|
Written by Moncro
|
Many players lament the difficulty of cave missions. This is usually
because of problems with finding their way around inside the twists and
turns of an underground dungeon. This guide with provide you with a
lighted hard hat, ropes, and a trail of breadcrumbs to make caves your
mission of choice. 
The trick to cave missions is making a good mission map and using that map to your advantage.
It only takes an extra minute or two to make a good mission map that
will let you move quickly and confidently through the dungeon (as
opposed to a faulty mission map that may cause you to redo the dungeon
over and over). Old school pen and paper D&D players are used to making maps. So are players of the classic Wolfenstein, who know to run along every wall to check for hidden doors.  These techniques lend themselves to CoH as well.
When you enter a room in a dungeon, clear the baddies and then run your character in a circle along every inch of the room walls.
Look at the map to see if you have left any shaded areas or unmapped
wall sections, and fill them in. A tiny shaded area in a room may be a
passage or conceal a glowy. If you are missing something later in the
mission you will be forced to return to that room to check there if you
did not fully map it when you were there the first time.
When you come to an intersection, map the walls and poke your head into each passage about 10 feet.
Now your map shows you not only the passages you took, but also the
passages that you have not yet taken. This will help you later when you
are wondering what part of the dungeon you missed. You can see on the
mission map the unexplored passage entrances.
If you have a group member who scouts, make sure they map well and stop when they encounter enemies.
The worst thing that can happen in a cave mission is that some helpful
scout with superspeed and stealth runs all over it, so the map becomes
useless as an indicator of where the group has been and not been.
Make it a practice to sweep left.
As Captain Blaze on the main board put it, “follow the left wall 'till
you've seen it all.“ Firefighters use this method in smoke filled
rooms, as Liablo-Lodge on the main boards points out.
Check up and down in each room.
Dungeons have hidden areas above and below. It is usually good to check
these places before moving on. Try to coordinate jumping up or down, so
someone is not up or down by their lonesome getting whacked. Also, have
someone check the ledges. Glowies are sometimes hidden there. Look for
holes in the wall midway up too. Have someone check the ledges waaaaay
up high.
Use the entrance from a passage into a room to your advantage.
If you pull the mobs to the mouth of a passage it is easier to group
them to where aoe and cone effects have greater impact. This will also
help protect some members farther back in the passage, and help avoid
aggroing the entire room. Just make sure the passage is wide enough
where players have los (line of site) and are not trying to hit a
blocked target. If that happens, move a little farther out.
If you fall, stay put and tell the group.
Don't run around like a spaz, aggro the whole dungeon, and then train
it back to your group. Just say “I fell“, and someone may be able to tp
you back or the group can come to your aid.
Be sure everyone follows the same person through the dungeon. If the group splits and each encounters enemies, that is not the happy place.
When you backtrack, watch the mission map.
Don't use your eyes. Just move the little triangle that is your
character through the mission map and you will know exactly where you
are going. If you use your eyes you may easily get turned around and
enter a room with mobs when you aren't ready.
When you backtrack, turn off all noise making powers.
Any time you have to go over the same area twice (such as to get to an
unexplored passage), do so as silently as possible so you can listen.
Cave missions may have glowies or mobs trapped inside a wall or
concealed behind a rock. If you are listening you can discover this.
Be aware of crystals.
Some crystals do nothing. Some green ones boost health (yours and the
bad guys). Some red ones drain health (and can interrupt snipe, aid
other, etc). Some blue ones are a plus to endurance recovery.
Be careful of portals.
Portals that have white light effects going round and round are a
passage to somewhere - not necessarily somewhere safe. You can walk
right into an ambush. Portals with red lights going round and round are
a gateway for baddies to come through. Getting near a red portal will
cause mobs to start spawning. Red portals can be targeted and
destroyed, which will cause the mobs to stop spawning (leaving you to
deal with just the ones you already have). The group should destroy the
portal as a first priority (unless you like being swarmed by bad guys).
If you have been everywhere in a dungeon you can think of, try entering
the white portals again. They don't always take you to the same place
every time.
Check the narrow allies around buildings. Many structures inside a dungeon have narrow allyways around them, where glowies may be hidden.
If your map shows an area ahead of you, but you are looking at a wall, backtrack.
Many times you have to go the opposite way and work your way around to
the room that seems like it is right in front of you on the map.
If you die in a dungeon that has a prison, be careful about breaking out.
Yes, you can break down the door, but what awaits you on the other side
of that door? Usually there are quite a few foes. You may want to wait
for your team to break you out.
When you leave a dungeon, have your defenses up and your travel power ready.
Dungeons tend to be entered through rockpiles, and rockpiles tend to be
in out of the way places where things spawn. It may have been clear
going in, but after the mission there could be a group of mobs at the
doorway outside.
Have fun!
Thanks for the input from posters on the main board. I made some edits to reflect their ideas.
|
Home 
