So, Chroma's Defense Mission... (Solo Complaint)

[X.TYR]

Alright, so let me just preface this statement as me being an anti-social A****** that just doesn't want to play with other people in story missions and enjoy the scenes by myself. This is something that's incredibly specific, I know, but for me, someone who's gone to the point where I made my own clan with only three other people just so that I wouldn't have to interact with others, this is a hard sticking point.

 

Now, look, I don't know if this is just me using the wrong frames or something, but so far, I've run my Valkyr, Rhino, Vauban, and Nekros and every single time, Chroma's New Strange defense mission has just proven to be such a huge and unnecessary challenge to do on my own. 

 

There are ten waves focusing on a rather large target in the middle of a room that is hard to maneuver around properly. The target itself heals at such a sluggish pace there would be points where I'd have to leave my game on idle to do things for ten+ minutes at a time for it to heal. Even worse, though is that, once Chroma shows up, you also have to to all the kinesis synthesis stuff to it while trying to fight off all the other corpus? It just seems like too much. 

 

Am I wrong in my opinion, or do other people agree with me? I just want to know if there's something I'm doing wrong or if this mission is just scaled to feel unfair for solo players.

 

I mean, if anything, I'd just prefer if the defense target was something with a smaller hitbox or faster regeneration on its health.

[Kthal]

I ran it duo with a Nova and a Mesa, and the mission was fairly close to failing.

 

Since it is a quest, and finding groups is not always possible, I would also advocate making this mission a little easier, perhaps by tweaking the pod to heal or have a larger health pool, making Chroma the only enemy in the final wave, or otherwise reducing mission difficulty.

[Temporary]

Did it solo with Mesa and was perfectly fine, I killed off everything using her ult before doing the scans on Chroma. Go an AoE frame instead of a single target one and you should be able to pass it, maybe build some restores just in case you running low and you always have the option of using a spectre/syndicate mobs for extra backup :)

Edited March 24, 2015 by Temporary

[PotWalrus]

I am too a solo player. I found it difficult... until I brought Loki there. But then again, Loki makes everything easy, because his ult is pretty broken. Just need energy effiency, energy max and range. Oh, and a melee weapon. Irradiating disarm helped too.

 

Anyway, yes, it is difficult. I had to cheese through it with Loki. Also I just wanted to get it done ASAP.

[AXCrusnik]

I too like to solo quests, so I ran it solo with Ash, my favorite frame.... Not that great for solo defense. With a Dread and Rakta Ballistica at that. It was hard, but with patience and gear not impossible.

 

Make sure to keep and osprey or a couple enemies alive in between waves to let the objective regenerate HP if you're struggling. It can take a few minutes for it to fully regen though.

 

 

ALSO, I cleared most of the enemies while the enemy Chroma went off and did his own thing. He doesn't go anywhere, so synthesize him on your own time.

Edited March 24, 2015 by AXCrusnik

[Stratego89]

All of the frames you mentioned are actually pretty bad for defense. Vauban is arguably ok but has problems with ranged enemies to start with, and solo play is an even bigger problem. I personally went in with Limbo who I basically main at this point for everything that doesn't involve defending, because I'm bad at that with him, thought "ah damn", but pulled it off. The best frame you could probably use for this- just like any other defense- is Frost. His bubble is the ultimate defense skill. As another user above noted Nova is also pretty great, as well as Mesa (that machine would make a great perch for her...). As for the last round, I found it best to simply kill every other enemy before attempting to scan Chroma, they do not spawn infinitely on the last wave, wait for your opportunity then snap a picture! :)

 

Tangent here: I'm actually very grateful for this mission as it taught me very quickly how to play defense well with my current build, and the size of the machine actually allowed me to circle around and use it for cover when I was in trouble. It has a rather large health bar so as long as I recovered quickly and kept on my toes it was fine to let it take some damage to save me.

 

In case you want to try with Limbo my general strategy:

...was to use my bubble about as big as the platform the machine is on and keep it up ALL the time along with my rift surge. I run only continuity maxed and had no issues with my energy since I was always staying in the rift. By keeping the bubble up I only had to worry about a few targets at any moment, easily seen by the effect around them when they entered the bubble. At the start of the waves the enemies would hop up the sides directly into my bubble, and I could pick them off first, followed by the enemies that came up the staircases on either side. Those enemies do not come into the area right away and instead choose to sit on walls and come in a few at a time, giving you a good opportunity to pick them off without much danger. When they enter the bubble they take some damage basically dropping their shields making them easy kills (I had a soma prime and crits don't register on shields so this was a lifesaver). I did have issues with too many enemies entering the bubble at one point, and I solved this by spamming cataclysm down until everyone in the area was dead, then used an energy restore to get another one up before continuing.

 

EDIT: Oh, and if a Nullifier shows up don't be afraid to let him walk into your bubble with his cute, smaller bubble. It has no affect on your cataclysm and you can stroll inside his and shoot him while he's separated from the rest and your cataclysm will remain up the entire time.

Edited March 24, 2015 by Stratego89

[JayOutre]

It was pretty simple using Mag. I managed to get 7 scans on Chroma as soon as he spawned in and I then just eliminated the few Corpus left from all the Pull's I spammed.

[faiznorizan]

Solo'd with Loki prime :/ first entry, overlooked it was a def mission, @_@ try frost maybe..?

[trieuazn0]

Ran it twice, once becasue i thought id just have to fight it solo (Use Zephyr) and turned out it was moving at a past too slow to my liking (made it to wave 6), second run was with and Damage Energy efficient Mag, it was somewhat faster but i died Twice trying to scan Chroma

[TheGoodDarius]

I've done this alone with an Excalibur, armed with Vectis and a Telos Akbolto, plus the Glaive Prime. So it is definitely possible to do it on solo.

 

Have you tried to keep an enemy alive (like using the Bastille of Vauban, mind your sentinel though) to let the machine heal? That might be helpful.

[2old4gamez]

Mag Prime, shield and energy restores and shield ospreys is how I soloed this. Plus:

 

 

Have you tried to keep an enemy alive (like using the Bastille of Vauban, mind your sentinel though) to let the machine heal? That might be helpful.

[p3z1]

Frost maybe your best bet for defense-type missions

[Taronium]

I had no trouble at all to solo it with Loki, BUT it got stuck at the VERY END, all scans taken and everything, because an Osprey got somehow stuck under the center platform!!!!!! I'm so enraged right now... lol...it's ridiculous!

[canibusprime]

I did it in a Rhino. The first time I died halfway through so I said screw it and came back with my spectres. I dropped an Infested healer, a Shield Osprey, a Corrupted Lancer, a Charger and my Valkyr spectre armed with an Amprex. It worked out pretty well the only spectre that I had to replace was the Shield Osprey (perhaps the enemies gave it priority over the other spectres?). I was using an Amprex with radiation. I could usually get at least some of the enemies to fight each other and when I got to the end of a round usually there was an Osprey stuck in the other room I would just wait until the machine fully healed itself before I would go kill it and end the round.

[Mak_Gohae]

Yeah, there are some frames that are better at certain things.

If you are going to solo stuff your choices become slim because you have to cover a lot of stuff by yourself.

 

With Vauban i think it would be easy if you drop vortex in the right spots on both side to suck in anyone popping in.

The problem with the Corpus is that once they zero in on you they hit fast so the tactic against them is to always keep strafing.

[Copra]

Nice to notice that someone else is having same trouble with Chroma mission. I've tried it with four of my main frames so far and failed when the machine blows up. Doesn't matter if I stand close or far, I'm not the one the enemies would prefer shooting.

[BlitzkriegBob]

I've had the same feelings as OP after my first attempt to solo this mission. The target was blown up by mobs at the last wave, and my antisocial-soloing-nerd rage went through the ceiling, just before I realize I messed up my gear selection and went on a defence mission with my Ash solo stealth build... After cooling my head down, I came back with a more appropriate gear (Loki with radial disarm and energy efficiency, AkStiletto) and it all went fine.

 

So: this mission is difficult to solo, but not that much. Remember that we have 22 frames (Chroma excluded for obvious reasons here) with different builds possible for each of them, so it is natural that we can't come to any mission with any build and frame. Some are simply more fit than other for defense (Frost, Limbo, Loki, Nyx...).

 

To OP: I think Valkyr and Nekros are a bad idea in the first place. You don't need to be tanky as enemies will not target you in priority, and Sadow of the Dead involves killing plenty things: meanwhile, the target is taking damage. My top 4 for this mission would be Loki + radial disarm with maxed range, Frost + snow globe, Vauban+Bastille with max range and duration, and Limbo + Cataclysm with max duration. Bring also fast firing hitscan weapons to deal easily with numerous scattered targets (AkStiletto was my choice because of fast reload).

 

 

Yeah, there are some frames that are better at certain things.

 

^ This. Same goes for the rest of your gear.

[Lima54]

Did it solo with Nyx, spammed chaos, was easy.

[DrBorris]

It is not that bad, went in solo (I, like you, do all Quests in Solo) with my Excalibur, Braton Prime, Rakta Ballistica, and Glaive Prime without knowing the faction or mission type. I had to throw down a few energy restores, but it was not that hard. On top of that, everything was modded for Viral Damage, so killing the Corpus shilds was quite a pain. 

 

But I made it through, not even using the "OP" frames or weapons.

Edited March 25, 2015 by DrBorris

[Ailith]

I ran it solo with Zephyr, though I popped a Phase Specter just to be safe (it did get slightly hectic during the last few waves). Still, the pod never took any major damage and Turbulence kept me safe from gunfire while I scanned Chroma.

 

I'd highly recommend Zephyr for solo Defense/Mobile Defense missions, Turbulence is too good.

Edited March 25, 2015 by Ailith

[RHEDEN]

I completed the defense solo, If I remember correctly I used nova. It was pretty challenging at the end it you don't keep the corpus at bay they will destroy it quickly. last wave it went to like 4000 to 300hp in a few seconds. I don't know how I beat it.

I completed the defense solo, If I remember correctly I used nova. It was pretty challenging at the end it you don't keep the corpus at bay they will destroy it quickly. last wave it went to like 4000 to 300hp in a few seconds. I don't know how I beat it.

[S7ORM]

Alright, so let me just preface this statement as me being an anti-social A****** that just doesn't want to play with other people in story missions and enjoy the scenes by myself. This is something that's incredibly specific, I know, but for me, someone who's gone to the point where I made my own clan with only three other people just so that I wouldn't have to interact with others, this is a hard sticking point.

 

Now, look, I don't know if this is just me using the wrong frames or something, but so far, I've run my Valkyr, Rhino, Vauban, and Nekros and every single time, Chroma's New Strange defense mission has just proven to be such a huge and unnecessary challenge to do on my own. 

 

There are ten waves focusing on a rather large target in the middle of a room that is hard to maneuver around properly. The target itself heals at such a sluggish pace there would be points where I'd have to leave my game on idle to do things for ten+ minutes at a time for it to heal. Even worse, though is that, once Chroma shows up, you also have to to all the kinesis synthesis stuff to it while trying to fight off all the other corpus? It just seems like too much. 

 

Am I wrong in my opinion, or do other people agree with me? I just want to know if there's something I'm doing wrong or if this mission is just scaled to feel unfair for solo players.

 

I mean, if anything, I'd just prefer if the defense target was something with a smaller hitbox or faster regeneration on its health.

Nova, Mesa, Loki, Frost, Mag.

All of these frames are absolutely viable for Soloing that mission. Personally, I did it with Mag, then helped a friend do it with my Mesa, then helped a random do it with my Loki.

Also, if you're having trouble soloing a mission, bring spectres. You can have a total of 2 syndicate spectres and 1 tenno spectre at once, I believe. Ancient Healer and Shield Osprey Spectres are good because they both help the defense objective, and all others just act as distractions.

[seth]

I did it solo with Nova Prime, I was boring as hell, huge @$$ room for 3 enemies to spawn, runing from corner to corner, stupid artefact is big and it attracts bullets, I had Meridian Roller and Hexis Lancer with me to draw fire, because that is only thing they can do, god forbid they actually kill something, and after agonizing 10 years in my perspective Chroma appeared, I had no idea what to do, thing was OP and almost kiled me, but I somhow scanned it and it was over.

[DSpite]

I agree with the point that the mission was a pain in the backside.

 

The open level, hard to see mobs and where they are shooting from, makes you waste precious time in location things while they use the time to shoot the objective.

 

I had taken a Frost there as I had no idea what the mission/level would actually have, and eventually just camped on top of the objective spamming Restores, and keeping a bubble up. It wasn't "hard" doing that, just annoying.

 

The amount of special effects going off and making it hard to see was overwhelming. Those stupid Osprey's laying down those flashing circles being one. I really hate it when, on top of the normally difficulty in missions, extra difficulty in the way of "visual clutter" starts adding to it.

 

EDIT:

 

Was the Chroma that shows up meant to shoot at you? Mine did not. It just sat there and let me scan it. *shrug*

Edited March 28, 2015 by DSpite

[SenariousNex]

Solo'd with melee mirage with scoliac. Only got a bit hard towards the end when chroma showed up.

At that point I said fk the cryo, just focused on chroma, then cleared the rest.