The Grind

Some people complain about the “grind” in CoX, running through the 20s-30s — endless repetitive missions, fill-in powers, etc., etc.
I’ve never had much of that problem with duos that click. But the big reason that, since I5, Velvet and P-Siren just haven’t done much anything playwise is, aside from the nerfing of the already-weak FF Defender, they just have a wretched DoT. Really. PS has a snipe. Velvet has SS tanker punches. it’s not that they don’t do damage, is that they don’t do scrapper/blaster-level damage. So doing mishes with them is one demned horrid grind, as Dickens put it.
So, Phalanx Prestige Day today. A little slow starting, but eventually there were the above pair, MacroLass, Sword of Asgard, Avocet, and MassiveImpact. Of those three were tanks. SS/Inv tanks, no less.
On small teams (PS, VJ, ML, Avo), not much problem. But later on we got stuck in this endless Devouring Earth mission. I mean, like a couple of hours worth. Avo had to drop, and so we figured out a way to get ML and SoA on without messing up the SK/RSK stuff too much. And then we slogged through the grind, to mix my metaphors. I almost cried when I realized it had turned into a Defeat All mish.
At long last, we made it. And, to be sure, it wasn’t bad — we seriously owned the place — it was just painfully slow, even with one blaster or one scrapper on the team. No danger of defeat, with all those tanks and a bubbler. Just no danger of finishing too soon, either.
On the bright side, VJ dinged 32, and PS got close.
As it stand, though, that mish exemplified why VJ/PS just aren’t fun to duo, any more than Ho Ho/Peep would be. In a big team, yeah, definitely a blast. On their own, nope.
But they’ll continue to be there for Phalanx Prestige Days. It’s a great excuse to play them.