Support roles in duo

I agree that is elitest. Support is not wanted in alerts for the same reason but expected to be top notch in raids. So.. In solo they have to dps. In alerts they are asked to dps and now you..say they shouldn't practice in duo's hmm. Hope you don't require any support roles in raids. Wait..you do.

This^

I don't mind a support role or dps, what I do mind is a carry, too many times I've been queued with people 10 and even 20 levels bellow the recommended CR, last one was someone actually entering Flash Museum at 113, I honestly couldn't take it, my toon was barely at the recommended CR so I would need someone at least 5 levels bellow it, a 129 has a chance at beating that duo, but a 134 with a 113 is a waste of time. I have carried players on my higher toons, but usually it's a 113 on Zamaron, but this was just too much. If you want to support that's fine, but at least be near the recommended CR, and come on is easy enough reaching 134, there's no need to try a jump levels.

I just saw some one shouting that in all caps last night and from the time stamp on your initial post it was probably the same player.. I was doing some bounty hunting in Gotham before I headed to bed when THAT comment hit LFG. I have no idea if the individual actually saw me replay or not... if he did he never responded. I shot back a comment.. I'll bring my tank into any duo I like. LOL

It has already been mentioned a couple times here but the ONLY reason why some of these "haters" insist that SUPPORT has no business in a duo is time. Heaven forbid it should take 8 minutes instead of 6 to complete a duo............ It could scar you for life.

My league mate and I switch back and forth between ALTs all the time on duos and have run just about every combination you can imagine:

TROLL/DPS takes a little longer but the troll stuns mobs and in many cases can leave them standing helplessly while you both destroy them. In all cases Trolls possess at least 2-3 attacks that debuff mobs and bosses so they do less damage, take more damage and heal less quickly so if that is a possibility it is less of a problem as well.

TANK/DPS Does your DPS have any attacks that are AoE? sort of a dumb question since they ALL have at least one or two .. or more. Well having someone along that can pull 3,4,5 or more minions to the same spot so that AoE does the maximum amount of damage is somehow a BAD thing? My Atomic Tank is great at this aspect. The two melee combo attacks are an agro magnet and I have actually had as many as 6-8 enemy minions all in a circle around me while I pound away at them and my buddy blasts them from a safe distance. LOL In Wasteland Wonderland I actually look like a rock star with groupies when a herd of imps gathers around me to die.

HEAL/DPS Yeah this one will take a little longer since the Healer won't add a huge amount of damage but with only TWO players to heal instead of 4 or 8 the chances are you won't be dying unless your CR is so low you really have no business being in the duo to begin with .

Plus there is nothing that says anyone only needs to play ONE role on a DUO. Again my buddy and I do this all the time. On the mobs between boss battles its two DPS knocking out what stands between us and that boss with the reward box quicker. Then when we hit the BOSS.. One stays DPS the other goes TANK, TROLL or HEALER to give us that advantage when we need it most.

Sadly there is group of players out there convinced that support has no business in a duo and you will see them do everything from simply walk out on you, refuse to engage as they wait for you to switch roles or (only had this happen once but it does occur) purposely try to get you killed hoping you'll get frustrated and leave. Interesting side note on that last comment.. My Troll managed to defeat a 4 man mob solo on the Zamaron duo while the big bad DPS sat back and watched and then ..HE left more than likely frustrated because I didn't die LOL

As with everything, it's situational.

Now this I also agree with. Sadly the way the devs have things set up creates a situation where a 113 can join you in the Flash Museum and then your basically supposed to SOLO the entire duo while this guys lags behind watching or dies every time he gets near a mob. At first I TRIED to be flexible and let them tag along depending on which ALT I was playing at the time... I Tanked a ZAMARON with a CR 113 healer and while obviously I did a lot more damage he was healing me the entire time. But I have been on other duos where it was absolutely obvious the other player had every intention of standing back and watching me do all they work while he grabbed armor and marks.

I spent 29 minutes in TANK mode with that 113 healer to complete a Zamaron I could have accomplished with my buddy's DPS in around 6 or 7. On a Malfunction with a CR 111 that I actually waited on a number of times forcing him to actually at LEAST get his sorry butt into the same room I was battling in I got tired of it and headed to the exit. Before I left I told him I hoped he wound up with another CR 111 as his next team mate.. so he'd actually have to PLAY the game.

I'm to the point now where if I walk in and see 113 on anything higher than Resource Recovery I turn right around and walk back out. What really amazes me is the fact that the DEVS set up that whole situation so Premiums didn't need to BUY every single episode that comes out in order to upgrade their characters.. Funny.. they spend the majority of their time finding ways to get players to spend more MONEY to accomplish things but allow this crap to happen ?????

doubt ppl left because he was a tank, you yourself said he was at the last boss no?

me I love support roles in duos, 1 1 1 1 in alerts, but I wont do them if I get placed at the end I'll straight up leave I don't care who's in the group, what their CR is, what powers what SP' if Im sucked in at last boss and I need the entire run Im leaving to run the entire thing.

Add 2 hrs on top of that and makes you wonder whats wrong with his tanking and skills over all.

Entry CR is not Suggested CR. The problem I have with some of these holier than thou Support Role defenders is that at Entry CR, most support roles don't bring anything to the table. Most trolls have trouble providing PoT, let alone using debuffs and CC that might make it somewhat usable in a duo (and bosses are generally immune to CC anyway). Tanks take heavy damage that many don't understand how to deal with other than blocking (it's not a raid, tanks, you're not getting healed unless the other person is a healer...). Healers, I'll take if they understand that they'll pretty much have to heal and tank (but many don't).

So how do you tell if a support role is any good or not if you walk out on them without even trying? (And as for the "Entry CR" not being high enough to so much as even take out the adds without a wipe... I would consider that a design flaw and the fault of the Devs. Why have such a low entry CR if there is 0 chance of even getting to the first boss without a wipe?)

That said if you random queue for a Duo, I'd consider it rude to just walk out on the other guy without at least trying to make it to the first boss. (I hate it when people join a group, and then immediately leave without even putting in the effort of trying. I see why people hate the scoreboard, because in all honesty it doesn't provide enough info to size up a group at all... Especially when a bunch of irrelevant info piles up on it.(Like the names and scores of everyone who's left...)

I think there be more tabs... (With the primary tab only showing the current group, add in a function that lets us reset the primary tab back to zero(Totals for everyone who was ever in the raid remain saved on the secondary tab.) and the scoreboard would be so much more useful for sizing up where the group is struggling.) Though I still stand by my belief that the community would be so much better with a bit more patience.(At least enough so to make a minimum of one attempt when joining a group already in progress.)

I did over 1 million as a healer on Tiger today...You can do fine in a duo and after I went healer we did not die. Before when I was a DPS we both died a few times in the new duo.

I was buffing the other toon with Hive Mind, encasing enemies and healing...Do not tell me support roles are not helpful..

Troll do debuff and keep the DPS power. Tank can pull adds off the DPS and allow them to stand up right. Healer, see tank along with healing...

Support and DPS is greater than two DPS. Why, when both are below the recommend CR there is a high % chance to finish the content due to the ability to control adds, etc...that support roles provide along with keeping the DPS on their feet instead of knocked over.

I'm not going to judge a player just on the role they selected. To my mind, if you Q as a healer/troll/tank, then that's likely the role you're more familiar with and best at, and the role you're likely trying to gear up.

Unless we really struggle in a run, I don't really care. If we can't finish the thing, then yeah, switch roles. But otherwise? Who cares? Do you.

And I have some toons I really dislike switching roles with, for whatever reason. It'd be pretty hypocritical of me to expect someone to switch roles when I myself don't like doing it for some of my alts.

Now, if you're just bad at the role you're using or your CR is below recommendation, that's another matter. I expect players to know how to play their role and have the right gear for the encounter. But that's not a role problem, that's a player problem.

This is beyond laziness, 111 is actually good for that duo, but sadly with so many carry me players around this will just keep happening, right now the minimum for Ep 21 is 150, but when in 2 months people who just reached 150 are queueing the Ep 23 duo, which I assume will be anywhere around 165, players who did their work will be stuck again with players just too under geared for the content.

I get not wanting to force players to buy the whole 3 months content, but at least they need to make sure you can actually do the content you bought.

Oh trust me I KNOW. My buddy and I hit CR 111 about the same time HOP2 arrived and we did both Malfunction and Resource Recovery at that level and did just fine. Yeah on THAT particular duo my so call team mate was looking to be carried from start to finish. Well I got him pat the first boss in the Security area and then headed for the door. Hey who knows .. maybe he's still in there waiting for me to come back. LOL

And players at low CR in damage role do? If someone is at the entry CR, I will take them as a support role any time over watching them attack for 1% of my damage.

Also, your examples all involve people who can't play their role. In general I've found people running support in a duo despite all the social pressure against it are decent at playing the game.

And if they're not...do you really think those players are going to be any better at doing damage? For every troll who doesn't know how to throw POT and debuffs, there's a person running around using weapon attacks instead of their AM. There are bad players in every role. There are actually more bad damage players than anything else because there are just more damage players overall.

Imo trolls don't bring anything to a duo. I don't run my trolls through duos, because if i get a below avg dps we will be there a while. Trolls are like cr entry really bad dps in duos, and this is coming from a person who love trolling and have 2 150^cr trolls

I do lots of newb alerts and when I did them at the levels I see people doing them I got annihilated. So I go in thinking well there is nothing I can do to protect these guys, they will get one hit killed and stuff, I will just run around and activate stuff and drag them through if they stay long enough lol. Or when we make it to the first boss I plan on just slapping down some healing and let them whack away on the boss for a few minutes until I run out of power healing them so they get to fight.

But I get suprised. Sometimes the lowbie can take a punch and survive, sometimes the boss goes down faster than I could kill it lol. You really cant judge based on CR alone.

Random group = random result. I dont like joining leagues/groups/clans or trying to get close to people so in every mmo game I play I enjoy playing with randoms. Sounds like some people should seek out more active people/guilds and only run stuff with people they know if they dont want to risk not being able to do a mission.

The only recent duo where you may not be able to take out the adds at minimum CR is the Flash Museum one. The entry minimums are set so that people who can power level up at well below the recommended numbers are able to do so. I just pushed my 24SP character through the Wasteland duo at CR138. The other player immediately walked out on me. I cleared all of the adds up to the first boss before re-opening the instance.

Unfortunately there are a lot of really bad players who think they are the sort of "beast" the slack in the minimums is aimed at, and the wipes don't seem to teach them otherwise.

Not that i've seen? If you're running two 'above recommended' CR characters, then support is a matter of personal taste, really, but it's never made a duo slower or harder to do. Hell, in some instances, one 'almost there' DPS and a entry CR support role can manage what two 'almost there' and 'entry DPSs can't, just because support role survivability is like 2:1 over a straight DPS.

Or - I run tank, heal, and even control in Duos unless i'm outputting enough to flatten things in seconds (my controller is Mental, she usually runs Damage in Duos, but my Healer makes duos like impossible to lose, because nothing in a duo is outdamaging my 12K rest shield.

Yeah, which boggles the crap out of me, I mean... I know, time and all that, but survivability = no wipes, saves more time than 'we died because i ran three DPS and a troll, no one can hold aggro or heal in a boss fight'.

Honestly, I don't have a problem with a duo taking a long time or any content of the matter. I rather take a long time in a duo/raid/alert and know what I'm doing as a controller and what's expected from me (power, insta, CC, debuffs...etc) I've been playing this game for a long time now and I've never seen anything that a duo is designed for DPS only.

This reminds me of Kitchen Nightmares, when Gordon would be observing what the chefs and the rest of the staff is doing in the kitchen, chefs want food out fast but then the people complain how the food isn't good and Gordon will tell them that rush you mess up but when you take your time to do what you gotta do, the people don't care, they will wait for good food.

Now this is probably a bad analogy, I know. But what I'm trying to say is, I rather spend more time in content and make sure the group is alive or they have power and such. I remember playing on EUPC side and I was celestial healer and running those t6 duos, and I'm happy I stayed as a healer cause then my partner would have kept dying and having to wait for them to be up again...yeah...no.