Impyre

We had a smooth run last Thursday until we had Black Scorpion arrive unexpectedly with Ghost Widow down to half her health or so. I couldn’t find him until he had already defeated our radiation defender.

I will trace this back to a theory I have about pulling Ghost Widow (and the Inner Circle). For simplicity I’ve been taunt pulling on recent runs and splitting Ghost Widow from Scirocco when necessary. I can recall once, maybe twice that I've been defeated while waiting for the team to get back from the boat after having called for a retreat due to a bad pull. The down side of doing so is that we lost track of other pre-cautions that don’t apply when I’m the only puller.

I think the ideal pull is with a blaster/defender with sufficient range to snipe from the middle island, on the tiny ledge. There is a spot there from which they can snipe Ghost Widow and not be visible to any other AV. This took the Flier out of the equation because the sniper was instructed to withdraw straight back to the team, staying out of LoS from the target AV and any of the others. Obviously, by the same logic, no one else was to be visible at the top of the ramp including the tank. If you are using a “spotter” for add AVs, they need to be out of LoS while looking and stay out of LoS when they retreat to rejoin the team. I feel that the AVs can sometimes agro/lock onto the pulled AV if someone else becomes visible at the top of the ramp, but I can’t prove it.

With the variable nature of the teams running the MoSTF with us, we haven’t had a dedicated puller and I’m hesitant to have a relatively unknown pull. The MoSTF is all about having a plan of "best practices" and sticking with them. Keep it as simple as possible, there is enough that can go wrong without complicating things.

I am unsure if I can make this Thursday at this time; I’ll post Wed or Thurs if a run is possible. If I can’t make it, maybe someone can organize an ITF or even a STF/MSTF without me.

We're running tonight. I'd really like to get a Thursday night win, i'm tired of coming up short on Thursdays .

I've had verbal commitments from a couple regulars which should give us a couple debuffers/buffers to form the team around. Hope to see everyone for a fun time, win or lose.

Fun run Saturday and we had 3 new MoSTF badges: Galaxy Power, Milo the Mongoose and Dangerous Ice. With Galaxy Power having attempted MoSTF with us before, I got the opportunity to attack Ghost Widow for a change.

It was a smooth run all around. No one was hit by the Vine AV, Aeon was cooperative, Ghost Widow graciously went down, Scirocco teased us a bit by hitting a couple of the team, and Lord Recluse was on his best behavior.
Team 28

Next run Thursday evening; It doesn't look good for a Saturday run at this time.

We came close but Ghost Widow hit me and that was the one death. A 2nd tanker seems to be ideal for our style of play. Thanks again to everyone that showed interest, especially those that i couldnt get onto the team.

Next run will be Saturday 9 AM pacific, Sept. 27th.

We'll be running tonight at 6pm or whenever we have a full team. I've had 3 veterans express interest so we only need one more buffer/debuffer at a minimum.

We had an early mishap that i will shoulder the blame for. Our volunteer said he'd stealthed to the Vine Room before but I didnt check to see if he knew what risks there were. I/We decided not to restart given it was already late for some people. Instead we had some fun with everyone more free to have fun without the fear of dying.

We split up and hunted for the Security Chief then met inside the mission to meet the stacked ambush

A controller, Faint, pulled Ghost Widow... ...and the other 3 at the same time. This was okay as he was the one that bore the brunt of the deaths as we fought all four of them at once. He probably enjoyed the freedom to take risks more than anyone else. Surprisingly Mom didn't try to solo the Flier (inside joke about Mom, Group Fly, & Flier on an attempt many months ago).

All in all we had a good time.

Reminder that we'll be running tonight at 6 pm pacific.

I found team pic that Coach was a part of and it is not team #19. Check the MoSTF folder to see team number 16.5!

I forgot to mention, we'll run on the weekend when I and others are available to form a core team.

6 pm pacific target start time. We'll do better this week

We had a record setting run last night. It was by far the worst run we’ve had since before the MoSTF badge went live, (perhaps ever). We had a better than average team with lots of vets and we had good debuff/buffs with 2 rads, an emp and a storm.

It was against Aeon that things began to go wrong. I think it was due to a bad combo set from Aeon’s pets: radiation and dark. Here was the first of many end drain toggle drops I’d face throughout the night.

Against Lord Recluse and the Towers things went from bad to worse. He hit me hard several times right through fortitude and Magus then later through inspirations. Endurance drain complicated the already tough situation while the red and blue towers were up.

In the final fight after the towers went down I wasn’t able to get him into the corner where I prefer to tank him. He was in a really bad spot next to a pillar so the Banes spawned away from me leading to a few deaths. Just before the spawn point for the Banes, however, Lord Recluse did an odd thing. He jumped up onto a pipe above us; that is something we’ve never seen him do before. He returned to the ground after a bit and we finished him off. Congratulations to Broken Prey on his "Saved the World" badge.

All told we had 34 deaths, a record I hope we never again come close breaking. It was stil fun though, just like always.
It will take another run to see if it was just my bad play on my part along with some bad luck or if something has changed.

If we run this weekend it will be announced in channel as a “spur of the moment” run. My availability is questionable but I’m hoping to make the villain side Hami raid. Team pic from last weekend is up.

We are running tonight at 6 pm pacific.

A couple reminders from the last run (and recent runs):
1. There have been more than one occasion where team members did not have the break frees at hand when they needed them.
2. Do not come up for supplemental buffs during the pull of Ghost Widow. I will not have taunt/agro on Scirocco if he adds and this has ended Master runs in the past. He has extreme range with some attacks.
3. The team must have luck(s) and break(s) for the fight versus Scirocco. It is a fight we tend to take for granted but we should always be ready for those rare times his tornados are up and he fires his EM Pulse.
4. During the fight with Ghost Widow, it is important for the team to stay to one side and together so that I have a clear path to move along should she get close to me. Any in melee needs to be aware that if they need to start chasing her to attack then I am likely about to move to keep distance from her. Reds would be good for this fight too. With our less than optimized teams we sometimes get in trouble when the fight goes long.

One last note: I am having a bug on Impyre with the STF Masters channel continually dropping out of all tabs. It dissappears whenever i zone and often drops after a few minutes. So I may miss some chat on that channel. I am not having any issues with the channel with my alts.

We normally post runs on the channel but I intend to post scheduled runs here if it's scheduled in advance.

We ran on Sunday with a short 3-4 hour notice on the channel because some regulars said they wanted to run that morning. We had a good run finished at just over 3 hours. 2 new MSTF badges; one is a first timer and the other is a long time veteran who hasnt run with us in a while. (team pic to be uploaded)

Next run is Thursday night 6pm pacific.

I actually like running with 2 tanks. We had 3 last thursday night but having only 3 buffer/debuffers caught up with us when we were fighting Ghost Widow.

I was invited into a run late last week. After a long explanation about what to do, we failed to buff up properly which resulted in more time spent finishing off the vines. We paid the price with just 2 vines left. In losing the buffs very early I was only halfway done with the vines directly in front of the AV instead of almost completing that area (as usual) when the team came around into the AV threatened area.


Saturday's run had a very different team composition. We had 2 blasters, 3 controllers (kin, emp, rad), and 3 tanks (fire, stone and inv). We had our first death when Scirocco arrived unexpectedly as we were starting to fight Ghost Widow. I made a bad judgment call to try to face both of them with minimal buff debuff and Scirocco's AoE got us. We had 4 deaths total on a long 4.5 hour run with many afks and breaks. There was at least 1 member who earned his "Saved the World" badge.

I wanted to post again to promote the “STF Masters” channel especially for those of you still seeking the MSTF badge. We’re still here, we’re still running (although more irregularly), and sometimes we still win. From what I’ve seen and heard on the forums, on average, we seem to be slower than other teams. I expect our runs to be 3 hours though recent runs have been closer 2.5. I’d like to run more weeknight attempts but it depends on getting some people interested and available for such runs. Those that join us for the first time are usually tense, but the “regulars” are really relaxed and this translates into a fun time for everyone.

For those of you who like numbers here’s a general breakdown:
(25 runs x 8 members per run = 200)
Controllers 64/200 = 32%
Defenders 54/200 = 27%
Scrappers 19/200 = 9.5%
Blasters 29/200 = 14.5%
Tankers 31/200 = 15.5%
Kheldians 3/200 = 1.5%

Our minimum team formula is a tank, an emp and 2 other buff/debuff and preferably another buff/debuff. Twice we’ve managed to complete it with only 3 buff/debuff on the team.

The Vine Tree AV is still the biggest hurdle after all this time even though we’ve recently discovered the threat range of the AV isn’t what we thought it was; it’s a bigger area closer to the center of the room. We live on single pulling or splitting up the Inner Circle for single AV fights.

Some selected memories are here

Our first win (We all miss you Talbein Vikshus, come back soon!): team photo

Rasta, Major T & Vyx: team photo

Our marathon run 4:08 with FlameWrath & Knowmad: team photo

If you’ve won MSTF with us, you can probably find your team picture here (missing #19 though): MSTF folder

I didn’t mention the “we” who run this all the time; you’ll find yourself/them throughout the team pictures. STF Masters is a fairly quiet channel. It’s used to advertise scheduled MSTF runs and recruit for them, (I sometimes use it to recruit for Eden or ITF). Come join us for a fun time and a chance for the MSTF badge.

Thanks again to all those who’ve run with us; win or lose it’s always a fun time. I’m glad to have had a chance to have met such a diverse group of players here on Protector. I've made numerous friends through MSTF attempts. We have a lot of quality players here on Protector of good character; I’m proud to call Protector my home.