BlueBattler

Hi, all.

I have a level 50 Stone/Stone Tank and a 50 Invul/SS Tank. On the Server that I play the most often on, I don't currently have a high level Tank ... just a little level pacted one that'd take quite a while to get anywhere useful as the person I'm pacted to has taken a break from the game.

I'm thinking that I might like to roll up a Shield Tank this time.

I solo or team with small groups a lot, so it needs to have a decent amount of damage (for a Tank).

On the other hand, I also want it to be able to eventually run the ITF and Statesman TFs.

Any recommendations for the best melee set to take with Shield that'd meet my needs?

How-- if it is--different is it to tank with a defensive based set as opposed to a resistance based set like the ones I've played in the past?

<- Wants Vanguard Crab Arms, and Widow Claws for VEATs, please.

(What the heck. I figured I could always ask.)

Hi, all.

I currently have three Level 50 villains on Triumph, and I want to do the Recluse SF. None of them are super duper IO'd beasts. Which one is going to contribute the most to a Recluse SF?

I took the Patrons solely on the basis of doing new content rather than maximizing character effectiveness. The Crab and Elec/Elec Brute have none of their patron powers, but as I haven't used their alt builds if it turns out I absolutely have to take a patron power in order for the SF to have a prayer of success I can do that.


Elec/Elec Brute who has both Tough and Taunt. Patron is Black Scorpion.

Fire/Therm Corruptor. Patron is Mako. Has three of the Patron powers I think. The immobilize, the hold, and Hibernate.

Crab Soldier. Patron is Scirocco. Has all the toggles, nuke, venom grenade, and surpressive fire.

The time: Some twenty years before the present day.

The place: the waters off Sharkhead Isle.

The man: “Captain” Petrovich: a liar, a cheat, a thief, and a murderer—and those were the things that his friends called him. His enemies were even less charitable.

“Yarr, this be a fool’s errand,” the old scalawag muttered to himself as he piloted the small motorboat through the hazardous waters. “Some half-mad mage tellin’ me that I be findin’ a treasure out here beyond price. Mako an’ th’ Black Powder will take all th’ plunder worth the havin’.”

Still, Petrovich had not lived to become an old man in the Rogue Isles without becoming aware that magic was more than just the stuff of superstition. If the renegade Circle of Thorns sorcerer Maros saw something worth braving these forsaken seas for, Petrovich would have been a fool to refuse.

The boat was exactly where Maros had told him it would be. It wasn’t a large ship—more a modest sized sailboat than anything else. There couldn’t have been worth stealing on it—Mako had probably attacked it just for the sheer joy of murder.

Petrovich scowled. He had done terrible things in his life. Unforgivable things. But the perverse pleasure Mako took from slaughter sickened him. “It was a good thing I got out of th’ business when I did. I be gettin’ too soft for this kind o’ mayhem.”

The Black Powder was just a dot on the horizon. The sailboat was sinking. He was mildly surprised that Mako hadn’t set it on fire. It wasn’t like him.

Petrovich pulled up to the sailboat and climbed onto the deck.

As he expected, it was covered with blood.

Blood—and bodies.

Much to his surprise, some of the bodies belonged to men that had sailed aboard the Black Powder.

“Yarr,” Petrovich muttered to himself. “Maybe th' shark bit off a bit more than he expected this time.”

The sailors had been shot, he noticed. There were four of them. One shot apiece. Impressive shooting.

The cabin door had been obliterated—Mako himself must have taken a hand in this little melee at some point.

Petrovich sighed sadly.

If Mako had decided to join the fight it was a foregone conclusion there would be no survivors. No marksman would have a prayer against that superhuman maniac. No, the only thing he’d find inside this cabin now would be pieces …

And at first glance, that seemed to be correct.

There had been two of them: a man and a woman. There was not much left of the man at all—the only thing still recognizable was the hand that still clutched the pistol that he had used to defend his woman and himself against Mako’s pirates. As for the woman—the woman must have been beautiful before all this happened …

Suddenly, her eyes opened up and she gasped.

Petrovich froze. “Lassie?”

She coughed up blood. It was a miracle that she was still alive, but the old man could tell that she wouldn’t be for much longer. She reached out and grabbed his arm with surprising strength. “Help—“

Petrovich knelt down beside her. “Lassie—“

“My—son!” she gasped. “Help my son!”

“Lassie—“ he did not see the boy. He hoped—for the woman’s sake—that Mako had not taken the boy. Sometimes death was better than the alternative—

“There—“ The woman pointed to a foot locker in front of the bloodied bed.

Her hand fell.

Petrovich reached out and closed her eyes. He had seen enough men and women die to know that she would say nothing more to him.

Petrovich opened the locker and found a little boy huddled inside. He was wearing a torn blue shirt, and his green eyes were as dark and green as an angry sea.

He couldn’t have been more than five.

“Hello, laddie.”

The boy stared at him.

Petrovich considered.

Whatever Maros wanted him to find here was gone. There was nothing left but the dead bodies of the man and woman and the little boy. Mako must have taken the treasure.

Petrovich looked at the boy. The boy looked back at him. There was a steadiness in that look that gave the man pause.

He had killed before. He had let other people die before. The boy was nothing to him—there was no profit in doing anything for this child.

“I’m Billy,” the boy said softly. “Billy Wagner.” He held his hand out stiffly. “Daddy always said to shake hands when you said hello to someone the first time.”

Petrovich cursed inwardly. “Your daddy was a courteous man, laddie.” He knelt down and picked the boy up, pressing him to his chest so the child couldn’t see his parents. “We need to get off this boat, Billy. It be headin’ for Davy Jones’ locker and that’s for sure.”

“Mommy and Daddy—“

“They be wantin’ you to come with me, Billy me boy. Ol’ Captain Petrovich. He’ll be lookin’ after you for now. I’ll get ye to a safe harbor, never fear.”

It was a chore to get the boy off the sailboat without his seeing the carnage all about them, but Petrovich did his best. He wrapped the boy in a musty old blanket and sped away back to shore. “Maros won’t be likin’ this.”

By the time they reached shore, little Billy was out like a light. Unconscious or asleep, he’d give Petrovich no trouble.

“Now what do I be doin’ with ye, laddie?” Petrovich asked as he looked at the boy. “Ye be a good lookin’ child, but I ain’t about to start raisin’ children at my time of life. Maybe I can get ye to that Haven House in Grandville run by that young Westin Phipps. I hear he be lookin’ out for those that can’t help themselves …”

“That will not be necessary, Captain Petrovich.”

Petrovich’s blood turned to ice when he heard that voice. “Ah, Maros. I just be headin’ out to find ye, man.”

“I am not hard to find, Captain.” The voice was soft, almost musical. In spite of the glowing eyes, his face was oddly kind. “Did you get it?”

Petrovich shuffled his feet nervously. “Yarr, about that treasure, Maros … we were too late. Mako must have taken it. The only thing that be left for me to find was this boy here—“

Maros laughed. “Ah, Captain. You did exactly what I foresaw. This boy was what I sent you to find.”

“This boy is a treasure?” Petrovich looked at the sorcerer dubiously. Remembering rumors he had heard about the Circle, he nervously stepped in front of the boy in case the sorcerer decided to harm the child.

“I see time, Captain. I see what has been, what is to come, and what might have been. Young Billy Wagner here has a part to play in the future of the Rogue Isles.”

The sorcerer laid his hand on the sleeping child’s cheek. “My dubious blessings upon you, Billy Wagner. You will do mighty deeds in the future, and the name you take will be known to all who live on these troubled islands.”

The mage laughed softly. “If you live, that is …”

Personally, I find my Elec/Elec Scrapper to be my strongest soloing Scrapper. Pretty much all Scrappers are awesome sauce, but my Elec/Elec does great against a lot of enemies in general, and rules when facing Rikti.

To be fair, I haven't done a Shield Scrapper yet, though. It may be more awesome than Elec Armor, but don't discount Elec Armor as a possible choice.

Generally, I never get useful Purple set drops, but I've been hanging onto three recipes that I got on two different toons to use on my Crab Soldier when he hits 47. Right now, he's 45.

To this point, I've tended to use Generic IOs rather than the set bonus ones, so I have some questions which may be rather dumb ...

I've got three Apocalypse Recipes: Chance for Negative Energy Damage, Dam/End Reduction, and Dam/Rec/Accuracy.

What would be the best attack I could slot them into? And will I need an extra damage slot on that power because the Chance for Negative Energy won't be doing standard damage if it doesn't hit?

I have never wanted server merging, but I would sure love some sort of cross server teaming functionality ... even if it was only just free server transfers forever ...

Shouldn't they have a real life Praetor Duncan at Comicon this year?

When I wind up soloing an EB, I always go in with the EB Cocktail: 4 lucks and 4 reds.

If you have hover, that'd be idea. You could stay out of range of his draining power and do a number on him.

Some Rogue Isle Questions:


1. What is Recluse's "official" title in the government of the Rogue Isles? Is it just "Lord" or "President for Life" or something like that?

2. What sort of currency do they use in the Rogue Isles? The US Dollar? The Euro? Recluseos? (It seems rather strange to me now that I think about it that Recluse wouldn't have his face pasted on the Rogue Equivalent of the dollar bill.

3. From the billboards I'm assuming that English is the official language of the Rogue Isles, but what would a native sound like to us? I.e., British, American English, Australian ... given its origins, do they use "arrrr" a lot?

As I've previously mentioned, my Crab Soldier Spider Blue surprised me by turning out to be a hero. I consider him a hero in the Prince Namor sense. Spider has no trouble beating up Longbow or the Freedom Phalanx because they have invaded his home, but he will protect what he considers his-- and that includes the innocent bystanders of the Rogue Isles.

Spider is now 42. Originally, I wasn't going to run the Patron Arc at all as I didn't consider him interested in working with Arachnos ...

And then I found out that if he was ever going to lead the Recluse SF he would have to have completed a Patron Arc.

Now I'm faced with what Patron Spider is going to take.

Mako is out of the running. Spider isn't going to work for or with a bloodthirsty maniac.

Black Scorpion ... well, he's not much better. On the other hand, he's not very bright and Spider might consider him fairly easy to fool.

That leaves me Ghost Widow and Scirroco. On the face of it, Scirroco would seem like the obvious choice. If I were someone with heroic leanings who hadn't done his Arcs before, he would seem like the most honorable choice among all the Patrons ...

Of course then we get to Second Arc and I have to justify how/why I'd betray him ...

Ghost Widow, on the other hand ... well, I could see doing her Arc as her plans don't seem to have any inherent downside for the welfare of the Rogue Isles in general or Spider in particular ... but then again I have to work out why I'd be willing to betray her ....

What do the rest of you "heroic" villains think?

I wonder if the process they've developed to allow you to keep your prestiege and sg membership could be adapted to work with server transfers. I think I might even be willing to fork over some real cash to enable me to temporarily transfer a toon to another server to allow me to team with some friends on a special event-- a TF, for example-- I'd really like to do with them so long as I could transfer back without losing my SG or the prestiege I had earned for it.

I wouldn't be considering this if Going Rogue wasn't on the horizon, but I've had an itch for a while to make a homage to Dauntless, Galaxy Girl's sidekick.




Dauntless's Story


My homage character is going to be someone who was inspired by Dauntless's life story to also try to make a difference in Paragon City. Based on his story, my assumption is that Dauntless was probably a MA/Super Reflexes Scrapper.

Thing is, I do not like Martial Arts, and I sort of like the idea of the character being a Natural Character who doesn't know what he's doing at first who has no special skills who just decides one day: "Hey, I'm going to fight crime like Dauntless did!"

So, with that proviso, it seems to me that bladed weapons or claws would also be out for this guy as he is not (at the beginning at least) very skilled at combat. Hence, I'm looking at a Brute-- and post Going Rogue-- to make him.

So Mace seems to be his weapon of choice as I can use weapon customization to make it look like he picked up a baseball bat or wrench or some other mundane blunt instrument.

The thing is, I'm not sure if I want his secondary to be Shield or Super Reflexes. Either can work with his concept, I think.

Is there any reason to take SR over Shield?

Spider Blue's story has been evolving as I worked on him ... in fact, it wasn't until St. Martial that his personality coalesced for me:

He's Prince Namor with a sense of humor.

What I mean is, he's a quasi heroic character. He regards the Longbow and Freedom Phalanx as invades of his homeland and will do his utmost to repel them. On the other hand, he doesn't kill wantonly, doesn't harm innocents, and will risk his own life to protect the citizens of the Rogue Isles.

He's not taking any Patron Powers because it's not in his nature to serve Arachnos.

His Spider Pack is actually an artificial intelligence that has wound up acting as his conscience ... a sort of Jiminy Cricket if you will.

(The original Blue Battler is an Ar/Fire Blaster, so I wanted a thematic reason to avoid using the rifle as I didn't want to feel like I was repeating AR.)

I took Spider into Cimerora and tried to do one of the timed missions and had to crank it down in order to be able to complete it ... it occurred to me at that point that the Wide Area Web Grenade might have worked pretty well in such circumstances. Rather than take the other melee Crab attack I'm considering-- it might actually be more effective for Spider to have Wide Area Web Grenade.

Really with they had given Crabs the ability to throw webs from the backpack as they would be perfect for Spider ... 8-(

Oh, now that I can buy a Steadfast or a Karma, I do play melee toons whose innate powers don't include kb protection.

Now if there's a recipe for a multiple web grenade I could buy ...

Every so often, I hit a dilemma between the theme of my toon and what might be in its best interest in terms of survivability or usefulness.

For example, I have a Crab Soldier, and while I really enjoy the heck out of him, I am thinking that he would be much more effective if I were to go ahead and take the Wide Area Web Grenade power ... after all, if you're going for a ranged build why not have another power to keep the enemies away from you?

The thing is, to get Wide Area Web Grenade I'd have to use the rifle ... and I have specifically been avoiding the use of the rifle in my Crab ...

That was one of the things that kept me from trying certain types of armor-- Fire and Dark Armor-- pre IO because I did not want to be locked into taking Acrobatics.

How often does that happen to you when a concept you have for a toon runs smack into the utility issue? Which do you tend to favor?

Am I the only one who was expecting Arcanaville to use her math mad skillz to indicate who Statesman should be dating?

The Three Sisters restaurant—like King’s Row—had seen better days, but it was a longstanding family tradition that important Cole family events be celebrated there.

Marcus Cole tugged resentfully at his shirt collar as he waited for the waitress to come to take his order. A very long lifetime spent wearing colorful costumes had not inured him to the rigors of wearing a suit and tie. “This thing is too tight. I feel like I’m choking.”

“Dad, you’ve survived a point blank nuclear explosion. I don’t think wearing a tie for two hours is going to kill you.” Alexis Duncan smiled at her father as she spoke. “It’s Father’s Day. Enjoy your dinner.”

Marcus felt his throat tighten even more as he looked at his daughter’s smile. She’s more like her mother every day. “Whatever you say, sweetie.” He glanced over at his son in law. “So what did Megan do for you today, Pat?”

Patrick Duncan smiled at his father-in-law. He was a balding, ordinary looking man of late middle age. A good man, though; Marcus was glad to have him as part of his family. “The usual: lunch and a Longbow tie.”

Marcus laughed. In spite of the monkey suit he was forced to wear, he treasured this time with his family. His own duties often had him traveling all over the world—and sometimes beyond—while Alexis’ job as the head of Freedom Corps meant that on those rare occasions when he was home she often wasn’t. He reached over and carefully squeezed his daughter’s hand. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Daddy.” She squeezed his fingers back.

Like so many moments in the life of Marcus Cole, it was bittersweet. Alexis was over 70 years old, now—nearly as old as her mother had been when she died—but the casual observer would have guessed she was no more than 50. Along with her power, Alexis had inherited a degree of Marcus’ own longevity.

But although Alexis’ vitality was superhuman, it was not apparently as limitless as her father’s. Marcus himself looked no older than he had been when he first encountered the Well of Furies, but Alexis was no longer in the prime of her youth and power.

Alexis’ grip was still strong—her mind was still sharp—but every year she seemed to be a little weaker, a little slower …

I am going to lose her someday¸ Marcus thought sadly to himself. Someday she will be gone …

Pat rose to his feet. “I’m going to see what’s taking our order so long.” He kissed his wife’s cheek. “I’ll be right back.”

Alexis watched him leave. “It’s hard to believe that it’s been so long. I can remember the first time we came here for Father’s day. Do you remember, Daddy?”

Marcus nodded. “You couldn’t have been more than five. You were so happy to be wearing a big girl dress and wanted to stay here all night.”

Alexis laughed. “And I was out like a light before desert. It’s a good thing we had our dance before I fell asleep.”

Marcus nodded, suddenly not trusting himself to speak.

People knew of his strength, his durability, his ability to fly … what so few of them knew was that ALL of his abilities were heightened to super human levels, and that included his memory.

He remembered that night with inhuman clarity. He could recall the taste of the steak he had had that night. Monica’s perfume. The sound of Alexis’ girlish laughter as a counterpart to his own and his wife’s …

And suddenly, the music began to play: the same song that had played that night he had first danced with Alexis on Father’s Day.

Alexis rose from her chair. “Dance with me, Daddy.”

Marcus nodded and climbed to his feet. Over Alexis’ shoulder he could Pat standing with a self satisfied look on his face by the bandstand.

“How does he do that?” Marcus asked her, gesturing in Pat’s direction.

Alexis smiled. “You don’t have to be super human to be special, Daddy. Patrick is an amazing man.”

“He is,” Marcus agreed. “I’ve always thought so. I let him marry my little girl, didn’t I?”

“Oh, Daddy!”

They stepped out onto the dance floor.

As they danced, Marcus’s memory took him back through all the other times they had danced on this floor. The tightness in his throat relaxed a little as he looked into the smiling face of his only child.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the Three Sisters themselves watching him. They stood beside Pat, and Marcus found himself mildly surprised that his mortal son in law seemed oddly at home in their presence.

And that is why you are a hero, Marcus Cole.

The three spoke as one, right into his mind.

I don’t understand.

You have met your other selves. You have seen what you could have become.

It was because of Monica—

No.

His surprise was so great he actually stopped dancing. What?

“Daddy?” Alexis’ eyes were wide with concern and worry.

“It’s nothing, sweetie.” He began dancing again. Without Monica I would have been another Tyrant, another Reichsman---

No, you would not. Monica was an extraordinary woman—we would not have given her the Girdle of Hera if she had been otherwise—but she is not the reason you became Statesman, Marcus. You became Statesman because you never lost the one thing that your other selves gave up so long ago—

I don’t understand—

You love, Marcus. Not just Monica, not just your family. You love your friends, your city, and your world. In spite of the fact that you know that you will someday lose them, you still open your heart to those who need you.

It’s hard.

Yes, it is hard, but you are Statesman, and you can bear any burden that you are required to bear. It is not enough to protect the world—you must also live in it.

I know.

Do not forget that, Marcus. Your city and world are facing very dark days. They need Statesman, but they need Marcus Cole even more …

The Sisters nodded once more in his direction, and then faded away.

The music ended.

Marcus kissed his daughter on her cheek and gestured at her husband. “I think Pat deserves a dance, don’t you?”

“Well, I think you might step on his toes, Daddy …” Alexis laughed and hugged him. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Alexis.” And for a change, he was.

Marcus walked back to his table and sat down. He raised his glass in a silent toast to his family as he watched them dance.

Alexis and Pat would be gone someday. Like Monica. Like his brother. Like the countless friends and allies he had lost in his eternal battle against crime and chaos. He would lose them …

But not tonight.

Tonight he had his family, and that was enough.

“It’s a good day,” he told himself.

And for once, he believed it.