Nuke'em Til He Glows 10-min Hami Raid Guide

[Sandolphan]

Nuke’em Til He Glows 10-min Hami Raid

Overview:
Virtue recently completed a series of Hamidon raids wherein we did not clear all mito blooms. Rather the goal was to stay in and kill Hami, ignoring mito blooms and defeat him before he defeated us. These were done merely for the fun and challenge of it, and in no way were meant to replace the normal raid strategy. This method is simply too time-consuming in prep and organization to use as a regular open public raid method.

Conventional strategy is to clear blooms, attack Hami until the mitos respawn (a one time spawn at each 25% of Hami’s health), then evac out to regroup and clear again. This was chosen as the most efficient use of resources, as well as the easiest to implement among a generic group of raiders.

The nuke raids took this basic strategy and modified it. Key points were the need to compensate for the presence of healing green mitos countering raid damage, and bombardment by yellow mitos onto the raid group. Two to three yellows firing on the assembled raiders would wipe an unprepared raid, and we were looking at eighteen at once! The same for the greens; eighteen greens massively healing even the output of fifty raiders is an incredible obstacle to overcome.

Concept:
Essentially, the solution we used was to employ massive bombardment of the Warburg nukes temp powers. Also, Vanguard heavies (and any other more crunchy summons as well) were brought in to provide distractions for the other mitos’ shots, and to provide a bit of extra damage from any of the pets that managed to survive.

To maximize these advantages, the raid cleared the initial mito bloom and assembled in front of the nucleus. There, we buffed, debuffed and summoned; then proceeded to go full ahead and take Hamidon down.

Implementation:
The raid gathers at the saferock, buffs, and launches normally to clear the initial mito spawn. Use a tanker yellow taunt team with scrapper spike teams on the yellows, as well as a separate hami tank team. When all mitos are down, the raiders gather at the nucleus to begin a coordinated buff/debuff/summon phase. Tankers are then sent to their pre-designated yellow spawn points to taunt yellow blasts away from the raiders (spot is marked with a thumbtack, as there will not be yellows spawned yet for tankers to see). The attack is called and Hamidon is taken all the way to defeat.

Special teams, organization and notes:
Yellow Tanker team: 6 tankers and at least one empath. The tankers will be assigned one yellow mito each to taunt and hold agro. Empaths will maintain Clear Mind on all tanks at all times during the raid.

Hami taunt team: At least 2 tankers and one empath. This team will maintain Hami agro throughout the raid. Makeup of the team can vary to whatever is needed to keep a tanker taunting Hami agro off the raiders.

General teams (Assault and Melee): Every other team must have an empath or other support with a status protection buff. Status buffs will be applied throughout the Hami takedown attack. The raid should also have one or more Dark defenders with Howling Twilight in case of a large block of deaths, and they should be ready to use it immediately. Try to group the general teams by assault and melee roles, with support sprinkled in to each.

What to bring: Everyone should bring the following:

• All three Warburg nukes (Bio, Chem, Blast).
• Two or more personal EOE's (extra EOE's from spawning Hami will go to the yellow taunters as normal).
• A Vanguard Heavy, as well as any other temp pets available (Shivans, etc.)
• Two or more Breakfrees (larger the better).

Raid leader’s announcements:

• This raid will be one big attack! We will clear mitos normally, then pause before attacking the Hami nucleus to buff. After that, we will take Hamidon all the way down, ignoring the mito spawns.
• At first launch, the Tanker yellow mito team will immediately go to their assigned yellow mito and MARK THE SPOT on their map with the Thumbtack (right click the spot on map).
• During the pause for buffing at the nucleus, there will be NO ATTACKING Hami. Watch for calls for specific actions from everyone and PAY ATTENTION!
• At all times, Empaths should keep Clear Mind up on their teams, as well as maintaining a healing bubble. Dark defenders be ready to fire Howling Twilight if you see a stack of orange names.
• Make sure you have an EOE running once the final attack begins...it will keep you alive. Eat a breakfree as well.
• You should have three different Warburg Nukes: BIO, CHEM, and BLAST. Keep these separate, as we will use them at different times from different teams.
• Here is the heads-up on the order for the special buffing: BIO nukes, Pets, RA/AM's, Assault teams CHEM nukes, EOE's .
• Watch for further Nuke calls after 50%...specifically the Melee teams CHEM nukes and all nuclear BLAST nukes. This is to stagger the debuff duration, giving us a damage spike at the hardest moment.
• When the final attack begins, focus completely on the nucleus and do your best/fastest damage possible. We MUST overcome the greens trying to heal it!
  

Raid leader’s special buff phase calls:

[ QUOTE ]30 secs…ATTENTION RAID: LAUNCH ALL BIO-NUKES NOW!
25 secs…ASSAULT TEAMS LAUNCH CHEM NUKES!
20 secs…SUMMON ALL PETS NOW!
15 secs…FIRE ALL RA's/AM's NOW!
10 secs…EVERYONE EAT AN EOE NOW!
5 secs…TANKERS: MOVE TO YELLOW MITO POSITIONS!
0…ATTENTION RAID: KILL HAMIDON!!! (BE READY FOR SECOND NUKE CALL)


As Hami’s health approaches 50%, give the final nuke call:

ATTENTION RAID: LAUNCH ALL REMAINING NUKES (CHEM AND BLAST)!
FOCUS ALL DAMAGE AND KILL HAMIDON!!!


[/ QUOTE ]
Warning! The times listed above are just to give some idea of how to proceed. The raid leader will have to watch carefully each phase, as the pets will start attacking the nucleus. It is very likely the debuffed Hami will reach the 75% spawn point quickly, so the leader will need to push the RA/EOE calls then get the tanks moved into position, and be ready to start the assault on the nucleus at 75% Hami health. Once the pets are summoned, you may have less than 15 secs until the 75% bloom. This phase is critical and success rests solely upon the leader's coordination of the calls.

It is likely many on the raid will lose target on the nucleus. Advise them to move in closer, and have anyone on their team with target speak up to target through them.

You will have roughly two minutes to take Hamidon down from attack start to finish. Good luck!

Final note:
To repeat, this type of raid was in no way meant to replace the standard strategy. It was a fun thing to try, and a proof of concept. The amount of prep work needed to have an entire raid gather a full set of Warburg nukes and pet Heavies is prohibitive to be done on a regular basis. But here’s hoping you might want to try it once yourselves. It’s a blast!

[GadgetDon]

A note: Once Tankers move into position under the mitos, they are out of range for using nukes. So if someone else wants to try this, I'd have the tankers use their chem nukes first.

[SlimPickens]

QR

Damn thats really cool. kudos.

[Weatherby Goode]

...It's the only way to be sure.

[Krarr]

Any chance there is a video of this?
Sounds great.

[Weatherby Goode]

Vid is here, courtesy of GadgetDon

[Crawler]

Dumb question from a long term vet but what is an EOE.

My play time has reduced so I generally either run standard missions or jump straight into a TF. I've done the Warburg nuke runs and the Shivan runs but I am failing at identifying the EOE.

[GadgetDon]

EOE is Essence of Earth, a special inspiration dropped by the DE monsters. You have to defeat a random number of DE monsters to make hami spawn (from 5 to 50), so you get a number of them. An EoE gives you capped resistance to hami damage (75% for most ATs, I think, more like 90% for tankers) for one minute. In a normal raid, tankers use a lot, scrappers may need some, because they are taking hami damage and yellow damage (which is significant). Everyone else only takes green and blue damage, which is a lot less, so a healing bubble is sufficient.

In this raid, though, everyone needs to be under EOEs full time. (The advantage being that the full time is a lot shorter.)

[Crawler]

That explains why I haven't heard of them, I haven't done a Hami raid in over a year. Although I do play on Virtue so I'm now sorry I missed this particular run.

The video with all the nukes dropping at once was awesome

[ItsJustJake]

I have to check that video later.

[Post_Apocalypse]

Thats Crazy.

[Vaxin]

I Bow to you on this awesome Hami raid

[makerian]

I was looking for a guide to raids and came across this 2009 post. Sounds interesting, but misleading in that getting HVAS/Shivans, 3 WB Rockets, and EoEs for everyone takes significantly longer to prepare for the raid.

Curious, though, if it works or has been used to any effect lately. Or has it been more refined?

[Hyperstrike]

Originally Posted by makerian

I was looking for a guide to raids and came across this 2009 post. Sounds interesting, but misleading in that getting HVAS/Shivans, 3 WB Rockets, and EoEs for everyone takes significantly longer to prepare for the raid.

Curious, though, if it works or has been used to any effect lately. Or has it been more refined?

This still works. Unlike CoP, where the devs ham-handed it to just make nukes not work, the advent of shard drops means that people actually have incentive to fight through the blooms now.

I was on a raid 2 weeks ago on Freedom where I picked up 12 shards just from mito defeats! RNG was LOVING me that evening.