Lessons learned from recent PuG ITFs

I just finished an ITF with a bunch of much more casual players than the standard Virtue ITF group. There were quite a few useful lessons learned in the TF. It took just over three hours to complete (3:05), and really were tested to the limit. The long story starts here, skip to the smiley if you are impatient.

I was on my Claws/Elec stalker (don't laugh too much). My standard lurking around Cimerora led to me seeing a broadcast for an ITF starting up. I threw a quick message at the team leader, and got a response back saying something about not seeing me in the zone search and to tell them when I got there. Thinking about this now, this should have been my first sign of what was to come.

The team ended up with 3 Blasters, a Controller, Stalker, defender, Tanker. We waited a minute while the leader tried to find a controller or defender to add to the team. A level 36 Scrapper found their way into the last spot. This made me happy as we could finally get moving. I was the only villain on the team so had no real clue what powersets anyone was.

We get started, I hop into the first mission and get moving with my normal ITF mindset, Go! I walked into the first pack and waited about twenty seconds, and finally gave up and started fighting them myself. With Shockwave and Ball Lightning I can use my 30% ranged defense and positioning and not get slaughtered. For a little while anyway. After 30 seconds more, no one has still shown up to fight. I go down swinging. I knew at this point it wasn't going to be any normal ITF.

The first mission proceeded without too much excitement, but it was obvious we weren't overpowering the enemies. The leader starting teleporting everyone to the back side of the altar area, so had some experience with the TF. We did solidly well and got Sister Sol free, but I ended up Assembling the Team to the altar to finish the mission as the ambushes were closing in. Mission complete with only one person left alive.

The second mission fairly uneventful. The dark primary tank was in his element, so things went well. Skipping to mission three, we fought our way to the general pack with the bosses who just demolished the tank. He started using hover tanking as a creative solution. It's quite odd for a team on Virtue to actually fight this mission without pulling. It was a fun change of pace and surprisingly not that laggy. Then the tank disconnected. 3 generals left, the computer, and Romulus all still to go. It was gut check time.

While the team waited around for the Tank to come back, which he never did, I beat up on the computer to pass the time. I eventually get some help, and some how we actually took down the computer without all that much trouble. I used a whole bunch of tier 3 inspirations thinking if nothing else I would take it out alone, but Howling Twilight did well for us. I ended up guiding the team the rest of the way since with how underpowered the team was we needed all the tricks we could get to win. We decided to go after the EB general pack next. I have no clue how, but we won without much trouble. It still doesn't make sense to me how that happened.

I pulled the last general, Rommy, and Requim. We beat them all up eventually. There was some Rommy run around since I was using all my ranged attacks on him and the AI goes nuts if it can't fight back. Darkest Night of course aggroed all kinds of stuff while this happened. We won and got our chance with 7 people to go after the last mission. I suggested we try the Rommy battle first so we would know if we had a chance before spending too much more time.

By this time I had a good idea of our team. My /elec Stalker, AKA our tank. A regen scrapper. A Plant/Emp controller who didn't seem to pass out a ton of fortitude. 3 blasters, lots of pistols. And last the dark/dark defender. Obviously there is no way we are going to win a fair fight. Or even a close to fair fight. I remember from way back when that it is possible to ranged damage kill the healer nictus with single target attacks. I test it out with Nemesis Staff, and then Charged Bolts. It works!

So we spend what feels like forever with all our ranged damage characters shooting the Nictus while out of it's range. We kill it, and go to high 5 eachother. We are all stunned, and we get eaten for breakfast. We regroup and do the same to another nictus, this time it was the spawner.

Then comes my favorite moment in the TF. The spawner and the AoE Nictus are stacked on top of each other. Everyone is targeting through me to make sure we are focusing our fire. We kill the spawner, get stunned and smashed just like before. Everyone goes to the hospital, and people start saying stuff like "It looks like we failed", "It was a good try". They were getting ready to quite because they didn't know that we took down a nictus. I had to yell that we just need to ranged blast one more nictus, then simple beat up Romulus which we already did last mission then we win.

We made it all happen eventually. A lot of ambushes and crazy things happened. The controller crashed at some point. We did the hardest couple things with only 6 players. I learned that at least 3 of the players on the team were in the same room as each other. One of them said this was their 4th try to finish the ITF. So that brings me to the moral of the whole story.



There are players who have soloed this TF. This group of friends who can coordinate in the same room had enormous difficulties with it. Even with a team of 7, it was pretty much impossible for them to complete it without someone deconstructing each encounter. The difference in power between the high end and low end characters is hard to comprehend. On the horizon is even more power for the high end as well.

Sounds like a fun ITF. It took too long, so people "crashed."

I'm not exactly sure what to take away from this other than you had the bad luck to endure a sucky ITF. I've been on my fair share of ITFs, and they're always PUGs; I think once, two people knew each other. I've never had a failed ITF and it's never taken longer than an hour and some change. Shrug.

I concur. LGTF can be downright impossible without either a good amount of Psi damage or regen/resist debuffs. First time my ex went against Honoree (This was like my 5th time, only failed once before and that was because half the team crashed), we were doing fine. Until it was time for the Honoree. That didn't go well. I was on my Arch/Mental blaster, and I was the only source of Psi damage, as well as the only source of -regen. I don't remember the team makeup other than myself and my ex (she was on her claw/regen scrap) but we just couldn't do it. We'd get him down to a quarter health, he'd pop Unstop, neutering all damage but my secondary's damage (which I hadn't focused on all that much, having PSW, DP, and Psy Scream; the immob was unenhanced). So he'd regen up to 3/4 or so, despite all my efforts, and when Unstop crashed, we went at him, got him down to 1/4, lather, rinse, repeat. Folks started leaving, she got ticked and quit, and we disbanded. Never had that issue again, honestly. Some PuGs win, some lose. Way of the PuG, lol.

The only choice on a pug that can't knock him out before his Unstop is recharged is ask if anyone has Shivans or the vanguard robot, and drop them on him. I think the VG bot's plasma lasers have -regen or something, too, it might've actually been *intended* to fight Honoree's hax godmode. But I've never failed to kill honoree even on bad pugs.

I failed rommy once. he didn't eat the healer blob because rom was pulled stupid and he was behind a corner or something out of LOS of fluffy, and we couldn't outdamage the stupid thing's healing capability. I've never seen rommy fail to eat his nictus blobs except that one time...of course, most people have enough sense not to try dumb pull techniques on him anymore.

I would have been desk head banging duing tht

Yeah, both ITF and LGTF have their share of horror stories.
Like the time Honoree's Unstoppable was bugged so that it lasted twice as long, meaning that by the time he came out of it he had regened from 1/4 health to 3/4 health. By the time we got him back down to 1/4, it had recharged. Repeat ad nauseam. We gave up.

On one ITF, two people ended up DCing. We had the most fail Bots MM on all of Union with us (If you've played with Him, you know of whom I speak) and the rest of the team was a bit of a mismatch. We didnt even get past the first Nictus. Although I managed to keep Imperious alive for most of it! (Was AR/Pain)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Hmn, I'd argue against the SO level arguement. Really it all comes down to having half competant players who can work as a team. Rommy is a fight that, if brute DPS fails, then tactics can actually work, either by pulling him away from the Nictus or other means. Just most people tend to do the 'quicker' version and pummel with overwhelming damage/debuffs.

The Hydra Trial, now, THAT is something you need heavy preperation for, because doing a PuG on that = death.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

Wait...


you can fail ITF?


O.o