Death_Conqueror

I believe it was something along the lines of "A Day At the Zoo", or close to it. Don't quote me on it, though.

FYI, the above is false. TB has a full end crash, just like most of the rest of the blaster nukes. I've run a tri-elec blaster for almost 5 years, it's always had a full crash.

Yes, the power description says it is only -40 end to self when firing. Yes, that is a lie. I just tested it ingame on some level 40 rikti in FF. When from 112 endurance, with no powers running, all the way down to zero after the nuke fired.

A reminder, this hami raid is in roughly 45 minutes. See everyone there.

I guess I'd prefer that we didn't skip the last wave, simply because we would be ignoring 18 more shots at shards if we did. However, whatever decision FMP chooses regarding rushing or not, the yellow taunt team will be prepared.

The basic idea is that, really, there's two 'taunting' teams. One is the 'Hami Taunters', which is one tank, supported by emps, kins, pains, and so on. That tank wants a ton of regen, with the recharge boosting powers going to the emp/pains/whatever to recharge their regen boosting powers. Since the tank couldn't hold as many EoEs as may sometimes be needed for a full raid (20 plus 20 in e-mail, 40 minutes, that's kinda cutting it close maybe), when a tank's regen gets to about cap, he can withstand some direct shots without an EoE popped.

The second taunting team is the 'Yellow Taunters', or whatever the hell we're calling it (I lead the team and I don't even remember what we call it). That team's made up with as many taunting tanks/brutes as I can find at the raid. Each tank takes a yellow mito, pops an EoE before a wave, and taunts while Ele and the 'Yellow Strike' team hacks and slashes their way around Hami.

As for by-passing the 1/4 bloom, as we saw the first time we did it, when the tanks stayed and kept fighting Hami for additional damage, the yellow mitos, undistracted by a taunting tank, took some pot shots at some folks. So, when we do the rush job at the end, tanks get their hits in till we get to 1/4 health, then pull back to their assigned mitos (like all other blooms), and just taunt the yellows till Hami dies.

Well, to put it in perspective:

Let's say you just made a Spiritual Radial (rech/heal), and that you now have no shards or components. (I doubt it'll come out that evenly, but that's neither here nor there for this example)

Now, on to the various assumptions:

- It takes 1 Uncommon Boost, along with common and uncommon components to make a Rare Boost. (not unreasonable to assume, just don't know how many)

-Assume, looking at the tree on the website, that 2 of the Rares will require one type of Uncommon, and that the other 2 require the other type of Uncommon.

-Assume, looking at the [Any 2 Rares] bit in brackets on the website, that for the Very Rare, it will take any of the 4 Rares, so that you could make two seperate Rares, using two seperate Uncommons. (now we start to stretch a bit)

Assuming all that... just in terms of shards: 12 shards to make another common. 20 to convert that to the other uncommon. Then perhaps... 2 uncommon components and 1 common to make a Rare? So that's 4+8+4+8+4 = 28 shards (again, shard counting only). That's 28 shards for one Rare.. then another 28 shards for the other Rare.

Next, to convert the two Rares to One Very Rare. Perhaps.. 3 uncommon components? 4+8+4+8+4+8 = 36 shards.

That would bring your total cost to 12+20+28+28+36 = 124 shards required. (Again, you already started with 1 uncommon boost)

Now, that's a LOT of assuming. If i20 introduces rare components, could get even more interesting. However, I think it's safe to conclude, if you're being given the choice of merits or components: components, components, components.

If you hover your mouse over any of the very rares (say the Core Paragon, since the link goes straight to the endurance tree), the pop up window gives the description (45% end, blah blah blah, 2/3rds ignore ED, blah blah blah, level shift, yada yada..) but at the very bottom it says in brackets:

[Ability Cost: Any 2 Rare]

Which I would take to assume that you need 2 Rares to make a Very Rare. This statement would seem, however, to indicate that any two Rares work, not just specific ones that are above the tree you see in the link.

Now, this tree is different than the tree you see in-game: ingame, there's a bridge linking all 4 Rare species, which made me originally think that you needed all 4 Rares before you could make Very Rares. However, looking back at the tree in the link provided above, perhaps that is how the devs wanted to illustrate, ingame, that you need 2 of 'any' of the 4 Rares to make a Very Rare.

Now, assuming the Rares work like the Uncommons, you'll need to convert your Uncommon into a Rare, which means you lose your Uncommon. Meaning you'd have to make a 2nd Uncommon to make the other Rare that you want (going off of the ingame tree), before you could take those 2 Rares and turn them into a Very Rare.

Assuming this is true, what you 'could' do right now is make the other Uncommon in a tree (so you'd have both of them), so that when i20 hits, you could convert those 2 into two Rares (assuming you have sufficient shards and components, along with depending on the requirements of the Rares), then convert those two Rares into a Very Rare right away. Yes, that takes a definite gamble based on the requirements for the Rares and Very Rares, which we don't know about yet.

There were thoughts about Numina, as well as Faathim. However, Faathim would probably run beyond the 2 hour time that Avatea is required to be around me. As for Numina, for me it eventually came down to 'more gripes with Augustine than Numina'.

Numina's plot that requires you to do all the grey hunting actually makes a small amount of sense, if you read the plot (magic lay lines and so on, clockwise and counterclockwise around the city for the spell). Augustine's plot, on the other hand, is simply "go there and secure the area". Repeat, a dozen times. Also, Numina has more standard/normal door missions than Augustine, and travel time is not hampered by the Shard.

I was trying to describe the alpha slot and all its math (without using math) to someone last night, and found myself using 'shards', 'salvage', and then 'enhancements'. I like components a bit more than salvage, since we already have like 20 types of salvage.. but I'll probably stick with 'enhancement', personally. Or, the (insert rarity) (insert end/dmg/acc/rech) Alpha-O.

As for last night, got the slot unlocked on two guys and was able to slot a common End Redux Alpha-O in DC. But then I ended up just badging the night away.

Oh for frell's sake, people. It's two task forces that prefer an Alpha enhancement (enh in the alpha slot), not 7 new whole ZONES.

You have to run one story arc. Set it to -1/1 No AVs and bring some shivies if you're that concerned. Or team up. Not like we've never seen folks ask for assistance taking out an EB/AV in a story arc before.

The task force doesn't require the alpha slot enh. yes, you will be nerfed heavily, but I just bet you within a month or 3 there will be a team of folks that run the newer TFs without an Alpha enhancement and do just fine.

As for slotting the Alpha Slot, won't take that long. 3, maybe 4 nights? Run a LGTF, ITF, States, LRSF or buy a component with vanguard merits from the weekly ship raid.

As for the move to more of a 'grind' or 'hardcore' end game... really? We're going to base these Doom(tm) chants based on two task forces? We have NO idea what the future issues will bring. For all we know, i20 will have not only the rest of Alpha and the start of the 2nd slot, but also some other content that does not require/prefer the alpha slot. Until we do know, any chants of doom and whatnot are pointless and unneeded.

As for hamster's point about which alpha to take itself, it depends on how you slot. If you were going, for example, with a S/L def cap build, you may use some kinetic combats. Nice, decent, good S/L at 4 slots. Depending on the rest of your build, you may not have a 5th slot available for a damage IO, so this allows you to take the damage Alpha Enh and round out your attacks. Furthermore, considering an increasing percentage ignores ED as you go from common to very rare, even if your powers themselves are pushing the ED boundaries in terms of End, Rech, Acc, or Dam, even more that ignores ED can only HELP you. Easier to reach perma-hasten, more damage you can pound out, make damn sure you hit stuff (or you could switch Set IO pieces since you don't need that Acc piece as much), or, thinking for a Dark Armor scrapper... actually have endurance for once.

Long rant, point is: enough with the blasted doom. Time for that later.

Masque, I'm showing in my records that you are correct. You bought Viv, Hippy, Philly, one of the Forum Sigs, and you attempted to buy the other. (No, I did not keep track of who bid on things, just who bought whom/what. I only remember masque trying to get both sigs b/c somebody mentioned it in broadcast.)

Yes, but what would be the incentive 2-3 months from implementation? We'd all have the badges on the characters we cared about, and would, I would guess, have less incentive to do a rather annoying task again?

2 merits? You think you're going to attract 30-45 folks to destroy a drop ship for 2 merits? Hell, Lusca gives 2 merits, and about 90% of the time I go to/from the boat in Indy He/She/It is up there in that far NW corner.

(and before anybody goes back to the 'this is why it should be a badge' argument, see my previous post).

The point of even being able to take down a dropship is just so that you can say to yourself 'cool, i helped take down a dropship'. that's it. Some sort of 'cool' explosion goes along with it, and that's all.

I'm all for people taking down the dropships, I just feel that 2 merits isn't going to be much of an incentive (and if you crank it to say 20 per, then that could lead to farming since you see what, 2-4 dropships per raid?), and a badge can lead to 'locking out' of newer folks because of the large number of folks required to participate.

No, that's an argument against a badge, because of one very simple reason: as we have all seen, once folks get the badges on the characters they care about, they don't pay attention to the event again (see fires, raves, lusca, ghost ship, etc). You do not want to create a situation that requires a large amount of people, who, once they have completed it, are unlikely to run it again, effectively 'locking' the badge for newer folks who may have missed out on the previous runs.

It's one thing to be a newer person and ask for a team to come Lusca hunting. You're asking 6-10 other folks (ish) to come help. It's a completely different thing to ask for 40 folks to come help do something for a reward they already have (ship raids being different because the merits continue to have value and can be used on the hvas pets, etc).

No other zone event, however, requires 3-4 teams to complete (save the ship raid, and that was designed as an end-game raid). Not even Lusca, since you can take him/her/it down with 1 decent team.

The drop ships, however, need more. I think there were what, 40-50 folks that did it the first time on Test? And that was when you could affect the ships with slow powers. Since the devs made the ships invulnerable to -speed powers, would be even more difficult.

Screw it - do that on your own time*.

*note, considering I'm not technically in the SG this go-round, I probably don't have a vote. Unfortunately.

*sigh* I'm going to end up mailing 2-3 billion to Mental, then... Snaptooth > PVP.