Blame it on the Rain. Raven Help and Combos

The Raven, he is back in all his Milli Vanilli reject glory to haunt your achievements and dangle a pretty decent loot item, which lets face it, this is one of the cooler items with decent stats. We are currently inundated with special events, property builds and missions. Of all of them this one is the one most stamina heavy fighters want to complete, especially if you missed your chance last time around and that grayed out achievement has been haunting your dreams. So I have done some digging with the help of the {M} family of players and we have a few combos and info we would like to share with you. 

I just beat this last night. I was going about my icing of random players and all of sudden this pops up on the fight list.

When I clicked attack it opened up the Boss Fight Module for Raven and the timer had 8 hours counting down. So you have to beat him within the 8 hours after he appears. This gives you a little time to acquire the items needed if you have not already acquired them and will allow you to start amassing Armagrenade.

I didn't count or calculate how many ices it took to make him appear but I can say that I had already done the 150 ices for family progression. According to the Mafia Wars official blog it will take "many" ices because the Raven is stealthy. (With that hairdo and schnoze? Really?) Anyway, it will take quite a few. I did manage to beat him down using only these Combos: 

Here are the items you will need to acquire to help you in beating this Lip-syncing wannabe down stealing his Jacket:

1. Rain Of Pain, this item drops from Robbing.
2. Face Chopper, this item drops from Fighting.
3. Nunchuk Flurry, this item drops from Jobs
4. Armagrenade, this one is tricky,this one drops only ON ICES and ONLY within the 8 hours after the Raven appears for you.

Now as I said I was able to beat him down using only the yellow combo above, after I exhausted those I used the 50 Rains of Pain I had from robbing and delivered the "Coup de gra".  I did start off with two red combos which are here:

So this shows that he is beatable this time within the allotted time frame if you have a supply of the items you need to do so. At which time you will reach the Achievement for beating him one time, and there are 2 achievements related to this Stealthy Lip-syncing Fruitcake in Shades:

You can try to beat him down 10 times. I am not sure if you are rewarded with 10 hoodies so please add your input!

Good luck to all of you and I hope you find this useful, please feel free to comment and add anything you may have found in regards to this as I do not know if he gets harder after you beat him the first time or if there is a gauge-able way to make him appear.

~Billy

Path Of The Assassin: The Raven Returns 10/26

The Raven Returns

Reward for taking out the Raven: Xtreme  Assassin's Jacket, armor [215/140]

Clicking "Go To Fights" will take you to the fight page, where the Raven will show up! Good luck!

Old posts about the Raven

Return of the Raven July 2011

Previous Boss Combos for the Raven

Search for the New Raven

I completed my 5th round of The Raven today... I made it a consumable run... and hunted around for a different red combo... but I couldn't see anything different...

The Official Mafia Wars Blog gave us a tease with this week's message:

I hope they heard more than the feedback to pull the 100 time achievement... my hope is that the shots start to fall from the sky or another combo becomes available to make this a fair-er-er fight.

Have you noticed anything different when The Raven comes calling? More consumables? different combos? Better dermatologist?

If it's going to take a year to win this battle that scar should heal up... no?

Tournament Score 2 to 1

Well that wasn't fun!

I put my Jobbing and Robbing without Sniper Shots plan to the test and lost... so now my record is not perfect... but 8 reward points gained, 5 lessons learned, and some great Queso later...

I made it 8 levels... it took every bit of the 8 hours... including about a half hour dinner break. I may have come up against a collection limit... or just another bug... hard to know!

Here is the level by level break down of how I did.

Level	Bats (~3500S)	Knives (~3900E)	Shots	Raven Damage	Raven Health	Time Left	Ruby Loot
1	5	5	10	19820	35180	7:10	Inventory
2	6	14		2369	32811		0 - Rocina
3	6	12		----	----		0 - Centro
4	7	20		4924	27887	5:10	2- Belem
5	9	6		----	----	3:44	1 - Hilio
6	6	8		2917	24970	2:07	1 - Manus
7	5	0			Inv.	0:37	1 - Manus
8	3	0	4		Inv.		0 - ALL

Finding The Raven

It took 20 ices to find the bastard... that was the easy part. For all my planning and pondering I didn't have enough energy or stamina to level once I found him... DOH!!! That will teach me to play "just a little" the night before... and if this achievement actually gets me to play less... that's a win right there!

I went straight to the battle and used everything that was in my inventory... I only had a couple of Sniper Shots left after my 2nd battle... I must have clicked purchase a second time? without realizing it? So I started out like gang busters and blew the Job and Rob purity... but it makes for a great comparison in damage amounts!

Fighting The Raven

I only robbed in Brazil mostly using a Spocklet... and then I jobbed in a different level each time to see what I could see when looking or Ruby loot.

I slogged around more than usual since I blew most of the small ways to level before I even found The Raven. This made some full refills mostly wasted... and me spending waayyy too much time opening bags of all sorts of colors.

Then after the 6th level I hit a brick wall... I totally maxed the gift accept looking for anything that would help... I nickle and dimed my way down to needing a little more than 2,000 xp to reach the next level and over an hour to burn until the 8 hour timer expired on all the items I used / squandered / mismanaged on that first level looking for the Raven!! That was painful!

But once I hit those restarts... I had all sorts of ways to make progress in Brazil... the tool bar bonus to snag again... and my gifting limit was over and I could search for bags to open again...

Then I was running fast and hoping for 2 more levels out of the deal... and

BAM

No knives??? Anywhere??? at all??? What the heckle am I supposed to do now!

It was just after midnight and 4 sniper shots showed up? I didn't fight at all... anywhere! But now all I could find were bats? Is 60 the limit? Really?

So it's the bottom of the 10th inning... my beloved Red Sox can not win for anything... but they have some awesome scrappy defensive plays... I leave the game dejected and hope that the baseball ends the day on a good note... who knew it would be a 16 inning note... but at least someone won today!

Lessons Learned

Here are the things that I learned this time around:

Lesson #1

Don't play the night before! I didn't have enough energy or stamina to make the next level... talk about starting in a HOLE...

Lesson #2

Use your Brazil crew or property collection you need before you find the Raven... they have 8 hour timers... so you will get to use them again JUST as time is expiring.

Lesson #3

Don't use your Energy Pack unless you have a chance of needing more help leveling and will use the bonus amount or are close enough to leveling to have the bonus carry over... I did neither.

Lesson #4

Don't go into the fight with then than max consumables. If that means actually fighting The Raven only every 6 days... ok.

Lesson #5

Try and time the battle to cross over midnight.

Next time:

* Track the numbers of knives found / max reached.

*See if there is another mysterios gift of Sniper shots at midnight.

*Run a traveling fight fest in all cities :-)!

I am trying to find the silver lining in all of this... yes it's just 1 skill point... I'm a completer by nature... not worried about the benefit just the enjoyment of the game play along the way.

Not thrilled to have "wasted" 8 hours... but it was a wicked muggy day at home... alone... watching sports on TV anyway... until the last half hour it was a nice quiet distraction... I have 8 bats and 4 shots for the next round Thursday morning... and the Sox won.

What have you learned the more times you have faced the Raven?

Do you have questions you are trying to still figure out?

The Night Before The Raven

Twas the night before The Raven, when all through the house

Not a peripheral was stirring, not even my mouse.

The Mystery Bags were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that Stamina Refills soon would be there.

The Yakusa were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of Bloody Knuckles danced in their heads.

And mamma with her Master Chief, and I in my Skull Cap,

Had just settled our brains for a long Mafia War’s nap.

Sorry... this feels like a fairy tale from the Brother's Grimm... and I mean the original book version... not the cutsie cartoon version!

Tomorrow the Raven will appear "sometime" should I choose to go fighting... I have tried several Serial Level test runs... and think that I am now ready to try and defeat this beast without wasting a single unit of Stamina searching for a Sniper Shot!!

Here are all of the things that I have done to be ready for battle:

• Sent out Blue Mystery Bags to my entire mafia (using the Chrome Extension FGS) asking that they send one back in return.
• I have 6 Stamina Packs in my ZMC (Zynga Message Center) just in case I try and open one too early or any have expired.
• Accepted all gifts that are not Mystery Bags, Brazil Crew Requests, or Stamina Packs.

Here are the things I have not done today... or at least in the last 12 hours:

• Brazil crew slots are empty, 10 people wait to be added.
• I have not collected the Brazil properties since this morning
• It has been more than 24 hours since I used my last energy pack.
• I have not even visited the Marketplace so no Fight Club Energy Refill was used.
• I did not visit Atlantic City today.
• I did not open my e-mail bonus.
• I did not post for help with any jobs.
• I did not open a single mystery bag.

Soooo... now I am ready... I will post my game plan in the morning... as you can tell from the above list... Some options are solid full refills... some are small energy or stamina adds... some are dice rolls trying to get refills.

I have the house to myself all day... and except for puppy piddle duty I am ready to serial level and battle my best to not use a single RP or combo to defeat this goon!!!

What tips and tricks do you have to make it through the session with a Raven body in hand?

PS - If I had found more than 4 Sniper Shots per 10,000 stamina I honestly wouldn't have gone to all this trouble to avoid RP... but if you make me use every bit of time for 8 solid hours just searching for parts to TRY and play... I'll change from Checkers to Chess... not a problem!! The 3-D board is 10 ft away... we can go THERE too! This is supposed to be a game and a challenge... not an 8 hour job for a year for a single skill point. /rant

The Raven and Get{DIS}Satisfaction

About a month ago, during the first visitation from the Raven, I started a Getsatisfaction.com thread suggesting that Zynga should increase the appearances of the Raven. Even today, this thread has had some action, yet within the last little while it has been "archived" by Cerulean Master, and now directs you to a new, similar thread that was started. Thanks a lot CM, so now Zynga's just going to disregard all those Likes and Me Too's?? I still haven't seen the Raven, so I think my thread is still relevant.

Nevertheless, the "new" thread does address a different issue about the Raven but is still quite relevant and the feedback contains the same damn complaints. You can find the thread and participate HERE, and I suggest you do so. Zynga seems to be ram-rodding the difficulty level as a planned intent, "oh it's supposed to be 'challenging'", despite player complaints about the Raven both last month and now.

How much clearer can this be spelled out? WE DO NOT LIKE HOW YOU'RE DOING THIS EVENT.

This & Next Week 7/8

The weekly update has been posted as the Mafia Wars blog. As usual, I'm mostly interested in what's coming next week. ALL I SAW WAS STAMINA PACKS!!!!!!  

Coming Next Week*
*As far as is currently scheduled, but things can change.

• Icing Seasons

Earn reputation badges and new mastery items each week by icing opponents in Icing Seasons!

• Assassin Boss Fight: The Raven - ROUND 2

The Raven returns! Ice players on the fight list to pick up the Assassin’s trail. He’s very hard to find, but when you get close you'll discover special Ammo with which to fight him.

• New Mission Event: Ties That Bind

You’re taking on a newly-elected state governor in Brazil. Keep your head down and power through a major smear campaign to earn a Glamour Helmet (62/150).

• New Ruby Mastery Loot in Brazil

Finished your Brazil districts to Ruby Mastery? Go back and complete Brazil jobs in any ruby-tiered district to earn new red-hot loot!

• Stamina Packs!

We've saved the best for last: You’ll be able to send and receive free stamina packs for a limited time!

survey on the Raven

In a recent blog post, Zynga tries to explain their intentions with the Raven boss fight event/thingie.You can read it there for yourself. Bottomline for me is, what they intended, me no likey. Lots of people have voiced similar opinions about it, so Zynga has put up a survey for you to fill out about the Raven.

Go HERE to take the survey. 

the Raven has flown the coop

You can stop looking for the Raven, because it seems he's left town. He's in Cuba, specifically o.O

Apparently he'll be gone for at least two weeks, according to this announcement on the forums.

Where in the world is the Raven?

By now I have seen a LOT of people complaining that the Raven never appears for them, even after spending thousands and thousands of stamina on icing people.

I saw an awesome quote this morning in a Skype chat room:

I got a message to keep icing people...the Raven was coming...after another 60 or so ices....got another message the Raven was coming....I told that pop up to F'$% off, lol.

 
I think that sums up very well many of the player reactions I'm seeing in my own news feed about it. It was said during last night's Mafia Wars Live broadcast that the rarity of being able to fight the Raven was 'by design', but I think Zynga should really listen to the players on this one.

What do you think? Check out this thread on Getsatisfaction and voice your opinion.

Boss fight disappear? Don't worry, he'll find you again

I've been reading up on the boss fight bloopers, snafus, and confusions this morning. There's lots to read! One question that I'm seeing a lot of is "The boss disappeared when I beat him, how am I supposed to beat him 10 times, let alone a hundred times?"

The first clue to that answer is on the homepage banner. It says "Watch out for him in fights".

I just saw this in my own game - it's a banner that will appear at the top of the fight list when you are fighting that says "Limited Time Fight". Aha, so that's where he will find you. I wonder how frequently this will happen.

Further information can be found in the FAQ about this. It says the fight is activated when you start fighting. "When your activity catches the Raven's attention, the Boss Fight will trigger..."

It's safe to say this will have to be an ongoing event, if we are to beat the boss 100 times. I wonder who will be the first to finish!