Speed TFs make me sad

This^

The steamroll, with regular group of players I'm usually playing with, is sooooo safe and boring (even at +4), that you have to do something "Extraordinary" stupid to have yourself killed. Simply stupid isn't going make it.
It makes me want to quit the game after 5-10 minutes of such play.


I lol'd.

This is where I come in.

See, I thought that's how you were supposed to handle that fight in Kahn .

The groups I run with usually leave the tank to have tea with Reichs while everyone else dogpiles the free AV.

You didn't need incarnate stuff to do that in the first place.

No, but the introduction of a-merits has made it a lot easier to have a slick IOed out build. I'd throw that in as a general increase in power too.

OK, I have to agree, not many teams I've been on could we afford that many uses of Assemble. For that mission we usually do race from spawn to spawn as a team. It's only really the last leg to the final room with all four in one spawn that's really ugly. I don't particularly enjoy doing those sprints on my squishies, but usually all I need to survive all but maybe the last stretch is some break frees.

My favorite is when we're hip deep in Phalanx robots, looking around at each other going "OK, who was supposed to go get the AVs?"

My favorite is when we're hip deep in Phalanx robots and the Tank gets upset that someone brought the AVs down.

Some of us play WP tanks, who are a little squishy for keeping the attention of two AVs plus a horde of seriously angry robots.

Pfft, speak for yourself.

I do, since I have two.

Using Assemble for each Rider spawn is a waste because at least half the team would get there before you'd finish casting the power, and there isn't a decent spot to risk getting interrupted because of drone spawns.

You really only need 2 Assembles for the entire TF...one for the first mission to rescue Penny (unless you want to fail the mish), and the last mission (just for brevity's sake). All the other parts of the TF can be done by superspeed and stealth (procs).

Mine smash just fine... and usually get the job done as far as survival goes, too, honestly, for all the jokes I make about them being scraps-with-a-taunt... But running around trying to keep up with two AVs and all the bots at the same time? That's just a pain in the rump.

I don't think I've ever seen any of the hard ATs run around in that pile. Most sit squarely in the middle right up against the computer, with the AVs right there next to them. Often some of the squishy ATs are up in there too, depending on whether they can either stay away from or get protection from Requiem's stun aura. For a lot of team compositions, huddling up in the middle is actually the safest place to be. Sure, it's under the concentrated fire of everything and it's uncle's dog, but it's also the center of every AoE buff and heal the team has. I know I find it the safest place to be on most of speed run-throughs I attend.

True... but it takes awhile to get them all to the center. At least, it has with the groups I've run with. Maybe we've just had attrocious luck (That's always a possibility-), but every time I've seen a pull-'em-all it's been an absolute scattery mad-house.

I don't mind that so much when I'm scrapping, blasting from low orbit or playing support, but as a tank it makes me grumble. I'm pretty old-school about that "Hey! Mobs!... You should all be lookin' at me!" tanker-thing, and the number of goons plus total chaos makes it harder for me to keep that kind of control. I don't like the idea of Rom or Requie blowing off my taunt and going after one of the squishies because I'm a handful of bots and Roman ambushers over my aggro cap, either.

Oh I am not saying either way is BAD just different and both work just fine. One thing I have noticed with the few WST's I hve run this week is people that are 30, 40 or whatever short of the shards they need for their Teir 4 Alpha. Hmmmm So we raced through X number of TFs and got probably half the shards we could have if we'd slowed down and killed stuff and NOW as we are ready to get our 4th Notice and craft our Favor.. we suddenly realize we are 32 shards or more short and on a TF that is dropping zero shards, 25 level recipes (so forget a purple drop), and salvage that for the most part works toward buidling those same 25 level enhancements.

And really the only thing that upsets me is leaders that don't bother to advertise which type of TF it is. Like I said i have done both but when I am on a character that still needs SHARDS the last thing I want is a speed ITF.. since I have gotten as many as 11 or 12 on kill alls. And I was on a Kahn TF last week that the leader decided WAS a kill all and before the first mission was over the Brute (our lone aggro controller) quit because he wanted a speed TF.

Well, many of them are not fun and are of horrid design. The TFs to obtain the TF Commander accolade are pretty brutal (the new Posi is the exception). The Shadow Shard stuff is awful...just awful. The Lady Grey is ok and some of the others are decent. The ITF is fun and features unique maps - I enjoy running it! Unfortunately, it is the only one done well.

Never tried Apex/Tin Mage have you?

Ah, but I do like them. I like them at any speed. Using Lady Grey as an example, I did 'non speed' runs THREE TIMES last week. However, since there is a badge for assisting on an WST 50 times, I also did 11 speed runs.

This is an awesome response. Well played.

I've been here since just after launch in 2004. I try to make it clear beforehand that I don't do "speed runs." Sometimes I forget, though, and it has caused problems. The thing that ticks me off is when no one says anything one way or another, and it's simply assumed that everyone wants to do a speed run. Sorry bub, but that is not the default, if you wanted to do that, the onus is on you to say so beforehand, and if push comes to shove, I'll leave and you're free to finish your "speed run" minus one team member. Funny thing is that that is almost the only reason I'll leave a task force. Other than that, I've always been devoted to seeing it through no matter what. A few hours and bars of debt mean nothing to me.

"Stealthing" missions, I don't mind so much. I'm all for teleporting to the end room of a "Defeat x and his guards" mission. However, on principle, I absolutely refuse to do something that I know my character wouldn't stand for. I have, for example, left Lady Grey task forces when someone deliberately gets Penny killed, after telling them, of course, "If you do that, I'm leaving." Yes, people have gotten mad at me for leaving. I don't care, such shenanigans are stupid. Believe it or not, I do the same thing if a teammate deliberately gets helpers killed, like Glacia or Infernia or Imperious.

The first team I got on to try a Dr. Kahn task force wanted to stealth everything after I joined. I told them that I had never done it before, and I wanted to read the descriptions and clues. After a couple of missions or so, after being left behind several times and getting kicked out of a mission when the leader started a new mission while I was reading the debriefing, I told them I didn't want to finish it with that team, I TOLD them it was my first time running it, and this wasn't working. Another person even spoke up and said that they didn't want to speed run it either. The leader basically said, "Tough it out, it won't last long." I left the team, and he proceded to cuss me out via /tells saying he didn't know if they could finish it now. Oh well, he should have respected my desire to not treat everything as a race more.

Is that jerk still playing the game? Probably not, but I am. That's the funny thing to me about all of these people who are doing speed runs. What's the hurry? Trying to "finish" sooner so that... What? You can quit?

The way I see it, I have the next five years to finish a Dr. Kahn task force. I haven't done a single Weekly Strike Target task force yet, but I will. When I get around to it. In my own sweet time. Maybe a year from now, who knows? Maybe next week. But if so, I'll almost certainly do it with a team I put together and ensure that they know, it is not a speed run.

Personally, I wish more veterans would take on the responsibility of running non-speed run task forces. What I'm a little afraid of is that new people just joining get the impression that racing for rewards is all the game is about and they'll leave. Well, the good ones will. What we'll be left with are the dregs who only care about farming the hell out of everything. I sometimes get a little sad when I'm running a task force or missions and talk about what's going on in the missions, and my teammates are like, "Who? What are you talking about?" *sigh...