Consolidated Thread: Statesman's Task Force
By
abnormal_joe,
Posted on: 2007-04-03 08:09 in The Market and Inventions
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Does the temp power for Dr Aeon stick around after the TF? If so, for how long?
The only thing worse than devs making bad decisions is the hoard of fanboys and bootlickers that keep cheering them on.
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Does the temp power for Dr Aeon stick around after the TF? If so, for how long?
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It does stick around. It has an in-game timer on it.
I don't think it does anything on the other AVs, but I didn't try.
"A good Defender is the battle hardened Corpsman who will kill a Nazi with a tongue depressor while putting a splint on your leg, then hand you a fresh clip of ammo." ~Jock_Thompson
Repeat Offenders, TNT Profile, My little hero
I recall 5 hours. Real time...not play time...
Fire Brick - Fire/Stone Tanker
Plasma Brick - Fire/Fire Blaster
Dark Brick - Dark/Regen Scrapper
Electron Transfer - Kin/Elec Defender
Zeake Ferrari - PB
Mr. Rick - Inv/SS Tanker
Einsiedler - Bots/Traps MM
Ice Brick - Ice/EM Tanker
One man's paranoia is another man's engineered redundancy.
I am glad that this was a successful run for you.
I know that the STF is doable, but I sense a theme with the newer TF/SF model (and even some of the everyday CoV stuff). I really get the sense that the devs are pushing us to have certain ATs/Powersets/builds to be successful. In this case, I think it has to be the 2 Rads that saved the day. If there were a stone tank, they would have need 1 or 2 Kins. Yes, the controller is key, but is the STF designed for Ill over anything else?
My statements are not absolute, but one of the first things I noticed on test is that a "recipe" for success is forming and that usually means that the average team requires a particular AT/Powerset. These days, you cannot defeat certain AVs/Heroes without a Rad, now you need two to stack. Ghost Widow's regen is ridiculous with her ability to heal herself (and cause a great deal of damage in the process).
I am not whining or yelling Doooom! but this trend started on CoV with the respec trial and the then with the RSF.
For the STF, I think some reworking need to be done to balance the AVs just a bit more, specifically regen and damage output. Do not allow the flier to respawn so quickly, or at all. As for the Thorn Tree, disable the AV, or let him sleep until the vines are gone. I don't know what would work best, but after doing the CoV respec again, I am reminded of the frustration in that I feel when I attempt a respec. It should not be a requirement to have Shivans or Warwolves to take AVs/Heroes down. I think balancing regen, etc. will help.
This is a vent, but I hope something constructive can be taken from it.
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I know Scirocco managed to hit me twice (one-shot code saved me the first time) through two stacked Large Lucks, with two Rad Infections on him, but that could be just bad luck. The lack of huge damage meant that we were whittling down on the AVs' HPs for a while.
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Just a note on the AV defense debuff front for folks who haven't worked with Arcanaville's equations.
Your hit chance with two accuracies in a normal attack against a +4 AV is 65%.
With two fully slotted RIs (~ 100% defense debuff) this goes up to 75%. Thats right, you are getting about 1/10 the effect from defense debuffing between them being +4 and "normal" AV debuff resistances (this assumes the 87% resistance post I9, right now tohit and defense debuffs are doing even *less* to AVs on Live). So the normally impressive defense debuff from shivan attacks isn't going to do much either.
With that, you can see why an Elude type defense on Mako is protecting him so well against debuffs.
Tohit Buffs, OTOH, are much more efficient. Slotted Tactics on a defender, for +20% tohit, brings you from 65% back up to capped accuracy at 95%. Same with a medium yellow Insp. One Tactics won't necessarily penetrate Elude, but you can see how stacking those with Focused Accuracy, Vengeance, etc. can let some teams hit him pretty well without necessarily realizing why.
So one suggestion if you don't want to respec into Tactics but want to run this TF is stock plenty of medium and large yellow insps in your base bins, instead of deleting them for "more useful" ones. Then stop by and pick up 3-4 per damager on your team just before this mission, and synchronize their use.
Two medium Lucks should work well to protect you, as they will floor accuracy of anything that doesn't have inherent Accuracy or Tohit, but remember the tohit floor for a +4 AV is around 10%, so a decent number of hits will sneak through in a long fight.
Where I see Rad Infection being really useful in the AV fights is the ones with buddies fighting alongside them, Aeon and Recluse. The AVs will still be hitting just fine through tohit debuffs, but the bosses with them will be a LOT less likely to sneak a killing shot in before you or a healer can react after you are at 1 hit point from the AV hit.
I ran it for the first time this weekend and was aprehensive due to having read this thead. As it turned out we breezed through it, including the final mission.
We had:
ill/rad controller (me).
fire/rad controller.
emp defender.
dark defender
kin defender.
Invuln tank.
1 claws scrapper.
1 ??? blaster.
So only 2 dmg dealers and lots of support + tank.
We had at least two tactics plus piles of buffs and debuffs.
No vengence but admittedly 4 shivans when we fought
the final AVs. However, we failed misserably to pull
and ended up with all of them.
Everyone was expecting to start over but after they followed us all the way back to the ship we started fighting them and it was surprisingly ok, no deaths on our side.
The shivans came out after a while and I wonder if we could have taken the AVs without them. We didn't seem to have any problems staying alive at least.
With no taunt on the tank we saved GW for last and I guess the shivans must have pounded her cause she was almost dead. I think we got lucky with her as she stayed at range while we fought the others and thus didn't get to heal.
I did notice my phantasm sending his decoy to fight her, not sure if she can heal off of that.
Recluse went smoothly as well. The tank pulled him away with support from the emp while the rest of us took the towers at a steady pace. Area dmg killed the repairmen as soon as they spawned, before I could even try to hold them.
Never done the villain respec so didn't know how bad it was and I still don't. We cleared the CoT with the squishies keeping low. Then spread out and cleared out the vines pretty quickly and finally the AV.
It did help that we had some experienced ppl leading, especially since I believe, at least 3 of us hadn't done the STF before.
Now I'm afraid to try it again cause it will probably never work this well again.
I can see why you had an easy run. You had plenty of buffs and debuffs to go around. Plus the Shivans. Plus fighting by the boat probably gave you Longbow support too. But good job though.
Ideally I wish we could complete the STF(and RSF)with any team makeup and not relying on Shivans or Nukes.
Regarding the STF, there are 3 things that need to be looked at:
<ul type="square">[*]Ghost Widow's self heal. Unless you have a sufficient way to keep it from hitting, you're screwed. May as well be punching a brick wall. Do away with it. She's already hard enough as is, plus the high regen rate of AVs. A self heal on top of that is just overkill.[*]Mako's Super Elude. This is just nuts. He can use it as often as he wants and never suffers a penalty for it. Mako is just frustration incarnate, causing STF runs to be given up on due to just him. Again, do away with it, or at the very least drastically increase the recharge time on it. And he's a Stalker? More like a SR Brute if you ask me.[*]Lord Recluse's Buff Towers. Not a huge fan of the whole "gimmick" here that's sometimes used in video games of 'Destroy these so you can damage the boss, and keep destroying them if they get healed/fixed'. I know the idea is to keep the repairmen away from them, but inevitably one will slip thru, and due to how much damage it takes to destroy one, people could get downright severely frustrated by having to pound on them all over again. And in that time Recluse could regen right back to full health, adding further frustration. Also, who really wants to get stuck clearing the repairmen while the rest of the team is fighting Lord Recluse? Lose the repairmen entirely, or reduce how often LR can summon them, or make the Towers easier to destroy. As it is, the Towers are like fighting a lower level AV that doesn't fight back.[/list]
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[*]Mako's Super Elude. This is just nuts. He can use it as often as he wants and never suffers a penalty for it. Mako is just frustration incarnate, causing STF runs to be given up on due to just him. Again, do away with it, or at the very least drastically increase the recharge time on it. And he's a Stalker? More like a SR Brute if you ask me.
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It's not just Elude. He seems to have some other +Def powers running all the time, given how often I was missing him even when he wasn't in complete dodge mode.
I think it's just too much. Being a +4 AV already puts him on the far end of the spectrum. With his extra powers on top of that, I think it makes To Hit buffs near mandatory. Not good design.
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
I've been reading the anti-Mako posts and a thought occurred to me. I'd love to know what the AT's and the builds are of the people who dislike Mako's Elude.
I run defenders, mostly. And my two favourite defenders are the only two I've taken on the STF. Both of them have Tactics, well slotted. On all six of the successful teams I've been on there have been at least one other person with Tactics as well. On those teams, Mako was a relatively straight forward fight.
Now Tactics is routinely picked up by teaming players, especially defenders (we get the best bonus for it). It's purposely designed for teams, not solo play. It occurs to me that Mako is the way he is to encourage less self centered builds. Solo artists do not have a role on the STF, nor should they.
Two of the STF's that I've been on that failed, failed due to an inability to follow directions and to cooperate with other players. Having a self-sufficient build is part of that.
I'm not the world's best player, and I'm not the world's brightest player, but I do know that for a task force to have repeatability, it has to be difficult. It has to demand more out of a player than they normally do. If it were just a series of scanner missions, then there really wouldn't be a point to it. As it is, when you win, you get a feeling of accomplishment. Which is exactly the way it should be.
There needs to be villains that challenge. There needs to be missions that require forethought and planning. Zerg rushing every mission ought to be rewarded with failure.
I've rambled a bit. But I think the STF and the LRSF both represent a step in the right direction for this game. A lot of us have wanted challenging upper level content and the STF is a welcome start.
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I can see why you had an easy run. You had plenty of buffs and debuffs to go around. Plus the Shivans. Plus fighting by the boat probably gave you Longbow support too. But good job though.
Ideally I wish we could complete the STF(and RSF)with any team makeup and not relying on Shivans or Nukes.
Regarding the STF, there are 3 things that need to be looked at:
<ul type="square">[*]Ghost Widow's self heal. Unless you have a sufficient way to keep it from hitting, you're screwed. May as well be punching a brick wall. Do away with it. She's already hard enough as is, plus the high regen rate of AVs. A self heal on top of that is just overkill.[*]Mako's Super Elude. This is just nuts. He can use it as often as he wants and never suffers a penalty for it. Mako is just frustration incarnate, causing STF runs to be given up on due to just him. Again, do away with it, or at the very least drastically increase the recharge time on it. And he's a Stalker? More like a SR Brute if you ask me.[*]Lord Recluse's Buff Towers. Not a huge fan of the whole "gimmick" here that's sometimes used in video games of 'Destroy these so you can damage the boss, and keep destroying them if they get healed/fixed'. I know the idea is to keep the repairmen away from them, but inevitably one will slip thru, and due to how much damage it takes to destroy one, people could get downright severely frustrated by having to pound on them all over again. And in that time Recluse could regen right back to full health, adding further frustration. Also, who really wants to get stuck clearing the repairmen while the rest of the team is fighting Lord Recluse? Lose the repairmen entirely, or reduce how often LR can summon them, or make the Towers easier to destroy. As it is, the Towers are like fighting a lower level AV that doesn't fight back.[/list]
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I don't see how the complaints are truly valid... Unless your on a Pulling team. Ever since I started running the STF my way, using the Zerg Rush, and Shivans, with buffs... These complaints are truly not a problem.
Mako and his Elude - Buffed up Acc, and Damage output easily takes over.
Ghost Widow and her Self heal- Ok, maybe a problem if they up that recharge rate from whatever it is now to like under a minute. Still she goes down without much trouble during a Zerg Rush.
Towers- What is the problem? They don't fight back. Sure it takes a while to fight, but who really cares? With a little bit of good tanking, and a good healer, Lord Recluse won't come after you, and as long as you have AoE's repairmen aren't a problem. Even if 1 does slip through and goes after a destroyed tower, your team should be aware enough to take it out while it is in the process. If they heal the tower your on, it isnt that big of a deal. Just keep bashing away.
Anyway - I still don't understand your complaints about GW and Mako... The 2 AV's are easily dealt with as long as your team is a well balanced team. 1 rad should be enough to make Mako, along with a few +acc buffs from Tactics or Emps to hit him constantly and kill him. GW is just about damage output. Same with the Towers.
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
Question about the buff towers and the boat (?) where you fight Recluse, whats the distances between the towers? And whats the distance from them to the boat?
I ask because I was contemplating a strategy with my rad of;
1. Dropping Rad Infection on Recluse himself, to keep his summoned bosses from finishing off the tank after Recluse almost 1-shots them. This gives time for the emp to heal the tank back up.
2. Dropping EF on a tower the team is working on, for the -resistance.
3. Guarding another tower thats been destroyed, so if repairmen show up I can AoE them; a defender AoE should be enough for that, whereas a blaster with higher damage should be more efficient attacking a new tower.
Obviously, to pull this off all these have to be within the 200 yard distance you can go before a toggle debuff shuts off.
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Now Tactics is routinely picked up by teaming players, especially defenders (we get the best bonus for it). It's purposely designed for teams, not solo play. It occurs to me that Mako is the way he is to encourage less self centered builds. Solo artists do not have a role on the STF, nor should they.
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And yet I avoided Tactics because I thought it was overused and boring. How foolish of me.
Look, there are plenty of perfectly good powers that happen to be of benefit while solo OR while teamed. Tactics is one of them, if you like to fight +level mobs. This design isn't a brilliant way to punish soloers (though why you'd want to do that is beyond me); it's just way to reward people for favoring certain play styles over others.
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Two of the STF's that I've been on that failed, failed due to an inability to follow directions and to cooperate with other players. Having a self-sufficient build is part of that.
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Why the solo hate? People who don't know each other working poorly together doesn't mean that all those people must be selfish hermits. It certainly doesn't seem like a good reason to design the STF to punish people who happen to dislike +To Hit powers.
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I'm not the world's best player, and I'm not the world's brightest player, but I do know that for a task force to have repeatability, it has to be difficult. It has to demand more out of a player than they normally do. If it were just a series of scanner missions, then there really wouldn't be a point to it. As it is, when you win, you get a feeling of accomplishment. Which is exactly the way it should be.
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I'm no better a player than you are, but I think you are entirely wrong. Difficulty has nothing to do with repeatability. People will enjoy the challenge the first time, but to keep doing it there needs to be a reward. People don't ignore Lusca because it's too easy to defeat, they ignore it becuase there's nothing to be gained by the effort.
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There needs to be villains that challenge. There needs to be missions that require forethought and planning. Zerg rushing every mission ought to be rewarded with failure.
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But all this seems to do is encourgage zerg rushing with Tactics and Vengeance. How is that an improvement?
-D
Darkonne: Pinnacle's (unofficially) mighty Dark Miasma/Radiation Blast enthusiast!
Be sure to check out this mighty Arc:
#161865 - Aeon's Nemesis
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Mako and his Elude - Buffed up Acc, and Damage output easily takes over.
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"Easily", eh?
I've run one STF so far.
We pulled Black Scorpion. He eventually went down.
We pulled Mako.
Hit him with rad infection. I was on a scrapper that had Focused Accuracy. Had an emp buffing me with fort (possibly PBUd). Hit him with a chem nuke. Had 3 shivans out at one point.
We. Could. Not. Hit. Him. In. Elude.
I didn't hit him more than the 5%*+66% acc = 8.3% floor WITH BUILD UP, FA, FORT, AND RAD INFECTION ON HIM.
Elude went down, we hit him reasonably well. Got him down to about 20% health or so, again. With three shivans (we even tried hitting the shivans with Fort). He popped elude again. Nothing hit him, ever.
Rinse, repeat. Went to Warburg for some more nukes. Two people DCd, one was a jerk. Disbanded.
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Mako and his Elude - Buffed up Acc, and Damage output easily takes over.
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"Easily", eh?
I've run one STF so far.
We pulled Black Scorpion. He eventually went down.
We pulled Mako.
Hit him with rad infection. I was on a scrapper that had Focused Accuracy. Had an emp buffing me with fort (possibly PBUd). Hit him with a chem nuke. Had 3 shivans out at one point.
We. Could. Not. Hit. Him. In. Elude.
I didn't hit him more than the 5%*+66% acc = 8.3% floor WITH BUILD UP, FA, FORT, AND RAD INFECTION ON HIM.
Elude went down, we hit him reasonably well. Got him down to about 20% health or so, again. With three shivans (we even tried hitting the shivans with Fort). He popped elude again. Nothing hit him, ever.
Rinse, repeat. Went to Warburg for some more nukes. Two people DCd, one was a jerk. Disbanded.
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Obviously your team experience wasn't the same as mine. Every time since my first finished STF, we have enough accuracy and accuracy buffs that it doesn't matter if he pops elude, or not. IO's also help alot in this instance.
Next time get some Basic Acc IOs slotted, (3 will put you over 100% acc) and make sure you have Tactics and some other acc buffs.
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
[u]Statesman's Task Force 2007-04-15[u]
Printable PDF Diagram
You'll need about 3 to 4 hours, minimum. You could however spend 6 to 10 hours if you don't know what you're doing and where things are ahead of time.
For the most part you'll need an AV capable team and you'll be taking on L52 to L54 AV's. This means you'll want some -regen from Primarily Rad, Kin, Dark, TA primarily. You'll also want some Buffs from FF, Sonic, or Emp as Buffs are not effected by AV resists. Finally you may want repel capabilities or Storm, Kin, FF. I strongly suggest 4 defenders or controllers, preferably 2 of each. Then the rest of the team can fill as you like, however a taunt capable tank will be very valuable in the final encounter, but is not required. Honestly, I can't think of any AT Primary or Secondary that would not be valuable at one point or other, it will all depend on the rest of the team. The only major bias I see is the need for at least half the team to be defcon.
The initial missions are hardly worth mentioning, just your typical AV killer missions. If you're AV capable these should be a push over.
Later in the missions you'll be taking on the Villain Respec. It's important to note the trick on making two passes around the room. The first pass to weaken but do NOT kill the vines. Then on the second pass kill the vines, and finish the mission. Some teams with greater AoE capability will not need this trick, but many teams will. You will want the support person that's least likely to die and has the most endurance to take the temp power at the end of this mission.
Next, In the DR Aeon Mission, you should have had the support person least likely to die and with the most endurance take the temp power from the previous mission. Aeon will be INVINCIBLE until this power is used on him. That's the only trick to that one. If Aeon gets his sheild back up, he'll say something inane like "You'll never take me!" ... just zap him with the temp power again and finish the job. He's a wimp without his sheild.
The Final Mission
In this last mission, you'll be facing 4 L54 AV's at once, then later a L54 invincible LR. Many teams find it beneficial to have Nukes, and Shivans. These can help ease the load tremendously, especially if you pull all 4 AVs at once.
The Patron Avs
First, You'll want to clear the area south of the statue square, then it tends to work best to pull one of the straggler AV's up to that area with a good long snipe. You may get one, you may get all 4. We got 3 and managed well enough (Vengeance FTW). Stoney (earth pet) Tanked GW, the most dangerous of the AV's, while I supported him.
The greatest danger among the 4 Patrons is GW Followed by Mako.
Ghost Widow has a Dark Regeneration type self heal. This means you want to keep as many people out of melee range as possible. Then you need sufficient buffs and debuffs to make it hard for the heal to-hit. If you don't find some way to stop the Dark Regeneration, GW will be impossible to defeat. As if that wasn't enough, GW also has a hold that appears to be near Mag 20. She held our scrapper thru integration and dispersion. That means she can cut thru even the best unsupported status protection. You WILL need to buff your tank with status protection.
Mako Has PBU level Elude. You will need sufficient buffs and debuffs to bring this down to reasonable levels. We had 6 x Tactics, 2 x Rad, and 2 x Earth Controllers. That put us in the +120% to +180% Tohit range. He fell over like a limp noodle. However, a team with no -def and no +tohit will be very hard pressed to take him down. It may even be impossible without either buffs, debuffs, or controls. Considering AV resist, the +tohit buffs are highly preferable. Primarily Fortitude, Tactics, Buildup, Aim, Yellow Inspirations.
The other two AV's I didn't even notice, we killed them by accident I think.
Note, as one AV dies, there seems to be a good likelyhood 1-2 more AVs will aggro randomly if they have not already.
The Flier and Statue Square
Next you'll want to clear the sqaure around the statue, and probably take out the flyer while you're at it. If you can get all the troops and avoid the flyer, that is best. The flyer respawns gwad awful fast. You can't keep rid of the menace. You need to clear this area, as LR will call them as reinforcements into your backside if you don't kill them first.
Next, let the flyer respawn, then take down the flier. One less menace on your backside. It turns out that the flyer does respawn quickly. Regardless, It is a good idea to take the flier out right after you clean the statue square and just before starting in on LR. This will give you a decent period of time to start the attack before it can respawn again. I will say, the flyer did account for about half my deaths the time we didnt' take it out.
That done .... it's time for LR himself. Unfortuneately I can't give a perfect strategy here. I'll give two.
Split Team Strategy
EDIT: Now someone mentions LR teleported to them to defend the towers when their tanker died. More testing is needed here.
Split the team into a Pull Team with taunt tank and enough buff/heal support to keep him alive, and the rest of the team as a Damage Team. If you plan to use the pull team, you'll need to have cleared most of the map to the ship. The entire team engages LR long enough to clear out his support minions. A pair of controllers to help manage the pack of L54 Boss Level Minions are highly reccomended at this point. Then pull team lures LR near to the Long Bow Ship and keeps him taunted there if at all possible. At the minimum you gain time between the damage teams attack and LR attemtping to protect the towers, and at most you keep him entirely occupied.
Be Warned LR can hit for 4695+ flattening even a stone tank in short order, unless that tank has some support. I don't know what his damage cap is, but he can all but one shot most tanks.
Then the Damage Team Attacks the Yellow Accuracy Tower First. Meanwhile it is crictical that you KILL ALL REPAIRMEN ASAP. The repairmen can heal the towers very quickly and may even ressurect a defeated tower. Storm, FF, Kin with repel powers can be very valuable in keeping repairmen off towers. Keep an eye on all towers for repairment and do not allow any to live or respawn. Once the first tower is destroyed your defense buffs and accuracy debuffs should be more effective helping your team and tank survive LR.
Then Attack the Red Damage Tower Second. Once this is defeated further pressure should be releived on your team and tank as LR will be doing significantly less damage. Then clean up the rest of the towers, and then spank the unbuffed neutered LR like the wimpy little baby he is.
Tankless Team
For us tankless, it ended up a battle of attrition.
Stonies (earth pet) tanked LR some, but he was too unpredictable, and the stonies couldn't hold him. In the end I (DDD) was tanking LR with (3 luck + Vengeance + FF bubbles + Night Fall + Shadow Fall + Howling + Twighlight Grasp), and he still took me out more times than I want to count. That means his to-hit buffs (until you take out the towers and make him vulnerable) are probably in the +50 range, or I was incredibly unlucky. But so long as I was super defense buffed I was able to hold him for a while.
Finally thru a great deal of attrition (Glad I'm 50 and debt is meaningless) we took out all the towers, then LR Fell in a blink. GW was actually harder than the unbuffed LR. It's all about managing all the spawns from 20 directions till you can take out the towers. Once the towers fall LR is a wimp.
Conclusion
Does that mean, ANY team can do this ? No, I'm afraid not. It requires too much teamwork and planning. While there is no one perfect mix, and many teams will work, for every workable team, I can think of at least one unworkable team. PuGs given their lack of cohesion, teamwork, and general complete random makeup are probably completely doomed.
For organized teams, I think you'll need an extra dose of AV capable defenders or controllers. I recommend at least 4 Defenders or Controllers, but preferably a mix. The AV capable Defenders and Controllers, as well as FF and Stormers will be in key positions to work on this TF, but any Defender or Controller will be a sought after asset. Leadership Capable players of any AT will also be very useful, if not required.
Excellent Guide! Thank you very much for posting it. And I love the diagram!
Nice guide. Only point of contention is the Blue Tower. It is his defence buffs I do believe. Afterall, what AV needs endurance buffs?
=. .=b
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Wait...waitwait... ... ...wait. Wait. You mean that being an Energy/Energy Blaster and having Repulsion bubble means that all those teams that hate my KB so much are going to want me on their team?! Score 
I kid, but excellent writeup, and it's definitely got me thinking about what direction to take my Blaster next (I've strategically used each respec to try out different power combos and APPs, and think I've finally settled on a truly final build outside the core), and this certainly helps me by reevaluating powers that are useful/useless...and my TA/A Def will be wanted as well!
One question, however: you mention Snipe pulling. Do you have any idea/confirmation whether further range = less chance of pulling other Patrons? I ask because Blasters in particular have range potential using their Snipe (slots + boost range = fun), and if it's a valuable tactic, then advertising it [*until they nerf it, I guess*] would be great, and if not, knowing not to bother would be great too.
My experience has usually been that snipe-pulling, in most contexts, is not the way to go. Being hit causes aggro from those around, but throwing something back causes much more aggro. As such, you'll get better results from throwing a ranged attack while moving/jumping behind cover, especially if it's one that unroots before the damage applies.
My Brute, with Mu Lightning, can pretty consistently single-pull the Vindicators, if he's got a Kin backing him up. Go to near the max range for Mu Lightning, run back, jump, and hit the power in midair. By the time it finishes animating, I've broken line of sight, so the target has to chase before they can return fire.
For the Statesman TF, I'd think that shooting something while backing up behind that large rectangular pedestal in front of the plaza would be best for single pulling. Break line of sight with that, while the projectile you're using is still in the air, and then get as much distance as you can. Can pull an AV all the way back near the boat, that way.
Jerk 4 Life
In brightest day, in blackest night/No evil shall escape my sight/Let those who worship evil's might/Beware my power ... Green Lantern's light!/(Meowth, that's right!)
My Arcs: #4827: Earth For Humans. #6391: Young Love.
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PuGs given their lack of cohesion, teamwork, and general complete random makeup are probably completely doomed..
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I dont agree with this statement. I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of TF runs on test have been PuG's including the 6 I went on.
Hanging around States on the boat watching teams come and go, i was getting the impression that most teams were succesful also.
The random makeup of teams in my case also meant that the teams were more balanced then I'd normally see, always had a couple scrappers and blasters on each team.
I think the main reason we couldn't beat Mako is we didn't have a blaster with Fort, PB, Aim, BU to be able to hit him maybe 30% of the time.
Sure, 8 tactics helps, but you're not gonna find that on a pug.
The scrapper I was using had FA, even unslotted that's better than a fully slotted defender tactics.
I'm sure the Lingering that was on Mako was HOd out. Possible that it wasn't.
But, in the end, it's more fun and more doable by a random team than the last mission of the LRSF.
Sniping Blaster with Dmg/Rng HOs, Boost Range, and Interrupt reducers.
You can start moving well before the shot is actually fired.
Maybe I'm missing something, but that should still be the longest range pull, and you should be able to get out of LoS before getting return fire.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
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Anyway - I still don't understand your complaints about GW and Mako... The 2 AV's are easily dealt with as long as your team is a well balanced team. 1 rad should be enough to make Mako, along with a few +acc buffs from Tactics or Emps to hit him constantly and kill him. GW is just about damage output. Same with the Towers.
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
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Bold quote is wrong, it takes more than 1 rad, 2 storm defenders, a kinetic and multiple leaderships. It took 3 shivans, a snowbeast, an amy, and a warwolf to finish Mako off. That's crazy talk.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
I rate the TF a 10 up to and including the Arachnos flier. After that it's all Statesman/tank being the healer's pet fighting an overly powerful AV. I rate it a 1 out of 10. My mind can't comprehend 3300 hit points from a single shot. Tohit debuff, Defense debuff, defenses, resistances, knockback, repel, all meaningless, when 1 out of 10 times a +4 archvillain is hitting for 3300 hits points. I feel like the Devs totally scorned defenders on this. I can see why Illusion controllers are so coveted. Pets that can't die tanking the AV that can't lose while the peons use the pitchforks and hoes against the towers.
So now I am here with a hero that is worthless against Hamidon, worthless in the Sewer Trial, minimally useful against the Eden trial, and again totally titsonaboar for the Statesman TF. I really like to play my storm defender but he will always get picked last for kickball and the big raids since he isn't one of Statesman's cool kids.
Triumphant Defenders Forever
Psylenz FF/Psi, ArticQuark Storm/Rad, Symon BarSisyphus Bots/psn, Max VanSydow Thugs/Dk, Cyclone Symon Bots/stm, Blue Loki Ice/Cd, Widow 46526
HelinCarnate:OMG it is so terrible. I have the option to take 3 more powers but no additional slots. Boo F'ing hoo.
Tried the STF again tonight with some friends and a few pick ups. First 4 missions went by without much of a problem, despite a PB rushing in and grabbing the Aeon temp power before I could tell him not to.
But Murphy's Law struck in the final mission, in spades. From the get go 2 people crashed in the loading screen. One came back and was able to get in fine. The other crashed in the loading screen again. He came back and was finally able to get in, and we were finally able to start. We went to the little alleyway off the side of the square area where the AVs are, and initially pulled Mako. He came by himself at first, but then Scorpion showed up. We kept pounding on Mako, and I think he hit his Elude once. We had him whittled down pretty good when Scirocco and the Widow showed up out of nowhere, despite us being totally out of LoS. And of course with all 4 of them it went south. Team wipe plus the fella that crashed twice in the loading screen crashed in the middle of the fighting. As far as me and my friends could tell, one of the pick ups might have been flying or something, getting the aggro due to the AVs high perception. If not, something's seriously broken, cuz AVs just don't spontaneously aggro. After that we just couldn't get anything going due to them being linked. The fella that kept crashing, crashed yet again and didn't come back, and we decided to call it quits.