Octavian

Great work, as usual, Liliaceae!

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Shrike was part of the first all-dom team on test that took down the Freedom Phalanx in the old LRSF.

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Man, I wish the hard drive I had the test LRSF on hadn't died. Those demorecords would have been a trip.

Oct, who doesn't really miss the I6/I7 flamewars of old.

The stages of reaction to a good April Fool's joke:

1) Indignant Outrage: They're doing WHAT?!?
2) Inoperancy of Spirit: DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!
3) Priceless realization that you are, indeed, a fool: I fell for THAT?

Well played, CoX staff, well played!

This is the greatest thread ever, and should be stickied.

I'd be interested to know how you guys justify investing all the time required in revamping a Hero zone (which they have PLENTY of) vs making a NEW zone for Villains, new trials for villains, and new SFs for villains.

Sure, villains get a (much delayed) EAT with some story arcs, but, come on, at least revamp Lagville, give us something closer to a true hazard zone, and more team content before you screw around with the Hollows. Last time I checked there were PLENTY of players in that zone. It's not like it doesn't get used in its current incarnation.

If this change is not reverted, please rescind the "only one reward every 24 hours" penalty for TF rewards. If me and my friends want to do nothing all day long but run TFs permanently set at 8 man spawns, at least let us be rewarded for each one without having to needlessly and stupidly swap characters.

I, too, was vastly disappointed by that...uh...other, unnamed ruin of a game. Happily I was in its closed beta so I didn't have to throw away good money to find out that, yep, I'd rather be playing Tetris (my test of a game's worth; used to be Starcraft, but then nothing was measuring up, so I lowered expectations).

CoX has a lot of problems that aggravate me, but no game, particularly an MMO, will be perfect. However, it gets so much stuff *right* that it's hard to imagine why game developers would ever design a game differently.

Gosh there's a lot we don't know yet. Thanks for the list Brev, I'll print it out and record things as I find them.

Edit:

Stupify - End/Stun is pool A.

This is the single most brilliant thing I have ever heard. We must spread this tale so that the TAs of the world rise to their long needed glory.

Recipe Name: Freebird: Fly (+fly enhancement)
Drop Circumstances: Level 50 Mayhem Mission
Likely Pool: B

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I hope that the new encounter minimally accomplishes the following tasks, Villainside:

<ul type="square">[*]It must give Dominators a non-trivial role.[*]It must give Stalkers a non-trivial role.[/list]
If it can simply be squashed by buffing Brutes or Tankerminds, I'll be very ticked off. But I'm willing to wait with an open mind once Test goes public again.

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Read the article, fully before commenting. If you have, reread it again. If you still don't get why I said that, I'll gladly quote a part that voids your concern for you

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The condescension aside, just because a developer says they've addressed a problem doesn't mean they actually have, thus the need to wait and see.

From a still mostly unwanted level 50 Dom perspective, having to wait for the Stonecor teams to destroy all X and Z Mitos before holds will "sort of work" on Hami and the Y Mitos (who are probably no more difficult or easy to destroy the the other Mitos) isn't really a role but rather the delusion of a role. Hopefully they haven't gone the route of "mez won't work until it's pointless to bother," but I have very little faith that this dev team actually understands what makes players *feel* useful.

Again, I'm willing to wait and see and give them a chance -- if they've figured out a way to make Stalkers useful, there's a lot of hope -- but who can know till we get in there and try it. Villainside history doesn't give me much hope, though.

Anyway, these are apparently just the fears of some slackjawed yokel who can only barely comprehend the written word. Obviously the devs would never add content that would utterly ignore and marginalize entire ATs. Ever.

I hope that the new encounter minimally accomplishes the following tasks, Villainside:

<ul type="square">[*]It must give Dominators a non-trivial role.[*]It must give Stalkers a non-trivial role.[/list]
If it can simply be squashed by buffing Brutes or Tankerminds, I'll be very ticked off. But I'm willing to wait with an open mind once Test goes public again.

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We accomplished that goal, but in the end some of the Archetypes felt left out, since they didn’t have the build to contribute to the huge Archvillain fights that the Lord Recluse Strike Force was built around (we took our learnings forward from this).


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Any chance that the LRSF will be *revised* into something those "left out" ATs can contribute to? And it's not our *builds* that won't function, guys, it's your game mechanics.

But I'm glad you've learned valuable things from villain balance and hero players won't be marginalized like we continue to be.

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In all cases, from now on the most effective way to collect Inventions Story Arc drops will be to find a SG or otherwise dedicated team of 7 helpers, at the same level range as yourself (ideally level 10). The 8 of you can then synchornise your missions - running a Mayhem/Safeguard together, choosing to be introduced to the same contact, and then simultaneously completing missions and story arcs using the "autocomplete" feature.


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Except that by teaming on full teams of 8, you'll virtually guarantee that you're going to outlevel arcs you could otherwise run solo since you gain so much more xp teaming than you do solo. Even if you *wanted* to do this and thus lose out on some super rares, it will be virtually impossible to do heroside, as a great majority of SAs give their missions in a random order.

The devs just really need to drop this philosophy of rarity. If they have to rebalance things like 10% defense for pets or +recovery/+regen enhancements, then so be it. By rolling the current B rewards into the C and D lists, then letting parts of the C and D lists be duplicated in B (after they're rebalanced), they'll still preserve a *reasonable* level of rarity in this game -- few people run TFs and Trials -- while making SA rewards valuable. It also gives 50s something to do -- run TFs and Trials for rare rewards -- without creating a situation in which certain IOs are impossible to obtain because you didn't happen to get lucky while leveling up through the game or because new content was created after you'd leveled up.

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Chances are you can complete your arcs now with a clear conscience, and then if it turns out to be a set that you want and need, simply trade or buy the part if it comes up for sale.


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But this is exactly the problem we're currently so worried about, and it's not that easily dismissed.

If there are very rare rewards that people *want* that are only obtainable through story arc rewards, then you probably won't be able to trade or buy those rewards.

Lets say that the "Aura 10% Defence Buff for Pets" enhancement from the Pet set "Edict of the Master" is one of the enhacements on the B (Story Arc) list. You have a MM in his 30s who would really like to slot that into three of his powers; add one more if he's either a Necromancer or /Dark. Because this enhancement caps out at level 40 he's already got a timer on when he can get this enhacement -- after he hits 41, he can't possibly get it on his own anymore. If he's in his high 30s, that leaves about 10 story arcs that he can even possibly try to earn this enhacement. If there are only 30 items on the 35-40 SA list, that's a one in three chance you'll pull even *one* of these, and that's if you haven't already run an arc, mostly solo (so you won't easily outlevel any other arc), and devote the rest of your time to just running SAs.

Most people who play MMs are going to want that enhancement, and they'll want it multiple times (possibly as many as 5 copies of it), so the available trades will come exclusively from other villains who are running SAs that don't have and never intend to have a MM alt (otherwise they'll definitely hang on to that one). Of those, fully 1/2 of them (generously, the actually number is probably much less) probably won't ever pull a single one of those enhancements due to the # of possible pulls from a SA reward and difficulties in teaming through SAs/outleveling content.

Now the pool of possible traded enhancements is down to less than half of all players who run all the SAs and don't have or ever intend to have a MM alt (or Doms who want to collect Edict of the Master for the complete set bonus for themselves and the 10% defense to their fire imps, say) . The pool of people who want that enhancement is...everybody, because it would be foolish not to buy such a thing, even if you can't use it. So many people want it that whoever lucks out and pulls it can demand..anything they want. People will bid tens of millions of infamy for it. Some will be willing to trade multiple sets of SHOEs and other rare IOs for it. If this enhancement is one of the super-rare SA prizes, it's likely to be one of the top four single most valuable awards in the game. Only the super wealthy farmers will be able to buy it or trade for it from anyone but the lucky clueless.

The only people who will likely have it are people who roll multiple alts specifically to solo through all the available story arcs in order to get prizes like this. And even *they* won't have them in quantity.

So knowing this might be the case, can you really advocate that any MM, or heck, anyone that might want to even trade one to a MM one day, should complete a story arc in game right now? Or even get a single point of experience?

I can't.

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Dr. I dont mind this, AS LONG AS our old and outdated contacts (especially for us 20-50's)allow us to go back and complete the story arcs/missions.

Even if we autoexemp like in TF's, im ok with that, Im sure its not as easy as it sounds to make this happen, but you allow this to happen post i9 but before i10, i think this will be a non issue.


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Unfortunately this solution is the one that they've said simply won't happen. It was known as the "flashback" system. It is no longer a viable solution.

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I have a personal sg and vg so setting up sg teams is not possible, and i have no problems with that. I love PUGs. But how will this system treat players like myself?


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This is a very common concern.

From what we know currently, a sweepingly vast majority of virtually all the IO sets are entirely constructable from what you'll pick up off of enemy drops, so depending on what those "super rares" from SAs, TFs, and Trials are going to be, you might not be impacted much, if at all.

Also consider that you won't have to have an *entire set* to get several nice bonuses. I imagine at least partial enhancement groups from every single IO set are constructable entirely from enemy drops, though this *has not* been confirmed (Note to Devs, it would be nice if you could confirm this). Thus you might not be affected much at all. Again, this depends on what your IO goals are and what the chase rares are going to be.

Pretty much the only way you'll be impacted is if one of your goals is to obtain one of the "super rares" that will only occur in, say, story arcs under the current implementation. There are actually only a limited number of SAs you can ever possibly complete, so you might not *ever* get the super rare you're looking for. Under the current implementation, story arc rares for certain level ranges (say anything from 30-40) will be some of the most rare IO drops in the game (there are very few SAs in the hero-side 40+ game, so virtually everyone of those levels will do them, but there are several from 30-40, many of which will be skipped or never run due to abandoning a character before those levels). Those super-rare SA drops might never, ever hit the consignment shop, or hit it so rarely that they're never really seen, they're snatched up so quickly.

Pretty much the worse case senario is that one of the ultra-hot enhancements everyone will want (say the +Recovery enhancement from Miracle) happen to be in the B-set of rewards, making them both extremly limted *and* in great demand. If anything like that is the case, then we'll *all* be affected greatly.

If, however, the very limited SA rewards list is stuff like the Dam/Conf enhancement from the various Confuse sets (ie, not something anyone would really want to slot unless they were jonesing for the 6th tier set bonus), then few of us will be negatively impacted because in spite of being very rare, if nobody wants it, who cares?

Also the devs are hard at work on a solution that will allow us access to the B (Story Arc) set in different ways. Personally I advocate the B set being redistributed among the other 3 sets, then being rebuilt with duplicates of some of the more useful recipes from sets A, C, and D, making them not something you *have to get from SAs* but rather a happy bonus for completing the SA if you don't prefer to get the SO. But there are other solutions being efforted, and the devs may come up with their own, novel, solution that has nothing to do with anything discussed on the boards.

All that said, if you never complete SAs, never run TFs, and never do Trials, there will be a small number of enhancements (and perhaps even entire enhancement sets?) that you will have to camp the consignment houses for, buy online, or trade for among your friends/SG members. But that number is apparently quite small, so it might not be worth worrying about.

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Besides, Doc and Lighthouse said thay're looking at exactly what some of us seem to be concerned about the most so... damn. I need a new thing to get mad at. Suggestions?


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You could get upset at the lack of control IO sets that really fit Dominators or even Controllers who don't want to slot controls for damage, or that even the Confuse sets require us to slot for *damage* (really silly -- there is not a single damaging confuse in the entire game).

Or you could get upset over...hrm...I dunno. Surely there's going to be plenty to get upset over!

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Would this work better for you? (Pool A is any monster)

Doing Pool A stuff 97% of the time you get Pool A; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D

Doing Pool B stuff 98% of the time you get Pool B; 1% from Pool C; 1% from Pool D

Doing Pool C stuff 98% of the time you get Pool C; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool D

Doing Pool D stuff 98% of the time you get Pool D; 1% from Pool B; 1% from Pool C


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I'd still rather have Pools A, C, and D and make Pool B (Story Arcs) contain a nice subset of some of what can be obtained in both Pools C and D. That way the reusable content (A C and D) contains everything one could possibly want, while Story Arcs get you valuable things via soloing that you could otherwise only get via teaming (C and D).

In other words, remix the B, C, and D rewards into just C and D; then select a subset of those rewards and put them *also* in Pool B.

All problems solved, and all 4 pools are rewarding in the specific ways the devs seem to want them to be rewarding. No messy fuss with dealing with any % chances other than the actual roll to see what drop you get.

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* The majority of sets are available exclusively through defeating enemies. This means that all the pieces of the set are attainable by beating up things.

* These same sets also might have a part of them that require you to finish a Task Force.

* These same sets also might have a part of them that requires you to complete a Trial.


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These three things are GREAT! Definitely keep these things!

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* Some of the sets (the rarer ones), have parts of them that are only attainable by completing a Story Arc.


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This thing is a really, very terrible idea. Get rid of this thing! Why not roll over those parts into Trials and TFs, giving us the ability to earn everything in this list in two other ways. The specialness of the SA rewards will still be good -- Wow I just got a drop I could only otherwise get from a long TF!!! But nobody is ever left out -- Hey, look, I got this shiny thing from a respec trial!

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Remember, if you kill that thread, it won't drop a recipe.


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Ah, humor. You, I like a lot.

There are several pet sets.

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Pet Sets
Unquestioning Loyalty (4, Lvl 10-30)
Acc/Dam - Acc/Dam/End - Acc/End - Dam/End
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Res(Immobilize)
* 3 enhancements: +HP
* 4 enhancements: +END



Commanding Presence (5, Lvl 10-30)
Acc/Dam - Acc/End - Dam/End - Acc/Dam/End - Aura Taunt &amp; Placate Resistance for Pets
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Recovery
* 3 enhancements: +HP
* 4 enhancements: +END
* 5 enhancements: +Def(AoE)



Brilliant Leadership (6, Lvl 15-40)
Acc/Dam - Acc/Dam/End - Acc/End - Dam/End - Acc - Dam
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Regeneration
* 3 enhancements: +Confuse Duration
* 4 enhancements: +Debt Protection
* 5 enhancements: +Runspeed, +Jumpspeed, +Flyspeed
* 6 enhancements: +Res(Toxic, Psionic)



Edict of the Master (6, Lvl 15-40)
Acc/Dam - Acc/Dam/End - Acc/End - Aura 10% Defence Buff for Pets - Dam/End - Dam
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Jumpspeed
* 3 enhancements: +HP
* 4 enhancements: +Res(Lethal)
* 5 enhancements: +Res(Hold)
* 6 enhancements: +Res(Toxic, Psionic)



Blood Mandate (6, Lvl 25-53)
Acc/Dam - Acc/End - Dam/End - Acc/Dam/End - Acc - Dam
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Recovery
* 3 enhancements: +Def(Fire, Cold)
* 4 enhancements: +Res(Stun)
* 5 enhancements: +Def(AoE)
* 6 enhancements: +Def(Ranged)



Soveriegn Right (6, Lvl 25-53)
Acc/Dam - Acc/Dam/End - Acc/End - Acc - Aura 10% Resistance (All but Psionic) for Pets - Dam/End
Set Bonuses :


* 2 enhancements: +Res(Sleep)
* 3 enhancements: +Res(Confuse)
* 4 enhancements: +Res(Stun)
* 5 enhancements: +Res(Hold)
* 6 enhancements: +Def(Melee)


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I like mayhem missions, but not enough to do 100 of them. What's the best way to take down more signature heroes?


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Find several friends. (8 is ideal). Run enough newspapers so that all of you get a mayhem. Run 8 mayhems (do not autocomplete). Finish out once the hero is dead.

Do this a couple of times a week.

Your Guide to the Plant/Ice Dominator

Finally, a sample build.

Note that this is a level 50 respec build, and is not representative of how one should select powers as you level up.

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Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: respec_plant_ice
Level: 50
Archetype: Dominator
Primary: Plant Control
Secondary: Icy Assault
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Strangler==&gt; Acc(1)Hold(3)Hold(3)Hold(5)Rechg(5)Rechg(7)
01) --&gt; Ice Bolt==&gt; Acc(1)Dmg(7)Dmg(9)Dmg(9)
02) --&gt; Roots==&gt; Acc(2)Acc(11)
04) --&gt; Ice Sword Circle==&gt; Acc(4)Acc(11)Dmg(13)Dmg(13)Dmg(15)Rechg(15)
06) --&gt; Hurdle==&gt; Jump(6)
08) --&gt; Seeds of Confusion==&gt; Acc(8)Acc(17)ConfDur(17)ConfDur(19)Rechg(19)Rechg(21)
10) --&gt; Ice Blast==&gt; Acc(10)Dmg(21)Dmg(23)Dmg(23)
12) --&gt; Combat Jumping==&gt; Jump(12)
14) --&gt; Health==&gt; Heal(14)
16) --&gt; Power Boost==&gt; Rechg(16)Rechg(34)Rechg(37)
18) --&gt; Vines==&gt; Acc(18)Acc(25)Acc(25)Rechg(27)Rechg(27)Rechg(29)
20) --&gt; Stamina==&gt; EndMod(20)EndMod(29)EndMod(31)
22) --&gt; Super Jump==&gt; Jump(22)
24) --&gt; Acrobatics==&gt; EndRdx(24)EndRdx(40)
26) --&gt; Carrion Creepers==&gt; Acc(26)Acc(31)Rechg(31)Rechg(33)Rechg(33)
28) --&gt; Spore Burst==&gt; Acc(28)Acc(43)
30) --&gt; Stealth==&gt; EndRdx(30)
32) --&gt; Fly Trap==&gt; Acc(32)Dmg(33)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)DefDeBuf(46)DefDeBuf(46)
35) --&gt; Greater Ice Sword==&gt; Acc(35)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Dmg(36)Rechg(37)Rechg(37)
38) --&gt; Bitter Ice Blast==&gt; Acc(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)EndRdx(40)Rechg(40)
41) --&gt; Power Sink==&gt; Rechg(41)Rechg(42)Rechg(42)EndMod(42)EndMod(43)EndRdx(43)
44) --&gt; Charged Armor==&gt; EndRdx(44)EndRdx(45)DmgRes(45)DmgRes(45)DmgRes(46)
47) --&gt; Summon Guardian==&gt; Acc(47)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)Dmg(48)Heal(50)
49) --&gt; Hasten==&gt; Rechg(49)Rechg(50)Rechg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --&gt; Sprint==&gt; Empty(1)
01) --&gt; Brawl==&gt; Empty(1)
02) --&gt; Rest==&gt; Empty(2)
01) --&gt; Domination==&gt; Empty(1)
---------------------------------------------

Solo Strategies

My Plant/Ice Dominator solos better than anything I’ve played outside of Scrappers. I’ll often finish even Relentless missions having taken zero damage. The strategies are simple: contain your foe and beat them to death. While your powers start off weak, they gradually grow in duration and effectiveness. By the time you’re fully slotted out with SOs, you’ll never have any trouble soloing anything that doesn’t get stupidly powerful Purple Triangles of Death.

To “contain” your foes, you have several options: Strangler, Seeds, Vines, Spore Burst, and Carrion Creepers will all create optimal “beating to death” conditions, but they’re not all created equal. Your best containing power is Seeds of Confusion. It’s up very often. It’s got a potent effect. It speeds along your “beating to death” phase. It’s usually overkill for soloing, but here’s the strategy.

Target a mob in the back of your solo spawn, hit seeds and run or jump nearby. Seeds will almost always take effect before the spawn gets a shot off, and you’re still targeting the guy in the back. If you have Frost Breath, shoot that off, if not, continue forward into the middle of the spawn and fire off Ice Sword Circle. Commence the beating to death of the spawn. If you’re bored, after firing off ISC, toss Roots and just leave everything to die – assuming you hit, you’ll get virtually all the xp at this point.

If you don’t wish to use that overkill method, or perhaps you’re fighting Nemesis, DE, or certain Longbow spawns (gotta hate them) or you were a complete idiot and didn’t take Seeds (you are *reading* this guide, right? Take Seeds), you’ll kite the spawns to death. You can try to pull one (you’ll tend to have the best luck with the guy who’s walking around – you know that guy, there’s one in every spawn) with any of your ranged blasts, or you can fire off an immob and the other two will come after you. Here’s the part where you take a little damage – ST hold one of the two who are chasing after you, then beat down the third until Strangler recharges, then lock him in place too. Usually one of them will be slaughtered by the time the immob wears off, and ST hold/beat down the other two. It’s slow. It’s steady. It’s safe. It’s your standard operating procedure if you don’t want to just run in and kill everything.

No other powers really play a role in this soloing scenario, nor does it matter if there’s a boss in the spawn or not. Audrey will marginally speed you up, but otherwise, I never use Carrion Creepers, Spore Burst, Roots, Domination or what have you when I’m solo. Seeds or blasts, melee attacks, and Strangler will get you from 1-50 (or rather from 8-50) against virtually any foes. And that’s all the strategy you’ll need while solo.

Team Strategies

While you’ll solo like a trooper, Plant/Ice really shines in large teams. Although the variables are too great to cover in depth in a single guide, I’ll outline several of the strategies you can use to maximize your team’s xp gain.

Seeds of Confusion is a strategy unto itself. Nothing else in the game has a larger effect than a fast-recharging, long-lasting confusion power. The only flaw in this confusing strategy is that you have to get really close to that huge spawn of things that want to squash you. You have only a few options. Within your own powerset, you can throw out Carrion Creepers – no danger of agro, then. Within Pool Powers, you could pick up Stealth (this is what I chose to do) to get close with no danger. Finally, you can rely on your team – remind Corruptors and Masterminds that they can buff you, too, and that they should, since you’re going to be taking the alpha strike for the team (and you are, you know, since you have Seeds). Fear not, and trust the power of the Seeds. Heck, you won’t even need to Power Boost it, the spawn will melt so fast. However, you should hang on to a couple greens in case the bosses unleash fury on you too quickly; the other players on your team will get used to melting spawns rather than firing off a heal, and you can go from 100% to dead in about…2 seconds.

In a Corruptor/Mastermind heavy team, the useful Seeds/Roots combo is an effective tool. Once you’ve Rooted everything, your other teammates can unload with wild abandon while you hop into the middle of the spawn and do your little Ice dance of destruction (starting with locking down one of the bosses with Strangler, of course).

Sometimes Seeds just isn’t up (hey, it can happen when you’re unleashing destruction at a rapid pace), so you’ll have to rely on some less-godly power. This is where all those other things you didn’t skip come in. Carrion Creepers is useful about every 3-4 spawns and will totally mitigate the alpha along with most of the danger for that entire spawn. Vines + Power Boost is up about every 3-4 spawns as well, and it, too, will make a whole spawn pitifully easy. So that’s half of every spawn on a map that you’re making into cakewalks, and that’s just when Seeds isn’t available. But lets say you need *more*!

Teamwork is the key to more power than what you, alone, bring. You *don’t* have to take the alpha, you know. (You’ll want to, of course, because other options are just unbearably slower once you’ve gotten addicted to the glory of Plant/Ice.) Once the alpha has been taken, you’re usually quite useful for AoE immobs that contain whole spawns in rains of death and debuffs. Throw out Roots and fire Frost Breath and ST attacks from the periphery, though honestly with good damage dealers the spawns don’t tend to last longer than a bit more than a Frost Breath.

On smaller teams that don’t always spawn bosses (personally I don’t know why you’d run with these, but the xp/time ratio equations can make it work for you), even the unusually lackluster Spore Burst has a valuable place in your power tray. Sleeping mobs are easy to establish debuffs on, and Spore Burst recharges fast enough to let your Corruptors lay on as many debuffs as they’d like in total safety. You’ll still have to take Stealth, but with Stealth, Spore Burst is quite handy. However, please make sure Audrey or your Patron Pet isn’t around before you start this.

Finally, you can use Spirit Tree for those times when you’re fighting a big, potent group, and then some idiot runs off and agros two more groups (one additional group is nothing for you, you’re a Plant/Ice). Normally it’s the most gimp and useless of all your powers, but in this one case, it shines! Gather everyone around it, and it can help to maximize the number of teammates who survive the gathering hordes (at least until you get squished). I recommend a bind or macro for these situations, so that you can let your team know you’re not just an interior decorator, you’re a regen buffer, too.

Teammates of choice include anyone who isn’t a moron. The Plant/Ice Dominator works well with virtually any combination of ATs. But toons with rain powers/burn patches or anchored AoE debuffs are those who love to have you around more than others. I’ve also never met a Mastermind who didn’t love to have my Plant/Ice on his team (when things don’t hurt their pets, they tend to be pretty happy). You’ll gain the most benefit from teammates who can buff you, or those who can destroy high-health targets efficiently (certain high-damage, mez resistant foes are your only real threat). Debuffing teammates (other than resistance debuffing teammates) don’t really bring much to your teams (although they enjoy having you around), as they usually establish those debuffs after you’ve already got a spawn handled (debuffing confused mobs generally slows down the rate the spawn is killing itself; this is a bad thing as slow xp is worse xp), but they can still be helpful…sometimes.