PW's war journal

It was a lot of fun. I think we knocked it out of the park with only 1 death (someone searching for a glowie) in 35 minutes.

Of course we had some of the best players on that team (read: me).

EDIT: Derr, I forgot she includes the times with each summary.

3/29/2010

Wednesday

Quick Katie (49 plant/kin controller) did a speed ITF (23m 6s) and a speed LGTF (23m 23s); this got her to level 50.

Darla Doppler (43 kin/sonic defender) did a clear-most ITF. On this TF we had one blaster who was severely slacking (seemed to be AFK without saying anything on 3 of the 4 missions); a scrapper on the TF complained about this, but the team leader said it was a very good friend of hers and threatened to kick the scrapper if he continued complaining about it. I can kind of understand both sides of the argument; I'd be very miffed if a stranger were AFK for 3/4ths of a TF, but would certainly cut a friend some slack. I was surprised at how quick people were to get nasty about this disagreement, though. The blaster came back from AFK shortly after this and we managed to finish the TF without anyone getting kicked. Finished in 46m 32s and got Darla to level 44.

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined an 8-player team fighting Praetorian AVs, defeating Black Swan, Chimera, Nightstar and Dominatrix. I really should've kept better track of which alts have killed which Praetorians; Spacegirl is one kill from Dimensional Warder and I have no idea which AV it is.


Friday

Millie Volt (47 elec/elec brute) joined a 4-player team doing door missions in Cimerora for awhile, then after that team broke up, I moved to Grandville and ended up leading a pickup team doing my patron arc missions. This team beat up Silver Mantis, Barracuda, Serafina (finished Scirocco's first arc and got me 10 merits and a free respec), Mirror Spirit, Foreshadow, Malaise, Ice Mistral (three times) and Scirocco himself (finishing another story arc for 10 merits). One of these missions took us to the Death Star in the Shadow Shard, and I found to my dismay that Lightning Rod is disabled inside the Death Star due to the anti-teleport field. Which makes sense, since it really is a teleport, but I hated having her best attack disabled. All this got Millie to level 49.

Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corruptor) did a speed LGTF in 24m 25s.

Linda Lightspeed (26 rad/nrg blaster) exemped to an 8-player pickup team doing level 19 missions in Faultline. This got Linda to level 27.


Saturday

Shield Maiden (41 mace/shield brute) joined an ill-fated pickup ITF. Our team was only 6 players, and consisted of:

1 pistols/storm corruptor (no heal)
2 peacebringers
1 ill/rad controller
1 earth/earth dominator
1 mace/shield brute (me)

I and one of the peacebringers filled in for the "tank" role and I kinda wish I had brought someone tougher, as Shield Maiden is slotted mostly with SOs so isn't that tough yet. Though I like rad and storm, for some reason it felt like we were pretty light on support; the team just didn't click and we had a lot of deaths. We had a near team wipe against the Phalanx computer (everyone but one peacebringer died, the last peacebringer managed to kill the computer by sniping from high in the air), and against Romulus we had four straight team wipes, alternating with unsuccessful attempts to snipe the Nictus from range. It felt like we had enough DPS, but we didn't have enough healing/debuffing to stay alive long enough to beat the encounter. We ended up abandoning the TF; elapsed time probably around 2 hours.

That defeat kinda stung, so a little later I played Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper and much tougher) on a speed ITF to "get even". That ITF finished with no problems in 24m 11s.

Spy Girl (8 MA/ninj stalker) played through LOOK CLOSER, a MA story arc that was mainly about the rise and fall of Ishmael, the Lost Prophet, though it also spent a lot of time developing (what I assume to be) the author's character as the player's partner. This arc had both clever game mechanics and infuriating game mechanics, and both cool writing and annoyingly purple prose. I ended up giving it 3 stars.

After that Spy Girl joined a 5-player villain team (mostly stalkers) for a King's Row mayhem. Got a costume compliment and leveled to 9. I ended up snagging a weapons shipment glowy from a side mission, then feeling bad because afterwards I found that the mission holder really wanted it. Unfortunately I couldn't undo that.

This team picked up a brute and another corruptor, and I decided a second corruptor was going to be better than a fourth stalker, so I switched to Water Lily (a rarely played 6 rad/storm corruptor) to help heal and debuff. We did more door missions in Cap au Diable; I got 3 costume compliments and Water Lily leveled to 10.


Sunday

Shield Maiden (41 mace/shield brute) ended up leading a 4-player pickup team in the morning (had one team wipe against Longbow due to the Nullifiers' insane stacking debuffs) and an 8-player pickup team in the evening. We mostly did Shield Maiden's patron arc and Ambassador Kurrekt's story arcs, fighting Positron twice, Valkyrie once, and Numina once. Got 6 merits from Kurrekt Diplomacy, 5 merits from Kurrekt Revenge and 10 merits from Ghost Widow's first story arc. This got Shield Maiden to level 43.

Shield Maiden also solo'd through War Against the Undying One: Part 1/3 Challenge of the Dwarves, a MA story arc where you help out some dwarves against goblins and other fantasy monsters. It's really a fantasy adventure (not a superhero story) but is pretty well-executed, using a mix of CoH's fantasy-looking mobs with custom mobs. I gave it 5 stars.

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) helped a 7-player pickup team defeat Antimatter (rats! he wasn't the last Praetorian AV I needed, either), and helped the Sisterhood Sunday event take down the Malta Kronos Titan, which went down in a hurry with 3 or so teams piled onto him.

Finished the night playing Mystery Girl (38 emp/pistols defender) exemped to an 8-player level 21 pickup team running Talos radio missions. The team was very damage heavy, and we had one team wipe against a fairly massive Lost patrol that was right by the door, but otherwise did fine.

4/1/2010

Monday

Police Woman, my main character, got the Fashion Designer day badge for being logged out at Icon; this also granted the Socialite accolade. This brings her badge count up to 641.

Spy Girl (9 MA/ninj stalker) led an 8-player pickup villain team that did an Atlas mayhem, the Council Vampire arc (5 reward merits), some missions against the Goldbrickers (had a team wipe, and also a moment of coolness where during a team wipe I suddenly leveled up which rez'd me and gave me level-up buffs that let me kick the butts of everything in sight), and a King's Row mayhem (I crashed zoning into during this mission, when I reconnected and entered the mission I found the team had managed to get wiped out and were all in jail; I headed there to break them out and we did better from there). All this got Spy Girl to level 15. I picked the title "Notorious" as sounding the most Spy-like.


Tuesday

Water Lily (10 rad/storm corruptor) duo'd some villain missions in Sharkhead with a widow teammate; we had 2 team wipes against CoT due to those awful ghosts and their ACC debuffs. Did a Steel mayhem where we had a wipe against Longbow, but managed to finish the mission. This got Lily to level 12.

Kyrie Eleison (42 fire/regen scrapper) joined a pickup ITF. A defender teammate seemed impressed by my "fancy high heal" after seeing +1100 in green numbers over my head; I eventually figured out that it was my Dull Pain (while SK'd to 49) that had this crazy number. For some reason I thought Dull Pain was about the same heal as Reconstruction, but I guess it is much better! Anyway, this ITF was pretty pickuppy and we had lots of deaths. I got to use my Revive power a lot, but this didn't really bother me because I've always felt pretty squishy when playing regen scrappers (which is why I even have Revive). In the final encounter the team leader wanted us to snipe the healy Nictus from afar, which we did; when it died, the AV encounter aggroed on us and I found myself tanking Romulus, which was Not Good. Our stone tanker had gotten distracted somehow and was killing random Romans elsewhere. I slammed MoG and then a bunch of purple inspirations to stay alive, while asking the stone tanker to come tank the AV; but to no avail. It took a veteran team TP to get the stone tanker into the AV fight, after which he seemed to realize, hey, there's an AV here. Finally finished the TF in 1h 14m, getting Kyrie to level 43.


Wednesday

Samurai-ko (44 katana/will scrapper) solo'd through The Casualties of War, a well-written AE arc about one supergroup's desperate struggle during the Rikti war. This was my second play through this arc and it seemed much improved; I gave it 5 stars. While hanging out in the AE building, a random passerby complimented me on Samurai-ko's background story, which was nice.

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) joined a Statesman TF of mostly Whirligig SG. Our team was:

1 tanker (inv/SS) (me)
1 controller (plant/emp)
2 defenders (kin and rad)
2 scrappers
2 blasters

This went pretty well; I've done STFs before but this was only my second as a tanker. I got to use the thorn tree power to nerf Aeon for the first time. In the final mission, we tried to pull the patron AVs but ended up getting all 4 of them, and I was able to tank all 4 at once. I got to show the team how to drag Ghost Widow around while taunting at range, so the scrappers could still hit her. We killed the flyer and it almost immediately repopped, so we killed it again before going after Lord Recluse. Experimenting with a tanking method I learned on the CoH forums, I tanked Lord Recluse by flying high above him and taunting him from range; the forums suggested you needed Taunt slotted for max range, but my Taunt (slotted with 6 Perfect Zinger, which gives only +29% range) seemed to still work OK, and Lord Recluse mostly spazzed out running around beneath me while I taunted him. He was still able to hit me occasionally with some horrible energy attack that sapped my END and flatlined my REC (despite having SB and occasionally AB on me) that caused me to fall out of the sky and take a few hits, but I managed to survive this. I may bring some blues next time I do this. Finished in 1hr 20m and got a Nucleolus SHO.

I respec'd Millie Volt (49 elec/elec brute) into a high recharge build. This is theoretically what I want her build to look like, but I have almost none of the expensive IOs for it, so her build isn't really like this, just trying to grow towards it:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Millie Volt: Level 50 Magic Brute
Primary Power Set: Electrical Melee
Secondary Power Set: Electric Armor
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Mu Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Charged Brawl

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
• (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance
• (3) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge
• (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (5) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (7) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

• (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
• (7) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge
• (9) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• (40) Titanium Coating - Resistance

• (A) Obliteration - Damage
• (9) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
• (11) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
• (11) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (13) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (13) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

• (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
• (15) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge
• (15) Titanium Coating - Resistance

• (A) Run Speed IO

• (A) Obliteration - Damage
• (17) Obliteration - Accuracy/Recharge
• (17) Obliteration - Damage/Recharge
• (19) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (19) Obliteration - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance/Recharge
• (21) Obliteration - Chance for Smashing Damage

• (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
• (50) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge
• (50) Titanium Coating - Resistance

• (A) Flight Speed IO
• (33) Flight Speed IO
• (33) Flight Speed IO
• (33) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

• (A) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Endurance
• (40) Numina's Convalescence - Heal
• (43) Numina's Convalescence - +Regeneration/+Recovery
• (46) Numina's Convalescence - Heal/Recharge

• (A) Steadfast Protection - Resistance/+Def 3%

• (A) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage
• (21) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance
• (23) Crushing Impact - Damage/Recharge
• (23) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (25) Crushing Impact - Accuracy/Damage/Endurance
• (25) Crushing Impact - Damage/Endurance/Recharge

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod
• (37) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
• (37) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy

• (A) Run Speed IO

• (A) Flight Speed IO
• (37) Flight Speed IO

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
• (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge
• (27) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - To Hit Buff/Recharge/Endurance
• (46) Gaussian's Synchronized Fire-Control - Recharge/Endurance

• (A) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance
• (29) Doctored Wounds - Endurance/Recharge
• (29) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Recharge
• (31) Doctored Wounds - Heal/Endurance/Recharge
• (31) Doctored Wounds - Heal
• (31) Doctored Wounds - Recharge

• (A) Empty

• (A) Armageddon - Damage
• (34) Armageddon - Damage/Recharge
• (34) Armageddon - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (34) Armageddon - Accuracy/Recharge
• (36) Armageddon - Damage/Endurance
• (36) Armageddon - Chance for Fire Damage

• (A) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Recharge
• (36) Performance Shifter - EndMod/Accuracy/Recharge
• (40) Performance Shifter - Accuracy/Recharge

• (A) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance
• (39) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Recharge
• (39) Titanium Coating - Resistance/Endurance/Recharge
• (39) Titanium Coating - Resistance

• (A) Apocalypse - Damage
• (42) Apocalypse - Damage/Recharge
• (42) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (42) Apocalypse - Accuracy/Recharge
• (43) Apocalypse - Damage/Endurance
• (43) Apocalypse - Chance of Damage(Negative)

• (A) Ragnarok - Damage
• (45) Ragnarok - Damage/Recharge
• (45) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Damage/Recharge
• (45) Ragnarok - Accuracy/Recharge
• (46) Ragnarok - Damage/Endurance

• (A) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Endurance
• (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense/Recharge
• (48) Luck of the Gambler - Defense
• (48) Luck of the Gambler - Recharge Speed

• (A) Recharge Reduction IO
• (50) Recharge Reduction IO

• (A) Empty

• (A) Empty

• (A) Empty

4/7/2010

Thursday

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did a speed ITF (22m 57s) and speed LGTF (23m 14s). Of note, Star Amethyst was the only support character on both TFs (the rest were various tankers and damage).

Logged on April Fool (50 thug/TA MM) mostly because it was April Fool's Day, and I spent 140 merits on red side for level 46-50 recipe rolls, getting:

1 Aegis (END/RES) BlackMkt=500k
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) 230M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) 2M
1 Devastation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) 8.5M
2 Trap of the Hunter (chance for lethal) 133K
1 Lockdown (ACC/END/RCHG/HOLD) 5K

...an average yield of 1723K infamy/merit, which of course is skewed very high due to the LotG.


Friday

Noticed that rare salvage seemed to be way up in price on blue side, not sure what prompted this and I'm not sure whether it will stay like that or crash back down to (what I consider) "normal" levels. I ended up selling a lot of my salvage reserves on blue side and got close to the infl cap again. Placed a few buy orders for purple recipes to try and spend down my cash a bit. As a result, over the course of the weekend I got an Apocalypse (DMG/RCHG/ACC) for 350M infl, Apocalypse (chance for negative) for 200M infl, Apocalypse (DMG) for 225M infl. Crafted these and slotted them in my tanker's Laser Beam Eyes for extra IO set bonuses. I also finally managed to sell the Respec recipe I got weeks and weeks ago; I had to take it down (originally listed at 300M) and re-list it, selling it for 200M. I ended up eating the 15M listing price from the first time I put it up, but it's still a nice chunk of change.

Mystery Girl (38 emp/pistols defender) joined an 8-player Citadel TF formed on LB. The team seemed to split up, a lot, but we managed okay. The kin defender seemed impressed that I kept him mostly alive, saying "I tend to die a lot" (his play style was very aggressive, even for a kin; often he would go off and try to solo a spawn by himself). Finished Citadel in 1hr 24m. Followed that by playing Mystery Girl on a Manticore TF formed on LB, finished in 1hr 10m.


Saturday

Shield Maiden (44 mace/shield brute) joined a clear-most ITF formed on LB; despite being somewhat pickup, it was a very good team and finished in 39m 8s. This got Shield Maiden to 45.

Shield Maiden solo'd Don't Freak, a 1-mission AE story arc about an office building where jobs get outsourced to Freakshow. This was kinda fun but could've done more with the basic concept. I gave it 4 stars.

San Min (29 MA/will scrapper) joined a pickup Sister Psyche TF that finished in 1hr 34m, getting San Min to level 31.

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) tanked for a pickup STF. I took the special power from the Thorn Tree and tried to use it on Dr Aeon in mission 4, but my first shot missed and Dr Aeon went wild, seemingly ignoring my taunts to beat up teammates for a bit, until my second shot made him vulnerable. Final mission went pretty easily; I taunted Lord Recluse from a flying position again, which worked better this time (never got hit by the energy attack). Finished in 1hr 28m and got a Centriole. Also had a teammate compliment Strong Woman's costume.


Sunday

Solo'd Shield Maiden (45 mace/shield brute) through the Brickstown mayhem mission.

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a Master of STF with a team of:

2 scrappers
1 blaster
1 stone tanker
2 controllers (fire/kin, ill/rad)
2 defenders (cold/ice, emp/?)

This went fine until the last mission where our strategy was to pull the patron AVs singly all the way back to the ship. While tanking one of the patrons (Mako, I think?), Black Scorpion and Scirocco both showed up and managed to clock me; I died from Black Scorpion hitting me for 1691. This was embarrassing but I'm not sure what I could've done; I was way over the defense soft cap (over 100% defense to all positions, which still gave him a 10.5% chance to hit according to the combat spam) and couldn't really run away from the AVs, and was killed while at pretty high health (though not at full health). Just bad luck, I guess. A few more people died right after that, but we ended up finishing the STF in 2hr 4m. I got a Nucleolus.

Idealist (50 fire/thermal controller) solo'd Made to Wave the Flag, an AE arc about escaping from a Malta base with some NPC heroes. This was a good story with excellent characterization and dialog. I felt the ending was a little weak, but I still gave it 5 stars.


Monday

Playing Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) I organized and led a 6-player Moonfire TF, which we completed in 1hr 4m. This was actually my way of getting the wolf and vampire badges (without boring farming), and Strong Woman got the Atlas Medallion accolade as a result.

Shield Maiden (45 mace/shield brute) joined a kill-most ITF which finished in 38m 48s, getting her to level 46.

I rolled up Hyzenthlay, a level 1 rad/psy defender, to participate in the Rabbit Run event in Steel Canyon. It being the day after Easter, I had chocolate bunnies on the brain, so I made Hyzenthlay's costume look like a chocolate rabbit, short with big legs to match my idea of what a rabbit looks like. For some reason people really noticed this, and I got two comments on the appearance of her, umm, rear. Anyway, I seem to be really out of practice at dodging aggro while sprinting, and managed to get killed 3 times during the rabbit run, having to restart the race from the beginning each time. Despite this, I was determined to finish the race, and I somehow ended up coming in sixth (though I suspect this was because everyone who did worse simply gave up trying to make it to the finish line). The first place winner was a level 1 force field defender with PFF; wish I had thought of that! I was hoping rad heals would keep me alive, but found that aggro from +13 mobs killed me too quickly for the heals to matter.

Mystery Girl (39 emp/pistols defender) joined an 8-player pickup team fighting Nemesis. We had a semi-wipeout when we encountered the Tech Room of Doom (the one with a central platform surrounded by catwalks) and the team decided to rush right up the middle, into a Nemesis crossfire. Managed to recover from this and actually beat the Nemesis AV. Got Mystery Girl to level 40.

San Min (31 MA/will scrapper) did a Manticore TF in 1hr 1min, getting to level 32. A teammate complimented me on her costume. At level 32 I slotted 4 sets of 4 Kinetic Combat IOs into San Min's various attacks (since I had these lying around my base from my market manipulation efforts). This gave her +15% smash/lethal DEF and +6% max HP, a nice boost.


Tuesday

I was checking the Black Market with Shield Maiden (46 mace/shield brute) when a friend asked to join me, so I started a team doing Ghost Widow's patron arc missions. This snowballed into a full-fledged pickup team that grew to 8 players at the largest, but was about 5-6 players for most of the time. I was taking anyone who would join and playing pretty aggressively against tough enemies; we had a lot of deaths, including multiple team wipes against Longbow (mostly due to stacked sonic debuffs from Longbow Nullifiers), a couple against Paragon PD, and one against Malta. Nevertheless we kept moving and most people seemed to get decent exp. We beat Ghost Widow (as an EB) in the arc where you temporarily bring her back to life, which gave me 10 reward merits.

Real tanks don't fly taunt Recluse

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

4/9/2010

Wednesday

I started a newbie archery/nrg blaster. I pictured this character being a hover-blaster, so tried dozens of <adjective> <flying thing> names and eventually got the name Goth Angel, which I'm not completely happy with, but decided to roll with it, giving her pale white skin and a black outfit. Got a costume compliment on this. Solo'd my way to level 2, then joined a 6-player Whirligig team doing lowbie radio missions in King's Row; this got Goth Angel to level 7.

A pretty big exp nerf to Mission Architect was patched in, and I decided to test its impact on my story arcs by playing my own Teen Phalanx Forever! story arc. The nerf is intended to reduce exp for missions that have "buff bot" allies, but it seems poorly implemented. It appears to reduce exp by 10% for each ally, but it counts not only buff bot allies, but also combat allies, noncombat hostages (the people you rescue), and destroyable objects. I've heard reports that it will also sometimes count NPCs involved in battles, friendly patrols and bosses, but can't confirm this. The patch seems pretty crazy punitive towards normal (non-farm) story arcs. Dr Aeon has posted that it's a temporary solution, but temporary fixes have a way of becoming permanent, so kinda taking that with a grain of salt. Despite the (noticable) exp nerf, however, I did get to level 8 by the end of the arc.

Joined a pickup Hollows team after that and ran through David Wincott's story arc, getting 4 merits.


Thursday

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) joined a pickup Lady Grey TF. I was asked to bring a tanker, but we had a shield tanker on the team already when I joined, so not sure what was up with that; the team leader mentioned to me that the other tanker wasn't that experienced. (Not that I count myself as being an especially good tanker...) We did a mix of stealthing and clearing mobs (I mostly cleared mobs in my way until someone with stealth TP'd me to places). The Honoree was pretty tough for us because we had no debuff to speak of (only emp and kin for support), and he went Unstoppable for awhile, but we eventually dropped him, finishing in 1hr 3m. I got a Red Fortune (DEF) and Mako's Bite (ACC/DMG) recipe as random drops from this TF.

Spy Girl (15 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through 30 Minute Hero, an AE story arc about getting stuck in a time loop. It was a little repetitive (as time loops tend to be) and the writing of how the time travel worked was a little confusing to me, but it had a cool back story and ending. I gave it 4 stars.

I saw someone recommend one of my story arcs on LB, which was nice. This was actually quite a pleasant surprise, because it was a person that I thought was mad at me for silencing him on LB.

Started to do my taxes while I was online, windowing between the game and TurboTax, but I'm so bad at multi-tasking that I eventually had to just log off to focus on the tax stuff. (I could never 2-box worth a damn.) Fortunately, the government owes me money, so this didn't turn out too bad.

4/15/2010

Friday

Kyrie Eleison (43 fire/regen scrapper) joined a Sara Moore TF. This mostly went well until the very last mission, where we tried to stealth through the horrible foggy cave map but kept getting spotted by the eyeballs, which got pretty messy. After some hijinks we got everyone to the end boss and completed the TF in 2h 14m. Kyrie got to level 45 and a Ragnarok (DMG/RCHG/ACC) recipe drop.


Saturday

Goth Angel (9 arch/nrg blaster; still don't really like this name) joined a 6-player pickup team in Steel Canyon that did some radio missions and the Kings Row safeguard. We had one team wipe in a mission against the Vahzilok.

Helen Highwater (25 storm/psy defender on Triumph) joined a 4-player MA Arc Finder team for Ashley Porter and the Gorilla War, a retro WW2 adventure where you help a famous female aviator battle Nazis and gorillas. I had played this once before, and I gave it 5 stars, which is probably a little generous (it is an old story arc and could use some polishing), but I'm a sucker for cheesy retro adventures.

Water Lily (12 storm/rad corruptor) joined an 8-player pickup team running newspaper missions in St. Martial. We had two team wipes against Freakshow; one at a trick hallway intersection that almost always causes a team to overaggro, and once when our main brute got disconnected. Nevertheless this got Water Lily to level 16.

Shield Maiden (46 mace/shield brute) solo'd more of Ghost Widow's patron arc, managing to solo an EB-version of Citadel (he had some kind of energy aura elude power, which I never knew he had). Finishing Ghost Widow's second arc gave me 10 merits. Later on, Shield Maiden joined a Silver Mantis SF run by the FETISH villain group (who I had never heard of before, but they seemed competent and fairly nice). They specifically asked not to stealth anything and to clear everything in our path; our team was pretty buff-heavy (I was the only brute) and this seemed to work fine. Finished in 2hr 15m and got Shield Maiden to level 47.

I joined the Giant Monster Hunt Event, playing Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) at first, then later switching to Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) to give Sisterhood SG more of a showing (since I was on a mostly Sisterhood team). We beat the Kraken, 2 Clockwork Paladins, Eochai, Lusca, Babbage, and a paladin construction site. Detouring into Recluse's Victory, we defeated all of the villain AVs, getting all the badges and the Justiciar accolade. While in RV, a dominator started buzzing the fringes of the group, picking off stray heroes and trash talking us on broadcast channel. The event leader wanted to petition him, but I said, there's like a jillion of us, let's just kill him. Spacegirl doesn't have a PVP build by any means, but nevertheless I landed two kills on our villain (admittedly, with lots of help). I mocked him in broadcast (his earlier trash talking had annoyed me), until I remembered there were "nice" people in the zone, so I should be on better behavior.


Sunday

With Shield Maiden at 47, I could now slot some level 50 IOs I had been saving up, so I respec'd her into the following build:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Shield Maiden I16 respec: Level 50 Mutation Brute
Primary Power Set: War Mace
Secondary Power Set: Shield Defense
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Flight

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Pulverize -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(3), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Mako-Dam%(7)
Level 1: Deflection -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Rchg+(9), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(9), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(11), TtmC'tng-ResDam(11)
Level 2: Jawbreaker -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(13), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(36), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(37), Mako-Dam%(37)
Level 4: True Grit -- Mrcl-Heal/Rchg(A), Mrcl-Heal(15), Mrcl-Rcvry+(15), Numna-Heal/Rchg(17), Numna-Heal(17), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(19)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 10: Active Defense -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(19), HO:Membr(21)
Level 12: Combat Jumping -- DefBuff-I(A)
Level 14: Clobber -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(25), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(27), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(27), Mako-Dam%(29)
Level 16: Against All Odds -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Whirling Mace -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(29), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31), Oblit-%Dam(33)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(23), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(23), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(33), P'Shift-End%(33)
Level 22: Battle Agility -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), LkGmblr-Rchg+(36)
Level 24: Phalanx Fighting -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 26: Shatter -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(37), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(39), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Oblit-%Dam(40)
Level 28: Grant Cover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 30: Build Up -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(43), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(45), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(45), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(45), GSFC-Build%(46)
Level 32: Crowd Control -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(34), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(34), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(40), Oblit-%Dam(40)
Level 35: Shield Charge -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(42), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(43), Oblit-%Dam(43)
Level 38: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 41: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(48), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(48), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(48), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(50), Aegis-ResDam(50)
Level 44: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(46), LkGmblr-Rchg+(46)
Level 47: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(50)
Level 49: Health -- Heal-I(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Fury
Level 4: Ninja Run


I'm missing a lot of the above (have none of the Aegis, Performance Shifter or Luck of the Gambler sets yet) but I did stockpile a bunch of Obliterations and Mako's Bite, so slotted all my attacks with IOs, mostly focusing on positional defense. Since Shield Maiden was running on SOs before, this was a pretty huge upgrade.

Spy Girl (15 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through the Outbreak disease arc, getting the Plague Carrier badge.

Water Lily (16 rad/storm corruptor) joined a 4-player pickup team that got her to level 19.


Monday

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a speed ITF (28m 45s) and a speed LGTF (27m 15s).

Shield Maiden (47 mace/shield brute) did a 7-player speed ITF (27m 35s) that got her to level 48.

Linda Lightspeed (27 rad/nrg blaster) did a Citadel TF (1h 1m) that got her to level 28.

Through some trickery with getting another toon to help, I got the Kings Row and Skyway mayhem missions on Spy Girl (15 MA/ninj stalker) and switched to other alts to get the badges. This got both Shield Maiden and Millie Volt (49 elec/elec brute) the Marshal accolade.


Tuesday

Spy Girl solo'd the Vahzilok Conference story arc for 7 merits.

San Min (32 MA/will scrapper) joined a Katie TF. This went well until the last mission, where for some reason someone team TP'd us to Katie's prison, where we all freed her, but then she latched onto a non-flyer and started aggroing mobs. Then we got team TP'd back to the mission door twice (I guess someone must've thought this would bring Katie there too). After some confusion, we eventually got a flyer to go back and retrieve Katie and completed the TF in 37m 37s. This got San Min to level 33.

I spent 220 of San Min's reward merits on 11 recipe rolls, getting (all at level 33):

1 Aegis (END/RCHG) 1M infl
2 Gift of the Ancients (DMG) 1.2M
1 Luck of the Gambler (DMG/+7.5 rchg) 91.9M
1 Luck of the Gambler (END/RCHG) 1M
1 Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) 5M
1 Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG/END) 20.1M
1 Pacing of the Turtle (END/RCHG/SLOW) 500K
1 Positron's Blast (DMG/ACC/END) 15M
1 Siphon Insight (chance of +tohit) 500K
1 Touch of the Nictus (ACC/END/RCHG) 1.3M

...a total value of 137.5M infl, or 625K infl/merit, a really good haul.

I joined a mother ship raid with Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper), picking up a bomb credit, a Master-at-Arms kill, and about 400 Vanguard merits, which I used to buy the +10 salvage capacity "storage sack". Thunder Girl went on to join a speed ITF (27m 37s).

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) picked up the Mortician day job badge (for logging out in a graveyard) and the Archaeologist accolade. This gives her every day job badge (whew!!) and a total of 643 badges.

I briefly logged in Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) to help a team kill Eochai in Croatoa.


Wednesday

I solo'd Linda Lightspeed (28 rad/nrg blaster) through A Scandal in Paragon City, a story arc where a rather shady hero hires you to retrieve an incriminating video of him; hijinks ensue. This was pretty neat but I couldn't really believe my hero would do some of the things the story has me doing (though it would make perfect sense for a villain). I gave it 4 stars.

Linda joined a Hess TF after that. The team was talking about the LB channel some, and I had someone say that there was "less porn talk on LB thanks to PW", which was nice. Our team seemed somewhat split on whether we were speeding the TF or clearing it, with about half of us doing each. As a result, the final mission (and the TF) completed before I ever even saw the AV. Not a big deal, I guess. Finished in 46m 26s.

Spent a little time soloing Kyrie Eleison (45 fire/regen scrapper) on Peregrine Island missions; joined a friend for 1 run through his Battle Maiden minion farm before excusing myself, then solo'd the Psychic Clockwork King (as an EB) and got the Emancipator badge.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a Citadel TF (1h 7m). I couldn't find any alts who needed the TF badge, so thought I'd bring my main character; it was fun shooting Council with full auto.

Spy Girl (17 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd the Origin of Power story arc, which was a little tedious (so much running around) but worth 5 merits.

I joined the Trials event with Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender). First we did the Cavern of Transcendence trial; the leader wanted to clear all the Igneous before clicking the altars. This was kind of messy; I was the only defender and the team wasn't real good about staying together, so we had a lot of deaths (unfortunately I did not have my rez power at level 15, may need to fix that next time I respec). But once we cleared all the mobs, we found that the mission was repopping, so we ended up going back to the normal strategy of stealthing to each altar and teleporting a team member there. Finished in 29m 21s.

After that, we reformed for the Abandoned Sewer Trial. This time there were two support toons on my team; me, and a trick arrow controller (who didn't have many trick arrows). Had a lot of trouble keeping people alive (the team got split up a lot) but fortunately at AST level I had recall friend and Howling Twilight (an AoE rez), which both helped a lot. We had a lot of trouble coordinating killing the force field generators at the same time (our damage dealers kept catching them in AoEs, killing them by accident) but a competent scrapper took charge and got us all pointing the same direction, after which we were able to beat the Hydra, getting a fistful of badges. Finished in 1h 20m.

The Trials event broke up at that point, but someone was running another Cavern of Transcendence trial for the people who missed it. I joined with Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper). The team leader knew exactly what to do and where to position everyone, even having a method for synchronizing everyone clicking the 8 altars at the same moment. Finished in 7m 34s.

After that, I played Spy Girl (17 MA/ninj stalker) for a bit. Accepted an invite to a 6-player pickup team working on Seer Marino's arc. The team seemed light on support, and we suffered 2 team wipes against Arachnos. After saving Ghost Widow from Ohanko's intrigues, I called it a night.

4/27/2010

RL work has been pretty crazy for me, so haven't updated in awhile. Will try to catch up now.

Thursday 4/15

Mystery Girl (40 emp/pistols defender) joined a 5 player Sister Psyche TF. This was a relatively novice team; we had one blaster who seemed particularly bad who quit the TF about midway through. Our tanker had severe connection problems. We waited until he got back from his latest disconnect and got into the mission, TPing him to Clamor before finishing the TF. Total time was 2h 37m; Mystery Girl got to 41.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) did a speedy LGTF in 28m 33s and Shield Maiden (48 mace/shield brute) did a speed ITF in 22m 27s.


Friday 4/16

Checking Wentworth's on my main character Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), I hit the 2B influence cap without noticing it and kept retrieving sales from the broker; I think I lost about 100M infl to the infl cap this way. Oops. Supposedly this won't be possible any more in I17 due to market interface changes. I bought about 6 purple recipes for Strong Woman (my 50 inv/SS tanker) to burn off my excess cash.

After that I played Police Woman on a Numina TF (couldn't find any alt who needed the TF badge), which we finished handily in 1h 2m.

I ended up liking archery/nrg enough to re-roll Arrow Girl (formery an arch/dev blaster) as an arch/nrg blaster, mostly because I like the name Arrow Girl for an archer. Got to level 8 and solo'd the Negotiator badge mission.


Saturday 4/17

Playing Darla Doppler (44 kin/sonic defender) I helped a 5 player pickup team beat up a Carnies mission.

Did the Faathim TF on Kyrie Eleison (45 fire/regen scrapper), getting the Unveiler badge (for Fake Nemeses), Visionary badge (for Rularuu eyeballs) and Demon Slayer (for Baphomet). The final mission was in that horrible Rularuu mist-filled cave; we attempted to stealth to the AV, but those Rularuu eyeballs have good perception, so this resulted in lots of deaths until we got the whole team to the end. Finished in 2h 6m, got Kyrie to level 47, and got a Respec recipe, a Red Fortune (END) and a Prophecy as notable drops. I sold the respec recipe the same day for 190M influence, not bad at all.

Arrow Girl (8 archery/nrg blaster) joined an 8-player pickup team in the Hollows; did David Wincott's arc for 4 merits and the Frostfire arc for 11 merits. This got the new Arrow Girl to level 13.

Millie Volt (46 elec/elec brute) did a 1st villain respec in 12m 16s, I took the respec and the badge.

Darla Doppler did a Manticore TF, as part of the Signature TF marathon; finished in 1h 12m.

Kyrie Eleison did a Numina TF in 1h 6m. This got her an Obliteration (ACC/DMG/RCHG) recipe drop and the Task Force Commander accolade.

While checking the Talos Wentworth's on Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker), I heard a 24 blaster begging for help with a difficult mission on broadcast. I exemp'd to him and helped him on a Defeat All Warriors mission. The Warriors had a hard time hurting my invuln tanker even exemped to 24, and I got kinda cocky and herded a few groups of Warriors together to help the blaster's AOEs. But, I think my partner thought I was in trouble because I was surrounded by mobs! So he activated Whirlwind and knocked them all away from me! It was totally noob-like, of course, but I think he was trying to protect me, so it was actually kinda cute. Anyway, I helped him mop up the Warriors and he seemed very grateful for the help.

Shield Maiden (48 mace/shield brute) did a speed ITF in 29m 22s and got to level 49.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did a speed LGTF in 25m 8s, got a Doctored Wounds (END/HEAL/RCHG) recipe drop. Spent 400 of her merits buying two Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipes; these were selling for around 130M infl each, making the yield 650K/merit. This is actually much higher than my average result from random rolls (which tends to be aronud 250K/merit), so I'm thinking maybe buying recipes rather than random rolls may be more efficient use of merits now. (I didn't used to think so, but that was when LotGs were much cheaper.)


Sunday 4/18

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a 1st villain respec in 10m 32s and took the 14 merits.

Responding to a call for help on LB, I brought Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) to help fight Scrapyard.

Arrow Girl (13 archery/nrg blaster) joined a pickup team that did some missions in the Hollows and Skyway City. This finished her Julius the Troll arc (6 merits) and got her to level 16.

Water Lily (19 rad/storm corruptor) joined a Sisterhood team of villains doing missions in Sharkhead, which got her to level 21.

Mystery Girl (41 emp/pistols defender) did a 2nd hero respec as part of the Sisterhood Sunday event, finishing in 1h 1m. A teammate saw my costume and said, "You're Carmen Sandiego!" That wasn't what I was thinking at all when I made the costume, but I had to laugh and agree that I looked just like her.

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) did an ITF in 29m 34s (nominally a speed TF, but we waited several minutes for someone who disconnected near the end). Also got a costume compliment while passing through Ouroboros.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) joined a pickup Recluse SF, with a team of 4 corruptors (2 rads, 1 traps, 1 kin), 3 brutes and a dark MM. No one had unlocked Lord Recluse as a contact except for a level 49 corruptor, so we ended up making her the leader and we all exemped to level 49. Doing the LRSF at level 49 with a mostly inexperienced team seemed like a [i]really[i] bad idea, but for some reason I didn't quit. I did get to use Vengeance and Fallout a lot. We muddled through til the last mission, where we had 2 straight team wipes against the Freedom Phalanx, failing to kill any of them each time. One of the team members somehow was able to autocomplete the mission, completing the TF and awarding all the badges, despite the fact that we killed none of the heroes. I have no idea how he managed that, and he wouldn't tell; I think there was some time delay involved from whatever it was he did (he mentioned something about "everyone got 5 minutes?" earlier) but other than that, don't know.


Mon 4/19

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a Master of Dr Kahn TF attempt. Someone died within the first few minutes of the first mission, but we elected to press on. Finished in 34m 48s.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) joined a very pickuppy clear-most ITF. Somehow I got stuck with the star after joining, mostly because I was level 50 and most of the others weren't. It was slow going and we had lots of deaths, but nevertheless finished in 58m 40s.

Spy Girl (18 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd Seer Marino's "Oh Wretched Man" story arc for 8 merits, getting to level 19.


lost my notes for 4/20 til 4/22


Fri 4/23

I used free respecs for Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) and Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), in anticipation of another free respec being granted with the next issue. Builds as follows:


Strong Woman I17 respec

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Strong Woman I17 respec: Level 50 Science Tanker
Primary Power Set: Invulnerability
Secondary Power Set: Super Strength
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Fighting
Power Pool: Presence
Ancillary Pool: Energy Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Resist Physical Damage -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(19), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(21)
Level 1: Jab -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(3), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(36), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/Rchg(36)
Level 2: Dull Pain -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(21), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Dct'dW-Heal(33), Dct'dW-Rchg(33)
Level 4: Temp Invulnerability -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(5), RctvArm-ResDam(7), RctvArm-ResDam/Rchg(7)
Level 6: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 8: Unyielding -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(9), RctvArm-ResDam(9), RctvArm-EndRdx(19)
Level 10: Taunt -- Zinger-Taunt(A), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg(11), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(11), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(15), Zinger-Taunt/Rng(17), Zinger-Dam%(17)
Level 12: Haymaker -- KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(A), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(13), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(13), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/EndRdx(34), P'ngS'Fest-Dmg/Rchg(34)
Level 14: Fly -- Frbd-Fly(A), Frbd-EndRdx(46), Flight-I(48)
Level 16: Health -- Numna-Heal/Rchg(A), Numna-Heal(50), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(50)
Level 18: Invincibility -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(25), LkGmblr-Rchg+(25)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(27), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(37), P'Shift-End%(40)
Level 22: Knockout Blow -- Hectmb-Dmg(A), Hectmb-Dmg/Rchg(23), Hectmb-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Hectmb-Acc/Rchg(27), Hectmb-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Hectmb-Dam%(34)
Level 24: Kick -- Empty(A)
Level 26: Tough Hide -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(42), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 28: Rage -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(36), HO:Membr(37)
Level 30: Tough -- RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(31), RctvArm-ResDam(31), RctvArm-EndRdx(31)
Level 32: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+(43)
Level 35: Provoke -- Zinger-Taunt(A), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg(42), Zinger-Taunt/Rchg/Rng(43), Zinger-Acc/Rchg(43), Zinger-Taunt/Rng(48), Zinger-Dam%(48)
Level 38: Foot Stomp -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(39), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(39), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Armgdn-Dam%(40)
Level 41: Conserve Power -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 44: Laser Beam Eyes -- Apoc-Dmg(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(45), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(45), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(45), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Apoc-Dam%(46)
Level 47: Physical Perfection -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A)
Level 49: Resist Energies -- ResDam-I(A), ResDam-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Gauntlet
Level 2: Ninja Run

Strong Woman's build is meant to raise smash/lethal DEF as high as possible (not quite soft capped, but at around 35% right now; a few mobs around her quickly gets her to the soft cap from Invincibility), with good recharge and some regen. I don't quite have all the purple and other rare recipes in the above build yet, but it's something I'm working towards.



Police Woman I17 respec

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.621
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Police Woman I17: Level 50 Natural Blaster
Primary Power Set: Assault Rifle
Secondary Power Set: Devices
Power Pool: Medicine
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Fitness
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Munitions Mastery

Hero Profile:
Level 1: Burst -- Dev'n-Acc/Dmg(A), HO:Centri(3), Dev'n-Dmg/Rchg(3), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Dev'n-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Achilles-ResDeb%(7)
Level 1: Web Grenade -- GravAnch-Immob(A), GravAnch-Immob/Rchg(7), GravAnch-Acc/Immob/Rchg(9), GravAnch-Acc/Rchg(9), GravAnch-Hold%(11)
Level 2: Slug -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(11), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(13), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(15), Apoc-Dam%(15)
Level 4: Caltrops -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 6: Aid Other -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Dct'dW-Heal(19), IntRdx-I(21)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Krma-ResKB(48)
Level 10: Targeting Drone -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(23), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(23), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(25), GSFC-Build%(25), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(27)
Level 12: Buckshot -- HO:Centri(A), HO:Centri(27), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng(29), Posi-Acc/Dmg(31), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31)
Level 14: Aid Self -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(33), Dct'dW-Heal(33), IntRdx-I(34)
Level 16: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 18: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A), Jump-I(34)
Level 20: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(36), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(36), P'Shift-End%(36)
Level 22: Cloaking Device -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 24: M30 Grenade -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(37), Posi-Dmg/Rng(37), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(37), RechRdx-I(39)
Level 26: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 28: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(39), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(40), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(40)
Level 30: Beanbag -- Stpfy-Acc/Rchg(A), Stpfy-KB%(40), Stpfy-EndRdx/Stun(43), Stpfy-Acc/EndRdx(45), Stpfy-Stun/Rng(45), Stpfy-Acc/Stun/Rchg(45)
Level 32: Full Auto -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(42), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(42), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(42), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(43), Posi-Dam%(43)
Level 35: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 38: Taser -- Amaze-Stun(A), Amaze-Stun/Rchg(46), Amaze-Acc/Stun/Rchg(46), Amaze-Acc/Rchg(46), Amaze-EndRdx/Stun(48)
Level 41: Body Armor -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(48), TtmC'tng-ResDam/Rchg(50), TtmC'tng-ResDam(50)
Level 44: Surveillance -- UndDef-Rchg/EndRdx(A), UndDef-DefDeb/Rchg/EndRdx(50)
Level 47: Resuscitate -- Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(A)
Level 49: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- HO:Micro(A)
Level 2: Rest -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Defiance
Level 0: Ninja Run


This is very similar to Police Woman's build before this respec, with basically the same powers. The new rule that you keep powers up to your level+5 changed the order I took some of the powers. Also, with Ninja Run in the game now, I no longer felt it was worth it to 3-slot Sprint for travel speed; I moved the extra slots around to get a small amount of +ranged DEF (now up to 13% ranged DEF; nothing exciting, but better than before).


Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) did a Justin Augustine TF. Despite being the 8th person to join, I got stuck with the star for this TF again, due to being level 50 and a flyer. This actually was quite boring as I spent almost half the TF just standing by the contact while people completed Kill 50 hunt missions. I did get to go to Firebase Zulu and fly all of the clicky missions there...which was also rather boring. Nothing wrong with the team, this TF just seems really unexciting. The highlight of the TF was a team member noticing how everything in the Chantry has a depressingly "emo" name, and announcing "Next hunt is in the Bastion of Cutting Myself For Attention". Finished the JATF in 1hr 39mins.

Arrow Girl {16 archery/nrg blaster) joined a small team running the arc to unlock the Midnight Club. We had a team wipe in the Lady Jane mission where Lady Jane overaggroed mobs around us, and we got hit by an ambush at the same time. Nevertheless got Arrow Girl to level 17.


Saturday 4/24

My pool of tickets from people playing my AE missions was near the cap, so I claimed a bunch of them and burned them on Gold recipe rolls at 3700 tickets each, getting:

1 Luck of the Gambler (END/RCHG)
1 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg)
1 Lockdown (ACC/END/RCHG/HOLD)
1 Devastation (DMG/RCHG)

The LotG (DEF/+7.5% rchg) is the big prize, of course.

Spy Girl (19 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd Willy Wheeler's "There's a Sucker Born every Minute" arc for 17 merits, getting her to level 20. I went to Sharkhead to solo Spy Girl's second costume mission; a mastermind bystander was watching me kick Family around and cheered me on, which was nice. Then went to Bloody Bay and solo'd a couple door missions and got a Shivan; this got her the Agent Provocateur badge (which I immediately set as Spy Girl's display badge) and the Gunner badge.

Playing Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster), I was in my SG base and tried to drop an Ouroboros portal, but clicked my chem nuke by mistake and nuked my own SG base. Doh! I went to Warburg to rescue scientists and launched a missile to get the chem nuke temp power back.

Linda Lightspeed (28 rad/nrg blaster) joined an 8-player pickup team that did some door missions and fought a Rikti invasion in Talos; this got Linda to level 30.


Sunday 4/25

Arrow Girl joined a Sisterhood team doing missions in Faultline, beating up Arbiter Sands, Nocturne and Captain Castillo for a fistful of level 21 SOs. A teammate taught me how to fix the "Ready!" bug where it shows color codes; typing "/unbind F7" seems to fix that problem. This team got Arrow Girl to level 19.

Spy Girl (20 MA/ninj stalker) ended up forming and leading an 8 player pickup team; we were very light on support and had 2 team wipes against Arachnos, 1 team wipe against Tsoo. One brute even left due to the lack of team support; he was trying to tank for us but kept dying because he was SK'd up from the teens, and at that level, brutes just aren't very tanky yet. Nevertheless we kept doing door missions, eventually getting Spy Girl to level 23, and completing the Strikebreaker mission (against Scrapyarders) and the Seaweed badge mission (against Sea Witch). This also completed a mini-story arc for Spy Girl for 5 merits.

Arrow Girl solo'd Jim Temblor's arc in Faultline, saving Fusionette a few times, for 5 merits, and did most of Penelope Yin's arc. My ISP went down just as I was leading Mr Yin out, so didn't quite finish, but did get to level 20.


Monday 4/26

The anniversary event was in full swing when I logged on, and as Police Woman I battled giant monsters and archvillains in Talos Island. This was totally chaotic and I ran back from the hospital more than once. Someone noted we had very few empaths rezzing, but I was making liberal use of vengeance and resuscitate. Someone thanked me for a rez, leading someone there to say something about "yay for PW's obsession with the medicine pool". Anyway, an army of heroes fought a crazy number of GMs and AVs; I sprayed bullets at everything I could, and ended up scoring 258 reward merits (129 GMs killed!).

I visited red side for awhile, first playing April Fool (50 thug/TA mastermind), then after a crash I logged on Shield Maiden (49 mace/shield brute) who got to battle Hamidon in the waters of Cap au Diable (getting a lousy Centriole HO as reward). It seemed like villains were really light on support, so I finally switched to Schadenfreude (50 AR/pain corruptor) to throw heals, buffs and rezzes around.

After the event, the ski chalet was briefly open, and Spy Girl stealthed into the ski chalet to purchase the fur boots, fur gloves and earmuffs costume pieces with candy canes I had leftover from last winter.

I was thinking the young hero is probably telling his friends about the time he saved an overconfident tank with whirlwind.

5/10/2010

Work has been pretty busy so I've been rather slow at updates. In fact, this update only catches me up to the middle of last week.

Tue 4/27

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) did a successful Master of the ITF with a 7 player team (tanker, 3 VEATs, FF, rad, scrapper) in 1hr 15min.

Strong Woman went on to do a Statesman TF with Whirligig SG (3 defenders, 1 controller, 3 blasters, 1 tanker). Mostly went fine, until I tried tanking Lord Recluse from the ground, just to see if I could. Lord Recluse smashed me flat almost instantly. Despite my 90% lethal RES and having eaten 2 big purples to raise my DEF, he somehow could hit me for 1841 lethal damage. I'm not quite sure how people tank this guy face-to-face! I ended up going back to the fly/taunt strategy, which worked fine, and we finished in 1hr 15mins. I got an Endoplasm SHO.

Wed 4/28

Arrow Girl (20 arch/nrg blaster) did the new Positron TFs, doing "Rule of Three" (Part 1) on a 3-player team that finished in 50m 52s and got her to level 21. I love the evil clones that you encounter in the last mission!

Then she did "Dam Heroes" (Part 2) on an 8-player team; had a team wipe against a Nictus cyst crystal (we had a kheldian on the team) and a semi-wipe trying to stealth/TP to Rollister, where we got team TP'd to a spot where we immediately aggroed 3 mobs. The last mission with all the triggered objectives felt very long to me. Finished in 1hr 45min and got to level 23.

Overall I really like the Positron TF revamps; the missions and bad guys that you fight were a lot more interesting, and I like that it's split between two TFs now, so it isn't just a huge solid chunk of time. Only downside is that it's a much lower merit reward.

Thu 4/29

I started "Teal Serpent", a new archery/traps corruptor, borrowing the name from a historical villain who fought Atlas back in the 1940s. I like the idea of legacy heroes and villains and figure my Teal Serpent would be a descendant of the historical one. I purposely made Teal Serpent's costume really shiny (metallic textures) because I really enjoy the reflections in Ultra Mode. Solo'd to level 3, then joined an 8-player pickup team that got Teal Serpent to 8.

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) did a speed ITF in 31m 0s.

Goth Angel (13 arch/nrg blaster) started Rule of Three TF on a 3-player Sisterhood team that was scouting out the new TF for an upcoming Sisterhood event. I thought this was a good idea (it's always unfortunate when someone tries to run a TF event and has no clue how it actually works) but it made our progress really slow, so I had to quit for the night about halfway through.

Fri 4/30

Police Woman (and all my other alts) got the Exultant badge today, for the anniversary event.

Water Lily (21 rad/storm corruptor) joined a 6-player Silver Mantis TF; finished in 1hr 34m and got to level 23. A teammate complimented me on using hurricane to debuff Colonel Duray in the final mission, while holding other Sky Raiders at bay, which was nice.

Sat 5/1

Spy Girl (23 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through The Warburg Connection, which was a very good espionage-related AE story arc where you're sorta working for Arachnos, but also involves lots of double-crossing and personal agendas. I gave it 5 stars.

I spent some time playtesting and tuning my own various AE arcs. On various toons I modified, republished and playtested Teen Phalanx Forever, Talos Vice and A Warrior's Journey - the Flower Knight Task Force. With the I17 changes, I was able to pick powers for custom mobs that increased their exp slightly; though it's still capped equal to the value for a standard PvE mob, at least you can reduce the penalty somewhat. The blanket nerf on allies and hostages still hits exp pretty hard in my various story arcs (as I use both heavily), but I don't feel there's as much I can do about that. Yet. Supposedly a fix for that is "coming soon".

I brought Shield Maiden (49 mace/shield brute) to Rikti War Zone for an Anniversary costume contest; I like how her Valkyrie-esque costume looks, but didn't end up winning or placing.

Teal Serpent joined a 7 player pickup team of mostly demon MMs that did the Atlas mayhem, the Plague Carrier mini-arc, and the King's Row mayhem. Got a compliment on Teal Serpent's costume from a teammate, and got to level 14.

Sun 5/2

Ran Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) around a circuit of the wall in Cimerora, beating up Cimeroran traitors just because. A passerby complimented me on her costume.

Arrow Girl (23 arch/nrg blaster) did a 5 player Sister Psyche TF; we were quite light on support, with a good thermal and a weak force fielder (I don't think he EVER cast bubbles) on the team. We had one team wipe in a Council mission, due to several people were AFK while the rest of us were pressing on. Global chat was down when I accepted this team invite, and when they came up, I realized I had joined the team of someone I had previously 1-starred, something I normally would not do. But he was doing such a great job of leading the TF and getting us through missions that I was forced to revise my opinion upwards. Finished the TF in 2h 9m and got Arrow Girl to level 25.

Teal Serpent (14 archery/traps corruptor) joined a 5 player villain team that cleared most of the PTS station map. After that I did a solo playtest of my Two Tickets to Westerly AE arc after that, to make sure it was still working in I17. This all got Teal Serpent to level 17.

Mystery Girl (42 emp/pistols defender) participated in the Sisterhood Sunday event, doing Rule of Three TF on an 8 player team. We had one team wipe against CoT in the last mission due to overaggro. Facing the evil duplicates, the team quickly decided that the controller's top priority should be confusing my evil duplicate, which makes perfect sense (an active enemy empath is always bad news), but was also a nice ego boost. Finished in 1hr 18min.

Continued on to do the Dam Heroes TF on a 7 player team. No serious problems, though the tanker ran out of time and had to quit midway through. Finished in 1hr 12min, got Mystery Girl to level 43 and the Task Force Commander accolade.

Markets were down over the weekend, and someone was asking on LB for Kinetic Combat IOs. I'd been stockpiling those, so I ended up bartering a set of 4 Kinetic Combat (AD, DE, DER, DR) IOs for an Apocalypse (chance for negative) recipe and 25M influence. I thought this was a good deal at the time (based on the prices I remembered before the Wentworth's downtime) but after the markets came back up, Kinetic Combat prices had a huge upwards price spike while Apocalypse prices stayed stable. For example, I sold a couple Kinetic Combat (DER) IOs individually for 200M each after markets came up, much higher than the pre-outage price, and more than the value of an Apocalypse proc. So in hindsight, this wasn't as good a deal as I thought. But hey, I sold two Kinetic Combat (DER) IOs for 200M each, so I'm not too sad about it.

Someone on the MA Arc Finder global channel was going crazy because she had unpublished her story arc and couldn't find her local copies of the story arc, so thought her story arc was permanently gone. This seemed rather puzzling to me, but I was eventually able to help her by suggesting she check her recycle bin, where she found her story arc files. Heck if I know how she got them into the recycle bin without realizing it, but it seemed to fix her problem.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a 6-player ITF set on +2 difficulty. We had a veteran team and had no problems, finishing in 36m 1s. A teammate was impressed by my tar patch/ice storm/blizzard AoE combo, calling it "sexy". Or maybe it was just the visual appearance of purple ice crystals falling from the sky. Anyway, found a Mako's Bite (ADER) recipe and a Doctored Wounds (EH) recipe as drops.

Mon 5/3

Teal Serpent (17 arch/traps corruptor) joined a 6-player pickup team that got her to level 19. Everyone on the team was a demon MM except me. That's been about par for the course on lowbie villain teams since I17.

Tue 5/4

Spy Girl (23 MA/ninj stalker) joined a 5-player Silver Mantis SF. Due to vagaries of the team leader disconnecting and a lower level person becoming leader, we ended up being at level 24 on +1 difficulty. This meant we were mostly fighting +3s. We had a corruptor disconnect and never come back, then the original leader ran out of time and quit the TF, leaving us with 3 players on the second to last mission, fighting at high difficulty. At this point the team felt we couldn't finish the TF, and the other two players quit, leaving me solo.

I decided to try and press on while alone, because I'm pigheaded stubborn sometimes. The second to the last mission is a Defeat All, which kinda sucks for stalkers, but I managed to work my way through it. The very last mission against the Sky Raiders helicarrier was pretty cool as a lone stalker; I snuck up to the various gun turrets and took them out one-by-one. After clearing enough of these, I did manage to spawn Colonel Duray as an AV. I tried 3 times but just could not beat him, even with a full load of inspirations and a Shivan. I could dent his hit points some, but would run out of inspirations before I could really get him to low life. Duray's ability to spawn more Sky Raiders bosses and FF Generators was pretty killer as well; I felt I needed to clear those guys out so as to get my shivan back onto Duray, but it burned too much time. I eventually had to quit the SF as being uncompleteable. It did get Spy Girl to level 25, though.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a speed ITF in 26m 30s.

Wed 5/5

Teal Serpent (19 arch/nrg corr) joined an 8-player pickup team that did one of the new villain arcs that got us the Bane of Ajax badge, and got Teal to level 20.

Millie Volt (49 elec/elec brute) did an 8-player Ice Mistral SF; went pretty straightforwardly, finishing in 49m 14s and getting Millie to level 50. (I'm not sure which level 50 this is for me. I've given up on counting.)

I could show ya how to tank Recluse face to face

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nights_Dawn Hazy is right

5/17/2010

Still catching up a bit on journal entries.

Thu 5/6

After the market downtime, Kinetic Combats were selling like crazy and I made 400M infl selling them on this day alone.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) did a Recluse SF in 31m 48s, got a Cytoskeleton SHO.

Darla Doppler (44 kin/sonic defender) did an Imperious TF. During mission 1, a mob guarding a sybil was knocked through a wall, preventing us from completing the mission; we had to quit the TF and restart. Second try went fine, finishing in 25m 30s. Darla got a Soulbound Allegiance (DMG/END) recipe as a drop.


Fri 5/7

Mystery Girl (43 emp/pistols defender) joined a pickup ITF. Not quite sure what it was, but this team just didn't seem to click; we died an awful lot. In the final fight Romulus was mauling our 2 SR scrappers and ice tanker with his autohit AoE (which basically ignored all their defenses); I couldn't keep up with healing them all, and we were very light on debuff so we weren't doing enough damage to Romulus to kill him. Eventually our two tankers pulled Romulus away from the healing Nictus, and getting him away from his healing finally let us beat him. Finished in 1hr 27m (whew!) and got to level 44. I like my empath/pistols defender, but I'm not sure I like her on ITFs; several times I felt like I would've been better off bringing a dark or rad instead.

Spy Girl (25 Ma/ninj stalker) answered a call to help kill the Ghost of Scrapyard.


Sat 5/8

I got the Enduring veteran badge (66 months) on this day, giving all my characters +5 salvage slots, +5 recipe slots and +1 auction house slot - which I thought was a really nice bonus, since my inventory is nearly always full to bursting.

Teal Serpent (20 archery/traps corruptor) joined a small villain team for a bit, then later joined an 8-player pickup team that did the Skyway and Talos mayhems, getting her to level 22.

Arrow Girl (25 archery/nrg blaster) did a 5-player Synapse TF (2 kin, 2 scrappers, me as blaster) which went quickly, finishing in 1h 44m and getting Arrow Girl to level 26.


Sun 5/9

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) exemped to a 31 defender who was having a hard time beating 30 Crey for the 2nd costume mission. Adding a blaster solved her DPS problems handily. I went on to participate in the Sisterhood Sunday event, which was to run the Keith Nance story arc in flashback. We were on +2 difficulty and finished in 43m 40s for 5 merits and "The Fairest" badge.

I then decided to catch up on the new I17 explore badges. For each hero zone I got a bunch of explore badges and a new accolade: Atlas Tour Guide, Wincott's Ally, Galactic Explorer, PPD Informant, Canyon Carver, Sky Gazer, Island Hopper, IP Address, Citizen of Salamanca, Lost & Found, Zig Warden, Portal Corp Analyst. (I had previously gotten the Faultline exploration accolade, sort of by accident.) Each one gave me 5 reward merits, too, which was a nice bonus.

Darla Doppler (45 kin/sonic defender) joined a pickup ITF. The leader accidentally started us on +2 difficulty and promised to lower it after the first mission, but it turns out our team was very strong and could handle it, so we stayed on +2. Clearing most missions, this took us 56m 0s and got Darla to level 46.

Teal Serpent (22 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team running missions in St Martial; they also did a Brickstown mayhem. Got a costume compliment, and also level 26.


Mon 5/10

Mega (50 SS/will brute) helped a corruptor friend who was having trouble beating Numina EB.

Started a new version of Deianira (a SS/SR brute) again; for some reason I keep making this character because I think SS/SR will be cool, but have trouble sticking with it. This time will be different! Maybe. Solo'd the Mercy Island arcs up to level 6.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined an ITF, finished in 29m 3s.


Tue 5/11

Spy Girl (25 MA/ninj stalker) joined a 1st villain respec; our team was 3 brutes and me. Finished in 9m 13s. I took the respec award.

Kyrie Eleison (47 fire/regen scrapper) joined an STF; I was pleasantly surprised that I died only once, in the final fight with Lord Recluse. (I'm not that good a regen scrapper.) During the final cut scene, Ultra Mode had shadows moving as the WEB device slid into place, which was very cool looking. Finished in 49m 11s and got Kyrie to 48, along with a fistful of badges.


Wed 5/12

Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corruptor) joined an RSF. I got a "PW on cold is good" from a teammate, then another said, "PW is good on all toons", which was a nice feeling. We had a couple deaths against the Freedom Phalanx in the last mission, but battle rez'd and beat them in a single try, finishing in 31m 28s.

Darla Doppler (46 kin/sonic defender) did an ITF in 26m 2s, getting to level 47.

Shield Maiden (49 mace/shield brute) did a Sharkhead SF in 21m 10s.


Thu 5/13

Millie Volt (50 elec/elec brute) joined another player fighting Marcone bosses in St Martial, getting them both the Gangbuster badge. I went on to do the Bad Luck badge mission in flashback, working towards a villain accolade.

Arrow Girl (26 archery/nrg blaster) joined a pickup Citadel TF. The team leader was a 24 FF defender which didn't quite work since you have to be 25 to do Citadel; I thought it was a little weird to recruit a team for a TF you aren't the right level for, but we ended up doing a couple missions that got him to 25, then he gave the star to a high level fire/emp controller for the actual TF so we could play at level 30. The controller was the most aggressive empath I'd seen (and I mean that in a good way -- she kept our team moving forward at a decent rate). Finished the TF in 1h 28m.


Fri 5/14

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did an ITF in 25m 41s. The same team started an LGTF but we got stopped cold by the Hamidon mission; we killed the blue mitos, the yellow mitos, all the pylons...but we could barely dent the green mitos, and they would immediately heal back up to full. After several failed attempts, we gave up and abandoned the LGTF. According to word of mouth, the green mitos require over 50 mag of stacked holds in order to kill. We switched to the Statesman TF, which ironically was much easier, finishing in 41m 43s and getting a Cytoskeleton SHO.

The same team switched to villains, and as Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) I did a Recluse SF in 27m 41s (a record-breaking time, at least for this group). I think we were especially efficient because we had mad debuffs on the team (4 corruptors, 2 VEATs, 2 brutes; and Lady Arachne has a debuff-heavy team build). I got another Cytoskeleton SHO.

Solo'd Mayday (50 fortunata) through Arena, a MA story arc based on the musical Chess, reinterpreted into City of Heroes terms. This was actually really good. I gave it 5 stars. This was also the last arc in my "I'll try yours if you'll try mine" review thread. After 13 months, 34 pages, and hundreds of story arcs, I've decided to take a break from doing formal arc reviews. It's been a good experience, and I hope I helped some people with my critiques, but it's also been a lot of work. I still plan to be actively participating in Mission Architect; I'm just going to focus on playing arcs that I choose to play because I want to, mostly for fun.


Sat 5/15

Mystery Girl (42 emp/pistols defender) exemped to a 5 player Sisterhood team in Faultline. I think they were having some trouble with running out of hit points before I arrived, so it felt like bringing an empath to join them really helped.

Some friends from the MA Arc Finder channel were doing the Dean MacArthur villain story arc on Triumph server, and I switched to Icy Witch, a nearly forgotten ice/cold corruptor on Triumph server who has been level 14 for approximately 2 years. Our 6 player team got through Dean's arc, getting Icy Witch to level 17 before I had to go out for lunch.

Millie Volt (50 elec/elec brute) finished the Wolf Spider badge to get the High Pain Threshold accolade (+150 max HP), then did the Exterminator badge mission in flashback and collected ghosts to get the Born in Battle accolade (+75 max HP); elec armor feels pretty squishy to me, so I'm hoping higher max HP will help. This is actually the first toon I've ever gotten Born in Battle on; I think the damage badge requirements got lowered a lot recently. I started trying to get Born in Battle on Mega (50 SS/will brute, my main brute) as well, but somehow despite being an older toon, Mega hasn't taken enough damage to qualify for this badge. I'm guessing this is because Mega has a lot of +max HP powers and IO sets; I vaguely heard that damage only counts for badges if it lowers you below your base HP.

I started a newbie fire/storm corruptor, getting the name "Idol" which I thought was pretty good, and making her an evil demon mostly due to peer pressure from all the demon masterminds we've had around lately. Joined a 6-player lowbie villain team that got her up to level 7.

Played Samurai-ko (44 katana/will scrapper) on a pickup clear-most ITF. I got a little overly cocky on mission 3 and tried to melee Romulus and Requiem up on their little platform in order to pull them down, and they obligingly stomped me flat. (I plead scrapperlock.) We had some confusion in mission 4 as to whether we were rushing to the final encounter or fighting our way there, but after we straightened that out, we finished the ITF in 48m 6s. This got Samurai-ko to 45.

After doing over a year of MA arc reviews, I decided I'd try and organize the various arcs that I played and rated highly in a way that other players could use. As a result I posted an Alternate Contact Tree using Mission Architect Story arcs on the CoH forum. I figure one of the most common questions people ask about MA is "What arcs are good for me at level XX?" and this would be a way for people to find that out more easily.

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a pickup clear-most ITF. As one of the few level 50s on the team, they stuck me with the star. I was at +2 difficulty, which made our first mission a little hard (we had a good mix of ATs but most were lower level and/or not highly optimized) so I lowered difficulty to the default +0 for the rest of the TF. On mission 3 I pulled the various generals down to the bridge (I felt this would be safer for this type of team than rushing each general) and a teammate praised me, saying they'd never seen anyone do such a good job pulling the generals, which was nice. Though ironically pulling only the generals with very few minions meant that after we beat up Romulus and Requiem, we had to kill some leftover Roman minions to complete the mission. Anyway, this was a pretty fun team and we finished in 1hr 16min, which sounds long, but we killed just about everything in our path.


Sun 5/16

Teal Serpent (26 archery/traps corruptor) joined a 5-player LEGION villain team doing the Dean MacArthur and Leonard arcs. We beat up Ajax no problem, but hit a brick wall on the Leonard arc when we had to face 8 clones of the team leader, a demon summoning mastermind. Each of the 8 clones spawned a full set of demons and they were just way too nasty; it seemed like we killed a lot of pets but very few actual bosses, and we suffered 4 straight team wipes trying. At that point we switched to doing Teal Serpent's missions. It turns out that clones of traps corruptors are much easier to kill. I blame poor AI, a smarter traps corruptor clone could use Poison Traps, Trip Mines and FF Generators to be very deadly.

Bubbawheat reviewed my Two Tickets to Westerly story arc, as part of his project to review all the Dr. Aeon Challenge story arcs. His comments were very positive, which was nice.

I played Quick Katie (50 plant/kin controller) at the Sisterhood Sunday event, which was an Ouro flashback of the Freaklympics arc. While standing around waiting for teams to form, I got 2 compliments on Quick Katie's name, 2 compliments on her bio and 1 compliment on her costume...wow! I need to get Quick Katie out more often! I was on a 7 player team with a tanker, a FFer, a dark and me as a kin, plus some damage; this team was not the fastest (despite my best efforts to SB) but was very safe, suffering only one death near the end. Finished in 2h 24m for 34 merits.

Solo'd a few MA story arcs for fun. Playing San Min (33 MA/will scrapper), I replayed Hammer and Sickle of Paragon City to see what was different, but it seemed pretty much the same (I gave it 4 stars, again). Then I played The Bestest Radio Mission Ever, which was a single mission that was a fun mash-up of all the radio missions in the game. I gave it 5 stars. Switching to Deianira (10 SS/SR brute) I solo'd Unfair Trade, a lowbie villain arc where you help an acquaintance you made in prison. It was decently written but the ending was a little unsatisfying; I gave it 4 stars.

Finished the night playing Yuki-Onna (50 ice/cold corruptor) on an ITF, completing it in 29m 13s and getting an Obliteration (DMG/RCHG) recipe as a drop.

Glad to see you're still updating this PW. I have to admit I like to try to spot the entries where I was part of the team.

And I'm bored at work and feel like responding to some of this so I'm going to quote and post a bunch of comments.

Quote:

Fri 5/7 Mystery Girl (43 emp/pistols defender) joined a pickup ITF. Not quite sure what it was, but this team just didn't seem to click; we died an awful lot. In the final fight Romulus was mauling our 2 SR scrappers and ice tanker with his autohit AoE (which basically ignored all their defenses); I couldn't keep up with healing them all, and we were very light on debuff so we weren't doing enough damage to Romulus to kill him. Eventually our two tankers pulled Romulus away from the healing Nictus, and getting him away from his healing finally let us beat him. Finished in 1hr 27m (whew!) and got to level 44. I like my empath/pistols defender, but I'm not sure I like her on ITFs; several times I felt like I would've been better off bringing a dark or rad instead.

Speaking of which, I think I was there for this one. I was one of the SRs, on my elec/sr scrapper.

I'm pretty sure you know this, and were just generalizing Romulus and the nictus' attacks together, but the auto hit aoe attack belongs to the AOE Nictus. Once Romulus dies he sacrifices the Auto hit Nictus for the first rez, so after that it gets safer, especially for defense based characters.

I always make sure to save or create oranges through the TF so I can make it through that first Rommy kill. (Hopefully with a few extras, in case the first kill takes longer than expected.)

Sorry, just had to get that pedantry out of my system.

Quote:

Darla Doppler (45 kin/sonic defender) joined a pickup ITF. The leader accidentally started us on +2 difficulty and promised to lower it after the first mission, but it turns out our team was very strong and could handle it, so we stayed on +2. Clearing most missions, this took us 56m 0s and got Darla to level 46.

I'm so glad we have the difficulty settings back for TFs so we can do stuff like this. This would've been much less fun as a +0 difficulty.

Quote:

Tue 5/11 Kyrie Eleison (47 fire/regen scrapper) joined an STF; I was pleasantly surprised that I died only once, in the final fight with Lord Recluse. (I'm not that good a regen scrapper.) During the final cut scene, Ultra Mode had shadows moving as the WEB device slid into place, which was very cool looking. Finished in 49m 11s and got Kyrie to 48, along with a fistful of badges.

I know what that's like, I've tried regen twice and deleted it both times. I'm too lazy to fight and watch my health. I prefer to just focus on the what to hit next.

That cut scene sounds cool, I look forward to seeing it now that I can use Ultra Mode.

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Thu 5/13 Millie Volt (50 elec/elec brute) finished the Wolf Spider badge to get the High Pain Threshold accolade (+150 max HP), then did the Exterminator badge mission in flashback and collected ghosts to get the Born in Battle accolade (+75 max HP); elec armor feels pretty squishy to me, so I'm hoping higher max HP will help. This is actually the first toon I've ever gotten Born in Battle on; I think the damage badge requirements got lowered a lot recently. I started trying to get Born in Battle on Mega (50 SS/will brute, my main brute) as well, but somehow despite being an older toon, Mega hasn't taken enough damage to qualify for this badge. I'm guessing this is because Mega has a lot of +max HP powers and IO sets; I vaguely heard that damage only counts for badges if it lowers you below your base HP.

I've heard the same thing about the +hitpoints, which makes it tough for willpower to get the badge. Any +hp set bonuses or accolades will also make it tougher. I've heard of people using their second build to make a gimped build to use for damage farming. Another factor is defense, willpower doesn't have much but /elec has none so it takes more damage. I suspect the +hp of willpower is the main culprit though.

Quote:

As a result I posted an Alternate Contact Tree using Mission Architect Story arcs on the CoH forum. I figure one of the most common questions people ask about MA is "What arcs are good for me at level XX?" and this would be a way for people to find that out more easily.

Nice, that looks like a handy post PW, thanks.

Quote:

I was at +2 difficulty, which made our first mission a little hard (we had a good mix of ATs but most were lower level and/or not highly optimized) so I lowered difficulty to the default +0 for the rest of the TF. On mission 3 I pulled the various generals down to the bridge (I felt this would be safer for this type of team than rushing each general) and a teammate praised me, saying they'd never seen anyone do such a good job pulling the generals, which was nice. Though ironically pulling only the generals with very few minions meant that after we beat up Romulus and Requiem, we had to kill some leftover Roman minions to complete the mission. Anyway, this was a pretty fun team and we finished in 1hr 16min, which sounds long, but we killed just about everything in our path.

That team did pretty well on that first +2 mission, we had few, if any, deaths, but it was slow, and Romulus and the Nictus AVs would've been tough.

You're pulls on that were perfect, I was surprised to see only the general following you on that first pull.

...

Ok, that's more than I intended to post, time to get back to work.

5/19/2010

Monday

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) responded to a call for help in Skyway, assisting a Synapse TF with Babbage.

Deianira (11 SS/SR brute) solo'd Chris Jenkins: Attorney at Law, a single mission MA arc where you save a scuzzy lawyer from the Hellions. This was quick but funny and I gave it 5 stars. After that I also solo'd Jumping in Feet First, where you fight the Council and some partially transformed Nictus; the story felt a little bland to me, and the missions were heavy on ambushes, which I felt made them too hard at low level. I ended up giving it 3 stars.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a pickup clear-most ITF. There was some confusion as to what we were doing and the team got split up repeatedly, resulting in several deaths. Nevertheless we managed to finish in 48m 57s.

Samurai-ko (45 katana/will scrapper) did a Statesman TF. Normally I wouldn't bring a 45 to the STF, but the team leader said to "bring whatever" and Samurai-ko needed the badge. We had a team wipe against Dr Aeon due to the person with the temp power disabling Aeon's invulnerability missing on the first try. In the final mission we fought all the patron AVs at once; we struggled to beat Ghost Widow as the tanks positioned her so that she could attack the team, and either couldn't or wouldn't turn her to face away, resulting in Ghost Widow killing several team members and healing up repeatedly. We eventually beat her up. Our stone tanker and willpower tanker took turns tanking Recluse and dying (the willpower tanker even tried taunting from fly but got killed by ranged energy and END drain attacks). That looked painful, but between the two of them, they mostly kept him busy, allowing us to eventually beat the STF in 1h 20m, which one team member joked was "the fastest speed STF ever!" Samurai-ko did hit level 46; I had to take merits as reward. 37 merits is more than I remember STF being worth.

Shield Maiden (49 mace/shield brute) did a speed ITF in 25m 12s, which got her to level 50.


Tuesday

Deianira (11 SS/SR brute) solo'd Too Clever By Half, a funny mad science arc where one of Vernon von Grun's experiments goes wrong, and you help him fix things. I gave it 5 stars.

San Min (33 MA/will scrapper) solo'd the 3rd costume mission and the cape mission, then I spent some time at the tailor making a cute new costume for her, which I really like. I had one person compliment me on this costume (he mistook my red white and blue costume as patriotic American colors, though this was an understandable mistake), while another person made fun of it for showing too much skin, which I thought was strange as it actually covers more than most female hero costumes. Oh well, I like it. I joined an 8 player team running the new I17 story arcs at level 20, including The Fairest and Singular Vision badge missions. I hadn't run the Singular Vision badge mission before, it was actually quite cool, with [SPOILER] the cut scenes showing the mission holder's good and evil twins and all. From there we went to Croatoa and did a couple mission there before breaking up. This got San Min to level 34.

On this team, a teammate praised my Dev Choice arc, Two Tickets to Westerly, saying that she was happy to find a non-farm in AE. I pointed her to the Alternate Contact Tree using MA Arcs thread I recently started, which she liked, saying she'd bookmark it. This was really nice.


Wednesday

The author of Escalation (now a Dev Choice arc), which I reviewed once as part of my MA Arc review thread, asked if he could quote my reviews on a web site he was building. Since this person is actually a comic book writer in RL, I thought this was really neat. I told him he definitely could.

5/24/2010

Friday

San Min (35 MA/will scrapper) joined an 8-player pickup team doing Brickstown radio missions. This got her to level 36. Went on to solo Kiss Hello Goodbye, a film noir themed MA story arc which did a good job of conveying the pulp detective genre. I gave it 4 stars.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a clear most ITF in 37m 46s.

Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a Master of the ITF attempt. I started off kinda concerned because we had team members nearly dying just trying to solo the Cimerora wall before we started, but we actually did okay once we started. We ended up failing on the Phalanx Computer in mission 3 during the last wave of robots, where too much aggro on the squishies caused some deaths; I also died to this (though I wasn't the first to die), which was annoying because they killed me through soft-capped range DEF. Finished in 51m 24s. Went on to do a STF in 53m 40s, getting an Enzyme SHO.


Saturday

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) did a 7-player ITF in 29m 51s.

Kyrie Eleison (48 fire/regen scrapper) did an 8-player ITF on a pickup team. This team seemed a little weak to me and we had a lot of deaths, but still finished in 35m 44s and got Kyrie to level 49.

San Min (36 MA/will scrapper) solo'd One Million Eyes, an MA story arc where you join a superhero-themed social networking web site, and it gives you leads to fight crime. This was a really imaginative arc with good writing, excellent use of canon, and good characters. I thought it was awesome and gave it 5 stars.

Mystery Girl (44 emp/pistols defender) joined an 8-player team doing Tina MacIntyre's arc as part of Ghost Falcon Day, which was originally a much bigger event but didn't quite happen. I think this team running The Praetorian War was the only actual thing that did happen. We got the Emancipator and Multidimensional badges, and beat up the psychic Clockwork King, Bobcat, Shadow Hunter, Neuron and Antimatter. We had a team wipe to a Zeus Titan (formerly 2 smaller robots that escaped our controller's holds by combining into a Zeus), a few deaths due to splitting up several times (one of our scrappers ran off and died, then I went over there to rez him and got clobbered too), another team wipe from over-aggro fighting Anti-matter's robots, and another wipe from overaggroing Arachnos in a radio mission. We did finish The Praetorian War, though, and this got Mystery Girl 43 merits and level 46.


Sunday

San Min (36 MA/will scrapper) joined an 8-player pickup team fighting Praetorian blue clockworks on an outdoor map. We tended to overaggro them, then get overwhelmed by DEF debuffs from their rad blasts. The team had a lot of deaths, but I managed to avoid dying by strategically breaking line of sight and/or running away, along with lots of help from defenders healing me.

After that, San Min joined the Non Speed Numina Task Force, an 8-player team which was, as advertised, Non Speedy. We waited for everyone to enter missions before beginning, even if some people were off shopping, and were discouraged from stealthing missions (though we ended up stealthing & TPing to the end of at least a couple missions). We split up for the various hunt missions, which I think was sensible; having the whole team move to each hunting zone would've been a bit much. Despite the Non Speedy-ness, we still completed the TF in 1h 15m, which isn't bad at all.

After the Numina TF I was just crafting IOs in my base when another scrapper asked to join me. I wasn't really doing anything, so I thought, why not, and I ended up forming a pickup team that completed the Kelly Nemmers story arc in Croatoa (7 merits) and doing some radio missions in Brickstown, ultimately beating Ice Mistral AV in a safeguard mission before the team broke up.

A bit later, I played Arrow Girl (27 archery/nrg blaster) on an 8-player pickup team. We were kinda support light and died a lot (theoretically we had a traps player and 2 stormies, but none of them were particularly team-support oriented; I had to ask the traps defender to summon his FF Generator). Our original tanker went linkdead during a mission and never made it back, so another player swapped to her tanker alt, after which things seemed to go a lot better (maybe aggro control was part of our problem). This got Arrow Girl to level 28.

Some of my friends who do speed TFs were making noises about this mythical "Master of the Lady Grey TF badge", and so we ended up forming a team to try and get it. I played Idealist (50 fire/thermal controller), figuring that thermal buffs and heals should be helpful for a Master Of attempt. Our team was 5 controllers (fire/kin, grav/FF, fire/thermal, 2 ill/rad), 2 fortunata, 1 tanker (inv/?); we were very controller heavy because LGTF is currently messed up so that you need 50 mag of holds to kill green mitos.

A mothership raid was going on in RWZ at the same time we were forming up, and our last two players couldn't get into Rikti War Zone due to it being full, which ended up forcing our whole team to move to RWZ 2, which was a pain. Once there, we started the LGTF and were halfway through mission 1 when I noticed that, hey, the leader forgot to set "no deaths, no temp powers" for the Master Of settings. We quit and restarted the LGTF with the right settings. We did mission 1 and mission 2 the normal way, clearing to Penelope Yin and leading her out, then fighting our way to each of the Riders. Only the tanker, 2 fortunata and 1 controller entered mission 3, deliberately failing it. In mission 4 against Hamidon, our strategy was to focus fire on 1 blue mito at a time, then run away after each one dies. This worked for the first 2 mitos, but on the third one, our tanker got hit with a really nasty DOT from Hamidon and died. The tanker had been taunting Hamidon to keep him off of us, and eventually Hamidon got a lucky hit in. In hindsight, we realized that it would've been better if the illusionists dropped Phantom Army on Hamidon instead of having the tanker taunt. Thermal radiation was also not as good for this as I had hoped; while the buffs/heals are nice everywhere else, Hamidon damage goes right through thermal shields and debuffs people so they can't be healed, which was pretty frustrating for me. Anyway, we decided to go ahead and finish the LGTF, rushing the rest of the mitos and running to the end room of mission 5. Finished in 1h 14m.

A little later we did another try (with some players swapping in or out). This time I played Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) and our team mix was 6 controllers (2 fire/kin, 2 ill/rad, mind/rad, grav/rad), fortunata, fire/inv brute. The grav controller had recall friend and stealthed to the end of mission 1 to TP the team there; we then deliberately failed mission 1 (abandoning Penelope Yin die to the ambush; felt kinda guilty about this, probably because Penelope is not nearly as annoying as Infernia). Mission 2 we mostly cleared to each Rider room, zipping through a few rooms that weren't too heavily populated. Mission 3 the brute and fortunata solo failed for us. Mission 4 we basically had the same plan, except that the brute would not taunt, Phantom Army would be dropped on Hami instead; and we killed 2 blue mitos each round, before running and hiding. This worked to clear all the blues, though I got scared a couple times when mitos tagged me with damage; I chomped an Essence of Earth each of the first two times, which I'm convinced reduced the damage from the DOT. (Didn't die, anyway!) After getting the blue mitos, we targeted the yellow mitos; the fortunata reported that Dominate seems to hurt the yellow mitos (presumably due to having no positional tag), and I found that Dominate/Mesmerize seemed to work for me, too. Then we cleared all the pylons and got to work on the green mitos. Mind control felt really good for this because I could stack Telekinesis with Dominate. The green mitos didn't seem to take any damage at all until held, and then would suddenly POP, dying in a split second after being held.

Once all the mitos were down, the Weakened Hamidon didn't give us any serious trouble, and the grav controller TP'd us to the end of mission 5, where we beat the AVs and won the TF, finishing in 1h 12m. This indeed awarded us all the Master of the Lady Grey Task Force badge, which (as far as I know) is the first time it was awarded on Liberty. (We all vowed to actually get this badge on our badging characters later on, when they fix the green mitos to be less insane.) I also got a Devastation (ACC/DMG/END/RCHG) recipe drop at the end, which was nice.

Finished the night playing Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) on a speedy 7 player ITF, finishing in 23m 47s.

5/26/2010

Monday

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined an STF, which went well and finished in 40m 55s. Got a Peroxisome SHO.

Quick Katie (50 plant/kin controller) joined a Master of the LGTF attempt, with a team of:

1 tanker (stone/mace)
1 brute (?/fire)
1 fortunata
5 controllers (ice/rad, ill/rad, 2 fire/kin, plant/kin)

We got to mission 4 before we ran into any serious problems. I had a moment of terror when I remembered plant holds only affect things on the ground (so, no good on flying mitos) but fortunately, a teammate told me this was "fixed" awhile back along with earth control holds. We also found that the fire aura brute's Healing Flames will work even when being debuffed by the green mitos.

On the downside, we had a really hard time holding the green mitos. Sunday's successful MoLGTF run had 2 fortunata and 5 controllers for a total of 7 people with holds (so to beat 50 mag everyone needs to stack about 2.4 holds); this attempt had 1 fortunata and 4 controllers with holds (the illusionist did not take any of his hold powers; I'm guessing because Phantom Army is just that good). With only 5 people with holds, to beat 50 mag everyone needed to stack about 3.3 holds. This was possible, but we had to fight mitos for much longer before we could kill them, leaving us exposed to damage for much longer, and as a result we had a lot of deaths (failing the "Master Of" part in short order). For some reason we had one teammate that was convinced that the reason we weren't succeeding is because I didn't have the Tree of Life power, which he thought could give the stone tanker enough regen to tank Hamidon. This seemed a little crazy to me, but I couldn't seem to convince him otherwise. I don't have Tree of Life in my build right now because I think people that are speed boosted would never stand still long enough to benefit from it; even if I did, I'm not convinced it's a magic bullet against Hamidon (it'd be risky to fly over to the tank and drop a tree every now and then, and even so, it's only 150% regen). But I could be wrong.

The team eventually came to the conclusion that we were struggling because we just didn't have enough holding power. Despite this, we persisted and were eventually able to kill off the green mitos, mostly through zerg tactics.

After beating Hamidon, we entered the final mission to find level 53 and 54 mobs because the original leader had disconnected and the person who now had the star was on +3 difficulty. Despite this handicap, the final mission was trivial compared to the Hamidon fight, and we finished the TF in a total of 1hr 37m.

Finished the night soloing Spy Girl (26 MA/ninj stalker) through The Do-it-Yourself Casino Heist, a MA story arc where you rob the Golden Giza. This was a pretty good arc with lots of detail, but started off a little slow and had a couple logic problems that bugged me. I gave it 4 stars. While playing this, a passerby in the AE building complimented me on Spy Girl's background story, which was nice.


Tuesday

Spacegirl (50 mind/rad controller) joined a friend who invited her to an 8-player pickup team doing AVs in Peregrine Island. This team was a little squishy and we had a lot of deaths, but nevertheless we beat up Neuron, Battle Maiden and Black Swan before the team decided to head to Striga Isle to do the Hess TF.

I switched to Arrow Girl (28 archery/nrg blaster) for Hess TF for exp and the badge. The person running the Hess TF was very organized, clearly having done a lot of Hess TFs before, and stealth/TPed the team to almost everything. Finished the Hess TF in 42m 42s.

5/27/2010

Found some notes that didn't make it into my earlier updates, so adding them here.

Wednesday 5/19

Deianira (12 SS/SR brute) solo'd through Sibling Rivalry, an MA story arc where you pursue this mysterious enemy that is stalking Sister Flame. This arc is remarkable in that it was written by someone who was like 8 years old. It's very good for someone of that age, but if you don't consider that, I thought it was a bit lacking; the characterization is a bit weak and "the real story" of why the bad guy is going after her isn't really explained. I ended up giving it 3 stars, but felt a little guilty about it. (Later I got a reply, presumably from her dad, that Sister Flame had apparently gotten bored with Mission Architect and moved on to other things; which seemed like a shame. Oh well.)

After that I joined a 4 player pickup team that had no support characters. This started off well until the team leader decided it would be a good idea to raise difficulty to x8 for a Goldbrickers mission, which promptly gave us a team wipe (the Goldbrickers' sonic attacks are very nasty in large numbers) and the team kinda dissolved after that. It did get Deianira to level 13, though.

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a Statesman TF with 1 tanker, 2 controllers (kin and rad) and 5 blasters. The team leader had asked me to play a blaster, and when I saw we had 5 blasters, I asked, are you sure you wouldn't rather I play something else? But he was a big believer in DPS, so we did it like that. We had a lot of deaths among the squishies (though I managed to avoid being among these casualties) but otherwise did just fine, finishing in 56m 40s and getting me a Nucleolus SHO.


Thursday 5/20

San Min (34 MA/will scrapper) did a Sister Psyche TF on an 8-player team, finishing in 1h 35m and getting her to level 35. I also got a costume compliment from a teammate.

Spy Girl (25 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through That All Men Are Created Equal, a nifty geopolitical thriller where you try to protect political candidates from a (fictional) fledgeling Eastern European country holding its first elections. I thought this was interesting and well-written; I gave it 5 stars. Did a few paper missions after that to get to level 26.


Wednesday 5/26

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) joined a Master of Dr Kahn TF that we sorta speeded at the same time. This went quite well; in the last mission we had a few squishies get low on life from Reichsman's AoEs but managed to survive it. Finished in 35m 46s and got the Master of the 5th Column badge.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd through The Dead and the Damned, an MA story arc where you help a couple star-crossed lovers get together against the backdrop of a Hellions/Skulls gang war, with magic thrown in. The story was quite well done, with lots of details, and I gave it 5 stars.

6/3/2010

Thursday 5/27

Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute) did a speed ITF in 25m 51s.

Mayday (50 fortunata) did a "speed" LGTF with a control-heavy team (1 brute, 3 fortunata, 4 controllers) to try and counter the green mitos. Had some deaths but managed to knock it out in 29m 6s.

Kyrie Eleison (49 fire/regen scrapper) joined an STF; we were kinda damage heavy and suffered a lot of blaster deaths. Our stone tanker tanked LR straight-up and seemed confident enough to go AFK while doing so; not really sure how people do this, my tanker seems to get eaten up fighting LR head-on. Anyhow, we finsihed in 58m 45s and got Kyrie to level 50. I got a Golgi as HO reward.

San Min (37 MA/will scrapper) solo'd The Portal Bandits, a MA story arc about some lizard-girl aliens who try and steal Portal technology from hapless Earthlings. This was pretty well-written and I gave it 5 stars.

Deianira (13 SS/SR brute) solo'd Future Skulls, a MA story arc about averting a possible-future where the Skulls grow powerful enough to conquer the world; this was also pretty good and I gave it 5 stars. This got Deianira to 14.


Monday 5/31

I was away for the long weekend, and when I got back, Two Tickets to Westerly, my Dev Choice'd MA story arc, had reached over 1000 plays (which is where the MA interface gives up counting). This was my first MA arc to reach this many plays. I'd like to think it's because it's a great story arc, but my feeling is that it's getting so many plays because it's the shortest story arc on the first page of the default MA search, which probably makes it look more inviting (due to lower time commitment) to the casual MA player. Nevertheless, I thought this was pretty cool.

Lady Arachne (50 wolf spider) joined a Recluse SF that finished in 30m 57s. I got a Centriole. Went on to do a speed ITF in 22m 51s; got a Numina's (END/HEAL) recipe as a random drop.

Mega (50 SS/will brute) did a Sharkhead SF in 24m 0s.

Blond Justice (50 broadsword/shield scrapper) did an STF in 36m 35s, getting a Nucleolus. For some reason my regular STF team really loves shield scrappers, while I think most pickup STF teams would rather not have scrappers at all. Went on to do a speed ITF; had a lot of death due to the team being pretty light on support, coupled with intentionally splitting up to rescue more sibyls/break more crystals faster. Still finished ijn 26m 7s.

I rerolled Psychic Woman to be a mind/emp controller; my thought process was that a mind/emp controller would be a huge help on the Master of Lady Grey TF runs I've been on lately, being able to give +regen to a tanker and stack holds quickly on green mitos. But green mitos should be fixed any day now, certainly before I get a new controller to level 45. So I'm not sure this actually made sense to do, but oh well. I solo'd my way up to 5, then sidekicked up to help a couple blasters in their teens defeat Dr. Vahzilok (as an elite boss), and tagged along on their fortune teller mission for the Spelunker badge, which got me to level 6.


Tuesday 6/1

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a 7 player speed ITF, finishing in 22m 33s.

Mayday (50 fortunata) solo'd The All-Seeing Eye, a MA story arc where you try to prevent villains from gaining control of a spy satellite. I thought this was a pretty neat idea and pretty well executed; I gave it 5 stars.

Went on to join a Master of Lady Grey TF attempt, with a team of 1 tanker, 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers. We purposely failed missions 1 and 3, then successfully beat Hamidon and his cheating mitos on mission 4. The team leader asked me to call targets for mitos, so we could more quickly stack holds and damage on them, which made it feel like a "real" Hami raid. Unfortunately the team leader (one of the squishy controllers) managed to get killed on mission 5 trying to stealth past Rikti drones, so we ended up failing the Master Of attempt anyway. We finished anyway, in 36m 23s, which was a surprisingly quick time.

During this MoLGTF attempt I also found out that the fortunata "Psychic Wail" power doesn't zero out your END. I had always thought it would crash my END (like most tier 9 Nova-like attacks) and drop my 7 toggles, so had never taken the power. But if it's a crash-less Nova, I'm thinking I need to respec to work it into my build.

After that I switched to Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) for a Master of the Statesman TF attempt, with a team of 1 stone tanker, 3 illusion controllers, 1 dark defender (me), 2 blasters and 1 scrapper. A blaster promptly died on mission 1, which caused us to restart. The second try we did pretty well until the last mission, where our scrapper entered melee with the patron AVs despite the leader asking him not to, and got killed as a result. Finished the STF anyway in 1hr 4m and got a junky Peroxisome SHO.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd Just Say No to Dihydrogen Monoxide, a MA story arc where the Council threatens to contaminate Paragon City's water supply with Dihydrogen Monoxide, which certainly sounds dangerous. The first mission was pretty funny, but it used up all the best jokes, leaving not enough funny in the remaining 2 missions; it was kind of like a comedy skit that just goes a little too long. I ended up giving the arc 4 stars.


Wednesday 6/2

Spy Girl (26 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd Too Many Bunnygirls, a MA story arc where you foil a nefarious plot to turn innocent citizens into bunnygirls. This was silly but fun; but I felt the ending needed a little something more to wrap up the arc. I gave it 4 stars.

Deianira (14 SS/SR brute) solo'd A Series of Unfortunate Kidnappings, a MA story arc where four different villain groups simultaneously kidnap kids from the same orphanage (which happens to be an orphanage for super-powered children). This wasn't a bad story, but I found the whole situation just too implausible to really believe in. I gave it 4 stars.

Mayday (50 fortunata) did a re-do of the previous night's MoLGTF attempt, with basically the same team makeup (though a few different players): 3 fortunata, 2 doms, 2 controllers, 1 stone tanker. This time we had one of Glacia's guards in mission 3 get knocked through a cave wall and we had to wait for a GM to answer our petition before we could move on. Otherwise went fine, and we successfully completed the MoLGTF in 56m 18s (including the wait time).

After that Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) did a re-do of the previous night's MoSTF attempt, with 1 stone tank, 3 controllers, 1 defender (me), 2 blasters, 1 scrapper. This time we had a squishy die during the fight with Dr Aeon, so we didn't get the Master of badge, but we did finish the STF in 52m 49s. I got a Nucleolus SHO.

Finished the night doing two speed ITFs, one with Star Amethyst (23m 37s) and one with Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute, team was very damage heavy with 5 scrappers and 1 blaster, 21m 28s).

6/8/2010

Wednesday

Mayday (50 fortunata) joined another MoLGTF attempt, this time with 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers, 1 stone tanker. We had a problem during mission 3 when one of the Rikti guarding Glacia got knocked through a wall, making the mission impossible to complete. Fortunately, a GM answered a petition relatively quickly, popping the Rikti out of the wall, which let us, umm, successfully fail the mission. The team leader asked me to call targets on the mitos in mission 4; those old binds for PvP targeting were pretty helpful for this. I was pretty aggressive about going after the mitos, and with the amount of control we had on the team, we were able to pop the green mitos pretty handily; though we retreated a few times to let the stone tanker hide and recover health; no one died, however, and we finished the TF in 56m 18s (including the time waiting for a GM) and successfully got the Master of the Lady Grey TF badge.

After that Star Amethyst (50 dark/ice defender) joined a MoSTF attempt with 1 stone tanker, 3 controllers, 1 defender, 2 blasters and 1 scrapper. One of the controllers died during the Dr Aeon fight in mission 4, I think killed by stray AoEs from Arachnos minions and Dr Aeon himself. Nevertheless we finished the STF in 52m 49s; I got a Nucleolus SHO.

Star Amethyst went on to do a speed ITF (23m 37s), then I switched to Shield Maiden (50 mace/shield brute) for another speed ITF (21m 28s). The second one was a little faster due to the team being more damage-heavy.


Thursday

Mystery Girl (46 emp/pistols defender) joined a pickup STF attempt. Most STFs I've been on lately don't have an empath so I wasn't sure how I'd do, but I actually felt very useful, mostly because the regen scrapper and the blasters, even with fortitude, all needed quite a lot of heal spamming to keep alive. I even got complimented on my healing, which was nice. Finished in 1h 13m, got Mystery Girl to level 47, and a Peroxisome as reward.

After that I played Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) on an RSF. I managed to get killed twice by Longbow during the first mission, mostly due to carelessness (I had assumed an area was cleared that wasn't, then didn't run fast enough when I saw there were Longbow all over it). Despite this we otherwise did fine, and beat the Freedom Phalanx on our first try, finishing in 35m 13s. I got a Golgi.

I also noticed I had a lot of tickets piled up at the AE building from people playing my story arcs; I claimed 3700 of them on Indigo Ifrit for a Gold reward roll, and lucked into a Miracle (+recovery) recipe, which I immediately crafted and slotted.

Arrow Girl (28 archery/nrg blaster) joined a 7 player pickup team fighting Freaks at +2 difficulty; we seemed to die a lot, though, and had two team wipes.


Friday

Deianira (15 SS/SR brute) lackeyed to a level 50 villain team doing paper missions in Grandville against the Council, which got her to level 19.

Mayday joined yet another MoLGTF, with a team of 3 fortunata, 2 dominators, 2 controllers and 1 fire brute. Most of the team had the badge already, so this attempt was mostly for bragging rights. We purposely failed mission 1 and mission 3, I was assigned to call target mitos on mission 4 again, and we stealthed to the end of mission 5; everything worked perfectly and we finished the MoLGTF in a speedy 34m 8s, which got posted on the badge forum to wow other servers with our awesomeness.

After that, Star Amethyst joined a speed ITF, finishing in 24m 26s; then I played Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) on a MoSTF attempt. I actually have the MoSTF badge on Police Woman already, but the team leader had asked me to bring a blaster, as he really wanted a blaster-heavy team. Our team makeup was 1 stone tanker, 2 controllers (cold and kin), 1 defender (rad) and 4 blasters. One of the other blasters promptly died during mission 1, causing us to restart; on our second attempt, a controller managed to die to Silver Mantis on mission 4, after which we decided to finish the TF anyway. Completed the STF in 55m 24s and got a Golgi.


Saturday

I've been making an effort to play more MA story arcs to fill out my Alternate Contact Tree using MA Arcs, and so I solo'd San Min (37 MA/will scrapper) through The Rikti Accession (a neat arc where you help the Traditionalist Rikti against the Restructurist Rikti; I gave it 5 stars), The Sleeping Star (started out a missing persons investigation but soon turned into an origin story for some kheldian, which kinda turned me off; I gave it 3 stars) and OMG! It's the LOLBAT! (a jokey story arc where you fight the rogues gallery of the LOLBAT; this was hilarious and stupid at the same time; I ended up giving it 4 stars).

San Min joined a pickup ITF after that, clearing most. On paper the team seemed pretty support-light, with 2 kins, 1 tank, 1 veat, 3 scrappers and 1 blaster, but we actually did really well, probably due to our massive DPS output. Finished in 47m 58s and got San Min to level 39.

After that San Min joined a pickup Moonfire TF, which was briefly interrupted to fight off a zombie invasion of Striga Isle. We inadvertantly failed the "Rescue Dr Todd" mission (managed to stealth to her and free her, but then died to ambushes), but still finished in 1hr 25m. I got the Safety in Numbers, Glimpsed the Abyss and Silver Bullet badges from killing lots of stuff during this TF.

Teal Serpent (27 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team doing level 42ish missions. We were pretty support heavy, but this worked well; we beat up Foreshadow, Malaise, Ice Mistral (3 times!) and Scirocco. This got Teal Serpent to level 29.


Sunday

Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) joined a 7-player Posi 1 TF, mostly for the badge. We were kinda support light, with 4 scrappers, 1 blaster, 1 empath and 1 peacebringer, and had a near-wipe against Doc Buzzsaw and the Vahz, and two actual team wipes in the final mission. The CoT ambush got us on the steps of city hall, then after that we managed to lose to our evil doppelgangers on our first attempt. The second attempt went better as we all targeted through of the scrappers, to focus fire on one doppelganger at a time. Finished in 1h 10m and got the Rule of Three badge, which is badge #715 for me.

Kashira (31 db/ninj stalker) solo'd through All in the Family, an AE story arc where you become a contract killer for the Family. It was well-written with good characters, and had a lot of drama at the end, where you're given a choice as to how you want the story to end; I gave it 5 stars.


Monday

A mid-level controller friend was looking for team and not getting any bites, so I logged on Arrow Girl (29 archery/nrg blaster) and formed an 8-player pickup team which did Tobias Hansen's story arc in Striga Isle. Finishing Tobias' arc got me 13 merits, level 30, and enough vampire kills to get The Slayer badge.

After that team broke up, Teal Serpent (29 archery/traps corruptor) joined an 8-player villain team running level 42 paper missions in Grandville, culminating in a Founders Falls mayhem on +2 difficulty where we had a very rough fight with Foreshadow as an AV, who nearly wiped the team. It felt like my web grenades and poison traps kept him busy enough to let the team use some awakens and get back in the fight, and we managed to beat him after a lengthy battle. This got Teal Serpent to level 31.

6/15/2010

Tuesday

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a 4 player pickup team (kin, 2 scrappers, tanker) that battled and defeated Eochai and Jack-in-Irons. It took awhile but we managed to do it. I went on to do a speed ITF in 25m 39s.


Wednesday

I was only online very briefly, but while I was on, Police Woman (50 AR/dev blaster) helped kill Babbage in Skyway.


Thursday

Mystery Girl (47 emp/pistols defender) joined an 8-player Crimson Order SG team doing Praetorian missions in Peregrine Island. We beat up Chimera and Shadow Hunter while I was with the team, getting Mystery Girl to level 48.

Indigo Ifrit (50 fire/rad corruptor) joined a speed RSF. CoH crashed on me during the final fight with the Freedom Phalanx; when I logged back in, I was dead, but somehow still got credit for completing the RSF (I'm guessing because the team had not broken up yet). I got an Enzyme. A teammate told me the SF time was 28m 58s.

Police Woman joined a Master of the LGTF attempt with tanker, 2 blasters, fortunata, 2 defenders, 2 controllers. We cleared most missions and were pretty slow and careful overall. With the new patch, the green mitos die much easier now. The tanker had a near-death experience from DOTs during this mission, but survived. Finished the TF in 1hr 14m and got the Master of the Lady Grey TF badge (badge #716 for Police Woman).


Friday

Quick Katie (50 plant/kin controller) joined a MoLGTF attempt with a fire tanker, inv brute, 3 controllers (kin, rad, emp), fortunata, scrapper and blaster. We immediately had to restart due to not having the "Master" settings on the first try, then we had a controller die to pylon damage between missions 1 and 2, which caused us to restart a second time. On our third try we made it to the Hamidon mission, where a couple people managed to die to DOT damage from the mitos. We were far enough along that we decided to just finish the LGTF, completing it in 59m 21s.

I had a teammate on the MoLGTF compliment me on my Two Tickets to Westerly arc! That was a nice feeling. I also had two players send me tells praising the Contact Tree for MA Arcs thread that I've been maintaining; one because it gave her some good MA arcs to play, and the other one because it had gotten her story arc played by more people.

A friend had made a newbie empath defender, even though she already had one, just because she likes empaths. I mentioned to her that I had made a newbie empath controller, and it would be cool to team up, but a lowbie empath duo didn't seem like it would really work. But we decided to try it anyway! So I played Psychic Woman (6 mind/emp controller) and ended up recruiting more people to help do damage for us, eventually getting up to an 8-player pickup team doing missions in Kings Row and Steel Canyon. We did an Atlas safeguard mission and most of the Midnighter arc; failed the Lady Jane mission on our first attempt (due to Lady Jane massively overaggroing everything in sight), but succeeded on the second try (where I set the mission of a lower level character). This got Psychic Woman to level 14.

Arrow Girl (30 archery/nrg blaster) joined a Sister Psyche TF. I didn't really need the badge, but was trying to help a friend get the TF started; he was worried not enough people would join, but actually the team ended up quickly filling up to 8. We had one rad who died a lot for no real reason (I think he would go off on his own and solo or something). I ended up stealthing through several of the missions, though I didn't really have proper stealth; just pool power stealth and eating some Lucks to survive aggro. The team had some weird idea to stealth the final mission, by sneaking to Clamor's room, beating the AV, then working our way back freeing the hostages; I'm not sure this actually saved any time though. Finished in 1hr 38min and got Arrow Girl to level 31.


Saturday

San Min (39 MA/will scrapper) joined a Rule of Three (Positron 1) TF on a 5 player team. Things were going pretty well until the last mission. The empath had just expressed how bored she was and how we ought to raise difficulty because no one was getting hurt, when this massive CoT ambush occurred on the front steps of city hall and killed everyone but the two scrappers. Life is ironic like that. I only survived because I ate 10 Lucks, which is normally way overkill but I had to eat this many to counter the massive DEF debuff from the CoT's earth control powers. After beating the ambush we fought our evil doubles (prioritizing the evil support toons first) and finished the TF in 54m 33s.

The same team was about to start the Dam Heroes (Positron 2) TF. The team leader asked if anyone objected to a 2-boxing player joining with both toons; I think the rest of the team was OK with it, but I expressed mild disapproval. But when the 2-boxer joined with his first toon, I decided this actually would bug me too much for me to really enjoy the TF, so I said I would drop from the team. After I quit, the team leader asked me to come back, though, and we ended up doing the TF without the 2-boxing player. In hindsight this might've been unreasonable on my part, but I felt like I would be pretty annoyed during the TF if we were dragging along a toon that wasn't really being played. In any case, with our 6 player team we ended up finishing the TF in 53m 54s. This got San Min to level 40 and the Task Force Commander accolade (which is +60 max HP at her level).

After that I solo'd Millie Volt (50 elec/elec brute) for a bit, doing the Welcome to Vanguard arc in RWZ (9 merits) and The Horrible Mr Caractacus in AE, an arc where a demonic butler agrees to serve you, but ends up dragging you into some kind of war against angels. The demonic butler was awesome, but I didn't quite follow how the plot pitted me against the agents of Heaven. I gave it 4 stars.

Spy Girl (26 MA/ninj stalker) solo'd through Signal: Noise, a horror story arc in AE. This arc gave terrible exp and was rather confusing, but the story was extremely creepy and well-written. I gave it 5 stars.

Spy Girl also solo'd through Hopeless, an extremely villainous arc where a rich businessman hires you to kill the people responsible for the loss of his grand-daughter. There was a pretty sinister plot twist at the end which led up to a "player's choice" for the ending; this ended up making me interested enough to play through the arc twice to see both endings. I gave it 5 stars.

Water Lily (23 rad/storm corruptor) lackeyed to a small LEGION villain team doing level 45 missions; we beat up the Goddess Hequat, Dr Aeon twice, and had a team wipe against Lord Recluse after a long fight where we couldn't out-heal his DPS and eventually ran out of END and died. On our second try I managed to hurricane away most of his army of minions and we managed to narrowly beat him. This got Water Lily to level 27.

San Min (40 MA/will scrapper) joined a 7-player team doing Praetorian missions, beating Neuron and Antimatter.


Sunday

I rerolled Linda Lightspeed (formerly a 30 rad/nrg blaster, but I got kinda tired of that) as a rad/kin corruptor, and ended up forming a lowbie villain pickup team doing missions in Mercy Island and Port Oakes for most of the day. We did an Atlas mayhem, Kings Row mayhem and the Plague Carrier badge mission. While on this team, I tried to straighten out some sort of drama between a couple veteran players, but without much luck; this was actually pretty difficult while simultaneously trying to kin for a team attacking the bank in Atlas. Nevertheless this got the new Linda to level 14. I kinda figure she'll be a candidate to switch to blue side when Going Rogue comes out; I'm thinking rad/kin corruptor may be more fun for this concept than either rad/nrg blaster or kin/rad defender.

Finished the night playing Deianira (19 SS/SR brute) through Scheduling Conflict, an MA arc where you seem to be portrayed as an assistant to a secretary working for Arachnos. The secretary character was written to be quite funny, but I felt the plot was a little weak and I never did quite understand why any villain would agree to be an assistant to a lowly secretary. I gave it 4 stars.