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I want to make this very, very clear...these changes are due to not only the "data", but the well reasoned posts on these boards.
I really do read & really do listen! The "devs" aren't cooped up in an ivory tower; we love this game just like you do! In the end, we're all players. I have the privilege of being the lead designer. I want to do what's BEST for the game.
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I hope you really take a look at the recently proposed changes with the range XP as you did this issue.
Range xp should be tied to sk's only, if this is for PL'ing then do it right!!!
Have fun on CoH everyone!!! 
Make it a Blaster Inherent, so we'll be useful to at least one teammate [our clone]!
I'm really looking for a reply from Statesman on this, but the community might do as well. I'm probably going to be hated for this, but what is the reasoning behind adding flashback? I really don't see a need for it. It seems to come from a "have your cake and eat it too" angle.
What happens if you hunt specific mobs trying to get their badges and you out-level your contacts? You don't get their missions, *shrug*. If you spend lvls 26-30 doing story arcs, like I did, what happens? I miss a lot of my contacts, I face the same enemies for 5+ levels....kinda boring. Oh well. I'm just not sure I get the point here.
And don't bother saying "save mystic mission badge" blah blah blah. The former Artphobia's site and I'm sure others list which contacts you get each important mission from, you could have planned on getting it the first time. And you can still exemplar down to get it, not to mention have a freind/SG-mate/etc make an alt just to get the mission.
For me Flashbacks are about the stories.
CoH has pretty neat background stories for lots of the villains and lots of the story arcs are very fun, and add depth to the world.
I think it's a great feature for players like me, who actually read all the clues, and who bothered to write down all of the "igneous language" clues to know what they meant.
That's great. But why not just make an alt and take completely different contacts?
because playing alts can kinda suck.
I want any and all of my characters to be able to do it all, at one time or another. Whether I get myself killed, a lot, and live in perma-debt, hoping I don't outlevel all the content, or do it later with Flashback, I want to see it all, with all of 'em. Or, at the least, have that choice. I'd love to see a way to completely turn off XP gain, so as to be able to see and do it all with any given character. Doesn't mean I'll do and see it all with one character, get them to 50, and then leave. I see myself playing this game for years.
I want to be able to do TF's and trials more than once, with the "I *do* know now what I wished I'd known then" advantage, and not have to worry about getting kicked from the team due to either my own client instability, my own occasional connection issues, or personal/client/connection problems on the part of whoever I'm exemplared to. Some of these things are a hell of a lot of fun. Some are just drop-dead gorgeous to look at, like the Eden trial. I should have to choose to do trials, or do my contact missions, but not both? I don't think so.
I don't want to have to go back and build up a whole new version of Valerian to see Hollows content through the eyes of a young tank. I don't want to have to go back and build up a whole new version of my scrapper alt, just to see Striga content through the eyes of a mid-20s scrapper. I want to take my existing, familiar, fun characters, put them back to where they were then, and see this content through *their* eyes.
Character concepts are few and far between for me. I don't just close my eyes and randomly click on archetypes, powers, or costumes. Every character I create - and I only have 3 - mean something to me. They all have a rich back story. Valerian is the "embodiment" of a Champions character I've played for many years, for instance. I've written stories about my scrapper and controller. Some day, I'll come up with an idea for a 4th character. And a 5th. But don't force me to create a character just to see content. I have no interest in creating and levelling a character just to experience content.
And, bottom-line: If you don't want to use Flashback, can't see the point, don't like it, whatever, it's simple. Don't use it. But don't try to take it away from those who *do* want it.
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I'd love to see a way to completely turn off XP gain, so as to be able to see and do it all with any given character.
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But, there is. Exemplar. Your level will never advance with it.
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Character concepts are few and far between for me. I don't just close my eyes and randomly click on archetypes, powers, or costumes. Every character I create - and I only have 3 - mean something to me.
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And believe me, I value that! I wish I'd have known, I would have made my characters on the Virtue server.
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And, bottom-line: If you don't want to use Flashback, can't see the point, don't like it, whatever, it's simple. Don't use it. But don't try to take it away from those who *do* want it.
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I don't want it *taken away* from those who would use it. I'm saying there are already ways to experience the missions. Okay, not enough of the backgroud--I think that was a comment on another thread, or this one?, that everyone in a team needs to be able to read the contact's dialog and clues. If they put that in, there's nothing keeping you from exemplaring and experiencing all the missions as if you'd done them the first time through.
What I'm actually trying to get at here is not spending devs' time on something not needed. The dialog-clues thing is already needed for other reasons, and it's the only thing I can see missing from this doing old missions thing. Let's have them work on other things.
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I'd love to see a way to completely turn off XP gain, so as to be able to see and do it all with any given character.
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But, there is. Exemplar. Your level will never advance with it.
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Character concepts are few and far between for me. I don't just close my eyes and randomly click on archetypes, powers, or costumes. Every character I create - and I only have 3 - mean something to me.
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And believe me, I value that! I wish I'd have known, I would have made my characters on the Virtue server.
[ QUOTE ]
And, bottom-line: If you don't want to use Flashback, can't see the point, don't like it, whatever, it's simple. Don't use it. But don't try to take it away from those who *do* want it.
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I don't want it *taken away* from those who would use it. I'm saying there are already ways to experience the missions. Okay, not enough of the backgroud--I think that was a comment on another thread, or this one?, that everyone in a team needs to be able to read the contact's dialog and clues. If they put that in, there's nothing keeping you from exemplaring and experiencing all the missions as if you'd done them the first time through.
What I'm actually trying to get at here is not spending devs' time on something not needed. The dialog-clues thing is already needed for other reasons, and it's the only thing I can see missing from this doing old missions thing. Let's have them work on other things.
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Your exemplar solution does not work for players that prefer to solo.
Krieger
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I think it's a great feature for players like me, who actually read all the clues, and who bothered to write down all of the "igneous language" clues to know what they meant.
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Ha! And here I thought I might be the only geek to try and puzzle that language out by writing the clues down 
Strike Sentinel - 40 Kat/SR - Champion
Hammerhands - 32 Invul/EM - Champion (and working harder than before)
Spiritshaper - 30 Illus/Storm - Protector
Savage Ruin - 48 Spines/Regen - Protector
Darius Jones - 48 AR/Dev - Guardian
Mystic Talon - 31 Claw/DA - Champion
and a whole *lot* of others
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Your exemplar solution does not work for players that prefer to solo.
Krieger
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Quite right. And I do solo a fair bit, even though I'm in a good SG. I just tend to play about 3/4 of my playing time at times there's not many SG members around.
Hence, Flashback is a great solution.
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I'd love to see a way to completely turn off XP gain, so as to be able to see and do it all with any given character.
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But, there is. Exemplar. Your level will never advance with it.
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That's great, if you can find someone to exemplar to, who happens to be the right level, and who is willing to just follow you around and do your missions to the exclusion of their own ability to experience their own content. That's hardly fair, to expect someone to do that, is it? And I'd much rather be running around doing my own stuff than spending my limited playing time trying to find someone who wants to do this.
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Character concepts are few and far between for me. I don't just close my eyes and randomly click on archetypes, powers, or costumes. Every character I create - and I only have 3 - mean something to me.
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And believe me, I value that! I wish I'd have known, I would have made my characters on the Virtue server.
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I'm not saying I do a lot of RPing. Just that my characters have a lot of thought put into them, before I ever even go to the character creation screen.
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And, bottom-line: If you don't want to use Flashback, can't see the point, don't like it, whatever, it's simple. Don't use it. But don't try to take it away from those who *do* want it.
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I don't want it *taken away* from those who would use it. I'm saying there are already ways to experience the missions.
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Not always on your own terms. You have to get lucky and find someone who has the missions/story arc you outlevelled, and exemplar to them. Why should it be that hard? I managed to completely outlevel a whole story arc with my scrapper - the one where you get the Sky Raider jet pack as a temp power. I now have no way to ever get that temp power (except when I4 comes out and I can get it for something like a 2 minute duration, or something, at a high Influence cost), unless and until Flashback is implemented.
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Okay, not enough of the backgroud--I think that was a comment on another thread, or this one?, that everyone in a team needs to be able to read the contact's dialog and clues.
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This, I can agree with, especially on task forces.
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If they put that in, there's nothing keeping you from exemplaring and experiencing all the missions as if you'd done them the first time through.
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I disagree. It's still not your mission. It's still not your story arc. You still don't get the souvenir at the end.
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What I'm actually trying to get at here is not spending devs' time on something not needed. The dialog-clues thing is already needed for other reasons, and it's the only thing I can see missing from this doing old missions thing. Let's have them work on other things.
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I very firmly believe that the Flashback system IS needed. For all the reasons I posted above, and for scores of other reasons I haven't even thought of. And, besides...the devs are working on it. So, it's all a moot point, anyway. Flashback is coming, whether or not you think the devs should be spending time on it.
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One of the reasons I left Everquest was that I couldn't just log in for 1/2 hour and have some fun between other things in life. One of the things that I love best about CoH is that if I have 30-60 minutes before work to log on, then even though there are relatively few people on (6am Central time) I can still grab a mission and do it solo. Or go hunting. Or follow a blaster around and heal him while he hunts (I'm a lvl 10 Emp/Dark defender).
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That isnt what debate is about. There is plenty of this type of content.
If however you wanted to log in and spend 2-3 hours on a team exploring content designed for a team, rather then solo content with a few extra mobs that a dozen different builds could still solo then you are out of luck. There is almost nothing in this game for you, and if you listen to proponents of solo play these days there should be nothing at all for you, and every single piece of content in the game should be aimed at the solo player.
I'll admit that finding someone who has the mission is probably harder than I made it sound. I mean, for each character you see out there, it only happens once, maybe not at all. And then you still have to have a lowbie for each upper that needs to exemplar. Flashback would be a much easier way to accomplish this.
And true, exemplaring doesn't do anything for those who like to solo, like myself. But I team when I need to. Remember, they want the game playable solo but teams encouraged. This *could* have been one of those things.
Ok, I need to share the computer 
, so I'll just comment this for now....
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And, besides...the devs are working on it. So, it's all a moot point, anyway. Flashback is coming, whether or not you think the devs should be spending time on it.
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True, I meant it more of a philosophical discussion.
I want to address the increased difficulty levels on door missions in the game.
First, I play regularly with my husband and a good friend in real life. We are all mature older adults. We play to relax from the stresses of daily life.
The door missions for the Heroic level have become too difficult for a group of three (1 level 30 and 2 level 29 characters). The stop raid leaders & crews mission in IP was undoable for our group. On our alts we attempted the Hollows mission to defeat all creatures in cave with the igenous creatures and there were so many of them that our one exemplared character had to unexemplared so we could complete the mission. All 3 of us keep our difficulty level set on Heroic.
I repeat, again, that the manual states that the game is possible to solo. I also repeat again that the publicity on the game initially said it would be geared toward the casual player.
When my real life friend complained about the difficulty of the mission by e-mail, he was told that he should have more people in the group or that he should talk to members of his supergroup to get help on the mission. He was also told that door missions need a minimum of 5 people now. This is the kind of attitude that led us to leave Everquest and if it continues we will leave City of Heroes.
Stop the missions with disarm x number of bombs simulataneously. This contradicts your published statements in the manual regarding being able to solo and is false advertising.
Stop tailoring the game toward uber supergroups and adrenalin-addicted teenagers. Remember us older adults who are casual players who do have a life.
Heidi Ho (level 30 illusion controller) Infinity Server and others
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Stop tailoring the game toward uber supergroups and adrenalin-addicted teenagers. Remember us older adults who are casual players who do have a life.
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I empathize... we're in the same situation and finding more and more games are targeted toward the "power" gamers. They're getting so difficult you can't just sit down a play for an hour. I don't think CoH is going that direction. When the bosses were changed in Issue 3, I ran into a group of missions that were basically undoable with a three person team of fairly experienced players. I expressed my concerns along with a number of other folks and Cryptic fixed it.
I believe all that needs to be fixed are the mission descriptions so that people know what they're getting into before they take the mission. Some missions already say "you should put together a team". I also believe something is in the works to let you abandon a mission. Right now, some missions are just harder than others for certain types of heroes, even at heroic. I don't think every mission in the game should be scaled to be doable by solo or small teams. I believe some missions should require a team but you should still be able to progress if you choose not to do them.
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When my real life friend complained about the difficulty of the mission by e-mail, he was told that he should have more people in the group or that he should talk to members of his supergroup to get help on the mission. He was also told that door missions need a minimum of 5 people now. This is the kind of attitude that led us to leave Everquest and if it continues we will leave City of Heroes.
Stop the missions with disarm x number of bombs simulataneously. This contradicts your published statements in the manual regarding being able to solo and is false advertising.
Stop tailoring the game toward uber supergroups and adrenalin-addicted teenagers. Remember us older adults who are casual players who do have a life.
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I don't know who told you that you need a minimum of 5 people for door missions, but they don't have any idea what they are talking about. I play probably 90% of the game solo, on all kinds of ATs, all kinds of powersets. The lower levels on all of them can be a real challenge, but they are doable. The only time I team is TFs and AVs, either my own or my SG mates. It is easier for me at this point, since my main is an INV/SS tank, but it wasn't easy at lower levels.
A couple of people on our SG duo constantly. They create the characters together, then take them through the entire game. They do most of the AVs with the 2 of them, and have done most of the TFs with just the 2. And they have done it with a couple of different sets of characters. (They do hate the Hollows, but they love Striga Island.)
You are an Ill controller, which means that from 32 on, you won't need teammates anymore, but you don't say what your teammates are. When you are taking on large numbers of mobs in missions, a tank is really useful. If you have one, then you may want to look at your tactics, and double check your difficulty settings.
Justice Blues, Tech/Tank, Inv/SS
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Fighting The Future Trilogy
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I agree. I am an older player as well. The game does seem designed for power gamers and adrenaline addicts. And there are times when you feel like a mission is undo-able in small teams.
I think they should have a way to abandon missions. If you try several times to complete a mission and just can't, you should be able to abandon it. Maybe come back to that contact later and pick it up after more levels.
I dont know about you guys but it seems that teaming isnt even encouraged its almost a necesity. If you dont team its more than twice as long to lvl cuz when you team you get the xp increase. I say give soloers an xp increase of at least .5% or something i mean come on i bought this game thinking sweet a game that ill play for the next few years cuz its gonna be a great game. But wrongo, lets see i can hardly solo a lvl past 14, due to the little xp gain, and i wont even go on to the other things i have problems with cuz there wayyy too off subject. But i love soloing its the best part i mean to get to send out my ice pets and let them wreak havoc on the mobs instead of me is fun but its way slower on the lvling department certain groups shouldnt get punished for being or doing the things they do. ie i dont have 900+ hours to play this game in a few months it might take me two years to get that much time in and in those 900+ hours of play i probably wouldnt be at 50 by then because my time is more scattered than if someone would have done it in 6 months DONT punish soloers, workaholics who just want an hour or so to play a game after/before work. Or even a few hours in after school not everyone has 10 or 12 hours a day to play this game.
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I dont know about you guys but it seems that teaming isnt even encouraged its almost a necesity. If you dont team its more than twice as long to lvl cuz when you team you get the xp increase. I say give soloers an xp increase of at least .5% or something i mean come on i bought this game thinking sweet a game that ill play for the next few years cuz its gonna be a great game. But wrongo, lets see i can hardly solo a lvl past 14, due to the little xp gain, and i wont even go on to the other things i have problems with cuz there wayyy too off subject. But i love soloing its the best part i mean to get to send out my ice pets and let them wreak havoc on the mobs instead of me is fun but its way slower on the lvling department certain groups shouldnt get punished for being or doing the things they do. ie i dont have 900+ hours to play this game in a few months it might take me two years to get that much time in and in those 900+ hours of play i probably wouldnt be at 50 by then because my time is more scattered than if someone would have done it in 6 months DONT punish soloers, workaholics who just want an hour or so to play a game after/before work. Or even a few hours in after school not everyone has 10 or 12 hours a day to play this game.
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From the tone of your post, I will assume you bought the game post I3. Or you knew nothing of the changes (and re-changes involved). When I3 initially came out, all bosses (mission and street) were made substantially harder. THEN it was near impossible to solo. After much outcry, the devs rolled back the changes, gave Heroic difficulty LTs instead of bosses, and added the XP bonus to encourage teaming. That bonus doesn't eliminate soloing; if the bonus was needed to level quickly, no one would have been able to pre-I3. While it is true that you level faster while teaming, teaming is not a necessity. Excluding trials and task forces, I have solo'ed for most of my 39 levels. It all depends on your choices of AT and power sets. Even at the high levels, you can get at least a half a bubble, if not a full, a day in three hours.
Cold_Lightning, I'm not sure if you started playing when you registered for the forums, but if you did and you have ice pets, I'm assuming you are an Ice controller (controllers are the slowest class to solo) it means you are past level 32 (also a little confused as to how you could hardly solo past 14, yet have ice pets, which you get at level 32?). 32+ levels for someone who is playing only (a controller) 'casually' in around 3 months is extremely good progress. And if you continue allocating the same time you have been then you have the possibility of making level 50 solo in the six months you mentioned. Your pets would have dramatically increased your damage output and lessen your risk (read; more xp and less debt) and therefore your leveling speed. Of course it all comes down to our own point of view. My point of view is that leveling speed solo is fine. And you also need to remember that although you get an xp bonus while teamed, whatever xp you receive is split between all the members. Kill (defeat/arrest) per mob teamed will never equal the xp for the same mob defeated solo. Over time.... well who can say. In a good team yes. In an average team/rpging team/bad team/etc.. maybe not.
Also I dont think the current xp system is punishing anyone. You may feel that you are getting punished because you can't allocate the 10-12 hours that you talk about, but that is not really specifically related to Solo xp vs team xp. That's just personal choice. I'm sure we wish we all could allocate more time to the game but as you say we all have other things we love doing as much or more then CoH (as well as responsibilities --> work, taking care of children, elderly parents, sport, school, uni, etc). If you feel that CoH ranks above these other things, then reallocate your time accordingly (obviously not that easy, just an example to bring it back into perspective).
These are just my opinions on what you said. So we obviously differ in opinion. I haven't intended any of the above as a flame, so please do not take it that way.
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When my real life friend complained about the difficulty of the mission by e-mail, he was told that he should have more people in the group or that he should talk to members of his supergroup to get help on the mission. He was also told that door missions need a minimum of 5 people now. This is the kind of attitude that led us to leave Everquest and if it continues we will leave City of Heroes.
Stop the missions with disarm x number of bombs simulataneously. This contradicts your published statements in the manual regarding being able to solo and is false advertising.
Stop tailoring the game toward uber supergroups and adrenalin-addicted teenagers. Remember us older adults who are casual players who do have a life.
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know who told you that you need a minimum of 5 people for door missions, but they don't have any idea what they are talking about. I play probably 90% of the game solo, on all kinds of ATs, all kinds of powersets. The lower levels on all of them can be a real challenge, but they are doable. The only time I team is TFs and AVs, either my own or my SG mates. It is easier for me at this point, since my main is an INV/SS tank, but it wasn't easy at lower levels.
A couple of people on our SG duo constantly. They create the characters together, then take them through the entire game. They do most of the AVs with the 2 of them, and have done most of the TFs with just the 2. And they have done it with a couple of different sets of characters. (They do hate the Hollows, but they love Striga Island.)
You are an Ill controller, which means that from 32 on, you won't need teammates anymore, but you don't say what your teammates are. When you are taking on large numbers of mobs in missions, a tank is really useful. If you have one, then you may want to look at your tactics, and double check your difficulty settings.
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Actualy there are number of missions that require a certain number of people to complete them. Normally they say in the mission text now, but some of them still do not.
If you have played 90% of this game solo you would know this.
Your statement sounds more like you sat in a wolves mission too long or where on hydra killing teams alot, so you didnt actually play this game.
Also for your information an illusion controller could solo starting as low as they want
They dont need phantoms to be great, infact people who rely too much on pets die alot or sit around at level 50 and do nothing but hamidon raids, because they are too weak to do anything else.
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I dont know about you guys but it seems that teaming isnt even encouraged its almost a necesity. If you dont team its more than twice as long to lvl cuz when you team you get the xp increase. I say give soloers an xp increase of at least .5% or something i mean come on i bought this game thinking sweet a game that ill play for the next few years cuz its gonna be a great game. But wrongo, lets see i can hardly solo a lvl past 14, due to the little xp gain, and i wont even go on to the other things i have problems with cuz there wayyy too off subject. But i love soloing its the best part i mean to get to send out my ice pets and let them wreak havoc on the mobs instead of me is fun but its way slower on the lvling department certain groups shouldnt get punished for being or doing the things they do. ie i dont have 900+ hours to play this game in a few months it might take me two years to get that much time in and in those 900+ hours of play i probably wouldnt be at 50 by then because my time is more scattered than if someone would have done it in 6 months DONT punish soloers, workaholics who just want an hour or so to play a game after/before work. Or even a few hours in after school not everyone has 10 or 12 hours a day to play this game.
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Teams should always almost give better xp/rewards simply because that is the preferred mode of play for any MMO. There is a lot of overhead involved in making a game into am MMO rather then a standalone or even a subscription based solo game. This expense just isnt justified if you are going to turn around and punish people for teaming. You are better off not making the game an MMO if you are not going to put teaming first.
This isnt to say soloing shouldnt be possible, practical, and rewarding, nor is it saying there should not be plenty of things you can do solo, but teaming has to be the preferred mode of play.
As things stand now though it is way easier and faster to solo to 50 then it is to get there by teaming. A fire tank who solos exclusively can get to 50 in under 150 quite easily, one who teams the whole time will probably take three times that, and someone who teams where there is no fire tank present will take over 500.
Currently there is no AT in the game that cant solo a mission in a reasonable amount of time. Yes some take longer, but doing that same mission as a team takes longer as well. Solo play is not hurting in this game nor is it in any danger of hurting. Except for a handful of builds, team play is almost pointless from a reward perspective unless you are being powerleveled by an ubar solo build. This is pushing people away from legitimate team play and the lack of social interaction causes people to burn out and leave the game.
Finally I dont understand why you are concerned about how long it takes a casual player to get to higher levels. Are you suggesting that someone who doesnt play very much should be able to get to high levels in the same amount of real time as it takes someone who plays a lot? This doesnt seam fair.
Nor does it seem right to allow people to blow through the content so quickly they can do it 3-4 times in a few months get bored and quite. This is an MMO not a standalone game. You should expect it to be a long term commitment not something where your goal is to finish. If it takes you a year to reach 50 thats perfect. You get a year of enjoyment playing, a year of new content so you have plenty of new things to do so you can enjoy getting to 50 again.
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Teams should always almost give better xp/rewards simply because that is the preferred mode of play for any MMO. There is a lot of overhead involved in making a game into am MMO rather then a standalone or even a subscription based solo game. This expense just isnt justified if you are going to turn around and punish people for teaming. You are better off not making the game an MMO if you are not going to put teaming first.
This isnt to say soloing shouldnt be possible, practical, and rewarding, nor is it saying there should not be plenty of things you can do solo, but teaming has to be the preferred mode of play.
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This is the core of the issue that solo'ers just have to come to terms with. If you are going to demand a certain amount of play styled for playing alone, appropiate speed/ease of play, etc, then you should not be shopping for MMOs. That's like auto shopping for a family of 5 and looking at 1/2-ton trucks.
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Currently there is no AT in the game that cant solo a mission in a reasonable amount of time. Yes some take longer, but doing that same mission as a team takes longer as well.
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I have to disagree here. My first to main characters were both ones that had a substantial weakness at soloing, either being squishy or not being a solid damage-dealer. Maybe our concept of "reasonable time" is different, but the time it takes for a Emp/Rad Defender to solo a mish......well, I haven't played her since before I3 and its boss correction, so maybe this is not accurate. Anyways, I was going to say that going through most of the mish was not a problem, it was the inordinate amount of time spent killing just the boss. Okay, so now there are less bosses in missions. But that's another balancing RL problem--I stopped playing her because she was so hard to solo, which is my preferred style of play. And because I am a "casual" player, I had not brought her back out since the I3 correction.
(an aside, I think a casual player not only plays for shorter amounts of time less often in a week, but also plays the same character for longer RL periods of time, since s/he is like anyone else and would like to have a lvl 40+ char, but takes longer to get there.)
So maybe it is okay to solo your Defenders and other Squishies now, but the "casuals" might not have thought of that.
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Finally I dont understand why you are concerned about how long it takes a casual player to get to higher levels. Are you suggesting that someone who doesnt play very much should be able to get to high levels in the same amount of real time as it takes someone who plays a lot? This doesnt seam fair.
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As can be read above, I completely agree with you here. If you are "casual", should you not just be enjoying your character and the hour or so of relaxation it provides, not worring about your exp/min?
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Find a controller with Pets and SS, or some other no agro power.
Summon pets.
Controller runs past King, pets follow. Pets draw all agro on King, who blasts them with the big Alpha whammy.
Everyone attack.
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Another method that works along similar lines is to use a character who is phase shifted (but not stealthed) to aggro the king and wait out his psychic wail. Once he lets loose with the wail then a tank can move in and grab aggro. Provided the group has at least one reasonably decent healer a tank can easily withstand the Clockwork King's regular psionic attacks.