Lord Recluse Flattened Me

I just attempted my first STF this last weekend, and my experience trying to tank Lord Recluse was not pleasant. Basically, he kicked my a$$. All I can think of doing differently is loading up on tier 3 purples to floor his To-Hit while the rest of the team takes down the buff towers, especially the red one.

Beyond that, I am wondering if my build is somehow gimped for LR. Any suggestions on tactics or build changes would be appreciated. Thanks.

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Ah, so you've met Cheaty McCheaterson. Yeah, even my DA tank uses one huge purple inspiration to survive Recluse while the team knocks down the blue tower.

If you're used to fighting at the softcap, keep in mind that you need 75% defense to be effectively softcapped to Lord Recluse. On top of that, he has -def in some attacks. I've seen him give a quick one-two punch to many a tank since the first one debuffs so much defense that the second one is a guaranteed hit.

I have done the STF with my Fire/Fire many many times and can tell you they stealth fixed/changed him recently. He never use to use his ranged attack ( the one that causes massive end drain ) in melee so often. He now uses it in his melee attack chain every time it is up which causes toggle loss then death.

I don't know if these are the same changes that they put in for i18 that makes MM pets rush into melee and use range attacks, but it does seem similar.


p.s Its not you, its him, keep your build. I have seen a well built WP and Ice also get toasted by him recently so as Dechs says take cold shield, bubbles and purples till the blue tower is down.

Recluse is rough on EVERYONE while all the towers are up, double damage and a high hit chance mean hes going to hurt no matter what. The fact that the red tower is also boosting his resists also means you can't really debuff his damage any (damage resist resists damage debuff) which is why devoting an empath to support the tank is popular. Chew enough purples (or get buffed enough) to take you to what would normally be the soft cap, then eat another big purple is the best I can suggest

[edit] this is what I get from posting at work where I have to get up frequently in the middle of typing, there were no replies when I started this :P

I managed to tank Reccie by using hover near a light post in the far corner of his platform. The poor bugger just kept climbing and jumping and missing! Bring reds and purples and you'll do fine

I pretty much like to keep myself at the resist cap while the towers are up as well, besides defense at 75% while the blue tower is up. Even then, I've had the cheater drop my health like crazy: more than Healing Flames can keep up with. It's a good idea to give a tank support when they're facing a tower buffed Recluse (and by that I do mean heals... shields and such are nice, but he can and does land hard hits). Once the damage and accuracy ones are down, he's not so rough.

You know, I can handle all 8 Heroes during LRSF on my Ice/KM tanker fine with a stack of orange insps.

But on both my Ice/Ice and Ice/KM toons, Lord Recluse floors me to the point that I typically run STF with another tanker who's resistance based.

I've yet to have a successful tanking experience of LR and his 4 towers of doom, specificly his combo attack of chain gun and the melee punch that seems to take off 2000 hitpoints in each attack and executes in under a scond floors me to the point where I don't even bother anymore.

If you're trying to go up against him, its handy to have a pain or empath on you to spam healing powers while you use insps to keep you res-capped and at 75%+ defenses. He's still going to hit occassionally, and it will hurt, which is pretty much why Granite tankers are FoTM for moSTF runs.

There are ways to handle him. On your build, you can increase your defenses up to the 45% soft cap, that will make a huge difference in your durability.

On your tactics, here's my strategy with CMA, my Inv/Stone tanker.

First, I'm at 45% def to S/L/E/N damage, so while the blue tower's up I need one medium purple per minute to floor LR's tohit chances. I also want to increase my E/N resistance with oranges while the Red tower's up... I use two big oranges for the alpha and one per minute until the Red tower dies.

Keeping that in mind, I go into the final mission with 10 medium purples, 5 large oranges, 2 large greens for when he gets lucky and a couple large blues in case his end drain attack hits.

The sequence of events goes something like this:

1. After the courtyard is cleared and the flier's gone the team gathers behind the Red tower and I eat 2 large oranges & 1 medium purple, then jump in and say hi to LR.
2. Once I have aggro the team starts on the Red tower and I move LR over behind the Green tower so we'll be able to take him out in peace if the flier respawns. (Note, the flier will respawn every 20 minutes from the time the first person enters the map)
3. While the Red tower's up I keep 1 large orange and 1 medium purple active. If LR gets a solid hit in I hit Dull Pain. If he gets me again that's what the greens are for.
4. Once the Red tower dies I let the orange insps fade and keep one medium purple active while the team kills the blue tower. I also start to relax a bit here since his damage just got cut in half.
5. Once the Blue tower dies I let all insps fade and just keep LR taunted. From this point on you're practically home free as a tanker.
6. The team kills the Yellow and Green towers, then joins me and we take out LR. Make sure to keep LR facing away from the team as he has a nasty cone attack. Squishies beware too because he also has a small radius PBAOE that can really hurt.
7. When LR hits 20% and hits his pet nuke just keep pounding on him until he goes down. A kinetic with Fulcrum is great here, as is a Fire controller with Bonfire... that knocks the pets out of the way so you can concentrate on LR.
8. Profit!

Okay, tanked tower-buffed LR on more than a few occasions. It REALLY helps to start off defense-capped. You're still running a more or less bog-standard Inv/SS tank. So your defense with 1 enemy in range is about 30%. Translation: Recluse finishes you, burps, then goes after the other 7 snacks on the map.

You're going to need to bring a bunch of purples with, and get your defense between 70 and 75%. And please note, even then, the RNG isn't always kind. He pimp-slapped my Stoner through 80% defense a few weeks back and killed me.

First things first though. Take a look at CMA's guide to soft-capping Inv/*.

Next, get your team to put every buff known to man on you before going out to hokey-pokey with Richter. And bring purples. If your defenses are NOT in the 70% range until the red and blue towers are down, you're going to be smootching floor unless you're STUPIDLY lucky.

And if you're that lucky, you damn well better be playing the lottery!

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

The difference between an invulnerability tank that spends their time inspecting the flooring, and a stone tank who stands there making faces at Recluse, is energy resistance. Recluse's hardest-hitting attack does a metric ton of energy damage, so if you want to survive it, pick up energy resistance.

If Stoners get dropped by LR, it's probably because they're not running Rooted. You need that drain resist.

Last night in a pug STF he got stuck halfway in a wall and wouldn't agg nor fight back, it was great. Easiest LR fight I have ever been on once we found a place we could get to where we could actually target him.

For MoSTF, I personally prefer a well built invul with a pocket emp, but with the right team stack just about anything goes. He is still insanely brutal though, go check out Paragon Wiki on just how much of a buff he is getting from each tower.

Eye of the Magus helps a lot.

You have the right strategy, and keep the build.
Done him on both and Invul/ and and Elec/ and the plan was the same both times. And a pocket emp/ until the red tower is down doesn't hurt.

I suspect Dechs stands next to one of the towers to begin with and uses it as a target for DR.

About the build. I am at work so don't have mids available (it would be a bit embarrassing anyway) I felt that just by guessing from the look of the build that you have 1 unnecessary res slot too many in each passive. They could be used to boost defense in weave or something. You might be keeping the slots for further plans I don't know.