Sapper strategies?

Just got back playing here in the last month after being gone for about a year. Had an interesting experience today in a PUG that seemed so odd it actually had me questioning myself as to whether I was missing something. I play pretty much exclusively on PUGs and there always seems to be an unwritten rule that most people know to try to take sappers (especially Malta sappers) out quickly. As long as 2-3 people are paying attention to sappers, that's usually enough to keep them in check anyway.

I was playing my ice/cold controller today and got invited to a PUG with a level 45 team leader. The team leader seemed overly excited to have a controller join the team which told me that they had been running into some problems. It was a Freakshow mission and the team leader was making a big deal in team chat about how it would be my responsibility to lock down the Super Stunners. I didn't mind since I'd be doing that anyway as I always try to lock down bosses and he's the team leader so how ever he wants to play it. Then, we get in the mission and he has some sort of binds set up to announce his targets because he's making a bunch of announcements about targeting the Super Stunner in the first spawn as we're all standing by the mission entrance getting organized. Again, I'm thinking fine, I'm targeting that guy anyway.

Then, it gets interesting, lol. All of a sudden, I get a tell from this guy which says for me to charge into a spawn of like 10-12 freaks just so I can lock down the Super Stunner. This is a full team of 8 with a tank and a scrapper. I don't remember the exact settings but I was set at one level below the team leader and the bosses were conning red to me so it wasn't turned up super-high or anything. This should not have been THAT challenging to a full, balanced team. Anyways, I had to do a double-take and make sure I was reading that tell correctly. The strategy being directed by the team leader seemed flawed for several reasons. (1) If I rush in just to freeze a Super Stunner, it's a suicide run because there's no way I'm surviving the alpha strike. So now I'm down and useless to the team and the spawn is going to be set off into chaos on the rest of the team with no aggro control. (2) Since the Super Stunners can fly, ice slick would be useless to incapacitate them so I'd have to use Ice Block and then everyone else bombs me or I'd have to try Glacier which has lower accuracy and may not hold the Super Stunner since he's a boss and definitely won't hold some of the spawn which now lets loose on me. (3) We have a tank, it's his job to take the alpha strike and draw and maintain the aggro. (4) There's no way a Super Stunner can sap an entire team of 8 instantly right off the bat. If the tank draws the alpha strike, I can quickly follow with holds on the Super Stunner before he does any real damage to anyone. (5) With ice slick, glacier, sleet, etc., I can mitigate a bunch of damage and easily keep holds also on a Super Stunner at the same time. Having me basically disregard all of my other powers to only focus on 1 boss is a waste.

Is there something I'm missing here? I didn't respond to the tell, mainly because I was pretty shocked. I just let the tank go in like normal and then I locked down the Super Stunners as requested. The team leader had some other questionable strategies as the mission proceeded. So I just politely excused myself from the team after one mission. That group had teamwipe written all over them, lol. I didn't really understand why someone so freaked out about end drains would be running Freakshow missions since many of their guys have end drain powers. Also, I found it interesting that the team leader was an emp defender and never used CM or Fort. I had to repeatedly ask for CM because I kept getting mezzed. So you're going to direct me and my squishy body to charge big spawns of freaks without even giving me any CM or Fort? Yeah, that'll go well. At one point late in the mission he bemoaned the fact that he wished he could give himself CM. I was thinking....yeah, I wish you could give me CM too, lol.

Anyways, sorry for the rant....it didn't bother me at all or anything, just one of those comical, head-scratching moments you get sometimes in PUGs where you can't do anything but laugh. This one was just so odd that I had to share (unless I'm missing some brilliant strategy that flew right over my head here, haha). Ahhhhh, it's good to be back!

Super Stunners were added when Going Rogue came out and they turned Freaks from everyones favourite badguys to ono not them again.

He sounds like he's moved here from a different game. We will have to watch out for these people over the next few weeks and try to put them straight.

The stunner seems to have a different impact on several of my toons. However, at no time has any Freak Stunner drained my end so completely, unless it was already very low.

At full HP and End, when the stunner rezzes, he might get one toon to about half, the other maybe a 1/5th. But, different toons of mine have different resists and other set bonuses that might impact end drain.

Still, when my lowbies came to blue side from Praetoria over 2xp weekend and ran Sister Psyche last week for the Weekly, the stunners are more annoying than anything else.

I'd have to agree, this defender leader you came across, probably rolled a blaster first, didn't realize the full potential of the powersets and re-rolled a defender thinking it would be like a blaster with a heal. So Clear Mind and Fort aren't a priority with his play style. It makes me think of the way a lot of blasters will run into a mob first, even though there is a tank on the team to take the alpha. For them, it's fun. They don't seem to mind defeat, so it's usually not a big deal. Just make a note, that way, when you come across them again, you'll know.

Head scratching weirdness indeed. Sounds like you did the right thing in excusing yourself from the team. I'm not keen on micromanagers on pugs anyway (unless it's a keyes or something), but for any "leader" to tell a troll to run into a mob while a tank and multiple scrappers stand around scratching their bums . . . ? Just to hold a super freak? Nuts.

I actually don't mind the super stunners that much, especially on anything ice. As has been mentioned, they don't drain all your end in an initial hit like Sappers do and don't pose a real threat if the team, or at least a couple people on the team, are targeting them initially for holds (and quick death).

People are afraid of Super Stunners? The only reason I even noticed them was because of the instant self rez! Definitely sounds like the leader was coming from another game and had zero clue how things worked in CoH (being an emp that didn't use the good powers in empathy is a dead give away!).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

maybe the leader was in such awe over your UBER cool ice powers and the masterful way you played you character... it left him incapable of thinking clearly.


maybe

No, you're not missing a thing, haha! Sounds like you've got it right and handled that well.
It is really odd when someone insists on such things (sometimes even when they're good strategies -which, these were not- when they're not at all necessary, they're still odd)!
Welcome back!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by OutaControl maybe the leader was in such awe over your UBER cool ice powers and the masterful way you played you character... it left him incapable of thinking clearly. maybe

Brain freeze?

I play an Electric Blaster. Usually, I've drained all of the Stunner's end before they can drain mine. I've never even noticed that the Freak's end drain.