Lessons Learned in the Cavern of Transcendence Trial

(Below be spoilers, me hearties …)
We ran through the Cavern of Transcendence Trial a couple of times last night, with two different teams. Here were some resources we checked out first (though I didn’t read the CoH Forum info):

• CoH Forum discussion of the Trial
• Backstory to the Trial
• Notes on the Trial (incl. spoilers)

The following are some lessons learned we took from the trial efforts (one of which was successful, the other of which wasn’t). Hopefully they’ll be helpful to others. A lot of these apply to Task Forces in general, too …
(UPDATE: After the third try, we learned a couple of new things, identified as “NEW” below …)

BEFORE THE TRIAL

1. If you’re building a TF and scheduling when you’re going to get together, make sure that everyone on the team has the Global Chat @handle for the team/mish leader. Better yet, share those handles around among team members, so if there’s a schedule glitch at the last moment, you can talk to each other. (Our first team ran way long; most of the folks had alts for the second team, but there was at least one second team person we were never able to contact when we got together, and who didn’t know the alt that Margie was running in the first team.) That info also comes in handy if you get separated/unteamed at times.
2. Teleport, Recall Friend, Stealth, and Group Invis are like gold in this mish. You can do it without (a lot of) them, but they make things infinitely easier.
3. If you are going to have a mix of level-appropriate and exemplared (or, I suppose, sidekicked) players, make sure in your planning that you have enough level-appropriate team members. Everyone, including the mission leader, need to be in the 12-15 range when the mission was taken, and stay inside of it for the mish.
   Note that this mission seems to be very popular for higher level folks to exemp down to. That’s fine, but make sure they’re familiar with what that’s going to do to their powers (and, thus, tactics).

4. Decide on where you are going to meet. Off to one side or the other in the Hollows by the Wincott (Atlas) gate is good. Right in the middle of the street there is not good, since you’ll have endless folks bouncing over and asking to join in. (On the bright side, I discovered that healing someone will interrupt their boombox …)
5. I don’t care how organized you are, plan on at least 20-30 minutes at the beginning getting folks together, doing shopping, planning strategy, giving the briefing.
6. Team balance is always good, but not essential. The second team we had, the one that made it, was made up of five Defenders, two Blasters, and a Scrapper. No Tanks or Controllers — though they would have been handy in places.
7. Bring Awakens (rez pills). Everyone. Two, at least. It’s a timed mish, and running back from hospital in Atlas is no fun.
8. Communication is your friend. Use the chat channel extensively. Make heavy use of the standard F7 (“Ready!”) key to coordinate actions, and pay attention to folks using F6 (“RUN”), too. Respect the call to RUN — better to prematurely leave a battle than to incur more debt.

STARTING THE TRIAL: THE TROLL CAVES

1. The Cavern itself is at a fixed point in the Troll Tunnels in the Hollows. You can get there from any number of TT entrances; having someone along who’s mapped out those tunnels is valuable. Everyone can gather at a Troll Tunnel entrance except the leader; you can (and should) choose one close enough to Karsis (the fellow who gives you the mish) that the leader can easily get there if they don’t have a travel power.
2. Stick together. Keep up bubbles and other defenses. Charging forward, or getting separated, or engaging in multiple combats in different sub-teams is a great way to lose folks.
3. The Troll Tunnels are an interesting area — they aren’t the mission directly (so you can do the next bit of advice), and if you get kicked out of the mish you end up back in them, but you have to form the task force from outside of them.
4. Bring in ringers to help clear trolls from the caverns. It pays to have good friends, and they don’t have to be part of the TF (and so don’t have to be exempled down).
5. Use your map. It is very easy to get lost in the troll caves. One answer is to appoint someone as navigator (who has the map up).
6. The trolls repop pretty quickly. Don’t dawdle.
7. If someone drops (disconnects) any time during the mission, you are hosed for a while. Everyone must quit the TF, leave the tunnels, then rejoin a team, exemp down, and have the team leader take the mission again. This takes time, but isn’t a show stopper (especially since the mission clock will reset).
   The best way to do this safely, if you have exemplars in the group, is to quit the task force at the mission door, join back together as a team, and invert the SK/Exemp pairs (this lets you easily handle the trolls on the way out). You can swap the SK/Exemps back around before re-taking the mission.

INSIDE THE TRIAL: THE CAVE OF TRANSCENDENCE

1. Though the Troll Tunnels can be mapped (which is very handy), the mission itself cannot be. That makes coordination solely via chat, which is challenging. Remember your F7 key.
2. If you used a set of ringers to assist getting through the Troll Tunnels, they have to stay behind at the mission door. Take advantage of any buff those friends gave you by moving quickly to the first encounter inside the mission door — but still make sure everyone is ready before attacking. Watch out for lava!
3. Lava bad. Don’t jump into it. Fortunately, the mages take damage in it, too, so if you can blow them in (or taunt them in), it’s good. Alas, neither the spectral nasties nor the Igneous take damage from lava.
4. Inside the main mission is a large central chamber, and nine tunnels — four to the left, four to the right, and a ramp up to the main tunnel (where you’ll proceed once the obelisks have been triggered). For the sake of communication, agree on labels for the tunnels before people go running off into them. One scheme is clockwise from the bottom (1-4, exit, 5-8); another is Left 1-4, Right 1-4, exit. Again, agreeing on this before you start running around will make life a lot easier.
5. It’s almost impossible to separate a group of the bad guys by pulling. Just bring them back to you. All you can do is choose the timing and the ground (which is nothing to sneeze at). A moat of lava between you and a cluster of bad guys can be good or bad, depending on how you get knocked back, have to retreat, or have to advance.
6. Make full use of the defensive buffs your Defenders et al. have. Stick together. Concentrate fire. All the standard stuff. But, especially in the central chamber, there’s a lot of open space, which can make for attacks from multiple directions.
   And, to that end, make sure you don’t attract more than one group to you at a time. Watch that knockback, AoE, and target-next stuff. And slap down folks who don’t maintain combat discipline; if someone is starting the next fight before the last one is finished, or is running off and getting killed on their own, it slows down and endangers everyone.

7. The mobs in the central chamber of the true mission do not appear to repop. Those in the side chambers, however, do, though it takes a bit of time. Clear the main chamber (including the ramp), so you can maneuver in it easily. Then note which tunnels are empty (remember your labels), blast into the ones that are occupied, leave folks behind in them (to prevent or hide from the repop), and leave the stealthiest/teleportingest folks to slip into the last couple by themselves.
   (In retrospect, it was unclear whether the repops were in only the tunnels that had mobs in them to begin with, or if it was random.)

8. (NEW) Clear out the flanks before you clear out the ramp in the central chamber. The groups of Igneous on at least one side (the left), but likely both, will spot any combat on the ramp and dive in to help. Hilarity, and debt, ensues.
9. (NEW) When attacking the groups in the main cavern, pull them to you, rather than rushing up to them. That way, if things go south, the monsters will eventually wander back out of range, letting you rez. If you charge in, they’ll go back to just milling about on top of your body, which is both uncomfortable and impractical.
10. Use the mission clock to time triggering the Obilisks. Coordinate whether you are ready by asking who isn’t next to an obelisk, ready to go (that works better than asking who is).
11. You don’t need to take down the arch-villain, Koago, after the Obilisks are triggered. Rescuing Sam will end the mish, earn you the badge, stop the clock, and give you a safety valve (“Mission Accomplished”). The rest is (dangerous but profitable) gravy.
12. When you mish out, you end up back in the troll caves. Use the tactic above (invert EX/SK) for the trip out, blasting through the trolls on the way out.

The Cavern of Transcendence trial is very rough, but it’s also a blast to succeed at. The rewards aren’t huge, other than the badge — but you’ll treasure that badge for a long time.
(Crossposted to the CoH Forums)