VEATS and the new difficulties.

[The_Warpact]

Anyone run a VEAT on the ASF? Trying to figure how viable they are. 

[DreadShinobi]

You may find yourself to be quite squishy on higher difficulties like relentless where there are massive tohit buffs in play unless you are being provided additional defense buffs from your allies. Veats still have the same hold ups as they do in other content such as low base hp, low base resists, lack of self healing, but their team buffs should be more valuable than ever because groups are more likely to stay together where more allies will be grouped up to benefit from your aura leadership buffs. 

[The_Warpact]

@DreadShinobi I figured as much on the stuff I knew. Just wondering if anyone had ran it and how successful they were.

I'm thinking that most content is going to be based on a more organized style of team than just the biggest dmg dealers.

[KaizenSoze]

I haven't run with a team at high levels with my VEATs, but I have tried solo at low difficulty 0x8 or 0x4. It's very slow going.

 

Due to the amount auto hit -resist thrown about, Widow scaling resists aren't very effective. At least in time. Tough is back on the build list again.

 

Fortunatas without perma Mind Link also suffer, but you can confuse cheese your way through a lot in the first few missions. Had to stop at Ripplesurge, I couldn't overcome his regen.

 

At higher difficulties, the Smelters run tactics which kill your confuse duration. Good news. Psi and Toxic damage are poorly resisted.

 

My Bane did the best in straight up fighting, because they can be built with good defense and resists. Also, the amount of toxic damage is very useful against Goldbrickers.

 

The new placate is good for getting heat off you.

[JJDrakken]

Veats are walking god machines, especially when grouped with other Veats or folks with Leadership.  My Melee Tank Crab even doesn't worry to much about extra buffs. My Huntsman is probably the squshiest of them, still, I'm not scared of anything.  My Ranged Bane is the same, my AoE Crab, my Melee Bane, All if built right, use the right recipes and especially getting Barrier.  You'll be just dandy.

[KaizenSoze]

2 hours ago, JJDrakken said:

Veats are walking god machines, especially when grouped with other Veats or folks with Leadership.  My Melee Tank Crab even doesn't worry to much about extra buffs. My Huntsman is probably the squshiest of them, still, I'm not scared of anything.  My Ranged Bane is the same, my AoE Crab, my Melee Bane, All if built right, use the right recipes and especially getting Barrier.  You'll be just dandy.

Yes, but what are your experiences on the ASF. I am hoping to run it high diff next week with the SG.

[Two Dollar Bill]

I'm certainly no expert on the finer points of the strike force, but I have noted that any time I show up with my Crab Spider, people are happy to have me, especially for the defense buffs. On Wednesday I was on a team with two Crabs, each with 100+ vet levels so hopefully we knew what we were doing, and the team still had 36 defeats. I started to wish we had a Fortunata with TT:Vengeance....
My Crab has Tough and usually does a fair amount of melee, but I've found myself staying at long range a lot more on this strike force, and choosing my position for good visibility to insure that I can see any Goldbrickers that might be about to explode.

 

[tidge]

I played on an ASF run with a Fortunata, I want to say we had at least two other VEAT as well. I don't think we were playing at the higher difficulties, although we started the arc at +4 (by mistake or habit) and had no issues. We did go out of our way to face as many AV as possible, which we handled in a very 'normal' manner.

 

I didn't feel like it was very different than other runs, or other content. We definitely had deaths... I want to say that I died maybe thrice: The first was against the initial Goldbrickers (I wasn't paying attention... I specifically aggroed a group to bring to the cauldron and instead of just finishing them off I dragged them and then made the mistake of ignoring them). Once against Ripplesauce (I wasn't really paying attention, forgot what AT I was playing) and possibly once in the long drawn-out fight against the Council AVs. I can't recall on that fight because I hadn't realized how many AVs there were, and the fight took something like 30 minutes to clear them out... that specific fight would probably had gone faster if we had been focusing fire... all I really remember about it that teammates were dropping and so I switched up my attempts at MOAR OFFENSE to MOAR CONTROL to give others a chance to rez. I also remember bruning through all my Insps and consuming all the drops during that fight... I just can't remember if any of them were used as part of a self-rez. I definitely remember being confused, but I think that was from enemy status effects and not rez.

 

I know I took some big hits in the big AV fight, but by that time I was paying much more attention to my combat stats and power timers. There were definitely later points in the arc when I was still playing fast-and-loose (doing solo stuff in the multiple objectives bits... so BAD for 'master' runs) but by that point I was really paying attention and was able to handle all sorts of crazy.

 

At least for 'standard' difficulties, I'd say that the ASF definitely benefits from teams staying together, although there ARE points at which some characters can go solo depending on build and powers. Specific to my Fortunata build, I found myself using the controls (Confuses, Fears) a LOT more than I ever have on other SF/TF content.

 

 

[Meknomancer]

Relentless with my fort. No idea how many team deaths but i was close to 15 but that was before i knew about the bricker novas and smelters melt armour and the ripple resonator - res stuff and was still getting to know the sf. My controls are dps i don't run confuse/holds other than dominate procced out and i wasn't running fighting pool, pretty sure with tough i could have halved that number.

[KaoticKarl]

I have a huntsman build that can reach incarnate softcap defense if I slot T4 agility, with resists ranging around 30-50% to most. Damage isn't much to write home about, but that's ok, as I built him for more of a support role that can solo decently well rather than a omg-bbq-wtf-dps-god (not even sure soldiers can even be one of those anyways, to be honest).

 

My question is, does anyone know what the floor is for defense/resist numbers to where you don't eat pavement too much, provided you have at least some stacking maneuvers and possible resist buffs thanks to teammates? Just curious as to how much is considered enough for both by tier of the new SF.

 

(Also trying to see if it might be a good idea to level my thermal characters some more as well, thanks!)

Edited December 7, 2021 by KaoticKarl

[Gulbasaur]

On 12/3/2021 at 12:06 PM, KaizenSoze said:

Fortunatas without perma Mind Link also suffer, but you can confuse cheese your way through a lot in the first few missions. Had to stop at Ripplesurge, I couldn't overcome his regen.

 

Truth. I don't think I've cheesed Confuse quite so hard in this game in my life and I have no regrets. It's a fun strike force to cheese through. 

 

I solo'd up to the bit with four AVs all at once and decided to go back with a group because I wasn't in the mood for multiple AV fights. 

[KaizenSoze]

12 minutes ago, Gulbasaur said:

Truth. I don't think I've cheesed Confuse quite so hard in this game in my life and I have no regrets. It's a fun strike force to cheese through. 

 

I solo'd up to the bit with four AVs all at once and decided to go back with a group because I wasn't in the mood for multiple AV fights. 

You can avoid that fight by getting control of one the other consoles. Generally, there is always a short cut for any ripple zone.

[Gulbasaur]

19 minutes ago, KaizenSoze said:

You can avoid that fight by getting control of one the other consoles. Generally, there is always a short cut for any ripple zone.

Oh nice! It was a well made one and I went in totally blind and solo. It felt like a really good 3rd party mod for something like Fallout New Vegas  and I mean that positively.