What makes a good (four man) team?

[Socks10]

I typically play with a group of four. We don't always play the same characters, as we all love our alts, but we usually fall into the same roles for the most part. I will typically be a tank, another guy will have some sort of healing (usually as an MM secondary), and the other two could be anything (hopefully with damage). 

 

What's bringing this question on is that lately we've been trying to work through some task/strike forces. They can be challenging, but are fun to do. Mortimer Kal broke us though. We had to give up. We made it all the way to the Positron fight and just couldn't do it. We may have eventually, but we couldn't keep at it. For whatever reason, we could not take out the healing imp in time consistently. This made the fight very frustrating. Our group makeup was an Inv/Elec Tanker, Arachnos Soldier, Water/Poison Corrupter, and Demon/Emp MM. Probably not near to ideal, but we worked our way through the entire strike force to make it to the end (and Mortimer Kal has some difficult fights). We just didn't have the damage to take the healing imp down fast enough. 

 

So, back to the question, what is needed to make a good four man team that can take most content on? To me, in the above situation, we lacked damage and debuffs. A Tanker seems necessary, but probably not this one. Could have used more damage there. The only support was coming from Emp in the MM. Could probably have used some debuffs there. And I'm not familiar with the other two enough. The Corrupter had damage and debuffs though, so should be good. Are there typically thing you want in a four man group (-recharge, -res) or any group for that matter?

[nihilii]

Healing imps are vulnerable to control effects and spawn at the same spot everytime. You could have someone with a hold or even a immobilize stand at their spawn point, and immediately hold/immob them. Failing that, someone with high damage can 1 or 2-shot the imp reliably if they're quick on the draw. In your team, that could be the Arachnos Soldier using web grenade (provided they have the power).

 

With four players, you have large leeway with team composition. I think there's actually nothing wrong with your team makeup. You're lacking hard mezzes (no holds save from demons), but that shouldn't be a dealbreaker anywhere but in the LGTF - and your Water/Poison friend could grab epic Dominate. And if you don't minmax, it's likely your group turns out heavy on defense and low on offense; but that's a problem that could be solved with some build rework or playstyle adjustements.

For example, is your Corruptor standing in melee for Venomous Gas to work its -RES magic? Does your Arachnos Soldier spam Venom Grenade (more -RES)? Does your Mastermind use the whip attacks (which also inflict -RES)? If not, implementing these steps would likely make your damage output skyrocket. Your role as a Tanker is also mostly to attack, using non-damage powers such as Taunt only on long distance foes hitting your friends; in any other situation, none of your friends should be able to peel aggro off your toggle aura.

Of course, the game has to be fun above all and sometimes playing a certain way isn't everyone's cup of tea. If you want an easier ride through rerolling, I think you want to aim for combos that are naturally more damaging. i.e. switch Emp for Time (or really just about any other secondary), swap Water for Fire, turn the Soldier into a Crab, change Elec to Street Justice or TW... But, it should be stressed there's no *need* to go for cookie-cutter stuff and ideally you guys should play what you like, because there is a way to make it work.

[TinyBolt]

I agree that if you wanted to try Mort Kal again I'd really recommend having one person on imp duty. And I'd suggest putting down AoEs around Posi--it can act as a back up for the imp person.

 

Also, with the lack of debuffs native to that group, make sure to pick up envenomed daggers from P2W. It allows my partner and I to duo just about anything in game.

[Coyotedancer]

One of our better four-part teams back-in-the-day involved a Titan/SR Scrap, a Darkity/Dark/Dark Defender, a tanky Shield/KM Brute and a Fire/Rad Corruptor.

 

We never did Morty, but we did manage all of the Task Force Commander TFs.

[Oubliette_Red]

Women.

[Without_Pause]

I don't think any of the builds are really known for ST damage. I would like at least one decent damage AT with some ST. Another debuffer would have helped as well. One exception to the ST damage character having a higher base for damage could be a /sonic defender since they can help other player's deal more damage. Teams could be built a number of ways, but a tank/brute with three debuffers or one less debuffer with a blaster would likely be my default.

 

Due to smaller teams being on red side, I intentionally switched my Ill/dark to red side since I figure it is built for smaller teams and have enough control in those situations. 

[SeraphimKensai]

Envenomed Daggers. You can buy them in Pocket D even during a TF. At the same NPC you can buy offensive, defensive, survival buffs, dampeners, or summonable pets. In your base you can build base empowerment buffs for cheap (including grant invis allowing everyone to stealth missions that allow it). Also you can also use the AH to buy an ultimate inspiration the help out on a particular tough fight like an AV battle.

 

There's numerous methods to help a group power through tough situations.

 

Sure it can cost some influence, but it can make the difference.

 

 

That said, your group once it builds out with IO sets, likely will have significantly less issues like that.

[Psyonico]

4 Empathy defenders built with the following guidelines

 

• Heal Aura - Required by level 1, 3 heals required
• Heal Other - not required
• Absorb Pain - not required but useful. 2.5 times as powerful as heal other
• Resurrect - not required, but nice.
• Clear Mind - Required by level 20. no slotting recommended or required
• Fortitude - Required pick at level 12. 2 Defense slots before 22. Recharge and tohit slots to taste.
• Recovery Aura - Required pick at level 18. 3 recharge slots by level 20. Endmod if you want but not needed.
• Regeneration Aura - Required pick at level 26. Slot 3 recharges in it by level 27. Slot 3 heals in by level 31.
• Adrenalin Boost - Required pick at level 32. Slot 3 recharges in it by level 33. Slot 2 heals by level 38
• Hasten - 3 Slotted with recharge by level 18
• Assault - required by level 24
• Tactics - required by level 24, slot with 3 tohit buffs by level 35.

obviously you can change min/max with Frankenslotting to build the same thing.

 

The Green Machine build above will plow through just about anything, you'll basically become regen tanks with soft-capped defense.

[EmmySky]

30 minutes ago, Psyonico said:

4 Empathy defenders built with the following guidelines

 

• Heal Aura - Required by level 1, 3 heals required
• Heal Other - not required
• Absorb Pain - not required but useful. 2.5 times as powerful as heal other
• Resurrect - not required, but nice.
• Clear Mind - Required by level 20. no slotting recommended or required
• Fortitude - Required pick at level 12. 2 Defense slots before 22. Recharge and tohit slots to taste.
• Recovery Aura - Required pick at level 18. 3 recharge slots by level 20. Endmod if you want but not needed.
• Regeneration Aura - Required pick at level 26. Slot 3 recharges in it by level 27. Slot 3 heals in by level 31.
• Adrenalin Boost - Required pick at level 32. Slot 3 recharges in it by level 33. Slot 2 heals by level 38
• Hasten - 3 Slotted with recharge by level 18
• Assault - required by level 24
• Tactics - required by level 24, slot with 3 tohit buffs by level 35.

obviously you can change min/max with Frankenslotting to build the same thing.

 

The Green Machine build above will plow through just about anything, you'll basically become regen tanks with soft-capped defense.

I have been wanting a grav/emp troller so I am stealing these slotting ideas...tankies!!!

 

😁

Edited May 28, 2020 by EmmySky

[MTeague]

• The /Poison corruptor should be plenty able to kittenize / debuff particular targets.  Nothing wrong with bringing Envenomed Daggers, but I don't think you should need them unless you exemplared too far down for the Corr to have their debuffs.
• "Arachnos Soldier".  this could mean a lot.  Crab Soldier with lots of Pets?  Stalker-Style Wolf Spider?  I think it can be made to work, but hard to tell how I would have expected that person to be adding to the group by just "Arachnos Soldier" alone.

But with the tank holding most things, I'd expect the Corr and Soldier and the MM saying "Kill THIS target ignore eveyrthing else" should have been enough to burn down the imp.  I'm making assumptions I probably shouldn't make, but I'm thinking maybe pets were uncontrolled / strictly on defensive mode?  And the Soldier may be a more pet-oriented / AE focused build rather than someone meant to take down a single hard target?

 

Also:  how IO'd out is this team?  Expectations would be different between "all tricked out" and "still levelling so only SO's".  Is a biiiiig difference in performance.

 

I love the Green Machine idea @Psyonico lays out.  Massed empaths go from "Aw, an Empath. That's cute" to "That rabbit's got a mean streak a mile wide! Look at the BONES, man!"

 

Basically you want

• Alpha Soaker / Preventer:   Can be a Tank or Brute, can be a Controller or Dominator depending on their sets, can be a CrazyIdjit Scrapper or Stalker or Sentinel.  You can even load up multiple sources of Energy Blast or other Knockbacks and go wtih the Ragdoll Special.  As @The Philotic Knight mentions in his treatise on FF, mobs that are flung on their butt are not doing any damage to anyone.  You can make that your "tank" if the team is willing to roll with it. 
• Debuffer:  technically optional but makes everyone's life muuuuuch easier.  Poison is an excellent choice here, as long as they're good at deciding what is the most important target to debuff at any given moment.  Poison has a very limited Splash Area on their bread-and-butter debuffs.  There's always a temptation to use them on a cloud of adds vs keeping them on whatever needs to die Now-Dammit-Now.  
• Buffer:  technically optional but again, force multipliers are Good Things.  Empath is plenty good choice here, but many options exists.
• Trash Killer:  minions, lieuts, reg bosses.  Something with decent AE damage, or, perhaps, very fast-cycling single target damage.
• Boss Killer:   for the Big Nasties.  Some bosses, but mostly EB's and AV's.  Typically you want high single target damage for this, esp with debuff sources layered.

Now that's 5 "tasks" but realistically most AT's should be able to contribute to more than one of these tasks.

Take a look at your group config and figure out who's doing what.  

And if you have a gap where no one is best suited to a particular thing, then what's the fallback plan / how do you compensate?

 

Ie, if you had no debuffer, do you have multiple DPS'ers with multiple -RES proc IO's?

If you have no boss killer, make sure people are saving multiple Red Insp for when it's time to burn the big guy.

[Doomguide2005]

And keep those buffs flowing, should be hitting the Incarnate cap with 3 Forts per Empath (in the area of 66% vs All) as well as boosting damage by an additional 90% over the buff of 4 Assaults running (+72%) on top of hard capped Regeneration ... 

 

You can as a static team do some crazy slotting as well particularly once you have AB.  As in nothing requires accuracy or endurance reduction as you'll be swimming in endurance and to hit buffs from overlapping RA, Fort and Tactics, plus AB from your 'buddy'.  So go proc crazy and damage IO's.  

 

Back to work for me.

 

 

[Psyonico]

24 minutes ago, MTeague said:

"That rabbit's got a mean streak a mile wide! Look at the BONES, man!"

you just made my day

[Yoru-hime]

What makes a good four-person team?

 

A Grifter, a Hacker, a Hitter and a Thief. 🙂

[Socks10]

25 minutes ago, MTeague said:

• The /Poison corruptor should be plenty able to kittenize / debuff particular targets.  Nothing wrong with bringing Envenomed Daggers, but I don't think you should need them unless you exemplared too far down for the Corr to have their debuffs.
• "Arachnos Soldier".  this could mean a lot.  Crab Soldier with lots of Pets?  Stalker-Style Wolf Spider?  I think it can be made to work, but hard to tell how I would have expected that person to be adding to the group by just "Arachnos Soldier" alone.

But with the tank holding most things, I'd expect the Corr and Soldier and the MM saying "Kill THIS target ignore eveyrthing else" should have been enough to burn down the imp.  I'm making assumptions I probably shouldn't make, but I'm thinking maybe pets were uncontrolled / strictly on defensive mode?  And the Soldier may be a more pet-oriented / AE focused build rather than someone meant to take down a single hard target?

 

Also:  how IO'd out is this team?  Expectations would be different between "all tricked out" and "still levelling so only SO's".  Is a biiiiig difference in performance.

 

I love the Green Machine idea @Psyonico lays out.  Massed empaths go from "Aw, an Empath. That's cute" to "That rabbit's got a mean streak a mile wide! Look at the BONES, man!"

 

Basically you want

• Alpha Soaker / Preventer:   Can be a Tank or Brute, can be a Controller or Dominator depending on their sets, can be a CrazyIdjit Scrapper or Stalker or Sentinel.  You can even load up multiple sources of Energy Blast or other Knockbacks and go wtih the Ragdoll Special.  As @The Philotic Knight mentions in his treatise on FF, mobs that are flung on their butt are not doing any damage to anyone.  You can make that your "tank" if the team is willing to roll with it. 
• Debuffer:  technically optional but makes everyone's life muuuuuch easier.  Poison is an excellent choice here, as long as they're good at deciding what is the most important target to debuff at any given moment.  Poison has a very limited Splash Area on their bread-and-butter debuffs.  There's always a temptation to use them on a cloud of adds vs keeping them on whatever needs to die Now-Dammit-Now.  
• Buffer:  technically optional but again, force multipliers are Good Things.  Empath is plenty good choice here, but many options exists.
• Trash Killer:  minions, lieuts, reg bosses.  Something with decent AE damage, or, perhaps, very fast-cycling single target damage.
• Boss Killer:   for the Big Nasties.  Some bosses, but mostly EB's and AV's.  Typically you want high single target damage for this, esp with debuff sources layered.

Now that's 5 "tasks" but realistically most AT's should be able to contribute to more than one of these tasks.

Take a look at your group config and figure out who's doing what.  

And if you have a gap where no one is best suited to a particular thing, then what's the fallback plan / how do you compensate?

 

Ie, if you had no debuffer, do you have multiple DPS'ers with multiple -RES proc IO's?

If you have no boss killer, make sure people are saving multiple Red Insp for when it's time to burn the big guy.

Lots of good posts in this thread, but I'm going to focus here because it asks some questions. 

 

Also, shoutout to the all Emp Defender idea. I'm not sure the others would be interested, but this sounds fun. 🙂

 

Debuffing may or may not have been an issue. We were able to get through a couple other very long fights in the SF without much issue...it just took a long time. I don't think the /Poison Corrupter was staying close to Positron, so that could have been an issue there. But, our main issue was the imps. There is the one imp that we tried to focus on when it spawned, the one that would fully heal Positron. We were failing just getting this guy down fast enough. The other two imps that spawned were also an issue because they would blow up when get close. I, as the Tanker, was fine, but it did hurt the other players quite a bit. You were bang on with the Arachnos character. I don't know enough about this class, but he definitely had pets and definitely was AoE focused. The MM was probably not controlling his pets very well, but they died very quickly anyway. 

 

As for IOs, we definitely had no characters with Set IOs. I had regular IOs in all of my powers, not sure about everyone else. Although, the MM was getting enhancements that dropped off others just to get his recharge down on Fortitude, so there is that. 🙂

 

I like playing the Tanker class because I feel like I can really help out this specific group of players by holding all of the aggro. Perhaps it is time to try something different. Something with a bit more damage or a different playstyle altogether. How would you go about tanking with a Controller, Blaster, or other character?  

[Without_Pause]

Ill is the ideal off tanker for a controller. If you don't mind a slower pace, Ill/traps can wreck things while in comfort. Part of the tank question is how do you define it? Is it taking and holding aggro or merely taking alpha? Tanks and brutes are obviously build for holding aggro. Scrappers and sentinels a bit lesser and their taunt aura and Confront are more limited. MMs, see Bots/traps, should be able to off tank on a 4-person team grabbing Provoke. As a lover of brutes, blasters and stalkers were honestly the biggest surprise coming back to CoH. Not to say I would build them for off tanking, but in terms of change of pace. An /earth dom is also good for a change of pace for a melee minded person. 

[Oubliette_Red]

5 hours ago, Yoru-hime said:

What makes a good four-person team?

 

A Grifter, a Hacker, a Hitter and a Thief. 🙂

[Doc_Scorpion]

5 hours ago, MTeague said:

Now that's 5 "tasks" but realistically most AT's should be able to contribute to more than one of these tasks.

*nods*  This isn't about AT's as much as it is roles and tactics - and understanding what each player is bringing to this week's party and how it will work together in combat.

 

[Ukase]

Any four ATs/Powersets will suffice. Seriously. 

But - here's where I think you're missing something. 

Warburg Nukes. 

Shivans from Bloody Bay

HVAC (Heavy) from Vanguard Merits 

Envenomed Dagger (from P2W) 

Team Inspirations


Not saying you NEED to have all of these, or any of these, but they can take an "almost got 'im" to "barely got 'im!".  

The nukes are simply OP. 
The Heavy will certainly do a LOT of damage. 
The Shivan dishes out serious debuffs. 
The Envenomed Dagger will drop the regen, practically flooring it. 

Team inspirations are an incredible tool that most forget about. You have to be within 20 feet for them to work for teammates, but if you have an alt with surplus threads, they can be invaluable. Imagine the damage your HVAC will dish out with a Super Team Red! Enough of them, and they will trivialize the battle. 
Heck - an Ultimate! A quick level shift can improve your defense, your accuracy and your damage output. 


These are why team composition doesn't make much of a difference anymore. All these things have trivial costs or tasks to obtain. 

And, if you're truly lazy but have 10M inf -- get yourself a Summon Pet from P2W. The extra DPS will certainly help. 

[Gorgar]

You can make a lot of things work.  But a group that I think would work well together would be:

 

• Inv/mace brute or tank
• Dark/sonic defender with tactics, shadowfall, maneuvers
• Fire/kin corruptor

Those three together will cover a lot of what you need.  Inv is pretty durable, needs the occasional heal and some psi resist.  The dark covers that and also mitigates a lot of incoming damage.  They pair really well together, and the dark/sonic provides  important -regen and -res.  The mace adds stun to what the defender can do with screech, howling twilight, and oppressive gloom if you take it (take it!)  Aggro should be fairly well managed between the two, so the fire/kin is free to buff damage and provide pretty good aoe damage as well as some more -regen.

 

This leaves the fourth slot open, and you could add an ill controller for more control and aggro management plus more buff/debuff, or a stalker for taking down really hard targets, or a fire blaster for taking down, well, everything.  Or another brute, sometimes off-tanks are really handy and they have a high damage cap which goes well with the kin.  I'd probably pick the fire blaster though, because it's so good at both aoe and single-target.

[Doomguide2005]

Well outside of running my Empaths with Green Machine probably the toughest small team (all friends) I ran with, well by about the upper 20's (on primarily SO's at +4/x8) I think we bored ourselves to death we were crushing content so thoroughly.  It was an all "Dark" themed SG we started.  5 strong -> 1 Dark Melee/Willpower scrapper and 4 defenders -> 1 Dark Miasma/Archery, 1 Trick Arrow/Dark Blast, 1Cold/Dark Blast, and 1 Sonic/Dark Blast.  Not sure who I'd drop to make it 4 🤔. Obviously we had an over abundance Dark Blast 🤪.

[Six-Six]

I have a different angle on this.

I think what makes a team a "good" team is... wait for it... teamwork.

I've ran with teams that clearly had the best mix of ATs, but leadership (not the pool power) just wasn't there. everyone just wanted to kill the av, etc. these usually results in wipes and an overall run that wasn't very enjoyable... couldn't wait for it to finish, take my earnings and go. In contrast, I've ran with 2-man and 3-man teams made up of players whose play style I was familiar with; and it was not only a breeze, but fun. One would usually bark out orders (in case we got side tracked). I liked leaving no witnesses, had a lot of aoes, but didn't pack a lot of st damage, so I would be crowd control and handle adds while the other two beat the av to a pulp with undivided attention. we had no healer, per se, but I had recall friend -- so while we're all in the frey, I'd keep an eye on the team window. if one of them seems like he/she is about to die, I'd pull them out of harms way. often roles would change depending on the toons in the group, but the communication, coordination and synergy was always there.

also strategy.
not everything should be steamrolled, stealthed, or speed ran. just because you could doesn't mean you should. stick to the mission. one team member doesn't have stealth, then the one who does goes to the strategic point and assembles the team. sometimes we'd split up; sometimes we stuck together.

it doesn't really matter what AT or powers you bring to the mix. It's how you use what you got that makes a good team player

Edited June 1, 2020 by Six Six

[Psyonico]

9 hours ago, Six Six said:

I have a different angle on this.

I think what makes a team a "good" team is... wait for it... teamwork.

Well... yeah... all of these suggestions only work if you have good teamwork.  I do agree that (almost) any combination with good teamwork will steamroll through content.

[Six-Six]

I know it sounds obvious. but it is often overlooked. I don't think AT matters so much as I've been on all archer, all spider, all sentinel, etc... It boils down to communication and working together.

One of my most despised and regretted runs was on an ITF with a seemingly well-rounded team. However, it was led by one of those divas (happened to be a brute at the time) who would go mob hopping without taunting or herding. he gave no instructions, though I suppose he assumed all of the members have done it before. he wanted the healers to shadow HIM while he sped ahead, leaving most of us to clean up stragglers. result was group was never together, members were frequently overwhelmed, and team wiped several times during the entire run. support had a hard time buffing such a spread out group, healers were too far to res the dead. 

In contrast, a few of my best experiences were when the leader was a defender who barely got in the mix, but explained each part... what to expect, what the goal was, what the strategy was, and just kept people from dying. gave the tanker tips on what to do, told the stalker to take out enemy healers, support and aoe to handle adds and ambushes. kept everyone together moving as a single unit but everyone doing what they were good at.

 

[Luminara]

Needs more Karl Urban.

[killigraphy]

No matter what you go with....

 

A debuffer will always be needed/make things much easier. Whether its a rad or a Dark. Time is also the FOTM.

 

As for anything else. blasters/corr's handle everything that needs killing.