Soloing EBs, AVs and GMs. Your thoughts.
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2010-10-17 19:15 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Waste of time. Same for avs since boss fights is p much retarded bags of hp , huge resistance with little to no interactivity.
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Originally Posted by OminousVoice
2. Have you ever soloed an GM, and if so how did you feel afterward?
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But we don't even know if Incarnate abilities will apply to those or in what form, nor do we know what will be introduced to mitigate them (if anything).
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Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
There are a lot of AVs in level 45-50 arcs. Incarnate abilities could radically change the difficulty of such content as the ITF, LGTF, STF and LRSF, as well.
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1) Philosophically, no as to AVs/GMs. They should not be able to be soloed IMO. It runs counter to their intended strategy. If they were more interesting fights, I suspect that would be the case.|
Originally Posted by OminousVoice
So, my questions to you are;
1. Do you favour the idea of being able to solo EBs/AVs/GMs, if so/not, why? 2. Have you ever soloed an EB/AV/GM, and if so how did you feel afterward? 3. Do you think the dynamic will change after the implementation of the Incarnate system? 4. Whatever else you wish to add. |
2) I've soloed every EB I've come across with any character. On many of my characters I've soloed many AVs. On 2 characters I've soloed GMs. I felt pretty proud of beating Ghost Widow as an AV and the Kronos Titan as a Monster. Other than that, it's so easy to a point that I don't think much of it. I don't even bother with most characters these days other than to see if they can do it.
3) I think level 50s fighting 50+ AVs will wreck (in a good way) older level cap content with Incarnate abilities.
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1. Yes to all - I don't think it adversely affects the game.|
1. Do you favour the idea of being able to solo EBs/AVs/GMs, if so/not, why? 2. Have you ever soloed an EB/AV/GM, and if so how did you feel afterward? 3. Do you think the dynamic will change after the implementation of the Incarnate system? 4. Whatever else you wish to add. |
2. Yes, I solo EBs and AVs. I think any decent player should be able to solo EBs. Soloing AVs requires much more of a specialized effort and is not for everyone. As for GMs, I've tried soloing a couple, but gave up after not making much of a dent - maybe one day.
3. No.
4. Silverado is an animal.
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For the record, my most expensive build is my Tanker (who, like I said, cannot outdamage an AV's regen), at perhaps 500 million. My villains are all much, much cheaper builds (closer to 100-150 million), who can do the deed largely thanks to the presence of -regen in their builds. |
Originally Posted by Wicked_Wendy
I know there are players out there that have invested the time and BILLIONS in INF to IO out their characters and can solo AVs and GMs but its just not something I feel a need to accomplish.
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While it's probably possible to get any character to the soloing AV level with the right application of IOs and temp powers, some builds do it a lot easier thanks to -regen mechanics.
The biggest obstacles to soloing AV are simply surviving their attacks (softcapped Blasters prove that just about any character can get there with enough IOs) and overcoming their regen (which can be accomplished by putting out enough damage, which can be hard, or by debuffing their regen, which requires specific powersets. Traps, Dark Miasma and Radiation Emission are seem to be specifically designed for the "solo AVs" mindset.)
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Yes, the fact that AVs/GMs can be soloed is just a quirk of the system. |
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
For the record, my most expensive build is my Tanker (who, like I said, cannot outdamage an AV's regen), at perhaps 500 million. My villains are all much, much cheaper builds (closer to 100-150 million), who can do the deed largely thanks to the presence of -regen in their builds.
While it's probably possible to get any character to the soloing AV level with the right application of IOs and temp powers, some builds do it a lot easier thanks to -regen mechanics. The biggest obstacles to soloing AV are simply surviving their attacks (softcapped Blasters prove that just about any character can get there with enough IOs) and overcoming their regen (which can be accomplished by putting out enough damage, which can be hard, or by debuffing their regen, which requires specific powersets. Traps, Dark Miasma and Radiation Emission are seem to be specifically designed for the "solo AVs" mindset.) |
That AVs and GMs should be unsoloable isn't necessarily a thematic requirement; it's a mechanical requirement. Team content should be challenging enough to interest a full team, but there's a limit to how much the devs can change the rules to challenge high-end min-max players before that content becomes impossible for certain group compositions.
We can debate whether high regeneration, HP, and debuff resistance are good ways for the devs to gate team content. There's no right or wrong answer. I'm sure there are many imaginative alternatives -- but as long as there are counters for whatever mechanics the devs throw our way, there will always be builds that can solo group content given enough time and patience. The narrower the niche of the counter, the more effective it's likely to be when employed, too.
Regen debuffs are firmly in that niche category. In a solo encounter against a hard target, -regen is analogous to DPS, sometimes an awful lot of DPS. But regen debuffs are virtually meaningless against most anything less than an AV, and easily rendered redundant on teams.
Just as a full group of Defenders is many times more powerful than a full group of Blasters, some builds are just better suited to certain encounters than others. It doesn't mean that those builds are unreservedly better across the full range of the game's content; in fact, the best all-around-soloist ATs are only mediocre at hardcore AV/GM soloing, with certain specific flavors of support ATs leading the charge.
The bottom line is that the game doesn't reward you in any tangible way for soloing AVs or GMs. People do it because they can, but in purely mercenary terms you're far better off running solo content as intended, or using an AoE-specialist build (which usually isn't well-suited to soloing hard targets) to melt large spawns of minions. I, for one, would rather have some exceptional balance-breaking builds than sacrifice the game's traditional freedom with respect to build and team composition.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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One possible exception is the Fire/Dark corruptor (who is one of my AV soloers), although there is a large amount of caveat/luck on there; Fire/Dark is pretty good at taking on large groups and single hard targets, provided those targets don't put out a lot of mez effects, as the combination completely lacks any mez protection aside from defence. |
Originally Posted by Obitus
in fact, the best all-around-soloist ATs are only mediocre at hardcore AV/GM soloing, with certain specific flavors of support ATs leading the charge.
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When my Fire/Dark solos AVs, a tray of Break Frees tends to be necessary. It's actually my hope that at least one Incarnate slot will be able to provide mez protection; this was one of the things I thought would be the slight push some builds needed.
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There are exceptions that prove the rule. I'm sure your Fire/Dark Corrupter is an excellent soloist in the right hands. The Fire blast set is itself a bit of an outlier because it excels at both single-target and AoE damage. (And nothing else.)|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
One possible exception is the Fire/Dark corruptor (who is one of my AV soloers), although there is a large amount of caveat/luck on there; Fire/Dark is pretty good at taking on large groups and single hard targets, provided those targets don't put out a lot of mez effects, as the combination completely lacks any mez protection aside from defence.
When my Fire/Dark solos AVs, a tray of Break Frees tends to be necessary. It's actually my hope that at least one Incarnate slot will be able to provide mez protection; this was one of the things I thought would be the slight push some builds needed. |
But as you point out, Corruptors generally are not quite as capable as all-around soloists as, say, Scrappers -- which can be made to solo AVs, but probably can't solo GMs, and even if they can, they're not nearly as efficient at it as certain Controllers/Defenders/Corruptors. To be the best possible all-around soloist, you have to minimize holes or weaknesses. Every build has them, but some more than others.
A perma-PA* Illusion/Rad or Illusion/Cold Controller is probably the best-case build for soloing hard targets, and kicks serious butt through most of the rest of the game too, but it ain't the experience-per-hour monster that many other builds are.
The point is that we're talking about niche builds that aren't rewarded by the game for soloing these encounters.
*PA = Phantom Army. I point that out only because I get annoyed when I see game acronyms that aren't spelled out somewhere, or aren't immediately clear from the context. I don't point that out to imply that Eiko doesn't know what the term means.
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Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze
Nice build
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Of all the points in this thread (or even on the forums of late), this is one of the best I've seen. We often forget not everyone knows our lingo, be they new players, returning players, or even old players that haven't ventured out of their comfort zone enough to encounter all the acronyms we use. |
Originally Posted by Obitus
I point that out only because I get annoyed when I see game acronyms that aren't spelled out somewhere, or aren't immediately clear from the context.
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Bravo, Obitus. You win an internet.
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I feel most EB's should be soloable, but with significant effort, and some AT's and powerset combos obviously fare better than others. AV's and GM's should be out of reach for most builds in less-than-advanced hands.| 1. Do you favour the idea of being able to solo EBs/AVs/GMs, if so/not, why? |
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| 2. Have you ever soloed an EB/AV/GM, and if so how did you feel afterward? |
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| 3. Do you think the dynamic will change after the implementation of the Incarnate system? |
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| 4. Whatever else you wish to add. |
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This I agree with. If it's team content, then it shouldn't really be doable by one person while the rest of the team sit on their hands. However, there's room here to include a caveat - doable QUICKLY and/or EASILY. Yes, team content can sometimes be soloed. It's not a question of can it be, it's a question of how quick, easy and accessible such content is. An AV fight can run you upwards of half an hour and reward you nothing at all like what half an hour's hard work should be worth. It's doable, but not practical.|
Originally Posted by Obitus
That AVs and GMs should be unsoloable isn't necessarily a thematic requirement; it's a mechanical requirement. Team content should be challenging enough to interest a full team, but there's a limit to how much the devs can change the rules to challenge high-end min-max players before that content becomes impossible for certain group compositions.
We can debate whether high regeneration, HP, and debuff resistance are good ways for the devs to gate team content. There's no right or wrong answer. I'm sure there are many imaginative alternatives -- but as long as there are counters for whatever mechanics the devs throw our way, there will always be builds that can solo group content given enough time and patience. The narrower the niche of the counter, the more effective it's likely to be when employed, too. |
A full team will typically reduce an AV fight to a regular encounter, from experience running it down to less than five minutes, which isn't out of scale of what AVs reward. It's a question of design philosophy. Do you want team content to be utterly impossible for solo players, or do you want team content to be possible to be soloed, but only ever really reasonable with a team? It's really more of a judgement call than anything else.
That said, I feel that AVs and EBs do not scale well enough with team size, in the sense that... They don't scale at all. They represent one, single very substantial leap in difficulty. It's like if your difficulty setting stopped at +1x2 and the next notch up was +3x4, or if a +0x1 spawns wouldn't begin increasing in size until all eight players were on the team, at which point they jump to +8.
I'm not sure what a superior system for scaling content would be that didn't involve making eight versions of every AV and EB or designing encounters that play different ways depending on the team size. Yes, Left 4 Dead's AI Director would be cool if we had it, but that's really out of the question. About the only other thing I can think of is putting AVs' and EBs' stats into some kind of passive buff that itself scales with people who are currently in the instance. That way, an AV would be easier if fought by four people than he or she would be if fought by eight people, thus providing scaling difficulty. I'm not sure if that's worth doing, however.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I have absolutely no issue with soloing AVs and GMs, because they take far too much time to solo for the reward they give and the process is incredibly dull. If you have a character that can do it (I have several and I've done it), that's great, but other than bragging rights there's no practical advantage to being able to do it.
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"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
I happen to think EBs and AVs are one of the biggest systems in the game that need an overhaul. The fact that people can solo them doesn't bother me necessarily. Unfortunately on teams more often than not I don't even notice I'm fighting an AV until someone announces it because they are nearly indistinguishable from other enemies in terms of their presentation. A change in music, at the least, would be helpful, as would some kind of special notification that we, in fact, just killed an AV (since the game is otherwise so eager to tell us about recipe drops).
Personally I much prefer fighting hordes of EBs on teams, as happens on some Task Forces, to dealing with AVs.
Part of the trouble is that there is basically no variation in boss designs. Essentially they are all bags of HP that you have to use a regen power on and then cycle attacks. Despite the fact that you mostly encounter them within their own lairs, none of them are intelligent enough to equip the place with deadly laser beams or a robotic suit or whatever else supervillains do in movies and comics. At best you might get a few waves of ambushes coming at you. Certain abilities always work (-damage, -resistance, -regen) and others are always heavily penalized (-recharge, -tohit, -endurance), with no exceptions.
Now a few people have said they think EBs are more or less on par with the average character and should be soloable. IMO that depends on the character. Most of my Controllers simply cannot handle EBs very smoothly, especially prior to level 41 where you get a single target blast. I still have ringing in my ears from trying to solo Maria Jenkins with a Mind Controller. Even on -1 the character was ripped apart unless he stood back and just let temp powers do the work for him. My Scrapper on the other hand did it rather easily.
I'm with Tex here. AVs need a serious overhaul in terms of appearance or magnitude, expecially now that new TFs are coming out trying to spruce up encounters concerning them.
Whining about everything since 2006.
Ammo switching for Dual Pistols was my idea:
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthread.php?t=135484
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1) EBs, certainly. AVs and GMs, indifferent.|
Originally Posted by OminousVoice
So, my questions to you are; 1. Do you favour the idea of being able to solo EBs/AVs/GMs, if so/not, why? 2. Have you ever soloed an EB/AV/GM, and if so how did you feel afterward? 3. Do you think the dynamic will change after the implementation of the Incarnate system? 4. Whatever else you wish to add. |
I think it should be allowed, because the alternative is to nerf player characters or make AVs more challenging, neither of which is particularly desirable. Soloing an AV requires specific combinations of sets to accomplish. Having a Controller with Rad Emission isn't enough by itself - you have to have a primary to support it. It's not a matter of individual sets overperforming, I think, so I'm sure it would be annoying to try to prevent. Any such fixes will likely come with unintended and undesirable consequences.
2) I have, on a couple of different characters. I usually try it on completed builds just to see if I can. If I can, it feels great... once. Then I stop, because it's really just not that interesting or fun. Soloing AVs consists of pressing the same buttons over and over again, occasionally using disaster management tactics to keep myself alive. There's nothing especially challenging about it - more depends on the strength of my build than on my intelligence as a player, so I tend not to care after I've done two or three on a particular character.
3) No, I don't think so, but that opinion is fragile. There's much about the incarnates system that we just don't know - too much to have an informed opinion on the subject just yet.
The Ballad of Iron Percy
I have no interest in soloing EBs, AVs, or GMs. I play for fun, not for challenge, and ordinary bosses are as much challenge as I care for.
I would prefer not to have to fight EBs solo, but they are forced upon me when I do solo. Fighting them is possible for most of my characters, but many times I just auto-complete the mission to avoid the EB. Kind of hard villain side to do this when every 40+ arc has an EB at least once.
For those EBs that I have beaten, I've only felt bored, since it is the same mechanic every time. Consume red and purple inspirations so that I can burn through his hit points without letting him burn through mine. It is tedious, unless it doesn't work, in which case it is annoying.
Not interested in the Incarnate system. Only have a few 50s, and I stop playing them once they are 50. I might give it a try, but it sounds like just another enhancement slot. Generally more fun to roll up a new character.
I've managed to solo EB with scrappers, and also some AV's. I have more difficulty on my squishier chars and tankers don't have the damage output to defeat an EB (in my builds), but they do survive them. So it's stalemate.
Controllers, defenders and blasters seem to have a difficulty as well. ALthough they do well on Protean (so far)
Running into an EB is pretty much a show-stopper for my Defenders and an AV means the settings are too high. Now I don't see me going out and spending a billion on Sonic/Elec Defender just to prove a point that it can be done.
"Samual_Tow - Be disappointed all you want, people. You just don't appreciate the miracles that are taking place here."
On my stronger characters EB's are fine. I think any of my squishy alts would have a LOT More trouble if they couldn't stack Lucks when fighting EBs, but with the inspirations they usually have at least a 75% chance of winning. Even if you lose to an EB you've usually done enough damage to hosp, refuel and get back in time to finish them off before they've healed up again.
I dont tend to fight AVs or GMs solo. My MM once took down Scrapyard solo with some clever use of terrain and a lot of patience, plus I've duoed quite a few AVs in strike forces (Batzul and Archus are two that come to mind right away, they aren't really that tough).
Some EBs are much harder than others, but of course it depends on your powersets. My main (mind/psi) has an awful time wittling down Citadel or Nightstar, Scirocco for some reason always gives me trouble, Marchand and Aeon in their power suits always manage to hit me through stacked defences and you can never take Lord Recluse lightly when he falls to 25% or below, even at EB level.
The only real soloing I've done of AVs is confusing them to kill each other, like forcing Romulus to defeat his own healer fluffy.
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
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As one of those posting here that does solo AVs, I want to say for the record that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in higher challenges than already exist in the game. The game already has several gateways that are difficult enough to make sure they are not always successes; I've been on plenty of failed attempts at the Imperious Task Force*, the Lord Recluse Strike Force, and the Barracuda Strike Force. I don't play blueside much, but the Statesman Task Force is supposed to be about as hard as the LRSF, so I'm sure that gets failed a lot too. |
Originally Posted by Rooftop_Raider
I think the elite players who make the most of their characters now, and take them to the next level after the Incarnate system, might want some more challenges that are less trivial than what the majority of the game offers for them.
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The game's difficulty as exists right now is fine with me, and I'm really not looking for greater challenges to pitch at my characters.
*I sometimes get scoffed at for saying I've run failed ITFs. I play Masterminds, even in team content. Take two Masterminds on the ITF and see if you still scoff. The summoner Nictus at the end seems designed specifically to punish teams for having Masterminds.
I have no interest in soloing AVs/GMs either. I have no issue with those that do, other than that gives the devs the wrong idea as to what needs to be balanced. The amount of tweaking necessary, or choosing just the right AT with the right power sets, makes this a hopeless idea.
Now, I have found some EB's to be impossible, and some to be easy. Over all I like the challenge the EBs give to me. Clearly some ATs and some power sets work better than others.
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EBs, absolutely yes. It's essentially why the AV -> EB scaling was added, given the frequency of AVs that were added particularly in CoV. (CoV starts throwing AVs fairly frequently at you in story arcs in the 30s, contrasted to the 40s in CoH).|
Originally Posted by OminousVoice
1. Do you favour the idea of being able to solo EBs/AVs/GMs, if so/not, why?
2. Have you ever soloed an EB/AV/GM, and if so how did you feel afterward? 3. Do you think the dynamic will change after the implementation of the Incarnate system? |
AVs yes, in general, though I don't think every AV has to be soloable, and I expect it to be relatively hard (or at least time consuming) and require a relatively uncommon build to achieve. Given this game's balance model and existing mechanics, it's going to be nigh impossible to make AVs that a team of mythical average gamers can defeat that some tweaked out single character doesn't have a shot at. While it's possible to imagine mechanical changes to the game that aren't direct nerfs that would specifically disallow soloing AVs, I have to wonder what the true degree of gain would be for that effort. I also think it's worth noting that all AVs should not probably be considered equally hard (and heaven knows they're not today). In particular, it seems reasonable to me that TF/SF AVs be harder than those met in story arcs. Nictus Romulus is a good example.
I have no problem with GMs being soloable, but generally it's only really possible because they tend to be immense bags of HP who hit back really hard. To date, the only way to solo them is to ream out their regen rate. GMs are truly attrocious reward for the time currently required to be invested in defeating them solo. (It's not great on a team, either.) So while I wouldn't object to them being "unsoloable" on principle, I don't care at all that they are soloable by some people, because it provides no real advantage.
I don't expect GM fights to change much at all because of Incarnate levels. Some more direct buffs to things like DPS and DPE may open up more people to soloing them, but level shifting will matter to them very little because of their own level normalization features. An incarnate character will likely find non-incarnate content AVs easier, possibly significantly so. I think this is to be expected and a non-issue so long as there is new content (including AVs) aimed at incarnate-enabled characters.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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And a good thing too! |
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
I play Masterminds, even in team content. Take two Masterminds on the ITF and see if you still scoff. The summoner Nictus at the end seems designed specifically to punish teams for having Masterminds.
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The funniest thing is where some nutjob confuses the healer so it starts healing off all the pet fluffies and the roman ambushers
The Widow's Dark Hand - leader of Faux Pas
Champion Server
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Done it. Succeeded everytime!|
Originally Posted by Eiko-chan
*I sometimes get scoffed at for saying I've run failed ITFs. I play Masterminds, even in team content. Take two Masterminds on the ITF and see if you still scoff. The summoner Nictus at the end seems designed specifically to punish teams for having Masterminds.
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That said, I've still failed ITFs .5-1% of them.
The most MM's I've had on one ITF was 4, and it was a success. Some of it I find comes down to telling the MM's (and I did this when on my MM), to put away the pets.
Sometimes you don't have to, sometimes you do.
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
The BrandX Collection
Yes, we should retain the ability to solo AVs at least. It is NOT easy to do, and requires a significant investment of time and resources. I don't feel that just any random character that runs into one should be able to do it, but it should remain an achievable goal to work towards.
GMs I feel should be difficult to beat, as far as I'm aware there are a VERY limited number of builds that can take one solo. My wife and I have duoed several of them with a Rad/Sonic Defender and a Necro/Poison MM. My Rad/Sonic defender can solo one in theory, but I have not actually pulled it off yet. On paper, his build can do it, but I keep getting streaks of bad luck when I try it, so I haven't done it yet.
AV/GM soloing is a niche ability. More often than not, a character built to do it suffers in other aspects of the game, so it should remain possible provided you are willing to sacrifice effectiveness at other things.
See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.