How to Fight Gravitar

This guide was written with the purpose of helping people that find the Rampage Alert: Gravitar, a frustrating and pointless effort. It can also aid those that have been at it since it was released in June, showing tips, killing myths and having fun. I also point out strategic locations for self healing and sniping. By the end of this guide I hope you end up having as much fun as I do running this alert, either for the precious Questionite, her valuable costume drops or just for a fun challenge.

The Guide is written with humor and as such don't take anything to heart if you've done one of the things that are frowned upon.

Introduction

Gravitar has been with us since late June 2012 if I remember correctly, and to this day many people haven't learned how she "works" which in turn gets other people killed. This alert has a level 35+ requirement for a reason, it is difficult and you have to be at your best to get it done.

I decided to make this guide to help people that want to farm her attire, questionite or just have fun with a challenging boss. If you have been playing Gravitar and think you're pretty good, that there's nothing this guide can teach you, then at least glimpse through it and if I missed anything feel free to let me know so I can add it.

This guide is mostly aimed at newcomers or frustrated players that keep dying and they don't even know what hit them. First thing you should know is Gravitar is relentless. There are times when she wants you dead and you WILL die. Whether that's a bug or good programming is not for debate. Thing is you should leave your ego behind you, arrogance gets you killed. Your build might be the greatest build in the world, but you should still block or you will faceplant more often and probably ragequit.

Spawn area and "Rushers"

The spawning point of this alert is also a locked out area. The portal in front of the heroes closes the moment the cutscene for the battle plays and doesn't open until the battle is over. It is very important to keep in mind several things:

1. There is a problem with incomplete teams (team with less than 5 people) If you are in a team when you queued for the alert and you have less than 5 people in your team, you will most likely get booted out of the alert when you enter, and so will your teammates.

2. Disband the team then queue separately, the game will do its own teaming.

3. Take a moment to count how many players are there with you. If you see less than 9, please try to wait a little longer.

4. If the loading screen lasts a bit too long for you, you might load in the lockout zone without the portal to join and you won't receive the rewards if she's beaten.

One thing you can do while waiting for others to load is look around you. What do you have at your disposal, do you have healers? do you have tanks? Lacking on either area means you're going to be in trouble one way or another so you need to play smarter if you're without support. Maybe you can even turn Zone Chat on JUST for the alert. Many of us turn zone off for many reasons, not getting into that here, but perhaps on a Rampage alert it is a tool worth using. Ask if people have the ability to revive fallen teammates, or offer your services as such. If you play these alerts often you'll start recognizing people and know who can do what and how reliable they are.


Rushers are people that go straight for Gravitar as soon as they load. That triggers the cutscene which in turn closes the portal for anyone that was still loading in. Those are frowned upon the most, they won't gain you any friends, in fact you might have to fight her alone.

The Map and how to use it

Once the fight starts there is one thing you should be very aware of, your surroundings of course. Knowing your build, the max distance of your attacks and if it can heal itself or not is crucial. So knowing the map and where to stand is a good thing. This isn't PvP, moving around like your pants are on fire won't help anyone. Pick an area you're comfortable with and try to stay there. Why would you need an area? simple, you sometimes need obstacles for cover while you heal. Another reason is to have a safe retreat zone nearby, as to why you need that will come later in the guide.

The fountain is the go to place for snipers, not for the cover which is so small it barely works, but because you don't get pulled in when Gravitar uses her gravitational well. More about Gravitar's powers later. The downside of the fountain is that you can get stuck when trying to outrun her attacks. So if you can take it as much as you can deal it, then by all means pick the fountain. But if you don't have the HP necessary to battle her as a range tank, then I suggest the other zones, mostly the debris areas based on your max range attacks. Archery builds can use these without a problem since most of their attacks are at 100ft. But if you depend too much on your energy builder you might want to pick one of the small cover areas.

The "Good Cover Areas" like the one marked in the screen are meant for people who don't have a healing power. You just go hide there until your health replenishes then come back to the fight. If you join with half your lifebar chances are you're going to faceplant before you even shoot your power. That causes problems for the healers who now have to risk their neck to revive you, possibly for the second, third or fourth time in a row since you couldn't think of healing first smart man. I've seen that so often and the healer usually gets clobbered too, unnecessarily. Don't take it personally if they leave you for dead just 'cause you didn't play right. Learn from your mistakes and don't repeat them.

Know your Role...

ROLES

Obviously Cryptic is trying to change a couple of things. For one they're doing things to make us team up, that's the whole basis of On Alert and I see this as something positive for the game. You may differ if you like but matter of fact, this is an MMO. Rampages not only make you fight as a group of 10 people but your Roles matter more than ever.

The Tank

Has to be the first to attack, and try as hard as possible to keep her interest through the whole fight.

Support

Remember when I said this isn't PvP you shouldn't be running around like your pants are on fire? well support toons will have to do just that. Throw an attack or two at Gravitar (only after the tank has her attention) then try to keep the tank alive. If there are other healers try to divide the effort, one keeps the tank going while the other(s) worries about the team. If there are people with the ability to revive other team members you may want to put a priority on them as they will share your burden, but the tank if available is the most important.

DPS

If you have minimal survivability you're going to faceplant often even if the tank does the job right. There's still those Force Cascades to worry about. So try to have a power that removes aggro from you and a heal or two if possible.

Archetypes

You are about to go through hell. If you're melee you're pretty much done for, you can't take on Gravitar and survive without a dedicated support. But if you want to land a couple of hits, do a hit and run, especially when she uses Gravity Well. Since she's pulling you in, running towards her makes you go faster, land a couple of hits and get out before she uses an attack on you.

Range Archetypes have a better chance but will have to take cover a lot to heal. Even with consumables the cooldown is too high to keep you going.

Seems basic and redundant doesn't it? You would be surprised how many healers try to DPS (a lot less in Gravitar than in regular alerts) instead of healing, or how the DPS starts smashing away before the tank, taking aggro and making it difficult for the tank to steal it until the DPS is just a paste of idiocy on the ground. Or in some cases, (also very often in smash alerts) you'll see the tank stand there like he has led underwear, waiting for others to start the fight.

Gravitar's Powers 3 Lifebars

Gravitar is mean and will keep you on your toes, even if you're experienced in this alert. Sometimes she breaks the game's programming... along with your neck.

• Force Detonation – Gravitar focuses briefly on a nearby point in space and then unleashes a torrent of force that heavily damages heroes in the area.
  
  
• Force Eruption – Gravitar blasts away nearby heroes with heavy damage.
  
  
• Gravity Cascade – Gravitar picks a random target and unleashes a chain of gravity pulses in a line towards her target. She does this up to 3 times in a row depending on her current health.
  
  
• Gravity Well – After losing enough health Gravitar will begin to create powerful Gravity Wells that pull all heroes toward her before blasting them away for massive damage.
  
  
• Gravity Bubble – Gravitar suspends heroes in an area in a bubble of gravitational energies and begins channeling a powerful gravity burst which will instantly kill heroes in the area.

Those are the terms and descriptions as shown in the website. We normally call her powers by our own power names and everything is a bubble (place live studio audience fake laugh here)

Before I talk more about her powers you should know she has 3 lifebars, the less lifebars she has remaning the more relentless she becomes. That's when she starts adding powers to her repertoire.

So I'm going to start with her most common attacks when she's at full health... well the most common attack people don't seem to understand.

The Blue Bubble

That attack is the easiest to avoid but people get scared and get other people into trouble. Since this is one of her default attacks, you can expect to see it throughout the match but there's a little variation to it when she drops to 1 lifebar. OK so at full health the only thing she can do if she catches you off guard with the target bubble (look closely at the screenshot) is trap you in one of these:

You'll be incapacited, unable to attack or block while you're in this state, Keep smashing Z to break free.

There's something important, in the first screenshot I marked two things you should keep an eye on, one is the bubble type and the other is the bar over Gravitar's head. That bar tells you when she's about to trap you. You should try to move away from the tanks if you're the target and the radious covers them too. However keep an eye out, if it's too crowded where you are just stand still and block so she can't trap you.

Force Detonation

This bubble just pops over you, no target on you so you won't drag it with you if you try to outrun the blast. However the time you have to outrun the blast is quite short. Better have amazing reflexes and a good travel power. I recommend blocking instead. Ranking your block power is not a bad idea if you plan to run this alert often.

Gravity Cascade

Just 'cause she isn't targeting you directly doesn't mean she can't or won't attack you. She spams Force Cascades to everyone, even if you're farther than 100ft. So it is best that if you're in danger (low health) you block and slowly move to a safe area as previously discussed.
She can do anything from a single Force Cascade to 5 in a row (the description says up to three but I've gotten 5 and so have a few others). As I said when she wants you dead chances are you will die. There are times when the knockback is so powerful that she will break your block, and it'll be disabled for a second. Keep that in mind, it's not your lack of skill so don't feel bad about faceplanting. Keep your eyes open, request a revive, don't rush the healers and it should be fine, you can still win this.

Force Eruption

Only the one being targeted should worry about this one. She will spam Force Geyser to the tank or whomever her target is. She has various combos with Force Geyser, one involves a Force Cascade as you land, the other is a Force Detonation. She has gone as far as using all 3 attacks in a devastating combo. You can block Force Geyser and there's a tell on when she will use it. She snaps her fingers just like we do when we use it. The most important thing here is, if you have a power that removes aggro (Evasive Maneuvers with Sleight of Mind advantage for example) this is why you have it. You're not the tank (if there's a tank build with Sleight of Mind it better be a trolling build) so you don't want to worry about bubbles, FCs and FGs to top it off. Again Gravitar's attacks are all knocks and by default knocks are meant to break through block, so be prepared to hit the floor hard... even when you have stacks of knock resistance (remember when I said she breaks the game's programming along with your neck)

Gravitar's Powers 2 Lifebars

Congratulations, you just chopped away one of her lifebars and probably broke her nails a couple of times. She only adds one attack during this phase, and that is:

Gravity Well

She pulls you in as near as possible and then uses a force detonation or a cascade... sometimes both. Depending on how you play I would not recommend the use of the energy builder while being dragged. Since you need to block fast you might still be attacking and get caught in the detonation. In fact, the best thing you can do for your sake and the healer's sanity is to run the opposite direction until it wears off.

This is why snipers like the fountain and the high debris areas. There are places where you can stand and you won't be dragged during this attack. Since the only thing it does is pull people in, you're free to attack her knowing she can't spam one of her deadly attacks your way. Careful though, it only takes a couple of seconds.

Gravitar's Powers 1 Lifebar and Reward

Again she only adds one power during this phase but unlike Gravity Well, this one adds a second phase to "The Blue Bubble" making it her toughest attack. I'm talking a 1 hit kill attack.

Again she first gets you in the blue bubble:

then after a second or two the bubble turns orange:

That's her dome of death. To avoid it you need to stop blocking right as her blue bubble fades and running as fast as you can away from her. Best if you have a rank 3 travel power that has no cooldown (if you have teleport and it's on cooldown you're screwed, just block and wait for revive)

She only uses this when she has 1 lifebar left, so you don't have to get scared of the blue bubble until then. And even then, please try not to drag the bubble on your team, especially not towards the tanks nor healers. As I said earlier in the guide, know your surroundings. If you were diligent with what I said at the start, of checking who is a healer and a tank, then this should be a piece of cake.

She does fake outs too so always be on your toes. She may target someone across from you but put the orange bubble on top of you.

REWARD

So finally you got her, you stopped her rampage. Did you get a drop? What, you don't know if you did?
I't's very easy to know if you got a costume drop from Gravitar or not


IT GLOWS... on top of her body.

Besides the low drop rate costume pieces you get Questionite as reward based on how often you've done the alert within 24hrs.

• 1500Q
  
• 1200Q
  
• 900Q
  
• 600Q
  
• 300Q

As you've probably noticed it drops 300Q from the reward each time you run it until all you get is 300Q. That is still a very good deal in my opinion for such a fun alert. They add up quickly.

Myths

1. DPS affect the drop rate

False, it is all random. Anyone that hits Gravitar during the fight has the same chance of getting a drop at the end as long as they're alive at the end.

2. You get Resources and Q reward while in the locked out area

Unconfirmed. I tried it a couple of times and I got nothing even when the team managed to beat her. If you're in the locked out area when she dies you may not get anything.

3. You have to be really close to her when she dies to get a drop

Again false, otherwise everybody would go in as a tank.

4. If you die it doesn't count your previous hits so you better hit her as soon as you get revived

False and idiotic. If you get revived by a non healer (meaning you didn't get your health back to full but you're on your feet just the same) take cover and heal before rejoining the fight. Your previous hits still matter.

Common Sense and final thoughts

COMMON SENSE

People seem to go through the portal and leave common sense behind. The one I see the most, if you see Gravitar bombarding a certain character with Force Cascades, DO NOT go near that character (unless you're support and even so keep at max distance) much less walk in front of it. I've seen so many faceplants when I have aggro from people walking in front of me.

Another important thing to never do is spam the help me button. That annoys the hell out of everyone and chances are you will be ignored. Also chatting in team is a little bit distracting so keep it to a minimum, use zone chat.

If you just died and somebody revived you, please do not stand around looking like you're at a parking lot and don't remember where your car is. First thing to do is block, then back off a little to a safe area so you can turn on your TP (travel power should have a higher priority than form or even heal)

Don't go running head first without looking for bubbles. I've seen many people get their health back to full and head straight to a bubble and die again.

Now one of the most important parts. Win or lose if you can revive your fallen team members, especially that team member that spent most of the match reviving others to the point of getting killed for that, please take that portal back and revive. Let them know you don't want them to waste their stars nor their Recoveries. The more people do this the more helpful they will be in the future. I've run into so many pricks that I'm highly considering removing my ability to revive others for a self revive or another buff.

Well that's pretty much it I think. If I missed something feel free to comment. Questions are also welcomed, I don't know everything there is to know about Gravitar, I just know enough to not suck when I fight her. Type /channel_join Q4Gravitar in your in-game chat window to join the channel so you can get people to queue with you to fight Gravitar. Look for healers, tanks or just anyone.

Hopefully this guide taught you how to beat her, now go on and show her whos' the boss

[Ragdoll]

Allow me to add a viable tactic: Gravitar's AOE abilities have a hard limit of twenty targets she can hit at once. How does this help you?

A mass summon build can soak the damage even from the orange bubble, siphoning off targets that take hits. It requires the summoner to effectively keep spamming pets, but it can take a load off healers, and works especially well if you have two summoners in the alert. The down side is that pets also leech beneficial auras, so ymmv.

[Auspice]

Unbreakable will not stop Gravitar's yellow bubble unless you are very tanky already. MD + blocking will stop it basically regardless of build. The yellow bubble does over 50k base damage, so if you block, have good defense, and 10k+ life you should live. I'll check the actual numbers on it later.

Either way, good guide.

[Shak]

well this is very helpful

[Joh Hota]

Value fluctuates too much, I thought about adding the pieces but since the torso piece has a couple of variants... Let's just say that there's a section in the forums that covers that ^^;
Thanks for the suggestion though.

[TNRC Commander trytoaim1]

You should add the costume pieces she drops and there estimated value as another section in the guide.

[Joh Hota]

Yes blocking can improve your chances based on your HP and dmg mitigation. Also on its own rank. It is still best to outrun it 'cause the dmg it does is big enough, if she decides to spam force cascades your way it'll be over. There are a few different ways to survive an orange bubble from within and they all involve blocking.

1. HP over 9,000!!!

2. You have good dmg mitigation (dodge build or brick)

3. You have avg dmg mitigation (sort of what glass cannons have), over 6,000 HP (probably that's too low, have yet to test it) and rank 3 block (meant for a level 40 with heroic+ gear of course)

4. Able to trigger Masterful dodge or Unbreakable before the bubble explodes.

It's all about knowing how you play, if you know your reaction time isn't good enough then the alternatives above might suit you. Again after being hit your HP might be too low to survive another of her attacks. Try to heal or if you're the last man standing, run while blocking to a safe area so you can heal.

[TNRC Commander trytoaim1]

I just thought of something weird, i know you said that the orange gravity bubbles 1-hit KO people, but earlier i was doing Gravitar, and when i got hit by the orange bubble, i lived while blocking.

[Joh Hota]

@trytoaim1

Yes she can. There's a Gravitar build that can get hit by SG and she will bug out but Cryptic has fixed that bug. That's not to say it won't ever happen but essentially as long as she's attacking, you can get hit. Remember she doesn't need to target you to hit you, if you're in the line of fire you're going to get clobbered just the same.

[TNRC Commander trytoaim1]

Can Gravitar also get you when you use smoke bomb or the smoke grenades?

[g0stih]

great