Caging Penguin is a new challenge mission, part of March update, which seems to be the hardest solo mission in the game. If you underestimate the bosses you will definitely pay for it! For players who have Tire 2 or Tier 1 armor this instance is little easier, but can be done without raid gear as well. The instance is in Gotham – Burnley, inside Gotham Old Subway. The boss fights are basically mini lessons for new 30s on how to do raid boss fights. They are teaching you to learn to block and do range and worry about phase changes.
Important:
- new investigation – Legal Eagle
- new briefing – Gang War Episode 4
- feat for finding all the bird statues. For the bird statues you DON’T need to do both sides of the instance
- there is no vendor inside the instance, so you won’t be able to repair your gear.
Rewards:
125 Renown with Wayne Tech.
2 Mark of Allegiance
Leprechaun’s Tall Hat, Style Celtic
Advanced Synthweave Pants, Style Split Personality
Walkthrough
At the entrance you have several mobs (3-4 in the group). After killing them all, Two-Face does coin-flip and determines what path you take (which mini boss you will fight). If you get the scratched side of the coin your path will be harder.
Hush – Mini Boss
Hush isn’t that difficult as long as you use the heal barrels correctly. He has a skill that would drain all your power, but it would come back completely a few seconds later. While your power is empty just run and block.
Hush moves slowly – easy to get out of his range. All you need to do is move around and he will rarely hit you.
Bane – Mini Boss
During the Bane fight you will get several messages. Wait for the 40 second message, grab barrel and throw it on the Bane. You have to throw TWO barrels and he’ll be stunned for about 5 seconds. When he returns to normal run upstairs and use your ranged attacks on him. Avoid long animation attacks!
Pengbot Maximus – Mini Boss
Penguin Maximus is probably the hardest boss in any solo mission. This boss has slowing laser-beams, the spin attack, fire, ice and medic penguins adds. The laser beams consistently drown your health away, even if you do block, it keeps hitting and slowing you. Blocking works for the spinning attack that stuns you and knocks you down continuously.
To beat that Pengbot Maximus kill the little ones when they appear. You actually have to destroy one of them near Pengbot and all adds will explode. The little bots (adds) have a Fire and Ice attacks that does DoT.
When Pengbot does the spin attack he has a large skull appear over his head. Immediately roll (Shift+A or Shift+D) to the left or right. This attack is in a straight line and if he misses you, use back walk and ranged attacks to fight him from a distance. After he drops below half health he no longer does the spin attack. Immediately after spin-attack hit him hard for about 6 seconds. He can be stunned during this time to extend vulnerable period.
There are only three healing barrels in the Pengbot Maximus room, so prepare Cola’s in case you use the healing barrels too early.
Penguin – Main Boss
The Penguin fight, itself, is also fairly tough for a solo instance. There are six healing barrels, but you’ll probably need all of them. Don’t forget that their respown timers are slower than in other solo instances.
To beat Penguin stay at medium range or he will melt your face with his machine gun. If you go too far away Penguin uses grenade launcher. Don’t try to block his grenades, just avoid them by jumping or rolling and hit him with ranged attacks. At short range you will be stunned all the time. If you don’t have something like Grandeur, Amazonian Deflection, Reflect Pain or other skill to block the damage, use cover when he starts shooting. At medium range, he uses flamethrower that does 44 damage. His flamethrower is easy to avoid.
Basically, you need to use ranged attacks on Penguin. Take advantage of the fact that you’re in a big room full of healing barrels fighting one slow guy. Run from the top floor to the bottom, making Penguin chase you up and down the stairs. Find a healing barrel, let him waddle toward you, and then attack him while the healing barrel works. Then run/fly to the other side, smash the healing barrel and hit him with ranged attacks.
Videos
We would like to thank Lascivar from Death & Glory for making this video.
In the Penguin fight I find that putting a damage over time ability on him like Pyrokinesis, doing a small burst of damage, then staying out of his line of sight until the fire on him goes out works really well (by jumping up and down the stairs I can keep him running pretty much forever). When I need to heal up I throw another Pyrokinesis blast on him and run to the furthest health barrel. He’ll take a bunch of damage while chasing me and as long as I get there quickly the healing barrel will almost be done by the time he arrives and I start taking damage again.
It’s a slow method but if you’re desperate for the no KO and no soda/supercharge feats then you might find it useful.
Also for the Mental Damage/Controllers out there, throw Telekinesis on your bar for the Bane fight. One blast of that will throw three or four barrels at him. Beats having to pick them up and throw them. =P
So, to beat these guys, you must have some kind of ranged attack. I got past Hush and Bane when I encountered them (ran this twice) but got skunked on Penguin Maximus. Why? I don’t have a ranged attack to speak of, I’m a Brawler type. So, to beat this guy, and Penguin himself, I need to get Dual Pistols, Rifle or Bow, which means going through a respec. I don’t think that’s very good game design. If they want to teach us about raiding, make easier, simpler raids, or better yet, let us run the regular ones, experiment and find out for ourselves. At least in raids you have a combination of players who work as a team.
yeh… everybody has a ranged attack… even brawlers… its called “right-click”
Everyone has ranged attacks even if it is weak white damage, all the fight is is really a “pay attention to your surroundings” fight, you can easily beat it just spaming right click on your mouse or Y on your 360 pad, or what ever the top shape is on your PS1/PS2/Ps3 contorler if you just watch what is going on around you (aka don’t stand near small pengiuns, either break off and kill them to temporarily get them out of the way or stay running from them quickly)… The WoW equivalent to this fight is a “don’t stand in the fire” fight where if you are not constantly moving out of harms way its hard, but if you are staying away then its a matter of just grinding it down.
I play as a magic healer/flight character. I was able to defeat penguin with my healing techniques alone (no barrels/no sodas/1 piece of T1 gear) and playing keep away from Penguin. Intsead of flying up to meet Penguin I ran straight up middle stair case to the bottom of the platform…Penguin will commence to come down after you…as he comes around the outer stairs you fly to the top platform…the pillars provide protection against most of his attacks keep going up and down center area as he tries to change direction on the stairs to get at you, keeping him on the stairs is key. At this point you use your range attacks and target him between the pillars as he runs back and forth to target you. Sometimes you get grounded… break and get back in the air.
Also as a healer with handblasters…during the robot penguin mini-boss I summon my healer pet ‘Watcher’. He performs two roles as a constant healer and a target for the robot penguin spin attacks. leaving me to constantly throw range attacks at him from distance and then be able to attack smaller robo penguins with out worry of big robo penguin attacking. Another key is u can throw a spirit well to heal the watcher as he takes a beating. if he dies just summon a new one…penguin will again attempt to attack watcher.
had penguin down to about 15% hp and went to bottom floor to get a resto barell. and he reset!!!
Keeps reseting, not possible without raid gear, exactly the type of game design i expect from SoE.
it’s possable, u just have to pay attention to what’s going on, you can’t go “Rambo” on these guys…. well.. you can on bane and hush… Infact i find if i empty my energy bar on hush, he refills it like a sweetiepie.
Your wrong, i beat him using the health barrells, try that.
that is bull i did it with full t1 gear easy as u just got to know what to do and how to play the game without dieing by using the healing barrels to ur advantage plus i found it easier to just wail away on him and when my health is down to 50% back away and get a heal barrel its simple u just got to find whats right 4 and dont blame sony when its ur fault not theres
also try doing the duo its way harder so u cant complain about it anymore lol
… If you get too far out of his range, he’ll reset…. he’s not that hard really… you just have to keep him in sight, find a barrel and heal… I beat this one with 2 pieces of t1 on a fire villain… I found if i blocked while in the healing barrel he only took 25% of the healing factor.. Dot, Stick n move… also i would build up a 8 mele combo on my dual wield and unleash the lunging spin attack for 500damage 900damage with crit… then i would break stun and move…. keep moveing him twards your next healing barrel, cause you will need em..
Pengbot Maximus…… 20 x wipe. This is not hard mission, this is impossible mission on solo.
I thought the same thing, then watched this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKjyWpK6klg
He shows you he’s not got T1 gear, just blues and greens you’d have at Lvl30. And he’s using a Two-Handed hammer with, as far as I could tell, only the basic ranged attack. I watched this, and cleared it my next attempt, with one Soder. Penguin was a chump after Pengbot.
My CR was only 36 when I cleared it. My mistakes were:
A) trying to use the heavy-hitting attacks, which on hand blast all root you in place
B) Being in Tank role. Since you’re not going to be drawing aggro, and you’re going to avoid damage, not take it, you have to go DPS.
C) Trying to use melee attacks.
I just did what he did in the vid–constantly walk/dodge, use ranged attacks all the time, just stay out of his way, and pop barrels when you get low. Only reason I had to use a soder was I was using Reflection, and its AOE was popping them too early. I was extremely surprised when I realized how easy he was if you never stand still, dodge, and use ranged attacks only.
hum i am lvl 30 tank/fire/marital arts and i fight with the penguin and pengbot only close range trow everything at him and it works fine for me no need for running just go and popp him as for the healing my fire does the work for me i even got 900 critical heal fighting the pengbot .
how do i make it reset the mission? when i 1st did it two-face sent me left and now i cant do the mission again and go right to complete the investigation files -.-.
The mission resets daily.
This isn’t impossible as a solo. It’s tough, but not impossible. I’ve done it many times WITHOUT T1 gear, and WITHOUT ranged attack, and here’s how!
After you get the cut-scene of Pengbot Maximus, simply run back to the last mini-boss you did, and grab the health barrels in the room. Hush has three, Bane has two. Toss the barrels in the room with Pengbot. The barrels won’t disappear. With some rolling, and common sense, you shouldn’t have problems killing him with at least four health barrels, and colas.
WHY CANT I GO IN THEIR WITH A GROUP?
…because it’s a “solo” mission.
guys guys somebody plz help me fast… I alt tabed DC universe online cuz all my armour n weapon broke while playing Caging penguin.. can anyone tell me how to repair it… i cant even find the soda machine in this mission.. I was fighting with penguin when all this happened… if i quit now all my efforts will be wasted.. =[
My problem isn’t with Penguin (I’ve beaten him 6 times) it’s the fact that I can’t get the Split Personality style. I got the head and the back, but that’s all. I didn’t even get the legs, that this guide seems to imply you get as a mission reward. Has anybody gotten anything of that style that isn’t a hat or a back? I’m playing the PS3 version, if that matters at all.
I’ve gotten Chest, Head, Back Legs. I’ve also run it a few dozen times for feats and marks. The drop is random, so persistence counts.
Well I’m doing this solo instance now for a few days. So far I have been fairly lucky. I have gotten the legs,the boots,the shoulder and the hat of the split personality style. I’m gunning for the chest 2 days in a row now…..and yep what A.N. said…..persistence pays off 😛
Only missing the chest now….I’ll upload a picture of the full set once I obtain it. Tho the chest seems to have a very low drop rate :/
Every time I group up with someone to play this, it puts me inside by myself no matter what. What’s up with that?
I believe its a solo instance. Or maybe its the fact that your partner is not mentored by the Joker. But I think that its because its meant to be for you alone and not for 2 people. For a ranged (bow,mental,controller is what I use) type it should not be a problem. I have beaten it many times over without even using a single cola. You just need to use the 3 health barrels scattered around the 2 mini bosses and the 6 or so that Penguin has around the room he is in Ritchiem.
I’ve beat the mission about 7 times and every time after I beat penguin when I’m getting ready to exit it freezes. I’ve reset the ps3 and done everything That came to mind and it just doesn’t work. Also its JUST this mission. Every other mission works just fine. Help! Dx
hi mate did you ever sort out the old gotham subway freeze after mission completion?
Yeah ! right click all the way ! im using staff for dps(though my main main weapon is dual wield) and im only using reigntion and stoke flames. Just keep on doing range attack and your power bar just fills up so I was able to heal like all the way with unlimited power. didnt use a single barrel or soda. For penguin the barrels seems unlimited. just keep right clicking and healing and when out of power use on of the barrels. Just go around with penguin around the stairs. I’m at 35 CB by the way.
okay using martial arts and trick skill to beat maximus… i have bomb, gag, sticky, anesthetic. Recommended gear is the level 30 gear you can buy in the hall of doom or the watchtower.
first dont go into the area where you will fight maximus. Go back to previous mini boss fight area (hush or bane) and bring a heal barrel along. Go to maximus area and smack the healing barrel (throw or bash) on him. I usually go all out with all my skills in the beginning. Then when the heal is over he usually has 3/4 or below health (for me anyways) I move away and do the long range hits and I also throw bombs and sticky. When I’m below 50% health i heal using anesthetic. I keep hitting and running until I run out of anesthetic then I go hit a heal barrel and stand there while doing long range and bombs. By this time maximus will have below 1/2 health. If he goes near while the heal barrel is still active I go melee and do melee attacks and run to the next heal barrel and repeat process until I run out of heal barrels. If hes still alive you still have about two anesthetic left. Hell be dead before you know it. Tactic here is long range and doing hit and runs. I don’t even go after the little penguins.
i’ve soloed this a few times now and pengbot isn’t really all that hard. it just takes time and patience. if you have your overcharge set as you’re self heal you’ll be fine. just block and roll when he spins and kill the mini pengbots when they appear because believe it or not ignoring them will only get you killed. I’ve done it every day trying to earn the split personality set but no luck so far. I got told you can get it from the duo is this true?
The style doesn’t drop in the duo, but it only took me 2 months of trying the challenge daily to complete and get the feat.
Whoever designed the massively overpowered Pengbot should be fired
Extremely poor game design
The pengbot is hard early on. I dont have any non powered range attacks but if you do full combos with stun (like smoke bomb) he hates it and doesnt need a huge ammount of dominance. Area of effect and any other buffs will stack the damage. Avoid spin attack but ‘F’ the other attacks. Throw the health barrels at him and get those combos goin while you heal. If you still cant do it thats down to simple gearing. Beef up fill empty slots in your gear and come back harder.
For feats you cant use cola’s or supercharges.
Dont take sh!t from a penguin, dont give up
For those of you who prefer not to fight Penguin like a pansy, you can always rush assault him. He uses a lot of attacks that are vulnerable to Interrupt. This makes stunning him extremely easy. If you do decide to rush him, pay attention to your health and power. When it gets about to the 1/3 point, use a healing barrel. You don’t need to fight like a scared weeny to pass this.