Cybermind Notes

trailturtle · August 2013

Just a quick round-up so everyone's up to speed...

-At present, if you get KO'd during the Cybermind fight, you won't be teleported to Dr. Silverback's room, where the reward is. After the final cutscene, you can log out and back in really quick, that'll put you in Silverback's room.

-Using Skarn's Bane will strip away the vulnerability from the Firewalls. We're working to fix this soon, but in the meantime, please do not use this power during this encounter. Similarly, using Skarn's Bane in the Cybermind fight may have weird consequences.

-When Cybermind is about to use his nuke, make sure you're fully standing on the block, not on the edge -- your center point needs to be on the block. If you use a lunge (like I do), it's worth lunging to get close, then circle around a little to get solidly on the block.

-There are 5.5 special rewards available from the alert: Cybermind's chest, his helmet, Armor Cyber Cable bracers, Socrates and Cybermind AFs, and (half-special) the Discs belt. The belt is also available in the Variety Pack in the C-Store, and will be removed from the loot table in the next update.

-You can get this alert's daily mission from any Socrates terminal, if you've completed the first two parts of the story arc.

-The Socrates terminal at the end of the mission is punchable. Entertaining though it is, before you attack the terminal, please: think of the bytes.

-If you don't feel like you can win the battle against the firewalls or Cybermind, have everyone in your party use /killme. Once you're all out of combat, you'll be able to use the Leave Current Map option, with the Socrates icon by your mini-map.

-If you're having trouble with the firewalls, make sure you're disabling their heals. When one of the walls is red/vulnerable, if it doesn't get attacked, it starts to heal the other walls. This is shut down for a couple seconds whenever someone attacks the wall -- just make sure that someone's always hitting the red wall, even if everyone else needs to focus the minions.

gamehobo · August 2013

trailturtle wrote: »

-Using Skarn's Bane will strip away the vulnerability from the Firewalls. We're working to fix this soon, but in the meantime, please do not use this power during this encounter. Similarly, using Skarn's Bane in the Cybermind fight may have weird consequences.

While I hate to see you removing Skarn's bane's playability and further diminishing the debuff playstyle, it's worth noting that Celestial Cleansing likely has the same effect so you'll want to be sure to nerf that too

trailturtle · August 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

While I hate to see you removing Skarn's bane's playability and further diminishing the debuff playstyle, it's worth noting that Celestial Cleansing likely has the same effect so you'll want to be sure to nerf that too

Thanks for the heads-up, I've passed it to the dev team. Hopefully there's a solution that just fixes both of them without making the Firewalls immune to Skarn's.

fudgemonsta · August 2013

Change the effect so it's classified as a debuff rather then a buff. Celestial Cleansing and Skarns both wipe a buff from the opponent as well as Energy Forms, so changing it so it's classified as a 'Debuff' should fix it.

Don't know how much work internally that is, but sounds easier then most things.

kemmicals · August 2013

There's also some sizing issues with the Cybermind costume pieces on females. For example, you can plainly see part of an emblem clip through the chest or clipping on the back of the chest piece.

thelostone0 · August 2013

trailturtle wrote: »

Thanks for the heads-up, I've passed it to the dev team. Hopefully there's a solution that just fixes both of them without making the Firewalls immune to Skarn's.

Trailturtle, sometimes I will enter the pillar of light and not get the buff, resulting in my death as surely as if I'd tried to go without. Can you perhaps add a few seconds to the time given to pick up the buff and make the buffs mildly more visible so it's easier to tell if I've been screwed by the pillar or not?

falchoin · August 2013

trailturtle wrote: »

...-Using Skarn's Bane will strip away the vulnerability from the Firewalls. We're working to fix this soon, but in the meantime, please do not use this power during this encounter. Similarly, using Skarn's Bane in the Cybermind fight may have weird consequences. ...

Nearly everything created in the last year or two is either immune buff stripping or changed to be immune to buff stripping shortly after release since it's unintended behavior. Now it's causing other issues with content. If the key reason to pick a power over another is the buff stripping why are Skarn's Bane and Celestial Cleansing balanced around the idea of removing buffs when it's obviously unwanted behavior? Shouldn't they get some other gimmick or be rebalanced?

biffsmackwell · August 2013

gamehobo wrote: »

While I hate to see you removing Skarn's bane's playability and further diminishing the debuff playstyle, it's worth noting that Celestial Cleansing likely has the same effect so you'll want to be sure to nerf that too

He said it removes the VULNERABILITY buffs, meaning that if someone keeps using Skarn's Bane, the wall will be invincible forever. Not sure how that's a nerf, but okay...

I haven't played the alert yet, so I'm not sure if I'm reading it wrong or right.

gerberatetra · August 2013

biffsmackwell wrote: »

He said it removes the VULNERABILITY buffs, meaning that if someone keeps using Skarn's Bane, the wall will be invincible forever. Not sure how that's a nerf, but okay...

-ahem-

If you can't use it; i.e. if it makes the power unusable or for all practical purposes unusable in a particular encounter; it's a nerf.

Mind you it's situational but a nerf nonetheless

biffsmackwell · August 2013

gerberatetra wrote: »

-ahem-

If you can't use it; i.e. if it makes the power unusable or for all practical purposes unusable in a particular encounter; it's a nerf.

Mind you it's situational but a nerf nonetheless

Okay correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I've been reading:

1. Skarn's Bane causes the Firewalls to become invincible by removing the vulnerability. This is unintended behavior.

2. They're working to fix this, meaning that they're going to make the buff immune to Skarn's Bane's effect (I'm guessing). This is a fix, not a nerf, because it would make Skarn's Bane favorable to use because it will no longer impede your group's progress.

The problem, as I see it (if I am indeed seeing it right) is that Skarn's Bane is supposed to remove buffs that are beneficial to the target. Vulnerability isn't a beneficial buff... this should have been marked as a debuff so that Skarn's Bane won't wipe it out. Which is maybe how they plan to fix it.

Am I getting everything here, or is this still somehow considered a nerf to the debuff playstyle somehow?

fudgemonsta · August 2013

biffsmackwell wrote: »

Okay correct me if I'm wrong, but this is what I've been reading:

1. Skarn's Bane causes the Firewalls to become invincible by removing the vulnerability. This is unintended behavior.

2. They're working to fix this, meaning that they're going to make the buff immune to Skarn's Bane's effect (I'm guessing). This is a fix, not a nerf, because it would make Skarn's Bane favorable to use because it will no longer impede your group's progress.

The problem, as I see it (if I am indeed seeing it right) is that Skarn's Bane is supposed to remove buffs that are beneficial to the target. Vulnerability isn't a beneficial buff... this should have been marked as a debuff so that Skarn's Bane won't wipe it out. Which is maybe how they plan to fix it.

Am I getting everything here, or is this still somehow considered a nerf to the debuff playstyle somehow?

Naw, you got it all right here. The question is how they fix it.

Make it a debuff, or make them immune to Skarns. According to patchnotes recently posted by TT, looks like they either made it a debuff or made the buff not get removed, but Skarns is still usable. One of the two.

Plus, other fixes for those things that have caused issues.

gerberatetra · August 2013

biffsmackwell wrote: »

Am I getting everything here, or is this still somehow considered a nerf to the debuff playstyle somehow?

Ah I thought you were referring to the general removing of things being ineffable in the last year

Nevermind, move along ^^

spinnytop · August 2013

trailturtle wrote: »

-The Socrates terminal at the end of the mission is punchable. Entertaining though it is, before you attack the terminal, please: think of the bytes.

Trail Turtle, PLEASE pass this on to the devs:

Add regen dummies to the powerhouse training area please.

Thank you.

edit: I dont care if they look like socrates, she is sexy, woohoo

trailturtle · August 2013

Added:

-If you don't feel like you can win the battle against the firewalls or Cybermind, have everyone in your party use /killme. Once you're all out of combat, you'll be able to use the Leave Current Map option, with the Socrates icon by your mini-map.

crypticbuxom · August 2013

About Skarn's Bane on the Firewalls.

Would it have been better to make the Firewalls normal and get an invul buff instead? that way Skarn's Bane could make the firewalls vulnerable making it more useful. Using magic in a tech world could seriously break its rules to benefit the user and the team.

Its the only really clever thing to do.

p0temk1n · August 2013

Issues I encountered recently:

Had two telepaths in my team. When we got to the firewalls, they were becoming invincible for some reason. Turned out the debuffs and DoTs from telepathy were making the firewalls invulnerable; we had to have the telepaths focus on the adds while the rest of us got the firewall.

Next run went a bit more smoothly, but found another Skarn's-related bug: using Skarn's Bane on the final phase strips him of his vulnerability and causes him to hit you as if you did NOT have a color buff.

Other than that, it's a fairly enjoyable romp, and I hope to see more bosses like this in the future.

theravenforce · August 2013

p0temk1n wrote: »

Issues I encountered recently:

Had two telepaths in my team. When we got to the firewalls, they were becoming invincible for some reason. Turned out the debuffs and DoTs from telepathy were making the firewalls invulnerable; we had to have the telepaths focus on the adds while the rest of us got the firewall..

This most likely is incorrect. Why?

1) I personally run a Telepath. I have never encountered this issue using the DoT play style.

2) There is NOTHING in the nature of the DoTs coding or power description which allows them to remove buffs from foes, objects or targets.

3) Mental Weakness, Malaise, Regret, Dependency and Stress do not exhibit buff removal effects on ANY form of buff, unlike Skarn's Bane which does.

I have only done 1 run with Mentella on this alert and I did not impede my teams DPS by making walls invulnerable.

However, I will run this again in an hour or so on Mentella to further confirm my assertions.

p0temk1n · August 2013

I found it very strange, myself, raven, so it may have been some sort of fluke.

How it went down from my perspective:

Firewalls were taking a while to bring down, even factoring in the, ah, inefficiency of Telepathy's damage. I noticed my Bleeds and Poison (lariat spam to stack bleeds swiftly) were not applying if the Firewall was already Disoriented, so we tried it without Disorients.

Then I noticed it was saying "Immune" when Ego Sprites' DoT was on it and my bleeds/poison STILL wasn't applying. Once the telepaths started focusing down the adds and let myself and the munitions guy take care of it, the firewalls took damage normally and we could proceed.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened; I don't have much Telepathy experience, but I'm pretty sure none of them strip buffs, and no-one was using Skarn's. Hopefully I'll run into it again so I can get screenies.

Unknown · August 2013

This content has been removed.

Unknown · August 2013

This content has been removed.

theravenforce · August 2013

p0temk1n wrote: »

I found it very strange, myself, raven, so it may have been some sort of fluke.

How it went down from my perspective:

Firewalls were taking a while to bring down, even factoring in the, ah, inefficiency of Telepathy's damage. I noticed my Bleeds and Poison (lariat spam to stack bleeds swiftly) were not applying if the Firewall was already Disoriented, so we tried it without Disorients.

From this it would seem either the team in question lacked DPS or you are blaming Disorient mechanic for this. Which has nothing to do with the New Telepathy powers. Disorient Mechanic is available as a secondary effect on MANY CO attacks.

p0temk1n wrote: »

Then I noticed it was saying "Immune" when Ego Sprites' DoT was on it and my bleeds/poison STILL wasn't applying. Once the telepaths started focusing down the adds and let myself and the munitions guy take care of it, the firewalls took damage normally and we could proceed.

'IMMUNE' is not caused by the Telepathy DoTs, this is explained in the cut scene preceding this encounter. When the firewalls glow RED that is when they can be attacked, when they no longer glow they enter self repair mode and are immune to all damage including any lingering DoTs.

p0temk1n wrote: »

I'm still trying to figure out what happened; I don't have much Telepathy experience, but I'm pretty sure none of them strip buffs, and no-one was using Skarn's. Hopefully I'll run into it again so I can get screenies.

Backing up my previous post, as I expected, Telepathy DoTs do not remove, have any affect (apart from damage) on the Vulnerability that SOCRATES tampers with for us to escape.

I ran this mission twice in the 15-30 minutes before maintenance with Mentella. I used my DoTs against the walls and did not experience any issue.

From your explanation it would seem that it wasn't realised that the firewalls can become immune to damage, lingering and active damage types.

theravenforce · August 2013

BUG: Energy Building.

STAGE: Firewall Cage

NOTES: I noticed on my single blade character ShadowAssassin that I could not build energy from the firewalls when striking them in the vulnerable stage using my energy builder. I noticed a similar thing happening to you during the LIVE Stream you did when you played with Iris Irregular.

Non bug but suggestion for after this alert goes and is entered into the rotation:

- Allow locked out players to be able to "fight" their way into the boss instance via the use of a firewall (replace lockout force field) which glows red periodically (approx. for 8 sec every 5 secs) which players who are locked out can damage and destroy in order to gain access to the alert.

This, in my opinion will make PUGs and even pre-made teams, slightly more bearable, not only for remaining few who are fighting Cybermind but for locked out allies.

It would provide a motivation for players to NOT just wipe if too many allies are locked out.

And it would give locked out allies something to do than sit down and wait for X.X million hp to be eaten away OR watch their team member wipe.

fudgemonsta · August 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

BUG: Energy Building.

STAGE: Firewall Cage

NOTES: I noticed on my single blade character ShadowAssassin that I could not build energy from the firewalls when striking them in the vulnerable stage using my energy builder. I noticed a similar thing happening to you during the LIVE Stream you did when you played with Iris Irregular.

Energy building on props doesn't work. Try attacking a chair next time you're in RenCen, you won't gain any energy (Aside from forms or whatever.)

The wall is a similar thing with it, although I doubt the energy thing is intentional, it is a base trait of props. Don't know if it will get changed.

theravenforce · August 2013

fudgemonsta wrote: »

Energy building on props doesn't work. Try attacking a chair next time you're in RenCen, you won't gain any energy (Aside from forms or whatever.)

The wall is a similar thing with it, although I doubt the energy thing is intentional, it is a base trait of props. Don't know if it will get changed.

Ah. I would have thought they would have been tagged as enemies (MASTER VILLAIN or ENFORCER) rather than prop, but yush that explains it.

crypticbuxom · August 2013

fudgemonsta wrote: »

Energy building on props doesn't work. Try attacking a chair next time you're in RenCen, you won't gain any energy (Aside from forms or whatever.)

The wall is a similar thing with it, although I doubt the energy thing is intentional, it is a base trait of props. Don't know if it will get changed.

I was afraid of this. Guess I'm not using melee toons with low end/rec since they don't have good Energy Unlocks. My tank was completely useless against this part.

p0temk1n · August 2013

Raven, my bad, I didn't mention it in my post:

The firewalls were, indeed, red when we attacked them. Which is why it was so odd. Once the telepaths stopped hitting them, we could focus down a firewall when it was red like we were supposed to.

I've yet to encounter this again, however, and I'm just chalking it up to new mechanics messing with something behind the scenes.

I've got a sneaking suspicion it's got something to do with someone applying a DoT before the invulnerability going away and it messing up the "buff", but I can't be sure.

theravenforce · August 2013

p0temk1n wrote: »

Raven, my bad, I didn't mention it in my post:

The firewalls were, indeed, red when we attacked them. Which is why it was so odd. Once the telepaths stopped hitting them, we could focus down a firewall when it was red like we were supposed to.

I've yet to encounter this again, however, and I'm just chalking it up to new mechanics messing with something behind the scenes.

Hmm...

I've got a sneaking suspicion it's got something to do with someone applying a DoT before the invulnerability going away and it messing up the "buff", but I can't be sure.[/COLOR]

I've tried this and nothing messed up. The DoTs effects will linger after application. Mainly Mental Weakness and Malaise (charge time and recharge time 15% increase debuffs) provided the telepath in question has enough power to make the buff last that long without reapplying it.

Since it seems to be a one off thing we cannot be sure. However, since this has only happened once, I am inclined to call it a fluke.. I've never run the alert with other telepaths so I cannot be sure...

EDIT: There is something SERIOUSLY wrong with the firewalls.

I have just run with a team where I was paired with another telepath and the walls went to hell fast. It wasn't so much an issue of removing the buffs, as the icons and timers still ticked and showed up.

The walls became immune during the vulnerable phase. Giving half the normal time to DPS them. It was suggested it was my own powers causing this so I stopped. Still had the same issue. It seemed that when two telepaths focus on the firewall it all goes to hell for some random reason.

I got the other telepath to stop attacking and we managed to take out the walls (The other telepath was a Mind AT).

I can say I can rule out Mentalist Powers but there is something wrong with the interactions. Whatever was done to make the debuffs un removable via skarns bane MAY be messing up debuffs applied to the wall as a whole.

To make a true test of this I'd have to get a team of telepaths (using old and new telepathy only) and run the mission. But that would likely be:

1) Impossible - Not many Telepaths left in CO

2) Some new kind of hell - "Telepathying" all over each other to produce some killer bug or something.

Also SOCRATES cannot be communicated with and is registered as a REGEN DUMMY...

I would appreciate it if interactions between the firewalls, energy builders and debuffs/buffs were investigated. The Firewalls are listed as MASTER VILLAINS, does this mean they are still tagged as props and as a result we cannot generate energy?

I think the fix for Skarns has had a negative impact on the timers for the Firewalls. I noticed half way through the vulnerable stage it started becoming immune and healing whilst still red for around 4 seconds.

EDIT #2: Run it again with myself as only telepath, no issues what so ever. L.O.L.

trailturtle · August 2013

Hmm. Any additional info on the firewalls and two telepaths would be helpful, thanks for gathering this much...

Also, additional information from one of the devs: If you're having trouble with the firewalls, make sure you're disabling their heals. When one of the walls is red/vulnerable, if it doesn't get attacked, it starts to heal the other walls. This is shut down for a couple seconds whenever someone attacks the wall -- just make sure that someone's always hitting the red wall, even if everyone else needs to focus the minions.

theravenforce · August 2013

trailturtle wrote: »

Hmm. Any additional info on the firewalls and two telepaths would be helpful, thanks for gathering this much...

I'll try and gather some Mind ATs and Mentella to run to the firewall stage and see what happens. I cannot bear the thought of Cybermind with Mind ATs as my only back up lol.

I will say, it seems so messed up. This weirdness with the walls and telepaths...

trailturtle wrote: »

Also, additional information from one of the devs: If you're having trouble with the firewalls, make sure you're disabling their heals. When one of the walls is red/vulnerable, if it doesn't get attacked, it starts to heal the other walls. This is shut down for a couple seconds whenever someone attacks the wall -- just make sure that someone's always hitting the red wall, even if everyone else needs to focus the minions.

Was not aware of this at all (partly due to me only having the first wall to deal with, it usually goes down in one stage). Very useful information Thanks!

lunaw78 · August 2013

theravenforce wrote: »

Non bug but suggestion for after this alert goes and is entered into the rotation:

- Allow locked out players to be able to "fight" their way into the boss instance via the use of a firewall (replace lockout force field) which glows red periodically (approx. for 8 sec every 5 secs) which players who are locked out can damage and destroy in order to gain access to the alert.

This, in my opinion will make PUGs and even pre-made teams, slightly more bearable, not only for remaining few who are fighting Cybermind but for locked out allies.

It would provide a motivation for players to NOT just wipe if too many allies are locked out.

And it would give locked out allies something to do than sit down and wait for X.X million hp to be eaten away OR watch their team member wipe.

Raven, I really doubt that lockdown wall will be get replaced with a firewall because the lockdown wall is part of the challenge! If there will be no lockdown wall or the lockdown wall could be breakable, then where is the challenge?! And if one or more teammates gets locked outside the boss area, there are always some solutions to this: the remaining players iin the team get killed, they recover so the boss resets and the lockdown wall is removed or the remaining guys who got stucked in the alert could use [Teleport to Team-mate] device.
The lockdown wall isn`t quite a bad thing, like some people (ussually PUGs) might believe it is! It`s really a good thing! It increase the difficulty of the alert and in same time it improves the team work by making players to actually wait for the others, so all can enter in the boss room!

lunaw78 · August 2013

What I mean is in the past (some days ago) these sigils could actually disrupt the boss "data rain"! It seems they don`t do the same thing now. Why? The boss is actually immune to these sigils?

flyingfinn · August 2013

Sigils distrupting the rain takes away the challenge.

lunaw78 · August 2013

flyingfinn wrote: »

Sigils distrupting the rain takes away the challenge.

That only means that Cybermind is more easily to beat and less time spending in his alert!

p0temk1n · August 2013

You remember how players found ways to make Gravitar easier?

You remember how (almost gleefully) that got patched out?

I'm willing to bet stuff that "breaks" the Alert to make it easier for players is going to end up patched out. It's not that hard in the first place, exploits only make it easier.

Cybermind Notes

Comments