A Mild-Mannered Reporter: Does whatever a spider can (VEAT levels 20-50)
Welcome back to our conclusion of A Mild-Mannered Reporter's guide to spiders! After last week's long discussion of the various builds possible for the villainous epic archetypes, we're back to blast through to the end of the unique leveling missions. And it's a pretty interesting string, although like much content in City of Heroes it starts to slow down a bit as you get higher in levels. But it also has the nice story interplay of the best content available on the Rogue Isles, the constant back-and-forth as untrustworthy people stab each other in the back.
For players or readers coming in late, we left off at the conclusion of the level 20 arc, where you delivered the Eye of Chronos to Fortunata Hamilton. She tells you that the process of seeing whether or not you truly are a Destined One will take time... which is true if you turn the mission in before level 20, but otherwise it apparently takes two seconds. Of course, there's a good reason for that.
Armed un-robbery
When you return to Hamilton, she proudly declares that all of the work you have done was entirely pointless. She's not good enough to actually figure out whether or not you are a Destined One, so she's resorting to the next best plan: destroying every single copy of the list in order to force Kalinda to develop a new list. This might seem a bit problematic to you, as doing so would then ensure that you were found out if your name isn't on the new list, but there are Reward Merits on the line here. Hop to it.
Your first mission, should you choose to accept it, involves another short click-the-glowie to put the Eye back. Once you've taken care of that, you have to take care of the actual destruction of the master list -- another straightforward mission, albeit in a much larger map. It's easy to miss that this particular mission requires two actions, both destroying the lists and erasing all records of your presence. Don't make the mistake I once did and think you're done after just clicking one objective. Really, don't.
The next mission is a bit more intensive, but still fairly straightforward. You have to stop by Alan Desslock again to get a new virus, this one aiming to destroy every single copy of the list stored in the Arachnos system. It's another mission to fight through a large cluster of Arachnos soldiers, but once it's done, you're finished with Hamilton until level 25. (Which might very well mean "right after you finish the last mission," considering how leveling in the game can go.)
Hooray, I have a destiny!
Hamilton's next task for you, essentially, comes down to keeping up appearances. As she reasons, the best thing you can do is keep taking down heroes and doing what seems reasonable for a Destined One -- that way it'll look perfectly normal if your name is on the list. (If it isn't... well, that point isn't very clear. Perhaps you could take up a hobby.) So off you go for another mission to the city, and as always, it's too arge with too few pointers for my tastes. You also have to face off against Sky Dragon, who uses a couple Disorient abilities and a Knockback. A Break Free is advisable if you mix it up in melee.
Sky Dragon hints that you don't realize your destiny, but that if you did, you'd be fighting with him instead of against him. That seems to point toward your status as a Destined One after all, and it dovetails nicely with Kalinda having finished re-divining the list. So for what seems to be the hundredth time, you break in and steal the glowie. I mean click the list. You get the idea. The point is, you are indeed on the list. And what's the best way to celebrate being on the list?
Yes, you're due to go beat the snot out of a hero. Head back to Paragon City to face off against Overdrive. Once again, he has a few Disorient attacks, and once again you wander the streets until finding him and beating him senseless. Hamilton's line is concluded, and not a moment too soon, as the end of the arc winds up sort of... well, floundering for direction. At least you're destined.
Wait, maybe that was gas and not destiny
Had you forgotten about your old pal Alan? If you kept in touch with him, you'd know that he kept saying he might have something for you when you hit 30. As it turns out, he does: It looks like Longbow has developed a keen interest in Destined Ones, which is bad news for you. (Other Destined Ones too, presumably, but that's their problem.) The news is even worse than it seems, because you have to go hit the streets and beat up 30 Longbow in order to get one of them to talk. If you love street-sweeping missions or desperately looking for another mission that includes you assaulting Longbow members...
We'll just leave the well-deserved hatred of missions like that on the back burner for now. The practical upshot of all this is that you need to break into their staging area and grab some files to know what they're planning on doing. It looks like they're working on rounding up Destined Ones... and they have their own copy of the list. So off you go to retrieve that list and to have a charming run-in with Back Alley Brawler. Yes, the dude himself. Bring along as much of a group as possible, since he can hurt you pretty badly even if you don't face him at his full strength.
Once you've gotten the list, it appears that your name isn't on it. Which wouldn't be a big deal except for the fact that it seems to have been figured out by a third party, and recently. Which ought to raise all sorts of interesting questions...
Who plays who
At level 35, Alan has more work for you, figuring that you really ought to be taking out the other Destined Ones to help keep yourself in the pack. Apparently Burning Daemon is taking part in an Arachnos operation, which is a great opportunity for you to show everyone up. Burning Daemon himself is a fairly straightforward fight, with a fair number of Fire abilities -- nothing that a defensive approach can't handle easily. No, the real problem of this mission comes after the fact, as it becomes clear that the whole operation was a set-up. Arachnos baited you into the fight.
Why would they do that? It's time for yet another mission inside an Arachnos facility where you have to click a glowing doodad, which you're probably getting quite tired of by now. (We're almost done with them.) This time, you're stealing Kalinda's personal files, which reveal... Kalinda knew about your scheme. She and Lord Recluse knew that you were trying to sneak yourself into the high life, and the big man himself ordered Kalinda to let your scheme succeed just to see how far you were willing to take it.
Unfortunately, Kalinda's files still don't reveal what the Destined One is actually supposed to be. There's only one person who knows that, and it's Kalinda herself. So it's time to break into one last Arachnos facility, face Kalinda down, and find out what the point of all this has been.
Kalinda herself won't be a horrible fight, but she puts up a fairly stiff resistance. Her only real hold is a Sleep, but she deals heavy damage and has heightened Defense. If you're alone, expect this one to cost you a few Inspirations. Ultimately, it confirms what you already knew -- that Recluse planned to just see how far you would take the charade before your elimination. But something's changed now.
Level 45 brings the last quest and the final reveal from a now-humbled Kalinda. You weren't originally a Destined One... but through all of the work you've done to try and remain one, you've actually become the Destined One. And that means it's time to ship out and fight Statesman one-on-one. Or as would be far wiser, many-on-one. You're a villain, why would you make the effort to fight fair? Unfortunately, smashing his face in this time doesn't earn you any special badges, but it does bring a fitting conclusion to the end of the story arc of the Epic Archetypes for villains.
Seriously. Not only are you playing a mook, you're playing a mook who wound up re-writing the future. How awesome is that?
With that though, it's time to wrap up our guide to playing the spiders. I hope everyone's enjoyed it and/or found it useful, as it was a fair bit of work to write but fun despite that. Comments, questions, and suggestions can always be left in comments or sent to Eliot at Massively dot com. (If you did like the guide and want something similar for Kheldians, let me know, although I'll admit I don't find them as interesting.) Next week, it's a community spotlight, and after that? Let's start declaring some loyalty around here.
