R M's Guide to Soloing the Bloody Bay Shiva Strike Mission

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SOLOING THE BLOODY BAY SHIVA STRIKE MISSION

or

IF THEY PULL A SHIV, YOU PULL A SHIVAN

A Mini-Guide

Introduction

If you've been to Bloody Bay, or you started in the Galaxy City tutorial zone, you've doubtless seen those blue-green jello blobs with skeletons inside running around, and undoubtedly you want one for your very own. And that's where the Bloody Bay Shiva Strike Mission comes in. This mission sends you racing around the central island in Bloody Bay to take samples from six different meteor fragments, then bringing them back to your home base to exchange for a Shivan Shard temp power that lets you summon an elite boss Shivan Decimator five times. The mission works effectively the same whether you're a hero or a villain; the only difference is which side of the zone you start on and return to.

Being an elite boss your own level, with resistance-debuffing radiation attacks, Shivans are damned good pets to have around, especially if you're low-damage but solo a lot--it's like having a Tank in your pocket.

(They got even more useful when NCSoft removed the level 25 cap on them shortly after originally introducing them. Now they'll spawn to match your level all the way up to level 50.)

That being the case, you'd like to have them as soon as you can possibly get them, to help you on your way leveling up, and you'd like to get them over and over as often as you run out. But how can you get one safely without getting PVPganked? And how can you be expected to take down eight turrets on your own before they regenerate? That's what this guide is here to tell you.

There are two major steps to obtaining a Shivan Shard, if you don't count talking to the scientist at the start and finish: getting the samples and taking down the firebase. Each step has its own challenges, but neither is insurmountable.

Full-Contact Minerology

After you've talked to the Scientist by the helicopter to obtain your mineral-collecting device, your first problem is getting to all six fragments. There are two ways you can do this: gank someone who's got one or more of the fragments already, or get the fragments yourself without getting ganked. I'm not going to tell you how to gank someone else; personally, I'd advise just getting the fragments the "long" way and causing a little less frustration in the world. But if PVP is your forte, chances are you already know how to gank anyway.

If you're a Stalker, or otherwise have a good stealth power (or Superspeed), getting the fragments should be the least of your worries as long as you keep a careful eye out for orange names and mobs on your way there. Stealth powers are particularly handy for this, not only for the avoiding-PVP aspect, but also because a lot of the time just standing next to a meteor will cause Shivans to come out of the ground and attack you--and getting a sample is interruptible.

If you don't have a stealth power, you might think you're going to be in for a rough time, except guess what? The zone has you covered. Talk to the Warzone Operative of your faction and get the "Patrol Bloody Bay" mission. Zip around to a few checkpoints on the island, talk to the Operative again, and boom: 30 minute Hyper Stealth temp power. Alternately, if you're high-level enough to get into Siren's Call, you can buy a similar power from an agent of your faction near the door for 10,000 Inf and skip all the running around. Either way, the stealth temp won't keep you safe if a determined PVP'er with Tactics latches onto you, but for casual zipping around to collect samples, you're probably safe. Remember that if you get ganked you lose all the samples you have collected to that point, so be careful.

To a certain extent, the stealth powers may not matter overmuch; after you collect the first sample, you're going to be lit up and glowing like a Christmas tree, and that may counter the effect

It doesn't matter in what order you collect the samples, but I suggest starting with the ones nearest the enemy faction's base and working your way back toward your own. That way if you're spotted and ganked near the beginning of your run, you only lose a couple of minutes' work. Some people suggest varying your collection pattern and not hitting the nearest meteors to the one where you are because ambushers might expect it; I personally feel that it is possible to be a little too paranoid. Collecting meteors in Bloody Bay is relatively simple; you can do it in under ten minutes easily. It's not like Warburg where getting the nukes can be an exercise in frustration; even if you get ganked and lose all your meteor samples, it'll only take another five to ten minutes to get them all again.

You might also give some thought to doing it at a time when nearly nobody is around, such as late nights or Sunday mornings. After all, if there aren't any other players in the zone, there aren't any enemies to gank you.

Note that a meteor takes about thirty seconds to "respawn" after a sample is collected--so if you're collecting samples as part of a team, your whole team is going to have to hang around it long enough for everyone to get one. However, since there is (more) safety in numbers, gathering a team to collect them might not be that bad of an idea.

At any rate, once you've got all six samples (or five of them plus Prototype Element Salvage, which can fill in for any one sample), you're ready for stage two.

All Your Firebase Are Belong to Us

In order to obtain a purified sample that can be taken back to the scientist to exchange for your Shivan Shard, you need to use the computer in one of the firebases scattered throughout the island. But it's not as simple as just using the computer; first you have to violate the Digital Millenium Copyright Act by cracking the "digital rights management" on the refinery software--knocking out the firebase's eight automated turrets. (Don't ask me why knocking out gun turrets enables using the computer; it's not my game, and anyway, in a setting where no elevator traverses more than two floors, it doesn't really have to make sense.)

Note that all firebases are not created equal. The bases in yellow zones will probably be white, while the ones in orange or red zones may be a level or two higher. You may want to be sure you stay in the yellow and choose the easiest firebase you can find, especially if you're a lower-damage archetype trying to solo it. It's also worth pointing out that some areas of the island are busier than others, so it might be best to choose a remote firebase if possible to cut down the chances you'll get ganked while working on it.

If you're on a large team, knocking down a firebase is fairly easy. If you're solo, and especially if you're a low-damage class like a Defender or Controller, it can be challenging. If you try to take out one turret at a time, by the time you're on the last one all the ones you've taken out have respawned. It's like playing whack-a-mole and you can't whack fast enough.

But there are two useful little secrets that can turn soloing the whole thing into child's play (assuming the PVP-gankers will leave you alone for long enough). Those secrets are:

1) Turrets don't regenerate. When you knock a turret down to 5% of its health, it stays there. It doesn't regenerate over time the way "living" bad guys do if you leave them alone.

2) There is a "turret respawn tick". Turrets don't respawn X length of time after they get knocked out: they all respawn at once, every five minutes or so.

Put them together and you have a useful strategy. First, knock all eight turrets down to a sliver of health. This can be pretty tricky if you don't have ways of avoiding getting hit or healing the damage once you do--especially for the middle four turrets, which will all try to whack on you at once--but you'll find a way. Next, knock out one of the weaker outer turrets entirely (probably one of the Dual Artillery Turrets) and wait for it to respawn. Once it does, you know that you'll have a full five minutes or so before the next tick...so quickly take it out, then take out all seven of the others that you've reduced to slivers of health.

Once all the turrets are down, you can slip into the base and use the amber-screened computer (not the laptop; it'll just tell you the security system is down) to refine your sample, and avoid getting ganked on the way back to the scientist at your base, and you're done!

I hope you've enjoyed this mini-guide. Special thanks to the folks in the PVP Zones group whose discussion first put me onto the method for soloing the firebases, and to those who left comments with other useful advice when this was posted on the old City of Heroes forums.