Organica

The clockwork king has Babbage and the Knight. The Malta have their Kronos Titan. The Praetorians have Warwalkers. Why aren't there even more giant robots on the game? Giant robots make everything more awesome!

The Council suck at making giant robots. The Hess TF is a lot of fun, far be it from me to suggest it needs to be updated, but the giant robot doesn't do anything. It would be 1000 times more awesome if we had a giant robot striding across Striga Isles.

The 5th Column suck at making giant robots too. Again, I'd probably be crucified for suggesting that anything about the ITF needs to be changed (other than reducing lag, which I believe they've already done as much as they can in that department). But here you have two more giant robots that do nothing. Boring!

A giant robot attacking downtown Cimemora, that would be something. I'm pretty sure Hercules never had to deal with anything quite like that.

I'm told that some people call Crimson's "World Wide Red" arc "The Malta Task Force". Why isn't there a real Malta task force? Malta and Knives of Artemis, together in a Task Force! Oh sure, some people would complain, but I wanna see it! With new giant robots! Maybe the KoA need their own robot, you know?

Also, the Sky Raiders need their own giant robot – although the new Admiral Buffy (whatever his name is) TF is full of borrowed giant robots. I'm very happy that the Sky Raiders finally have their own task force, of a sort. It is an awesome task force, it gets the Giant Robot seal of approval! But where's the flying fortress? How can they be airship pirates without a flying fortress? (And a giant flying Skyraider robot!)

Why hasn't Nemesis built a giant robot yet? I realize it would be all steampunky, and the Clockwork King seems to have that covered. But Nemesis knows the value of rust removal. His robot would be all shiny and new!

While we're at it, the Circle of Thorns could have a giant 50' tall golem. And the Banished Pantheon could have a 50' tall totem. I mean, the 50' tall zombie is a nice touch… but come on! Wooden robot!

And I'm sure the Freakshow could come up with some sort of weird giant monstrosity too.

But basically: Moar Giant Robots.

That's all.

I don't know about "one of the quickest". It can be done in under an hour with a good run... but so can Citadel and Numina. Manticore is by far the fastest of them, can be done in under 40 minutes. The only "long" Freedom Phalanx TF left is Synapse.

Posi is a different thing entirely but each half can be run in well under an hour. So I'd say Sister Psyche is in the middle of the pack.

I did it last night... very fun TF, felt a bit epic. We were a bit scattered and confused because it was the first time for everyone, though someone had heard "in the final fight, hit this guy first" which we didn't do anyway. We were fine. I earned 4 shards while doing it, lots of bosses on the TF! ^_^

We didn't do any of the optional stuff I think either.

That's fricken hilarious. Somebody -- more than one somebody most likely -- wasn't thinking far enough ahead. ^_^

You can run Manti twice in 2 hours (at the very least). I know I wouldn't have waited around nearly that long for an afk leader.

What server was this on? If it's on Virtue I could help you run a quick Manti tonight. (Evening Pacific time).

Well, that's good to know.

But hey, what's a few dozen +4 Paragon Protectors anyway?

I did reset another mission this week. I accidentally tried running Trap Door at +2, and this was on my weak-a$$ dual pistols/devices blaster. For what it's worth, I gave it a good try anyway, since my scrappers could certainly have done it, but no, it wasn't happening, so I exited and reset.

Friend in global says: If dual pistols/devices is so weak, why play it?
Me: Well... I'm already 50.
Friend: My condolences.

The market is always geared towards level 50 or top level IOs, in sets that are popular.

I've been doing this for 3-4 years, I don't think enough people are ever going to "catch on" (or care enough to do so -- a lot of my friend fully understand how the market works but don't use it like I do).

I have a friend that runs TFs at all levels... has one build with level 47 IOs (good for running level 40+ TFs like Dr. Q for example)... second build with level 27 IOs, and third build with level 17 IOs (for Posi TF).

Whatever works. ^_^ I spend so much time IOing out all of my characters, I can't imagine doing it 3 times for each of them.

If by alpha level you mean the tier 3 slot and level shift, I only have that on Nina Ballerina, but I should eventually have that on Mouse and Tiffany too. Mostly I plan to get a tier 1 alpha on my other 50's... that seems doable... but I'm being kinda lax about it on the whole. I've run through the arc to open up the alpha slot on everyone, but after that I'm mostly playing like I normally do. Whatever shards drop, drop.

I need to update some of my builds as well. I ran through an ambush farm today on my electric melee/shield scrapper, (because I absolutely had to create yet another scrapper and level them up a bit!) and actually I'm not softcapped for either range or AoE. I had it set to +2/8, and that was fairly difficult. I probably need to add the PvP IO to that build at some point and rework it to be softcapped to all three positions.

I've been reworking my MA scrappers too. All of their builds rely heavily on Kinetic Combats and Obliterations for the smashing/lethal defense, and the problem is that MA is really endurance heavy and those sets don't help very much in that department (six slotted Oblit is something like 18% endurance reduction ). My MA/WP scrappers have quick recovery, stamina, physical perfection, performance shifter procs, Miracle uniques, Numi uniques, and still if you're spamming your attacks constantly (like in the AV fight I did up above), you run into endurance issues.

Typically I've paired 4 pieces Kinetic Combat with 2 pieces of Pounding Slugfest for the 8% regen bonus, and because I tend to be a set bonus *****. But I redid Shinobu Dragonheart and replaced those Pounding Slugfests with Mako's quads and triples, and in Eagle's Claw a Hectacomb acc/rech and dam/end. What I get for all of that is better accuracy, good recharge, and a lot more endurance reduction (and a 4% recovery bonus from the two Hectacomb, woo!). I decided today that I had to do that for Tiffany as well. ^_^ Probably should do it with Nina too, but even though Nina is an almost identical build to Tiffany, I don't farm with Nina so I haven't noticed those endurance issues yet, heh.

See, my builds are "good builds" in that the average player, even the majority of heavy TFer's that I play with, would be very happy to have such a build.

My builds are not "Werner quality" good builds as a rule, I suspect. ^_^ But maybe not too far off, I hope.

When I'm working with a new set or something I haven't done before, I always read guides and check builds on the boards though. For my most recent project, I picked TopDoc's high end night widow build and tweaked it a bit since it was built before inherent fitness. But I basically did what the guide said. It was labelled as a ridiculously expensive build, and it was. Then at the suggestion of Chaos I added a PvP proc to Spin, which was another 921 million According to TopDoc this is a build that can solo AVs and Pylons, but unlike Werner I generally don't run off and try to do those things. But it's a very good build, perma Mind Link, softcapped to 3 positions at all times, but suffers from the usual defense-only problems, I can still get hit hard. But I consider it comparable to Tiffany's build or Mouse Police's build. It lets me play stupidly if I want to.

It drives me nuts when a teammmate dies, and I try to pass the1 a wakie, and I get the message that their inspiration tray is full. No wonder you're dead!

Not that I haven't had that happen to me ever, but still...

Huh, never even knew about that. I have the badge on Mouse Police at least.

Or to put it another way, I was set to +3/8 because I can load up a council map and clear it solo at those settings.

I plan builds in mids, I look at other builds and borrow from them, and money is never an object. My two shield scrappers are near capped to all three positions (builds that were capped to 3 positions before the changes to Blessing of the Zephyr -- I think both of them lack a full 45% AoE at the moment) -- my MA/Invulerable scrapper is softcapped for smashing/lethal -- my three MA/WP scrappers are all built using a build taken from the forums by Zen Foo Do that I liked quite a bit, offers about 40% smashing lethal defense plus good mix of resist/regen; Mouse Police is a fully purpled out katana/regen, Organica is a katana/regen without the purples but with very good recharge nonetheless; Maiden Knight is broadsword/regen with some purples and very good recharge...

I wouldn't try to claim my builds are the best they could possibly be, because I'm not hardcore number cruncher or min/maxer, but all of them can solo missions set for 8... at varying degrees of difficulty depending on the enemies involved. ^_^ None of them lack for Miracle or Numi uniques or LotG +recharges where I can fit those in. A few have PvP IOs where those seemed useful, though I've never slotted a full PvP set. But I think I could solo a TF like Manticore on any one of them, with appropriate settings of course.

I have a lot of very well-built scrappers, and I've always thought I could solo TFs -- the easier ones, at the very least. Manticore and Citadel always seemed like good first targets. So with the WTF being Manticore this week, I found myself looking to join one last night on my MA/WP scrapper Tiffany Blackheart, and for various reasons I didn't want to team with the guy who was forming the next one (I had some player notes to read, heh). And it occurred to me that now was as good a time as any to try it solo.

I logged in my 2nd account and recruited friends from a TF channel I'm in, and inside a few minutes I had the TF stared. One guy, a blaster, said that actually he wanted to run a Manti anyway, so I said he could duo it with me -- doesn't matter to me how much he contributes since I expect to be able to do it all on my own anyway. Everyone else quits, I log out my other toon, and off we go.

The first group is tougher than I was anticipating. It takes me a few minutes to realize that I'm only 35, but I'm fighting level 38 guys. A very large group of them, too. Oops. Forgot to check my settings! What am I set at anyway?

Me: I guess I'm set a little high.
Him: That would explain why they seemed extra crunchy. What are you set at, +2 / 4 people?
Me: Uh... +3 / 8 people...
Him: ....
Me: This might take a bit longer than I was planning...

But you know, I figured "Oh, it'll be a 20 minute first mission then I can reset". I didn't want to quit and start over and have to beg friends to help me start it up again. I'm a tough scrapper, I can do this. Right?

We ran into level 39s. The blaster accidentally aggro'd a 2nd group. My scrapper has high smashing/lethal defense but isn't softcapped, and really, even at softcap when you have multiple +4 bosses pounding on you you're going to get hit, and hard. So I go down a couple of times. The blaster goes down a lot. I stock up on inspirations, I lower my settings (which has no effect on the current mission), I pull out an Amy for healing, I pull one or two Paragon Protectors at a time... but the blaster, after a couple of more deaths, wisely decides to quit and find a real team to play with.

But I've come too far to turn back, and I'm still convinced that it's only a matter of 20 or 30 minutes to clear the mission. The first floor is huge though... and it seems every group has at least 3 Paragon Protectors in it. Some have 4. Especially with the level 39s, I can't damage them fast enough to prevent them from using their tier 9 defense powers, so the fights last forever.

I slog through and make it to the 2nd floor, which is also large and filled with countless enemies. Man, I never realized how many guys an 8 person team takes down when everyone's rolling and the enemies are only 1 or 2 levels above you at most. For that matter, I never realized how much more deadly a large group of Crey are compared to Council. After all, I'm set at +3/8 specifically for Council farming, which I can handle without any major problems. PP's can hit hard, take forever to kill, and whenever one of the rads would debuff me I had to kill him quick, since I was already at the upper limit of my ability to hit enemies and do damage and their debuffs hurt quite a lot.

I fall into a pattern: eat purples, eat any spare reds and yellows and oranges that come my way, occasionally use a green when a big hit gets through, eat blues because I'm constantly attacking and my endurance bar keeps going down (not a problem at level 50 I think, but kind of a problem at 35). Eventually I'll clear several groups, run out of inspirations and run into 3 or 4 PPs at once, and I die. Stock up on inspirations, run back, and start again.

Any sane person would have quit and started over or gone on to do something else. ^_^ But my scrapper is invincible! I can do this!

The third floor turns out to be the largest floor yet, with one of those "death rooms" where a less-than-phenomenal team can wipe out if they rush in (but my normal task force friends ignore these rules and are usually just fine, heh). I pull, and pull, and pull... and still there's tons of crey guys in there. It takes forever.

I had initially set TF settings for 2 hours and zero deaths, confident that I would finish well under 2 hours and not die. The "no deaths" challenge was failed very quickly of course, but eventually as I'm clearing the third floor I get a second "challenge failed!" message. Gawd, have I really been stuck in the first mission for two freakin' hours? Yes, I have.

This is not exactly something to brag to your friends about. In fact, I haven't said anything in the TF channel, heh. I don't want people to know.

I stealth and scout ahead, not sure if I even really want to slog through the rest. But I can see that I have 2 groups of level 39s left, and then several groups of level 38s which are almost infinitely easier to deal with.

So I finally clear the first mission, some 2 hours and 10 or 15 minutes after starting it. Bleah. So much for getting to bed on time -- I'm not gonna stop now. I set the second mission, run in, and it' almost shocking how easily the even-con crey fall before me. One hit, two hits at most. PPs stand no chance of getting off MoG or Elude. I'd almost forgotten how really powerful my scrapper was, after all.

I think the entire rest of the TF took less than half of the time I spent in that first mission, and that includes a pretty long AV battle. My friend MG noticed I was still on as I was heading to the last mission, so I had to explain why... lol. Okay, I'm an idiot. Someone said, "Sounds like something you''d do, MG." MG says, "No, I'd have it set at +4."

I think that's one mistake that I'll remember not to make next time!

I can field a team of 8 scrappers. What more do I need?

Okay, if necessary... I have an invul tank, I have a ill/rad troller for the debuffs, I have a bubble defender for defense and an empath or dark/arrow if needed... and a fire/fire blaster for ranged damage....

Nah. I'll take 6 scrappers, my warshade, and my night widow!

I like Freakshow Wars, I can get it down to 40-50 minutes, 33 merits.

Yeah, that even works on some (admittedly weaker) AVs, like Suit Guy on the Manticore TF. It's fun to see an AV stumble around in a daze for half the fight.

1. Run into large group of enemies.
2. Eagle's Claw on nearest one.
3. Dragon's Tail
4. Profit!

I've gotten very good at following Eagle's Claw with my AoE or my next highest damage attack (on a single enemy -- usually Cobra Strike) for maximum effect. ^_^

Bonus: versus an enemy like a sapper, either Eagle's Claw or Cobra Strike are very likely to stun them... so they can't fight back, if they're not already dead.

Think of the children!

So yesterday I joined an ITF on Miss Shinobu the widow, and before the last mission I was able to craft and slot my tier1 alpha. Not bad considering I turned 50 Sat afternoon. ^_^ Of course, running Crimson's arc up to the point where the Kronos Titan spawns five times Between 12:00 AM Sunday and 6 PM Sunday helped a lot, I got about 9 shards that way plus an Armageddon. ^_^

Tonight I ran Manticore twice -- once on my night widow, and once on Nina Ballerina. Because Nina is my go-to toon for hami raiding, she's ended up being my "most alpha'd" toon. I am close to having the tier 4 alpha slot on her, need another notice of the well and a handful of shards to do it. But I've been working late all week so no hami raids this week for me.

Sunday March 13 2011

Wasn't going to market today but my Widow has less than 20 million and I want to convert merits to amerits. So...

Log in: Liberty or Debt, 44 blaster
Last logged: 14 days ago
Money: 416 million

Nothing sold, but I have stuff bought ready to craft. 10x Miracle Heal bought for 1.2 mil each, 10x Miracle heal/end bought for 12,000 each, and all the salvage.

Craft and list all 10 Miracle Heals at 20.1 million each. Craft 10 Miracle Heal/End and list 6 of them for 10.1 mil each.

Ship 100 million to my Widow

End Money; 299 million

Claim my 100 million, convert 50 merits, use 2 amerits to buy a Miracle +recovery. My Widow is now 36 and rolling right along! Still only have the Hectacomb set bought, but I'll have more money to spend by mid week I think.

Monday March 14 2011

Logged in: Wall Street Brawler 27 scrapper
Last logged: 4 days ago
Money: 396 million

12 items sold: Scirocco's Dervish dam/end, 10 for 10 million each. Scirocco's Dervish dam/rech, 2 for 14 million each.

Can't get any more neat and straightforward than that.

I have 8 more Scirocco's Dervish dam/rech to sell, and there are only 14 for sale at the moment. Aha! I have an opportunity to up my list price a bit here, I think. 3 of last 5 are for 15 million, so I list for 14.1 million.

I also have 10 more of the same recipe to craft, with rare salvage already purchased. 10 Scirocco's Dervish dam/rech bought for 12,000 each; 10 Hamidon Goo bought for 2.7 mil each. I buy the other salvage and craft.

I list 6 more at 14.1 million

End money: 502 million

Logged in: Nina Ballerina
Last logged: 2 days ago
Money: 727 million

13 items sold: Decimation acc/dam rech, 7 for 20million, 2 for 21 million, 1 for 22,123,123, for 17 million, Devastation acc/dam for 10 million, Numina's Convalescence +regen/recovery for 85 million.

Not bad! I decide to convert merits and do an a-merit roll, 35-39: Touch of Death dam/end/rech, Aegis end/rech/res, Obliteration chance for smashing damage, Trap of the Hunter acc/immob/rech (Joy! :P ) and Aegis end/rech.

(In between I join 2 hami raids: 3 shards + 4 shard reward on 1st raid, 5 shards + 53 merits on 2nd. All for about 1 1/2 hours of work. )

I list two Oblit procs for 36.2 million each. I list 3 Touch of Death dam/end/rech for 8.6 million each. Aegis resisst/end/rech for 13.1 mil, Aegist end/rech for 15.1 mil, Aegis psionic/status resisst for 13.1 mil. Red Fortune def/end for 7.1 mil. That's everything I have to list, from two amerit rolls and a random drop. I vendor the Trap of the Hunter, of course.

I place bids on 10x Touch of Death dam/rech for 221,000 each, and 10x Touch of Death acc/dam for 601,000 each. I also have a bid in for 10x Military Cybernetic for 2.6 mil each.

I ship 250 million to my Widow fund.

End Money: 698 million

Logged in: Valentine Candy 47 defender
Last logged: 8 days ago
Money: 576 million

18 items sold: Efficacy Adaptor end mod 6 or 5 mil, 2 for 5,000,003, Performance Shifter end mod/acc 3 for 12 million 2 for 11 million, 1 for 17.5 million, 1 for 17.51 million, 2 for 20 million, 1 for 22 million.

Bid on 10x Performance Shifter end mod/rech for 601,000 each, 10x performance Shifter end mod/acc for 601,000 each, 20x Efficacy Adaptor end mod/acc for 2,000 each

End Money: 746 million

Log in: Mouse Police 50 scrapper
Last logged: 2 days ago
Money: 388 million

10 items sold: Touch of Death acc/dam/end 3 for 11 mil, 2 for 11,111,111, 1 for 13,333,333, 3 for 15 mil, 1 for 10.5 mil

I have 3 more to list. I list them for 10.1 mil each.

I have 10 ToD dam/rech waiting to craft. I bid on salvage: 10 Military Cybernetics at 2.2 mil each, 10 Ensorcelled Weapons at 112,000 each, also Demonic Blood Samples and Inert Gas for much cheaper.

Bid on 10x ToD dam/end/rech for 601,000 each and 10x ToD acc/dam/end for 151,000 each.

End Money: 472 million

Aw, I'd still like to see the base someday. ^_^

I have big plans of trying to do this at some point... probably never actually will, but it still looks incredibly cool.

Oh really? I didn't remember it was as little as seven.

Still, this and the Eden Trial give virtually no reward for the effort. At least I know the Eden Trial can still be stealthed, so I kind of understand why they've set the reward so low. (Would be nice if it were fixed so a level 50 could start it anyway.)

Of course, there are other TFs that probably give too much reward, considering how fast they can be run....

It can be pretty addicting. I have a friend that, as of last Summer, generally ignored set IO's except for specific things like stealth. Then he decided to work on a very nice Spines/Invulnerability build, and discovered what tanking on a scrapper and soloing AVs was like. Now he's spending a lot of time trying to make money, store up IOs, and work on more nice builds for his other characters. ^_^

Two of my favorites are Willpower scrappers, capped for smashing/lethal and otherwise tricked out. Lots of fun to wade in to a large group of enemies. When you've got so many enemies around you that some of them ignore you because of the aggro cap -- that's a blast.