I think this post was meant to go in the general section. It'll probably be moved, methinks.
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I'll post my big question first, so if you want you can skip my justification for asking and just post.
What team build is required to beat STF?
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Once people have played and understood the TF, you can bend the "ideal team" alot. I was doing fine as my Dark/Dark tank with a Dark/Dark healer and FF bubbles (and yes the blue tower was up.) That team isn't recommended in the slightest....but, we passed it (Didn't get the masters, but there were some unlucky deaths...we got close.)
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Last night we finally had a great (so I thought) team going. Dark Defender, plant / thermal troller, empath, storm defenders, fire tank, two scrappers and a blaster. All 50s.
A little light on damage, but we've got the right (again, so I thought) set of debuffs and buffs to compensate.
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In this case, i'd say damage was fine. I go with normally 3 damage dealers (Blasters or Scrapper combo).....I'd say you had a surplus of healing though. And frankly, heals are retroactive. Best not to have to heal in the first place. I'd remove one or two of those with heals (Storm and Dark defender or some combo thereof) and put in a FF or sonic bubbler. Or both. Depends. Even the team you had was not a problem. It sounds more like they haven't run many STFs before.
The issue here though is that the Fire Tank would need alot of help to get passed Recluse himself. I supplement tankers with Sonics (or FF) if they aren't stone tanks. Again, depends on the teams experience level with the TF and what's going on.
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Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
We spent an hour trying different tactics, even bringing her to the boat to have the turrets chip in, and her health bar didn't move, so once again, we gave up.
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Check out my guide for details:
It's Specific to a Virtue Run, but gives pointers for all....
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Maybe trading our empathy defender for another blaster would have been enough damage?
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Empathy is the best healer there (usually) and you'll need heals for the Fire Tank. I woulda substituted out any other "heal-type defender" first. Again, depending on experience level with the TF.
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< rant>
But why should it have to take a fifth attempt to be successful at Statesman? Why should I have to give up before starting because I can't find the exactly correct combination of power pools needed to take down those Villains?
Does it make sense to anyone else that an entire team of the most powerful hero players in the game is needed to take down any one <i>henchman</i>? Or that sometimes an entire team isn't enough?
Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could. But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
Strictly from a design standpoint, why is this mission so hard? Yes, it's supposed to be the climax of the game, the mission where you finally stop Recluse, but is the difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall to anyone else?
It's a common MMO mindset that the upper-level content should be nearly impossible because it creates lasting challenge for players. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I'd enjoy running Statesman frequently if it were just easier. For me, any dramatic tension that might have come from stopping Recluse was killed the first time I fought Mako and had to give up. There's no consequence, the world keeps spinning regardless of my failure, so why bother? Granted, I've wanted to retry for the badge, the accomplishment and to see Recluse in battle, but when I do beat it my reaction isn't going to be "We saved the world!". Rather, I'm going to think "hooray, our numbers were finally better than theirs."
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I understand the frustration. I feel there are key elements broken in some respects. It's more game mechanics to a point. But if you accept that "this is the game," and that "this is the BIG challenging end task force (for now)" then it gets easier.
I was ticked off the first time I took my dark/dark tank as main tank on Recluse and fell faster than a blaster to him. I don't think some tanks should hold up against a red tower-ed Recluse for 30 seconds before needing a heal...and then others hit taunt, get KB-ed and die before they can stand up from the knock back.
Though, once you realize your limits and weaknesses, you can overcome them. My dark tank has no real KB protection (only acrobatics) and if you taunt Recluse from range, he uses energy damage....also a HUGE weakness for my dark/dark tank.
Once you understand the TF, it's alot more fun. It takes awhile to learn too. I learn new stuff all the time.
It's a challenge and it's fun. I do wish they'd make more challenges though-- and the "you hit the inner circle and now you're gonna have problems" thing sorta does suck.
Mr. True Shot.
Level 53: Arrows/Devices/Munitions Blaster
....and hopeless Science-Natzi.
I agree mostly with the poster above me.
I've tanked the TF on my Invul/EM tank with little problem. This was before the MoSTF badge was available, not to say there weren't any defeats - which there were.
Anyways, my recommendation with running this TF is to have at least a few people (2, 3) running the leadership pool, tactics specifically. It really helps with the AVs at the end.
Bubblers (FF, Sonic) are always a nice touch, too.
There are some guides on the forum that you could check out, but some tactics that I've seen (and used) involve an Illu/* troller and phantom army, and also using the containment type bubbles from FF and Sonic (the ones that make the target intangible) on the towers.
One thing I would -love- to try is a STF with 4 sonics using the bubbles on the towers and then pounding on Recluse with the sonic debuffs. Could be an interesting thing to try!
[ @Zombie Fryer ][ @Zombie Smasher ]
| Home Server: Virtue |
Twitter: @ZFLikesNachos Save City of Heroes (Titan Network) [Successful "The Really Hard Way" runs: 4] [Click ^]
| Home Server: Virtue |
Twitter: @ZFLikesNachos Save City of Heroes (Titan Network) [Successful "The Really Hard Way" runs: 4] [Click ^]
I've run STF about a dozen or so times on 6 different characters. There is no required team build. There are many ways to slice this provided you have adequate damage, buffing, debuffing and control. More important is running it with people who have done it before, know what they're doing, and are willing to give precise directions to the rest of the team. I would recommend a minimum of 4 who know what they're doing. Running STF with a PUG where most of the team haven't done it before is a recipe for trouble.
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First and second time, we were stopped by Mako's defense. (Second time we brought a sonic defender who either wasn't doing her job or it just wasn't enough).
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Mako has defense. Sonic debuffs resistance, which is not the same thing. Since AVs resist defense debuffs, even a rad defender wouldn't have necessarily helped. All you really need against Mako are a bunch of medium or large yellow inspirations.
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Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
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GW has multiple heals. The big one is Dark Regeneration, which is a PBAoE. The way to avoid her using it is for the tank to stay at range and spam Taunt. She also has Twilight Grasp and Life Drain, but neither of these heal for as much as DR and can be overcome.
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Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could. But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
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Did this recently on a failed MoSTF attempt. It wasn't planned, but when they all came we figured "what the heck" and managed to pull it off with a couple of deaths but no wipes. To answer your question though, pulling individual AVs is not that hard. If you get more than one, retreat to the boat and try again.
I just did a fairly long and grueling STF this weekend with a non-optimal layout so I've been thinking about it a bit since then. Here's what I've got for you:
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I'll post my big question first, so if you want you can skip my justification for asking and just post.
What team build is required to beat STF?
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The most critical component is to assemble a group of good players. Good in this case means better than "ok", it means players who are aware of how their powers work, which are effective at taking down hard AVs and can coordinate with each other well.
If you have that you can beat the STF with many different team makeups. Some make-ups will be easier and some harder though.
Some things that will make it easier:
- A solid tank or two. The AVs in the STF aren't wimpy, have some unusual tricks and Lord Recluse is flat out ridiculous when buffed by the towers. It's possible to beat the STF without a tank but it's a hell of a lot easier with one. Two can be handy as well for managing aggro and keeping the squishies safe.
- Regen and Resistance debuffing. These two debuffs radically alter the difficulty of fighting Arch-Villians. Just having them on the team isn't enough though. The players need to be aware of them and need to use them. For example: Transfusion from Kinetics has a Regen debuff component. This means the Kinetic needs to spam it as often as they can (since they'll miss occasionally) to insure that the AV's regen is supressed. Using Transfusion only when people are injured is not enough to get the job done.
- Defense buffs. There's a lot of time you don't want to be hit in this TF. Vs Ghost Widow for example you don't need to worry about her heals if she can't hit you. Vs Lord Recluse you absolutely want your Defense high enough so that he's wiffing as close to 95% of the time as you can get (he's an AV so you can't get him down to a 5% hit rate but you can get him reasonably close to that).
- A Toggle Debuff. This one's a bit odd but it's for one purpose -> throwing a toggle debuff (like Enervating field, Snow Storm, etc) onto Lord Recluse will prevent him from summoning Bane helpers or at the least keep their numbers drastically reduced. This is critical in keeping your tank, even a Granite backed up by an Emp, alive for longer than 30 seconds or so.
If you can get good players and cover those attributes in your team you're well on the way to a successful run.
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I made a fourth attempt at Statesman with my 50 claws / dark scrapper last night. Like two of my previous attempts, we were forced to give up after reaching the inner circle.
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The Inner Circle is tricky, each has a special way of kicking your butt (well aside from Black Scorpion, he's just a meat bag). Learning their tricks can make them a lot easier to deal with though.
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First and second time, we were stopped by Mako's defense. (Second time we brought a sonic defender who either wasn't doing her job or it just wasn't enough). First point: it would be really nice to be able to see debuffs that your team applies to an enemy, so that as a leader I can tell if someone is not doing their job.
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As someone else mentioned, Mako has high Defense. Sonic has -Resistance, which is different. -Resistance means you'll hit for more damage. Defense means you'll hit less often.
Most of the game is easy enough that you can breeze through it without being aware of the difference. The STF is meant to be challenging though so you (or whoever's leading the team) needs to understand how it works a bit better.
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Third attempt the tank bailed in mission 4.
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That's just a sucky player, not your bad at all. Having a second tank on the team does help in situations like that though, or if the tank just legitimately disconnects for a few minutes.
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Last night we finally had a great (so I thought) team going. Dark Defender, plant / thermal troller, empath, storm defenders, fire tank, two scrappers and a blaster. All 50s.
A little light on damage, but we've got the right (again, so I thought) set of debuffs and buffs to compensate.
So we start, and once again reach the inner circle. We kill Mako this time, no problem. Same with Scorpion. Their health just melts like any other AV. Next we pull Ghost Widow.
Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
We spent an hour trying different tactics, even bringing her to the boat to have the turrets chip in, and her health bar didn't move, so once again, we gave up.
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You had a good team there and trying different tactics is a great idea. If you hit a wall like that though try checking on line. There's a section specifically about fighting her on the Paragon Wiki entry for the Statesman's Task Force.
http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/S...rce#Strategy_5
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I'm thinking Kheldians are the key, just based on both their inherent powers and the inherent defense / recharge debuffs attached to their powers. Of course, Kheldians are extremely hard to come by.
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If only this were true. Sadly, while Khelds can be valuable team members, they just about as far from critical as you can get. The -Def on the Peacebringer blasts and the -Recharge on the Warshade blasts are frankly pathetic. Especially against a level 54 Arch-Villain who resists a huge percentage of the effect.
Working an STF with Khelds is more of an "advanced strategy" sort of thing than "easy mode" I'm afraid.
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Maybe trading our empathy defender for another blaster would have been enough damage?
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You ran into a tactical hiccup, the only trading that would have helped was to a team that could use some much easier tactics - like 8x Fire/Rad controllers or something. Try that setup again with a better understanding of the mission and you'll see it goes a lot differently.
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< rant>
But why should it have to take a fifth attempt to be successful at Statesman? Why should I have to give up before starting because I can't find the exactly correct combination of power pools needed to take down those Villains?
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You don't need an exact set of heroes for this. It's taken you 4 tries so far because the STF isn't designed to be steamrolled the way normal xp missions are. This is meant to be challenging and hard in a way the rest of the game isn't. It's the pinnacle of achievement in many ways. And once you know enough about how it works it really not that undoable.
Come back to this thread after you've gotten a half dozen wins under your belt and you'll wonder why it seemed so awful at the time.
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Does it make sense to anyone else that an entire team of the most powerful hero players in the game is needed to take down any one <i>henchman</i>? Or that sometimes an entire team isn't enough?
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Yes. Yes it does. This is the game saying "bring your best or else". There's a level of satisfaction you can only get when you beat something like that.
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Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could. But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
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To make them harder to single pull. And as people have mentioned, some really insane teams can just take them on that way. For normal teams though it's just another challenge to overcome.
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Strictly from a design standpoint, why is this mission so hard? Yes, it's supposed to be the climax of the game, the mission where you finally stop Recluse, but is the difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall to anyone else?
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In my view, this is the end point, as hard as it gets, as big a challenge as the game will throw at you. So, yeah, it's very hard. It's something that even at 50 you may need to learn a bit, practice skills and refine you're build for.
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It's a common MMO mindset that the upper-level content should be nearly impossible because it creates lasting challenge for players. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I'd enjoy running Statesman frequently if it were just easier. For me, any dramatic tension that might have come from stopping Recluse was killed the first time I fought Mako and had to give up. There's no consequence, the world keeps spinning regardless of my failure, so why bother? Granted, I've wanted to retry for the badge, the accomplishment and to see Recluse in battle, but when I do beat it my reaction isn't going to be "We saved the world!". Rather, I'm going to think "hooray, our numbers were finally better than theirs."
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Numbers alone won't do it. When you beat this you should be able to say "Hooray, I'm a better player and a better team leader than I was before."
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So, do we just need the "right" team build? Do we just need to understand our opponents better? If so, why couldn't we have been told this before we started? Couldn't Statesman say, "you need to have 8 players, including a radiation defense pool, to start", or even better, "go to the library before you start and access read through our database on the inner circle"?
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As has been said, you don't need "the right build" for the team. Lots of builds can work. What you need are the right players, and the right knowledge to back them up.
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I would have really like to have done more to get from 45-50 than continue failing the same task force.
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Hopefully you got to play in all the great arcs in the game from 45-50 rather than trying to farm the STF to get there? If not I suggest leaving the STF till 50 when you need a new challenge for your hero and working on Maria Jenkins arc, and Dark Watchers arc and the Cimerora arc and so on and so forth.
"Striving for the impossible" doesn't mean "toiling in vain". It means growth. It means improvement in the direction of your ideals. Not futility.
Erfworld: the Battle for Gobwin Knob
Generally my sg has:
1 tank, 2-3 debuffers, 1-3 buffers, fill in with damage dealers.
What you need is a team to gel together. Either Players that are used to each other or are willing to take advice and listen to the leader.
Geas of the Kind Ones and Shivans help.
We also do unusual teams for the STF and are not afraid at failing it. We do 1 Blaster/ 7 defenders, all trollers, and even tried an all tanker run. The all-Tanker run we stopped after our allotted time expired- we had another event scheduled that night too.
Heh, I did the same STF as Overclock (the two of us had to sort of take over leadership of it after the original leader bailed half way through).
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Some things that will make it easier:
- A solid tank or two. The AVs in the STF aren't wimpy, have some unusual tricks and Lord Recluse is flat out ridiculous when buffed by the towers. It's possible to beat the STF without a tank but it's a hell of a lot easier with one. Two can be handy as well for managing aggro and keeping the squishies safe.
- Regen and Resistance debuffing. These two debuffs radically alter the difficulty of fighting Arch-Villians. Just having them on the team isn't enough though. The players need to be aware of them and need to use them. For example: Transfusion from Kinetics has a Regen debuff component. This means the Kinetic needs to spam it as often as they can (since they'll miss occasionally) to insure that the AV's regen is supressed. Using Transfusion only when people are injured is not enough to get the job done.
- A Toggle Debuff. This one's a bit odd but it's for one purpose -> throwing a toggle debuff (like Enervating field, Snow Storm, etc) onto Lord Recluse will prevent him from summoning Bane helpers or at the least keep their numbers drastically reduced. This is critical in keeping your tank, even a Granite backed up by an Emp, alive for longer than 30 seconds or so.
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Overclock covers some of the basics there. On our STF, we had a /kin controller and a /storm controller. The kin didn't use Transfusion much, and the storm didn't use Freezing Rain much. Those two factors alone easily doubled the time for the TF.
We had a stone tank and an emp. The stone tank died easily 15-20 times to Lord Recluse, with full time Emp support. I think neither the tank nor the emp was well slotted or on the ball. It was the tanks first time tanking the STF, and I think she was surprised when LR dropped her in under 10 seconds in Granite. Definitely bring an Emp, though, unless you have a very good team used to working together otherwise, the Lord Recluse tank *will* need healing, and Recluse has stupid levels of defense till the yellow tower drops, so its very hard to pull a targeted heal off him, and aura heals (e.g. rad) are risky near him.
It took us 6 hours, over 4 in the last mission.
That said, everyone seemed nice, and nobody was trying to sabotage the TF, and with the exception of the leader they hung in till the end. They just didn't have great builds or good enough play ability or some combo thereof; I guarantee the team we had could do it much faster on paper, but most of the game doesn't require wringing the most out of your character.
We ended up beating it by (1) going back to our base and grabbing lots of medium and large purples to give the tank so she could survive long enough for us to take down the first couple towers, and (2) using Snowstorm on LR and having the tank just taunt him, no damage, to prevent Bane spawns. That got us through it.
As Overclock says, this is one mission in the game that demands a level of leader knowledge and player ability above the others. If you want to lead it, I suggest learning what buffs and debuffs are needed, and what ATs and powers have them. You can make up for some things with Insps, but -resist and -regen debuffing are pretty important if you don't want the final fights to take hours, and not all teams are willing to wait around to fetch insps.
Your dark defender, btw, should have been able to provide what you needed. Providing they slotted Tar Patch for good recharge. Ditto Storm, with slotted Freezing Rain. Ditto Sonic (though I'm not sure if the ally toggle debuff prevents the Bane spawns). Certain support characters may have to change their usual playstyle and focus almost exclusively on support in some fights, though.
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I'm thinking Kheldians are the key, just based on both their inherent powers and the inherent defense / recharge debuffs attached to their powers. Of course, Kheldians are extremely hard to come by.
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This was particularly entertaining given that we were playing our Kheldians, a WS and a PB, on the team; first time we'd had a chance to get on a STF. 
They might help more post I13, when they get some buffs. Otherwise, consider them a blaster (assuming they built Nova form up for that) or scrapper. Being able to swap is definitely handy, though, Overclocked tanked the spare Patron AV when two came on a pull, and Kheldians tend to be happy to get invites to this, they don't get a lot of chances.
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Granted, I've wanted to retry for the badge, the accomplishment and to see Recluse in battle, but when I do beat it my reaction isn't going to be "We saved the world!". Rather, I'm going to think "hooray, our numbers were finally better than theirs."
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They actually made this TF tough enough that, assuming no "dream team", you need knowledge. Our first try ever ended in failure, but without that failure to drive us to learn more about what powers AND what tactics are needed we wouldn't have learned as much as we have about how to play the game. And we would have lost on this last try.
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I would have really like to have done more to get from 45-50 than continue failing the same task force.
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One other tip, have most of the team at 50. You are fighting +4 AVs at the end. All your powers, including damage, work only 50% against them because they are +4 (note that most debuffs work far worse, AVs have special resistance to those). A sidekick is fighting +5 AVs, so their powers only work 28% against them. Thats a big hit on their effectiveness.
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I'll post my big question first, so if you want you can skip my justification for asking and just post.
What team build is required to beat STF?
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Generally, IME, any team with 1 tank, 4 buff-debuff characters of practically any make or model, and 3 damage builds of make or model will have better than average chance of completing the TF if they have players that are experienced with the TF and know the tricks of the trade.
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First and second time, we were stopped by Mako's defense. (Second time we brought a sonic defender who either wasn't doing her job or it just wasn't enough). First point: it would be really nice to be able to see debuffs that your team applies to an enemy, so that as a leader I can tell if someone is not doing their job.
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Mako's Elude isn't about the buffs or debuffs of your team so much as it is a pesky power that you have to be prepared for. Any team that has some controllers or defenders running Tactics (three is safest) will come through. Any team with high accuracy or auto-hit powers like Lightning Storm or Tornado will come through. Accolades like Geas of the Kind Ones will see you through. Failing all the above, popping common yellow pills (2 to 3) will see you through. The trick is to wait until you see that he is regularly evading your attacks before you start using the above strategies.
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Third attempt the tank bailed in mission 4.
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Bad luck is bad luck. But you can do this with as few as six or seven.
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Last night we finally had a great (so I thought) team going. Dark Defender, plant / thermal troller, empath, storm defenders, fire tank, two scrappers and a blaster. All 50s.
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I agree. This should have worked easily. You have three strong to-hit debuffers which ought to have made the AVs up until LR cake.
[ QUOTE ]
Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
[/ QUOTE ]
First off, was your tank taunting her from range? It generally works best if your tank taunts her from rane and keeps moving away from her. If she can't get into melee with the tank, she spends all her time trying to get close to the tank and trying to heal off the tank rather than everyone else.
Second, the dark defender should have had darkest night on her and your two stormies should have been hurricaning her. If all the above were defenders, she should not have been hitting very often through that level of to-hit debuff assuming all the powers in question were well slotted for it.
I've done this many, many times with my own stormy working in tandem either with rads, darks, or other stormies and it works surprisingly well once you get past the "big bad AV must not be in melee range factor." Three defender level to-hit debuffs is about the level required to pull it off, but it seems you had that.
Assuming you have the Witch chasing the taunting tank and preoccupied with getting to him, everyone else does what they do, and you should be good to go. The only other nasty trick she can pull is to phase the tank. If she does that, then we will switch her aggro to the rest of you and heal. A good team has to be aware of when this happens.
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I'm thinking Kheldians are the key, just based on both their inherent powers and the inherent defense / recharge debuffs attached to their powers. Of course, Kheldians are extremely hard to come by.
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Khelds are team members like everyone else, but you don't need them anymore or any less than you would any other team member.
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Maybe trading our empathy defender for another blaster would have been enough damage?
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Bad idea with no other source of anti-mez on your team. The tank needs at least one source of anti-mez when facing GW. Clarity, CM, or ID are all viable options.
[ QUOTE ]
< rant>
But why should it have to take a fifth attempt to be successful at Statesman? Why should I have to give up before starting because I can't find the exactly correct combination of power pools needed to take down those Villains?
[/ QUOTE ]
I don't know what server you're on, but we run Master attempts off the boat on Virtue every Saturday evening. The teams pretty much always succeed at the TF if not the Master, and we do have a pretty decent number of successful Master runs to our name as well.
I suggest you find out if there is an experienced group of STF runners on your server and go with them. Don't worry about trying to form your own. Just worry about hopping into someone else's show and learn.
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Does it make sense to anyone else that an entire team of the most powerful hero players in the game is needed to take down any one <i>henchman</i>? Or that sometimes an entire team isn't enough?
[/ QUOTE ]
Sometimes, even Superman gets clocked until he figrues out the right strategy to use. That's the key to your problem: strategy.
[ QUOTE ]
Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could. But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
[/ QUOTE ]
I think it's entirely possible for a good Master's team to take the whole Inner Circle all at once. I just haven't found the team I could convince to run a Master's with me to test my theory yet. It's hard for me to get enough Seekers on all at once to make a go of it.
At any rate, there is a trick to single pulling discovered by Ellis and capitalized on by our Masters runs now: the flier adds to aggro. If you wait to pull until the flier is away from the front of the platform, you highly increase your chance of a single pull. After that, the only thing you need worry about is the chance of GW adding herself to the party mid-fight.
[ QUOTE ]
Strictly from a design standpoint, why is this mission so hard? Yes, it's supposed to be the climax of the game, the mission where you finally stop Recluse, but is the difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall to anyone else?
[/ QUOTE ]
No, I wish they'd inject a few more things like this into the game. I had endless fun running this TF over and over after it was introduced with some SG mates and hashing over tactics and strategy afterwards in SG chat. A lot of the basic things we do today in our Master runs were worked out and in place before Master runs were introduced.
This sort of thing makes this game a challenge in a different way that just throwing endless mobs at you like an ITF does. This one forces you to be creative with your powers and powersets and know how to stretch the bounds of what you can do with them.
[ QUOTE ]
So, do we just need the "right" team build? Do we just need to understand our opponents better? If so, why couldn't we have been told this before we started? Couldn't Statesman say, "you need to have 8 players, including a radiation defense pool, to start", or even better, "go to the library before you start and access read through our database on the inner circle"?
[/ QUOTE ]
It's a combination of things as has been explained, but it is nowhere near impossible. I think the best thing you could do would be to find someone with a experience and run on their team.
I know our run last Saturday had one person who had never done the TF once before let alone made a shot at Master.
I also have a Guide hiding in this Forum somewhere that you could read. I didn't link to it, but my husband is all kinds of proud of it, and his it linked in his siggy. Forum search for Teikiatsu if you want to find my guide to glance at.
[ QUOTE ]
The kin didn't use Transfusion much,... Those two factors alone easily doubled the time for the TF.
[/ QUOTE ]
This is beyond absurd and shows a lack of knowledge about how -regen (and regen, for that matter) works.
Let's say an AV has 31,000 hit points. They regen from zero to full in five minutes. That means they regen - roughly - 103 hit points per second. A level 54 AV has 87% resistance to debuffs, and when you take that 13% effectiveness and apply the purple patch, you're looking at around 6% effectiveness for your debuff. Transfusion applies a 50% -regen effect. 50% * .0624 = 3.12% -regen. That means you just lowered their regen rate from 103 to 99.78, meaning a whopping 3.22 DPS from casting Transfusion.
Now let me ask you. Does your normal attack chain exceed 3.22 DPS? Oh, it does? THEN STOP WASTING YOUR TIME AND USE ATTACKS.
Doom.
Yep.
This is really doom.
[ QUOTE ]
What team build is required to beat STF?
[/ QUOTE ]
Virtually anything will work. Just depends on the wetware of each character.
[ QUOTE ]
First and second time, we were stopped by Mako's defense. (Second time we brought a sonic defender who either wasn't doing her job or it just wasn't enough).
[/ QUOTE ]
Sonic, except for Liquefy, deals -Resistance, not -Defense.
[ QUOTE ]
Last night we finally had a great (so I thought) team going. Dark Defender, plant / thermal troller, empath, storm defenders, fire tank, two scrappers and a blaster. All 50s.
A little light on damage, but we've got the right (again, so I thought) set of debuffs and buffs to compensate.
So we start, and once again reach the inner circle. We kill Mako this time, no problem. Same with Scorpion. Their health just melts like any other AV. Next we pull Ghost Widow.
Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
We spent an hour trying different tactics, even bringing her to the boat to have the turrets chip in, and her health bar didn't move, so once again, we gave up.
[/ QUOTE ]
Your Empath was worthless (and as my typical plug: Not a surprise). Fortitude, properly maintained, should have meant the Tank prevented the majority of her attempts at healing.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm thinking Kheldians are the key, just based on both their inherent powers and the inherent defense / recharge debuffs attached to their powers. Of course, Kheldians are extremely hard to come by.
[/ QUOTE ]
Purple patch reduces debuffs to roughly half their normal power, then after that, AVs have native resistance to them by 87%, at least at level 54.
[ QUOTE ]
Maybe trading our empathy defender for another blaster would have been enough damage?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not necessarily but your team seems to have had a particularly worthless Empathy if you had any problems at all.
[ QUOTE ]
< rant>
But why should it have to take a fifth attempt to be successful at Statesman? Why should I have to give up before starting because I can't find the exactly correct combination of power pools needed to take down those Villains?
[/ QUOTE ]
Because you're not seeking in the correct manner. Because "Competence" is not a measure you can easily survey through the team search browser (or /yell), you need to stack your hand. Find the +Def, find the +Resist, find the -Resist, etc., and gather it in excess.
[ QUOTE ]
Does it make sense to anyone else that an entire team of the most powerful hero players in the game is needed to take down any one <i>henchman</i>? Or that sometimes an entire team isn't enough?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not to be insulting but obviously your team was not the "most powerful hero players in the game". My SG, comprised of 4 members, regularly grabs anyone available and takes on all 4 Patrons, at once, without a care in the world. Does that make us the "most powerful", I don't know or care, but the task is not that difficult.
[ QUOTE ]
Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could.
[/ QUOTE ]
See: My Signature.
[ QUOTE ]
But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm personally annoyed that the Patron's respective lackeys are eliminated so early on and they don't accompany their bosses during this fight.
[ QUOTE ]
Strictly from a design standpoint, why is this mission so hard? Yes, it's supposed to be the climax of the game, the mission where you finally stop Recluse, but is the difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall to anyone else?
[/ QUOTE ]
Not really.
And additionally, in a similar vein to your opinion, should the (non-LGTF) Hamidon be easily taken down by 3 players?
[ QUOTE ]
It's a common MMO mindset that the upper-level content should be nearly impossible because it creates lasting challenge for players. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I'd enjoy running Statesman frequently if it were just easier. For me, any dramatic tension that might have come from stopping Recluse was killed the first time I fought Mako and had to give up. There's no consequence, the world keeps spinning regardless of my failure, so why bother? Granted, I've wanted to retry for the badge, the accomplishment and to see Recluse in battle, but when I do beat it my reaction isn't going to be "We saved the world!". Rather, I'm going to think "hooray, our numbers were finally better than theirs."
[/ QUOTE ]
Snarky remark incoming: I think our group is somewhere past 200 runs. Aeon's cutscenes serve as little more than a chance for me to browse the Internet or get a sandwich.
[ QUOTE ]
So, do we just need the "right" team build? Do we just need to understand our opponents better? If so, why couldn't we have been told this before we started? Couldn't Statesman say, "you need to have 8 players, including a radiation defense pool, to start", or even better, "go to the library before you start and access read through our database on the inner circle"?
[/ QUOTE ]
The text warns of the difficulty of the TF. I'm not up to lowering the bar when it, in my opinion and experience, is not that high to begin with.
Blue: ~Knockback Squad on Guardian~
Red: ~Undoing of Virtue on [3 guesses]~
I've run this TF well over 100 times. I've tanked on my Inv/SM a bunch, once or twice on my stoner, a few runs on my WP/EM and once with my ice tank who survived th whole thing on a run that was almost exactly an hour. I've done runs with others tanking, we've done runs with no tank.
I used to advocate this lineup:
tank
emp
kin
blaster (highdamage like a fire/em preferred)
4 rads
This still works really well. I've seen folks run 8 ill/rads to great effect. 8 fire/rads do rediculously well too.
Nowadays we have a weapon that we didn't have before cold/ defenders, they are sick n this TF, put 2-3 benumbs on GW and laugh at her heal (works great on Romulus too),
Basically any team with balanced damage and debuffs can run this. Buffs and a good tank can make a world of difference too.
you could do:
tank
scrapper (you)
blaster
2-3 debuffers (rad/dark/cold) etc.
2-3 wildcards
and do fine.
Best of luck to you on your run.
Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The kin didn't use Transfusion much,... Those two factors alone easily doubled the time for the TF.
[/ QUOTE ]
Let's say an AV has 31,000 hit points. They regen from zero to full in five minutes. That means they regen - roughly - 103 hit points per second. A level 54 AV has 87% resistance to debuffs, and when you take that 13% effectiveness and apply the purple patch, you're looking at around 6% effectiveness for your debuff. Transfusion applies a 50% -regen effect. 50% * .0624 = 3.12% -regen. That means you just lowered their regen rate from 103 to 99.78, meaning a whopping 3.22 DPS from casting Transfusion.
Now let me ask you. Does your normal attack chain exceed 3.22 DPS? Oh, it does? THEN STOP WASTING YOUR TIME AND USE ATTACKS.
[/ QUOTE ]
Well, to be fair, you edited out the part of my comment about Freezing Rain, which I considered more important, though I didn't make that clear. And total effective "damage" for Transfusion over its 20 second debuff duration according to your calculation is 64.4, which is comparable to what a controller can provide via an attack, so its not a horrible choice. With the /kin I was actually more focused on trying to get all the ranged damage types into his Siphon Power radius, since we needed all the dps we could get, but I didn't go into that nuance above. I'm always surprised why more blasters don't gravitate there for the buffs. I would also have liked a bit more Siphon Power spamming, but I don't have as good a feel for normal recharge time on that one.
I would definitely agree with your overall point, though, that -regen is overrated against AVs, -resist is much more effective because AVs don't resist it (in general, ignoring odd cases of resisting because of particular attack types). Thats why I asked the /storm several times to spam Freezing Rain more often. Either he didn't pay attention or didn't have it slotted for recharge, my lvl 25 Storm Defender can easily get near 50% up time. I even asked at one point for the kin to keep SB on the /storm for more FR spamming, which for the OP is an example of synergies you have to look for in whatever team you happen to have.
I'll post my big question first, so if you want you can skip my justification for asking and just post.
What team build is required to beat STF?
I made a fourth attempt at Statesman with my 50 claws / dark scrapper last night. Like two of my previous attempts, we were forced to give up after reaching the inner circle.
First and second time, we were stopped by Mako's defense. (Second time we brought a sonic defender who either wasn't doing her job or it just wasn't enough). First point: it would be really nice to be able to see debuffs that your team applies to an enemy, so that as a leader I can tell if someone is not doing their job.
Third attempt the tank bailed in mission 4.
Last night we finally had a great (so I thought) team going. Dark Defender, plant / thermal troller, empath, storm defenders, fire tank, two scrappers and a blaster. All 50s.
A little light on damage, but we've got the right (again, so I thought) set of debuffs and buffs to compensate.
So we start, and once again reach the inner circle. We kill Mako this time, no problem. Same with Scorpion. Their health just melts like any other AV. Next we pull Ghost Widow.
Ultimately we couldn't figure out how her heal worked. After first 20 minutes fighting her we figured out she was healing (as opposed to just insanely high regen). A quick search of the boards today seems to indicate that she heals off of targets within a cone, so standing behind her circumvents the problem. We had never heard of such a power, so it was assumed that it was a PBAEO target drain.
We spent an hour trying different tactics, even bringing her to the boat to have the turrets chip in, and her health bar didn't move, so once again, we gave up.
I'm thinking Kheldians are the key, just based on both their inherent powers and the inherent defense / recharge debuffs attached to their powers. Of course, Kheldians are extremely hard to come by.
Maybe trading our empathy defender for another blaster would have been enough damage?
< rant>
But why should it have to take a fifth attempt to be successful at Statesman? Why should I have to give up before starting because I can't find the exactly correct combination of power pools needed to take down those Villains?
Does it make sense to anyone else that an entire team of the most powerful hero players in the game is needed to take down any one <i>henchman</i>? Or that sometimes an entire team isn't enough?
Why is the entire inner circle standing in a line as they are? You aren't supposed to fight all of them at once. I'd like to see the team that could. But they line them up all dramatic like, like it supposed to be an even match between all four of them.
Strictly from a design standpoint, why is this mission so hard? Yes, it's supposed to be the climax of the game, the mission where you finally stop Recluse, but is the difficulty curve like running headlong into a brick wall to anyone else?
It's a common MMO mindset that the upper-level content should be nearly impossible because it creates lasting challenge for players. Maybe I'm alone on this one, but I'd enjoy running Statesman frequently if it were just easier. For me, any dramatic tension that might have come from stopping Recluse was killed the first time I fought Mako and had to give up. There's no consequence, the world keeps spinning regardless of my failure, so why bother? Granted, I've wanted to retry for the badge, the accomplishment and to see Recluse in battle, but when I do beat it my reaction isn't going to be "We saved the world!". Rather, I'm going to think "hooray, our numbers were finally better than theirs."
So, do we just need the "right" team build? Do we just need to understand our opponents better? If so, why couldn't we have been told this before we started? Couldn't Statesman say, "you need to have 8 players, including a radiation defense pool, to start", or even better, "go to the library before you start and access read through our database on the inner circle"?
I would have really like to have done more to get from 45-50 than continue failing the same task force.