CaptSammy

I found in the BAF, that size was not the key factor to success. I completed with 12-15 a couple of times. I have failed miserably with 22-24 (because of prisoner phase). I have failed with 6+ controllers/dominators in the prisoner phase. I passed the prisoner phase and came close to taking down both AV's in the last phase on a 14 man team all melee (well one PB) and NO support/control/debuff/heal.

What stopped that last team was not the prisoner phase. It was not lack of support. It was THE ONE KEY, that I have found. STOP THE ADDS.

In the four successful runs last night, a couple (on the smaller teams) or a few of us on the almost full team, took on and kept taking out the bosses. Every non-prisoner failure was due to overspawn and complete annilihation by the lvl 54 bosses swarming.

Enough people had realized this that a few of us (with maybe a suggestion in chat).

On a pre-formed league my suggestion would be to have one of the three teams on bosses. In the first two AV fights, have two teams on AV's, one of bosses. On the last phase, One team on Each AV and one team on adds. (adjusting to keep the healths even, of course)

First day: got on a PuG BAF after launch. Couple quit. 7 of us could not even take out Nightstar. Pug Baf again, Got Nightstar and Prisoners, Not Siege. Next Baf PUG could not take out both. Still was getting somewhere, raking up some astrals and threads.

Yesterday I started with a few Lamda's to get those unlocked. Not had much luck on those. I swear I was on a team that got all 10 of each, but somehow we still didn't win. I can not remember why.

However, was on two PUG (10-14) people successes of BAF last night, and then was on a 24 man PuG (I assume most were from a preformed that joined the queue and it added me in.) and got the "not on my watch badge" and a success. Did one more pug BAF success. Got one common at the end, but my first three successes gave me the rare componont pop up. I was feeling very lucky.

The crates and containers always seem to be in the exact same place, so I am hoping someone with the tools, the patientce, (someone far better than I.) will put up a map of the layout of each side with the locations of the glowies on it for reference.

You forgot Very Rare Componet as well. And it IS WAI. You will randomly get one at the end of every successful trial. It is weighted as well, with Very Rare being, well, very rare.
That being said, my first 3 completed BAF's last night all rewarding me the Rare option, with the fourth being a Common option. Guess the RNG was being good to me.

Least I got the new lawn mower put together this morning while waiting. Haha.

It is exactly right. Each Tier up to T3 consumes the Tier before it. Tier 4 consumes 2 of the Tier before it. Works the same way with the 4 new slots as well.

I will eventually break down my 4 Notices when I run out of shards to convert over, but since I made a suggestion that they do something better for Notice conversion, I was hoping they would listen. Though when I run out of the 30 shards I have left to port over, I will break down and break them down.

Im burning my for threads for the moment to get my slots filled/upgraded quicker. I can always stock up on more later. I am sure I will be doing the trails enough.

Just had the whole league kicked out on a Lambda. We were all the way on Maruader too, though I do not think we had the team to actually take him out. Was this happening on Beta??

Ok I have to get ready for work (UGH!) but I got three BAF runs in real quick. First off, I traded over 10 shards for 10 threads.

First run: Could not even defeat Nightstar.... 8-10 people and little support.
Second Run: Got Nightstar and amazingly we got the prisoners, despite many not knowing what was going on and no controllers. Siege on the other hand..... We got burned.
Third Run: No tanks but a good team, Got TO the double AV's but could not get it together and make it happen, though we did kick some good lvl 54 Boss tail for XP.

I converted my 5 total Astral merits down to shards (nothing else to do with them at this rate) and burned a FEW shards on XP conversion.

I am now at 33 shards left, and 64% unlocked on judgement (and 9% unlocked on interface as I hit the wrong button a couple times.)

Not bad for a couple hours and a LOT of crazy fun.

Hoping for some good teams when I get home later for a few runs before bed.

Well we are up to 'unknown' status, which means the patching is over and now its just making sure everything is working. Hopefully there are no problems like last thursday and it will be up a little early. Hey I can hope can't I.

Yea, once you looked at the other times in the list you realize they meant 11 am PDT, but when I first saw that, I thought they were being snarky after what happened last Thursday. :-)

They always announce the server shutdown in advance, just like they did for the maintenance last thursday. Usually sometime the day before. If you see a 'downtime' announcment in the next several hours (they are US PST at the office) then we will get it tomorrow. If not I would assume Wednesday.

How many times will you check the announcements or Dev Digest page today to see if they announce a 'server downtime' for tomorrow??

I am up to a few before I realized that NC Norcal probably hasn't even had breakfast yet. Will check in a few more hours. It is killing me.

Ok I was making a list of my 50's across my two accounts and I am up to exactly 8 (with a few more mid-40's getting close). 8 being the size of a full team, I thought to myself "I wonder what kind of team those 8 would make". Now I know some will argue about what is a 'perfect' team, and almost any team of 8 50's would be a 'great' team, but I thought it worked out well that these 8 would make a great, well-rounded team.

Inv/Eng Tank (Alpha - Tier 3)
DM/INV Scrap (A-T4)
Ill/Rad Cont (A-T3)
Fire/Kin Cont (A-T4)
Emp/Dark Def (A-T3)
Storm/Elec Def
Thugs/Pain MM
Arch/Elec Blast

Heals, Buffs, Debuffs. Meatshields, Damage. I kinda like it. I know its kinda random but just thought I would share.

Well I bugged in on my character, so maybe I will get them eventually.

Everyone on my team this morning for a first (i am sure of many) Tin Mage run did not get the normal two shard reward at the end. We did receive double merits and the Notice, but not the normal two shards. This MAY be WAI and the first run is a notice in place of the shards. Maybe they can not code giving both. Just wanted to let people know.

I got into this game mostly just to make my main, Captain Sammy. He started as a Inv/SS Tank though. In the 20's I rerolled. At that time (pre-ED and too low for Rage) tank damage was horrible, but an Invul scrap could till soft cap on resists (this was before hard caps). So I rerolled as the only 'punchy' scrapper set DM/INV.

Still play him. Had not played him ALOT until Incarnates. Was leveling too many characters and when playing at 50, everyone wants me to bring my ill/rad. I was also playing (farming) with my fire/kin.

But not with IO's, Captain is a beast, and even more fun to play. The DM utility powers are awesome. Just fun all around.

well that did work, but I could have swore I have eqiuped those in Ouro before.

I have never had this problem until just the last two days. If I make a new alpha slot ability, when I try to equip it, it says I have been in combat or used a power too recently.

On one of these toons I logged out for several hours, made sure hasten was not set to auto-fire, and it STILL says I have used a power or been in combat. I have been in Ouro the whole time so I have not been in combat.

Anyone have any ideas??? Anyone else having this problem??

HELLO? Nobody is making the obvious comment here. Issue 19.5 (Strike Pack) is to launch in 'Early February" and the do not publish during an event because of the code. So it is HOPEFULLY safe to assume that 19.5 will drop BEFORE Feb. 10th.

Right?