Samuel Tow hates Tin Mage and all he stands for

Just got done with a pick-up Apex and Tin Mage double-feature for 80 merits in around 3 hours. I used to get annoyed with what I thought was an anti-melee bias in the Apex task force but tonight our team was about 4 Scrappers, 2 Brutes, 1 (Radiation) Corrupter and 1 (Radiation) Controller - and we got the Master of the Apex badge from the whole thing.

For those who are having trouble with the Blue Patches, there's a ledge southwest of the Blyde Square statue that you can hide under to keep the blue death from spawning on your characters often - note that characters must be completely under the ledge for this to work, and there isn't enough room for everyone to fit without having some characters peeking out and spawning the Energized Halberd attacks.

The Hydra guarding the Pylons require melee to joust after using two +Res inspirations, but that's not difficult.

It's annoying to see Battle Maiden tearing up Blyde Square so handily after she was such a push over, but after RPing you learn to allow your expectations of Cannon to be somewhat elastic.

I did a master of Tin Mage which we completed in a pretty short amount of time, and had 3 total deaths.

Of course, I was playing with some pretty skilled people, and they did some prep with pets and nukes for the Director 11 battle. Then again, being my badge character and the only one interested in doing things like master runs, I already had those sorts of things laying around. I'm used to pulling out a Shivan if my team can't handle something hard, so being told "This next part is hard so use pets and nukes," I say "Okay."

I had fun wading through level 54 enemies and seeing how well I do against things that are 50 feet tall. I enjoyed the AV fights and cutting down the war walkers. It's a very short TF, and nobody's making you run it if it's not your cup of tea. It does take some skill and coordination, but at the same time I wonder what sorts of people just throw together a PUG to run it and expect to win. There has to be SOMETHING in this game you can't just faceroll at.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Dispari has more than enough credability, and certainly doesn't need to borrow any from you.

Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth (not much, probably).

Dodging meteoswords is hard. If you do not (re)act you get killed regardless of AT. If you do then then you take 0 (or a few hundred, when running out/past burn patches) damage. Keep this.

Beating down mobs of 54 clockwork is slow. They take longer to defeat and random aggro is more likely to make squishies faceplant. But rezzes are common (as always) and the hospital is nearby. So we do the same things we always do but they take longer. Change this.

Having optional hard modes like Bobcats vengeance is fine. As is giving rewards for completing such hard modes. Especially if the rewards are of the "bragging rights" variety, that is, badges. Keep this.

Regarding lore: having war walkers and AVs be more powerful makes sense - the Praetorians have their special "drain machine" turned on for the invasion and all that drained power has to go somewhere. Having the same clockwork robots (not even war works) suddenly be more powerful does not make sense (to me). Same with random malta operatives.


Here is what I would do (but, not being a dev, I cannot).
- Drop the TFs down to level 50
- Keep the -4 debuff for non-incarnates
- Buff the stats of special encounters (meteoswords, mines, AVs, war walkers, tentacles) so that they have about the same level of difficulty
- Allow the use of difficulty setting to increase the level of the TFs, if players want to
- Give out a (new) badge for doing them on +4

And here is the big one:
- Drop the level shifts from incarnate abilities. They are not out yet so it would not count as a nerf. As it seems to me, they imply that the incarnate Delta (I21-I22) content will have level 58 mobs. That is a kind of arbitrary gating that this game would be better off without.
I want the incarnate path to be about my characters becoming more powerful. Hitting harder, being tougher and so on. I do not want it to be about collecting "stuff" just so some new content does not overlevel me by 8 or more.

That's good to hear - thanks.

"As a dedicated Tanker player, I consider these TFs to be the $%^&ing Antichrist."
--Johnny Butane.

I think Spitting Trashcan responded to this adequately (more than once). My thought: If you play this game ONE WAY, you are sure to be disappointed. [And I am glad for that - otherwise, it would be City of (FOTM)]. And I would have quit long ago.

Do you feel there is content which is better suited to tankers? If so, then by definition, there is also content that is NOT better suited to OTHER AT's. (Storm's on Katie Hannon anyone?) I wonder how they feel about your "Tanker-awesome" content?

Perhaps instead of saying,
"My tank suxxors in this TF - CHANGE THE TF!"
Instead, one might say,
"Hmm, a tanker might not be the best choice for this TF, maybe I should try something else?"

An open mind is something to be encouraged. Causing people to vary combat tactics may be one small way to do that. Also, moar funnerer.

I have to repeat: I am SO GLAD I started the game as a blaster. Starting as nigh invincible (scrappers, tankers) is a path to disappointment, in my opinion.

galadiman: Pity that two of the four characters I planned to make Incarnates are tankers, then. (And one's a brute.) EDIT: Sucks for the masterminds too, I bet.

SPT: It's not that I mind the debt, or even the dying per se. I mind spending so much real time pecking an overpowered enemy to death because we can't use our more powerful attacks without getting rooted and killed. A half hour of hopping around with Taunt on auto watching one AV's health bar inch downward, interrupted by occasional wipes and near-wipes which lead to further delay, is not fun for me. (See also: Reichsman.)

Charcoal: Well said.

To expand a bit further: the encounters I enjoy on this TF are the ones that admit no solution via preparation. The only thing that works is doing the right thing, right then and there, and doing that works 100% of the time for everyone regardless of preparation. That seems supremely fair to me. But it is an unusual addition to a game where preparation usually reigns supreme. Life or death decided on positioning is a fundamental of action games, which I happen to enjoy. Victory based on careful preparation long before the fight began is a fundamental of strategy games, which I happen to dislike. I suppose where the surprise comes in is that the Alpha slot is a strategic slot, and thus offers little help in an action scenario. But that's just how it worked out, I guess.

I mean, I do a fair amount of build jiggering and stat crunching, but it's refreshing to say that the "right build" for Apex is the one that gives you enough movement speed to cover 20 feet in 8 seconds. Or, if you want to be a real hero for the team, the one with Team Teleport.

... Come to think of it, Team Teleport would make BM a joke, wouldn't it? There's your 20 minute Apex strategy. And I just invalidated everything I said above. :P

Check the Apex TF thread. Someone's tried Team TP. It... sort of works.