Difference between revisions of "The Underground Trial/Strategy"

Revision as of 17:59, 12 January 2012

The underground incarnate trial requires a significant amount of coordination among league members. The overall structure of the trial is a series of sequential mini-objectives. As each mini-objective is completed, a mission wide teleporter, located immediately to the right when exiting the in-trial hospital, is updated so that it will teleport folks returning from battle to the most recently secured area.

One person in the league, apparently chosen at random by the game, is assigned to lead Desdamona. This person should avoid combat whenever possible since Desdamona's death results in immediate failure.

The individual objectives are as follows:

Phase One: Initial Clearing of IDF

The rooms here are arranged in two rows of three with the initial entry point in the center of one row. Move to the right or left and clear the 3 rooms with IDF spawns. This unlocks a door to the next lower room.

Phase Two: Ritual Room

This is a standard "medium sized" Praetorian underground room, rectangular in shape. Upon entering, Desdamona will move to a point approximately 1/3 of the way across the room along its center line. Target her and move with her. The goal is to protect her from 2 spawns of IDF who will surround her and attack from all directions. Make sure the league members buffer her. These spawns are typically easy to defeat. Their arrival is shown by a clock in Desdamona's health window. Once the first pair of spawns is defeated, Desdamona will move 1/3 of the way across the room and continue the second half of the ritual. The same strategy applies here. A clock will announce the arrival of two IDF spawns and the league must defeat them to unlock the next lower level. Exit the room via an unmarked elevator in one wall near the second ritual point.

Phase Three: Tunnels and IDF Guard Room

A small room followed by a curved longer room. Stay to the right, minimize agro. The IDF forces get a bit harder here. The guard room is similar in size to the ritual room. Clearing this room will unlock the hospital teleporter feature. Exit the room via an unmarked elevator.

Phase Four: Extinction WarWalker

During this fight, the WarWalker will use a variety of AOE powers. Red text messages, including Crowd Dispersal, Targets Acquired and Lethal Force Authorized will appear on the screen. The strategy here is similar to the rings/sequestering situation in the BAF trial. If you are targeted, it is important to move QUICKLY away from the fight. Failure to do so will result in everyone being held and typically significant numbers of deaths. This is a major reason for failure at this point. The league simply cannot go into melee range and "slug it out", hoping to overcome the WarWalker's health bar.

Phase Five: Trap Room

More tunnels, during which time Devouring Earth start showing up, also Infested. The Greater Devoureds are Elite Bosses, so be careful.

Glowing mushrooms also appear. Clicking on these result in a timer bar. If successfully completed, the mushroom grants a "Lichen" temporary power. These are very important for the next AV fight.

However, first there is the trap room. A keystone shaped door (must click on it to open) leads to a room with 4 crystals at each corner. Once Desdamona moves into the room the Devouring Earth spring a trap, which holds her immobilized in the center of the room. Luckily, this is pretty far from the mobs which spawn in the room's corners. Move quickly to each corner (or split and kill 2 or more crystals at once) and kill the mobs and the crystals. They're not hard. That frees Desdamona to move forward.

Phase Six: Self Repairing / Lichen Infused Warwalkers (2)

Another series of tunnels come first, these are curved and lined with organic matter. Lots of DE mobs, more IDF. Finally, you will come to a room with a pair of ramps up both sides. This leads to the lower level guard room. Clear this room (there is a counter with Lower Level Guards Remaining), then prepare yourselves for a double AV fight. Click on the "cage" door with the spiral staircase to enter the AV room.

Self Repairing Warwalker: It helps, but is not necessary to move the WarWalker into the Northeast. The league should have collected 20-30 lichen powers at this point. With a tank taunting him continually, have team members spam the Lichen power on him whenever possible. As with the prior fight, being targeted means MOVE AWAY from the fight as quickly as possible or you will act like a bomb and kill your teammates. Failure to do so likely results in a partial league wipe and is a big reason for failure. Not using the temps means the AV's regen will likely be impossible to overcome and you won't kill him. Note that the holds/terrorized state which happens if teammates fail to move away is complete unbreakable and unresistable - and it seems to last just long enough to get everyone killed.

Lichen-infused WarWalker. Immediately upon defeating the Self Repairing Warwalker, it will respawn as the Lichen-Infused WarWalker in the spot where the previous AV was originally spawned. For this AV, the temp powers are no longer effective. It is important to immediately pull this AV to the south wall because this AV gets regenerated health from the glowing lichens which gave you the temp powers for the last fight. Glowing lichens are BAD things and must be killed at this time!

So what's the best way to kill this guy? Well, pulling him to the south wall helps - it reduces the number of lichens around him to 2. Then there's the issue of targeting them amid the other baddies. One strategy which seems to work well is to have the blasters and other range-damage types target thru a single individual who stands a bit too the north, facing south, with a macro like /targetname lichen. Fire the macro every 15 seconds or so to target the lichens and all those targeting through you will suddenly pound and kill it. Target the AV between macro invocations. This is especially useful with PUG leagues when folks don't understand how to set their own macros.

Note that defeating both of these AVs within 8 minutes of entering the room grants Regenerate This which is necessary for Master of the Underground Incarnate Trial.

When done, click on the elevator to the south.

Phase Seven: Spore Halls and Bombs

Turn on PBAOE heals. Mobs are not difficult. For the bomb badge, the accepted strategy appears to be to put one league member out ahead of the league who will site for bombs. The bombs have a detonation range which is typically longer than most range attacks but shorter than snipes. Either snipe the bombs individually from a distance, or rush and clobber them before they explode. Either strategy works for most of the bombs.

The final eight bombs are in a hallway, and packed together in such a way that approaching one to kill it will result in the next bomb being triggered. There is some discussion over whether speed boost helps or hurts here. The prevalent line of thinking appears to be that the risk of overshooting and triggering a bomb unexpectedly is too great a risk, so most leagues seem to want no use of speed boost.

After these eight bombs is a room with mobs and the final two bombs. Kill quickly, then go up the ramp on the west side of the room and down the long hallway. There is a door at the end. Go through.

Phase Eight: Avatar of Hamidon Fight

It is important to stay very close to Desdamona during this fight because proximity to her grants significant protection from the AV. Clarion incarnate powers help greatly as the AV (or seedlings?) spam confusion. A good strategy seems to be to put yourself on follow to Desdamona but target the Avatar. Have the tanks point the Avatar away from the group. Position Desdamona behind the Avatar and get in close - the person who Desdamona is leading should be leading the entire league (except the tanks) at this point because everyone else should have Desdamona on follow.

Kill the avatar. He's not hard.