Scientist

Is there a good guide to that SF somewhere? I'm hoping to have a chance to try it in a week or two, and haven't managed to find one, just a listing of the contact text on Red Tomax's site IIRC.

Building a new defender to pair with a friends WP/something tank, with the aim of having the nucleus of a team for high level TFs eventually (we usually take a year or so on projects like this). I'm set on the Traps primary, and am wondering what to pair with it for a secondary for high level content. I would do Sonic, for AV fighting (which is the only thing much more than speedbumps for large high level teams), but already have a cold/sonic and two kin/sonics on various servers, so I'd like something else. I'm also ruling out /rad since I have a couple of rad/rads, and you don't really need the defense debuff with Acid Mortar. I was considering /Dark, but having played a couple of them to mid levels I'm dubious about having to run back and forth from melee to drop traps to range for Nightfall, the narrow cone.

I'm figuring either Dual Pistols (for varied debuffs/damage type), Cold (for the AoEs) or Archery (for Rain of Arrows) would be the best to pair with, but haven't played any of them at high levels, so would like peoples opinions on which might be best. Cost is not an object for a final build.

I also think Kins do well with just SOs, a fair number of their powers don't even take IO sets, and they have powers that boost recharge, damage, endurance etc. so don't need IO sets as much for that. Their powers also tend to be on short enough timers that they don't need much +recharge (if you get bored playing a kin on a team, you are in the wrong game .

Same error for me, verify files also did not work; anyone know who to pm/email about this thread so that they'll try to sort it out?

Some good points made; I'll just add that from watching my friends PB tank, he can do it more survivably against tough foes then my WS. I think the footstomp PbAoE mitigates more damage then the slow from my dark PbAoE, and the self heal that doesn't need a target is also handy against a wider variety of foes. Self capping resists with Eclipse doesn't help as much as you'd think, since on a team large enough to have to worry about survivability at all both Dwarves are probably capped for resists thanks to the Kheld inherent. My friends PB was the only "tank" along for a Shard TF, and while he died a few times, thats not unusual for a tank either as the Rularuu are no joke.

Where a WS shines is being a tankmage, I've practically soloed ambush spawns in the ITF while the tank was busy up front. Being a flying AoE blaster with capped resists and backup (fluffies) is quite nice, and provides a useful form of tanking in that the part of the team in my area wasn't pulling much aggro away from me. It takes an expensive triform build to be able to do that, though.

Right, the corner herding can be useful with some spawns who are very scattered, so if you dropped Sleet or Freezing Rain you'd miss half of them and the others would get a nice alpha on you. Put Snowstorm on while hopping behind cover or out of range (running with superspeed and jumping while casting gets you out of range of a lot of counterfire), while a slow way to pull, can make things a lot safer. In this case, put Snowstorm on a relatively close mob, not a distant one, so the further ones run into snowstorm and they all arrive slowed.

And definitely keep an eye on running anchors, they've changed the AI in recent years so if mobs aren't getting to hit you enough, they tend to run away. I have absolutely seen an anchor turn and run from his own spawn, and turn and run back as soon as the debuff was dropped. More of a danger with other toggle debuffs, since they don't slow the foes. I don't know if its worth adding a mention to never use Snowstorm on Wolves, since they (1) are largely (entirely? not sure) immune, and (2) run around like mad at high speeds, so will definitely aggro other mobs.

I tend to like a End/Slow IO for my default slot in it, since I don't always have Sleet/Freezing Rain stacked with it, depending on the situation (second spawn, still recharging, etc.). You can often buy those IOs for less then crafting cost.

One other fairly important interruptable item is in the STF, if Lord Recluse isn't damaged and has a toggle debuff on him he doesn't spawn his lvl 54 Bane bosses. Snowstorm is one of the few (along with the rad and dark toggles) powers that can do this, and preventing those bosses can mean the difference between success and failure on the TF.

Finally, a lot of people don't really "get" what -recharge on mobs is doing to help them. It might be worth adding a sentence or two comparing that to something people have more familiarity with. Unslotted granite armor is 20% Def, 50% resist, reducing incoming damage by roughly 70%. Unslotted (for slow) Snowstorm with -62% recharge will be reducing incoming damage by roughly 62%, and it has the advantages of "defense" rather then "resistance" since a mob firing a mezzing attack half as often is equivalent to them firing at normal rate and missing half the time. Better yet, its defense that doesn't get debuffed. Do you think people should be recruiting characters to their teams who can provide near Granite levels of protection to the entire team?

Just ran this mission for the first time this morning, around 8 AM EST 5/23/10, and it worked fine, but the 4-person team I was on took him down REALLY fast after the fourth device got destroyed, like I finished the device off and by the time I sprinted the 50' over to him he was at 1/3 hit points. They said he didn't start taking damage till the fourth device dropped, we just had a damage heavy team.

If theres a bit of delay with a new bug, like 60 sec before he goes Invul, we might have missed it.

It is, however, possible with relatively modest +recharge slotting and/or Hasten running to get a second one out, and that will stack -res with a first, providing some overlap. And its also nice for drawing aggro and being quite tough.

As others have suggested, use terrain to force the baddies to clump up. Easier solo, on a team you usually can't get everyone else to duck behind a corner. Zoom out to the extent you can, and maintain good situational awareness in case you get an anchor runner. Put each debuff on a different anchor, so if one runs you still have SOME mitigation, and you don't have to turn both off and reset.

Your other main option is to take and use the slow that comes with the toggle debuff; Lingering Radiation, in the case of a Rad, Tar Patch in the case of a Dark, etc. That will slow their running out of debuffs (except in the case of those Council wolves, again, its pretty much pointless, if not actively dangerous, to use toggle debuffs on them unless you have a tank pinning them in place). Down side as a rad is that its sometimes nice to save that for an additional spawn that may be taking a bit too close an interest in your group, its your only pre-epic mitigation once your toggles are tied up.

I recommend the Psi epic for a rad, by the way, Mass Hypnosis is easy to make permanent, recharges for every spawn, and debuffs don't break sleep so you can set up your whole debuff string on the spawn before waking them to a nice batch of damage.

Finally, just as a note, over the years the devs have added more AI to cause mobs who are missing too much, or otherwise being debuffed, to scatter. In particular I've seen anchor mobs turn and run from their spawn, then as soon as the debuff is turned off, back they come. Having a bit of recharge in your debuffs isn't bad for that reason. I don't entirely blame the devs for doing that, it not only "makes sense" for the baddies (who aren't supposed to be idiots, after all) but also keeps toggle debuffs from being the complete Easy Button they would otherwise be. You know, "With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility blah blah blah".

I'd like to put in a vote for a fire/fire tank and a fire/rad controller, been doing that pact bonded with a friend of mine and theres nothing we've found so far it can't handle. You even have the Immob to use Burn, which speeds up boss and AV fights a lot. Also makes a great team nucleus for doing any TF, since unless you absolutely insist on duoing only, a lot of TFs will be easier with a larger team. Offensive build on the tank for duoing, shift to a Defensive with Tough/Weave for larger teams where you don't have to put out the damage.

I don't know if anyone has duoed the STF, but I'd be rather surprised if they have, as I've never seen a team of 6 finish it successfully (I'm sure speciality teams of 5 defenders and a tank have managed, but I"m talking mostly PUGs here).

The TFs designed later (Katie, Hess, STF, ITF, Lady Grey) and the Strike Forces villianside, which were also later, tend to have more interesting content, including more unique maps and foes and sometimes even specific tactics needed. Completing the Statesmans Task Force, for example, is virtually impossible without knowing how to handle certain parts, and I've heard the villianside Khan SF is the same.

To do them in a way that lets you really explore that, though, is tough because 90% of the people on any TF have done it before, a lot, and will zip to the end. As others have suggested, you can avoid that by starting it yourself and recruiting people who want to explore the whole thing. To do that I you might;

1. Try getting it going on Virtue, which has a higher proportion of roleplayers,
2. Recruit on the forums so you can collect a group of like minded people.
3. Get on the global channels for your server to recruit that way.

I was thinking of something less extreme then whats being suggested; a recipe you could craft into an enhancement you could drop on another and pop that ONE enhancement out to your tray. Something which would drop more often then a respec recipe, and would be handy for fixing minor mistakes or making small tweaks to a character, like seeing if a Miracle +Rec fixes your End problems when tanking for a team, which isn't easy to figure out on Test.

Mind you, I have no idea if the game code has a way to support this, I just thought it would be a nice QoL addition. . .

A couple of thoughts;

(1) make one build focused on fighting. Slot attacks first, shields second, and run that build solo or on a team where you don't need max survivability (good buffers on the team, a second tank, etc.).

(2) Have another build really focused on survivability, with Tough/Weave etc. On a large team, with high difficulty foes, in end game content, the places people REALLY want a tank, they will be perfectly happy if you set a good pace, hold the attention of the most dangerous foes, and stay upright without ever defeating one single bad guy.

The single biggest determiner I've seen for how quickly and smoothly a pickup group can get through a mission and get good XPs is having a good tank, not just because "you need a tank to hold aggro" but because people are used to following one so they don't tend to split up, and you can control how fast the team is moving through enemies by staying out front. Strong team, move faster, go on to the next spawn to get it prepped while the team is mopping up stragglers, use Taunt for its -range to force foes into clumps, and everyone will have a good time.

Nice guide, I like all the numbers.

A note on the Achilles calculation you do as an example on Ghost Widow, apparently the Achilles proc isn't affected by the purple patch because it causes the foe to generate their own debuff, so its always "even con". When I mentioned this about a month ago, someone went out and tested it and confirmed it. So Achilles is EVEN BETTER!.

I'm just debating on my cold/sonic defender whether to focus on recharge or high ranged defense, can't really max both. . .