Impyre

We had a lot of interest in MSTF this morning and we had a volunteer to start a 2nd team. Both teams ended up running with 4 buffs/debuffs, 3 damage and a tank. The other team finished first, with special recognition to Scrappy McDeath for leading the team and taking charge in starting a second team.

They started slightly before us and finished in a shorter time too: team 39

This was our team 40.

And this was most of the two teams.

Congratulations to all the new MSTF badges:Attack, AZ Sunspot, Batholitus, Dark Ra, Lupa-Dupa, Psiotic Fire, STANDOFF, Supa-Dupa, and to Dead Joseph on multiple badges including MSTF and hitting level 48.

We will still try to have the Monday morning run previously mentioned.

team
I got a map server right after we completed the task force so we took the picture in front of Statesman. In the MoSTF folder you can find the mapserver completion pic. This run was a bit different in that Scrappy did the tanking other than Ghost Widow. I was able to relax more this run which was a change of pace for me.

Congratulations to Cindy Cinders on earning the MSTF badge. It was our version of an "easy MSTF" with 7 experienced runners. In the future I'd like to try to expand the run into 2 teams running when we have so many available and interested.

I have MLK off on Monday so I may try to organize a morning run. I'd like to get some of those who have different play schedules on a MSTF attempt. Several have chimed in on this thread in the past and have not, to my knowledge, joined us on a run. So if you're interested in running Monday, *hoping it happens*, sign up here.

Tentative run Monday, Jan 19, 10 am pacific time
Also usual Thursday evening run Jan 22 6 pm

It was a very smooth run with no real close calls that I can remember. The team listened to and executed the plan to perfection. I bored the team with a steady stream of: "Attack the AV only" though in my defense only one person fell asleep during the run.

Congratulations to Mortal Prey III, Leech Hawk & Alecia on earning the MSTF badge. Special Kudos to Megaera Fey & Madam X on earning both MSTF and Saved the World badges on this run. Madam said the furthest she'd been on a STF previously was one that ended in the Vine AV room. Megaera had never been on a STF run before so we made sure she got to see Aeon's cutscene.

Both Leech Hawk and Alecia are longtime veterans on various alts while Mortal crossed into veteran status at some unspecified point recently. For anyone wondering, we had 2 radiation defenders and 1 empathy defender.

Most likely no run this weekend. Next scheduled run will be next Thursday, January 15 at 6 pm.

Happy New Year! We had a run that failed on New Year’s Day. We ran when a friend/regular wanted to set up a run. Unfortunately that run filled up before we could go public to recruit for the team. We had a death at Aeon.

With some requests in channel on Saturday, we put together a team for a run. As always I tried to let people run their preference as long as I think the team can complete a MoSTF. So we ran with three tanks. We had several close calls; Scirocco continues to open with an alpha EM Pulse as well as finishing with one at the end. It was a long run with a relatively low damage team; the fight against Ghost Widow was especially slow when the other 2 tanks attacked from range. The team did a great job following a lot more instructions than usual.

Congratulations to Mojada, Inferno Prey, Atomic Aegis, Microsoft Man 2, and Chilling Prey on their new badges.

Next run is Thursday, 6pm pacific

Because of the Holidays, there won't be normal runs this nor next Thursday. Depending on availability there may be runs with notice in the STF Masters channel only.

We've had 2 unsuccesful runs since the last run reported above. One last thursday and another on the weekend.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Congratulations to the new MSTF badges: Hestis & Ivy League Yo. It was a very smooth and relatively quick run for us. I made a conscious effort to push for speed with both the experience on the team and having 5 buffers/debuffers. Our 8th member of the team was Vega Prime who hit 49th midway through the run.

Unfortunately we had to leave out some who wanted to run. Special thanks to those that made room for others.

We'll have our usual Thursday 6pm pacific run.

Don't worry about being unfamiliar with this task force; we try to keep the instructions as simple as possible.

"STF Masters" is the global channel and it's not private. Click "Tab" and select "Channel Search". Type in STF Masters and join the channel. Generally speaking it's a minimal chatter channel.

Our run fell short last night with a single death. It's always the granite tank isn't it?
We had a very slow add of Mako when we were fighting Ghost Widow (she was at 2/3 health when he arrived). The second tank attempted to get Mako's attention and got Ghost Widow's instead. Overall it was a very smooth run aside from the mishap.

We dropped the Arachnos Flier before going in for Lord Recluse and the Fliers and received 2 merits for our efforts. After defeating Lord Recluse I decided to try it again and defeating the Flier awarded 2 more merits.

If there is enough interest we will be running the usual 6pm pacific time.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we ran two unscheduled/short notice runs. One failed and the other succeeded. Congratulations to Vorac Jr., Fire Curcuit & Shiny Sonja; It was a team with a lot of experience/regulars.

team

That is a very good question. I had assumed her Soul Storm is a cone AoE, but it could be a targetted AoE. If it is a targetted AoE, that area seems to be very large based on incidents on past runs when taunting from range.

Does anyone know the name format for her power to see the correct description of her power in game? Otherwise, this is something testable on a failed run.

MoSTF run failed at Ghost Widow. We had a scrapper attacking Ghost Widow from behind and something really odd happened. Because of the manner in which the last run failed on GW's Soul Storm, I was paying careful attention to her facing this time. Not only was there no animation for the casting of Soul Storm, Ghost Widow never turned from me. I was watching her attack me as the scrapper behind her floated into the air of a Soul Storm.

I bugged it but may try some more experiments on failed runs when a team has time and willingness to test it.

Because it's a holiday Thursday we probably won't be running at the regular time.

Our run fell short. We had a death at Ghost Widow plus one more on Mako when the blaster felt more free to go into melee mode (rightfully so after the Master run was no more).

Next run: Saturday 9am pacific

Saturday's run failed at Ghost Widow. Pet agro turned her to hit the Peacebringer on the team. We've noticed a significant change in pet behavior/agro magnitude in recent runs (has anyone else noticed Animated Stone being more aggressive and holding stronger agro?). Mom's Animated Stone has been consistently pulling agro off my tank on AVs. We've adjusted by having her selectively summon "Rocky" for AVs and careful placement. The combination with a Phantom Army made Ghost Widow's facing especially unpredictable this run.

Next up is our standard Thursday night run.

It was a longer run than normal with quite a few afks and clearing the towers with just 7 members of the team present. We had some close calls but the team did great. We retreated from the towers during the first attempt when we started to get an excessive spawn of Banes. Unfortunately we left some repairmen around and the Red tower went from 50% back to full health. We had at least one member of the team seem to test the one-shot rule , but we prevailed. team

Congrats to: Alexia Blaine, Solar Man, Jen's Trouble, Iced Jester, and Dark Panthress on their Master of the Statesman Task Force badges.

Next run: Saturday morning 9am pacific --- see you on the boat!

We'll run the usual Thursday 6pm pacific run.
Like last week, there will be a Saturday 9am pacific run.

Definitely case by case, T.

Saturday morning run was a success. team

Congrats to the new badge holders, Harvey the Hamster (Squeeeek!), Atomic Nexxis, Turn-Table Maestro, Teller, Le Farceur Froid, & Holden Oversoul. Especially to those who had several failed attempts before. Next scheduled run will be Thursday.

We had a really early death last night during an ambush. It was just one of those things. The first 3 missions went smoothly. While looking for the key, a Fortunata boss Wailed and we didn't react in time to keep the kinetic controller alive. I think with 2 tanks there was miscommunication in covering the 2 front agro and that ended the Master's run. We ended the TF with 10 deaths total in part because I was focused more on finishing more quickly than safely. It was the first time I didn't tank while leading in a while and I will strive to do better next time.

A quick reminder, [u]we don't concern ourselves with blame. We just learn from our mistakes to improve future runs[u] . In this case and in no particular order: 1) the tank(s) need(s) to be focused on agro and to watch for a split ambush 2) did the person that died (& all team members) have the right inspirations to buy the team more time? 3) As a rad defender should my first response have been to try to heal?

Next run will be Saturday morning 9am pacific. See you on the boat!

We'll be running the usual Thursday 6pm pacific but we'll have a Saturday 9am run too, (Noon Eastern).

Other than the late realization that costumes are temp powers , things went smoothly. We had a team of vets show up and/or sign up first so we had 6 veterans on the team. We had 2 rads, 1 emp, 4 blasters and myself.

Congrats to the new MSTF badgers: Rugiel & Bullett!

Team pic

It must have been a full moon last night because the run was rather odd. Mom's animated stone was in full attack mode and stole agro a few times including on Ghost Widow. Fortunately she didn't fire Soul Storm at "Rocky" because the entire team was located behind him. The other oddity was Scirocco firing his boom twice, once at the very beginning of the fight and again at the end (which is normal).

Thanks for the link, Mr True Shot, It's nicely written, detailed guide.

The threat range of the Vine AV is NOT 3 oclock to 9 oclock. There is a fairly big distortion halfway between the outer wall and the AV tree. If you are closer to the Tree than the outer wall, the AV threat begins at 1 oclock. Twice we’ve had someone die on MSTF attempts at 1 o’clock in the room. It was the 2nd death that made us test the range a while back revealing the dangers at 1 o’clock to 2 o’clock. 8 o’clock to 9 o’clock is fairly safe though the AV can attack close to the middle of the room but it's a fairly small window.

There isn’t one best way to run Master’s. Every team has different strengths and weaknesses. There are variations on your plan or DestineeFable’s plan or that of others. There are things that will work for you that won’t work for Destinee or myself because you know the nuances. For example, we regularly split AVs on bad pulls but that isn’t something that most teams should try. Experience is a big key as well as knowing your team.

If you have a committed group of friends that want to “solve” the MSTF puzzle, it’s a fun experience. I highly recommend doing so, but it can be a long journey to piece it together.

I'd like to run MSTF a couple weekends a month but it hasn't been happening at all lately. There are a number of people that have voiced interest in this thread that I haven't been able to get on a team since they more available on weekends. In the coming weeks, I will set up a weekend run or two which I'll announce here so that people can plan and sign up for it. I have the same requirements I mentioned at the beginning of this thread for team composition.

One other strong preference that I always implement but rarely voice is that I have a veteran co-lead (or co-leads) that either gives the instructions or supplements them. I often give vets the task of tutoring new runners in tells to make sure they know what is going on. Every success of this badge has been a mutual effort in leading and contributions from every member of the team. There isn't a "pity spot" on any team though we've managed to get by with afk's or dc's in the late or final mission before.

In case people are wondering about team #19, it was a Rasta led team that included Be Healed. Rasta led that team and I was a tag along. The team logged as soon as the rewards were chosen so we never lined up for a picture

Hey gang. Get your temp costumes ready. We're going Trick or Treating in Grandville this Thursday.

The "Trick" = taking down the Inner Circle, the Towers, Lord Recluse and everything before without dying.
The "Treat" = Master of Statesman's Task Force badge.

The usual 6pm pacific schedule.

It turned out to be the winning boat in IP.

We had a team trickle in with a couple of longtime vets and many that have been on unsuccessful runs recently. Our 8th was on his first STF run ever and quite worried about messing up.

Our bubbler and co-lead is a long time veteran of our runs. The bubbles gave us a safety margin that was only tested a few times. The team followed the instructions really well making things much easier. We had a double pull of Scorpion and Mako but they were easy to split. If the team tells you I was a paranoid maniac about Repairmen but I'll deny it.

Congratulations to those that earned the MSTF badge: Susanowo, Panzerwaffen, BubblePop, Mortal Prey II and especially Lumbar Puncture who also got his Saved the World badge.

If we can get a team with reasonable chance for success, we'll run tonight. I am usure if we'll have any veteran/regulars available to help tonight. If we don't get a viable team, we can try to run an ITF or something else.

See you on the boat!

I had the rare chance to run MoSTF on a weekday. We ran twice to try to accomodate everyone that wanted to run but some interested didn't have time. We succeeded on the first run but fell short on the second. I also wanted to give a shoutout to the many different co-leads of these runs through the months. Not having to give instructions or having the extra instructions and guidance make a big difference. You know who you are so I won't list the names since I would surely miss some names.

Congratulations to the new MoSTF badges: SugarPop, Stoneburst, Sagitta Radia, and Broken Prey. team 29

We came really close on the second run. We had the red tower down when i mismanaged my inspirations. Fatigue set in on a longish second run. Having 3 fire/kins made for a slow run versus many of the AVs that would constantly defeat the imps.

As to the pulling of Ghost Widow, etc., the usual snipe rules apply. A miss can pull with less agro as you said Major T, (though sometimes a hit is ignored by her ).

Next run will be Thursday evening, 6 pm pacific.

Short notice, but we're going to run today Noon pacific, so in an hour from now. We'll be running Thursday evening as usual.

Coach, your picture is team 16.5, i think. I really have no idea what our rate could be but I'd guess it's less than 25%.

Major T's method is an ideal way to pull. Getting the puller in motion increases the chance of a single pull even when i'm pulling with taunt.