SerialBeggar

Hami or Mothership Raid?

I recast Clear Mind after every 2 spawn group or there-abouts. I've developed a bit of an internal clock that causes me to wonder if too much time has gone by between castings. Ditto for Speed Boost and Increased Density on my Kin. I also maintain Fortitude on 4 people. All while blasting during my waits for CM to recharge, of course.

I spent about a year at the Hollows training before I could do this. This was when the Hollows was still relatively new and populated. I was covering every lowbie in the entire 3 block radius semi-circle around the Atlas Gate, and sometimes beyond. I also spent 3 respecs (pre-IO era) to ensure that I could reliable solo my own missions on dinky Defender damage, which at that point were the 40+ and full of mezzers.

Opening with an AOE immob is the same as casting a taunt for up to the aggro cap (17 enemies) that says "kill me now!" Compared with a Tanks's taunt which says "come to me!" and only hits 5 enemies.

How do you have Flashfire and Cinders slotted? Are you aware that all Controllers AOE mezzes have a -20% accuracy penalty? Are you covering that?

As for the LGTF, as far as I'm aware, Rikti don't have any mez protection. They do throw a lot of it to you though. So you must be proactive and neutralize the mezzers first. Put Radiation Infection on the boss before using Flashfire. Or, you know, wait until the meleers go in. You are playing along side team mates, right?

As for the ITF, I believe the Cimerorans are specifically the Controller's bane in this game. You can't play as usual against them because pretty much all the usual controls are useless. The best control to bring to Cimerora is a stormy. However, Cimerorans have no mezzers, so you can't use them as an example for your lack of mez protection. Playing an Emp on the ITF is so relaxing for me because I don't need to cast Clear Mind all the time (which I usually do so there's no down time for it on my team mates).

Which brings up another point, find an Emp who understands what you need and is willing to do it for you and the rest of the team.

OK, seriously, what game did you come from that you needed to do all of this?

COH isn't that hard and as been said before, "normal" MMO strategies don't often apply. If you've played for a while, you'll figure out the game mechanics pretty easily. "Repetitive" is how the detractors usually describe it before rage quitting.

In addition, informal forum surveys have shown that our player base (at least those who visit the forums) is on the mature end of the age demographic (30+). Most can think for themselves and if they've played the game for any length in time, they know what they can do, along with what they're supposed to do. Ditto for their expectations for what others can and are supposed to do.

Yes, there are some people who play poorly, but it could be due to a myriad of reasons: new player, someone who's a young kid, a parent who's distracted with their kids, someone with a physical disability, etc. Of these examples, you only need to give instructions to the new player and only if they make it obvious that they're lost or confused. You can give them a briefing via PM prior to starting up if you're really concerned. But really, the game is easy enough that if they just went with the flow and not cause too many accidental aggro, they'd do ok.

The only additional aside I have about your post is this:
Some players pickup up the Tank archetype just "to be Superman". I find these to be typically young players. They do not know how to "tank" for a team. You will recognize them as being rather timid when approaching large groups of enemies. I'm assuming you're not willing to harass them about it. And if there isn't another player willing to pick up the tanking duties, then you, as the team leader, must step up to tank with whatever archetype you're playing. This is along the lines of keeping the team moving forward. Sometimes you can't know what you've gotten for team mates until the mission starts, which is particularly bad when you've just started a Task Force. If you have played the game enough, in particular, have had the opportunity to observe veteran players take up the point to pave the path for the team, you will know how to manage this. Of course, it gets easier (ie more survivable) the higher level the level your character is due to additional powers.

I was going to suggest this too. You need to spend some time as a team mate to get a good feel of how the missions work, the peculiarities of the various enemies (eg who are the healers so you can take them out first) and especially how the various powersets work. I recall that I felt like a total noob whenever I tried out a new powerset for myself during the first couple of years. And I bet that I looked like one too.

If you can't get on a team and feel that forming one of your own is the best way to go, then limit your duties to just recruiting and light guidance. This is an old game and you'll find that most of the time, you'll have team mates with lots of years experience. They know what to do. About the only thing you need to keep a handle on is verbal abuse, squash it quick, petition if necessary (enable chat log in your Options if you haven't yet).

You just need to encapsulate your question with COH related references. Like:

"You know, sometimes I like to cruise the shifting nebula of the Shadow Shard listening to "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. I'm looking for more songs like it, ie Hawaiian, like "I'm Your's". Something you'd play while flying your topless Jeep (when we get vehicles!) down the beaches of the Cascade Archipelago."