Step Child Woes

Energy may have had seven years to acquire a reputation, one that I've never noticed myself anywhere but on the forum, but players have had up to seven years to learn to cope with the torturous adversity that is inflicted upon them when an energy blaster (or defender, or corruptor, or dominator) joins their team. If one guy using kb recklessly is all it takes to ruin your fun, what is it that you do exactly? What are you bringing to the team that you are so easily rendered ineffective? How pro of a player are you that your bag of tricks consists in its entirety of "herd and aoe?"

There are two situations where it makes sense to shoot for a specific team composition. One is when you're working toward an unusual goal, such as a master of task force or an all-FF superteam. The other is if the composition you're after is "a team full of my friends" in which case you presumably will discuss which characters to bring amongst yourselves. In any other situation, there is no reason not to fill the team first come first served. If you're leading a team in the first place you ought to be anywhere from prepared to eager to make up for any given minor inefficiency yourself.

The spin is strong in this one

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle Energy may have had seven years to acquire a reputation,

Has had and longer if you count beta.

Quote:

one that I've never noticed myself anywhere but on the forum, but players have had up to seven years to learn to cope with the torturous adversity that is inflicted upon them when an energy blaster (or defender, or corruptor, or dominator) joins their team.

Because people put together teams because they want to "COPE WITH TORTUROUS ADVERSITY"

Quote:

If one guy using kb recklessly is all it takes to ruin your fun, what is it that you do exactly? What are you bringing to the team that you are so easily rendered ineffective? How pro of a player are you that your bag of tricks consists in its entirety of "herd and aoe?"

Translated "Your weenie is small if you don't like energy blast"

Quote:

There are two situations where it makes sense to shoot for a specific team composition. One is when you're working toward an unusual goal, such as a master of task force or an all-FF superteam. The other is if the composition you're after is "a team full of my friends" in which case you presumably will discuss which characters to bring amongst yourselves. In any other situation, there is no reason not to fill the team first come first served. If you're leading a team in the first place you ought to be anywhere from prepared to eager to make up for any given minor inefficiency yourself.

LOL STF, RSF, -regen for khan, -res for itf, ghoster for cavern of transcendence, sister psyche, hess, moonfire, tarikos, psi damage khan, synapse, lambda

Seems there might be more than 2

I never said it was your weenie that was small...

And really? You need finely tuned non-pick up teams to do all those things you listed? Not one of them could afford to bring an energy blaster, nevermind that one flavor of energy blaster is capable of packing more -regen than most flavors of defender?

Of course that isn't what you mean. You're saying that occasionally some level of selectivity is wise on the part of the leader. I agree. If your BAF league already consists of 23 stalkers, consider inviting a peacebringer for that last slot. Obviously. There is a major difference between a team needing a specific thing and a team needing to not have a specific thing, however. Is -regen important on a kahn? Sure, it's the easiest way to resolve the fight quickly. You can get -regen from a variety of sources, including an inexpensive temp power, but the point is that it's nice to have.

On the other hand, energy blast. Is adding energy blast to an otherwise solid team going to turn a successful tf into a failed tf? No. Is adding energy blast going to significantly slow the tf? Most likely not. Will energy blast sink a team that is already marginal? I'd be amazed. In fact, in that case it is more likely to get full benefit from its knockback mitigation. My point is, energy blast is never so onerous a penalty to a team that their fortunes will change. At worst it may rub you the wrong way. Pretending that your own fragile feelings are analogous to the very essence of the team is laughable.

If I wanted to rub it in, I'd mention the STF I ran where the only tank quit after the first mission. We pressed on and while it took some doing, recluse went down at about the 90 minute mark. Oh yeah, there were four blasters and two of them were energy.

Well there is definitely 2 schools of thought right here. One which doesn't care what team composition is unless is VERY lopsided (which is where I fall) and one which needs/wants/requires certain components to run certain TFs or tasks. I, for one, would not reject an AT based upon powers although I will be more selective if we have one spot left on a TF and are melee light (or whatever).

That being said.....I DO fall into the camp of very much disliking KB powers. Almost all of them.

In the hands of someone who doesn't understand team play and/or someone who doesn't understand that not everyone has an extra hour to complete a TF, KB powers can be brutal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle What are you bringing to the team that you are so easily rendered ineffective? How pro of a player are you that your bag of tricks consists in its entirety of "herd and aoe?".

I think most "Pros", as you call it, know how to work around non herd and aoe teams but that's not the point. Do you really want to be chasing down foes all mission long, every mission if you are melee? Do you really want to wait on the long recharge of your best/biggest AOE hold and have it minimized due to scattering. Or worse yet, not even use it. Do you really want all of your AOE/Cone powers to become less effective? Do you really want your TFs to be extended...some but large chunks of time...b/c someone is not considerate of their powers in a team setting? Do you really want your AOE radius buffs/debuffs to be alot less useful. You see that many KB powers CAN do ALL of those things. It's a cascading effect to the entire team.

I understand knockback is an issue, mainly I tend to play tankers when I team up with friends and my wife. I get a ton of apologies from Energy blasters, Peace bringers, for knock my herd apart. Most of the time I just laugh, because, when you boil down the spread sheets, and what not its..just a game...when they are flying they aren't hitting my tank as for losing aggro..heh ain't happening with my tanks

I was on this team with a guy who only wanted specific powersets and spent about 1 hour leading up to an ITF speed run. Why you need anything but stealth for a SPEED RUN is beyond me, I nearly blew up at the guy.

But anyway, stop whining about getting kicked for playing your energy/devices guy. No one likes you kid.

From the perspective of the team builder, you have to operate under the assumption that 95% of the players in this game are terrible at it, and apply that accordingly to what powersets they are playing. Now, a bad Fire/ or Ice/ blaster will just die more often and be less optimal at DPS, but a bad Energy/ blaster can make an active hindrance to the speed of the team at killing, when things are getting repeatedly knocked out of the range of debuff patches, Fulcrum Shift, etc. And god forbid you're on something like ITF mission 1 and knock an objective-critical enemy through the numerous geometry holes on that map.

Individual players may know how best to apply knockback, but there's no way the leaders of these teams can know the skill level of a stranger they're inviting to a TF, and they have every right to exclude characters they may consider too much of a wild card to invite.

Some of you guys or gals remind me of one of my manager friends. She always used to say, if I only had the right people, I could really make the department work. What I tried to explain to her, is that a good manager, or team leader is gauged by how they succeed with the pieces you are given, not having the perfect pieces.

The KB haters will never get over it, or be able to see past it. You just have to ignore them, find a better leader to team with. This game, except in rare missions doesnt require specific AT's. In those instances, what blaster you have, makes no difference at all, they are mostly interchangeable.

Now one can certainly argue that a defender/troller/corr or maybe even dom is a better than a blaster in lots of circumstances, but to argue that the KB of Energy is the deciding factor of a teams success, then I think you should look no further than your own abilities, or lack there of, as the reason for your failures.

hey listen guys if I can't bring my nrg/nrg blaster just hold on and let me log on my ill/bubble troller

You know, it's such b.s. in my opinion. On my old account, my first (and favorite) character was Phuerton Skuerto, an all energy blaster. I ended up playing that character so well that I would find myself constantly leading teams. I would open up with a sniper blast and the team would then run in to take care of them. When I finally had the influence to I.O. him out, I was a killing machine. In my first run after I was finally I.O.'ed I remember I took a team into A.E. to test out my new build. The team stood back in awe as I was popping off nova around every 3 minutes just about and just annihilating everything that came my way.

Knock back is great enemy mitigation and the complaining melee A.T.'s can suck a big one because my energy blaster quite literally saved the day on numerous occasions. It's all a matter of knowing your character class!

No one has ever complained to me about my AOE energy/fire build. Embrace the knockback (but skip power push) because the truth is it is damage mitigation.

Everyone knows that every mob that is knocked back runs off and is never to return so you loose all that experience plus some.

Oh Wait.... They don't...

They actually come back to fight again. So I don't get it. That person clearly was semi new to the game and thinking small.

This type of mentality is equal to when people used to cry about confuse tanking your experience. People just like to complain for the sake of complaining.

...

I've mained an Energy/Energy blaster for... hrm, about five years now. I've occasionally had a tank or scrapper whine at me (and more recently, a brute every once in a while), but my usual response is "If it's flying, it's dying." Simple, to the point, and it even rhymes so it's easier yet for the slow-of-mind to remember.

*shrug*

There will always be idiots. My favourite is when I was teaming with two stormies and a Peacebringer, and everyone yelled at me for the KB >.
... then again, it could be worse. I've heard tell of a PB that got kicked from an ITF because the leader 'didn't want to deal with cysts'.