Guide To Basic STF Strategies
As I read the forums it occurs to me that I see plenty of threads and have plenty of conversations every day with people who still find this TF to be a mystery. I've personally run this thing quite a few times in multiple team combinations. I've gleaned lots of information from the forums, and in conversation and experimentation with teammates; we've arrived at some strategies that help us put together successful teams. My intent in writing this guide is not to tell you how to do this the quickest but to give the reader a tool to use to help plan a successful STF that has a decent chance of becoming a MoSTF with communication and teamwork.
Team Building
Many people think there is a mysterious perfect team you have to have in order to succeed that is false. You do not need a perfect team to succeed at a regular STF, nor do you need one for a MoSTF. The most important thing for a strong team here is to ensure a balanced team. I find the following mix is usually easily strong enough to be successful:
- 1 tank
- 4 buff/debuff
- 3 damage
Like anything, you can tweak this and still succeed, but this platform provides a solid base. Every AT and every powerset has its advantages in this TF, so don't worry overmuch about absolutely having to have one or another. For example, defenders provide the best buffs/debuffs while controllers provide control and pets. Blasters do more burst damage and more AoE damage, but scrappers are simply more durable and can tackle things that a blaster needs more attention from a buffer to deal with safely. Even the various tanks have their respective strengths and weaknesses that I will talk more about later on where those become more relevant.
Once you have a team, you need to settle on communication. In order to succeed, particularly if you are trying for a Master run, everyone needs to agree on who is in charge and whose voice is final. Ideally, this is someone with lots of experience running the TF and someone who outlines a general strategy without getting into the minutiae of who uses what powers when. Once the leader is settled on, people need to listen to that person and agree on their lead.
Mission One
-cable order
-stopping ambushes
This mission is really pretty straightforward, but there are some things you can do to make your run go smoother. The first one has to do with killing the cables. There are not enough cables on the top of the ramp to satisfy the requirement. Therefore, I recommend that the team start by going down the ramp; kill all the cables on the ramp except for the top two because these will help you be in a good position to deal with the ambushes that come later. When downstairs clear cables and Arachnos as needed as a team until you have between 10-15 cables left, then proceed up the ramp to continue clearing cables until you have those last two left. At this point, the team gathers at the last two cables at the top of the ramp. This ensures that you are together as a team because when you take out the last two cables there will be Arachnos ambushes as well as spawning Arbiter Sands.
The biggest danger of clearing cables any other way is that the team risks being strung out running up the ramp with an ambush. While it is rare, people do get caught and killed by the ambush when this happens. It is much better to simply face it as a team. Does it take a bit more time? Sure, but if you're chasing that Master badge, time and caution are your friends.
Now, here is your opportunity to take one more little tip and put it into practice. When the ambushes spawn, they keep spawning so long as you kill all of the previous ambush. While it may not be especially dangerous, it is annoying when you are trying to get set to tackle Sands, and it's extra risk you don't need. In order to stop the ambushes, leave one Arachnos alive. This can be done a variety of ways: immobilize one, hold one, confuse one, hurricane one away from the others, use Black Hole or a detention power etc. In order to do this, you need to have good communication about who is preserving the lone Arachnos and which one that Arachnos is; sometimes it may take a try or three to achieve, but it will stop the ambushes once it's done leaving you to tackle Sands like you would any other AV.
Mission Two
There isn't a whole lot that can be done to make this one easier, but it shouldn't need to be. The most important things about this one are to make sure that everyone can get past the Arachnos spawn in front of the elevators to the outdoor part of the map, to make sure that you know the locations of the four outdoor AVs (a team leader who is familiar with the TF should know this), to make sure that your pet wranglers don't drag their pets across the map with them inviting unwanted aggro, and to make sure that your entire team is assembled and buffed and ready to go in before each AV fight. The only last bit of advice is to watch out for Regent Koral's nuke which can stun any squishies unlucky enough to be caught in it.
Mission Three
-Be aware of Tree aggro zone
This one dooms more MoSTFs than any other through simple lack of situational awareness. That being said, I am not going to discuss soft-loading this mission as it is not necessary. What you need here are alert teammates.
First thing's first, it is always useful for this one to have someone on the team who can stealth and teleport. Unfortunately, by level 50 this is nearly everyone. I say unfortunately because there is one segment of the trip down where the Oranbega map has the very narrow hallways linked to the very small chambers. Sometimes, there are red pain crystals in those chambers. I've only seen it once myself, but that once killed our MoSTF. What happened was that every character who could was busy stealthing themselves down, and while we could save one person who got into trouble, saving all five of them was impossible. For this one rare occurrence, I suggest that you designate one stealth teleporter to go down and give them the necessary inspys to make it. Again, if this is a Master attempt, caution is your friend.
Alternately, you can also just do it the old-fashioned way and fight your way down. This presents little problem, but you need to be aware that there is a team of villain bosses about 3/4 of the way down to the Tree room. You should be facing them in an open room with a waterfall in it, and if you all stay on your toes, they should be defeatable with little risk to your team.
Once you have everyone down in the Thorn Room, this is where situational awareness is your friend. You should check your room map; it's a large circle with the Tree right in middle. The Tree aggros on the south half of the room. If your map were a clock, that's 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock. When you are in this zone, only the tank should be out in sight of the Tree. Everyone else should be hugging the wall of the room and keeping the large rocks scattered about between themselves and the Tree. It helps when clearing CoT if you have at least one team member who can watch their map and tell the team when they are entering or leaving the aggro zone.
When clearing vines, it is advisable to have the tank clear the front of the room while everyone else clears the rear. If you have the appropriate tools on the team, it's possible to buff the scrappers enough that they can clear in front relatively safely as well. Everyone else needs to remain just behind the 3-9 line. However, ranged characters can fire forward of it. It is important to know that the tank cannot grab and keep the Trees aggro reliably until every last vine is gone.
There is one more strategy that needs more refining, but can work. This one involves clearing the hallway of CoT just up to the chamber with the Villain Respec. One person with invisibility or a high degree of stealth waits just inside the Tree room as a spotter to report while another goes up the hallway; a third situates themselves just beside and slightly behind the Tree to teleport. The person up the hallway pulls the Villain Respec down the hallway and into the Tree room, the teleporter whisks them away from danger similar to when you pull the AVs at the end, and the spotter reports whether or not the Villains engage the vines. If all goes well, the Villains engage the vines and the Tree kills the Villains but not before they kill a good number of vines in front of the Tree. If it goes poorly, the villains do not engage the vines and run back to their room. It takes trial and error to get this to work; that's why I say it needs refining, but it has worked without killing a member of the hero team trying it twice now.
And finally, the Tree's temp power should be given to the most durable team member unless they have very little experience with the TF in which case, it should be given to someone with experience and some degree of survivability.
Mission Four
-clear all the ambushes
-focus on Doc Aeon, ignore the pets
This is the Security Chief? mission. It can be a pain to keep killing Chief after Chief without finding the key, but at least the Arachnos spawns themselves are mainly an annoyance. The biggest suggestion here is that everyone wait and tackle both ambushes before moving on to the next Chief. The ambushes will chase you all over the map and having a random group of Banes run in during an AV fight can be awkward. Again, this does take more time, but it prevents you from being strung out and facing multiple opponents as eight individuals which can be dicey.
As for the four AVs inside once you get the key, they all have nukes. It is entirely possible depending on how many defenders you have with to-hit debuffs to keep those nukes from scratching anyone. If you aren't that well equipped, then the squishies need to beware and keep well back. As always, make sure that you are tackling these guys as a team, and there shouldn't be any problems.
When it comes time to face Doc Aeon, you need to be aware of where he is in the room. His room is a multi-tier room and he is in the middle of the second tier towards the back of the room. There are several Arachnos spawns scattered across the floor of the room. These need to be cleared. As you clear them, make sure you pull them away from the back of the room. Aeon can have a crazy-long aggro range, and the last thing you want is to aggro him early and by accident because Aeon, like Lord Recluse, spawns lots of large angry pets.
When it comes time to face Aeon himself, there are a few things that can work to your advantage. If you have an illusion or mind controller with confuse, a confused Aeon spawns confused pets that attack Aeon and each other neatly removing that worry for the team who only needs to focus on Aeon. A character who has Force Bubble can neatly repel all of Aeon's pets so long as the character is defended also removing the pets from the team's consideration. A storm summoner can likewise wreak havoc on the pets with good support. If none of the above are available, the team needs to stick together once the tank has aggro and the temp is used to maximize their support and attack Aeon as quickly and as decisively as they can to overwhelm him before the pets and the banes become an issue.
**The 7th Inning Stretch**
Before you proceed into that last mission, we like to take a total team break for 10-15 minutes. At this point, you've likely been playing very intensely for around 2 hours. Giving players this time to step away from the monitor, stretch, grab a drink, bio, grab a bite to eat, get a smoke, etc, can be a valuable decompression. This time also allows people to sell and refill on inspirations they might need for that final mission.
And, most importantly, if the team leader does not take the final mission until everyone is ready to zone into it, this break allows you to reliably set your timer for the Arachnos Flier since the timer sets based on the very first person to zone into the mission.
Mission Five - The Big Finale
-flier is on a 20 minute timer
-taunt Ghost Widow from range
-use accuracy boosting abilities to combat Mako
In the last mission, you should clear the Arachnos from the ramps and runways before you think about pulling AVs. It's just safer. You never know how mobile the fight will be once you get going.
When it comes time to start pulling the Inner Circle, this is another place where communication and cooperation are key. The team needs to agree on one puller, one teleporter, and I like to add one spotter. The team also needs to agree on what they will do if they pull too many AVs. This is where the spotter is important. It should be someone who flies and is invisible or super stealthy so that they can see what's coming with little trouble and avoid getting into trouble in the process of spotting. Generally, the idea is that too many AVs will cause the team to retreat into the boat until the spotter gives the all-clear (another reason why you cleared all those Arachnos).
The most useful way I've seen to get the AVs to come to the team is to teleport/pull them. The puller turns on his teleport prompt, the teleporter teleports on his mark, and he fires his shot just prior to accepting the teleport. This should whisk him back to the waiting team where he can be healed of any damage that might have occurred. This is another reason why a spotter can be useful, the puller doesn't actually see what happens as a result of the method of pulling, and the team can be in the dark until the AVs come all the way up the ramp. A spotter can see results instantly. Extra time is extra safety in this case.
When it comes to the actual pull, I've not seen any tried and true 100% fool-proof method for getting one and only one AV every time. Generally, you want the person pulling to be as obscured as possible. High amounts of personal stealth and added invisibility from a teammate are all good ideas. Having extra range in the pulling tool will also help. And lastly, you want the pull with the least possible amount of damage. Therefore, all other things being equal, the defender will be preferable to the blaster because of the lower base damage most of the time. Another important thing for the puller to consider is his or her positioning. They should try to put themselves out of the line of sight of as many of the other AVs as they can and still hit their chosen target (this last may or may not actually help, but it certainly can't hurt either).
The rest of the team positions themselves out of line of sight about halfway down the runway and waits for the AV to arrive at which point the tank grabs aggro and the fun begins (unless all the AVs arrive in which case, the team retreats). During the early AVs, the spotter will want to remain behind watching the remaining AVs. Sometimes, they will aggro late, and arrive mid-fight. Obviously, this can be a problem if the team is taken by surprise. Once the spotter returns to the fight, at least one person should keep an eye out for incoming AVs at all times until the fight is over.
Now to discuss the Inner Circle keeping in mind that like the AVs in the previous missions, if you have enough and strong enough debuffs on them, they won't hit very much if at all (this is especially important for Ghost Widow):
1.) Mako - Mako is a superstalker with a super version of Elude. Mako is very fast and does a lot of running around even when the tank is taunting. For this reason, immobilize and hold powers can be very useful and should be spammed on him to keep him still. However, Mako's seeming ADD also makes him, IMO, the least dangerous member of the Inner Circle. An alert team can easily handle Mako with any other member of the Inner Circle, even Ghost Window, provided they keep track of where the sneaky little fish is while they concentrate on his friend. Mako is really good at darting up to you to deliver an attack or two and then taking off again to aggro on someone else. Generally, just moving away from him will avoid any trouble unless he has you immobilized.
Mako's secret weapon is his Elude, and it isn't insignificant. I've heard of plenty of teams that get defeated by Mako's Elude, but there are some pretty easy ways to get around it. A team that has at least two and preferably three stacked Tactics should be fine. Geas of the Kind Ones will also allow you to hit the little jerk. Sets that have auto-hit powers like Tornado or high native accuracy powers can be very useful in this fight, and finally, a yellow or three, just enough to let you hit, will also always work. Generally, if you are planning on using yellows or Geas, don't activate them until you start to see lots of "MISS" messages come up in place of your usual orange numbers. Generally, we have someone alert the team when Mako starts his Elude, and there have also been times when he's never done it.
2.) Black Scorpion - Scorpion is really the most straightforward of the group. The biggest thing to worry about with him is that he can deliver some pretty heavy hits to the team. Generally, though, he's just an ugly massive bag of hit points that needs to be whittled away.
3.) Scirocco - Scirocco can be the most punishing to the squishies on your team. He has the most AoEs of any of the Inner Circle, and they do the most damage. For the squishies, there are usually two good places to be in this fight: directly behind Scirocco because that negates his cone attacks or directly above him. I've had at least one AR blaster who spent the whole fight perched on the wall beside the runway firing down on Scirocco; he never got touched.
The biggest problem with Scirocco is that he has his sand twisters that do steady, strong DoT. He then lets loose with an AoE that can rapidly knock controllers, defenders, and blasters into the red. Even the best support is hard pressed to restore everyone to health before the twisters finish someone off. Oh, and those AoEs can stun too which only adds to the fun. Really, the best bet here is to avoid getting hit in the first place as well as you can which involves keeping out of his line of sight and not allowing the team to get too packed together. You might see if you can get your tank to back into a corner taking Scirocco with him. That should leave Scirocco's back exposed and reduce the rest of the team's risk.
4.) Ghost Widow - I am tempted to relegate Ghost Widow to "Urban Legend" status. Aside from Mako, she's the one that people seem to have a healthy respect, well, fear for for some unknown to me reason. Certainly, she does posses a nasty arsenal of weapons, and the tactics used to defeat her are the least traditional of any of the Inner Circle, but once you have faced and overcome her a few times, she loses some of her mystique.
The first thing you need to understand about Ghost Widow is that on top of the already impressive AV regeneration rate, she also possesses three means of healing herself. One of these is a minor PBAoE heal that will work off of anyone in melee with her. On a balanced team, this first heal is nothing to fear and can be easily overcome along with the regen rate. The other two heals are ranged, targeted heals that can heal 3000+ points of health if she can manage to use them. Obviously, these are the ones you don't want her to use. Lucky for you, the range on these is fairly short, and Ghost Widow will only attempt to heal off the person who has her aggro. Also, as I've mentioned a couple times already, three strong defender based to-hit debuffs (or their equivalent) will seriously impair her ability use any of her attacks or heals at all.
This is where the strategy comes in. Your tank can't tank her like he would any other AV. The tank will need to stay well away from her and taunt her from range; the taunt has more range than the heals, so she won't be able to refill herself without getting closer to the tank who keeps moving away.
This is where part two of the strategy comes in. Ghost Widow also has a very, very nasty hold. It will penetrate any tank's mez protection. You will need some form of added protection for your tank: Increased Density, Clear Mind, Clarity. These cannot be allowed to drop or the hold will likely hit. Now, plenty of people will tell you that if Ghost Widow hits you with her hold you are dead. This is not true. I've seen several tanks survive it with alert support. I've survived being held myself on a storm defender which should surely be much harder than surviving it with a tank. So, get the doom and gloom thoughts right out of your head. The hold can be outlasted and survived.
So, the tank, with mez protection, taunts from range, and everyone else does what they do naturally in an AV fight. You can even melee her so long as the tank has her attention. However, should the tank lose aggro, even for a second, she will heal herself, so be aware of what's going on with your team. Now Ghost Widow also likes to run because she really, really wants to heal off of your tank. This is another place where spamming any immobility powers and holds helps. If she can't go forward, there's no risk of her getting into heal range. If you can keep this strategy running smoothly, Ghost Widow won't take you a whole lot longer than the other three Inner Circle members.
All right, you've gotten this far. There's only one more thing to do before you tackle Lord Recluse. You need to take down the Arachnos Flier. Some teams ignore the Flier, but I prefer to just take it out because I really don't like random missile volleys being shot at me while I'm busy with Lord Recluse. And if you're trying for a Master attempt, the added danger of the random Flier aggro really isn't something you want anyhow.
Before you jump in and take down that Flier though, I should tell you that it has a timer. The Arachnos Flier is set on a 20 minute timer. The timer begins counting down the minute the first person zones in for the last mission. If you spend 15 minutes getting to the Flier and then kill it at 17 minutes, it will respawn 3 minutes later. This might be good to know, and it has certainly helped us in our last four or five runs. Generally, we find that we get to the Flier with about 4-6 minutes left until it respawns.
We start preparing for the Flier by clearing all the regular Arachnos away from the platform the Flier usually patrols around. Make sure when you do this that you are working the far side of the platform from the Flier and keeping it between the Flier and the team. You really don't want to aggro the Flier while you're fighting a spawn although most teams would likely handle it just fine.
The Flier itself shoots what look like tracer rounds, small fast missiles, and large heat-seeking missiles that con blue and move very slowly. The Flier also periodically spawns large groups of bane pets that the team members on the ground will have to deal with. The coolest thing about the Flier is that the large missiles can be targeted and attacked. Generally, it's a lot less threatening than the AVs you just got done facing, and you should be able to defeat it relatively easily.
Lord Recluse and His Towers
-any tank will work for Recluse with hover and taunt
-tower order is usually red, blue, yellow, green
-taking Recluse to the rear of the platform will remove him from the Flier's aggro radius
-Recluse spawns +4 bane pets due to damage taken or when his health is very low, be aware of this
Lord Recluse is one mean AV by the time you get to him. He has built himself four buff-bot towers that make him insanely strong on top of being +4 or +5 to you (average team is 50s with some SK'd to 49). Each tower provides a different flavor of buff. The red tower buffs his damage. The blue tower seems to provide him with super speed boost in addition to helping with his spawn size when he summons. Yellow doesn't seem to be accuracy in our experience so much as it seems to be resistance, so orange might be a better label for it. And lastly green keeps his health topped off.
Generally, your team of 8 needs to both keep Lord Recluse occupied and take down each of the four towers. This necessitates that the team split up. Usually, the tank will occupy Lord Recluse with the help of one or two of the team's support while the others will attack the towers.
How many support and what kind you delegate to the tank will depend largely on what primary powerset your tank has and how he chooses to confront Lord Recluse. Every tanker primary is capable of tanking Lord Recluse without dying so long as the proper support is provided and the proper strategies are used. Obviously, Stone tanks have the easiest time and can stand face to face with Lord Recluse even with the red tower standing and expect to need very little support. That being said, well built Invulnerable tanks are almost as good at it. The others need varying degrees of help beyond the regular pocket support.
First, you should understand that Lord Recluse has six attacks listed in Paragon Wiki. Of those, only two are ranged attacks. So, if you're a tank looking for a way to reduce that incoming damage, your first means of doing so might be to take to the air. If you can hover above Lord Recluse using Hover, Flight, Group Flight, or the Jetpack, you've just reduced the number of attacks Lord Recluse can use on you by four. If you max out your taunt range with slotting, you can then manage to negate another of the remaining two. This adds up to one attack from Lord Recluse that can hit you. If you can survive one hit that then needs time to recharge (giving your support time to work on you), it really doesn't matter what kind of tank you are; you can successfully tank Lord Recluse without dying. If you can survive two hits, you can still do it without dying. IME, most every tank can survive at least those two hits from Lord Recluse.
Now obviously, your support is still helping you a lot, but they don't have to work nearly as hard or take as many risks. Additionally, you should check what your powerset is strong in. Those attacks from Lord Recluse are energy based. Obviously, sets that offer resistance will do more for you here than straight up defense sets. This is why a fire tank will be easier to support from hover-taunt than an ice tank. The ice tank may not get hit quite as often, but when they do, they lose a lot more hit points. So, the ice tank is wise to stock up on orange inspys before the mission, or hopefully, the team has a sonic resonance character on board. Conversely, the fire tank eats purple shields and hopes for a bubbler.
There is one last possible advantage I can list to hover taunting Lord Recluse. It seems that his tendency to spawn bane bosses is linked to damage done to him. A tank that hovers and taunts has no chance of doing any damage, so that is one possible spawning trigger eliminated. Our other theory was that excessive movement would do it. However, we've had taunting tanks fly all over the platform with Lord Recluse in tow with no spawned banes all but destroying that theory. It's possible we have this wrong, but nearly all of our last runs have been bane free until the very end.
Now while the tank team is playing nice with Lord Recluse, the rest of the team is taking down the towers. Sometimes, based on the type of tank, we vary the order of the towers, but lately, we seem to be always dropping them in the following order: red, blue, yellow, green. This has been working out nicely for us.
There are some things to keep in mind with the towers. When you reduce the health of the towers to a certain point, the towers will start to spawn repairmen. You can't ignore the repairmen because they do what their name suggests: they repair the towers. This is where AoEs are nice to have although not necessary. They don't have to be particularly strong AoEs as the repairmen die very easily.
It is important that everyone taking down the towers keep an eye out for stray repairmen. Living repairmen will restore health to the tower you're working on if you let them. Also, if you don't kill them and they happen to get knocked away from the tower that spawned them, they will search for a tower, even one previously destroyed, and repair that. It's never a good thing to have to go back to a tower you destroyed once before because a stray repairman fixed it.
Hopefully, everything has gone smoothly and you've taken out all four towers and are ready to beat up Lord Recluse. With a good team, this should be easily accomplished in the 20 minute period before the Flier respawned (assuming you timed it to give yourselves the biggest possible window). If the Flier did respawn, you don't necessarily have to go back and defeat it again.
The Flier looks at about the first 2/3 of Lord Recluse's platform and it ignores the rest. Assuming that you have taken out the two towers closest to the Flier's platform, the team should be able to avoid the Flier by keeping to the back side of any remaining towers. The tank can simply draw Lord Recluse to the very back corner of his platform, and you can finish your business there. You can also re-defeat the Flier if you prefer. So long as you left no living repairmen, none of your defeated towers will be repaired while you are away.
Once all the towers are down and you're ready to take out Lord Recluse himself, it's almost anti-climactic. At this point, he's no tougher than any of the inner circle and you don't need any special tactics to defeat him. The only thing the team needs to be aware of is that where all the other AVs have nukes, Lord Recluse spawns lots of level 54 banes. These can be a danger to the team especially if the team is spread out so that your support is unable to help everyone effectively. Mass control powers of any and all sorts from your controllers are very good here as are repel powers like Force Bubble and Hurricane. You shouldn't have to deal with the banes for very long before the team defeats Lord Recluse unlike Aeon's pets which are around from the start.
And ...
That's it.
I'd like to thank Nemine Lecte and Teikiatsu who've played the majority of these right alongside me, and been there for the after-STF strategy talks. I'd also like to thank the denizens of Virtue United chat channel for never letting us down when we want to run one of these. Some of our very best ideas (hover/taunt among others) have been entirely yours. I'd thank you all personally, but there have been so many of you that have provided such valuable insights to us that the list would go on forever.
