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Post by joh on Sept 19, 2012 15:30:09 GMT -5
Gravitar has been with us since late June if I remember correctly, and to this day many people haven't learned how she "works" which in turn gets other people killed. I decided to make this guide to help people wanting to farm her attire, questionite or whatever. If you have been playing Gravitar and think you're pretty good, that there's nothing this guide can teach you, then at least glimpse through it and if I missed anything feel free to add it. This guide is mostly aimed at newcomers or frustrated players that keep dying and they don't even know what hit them. First thing you should know is Gravitar is relentless. There are times when she wants you dead and you WILL die. Whether that's a bug or good programming is not for debate. Thing is you should leave your ego behind you. Your build might be the greatest build in the world, but you should still block or you will faceplant more often and ragequit. I'm going to start off with something that keeps happening since they patched the alert so that you couldn't use the log off and back on trick to get out of the lockout zone. If you die, don't recover and don't log off. While you're dead you still get the questionite and resources if the battle is won, plus you might get a rez. If you land in lockout you don't get any reward, which leads to "rushers" Rushers as I call them, are people that can't wait for their team to load and just rush off to fight Gravitar. That usually locks people out. Sometimes we experience long loading times either for local internet problems or the servers are kind of full, maybe even the distance matters, whatever the cause try to count how many people are with you before rushing to fight Gravitar. One thing you can do while waiting for others to load is look around you. What do you have at your disposal, do you have healers? do you have tanks? Lacking on either area means you're going to be in trouble one way or another so you need to play smarter if you're without support. Maybe you can even turn Zone on JUST for the alert. Many of us turn zone off for many reasons, not getting into that here, but perhaps on a Rampage alert it is a tool worth using. Ask if people have the ability to revive fallen teammates, or offer your services as such. If you play these alerts often you'll start recognizing people and know who can do what and how reliable they are. Another thing is, this isn't PvP, moving around like your pants are on fire won't help anyone. Pick an area you're comfortable with and try to stay there. Why would you need an area? simple, you sometimes need obstacles for cover while you heal. The fountain is the go to place for snipers, not for the cover which is so small it barely works, but because you don't get pulled in when Gravitar uses her gravitational well. More about Gravitar's powers later. The downside of the fountain is that you can get stuck when trying to outrun her attacks. So if you can take it as much as you can deal it, then by all means pick the fountain. But if you don't have the HP necessary to battle her as a range tank, then I suggest the other zones, mostly the debris areas based on your max range attacks. Archery builds can use these without a problem since most of their attacks are at 100ft. But if you depend too much on your energy builder you might want to pick one of the small cover areas. The "Good Cover Areas" like the one marked in the screen are meant for people who don't have a healing power. you just go hide there until your health replenishes then come back to the fight. If you join with half your lifebar chances are you're going to faceplant before you even shoot your power. That causes problems for the healers who now have to risk their neck to revive you, possibly for the second, third or fourth time in a row since you couldn't think of healing first smart man. I've seen that so often and the healer usually gets clobbered too, unnecessarily. Don't take it personally if they leave you for dead just 'cause you didn't play right. Learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them. When you see that glow near Gravitar's dead body, you know she dropped a costume piece for you. Be happy and grab it. This is the hardest screenshot to take ^^;
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Post by joh on Sept 19, 2012 16:51:06 GMT -5
GRAVITAR'S POWERSForce Detonation – Gravitar focuses briefly on a nearby point in space and then unleashes a torrent of force that heavily damages heroes in the area. Force Eruption – Gravitar blasts away nearby heroes with heavy damage. Gravity Cascade – Gravitar picks a random target and unleashes a chain of gravity pulses in a line towards her target. She does this up to 3 times in a row depending on her current health. Gravity Well – After losing enough health Gravitar will begin to create powerful Gravity Wells that pull all heroes toward her before blasting them away for massive damage. Gravity Bubble – Gravitar suspends heroes in an area in a bubble of gravitational energies and begins channeling a powerful gravity burst which will instantly kill heroes in the area. That's the description that showed up on the website as her alert was added to the game. But that doesn't help us much if at all so let's go with more screens and what you should do on each case. So I'm going to start with her most common attack... well the most common attack people don't seem to understand. The Blue BubbleThat attack is the easiest to avoid but people get scared and get other people into trouble. First you need to know this, Gravitar has three (3) lifebars. When she has all 3 or even 2, she uses the bubble to target you, so she can trap you in these: So you only need to block the blue bubbles (target or not just block and DON'T move) When she's at 1 lifebar left that's when you need to worry. You still need to play it as before, just block the blue bubble but get ready as soon as it's over run from you were. She usually targets you and even if she fails to trap you on her bubble she will do what we usually refer to as the orange dome of death. To avoid it you need to stop blocking right as her blue bubble fades and running as fast as you can away from her. Best if you have a rank 3 travel power that has no cooldown (if you have teleport and it's on cooldown you're screwed, just block and wait for revive) Force CascadeJust 'cause she isn't targeting you directly doesn't mean she can't or won't attack you. She spams Force Cascades to everyone, even if you're farther than 100ft. So it is best that if you're in danger (low health) you block and slowly move to a safe area as previously discussed. She can do anything from a single Force Cascade to 5 in a row (the description says up to three but I've gotten 5 and so have a few others). As I said when she wants you dead chances are you will die. There are times when the knockback is so powerful that she will break your block, and it'll be disabled for a second. Keep that in mind, it's not your lack of skill so don't feel bad about faceplanting. Keep your eyes open, request a revive, don't rush the healers and it should be fine, you can still win this. Force GeyserOnly the one being targeted should worry about this one. She will spam Force Geyser to the tank or whomever her target is. She has various combos with Force Geyser, one involves a Force Cascade as you land, the other is a Force Detonation. She has gone as far as using all 3 attacks in a devastating combo. You can block Force Geyser and there's a tell on when she will use it. She snaps her fingers just like we do when we use it. The most important thing here is, if you have a power that removes aggro (Evasive Maneuvers for example) this is why you have it. You're not the tank (if there's a tank build with EM it better be a trolling build) so you don't want to worry about bubbles, FCs and FGs to top it off. Gravity WellShe starts using this power when she has two lifebars left. She pulls you in as near as possible and then uses a force detonation. Depending on how you play I would not recommend the use of the energy builder while being dragged. Since you need to block fast you might still be attacking and get caught in the detonation. In fact, the best thing you can do for your sake and the healer's sanity is to run the opposite direction until it wears off. Force DetonationThis bubble just pops over you, no target on you so you won't drag it with you if you try to outrun the blast. However the time you have to outrun the blast is quite short. Better have amazing reflexes and a good travel power. I recommend blocking instead. Lately she's been doing something similar with her orange bubble, it's quite frustrating. She targets someone else and then plant the orange dome of death on you. That one deals over 10k damage even while blocking. So you better have some good dmg mitigation or lots of health points. And hope you don't have aggro 'cause if you do she might send a couple of Force Cascades to finish the job. But remember, Orange bubble is only on her last lifebar, the rest you can outlive them by blocking and not moving. Don't want to kill your teammates do you?
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Post by joh on Sept 19, 2012 22:33:32 GMT -5
ROLES
Obviously Cryptic is trying to change a couple of things. For one they're doing things to make us team up, that's the whole basis of On Alert and I see this as something positive for the game. You may differ if you like but matter of fact, this is an MMO. Rampages not only make you fight as a group of 10 people but your Roles matter more than ever.
The Tank
Has to be the first to attack, and try as hard as possible to keep her interest through the whole fight.
Support
Remember when I said this isn't PvP you shouldn't be running around like your pants are on fire? well support toons will have to do just that. Throw an attack or two at Gravitar (only after the tank has her attention) then try to keep the tank alive. If there are other healers try to divide the effort, one keeps the tank going while the other(s) worries about the team. If there are people with the ability to revive other team members you may want to put a priority on them as they will share your burden, but the tank if available is the most important.
DPS
If you have minimal survivability you're going to faceplant often even if the tank does the job right. There's still those Force Cascades to worry about. So try to have a power that removes aggro from you and a heal or two if possible.
Archetypes
You are about to go through hell. If you're melee you're pretty much done for, you can't take on Gravitar and survive without a dedicated support. But if you want to land a couple of hits, do a hit and run, especially when she uses Gravity Well. Since she's pulling you in, running towards her makes you go faster, land a couple of hits and get out before she uses an attack on you.
Range Archetypes have a better chance but will have to take cover a lot to heal. Even with consumables the cooldown is too high to keep you going.
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Post by joh on Sept 19, 2012 22:56:16 GMT -5
COMMON SENSEPeople seem to go through the portal in leave common sense behind. First the one I see the most, if you see Gravitar bombarding a certain character with Force Cascades, DO NOT go near that character (unless you're support and even so keep at max distance) much less walk in front of it. I've seen so many faceplants when I have aggro from people walking in front of me. Another important thing to never do is spam the help me button. That annoys the hell out of everyone and chances are you will be ignored. Also chatting in team is a little bit distracting so keep it to a minimum, use zone chat. If you just died and somebody revived you, please do not stand around looking like you're at a parking lot and don't remember where your car is. First thing to do is block, then back off a little to a safe area so you can turn on your TP (travel power should have a higher priority than form or even heal) Don't go running head first without looking for bubbles. I've seen many people get their health back to full and head straight to a bubble and die again. Now one of the most important parts. Win or lose if you can revive your fallen team members, especially that team member that spent most of the match reviving others to the point of getting killed for that, please take that portal back and revive. Let them know you don't want them to waste their stars nor their Recoveries. The more people do this the more helpful they will be in the future. I've run into so many pricks that I'm highly considering removing my ability to revive others for a self revive or another buff. Well that's pretty much it I think. If I missed something feel free to comment. Questions are also welcomed, I don't know everything there is to know about Gravitar, I just know enough to not suck when I fight her. type /channel_join Q4Gravitar in your in-game chat window to join the channel so you can get people to queue with you to fight Gravitar. Look for healers, tanks or just anyone.
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Post by blueionstormz on Sept 19, 2012 23:56:18 GMT -5
Great article. The pictures are very helpful and clear in explaining what the powers are and what they do. Your screen shots are amazing and the last one was especially funny. Thank you for making this. I know what to do better now and I'm sure many will find this helpful in fighting Gravitar.
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Post by secksegai on Sept 20, 2012 8:46:14 GMT -5
Good stuff - too bad the people who need the info will probably never read it.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2012 11:03:42 GMT -5
Coming back recently to the game, I don't recall seeing the fountain any more. Am I mistaken?
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Post by joh on Sept 20, 2012 11:46:31 GMT -5
Coming back recently to the game, I don't recall seeing the fountain any more. Am I mistaken? The fountain is still there, the screenshots were taken... *runs off to check the date* yesterday. Wow must have been a long day since it felt longer.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2012 12:28:03 GMT -5
I see, must have not notice it. Goes to show I don't pay attention.
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Post by quincy on Sept 20, 2012 12:43:12 GMT -5
this info is pretty damn handy. It took me a good few months to think to hide behind that fountain. -_-
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Post by joh on Sept 20, 2012 12:43:28 GMT -5
I see, must have not notice it. Goes to show I don't pay attention. At least you pay attention where it matters. Love your building skills, big fan.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2012 3:30:08 GMT -5
Nah, I was simply distracted by what's on her neck. I need to rob a jewellery store and get me that necklace. It's sooo.. shiny...
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Post by dr490nbr347h on Sept 21, 2012 4:19:39 GMT -5
Force Cascade spam.
Rage Mode...ACTIVATE!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 15, 2012 21:19:37 GMT -5
Bump and please sticky this.
I cannot stress enough.... WAIT for the whole team to load in before attacking.
I just had an idiot who charged at Gravitar the minute he was in, died immediately then left. Locked out a few players, and the rest except for 2 others wiped almost immediately, whom ultimately still died and left before the 2/3 mark.
Thank goodness I was testing my new tank, or I would have quit there. Took me an hour to solo Gravitar the rest of the way, and it was HELL.
(Now if only I had any of those imba summon champions bull*censored*....)
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Post by supercollide on Oct 16, 2012 3:17:44 GMT -5
Bump and please sticky this. *facepalm's self for not doing this before*
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