No hablo "FF Defender" ...

When you join a PuG people have expectations about you based on your powersets. If you aren't going to fulfill those expectations then you should really warn the team ahead of time to avoid conflict. If the team is cool with it then no problem but if not it's better for everyone to find out ahead of time.

I would have just put a note on the player that they were useless and should be avoided in the future. Kicking? Not my style. Wouldn't have objected to a leader who did it though. If you have a buffing set and don't buff teammates who would benefit, you are playing poorly.

The player has every right to build their toon however he/she desires.

As does the team leader have every right to build their team how they see fit.


Personally I never take a concept build on a PUG out of respect for the other players, but that is just silly ol' Cal and his nice ways

I don't really get kicking someone from a team for any reason other than they're being a jerk and/or really really stupid. In fact, it bothers me a lot most of the time.

For instance, over the double xp weekend I joined a PuG for some random radio missions in Talos. The team leader invited a bunch of people, and one of them, a warshade, zoned into Talos and after a minute or so the leader said, "Dude, sorry, you're level 6" and kicked him. I was kinda shocked about that, so I didn't even have the presence of mind to tell the leader what a jerk he was before I quit the team.

I'm with the OP. If I'd been team leader I'd have given her the boot immediately (At least, as soon as I was able to /info her and see her gimpy build). Sure, the ITF is easy, but if people are forming a team to run it then they're after exp/inf/merits/whatever and nobody wants to have to do it slower because the team's only defender can't pull his/her weight.

If the difference is doing the thing in 30-45 minutes, or taking an hour or more, I'm gonna boot the sucker and get us someone who's more likely to let us destroy everything faster. If I just wanted to chat with fun people I'd hang out in Pocket D or something.

I don't care what you want to build. But if you're joining my team you'd better have a build that's not skipping powers that are extremely beneficial to the team.

If I'd been team leader and the defender had made that "Oh, but I tank so well when I'm solo with this build!" remark, I'd have said "Fine, go solo then" and booted her. Not like it's ever hard to find a replacement player for an ITF.

I suspect if the people here who say "allow any concept build on a team" were to make an empathy defender with NO heals and join PuGs, they'd find quite a few that were not happy with that build. Although it might be fun to try. ^_^ (You'd have to use "Doctor" or "Nurse" or some sort of Healzor name just for added stupidity.)

To me, a shield defender (of any stripe) without shields is the same thing. It's true that people don't pay as much attention to what the shield defender is doing -- in fact the team I was on tonight had a bubbler who would allow bubbles to drop for sometimes half a mission before remembering to apply them again -- but as I was playing an ice defender, nobody really noticed or said anything. If I let my ice shields drop as well though, people started taking damage quickly.

Shields -- and especially defensive shields -- make such a huge difference in a team's survivability (unless everyone on the team is softcapped, I suppose). I can understand joining random pickup groups with odd builds but for a Task Force you really gotta warn people, they're committing to maybe an hour or two to finish it, and not everybody checks your build before starting the TF. If you can't keep people alive in some way, then you're not fulfilling the role people expect of a defender (what the AT was created for), and could potentially cripple the team's ability to finish. Warn people.

I know people say ITF is easy, and it is, but teams still fail it. I was on one two weeks ago that failed, in my opinion because more than half of the team were builds that required someone else to carry the weight, and there weren't enough useful people on the team to make up for them.

thi sis common on the handful of MM I have with FF I never liked the power set and haven't grabed the grant bubbles powers.

Doom/Batman in 2012

The Resistance has boobs too, and better hair!

To be honest, I'd consider a bubbleless FF along the same lines as a Kin without speed boost, a buffless Emp, or a petless Mastermind; sure, do whatever you want on your own time and with whoever will put up with you, but you're basically gimped, not using the best powers your toon has, and if I can find a more competent player to fill your spot I'd gladly boot you.

I know we all like to say how we're wonderful flower children who accept every toon's personal choices, but seriously, at least show common sense. If the team's having trouble and you could help but aren't, it's a problem.