Since it came out on thursday, I see so many people doing the elite version of mirror invasion. Unfortunately most of the groups I join up with through the qeuee's don't have a clue how to do it. They all race in to just destroy ships thinking it's like the old event. In light of this and taking notes with the few sucessfull groups I have been with let me share with you some tips, advice, and how I have found to be the easiest way to complete this mission with little to no mark loss.
First thing is first, see what your group makeup is! Science ships should be closing rifts, Not Crusers!! If there is no science vessles in your group then figure who should be closing rifts. There should always be two dedicated to closing rifts. Cloakers are preferable for this. Before the start the droup should split into 3 teams. 2 of 2 and 1 of 1.
Phase 1:
The group of two moves along the starbase from bottom to top closing rifts on either side. while the group of one moves to each satalite and activates it.
Each time the starbase gets another level of advancement more rifts will appear bearing heavier ships. Portal closers you should focus on closing the portal while your teammate has the agro then move to help your mate. focus your fire and remember cross healing helps.
Level 1: Simple easy group spwans, once and awhile you'll get an escort and meranda spawn.
Level 2: More rifts open, many more ships come through at athe start of this phase, expect cruesrs and science ships to be common at rifts now.
Level 3:BADASS ROUND, Typhoon rifts start opening here. Close these fast before the starbase gets overwhelmed by typhoons.
Level 4:nothing new or spectacular, more rifts spawn.
Level 5:Finally those pesky satalites are out of the way, kill off the remaing rifts and ships if theres not a blob of them.
If you manage to close all the rifts and kill all the ships (Yes that is possible), Congradulations you get a little breather time before the final rift phase. Split up across the map and close those portals.
Phase 2
The Dreadnaught... Several rifts open up around the starbase that must be closed before attacking the dreadnought. This is the simpliest phase I have ever seen for a final boss. snare it with gravity wells, burn it with plasma. Just let loose. At the end of it all as long as your starbase had maximum health remaining and all systems online before phase 2 congradulations you are 75 marks richer.
Side note: Too often in the past 3 days I have seen people in doing the elite qeuee event when clearly they dont belong there. Think of this not like a pve qeuee think of it like an stf. if you dont belong in an elite stf or entity or dyson event you probibly shouldnt be qeueeing for this either. Let me share what I mean...
Today while doing the event on elite, my team kept dieing over and over...no one hit the satalites and it didnt look like we got any rifts really closed. everyone was too focused on Pew Pew to do the mission. now me, I died once, I always activated a satilite and closed a number of rifts by myself in a defiant escort.
This mission is not rocket science, its straight forward and simple if you take the time to analyze it. This is meant to help people doing the event improve in the future, not a rant. Here's hoping it helps. Ideal setup for this mission is 2 Science ships, 2 crusers, and 1 escort. or 5 warbirds :P
The problem I've seen is that either people think they can solo their way through it or they just don't care about doing anything but shooting ships.
It's actually not a difficult event. Two people are required to close a rift - one to draw aggro and one to close it. You close the rift before destroying the ships and move on to the next one (unless you have a ton of DPS which you often do not in a PUG). Two groups of two + a solo activating power is all that's needed. Sometimes you don't even need someone doing power: if the team has enough DPS they can effectively close rifts and activate power. Other times your team will have the most success with four moving quickly from rift to rift while a fifth activates power, but that can be risky because they may concentrate on just the immediate area when new rifts pop nearby and that lets the other rifts on the opposite side of the map grow and spawn typhoons.
Sadly, I've seen extreme fail even in normal. Nobody wants to close rifts, everyone splits up and does their own thing, I'm almost always the only one activating power, the station is disabled two or three times and it's a total fail. Seriously, in normal.
What's most important is to have one person activate power while the other four work together to close rifts.
Your trouble and attempt to make people "listen" is commendable, still, people have the information of what needs to be done every briefing of the event.
Sure, you can fine tune strategy to do it more efectively, but it's quite explicit: "close rifts".
Your trouble and attempt to make people "listen" is commendable, still, people have the information of what needs to be done every briefing of the event.
Sure, you can fine tune strategy to do it more efectively, but it's quite explicit: "close rifts".
I really don't see how people miss that.
Well it's one of two reasons: they don't know or they don't care. I think it's most often the latter.
Some kind of team split seems to be the most common strategy if one is employed. Either as OP describes, or two one side and three the other, or 2/2 and the fifth person guarding center. What I've observed running Elite with PESTF groups today is that with a decent team you don't even need a strategy. One player with a decent amount of DPS and AoE attacks can clear the area around a portal and close it themselves. When necessary, you jump in to help each other out as you fly around and see them in trouble. I've had near-perfect runs on Elite like this several times, usually we lose a mark or two from damage to the base on the Dreadnaught phase.
Speaking of which, I don't think the OP mentioned a critical detail of that phase. You HAVE to focus on getting the rifts closed before DPSing the Dreadnaught. It will not die if you don't close the portals, it'll just zombie at 0% HP. Considering that ignoring it causes damage to the base though, it seems 1-2 people (preferably running GW or tractors) need to engage the Dreadnaught and try to hold it away from the base while the rest get the rifts closed.
I hope new players read this. I needed to leave my last mirror invasion event mission cuz it was impossible to finish lol. I never thought this was possible, but i had a really nooby team, i was the only one trying to close all the rifts while they were all stucked trying to kill every ship around. So, it was impossible for me since i was carrying all the agro trying to close the rifts. In the end 1 minute left and we only closed 3 rifts. The screen was literally filled with enemy ships and the starbase was already destroyed lol. So i said by myself, meh, lets get out of here.
At least you can try it again if you have no chance to finish it (or you see you will not receive almost any rewards.. lol).
BTW, i wonder if people is so shy to answer through the chat window, but its amazing how i was trying to tell everyone "wth you doing, someone help me to close some rifts!!" and nobody answered or anything lol. Symptom of a really noob team, sigh. Bleh..
I've been of the mind to run the normal of this for the very fact that no one in Elite seems to care for closing rifts. Pity too cause it's a rare thing that we get a instance that is more than just blow **** up.
And even in normal I still see the starbase die once or twice a session (imo once is too much) I fly sci ships so I go in there totally pumped to close rifts but no one comes with me so I end up swapped by ships with out time to close rifts between spawns.
Some kind of team split seems to be the most common strategy if one is employed. Either as OP describes, or two one side and three the other, or 2/2 and the fifth person guarding center. What I've observed running Elite with PESTF groups today is that with a decent team you don't even need a strategy. One player with a decent amount of DPS and AoE attacks can clear the area around a portal and close it themselves. When necessary, you jump in to help each other out as you fly around and see them in trouble. I've had near-perfect runs on Elite like this several times, usually we lose a mark or two from damage to the base on the Dreadnaught phase.
Speaking of which, I don't think the OP mentioned a critical detail of that phase. You HAVE to focus on getting the rifts closed before DPSing the Dreadnaught. It will not die if you don't close the portals, it'll just zombie at 0% HP. Considering that ignoring it causes damage to the base though, it seems 1-2 people (preferably running GW or tractors) need to engage the Dreadnaught and try to hold it away from the base while the rest get the rifts closed.
Thank you for telling me this. In all honesty I never knew. I have never been in a group that never tried closing the rifts. I personally went around and closed them every time.
BTW, i wonder if people is so shy to answer through the chat window, but its amazing how i was trying to tell everyone "wth you doing, someone help me to close some rifts!!" and nobody answered or anything lol. Symptom of a really noob team, sigh. Bleh..
I hope new players read this. I needed to leave my last mirror invasion event mission cuz it was impossible to finish lol. I never thought this was possible, but i had a really nooby team, i was the only one trying to close all the rifts while they were all stucked trying to kill every ship around. So, it was impossible for me since i was carrying all the agro trying to close the rifts. In the end 1 minute left and we only closed 3 rifts. The screen was literally filled with enemy ships and the starbase was already destroyed lol. So i said by myself, meh, lets get out of here.
At least you can try it again if you have no chance to finish it (or you see you will not receive almost any rewards.. lol).
BTW, i wonder if people is so shy to answer through the chat window, but its amazing how i was trying to tell everyone "wth you doing, someone help me to close some rifts!!" and nobody answered or anything lol. Symptom of a really noob team, sigh. Bleh..
That's me like every damned time. In one PUG I decided not to be the one to do the power and instead close rifts with a partner, and we wound up getting tier 3 defenses and just a couple rifts closed because nobody understood that in order to close a rift someone draws aggro and the other closes, and you have to stick together not fly off solo.
I just wish there was a simple post like this for every E'STF ... Sadly, as someone mentioned earlier, the one's who SHOULD be reading it, don't or won't ... Those of us who try to be helpful and productive in E'STF's though, appreciate your effort.
Does anyone have any tips on how to be effective on this map with science vessels?
I had good experience with both an Escort and a Cruiser, simply because they could destroy whatever came out of rifts and have enough time to close them, while that didn't work for me in an SV (Vesta with Aux Phasers). I was trying to use TBR to get the enemy far enough away, but that was never sufficient. It feels to me that particularly the SV benefit of a bit shorter duration doesn't do enough, but maybe it's me that didn't do enough.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
I've been of the mind to run the normal of this for the very fact that no one in Elite seems to care for closing rifts. Pity too cause it's a rare thing that we get a instance that is more than just blow **** up.
And even in normal I still see the starbase die once or twice a session (imo once is too much) I fly sci ships so I go in there totally pumped to close rifts but no one comes with me so I end up swapped by ships with out time to close rifts between spawns.
I'm pointing noobs to this thread form now on
I noticed that in Elite there are those who simply do not even try to close rifts with as a result those that DO try to close them get overwhelmed, station gets disabled, optionals are lost.
It is also a possibility that Elite simply attracts lurkers/leechers because of the promise of higher rewards.
This program, though reasonably normal at times, seems to have a strong affinity to classes belonging to the Cat 2.0 program. Questerius 2.7 will break down on occasion, resulting in garbage and nonsense messages whenever it occurs. Usually a hard reboot or pulling the plug solves the problem when that happens.
Does anyone have any tips on how to be effective on this map with science vessels?
I had good experience with both an Escort and a Cruiser, simply because they could destroy whatever came out of rifts and have enough time to close them, while that didn't work for me in an SV (Vesta with Aux Phasers). I was trying to use TBR to get the enemy far enough away, but that was never sufficient. It feels to me that particularly the SV benefit of a bit shorter duration doesn't do enough, but maybe it's me that didn't do enough.
Yes actually. Depending on the Faction of toon your playing, depends greatly on the playstyle of the science ship.
Romulans: should cloak up whenever their out of combat and not closing a rift. Gravity wells work wonders, so do tractor beam repulsors. If you have to fight vessles focus on the weakest targets first. There is potential for sensor scramble in this one as well, especially if flying solo with a sci.
Starfleet: dont have any cloaking sci ships so best streategy is be ready with high gravity wells to snare after pushing out of range with tractor beam repulsors. I would say also hit with sensor scramble to make them fight each other while you go close a rift. Remember your primary goal as a sci ship is to close those rifts, if there's more then 2 sci ships in the match observe what they are doing and act accordingly. if both are already closing rifts, go hit the satalites.
Klingon: With the standard cloak you should come up on target rifts closing them accordigly when coming out of cloak. ""IF"" there is no one else helping you take the agro, tbr and gw followed up with sensor scram is always a good bet to make some time for yourself. Having 2 copies of each power is helpfull as well.
I know because I use all 3 in this event on all my toons. each one is using the dyson science destroyer...the free one, minus my romulan. he uses the c-store one. take graviton generators for snare and sensor consoles for the placate and confuse.
DO NOT: go without some type of resistance console. Simple phaser and disruptor or a neutronium works wonders. Kenetic resistance is the biggest thing you will need.
Remember: As a science ship you are not about the damage, you are about the resistance, the control, you widdle your foe down, not try to get oneshots. always take a step back to look at the overall situation and plan your next move acording to the flow of what is going on. do this and you will do fine as a science ship, doesn't matter your captain type. Helpfull hints from all my years of flying every type of ship with every type of captain.
I noticed that in Elite there are those who simply do not even try to close rifts with as a result those that DO try to close them get overwhelmed, station gets disabled, optionals are lost.
It is also a possibility that Elite simply attracts lurkers/leechers because of the promise of higher rewards.
It's not so much that, it's that word...Elite. All anyone who has played this game recently knows is that killing everything in something with the Elite tag means win, so they assume this works the same way and try to dps it down like ISE. In many cases in this game it's the fault of the player never learning tactics in favor of getting the best ship and equipping it with the best equipment and continuously winning. They dont know any better. They never faced a true tactical challenge like the STF's when they first came out. We the captains had to be inventive to beat them. We had to know what was going on and learned good communication and tactical skills from things like that. then cryptic redesigned them to be burn it all with fire and you win...The thinking aspect was lost, and so too was players ability to adapt to different and changing situations. Personally I wished the stf's remained what they were. This is the first mission cryptic gave that requres more then dps in a long time. and there's another on the horizon too. Players will have to start devoloping these skills or they will keep failing.
Does anyone have any tips on how to be effective on this map with science vessels?
I had good experience with both an Escort and a Cruiser, simply because they could destroy whatever came out of rifts and have enough time to close them, while that didn't work for me in an SV (Vesta with Aux Phasers). I was trying to use TBR to get the enemy far enough away, but that was never sufficient. It feels to me that particularly the SV benefit of a bit shorter duration doesn't do enough, but maybe it's me that didn't do enough.
This mission is designed almost for science vessels... science vessels in this missions will get less agro than other classes, so you need to coordinate with a tactical ship or a engineer tank, while he is fighting the ships that come from the rift, you need to close the rifts with the science vessel. Its the only way, you cant close a rift if you are alone, and science vessels can close the rifts faster than tactical ships. Of course you can close the rift with any class, but its better to have 2 tactical ships and 3 sciences , for example. In the end, it really doesnt matter the class of the ship, the goal is to use always 2 ships in every rift, one fighting and the other one closing the rifts / activating the power transfer.
2chaosgod777: Scramble Sensors is an interesting suggestions. Why did I not think of that. Could really help, the ships inside the rift spawn close enough tget all caught in it, I think.
This mission is designed almost for science vessels... science vessels in this missions will get less agro than other classes, so you need to coordinate with a tactical ship or a engineer tank, while he is fighting the ships that come from the rift, you need to close the rifts with the science vessel. Its the only way, you cant close a rift if you are alone, and science vessels can close the rifts faster than tactical ships. Of course you can close the rift with any class, but its better to have 2 tactical ships and 3 sciences , for example. In the end, it really doesnt matter the class of the ship, the goal is to use always 2 ships in every rift, one fighting and the other one closing the rifts / activating the power transfer.
I have the impression that two tacts will have no drawback over one tact and a science vessel, though.
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
It would seem to me, that the key "issue" is not what needs to be done to win, but that the team communicates in some way.
As we all know, this mission is formulaic, so its easy to see what needs to be done. But the problem I've had is that no one talks to each other before or during the run, only when someone does something wrong - whatever that may mean.
All it takes is a quick message at the start to set up expectations. As a cruiser I have started to declare which satellite I'm running to first. One session I was told NOT to activate the satellites because it makes the fight harder. /shrug
Some guy threatened to report our entire team the other day for not helping him. Mind you he hadn't given any orders, or done anything useful either. We were all getting swarmed. Poor teamwork.
This was weird to me as I had just done a perfect run on another character where we paired off organically without even saying anything.
I've seen people start to peel off plan and not complete the half circle before going back to attack the next ship spawn, leaving rifts completely unchallenged.
There seems to be different stages of rift as well, unstable and stabilized, does anyone know the specifics of the difference? Do the the Typhoons only spawn from stabilized rifts? Or do they just take longer to close.
As a Eng cruiser with FAW3 I'm perfect for grabbing aggro.
My Tac bird of prey is also good for grabbing the aggro and clearing the frigates.
My Tac Prometheus is a little weaker and I really haven't been able to find her footing.
My Sci Warbird though is gold. I can usually close rifts and activate the relays as long as someone has the aggro.
It's a huge pain to have the rift 95% closed and then have something spawn in it and attack you.
I noticed that in Elite there are those who simply do not even try to close rifts with as a result those that DO try to close them get overwhelmed, station gets disabled, optionals are lost.
It is also a possibility that Elite simply attracts lurkers/leechers because of the promise of higher rewards.
That's been my experience. There are few things more disheartening than being swarmed by Typhoons. Seeing my cruiser get dismantled by Quantum spreads at full shields and seeing my hull crack was frankly shocking.
The weird thing is even with the worst team everyone usually seems to get it together in the boss stage.
"Rise like Lions after slumber, In unvanquishable number, Shake your chains to earth like dew, Which in sleep had fallen on you-Ye are many they are few"
Does anyone have any tips on how to be effective on this map with science vessels?
I had good experience with both an Escort and a Cruiser, simply because they could destroy whatever came out of rifts and have enough time to close them, while that didn't work for me in an SV (Vesta with Aux Phasers). I was trying to use TBR to get the enemy far enough away, but that was never sufficient. It feels to me that particularly the SV benefit of a bit shorter duration doesn't do enough, but maybe it's me that didn't do enough.
Obviously it won't work everytime because of cooldowns, but my Vesta is doing as good as my cruisers by using gravity wells, tyken rifts, photonic fleet and of course, the pets. The aggro usually goes to the pets or the photonics while I close the rift, then I help finish off the ships.
It would seem to me, that the key "issue" is not what needs to be done to win, but that the team communicates in some way.
As we all know, this mission is formulaic, so its easy to see what needs to be done. But the problem I've had is that no one talks to each other before or during the run, only when someone does something wrong - whatever that may mean.
All it takes is a quick message at the start to set up expectations. As a cruiser I have started to declare which satellite I'm running to first. One session I was told NOT to activate the satellites because it makes the fight harder. /shrug
Huh? Activating the satellites makes it harder? And here I was thinking it makes it easier...
You found a keeper in that person, you should have add him/her to your friendlist for future good fun
There seems to be different stages of rift as well, unstable and stabilized, does anyone know the specifics of the difference? Do the the Typhoons only spawn from stabilized rifts? Or do they just take longer to close.
I'm not completely sure, but I suspect that typhoons spawn from "Expanding" rifts.
The weird thing is even with the worst team everyone usually seems to get it together in the boss stage.
That's beacause there are no new spawns at that stage. You ALWAYS have 19 ships to deal with, the exact mix varies, but there's 1 boss, 12 frigates, and 6 ships that are either escorts, science, or cruisers.
Well, as much as I agree with the op, this is a recipe for success for only those groups that have competent and decent players. If you have 1 or 2 who either have no idea what they're doing or are just TRIBBLE around, there is still a chance for success. In this scenario, you've been overwhelmed and the base is taking heavy damage. At this point, 4 players shod move to the base and divide their efforts between healing it and destroying enemies. Try and focus on the smaller ones, since they're easiest to take out and you can still cut down enemy firepower significantly. There should be 1 player, preferably the fastest one, orbiting the base and closing rifts and activating the arrays to boost the base. Once most of the rifts are closed and the base is maxxed out, that player should return and support the others in base defense. A group with mostly cruises will have more success I. This scenario due to their strong heal and support abilities. I strongly recommend that at least 1 person in a group have antimatter spread available, since it will allow you to keep enemies from firing k. You while you close a rift and defend the base. And yes, it does work against the dreadnaught/odyssey end ship.
The reason teams are often terrible, yet pull together during the Boss Stage, is very simple:
After days of soul-crushing mandatory-grind that drags ON and ON because there is NO way to make it happen faster by doing WELL, and the marks are, frankly, not terrific, many have simply given up. They're content to just fly about and pew randomly in the beginning stage, knowing that nothing they do will get them through their mandatory daily grind session any faster. Whether you do well, or do poorly, it makes little difference aside from the final payout. Doing this on 32 alts, I cannot say I blame them for giving up.
But the boss stage is different: The faster you do that, the faster you go home.
I noticed that in Elite there are those who simply do not even try to close rifts with as a result those that DO try to close them get overwhelmed, station gets disabled, optionals are lost.
It is also a possibility that Elite simply attracts lurkers/leechers because of the promise of higher rewards.
That happens in normal difficulty as well, trust me... :mad: but in that case, i think they just dont have any idea what they are doing..
And other aspect is, there are other players that already gathered the transporter and are playing just to gather some marks. Honestly i will never play this mission twice if i already have the transporter, but im sure a lot of people does..
Well, as much as I agree with the op, this is a recipe for success for only those groups that have competent and decent players. If you have 1 or 2 who either have no idea what they're doing or are just TRIBBLE around, there is still a chance for success. In this scenario, you've been overwhelmed and the base is taking heavy damage. At this point, 4 players shod move to the base and divide their efforts between healing it and destroying enemies. Try and focus on the smaller ones, since they're easiest to take out and you can still cut down enemy firepower significantly. There should be 1 player, preferably the fastest one, orbiting the base and closing rifts and activating the arrays to boost the base. Once most of the rifts are closed and the base is maxxed out, that player should return and support the others in base defense. A group with mostly cruises will have more success I. This scenario due to their strong heal and support abilities. I strongly recommend that at least 1 person in a group have antimatter spread available, since it will allow you to keep enemies from firing k. You while you close a rift and defend the base. And yes, it does work against the dreadnaught/odyssey end ship.
While in some form I agree with this assessment it will never succeed. If one person is closing rifts there is not enough dps to deal with the spawns from the rifts if their in a sci ship. equally if you got the bast to full power and then closed rifts there just isnt enough time and the base will be overwhelmed by an onslought of enemies. Anyone else closing rifts takes too much time to be viable as well. best way is to close 2 or 3 rifts in a row then deal with those enemies and continue on.
in this way your limiting what is hitting the base as well as dealing with the overall problem. and honestly if someone is unable to act as part of a team in such a way they have no place doing the elite version in the first place. Normal is a place for learning how to do the mission, Elite is a place to apply what was learned in normal and refine it. Those people who enter an elite and dont act as part of a team only are bringing down the rest of the team.
After a refined run yesterday with a friend and testing a few tricks I think everyone shoeld carry a copy of scramble sensors and stager it at the enemies. Using just that vs. the ones attacking the sb while still closing rifts allowed us to close all the rifts and maintain the base at atleast 80%. We did die...A lot. but we made out with 62 marks, overall score of 80 points earned. on a pug with no coordination.
I'm thinking of making a chat channel for players who want to group up and do these events as a team. because even after posting this guide there are still far too many people who dont have a clue how to do this mission who are in the elite. I was lucky enough to get one group yesterday who knew what the were doing but didnt have the dps to do much about the enemy ships.
That happens in normal difficulty as well, trust me... :mad: but in that case, i think they just dont have any idea what they are doing..
And other aspect is, there are other players that already gathered the transporter and are playing just to gather some marks. Honestly i will never play this mission twice if i already have the transporter, but im sure a lot of people does..
It will get better as people learn how to do this mission. I'm more in fear of what's gonna happen once the undine elite comes out on live. Even on tribble were having troubble coordinating in that one.
@chaosgod777 - I've read your tutorial and tried it last night, except I think I was the only one who read it. Flying a cruiser I hovered near a sci ship and tried to draw agro, the sci ship helped me and ignored the rifts. Needless to say, by the time I noticed this the map was bleeding and I got vaped. I have no idea what happened to the other three. When I returned, Phase two started and it was a no-brainer. 36 Marks and the Transporter ... I called it a night.
I know I don't have the uberest build (in sig), but I don't think I could have done anything different to change that outcome. And frankly, my FIRST run on opening day was the most successful and have been getting progressively worse since then. Which seems counter-intuitive. Is it me?! I just don't know ...
Comments
Agreed. Good work!
The problem I've seen is that either people think they can solo their way through it or they just don't care about doing anything but shooting ships.
It's actually not a difficult event. Two people are required to close a rift - one to draw aggro and one to close it. You close the rift before destroying the ships and move on to the next one (unless you have a ton of DPS which you often do not in a PUG). Two groups of two + a solo activating power is all that's needed. Sometimes you don't even need someone doing power: if the team has enough DPS they can effectively close rifts and activate power. Other times your team will have the most success with four moving quickly from rift to rift while a fifth activates power, but that can be risky because they may concentrate on just the immediate area when new rifts pop nearby and that lets the other rifts on the opposite side of the map grow and spawn typhoons.
Sadly, I've seen extreme fail even in normal. Nobody wants to close rifts, everyone splits up and does their own thing, I'm almost always the only one activating power, the station is disabled two or three times and it's a total fail. Seriously, in normal.
What's most important is to have one person activate power while the other four work together to close rifts.
Nice tutorial btw.;)
Nice tutorial, sadly few who need it will read it.
Sure, you can fine tune strategy to do it more efectively, but it's quite explicit: "close rifts".
I really don't see how people miss that.
Well it's one of two reasons: they don't know or they don't care. I think it's most often the latter.
Speaking of which, I don't think the OP mentioned a critical detail of that phase. You HAVE to focus on getting the rifts closed before DPSing the Dreadnaught. It will not die if you don't close the portals, it'll just zombie at 0% HP. Considering that ignoring it causes damage to the base though, it seems 1-2 people (preferably running GW or tractors) need to engage the Dreadnaught and try to hold it away from the base while the rest get the rifts closed.
At least you can try it again if you have no chance to finish it (or you see you will not receive almost any rewards.. lol).
BTW, i wonder if people is so shy to answer through the chat window, but its amazing how i was trying to tell everyone "wth you doing, someone help me to close some rifts!!" and nobody answered or anything lol. Symptom of a really noob team, sigh. Bleh..
And even in normal I still see the starbase die once or twice a session (imo once is too much) I fly sci ships so I go in there totally pumped to close rifts but no one comes with me so I end up swapped by ships with out time to close rifts between spawns.
I'm pointing noobs to this thread form now on
http://www.romulanstarempire.com/
Thank you for telling me this. In all honesty I never knew. I have never been in a group that never tried closing the rifts. I personally went around and closed them every time.
Symptom of a closed chat window...
CM
That's me like every damned time. In one PUG I decided not to be the one to do the power and instead close rifts with a partner, and we wound up getting tier 3 defenses and just a couple rifts closed because nobody understood that in order to close a rift someone draws aggro and the other closes, and you have to stick together not fly off solo.
Thanks!
I had good experience with both an Escort and a Cruiser, simply because they could destroy whatever came out of rifts and have enough time to close them, while that didn't work for me in an SV (Vesta with Aux Phasers). I was trying to use TBR to get the enemy far enough away, but that was never sufficient. It feels to me that particularly the SV benefit of a bit shorter duration doesn't do enough, but maybe it's me that didn't do enough.
I noticed that in Elite there are those who simply do not even try to close rifts with as a result those that DO try to close them get overwhelmed, station gets disabled, optionals are lost.
It is also a possibility that Elite simply attracts lurkers/leechers because of the promise of higher rewards.
Yes actually. Depending on the Faction of toon your playing, depends greatly on the playstyle of the science ship.
Romulans: should cloak up whenever their out of combat and not closing a rift. Gravity wells work wonders, so do tractor beam repulsors. If you have to fight vessles focus on the weakest targets first. There is potential for sensor scramble in this one as well, especially if flying solo with a sci.
Starfleet: dont have any cloaking sci ships so best streategy is be ready with high gravity wells to snare after pushing out of range with tractor beam repulsors. I would say also hit with sensor scramble to make them fight each other while you go close a rift. Remember your primary goal as a sci ship is to close those rifts, if there's more then 2 sci ships in the match observe what they are doing and act accordingly. if both are already closing rifts, go hit the satalites.
Klingon: With the standard cloak you should come up on target rifts closing them accordigly when coming out of cloak. ""IF"" there is no one else helping you take the agro, tbr and gw followed up with sensor scram is always a good bet to make some time for yourself. Having 2 copies of each power is helpfull as well.
I know because I use all 3 in this event on all my toons. each one is using the dyson science destroyer...the free one, minus my romulan. he uses the c-store one. take graviton generators for snare and sensor consoles for the placate and confuse.
DO NOT: go without some type of resistance console. Simple phaser and disruptor or a neutronium works wonders. Kenetic resistance is the biggest thing you will need.
Remember: As a science ship you are not about the damage, you are about the resistance, the control, you widdle your foe down, not try to get oneshots. always take a step back to look at the overall situation and plan your next move acording to the flow of what is going on. do this and you will do fine as a science ship, doesn't matter your captain type. Helpfull hints from all my years of flying every type of ship with every type of captain.
It's not so much that, it's that word...Elite. All anyone who has played this game recently knows is that killing everything in something with the Elite tag means win, so they assume this works the same way and try to dps it down like ISE. In many cases in this game it's the fault of the player never learning tactics in favor of getting the best ship and equipping it with the best equipment and continuously winning. They dont know any better. They never faced a true tactical challenge like the STF's when they first came out. We the captains had to be inventive to beat them. We had to know what was going on and learned good communication and tactical skills from things like that. then cryptic redesigned them to be burn it all with fire and you win...The thinking aspect was lost, and so too was players ability to adapt to different and changing situations. Personally I wished the stf's remained what they were. This is the first mission cryptic gave that requres more then dps in a long time. and there's another on the horizon too. Players will have to start devoloping these skills or they will keep failing.
This mission is designed almost for science vessels... science vessels in this missions will get less agro than other classes, so you need to coordinate with a tactical ship or a engineer tank, while he is fighting the ships that come from the rift, you need to close the rifts with the science vessel. Its the only way, you cant close a rift if you are alone, and science vessels can close the rifts faster than tactical ships. Of course you can close the rift with any class, but its better to have 2 tactical ships and 3 sciences , for example. In the end, it really doesnt matter the class of the ship, the goal is to use always 2 ships in every rift, one fighting and the other one closing the rifts / activating the power transfer.
I have the impression that two tacts will have no drawback over one tact and a science vessel, though.
As we all know, this mission is formulaic, so its easy to see what needs to be done. But the problem I've had is that no one talks to each other before or during the run, only when someone does something wrong - whatever that may mean.
All it takes is a quick message at the start to set up expectations. As a cruiser I have started to declare which satellite I'm running to first. One session I was told NOT to activate the satellites because it makes the fight harder. /shrug
This was weird to me as I had just done a perfect run on another character where we paired off organically without even saying anything.
I've seen people start to peel off plan and not complete the half circle before going back to attack the next ship spawn, leaving rifts completely unchallenged.
There seems to be different stages of rift as well, unstable and stabilized, does anyone know the specifics of the difference? Do the the Typhoons only spawn from stabilized rifts? Or do they just take longer to close.
As a Eng cruiser with FAW3 I'm perfect for grabbing aggro.
My Tac bird of prey is also good for grabbing the aggro and clearing the frigates.
My Tac Prometheus is a little weaker and I really haven't been able to find her footing.
My Sci Warbird though is gold. I can usually close rifts and activate the relays as long as someone has the aggro.
It's a huge pain to have the rift 95% closed and then have something spawn in it and attack you.
That's been my experience. There are few things more disheartening than being swarmed by Typhoons. Seeing my cruiser get dismantled by Quantum spreads at full shields and seeing my hull crack was frankly shocking.
The weird thing is even with the worst team everyone usually seems to get it together in the boss stage.
Obviously it won't work everytime because of cooldowns, but my Vesta is doing as good as my cruisers by using gravity wells, tyken rifts, photonic fleet and of course, the pets. The aggro usually goes to the pets or the photonics while I close the rift, then I help finish off the ships.
Huh? Activating the satellites makes it harder? And here I was thinking it makes it easier...
You found a keeper in that person, you should have add him/her to your friendlist for future good fun
That's beacause there are no new spawns at that stage. You ALWAYS have 19 ships to deal with, the exact mix varies, but there's 1 boss, 12 frigates, and 6 ships that are either escorts, science, or cruisers.
My character Tsin'xing
After days of soul-crushing mandatory-grind that drags ON and ON because there is NO way to make it happen faster by doing WELL, and the marks are, frankly, not terrific, many have simply given up. They're content to just fly about and pew randomly in the beginning stage, knowing that nothing they do will get them through their mandatory daily grind session any faster. Whether you do well, or do poorly, it makes little difference aside from the final payout. Doing this on 32 alts, I cannot say I blame them for giving up.
But the boss stage is different: The faster you do that, the faster you go home.
That happens in normal difficulty as well, trust me... :mad: but in that case, i think they just dont have any idea what they are doing..
And other aspect is, there are other players that already gathered the transporter and are playing just to gather some marks. Honestly i will never play this mission twice if i already have the transporter, but im sure a lot of people does..
While in some form I agree with this assessment it will never succeed. If one person is closing rifts there is not enough dps to deal with the spawns from the rifts if their in a sci ship. equally if you got the bast to full power and then closed rifts there just isnt enough time and the base will be overwhelmed by an onslought of enemies. Anyone else closing rifts takes too much time to be viable as well. best way is to close 2 or 3 rifts in a row then deal with those enemies and continue on.
in this way your limiting what is hitting the base as well as dealing with the overall problem. and honestly if someone is unable to act as part of a team in such a way they have no place doing the elite version in the first place. Normal is a place for learning how to do the mission, Elite is a place to apply what was learned in normal and refine it. Those people who enter an elite and dont act as part of a team only are bringing down the rest of the team.
After a refined run yesterday with a friend and testing a few tricks I think everyone shoeld carry a copy of scramble sensors and stager it at the enemies. Using just that vs. the ones attacking the sb while still closing rifts allowed us to close all the rifts and maintain the base at atleast 80%. We did die...A lot. but we made out with 62 marks, overall score of 80 points earned. on a pug with no coordination.
I'm thinking of making a chat channel for players who want to group up and do these events as a team. because even after posting this guide there are still far too many people who dont have a clue how to do this mission who are in the elite. I was lucky enough to get one group yesterday who knew what the were doing but didnt have the dps to do much about the enemy ships.
It will get better as people learn how to do this mission. I'm more in fear of what's gonna happen once the undine elite comes out on live. Even on tribble were having troubble coordinating in that one.
I know I don't have the uberest build (in sig), but I don't think I could have done anything different to change that outcome. And frankly, my FIRST run on opening day was the most successful and have been getting progressively worse since then. Which seems counter-intuitive. Is it me?! I just don't know ...