Avoid choking on Choke Point Elite

Refusing to make jokes of the TLC title in this article...

By: George Argyropoulos

a/k/a Dragon_Bane

I know this is late. I honestly just got to start doing this TLC last night and am actively running it concurrent to my writing this article. (Author's note: Not one of my better ideas.)

Choke Point is another revisiting TLC that Kixeye has decided to let us take another crack at. I'm going to try and make this really rather brief so that people have a chance to try some of these things out if they have the fleets.

I do not have time to try a bunch of different things, so I am going to give you the Lazy Pirate's version since I am a Lazy Pirate.

Option one: Hellwraiths.

I am actively refitting my HWs so I only have 2 available, and only partially built. That said, they can run through all of the first 6 targets with some serious concentration on driving.

That's it. That's all I have at the moment for the HW's (and one refitting). Caveat: When I did try going through the first 5 with HW's alone it WAS with three. The tactic used to avoid taking too much damage is to separate a target from the pack and concentrate on one ship at a time. Do NOT surface within range of any of them and do NOT be in thermal range of anything when a Kodiak is within range. You will die.

I will share a little 'trick' I use though.

If using the HW (and if you are like me and are not using the Sealed Fire Charge special), and you want to mitigate the 'dumb' aspect or the Twister torpedo, close the gap on your target. Yes, this means you have to drive a bit more skillfully and pay attention where all the targets are, but you kill your intended target far, far faster up close than if you are trying to kite them. Keep in mind, the longer your engagement with the V2 targets the more damage you will take from their torpedoes and the better chance the Kodiaks have of getting within range which would mean your immediate and horrible death...

That all said, that leaves the last or last two targets to do in a traditional manner of Tank/ Rhino. Unfortunately, I am lazy and do not like any of these options, so I ultimately went with this:

This is Fleet Lazy. I like Fleet Lazy. Why? Because Fleet Lazy can do the whole damn thing with a Bullseye Brigade crew in one go and in just over 30 minutes wile I write an article concurrent to playing through the TLC. Sometimes I use a sub in place of the Apollo in the first few targets to activate everything, but with a Bullseye Brigade crew, this fleet does amazingly well in both iterations of the TLC. Since the HAegis does not really move other than to hide behind the Vanquisher, a regular Aegis will work just as well.

In the first two runs of the TLC I actually used the subs first and then came in with Fleet Lazy using a one star Sea Serpents crew, so these ideas can be tweaked to what you have available.

Pulling in the first target is easy.

Target 2:

Straightforward. Activate the ships near you. Then, you can hug the wall, get behind the targets and activate from the far left and run back. With the BB crew you can safely kite the Kodiaks on the way back.

Target 3:

Really one of the targets I like using a HW to trigger. The Lazy Pirate in me hates driving back and forth activating this. The Lazy Pirate in me also forgot to chain the Apollo back to the safety of the group and lost his Apollo while typing away in this article. -_-

Target 4:

Kill the little boats right off with the Apollo to save a LOT of time, or near the end, chain along the bottom and left edge to catch them at the top left of the target screen.

Target 5:

I hated this one during the raid. If I remember correctly it was the 83. I HATE 83's...

That said, do use the chaining ability to save yourself some trouble and grab those slow poke little bits, otherwise you'll be sitting and cursing the timer...

...and while you're there say hello to anything you can kite after activating. Save gas, multitask!

Target 6:

Not much to say here. This target drives to you. You can sneak out and kite the HC's to save yourself some damage and help your Vanquisher go the distance... Oh my.... I promised I wouldn't...
Additionally, make sure you use the Shift-0 option when multiple targets converge on you. It does help mitigate a little damage.

Target 7:

Ah... target 7. I fondly remember sniping out the... oh, wait... nevermind....

This one is really easy with Fleet Lazy.

Come in at opposite corners, active the fleets then just drive right into the center and kill the Mega.

The good thing about using the BB crew is that you have some leeway with time and option going in. It also does it very quickly and cheaply. (Author's note: Don't try doing the TLC whilst writing an article. Sometimes you forget you sent an Apollo to trigger something and it sits there to die horribly, cursing it's captain as it sinks...)

Sorry it took so long. I was doing other chores and had some other things to take care of and I am just getting to this now. Hope it helps even if it is late...