Nericus

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The strategy for our first time through mirrored Rial's group.

We tried it once by taunting away the Nicti; didn't work. We put our heads together and decided to just bring in what we had and all of us target through our lead tank, who held the aggro and beat 'em down with whatever range we had.

Things went very smoothly after that.

However, the lack of inspirations for a mixed team is still a problem. I have not tried going to the base to see if that breaks the team, but it's a real pain (and rather silly) that we can't buy them there. Someone mentioned going to Pocket D. While you can teleport to the D and not break the team, but there's no way back to the zone.

~Elizabeth

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Cimeroa is a co-op zone. If you go to your base you will break the team. You CAN return to the Midnight Club since it is a Co-op zone but I dont recall the store there providing inspirations.

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Hmm.

Performance Shifter +Endurance would be interesting in Heat Loss, which takes endurance from enemies and caues each enemy to radiate an endurance buff to allies (somewhat like Siphon Speed)... would each enemy have a chance to boost the endurance of your allies?

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No but your enemy might get 10% endurance restored to it from the proc. The proc belongs only in Stamina, Quick Recovery and Kheldian transformation powers. Any power that drains endurance from a foe doesn't benefit from the Proc.

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Anyway, the Aegis is a weird creature, and can't just be classified as "like a set bonus". Part of it functions that way, but not all of it.

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In particular, according to my last testing it functioned like this:

*3% Psi Resist - On constantly
*20% Status Resist functions as a 100% chance to fire proc of 4% status resist(with nigh-infinite duration) that stacks with itself to hit 20%.

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No, as I said above it's 5% status resistance stacking up to 5 times for a total of 25% status resistance.
I guess that one possible source of confusion is that 25% Mez resistance is displayed in the Combat Attributes window as reducing Mez duration by 20%.



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HOWEVER, as of my last testing of this proc it only fired if in an 'active' power. I placed it in Resist physical and only received the psi-resist. Placed it in TI and both aspects worked as described above...it has been a while since the test so I am not sure if this has been fixed or not.

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The status resistance seems to work just fine in passives, and I see no reason why it would not.

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Posting while on sudafed == bad.

What I meant to say was that, if for example, you place the IO in a click power (such as the Sonic shields), you will get 5% status resistance per casting (stacking up to 5 times).

For a toggle, you must turn the power on and it will gradually tick 5 times.

For a passive, it will tick as soon as the character is loaded due to the power always being on.

So for passives, it works like set bonus (effectively). For toggles, it will also work like a set bonus IF the toggle is on (note: the long duration means that it will still be effective once the toggle is dropped). But for clicks, it only operates like a set bonus if you click your power on a few times (once per 5%).


Just to make sure my memory was correct, I just went back to the test server and put an Aegis in Unstoppable to confirm.

My apologies for the muddling of the earlier posts.

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Ok, I have an out of the box question for you then. What would happen if you placed the Aegis in a buff, such as a corrupter's fire shield or thaw. Would it status buff the user or the people you throw the buff on?



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No, it would only affect you.

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OK I just tried the "Kill Rom 4 times" method but there was a problem. We killed him once and he fell back into a wall when he died so was unable to rez.

We ended up killing the Nictus anyway and completed the TF so I now have my armor for Lord Vestereo. For a while there my main characters lost their matching costumes.

(Got a Blue and White costume on my hero while my villain wears Black and Red versions of the same costumes. Not completly the same but verry simular. I even put the spiked roman crest on my villain while my hero has no crest.)

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Yes the line of sight thing is critical to the kill Rom 4 times strategy. I tend to pull the Healer so that its about 10 ft from Rom and tell the team to not pull Rom away and to not let him run as that will break the pull I have on the healer. The healer is still hitting my toon and likely some of the team but it's heals aren't hitting Romulus

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I assume its possible to kill Rom and not have him rez if the essences are out of sight.

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Quite correct. if any nictus is out of line of sight of Rom he can't use it to rez, which can be bad if your team can't do enough damage to wear down the healer.

Ran this TF 10 times this weekend, all wins. 9 of the 10 were the "take down Romulus 4 times" method. Overall this method is more efficient then taking down the Nictus one by one.

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Great guide by the way, although you are missing the 3rd Pet unique, Commanding Presence(?) resistance to taunt, confuse and placate.

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Thanks for the praise, as to Commanding Presence...well I'm not sure if it was forgotten or just willfully blocked from my memory since I don't consider it all that useful an IO. But I'll slip it into a revision I'm working on.

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some AV pulling tips

Mission 3 (do these pulls after Phalanx is done)
- pull romulus to the cliffledge above him and to the right or left a little.
- pull Requem to the cliffledge above him and to the left where there is a V-shaped indention into the cliff.

Mission 4:
- Pull romulus with his nictus to the top of the left tower. His ambushs won't be able to reach him and the sharp corners lets the team break Line of Sight with the essences while still pummeling on romulus.

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Not bad, but since there is payout for taking out Romulus vs taking down the Nictus, I like to keep the Nictus in line of sight to ensure Rom gets revived, just keep the healer out of heal range of Romulus for the duration. plus IF there is a badge coming for x-amount of Romulus kills this method helps with that too.

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silly question about the Freespec....when ish 12 hit was the freespec switch toggled inadvertently? I checked an alt that I was sure that didnt have one before ish 12, and it had one and I was able to freespec it. Or was I lucky recipient of a nice glitch?

As to Global Chat Handle reset....Thanks!

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Yes, a free respec was given out during the maintenance on May 20th that launched Issue 12.

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Thanks Lighthouse

silly question about the Freespec....when ish 12 hit was the freespec switch toggled inadvertently? I checked an alt that I was sure that didnt have one before ish 12, and it had one and I was able to freespec it. Or was I lucky recipient of a nice glitch?

As to Global Chat Handle reset....Thanks!

Well whats worked best for me so far is:

Mission 1: clear the cave completely then head outside, kill Minotaur and his goons and someone escort the Oracle to the Altar while the rest of the team fights off the Romans

Mission 2: One Crystal at a time, kill it's guards then the Crystal then the ambush, repeat until map is done.

Mission 3: the Generals are in the same locations everytime. If you are in need a of a radiation user then keep Daedalus with your team, if not then let him get killed. Can't really ghost to the Generals, best to just battle your way to them. Downside of this mission is that once you start going up the hill is when the lag spikes start occuring. Most annoying. Psi attacks, especially Confusion, are great to have for this as you can turn Minotaurs and Cyclops to your side for some of the fights. Once you are down to the Last General, Romulus and the Romulus Robots there are two strategies I've used:

1. Team gathers near the control console for the bots and destroys it, then someone flies up and snipes Romulus so he will come down to where you are. Take him down then repeat the process on the last General, Requiem of the 5th Column.

2. Alternate plan is to gather on hill top above where Romulus and his armies are at, snipe Romulus and he will come to you. Kill him and then repeat process to bring up Requiem. After Requiem is down then fly down to the bottom and destroy the robot controls.

Mission 4: Skip the 300 and gather near Romulus. Wipe out all the 5th Column then take down the Romans and pull the Cyclops and Minotaur groups to you to kill them. Also in this area is the glowing box with the mystery letter. Once the area is clear have a tank/brute target the healing Nictus and lure it away from Romulus and keep it away via Taunt and attacks. Rest of the team overpowers Romulus and brings him down, also take out the ambush he will summon. One of the Nictus merges with Romulus to revive him, once that happens repeat the process. When it's just the healer and Romulus left, keep them in line of sight of each other but out of range of the heals from the Nictus and take down Romulus for the 3rd time. Now the healer merges with him to revive him and it's just Romulus thats left. Take him down one more time then go kill the remainder of the 300 that you need and claim your rewards.

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Kismet does stack with itself for 2 minutes after zoning in. I've actually tested this.



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Tested myself last night and noticed a double stack when zoning. Seems like all the IO with the 2 minute timer will double stack when zoning. This can be quite useful

Well we defeated this again last night, team had myself as Rad Corr, 3 tankers and an Empath, others dropped.

After a few minor complications, the tanks were able to effectively split the nicti and Rom and keep them apart. Then we did things in this order:

1. The Spawn Nictus went first
2. The Mire Nictus went 2nd.
3. One Tank kept healer away from Rom but within line of sight of Rom
4. Rest of us smashed Rom and the ambushers.
5. Healer merges with Rom to restore him
6. Smashed Rom again.
7. Killed the remaining 300 that we needed.

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Okay, I'm new to the game and just had a lvl 21 Kismet: 6% acc drop on my stalker EM/Ninjitsu. Would stealth be the best place to slot this IO? Will it double proc upon zoning into missions? Is this a standout IO for a stalker or should I consider selling it? Thanks for your thoughts and the great guide!

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Well any IO that augments Acc/to hit is always a good thing.

If your Hide power can accept the IO being installed and if you don't have a passive-always on power to install it into instead then yeah Hide should work nicely. As to it double proc'ing when Zoning, I don't see why it wouldn't since others with the 2 minute timer do also.

As to selling it, well that depends how strapped you are for cash and what the current market prices are.

Well last night a VG took their new Epic with me into my arc to gain Midnight Club access as they hadn't seen that arc yet due to not being available for open beta. Turns out they got the badge and access to the club, but the Ouro Crystal states you have to be 35+ to timewarp to Rome.

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I thought that defeating Romulus would cause one of the nictus to expire to rez him, but on a run I just did, we have Romulus and the pbaoe healing nictus left. We defeated Romulus but the pbaoe healing nictus didn't rez him and die. Am I misunderstanding what happens when you defeat Romulus while there are still a Nicti around?

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How far was the Nictus from Rom when Rom went down? Found out last night that by keeping the Nictus around a corner and out of line of sight of Rom that it wouldn't merge with him to rez him.

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I just “finished” playing in the Imperious Task Force, which ended abruptly due to a lack of healing. However, in the grand scheme of things it was fruitful. In the second mission, the one with the Shadow Cyst Crystals, I realized a way to avoid the ambushes and finish the mission in a prompt manner. For those of you who are interested, here it is:

First sweep through the entire map, kill everything BUT the crystals. (The destruction of the crystals causes an ambush by an Elite Boss and company). Once you have cleared the mission, minus the crystals, destroy the two closest crystals together, and then place one person on each crystal. Keep the team updated to the status of the crystal’s health bar, and once they are all incredibly close to death, have each member destroy their crystal. By doing this in unison, the team avoids the ambushes with the Exit button.

Mind you, in my case this was done out of desperation, but worked magnificently.

(If this tactic has already been stated, my apologies, but I felt it necessary to share)

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Heard it mentioned by someone on the team last night, but the team opted instead for the more traditional method

Still this is worth trying next run.

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i agree i ran it twice so far, with different AT makeups, and we found it much much easier just pounding on romulus 4 times than attacking the nictus itself.

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Just defeated it again, seperated Romulus from the Nictus and pummeled him while a tanker kept the Nictus occupied. Repeat process as needed. No exploding Nictus to stun us, no massively pounding the healing Nictus that heals itself even as we are hammering it.

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I tried the whole ranged DPS nonsense. Didn't work. We had two rads working him over too. Didn't work. Just kill Romulus three times. Each death takes a Nictus out.

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Of all the times I've won this TF, the final fight has gone quicker with the take down Romulus 4 times method vs. kill the nictus first method.

Both methods work of course but I think the 4 Romulus kills might end up being the better method, especially if there is a badge coming for amount of Romulus kills.

Oh, also I ran the villainside arc that gives you a Void hunter rifle as a temp power.... two things to note:

1. The villain in that arc is also named Romulus...hmmm
2. The Void Rifle despite being a quantum energy weapon doesn't seem to help much in this fight. Was worth checking though.

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For the record:

Me and another player are, right at this moment, sitting in range of the Healing Nictus without aggroing anything.

The Healing Nictus is spamming Twilight Grasp and can apparently hit multiple targets that are within its range at the same time. For each target it hits, it gets a full AOE heal.

Nasty.

The good news: it's accuracy seems to be lackluster, and it "rolls" separately to hit each target. So, I'm currently assuming it can be easily debuffed into oblivion and/or would lose a lot of its effectiveness if confronted by hard to hit targets.

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Hm, I agree that it is rolling for each hit, yes but its accuracy being lackluster I'm not so sure about as each time I've run it, the thing didn't seem to be missing much. Of course that could have just been bad luck.

As to debuff's, when my bot/poison ran the TF, the team had minimal trouble in the last mission against the healer......though granted I pumped a drugstore worth of toxins into it. When my blaster ran it, the team didn't have much in the way of debuffage on it and while we still won, the healer took a lot longer to go down.

Ran this TF several times now on Test and Live, definitely fun.

As to the whole Nictus thing, the healer does use Twilight Grasp to siphon energy into itself to heal itself and any other nearby Nictus or Romulus.

All range attack characters need to get out of the Nictus' range and attack it from long range. Masterminds should lock pets into the heal Nictus and open fire with the pets told to remain stationary to avoid getting into its range.

With Multiple Taunters on team you can and should pull Romulus and the healing Nictus apart and hold them that way while you pound the Healing Nictus. No more then three melee toons should melee the Heal Nictus while all range attack toons sit back and blast from afar.

Shivans and Warburg Nukes = semi useful at best, nice to have, not quintessential.

As to the question of which Nictus should go first: the healer or the summoner....the healer is the biggest pain in the neck to take down so go for it first.

Or there is the alternate strategy of keep Romulus just out of range of the Healing nictus, pound Romulus into the ground then sit back as one of the three Nictus merge with him to revive him. Repeat the Process. Yes you are killing Romulus four times as a result of this, but some team makeups might have an easier time this way vs. dealing with the threee Nictus first and then Romulus.

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I'm going to agree with the person who said it's probably worth clarifying what it means when you say an IO functions as a set bonus. Specifically that it ceases to function if you exemp/malefactor more than 3 levels below the level of the IO, or any level that causes the power the IO is slotted in to be unavailable.

In my experience IOs that have a 120 second timer do not have this limitation, and will continue to work at any level as long as the power is available.

I also wonder if it wouldn't be worth including the -KB IOs. They're not unique, but they are more like uniques in their function than anything else.

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Future updates should include set bonus clarification.

It's also been my experience that the Unique Heals remain online as long as you have Fitness/health after Exemp/Flashback. I always take Fitness/health at 14 and add 2 slots at 15 and those 3 slots receive the Uniques. additional slots get added later for any set bonuses.

Performance Shifter +end Proc also works so long as you have Stamina. Most of my +end Procs are Level 50 and it goes into the slot that comes with Stamina when you take the power. Exemp/Flashback to level 20 and the Proc still worked for me.

As to the Anti knockback IO's....if there is enough demand I can add them in a revision as another Special Mention. What prompted me to get this guide out was the constant questions of "Does Numina +regen/recovery work in Fitness/Health" and "Where is the best place to slot Performance Shifter +End" that were being posted.

For issue 12 the following Arcs were added to Ouroborus:

Origin of Power Level 20-24 complete the Arc for the Origin of Power Badge

Midnight Draws Near level 25-29 complete the Arc for the Thief of Midnight Badge

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Yeah, thanks a lot for the guide. Me and my fiance took a break for a little over a year and when we came back it was a whole new world with the invention system. This guide answered some questions we had.

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Happy to be of help

Also my thanks to those that helped to point out any oversights of mine, please continue to do so for future guide refinements.

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Very nice guide! Thank you so much for posting it.

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You're welcome, glad you like it