Volcanic Mining Facility - Luthor Fight (Any Version)

I have been reading many of the posts in multiple threads on these Forums. I see people like me posting how broken and impossible the Lex Luthor fight is in Volcanic Mining Facilty and that they cannot get it done no matter how many attempts they make. And I also see people posting how it's essentially a cakewalk, that is so simple and easy that a brain damaged re**** (my words not theirs) can complete it with their eyes closed (these just happen to be the same people that ALWAYS sing the praises of Daybreak and NEVER seem to disagree with any of their ideas, too I have noticed. Coincidence?)

So.

To ALL of you folks that say the Lex Luthor fight is so easy I ask this of you: Please explain the Lex Luthor fight in Volcanic Mining Facilty step by step so that we might benefit from your experience.

I have run VMF more than a dozen times this past week and only been able to get past Lex Luthor twice...and BOTH times were a fluke - PURE LUCK. The overwhelming majority of the time I have been two shotted by Lex each time either during Warsuit 3 or during Warsuit 4. There was one attempt where we made it past Warsuit 4 and he did not two shot me but I died anyway from some unknown effect that was present. I have no idea what it was. It ticked away my health by about 15-20% per tick and then I was down.

Oh. And none of my groups have had ANY problems with the turrets. The turrets were disabled without issue each time. So, don't even suggest that it's the turrets as I have seen SO MANY of you suggest to others.

But, please. Don't be shy. Please explain step by step how the Lex Luthor fight in Volcanic Mining Facilty works and is beaten so that the rest of us can be on the same page as you. So that we have no excuse not to know what needs doing should we ever wind up in there with one of you.

Thank you in advance to any of you that takes up this challenge and shares with us the know-how. Much obliged.

Just my 2 cents...and I'm in no way saying the fight is 'easy', but even if you are handling the turrets, they don't actually damage you, they keep superman down or slow. The environmental effect from the hot or cold side being busted open does the damage. Even with the 4th turret down, until it says 'superman seals the breach' or something like that, you are taking damage from the hot or cold. This is especially true once the screen says the damage is intensified. If it gets to that point and you don't have 3 down, you will likely be in trouble. I was in a group the other night and while we did have the 3rd turret burnt, supes was still moving very slow and had not frozen the window over yet. As the 4th one went down, so did 2 of us...unfortunately one was the healer and he was on his last life, so after a few min the rest went down. Now this was in elite, but as all the versions use the same mechanics...just varying degrees, it's pretty much the same.

The 4th suit is gone by the time the 3rd turrets come up, so if you died to the 4th suit, and it was NOT the purple pool Lex throws out, I'd guess it just got a lucky shot in. Personally I don't find the suits to be that much of a threat. Another thing is that the dropped suits do have a damage beam that will do some...especially if you are between a few of them (you'll see an electric beam zapping you), so generally if I'm tanking, I try to pull them to the sides of the room so the middle is clear for fighting.

Granted, Lex could get a lucky shot on you too, but if you have a tank in the room, generally he'll stay focused on them unless he's shielded.

The biggest challenge in that fight IMHO, is just getting all 4 players (yes...heal and tank too) to pick on one turret to burn. If all 4 are up, you will die. If there are 3 up, you will die. If 2 are up, supes moves very slowly to seal the breach, but yeah...at 2 you COULD survive depending on your healer/shields/whatever, but at 1 or 0 he's free to move a bit quicker and will seal it quickly. But as any good cat herder knows, sometimes THAT is enough. People running the bombs, or focused on Lex, even if just for 30 seconds or so, might make all the difference unless you have a Prec dps dw/flurry spammer on hand to cut the turrets down extra fast.

BTW...you can have your combat tab record your damage in and if you die look at it later. It might let you know what the one shot was, if for no other reason than to just know it. If it says "Lex punched you in the face for 190K" well...I'd guess that might do it. If it says 'Environmental damage'...you did indeed fall prey to the turrets....indirectly.

EDIT: Another thing to do to help things along is establish what turret to go after first. On almost any group I've pugged into, I make sure to say something like 'Start at turret by door and move clockwise'? At least then you have a chance everyone is on the same page.

If there is a tank than it’s ideal for the tank to start the fight on the left side from where you walk in. I normally like to start the fight in the crevice right next to the table where you turn in the suits. When the suit first appears I will taunt the suit to go there too. The reason I do this is because of 2 reasons. During the first suit phase the window will not break (just crack) and because that lets me put the first suit right where it goes making that part go fast.

I will then take lex over to the opposite side of the table still near the red window. When I second suit appears I will bring him to that spot. I do this for 2 reasons again. The first is that by fighting near the window you make superman follow lex and he will be near the window when it breaks. And secondly the suit will be near the table to make that phase faster.

After the second suit phase the cracked windows will break and one window will break. It will be a random window but you can break one manually by grabbing one of the bombs and throwing it at the window. I will grab one of the bombs and break the red window. This is because that is where the superman is located. When the window break I go next to one of the turrets and aim for the turret next to the one I’m next to. Some attack have cone ranged damage meaning I can hit both turrets at once. Doing so makes destroying 2 turrets good faster. When 2 turrets get destroyed superman will be able to get up and seal the window with his freeze breath. With only 2 turrets destroyed he moves slowly towards the window and as you destroy more turrets he moves faster. But because I made superman stay by the red window he will freeze it as soon as 2 turrets are destroyed. This means the group takes less environmental damage.

I will then move to the middle of the red window. I repeat the same process from before. Break red window > destroy 2 turrets. The reason I’m in the middle of the window is so that I don’t stack to many suits by each other which does arc lightning style if damage.

I then go to the end of the red window opposite of where I started (still by red window just at the end of the window opposite of where I entered the room). And I repeat the same steps. Break red window > destroy 2 turrets.

At this point I move lex over to the opposite side of the room away from the suits. This makes it so lex isn’t hitting the group with aoe attacks which allows them to pick up the suits safely and take them over to end the mission.


If at any point lex puts an aoe circle on you roll away from it. The circle will pull you towards the center. Don’t panic just roll out of it. It works better if you have the tumbling mastery feet mod to double roll.

If you have no tank than the highest dps should “tank” him in the same spots I listed earlier. Person with highest damage will have his aggro. As soon as suits spawn switch targets to gain control of them and have them float ti your direction.

The Kryptonite Beam can damage you if you're standing in it.

The Lex Luthor fight is not difficult so long as you have a healer and a tank in your group.

The tank should fight mainly in the corner of the room nearest the red wall by the entrance. He targets and pulls Lex Luthor to that corner while everyone else should be either along the wall on either side. When the Warsuits get released, the tank need to pull them so they die by the console which will be in use at the end of the fight.

After the second Warsuit is destroyed, the tank need to focus on keeping Lex busy while everyone else targets and destroys the turrets. The turrets themselves do damage if you stand in the way of the beams. Do not stand in it. Work on the turrets as a team. Once the turrets are destroyed, Superman will freeze the wall (which gives off damage over time so the healer has to keep up shields and heals). He will do this again with the 3rd and 4th Warsuits as well.

Once the 4th Warsuit has been taken down, the tank should draw Lex Luthor to the farthest wall across from the entrance -- taunts will work so long as people are constantly hitting Lex while he's moving. Once Lex is over there, people can dump damage on him until cores become available at the console where the Warsuits were killed. One person in the group (not the tank and not the healer) should break off and add the cores to the console. This will lower Lex's defenses so he can be defeated easier -- it is also "optional" but if your group is already low on damage out, this is the best way to go and will quickly wrap up once the cores are done.

They say it's the turrets because it quite literally is the turrets, if you're not completing it then its because you're not burning the turrets, nothing else in there is going to kill you (not in regular anyway unless you're stupid enough to stand somewhere bad, like perhaps making a picnic and having a snooze in the big glowy starfield or something, you can't miss it), especially if you have a healer and even more so a tank.

I can prove this if you like, but I don't really believe there is a need, quite literally all you have to do, certainly so in regular, is burn Lex, burn the war suits, burn the turrets, burn Lex, collect the war suit cores, take the war suit cores to Huntress, burn Lex, end alert.

It's literally that simple, if you fail to burn the turrets, you will die.

It should be said that, unless you're running elite you guys are mad over complicating this. If you're running the omnibus (event) version of the regular (upscaled) version then it literally doesn't matter where its done.

Just tank Lex in the middle of the room, kill everything, ignore the bombs, kill the turrets as quickly as possible, kill Lex, take the cores to Huntress end the alert.

It's literally no more complicated than that, Again, if this is regular, you don't need to stick him in a corner, just avoid any AOE's burn, burn, burn and for love of god take a tank and healer.

If you're going to go in there with 4 DPS then you get what you deserve and you can enjoy your misery, Learn to play support, your support roles are there for a reason.

Are you queuing up solo for the extra challenge or are you building a group ?

THIS! Thank you, Deity Supreme. Thank you VERY much! I will give this a go.

Both. I have used LFG chat while staying in queue. The queue almost always pops before I get an invite to any VMF group although I do recall getting invited to one VMF group back on Friday. That was the first of the two VMFs I mentioned in my original post.

Deity Supreme's response is straight and to the point as well as simple and easy to understand. I hope that I implement it well.

That's why your struggling relying on a que is hit or miss

Pretty much this right, If you're going to blind queue you're either relying on lucking out with a decent healer or tank, or you need to be a decent healer or tank

When you understand what the purpose of the items and npc in this room, it will help you better understand how to tackle it. There are many different ways to approach this fight.

Bombs - Used to break window/wall to initiate environmental damage. If your group is stuck and struggling at this fight, just ignore them. I see players throwing them at the turrets and Lex but it won't deal any damage to them.

Red/Blue wall - Thermal/Coolant where environmental damage comes from when the wall is broken. The color doesn't matter as they serve the same purpose and when left open long enough, the damage will intensify creating heavier dots. The only way to stop the leak is for Superman to seal it with his freeze breath.

Turrets - There are 3 rounds of turrets and each round the turrets get defensively stronger. These turrets shoot kryptonite beam at Superman. Supe cannot get up and seal the wall when he is pinned down by 4 beams. He is able to get up after you take down 2 turrets but can't fly at full speed due to the other kryptonite beams. So if you can get the 3rd and 4th turret down, Supe can get to the broken wall faster.

Lex - Treat Lex as an add or distraction. The real boss of this fight are the turrets. His health will determine when the suits and turrets are up. After you deliver the radioactive cores to Huntress you don't even have to kill him.


If you have a good healer it will mask a lot of these mechanics, but lets assume this is not the case. Let's focus on the 3 rounds of turrets.

1st round - The red/blue wall doesn't break so the group won't experience environmental damage this round.
2nd round - Group has a 10-15 seconds head start on turrets before one side of the wall will break. So after the first round of turrets fight Lex in the center, that way Supe doesn't have to travel that far to position himself in freeze breath range once he gets up.
3rd round - Opposite wall will break. Now you know which side of the wall will break. After the 2nd round of turrets, drag superman to that wall to shorten his distance of travel.

I notice a lot of players have tunnel vision and aren't aware of Superman's whereabouts in battle. If there isn't healer in the group, group shield from trolls and atomic tanks are your friend when environment damage are release. Personal shields will help too. There are also lots of ways the group can make this harder, increasing the level of difficulty for themselves.

I actually beat the reg version with a tank and three DPS’s the other day. I just had to throw an extra shield in my LO and PDF’s on my utility belt.

Yup. Outside of the initial start, supercharges, pets, buff trinkets, supply drop and all that stuff gets saved for the turrets.

Thank you again Deity Supreme!

I just ran VMF normal and followed your step by step explanation to the letter and it was a breeze. It also helped that we had a 377CR heal in the group. We dropped the Warsuit Debris spread out around the table (we left plenty of distance between the piles without having to run too far), managed NOT to break either window until after Warsuit 4 went down and then it was just a DPS race to get the last set of turrets down before the Debris became active and then we ran it to the table. EMP pulse and Lex was down.

Have a Soder Cola on me!

I've completed w/o a healer on many occasions with different role combos throughout the week. I'm not picky about who I get in the queue.

2 tanks 2 dps
2 dps 2 trolls
1 tank 1 troll 2 dps
4 dps - this required a lot of coordinating

It's fun to see other players dig into their powerset to utilize what's necessary to overcome the obstacle.

Did a random queue, but got a healer. Video as requested, but sounds like you just figured it out.

Just use LFG and reg is easy.

As I’ve said. It’s a pretty easy alert but mechanic heavy. The difficulty pretty much depends on how willing or unwilling the group is to do mechanics.

Also, keep in mind that you DO want to break the windows so that you control what window superman has to go to. Remember that the reason I bring lex to the red window is so that superman follows lex. The reason I want superman next to a window is because he will be CCed until 2 turrets are destroyed. After 2 turrets are destroyed he can move but slowly. So you need to destroy the other 2 turrets to let him move freely. However if he’s next to the window that gets destroyed he won’t need to move since he’s next to the window and will fix it right away.

So basically by keeping him next to a window you can purposely destroy that same window so that he fixes it immediately. If he’s next to the red window but the blue window is destroyed there will be time before he reaches the blue window to fix it. That’s why you want to destroy the red window.

And the reason you choose the red window in particular is to have a focal where you bring the suits for the last phase. So choosing the red window basically serves 2 purposes. It keeps the suits close to the destination and it keeps superman by a window to fix it instantly.

It’s not mandatory. But it’s more about min maxing and reducing the potential to wipe by shortening the time that the hazard is active.