CMA's Guide to the Statesman Task Force

Statesman Task Force

So you just got invited to a STF and you don’t know what you’re getting into? Well, let’s try to explain just what happens.

First, this is a Task Force for 8 players, levels 45+. I strongly recommend that you do the TF with level 50 characters, as the final mission spawns 5 level 54 Archvillains. If you’ve got any lower characters in the TF they should absolutely be SK’d to a level 50, and limit the number of SK’s to a minimum.

Team composition:

Really there’s so many viable team compositions that listing them is probably pointless, but here’s a few things that will make life easier. You’ll need debuffs, particularly -Regen debuffs so you want to have Rad, Dark or Kinetic defenders/controllers on your team, the more the better. You need tohit buffs, so several Tactics stacked are very helpful in the final mission. There are times where you need mez buffs such as Clear Mind or Increase Density for the tank, so an Empath comes in handy. You need some form of damage mitigation, typically this is a Tanker with Stone being preferred but with buffs any tanker can do the job. You could also use a few Illusion Controllers to keep Phantom Army up and serve most of the same purpose. And finally you need damage, this can come in any variety but AOE damage is helpful. An ideal team would be one stone tank, several rad defender/controllers, a kinetic or two, an illusionist or two and a lot of AOE damage; but most any combination can work. If you’ve got a good AV killing team then you’re good to go.

The TF can take anywhere from 1 ½ hours for a highly efficient ideal team to 4 hours or more for a more normal team. Most decent teams can do this TF in 3 hours or less, depending on cohesion, experience and team composition.

The first mission

OK, I’ve got the team together and we’re in the first mission, now what?
Well, in this mission you simply need to destroy a set number of the cables you see lying around. Once you’ve killed the required number of cables, the AV will spawn. Some cables are on the surface area, while there are more down on the ramp and some in the lower hanger area. Warning: the AV, Archon Sanders, spawns at the top of the ramp to the lower level, so be sure nobody’s near the top of the ramp at that time!!! It’s a good idea to clear some of the Arachnos near the top of the ramp before the AV, spawns, to keep from having too many to fight when the AV shows up. Once the AV spawns, a cutscene plays. After the cutscene you simply have to kill the AV and his buddies who spawn with him. Be aware that ambushes will continually spawn on you, so go straight to the AV and take him out. The tank taunts, debuffs are applied and the team takes the AV out. Once the AV falls and the mission ends, exit the mission.

Now, on to the second mission.

The second mission is in Peregrine Island. When you enter the mission portal, a cutscene plays; it’s followed by another cutscene when you go thru another portal in the mission. After the cutscenes, you take the elevator to the outside. This puts you in a version of Recluse’s Victory. As explained in the cutscenes, you have to kill 4 AV’s to get the key to finish the mission. The first AV is in the southeast of the map; then the other 3 are around city hall. They always spawn in the same places, so you’ll learn just where each one is. You simply take each AV down in turn; then you have to return to the building from which you entered the map, and go thru a portal to exit the mission. There’s nothing particularly difficult about this mission, it’s just typical AV fare.

The third mission.
This mission and everything after it is back in Independence Port. The easiest way to handle this one is to have someone with Invisibility and Recall Friend. When you enter the mission, you find yourself outside on a map full of Circle of Thorns. You need to enter a mission door due south of the entrance point – it’s in the mouth of one of the “screaming faces.” Once everyone is in the door, the invis/recall character will run to the Vine Room. This is a typical Oranbega map, you go straight ahead, then right, thru a portal, and then continue down a waterfall and into the Vine Room. Once the recaller is in the vine room, he can TP everyone else there.

Once everyone is in the Vine Room, I recommend you stay together and work your way around the outside of the room, taking out all the CoT around the edges of the room, while avoiding all the vines for now. Once the CoT are gone, you’ll need to kill off all the vines (88 of them) in order to be able to attack the Thorn Tree (AV in the center of the room). Here’s the kicker, the vines will respawn in groups of 12, so you’ve got two choices here: If you’ve got enough damage to kill them all off before they start to respawn, you’re good to go. If you’re a bit light on damage, you can make one pass thru the room, doing substantial damage to all or most of the vines, but not killing them. After that, you can make a second pass around the room and kill the damaged vines. As long as they are damaged but not defeated, they don’t regen. While damaging or defeating the vines, some members of your team may draw aggro of the AV, which can easily wipe out a defender, controller or blaster – You may want your tank and/or scrappers to take out the vines nearest the AV in the center of the room.

After all the vines are dead, you can attack the AV. Again, this is a pretty normal AV battle and the Thorn Tree is a pretty weak AV. Once the tree dies, you can get the temporary power showing as a glowie behind it – I recommend having the tank get the temporary power, as you’ll need it for the next mission and only one character can get it. The tank is usually the character least likely to die in the battle against Aeon in the next mission.

The fourth mission.

The first part of this mission has you killing the “Security Chief?” mobs until you get the key. I’m not sure how many of them there are, but I’ve had the first one drop a key, and I’ve had runs where we had to kill 8-9 of them before we got the key. After each Security Chief? dies, you’ll get hit by an ambush.

Once you get the key, everyone should head for the way point and enter the door. I strongly recommend waiting just inside the door for the last ambush to follow you in, so you can take care of it before you go further into the mission.

After you’ve taken care of the last ambush, send the tank into the next room to grab the aggro of the AV. There are 5 AV’s in this mission; one on each of the first 4 floors, and you’ll find Aeon on the fifth floor. When you get to the fifth floor go ahead and take out the mobs on the lower level but be careful that nobody aggro’s Aeon (he’s on the catwalk above at the back center) until everyone is ready - he has a long aggro range, so beware! Once everyone’s gathered up and ready for Aeon, have the tank go in and hit Aeon with the temp power from the Thorn Tree. This is VITAL, as Aeon has a force field that renders him invulnerable to all harm, but the temp power will drop it for a few minutes. If Aeon gets his force field back up, the tank should use the temp power on him again. Don’t simply spam the temp power, it only drops the force field, it won’t keep Aeon from putting it back up, and it’s on a long timer. Only hit it if the field goes back up.

Aeon will summon several elite boss versions of himself while you’re attacking him – concentrate everything on the AV Aeon, and he’ll go down pretty quick. Once Aeon falls, exit the mission and get ready for the final mission.

The fifth and final mission.

You take the helicopter behind Statesman to the final mission In this mission, you end up on a ship docked in front of a long double corridor. Clear all the mobs on the ramps and on both sides of the corridor. There’s a courtyard beyond the corridor where you’ll find 4 AV’s; Mako, Black Scorpion, Sirocco & Ghost Widow. All 4 are level 54. You want to try to pull one at a time, but that is often difficult to do. The best solution to them is to have a blaster snipe ONE of them and then accept a TP back to the head of the corridor where the rest of the team is waiting. Here’s a brief strategy for each of the 4 AV’s.

<ul type="square">[*]Mako:
Mako is an AV level Stalker. Have the tank keep his attention while everyone drops debuffs on him and takes him down. At about 20% health, he will hit Elude; you must have enough tohit buffs to overcome this. Three stacked Tactics is enough, but if you don’t have Tactics, then everyone should eat a few yellow inspirations. With tohit buffs, Mako is easy to handle and goes down quickly -- without them, he’s nearly impossible.
[*]Black Scorpion:
Black Scorpion is an AV brute. Other than his hit points and resistance, he’s pretty ordinary as AV’s go -- taking him out is usually a non-issue.
[*]Sirocco:
Sirocco can be dangerous to squishie AT’s. He summons multiple tornadoes and has other AOE damage. Have the tank hold his attention and he goes down very quickly, the fastest of the four. If his aggro gets loose, however, he can quickly kill off defenders, controllers or blasters. Tanks and/or Scrappers shouldn’t have much problem with him, though.
[*]Ghost Widow:
Ghost Widow is unquestionably the most dangerous of the four AV’s. She has a MAG 100 hold that WILL hold any tanker thru his shields, and the hold does enough damage to one-shot a tank with DOT once his armors drop. She also has a melee heal that will heal off of all characters in melee range, and it will take her from 10% to full health by hitting 3 characters.

With all this, you may wonder how you handle her? Actually, if you’ve prepared ahead of time, she’s easy. Here’s the secret -- defender mez resist buffs. One kinetic can, if he does nothing else, keep 15 Increase Density buffs on the tank; a Stone tank running Granite and Rooted needs 6 of them to resist the hold; any other primary needs 8 of them. You can substitute Clear Mind from empathy or Clarity from sonic for Increase Density, but remember, your tanker needs 8 of them at all times.

Now about her heal? Well, if the tank is taunting GW from range, she will never use her heal -- she’ll be content to stand there and blast away at the tank, freeing up the rest of the team to dogpile on her and take her out with impunity. A tanker with 8 mez resist buffs can stand at range and taunt her safely, possibly assisted by an occasional heal. She will, however, occasionally get tired of blasting and decide to come into melee range of the tank. DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN! Either the tank will need to continue falling back or you need to immobilize Ghost Widow. Fortunately, she’s easy to immobilize. I’ve seen two blasters manage it with their tier one secondary powers, and a controller or two can do it even easier. She has the cycling high hold resistance of all AV’s, but you only need a MAG 5 immobilize on her.[/list]
OK, we’ve taken out all 4 of the AV’s and watched Lord Recluse rant in his cutscene, now what?

Well, there’s a trick to Lord Recluse . . . his towers buff his accuracy, damage, regeneration and defense to ridiculous levels, but there’s currently a loophole in his buffs. As long as nobody EVER gets into aggro range of one of his towers, you can pull him all the way back to the boat where his buffs go away, and the Longbow and Turrets can help take him down. Here’s the method that we use for LR:

Everyone EXCEPT for the tank and a blaster goes back to the ship and waits. The tanker is at the head of the corridor, the blaster moves just barely into snipe range of LR. At this point, someone at the boat starts TP on the blaster. When the blaster sees the TP prompt, he starts his snipe. As soon as it fires, he accepts the TP. LR comes running, the tank taunts him at the head of the corridor and then also runs back to the ship. Once LR reaches the gangplank of the ship, the tank goes to the other side of LR to get LR to face away from the ship and the team. The tank then moves into melee range and taunts. As long as the tank is taunting in melee range, LR doesn’t summon his elite boss minions. The tank turns LR away from the ship because LR has a nasty cone attack, so you need to keep it away from the team. At this point LR has lost his buffs and becomes relatively easy to take out. Remember, when he hits roughly 15% health, he WILL summon hordes of minions – stay on LR and he’ll fall quickly. At this point, the mission ends and you get your reward screen, where you can choose between a synthetic HO, a rare recipe or various SO's. If anyone needs the Aracnos Flyer badge, you can go and kill it off at this point.

That’s the fastest and easiest method for taking out Lord Recluse. If you insist on taking out the towers, here’s a method for that, but it will take considerably longer and lead to more debt. I’m listing it here in the interest of completeness and in case the loophole of pulling him to the boat gets closed:

OK, you’re gonna take the towers first, then LR . . . well, I recommend having the tank and one empath pull LR to a corner behind the red tower while the team takes down the red tower, followed by the others. The tank taunts LR in melee range, pointing him away from the team, while the empath heals the tanker and everyone else kills the tower. LR’s damage is insane as long as the red tower is up, so kill it quickly. While taking down each tower, the tower's repairmen will spawn when the tower drops below 50%. Kill them before they can heal the tower. The repairmen are only level 40, so they’re easy to kill, but they can repair the towers VERY fast. Powers like Bonfire, Hurricane, Ice Slick and Earthquake can help keep the Repairmen away from the tower. Once all 4 towers are gone, you take out LR as in the pulling method. The Arachnos Flyer can be a problem as it comes close. It’s easiest to simply time your attack for just after the Flyer moves past LR’s platform. You can safely engage the back two towers at any time without drawing Flyer aggro, but for the front towers, you’ll need to wait until the Flyer moves away. Taking out the flyer is a possibility, but it respawns quickly, so this may not help.

Tips and tricks for speeding up the STF:

Here’s a few things we’ve learned to streamline things and speed up the TF. For the first mission have a couple or three people using invisibility go down the ramp into the underground area and take out cables down there while the rest of the team takes out cables above ground. Then, right after the AV falls everyone punch out of the mission. The first mission can be done in 5-6 minutes using this method.

For the second mission, use base teleporters to the Rikti Crash Site, then take the portal to Peregrine Island, this is considerably shorter than teleporting to PI and running the length of it. The first person in the mission can trigger both of the cutscenes and then run to the first AV and TP everyone there. Then, right after the first AV falls, go straight to the second one under the Atlas Globe, then to the third by the firebase just east of the globe, then the fourth is at the base of the stairs due east of City Hall. Once the fourth AV falls, one character runs back to the exit portal to finish the mission, the leader should use the base TP power to go directly to his base, and then to IP for the next mission.

The third mission there’s a trick you can use in addition to the method discussed in it’s section... you can “soft load” the mission by having all but one person log out (but not quit the TF!), then that one person runs to the vine room and reveals the entire area. After that, everyone logs back in and is TP’d to the vine room where you take out the vines (this reduces the number of vines you’ll need to kill, and you can ignore the CoT, since all the spawns were set for one person). Once again, after the Thorn Tree AV falls and the tank gets the glowie everyone should exit the mission. So far I haven’t tried this “soft load” trick, but it’s an option.

There’s really not many shortcuts to the fourth mission, you can “soft load” to reduce the spawns in the outdoor area, but there’s no way I’ve found to reliably find the real Security Chief, you simply need to kill them until you find the right one. Once you get the key and enter the Aeon building you’ve got a simple “kill all” on each of four floors with one AV on each one followed by Aeon on the fifth floor. All 5 floors are very small maps so each goes very quickly.

For the final mission, really there’s no shortcuts I’ve found other than pulling Lord Recluse to the boat where he loses his buffs, I discussed this method in the final mission section above. Shivans as well as Warburg Chem and Bio nukes are very helpful here, so you may want to have people get them before you form the team.

Also on Lord Recluse, the tanker MUST continue to taunt or LR will turn and attack the team. The tanker’s aura &amp; gauntlet WILL NOT keep Lord Recluse’s aggro, so he must keep taunting. The tanker will loose aggro surprisingly fast if he stops taunting!

On the subject of pulling the 4 AV’s...

The typical order for dealing with the AV’s is Mako, Black Scorpion, Sirocco, Ghost Widow. Unfortunately, you’re frequently going to get more than one AV on the pull; and sometimes one or more additional AV’s come trotting up about half way thru beating down the first one. If you manage to get additional AV’s, then the tanker’s going to have to try to keep their attention... if you have an illusionist then Phantom Army can be used to distract the extra AV’s while you take care of the current victim... I mean villain . Ghost Widow and Sirocco are the two dangerous AV’s, either one can easily wipe a team quickly. GW is deadly to anyone, Sirocco is highly dangerous to any non-melee characters with his AOE’s.

If you’re getting overwhelmed, you can all regroup back at the ship in the Hospital (going to the hospital sends you to the sick bay onboard the ship), the AV’s can’t get in there and will return to their spawn point, at which time you can try pulling one of them again. If you get all 4 AV’s at once, retreat on the ship into the hospital!

My thanks to Local Man and Neutrino for their assistance and corrections to this guide!

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

Cool guide, but I thought they fixed LR's distance buffing, meaning shouldn't he still have it when he's at the boat?

---

[ QUOTE ]
Cool guide, but I thought they fixed LR's distance buffing, meaning shouldn't he still have it when he's at the boat?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nope, it still works as of 6/24/07. I'm not sure just where he looses them, but they're certainly gone by the time you have him on the docks.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

The last time we taunted LR to the boat, the Longbow there only intermittently aggroed to him. Most of the time they just stood there like nothing was going on. Meh.

---

You've gotta get him right to the gangplank close to the boat, then turn him to face away from the boat and the team, then the Longbow and turrets will engage.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

Cool, didn't know that still works. I've been told several times by friends that pulling him to the boat doesn't do anything, which is why whenever I do a STF, we always take down the towers anyways.

---

[ QUOTE ]
The typical order for dealing with the AV’s is Mako, Black Scorpion, Sirocco, Ghost Widow. Unfortunately, you’re frequently going to get more than one AV on the pull; and sometimes one or more additional AV’s come trotting up about half way thru beating down the first one.

[/ QUOTE ]

For what it's worth, I always advocate pulling Ghost Widow first.

Since multiple aggro does happen occasionally, pulling her last means you have up to three prior attempts in which she might turn up uninvited. If you grab her first, there's a decent chance you'll always fight her alone.

If she does bring company, ignore her and drop the other one first. They're certain to die a lot faster.

---

Forum mod: less obtrusive signatures

I certainly understand the logic in that, and we do sometimes do it that way just to get her out of the way. Certainly a valid point, she's far more dangerous when she comes along unexpectedly.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

just an fyi


Seferin is 100% correct

recluse does continue to be buffed by the towers all the way to the boat and anywhere on the map as in iss 9 beta it was kinda my teammeates and mine own fault for disscovering the glitch

after it was found during closed iss 9 beta..recluse buffs were made to follow to the boat but sometimes depending on where you are you might not actually see the animation from the towers


the only ones knowing for a fact are the ones that were in the closed beta so some of you might not be aware because of lack of smaller changes that were only for beta notes

also just cause everyone seems to have an opinion i have pm'd castle last night and he confirms me to be correct on this matter.

no matter on whether you kill with the towers up or not, it might just be you had a great team

---

[ QUOTE ]
just an fyi


Seferin is 100% correct

recluse does continue to be buffed by the towers all the way to the boat and anywhere on the map as in iss 9 beta it was kinda my teammeates and mine own fault for disscovering the glitch

after it was found during closed iss 9 beta..recluse buffs were made to follow to the boat but sometimes depending on where you are you might not actually see the animation from the towers


the only ones knowing for a fact are the ones that were in the closed beta so some of you might not be aware because of lack of smaller changes that were only for beta notes

also just cause everyone seems to have an opinion i have pm'd castle last night and he confirms me to be correct on this matter.

no matter on whether you kill with the towers up or not, it might just be you had a great team

[/ QUOTE ]

Um, no, they don't still buff him there. When I get him there his damage drops DRASTICALLY, his uber defense is GONE and his 4k per tick healing is GONE. This isn't a case of an uber team, LR's buffs are GONE at the docks.

When his damage goes from near-one shotting my granite tanker to being easily survivable out of just my def &amp; resistance then the red tower's damage buff is gone. When I go from completely unable to hit him due to his def to hitting him 95% then his defense buff is gone. When we go from completely unable to damage him to dropping him in 2 minutes then his regen buff is gone.

I've run the STF more than 20 times and with many different teams, his buffs absolutely do go away at the boat. That may be a bug or a loophole, but they're GONE by the time you get him there. That may not be the intent, but it's certainly what's happening.

&lt;edit&gt;
And that's not a change from beta, that's the way it works on live NOW, we ran a STF just last week using that method. There was some talk about it being fixed, but it still works just fine.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

well your wrong

if i was you..i would get with castle as i did..unless you actually have an issue believing a dev over yourself

the fact that you believe yourself over devs is quite funny as well

another one that pretends to know more then the devs..its sad really

maybe try to get into the betas of issues like me and you can get more of a clue to what gets fixed before it goes live ,this might help you

just cause you make a tank doesnt mean your good at it

just cause you run the stf doesnt mean you good at it

sorry if this is a hit to your ego..but meh whatca gonna do


:edit: after you find out thats your wrong i suggest you adjust your guide also i was the 2nd team EVER to run a stf and been doing so since before you did and still since you are.

so it doesnt really "matter" how many you run cause its the same mishs i did before you EVER did

also CAPS isnt as cool when you WRONG

---

[ QUOTE ]
well your wrong

if i was you..i would get with castle as i did..unless you actually have an issue believing a dev over yourself

the fact that you beleive yourself the na dev is quite funny as well

another one that holds pretends to know more then the devs..its sad really

maybe try to get into the betas of issues like me and you can get more of a clue to what gets fixed before it goes live ,this might help you

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe my own experience, and what I have personally TESTED. You did read that this has been TESTED repeatedly ever since issue 9 went live? That the last time was just last week?

20+ runs thru the STF, using both the pull LR to the boat and the take down the tower methods, and the buffs ABSOLUTELY go away when you get him to the boat. That is a FACT. It's not a question or a maybe, it's what actually happens. It may not be what's intended, but it's what's happening. What the devs intend or don't intend to happen is immaterial, as the game stands now LR's buffs go away by the time you get him past the red wall. Test it yourself if you don't believe me.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

heh no biggie to me whether you dont believe castle or not

thats really your problem ..im just sayin gyour guide is wrong according to the people who actually make the game

oh and nice face plant in the shard a couple weeks ago

if you want ill tell you how to respec that invul too

maybe so you can survive alittle more then 10 mintues without dying after only one mob

after all like i said..not everyone can be a GOOD tank


oh and dont worry bout your cute little guide..im sure the devs are just a buncha liars so youll be ok

after all..

i saw the patch notes in beta..you didnt

i ran it before you ever even saw it(although you seem to take alot of credit for tactics i was apart of making)

castle states recluse IS buffed even at the boat..you say hes not

yeah who to believe based on testing..me and castle or you?

guess that IS a good question..but hey ..good luck to you

im sure catsle is just a liar

---

I think it's more likely that it's been patched on whatever server Castle may be playing/testing on.
Having been on more than a few of the STF's with CMA, i can verify that the buffs on LR do indeed drop if you can get him away from the towers, at least playing on Pinnacle and Guardian.
I wouldn't be expecting this loophole to last forever, but no point in not exploiting it while it's still there.

---

[ QUOTE ]
I think it's more likely that it's been patched on whatever server Castle may be playing/testing on.
Having been on more than a few of the STF's with CMA, i can verify that the buffs on LR do indeed drop if you can get him away from the towers, at least playing on Pinnacle and Guardian.
I wouldn't be expecting this loophole to last forever, but no point in not exploiting it while it's still there.

[/ QUOTE ]

can anyone comment if this is still valid or not?

---

I would like to point out a few things here.
First, if you are trying to tell someone they are wrong, please use complete sentences, or else most people will just skip your post and mentally post the 4 lettered N word to your name.
That being said...
Secondly, I would be quite certain that the buffing towers did have a max_range value. What they are? I don't know. Is this what the dev's intended? Perhaps. Will this be fixed? Unlikely.
Lastly, there is no lastly.

---

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think it's more likely that it's been patched on whatever server Castle may be playing/testing on.
Having been on more than a few of the STF's with CMA, i can verify that the buffs on LR do indeed drop if you can get him away from the towers, at least playing on Pinnacle and Guardian.
I wouldn't be expecting this loophole to last forever, but no point in not exploiting it while it's still there.

[/ QUOTE ]

can anyone comment if this is still valid or not?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have run the STF probably 8 or 9 times, including with the Guardian All Controller teams, and a bunch of times with CMA. No question that Recluse loses his buffs when he is pulled to the boat, as long as you can pull LR without aggroing the towers. Once the towers have been aggroed, you have to take the towers down.

No offense, Severe, but you are incorrect on this one. Not only can I verify it from personal experience, but it is pretty common knowledge by the better players I know.

And by the way, CMA is the best tank I have joined with in my 30 months in this game, with the only comparable tank being IrrestibleForce (but different play styles). CMA is well known on Guardian as the best of the tanks in the pre-I-9 Hami Raids. Suggesting that he doesn't know what he is doing is, well, just misguided.

---

LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control

Interesting all the debate, and a red name saying towers have unlimited range.

Our SG ran STF 2x this weekend.

The first run was an interesting team mix:

3 defender empaths
1 defender rad/rad
1 dm/regen scrapper
1 AR/dev blaster
1 stone/stone tank
1 fire/axe tank

We cleared one side of the ramps and pulled the AVs one by one. Used Shivans on GW just to take her down faster.

We didn't pull LR to the boat - pulled him to a cubby hole before the ramp, across from the towers. Unleashed 5-6 shivans 2x (he killed the first spawn right away) and he went down in a reasonable amount of time.

total time for the SG, with many it being first time, was 3 hours, so we where pleased.

This guide was helpful, many thanks to the Op

---

From personal experience, we've been able to pull him away from the towers on occasion. There doesn't seem to be a pattern or a specific method of doing it.

So, are you accusing people of lying if they are able to pull him from the towers?

I've run well over 30+ STFs now, and we can complete them in an hour to an hour and a half by taking out the towers or pulling him away. Generally we'll attempt 2 - 3 pulls and if he goes back to his towers or isn't debuffed within 2 minutes, we'll just take out the towers.

But, as I said earlier -- Sometimes he will pull. Sometimes he won't. Lately, its just been a matter of luck.

---

[ QUOTE ]
From personal experience, we've been able to pull him away from the towers on occasion. There doesn't seem to be a pattern or a specific method of doing it.

So, are you accusing people of lying if they are able to pull him from the towers?

I've run well over 30+ STFs now, and we can complete them in an hour to an hour and a half by taking out the towers or pulling him away. Generally we'll attempt 2 - 3 pulls and if he goes back to his towers or isn't debuffed within 2 minutes, we'll just take out the towers.

But, as I said earlier -- Sometimes he will pull. Sometimes he won't. Lately, its just been a matter of luck.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, pulling LR isn't luck, there is a completely reliable method in my experience... the secret is that nobody EVER gets within aggro range of one of the towers. If you follow that rule, LR will pull just fine, if you ever get in aggro range of a tower then LR will pull to the courtyard, then TP back to his platform. Once you aggro a tower, and just getting within range of one will do it, then forget about pulling LR, it won't work.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

Great guide - I've been on 3 STF runs. This guide answers a lot of questions.

Like why LR summoned so many of them *&amp;^$ pets in my second run, but none in my 1st....

---

[ QUOTE ]
Great guide - I've been on 3 STF runs. This guide answers a lot of questions.

Like why LR summoned so many of them *&amp;^$ pets in my second run, but none in my 1st....

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, if you let LR stay at range he'll pop out his buddies constantly, but if the tank taunts him in melee range you get no pets spawned until the "Pet Nuke" at 15-20%.

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

Normally the Pet Nuke can be used to your advantage.

&lt;-- a HUGE fan of Kinetics.

---

[ QUOTE ]
Normally the Pet Nuke can be used to your advantage.

&lt;-- a HUGE fan of Kinetics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it does make for nice Fulcrum fodder. Typically we've got 1-2 kins on the team and LR usually drops just a few seconds after he hits the Pet Nuke

---

COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes

One little tip to all you Fire Controllers out there -- throw Bonfire on the AV's. It adds a little extra damage, and keeps other spawns away from the folks who are concentrating on taking down the AV. This is REALLY effective on Dr. Aeon. It clears all his clone buddies away, making it easier to take him down.

Bonfire is also very effective if you have to take down the towers, for keeping the Repairmen away.

---

LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control