Okay, I'm laughing, but its true. Mako whipped our butts last night. Ghost Widow, we took her down. Mako pwned us. What's up with that?

Of course I am talking about the Statesman Task Force. I didn't intend for it to be a forum topic. I didn't go in, prepared to take notes and pay attention to every little detail. Sometimes a gal just wants to have fun!

Famous last words.

Here's how it went down: a friendly group of players set out for some fun and rake up a little prestige. Among them ranked some very seasoned vets and some not-so-seasoned vets, and among those a couple of first-timers for the Statesman, for whom a badge would have been nice. The team was balanced: Two tanks; two defenders; two scrappers; a blaster and a controller. The team lead proved extremely experienced with the Statesman, and inordinately patient and willing to share his knowledge. If for nothing else, this attempt at the Statesman was worth that alone. And truly, we had a lot of fun.

Nonetheless we failed. Actually (/em HideFace) we bailed.

We got as far as the last mission. YES! The last mission! You know, wherein Ghost Widow lurks, with Scirocco, Black Scorpion, Mako and the like.

Taking down Ghost Widow went bad from the start because she and Scirocco were joined at the hip when we found them. We confronted them together. One tank kept Scirocco busy while the rest of us dove in on Ghost Widow. But after many, many long minutes (I am going to swear it was 30 mins, though I could be wrong), we'd barely made a dent in her health. It seemed we just didnt have the damage or the debuffs to pose a challenge to the witch. (Notice I said witch and not the other word.)

Then someone made a remarkable suggestion: First retreat, then try to separate them as they return to their spawn location. Then pull Ghost Widow back to the boat (the entry point of the mission) which was guarded by artillery and Longbow. We would utilize the environment to make up for our deficeits.

Believe it or not, it worked.

Oh it wasn't easy. Not any part of it. The two AVs didnt want to separate. GW didnt want to follow. Then she didnt want to board the boat. But once we had her there, she was ours.

It was genius.

Surely we were home free.

NOT.

We ended up taking other AVs down to the boat as well. Scirocco we took up top, after a heck of a fight, but Black Scorpion we dragged down to the dock, within range of the artillery, and then there was Mako.

Perhaps because Mako has an affinity with the sea, it was a bad idea to take him to the waterfront? Getting him to half-health was no problem; getting further than that, very difficult; holding him at anything below a quarter of his points ---? Impossible. And that's with all of us on him, plus the artillaery, and the Longbow.

We must have fought him for an hour or more. Peeps were ordering take-out and seeing it delivered while we were still fighting this donkey. Babies were going down to bed and waking up for feedings. Never mind the Endurance factor on the toons, the PLAYERS were getting tired!!!

So yes, finally, we called it. I feel sorry for the one defender who formed up the team, because he really wanted the badge. But it wasn't happeneing. It just wasn't happeneing.

I am bewildered as to exactly why we couldn't pull it off. It must be due to power-sets, wouldn't you think? Because we were all experienced players, with the added benefit of those experienced with the STF in particular, and all of us with either uber toons or "just" strong, solid toons everywhere you look... It has to be the power-sets. ('Cause it wasn't us, lol!) 

So the make-up of our team, as far as power-sets go, would be the team-build you DONT take to Statesman:

2 tanks: I know one was either Willpower or Invuln, and the other was Willpower for sure. One had Axe; the other Super Strength.  (I saw no Stone, Fire, Ice, Shields or Maces.)

2 Defenders: Empathy/Ice; Empathy/? (I saw no Arrows, Energy Blasts, Fire, Electric... What's left?)

1 Controller:  Ice/ Ice

2 Scrappers: 1 Broadsword/Regen; 1 Spines/SR.

1 Blaster: Assault Rifle/Energy

Remember I am referring to this as a team-build, not as a reflection on whether an individual power-set does well in this Task Force.

So what do you think, esteemed readers? Some of you have a lot more experieince with the Statesman than I do, for sure. The door is open for discussion!

I deliberately kept out the names of my team mates, since we flubbed the thing, but would like to include at least the names of the team lead and the person who suggested we take the AVs down to the boat. So let me know if it's okay to cite the name of your toon in this post.

Also, please feel free to correct any false assumptions I may have made about the team's power-sets. As I said, I was not paying close attention and did not take notes.

It was a very good attempt, mainly tharwted by bad team setup, which was my fault as I was the team leader.

What we mainly lacked was a Radiation Defender/Controller, as their debuffs don't require a To-Hit check and the fact that the main debuffer wasn't 50 (which was me) and all of the Cold Domination Debuffs need to get a good to-hit roll. (Although Sleet always seems to hit because of the frequency of the ticks)

Just to Clarify the builds, sorry to be picky, Pill but the people need to know! 

We had:

Cold/Psi Defender

Empathy/Electric Defender

Fire/Kinetics Controller

AR/EM Blaster

Spines/SR Scrapper

BS/Regen Scrapper

WP/EM Tanker

WP/SS Tank

All of us are members or are affliated with the United Heroes Brigade of Champion Server.

We'll do better next time and post of our triumph in kicking Recluse's behind!

-Defendrio

Yes, by all means, clarify the builds for me. Thankyou Def!

We sure did have fun though, didn't we? Except there at the end, when we were all getting tired. Using the boat was just a stroke of genius, too. I am looking forward to another try. And we WILL succeed this time!   

Never seen the bost idea actually work in my experience. GW usually wipes out the boat pretty quick.

Mako does recquire some serious debuffing though. Teams I've been on usually have two rads and leadership toggles to make him go down easier.

Yeah, Rads make it ALOT easier, and leadership toggles even more so.  We will try this again soon, and succeed with flying colours. (I hope)

I have never seen using the boat work before either, and I was very suprised, but if you need that small boost on an STF, I would stronly reccommend using it. Or even just to make it go quicker! All those turrets do pack one hell of a punch if the AV is positioned correctly. Although they destroy them if the tank dies, as we found out killing Mako,

You learn something new everyday, and on Saturday, I learnt alot.

I am not wishing to troll here but from the powersets I can't see how you failed. How the battlefield was shaped is a concern. If you think in terms of table top game templates you can understand that if an AV can use attack "A" because the Tankers position "allows" it and you if you all stand in the attacks AoE, you could be compromised by it one way or another. So either the Tanker doesn't allow it or you don't be positioned to be effected by it. The problems and concerns of a fight comes from compromisation. How often were you all in peril? Lowering DPS because you had survivability matters?

Sometimes AVs can be limited to using so few attacks that it is even safe to turn armours off and play with greater end recovery raising DPS. What is taunted is taunted and if it can stay taunted it will be limited to using attacks that can only attack the taunter. If those attacks won't effect anyone else then they're practically hitting for free, free from not only damage but debuffs too.

You did lack on damage and so the boat helps, that is why it is there, keeping every npc alive in the process is an asset. Losing them is a mistake. Other than positioning compromising comes from Tankers losing taunt control through things like, lack of enhancement slotting, black hole, placate, soul storm and so may of needed to outrange them and/or had greater taunt control. Clearmind 'stacked' attends to Soul Storm well but not the black hole or placate. Any loss of aggro, or any directing of attacks towards weaker members, or having weaker members in threat zones you become more compromised.

I wasn't there so I can't say for sure what was wrong but the team make up should of completed it. On the european servers a similar team I was with had people who couldn't even understand each others language. That was 2 Invuln Tankers, 2 Illusion/Emp controllers, 1 AR/Dev, 1 Kat/Regen and 1 I can't remember. It hurts when you have a "new" tanker in the team who only speaks italian whilst the others speak english.

Too much chat in the text box aka typing is lowering dps.

9 times out of 10 the boat doesn't work. If you're in enough trouble to need them, you often can't protect them from the AV either.

The answer: Shivans man, shivans! If 8 of you summon Shivans, the they will pretty much defeat the AV on their own. That shivan EB has debuffs in his attacks, and it's exactly what is needed. I try to make sure the team has a couple before we start. But even if you don't - were you aware you can still pick up the shivan summoning power even in the midle of a TF? Same for nukes, though they are less worth the time.

(Note, this is not an option if you were chasing the Master badge, so bear that in mind from the beginning.)

Also, know the weaknesses. GW heals off melee range opponents. So if you have people standing too close, and their damage doesn't make up for the heal, then get them away. (This goes for pets, too.) Mako pops Elude. So you need to get past his defense. Lots of yellows and the Geas accolade will do it, if none of you have the right debuffs or Tactics.

Just don't be idiots - my worst case with Mako was once we didn't quite have the debuffs for him. So the team all loaded up on yellows. Then we start the fight with him, and first I notice that 2 teammates had already popped their yellows even though he didn't have Elude up yet. Then (worse) we get him to half, and another person goes "I'm going to respec now to get Tactics!" and steps out of combat. I swear I've never been so close to tracking down where a person lives.

Nevertheless even that team won, because the tools are there to win.

Despite the frequent claims that "you need exactly this" I've successfully run this with nothing but defenders, and with no defenders or controllers at all. I've lead teams through it where no one had tried it before but me. The only time it's failed was when the team was filled with lousy players, and in those cases it was obvious well before the final mission anyway.

I don't honestly think the OP's team was lacking in any single way. Its just a matter of sometimes you win sometimes you don't. Some days your luck just doesn't play out the way you hope it would.

We did have shivans, well 4 of us did. Even when on the boat, popping 4 shivans and having the whole team beating on him WITH yellows popped we still couldn't take him down past 15% health or so.

I guess it just wasn't our day.

We did however attempt an MSTF on Friday night which we completed successfully. The team make-up was different but 4 of the people on the failed team were on the successful MSTF. Showing that it was more the overall builds rather than the players.

Damn, having a tank that doesn't speak the same language as the team has gotta suck. I suppose that's gotta be a big downside to playing on the EU servers, whereas on the US servers most people at least speak "Okay" English, as apposed to none at all. Maybe they should incorperate a in-game translator. :P

honestly, it's supposed to be one of the tougher TF/SFs in the game.  not everyone is going to get it, not everyone is going to get it first time thru.

something to keep in mind, is that a LOT of people believe they're really great players and totally understand their toons and how to play the game.  just having half a dozen+ lvl 50s doesn't mean you're a great player.  it may mean you persevere, and failing first time around at a harder TF could provide some insight into how you may want to learn your toons better?

just saying, played on a top doc fire/rad super team before (which is basically a huge pug of all the same powersets) and we blew thru the tf pretty much every time.   so even the "know your at and powersets" rule isn't necessarily a true statement.

which is an attestment to the flexibility of this game.

I do remember, RDA, that in the beginning there was some mis-steps regarding our toons getting in the way of AOE's, particularly with Ghost Widow's self-heals. Careful instruction and reminders on Ventrillo cleared that up. The Clear Minds did run dry a couple times but only a couple times. However there was at least once when everyone was stunned but the Spine/SR Scrapper, and he alone grabbed aggro --- and died for it. But it gave the rest of us a chance to snap out of it. So yes, there were individual moments that went very bad, which we came back from okay, but as you point out, they likely added up together to make the ride a very rough one.

And Armasir, I hate to think that we were all poor players, but lets face it there were some less experieinced players on the team, and three who had never completed the Statesman before. So as a training run, it was well worth the effort.

my experience. Mako was handled pretty well.  Ghost Widow sent several groups to the hospital.