The Time Vortex
When you warp into the map you will notice a Tactical cube protecting a Time Vortex ('Portal/Vortex') ahead. To your left there will be a Transwarp Gateway covered in a visible green shield (Gateway 1). There will be an identical gateway to your right as well (Gateway 2). Your primary objective here is to stop the Borg probes from traveling through the vortex.
Both gates have 2 transmitters and each transmitter has 4 generators.
- Your primary objective is to prevent the probes from entering the Time Vortex-Always destroy Probes before destroying other Borg.
Drawing the Tactical Cube towards the gate.
1. Destroy the Tactical cube.
2. A few probes will come through both gates. The team should focus on bringing down one of the gates as quickly as possible. Similar to the revamped Infected Space mission, the team should focus on 1 set of generators and transmitter (and it's 'guardian' which arrives when 2 generators in a group are destroyed), then the second transmitter before destroying the gate (which bites back as it does in Infected space). Periodically probes will come through both gates and head towards the vortex. One ship can elect to deal with any probes from both gates as a priority while the rest of the team focuses on destroying one of the gates.
3. When the first gate is down, the second gate will begin spawning spheres as well as probes. The team can now work together on dealing with any incoming ships and focusing on on transmitter group, then the second and finally the gate.
Once both gates are down the optional is complete (recommend you still destroy any leftover Borg ships anyway and the mission won't advance until they are).
4. Destroy Donatra will now appear in her assimilated scimitar. She will continue to clock/decloak when some one gets within 5k (with a small possibility that she may cloak once after taking damage initially) and concentrate on whoever has the most agro (unlike her previous incarnation she won't retreat for each 25% she loses to call reinforcements and come back again with full health).
Optional: Prevent any ships getting through. If you let 10 vessels through the vortex your team will automatically fail, and be prevented from playing the mission again for another hour. You must also destroy both gates within 15 minutes of killing the Vortex Guardian (Tactical Cube).
Normal vs elite:
- The initial 'guardian' that spawns (after 2 generators in a group are destroyed) is a cube. This is why it is recommended to focus on one transmitter group at a time to prevent multiple cubes spawning.
- NPCs are lv45 (normal) and 53 (elite).
Optional Objective Tactical Note:
- DO NOT wait near the portal for probes.
Time spent waiting is time spent not being useful: if there are no probes present, attack another target.
If 1-2 ships are waiting near the portal for probes, the other members have to make up for the lack of contribution and unless they're absolutely stellar, the group is unlikely to make it in time.
- Ignore Spheres! Contrarily to the recent rumour, Spheres do not go through the portal, all they do is shoot at you. Don't waste time on them until the Gate and Probes are all dead. Even a BoP can ignore their fire and survive.
- Use common sense. Example: Many players are so used to killing probes ASAP that they forget the timer; but when time is low you need to rush the Gate down or you will lose the optional. Probes can be caught up with afterwards. Always analyse the situation and take a decision that fits it; don't follow any guide blindly.