NPC Villain, Shock Treatment: Nerfed?

[RikOz]

There are a couple Blueside tip missions where the villain Shock Treatment puts in an appearance, and I have traditionally dreaded having to fight her. The main reason being that, if you couldn't defeat her in three hits or fewer, she would turn into a completely unhittable ball of red lightning, and the best thing to do at that point was exit, reset the mission, and try again. Basically, she was nearly impossible to defeat with some power sets/ATs.

 

I just returned to the game after a break of a few months, and the last two times I have encountered Shock Treatment, she's gone down fairly easily, with no sign of activating that ball of lightning defense. Granted, one toon was an Energy Melee brute with the new energy store & release mechanic (which I'm loving) and the other was a Katana stalker whose Assassin's Strike hit hard enough that it only took one more hit to defeat Shock Treatment. So maybe I just happened to encounter Shock Treatment with two toons that were particularly  well-suited to fighting her. Even if that's the case, she still seems to have folded like wet tissue. I'm fairly confident that my same EM brute had fought ST before on that same tip mission and it hadn't been so easy before.

 

(On a side note, I'm not even sure why Shock Treatment is even in one of those missions - the one where Arachnos has kidnapped some homeless people. Based on some comments from the Arachnos mobs ("We don't need another interruption"), I don't think she was working with Arachnos. It sounds like she just accidentally wandered into the middle of things at some point before my arrival. She does seem awfully confused.)

[Nitrogen Star]

She uses Power Surge, electric armor's T9, wich is basically like Unstoppable. Instead of resetting, you can run in circles for 3 minutes, at wich point she will crash and be ready for the kill. 

I remember her being nasty as hell on live. On HC, i always attacked her at full strenght, without giving her the opportunity oc activating power surge. Even so, i was kinda surprised myself to NEVER see her firing it, and i suspect she's been weakened somehow. Wich seems right, seeing at that tip is level 39 max, and facing a boss like her at that level always seemed a bit excessive.

[RikOz]

It actually just occurred to me that it wasn't my EM brute that smacked her down - she's too high-level for this particular mission. I think it was actually my Radiation Blast/Martial Training blaster. Same result, though - ST went down easily.

 

And yeah, I get that I can run away until Power Surge times out, but in the tight confines of a warehouse that's extremely annoying. Since you mention Unstoppable, I'm reminded of fighting Praetor White/Marauder in Tina McIntyre's arc. He was insanely frustrating at first because I didn't know what power he was activating (none of my /Invulnerability alts had Unstoppable yet, so I wasn't familiar with what it looked like). Somebody finally told me what he was doing, and I was able to look at the power description on one of my /Inv alts and learn how it worked, and how freaking long it lasts. I had been pounding on him thinking, "This has got to wear off eventually", and he'd always kill me before it got to that point. Once I understood which power he was using, I changed my tactics to "hit & run", basically just smacking him often enough to keep him from resetting, and then laying into him once Unstoppable finally expired.

[Riverdusk]

Been a while since I've fought her so not sure.  You also run into her on some bank safeguard missions.  However, in my experience she won't use power surge until she reaches a certain hp threshold, so yes if you can get her hp down a bit, and then finish her off the rest of the way quick enough she won't activate it.  Burst damage definitely helps a lot as does having controls.  I don't remember her having extra knockdown protection, so a well timed knockdown (Nemisis staff would work well), or stun, or hold could work.  

 

Kind of the same idea of fighting freakshow and preventing them from getting off their dull pain ability or Fake Nemesis, paragon protectors, etc. with their low hp specials.    

 

I'd actually hope they didn't nerf her as I like enemies like that as it is one of the few times where control can be more useful than damage although as mentioned enough burst damage will also do it.

[Vanden]

Shock Treatment doesn't have Power Surge below level 40-ish, iirc. The most likely answer is that you fought her below that level.

[Aberrant]

There are five different versions of Shock Treatment throughout the game.

1. RogueIslesVillain Level 31-40, the original, shows up in Safeguard Missions (Resistance, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Lightning Blast, Thunder Strike, Power Sink, Static Shield, Ball Lightning, Chain Induction, Lightning Clap, Power Surge)
2. RoguesGallery Level 15-24 (Resistance, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Lightning Blast, Thunder Strike)
3. RoguesGallery Level 19-34 (Resistance, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Lightning Blast, Thunder Strike, Power Sink, Static Shield)
4. RoguesGallery Level 29-44 (Resistance, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Lightning Blast, Thunder Strike, Power Sink, Static Shield, Ball Lightning, Chain Induction, Power Surge
5. RoguesGallery Level 39-54 (Resistance, Charged Brawl, Havoc Punch, Jacobs Ladder, Lightning Blast, Thunder Strike, Power Sink, Static Shield, Ball Lightning, Chain Induction, Lightning Clap, Power Surge, Thunderous Blast)

These other versions show up in the various tip missions, sometimes as an ally villainside, and maybe some other post Issue 18 arcs.

 

Based on your description, I assume you played the tip mission Brain Scan Diagnostics, which is level 20-29, so to cover that level range it would need to use Shock Treatment 2 or 3 (most likely 3), neither of which have Power Surge due to their low level. So that would explain the easier fight! Rest assured, the higher level ones are suitably punishing, even gaining an additional power at No. 5 with Thunderous Blast!

 

As to why she's there, her description in that mission says: "One of the members of the Super Group that came here to investigate the medical complex. She seems to be under the sway of a mind-controlling substance.", classic comic book mind control. You later find her in a Tip Mission defending Westin Phipps of Haven House, so throughout her villain-to-rogue arc she seems to be trying to fight for the downtrodden to some degree.

[RikOz]

3 hours ago, Riverdusk said:

Kind of the same idea of fighting freakshow and preventing them from getting off their dull pain ability

I actually discovered a trick to that when playing a blaster. I figured out that it's best to not start with my Snipe, particularly when the Freak cons yellow or orange. Because what was happening was, I'd open with Snipe, and that would immediately drop their HP low enough to trigger their heal, and it would end up taking 2-3 weaker attacks to finish them off. I realized it would be better to use a single weaker attack first, which wouldn't trigger the heal, but it would lower their HP enough that a quick Snipe would finish the job.

 

As for Shock Treatment, the characters I recently fought her with were level 24-26, so apparently not high enough that she would have Power Surge, but I still defeated her surprisingly easily. For my stalker it made sense, because of Assassin's Strike, and for the other toon, maybe Shock Treatment was just particularly vulnerable to Radiation Blast's effects. (And speaking of Radiation Blast, I was delighted to discover that it is particularly effective against those PITA CoT ghosts.)

[Clave Dark 5]

I haven't fought her since live, but I don't recall her ever being any kind of royal pain, so maybe I only faced her at lower levels.  Or got lucky and dropped her HP too quickly.

[Hedgefund]

There's a big difference between the Lt. version and boss.  If I get a boss that power surges I'll basically afk, depending on if my particular toon at that time can take it.  The lieut you can power through no problem.  Perhaps that's what people are seeing.