FashionSense

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Brutes have a single target taunt effect in their Primary.

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Brutes have a 5-target AoE taunt in their primary.

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How did you know he was held at all if you where still taking damage? I thought the way you tell if he's held is because he stops attacking

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Look for the animation of a hold effect on Hamidon. Tesla Cage is convenient because it's up off the ground, but the stone controller hold is usually visible too.

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So, what's the status on this guys? Details!

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The status is that there is one team running the SF. After defeating some tough missions, we got stuck on 5 level 54 Heroes in one room that we haven't made much progress on beating. See the thread in the training room forum for more details.

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I wonder if we'll still be sitting around looking for more ppl to do this Fashion.

I hope this actually turns out right

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The pessimist in me says it'll be you, me, and 5 others desperately looking for an 8th person. After the GMs take pity on us and put a GM bot at 50 on the team so we can start, we'll get stuck at the very first AV because we didn't bring enough regen debuffs.

But hey, it could work. You never know.

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Why level 45 + villains only for such a killer reward? Simple.. the race is a challenge that requires 45+ villains to do it.. and the Cryptic folks want people trying it before it goes live... they say you can't do it.. I say you can.


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Um, I seriously doubt the Cryptic team thinks we "can't" do the Recluse SF, although the absurd boost to AVs makes me a little concerned. I think they've learned not to underestimate the player base that much. The question is, do we care enough to do it? That question has already been answered by the small number of 45+ characters on test, compared to the enormous number of players who are capable of leveling from 40 to 45 in 2 weeks. Maybe the prize will increase interest, but I doubt the trash-talking will.

I'm not particularly interested in giving an "in your face" to anybody, but thanks for making my attempts to organize a team for the SF a little easier.

Since there is really nothing gated to 45+ other than some soloable story arcs and the Recluse SF, I'd say this contest is just a "finish the Recluse SF" race.

I predict that we'll get 7 villains standing around broadcasting for an 8th.

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* Obelisks in the Cathedral of Pain now respawn properly.

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I think this is the first piece of information we've EVER gotten in the patchnotes about this trial.

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No, there were patch notes the first time it was on test and they fixed the AV's shield.

What I'd like to know is whether it has been reactivated for testing.

Well, I'm there at 49.

I've been known to play well with others. Until it comes time to divvy up the rewards...

Got my brute to 47 and picked up Summon Blaster.

Send out the bot signal!
Arachnobot incoming
Arachnobot landed
Good boy, now go kill something!

The bot is pet rank. It has a ranged blast, ranged cone, web grenade, and a melee attack. I haven't really tested it extensively in combat but I wouldn't expect it to survive against a boss or anything. It's better than nothing, but not up very often.

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Made 44 on my brute. Took Ball Lightning.


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What's the animation time like? My main complaint with Black Scorpion's brute AoE attack is the ridiculous draw + fire time. I'd take an AoE jab if it animates fast.

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For the TV contact:

If it is a 45-50 contact, can you still receive missions from the TV if you have never talked to it prior to hitting level 50? If you CAN, there is no problem here since you could always get the infamy badge later. If you CAN'T, because hitting level 50 turns off the contact, then this is a big, big problem for all the reasons already expressed in this thread.

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Say for a moment you can hit 50 and keep on working for the Infamy badge...
How long do you end up grinding at 50 for the badge? And then, is that amount of grind worth it for 6 missions?


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It seems very likely that a 50 can start the missions. It's definitely a 45+ contact - I had Midas Touch at 44, it wouldn't talk to me.

And it's not just 6 missions - it's 3 full story arcs plus some extra missions. I got just about an entire level at 45 doing only the Television. It's worth it.

I'm not sure how much grind we're really looking at. In the late 40s you earn a lot of inf per level...it might be no big deal to run SG mode from 25-40 and try to make up the 20 million later.

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Black Scorpion second story arc:

****SPOILERS**** and a warning

After completing the arc with Dr. Quatrexin and getting The Stinger badge, I was offered another arc - [censored] in the Armor. This arc involves kidnapping Dr. Aeon to make anti-ghost weapons for the Scorpion suit.

The final 2-part mission is bugged. The mission starts with Black Scorpion telling you to talk to an arbiter to set up a fake story and then kill Dr. Aeon. The arbiter doesn't believe the lame cover story and tells you to either stop Scorpion's insane plot or face the wrath of Recluse. The first door mission has you rescuing Dr. Aeon from Silver Mantis - but when I attacked Silver Mantis, Dr. Aeon just disappeared. Since rescuing him was an objective, I couldn't complete the mission. After that was cleared by a GM, I went on to the second - a timed mission to disarm some bombs and defeat Black Scorpion. Black Scorp spawned as an ambush after the last bomb, but defeating him didn't clear the mission - he only had 1 minion instead of 2, so I think one might have gotten lost. Had to get a GM to clear it with very little time to spare.

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Ugh. That branches off into a timed mission? Didn't say that anywhere in the game.

What happens after you beat up your nominal boss? Kind of curious why he lets you keep working for him.

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Black Scorpion's text at the start of his 45+ arc basically says "Lord Recluse has ordered me to continue working with you, but don't think I'll forget what happened".

So it kind of makes sense...eventually.

Ok, I hit 44 on my brute and picked up Disruptor Blast (ranged targeted AoE, moderate smash/energy damage, knockback).

It looks pretty nice. Same mace (with a draw animation) as Web Envelope, firing a cool black/purple energy explosion. The activation time is slow like Web Envelope, which is really annoying. End cost 19, recharge 32 as advertised.

The bad news is that the damage appears to be exactly half of footstomp, and it only has a chance to do knockback, and it knocks *back*, not down (tested on +2 minions). Extremely disappointing.

Also, after using Web Envelope for a while I am unimpressed. The good points are that it doesn't need much slotting (I went up to 1 acc / 1 immob / 1 recharge just to test) and it's a decent throwaway pre-req power. The main bad feature is the animation time, which renders it useless for most of the PvE purposes I tried to use it for - stopping runners (they're 50 yards away by the time it hits), and immobilizing a group to let me get out of melee range for a breather (if I can survive 2 seconds of animation, I'm better off attacking for 2 seconds or using insps). I just can't find much to use it for.

So...time to find a new patron. Aside from being a whiny loser, Black Scorpion's brute powers suck.

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Here is a question.. How many IOP are there per server? From what I understand there is only a few!! So what happens to the COP when they are all taken?

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There are an unlimited number of IoP per server.

There are a few unique ones that only exist once per server, but there are other generic (less powerful) ones with no limit.

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I did both missions twice. Once I saw Dr. Aeon vanish I just went back out and reset and it worked the second time around.


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I did that mission twice and the same disappearing trick happened both times. Guess it's intermittent.

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The Strangest part is, the clues still exist in my queue. There was no souvenir. (not even one to tell me I failed). And Black Scorpion now just tells me to come back at 45. That entire second arc was never even available to some people.

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I succeeded (because a GM cleared the mission) and I got a souvenir. I guess the failed mission case is bugged.

I'm not exactly the first to 41, but I have some screenshots of the Brute power Web Envelope. It seems to immobilize for about 16 seconds, with a 20 second recharge. I haven't tested -jump yet.

The new pimp stick
Firing Web Envelope
Webbed enemy

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What happens after you beat up your nominal boss? Kind of curious why he lets you keep working for him.

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It doesn't make much sense. He says something like "you sided with the arbiters, curse you!" and then "come back at level 45 for more missions".

Black Scorpion second story arc:

****SPOILERS**** and a warning

After completing the arc with Dr. Quatrexin and getting The Stinger badge, I was offered another arc - [censored] in the Armor. This arc involves kidnapping Dr. Aeon to make anti-ghost weapons for the Scorpion suit.

The final 2-part mission is bugged. The mission starts with Black Scorpion telling you to talk to an arbiter to set up a fake story and then kill Dr. Aeon. The arbiter doesn't believe the lame cover story and tells you to either stop Scorpion's insane plot or face the wrath of Recluse. The first door mission has you rescuing Dr. Aeon from Silver Mantis - but when I attacked Silver Mantis, Dr. Aeon just disappeared. Since rescuing him was an objective, I couldn't complete the mission. After that was cleared by a GM, I went on to the second - a timed mission to disarm some bombs and defeat Black Scorpion. Black Scorp spawned as an ambush after the last bomb, but defeating him didn't clear the mission - he only had 1 minion instead of 2, so I think one might have gotten lost. Had to get a GM to clear it with very little time to spare.

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At one point, the AV, while still in a bubble, started successfully attack members of our team and killing them. It was my understanding from the way he acted in our previous two attempts that he could not affect us until out of his bubble. We could not attack him but the tank could taunt him away, all while the AV (still in a darn bubble!) was killing several teammates.


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Even in our successful run, the AV could attack with his bubble on. We stacked debuffs on him basically out of habit, but I'm not sure whether they had any effect.

In the successful run all 3 Willforge spawns started coming back just as we beat the AV. It's possible that we just got lucky and finished with seconds to spare, but it seemed like we spent much longer without respawns on that run.

We didn't have to take down the 3 obelisks within 60 seconds of each other - after being destroyed I didn't see them come back. It seemed like the willforge respawns were slower or different - in the hardest version, there seemed to be a secret 45-second timer that replaced any missing mobs, making it relatively difficult to get more than 10 seconds of the obelisk shield being down.

Inside, the AV's shield was working fine but we zerged the willforge spawns and it seemed like they eventually just stopped respawning. Once the AV's shield was down we had him dead very quickly because of stacked debuffs.

20-ish heroes, 15 minutes, first try.

It was really quite easy...we were basically zerging. Having the whole room aggro when you enter the boss room was the only slightly hard part.

I'm surprised that the two patches that made it harder the last time it was on test were basically reversed.

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The hard number description list the blasts (Mace Blast and Disruptor Blasts attacks) as doing knockback however the PPP page description list it has ' knocked down'.

Since the 2 effects do have major difference for me, I prefer knockdown to knockback, which one is the correct effect.

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No kidding, I went Black Scorp thinking it would be knockdown. If it turns out to be knockback, that chump just lost my allegiance.

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IIRC, the difference between Knockdown and Knockback is Mag. A low Mag Knockback just knocks them down (check out comments on Tanker Axe attacks). If you're much stronger then them, or slot for Knockback, you'll get the Knockback instead of the down.

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This is true but not really the point. I'm going to take these powers, not slot them for knockback, and shoot them at enemies at or above my level. If those enemies are knocked down, then for practical purposes it's a "knockdown power". If they're knocked back, then I will probably pick a different patron to avoid knocking mobs out of my footstomp.

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The hard number description list the blasts (Mace Blast and Disruptor Blasts attacks) as doing knockback however the PPP page description list it has ' knocked down'.

Since the 2 effects do have major difference for me, I prefer knockdown to knockback, which one is the correct effect.

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No kidding, I went Black Scorp thinking it would be knockdown. If it turns out to be knockback, that chump just lost my allegiance.

Got through the Black Scorpion mission arc. No major problems.

It's mostly a bunch of Crey, then Malta, topped off by an Elite Boss who isn't too hard to solo.

This patch is going to get me to 300 badges without mez farming.

DOOM.

Other than that, I don't really care. There are some anti-PL fixes that I didn't like (putting a timer on wolves and Dreck was dumb) but this is a pretty straightforward exploit fix. There is no good reason why mission bonus should scale up to +20.