Bastille Boy

Update: I respecced a Street Justce / Super Reflexes stalker. With a proper build and incomplete incarnates (nothing over T3, no lores or hybrid), the stalker finished the mission with nine minutes to spare. Several close calls, but no arrests.

It's not a perfect test. It's a good test of how a toon will do when confronting one or two groups with powerful debuffs. It doesn't test what happens if you really get swarmed. I tried taking the tanks and the brute who passed the robbery test into an America's Angel S/L asteroid farming map. The radiation tanker melted instantly. The SR toons were very reliant on orange inspirations and hybrid melee. When the resistance boosts ran out, they were defeated. The invulnerability tanker was fine. He didn't come close to clearing the map, but he survived the swarm. The shield tanker would have been fine if I had been paying attention to the rage crashes. So I may have been wrong to describe my SR/MA tanker as my "toughest toon." He might have the best balance of toughness and damage for soloing most of the game.

Not all supervillains work alone. Those who do should be able to pull off a bank robbery without getting caught. Right? I decided to test a bunch of my toons to see if they could solo a Peregrine Island bank robbery at +4/8, no AV. Since the final boss is often just a boss, allowing AVs would make the test too unpredictable. The mission tests for a mix of durability, damage, and player skill, which in my case is low. (My reflexes are the opposite of super!) One tricky bit about this mission is that the final boss can have minions who don't enter the bank. If you don't know where to look for those minions, it's quite possible to fail the mission by running out of time, even if your character never gets arrested. My usual plan for the mission: Fight the police near the entrance for a couple of minutes to remind myself how the toon plays and get a vibe about how this is going to go. Head to the alley with all the barrels and boxes, a few blocks forward and to the right, to get some extra time. Clear out most of the police and Knives of Vengeance near the bank on the right side (from the perspective of someone leaving the bank.) Rob the bank, defeat the final boss and the Longbow who follow the boss into the bank. Exit the bank, turn right, and turn right again. Ignore the police if possible. Look for 3-4 Longbow minions / lieutenants hiding behind the bank. The toons I tested all had a T3 or T4 alpha power slotted, a reasonably complete build, and the contact Lord Schweinzer unlocked. Some of the builds are very old. Most of these toons are built with mostly straight sets and few damage procs (if any). The exceptions are the Time/Water defender, the Axe/SR brute, and the SR/MA tanker, which are leaning more into the proc meta, though not as far as some players. Here are my results. I deemed a test a failure if a toon got arrested twice. Successful bank robbery, no arrests Tanker, Shield Defense / Super Strength Tanker, Invulnerability / Street Justice (barely made it -- three seconds left on the clock) Tanker, Radiation Armor / Radiation Melee (untapped potential here; the alpha was the only slotted incarnate power) Tanker, Super Reflexes / Martial Arts (my toughest toon -- his health bar barely moved -- and finished in plenty of time) Brute, Battle Axe / Super Reflexes Scrapper, War Mace / Super Reflexes Successful bank robbery, one arrest Brute, Super Strength / Super Reflexes Failed and jailed Tanker, Willpower / Super Strength (might be able to do it with practice) Brute, Staff / Radiation Armor (PPD is not a threat. The problem is Longbow.) Sentinel, Fire Blast / Energy Aura Scrapper, War Mace / Invulnerability Defender, Pain Domination / Sonic Attack (stayed upright with Lore and Hybrid active, then, oof) Defender, Time Manipulation / Water Blast Defender, Radiation Emission / Sonic Attack (ha ha ha, not a chance) Controller, Illusion Control / Radiation Emission I have other level 50 toons I did not test. I assume all my other defenders and corruptors would get squished. I don't have any level 50 blasters, dominators, masterminds, HEATs, or VEATs. My level 50 stalkers aren't fully built or are built for PVP. Conclusions: Given my skill level (low) and my play style, if I want to solo with a toon, I'm likely to be happiest with tankers (any armor) and super reflexes toons. Shield is also worth considering. SR and Shield are both better than Invulnerabillity for the way I play. On scrappers, having a durable armor is more important for me than having a taunt aura. For me, squishies really are squishy. (Maybe that's not true for you!) If I want to branch out into ATs I haven't played as much, stalkers and sentinels are my best bet.

I've been enjoying my Axe/SR brute. It's a great combination of damage and durability. SR makes it relatively easy to get softcapped defenses. It's possible to get some damage procs in the build without making big sacrifices to durability. With some resistance bonuses in the build, the toon can take full advantage of the scaling resists in SR. My current build exported from the game is below. (I recently defenestrated my computer and haven't figured out how to install MidsReborn on Linux.) I will eventually put purple procs on Dominate. I fully slotted Long Jump for the defense bonuses. You won't need to do this on a MA/SR brute, since MA gives you a defense boost.

Many of my characters have spent time in the care of the Rogue Island Police. I appreciate that the new zone includes a jail!

I have an AE arc, "Cops and Robbers Quarry Party" (63365), that is a smashing/lethal farm with no defense debuffs. All the attacks are from War Mace. Be careful...the corruptional officers and the ex-heroes hit hard! Because of the wandering groups, I find I need healing/regeneration IOs as well as capped res and def to survive this with a passive farmer.

My main villain is Jacob Hobbes, a.k.a. "Herocatcher Jake." He is an Ice/Thermal corruptor. I keep changing my mind about which of my heroes is my main. None of them stand a chance against Officer Hobbes. They're all rule-following goody-goodies. They'd never assault a cop, especially not a cop who has an aura of warmth. They wouldn't resist a lawful arrest, either. Officer Hobbes is technically a corruptional officer, not a cop, but heroes usually don't appreciate the difference until they're wearing several kilograms of titanium jewelry. If the heroes decided to resist arrest, Officer Hobbes would probably win against most of the squishies. I haven't done PVP recently, but I understand that his powersets are high-ranked in the current 1v1 meta. Against the tankers, it would probably be a stalemate. Hobbes couldn't hit hard enough, and the tankers couldn't hit at all.

Omigod omigod omigod, Eddie is out of the Zig! It's such a shame he went to prison. The worst thing he's ever done is sell magic mushrooms, and they weren't even the hallucinogenic kind. And then I went and wrote that stupid letter and messed up his parole hearing. I don't care what the other corruptional officers think. I'm offering him a job.

I played Champions Online a bunch about about a year ago. I got two characters to level 40. I didn't fully gear either of them. I got the sense that the game population was low, but there were still enough people for group events. Things I liked about the game: The combat mechanics are different from CoX in some interesting ways, at least at first...the block button, "hold" powers with a tradeoff between damage and animation time. The character building system is flexible and allows possibilities you can't have in CoX, like a dual role healer/Melee DPS. The old.school comic book style graphics are kind of cute. The underwater zone was cool. Things I didn't like: The game mechanics strongly reward a repetitive attack or healing cycle focused on one main power. It's a Holy Trinity game. You can have a dual-role DPS/healer character, but you can't rapidly switch between healing and damage. You have to decide which role you're playing and stick to it, at least for a while. Single role characters will generally be stronger. The writing is not even trying to be good. It's all cops and robbers. One of the voice actors really likes to portray villains with a lisp.

I got in trouble with a team once when I was playing a Nature defender whose debuffs drew aggro. I was trying to shuttle between two separated groups of players who seemed to need healing. I caused problems by bringing enemies with me. If a team isn't staying together, for whatever reasons (good or bad), sometimes it's best to pick one group and stay with them. The people who go off in another direction can't blame you for not healing/buffing them if they choose to run off.

Goose Assault T1: Honk: Ranged, Moderate DMG (Energy), Foe -Res T2: Peck: Melee, Minor DMG (Energy), Foe Minor Disorient T3: Honk, Honk: Ranged (Cone), Minor DMG (Energy), Foe -Res T4: Surprising Kick: Melee, Moderate DMG (Energy), Foe Disorient T5: It Is Already Too Late: Self +ToHit, +Dark DMG on all attacks T6: Disapproving Stare: Ranged, High DMG (Dark), Foe -ToHit T7: Flurry of Wings: PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Energy), Foe Disorient T8: HONK: Ranged, Extreme DMG(Energy), Foe -Res T9: Hahahaha You Can't Even Beat a Goose: PBAoE, Moderate DMG(Dark), Foe -ToHit

I like the idea of having a small reward for team compositions that are either more challenging or more interesting in some way. I don't like the specific proposal because it would convey false information about the relationship between archetype and team role. (Corruptors and controllers aren't support?) How about something like this? Team Composition Challenge: 1 prismatic aether for completing a TF on a team that has any of these five features: No Duplicates: At least five players, all different archetypes. Same Archetype: At least five players, all the same archetype. Classic Blueside: All Blueside archetypes, including at least five different archetypes. Duplicates are allowed. Classic Redside: All Redside archetypes, including at least five different archetypes. Duplicates are allowed. Small team: Either two or three players on the team.

There are several powersets with strong heals in CoX, including Empathy, Pain, Thermal, Nature, Electrical Affinity. Empathy and Pain are top-tier for PVP. For PVE (which for most players is the whole game), Thermal, Nature, and Electrical Affinity are stronger. You can still make Empathy and Pain work well if you play them well. Healing is never your main role on a team in CoX (except in PVP). Good empathy defenders heal when players need healing, but they spend most of their time buffing and attacking. "Dedicated support" isn't a thing in this game. All good characters take attack powers and use them. Tanks are in a really good place right now. In addition to their defensive / aggro management role, they do very good AoE damage. Both the combinations you're thinking about are very good. You might be happier with Shield/War Mace, which is beginner-friendly and also a top tier combination for the endgame. Dark Armor has a lot of potential, but it's a little bit tricky to build well. Illusion/Empathy could be good for someone who only plays on teams. I like to mix solo and team play on all my toons. Soloing Ill/Emp would be frustrating, since it wouldn't do much damage. For soloing with Illusion, you really want a secondary that includes a resistance debuff, to increase the damage from your Phantom Army. It also helps to have a power that enhances your global recharge. Illusion/Radiation and Illusion/Time each give you debuffs, recharge enhancement, a PBAoE heal, and at least one strong team buff.

Except for two emps (one Green Machine, one built for PVP), all my toons are built to be able to solo. I team with all my toons at least some of the time. The PVP emp is the only toon with dual builds. I almost always take both Maneuvers and Weave. If I only have room in my build for two power pool defense toggles, I take Maneuvers over Combat Jumping or Hover because of the team benefit. Whether I take the other Leadership toggles depends on what I have room for. I think my Rad/Sonic defender and the Green Machine emp are the only toons I have that take all three toggles. For Green Machine, Assault and Tactics are both required. There's room in the Rad/Sonic for all three toggles because both powersets have so many skippable powers. (I take five powers in Rad and six in Sonic.) For most other powerset combinations, taking all the Leadership toggles requires sacrificing something I think would benefit me and my teams more. I'd say I take either Tactics or Assault about 40% of the time, more often Tactics.

I see ways of getting two positional softcaps. The question is, which two? Is AoE defense currently more useful than melee, or is melee + ranged the way to go? I don't think there's any way of softcapping all three positional defenses without some help from the primary (e.g., Farsight on Time).