BarracudaAll missions apart from mission 4 will be accessed via the helicopter on the north beach of Grandville's south island. Mission 4 is accessed via the portal inside the main Arachnos building in Grandville. Several portions will require the party leader to go and talk to someone, but the rest of the group can stay by the helicopter/go to the portal as is applicable, and simply teleport the team lead when it is time. Unless you are feeling particularly villainous then you can make them walk. An ideal team composition would be tank, damage/debuffs, healer, and a controller/dom. In order to defeat Reichsman a defender/guardian/mastermind must be on the team. More Power info at the bottom of the guide.
Mission 1: Things Thought ForgottenThe first mission starts in the Southwest corner of the map with the team looking towards the south of the Atlas statue plaza. The objective here is to enter city hall so it is easiest to move straight forward then turn towards the statue, go up and over the platform it stands on then straight up the stairs to the door. Engage mobs as you find them but like all SMo content try to engage them one at a time, and as you will be facing PPD mobs there WILL be resurrecting bosses, so be sure to deal with them before moving on to the next mob to avoid any unpleasant surprises for the squishies in the back. Also be careful when pulling mobs around the entrance to city hall as poor positioning can easily pull in extra mobs creating problems for the team.
Once inside city hall you will want to go immediately to the right and down the stairs, be careful as there are multiple mobs in close proximity here so chaining them is possible, especially with the mob hiding out in the MAGI section. You will be heading to a non-descript door in the back of the GIFT room, making sure the team is together and ready before going through as it leads to a tight corridor with multiple mobs.
Once the mobs in the corridor are dealt with, get everyone together again and proceed through the next door into the Hero 1 memorial, this room can be painful for squishier groups as it contains an Elite Boss: Holoman, and multiple mobs packed together making separating them tricky. Also, three ambushes will spawn in the room with no set location, so there is a chance of them appearing on top of the squishier party members.
Once all ambush waves have been dealt with, interact with the glowy in the centre and then proceed to the exit to city hall, the journey to the exit will be trouble free as no mobs respawn inside the building. Ms Liberty and her goon squad will be waiting at the base of the stairs outside of city hall, so have everyone together and ready by the door before exiting, and be careful not to spread out outside and risk attracting mobs.
Once Ms Liberty is defeated you can safely retrace your steps and exit via the helicopter.
Mission 2: Wrong Place, Reichs TimeMission two begins inside of a typical Freedom Phalanx base with an NPC waiting through the first door. Herr Muller will engage in dialogue then begin to follow you, the first move will be through the doors to your immediate left, but BE WARNED, once Muller moves towards the doors an ambush will spawn along the corridor behind where he started. Deal with them before progressing onwards.
The base is fairly easy to handle, just take mobs one at a time while watching out for the occasional resurrecting Spines/Regen Scrapper longbow boss.
On the third level of the base the endpoint will be a room which has several tightly packed mobs and the Hero 'Numina', the best way to approach the room is to have the tank pull mobs and then hide behind the door frame to pull them away from each other a little. When engaging Numina the group should take care to stay away from her if they are squishy as she possesses a highly potent PbAoE psychic wail (good time for Elusive Mind).
Once the room is cleared and Numina is down, bring Muller to the console in the centre and prepare for inevitable Nazi betrayal.
In the second section of mission 2 you will be trapped in cells inside of a 5th Column cave base. Have everyone break free of their captivity and regroup outside of the cellblock.
The path is easy to follow, simply take every left, be extremely careful when moving into larger caves as enemies can and will aggro from high catwalks that you might move under or next to.
Care should be taken when moving into larger rooms as several higher levels can contain mobs that will aggro behind you and attack your vulnerable nether regions.
The final boss is the Arch Villain "Schadenfreude".
Mission 3: Foil the 5th Column in BoomtownMission 3 is fairly simple on the face of it, but can easily become the first failure point of the SMo. The area is wide open with 5th Column units, after killing two mobs an ambush will spawn (CAUTION: Ambush waves can be delayed!), then another after two more mobs are killed (not including the previous ambush), this is the point where preparations need to be made.
In place of a third ambush Reichsman will appear, in this mission he is completely invulnerable and can easily wipe the party, the objective is not to defeat him, instead when he appears you need to exit the map and wait, the mission will complete then proceed onto the next mission, the problems here arises with the exit door, the helicopter's door is notorious for being difficult to click and often only allows one person to exit at a time. To remedy this follow this tactic:
After the second ambush defeat one more group, engage a second group but leave one or two enemies alive, then everyone other than the tank should exit the mission via the door (villains and rogues can exit via Ouroboros portal, but Vigilantes using Ouro will be forced out of the Strike Force by the game so be careful!) The tank should then defeat the final enemies and exit the mission as soon as Reichsman appears, sometimes a third mob has to be engaged before Reichsman appears, but once he does simply bail and wait for the mission to complete.
Mission 4: Find the Source of Reichman's PowerMission 4 is very straightforward. You will enter into a city block on Axis Earth, simply fight your way straight forward towards a pit in the ground leading to a bunker door, the objective of gaining information from Axis troops will always require a mob that spawns around this pit, so feel free to ignore any mobs on the streets. Defeat mobs around/in the pit one at a time until you obtain the information, then enter the bunker.
Inside the bunker things are still pretty standard but be careful in the close confines of the tunnels as Axis grenade and missile troops can deal a lot of AoE damage in such tight confines.
Slaughter your way through the corridors making note of any out of place looking computer consoles, as once the boss in the base is defeated five consoles will become clickable, one of them is the right one, once clicked everyone is free to exit the mission.
Mission 5: Defeat ReichsmanHere it is, the dreaded final mission of Reichsman, this is where the most coordination is needed and where the importance of team makeup comes into play.
The team will enter on a high platform above a room, the room contains a mob with an AV, this mob can be completely bypassed, simply fly high and land on the far side of the room by some doors, or teleport your team down there.
Enter through the door on the far side of the room and fight your way through the corridors to the first junction.
The map is laid out as a rounded square loop with an extra loop attached on the north side and a big room in the center accessed from the top of the big loop. Your first objective will be to locate the four Arachnos patrons, they will spawn one at a time in one of three places: The South West corner where you first enter the loop, the northern smaller loop, and the South East inside of a smaller room off of the corner of the loop.
BE WARNED an ambush will spawn once you free each patron, this can come from any direction so navigate carefully so that no one gets sniped too far ahead of the group or lagging too far behind.
Each patron needs to be taken to the central room, specifically to the front of the machine with the large glowing upside down dome. When the patron is brought here they will become hostile and must be defeated,
BE WARNED any buffs applied to the team prior to the patron becoming hostile will affect the patron and remain in effect when they turn hostile, so avoid buffing the team either until the patron is made hostile, or have the group other than the escort assemble off to one side for buffs.
Black Scorpion is the least troublesome having only a lot of health and a taunt to his name. Cap'n Mako is fairly squishy but can unleash a few nasty cone attacks, so the tank should face him away from the group.
Scirocco can drain endurance, stun, and unleash dust devils which can deal some nasty damage to squishies, so ranged engagement is advised.
Ghost Widow is the trickiest of the patrons, she has a PbAoE draining heal, so the more people in melee the more she will heal. She has a high magnitude hold and is also capable of using Black Hole to isolate the tank and cause her aggro to recalculate onto other players.
BE WARNED prior to defeating the final patron make your preparations for the final fight as when the final patron is defeated a 1-2 minute timer will begin, at the end of which Reichsman will spawn. Every player should enter the machine in front of which they just fought, it will give each player a set of passive temp powers and one active temp power (this won't enter your bar automatically, so you will have to find it in the power menu), sometimes flying toons will have to toggle off flying inside the machine for it to work, and sometimes jumping around in it is required. In your chat window it should indicate when you get the various temp powers if you've not removed that from the tab.
Once you have your powers all players should retreat to the metal doorway at the entrance to the room, this is your safety marker, do not move further into the room than the door frame.
The tank will be engaging Reichsman at the bottom of the stairs at the end of the red carpet.
The final room explainedThe room is on two tiers, the upper tier is composed of the machine that empowers the team (and Reichsman), two sets of cloning vats on either side, and two rooms guarded by insta-kill laser grids. These two rooms are completely ignored for the tactic we will be using. The lower tier has another two sets of cloning vats, one on either side, and an ambush spawn point (unmarked) at the end of the red carpet. The main mistake groups make in this final fight is that they engage Reichsman as if burning him down before the group can be overwhelmed by the reinforcement waves is the objective, this simply cannot be done, Reichsman has a monstrous amount of health making even a well slotted group take 15 minutes of dedicated pummeling to bring him down, so instead we approach it differently. The waves are numerous but WILL run out, the tank should keep Reichsman's attention while grabbing the various reinforcement waves, the rest of the group should ignore Reichsman completely and concentrate on slaughtering the cloned troops. After roughly twenty minutes of fighting all waves apart from the one from the carpet will stop spawning, this final group WILL constantly appear but as it is just one group it is easy to handle alongside Reichsman.
The key to success with the reinforcements is control. Attract puddles, holds, immobilises, confuses, all these tools should be used to stop the press of bodies from over running the squishies.
The temp powers gained by Controllers/Dominators and Blasters/Corruptors can really make a difference here. Controllers/Dominators' power will hold all 5th Column mobs (other than Reichsman) in a wide area, then Blasters/Corruptors' power will unleash dust devils that deal extreme damage to any held mobs. Together these powers can obliterate the reinforcements.
The temp powers will eventually run out, this takes around twenty minutes, the time left can be seen by right clicking your temp power and looking at its info.
When they run out you will need to replenish them by reentering the machine. When doing this wait until he uses his lightning and stomp so you have enough time to get to the machine and back without running into them.
When the reinforcements have stopped coming (apart from the carpet group) you will be ready to take on Reichsman. Reichsman is potent but simple, his main threat comes from a combo of powers both of which have identical animations and very little telegraphing. He will briefly raise his right hand and strike with lightning, this will inflict a high magnitude stun on anyone in the AoE (It is highly recommended that Mez protection be stacked on the tank for this), he will then follow up with another raised hand and an extremely damaging AoE ground punch. If squishies get caught in the stun they are almost guaranteed to die to the follow up ground punch. If the tank holds Reichsman on the carpet then everyone else should be out of range of these powers if they remain behind the door frame.
After taking a certain amount of damage (roughly 75%, 50%, and 25%) Reichsman will begin to regenerate his health.
CAUTION: THIS PART IS BUGGYReichsman SHOULD teleport back to the machine for this part, then teleport back when he is done regenerating or forced out, but quite often he simply starts regenerating in place on the carpet. Look out for your damage numbers dropping to single digits, this will let you know when he has entered his regen cycle. This is the part where party makeup is most essential, to break Reichsman out of his regen you need the temp power given to Defenders, Masterminds, and Guardians. Once he begins to regenerate one of these archetypes will need to use their power forcing him into a vulnerable state again (if he retreats to the machine as he should, you may need to go into the room a little ways for it to work).
Other than this the fight is simply a case of hacking away at his horrific HP pool.
Once defeated, exit the mission but
DO NOT QUIT THE TEAM YET, the leader will have to go talk to Lord Recluse to finish off the taskforce and award the badges.
The Powers gained from the machine after defeating the Patron Archvillains.
- Power of Ghost Widow: +Res (End Drain) +Regen - Tankers, Brutes, Warshades, Peacebringers, Arachnos Soldiers & Widows
- Power of Scirocco: Special (Summons dust devils that do extreme damage to held enemies) - Blasters & Corruptors
- Power of Scirocco: Special (Very Wide PbAoE that holds all 5th column enemies) - Controllers & Dominators
- Power of Black Scorpion: Special (removes dimensional phasing from Reichman allowing him to regenerate) - Defenders, Guardians, & Masterminds
- Power of Captain Mako: Max Stealth (allows user to step through laser guarded doors to approach Fail Safe devices) - Scrappers & Stalkers
