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Lord Recluse is "supposed" to be designed so that no "single" tanker can solo tank him. If my memory serves correctly, you'd need a defense percent rating of about 75% or higher to have a "soft cap" against him, and with the Red Tower active, he's supposed to hit hard enough to over-power even capped Smash / lethal defenses. Another factor to consider is that the Blue Tower boosts Lord Recluse's To-Hit by 30%, ontop of the AV and Level Bonus, so defense based tanks really benefit from taking the blue tower down.
Basically, the design of the TF is supposed to be so that it does not matter what tank you take, so much as it matters what buffs / debuffs you have available for the tank to take advantage of. If you don't have any debuffs with -to-hit or -damage sitting on Recluse, and you don't have anything to buff the tank with, chances are you will go splat.
I do have to be careful on my verbiage here because there are techniques for buff / debuff light teams to work around Lord Recluse's punch, such as the Tank taking a load of purple inspirations in, and using inspirations to maintain a high enough level of defense.
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Pretty much this.|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Lord Recluse is "supposed" to be designed so that no "single" tanker can solo tank him. If my memory serves correctly, you'd need a defense percent rating of about 75% or higher to have a "soft cap" against him, and with the Red Tower active, he's supposed to hit hard enough to over-power even capped Smash / lethal defenses. Another factor to consider is that the Blue Tower boosts Lord Recluse's To-Hit by 30%, ontop of the AV and Level Bonus, so defense based tanks really benefit from taking the blue tower down.
Basically, the design of the TF is supposed to be so that it does not matter what tank you take, so much as it matters what buffs / debuffs you have available for the tank to take advantage of. If you don't have any debuffs with -to-hit or -damage sitting on Recluse, and you don't have anything to buff the tank with, chances are you will go splat. I do have to be careful on my verbiage here because there are techniques for buff / debuff light teams to work around Lord Recluse's punch, such as the Tank taking a load of purple inspirations in, and using inspirations to maintain a high enough level of defense. |
You just may need to figure out what the best support toon for a tanker is.
Also, have them use inspirations. I've tanked Recluse on a WP/EM without support, but I still maintained use of inspirations to do it (and just relying on purples wasn't the answer for my go at it). And mind you this wasn't a planned thing, it was more of a "the /RAD left, on the last mission, and we might as well try to beat it" type of deal.
One problem I do find, is finding the right support.
Seeing as how Shield Tankers are the popular tanker (with reason I admit, though I sadly get tired of seeing one of the least used powers in comic books, become the majority power set in a superhero game)....assuming they're softcapped...I'd likely go for a /Thermal.To bad they're hard to find/not always set up to backup the team (or just don't want to).
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Originally Posted by je_saist
there are techniques to work around Lord Recluse's punch, such as the Tank taking a load of purple inspirations in, and using inspirations to maintain a high enough level of defense.
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I did just that on my fire/mace and successfully tanked old spiderback, and that was before Physical Perfection, which if you were building solely to survive an encounter like that on a burn tanker it would definitely help.
As far as the OP's question, why not show your build you might get some tips that can help for round two, since WP can definitely tank LR.
It's definitely NOT Granite or bust for the big spider guy.
I'm not a tank fan and I don't build new ones. Having said that, my first character (and 50) is an Inv/ that is soft capped to s/l and I think energy as well, with 1 foe in range. I'll bring him on an STF when my SG teams really need one. With an Emp babysitter it's always been a trivial encounter. Without that, it's time to raid the bin in my base for Tier 3 insps. One purple T3 covers the To-Hit buff. Then 3 oranges (to cap energy resistance) at a time until the red tower is down. Devote 2 columns to green T3s just in case. A column of blues helps as well for his end draining Channel Gun.
Lastly, pray your teammates can take the towers can quickly.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
It's not that hard if you're prepared... given my choice I'd run my Invuln over my Granite tanker.
Here's the basics of what you'll need.
- While the blue tower's up you need 75% defense to floor his tohit chance... if you're built to the 45% soft cap that's slightly more than one large purple inspiration per minute.
- While the red tower's up he hits like a truck, so if you aren't at the 90% resistance cap to S/L/E then a couple of large orange inspirations per minute help lots.
- For those times when he gets lucky it's helpful to carry a few large green inspirations; particularly before the red tower dies.
Here's my basic strategy for LR, which if I'm solo tanking depends on my inspiration tray until the red & blue towers fall. First, my basic loadout:
10 large purple inspirations, 5 large orange inspirations and 5 large green inspirations. On a typical run I'll use 4-5 purples and a couple of oranges; usually one or two greens.
Ok, you've loaded up your tray and the team's ready. The towers should fall in this order - Red, Blue, Orange & Green. I pop a large purple and one large orange and jump into melee with LR; taunt goes on auto. One of the debuffers tosses a toggle debuff on LR to prevent him summoning Banes and I pull him into the back corner behind the green tower. I keep one purple and one orange active until the red tower falls, then I allow the orange to expire while keeping one purple up as the blue tower goes down. Once red & blue are down I'm home free and allow all insps to expire... if LR gets lucky I hit Dull Pain or pop a green.
As you're willpower you'll need to modify things somewhat; assuming you haven't built your defenses to the 45% soft cap you'll need enough purples to make up the difference and you may have more need of oranges. As hard as LR hits you won't be able to depend on your regen to keep up... two lucky shots in a row can easily drop you.
Another option of course is team buffs... if you have a sonic and a force fielder then life is easy... and you won't need the purple/orange insps. That's a rare occurrence though so don't base your strategy around it.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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This, exactly --- which more or less raises the question as to whether the STF is broken and not much fun. (Ghost Widow is probably even more broken than Recluse is, and the entire design is even more unfair to scrappers than it is to tankers.)
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Lord Recluse is "supposed" to be designed so that no "single" tanker can solo tank him. If my memory serves correctly, you'd need a defense percent rating of about 75% or higher to have a "soft cap" against him, and with the Red Tower active, he's supposed to hit hard enough to over-power even capped Smash / lethal defenses.
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<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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Having a challenging encounter for the end game is considered broken?
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
This, exactly --- which more or less raises the question as to whether the STF is broken and not much fun. (Ghost Widow is probably even more broken than Recluse is, and the entire design is even more unfair to scrappers than it is to tankers.)
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I'll have to disagree, the STF is probably my favorite TF in the game. Yes, it's hard... it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be the hardest TF blueside to challenge high end level 50 characters.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
This, exactly --- which more or less raises the question as to whether the STF is broken and not much fun. (Ghost Widow is probably even more broken than Recluse is, and the entire design is even more unfair to scrappers than it is to tankers.)
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There's lots of ways to handle the challenges... GW is easy to deal with if you've thought it out. Either have a tank taunt her from range so she never uses her heal or make sure everyone in melee has soft capped negative defense. The hold can be handled by soft capped defense or by stacking anti-mez buffs on the tank; it takes 8 stacked clear mind/increase density buffs.
Lord Recluse is supposed to be the toughest AV in the game and the most dangerous; he's still relatively easy to handle if you approach him with some thought.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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An encounter where any one of the ATs or powersets can't contribute anything at all, or where one of a small handful of power sets are required for success, is a broken encounter. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
Having a challenging encounter for the end game is considered broken?
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Tanking the Recluse encounter requires both softcapped resistances and defenses above the softcap, easily achievable by only some Tanker primaries, or the prodigious consumption of top tier inspirations that must be hoarded or bought. This alone would make it a borderline broken encounter. More importantly, the Recluse fight all but requires a toggled debuff from a defender, controller, or blaster ancillary pool. Not every power set of the required ATs even gets one. This too suggests that the encounter is broken.
Only a scrapper with softcapped melee or negative defense, or a ranged attack, can contribute to the Ghost Widow fight. I'd call that an obviously broken encounter.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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This is false.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
An encounter where any one of the ATs or powersets can't contribute anything at all, or where one of a small handful of power sets are required for success, is a broken encounter.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
Tanking the Recluse encounter requires both softcapped resistances and defenses above the softcap, easily achievable by only some Tanker primaries, or the prodigious consumption of top tier inspirations that must be hoarded or bought. This alone would make it a borderline broken encounter. More importantly, the Recluse fight all but requires a toggled debuff from a defender, controller, or blaster ancillary pool. Not every power set of the required ATs even gets one. This too suggests that the encounter is broken.
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This is working as intended.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
Only a scrapper with softcapped melee or negative defense, or a ranged attack, can contribute to the Ghost Widow fight. I'd call that an obviously broken encounter.
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I call it working as intended.
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I have a complaint about this.|
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
I'll have to disagree, the STF is probably my favorite TF in the game. Yes, it's hard... it's supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be the hardest TF blueside to challenge high end level 50 characters.
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I always hear people talking smack about how they run this TF easily, and acting like it's a farm mission or something. I've been on it a few times with pick-up groups who expressed this attitude, swaggering in like they know what they're doing, expensive set IO bonuses showing in their information tabs.
This weekend we never even made it to Lord Recluse.
After finally lurching past Dr. Aeon with heavy casualties, we faced the Recluse's four signature-villain associates. Efforts to pull or isolate one were laughably bad; the response of the players was worse. Despite knowing we couldn't take on more than one -- and after it had been amply demonstrated in case there were any doubters -- each time we got more than one pulled, players would struggle to fight on, burning all their inspirations, after the retreat warning had been given and some of us had already retreated. In some cases one or two heroic souls went all-out against ALL FOUR AVs, burning up inspirations and temp powers and consuming long-recharge rezzes on a sure loss. One of our Defenders went afk for a shower during the fights. Some people dropped permanently and others crashed and had to return after file-checking.
It was a long-drawn out disaster (we quit shortly before the four-hour mark).
I don't mind it being hard, and I don't mind people being newcomers to the TF. I don't even mind trying and losing in good faith. But please don't act like you're God's gift to the Statesman Task Force, some kind of expert who regards it as routine, and then spend the TF asking what you should be doing (and then not doing it), or worse, afk, or panicking and not trying to cooperate with the team's strategy.
If we are to die, let us die like men. -- Patrick Cleburne
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The rule is that they must be loved. --Jayne Fynes-Clinton, Death of an Abandoned Dog
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This hits most of the key info you need to know about the Recluse encounter. My tactics differ a little bit from CMA, but not significantly.|
Originally Posted by Call Me Awesome
It's not that hard if you're prepared... given my choice I'd run my Invuln over my Granite tanker.
Here's the basics of what you'll need.
Here's my basic strategy for LR, which if I'm solo tanking depends on my inspiration tray until the red & blue towers fall. First, my basic loadout: 10 large purple inspirations, 5 large orange inspirations and 5 large green inspirations. On a typical run I'll use 4-5 purples and a couple of oranges; usually one or two greens. Ok, you've loaded up your tray and the team's ready. The towers should fall in this order - Red, Blue, Orange & Green. I pop a large purple and one large orange and jump into melee with LR; taunt goes on auto. One of the debuffers tosses a toggle debuff on LR to prevent him summoning Banes and I pull him into the back corner behind the green tower. I keep one purple and one orange active until the red tower falls, then I allow the orange to expire while keeping one purple up as the blue tower goes down. Once red & blue are down I'm home free and allow all insps to expire... if LR gets lucky I hit Dull Pain or pop a green. As you're willpower you'll need to modify things somewhat; assuming you haven't built your defenses to the 45% soft cap you'll need enough purples to make up the difference and you may have more need of oranges. As hard as LR hits you won't be able to depend on your regen to keep up... two lucky shots in a row can easily drop you. Another option of course is team buffs... if you have a sonic and a force fielder then life is easy... and you won't need the purple/orange insps. That's a rare occurrence though so don't base your strategy around it. |
*) When I pull Recluse, I pull him around one of four the pillars around his plaza. I do this for two reasons. First, it breaks line of sight after I taunt him, forcing him to come to melee range without getting off many ranged shots. Second, if you start running low on inspirations, teammates can drop them onto you without the risk of being hit by his AoEs. When the team is down to the last tower, then I move him to where CMA mentioned. (The reason to move him into the corner is so that the team can drop aoe knockbacks (like Bonfire) to push his summons into the corner.)
*) I don't even bother with orange inspirations. For the first two minutes of the fight, I pop SoW - combined with Tough that's 90% s/l res and around 30% energy res (he almost never uses his ranged abilities in melee range, so this isn't a big concern). When SoW is about to drop, I'll use Magus for another minute of 90% s/l res. By the time it's dropping, the Red Tower is usually dead. (I have survived the Red Tower at 66% s/l res, but it's not preferable.) If the group takes longer than 3 minutes to kill the Red Tower, then I'd suggest bringing some oranges.
*) Monitor your defense. Recluse does have a few attacks with def debuffs (the ones where he uses his mechanical legs). If you're hit by those, it's possible for them to drop you below 75% def. If this happens, eat another purple.
The most important thing to do is hit 75% def to s/l/e, though.
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
This, exactly --- which more or less raises the question as to whether the STF is broken and not much fun. (Ghost Widow is probably even more broken than Recluse is, and the entire design is even more unfair to scrappers than it is to tankers.)
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Within the context of this game I'd say that "preparation" and "team makeup" are the polar opposite to the qualities that make it unique and enjoyable among competing MMOs. All characters are supposed to be able to run all the content, and the lack of a debuffer, a buffer, a healer, a ranged or a melee attacker, or for that matter a tank aren't supposed to leave any team dead in the water. |
Originally Posted by Clouded
Because we came prepared and took 10 minutes to make sure we had the best combination of support, etc for our team make-up.
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The STF is not like that, and as such is a problem in the context of this game.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
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Just to be clear, you think any combination of any ATs/powersets should be able to roll through any content without any preparation at all (such as buying/using inspirations)?|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
Within the context of this game I'd say that "preparation" and "team makeup" are the polar opposite to the qualities that make it unique and enjoyable among competing MMOs. All characters are supposed to be able to run all the content, and the lack of a debuffer, a buffer, a healer, a ranged or a melee attacker, or for that matter a tank aren't supposed to leave any team dead in the water.
The STF is not like that, and as such is a problem in the context of this game. |
Am I misinterpreting what you said, or is that really what you meant?
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Yes, that is fairly close to what I meant. (I doubt that a team full of controllers would "roll through" much of anything unless one was Kinetics. But they ought to be able to succeed at any task.) |
Originally Posted by Sarrate
Just to be clear, you think any combination of any ATs/powersets should be able to roll through any content without any preparation at all (such as buying/using inspirations)?
Am I misinterpreting what you said, or is that really what you meant? |
I have always understood this to be a basic premise of this game's design philosophy and market strategy. No team should hit a brick wall because of the lack of a specific AT, much less a specific power set. Any mission where specific inspirations are part of the design of an encounter ought to be made available by the mission itself, the way the Eden trial works.
If these design decisions are in fact fundamental to the game, I think it follows that the STF is indeed broken.
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
I often bring scrappers to the STF. They aren't softcapped and contribute significantly versus GW.
Strategy, tactics and positioning are the key rather than softcap or ranged attacks.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
FYI, I've seen an Emp Defender using a long range attack keep Lord Recluse busy while the rest of us, including the tank, took down the towers. Shocked the heck out of me since I'd always seen tanks take him on, but I ended up impressed by the strategy.
So yes, you can do it just fine without a tank or without the tank taking on Recluse.
Throwing darts at the board to see if something sticks.....
Come show your resolve and fight my brute!
Tanks: Gauntlet, the streak breaker and you!
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Originally Posted by PapaSlade
Rangle's right....this is fun.
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Your doubt is not supported by my own experiences. I'm in a group that periodically puts together all troller STFs. "roll through" is an apt term.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
(I doubt that a team full of controllers would "roll through" much of anything unless one was Kinetics. But they ought to be able to succeed at any task.)
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To take it to the next level, I used to do all fire/rad STFs with a crew that would finish them in 40ish minutes waaaay before that became a cool thing to do.
Global = Hedgefund (or some derivation thereof)
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Oh boy would you have a surprise coming on a full team of controllers. Frankly, nothing I know of in the game rolls through content faster than a team of Fire/Rad controllers... they've done the STF in under 25 minutes.|
Originally Posted by Heraclea
Yes, that is fairly close to what I meant. (I doubt that a team full of controllers would "roll through" much of anything unless one was Kinetics. But they ought to be able to succeed at any task.)
I have always understood this to be a basic premise of this game's design philosophy and market strategy. No team should hit a brick wall because of the lack of a specific AT, much less a specific power set. Any mission where specific inspirations are part of the design of an encounter ought to be made available by the mission itself, the way the Eden trial works. If these design decisions are in fact fundamental to the game, I think it follows that the STF is indeed broken. |
I've run successful STF's with the sacred combo of tank/dps/support, I've run it with all scrappers, with all controllers and with many combinations in between. You just need to adjust your tactics to your team composition... a strategy that works with the classic tank/blaster/support team won't work with a controller team. You evaluate your team and adapt to what you have.
As long as you have competent players and decent damage nearly any combination will work. I've been on teams with such a horrible combination of AT's that you'd think it was hopeless and succeeded. I've also been on stacked teams that should have breezed through that failed due to poor player skill.
To sum it up, you don't need any particular "magic" combination to handle the STF, you simply need good players and a little thought. Yes, it's harder than a typical AV battle. It's the hardest TF in the blueside game, by design, and it's been done successfully by a team of 8 blasters at least once that I know of. I've done it several times on a team of 8 controllers for the Guardian All Controller TF's we used to run.
COH has just been murdered by NCSoft. http://www.change.org/petitions/ncso...city-of-heroes
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You're kidding, right? I've seen a team of controllers "roll through" the STF. Not a MoSTF attempt and we were goofing around and chatting and had exactly ONE casualty and that was when someone got careless (it was against Black Scorpion - the wuss).
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Originally Posted by Heraclea
Yes, that is fairly close to what I meant. (I doubt that a team full of controllers would "roll through" much of anything unless one was Kinetics. But they ought to be able to succeed at any task.)
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Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
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If so then they failed that since the closed beta when they introduced him. With any type of tanker. If not then maybe they did read the European Forums. Edit: I also sent Bridger a PM saying the ones in RV were too easy or something similar.
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Originally Posted by je_saist
Lord Recluse is "supposed" to be designed so that no "single" tanker can solo tank him.
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He will honor his words; he will definitely carry out his actions. What he promises he will fulfill. He does not care about his bodily self, putting his life and death aside to come forward for another's troubled besiegement. He does not boast about his ability, or shamelessly extol his own virtues. - Sima Qian.
For the original OP, like many of the others in the thread, any tank power combination will work for STF and made easier by tuning the team toward any deficiencies you might have.
Not capped on resistance? Thermal and sonic shields highly desirable? You got your resists capped? Maybe FF and Cold shields will beef up your defenses.
MoSTF is by far, the most challenging and rewarding tf I love to run. I actually suffer from withdrawal when I can't run them regularly. I love the coordination and teamwork that comes together (or maybe not) on a master run and even knowing the tried and true strategies, can yet result in a death and loss of the master badge.
As part of the tanking strategies, loading out your inspiration tray can be very important on the tank of type you are using against LR. Again, capped on s/l/en? Probably don't need oranges, but purples to avoid getting hit so much from LR. For my WP tank, I bring a mixture of purps, oranges, greens. For my invuln tank, I'll stick with purples and greens. On a granite, you're likely to go with just purples and maybe some greens. Bear in mind your inspiration tray loadout may be affected by your team composition but for me, it doesn't stray far.
And others have already tipped off some of the techniques they used such as backing up against a pillar. This also provides additional benefit if LR just happens to knock you back, you're not going anywhere out of melee range.
The Mentor Project - Because we were all new to the game at one time...
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=212083
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What do they do? |
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
I often bring scrappers to the STF. They aren't softcapped and contribute significantly versus GW.
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(Please don't say "offtank the other AV(s) that got pulled along with GW.")
<《 New Colchis / Guides / Mission Architect 》>
"At what point do we say, 'You're mucking with our myths'?" - Harlan Ellison
What kind of Tanker do you need for the end fight on Statesman's Task Force? Is it granite or bust?
A group of us tried it for the first time, and I was on a fairly IOd out WP Tanker and I had a pet Defender, and spider-face was still two or three shotting me. I couldn't last long enough for the rest of my team to down the towers.
Halp plox!
Cheers!
OMG! How like, totally kewl are these characters?!1