Hephaestus

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Fellow heroes, disturbing information has come to light. Thanks to the hard work at the Federal Bureau of Super Powered Affairs and the Portal Corporation, we have discovered an odd energy signature throughout Paragon City. Researchers believe that this aetheric energy appears to be building towards a climax at some point in the near future. We believe that this will occur at some point over the next several days, but the authorities are not yet sure. All heroes should be on the look out for anything strange in the city. Be on guard; we have reason to believe that this bodes ill for our metropolis.

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Please ignore this escaped lunatic. We, at Crey corporation, try our hardest to see to it that the mentally ill are cared for with empathy and respect. Unfortunately sometimes the security on our facilities is lax, especially if superpowers crop up unexpectedly in our patients. There is no odd energy signature, no aetheric energy (whatever that may be) building, and anyone who claims to be able to foretell the future is probably just a con man.

We at Crey pride ourselves on our mental health facilities, but occasionally we do have escapees. This one is safely back where he belongs, but managed to contact a local internet message board before he was returned to the care of our caring professionals. Please ignore his message and be about your business.

--Crey Industries: Building a better future, yesterday!--

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Hephaestus-

I've soloe'd Bobcat, Nightstar, Shadowhunter, Terra (DE), Chimera, and well.. those are mostly Praetorian AV's. I wasn't able to solo Envoy or Clockwork King. =P Those are also cherry picked, easy AV's. Well, Shadowhunter has this one attack.. but I was able to avoid it luckily. I also died a few times trying on Terra and Shadowhunter.

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Yeah, btu when people talk about Inv scrappers, they generalize it to all Inv scrappers, so if all Inv scrappers are so l33t and ub3r I shoudl be able to solo all of those as well.

The fact is, a Martial Artist/Invuln scrapper isn't going to be able to. At least, not pre-issue 2.

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Ah - and as for the argument that mission XP "sucks." Yes, you do reap less XP/minute if you simply travel from your contact immediately to your mission door (which tends to be player behavior). However, if you fight some spawns on the way - and finish the mission with the new XP rewards - I think you'll find that missions are much, much more competitive XP wise.

Oh - and one other thing. The vast, vast majority of players at any given time are on missions. XP or not - it's the most popular part of the game.

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I can't speak for the new mission XP rewards. I don't know what those are yet. However, as you level higher and higher a lot of your missions take place in zones and force you to pass through zones where the mobs give you no XP whatsoever because they are too low level for you.

Personally, I find the missions, and especially the stories around the missions, highly enjoyable in their own right. I have noticed that I tend to get more xp, actually, per unit time, when doing missions with a group. Unfortunately I like to solo, so missions tend to take more time, be more risky, and give (per unit time) less xp.

I also find that after I am done with all the missions my contacts will give me, about 2-2.5 levels into those contacts, I spend the next several levels before new contacts simply street hunting, solo. It's dull, but it's less of a pain then street hunting in groups, or doing a mission with someone else that I have already finished for myself.

I don't mind slow levelling. I don't play the game to level. I play the game for the missions. If you could just give us more missions I would be a very happy camper.

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I just completed the Envoy of Shadows story arc (level 35 - 40) last night.

There is NO WAY any AT can solo the Envoy (ArchVillian).

We had 2 Fire blasters, an energy blaster, a fire/kinetics controller and an empath defender and we still had a major battle to take this thing down. Fire imps were useless as they were slaughtered as fast as they could be put out (and this is pre-nerf). This COT Behemoth has 11,000 hit points + dark shroud + regeneration. If anyone thinks they can solo this, I'd love to hear how.



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I solo'd the envoy. It took a long, LONG time, but I did it, and it wasn't hard. It was, however, 2 levels below me. I fought it when it was even and couldn't do it, but using the tactics I did the 2nd time I'm fairly sure I could have. The only thing that was stopping me was not being able to do enough damage to get past his healing flames when he was near the end.

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Well, hell, by that measure I soloed the Envoy too. I was level 40 to its 37, but I managed to solo him. I also managed to solo Terra, at even level. That took a good 45 minutes, but I managed it. No other archvillains though. I've tried soloing every one I've come across, and have failed with all the others.

So much for the vaunted uberness of the Invuln scrapper.

[quoteAny decent scrapper should be able to outright beat him down at even level.

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By that measure, there are no decent MA scrappers.

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TheConfessor has posted several times about scrapper power at higher levels, and has posted a video of him soloing a +2 (I believe it was) AV. Didn't even look like the fight much phased him.

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Then how come he died the first 3 or 4 times he attempted it, had to have a build designed specifically to deal with such archvillains and was maxed out against them, had to be nearly the highest level in the game (highest to find a +3 archvillain), had to use all his inspirations at exactkly the right moment, almost bit it anyway, had to do it against just the right archvillain (any other +2 AV would have beatien him with ease).

Yes, he did it, once, but it was hard as hell, and probably wouldn't have been possible except under these extremely unlikely circumstances. Let's not get carried away. The vast majority of characters can't solo any archvillains, and the few who can can only solo one or two of all the AVs out there, and only if they are even level or below.

There are one or two rare excption builds that can solo most even level AVs if handled just exactly right and by a very skilled player who has absolutely maximized his character just for that at the expense of normal game play.

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I have never, ever got a AV that was even con. Always purple con, +2 or +3.

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In this context, even con means the archvillain is the same level as you. If you look in the target window you can see the level of the mob you are attacking. If an archvillain is the same level (or even up to 1 level lower then you) it will look purple. The game shows it, for color purposes, as 5 levels higher then you. An archvillain two levels lower then you will look red.

Technically, the color is what it cons to you. People are misusing the word, but when they say it is even, or the same, level as they are they are correct. When you go into a mission the archvillain typically will be the same level as the person who got the mission, though it will still con purple to him.