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Hive Onslaught Elite tips for 3/3 Optionals
xsharpex
Member Posts: 0 Arc User
Hive Onslaught Elite is actually fun if you have the right people. I found it easiest to get the optionals with a couple of sci captains on the team. Until people begin to unlock the passive goodies of the Omega and Romulan reputation systems, you have to fine tune your toon and/or team.
Energy drain is a must for the Queen's ship. It will not only lower the damage of her energy weapons, but it will prevent her shields from healing as quickly. My Kar'fi does a wonderful job of keeping her dry while the team pounds her silly. It also helps to have a cruiser with extend shieds on you, as you draw her aggro and suck her power dry. I use the combination of energy siphon, polaron DHCs and turrets and aceton assimilator. do this and all you really have to worry about are her torp spreads and that shockwave attack.
To maintain the op, as soon as 3 people go down, the remaining 2 must disengage the queen and evade the hell out of there.
I've run 3 perfect op runs with this build here. It was me and a friend and 3 random people. If the team can follow some simple instructions, then it's really not that hard. The more energy drain the better. IMO.
For those interested in the strategy used:
1st part: tac cubes - focus fire on the spheres and then the cube and they go down quickly. then move forward slowly and acquire your next target. make sure you eliminate the spheres as soon as you get in range. if you find that there is too much aggro'd, then back the team up. the spheres will continue to follow. once most of the spheres, if not all, are eliminated, then take the tactical cubes one at a time. you can get away with 2 at a time, but any more than that and it's not as efficient.
2nd part: after all the tac cubes are dead, everyone must skip the cutscene immediately. it is a very nice cutscene and all, but you are just too close to the unimatrix ships. they will wipe you if they're aggro'd before everyone is ready. depending on where you are when you kill the last cube, you focus fire on the unimatrix ship closest to you. with the spam of energy drain and coordinated focus fire, these guys are really very easy... aside from the torp spread that can one shot you. the plasma ball of death should be fired upon by whoever has aoe beams. just keep moving. your defensive rating will thank you. you can hug the top and bottom to maintain your defense bonus. if you're standing still, then youre just asking to explode. after both unimatrix ships are dead, the fun really begins.
last part: the queen's ship is filled with a plethora of attacks and skills. when you first aggro her, make sure someone has a SNB beam handy. I wait until there are four attack skills queued before I nuke her. all 5 members needs to spread out. everyone else should be spread out about 5.5-6 km away from her. pay attention to the buffs that appear under her portrait. it will give you hints as to when you should stay and when you should go. without her shields regenerating quickly, the 1.6m in hp she has goes rather quickly.
In all honesty, the hardest optional to maintain is the second one, where you have to keep 3 players alive at all times. the key i guess is to spread out and always have tac team on. be familiar with the torp spread icon that appears under the portrait to know when to hit brace for impact and be aware of your teammates positions and the giant ball of plasma death. with that said, get into the habit of hitting a key to max your engine power and then hitting evasive. that is, of course, if you care about the optional.
Be sure to see the additional tips posted below. Following these tips will not ensure that you will get all 3/3 optionals, but it will make getting them so much easier. [edited 12/10/12]
Energy drain is a must for the Queen's ship. It will not only lower the damage of her energy weapons, but it will prevent her shields from healing as quickly. My Kar'fi does a wonderful job of keeping her dry while the team pounds her silly. It also helps to have a cruiser with extend shieds on you, as you draw her aggro and suck her power dry. I use the combination of energy siphon, polaron DHCs and turrets and aceton assimilator. do this and all you really have to worry about are her torp spreads and that shockwave attack.
To maintain the op, as soon as 3 people go down, the remaining 2 must disengage the queen and evade the hell out of there.
I've run 3 perfect op runs with this build here. It was me and a friend and 3 random people. If the team can follow some simple instructions, then it's really not that hard. The more energy drain the better. IMO.
For those interested in the strategy used:
1st part: tac cubes - focus fire on the spheres and then the cube and they go down quickly. then move forward slowly and acquire your next target. make sure you eliminate the spheres as soon as you get in range. if you find that there is too much aggro'd, then back the team up. the spheres will continue to follow. once most of the spheres, if not all, are eliminated, then take the tactical cubes one at a time. you can get away with 2 at a time, but any more than that and it's not as efficient.
2nd part: after all the tac cubes are dead, everyone must skip the cutscene immediately. it is a very nice cutscene and all, but you are just too close to the unimatrix ships. they will wipe you if they're aggro'd before everyone is ready. depending on where you are when you kill the last cube, you focus fire on the unimatrix ship closest to you. with the spam of energy drain and coordinated focus fire, these guys are really very easy... aside from the torp spread that can one shot you. the plasma ball of death should be fired upon by whoever has aoe beams. just keep moving. your defensive rating will thank you. you can hug the top and bottom to maintain your defense bonus. if you're standing still, then youre just asking to explode. after both unimatrix ships are dead, the fun really begins.
last part: the queen's ship is filled with a plethora of attacks and skills. when you first aggro her, make sure someone has a SNB beam handy. I wait until there are four attack skills queued before I nuke her. all 5 members needs to spread out. everyone else should be spread out about 5.5-6 km away from her. pay attention to the buffs that appear under her portrait. it will give you hints as to when you should stay and when you should go. without her shields regenerating quickly, the 1.6m in hp she has goes rather quickly.
In all honesty, the hardest optional to maintain is the second one, where you have to keep 3 players alive at all times. the key i guess is to spread out and always have tac team on. be familiar with the torp spread icon that appears under the portrait to know when to hit brace for impact and be aware of your teammates positions and the giant ball of plasma death. with that said, get into the habit of hitting a key to max your engine power and then hitting evasive. that is, of course, if you care about the optional.
Be sure to see the additional tips posted below. Following these tips will not ensure that you will get all 3/3 optionals, but it will make getting them so much easier. [edited 12/10/12]
Post edited by xsharpex on
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You mean her integral acetons right? Something I've had some good results with in that engagement with the queen is to keep 1 person just outside of her weapons range, something like 10.1km with the occasional dip in to pop of a shot to keep the combat going followed by an immediate bail out. Wasted dps sure, but it does make sure that if she manages to wipe the rest of the team she will not pull the armek stunt on you because the 5th man is still alive and still technically "in combat".
All the 5th man has to do is keep doing that long enough for the others to respawn and get back in position.
Watch for her torps though!
Every time I've seen 5 go up to her, they have been wiped without fail. It might take a while for her to take them down, but wiped they were. This is with a variety of groups, mostly fleet or friends, with one or two pugs in the interests of science lol
A carrier or maybe two rigged as sci drain boats would work wonders in here imo.
I wonder how many it would take to really shut her down?
Agreed, just need to be very careful the bait doesn't aggro the whole mob at once. Seen it happen and it is never pretty.
Is the plasma ball splash damage exploit from the borg RAs still working? I haven't tried it and it likely has been fixed, but if it hasn't then that might be helpful. Also need to watch out for any feedback pulses they might use. Those can be nasty for a high dps or a high spike boat.
I agree with you completely on the sub nukes. It's an absolute godsend in the fight when timed correctly. I personally would recommend 1 person stays very close to the edge of weapons range so they can dart out of range very quickly if need be and maintain the combat so she doesn't pull the armek stunt on you if the others get wiped. As long as one person stays alive, she shouldn't reset like armek does. Once the entire team goes down, she resets as armek does on CGE.
5 people should never go right up to her. she has a shockwave attack that can easily wipe all 5. i recommend 1 person going up to her and drawing her aggro, while the other 4 are spread out on all sides, each at least 4-5 km away from her.
you don't have to completely shut her down... although it would be nice. slowing her engines down reduces her overall defense rating and reducing the power she has to shields helps mitigate the damage reduction she has to her shields as well as her shield regen rate.
so long as you have a dedicated drain boat and people watch out for each other, the fight is really not that bad. when people start unlocking the higher tiers of the omega and romulan rep systems, this fight becomes even easier. it's only hard when your group is not prepared and geared for it.
Truth.
10chars
For the queen i tend to stay around 6km away and hit her with energy drain then gravity well. I use my normal hanger config of stalkers/runabouts, been pondering swapping to dual stalkers since I don't really need the CC for the mission.
But I haven't lost an op yet, got enough marks to last for while now.
why do people do this the hard way? just fly up top work your way down. the first cube you hit way up top will bring most of the spheres to the team. this is where faw from crusiers play in. the escourts will do thier job on the cube. the cubes below will never get agro since they are out of range. just have the team cross heal. lol wtf am i on about since when do pugs cross heal. guess they havent figured out how to do that yet. all escourts should have he 1 tss 2. stop using sci teams. healers should use et and extends along with other heals. sci should have a sci team, not et.
btw my fleet has had the obj on eites in record time. if you bait the cubes on thier level you could mess up and draw agro from 2 more cubes. but like i said fly to the top work your way down and gg.
The uninatrixes are a joke, people just don't read the buff icons or completely ignore what they mean. They also tend to like getting wiped at 9.5km range with the plasma beam, doing it again and again and saying "oh really" when you tell them they're doing it wrong.
Best tip: step out of pugs and even out of premades (except fleet) for 6 months, i.e. till people get the mistakes they make or just give up because they can't understand how it works with a whale IQ.
God, lvl 60 CW. 17k.
1. carrier pets should be on recall until at least midway through the first part. if you use carrier pets at the beginning, you WILL aggro everything and your team will blow up.
2. focus fire on the spheres first. work together as a team, paying attention to who is attacking what and adjust accordingly. spheres should hold priority over cubes first.
3. as you start making your way through the first group, if there are multiple targets incoming, you and your team should start backing up to effectively distance you from the slower tactical cubes. the spheres will keep pace with a ship in reverse. if you need an added boost, use reverse and evasive. distance control will help keep you alive.
4. have your sci guys use sensor scan on groups of spheres. you will shred them apart like a pinata at a birthday party.
5. if you have more than 1 sci, make sure they coordinate with each other. sub nuke the queen when she has 4+ buffs. keep firing off sensor scan whenever you can.
6. coordinate, coordinate, coordinate. have a person calling out directions. if you see 2 people go down in the 2nd optional part, have everyone disengage and evade until 1 or both of those down respawns.
7. cross heal and situational awareness. make sure you know who is attacking what, who has the aggro and heal them. keep them alive so they maintain the aggro. if you work together, this mission is very, very easy.
8. i still love my energy drain build on this map. it makes getting through it soo much easier and quicker. you reduce the hurt and resilience of the tactical cubes. you make the unimatrix logs childs play and you make the queen that much easier.
overall, you should have a well balanced team. make sure you have at least one sci captain. pure dps might be able to roll through this map, but it's doubtful. get yourself a good team and you will be able to appreciate this stf for what it really does. it adds diversity to the dps-centric style that we're all accustomed to. embrace it.
Best part is with several players spamming aoe at an opening, anything that comes out dies almost immediately.
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The Science Team gets rid of the Sub Nuc and provides a decent shield heal to help offset your loss of Tac Team during the cool down.
Thx
Locutus
Delirium Tremens
Tier 4 Starbase, Tier 3 Embassy
http://dtfleet.com/
My tactics, normal-tested but applicable to an elite:
Phase 1 - and the big key why the team needs to be balanced, is that I follow the "tried and true STF rule" of not using my fighters. They can, and will, aggro everything unless you have a puller pulling the targets 5+km away before the fighters engage... You'll need 2-3 DPS-scorts to mow everything down in the 10 minutes... Reason I call it the "tried and true STF Rule" is that it's recommended to not use them if playing a 10% strategy - same applies here...
Phase 2 - start spamming fighters on intercept. In this mode, they're geared to take on the "weakest" target in range, and that tends to be the plasma-ball of doom. Works best if escorts focus on probe-spam then pegging target. Carrier flies (as recommended) within 2 km of the target unimatrix (well within the "safe" zone of both unimatrixes hyper-lance) and lays suppressive fire on the unimatrix. Be ready with maximum hull healing for times you're caught in the spreads...
Phase 3 - Carriers will remain in "red alert" mode if they deploy fighters, and a carrier can deploy within 15km of a locked-on target... slap on "attack my target", keep queen in sights, stay away from the rest of the squad, and maintain extreme (8+km) range. In case of party-wipe, shift to engines/aux, get 10.1km+ but not more than 14km out of dodge, and start stagger-launching your squadrons every 1/2 cooldown so that you remain in red alert mode, completely outside the queen's combat zone but you should maintain a steady stream of fighters to occupy the queen's attentions. I know my recluse has a 21 second widow cooldown at baseline 60-ish aux, so launching every 10.5 seconds will definitely maintain red-alert status for me while the team awaits it's respawn timers...
Second thought - mix polaron (drain) and tetryon weapons, queen uses a lot of "manual rebalancing", by stripping non-facing shields through tets this helps offset her ability to abuse this, I've flown normals with my tetryon-recluse and a buddy in a tetryon-armitage and the two of us typically proc enough to quickly redline all her shields and keep up with her insane regeneration... :P
To rob a line: [quote: Mariemaia Kushrenada] Forum Posting is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever. However, opinions will change upon the reading of my post.[/quote]
But the part we find hardest to do is the 1st optional, always run out of time. Generally we hook left and attack from that side, so that if everything does aggro the spawn point isn't overrun.
Have been trying the "coax out" method using an Escort, but think the "top-down" approach might have a lot going for it. Have been going "high" when everything has agroed to avoid being flanked / enveloped.
What's the opion on the Hudson / Houston. I know it doesn't do a lot of damage, but do you think it holds agro or not?
The way our strategy works.... we start on the left side, our Tank goes first and starts pulling aggro, the escorts come in behind and wipe out the spheres, Sci captain sub nuc the Tac Cube, then we wear down the Tac Cube.
The Houston is worthless in my opinion, it just aggro's everything and stirs up the hornets nest.
The big thing is to keep an eye on the Spheres during Phase One, if u have to disengage and regroup to take them out, do it. Folks have a tendency to focus on Tac Cubes, but the Spheres can do a lot of damage if left un-checked.
Thx
Locutus
Delirium Tremens
Tier 4 Starbase, Tier 3 Embassy
http://dtfleet.com/
You can find/contact me in game as @PatricianVetinari. Playing STO since Feb 2010.
-Lord Commander Solar Macharius