Are Freakshow good annoying or just annoying annoying?

[DougGraves]

END drain.  Self healing.  Self rez.  Self rez with aoe stun.

 

Freakshow are very different to fight than other villain groups.  Does that make them an interesting challenge or just annoying?

 

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I don't mind the END drain.  I like it as a change to how I fight.  I have to use blue inspirations.  And it makes Elec Defenders really welcome on a team.  

 

The self healing I find makes me change how I play.  I have to make sure they go down fast and not leave wounded ones to self heal.  

 

But the self rezzing I find annoying.  I wish the minions self rezzed and not the bosses.  Too often on teams most people have moved on and one hero is left getting beaten up by a boss that rezzed and stunned them.   Since bosses get defeated last, it is usually just a lone boss self-rezzing and dragging a fight out.

[Mister Mass]

I find that Defeat All missions with Freakshow are annoying.  Inevitably I find that I have to resweep the whole map to find the Freakshow boss that self-rezzed after I defeated him & his spawn & left him "arrested" face down chewing carpet. 😠

[roleki]

I wonder if anyone has made an AE farm of nothing BUT Freakshow that self-rez.   That would be a hoot.

[Doomguide2005]

I just try and focus, especially as someone who generally levels by playing through story arcs and such, to focus on MOAR XP, as I put them down a second time.

[KaizenSoze]

Freakshow, mobs so nice, you have to kill them twice.

 

On of my favorite enemy groups.

[catsi563]

Well the rez isnt an issue just means you beat them down again thats all

 

the SUper Stunners on the othe rhand those are ANNOYING with a capital UGH

 

however they can be beaten and unlike most freakshow they DO NOT rez if you take them down at range

 

their rez is target dependent. so as long as no ones around them when they drop no rez no end drain

 

still amazes me how many people keep bulldozing freakshow and forget that little bit of info

[Herotu]

I think this used to be annoying when there wasn't an indicator on the map when there's only one or two enemies remaining. 

I think the devs could solve the annoyance somewhat by further indicating which sub-map the remaining NPC is on. Somehow.

Edited November 2, 2022 by Herotu

[TheZag]

Dont u get more xp when u kill them again?  Thats not a bad deal.

 

[Luminara]

They're annoying when the mission requires defeating a boss spawn and they keep rezzing.

 

[Major_Decoy]

I kind of find the rez annoying just because it's not guaranteed. It's just high enough that I don't want to move onto the next spawn and risk fighting too many enemies, but standing around waiting for a rez that might not happen is just too much for my stunted attention span.

[Greycat]

The only thing annoying about Freakshow is when you deliberately knock a Super Stunner away so it doesn't rez and a teammate goes chasing it like a hyperactive puppy chasing a rubber ball. Sadly we don't get to spray other players with a water bottle.

[Cancrusher]

I like them okay. 

 

I think Carnies can be pretty annoying, sometimes.  Longbow (Wardens) and Paragon Police (Awakened, etc.) to a lesser degree.  But even the annoying ones are fun to fight, in a certain, twisted way.  😁😛

[Gulbasaur]

Good annoying. They aren't a complete steamroll, and I like that.

Carnival of Shadows are bad annoying. The phasing and the phantams. They can be neutered pretty instantly with Confuse, but that's beside the point.

[Tachstar]

Super Stunners, yeah, sometimes, but it's Sky Raider Engineers that annoy me the most. I always try to target them first and take em out before they call down that blankety blank bubble doohickey, but sometimes they get lucky. And those Malta auto turret things, too. Very annoying. Oh! And any summoned critter that doesn't give XP! Like those CoT demon guys from the portals. I blame Posi for that. Whether he's actually responsible or not. All risk, no reward. Boo, Posi! Boo!

[Major_Decoy]

11 minutes ago, Tachstar said:

Super Stunners, yeah, sometimes, but it's Sky Raider Engineers that annoy me the most. I always try to target them first and take em out before they call down that blankety blank bubble doohickey, but sometimes they get lucky. And those Malta auto turret things, too. Very annoying. Oh! And any summoned critter that doesn't give XP! Like those CoT demon guys from the portals. I blame Posi for that. Whether he's actually responsible or not. All risk, no reward. Boo, Posi! Boo!

If it gives no experience then it was something that was once used for farming.

[Erratic1]

I enjoy the Freakshow. I really enjoy killing them right before they try their last second self-heal. Yeah, they self-rez and I enjoy standing over their bodies until they fade, daring them to stand back up.

 

Super Stunner are kind of annoying if you do not have a knockback/ranged attack combo or aren't largely immune to their drain. 

[Lazarillo]

3 hours ago, TheZag said:

Dont u get more xp when u kill them again?  Thats not a bad deal.

You also get less XP for defeating them in the first place, though.  Freakshow give ~80% of typical XP/Inf values, to compensate for the ~20% that rez and give an additional round.

 

And that is a bit "annoying annoying", just because of the long animation times when you just have to sit and wait for them to rez in the first place.  Super Stunners are at least nice enough to get up right way (even if you have to wait for them to stop doing their little Diva Dance when they do).  The self-heal is also a little irritating solo, but rarely kicks in on teams, so it kinda balances out since they're also probably just a little too easy overall when teamed.

 

So overall, mildly into the "annoying annoying" category, but compared up against Nemesis and Crey, who are just flat-out unfun too much of the time, the Freaks ain't got me much to complain about.

[PLVRIZR]

Ahhh, Freaks.  The gifts that keep on giving...

[Yaliw]

My only issue is the ressurect but otherwise I find the freakshow to be middle of the road difficulty wise- and that's only because of the end drain. Their damage is ok. The tanks hit extremely hard, their pure energy ranged attacks bypass smash/lethal defense stacking (do people still build for this?) And the SUPER FREAKS (super stunner is a dumb name and I refuse to call them that) are actually semi dangerous due to their mobility and strong rez damage.

 

I like the freakshow. If I were king of everything I'd probably give them 1 additional group of minion/lieutenant/boss with a different damage type to round them out a bit more... maybe fire fits best here. Otherwise I find them interesting and just challenging enough.

[TheZag]

6 hours ago, roleki said:

I wonder if anyone has made an AE farm of nothing BUT Freakshow that self-rez.   That would be a hoot.

 

Ya, im gonna do that now.  The Freakshow Rez Farm,  S/L/E,  high stun and end drain resist recommended.

 

[biostem]

A bit off topic, but I feel like you should be able to deliver a "coup de grace" to enemies, in order to prevent any self-rezzing - make them clickable once downed the first time, or leave them with like 1hp for a few seconds before the rez kicks in...

[BlackSpectre]

Freak show = Good annoying. 
 

Honestly, the most annoying are Carnival followed by Nemesis and then Crey Paragon protectors… all because they each have members who have a mechanic that can make them Invulnerable for a long time and just ignore our attacks. Takes me much longer to kill these guys than freaks who I can quickly kill twice. 

arachnos with their blinding powers are annoying, but easy to overcome by popping a yellow inspiration. 
 

So yeah, Freakshow = goooood!

 

[Techwright]

I used to enjoy Freakshow more.  Admittedly this was back around 2005-2009.  Perhaps my memory has just faded with time but I don't recall Super Stunners, (the old COH wiki doesn't list them, so I'm assuming I'm right that they were added), and they're my main beef with today's Freakshow.  Unless the team is really good at killing them at range, guaranteed rez, guaranteed end drain, and for me personally, a high level of annoyance, especially if I'm on melee duty. 

 

Early Freakshow didn't have such a concentrated target to strike first and hard.  Instead, any and all Freaks might suddenly rez.  It was unpredictable which ones, and I loved that randomness.  Sure that still happens, but I've seen it is far less than it used to be, possibly to compensate for the guaranteed rez of the Super Stunner.  I'd really like to see this model get the boot, or at least toned down, and the Freakshow go back to being much more randomized.

 

It might also help if I genuinely had something to fear from them still.  Tanks with two hammer fists and those with scythe hands had the potential to do some real damage on a swing, and I've just not seen that even against my poorer builds.

 

I still like them. and would take them any day over CoT.  Their party-&-anarchy nature feels different than any other villain group.  Oh, and I'd not mind a few more female leads among them.  Clamor is fine, but I see her too often on task forces and such. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by Techwright

[High_Beam]

They have Ripsaws!  How can you not like a bad guy with a Ripsaw!

[tidge]

Freaks are fine. As for game mechanics, I have no issues with them. If anything, I'd like to see more stuns added to their arsenal. Similar to Freak, I like the challenges that Arachnos brings.

 

More annoying: Carnies that phase shift. These bother me much more that Council Ascendants (predictable) or Tsoo Sorcerers (predictable, reasonably quick to return, can be chased) or Fake Nemesis (predictable). One of the things I dislike about the Carnies is that it always feels like they trigger their phase shift cycling in a very 'meta' way that pulls me out of the game. Part of the issue for me is that this is so clearly an effort to be a different mechanic to deal with in combat, but it is NOT a mechanic that offers any real chance of success if it were to be used by a player (in PvE or PvP); it's simply griefing

 

The Nemesis Comets are another class of enemy that takes me out of the game. I have NO issue with the concept or implementation of their nigh-infinite perception, nor with the attack... I just find it absurd that they will start sniping from across the map but their allies in the spawn won't also start engaging. This bothered me slightly less before the range of (fast) snipes was reduced, because at least then I felt like I could engage in a sort of duel with them. Mechanically, I grok them... it's just that in actual play they feel quite jarring.