A solo villain test: +4/8 bank robbery (no AV)

[Bastille Boy]

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:

1. 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.
2. Head to the alley with all the barrels and boxes, a few blocks forward and to the right, to get some extra time.
3. 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.)
4. Rob the bank, defeat the final boss and the Longbow who follow the boss into the bank.
5. 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:

 

1. 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.
2. SR and Shield are both better than Invulnerabillity for the way I play.
3. On scrappers, having a durable armor is more important for me than having a taunt aura.
4. For me, squishies really are squishy. (Maybe that's not true for you!)
5. If I want to branch out into ATs I haven't played as much, stalkers and sentinels are my best bet.

 

[Clave Dark 5]

I haven't run one of these solo since my early days on Live, because I kept getting ganked a lot ha ha. 

 

I want to love villain bank missions so much more than I do, because blowing up &@%# around town should be so much fun, but the constant Long Bow ambushes just squashed me too often.  Which is why I felt the need to tell you Stalkers are bad at this solo: Long Bow starts out by already seeing thru Hide, so you take damage and lose Hide before they even reach you; as a Melee character, that's rough.  This was before some of the later stalker buffs, and also in my early days so maybe I'd know how to build better these days, I don't know.  Probably didn't help I was doing these "in the correct order" at say level 14 or something. 

 

I keep thinking I want to take a strong MM into one that I've set for low difficulty level some day, just for the joy of ridding the map of every cardboard box and dumpster that I can find...

[Yomo Kimyata]

I love the concept and the rigor you are setting.  I generally skip level 50 mayhems because PPD Awakened Division are usually the worst for my builds.  So much ranged energy attacks that debuff defense, and the bosses keep rezzing.  Ugh.  It's just too tedious to do well.

[Bastille Boy]

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.