If you’ve spent any time in the Shadow Shard (Firebase Zulu) fighting against the Soliers of Rularuu, you know what a Netterling is. These are annoying little flying turds who try to ruin your day by pelting you with purple blobs of goo. They are not so bad by themselves, but if there are two or more of them gathered in one place, then you could be in for some trouble.

Netterlings are nasty little critters, and when the going gets tough, they get going, so plan on having to chase them down from time to time. If they start to feel threatened and there is another Netterling around, they will flee to this other Netterling and combine with it to form a Bull Netterling. The Bull Netterling is bigger, meaner, and more annoying than the Netterlings that made it, and it will con a level higher than they were (two red-con Netterlings will make a nice, fat purple Bull Netterling). Bull Netterlings have a hold attack that traps your arms in what appears to be a purple tire tube if you don’t have protection from status attacks.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the shard with my Energy/Energy Blaster and my Dark Melee/Regeneration Scrapper, so here is my advice for dealing with Netterlings from those two perspectives.

Blaster

When you see a bunch of Netterlings gathered together, be sure to scan for any Bulls already in the bunch. You need to remove them as quickly as possible before they can put a hold on you. Likewise, when you go after the Netterlings themselves, make sure you defeat them before they can run off and join with another Netterling.

Scrapper

Since a regen Scrapper is immune to status effects with Integration, you can play the Netterlings a little differently. In this case, you actually [i]want[/i] them to combine. When you con a group that has two or more Netterlings in it, run up and punch one in the face, then turn around an punch the other one. Keep punching until one of them is low enough that it goes to combine with its brethren. When the Bull Netterling comes into being, the two Netterlings that spawned it are destroyed, but since you punched them both, you get experience points for each of them, and two possible inspiration or enhancement drops. As icing on the cake, you now have a higher level Bull Netterling to pound into submission. Without their hold power, they don’t pose much of a threat at all, and you get experience points for three kills instead of two.

Netterlings by themselves don’t pose much of threat, so you can leave them for last when you’re fighting a big group of Rularuu. A Netterling will never combine with another Netterling from another group, but he will try to run away if he’s badly hurt. The big trick is to con the groups correctly. If two groups are near each other and con the same color, you might think two Netterlings are together and try force them to combine, but they won’t do it. Likewise, if you’re trying to pick them off cleanly and your AoE attack damages one from another group without killing it, it may go off and combine without you knowing it until the spare tire gets thrown around your shoulders.

When my blaster hit level 41, I looked at the available powers and decided I didn’t like any of them, and that I would wait for Issue 3 to come out and the new Epic Power Pools.

This from the official City of Heroes web site:

Blasters:

Blasters can choose from four new Epic Power Pools, with an eye towards defense and control. Cold Mastery has such powers as Flash Freeze. Force Mastery gives access to Personal Force Field and Repulsion Field. Flame Mastery has Fire Shield, and ultimately Rise of the Phoenix. Finally, Munitions Mastery is an all “new” power, which includes Body Armor and a Sleep Grenade.

Well, Issue 3 came out this week, so I went and trained up. I settled on the new Power Pool, Munitions Mastery, choosing Body Armor as my first pool power. This appeared to be the best power set for a blaster, at least with my play style. Body Armor gets me an additional measure of defense and, even with only one slot, seems to have made a big difference in the amount of damage that my hero takes. At 42 I plan to drop a few more slots on it and go wild with level 45 Single Origin Enhancements. Munitions Mastery also includes another sniper shot. I tend to live and die by the sniper shot, so if I have two sniper weapons at my disposal it should be pretty nice. I have a recharge enhancement on my current sniper gun (even with Hasten) so it pops pretty fast, but I could swap that out for an additional damage enhancement if I can queue one snipe after another.

I posted earlier about how you can use the window ledges on the building walls to keep yourself safe from stunners and mezzers when fighting Rikti. I found a good spot for doing the same trick when you’re on a sewer map.

Before tangling with a Mentalist (or a Headman Gunner, or anyone else who can stun you), scope things out for a vertical pipe that doesn’t run all the way to the ceiling. Fly up and hover just above it. Now if you get stunned or mezzed, you’ll fall on the pipe, out of reach of any nefarious villains. Notice in this picture that, while I’m getting some much needed rest, the Vicious Rikti Monkeys are unable to disturb my slumber.

The technique was working well… I was duking it out with a Mentalist who kept chain-holding me, but every once in a while I would get a shot off when he missed. I had him on the ropes, but then a patrolling drone (you can see him cruising by in the background) came by and nailed me while I slept, so check for patrols before you try this at home.

This is really so obvious that it hardly needs mentioning, but it’s surprising how often I forget to do it, so I’m posting it anyway.

Once you get over the issue of debt (debt doesn’t take all that long to work off, you can still level in debt, and debt lets you earn more influence to keep your enhancements green when you hit the next level), you start to figure out that it’s okay to tangle with a tougher than normal boss at the tail end of a mission. If you get defeated, the mission experience will immediately start to offset the debt, and if you don’t get defeated then you’ll be that much closer to level, so it’s not a bad gamble.

Here’s what to do so you don’t screw up.

First, make sure you have a revive inspiration of some sort in your inventory.

Now, engage the boss. I don’t care what you hit him with, but do something to aggravate him. Alpha strike is a good idea, but piss him off.

Next, run away.

This is the key. This boss might take you down, but you should have (hopefully) weakened him considerably in the process. If you can wade right back in, odds are good you’ll take him down while his hit points are reduced.

The mistake is fighting him on his own turf, getting defeated, and then laying at his feet, unable to rez without getting defeated again while you’re woozy. If you run off, the boss will follow you to finish the fight. If you get defeated, he’ll wander back to his starting place, leaving you room to rez and then tangle with him again.

If you fall too close and have to go to the hospital, the boss can do a lot of healing while you’re hoofing it back to the mission map. Be sure to drag him off home base, just in case.

On a recent Rikti outdoor mission, I discovered some good ways to hunt Rikti (or any bad guy that tends to sleep, hold, or stun you) if you have some good long range attacks. The worst thing about getting stunned, slept, or held is the melee damage you take when you can’t move, especially from big Rikti blades.

In a city zone, there are a couple of places you can perch where the bad guys cannot reach you. If there are telephone wires running through the zone, try standing or hovering over the wires before you snipe. Now if you get stunned, you’ll land on the wires. For some reason the Rikti will not jump up on the wires to hit you. You can still take damage from ranged attacks, but if you can weather those you’ll get another shot. Trade snipes with a Headman Gunner and you’re probably going to win.

The other place to hang out is on a window ledge or air conditioning unit on the side of a building. Again, just stand on it or hover right above it. If you get knocked down, you’ll fall on the ledge, not on the ground where the melee fighters can hit you. Enemies won’t climb the wires and won’t climb the buildings to reach you… they’ll only use the fire escapes, so don’t stand too close to those.

This works great against Headman and Headman Gunners, but I have not tried it against Chief Mentalists. Mentalists can keep you asleep for a long time, so be careful that there aren’t too many other ranged damage dealers nearby before you start unless you’re pretty sure you can take the Mentalist down in 1 or 2 shots.