Help me understand Triumvirate VS Geos (yes, in 2022).

Dwinkelm

Hi guys -

For years, I’ve been confused about an interaction between Triumvirate and Geos. Today, my triumvirate lost to g12 Geos for the first time in years, and I’m quite confused over how it happened.

For starters, I never take my Triumvirate (just the three for an undersized) against Geos unless my Sion is the fastest. Usually, their GBA will be next-fastest, but not always. I want to investigate the case when GBA is second-fastest on the field.

To open the battle, I use Sion’s special ability “Torment.” This deals physical damage to all enemies, then dispels all buffs on them, then inflicts Pain on all enemies for three turns. This attack can’t be evaded.

According to Scion’s unique, at the start of each enemy turn, if they (the enemy) is inflicted with Pain, Sion gains taunt for 1 turn. At the end of each turn, Sion inflicts pain on each enemy that damaged him that turn.

I understand that Pain is resistible.

So, the first two moves of this battle always play out the same:

I call Sion on turn 1 to use Torment and inflict Pain on all Geos, and strip them of all buffs.

Then, GBA is (I believe) targeting Sion, as he is inflicted with Pain, and proceeds to usecleanse ability. This cleanses all Geos of Pain, and then they are all called to assist from Hive Mind unique, dealing damage to Sion. Dealing damage to Sion *should* reapply Pain to all Geos, except GBA at this junction.

What happens next is a bit of mystery to me. Approximately 85% of the time, the enemy Geo squad has Pain and targets Sion according to the mechanics of Pain. On occasion, however, they will not have pain and will target and kill Nihilus.

Once again, I understand Pain can be resisted.

So it would seem to me that any Geos that resist Pain, or have their attack evaded by Sion, would be able to target whomever they wish. This applies to any one single Geo at any given time.

However, I typically lose because ALL Geos have cleansed their Pain, and then relentlessly target Nihilus.

My conclusion is that the only way for this to happen is if GBA resists the initial Torment special and Pain doesn’t Proc. That way, GBA can target Nihilus with his cleanse, which cleanses all Pain on all Geos, leaving Nihilus wide open for Spy’s one-shot and all the others to pile-on.

Is this accurate? Is this the way things are playing out when Sion isn’t being targeted? If so, should I consider putting Potency on Sion? I know there’s a 15% chance to resist any debuff simply built-in to the game, and above I mentioned about 85% of the time I have no problem… which exactly correlates to a 15% chance to resist… should I simply expect to lose my Nihilus 15% of the time in this matchup?

Thanks to all in advance for help!

Saada

Poggle can also clear debuffs so he could resist pain then target nihilus while clearing all debuffs. If you increase your nihilus gear level then it doesn't matter what happens.

Lumiya

Normally you don't need Nihilus. They decimate their health by themselves enough. If it is a "weaker" Geo team you face, I would leave Nihilus out. Gives you more banners in GAC.
If you face a stronger squad, you have the possibility of putting Wat as third member in your squad ang give the tank tech on Sion if you don't need or want Wat in another squad. That way the Geos can't attack someone else and the risk of what you describe is a lot smaller. If Nihilus is not present in your squad they like to go for Traya unstead if they can 😉

Edit for typo.

flux_rono

yes, you could almost always expect this type of RNG to happen. some stuff you can do to help is, speed up nihlius to be second, that way he can decrease cooldowns, and try to make sion weaker than the rest, Geos typically go for the weakest enemy first which sounds like that's Nihlius for you currently.
and as others have said Nihlius isn't a key to win either its mainly traya's lead that kills off the Geos

Mephisto_style

Opposing teams can do 5 things on Geos to make them anti-triumvirate:
- really nice tenacity to resist debuffs
- stack loads of protection to equalize and diminish health% damage Traya does. I try not to add any health to geos.
- don't attack Traya unless you can kill her in 1 barrage. She stacks offense and can 1 shot GBA if she is good enough. Geos remove turn meter. Don't let her turn into a steel Ccanon.
- 140 % CC spy with max CD. Overcomes Crit Avoidance and can 1 shot Sion or Traya sometimes.
- Fast GBA. 300+ speed GBA replenishes protection and brings Brood back faster than Traya can kill.

Not all Geos and Triumvirates are of equal quality. The G12 Geo team that does all of those things I wrote above can beat an average Triumvirate of same gear. More-so if they do things like R3 GBA and R5 Spy.

-

Gifafi

If you don’t have SEE and do have wat he can help until you relic triumvirate. Tm gain one on nihilus and then tank on sion. If it doesn’t work you can do tank on sion first but honestly taking triumvirate to like r3 should solve the problems on its own. Nihilus going faster let’s him do the suck move which increases their cooldowns too (if they’re debuffed iirc). Thrawn can work on the team too to fracture which helps with geo brute

NotKaleSmoothie

Basically with Triumvirate vs Geos, all your toons need to be tanky to survive the initial barrage. Typically you want CA arrow on Nihilus and Traya. Sion probably doesn't need it. Your gear level shouldn't be too low compared to the Geos.

Even if you lose Nihilus, that doesn't necessarily mean a loss. That's because when you get a turn, the Geos will have very low health due to all the out of turn attacks. One AOE from Sion probably wipes out the entire team.

Krjstoff

TBH - I never gave it much thought... My only focus has been scounting the spy and making sure it wasn't more than relic 5, and then I usually win that fight 9 out of 10 times no matter what happens. If spy is higher relic, he will often be able to one shot my Sion, and that usually spells game over.

Otherwise, Sion will just keep tanking away and the geos will kill them selves by proxy with help from Traya. I usually bring Nihilus along as well even though he's probably not needed. But he has an AOE attack, and if the fight drags out he can remove a key geo for me.

My Traya is R3, Sion is R3 and Nihilus is R4. Traya is tanky. Sion is actually not - he's semi fast and has a CD triangle. Nihilus has a speed set.

Gifafi

Why a cd triangle?

Krjstoff

Gifafi wrote: »

Why a cd triangle?

Because I never gave it any kind of thought - it was probably what I had, when I originally modded him.

It was just a way of outlining how little I've thought about my trio and their interaction with geos - and my trio still comfortably beat geo squads of equal relic levels.

Granolo

Remember Geo Brood has built in +60% tenacity due to his Unique, so it's not that hard for him to resist the Pain.

I only have a g12 Trio, and when in doubt (against relic geos), I usually bring along Sith Marauder (r7 due to SEE), which is great as he gets really tanky due to geos buffs, gets lots of TM to help you heal your team by hitting the enemy, grants Potency Up, and has saved me plenty of times.