A fun hypothetical: Choose your 8 Man Squad- but choose wisely!

I don't know the answer, so allow me to walk through my process of getting to my answer...

I'll begin by prioritizing the effects I'd like to see on this team:

1) Very high Def. "Very high" meaning at least 55% (room for a debuff or 2)
2) Hard cap resistance
3) Max out +Dmg
4) As much -Res as possible

These are highly valued
5) Good -Regen
6) Status protection

Then a gap to desirable, but not totally required attributes
6) +regen
7) +recov
8) +recharge
9) -ToHit
10) -Dmg
11) Heals

So it's sort of like an Operations Research optimization problem.

How to get high +Def? Colds, FF, VEATs, Traps. Storm and Dark offer some Def. Empathy as well.

How to get high +Res? This is simpler, Sonic by far, then a drop-off to Thermal and also consider Pain Dom, Storm and Dark (the latter 2 specializing in a narrow band of damage types).

How to max out +Dmg? Easy enough... Kinetics. Other sources include Thermal, Empathy, Rad. Also, Assault is great stacked.

-Res is easy enough to find. Dark, Storm, Traps, Cold, TA, Rad, Sonic, Pain Dom, Thermal.

-Regen: Cold, Dark, Traps, Rad, Kin, also anything with Drain Psyche.

Easy (as in no active buffing) status protection comes from Sonic, FF and Traps. Targeted buffs come from Sonic, Empathy, Pain Dom, Thermal and to a lesser extent Kin and Storm.

So let's fill in the gaps. Cold comes up a lot, let's get one of those. On the other hand, only Sonic can really buff +Res, nab one.

Kin fills in nicely, let's go Corr since Kinetics is one of those sets where the primary values aren't a big advantage over secondary values.


That gives
Cold/ Def
Sonic/ Def
Fire/Kin Corr

Let's get another Cold, this one a Corr to buff the other Cold. Now we've achieved our +Def goal, our +Dmg goal and accumulating -res.

Still need more +res, how about a Thermal? Thermal + Sonic Def = 75% resists for teammates. Add a Fire/Thermal Corr.

Now I'm constrained to the meleers, my "pity spots", as it were.

Buffed up Brutes = Tanks survival-wise with significantly higher damage. With these buffs, I'm just looking for damage. So, mix and match Elec/, Fire/, SS/ with /DA, /Elec, /Fire, who cares.

Let's give all the Defs Sonic Blast and Corrs Fire.

My final 8:

Cold/Sonic Def
Sonic/Sonic Def
Fire/Kin Corr
Fire/Cold Corr
Fire/Thermal Corr
Elec/DA brute
Fire/Elec brute
SS/Fire brute

All Corrs/Defs to have Assault, Maneuvers and Tactics.

I'm going to assume 3 being melee is meant, not just tanker, brute, scrapper (ie...I can put a stalker in place of whatever)...also going to assume IOed out toons...

1) Me (KIN/WP Stalker)
2) Electric/Shield Scrapper
3) Shield/Super Strength Brute
4) Rad/Sonic Defender
5) Fire/Cold Corruptor
6) Cold/Sonic Defender
7) Fire/Sonic Corruptor
8) Fire/Thermal Corruptor

2 Colds Should keep the team heavily defensed, while bring the debuffs when needed.
Sonic and Thermal keep the team heavily resistant, while bring more debuffs.
Rad and Thermal provide any needed healing.

Possibly enough AOE, with the added benefit of the Tanker having Sonic's -Resist Toggle going, two cold with Sleet, a Rad putting up -Resist, basically a lot of -Resist going on with this team.

The Sonic Blasting Defenders bringing more -resist, while the Corrs are laying down additional AOE blasts.

The Brute would hopefully be built for aggro management as well, for just in case spots, but the Defenders/Corrs all having Hover to stay out of melee.

The Stalker, would bring additional DPS, relying on Placate -> Brust, while dishing out ST damage, and on this team would likely go unnoticed, as that's a lot of AOE flying around.

Kin's SB would be unneeded, as you figure everyone is IOed for perfection, thusly the AOEs are coming back pretty regularly, and the RAD is adding AM ontop of it.

Thermal is spreading the +ACC/+DMG around (likely to the 2 other Corrs and the Scrapper...with my guess that you can keep 3 perma'ed with the power...i think that's how many I can on my Elec/Thermal, mayeb it was 4).

My Stalker could be Vengeance bait as well, for additional +DMG and defenses, if needed.

AVs should melt, with the spawns not being to much more of a problem.

I'm tired of Jack telling me how to play this game HIS way. Just shoot me in the head.

^

I'll assume he's referring to a post-tower LR......


I'd prolly go this route:


1. SS/SD Brute
2. SS/Fire Brute
3. EM/SD Brute
4. Cold/Sonic Defender
5. Rad/Sonic Defender
6. Fire/Kin Corruptor
7. Fire/Sonic Corruptor
8. Ice/Kin Controller


I like a bit of hard-control... I like Speed Boost, Perma-Fulcrum Shift, AM, and Endless Endo for everyone and their lap dogs...I like Nuke-worthy AOE and ST damage...I like Crippling Resistance, Defense, & Slow Debuffs....

(Hmm...why do I sound like Nickelback on 'Figured You Out' without the sex and drugs? Hmm...perhaps it's because this team IS sex and drugs CoH style?!


Man I'm nasty....!

1. Molly Magma, my Stone/Fire Tanker
2. Spines/Fire Scrapper
3. Fire/Shield Brute
4. Fire/Dark Corr
5. Sonic/Sonic Defender
6. Bots/FF MM
7. Demons/Poison MM
8. Crab, Bane, or Huntsman with Venom grenade. Bane preferred for Poisonous Ray synergy

Granted this team is based purely on speculation on my part about how the buffs and debuffs will play together, but there is a nice wide array of them that all STACK here.

When buffed, ANY Stone/ tank can survive indefinitely outside of Granite against Smash/Lethal opposition regardless of IO slotting, and Granite can be popped when needed.

This team SHOULD melt everything in its path.

1: AR/EM Blaster (Me. I cut through Cimorians easily.)
2: Rad/Sonic Defender (Debuffs, ho!)
3: Inv/SS Tanker (Tanker, Ho! Inv is chosen due to it's near immunity to S/L, which allows the Tanker to dish out some nice damage.)
4: SS/Shield Brute (More AoE damage and fury goodness.)
5: Fire/Anything Blaster (Even more AoE damage.)
6: Fire/Shield Scrapper (One of the best single target damage dealers IIRC.)
7: Plant/Rad Controller (Good control and more debuffs.)
8: Fire/Kin Corruptor (Extra damage for the entire team, and some personal damage.)

This would be my 'fantasy' team. I tried to keep it a wide variety of ATs and only re-use an AT once.

Melee:

Fire/SD Scrapper (Good ST and AoE, can hold aggro)
DM/SD Scrapper (Good ST, reasonable AoE, can hold aggro)
SS/FA Brute (Decent ST, Huge AoE, can hold aggro)

The Rest:

I'd go with Corrs over Defenders for one main reason. With a support stacked team, strength of the debuffs matters less than the force that they're multiplying. With 5 buffer/debuffers, you're not going to notice the weaker buffs/debuffs.

Plus you know how Romans can cause cascading defense failure? Multiple Corruptors cause AV cascading hp failure once you bring it to 50% It's awesome to behold.

So:
Cold/Sonic Defender
Fire/Cold Corr
Fire/Kin Corr
Fire/Traps Corr
Fire/Sonic Corr

The 3 melee can keep everything bunched up and in place for the 4 RoFs to decimate everything.

Dual Colds for crazy defense buffs and resist debuffs.

Fire/Kin for obvious reasons, cap everyones damage, SB for unsuppressed movement, win.

The Trapper is there for one main reason. PGT. AoE huge -regen shutdown. With PGT being dropped in conjunction with all the AoEs, you're going to have Nicti dying pretty fast too. Plus all their other yummy Traps powers. Multiple Acid Mortars? Do want.

If the Sonic is on the ball, no one has to jump out of LoS when Rom or a Nictus dies. FFG+S.Dispersion+Clarity for the win. Sonic Corr eats BFs, profit. Cage the healing Nictus, spam AoEs. 4 damage capped Rain of Fires on res debuffed AoEs would be monstrous.

As an aside, I think its amusing that almost all of the Dream Teams that include Tankers specify that it would be their own Tanker they're bringing

1.- A Resistance based Brute
2.- A Corruptor with buffs and heals
3.- A Defender with buffs and heals
4.- A Controller with debuffs
5.- A Corruptor with debuffs
6.- A Defender with debuffs
7.- A Fortunata
8.- A Blaster

(That's usually the line-up I use for RSF and STF)

Fire/Shield Scrapper
Fire/Shield Scrapper
Dark/Shield Scrapper
Cold/Sonic Defender
Fire/Cold Corruptor
Fire/Sonic Corruptor
Sonic/Kin Corruptor
Fire/Thermal Corruptor

Good resistance, good defence, stupidly good debuffs, stupidly good AoE/ST.

Being as I've never thought about min/maxxing a team but to date agree with Silas's support guides I'll have what he's having in the team. With the exception that to play in it I'll have to be DM/Shield brute instead of a scrapper. Time saved!

1) Me on a Fire/Fire/Pyre Scrapper
2) WP/SS Tank
3) Elec/Shield Brute
4) Rad/Dark Defender
5) Fire/Kin Corruptor
6) Fire/Son Controller
7) Bots/Dark Mastermind
8) Fortunata

Should be enough buffs, debuff and pure damage to handle it, especially if they're IOd to the gills.. Which most of them are because they're friends' chars. Constant, massive -tohit and -res to all enemies, lots of +defense and +resistance from perma-Mind Link and support sets, CRAZY damage from the Scrapper, Brute and Mastermind with a Tank which will not go down.

1) DM/SR/Mu Brute (me)
2) My wife's DA/Fire Tank.
3) Bill Z Bubba on his Claws/SR Scrapper.
4) An Earth/Fire/Fire permadom Dominator.
5) Sonic/Rad Corruptor.
6) Cold/Dark/Dark Defender.
7) Sonic/Mental/Elec Blaster.
8) Illusion/Kin Controller.

Edit: This ITF set up is actually feasible for me, because my wife and I play on the same server as Bill Z. I've run TFs with him on occasion, and there are few players or characters I'd rather have along with me on one.

I'll take the team I had a few issues back on a Master of the STF run. We walked all over the task force and ended up bum rushing the final 4 patron AV's on a whim.

Team wide capped defense, resists, recovery, and regen.
Two "Cagers" able to cage lvl 54 AV's and the towers
Capped damage with substantial resist debuffs
Strong regen debuffs
Strong to hit buffiing, usually in excess of +120%
Breaking the rules here >>> no melee AT in sight

6 Defenders:
1) Me >>> Emp/Rad/Dark
2) Emp/Rad/? Dark also I think
3) Emp/Sonic/?
4) Sonic/Sonic/Psy
5) FF/Arch/Psy
6) Cold/Arch/Dark

And 2 Controllers:
7) Fire/Kin/?
8) Mind/Emp/?

Was mentioned in team chat afterwords that someone did apparently go 'red' briefly during the 4 Patron AV fight. I never saw it, I did see the Fire/Kin take a heavy hit during the move to the second tower after the first was dropped. Other than that never saw anyones green or blue bar do more than twitch except for those brief dips post Nuke. But no one died and I came away with a MoSTF badge.

This kind of thought exercise always makes me so frustrated when I think about how much single target specialized sets (particularly melee sets) suck in this game, heh. That said...

Elec/SD Scrapper
Fire/SD Scrapper
Elec/Fire Scrapper
Cold/Sonic Defender
Sonic/Sonic Defender
Fire/Rad Corruptor
Fire/Kin Corruptor (me)
Plant/Radiation Controller

Edited for being way, WAY too long.

Gist of it is all the characters have the fighting pool + the sonic buffs. Scrappers because the shield ones will hold aggro almost as well as a tanker or brute (better than some sets actually), don't need to deal with rage, bruising isn't useful enough to sacrifice the aoe damage, and the higher base numbers make the buffs better for when someone messes up and everyone isn't damage capped for a little while. Everyone is skipping stamina due to dual stacked AM + speed boost +accolades, using the plant controller specifically for confusing enemies so that they add to your damage, and the massive amounts of -resist for hard targets. The cold is the defender for better power boosted defense and also more importantly for the -special against stuff that uses heals, e.g. the nictus. I can't imagine anyone wants to actually read a wall of text or examine my choices more closely, but feel free to PM if you want to hear the reasoning behind everything, haha.

Also I'm the kin because....Well, I'm under the impression it has to be something you actually have.