ZemX

Whenever I've seen this, I've always assumed a GameMaster was behind the scenes spawning a few Kronos for fun but it would probably make more sense if zoning through Ouro caused it to glitch like that. It would also explain why they tend to show up in that area of the map because the zone-in spot from Ouro is just on top of the hill near the tram station. We just did this the normal way on Tanker Tuesday last night. Two teams running World Wide Red coordinated exiting by mission door into Founders Falls at the same time from the "Stop all Wildflower Agents" mission. Boom! Two Titans we brought together for an all-Tank beatdown. If we'd known we could multiply that... hmmm.... You don't need to complete the arc. Exiting the 9th mission spawns the Kronos Titan ambush in the open world. I think the final mission has another instanced Titan inside of it, tho.

Oh, it'll drop your Tanker. It's kind of random though. It does some ungodly amount of Stun and either ridiculous damage or unresisted damage in random attacks. Sometimes I'd just be knocked back for little damage. But occasionally, it would just drop me in one shot, through capped resists and an absorb shield. Or it would stun and THEN drop me. As a fun little wacky side event, they probably wanted to be sure it wasn't just a boring tank and spank GM like all the others.

First off, thanks everyone for giving it a shot! It was fun and we learned some stuff. As the saying goes, "No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy!" 🤪 The two hurdles to doing this are: 1. Crimson has a whole ton of little random arcs but only ONE story arc, entitled "World Wide Red". That title appears at the top of the dialogue window when he gives you the mission, but it's easy to miss if you don't know to expect it and aren't looking for it. I had to do one of his lesser arcs prior to TTT yesterday in order to queue up the story arc. 2. The mission that spawns Kronos is the ninth one in the series. So however many teams you have going can get significantly out of sync. So you can have teams end up twiddling their thumbs in the final mission, not able to leave (because leaving spawns Kronos) until everyone else is up to the same point. Ouroboros seemed like a good way to solve #1 up there. You can ONLY pick the World Wide Red story arc there. But then we discovered it has a min level when you run it that way. Ooops! Also, a problem with running from Ouro is, I think, you can't add latecomers to the team. So it's probably not a good plan going forward. Everyone would have to be 45+ to join. Given that, it seems like if we want to do this again in a future TTT, my suggestion would be lining up volunteer team leads ahead of time and getting them to run Crimson's arc in the open world, solo, until the "Stop all Wildflower Agents" mission appears. Then freeze it there. When TTT rolls around, we can ask how many such leads we have ready to go. That's how many Kronos we can spawn. If we decide to go with the Kronos event on that TTT, each volunteer can lead a team for just the kill-all mission we want. No confusion with story arcs. Easy one mission and out. Last note: I THINK that Kronos probably spawns after the first person on the team leaves the mission and it spawns relatively near them. We saw the two Kronos last night spawn reasonably in the same area as each team's mission door. We can use that if, instead of leaving by the door, we all agree on a zone to LRT to from inside the mission. I've also heard it's possible to go to Ouro or an SG base and then leave and whichever zone you go to from there is the one Kronos spawns in. If we do it that way, we can both pick the zone to Kronos Bomb *and* we shouldn't have to do too much long-range Kronos wrangling to get them together. We just have to be sure none of us is too near a Police Drone. Talos might be a good choice. Everyone in the Wildflower completed mission can leave to Ouro, then to Talos. You end up on "Beacon Hill" well away from the Tram. It's not a bad stage to fight on either. (Note: Any Rogues on the teams can just wait a while in the Wildflower mission after their teammates exit, then LRT to Talos to avoid possibly being dumped from the team due to faction bug). Anyway, something to think about!

Not exactly. I was curious about it, so I went to my go-to experiment in horrific Tar Patches... the Shepherd Compound (via Ouroboros) in First Ward. Here you can find the dreaded Prophets and their Unresistable Tar Patches: Summary: It's good news / bad news. The good news is that flying above a Tar Patch, you are not affected by the -FLY debuff (obviously, since I am not grounded in this pic and you can see my fly speed is unaffected in the combat monitor). So you can fly away from it. Caveat: If you get within a few feet of the ground, even with fly toggled on, you will be considered ON the ground and the Tar will grab you and ground you with the -fly debuff at which point you won't be able to fly away and if you don't have slow resist... you won't be able to run away very fast either. The bad news is I am being hit by everything else this Tar Patch does even while in the air. You can see I am being hit with -runspeed and -jump height. My jump height has been zeroed but my run speed is unaffected because my slow resist here is about 94%. So even on the ground, I'd be able to run out of this patch. That's not really bad since I am flying. I don't care too much about running or jumping, but.... You'll notice my Smashing Resistance is 62% here. I checked it outside the mission. It is capped at 90% even at this level standing still (no MotT proc). But in actuality, it is closer to 96% total. So this +1 Prophet boss is knocking around 34% off my resistances with a single Tar Patch. And there are two of them (mission is at +0/x8). We talked up this mission in the Tanker forum a while back. Some stoner posted a picture of his resistances nearly zeroed from a couple +5 Prophets while he was in Granite Form. So yeah, if you're careful enough to punch down on these guys from about head height in the air... you're good. Just don't hit the ground or even get near it. The good news is that Tar Patch isn't terrifically common. In fact, I mostly run into it in First Ward / Night Ward. Here in this mission and against any Beast Hunters (or whatever they are called) and Black Knights. They all have some form of Tar Patch.

Yeah, that guy cheats (at least better than my Tanker cheats at any rate). I waded into that GM fight the first time on my strapping Rad Armor tanker and just about got one-shotted (and color randomized) immediately. Whatever mag KB and Stun/Hold he is doing... it's far more than I had protection for. It was just running around among the crowd decking people. Worth a laugh... once.

Speaking of dancing, another Tuesday has arrived and I have a suggestion: Sure, we could do another boring TinPex or grow old together doing a Dr. Q. which are the weeklies this week... OR... ORRRR! We could spawn four or more Kronos Titans by running synchronized missions teams doing Crimson's World Wide Red arc and then all exiting into the same unsuspecting city zone at the same time! Maybe even five-tank teams to maximize our Kronos Kount?! Thoughts? Excel is usually our most-attended Tuesday!

Does that actually avoid Tar Patches? The effect area should be 25ft radius and you'll need to be very near the ground to be punching things. I'd think you would be caught and grounded by them, but I never take Fly as a travel power, so I honestly don't know. It's sort of moot though, the best reason to have slow resist is to protect your power recharge. The fact it actually prevents slow movement as well is more of a bonus.

Beat me to it. Slow res is also great for running the hell out of those unresistable Tar Patches. Even 100% res won't save you from them and if it's being dropped by a +4 NPC... it's gonna hurt.

It is adding one stack of Might of the Tanker +res proc. If you untick the yellow bubble in the power you have MotT slotted, you will see that +6% disappear.

Randomly take your money and give you nothing in return, then give the next person your inspiration AND theirs?

On a typical team, a Stalker is usually best played just like a Scrapper. Waiting for Hide to engage is losing DPS. You rely on stacking Assassin's Focus to achieve crits and un-hidden Assassin Strikes. You have an ATO to occasionally toss you into Hide for a juicy follow-up crit. All that works by... scrapping. Not skulking about and striking from the shadows. That said, I think you made the better choice. Tanker will expand all the AoEs. AoE punch-voke will help keep stuff around you. You'll play it like a Brute but with bigger AoEs and no need to maintain fury. Stalkers are also, generally, much better off with high defense than resist or regen armors. Fiery Aura isn't considered a great choice for personal survivability.

It's -30% for DN in PvE. You might have looked at the PvP value, which is -40. Also, keep in mind you only care about these debuffs when fighitng enemies that are at least +3 to you (common situation at level 50). Purple patch then makes DN a -19.5% dmg debuff and AAO -4.6%. Still good. Just not -37% good.

The X-Men were invented in the early 60s and drew inspiration from the Civil Rights movement. The Black Panther was introduced in 1966 precisely BECAUSE there was so little representation at the time. Going even farther back, Cap punched Hitler on the cover of a comic book a year before America even entered WW2. It seems uncontroversial now, but it would be more like Cap punching Vladimir Putin on the cover of a comic today. They got death threats, from American comic book fans, for publishing that cover back then because Hitler had his supporters then in America, many more than now, and Putin has his fans here today. Comics have not only always been political, they've always been OBVIOUS about it. What's different is WHICH politics. And that's what you're noticing. There's a natural tendency for people to think something is normal and apolitical merely because it agrees with the status quo or with their own political views. But the people who want to keep things the same are just as "political" as the ones who want to change things. That's the truth.

I did a speed Tarikoss last night. Went fine, but before starting, I remember the Leader said, "I'll give a final call and then we'll go with 7 if we have to". I punched F10, which caused "What could possibly go wrong?" to appear in team chat. "Well you can solo this one, so... not much!" someone else replied. Got that @Snarky? NOT MUCH CAN GO WRONG WITH TARIKOSS! It's official now.

Do what?

Oh man, I haven't seen that in forever! Forgot it even existed! Thanks. 😀

It was another great TT! I did get some pics. Dramatic pics! Look at this drama! Here it our intrepid mission team getting started! Witty even got in some practice while Synapse team looked on: And now, a picture nobody asked for or wanted to see... flying poop monsters! And yet more flying poop monsters! There was even time for everyone's favorite MMO activity... CRAFTING! And then it was back to beating up Freaks, until... ...Witty? NOOOoooooooooOOOOoOoOOooooooo! (Witty had to turn off armor toggles to fulfill the prophecy. That's how badly outmatched the Freaks were!) Aaaaand... we showed up late for Synapse Team's Babbage as a result... But it was fun times all around! Thanks tanks!

These all have unique maps or situations AND are accessible to many, so I like them. Sutter Mantis Ice Mistral Tarikoss ITF

Playing Rad/Ice feels like a melee controller to me more than a defender. That said, I do think a few of my Rad Armor tankers have the "2 million points healed" badge and all of that was from Ground Zero, which isn't even slotted for heal. 🤪 Edited for hilarity: My Rad/Rad tanker has the Three million points healed badge: "To the Rescue" (Praetorian version of "Medical Specialist")

I've honestly experienced little of this IN GAME. People say a lot of things on the forums, but most random teams I join with a Tanker are happy to have one. Generally, as long as you are willing to dive into a pile of enemies head first every time and keep an eye on roaming aggro, you will get nothing but high fives. You'll occasionally run into the micro-manager type of team lead who wants everything done a particular way, but those annoying individuals make themselves obvious and politely excusing myself after one mission has never been a problem.

Has it? I think it's all sort of related. We kind of have to establish what situation we're talking about here and "clean up character" is kind of vague. While I do believe one or two teammates might have a reason to leave a few seconds early to prep the next spawn (and this can be tankers, controllers, debuffers, or even a Stalker wanting to line up an AS before the bombs start dropping), I think you're on a very bad team if you're finding yourself literally soloing a few bosses at the end of a fight and wondering who would best accomplish that. If it's being done right, the whole team should be together for all but that last ten seconds or so of a fight. By this point you should have no more than a couple half-dead bosses left to finish off. THEN someone can leave to prep. Almost any six or seven teammates left over should be able to easily finish off those bosses with absolutely no danger. We shouldn't have to talk about who can best do it (and before someone tries, yes, you can hypothesize a team that can't handle it. Maybe seven level 1 blasters all sidekicked to the lead tanker who has run off... wacky shit like that.... but rare). If we are talking about this kind of situation, and we're really talking about which character should bring up the tail of an entire team that doesn't seem to want to finish each fight... I'm changing my answer to Scrapper w/ taunt aura. Brute or even Tanker would be better for what I am thinking here, but playing either risks being asked to lead. If you want to play the backfield, you can plausibly do so as a Scrapper. The taunt aura is to be sure you have and can keep aggro on the stragglers... ... as you drag them up the backside of the team that has abandoned them. It's possible doing this repeatedly may drive home the point that the team should clean its plate once in a while. And it shouldn't be all that dangerous to drag enemies up to the team that has moved ahead so long as you have them taunted.

Well then I'm glad we cleared this up despite a few testy misunderstandings. So you're good with tankers leaving the fight early as long as they do it right, yes? Good.

Maybe leave the personal insults out of it, eh? I've explained why this tactic is efficient. Why it works. The fact it DOES work for me in game and is appreciated by actual random PuGs I team with IN GAME. Not sure what you think your "hard disagreement" should mean to me in comparison to my actual experience. You've had a few bad experiences in PuGs and you're generalizing. Incorrectly. Some of us are pointing that out and you're resorting to strawman arguments rather than answering our points. Prepping the next spawn IS tanking. It's making sure you are there ahead of anyone else so nobody takes the alpha but you. It is Tanking 101. Can somebody screw that up? Course they can. You have to adjust on a PuG. Nobody is saying don't do that. But the PuG whose hands I need to hold all the way till the last boss is on the ground each spawn is a rare PuG, in my experience. If the team CAN handle it, I am wasting my time hanging around. My time and talents are better spent readying the next spawn for the team. Not to showboat, but to tee them up for the team to demolish. If you insist that tanker could only be doing this for reasons of ego... realize that you're projecting that. Oh and if you don't mind, stop. it's more than a little insulting.

Nobody is advocating being "half up the map" from the rest of the team, nor was that the complaint I responded to. It was any tank leaving the fight early. No qualifications. That statement, I object to. The right way to do it is to judge when the previous fight is about 10-15 seconds from being over. Move to aggro the next spawn. If possible, get it to clump together on you before the rest of the team arrives. Where people get left behind to die to straggler bosses is when half the team abandons the fight along with the tank. If I notice that going on, I stick around behind and let the dps squirrels deal with the alphas for the next group if they're so eager. Sometimes they can. Sometimes they can't. I do whatever seems to work best on the team. That just doesn't every time mean staying till the last enemy is on the floor before moving. Sometimes it does. Usually it doesn't. Most teams are more than capable to deal with a few half dead bosses while I get their next meal ready for them. Disagree with that if you like, but I've gotten enough compliments in game on my tanking to figure I must be doing something right.

Tankers SHOULD leave early. They want to establish aggro and collect the next spawn for efficient disposal before the team Leeroys into it with all their AoE. In my experience, this is only ever a problem... when the tanker isn't the only one leaving early. No reasonable team of seven other ATs shouldn't be able to dispatch a couple half dead bosses when the rest of the spawn is already on the floor. But that's not what is happening. To answer the thread question: Stalker, Scrapper, or Brute. In that order and preferably with a single-target focus on bosses. I mean, usual caveat with this game that anything can be made to work, but if we're answering the question in an "all else being equal" manner... that's the answer.