DrObvious

This is a miniguide that I’m writing up at the behest of my SG mate. It’s a summary of the tactics that I’ve found useful and successful.

First off, let me just say that I’d almost never* go after an AV without the Mitigater/Tanker/Damager trio that is usually not needed in this game. AV hunting is just about the only time there are any team requirements for me, but it’s usually not a big deal, because I usually expect it’ll take about 5 toons to take down any AV in the higher levels.

Mitigater aren’t healers per say, their job is damage mitigation. Defenders and Controllers usually fall in this category. As a Rad defender, this is what you are. I’ll go more into your role later.

Tankers are the people who grab and hold the agro of the AV, keeping it away from the Damagers who will fold like paper if an AV looks their way. This is usually a Tanker, but on occasion could be a scrapper, or maybe, maybe a Dark/ defender. No one else has the tools to take the hammering an AV can dish out. Post ED, a single tanker can almost never take damage output from an AV, and they require the help of a Healer type to keep them on their feet. If you have a couple of tankers, and not enough healing, they can trade off the Agro to each other, but if you are on their team, they shouldn’t have to.

The Damagers sit in the “safe” zone of being able to unload with their damage while the AV flails around on the Tanker. If the tanker doesn’t die, and is able to hold the agro, this is a fairly safe job. If not, expect the hurt to come pretty quick. Since they are doing the damage, they will grab the AV’s attention before the Healers do if a tanker dies.

So how does a Rad/ defender fulfill his roll as a Mitigator? We have a number of tools that do this, and in almost all cases, you have the same priority queue. A priority queue is just a list you keep working down, and as soon as you get to an action you can take, you take it. My queue goes in this order:

Prime) Rez the tanker! If the tanker goes down, mutate him right away. Don’t think, just do it. If you have vengeance, go ahead and use it first.

1) Rad Infection and Enervating Fields: These are your two bread and butter toggles, so you should really expect them to be up here. Of note though is EF’s rarely talked about effect, damage debuff. AV’s hit hard, and are one of the only times that damage debuff plays a large part of keeping people alive in PvE.

2)Lingering Radiation: This power does three very, very important things against an AV. First, it reduces the AV’s hp regeneration. Anyone who’s battled a lot of AV has probably gotten into the situation where the AV can’t kill you, but you can’t kill it because you can’t over come its HP regen. This power helps out with that a lot. Its second job is slowing movements of the couple of AV that love to run away from you to heal up. The third job is usually the most important. Many AV’s have one very damaging attacks and one or two lesser attacks. Your tanker isn’t really going to care about the lesser attacks, but the big attacks can really affect them. Slowing down that big attack gives you a lot more time to keep the tanker on his feet.

3) Heal the Tanker : You’ll never be able to mitigate all the damage from an AV. You’ll have to heal. The tanker is the highest priority, because if he falls, everything else unravels.

4) Heal everyone else: Tankers rate above everyone else, but there’s no reason to let that blaster die.

I guess.

5) Secondary effects of blast/ control : A defender is just not going to be doing a whole bunch of damage, but AV fights last long enough to give you good returns on stacking other effects. Mecha is a /dark with Tentacles 2 slotted for imob duration, so he can usually immobilize an AV by about the half way point in the fight. This keeps them from running, and allows the squishies to retreat around the corner if they need to. Many other secondaries offer other good options. /Rad’s Irradiate offers a great –def, for example.

6) Damage: Well, if you can’t do any of the above, you may as well blast. AV’s are just mobs with a lot of hp after all.

Well, that’s how I help out in an AV fight. As far as I’ve seen, Rad/ helps out quite a bit in an AV fight, but it’s really all about making the small adjustments based on what’s on your team. This should give you a good place to startl

*I’ve had a lot of success with all Defender/Controller combos, even taking Rulidak with only 4 toons, but that was only with very, very skilled players with optimized builds

In the test room right now, we have:

- * Repulsion Bomb has changed in several ways. It no longer requires you to cast the power on a Friendly Target, meaning it is now usable while Soloing. However, we increased the Recharge time to 30 seconds (from 10 seconds) and reduced the chance to Stun by 60%. The text on this power has not been changed to reflect the adjustments. This is incorrect and will be corrected in a future update.

- * Removed Erroneous 'Detoggle' messages in PvE for Repulse, Repulsion Field and Repulsion bomb.

- * Corrected Controller Lightning Storm. It was doing damage based on a Defender’s scale rather than a Controller’s however, the damage it does to the target is not listed in the combat window. This will be corrected in a future patch.

-* Fixed an issue with O2 Boost in Storm Summoning. The status protection it provided had a gap when used on a single target repeatedly.

A major change to an unused power that really doesn't seem to me to make it any more usefull or interesting, just different; a chat log fix; a nerf/bug fix to a controller version of a power; and buff/bug fix to a power.

Seems kind of like a wash, at best to me. What do you guys think?

Wow, I really wish there was a guide like this for every AT!!!