Buffing in Leagues...?

So, thought I'd throw this out to the many, many defenders with more experience than me.

I fairly recently 50'd my second ever 'fender - Cold/Ice - and I lovelovelove playing him (my first was a TA/A, hence the following isn't a problem I've run into before).

After 3 solid nights' grinding on the BAF/Lambda, I must say I'm getting a little bored with having about 1 in 4 minutes' downtime throwing shields on 23 other players. What's the general feeling on this? Keep one's own league team buffed, and stuff the others? Buff team and throw other shields where it seems sensible? Drop everything for COLD SHIELDS NAO!!1!? Break off and run trials with my Widow until everyone's got Destiny slotted and my shields don't do so much?

Would appreciate your experience and input here. I want to be a useful league player, but the whole stop-dead-and-throw-shields and/or run-after-everyone-and-throw-shields element is kind of taking the fun out for me...

I'm sure this will be a controversial issue, but I see nothing wrong with buffing only one's team. Dropping shields or Speed Boost is a chore on an 8-person team, trying to do it for 24 will be maddening. In addition, depending on your support set, it might be counter-productive. With Cold Domination, it's often going to be much more important to be spamming Benumb, Sleet, Heat Loss, and running Snowstorm than trying to keep shields on everyone. The same is true for Thermal, Sonic, and Kinetic. Force Fields might be different, with no real debuffs or click AoE buffs, but I might be wrong on that as I don't have any real experience playing Force Fields.

Another option would be to decide which players are most in need of your click buffs, and group them in your league window. I think that can be done now with the new UI, though I haven't tried it myself. Kin players might put all the Granite brutes and tankers and anyone who seems to run low on end in that grouping, for example.

This buffing issue is going to be even more critical for masterminds than for corruptors, defenders and controllers. Masterminds have enough trouble just keeping their pets alive in these new trials, so I think they can be forgiven for focusing only on their teams.

I led a BAF last night on my Ice/Cold corruptor, and between typing instructions, watching the map, and trying to keep my debuffs running, I shielded *very* sporadically. We still succeeded.

There's no way I'm keeping SB active on 23 other people. It would virtually make me a "pure" Kin.

Thanks for the thoughts, people. I hadn't even thought of the poor bloody kin/ I was teamed with on some of those BAFs, who did an heroic job of keeping the team speeded up, and was likely a major contributor to my first no-escapes run. Good work that man/woman!

Shield your team.

I would say depending on the situation either buff your team or buff select members of the league.

For example in the AV phases of the BAF it's generally not necessary to buff squishy team members. With 24 players in a tight grouping there are tons of AoE buffs and heals flying around keeping everyone nice and healthy. On the other hand the person going out to pull the AVs or someone who's keeping the adds occupied would almost certainly appreciate a shield or two since they are out of range of the PBAoE buffs.

Similarly on Lambda during the group fights a decent team probably doesn't need individual buffs but during the weapons phase any squishes on your sub-team would no doubt love a shield or two.

Use your focus tab. You can right click on people and put them into a separate tab of people that you want to keep track of, like maybe all the melee people or just the tanks/brutes. When there are that many people working with you, it's just not worth the time to buff every one of them. You'll contribute more by identifying who needs the buffs the most, so don't feel bad about leaving people to fend for themselves.

I was the only Empathy AT pretty often on numerous runs. I try to keep heals up on all 24 but players that are dying constantly from poor play eventually get ignored on heal other/absorb pain. I know it sounds harsh but everybody is constantly needing heals and frankly, I cant waste the time on somebody that has a poor build or haven't altered their play style to avoid stupid deaths.

It's a major chore but I like the challenge! Fortunately, I've been running with the same group fairly often. Most have been really good and makes being the only Emp much easier.

Deaths will still occur. It's almost impossible to prevent that but as long as the trials are successful, I won't complain :P

My general feeling with my sonic was that you should try to keep your own team buffed as per normal. If opportunity arose and you felt someone on another team could particularly use some buffs sure go ahead but don't sweat it if you don't.

I tried the whole Cold shield the entire league. It got boring.

Shield everyone, period.

Just kidding, I would say buff your own team if you feel like it, but if not it seems like you'd do fine with just buffing the tank. The one exception would be in the lab/warehouse for Lambda. Buff anyone who's close when you have the chance (which will probably still only be 1/3 of the team).

On my FF'er I started trying to buff everyone. It gets old, and it is like herding cats. I'm now at the point that I buff my team, and then maybe some of the nearby folks when I have a chance.

- B.

I only buff with my cold whoever is most likely to be attacked a.k.a. the brutes/tanks. Everyone else tends to huddle close and not have to worry about much agro....of course I also play my defender like a scrapper and I am always one of the first couple into groups...I just let someone else take the alpha and if it tends to be the same person every time then Ill buff them so "I" stay alive longer :P

Force Fielder here. In BAF bubble the team and those that are in the way of heavy damage. There's normally so many AoE +Def that most everyone is safe. Lamdba is trickier as potentially everyone can end up in real danger, so I try to bubble up during the big bot fight and hope for the best.

My empath kept Fort and Adrenaline on the tanks that had it rough, otherwise I kept both on whoever seemed to be the best DPSers.

its not so bad. i play a cold defender and regulary buff more than my team, in fact i use heatloss as a timer for when to rebuff because i only buff when i have the endurance boost going or i will bottom my endurance out. for anything less than an av you can just drop sleet and alternate attacking through your buff targets.

i personally prefer BAF for ease of buffing pressure since you dont need to keep buffs up for the whole thing since the escapee phase is all assault, but on lamda you only get a brief window to buff both teams before splitting up to collect weapons crates.

when im feeling lazy i do use the league window set to show all, stretched out horizontally instead of the team window. it helps me pinpoint who needs frostwork more.

With the +Recharge I have, I can keep Fort on 6-8. I tend to pick those that need it, and anyone who dies usually gets a dose after the Rez (if I can rez before they hit the hospital). I also tend to Fort the main AV tank/brute during AV fights.

AB goes on anyone (league wide) who asks for it, or on anyone who's end use is heavy.

I rarely use HA (certainly don't toggle it like some do), and use Absorb Pain regularly to keep others in the fight. Watching a Tank go from a slither to a full bar is very satisfying. Downside is that when I catch agro, I die. I don't posses Heal Other.

Now that I have Clarion, I don't go near CM.

Have Grant Invis for the Lambda glowy rushes, and usually dish those out to the entire league whilst they are slaying the security guard.

My only issue is that when I blast and don't buff, I get better reward tables. Been experimenting for a while now. It makes me sad.

-H

On my Emp and Kin I buff my team and I'll watch the rest of the league to see if maybe there are one or two others who look like they need help (Maybe instead of Forting 3 people on my team, I'll see who in the whole league needs it most, if one or two peeps on another team look like they have end issues, maybe I'll SB those 2 as well as my team, etc.). Can't be buffing a whole league, that would be mind-numbing.

What do you do on regular missions when someone runs off to do their own thing? You don't go looking for them and you don't chase them. You ignore them. On these Trials, your team mates, along with the rest of the league, may be pretty spread out during certain phases. Ignore them and dont' sweat it. Only deal with whoever is in your immediate vicinity, whether they are your team mates or not. Apply the individual buff when you have time in between whatever else you're doing. If someone wants a buff, they come to you.

I use the visible rule when buffing in leagues personally. I find that running like a madman and trying to buff the same 6-8 can often be entirely exhausting. However, I find that the ones who stay around me are generally the ones who need my buffs most (disregarding certain situations when I am asked to guard a particular target) Really, I only use the league window to watch for spikes in hp drop to run and support when needed. I do try to keep the buffs mainly on the squishes first though I must admit.

A decent leader should have made sure there's a reasonable spread of ATs in every team. Most of the time, I buff my team and whoever I'm targeting through (it's just polite). However, sometimes things just don't seem to be going well, like in the BAF run I was forced to lead. >8[ In between trying to buff and boom and type and wondering if I was doing what I should, it felt like the AVs took MUCH MUCH longer to go down, and there were multiple sequesterings, so I started frantically buffing everybody in the league.

Finally got a pick off the Rare table for that one. >.>

I have everyones healthbars above their heads so I can buff not in team people as and when and if I deem necessary. Just because someone is not in team they still can be more important alive than dead to the team.

Buff your own team with things like ice shields, speed boost, etc. For empaths and other defenders with auras, then sure you can buff as many people as you can.

A 18/24 man league should have more than one defender, anyway. If anybody ever kicks you for not buffing each and every person on a league, then you don't want to be in that league anyway.

Basic strategy should be:

1. Try to maximize AoE buff coverage.
2. Keep your own damage output up (to satisfy "participation" requirements) and spread damage around.
3. Use your ST buffs and debuffs only when you see fit (no buff-botting).

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