Panzerwaffen

City of Heroes is not other games. It is not going to become other games. You're needlessly worrying about something that hasn't happened yet and that there is no indication is likely to ever happen. Chicken Little ring a bell?

So find a new group of people to play with. If it is so unpleasant to play with them, why are you doing so? Come on over to Protector and try a few STF runs with us.

Probably because you made a bunch of unfounded claims with nothing to back them up. As far as a "torrent of unpleasantness", I've read through this whole thread since the beginning, and I don't see anything other than people spiritedly disagreeing with you. I wouldn't consider that "unpleasantness".

What situations are these? You keep saying they exist, and everyone keeps telling you they don't. Everyone keeps giving you examples of how nothing you say reflects in-game reality, yet you ignore all of that and just keep repeating the same claims. "LALALALA, I can't hear you!" is not a valid debating tactic outside of grade school.

Are you serious? What started off as a rant about 'gimmicky' TF's is now reduced to complaining about one enemy group in one story arc that is designed to be a challenge for melee AT's? Scrappers can steamroll through 99% of the game solo, and they hit one speedbump, and you're using this as an example of 'broken' gameplay?

The only thing that this thread has demonstrated as inflexible, is your thought process and playstyle.

Hate to break it to you, but that's true for almost all content in the game. That doesn't stop people from playing tankers. It doesn't stop tankers from getting invited to teams. And it doesn't stop those players from having fun either.

But, once again, let me point out that there is ONE encounter in the game where pets or minions are potentially a problem. Ghost Widow on the STF. And 3 of the Mastermind primaries would be just fine on this one with their minions out, since they attack from range. We're talking 5 minutes during one single AV fight out of all the content in the game. That is far from 'broken' as you keep claiming. Controllers with pets have 17 other powers they can use during that encounter. A Mastermind would have every single power from their secondary to use as well. You make it sound as if either of those AT's would be standing there twiddling their thumbs with nothing to do, which is far from the truth.

Your concerns and claims have been consistently refuted throughout this thread and the one in the tanker forum as well. The fact that you don't want to be placed in a situation where you might have to adjust your playstyle or tactics, is not an indicator that anything is 'broken' with the game.

You should understand that for a lot of players, simple does not always equal fun. It often equals boring. Otherwise known as not fun.

And that is still true, except in your own mind. None of those things you mentioned are REQUIRED for the STF, or any other TF in the game.

You make this claim repeatedly, yet it does not mesh with in-game reality. The only teams I see making a huge production of putting together a 'perfect' team for anything are made up of very inexperienced players. In fact, the vast majority of the time, solid players will look at the team composition and voluntarily alt to different AT's to cover weaknesses and enhance team performance.

Your approach to teams seems to be one of ME-ME-ME. A team is not a bunch of separate individuals all doing whatever makes them feel good at any particular moment, with zero thought as to group performance.

From Wiki: A group in itself does not necessarily constitute a team. Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize his or her strengths and minimize his or her weaknesses.

I suggest you take a moment to re-read the above. Pay particular attention to the parts about 'complementary skills', maximizing strengths & minimizing weaknesses. That is all that is required in this game to overcome the hardest and most difficult challenges, and there are many ways to do so.

Your perspective on this subject reflects an individual based approach to group content, rather than a team based approach. It seems that you are less interested in the team's collective performance, than you are in your own game experience. You seem to look at any situation that does not allow you to do whatever you want, regardless of whether it hinders the team or not, as being somehow 'broken'.

I just can't wrap my head around that attitude. I'll use your example of the MM on the final mission of the ITF. Even though I have never once had to dismiss pets for the final encounter, if I saw that the pets were causing the team to struggle or fail, I would happily dismiss them and assist the team to the best of my ability using the remainder of my available powers. I wouldn't get mad or sad that I had to change my tactics to help the team overcome that obstacle. On the contrary, I'd feel like I did my part.

Why would anyone like it, when all your 'points' are either massive exaggeration or pure hyperbole? Every 'issue' you brought up in that thread was promptly refuted, usually by several people, based on their own experience in-game.

*Sigh*

I hate repeating myself, but here goes..

You can't be serious here. I've never even bought a large inspiration to use on the STF, let alone felt I had to "farm" to get them. And that includes quite a few MoSTF runs as well. I usually just go with what I have in the tray. Inspirations are only ONE way for a player to overcome some of their weaknesses when facing a challenging situation. Not the only way, just one of them. Facing Lord Recluse, the signature Archvillain in the game, is by definition, a challenging situation.

There is no content in the game that requires large inspirations to complete.

Frankly, those situations exist only in your mind, based on every bit of experience I've had in this game.

I've never farmed for Shivans or Warburg nukes either. Never once encountered a situation where they were "expected" either. Two years playing this game. TF's nearly every day, often back to back. It may happen sometimes, on some servers, with some weak players, but I've never seen it.

There is no content in the game that requires pets or nukes to complete.

Or, more accurately, YOU don't want any content in the game that requires any thought beyond button mashing, it seems.

I've seen plenty of scrappers go up against GW. Hello?? All-scrapper STF runs?

And "sidelined"? Come on now, Heraclea. Even if your claim that all scrappers have to stay away from GW were true, which it is not, that is hardly "sidelined". They still have ranged attacks, either from their primary, from APP's, from temp powers, or from vet powers.

There is no content in the game that cannot be completed by scrappers.

OK, so controllers might have to think a bit and realize that their pets hinder that one particular encounter due to GW's Dark Regen heal. Don't they have a whole primary and secondary of other powers available to them to use in that encounter? Controllers are not defined by their pets.

As far as the ITF and Rom, I have never once dismissed my pets on my Bots/Traps MM for that encounter, nor have I been asked to. I've offered to dismiss them, and been told not to worry about it. So, again, you are wildly exaggerating the issue here.

There is no content in this game that cannot be completed by Masterminds and Controllers.

Pure speculation on your part with no basis in fact.

If you're referring to GW, then you're making a huge assumption here. Bots, Mercs and Thugs are all ranged pets. They could easily be used in that encounter by a competent player. Other MM's likely will have to keep their minions on a leash for this one. They still have a whole secondary to participate in the fight with. This is ONE archvillain fight, in a TF that has quite a few. If a player has to adapt and change their normal tactics, that is not a bad thing.

Again, based on my experience during the last two years, this simply does not happen with even the tiniest fraction of the frequency you claim it does. I really have to wonder exactly how many STF/MoSTF runs you've really been on.

And nothing would kill my interest faster than a game where any player with any AT can run in to any encounter and "win" by nothing more than button mashing, which seems to be what you are advocating here.

I'll tell you what is truly 'broken'. A game where every player can approach every single encounter in the game with zero thought to their tactics, and just spam the same powers every time, in the same exact fashion, with no thought at all.

Wow. I think that is the best way I have ever seen that summarized.

You can't be serious here. I've never even bought a large inspiration to use on the STF, let alone felt I had to "farm" to get them. And that includes quite a few MoSTF runs as well. I usually just go with what I have in the tray. Inspirations are only ONE way for a player to overcome some of their weaknesses when facing a challenging situation. Not the only way, just one of them. Facing Lord Recluse, the signature Archvillain in the game, is by definition, a challenging situation.

There is no content in the game that requires large inspirations to complete.

I've never farmed for Shivans or Warburg nukes either. Never once encountered a situation where they were "expected" either. Two years playing this game. TF's nearly every day, often back to back. It may happen sometimes, on some servers, with some weak players, but I've never seen it.

There is no content in the game that requires pets or nukes to complete.

I've seen plenty of scrappers go up against GW. Hello?? All-scrapper STF runs?

And "sidelined"? Come on now, Heraclea. Even if your claim that all scrappers have to stay away from GW were true, which it is not, that is hardly "sidelined". They still have ranged attacks, either from their primary, from APP's, from temp powers, or from vet powers.

There is no content in the game that cannot be completed by scrappers.

OK, so controllers might have to think a bit and realize that their pets hinder that one particular encounter due to GW's Dark Regen heal. Don't they have a whole primary and secondary of other powers available to them to use in that encounter? Controllers are not defined by their pets.

As far as the ITF and Rom, I have never once dismissed my pets on my Bots/Traps MM for that encounter, nor have I been asked to. I've offered to dismiss them, and been told not to worry about it. So, again, you are wildly exaggerating the issue here.

There is no content in this game that cannot be completed by Masterminds and Controllers.

If you're referring to GW, then you're making a huge assumption here. Bots, Mercs and Thugs are all ranged pets. They could easily be used in that encounter by a competent player. Other MM's likely will have to keep their minions on a leash for this one. They still have a whole secondary to participate in the fight with. This is ONE archvillain fight, in a TF that has quite a few. If a player has to adapt and change their normal tactics, that is not a bad thing.

No, what is broken, is if a player can approach every single encounter in the game with zero thought to their tactics, and just spam the same powers every time, in the same exact fashion, with no thought at all.

And nothing would kill my interest faster than a game where any player with any AT can run in to any encounter and "win" by nothing more than button mashing, which seems to be what you are advocating here.

And here's where I keep running into a wall trying to fix this myself. To keep my current attack chain, I need about 135% total recharge for GFS, which is why it is frankenslotted the way it is.

If I drop GFS and go to Incinerate, Scorch, Cremate, Scorch, I lose a place to slot for defense bonus, and I end up needing about 145% total recharge for Incinerate.

I really don't want to lose DPS on my single target attack chain.

I haven't really had a good chance to look this one over yet, but using Enzyme Exposures is something that never crossed my mind!

Frankly, this sounds like much more of a 'culture' issue with your server's TF crowd. In the two years I've been playing on Protector, I can count the times I've seen this kind of mentality on one hand.

If you don't like the current 'culture' on Victory when it comes to running certain TF's, why not work to change it? Put together your own TF teams with whatever composition you like.

You know what they say about assuming. It's fairly obvious from your statement you've never played on an all controller team. Even a team of 8 random controllers, with random powersets, steamrolls nearly everything in its path, let alone a team of 8 controllers with specific powersets selected for synergy with each other. The last all controller team I was on, never moved off of Invincible, and ran TF's the whole way up as soon as Positron was unlocked at level 10. It was not uncommon for us to be facing +4's and +5's during the first missions of the signature TF's. It's the only group I've ever been in that just charged up onto the platform in mission 3 of the ITF and took both Romulus and Requiem simultaneously along with most of mobs on the platform, rather than sitting at the bottom and single pulling them down.

No, it's really not. There should be challenges in the game that require forethought, preparation and intelligent play. There is more than enough (too much, in my opinion) content that any random team can sail through with very little effort. We need more content that is challenging, not less.

You're also exaggerating the team composition issue by a large margin. Teams have successfully completed the STF without every single AT or powerset you mentioned above. There have been successful all-scrapper STF's. The STF does not require the team to follow an exact template when putting the team together. I've been on multiple successful MoSTF runs with several quite varied team compositions, including your maligned scrapper AT.

Completing the STF should feel like an accomplishment, especially if it's a Master run. Dumb it down so any random group of players, with any type of powersets, or builds, no matter how bad, can waltz right through it takes away that accomplishment and turns it into just another ho-hum TF to grind for merits.

Try these pages specifically:

Hero Story Arcs

Villain Story Arcs

There is also Enemy Groups which lists the various enemy groups and their composition.

So, basically the melee version of Dual Pistols...

Didn't take long for the silly analogies equating real-life to a videogame to show up in this thread...

Joining your server's global channels is also an excellent way to increase your teaming opportunities.

Awesome, thanks! That's what I kinda thought, just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing something there.

Now if I can just figure out how to fix my Fire/SD with the upcoming BotZ nerf...

Werner: I'm curious about the order of attacks in this chain. I'm running about the same recharge numbers as you have there, except for Cremate which is under 4.5 seconds and Fire Sword which is close to 3 seconds, and I've been running a chain of Incinerate, GFS, Cremate, FS. I don't notice any gaps in the chain, but would I be better off changing the attack order?

Just want to throw out there, that this isn't most other games. Healing is greatly overshadowed by buffs/debuffs when it comes to support.

Other than that, welcome to the game!