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Devil's Choice

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  • vorga113vorga113 Member Posts: 192 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    not that hard, did it first time through without a death.

    To paraphrase Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf "That's what we round these parts call bovine scatology"

    The 3rd wave is utterly stupid, the allies are totally useless as they are permently in repair mode and your one little ship can't do enough damage to make any real difference.

    Devil's Choice == Totally fubar
  • dcmstechdcmstech Member Posts: 39 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    moirayne wrote: »
    Hi can any1 advise me pls. I have the mission Devlis choice, and apparently there are 4 legs in it. Under the radar, cry havoc , escape, and defense of new romulus. It seems i have done the first 3.
    Now its telling me to go to defense of New romulus. but it doesnt start there for me./? I tried to warp in but it just put me in space and no starting point. SO does any1 know where i go on from here ? thx in advance.

    Start in Sector space near New Romulus and the option for defense of New Romulus should be there.

    I managed with beat it with the stock D'derex and netgraph saying ping @ 1000+ and incoming at over 200000... took an hour but I managed it...:) but was so fed up afterwards I left an hour before patch time :rolleyes:
  • kaevwrynnkaevwrynn Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    vorga113 wrote: »
    To paraphrase Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf "That's what we round these parts call bovine scatology"

    The 3rd wave is utterly stupid, the allies are totally useless as they are permently in repair mode and your one little ship can't do enough damage to make any real difference.

    Devil's Choice == Totally fubar

    It takes a while, but you can wear them down. I finished after about an hour and a half (lots of ambushes when I decloaked to bite a target), and managed to blow up all three of the big ships. Getting rid of the two dreadnaughts is a big help when it comes to keeping your allies useful as more than cannon fodder.

    Only ship that wasn't functioning at the end was the Kang, I think... it was still surrounded by a swarm of smaller ships, and I wasn't about to mess with that just to save it when the other ships were prepped for killing the command ship.

    That said, I'd still say that they should probably get rid of reinforcing the smaller ships' numbers... and definitely reduce that stupid super crescent blast. I took note of how much that does. Took a full shield facing off AND took my d'deridex down to 50% hull strength. That's ridiculous!
  • starsvoidstarsvoid Member Posts: 161 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    starsvoid wrote: »
    So, I normally play PvE content on Advanced or Elite...

    Guess I'm dialing it back to Normal for this mission?

    Heh heh heh, boy, was I ever optimistic.

    I'm gonna have to try that mission with an escort next time, instead of the DD. I'm not sure if it's just that my DD sucked or if the mission is ridiculous.


    I did try to skirt around the battle of Wave 3 and start by picking off the smaller ships, but the Elachi fleet only got reinforced with more of the littler ships.

    Can anyone confirm, is the Elachi's third wave infinite or not? Can you start by picking off the smalll ships and then move up?

    The real problem is those Crescent Wave disruptor cone blasts (knock through a full strength shield and bring a DD down to 50%!?), and since they come from any one of the ships, seems to make sense to start with the squishier ones...
  • aelrhianaaelrhiana Member Posts: 285 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Okay, I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to find the entry point to Defending New Romulus.

    It says to go to the NR system. Okay, easy enough. I get there...nothing. The mission text now says to go to the Alpha Centauri sector block, do I want to pay to warp there... errr, okay. I do that. Nothing. People, for some reason are saying to go to SB 39 in the Sierra system. Um...all right... Nothing.

    The game seems to think the the AC system is where this mission begins, yet there is nothing on the map that indicates that is true, likewise there is nothing at NR when I head there, either.

    How exactly *do* you enter the last half?
    [SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
  • powerpruetzpowerpruetz Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    aelrhiana wrote: »
    Okay, I've spent the last 45 minutes trying to find the entry point to Defending New Romulus.

    ...

    How exactly *do* you enter the last half?

    By approaching New Romulus from sector space. You should get the option to enter the scenario then. Transwarping to New Romuluis does not work, you have to approach from sector space.

    If that does not work for you, sorry, no idea, bugged for you?
  • vorga113vorga113 Member Posts: 192 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    aelrhiana wrote: »
    The game seems to think the the AC system is where this mission begins, yet there is nothing on the map that indicates that is true.

    Well, the game is sort of correct, the mission as a whole begins in AC it's just that you're not doing the first part of the mission you're doing the last part. If you do any mission that involves travelling between systems that "travel to start" button is pretty well useless.
  • kalvorax#3775 kalvorax Member Posts: 1,663 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I went through Defense of Romulus in 20 mins...didnt die once and didnt go below 70% hull....heck the reason i knew i did it in 20 mins was becaues 5 mins through i called in the pirates (not that they did any good against the command wave)

    I was using Plasmonic leech and aceton assimilator (WHICH IS BEAST for this battle) and using Battle Cloak pretty well and i just focused on the command ship. heck all i had in my eng slots were a polly hull mk 8 (the one that gives 12.5 resistance to everything) and a rare mk 8 RCS console
  • ddesjardinsddesjardins Member Posts: 3,056 Media Corps
    edited May 2013
    cynder2012 wrote: »
    I went through Defense of Romulus in 20 mins...didnt die once and didnt go below 70% hull....heck the reason i knew i did it in 20 mins was becaues 5 mins through i called in the pirates (not that they did any good against the command wave)

    I was using Plasmonic leech and aceton assimilator (WHICH IS BEAST for this battle) and using Battle Cloak pretty well and i just focused on the command ship. heck all i had in my eng slots were a polly hull mk 8 (the one that gives 12.5 resistance to everything) and a rare mk 8 RCS console

    I completed the mission in 25 minutes, but not without MULTIPLE deaths. But I was prepared for this, had nothing in my engineering slots but cheasy consoles. My bad ;)
  • kalvorax#3775 kalvorax Member Posts: 1,663 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I completed the mission in 25 minutes, but not without MULTIPLE deaths. But I was prepared for this, had nothing in my engineering slots but cheasy consoles. My bad ;)

    on tribble when i ran this i did the same thing lol....took me 45 mins and died more than i could count....but that was tribble not holo where all my c-store purchases are lol
  • kalvorax#3775 kalvorax Member Posts: 1,663 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    IMO...they should make Defense of New Romulus a whole mission by itself XD.....i see VERY little point in even running the long ground portion of Devils Choice....heck the title doesnt even make sense lol

    oops just realized i double posted though i was editing...sorry :"(
  • vorga113vorga113 Member Posts: 192 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    cynder2012 wrote: »
    I went through Defense of Romulus in 20 mins...didnt die once and didnt go below 70% hull....heck the reason i knew i did it in 20 mins was becaues 5 mins through i called in the pirates (not that they did any good against the command wave)

    I was using Plasmonic leech and aceton assimilator (WHICH IS BEAST for this battle) and using Battle Cloak pretty well and i just focused on the command ship. heck all i had in my eng slots were a polly hull mk 8 (the one that gives 12.5 resistance to everything) and a rare mk 8 RCS console

    Just remember the minimum level for this is 29 so try it again with a few stipulations :
    You have to fly a Mogai.
    You are a new player so haven't spent the 2500 zen for those consoles.
    You are limited to Mk VI consoles, so no polyduranium for you.
    Also you can't afford to buy rare consoles at 500K a pop, so mostly uncommon equipment with maybe one or two rares.

    Those stipulations are all in line with someone attempting this at lvl 29. Let us know how you get on, I'll give pretty good odds that it'll take you more than 20 minutes.

    Having said that I did finally get through this thing, but without firing a shot at the command ship. Tried to pick off the weaker ships one at a time, sort of onion peeling approach, although when I did seperate one from the herd two of his friends would always somehow warp jump to keep him company. After doing that a few times the mission complete message came up; I doubt I'd got with 15 k of the command ship or dreadnaughts at any point during the mission.

    So looks like the choices for this mission are :
    1 - be actively involved in the fight, but to suceed to need to "pay-to-win"
    2 - cloak your ship then go watch tv, have a cup of tea, read War & Peace etc. occasionally come back to wiggle the mouse and hope that your allies eventually do the job for you

    either way the mission is broken.

    If they changed the allied AI so that the ships had to stay within 10 K of you and could only target ships that are in your weapons range, so you have to be actively involved but at the same time get some direct help from the allied ships.
  • eisenw0lfeisenw0lf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    vorga113 wrote: »
    So looks like the choices for this mission are :
    1 - be actively involved in the fight, but to suceed to need to "pay-to-win"

    This is nonsense. I completed this mission without dying in a Subcommander Mogai which I had equipped with loot from the missions before. No pay-to-win of any sort was involved. After ~15 Minutes the mission was done. I agree on the part that this missions difficulty is most likely too much for a new player. However anyone who played this game for a longer period should know which BOff abilities one should slot on a ship like the Mogai and which equipment should be chosen.

    This also involves sticking to a focused build. I often see people running a wild mix of beams, cannons, mines and torpedoes on their ships. Their DPS is so low it's almost nonexistant, which then leads to the encounter of a Elachi Command Ship which regenerates faster than they deal damage. No wonder they fail so hard.
  • penthaligonpenthaligon Member Posts: 88 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    This is one of those missions when it becomes less about Star Trek and more about trying to find the glitches in the game to make it past some overpowered mob.

    Been getting insta killed repeatedly for the past hour, before I bug reported it and warped out. The Friendly NPC's are all trying to heal and the Mob NPC's just keep firing and resetting their repair bars. There is no chance to do this without some more work done on it. Not if it's done properly and how the story intends for it to work out.
  • elemberq333elemberq333 Member Posts: 430 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    This is classic Cryptic game design...make is so disgustingly difficult and then tone it down until the complaints almost die down. However surely they could have done this on the test server and not have it a show stopper in the launch...

    Very poor method of discovering how difficult to make a battle UNLESS you make all the adjustments you need to in testing and they did not do that, so in conclusion very poor design for the final sequence in an otherwise excellent storyline. ;):rolleyes:
  • iceaxe18iceaxe18 Member Posts: 103 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I just tried this mission out, and sure enough it is very hard to do. They come at you from all sides, and pretty much your dead instantly. The command ship is like a tank. This really frustrating mission, and so was the last few missions to. I hope they change these missions because there not fun at the moment. I had to quit the mission for right now.
  • revalahrevalah Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    eisenw0lf wrote: »
    This is nonsense. I completed this mission without dying in a Subcommander Mogai which I had equipped with loot from the missions before. No pay-to-win of any sort was involved. After ~15 Minutes the mission was done. I agree on the part that this missions difficulty is most likely too much for a new player. However anyone who played this game for a longer period should know which BOff abilities one should slot on a ship like the Mogai and which equipment should be chosen.

    This also involves sticking to a focused build. I often see people running a wild mix of beams, cannons, mines and torpedoes on their ships. Their DPS is so low it's almost nonexistant, which then leads to the encounter of a Elachi Command Ship which regenerates faster than they deal damage. No wonder they fail so hard.

    Lets see some youtube fraps of you doing it in 15 minutes without dying with a standard Mogai, lev 29-34 char and mission gear, Mr gods gift to gaming, because from where I stand you're lying your TRIBBLE off and impressing no-one.
  • stonewbiestonewbie Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I like a good challenge, but this mission isn't challenging at all. They just throw so much TRIBBLE at you that it becomes frustrating. I think that so far all of these 'fleet action' missions that the Romulans have are complete garbage.

    Here is what i see when i'm on the last wave ..and this is just from the enemy side:

    -2 or 3 Dreadnaughts 30% hull, 70% shield
    -bunch of escorts and even dreadnaughts shooting off their cone attack
    -lots of shuttles, pet ships, heavy torpedoes
    -a bunch of ships chasing me cause i looked at them funny
    -ships teleporting here and there, sometimes teleport-chasing me

    Then there are the friendly ships, wanna know what i see?

    -Each friendly ship is soloing another ship by itself
    -Each friendly ship is spam repairing when they arent shooting
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    revalah wrote: »
    Lets see some youtube fraps of you doing it in 15 minutes without dying with a standard Mogai, lev 29-34 char and mission gear, Mr gods gift to gaming, because from where I stand you're lying your TRIBBLE off and impressing no-one.
    I agree with Eisenwolf. I did it at L39 in a D'D, and yeah, it was stupidly hard, but beatable. Now, I'm pretty sure it took me more than 15 minutes, but you get the idea. and this was on Tribble, so no P2W for me. :p

    What was your ship build? I put together a decent Dragon Flagship out of the bits of junk I'd accumulated during the story.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • revalahrevalah Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I agree with Eisenwolf. I did it at L39 in a D'D, and yeah, it was stupidly hard, but beatable. Now, I'm pretty sure it took me more than 15 minutes, but you get the idea. and this was on Tribble, so no P2W for me. :p

    What was your ship build? I put together a decent Dragon Flagship out of the bits of junk I'd accumulated during the story.

    I was in the c-store D'D at level 37 sci, and my build was mission loot with dual cannons, and really doesn't matter much as I decloaked and detonated in a hail of disruptor fire from 300 ships with nothing better to shoot at. All I could do was chip away at them. But then I'm actually telling the truth and not trying to score internet street cred. Everyone who says its bloody impossible, frustrating, and takes ages is just bad at the game. Right. No-one ever lies on an internet forum.

    And sure it was beatable, by letting the 6 constantly repping allied ships chip away at them for 2 hours. Sad thing was that wave 1 and 2 were great fun.
  • eisenw0lfeisenw0lf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    revalah wrote: »
    Lets see some youtube fraps of you doing it in 15 minutes without dying with a standard Mogai, lev 29-34 char and mission gear, Mr gods gift to gaming, because from where I stand you're lying your TRIBBLE off and impressing no-one.

    I don't have anything to prove to you. Just telling what the mission was like for me. I was ~lvl 33-34 but decided to stay in my Mogai because it's more Tac focused than the D'Deridex. Besides I already had beaten the mission on Tribble in the Romulan space whale and I wanted to try something new. I had a full dual heavy cannons + turrets build (+ cycling Cannon rapid fire I and II), as expected from a destroyer class ship. I just waited in cloak until all the Elachi ships had fired their cones of death on my allies, than I attacked the Command Ship from the rear and used the superior turnrate of my ship to stay there the whole fight. As a result I only had to wear down one shield facing. When it was down, its hull withered away fast thanks to debuffs like 'Fire on my Mark'.

    revalah wrote: »
    I was in the c-store D'D at level 37 sci, and my build was mission loot with dual cannons, and really doesn't matter much as I decloaked and detonated in a hail of disruptor fire from 300 ships with nothing better to shoot at. All I could do was chip away at them. But then I'm actually telling the truth and not trying to score internet street cred. Everyone who says its bloody impossible, frustrating, and takes ages is just bad at the game. Right. No-one ever lies on an internet forum.

    And sure it was beatable, by letting the 6 constantly repping allied ships chip away at them for 2 hours. Sad thing was that wave 1 and 2 were great fun.

    It would help if you would show us what build your have deployed. What are your BOff powers? Elachi Ships have very strong shields, but low hullpoints, something that many players seem to overlook. Powers that circumvent shields are therefore recommended. On my tribble D'Deridex I slotted a pure dual heavy cannons + turrets build again and used Directed Energy Modulation to blast through the Command Ships shields, while all the other Engineering and Science slots focused on self-healing/tanking powers. If you get targeted by the Elachi cones of death just hit evasive. If your hull/shield get too low and your BOff powers are on cooldown hit Quantum Absorbtion (forget all the other Singularity powers you have up to this point, they are NOT worth it).

    Also I recommend getting one of the spacebar keybinds from the PvP forum to automatically distribute your shields whenever you hit spacebar.
  • kenlbenkenlben Member Posts: 40 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I agree that there should be way more Romulan ships left for the third wave, at least a few of the heavier ones. Its funny in most of the other mmo's I've played being a level or above the recommended was an advantage, a small advantage perhaps but still it was there.

    P.S. Guaranteed, most new players reaching this mission will quit the game unless its nerfed somehow. And congratulations to all you that were actually able to finish it. And to all you that completed it WITHOUT dieing, I NEVER want to meet you in PvP.
  • eisenw0lfeisenw0lf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    As a rule of thumb: Builds that work decently in PvP will more than often utterly destroy everything you face in PvE. It is always a good idea to watch the PvP forums.
  • starsvoidstarsvoid Member Posts: 161 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    eisenw0lf wrote: »
    I don't have anything to prove to you. Just telling what the mission was like for me. I was ~lvl 33-34 but decided to stay in my Mogai because it's more Tac focused than the D'Deridex...

    ...It would help if you would show us what build your have deployed. What are your BOff powers? Elachi Ships have very strong shields...

    Dude, you don't get to pull the "none of your business what I was doing" card while simultaneously playing the "what are you doing you n00b" card at the same time. It just doesn't work that way.
  • eisenw0lfeisenw0lf Member Posts: 0 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    starsvoid wrote: »
    Dude, you don't get to pull the "none of your business what I was doing" card while simultaneously playing the "what are you doing you n00b" card at the same time. It just doesn't work that way.

    I described what I was doing, both on holodeck and tribble, but I'm not going to level up another character and make a video of this mission just to prove that it is doable. Also I never called anyone a 'n00b'. In my first post on the last page I simply replied to someone who stated that this mission is only doable with pay-to-win measures, which is clearly false. Many people finished this mission without a problem and to see someone implying that they paid their way through it made me slightly angry (that's why I called it 'nonsense').
  • cerealplayercerealplayer Member Posts: 214 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I'll put here what I said in the other thread:

    This mission is absolutely ridiculous; it's severely broken.

    Look. This is not a challenge. Original Halo in Legendary mode was a "videogame challenge". Getting a PhD in quantum theory is a challenge. This mission is just obnoxious and tedious.

    To the people defending the so-called difficulty: in your mission window, under the current mission tab, there's a difficulty setting. Set it to elite. There. Now you've made the game "challenging". You're welcome.

    To the devs. Seriously dudes, WTF were you guys (not) thinking? This is an f2p MMO for trekkies, not Dark Souls. Even IF you wanted to go for challenging, you completely missed the mark. Challenging games are ones were you hone your skills, becoming ever more effective at the game, till you manage, through skill, wit, and quick-paced reactions, to beat each level. This is none of that. Even the people defending the level, or bragging about their skills, or giving "well-meaning" advice on how to bet the level have all admitted to basically cheesing the level--through either exploiting mechanics or sheer brute-force tedium.
  • markhawkmanmarkhawkman Member Posts: 35,236 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I can agree that this is a bit too hard... In fact, It really feels like I'm playing on elite even when I'm not.

    Despite being ridiculously hard, It's still winnable.
    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
    My character Tsin'xing
    Costume_marhawkman_Tsin%27xing_CC_Comic_Page_Blue_488916968.jpg
  • gpgtxgpgtx Member Posts: 1,579 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    the issue is it's balanced for the allied ships to be there. the issue comes in that the allies die during the cut scene

    after the cut scene of them warping in i was on a respawn timing and only 4 ships where left on a repair timer

    IE the mission is broken no matter if ti is winnable or not it is not as designed and not working as intended and needs to be fixed i play on advanced and i had to turn it down to normal just to compete this horrible mess
    victoriasig_zps23c45368.jpg
  • stonewbiestonewbie Member Posts: 1,454 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    Finally beat this mission at level 32, but i still think it was poorly put together

    -to many cone attacks
    -to many boarding shuttles
    -to many attack shuttles
    -to many heavy plasma torps
    -and of course to many ships

    I would be happy if they at least got rid of the boarding shuttles and attack shuttles and/or limited the cone attack to special ships instead of giving it to every ship.

    You pretty much just have to cloak in for the last wave, ignore all the other ships and go right for the command ship. If a friendly npc ship is attacking the command ship join it and attack the same facing. Once you cloak to within range park your ship or go really slow and get ready to tank and maybe even die. Uncloak and pop every CD you have (obviously), try to limit your aoe damage so you dont draw unwanted fire.

    Here are a list of all abilities that i used...the list is in no particular order. Use them in the correct order to maximize your tanking and your alpha:
    Quantum Absorption
    EPTS 1
    Polarize Hull (normally i use for tractor immunity, for this i used it for the -damage reduc)
    Hazard Emitter 1
    Fire on my Mark (Tacs only)
    Tactical Initiative (Tacs only)
    Photonic Officer 1
    Atk Pattern Alpha 3
    EPTW 2
    Tac Team 1
    CRF 2
    Torp HY 2

    Ship used was a Mogai, quest rewards for everything EXCEPT these dilithium store items: two VIII Phaser DHCs, one VIII Quantum torp, two VIII Phaser Relay consoles. Abilities mentioned above were all trained to max.

    I managed to burn the shields and the hull to about 4% but then i died for looking at the other enemy ships funny, and i had used up all my tanking CDs. Now the reason i said to pick a facing that a friendly NPC is shooting at is because even if you die, if that hull is exposed on that facing that friendly ship can kill the command ship the last few % while you respawn. That way you dont risk the ship regenerating that shield facing to full (even though the hull may already be low). Even if the friendly ship doesnt kill it, they can still hammer away at the facing to keep the shield from regenerating at a decent pace. So by the time you cloak back in for another attack run it will be a lot easier.
  • stealthriderstealthrider Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    edited May 2013
    I did this mission again yesterday on Elite difficulty at level 47 with common Mk IX gear. I only died from mistakes that I had made (such as battle cloaking with a torpedo on my tail).

    It is only difficult if you do not know what you are doing. For example, if you're using the default weapon setup on your ships, if you're using the horrible Boff build the game gives you by default, if you're tryingto take out the command ship while there are still escorts flying around, if you're not using battle cloak and singularity powers effectively, etc.

    Here's how to beat this mission reliably.

    1) Outfit your ship with Dual heavy Cannons in front and turrets in the rear. Always be sure they are the same damage type.

    2) Set up your Boffs so that you have the following.
    -Tactical Team 1 and Cannon Rapid Fire 1
    -Two copies of Emergency Power to Shields and one copy of Emergency to Weapons, Engines or Aux
    -Transfer Shield Strength and Hazard Emitters, one at level 1 and one at level 2
    -Either Aceton Beam 3 or Auxiliary to Structural Integrity Field 3

    No, you can't set them up suboptimally for this mission. You can't use beam broadsides with Fire at Will and torpedoes with High Yield. You need Tactical Team to redistribute your shields, you need Emergency to SHields to keep your shield damage resistance up and you need Hazard Emitters and Transfer Shield Strength to top yourself off, with Auxiliary to Structural and/or Aceton Beam to keep damage against you low. You may also want Reverse Shield Polarity for the same reason.

    3) Set your power levels to 100/15/30/15 or 100/15/15/30. You need the weapon power and either speed/turnrate or heal strength.

    4) Use cloak to get into 3km of your target ship, pop Rapid Fire and decloak. Kill the ship quickly, then cloak again and move on to your next target. Use Warp Shadows, Singularity Jump and Quantum Absorbtion if you start to take heavy damage.

    5) Focus on escorts first, then battleships, then the command ship. If you see the cone of death, move away. Use Evasive maneuvers, Singularity Jump or Emergency to Engines to help if you need it. It deals energy damage, so do not waste Brace for Impact.

    Follow this strategy and the mission is a cakewalk. Even on Elite it isn't so difficult if you play it smart.
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