Glue Grenade makes me not want to run Mayhems

Those equalizers are in one or two Mayhems. That's at most a 10 level range, then they're gone forever. And there are things to minimize their annoyance factor.

1- Kill the Equalizer first. If you're soloing on x1, there will never be more than one per spawn. If you're teamed, then get the team to help eliminate the hard targets first. If your difficulty in insreased and it's making too many Equalizers spawn - turn your difficulty down.

2- Mez the Equalizer. Not an option for everyone, but if he CAN'T act, he can't web you. If there's too many equalizers to mez, see point 1.

Sometimes they'll get off a grenade anyways, especially when they show up in ambushes. That's when you need to learn to deal with the debuff.

3- GTFO. The patch lasts 30 seconds, and pulses every 0.5 seconds, applying a 30 second debuff each time. They don't stack from the same patch, but they do refresh the duration. This means you can be debuffed for a full minute if you just stand there. Teleport is, of course, the best way out. Turning on Sprint, Ninja Run, Beast Run or Super Speed will give you a boost that will help get you out.

4- Get slow resistance. Many sets have it built in. for those that don't, you can get a Winter's Gift Slow Resist IO. You can also use sets that grant runspeed or recharge bonuses to offset the penalties.

If they get rid of or nerf Glue Grenades, then they need to do the same to a lot of other powers - Mask of Vitiation, Curse of Weakness, the disease that Vahzilok and Minotaurs cause, Sapper Rifles, Earthquake, the list goes on. Pick enemies with no debuffs or the debuffs that least affect you, and the game becomes "Press 1, 2, 3, 4 until they fall down". Pick other enemies, and it becomes a thinking man's game.

As a mostly-melee player I hate the glue... I really, really do... But then, I hate pretty much anything that slows my movement or keeps me from being able to jump around in a fight like the perpetual-motion CJ-monkey I am.

That said, one-per-group Equalizers have never kept me from doing Mayhems. They're just the Sappers or Galaxies of their faction. The target I stomp the crap out of first. Like Sam said, though, it's when you're outside of Mayhems and start running into spawns with multiples that things go from just "annoying" to "where are those puppies >_<".

Just one example from my play-time yesterday... I was running Roy Coolings' arc solo with my lvl 24 Claws/WP Scrap. I got to the mission where you go in to find the hostage, and a regular group happened to have spawned right on top of Mr. Y, one of the bosses you have to defeat. The group included two Equalizers and a Ghost.

By the end of that fight, poor Summer Moon found himself with a double dose of Glue, he was Flashed *and* the building was on fire. With a short mission timer, just to make the glue situation even more hair-pullingly annoying.

THAT was a bit much.

I don't mind if we keep the Equalizers...
But can we please keep them down to one per spawn?

I am normally all for potent enemy powers. Malta and KoA are two of my favorite villain groups. I am also always happy to see powers that hamper melee users, while rangers can work around the issue thanks to range attacks.

Glue Grenade is just too much, IMO. I love KoA. I love caltrops. I loathe the Glue Grenade. Glue Grenade might be an acceptable power to throw at Incarnates. It may even be OK to hit level 40+ people with it (although it is likely too strong even at those levels). But it is absolutely obscene to toss at level 20-30 characters.

It could be workable if the debuff lasted 15 seconds after leaving the patch. Or maybe have the patch be larger and the debuff lasts 5 seconds after leaving it.

I really don't mind the Glue Grenades.

Are they annoying? They sure as hell are, I'm not denying that.

But....if everything were a cakewalk in this game, it would be a lot less fun.

I mean, how long can you play Doom on godmode before it gets boring?

You start nerfing or removing annoying enemy powers and the game gets not only less dynamic, but it starts making less and less sense.

You mean to tell me in a world where superpowered metahumans exist, no one EVER devised ways to deal with them?

Those Glue Grenades are meant to be annoying, and the fact that they are just reinforces my belief that this could be a real world. A world where normal humans invent things to deal with the metahumans they can't take on toe to toe makes sense. A world where metahumans rampage over everything and anything in their path because the normals are using the same tactics on them they would use for other normals doesn't.

Yes, you're superhuman. That just means the non-supers are going to devise a way to make you less of a threat.

I can't speak for others, but I'm able to exit Equalizer glue patches by toggling on a Raptor Pack and flying away. That's exactly what I usually do when hit by a glue patch or the ridiculous -tohit of wtfpwnsauce. I Raptor Pack my way to the entrance and exit the mission, then go make a sandwich or something. It's easy enough to get extra time in mayhem missions that the delay is not an issue.

It's not just the magnitude of the debuffs or their durations that makes them so over the top, it's the combination of the two. If the magnitudes were low enough that I felt I could put up a meaningful fight through them, I would do that. If the durations were short enough that I could wait them out, I would do that. Neither is true. I'm either not hitting anything due to -tohit, or I get to use each of my powers once, then stand around getting pummeled.

The durations are long enough that even if I fought through them, I'd be carrying them into the next fight and possibly risk getting even more stacked on me. So to me the only thing to do is wait them out before moving on. At their durations, that's basically a forced AFK. Any power that has that effect is poorly designed IMO.

I'll fight PPD in any level range other than 20-30 all day long. I think it says something about the design of the faction when a level 50 PPD is easier than a level 20 one.

* Kill them first
* Roll /SR or /ELA that resists slows
* Kill them fast

My experience of Equalisers is... go for them first. In the same way that, unless you're after the badge, down the Raider Engineer first. Or the Comms Officer, or the Dark Servant and Phantasm from a Master Illusionist.

Equalisers do serve a purpose in slowing down Villainous ATs that they were originally designed to go up against (and only them). So a Brute would lose its Fury, A MM would find itself alone as its pets are gunned down (depending on the pets of course), and...

Well Stalkers have the benefit of taking them out in one hit, Domis can mez (and they're minions, remember, so only one hold required), and Corruptors can keep out of range/buff/debuff.

And has been said before, certain powersets have certain inbuilt ways of dealing with -recharge and/or -slow.

Even your TA/Psi Defender would be able to turn the Equalizer's recharge to putty whilst also destroying its ToHit. Of course, it might take you longer to defeat it, and in the meantime a Sergeant will run at you and down you in three hits, but still...

Also the point raised earlier about Melee toons and Cimerorans - what planet was the Poster on? They're blinking easy with a /SR Scrapper. Or at least I find them easy with my /SR scrapper. Sure they have a higher ToHit but so what? Just means that defence-based toons need to work harder but not really by much at all.

Rikti are also hilariously easy. Yes, running on +4 x8 will make them tricky, but you changes your rep, you takes your choice.

And finally, SWAT exist for 2 Mayhems. If Mayhems were the only way of levelling and/or earning other rewards then fine, reconsider the powers of the critters. But as it stands, Equalisers provide a challenge in the same way that lots of other mobs in different factions provide a challenge.

(PS I personally try to avoid Bane Spider Scouts AND Tarantula Mistresses in the same mish because I always seem to end up KOd. Same goes for too many Gunslingers, or too many Dark Ring Mistresses. But sometimes one must suffer a slower run through because of these obstacles.)