How to do an 10 hour, 21 minute Posi (and a QOL change to help us not do that anymore)

Well, the OP did make it clear that people were logging out, not just DCing, and implied that they weren't going to return.

If your team leader drops you for a simple DC with no other good reason, well, you're probably better off that way.

A good leader won't kick someone without good reason.

I'd agree with Tripp on this point.

I'll go a little further to back Tripp's idea; when a teammate leaves the game during a TF/SF, you don't always know if they disconnected or if they quit the task force. Having each teammate's status always visible for TFs/SFs would be helpful, even if just for that purpose. The ability to easily and conveniently adjust spawn size if several teammates log out, but don't quit the task force, would also be helpful and appreciated.

Incidentally, its true that what my teammate and I did for Posi doesn't rise to the level of escalating commitment. That's a term typically used to describe important stuff, and not an afternoon and part of an evening spent putzing around with Vahz, Clocks, and COT. What we did was rather silly, I believe, but it was a day off and I was determined to finish this particular Posi; I was determined to finish because I had a few other aborted attempts at Posi after teammates logged but didn't quit, and spawn sizes had remained large.

As a (last) plug for Weick's work, anybody who would like can read about the Mann Gulch fire, and Weick's analysis of the incident. Weick's work about firefighters has made him well known and the article for which I'm providing a link captures some of Weick's thinking through the re-telling and analysis of a memorable (and tragic, and true) story; even though the article is about deadly errors made by firefighters, it is likely to be a worthwhile read for anybody in the software business. If you like Weick's article and want to learn more about his thinking, you can read his classic book “Sensemaking in Organizations.”

Interesting article. The idea that I'd outbid the $1 in the scenario blows my mind, until you throw in a little "pie in the sky": suggest that the winner of the $1 might receive interest or other monitary bonuses for the next 5 years, but no promises and no commitments to how much more if it does happen. Just the suggestion of $1 turning into something more down the road will have folks speculating to $20 in no time. And you've promised nothing.

I think one of the Shard TFs took our team somewhere in the 10+ hour range... I want to say it took 12, but I am fairly certain that is me adding time to it due to how painful it was.

Dr Q, 13 hours, but then we were lvl 40-41 at the start and doing it on invincible

A fire/nrg blaster would be OK, the point being that you can get ludicrous amounts of global recharge meaning aim, BU fireball etc recharge fast, and enough recovery to power this. You can do similar with some scrappers. As is pointed out in later posts, the missions would be set for 2 not 3.

My toon is far from perfect for this (perma 17 fire/nrg with a full set of 20 SOs plus stealth and -KB IOs). I can't solo it that fast because I run out of end (about 2.5 hours), but can duo it fast. My regular duo partners are another fire blaster and an arch/mental.

One of the major advantages a 50 has is being able to carry 20 insps. If doing this with a second account, you leave the second toon at posi or Azuria.

The FEMA workers, I run to the end, do rollister, free the first worker, deal with the ambush, lead him to the second worker avoiding the mobs I can, free the second, swallow 4 purple insps and walk thru the rest of the mish back to the start with a BF in reserve if hit by a mez.

I tend to be skeptical of claims of regular sub-hour times on this as well. I've run dozens of solo & duo Posi TF's, and just zoning and traveling between missions eats up a HUGE portion of the time even with shortcuts like Ouro, WW & base dayjob TP powers, mission TP power, Pocket D porter, etc. Sure, someone could get lucky with mission placement, and easy maps and pull off a really good time every once in a while, but to do so regularly? I'd have to see it to believe it.

I remember when all the Posi's I did used to be 16 hours with a full team. Eventually I stopped doing with a full team. I would only do it with 3 folks at most and we would all have stealth. I cant see why teams would have a harder time now all the exemplar changes and ninja run. Having stamina and mez protection and a travel power should shave off a huge amount of time on this. I dont plan on doing posi again until GR so I can solo it with a stalker.

In all the project work I've done in the last 12 years... this rule applied to 90% of them. "Oh.. .you've spent $9M of the $10M we budgeted and you need another $3M to finish? Well, we can't shutdown the project now, can we? And we're too far behind schedule to do more value engineering? ...well, here you go."

(by the way .. "value engineering" is just regular engineering, but when you tell a non-engineer that's what you're doing they think it's good and they'll leave you alone to get your work done. And yes... I do work inside a Dilbert cartoon.)

And yet the Devs continue to seem blind in the "Escalation of Commitment" inducing nature that is the Positron TF. This is pretty much the first TF a Hero player will encounter in the game and it sets a bad pace. New players are likely to be put off TFs once they've done a Positron TF, and need to be convinced by more experienced players that other TFs are... "Really, its not as bad a the Positron. It can be done in like half the time, or even less."

I only do the Positron on toons that I really want to get the Task Force Commander Accolade for. Mostly melee toons in my case. But I still have some Melee toons that are missing the Positron because I am finding it difficult to muster up the will to commit the time. Let alone try to convince enough other players to make that commitment with me.

I've got you beat:



We broke the timer... >.>

We were originally a team of 4, but didn't have time to finish. We never all ended back online at the same time, so after a week or so, when 3 of the 4 of us were on, we finished it, spawned for 4. We died a lot.

This is a very very good suggestion. I'd just add one thing to it: Offline members of the TF are moved to the bottom of the Team window.

Well as any veteran of the game can tell you that is why each TF has a MINIMUM!!! I can solo a Posi with 2 other players AFK in the base or logged off in about 2 hours. I have seen posts about Posi TF before and said the same thing...Stop maxing them out!!! Get 3 and go...If others want to go, they can make a team too. Stop complaining and learn some tactics and the way the game operates. It doesn't take a rocket scientist...

Superb idea.

I honestly don't think this would happen. Team leads have a vested interest in completing the TF; they recruited everyone in the first place, after all. I don't see why they'd insta-kick anyone.



I believe it was TopDoc who posted an insanely optimized Posi build for a Fire/NRG blaster about a year and a half ago. You're right about the vast advantages a 50 has. Not only in insps but in slots. An amazing thing TopDoc's build did was slot WAY over the ED limits for the available powers so that after enhancement strengths were reduced due to auto-exemping you ended up with slotting that was close to the ED caps.

I wish I could dig up that build because it was a work of art. Picked all kinds of screwy powers starting at 18 to be mules for purples. It had huge recharge and recovery bonuses, big runspeed bonuses and decent ranged defense. I remember looking at that build and just thinking to myself, "I don't care how long I sat with Mids, I never could've come up with this myself. "

Was it really that long ago? Well, I solo'd Posi (spawned for 2) in 70 minutes with that build. I think I may have had my second char as the leader sitting at Posi to talk to him (I don't recall), but the Blaster did all the mission work. That was before SSK and having powers available up to 20. I've leveled up a Fire/Psi Blaster since then who will probably be moderately faster, but I haven't finished slotting her up. Purples have gotten rather expensive. She has Drain Psyche, so very high Regen and Recovery a lot of the time. And she has World of Confusion which can be slotted with the full purple set for another +5% Ranged Defense.

I think Catwhoorg mentioned soloing Posi in under an hour. It is certainly possible, but it starts getting really hard to shave off more time. Capped runspeed from Super Speed gets you around, Raptor Pack get you over bumps, Oro portal and all of the other TP related powers help, and a high AoE damage powerset lets you steamroll where needed. But there's nothing that will let you get around needing to defeat X mobs and travel Y distance. A faster machine for faster zoning would probably let me shave off 10 minutes. With that and a purpled Fire/Psi with decent mission placement, I could see 50 minutes.

As to the OP's point, yes it would be VERY nice to be able to drop people who are gone. I've been running some PUG TFs on Infinity recently, and there have been a few people who DCd and never came back.

And yes, veterans know that big Posi's are usually bad Posi's. CoT Spectres stack ToHit debuffs, and characters don't have enough Accuracy slotted to get around that. Clocks drain END, and some people may not have Stamina even with SSK allowing powers up to 20. Vahz slows from Morts and Reapers stack to massively slow any high threat target, and Abominations do nasty Toxic damage that almost no one resists. Tanker defenses at that level are pretty wimpy, and are generally not up to the task of surviving large spawns without significant help. AoEs from squishies can result in a quick trip to the hospital.

All that said, Posi is really easy in a big team with the right support and good players. A Kin Def will solve the END problem plus provide heals, while a bubbler or two of any sort will help keep people alive. Recall Friend can make up for slow people. Leadership Tactics will help against the CoT, and will help if you have people in the team with poor Accuracy slotting. Good players can put together decent attack chains, they slot decent Enhancements, they play together, they keep buffs up, and they're simply far more effective than what you might end up with in a PUG. Just to be on the safe side though, I try to do most early TFs with the minimum number of people.

As expected, I've had mixed success in my recent Infinity PUG TFs. I've had a few people who go AFK for a while, or who take forever to get to the next mission. But I've also had a few who could solo the TF, and one who even beat me on Fed-Ex and patrol mission. The best thing to do it be up front about how long a TF will likely take. And know when to cut your losses.

who died and made you god?