Blaster tactics quiz #2

You've logged in on off-peak hours to catch up on your blaster which just leveled to 26 a night ago. Over your SG channel, a friendly SG mate asks for your help in obtaining the Spirit Warrior badge by completing the Stop the Mystic Madman mission. She tells you she could badly use your damage and she already has a small team assembled.

You accept the team invite and the team is all getting back to the mission door from the hospital. Team members are:

Clueless Catgirl, level 21 claws/sr scrapper. Clueless is your SG mate, and while she understands basic fundamentals, is not a power gamer. She makes somewhat reasonable power choices but will pick a power solely based on the fact that it sounds cool to her.

Clerk Kant, level 17 inv/ss tanker. Clerk is an enthusiastic new player on his first character. Clerk doesn't show any veteran badges. His power choices aren't terrible but his build is currently endurance intensive. Because this is Clerk's first character, you suspect that many of his powers are still slotted with training origins.

Hailstone Helen, level 22 storm/sonic defender. Helen is a 2-year veteran and an extreme concept character builder. Her storm defender has all the storm powers available to 22 but only has an unslotted shriek as her only attack. She loves playing support and admits candidly that her build cannot solo.

The Stop the Mystic Madman mission is a defeat all mission against the Circle of Thorns and the Banished Pantheon. The difficulty is set at +2/0/Bosses Enabled mostly at the insistence of Helen claiming she needs the xp.

As a veteran blaster player, and now the de facto leader of this team, how do you determine the following:

1. Who takes the alpha strike against mobs of mixed minions, Lts and bosses? Which character do you send in first and why?

2. How do you best mesh your damage powers with the rest of the team?

Assume you're a level 26 blaster that you're comfortable with, and that no other players are available to join your ragtag team.

(Scenario based on something that happened to me a few nights ago. Obviously, names have been changed to protect the innocent (or guilty).

I'd say the Stormy. Assuming she has learned how to play the game over the 2 years, the Stormy should drop Freezing Rain from behind cover. After that, the Tank, Scrapper and I (Blaster) can move in. Personally, I'd pick off the minions first to remove as many enemies from play as quick as possible. The Tank and Scrapper can do whatever they want.

Edit:
After thinking further about this, the Stormy is the only one other than myself who is probably slotted out reasonably well. Both the Tank and Scrapper do not sound to be slotted well enough to tank. I'd give it a go, as a Blaster, but it would depend on which powersets I have, so I'll just pass on it for now. Therefore, the ball drops back to the Stormy.

Depending on how well the 2 year Vet Stormy is built and if she really knows how to play a stormy, the Stormy should engage the spawns first. As I said, alternatingly opening with Freezing Rain or Gale to negate the alpha strikes. Then going in with Hurricane to debuff and to pin, and to provide an area denial.

And after re-reading your post, I see you mention BP. So, I'd take out the Shamans before moving to the minions.

You'd have to join the team to enter the mission, at which point, you would be SSK-exemplared down to 21. I also assumed that you wouldn't be trying to quit the team while in the mission to defeat the enemies by yourself (without the team) as that would be counter to the Stormy wanting her phat XP.

This could be tricky: with me along, the team has plenty of knockback/knockdown, but not much else for mitigation. BP are nicely vulnerable to being knocked around, and do mostly (IIRC) smashing and lethal damage, which the tank should be about 50% resistant to. Thorns, on the other hand, tend to have exotic damage types, and the ghosts are immune to knockback.

Against BP spawns, the tank, the defender, and I could all take the alpha: M30 Grenade lets me put half of them on their backs, Freezing Rain lets the defender do the same, and the tank simply has good survivability. After that, I concentrate on whatever is the biggest threat.

Against Thorns, especially ghost-heavy spawns, it's harder. I'm not sure what I'd do.

Well, this isn't so much a Blaster Tactics, as it is Tactics in general.

Problem here is... I'm not such a hot Group Leader. So I think I will have to fall back on an old standby: Pulling.

Fortunately, this mission is in the sewers, so line of sight breaks are all over. Instead of having the Scrapper or Tanker hit the group first, or the defender try to tank, I would pull the spawn to a different location, where we can all wail on them. Preferably, I will draw them to a corner, where the Stormie can then keep them mostly trapped. Once there, the Tanker and Scrapper can handle themselves, while I start in with my AoEs and/or taking out priority targets.

The various bosses and LTs are going to be an issue no matter what we do - and the bosses will be there, as you CAN'T turn off bosses in teams.

It will be slower, but I think this tactic will have the best over all survival. If this still isn't working... well, that's the point to suggest we lower the difficulty (regardless of the Defender's wishes, less enemies/less powerful enemies that we can handle without wiping will be better overall than enemies that are killing us every other spawn...)

If that STILL doesn't do the trick... well, then we may be SOL. This is especially true do to me usually having a limited play window - as slow as we would be moving in this mission, I doubt I would have time for anything else...

1/ Me, using inspirations if necessary.
2/ I use everything I have available non-stop.

Always works, on every AT and every team, for everything except a master run. If it's not broken...

My rule of thumb for teams is never trust anyone else with something you can do yourself. Act as if you were solo and consider anything your teammates do as a bonus rather than a given, and you always win.

Have the tank go in first and the stormie drop Freezing Rain a few seconds after he engages. That way, they are focused on the tank, but Freezing Rain will be mitigating what they are able to do. The scrapper should be directed to join the fight right about now (pretty much right as Freezing Rain hits). The stormie should have Snow Storm on something by now as well, hopefully something that will live long enough for it to be useful.

(I would be counting on the stormie to have some idea what she is doing in this case, she shouldn't need to be directed much)

This way, since the tank is a brand new player, he is getting a chance to learn what his AT should be doing in combat, keeping enemy attention away from his teammates. The scrapper should be getting the gist of her job as well, killing things before they can kill her or her teammates. I would also tell the scrapper to focus (literally) on LTs.

You didn't mention what powersets I was running, so we'll go with Sonic/Mental.

Immediately after the scrapper jumps in (possibly simultaneously) I hop in and fire Drain Psyche. Then hop out and fire Howl/Psychic Scream. Then turn my attention to any Shamans or Mages and use Shriek/Scream/Shout to bring them down.

Wash rinse repeat, with adjustments as necessary.

Should get through the mission with a minimum of fuss.

If they're getting back from the hospital, I stay quiet. If we teamwipe twice, I'll say I have to go and putter at WW for a while.

The tank should lead. But I won't say it to the team. I will target through him, as long as he can target in a timely manner. If not, Cat.

The key is to listen to others, find a role for each teammate that they're likely to enjoy (it might as well be fun) and to be able to handle, and take it as a challenge (because it will be). Fortunately, AT choices and build choices tend to be a good guide concerning how a player wants to have fun, and so I'd use that information.

Aggro distribution and management will be key, and using terrain will sometimes be very helpful as well (perhaps even necessary). As resources, even badly built scraps / tanks can hold a decent amount of aggro (as long as they take their mez toggle or click power), if you point them in the right direction. And, the defender seems able to make good use of the powers available to her, which should be good enough. Plus, freezing rain, hurricane, and O2 boost can help noticeably for mitigation and recovery. There's even some team stealth in there, for added safety. In fact, a stormie in such situations, when well played, is a literal and real force of nature who can greatly mitigate incoming damage. Overall, this is a workable team, even if the going will be slow.

I'd alternate the handling of alpha between myself, the defender, and the tank. I would sometimes pull to reposition mobs so that terrain could be used to advantage, sometimes ask the defender to lead with freezing rain (ie: from behind cover) and have the tank then charge in, and sometimes the tank would take alpha. Still, the tank would take most alphas, with the defender offering freezing rain, snowstorm, and O2 boost as back-up. The tank will be asked to put brawl on auto-fire, to keep gauntlet working and to keep endurance usage under better control. The scrapper would be asked to handle bothersome (ie: especially mezzing) lieutenants, even if only to pin them for subsequent disposal by my blaster. Tank pins down bosses and keeps their attention, and I focus on cleaning up minions ASAP, then lieutenants, then bosses.

The stormie can do what she loves doing: supporting others with freezing rain over the tank, hurricane to keep my blaster from faceplanting, and O2 boost as needed. If she has the endurance to run steamy mist, that's great. If not (and she probably won't because O2 boost will get a workout, given the situation), that's unfortunate but manageable. If the defender seems reasonably skilled, I'd ask her to do "hurricane tours", in which she would lightly brush up against mobs while circling them, debuffing their "to hit" and pushing them into a tighter group (open spaces) or walk along one wall through an entire spawn, and then repel things into corners and generally keep them on their butts (crowded hallways, and where there are corners into which to push mobs). Gale can also be useful, on occasion.

The challenge would at some point come to feel a little like walking through hipdeep mud, though, and it would stop being fun. Even though I'd probably complete the current mission, I'd probably make continuing on that team contingent on dropping the difficulty.

Interesting problem...

It highlights the reason(s) I'm a solo player.

1> I don't have to assess and evaluate everyone's builds

2> I don't have to lead the team

3> I don't have to deal with situations where poor builds, poor decisions,
and inexperience end up getting *me* killed...


I know that sounds weird in an MMO, but my playstyle is such that I hate
dying more than I enjoy killing, so if I die in a game, as annoying as that
would be to me, I also know that it was my own fault as a soloist and I
need to adjust/improve my approach for that situation...


If I absolutely had to be involved in that team, then I'd insist on some
level of timing... My E3 blaster would take out or cage the most dangerous
non-boss in co-ordination with the Stormy's FR / Hurricane, and the Tank
sharing aggro at that point. As a ranged Blaster, I'd then assess effectiveness
of the opening salvo and adjust from there.

That said, I'm 99% certain that the scenario doesn't occur for me.


Cheers,
4

You run into all kinds.

I was on a team last night where we were managing Council pretty well but they were in huge spawns. We had four blasters and the AoE was good. The Empathy was fast, etc.

One of the blasters rushes into the group and activates self destruct. Sure, he took them out, but it's an odd move in my book. He had some temp rez power and got back up and we went on.

I only use that in the early early game. Sewercide.

You have to many may or may nots in this for a solid answer

Clueless takes powers she likes ? Did she like her secondaries ? If she has a reasonable set of defense powers she needs very little to be an incredible tank, one purple per spawn and steaming mist from the stormy should be more than enough.

Once again when you say Clarks choices are not too bad what do you mean ? Does he have unyielding yet ? If he does he can easily tank the Smash Lethal foes. If he doesn't well you certainly don't want him going up against the thorns as the tank. The fact that he is end intensive should be no big deal, just get him a blue or 2 every couple of spawns.

Seeing as the stormy took all her storm powers she should have thunderclap.

Given what little detail there is, I'd have both the tanker and the scrapper wade in draw aggro then have the stormy hit thunderclap, Followed by freezing rain. After the thunderclap the blaster can cut loose.

The thunderclap will stun almost all the minions and the tank and the scrapper should be able to deal with the damage stream from the LTs and any bosses. AIM+Build UP+AOEs from the blaster on top of the damage bonus from freezing rain should make short work of the rest of the spawn.

If the team is having that much trouble.... i'd mention that the def will get far less exp with +2 bosses but being defeated every spawn then fighting +0 lts but never dying. =P

Then i'd ask why the defender skipped all her attacks if she wanted to be true support? -60% res can easily be achieved and gives a HUGE advantage.

Then i'd say: "brb , cat on fire" before leaving. =D

More seriously... i have no problem helping SG mates that need help for something like an EB or an hard mission or to get a respec on a character they made an error with...
But if someone can't finish a mission because he insist on fighting +4 or AVs instead of EBs, i won't stay long.

The team you describe should have no problem with the mission. Even if she takes cool power, the Clueless would at least have spin and focus (two very flashy attacks) so she'd do good damage. The /stormy would have so much -to-hit and mezz that she could take the alpha. I could then jump one seconde later, with aim+BU thus killing the most dangerous target.


edit: I'm usually not a build nazy....but if someone build in a way i find incredibly stupid AND doesn't get any results, then i usually won't stay to play with them. I always give the benefit of doubts to an unconventionnal build, but i'm expecting to be rewarded for that. =P

pop insps, fireball

Without looking at others' answers:

I would insist that the team turn down the difficulty to something they can handle.

Then me and the stormy would proceed to pretty much duo the mission with the Scrapper possibly helping with Shamans and bosses. I would have the stormy tank and pass her greens and purples as needed. If she's been playing for two years she should know better than to run on "Invincible" even at low levels and with a suboptimal team because it's "teh uber XP."

If they refuse to turn it down, I'd suddenly have something more pressing to do.

The very first thing I'd explain would be a concept called "XP per minute" and how fighting tougher enemies lowers that number because each enemy takes longer to defeat than the added XP gives.