Sortie boss (ambula bossfight) was awesome! more of this DE!

[Fox7000]

20 minutes ago, Tsukinoki said:

Completely agree here.

The worst thing though is even when you're playing on Pluto the drop ship might not bring Ambulas when it shows up.
Seriously, I have sat through a 35 wave defense in a fissure mission and never once did the drop ship even drop an Ambulas meaning my team got zero beacons for that when we were hoping to get both beacons and prime parts.

There really needs to be a way to guarantee ambulas drops.
I mean with Kela at least when you do a Rathuum mission you are going to get points.  You don't need to be hoping to spawn into the right mission with the right enemies to get points needed to fight Kela.

I think good idea would be making Ambulas Bossfight cost only 1 beacon. That way you would still have to find at least 1 of them and it would give you 5-6 entries for bossfight.

[Tsukinoki]

Just now, Fox7000 said:

I think good idea would be making Ambulas Bossfight cost only 1 beacon. That way you would still have to find at least 1 of them and it would give you 5-6 entries for bossfight.

I would honestly take either option, and your option would make it possible for new players to get Excalibur in a reasonable period of time.
I've been sitting at 28 beacons for a while because Ambulas just has been refusing to spawn for me no matter which mission I run on Pluto or how long I run it.

From my point of view Kela's grind is a lot nicer than Ambulas', because at least there I'm not dependent on RNG.
It's sad that one of the better bosses in the game is locked behind an RNG time-wall.

[xXDeadsinxX]

I'm honestly on both sides, I like the Ambulas boss fight and don't at the same time. It's definitely a unique boss fight that we've never had or DE has made before. However, it's also extremely boring, before the boss fight you have to farm the beacons to fight Ambulas (except if you're doing a sortie). Farming the beacons is extremely tedious and unfun, reason why last time I fought the boss was when Ambulas Reborn was still around which was many many months ago. The boss also has stages/phases which is also just boring.

[PrVonTuckIII]

I enjoyed the fight as well. It was fun, without stupid invulnerability phases or tiny weakpoints. I'd gladly farm Excal if we could have this, but without the beacon-farming.

And for those saying it was easy: literally anything is easy if you're using the laziest possible loadout to do it. That's not a point against the fight.

[TheLexiConArtist]

Good? No, it's cheese or GTFO, because there's just too much going on with a hard time and failure limit to approach a situation strategically as it develops, and you have a good chance of just being screwed by timing if the bombardment happens when you need to get your hack on, especially since it targets perfectly through stealth.

That's my experience going it solo, anyway. Just a total chaotic mess once scaled up to Sortie levels, the kind of 'challenge' that just frustrates, not engages you to keep trying.

 

But then, I foresaw that back in the event. "This is a good fight at this level, but be careful to balance it for sortie levels!"

[SubtleOaf]

3 hours ago, Tsukinoki said:

I would honestly take either option, and your option would make it possible for new players to get Excalibur in a reasonable period of time.
I've been sitting at 28 beacons for a while because Ambulas just has been refusing to spawn for me no matter which mission I run on Pluto or how long I run it.

From my point of view Kela's grind is a lot nicer than Ambulas', because at least there I'm not dependent on RNG.
It's sad that one of the better bosses in the game is locked behind an RNG time-wall.

Agreed.

I didn't choose Excalibur as starter frame and only tried Ambulas once before the rework, to see how it was. It was rather bland and I decided to wait until the rework to farm Excal. Big mistake. The fight is more interesting but I just can't get beacons - like you. I found exactly 0 since the event is over. I'm beginning to think I might get Excal Umbra before normal Excal...

 

[phoenix1992]

Sorry for the semi nekro but some things are extremely nagging 

7 hours ago, SilvaDreams said:

And then they get the energy reduction sortie and their cheese method doesn't work and come to whine it's too hard

Implying that all strong builds rely on Blind Rage, and there are no duration or low efficiency builds.
Or that Primed flow is not a thing.

 

4 hours ago, PrVonTuckIII said:

I enjoyed the fight as well. It was fun, without stupid invulnerability phases or tiny weakpoints. I'd gladly farm Excal if we could have this, but without the beacon-farming.

And for those saying it was easy: literally anything is easy if you're using the laziest possible loadout to do it. That's not a point against the fight.

Implying that "Lazy loadouts" are a thing in Riven Frame. 
Or you are focusing your fire on Nova and Mesa? Dang, those two are irreplaceable, there is literary no other CC, Buffer or high damage dealer frames in the game, right? The only two frames that are somewhat out of favor right now are Mag and Zephyr, and I am pretty sure someone did finish Ambulas sortie with them. But whateves, "lazy meta loadouts memes"

Let me clarify something. Sortie Kela De Thaym on most modifiers is a lot harder than Ambulas. So is Lephantis. The only reason why "Ambulas was so hard" is the waiting you have to do between deploys + the fact that a lot of people don't have enough experience with the fight or tackling Ambulas units (as mentioned in this topic couple of times - the thingies do not spawn that often). 

Edited September 27, 2017 by phoenix1992

[(PSN)fullblast35]

Trinity Prime/Arca Plasmor

[BlackCoMerc]

14 hours ago, Marvelous_A said:

That could have been awesome..if it doesn't take 3242839752907853 beacons just to get into the fight. I truly feel bad for the new players who didn't pick Excalibur in prologue coz it'd gonna takes years for them to farm Excalibur from Ambula. I have returned to this game for 3 months but it's the first time I fight Ambula coz I just couldn't get enough beacons.

This beacon (and judgement points for Kela) thing is total BS and is nothing more than a nuisance for players.

And it's a nuisance that will drive people off. This isn't the kind of grind that retains players.

[Chipputer]

5 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

That's my experience going it solo, anyway. Just a total chaotic mess once scaled up to Sortie levels, the kind of 'challenge' that just frustrates, not engages you to keep trying.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it challenging...

 

... well, that is until I had an army of comba/scrambus units spawn as a "security team" all shooting homing explosives from across the map that miraculously hit me through the blocks I was trying to use for cover. Not only was I unable to really control them enough to matter, but once they got close enough every single power that I had on my frame was completely disabled. I was reduced to madly jumping around in hopes of dodging the attacks while trying to use whatever elements I had on me to hold them in place to shoot off their helmets.

It wasn't fun. It wasn't engaging. It was frustrating and pointless. You couple that with the bombardment from the ship and the actual dropship, itself, shooting at me and I was unable to do much of anything because too much power use would turn off my Phoenix Renewal and too little power use would see me getting chewed up by all the different damage sources. Rad procs from the occasional Smite weren't causing the enemies, that had already locked onto me, to divert their attention much, if at all.

It's the only sortie, in a long time, that I refused to finish. I already hate comba/scrambus and make no secret about that, but the fact that a security team of them can spawn at such a high level and with a sortie modifier attached to them, making them multiple times tougher than they really should have been? Terrible.

[BlackCoMerc]

40 minutes ago, Chipputer said:

I wouldn't go so far as to call it challenging...

 

... well, that is until I had an army of comba/scrambus units spawn as a "security team" all shooting homing explosives from across the map that miraculously hit me through the blocks I was trying to use for cover. Not only was I unable to really control them enough to matter, but once they got close enough every single power that I had on my frame was completely disabled. I was reduced to madly jumping around in hopes of dodging the attacks while trying to use whatever elements I had on me to hold them in place to shoot off their helmets.

It wasn't fun. It wasn't engaging. It was frustrating and pointless. You couple that with the bombardment from the ship and the actual dropship, itself, shooting at me and I was unable to do much of anything because too much power use would turn off my Phoenix Renewal and too little power use would see me getting chewed up by all the different damage sources. Rad procs from the occasional Smite weren't causing the enemies, that had already locked onto me, to divert their attention much, if at all.

It's the only sortie, in a long time, that I refused to finish. I already hate comba/scrambus and make no secret about that, but the fact that a security team of them can spawn at such a high level and with a sortie modifier attached to them, making them multiple times tougher than they really should have been? Terrible.

That sound awful.

DE turning off their most unique feature and leaving the game a bog standard, if subpar, third person shooter with interesting movement is not the direction to go in right now. And yet, they continually rely on these cheap mechanics.

Not to mention: With the terrible odds of getting anything remotely useful, I dont bother with Sorties period.

[-Bv-Qrow_the_Hokage]

I oneshotted them all with Arca Plasmor on my Ice Chroma. It felt slightly cheesy. 

[TheLexiConArtist]

4 hours ago, Chipputer said:

I wouldn't go so far as to call it challenging...

 

... well, that is until I had an army of comba/scrambus units spawn as a "security team" all shooting homing explosives from across the map that miraculously hit me through the blocks I was trying to use for cover. Not only was I unable to really control them enough to matter, but once they got close enough every single power that I had on my frame was completely disabled. I was reduced to madly jumping around in hopes of dodging the attacks while trying to use whatever elements I had on me to hold them in place to shoot off their helmets.

It wasn't fun. It wasn't engaging. It was frustrating and pointless. You couple that with the bombardment from the ship and the actual dropship, itself, shooting at me and I was unable to do much of anything because too much power use would turn off my Phoenix Renewal and too little power use would see me getting chewed up by all the different damage sources. Rad procs from the occasional Smite weren't causing the enemies, that had already locked onto me, to divert their attention much, if at all.

It's the only sortie, in a long time, that I refused to finish. I already hate comba/scrambus and make no secret about that, but the fact that a security team of them can spawn at such a high level and with a sortie modifier attached to them, making them multiple times tougher than they really should have been? Terrible.

Didn't we usually disagree, sometimes heatedly, in the past? What a pleasant surprise, I expected a 'git gud' response when I saw that post had been replied to.

 

Yes, other than getting the bad timing on bombardment, the first three Ambulas hacks were generally straightforward enough. Once I went in prepared. But if you don't miss any, the same wave you get Comba/Scrambus flooded is also the same wave you have two Ambulas to worry about. The time and scaling is so ridiculously tight, that working around all that power null (taking the time to pop hats or kill them) leaves precious little to actually safely sort out the Ambulas units themselves. Result: excessive deaths (mission fail) or unhacked Ambulas (mission fail).

My winning run was when I actually hit upon the bombardment problem and failed the third Ambulas pickup, because the following wave still spawned just the one Ambulas along with the usual Combas, which was just that little bit less pressure that made it reasonable to drop them all, hack the Ambulas, then afterwards to not be obstructed by anti-power when I had double-Ambulas to handle on the final wave.

 

My salty previous post aside, let's dissect the Ambulas fight obstacles as they appear in a Sortie:

• A relatively short wave timer (3 minutes?)
  • Your loadout must be capable of comfortably tearing down the scaled-up health and armour of the Ambulas to render it hackable. Maybe twice, if something goes wrong.
  • If a Remech Osprey repairs the Ambulas, it apparently regains its armour. If you fail to hack, its health is regained without armour.
  • Failure occurs if you exceed the timer. This can be one or two points of failure at a time depending on wave/squad size.
  • Your time to deal with the Corpus security teams is limited directly by your capability to drop the Ambulas in good time.
• Limited failure count (3, solo)
  • The player's opportunity to safely deal with the obstacles is limited by the burden of instant failures.
  • It is possible to be targeted by bombardments at a precise timeframe that render a solo player incapable of hacking an Ambulas they just disabled before it reboots by itself, likely forcing a failure.
  • When multiple Ambulas exist in a wave, it is possible to fail the mission simultaneously with succeeding in filling the hacked ambulas quota. Failure takes precedence.
• Sortie Scaling and Modifiers
  • Oneshotting as per the norm. In an Enhancement modifier, most Ambulas attacks will easily result in a kill on many frames. Techs, Comba/Scrambus and Sniper-wielding Corpus also easily meet this barrier, making the only real options stealth or disablement.
  • Enhancements (and to a certain extent One Weapon Only and Energy Reduction) will greatly impact the viability of a loadout to successfully disable Ambulas in the limited time provided, and further limit the amount of Corpus that can be dealt with in the time before all efforts must be focused on the Ambulas.
• Ambulas Unit Properties
  • The Ambulas may only be status afflicted by damage dealt to shields., for whatever reason. This becomes relevant in Sorties especially as the armour necessitates removal, forcing Warframe abilties, Corrosive Projection or a sidearm with lower damage and high corrosive status so as not to remove shields before armour is sufficiently depleted (One Weapon Sorties will remove that option while still being able to deplete the actual health).
  • The Ambulas, as with all scaled-up bosses, has an impressive amount of health. Furthermore, the Ambulas has high damage reduction in many hit locations, and despite visually destroying parts does not seem to noticeably hinder the unit or render it vulnerable in most instances. This greatly increases the required loadout threshold more than most any boss when combined with the time/fail limitations
    • The exception to this I do know is sniping the 'nose', which has personally been the most reliable damage method to quickly disable a unit assuming ability to find that target enough to destroy the nose-cone and hit some more in the same spot.
  • One of the Ambulas' attacks places an electrifying net on the floor. Similar to bombardment timing, when multiple Ambulas exist this can prevent hacking a disabled unit.
  • The Ambulas boasts diminishing returns against Ability effect as a boss-tier unit, the cap of which is currently so high as to become an effective immunity.
• 'Environmental' hazards
  • Frohd Bek's ship will, starting on wave 2 and for every wave thereafter, intermittently start targeting players with explosive bombardments for a period of time.
  • Frohd Bek's ship will, starting on wave 3 and for every wave thereafter, intermittently focus  large laser that will slowly track to, and linger upon a player's location.
  • Either of these will effectively remove the possibility for most Warframes to hack a downed Ambulas for the duration, without the use of some sort of mitigation.
  • Remech Ospreys and Corpus personnel will attempt to restore Corpus control of Ambulas units, causing a player to be required to disable and hack them once more before they are retrieved.
• Anti-stealth (as a further limitation to viable safe approaches)
  • Bombardments pinpoint a single stealthed player with unerring precision.
    • The ship laser, however, will linger on a last known location.
  • Ambulas units will directly attack the precise location of un-silent weapon fire.
  • On wave 4 (at least in solo), many Comba/Scrambus will spawn, several of which will possess the ability to remove Ability-based stealth effects (and everything else, of course).

 

That is a lot of burden, laid out. The biggest impact of all is hard failure limits. It makes the Ambulas sortie feel like soloing Kela de Thaym or Vay Hek before they were made vulnerable to status procs: frustrating and tedious if not outright impossible (due to Kela's shield recharge rate and ammo limitations, and due to Vay Hek's self-healing and general difficulty to hit).

 

My loadout choice for Ambulas:

Ivara for avoiding most aggro with stealth (despite having to work around the anti-stealth measures)

Vulkar Wraith for direct damage to Ambulas (snipe the nose) and picking off Comba/Scrambus

Tysis as a low-damage, high-corrosive-proc sidearm (to red-health Ambulas units before penetrating the shield)

Zenistar optionally to help protect a hacked Ambulas from being reclaimed.

[Chipputer]

2 hours ago, EDYinnit said:

Didn't we usually disagree, sometimes heatedly, in the past?

I don't remember.

To me disagreement on one issue holds no bearing on another issue. If I agree with what you're saying then I agree and if I don't then I don't. There are very few people that I attach any form of resentment or fondness to and it's usually very obvious when I do.