A Guide to Sides and Time Bonuses
One thing you will instantly notice when you first enter a Mayhem Mission is that you have a count-down going. The initial time will read 15 minutes counting down to zero. This is the amount of time you have before support and help arrives in a major way and you have to evacuate (RP-wise) otherwise this is the amount of time you have before you get force booted. Dont let this clock intimidate you, otherwise you are going to end up making mistakes.
The entire point of a Mayhem Mission is to cause as much damage, destruction and chaos as possible, to force the authorities and wannabe heroes to focus their attentions elsewhere instead of directly on you. Basically each group of PPD you take down, every item you destroy, and every side mission you do increases the time on the clock for you, representing from an RP perspective the destruction you are causing forcing the authorities to send their support elsewhere to calm citizens, put out fires, or give medical support.
Basically put, the bank is labeled as your primary objective, but in a Mayhem Mission, unless you really are just trying to get it over quickly, the bank is the last thing you should really ever think about. You should be destroying everything and causing as much mayhem and harm as possible.
Now note, for objects destroyed, you only get the time bonus once, so you will only ever get a one time, time bonus for cars, trucks, crates and so forth. However, each group of PPD will always give you a time bonus. As more people are added to the team, the amount that needs to be destroyed and defeated goes up. This is a gradual scaling, as a two person team will notice very little change between time awarding versus a 5 person team.
The time bonuses are as follows;
<ul type="square">[*]Each Longbow Ambush = 30 seconds[*]Each PPD group defeated = 30 seconds[*]Cars = 3 minutes[*]Barrels = 1 minute 30 seconds[*]Bus Stops = 1 minute[*]Fire Hydrants = 1 minute[*]Newsstands = 1 minute[*]Telephones = 1 minute[*]Parking Meters = 1 minute[*]Crates = 1 minute 30 seconds[*]Cardboard Boxes = 1 minute[*]Dumpsters = 1 minute[*]PPD Car = 1 minute[*]PPD Van = 1 minute[*]Van = 1 minute[/list]
Now, besides the above methods of wanton destruction, you also have side missions to gain even more time. These special sides are noted in each specific instance by special NPCs such as clockwork, Skulls, Family and so forth. When you get close to the group, they will actually announce what type of key they hold for the side they do, for instance, if they say they say that some villain was captured then its a Jail break side. If they say that they are setting bombs, then it is an arson side. The number of these sides depend on the Mayhem Mission you are in as follows;
<ul type="square">[*]Atlas Park = 1[*]Kings Row = 2[*]Skyway City = 2[*]Steel Canyon = 3[*]Independence Port = 3[*]Talos Island = 4[*]Brickstown = 4[*]Founders Falls = 5[*]Peregrine Isle = 5[/list]
To get access to these sides, you must defeat the group, which holds the key to the specific door you need. The only exception to this is the Jail Break side, which you can enter without the key. Once you have defeated all the minions, you will get a message saying Key Found and your map will highlight with the side mission marker, except for Jail Break.
To complete the side and get the time bonus you must complete the objective, which varies from side to side. Jail Break you must defeat the guards guarding the cell. Smash & Grab you actually have two objectives for two bonuses by getting all the glowies in the front room and back vault. Kidnap you must get the kidnapee and take them to the Mayhem entrance. Arson you must set all the fire bombs. And Raid you must get the glowie, which also nets you a temporary power.
The time bonuses for these sides are as follows;
<ul type="square">[*]Jail Break = 3 minutes[*]Smash & Grab (front) = 5 minutes[*]Smash & Grab (vault) = 6 minutes[*]Kidnap = 8 minutes[*]Arson = 4 minutes[*]Raid = 6 minutes[/list]
It should be noted that if you complete the Mayhem, only the sides and PPD officer defeats will award time bonuses. If you didnt get a time bonus for cars, crates or any other destructible, you wont get it after you complete the Mayhem.
Ambushes and How to Cope with Them
Throughout Mayhem Missions there are several points and events that will happen that will cause an ambush, some of which are unavoidable, others you can avoid or control to your favor.
The first type of ambush that you will contend with almost immediately is the Longbow Ambush. This is almost always broadcast by the NPCs telling you to Stop in the name of Longbow! followed by a 30 second time grant for resisting arrest. For these ambushes its best to wait for them and defeat them as they come. They will always follow you, until you are defeated, so there is no method to actually escaping them. The trigger points for these ambushes are about half random and the other half being set locations. They are triggered by moving over their trigger points, but only trigger one ambush.
The second type of ambush that many teams tend to encounter is the Silent Longbow Ambush. This one tends to cause a lot of problems for PuGs because a lot of people either try to rush to the bank or fly, jump or teleport there. How this one is triggered is by going higher than the second story of a building, and the exact ambush will depend on the level range of the Mayhem itself. If the mayhem is from level 5 to 19 the ambush will be comprised of a Nullifier and several additional Longbow, or even a warden if the team is large. From levels 20 to 50, though, the ambush will be comprised of a Squadron of Longbow Eagles. This ambush, again, will not let up and follow your character till defeated, so its best to take them out ASAP.
The next type of ambushes your team will encounter comes from the various side missions. How those are handled depends on the side mission in general.
Jail break will get an ambush as soon as any of your team enters the Jail House of Longbow. This ambush will give you a 30 second resisting arrest time bonus.
Arson will spawn three ambushes as soon as you enter the building. The first will come immediately and is Longbow. The next two will be PPD that will announce their arrival with a 30 second resisting arrest bonus.
Raid ambush will spawn as soon as you enter the warehouse. It is a Longbow ambush that only announces itself by telling you to stop where you are.
Kidnap Ambushes will spawn like a normal ambush. After you capture the NPC and start leading them out, a spawn of PPD will spawn telling you to halt, but unlike the normal Mayhem ambushes, this ambush will stop at the last place you were when they told you to halt instead of making a bee line straight for you. This one is easy to ignore if you dont want to fight it.
Smash & Grab ambushes are easy to ignore completely. Just do not enter any of the red security beams. If you do, however, you will trigger an alarm and each one tripped will bring in a Longbow squad. Some like to trip all the alarms at once for a big fight. The alarm beams guarding the vault door, however, are special. If you trip those, not only will you get the Longbow Ambush, you will also get two more ambushes of PPD each with an Lt. This is announced by a 30 second resisting arrest time bonus.
There are three final ambushes that players will have to be on alert for in the Mayhem Mission. One of them is unavoidable and must be handled to complete it. The other can be ignored to prevent the spawning of the third ambush.
When you enter the bank, you can go all the way to the back of the bank and start pounding on the vault. When you approach the door, this will trigger a security guard ambush that announces itself by saying Weve got trouble! This ambush can be basically ignored completely. However, if you do defeat the security guards, this will trigger a second ambush about 60 seconds later of PPD officers, which announces themselves with a 30 second resisting arrest time bonus.
Once the vault door is broken, you can go in and click the glowie money, and this will instantly trigger another ambush. This ambush you have to fight, as its the hero ambush. Most of the time its a generic hero, however on large teams, this can turn into a signature hero like Back Alley Brawler. You have to defeat this hero and his/her escort to succeed at the mayhem.
Now, one of the tricks about ambushes are, if you are on a team, the ambush will actually be divided up to go after individuals on the team. Thus if your team is all over creation in a mayhem and you are trying to defeat the entirety of the hero ambushes group, this could prolong things or even make the mayhem fail if you cant find the one Longbow that was with the heroes group.
Strategies for Mayhem Level Bracekts
One of the issues with Mayhems, at least for younger teams, is that they arent friendly to low level characters. In this instance, it becomes difficult for low level players to accrue time bonuses because objects take a lot longer to destroy, so for the low levels its actually better to just solo mayhems instead of actually trying to do a large team of them. What I will attempt to answer is the best way to tackle a Mayhem starting at the lower levels first then working my way up towards the higher levels.
Threat Level 5 to 10
In this level bracket, a villain is better off going it alone or with one or two people they know very well and are good buddies with. Always stick together and dont try to do your own thing. You can easily trigger multiple ambushes easily. Destroy as many low level items as you can, and avoid the big stuff for now. Attempting to destroy some of those items will end up costing you more time than you will earn for it in the long run. In this instance, avoid cars and trucks for the most part, as well as large cargo containers. Try to get everyone to focus on the same objects at the same time, and take each ambush together and dont try to separate or you could end up in trouble.
Threat Level 10 to 19
In this level range, you are starting to get into travel powers, and get a little more bang for your buck in your attacks. Some objects you can start to one shot even. At this point you can think of inviting a few more people along for your mayhems. Again, stick together, do not try to run off, and above all else, do not try to use any of your travel powers to get to the bank quickly. This has destroyed mayhems faster than anything else. Try to destroy and wreck as much as possible, but avoid trucks for the most part till about level 14.
Theat Level 20 to 29
These mayhems are going to be a sore spot for your villains because the PPD have some of the most annoying attacks at this level. Glue grenades, flash bangs and several other powers that are going to be the bane of your existence. Gathering time should be almost a snap at this point though, but continue to stick together and do not use any travel powers to try and instantly zip to the end. It will just end in tears. Teams can start considering to break up a little bit to go and complete multiple objectives or cause even more destruction for faster time bonuses at this point, but everyone should be hitting the bank at the same time, unless you want to end up suffering the results of trying to find a hero or his lost escorts. It should be noted, at this level range signature heroes can start appearing in mayhems if your team is large enough. So if you take a large team, be prepared.
Threat Level 30+
At this point, the mayhems will start getting easy. Most, if not all, objects will be one shottable by practically everyone at this point, you will most likely have a plethora of AE type powers at your disposal, and the annoying hump of PPD annoying powers is over with. You are now off to face things like armored PPD, psychics and the kheldian devision. Time bonuses should start flowing like water, and your team is more than capable of breaking up into two groups to destroy and complete sides. Again, no jumping or flying or trying to cheat and get to the bank instantly, and when everyone is ready, everyone should meet at the bank. Large teams will almost always get a signature hero at this point so always be prepared.
Mayhem Dos and Donts
Mayhems and Safeguards are completely different animals. In a lot of cases, Ive noted people always try to do one thing like how a Safeguard or standard mission works, instead of realizing that Mayhems are their own animal and follow vastly different rules to your standard mission. So basically, this is a list of Dos and Donts that I feel work best for a Mayhem.
Do take your time on a mayhem and destroy what you can, when you can
This is probably the simplest part. Break things, destroy, cause chaos, mayhem and destruction. This gets you time bonuses and gives you more time to get to the end and complete the mayhem. Furthermore, destroying certain items and such net you badges for towards your accolades, and furthermore, you will most likely want all the exploration badges for the health accolade.
Dont Super Jump, Fly, or Teleport to the Bank or anywhere else
This is probably the number one heartache of people that I see complain about mayhems. They try to play it like a Safeguard or a normal mission and try to fly, jump, or teleport to the end through the air. This is a bad maneuver, and will net you multiple silent ambushes that will follow you till you are dead. So stick to the ground unless you think you can handle the results of what you get.
Do take care of the ambushes as they happen
Dont just keep running. If you see an ambush alert, stop and take care of it. You can get overwhelmed quickly if you just try to ignore it, as most ambushes in a mayhem do not stop and wait for you to go to the bathroom.
Dont run straight to the bank
Running straight to the bank, even if you are a stalker, will end up causing several longbow ambushes that you and your team may find impossible to take care of. These ambushes can see you even as a stalker.
Do stick together and work as a team
I know many think that villains are anti-team members, but this is far from the case. It is a good idea to always stick together and handle everything as a team and support your teammates.
Dont try to be a lone wolf
Dont think you can run off and leave the rest of your team and survive. You can totally screw over a mayhem doing this especially if you are lackeyed up and end up going to jail.
Do try and rescue teammates from jail
Telling your teammate to get out of jail himself will cause heartache and anguish. Not only will it cause more ambushes as he tries to escape, he could very well die several times before escaping. This could cause problems especially when confronting the hero ambush as the hero themselves could very well go after the team member in jail.
Dont try to trigger the hero ambush till all members are in the bank
The hero ambush is the most fickle part of a Mayhem. If the team is in several different places, the ambush will break up and go to those several different places to chase down those team members.
This is a guide to doing villain Mayhem Missions post Issue 12. Ive been telling myself and spouting it out occasionally, that I was going to re-write the guide I wrote a while back ago, but I kept putting it off. So here it is, the more up-to-date Mayhem Guide for all the new villains appearing with Issue 12.
The basics that will be covered in this new Mayhem Guide will be the following
How to get a Mayhem Mission and Why You Should Do Them
A Guide to Sides and Time Bonuses
Ambushes and How to Cope with Them
Strategies for Mayhem Level Brackets
The Dos and Donts of Mayhems for Single Play or Teams
How to get a Mayhem Mission and Why You Should Do Them
Of course, the fundamental way to get a Mayhem Mission is to first get a Broker. In the Rogue Isles, starting as early as Threat Level 5, villains will be introduced to a Broker in any of the zones after Mercy Isle. Most likely your first Broker will be in Port Oakes since that is a natural progression. When you visit your broker, they will actually teach you how to read a special code they imbed into the Rogue Isle Protector (the local newspaper for the Rogue Isles) that actually a heads up on things that can lead to some action for your would be villain.
Each zone has a specific level range that you can do Paper Missions in, such as Port Oakes range is Threat Level 5 to 15. If you are below that range you will be told that everything looks too hard for you. If you are above that range, you will be told that everything looks to be beneath you. So if you want a Mayhem Mission the first thing you need to do is go to a zone that is level appropriate for your character.
Next, you will have to prove to your Broker, for that zone, that you are worth his/her time and effort by pulling off a couple of jobs. The number of jobs you will have to pull off depends on the level range of the zone. Port Oakes (5 to 15) and Cap au Diable (10 to 20) require that you only pull off three jobs before your Broker will give you a Mayhem Mission and let you go after the big time. Sharkhead (20 to 30), Nerva Archipelago (25 to 40), St. Martial (30 to 40) and Grandville (40 to 50); the Brokers are a bit more serious about screening and weeding out the riff raff and consider themselves more of the big leagues. They will want you to pull of five jobs before they let you in on the big action. Once youve pulled enough jobs, they will send you a message through the paper telling you to come see them, as they have something big for you to handle.
The type of Mayhem Mission you get is dependant on the Threat Level of your character. Each Mayhem Mission is handed out in 5 level brackets and deals with a separate section of Paragon City. Each of the Mayhems are as follows;
<ul type="square">[*]Atlas Park (5 to 9)[*]Kings Row (10 to 14)[*]Skyway City (15 to 19)[*]Steel Canyon (20 to 24)[*]Independence Port (25 to 29)[*]Talos Island (30 to 34)[*]Brickstown (35 to 39)[*]Founders Falls (40 to 44)[*]Peregrine Isle (45 to 50)[/list]
Now, you might be asking yourself why you should do these Mayhem Missions. Well there are actually several reasons why. First reason; its actually a ton of experience to do a Mayhem and in the early levels, it would not even be unimaginable to gain a full level just clearing off a map. Second reason; completing each mayhem nets you a special temporary power that either grants you a special effect for a duration or helps your character with a passive effect for a duration. These durations are measured in days of playtime. Third reason; all the badges from a Mayhem Mission are connected to an accolade.
Each Mayhem Mission, upon successful completion, will grant a one-time, temporary power that anyone within the appropriate level range of the Mayhem Mission will receive. If the individual is lackeyed up to anyone, and below the level bracket of the Mayhem Mission, they will not receive the temporary power. If the individual is Malefactored down, however, they will receive the Mayhem Mission reward, as long as they have never received it before in the past.
Each of the rewards for the various Mayhem Missions are as follows;
<ul type="square">[*]Atlas Park = Flight Pack[*]Kings Row = Jump Pack[*]Skyway City = Self Res[*]Steel Canyon = Summon Team[*]Independence Port = Movement Increase[*]Talos Island = Endurance Increase[*]Brickstown = Health Increase[*]Founders Falls = Debt Protection[*]Peregrine Isle = Regeneration Increase[/list]
The two Accolades for Mayhems are Force of Nature and Invader. Force of Nature is received by getting all the destruction based badges throughout Mayhem missions, such as destroying cars, various pieces of property, defeating the Paragon Police, Longbow, vault doors, just a lot of random destruction and mayhem basically. When you receive this accolade, you get a power that decreases your recharge time, increases your recovery and tohit values, but will cost you some of your defense.
The other badge, Invader, is gotten by finding all the exploration badges in the Mayhem Missions. There is one badge per Mayhem Mission, so in total there are nine exploration badges for you to find. Once you find them, you get a permanent 5% health increase added to your character.