very disappointing cfo battle

[Poppy! the cat]

Last nite I was invited to try cfo battle (after having been gone from test several days.. last I was on he was unbeatable). I was excited to try it again. Off we went, 4 of us were sf's other 4 unknowns. Cog round easy, breezy as usual. Then we get to the cfo. I am still very uncoordinated on crane so did not work it much except to test it out and get a little more experience. For the first 20 minutes I stomped goons left and right. CFO was still yellow! There really was no challenge or hurry in defeating him since 2 toons had 'toons of the world toonup' phrase. Still I did not wish to be in there for such an inordinate amount of time... what I am talking about is this. I let my kid take over goon stomping because he's always been an expert and I was getting frustrated that cfo was still yellow. He stayed there stomping and craning for at least another 45 minutes. He grew bored and handed it back over to me. By this time cfo was orange and rarely taking damage. 2 of my friends just alted out of the battle becoming tired of it. I won't do this to others so I stayed. Another friend finally said "lets go back to the playground" to inform the other toons of our intentions. We were just exhausted from being in there so long.
I'm interested to know how long it takes most to defeat him. I don't even want to go in if it is common to take over an hour to do it. I was told by one friend it's usually accompolished in 20 minutes. Is this what you all have experienced? If so, do you need to have toons with very good crane experience and how many should be expert with crane use? That battle makes me scared to go in with anyone I don't know. Imagine the frustration on open trying to get only friends (who are all ready to go). I still want to see better instructions on crane use. I've read the threads on technique and feel that is most helpful to anyone who goes. However I can still do barely any damage from crane standpoint. I've not seen anyone else post about having a problem with this. Am I the only uncoordinated, frustrated toon out there? I feel if I cannot get the hang of the crane I will not do any good to a group in cfo

[Crazy Jake MacGrooven]

Originally Posted by Poppy! the cat

Last nite I was invited to try cfo battle (after having been gone from test several days.. last I was on he was unbeatable). I was excited to try it again. Off we went, 4 of us were sf's other 4 unknowns. Cog round easy, breezy as usual. Then we get to the cfo. I am still very uncoordinated on crane so did not work it much except to test it out and get a little more experience. For the first 20 minutes I stomped goons left and right. CFO was still yellow! There really was no challenge or hurry in defeating him since 2 toons had 'toons of the world toonup' phrase. Still I did not wish to be in there for such an inordinate amount of time... what I am talking about is this. I let my kid take over goon stomping because he's always been an expert and I was getting frustrated that cfo was still yellow. He stayed there stomping and craning for at least another 45 minutes. He grew bored and handed it back over to me. By this time cfo was orange and rarely taking damage. 2 of my friends just alted out of the battle becoming tired of it. I won't do this to others so I stayed. Another friend finally said "lets go back to the playground" to inform the other toons of our intentions. We were just exhausted from being in there so long.
I'm interested to know how long it takes most to defeat him. I don't even want to go in if it is common to take over an hour to do it. I was told by one friend it's usually accompolished in 20 minutes. Is this what you all have experienced? If so, do you need to have toons with very good crane experience and how many should be expert with crane use? That battle makes me scared to go in with anyone I don't know. Imagine the frustration on open trying to get only friends (who are all ready to go). I still want to see better instructions on crane use. I've read the threads on technique and feel that is most helpful to anyone who goes. However I can still do barely any damage from crane standpoint. I've not seen anyone else post about having a problem with this. Am I the only uncoordinated, frustrated toon out there? I feel if I cannot get the hang of the crane I will not do any good to a group in cfo

Last night, I must have went about 6 times in the space of about three hours. We won each time. This includes the waiting to go inside as our group formed up.

Alot of others have posted some very good tips, so I will try not to rehash them. I think several things were key that our group was doing.

The toons who were stomping the goons would let them get a little further away from the CFO before stomping them. This made it easier to reach them with the crane.

The crane operators tried to keep their safes out of the way instead of right next to the CFO. It seemed to us a safe next to door inhibited the goons from coming out as often.

The best way to hit the CFO with a disabled goon seemed to be to get a good back and forth motion going. I tried to focus on centering the crane, then moving back and forth once or twice before releasing the goons.

As time progresses it does get harder, because the CFO gets his safe back as a helmet more often.

I hope that you have more success next time.

[BigWayne]

It takes a few times to get the hang of the crane and some people will probably always have trouble. If you have trouble working the crane, you should focus on stomping the goons so they don't knock the operators off the cranes and so they have ammo to throw at the CFO.

Near the end, after you knock off the safe, you have very little time to get a goon and throw it. If you have to get off the crane and stomp one, he will have his safe helmet back before you can throw it.

Twice last night Morticia and Gomez were the only two left and we could not do it because he is just not vulnerable long enough.

The really good runs were when you had 3 people regularly hitting him with goons, which makes a big difference because it limits the damage he can do and the wasted time of getting back on the controls and knocking the safe off.

[DutchAmerica]

I got 2 victories, 1 disco and 4 sads today. Not bad for one day. lol

The crane actually gets easier the more you do it. One suggestion though to folks stomping the goonies. Let them move away from the box before you stomp them because it's hard to pick them up if they are too close to the box.

[Poppy! the cat]

tyvm for all your comments
The problem we had with damaging the vp was that I was with 3 friends and 4 unknowns. 2 of the 4 unknowns with us took over cranes and would not get off although they were unable to inflict damage on the cfo. What happened was somehow all the safes and goons ended up in the two zones those toons were operating. I'm not sure what they were doing on the cranes but they weren't damaging cfo. I wasn't sure how to convey to them what was going wrong. Apparently a friend went over to one of those cranes and got on but as soon as she was knocked off or got off, they took over again. She said they (I believe this was one toon) were actually standing there waiting for her to get off!
So I worked on stomping goonies since the cranes we needed to inflict any damage on cfo were taken. I know to stomp goons further away from cfo but they were overwhelming us since he was letting more and more of them loose while the toons sitting at the controls did not damage. It seems a team of knowledgeable toons (who either read this forum or have tested alot to gain know-how) is the only way to defeat cfo. I'm going to try again tonite and really hope to get a good group with us. It would be really exciting to see victory

[Solid Squirrlee 2]

This situation you speak of is going to be the plauge of CFO battles in the Open server. I was in a CFO battle and a toon was on a crane and not doing much of anything that was help. I ran up to the toon and said "Lets go!!" within a few seconds he said "here boy" and got off to let me on, and stood next to me and watched what I was doing. The use of safes is dangerous to do damage if you are not sure when to use them. In that CFOs that were lost I saw toons actually putting the helmet on for the CFO. I have learned to only damage with safes when I hear the stunned sound. I've also found that battles over 20 mins are usually not going to be won. It has to be done rather quickly or the goons become overwhelming. Also if you loose some crane toons the CFO will focus on the remaining craners more and they don't have the time to attack him.