Statesman TF on Test! LESS DOO EET!

[captainspud]

It's available on Test, let's rock this thing.

We have WAAAAAY better heroes than villains, so we can probably put together a pretty insane team to rip the AVs apart.

Here's my ideal, which we shouldn't have much trouble putting together:

-1 or 2 solid tanks, either Invuln or Stone.
-Lots of Defenders/Trollers
-Damagey guys

The nice thing about Heroes is that even the least AV-shredding toons are still of SOME use against them. TRY to bring a solid tank, or a debuffing Defender/Troller, but really, even a Warshade or an AR blaster will be helpful.

Post a list of your available 45-50s, and indicate which one you'd prefer to bring along. We'll be running this on Test, so getting badges on your main isn't an issue. Pick someone who rocks.

Also indicate when you can do this. What days/times work for you. I'm assuming Friday/Saturday is a good choice, but if we can get one together even sooner (Tonight? :D ), that's just gravy. :)

[captainspud]

Available toons:

Captain Spud - 50 MA/Invuln Scrapper. Decent substitute tank and damage dealer.

Chokepoint - 50 Fire/Rad Troller. He's Rad. 'Nuff said.

I'll bring Choke unless we're desperately short on tanks. He eats AVs.

[Ephemeris]

No thanks, I'll wait until it counts.

[Midnight]

Ironstreak - 50 Kat/SR Scrapper. Psi-Damage alpha taker.

Acoustica - 50 Sonic/Devices Blaster. Damage.

My Stone/Energy tank is close (42) too for the real run.

[Tortuga]

In some ways, I feel like trying it ahead of time, in other ways, like Eph, I know we'll be doing this tons once it's live.

That said, if a team is stuck and wants to try it out I have 4 heroes available - 50 tank, 50 blaster, 50 controller and 47 scrapper.

[Verfall]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o7GrDg3mww

Oh yah, guess I should add my at's

50 Invul/SS tank

50 fire/rad troller

50 elec/elec blaster

[Viking]

(*shrugs*)

I'd hate for this not to work due to lack of bodies.  And it really should get tested, right?

My only level 50 hero is Frozen Northman, Ice/Axe tanker.

[El Condor]

I'd love to do it!

El Condor 48 spines/sr scrapper: AoE damage

That's it! Now I just need to figure out how to get on test; I tried once and ended up just being sent to the regular servers.  I'll work on it though!  :thumbup:

This week/weekend will be tough for me, but next week will be wiiiide open for almost every night except Wednesday.

EC

[Time Titan]

I can bring whatever is needed:

L50  Lord Time Titan Grav/Rad Controller
L50  Time Titan Storm/Elec Defender
L50  Super Hero USA  DM/Regen Scrapper
L50  Decoy Master Illusion/Rad Controller
L50  Lord Magni  Fire/Axe Tank
L50  Super Heavyweight Stone/Nrg Tank
L50  King's Jester Fire/Kin Controller
L50  Rockeye Kat/Regen Scrapper
L45  Winterchill Ice/Super Strength Tank

Thursday and Sunday I can't make it. I would mostly be there for a try on Friday and Saturday.

[Alaric]

i'd like to help, but I haven't been able to get Test working for me since CoV went live, and since I have a dial up conenction, it would take a lot of time and effort on my part to try to fix that problem, with no guarantee it would work...

[RTTingle]

Level 50 A/R  for Tues and Wed nights.

[Stopman]

There's some good stuff in the Statesman TF:
[spoiler]The 2nd kidnap Dr. Aeon mission is a doozy. Turns out Aeon's a MM ---of himself! Very cool![/spoiler]

Okay, got the last mission and here's what's important:

[spoiler]
Like LRSF, you have to defeat lvl 54 AV's: his 4 inner circle, but then after that Lord Recluse, whom we didn't even get far enough to see. I think he comes out after you defeat the 4. They will come singly from pulls, but then others will be aggroed randomly, too. It's in Grandville plaza, so expect lagsville.

Mako seems to have a perma-Elude.

On a side note: the Flyer runs patrols there, so you can get the Heat Seeker badge before the villains!

Our team speculated on either rad-ing up, or perhaps rush in with the Nuke & Shivan temp powers.

[/spoiler]

I have a 50 MA/Regen Scrapper I just ran it with. Also I have a 50 ws, that may be useful.

[DireWolf]

I have never able to get the test stuff to work (Blush) but when it goes live, count on Direwolf for a run....

:direwolf

[Verfall]

The last mish shouldn't be two hard if we get a two tank setup, preferably an invul/stone combo. The way I did it with Verf in RV against the 3 person spawn of GW, Scirocco and Mako was to have the stone tank deal with scirrico and mako, since they can't de toggle granite, and I would taunt GW to follow me, hitting unstoppable when my health got low. Mako and Scorp are all smashing lethal damage, and sciroccos got his energy damage. A stone tank should be able to handle both easily with rads lowering their accuracy and other buffs. The only problem is GW's status pro breaking hold.

None of the villain AV's have the stupid powers like States 8k damage lightning strike, or his hand clap that can actually do damage. GW's single target hold is the one problem, and unstoppable is perfect for dealing with it.

Shivans could be useful, but I doubt required. Heros can buff each other so much better, and tanks are so much more survivable than brutes, that it'll be a challenge, but nowhere near the mess that the LRSF is.

[captainspud]

Just gave it a shot with a PUG, we got up to the 4-AVs fight before we had to give up (we lost 2 team members and couldn't get the DPS to kill them).

The first four missions are easy and fun. You fight single AVs (all notable characters), it's no problem for even a half-assed team.

The last mish, you fight four 54 AVs:

Ghost Widow - Detoggling hold, Dark powers
Scirocco - Elec blasts and a hold, sword, FRIGGIN ANNOYING nuke/hold.
Black Scorp - Tank
Mako - Very fast stalker

We tried a couple strategies, the one we had the most success with involved pulling them onto the roof of the hospital and then separating them (you'll see what I mean). The key to this is that Mako and BS have only very short-ranged attacks-- put an aggro toggle on them from the air and they'll follow you around. AND, the 4 AVs don't seem to have the Phalanx aggro rules, so they do eventually lose interest and go back home.

We gave up after we got down to 6 people, but the strategy WAS working, kinda. We got Scirocco down to 80% health. He was killing us left and right, but as I said, he was standing on the roof of the makeshift hospital, so we just rezzed and went back upstairs. THIS STRATEGY IS A BAD IDEA WITH SOMEONE WHO ISN'T 50.

Comments on builds:
-The first four missions are a non-issue. The 4-AV fight and the subsequent LR fight are the ONLY challenging parts of it. Thus, AV-killing toons are the focus here.
-We had a stone tank, he was able to admirably tank the AVs. GW kinda rocked him, but whatever. We got rid of her, and he was fine.
-Seven people were able to JUST BARELY hurt Scirocco. We had two Rad trollers, I'd guess that 3-4 debuffers are going to be necessary just to push enough damage through on these guys.
-Our Emp left, he would've been a godsend in the last mission. We mostly needed CM-- perception to keep track of Mako, and some resistance to all the bloody Holds flying around. And of course, the rest of the Emp powers are never a kick in the teeth.
-Shivans weren't that huge a help, as we were dying too fast for them to do much. Still helpful, and I'd recommend getting them, but they weren't doing tons.

Here's the team we had:

Fire/Rad Troller
Ill/Rad Troller
Grav/Kin Troller
Stone/Ice Tank
Elec/Ice Blaster
Elec/Elec Blaster
Katana/Regen Scrapper
And an Emp/Psi who bailed after 2 missions.

[Alaric]

Just want to point out, from the patch notes;

Powers – Players:
o Many powers with regeneration debuff effects are now resistible by non-player entities. Powers effected are:
 Radiation Emissions 'Lingering Radiation' and 'EM Pulse'
 Poisons 'Envenom'
 Robotics Assault Bot 'Plasma Blast' and 'Dual Plasma Blast'
 Electric Armor 'Power Surge'
 Trick Arrow 'EMP Arrow'
 Electrical Master 'EM Pulse'

Powers - Critters
o Archvillain and Giant Monster class entities have had their global debuff resistances reduced. This should offset the changes made to -Regen powers and lead to more diverse team composition for certain encounters.

I won't pretend to know exactly what these changes mean for the usual strategies, but it looks to me like Rad power sets might be less of a particular advantage than they used to be.

[captainspud]

It balances out. LR does less, EF and RI do more. We were still absolutely cooking AVs. Viridian went down in 18 seconds.

[captainspud]

One other thing I'll point out-- there's a difference between fighting the Phalanx and the Arachnos.

The Phalanx are an unstoppable force. The challenge with them is staying alive long enough to kill them, though the killing is *relatively* easy.

The Arachnos are an immovable object. The problem with them was simply putting out enough damage. It might have been just the team I was on, but the health was moving off VERY slowly.

So, yeah. All the crazy tactics that get brought up RE: The Phalanx tend to be about surviving their huge damage. The new crazy strategies need to be about maximizing output.

Just a random thought.

[Verfall]

Well I can see why damage was an issue, you had 2 of the second weakest blaster primaries, one of the most resisted scrapper primaries, and a tank with the worst secondary for damage, as well as one of the weaker controller primaries for damage.

The Ill and Fire trollers were probably the biggest damage dealers.

On villainside every AT puts out decent damage numbers. They just lack the debuff numbers that defenders can put down, and the defense numbers that tanks get. If you were to switch task forces I bet the heroes would wipe the Phalanx handidly and the villains would have no problem with Arachnos.

[El Condor]

We got Scirocco down to 80% health. He was killing us left and right, but as I said, he was standing on the roof of the makeshift hospital, so we just rezzed and went back upstairs. THIS STRATEGY IS A BAD IDEA WITH SOMEONE WHO ISN'T 50.

So do you wish to do this with only 50s?  I'm eager to help with the testing, but I get it if you think sub-50s are not good for this.

EC

[captainspud]

Well, the strategy involves repeatedly throwing yourself at AVs, getting 10-15 seconds of combat done, then getting killed and rezzing. Doing it below 50 will GUARANTEE you the debt cap.

[Tortuga]

We got Scirocco down to 80% health. He was killing us left and right, but as I said, he was standing on the roof of the makeshift hospital, so we just rezzed and went back upstairs. THIS STRATEGY IS A BAD IDEA WITH SOMEONE WHO ISN'T 50.

So do you wish to do this with only 50s?  I'm eager to help with the testing, but I get it if you think sub-50s are not good for this.

EC

Considering it's on Test, I'd say go nuts.

[Viking]

I'm interested in helping, but I'm not sure how to find you guys on the Test server, given the lack of a global friends list.

When are you guys planning on running this?  How do I find you once you're ready to organize?

[Midnight]

My Test global is @Ironstreak

[Time Titan]

If it doesn't already exist on the test, setup and join the 'FR and NRF'.

[captainspud]

I created the FR and NRF global channel on test yesterday. It's an open channel, I'd suggest everybody gets themselves hooked up so we can coordinate this.

If we did this Friday, who could come? What if it was Saturday?

[Time Titan]

Yeah I just came from the test. I Joined the channel and found Tort on it :lol: 

[Midnight]

Heh. I'll scratch the channel I just made then.

Just got through the first two missions at Tenacious. I'll post my thoughts when we finish up later tonight, but it was pretty easy overall. New maps were cool too.

[Viking]

What's the command to type to join a channel?

[Midnight]

So I ran it on a pug. It was fairly sucessful up to Dr. Aeon, who beat us twice. Here was our team makeup:

Stone/Stone Tank
Energy/Fire Blaster (Logged after first mish, came back to get mauled by Aeon the second time)
Ice/Storm Troller
Ill/Emp Troller
Fire/Devices Blaster
Katana/SR Scrapper
FF/Energy Defender
Stone/Stone Tank

Offhand, I wish we had more debuffs and a bit more damage. The Ice/Storm wasn't really contributing much that I could see. He even stole the temp power in the 3rd mish. *sigh*

Ah well, it was fun and pretty efficent for puggers.