PoliceWoman

9/1/2010


Last Thursday

Millie Volt (50 villain elec/elec brute) did 5 rogue alignment missions, then the rogue morality mission that switched her to rogue alignment; two other players ended up joining me for the morality mission. After that, the team wanted to do more rogue alignment missions, and I switched around on alts a bit; did one rogue mission with Primadonna (50 villain sonic/kin corruptor), one rogue mission with Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster; I wanted to see if I could get the badge for doing a rogue alignment mission on a vigilante. You can't. I did get Tested the Water though), and two rogue missions with Mayday (50 villain fortunata). A bit later I solo'd Primadonna's morality mission, converting her to rogue alignment as well.

Millie Volt (50 rogue elec/elec brute) joined a Statesman TF; we had several villains on this TF looking for badges, with 3 brutes (including me). Both the other brutes automatically Ouroboros'd out of the first mission to try to get to Peregrine Island, but this ended up stranding them since they ended up in the red-side Ouroboros instance. I had purposely exited the mission normally and flew to the next mission to avoid this. I think they managed to get back to the TF using the Mission Transporter power.

The TF went fine up til the last mission, where we realized we had no source of ID or CM to protect the lead brute from Ghost Widow's holds (we did have a kin but he didn't have ID). We resorted to trying to pull the AVs one or two at a time; our first pull basically failed (getting all 4 patrons) and we had to run, but on the second try we got them.

Against Lord Recluse I asked if I could try tanking him at first, and the team let me. My theory was that Millie has hover and 90% energy resist and END drain resist, so should be invincible when flying against Lord Recluse, since his only range attack is energy/END drain. I found that he could not hurt me, but without Taunt I could not keep Lord Recluse aggro on me despite spamming my own range attacks (Lightning Bolt and Ball Lightning), and LR ended up rushing the people attacking the tower. The invuln brute took over tanking and we finished the STF in 1h 12m. I got a Microfilament SHO.

After that I played Snow Fox, a newbie loyalist ice/cold controller, on a 3 player team in Praetoria. Got a compliment on her costume (sort of a Emma Frost/Snow Queen all-in-white costume), though another person also commented that she and another teammate (dressed as a 007esque superspy in formal tuxedo) looked more like a wedding couple than superheroes. Anyway, got to level 8 before the team broke up, then I finished soloing Praetor White's newbie arc for 2 reward merits.


Friday

I spent some time rearranging all my toons on the character select screen. I have all 36 slots on Liberty unlocked, and previously I had the "most used" toons on the first page, then least used toons on the third page; now, with Going Rogue, I sorted them by alignment, with the pure Heroic toons on the first page, pure Villain toons on the last page, and the Vigilante/Praetorian/Rogue toons somewhere in between.

Mayday (50 villain fortunata) burned 2 Villain merits to buy a Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) recipe, then I used up my free respec. The main goal of my respec was to work in the fortunata nuke, which I didn't have before because I thought it would zero my END (annoying on a toggle-heavy character like VEATs are) but I learned it actually does not have a crash at all, which makes it too good not to have. This is the build I ended up respecing to:


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.803
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Mayday I18 respec: Level 50 Natural Arachnos Widow
Primary Power Set: Fortunata Training
Secondary Power Set: Fortunata Teamwork
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Telekinetic Blast -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Dev'n-Hold%(7)
Level 1: Combat Training: Defensive -- LkGmblr-Def(A), LkGmblr-Rchg+(7), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(50)
Level 2: Subdue -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(9), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(11), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(13), Dev'n-Hold%(13)
Level 4: Tactical Training: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(9), LkGmblr-Rchg+(15)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Psychic Scream -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(15), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(17), Posi-Dmg/Rng(17), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), RechRdx-I(19)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 12: Aid Other -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(46), Numna-Heal/Rchg(46), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Numna-Heal(48), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(48)
Level 14: Dominate -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), Mael'Fry-Dmg/Rchg(21), Mael'Fry-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(23), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(25), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 16: Aid Self -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), IntRdx-I(29), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(45), Dct'dW-Heal(45), Dct'dW-Rchg(46)
Level 18: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A), Jump-I(21)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(27), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(27)
Level 22: Mask Presence -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(50), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 24: Mind Link -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(31), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(31), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(43), RedFtn-Def(43), HO:Membr(43)
Level 26: Psionic Tornado -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(31), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(33), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dam%(34)
Level 28: Tactical Training: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 32: Psychic Wail -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(34), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Oblit-%Dam(36)
Level 35: Tactical Training: Leadership -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(37), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(37), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(37), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(40), GSFC-Build%(42)
Level 38: Aura of Confusion -- CoPers-Conf(A), CoPers-Conf/Rchg(39), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg(39), CoPers-Acc/Rchg(39), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx(40), CoPers-Conf%(40)
Level 41: Foresight -- LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(A), LkGmblr-Def(42), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 44: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(45)
Level 47: Tactical Training: Vengeance -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 49: Resuscitate -- RechRdx-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Conditioning
Level 1: Ninja Run
------------


I had also been considering trying to respec into the hero epic pools, which are now available to villains, but I discovered that VEATs actually don't get access to those. None of the villain patron pools really excited me enough to take them, so I just packed my high level power slots with utility powers.

Thunder Girl (50 hero elec/SR scrapper) ran 5 Heroic alignment missions, then spent 2 Hero merits on a Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe.

Spy Girl (34 rogue MA/ninj stalker) joined a Sister Psyche TF. I quickly learned to target Super Stunners and try to take them out fast, due to their ludicrous END drain; I also stopped at AE buildings frequently to load up on blue inspirations. At one point our TF ground to a halt due to the next "Defeat all Freaks and Soldiers" missions spawning in Precinct 5 (the Praetorian tutorial). I tried using Mission Teleporter to get there, but that didn't work; the team tried logging off/logging on, and that didn't work. Several of us petitioned for a GM and we waited around for about half an hour, before the team leader gave up and quit the TF. The new team leader figured out a way to get us past this though; apparently you can still go to the TF contact and abandon the mission, then take it again, which respawned the mission door back in Paragon City. This let us continue, and we finished Sister Psyche TF in 2h 8m (including the wait), getting Spy Girl to level 35. Much later, I got an email from CoH support complaining that I wasn't online so they couldn't help me. My petition was timestamped 4:02pm; the email from support was timestamped 7:54pm. I'm glad we didn't wait.

Mystery Girl (50 hero emp/pistols defender) joined a Faathim TF; we had a very strong team and Lanaru was a total pushover for us. Finished Faathim in 1h 54m (which is quite fast for a shard TF) and I got an Armageddon (DMG) recipe drop.

Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster) joined a Recluse SF. Strangely, although I had serious issues doing some of the Vigilante missions and don't want to convert to full villain, I had no moral issues with doing the Recluse SF. The RSF storyline isn't all that deep and just doesn't seem very evil to me; it's more like challenging the Freedom Phalanx to an arena match in PVP or something. Our team did fine until the last mission, where the team leader asked our fortunata to suicide on the Freedom Phalanx, so that our rad could vengeance/fallout. Aggroing the Freedom Phalanx also lets them cast buffs, though, so this did not end up working out well; our first attack resulted in a team wipe, though we did take out Numina. On our second try, I decided I really wanted to win, so I popped a Shivan, a Vanguard HVAS, Eye of the Magus, then Wedding Band after that ran out. The extra +RES from Eye/Wedding Band helped me keep me (and my pets) alive through the fight and we wiped out all the heroes, finishing the RSF in 36m 20s. I got a Nucleolus SHO, and the Annihilator, Former Servant of Recluse and Former Archvillain badges.

After that, I played Star Amethyst (50 hero dark/ice defender) on a Master of the Statesman TF. The team leader had asked me to play someone who could stealth/TP even without temp powers. Our team mix was:

fire/fire brute
fortunata
fire/rad corruptor
ston/nrg tanker
dark/ice defender (me)
emp/psy defender
earth/kin controller
plant/kin controller

I did have a close call stealthing through the villain respec mission when a red crystal broke my stealth, but managed to survive by chomping some greens. The final mission actually went very smoothly; we killed towers in the order yellow, red, green for some reason, but it worked fine. Completed the STF with no deaths in 1h 6m and got a Membrane SHO, a Gravitational Anchor (IMMOB/END) recipe, and the Master of the Statesman TF badge.

Blond Justice (50 hero broadsword/shield scrapper) did a speedy ITF in 25m 43s, then using the tips that dropped from that I completed 4 Vigilante and 1 Hero alignment mission.

Finished the night doing some badging on Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster), getting the Fearsome badge (I think from just staying Vigilante long enough), then running through mayhem missions that I had been saving on alts to get the explore badges in the Atlas, Skyway, Talos and Independence Port mayhem missions. I didn't actually rob the bank, figuring that would be unheroic. I also trapped some ghosts in Port Oakes for the Pirate badge.


Saturday

Millie Volt (50 rogue elec/elec brute) joined a Master of Kahn TF with a team of

fire/rad controller
fortunata
fire/rad corruptor
shield/dark tanker
elec/elec brute (me)
bs/shield scrapper

I found my high energy resist kept me from being seriously hurt by Reichsman's lightning bolt/stun attacks; unfortunately, our corruptor got killed by one of these (I think the first bolt stunned him, then a few seconds later a second bolt finished him off) so we didn't get the Master Of badge. Still finished in 35m 2s.

I found that Millie had sold a Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) IO for 175M inf; I had bought this with 2 Villain merits, which had been converted from 100 reward merits and 40M inf, so effectively I traded 100 reward merits for 135M inf, which seemed really good. LotG prices have been falling since I18 came out, though, most likely because they can be acquired through Hero/Villain merits, so making them from Hero/Villain merits and re-selling them might not be long-term profitable.

Mayday (50 villain fortunata) did a rogue morality mission, converting to Rogue alignment. There was some PVP drama on LB channel, some conflict between badgers and PVPers, which led me to poke my head into Recluse's Victory. The badgers had all fled by the time I arrived, but I got to fight some of the PVPers. The villain side didn't seem too organized, but I ran around solo for a bit, scoring a few kills and getting killed a few times, which was fun. My best moment was managing to nail 2 blasters (admittedly, with some help from mobs), though they also killed me at almost the exact same time.

A friend asked me to help on an ITF, so I left RV and joined his 6-player ITF with Primadonna (50 rogue sonic/kin corruptor). We had no serious problems and finished in 35m 54s. I picked up 3 tips on the TF, which I used to solo 3 rogue alignment missions (planning to eventually reinforce rogue alignment).

After that I joined a Master of Kahn TF. The team leader asked me to bring a tanker or tough brute, so I played Strong Woman (50 hero inv/SS tanker). We had a small team, only 5 players:

inv/SS tanker (me)
fire/kin controller
fire/rad controller
2 fortunata

A teammate complimented me on Strong Woman's background story (which is really more of a meta-anti-background story), which was nice. Despite being short-handed we did really well, with no serious issues. In the final fight I tried to hold Reichsman very still at the top of the stairs leading up to his stage area, on the far left side; the rest of the team huddled at the bottom of the stairs on the far right, staying out of range of Reichsman's AOEs. We finished in 37m 30s and got the Master of Kahn TF badge.

Kyrie Eleison (50 hero fire/regen scrapper) used up 2 hero merits for another Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg), then solo'd 4 Vigilante alignment missions (planning to switch to Vigilante).

Arrow Girl (39 hero archery/nrg blaster) joined a 3-player team that did 5 Vigilante missions, which got Arrow Girl to level 40. We had some problems with the Assist Freymuth mission, where Freymuth ended up getting killed by enemies. This didn't fail the mission, but instead left it in this weird state where it could neither be completed nor failed. We ended up clearing the whole map, hoping that would finish the mission, but it still wouldn't. Ended up exiting the mission and auto-completing it, which gave me a Vigilante point but no one else on the team got credit (boooo).


Sunday

Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster) hit the inf cap again, due to marketeering. I had purposely lowered my total inf on Police Woman to exactly 1 billion back on 8/15 when I was trying to test how much inf you make from ITFs. Hitting the 2B cap on 8/29 means that it took 14 days to make 1 billion inf -- much higher than normal income for me; more than double what I normally make from marketing. I attribute this to Going Rogue coming out, along with the market merge and the reset of all price histories; this all made the markets go crazy, and I've made some good guesses on what to buy and sell, which let me massively benefit from the turmoil. But lest you think I'm some sort of marketing genius, I also screwed up by entering too many zeroes while bidding on a rare salvage, accidentally buying it for 13M inf instead of 1.3M inf. Oops. I'm just glad I didn't try to buy a stack of 10.

After exploiting the markets for a bit, I went to Port Oakes to capture ghosts. At level 50 I kill them too fast even with just Brawl, so I used Ouroboros to exemp down to 19, where I could still beat them up easily but don't instant-kill them. Catching 100 ghosts gave me the Spectral badge. After that I started an Ouro flashback of Faultline in the Sands of Time, which exemps me down to 24; I also set "enemies buffed" for sake of badging. The first couple missions were easy, just clicking glowies.

Some friends logged in and I switched to playing Marcia Law (19 loyalist pistols/kin corruptor) on a 5-player team fighting Arachnos in Praetoria. We got to beat up Dr Aeon and Arbiter Sands, getting Marcia to level 20. Then we all migrated to Paragon City. The storyline for loyalists at this point struck me as particularly stupid; I'm sent to try and stop Tyrant from invading Paragon City? But what if I want to help Tyrant invade? I am a loyalist, after all!

Anyway, after going through the portal to Primal Earth, I got dumped smack dab in the middle of a spawn of Warriors in Talos Island, who immediately attacked me. Just another example of lawless behavior that wouldn't be tolerated in Praetoria. Our team did a few alignment missions in Talos Island; two wimpy hero alignment missions belonging to one of my ex-Resistance teammates, though we also got to do one of Marcia's vigilante missions, where we got to summarily execute some criminal. For some reason the vigilante missions work a lot better for Marcia Law than my real hero characters.

After that team broke up, I switched to Mystery Girl (50 hero emp/pistols defender) and joined a 5-player team that did 2 Vigilante missions and one Vigilante morality mission; got complimented on healing against Arachnos ambushes, which was nice.


Monday

Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster) continued soloing her Faultline in the Sands of Time Ouro flashback; I started regretting the "enemies buffed" setting when I started running into EBs, but nevertheless I managed to beat Nocturne, Captain Castillo and Arbiter Sands, completing the arc in 30h 78m (of course, counting all the time I was logged off) and getting 15 merits, the Balancer badge (for 25 flashbacks) and the Bold badge (for enemies buffed level 24).

After that Police Woman joined an LGTF that cleared most of missions 1 and 2, failed mission 3, beat Hamidon then stealthed to the end of the final mission. This took 56m 21s and earned me about 4.9M inf from kills.

Mayday (50 rogue fortunata) joined a Master of Statesman TF with a team of

kin controller
rad controller
emp defender
cold controller
fortunata (me)
inv tanker
stone brute
archery blaster

With cold shields, fortitude and VEAT buffs we were DEF capped for much of the STF. We were doing pretty well until the final mission, where we pulled the patron AVs and 3 of them came, and one of them (I think Ghost Widow?) killed our blaster. Nevertheless we finished in 1h 29m and I got a Nucleolus.

I started a newbie katana/fire scrapper in Praetoria, Virtual Girl (reusing a name I had before), a techy looking character in fluorescent green. Got a costume compliment, and joined a 7 player team fighting ghouls. It seemed like there were endless waves of ghoul ambushes, which I got good at kiting around until Healing Flames could kick off. This got me to level 6.


Tuesday

Police Woman got the Surging badge from logging in; this is really from killing Deathsurge, but a patch today allowed it to be awarded to heroes. I solo'd 2 Hero tip missions (not really sure where I'm going with this, as I can't switch back to hero until I get enough badges), then joined an 8-player Sharkhead SF of mostly scrappers (only 1 poison MM for support). We had a few deaths but managed to finish it in 46m 24s, getting the Leviathan badge.

The same team (mostly) did Ice Mistral SF in 1h 4m, getting the Crystal Keeper badge, giving me a total of 825 badges so far. I also got a comment on Police Woman's "villainous" costume, which looks quite a lot like a Cage Consortium guard. My regular blue uniform just didn't seem right to use in the Rogue Isles.

Liberty is considered the "friendly server". However, PvP is really another animal entirely.

That said, I have been on several teams which cooperated to secure the various AV/Hero kill badges in RV, so it is definitely possible to get these badges.

It is, however, entirely possible for other players to attack you while you are doing this. Remember that PvP zones are, by definition, player-versus-player, and by choosing to enter a PvP zone you've effectively given your consent to be attacked!

If you do get attacked, however, here are some key things to remember:


1. Don't lose your cool.

Even if you get killed, it does NOT help to fly off the handle and yell at people on broadcast or global chat. In fact, usually this makes PvPers want to kill you more. Competitive PvPers will be annoyed if you yell at them (because it's unsportsmanlike behavior), while griefing PvPers will be happy if you yell at them (because it feeds their ego to make you flustered). Just don't do it. Treat dying in PvP like losing a point in tennis; don't be the guy who breaks his tennis racket and screams at the opponent. Be the person who says "good shot" and moves on.


2. Kill them.

If you have a team large enough to defeat an AV in Recluse's Victory, you have more than enough firepower to kill anyone who comes after you. However, a lone PvPer, or even a group of 2 or 3 PvPers, will often dominate an 8-player team of badgers, because the badgers will act like prey (scattering, running, some fighting and some not, etc) while the PvPers are thinking like predators (targeting a member of the herd and taking them out). Don't think like prey, think like a predator. If an enemy is sighted, make killing him or chasing him off your top priority. If there's multiple PvPers, have your team leader or most experienced PvPer announce which one everyone should be targeting, then kill that person, then the next one, etc. Forget the AV, you'll never kill it while being buzzed by PvPers. Get the enemy players first. You have a team big enough to beat an AV, a player is much easier!


3. Get help.

If you're just not up to fighting off PvPers, see if you can recruit more PvP oriented people to help you fight them off. Sometimes you can get people who like PvP to help out -- on your side.


4. Politely ask them to give you a break.

You can try asking the people attacking you not to attack you. Be polite if you do this; they are doing you a favor if they agree. This may work on some PvPers who are nicer, but will not work on real griefers, and may not work if you've already lost your temper and yelled at them.


5. Leave and come back later.

If all else fails, you can just leave and come back sometime when the zone is less busy. RV isn't usually all that busy, and usually if it's empty for long enough, people looking for PvP will leave and find something else to do.


Hope that helps!

8/26/2010

On Tuesday night, Police Woman (50 vigilante AR/dev blaster) joined a red side team that killed Deathsurge. This gave me 2 reward merits but no badge; according to the devs, some red-side badges only award if you go all-the-way to Villain, which I am reluctant to do.

Fire Maiden (35 rogue SS/fire brute) joined a blue-side Dam Heroes (Positron 2) TF, which turned out to be with the fire/rad superteam; I was teamed with 7 fire/rad controllers, though one had to quit midway through. Stacked AMs made us pretty godlike and we smashed through the TF in 59m 59s, getting Fire Maiden to 36.

Marcia Law (17 loyalist pistols/kin corruptor) joined a 5 player team doing mostly horrifically evil Resistance missions set in the Underground. The team was mid-team-wipe against TEST mobs when I arrived, then we later had 2 more wipes against waves of Clockwork that were assaulting some sort of prepared defensive position that we were supposed to be guarding. This all got Marcia to level 19.

Schadenfreude (50 villainous AR/pain corruptor) solo'd through 3 Rogue alignment missions, then I started the morality mission to convert to Rogue. During this morality mission I had a change of heart and decided not to go through with it. This was because the morality mission gave me lines like, "You want me to kill a bunch of innocent civilians just to consolidate your power? NO WAY!" (Then I was supposed to kill the people who gave me the mission.) And, well, I don't picture Schadenfreude having a problem with killing innocent people; in fact, she'd probably like it. So I ended up bailing on the morality mission because it wasn't evil enough. I realize this is probably dumb since I had to do 10 alignment missions to get to that point (because I thought it would be neat to be able to use pain domination on blue side), but it seemed more important to stay true to the character. So I guess Schadenfreude will end up staying Villain alignment, and I'm going to have to put more thought into which alts I decide to "go rogue" with, so I don't keep having this problem.

Instead I decided to start Millie Volt (50 villainous elec/elec brute) on Rogue alignment missions. Millie's background story is that she became a villain by default due to demonic possession, but isn't really inherently evil other than that, so I felt it would be easier to justify her going Rogue. Millie did 5 Rogue alignment missions, got an Absolute Amazement (chance of to hit debuff) purple recipe drop, and spent 1 Villain merit to buy a Kinetic Combat (DMG/END) recipe. Most people I know don't seem to have a high opinion of spending 50 reward merits and 20M infl to buy Hero/Villain merits, but I'm still kind of thinking it's a good way to get selected recipes that are otherwise overpriced (stuff like Luck of the Gambler and Kinetic Combat).


Wednesday night, Police Woman again joined a red side team to kill a monster, this time the Ghost of Scrapyard. This actually did award me the Hammer Down badge.

San Min (50 heroic MA/will scrapper) solo'd the Statesman's Pal mission, defeating a Tyrant EB. This mission was the last mission of Maria Jenkins' old story arc, that I still had in my queue; it awarded 36 merits on completion. Interestingly, despite being the old story arc, I encountered 2 "Seekers" that looked like new Going Rogue mobs.

Thunder Girl (50 heroic elec/SR scrapper) solo'd two Hero alignment missions.

I saw someone recruiting for Manticore TF, so I switched to Spy Girl (33 rogue MA/ninj stalker) to join that. I used Hide and Recall Friend to help stealth the team through several of the missions. Interestingly, one of the final missions was to Talk to Ms Liberty in Fort Trident, clearly different than before. The TF leader was a former villain that was ineligible to enter Fort Trident; however, he found he could still talk to the Ms. Liberty in Atlas Park and have it count. Finished the TF in 59m 49s.

Primadonna (50 villainous sonic/kin corruptor) joined a 7-player ITF, finishing in 25m 23s. I got a set of 3 tips from the TF, and solo'd 4 Rogue alignment missions as a result (getting my fourth tip from one of the other missions). Primadonna is kinda neutral selfish, so I figure I can justify her Going Rogue.

Getting tips from doing speed ITFs seemed to work so well, I ended up playing Mayday (50 villainous fortunata) on another ITF, this time an 8-player team that finished in 23m 54s. Mayday's back story actually has her being a protege of one of the fortunata that joined Rogue Arachnos, so it makes perfect sense for her to Go Rogue. I used the tips from that to solo 3 Rogue alignment missions, before calling it a night.

8/24/2010

I logged on after dinner, apparently having narrowly missed some kind of LB channel drama and/or PvP-related drama. I got invited to join a new invitation-only channel, LBnoBS, which was created by a former LB mod. I was initially skeptical about this idea (it seemed identical in concept to Liberty's Channel, another invitation-only channel founded by a former LB mod intended for general use by Liberty, and I said so) but ended up agreeing to join. I kind of think it will suffer the same problems Liberty's Channel has experienced (namely, low population and consequently low usage), but I figure I'll give it a chance.

I solo'd Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) through a Villain alignment mission in Grandville that didn't sound too villainous, getting the Inquisitor badge. I'm still sort of tip-toeing around the idea of staying heroic versus getting more badges; I'm kind of leaning towards backing away and returning to Hero alignment. I just don't like the idea of my main character going full-out Villainous.

Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) joined a Katie TF, finishing in 24m 20s. Ninjitsu's lack of KB protection kinda sucked against the stormy AVs in the first mission; I even had 1 KB protection IO slotted, but it wasn't enough.

Schadenfreude (50 AR/pain corruptor) joined a group of villains and rogue heroes in Recluse's Victory killing the signature heroes for badges. We had 1 blue-side player working with 9 red-side players to manipulate the various pillboxes to respawn the signature heroes, and dragged any hero NPCs we didn't need to the security drones to get rid of them. At one point some of my teammates asked me to ghide because they were worried people on my gfriends list would see me in RV and come after us (I think this was somehow connected to whatever channel and PvP drama had occurred earlier), but I said, "There's 9 of us, we should totally just kill them if they come over," after which they kinda backed off. I'm admittedly pretty easygoing about killing/getting killed in PvP zones; I suppose most other people don't like getting PvP'd while they are badging, though. In any case, after a lot of pillbox manipulation, we got all the various signature heroes; I got the Oppressor, Uppercut and Blackguard badges.

Mystery Girl (50 emp/pistols defender) joined a 3-player team doing Vigilante alignment missions. I'm sure it sounds strange for an empath to go Vigilante, but I figure that all my blue-side toons that do "lethal" damage should go Vigilante just on general principle; and doing the tip missions with a team helps my empath a lot. We did 5 Vigilante missions (we were kinda low DPS so I got to go crazy with Hail of Bullets and other gun fu attacks), then the team wanted to do the Vigilante morality mission; I had filled up Mystery Girl's fame at this point, but didn't have enough faction to do the morality mission yet, so I switched to Arrow Girl (39 archery/nrg blaster) to help with the "kill Ghost Widow" mission. We did okay until we left the sewers into the Faultline area, at which point we had our kheldian go linkdead while me and the defender got smeared by a Longbow warden with mind control powers. I hospitalled and ran back; the defender was still lying dead there and asked me to try and clear the mobs so he could awaken. Right, solo the mobs that just gave us a team wipe. Fortunately I was ready for the mezzes this time (chomping on some purples and break frees) so I was actually able to do it. This let us complete the mission, after which we called it a night.

Periodically, people start up new chat channels. Some of them grow and thrive; some are empty and silent. It all depends on how people end up using them (or not using them).

There is really not an official "main and final" chat channel for Liberty. We are a little too anarchic to have such a thing. The mods of this channel or that channel can officially announce "Our channel is the official Liberty channel" all they want, but ultimately it comes down to, which channel do people actually use.

Right now, the channel with the most people and the most message traffic is LB. That may change someday, but I believe that is unquestionably true as of this writing.

As an LB moderator, I don't plan to stop anyone from advertising LBnoBS, Liberty's Channel, SisterhoodFriends, Camo's Teen Lounge, Robo's Lounge, or any other random vaguely Liberty-related chat channel they want (provided they aren't TOO spammy about it). If everyone on the channel decides to migrate to one or more of these other channels, that's totally their choice and their right. That may eventually make one of the other channels the biggest and most useful channel -- someday.

In the meantime, life goes on.

8/23/2010


Before I forget, here's the respec build for San Min (50 MA/will scrapper) I mentioned earlier:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.707
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

San Min respec: Level 50 Science Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Martial Arts
Secondary Power Set: Willpower
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Weapon Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Storm Kick -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 1: High Pain Tolerance -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg(7), Numna-Heal(9), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(9), ResDam-I(11), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(11)
Level 2: Cobra Strike -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(13), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(13), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(15), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17)
Level 4: Fast Healing -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal(19)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Crane Kick -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(19), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(21), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(23), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(23)
Level 10: Indomitable Will -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 12: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 16: Rise to the Challenge -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-Heal(27), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(27)
Level 18: Crippling Axe Kick -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(29), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(29), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(31), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 20: Quick Recovery -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(33), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(33)
Level 22: Mind Over Body -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(33), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(34), RctvArm-ResDam(34)
Level 24: Focus Chi -- RechRdx-I(A), Rec'dRet-ToHit/Rchg(25), Rec'dRet-Pcptn(25), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 26: Dragon's Tail -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(36), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(36), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Oblit-%Dam(37)
Level 28: Heightened Senses -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(39), LkGmblr-Rchg+(39)
Level 30: Boxing -- Empty(A)
Level 32: Eagles Claw -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(34), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(36), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(40), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40)
Level 35: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), RctvArm-ResDam(42), RctvArm-EndRdx(43)
Level 38: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(40), LkGmblr-Rchg+(43)
Level 41: Web Grenade -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(A), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(43), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(45), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(45), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(46)
Level 44: Caltrops -- CtlSpd-Dmg/Slow(A), CtlSpd-Acc/EndRdx(46), CtlSpd-Rng/Slow(46), CtlSpd-EndRdx/Rchg/Slow(48)
Level 47: Exploding Shuriken -- HO:Nucle(A), AirB'st-Dmg/Rchg(48), Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(48), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(50)
Level 49: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(50), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 6: Ninja Run


It's meant to be soft capped to smash/lethal defense and it comes very close (at about 44.5% defense). I actually executed this respec at level 48 and I had put off Stamina til 49 in the build (figuring Quick Recovery would be enough) but found I actually was gasping for END until I hit 49; probably due to running Tough/Weave and having lots of attacks. May make it harder to exemp down. Seems fine at 50 though.


Wednesday

A friend was trying to organize a Cathedral of Pain trial on hero side, and asked everyone to bring shivans and nukes. I had a shivan shard and the chem and nuclear nukes already, so I went to Warburg (as Police Woman) to get the bio nuke for completeness. I saw a couple other people hunting for scientists and nukes as well, but resisted the impulse to attack them.

On the actual Cathedral of Pain, we had 3 teams gathering in a SG base and used a raid teleporter to start the trial. I've never actually tried this event before, and had not really researched it, so I was actually surprised to find ourselves in the shadow shard. Fortunately, I had a jet pack temp power ready. Our team was assigned to the southeast monument, and we moved there and killed some Rularuu hovering around a giant stone cube, then killed the obelisk down to about 30% life. There was some kind of status meter with 3 horizontal bars on it, that I believe was indicating the relative health of the 3 obelisks. We had to kill some respawns and eventually got the go-ahead to kill the obelisk; it was important to kill them all at almost the same time.

This got us into a high vaulted chamber full of more Rularuu mobs and a gigantic Aspect of Rularuu. We were told to spawn Shivans and half the team was instructed to set off their bio nukes to buff us, then we started clearing mobs. I think Aspect of Rularuu was only actually vulnerable to damage when all the mobs were dead. Once we cleared the various minions, we all pounced on Aspect of Rularuu himself. Being naturally snoopy, I used Surveillance on him; I remember he had 64K max HP and pretty high regen, but didn't get a good look at his resists or other stats. We all set off our chem nukes to try and debuff him, then pounded away at his hit points. We got him down to about 10K HP when minions started respawning. Things got pretty chaotic at that point and about half the raid got surprised and killed by the respawn, and I think a lot of people were still pounding away at Aspect of Rularuu, who was immune to damage and healing fast. The raid leader got the survivors to get back on clearing minions; by the time we cleared the last one, Aspect of Rularuu had regenerated to 32K HP. But once he was vulnerable again, we were able to finish him off, to win the CoP trial. Elapsed time was 16 minutes, and I got the Power Liberator and Pain Killer badges, 6 reward merits, and a temp power called True Furnace (basically a +10 END buff) for about a week.

I went on to solo some tip missions as Police Woman, choosing Vigilante because I want access to the Rogue Isles for badging purposes, but some of these were pretty conspicuously unheroic, making me feel dirty about doing them on a hero. Nevertheless, I completed 5 Vigilante missions.

I also solo'd Fire Maiden (32 SS/fire brute) through one of Crimson Revenant's arcs, defeating Mynx as an EB and getting 4 merits, and did 5 Rogue tip missions. The Rogue morality missions are mostly about being selfish and making money, so I didn't have nearly as many compunctions about doing them, especially on a villain.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) helped some heroes take down Deathsurge for 2 merits.

I started Parapsychic, a new mind/psy dominator in Praetoria, picking Resistance initially, and joining a 4 player team for missions that got her up to level 7. I used the Carnie Ring Mistress costume code that I previously got in a costume contest to make her look like a Carnie running around mind dominating stuff; this kinda worked thematically, what with Vanessa deVore and the Carnival of Light being part of the Resistance. Not real sure whether I will keep this character, though, dominators don't seem to work well with my play style.


Thursday

Playing Police Woman, I did 5 more alignment missions. I couldn't stomach the Vigilante choice on 2 of the tips, so I chickened out and ended up getting 3 Vigilante and 2 Hero fame for the day. That sort of wastes a day's progress, but it seemed like the right thing to do.

I joined a 7 player Praetoria team with Parapsychic (7 mind/psy dominator), got up to level 10 before we suffered 2 straight team wipes against the Syndicate (these guys seem nasty!), which caused me to volunteer to switch to Marcia Law (10 pistols/kin corruptor) for some extra healing. That seemed to help, we did better after that; got Marcia to level 12 before the team broke up.

I discovered where Fort Trident was, and started buying hero merits on all my toons. My reasoning is that you can buy a Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe (auction house price around 150M infl) for 2 hero merits OR 200 reward merits. So 1 hero merit = 100 reward merits = 75M infl. So, trading 20M infl + 50 reward merits (equivalent in value to 57.5M infl) for 1 hero merit (equivalent in value to 75M infl) is a good deal. Although, thinking about it, now that you can buy LotG recipes through Fort Trident, I bet the price on them will fall. By my calculation, however, this trade will still be a good deal until such time that the LotG (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe falls under 80M infl on the broker. I feel pretty safe taking that bet; even if I'm wrong and the price plummets to that level, I figure the hero merits will still be useful for buying recipes for my own toons.


Friday

Water Lily (30 rad/storm corr) helped some heroes take down Scrapyard for the badge. Schadenfreude (50 AR/pain corr) helped some heroes with the Bone Collector badge mission. Starting on this day and throughout the weekend, I saw a LOT of heroes roaming around the Rogue Isles for badges.

Fire Maiden (32 SS/fire brute) did another 5 Rogue missions and then completed the morality mission that converted her to Rogue alignment. The morality mission felt really epic to me, leading a girl through the sewer system while battling ninjas, and great dialog from the various NPCs. Fire Maiden also did the story arc to unlock the Midnight Club, which got her to level 33.

I brought on TokyoRose (28 son/son corr) briefly, to join a Steel Canyon mayhem for the explore badge; we beat up Valkyrie as part of our getaway.

Spy Girl (31 MA/ninj stalker) did 5 Rogue alignment missions.

Fire Maiden (33 SS/fire brute) did an 8 player Cap SF in 1h 5m, doing a mix of stealthing and clearing; then did a Synapse TF in 2h 19m, beating Babbage along the way, which got her to level 34.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) did another 2 Vigilante missions, then traded in the 2 Hero merits I'd built up so far for a LotG (DEF/+7.5% rchg) and did the Vigilante morality mission, which was OK but didn't feel as cool as the Rogue morality mission. This converts my main character to Vigilante alignment and gave me the Above The Law badge. Sneaking into the Rogue Isles proper, I got the Grass is Meaner badge for even entering the Rogue Isles, then I went and collected all the explore badges in Mercy Island, Port Oakes and Cap au Diable, which got me the Adventurer (750 badges) badge.

Marcia Law (12 pistols/kin corr) briefly joined a 3 player team fighting Destroyers in the Underground Imperial City. We had one team wipe against them. The lowbie Praetoria monsters overall seem a bit nastier than the standard mobs.


Saturday

Police Woman completed collecting explore badges in Nerva, St Martial and Grandville, and all the history plaques in the Rogue Isles. This puts her badge total at 804. I kinda want more badges, I'm a bit hesitant to go all the way; converting to full Villain, robbing banks, and fighting the Freedom Phalanx, all seem pretty far over the line. I noticed there were some red-side day job badges that are new (or at least, not previously available to heroes), so I'm trying to leave myself logged off there. I also went to the Facemaker and made an "evil" costume for Police Woman to use while roaming around red side.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) helped some villains with Jurassik for the badge.

Police Woman joined an Imperious TF, finishing in 30m 50s; I got a reward window at the end of the TF for some reason, with merits being the only option. Don't think I've seen that on previous ITFs, so not sure what that's all about.

Fire Maiden (34 SS/fire brute) joined a Sister Psyche TF, where I got called "crazy" for charging into groups of Freaks; later revised to merely "really aggressive". That's a good thing as far as I'm concerned; IMHO, melee toons should be aggressive, to keep the team moving forward. We were light on support (technically we had 3 support toons, but only one was really actively supporting) and had a lot of disconnects, and for awhile our team got de-leveled to 24 due to the star falling on a lower level toon. Had a team wipe on the mission with Pine and his files, when we were split up, had aggroed a lot, and had an ambush hit us at the same time. We also ran into a lot of the new Super Stunner mobs, who seem to do horrendous END drain. Nevertheless we finished the TF in 1h 54m, getting Fire Maiden to level 35.

I joined a mostly villain Master of the Statesman TF; I was asked to bring a kin, and ended up being the only hero on the team as Quick Katie (50 plant/kin controller). The rest of the team was 3 masterminds, 2 brutes, 1 fortunata and 1 stalker. I was kind of dubious about this team makeup (especially the masterminds, whose pets seemed to constantly draw random aggro), but seemed to mostly do OK. I was kept pretty busy keeping SB on everyone and ID on the masterminds. No serious issues until the last mission; we pulled the various patron AVs and managed to beat them, but against Lord Recluse himself, the lead brute got all his END drained by LR which detoggled him. I was trying to tell him to move to one of the towers so I could transference his END back up (I knew I could not hit LR himself with Transference or Transfusion), but I don't think he understood in time, and he ended up getting killed by Lord Recluse. Things went kind of haywire after that, and LR went hog wild, resulting in several more deaths before we got things back under control. We did end up finishing the STF (but not the Master Of part) in 1h 21m; I got a Centriole.

Primadonna (50 sonic/kin corruptor) did 5 Rogue alignment missions, and Schadenfreude (50 AR/pain corruptor) did 2 more Rogue alignment missions, before I called it a night.


Sunday

Schadenfreude did another 3 Rogue alignment missions, then I started to have the opposite of my earlier moral compunctions; the Rogue missions were not evil enough for Schadenfreude, who is basically a jackbooted fascist.

I switched to Spy Girl (31 MA/ninj stalker) and did 5 Rogue alignment missions and a Rogue morality mission (the same ninja related mission I did earlier) to convert her to Rogue faction. I also used her free respec to rearrange her powers and slots; she's still on ordinary SOs, but martial arts getting revamped in I18 meant I really wanted to swap some powers around. This is her build now:


Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.707
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Spy Girl I18 respec: Level 31 Natural Stalker
Primary Power Set: Martial Arts
Secondary Power Set: Ninjitsu
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Teleportation
Power Pool: Leaping

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Storm Kick -- Acc(A), EndRdx(3), Dmg(3), Dmg(5), Dmg(5), RechRdx(7)
Level 1: Hide -- DefBuff(A)
Level 2: Crippling Axe Kick -- Acc(A), EndRdx(7), Dmg(9), Dmg(9), Dmg(11), RechRdx(11)
Level 4: Ninja Reflexes -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(13), DefBuff(13)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 8: Focus Chi -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(15), RechRdx(15)
Level 10: Danger Sense -- DefBuff(A), DefBuff(17), DefBuff(17)
Level 12: Recall Friend -- IntRdx(A)
Level 14: Combat Jumping -- Krma-ResKB(A)
Level 16: Kuji-In Rin -- RechRdx(A)
Level 18: Cobra Strike -- Acc(A), EndRdx(19), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(19), Dmg(21), Dmg(21), RechRdx(23)
Level 20: Kuji-In Sha -- Heal(A), Heal(23), Heal(25), RechRdx(25), RechRdx(27)
Level 22: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 24: Stamina -- EndMod(A), EndMod(29)
Level 26: Crane Kick -- Acc(A), EndRdx(27), Dmg(29), Dmg(31), Dmg(31), RechRdx(31)
Level 28: Caltrops -- RechRdx(A)
Level 30: Smoke Flash -- Acc(A)
Level 32: Eagles Claw -- Acc(A)
Level 35: [Empty]
Level 38: [Empty]
Level 41: [Empty]
Level 44: [Empty]
Level 47: [Empty]
Level 49: [Empty]
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Assassination
Level 6: Ninja Run



After doing this respec, I joined a 7-player team doing both parts of the new Positron TF. This immediately caused me to regret postponing Stamina to level 24; I originally thought Kuji-In Sha (the self-heal) at level 20 would be more important, but honestly, exemped down to 15/16, I needed endurance a lot more than I needed a self-heal. On both parts of the TF I spent a lot of time stealthing around and TPing people places (I picture Spy Girl as being an infiltration expert, so I purposely took Recall Friend at a low level to let her stealth/TP teams around), which I think helped. We had a kind of messy fight in the Dr Morben mission when we were fighting while split up, but we managed to beat the nasty ambush on the steps of Atlas Park very solidly, and defeated the evil doppelganger team with only one loss. Finished Posi 1 in 47m 25s. Posi 2 went even more smoothly, finishing in 42m 56s and getting Spy Girl to level 33.

Finished the night playing Marcia Law (14 pistols/kin corruptor) on a 7-player team. In a flash of insight, I suddenly realized Increase Density is really useful in Praetoria, where a lot of mobs do smashing and energy damage (especially kin melee mobs), so I started buffing our melee teammates with ID to help their resistances. This team went pretty well and got Marcia Law to level 17 before we called it a night.

8/18/2010

On Monday, Going Rogue/I18 showed up a day early, which was pretty cool. I didn't have any open character slots on liberty (although I got awarded 2 slots, I actually have the max 36 slots unlocked already so I can't add more) so I couldn't make a Praetorian alt; I figured I'd wait for free server transfers to be enabled and use that to make room.

Instead, I started off by playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), trying to playtest Teen Phalanx Forever!, one of my AE arcs, to make sure the new issue didn't break something. Got most of the way through when a friend asked me to help his (mostly his SG) team with the Statesman TF.

We had a decently balanced mix of archetypes on the team, and the STF went well up to the last mission, against the 4 patron AVs. On our first try we jumped all 4 AVs, but the tanker got killed somehow and despite getting rezzed things got a bit out of control and we ended up wiping out. Second attempt, we tried pulling a patron AV to a little niche in the near right corner of the plaza where the AVs are standing; this started off OK with just one AV, but then all the other patron AVs started showing up and joining the fight, which caused us another team wipe. Finally we just cleared the walkway leading up to the patron AV area, then pulled the patron AVs from a considerably further distance away, which worked fine.

Once we beat the patron AVs we cleared the Arachnos flyer (twice, as it repopped right after the first time) then tackled Lord Recluse and the WEB device. The tanker used a jetpack to taunt Lord Recluse from a flying position; as the tanker was shield defense, he asked us to kill tbe blue tower first. We ended up killing them in the order blue, yellow, green, red, but it probably would've made more sense to go blue, red, yellow, green. It worked anyway, and we completed the STF in 1h 41m. It had been <24 hours since my last STF so I couldn't take an HO; I started off thinking I would leave the reward menu up and claim an HO when the timer expired, but I wanted to play Police Woman more, and I soon got sick of looking at the reward menu so finally just took the merits to get the window off my screen.

I started finding "tips" as drops from mobs and started doing some of the tip missions. I found I could get tips from Cimerorans on the Cimerora wall, but could not actually use tips in Cimerora, which was weird. I also found I could get tips from grey Family mobs in Independence Port (even though they weren't worth exp, being level 20+ is apparently enough).

The tip missions were actually pretty cool. I hadn't really tried them before, and I liked the idea of choosing from a couple possible options, and getting a different outcome as a result. I had heard the tip missions were just glorified radio missions, but all the ones I did had a little more complexity than that, with two or three things to do in each mission, sometimes chained together in interesting ways. I'm sure it will all get old once I've played each of the tip missions 20 times, but right now they seem really cool. I did the max 5 missions, selecting the "Hero" choice each time, figuring I will start off reinforcing my "Hero" morality (though switching to Vigilante for the extra badging opportunities IS pretty tempting).

I got a ton of badges along the way, including Agent of Order, Judge & Jury, Ear to the Street, Walking the Path, Tipped Off and Eye of the Storm, all for Going Rogue related actions.

I switched to Fire Maiden (32 SS/fire brute) and did 5 tip missions on red side, this time picking "Rogue" each time. I like brutes so I'm thinking I may make Fire Maiden my first toon to change to blue side.


Tuesday night, supposedly character transfers were working, so I transferred one of my less played alts, Deianira, off to Champion server. Deianira1 showed up on Champion server, but weirdly, there was still a Deianira on Liberty, only with no costume. This seemed pretty buggy. I ended up deleting the ghost Deianira from Liberty server, which opened an "Available" slot for me to make a new character, a level 1 pistols/kin corruptor that I named Marcia Law (which I thought would be a great "Loyalist" name). I joined a 4-player team of Liberty Force players who had returned to the game for Going Rogue, and found they were all Resistance aligned, and I got to make fun of them because all their stinky Resistance contacts were in hard-to-get places, while the Loyalist contacts were right out in plain sight. We worked out an arrangement where we would alternate Resistance and Loyalist missions. It felt kind of weird to be shooting at PPD officers as a Loyalist, but I guess the game rationalizes this as "infiltrating" the other side. We all rolled our eyes at the "pick flowers for Marauder's girlfriend" mission, which seemed very un-Praetorian.

We had some people join the team and others leave, and I eventually got Marcia Law up to level 10 before the team broke up (after 2 straight team wipes against huge mobs of Syndicate...the missions in the new expansion seem to spawn HUGE groups of mobs). I logged off to switch characters, thinking I might make a Resistance alt, but when I got back to the character select screen, I found that the ghost of Deianira had reappeared in my #36 character slot, and Marcia Law had vanished from my character select screen. I restarted the game a couple times to see if that would fix it, but it stayed like that; really buggy. I heard other people were having similar problems with ghosts of deleted characters, and this scared me off from trying to do any more server transfers or making any more Praetorian alts. Which is really a shame because the new Praetoria areas look really cool.

Instead I switched to Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) and did another 5 Hero tip missions. This let me get another tip that gave me a Morality mission, which allowed me to "reaffirm" my Heroism, giving me 50 reward merits, the Made A Stand badge, and the Resolute badge (putting me up to 726 badges).

Same problem, also on liberty server.

I have 36 slots unlocked on Liberty; yesterday (Tuesday) evening I used a server transfer token to transfer my #36 toon, Deianira to another server (I think Champion). The server transfer appeared to go through (Deianira1 showed up on Champion), but back on Liberty, the #36 slot was still occupied, with the same character name (Deianira) but no costume showing.

I then attempted to delete Deianira from Liberty server, which seemed to succeed and leave me with an "Available" slot, in which I created a new dual pistols/kin corruptor, Marcia Law, who started in Praetoria.

I played Marcia Law up to level 10, then logged out to switch characters. When I got back to the character select screen, the ghost of Deianira (no costume) had reappeared in slot 36. The new character (Marcia Law) no longer showed up. Very strange. I tried quitting the game and restarting it a couple times; same result, so I'd guess it's something server side.

I figure there is probably a 50% chance that the new character did not get saved properly and is lost, which would be disappointing but not a huge loss (since I only played her for a couple hours, I'm sure I could get back to that point easily). But this did scare me off from attempting any more server transfers to create new alts in Praetoria.

Would love to see this fixed soon. Praetoria looks cool.

Personally, I think saving Rock and Roll is a 'Heroic' action. But your mileage may vary.

8/16/2010

Been pretty slack about posting journal entries due to vacation; going to try to catch up some here.

Tue 7/27

I attended the "Tanker Tuesday" event with Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker), getting on an 8-player team of all tankers (some were level 50, some were level 1 and not much help, most were in between). We beat up the Clockwork Paladin, then started on Praetorian AVs, defeating Infernal, Marauder, Diabolique, Chimera, Shadow Hunter, Nightstar, Siege and Bobcat. Some of the AVs were a bit of a slugfest (especially Marauder, who kept going Unstoppable, which we tankers couldn't do much about), but we were still able to do it. I crafted an Envenomed Dagger temp power to help debuff, and another tanker was using Melt Armor occasionally.

I tested Rain Dancer's (50 storm/archery def) respec build by trying to solo the Cimerora wall. I found I could do it, though not so quickly as with a scrapper or brute, and a little more messily as storm powers would occasionally knock a minion off the wall. Then I joined a 6-player ITF, which we restarted during mission 1 to add another player. The 7-player ITF finished in 37m 3s. I spent a lot of time hopping around dropping Freezing Rain/Rain of Arrows, and was pretty safe due to my high ranged DEF (and occasionally Hurricane if stuff got too close).


Wed 7/28

Fire Maiden (26 SS/fire brute) solo'd some paper missions, then an AE arc called Paradox: Crisis on Infinite Girls which was all about a time traveling heroine that you run into lots and lots of copies of. This was interesting but confusing, and there were mad ambushes with a bit too much stacking debuff; I ended up giving it 3 stars.


Thu 7/29

I did 44 bronze ticket rolls (3080 tickets total). Best of the bunch were:

Thunderstrike (ACC/DMG/END), (DMG/END) and (ACC/DMG)
Reactive Armor (RES)
Cloud Senses (TOHITDEBUFF)
Karma (KB protect)
Crushing Impact (ACC/DMG/RCHG)
Doctored Wounds (HEAL)

The other 36 recipes I basically deleted or sold to vendors, but despite that, there's enough good stuff among the junk that I still like using tickets for bronze recipe rolls.

Rain Dancer (50 storm/archery defender) did another 6-player ITF in 24m 39s, which seemed very fast for a 6 player team.


Fri 7/30

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a 7-player Rule of Three (Posi 2) TF. Both mind and rad have most of their good powers at low level, so it felt like Spacegirl was really good even exemped down to 16. This TF went pretty well, though we had something of a crazy desperate fight against Cortex near the end, that we narrowly won. Finished in 1h 21m.

Did another 22 bronze ticket rolls (1540 more tickets); best of these were:

Thunderstrike (DMG/RCHG)
Decimation (ACC/DMG)
Kinetic Combat (ACC/DMG)
Doctored Wounds (END/RCHG)
Reactive Armor (END/RES)

I used up San Min's (47 MA/will scrapper) free respec in preparation for I18 and Going Rogue. I forgot to export the actual build (will try to remember to do that later) but basically I tried to maximize smash/lethal defense (got to 44.5%, close enough to the cap) and swapped in Cobra Strike (which will do damage once GR goes live) for Super Jump (but with ninja run, not having a travel power seems hardly noticable). I also purchased a Numina (+regen/+rec) recipe for 76M infl, which seemed like a good deal, and used 200 reward merits for a Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe, to help complete this build.

San Min then went on a 7-player MoITF (we originally had 8 but one player disconnected right before we started, and the leader didn't feel like finding a replacement). We went really slowly because everyone was afraid of blowing the Master of conditions, even to the point where defenders were told to hang back and not attack. The team kind of stalled during mission 3 when the leader disconnected and the team wanted to stand around by the bridge rather than move on with an even shorter team. I ended up running out of time (had to go to dinner) and had to log off; I felt bad about bailing like this, but we were moving so slowly and at the rate we were going it would've been another 90 minutes probably.

Later that night I played Primadonna (50 sonic/kin corruptor) on a 6-player speed ITF, finishing in 28m 31s. I got an Armageddon (DMG/END) recipe as a drop.


Sat 7/31

Fire Maiden (26 SS/fire brute) joined an 8-player villain team doing door missions in Nerva. We fought Positron AV twice in some brutal fights (he seemed really tough for our team, I even started using Shivans) and Valkyrie as an AV twice. This got Fire Maiden to 28.

I also played Water Lily (29 rad/storm corruptor) on a 6-player villain team that was fighting Calystix and those magical fonts. We had about 3 team wipes until we managed to pull Calystix away from his hordes of minions and beat him up. Also did some missions against Longbow and PPD which got Water Lily to level 30.


Sun 8/1

I hit the inf cap again on Police Woman and mailed another 200M infl to myself.

I did some editing of my Axis and Allies story arc; some rewriting of briefing and debriefing text to better explain things, and replacing some of the recolored PPD, Malta and Crazed models with custom models. Dual pistols got added to the powers you can give AE mobs, so I used those heavily for various military officers. This let me raise the level range back to 40-50; previously I had lowered it to 40-44 so I could use some recolored enemies that only went up to level 44.

Playing Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) I helped a Synapse TF team beat Babbage in Skyway City, then joined the tail end of the Hamidon raid. The raid successfully spawned Hamidon but didn't quite have the tactics to take him down yet, wiping out on the "bloom" at 75% health. I noticed that people seemed to have a bad habit of moving next to me and blowing me up due to a contagious Hamidon DOT that wsa on them.

Did another 25 bronze recipe rolls; best of this bunch were

Crushing Impact (2xACC/DMG/END, 1xDMG/END/RCHG)
Positron's Blast (ACC/DMG)
Reactive Armor (RCHG/RES)

Arrow Girl (37 archery/nrg blaster) joined a clear-most ITF on +1 difficulty; finished in 56m 13s and got to level 39.

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined the RWZ raid and got 477 Vanguard merits; I spent 500 to get the +10 salvage storage sack.


Mon 8/2

I spent some time tweaking A Warrior's Journey: The Flower Knight Task Force, heavily reworking the mission where you attack Chimera's secret base, and adding a lot of custom ninja models to both give Chimera's minions some variety, as well as cut down on the amount of stacking caltrops they throw. A couple players joined me while I was playtesting this on +1 x6 difficulty; this difficulty was maybe too hard, we had a lot of deaths.

Playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) I joined a group of 2 teams that were I helped farm EoEs for future Hamidon raids, finally ending up with 17 EoEs. I was about to go out of town on vacation, so I emailed these all to the people who were organizing Hami raids.

I played San Min (48 MA/will scrapper) on an 8-player AV team that beat up Diabolique, Infernal, Dominatrix, Marauder and Tyrant. After this team broke up, I ended up leading a 6-player AV team that started from the first Maria Jenkins mission and beat up Infernal, Chimera, Shadow Hunter, Nightstar and Siege.


(I went on vacation to go to GENCON and was away from the internet for almost a week.)


Sun 8/8

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a Sister Psyche TF. Someone recognized me and complimented me for the AE missions I wrote and the PW War Journal, which was nice. We didn't stealth much of this TF, mostly clearing the way to objectives. We had a tough fight aainst Punkadelic, when the team split up and aggro'd multiple spawns. The leader eventually had to log off and get some sleep; the new leader was only level 24, making the mobs +1 relative to the team. We ultimately finished in 2h 36m.


Mon 8/9

I hit the infl cap again and sent myself an email with another 200M infl. (So, 200M infl in 8 days, 5 of which I was AFK.)

Fire Maiden (28 SS/fire brute) solo'd the Do It Yourself Laser Moonbase Project, an AE arc where you construct a giant laser on the moon and menace the earth. This was a great concept, but I felt the ending could've been a little stronger; I had recruited some minions earlier, so I would've liked to see my army of minions fighting off James Bond (or whatever hero) or something. Admittedly, that's probably hard to do. Anyhow, I gave it 4 stars.

I went on to solo Mystery on the Boardwalk, one of the guest author AE arcs where this annoying lady asks you to help investigate some supernatural incidents. Despite how irritating the contact was, I thought this was a pretty good story, and I gave it 5 stars.

San Min (49 MA/will scrapper) joined a Statesman TF. We had a pretty strong team and finished in 53m 7s; San Min hit level 50 right when we killed Lord Recluse, which felt suitably dramatic. I also got a Nucleolus HO.

Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute) joined a 6-player ITF finishing in 31m 12s.


Tue 8/10

I solo'd San Min (50 MA/will scrapper) through most of the rest of Maria Jenkins' arc, beating Bobcat, Neuron, Battle Maiden, Black Swan, Malaise, Mother Mayhem, Diabolique, Infernal, Dominatrix and Marauder (all as EBs) and getting Portal Jockey (+66 max HP, +5 max END). I went on to join a Master of the Imperious TF team with 2 kins, 1 rad, 2 tankers and 3 scrappers; someone from the previous night's Statesman TF remembered me and suggested inviting me, I think. This MoITF was pretty slow going as we carefully killed everything that crossed our path. In mission 3, we handled the Phalanx Computer by clearing all the robots as they spawned (something I almost never see teams do), rather than ignoring them to kill the computer. One of the tankers kept running off on his own and fighting his own spawns, which endlessly aggravated the team leader and eventually got him kicked from the team. The remaining 7 of us managed to slowly but surely finish the MoITF, completing it in 2h 55s with no deaths, and getting the badge.

Spy Girl (31 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through The Twisted Tongue, about a Freakshow plot to make everyone talk like Freaks. This was a cute idea but the story didn't fully grab me; I gave it 4 stars.

Fire Maiden (28 SS/fire brute) solo'd through Grim Riddles where you're facing off against a manic clown who leaves riddles that you need to solve. I thought this was a great idea, but the riddles didn't quite make sense to me, and I thought the ending was a little weak (no riddles!); I gave it 4 stars.

Arrow Girl (39 archery/energy blaster) replayed Real Afterlife, a story where you foil a CoT plot with the help of War Witch; it was better than before, but the excessive number of defeat all missions got to be a little tedious. I gave it 4 stars.


Wed 8/11

San Min (50 MA/will scrapper) joined a team hunting Fake Nemeses in Peregrine Island, which eventually got her the Freedom Phalanx Reserve accolade.

Spy Girl (31 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd The Doctor Returns, a story arc where you foil a Crey plot to replace heroes with mind-controlled duplicates. This was well-written and had a neat ending; I gave it 5 stars. Spy Girl also solo'd Blowback, where you foil a Malta conspiracy to work with the Rikti; this was also quite well-written and I gave it 5 stars.

Arrow Girl (39 archery/nrg blaster) exemped down to a 7-player team doing the Frostfire mission at level 9. I guess I have a soft spot in my heart for Frostfire, it's sort of nostalgic for me. We beat up Frostfire no problem. A teammate also complimented me on Arrow Girl's background story, which was nice.

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a Statesman TF; we had a team wipe at Dr Aeon during mission 4 due to loose aggro, then in mission 5 we had a semi-wipe when the Arachnos flyer aggroed us while we were fighting the patron AVs. I explained to our tanker how to taunt Lord Recluse while flying to avoid a lot of his melee damage, and he seemed to really like that trick. We finished the STF in 1h 11m; I got a Nucleolus.

Fire Maiden (28 SS/fire brute) solo'd through Fantasy Quest: Chapter 1 Into the Darkness, a short AE story arc which was, indeed, a rather generic fantasy adventure. It was ok for what it was, but didn't really have that much content; I gave it 3 stars.

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined a Moonfire TF which finished in 1h 6m. For reasons I don't understand, one player quit the TF just 1 minute before we completed it; this kinda bugged out the TF, causing the final mission to repeat. We still got the merits and the badge, though. Some of the players reportedly did the final mission a second time, but didn't get more merits for doing so.


Thu 8/12

Primadonna (50 sonic/kin corruptor) joined an ITF which was basically 7 scrappers/brutes and me as a kin. Normally ITFs have more debuff than this, but actually it worked fine, finishing in 24m 52s.

San Min (50 MA/will scrapper) joined a team doing AE story arcs. I specifically asked whether they were doing stories or farms, and was told they were doing stories, but of course it turns out they wanted to do a farm. We did The Mission to End All Missions, which seemed to just be an outdoor map full of Egyptian-themed lieutenant mobs using the claws powerset. I did one run through the farm map just to be polite, then excused myself from the team.


Fri 8/13

Fire Maiden (28 SS/fire brute) joined a 4 player pickup team; this team wasn't very good, but did end up getting Fire Maiden to 29.

After that I was soloing through some of my own AE story arcs for fun when a friend asked to join; we duo'd through Celebrity Kidnapping, then the team ended up snowballing into an 8-player team that I led through Teen Phalanx Forever! and Talos Vice. This was nice as the players on the team gave me some good ratings that helped bump them up a bit higher in the MA search tool (especially Talos Vice, which got bumped from a 4 star average to a 5 star average).

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) did a clear-most ITF in 1h 8m, then Police Woman (50 AR/dev blsater) joined a Statesman TF, but I lost internet during mission 2 and it didn't come back until the next day.


Sat 8/14

Fire Maiden (29 SS/fire brute) solo'd some missions in Sharkhead to get to level 30, then briefly joined a team to beat up the Ghost of Scrapyard.

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a Master of Imperious TF where the team leader wanted to 2 box; this seemed crazy for a "Master of" attempt so I ended up quitting, then they reformed without the 2nd box and wanted to invite me back; I rejoined, but then the game crashed, and by the time I got back they had filled the team and started. It took me a long time to load back into the game, though (I had to completely reboot the computer) so it was pretty understandable.

Instead I ended up joining a 7 player team in Grandville with Fire Maiden and getting to level 32. I also solo'd Big in Sumeria, an AE arc that is a hilarious 1-mission Ghostbusters spoof. I gave it 5 stars.

Someone wanted to run a villain respec; I played Spy Girl (31 MA/ninj stalker) and we knocked out a 5-player villain respec in 10m 24s.

I played Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) on an ITF, finishing in 24m 28s. A teammate complimented me on her biography, which was nice.

Finished the night soloing various AE arcs on Spy Girl. Healing the Lame was about fighting heroes with dumb character concepts, but didn't have a lot more to it than that; I gave it 3 stars. Nuking the Fridge I don't really remember anything about, except I gave it 3 stars. Adventures in Babysitting has you bodyguarding a young girl who gets involved with the CoT; it was OK, I gave it 4 stars.


Sun 8/15

Hit the influence cap again while trading at Wentworth's and mailed off another 200M infl to myself. So, 200M infl in 6 days this time.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a Sara Moore TF. This team was very strong; one blaster said he could never use LRM Rocket because we killed too fast for its activation time. I tried to use my 2 holds to keep Fake Nemeses from using their phase-out power at low life. I got a Doctored Wounds (HEAL/RCHG) recipe as my only notable drop. We finished in 2h 14m for 64 merits.

Teal Serpent (31 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team that ran through the Midnighter arc. Our team was very high DEF between my FF Generator and some VEAT maneuvers. We had a close call against some Rikti, but successfully completed the arc to get Midnight Club access and 9 reward merits.

A couple friends were arguing over whether speed ITFs or clear-all ITFs were more efficient for exp, and I proposed to resolve it by running one speed ITF and one clear-all ITF and comparing results.

I played Mega (50 SS/will brute) for the speed ITF, and our 8 player team finished in 24m 6s. As a level 50 I can't earn exp, but I tracked influence gained, because I figured that would be much the same. I gained 1,706,048 infamy on the speed ITF (not counting drops of any sort) or 70.7K inf per minute. I partly screwed up this result because I was in SG mode the whole time (which eats infl) and I had also hit the hospital upon dying in mission 2 and missed the mission complete bonus. I also got an Armageddon (DMG/END) recipe, which was a nice bonus.

I then played Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) for a clear-all ITF. Our 8-player team finished in 1h 8m and I earned 4,567,903 infl, or 67.2K inf per minute. I also screwed this result up somewhat because my game crashed during mission 1, causing me to miss a lot of kills and the mission 1 mission complete bonus; and the new leader as only level 49 which skewed the mob levels until he hit level 50. We also technically did not clear all of mission 3 since I pulled generals down to the bridge to avoid lag (a common practice even on clear-most ITFs). Still, 67.2K inf/min is pretty close to 70.7K inf/min, so both methods seem pretty good. I also got a Coercive Persuasion (CONF) recipe on this TF; 2 purple recipes in one day is really lucky. I also ended up mailing about 700M infl to myself to get down to exactly 1 billion inf on Police Woman to more easily measure how much infl I gained, which will probably mess up my future inf calculations. I was going to mail all my inf to myself, but I discovered the email system limits you to mailing less than a billion inf at a time, something I hadn't known before.

Mystery Girl (50 emp/pistols) joined the Sunday RWZ raid; I tried to keep Fortitude and Clear Mind up on as many people as I could, which I hope helped, but we still had some lowbie squishies who instantly died any time a Rikti looked at them. Nevertheless the raid seemed very successful; I got 2 bomb credits (one player eager for the bomb badge got a second bomb near the end of the raid after he figured out his timer had expired), 2 reward merits for the Master-at-Arms, and 543 vanguard merits, of which I spent 500 to get the salvage storage sack.

Mystery Girl went on to solo Developer Distress: Save the Secrets of the Architect System, a 1 mission AE arc where basically you are rescuing various CoH developers from the 5th Column. The idea is cute, but there's really not much more to the arc than that; I gave it 3 stars. Soloing an emp defender usually isn't that great an idea, but I needed to finish a story arc to get the Mission Architect accolade; I found that the best way for me to solo was to stealth into the middle of an enemy group (with stealth/superspeed), then Power Build Up/Hail of Bullets (seemed to kill most minions), then mop up with other pistols attacks. This was slow going, but worked.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a Statesman TF. We had a couple people from another server who questioned why we took out the yellow tower early; the Liberty natives all thought the yellow tower buffs Lord Recluse's accuracy, but the other two said blue tower does that, not yellow. I was inclined to agree that the yellow tower buffs accuracy, but I used Surveillance on Lord Recluse to check, and it turns out the blue tower does give +30% ToHit to Lord Recluse. This seems good to know for DEF-based tankers; previously we would take out the yellow tower first for those guys, which with this new info doesn't make sense at all. Anyway, we finished in 1h 9m and I got a Centriole (boo!).

Added: Wayfaring Stranger (#4817) H40-54
Help scientist-adventurer Professor Wayfare find his missing son. Johnny Quest homage.

Source: found this by clicking on the names of authors of Dev Choice arcs to see their lesser known arcs.

Added: Big in Sumeria (#328391) H25
Help the Spirit Busters battle paranormal manifestations. Ghostbusters homage.

Source: found this by clicking on the names of authors of Dev Choice arcs to see their lesser known arcs.

Of note: this is just a 1-mission arc, but is still pretty cool.

Added: Zero of the Day (#341250) H20-30 (mostly)
Investigating the vandalism of a statue leads you to uncover dirty secrets. Drama.

Source: AE search set to "not voted", "my level" (at level 30).

Added: The Footsteps Initiative (#2291) H40-54
Use your experience to mentor a team of newbie heroes. Comedy.

Source: AE search tool set to Length=Medium/Long, Not Voted, My Level (50).

I thought this arc was awesome.

Added: Blowback (#4643) H41-54
A heinous Malta/Rikti conspiracy causes one operative to have second thoughts.

Source: Pro Payne: From 1 to 50 in MA

Added: The Doctor Returns (#1152) H35-54
Help the Doctor hack the Mission Architect to stop a Crey conspiracy.

Source: Out of the 4-star swamp

Happy to help with this, if it's at a time I can make it to.

Added: Mystery on the Boardwalk (#369275) H25-30
An annoying occultist asks you to investigate supernatural incidents. Comedy.

Source: default MA search, with "my level" set (on a level 28 toon).

Dunno, I noticed it mysteriously vanished several weeks ago. I assume it got unpublished and I ended up taking it off my recommended list.

Added: Naughty Cat-Girls of the Third Reich (#41119) Vigilante 1-54, should be around 22-54 (custom enemies).
Stop the fascist catgirl super-soldier program. Campy adventure.

Source: AE search set to "Morality = Vigilante".

Changes:

Fairly extensive reworking of mission 4, which I felt needed to be spiffed up.

The fact that all the Chimera ninja throw caltrops at the player is a real drag, but I really like the way they look. With the 200KB limit, I ended up solving this by creating several custom models that look like Chimera ninja, but don't have caltrops.

From a story perspective, I explained this by describing them as local recruits that are being trained as ninja; following Chimera's naming scheme, I named the new ninja after Japanese mythological monsters.

I made a new custom group (Praetorian Ninja) using 5 custom minions, 3 custom lieutenants and using the standard Chimera Ninja boss for the boss. This is meant to represent that the "real" Praetorians are a cadre that are training up the other ninja. Praetorian Ninja are now the main enemy in mission 4, though several of the mission details still use Chimera Ninja so you can still get the full caltrop experience at the actual mission objectives -- but don't get so heavily caltropped in the rest of the mission. On the downside, the ninja being custom ninja tend to hit harder (standard PvE mobs seem to do less damage than custom AE mobs) and have better perception (from ninjitsu). I did disable hide on most of them; despite being ninja and it making sense, a whole map of stealthed mobs would be No Fun. I left hide enabled on one lieutenant, though, so that at least some are stealthed.


Ninja!

I added a couple patrols and additional objectives to help support the "training camp" idea.

Adding 8 new custom models and 3 new objectives increased my arc space usage from 51.52% to 62.06% .... which really isn't bad at all, they must've made custom models take much less space. 8 custom models in the old system would've been nearly 50% of the allowed 100K; now they're only about 10% of 200K, so less than half as big.

In playtesting, it's much nicer not being permanently slowed by caltrops on this mission, and I like that there's much more variety in their appearance than before (I like the way the standard Chimera ninja look, but they all look exactly alike). More dialog and more details make the large-ish map more interesting.

For story reasons, I left the ninja in missions 2 and 3 the old Chimera Ninja, since the plot requires that they be recognizable as minions of Chimera. The new custom ninja appear in missions 4 and 5 though.

Feedback welcome.

Some more minor tweaking to power selections of custom mobs, for thematic reasons and also to make their exp yield reasonable.

Biggest change is to the Arquebusier, who lost Burst (which makes no sense for an arquebus) and gained M30 Grenade (sorta works, definitely a better animation for a primitive firearm). This wasn't possible before because Burst was a "Standard" assault rifle power in previous issues that could not be removed without zeroing the exp award.

Still pondering possible additions to missions 1 and 4, both outdoor maps that maybe need more points of interest in them. (Mission 5 is also an outdoor map, but I'm happy with the number of mission details on it currently.)

I spent some time tweaking this arc some more, partly in response to player feedback, partly because the 200K limit gives me a lot more room to play with.

This arc is kind of my guilty pleasure at this point. It's not that popular, and has drawn some hate mail, and yet I still like it.

All missions changed from 40-44 to 40-54. (It's just more fun being level 50, and a bunch of the recolored NPCs that only went up to level 44 have been replaced by custom NPCs that go to 54.)

Arc status changed to Looking for Feedback.

Size has increased from 49% to 57% (out of 200KB).


M1:
* Added some briefing text to help establish the scene.
* Changed mission accept message to better fit the scene.
* Rewrote debriefing text to show the contact is actually surprised that the player gets hailed as der Fuhrer by the German officers, but then decides to go with it. In response to player feedback that it doesn't make sense for the contact to purposely make the player the Fuhrer.

M2:
* Added some briefing text to help establish the scene. Changed the wording to more clearly describe the player staying in historical Germany to run the Third Reich; this is in response to several players suggesting that it doesn't make sense for the player to only visit at certain points in time, and another player suggesting it would be cooler if the player stayed in the past and actually ruled Germany.
* Changed mission accept message to better fit the scene.
* French Lieutenant now uses dual pistols (formerly assault rifle).
* Replaced French Colonels and Generals: formerly recolored PPD Psi-Captain, now a custom dual pistols/SR boss.
* Added back (optional) "Munitions" destructible objects back to the mission (previously cut due to space limitations).

M3:
* Added some briefing text to help establish the scene.
* Changed mission accept message to better fit the scene.
* Replaced Commissar: formerly recolored PPD Psi-Lieutenant, now a custom dual pistols/pain dom lieutenant
* Replaced Partisans: formerly various recolored Crazed, now a custom Partisan (assault rifle/nothing minion) and a custom Resistance Fighter (dual pistols/nothing minion). This also avoids a criticism that I received that sometimes the Crazed would randomly spawn girls in party dresses and high heels as "Partisans".

M4:
* Added some briefing text to help establish the scene.
* Changed mission accept message to better fit the scene.
* Removed recolored Malta Operation Engineer, its Auto Turret power just doesn't seem in theme.
* Added several recolored Council Empire minions for variety.
* Replaced American Sergeant: formerly recolored Malta Operation Officer, now a custom martial arts/assault rifle lieutenant.
* Replaced American Lieutenant: formerly recolored Cage Consortium Officer, now a custom dual pistols/regen lieutenant.
* Replaced American Colonel: formerly recolored Axis America Oberst, now a custom mercenaries/nothing boss.

I kind of wonder if I should have the Americans in khaki colored uniforms instead of the Army Green color, to be more historically correct. Still on Army Green because the color is more evocative of US soldiers to me (even though even our army doesn't wear this color much any more).

I also experimented with trying to switch from the Ruined Atlas map to another map, because of one player's hatred of "Red Atlas". I ended up staying with Ruined Atlas as the best fit for the story. Though my experiment with Invasion America occurring on the Atlas Fashion Show map WAS pretty funny for the few minutes I spent playtesting, it just didn't really work.