Mission: Crystalline Catastrophe/Walkthrough

“Crystalline Catastrophe” is a fleet action that plagues many a player who are constantly hearing conflicting explanations on how exactly to defeat the Crystalline Entity. This guide will hopefully clear things up, and provide a few tips on what sort of strategy to form when approaching this behemoth cosmozoan boss character.

[edit] What You'll Need

The fleet action can be accessed via public PvE queues depending on your rank (levels 41-50 or level 51) or through private queues (any level between 41-51). It takes five players to start, but at least 10 will be necessary for success (14-20 is advised). The fleet action is now only accessible during certain hours but still via public PvE queues. Look in the Today's Events list in the Overview section to see what time this event starts. The mission is faction restricted -- Klingon and Federation players cannot join in the same instance.

Currently, the PvE queues do not list the Crystalline Entity action under the "Create Private" tab. However, if you create a private instance of another fleet action, you may choose Crystalline Entity as the map.

See Setup for appropriate bridge officer abilities and weapons.

[edit] Know Your Enemy: Crystalline Entity

There are three stages of the Crystalline Entity of which players should be aware.

[edit] Stage I: High Health

Between about 66% and 100% Hit Points, whenever the Entity is damaged it will send out Crystalline Fragments (1% of CE's hit points). These regular-sized enemies will follow players that aggro it. Within 1 km of starships or any target-able weapons, they will explode. The damage they inflict goes through all forms of shields and directly damages your hull. It is at this stage that the Entity fires its antiproton beam weapon at whichever player currently has aggro on it; this beam weapon inflicts shield damage as normal beam weapons would do.

[edit] Stage II: Medium Health

Between about 33% and 66%, the Entity will stop firing its beam weapon and will send off Crystalline Fragments at a faster rate than before.

[edit] Stage III: Low Health

Below 33%, the Entity begins to send off Large Fragments (3% of CE's hit points), which are faster and do nearly twice the damage of regular Fragments. If they explode by hitting a starship or destructible object, or are destroyed by weapons fire from players, they will then spawn three Small Fragments (0.15% of CE's hit points), which then head back toward the Entity, carrying the energy from their splintering back to it to heal it for 1% of its health each — 3% total. It can take as long as 4 to 7 seconds for the three Small Fragments to appear after the destruction of a Large Fragment.

If the Large Fragments are destroyed too close to the Entity, the Small Fragments that it spawns will be absorbed by the Entity almost immediately. It is suspected that if the Large Fragments are destroyed too far from the Entity the newly spawned Small Fragments actually teleport back to the entity and heal it. In the event that one is forced to fire on Large Fragments in an uncoordinated match, it is therefore advised to do so at a range of roughly 10-15km from the Entity, so that there is enough time to intercept the Small Fragments without them teleporting back.

[edit] Graphics Issues

If you totally ignore killing fragments, eventually the fragments get so numerous that the graphics engine is overwhelmed. At that point the CE disappears from view and targeting on it is lost, making it impossible to complete the mission unless the excessive fragments are destroyed.

[edit] Strategies

[edit] Scatter Volley Method

Klingon armada using scatter volley

All ships are in a tight formation aiming at the Crystalline Entity. Maintaining a distance of 7-9 km, they alternate using two versions of Cannon: Scatter Volley to deal damage to the Entity and kill all fragments that spawn from it. This method is most likely to work when using 20 escorts also armed with tractor beam repulsors.

For Federation, ideal ships are Advanced Escort, Fleet Escort, or Multi-Vector Advanced Escort.

For Klingons, ideal ships are Guramba Siege Destroyer, Pach Raptor, or Hegh'ta Heavy Bird-of-Prey.

[edit] Semi-Kite Method

This is the typical strategy attempted by PUG and PvE queue groups, because it is easy to organize quickly to work well in the first two stages of the CE's health. Unfortunately, it is also the most difficult to organize and least successful method (of the three listed here) during the last stage of the CE's health because of the difficulty in avoiding large fragments while maintaining DPS on the CE.

Half of players in a Kite group (cruisers and science vessels) and other half in DPS group (escorts). Kite group draws aggro of fragments (Beam Array: Fire at Will and AoE attacks), flies above CE, and will have 40 power to weapons and 90 to engines at full Impulse (Extra power may be safely put to Auxiliary, as Shields are no protection in this fight). The DPS group positions themselves below the CE at a distance 7-9 km and concentrates their fire on ONLY attacking the boss.

When using this method, it is critical that destructible objects, and weapons and abilities that cause area of effect (AoE)/multiple target damage, be avoided once the Entity drops below 33% health and enters Stage III. These objects, weapons, and abilities will kill many Large Crystalline Fragments, thus spawning masses of Small Crystalline Fragments that will then quickly heal the CE (it can take 4-7 seconds for the small fragments to spawn, so you may not realize what you have done). It is advised to stop all AoE damage at 40%, as it takes some time for many active effects to expire. It is advised simply not to equip any destructible objects on your ship for this mission, because too often the objects are accidentally used during Stage III.

DO NOT USE these abilities once CE is in Stage III:

Mines
Hargh'peng, Tricobalt, Transphasic Cluster, or High Yield Plasma torpedoes
Torpedo: Spread / Cannon: Scatter Volley / Beam Array: Fire at Will
Fighters
Fleet Support or Photonic Fleet ships
Gravity Wells
Warp Plasma / Theta Radiation
Boarding Parties

[edit] Tractor Beam Repulsor Method

Five science ships, equipped with 2 or 3 Tractor Beam Repulsors each, relay firing of tractor beam repulsors to protect all other ships which concentrate fire solely on the CE. In this method all ships stay together in tight formation and attempt to maintain a position 7-9km from the CE, in to order to benefit from the protection from fragments afforded by the repulsing science ships. A big advantage to this method over the Scatter Volley Method is that it does not require virtually all participants to be flying escorts. This method is also much easier to organize and more likely to succeed than the Semi-Kite Method during Stage III of the CE's health. This was the method used in the record breaking mission run of 3 minutes and 11 seconds.

As with the Semi-Kite Method, players should deploy no destructible objects and stop all area of effect ("AOE") damage, other than from repulsors, by the time the large fragments appear at 33% of the Entity's hit points.

[edit] Setup

[edit] Weapons

Damage type: Disruptor (alternatives: Antiproton, Plasma)

Fore: Dual Heavy Cannons, Torpedo Launcher (alternative: Beam Arrays)
Aft: Turrets

[edit] Items and Abilities

The primary purpose is to do as much damage as possible:

[edit] Bridge Officer Abilities

Engineering:

Emergency Power to Weapons

Science:

Photonic Officer
Tractor Beam Repulsors
Gravity Well (only in Stage I and II)

Tactical:

Attack Pattern Beta
Attack Pattern Omega
Beam Array: Fire at Will (only in Stage I and II)
Beam Array: Overload
Cannon: Rapid Fire
Cannon: Scatter Volley (only in Stage I and II, unless using Scatter Volley Method, i.e., 20 escorts)
Tactical Team
Torpedo: High Yield
Torpedo: Spread (only in Stage I and II)

[edit] Consoles

[edit] Other

Either Borg set or Aegis set:

[edit] Sample Builds (Scatter Volley Method)

[edit] Guramba Siege Destroyer

Fore Weapons: Disruptor Dual Heavy Cannons (x3), Quantum Torpedo Launcher
Aft Weapons: Disruptor Turret (x3)
Tactical: Tactical Team I, Attack Pattern Beta I, Cannon: Scatter Volley II
Tactical: Torpedo: High Yield I, Torpedo: High Yield II, Cannon: Scatter Volley II, Attack Pattern Beta III
Engineering: Emergency Power to Weapons I
Engineering: Engineering Team I, Auxiliary to Structural I
Science: Hazard Emitters I, Tractor Beam Repulsors I
Eng Consoles: Plasma Distribution Manifold, Neutronium Alloy
Sci Consoles: Assimilated Module, Induction Stabilizer
Tac Consoles: Disruptor Induction Coil (x4)

[edit] Pach Raptor

Fore Weapons: Disruptor Dual Heavy Cannons (x2), Dual Disruptor Beam Bank, Photon Torpedo Launcher
Aft Weapons: Disruptor Turret (x3)
Tactical: Torpedo: High Yield I, Cannon: Scatter Volley I, Cannon: Scatter Volley II
Tactical: Tactical Team I
Tactical: Beam Array: Overload I, Torpedo: High Yield II, Beam Array: Overload III, Attack Pattern Omega III
Engineering: Engineering Team I, Emergency Power to Weapons II
Science: Hazard Emitters I, Photonic Officer I
Eng Consoles: EPS Flow Regulator, Plasma Distribution Manifold (x2)
Sci Consoles: Assimilated Module, Biofunction Monitor
Tac Consoles: Disruptor Induction Coil (x4)

[edit] Common Misconceptions

[edit] Healing

The Crystalline Entity can only heal in two ways:

Innate healing of 3% of its total hit points every 40 seconds, regardless of anything else.
Small Fragments that return to it give the CE 1% of its total hit points. These only form when Large Fragments are destroyed by exploding on a destructible object, weapons fire, or damage causing abilities (e.g., Gravity Well ). At one time it was widely propounded that destroying Large Fragments with weapons fire spawned only temporary Small Fragments that were graphics anomalies and did not heal the Entity. However, this does not appear to be true currently, as can be observed by using Gravity Wells to corral and destroy all Large Fragments which do then spawn Small Fragments that clearly heal the Entity.

The regular Crystalline Fragments will not heal the Entity, only deal heavy damage to your ship.

[edit] Destructible Objects

Destructible objects are anything besides your ship that can be destroyed by a fragment. This includes: mines, high yield plasma torpedoes, tricobalt devices/torpedoes, transphasic cluster torpedoes, boarding parties, Photonic Fleets, Fleet Support ships, and all other types of support pets (e.g., Stalker Fighters, Scorpion fighters, Tal'Kyr Support Craft, multi-vector ship sections, saucer sections, etc.). These are not useful when the CE is below 33% health because they are targets for Large fragments which then spawn Small fragments that heal the CE. Boarding parties are particularly useless, because the CE and fragments have no subsystems to disable. Although these weapons and abilities can be used at Stage I and II without healing the CE, it is better to equip with weapons and abilities that will protect you from fragments and do consistent damage through Stage III. Just one ship dropping mines, for example, can make it impossible to succeed at this mission. All of the most successful strategies for taking on the CE (including all three strategies listed above) ban the use of these weapons and devices by participants.

[edit] Torpedoes vs. Energy Weapons

Kinetic damage DOES NOT heal the CE. Energy weapons have no innate advantage over torpedoes in this mission. It is a fallacy that killing Large fragments with energy weapons will not spawn small Large Fragments, which fallacy probably came from not realizing that it can take 4-7 seconds for small fragments to spawn.

[edit] Scramble Sensors

The Scramble Sensors ability at one point would stop all fragments from moving for several seconds and several science vessels with this would prevent the CE from being able to attack anyone. This has not been the case since Season 2.

[edit] Repel and Knockback

An update in Season 4 made it so that the Crystalline Entity could not be knocked back or repelled, though this can still be used on fragments.

[edit] Final Notes

This fleet action pretty much requires the cooperation of most, if not all, of the players in the instance. It is a battle designed to be best won with some amount of planning and coordination. If any one player intentionally causes anything to backfire (i.e. a griefer), then you can pretty much forget about destroying the Entity and should consider moving to another instance, along with whomever is on your team.

Whereas most fleet actions are simply a group of players against an immense number of enemies, the Crystalline Entity is quite different. It's a complicated enemy with a very particular methodology and pattern. As such, players must truly work as a team in order to defeat this opponent.

[edit] Victory

Coming in first place grants the player a random and level-appropriate Very Rare item, the accolade Shattered, and a massive fleet action floor trophy:

Scores resulting in second and third place receive a Rare item, and all other players receive an Uncommon.

Players can alternate getting the first place reward by having the chosen player to deal damage before the rest of the players attack. Using buffs and heals on that player is strongly advised.