This was originally written in USPC forums as a response to a request for help getting through the T3 Courthouse Alert. As such it's not a complete 'guide' with pictures and such, but if anyone wants to add to it, please feel free to post below. The purpose after all is to help people get through one of the nuttier and more complex of the Alerts in game. Basically there's four stages to the Alert. Let me see if I remember these all correctly. You come in with Movement Modes disabled. Walking is your only option here. Clear the Courthouse courtyard of mobs (I advise getting all the mobs around the sides of the building, as they can be easily drawn into the main events of Stage 2 and cause you a headache), activate the Bailiff, and start Jury Selection. This stage is straightforward, but there's a lot going on to be confused by that is happening at once. Basically there's 12 jury slots that are to be filled. You the Heroes/Villains are on trial by Brainiac and he will attempt to stack the jury against you. You (usually the non-DPS) must gain a majority of the jury seats by picking up friendly 'jurors' and running with them from the ends of the courtyard to the center. Your teammates must hamper the efforts of Brainiac's minions to run their jurors at the same time. Even though the game says you only need a majority, I have found that the scenario is unbeatable unless you can gain at least 9 jurors. At this point, you may as well try for the feat and stack all 12 seats if you can. Something the game cues do not inform you is that while running, your loadout bar is replaced with 3-4 powers I believe. Most of them are not that useful, but I think one is a shield and the really good one is a speed boost that allows you to haul butt back and forth. Use it liberally. One the jury selection is complete, then you move to the next stage. Prosecution and Defense Attorneys will come out next and begin their arguments. Neither of them are your friends. Their arguments take the form of NPC witnesses and evidence-carriers. (One group is purple and the other orange, but right now I cannot remember which) You do NOT have to win against both groups, and in fact it is counter-productive to engage both orange and purple runners. Pick one group to concentrate against. Most find the evidence carriers easiest because they do not fight back. However you have to be fast-on-the-spot with destroying their dropped evidence boxes. The Witnesses will fight back, but there are fewer of them and they spawn less rapidly if I recall correctly. In the meantime, while you trying to handle this, numerous hostile adds will periodically spawn in based on how many hostile jurors you allowed into jury selection. Now you see why I said that you really wanted to stack the jury on your side in the previous stage. This is the part where most groups wipe. It can get confusing, hard to see, and it's not uncommon to get trapped blocked in by bodies and spawns as you are fighting on the courthouse steps. Just try and stick to your plan of attacking orange or purple, and kill the adds as fast as you can because they will put the hurt on you fast. Now you must use jumping pads (Fun right? Not!) and leap to the top four corners of the courthouse building, engage the mobs on each corner and destroy the gravity generators that are hampering your movement. This can be a little hairy as only one person can jump at a time and if you mistime or miss on the landing, whomever are the first ones to get up top will be swarmed with the hostiles. Shield the first jumper (troller or tank usually) and send healers third or fourth in. Once you take out all four generators, Movement Modes are restored. Now you can reach the Judge in chambers on the top floor. Entering the Judge's chambers you'll hate how tight the quarters are. This room leaves NO space for maneuvering or escaping aggro. I highly advise healers do NOT activate any HoT here or prebattle buffs before starting the Judge's cut scene. It will draw aggro immediately to the healer and all the adds will ignore everyone else and just murder the healer. There's some mix of elite guards here and some trash mobs. The main threat comes from the Judge's "casebook" where he will periodically isolate and paralyze a random member of the party and pronouce a rigged case and judgement against them. There are three possible sentences. Basically you have to be very aware of what is going on with your teammates and burn the judge in the interim periods between his judgements. Deal with these and kill the judge, and the Alert will officially end. Death: An executioner will spawn in and if not destroyed rapidly will auto-kill the character in question. As soon as you see/hear this sentence, everyone needs to concentrate attacks on the executioner to free their teammate. Imprisonment: This is not as bad as Death, but it can still mess up the party's chances as it takes the character out of play for basically the remainder of the Alert. The only way to free the character is to destroy the bailiff guards that are imprisoning the character (I think there are two). Destroying them will release the entrapped character. Community Service. This is kind of fun. Six trash bins will spawn around the chambers, and the character must run and click on all of the bins as fast as they can, or else the entire party will be forced to do so. Other than that though, it just subtracts time you can be smacking around the Judge and his guards. Epilogue: There's a bonus round however! If you explore the exterior of the courthouse and the grounds, there is a cloaked Brainia stealth assassin roaming in a random location. Finding it and killing it will result in a nice drop. Hope that helps! If anyone else has comments or corrections, feel free to post below!
1st Feat: Jury Tampering (25 points) Stack the jury with 12 humans, not allowing any Brainiac Jurors to be transported to the Baliff in the South Gotham Courthouse Alert. After being sworn in the bailiff will appear and the center raised platform will light up. There are 12 slots to be filled with human or brainiac jury members. The feat is to get all human jury members in without letting in any brainic ones. The strategy: What has worked best for me is to have the DPS and Troller focus on burning down the Brainiac Constables. They will be holding big purple glowing boxes over their head and walking towards the center; the DPS and Troll will need to switch from side to side burning down the closest Brainiac Constable on each side. Part 1) The Tank will stay on one side while the healer is on another. (The healer will have to come back and heal from time to time to keep everyone up.) The main thing to know here is that you can throw the human jury members. So jump and toss them towards the middle and if your lucky/good you can get them in one toss. Your next best option is to use L2 + Square to run faster with the human jury members. Part 2) Once you get a certain amount of humans in the turrets around the center will rise up and start attacking you. (This seems to be where most people fail as the damage jumps up at this point and you will need to balance killing the turrets with killing the constables) You all need to work together to burn these turrets down asap and then return to the main strategy above. Part 3) The bailiff will come out once you have 6 human jury members. You need to ignore him and continue doing what you have been. (Burning down the Brainiac Constables and tossing in the human jury members) The feat will pop once all human members are in not after the bailif is dead so you will know right away if you got it or not. 2nd Feat: Timely Closing Arguments (10 points) Defeat the Prsecutor and Defense Attorney within 10 seconds of each other in the South Gotham Courthouse Alert. After you return gravity to normal the 2 attorneys will appear infront of the courthouse, the feat is to kill them both within 10 seconds of each other. The strategy: You will need to alternate from side to side bringing each one of their sheilds down while keeping them within close to the same amount of health. Part 1) Pick a side. If you go after the Witnesses you just need to kill them and then the shield of the boss will drop. (They have a orange bar of light around them so they are easy to see). If you are on the other side there are Evidence Curriers that spawn with evidence over there head (These are highlighted in purple), you need to kill them and then destroy the evidence. (The evidence is a silver box that will drop to the ground) Part 2) Go to the side you did not go to in part 1. Rinse and reapeat lowering each boss down equally. After you kill one the other will come out of it's shield and the fight is on. The timer starts once the 1st one is dead. Tip: There is a yellow gas aoe that is droped out with glowing purple and yellow balls floating in it, this will kill you very fast if you do not get out of it, watch your feat and roll out otherwise you will have to use breakout and then roll out to get away. 3rd Feat: Guilt on All Charges (25 points) Allow all Sentences to run their full course when fighting the Supreme Jutice in the South Gtham Courthouse Alert. The strategy: You must let whatever of the 3 setences the judge gives you fully play out and not stop it or complete the task. 3 Possible sentances: 1) Community Service - your powers and attacks will be taken away and you are supposed to go around and ativate all the boxes (pick up the trash) around the room. (DO NOT DO THIS FOR THE FEAT) Eventaully everyone in the group will lose thier loadout/powers, just block until the timer for this is over and go back to attacking. 2) Life in Prison - 3 or 4 brainiac guys will come out with a lightnight bolt on their head and a green circle timer, kill them and then hit the switch to release the jailed member.(DO NOT DO THIS FOR THE FEAT) Basically you can either block and wait for the timer to run out or you can try to target lock and range single hits on the boss, make sure you do not kill the brainiac guys. 3) Condemned to Death - the judge will call out an executioner to kill one of you, one member of the party will be stuck in the center and the executioner will slowly walk over to them and hit them for like 40k damage, you are supposed to burn down the exectioner before they kill your group member. (DO NOT DO THIS FOR THE FEAT) Make sure some one is standing right there ready to pick up the fallen member while the other 2 try to pull the judge away. 4th Feat: Can't Hide! (10 points) Locate and defeat all three types of Stealth Units in the South Gotam Courthouse Alert; only one can be found at a time. The strategy: There are 3 hidden brainiac guys to find, Beta/Alpha/Gamma. You can only find one each time you come into the alert so it will take atleast 3 trips if not more to get this feat. Either after you kill the 2 lawyers or even doing the gravitation machine you need to just run around all over the courthouse and wait for one of them to come out and attack you. These appear on both the rooftops and the grounds themselves so be sure to search around to find them. The best way to find them is to use iconic power X-Ray Vision or the Tanks Perception bonus to find them, or you need to be very very close to them to be able to find them if you don't have these 2 options. Check your feat list and it will track the ones you have found and the ones you are missing. Tip: Do not kill the Stealth Units untill after you have killed the Judge or you will not get loot/marks; it is currently bugged and being looked into. There is no speed feat for this alert. Other: Treasure and Briefings. There are 2 treasure chest locations, one is on the back side of the courthouse on a small ledge. The other is at the front of the courthouse hiding behind a red cable brainiac growth thing. When facing the 2 lawyers it is on the right side of the front door. You can usually see it glowing in the cut scene if it is there. The 2 breifings: One is only the far side of the courthouse wall on the ground level. The other is at the very top of the courthouse between the roof and the big glowing brainaic ball at the top.
That's a great addition Soulburn! Thanks so much for that! Hopefully this all helps folks who have trouble with the Courthouse Alert!
