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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So 3/4th of a whole AT is basically useless from what I can tell.
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I basically just don't believe you. I'm inclined to think your defs were lousy.
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
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Pretty sure Arcanaville is responsible for the testing of those numbers.
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I believe thats correct; I'd also seen those values, which is why I was comparing a medium yellow (18.75%) to triple slotted defender Tactics (~20%).
And purples, which I know he tested (I think he used the demon spawning Infernal alter to get a statistically significant number of attacks in a short time) are actually;
DEF
S - 12.5%
M - 25%
L - 33%
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Pretty sure Arcanaville is responsible for the testing of those numbers.
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I believe thats correct; I'd also seen those values, which is why I was comparing a medium yellow (18.75%) to triple slotted defender Tactics (~20%).
And purples, which I know he tested (I think he used the demon spawning Infernal alter to get a statistically significant number of attacks in a short time) are actually;
DEF
S - 12.5%
M - 25%
L - 33%
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Hm. So a small yellow doesn't completely annihilate my SR's 30% defense.
But two or three do...
;sigh
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Pretty sure Arcanaville is responsible for the testing of those numbers.
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I believe thats correct; I'd also seen those values, which is why I was comparing a medium yellow (18.75%) to triple slotted defender Tactics (~20%).
And purples, which I know he tested (I think he used the demon spawning Infernal alter to get a statistically significant number of attacks in a short time) are actually;
DEF
S - 12.5%
M - 25%
L - 33%
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Hm. So a small yellow doesn't completely annihilate my SR's 30% defense.
But two or three do...
;sigh
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Sounds like a PvP related upset comment... FOCUS! STF man!
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
With the right sets and quality of defenders / controllers a scrapper could tank for the STF. I'm saying that on their own, most tank primaries won't fair well in the STF.
Invul falls pretty fast if Unstoppable isnt running, fire might manage to squeak by on Healing Flames but would likely get owned by some of the stronger hitting AVs, Ice is hit or miss on it's survivablity and gets hampered by debuffs.
The weaknesses of the tank primaries can be made up for by the proper defender/ controller setups, but the STF has a lot of damage types and debuffs that make tanks pretty feeble without having the right support toons to prop them up.
Without brining our cruches to the battlefield, we're sitting ducks and then even when we do have them we gimp along hoping they can hold up.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
<QR>
Y'know, this is random, but ... it occurred to me last night why I think I like the STF so much. Last Issue when we were discussing Safeguards, I wanted them to be more than just the inverse of Mayhems. I wanted to invade villain strongholds and destroy their stuff, fight giant machines that drop mob spawns, and other super-hero-movie-type things.
The STF has all that. It's like they were taking notes on the kinds of things we wanted to see. Yeah, Hess has the MegaMech, but it's just a cool thing in the background. In the first and last missions especially, the STF has smashing villain stuff, the flier dropping spawns, LR's towers, and in-between it's an AV-stomping good time (especially Aeon, probably the most entertaining AV fight of all).
If I could change any one thing, I'd want some sort of giant monster spider-bot stomping through either present-day Atlas (to set up the "this is why we have to confront the Rogue Isles threat now" theme) or failing that, the web parts factory. I'm also not so fond of the Thorn Tree mission. But other than that, it's great.
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
Ah, you just reminded me.
Are all controllers having issues in the first mission with their pets not attacking inanimate objects? My controller felt pretty damn worthless in the first mission since she is built for control and support. Rocky is her only damage and he was just standing around.
"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
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Ah, you just reminded me.
Are all controllers having issues in the first mission with their pets not attacking inanimate objects? My controller felt pretty damn worthless in the first mission since she is built for control and support. Rocky is her only damage and he was just standing around.
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Both of ours, actually, to be complete. They had no problems attacking mobs though.
It half reminded me of mayhems at first, where pets couldn't attack large objects (large dumpster, cargo crate, SWAT van.) They'd run around them, but not attack (and it affected snipes and AS, as well, as I recall.) Since we don't have MM style controls for pets (no, not pushing for those) we can't say how they'd react if told to attack the cables.
Pets ignore the cable objects.
As far as being 'useless' in this portion of the mission...meh. It's such a short time period, and I see nothing wrong with letting the team damagers go nuts on the cables for me. Gives them the chance to feel special too!
-Sandolphan
"When heroes fail, the Angels will save you."
MASTERMIND NUMERIC KEYPAD PET CONTROLS
HAMIDON NUKE RAID GUIDE
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Y'know, this is random, but ... it occurred to me last night why I think I like the STF so much. Last Issue when we were discussing Safeguards, I wanted them to be more than just the inverse of Mayhems. I wanted to invade villain strongholds and destroy their stuff, fight giant machines that drop mob spawns, and other super-hero-movie-type things.
The STF has all that. It's like they were taking notes on the kinds of things we wanted to see. Yeah, Hess has the MegaMech, but it's just a cool thing in the background. In the first and last missions especially, the STF has smashing villain stuff, the flier dropping spawns, LR's towers, and in-between it's an AV-stomping good time (especially Aeon, probably the most entertaining AV fight of all).
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I agree wholeheartedly; the STF is a lot of what Safeguards should have been. To my mind, the only think missing is a mission in Port Oakes or Mercy Island where you need to save some of the downtrodden citizens from some new Arachnos-backed villainy. The storyline is quite nice, and gets bonus points for not being another "might will be" future that can never arrive.
But that's why I'm less likely to forgive things like Mako:Impossible; if I didn't care about running the TF more than once, I'd eventually finish it and never look back (Oh! Positron, I didn't notice you back there!). But I'd like to do this more than just once. That would be more feasible and more enjoyable if it didn't require careful appraisal of my would-be teamates for To Hit bonuses beforehand.
Granted, I'm probably even more nervous about this since Darkonne brings (almost) no such bonuses to the table. But I'd match rather have an easy time putting together a team and then figuring what tactics will work best than be stuck looking for particular teammates and never getting started.
-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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I'm saying that on their own, most tank primaries won't fair well in the STF.
....
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That's your problem right there. You want to do it all by your tank self.
Stop thinking in terms of individual characters, and instead try to think in terms of team as a whole. Build Teams, not just characters.
I honestly don't think even a Stone tank can survive Lord Recluse unsupported, even if they can survive everything else defensively. And even if Stone could survive defensively, their offense is pathetic without support buffs like a Speed Boost, Adrenalin Boost, AM, etc. Yes Granite Tanks may be twice as defensive as other tanks, but they pay for it in offense. Other tanks can have both offense and defense. Those same other tanks have at least twice the defense as the most defensive scrapper. That scrapper has at least some more defense than almost all defenders, until you start stacking defenders at least.
But, in general, if a defender can tank LR (and I did), then a scrapper with the same buffs can tank better, and a tanker with the same buffs can tank better than the scrapper, and a granite tanker can tank better than other tanks with the same buffs. But a tanks only usefulness is not "just tanking", or at least it shouldn't be, you have secondaries for a reason. Each AT brings something different to the team, each is useful, and none is more or less useful than the other in the team environment. But outside the team environment, none of them are going to survive LR, some may simply take a few more seconds to die, and what's the difference in 1 second and 10, when dead is dead.
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Ah, you just reminded me.
Are all controllers having issues in the first mission with their pets not attacking inanimate objects? My controller felt pretty damn worthless in the first mission since she is built for control and support. Rocky is her only damage and he was just standing around.
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Now that you mention it, I think my Phantasm ignored the cables unless they were in the way of his Energy Torrent or something. I can't be sure, though; didn't pay attention to that.
Current main:
Schrodinger's Gun, Dual Pistols/Mental Blaster, Virtue
Avatar: Becky Miyamoto from Pani Poni Dash. Roulette roulette~
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Pretty sure Arcanaville is responsible for the testing of those numbers.
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I believe thats correct; I'd also seen those values, which is why I was comparing a medium yellow (18.75%) to triple slotted defender Tactics (~20%).
And purples, which I know he tested (I think he used the demon spawning Infernal alter to get a statistically significant number of attacks in a short time) are actually;
DEF
S - 12.5%
M - 25%
L - 33%
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I tested them enough to know they were far off from the purported strength on the text labels, and then pohsyb gave me the precise numbers for both lucks and insights.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
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I'm not saying I want to do it all by tank self, even with 3 defenders and a controller on my team, I still could not survive the Dr. Aeon battle.
I never thought to ask for Increased Density, but outside of that I had no other possible resistance buffs , and that is what I really needed to survive because Invulnerablity takes way too much non smashing / lethal damage when against particular enemy groups.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
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Hm. So a small yellow doesn't completely annihilate my SR's 30% defense.
But two or three do...
;sigh
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um, yeah, if you didnt slot your defense at all
Wavicle, Energy/Energy Blaster, dinged 50 in Issue 4, summer of 2005.
@Wavicle, mostly on the Justice server.
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But that's why I'm less likely to forgive things like Mako:Impossible; if I didn't care about running the TF more than once, I'd eventually finish it and never look back (Oh! Positron, I didn't notice you back there!). But I'd like to do this more than just once. That would be more feasible and more enjoyable if it didn't require careful appraisal of my would-be teamates for To Hit bonuses beforehand.
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QFT. Bolded a sentence for emphasis.
For those of you suggesting to "build teams," you're not supposed to be a one-man tank show, I think you've missed the point of the feedback.
We could. If the STF remains as is, I would probably take myself (invul/fire) because I don't have a lvl 50 stone/, and craft a team around me.
I'd pick up a stone/ tank if he was hanging around the ship, and play his secondary tank because I know he'd tank Recluse much more reliably than I could. If not available, then I'd struggle through and pray my teammates were the patient type.
Then because I'm not really willing to take random blasters and scrappers who may or may not have to-hit bonuses, I would probably end up picking and choosing defenders, and one or two odd controllers.
The most efficient would be to just be insular and do it with my SG instead of pickup groups, so that I know we would have sufficient stacked buff/debuffs AND heals to make it easy.
I'd probably end up ignoring half of the people hanging around the ship and only selectively picking up debuffers and a kin and an emp that preferably have tactics in their build.
By the time I finish stacking buff/debuffs on my team, I'd probably have room only for one "pity spot" for a damage-dealer - either scrapper or blaster or maybe kheldian if the kheldian had nova form. I'd have essentially taken up the other pity spot as an invul/fire that is a mix of tankiness and damage, but not sufficiently skewed in either direction to be as useful as a specialist tank or damage dealer.
It's not as bad as the LRSF for sure. There has been significant improvement in that whole ATs are not really desired villainside. However, part of that is just the disparity of AT synergy redside and blueside. There's still picking and choosing involved in the STF that you don't face on other TFs and respecs and trials. You can't just go with what you have and adapt, you -need- sufficient buff/debuffs or you'll have a miserable time of it. You have to scrutinize everyone's powersets and build and start commenting impolitely on them (or just not take them along.)
(For example: I had a random pickup team who just couldn't get past Mako, and we tried like hell. We went for yellows, lots of them, and stacked them and still couldn't hammer through his elude. We had two shivans around too. We just had insufficient to-hit boosts, def debuffing, no tactics nor vengeance. Prior to this, we were a beautiful team. We pulled off snipe-single-pulling, Aeon melted in about 30 seconds, etc.)
Invictus Est Level 50 Invul/Fire Tank
Malentis Level 50 Ice/Energy/Leviathan Dom (Freedom)
Black Jeremiah Level 50 Fire/Fire/Mu Dom
Sejanna Level 50 Dark/Dark/Elec Def (Virtue)
Arc #119664 - The MiniMech Cometh - Hess TF Mini-Sequel
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Hm. So a small yellow doesn't completely annihilate my SR's 30% defense.
But two or three do...
;sigh
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um, yeah, if you didnt slot your defense at all
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um, yeah, because SR is 19.5% defense unslotted, and I specifically said 30%. (Actually more for mine with Hide)
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(For example: I had a random pickup team who just couldn't get past Mako, and we tried like hell. We went for yellows, lots of them, and stacked them and still couldn't hammer through his elude. We had two shivans around too. We just had insufficient to-hit boosts, def debuffing, no tactics nor vengeance. Prior to this, we were a beautiful team. We pulled off snipe-single-pulling, Aeon melted in about 30 seconds, etc.)
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It would be nice to start putting together info on what defenses Mako actually has, so we can provide better feedback to the devs on possible changes to him.
Any idea how many stacked yellows it took before you could start getting above the 8% or so tohit floor (assuming 2 accuracies in your attacks)? If he *only* had Elude, at 45%, one medium yellow should get you up to 22% chance to hit him, which should be noticably different from 8%. Two should get you to 53%. So I'm guessing he has something way better than Elude.
If anyone can get him alone, with a well enough supported Tank to just keep him in place, and start attacking with one character and stacking medium yellows and counting hits, we should be able to get a general idea of whats needed to hit him at something above the floor. Once you stack enough tohit to counter his defense, the "turn on" of hitting should be pretty apparent. That would serve two benefits;
1. Let people know what they want to put together for a team (need 2 Tactics + Vengeance, or 4 tactics, or 12 yellows, or whatever).
2. Possibly provide feedback to the devs on how likely or unlikely that requirement is. 
My last group had 3x Tactics, 1x Earth Control, 1x Rad Emission, and 1x Empathy for Fortitude. I believe we also dropped 2x Shivans when Mako fired Elude. I wasn't having significant trouble hitting him, but I don't recall if I had Fort or not.
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
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My last group had 3x Tactics, 1x Earth Control, 1x Rad Emission, and 1x Empathy for Fortitude. I believe we also dropped 2x Shivans when Mako fired Elude. I wasn't having significant trouble hitting him, but I don't recall if I had Fort or not.
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*looks around* WOOT! Flying got it down! combination of buffs and debuffs ftw! (Not like he didn't understand that... just teams never built right, and or didn't do their jobs?)
I tried to run it yesterday, this time as not lead... We got to the final mission. We had a team of panzies that had not spent any time reading these forums... They all went and got shivans (Which was smart I guess), then they came back, and instead of buffing... They summoned shivans and then fought over how to do the pull... Shivans died and we still didn't get a single AV to us.. So - I did the stupid thing - I told them all to buff me to the hilt, I sent in my only friend on the team to die, and had them TP him back for 4+ Stacked Veng... I ran with my shivan all the way to the AV's and pulled them all back to the group and lmao as they screamed in terror! They spent 30 minutes yelling at each other when us melee freaks (There were 3 scrappers, and 1 tanker) were starting to go stir-crazy...
Me and the 2 other scraps and the tanker took on Scirroco though, got him to die, and then we bailed fast to watch the arguing buffers get their butts handed to them by GW/Mako/BS 
Point of the story - Pulling sucks. Buffs and Debuffs have to work together. (Mainly buffs to survive better). Team has to know [censored] they are doing.
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
P.S.
That was a little bit of a rant, because of the craptastic team I had last night, but I did enjoy pulling all the AV's with all those buffs on me.... Just saying...
I am gonna try something totally insane later this week/weekend... I am gonna get a team of 7 scrappers and 1 kin to do the STF later... (Hopefully all from my SG that can fit in the 2 powers that would help us all with a respec)... See how well we go through these missions - and if we can finish it... Might not work - But it is a test! MUAHAHA! :evil grin:
I feel evil lately... I might have to start leveling my Necro/Dark MM again...
~Relen~
Life's absurd events deserve absurd reactions.
P.S.
Just realized that the last post might sound like a diss to Flying... NOT the case! I have the utmost respect for him, I just posted after him because he had a similarily built team that I had last night... But that failed because they took forever, and tried to pull.
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My last group had 3x Tactics, 1x Earth Control, 1x Rad Emission, and 1x Empathy for Fortitude. I believe we also dropped 2x Shivans when Mako fired Elude. I wasn't having significant trouble hitting him, but I don't recall if I had Fort or not.
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OK, thats a start. We'll ignore the Shivans, since tohit debuff is so strongly resisted. Earth Control and Rad Emission could have contributed 5-10% each after AV resistance (depending on powers and slotting, note this is 50-100% *each* before resistance), Tactics assume 20% each (triple slotted defender values), Fortitude assume 20% (unslotted Emp value is 19%, usually defense and recharge get slotted before tohit), assume double slotted Accuracy for you, and if "not having significant trouble hitting" = about a 50% hit rate,
Makos defense is *roughly* between 75%, if you didn't have Fortitude on you, and 95%, if you did.
Anyone else willing to test this for a bit before the real beatdown on Mako commences?
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Earth Control and Rad Emission could have contributed 5-10% each after AV resistance (depending on powers and slotting, note this is 50-100% *each* before resistance)
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For reference, note that I have zero Defense Debuffs in the Earth Control powers, so Quicksand, Earthquake, etc. only contributed their base values. My RI is slotted with three Enzymes.
My Controller-strength Tactics has three To-Hits; presumably the others did as well. There was only one other Controller, an Illusion, but I don't recall if one of the other two Tactics was hers. My guess would be yes, because she was a PvP build and I assume she'd want the +Perception buff. At least one Tactics was almost definitely Defender-strength.
Most of my Earth stuff has two Accuracy in some form, yes. Fossilize in particular has 2x Acc and the AoEs have 2x Endo, though they also have their inherent Acc penalties. I know I was hitting pretty consistently with Fossilize in particular.
Please try MA arc ID 351455, "Shard Stories: Scavenger's Hunt." Originally created for the Dr. Aeon contest, it explores the wild potential of one of the City's most concept-rich but content-poor settings: the Shadow Shard.
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For reference, [snip various numbers].
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Great, that narrows it down further.
RI (controller) with three Enzymes is ~40% defense debuff. Assume two Earth powers on him at any time, unslotted at 25% each for another 50%. Total debuff is 90%, which is about 5.5% net after resistances (ouch).
Assume two controllers with 3-slotted tactics, 16% each, and one defender, ditto for 20%.
With two accuracies in Fossilize (with its 20% Acc bonus),
If Mako had 60% Defense, you would be hitting 68% of the time, which would be "reasonably consistently" I'd say.
Your AoE (-20% base accuracy) would be hitting 54%, which would be noticably different if you were watching for awhile and seeing every other one whiff.
For contrast, if you had 8 rad defenders with fully slotted RI going on him and 2 accuracies each, they would be hitting at the same floor of 8.3% that you would with no debuffs at all.
So, the easiest way to measure this is probably if a tank gets him separately from the other AVs, with whatever support he needs to actually survive it, then gets Fortitude (with known slotting) and starts hitting with Brawl, or something nice and fast. Then another Tactics gets toggled on near him every 30-40 hits, and he tracks hits with Herostats (or jots it down on paper or something). It should be enough to distinguish between 40% or 60% or 80% defenses on Mako without slowing the mission down a ton. Stick to tohit buffs for the test rather than debuffs, since they work directly against Defense and you don't have to worry about resistances.
In my two test runs so far, the first team steam rolled up to the last mission with no trouble at all ( we had 3 tanks and a pile of debuffers and a peacebringer and a blaster) then we got to final misson and got owned by recluse and towers ( nothing else was really hard).
Then I did it tonight as the only tank, and I could not handle the insane amounts of non smashing lethal damage, even with an empath, a kin, and a dark all trying to keep me standing. We made it as far as Dr.Aeon, and then he kept owning us hard. He was hitting me for 2600 damage or so at times and 700 or so a pop other times.
Invulnerability is a liablity for this task force from what I can see, and I dont think my fire tank could handle it either. Ice could get away with surviving on luck and heals, but more than likely would get face planted b ya lucky 2600+ shot to the head.
Granite tanks should be able to survive, providing the rad debuffs dont cripple them.
So 3/4th of a whole AT is basically useless from what I can tell.
That just doesnt seem cool to me.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.