Statesman's Task Force

[Midnight]

Has to be done and we KNOW there's a larger stable of level 50 heroes in this community. Who and when?

[Alaric]

I'll be up for it.

[Funeral-Pyre]

I want to run this with Pyre and Sonic!  Let's doooooo eeeeeet!

[B A D]

Atomic Saint, London Steel,  and  Even Winter wicca.  gods knows Ill have downtime on my hands every nite for the next 2 weeks...

[Time Titan]

I'm ready to go whenever.  This TF may require at least 2 sittings(on weeknights) at first, until we get the hang of the TF. 9PM-12PMist (EST) on weeknights for 2 nights would be the maximum time needed IMHO. This could also be completed on a Saturday or Sunday evening/afternoon.

I can offer a Stone Tank, 3 various Controllers or Storm Defender. We have an abundance of scrappers in the community so I'll place my scrapper's badge on the backburner.

If we get enough people we can run two teams :)

[Midnight]

I've got my Sonic/Dev blaster and my Kat/SR scrapper. I'll be busy until next Tuesday, but this thread is just to get availability down. :P Good luck guys. :)

[Tortuga]

I've got: Tortuga (Inv/SS tank), Rick O'Shea (AR/Dev blaster), Sea Spectre (Ill/Storm controller) and California Hustle (MA/SR scrapper) all ready to roll.

[B A D]

as of this sunday ill be in Ohio for a 10 day business trip, so my nights are free . Ill be playing off this laptop, but the test run I used encountered no issues.

[MJB]

Five more bubs and I'll be lvl 45. If that happens before you run it I'm in.

-MJB

[El Condor]

Count me in!  :thumbup:

EC

[Midnight]

Change of plan! We're gonna try to run this big bastich tonight.

[The Dream]

African Dream will available to run Statesman tf on Sunday. Just let me know if anyone wants to come along.

[Alaric]

Just want to appologize to my team for abondoning the mission. I was having severe connection trouble, and couldn't connect long enough to rejoin you guys.

Have to do something about this. It's currently impossible for me to play on a full 8-member team for more than a certain amount of time. I didn't used to have that problem.

Still from what little I saw of it, looks like a fun TF. Unlike many TFs, it was a lot of fun right from the begining.

[MJB]

Al if you are still on the TF team then we are running again tonight around 9pm est. We sure could use your help. :)

-MJB

[Zapow]

I thought it was 8:30PM CST?

[Tortuga]

I've gained clearance to start at 8:30 EST, so I'll do my best to be there then.

Tort

[Time Titan]

For anyone who wants a feel for what we're up against during the final mission read here:

[spoiler]

(From the COH Boards)

The Final Mission

In this last mission, you'll be facing 4 L54 AV's at once, then later a L54 invincible LR. Many teams find it beneficial to have Nukes, and Shivans. These can help ease the load tremendously, especially if you pull all 4 AVs at once.


The Patron Avs
First, You'll want to clear the area south of the statue square, then it tends to work best to pull one of the straggler AV's up to that area with a good long snipe. You may get one, you may get all 4. We got 3 and managed well enough (Vengeance FTW). Stoney (earth pet) Tanked GW, the most dangerous of the AV's, while I supported him.

The greatest danger among the 4 Patrons is GW Followed by Mako.

Ghost Widow has a Dark Regeneration type self heal. This means you want to keep as many people out of melee range as possible. Then you need sufficient buffs and debuffs to make it hard for the heal to-hit. If you don't find some way to stop the Dark Regeneration, GW will be impossible to defeat. As if that wasn't enough, GW also has a Soul Storm hold that appears to be near Mag 100 Hold with 4100 neg energy damage. She held our scrapper thru integration and dispersion. That means she can cut thru even the best unsupported status protection. You WILL need to buff your tank with status protection. We've now learned her hold is mag 100. That's 8 levels of Clear Mind. It will be a full time job to keep a tank buffed. Alternately, use controller pets, or use a pair of tanks alternating tanks and vengeances. Make sure if using alternating tanks, that the backup tank remains outside the 10' radius of the Hold. It won't do you any good to have alternating tanks if they both get held and killed simultaneously.

Mako Has the equivalent of Elude and SR Toggles combined for approximately 94% defense. You will need sufficient buffs and debuffs to bring this down to reasonable levels. We had 6 x Tactics, 2 x Rad, and 2 x Earth Controllers. That put us in the +120% to +180% Tohit range. He fell over like a limp noodle. However, a team with no -def and no +tohit will be very hard pressed to take him down. It may even be impossible without either buffs, debuffs, or controls. Considering AV resist, the +tohit buffs are highly preferable. Primarily Fortitude, Tactics, Buildup, Aim, Yellow Inspirations.

The other two AV's I didn't even notice, we killed them by accident I think.

Note, as one AV dies, there seems to be a good likelyhood 1-2 more AVs will aggro randomly if they have not already.


The Flier and Statue Square
Next you'll want to clear the sqaure around the statue, and probably take out the flyer while you're at it. If you can get all the troops and avoid the flyer, that is best. The flyer respawns gwad awful fast. You can't keep rid of the menace. You need to clear this area, as LR will call them as reinforcements into your backside if you don't kill them first.

Next, let the flyer respawn, then take down the flier. One less menace on your backside. It turns out that the flyer does respawn quickly. Regardless, It is a good idea to take the flier out right after you clean the statue square and just before starting in on LR. This will give you a decent period of time to start the attack before it can respawn again. I will say, the flyer did account for about half my deaths the time we didnt' take it out.

That done .... it's time for LR himself. Unfortuneately I can't give a perfect strategy here. I'll give two.

Split Team Strategy

EDIT: Now someone mentions LR teleported to them to defend the towers when their tanker died. More testing is needed here.

Split the team into a Pull Team with taunt tank and enough buff/heal support to keep him alive, and the rest of the team as a Damage Team. If you plan to use the pull team, you'll need to have cleared most of the map to the ship. The entire team engages LR long enough to clear out his support minions. A pair of controllers to help manage the pack of L54 Boss Level Minions are highly reccomended at this point. Then pull team lures LR near to the Long Bow Ship and keeps him taunted there if at all possible. At the minimum you gain time between the damage teams attack and LR attemtping to protect the towers, and at most you keep him entirely occupied.

Be Warned LR can hit for 4695+ flattening even a stone tank in short order, unless that tank has some support. I don't know what his damage cap is, but he can all but one shot most tanks. Support is a requirement here. With enough support any AT can do the job, but tanks of any variety will be prefered.

Then the Damage Team Attacks the Yellow Accuracy Tower First. Meanwhile it is critical that you KILL ALL REPAIRMEN ASAP. The repairmen can heal the towers very quickly and may even ressurect a defeated tower. Storm, FF, Kin with repel powers can be very valuable in keeping repairmen off towers. Keep an eye on all towers for repairment and do not allow any to live or respawn. Once the first tower is destroyed your defense buffs and accuracy debuffs should be more effective helping your team and tank survive LR.

Then Attack the Red Damage Tower Second. Once this is defeated further pressure should be releived on your team and tank as LR will be doing significantly less damage. Then clean up the rest of the towers, and then spank the unbuffed neutered LR like the wimpy little baby he is.[/spoiler]

For Tort's team -- although we are doing well, should we consider grabbing Shivans?  Can Shivans be acquired during at TF?  IF so, should we meet to grab a few?

[captainspud]

[spoiler]I'll simplify that because it mentions some things that aren't a problem, and ignores a few important issues.

Your first task is to kill the 4 AVs. This is fairly easy-- they're easily separable. To start, clear everything from the boat to the AVs. Then, just have someone fire a non-damaging power (RI works great) at one and then have the whole team fall back. Do a fighting retreat, with the tank taunting and the others keeping debuffs active, and go aaaaaaaaaaall the way back to the boat. Once you get them there, start killing. The reason you pull to the boat is that it lets anybody who dies get back into the fight within seconds, rather than wasting precious time travelling back to the fight.

All the AVs have their own little challenges (Except Scorp, he's a pansy), but only Widow and Mako require special tactics. For Widow, have only the melee people stand next to her so she can't heal to full with Dark Regeneration. For Mako, have everybody take a run to Pocket D and completely fill up on yellows. While fighting him, make sure everybody has four yellows popped at all times, in addition to RI and anything else you have. Especially when he pops Elude, you need to keep up the pressure with acc bonuses or he'll heal to full.

Next up is the towers. First, kill the flier. It's fairly easy. Then sweep all the minions around the tower area, as Recluse calls them as reinforcements during his fight if you don't. Next up, have everybody take another run to pocket D and fill up on purples. Do not eat the candy, it's for your tank. Assign one tank and your best healer to the Distraction Team. They'll pop purples, and keep Recluse busy while the team smashes towers. While killing the towers, you need to deal with the repairmen-- either have someone with a repel aura sit on the tower (We had TeeWee with Hurricane, it worked great), or make it someone's exclusive job to watch for them and kill them.

Kill the red tower first, then yellow, then the other two in whatever order you want. We gathered up on the tower ledge, waited for the flier to go past the towers, then jumped down. After each tower defeat, if the distraction team is out of candy, regroup up top to feed them. We did one jump down per tower, you could probably get two towers in a jump if you're organized enough.

Finally, when all the towers are gone, it's time for your third Pocket D trip. Lord Recluse has two difficulties associated with him: He's sturdy as all hell, and he spawns level 54 Banes at 10% health (the article doesn't mention that). So, you want to pick up probably 8 Lucks, and then a whole whack o' reds. Pull him to the boat. Wail on him until he's at 20% health, then have the ENTIRE team pop purples and reds and finish him off. It's very important that nobody die, as most teams will have just BARELY enough damage output to hurt him, and losing even one member, even for a few seconds until they get back, lets him heal. If he gets to 8% and spawns the Banes, then heals back up to 12%, then the next time he gets past 10% he'll spawn MORE Banes. It's vitally important that your attack NOT be interrupted by his distraction. Pop purples and keep the pressure up.

G'luck![/spoiler]

[El Condor]

Thanks TT & Spud; that's great prep!

I will do my durndest to be there at 9:00, but might be late.  As I mentioned last night, I will be giving a tour at the Boston Children's Museum tonight, so it's a packed evening.  Sorry I didn't think this through when I joined up.  :(

Is it worth it to get Shivans? I might have time to pick some up after work today.

EC

[Tortuga]

I'm guessing we can't get Shivans, since we'd need to accept a mission from the BB Scientist.  Yay or nay?

[captainspud]

You can accept PvP zone tasks during a TF.

[MJB]

I can be on around 8pm (est) if anyone wants to meet to get some Shivans.

-MJB

[Time Titan]

Friday Night's STF team will start the final mission 10 PM EST (9 CST) Saturday Night May 5th.

[Zapow]

Anyone interested in starting up another States TF this week. My first team fizzled out.

I'm available any night this week after 8:00PM CST.

[B A D]

Im on board with Wicca or Steel, But after Weds.  Im running with the boy for a few days . Maybe he'll get in trouble at home and I can ground him.

[Viking]

Frozen Northman will always be willing to help with a run of the STF if he's not enmeshed in another trial.  That said, I cannot make a Thursday evening run.

[Funeral-Pyre]

I need to run this States TF with Pyre and Sonic.  Let me know when. 

[El Condor]

I'd love to do it again, and am typically able to do 8:00 CST if I know in advance.  Should we make the ongoing presumption that, especially for the weeknight starting times, this is a two-night affair?

EC

[Tortuga]

Cali Hustle or Rick O'Shea would love to run it.  8 pm CST is a little early, but I can ask the Madam T.

[Zapow]

How does Thursday & Friday @ 8:30PM CST sound?