising at one point, passing just
out of range, and I was eating floor so fast I barely had time to go "Oh, crap!"

Also: I would suggest having a 50 with Recall Friend locate crates, zap the lowbies to them, and then have someone else zap them right the hell out of danger
range again. The other times I died were due to trying to navigate the catwalk maze with Rikti and hydra spawn and monkeys oh my all wandering around looking
for a fight.

This is all assuming, of course, you don't just take the usual Legendary tactic of Superior Firepower and sterilize the place as you go along.

And as WG said, Emerald has it too, so we've got at least two more runs we can make on this to get whoever wants the goodies covered.

ETA: oh, and the hydra head? That's some seriously butt-ugly stuff there, man. First thing I've seen in game that gave me the creeps. Ugh!

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

[Bob Schroeck]

(Note for scheduling the next attempt at this: I'm not available for most of next Sunday, April 20.)
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

[Acyl]

Another bug I need to note... while all the 50s on the team got a trial complete popup, which let them select a rare recipe, the level 38 and 40 players -
myself and Sofaspud - did not.

This is the first time I've done the Sewer Trial since the invention system was put in, so I have no idea what the specific bug is here. Previously the
sewer trial awarded a special Hydra origin enhancement, sorta like a Hami-O for the level 40 range. Much like the Titan enhancements from Eden Trial and so on.
I understand those should still be available in the reward selection popup if you're at the appropriate level, but this did not occur for me.

Also:

Some additions to what Wire said. There is no mission map, though the zone is a straight shot descent down a shaft strung with catwalks. And lots of Rikti.
There are two kinds of weapons crate, Thermite and Particle.

Thermite cannons are effective against the hydra tentacle enemies. These cannons are NOT necessary.

Particle cannons are the only things that can damage the main hydra head, so they ARE necessary. (EDIT: though a tank can keep the Hydra head taunted and off
the gunners, IIRC - Foxboy can probably confirm this). They only have 20 uses each, so if there is poor timing involved you MAY run out of firepower...shooting
when the head's forcefield is up will waste your power uses, obviously. It's important to keep an eye on combat log or watch out for
'Unaffected!' messages.

Better yet, someone else on the team should shout out when a generator comes back up.

As noted, once you're at the bottom of the shaft the forcefield generators need to be taken down and KEPT DOWN so the head is vulnerable. The best way to
do it is to post one or more level 50s at each generator. Someone with damage AoEs will have an easier time killing the Rikti repair crew spawns.

Ideally you should have at least two gunners in the level 38-40 range pounding on the Hydra. One might work, though. Contrary to what I believed, the Particle
Cannon damage does NOT appear to scale to one's AT. Emerald Blast, a defender, did the same as Glass Lass, a blaster.

I am uncertain whether it scales to one's level. There has to be some variable, because I distinctly remember the first time I ran this thing way back, my
particle cannon damage was ridiculously small compared to the other guy shooting, enough that we all made jokes about it. I thought it was AT difference, but
it might be level. In which case you'd want to keep the gunners within SK range so they have more damage.

...

Better yet, I hope they fix the bugs in this trial and upgrade it to modern auto-exemplar standards. u_u

I am puzzled as to why they added the modern trial-complete recipe popup menu (even if it's bugged)...without addressing all the other problems.

Oh, one more bug. When I acquired the temp power thermite and particle cannons, power icons for those temps appeared on my tray.

One problem. Glass Lass has a full three displayed trays of powers and macro buttons. Which meant that the temp powers REPLACED two of my macros. Those macros
were gone, completely poof. Not bounced to any other tray, just flat out gone.

They did not return when the temp power cannons vanished (they are on the same expiration timer as the mission, 90 minutes). I had to recreate the macros. Not
really hard to do in my case, since they were just targeting and costume-change macros, but still annoying. I have never observed this behaviour with any other
temp powers, ever.

-- Acyl