Plotting and Scheming a Solo Recluse Strike Force

I want to solo the Recluse Strike Force. Ideally I don't want to use Temporary powers. I plan on using inspirations. When plotting and scheming a character who may be able to succeed on this task assume that any villain archetype of any build is available at level 50. Further assume that all IOs are available and that the build can be made solely for completing this Strike Force. I'm looking for suggestions on the build to use and the exact methods on how to proceed. Then I plan on stealing your idea and taking all the credit.

The two most difficult parts of the RSF when solo are the final showdown with the Freedom Phalanx and fighting the giant robot Kronos Titan. These are the only parts I expect merit discussion. I expect that if those two phases can be defeated the rest can be defeated. Please feel free to suggest otherwise. When discussing the Kronos part I think the discussion is "Can I kill it without Temps? If no, can I kill it with temps?" I expect nearly all the discussion to be about the final Freedom Phalanx encounter.

A Mind/Psy Dominator was my initial idea. The plan was to get a build with massive recharge. Then I'd lather up the Freedom Phalanx with Mass Hypnosis and pull one Hero away from the bunch. I'd use my attack chain of Dominate --> Something else --> Dominate to perma-hold the AV. Something else included Total Domination, Drain Psyche, a 2nd attack or perhaps something else all while Telekinesis was running. I had significant trouble perma-holding lower level Heroes with this completed build.

Would it be possible for me to perma-hold a level 53 Hero indefinitely? What do I need to do so? I struggled with a massive recharge build, Total Domination, Domination and Telekinesis.

Would it be possible for me to instead chain Mesmerize? Can I fire Mesmerize, move around behind the Hero, Mesmerize again and not be attacked? Will I do enough damage? Can I modify this plan somehow?

I don't think I'd do enough damage for Kronos. I don't mind using Temps against him but I'd prefer not to use temps. Using temps on the whole thing would be silly in my view. I don't think I'd feel like I accomplished anything if I used a Shivan, an HVAC and nukes on each Hero.

My other options are using another archetype. The two that come to my mind are Brute and Mastermind. How can I single pull the Freedom Phalanx on either of these? Which targets should I shoot first? What is the procedure for single pulling? Is it simply not possible? Is another archetype potentially better?

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I suspect you will have trouble perma-holding a level 53 archvillain. Thats a lot of scale-to-relative-level. But you mgiht be able to perma confuse one. The question would be whether you would deal enough damage.

Fortunately this is easy to test since there are many level 53 heroes you can drop in an AE mission and practice on.

This is by far the coolest project i have seen in a long time. I wish you luck!

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I heard someone solo'd an iTF with a mastermind. Don't know if it can be done here, but it's worth the discussion.

"The One"

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76 characters and Twenty-four 50s later, I still love this game.
AlienOne's Human-Form Warshade Guide (Old guide+New guide = 12,000+ views!)

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I heard someone solo'd an iTF with a mastermind. Don't know if it can be done here, but it's worth the discussion.

"The One"

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Multiple people have solo'd the ITF in multiple ways. Which Mastermind for the RSF? How do I pull the Heroes? That's what I'm trying to figure out.

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Beware the purple patch. Your henchmen will have a fair bit of trouble with it.

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I think it's gotta be the mind dom, but I'm really quite skeptical about your ability to deal enough damage to beat the regen. Maybe do thorns as your secondary so you can slot some Achilles heel procs.

And yeah, chances of perma holding an AV are slim, but like somone already said perma CONFUSING is more likely.

Actually...

Okay, here's the plan. This might actually work.

You do the big hero naptime thing, and then pull TWO heroes. you see where I'm going with this.

Once the two you pull are out of range of the still sleeping heroes, you can sleep them both again so they don't murder you while you try to stack some confuses on them. At the same time, keep the rest of the heroes asleep so they don't come looking for their buds.

Hopefully, you have a full purple set in your confuse, including the wonderful proc, which should help you much in getting your confuses stacked up. Once both of your pulled heroes are nice and confused, slap em around to wake them up and then let them beat on each other while you help. Probly good to pair up the heroes so that the guys with big resists are up against those with high damage. Pit Psyche or Numina vs guys who have no psi resist. Your job here will be to help the damage dealing hero against the tank.

Once one hero falls grab somebody else from the naptime statue to join in your little hero fight club.

Having two heroes beat on each other is probably your only real solution to the serious damage shortfall you'll be up against.

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I'd lean towards the permadom mind/psy. Confusion and sleep powers are your friends when dealing with multiple AVs. One of my fellow players (who sadly has left the game after being disappointed with i14) had a permadom mind/psy that could easily handle multiple EBs and AVs solo but I don't think he ever got around to trying the LRSF solo.

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Mind/something Dom thats for sure. You have to face the phalanx one at a time.

the /something would want Power buildup I think for extra duration on the holds and one or two very high DPA attacks.

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@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

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I think it's gotta be the mind dom, but I'm really quite skeptical about your ability to deal enough damage to beat the regen.

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I took out a level 51 Synapse while he was Perma-Held.

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And yeah, chances of perma holding an AV are slim, but like somone already said perma CONFUSING is more likely.

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Chances? It's mathematically based and there is little to no luck involved. Sure I can miss occasionally but that's about it.

Is Confusion resistance on Heroes/AVs affected by purple triangles?

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Confusion resistance is part of the purple triangles.

+50 Mag when up.

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@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617

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I think it's gotta be the mind dom, but I'm really quite skeptical about your ability to deal enough damage to beat the regen.

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I took out a level 51 Synapse while he was Perma-Held.

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And yeah, chances of perma holding an AV are slim, but like somone already said perma CONFUSING is more likely.

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Chances? It's mathematically based and there is little to no luck involved. Sure I can miss occasionally but that's about it.

Is Confusion resistance on Heroes/AVs affected by purple triangles?

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Confusion is affected, but I think it's the only way you'll be able to make it work.

Against a 51, powers are at 90% effectiveness. Against a 53, they'd be at 65%. I think you can reasonably expect a 4 sec cycle time on Dominate (that's roughly 300% recharge in it), but to break PToD you'll need to have 9 stacked at mag 6. That gives you 36 seconds if none miss.

The initial hold portion is 17.88 sec - this is the only portion that's mag 6, since the extra length from Domination is only mag 3. 65% of that is 11.622 seconds, so to get that to over 36 seconds you need roughly 310% Hold enhancement.

The base portion of Confusion, on the other hand, is 19.37 seconds after the purple patch. The animation time is longer (2.244 after adjustment in i15) so it will cut into your attack chain more, and you'd still need around 290%+ recharge in it to break PToD, but you can stack it enough on a +3 to do so.

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I'm hearing talk from several people that Confused Heroes on the Recluse Strike Force, specifically, will not damage each other.

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I'm hearing talk from several people that Confused Heroes on the Recluse Strike Force, specifically, will not damage each other.

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I don't know one way or the other on that one - I've never been on a team that bothered to try confusing them, knowing that we could either sleep them or just wipe them out all at once.

I was speaking more of using the confusion to prevent the one you're working on from hitting you, since it's unlikely you'll have the available animation time to get two of them confused through PToD. Post i15, damage shouldn't be too much of an issue - I think someone calculated out a perma-Dom Fire/Fire at around 300 DPS (don't remember if they were including imps or not, and the thread is too long for me to want to dig through it since I don't remember whose post it was).

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I'm hearing talk from several people that Confused Heroes on the Recluse Strike Force, specifically, will not damage each other.

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I don't know one way or the other on that one - I've never been on a team that bothered to try confusing them, knowing that we could either sleep them or just wipe them out all at once.

I was speaking more of using the confusion to prevent the one you're working on from hitting you, since it's unlikely you'll have the available animation time to get two of them confused through PToD. Post i15, damage shouldn't be too much of an issue - I think someone calculated out a perma-Dom Fire/Fire at around 300 DPS (don't remember if they were including imps or not, and the thread is too long for me to want to dig through it since I don't remember whose post it was).

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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I'm hearing talk from several people that Confused Heroes on the Recluse Strike Force, specifically, will not damage each other.

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They will damage each other. But with standard AV regen and HP so high, it doesn't make much of a dent.

It's funny as hell to watch, though.

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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Even with the increased damage scale on Fire Blast and Blaze in addition to the higher AT modifier?

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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Even with the increased damage scale on Fire Blast and Blaze in addition to the higher AT modifier?

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I believe so.

Feel free to prove me wrong

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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Even with the increased damage scale on Fire Blast and Blaze in addition to the higher AT modifier?

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I believe so.

Feel free to prove me wrong

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Hm... just some quick numbers showed that was true; without FE a perma-double-stacked Dom had around 3% more DPS than a post-i15 Dom on test. Of course, perma-double-stacked Domination is roughly 355% global recharge to get the base 200 second Domination recharge down to under 45 seconds...

I didn't bother to run the numbers for FE but they'd be behind by a significant amount while Fiery Embrace is up, though - they'd hit the cap while the i15 Dom would have plenty of room. The question then becomes is FE going to be up frequently enough to make a difference, and at those levels of recharge it'd be up well over half the time.

You'd definately be running through endurance faster, though.

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A Perma Mind/Psy will be able to permasleep the Phalanx almost indefinitely. When we do our Master runs on Infinity that's what we use:

1 Mind/Psy Perma
1 Mind/Fire Perma
1 VEAT
1 Brute
4 Corrs

You'll just need to spam Mass Hypno a few times then go from there. Good luck.

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Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
168760: A Death in the Gish. 3 missions, 1-14. Easy to solo.
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Champion, Pinnacle, Virtue Heroes

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Confusion resistance is part of the purple triangles.

+50 Mag when up.

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Yes... it is. But confusion powers have a singifcnalty longer duration thatn hold powers. WHile the +3 levels scaling might make it impossible to perma hold them through their mezz protection (meaning you must stack 51 magnitude worht of mezz effects), confuse might still last long enough.

Note (becuase there's invaraibly someone who says it) that it IS possible to perma-hold archvillains through their triangles at even or +1 levels, and we know this because people have done it.

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Truly high end perma-doms would double and rarely triple stack domination allowing them to do more damage than they will in I15


I can't wait to see you do this Smurphy

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Even with the increased damage scale on Fire Blast and Blaze in addition to the higher AT modifier?

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I believe so.

Feel free to prove me wrong

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Hm... just some quick numbers showed that was true; without FE a perma-double-stacked Dom had around 3% more DPS than a post-i15 Dom on test. Of course, perma-double-stacked Domination is roughly 355% global recharge to get the base 200 second Domination recharge down to under 45 seconds...

I didn't bother to run the numbers for FE but they'd be behind by a significant amount while Fiery Embrace is up, though - they'd hit the cap while the i15 Dom would have plenty of room. The question then becomes is FE going to be up frequently enough to make a difference, and at those levels of recharge it'd be up well over half the time.

You'd definately be running through endurance faster, though.

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Thank you Siolfir. Its been hashed over to death on the dom boards, and overwhelming conclusion is that the changes are a straight to buff to all dom builds except for those that cna sobule-stack domination and do not have a damage boosting click power (are not /fire or /electric). And to those that do meet those criteria the extent of the nerf is almost insignificant; so small that you will easilly make up the lost performance by altering your build to remove some of the highly sub-optimal power and slotting choices you will have had to make to reach that insane level of +rech.

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A Perma Mind/Psy will be able to permasleep the Phalanx almost indefinitely. When we do our Master runs on Infinity that's what we use:

1 Mind/Psy Perma
1 Mind/Fire Perma
1 VEAT
1 Brute
4 Corrs

You'll just need to spam Mass Hypno a few times then go from there. Good luck.

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Do you have any input on someone solo trying to actually defeat the heroes?

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Is there any chance of me being able to single pull the heroes in the final mission on a Brute or Mastermind or any other non-Dominator AT?

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Not that I have ever seen. Have tried a long range 'kite' with inertal reduction on. And though my Ice blast did only pull one, the rest eventually followed to the corner.

Your main struggle with a mind dom will be keeping all of the heroes slept. Because you will miss a few sometimes, and single target Mezmerize means they will sometimes get a quick attack off. And that one attack can be deadly. Going inbetween making sure all are slept and doing enough damage to your pulled hero would be quite a task, good luck if you do try it.

PS someone mentioned /thorns, and this caught me as possibly overcoming the problem above, but I think Drain Psyche is almost essential for this.

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I'm hearing talk from several people that Confused Heroes on the Recluse Strike Force, specifically, will not damage each other.

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I know for a fact this was true when the FP was level 54. I'm not 100% sure now that they're 53 but I'd be really really surprised if it had changed.

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And for a while things were cold,
They were scared down in their holes
The forest that once was green
Was colored black by those killing machines