Time Manipulation Superteam

DD is a pretty straightforward trial. Beat up lots of baddies and then move on to the boss. It is very possible to get Master of DD in one run. My warshade got it on the first time through. The few times that I've been on DD trials that have failed, it was because there wasn't enough level shifted people.

MoM is a bit trickier though. Moving the storms around might be our bottleneck. But I'm certainly willing to give it a shot.

Epic +4 Cuda tonight. Thanks to everybody for sticking it out.

There's been a few ideas for our next group thrown around.

1) A single AT group
2) An all kb group
3) A 'Make it Rain' group

I did want to suggest that if anybody wanted to do an all tank team, that they join in on Tanker Tuesday if possible. It'll give you a good idea of what to expect with an all tank team. NuclearMedicine is great at getting everybody that shows up on a team.

Just realized that we have RL plans tomorrow and might be late or not able to show.

I'm conflicted among the current choices. I like all-dominator right now, because I don't have a 50 yet and I enjoy the ranges sets. Tanker would be interesting, too. I'm not sure all-Stalker would play out great. It wouldn't to be bad I expect, but Stalker seems to engender a methodical approach with many small decisions along the way. Not sure that would work well in a free-flowing team atmosphere.

Maybe we should start goldside again...add a little challenge at the low levels. The existence of First Ward makes it easier to keep everyone together. If the devs hurry up, we'd even have Night Ward after that.

I can see some good themes farther in the future: Water Blast/Storm, Plant Control/Nature Affinity. Someday I still hope an all-EAT team will become truly viable from level 1.

I haven't been monitoring this thread lately, so I'm late to the discussion about what's next. Sorry bout that. Good ideas so far.

For another true "super" team experience, all Dark Affinity. It's new and will stack quite well.

The heal (Twilight Grasp) is huge and slotted to ED for heal and recharge, each person would be able to fully heal the whole team every 4 seconds.

8 Tar Patches... wow. Being a pseudopet, the -30 resist debuff is the same as Defenders.

8 Darkest Nights is overkill for normal mobs; AVs will have a real effect to their -tohit even with their resistance. The -dmg isn't part of AV resists so when they hit it'll be a fluffy hit.

Speaking of fluffy... 8 of them, doing what you do.

8 fully slotted Shadow Falls gives 47ish def and caps energy, neg and psi resists.

The new power, Fade, x8 would give 119% def, and cap out s/l resists.

Actually after typing all this out, I'm not as convinced stacking Dark Affinity is so "super". It looks incredibly safe, you won't get hit, if it hits it'll be for not much and then you can heal that up easily enough. However there's nothing for endurance or recharge. Still, I'll throw it out there.

Darkness 2: Darktastic Boogaloo

Yes we just did a Dark theme team but our timing kinda sucked, since the devs dropped a ton of Dark powersets right after we started. The previously mentioned Dark Affinity, Dark Blast and Dark Manipulation for Blasters, Darkness Control for trollers/doms and Dark Assault for Dominators. Whether or not to include the previously existing dark powers I'll leave up for debate.

Other options:

Someone mentioned all Stalkers on Sunday and that made me think of a couple of options that, while maybe not exactly super, could have stacking capabilities.


All Ice Armor Stalkers

8 Chilling Embraces would easily floor recharge and run speed, and also provide a -120% damage debuff. That's quite nice. The radius is only 10 feet and has a max of 10 targets, so that -120 is a "best case" that would rarely be met, but still helpful. With Maneuvers, a team would be able to easily exceed s/l/e/n defense.

All Dark Armor Stalkers

8x Maneuvers + Shadow Dweller + CJ would take defense to over 30%. Then stacked Oppressive Gloom and/or Cloak of Fear should keep regular mobs well behaved. Unlike Ice, DA would never provide any endurance help though.

All Tanks I can't get too excited about, but with Maneuvers, 8 Fire Tanks could be viable and interesting. Maybe even fun. The only stacking is of damage, but hey the ultimate objective is to make enemy hp = 0 and this would do it.

Dark Armor could also be viable for the reasons listed for Stalkers + a damage aura. I personally am least excited about this since a DA Tank was my guy for the darkness team.

Miscellaneous...

Chill Masters - anything with Ice Blast, Cold Dom, Ice Control, Icy Assault, Ice Manip, Ice Armor, Ice Melee, maybe Storm. I think you get the idea. Ice base epics for the (frozen) cherry on top. One thing's for sure, we wouldn't be chasing down runners with all the -speed.

Some Like it Hot - let's go the other direction where everything is fire based. I won't list all the different powersets because I'm getting tired of typing. I expect this wouldn't be as safe as the ice one but definitely more offensive.

Looking down the road I see some interesting options for a "Back to Nature" team with the 3 announced new powersets: bio armor, nature affinity and water blast, along with Poison and Plant.

Nice work on the suggestions...alot to think about.
The following idea kinda popped into my head for a possible melee team idea: all scrapper shield defense.

Although i haven't done any numbers...some pros:
uses an AT that has been rarely used in previous teams (if i recall correctly).
Some stacking of the PBAoE defs buffs (again i havent done numbers so it could be pointless or so small does not matter).
Little clicking...only have to make sure you hit the mez protec power. The "oh crap" +res power is kinda optional. Rest of the powers are toggles or auto.
Body mastery can help with any end problems.
Would require some team tatics: lack of heal, smaller numbers, everyone would have to be all sparta like and stick togeather should we up diff/spawn size so the buffs stack.
Most important pro: icon order would always be the same so my ocd would be not trigger.

Cons:
Only the scrapper AT allowed. Side notes: This of course can be opened up to brutes and tanks if we wanted. But i figured tanks: have an easier survivablity, but lower damage out put. Brutes: if all brutes, then fury may not build as easily so output would not be maxed. Scrappers woud allow a challenge (since lower defs numbers/and def powers are later levels) and at least provide a constant damage all around with the occasional crits. Stalkers are sorry out of luck.
Shield Defense only allows one handed weapons so really all new shinies (staff, TW, and all new dark stuff) are out other then street justice but even then people may not have bought that.
Shield Defense has been around awhile, so that in itself isnt all shiny as it could be.

Again: food for thought for the next theme.

All though we did the darkness theme, a darkness 2.0 if you will is certainly an option. My suggestions and ideas for that would be:

if free for all AT: maybe play as an opposite AT (in my case, i was ranged so i would role melee). Gives us a different feel or route to play.

If not free for all AT: limit it to either trollers and doms for a "...in the darkness, smite them" concept. Blasters did get a late start when dark balst was released, but i think those that did join with a somthing dark blaster did hit fifty or close too. The Dark Affinity trollers got and the numbers posted by deacon make a nice presentation for a DA theme. But i kinda rolled two trollers for the time team, thus i am controllered out for the moment. So doms would be a nice change...a little more pewpew would be had. However, i do have have a troller idea in mind should an all dark affinity theme win out. And of course my icon ocd would be at ease since all icons would be purple.

I always thought an all Shield Defense group would be fun. I wouldn't limit it to one AT, and everyone must get Grant Cover fairly early.

Wow. Great ideas so far. I'm liking the ways you guys think and would like to subscribe to your respective newsletters.

Quote:

For another true "super" team experience, all Dark Affinity. It's new and will stack quite well. The heal (Twilight Grasp) is huge and slotted to ED for heal and recharge, each person would be able to fully heal the whole team every 4 seconds. 8 Tar Patches... wow. Being a pseudopet, the -30 resist debuff is the same as Defenders. 8 Darkest Nights is overkill for normal mobs; AVs will have a real effect to their -tohit even with their resistance. The -dmg isn't part of AV resists so when they hit it'll be a fluffy hit. Speaking of fluffy... 8 of them, doing what you do. 8 fully slotted Shadow Falls gives 47ish def and caps energy, neg and psi resists. The new power, Fade, x8 would give 119% def, and cap out s/l resists. Actually after typing all this out, I'm not as convinced stacking Dark Affinity is so "super". It looks incredibly safe, you won't get hit, if it hits it'll be for not much and then you can heal that up easily enough. However there's nothing for endurance or recharge. Still, I'll throw it out there.

I just hit 42 (I am the answer to everything! ) on my dark/dark troller and I wanted to make a clarification about Darkness Affinity. Soul Absorbtion is freaking awesome for increasing regen and recovery for the group. Does nothing for recharge, but does make life better on the blue bar. Think of it as Stygian Circle for your team.

I am disappoint that you did not include Howling Twilight. I know that there are some that refuse to take it because it's a rez, but that's not all it does. It's an auto-hit -regen attack that has a stun. Oh, and it can rez multiple people.

I think that if we were to do another darkness team, it should be limited to one AT or flavor of AT (dom/troller) because the previous one allowed almost every AT.

I understand that other people like the idea of an all shield defense team, but that really doesn't work for me. Keep in mind Phalanx Fighting has an 8 foot range which means you have to be pretty close to get benefit from it. According to PWiki, it caps at 3 people. This means that you're going to have to try and keep at least 4 scrappers in the same small area. Grant Cover is 15 feet which is almost double Phalanx Fighting, but still isn't much. It looks good on paper but I think the reality will be much different.

I guess I'm just not into the idea of an all melee group. This is just my opinion and a reflection of my personal playstyle, but when I roll a scrapper/brute/tanker/stalker, I do so with the idea that I won't need a group to level because I build for solo capability. When I group, I prefer to play force multipliers that become much stronger because they're in a group.

I'm also less of a fan of all-melee superteams. In my mind, the whole concept of superteam is the stacking effects of ATs / powers chosen that make the sum much greater than the parts. Melee severly limits how much those stacking effects can be chosen. We tend to work around that somewhat by adding in Maneuvers, which makes a difference, but not as much as stacking buffs from a Corr / Def / 'Troller / etc.

That said, if I had to pick a melee superteam, I would pick Shield Defense, because of all the melee sets, it is the one designed with a team focus in mind. That, and Shield is on my list of powersets not yet played to 50 (although I know EF already has one).

Still, I think when the voting comes, I'll be picking some other theme for the synergy effect. For example, I've been on a mostly fire-powerset team before, and it was fairly fun. This superteam tends to build even more group-focused than that one did, and I would like to see just how far the idea can be taken. I feel that a fire team is inevitible for our group sooner or later, and I'm looking forward to that eventuality.

-TheBaub

Have you guys ever done all Trick Arrow, Plant, or Poison Superteams?

Not including Soul Absorption was a terrible oversight on my part for summarizing Dark Affinity. That definitely covers the endurance management issue and changes my final assessment from "meh" to "oooh".

I neglected Howling Twilight because I was trying to highlight stacking effects, and except for AV fights, isn't something I think we'd be counting on for stacked effects.

Someday I would love to see 8 people hit shield charge all at the same time. And I was just thinking of rolling up a stalker. I've never played a dominator past level 10. I haven't played with the new darkness sets yet. Fire is one of the few powersets which is available as a primary and secondary for every archetype (I think that's true), so an all fire/fire team could allow every AT, while still stacking lots of things, especially DOTs. Or, if you go with corruptors, I'll stick with Chronosian until he hits 50. In other words, I like all of the ideas presented so far!

Sadly, I probably shouldn't get a vote, since I doubt if I'll be playing much more often in the future than I have in the recent past. Final exams, surgery (my son, not me), out of town guests... the string of excuses is long and boring, and summer isn't looking much better. Still, I love all the ideas and I'd like to jump in when I can with whatever you all come up with.

I don't know how many options are allowed in the poll program/website ara uses, but would it be fair to summarize that the following are the leading ideas:

A single AT/single powerset option such as fire blast/* corrs only.
A general theme option such as dark 2.0.
A single power set option such as the dark affinity and/or dark miasma.

I too am in favor of the don't tell what you be bringing to the party. In general i don't have a strong pref as for what the next theme is...so i will vote however i am feeling when i vote or unless a strong arguement is made and i remember said argument.

I just wanted to throw out another idea that we might want to take into consideration when determining our next group. It seems to that whatever we decide upon, there should be an option that f2p/premium players can choose to join. I know darkness affinity was mentioned as an option, but for a f2p/premium player they would have to pay to unlock darkness affinity and controllers. I'm not suggesting that we not consider darkness affinity, just that we combine it with something else like dark miasma, which is free and available for defenders which is also a free AT.

The logic behind this is that when I23 hits, f2p/premium players will be able to join supergroups. This means we just might get some new folks.

I also have a request for tonight-any objections to running a mixed team tonight? Since I23 is dropping soon, I would love to get my TW/Elec scrapper to 50 so I can get my grubby little hands on Excalibur. I would then like to use it to beat up Ms. Lib and possibly her mom too.

free options no matter the outcome should always be considered. Therefore i don't object to a dark affinity/dark miasma combo.

I also don't object to a mix/free-for-all group so the TW/Elec can reach 50.

Great outing last night. We pulled off a +2 Renault strike force that went very smoothly. After the group started to dissipate, the stragglers joined an itrial. That too, went well. King, PC, Ten and I all pulled a very rare table for a Keyes. Sometimes the RNG loves us. I thought that was a perfect stopping point and decided to call it.

Tomorrow Baub and I are visiting some friends and probably won't make it. I understand that there will probably be some brainstorming and I'd like to throw my 2 inf in.

I'd really like for the next team to have a narrow focus either by limiting powersets or archetype. Personally, my preference would be to limit my archetype because I'd like to have more freedom in choosing powersets.

I'd also like to have a free to play option. Darkness Affinity sounds like fun, but a f2p/premium player would have to unlock Darkness Affinity and controller.