Wow, I have to say. This is SUCK!
By
AnElfCalledMack,
Posted on: 2011-02-04 19:40 in Archetypes and Powers General Discussion
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Going to have to agree with this, it is usually hard for blasters to get on TFs. Mainly due to the fact that Scrappers can put out high amounts of damage and protect themselves in the process, Corruptors, Defenders and Trollers can heal/buff/debuff, Tanks (self explainitory). Doms can dish out plenty of damage and control (Some time suffer the same fate as blasters), MMs are plenty of damage and heals/buffs/Debuffs with spare bodies, Brutes can sometimes fill in for Tanks while putting out some nice damage. HEATs will Tri formers can Tank and All Humans on teams are beasts. VEATs are...well...full of win. |
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Too much melee without enough defense is one of the common ways the STF fails. I am surprised playing for 81 months you haven't experienced this bit of pain before. Its something that really shouldn't be in the game. The problem is ranged damage dealers in this game are at a disadvantage usually and this is one of the few places they aren't.
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So I don't blame the devs for putting things in a game to create diversity, but don't get mad and ragequit because you wanted a scrapper over a blaster. This is an MMO, it was a TF, meaning that it requires a team, and the Devs put things in place so that it is a diverse one.
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I have to say, having played more PUG STFs in the past week than in my entire lifetime up to this point, I've been most impressed by the fact that for the most part, all it takes is two or three experienced players to figure out how to compensate for a lack of experience in the rest of the team. I was on a PUG STF that did not have an Emp or a tank capable of tanking LR with all the towers up, so I improvised PA dropping with my Ill/Rad and another Ill controller. When I had problems coordinating that, I switched to the much more difficult PA/Decoy alternating tactic I last used maybe in 2008 until we had our timing right, then it was smooth sailing (my PA has a gap on that build at the moment). On another we used two non-emp buffers to keep the tank alive after explaining to them *not* to debuff LR, which was drawing aggro on them and killing them, taking out the tank's support. I guess I've been lucky, but I've seen them go smooth, and I've seen them go bad, but I haven't seen one totally fail yet. People seemed willing to learn and adjust on the fly.|
Originally Posted by Tired Angel
Just thought i would chip in with my STF story from last night.
The team was relatively mixed. We had two blasters (one Ice/ and one DP), two tankers (one Inv, one Shield/Electric <= me), two illusion controllers (one of which was a /Thermal and the other a /Storm), a scrapper and someone else I can't remember! Anyway, we sailed through most the TF till we got to the 4 AVs in the last mission. We tried pulling one at a time but it didn't quite go to plan and we were facing all four. We tried just fighting all four at once, focussing on GW but that didn't quite work. So the Inv tank pulled Scorpion, Mako and Scir-thingy away while I tanked GW. I kepy in front of her (I was soft capped) while everyone else tried to stay behind. It wasn't the quickest fight but we did get her down in the end. I then grabbed agro of the others away from the Inv one at time and we just took them down that way. We then took out hte flyer and moved onto LR. Now he was a bit of a pain. At first we tried holding his attention with the PAs but whenever the despawned he would come and rip the team to shreds. Then the Inv tank tried taunting with the help of the Thermal but it didn't work and then the team started to lose a bit of focus and get frustrated (I know I was anyway hehe). We then decided I would hover taunt LR and the Ill/Therm controller would stay with me and heal me with cautorise as soon as I got hit with his ranged attack, and because LR was running around like an mad man trying some way reach me he didn't let it off that often. This was working (apart from one close call when I ran out endurance due to the -recovery on his ranged attacked) but thenunfortunately the flyer respawned so the Inv tank went and taunted it away so the others could take down the towers in peace. We took them all down then gave LR the beating he deserved!! The whole TF took us a couple of hours but I had a real sense of satisfaction at the end because we pulled together as a team and managed to adapt our strategies as we went along  |
Although, sometimes failure has a silver lining. I had an ITF fail not too long ago when the team basically gave up. One thing I discovered during that particular run is that in a pinch, you can actually range-kill the Nictus in the last mission right out from under his nose without drawing aggro from anything if you limit yourself to single target attacks and stay far enough away. And my En/EN was just slightly under the minimum damage necessary to do that solo. At least, at the time: it might be a little bit different now that I'm fully Alpha-slotted.
In any case, in both the STFs I'm describing above, no team-wide (or tanker) defensive soft cap. Both were non-canonical STF runs that succeeded without directly overpowering the content, and with suboptimal builds and team compositions.
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As far as I know, Ghost Widow has a PBAoE Dark Regen-like heal. Standing directly next to her, even from behind, is not recommended unless you are soft-capped or happen to be someone's phantom army.|
Originally Posted by Transhade
Forgive me if someone already pointed this out but Ghost Widows heal only heals of those infront of her. The fight is much easier when the rest hit her from the back...
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The recharge on it is something like 45 seconds so if you're observant and careful, you can duck in and out of range and attack when its recharging. However, if you screw that up and the team leader kicks you, don't blame me. I've done it, but only when I thought it was necessary (when damage was low and the boost would be helpful) and I could get away with it. I'm also slightly less likely to be blamed for being clueless if I were to accidentally guess wrong, although I've never guessed wrong.
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Okay, so she actually has to hit you to suck up tons of HP. I was wondering about that on both my positional-defense scrapper and my Illusion troller; Guess I will continue to not hold back!
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As far as I know, Ghost Widow has a PBAoE Dark Regen-like heal. Standing directly next to her, even from behind, is not recommended unless you are soft-capped or happen to be someone's phantom army.
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It is indeed a 20 ft PBAoE Sphere. You only have to soft cap AoE or Neg Damage Def to play with fire (i.e., get within range).|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As far as I know, Ghost Widow has a PBAoE Dark Regen-like heal. Standing directly next to her, even from behind, is not recommended unless you are soft-capped or happen to be someone's phantom army.
The recharge on it is something like 45 seconds so if you're observant and careful, you can duck in and out of range and attack when its recharging. |
Dark Regeneration
PBAoE Minor DMG(Negative), Self +HP
You can tap the dark essence of the Netherworld to drain a small amount of life from all enemies nearby, thus healing yourself. The more foes affected, the more you will be healed. Damage: Minor, Recharge: Slow
- Type: Click
- Accuracy: 1
- Cast time: 1.17 seconds
- Recharge time: 45 seconds
- Endurance cost: 21 Attack
- types: AOE_Attack, Negative_Energy_Attack
- Effect area:Sphere Radius20 feet
- Max targets hit: 16
- Target visibility: Line of Sight
Self:
- 1.00000 Melee_HealSelf Heal (after 0.25 second delay)
- 1 Negative damage
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The Dust Devil's debuffs are Auto-Hit, but not its damage attack. However, since the debuff includes -Defense, it makes the damage attack more likely.
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Originally Posted by Bosstone
It's actually not. I discovered this when I ran a rough STF back on Wednesday. The tornados always seemed to go for me, a Blaster, but I found that as long as I kept moving it wouldn't hurt me. It only hits if you let it sit on you for a couple seconds. I stayed alive far longer than I should have just by running around between shots.
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Same, afaik her Dark Regeneration is melee and all around her ...|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
As far as I know, Ghost Widow has a PBAoE Dark Regen-like heal. Standing directly next to her, even from behind, is not recommended unless you are soft-capped or happen to be someone's phantom army.
The recharge on it is something like 45 seconds so if you're observant and careful, you can duck in and out of range and attack when its recharging. However, if you screw that up and the team leader kicks you, don't blame me. I've done it, but only when I thought it was necessary (when damage was low and the boost would be helpful) and I could get away with it. I'm also slightly less likely to be blamed for being clueless if I were to accidentally guess wrong, although I've never guessed wrong. |
That said placing oneself on the far side of her from any one, including a Taunting Tank, who currently has her aggro is likely still a very good idea:
1) Her 100 mag hold is a Targeted AoE
2) Her Soul Tentacles are a cone
3) Her Fearsome Stare is a cone
4) Her Torrent is a cone
5) Her Dark Obliteration is ... you get the idea here, she gives one plenty of reasons to not stand between her (or near) and whatever she's currently annoyed with. She tosses around plenty of good old fashioned AoE.
As Arcanaville said, I've also been happy at how well some PUG STFs have gone. The most recent one was early Sunday morning (7 AM) on Triumph, and we had 3 tanks and 2 scrappers along with my rad/rad and two /kin controllers. I was actually a bit worried about fighting GW, as obviously this team wasn't going to take her down with ranged damage and I couldn't count on all 5 melees being able to stay defense capped long enough to drop her given her heal, but the kin +damage was enough to overcome her regen and heal, with a bit of kiting her around. We were ultimately victorious, total run 1 hour 14 minutes.
More broadly, I'm also happy the devs have put some lower level TFs into the Weekly mix. Not only does it make it easier for the characters I'm leveling to get XPs and Task Force Commander, but it also gives more variety in content that I'll be playing and makes me think more carefully about exemping with my builds. And I say this as someone who has relatively little play time each week, so its taking me awhile to get shards.
In a Master run environment, temp powers aren't an option. And 'proper mix of powers' translates to 'softcap defenses, a Stone Tank, and a Rad'
Talk about tunnel-vision...
Edit: That isn't to say that things shouldn't be difficult, or that everything in the game should be easy for everyone. Too easy = boring and uninteresting. However, a team of Tank/Support/Damage should be able to handle things.
Should every combination of any powers always beat every scenario?
That's not really a game, is it? I think they call that a movie. A team of (all X AT) is a bad idea in general, strategy-wise. Same for (all X atttack type)... would you run a LGTF with all melee? Even with the Mini-Hami mission? Knowing that that is a losing strategy?
Many people would say Cry moar.
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