your thought on a balanced group

[meerclar]

i have avoided grouping and mostly done solo suff so far in CoH.
last night i joined a group with my lvl 10 defender.
there were 2 other defenders,one tank and 2 blasters.
we got wiped out in the blink of an eye at the very start of our first mission and the group disintegrated rapidly.
so what went wrong?
what group setup would have worked better?
your thoughts please.

 

[Belsameth]

group settings don't matter as much as in DAoC, tho a healer and a CCer are always very welcome, the use of tactics is far more important. any group that just rushes in and starts bashing away will perish swiftly

 

[pez]

well as a cc/healer although the cc is fairly pointless until aoe stun i always invite only blasters :x

so i guess my perfect group would be

empathy controller <--- me
empathy defender
aoe blaster
aoe blaster
aoe blaster
aoe blaster
aoe blaster
aoe blaster

 

[tRoG]

Most things work well.

Last night, Sarum, Danya and I were completely PwNZ0r1Ngg!1 everything in sight.

Sarum would cast his AOE fire spell thing, which would hurt them muchly.
I'd cast Freezing Rain + use Whirlwind to keep the mobs inside his AOE patch.
Danya would blast the living crap out of anything that moved

They're blasters, I'm a defender. We fought for a good 5 hours+, and didn't suffer a single death. Rah!

 

[Sarum]

I think we might of had one... but I think that was due to being stupid.

But yeah, pinning them in a stacked AE cloud area with the whirlwind caused muchos pain to the mobs. Also it's powerful Acc debuff helped keep us alive due to them not really being able to hit us that much (also, the fact they run about madly when in a cloud spell meant they were mostly dead already by the time they even tried.)

I've been in a couple of other groups, and if you're sensible just about anything works well. 3x blasters, 2 controllers 2 scrappers and a defender worked really well in PP the other week. We ripped through large groups of orange/reds in no time, with very few deaths (although we did had a few, fortionately the groups rez'er was never one of them). The Scrapper that was leading the group did die a lot, but mostly because he kept running headfirst into fights before the rest of us were ready to back him up.

It's mostly about using the tactics that play to the strengths of your group (like our group entirely lacking in tanks didn't try to win any fistfights, or carefully pick them off one by one, we put out as much area damage as possible as quickly as possible) and having the right attitude. There is no reason why your group shouldn't have functioned pretty well, its just as balanced as anything else I've played in.

 

[Amadeus]

aye, as folk are saying and in my experience, the group setup doesnt matter a toss, any kind of makeup will work as long as the individuals think a bit. ive played duo's, trio's and larger with every combination of char thinkable and once the grp got used to the abilities of each other, its not uncommon to player for a few hours without any deaths.

just avoid the 'omg rofl i wtfpwn teh fkin n00b purp con boss. iamteh r0x0r roflmaowtfpwn i am teh 0n3' blaster types.....

 

[tRoG]

I met someone who had a lvl 20 buffbot on Friday - The bot would sit in the middle of the fight casting AE Heal.

We chained Hydras in PP for an hour or so

 

[Amadeus]

I met someone who had a lvl 20 buffbot on Friday

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

i thought i left buffbots behind when i left DAoC. please oh please oh please god dont let that scourge into CoH uke:

 

[FuzzyLogic]

I grouped with Danya and Sarums blaster a couple of nights ago...To say I had exactly bugger all to do would be an understatement

 

[pacman]

i like to have 1 defender with heals at least 1 tank 1 scrapper 2 controlers 3 blasters.

there are so many setups its cool lots of ppl go diferent styles and im sure there are a lot of things i havent seen yet.

as long as the ppl know what they are doing the setup is fine. not like DAOC where you have to fit in or you dont get to play.

loving CoH every moment.

playing victory server. got 1 lvl 10 and a zillion lvl 8s cause im always trying new things. havent decided on the char to go on with.

 

[Belsameth]

I grouped with Danya and Sarums blaster a couple of nights ago...To say I had exactly bugger all to do would be an understatement

Annoying, isn't it?
I played my tanker in beta once in an all Blaster Group. that was the moment Belsameth the Energy/Energy Blaster was born. poor Dea Mortuus occasionally got 2 hits in, but generally the mobs were dead before I even arrived...

 

[Sarum]

I don't think there is any doubt that at lvls 1-15 or so, while Blasters have similar hp to everyone else, but hugely higher damage and at range, and while mobs miss half the time, have hardly any special attacks, and do minor damage when they do hit - tanks are all but obsolete. If the trend I'm starting to notice (that is - anything that lives long enough to actually hit me, can seriously hurt me) continues, I'm gonna rely heavily on the tanky-types by 25 if I want to do anything other than kite solo mobs.[font=&quot][/font]

And sorry about the other day, we don't intentionally make other group members redundant, but Danya and I can hardly help it if we pwn together, can we?

 

[Cyradix]

Playing my Tank is really fun! The blasters in the group kill the mobs so fast I have plenty of time to roleplay my Tank.

 

[gervaise]

As mentioned above it is how people use the talents that the group has overall that counts.

And - as alluded to - the actual make-up is far less critical as the variety between character 1 primary spec A, and a second character with the same primary spec.

To elaborate: on yesterday, superteam member was looking for people to group with. So me, a mental controller, defender, couple blasters, couple scrappers and tank. should have been OK. went on mission - disaster.comments I made (and I was highest at 18 rest were 14-17) included: Don't wake the sleeping mobs; concentrate (blaster) fire on one mob; I will fight the minions hand to hand leaving the tank/scrappers to fight the lieutenants and odd boss. We were lucky mission kicked us out (timed) without dying. Disaster.

Later: me, anothr controller and scrapper walked through several missions - we knew how taunt worked.

Later still: me, 2 other controllers, s blasters and a tank (levels 18-21) waltzed through a task force set of missions. Only sad thing was it didn't really finish. Never really in any trouble. None of us controllers bothered to 'fight'. I did chuck in transfusion on various occasions (kinetic secondary) for the heals. Killed Bertha and Long Tom (sprockets) and numerous other princes and mechs. 19k experience. All except one of us leveled and I finished putting dual-origin enhancement in all my slots.

Work together. Take the time to ask about power sets if you do not know.

Enjoy.

 

[Sarum]

Unfortionately, Task Force mission sets are very bugged at the moment. You're best waiting until they're fixed really (if you can, I guess if you're about to out-level them, you might as well to get the exp... assuming having broken one doesn't prevent you doing the others when they're fixed)

Just to re-state: Good tactics that play to the strengths of the group you have are the recipy for success, not a strict list of chararcter types and specs. A blaster heavy group may well kill things slightly quicker.. but will have greater downtime usually, and probably also stand a much higher chance of getting wiped if things go slightly skew. A group of tanks would probably plod through the mobs.. but never actually have to stop and rest, and be virtually impossible to wipe out unless they're being a bunch of retards (or fighting 20 purps).

 

[Danya]

Yeah the real issue with blasters is endurance drain - it seems way higher than other classes.

 

[Belsameth]

so is their damage, so that seems quite alright with me.

 

[Danya]

Yup not complaining - it's a tradeoff you make. High damage, but high endurance drain and low hitpoints.

 

[pez]

i'm not sure about the blaster group having more downtime, i think they would have the least. if all the blasters threw in 2/3 aoes each then any mobs in a section gonna be wasted. in a mixed group a blaster would be more likely to have to cast 5/6 blasts

 

[Danya]

Depends what you're killing. Also AEs are quite end intensive compared to the basic ST blasts.

 

[Sarum]

If I'm only shooting my basic fireball (as I do in a tank/controler based group where the tactic is CC and take them out one at once, because it's my only ranged non-AE attack) I use almost no End in total. It recharges at about the same rate my end does. I'll come out almost as fresh as I went in half the time.

If I'm in a caster group, I pop buildup and aim, rain of fire, fire ball and fire breath in one go (well, right after each other). Granted a tightly packed group of yellow con mobs are now at half health and in something approaching blind panic (love the way rain of fire does that), but I'm also at about half end or less. I can easy drain everything in a single fight.

'Downtime' in CoH is nothing like caster downtime was in DAoC. If my wizard emptied his powerbar, I could go away and make myself a coffee before I was ready to fight again. But most tanks/scappers hardly drain anything, while your average blaster can easily empty it's end into half a dosen mobs.

This isn't a 'problem' as such - it's necessary to balance the class.

 

[pez]

see thats the thing, if you can take a group of yellows down to half health with half your end imagine what 6 blaster or even 8 could take down if they all used half end

most damage and quickest damage i have ever seen was me as healer another controller healing and 6 blasters. 2 of them chucked caltrops down to pin the mobs and then it was over in a few seconds. this was in an indoor mission so you got huge amounts of mobs at your level rather than outside with just a few mobs red/purp

 

[Chasm]

I don't tend to fight in pick up groups with my controller cos ppl who havent played games with CC tend to not know its potential or what the spells/powers do.

 

[Danya]

I can easily drop my end down to nothing in a matter of seconds with just ST nukes. Just pop hasten and let rip.

 

[Belsameth]

see thats the thing, if you can take a group of yellows down to half health with half your end imagine what 6 blaster or even 8 could take down if they all used half end

that's not entirely true, since miss rate at higher cons scales up dramatically, and damage goes way down.
this trick might be very efficient at yellow/orange cons, but I wouldn't want to try it on reds and purps...

 

[Bone_Idle]

We actually had 1 of each class in group yesterday. Tanker, scrapper, blaster, controller & me with my emp/rad defender.

We could take on purps, reds everything pretty easily. I even had time to nuke a bit with radiation nukes. We are only around level 8.

And btw. i think this game pisses over daoc and pvp isnt in yet. and ive only been playing 3 days.

 

[Scorn]

If I'm in a caster group, I pop buildup and aim, rain of fire, fire ball and fire breath in one go (well, right after each other). Granted a tightly packed group of yellow con mobs are now at half health and in something approaching blind panic (love the way rain of fire does that), but I'm also at about half end or less. I can easy drain everything in a single fight.

This isn't a 'problem' as such - it's necessary to balance the class.

I agree, my Dark Miasma/Dark Blast Defender (at lvl 8 he looks a bit like a Blaster, damage output at the moment is almost ridiculous, I'll take 25% health off of an orange with my moonbeam) can run through all of his endurance very fast, I really have to watch the bar in a fight. I don't mind though, last night I was in a group and I felt sorry for the scrapper we had with us (we had one controller, one blaster, one scrapper, and me, a Defender) even if we pulled two yellows and an orange he could hardly get in more than four or five attacks. If I ran out of END because I was a bit too enthusiastic he would have more to do, which is nice for him, too

 

[pez]

that's not entirely true, since miss rate at higher cons scales up dramatically, and damage goes way down.
this trick might be very efficient at yellow/orange cons, but I wouldn't want to try it on reds and purps...

yeah but i was talking about yellows/orange in indoor missions. Tbh i find going after purples a pretty pointless task when the xp is really not worth the downtime on the healers.

 

[Danya]

I rarely get 4 or 5 attacks on anything, usually it's dead well before then.

 

[Scorn]

I rarely get 4 or 5 attacks on anything, usually it's dead well before then.

we were doing mobs that were red or purple, including misses each would take some eight to nine hits before falling...