Counterpoint Walkthru

From this past week, I've found that the easiest place to get Terran marks is in the new space queue, Counterpoint. I put together a little walkthru as people come to play S11 this weekend (I'll be updating this in the future as the strategy develops).

Part 1

Required Objectives:

• Clear the ships (Normal, Advanced, Elite)
• Keep ds9 above 50% (Elite)

Optional Objectives:

• Keep DS9 above 75% (Normal, Advanced)

Strategy

Fly to DS9 and kill all the Terran ships. Don't worry about healing DS9 because it's pretty solid.


Part 2

Required Objectives:

• Close 5 portals (Elite)

Optional objectives:

• Keep DS9 above 75% (Normal, Advanced, Elite)
• Close 5 portals (Normal, Advanced)
• Bonus: close additional portals (Normal, Advanced)

Strategy

There are portals that spawn several dozen kilometers from DS9 along with a few Terran ships. 2 or 3 players should go to these (they are marked on your map in white) to clear the Terran ships and close the portals, while the others stay and defend DS9. There are only 2 rifts open at a time, so everyone scrambling to the portals isn't efficient.

Taking damage stops the portal-closing process, so that's why we clear the ships first.


Part 3

Required Objectives:

• 15 Assault teams landed (Elite)

Optional Objectives:

• Assault teams landed [just a counter] (Normal, Advanced)
• Bonus assault teams landed [counter] (Elite)
• Get Terok Nor's average health to below 50% (Normal, Advanced, Elite)
• Keep DS9's average health above 50% (Normal, Advanced, Elite)

Strategy

This phase can be tricky because there's a lot going on. But you can do it in 2 easy steps:

a) Everyone go to Terok Nor and pew pew it down to 35-40%. Then stop shooting! This way you don't trigger its self-heals.

b) Now ferry assault teams from DS9 to Terok Nor. Don't shoot at Terok Nor, and you don't really need to fire at the ships that are attacking DS9 because they're pretty weak (the worst I've seen in a pug is DS9 getting down to 94% average health).

You can do stuff while transporting, so use heals and Tactical Teams to keep your health up (your shields go down or transport), and use Attack Pattern Omega, Evasive Maneuvers, and Emergency Power to Weapons to keep moving. You don't need to stay close to either station while the transport process is occurring.

[update: running this queue this weekend on normal and advanced makes me wonder if this is all necessary, if it's not more efficient to just transport troops and shoot at TN when you're near it. On elite, though, I think it still makes sense.]


Phase 4

Optional Objective:

• Defeat reinforcement groups in 3 minutes (Normal, Advanced, Elite)

Strategy

Pew pew pew! Take that, Admiral Leeta of the ISS Enterprise!

It's over!

Quote by alex284

From this past week, I've found that the easiest place to get Terran marks is in the new space queue, Counterpoint.

So, the qualifying question to this is - how much of that is due to the Badlands Battlezone:

1) Being rampant with lag (at least until Thursday's patch)?

2) Other players not yet being familiar with BZ mechanics and objectives?

(Also, excellent guide here)

I haven't had much lag on the Badlands BZ, and even last night I noticed an improvement on people completing the objectives efficiently (maybe I just had a good instance).

CPE gives 72 marks with all the optionals. The BZ gives 8 per area plus some at the end, and it takes longer than a round of CPE. I haven't actually done the math; that statement was based on how it has felt this past week.

And thanks!

Alex, this guide is awesome, thank you! :woohoo:


@Sej:


To 1.: CP (for me) isn´t more laggy than GGA, when all the fancy abilities (including the Iconian´s stuff) are used, which create colors on my screen I´ve never seen before. CP is actually very playable.

The BZ lags more (for me), based on the number of ships and yeah, the fancy abities from the fancy T6-ships...


To 2.: As Alex already said, CP is more rewarding and faster than the BZ. Also, CP has a big advantage: teamchat! Forget the chat in the BZ, people won´t read it anyway.

We´re trying to do many premade games as possible for fleeties, to teach them the stuff.

´drea :)

Amazing Guide Alexander!! Thank you

Thank you for this.. it cleared a lot of things up.

I was told to ignore Terok Nor .. then by another person to fire at it etc etc.. and other contradictions.. so thanks for this guide!

Great job on these PVE guides Combat Ops Team!

Quote by alex284

Pew pew pew! Take that, Admiral Leeta of the ISS Enterprise!

It's over!

I think there's only one thing I can say to commend you creating a quality walkth....face the wrath of THE TERRAN EMPIRE!

Quote by alex284

[update: running this queue this weekend on normal and advanced makes me wonder if this is all necessary, if it's not more efficient to just transport troops and shoot at TN when you're near it. On elite, though, I think it still makes sense.]

Based on the normals I did, this seems the most efficient. The only problem I still see is that people just shoot the station and don't move troops ever. :/

One thing to keep in mind- BZ is good for Inducers, so doing both has advantages. Speaking of, has anyone else gotten the bug in the BZ where the Leeta cinematic keeps playing repeatedly in each and every phase?

Quote by Junawanu

...
Speaking of, has anyone else gotten the bug in the BZ where the Leeta cinematic keeps playing repeatedly in each and every phase?

Yes. :evil: !

Quote by alex284

[update: running this queue this weekend on normal and advanced makes me wonder if this is all necessary, if it's not more efficient to just transport troops and shoot at TN when you're near it. On elite, though, I think it still makes sense.]

It's been seeming like it's simply not possible to rely on pugs and randos in the public queues to really fathom anything but the most rudimentary strategy or mechanic that doesn't involve flying around in teenie little circles and rainbow FaWing everything in sight.

So, yeah - just shuttling assault teams back and forth between DS9 and Terok Nor seems to be preferable to the hairpulling facepalm frustration of coordinating advanced tactics with pugs.

...or expecting a basic level of literacy from them.

After a few pugs this past week I'm reconsidering my glee over CP as the best way to get terran marks. Yeah, running CPE with the 30K channel is pretty efficient, but that's not what everyone's going to do and it's not even what I do all the time.

Obviously, this calls for someone to time CPA in a pug and do a run-through of the BZ so we can figure out which is the best way to get marks. And the BZ has the advantage of lending itself to grinds - no 30-min cd.

@junawanu: Yea, everyone's getting that. If you look at zone chat in the BZ (make sure you wash your eyes with bleach after doing so), you can see that everyone in the BZ gets that cut scene at the same time. You can esc out of it and I'm hoping it's going to be fixed this Thursday.