Soloing AVs/GMs worth it?

So I've been considering making a toon capable of doing this for a while now. The only thing that's keeping me from doing it is that I'm not sure if it will be worth all the time and money it will take to get that character to 50, slotted with IOs. What I mean by that is, are the rewards for accomplishing such feats worth all the time it would take? For example, is there any money to be made from defeating the giant DE monsters? I guess I'm most curious about what kinds of drops you could get (if any), aside from those special inspirations, and in the case of AVs, are the drops considerably better?

If I'm going to take the time to make a toon for this, I guess I want it to be worth the time it takes. I don't want to make it if the only thing I would get out of it is being able to brag about who/what I killed solo. I have characters that can farm very well so I'm thinking I might just be better off playing them if all I'm looking to do is make money, but I know many people here have done this a lot so I was hoping to get some feedback from them on how this works for them.

I have an Ill/Rad which I use to solo GMs and the like (although I could've spent more money on it, but like you said, it isn't always worth it). I do have fun with it, but that's certainly not the only thing he can do. The same build which can solo GMs also brings great use to teams, especially on TFs (If I can solo a Kraken, I can definitely be a big help on those AVs in the STF).

If you're planning on making a character to JUST solo GMs, you won't find yourself playing it very much. Just remember that a character can do other things very well...a one trick pony isn't really the best choice (or whatever that saying is...you know what I mean...)

Drops aren't better. In fact, the rewards are actually pretty meh I believe. No, the reason to make an AV/GM soloer build is the challenge. Same reason some scrappers make pylon soloing builds.

As others have said, the in game rewards/time is very not in favour of doing this.

Its more an exercise is understanding game mechanics, and finding limits.

I love this. "It's about the challenge." "It's about testing limits."

Please. It's about running around and saying you solo'd Recluse, because that's some epic bragging rights right there.

The fights are quite boring. The in game rewards are essentially nothing. The only thing to be gained is the ability to say "I did x" and whatever inner sense of accomplishment you may feel.

It isn't a very tangibly rewarding venture. If you are looking to make inf out of it then it ranks near the bottom of activities you could be doing, probably slightly above begging in AP...

Making a build capable of dropping AVs isn't very difficult if you set out to do that. In fact more combos than not can likely achieve that benchmark. It's when you move on to killing some of the harder AV's, or doing it very quickly that things will get more difficult and you'll need to understand a lot more about the enemy and the specifics of your toon.

Whether the activity is worthwhile to you personally is something you will have to determine yourself. For instance, I've specced a couple toons into farming builds, but quickly lose interest in the activity. The money is fine, but I can make as much or more just playing around on the market. Generally with less time investment and effort. So for me, farming isn't a worthwhile activity, but it is for others. Lots of others. AV/GM killing is sort of like that, but even more niche and even less tangibly rewarding.

That said, builds that can drive over AV's like a small speed bump tend to be very strong on most TF's and TF's are a pretty popular activity on most servers. And good TF's tend to be pretty rewarding.

Some people will be bored not only in doing the maths but in doing the feat itself. Then you've got to ask yourself do I like to brag or open peoples minds? I think that when it comes to the possible people really expect to be impossible it's nice to offer the wake up call. I myself would have trouble getting out of bed for this kind of thing as I prioritize team efforts for some unknown to me reason, just the way I am.

In term of exp or rewards? No.

But the same can be said about PvP (before there was PvP IOs), badging, writing a bio, choosing a good name, making costumes, RPing, etc. Yet a lot of people find that very interesting and worth it.

You'll have to figure out or try it to know if it's worth it to you. Depending on what AT you'd want for soloing AV, i'd suggest you try it with already existing characters. Using insps and temps, a lot of characters can do it, even if not build for it. (well, the weaker AVs at least) With time, pratice and better build character, you'll be able to stop using insps and temps.

One thing to consider though, is that if you want a def/corr/mm/etc AV soloer, he'll also be extremely powerfull in team. Someone who can kill AV/GM alone, will be a huge help against LR, Statesman or Reischman.

If you've done AVs on teams you may have noticed that sometimes a very good team really struggles with an AV and sometimes a crap team mops the floor with the same guy. This is pretty much what you can expect from soloing AVs. Whether you consider it an accomplishment is up to you. For me, news of another Ill/Rad soloing a Giant Monster more makes me think "Really? They haven't fixed that?" than "That's incredible!" On the other hand if you manage to solo Lord Recluse with a Trick Arrow Defender it might be something worth feeling good about.

As others have said, it's all about the challenge and the bragging rights. It's also somewhat of a status symbol; people will respect you and be eager to include you in their teams if they've heard that your toons can solo Giant Monsters.

I also have to admit I get a kick out of people's reactions when they see, of all the ATs, a Blaster doing it, a class that is widely known for its epic squishyness


(see I just bragged about it)

Heh, I once joined a team where the rad defender bragged about soloing every AV and GM on his current character. Team leader told him "I don't care, why not go back to soloing them"

I looked, and his "AV/GM Soloer" had absolutely none of the GM badges, none of the TF badges, or anything like that. I also wondered how one could solo the GM version of ghost widow, if the AV version is nasty enough to cause team wipes.

As pretty much everyone's said, the actual tangible (well, as tangible as purely electronic rewards can be) payoff is laughable. It's purely about bragging rights and self esteem. I've got an Ill/Rad that's soloed several GMs and pretty much every AV that doesn't have insane psi resists (Siege, I'm looking at YOU). The entire point of the exercise for me was to see if I could do it, to prove to myself that I was capable of such a feat.

Having done so, that character is now mostly retired, and I spend much of my time on less capable characters, often at low levels.

I want to thank everyone for their helpful responses. I wasn't expecting to get so many so soon. Upon FireWyvern's suggestion, I went ahead a tried a couple AVs with my newest lvl 50, a Fire/Shield Brute that I just finished slotting yesterday. Of course the first one I tried was a lost cause to begin with. I went up against Arch-A, knowing that once I got it down far enough to heal itself it would just turn into a stalemate from there since the heal would recharge by the time I got it down again. I tried simply to see if I could even get it down to that point, which I was able to do a few times. Next I tried it out on Ms. Liberty. I was doing a pretty decent job of getting her down until another group came running over (a full spawn set for x8 players with bosses) which quickly brought that fight to an end.

While neither of these ventures were met with success, it did leave me confident that it would be possible to solo an AV with this toon. Although I must admit that I did pop a few insps here and there, so with that in mind it seems a little less impressive. GMs on the other hand are an entirely different story. I'm still considering making a toon capable of taking them down because, like many have stated, if you can do it solo then you will certainly bring a lot of usefulness to any team. I was thinking of rolling either a fire/rad or sonic/rad corruptor. From what I've read, sonic/rad is generally safer, but fire/rad tends to be more useful for teaming. I know traps is also very handy, but it seems to be a very acquired taste in terms of play-style.

In a game about super heroes and super villains I find myself unsatisfied with being classified as lower than the named characters in the game. Much lower as it is.

In the quest to be truly super I find defeating the likes of other well recognized supers like Requiem, Infernal, Statesman, Positron, et al to be a pretty major step in achieving that goal.

Was I pretty stoked strolling in to IP the other day and seeing a creature towering over the freighter it was next to and deciding to kill it on my own? Yes. The fight is often boring as sin, but the thought of taking out the biggest and the baddest/toughest in the game means my super powered character is at least as powerful as they are.

In a game with no lasting impressions (yay we just defeated Lord Recluse and stopped his efforts to take over the world. Now lets do it again in 5 minutes) I find satisfaction in my personal quest to be extremely powerful through the few metrics that game offers.

At the end of the day I have my screens of me taking out stuff that often takes a team to tackle. I hold it in regard with my screens from particularly good Master of X runs.

I don't feel super powered plowing through countless unnamed minions/luts/bosses. that feels like a hack n' slash to me and for that I'd rather play titan's quest, left 4 dead, or even fire up some old school diablo 2. Feeling Super powered means I need to take on the biggest threats out there. More like God of War. Ya I'll hack n' slash through wave after wave, but I won't stop there, I'll take out anything you throw at me.
edit: heck even in D2 and Titan's quest you don't stop when the giant monsters show up. I mean you beat the devil himself. I don't like the thought of CoX stopping short of granting players such feats. So I do what I can to circumvent that roadblock. Some players are satisfied with killing genericboss132. I'm not.

I used to get that feeling from pvp even moreso than AV/GM hunting, but Castle took that away, so the next closest thing I can do to make me feel like I'm actually playing a super powered being is taking out AV's.

So it's worth it to me because my toons that can't do it aren't as powerful as the one's that can do it and they struggle to find activities that make them feel really powerful.

@FireWyvern - You're right, those were definitely not the easiest AVs I could have picked. Although, they were the only ones I had missions for at the time, so I figured I would try them out anyways. I knew there was no way I could beat Arch-A, but I figured if I could at least put a good dent in an AV that was resistant to most of my damage then I could probably take down some of the others. I generally stick to melee toons as well, many of my 50s consisting of brutes and scrappers. It's fun to get them IO'ed out to the point where they can tank. Some might say "why not just play a tank?" but there's really nothing impressive about being able to tank if you're playing a tank lol.

@Frosticus - I've often felt that same way. If we're all supposedly so "super-powered" then why is it that we struggle so much against signature heroes/villains? It certainly makes you feel a lot less super when these people are able to crush you in one or two hits. BTW, I've seen some of your screenshots before and those are definitely some impressive feats. I can't remember which ones in particular, but I'm pretty sure I saw them. I know I saw some of Silverado's too.

i know rewards for GMs are very low, if you can kill one on your own its only approx 18k inf (cant remember if thats in or out of sg mode)

for AVs however, soloing an even con AV at lvl 50 will net you about 125k inf (in sg mode)

a +4 AV if you solo it can net you approx 800k inf (no sg mode)

so in terms of rewards, soloing a GM is meh, except for bragging rights, soloing an AV can be worthwhile if you can do it fast

Well, each GM you drop will give you two shiny merits.

Don't spend 'em all at once, now.