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Masquerade's guide to soloing the Nightmare Invasion, featuring special guests
guyhumual
Posts: 2,393 Arc User
Do you see yourself as a modern day Jean Paul Sartre? Do you believe Hell is other people? Or maybe you just hate the pain of searching for a group. Ether way the Nightmare invasion is very possible to solo if you have the right powers and equipment, pick the right situations, and use the right strategy for your character type. In this thread I'll outline some ways of dealing with the nightmare invasion on your own. That's right! It's a guide just in time for the event to be over!
Who likes a fair fight? Not the pirate Rabja the Red that's for sure. Why fight these Nightmare horrors face to face when there's plenty of good high buildings to snipe from!
What you need: Nothing except a sniping power like Sniper Rifle. Something with better then 100ft range
How does it work?
Get up on a high building near a portal and start edging closer till your target is in range.
Here I was sniping portals. The mobs around the portal are helpless to stop me.
The only major fear with this method if you can stay more then 100ft away is the Nightmare Demolishers
They have the same range as your sniper rifle. If you can hit them they can hit you. Always watch out for that guy. See if you can target him before you start shooting. If he's within range your best option is to either move to a different location or wait for him to move to a different location. This guy can pull you, and I mean off the building, and that turns the fight pretty quickly in their favor. This is supposed to be an unfair fight for you not them.
The other option is find a location that let's you loose line of site.
This ledge for example: Now they see me
Now they don't
Another thing to consider is that you needn't be above your enemy, you just need to be unreachable.
Here we gun down the entire mob as they get within range. Make no mistake though, if I'm not on that ledge, just out of reach, they will charge and pound me into pirate pâté.
So clean up most of the mobs before charging in to finish off those just out of range or line of site.
Then take out the portal at your leisure.
Method One: Fish in a Barrel
Who likes a fair fight? Not the pirate Rabja the Red that's for sure. Why fight these Nightmare horrors face to face when there's plenty of good high buildings to snipe from!
What you need: Nothing except a sniping power like Sniper Rifle. Something with better then 100ft range
How does it work?
Get up on a high building near a portal and start edging closer till your target is in range.
Here I was sniping portals. The mobs around the portal are helpless to stop me.
The only major fear with this method if you can stay more then 100ft away is the Nightmare Demolishers
They have the same range as your sniper rifle. If you can hit them they can hit you. Always watch out for that guy. See if you can target him before you start shooting. If he's within range your best option is to either move to a different location or wait for him to move to a different location. This guy can pull you, and I mean off the building, and that turns the fight pretty quickly in their favor. This is supposed to be an unfair fight for you not them.
The other option is find a location that let's you loose line of site.
This ledge for example: Now they see me
Now they don't
Another thing to consider is that you needn't be above your enemy, you just need to be unreachable.
Here we gun down the entire mob as they get within range. Make no mistake though, if I'm not on that ledge, just out of reach, they will charge and pound me into pirate pâté.
So clean up most of the mobs before charging in to finish off those just out of range or line of site.
Then take out the portal at your leisure.
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My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Are you a bona fide badass like Mary Mars here? Do you think these horrors should be the ones who are afraid of you? Well this method might be for you.
What you need: A solid tanking build. You'll want a passive that can absorb a lot of damage like Invulnerability or Defiance, at least one active offense for breaking holds, and two active defenses like Unbreakable and Masterful Dodge. For attacks you need something with AoE, preferably with knockdowns or pulls like Iron Cyclone or Brimstone, something to keep your opponents off balance and not attacking you. You'll need some self heals as well.
How does it work?
First of all if you're using a Defiance build use the local mobs to build stacks BEFORE you attack the Nightmare horrors.
These guys are about to get the ever living snot kicked out of them but for a few brief moments they're going to think they're winning as Mary lets them wail on her.
Next, land next to the portal and activate the first of your two passives.
Things will look bleak at first as you're pulled and knocked and held. Use your active offense if you're held and then start spamming your AoE attack.
Stay next to the Portal and keep bashing bozos. The only time you're going to move away from the portal is to collect health boosts. You will likely need to activate that second active defense before you've cleared out many enemies. However keep next to the portal and keep spamming that AoE.
In the previous method we were trying to avoid that Nightmare Demolisher in this case the Nightmare Demolisher is your friend. His attacks hurt everyone, including other horrors. After the portal goes down stand next to anyone else you want turned to paste and let your new frenemy help you deal the pain.
This cultist here doesn't know what's about to hit him.
Once the portal is down, your teammate the Demolisher is napping, what's left should be pretty easy to mop up.
So maybe you're not a tank but you're still a badass, you're not crazy enough to go toe to toe with these mobs, but you are capable of handing out lollypops and beatings, and today you're all out of lollypops. Why's it called the Pac-Man method? Well Masquerade here is very tough but she doesn't have any knocks to disrupt attacks, but since we're dealing with melee mobs, just moving out of range of their attacks can stymie them. Meanwhile we're going to look for boosts dropped when bad guys die to continue our rampage. They're our power pellets. Keep moving, avoid the ghosts, eat the power pellets: Pac-Man!
That's a lot of Inkys (the blue ghost from pac-man).
What you need: We need a solid AoE attack we can spam again, something like Hurricane or Epidemic, we'll again want at least two active defenses like Unbreakable and Masterful Dodge, and at least one active offense to break holds. A travel power is nice but when this first went live the travel power disable was pretty strong and so foot travel worked as well. But you need to keep moving! This also means you want space to fight these guys, crowed roof tops or places where there's a lot of objects aren't advisable locations to try this.
How does it work? Like our previous method we're going to activate our active defense and start bashing bozos. Unlike our previous method we're going to keep moving. Use your active offense the moment you're held. Keep using that AoE attack and keep moving. Once a few horrors start to drop the power pellets will start to drop.
Pick these up as needed. Masq is pretty tough but her passive doesn't stop damage. keep attacking and gobble up those pellets to stay alive.
Your second active defense is your emergency button, if it's something like Resurgence or Unbreakable you can afford to sit on it. A power pellet might appear to keep you going, if it's something like Masterful dodge you're better off using it as soon as it's available.
If you get enough boosts to drop you might not even need that second active defense but I've found myself needing it about half the time so it's highly recommended that you have two to try this method.
Use the area to stretch out your enemies, don't get cornered, and keep looping back to the portal to do strafing runs of it. You'll note in that picture above another portal and more mobs in the top right. Be wary of things like that and don't get too close as you don't want to have to fight two Nightmare mobs. Never run behind mobs if there's another group behind you as you may get knocked into them.
Once all the heavy hitters are down you can simply stroll in and finish off the portal and any remaining mobs.
We're talking about the kids game that usually ended once someone got hurt rather then the cartoon show. Basically you won if you could stay in the high place the longest. Horrors don't fly or jump (usually) so once they're off the hill they can't get back up (though they will despawn and respawn through the portal if given enough time).
Look at all the Horrors standing near that ledge. What could possibly go wrong?
What you need? A lot of powerful knocks. I recommend a vehicle with one of the gravity bombs or gravity pulse, Masq's Millennium Spirit 903E has a gravity Pulse that works like a charm. Also you need a portal atop a building with a ledge nearby.
How does it work? Basically you're going to fly in and knock as many bozos off the building as you can.
Come to mommy Demolisher. I'll catch you! (Masq did not catch the Demolisher as promised)
This method is pretty straight forward.
It is for rich kids though, vehicles aren't cheap, but then again most of my methods are probably only doable by free form whereas this method could be used by a silver with a little spending money or savvy trades.
Once the roof is clear you are king of the hill and can destroy the portal at your leisure. The only other trick here is to move up out of range of your attackers if you take too much damage. So long as you don't move too far out of range the damage you've dealt won't reset and when your vehicle has repaired enough fly down and clear that rooftop.
So if you don't have a vehicle but still have a fairly respectable toon, capable of fighting most badies, just not this many badies? Well there's another variant on the King of the Hill method, and that I call the Br'er Rabbit method. This strat I discovered as you might imagine, by getting my butt knocked off of a building, but surviving only to see my attackers jumping down after me. Well Bandit here learned how to use this to her advantage.
Look at all those jerks, they think they're so big, well they wouldn't dare chase me down off of this building!
Oh, apparently they would . . .
Guess I'll just head back up and destroy the portal then.
What do you need Again, an active defense is pretty much mandatory at this point. That initial contact has the potential to inflict a lot of damage and you're going to get pulled and held so you want something like Unbreakable or Masterful Dodge and you're going to want an Active offense to break holds once you're on the ground. You'll also need a travel power that can get you back onto the building in a hurry. I'd recommend Acrobatics with the Versatility advantage or a Teleport. Self heals are important here as well. Getting off the building might leave you vulnerable.
How does it work? Activate your active defense and get agro. Then get off the building and draw the bad guys down after you.
How gracefully you get off the building is up to you.
As a side note: if you're ever in the situation where you're falling off an eight story building onto a nearby three story building, try to roll with the fall.
I would not recommend landing on your neck and head.
once your down look out for the mobs to follow you. At this point you may get held. Use your active offense to break any holds. Then once the majority follow you down run around the building and climb it from the rear. There should only be a couple cultists, usually just the one, left on the roof. Take them out and deal with the portal. Sometimes goons will respawn, but if you're self healing and used your active defense to mitigate the majority of that initial damage you should be able to handle a few 3 bar mobs.
However!
You might not have to worry about the demolisher's pulls as he usually follows you off the roof, the cultists WILL kill you with their knocks. Now I know what you're thinking: how can a knock kill me? Didn't I just get knocked off the building in the first place? Well usually you'll survive the fall and escape that initial contact because you're running your AD and the goons are still chasing you down, out of combat range, but if the cultist knocks you off the roof again all those bad guys that followed you down the first time are still down there and they're ready to smack you the moment land.
Once you're dealing with reduced numbers on the roof it's pretty easy . . . but don't get knocked.
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My characters
I also found that a flying toon can snipe/swoop portals at 100' elevation, making multiple passes, even healing a bit after a pass, as long as you don't wait too long before attacking again (since the portal health could reset if you do).
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
"The hand's can't hit what the eyes can't see. Float like a Butterfly, sting like a bee!" Muhammad Ali
In honor of the late Muhammad Ali (1943-2016) I'm going to add this last method to this guide. One of the best ways to avoid taking damage is to not get hit and while the dodge mechanic in CO might reduce damage it doesn't really stop you from getting hit. The only way to avoid getting hit in CO is to be out of sight or out of range. The Nightmare mobs don't fly so the best way to get out of range is to fly (or float).
"I'm so pretty"
What you need You'll want a travel power like flight or a vehicle as well as a ranged attack you can tap or without a long charge. Now I didn't run this with character flight but it does have a distinct advantage over vehicles, and that is your line of sight. With the exception of Power Armor most character ranged powers aren't restricted by LoS, it's possible to hover directly over top of your target and unleash hell, however, escaping can be more difficult if things go south, especially if you're low level and don't have ranks into your travel power. I'd recommend taking an active defense as well as an active offense if you're going to try this without a vehicle.
"Superman don't need no seat belt"
How does it work? Two words: hit and run. Fly into range, get a couple of quick hits and then you'll want to get out of range. Don't fly too far away, you will reset the portal, but just out of range of the Demolisher. Then heal up, look for the path of least resistance:
"I'm so fast I can run through a hurricane without getting wet"
You'll note the mobs are clustered to one side, which was my last angle of attack, I flew away, healed, and now I'm about to fly in and hit them where they're thin for my next attack.
"I'm so fast that i turned the light switch off in my room and was in bed before it was dark."
So after that last run I took a bit of damage, so now I'm hovering and recovering, awaiting my next run.
"It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am."
Lastly, your only real threat, if you're poking and running, is the nightmare Demolisher, usually if you have a very fast power you can get into range and away before the other mobs can charge their holds, and even if they do get their holds off, the mobs other attacks will break the hold before too long, and you can immediately retreat. The Demolisher has a pull though and so when you see him charging that retreat immediately. Masq's vehicle can survive a pounding but a Rank 1 vehicle without mods could very easily be destroyed before it can escape.
"I'm so mean I make medicine sick"
Bandit's grav bike here isn't so sturdy and so she needs to be extra specially careful about her attacks.
"I'm so fast that i turned the light switch off in my room and was in bed before it was dark."
take your attack and fly straight up to get out of range. Rinse/ repeat until the portal is down.
RIP Muhammad Ali, you electrified the crowds with your actions, but you also amused them with your words. No other heavy weight has managed to entertain us as you have. You truly were the Greatest.