FlyingCodeMonkey

Wait ... Ex, you're supposed to announce these things the afternoon of the day when they actually happen, and at a time when I can't possibly attend. What happened?

Wow, I may be able to show up for an event for once. Most of my guys have blue, green, purple, or otherwise funny-colored skin. It's kinda hard for them to go unnoticed, but I'll consider it a challenge.

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The tactic we finally devised before everyone decided to put it on hold until Thursday was to havbe 1 Kin and 1 Emp Target through each of our Meleers and have them keep ID and CM on the Meleers while casting holds and Tranfusions at the same time. ... We'll be using this tactic when we reconvene on Thursday to try to finish the last mission.

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Always keep ID/CM on at least the tank, if not also on everyone facing GW (her Fear cone can also be a problem for those not directly targeted by her Hold).

If your Fire/Kin is present, make sure he dismisses his Imps for GW. She loves to see Imps whenever Dark Regen recharges. It's not worth trying to defense-buff Imps, and the caster can't drop purples on them.

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What happens if ...?

On my last run, our tank was basically gone before we got to the thorn tree mission. We never did find out if he had an emergency, or crashed, or what. Eventually he was kicked just before we attacked LR's towers, but regardless someone else who understood the Thorn Tree temp power's usage took it at the conclusion of that mission.

So I was just now wondering ... what if our tank had been there longer, and he had taken the temp power? What happens if the character who takes the temp power quits, is kicked, crashes, or is otherwise unable to return? Could a person sort-of grief an STF team by grabbing the temp power and quitting? How feasible is Aeon without it? Does it reappear on someone else (doubtful)?

I guess I'm sort of wondering why the mission doesn't simply bestow everyone on the team with the power, or be like the TV reactor coolant belts, where there's enough for everyone?

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Hey, that would explain why Darkest Night appeared more effective than I expected. It was the normally overlooked -damage component.

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Darkest + Shadow Fall was pure happiness on my most recent STF. Psychic Wail? One of them used a Psychic Wail? Yep, you might not have noticed.

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Certain self heal powers are tagged to not allow outside healing buffs. Reconstruction is such a power.
General Rule:
If your heal also grants resistance to toxic, it won't benefit from +Heal buffs.

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This is very useful to know, but rather ... obscure. Is there any way a non-forumer could tell this by-design feature from a bug? If not, then something should be done in the future, because this question will be asked again.

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You need a good tank

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Or an Illusion Controller. My last successful group occupied LR with Phantoms. We'd drop PA, take out one tower, then run like crazy to let LR's aggro reset. The same Phantoms kept GW busy while the rest of us dealt with the rest of the AVs in his group.

Aeon and the other pre-Grandville AVs were summarily owned. A good tank is great to have, but STF can be finished in respectable time even without one.

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you need a troller with an aoe immobilize

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?

Why? Immos are useful, and I had a great time with Tentacles last run, but I don't recall anything that really mandated an aoe immo. My earth/rad was extremely effective in one STF, and he doesn't carry an immo at all.

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you need a stormy or a bubbler with force bubble

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Nah. There are lots of solutions to the tower repairmen. Practically any location-targeted, or area-denial, or pbaoe-toggle-damage, or aoe damage power will do. Hurricane and Force Bub might be the ideal case, but oddly I've yet to have a Storm or FF of any flavor on any STF team with me. Hot Feet, Earthquake, Fire Ball, Volcanic Gasses, Ball Lightning, Ice Slick, Stalagmites ... all kinds of things are useful and plenty effective.

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and you need range damage

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Or Group Fly. It's unbelievably useful against the Flier. I assume IR would work well enough too, like it does at Hami raids.

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Having too much melee damage means ghost widow has plenty of targets to heal off of.

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Amen to that ... and my last team found out that one of the worst possible things to have out versus GW is a group of Imps. Even Shivans can be counter-productive, unless you have enough sheer damage to overwhelm her between heals (seen that happen too). You don't absolutely need an empath or even a tank though, depending on the rest of the team. Any way you can arrange big buffs to Defense can traumatize her Dark Regen efficacy, too.

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What is the typical duration (aka not "We schooled this in 12 minutes, noob!") for this Task Force? Is it in the 90 minute/2 hour range like the Respec mission, hero-side?

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The successful teams to which I've belonged have finished it between about 2.1 and 2.6 hours, so far. It can be done in a lot less time, but I expect 2.5 hours will be about average for a solid and well-balanced team.

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... and, kins and darks are fairly useless for healing tanks until the +def tower goes down on Lord Recluse.

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+Def tower?

I'd been led to believe that they were Red = Damage, Yellow = Accuracy, Green = Heal, Blue = Endurance. My last team didn't even worry about the blue tower; we just smashed red/yellow/green then went to LR himself. Am I wrong about one of them? It would make more sense as a purple +Def tower, since LR's blue bar is already practically infinite, but at any rate I wasn't aware of a +Def effect.

Well, I'm three wins for four attempts, now. I was the Dark Defender in a group that started with 3x Controller, 2x Blaster, 1x Scrapper, 1x Tank, 1x Defender. We basically lost our tank after the first or second mission; don't know if he crashed or had an emergency or what, but it was basically a seven-man tankless STF. We had Kin, Rad, and Dark but no Empath.

We completely wrecked everything up to LR's inner circle AVs, including Aeon, who hardly slowed us down. In Grandville, bad luck on the pull brought Mako, Scorpion, and Ghost Widow as a trio. Thanks to some well-coordinated teamwork and some well-slotted Vengeance, we took out Scorpion then Mako while PA kept GW occupied. Scirocco joined in as we were starting on GW, but he didn't cause much trouble this time. Ghost Widow's super-hold was annoying, but it wasn't as troublesome as her Dark Regeneration heal. Once we dismissed all the pets (Shivans, Dark Servant, Imps) and had only the one Scrapper and PA in melee, plus Vengeance for defense, she dropped quickly enough.

After that, LR was just a matter of determination. We took out the flier when it appeared (hurrah for Group Fly), dropped PA to distract LR, and tried to destroy one tower each time before the PA would expire. After a few such iterations and a fair amount of regrouping at the Longbow ship (no tank, natch), LR was defeated.

GJ to any of my teammates who also frequent the forums. That was an outstanding group.

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I would ask if anyone has tried a range boosted snipe, but I don't think you can LOS more than a few yds beyond Moonbeam and Psionic Lance range anyway?

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My Fire/Eng has three Centriole HOs (Dam/Range) in his Blazing Bolt, plus Boost Range. I can actually snipe things from farther away than I can see them rendered, by targeting them then moving away. I can LOS much farther than Moonbeam range though, on my years-old computer.

While I haven't taken him into the STF yet, I'm pretty sure I could snipe the AVs from a very safe distance. The Blaster I saw sniping them was doing so from the very top of the ramp down into their area, then retreating to our position about 100 yds away.

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The AVs are linked. Even if you DO pull one and only ONE, when that one dies, 2 more will aggro immediately.

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Not always. On my last run, our group pulled each of the four AVs individually. None of them approached us until sniped. Everyone was really impressed.

The time before, not so much. We tried to pull Mako, but Black Scorpion came along too and before either of those two had dropped, GW decided to join. So we were fighting three of them at once in that iteration.

First run we got Mako individually but couldn't beat him, so I don't know what it might have triggered. The last thing we tried in that case was dragging him all the way to the Longbow ship, but the moment we did GW and Scirocco appeared out of nowhere and killed every NPC in sight.

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Earth Control and Rad Emission could have contributed 5-10% each after AV resistance (depending on powers and slotting, note this is 50-100% *each* before resistance)

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For reference, note that I have zero Defense Debuffs in the Earth Control powers, so Quicksand, Earthquake, etc. only contributed their base values. My RI is slotted with three Enzymes.

My Controller-strength Tactics has three To-Hits; presumably the others did as well. There was only one other Controller, an Illusion, but I don't recall if one of the other two Tactics was hers. My guess would be yes, because she was a PvP build and I assume she'd want the +Perception buff. At least one Tactics was almost definitely Defender-strength.

Most of my Earth stuff has two Accuracy in some form, yes. Fossilize in particular has 2x Acc and the AoEs have 2x Endo, though they also have their inherent Acc penalties. I know I was hitting pretty consistently with Fossilize in particular.

My last group had 3x Tactics, 1x Earth Control, 1x Rad Emission, and 1x Empathy for Fortitude. I believe we also dropped 2x Shivans when Mako fired Elude. I wasn't having significant trouble hitting him, but I don't recall if I had Fort or not.

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Y'know, this is random, but ... it occurred to me last night why I think I like the STF so much. Last Issue when we were discussing Safeguards, I wanted them to be more than just the inverse of Mayhems. I wanted to invade villain strongholds and destroy their stuff, fight giant machines that drop mob spawns, and other super-hero-movie-type things.

The STF has all that. It's like they were taking notes on the kinds of things we wanted to see. Yeah, Hess has the MegaMech, but it's just a cool thing in the background. In the first and last missions especially, the STF has smashing villain stuff, the flier dropping spawns, LR's towers, and in-between it's an AV-stomping good time (especially Aeon, probably the most entertaining AV fight of all).

If I could change any one thing, I'd want some sort of giant monster spider-bot stomping through either present-day Atlas (to set up the "this is why we have to confront the Rogue Isles threat now" theme) or failing that, the web parts factory. I'm also not so fond of the Thorn Tree mission. But other than that, it's great.

Yeah, I know. Defense Debuffs on Mako are very much an "every little bit" situation. Hence my saying I'm not completely comfortable with it. I'm more on the fence than my usual "accessibility" point of view here precisely because we're talking about the STF and the Rogue Isles signature Arch-villains.

At the same time, how far can you go to be accommodating with this TF? Mako is only one aspect of it. Most teams (not all, but most) will have to have a tank to manage the AV aggro. A team without certain power sets might be unable to keep their tank alive long enough for the rest of them to accumulate damage on LR. A team without CM, ID, or Clarity will need to bring a lot of break-frees to defeat GW. A team heavy with scrappers who aren't well-stocked with heavy defense buffs might be unable to overcome Ghost Widow's self-heal. A team with few area-denial powers might not be able to stop the techs from repairing the towers. A team with very little regen/res debuff might be unable to overcome the regen of a level 54 AV. A team with little control might be repeatedly overwhelmed by spawns from ambushes, the Flier, or Lord Recluse. A team with no significant ranged attacks or jump/fly ability is at a big disadvantage versus the threats presented by the Flier. Etc., etc.

Similarly, a team without significant to-hit buffing may be unable to punch through Mako's defense. He is one very visible possible point of failure, but he's only one. He's not even the only one that couldn't be overcome by sheer stubborn determination.

I don't really disagree with you, so this is probably all I'll say on the topic. About all I can figure is that if there's any one task in all of the City hero side where solid party composure, experience, and preparation are all most appropriate ... I figure it's the STF.

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Why are we so willing to accept that a mandatory 3x Tactics, or ~50 level 2 yellows, is good TF design?

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Mako's high defense is a well-known challenge of the STF for which a team needs to be prepared. I'd agree that it's not ideal, but neither is it really unusual. Tactics, Fortitude, Focused Accuracy, Targeting Drone, Radiation Blast, Radiation Debuffs, Yellows, Shivans, whatever you have available. I know some teams will be stopped cold by Mako (I was on one of them), and I'm slightly uncomfortable with that, but the STF is about as difficult a challenge as we can get on the hero side. I think it's reasonable in this case.

The respec trial needed to be easier in deference to weaker builds, but the STF isn't the sole source of anything hero-side except a few badges. If the data they collect over time shows that an inordinate number of STF teams are failing and that the #1 reason is Mako, then he'll probably be adjusted in some way. For now I think he's fine, though imo he needs 100% resistance to Avoid effects.

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Bold quote is wrong, it takes more than 1 rad, 2 storm defenders, a kinetic and multiple leaderships. It took 3 shivans, a snowbeast, an amy, and a warwolf to finish Mako off. That's crazy talk.

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It depends heavily on what you have available. I joined another STF group last night (success) with my Earth/Rad Controller. Earth has lots of Defense debuffs, and my RI is slotted with Enzymes so it has lots of Def debuff as well. Our group had three Tactics running. Even after he fired Elude, I was still hitting Mako about half the time. We used no Veng.

We did spawn two Shivans toward the end, but they were mostly for the extra damage (and paranoia, we knew Mako's characteristics). The -Def they contribute is always welcome, of course. Last night's team had no trouble with any of the inner circle AVs, nor with LR himself or his towers (though we could have been better-equipped to handle the Flier, not many ranged attacks). However, I remember very well how the first STF team I joined was completely unable to defeat crazed-runner Mako.

So yeah, there's definitely some secret sauce happening with Mako. If your group doesn't have some significant defense debuffs, and/or stacked Tactics, and/or Shivans, be sure to bring lots of yellows.

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Would it be fairly obvious to say that it ill be levels 50-55?

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I'll go ahead and squash that one now. Level cap is NOT going up in I10!

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Good. I sincerely hope it never does.

I have a bunch of characters who are quite happy at 50, not worrying anymore about leveling. I can exemp any one of them that fits my mood into whatever I can find. In I9, I can concentrate on gradually improving them through the new Invention stuff, running the STF, and so on.

The last thing I need is to log in some evening and be suddenly confronted by another five or ten levels of leveling on each of them. No, thanks. Very happy with things as they are.

Curse you and your predisposition to inform people about things I'd been planning to keep to my fiendish powergamery self for a while!

/someone has to be contrary
//don't hurt me

I have a humiliating question.

What is this Dr. Aeon temp power I keep seeing mentioned? What does it do?

I don't think I've been the recipient of the temp power either time I've run the STF, but I'm not sure I'd have known if I had been. I used the same character on both runs, and all three of that character's power trays are completely full.

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I like the Dark Mastery pool more.

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Hear, hear.

/two tanks
//no Energy Mastery
///yay for auto-hit in Taunt!

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Do the +Regen/+Recovery Unique IOs (Regenerative Tissue, Miracle, Numina's Convalesence) stack with themselves? They are/were listed in game as having a 120 second duration...

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Those are Unique now ... so stack with each other, sure; but you can't use more than one of any of them.

I figured the "120 second" text was referring to the 120 second duration on those types of special IO effects in click powers like Heal Other, but that shouldn't apply at all to an auto- or toggle-type Healing power.

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Not quite sure what point you're trying to make here. If your goal is to set a time based record, then I would suggest that you assemble a team of 8 with at least one member from each of the AT's.

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As an aside, and I know individual success will vary, but one thing that helped our last group a bunch was having two tanks. One tank played tag with LR and some of his summoned purple attendants. The second tank held aggro on the flier, its spawns, and a few more of LR's spawned companions. The rest of the team burned down the towers, dealt with the repair techs, kept the tanks buffed and alive, etc. It was very effective.

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PA's lost recluse at that point and he ran around ganking us.

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Apparently those ganks don't count for his score, though?

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Snipe pulling AVs has shown some success, as well as TPing the "sniper" back after the snipe to a safer location.

Sound about right to you all??

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Especially if invisible. I once pulled Mako by himself using only Taunt from a distance, but I was invisible at the time. The next time through I tried the same thing visibly, and got both Mako and Scorp.

I also saw someone mention that BS seemed extremely vulnerable to Sleep.

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Oh! One additional question if I may? about how long did you take to complete the TF? I believe I've seen up to 5hrs

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... felt like maybe 90 minutes? I'm not sure, but no more than that, maybe a little less. It was a pretty fast run. I don't have a very good estimate, sorry.