Soloing +4/x8?

I've seen it mentioned a bit around the forums, that people are capable of creating characters that can take on missions with maxed out difficulty. I'm just curious as to how that works, what sort of archtype and build is required, how many billions you have to stuff into IO's, and if it's a general thing, or is it only a limited set of circumstances, confined essentially to optimizing yourself for one particular farm mission to run over and over again?

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Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Well, for some anecdotal "data," my wife's claws/SR scrapper has done +4/x8 on a lotta enemy types, has completed the RWZ challenge, and soloed the big ol' ambush at the end of Mission 1 of the ITF. Her build has zero purples/PVPIOs, but she is softcapped and has Aid Self. My DM/SR brute is a killing machine and doesn't seem to ever die, but I haven't tried her on the RWZ challenge or and +4/x8 solo missions. She's built without purple/PVPIOs, softcapped and leverages Siphon Life and Darkest Night to good advantage. I'm sure she could take on some +4/x8 and win. My bots/traps does really well, but I have only tried a few Council missions at +4/x8, and succeeded. My build has exactly two purples (the pet buildup proc and the ragnaproc in caltrops) and otherwise has nothing special going for it at all.

Not all enemy groups are equal, and there are some that I would never take on at +4/x8. Longbow, Arachnos, Vanguard, and some others that slip my mind at the moment.

Yeah, I have the same problem, though I run at lower difficulties. I wouldn't try Longbow or Arachnos as anything/x8. Not when they can send your defense of resistance to the floor.

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Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

When I think soloing +4/x8, I normally think softcapped Brutes or Scrappers. Tanks can do it even easier of course, but it's going to take them a lot longer. Some very high end Controller builds can also do it simply by locking down everything, but +4s tend to resist debuffs and controls pretty well (about 50% reduction as I recall) so it's dangerous. I'd probably go with something like a softcapped Stone/Shield Brute with Aid Self... you want a primary that has decent mitigation, softcapped defense, and ideally some additional protections. You also want decent AoE damage so you aren't there all day. If you don't mind restricting yourself to only mobs that do primarily S/L damage a melee softcapped Stone/Invulnerability or SS/Invul might also work well.

Of course there is one way to solo virtually any group at +4/x8 without even needing IOs. It's very long and tedious and gives little XP or rewards, but it works. Just take any character with Mind or Illusion Control and confuse one mob at a time while staying out of aggro range... Mind Permadoms can even do it to AVs / Heroes.

Which mobs makes a difference.

If the mobs are susceptible to kd, and don't have very high smashing resistance, a stone melee brute can prob'ly solo them without much in the way of IOs. 5th column and council, I'm looking at you.

No purples, no PvP IOs.

Just a Dark Armor/Fire Melee tank with about 300 million invested, and I manage +4/x8 Malta and Carnies without problems.

My SS/Elec Brute, Elec/Fire Tanker and Fire/Shield Scrapper can all do several enemy groups at +4/x8, in that order of effectiveness. As mentioned before it largely depends on which enemy groups you're fighting; CoT, Council, Crey, Rikti, Nemesis, Malta, KoA and Carnies may range from easy to moderate in difficulty. But Arachnos, Longbow, Devouring Earth and Rularuu can be tricky.

Each one of them has just under a billion inf invested in their builds, but then again I built them some time ago and prices may've gone up.

I run +4 X 8 on my claws/sr scrap and dm/invuln brute. Without really cherry pickin my enemy groups. I can run radios all day long. Arachnos/longbow are much more difficult.
Though the brute is too single target to be really effective at it.

Id imagine mez protection is a must and wouldn't try it on a toon without it.

If built right I can't think of 1 melee AT that couldn't do it. Though of course powerset choices would limit to what degree how fast u run through mobs.

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Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf My favorite combo is Faceplant/DebtCap with the TeamWipe Ancillary

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Originally Posted by Dispari Yeah, I like Blasters too.

So it looks like the big thing is to have defense soft caps and good AoE damage, yes?

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Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Actually I do have a defensive softcap toon, she's a Shield/SS Tanker. I think I've done +2/x8 with her, but it's kind of slow going.

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Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Everything in my sig except the fire/ss tank can do +4/8, and all but the inv/em and fire/ss can solo AVs, though the level varies depending on the character.

You definitely need defense whatever happens; you wont be killing entire groups in a couple of volleys of AoEs. As the enemies get stronger and stronger the need for defense starts to outweigh the need for damage. Debuffs will be especially painful, and of course some characters have an easier time of soloing things than other characters.

For instance, the WP tank needs inspirations or strength of will to solo +4/8 cimerorans, and occasionally needs to use some blues against +4/8 arachnos, but the dom can typically handle those without inspirations. On the other hand, the dom can't solo groups of storm elementals and both the dom and fort have a lot of problems with Rularuu too, while the WP tanker can handle those without too much difficulty although it's veeery slow and becomes much more difficult if there are no wisp overseers.

Well, I don't consider using inspirations to be cheating, so you're still good in my book.

On my Fire/dark corruptor I can do some types at +4x8 but it is pointless. I can roll thru +2x8 and do 3 or 4 missions of those faster than a single +4x8.

I can easily herd 2 or 3 groups on the wall in Cim and kill them regardless of the level they are. I can survive solo killing the Crystals on an ITF speed run. All of this obviously depends on the perfect storm - where your debuffs miss and your defense rolls snake eyes and you go from perfect to dead in an instant.

In rough fights I set my heal on auto quickly and just keep pouring on damage and Howling twilight/tarpit and fears. In most cases this works just fine and if my -recharge procs hit quickly (I have 4 different powers with them) the boss/AV can't attack quickly enough to kill me or do enough damage to even make me heal.

I stood toe to toe with Recluse on an STF run when the Stone tank got ganked until I could cycle Howling again.