Dev Discussion Episode 43: Return to Earth 3 Alert

She does a damage heavy heat vision attack after the Lasso Vortex (where you are levitated). Going off the picture, that seems to line up right. The timing in Elite is supposed to be pretty tight, and if you have not broken out of the Lasso Vortex stun fast enough, she'll beam you with the heavy version.

It could very well be that the timing is too tight, and I can fix that. But I wanted to make sure that's what you guys are seeing first.

Yep. Not sure I'd advise that, but if you want to I won't stop you.

How many spores do we have to absorb to remove devastator's defense buff (elite)? Most of my runs so far i think people ignore it entirely. And about troll debuff, it does not remove the buff, isn't it? I have seen some low damage numbers even with defense debuff.

Ah ok that makes sense, I'll check it out and let you know, thank you

Between the heavy defense on Superwoman and Devastator, including their no-play segments (layered stuns/knockbacks/etc), it makes the alert difficult to want to return to repeatedly after braving an open world of stuns/knockbacks/etc. It's the un-playability of the Amazo fight all over again, just sitting there either hitting one button, or waiting for an animation to finish. if you remember the bug that froze everyone, Superwoman's fight in particular rings true to this. As far as Ultraman, I have no comment because it seems to play pretty fine to me.

I'm into it a little over a week, and I'm grateful that we can keep the weekly rolling as we see fit to play even after gathering the 5-day reward. Into week 2 I now do the raid, the duo, the open world and weeklies. I'd say I'm ok not feeling like I HAVE to do something to progress. It's an OK alert on the whole, and looks GREAT, but the timesink and no-play stun-city is a burnout. I'l look for future developer updates as to the balancing.

6 to remove it in Elite, but there is an update coming. You'll be able to absorb 3 at a time, and if you have both Anti-Crisis augments at 24 then you can absorb 4 at a time.

Not going to disagree that there’s a lot of knock backs and stuns and sitting around but not including elite, it’s a very short alert. Did it yesterday in reg under 9mins. I’d think event could be 7 and it’s week 2. Elite, yeah it’s a lot longer. Haven’t broken the 20min barrier yet personally but I’m thinking it’ll be 15mins once we’ve geared up.

Timing is fine now that I've looked out for it makes sense, I was just surprised that it took all my health as a tank like that! But now I know it's coming I get that. Thank you.

Devastator is really confusing fight. My groups ignore those spores now with Battle Troller. They are spawning really fast compared to the amount we're able to remove...
I can even battle tank this boss. We finished the Elite Alert in 16min .
The 2nd part of the boss fight is also confusing. What are those spikes spawning for?
First time i saw this i thought Devastator must destroy it. But it seems to destroy itsself at half of the time. So ignoring that either.

Edit: Btw. sometimes the "TV" falling down at Superwoman fight, without red area. I stood in it and only noticed it by huge dmg income.

Ran into this myself in my last run. I like to tank everything right in front of the door where the adds spawn. Gives the group the entire room to work with. During a corner pull + TV phase, there was no red circle under me. So adds are out and they start to slip away, I start pulling and watching for SW. Next thing you know 75% of my health is gone and I suddenly start to notice the sparks. I ate a death. Saved a quick video clip on PS5 and sure enough, there was no red circle. Guess I'll be way more careful next time.

I was knocked out and had to wait for the smoke to go away to get back up. While I was down, he was only targeting me with the red circle. Even after it was safe for me to get back up, it kept targeting me. lol I didn't feel like clipping the video, so here is the unedited rest of the fight. I didn't get the whole thing of him kept doing it, but it got a few.

I do a post to say that boss (devastator) is too hard for a normal version but many players just tell me gears up ! or that kind of answer.
this alert is a big waste of time, i succeeded this alert but for the reward it give is better to queu for anything else. Maybe developer need to do something for that boss.
You need a really good team to succes that boss, if you carry one players on you team, leave or you never pass devastator.
1healer + 3 good dps is the greatest team in my opinion for that ! Dont need to do spore just stay really far with range attack and begin spore from wall to middle

I had thought during several elite attempts that we had the “don’t spread contagious spore” feat, but it never popped.

I wonder if it has something to do with this bug:



I saw the player who gave it to me, and I believe their name should be in the combat log instead of “something”? The system acts like it doesn’t recognize who spread the spore.

I confirmed with a league mate that he was given the same message on a separate attempt.

Just ran the Normal alert for the first time and Devastator fight, thankfully we got a healer, is too much. The Clouds are spawning faster than those in Doomsday Form can clear them. As a Tank, I cant pull him out of the clouds. Clouds dont disappear timely either. whole room is covered in Clouds and he was only at 75% health. In this current form, Normal Alert is not completable and I was with folks who knew what they were doing.

I feel the Doomsday Form needs to have its radius increased to get more clouds then current or Doomsday needs to only have a MAX # of clouds it creates. Im happy with this an alert that requires a Healer. A proper group can certainly knock this out with ease but the mechanics are whats failing groups in that last fight.

One healer and 3 dps is probably the worst team to go at devastator with unless you’re all very aware and op. I healed a few groups like that and even in reg, it’s a struggle cuz of power. This is the 1st alert in a long time that you should just be in a 1/1/1/1 group. The troll can battle troll. The smoothest reg runs I’ve been in are when I battle buff troll. Even after players tell me we don’t need a troll. If the troll is in full dps gear at least you’re getting some debuffs. I’m running buff troll artis still and have come out 1st dps or at worst, very close and having 9min range runs. In elite, it’s also way easier with that setup. I love it personally. 1st alert in a long time where it’s best to have a real group setup.

If you tank him all the way against a wall he’ll typically only leave the spore clouds on one side of the room. Slowly rotate around the room. He’ll jump at another group member here and there and probably leave a spore cloud or two in that location. But for the most part this strategy generally keeps half the room clear of the spores and gives the group plenty of room to operate.

It seems that the gas clouds on the ground don't accurately display the boundaries of the damage effect during the Devastator fight. If you get too close to them you still get the damage tick even if you aren't actually in them. There are times when you'll have what appears to be a safe area between gas on either side of you but standing in it still results in damage, or standing near the edge of the gas starts the damage before you ever touch it. We're kind of used to bleed over from what we see on the screen and the actual area where you take damage (happens all the time with orbitals and the like), but it's more of an issue in this fight since Devastator jumps around so much and you have to try to keep him in range without getting the ick and working your healer to death.

I have a fix for the visuals on the clouds. But it won't come out until Elite Plus rolls out.

He REALLY doesn't like you. Thanks for the report, i'll see what's going on there.

Yeah, he didn't. It was going for a good while before I decided to record it. LoL