Cathedral of Pain Trial

Cathedral of Pain Trial
Contact	Oracle / Mission Computer
Zone	Supergroup Base
Minimum Size	players
Level Range	10-50
Badge	Pain Killer
Enemy Groups	Soldiers of Rularuu

Overview

The Cathedral of Pain Trial is a trial launched from a Supergroup base. The participants obtain a reward by completing it.

Requirements

Your Supergroup Base needs either an Oracle or Mission Computer and a Raid Telepad or Raid Teleportal in order to start the trial.

The Trial accommodates up to 24 players which can form three teams.

All players are sidekicked/lackeyed to 50 regardless of team leader levels.

Players who are defeated in any part of the trial are transported back to their own personal base hospital or to the hospital of the last zone they were in. Because of this, most raids begin in Pocket D so that participants who are guests of the base from which the raid is launched can get back quickly.

The Trial

Aspect of Rularuu and the Willforge

Beginning the Trial

After agreeing to attempt the trial from the Oracle or Mission Computer, a 60 minute timer starts. The teams have that long to complete the trial.

The Courtyard of Shadows

Inside the Courtyard of Shadows there are three beams shooting up into the air. Next to each beam emitter (called Psionic Resonators) there is a cube-like object (called a Willforge) floating in midair. It spawns large groups of Soldiers of Rularuu. In order to destroy the resonators, defeat all guardian Rularuu that are spawned. Once all the Rularuu are defeated, attack the resonator. It must be brought down very close to the same time with the other two resonators, which the other teams should be working on. Once you bring them all down, the door to the Cathedral of Pain opens.

Master of the Shards

After entering the room, characters can look upon an Aspect of Rularuu. He is surrounded by a shield similar to the ones around the Resonators. There are three more Willforges. The shield can be brought down using the same method previously used on the resonators. Once all the mobs are defeated, characters have about a minute to fight the Archvillain. He has good regeneration. Temporary powers such as Shivans, and other enemy debuffs can improve the chance to defeat the AV in one attempt. (Note: Warburg nukes cannot be used during this trial.) Once he is defeated, players can choose a reward of either a Temp Power and 11 Reward Merits, or a large number of Reward Merits. Each member also gets a huge end of mission bonus to compensate for not gaining any experience, INF, or drops in the mission.

Successful completion of the Cathedral of Pain Trial awards the Pain Killer badge.

Pain Killer You've completed the Cathedral of Pain and thwarted the Aspect of Rularuu's plans.

Players have the option to select a Penumbra of Rularuu Incarnate Component:

Penumbra of Rularuu The emanations from Rularuu's Willforges can channel Alpha Incarnate abilities which affect body and bone.

Alternately, players may select an Item of Power Buff as their reward, which will also reward them with the Power Liberator/Master Thief badge:

Power Liberator Your success at liberating items from trophy vaults has earned you the title of Liberator.

Master Thief There isn't a trophy vault made you can't steal from!

History

This section contains information about changes that took place in City of Heroes Freedom. It is provided for historical purposes.

The Cathedral of Pain Trial was originally made available in late September 2006 and was taken off of live servers around October 11, 2006 due to a game-breaking exploit that allowed characters to level from 1 to 50 within a matter of hours. The trial eventually returned in Issue 18, albeit without Items of Power as potential rewards.

Requirements

The Trial could only be attempted during a 7-day window within a 28-day period. After the 7 days, a 21 day raidable cycle began. (However, Base Raids were disabled in Issue 13.)

In order to take on this challenge, a supergroup was required to have a Base with the following items:

• 8 rooms
• 6 Dimensional Anchors
• Mission Computer or Oracle
• Raid Telepad or Raid Teleportal
• An Item of Power Base for the Item of Power

The Trial accommodated up to 24 players which could form three teams. All players were sidekicked/lackeyed to 50. Players who were defeated in any part of the trial were transported back to their base hospital.

If the supergroup already had an Item of Power, then the trial could not be repeated until room was made for an additional one.

Badges

It was expected that the trial would award a badge with this image:

For a brief time a progress bar appeared under Supergroup Badges with a counter for how many times the supergroup had successfully completed the trial. Unsuccessful attempts to complete the trial during the period when it was live in 2006 did count for progress on this badge.

The Trial

Beginning the Trial

After agreeing to attempt the trial from the Oracle or Mission Computer, a 60 minute timer started. The supergroup had that long to complete the trial.

The Courtyard of Shadows

There were three beams shooting up into the air. Next to each beam emitter (called Psionic Resonators) there was a cube-like object (called a Willforge) floating in midair. It spawned large groups of Soldiers of Rularuu. In order to destroy the resonators, all guardian Rularuu that spawned had to be defeated. Once all the Rularuu were defeated, the resonator had to be attacked. All three resonators had to be brought down at nearly the same time, with each of the three teams working on one. Once all three were down, the door to the Cathedral of Pain opened.

Master of the Shards

After entering the room, characters could look upon an Aspect of Rularuu. He was surrounded by a shield similar to the ones around the Resonators. There were three more Willforges. The shield could be brought down using the same method previously used on the resonators. Once all the mobs were defeated, characters had about a minute to fight the Archvillain, who had a high regeneration rate. Upon defeating the AV, the Supergroup received an Item of Power in their Vault, and each member received a huge end-of-mission bonus (as no bonus was otherwise received in the mission).

Original Version Exploit

The exploit that led to the original Trial's removal enabled any member of the SG running the trial to run a delivery mission or "fedex" type mission and upon clicking the end contact, the mission would not complete but the character and team would still receive the mission completion bonus. This resulted in several people clicking their way from level 1 to level 50 in a matter of hours, and also allowed the accumulation of large amounts of prestige and inf for various SGs and players.

External Links

• Knowledge Base Article
• Unofficial Cathedral of Pain Feedback thread on Official Forums
• Violators SG doing the Cathedral of Pain on YouTube
• The Elite Council of The Darque Mafia doing the Cathedral of Pain on YouTube