Organica

I got home at 3:30 PM PST last night, and rushed out to The Hive... saw Hive 1 and Hive 2, entered Hive 1... oops! Too late! Most people were already done with the first raid and in Hive 2. Exited, tried to enter Hive 2... it was already full.

I hung out in Hive 1, certain that with the early starts for the first two raids + the number of people wanting to run raids for their shards, that there would be a third raid. Most of the time there's only 2, but the third raid not only happened but was ready to start up just a few minutes after the 2nd finished.

Got 3 shards very early on... then nothing more. Still, not bad!

It was on Virtue, yes. But the only thing that might affect is my ability to join task forces and most especially, hamidon raids.

My Decimation acc/end/rech finally sold.

It's been listed for 16.1 million for at least 3 weeks... nearly a month... and then it finally sells for 32 million. Go figure.

I opened up the alpha slot on three characters over the weekend. Wasn't hard. But so far, that's all the attention I've paid to the incarnate thing. I have 18 level 50s now... I'll probably unlock the alpha slot on all of them eventually, but it could take me a while.

The game is dying. Just like it was five years ago.

I'm still waiting for it to die.

(checks watch)

still waiting... any moment now...

I've done this on a couple of defenders. ^_^ Hover, Maneuvers, Grant Invisibility, Invisibility. Works great.

You can solo Ramiel's arc on a good DPS character easily, or you can solo it on a not-so-good DPS character with just a little strategy, or you can duo it with the help of just one other person. We're talking about the arc that decides whether you are worthy of becoming an incarnate or not -- as far as I'm concerned, if you can't figure out a way to get through this arc, then maybe you don't deserve to be an incarnate. ^_^ If anything in the game deserves to be slightly harder than average, this arc does. And it's still not that hard...

So yeah, I'd be very disappointed if they made it easier. And I agree with the difference between "thrilling" and "hard".

I don't hate any of my characters per se, but I have a very hard time bringing myself to play a couple of them:

My first 50, Jalia, a fire armor/battle axe tank. I leveled her up when burn was godly. Once that went away, I became very disillusioned with the character. I have since:

A) Transfered the character from Pinnacle to Virtue (where I mostly play), giving her a new name, "Jalia Dragonfire" (Jalia was taken) then respec'd her, and then didn't play her at all for a year, and then:

B) last Winter when we had the free transfers I moved her to Freedom and renamed her again (to "Black Unicorn", respec'd her again, and completely redesigned all of her costumes. Then I took her to one single Hamidon raid on Freedom, and that was it.

My problems with the character are multiple. I have a tank, Sailor Shinobu, who is invulnerable/energy melee, and is a blast to play. She's got the god-mode invul build vs. smashing/lethal, and is pretty tough in nearly all situations. I leveled her up on Freedom, but when I moved Jalia/Black Unicorn to Freedom, I moved Sailor Shinobu over to Virtue, and I play her regularly, and consider her one of my primary characters.

My fire tank is: A) too squishy for a tank (especially compared to Sailor Shinobu), B) too endurance-intensive, even with a heavily IO'd build, C) vulnerable to being stunned and having my toggles drop, and D) weaker damage-wise than any of my ten scrappers. For that matter, not only weaker damage-wise, but in some cases weaker defensively as well.

I redid all her costumes to try and fix the one other thing that always bugged me -- she was a very small person, and with all the fire shields I became a small ball of fire; you couldn't see the character. Making the character much larger helps that, but still... even after a complete name change and makeover and new build, I can't really bring myself to like the character much.

My other is my Peacbringer, level 41, Holy Bell. By the time I reached level 41, I had blasters at that level or higher and it became blatantly obvious to me that "jack of trades, master of none" really meant I was second-rate at everything. My warshade doesn't feel that way, but my peacebringer still does.

I'd vote for Freedom too. I think every server has a core of very good players, but Freedom has an awful lot of less-than-very-good players, in my experience.

I've been playing on Justice the last week... a Justice MS raid > a Virtue MS raid, which is > than the Freedom MS raids I've experienced by a good margine. I got over 700 vanguard merits tonight in an MS raid, some people got 800... I got 500 per raid in two previous raids this week. I've been in a lot of Virtue raids and a few Freedom raids and I never saw that many merits in one raid before. In fact, one guy in my SG who told me that was possible a few months ago, I basically laughed at him. >.>

The Freedom MS raids I've been on were VERY chaotic, although i'm sure the have some good raids too when you have more of the top players present.

My Entropic Chaos triple finally sold for 8,888,888. ^_^

The other two are still for sale, lol.

Architect Entertainment. There's an AE building in virtually every zone now. These are player-created missions. As you might expect, a lot of farmers use AE since they can tailor missions to their character, but there's some very creative stuff there to check out too.

Oh, and for anyone that cares... Nanowrimo ended last night. I failed to write anything over the holiday weekend, then I tried to catch up on Sunday, Monday, and last night. The stated goal of Nanowrimo is to write 50,000 words in a month, but the real goal is just to challenge yourself to write. So last night at 11 PM I was at 49,000 words, and I knew I'd hit 50,000 if I stayed up until Midnight, but I was tired, so I called it good and went to bed.

I claim victory anyway. I got a lot written. ^_^

Nov 29: (late)

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll) 10:30 PM purchase #30

Positron's Blast chance fro energy damage listed for 4.6 million sold immediately
sting of the Manticore acc/interrupt/range listed for 12.1 million
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech listed for 8.1 million (sold in 5 minutes)
Numina's Convalescence +regen +recovery listed for 51 million
Luck of the gambler defense/increased global recharge speed 7.5% listed for 142 million

Money: 2,056,490,552



Wow, a Numina's unique and a LotG 7.5%! Saved one of my best rolls for last! ^_^

Nov 30:

SOLD:

Positron's Blast chance for energy damge for 5,500,110
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech for 10 million
Sting of the Manticore acc/interrupt/range for 15 million
Luck of the Gambler defense/increased global recharge speed for 150 million
Numina's Convalescence +regen/+recovery for 60 million
Luck of the Gambler end/rech for 7 million

Money: 2,290,380,651

Still have 3 IOs for sale, only one of which I care about much. But I still think my Decimation will sell when the price climbs....

So there you have it. 30 hero merit rolls. Barring anything really unexpected, I'll probably wind up with 2.3 billion once the other 3 IOs have finally sold. I started with 50 million, remember.



I feel I should give the money away or something...

Nov 29:

SOLD:

Pacing of the Turtle chance for recharge slow for 11 million

Money: 1,978,608,864

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll) 1:30 AM purchase #29

Siphon Insight chance for +to hit listed for 4.1 million
Numina's Convalescence healing/recharge listed for 35.1 mil
Numina's Convalescence healing/recharge listed for 35.1 mil
Numina's Convalescence healing/recharge listed for 35.1 mil
Impervium Armor resistance listed for 45.1 mil

Money: 1,943,462,464



(Now why couldn't that have been three Numina's uniques? Sigh! Although actually this is a very good roll. ^_^ )

Ran: Hamidon Raid

SOLD:

Numina's Convalescence heal/rech for 38 million
Numina's Convalescence heal/rech for 37.5 million
Numina's Convalescence heal/rech for 38 million
Impervium Armor resistance for 50 million

Money: 2,099,003,157



Now unless I've miscounted, I only have one roll left to reach 30. I've finally climbed over 2 billion. As you can see above, I've placed a 1 billion bid on a level 53 LoTG +7.5% recharge... you can ignore my Oblit bids, those have been outstanding since before I started this thing this month.

I think I said halfway through that I'd probably finish 2.2 to 2.4 billion... I should hit 2.2 billion with a good roll tonight. Considering that a certain PvP IO goes for 3 billion (from what I can tell, pretty reliably), it's still both the easier, less time consuming way to make money and worth more money. But assuming you don't want to save up a whole 30 merits... random rolls can work out pretty well for you. Can't guarantee you'll make 2 billion off of 30 merit rolls, but I can't guarantee you wouldn't make more than me either....

I get lots of orange recipes as end-of-mission rewards.

I've had some not-very-good rolls in my "30 merits" thread, but none that I didn't at least make a little money on.

Nov 28

SOLD:

Sting of the Manticore chance for toxic damage for 7 million
Aegis resist/end/recharge for 12.5 million

Money: 1,928,128,391

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll) 5:05 AM purchase #28

Dark Watcher's Despaire recharge/end reduction listed for 3,000,001
Gift of the Ancients defense listed for 14.1 mill
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech listed for 8.1 mil
Numina's Convalescence heal/rech listed for 34.1 mil
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end listed for 5,000,001

Money: 1,898,388,864



SOLD:

Positron's Blast acc/dam/end for 6 million
Numina's Convalescences heal/rech for 35 million
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech for 10 million
Gift of the Ancients defense for 18 million
Dark Watcher's Despair rech/end reduction for 5 million

Money: 1,968,203,864

It does make me sad that Posi and Katie are so low. Eden Trial I can kind of understand, since I've been on teams that zerged it. But Katie and especially Posi take just a bit longer to complete.

If you purchase GR, however you purchase it, you can use it to upgrade your existing account.

47+ meaning any enemy that can drop a level 50 recipe.

Nov 27

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll) 7:30 AM purchase #27

Obliteration chance for smashing damage listed for 15.1 million, sold instantly
Obliteration chance for smashing damage listed for 15.1 million, sold instanlty
Pacing of the Turtle chance for recharge slow listed for 10.1 million
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage listed for 4.6 million, sold inside 3 minutes
Aegis end/rech/res listed for 9.1 million



I probably should not have listed the 2nd Obliteration for the same price after the first one insta-sold, but I was moving too quickly to react I guess.

I was feeling like I had far too much for sale, so I decided to relist three of the oldest items as I'd discussed previously. This had the effect of getting them sold quickly, at least.

RELISTED:

Positron's Blast chance for energy damage (was listed for 9.1 mil) pulled & relisted for 4.1 mil
Numina's Convalescence heal/rech (was listed for 41 mil) pulled & relisted for 32 mil (sold in 3 minutes)
Gift of the Ancients defense/increased run speed (was listed for 8.1 mil) pulled & relisted for 6.1 mil



SOLD:

Obliteration chance for smashing damage for 20 million
Obliteration chance for smashing damage for 20 million
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage for 6 million
Numina's Convalescence heal/rech for 32 million (another bid creeper, grrr)

Money: 1,878,213,428

Ran: Freakshow Wars

SOLD:

Positron's Blast chance for energy damage for 5,000,100
Gift of the Ancients defense/increased run speed for 7,000,001
Devestation chance for hold for 10 million
Devestation chance for hold for 10 million

Money: 1,909,114,809

So that cleared out some inventory, here's what I have left for sale:



Some interesting notes:

Obliteration chance for smashing damage is selling in the 20-25 mil range. I listed low out of fear of having them sit, but I could have listed them higher apparently. But I'm happy with 20 million each rather than having them sit for a week.

Impervium Armor is selling for as much as 70 million. I listed for 61 million and got nailed by a bid creeper.

Numina's heal/rech is selling reliably for 40 million. I had one listed for 41 million, which would have taken a very long time to sell (I think there's over 150 for sale? I forget exactly, but a lot). But when I relisted for 32 million, that was low enough to be nailed by a bid creeper again.

Positron's Blast chance for energy damage is selling for 6-7 million right now. I had one listed for 9.1 million, and I got another today. I listed the new one for 4.6 million, then pulled the older one and relisted for 4.1 million. Almost at the same time the new one sold -- I thought my 2nd listing had insta-sold for a moment, but in fact the other listing sold right before I listed one for lower. So 4.6 million was a good place to list it at. Luckily the one listed for 4.1 still sold for 5 mil.

Nanowrimo: nothing written in last 2 days. That's what I need to work on for today.