Call Me Awesome

I'm afraid we'll have to disagree here, most of us are glad to find something in the game that's a challenge. You're missing the point about the STF too, NOTHING EXCEPT 8 COMPETENT PLAYERS IS REQUIRED TO SUCCEED. You don't need a perfect team, you don't need massive IO builds, you don't need any particular AT or powerset. All you need is some forethought and tactics. My first run through the STF was done without a single IO bonus on a single teammate... guess what, we succeeded. Hell yes it was hard; that's what makes the STF so much fun, that it ISN'T simply another boring waltz through. NOTHING about the STF "devalues" ANY AT... all can contribute to the success of the mission. Look over what your team has and adjust your strategy accordingly. Lots of Scrappers? Simply have the tank hold GW's aggro from range or feed everyone purples.

And "farming for inf for large inspirations?" Really? Your level 50 has to farm in order to purchase inspirations? Every now and then I simply place a bunch of bids for large inspirations at $5,000 each and they'll usually fill in 24 hours. Those get stored in Base storage so they're there when we need them. Medium & Large insp drops get tossed in as well at the end of the day... any that aren't useful are combined into ones we use. My total inf cost for my STF tanking loadout is only around $100k - $200k... about what you'd make running a typical radio mission, and I don't very often use up half my tray. Heck, the way insps drop in the STF you could go in with an empty tray and have a decent loadout by the time you needed it.

As has been said the STF's been done with 8 Scrappers. It's been done with 8 Blasters. It's been done with 8 Controllers many, MANY times. It's been done with 8 Tankers. It's been done many times by 8 Defenders. It's even been done with 8 Keldians. I've done it with many different team setups... and all but 3 times it's been successful... one of the failures was actually due to a bug.

It really sounds like you're complaining because there's one TF where you can't simply sleepwalk through; I have a hard time understanding that. If you don't enjoy a challenge, doing something that's actually hard, then simply don't run the TF. Just don't complain that it's "too hard" and needs to be changed; IMO it's the best TF in the game and my favorite to run simply because it IS a challenge. No cheap gimmicks; you just have to adapt your strategy to what your team brings to the table. I haven't used Shivans, Nukes or anything beyond simple inspirations on the STF since issue 10; they're simply not needed.

I actually prefer doing the STF as a MoSTF if I've an experienced team for the extra challenge... and no, I'm not talking about a stacked "holy trinity" team either, just all competent players who know the TF. MoSTF is a challenge I've only succeeded at 6 times out of more than 20 attempts.

A Rad/Sonic's biggest advantage is the ability to stack considerable -resistance debuff on a foe effectively multiplying your damage. They're highly effective teammates and do solo well; I'm not sure they solo well enough to take a GM though

They have the Rad debuffs for survivability and all their attacks have significant -resistance in them. Still, AV's & GM's will resist your debuffs and the character's ultimately dealing with defender level hit points. I have one in the mid-30's and it's a good character and capable. That capable though? I doubt it based on my other Rad Emission characters.

Put a group of Rad/Sonics together though and you've built a team that's capable of steamrolling most content; mine was created and leveled with my SG on a 5 man team of all Rad/Sonic defenders. We'll probably get back to that team sometime... we tend to switch concepts frequently. The 7 man Fire/Rad controller team was truly awesome.

I can't give you any real perspective on redside... I've never played a MM past level 15 and only played one villain to 50. Almost all my playtime is blueside.

Enzymes are a type of Hamidon Origin (HO) enhancement... they're acquired by raiding the Hamidon in the Hive... a fairly extensive undertaking requiring 30 or more players to accomplish. Hami-O's as they're frequently referred to are multiple purpose enhancements that function as two or three SO (single origin) enhancements in one. They only drop as level 50 so you can only slot them at level 47+. Since you specifically asked about Enzymes they're endred/defense debuff/tohit debuff enhancements... the perfect thing for Radiation Infection. You can also, of course, buy them from Wentworth's. They aren't generally cheap though.

Active Defense is, just barely, perma with two recharge enhancements assuming you don't have any global recharge buffs. I always toss in three recharge to ensure it overlaps.

The buffs from the Leadership pool power give different amounts of benefit depending on the AT who has them. Defenders get a fairly large benefit out of them, with Controllers getting the next best use. Scrappers really get little enough benefit that unless you're on a regular team and everyone's running them they're not worth having. The biggest benefit is that all the leadership powers stack... so if two Defenders both have Tactics then everyone on the team gets a 25% (unslotted) tohit buff. Three Defenders running Tactics gives a 37.5% tohit buff.

Scrappers on the other hand only get 7% tohit buff out of having Tactics making it questionable in value, and Maneuvers only gives 2.8% defense. Possibly useful to get that last bit of defense to the soft cap but it's another fairly expensive toggle to run.

A dedicated superteam with all 8 members running Assault/Tactics can be a phenomenal thing. Defender's get 3.5% defense from Maneuvers, 18.8% damage from Assault and 12.5% tohit from Tactics... all of those are unslotted values. Stack those 8 times and you can see it makes a difference.

I really recommend playing around with Mid's Hero Designer to work out your build; it'll give you all the numbers so you can evaluate the benefits of each power & slotting choice. If you're having problems with the .net framework then go to Windows Update and get .net for your version of Windows. Mid's is an invaluable tool for working out your build... you wouldn't believe how easy it is to royally screw up your respec if you don't have a blueprint of how you want it to end up.

Elec/Shield is fast becoming a FOTM build because it is so good for AOE damage... it's considerably harder to soft cap than BS/Shield though since you can't rely on Parry to handle the Melee defense. It also has considerably less single target damage than Broadsword... on the other hand it's Energy damage instead of Lethal.

Broadsword actually does have a nice amount of AOE, you have Slice, Whirling Sword and, if mobs line up right, Headsplitter. I can gather up the aggro cap of +2 mobs with my BS/Shield, hit Build Up/Shield Charge/Whirling Sword and quite literally nothing but bosses will survive. That combination with saturated Against All Odds deals as much damage as a blaster's Aim/Build Up/Nuke.

Things go a little slower while waiting for BU/SC to recharge but I can still clear the next group while I'm waiting with my ST attacks and Whirling/Slice/Headsplitter. Build Up and Shield Charge conveniently have the same recharge

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Also, good point on the scrapper/controller divide Fulmens. It's a somewhat generalized statement but I'll admit there's a grain of truth to it.

Full up AV's are what we're talking about, and there are indeed some melee builds that can take one down. I even know of someone who took down EIGHT AV's at once solo with a scrapper... admittedly they were handpicked AV's for the character. Do a search on the scrapper boards and you should find the thread about it.

Most AV's take quite a bit of time for any melee character to solo, but if you can survive the attacks and maintain a sustained 100+ dps attack chain without running out of end over a 20 minute stretch or more then you can do it.

Even so powers you have to die to use generally aren't popular. To be worthwhile it'd probably have to have a self-rez attached to it.

I know I wouldn't bother with it since most of the time I don't end up faceplanting very often and it's opportunity cost is very high... only worth having if you're taking Leadership anyway.

I have Vengeance on most of my Defenders since they're taking the Leadership pool anyway, but they generally only die if I do something really stupid. It's much more useful when it can be used on any teammate who falls instead of requiring the fallen character to have it.

Outside of Defenders and Controllers the leadership buffs are too low to really be worthwhile unless you're building a superteam.

Ah, a light dawns... no pun intended

That hadn't occurred to me since none of my tankers fly. Well, one of my Stone tanks has Hover to go along with TP for travel but it's kind of theoretical to tank with it on a stone tank CMA does have a Raptor Pack though; I may try that next time.

That's how Vengeance originally worked; that version of the power was rejected by the player base in favor of the current version. You still see the original Vengeance power with Nemesis LT's.

Tough & Weave are very useful for a Shield character; my Broadsword/Shield skipped the APP pool entirely in favor of maximizing my damage output and my defense. The more defense you have, up to the 45% soft cap, the more valuable each additional % is. 40% sounds like a lot of protection, and it is. However moving to 45% actually has as much effect on your durability as the entire first 40% by halving the amount of damage you'll take.

At 40% defense you'll be hit, on average, by 10% of all attacks. At 45% defense (the soft cap) you'll be hit, on average, by only 5% of all attacks effectively doubling the amount of attacks you can survive.

Shield has fairly low defense numbers on it's own; it needs help from Weave and IO bonuses to really shine. Once you get it to 45% though it's amazingly durable.

Works fine for me under Win7; you may need to update windows with .net for Vista if you're running it.

Regarding your question about slotting for Active Defense, you know it's a click mez protection power that needs at least two recharge to be permanent? (Permanent means it recharges before the buff runs out) Hasten is a click recharge buff that cannot be made permanent without significant IO recharge bonuses, but slotting 3 recharges gives you maximum uptime for Hasten.

I'd never leave Active Defense single slotted; I want it always active and ideally I want it to overlap. Therefore I always 3 slot it for recharge and set it to autofire (control+click on the power).

Hmm, I haven't noticed her being particularly vulnerable to fear with my Ill/Rad... and I do keep Spooky out on the off chance his psi damage proc hits.

Offhand I can't think of any pool power that would have a "lock down" effect other than Intimidate or Invoke Panic; and with the lack of effect from Spooky I don't see them working. I've tanked GW while a buddy played his Ill/Rad and Ghostie would sporadically attempt to close to melee with me.

Never seen it happen myself but I suppose it's possible. Still doesn't sound like a major problem; I've run a couple dozen STF's with Kelds on the team and we've never had issues with Cysts. I can only think of once or twice we've even seen a Cyst on an STF; they are a rare spawn. Even so they generally aren't a problem for a competent 45-50 team.

I've heard they sell off-market well in excess of 2 billion. Gotta say I can't see that kind of expenditure for a single IO; I doubt I have much more than that in the full IO builds of 14 level 50's.

Why would you turn down Kelds for the STF? They do a fantastic job of filling in wherever you have a weakness. They contribute significant damage, can tank anything short of LR (Dwarf taunt not being autohit and LR's capped defense from the Orange tower) and have other things to offer as well.

I have no problem at all with Kelds or Scrappers on an STF (or frankly any other AT for that matter)... the only possible speed bump with Scrappers is Ghost Widow and there are ways around that. All you need is a tank to hold aggro from range and Dark Regeneration is a non-issue. Failing that you can all eat purples to hit the 45% soft cap and again the heal's a non-factor.

Oh boy would you have a surprise coming on a full team of controllers. Frankly, nothing I know of in the game rolls through content faster than a team of Fire/Rad controllers... they've done the STF in under 25 minutes.

I've run successful STF's with the sacred combo of tank/dps/support, I've run it with all scrappers, with all controllers and with many combinations in between. You just need to adjust your tactics to your team composition... a strategy that works with the classic tank/blaster/support team won't work with a controller team. You evaluate your team and adapt to what you have.

As long as you have competent players and decent damage nearly any combination will work. I've been on teams with such a horrible combination of AT's that you'd think it was hopeless and succeeded. I've also been on stacked teams that should have breezed through that failed due to poor player skill.

To sum it up, you don't need any particular "magic" combination to handle the STF, you simply need good players and a little thought. Yes, it's harder than a typical AV battle. It's the hardest TF in the blueside game, by design, and it's been done successfully by a team of 8 blasters at least once that I know of. I've done it several times on a team of 8 controllers for the Guardian All Controller TF's we used to run.

I'll have to disagree, the STF is probably my favorite TF in the game. Yes, it's hard... it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be the hardest TF blueside to challenge high end level 50 characters.

There's lots of ways to handle the challenges... GW is easy to deal with if you've thought it out. Either have a tank taunt her from range so she never uses her heal or make sure everyone in melee has soft capped negative defense. The hold can be handled by soft capped defense or by stacking anti-mez buffs on the tank; it takes 8 stacked clear mind/increase density buffs.

Lord Recluse is supposed to be the toughest AV in the game and the most dangerous; he's still relatively easy to handle if you approach him with some thought.

I stand corrected, I guess I'd mentally transposed GM & AV hit points.

If GM's are in the 300/sec regen range then absent -regen debuffs soloing them is completely out of the question for anyone... I don't think I've heard of any scrapper combinations that could put out 300dps. I've heard a few approach the 290 mark, but not 300. There's a fair variance between GM's though; the Kracken isn't anywhere near as tough as a monster DE.

Although you're right about level, even though all GM's are "leveless" as far as conning goes Kraken's designed for lowbies to kill and the Monster DE are designed for large groups of 50's. I have heard of a few controller builds soloing GM's... someone soloed Lusca with an Ill/Rad a while back... but it took hours.

My favorite is similar, but I use Membranes in place of the Cyto's. I loose the endred and gain more recharge. That IS on a Broadsword Parry though; but I think Divine Avalanche is identical apart from the animation.

Several scrapper builds are capable of soloing AV's... GM's are another story however. As I mentioned earlier I know that BS/Regen can take down some AV's as I've done it... Chimera and Bobcat are two I've taken out with that combo and I've heard of other scrappers taking out other AV's. Heck, I took out Chimera & Bobcat back in issue 7 on SO/HO enhancements so it'd be much easier with a good IO build. It's just such a long process actually killing them that after seeing if it could be done I didn't see any reason to do it again.

Some GM's might be doable by scrappers but it'd take a really optimal build; those suckers have double the HP of an AV and consequently higher regen. I'm not sure any tanker builds could hack it due to lower DPS.