Visual Guide: Keyes Island Reactor Trial
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 Keyes Island Reactor |
Overview
This guide is intended to help players learn everything they'll need to know to complete the Keyes Island Reactor Trial.
Minimum players needed: 12
Maximum players allowed: 24
Incarnate XP: Psychic Incarnate Experience, Physical Incarnate Experience
Obtainable Badges: Keyes Technician, Anti-Anti-Matter, Bunker Buster, Avoids the Green Stuff, Loves A Challenge, Master of Keyes Island Reactor
Phase I: Approach Keyes Island Complex
- Objective: Defeat 30 Warworks
- Time to complete: n/a
- Merit Rewards: n/a
A short cutscene is shown to begin the trial unless every character on the league has already completed it. Defeating 30 Warworks will complete the first phase of the trial. During this stage the league leader should call out the plan of attack for the reactors/terminals and whether any players will be assigned roles (eg. keeping Anti-Matter busy, power cell collection, or clearing the terminals on the reactor). It is also a good time to remind players to be stocked up on healing inspirations.
Phase II: Stabilize Reactor Hope
- Objectives: Power up 6 Terminals, Recover 18 Power Cells
- Time to complete: 20 minutes
- Merit Rewards: 1 Astral Merit (from phase completion)
From this point on, the Anti-Matter Pulse will be active (excluding the transitions between the reactors) and fire off at 30 second intervals until all three reactors have been shut down. The Anti-Matter Pulse starts off by dealing 20% max HP worth of damage to each member in the league per shot and can increase up to 35% max HP worth of damage per shot depending on how much damage is dealt to Anti-Matter while the league is still shutting down the reactors.
Systemic Decay is another power to be aware of at this time. Any time you remain standing still within 120 feet from Anti-Matter you will be affected by Systemic Decay. At first this will slightly lower your regeneration and recovery rates, but the longer you keep standing there, the more this debuff increases in strength. This power is not too big of a problem though, because all you need to do to stop its affect on you is to move. This power is used throughout the entire trial, including the fight with Anti-Matter at the end.
There are 12 crates/glowies that are scattered along the ground near the Hope Reactor (see map at top of the page). Each one of these crates will give the player who clicked it a Power Cell temp power. If you do not have an open spot in one of your active trays or a macro set up to use this temp power, you'll need to find this in your Powers window (under Temporary Powers). The crates/glowies on the ground are restocked every 2 minutes.
The Power Cells are used to power up the Containment System Terminals on the reactor. Each reactor has a total of 10 terminals (4 terminals on the 1st floor, 4 terminals on the 2nd floor, and 2 Terminals on the 3rd floor). 6 of the 10 terminals need to be fully powered up in order to shut down the reactor. It takes 3 Power Cells to power up a terminal. To avoid wasting Power Cells your league may be directed to only focus on the 2nd and 3rd floors since there are only a total of 6 terminals between the two.
For the Hope Reactor you'll only need to clear away any nearby Warworks from the terminal in order to be able to use a Power Cell on it. Rather than killing the Warworks, it is much faster to aggro them and then pull them away from the terminal.
After nearly 2 minutes have elapsed, Anti-Matter will arrive at the reactor. If your league assigned anyone to keep him away from the rest of the league, they will want to make sure they are in position in time for his arrival.
Anti-Matter does not heal or regenerate until all 3 reactors have been shut down, so your league should be very careful of pets, AoE's, or other attacks that inflict damage to him. In addition to increasing the damage potential of the Anti-Matter Pulse, the trial will be failed if Anti-Matter is defeated before all 3 reactors are shut down.
Once 6 terminals have been powered up, the reactor is shut down and you'll move east to the next reactor.
Phase III: Stabilize Reactor Genesis
- Objectives: Power up 6 Terminals, Defeat 9 Recovery Goliaths
- Time to complete: 20 minutes
- Merit Rewards: 1 Astral Merit (from phase completion)
For the 2nd reactor, Power Cells are collected by defeating Recovery Team Goliaths that spawn at the base of the reactor. Each time a Goliath is defeated two members of the league will receive a Power Cell. The leader should have the league focus on the Goliaths in the mobs, because once they are defeated the rest of the mob around them will disappear.
You will need to power up 6 terminals for the Genesis Reactor, but instead of clearing the Warworks from the terminals, this time you will need Anti-Matter near the terminals when the first Power Cell is used. Like with the first reactor, you can avoid wasting Power Cells by focusing on the 2nd and 3rd floors since there are only a total of 6 terminals between the two.
You can eliminate the need for Anti-Matter during this phase by "priming" the terminals. Priming means that a Power Cell has been used on a terminal before Anti-Matter has arrived to the reactor. Your league will need to defeat a minimum of 3 Goliaths to have enough Power Cells to prime the 6 terminals required to shut down the reactor. You can tell if a terminal has been primed by targeting it and looking at its bars. If the blue bar is 1/3 full, the terminal has been primed already. If it is empty (no blue bar), the terminal has not been primed. If your league is quick, you can easily prime the 6 terminals needed before Anti-Matter even gets there.
Around the time that 2 minutes have elapsed, you'll see a warning that Anti-Matter will arrive at the reactor in 90 seconds. Again, if your league has someone assigned to keep Anti-Matter away from the rest of the league, they will want to make sure they are in position in time for his arrival. He'll appear on the west side of the 1st floor on the reactor. Players with pets/AoE's will again want to be careful not to damage Anti-Matter.
Once 6 terminals have been powered up, the reactor is shut down and you'll move east/southeast to the bunkers near the next reactor.
Phase IV: Stabilize Reactor Infinity
- Objectives: Power up 6 Terminals, Recover 18 Power Cells
- Time to complete: 20 minutes
- Merit Rewards: 1 Astral Merit (from phase completion)
For the 3rd reactor, the Power Cells are collected by clicking on the crates/glowies hidden inside the bunkers. There are three bunkers (Boson, Fermion, and Lepton), each containing 3 crates. Each crate will give 2 Power Cells. There are three doors on each bunker, but for a normal run of the trial you will only need to destroy one door to get inside and collect the Power Cells.
You will need to power up 6 terminals for the Infinity Reactor, but this time you need to clear away the Warworks from the terminals (pulling works best) for any Power Cells to be used AND you will need Anti-Matter near the terminals when the first Power Cell is used. Like with the previous two reactors, you can avoid wasting Power Cells by focusing on the 2nd and 3rd floors since there are only a total of 6 terminals between the two. You can prime the terminals for this reactor the same way as was described for the second reactor.
You can control when Anti-Matter arrives to the reactor by limiting the number of Power Cells that have been collected and controlling how many are used on a terminal. As soon as 10 Power Cells (5 crates/glowies) are collected or one terminal has been completely powered up, Anti-Matter's 90 second timer begins. It helps to have one person collect all the Power Cells from the the first bunker, then have everyone head to the reactor to clear Warworks and get 6 terminals primed, and then have the league collect the remaining Power Cells needed to shut down the reactor.
Once again, if your league has someone assigned to keep Anti-Matter away from the rest of the league, they will want to make sure they are in position in time for his arrival. He'll appear on the west side of the 1st floor on the reactor. Players with pets/AoE's will again want to be careful not to damage Anti-Matter.
Once 6 terminals have been powered up, the final reactor is shut down and you'll head west to the Truck Depot. At this time the Anti-Matter Pulse is disabled for the remainder of the trial.
Phase V: Defeat Anti-Matter
- Objective: Defeat Anti-Matter
- Time to complete: 12 minutes
- Merit Rewards: 2 Empyrean Merits, 5 Astral Merits
- Trial completion (2 Empyrean Merits for the first completion in 20 hours, additional completions within 20 hours award 2 Astral Merits)
- Open league (Astral Merit)
- Qualifying for Anti-Anti-Matter (Astral Merit)
- Qualifying for Bunker Buster (Astral Merit)
- Qualifying for Avoids the Green Stuff (Astral Merit)
- Qualifying for Loves A Challenge (Astral Merit)
Now that all three reactors have been shut down it is time to defeat Anti-Matter. Any damage that has been done to Anti-Matter from the previous phases has been healed back at this time. There are several special attacks that Anti-Matter uses during this stage that you should be aware of.
Disintegration:
This is the most potent of Anti-Matter's attacks. It is a single target attack that does increasing damage to the targeted player. If you are hit by this you'll see a small green bubble appear around your character. When you are disintegrating you'll take damage at 4 intervals over the next 20 seconds. The first part hits for 20% damage 2 seconds after being disintegrated. The second part hits for 40% damage 6 seconds later. The third part hits for 60% damage 6 seconds later. The fourth and final part hits for 80% damage another 6 seconds later. If you have survived all 4 hits from Disintegration, half of your endurance is drained. If you die while disintegrating, Anti-Matter will heal back 20% of his life. However, if that death was while time was frozen, Anti-Matter will not heal.
Most groups will instruct players that are disintegrating to type in league chat that they are disintegrating (a bind/macro works too) to let healers know to focus heals on you. In addition to that there are a two simple rules to follow to survive disintegration. First, break aggro from Anti-Matter. You've got enough damage heading your way without having to worry about attacks from him. Do not flee the scene though. Remember, you probably have people trying to find you to help keep you healed. Second, carry enough healing inspirations to use. If you keep your health bar above 80%, you'll survive. Don't depend solely on others to keep you healed through this, because there may not be anyone that can heal you. It's best to be responsible for your own character staying alive.
If you are on a character that can help heal the players that are disintegrating, be on the lookout for those green bubbles or players that are asking for help in chat. The green bubbles are relatively easy to see, especially if your view is zoomed out. If you can't see the green bubbles or players are not using the chat to call for help you can try to use the health bars in the league window to see if there is anyone that needs help.
Obliteration Beam:
The Obliteration Beam fires off every 30 seconds during the final phase of the trial. The beam is a location based AoE that picks its spot by targeting one of the players on the trial. Once a player has been targeted, a large circular green field will appear where the player was targeted. Everyone in the league should quickly move out of the green area, staying out of it until the beam has been fired and the green spot disappears. There are two pulses from the beam. The first pulse is a 10,000 mag hold that lasts for 10 seconds. The second pulse will deal about 25-45% damage to your character (20% of it is resistable energy damage). If you are still alive after being hit by the second pulse, you will be stunned for a few seconds.
If you are having a hard time seeing the Obliteration Beam, try zooming out your view. Also, characters with flight should stay very low to the ground if using flight/hover/etc because if the beam targets them while they are up in the air, it makes it difficult for players fighting on the ground to see it (see the picture to the right). The beam will hold/damage you regardless of whether you are above or below it.
Here's an example of how to react to the Obliteration Beam once it has targeted someone. In the pictures directly below (you may need to click on them to see them larger and more clearly), Wei Tan Tan has been targeted by the Obliteration Beam. In the next shot, you can see that he has moved to the right (he's the one in the white barrier), out of the green area. Moments later, the beam is fired.
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Alpha & Beta Entanglements:
Entanglements are also cast on the league every 30 seconds (15 seconds after the Obliteration beam is fired). The Alpha Entanglement appears as a red bubble around your character and the Beta Entanglement appears as a blue bubble around your character. While entangled, if a player of the opposite entanglement is within 15 feet of you, you will both suffer minor damage. This is a relatively weak attack, but if you are in a crowd of the opposite entanglement it can add up quickly.
Molecular Stop (a.k.a. Time Freeze):
Anti-Matter will freeze time the first time his health falls to or below 80%, 50%, and 20%. This is a 10,000 mag hold and will last until Anti-Matter has reached his regeneration station. Please note that the Obliteration Beam and Disintegration still work while time is frozen, but that if you are defeated by disintegration while time is still frozen, Anti-Matter will not heal from it.
Fighting Anti-Matter
Anti-Matter will appear just to the east of the truck. The league should try to move him to his first regen station before he is dropped to 80% health. Doing this will shorten the length of the time freeze because he has less distance to cover in getting to the station. Once Anti-Matter hits the 80% health mark, he'll freeze time and begin to head to his regen station to heal up. At this time, Anti-Matter is no longer targetable.
Once Anti-Matter has made it to the regen station, time is unfrozen and you'll need to destroy the 4 Drawdown Terminals at the base of the station. Once all 4 terminals have been destroyed (or if Anti-Matter heals to 100%), Anti-Matter will stop regenerating and he will be able to be attacked again. At this time you should try to bring him close to the second regen station which is located directly southeast of the first one. At 50% health, Anti-Matter will again freeze time and hook up to his station to heal. Destroy the terminals again to break off his regeneration before he is fully healed and resume the attack on him. The third and final regen station is directly to the west. Pull Anti-Matter close to it. At 20% health, he'll freeze time for the final time and hook up to the station to heal again. Once again, quickly destroy the terminals to stop his regeneration and resume attacking him one last time.
Remember that for every person that dies from disintegration that Anti-Matter will heal back 20% of his health. It helps to remind players to stock up on healing inspirations and to call out if they are disintegrating.
Upon completion of the trial you will be awarded the Keyes Technician badge and receive your reward pool window.
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Keyes Technician You have completed the Incarnate Trial: Keyes Island Reactor. |
Master of Keyes Island Reactor
The Master of Keyes Island Reactor badge can be earned in one attempt of the trial, but usually it will take a few attempts because some of these badges (Avoids the Green Stuff, Loves A Challenge) are difficult to earn.
It's best to selectively recruit members when planning a Masters run of the Keyes Island Reactor Trial. The two things to look for here are players that are experienced with the trial and have most if not all of their incarnate abilities unlocked and slotted. These players also need to be able to pay close attention to what is happening during the trial, particularly the final showdown with Anti-Matter.
The four badges needed to earn Master of Keyes Island Reactor are:
Anti-Anti-Matter
The first of the badges, Anti-Anti-Matter, requires you to drop Anti-Matter to below 10% health during the first reactor and be able to still complete the trial. This means your league will endure the full force of the Anti-Matter Pulse while you are shutting down the reactors. It also means that you have less than 10% health left on Anti-Matter before the trial will fail if you continue to harm him before the final phase. The best plan to earn this badge is to go about the first reactor as normal, but stop powering up terminals after the 5th one. At that time, everyone should focus their attention to Anti-Matter and begin attacking him. At around 20% you'll want the players with pets to either back out of the fight (taking their pets with them) or release their pets. The rest of the players will continue to work him down further. When he gets to around 12% health left, it's a good idea to only have a few players keep attacking him so you don't end up taking him down much further than 10%. As soon as you see the 9% on the event window for his health bar, stop attacking and finish powering up the 6th terminal for the first reactor. For the second and third reactors, if you can get all the terminals primed before Anti-Matter arrives, it will help decrease the chance that he will be harmed by stray attacks. If players cannot control their pets so that they stay away from Anti-Matter, they should release them and not summon them again until the third reactor has been shut down. If you can manage this, you'll be awarded the badge once the trial has been completed.
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Anti-Anti-Matter You didn't defeat Anti-Matter when you weren't supposed to during the Keyes Island Reactor, but you came really close and still toughed it out. |
Bunker Buster
On the surface, Bunker Buster seems like a very easy badge to get. It is, but only if everyone on your league can be patient and attack using a certain amount of precision. All it takes is one person to slip up for a few seconds to disqualify the league from getting this badge. To earn this badge you need to destroy all 3 doors on a bunker within a 3 second window for each of the bunkers. This does not mean you need to destroy nine doors in 3 seconds. You can and should focus on each bunker individually. The leader should be directing when people start and stop attacking until all bunkers have had their doors destroyed. Divide the league evenly into 3 groups, each group being assigned a door on the bunker. The leader will direct everyone to take down the doors to about 20% and then have everyone halt. 1 or 2 people (picked by the leader) will then take the doors down to a little under 10%. Once the leader is satisfied that all three doors are evened out, they will direct everyone to resume fire on them. All 3 doors should be defeated within the 3 second window. Finish the Warworks that are inside the bunker, but do not grab the glowies inside it. If Anti-Matter arrives before you've opened all the doors, this will get quite a bit harder. Repeat the above steps for the second and third bunkers. If all three bunkers go off without a hitch, you'll qualify for the badge. Keep in mind the badge is not awarded until after the trial has been completed.
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Bunker Buster Your league's coordinated strike blew the hinges off multiple bunker doors at once during your fight at Keyes Island Reactor. |
Avoids the Green Stuff
To earn the Avoids the Green Stuff badge, no one can be caught in the Obliteration Beam during the final phase of the trial. If you watch the event window, the timer for when the Obliteration Beam will be fired next can be used to help plan when you need to be looking for the green location AoE. It is very helpful to get your league on a voice server (eg. Ventrillo/Skype/etc) while working on this badge. That way one person can be responsible for warning the league when the beam is 5 seconds away from being fired. Everyone will have time to finish any queued attacks, be ready to look for the green spot, and quickly move out of it. Unless you want to just hope things work out with the timing if the Obliteration Beam is fired while time is frozen, it's a good idea to back off from attacking Anti-Matter if he's approaching the 80%/50%/20% threshold so that players aren't caught in the beam while they can't move. So, if Anti-Matter is at 83% health 5 seconds before the Obliteration Beam is about to fire, you'll want to have players stop attacking until the beam is done firing. Once you are no longer in danger of being caught in the beam, resume attacking. Even though it doesn't matter if pets are caught the beam with regard to getting the badge, it's best to not use them until after the final time freeze. It's difficult enough to get everyone to stop attacking Anti-Matter in time without also having to worry about pets accidentally damaging Anti-Matter too much and triggering the time freeze right before the Obliteration Beam is about to be fired. In addition, it's helpful to use a color schemes on incarnate buffs that don't make it hard to see where the Obliteration Beam is being fired. Zooming out will help with spotting the beam too.
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Avoids the Green Stuff You defeated Anti-Matter at the Keyes Island Reactor without letting a member of your league get caught in an Obliteration Beam. |
Loves A Challenge
Loves A Challenge is the final badge needed for Master of Keyes Island Reactor. To earn this badge no terminals can be destroyed while Anti-Matter is regenerating and no one can die during the final phase of the trial. It is very important that players understand how Disintegration works and how to stay alive throughout it. When trying for this badge there should be at least 1 to 2 players on the league that are constantly ready to heal players that are taking damage. If you are using pets while attempting to earn this badge, you need to make sure that they are not damaging the terminals while you are waiting for Anti-Matter to be fully regenerated. You'll need to let him heal all the way after each time freeze. If you manage to keep all members of the league alive and haven't destroyed any terminals, your league will earn the badge once Anti-Matter has been defeated.
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Loves A Challenge You successfully faced down Anti-Matter without losing anyone during the fight or destroying his regenerative terminal links during Keyes Island Reactor. |
When you have collected all four badges, you will earn the Master of Keyes Island Reactor badge and be awarded a random rare incarnate component.
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Master of Keyes Island Reactor You have mastered the Incarnate Trial: Keyes Island Reactor. |
Notes, Tips, & Strategy
- Tips for Leaders
- Communicate clearly how you wish the trial to be run. Call out assignments ahead of time. Remind them again right before the moment arrives.
- Find out if there are any players on your league that are new or inexperienced with the trial. Explain to them the basics of the reactors/terminals/priming/power cells, the Anti-Matter Pulse, Obliteration Beam, Time Freeze, and Disintegration. If you are busy (understandably) with trying to recruit, lead, or communicate your plan of attack, ask an experienced player if they can mentor a player that is new to the trial. The more knowledgeable players are about the trial, the better it will go.
- If you are leading a group that is light on level shifts, don't necessarily expect that things will run as smoothly as they would with a stronger league.
- Priming the Reactor Terminals
- Before you use a Power Cell on a terminal, check to see if it has already been primed. If it has move to another terminal until 6 terminals have been primed.
- Pulling Warworks away from the terminals works much quicker than killing them.
- Disintegration
- If you are setting up a bind to let the league know you're disintegrating, include which team you are on. It is a big help to the healers when they are trying to find you.
- Healers should consider setting a key to "Face Target" to help find players in need of healing. This can be set by going to Options > Keymapping > View > Face Target.
