I was pretty close to 39 by this point, so I did a few newspaper missions to push me over the top. At 39 I slotted Weave with 3 defense buffs. Permanent Luck inspiration - can't hurt.
A Longbow base had been found in the Shadow Shard, so Steady Arsonist went back through the portal to take it out. That was no problem, but the Arachnos officers sent to consolidate the conquest weren't up to the task. So he had to go back and fix their inept handling of the situation. The Longbow were tough - even sending him to the hospital once - but he didn't give up, and the mission was a success.
Now that I was 39, all Longbow spawned at 40+, which is nasty. I nearly died a few times on minions when my alpha-strike KO Blow on a Spec Ops missed, allowing them to throw that darn EMP Grenade and drain my End. I managed to survive all those, but then when rescuing a hostage I missed a Nullifier, and he hit me with the 'hold' they have. It's not really a hold, since it cuts through all status protection and only lasts a split second - it's a toggle dropper. And when there's a +1 boss in the same spawn, toggles down == dead. I was chain-knocked-down and killed as soon as the toggles went down. I went back and did the exact same thing, but this time KO Blow hit - and I had no problem taking them down. I know Castle has said they're changing the toggle drop - can't come soon enough in my opinion.
Eventually all that alternate universe stuff got old, so Steady Arsonist went back to the more down-to-earth concerns. One of the croupiers in the Giza casino had some jobs to do - and wouldn't you know, Nemesis is involved again.
I ran out of missions for everyone except that Mu Mystic, and all he had to offer was a Hero mission - Infernal. So I called up all my old contacts, and Hard Luck finally decided to give up a new contact. The new guy's missions have been easy so far, fighting Freaks and Family. One mission, finding an embezzler, had a few Nemesis - seems he's been stealing from the Family for a long time. That explains where he gets the cash for all those Fakes.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 39.5, with 100 hours played (3 of which were as a malefactor).
L39-40
The croupier didn't have many jobs, and the ones he did have were pretty easy. All but the Tsoo, those were tough. Anyway, after Steady Arsonist couldn't get any more work out of that contact, he decided it was time to clean up Johnny's soul. It was a tough battle, but he was victorious. He didn't exactly succeed in his mission, though - the soul was destroyed instead of recaptured. But Johnny doesn't seem to care.
Tsoo suck. The Blue Ink Men's Kinetics powers are pretty nasty. I died to a group of 4 Ink Men and an Ancestor Spirit when my KO Blow missed, and all 4 Inks hit with Siphon Power. Those stacked on the Spirit who then proceeded to do over 1000 damage with KO Blow and Air Superiority - and that's after all the damage resistance I have. Ouch.
I went back to Warburg to grab another missile while I worked off the debt, but instead nearly got more debt as some stalker Assassin Strike'd me while I was freeing a scientist, dropping me to about 5% HP. I don't care what the official stand is on griefing - that's griefing in my book. AS me while I'm not fighting a mob, fine - that's the game in a PvP zone, I'll lose my scientist, it sucks but that's the risk. But while I'm fighting something that can give me debt? That's just being a dick. Only reason I didn't get debt there was because I was able to jump away and hit Healing Flames fast. After that I just left, not worth the effort to try to avoid the griefers.
Despite that failure, I still had a Chemical and a Nuclear missile stored up, so I decided to go after Johnny's Soul. He was L37 once I reset to Villainous. Clearing out his minion Wailers was easy. Then I dropped the two rockets and waded in. Immediately I noticed that the Nuclear missile is worthless on AVs - it did something like 100 damage to him. I do that much damage with freakin' Brawl once Fury is up. Not going to waste one of those again. But the Chemical missile worked its usual magic, and combined with some defense inspirations, I had little trouble beating the AV down. The end of that story arc is a nice little twist. I'm sure many gambling losers at the Giza have called Johnny a souless [censored], and now they're right.
Having exhausted all his other options, Steady Arsonist fell back on old habits. The newspaper was full of information that a smart villain could use to create his own opportunities. None of those so-called contacts want to pay him? Fine. Who needs 'em?
At this point I was about 3 bubbles from 40 - and no contacts would talk to me except that Mu Mystic. All he had was an Infernal Hero mission, which I went ahead and picked up for the future, but I wasn't about to try to take him on at even level. So it was back to the newspaper. In St. Martial, most of the missions show up as Circle of Thorns, but a few are Council. I picked Council whenever I could, but still ended up doing mostly CoT missions. Luckily the newspaper missions are all short and easy. A couple hours of this was enough to put me over the top. Boring, but it works.
I decided to put more end reduction in Tough and Weave, as I found myself running both almost all the time. Tough for obvious reasons - nearly every mob does some smash/lethal damage. Weave because more and more mobs in the higher game have status effects of some kind that I dislike - slows being the most common, but also End drain, toggle drops, and even confusion - and defense is the only way to truly avoid those. It may not be much defense, but every little bit helps. My third slot went into another to-hit buff on Rage.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 40, with 103 hours played (3 of which were as a malefactor).
Final Thoughts
So the run is over. 100+ hours played and Steady Arsonist has made it to the top, level 40 - at least the top for now. I plan to continue to play him to level 50 once that's possible, although I haven't yet decided if I'm going to do so as a pure soloist or not. If L40-50 in CoV is anything like it is in CoH, it'll be tough to solo the whole time if you do any contact missions, because of the Hero/AVs. I'll decide when the time comes.
For now, here's some general thoughts from my experiences. First, let me post my final build:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.5.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Steady Arsonist
Level: 41
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Super Strength
Secondary: Fiery Aura
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Punch==> Acc(1)Rechg(3)Dmg(7)EndRdx(11)Dmg(15)
01) --> Fire Shield==> EndRdx(1)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(9)DmgRes(13)
02) --> Haymaker==> Acc(2)Rechg(3)Dmg(7)EndRdx(11)Dmg(15)
04) --> Healing Flames==> Rechg(4)Heal(5)Rechg(9)Heal(13)Rechg(19)Heal(27)
06) --> Hurdle==> Jump(6)
08) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(8)
10) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(10)EndRdx(33)Dmg(34)
12) --> Boxing==> Acc(12)EndRdx(33)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Plasma Shield==> EndRdx(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(19)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(21)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)EndRdx(23)EndRdx(23)
24) --> Rage==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)TH_Buf(37)TH_Buf(37)TH_Buf(40)
26) --> Consume==> Rechg(26)Rechg(27)Rechg(36)EndMod(36)
28) --> Tough==> EndRdx(28)DmgRes(29)DmgRes(29)DmgRes(31)EndRdx(40)
30) --> Blazing Aura==> EndRdx(30)EndRdx(31)EndRdx(31)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Dmg(37)
32) --> Foot Stomp==> Acc(32)EndRdx(36)
35) --> Taunt==> Range(35)
38) --> Weave==> EndRdx(38)DefBuf(39)DefBuf(39)DefBuf(39)EndRdx(40)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)EndRdx(33)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
---------------------------------------------
As you can see, it's a bit different from the original plan I had (see the top of this thread). I learned a few things along the way that led me to change things, the most important being that lack of Endurance is the #1 enemy of Brutes. Reduce endurance costs whenever possible, it'll pay off - more attacks for the same amount of End means more Fury, meaning more damage, meaning more dead enemies.
I'm pleased with my decision to leave Blazing Aura until L30. Before SOs are available, it just costs too much endurance to be worth running. Even once you have SOs, you need to be able to take the damage being dealt by the mobs that your Aura is killing, so waiting until L30 gave me a chance to build up defenses with SOs and Tough. Note that this is from a solo perspective - if you team a lot, you may need Blazing Aura earlier to hold aggro, and the defense concern shouldn't be as much of an issue with teammate buffs.
Rage is just insanely good. The 10-second downtime is very easy to manage as long as you know it's coming. (Shameless HeroStats plug - the power timers help a lot.) Extra damage, extra accuracy - what's not to love? Again, this is a solo perspective - that 10 second downtime is a lot more difficult for your teammates to deal with than it is for you, if they're relying on you to hold aggro.
I see a lot of Brute builds without the Fighting pool, and I can understand why - it's extra power choices that you don't want to spend. But I have to say that I think it's a necessity for a soloist, at least if you want to ever fight multiple mob spawns at once. There were lots of times when I dipped down into the yellow, orange, even red life bar before I could hit Healing Flames or an inspiration. I'm convinced Tough saved my life in those cases. It's also good for PvP - I avoid PvP like the plague, but when I'd get hit while trying to pick up a Warburg missile, that extra resistance certainly helped. Weave isn't nearly as good as Tough, but it's effectively a Luck inspiration that's always on, and that can't hurt. Just make sure to slot enough End reduction to keep the two extra toggles from slowing you down.
Endurance recovery powers are key. I don't know how much time I saved by having Consume refill my End bar instead of resting or waiting for natural recovery, but it has to add up to hours over the 40 levels. Certainly it makes the game feel faster. If you plan to solo a lot, I'd think very hard before starting a Brute that didn't have any End recovery powers. Dark Melee, Energy Aura, and Fiery Aura all have End recovery powers, so you have a lot of potential builds to choose from.
Heros, AVs, and to a lesser extent Elite Bosses are a royal pain for a soloist. No surprises there. The utility of the Warburg rocket temp powers cannot be overstated. If you plan to take on a Hero/AV that's less than 3 levels below you, the Chemical rocket is a life-saver. I find that the best time to go get one of those rockets is right after server maintenance, if you can manage to be online then - the stalkers haven't settled in yet, and all the spawns are nice and fresh. If you find that things are too crowded, just leave - do some newspaper missions or PvP door missions while you wait, then try again. Don't bother trying to kill some PvP'er that's camping the scientist spawns. He'll just come back and mess with you more. Better to leave and try again later.
The PvP zone missions are an excellent source of XP. Up until you start seeing L40 Longbow, run them early and often. It's a whole lot faster than doing newspaper missions or street hunting. It's even faster than your normal contacts, but I find it more interesting to do the regular contact missions since there's a storyline to follow. You don't even really run a risk of dying to some other player - the 30 second grace period lasts long enough to get you from one mission to the next, if you don't dawdle. This is only really applicable to 'pure' soloists - if you're willing to team up, then doing someone else's missions is just as good (as long as the team doesn't suck, anyway).
Thanks to everyone that actually read through all of that. 
I hope it helps folks that are considering some solo play, especially for Brutes. If you have any comments, questions, etc. feel free to let me know!
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I read it all - and found it good.
Very entertaining and yet informative. My SS/Fire brute is only 22, but I've found similiar lessons. My power picks will likely look like yours...although taken at different time and different slotting priorities.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
Uh, just fyi: Last I checked, Weave wasn't even close to a Luck. It was like a fifth of a Luck, when slotted.
Jerk 4 Life
In brightest day, in blackest night/No evil shall escape my sight/Let those who worship evil's might/Beware my power ... Green Lantern's light!/(Meowth, that's right!)
My Arcs: #4827: Earth For Humans. #6391: Young Love.
Nicely done! I like the short stories interspersed throughout.
According to the Character Builder I use, Weave when slotted gives 5.07% defense for a Brute. Aren't Lucks (that's the small purples) 5%? I realize it's not anywhere near the larger purple inspirations.
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A Luck Inspiration, that's the smallest one, gives 25% Defense. The mediums are 33%, and the big ones are 50%. Yes they are way over the top, compared to pretty much every other Inspiration. They are the "I win" button for almost any battle if you pop a couple. I'm expecting a major nerf with I7, justified as "re-balancing for scaled Defense".
I've got a DM/Fire Brute I'm using to do every mission, though she's still fairly low level. She's going to have Fitness plus two Healing and two END Recovery powers for non-stop SMASH. You're absolutely right about END being the most important thing. I'm slotting END Reduction before Damage.
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304
Very nice; read the whole thung. 
(Marking in my favorites)
Back after 18 months away!
I've started working on L40+ with Steady Arsonist. You can find the continuation of the journal here. I'll update this post - or maybe make a new one - once I've got him to 50, but that'll be a while.
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L40-41
Finally! After weeks of roaming the Rogue Isles, searching for a challenge worthy of his skills, Steady Arsonist finally found his way into Grandville. It's a disturbing place, its twisted architecture reflecting the twisted mind of Lord Recluse. It took a while to find his way around, but eventually Steady Arsonist met up with someone that knew the territory, and the villainy began in earnest.
After weeks of waiting at L40, it's finally time to continue with Steady Arsonist's soloing journey. When Issue 7 released, I'd logged 123 hours on Steady Arsonist, 23 of those as a malefactor (counting no-XP-at-L40 time as a malefactor).
The first thing I did was run newspaper missions in Grandville to pick up my new contacts. And the first thing I noticed was what a pain it is to get around in Grandville. Practically every time I went leaping toward my mission, some Arachnos guard would throw a web grenade, forcing me to wait for it wear off. The zone design is horrible for non-flyers. Even with Super Jump it's tough to find the right spot to drop into, and easy to fall off into the depths, forcing you to find your way back up. I pity anyone trying to use Super Speed in there.
The newspaper missions themselves were uneventful - easy stuff. I actually skipped the first two Mayhem missions by letting their timers run out while I did more missions. Prior to L40, Mayhem missions are fun. After that, the Longbow ambushes are so annoying that I'd rather just skip the whole thing. I did run the 3rd Mayhem mission, in the interest of getting a temp power. I got ambushed by Longbow Spec Ops several times, and just about died twice when the dreaded End drain hit. Twice the ambush had 2 Spec Ops in it. The hero was easy once she was alone - I popped a ton of purples and took out the minions (yes, one was a Spec Ops), then dealt with the boss.
My contacts gave me several interesting missions. I like the Freak arc with the teacher, nice story to that. I also got the arc with the Arachnoid leader, Biff, but I ran into the knockback-means-failed-mission bug there so I couldn't finish it. At one point I had to go to St. Martial, and I realized that my Broker bar there was full, so I quickly did a Mayhem mission there for the temp power. Ran through it as fast as I could and only had to deal with one Spec Ops ambush that nearly killed me.
Then I got the worst mission I've played yet - all Spec Ops. The whole mission, except the boss at the end. Always in groups of at least 2, sometimes up to 4. I actually survived due to Taunt. I'd Taunt away 2-3 of the Spec Ops in each group, let them end drain me, and then Boxing/Brawl them to death slowly. That only worked because I could pull the groups apart with Taunt, and because the Spec Ops don't actually have status effects (well, they have immobilize, but no holds). Horrible mission. Took me nearly an hour, and at the end...I failed it due to the knockback bug. Awful.
Then I got a mission to rescue 3 Spiderlings, did that and cleared out all the mobs I could find, and...nothing. No mission complete. Reset it, did it again - same thing. Petitioned a GM, gave up waiting after half an hour. Finally I decided to just move on and do something else.
I still had the last mission in the Freakshow teacher arc, so I went there. I was able to pick off all the Spec Ops along the way, a nice change of pace from constant End-draining. A L41 Elite-Boss Luminary was guarding the teacher at the end, but a couple of Good Lucks were all it took to keep her at bay. Well, that and some Catch a Breath inspirations - it's hard work beating up those EBs. Never was in any real danger, though. Upon completing the mission and finishing the story arc, Steady Arsonist hit L41.
I picked up Fiery Embrace. I don't figure it'll be a big help, but nothing else looks useful either, and I haven't done a Patron arc yet. I have 3 unused respecs anyway, not to mention the one you're supposed to get with the Patron arc, so I'm not worried about making a bad choice.
I think I'll take a break from Steady Arsonist until some of the Issue 7 bugs are fixed. There's way too many in the higher level missions to be seriously trying to play a solo toon. At least one with knockback powers - that bug alone cost me two missions and a story arc. More to come once the missions are actually doable.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 41, with 130 hours played (7 since Issue 7, 23 as a malefactor).
L41-42
Grandville certainly had some challenges in store for Steady Arsonist. Just finding his way around without running into Recluse's elite Bane Spider Commandos or rogue Arachnoids was a challenge. For a period of time he laid low, scouting the area and learning its secrets. Finally, he was ready to master Grandville as he had mastered the rest of the Rogue Isles.
Steady Arsonist did indeed lay low for a while, mainly waiting for bug fixes. That running-boss bug is finally fixed (at least according to the patch notes), so I figured it was time to give it another shot. Grandville is still laggy for me, no matter how I tweak my graphics settings, but I'm learning my way around well enough. I'm really glad I have Super Jump as a travel power, I'd hate to have to try to figure out Super Speed, or deal with the Teleport targeting bug, or twiddle my thumbs waiting on the slow Fly speed.
The Spiderling mission was fixed, too, although there was no patch note about it. Or maybe I just got lucky and did the right things this time. It's finally off my mission list, anyhow, and the three failed attempts to complete it are behind me.
Steady Arsonist had recently learned that one Terrence Dobbs needed some assistance with Arachnoids. Dobbs wasn't much to look at, but he had cash, and the jobs he wanted done were another opportunity to spread a little fear. Some of those Arachnoids pack a punch, but none of them could stand up for long to the combination of strength and fire that Steady Arsonist brought.
Arachnoids are a pain. Toxic damage, slows, and those webs that the Lts use have -jump. The Super Arachnoids have some pretty impressive HP regen, too, but Rage and Fury gave me enough damage that it didn't matter too much. The toxic damage was a killer until I started hitting Healing Flames before I jumped into a big group. The little bit of toxic resist helped quite a bit, especially when I was fighting 5-6 +1 minions.
It didn't take long before Dobbs was out of work. He said he had some tougher assignments, but he wouldn't say more until Steady Arsonist took care of some old business. Steady Arsonist didn't realize he even had old business, but Dobbs seemed to know, so he went back to some old contacts. And sure enough, there was more work in Cap au Diable and Sharkhead Isle. Steady Arsonist made short work of those old jobs.
Dobbs gave me about 3 missions then refused to talk any more, so I knew I had story arc issues. Nothing in my Clue window, so I went back to some old contacts, and found 2 willing to give me story arcs. I really wish they'd fix that. I hadn't taken any of the old story arc missions, but simply talking to those contacts apparently opened the arcs. There's no indication that the story arc is open until you actually do one of the missions - except for your higher-level contacts refusing to talk to you. Extremely bad user interface.
Dobbs sent Steady Arsonist into the Gutter to cull the Arachnoid population a bit. At first things proceeded all right, but then he got a little too cocky, and took on a few too many Arachnoids. Good thing those emergency teleporters are working.
A group of 5 +3 Arachnoids, including a Lt and a Boss, is a bit much, I learned. With a few defense inspirations, I took a similar group of +2s, but then then +3s took me down quick. I didn't see any spawns under L43 in the Gutter, so I think I'll leave that mission alone for a while.
Steady Arsonist decided it was time to think about alliances. Many other villains in the Rogue Isles have already chosen one of Lord Recluse's Lts to ally themselves with - failing to follow their example could leave him vulnerable. After much thought, Steady Arsonist decided to approach Black Scorpion. He has the virtues of being easily fooled (when necessary), reliant on technology (easily broken), not dead (yet), and has no magical or strange animalistic powers. The perfect patron.
I decided to finally break down and choose a Patron. I have 3 respecs banked anyway, so the fact that the free respec still isn't working didn't bother me much. All the Patron Pools are pretty much the same, but I decided to take Scorpion's Mace Mastery for one reason - Web Envelope. Not only is it an AoE immobilize, which lets me use Burn, but it has -Fly and Slow effects. Also, from what I read on the forums, it appears to still allow me to knock mobs down with Footstomp, unlike some of the other AoE immobilize powers. I may pick up the Mace Blast later, too, for hitting runners. The other powers are nothing special - I hear the pets are especially bad, but I suppose you can't expect much as a Brute. I may try 'em out on Test when I get up to 47.
Black Scorpion sent Steady Arsonist after some Crey that had stolen some technology. Not much of a challenge, especially when they tried to hurt him with fire. But then the trail of the stolen tech lead to the Malta Group, and that was a much more difficult fight. In the end, though, the outcome was never in doubt, and Black Scorpian's technology secrets were safe.
The Paragon Protector Elite are kind of neat. The Fire one was sort of pathetic against a Fire brute, but the Dark one gave me a good fight. Nice to see some different powers being used - and especially nice to not have to worry about Moment of Glory.
The Malta, of course, were supremely annoying. All it takes is one Sapper hit and I'm screwed, and unlike my Fire tank hero, my Fire brute villain doesn't get any way to take them out of the fight early. All I could do was try to hit 'em with KO Blow, and about half the time they'd still get one shot off and drain me. I did a lot of hit and run. Oh, and this was on Villainous, too - as soon as I saw Malta I dropped the difficulty. Every other group I can run on Ruthless, but Malta - no way.
Now I'm sure someone's saying, "What's the big deal with Malta Sappers? You've been fighting end-draining Spec Ops for 10+ levels!" True, but there's one major difference. Specs Ops don't use their End Drain as their first power - Sappers do. That means that I can jump in and smack a Spec Ops with KO Blow, and as long as I hit, they never drain me. Sappers drain me half the time even if I hit them. Plus Spec Ops supposedly got nerfed recently - a very necessary nerf, considering how they often spawn 2 or more at a time.
After Steady Arsonist had proven himself, Black Scorpion brought him into a confidental plan - a plot against Ghost Widow! That caused some second thoughts about his choice of patron. Not a very smart move, going up against Lord Recluses' pet spirit. And sure enough, before long, Black Scorpion's plans had him in deep trouble with the Arbiters. Steady Arsonist ended up in a fight against Scorpion's chief Lt, Silver Mantis, which did not end well - he barely escaped without a hospital trip. After that, he decided to go straight to the top and take down Black Scorpion himself - for his own good, of course.
Silver Mantis is harsh against a Brute. The slows from the caltrops that you have to stand in, big damage which is partly toxic, and she hit Unstoppable when I got her down to about 20% health. I was OK until Unstoppable, but after that I turned tail and ran. Unfortunately that left the guy I was supposed to be protecting wide open, and Silver Mantis made short work of him.
The good news is that failure on that mission didn't seem to matter much, because I was still given the next mission to take out Black Scorpion. Apparently running around in Grandville isn't annoying enough for travel purposes, because I was sent to both Cap au Diable and Mercy Island in this story arc. I pity anyone doing it without base teleporters. Anyway, I got to Mercy and defused some bombs, and then Scorpion came after me. He was pathetically easy compared to Silver Mantis. All he did was normal attacks, no slows or debuffs. A few defense inspirations was all I needed - Fury and Rage did damage, and he went down fast.
Black Scorpion wasn't too happy about Steady Aronist's role in his defeat, even if it did mean the Arbiters didn't get him. So it was back to his other contacts for a while, while Scorpion cooled off a bit.
After I finished Scorpion's arcs, I went back to Regent Korol and she gave me a mission to rescue Night Widows from Carnies. I had to buy a bunch of defense inspirations so I'd survive all the boss guards, but once I got my posse of 3 Night Widows, it was all good. 3 debuffing, psionic, stealthy pets. We completely pwned the final Master Illusionist boss. If only the pets in the patron pools were anywhere near that good.
Then Westin Phipps gave me an arc that ended with a shot at Swan. Kinetic/Psionic is a nasty combo, but at least she didn't use Siphon Speed on me. Her Fulcrum Shift didn't buff a huge mob of minions, either, because I was careful to knock them out quick. I was really glad for Acrobatics when she turned on Repel, and the damage debuffs made the fight last longer than I'd expected. I needed a lot of inspirations, but eventually I won.
Speaking of inspirations, I decided to make use of them to get rid of that Arachnoid hunt in the Gutter before I leveled. So I went to my contacts and loaded up on defense. With 3 or 4 Lucks, I was able to take out the L43 spawns, which usually were 2 minions, 2 Lts, and a boss. The Lucks wouldn't last the whole fight, so I was using 6-8 per battle. I had to shuttle back and forth between the Gutter and my contacts a few times for more Lucks, but I finally finished my 20 Arachnoids.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 42, with 139 hours played (16 since Issue 7, 23 as a malefactor).
Respec
With Black Scorpion's patronage, Steady Arsonist was able to requisition an Arachnos Mace. Quite a powerful and flexible weapon, in the right hands.
Respec time. I delayed it until I hit 42 just to save a little infamy - this way I just sold all my enhancements and used the cash for L45s. Probably not necessary, but I figured why not?
Ever since patron pools were announced, we've been hearing what a good combo Fire Brutes have with Burn + AoE immobilize power. Time to try it out:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Steady Arsonist respec
Level: 44
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Super Strength
Secondary: Fiery Aura
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Punch==> Acc(1)EndRdx(3)Rechg(11)Dmg(23)
01) --> Fire Shield==> EndRdx(1)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(7)
02) --> Haymaker==> Acc(2)EndRdx(3)Rechg(11)
04) --> Healing Flames==> Rechg(4)Rechg(7)Rechg(15)Heal(15)Heal(19)Heal(23)
06) --> Hurdle==> Jump(6)
08) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(8)EndRdx(9)Rechg(9)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)
10) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(10)
12) --> Boxing==> Acc(12)EndRdx(13)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Plasma Shield==> EndRdx(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(19)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(21)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)
24) --> Rage==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)TH_Buf(31)TH_Buf(31)TH_Buf(33)
26) --> Consume==> Acc(26)Rechg(27)Rechg(27)Rechg(29)EndMod(29)EndMod(31)
28) --> Tough==> EndRdx(28)DmgRes(34)DmgRes(34)DmgRes(34)
30) --> Blazing Aura==> EndRdx(30)EndRdx(33)Acc(33)Dmg(37)Dmg(37)Dmg(39)
32) --> Foot Stomp==> Acc(32)EndRdx(36)Rechg(37)
35) --> Fiery Embrace==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)
38) --> Burn==> Dmg(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)
41) --> Web Envelope==> Acc(41)Rechg(42)Rechg(42)Immob(42)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)EndRdx(13)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
---------------------------------------------
A quick test on the Training Room convinced me that the combo is indeed good. Web Envelope has a decent immobilize duration with one slot, and it recharges fast enough with 2 recharge enhancements that you can use it on every group. I could probably get away without any slots in it, but I figure I'll end up with 3 Recharge/2 Immob, and maybe I'll be able to stack it on bosses. Burn does enough damage to take out most orange minions with one patch, so a little herding + Web Envelope + Burn, with a Footstomp if necessary, can clear out a room pretty easily.
L42-44
Steady Arsonist got a chance at a rematch with Silver Mantis when Dr. Forrester wanted a sample of her armor. This time he came prepared. She was begging for mercy by the end.
First mission the Doc gave me was Silver Mantis, so this time I went to Bloody Bay for a Shivan, and stocked up on defense and heal inspirations, and set myself to Villainous level. With all that it was still a long fight to take her down, but I managed.
Manticore. Positron. Citadel. Swan. And a bunch of miscellaneous lesser-known names. Those heroes just don't know when to leave well enough alone. Steady Arsonist faced them all, and took them all down.
It is so much better doing all these missions with Elite Bosses instead of Hero/AVs. Even as EBs, they're plenty tough. Other than Silver Mantis, I've taken all of them on as +1s (since I run on Ruthless), and the fights often last 10 minutes or more.
Citadel was an especially big pain, because he hit Overload and I had to wait it out - no way I was hitting him. I got some good use out of the Burn fear effect there. I'd run around a corner, lay down a Burn patch, and he'd run right into it then shoot away at top speed. Find another corner, repeat, until Overload finally dropped.
I also ran into a Ballista, which I barely managed to take out. The resistance on those guys is insane. KO Blow was doing barely 250 damage with a full Fury bar and Rage running. It didn't help that he kept hitting me with Detention Field, giving him time to heal up. With Healing Flames and some inspiration use, I stayed alive OK, but it took forever to pound down his HP.
I also spent some time in lower level mayhem missions, grabbing badges. I'm to the point now where I only need the Founder's Falls and Peregrine Island badges. I'll grab a mayhem mission of my own to get FF, and PI will be available in a couple of levels.
At 43 I slotted up Haymaker, so now I have 2 attacks slotted up with damage. Honestly, I'm not noticing a lot of difference most of the time, since Web Envelope+Burn is doing most of my damage. But it helps on bosses.
The rest of level 43 was uneventful. A few more Elite Bosses, a bunch more random missions. The story arcs in L40+ CoV don't seem as good as the stuff in the pre-40 game, but maybe that's just because I don't like a lot of the obviously villainous stuff. I cringed all the way through Westin Phipps' missions.
I considered trying to beat up enough Toxic Tarantualas for the badge, so I could get the unlockable contact for them. But it was taking me about 90 seconds per Tarantula. Let's see, 90 seconds * 200 Tarantualas works out to 5 solid hours of nothing but Toxic hunting. I don't want the contact that much, thanks anyway.
Anyhow, I reached 44 without undue difficulty. There was one interesting mission against Valkyrie - I defeated her very easily, and only after that did she hit Revive and then Moment of Glory. Strange, I'd have expected MoG first, but it made things a lot easier on me, so I wasn't arguing.
At 44 I picked up the Disruptor Blast. I don't really need another AoE, but it's ranged, so why not?
Steady Arsonist is currently level 44, with 155 hours played (32 since Issue 7, 24 overall as a malefactor).
L44-45
Mage Hunter ZuhKara certainly lives up to her title. Steady Arsonist did several jobs for her, all involving magic in one way or another. Running into Lilitu again wasn't particularly enjoyable, but she had no better luck now than the last time Steady Arsonist put her down.
Running CoT missions doesn't bother me any more, as long as I remember to bring along a couple of Break Frees in case I see a Succubus. In fact I prefer CoT to any other mob group except Council at this level, because they don't drain my End. Well, the Air Thorns do, but they've pretty much disappeared at this point. The Ice Thorns are annoying with their cold damage and slows, but not really dangerous. I might feel differently if more spectral demons showed up, but I haven't seen one in a while. Finally - 40+ levels of those things is more than enough.
The Lilitu arc was easy except for the two Elite Bosses that weren't Lilitu. The demon herself was no problem - a couple of break frees and some defense inspirations, no problem. But in that arc there's also two Elite Boss cold demons, and those were harsh.
I ran into the first one in Oranbega, and he nearly killed me outright with his first couple of attacks. I ran away, grabbed some more inspirations, attacked - and he hit me with a Fear attack. Good thing I had a Break Free, I was able to kill his minions before it wore off. Ran away again, more inspirations, went back toward him - and this time he was standing in one of the hallways. When I hit him with KO Blow, he got stuck in the ceiling, and I just pounded him. Yeah, it's cheap, but against a fear-inducing cold-damage self-healing Elite Boss, I'll take anything I can get. I did /bug it.
On the second one, I had Lilitu's help, so that wasn't so bad. I just let her walk in first and take all the aggro, then jumped in and finished them off.
I ran out of missions about halfway to 45, so I ran a few Warburg door missions. That got old fast, so I went back to newspapers and did a Mayhem to finish off the level. I slotted my last 2 damages in Punch and put one in Footstomp, since I haven't seen a need for any other enhancement.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 45, with 164 hours played (41 since Issue 7, 24 overall as a malefactor).
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L45-46
Steady Arsonist was moving up - literally. Many of the new contacts he was meeting spent their time high above the ground level of Grandville, and many missions were located there as well. For the first time, he envied those with the power of flight.
I hate Grandville. I spend more time getting to missions than actually doing them. At least the contacts tend to give you a phone number after one mission, so you only have to climb the tower twice to talk to them.
Shadow Spider lives in an interesting world. Steady Arsonist captured Agent Indigo and nearly nabbed her partner Crimson as well, thanks to tips from Shadow Spider.
I nearly got Crimson, had him down to about 10% health when he escaped. I wasn't really expecting to get him, so it didn't bother me much - I've read everyone else's complaints about that mission.
After running through most of the missions from Shadow Spider and Abyss, plus a few from Efficiency Expert Pither and Tavish Bell, Steady Arsonist hit 46. I can see already that I'm going to be short on missions, I have 4 levels to do and only 3 untouched contacts. Well, 4, if you count Viridian, but there's no way I'm going to hunt down all the crap you need to unlock him.
At 46 I slotted up Footstomp the rest of the way, and dropped one more in the Web Envelope.
Recluse's Victory. Even the name sounds evil. A tough place, by all accounts, and Steady Arsonist decided it was time to experience it for himself. It was pure chaos. After many battles, some won, many lost, Lord Reculse's vision was realized in the alternate Atlas Park. But victory was fleeting.
I'm not much of a PvP player. I actively dislike it, most of the time. But when the Victory server hosted a RV mass-PvP event (thanks to SatanicHamster for organizing), I decided to give it a shot.
My build is not at all optimized for PvP, but surprisingly I did OK. Part of that was due to teammates, of course - I wasn't about to go in there solo. A lot of the time we were scattered, though. Still, it usually took 2-3 heroes to bring me down, and if I got some villain support we laid some pretty decent hurt on them.
I discovered that my web envelope was pretty much useless on its own, since it seemed like everyone was running combat jumping. I did use it to bring down a flying blaster once, but that's the only time I saw it have an effect.
I spent almost 2 hours in there, so I got my mini-game bar filled up and got the Arachnos Mini-Blaster pet. I hear it's not that great as a pet, but hey, it'll help with the next Elite Boss I see.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 46, with 172 hours played (49 since Issue 7, 24 overall as a malefactor).
L46-47
Crey Industries is always looking for the next big competitive advantage. Sometimes, though, they poke into the wrong corners of the universe looking for it. One of Crey's security personnel hired Steady Arsonist to take care of some problems in one of their labs. Little did he know that the lab had been destroyed by a demon lord, summoned by Crey's research into mystical powers. The lab - and most of the Crey - had been melted. Luckily Steady Arsonist can take the heat.
This was a nice little story arc. Crey summoning demons while trying to improve their Paragon Protectors, sounds like something they'd do. I got to fight a couple of PP Elite bosses that were supposedly demon-possessed, which basically just meant that they had some extra fire damage - no problem for a */Fire brute. I like those PP Elites a whole lot better than the normal PPs, since they have Inferno and Blackstar as their big powers instead of Elude, Unstoppable, or the always-annoying Moment of Glory.
The real challenge wasn't the bosses, it was the minions. Crey in CoV now have Cryo and Voltaic tank minions, and Power tank Lts. All of those do a lot of energy or cold damage, both types that Steady Arsonist has trouble with. Plus the Voltaics sap End, and the Cryos slow recharge. They're a royal pain. I found myself doing a lot of waiting between mobs while Healing Flames recharged.
The last mission map was great, a lab with a bunch of melted holes in the walls. Even the elevators were melted, and you could jump through the destroyed elevator shaft to the next floor. Nice touch, whomever designed that mission. At the end was a big demon boss, who apparently counts as Baphomet, even though his name was different. I got the Demon Slayer badge out of it, which is nice since I missed it back in the 40s - the Baphomet mission was bugged back then.
It seems the heroes of Paragon City just can't resist the Rogue Isles. Pursuing leads given by bounty hunters, Crey, and Arachnos, Steady Arsonist went up against Ms. Liberty, Synapse, and Mynx. Maybe if enough of them get beaten to a pulp, they'll learn to stay home.
The Heroes started coming fast and furious, which is no great surprise in the 40s. I can't overemphasize how wonderful it is to be fighting Elite Bosses instead of Heroes/AVs - I know I keep repeating myself on that subject, but it's just that good for a solo toon. It took over a year for that change to make it into the game, and I have no problem thanking the Devs for over a year.
Ms. Liberty was a complete surprise to me. There was no warning in the mission description that there might be a big fight, and she spawned in a room that I couldn't see into until I was practically on top of her. And since I was on Ruthless, she was +1 and had 2 Longbow Nullifiers with her. Needless to say, I was toast. Double Liquefy from the Nullifiers killed my resistances, and she took me out in 2 shots. A quick hospital trip and some inspiration buying, and the tables turned easily enough. A few defense inspirations and I was able to get rid of the Nullifiers, a few more and Ms. Liberty wasn't so tough. She did use Unstoppable, but I just did the Burn-run away-Burn-run away cycle until it dropped.
My contact warned me about Synapse so I was prepared. He was really easy because of his speed, ironically. I cleared out the floor except for his spawn, then ran into Disruptor Blast range and fired at him. That aggroed his Longbow guard, of course, including 2 Nullifiers, but I simply ran to the other end of the floor and left them in my dust. Synapse happily followed me the whole way, and I proceeded to wipe the floor with him. All I needed was a few defense and End inspirations - blasters are easy to take out when they're alone. Then I went back and took out the Longbow.
Mynx was another surprise - kind of. My contact said something about cleaning up a Malta base, which sucked, so I reset to villainous difficulty and went in. But there were no Malta. The mission description still said Malta, but the objectives said defeat Crey, find some glowie, and defeat Mynx. OK, so it's actually Crey and Longbow. Back out, reset to Ruthless, reset mission. I wiped out the Crey, found the glowie, and again made liberal use of defense inspirations to take out the Longbow guard before tackling Mynx. She does some pretty significant damage when she hits, so I was glad of the defense. Eventually she hit Elude, and that was a royal pain, but I had enough defense inspirations to survive until it dropped, at which point I crushed her.
I walked out of that mission and called my contact - who immediately sent me after Mynx again. After fighting my way through a huge Longbow map, I found her in a room with 2 Longbow spawns practically sitting on top of one another. Not a good sign, but I had plenty of defense and some pets, so I summoned my last Rikti Drone and a Shivan, popped a bunch of purples and waded in. The Longbow went down quickly enough, but Mynx vanished, and I wasted some time trying to find her. Seems that she'd run into one of my Burn patches while I was killing off the minions, ran away from it, and with Quickness she managed to run away far enough to de-aggro. Took her sweet time getting back, too. She finally came back and I got her down to where she popped Elude, but at that point I had run out of defense inspirations. I probably should have tried to run away at that point, but I figured with the pets I had a shot at her even through Elude. Wrong. I spent about 30 seconds trying to hit her, while she got in a few shots bringing me down to about half health. And then - Eviscerate critical hit for 990 damage. Dead brute. She was practically standing on my head, so I had to hospital, and because of the normal pain-in-the-rear travel through Grandville plus the giant map, she had regenerated back to nearly full health by the time I got back. This time I came prepared with 3 full rows of defense inspirations, though, and was able to maintain defense through her Elude cycle. Once it dropped, she went down.
Steady Arsonist thought he was long since done with the Snakes that infested Mercy Island, but Operative Grillo had different news. Somehow some of the Snakes had grown massively more powerful, and they were making short work of all the new recruits in Mercy. So Steady Arsonist went back to Mercy Island and his old contacts Kalinda and Mongoose, once again descending into the Snakes' lairs.
I like the story arcs that tie back into old storylines, they seem to be well written. Although I'm not fond of having to bounce back and forth between Mercy Island and Grandville. At least base teleporters make it a little easier. This wasn't the only story arc to bring up old missions and contacts - I also got to fight Pyriss in a different arc, although she looked a lot better as a heroine than a Devoured.
The Snakes got a major boost, to be expected when they gain 40 levels, I suppose. Toxic damage is always a pain, and they have plenty of that. The assassin snakes add some pretty solid damage, too. Their assassin's strike must not be interruptable, because I've been hit by it after I already immobilized them with my Web Envelope, but it only does about 1/4 of my HP bar, so it's manageable.
I hit 47 on one of the Snake missions in Mercy, so I went back to Grandville and leveled up. I picked up my Arachnos Blaster pet, just on general principles. I don't expect it to actually be useful, but there's nothing else I wanted.
Double XP weekend is coming up, but I haven't decided if I'm going to play Steady Arsonist or not. He's only got 3 levels to go anyway, and I have more contacts left than I'd expected. Maybe I'll play a few missions, finish a story arc or two for big bonuses, but for the most part I'll probably spend the big weekend on other toons.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 47, with 180 hours played (57 since Issue 7, 24 overall as a malefactor).
L47-48
Steady Arsonist finally tracked the dangerous Snakes to their source. Invading their base was easy. Defeating the fanatical guards of their leader, who called herself the goddess Stheno, was not.
The final mission in the Snake arc is quite a challenge. The whole place is infested - I nearly died right inside the door when I went down one of those steep inclines and ended up aggroing two mobs. It took quite a while to clear out the regular spawns, but eventually I found the AV, Stheno.
Stheno and her guard didn't look too bad, but the room itself was a problem. There were a ton of snake eggs around. I tried to kill one, but I'd barely made a dent in it when it hatched - a red-con boss. Actually 2, since all the eggs spawned in pairs. Ouch. I did some running, used all my inspirations, and barely managed to take both of them down. I left, got more inspirations, went back in and took out two more egg-bosses. After 4 repeats of this, one half of the room was finally clear enough that I could pull Stheno herself over. After all those boss fights, the AV herself was no challenge at all.
Abyss was so impressed with Steady Arsonist that she sent him to take out Ms. Liberty again - this time in her own base. Oh, and by the way, Mynx, Luminary, and Valkyrie probably won't be too happy about it.
What is it about high-level CoV and multiple signature heroes? Everyone's seen the Recluse strike force reports, I'm sure, fighting the entire Freedom Phalanx and Vindicator crew at once. At least this mission isn't quite that bad, since you can fight the heroes one at a time. But still, 4 of them in one mission? 5 really, since Valkyrie always uses Revive. It's a challenge, certainly, and I don't mind that, but all it really does is force me to spend a bunch of time all in one sitting to get through this huge time-sink of a mission.
The first time I did this mission, it was about 45 minutes before server maintenance. I took out Mynx, Valkyrie, Valkyrie again, and Luminary with my usual method of using tons of defense inspirations and pets. I had to run out of the mission after each one, twice on Mynx, to get more defense inspirations. They were all +2 to me, since I was on Ruthless and they spawned in the higher-level rooms. Ran out of Shivans before I got to Ms. Liberty, but since I only had 5 minutes left before downtime, I figured I'd better try it. She spawned at +1, but in a room with 2 Longbow groups right together, no way I could get one at a time. So I wasted my first set of inspirations taking out all the minions and Lts. Then I beat on her for a minute until Rage dropped, got her down to about 25%. Then as I was running away during the Rage downtime - she healed herself! Argh! I assume it was Dull Pain, although I didn't check her total HP. With her back up past half HP, I ran out of time before I could take her down.
Later on I went back to do it again. Same setup, although the first three Heroes spawned in different rooms than before. Still +2s though. I'd gotten more Shivans, which helped, and I got through all 3 of them fairly easily. Took forever still, since I kept having to run out for more inspirations. Ms. Liberty spawned in the same spot with 2 Longbow groups, so I did the same thing as before - but this time my defense let me down and a Spec Ops managed to hit me with a web grenade. That slowed me enough that I couldn't get out of range before the defense dropped, and Ms. Liberty nailed me with a Total Focus. At least I managed to take out all the minions. Revive, yet another trip to buy inspirations, use yet another Shivan, and she finally went down.
They say that TV can rot your brain. Not sure about actual rotting, but Television sure seemed to do something to Steady Arsonists' brain. Strange stuff, but there seems to be no lasting damage. He got paid, so it doesn't really matter where the jobs came from.
The Radio was a great low-level contact and the Television is just as good, if not better. The only complaint I had was that I had to fight Malta a couple of times, but I made it through. Even stayed on Ruthless setting for it, although I did almost pay for that a couple of times when KO Blow missed a Sapper. I got lucky and stayed alive, though.
I changed my mind and decided I'd play Steady Arsonist some on Double XP weekend, because all of my contacts except the Television and Vernon gave up on me right about the time I hit 48. I still have Black Scorpion's arcs, but I figure I've got about one level's worth of missions left - which is 2 levels with double XP, so the timing couldn't be better.
At 48 I put my 3 slots in the pet. It sucks slightly less with 3 recharge in it, and I threw in a damage too. Nothing else I really wanted to bother slotting.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 48, with 188 hours played (65 since Issue 7, 24 as a malefactor).
L48-50
For some reason everyone in Grandville started feeling generous. The rewards Steady Arsonist was receiving for pulling jobs doubled overnight. Something strange was going on, but why look a gift horse in the mouth? He decided to work overtime while the generosity lasted.
Gotta love Double XP weekend. I also made use of the Double Infamy - since I'd mostly been playing in SG mode, I was short infamy to buy my L50 enhancements. A few missions out of SG mode fixed that quickly.
I hope this whole thing doesn't backfire on Cryptic. It's going to feel really slow after this weekend, watching the old XP bar go back to its normal pace. People might just decide it's too slow, and either quit playing or join the herding powerlevelers.
Television has enemies. First there was the Radio, jealous of Television's success. Then Nemesis, trying to use Television for his own ends. Steady Aronist put a stop to that. What would he do without his Television?
As I've said before, I like seeing tie-ins to previous stories, and this was a good one. The Radio didn't like Television stealing its listeners, makes sense. Getting to beat up some Freaks along the way was a nice bonus. And the entire arc is worth doing just for the description of American Idol. When I got the Radio itself, I was out of inspirations, but I figured I'd give it a try anyway. 10 seconds later I was running for my life, with Healing Flames being the only reason I wasn't dead. The Radio packs a serious punch, with all the resistance-lowering sonics. After buying inspirations, I came back and had no trouble taking it down - when it can't hit you consistently, the sonics don't hurt too bad.
Later the Television sent me to repel invaders - inside TV! The entrance to that mission is one of the upper-level Grandville pains-in-the-butt, but it's worth it for the entrance animation. Love watching my toon get sucked into the TV screen. I have to wonder, though, what the Devs were thinking with the last mission in the arc - Nemesis on the ruined-world map. Are they just trying to encourage farming?
Vernon made a serious bid for the 'mad' part of mad scientist by messing around with the Devouring Earth. You have to be insane to try to make them grow faster! Steady Arsonist made a few trips to Paragon City, fighting DE, Longbow, and the Woodsman himself in pursuit of Vernon's mad schemes. But Vernon wasn't done yet - he sent Steady Arsonist into a Crey lab after a cloned part of the Hamidon! Mad science, indeed. In the end, though, evil won out as the heroine Zenflower was defeated and Vernon ascended to full mad-scientist status.
L45+ DE seem to be all Boulders and bosses, at least in this arc. Pretty easy stuff, even though you can't immobilize them. I learned to herd up a bunch, lay Burn, then Footstomp to knock 'em flat. Not as good as using the Web Envelope, but you use what you have. As an added bonus, the Rubble tended to die from Burn and Blazing Aura before they could run away.
The Woodsman wasn't much of a challenge, but then I did have a lot of help. I felt like a mini-mastermind, with my own Arachnoid pet, a Shivan, and a Razorvine from the Summon Creeper temp power. He did summon some helpers, looked kind of like Tuatha, and he confused me once. But with my own helpers and a Break Free, he didn't last long.
Moving from DE to Crey was less than desirable. Stupid Crey tank minions with their cold and electric damage. Things went a lot slower, but I got through it. Then it was time to take out a heroine that was trying to pacify the DE, using Vernon's own mad science against him. Zenflower was pretty pathetic, I didn't even have to use a second set of inspirations. I did use a Shivan, but I shouldn't have bothered on her. The only thing of note that she did was use Carrion Creeper vines, but I just ran away from them after she was dead.
With the double XP, I managed to make 50 without touching my Black Scorpion story arcs. Abyss decided to talk to me again right as I hit 50, too, probably another one of those screwy story arc things. That's fine, I'll probably run them as SG events later, actually play with a team for a change.
When I hit 49 I took Rise of the Phoenix. Who knows, I might PvP again sometime. At 50 I put 2 slots in Health, which I probably should have done earlier instead of slotting the useless pet. I also put another recharge slot in Rise of the Phoenix - why not?
Steady Arsonist is currently level 50, with 194 hours played (71 since Issue 7, about 10 on Double XP weekend, 24 as a malefactor).
Conclusion
So, the journey is over. It's been fun, but I have to admit I was getting tired of this toon. At the high levels, a lot of holes show up in a SS/Fire Brute build, and normal play becomes a chore. I am pleased with Brute-ing in general, though. The combination of decent defense and Fury's crazy damage is perfect for a solo character.
If I had to do it again I wouldn't go with the Fire secondary. While Burn and Blazing Aura are nice for damage, the holes in the secondary are just too big to overlook. When you're soloing, you don't have anyone else to cover for your lack of knockback protection, non-Fire resistances, End drain protection, and defense. You can take powers to compensate for some of those, and I did, but it means you have to put off other nice powers or skip them altogether. Plus you don't even get a tier-9 uber power for use on bosses and such. I'd probably go Energy or Electric defense for a solo build now.
On the offense side, I like Super Strength, but again I wouldn't do it if I was starting fresh. The Rage drop is a pain - a manageable pain, but a pain nonetheless. I'd rather go with another set that doesn't make me stop every 90 seconds. Dark has some nice utility powers and the negative energy damage isn't resisted as much, Energy just has huge damage, or maybe Stone for all the knockdown effects.
I'm not impressed at all with the villain patron pools. The heroes get all kinds of nice utility powers; villains get a couple blasts, a useless pet, and an immobilize. While I got lots of good use out of the immobilize on this toon, for anyone without Burn it wouldn't have been worth picking up. Poorly done, Cryptic. You guys should at least buff the pets to make them worth taking.
All in all, I'm impressed with the City of Villains content. While I can't say I actually like ruining people's lives, the stories are interesting. Some contacts, like the Radio and Television, are pure genius. The newspaper system and mayhem missions are awesome. The content designers can be proud of what they've done.
The zone designers, on the other hand, should be ashamed of themselves. It's a royal pain trying to get anywhere prior to travel powers. The lowbie mayhem mission temp powers help, but only to a point - and Nerva and Grandville are a huge pain even with travel powers. The look and feel of the zones is great - the usability is horrible. And when you play for a couple hundred hours in those zones, usability is just as important, maybe more so. Give me Paragon City any day, stupid level-restricted hazard zones and all, over the Rogue Isles.
A couple of changes during the life of this character made soloing much more manageable - the AV/Hero-to-Elite-Boss change, and the promotion of Shivans to work above level 25. On behalf of everyone who ever tried to solo a character above level 20, thank you, Devs. While the majority of players may not solo a lot, some of us do, and we greatly appreciate the ability to get through the content on our own.
I hope all this has been useful to anyone interested in some tips and tricks for soloing a Brute. It's been fun!
Here's my L50 build:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.6.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Steady Arsonist
Level: 50
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Super Strength
Secondary: Fiery Aura
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Punch==> Acc(1)EndRdx(3)Rechg(11)Dmg(23)Dmg(43)Dmg(43)
01) --> Fire Shield==> EndRdx(1)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(7)
02) --> Haymaker==> Acc(2)EndRdx(3)Rechg(11)Dmg(43)Dmg(45)Dmg(45)
04) --> Healing Flames==> Rechg(4)Rechg(7)Rechg(15)Heal(15)Heal(19)Heal(23)
06) --> Hurdle==> Jump(6)
08) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(8)EndRdx(9)Rechg(9)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)Dmg(40)
10) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(10)
12) --> Boxing==> Acc(12)EndRdx(13)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Plasma Shield==> EndRdx(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(19)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)Heal(50)Heal(50)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(21)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)
24) --> Rage==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)TH_Buf(31)TH_Buf(31)TH_Buf(33)
26) --> Consume==> Acc(26)Rechg(27)Rechg(27)Rechg(29)EndMod(29)EndMod(31)
28) --> Tough==> EndRdx(28)DmgRes(34)DmgRes(34)DmgRes(34)
30) --> Blazing Aura==> EndRdx(30)EndRdx(33)Acc(33)Dmg(37)Dmg(37)Dmg(39)
32) --> Foot Stomp==> Acc(32)EndRdx(36)Rechg(37)Dmg(45)Dmg(46)Dmg(46)
35) --> Fiery Embrace==> Rechg(35)Rechg(36)Rechg(36)
38) --> Burn==> Dmg(38)Dmg(39)Dmg(39)
41) --> Web Envelope==> Acc(41)Rechg(42)Rechg(42)Immob(42)EndRdx(46)
44) --> Disruptor Blast==> Acc(44)
47) --> Summon Blaster==> Rechg(47)Rechg(48)Rechg(48)Dmg(48)
49) --> Rise of the Phoenix==> Rechg(49)Rechg(50)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)EndRdx(13)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
---------------------------------------------
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Nicely Done Ineffable_Bob.
I run a SS/Fire brute myself and have experienced many of the same challenges. My main issue is endurance. I have a end redux in every attack, toggle, 3 in BA and 3 in Tough. The toon has endurance issues all by himself and when you add endurance draining foe's it makes it that much worse.
I've been seriously considering an Aid - Self type build to drop tough. I don't have end mod's in my consume but that will be soon to come so that I can cast it even with just 1 foe surrounding me.
I have to agree with you that if I ever create a brute SS / Fire would not be it.. The Rage drop, Lack of defense, and stamina issues can hamper the fun sometimes.
There are benefits to Rage but it seems to drop at the worse time.
Again.. very nicely done.. I'll be adding this thread as one of my favorites.
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Nicely Done Ineffable_Bob.
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Thanks, I appreciate it.
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I run a SS/Fire brute myself and have experienced many of the same challenges. My main issue is endurance. I have a end redux in every attack, toggle, 3 in BA and 3 in Tough. The toon has endurance issues all by himself and when you add endurance draining foe's it makes it that much worse.
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Yeah, it has been an issue, but Consume helps a lot, and I would often Rest during the Rage downtime. The Rage drop actually helped when I timed that right - if you have to be doing nothing for 10 seconds, why not Rest? Of course, when I didn't time it right, the drop would sometimes run me out of End and then it got ugly.
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I've been seriously considering an Aid - Self type build to drop tough. I don't have end mod's in my consume but that will be soon to come so that I can cast it even with just 1 foe surrounding me.
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I never really considered Aid Self. I already had Healing Flames, and the time needed to cast 2 heals would really eat into the attack chain.
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I have to agree with you that if I ever create a brute SS / Fire would not be it.. The Rage drop, Lack of defense, and stamina issues can hamper the fun sometimes. There are benefits to Rage but it seems to drop at the worse time.
[/ QUOTE ]
I know the Devs have looked at the Fiery Aura secondary recently. I hope they take note of this. Sure, it can be played - but it's just not as much fun as other secondaries because of everything you have to do in order to fill the holes. The damage from Burn and Blazing Aura just isn't worth all the problems we have to put up with - especially Burn, which is really only usable for L41+ Brutes with a Patron Immobilize.
Super Strength has a similar problem, although Rage solves most of the issues related to enemies resisting smashing damage. The Rage drop is very annoying to say the least, although at least it doesn't stun you any more. I won't be playing another SS toon any time soon, that's for sure - why put up with the annoyance when I can go with Energy Melee? Not only is there no drop, but the damage is better overall anyhow, and I get a stun effect for damage mitigation.
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I must say, you have a very nice guide and cograts on getting so far soloing. I have looked for a while and have been trying to find a solo build that i'd like to try out. I have heard of a few but those were the widely used ones. I wanted something that not everyone used. I made my SS/Fire brute on Virtue and he is level 12 so far. I have a had a /few/ problems with endurance but definatly not anything I would complain about yet.
"NO....No clowns" - Positron
50s: Smasha (SS/SD Brute), House Rules (Mind/Thorn Dom), Wind of Mind (Illusion/Storm Controller), Coraxa (Kat/Inv Scrapper), Summer's Dream (Fortunata)
[ QUOTE ]
I must say, you have a very nice guide and cograts on getting so far soloing. I have looked for a while and have been trying to find a solo build that i'd like to try out. I have heard of a few but those were the widely used ones. I wanted something that not everyone used.
[/ QUOTE ]
Thanks, appreciate the compliments. As for builds...well, I found out there's a reason everyone uses a few types. It's just not a lot of fun to solo a toon with no defense, holds, or end drain protection in the 40+ game.
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A very interesting read
I had a chance to catch up on this great journal (up to level 36 or so, anyhow) now that I'm creating my very own SS/Fire brute. Lots of great advice in there! Thanks for a great read and plenty of experience I should be able to leverage into my own leveling.
Author's Note
I'd died before, but nothing since level 10 when debt started. Ah well, nothing you can do about the Internet connection death. It didn't take long to get back from the hospital and pound those last couple of guys, and finish the mission. The mission bonus took care of almost all the debt anyway. Still going to try to avoid that in the future, though. 
This isn't your average guide. It's more of a journal of my experience playing my Brute up to L40 in CoV/Issue 6. And it's really long. But I think it will be of help to anyone considering playing a solo toon, Brutes especially, so I wanted to post it here since the boards ate the original thread. If I decide to continue the same playstyle from L40-50 once CoV has been expanded to that level, I'll add entries here.
Steady Arsonist hit 40 in Jan. 2006, so he didn't have the benefit of the Elite Boss-instead-of-AV/Hero change. Nor did he have the L1-10 temp powers, or anything else that came out since then. I expect soloing to be signifigantly easier for toons starting now, based on the AV/Hero->Elite Boss change alone.
If you're mostly interested in tips and tricks, I recommend reading just the final section. There's also no spoilers in that bit. I posted my final build there as well.
Spoiler Warning: I talk about some of the missions I've done in the recap below. If you don't want to know, don't read on.
Introduction
He has loved fire ever since he was a young child. Playing with matches caused several mysterious fires during his childhood, but he was never caught. Then as a young teenager, he went to a circus for the first time, and was instantly captivated by the fire-eaters. Within a month, he had run away to join them. He had to work to earn his keep - being a strapping young lad, he was put in the sideshow as a strongman. But he never forgot his first love of fire, and learned all he could about it. Not long ago, the circus went bankrupt, and soon after he was thrown into the Zig for attempted arson. It seems that Lord Recluse sees potential in this pyromaniac, and now Steady Arsonist is loose in the Rogue Isles....
I finally picked up City of Villains at the start of December, and decided right away that I wanted to dedicate one of my toons to soloing. I play in plenty of teams as well, and I have lots of other characters to team with, but there's times when solo play is a lot of fun. So I looked around at the ATs and decided on a Brute. The high sustained damage, decent defense, and status protection that Brutes can obtain are all things that are very useful to a soloer.
For powersets, I considered several options. I knew I wanted an End recovery power and a damage aura, so that led me to */Fire or Dark/Dark. Despite my ridiculous number of CoH characters, I've never played a super strength toon more than a few levels, so that primary set looked appealing. SS/Fire it was.
After a few posts on the forums, and some good feedback from various folks, I settled on this build:
---------------------------------------------
Exported from Ver: 1.7.3.0 of the CoH_CoV Character Builder
---------------------------------------------
Name: Steady Arsonist
Level: 35
Archetype: Brute
Primary: Super Strength
Secondary: Fiery Aura
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Punch==> Acc(1)Rechg(3)Dmg(7)EndRdx(11)Dmg(15)
01) --> Fire Shield==> EndRdx(1)DmgRes(5)DmgRes(9)DmgRes(13)
02) --> Haymaker==> Acc(2)Rechg(3)Dmg(7)EndRdx(11)Dmg(15)
04) --> Healing Flames==> Rechg(4)Heal(5)Rechg(9)Heal(13)Rechg(19)Heal(27)
06) --> Hurdle==> Jump(6)
08) --> Combat Jumping==> DefBuf(8)
10) --> Knockout Blow==> Acc(10)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)Dmg(33)
12) --> Boxing==> Acc(12)
14) --> Super Jump==> Jump(14)
16) --> Plasma Shield==> EndRdx(16)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(17)DmgRes(19)
18) --> Health==> Heal(18)
20) --> Stamina==> EndMod(20)EndMod(21)EndMod(21)
22) --> Acrobatics==> EndRdx(22)EndRdx(23)EndRdx(23)
24) --> Rage==> Rechg(24)Rechg(25)Rechg(25)
26) --> Tough==> EndRdx(26)DmgRes(27)DmgRes(29)DmgRes(29)
28) --> Consume==> Acc(28)
30) --> Blazing Aura==> EndRdx(30)EndRdx(31)Acc(31)Dmg(31)
32) --> Foot Stomp==> Acc(32)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)Dmg(34)
---------------------------------------------
01) --> Sprint==> Run(1)
01) --> Brawl==> Acc(1)
01) --> Fury==> Empty(1)
02) --> Rest==> Rechg(2)
---------------------------------------------
I'll worry about 35+ when I get there.
L1-10
The Rogue Isles felt like home as soon as he arrived. Mercy Island even had fires burning in random locations! But Steady Arsonist wanted more from life than simple fire-setting pleasures. It was time to start thinking big. Beating down traitors and taking out Snakes for Kalinda was a pleasure, and brought him closer to a place in Arachnos. A place where he could set fires bigger than mere flame, fires that would burn through his enemies and leave behind their wealth for the taking.
The first five levels was nothing to write home about. Operative Burch, Snakes, yada yada yada. After finishing Kalinda's missions, I was about halfway to 6, and decided to head straight to Port Oakes instead of bothering with Mongoose.
The newspapers in the Rogue Isles have a lot of good information. It wasn't long before he'd found leads on stolen technology, missing magical artifacts, and good old cash rewards ripe for the taking - for anyone with the brawn to take them. And he had the brawn. Soon, his exploits came to the attention of Mr. Bocor and Bille Heck, both of whom were more than willing to pay for his services. The name of Steady Arsonist was becoming known - and feared.
Newspaper missions are great. I hit level 6 with the 3 missions needed to get my first contact. Thanks to Mr. Bocor, I have 5 zombie pets waiting to be used. Well, 4 now - I used one when I accidentally took a CoT newspaper mission, and needed a distraction to take the alpha strike from the Madness Mage boss - no sleep protection until L16. Mr. Bocor's story arc and a few more newspaper missions took me past level 8, and what a difference Combat Jump+Hurdle makes! This was pre-holiday jetpack, so any traveling help was welcome.
By this time I'd moved my difficulty up one notch to Malicious. Multiple +0/+1 minions at this level aren't a big deal when you have some disorient resist and smash/lethal resist. My only real challenge was that CoT mission, which spawned multiple +1 Energy and Life Mages, but some inspirations got me through. Increased XP reward for taking down a real boss (rather than a Villainous-level forced Lt) and better mission bonuses are good things.
I got Billie Heck's story arc next, and everything was going well until I ran into the mission with Guido, the Elite Boss. I had to take a break and do some more of Mr. Bocor's missions and a few newspapers to level, then I went back and cleaned Guido's clock. I repeated that process with Emil Marcone, another Elite Boss, a couple of missions father into the arc.
L10-20
Sometimes information comes from the strangest places. A radio, of all things, turned up a lead about a chance to stick it to those goodie two-shoes over in Paragon City with a viral outbreak. Some scientist over in Cap au Diable had some good information, too. He never would have thought to check there on his own - good thing those Brokers deal out the information cheaply.
I was nearly L11 before I got to the L10+ contacts, thanks to finishing up Billie's story arc. I love that Radio mission to plant the Outbreak virus - not only is it a cool tie-in with the CoH story, but that Longbow outdoor mission is some awesome XP. I did the Radio's story arc, too.
Then I headed over to Cap au Diable and started in on Shelly Percey's missions. Unfortunately, her story arc was still bugged, and I couldn't complete the mission to 'Save Dr. Percey's work'. Rather than wait for a GM, I just reset the mission and purposely failed it by allowing the mobs to kill the object. Oh well. I was still nearly 15, and a few more newspaper missions got me the other two contacts just in time to outlevel them.
One of his contacts sent Steady Arsonist back to Mercy Island to meet with an Arachnos seer named Marino. She paid well, so he helped her out in her search for her brother. Little did he suspect that this task would bring him to the personal attention of Ghost Widow! Lucky for him, he chose the right side of the conflict. A commendation from Ghost Widow will look pretty good when he makes his move into Arachnos.
The Seer Marino arc is easily my favorite story so far. Ghost Widow is a sexy dead chick, of course, which is cool all by itself, but the story behind her 'undeath' makes a great arc. Having her and Wretch both show up in the missions was a stroke of genius. Many kudos to the writers on that one.
This arc got me to 16, where I finally picked up some Hold/Sleep protection with Plasma Shield. Now I fear no bosses, although the ones that do knockback take some patience to take down. It'll be level 22 before I can stand toe-to-toe with those. Until then, it's just a matter of having the right inspirations.
Cap au Diable has some interesting features. The demon trapped under the nearby mountain, for example. Disturbing it doesn't seem like a great idea, but he decided it's no concern of his, and kept it secret from the public. That's what Marshall Brass paid for, after all, and it's more good press within Arachnos.
Another Arachnos contact, Operative Wellman, had some tasks in Paragon City, and Steady Arsonist was happy to oblige. Breaking some more new blood out of the Zig was fun, and if those villains ever amount to anything, rest assured that they'll be reminded who got them out in the first place. Stopping the reconstruction in Boomtown was even better. Setting fire to construction supplies and equipment - just like old times at home.
Brass' mission to rescue the power workers from the Clockwork was a royal pain. Not only was it Clocks - End drain everywhere - but the map is a nasty mix of buildings, alleys, walls, rooftops, and catwalks. I leveled after taking out only a few groups of Clocks, and then spent a good 20 minutes jumping around the map, followed by hordes of blue Clockwork that I'd aggroed, trying to find the hostages. The spawns in that mission are really close together - I'll do my best to avoid that one in a big team.
I discovered around this time that I actually did more damage over time with an End Reduction DO in both Brawl and Boxing, rather than accuracy. I missed more, sure, but they still generate Fury when they miss, and they're my most-used attacks, since they recharge fast. Less End use = more attacks = more Fury, and my SS attacks are the ones doing most of the hurt anyway. And when I hit L18 and picked up Health, my survivability went up another notch - every little bit helps.
Also I learned that against non-status-effect mobs, it was better to not run my shields at all. Even though I took significantly more damage without them, especially Fire Shield, the End I saved made up for it. With no shields, I could run through 2-3 groups of minions, ending up with both Health and Endurance at low levels (and then I'd Rest). With shields, I'd only go through 1-2 groups before running out of Endurance; I'd have lots of Health, but that doesn't matter much when you're out of End. So I only ran the shields if the mobs could stun (like Mooks, or RIPs) or if facing Lts/Bosses.
The Zig Breakout mission was awesome. Those villains you're rescuing are pretty decent fighters in their own right, although the Brute annoyed me by aggroing everything in sight. I especially liked the energy blaster, his damage was the best of the three. Then I went to the Boomtown reconstruction map, which I really liked - well designed, with the construction sites overlaying the familiar Boomtown areas. It didn't hurt that there were 6 bosses on that map, and normal spawns were 5 minions each, so the XP was great too.
I ran a couple of Bloody Bay missions, too, mainly just to get the badge and temp power. I hear that you can get some great XP in those missions, but they seemed kind of boring. I'll keep the PvP zone missions as a backup plan, in case I get stuck on AV/Hero missions and need something to get some XP.
Finally I picked up some missions from the Golden Roller to push me up to 20. I was surprised to find an Elite Boss version of the Sea Witch at the end of a mission simply described as "Defeat all Luddites", but I didn't let it stop me. Combat Jumping+Hurdle for the win - I'd jump in next to her, lay down some smack, and then when she turned on Hurricane, jump away behind a wall or crate. While Hurricane stayed on, I kept up the hide and seek, recovering End and waiting. Once it dropped, back in for the smashing. About 5 iterations of this and down she went.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 20, having just picked up Stamina, and the nearest citizen with an 'M' name told me that I'd been playing for 21 hours.
L20-23
Steady Arsonist received word through his contacts that Kalinda, his first Arachnos contact, had another job. It was time to prove himself ready for the next level - by going to Paragon City and defeating a hero there. As a reward, he'd be given the right to wear a cape. Capes aren't really his style, but Arachnos doesn't need to know that - they just need to see that he can get the job done.
Around the same time, word on the street said that Arachnos was hitting Longbow shipments headed to Paragon City. Apparently the do-gooders are looking to get into the Christmas Spirit, and Recluse is playing Scrooge. Steady Arsonist couldn't care less about gifts for the needy, but getting another good word in at Arachnos is what he calls getting into the holiday spirit.
The cape mission was pretty easy. Longbow in the 20s are pathetically easy for this build. The flamethrowers do only minor damage, the gunners only slightly more so, and they don't seem to have much resistance to smashing damage. The only real challenge is the bosses - well, that and chasing down the darn Eagles when they fly away. My cape Hero was a Energy/Energy blaster. I never went below half health against him, but I did spend a lot of time getting knocked down. If I ever do this again, the cape is waiting until after I have Acrobatics.
The holiday mission is extremely easy as well, which I assume was the intent. I'm glad they made it a one-shot thing for each character, or that would be another powerleveling craze like the Winter Lords were. Glad to see some lessons have been learned - although apparently QA testing has gone downhill, judging from all the lag spikes and other issues.
Sharkhead Isle is home to the Scrapyarders, people that Steady Arsonist can relate to - after all, they blow stuff up. One of his contacts, Captain Petrovich, had some leads on these miners, and on their leader. The Captain said he was after their leader, so Steady Arsonist played along to get a chance to meet her. The leader was a disappointment though - her morals were too high for his tastes, so he turned her over to the Captain.
Along the way, he decided it was time for some training. Keeping his feet in battle had become a real chore. In between missions, he sought out and trained with some martial arts enthusiasts. He's still not close to the acrobats he knew in the circus, but his fighting skills are much improved.
Level 22 and Acrobatics, hooray! SOs too, but I can't really afford those yet. Acrobatics is much more important to me at the moment. Now I really fear no minions, and the bosses are a lot easier when you can keep on smashing without fear of being knocked onto your rear. I did manage to afford a couple of End recovery SOs for Stamina, and that helped a ton as well.
Scrapyarders are pretty tough. The Demolitionist fire damage actually does hurt me, even with all the resists I have - it's gotta suck for an Invuln. The minions have some tough melee attacks too. I saw the Ghost of Scrapyard a couple of times while I was roaming around the zone, but I have no desire to fight him. His train of Scrapyarders is pretty cool to watch, though.
That Sea Witch heroine just won't go away. Lorenz Ansalso of the Family put Steady Arsonist on her trail again, and together they tracked her down to a ship that the Scrapyarders had taken over. Somehow she's gotten a lot stronger, though. He took one look and decided to save that fight for another day. Her boyfriend is in the hands of the Family - she's not going anywhere while that state of affairs continues.
The Hero Sea Witch is a royal pain. Debuffs everywhere and huge HP. I could handle the debuffs in a short fight with inspirations, but she's just got too many HP to take out quickly. I decided to wait a few levels on her - the mission is L22. Maybe around L24 I'll go back.
One of those Sky Raiders has been asking for help, and Steady Arsonist decided he'd answer the call - for the right price. Lt. Chalmers sent him after Wyvern and Longbow agents - easy money. Then Longbow attacked the Sky Raiders, and brought along some new battlesuit codenamed Ballista-1. That was a worthy opponent, but even that new Longbow tech wasn't enough to stop Steady Arsonist.
Ballista-1 was tough, but he didn't do any of the toggle dropping that people were complaining about after CoV release. It would have been a different outcome if he'd still had that power, I'm sure. Even as it was, he was tough, mostly because he seemed to resist smashing damage - resist it a lot. I got him down to 1/3, ran out of End, and had to leave the mission to restock on inspirations. When I came back, he was back up to 3/4, but with the inspirations, a zombie from the Loa bone, and that 1/4 HP head start, I managed to finish him off.
Steady Arsonist is L23 now, with 29 hours played.
L23-26
Steady Arsonist was introduced to Vince Dubrowski and therefore to the Cage Consortium - because Vince lives for Cage. After the disappointment of the Scrapyarder's leader, he had no problem thwarting their schemes. He had to wonder, though, if the Consortium machine would even notice Steady Arsonist - and he was sure they wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice him if it fit their needs. Taking Vince's money was all well and good, but he wasn't sad when Vince eventually turned him away.
This guy's missions took me through level 24 and most of the way to 25, but I hope to never see them again. Why? Two reasons: CoT and that damn Cage complex map. The CoT only showed up on one mission, but that was plenty - I came close to dying around a dozen times on that one mission. Even with Rage going, which I had picked up at 24, the spectral demons could debuff me to the point where I'd miss constantly. And their negative energy damage is huge. Then there was the Cage complex map, which showed up in several missions - all of which required finding between 3 and 6 glowies. What a pain! There are tons of hidden nooks and crannies in that map where a glowie can hide, and of course you can't see most of them unless you happen to be looking in just the right direction or stumble right into the spot. I must have spent a good 2 hours in the three missions on that map, when most mission only take me around 15 minutes each.
The good news in these levels - Rage. What a great power! At 24 with one recharge SO it had about 20 seconds downtime, and at 25 I got 2 more SOs into it and it's permanent. The 10 second 'cool-down' time where you can't attack is a small price to pay for the damage and accuracy increase. With Rage and only a small Fury bar, KO Blow one-shots most white minions, and once the Fury builds up, same for yellows.
Vince was still useful in one way - he knew Crash Cage, who had some jobs to do. Steady Arsonist decided to take the job to collect some kind of special coral. But first, it was time to deal with an old problem - the Sea Witch. He went out to the boat where the Witch was known to be awaiting word on her kidnapped Scrapyarder boyfriend, and found quite a crew of Scrapyarders and Legacy Chain mystics. None of them could stand up to a punch, though, not even the Witch herself - although she did take a few good knocks before going down.
As soon as I hit 25, I decided to take care of that Sea Witch Hero mission - which you may remember was level 22. Three things made me decide it was time: the three-level advantage, perma-Rage, and a new row of inspiration slots. I slotted up Rage, filled up the inspiration bar with blue Endurance pills, and headed in. After clearing one half of her ship, I pulled the Witch (who conned orange now) over to the deckhouse and started smashing. It's a good thing I had those inspirations, because her End drain was still seriously nasty, even with the level advantage. I had her down to about 1/3 when I lost my toggles - the Rage drop plus her attacks knocked out half my End bar at once, and her Thunderstorm and Hurricane immediately knocked me down. As soon as I could stand up, I ran off, reset my toggles and got Rage going, and came back to finish the job. All told, it took about 4 minutes to take her down, even with the three-level advantage - glad I decided not to try it at level 22!
With the Sea Witch defeated, he was free to finish the coral job. At first it was easy, tracking the shipment and heading to an old CoT base to retrieve it. But then Arachnos got involved. Going up against Arachnos wasn't the best idea for someone hoping to end up in their organization, but he had a job to do - and payment waiting. Things went smoothly at first, but then he ran into none other than Silver Mantis! He decided that maybe this job wasn't worth it after all.
After that, it was back to missions. Cage's coral hunt mini-arc seemed pretty innocent, but a 'Defeat all Arachnos' mission turned out to contain Silver Mantis! I actually jumped right into her mob spawn and started beating on a minion before I realized that the funny-looking Lt a few feet away was actually an AV. Needless to say, I jumped right back out again. That's one Arachnos that I wasn't taking down easily! I decided to show the better part of valor and leave this mission for later. I may be able to get by with a two-level advantage instead of the three I needed for the Sea Witch, since debuffs won't be as much of a problem.
Sharkhead Isle was starting to get boring, so Steady Arsonist decided to head over to the Nerva Archipelago. A lot more tough guys here, but a lot more opportunity, too. A couple of run-ins with the Tsoo caused some trouble, but he tore through some Council, Sky Raiders, and Freakshow that made the mistake of boasting about their loot.
Tsoo show up a lot in newspaper missions in Nerva. I had no option but Tsoo for my first mission, and that one almost killed me. Why? Three words - Green Ink Men. Energy attacks stacked from three +1 or two +2 Greens is enough to break through my disorient protection. They almost killed me twice in that one mission, but Break Frees saved my life. I also had gotten a ranged temp power from a previous mission, a gun of some kind, and I used it liberally to pull from groups with more than 2 Greens.
Why +1 and +2? I'd moved up my slider to Ruthless. And with the exception of the Tsoo, it worked out well. As long as I used a few inspirations before jumping into a mob with a +1 red-con boss, all went well. Even the occasional +2 purple boss wasn't that bad. The +1 yellow minion fights were actually the hardest, usually, because there were more of them, and they could put out bigger damage over time that way. Once I got some Fury going, though, they were no big deal either - just beat 'em down before they do any serious damage. The big reason I could do all this was Rage - the extra damage and accuracy let me hit consistently and take them down fast.
He met a new contact, known only as 'Shadowy Figure'. For a guy who seems to spend all his time in a back alley, he's got some interesting information. Steady Arsonist went up against some Longbow goons in pursuit of information and equipment needed to bust one of the Figure's buddies out of jail. He made it into the jail, and even to the right cell, without incident, but then he was distracted at a crucial instant. Defeated by Longbow! The hospital teleportation system worked, though, so shortly he was back on his feet and anxious for revenge. This time the fight was quick and bloody - with all the blood on their side.
I hit 26 somewhere around this time and picked up Consume. That's an extended-smash power. Now, after rolling through 2-3 minion groups, instead of stopping to rest, I'll hit Healing Flames to top off the health, jump into the next mob spawn, and hit Consume to top off the End. Ready to rock! The only problem right now is lack of slots - the recharge is too slow - but that will change, probably at 27. I know this a small departure from my build as posted above, but I felt that Consume made more sense than Tough, and I can take Tough at 28.
All was good until the end of the mission to rescue some villain from the Zag. Longbow's prison guards weren't any tougher than normal up until the last room, where a +1 boss, Lt., and minion group were guarding the prisoner. I popped a few inspirations, hopped in, pounded the boss into the ground, and turned to the Lt - when my attacks stopped working. I pounded buttons for a few seconds, then thought 'Oh crap, Rage must have dropped.' But no, a quick check of my buff bar showed Rage still up, and HeroStats said I had 30 seconds left. OK, time to run. And they didn't follow!
Great - until the dreaded Mapserver popped up. I hadn't been running - I'd been lagging and my toon was still standing in the same spot, getting the stuffing beat out of him! Turns out that the hotel Internet connection had died on my laptop (I'm traveling on business this week) and I had to reset it. By the time I got the game up and running again, Steady Arsonist was face-down in front of the Longbow.
My first debt.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 26.5, with 38 hours played.
L26-29
He met an ex-Longbow operative, Lt. Demitrovich. Or maybe she's still working for them as a double agent, he never really paid enough attention to that. Regardless, she knew a lot about Longbow and their weapons, including a new one meant to sap super powers. Retrieving it was easy, and it could come in handy some day.
Steady Arsonist also met Darla Mavis, an ex-hero out for revenge after her powers were permanently drained by her one-time allies. Darla has some serious revenge issues, and she's going after Aurora Borealis. He helped to find the heroine's itinerary, but he's not ready to go up against Aurora just yet.
Going from level 26 to 29 was something of a grind. Demitrovich's missions were kinda cool, but fighting Longbow isn't very challenging at this stage. And there were a LOT of Longbow. Other than the occasional newspaper mission, I didn't see much of any other mob group. The Longbow did get a little more challenging when I hit 28, since Spec Ops started to show up. The web grenade they use has some serious slow on it. I used to go after Eagles first, since they're annoying to chase down, but Spec Ops are the primary target now.
Picked up Tough at L28, which helps against bosses and large numbers of minions. It's an End hog, though, so I started my slotting with an End reduction. I may go all the way to 3 End reductions in that power someday, but one will do for now. At 29 I added 2 damage resists to it.
Around 28.5 I actually ran out of missions, since no one in Sharkhead would introduce me to the L25-30 contacts. I assume that's a bug - Crash I can understand since I had an open mission, but Lorenz had no excuse. So I went to Siren's Call and ran some door missions. More Longbow, but the XP is insanely good. I think I did 4 missions and got half a level. At 29, Lorenz finally decided to introduce me to Operative Kirkland.
Silver Mantis finally succumbed to Steady Arsonist. Several times he had faced her and been forced to flee, but eventually she was worn down. Crash Cage sent him to Mr. Bocor with the coral shard that caused all this trouble. Those shards are going to be trouble.
At level 27, 28, and 29, I reset to Villainous difficulty and tried to take out my L25 Silver Mantis AV. At 27, I didn't last more than about 30 seconds - she still did way too much damage. At 28, I was able to stand up to the damage for a while, but I had just gotten her to half health when she hit Dull Pain - pushed her from approximately 7500 to 11000 HP. I gave up at that point - no way I'd be able to take her down before running out of End inspirations. Finally at 29 I was able to take her out, but even with a four-level advantage it took me nearly 10 minutes to wear her down. The combination of Temp Invuln (which she turns on and off through the fight) and Dull Pain makes Silver Mantis extremely hard for a Super Strength toon to take down.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 29, with 45 hours played.
L29-31
Those coral shards did indeed turn out to be trouble. Crash introduced Steady Arsonist to Diviner Maros, a Circle mage who didn't seem to be totally in touch with reality. He knew plenty about a Freakshow cult, though, built around those coral shards. The Freaks weren't much a challenge, but then Barracuda showed up. Seems she thinks these shards are important to her past somehow. He wouldn't have minded just letting her do the dirty work, but Maros refused to pay unless she was taken out.
Steady Arsonist decided to head over to St. Martial for a while instead. Maros could wait. While he was there, he checked out Warburg, too. Something satisfying about having your own ballistic missile just waiting to strike.
AV #3, Barracuda. There's an Elite Boss in the mission as well, but he's only level 26, which I'm sure is a bug. Got this mission at level 29, and decided to wait a couple of levels for the AV fight. Now I had two AVs, Barracuda and Aurora, so I was stuck doing PvP-zone and newspaper missions. But that wasn't a bad thing, really, because after just a couple of missions I hit 30 and could use the time to get new contacts in St. Martial.
Hitting 30 changed my tactics, since I picked up Blazing Aura. Now I could herd up a few groups and let the aura do the lion's share of the damage. As long as I kept up a steady attack chain to boost Fury, the aura took down minions quick. My defense wasn't enough to handle more than a medium group, say about 10 +1 minions, but that's what inspirations are for - and the inspiration tray refills fast when you're dropping 10 mobs at a time.
I got my second debt when I was a little overzealous and herded up 3 mobs of +1 Freaks. I didn't scout well enough to realize that there were 4 Stunner Chief Lts. in those mobs, and when all 4 hit me with their sleep attack at once, it broke through Plasma Shield. Detoggled == dead. A valuable lesson - I stayed with only 2 Freak groups from then on, and made sure to check the number of Lts.
Warburg's rocket launch is easily the best PvP zone mini-game, in my humble opinion. After I hit 31, I did a few door missions there, then rescued some scientists and picked up a chemical missile. Why chemical? Debuffs are the key to defeating big enemies, and I had two AVs waiting.
I decided to test the missile on Barracuda. After resetting to villainous, she was L29 to my 31 - only a 2 level advantage. The chemical missile worked like a charm though. I got her down to about 1/4 life before the debuff wore off - until then she really wasn't able to hit me. That last 1/4 was harsh, though - she nearly killed me when Rage dropped, and I had to run out of the mission for more inspirations. She had only regenerated up to a little under half health when I got back, and the inspirations were enough advantage that I was able to take her down.
With only one AV mission taking up a mission slot, I was able to start in on my St. Martial contacts. I'm working on Hard Luck and Vivacious Verandi at the moment. I'd like to hit 32 and get my enhancements upgraded before taking on another AV - and of course I'll bring along another chemical missile strike.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 31.25, with 54 hours played.
L31-33
Maros wasn't done after the defeat of Barracuda and the Freak cult. The master shaper behind the cult, Calystix, was still at large, and was planning some kind of large-scale destruction. Steady Arsonist wasn't ready to let him destroy the Rogue Isles just yet - not after all the time he'd spent making a place there. Still, time wasn't a major factor, so he decided to build up his strength first.
St. Martial has the usual Rogue Isles mix of crazies, low-lifes, and would-be heroes in it. Steady Arsonist met up with a Carnival madwoman and a hard-luck gambler, both of whom paid well for a few jobs. The Carnie tried to set him up to release some sort of demon plague, but a demon hunter alerted him to the plan in time. He couldn't really blame the crazy woman - if she's hanging out with the Carnival she's obviously not right in the head. The gambler was a lot easier to deal with. A few simple jobs against the Freaks and Family brought in a tidy profit.
I spent some time in St. Martial to get to 32. Vivacious Verandi and Hard Luck are easy enough contacts to work through, and neither gave me an AV/Hero, for which I was grateful. I had to be very careful managing my Endurance bar, but other than that I had no trouble with any of the enemies I faced. I also went back to Warburg and grabbed another chemical missile and did a few more PvP zone missions - good XP on those things.
At 32 I picked up Foot Stomp. I'd originally thought I wouldn't use that power much, but I put it in the build since AoE attacks are hard to come by for a Brute. I'm glad to say I was very wrong - I use it all the time. Not so much for damage, but for the knockdown. Gather up a dozen enemies, knock 'em down, and Blazing Aura knocks 'em down by 1/3 while they stand back up. Very happy with the Foot Stomp.
The best part about L32, though, wasn't the power - it was the L35 enhancements. I'd saved enough infamy to get all the important enhancements - basically everything except for Brawl/Boxing accuracy, recharge in Rest, a couple of damage SOs, and jumps in the travel powers. Endurance management suddenly was a whole lot easier with L35 End Mod SOs in Stamina plus L35 End reductions in every attack and the toggles.
I tried Calystix at L32, but he spawned at L30, and his psionic damage plus the minions he summons were too much, even with the chemical rocket. I had to turn tail and run, and just barely made it out alive. I'll probably wait to 34 on that one - he was summoning bosses, and I have a hard enough time with the AV alone.
St. Martial was getting a bit boring, so he decided to see if anything else was shaking in Nerva. A couple of new contacts floated up - a creepy psionic mastermind, and an Arachnos operative. The psychic was weird, especially when he sent Steady Arsonist on a psychic journey to clear out his personal stable of psychoses. But nothing he asked for was a major challenge, so it was easy money. Operative Rutger was a different story - after a few easy tasks, he wanted Steady Arsonist to take on Luminary. He declined for now. That's a job that can wait.
I did enough newspaper missions to get Hardcase as a contact, but decided to head back to Nerva for a bit before started in on his stuff. Psymon Omega's storyline is interesting, even if I did have to fight Circle of Thorns a couple of times - hate those guys. Luckily none of his CoT missions were defeat-all, so I could just take out a boss or a few groups, which I did. The mission to defeat his psychoses is fun - listen to what the bosses are saying, there's some funny stuff in there. Although the Fear of Commitment maybe reveals a little more information than I needed to know.
Operative Rutger only gave me about 3 missions before dropping Luminary in my lap. Luckily the mission description actually mentions her, so I was able to avoid filling a mission slot. I'll pick that one up sometime after I've cleared out Calystix.
He also met Timothy Raymond, an ex-Lost with some major mental issues. Dude had a serious beef against the Rikti, which suited Steady Arsonist just fine - beating up aliens is just as much fun as kicking human butt. Maybe more fun.
Eventually it was time to head back to St. Martial and work with Hardcase. The Wailer demons that Hardcase is hunting don't seem that tough. He cleared out a whole cave of them without any trouble. The snow beasts infesting the Rogue Isles recently, though, are a different story. A horde of them were staking out Hardcase's location and sent Steady Arsonist to the hospital when he showed up looking for work. It can't warm up too fast for his taste.
Raymond's got some Rikti missions, the first I'd been assigned on this toon, and they proved to be no major challenge. The only trick is to make sure you tab through all enemies when you see a Lt by himself - because there's probably a horde of invisible drones. (At least on the graphics cards I have, on both machines, they're invisible until you get within about 20 feet - it's a glitch, not game invisibility like the Longbow Spec Ops.) As long as I didn't take on more than 4 or 5 drones at once - their energy damage adds up fast - all went well.
I started in on Hardcase's missions, too. Wailers are easy as long as you take them on in small groups - they're only dangerous when the debuffs stack up. I turned off Blazing Aura and went single-target for them - a little slower but a whole lot safer than using any kind of herding tactics. He did also give me a Carnie mission which I couldn't do until I dropped my difficulty to Villainous, because there was a Ring Mistress right inside the door who never seemed to miss with that -regen/-recovery attack they have. I must have tried 10 times to get inside without being debuffed before I finally gave up and lowered the difficulty. Even with her lowered to a Lt, I had to use most of my inspirations to take her down.
Getting to Hardcase himself was a real problem, too. With less than a bubble to go until L33, I headed back to him to pick up my next mission - only to drop immediately from the horde of L38 snow monsters standing right next to him. Debt #3. Apparently super-jumping right next to the contact there is a bad idea. Someone had hit the present that always spawns right next to Hardcase and failed to clean up the beasts. Whichever Dev put in the spawn point for that present right next to Hardcase is a sadist - not only does it screw anyone trying to get to the contact, but there's a mission door right there, too. I went back and used my temp stealth power (from the PvP zones) to get close enough to grab my mission - and I still had to hit some inspirations and jump away fast to stay alive.
I worked off the debt with some other missions and hit 33. I decided to go with a couple of slots in Rage for To-Hit buffs rather than slotting accuracy in Blazing Aura - that way I can go with 3 damage enhancements later on. I also got the 6th slot in Healing Flames - 3 recharge and 3 heals in that power, plus the 3 recharges in Consume, lets me keep fighting through an entire Rage uptime without running low of either health or End against most mobs. Longbow especially are very easy - although they got a damage buff in the 30s, Healing Flames plus the resistances from Fire Shield and Tough are enough to keep up.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 33, with 62 hours played.
A quick team-up
Yes, I finally broke down and joined a team with Steady Arsonist. Some SG mates were going to run the first respec strike force, and while I don't need a respec, I figured it would be nice to get the prestige for the SG. So I joined the team, malefactored at L28. I figure as long as my XP all comes from soloing, I'll still consider this guy a solo toon.
One guy accidentally picked up a timed Council mission, so we decided to clear that before the respec. Shouldn't take long, right? Famous last words. Our whole team wiped on numerous occasions as ambush spawns popped out of nowhere, pets aggroed entire rooms, and half the team ended up in the jail room and had to be rescued. That mission took us a full hour to complete, with multiple deaths for everyone.
After that fiasco, we decided the respec could wait. I earned a little infamy - about 2k - but most of my reward was prestige. And debt worked off toward the debt badge.
L33-35
Hardcase wasn't done with the Wailers. Steady Arsonist went back after those demons several times, and even broke into a Circle of Thorns base to stop the two mystic groups from making an alliance. Those mystic types are tough - not easy pickings by any means. Once they even sent him to the hospital, but he didn't give up. A job is a job, and he wasn't about to give in.
Tough little buggers, the Wailers. Easy enough one on one, even the bosses, but get more than 2 or 3 together and bad things can happen. Hardcase gave me a 'psychic plane' mission that had the same map used for one of the Carnie AVs. That map has a huge number of mob spawns, many of which are very close together. I got my fourth debt in that mission when an ambush spawn jumped me while I was fighting another group. My life went from 3/4 to zero in about 2 seconds when all those sonic debuff attacks nailed me. Luckily that was the only ambush spawn I saw, though, so no additional deaths followed.
I got most of the way to 34 finishing up missions from Timothy Raymond and Hardcase. Then every contact I had stopped offering me missions - except for the Luminary Hero, of course, so I finally picked that one up. Then I did a couple Warburg missions to finish off level 34. I deviated again from my planned build and put End reduction slots in Brawl, Boxing, and Knockout Blow. I'm very happy with the results - I almost never have to worry about endurance now, just Consume and the occasional inspiration get me through.
Warburg is a dangerous place, but nothing he couldn't handle. There's plenty of Longbow activity going on in there. Steady Arsonist took out a good dozen Longbow bases and retrieved a good amount of Longbow tech for Arachnos scientist to look at. Always nice to stick it to the heroes while getting in good with the spiders.
I spent all of level 34-35 in Warburg doing door missions. Doing PvP zone missions is a lot faster way to level than doing normal contacts, but it's a lot more boring, so I save it for a last resort. I forgot to keep an exact count, but I think it took 13-14 missions to level. I do know how long it took - just over 4 hours. I actually was about 2k short after the last one, so I just found a few wandering minions outside to finish up the level. That 2k came from my 5th debt - I forgot to watch my health bar when fighting a group of 6 +2 Longbow, and they got me.
I picked up Taunt at 35 - none of the other powers seemed all that useful, and I could use a pulling tool when a couple of groups spawn too close together. Hardcase decided to talk to me again once I hit 35, and a couple of other contacts opened up. I also hit a few explore badges to bump my total up over 50 - that gives the Obsessed badge, and opens up Johnny Sonnata. I'm sure I'll only get a couple of levels out of those contacts, but it beats doing all Warburg missions.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 35, with 72 hours played (1 of which was as a malefactor).
L35-36
There are still plenty of people who need the services of a guy like Steady Arsonist. He met a few new contacts, including Kelly Uqua from Crey Industries, Johnny Sonnata, and a madame working out of the Giza. It didn't take long to earn a spot on their regular call list as a head-buster. Johnny in particular had some strange jobs - one even sent Steady Arsonist to a strange dimension to capture a ex-CoT mage. And one of Johnny's jobs sent him after a Lord of the wailer demons - tough, but nothing he couldn't handle.
After hitting L35 a bunch of contacts opened up, so I spent a while doing missions to get their phone numbers. Some of those were Carnie missions, unfortunately, and one even had 2 bosses. I had to leave the mission to get more defense inspirations between bosses, but I managed to take them down with no deaths.
Johnny had one mission that sent me to the Shadow Shard where Longbow was holding Akarist prisoner - that was a fun one. Then later he sent me after a Wailer Lord Elite Boss - taunt showed its usefulness here, as I was able to pull away a Lt and several minions before facing the big fella. He hit hard - lost close to half my life whenever he used Shout - but he was slow, and even though he was a level higher than me, I had enough inspirations to take him down.
After getting all the phone numbers, which put me at about 35.5, I went back to Warburg to push to 36. I figured there's no way I'll get all the way to 40 on these contacts, so I might as well do a few PvP zone missions at a time. I also picked up another chemical rocket, in case I had trouble when I finally decided to take out Luminary. At 36 I put a couple of damage enhancements in Blazing Aura and one in Knockout Blow.
The Circle of Thorns have made a lot of enemies over the years - and they're not all human. A demon from some accursed plane of existence has hooked up with Arachnos for revenge on the CoT. Steady Arsonist teamed up with a group of like-minded villains to follow the demon's instructions and steal a source of power from the Circle - for a price, of course.
I once again joined a team in an attempt to do the first respec strike force, and this time we actually did the thing. We had a full team of 8 - thankfully only one mastermind, but the lag was still horrific. Fortunately 6 of the 8 team members were auto-malefactored to L30, so most of us were higher level than the mobs. So the lag didn't kill us. I did die once on the way to a mission, but the debt went away fast. The final mission was pretty easy - cleared the vines and took down the AV in short order. Total time, an hour and a half.
I can certainly see how that respec TF would be really tough if you were running without many people at L30. Just like the hero respec, I suppose - usually very difficult at lower levels, but easy if you get people at the higher end of the level range.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 36.2, with 78 hours played (2.5 of which were as a malefactor).
L36-38
Kelly Uqua's bosses at Crey must either be very gullible, or they think they can use a Rikti in the ranks. Uqua dropped enough hints to let anyone with half a brain know she's a Rikti impostor. In the end, Steady Arsonist had to stop a Longbow officer from revealing her deception. Maybe the Crey higher-ups have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
Uqua gave me a mission with a Longbow Ballista elite boss, which I wasn't able to do even on Villainous difficulty. I beat one of those guys earlier with a lot of inspirations, but I had to zone to a contact to buy more in order to do it, and this one was 3 floors deep in an office building. So that strategy was out. Luckily I'd been doing some missions from other contacts, so I wasn't very far from 37. I just did a few Warburg missions to level and then beat the snot out of that elite boss. One level advantage is enough for those guys.
At 37 I added some more damage slots to Knockout Blow and Blazing Aura. Honestly, I haven't noticed a huge difference - Fury and Rage add enough damage that the enhancements are just icing on the cake. But it can't hurt, I figure. Then I went back and beat up Luminary. Didn't even need to use the rocket, not with a 4 level advantage.
Johnny Sonnata kept Steady Arsonist jumping through hoops on various jobs for a while, but finally revealed what he wanted. Seems Johnny sold his soul a while back, and now he's regretting the deal. So it was off to a mystic portal to the realm of Johnny's being - and that's one ugly soul he has. It'll be a while before that thing is reclaimed.
A Wailer AV, eww. Johnny's Soul is not something I plan to face at even level, not when a mere Elite Boss was able to take out half my life with one shot. A +1 Elite Boss, to be sure, but AVs are much worse. Then one of my other contacts gave me another Longbow Ballista Elite Boss. Two mission slots filled, so it was back to Warburg.
I actually tried to get a couple more rockets so I could take out the Ballista - I figured that with all three types I could take him out with one tray of inspirations - but I couldn't even find a scientist with all the other players and snow beasts down underneath the city. They really need to do some server maintenance, to clear out winter horde spawns if nothing else.
So instead I was back to PvP zone missions. I don't really mind - this is the last level I'll be able to run on Ruthless and not have to face Spec Ops EMP grenades. About a dozen missions later, I was less than half a bar to 38. I reset to Villainous, went into the elite boss mission, took out enough minions to level, and then smacked around the boss.
At 38, I picked up Weave. Yeah, I know, it sucks. But nothing else seemed worthwhile either, and if I drop a few slots in Weave it'll be 5% defense. That's like having a permanent Luck inspiration - nothing great, but every once in a while it'll save your life. For now I'll only use it in situations where defense is more important than endurance - basically only when herding or fighting nasty cold-damage enemies.
Steady Arsonist is currently level 38, with 89 hours played (2.5 of which were as a malefactor).
L38-39
An Arachnos operative in Nerva has been working on portal technology to explore alternate dimensions. Steady Arsonist decided that was an excellent opportunity to both impress Lord Recluse and search for some powerful allies - or enemies. Some of the missions took him to the Shadow Shard, an alternate dimension inhabited by aliens called the Rularuu. The ones he met weren't much of a challenge, but he has a feeling they'll be major trouble down the road.
Rularuu minions are easy. The eyeballs do -defense attacks, but no status effects - those are Lt level and above. And the Brute minions aren't any challenge whatsoever. I'll do Rularuu missions any time, too bad there aren't more of them.
The alternate dimension missions are generally pretty fun. They're also usually pretty large maps, which at this level is great, since you need lots of XP and herding up a lot of +1 minions is a great way to get it. Good for a Brute, anyway. I fought a lot of DE and Longbow, both of which are pretty easy minion fights - although with Longbow you have to be careful to take out the Spec Ops quickly.
Nemesis soldiers started to show up in some of the alternate dimension missions that he went on. Strangely, they all treated him as an ally. Soon enough he learned why - they thought he was one of their automatons! Steady Arsonist wasn't about to let that stand. He fought his way into a Nemesis base - and shut down their plans to infiltrate Arachnos with automatons. Well, one of their plans, at least.
Excellent story arc, that Nemesis automaton arc. I like Nemesis, the whole "plans within plans" thing makes for some great stories. The arc was fairly easy to run through, although there was a Longbow Ballista in it at one point. (At least I think it was part of the arc. Same contact, anyway.) I was nowhere near leveling at the point where he showed up, so I decided to bite the bullet and use my rocket on him. With the chemical debuff, I had no trouble taking him down, even though he was a level above me.
Steady Arsonist isn't a big fan of the Mu Mystics in Arachnos, but he likes the Circle of Thorns less. One of the higher-ranking Mu Mystics sent him on several missions, mainly against the Circle. Most of those were no real challenge, but in one case the Circle was trying to summon some kind of demon lord, Baphomet by name. His contact told Steady Arsonist that he could prevent that summoning by taking out the Circle mages performing the summoning ritual, but that was wrong. No sooner had he attacked the first mages than demons began to appear, and they kept coming even as he defeated them. Finally Baphomet himself appeared. Steady Arsonist decided it was time to exercise the better part of valor and leaped away - only to land in a patch of quicksand! Baphomet had no such problem and quickly caught up - leading to a trip to the hospital.
Ugly. That Baphomet mission is clearly meant to be a surprise, since he shows up right after you attack the first of 9 rituals. It certainly surprised me. At least there's warning in the form of those 'Herald of Baphomet' demons. The debt was my own fault - I tried to run away from Baphomet, but still stay on the map, so he'd de-aggro and I could find the other rituals. But as part of an ambush spawn, he doesn't seem to de-aggro no matter how far you run, and I got caught in an Earth Thorn's quicksand patch - game over. Oh well. On the up side, the mission was timed, so I just let it expire. My contact wasn't happy, and refused to give me more missions for a while, but eventually he changed his mind and all was well.
One of Steady Arsonist's associated in the Fallen Legion was having some trouble with Aurora Borealis. He remembers that heroine, and not fondly, so he was more than happy to help take her down again.
I had debt after the Baphomet fiasco, so I malefactored down to help an SG mate with Aurora. She was L30, and with an L30 corruptor, L33 MM, and me malefactored to L30 she was no challenge at all. Her defeat, plus a few spawns of her Longbow minions, cleared out my debt quick.
I was pretty close to 39 by this point, so I did a few newspa
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