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Time for another as-it-happens Necropolis thread
Magrailothos
Posts: 5,426 ★★★★★
Well, it's time. Cyber weekend has come and gone. I've done with Incursions for the month. AQ and War have just finished. And I've ground out a fairly insane number of revives in places I won't mention.
It's fine for a Necropolis Run from a button-mashing hack. And since I'm on a personal thread count of 99, I figure the forums can handle one more of these Necropolis threads for my 100th. I'll make the title obvious, so people can skip it if they want to. Like DNA did, I'm going to update the thread as I go, to motivate myself into keeping going. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all. Interestingly, whilst my predictive text does get the word flattery right, it also suggests the word 'disaster' as an option. That can't mean anything, can it?
I'm pretty busy in real life, and I can only put in a couple of hours a day, so I'm guessing this run will take me most of the week. Strap in...
I've gathered quite a few tips from threads like these, which I'll try to make apparent in case they're helpful. I called myself a hack before - what's my actual skill level? Good at parrying, mediocre at Dexing, and absolute rubbish at Intercepting. Speed isn't my strong suit: most BG seasons, I barely crawl over the line into the Gladiator's circuit.
What could go wrong?
Well, going in with a 6* Aegon that I've only taken to 4/55 Sig 120 may not be the best start. I'm frugal with resources, and I reckon that ultimately I can save those 80 Sig stones and just spend an extra dozen or so more revives ramping Aegon up; and 200 Dust with the same. So I don't Ascend him; because basically, I'm cheap.
My team is what's probably becoming a classic:
Aegon: 6* 4/55 Sig 120 (Relic = 6* WS)
Shuri: 7* 2/35 Sig 20 (Relic = 6* Vision)
Wiccan: 7* 1/25 (Relic = 5* GR)
Heimdall: 5* 5/65
Proxima: 6* 2/35
I remember to attach the Winter Soldier relic, avoiding the Black Panther one: in case anyone didn't know, the Black Panther relic messes you up against the Grandmaster.
Revving up Aegon on Mr Fantastic is not fun. It's not really a challenge either - hit, bait, throw specials, quit out to bank the combo periodically. The main issue is the occasional Evade that happens before I hit 150 Combo; followed by periodic deaths as I push him too far back and kill myself hitting him when he's got his back to the wall. Although more than one time, I do that on purpose, just to bank my combo.
I'm glad I brought Proxima. She makes the ramp-up a lot easier. And she'll still add a bit of Fury Potency later.
20 revives and he's down, with Aegon at a combo of 750. That's about what I was expecting. Maybe I can do this...
The next fight, I've been planning to do with Shuri. I got very lucky Awakening my 7*, and took her to r2 with resources from Cyber Weekend. Before going into this fight, I quite like Shuri.
As she runs towards Namor, I realise that I've forgotten to put any boosts on. I'd avoided using them for Aegon, because they'd be counterproductive - more damage would mean less ramp up. Never mind, let's see how it goes unboosted.
Ten minutes later, I don't like Shuri any more.
I ******* love her!
At the first attempt, despite forgetting to use any boosts, I solo Namor. I literally never lose my combo, finishing on something like 900, which I'm too shocked to screenshot. I do take note of the time - nine and a half minutes.
Am I... good at this?
No. No, let's not kid ourselves. I look again at what just happened. Shuri takes literally everything hard about this fight - his damage reduction, the passive damage when using Contact Attacks against the wall, facing lots of Unblockable Specials whilst Rooted - and she puffs the hard parts away like she was blowing on a dandelion clock. Basically all that's left is the Root, which is barely an issue since she can just hold block.
That wasn't skill. It was just patience, and a little strategy. Still, I'm feeling good.
Attuma doesn't really help me to sustain that emotion.
Shuri is supposed to be good against Attuma. But on my first attempt, because I don't want to parry him, I also don't place enough Shocks to remove his hydration. Quite soon, he goes Unstoppable, and he pushes me back... and back... and I'm dead. I take a look at Attuma's health bar, sitting at a healthy 97% and think hard. That's not really sustainable. I need to block more, and just take the hit damage so I can place Shocks to strip his Hydration away. Oh, and I need to use some boosts. Lots of them.
It works. With a better play strategy, I take about 40% of Attuma's health, and the same again with the next try. He goes down with three revives.
I can't say this enough: Shuri is nuts.
Time for a sleep. I hear that Air Walker is not fun. I take a look at DNA's thread to read what he's written about Air Walker, and pale slightly. Yep - sleep.
I write this up, and post it in the morning when I wake up. Time for Air Walker - and hopefully an update later.
Must try to remember to change my mastery set-up once I've got past Captain Britain, and switch to Aegon full time, though.
It's fine for a Necropolis Run from a button-mashing hack. And since I'm on a personal thread count of 99, I figure the forums can handle one more of these Necropolis threads for my 100th. I'll make the title obvious, so people can skip it if they want to. Like DNA did, I'm going to update the thread as I go, to motivate myself into keeping going. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery after all. Interestingly, whilst my predictive text does get the word flattery right, it also suggests the word 'disaster' as an option. That can't mean anything, can it?
I'm pretty busy in real life, and I can only put in a couple of hours a day, so I'm guessing this run will take me most of the week. Strap in...
I've gathered quite a few tips from threads like these, which I'll try to make apparent in case they're helpful. I called myself a hack before - what's my actual skill level? Good at parrying, mediocre at Dexing, and absolute rubbish at Intercepting. Speed isn't my strong suit: most BG seasons, I barely crawl over the line into the Gladiator's circuit.
What could go wrong?
Well, going in with a 6* Aegon that I've only taken to 4/55 Sig 120 may not be the best start. I'm frugal with resources, and I reckon that ultimately I can save those 80 Sig stones and just spend an extra dozen or so more revives ramping Aegon up; and 200 Dust with the same. So I don't Ascend him; because basically, I'm cheap.
My team is what's probably becoming a classic:
Aegon: 6* 4/55 Sig 120 (Relic = 6* WS)
Shuri: 7* 2/35 Sig 20 (Relic = 6* Vision)
Wiccan: 7* 1/25 (Relic = 5* GR)
Heimdall: 5* 5/65
Proxima: 6* 2/35
I remember to attach the Winter Soldier relic, avoiding the Black Panther one: in case anyone didn't know, the Black Panther relic messes you up against the Grandmaster.
Revving up Aegon on Mr Fantastic is not fun. It's not really a challenge either - hit, bait, throw specials, quit out to bank the combo periodically. The main issue is the occasional Evade that happens before I hit 150 Combo; followed by periodic deaths as I push him too far back and kill myself hitting him when he's got his back to the wall. Although more than one time, I do that on purpose, just to bank my combo.
I'm glad I brought Proxima. She makes the ramp-up a lot easier. And she'll still add a bit of Fury Potency later.
20 revives and he's down, with Aegon at a combo of 750. That's about what I was expecting. Maybe I can do this...
The next fight, I've been planning to do with Shuri. I got very lucky Awakening my 7*, and took her to r2 with resources from Cyber Weekend. Before going into this fight, I quite like Shuri.
As she runs towards Namor, I realise that I've forgotten to put any boosts on. I'd avoided using them for Aegon, because they'd be counterproductive - more damage would mean less ramp up. Never mind, let's see how it goes unboosted.
Ten minutes later, I don't like Shuri any more.
I ******* love her!
At the first attempt, despite forgetting to use any boosts, I solo Namor. I literally never lose my combo, finishing on something like 900, which I'm too shocked to screenshot. I do take note of the time - nine and a half minutes.
Am I... good at this?
No. No, let's not kid ourselves. I look again at what just happened. Shuri takes literally everything hard about this fight - his damage reduction, the passive damage when using Contact Attacks against the wall, facing lots of Unblockable Specials whilst Rooted - and she puffs the hard parts away like she was blowing on a dandelion clock. Basically all that's left is the Root, which is barely an issue since she can just hold block.
That wasn't skill. It was just patience, and a little strategy. Still, I'm feeling good.
Attuma doesn't really help me to sustain that emotion.
Shuri is supposed to be good against Attuma. But on my first attempt, because I don't want to parry him, I also don't place enough Shocks to remove his hydration. Quite soon, he goes Unstoppable, and he pushes me back... and back... and I'm dead. I take a look at Attuma's health bar, sitting at a healthy 97% and think hard. That's not really sustainable. I need to block more, and just take the hit damage so I can place Shocks to strip his Hydration away. Oh, and I need to use some boosts. Lots of them.
It works. With a better play strategy, I take about 40% of Attuma's health, and the same again with the next try. He goes down with three revives.
I can't say this enough: Shuri is nuts.
Time for a sleep. I hear that Air Walker is not fun. I take a look at DNA's thread to read what he's written about Air Walker, and pale slightly. Yep - sleep.
I write this up, and post it in the morning when I wake up. Time for Air Walker - and hopefully an update later.
Must try to remember to change my mastery set-up once I've got past Captain Britain, and switch to Aegon full time, though.
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Comments
And also, I’m envious of your 7R2 duped Shuri. Mine is only 6R4, sig 1, so I cannot take your specific path for my first run. I’m reading with interest, in any case. Keep it up.
But I get through him with Aegon. Twenty-five revives! Several of those fights lasted less than fifteen seconds, even without getting hit. The timing is so tight - knock him down every ten seconds or you're done and have to quit out. If he gets that Galactus buff, you're toast and he starts healing 50,000 health per second.
At least I was expecting it, and it got Aegon up to his full 999 combo. Captain Britain shouldn't be nearly so bad - I've got Shuri. Just need to remember not to crit with her.
----
Well, Shuri + strategy wins that fight with two revives - it should have been just one; but I got a dodge wrong when I had Captain Britain down to 2% health. It's almost impossible to be frustrated with that, though. After the shock-horror debacle that was Air Walker, two revives feels almost like another solo.
I really don't think I can overstate just how good Shuri is for this path. A better player than me would have pretty straightforward solos by now; on Namor, Attuma and Captain Britain.
hear she's good for Psycho-man, and possibly Wiccan, too. But the kids are demanding breakfast, so that's probably me done for a few hours, at least. I'll check in and update later.
However, I couldn't help noticing this comment... Oh. That had been the plan. Anyone want to leave any tips?
And bookmarked; this is going to be my second path 😁
Go mags, you've got this! Don't forget boosts....
I've read that it's best to bait Wiccan's SP2 to avoid the regeneration on his SP1. But, watching Brian Grant's run with a much stronger Aegon than mine; he's baiting the SP1 despite the regeneration, because it's based on missing health. It looks like, early in the game, you can out-damage it and avoid any block damage by staying out of range. I reckon I can probably do the same till Wiccan is around 50-60% health, then switch to baiting SP2.
And I learned something new about Wiccan, which is that you can avoid his passive spells if you knock him down. That's definitely worth knowing...
Also, I think it's time to turn on my Recoil Masteries. I don't use them much, but they've been unlocked for a while now; and this scenario is why: Needing to do as much damage as fast as possible. I'll need to turn them back off to use Shuri against Psycho-man (and possibly Tigra, by the sound of it - yes, she is Awakened, @Bugmat78 ); but that's not a high cost if it saves me a few revives.
Okay, back to life at home - the Necropolis will have to wait till later.
₹3***àawww
It's going okay.
Wiccan - well he's definitely an opponent that you take on face first. There's nothing subtle about this fight at all. Smash, smash, and smash some more. With the full Recoil tree, I was right that I would out-damage his SP1 regeneration until he was around 50% health, and then it was more effective to try and bait his SP2. Except that Wiccan had very different ideas, and at least once ended the fight with more health than he started. Ten revives used.
There are some ways I'm regretting my choice of path - the Trap node (against the ropes) really doesn't suit Aegon; since he can't reliably push his opponent into the corner and wail on them. I spend a lot of time backing off. I've read about other players saving their Aegon SP3 to finish off with a few hundred thousand damage against a helpless opponent. Except that doesn't really work with the Trap node, since their resistance to AAR means that you inevitably die within a couple of hits.
Oh well. I didn't really take the Traps into account; but this is definitely a lot more annoying than the Tranquilize would have been. I look around, and ahead: Okay, I'm almost done with it. One last fight, then Aegon can push people around, properly.
Psycho-man was up next. He's the wannabe Grandmaster who bosses you around, right? Any reason I shouldn't just charge in with Aegon all guns blazing?
Well he'll spend 1/3 of the time with Unblockable Specials, I suppose. That would be easier with Shuri. And she can ignore the blasted trap node, which is getting annoying.
I'll give it one run with Aegon before turning the Recoils off and taking a more measured approach with Shuri.
---
Aegon doesn't do great. But once I've taken Recoil off, Shuri is steady and reliable against Psycho-man and gets him down easily - a total of 4 revives, including the one on Aegon. I think Shuri suits my playstyle better: like I said at the outset, I'm not a Battlegrounds player - slow and steady, that's me. And as it turns out, that's Shuri.
I'll just take a look at the next fight, which is Apoc.. WTF!? A ***ing ambush Deadpooloid??? Are you freaking kidding me?
Okay, it's fine. He doesn't have the trap node, and he's only got 150,000 health. I take a minute to read his abilities and decide that the +25% Attack he can grant will be more helpful for Shuri than Aegon. She's up for the next couple of fights, I reckon.
But, it's getting late. And I've had a few sips of the Water of Life. A wise man would stop playing at this point.
Hey I'm basically halfway, and I'm down 65 revives. That's more than I planned for, but it does include getting past the initial ramp-up and taking down Air Walker. I think I'm getting into it now. And I'm noticing a pattern where I use a lot fewer revives with Shuri. Hopefully I can keep that up for the next couple of fights.
Yeah, I think I'm going to be wise and move onto Apocalypse tomorrow. See you in the morning
She actually makes him really simple; as long as you keep it slow, and you can turn off the muscle memory that makes you counter-attack after a Parry.
Oh wait - you're past! Keep going, mate. You'll finish before me - if it wasn't apparent, this is not going to be a rush job, for me.
Let us know how you get on 🙂
Apocalypse isn't really bad. Nothing funny about him - he's just a big beefy Apocalypse. Shuri did occasionally struggle with the fact she has to block to gain charges, and taking his block-breaking stun to the face. Also, he's got such long specials that my shocks fell off a few times; but really it wasn't too bad, at all.
Looking ahead at Tigra, she looks interestingly unpleasant. She's going to inflict a lot of Ruptures. It looks like the damage from the actual debuffs won't be very significant, but of course, she'll inflict burst damage and gain power with each. In fact, as I think on it, she'll inflict a pretty unmanageable amount of damage with each blocked hit, since it increases with each debuff.
So presumably what I want to do is back off, and hit into her block when the fight opens, until her senses fall off. Then try to push her to SP2 and don't ever let her throw an SP1.
Although I'll have to watch out for my light attacks Missing, whilst I'm doing that. Sounds annoying.
---
Three revives in, and the above strategy seems to be working, as she's at 65% health. Once again, Shuri's Sig ability comes in clutch for a player without the skill to reliably Dex Tigra's SP2.
Five more revives and I'm done - eight in total, for Tigra.
Total contributions to the Crypt count, so far: 59 deaths following Fight #1.
Happy to do my bit 😉
A kind of strat I have found is,
Block, when he goes for heavy, dash back, again dash back, do 4 hit endling with light and repeat for last phase
There was a thread a while back about Wong, complaining about his lack of buff control/power control, and asking what he was for.
It sounds like we've found out 😀
Well, thinking about how it'll materially affect me, that means either a modest number of revives without healing, or slightly fewer revives backed up with literally scores of healing potions. That's a fairly easy choice 😉. My healing potion pile has been shrinking; and I want some left for the Grandmaster, so I throw a decent number of revives (11) at Hercules, and move him out of the way.
Sam Wilson is his usual irritating self on defence; the main thing that slows the fight down is the Indestructible from the new Trap node. Still, I prefer that to Against the Ropes. Sam loves to throw his SP1, which is good because his SP2 is pretty nasty. Aegon squishes him in seven 20% revives.
Well, that's Sunday morning gone. Time to rejoin reality, for family lunch.
Current path to the crypt contribution: 77 deaths.
Since the best approach with any big Dragon Man is to get rid of his Power Charge buff (using Parry-stun + Pacify mastery, if you aren't a Mystic), this makes attacking with Aegon less than ideal, because he crits almost all the time. I give it a go anyway, and RNG doesn't go my way. I have to parry and not hit him more than once (to Purify my DE/LC debuffs), because if I do he'll go stun immune and the whole plan falls apart. It takes about twelve parries before I finally get rid of the Power Charge. After that, chip damage eventually takes its toll, by which time I've only done 10% damage.
I'm confident Shuri will be more effective, so I turn off Recoil Masteries and go in. Because she doesn't crit, she can parry and play normally; and fairly soon I've got rid of Power Charge. Now it's a totally normal Shuri fight and it's just calm, smooth sailing. If I'd gone in with 100% health, there's no reason it couldn't have been a solo. Since I went in with about 30% health, chip damage gets me down when I've got DM down by 40%.
Two revives, and he's done. This is in danger of becoming the Shuri appreciation thread, but: she's just awesome. How is it possible that taking down opponents with millions of health like this can just feel calm and almost effortless?
Two more path defenders to go: Cap Infinity War, and Nova. I'm pretty confident that Cap won't be too bad; and similarly confident that Nova will suck; because he always does.
It turns out that I've underestimated Cap. People do.
It's only after he's punched me to death that I work out what happened. Or at least what probably happened...
I tried the usual MLLLL combo followed by an almost immediate LLLL combo, taking a punch to the face whilst Unstoppable to gain the Furies Aegon gets from being struck. Except, of course, that didn't work against Cap, for one of two reasons: (1) He hit me and Nullified my Unstoppable, or (2) He glanced my attacks, and I was never Unstoppable in the first place. Frankly it happened too fast to see which; because I wasn't watching out for it.
Okay. Senior moment, there. I really should have seen it coming, because I took Cap to 5/65 Sig 200, and use him all the time.
Let's just keep this fight simple. Frankly I forget the "taking a punch to the face" strategy most of the time with Aegon, anyway. So let's just avoid it, and pretend that didn't happen.
And it only takes a few minutes. Had to take a couple of brief pauses to let the concussion wane, but apart from that, it's not a challenging fight as long as you don't try to use the Aegon strategy that clearly didn't work, above. Just two revives here, plus what's probably going to be Shuri's last dance. I don't see her helping much against Nova. Shuri: you've been awesome.
Nova: I think you're a job for tomorrow. Tonight I'm going to have a bit of a practice dodging your SP2.
Current path to the crypt contribution: 83 deaths.
The masses may rejoice, Trilliboss - my next post has arrived 😉
As you might expect, Nova is exactly the pain he always is, on defense. Constantly going Unblockable; and Indestructible for good measure, thanks to the Trap node. Abs man would be so good for him, and for this path generally. Aegon is a bit less ideal, because his own regular Unblockable attacks constantly feed Nova charges and giving him Unblockable attacks. Credit to Kabam for not Awakening Nova, though: if those Unblockable and Indestructible buffs had +80% duration, the fight would be really miserable.
Thankfully Aegon's Unstoppable helps with managing Nova's Unblockable, at least a bit. And on the plus side, I'm starting to get the hang of Dexing his SP2, which is worth learning.
I finally exhaust my revive stockpile and start digging into my moderately vast backlog of 4-hr crystals. But I get Nova down with ten revives; and don't feel too bad about it.
So, that's the path itself done. I wonder if I can manage the GM in a single sitting, this evening?
If I get this done in three days, that'll have been a lot faster than I anticipated; and without particularly impacting on normal family life. Although it's the first time in a long time that I haven't completed the Hero Use and Event Quest events - that still feels a bit weird.
Current path to the crypt contribution: 93 deaths.
Need you finished for aq tonight 🤣
Aaagh