By the same token, people should be more realistic about what teams they apply for. If you volunteer to come compelte level 50 content, I expect yout to be able to perform whatever role your class suggests. Its not your fault that at level 9 you can't measure up no matter how good you are, but if you can't do the job, you shouldn't have volunteered; at least not without making it explicitely clear that you are basicly looking to get power-leveled.
Personally I only ever take people over 22 (and preferably over 30) for any team excepting friends and guild-mates, but as you say, not everyone seems to quite have the intelligence to realize the limitaiotns of low level characters, and when a leader broadcasts a LFT message, people will often ask to join without providing details of their level or build (particularly when they know that they are low level or of a class you've said you don't need).
My major problem with the terminology of "healer" is, for at least new players who fill that role, they expect to only do that. I consider the terms being support, dps, and tanking. Do I expect a person saying they are a tanking person to sit there and take blows (or dodge them as the case may be), yes. Do I expect a person saying they are dps to be dealing quite a bit of damage, yes. Do I expect someone who is support to aid in their allies abilities to make them better, yes. However, a tank (brute, scrapper, stalker, whomever fits the bill) does have attacks, along with support people. Controller's primary does deal damage, Defender's secondary is a blast, why would one not use them? Each AT, in my opinion, has the potential to be able to do all three, and it's up to tactics and team make-up for this to be able to distinguish who actually does what.
My Fire/Storm Corruptor recently was on a team with 2 VEATs, 2 Dominators, and a Brute (Dark Armor). For pretty much the entire time up until one mission, the Brute was either near death or dead each spawn. When we got to one of the missions with Crey, not only was the Brute dying each mob, but several others died as well. After the first 4 mobs, I finally got annoyed with this and decided to make a tactical change, Tornado tanking. For the next several mobs, there wasn't a death on the team. Then the crab made the comment about Tornado ruining AoE potential, so I stopped upon making the comment that I was just trying to keep the Paragon Protector Elites busy so they didn't kill the Brute right away. They in turn made a comment about the dominators shutting them down. They did really well for the first 3-4 mobs, but then fell into the several people dying again. As such, I asked if I could start tornadoing again since it wasn't working. I did, and we began to not die. The brute, for whatever reason, couldn't keep on his feet, the dominators weren't holding them down. Yes, it was ruining the crab's AoE potential, but it was keeping the team alive.
My goals when I play are firstly to keep everyone alive, then complete our mission, then speed. If my Storm needs to use knock back to keep us alive, then so be it and allow me to keep the first two goals alive. If we have to rez and wait for the brute after each fight, not only is the Brute getting debt, but it's costing us about the same amount of time. Why not take the less debt for the same about of time approach?
Also, for when I run teams, I shoot for people equal level, then -1 to my level, +1 to my level, -2 to my level, and finally SK's. Exemplars are always welcome to my teams, and I'll either pair them with myself or the highest level character on the team. SK's usually go to me, then whomever can hold them (or offers SK first). I still shoot off a broadcast, but I usually only give the level (mine since it's 90% of the time my mission), the difficulty, and how many more we are looking for. I've not had many problems at all with this, but then again regardless of who I'm with, I tend to be a support character since that's what I enjoy playing.
50s: Bla- Arch/Mental Cont- Mind/FF, Earth/Cold, Ill/Therm, Earth/Rad Dominator- Plant/Psi, Elec/Earth Corr- Fire/Storm, Arch/Sonic, Rad/Kin, Beam/Sonic, Psi/Time Stalker- Elec/SR Def- Storm/Dark, Emp/Psi, Dark/Elec, FF/Arch, TA/Ice, TA/Elec, Kin/AR, Cold/DP, Traps/Psi Scrap- Fire/Shield Tanker- Dark/Mace, Ice/Kin Brute- Claws/WP, SS/Energy, BS/Elec
yeah in my particular case some guy was looking for people to team up within my level range, I asked if they needed a tank, and he said sure.
next thing I know we're in AE facing AV's and I'm like, WTF I cant tank these.
Stormy, you're preaching to the choir.
Also, this thread would be better suited for the defender boards. They eat these up like pie.
I'd agree with about 90% of what you're saying, but this is the wrong forum, imho. This is pretty much rehashing of things that have been said (or thought) time and time again by most veteran players.
As someone said- it's doubtful that the people who need to learn these things are actually reading the forums.
And yeah, I play defenders. My main is an emp/rad who hit fifity sometime last year. I've soloed every diff setting with him, and agree that defenders are more than heals (just so we're on the same page).
Oh, and Wrryder- you CAN tank AVs easily. You just need to have a good team behind you. AVs without tanks are much more tricky to handle. Also, you have to build adequately. Can't tank an AV with a messed up build. Not easily, anyway.
Anywho.. preachin' to the choir, Stormy. Preachin' to the choir.
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I just couldnt help it, I gotta put my 2 influence in here ...
I propose that they have no AE buildings in Atlas Park or Galaxy City. These 2 zones are to introduce people to the game and be social zones. It is disturbing to hear a crowd of lvl 1s screaming to get on farm teams, anybody with me?
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Yes.
I'm in a completely different game and I STILL hear them.
"HOGGER FARM LF KIN"
"lolwut?"
"oops wrong game"
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
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I just wish people would be a little more reasonable about expectations of teams. My little level 9 invuln/stone tanker isn't going to be able to handle an archvillian regardless of if I get SK'd up to level 50. I'm sorry I just dont have the tools to handle it.
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I ran a team a couple days ago and we used a level 11 tank against level 52 enemies. He was buffed with Kin/Ice/Empathy Defenders all doing their jobs. Anything is possible with the right team.
You just validated his point though. You didn't have the right tools you needed someone else to grant them to you otherwise you would be joinging the scrapper union and taking your mandatory dirt nap,
I'm there with you.
Putting the AE "contact" in the lowest level zones was also a serious mistake. That contact was the magnet that dragged so many there in the first place. Once they were there, it just became natural for the higher levels to go to the lower levels versus the lower levels going to the higher levels for some of the exploitive behavior that has run rampant.
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I just couldnt help it, I gotta put my 2 influence in here ...
I propose that they have no AE buildings in Atlas Park or Galaxy City. These 2 zones are to introduce people to the game and be social zones. It is disturbing to hear a crowd of lvl 1s screaming to get on farm teams, anybody with me?
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Yes.
I'm in a completely different game and I STILL hear them.
"HOGGER FARM LF KIN"
"lolwut?"
"oops wrong game"
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which game soul?
as Ood Sigma said....We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending. But the story never ends.
Well, this has been an enlightening thread for me, and it further re-enforces with me what one of the biggest challenges in these current times is for MMO players: language and language morphing.
Even over the course of playing this one game (5 years now) I've seen the word 'mob' go from meaning a single bad guy (MOB, roughly meaning 'moving object', a term from old MUDs) to a group spawn - or perhaps in some cases, multiple group spawns that happen to be near each other: "huge mob ahead!"
I've seen numerous definitions of the term 'herd', from the old days of gathering up every bad guy on a map level right on up (through numerous degrees of diminshing numbers of spawn groups) to even simple corner pulls of a subset of a spawn group.
And today, you can knock me over with a feather, because I thought until now any group that sought a 'healer' was a group with members and/or leadership entrenched with tactics from other MMOs, seeking to better build the old battle-tested Damage/Meatshield/Heal triangle, further assuming an ignorance on their part of the value of other Defender/Controller powersets that focus on damage avoidance and damage reduction. It never dawned on me that CoX savvy folks were using the term 'healer' to mean any and all of the ilk of Defender/Controller Nation.
Color me callibrated
@Greblaja, @Greblaja 2, @Greb, @Greb 2
Player of (lvl 50s) Blue Hammer, Action Lass, Autumn Gale, Crimson Hammer, Thundertoe, Blast Hammer, Crimson Clash, Greblaja, Wabu, Gray Hammer, Briar Pyre, Electro Gal, Rooftop Sentinel, and many, many more
One of my main's is a lvl 50 AR/Blaster... not completely slotted with set's but with a few good ones. I'm not an up close and personal fighter... I keep my distance as I should. When I'm with a great team I feel almost invincable cause I can sit back in snipe away with ease. If buffed correctly with the right Def ... I'm awesome... I miss those great teams... hint, hint Stormy! 
Edited for Stormy's sake!
If its broke, don't fix it... I like the chaos!
My opinion of the term 'healer' has come from very hard learned lessons. I have yet to join a team that asked for a healer that didn't expect me to just stand there and spam the green numbers over their heads. I've been kicked from teams because I would "waste time" by using my attacks. The worst was the guy that told me to learn my role because I was using my debuffs (and because I only had one rez.) After the 5th or 6th time of getting yelled at, I stopped debuffing. I told the team leader to learn what a defender can do before yelling at one and quit the team after the 4th team wipe from one boss.
�Let there be truth, happiness, and waffles�
-Vagabond, Dark Lord & Avatar of Gnarr
The Justiciars
takes out dead horse and stick allright whos with me
as Ood Sigma said....We will sing to you, Doctor. The universe will sing you to your sleep. This song is ending. But the story never ends.
Starting to feel like the defender board around here.
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Starting to feel like the defender board around here.
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Defender forums have more vile hatred than this.
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Yay for Galaxy, Skyway, IP, Founder's Falls.
Did I get the zones nobody plays in?
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Forgot Brickstown.
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My opinion of the term 'healer' has come from very hard learned lessons. I have yet to join a team that asked for a healer that didn't expect me to just stand there and spam the green numbers over their heads. I've been kicked from teams because I would "waste time" by using my attacks. The worst was the guy that told me to learn my role because I was using my debuffs (and because I only had one rez.) After the 5th or 6th time of getting yelled at, I stopped debuffing. I told the team leader to learn what a defender can do before yelling at one and quit the team after the 4th team wipe from one boss.
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To me, healer is a dirty word, and should be caught by the language filter 
I tend to use buffer or debuffer, because it better suits what the power sets do. An emp would be considered a buffer, and keep the team from dying, as well as force fields, ice, and thermal.
Healer is an appropriate term though..
It roughly translates into, we've got a bunch of dps/tanks who's healing is reliant more on inspirations than actual abilities. we need someone who can cover healing when nessecery.
Some people take this to the extreme and say you are supposed to do nothing but healing, but the way I see it. If we are all standing after the mob of critters kisses the floor, I dont mind if you are slinging in attacks.
I just wish people would be a little more reasonable about expectations of teams. My little level 9 invuln/stone tanker isn't going to be able to handle an archvillian regardless of if I get SK'd up to level 50. I'm sorry I just dont have the tools to handle it.