PoliceWoman

Well, I checked into this and the official name of the Milton Bradley game is "Axis & Allies" (note ampersand), and my mission arc doesn't involve rolling any dice, the A&A game board or battle board, or toy soldiers. So I'm *thinking* I should be safe from a legal complaint from Hasbro's lawyers. But I'm open to suggestions for an alternate name, since I'll need to republish on live servers anyway.

"World War II" would be an obvious name but I'd be shocked if someone hasn't copyrighted that, too. (WWII, tm)

I made sure not to ever use the word N a z i, either, since I know that is a registered trademark of TSR (and probably WotC now). (Seriously, they trademarked it for their Indiana Jones roleplaying game...)

4/6/2009

On Thursday night I played Schadenfreude (38 AR/pain corruptor) on a 4 player villain team with Fallen LEGION SG. We did a few missions, beat up a Silver Mantis AV and got Schadenfreude to level 39.

After that team broke up I played Blond Justice (50 bs/shield scrapper) for awhile, soloing through the Eternal Nemesis story arc and beating up a Nemesis EB for 19 merits.

I played Mercy Beaucoup (43 emp/ice defender) on an 8 player pickup team for awhile, which mostly went fine, though some of our team members were annoyed by the amount of radial knockback our peacebringer was dishing out. Nevertheless got Mercy to level 44 and picked up the Multidimensional badge. I burned Mercy's free respec in anticipation of I14, changing her build to:

Mercy Beaucoup respec: Level 48 Mutation Defender
Primary Power Set: Empathy
Secondary Power Set: Ice Blast
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Teleportation
Ancillary Pool: Psychic Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Healing Aura -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(3), EndRdx(3), Heal(5), Heal(5), Heal(7)
Level 1: Ice Bolt -- Acc(A), RechRdx(7), EndRdx(9), Dmg(9), Dmg(11), Dmg(11)
Level 2: Ice Blast -- Acc(A), RechRdx(13), EndRdx(13), Dmg(15), Dmg(15), Dmg(17)
Level 4: Heal Other -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(17), EndRdx(19), Heal(19), Heal(21), Heal(21)
Level 6: Swift -- Run(A)
Level 8: Hurdle -- Jump(A)
Level 10: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff(A)
Level 12: Fortitude -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(23), RechRdx(23), DefBuff(25), DefBuff(25), DefBuff(27)
Level 14: Clear Mind -- Range(A)
Level 16: Freeze Ray -- Acc(A), Acc(27), RechRdx(29), Hold(29), Hold(31), Hold(31)
Level 18: Recovery Aura -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(31), RechRdx(33)
Level 20: Ice Storm -- Acc(A), RechRdx(33), RechRdx(33), Dmg(34), Dmg(34), Dmg(34)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(36), RechRdx(36)
Level 24: Super Speed -- Run(A), Run(40)
Level 26: Super Jump -- Jump(A), Jump(43)
Level 28: Bitter Ice Blast -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(37), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(37), Dmg(39)
Level 30: Acrobatics -- EndRdx(A)
Level 32: Adrenalin Boost -- RechRdx(A), RechRdx(39), RechRdx(39), EndMod(40), EndMod(40)
Level 35: Recall Friend -- IntRdx(A)
Level 38: Resurrect -- RechRdx(A)
Level 41: Dominate -- Acc(A), Acc(42), RechRdx(42), Hold(42), Hold(43), Hold(43)
Level 44: Mind Over Body -- EndRdx(A)
Level 47: Regeneration Aura -- Empty(A)
Level 49: Aim -- Empty(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance

The major change in this build is that I ditched Absorb Pain and Stealth, replacing them with Resurrect and Recall Friend. I finally gave in and added Resurrect because I had simply been on too many teams which looked at me funny for being an empath without rez. I also had purchased a stealth IO which let me drop the Stealth power; replacing it with Recall Friend seemed to make sense since it would let me stealth/TP deep into missions, or on a team wipe I could run away and TP/rez.

On Friday, I ran through a couple Mission Architect arcs on Test Server and tried to rate them. I also solidifed my third story arc and published it as Arc 20161: Celebrity Kidnapping. I really like how this arc turned out and I even found room to insert Police Woman as a vanity enemy in it (don't worry, she's meant to be a "normal" person so is only a regular boss, not an AV). I did find it necessary to nerf my Paparazzi cameramen from illusion/ninjitsu to illusion/regen though; stealth-strike spectral wounds was just too nasty.

Back on Liberty, I ran Spy Girl (33 MA/ninj stalker) through a Vahzilok Conference story arc in a fairly lazy 21min 17sec, but this gave me enough merits to buy a Pool C roll, getting a so-so Sovereign Right (ACC/END) recipe, Black Market value of 220K.

I also found that Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) had picked up enough Fortunata Hypnosis purple recipes at Wentworths to 5-slot them into her Mass Hypnosis, giving her a +4% global recovery, +15% global ACC and +10% global RCHG bonus. I kinda want to get her a set of the Unbreakable Constraint purple recipes too, but those are way more expensive than the sleep recipes (which were extremely cheap for purples).

I was offline Saturday and got back late Sunday night. I played Rain Dancer (50 storm/arrow defender) for a little, attempting to solo Neuron as a +1 elite boss, but without much luck; I could debuff him pretty well with hurricane and snowstorm, but he would run away from my tornados and lightning storms and my toggles plus his electric attacks quickly drained all my END away, so I wasn't able to sustain fighting him for long enough to drop him.

Gave up on that and switched to Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) to play on an Imperious TF organized by a friend. Our team mix was:

fortunata
dominator
stalker
kin controller
scrapper
2 blasters (including me)
kin defender

I thought this team was a little light on support and offered to switch to a defender, but the team leader was bloodthirsty and really preferred the extra DPS so we went like this. It turned out fine; even the lack of a real tank didn't seem to slow us down. In the second mission, the team leader had the unconventional idea of killing the shadow cyst crystals first, using their explosions to do even more damage to the spawns around them; this kinda worked. In the third mission we cleared the first few generals, then got team TP'd to a location where we launched a frontal assault on Romulus and Requiem (rather than pulling him down, which seems to be the "normal" way); this actually worked fine. In the final mission, Imperious ended up following us to the final encounter and aggroed all the AVs a little early, but we were ready for it and our high DPS let us repeatedly smash Romulus flat. Finished in 59min 23sec.

I'm getting a little bored with taking detailed market manipulation notes; the prices fluctuate too much for my sale prices to feel very meaningful long term. Nevertheless I'm still playing the market, and made about 5.774M infl flipping salvage at Wentworth's since my last report; I also made 3.73M infl playing at level 50 on the aforementioned ITF.


[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=66M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
3 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=14M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=9M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
2 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run speed) Wentw=5M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
4 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Devastation (chance to hold) Wentw=4M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
3 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
2 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M
2 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.4M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Ghost Widow's Embrace (ACC/HOLD/RCHG) Wentw=680k
2 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=670K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
4 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=125K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
2 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=74K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=25K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) Wentw=1K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 417.311M infl, 1640 merits, 254K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M Merits=125 (316K infl/merit)
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=66M Merits=200 (330K infl/merit)
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 171.6M infl, 525 merits, 327K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) BMkt=220K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.376M infa, 360 merits, 720K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit



[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
39.61MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 59.08mins (avg of 9 runs)
36.54MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 24.63mins (avg of 5 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
31.73MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 28.36mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.74MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 109.4mins (avg of 5 runs)
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.20MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 124.98mins (avg of 10 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
18.11MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 92.76mins (avg of 26 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.84MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.82mins (avg of 9 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
14.23MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 37.96mins (avg of 8 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
7.38MPH Rescue Fortune Teller: 1 merit in 8.13min (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

[ QUOTE ]

Magic
--------
The Amulet of J'gara - Heroic
Chains of Blood (5492) - Heroic
*

Mystery
--------
Blowback (18575) - Heroic
Dream Paper -- Heroic (13030)
Dream Paper 2: Restless Sleep -- Heroic (16797)
Dream Paper 3: Broken Dreams -- Heroic (13064)
*

Military
--------
*

Comedy
--------
The Great Chicken Caper of '09 - Heroic
*

Comedy/Drama
--------
Cause of How Some Silly Stealed My Wings - Neutral
Lawyers of Ghastly Horror - Heroic
How to Survive a Robot Uprising - Heroic
Attack of the Space Clowns (18749)-Neutral

*

Crime/Gangs
------------
The Bravuran Jobs -- Villainous (16809)
*

Classic Super-Hero/Super-Villain
--------------
*

Mythology
----------------
Anactoria's Descent Into the Underworld - Villainous
The War of Fate: Betrayal (19698) - Neutral
*

Character/Supergroup Origins
----------------
Birth of a Fossil - Heroic
*


Horror
---------
Small Fears - Heroic
*

Holiday
---------
*

Sci-Fi
--------

Adventures of the Space Marines --- Neutral
Adventures of the Space Marines 2 ---Neutral
Netrunner - Heroic (14434)

*
Un-themed Survival/AV/Time Challenges
-----------------------
The Meatgrinder - Neutral
*

Historical (Realistic)
--------------------
*

Historical (CoH Lore)
-------------------
*


Drama
-------------
*


Misc. Adventure
----------------
The Portal Bandits - Heroic
*

Global Domination
----------------
Axis and Allies - Villainous (10597)
*

Heist
----------------
Celebrity Kidnapping - Villainous (20161)
*


[/ QUOTE ]

I wasn't quite sure how to classify some of my arcs ... Axis and Allies could arguably be Military or Historical, too, and Celebrity Kidnapping could potentially be considered Comedy as well. I thought about listing them under all applicable genres, but figured that would be messy. I kinda think Global Domination and Heist are the most accurate descriptors.

Arc Name: Celebrity Kidnapping
Arc ID: 20161
Faction: Paragon Police, Longbow, Prisoners, Skulls, Family, Paparazzi
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Easy-Moderate. No AVs or EBs, but you do have to keep an NPC alive against ambushes.
Synopsis: Boy, does Willy Wheeler have a deal for you! A celebrity heiress has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig with the help of some thugs, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?
Estimated Time to Play: 3 missions, maybe 30-45 minutes.

Arc Name: Celebrity Kidnapping
Arc ID: 20161
Faction: Paragon Police, Longbow, Prisoners, Skulls, Family, Paparazzi
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Easy-Moderate. No AVs or EBs, but you do have to keep an NPC alive against ambushes.
Synopsis: Boy, does Willy Wheeler have a deal for you! A celebrity heiress has been sentenced to jail for drunk driving. The plan is to break her out of the Zig with the help of some thugs, then hold her for ransom for immense profit! What could go wrong?
Estimated Time to Play: 3 missions, maybe 30-45 minutes.

[ QUOTE ]
The other suggestion I would have is to change the Atlas Park map so you're not using the Shivan one. My allies kept attacking the meteor instead of Maiden Justice, and that seemed out of place. It also teleports you in with the Ourborus crystal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for trying my story arc out!

That meteorite has been bugging me too, and I've had another person comment about it as well, so I finally tried changing the final map. I want it to be Atlas Park to be recognizable as a CoH location, but that meteorite is just too annoying. The Atlas Park 1 map won't work for me because it doesn't seem to allow Rescue or Ally objectives; so for now I've switched the final mission to be on the Atlas Park (Ruined) map, which is the trashed version of Atlas Park that you normally see Lord Recluse hanging out on. I kinda liked the bright colors of the main Atlas Park map, but this map kinda works too since it has giant Council robots and blown up tanks all over the place, so it looks a lot like a war zone. I added some flavor text mentioning that Atlas Park was bombarded by V-2 rockets to try and help explain the damage. This map also seems much larger than Atlas Park 2 (the map I was using before), but hopefully that is OK.

I also switched Statesman and Maiden Justice to the weaker versions that appear in the Ouro TF, so that they'd be more doable for a non-optimal solo character; this let me feel like I could make them into required objectives. I like the idea that crushing Statesman and the WW2 Ms Liberty should be a necessary requirement for conquering the United States.

Comments welcome!

4/2/2009

Started the evening on Test Server playing with Mission Architect some more. I got some feedback that my "Netrunner" arc (#14434) was too hard, with one person complaining about the END drain my Crey Online minions were putting out, and the Agents two-shotting him (guessing this was Focus Chi/Crane Kick/Storm Kick or something similar). So I nerfed some of the mobs in this mission; switched the generic minions from electric blast/melee to energy blast/melee to get rid of the END drain, and downgraded the Agents from "hard" primary to "standard" primary, which gets rid of Focus Chi and Crane Kick. Also switched the male Agent from martial arts to super strength, to mix their attacks up a little.

I also had someone suggest that Statesman should really be an enemy you fight in the final "Invade America" mission of my "Axis and Allies" story arc (#10579); previously I had President Truman cry out "Statesman, where are you?" when he is captured, but Statesman never shows up. It makes sense that if the President is hiding in Paragon City, the City of Heroes, then there should be costumed heroes there defending him; so I bought the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators enemy packs from the ticket vendor, and added a Statesman AV and Ms. Liberty AV (renamed to "Maiden Justice", the WW2 era Ms Liberty). I was pretty worried that this would make the mission too hard, though, so I deleted two of my ambushes and inserted three additional 5th Column bosses as allies you can recruit to help against the AVs. I kinda liked how adding these allies worked out; after I rounded some of them up, I really did have a 5th Column army following me around beating up the American soldiers, which felt much more like the "Invade America" scenario that I had envisioned.

The heroes were still pretty seriously badass though, even on heroic where they spawn as EBs. I was able to beat them up with my level 50, purpled out version of Police Woman; but seemed to consistently lose against them (even with allies) with my very old level 24 version of Police Woman (who admittedly is horribly slotted because she's a copy from Issue 4, when it made sense to 6-slot for damage). I finally decided to make Statesman and Maiden Justice "optional" objectives instead of required ones, because I really wanted to make sure characters with non-optimal builds could still reasonably solo the story arc. I may need to do more balance tweaking later though; I'm considering downgrading both Statesman and Maiden Justice to the wimpy versions you run into during the Mender Silos TF, though I'm worried that these would be a total pushover for an 8-player team.

I also spent some time tinkering with the start of a third story arc, based on breaking a celebrity criminal (Paris Holiday, the Holiday Inn heiress and reality TV celebutante) out of jail and holding her for ransom. I messed around with replacing most of the spawns on the Breakout map with patrols of Paragon Police (enemy), Longbow (enemy), Prisoners (rogue) and Family (allies - helping you break Paris out of jail). It takes a little while but the patrols eventually cross paths and start blowing each other away, which I like; kinda shooting for a prison riot setting while you go in and break out the hostage. After the breakout mission I made a simple mission where you pick up some ransom money, then I tried to create a mission where there's a John Woo-style standoff culminating in a big shootout where all your allies double-cross you while police and paparazzi simultaneously start rushing you. Not quite sure this is working the way I want it yet but it's fun to test so far.

Anyway, so yeah, I'm totally hooked on Mission Architect. It is still pretty crashy though, and after about the sixth crash I swapped back to live servers.

Back on Liberty, I messed around with Wentworth's for a bit before signing on with Villains of Liberty team that ran a bunch of speed trials and TFs. First I played Primadonna (33 sonic/kin) on a 1st villain respec with a team of

brute
pain MM
fort
2 kin corruptors (including me)
1 rad corruptor

We blitzed through the respec, rushing the Longbow bosses in the second mission and ignoring the CoT in the final mission to go directly after the vines. Completed the respec in a blazing 13min 40sec.

We went on to do a 3rd villain respec, on which I played Mayday (50 fortunata). Our team grew to:

2 brutes
3 kin corruptors
1 rad corruptor
2 fortunata (including me)

This trial was also raced through with blinding speed; even with a Defeat all Malta mission we completed this respec in only 14min 36sec.

Finally I played Mayday on a Lady Grey TF with mostly the same team, though our AT mix was now:

2 fortunata (including me)
2 brutes
1 tanker
1 rad corruptor
1 kin corruptor
1 scrapper

We did all the usual speed LGTF tricks, only even faster than normal: stealth 1st mission and team TP back to door; stealth to each rider encounter in 2nd mission; purposely fail 3rd mission; everyone simultaneously took out the mitos of their particular flavor in the 4th mission; stealth to final encounter in 5th mission and someone took out all the generators while we were simultaneously killing AVs. We had a strong team and everyone knew what to do, and this let us complete the LGTF in 32min 48sec, which is a ludicrously fast time, definitely the quickest one I've been on.

Finished the night crafting a few purple IOs I had purchased on the Black Market. Coercive Persuasion, the confuse purple, is pretty cheap compared to the other purple recipes (since no one wants it) and I was able to assemble and craft a set of 5 for Mayday's Aura of Confusion power, giving her a +4% global DMG and +10% global RCHG bonus.

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
39.61MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 59.08mins (avg of 9 runs)
36.54MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 24.63mins (avg of 5 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
31.73MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 28.36mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.74MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 109.4mins (avg of 5 runs)
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.20MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 124.98mins (avg of 10 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.86MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.09mins (avg of 25 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
14.23MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 37.96mins (avg of 8 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
7.38MPH Rescue Fortune Teller: 1 merit in 8.13min (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

Someone suggested that Statesman should really be in the final mission where you conquer Paragon City, and this actually kind of makes sense dramatically for a big final battle.

So I unlocked the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators enemy packs and inserted a Statesman AV and a Ms Liberty AV (renamed to Maiden Justice, who I think is the equivalent hero for this time period).

I was really afraid that adding two AVs may make it too hard though, so I deleted 2 ambushes from this mission and added 3 additional allies (for a total of 4 allies). Solo on Heroic difficulty this means you face a Statesman EB and a Maiden Justice EB, and you can recruit up to 4 lieutenants as allies, one of which is a healer. I kind of like the effect that this has, where you have a bunch of 5th Column guys following you around beating up good guys...it makes it feel more like the "Invasion America" scenario that is depicted here.

I still found this was pretty hard so I made both Statesman and Maiden Justice optional goals instead of required ones. I was a little reluctant to do that since I figure you REALLY should kill Statesman if you're going to crush America beneath your boots and conquer the world and all that. But I still want the story arc to be completable even by a solo character of a non-soloing archetype.

I've gotten tons of good feedback so far would appreciate any comments on whether this is now too difficult. One thing I possibly could do is downgrade Maiden Justice to use the EB level Ms Liberty, or maybe downgrade both to use the "pet" version from the Ouro TF.

4/1/2009

I was out of town over the weekend, and so wasn't on CoH at all during that time.

Monday night I tried to play with Mission Architect on Test Server but it would crash on me, over and over, when I clicked on the "My Creations" tab in the Mission Architect dialog. I tried moving from Atlas Park AE to King's Row AE, and even moving from Training Room 1 to Training Room 2, thinking that high load might be responsible. No luck, it still crashed. I submitted a couple bug reports.

I did see that lots of Liberty people tried my story arcs and left me some nice comments. My two story arcs (#10579 Axis and Allies and #14434 Netrunner) are both sitting at a 4-star rating. Thanks much! I really need to spend some time playing other people's story arcs in return.

I was able to "create a new story" without going to "My Creations", though. So I made a jailbreak style mission set on the Breakout map, as the first mission of a third story arc, which I'm tentatively calling "Celebrity Kidnapping". Made a couple characters for a new "Paparazzi" enemy group (illusion/ninjitsu ... it makes sense, really! wish I could make them do the camera emote, though). My test run through the first mission went pretty well, but when I tried to edit the story arc to add more missions, CoH crashed on me again, at which point I gave up and went back to live servers.

Back on Liberty, I joined a couple friends on a 5-player pickup team, playing Samurai-ko (37 katana/will scrapper); my friends gradually logged off and I ended up inheriting the star, and we ran a few more mid-late 30s missions before calling it a night.

The dev warnings of an incoming free respec made me want to burn the free respecs my alts currently have, so I started Tuesday night by doing a respec for Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller). I did not actually change any of the powers that Spacegirl had, but I moved slots around and changed which IO sets I was using. I mainly was focused on increasing global recharge bonuses, and this is the build I came up with:

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Spacegirl respec: Level 50 Mutation Controller
Primary Power Set: Mind Control
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Psionic Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Mesmerize -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(3), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Dct'dW-Heal(11), Dct'dW-Rchg(11)
Level 2: Dominate -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(13), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(17)
Level 4: Radiation Infection -- DarkWD-ToHitDeb(A), DarkWD-ToHitDeb/EndRdx(17), DarkWD-ToHitdeb/Rchg/EndRdx(19), DarkWD-Rchg/EndRdx(19)
Level 6: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(21), Flight-I(21), LkGmblr-Rchg+(50)
Level 8: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 10: Confuse -- Mlais-Acc/Rchg(A), Mlais-EndRdx/Conf(23), Mlais-Acc/EndRdx(23), Mlais-Conf/Rng(25), Mlais-Acc/Conf/Rchg(25), Pplx-Rchg/Conf(27)
Level 12: Accelerate Metabolism -- Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(A), RechRdx-I(27), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(29), Flight-I(31)
Level 16: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 18: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(31), P'Shift-End%(31), EndMod-I(33)
Level 22: Levitate -- Apoc-Dmg(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(33), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(34), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Apoc-Dam%(34)
Level 24: Mass Hypnosis -- FtnHyp-Sleep(A), FtnHyp-Sleep/Rchg(36), FtnHyp-Acc/Sleep/Rchg(36), FtnHyp-Acc/Rchg(36), FtnHyp-Sleep/EndRdx(37)
Level 26: Terrify -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(37), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(37), Posi-Dmg/Rng(39), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(39), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 28: Lingering Radiation -- Acc-I(A)
Level 30: Telekinesis -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 32: Mass Confusion -- CoPers-Conf(A), CoPers-Conf/Rchg(40), CoPers-Acc/Conf/Rchg(40), CoPers-Acc/Rchg(40), CoPers-Conf/EndRdx(42), CoPers-Conf%(42)
Level 35: Mutation -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 38: EM Pulse -- UbrkCons-Hold(A), UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg(42), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg(43), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg(43), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold(43)
Level 41: Indomitable Will -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(45), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(45), LkGmblr-Rchg+(45)
Level 44: Mind Over Body -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(46), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(46), TtmC'tng-ResDam(46)
Level 47: Psionic Tornado -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Containment

I admittedly am missing over half of the purple IOs and all the Blessing of the Zephyr IOs in the above build, but I do have the Luck of the Gambler, Decimation, Positron and Miracle IOs at least. It gives me something to work towards for Spacegirl, though; and the purple IOs for mez are usually a bit cheaper to acquire, so might be attainable.

There was a lot of noise on LBX channel about griefers attacking a RWZ raid that happened on Tuesday night. One of the mods was kicking griefers off of the LBX channel, and others were complaining that this was a harsh punishment. I didn't witness this RWZ raid myself, but in the truest traditions of the Internet, I'll express an uninformed opinion anyway: I think the channel mod was well within her rights to kick out people who were deliberately and maliciously trying to ruin the play experience of 20 other players. The community should condemn such behavior.

In any case, there was much drama on the channel about that, then someone tried to lighten the mood by starting a "fun" Katie TF. I signed on for this with Virtual Girl (33 rad/sonic defender), and we ended up with a team of:

2 scrappers
tanker
storm controller
rad controller
blaster
rad defender (me)
peacebringer

This team first beat up a Jack-in-Irons monster for 2 merits, then started on the Katie TF. Mary Macomber wasn't too bad since we had lots of debuffs, but she kept running away a lot, which apparently is a new and annoying habit she's developed recently. We had an extra group aggro on us as a result, but we handled it fine. In the final mission Amy briefly broke off from her rescuer to aggro on one of the Red Cap ambushes, but we beat up the ambush and got her to the finish line. Finished the TF in 30min 53sec. I ended up turning off Virtual Girl's exp gain to keep her at level 33; I'm thinking I'll keep her at that level for random recipe rolls.

After that I joined a Numina TF with Fire Emerald (36 fire/fire blaster). This TF took awhile to fill up a team, but we eventually ended up starting with:

scrapper
4 blasters
rad controller
peacebringer

I had to AFK a bit to deal with Symantec customer support; the current virus scare had caused me to resubscribe to Norton Antivirus, but even with a receipt from their online store, Norton Antivirus wouldn't recognize I had a valid subscription. I tried using their online tech support, and started out at #270 in the queue (I guess a lot of people were doing Antivirus stuff that night due to the virus scare) and finally worked my way up to #1 in the queue while the Numina TF was forming. By the time the tech support guy had fixed my problem, the team had filled up and finished the first mission. I did help with the rest of the TF, though, which went pretty straightforwardly (stealthed most missions, split up task assignments for the various hunt missions) and we finished the TF in 1hr 23mins.

Along the way somewhere I had a Respec Recipe drop for me, which I put up on Wentworth's and very quickly sold for a cool 40M infl. I have no idea why these are so valuable when the front page of CoH clearly says they're awarding free respecs any day now, but I'm happy to sell them and cash in.

[u]Market manipulation[u]
Start:
Monday night, 286.966M infl

Sold:
4 Deific Weapon (3.95M-4M)
20 Magical Conspiracy (203-232K)
9 Positronic Matrix (100K)
10 Rikti Alloy (184K)

Bought:
20 Magical Conspiracy (101K-106K)
30 Positronic Matrix (20K-70K)
20 Rikti Alloy (20K-21K)

Finish:
Tuesday night, 301.037M infl (+14.071M)

I've been kinda lazy lately on marketeering and a lot of my broker slots seem stuck or slow moving. Prices for two of my most frequently traded items, Rikti Alloy and Positronic Matrix, seem to have plummeted, leaving me with lots in inventory and wondering if I should sell them at the current price point or store them away until the price rises again.

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
37.52MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 62.36mins (avg of 8 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
27.06MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 33.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.74MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 109.4mins (avg of 5 runs)
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.20MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 124.98mins (avg of 10 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.86MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.09mins (avg of 25 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
14.23MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 37.96mins (avg of 8 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
7.38MPH Rescue Fortune Teller: 1 merit in 8.13min (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/26/2009

Started off playing Kyrie Eleison (33 bs/inv scrapper) on a pickup Citadel TF. Team mix was:

4 scrappers (including me)
emp defender
kin controller
FF controller

I seemed to be the most aggressive/least squishy scrapper, so I ended up mostly tanking, though we did have one scrapper at the low end of the level range who refused SK and would occasionally suicidally charge into mobs alone, usually with fatal results. He was the team leader, though, so not a lot we could do about it. Speed Boost and Force Fields made it pretty easy for me to beat stuff up quickly and stay alive while doing so. We stealthed some of the missions but weren't really good at stealthing (none of the steathy people had TP or even veteran TP), so this sped things up only a little. Still, we finished in 1hr 57mins with no serious problems.

I immediately burned the 40 merit reward on two Pool C recipe rolls, receiving:

1 Scirocco's Dervish (Chance for Lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Ghost Widow's Embrace (ACC/HOLD/RCHG) Wentw=680k

After that I logged on Blond Justice (49 bs/shield scrapper) and spent 200 of her merits directly purchasing a level 33 Luck of the Gambler (+7.5% rchg) recipe, currently valued 66M at Wentworth's. Overall I think random rolls are more bang-for-buck than direct purchase of recipes, except for a very few recipes which are valued very highly at Wentworth's. I'm now using my infl per merit measurement to calculate whether something is a good buy; for example, my average (as of today) is 247K infl per merit when making Pool C rolls. Luck of the Gambler (+7.5% rchg) costs 200 merits, which would be 200*254K=50.8M influence; but the market values this recipe at 66M, and 66M > 50.8M, so purchasing the recipe for 200 merits is a "good deal". Most recipes are not a "good deal" to purchase this way -- only the most overpriced ones are.

I crafted and slotted the LotG (+7.5% rchg) in Blond Justice's Deflection power, which increases her global recharge bonus to 37.5%. I stuck a Nucleolus HO in Kick just because I had one laying around, also. At that point a friend invited me to an Imperious TF, which I agreed to; this was a team of mostly Whirligig and PvPers who recently reactivated, with a team mix of:

2 scrappers (including me)
pain corruptor
emp controller
storm controller
cold defender
stalker

Despite my respec, the other scrapper was tougher and more aggressive and so he tanked for us. We were both bs/shield, and both benefited from Phalanx Fighting and Grant Cover; with Fortitude and Cold shields our defense was ridiculous (over 100%). We were running on Unyielding and even with a 7-player team we blew through the ITF easily, finishing in 1hr 16mins. I strategically stopped and started exp gain so as to make Blond Justice ding to 50 while killing Romulus in the final mission, in order to make hitting level 50 feel suitably dramatic. It was a fun time.

[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=66M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
3 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=14M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=9M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
2 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run speed) Wentw=5M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
4 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Devastation (chance to hold) Wentw=4M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
3 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
2 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M
2 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.4M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
1 Ghost Widow's Embrace (ACC/HOLD/RCHG) Wentw=680k
2 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=670K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
4 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=125K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
2 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=74K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=25K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) Wentw=1K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 417.311M infl, 1640 merits, 254K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M Merits=125 (316K infl/merit)
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=66M Merits=200 (330K infl/merit)
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 171.6M infl, 525 merits, 327K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.156M infa, 340 merits, 762K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
37.52MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 62.36mins (avg of 8 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
27.06MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 33.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.20MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 124.98mins (avg of 10 runs)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
18.62MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 116.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
17.86MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.09mins (avg of 25 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.86MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 38.97mins (avg of 7 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
7.38MPH Rescue Fortune Teller: 1 merit in 8.13min (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

3/25/2009

I'm sooo hooked on Mission Architect. Spent most of the evening putting together and editing a new story arc on test server, Arc 14434: Netrunner. This is a cyberpunk adventure for blue side, where you go into cyberspace to rescue The Doctor. It's kind of a pastiche of TRON, the Matrix and old cyberpunk RPGs, while simultaneously tying in to some of the existing Crey story arcs. I designed a new "Crey Online" faction and a "Security Consultants" faction (real corporations subcontract stuff out all the time), both factions full of computer programs and cyberspace avatars and stuff like that. I inserted a couple of my alts out of vanity. Virtual Girl shows up because her back story is so closely tied to The Doctor and cyberspace in general. I also repurposed Samurai-ko's costume, recoloring it an electric blue and making it the default model for the "Street Samurai" minion. Ran through the arc a couple times; I'm a little worried that my lieutenants might be too tough, because enemies with build up and assassin strike are quite nasty. But I kinda feel like "Net Ninja" and Matrix-style "Agents" should be tough, so I left them on "hard" mode for now. All in all it was a lot of fun.

I logged onto Liberty kinda late and ended up finalizing a respec for Blond Justice (49 bs/shield scrapper). I ended up with the following build (except that I'm only level 49, and am still short two Luck of the Gambler +7.5% IOs, one Blessing of the Zephyr KB protect IO, and the Performance Shifter: Chance for End IO):

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.401
http://www.cohplanner.com/

[u]Click this DataLink to open the build![u]

Blond Justice: Level 50 Mutation Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Broad Sword
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Body Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Hack -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(3), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(3), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), T'Death-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Deflection -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(40), LkGmblr-Def(40), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(40), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(42), TtmC'tng-ResDam(42)
Level 2: Battle Agility -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(7), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(9), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(9), RedFtn-Def(11), RedFtn-EndRdx(11)
Level 4: True Grit -- Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(A), Mrcl-Heal(34), Mrcl-Rcvry+(37), Numna-Heal/EndRdx(39), Numna-Heal/Rchg(39), Numna-Heal(39)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Zephyr-Travel(45), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(46)
Level 10: Active Defense -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 12: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(13), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(13), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(17), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(17), GSFC-Build%(31)
Level 14: Super Jump -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(15), Zephyr-ResKB(15)
Level 16: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 18: Whirling Sword -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(19), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(21), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(21), Sciroc-Dam%(23)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(23), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(25), P'Shift-End%(25), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(31), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(46)
Level 22: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Disembowel -- T'Death-Acc/Dmg(A), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx(27), T'Death-Dmg/Rchg(27), T'Death-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(29), T'Death-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(29), T'Death-Dam%(31)
Level 28: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 30: Kick -- Acc-I(A)
Level 32: Head Splitter -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Sciroc-Acc/Dmg(A), Sciroc-Dmg/EndRdx(36), Sciroc-Dmg/Rchg(36), Sciroc-Acc/Rchg(36), Sciroc-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), M'Strk-Dmg/Rchg(37)
Level 38: One with the Shield -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A)
Level 41: Tough -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(42), TtmC'tng-ResDam(43), TtmC'tng-EndRdx(43), TtmC'tng-EndRdx/Rchg(43), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(48)
Level 44: Weave -- RedFtn-Def/EndRdx(A), RedFtn-Def/Rchg(45), RedFtn-EndRdx/Rchg(45), RedFtn-Def(46), RedFtn-EndRdx(48), RedFtn-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(50)
Level 47: Focused Accuracy -- HO:Cyto(A), HO:Cyto(48), HO:Cyto(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit

I claimed a veteran reward in order to do the respec. After the respec, Blond Justice's final combat numbers (with normal toggles up) were:

48.58% melee defense
45.95% range defense
40.95% AoE defense
33.09% lethal resist
17.00% global DMG bonus
30.00% global RCHG bonus

So, soft capped to melee and range; close to it on AoE, should actually hit the soft cap if I get the last Blessing of the Zephyr and Performance Shifter IOs; and decent resist, DMG and RCHG (should go up to 45% recharge if I get two more LotGs).

I solo'd a little to test out this build before calling it a night. I really want my single target attack chain to be Headsplitter-Disembowel-Hack-repeat; I can do that when Hasten is up, but have a gap when Hasten is down (which I end up filling with Kick, just for the sake of doing something). Against multi-targets, Shield Charge/Whirling Sword is wonderful. So far, I'm pretty happy with the result of the respec.

Arc Name: Netrunner
Arc ID: 14434
Faction: Crey Online, Security Consultants
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Medium (1 EB, strong lieutenants, some ambushes and patrols)
Synopsis: Enter Cyberspace to rescue the hacker known as "The Doctor" from the nefarious minions of Crey Online...and then stop the even greater evil that the Doctor's research has uncovered.
Estimated Time to Play: 45 mins (2 missions)

Arc Name: Netrunner
Arc ID: 14434
Faction: Crey Online, Security Consultants
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Medium (1 EB, strong lieutenants, some ambushes and patrols)
Synopsis: Enter Cyberspace to rescue the hacker known as "The Doctor" from the nefarious minions of Crey Online...and then stop the even greater evil that the Doctor's research has uncovered.
Estimated Time to Play: 45 mins (2 missions)

I had another player run through this story arc and PM me that one of the generals failed to spawn, although for him it was MacArthur who didn't spawn.

But in 4 test runs I wasn't able to get this problem to happen at all.

Looking at the I14 forums it looks like this may be a known bug that they aren't sure how to reproduce yet; I posted a problem report on this thread.

3/24/2009

I started the evening on Test Server 2 playing with Mission Architect. There was a test server patch that broke everything about everyone's mission arcs, so I started editing my story arc (Arc 10579: Axis and Allies) to fix the problems created by the patch, plus make some revisions to try and improve the story. I had learned from the Mission Architect forums that custom characters take the most space in a story arc by far, and based on this, I trimmed a couple custom characters from my second mission. My second mission originally had a minion, lieutenant and boss model for the British, and then another minion, lieutenant and boss for the French, for a total of six custom models in a single mission. Considering the whole story arc is limited to maybe 14 custom models, this was way too much! I deleted both the lieutenant models, which still left a good variety of models on the Dunkirk map, and gave me some space to play with. One of the LBXers who playtested my story arc said he thought the Paragon Police guarding President Truman in the final mission looked a little out of place, and so I used some of my extra space to create a new Secret Service Bodyguard model; these guys look much better standing around the president than either the police or the US Army that I had in the mission already.

I also tinkered with a lot of things that I couldn't get to work right. I tried making the player escort the president out of the mission ("kidnapping" him) but couldn't make it work. I also tried adding Statesman as a boss in the final mission, but some kind of level range conflict prevented this from working.

Anyway, I used some more of my extra space to add flavor text all over the story arc, adding some new clues and NPC dialog, republished the story arc and did a test run through it. I quite like it now.

I got started on creating NPCs for my second story arc, but then I realized I was missing prime time on the live servers and tore myself away to log into the "real" game. Mission architect is way too addicting!

Back on Liberty, I played Kyrie Eleison (33 bs/inv scrapper) on a monster hunting team in Croatoa, that took out Jack in Irons and Eochai for a total of 4 merits. I got the Giant Killer badge, but strangely didn't get Eochai's kill badge; there were two teams there, but it really seemed like my team of 8 should've done enough damage to get badge credit. Oh well. These merits pushed Kyrie over 20 merits, so I burned 20 merits on a Pool C recipe draw, getting an Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) valued at 1.4M at Wentworth's.

I solo'd Virtual Girl (33 rad/sonic defender) through a flashback of the Rescue Fortune Teller mission; I had trouble actually finding the darn fortune teller in the stupid CoT cave, so it took me 8min 8sec to finish. I got 1 merit and the Spelunker badge.

I played Rain Dancer (50 storm/archery defender) for much of the night. I first joined a not-very-good 5-player pickup team doing level 50 missions; I particularly remember one controller SK would be AFK half the time, but while at keyboard he would suicidally run into mobs, then be upset we didn't keep him alive. I found this pretty annoying, but I don't like to quit mid-mission, so I stealthed to the last glowy in the mission and clicked it to complete the mission, then excused myself.

A blaster friend invited me to another 7-player pickup team after that, doing level 50 AV missions. This team was a little hectic but fun, and the chaotic nature of our fights made me feel free to uncork some occasional stormy goodness. We beat Nemesis?, Chimera, Nightstar (twice), Siege and Bobcat before we were done. Rain Dancer's Praetorian AV badge meter remained solidly pegged at 11 of 13 thoughout the evening; I have no idea which 2 she's missing, unfortunately.

Finished the night puzzling over a possible respec for Blond Justice (49 bs/shield scrapper). I kinda want capped defenses, good health and regen, high recharge and DPS ... in short, I want it all! But I was having trouble figuring out a good build to accomplish all these goals. A friend who plays an awesome bs/shield scrapper gave me some advice and even sent me a copy of his build, which helped a lot; I took inspiration from this and came up with what looks like a decent build in Mids.

Before I could actually perform the respec, though, I got an invite to help with "an Ouroboros TF". That sounded like a nice change of pace, so I agreed without really asking for details. Turns out they wanted to do the Mender Silos TF, with a team mix of:

2 scrappers (including me)
2 blasters

The team leader started the TF before I could offer to switch to a defender. I felt that without any support toons, we were almost certainly doomed (I remember the Jade Spider being a mega-badass) but I didn't want to have a bad attitude, so I shrugged and said, what the heck. It was actually kind of fun; I very rarely get to do this TF and it was neat to see Manticore helping us out. I found my high DEF made me considerably tougher than the other scrapper (forgot to write down her secondary, but she seemed squishy and died a lot); so I tried to tank some but don't really have any aggro control tools other than hitting stuff really hard. We had one team wipe on the Striga map when we attempted to cherry pick the boss objectives and got too much aggro, after which the team leader made the call that we should clear the way to the bosses, which seemed sensible. In Siren's Call we very nearly had a team wipe against the turncoat version of Manticore; I was shepherding the Vindicators over to Manticore (all 3 of Ms Liberty, Mynx and Swan had latched onto me for some reason) when the rest of my team got antsy and decided to rush the Manticore EB without me. They got him a little below half before dying, then I showed up with 3 allies and wiped the floor with him.

We got to the final mission and started rescuing various signature heroes and fighting elite boss versions of the signature villains. We could not keep the hero allies alive at all though; they were labeled as "Hero" but seemed to die if any Arachnos minions so much as looked at them. I think we managed to simultaneously aggro Ghost Widow and Lord Recluse at one point, though, causing a team wipe; after which the team agreed to call it quits because it was very late.

[u]Market manipulation[u]
Start:
Sunday night, 282.154M infl

Sold:
8 Essence of the Furies (217K)
10 Rikti Alloy (221K)

Bought:
9 Deific Weapon (2.6M)
10 Rikti Alloy (52K)

Finish:
Monday night, 284.566M (+2.412M infl)

My numbers above may look a little funny because I bought 23M worth of Deific Weapons and sold only about 4M of salvage, but somehow ended up with more influence than I started; this is because the 23M were paid out of bids I had left standing on the broker, and not out of my pocket.

[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
3 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=14M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=9M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
2 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run speed) Wentw=5M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
3 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Devastation (chance to hold) Wentw=4M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
3 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
2 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M
2 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.4M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
2 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=670K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
4 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=125K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
2 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=74K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=25K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) Wentw=1K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 400.231M infl, 1600 merits, 250K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 99.6M infl, 325 merits, 306K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.156M infa, 340 merits, 762K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
37.52MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 62.36mins (avg of 8 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
27.06MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 33.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.62MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 116.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.86MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 38.97mins (avg of 7 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
7.38MPH Rescue Fortune Teller: 1 merit in 8.13min (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

[ QUOTE ]
-With the removal of the Lts. from the 2nd mish, the game added more minions. When I fough the British general, I looked down at the text and then looked up and I was dead lol. They are easy enough if you pay attention, but if you don't they can weaken you enough to kill you , I like them alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Cool, I kind of like the sound of that. I don't mean for them to be too hard, but also don't want them to be too easy, so that sounds great.


[ QUOTE ]
- The final missions map I like alot, but I wish there was some way to either remove the meteor or make it non-attackable. My ally started attacking it, we killed it quickly but it does kind of break the flow of the arc, a little bit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, I'd rather not have that big meteor there, but I think the final battle needs to be in Atlas Park, to make it really feel like you're invading America and the home of apple pie and stuff. Ideally, I'd like to use the same version of Atlas Park as in the last mission of the Recluse Strike Force, or even the Atlas Park Beauty Pageant map; but it seems like the only choices I could find were this map (Atlas Park as in the intro to Ouroboros story arc) or another version of Atlas Park that doesn't seem to have enough spawn points. Maybe there's something in one of the unlockable map packs, I'll have to check.


[ QUOTE ]
-Also when I captured the President he stood there for a second then ran off faster then I have ever seen a mob do with out speed boost lol.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hmm, I'm not sure how to adjust that. One thing I tried briefly was to make the President an "escort" mission, forcing you to escort him to the exit while under heavy attack, but I couldn't get this to work out and I'm not sure if walking him out makes it more fun.

I also kind of wanted to have Statesman swoop in and try to rescue the President while you were kidnapping him, but I couldn't get this to work either; Statesman is level 40-54 only, and Mission Architect generated some errors for me trying to incorporate him. Also I think I'd like my arc to be playable before level 40, anyway.

I had similar problems when I tried to add Spetznaz Commandos to the Stalingrad map; they're only level 10-16 and the level difference seems to bug things out. Kind of a shame, as the original idea for this story arc came from seeing 5th Column and Spetznaz Commandos and thinking they belonged in a WW2 story arc together.


[ QUOTE ]
-*edit* Also the title of your arc is being messed up. Right now I can read ally and axis, but there is alot of garbled mess inside the title. I think I read somewhere that it is a bug, but I just wanted to give you a heads up.

[/ QUOTE ]

I noticed this too, it seems to be a bug in the latest patch. I've seen people complaining that spaces in their mission arc names were getting messed up. I tried renaming my story arc and republishing it, but the spaces still were messed up. I saw some people were suggesting putting underscores ("_") in place of spaces, but this is a little awkward, so I'm hoping this just gets fixed in a future patch.


[ QUOTE ]
-Wonderful arc, one of the few true evil arcs in the game, 5/5.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks a ton for looking at it! Glad you liked it!

I updated this story arc again tonight.

"Patch notes" (heheh):
* Fixed problems caused by today's patch.
* Deleted the French and British lieutenants from the Dunkirk mission. This mission alone was using 6 custom models, which I decided was using up too much of my space, and these lieutenants weren't really that different than the minions.
* This gave me enough room to add a new Secret Service Bodyguard model for President Truman in the final mission.
* This also gave me enough space to generally add more pretty-text and dialog all over the story arc. All the named bosses should say something when you get close to them now, and there's a few more "clues" (they aren't plot-important, just fun stuff like "British surrender").

Enjoy!

This is my first story arc:

Arc Name: Axis and Allies
Arc ID: 10597
Faction: 5th Column, Allies, Red Army, US Army, Paragon Police
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Synopsis: Travel back in time to take over the 5th Column, and lead the Axis powers to win WW2 and conquer the World!
Note: (Yeah, this is a villainous arc. But the system lets heroes play it too.)
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours


I also got to try @New Age Ronin's story arc, The Chop Shop, which he was asking people on LBX to try.

I'm definitely planning on writing more. Mission architect is fun!

3/23/2009

Started on Friday night playing Kyrie Eleison (32 bs/inv scrapper) on a Katie TF. Our team mix was:

2 defenders (cold and storm)
3 scrappers (including me)
1 tanker

We were on Rugged difficulty, had an undersized team and had very little ranged damage which made the witches' hurricane really nerf our DPS. As a result, the first mission was very slow going slogging through the spawns of witches, and had a wipeout against Mary #10, who was +5 to us. We got through it eventually, though, finishing in 1hr 1min and getting Kyrie to level 33. This caused me to burn 120 of Kyrie's merits on Pool C rolls, from which I got:

1 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run speed) Wentw=5M
1 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=670K
1 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=125K
1 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=14M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=9M

This seemed like a decent draw; I'll probably find a home for the Scirocco's Dervishes and Obliteration IOs on some character or another. Interestingly, the Sting of the Manticore and Trap of the Hunter recipes were actually worth something when I checked, whereas previously they seemed like junk drops; I am guessing that the supply of junky recipes is starting to dry up, causing their price to start rising. The value of the Obliteration quad has gone down a lot (it was 20M last time I checked), probably reflecting that the shiny newness of it has worn off as more of them get into circulation.

Also on Friday night I played Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) on an Imperious TF and then a Lady Grey TF with a Whirligig SG team. Our team mix for the ITF was:

3 controllers (emp, kin, storm)
2 scrappers
1 widow
1 blaster (me)

The team was full of experienced and fun players, many of whom had just returned to the game (yay), and we blew through the ITF in 51mins 30sec; I gained 4.983M infl from drops.

For the LGTF our team was:

3 blasters (including me)
2 controllers
1 widow
1 tanker
1 scrapper (disconnected halfway through and didn't return)

We did the LGTF on Invincible and ended up clearing most of the missions the "real way" (i.e., by killing stuff) instead of stealthing them. This plus a server crash during mission 2 made this TF run a little long, but we still finished in 1hr 45mins, and I picked up another 5.446M infl in drops. The Whirligig people were really nice and even invited me to their vent server, where I learned the disconcerting fact that some of the PvPers who abandoned CoH have turned towards cutthroat Internet Scrabble ("the ultimate PvP") as a replacement.

On Saturday I played Kyrie Eleison (33 bs/inv scrapper) on a pickup Hess TF with a team mix of

2 scrappers (including me)
3 tankers
1 warshade
1 blaster
1 storm controller

This wasn't a terribly balanced team but we still did fine. Several people were in the right level range to get exp, so we fought everything for exp rather than stealthing. In the final mission, we even fought our way up the giant robot and attacked Burkholder at his spawn point (something I haven't done in years), rather than pulling him down to the exit as is traditional; as a flying scrapper I went and took out all the antipersonnel guns that pop up if you go up there. We finished the Hess TF in 1hr 9mins and it was pretty fun. I immediately spent 20 merits from my rewards on a Pool C recipe draw, getting a Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INT/RCHG) recipe for my trouble. I thought this was a total junk recipe, but Wentworths was pricing it at 2M infl, which is not bad at all! The last one of these I got sold for only 50K; supply of junk recipes must really be down.

Kyrie Eleison fights Archon Burkholder on the scaffolding around the giant robot

After that I played Millie Volt (26 elec/will brute) on a 1st villain respec organized on the Villains of Liberty channel. Our team mix was:

1 stalker
2 widows
1 dom
1 brute (me)
1 kin corr

I was LK'd to the stalker and as a result I died a lot in the first mission as the stalker was usually off somewhere else, stealthing stuff. Oops. In the final mission we initially started killing vines and ignoring CoT, but this really didn't work, with about half the team dying from loose aggro, and so we switched to clearing out the CoT. With about half the team alive we started trying to clear the vines; we got the number of vines down to 1 briefly, but then the vines started repopping faster than we could kill them (I think because our DPS was low because several people were dead), and before long they were back up to 48. Thorn tree aggro ended up doing most of us in and several of us ended up hospitalling and regrouping. Once we had the whole team alive and together again, we were able to knock out all the vines and beat the thorn tree to complete the respec in 48mins 51sec.

After that I played Grey Wings (37 archery/fire blaster on Triumph) on a Demo Girls SG team doing a Numina TF on Triumph server. Our team mix was

1 scrapper
2 blasters (including me)
2 tankers
1 emp defender
1 TA controller
1 warshade

The whole Numina TF was pretty easy for this team and we finished in a speedy 1hr 7mins (under half my previous average time).

After that I did a Moonfire TF on Liberty, playing Virtual Girl (33 rad/sonic defender). Team mix was:

2 scrappers
3 tankers
1 kin defender
1 rad defender (me)

Some people were wanting exp and so we fought through most of the TF. The most notable thing about the TF is that one of our scrappers got generichero'd right before our eyes while on a mission. Poor Rorschachh was obviously a newbie (he had no veteran badges and said this was his first TF) and very distressed by this (he nearly quit the team in order to go fix his now randomized costume), and so the team commiserated with him and explained what he could do to fix his costume and name; he seemed to calm down and accept things and finished the TF with us. We finished the TF in 1hr 31mins and Virtual Girl got the Silver Bullet and The Slayer badges (I still need to get the history/exploration badges to complete the Atlas Medallion).

Virtual Girl went on to do a Hess TF with a team of

2 scrappers
1 tanker
3 defenders (rad, kin, emp)
1 warshade (disconnected)

We sped through this TF, with scrappers splitting up to solo each of the radar stations and rapid stealthing of the rest of the missions. Finished in a blazing 27mins 12sec. I burned 60 of Virtual Girl's merits on Pool C recipe draws, getting:

1 Devastation (chance to hold) Wentw=4M
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) Wentw=1K
1 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=74K

Late Saturday night I tried out the Mission Architect feature on test server, logging in an ancient level 24 copy of Police Woman who had been logged out for about 5 years and was still wearing PW's original costume. I groaned at the powers I had, powers that I had thought were awesome back in 2004. I was up way too late tinkering with writing my own story arc, "Axis and Allies" (arc #10597 if you want to try it). Here's a screen shot of me testing it:

Police Woman versus Hitler

It's actually a villain story arc where you go back in time to take over the 5th Column and then try to win WW2 for the bad guys, but hero or villain is only a guideline on Mission Architect and you can play it from either red side or blue. I ran through it on an AR blaster, SS brute and broadsword scrapper for the sake of testing, and so I got to shoot Hitler, punch him in the face, and headsplitter him, all of which I enjoyed probably more than is healthy.

On Sunday I logged in to the test server and found someone had played my story arc, wrote me some comments and awarded me stars! It was pretty cool! He did find a couple bugs in my missions where the allies wouldn't help fight, which I fixed. I'm really liking Mission Architect; the main problem I have with it right now is that the file size for a story arc feels very small. A lot of my original ideas for my story arc ended up on the cutting room floor in order to fit the whole story arc in the space allowed. The person who played my story arc seemed to like it though, so maybe it actually benefited from the tight editing that was required.

Also on Sunday I played Mayday (50 fortunata) on a Lady Grey TF with a team mix of

2 blasters
2 scrappers
1 fire brute
1 kin corr
1 fortunata (me)
1 willpower tanker

This was a speed run that was slowed down only by the Honoree when he went Unstoppable; my psy blasts still hurt him while he was Unstoppable but it wasn't enough to counteract his regen. Once his Unstoppable went down, though, the team obliterated him. Finished in 46mins 46sec; I was in SG mode and I picked up 600K infamy and 4140 prestige.

After that I played Apparatchik (16 elec/will brute on Justice) with an 8-player team of Demolition Girls SG on Justice server; as a lackey on a high level team, Apparatchik leveled like mad, getting to 23 before the night was done.

Someone on LBx was asking people to play his story arc on test server, The Chop Shop, and so I tried it out (and he agreed to try out my story arc too). This was a fun mini-arc about fighting Vahzilok on Mercy Island.

I finished the evening playing Fire Emerald (35 fire/fire blaster) on a 6 player team of Liberty Force SG, getting to level 36. This team was pretty cool because not many Liberty Force people have been on in a really long time; it seems like the buzz about I14 maybe is starting to draw people back to CoH, at least for a little while.

[u]Market manipulation[u]
Start:
Friday night, 258.820M infl

Sold:
8 Deific Weapon (4M)
30 Essence of the Furies (197K-248K)
40 Magical Conspiracy (190K-241K)
29 Military Cybernetic (870K-1M)
10 Photonic Weapon (958K)
10 Positronic Matrix (178K)
40 Rikti Alloy (180K-247K)

Bought:
11 Deific Weapon (2.6M-2.7M)
30 Magical Conspiracy (101K-106K)
10 Military Cybernetic (556K)
20 Photonic Weapon (556K-557K)
40 Positronic Matrix (60K-75K)
60 Rikti Alloy (65K-90K)

Finish:
Sunday night, 282.154M infl (+23.334M)
Infl from drops: 10.429M (from 2 TFs)
Infl from markets: 12.905M (from 8 visits to Wentworth's)

These numbers make me wonder if I should bother continuing playing the market. Maybe just plain killing stuff at level 50 is better money and more fun. Then again, I suppose there's no reason I can't do both.

I also got the Day Trader badge for leaving Police Woman logged out at Wentworth's, which seemed pretty appropriate.

[u]Random recipes and purchased recipes (to date)[u]
RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE:
2 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M
1 Numina's Convalescence (+rec +regen) Wentw=35.2M
3 Obliteration (chance for smashing) Wentw=21M
3 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) Wentw=14M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=9M
3 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) Wentw=7.64M
1 Aegis (Psi/Mez resist) Wentw=6.05M
1 Impervium Armor (+psi resist) Wentw=5.9M
2 Gift of the Ancients (+7.5% run speed) Wentw=5M
1 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) Wentw=4.66M
2 Lockdown (chance for +2 mag) Wentw=4.6M
3 Scirocco's Dervish (chance for lethal) Wentw=4.4M
1 Devastation (chance to hold) Wentw=4M
1 Celerity (+Stealth) Wentw=3.82M
1 Mako's Bite (chance for lethal) Wentw=3.5M
2 Expedient Reinforcement (END/DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3M
3 Devastation (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.613M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=2.52M
2 Analyze Weakness (chance for +ToHit) Wentw=2M
2 Sting of the Manticore (ACC/INTRDX/RNG) Wentw=2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (chance for negative) Wentw=1.8M
3 Gift of the Ancients (DEF) Wentw=1.74M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.27M
1 Performance Shifter (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=1.2M
3 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.189M
1 Entropic Chaos (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=1.15M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) Wentw=750K
2 Sting of the Manticore (chance for toxic) Wentw=670K
1 Pacing of the Turtle (chance for slow) Wentw=338K
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet RES) Wentw=286K
4 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=125K
1 Glimpse of the Abyss (chance for psi) Wentw=104K
2 Force Feedback (RCHG/END) Wentw=74K
1 Perfect Zinger (RCHG/ACC) Wentw=70K
1 Call of the Sandman (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) Wentw=65K
3 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) Wentw=50K
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CNFS/RCHG) Wentw=50K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=46k
1 Executioner's Contract (chance for disorient) Wentw=44k
1 Stupefy (Chance for KB) Wentw=43K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) Wentw=41K
1 Call of the Sandman (chance for heal) Wentw=29K
1 Edict of the Master (DMG) Wentw=26K
3 Touch of Lady Grey (RCHG/END) Wentw=25K
1 Sovereign Right (5% pet def) Wentw=10K
4 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=5K
1 Dark Watcher (RCHG/END) Wentw=2K
1 Sovereign Right (ACC/END) Wentw=1K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C HERO SIDE: 398.581M infl, 1580 merits, 252K infl/merit

PURCHASED RECIPES HERO SIDE:
1 Steadfast Protection (RES/+3% def) Wentw=39.6M purchased for 125 merits
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) Wentw=60M purchased for 200 merits
TOTAL PURCHASED HERO SIDE: 99.6M infl, 325 merits, 306K infl/merit

RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Miracle (+recovery) BMkt=100M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5 rchg) BMkt=80M
1 Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=22M
1 Obliteration (chance for smashing) BMkt=14.5M
2 Numina's Convalescence (HEAL/RCHG) BlkMkt=9M
1 Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG) BlkMkt=6.1M
1 Analyze Weakness (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=5M
1 Gaussian's Synch Fire Control (RCHG/END) BMkt=4.57M
1 Sovereign Right (10% pet resist) BlkMkt=3M
1 Scirocco's Dervish (DMG/ACC/END) BMkt=2.9M
1 Impervium Armor (+Psi RES) BMkt=2.12M
1 Malaise's Illusions (ACC/CONFUSE/RCHG) BMkt=740K
1 Aegis (END/RCHG) BMkt=130K
1 Siphon Insight (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=111K
1 Executioners Contract (DMG/RCHG) Wentw=3K
1 Induced Coma (ACC/SLEEP/RCHG) BMkt=2K
TOTAL RANDOM POOL C VILLAIN SIDE: 259.156M infa, 340 merits, 762K infa/merit

RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE:
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) BMkt=4M
1 Mako's Bite (ACC/END/RCHG) BMkt=2.2M
TOTAL RANDOM POOL D VILLAIN SIDE: 6.2M infa, 60 merits, 103K infa/merit

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
37.52MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 62.36mins (avg of 8 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
27.06MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 33.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
26.51MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 43.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
18.62MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 116.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.86MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 38.97mins (avg of 7 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)

I tinkered with the story arc settings a bit and think I fixed the thing with the allies not helping. The two you mentioned were set to "noncombat", now I set Paulus to "Aggressive" and Schadenfreude to "Defensive" and they seem to help fight now.

I'm not sure why Patton wouldn't spawn for you. I just ran through a run of the story arc and both MacArthur and Patton did spawn for me successfully, and I was able to finish the mission and get the souvenir.

One thing I did find tough was finding the bosses in missions (especially on the Dunkirk and Stalingrad maps); most "in game" mission bosses have some dialog they speak if you get near them, but I simply didn't have enough room in my story arc file to add dialog for this.

I totally wish I had more space to play with. My original concept had British heroes from the Dawn Patrol fighting you at Dunkirk, some Soviet heroes on the Stalingrad map, an assassination attempt from Nemesis (who is ticked off that you are messing up his plan to become Emperor of America), secret service agents protecting President Truman, and Statesman and other American heroes in Atlas Park.

Sadly I just didn't have enough room to fit all that!

General Paulus IS supposed to help you in the Stalingrad mission, as is Schadenfreude in the Atlas mission. I'll definitely look and see if I can figure out why that's not happening.

Thanks for trying it out!

Arc Name: Axis and Allies
Arc ID: 1379
Faction: 5th Column, Allies, Red Army, US Army, Paragon Police
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Synopsis: Travel back in time to take over the 5th Column, and lead the Axis powers to win WW2 and conquer the World!
Note: (Yeah, this is a villainous arc. But the system lets heroes play it too.)
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours

Arc Name: Axis and Allies
Arc ID: 10597
Faction: 5th Column, Allies, Red Army, US Army, Paragon Police
Creator Global/Forum Name: @PW / PoliceWoman
Difficulty Level: Moderate
Synopsis: Travel back in time to take over the 5th Column, and lead the Axis powers to win WW2 and conquer the World!
Note: (Yeah, this is a villainous arc. But the system lets heroes play it too.)
Estimated Time to Play: 1-2 hours

[ QUOTE ]
I can not believe after reading this thread for a while that My Family and I actually ran into you and became part of the story.

[/ QUOTE ]

We each have our own story that we are living through, really ... ours happened to cross-over. Thanks for the fun team!

3/19/2009

I started the evening playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), responding to a call for help against the Kraken monster in Perez Park. We took the Kraken down with a single team, gaining 2 merits for all involved.

After that I joined a Moonfire TF that needed help starting up, playing Linda Lightspeed (33 kin/rad defender). Our team was:

3 tankers
1 peacebringer
1 scrapper
1 kin defender (me)

The 3 tankers and 1 peacebringer were friends who were originally just looking for a few people to pad the team so they could start the TF, but the scrapper and I wanted to stick around and do the actual TF. Linda could use the werewolves, vampires and merits, and this team could really use a defender (the tankers didn't really need much healing, but the damage and speed buffs helped them a lot I think), so I think this worked out well for everyone concerned. Finished in 1hr 13mins, and Linda got the Silver Bullet badge.

From there I switched to Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) and joined a Recluse SF that was forming. Our team mix ended up being:

fire/dark corr
MA/ninj stalker
robo/FF MM
dark/dark corr
fire/therm corr
fire/rad corr (me)
SS/stone brute
fire/kin corr

I managed to get myself killed in the first mission trying to solo 2 Longbow chasers while flying over a turret, after which I felt pretty dumb, and in the fourth mission a few of us got caught by the big ambush that occurs right after you beat up the Vindicators, while simultaneously fighting the revived Valkyrie; otherwise things went pretty smoothly. In the final mission we heartlessly made the stalker suicide to serve as vengeance bait, then we popped some shivans and defeated the Freedom Phalanx on our first try. Finished the RSF in 1hr 1min and I got an Enzyme SHO for my trouble.

Finished the evening soloing with Blond Justice (48 bs/shield scrapper), working my way through Maxwell Christopher's Nemesis story arc. After defeating a Nosferatu EB, Blond hit level 49, but I haven't definitely decided what power to take at that level; probably either Grant Cover or Hasten.

[u]Market manipulation[u]
I logged on Thursday night with 259.259M infl, so my cash-on-hand actually decreased by 19.6M over the Monday to Thursday period. Most of this money was not exactly lost, but instead was used to build up my inventory of expensive rare salvage; still a worrisome figure though. Anyway, over the course of the night I:

Sold:
10 Essence of the Furies (196K)
10 Photonic Weapon (963K)
10 Rikti Alloy (203K)

Bought:
20 Essence of the Furies (80K)
20 Military Cybernetic (556K to 606K)
10 Photonic Weapon (550K)

...and ended the night with 258.820M infl. So effectively I lost 439K influence from my cash reserves, but my inventory increased by 20 rare salvage (mostly Military Cybernetics which I spent about half a million each on). I feel like this effectively makes my net worth go up, but it's hard to quantify, as it's not really fair to treat salvage as money until I actually sell it. I should really work on clearing inventory so that I can declare more revenue. And yeah, I've been in too many work meetings in RL this week.

[u]Merit benchmarking since I13[u]
40.44MPH Lady Grey TF: 39 merits in 57.86mins (avg of 6 runs)
35.34MPH 1st villain respec: 15 merits in 25.47mins (avg of 2 runs)
34.62MPH 2nd villain respec: 15 merits in 26mins (1 run)
33.16MPH 3rd villain respec: 15 merits in 27.14mins (avg of 4 runs)
27.78MPH Ice Mistral SF: 25 merits in 54mins (1 run)
25.48MPH Moonfire TF: 31 merits in 73mins (avg of 2 runs)
24.40MPH Dr Quaterfield TF: 111 merits in 273mins (1 run)
23.62MPH Hess TF: 19 merits in 48.26mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.55MPH Manticore TF: 32 merits in 85.14mins (avg of 7 runs)
22.40MPH Synapse TF: 57 merits in 152.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
22.39MPH Sister Psyche TF: 50 merits in 134.0mins (avg of 4 runs)
22.24MPH Sharkhead SF: 22 merits in 59.34mins (avg of 6 runs)
21.47MPH Faathim TF: 73 merits in 204mins (1 run)
21.04MPH 1st hero respec: 27 merits in 77mins (1 run)
20.00MPH [u]OFFICIAL BASELINE FOR TASK FORCE REWARDS[u]
19.52MPH Recluse SF: 25 merits in 76.83mins (avg of 3 runs) (took HOs instead of merits; 1 Ribo, 1 Nucl, 1 Enzy)
19.13MPH Positron TF: 64 merits in 200.75mins (avg of 4 runs) (2 failed TFs not averaged in)
19.07MPH Citadel TF: 40 merits in 125.87mins (avg of 9 runs)
17.80MPH Traitorous Vendetti villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.37mins (avg of 7 runs)
17.71MPH Imperious TF: 28 merits in 94.84mins (avg of 24 runs) (3 failed TFs not averaged in)
17.65MPH Loa Bone villain flashback: 1 merit in 3.40mins (avg of 5 runs)
17.39MPH 3rd hero respec: 20 merits in 69mins (1 run)
17.25MPH Vahzilok Conference villain flashback: 5 merits in 17.39mins (avg of 8 runs)
17.21MPH Silver Mantis SF: 38 merits in 132.50mins (avg of 2 runs)
16.32MPH Numina TF: 36 merits in 132.33mins (avg of 3 runs)
15.92MPH Hit List villain flashback: 4 merits in 15.08mins (1 run)
15.30MPH Katie TF: 9 merits in 35.30mins (avg of 6 runs) (1 failed TF not averaged in)
15.22MPH Rise of the Vampyri hero flashback: 17 merits in 67mins (1 run)
14.46MPH Spy Hunt villain flashback: 10 merits in 41.49mins (1 run)
14.46MPH 2nd hero respec: 20 merits in 83mins (1 run)
13.46MPH Forging the Blackwand villain flashback: 8 merits in 35.67mins (1 run)
13.22MPH Kings of the Sky villain flashback: 4 merits in 18.15mins (1 run)
12.84MPH Origin of Power villain flashback: 3 merits in 14.02mins (1 run)
11.54MPH Breakout at the Zig villain flashback: 8 merits in 41.6mins (1 run)
9.92MPH Cap au Diable SF: 12 merits in 72.6mins (avg of 5 runs)
8.78MPH Escaped! villain flashback: 2 merits in 13.67mins (avg of 3 runs)
8.57MPH Mender Tesseract SF: 4 merits in 28mins (1 run)
7.74MPH Rumblings of the Past hero flashback: 4 merits in 31mins (1 run)
6.86MPH Nictus Insurrection kheldian flashback: 4 merits in 35mins (1 run)
5.11MPH To Save a Soul hero flashback: 15 merits in 176mins (1 run)
4.68MPH Steal Facemaker's Chemicals villain flashback: 1? merit in 12.82mins (1 run)
2.93MPH Mender Lazarus SF: 6 merits in 123mins (1 run)
2.78MPH RWZ raiding: 2 merits in 43.19mins (avg of 5 runs)