Hunting firemobs

[Burgeri]

After a good season of hunting warbots on duck-and-cover basis, I decided to try hunting firemobs. GR'd to Grant Mine, laid my eyes on a 110/110 Grim Persecutor, pulled him into the mine premises and began battle using the buildings as cover.

After a promising start, I dropped down dead. Just like that, from full HP to zero.

I was under the assumption that you are supposed to see the fireball coming at you, much like the warbot rockets and beams (granted, the beams are not always drawn before they hit, but usually are). Is this how it usually goes? Are those mobs huntable in the first place?

[Foxtrot]

Best hunt them insides the safety of a rhino tank. But thens the armor of the tank won't stands long againsts fire mob.

[Lifewaster]

In addition to the fireballs (which do rediculous dmg themselves), a Grim will also do an invisible AOE attack , with huge range (500-ish) which will insta kill anything bar a buffed PPU .

Sniping at max range is about your only option.

In practical terms , Firemobs are not currently Exp-able ,and are barely even Huntable for a stacked team and/or Rhinos, while Poison Cave mobs are similarly overpowered (unless your a droner...in which case El-farid/Ceres Caves are better exp anyway)

Currently there are 2 options for high lvl PvE/Techs in the game.....Regents Legacy(for decent exp) and WBs for Techs (and bugger all exp)

###########

I would strongly suggest, considering that Firemobs/Poison caves arent even worth the bother exp-wise for Droners , that they at least be made Survivable by normal runners again , in order to re-create some common Team-Finding spots alike to the old Chaos Cave days.
Perhaps we could finally again give rifle/pistol/melee users a means to Team and cap/woc without being forced to drone to do so.

Removing the DOT stacks from the mobs (just like the 2.2 APU nerf) would result in these mobs doing somewhat reasonable dmg to runners , and we could hopefully start to see the wastes/caves re-populated by Lvling runners once more.

[solling]

i do it on my tank ALL the time its really bo big deal. BUT the grims are high lvl and mean and evil so try to do it from a distance with any distance wepaon hunting fire mobs becomes a piece of cake.

[Sorin]

During the free month, I hunted firemobs for, I guess, about two weeks. I spent the whole of my fire mob hunting time at Cycrow. In that two weeks, I came away with over 200 tech parts, and that was only a handful of hours per day. I was using my HC tank and sniping the mobs with my City Admin Special Forces Plasma Wave (uber). I don't see many other ways of hunting them besides sniping. Aside from the massive fire damage, even with full god's wish armor, 50 points in fire resist, and camo PA (full body fire protect), there's the aforementioned MASSIVE invisible aoe damage that some of them do. Which they didn't used to do (god only knows why they added it).

So if you can snipe, it's fantastic hunting for both experience and tech parts. I'm never, ever, ever hunting warbots again for the purpose of tech parts (why spends 3 hours and get 2 parts, when you can spend 3 hours and get 15 parts?). If you can't snipe, well, sucks to be you.

[Lifewaster]

i do it on my tank ALL the time its really bo big deal. BUT the grims are high lvl and mean and evil so try to do it from a distance with any distance wepaon hunting fire mobs becomes a piece of cake.

Its true that capped runners with a very long range weapon can kill the mobs, but this ignores the issue that the mobs deal far too much dmg to runners.

Apu/Pistol/Melee have no chance vs a firemob (hardly even survive vs a single hopper)

This should be fixed imo...these classes need to be able to exp and farm techs as much as long range classes. A team of short range class(es)+PPU support should be able to survive fighting these mobs, instead of the only option being long range.

[William Antrim]

Or they could make caves better for the "short range" classes. I mean the swamp caves are unused for the most part (as long as I have been in nc anyway). I know a few pistol users who have used this quiet time to their advantage for woc grinding but if people want to team (without a ppu) then perhaps these could be considered for a bit of tweakage.

I think the best things to do would be to a) make survival kits drop in mob loot (instead of medical kits) and b) make better junk the friendly neighbourhood recycler. (Ie tronik parts). This and a perhaps mildly toned down damage percentage and/or xp gain would make it work.

Ofc this is all just speculation. I don't actually know what the swamp caves drop now (experience based on chaos caving mostly).

[solling]

i think only the really high lvl mobs deal to much damage 100 and above really the rest really dont. i tried playing a newbie a bit and alrdy when i came outta mc5 i could do aggies tbh its easier then ever to lvl.

[Lifewaster]

i think only the really high lvl mobs deal to much damage 100 and above really the rest really dont. i tried playing a newbie a bit and alrdy when i came outta mc5 i could do aggies tbh its easier then ever to lvl.

Lore, you are really quite wrong , I also tried to lvl a rifle spy recently , you can easily get to rank /25 doing aggies, then rank /45 doing Bunker.... this is true due to the PvE adjustments to the low rank mobs.

However,after /45 you basically hit a exp wall , you can crawl to /50 at bunker but thats it for you, unless you can AOE regents.

At /50+ a tank/apu can AOE the regent boss room with minimal support.....

BUT melee/pistol/low rifle is basically screwed , and limited to slowly killing the few mobs per time in regents legacy upper lvl, you are not welcomed to boss room groups to join the AOe teams, since you have very little value to offer (unlike old days where a short range non-aoe was welcomed in cave teams due to ability to help kill backspawn)

You could hunt WBs using terrain, but this will be extremely slow exp.

Rank 6x Firemobs and Poison mobs will destroy you (and any potential teammates) with a single stack doing 500-1k gross dmg (barely survivable by any capped class barring a 92% resist PPU) , not to mention they will quite easily stick 3-4 stacks on you (4k gross dmg)

The fact is there is nowhere you can solo for decent exp, and nowhere to find a AOE team to welcome you, since Caves/Firemobs are no longer hunted...thus no teams to join there.

The happy days of fast exp at Aggies, and happy teams at Bunker are long gone for you, and there is basically nowhere new for you to find teams.

Eventually, you will do as everyone else does, and Lom your Pe/Spy to drone then cap and woc and make 10mil cash within 2-3 days, while any pe/spy who tries to plug on will simply remain penniless at rank /5x for the next 6 months.

[Riddle]

Droning should not be the only viable way to level a char.

At the moment levelling by pistol or rifle is the shit at higher levels.

Rifle's don't even have an AOE option, so one to one XP takes an age.

I agree with you lifewaster tbh.

[Lifewaster]

I have lommed my rifle spy to drones, and already capped in 1 day , and working on woc now, its rediculous just how easy it is for my droner spy now, compared to how incredibly hard and slow it was for my rank /5x rifle spy.

We have noobs and returning players, who are basically stuck in exp-limbo at rank 5x with nowhere viable to go , sometimes they get advised in help channels to drone, but for the ones who dont (or cant if pistol/melee/hybrid), the game is dead for them with no opportunity to cap and join PvP and we will simply lose these players.....

Something must be done to fix this, and I believe fixing the Firemob/Poison mob dmg is the best short term solution. And fixing means a Severe reduction, those 4-5 stacks that immediately land on a close range runner, should be dealing 200-300 gross dmg, NOT the currently absurd 4-5k gross dmg./......

So make those areas soloable for 5x short range classes and teams, and lets see ppl once again gathering and finding teams at those locations, and give these ppl somewhere else to go apart from regents.

Really all there is to say, imo.

[nabbl]

well its possible to level in G08, killing some brutes, horrors and WBs.

the exp is quite good, the loot too, but that stands in no comparison to drones... so youre right :)

[NONpk]

btw. why do terrormauler more dmg than grimchasers. any suggestions?

[CMaster]

Firemobs are rather overpowered at the moment. They'll tear through you even with near-capped fire resist. (MY PE with 50 FIR + inq armour + regants + holy protector + heat 3 got destroyed by a terror mauler in early 2.2). The only option (and its a practical one) is keep a lot of distance between you and them.

William: Swamp caves got used loads before 2.1. They were simply the fastest way to level a single-shot character, much like Regants is today. You could stick to the water, avodiing 90% of the attacks and do a lot of damage. I haven't tried in 2.2, but the reports I've heard are that like all mob DoT, the damage down there is now horrendous. So far, every mob I've come across that does DoT does far more per tick of DoT than the top mobs do per insta-damage shot. Level 1 DoY tunnels Xray stack is more damaging than the level 3 mobs shots (and they hurt). The firemob DoT is insane.

Life: Chaos caves are fine. Tank + PPU team a couple of weeks ago cleared it without any trouble. Their ranks have been dropped a lot though, meaning it isn't worth the effort compared to regants.

As long as Regants is broken really, no other form of PvE is going to be worthwile from a cash or xp perspective.

[Lifewaster]

Life: Chaos caves are fine. Tank + PPU team a couple of weeks ago cleared it without any trouble. Their ranks have been dropped a lot though, meaning it isn't worth the effort compared to regants.


But they arent fine, even for Tank+PPU , it still means hiding constantly trying to aoe around a corner, while a single rank 64 creeper getting into a firing position will force a retreat while barely surviving despite shields/heals and PPU spamming a cure poison spell.....and while the tank may survive , a pe/spy/apu will have died......and all this effort just to gain the crappy exp of a single rank 64 creeper.

Crappy rank mobs, should be dealing crappy rank dmg, this is the point , and they should not be dealing 500 poison dmg per stack over time, with any runner failing to imediately hide receiving 4-5 stacks (2k+gross dmg which = death sentence for any non-tank/ppu) on themselves within seconds.

Poison mobs are just as bad as fire mobs tbh. You just have more hiding opportunities which makes it just about manageable for a tank , but its still impossible for non-tanks.

This is not realistic for a rank 64 mob vs capped Tank+PPU, its more dmg from a single mob then 2-3 enemy runners would provide.

The caves ought to be decently survivable for 5x runners , especially since the mob ranks and exp gain there has been semi-crapified ......and they simply are not.

[CMaster]

But they arent fine, even for Tank+PPU , it still means hiding constantly trying to aoe around a corner, while a single rank 64 creeper getting into a firing position will force a retreat while barely surviving despite shields/heals and PPU spamming a cure poison spell.....and while the tank may survive , a pe/spy/apu will have died......and all this effort just to gain the crappy exp of a single rank 64 creeper.

Crappy rank mobs, should be dealing crappy rank dmg, this is the point , and they should not be dealing 500 poison dmg per stack over time, with any runner failing to imediately hide receiving 4-5 stacks (2k+gross dmg which = death sentence for any non-tank/ppu) on themselves within seconds.

Poison mobs are just as bad as fire mobs tbh. You just have more hiding opportunities which makes it just about manageable for a tank , but its still impossible for non-tanks.

This is not realistic for a rank 64 mob vs capped Tank+PPU, its more dmg from a single mob then 2-3 enemy runners would provide.

The caves ought to be decently survivable for 5x runners , especially since the mob ranks and exp gain there has been semi-crapified ......and they simply are not.

I'll have to try again, but we did it with PPU+Tank with very little hiding.

[Glok]

You don't need AoE for regants.. and most teams will still team you and even if they don't you can zone in after them and not get aggro.

[zii]

Odd. I can still solo firemobs and choas caves with my (capped) tank. The chaos caves are very very difficult to do alone, but I manage. Resist are drugs always used...

Poison caves: If the xp is low (I had not really looked), then there is little point because nothing is dropped of any use bar some medipacks and body parts from the caves.

Fire: Rare parts are fine from the fire mobs because I think that I usually get one from each Grim. I get these ugs from Grims because I cannot hack, (Dumb tank) so warbies are really pointless other than for the fun of killing them which is fun anyway.

The mobs seem easier than afore the last patch. Unless I've got better, which is very unlikely.

Yes, the firemobs do invisable damage. its really annoying.

Glok is right. You don't need aoe for Regents. Just a bit of though. In the end room an AoE is very useful but again not a nessecity. The main issue is running out of ammunition hence speccing some RCL.

[Lifewaster]

Odd. I can still solo firemobs and choas caves with my (capped) tank. .

See, I think your all overlooking the point , we have to nurture the non-capped runners , or else they wont stay and cap and join the PvP , and the pops will never get better because returning/new players will simply give up once they get stuck at rank 5x..

Half the creepers in chaos cave are rank 64 mobs , slightly higher exp then the launchers that noobs traditionally will get to rank 5x on.........

Is it really sensible that these mobs are hitting runners for 500 dmg , while the rank 50 launchers were hitting them for 50 dmg.

These caves shouldnt be a place where only capped tanks can survive, theres already higher lvl and more productive places for capped runners to be at. The caves should be somewhere that 5x+ runners can easily find fellow runners and can join them.

Sending noobs on 20 minute runs/drives to regents to fight the much easier rank 100 mobs (because those dont have ranged dot dmg) , while rank 60-70 mobs are impossible for them, shouldnt be the only practical option. In fact its quite a bizarre situation.

Or if its going to remain thus, then at least put a gogo/asg or gr outside regents so the noobs dont have to spend 20 minutes travelling each time.

[Jaeon]

See, I think your all overlooking the point , we have to nurture the non-capped runners , or else they wont stay and cap and join the PvP , and the pops will never get better because returning/new players will simply give up once they get stuck at rank 5x..

Half the creepers in chaos cave are rank 64 mobs , slightly higher exp then the launchers that noobs traditionally will get to rank 5x on.........

Is it really sensible that these mobs are hitting runners for 500 dmg , while the rank 50 launchers were hitting them for 50 dmg.

These caves shouldnt be a place where only capped tanks can survive, theres already higher lvl and more productive places for capped runners to be at. The caves should be somewhere that 5x+ runners can easily find fellow runners and can join them.

Sending noobs on 20 minute runs/drives to regents to fight the much easier rank 100 mobs (because those dont have ranged dot dmg) , while rank 60-70 mobs are impossible for them, shouldnt be the only practical option. In fact its quite a bizarre situation.

Or if its going to remain thus, then at least put a gogo/asg or gr outside regents so the noobs dont have to spend 20 minutes travelling each time.

Makes alot of sense imho.

[solling]

lvl in a team

[Bob Arctor]

See, I think your all overlooking the point , we have to nurture the non-capped runners , or else they wont stay and cap and join the PvP , and the pops will never get better because returning/new players will simply give up once they get stuck at rank 5x..

Half the creepers in chaos cave are rank 64 mobs , slightly higher exp then the launchers that noobs traditionally will get to rank 5x on.........

Is it really sensible that these mobs are hitting runners for 500 dmg , while the rank 50 launchers were hitting them for 50 dmg.

These caves shouldnt be a place where only capped tanks can survive, theres already higher lvl and more productive places for capped runners to be at. The caves should be somewhere that 5x+ runners can easily find fellow runners and can join them.

Sending noobs on 20 minute runs/drives to regents to fight the much easier rank 100 mobs (because those dont have ranged dot dmg) , while rank 60-70 mobs are impossible for them, shouldnt be the only practical option. In fact its quite a bizarre situation.

Or if its going to remain thus, then at least put a gogo/asg or gr outside regents so the noobs dont have to spend 20 minutes travelling each time.

I agree completely. More team-based dungeons for lower level players would be absolutely cracking, I'd much rather do that than grind endless launchers or exploit El Farid/Graves all day.

[Lifewaster]

lvl in a team

But where? Even if you somehow managed to find 9 5x runners to make such a team, they will still all die almost instantly vs rank 64 poison mobs or rank 66 firemobs.

So that leaves only regents legacy as the single place in the entire game where those 5x runners can survive in a team to gain decent exp....but wait, that place doesnt need a team to survive, its just a matter of moving in order to avoid the melee mob dmg.

And the boss room? Its often monopolised by 1-2 AOE classes , eg: apu+ppu , or a solo capped tank, or a droner.

So not exactly a lot of options to "lvl in a team" tbh....there is currently nowhere in the entire game where a semi-noob will find a lvling team with the exception of Regents.

Thus my point , we should fix the fire/poison mob dmg, and make it possible to first of all find a lvling team in those locations, and secondly survive to gain exp there.....

[solling]

if u bring a ppu u can lvl just about anywhere.

if not then well firemobs or warbots carefully.

on a droner u can clear the cave without to much trouble using aoe drones

[Glok]

What about point red? Gaya?

Y-reps at Ceres with nice places to hide? (they still there?)

[Doc Holliday]

if u bring a ppu u can lvl just about anywhere.

if not then well firemobs or warbots carefully.

on a droner u can clear the cave without to much trouble using aoe drones

you completely miss the point again lore. what he is saying is what about the new peeps who dont have such luxuries. thats not how the game will grow. it should be more accessible with an easier time of levelling. not made harder.

[zii]

Yep, you are right. The poison caves ought to be run with a small 5x team without getting whacked to kingdom come in a couple of mins and the difference between Regents dmg and the caves should be reversed. Drop the dmg from those creepers and the other ones, but leave the Chaos Lieutenant as bad, because she is meant to be a bitch and spawns a lot less.

Which makes a gogo/asg/gr not required for Regents as its meant to be high level. (If we are not made to run across the wastelands then we won't meet other runners en route who are out to kill us, which in turn makes the game less fun - En guard :)

[Voodoo_Magic]

the woc LE apu solo's the place.

he spends the whole day soling Chaos caves, every day...

[Burgeri]

Tried hunting hoverbots.

Got one hanging right above the building and proceeded to angle-snipe it from windows. I was making good progress, when suddenly my gun couldn't reload. I moved into the safety of the house to try unjam it and "boom", the game crashed! When I log back in, my char is standing on the bottom floor, looking hale and hardy, while text splashed on the screen claiming he is dead...

Are hoverbots doing some kind of an invisible AOE damage too?

[solling]

new people have an easy time to lvl til after the bunker he said after that u prolly made some friends. Its easier to lvl in a group also in nc.

and btw my friend went in the cave from like /40 lvled in there without to much of a problem the poison mobs dont doa lot of damage. full set of kevlar armor and 50 base resist can get more then 6 stacks of poison and still out heal it using medkits and heal tool.

til u get to rank / 40 or /50 then bunker is an ok place to lvl the new people to the game can lvl there more slow then an experienced player who knows whats what of course but can lvl none the less. my first tank on pluto i lvled at the bun ker til i was past 80 str base. its only naturel that experienced players lvl more fast then newbies like that in any game.

if u r a pistol dood or a melee tank yes its hard for u to lvl on something higher then the lvl 100 mobs. ( even then pistol users have beam of hell wich have a great range as far as i know)

[William Antrim]

new people have an easy time to lvl til after the bunker he said after that u prolly made some friends. Its easier to lvl in a group also in nc.



How many genuine noobs do you see in nc now though? Really?


Lifewaster is totally correct on this. What few genuine noobs there are will quickly leave because they haven't found friends to level with. Even if they join clans the clanned people theyre with (for the most part) wont level too much as they just generally dont need to.

Noobs need something to do solo AND in a team. Thats the bottom line.

[solling]

To few people in the game as of whole.

[Lightpipe]

If you HAVE to level solo because you cant find a team or have no friends etc, then the hunting spots relevant to your current level should be soloable. The benefit of a team should be more XP over less time.

[Lifewaster]

How many genuine noobs do you see in nc now though? Really?


Lifewaster is totally correct on this. What few genuine noobs there are will quickly leave because they haven't found friends to level with. Even if they join clans the clanned people theyre with (for the most part) wont level too much as they just generally dont need to.

Noobs need something to do solo AND in a team. Thats the bottom line.

Again , this is part of the problem, because even finding clans doesnt always help the noobs so much, because in general a "Vet" will only spend 3-7 days droning to woc after which they lom back to rifles/pistols to pwn in pvp. Thus there is no long term availability of "power-leeching" providable to these players even from their new found friends.
A woc rifler/pistoler is not of much use in helping anyone exp, and the droners dont stay droners for long as mentioned above.
So only a regent boss-room tank/apu can provide such service but that place is already thoroughly overcamped.

In my case , I currently am providing such exp help to 1-2 clanmates with my currently available drone power, but its not a long term thing and in a week or so will it be unprovidable should I choose to revert my woc-enabled spy back into a pvp char.

I have a capped PPU , but that cannot provide any meaningful support to a lvling player , since exp gained relies on dmg done, and this relies on AOE to generate meaningful exp for lvl 70-100, which relies on the AOE-er not dying , which relies not on healing ability due to overpowerdness of mob dmg, but instead relies almost exclusively on exploitivity of mob AI , either in the form of kiting melee mobs (tank/apu in regents boss room) , or semi-exploit positioning (in the form of drones)

In the old cave team days, a PPU could provide this service to runners but its really not the case anymore, thats the main thing I'd like to see adjusted.

######

Another way that could help change this would be to have the foreign shield penalty only apply to PvP dmg, thus enabling a ppu to keep runners alive vs tough mobs. Perhaps even remove shield decay in PvE.

On that note, last night we took 2 capped tanks and 3 ppus into explore the abandoned doy sectors , the rank 120 doy bots in sector 3 were insta killing the tanks and almost insta killing the ppus...its just tiresome that high end pve now relies almost exclusively on positioning to prevent mob dmg , with the only practical effect of ppus being Ressurecting dead runners who failed to avoid the mobs line of fire.

[solling]

well finding a clan SHOULD help, they should help newbies to lvl they should make cave runs they should go in teams with ppus and lvl. i know we (FF) did that a lot when there was no fighting. and we took whomever wanted with us even lowbies in clan.

A clan should help people lvl peroid.