 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 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.
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 other 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.
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
Statistics:
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Powers: (Hover mouse)
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Costumes: Classic Bob Grim Glacier look-alike Good lord, where are the batteries? |
Will Gimp for Food
A lot of people advocate efficiency and character performance. While only a few people dream about spreadsheets, there are certain considerations that remain present in the majority of the population in the game. Things that are expected of people. Things that a character needs to be worthwhile. It is as though a character that is numerically inferior is no fun to play. I disagree. To me, it's not about maximizing the efficiency of a character. I did that once. It was a Brute, took Hasten, Quick Recovery, Stamina, the whole nine yards. It was not my first character, so having something geared towards turning entire missions to rubble was a fresh and novel concept for me at the time. Then it got to level 50 in near record time and I hang it up in the character closet. I will admit that it was entertaining, but now I've been there and done that. I don't want to do the exact same thing for the next character. Over and over and over again. I don't find that very fun. This character, Bob the Biohazard, is just one of my many flavors of variety that I find entertaining in the game.
To be without is not something that most people want. I decided to deviate from tradition and create a character that not only refuses to make decisions that are commonly accepted to be good, recommended or even required. What has resulted is something that is not as inept as one would reckon. Certainly not optimal by any interperatation of the word, but certainly not incapable either. It just goes to show that when you are resourceful in the midst of hardship, you will be able to carry yourself through to the end nonetheless.
I took a look through the available powers in the game and identified the ones I feel people rely on perhaps too much. These are the powers that Bob the Biohazard will not take:
Pets
- Henchmen or otherwise, a Mastermind's true source of effectiveness comes from the pets available for summoning.
Fitness
- Popular way to increase character performance in the areas of movement and longevity.
Leadership
- Can provide a variety of buffs to oneself and teammates. Very popular on Masterminds, and Bob is technically a Mastermind.
Leaping
- Combat Jumping and Acrobatics are common ways to increase Defense and protect your character from certain status effects.
Hover
- Common buff to Defense
Weave
- Another common buff to Defense
Hasten
- A popular boost to attack rate. The more powers you can use in a minute, the more effective your combat.
If you're still reading, the word "gimp" probably comes to mind. Simply taking away Henchmen from a Mastermind is torture enough, but I've also done away with any boosts Defense as well as the powers that let me attack and recover faster. What's left of my selected powersets is but three ranged attacks, and I need to Enhance those for accuracy, endurance reduction and damage all manually because I have no self buffs to do that for me. To supplement this shortened number of attacks, Bob the Biohazard has taken most of the melee powers from the power pools, including Boxing, Kick and Air Superiority. So now we have a Henchman-less, un-buffed, melee-oriented Mastermind. Does it get any better than this!? (-:
In all seriousness, though, it's not as bad as you might think. It takes longer to defeat enemies and getting hit tends to hurt, but all-in-all, the character is still capable of performing at an acceptable level and will still improve through the levels as more powers and Enhancement slots become available. The key element of Bob's successes is the effectivness of the debuffs in the Poison set, which is similar to Radiation Emission but for individual targets. Enemies become easier to defeat, but find that they cannot land hits as often and deal less damage when they do. With reduced attack rate, they aren't able to use their attacks very often throughout the duration of the fight, so it really must be pretty aggrivating for them. It's almost an insult when they're defeated by a Mastermind with no toys.
I guess the lesson here is that you should never assume what a character will be like until you actually try it. Though I'm not sure I'll ever find someone who will say "A Mastermind with no Henchmen probably wouldn't be so bad."
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- <YouTube Width=250 Height=213>vTdaaMTeJfQ</YouTube>
