Great guide, and not just because I've been on the teams where you researched this info!
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As frustrating as trying to get through this Task force is, it was good to have teammates willing to put up with my extensive testing. Previous pull attempts were effective but setting up the pull perfectly was rather difficult and there were too many factors that caused many pulls to fail and made the previous method more a matter of luck than a guaranteed pull.
In the beginning we could not get past the fourth mission with the teams we put together. After I spent several hours testing the pull behaviour of the heroes in that mission, I was able to develop a pull strategy. While not being 100% effective, it has allowed several teams to be able to get past that mission.
The last mission caused a lot of aggravation because the pulls would not always go as well as expected, and the team had to reset way more times than they should. The pull method that I was using was lining up the stealthed puller behind the Atlas Statue's rear foot, while carefully lining up Numina in relation to Back Alley Brawler to reduce the line of sight of the other heroes. I also used the front foot to single pull Manticore and Back Alley Brawler. It worked several times, but there was always a chance of aggroing all the heroes, requiring a reset for most teams.
After another failed pull using the old method, a lot of the team was ready to give up on pulling and just give in to the fact that you needed the "right" team in order to complete this Strike Force. I am not one so willing to give up, and stumbled on a pull tactic that was so simple I couldn't believe it. I tested it from both sides, and was able to pull with complete accuracy. The Numina pull always brought only Numina, the Sister Psyche pull brought Sister Psyche, and Citadel, and the Manticore pull brought him, Sister Psyche, Citadel and Back Alley Brawler.
When I put this in effect during the next Recluse Strike force I was on, the Numina pull went exactly the same, and switching to the other side, the Sister Psyche pull went the same. On the Manticore pull, which should have brought Manticore and Back Alley Brawler. I did not set up my attack to be cued out of range of the target and fired it off immediately and since it was too close brought the rest of the heroes. But when it's down to five heroes a good team can work around it. This is the reason I included the alternate method.
While I can not be sure that this new method would be 100% effective, it does even the odds and is a lot easier to replicate than my previous method. I am hoping that I will see more and more claiming success on this Strike force. Also if you find any new information that can bring the odds up, feel free to post your results.
I have been using this method on my past few Recluse Strike Forces, and am pleased with the results. The Numina pull has brought only Numina every time that I have done it. The Sister Psyche pull has brought Citadel with her on most occasions except last night which brought Manticore instead. On my past two runs, I have been able to successfully bring it down to only four heroes left, even with a non-standard team, which was not able to complete it due to some of the players just being too tired to continue.
The team I was with last night was a team that was set up and very used to rush tactics, with 5 corrupters, 1 mastermind, 1 stone brute, and an additional brute (me). I was able to use my pull strategy on the last mission to successfully pull 4 heroes in 3 pulls, Numina (1st pull), Sister Psyche and Manticore (2nd pull) and Back Alley Brawler (3rd pull). Citadel, Positron, and Synapse are too far in for this method, but it may be possible to snipe them. As I said before in the majority of the pulls Citadel came with Sister Psyche.
Also a nice thing that I found with this method, that I experienced with the previous method was that repeating a pull, would not add on heroes to the pull. For example, on the old method if Numina and Synapse were pulled, but not defeated, the next pull could possibly bring Positron, and sometimes Citadel. With the less than optimal team, on the first single pull of Numina, she defeated the team. Pulling her again brought only her.
The comment that really struck me came from the stone brute on the rush team of last night. He said something along the lines of, "that was finally fun." Since this Strike force has been such a problem to so many, that it is not enjoyable, that was one of the best things I could hear.
THANK YOU. This guide will be VERY useful.
nice job!
There were only 2 ways to do this strike force:
#1 use force multipliers
#2 divide and conquer
Previously #2 was problematic, but you've done a good job in getting it to be consistent.
I commend you.
I realized some things that I need to point out in this pull method. When pulling from the podium, with the attack cued out of range, the puller must be careful not to step too far past the podium, or they risk sight aggro of the other heroes.
There is also a high risk of the second pull going wrong if any member of the team, even stealthed, moves too close in front of the hero platform. I have only seen this twice where the second pull did not go as well since a player jumped across the stairs directly in front of the hero platform. Not sure if this is the exact reason that the pull does not go well, but this is why I reccommend that only the teleporter move to the opposite side for the second pull, taking a bit of a longer route (around the outside stairs) in order to avoid sight aggro. Even though they may not attack it is possible that they may do a half charge and return, and all become aggroed when the pull is attempted. So again, only the teleporter moves to the staging areas, and teleports each member of the team to the locations.
Also I am curious about how people are doing using grant invisibility on their puller if they don't have a player with stealth in their powerset or pool power. I'm not completely certain, but it is possible that grant invisibility may completely suppress when an attack is made. I have tried this pull with my stealth off, and have not been able to successfully single or dual pull. So if grant invisibility supresses completely, then it may just be as bad as not having stealth at all.
to avoid pulling statesman shouldnt the sniper wait until he is facing away from the target. Example; if im sniping numina and statesman is looking at her, isnt that a guarantee that statesman will come into the fight and bring all of them with him?
Just to tag on a little information some people may find useful
On occasion weve run into Uber-statesman. Maybe its a lack of debuffs, but sometimes Statesmans god-mode is insanely hard to crack. Most recently, we had a team that pretty easily blew through every hero until States, but we could not overtake his regen rate while Unstoped. We dropped nukes, we made extra runs for Shivans, we ODd on reds
nothing seemed finish him. After we used ALL of those up, I dug into my temp powers and tried out a few Venom Grenades from Sirens (tier 2), and we finally tipped the scale enough to take him down.
I cant say the Venom Grenades were what did it for certain, but something was different on that last attempt. I did a little testing and found out that they appear to do about 20% -resistance for 30 seconds or so. You get 3 uses and the DoT isnt bad either. They also stack from separate casters. Ever since then Ive encouraged everyone to grab them when they can.
Another useful temp from Sirens is the Smoke Bomb (again, a tier 2 power). Weve been using it when we pull to further push that perception against them. Our pull strategy is far from perfect, but they're worth trying out.
To be honest, I have not paid much attention to where the heroes are facing. The Numina pull using this method has gone off perfectly every time for me. I notice that Manticore pivots around his mark and Citadel occasionally turns toward city hall and back, but I don't really notice the direction they're facing when I pull. With my pull they are either facing forward, or facing backward, but they are not facing in my direction.
Also some believe that when Numina buffs the others (Fortitude and Adrenaline boost on Back Alley Brawler, Sister Psyche and Manticore), she aggroes them as well. I haven't found this to be true. I have watched her buff the others, and then come for me without aggroing anyone else.
For those of you actually interested in the original testing results prior to the current method I list, here is a copy of the original post since I can no longer find the first thread.
My testing consisted of gauging the aggro range of each of the heroes, as well as seeing if any heroes came together. I would pull one hero at a time, and move to the right side of the T intersection from the entrance to the map in the Vindicator (4th) mission. This was beyond their aggro range, but within my targeting range, so after a while they would turn back and reset. I would then proceed to pull another hero using the same method.
I found it was possible to pull Swan alone, however Mynx would sometimes come with her. Mynx has an extended aggro range, allowing her to follow the puller farther than the other heroes. Because of this and the fact that she was linked to Swan, and Swan had a shorter aggro range, we had to pull Swan beyond her normal aggro range. I found Malaise had the shortest aggro range, and would barely move past the ramp on the other side from the door to the Vindicator room. He pulled by himself in every test I tried. Last were Luminary and Valkyrie, no matter which one I pulled, the other one came with her.
After the stalker left, I proceeded to use the same method to test for links between the heroes on the last mission as well as their aggro ranges. Any time we would pull Synapse or Numina, the other would come. Synapse having a super speed ability much like Mynx with her quickness, would usually come with any hero pulled.
Citadel and Sister Psyche would pull together, no matter which one I actually pulled. Citadel has a very slow fly so when the rest of the heroes came with him, he was usually the last to return. A very interesting thing happened when I pulled Sister Psyche though, usually 3-4 heroes would not move from their original positions.
Manticore and Positron seemed to be linked. I say seemed to be linked since it was difficult to confirm. When I attempted to pull Manticore, Positron would usually be one of the first heroes aggroed to me. When I pulled Positron, he seemed to come alone, with the occasional appearance of Synapse, but I was able to pull him to the north end of the map and Synapse started to lose interest. Manticore is one of the slowest moving of the heroes and did not seem to go much further than city hall. However pulling Manticore is rather futile, since he will stealth and you will lose target on him halfway on the aggro range. In other words midway going past city hall, you lose target on him.
Back Alley Brawler would only occasionally use his ranged attack, but most of the time if I pulled him, the first attack would be from another hero. He doesnt seem to travel very far, and doesnt maintain much interest if you go behind city hall.
Statesman is definitely not the one you want to pull. In all tests on pulling Statesman, I was attacked by almost all of the heroes almost immediately, and with Statesman doing almost 2060 points of damage to me; it simply did not seem effective at all to pull him.
One thing that I must mention is that with my Fire/Dark Armor brute I have Soul Transfer on him. This let me test a bit on resistances of the heroes as well as watch the buff cycles. I would do a Kamikaze run, and try to center myself in the middle of the heroes to hit as many as possible.
Citadel, Positron, Manticore and Synapse rather consistently took 20.01 points of damage from Soul Transfer. Numina consistently took 16.01 points of damage consistently. Back Alley Brawler took 16.56 points of damage without Fortitude, and 15.05 points with it. Sister Psyche took 8 points of damage with her force field up, and 16.01 with it down. Statesman was sometimes completely resistant to the effects of soul transfer, but I was able to hit him for 15.41 points of damage a few times. Once Numina recovered she was able to hit each of the heroes with Clear Mind consecutively one after another.
Numina only cast fortitude and Adrenaline Boost on Back Alley Brawler, Sister Psyche, and Manticore. There is a short lapse of time whereas one of the three will not be buffed. Sister Psyche seems to keep force fields up on all the heroes. I did not notice a point where she let the force fields go down. Manticore seems to maintain Assault and Maneuvers, however I did not notice the accuracy circles for Tactics on the rest of the heroes. I did notice a large purple shield defense buff and the yellow circle accuracy buffs on just him.
Hopefully this information will help anyone that wishes to attempt the Lord Recluse Strike Force with minimal to no use of Shivans, Nukes or Vengeance. Keep in mind that this testing was done with the original level 54 Heroes. This pull method has continued to work through I8 at least for Numina, but with the reductions I have not found many teams that want to try pulling when they can just use the shivans, nukes and stacked vengeance. While it is true that sub optimal teams and teams like all dominator or all mastermind teams can beat it with Shivans, Nukes and Vengeance, I would still like to see teams beating it with little to no use of the above mentioned methods. Good luck to all that try to complete this and want to try without the use of PvP temp powers.
Can we do a quick re-visit on this thread?
I was with a group attempting this without Shivans and it failed. After everyone logged out I spent several hours re-logging and practicing pulls and had excellent success pulling singles and pairs of Heroes. When the group logged in the next day to finish everything went wrong 3 times in row (re-logged each time) even though I pulled exactly as before, the only differance was I had a team with me.
Questions:
1. Where EXACTLY does the team set up? Street level, Platform level, City Hall level? East or West? How far from Hero dias?
2. Where EXACTLY do you pull from? I was pulling singles and duos by standing next to the dias on the retaining wall next to the pool of water, stealthed, with single target Fire attack (/Fire Dom, poor choice I think), and jumping up to hit Numina or Psyche. I was set up directly East or West of the targeted Hero. EVERY time I got Numina or Numina/Synapse or Psyche or Psyche/Citadel. Twenty times in a row. I even pulled Citadel/BAB from directly north and BAB/Manticore from directly west a couple of times.
BUT as soon as I had a team in the mish, the Numina pull that worked perfectly 20 times in a row (Numina or Numina/Synapse) brought every stinking Hero. Twice.
We set up on the Platform level North East of Hero dias behind the stairs, failed.
We set up on City Hall North East of Heroes with a tp pull, failed.
What did we do wrong? What caused the Heroes to react differantly from solo testing to attempting to complete?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Noght 50 Scrapper Broadsword/Invulnerability
Fire Umbra 50 Brute Dark Melee/Fire Aura
Impulse Cry 50 Blaster Sonic/Energy
Internist 50 Mastermind Poison/Thugs
Ice Omega 50 Corrupter Ice/Radiation
Prickly Heat 50 Dominator Plant/Fire
Champion Server
I was putting together a /dark build for RSF.
A strange thought occurred to me. Would Black Hole finally find a good use here? If your team does a frontal assault, this is probably useless, but if you pull and get too many heros, I can't think of a power that resists this. If you can target it so its radius hits some but not all heros, this puts them out of commision for up to 60 seconds.
The Lord Recluse Strike force is probably one of the most interesting and frustrating events in City of Villains. Just about any team can get to the 4th mission, but it can become very challenging from that point. Working together well most teams can get to the last mission and that is where most teams spend all their time trying for perfect pulls or wishing they had the right team (3 or more corrupters, preferably /rad, /kin, /thermal and /dark, along with /poison and /dark Masterminds, and 1 or 2 brutes, one being a /stone). Those without the right team, find themselves constantly resetting to get a perfect pull.
I have done a lot of testing to try and determine a solid pulling strategy by gauging the aggro range of the heroes, who they are linked to, and what powers they tend to use. I tried to determine a pull set up that would most likely get a safe pull. This is more important in the last mission, than in the third or fourth mission. I also used my soul transfer ability on my Dark Armor brute, to measure resistances of the heroes in the last mission. This was basically to determine which of the heroes would be more of a threat, and which ones would be taken down easier. I will briefly go over the first few missions, and I will focus most of this guide on the fourth and fifth mission since they are the two missions that can break most teams.
In preparation for the Lord Recluse it is good to try to get Warburg Nukes and Shivans. While not completely necessary, if things do get out of hand they can help to control the odds against the team. The team should have at least one buffing character, such as a Thermal or Kinetic and one debuffer such as a /rad, /poison, or /dark. They should also have a brute that is good at handling aggro (AoE attacks, taunt, and AoE aura help a lot). You need to have at least one member of the team with a stealth ability and a ranged attack. There should be one or two members with recall friend. The team should also try to have two or more characters with Vengeance. The more vengeance is up the better chance the team will have.
The first mission is to Attack the Longbow base. The mission door is a sub entrance to the NW of the Grandville map. This is a fairly easy mission although the hostage doesnt always follow the way you need him to. The mission door is a sub entrance to the NW of the Grandville map. The Objectives are take down longbow chasers (10-15), Set bombs (5 bombs), Lead technician to computer, and take down Crimson. The map has 4 indoor locations, including Radar Tower 1 and 2, a jail, and the Laboratory where Crimson is located.
When you enter the mission, the team should work on taking out the Longbow Chasers. One of the stealthed members of the team should work on the bombs in the Radar Towers while the team takes out the chasers. The bomb in the lab should not be set until Crimson is taken down. The hostage will be in Radar tower 1 or 2, and sometimes the Lab. His objective is in the lab so if he is in a radar tower the team must fight their way to the lab. He has multiple ambushes with a Ballista Elite boss in at least one ambush, so the team should stay together when a member kidnaps the hostage.
Once in the lab, the team should clear all mobs being careful not to aggro Crimson, whom is in the top left portion of the room. Once the mobs are cleared, the team should all attack Crimson who is surrounded by four Ballista Elite Bosses. Once Crimson and the four Ballistas are defeated, the last bomb can be clicked and the mission will complete. Clicking the bomb before defeating Crimson and his four Ballistae will usually bring an ambush.
The second mission is to assault the Malta base to get the Orestes Rifle. The mission door is the plane located in the northern part of the Grandville map. The Objectives are to get the key to the Malta base, Destroy the mainframe, get the Orestes Rifle and Defeat Slinger. In order to get the key you must defeat a Kronos Titan and the mob around him. Once that is done you can enter the base. It is fairly straightforward as you go through the base. The team should decide who needs to get the Rifle, since they will be using it in the fourth mission. After watching the cinema with The Slinger, only click the front warehouse door and not the second one behind it. The reason for this is going through the front you can accidentally aggro The Slinger before the team is ready and once aggroed he sends a constant ambush of robots. Instead fight around to the side and open the side warehouse door and pull the mobs around The Slinger before entering the room. If the Slinger is aggroed, a member of the team should call it out, so the team can switch focus to the AV and the mob around him. The decided member should grab the Orestes Rifle which is in a blinky on the back wall of the room. Once the Slinger and his mob are defeated and the Orestes Rifle has been take, the mission should complete.
The third mission, Defeat the Future Freedom Phalanx, is probably one of the fastest missions in the whole strike force even though it is four Heroes. The mission door is the Destiny portal in the Grandville main hall. In this mission you fight Numina, Sister Psyche, Back Alley Brawler and Manticore. This map takes place in a destroyed Atlas park Map and is one mission that you can use the terrain to your advantage. Have the whole team other than the stealthed puller, stage themselves on the destroyed half globe by Agony Hall.
The first target is Numina, since she can heal and rez the other heroes. The puller should have their teleport prompt on and alert the member with recall friend when they are about to pull. This way as soon as they pull they can click the accept prompt and return to the half globe. This pull will sometimes bring Numina alone, but can bring Sister Psyche and Back Alley Brawler. Manticore is not able to get on top of the globe. If you have a second brute on the team, they should try to maintain aggro on Back Alley Brawler while the team takes out Numina and Sister Psyche. Once all three are taken down, the team can drop to the rubble underneath the globe. Have the puller bring Manticore to the rubble where the team will take him down. The closer the team is to Agony Hall, the more likely they are to be randomly phased and not able to attack. The mission completes when all longbow on the front porch location where the Freedom Phalanx were are taken down.
The fourth mission is where things can become difficult, since there are now five level 52 heroes in one room to take down. The mission door is in Nerva Archipelago, usually on a rooftop NE of Crimson Cove. Each hero has their own advantage so it is important to know who you are fighting.
Swan is a Kinetic/Psionic, she uses transfusion, siphon power and siphon speed while attacking. Mynx can hit fairly hard with her claws attack and is able to move around the map very quickly. Malaise is a Spectral Illusion controller summons Spectral Decoys and Phantasms, as well is able to confuse the team. Luminary is an Energy/Energy Blaster and is the least of a threat. Valkyrie is probably one of the most dangerous as a Broadsword/Regen Scrapper that will rez and hit Moment of Glory once defeated. Ms. Liberty which is the last hero in this mission is alone, but can be a bit of a challenge when she hits unstoppable.
The first part of the mission is in a T intersection and should be cleared up until the double doors on the West side of the map. This is the location where the five heroes are. The team, except for the puller should wait in the circle room that is on the east side of the floor. If there is a Thermal in the team, they should try to be around the middle straight from the mission entrance to heal the puller if needed. If there is a second brute, or a brute that is not the puller, they should standby in the yellow tube on the west side to pull aggro off the puller if needed. The puller should be fully buffed by the team and have speed boost if there is a kinetic in the team.
The stealthed puller should carefully open the doors to the hero room and quickly move back to the ramp across from the room. They then target Swan as the first target, and carefully move into the maximum range they can hit with their ranged attack. As soon as they fire they should run toward the yellow tube. Swans aggro does not extend past the tube so they may have to attack again, or have the brute taunt, but should be careful if Mynx is aggroed since she is able to get to the hallway straight from the mission entrance. Once the hero is pulled into the hallway directly from the mission entrance, the team should begin their attack. If Mynx does come with Swan, if there is a second brute they should tank Mynx away from the team, if not, then the main brute should use their taunt aura, taunt, or AoE attacks to maintain the aggro of both heroes.
The extended aggro range of the hallway should give the team enough time to be able to take out the first hero, since the others, except Mynx, may take longer to get to that point. If Swan is pulled alone, the next target should be Malaise, since his confuse can reduce the teams ability to damage the hero fast enough. After Malaise, Mynx should be taken down if she is still alive, if not, Luminary should be the next target. If Luminary and Valkyrie are the last left in the room, the team should be able to charge them, take out Luminary, then focus on Valkyrie. Valkyrie can be one of the toughest, but by herself the team should be able to take her out the first time. Once she dies, she will rez and after a few seconds she will hit Moment of Glory, making her difficult to hit. If there is a Thermal or Ice Corrupter on the team, the thermal should hit heat exhaustion, or the Ice should use Benumb as soon as she rezzes and before she hits MoG.
After Valkyrie is defeated, Ms. Liberty will be on the next floor behind a locked door. The key is in a room that is off to the side and since the room has a full mob inside it is usually better to fight your way to the blinkie. Once the computer is clicked, the team will be ambushed by a mob with a Ballista Elite Boss. After they are taken down the team can now enter the room with Ms. Liberty. Whoever has the Orestes Rifle from the second mission should shoot Ms. Liberty with it after she is aggroed and each time it is recharged. Once she is defeated the mission will complete.
The last mission, is located at the plane in the north of the Grandville map. This is unfortunately where most teams are broken. In this mission you face eight level 54 heroes, that are not only +4 to the level cap, but are buffed by members of that team. They are often difficult to separate, some of them even linked so they only pull together, and once they are all aggroed, you can no longer separate and may have to reset the mission by each member of the team logging out and then logging back in once the last person has logged out. This is where most of my testing has been done, since a lot of the pulls seem to be just lucky, since most of the time, an imperfect pull will result in them all being aggroed, so I have tried to find exactly what the ideal pull method would be.
The team should hopefully have prepared themselves with the Shivans and the Warburg nukes for this mission. Also each member should try to have their inspiration trays completely filled with purple inspirations and possibly a few oranges. Like the last mission, it is important to know the adversaries as well as their behaviour.
Statesman has by far the highest resistance, and with Unstoppable running, he can regen almost to full health if the team cannot damage him fast enough. His attacks can be extremely devastating, doing 1000 to 3000 points of damage. Trying to pull him, usually results in the entire Freedom Phalanx coming. Numina is an Empathy/Psionic defender. She can rez the heroes, as well as buff them. She only casts fortitude and Adrenaline Boost on Back Alley Brawler, Sister Psyche, and Manticore. There is a short lapse of time whereas one of the three will not be buffed. Sister Psyche is a Force Field/Psionic Defender. She will buff all the heroes with the force field, and occasionally use a personal force field on herself. Positron is a Radiation Defender and will debuff the team with Lingering Radiation, Enervating Field, and other radiation debuffs. He does have an overload ability, that raises his defenses allowing him to be able to regenerate some health. Manticore is a Trick Arrow/Archery Defender, and has leadership buffs such as assault, as well as Focused Accuracy. His teleport arrow can do a considerable amount of damage. Synapse is an Electric Blaster with a low attention span. He has a Super Speed ability, and an electric Tornado as he jets around going from team member to team member. Citadel is an Energy Blaster, and has an Overload ability that raises his defenses for a short time. Back Alley Brawler is a Super Strength/invulnerability tanker and will rarely use his ranged attack of Hurl Boulder. He also has the shortest aggro range of the 8.
Numina can be pulled solo, or with Synapse. Sister Psyche almost always pulls with Citadel. Manticore can be pulled solo, or with Back Alley Brawler. Using the method that I will soon be explaining, when pulling Manticore, Back Alley Brawler, Sister Psyche and Citadel came together. Positron can be pulled by himself, but it can sometimes be difficult. Statesman usually brings the entire Freedom Phalanx.
Ive found a fairly effective pull point that has seemed to work with great accuracy for pulling the Freedom Phalanx. The team should stage themselves straight to the East of the Hero Platform by the wall next to the stairs. The team member with teleport should be the only one to go to this point and teleport all members to this location. Note: Masterminds SHOULD NOT summon their pets until they are at the staging area.
Side Staging Area
Everyone on the team should be buffed by the corrupters. The team may want to avoid speed boosting the stealthed puller to avoid accidental aggro. Once everyone on the team is buffed, the puller will move into position on the furthest side of the podium and select their target. They should be just out of their maximum range for their attack.
Side Podium Pull Point
The first target will be Numina. In just about every test using this method she was able to be single pulled. The puller should cue up their attack, as long as they are not in range, the attack should not activate. They should carefully move just into range and as soon as their attack launches move straight backward. DO NOT jump, or fly, or leave the ground, this will cause the rest to be aggroed. Once they are down the stairs, they should weave around to the staging area where the team will launch their attack. NO ONE should go above the wall, and should not try to attack until Numina is on the ground, or at the bottom of the stairs. One of the team members should hit her with a ranged attack or taunt and break line of sight on the ground to try to pull her down, DO NOT run up to try to grab her attention.
Once Numina is defeated, pets should be dismissed and the teleporter should go to the exact opposite side (west) of the hero platform on the Manticore side. After everyone is set up and buffed, the stealthed puller, should go to the back of the podium on that side (west) and target Sister Psyche as the next pull. Again it is important that the attack is cued outside the attack range. Using the same method of carefully approaching the heroes until the attack cues then running straight back as soon as it activates, should bring Sister Psyche and Citadel only. Pull her to the ground at the staging area, and attack her. If there is a second brute, they should be holding aggro on Citadel away from the team, while Sister Psyche is being taken out.
The next pull will be Manticore and Back Alley Brawler from the same side using the same method. This should only bring the two of them, but if the rest are aggroed by any chance, all is not lost (using the alternate attack method*). Again, if there is another brute they should be tanking Back Alley Brawler, away from the team, while Manticore is taken out.
Considering the Manticore and Back Alley Brawler pull go successfully, the last three targets should be Positron, Synapse and Statesman. It is possible to pull Positron by himself with a snipe from on top of Atlas City hall, or by jumping back or being teleported (tp prompt on) after the attack launches from between the hero platform and city hall to an alternate pull point.
City Hall Pull Point
If you do not manage to single pull Positron, you can use the alternate attack method*, but instead the targets would be Positron, Synapse and then finally Statesman. Keep in mind that even when down to Statesman, this Strike Force can still be difficult.
*Alternate Attack Method with last five remaining
If they do not pull successfully, the team should immediately scatter and then regroup at the city hall front door. Masterminds should summon their pets and everyone should be buffed. If a player other than the major buffers or the Masterminds has died, DO NOT immediately rez them. If no player is dead after scattering, have one of the players that is not a major buffer or mastermind die in a longbow mob. The teleporter should port them to the middle of the team so that the player or players with vengeance can cast it on the team. After everyone is buffed, have the team summon all their Shivans. Once the Shivans are out, the buffers should try to buff them up as well and then have vengeance cast. Each member on the team should pop 3-4 purples and 1 orange before charging in. Have the team target Positron and everyone attack him except for one brute. The Brutes job will be to tank the rest of the group away from Positron. After Positron, the team should try to take out Manticore. After that, you can go after just about any target except for Statesman. Citadel and Synapse have the same resistances, so it may be better to take one of them out before Back Alley Brawler.
Statesman is one of the tougher heroes in this mission. His attacks are devastating and his resistance is higher than any other member of the Freedom Phalanx. Also his defense and resistance when using unstoppable can make it hard to defeat him. This is where having Shivans and the Warburg nukes, especially the Chemical Burn (debuff) and Biological (buff) nukes can come in handy. The team should be fully buffed, with Shivans out, and any debuffs should be dropped on Statesman. After defeating him, with the rest of the Freedom Phalanx defeated, the Strike force will be completed.
I hope this helps to make things easier for teams that are not the right team. Run well, this strike force can be finished in about two to three hours. I hope that with using this pull method more and more teams will be able to succeed with less than optimal teams. Good luck to all that attempt this monster of a strike force.