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http://postalvalhalla.blogspot.com/2...se-day-18.html

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 18


I didn't get any good pictures from tonight, but here's what we did: a Katie Hannon Task Force, for which I brought Forest Goddess, who is now my main focus to get to level 50. By the end of the task force she was 39, so we're doing okay.

I play so many scrappers and brutes (who can pretty much all tank) that I sometimes wonder if we'll be okay if I bring something else. Often when I decide to play a defender, we have five of them, or when I pick a blaster there are three others and two corruptors. But tonight I was one of two nature affinity defenders and the rest of the team was melee except for a blaster. Anyway, this game really doesn't care what you bring most of the time as long as you're a good player and/or you've built your character well.

And there was one point on the last Mary MacComber wave where nearly the whole team was dead or at a sliver of health, but I was at more than 50% health because I'd chewed a bunch of inspirations. Tanking fender, go! But we avoided the team wipe and pulled through. The rest of the TF, of course, is more tedious than thrilling or dangerous, especially leading the hostage out of the caves that are invariably 100 miles deep and twisty like a copyright lawyer. That's another thing to be angry about the game closing: they never fixed Katie Hannon correctly. It's still too much work for too few merits.

Right after the TF we looked for Eochai and Jack in Irons and found both battling each other. We got 4 merits for killing them, but only the Giantkiller badge. And.. 50 feet North of where we killed them, we found both of them again killing each other. I've never seen that, we could have had a four-way fight if we'd realized. Again, 4 merits, but no badge for Eochai.

A bit later we ran a Numina, the WST this week. I switched to Princess Ozma since we needed a higher level to run it. It went well, we finished in 52 minutes with only 4 deaths. Now Ozma only needs a Manti for Task Force Commander.

http://postalvalhalla.blogspot.com/2...days-1617.html

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Days 16,17

Here's the real life story of my weekend:

1. Car started breaking down. I took it to the shop Saturday and they decided to keep it until Monday, not sure what's wrong with it.

2. Did not drive up to Seattle for Writer's Night with my friends, as I had no car. Instead went to dinner with an old friend and we saw Avengers again at the cheap theater. Made me want to play City of Heroes, but it was really late when I got home.

3. Sunday I was supposed to have dinner with my parents and sisters for my parent's 50th wedding anniversary, but it turned out to be an early brunch and they did not bother to call me until they were at the Space Needle in Seattle wondering where I was. Still had no car. Friend picked me up instead, we went to a Half Price Bookstore warehouse sale and ate dinner at Gordito's. Got home late, had to get up early, did not play much.

4. Monday -- dinner with parents after work.

Basically I didn't get a lot of time to play on the weekend. Sunday I did manage to run the Ramiel alpha unlock arc, and in the evening I ran most of SSA 2.2 which I completed on Monday.

I've been pretty stoic about the closing of the game. I always knew I wouldn't play it forever, in a way I'll be glad to find a way to break my addiction and try to get more writing done, and I leave behind few regrets -- I've done just about everything in the game, I've played just about everything, all ATs to 50, over 40 level 50s, most of them IO'd out to the gills with money-is-no-object builds. I have over 1100 badges on Mouse Police even though I haven't done serious badging in a couple of years. There wasn't much left for me to do in the game.

But what makes me sad are the things that were planned or on test that I'll never get to see live -- the cool costumes, the new AT sets and changes to game play, and the last parts of the second SSA arc. Just running the first three parts of SSA 2 makes me sad, because I know I can't finish it or find out what cool stuff the had in mind. That's just something that can't be changed. Even if the game is miraculously saved, you probably won't see the same Paragon dev team that was there on August 31st, and whatever ending they might publish for Pandora's Box probably would wind up different than what they were planning.

But most likely you won't see it at all, and that makes me sad. But I'm not one of those people who feel like NCSoft kicked my puppy and I'll never ever buy one of their games again. All of the angry posts directed at NCSoft just seem silly. They made a business decision to close a game that had a really good run, and before that decision they'd done very well for the game. I may not like it, but I don't hate Paragon Studios so I certainly don't hate Arenanet. I haven't bought GW2 but I may try it out, who knows. (And I've already sworn to never buy anything from Sony and Electronic Arts, I can't write off every gaming company out there, and I believe have much better reasons for hating those two. ^_^ )



Monday we did an Abandoned Sewer Trial. That was cool, it doesn't get run that often and I hadn't been on one on probably a year or more. The last several I've joined have been very easy -- these days, with overpowered characters and disciplined teammates it's actually quite easy, whereas it once seemed near impossible to complete.



I brought War Maid, and like I said in my post about the rikti raid, she's nearly invulnerable against lots of enemies. I didn't have to hide from the hydra's psionic attacks, I ran out and slaughtered tentacles at will and went toe to toe with the tough monster-class baby kraken. Much fun!



After that we ran one last Moonfire while it was still the WST. I brought Cupcake Overdrive for this one and got her to 44, but I'm still ambivalent about getting her to 50, she does nothing that other level 50 characters don't already do for me. But I had fun.

http://postalvalhalla.blogspot.com/2...se-day-15.html

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 15


Saturday is Hami Raid Day on Virtue, and will be right up to November 30th if Exxxcaliber has anything to say about it.

Normally I bring Nina Ballerina to hami raids, but I was on Princess Shinobu and she's 47 now and well IO'd so I figured, why not? This meant that I got placed on the taunt team because she's a brute. I was going to say I didn't have taunt... but actually, it turns out I do. I picked it up at 47. In my original build I was going to take Innocuous Strikes and was not planning to take taunt, but it turned out by my mid 30's that I had more than enough attacks already and they recycled quickly enough that I didn't need another. I was slotting the power for defense, and I could get good fire/cold defense from 5 pieces of Mocking Beratement in taunt. And I needed that.

Also, I think Innocuous Strikes is that dumb-looking attack that has you stabbing the ground multiple times. I hate the way that attack looks. So I don't need it, and I can definitely use taunt.

So! Off we went! I took pictures!



Nya nya! Missed me!



You will bow down before the great and powerful Ozma!



We paused in the fight to balance a giant boulder on my staff.



This is me taunting George. It turns out the back left yellow mito is named George. Blade Wielder said so.



From the depths of hell, I stab at thee! At... your knee!

This is what it's like when you take on the wall. I love doing it, titanic enemies on all sides! Better bring someone who can take a beating!

Anyway, the raid went a little rough but we pulled it off. Once again, there were people there who had never been to a hami raid, or hadn't been in years. That's very cool, everyone should experience it once I think. ^_^




A bit later Jane mentioned that her 45 troller was sitting around in Cimemora looking for something to do... Zombie said he could do an ITF, I said that I had 2.5 levels left to 50 on Princess Ozma... and soon we had an excellent ITF team rolling. ^_^ It's DXP, it's ITF, I popped an XP booster and a Windfall. I was level 48 by the end of the first mission, and level 49 only a few minutes into the third mission. By the time we reached big bad Rommy in the final mission, I had one bubble to 50. Right after his first death and rez, it came:




So that's one of my big goals for the last 3 months accomplished! I still need to respec and finish the build, and I need to run the Ramiel arc, but that can wait until later. ^_^ Tonight I'm busy with a friend... probably going to see Avengers again, or MIB III, or something. Tomorrow I have plans too, so may not have time to play much.

http://postalvalhalla.blogspot.com/2...se-day-14.html

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 14


Tonight started off with a Friday night Riki Mothership Raid. These have been happening every Friday night on Virtue like clockwork for years, same guys running them, but I don't usually make it to the raid. Then again, the zone usually fills up quick, but not now.

I brought War Maid. She's a Claws / Willpower brute who has smashing/lethal and energy/negative energy defense softcapped, and fire defense at about 32%, and has excellent hit points and regen. There's nothing to not like about playing her, and she was perfect for a rikti raid, I never died and only came close once, and I spent most of the raid facing down rikti magi, sometimes 3 or 4 at once, although any time I managed to get 2-3 together in one place, someone else showed up to help kill them almost immediately. I even ignored warnings to get out of the way when people set bombs, was never at less than half health after the blast, and regen'd quickly. ^_^ In any case, it was a very good raid. I have no idea how many merits I got, I really only did it because it's fun. ^_^

Since War Maid seems to have at least one admirer... or at the very least, admirer of a specific photo of her -- I used the same costume as in my signature and tried to get a good photo of her during the raid. I took a lot of pictures -- my approach is not to demo record, but just hit print screen an awful lot, and try to position the camera for good shots. Only one of them really came out halfway decent, so here it is:



I had expected to maybe spend some time handing more stuff out -- but nobody noticed m second list of stuff in my giveaway thread. This is probably because I posted it near the bottom of page 2, rather than editing the original post to show new stuff. I didn't really think about it at the time, but most people only read the first post, especially in a non-discussion thread like that one is. Maybe I'll go back and fix that, though it's kind of an interesting experiment to see who notices the new list first (or reads about it here in my journal.)

After that we ran a Moonfire Task Force. I used One Divine Hammer for this. Technically I want to level up Princess Ozma and Forest Goddess, but both have been through Moonfire this week. The experience from the WST is so good that I really can't just run either of those toons through another Moonfire and miss out on the xp bonus, so I'm playing a lot of my other toons that I may or may not be trying to get to 50 after Ozma and Goddess. One Divine Hammer is one of those -- a mace/shield scrapper. I'd heard that mace was sweet on a scrapper, and it really seems like it to me. She was 35 when we started and I got her to 37 by the end.

And then... we ran another Moonfire. Why not? For this I switched to Death Ace, one of two toons on my third account (the Dilithium Flower account) that I leveled up during the DXP weekend in August. I sort of feel like starting a new toon and leveling them up from level 1 during a DXP weekend is the thing to do, even though I didn't have any new concepts I desperately wanted to try. I started that Friday with Cupcake Overdrive, an electric melee/shield brute, and then when Street Justice went on sale on Saturday I bought it and started Death Ace, who is a Street Justice/WP scrapper. Neither character really represents anything I haven't done before, so my will to get them to 50 by November 30th is not strong, but Death Ace was already 38 and Cupcake Overdrive is 42, so it may happen. Death Ace hit 40 tonight at the end of the Moonfire.

I suspect I'll run 2-3 more lowbie toons through Moonfire before Tuesday if I can manage it, although my weekend is looking pretty busy, so we'll see.

Okay that's sent too then.

I didn't really say on the second set whether people could claim again, but nobody else noticed for more than 24 hours so I figure everyone had their chance. ^_^

Was wondering when people would notice my post down at the bottom of page 2. ^_^

Sure, both of you, I'll send the stuff tomorrow sometime. ^_^

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 13


I totally haven't been documenting my characters the last few days. First, I bought an iPad over the weekend and I've been wasting time playing with that, and then last night I started another project to give away a bunch of the extra stuff I have in my various bases. Full sets of ATOs for the most part, but some nice PvP IOs and a few purple sets and other useful things, hami O's, Obliteration sets, etc.

I've been thinking of the best way to do this for more than a week. One idea was to hold some sort of contest to fully IO someone's character, and maybe have as many as three winners -- whatever build you want, money no object, but maybe a limit on how many purple sets you can cram in. But that would have been a lot of work and coming up with a way to pick the winners was a problem, and having winners means you have losers too.

So instead I just decided to group things that I have that I don't need into lots and offer them up for free, first come first serve. So a lot might contain a full set of a given ATO, or a full set of something like Obliteration, or maybe just an Overwhelming Force KD/KB IO or a Glad Armor +3 Def IO. I made my post last night and soon had enough responses to claim just about everything. I like this approach, it's easy to let people pick whatever they want from the list of what's still available, and even though I'm not giving anyone their dream build, I'm giving a lot of people something to help out a little bit at least.

So tonight I missed a Manticore run by friends because I was too busy making sure everyone that had replied to my thread got the stuff they'd asked for. Then I missed an ITF. And Double Experience has been turned on too, so that made me a little sad, even though I very much wanted to get my deliveries done (and that was fun to do as well!)

Later when I was done I was able to join a Moonfire, which is the WST. The last time Moonfire was the WST during DXP was this last Spring, and it was almost perfect -- Moonfire is short enough to be run in about an hour, but long enough that you get a very good end-of-task-force experience bonus. Add in the WST, and that bonus doubles. Add in Double Experience, and it quadruples. My nature affinity/water blast defender Forest Goddess started the task force at level 36 and I used an XP booster, and I did not actually level until we were fighting the AV at the end... but then I leveled 5 seconds before Arkhan died -- and then I leveled again with the ending bonus! So that end bonus was worth a full level of experience (plus one bubble) at level 37.

I was level 37 for all of five seconds, lol.

Didn't do anything else tonight but that was fun.

Fidel From Hell, 3042 days and counting. I have no plans to break the streak either. (This is on Protector I believe).

Everything should be sent by now, except for 4 of a scrapper's set because Powerblast's e-mail is full as far as i can tell.

Only thing unclaimed:

Lot 16: 3 Achilles's Heel Chance for Resistance Debuff, level 18 now improved with 3 pcs (full set) Rectified Reticle. (all level 20 I think....)

Lot 27: Full set Blaster's Wrath claimed
Lot 28: Full set Ascendency of the Dominator claimed
Lot 29: Full set Ascendency of the Dominator
Lot 30: Full set Malice of the Corruptor claimed
Lot 31; Full set Malice of the Corruptor
Lot 32: Full set Malice of the Corruptor
Lot 33: Full set Might of the Tanker claimed
Lot 34: Full set Might of the Tanker
Lot 35: Full set Defender's Bastion claimed
Lot 36: Full set Brute's Fury claimed
Lot 37: Full set Scrapper's Strike claimed
Lot 38: Full set Scrapper's Strike claimed
Lot 39: Full set Stalker's Guile claimed
Lot 40: Full set Dominion of Arachnos claimed
Lot 41; Full set Kheldian's Grace
Lot 42: Full set Obliteration, level 30-34 (mixed) claimed
Lot 43: Overwhelming Force KD/KB IO, uknown level

Won't be doing any deliveries on these until tomorrow, and please post in the thread, don't PM me. I only know who claimed what first by what was posted first, PMs go to the back of the line!

Updated again to show what's claimed.

That's 3 people asking for the Scrapper's Strike set, but I should have enough in base to get all three of you. As I said, I have a lot of Scrapper's Strike...

Updating to show that's gone as well.

Hope that works. ^_^

Will deliver the 2 Oblit sets tomorrow!

Okay, Cytos lot is also being sent out. But that's it for tonight.

Will see if I can get all of that e-mailed tonight, and anything after will wait until tomorrow evening.

*EDIT* Everything above this post should now be sent. If you don't get what you asked for in e-mail let me know!

90 Days to the Apocalypse -- Day 12



Today's accomplishment was a Citadel Task Force with friends, which got Princess Shinobu to level 47 and only a Manticore and a Numina from Task Force Commander.

Later I joined some of the same friends to take down the Kraken, which took all of two minutes.

Citadel gets a bad rap for being a very generic series of council missions on council maps with no variety at all. But I tend to play the game to have fun with friends steamrolling enemies, and council are pretty good fodder for steamrolling. Story is a secondary concern most of the time, or even a non-concern. That doesn't mean I don't like better-built TFs more, but I don't hate Citadel just because it's generic and repetitive.

Anyway, I had fun, we finished in 1 hour 4 minutes which is a very good steamroll Citadel if you ask me. ^_^

Well, not all of it. But I have tons of stuff stashed away in several bases that I can't possibly use in the next 2 1/2 months, so I thought I'd have a yard sale where everything is free, and maybe someone else can get 2 1/2 months of use out of some of it.

Post here with your global and state which lot you'd like! I can send it to you by e-mail or if you want to meet me on Virtue at some point that's fine. First come first served, 1 lot per person/global. You have to take everything in the lot you claim!

Tonight's specials are courtesy of my Guardians of Oz base, my oldest base. I'll dig through the others another night. I have:

lot 1: Full set Scrapper's Strike. claimed
lot 2: Full set Scrapper's Strike. claimed
lot 3: Full set Scrapper's Strike. claimed
lot 4: Full set Scrapper's Strike. claimed

Apparently I play scrappers a lot more than most people, I thought having 10-15 full sets would be useful to me.

Lot 5: Full set Will of the Controller claimed
Lot 6: Full set Will of the Controller claimed
Lot 7: Full set Stalker's Guile claimed
Lot 8: Full set Stalker's Guile claimed
Lot 9: FUll Set Stalker's Guile claimed
Lot 10: Full set Defender's Bastion claimed
Lot 11: Full Set Defender's Bastion claimed

I've got so many ATO's I really don't know what to do with them.

Lot 12: Centriole Exposure, Peroxisome Exposure, 2 Enzyme Exposures claimed
Lot 13: 4 Enzyme Exposures claimed
Lot 14: 4 Membrane Exposures claimed

Lot 15: 5 Winter's Gift 20% Slow Resistance, level 10 claimed
Lot 16: 3 Achilles's Heel Chance for Resistance Debuff, level 18

Lot 17: Full set Obliteration, level 30-33 (mixed) claimed
Lot 18: Full set Obliteration, level 30-33 (mixed) claimed

Lot 19: Panacea +hit points/endurance / Panacea heal lvl 50 (2 IOs) claimed
Lot 20: Panacea +hit points/endurance / Panacea heal lvl 50 (2 IOs) claimed

Lot 21: 3 Cytoskeleton Exposures claimed

Lot 22: Gladiator's Armor teleportation protection/+3% defense lvl 50 claimed
Lot 23: Gladiator's Armor teleportation protection/+3% defense lvl 50 claimed

Lot 24: Overwhelming Force KB-KD, unknown level, probably <30 claimed
Lot 25: Overwhelming Force KB-KD, unknown level, probably <30 claimed

Lot 26: 5 pieces Unbreakable Constraint. hold; hold/end; hold/rech, hold/rech/accuracy, and rech/accuracy. So I guess everything but the proc. claimed