 The Paragon Wiki Archive documents the state of City of Heroes/Villains as it existed on December 1, 2012.
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User:GuyPerfect/Bob the Biohazard
Another Day, Another Beaker
Another day, another beaker. Working at WetWare Engineering has its ups and downs. The pay is great, but working as a research assistant could bear to be more exciting. Instead, it's boring. Dreadfully boring. Time that could be spent performing actual research is replaced instead by refilling the researcher's no-spill coffee cup and gazing longingly at the eyepiece of the microscope while it's already in use. Just how long does this kind of internship even last? Such were the sentiments of Rachel Biggers, the assistant of research in the Biological and Cybernetics department. She'd rather go work at a coffee shop, where at least there will be a sense of satisfaction in filling cups all day long.
Rachel is an endeavorous type who finds inspiration in every corner of life and seeks ways to put these ideas to use. Using the knowledge and techniques that she learned at WetWare, she privately conducted her own research and development on various short-term narcotics. These toxins could either be beneficial or detremental to the subject affected by them, but their effects are entirely harmless and wear off after a few seconds. She sold a few recipes to the highest bidder on an underground scientific website run by one of Dr. Vahzilok's former colleagues, but didn't find the proceeds worthwhile. Many villains in the Rogue Isles are making good use of these narcotics, which they simply call poison, but they're only making a minor splash in the grand scheme of things. Rachel eventually took to finding other ways to apply her skills and curiosities.
Not too long ago, Rachel found through her channels that Arachnos was planning to execute a jailbreak on Zigursky Penitentiary in Brickstown, supposedly to retrieve someone whom they thought possessed the qualities necessary to fulfill some kind of destiny. Rachel saw quite a bit of opportunity in such an event, and got straight to work. She integrated her poison technology into a combat-capable suit and tested it out on some of the lesser gang members in Paragon City before instating herself into the Zig. It's not certain how she managed to infiltrate such a powerful prison and register herself as an inmate without ever even having been arrested, but if the records say she should be there, then prison security isn't going to argue with it.
Sure enough, in came Arachnos and out went the Destined One. And of course, Rachel followed. She managed to escape detection and boarded the flier that Arachnos had waiting outside the prison, and stowed away while the target inmate was also brought on board and returned to the Rogue Isles. Disembarking at Fort Darwin in Mercy Island, no one seemed to notice that she wasn't supposed to be there. Just as well. If any of those Arachnos personnel were bright enough to realize that something was amiss, it would be difficult to talk her way out of it. But fortunately, it didn't come to that.
After registering with the Arbiters, Rachel was taken in for an assessment and classification in the Arachnos record books. Her combat suit completely hides her identity, and the special potion-emitting gas mask she wears alters her voice to divert suspicion of her true nature. Masquerading as a male villain, she was officially registered in the Rogue Isles under the moniker Bob the Biohazard. Psychological testing revealed Rachel's--or Bob's, as it were--ability to plot and execute schemes in a role of battlefield commander to be superior to other villains, and she was thusly identified as a Mastermind. When asked where she would be recruiting for minions, she expressed no interest in doing so. Much to her delight, none of the personnel took her seriously, which is just what she wanted. Now she would be able to set out on her own and finally have a job worth waking up to in the morning without the ever-watching eye of Arachnos keeping tabs on her activities.
The idea of taking down Lord Recluse on his own turf was a wonderful notion, and Rachel couldn't pass up such an opportunity. She'd also get to spend every hour of every day bashing in the heads of real villains. She'd even get to lay some smack-down on Longbow, who have a history of opposing the Vanguard, an organization defending the entire world from the Rikti menace. It's a win-win-win situation, and it sure beats sitting around in a lab coat all day every day. Once she makes a name for herself in the Rogue Isles, Rachel plans to bring her new Bob the Biohazard identity back to Paragon City where she can fight evil as a bona fide hero.
Another day, another beaker. Rachel prepares for her activities once again by concocting a new round of poison for her combat suit. Each time she busts some evil laboratory, she gets some more toys to play with, and is constantly designing new and unusual ways to intoxicate her foes. Though only armed with a pair of handguns and relatively weak body armor, Rachel has finally found one place that makes her happy in a twisted sort of way.
Character Details
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Why on Earth!?
If you read through the wall of text that is the character biography, you'll probably be wondering what was or was not going through my mind when I decided to make a Mastermind with no Henchmen. If you're not disappointed enough already, also know that I will be skipping other so-called "required powers" such as Health, Stamina, Hasten and Leadership (since it's a Mastermind) among other things. Oh, and the build focuses on melee damage as well as ranged. A gimp doomed to fail you say? Well, maybe so, but I've played this concept in the 30's before a number of non-performance-related issues convinced me to delete it. Well, things are different this time, so I'll be re-rolling.
With the advent of Dual Pistols coming with (or before) the Going Rogue expansion and the introduciton of Knockout Blow and retention of Bile Spray for Masterminds, I've made a decision. Bob the Biohazard must have guns and shark vomit. Corruptors will be getting the guns, but they don't have access to the shark vomit. Ergo, Bob the Biohazard must remain a Mastermind. This is the what of the situation. Now for the why...
Poison is... well, it's downright amazing. A relatively uncommon decision with Masterminds, which itself is a relatively uncommon (on most servers, at any rate) decision when choosing an archetype. You simply don't see much of Poison, and most people don't have any extensive experience with it. But that doesn't change the fact that it's completely awesome. It's generally overlooked in favor of Radiation Emission, so Corruptors tend to ignore the fact that Poison even exists. What's left are the few Masterminds who pick the set, and of course they'll be playing it as though they were a Mastermind, which kinda cobbles together the aspects of their primary and secondary powersets.
Why #1: I will be playing Poison as a Corruptor would to showcase its features without having the usual Mastermind aspects getting in the way. I simply find this fun to do.
Next comes the issue of archetype attribute modifiers for Mastermind. Masterminds have the lowest HP of any archetype and no defensive capabilities, which places Bob the Biohazard in a rather compromising situation. Masterminds can draw HP from their Henchmen when in Bodyguard mode, but with no Henchmen, this Mastermind is completely unprotected. Next, Thugs only gives access to three ranged attacks, which, coupled with the Mastermind's low ranged damage output, makes for a rather unimpressive display when dispatching enemies. The archetype's inherent power, Supremacy, is completely worthless in this situation and all of the aforementioned drawbacks need to be addressed. Ah, but I have a plan!
Why #2: Can a Mastermind with no pets, but with clever use of Set Bonuses, outperform the average character? I intend to find out.
After selecting all of the powers I wish to take from my primary, secondary, epic and all power pool sets, the build still has 5 power vacancies. These are going to have to be dummy powers that likely will never be used. On the other hand, that comes out to 23 Enhancement slots just begging to be used for something. All of my selected powers will be fully-powered, and specific dummy powers can be picked for the sole purpose of providing Set Bonuses not available by any other means. What exactly is possible through all of this is anyone's guess at this point, and I won't have a conclusive response until all of this is carried through.
In the end, I remember how much fun it was to play the character even though it underperformed. I'd like to play it again, even if I can't get it to overperform.
Build
Come back later. This character doesn't exist yet.
