Autopsy Report: Level 50 "Hardcore" Stone Tanker

Deceased: One "hardcore" (a playstyle in which a single defeat = death/deletion or at the very least, transfer to a non-hardcore SG) Stone/Stone Tanker, level 50, pre-Incarnate (has shards but had not made an Alpha power yet). Decedent had numerous set IOs.

Location: The body was found in the offices of the Paragon Caper tabloid newspaper, surrounded by level 51 Malta corpses.

Known Suspects: Marks on the body implicate Malta operatives and are consistent with the modus operandi of a rogue super known as Blast Furnace (see attached rap sheet).

Scenario: Decedent was known to be operating in the pre-granite armors -- all of them -- at the defense soft cap against smashing, lethal, energy, negative, and psi damage, although only moderate defense against Blast Furnace's fire (20%). Also known to be Tough. At the time of death, the body did not appear to have employed Earth's Embrace or Granite Armor.

A witness to the scene, a Dark Melee/Shield Scrapper, described what happened.

"[Decedent] teleported into the spawn of Malta next to Blast Furnace, and taunted. Then he attempted to use his Fault power to stun them and knock them down, but it did not work -- he appeared to be immediately held. Before realizing this, he tried to activate Earth's Embrace to heal himself, but it also did not work, and he realized he was held.

He made two attempts to "break free" from this hold, but neither seemed to "take" -- apparently he was ready to be Inspired but the Inspiration never actually took place. Instead he tried to turn into granite -- maybe he assumed he'd found the proper inspiration?*

Anyway, I lived through the whole fight myself, despite not being a Tanker."

Questions for the class: What happened here? Is a x8 spawn of +1 Malta likely to hold a Stone Tanker using Rooted with a single alpha strike? Our records do not indicate any prior experience of this happening. Was this a simple case of really bad luck causing defense to fail spectacularly? Or is there something more sinister going on? *dun dun DUHHHN*

*clicked twice on the breakfrees and then moved on to fruitlessly trying to activate Granite and some heal inspirations, not realizing that clicking on the BFs hadn't had any effect like actually USING them.

First place thing to look for is the status effects icons, I can always read them no matter what character I am on, mine and the whole of the teams but I have great eyesight. Then there is combat tab, which is worth a look to see what happened. Most players never do, but by doing so, they may come to realize just how avoidable situations can become. If not, then the contents of the tab could be posted whereby people can link to the powers showing alternative ways of getting around the problem without being a doughnut by saying you needed x in team.

I am inclined to think that it was stuns that were stacked which is seriously unlucky, or maybe they're positionally typed only. Perhaps effects from one fight lived onto the next too.

I have that thing where you click on some insp but it doesn't register. I always thought it my mouse.

The Gunslinger bosses have a nasty -Def debuff, I'm not sure of the exact numbers but it drops my StJ/SR Scrapper by about 10% after the 95% DDR, it's nearly as bad as the Carnie's Mask of Vitation.

I'd guess that you were either hit with that debuff, or cascading failure from their normal -Def. With less DDR the stuns stacked and left you with a stun of high enough magnitude that the BF wouldn't fire. I've been stunned/held/etc on a number of characters in the past and when there are enough stacked, BF's will not fire off(unless they're the bigger ones, ie-Escape). Of course by the time I realized the BF wouldn't click I was usually dead, as Defense essentially drops to zero when mezzed. It's also quite possible you were sapped and your toggles dropped before you had time to notice.

There are many enemy groups that are like kryptonite to a majority of AT's, and they're usually the groups that most players openly despise and often refuse to do missions involving them. Off the top of my head: Arachnos, Circle of Thorns, Devouring Earth, Longbow, Malta, Nemesis, Rularuu. I've seen teams wipe to all of these groups many times, often with the "immortal" tank charging into the mob only to eat dirt seconds later. Some groups it's best to stop and think before attacking, choose priority targets, and *gasp* maybe even plan.

I have never experienced a situation where Holds/Stuns/Etc physically prevented a Break Free from firing. I've been held by Ghost Widow (Mag 100) and Sequestered (Mag 1,000 if I recall correctly), and Break Frees will fire in both situations. They don't work, because of the high magnitude, but they still fire. To that end, enough Gunslingers can stack enough holds on you to hold through Rooted, and possibly Granite on top of it, if you get hit enough. I've had the same thing happen on my Shield tank, though he was running at +4/x8. >.>

Yeah, in retrospect Granite and Fault would have been much, much safer. I was in a hurry, late at night (yeah, I know). :P

Actually every one is forgetting the most basic of all it is a Rangle Plot.