Blaugust 2015, Day 25
We made it! This is the 7th and final shiphand mission. Get ready to be a reality tv star!
So many telegraphs, so little health.
What: Compete in a deadly reality show against your will and escape to tell the tale!
When: Available at level 40
Where: Malgrave
Gold Timers: Normal: None ; Vet: 20:00
Gracie’s Run Time: Normal: 11:59 ; Vet: 11:55
Shiphand Buddy Says: I hope you like dodging things, because this shiphand has an excess of dodging things! Once you speak to Pilot Taboro and start the mission you will be teleported to the chamber pictured in the screen shot above. There are a large number of telegraphs, but only the round ones move. You should be able to find safe spots and dodge them. If you are hit they only do modest damage, so you should be able to recover if you’re careful.
Through this whole mission you will need to be on the lookout for 10 golden skulls. There’s often one inside or on top of the shipping containers directly behind you when the mission begins. Skulls can spawn in any room in the instance, even the connecting hallways. They are frequently located in somewhat hidden places, such as inside containers, behind banners, or under the bleachers in the last room. Sometimes they are on the floor, but often they are floating in mid-air and require a little jumping to collect. Keep your eyes peeled!
To progress to the next section you’ll need to activate 3 control panels in order. From your starting position head to the room on your left first, then the right, and after that you’ll be able to activate the third panel in front of the exit. While you’re in the side rooms make sure to check for golden skulls along the walls, and on top of or behind the large pipes at the back of the rooms.
The gold skulls like to hide in front of these yellow lights above the doors. Tricky.
The next room has a swarm of angry bees, and three waves of small adds. Finish them quickly to minimize the damage you take. Be sure to look for skulls along the walls before you head out to the Chamber of Choices.
This, friends, is how you lose a gold medal.
The splorg gauntlet, how I hate thee. This room is where gold medals go to die. You will have to survive a swarm of explosive splorg for 2:00, and collect 20 plushies for “bonus points” while you do it. Getting too few plushies or dying to the splorg will cost you your gold medal. I try to run through the splorg to activate them away from the plushies. Once they start to detonate they stop moving and you should be able to dodge them. For me this objective is probably the most difficult in any of the shiphands. Movement abilities can help you escape the explosions, but if you are really struggling you can bring a friend to make things much easier. When you finish you can endorse a product and wave to your fans. After all that running around I feel like I could use a Protostar Fortified Whim-Beer myself.
Once you’ve survived the splorg, you can choose which challenge to tackle next, either the Charnel Chamber (east) or Faction Friction (west). Both small arenas have a single round of challengers for you to defeat. After completing the Faction Friction arena, make sure to continue through to check the small hallway behind it for skulls. On the eastern side, you can choose to participate in the dance off competition. It doesn’t affect your gold medal, but it is pretty fun! The eastern side also has some extra mobs that you need to kill to save other contestants from the Darkspur. Once all of that is completed you can progress to the final room.
“Brick” Braggor, the dude responsible for bringing you to this awful place. Punch him once for me.
Before you enter the circle in the final room, check if you are still missing any skulls. If you still need some, look around and underneath the bleachers. If you start the event before you get your skulls you will fail that objective. The Main Event consists of 4 waves in total, with a short break between each that should allow you to heal up if you need it. The first two waves are random teams of 2-3 enemies, the third wave will be a single mini-boss. After defeating all of them, “Brick” Braggor himself will challenge you. As you fight him, the other traps of the Gauntlet like electrical telegraphs and exploding splorg start appearing. Save your cooldowns for this guy, because the faster you can kill him the less time you will have to deal with these extra headaches. Once he’s dead you can finally escape this deathtrap!
Differences between normal and vet: On normal mode you don’t have to collect the plushies in the Chamber of Choices. You still have to survive exploding splorg for the same amount of time though. The other difference is that you don’t get to fight “Brick” Braggor at the end, there are just 3 rounds to the Main Event.
Other Thoughts: This is the only mission I can’t reliably get solo gold. The timer in the exploding splorg room is super tight and it is very easy to either not get enough points or just accidentally die in there. I had to run this one four times to make sure I got a gold medal and an accurate run time. If you really want that gold it is much easier if you bring a friend or two. As a bonus the run time was about a minute faster with a buddy to help!
That’s the last shiphand available to date. I hope you enjoyed these guides, and had fun running these missions with me!
