Lord Recluse Strike Force Guide v 1.0


Blue_Pulsar

 

Posted

Lord Recluse Strike Force Guide v1.0

This was originally written for our private forums, but I thought I would share an edited version for the general populace. I am not normally the team leader on this and wasn’t around for the many runs some of us did with “outsiders” to get some new ideas on how to do this before we perfected our tactics within our happy little band of goons. As such, it isn’t in as much detail as I would like and I’ll probably heavily revise it somewhere down the road.

Also, I’m stealing from The Yui’s guide ( http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...art=1&vc=1 ) a bit.

Team Makeup:

First of all, a “well-balanced” team is going to have slim to no chance of doing this. The team that I’ve seen do this most effectively and efficiently was one Stone Armor Brute and seven Corruptors. Why? Because Stone Armor provides high Defense and good Resistance, too. Honestly, the Resistance means almost nothing though, since when you’re fighting level 54 Heroes, they will two shot you pretty much regardless of your AT or Secondary.

A Brute heavy team isn’t going to be able to handle those Heroes at the end without serious buffs and debuffs, so don’t think that because a Brute is necessary for tanking that you’re going to be able to do an 8 Brute rush of this thing. The lead Brute is going to need to have Taunt and they’re going to have to be able to keep the attention of up to eight Heroes at once. If the Brute can help the rest of the team kill things, that’s great, but the main thing is for him (or them) to keep all of the Heroes’ attention.

Corruptors have been the meat and potatoes of every team I’ve completed this thing with. I know that Masterminds have great debuffs too, but we’ll get to that in a minute. What kind of Corruptors should come along, you ask? Well, I’ll break it down for you based on Secondary (since your Primary is all up to you and pretty interchangeable as far as this thing goes – Ice seems to be really useful, but my RSF-bot is Assault Rifle, so whatever you enjoy playing enough to get you to 50).

Cold Domination: This is probably one of the most useful things to have along. Why? Defense, baby. Ice Shield gives you a base of 12% Defense to Smashing, Lethal, and Melee before it’s enhanced and Glacial Shield provides the same for Energy and Negative Energy Damage as well as Ranged attacks. Both powers provide some Resistance to Fire and Cold, but that’s really not what you’re looking for. Things that can’t hit you can’t kill you, and considering the damage that the Heroes at the end do, Defense is the name of the game as far as armors go. They also have the +Max HP of Frostwork to keep that taunting Brute going and some excellent debuffs as well. You want at least one /Cold Corruptor along.

Dark Miasma: Duh. This is a great debuff set that really sticks it to the Heroes’ ToHit chance while providing an excellent heal and some other great debuffs. Always a solid choice (though your Dark Servant may not stand a chance of surviving a hit from the Heroes, so watch them closely).

Kinetics: This has always been a popular Defender and Controller set for a reason. I would say you definitely want at least one of these along, but I wouldn’t suggest a whole team of them. They provide great damage buffs, the invaluable Speed Boost so that everyone can keep their debuffs going, and a great heal that doesn’t require them to get close to all the splash damage around the Brute. You need more debuffs and defensively based buffs on the RSF. Always keep a spot for at least one of these guys, though.

Radiation Emission: Some of the best debuffs out there and Accelerated Metabolism, to boot. The only time one of these wasn’t useful was when there was some moron on the team who didn’t have Radiation Infection that we let lay there for Vengeance bait. During that run, my level 48 /Radiation Corruptor was more useful than their level 50. Be sure you have those debuffs all slotted up, too. You need every bit of help in lowering their ToHit, Defense, and Damage Resistance. The Slows and –Recharge from Lingering Radiation don’t make a huge difference (well, at least the Slow doesn’t), but I spam it anyway since every little thing helps.

Sonic Resonance: Damage Resistance isn’t all that useful since they’ll still 2 shot you, but they have some nice debuffs. Not useless by any stretch of the imagination, but not ideal. I don’t think we have any high level /Sonic Corruptors anyway.

Thermal Radiation: The Damage Resistance from this set isn’t it’s main usefulness and I don’t think the Ice/Thermal we normally have on the team even bothers to use it on us during the main Hero fights. The debuffs and heals in this set really shine, though. Very useful to have along.

Traps: I know a lot of people are fans of this set, but it’s general usefulness kind of hurts it during the RSF. Traps does everything well, but it doesn’t excel at anything. It is a Jack of All Trades, which is great in solo play 95% of the game, but hurts it some here. Useful to have along, but not TEH UBER-MAX OMGZ GRATEST Corruptor to have along.

So just be sure you have a good mix of buffs and debuffs. I’d say it’s darn near essential to have a /Cold and a /Kinetics along, but the rest is pretty flexible. Corruptor heavy teams are ideal for this, but with the coming level drop for the Heroes and our general increase in successfulness, it isn’t absolutely necessary to go with one Stone Armor Brute and all Corruptors like it was before.

Dominators might become more useful once the I8 changes to Domination go live, but right now they don’t have a chance of holding the Heroes at the end and can’t buff the rest of the team or debuff the enemy. They’re just not all that effective for this as it currently stands (I’m hoping this changes).

Masterminds are insanely effective in 99% of the game, but they fall pretty short for the RSF. I say this as a guy who much prefers playing my level 50 MM to my level 50 Corruptor. I love Masterminds to death, but your pets simply cannot take the damage the Heroes lay out. Because of this, you have to put them into a pretty passive state for the final fight of this Strike Force, cutting your effectiveness off at the knees. This will change greatly once they lower the level of the Heroes, but mixing in too many MM’s on your team right now risks failure.

That being said, I’ll compare the debuff sets:

Dark Miasma: Same as above. Very effective, but don’t expect your Dark Servant to survive if he pulls agro.

Force Field: Defense is always very useful. Knocking a Hero down is good, too. A useful set as far as MM’s go for this thing.

Poison: Poison is a double edged sword since it has great single target debuffs, but we’re normally fighting multiple Heroes at once. The one you target dies quickly and is completely defanged, but that won’t always help if another one runs in and AoE’s everyone. AoE debuffs are generally more effective for this thing, but Poison is a strong choice.

Traps: Same as above.

Trick Arrow: lol Trick Arrow lol. Do we even have any high level /Trick Arrows? It’s a great set of debuffs, but I’m always wary of this since I rarely see people use it very effectively. Just based on the numbers in Hero Planner I would think you would be useful, but whenever I team with a Trick Arrow anything, they kind of suck. Feel free to prove me wrong, but I see this being a decent set only if it’s in the right hands.

Stalkers aren’t much use here since they can’t tank and can’t debuff. One or two along won’t necessarily guarantee a defeat or anything, but their damage just doesn’t hold up against level 54 Heroes. Statesman could probably take 150 Assassin Strikes or something retarded like that before he would go down. If you’ve got a great team and have an open spot, they aren’t going to fail it for you or anything. They aren’t going to win it for you, either.

Having someone with Invisibility and Recall Friend is also very useful if you’re going for a speed run (which we normally are – no need to waste hours on this thing since it all comes down to the final mission and whether you can complete it or not anyway).

Everyone knows I’m not a big fan of the Leadership Pool for Masterminds, but I will admit that it is really useful for the RSF. That being said, I have it on my Corruptor since he gets better boosts for it and had more room for it in his build. All I sacrificed were some attacks I didn’t like anyway instead of any debuffs (which are absolutely essential for this thing). Vengeance really shines in this Strike Force, to the point where a lot of teams will designate someone to just lay there dead so it can be cast again as soon as it wears off.

The typical team that I’ve seen succeed at this thing has been able to debuff the Heroes and buff the Defense of their teammates to the point where the only time anyone gets hit is when the Streak Breaker kicks in (the game’s design will only allow you to miss so many times in a row before it bends the rules, though that may not apply to NPC’s) and someone gets smacked once or twice. If it’s once, they have a small amount of HP left that everyone else quickly heals. If it’s twice, then they die and we hit them with Vengeance, rez them, and they jump back in.

If your team can keep the Heroes’ ToHit chance at 5%, then you can succeed. If you’re relying on superior damage or Damage Resistance, you’re going to fail. With the right team and tactics, you could theoretically take on 16 Heroes at once (since that’s the max for an AoE, including [I think] debuffs) without any problems since they simply won’t be able to hit you or get out of the debuffs.

The Missions:

First mission: Assault Longbow Base.

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First mission: Assault Longbow Base.

This mission is pretty straight forward. We usually split up to accomplish the various tasks.

• Task one: kill longbow chasers, easy enough
• Task two: plant bombs. The bombs are located in the first and second tower with a final bomb in the bunker where Crimson is.
• Task three: Take hostage to the computer. The computer is in the final room with crimson surrounded by 4 Elite Bosses. The hostage has spawned in various locations, such as the first or second radar tower or in the final room with crimson.
• Task four: Kill Crimson and the Elite Bosses. Simple enough. Focus all attacks on Crimson and he dies within a few seconds and the EB’s drop just as fast.

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We tend to split up for this mission so that it goes quickly. Two or so people will take out the Chasers while everyone else goes straight to the Towers and clears them out. By the time the first group has the Chasers taken care of, the others are normally ready to storm the final Tower with Crimson in there. We normally let someone pull the mobs in the final room to the Elevator room so that we don’t accidentally agro Crimson before we’re ready. Once it’s cleared out other than the Hero and his cadre of Elite Bosses, we bum rush them. I’ve never seen this not go smoothly, so I don’t see any need to go into any detail for that fight. Just debuff Crimson and concentrate the fight on him. By the time he goes down, the EB’s will be cake.

This mission typically takes forever if you run around killing everything. I really suggest speeding through it and getting straight to the hard part.

Second Mission: Malta

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Second Mission: Malta

First Task: Destroy the Kronos Titan. We have always pulled him to the water away from the other mobs. Easy kill and he drops a key to enter the warehouse where the best fight of the SF will happen.
Inside the warehouse, either fight or TP to just outside the last room. There are 2 doors to the final room where there is ‘The Slinger’ (AV) a mainframe, and a glowie. You have to kill the AV, mainframe and surrounding mob around the AV and click the glowie.
As I said, there are 2 doors, don’t click on the first door right at the beginning. Open the door to the side and try to pull the AV out to an ambush that you have set up. Upon fighting the AV, he will spawn a TON of robots to help him fight, it’s pretty awesome and very laggy.
I would suggest that you try to kill the mob that the AV is in before you attack him. When you attack the AV and he has dropped to ¾ health, he will start to spawn them in 4 waves I believe. Killing the surrounding mobs will make it easier before the lag and the difficulty to target the last few random minions around the robots.
The glowie will give you a gun that you can use on the heroes in later missions.


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We tend to go straight to the Titan, who is right outside the door to the Malta base. The mission take place on an island, so we normally assemble in the water to the SW of him (I’m going from memory, but I believe that’s the location) and pull him there so we don’t have to fight all the mobs around him at the same time. Then we clear the mobs right outside the door and let someone TP us to the staging area for the AV fight (right outside the doors that lead to the final room). You can clear everything if you want to, but the room is full of tightly clustered mobs so it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Again, I like to skip straight to the hard part. Your mileage may vary.

Yui’s advice above is solid, so follow that. We normally then send the Brute to get the glowie while all those robots keep respawning since he should be buffed to insane Defense anyway. As soon as it says Mission Complete, we take off. No need to kill things for no XP or wait for ambushes.

Third Mission: Defeat 4 heroes in future Atlas Park

We do this very differently from Yui’s guide. We pull all of them. Let them come, be debuffed, and die together. We set up on the opposite side of the Atlas Dome (not on top of the Globe, like we used to) and send the Brute around to taunt them. As soon as they round the corner chasing our Brute, we apply debuffs and kill them pretty easily.

The order is the same as Yui’s, though. Numina, then Sister Psyche, then Back Alley Brawler, and finally, Manticore. We place all of the AoE debuffs on Manticore since he’s going down last and just concentrate fire on one Hero at a time. Sometimes we’ll kill one accidentally since there are so many AoE attacks or find that our next target is already in Scourge range when we get to them. The important thing that will make or break this fight is whether the Brute can hold agro. His main job is to Taunt the Heroes and keep them attacking him. If they peel off and attack us Corruptors, we’re screwed.

This is the first test of your tactics. This is how you’ll kill the Vindicators and the Heroes in the last mission, so if you can’t handle the four of these at once, you’re probably screwed later. You shouldn’t need Vengeance for this one, but it wouldn’t be a horrible idea to have someone die to a Longbow mob, TP them to you, and cast Vengeance. This will give you some extra Defense while you get your debuffs up.

Once the Heroes are down, you’ll have some Longbow standing near their original location to take down before the mission completes.

We don’t seem to phase in and out at this spot, but you might see that before you get set up (a version of Phase Shift is cast in parts of this map randomly).

Forth Mission: The Vindicators

We do this differently from Yui, too. We TP past all the mobs until the last room before the Heroes, clear that out, then bum-rush the Heroes. Normally someone will die to a mob so that they can be Vengeance-bait, but after that we just have pull the Heroes into the upper left hand corner of the room (opposite the entrance and the door to the next room), apply debuffs, and kill them one by one.

Yes, you can try the Pulling method, but I’ve seen less success that way than I have this way. If they’re all clustered together, they’re all debuffed and we just keep the Brute alive while they Taunt the Heroes so that the squishies can do all the damage.

Malaise first thanks to his Fear and Psionic damage, then we do Swan, Luminary, Mynx, then finally Valkyrie. Val will rez, so you’ll have to kill her twice. Clean up the rest of the mission with someone stealthing the glowie if possible.

Fifth Mission: The Showdown

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This mission takes place in Atlas Park at the globe and has Statesman, Numina, Sister Psyche, Citadel, Back Alley Brawler, Manticore, Positron, Synapse, and a random longbow minion all around a dead Miss Liberty. These guys will spawn as 54 heroes no matter what you do now.

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Set up on the opposite side of City Hall from where the Heroes are located. They’re sitting under the Globe, so take wide arcs around the map to the back of the building. Set up on the SE side of the building (getting my directions from memory, so if they’re wrong I’ll correct them later) so that you not only have a healthy distance from them, but a good corner for breaking Line of Sight. Clear the Longbow around you just in case a pet agroes them since at this point most of the Corruptors on the team will have a very dumb pet along for the ride.

Once everyone’s back there, we’ll normally have someone volunteer to run to another Longbow mob and get themselves killed so we can TP them back and cast Vengeance. This way our Defense is basically maxed out after all the buffs and debuffs when the Heroes first show up. Rez them or leave them dead depending on how you’re going to do things (I’ve been on several teams where someone relatively worthless [a second, low level Brute or a /Rad Corruptor who DIDN’T HAVE RADIATION INFECTION AT LEVEL 50, etc] just lays there dead. On the other hand, it’s worked well for someone whose buffs are time based [like your team’s /Cold Corruptor] to buff everyone up as Vengeance is wearing out and run into the middle of the Heroes so he can die from the splash damage. It’s really your call based on your team makeup).

While everyone is still all maxed out, someone goes and attempts to pull the Heroes one by one. The order to pull them in is Numina (who usually brings Synapse), Synapse (assuming you’re not already killing him), Sister Psyche, Citadel, Manticore, Positron, Back Alley Brawler, and Statesman will be last.

This is the suggested pull order, but not necessarily the order you’ll want to kill them in if you’re fighting more of them at once than you meant to. Why? Well, Positron’s debuffs suck, so you may want to move him up in the order as far as killing is concerned. Don’t make him first, but if you’re fighting all eight Heroes at once, you could move him up to being your target right after Sister Psyche goes down.

As far as the specifics of how to do the actual pulling, I’ll borrow from Yui again since he sums it up well and I’m lazy:

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We set up a kill spot on the side of City Hall with a set of steps in between us blocking LoS between the rest of the heroes (THIS IS CRUCIAL!) We had a ranged attack move in near Atlas’ left foot just behind it out of LoS.

For the attacker, have someone who can Grant Invisibility or some type of stacked stealth. To pull, a low damage, non DoT attack works best. We had someone with Recall friend queue up the recall and use it on the puller. The puller would hit his attack on Numina, duck behind the foot, and hit ‘accept’ on the TP (this happens within the space of a second, very fast). Numina will come over to the kill group without agro-ing the rest of the heroes.


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If they come one or two at a time, it really isn’t a difficult battle even with a crappy team. Simply apply the AoE debuffs to whoever is going down last while the Brute Taunts the heroes into a tight pack around them in the corner of the building. All of the support team will stand just far enough away to keep the Brute healed and buffed without being in AoE range since there’s no need to test the Streak Breaker’s mighty powers if you don’t have to. This also makes it easy for the Brute to see if he’s lost agro since they’ll start running towards the support team, giving them a chance to Taunt them again.

Ideally, you’ll be fighting Numina and Synapse first, and while the other guides allude to Synapse running around like a squirrel on crack, if he’s properly taunted he’ll stay right there and let you pound on him until he goes down right after Numina hits the floor. From there, just keep pulling one at a time, possibly switching to the NE corner of the building if it is a more convenient place to pull the last few Heroes from. At the end, you can really bum-rush Statesman since he’ll be all alone and you won’t have to worry about him calling on anyone for help. He does a massive AoE attack at about ¼ health that can wreak havoc if everyone isn’t fully buffed and such, but at this point your debuffs should have turned him into a kitten.

If all goes well with the pulling, just enjoy your SHO and shiny new badges.

What Happens if Things Go Wrong?

Not every pull is worth writing home about (well, okay, nothing we do in an MMO is worth writing home about, but still). Sometimes you’re going to pull three or four or even seven or eight of the Heroes at once. If this happens, don’t panic. With more of them there, you’re more likely to wipe, but with the proper team and tactics, you can handle it.

If you’re the lead Brute in that situation, just Taunt, Taunt, Taunt like a [censored]. You have to keep their agro. Period. Keep them clustered in a tiny little pack like you did the Vindicators (though they’re in a tiny little room, which makes that easier) and rely on your team to keep you alive. Use your own heals as necessary, but don’t be too quick to hit your Level 38 OMG I’M GONNA DIE power since this is going to be a prolonged fight and we can’t always keep you going through the crash. If you’re a Stone Armor Brute, then you’ve already got that covered.

If you have an AoE debuff, then apply it to the Hero that is going down last from the group that is there. This way the debuffs never drop. If the debuffs drop or the Brute can’t keep them together, letting them kill the support team, everyone’s dead. Keep them debuffed and keep that Brute alive. Those are your primary concerns.

When you pull too many of them, it always seems like it takes forever for those first few to go down, but don’t get discouraged. You can handle all eight Heroes with the right team (I’d say “right players,” but there are some really stupid people out there who do it all the time, so . . . ). That being said, don’t get cocky, either. The more Heroes you’re fighting at once, the more likely it is that someone will get through the Streak Breaker and take your [censored] [censored] down. Or worse, take all your [censored] [censored] down. Team wipes are not uncommon as it is usually either a slaughter one way or the other. You either take the Heroes down with very few unintentional deaths (Vengeance is useful enough to lose the damage for a few moments, or even to lose that eighth person’s damage the entire time) or they wipe the floor with you.

General Tips:

The strategy I’m laying out is not a “war of attrition” like some of the previous attempts that left people sour on this thing. It’s more like a Hamidon Raid. Get yourself a lead Taunter, buff them to high heaven, and slowly whittle away at an opponent who has way too many HP and can turn things around very quickly if you let them. And just like a Hamidon Raid, there are AT’s that don’t have a role to play there. If you’re a Scrapper or Tank (other than the lead Tank), then you’re not even good at Mito clearing, so don’t be upset that your Dominator, Stalker, or even Mastermind is not the ideal choice for this thing.

Make sure people have Leadership. You need at least one person with Vengeance (more are nice just in case, but they don’t stack anymore). Assault and Tactics are also huge helps since your fighting +4’s (at least) and need all the help you can get.

Always, always try and pull them in the last mission. Yes, you can handle them with the right team, but if you can kill them one at a time, you lose a lot of the risk inherent in fighting multiple Heroes at once. Even with the “right” team, we’ve reset (everyone logs out for five minutes, causing the map to completely reset itself) when things don’t look good. Just don’t think that you’ve automatically failed if more of them come running than you intended.

Shivans and Nukes are certainly nice, but they are far from necessary. If you have them, feel free to use them on the final mission, but don’t think that you’re going to fail simply because everyone doesn’t have a full set of both.

I think this is more or less complete, but I’m open to any and all criticisms and corrections.


 

Posted

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Sonic Resonance: Damage Resistance isn’t all that useful since they’ll still 2 shot you, but they have some nice debuffs. Not useless by any stretch of the imagination, but not ideal. I don’t think we have any high level /Sonic Corruptors anyway.


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Incorrect

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Dominators might become more useful once the I8 changes to Domination go live, but right now they don’t have a chance of holding the Heroes at the end and can’t buff the rest of the team or debuff the enemy.

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Incorrect, I know from experience that (with my mm) my lich's hold, my hold, my Dark Servnats hold (all well slotted with mezz SHOes) plus one other player using a hold, we can hold a hero wuite often. Add a dom and you have a perma hold.
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Poison: Poison is a double edged sword since it has great single target debuffs, but we’re normally fighting multiple Heroes at once. The one you target dies quickly and is completely defanged, but that won’t always help if another one runs in and AoE’s everyone. AoE debuffs are generally more effective for this thing, but Poison is a strong choice.

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Close on this one, but look at this.
poison: Noxious Gas: Targeted Henchmen AoE: 35% debuff in Acc, Def, Damage res, and Damage Potential and small chance to hold ANY character. That's right AOE...

wow, your ideas behind powers arent that great, man. capped damage resistance will help, especially the brutes. And especially when dark and rad debuff damage potential. Defense is not the only answer to damage mitigation, nor are heals. Damage resistance is good. I'm not gonna say much more. Look for my post soon about the perfect rsf team.


 

Posted

Since you offer basically no explanation as to why I'm wrong other than "it worked for us," I'll tell you that I think you're wrong, too.

When I've been on balanced teams, we've failed.

When I have a MM on the team (or, when I do this on my MM), they all say the same thing: "I'm useless here."

Dominators have only proved useful as Vengeance bait.

Control means nothing unless you can hold 8 level 54 Heroes at once. Nothing. Sure, it helps if they're coming one at a time, but too much can go wrong when you're pulling to rely on that.

Resistance means nothing with the damage Statesman alone puts out, much less when you're fighting all of them at once. He will 2 shot pretty much anyone (it would be one shot if they didn't code it to prevent that from happening).

Obviously, since /Poison has exactly one AoE you're mentioning, it can keep 8 level 54 Heroes from hitting me for the 15 minutes or so we'll be fighting them, MINIMUM. Thanks so much for proving me wrong there, sparky.

With I8 upon us, a lot of this will change and our little bickering will be a moot point. Over the next week or so I'm sure we'll run some more of these and we can revise strategies to include a more diverse group of AT's. As of today, you might be right about some of this. As of yesterday, not so much.


 

Posted

Before i rush headlong into this post, I want to say that your guide is good, and I was simply pointing out that you were discounting many powersets that shouldnt be discounted. Many of the sets you discounted were ones you said something to the effect of "we don't even have any high level of this toon type" about.

But since you seem to want to get upset about what I posted, I will remind you of what you said at the end of your original post:

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I think this is more or less complete, but I’m open to any and all criticisms and corrections.

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Anyway, here is what I have to say in defense of my post:



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Since you offer basically no explanation as to why I'm wrong other than "it worked for us," I'll tell you that I think you're wrong, too.

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I never said the words "it worked for us" and I offered an explanation for everything I said.

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When I've been on balanced teams, we've failed

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i also never said anything about building a balanced team. My ideal team consists of 2 brutes, 5 corrs and an mm. The mm haveing ranged pets that altogether do more damage than a corr. But they stay in ranged mode away from the aoes. And since the MM doesn't have to attack, he can then focus more on healing/buffing/debuffing.

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When I have a MM on the team (or, when I do this on my MM), they all say the same thing: "I'm useless here."

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Then i can tell you have never teamed with me or any of the great MMs i have ran the RSF with. For reasons, see above.

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Dominators have only proved useful as Vengeance bait.

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Then you have teamed with some sh**ty doms.

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Control means nothing unless you can hold 8 level 54 Heroes at once. Nothing. Sure, it helps if they're coming one at a time, but too much can go wrong when you're pulling to rely on that.

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I will say nothing of the fact that many teams never rush all 8, they rely on pulling and it works for them.
I will say that many ppl on my team have been happy that posi was stangind deathly still and not melting our a*ses and the Synapes wasnt running around like a nuclear chicken with his head cut off. But apparently that means nothing. NOTHING

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Resistance means nothing with the damage Statesman alone puts out, much less when you're fighting all of them at once. He will 2 shot pretty much anyone (it would be one shot if they didn't code it to prevent that from happening).

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O.K. This one will take a minute. At first read, you seem to have a point, but thats only if you dont look at the rest of the team and in escense, the whole picture. Ill start with debuffs.
Dark/Rad/Poison secondaries all have a -damage debuff somewhere in their arsenal. Dark and poison have more than one.
(all numbers from herobuilder)
Darkest Night: 28.125% damage debuff (corr) 22.5% (mm) (dark servant can also use this power)
Enervating Field: 22.5% damage potential debuff
Weaken (poison): listed as SEVERE debuff for damage potential, so im gonna guess safely around 30%
Noxious Gas: 35% damage potential debuff.

Now, im not totally sure on this, but i think that there is a debuff cap. And these 4 powers prolyl hit that cap. And they come from 3 toons, and 3 of the powers are AoE. Now, it is not at all uncommon to see these three toons on an rsf together. So, while im not sure of the debuff cap, i think its safe to say that these powers could cut the damage of the heroes in half. Then we go to the damage res buffs. But first let me put up a quick layout of my ideal team. Sinse primaries probably mean NOTHING to you, much like other things, ill leave them out.

/stone brute
/inv brute
/rad corr
/kin corr
/sonic corr
/sonic corr
/dark corr
/poison MM
(i have an entier post on this team and explain in great detail, look for Perfect RSF Team)

Ok, in my ideal team, we already have all the damage potential debuffs that i was talking about, the corrs left all have damage res buffs, but ill leave the kin and his Incread Density out, since it last for like 15 seconds. The twin sonics (who i like mostly for the awesome debuffs they provide) can stack the individule buffs up to almost 47% damage res (23.4% per sonic buff, 46.8% with 2 corrs), and the Sonic Dispersion ads around 15% more per corr. Bringing the Resistance buffs from the twin sonics to a total of almost 77%. On the brutes, that will cap their resistance at 85% (or whatever the cap is for brutes) and probably come close to the cap for squishies at 80% (again, not absolutely sure of the cap)

So, lets look at this so far. Lets say an AV/Hero throws a punch at 1500 damage, more than enough to kill any non melee toon. But then take that damage and cut it in half with the debuffs mentioned earlier. 750. Ok, add in the damage resistance (we'll say 75% to be on the safe side) that you say is useless and all of a sudden the 1500 damage is less than 200. I'd say that would be an acceptable hit to any AT at full, or near full health.

But lets say for the sake of argument that statesman has an attack that hits for 3000 damage. After it makes it's way through the debuffs and the damage resistance, it's lookin a little more like 375 damage. But, like you said, damage resistance means NOTHING.

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Obviously, since /Poison has exactly one AoE you're mentioning, it can keep 8 level 54 Heroes from hitting me for the 15 minutes or so we'll be fighting them, MINIMUM. Thanks so much for proving me wrong there, sparky.

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Don't mention it, chief.

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With I8 upon us, a lot of this will change and our little bickering will be a moot point. Over the next week or so I'm sure we'll run some more of these and we can revise strategies to include a more diverse group of AT's. As of today, you might be right about some of this. As of yesterday, not so much.

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Weather or not its a moot point does not change the fact that you have a bad opinion of how certain ATs and powersets work.