Antimatter_NA

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It's a guide designed to make PuGing the Cap strike force possible for anyone

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OH! It's for everyone. Well, everyone except for MM's and Doms cause LOLZ TH3IR DMG SUXXORZ!

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In terms of getting invites: Yep, it sucks to be you if that's the only toon you have over level 20.

But, of course, there is nothing stopping a dominator or mastermind from actually forming a team and leading it if they have the sufficient stealth/TP skills - In which case this guide will help them recognize their weakenesses and plan around it.


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I also take great issue to the post (sorry, didn't see who said it) that said that the only good secondary that MM's have is /Dark.... has that person every even seen what the rest of MM secondaries do?

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I didn't say it. It's a good idea to actually read a thread before shooting off automatic responses.

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/Traps is amazing, and I'd take a /Traps MM over a /Traps Corruptor any day. The MM can take a hit much better than a Corruptor, and their damage is roughly even. Edge = MM.


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I have a 50 mercs/traps, and I can atest to the fact that you're wrong - A corruptor/traps, a rare as they are, is superior when maled down to level 20.
The main reaon is because the attacks they do have hit a lot harder than what the mastermind has access to offensively at this level (only 3 minions, 1 lt, and tier1 upgrades).

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/Poison is also a set that makes Corruptors cry with their sheer number of ST debuffs.

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First off, you don't NEED debuffs that strong to complete this TF.
Second, the mastermind forums are full of people crying about how underpowered poison is, how they think /dark can do everything just as good but in AoE form. To some extent they are both right and wrong, which is why poison remains virtually unplayed except as a PvP toon.

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Plus, if I remember correctly, Bat'Zul is one of the few AV's that doesn't have the purple triangles, so holding him is piddly easy with just 2 Doms (might be wrong on the # of Doms needed), but with enough debuffs, Doms stacking holds on the AV to perma-hold him, you've got one hell of a PUG team.


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Except you don't NEED to hold him for the brutes to survive.
A corruptor's mitigation is sufficient, and with their debuffs the target will go down faster.

If all you bring is dominators then you might have mitigation covered, but you're going to take a long time to kill both AVs.

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While I mostly disagree with the wording of the OP... I can sort of get at what they're saying. However, I think that changing the statement to more accurately reflect something that doesn't sound biased (whether or not an actual bias exists) would perhaps be beneficial.

IE: Mention instead that Dominators and Masterminds are not ideal for putting together a run for the shortest time possible, and that for the sake of consistency you advise against their recruitment. However, they can be added in, if one is willing to accept the additional factors that come as a result.

That's a lot less harsh then saying, flat out, 'never invite X AT, they suck before Y level'. And more of an accurate portrayal for a set of guidelines.

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I don't sugar coat my guides to protect the delicate sensibilities of certain classes or powersets - I'm just going to give you a strait outline of the reality as it is.

It's up to the team leader to take this information in, and then decide whether or not they choose to take chances or run at suboptimal efficiency by recruiting classes that are relatively weak at this level.

My personally? I don't because there's always plenty of brutes/stalkers/veats around, with no need to downgrade to a dominator or mastermind.



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Ah, so you're one of three things, then. Or a combination thereof:


A) Someone who just wants a pat on the head for being 'efficient' at the sake of someone with actual leadership qualities.


B) A curmudgeon of some variety.


C) An [censored] that thinks because he has success, he should try to tell other people how to be a jerk like him.


Neither of which are of any benefit at all to writing a guide that could actually be useful to the majority of the community at large. Still, I'll take what information I've gleaned from this thread under advisement should I seek to perform my own runs in the future, though I imagine I'll be a bit less picky about who I take with me, and most certainly less insulting.

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Ah, so you're one of three things, then. Or a combination thereof:

A) Someone who just wants a pat on the head for trying nitpick an otherwise solid guide, for the sake of lacking anything significant to add to the discussion.

B) A disgruntled Dominator or Mastermind who is taking this entire thread way too personally.

C) An [censored] that thinks because he only plays one type of toon, that he is entitled to have everyone leave pity spots open for anything they do in the game, just for him. And thinks anyone who suggests said AT should be avoided for maximum farming speed should be lycnhed, regardless of whether or not there's any truth to what is being said.

Neither of which are of any benefit at all to contrbuting to this thread which seeks to help villains farm the Cap SF better and faster on a regular basis.

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BTW I've seen Doms stack enough Holds on Bat'zul to hold him almost indefinitely, making defeating me quite easy.

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People who would criticize the guide first ought to have an idea what they are talking about:
The fact is you only need one dom to hold him. Him and Infernal both have very low status protection despite having purple triangles.

So five doms is wasteful overkill.

And you never needed a dom to begin with because corruptors will provides sufficient mitigation/heals for the AV fight on top of having debuffs.

But if you aren't a lead corruptor like myself, you may have no choice but to settle for a dom in the absense of corruptors.
Concidently this is also the only time you'd need to resort to using a mastermind because they bring along the debuff.

The corruptor is a superior invite because they bring both mitigation and debuff into one package, so you don't have to bloat your team up and make things take longer to kill as a result.

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Zzzzzzzzz.........

A Doomsday Warning is in Effect

must. sheep. i mean....

zzzzzzzzzzzzz...



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No to be mean, but that's a pretty good description of your video right there - Lots of long stretches of boring pointless announcements and introductions.
You should redo it for the contest and cut down on most of the useless extended scenes.

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i understand what aegis is saying, correct me if i'm wrong. maybe it CAN be run faster with a different team makeup, but it might require certain primary and secondary powersets for each dom or corrupter, and if they got a certain power pre-level 20 or not. its harder in a PuG, especially redside finding a particular type or corrupter or dominitor to do cap runs with.

aegis' method is that you have the flexibility of getting pretty much any type of brute or stalker as long as teh brute has a decent aoe dmg output.

recruiting time plays a factor in it as well, why shouldn't it? if it takes you 30 minutes to get the perfect type of dom/corrs etc.., and you finish the cap SF in 30 minutes, but using aegis method with the flexibility of recruitment, maybe it takes aegis 5 min to recruit, and they finish the cap run in 40 minutes, i'd take aegis method. plus it'll be more consistent rather than trying to get specific types of dom/corrs, and thats IF you are able to recruit them at all.

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No... just the opposite. Since the OP's method is to only use two of the seven archetypes (yes, there are seven now -- any archetypist guide should take that into account), he'd wind up waiting longer to put together a group than someone who welcomes all ATs,

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No, you're the one who has it backwards - If I were to wait around trying to find the handful of dom or corruptor sets that would be worthwhile to invite at this level, I'd spend 30 minutes wiating around.
On the other hand, if all I do is recruit brutes and stalkers, and leave myself to fill the corruptor duties, then I can form a team almost instantly - There's never any shortage or brutes, and they're all equally effective for this task at level 20.

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While I mostly disagree with the wording of the OP... I can sort of get at what they're saying. However, I think that changing the statement to more accurately reflect something that doesn't sound biased (whether or not an actual bias exists) would perhaps be beneficial.

IE: Mention instead that Dominators and Masterminds are not ideal for putting together a run for the shortest time possible, and that for the sake of consistency you advise against their recruitment. However, they can be added in, if one is willing to accept the additional factors that come as a result.

That's a lot less harsh then saying, flat out, 'never invite X AT, they suck before Y level'. And more of an accurate portrayal for a set of guidelines.

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I don't sugar coat my guides to protect the delicate sensibilities of certain classes or powersets - I'm just going to give you a strait outline of the reality as it is.

It's up to the team leader to take this information in, and then decide whether or not they choose to take chances or run at suboptimal efficiency by recruiting classes that are relatively weak at this level.

My personally? I don't because there's always plenty of brutes/stalkers/veats around, with no need to downgrade to a dominator or mastermind.

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The second issue I have is with the final mission. First of all, you do not need a full tray of lucks to get the altars. The only altar position that you ever need lucks for is the North East tunnel. At this tunnel, the NPCs spawn around the altar in all directions, making it impossible to click without aggro.

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Wrong, the altar's positions are random and so are the spawns.

I use to run through on invis looking for the ones that could be clicked safely, but realized it's faster to just pop purples and superpseed through the whole thing.

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Find the attack leader. Use 2 reds and 4 lucks. Build Up+AS, then Air Sup. This will kill him. Then kill his guards. On a big team, you will need help. Try not to confuse the guard NPCs with other mobs around.


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You use a differnt method for pugging where basically you do all the work and the rest of the team is only there for filler, or to kill the AV at the end - That works, but that's not something everyone can do, hench this guide for everyone.

There's a lot of misperceptions floating around in this thread;
1. I never said this was the only way to run the Cap SF.
2. I never said it was the very best way period. I said it was the best for this kind of PuGing.
3. It's a guide designed to make PuGing the Cap strike force possible for anyone, without a need to team regularly with players you know or trick out your build just for this SF.


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1) Dominators are incredibly useful.

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Certainly not with my method. I use a /rad corruptor as lead, so dominator mitigation is not needed, and their damage in inferior to the alternatives.

As for corruptors, teaming with ones you know who are specced for level 20 is fine, but recruiting random corruptors is playing dice with what you'll be getting. And if you get a couple corruptors who didn't invest heavily in blasts early on when they respecced, then your missions are going to be very slow - Thus why I avoid them as an unnecessary variable and stick to brutes/stalkers who are pretty reliable in terms of what they'll bring at level 20.

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So by your reasoning, I as a Dom should have to miss out on getting a badge/inf/recipies. Your logic behind this escapes me.

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My main is a Dom, but recognizing their severe limitations I was smart enough to make other toons for farming and running task forces. I came to accept that no one needed me for the RSF back before IOs, and I accept that no one needs me for Cap farming either. It just comes with the territory of being a Dom.
I'm not the one you should be complaining to - Go complain to the devs and demand that Dominators be made more useful outside of domination and more useful against AVs.

I don't dictate how the game works, I'm just describing it as it exists.
It's up to the individual leader on whether or not they want to open up pity spots for dominators who will only slow down the overall mission speed.

But, by all means, if you feel the need, go ahead and ignore the recruiting guidelines and try following the rest of the guide - It will still work, you'll just probably end up doing it slower.
Over time you'll come to the same conclusions I have, if you desire to maximize your overall completion speed.

Keep in mind this guide comes from someone who's two mains ARE a Dominator and MM. But I've also got a 50 corruptor, stalker, and brute. So I'm intimately aware of the limitations of dominators and MMs when brought down to level 20, and practical experience timing mission speed over dozens of trials has shown that Dominators and Masterminds are never worth the invite using my method - And I've already outlined the specific reasons why.

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The thing about this game is there's more than one way to skin a cat.

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And my way is tailored towards PuGing in the fastest and most consistant way possible.
But if you've got a better way for doing that, and aren't just some bitter dom/mm lover who feels he's getting cheated by this guide, then feel free to post an outline of what you do differently and why it's better or equal to what I'm doing.

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You have the way you like to do it. It's not the only way, it's not even the best way.

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Of course it's not the only way - But it's the best way I've found as far as achieving PuG consistancy goes.
Like I said, if you've got a better way then please enlighten us with a guide of your own.

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Earth Control- has Quicksand and Earthquake by level 20.
Fire Control- has Flashfire
Ice Control- has Ice Slick


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All that does is mitigate damage, but I don't need damage mitigation - I need killing speed.

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Plant Control- has Seeds of Confusion


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The one exception to the rule. But the great thing about my method is that I don't have to run around looking for specific ATs with specific builds. Since I pack everything needed for success in my corruptor, all I've got to do is recruit some damage muscle and we're set to go - Brutes, Stalkers, and Veats. It doesn't matter what their exact builds are because odds are they're all going to be capable of doing the job well enough at level 20.

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Guides that say "never invite" or "always bring" are -censored-.

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This is a guide for Pick-Up-Grouping the Cap SF on a regular basis. As such, there are certain recruiting guidelines to follow if you want to get consistantly good results with what are otherwise inconsistant and unpredictable PuG players.
If you don't follow the guidelines you're playing dice with how effective your PuG team will be.

This guide is the result of dozens and dozens of running the Cap SF in various forms to distill it down into the guide I've given you, which is the best formula for achieving consistantly fast speed with PuG groups.

It's always rolling dice when it comes to the effectiveness of dominators and MMs at level 20. Brutes and stalkers, on the other hand, are more likely to perform decent at level 20 because they start out strong.
Corruptors can be hit or miss at level 20 as well, because you never know what mix of damage/secondary they've gone. If you get ones that all focused on their secondary then you're not going to have enough damage output to really take advantage of that.

The average dominators maled down to this level simply doesn't have enough damage, and with the exception of seeds of confusion they bring nothing to the table in terms of increasing your killing speed during the first mission - Nor do they bring anything to the AV fights but subpar damage (sure, they COULD hold the AVs because they have very low mag protection on this SF, but it's not required if you've got a good brute tanking and the AV is debuffed).

The same goes for masterminds: At level 20, even well slotted, they just don't bring much to the table in terms of damage. And summoning will slow down your team's overall speed.
The only time you'd want to recruit one is if they have -regen at level 20, and only if you can't find a corruptor to take their place.

And considering that you want to limit the team size to 4 or 5, there's not a lot of room for low damage ATs. If you've already got your debuffing corruptor, what you want is something that will let you burn through the first mission as quickly as possible.

But because the toon I use for running this SF is already a corruptor, I've got all the angles covered; So starting a TF is simple as finding three brutes/stalkers/VEATs to fill out the team and going from there.
It's not for lack of trying with doms and MMs either, that's just the results I've come to find after a lot of trial and error with PuG team builds for the Cap SF.

Yes, it technically can be done without a brute on a PuG, but having at least one on the team to tank the AVs and absorb alpha is a smart move for ensuring that your PuG always performs decently well.
It reduces the margin of what can go wrong to have at least one decent brute on the team.

In the interest of increasing the availability of Strike Force dropped recipes on villainside, I'm going to post a guide to the fastest way to complete the Cap Au Diable Strike Force (level 15-20).
It's not as fast, on average, as the Katie Hanon Task Force, but it's the best thing we villains have got so we have no choice but to roll with it.

This is how you can do the SF in guaranteed 30-50 minutes, using only Pick-Up-Groups.

Quick overview of mission structure
-The first mission is a kill all. This can be vary in length based on the size of the mission. It's quite random.
-Everything else after that can be ghosted to the end objective with the same predictable speed (although the second mission can be a bit tricky)
-The second to last mission where you have to capture a scientist and bring him to a console can be quick or long depending on where the scientist is in the mission, but there are some tactics you can use to make this mission always go smooth and as fast as possible.
-The last mission requires killing two AVs, and there are some special tactics to speed up the process of the last mission so you don't have to kill everything.


Leadership:
1. If you intend to farm this TF regularly, you're going to need to spec out a character who is well suited to the job, rather than try to rely on recruiting other people who have the skills required.
2. First you need a form of stealth. Superspeed works if you are good at running through missions without getting stuck on stuff, otherwise it could result in many deaths. A combination of superspeed and concealment makes things easier, but is not necessary if you're experienced and carry a tray full of purples just in case.
3. Second you need recall friend. Obviously after ghosting to the objective you recall your team to the target to kill it.
4. Your Strike Force leader toon should be something that performs well at level 20, and has something to bring to either the mission killing speed of the first kill-all mission (A brute wth good AoE damage), or has something to bring to the AV fights at the end (debuffs/buffs/healing/etc)
Masterminds should not be used because they are weaker than average at level 20 and setting up will slow you down.
Dominators should be avoided because their damage sucks at this level and their control doesn't bring much to either the first mission or the final mission.
Stalkers work, but because they don't fill a vital role themselves it will require you to get a brute and corruptor for the team.
By going either a brute or corruptor yourself, you make team formation faster and easier. Especially if you go with a corruptor that has -regen powers, because brutes are a dime a dozen to fill your team with.
5. You will need an Ouroboros portal, for quickly recharging your inspirations before the final mission.

Team structure:
1. If you are not a leader with debuffs, then only invite masterminds if they have -regen debuffs, and only if there are no other corruptors available.
2. Never invite dominators. They will just slow you down if they're capped at level 20, before they get their best attacks and best control. This is also why you should never invite masterminds unless you have no choice for their debuffs.
3. Always have at least one brute who is decently specced for level 20 and can take punishment.
4. Always have at least one corruptor with -regen debuffs.
5. Stalkers and VEATs of any type make for good damage based filler after you've already got your brute and corruptor.
6. Typically you'll only want to run with teams of 4 or 5, because anything in the 6-8 range is likely to just make your progress slower than average - UNLESS you fill the team with all level 40+ toons who are reasonably well specced for level 20 combat.
7. Never invite anyone under level 30 unless you need to dip that low to get regen debuffs (another reason why my preferred leadership class is a /rad. He can heal the team and debuff). Inviting people in the 15-25 range will just slow you down because they are not slotted well and probably don't know how to play their toon that well either.
8. Don't fill up on corruptors either. At this level they are hit or miss in terms of whether or not they can do good damage. You're better off relying on brutes or stalkers as damage filler. A team full of corruptors at level 20 has a chance of being very slow and ponderous in missions that require killing everything.


Travel powers
-Make sure your leader character has a fast travel power at this level to speed up the go-between before you get the contact's cell phone number. Superspeed is a good choice here.
-But if you find that you're forced to put off a travel power until later to make you more combat effective at level 20, then you can go to siren's call and grab a temp travel power from there which will last long enough for this strike force.

Difficulty
--Be sure you're set to villainous. you gain nothing by running this on anything harder. The chance of dropping a good recipe at the end is the same regardless of difficulty setting.

Inspirations
-As the leader, load up on purples before starting.
-Instruct the rest of the team to stock up on whatever they will need before you start.
-The Brute may want defensive stuff, but instruct the stalkers or damage dealing corruptors to stock up on reds (and if they need it, blues).
-The primary reason you need purples is for ghosting with SuperSpeed only, to avoid getting killed if you get unlucky.
-You might need to stock up on purples to complete the 2nd to last mission quickly, but you'll definately need to have a full tray of purples before going into the final mission.



First Mission
Kill everything.
-Travel to the door and TP anyone who doesn't have a travel power yet. If you're working with with experienced players they'll already be at this door.
-Kill through this mission as fast as you can. The best makeup for this mission is one corruptor for mitigation (healing or buffing) and AoE debuffing, combined with one brute, and filled out with 2 stalkers.

Second Mission
-TP everyone to this mission entrance as necessary.
-Have everyone wait inside at mission entrance while you scout for the two mission objectives.
-There are three places where each objective could be, so you'll learn where to look eventually.
-Start off by TPing the team to the foreman once you've found him.
-Then go find the attack leader and find a safe spot near him to teleport the whole team.
Out of any point in the SF, this is where any deaths are most likely to happen. So go in together, pop breakfrees to avoid any knockback or control from the mages, and try to keep it tight so you don't aggro the surrounding groups.

Third Mission
-Simply ghost to the end of the mission (it's usually very long, which is a good thing you can ghost it), and find the leader and the glowie (THey are almost always together at the end, but occasionally they will be in two different locations so keep in that mind).
-TP everyone to near the end objective from a safe spot, then let them kill. Easy.

Fourth Mission
-Simply ghost through the tunnel to the end, near the objective, and TP everyone from a safe place.
-The one thing you have to be careful of here if you're a superspeeder is that you don't get caught up in the mob groups in the narrow hallways or stuck on torches as you try to zip fast everything.

Fifth Mission
-Have everyong wait inside at entrance while you ghost ahead to find the scientist. Once found, recall the team to liberate him (or if he's real close, the team can just fight their way from the starting point).
-Once freed, make sure he's attached to yourself, then pop some purples and run with the scientist directly towards the glowie control panel, which will complete the mission without forcing you to fight your way to the panel.

Final Mission
-This one requires a full tray of purples on the part of the leader before entering.
-The purples are so that you can ghost to each altar, pop 4-5 purples, and then click on the glowie without getting interrupted. Then you zip off to find the next one. There are 5 altars, and something like 10 holes to check, so superspeed helps check them all fast.
-After you've gotten all the altars, three ambushes will be triggered. Run back to the starting entrance of the mission where your team should be.
-Now move forward and fight your way towards Infernal the AV, clear everything around him, then kill him.
-Next, jump off to the left and clear out the cave immedately there. This will be the cave you drag Bat Zul the AV down into (because otherwise you'd have to fight him in the middle of a lava pit).
-Once everything is clear, pull Bat zul out of the lava and into the cave, being careful about his quirky AI he sometimes will run off in random directions if he think he can't fit, but he can.
-Be careful of additional ambushes that may still be happening if you killed infernal real quick before the third ambush from clicking the altars hasn't arrived yet.
-Bat Zul hits harder than infernal, but has much less HP, so with some -regen on him he'll go down fast.
-Spam any immobilizes you've got to keep him from running around once you've got him out of the lava.
-The reason you don't try to pull him up to the area where you fought infernal is because he could try to run away and then get stuck in the lava pits flanking this area, forcing you to fight him down there.


And there you have it, a TF rare recipe in 30-50 minutes guaranteed. There ARE ways to get this time down to about 25 minutes, but that requires specialized 3-4 man teams who are purpose built for this TF. They already know what they are doing (Ie. on those teams everyone has stealth so you save time by not having to TP people, wait for them to travel, wait for them to zone, or do all the ghosting yourself).
The advice I've given you is how you can run the Cap Strike Force reliably at an average of 40 minutes using typical Pick-Up-Groups.

Happy hunting!

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Awesome. Purely awesome.

I wonder what the Guy in the Hat's powers are? We're inclined to think SS/INV, but all we've heard so far is he's definitley a Scrapper or Tanker due to his immoblize resistance.

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He's superman. He's in disguise.

I only just discovered Stan and Lou. This stuff is hilarious. Awesome work.

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Excellent!
Stan and Lou are entrenched in the community of COX.
Maybe they'll become a permanent part of the game and we could find them in one of the zones, say Outbreak just standing and talking.

LOL

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With the mission creator in I13, we could make our own missions featuring them

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My entry "Infinite Dark" is up on Gametrailers. Still needed all the legal approval to kick in but you guys can have a look and provide feedback in the meantime.

Infinite Dark

Enjoy...I hope.

Todd

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Awesome. Impressive production values and well directed. One of my favorites.

Although from what I've heard about the halloween event on test, it's too bad that you couldn't get access to that for the zombie scenes.

Great teaser, looking forward to it.

I'd like to see corruptors get poison.

Keep up the good work on the content development. The news issues are what keep me coming back and I can't believe how much the game has changed for the better in the past few years.

Post deleted by Areole

I'll include credits where I host it on youtube then. We are allowed to host it elsewhere before the contest ends, right?

Well it would seem only proper to include the names of the people involved in the production and their role (like voices, music, etc). Wouldn't I be safe doing that?
No company logos or organizations mentioned. I guess I won't even mention supergroup plugs to be on the safe side.

Here's another question:
Does credit roll time count against your four minutes?

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Even though killing via fire attacks itself IS in game?



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Technically, no one actually dies. They just get beaten unconscious and teleported to the hospital or to jail to recover.

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So then we just assume that the people screaming in the building don't die?

Seems dicey to me with rules like these. For trying to protray the darker side of a character, these rules seem pretty dicey to me, a very tough balancing act.

Well, we have shooting a guy in the chest in the game... But we don't have blood.... So, for example, it would be against the rules if we were to edit in-game footage to show blood splatter effects as part of shooting someone in the game?

That question is pretty straitforward, but here's a more complicated one:

Hypothetically; What if I were to take in-game footage of my character throwing a torch on a building, then show ingame footage of a burning building, and then superimpose on this footage the audio of people screaming from inside the building?
Would THAT be against the rules because it implies the character is killing via arson of a building - which cannot be done in game - even though all the physical actions being performed are taken directly from in-game footage? Even though killing via fire attacks itself IS in game?

That's where these rules get tricky to judge, because what you can do in game can be made to look like things you actually can't do; even though technically there's no moral difference between burning someone down in a building or lighting them on fire with a big fireblast.