Lord Recluse Strike Force
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Contact: Lord Recluse
Level Range: 45 - 50
Notes: Requires 8 people
Zone: Grandville
Location: Chamber, central tower.
Primary Enemy: Freedom Phalanx
Name: Future of Freedom
Badge: Servant of Recluse Badge
Description: You have broken Paragon City's 'best.' Let everyone fear you!
Missions
Assault Longbow Base
(5 Bombs to set, Kidnap Technician, Defeat Crimson, Destroy 12 Chasers)
Bombs: These are standard bombs you should be familiar with by now in City of Villains. You will not need to worry about scouting out the entire map to find them; the bombs are located in the towers and lab. (Not only do the towers and lab have waypoints for them, but the bombs within the buildings have waypoints as well.)
Kidnap Technician: The technician is randomly located in one of the named locations: Tower 1, Tower 2, or Laboratory. He must be brought to the computer behind Crimson in the Laboratory.
Crimson: Hero/AV class with 4 Longbow Elite Boss Ballistas to assist him. He is located in the Laboratory.
Chasers – These are similar to Sky Skiffs, but lieutenant-class; you will have to kill all 12 of them. They can be found flying around the complex, accompanied by two Longbow agents.
The map for this mission is similar to that of the Longbow base in Nerva. The team will zone in at a submarine just off the island housing the Longbow. Three waypoints will be visible on the map, marking the entrances to Tower 1, Tower 2, and the Laborator, respectively.
This is not a defeat all, and it is possible to complete some of the objectives in parallel. Especially useful is the fact that the Technician will follow you no matter where you go, even if you outdistance him. Here we will present a common strategy for completing the mission quickly.
Split the group into two teams, Team A and Team B. Team A will take out the chasers, which appear randomly throughout the airspace over the base. Once this is accomplished the team will head to the Laboratory. If time permits the team may want to take out the Longbow spawn guarding the Laboratory entrance; otherwise head directly inside to regroup.
Meanwhile, Team B will head first to Tower 1. Inside are two spawns of Longbow and two bombs; defeat and complete them all, then head to Tower 2 and repeat. If the Technician appears, ignore him and keep moving. His capture will spawn an ambush, but unless you dawdle, you should be able to ignore it. After the Towers are dealt with, Team B heads to the Laboratory to join Team A.
Inside the Laboratory, regroup, then defeat the Longbow spawn guarding the elevators. On the next level is the main Laboratory room, where Crimson waits in front of the Technician's computer, on the left side of the back wall. Work your way carefully around the left side of the room, clearing Longbow as you go so as not to be too outnumbered once Crimson engages. You do not have to engage the Longbow on the right side of the room at all, unless you accidentally aggravate them.
Finish the Laboratory objectives in this order: defeat Crimson first, then lead the Technician to the computer, and finally set the last bomb. The last bomb spawns an ambush, but in this order it also completes the mission, so you can exit rather than fighting.
Two things of note: first, there are prisons in this mission, so if defeated try to resurrect rather than going to the hospital. Second, occasionally the Technician will stand still and cower rather than heading to the computer. This means that he saw the ambush spawn for his capture, and has decided he can't do anything until the matter is resolved. In this case the team needs to head back to his capture point and deal with the ambush.
A good team can finish this mission in ten minutes, leaving everyone still fresh for the more challenging content ahead.
Assault Malta Base
(Steal Orestes Rifle, Defeat Slinger, Steal keycard, Destroy main frame and guards)
Orestes Rifle: Temp power that last 5 hours, you will need to use this on Ms. Liberty. Note: This power only works on Ms. Liberty.
Slinger: Hero/AV Class with robots to protect him.
Keycard: Obtained from defeating the Kronos Zeus Titan and the surrounding mob.
Main frame and guards: destroy and defeat
This mission is a little bit harder than your first. You might be a little familiar with this map; you have zoned into a section of Warburg. As the team advances forward you can see the Kronos in the distance.
Whenever possible always try to snipe out a single target or group of Malta away from the Kronos. This will prevent accidental agro of the Kronos and also make it less difficult to defeat it when the time comes. Work collectively as a team and you can defeat the Kronos with little difficulty and be rewarded with the Master of Olympus Badge and keycard.
The keycard will now let you enter the warehouse where the rest of the mission is. This warehouse is similar to the one used in the Hess Task Force from the City of Heroes platform. You can clear the whole map if you choose or simply take out what you need to along the way to Slinger. You will see a hall with a truck/trailer slightly diagonal; that is the all you go down to reach Slinger. Proceed down that hall and will come to a set of halls that is almost U-shaped. The mainframe was in this hall but the game may make the main frame location random per mission.
There will be door directly in front of you and also around the corners. These doors lead to the room that has the guards and Slinger. Clear out these halls before opening the first door you saw when entering the U-Shaped hall. Snipe out the mobs in front of you if you have not agro’d them when opening the door. Gather your team together once this is done, buff up and bum rush the guards and Slinger. Get ready for a very large pet summon from Slinger. He will summon all bots from the mastermind set and in large numbers. Defeat these entire pet summons and you will complete the mission if you have destroyed the main frame already.
Badge
Defeating Kronos Class Titan awards the Master of Olympus Badge.
Speak with Operative Grillo
Anyone on the team can complete this errand mission. Operative Grillo is located in the portal room of the main structure of Grandville. Speaking with Grillo will trigger the next mission, conveniently located at the portal next to him.
Defeat Future Freedom Phalanx
This will be your first real big challenge in the Strikeforce. You will be transported into the future going through the teleporter. When you zone in you will see the city of Atlas Park in ruins and the atlas globe cut in half.
Note: There is a random "phase shift" effect that drifts around the map, trapping you in between the future and present time; this will make you intangible at random for a given amount of time.
In this mission you will have to defeat a subset of the present day Freedom Phalanx, located around the main door to city hall. The roster in standard defeat order is:
Some teams prefer to rush this mission; while fighting multiple heroes at once is challenging, it is much, much easier than the last map, and rushing this group can make the strike force as a whole go faster. On the other hand, the phase shift effect seems to hit more frequently on the ground, and this author is more familiar with the more standard divide-and-conquer method used below.
When rushing, the defeat order above can be varied to place Manticore above Back Alley Brawler; otherwise it is fairly fixed. Numina goes first because she can buff teammates if not otherwise occupied; Sister Psyche's psi damage makes her too dangerous to leave alone; and Manticore's lack of travel power makes him easy to leave until last, as we'll see.
Divide and Conquer
Move the team to the top of the globe; this is a very tactical advantage for you since only 3 out of the 4 can get to the top of the globe. A villain on your team with –fly powers will make things easier, but is not required. You will need a team member that is able to draw agro, survive, and jump/fly to the top part of the globe. All heroes are going to follow but Manticore because he does not have any travel powers that can get him to the top of the globe.
Place your team back towards the head of the Atlas Globe statue, hopefully this will bring Numina next to the team (once the puller joins with you) and also have Sister Psyche just outside the ledge of the globe. If you have them, you can use -fly powers on Sister Psyche and drop her back down to the ground. You may need to adjust your position on the globe to make sure as Sister Psyche is flying up that you can get her back down to the ground. Doing this will buy you a few seconds to finish off Numina.
By this time Back Alley Brawler has made his way up to the top of the globe. If you can continue to keep Sister Psyche down from –fly power continue to work on Back Alley Brawler. If you can’t keep Sister Psyche away from you defeat her next. Her psychic powers and holds are harder to deal with than Back Alley Brawler's power sets.
Once you have defeated all three of these heroes you can proceed to Manticore where he waits on the ground. To complete the mission, you need to defeat both Manticore and his associated Longbow spawn, which is scattered around him on the steps.
Badge
Completing this mission awards the Annihilator badge.
Assault Vindicators Base
(Steal access code, find base key, defeat Ms. Liberty)
Steal access code – defeat Malaise, Mynx, Valykrie, Luminary, and Swan.
Find base key – Defeat the Longbow housed deeper inside the complex
Defeat Ms. Liberty – make sure to use the Orestes Rifle from the second mission to suppress her powers.
This map is not complicated but the mission is the hardest yet.
Your team will come fairly quickly to a room holding Malaise, Swan, Luminary, Mynx, and Valkyrie. These heroes spawn at level 53 no matter what level and reputation your leader has, and the battle may at first seem overwhelming. Keep in mind that this is still a warmup act for the final mission, and while you can consider using shivans here, doing without makes for good practice for strategies you'll need later.
The room with the heroes is behind a door; it's the first door on the map, so it's fairly easy to recognize. Most teams set up around the corner from the hallway leading to this door, or just inside the hallway itself, before opening the door - this is a good place to summarize strategies and coordinate the sequence of events.
Here is a roster for the Vindicators in the usual defeat sequence:
The defeat sequence is fairly fixed. Malaise goes first because he is the most dangerous, between his psi damage, pets, and fear-inducing powers. Next is Swan, who also does psi damage. Luminary comes before Mynx and Valkyrie, who each have powers that make them time consuming to defeat: Mynx with Elude, and Valkyrie with self-resurrection.
This battle is difficult but possible for just about any team makeup this author has used. Buffs must be kept fresh, inspirations used freely; debuffs to resistance and regeneration are going to be key, while pets can be used to spread aggro and add some damage. As difficult as it seems, try if at all possible to avoid using shivans here; you'll need them more in the last battle than now.
Once you have defeated all of the Vindicators, open the door leading deeper into the base. Your next target is the key to unlock Ms. Liberty's final room, which is located up the western elevators, through the intersection to a room in the south quadrant. If you have a teammate with stealth and TP, they can sneak past the Longbow to this room and summon enough people to defeat the room and gain the key. Then sneak back through the intersection to the north, where the door to Ms. Atlas awaits. Again teleportation can be used to summon the team into battle to clear the area before the door. If you have no stealth, then you can fight your way through, which is time consuming but not overly difficult. Keep in mind an ambush may arrive after you take the key.
You are ready to buff up for the final battle of the mission. There is really only one detail to know here: remember that Orestes Rifle that someone on your team has? Use it on Ms. Liberty to weaken her at the start of the battle. She is not exactly a pushover, but compared to fighting five Vindicators she should go down rather quickly.
Destroy Statesman and Freedom Phalanx
In this mission an Arachnos Flyer has landed on a corner of the Atlas Park map - essentially the same map as the fourth mission, but present day. The area is surrounded by Longbow with City Hall and the Atlas Globe in the center of the map. Below the globe will be Ms. Liberty defeated, with the Freedom Phalanx around her ready to rumble.
No matter what level and reputation your team leader has, the Freedom Phalanx always spawn at level 54. This is +4 to the team at best, and +5 to any lackeys. Taking even one of these heroes down can prove challenging; defeating all eight is without question the most difficult task in the game.
The full roster of the Freedom Phalanx, listed in a common defeat order, is:
Consulting their individual profiles to gain an understanding of their damage types, travel powers, and resistances will give you an edge in this battle.
The defeat sequence should always start with Numina, because she can resurrect teammates. If left unengaged, she can also give her team empathy buffs (including Fortitude), which make her too dangerous to leave alone.
After Numina the sequence is up for debate. Some teams (particularly those with buffed shivans) immediately close in on the hero who took the most damage during the assault on Numina, based on the idea that that hero will drop most quickly. Other teams consider Sister Psyche as the mandatory next target because her psi damage is not resisted well by many defensive sets, including /stone for brutes.
Most teams finish with Statesman, because he has the highest resistance and base HP, and therefore takes the longest to kill; however, this author has heard that if there is some other hero alive when Statesman goes down, Statesman will not activate Unstoppable. So there is an argument for leaving someone else alive (often Manticore or Synapse, since their stealth and speed respectively make them difficult to target early) while taking States down. Regardless, Statesman does not seem to have the highest threat level since his damage is almost all smashing, which most brute sets should be able to handle with a reasonable amount of healing/buffing support.
Whatever defeat order you use, the team should designate one person to call targets and focus fire. The rest of the team (save only the taunt brute, if applicable, and his/her healer/buffer) should attack only that target. Doing otherwise spreads damage unnecessarily and prevents the team from penetrating the huge regeneration the Phalanx has.
Strategies
Strategies for the Freedom Phalanx
Pull: Some teams use a pull strategy, but this author has never seen it work. Apparently there were some changes to the stances of the heroes after issue 7 was released, which made pulling harder. Still, forum users claim to be able to pull the group into 4 and 4, which is certainly an improvement. Hopefully someone who has this strategy mastered can edit this post to provide tips.
Rush: Many teams start the last battle with the following sequence: teammate suicide, buff, summon pets, summon shivans, vengeance everything, resurrect teammate, and rush. If you do this, make sure to have the teammate suicide against a side spawn, not the heroes - once aggroed, Numina will buff her teammates, and you don't want that stacked against you from the start.
If you plan to rush, you should also rush the Vindicators in the fifth mission - and to have any hope of succeeding in the end, you should do the fifth mission without shivans and without nukes. Yes, the last mission is just that much harder. If you need shivans against the Vindicators, the Freedom Phalanx will most likely prove impossible.
Warhead Rush: Recently this author has been running teams with a very specific strategy based on Warburg temporary powers (see below for descriptions). This strategy has been very effective, to the point where it appears that any team build should be able to succeed with it, in a very short amount of time.
This strategy requires, at a minimum, that everyone on the team have both Shivans and Chemical Burn. In addition, if the team lacks damage buff potential (from Corruptors or MasterMinds) the team may need a number of Biological Mutagens. Also required is a team member with Vengeance, and before starting everyone should buy inspirations from St. Martial.
Gather the team together on the steps in front of the Freedom Phalanx. Notice that they are already grouped fairly closely - close enough for a Chemical Burn to hit them all. This is key to the strategy. Have someone suicide against a Longbow spawn. Then begin buffing teammates while everyone prepares themselves mentally.
As quickly as possible do the following in exactly this order:
1. Summon all pets and Shivans
2. Cast Vengeance
3. Resurrect teammate, who summons Shivan
a. If anyone has Biological Mutagens use it now
4. Team pops the following inspirations:
a. 4 Lucks
b. 7 Sturdies
c. 1 Breakfree
5. Team moves onto platform together
6. Team drops all Chemical Burns into the center of the Freedom Phalanx
a. If anyone has Nuclear Warhead use it after Chemical Burn
7. Team targets through team leader, who attacks Heroes in defeat order
This author has seen the entire Freedom Phalanx destroyed within thirty seconds to a minute using this strategy. Combat logs reveal that the Shivans' damage outclasses the team's significantly, making even step 7 of questionable importance - the critical parts of this strategy are the Shivans, buffed with Vengeance, pounding on heroes crippled by Chemical Burns. If all the warheads are deployed correctly the only thing the team needs to do is survive long enough for the Shivans to do their work - hence the use of inspirations to max everyone's defense and resistance to start.
Much fuss has been made on the forums regarding the relative value of Dominators and Stalkers on this strike force as compared with Brutes and Corruptors. By publishing this sequence, this author hopes to encourage Dominators and Stalkers to run the strike force on teams that might otherwise fly in the face of conventional wisdom.
Time Saving Tips
Soft Loading: Why make it difficult? Soft load every mission; the less mobs in whatever part of the map you can soft load is always going to help speed up the time in completing this Strikeforce.
Underleveling: As an alternative to the soft loading strategy above (which I assume means logging everyone out but one and running the map to spawn everything - which is time consuming), you can simply have your lowest level teammate be Recluse' contact. Then the enemies will spawn at that teammates' level - with the exception of the heroes, who always spawn at defined levels.
Zone time: Another time saving tip is to have the teammate with the fastest zone time be Recluse' contact, so that (s)he can reach Recluse and grab the next mission as quickly as possible. The rest of the team can meet directly at the launch point for the mission without having to head into Grandville's center.
Critical Powers
There are certain powers that many teams won't consider starting the strike force without. Again their necessity is a subject of much debate on the forums. It is quite possible to finish the mission without any given powerset in this list, but this author has never done it without the majority.
Stone brutes: They have the highest resistance of any brute defensive set, and have the highest survivability against heroes.
Kinetics corruptors: Stone brutes move incredibly slowly, and they in particular need kinetics to help them out. In addition, kinetics heals have a -regen component and speed boost is widely regarded as one of the best buffs in the game.
Radiation corruptors: The debuffs in this set are amazingly strong, and given the huge regen and resistance base that the Freedom Phalanx starts with, they are in high demand. Many teams won't consider running the RSF without at least two of these (though I've done it with none). The debuffs in this set can be partly made up for by chemical nukes from Warburg (see below).
Thermal corruptors: The buffs and heals in this set are nice, and particularly if you have a non-stone brute for holding aggro on the last map, you may need them for sheer survivability. The debuffs are also welcome although not held to be as critical as Radiation's.
Dark corruptors or masterminds: Tar patch is a great AoE resistance debuff, and resistance debuffs seem to be a critical component for succeeding against the ridiculously high hit point and regen base of the Freedom Phalanx.
Vengeance: This is a critical component of rush strategies that require huge initial buffs (see above). This is the one power this author has never done the RSF without.
While vengeance does not, by design, stack (i.e. subsequent casts after the first have no effect), it is possible to exploit a timing bug to stack it nonetheless, by casting simultaneously. Apparently the window for stacking is the length of the cast time for Vengeance, which, while small, is nonzero.
Stealth or Grant Invisibility + Teleport: There are several opportunities to stealth and TP through parts of the first five missions - particularly the middle of the second and fifth missions. Using a stealth + teleport strategy can help keep the team moving quickly and the faster you reach the last mission, the fresher and more alert you will be.
Temp Powers
Shivans: These are very useful and everyone should have a set of these before the Strikeforce gets started. If no one has them, spend about 10 minutes in Bloody Bay doing the meteor extraction to get them. You have 5 charges for an elite boss Shivan pet with about 30K hit points. They not only help mitigate some of the hits and team deaths, they dish a large amount of damage while debuffing at the same time, and can be buffed/healed.
Warburg Weapons: These are quite powerful, but extremely tedious to gather; the instructions are detailed in the article Missile Launch Mission. It's easiest to use teams of three, where you grab three technicians at once and trade them off to whoever is getting the nuke at the time. Gathering these in advance is highly recommended, since large teams getting techs all at once just get in each others' way, and overall, more time is wasted before the strike force proper can start.
Here are the possible nukes and there capabilities, listed in order of desirability:
- Chemical Burn - Ranged AoE Foe -Res(All), -DEF: These are critical for lowering the Freedom Phalanx resistances so that your damage output exceeds their regeneration.
- Biological Mutagens - PBAoE, Ally +Regeneration, +Dam. These can help buff the damage from shivans as well as teammates. This author does not know what the shivan damage buff cap actually is, but it's huge.
- Nuclear Blast - Ranged AoE, Extreme DoT(Energy), EMP, Foe -End, -Recovery. Combined with Bio and Chem, these can dish out a huge amount of damage all at once. This author, however, has never had a team with the patience to gather eight of them on top of the 16 others the team will have accumulated.
The nukes really shine when they are stacked, and the bio nuke shines when it buffs the shivans. Chemical nukes are such a huge debuff stacked that they can cut the time to defeat an individual hero down into half or less of the length of time a set of inspirations lasts - meaning you can max your defenses with inspirations and get a good part of the way through the Freedom Phalanx before they wear off. For teams with no other concentration of resistance debuffs, I believe chem nukes are critical. (What this says about the strike force's balance is an issue of heavy debate on the forums.)
Essence of Serafina: A team buff awarded to the leader of a successful Ice Mistral Strikeforce. If you are planning on doing the Recluse Strikeforce in the future and can buy the time for a few hours one day, by all means do the Ice Mistral Strikeforce. Activation not only grants resistance to psychic damage, it also adds psychic damage to all attacks. The buff has 10 charges.
Accolades
Demonic is very commonly used by aggro brutes to increase survivability.
High Pain Threshold and Born in Battle are desired for any character to help survive the high burst damage from the Freedom Phalanx.
Inspirations
You will definitely need to use Inspirations throughout the whole Strikeforce. You can get them from the Arena in St. Martial or from base storage. Most useful are going to be defense, resistance, and life inspirations.
With the issue 7 changes, characters with no other defensive powers will max their damage mitigation from purple inspirations on the 4th small luck. After that characters should start using orange inspirations. Brutes and stalkers may have additional defense that makes the 4th or even 3rd luck wasted. Both purple and orange inspirations are recommended for the final encounter because it is so brutal.
Rewards
Because of the high number of hero opponents, running this strike force is a great way to earn the Hero Slayer Badge, which is a prerequisite for the Force of Nature Accolade.
Completing the third mission awards the Annihilator Badge.
Completing the Strike Force from Lord Recluse awards the Servant of Recluse Badge.
In addition, each member of the team will receive a Synthetic Hamidon Origin Enhancement when the last member of the Freedom Phalanx is defeated. Currently the team should make sure to keep several slots open to receive this drop at the end of the battle, as random SO drops by the FP heroes may fill the enhancement slots. An update is planned to change the drop to a selection table, which will allow the team to clear slots before accepting the drop, but until then it is recommended to keep at least three and possibly four slots open before fighting the last FP hero.