PW's war journal

Thu 8/4/2011

Millie Volt (52 elec/elec brute) joined a pickup BAF via the LFG queue and got a common.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) joined a pickup Keyes via the LFG queue (that's what I get for queueing First Available). We suffered horrific attrition from the antimatter pulse. This was the first time I played a melee toon on Keyes and I found it quite difficult to melee in the final fight against Antimatter because it seemed like the obliteration attack nearly always would be centered on the melee furball. This took a long time and we had a lot of deaths, but we eventually won. I got an uncommon and to 71% judgement, 96% interface. I followed that with a pickup BAF, getting a common and to 95% judgement.

Fire Maiden (52 SS/fire brute) joined a 9 player Lambda via the LFG queue. The leader gave no directions, which resulted in the league getting split up as some people went after turrets and others went inside to kill the guard. I was the "tank" for the league but no one really followed me; I ended up soloing 4 containers on the acid side, then tanked Marauder. I got an uncommon and Destiny unlocked, and crafted a Barrier Radial Invocation (DEF/RES/1 rez).


Fri 8/5

Darla Doppler (51 kin/sonic def) joined an STF which finished in 28m 41s; I took the essence of incarnate.

Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr) did a speed Master of the ITF. We had lots of buff and succeeded at the "Master of", finishing in 18m 10s. I took the ancient nictus fragment. Followed that with an RSF that finished in 27m 36s; I took an essence of incarnate.

Strong Woman (51 inv/SS tank) joined a 10 player Lambda, getting a common and to 84% destiny.


Sat 8/6

I did a bunch of BAF trials in a row, switching between toons each time to maximize Empyrean merits. Star Amethyst (52 dark/ice def) got a very rare and Lore unlocked. Rain Dancer (52 storm/arch def) got a common and Lore unlocked, and crafted a Polar Lights ally (I figured the wintry Polar Lights would match her stormy powers). Mayday (51 fortunata) got a common, Judgement unlocked and 3% Lore exp. Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols def) got a common and to 27% Lore. Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr) got a very rare and to 32% Lore. Darla Doppler (51 kin/sonic def) got an uncommon and to 43% Lore.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a Lambda and got an uncommon, Interface unlocked and 28% Destiny. I crafted her a Reactive Total Radial Conversion (75% fire dot).

Millie Volt (52 elec/elec brute) joined yet another BAF. This one was trying for the Keep em Separated badge, and split the league into 4 teams, assigning 2 teams to each AV. At the end it seemed like the teams on Nightstar (which is where I was at) killed her much faster, while the Siege teams were struggling to survive. As a result, we killed Nightstar first twice, and had her revive twice. Finally many of the players assigned to Nightstar went to the other side to help on Siege, which resulted in the Nightstar team getting wiped out (oops). We ran back from the hospital and regained control, and finally brought both AVs down simultaneously, getting the Keep em Separated badge, an uncommon, and to 74% Lore.

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a Keyes trial attempting the Loves a Challenge badge. We had 12 players including 2 empaths. The leader had two strategies in mind; we first tried "Plan A" which involved people hospitalling for inspirations before the last fight, and permanently stationing an empath in the hospital and have her TP people there whenever they were targeted for disintegration. We cleared through the reactors quickly, but then some people were in the hospital buying inspirations while others had already aggroed Antimatter, then people got hit by disintegration and things went south quickly. We completed the trial; got no badge, but did get a common reward.

On our second Keyes attempt I switched to Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols def); this time we had 13 players including 2 empaths (one of which was me). "Plan B" simply had both empaths focused on watching for disintegration and healing anyone affected by it. This seemed to be working and we were keeping up pretty well, but apparently we damaged Antimatter a little too fast due to aggressive pets, and as a result we got hit by Time Stop at a bad moment, causing most of the raid to get hit by Obliteration and several to be killed. We finished the trial but didn't get a badge; I got a common and to 37% Lore. Afterwards we discussed the relative merits of the plans and everyone agreed Plan B worked better. One player even said "I think it's best if we forget there ever was a Plan A."


Sun 8/7

Millie Volt (52 elec/elec brute) did a BAF, got a common and to 90% lore.

I joined a team that did a bunch of 1st villain respecs in a row (it being the WST). I switched toons a lot to pick up Notices of the Well. Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) did one in 10m 51s. Yuki-Onna (51 ice/cold corr) in 9m 31s. Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr) in 11m 52s. Mega (52 SS/will brute) in 10m 42s. April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) in 10m 55s. Millie Volt in 10m 53s.

Police Woman solo queue'd into a 14 player Keyes trial, because I knew some friends were about to start one. The league had 2 empaths and were attempting the Avoids the Green Stuff and Loves a Challenge badges (no deaths to disintegration and skipping consoles); the leader had planned to kick their random pickup person until they saw it was me. We got through the 3 smokestacks really quick; on the last two, we completed 8 computers before Antimatter arrived and had to be dragged around. We all moved to the truck stop and tried dodging green circles, but someone got caught in one. The two empaths were on the scene ("Plan B") and kept people healed and we actually succeeded at having no deaths. I got a common reward and the Loves a Challenge and Master of Keyes badges.

The league was pretty psyched for a second run with some character swaps for badging; I switched to Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols def) to help out. We had a 14 player league including 3 healers. I tried keeping Adrenaline Boost on the other healers for the extra recharge, but neither seemed to think it helped that much. We missed the green circle badge again, and we had a scary moment where pets started to aggro on the regen consoles in the final fight, but managed to succeed on the no deaths part. I got a rare, to 46% Lore exp, and the Loves a Challenge badge.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a speed ITF with "master of" settings, but we weren't too serious about it and had one death. Finished in 19m 17s and got 26 merits.

Indigo Ifrit (51 fire/rad corr) joined a BAF, got an uncommon and to 29% Judgement (from 0).


Mon 8/8

An all TA ITF was forming, which I tried to join with April Fool (52 thug/TA MM). Not enough people were interested (probably not surprising..) but some people were calling for PvP in Recluse's Victory, so I went there. I never saw anyone but a pair of hero-aligned stalkers who seemed to be teamed up. Their standard trick was a double Assassin Strike, but this actually did not kill me (Bodyguard mode, yay) and they would turn tail and superspeed away; usually they would escape despite my Glue Arrow and Entangle Arrows, but I was able to pin down one of the stalkers long enough for pets to kill him twice. I think bodyguard mode perplexed them a bit and they started doing interesting things like assassin strike my minions, and having one stalker show himself long enough to try and lure me into chasing him (and away from my pets). I died once from pure carelessness on my part, when I was momentarily away from my pets trying to grab an Arachnos heavy.

Fire Maiden (53 SS/fire brute) joined a pickup Cathedral of Pain trial. This took a really long time to recruit enough to try, but we finally got going with a 20 player league. We had a very difficult time coordinating the 3 obelisk fights at the beginning. The team I was on seemed much higher DPS than the others, killing our monument much faster than the others, while another team seemed to kill theirs glacially slow (we were supposed to kill them at the same time). I stopped attacking our monument to try and even things out and one of our team members moved to help the low DPS team. We tried to coordinate by reducing all monuments to about 20% life, but this didn't work because someone would invariably kill theirs; then we switched to reducing all monuments to 50% life, then the leader would call "go!". Unfortunately the leader would frequently call "go!" right before a respawn occurred, raising the shields protecting the monuments. We messed up the timing of this probably 8 times and people were getting frustrated; we finally succeeded at getting them all down at the same time, but it wasn't because we were doing better, it seemed more like we just got lucky that time. Once we got into the area with Aspect of Rularuu, things went a lot better; the AV itself seemed a lot easier than I remembered (the last attempt I was on required everyone to bring Warburg nukes), probably due to player characters being a lot more powerful now. I got 11 merits and the Pain killer and Power Liberator badges.

Millie Volt (52 elec/elec brute) joined a BAF, got a common and Lore unlocked. I waffled on which pet to give her, finally deciding on a Storm Elemental Ally, figuring that sorta matches her electric powers.

Strong Woman (51 inv/SS tanker) joined a 13 player Lambda; I got to tank Marauder, and stood up pretty well against him. I got a common and Destiny unlocked. I had a very rare and 2 rare salvages from previous runs and burned lots of astrals, empyreans and notices to craft these into a Rebirth Radial Epiphany (tier 4 heal/regen/incarnate shift). I figure a big heal and high regen will be terrific for an invuln tank, especially since I can leverage it with Dull Pain's increase to my max HP.


Tue 8/9

Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr) joined a 14 player Keyes, attempting the Avoid the Green Stuff and Bunker Buster badges (we didn't have enough healing to realistically attempt Loves a Challenge), but missed both; despite being warned about the green circles, people got caught in them right away. Got a common and to 42% Lore.

I switched to Mayday (51 fortunata) for the next Keyes run, which had 18 players. Again people got caught in the green obliteration circles right away. This time we got Bunker Buster, though; I also got a rare and to 14% Lore and 63% Destiny.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) joined a 14 player Lambda, getting an uncommon and to 48% Destiny. The same league did a BAF, recruiting up to 18 players. I got a common, Judgement unlocked and 14% into Lore. I crafted an Ion Core Judgement (tier 2, chance of extra damage to low ranked enemies).

Thu 8/11/2011

Double exp weekend began as of Thursday.

Tehuantl (9 widow) finished soloing Kalinda's story arcs, getting to level 10.

Water Lily (41 rad/storm corr) did a Posi 1 TF, mostly went OK except when we tried to stealth through missions, which the team wasn't good at and resulted in lots of deaths. Otherwise did fine, finishing in 1h 7m and getting Water Lily to 42, though I confess I'm not that excited about rad blast lately.

Tour de Force (41 ff/nrg def) did a Numina TF in 1h 29m, no real issues and got to level 42.


Fri 8/12

Kyrie (40 fire/fire brute) joined an Eden trial. The leader was only level 39 and the Eden trial apparently doesn't scale to match your level, so everything we fought was +2 to us. As brute, I got to be "tank" for the team, but as a fire brute running on SOs versus +2 difficulty, I felt pretty squishy. We fought our way to the Crystal Titan and initially just rushed him, but we got foot stomped to death; I eventually ran out of ambrosia and we had a team wipe. On our second try the leader asked me to taunt the Titan from the far side while everyone hit the Titan from the back, and the healers would heal me from range. I also tanked while flying which seemed to reduce damage a bit (less foot stomp anyway). This worked very well and we beat the titan, finishing the trial in 1h 5m and getting Kyrie to level 41.

Marcia Law (31 pistols/kin corr) joined a vigilante tips team, but this turned out to be a level 50 malta mission where the leader was 3 boxing, two of those being AFK toons by the door. We had no tanks (aside from 2 that were AFK being PL'd) and little support, and I died 3 times in a row to gunslingers. I managed to find the last glowy and finish the mission, after which I excused myself from the team.

Spy Girl (48 MA/ninj stalker) joined a rogue tips team. We had a 3 player team that did 3 missions, getting Spy Girl to level 49.

Thunder Girl (50 elec/SR scrapper) joined a RWZ raid; the leader was very short on level 50 players since it was double exp weekend, so I volunteered to bring a level 50 to help out. I netted 727 vanguard merits. Afterwards I joined a Lambda trial, getting an uncommon and to 93% Interface exp.

Tehuantl (10 widow) solo'd Brick Johnson's arc to level 11, then joined some friends on a level 46 team doing missions in Grandville. This got me to level 14 in a single mission, but as a lowbie I felt guilty that I wasn't pulling my weight, so I switched to Marcia Law. We had a near wipe to Nemesis, but I also got enough exp to get to level 32 and the fun Hail of Bullets attack.


Sat 8/13

Mayday (51 fortunata) joined an 8 player Posi 2 TF. We had one bad moment during the last mission where people split up to get the various bombs and we suffered a partial wipe, but otherwise did fine, finishing in 59m 1s. I got 30 merits and a Notice of the Well.

Ice Kate (27 cold/ice def) joined a 4 player hero tips team, doing 2 missions to get to level 28. Then I joined a 6-player Moonfire TF. This was a little frustrating as we had 2 force field toons and myself as support, and neither of the FF toons would bubble reliably; a teammate pointed complimented me on keeping ice shields up, which I suspect was a hint to the others. Finished in 1h 20m and got to level 29. Later I helped fight the paladin construction site for the Knight Errant badge and joined an 8 player team for a Carnies mission, getting to level 30.

Marcia Law (32 pistols/kin corr) joined a 8 player Manticore TF; our team was mostly melee with only me and a TA for support. They seemed pretty happy to have a kin, though. We had one near wipe on the Congressman Birch mission where half the team was stealthing to the hostage and the other half was fighting their way up, but otherwise did fine, finishing in 1h 1m and getting Marcia to level 34. After that I joined a hero tip team for 3 missions, getting Marcia to level 35.

Tehuantl (14 widow) solo'd paper missions to 15, then joined an 8 player Cap SF with one player actually being a contact sitter. We had a team wipe against the Longbow ambushes in the portal tech base, but otherwise were fine, finishing in 24m 41s and getting Tehuantl to level 18.

Police Woman bought all 15 chest emblems at Astral Christy for 1 astral merit each; I didn't have any specific plans for them, but like having the costume options unlocked. The certificate UI kinda sucks IMHO, and I was a bit underwhelmed by the actual chest emblems costume pieces.

I also overheard someone on LB say that they like to farm the first mission of Two Tickets to Westerly, my Dev Choice arc. This seemed really weird...that mission just has ordinary Skulls in it. Why would anyone farm level 14 Skulls?

I really wanted to start a new toon for double exp, and I kinda wanted a fire-themed toon. I ended up deciding on a fire/fire dom over a fire/thermal corr, mostly because I've done thermal before and I still haven't found a dom I liked, so wanted to give it another try. After spending some time trying to come up with a good name that wasn't taken, I started Julienne Fry (a newbie fire/fire dom) in Praetoria, soloing through the intro arc to level 4. I got one compliment on this name, and one person who freaked out because their ex-wife had a toon with almost exactly the same name. That made me feel weird; I had picked "Julienne Fry" mostly because I thought it would be funny.


Sun 8/14

So I felt weird about playing a toon that reminded someone of their ex-wife, so I rerolled her with a new name, Fricka C (still a newbie fire/fire dom). Oh sure, I could've bought a rename token, but at level 4 on double exp weekend, it was really simpler to just restart. Fricka C joined the Resistance and solo'd through the story arcs of Praetor White, Robert Flores, Tunnel Rat, Ricochet and Dr Arvin, getting to level 12. I chose to help Subject Zero get cured and escape.

Ice Kate (30 cold/ice def) joined an 8 player team working on Tina McIntyre's arc; we killed the Psychic Clockwork King, then did an outdoor mission fighting Battle Maiden's minions set at +4 difficulty. This was challenging but we survived due to cold and emp support (IMHO), though it was rather slow going. This got Ice Kate to level 33.

Tour de Force (42 ff/nrg def) joined an 8 player team for Posi 1 TF. I got a costume compliment for having a "classic look", which was nice. For the CoT ambushes in the final Atlas Park mission I managed to find a precise height at which I could hover, where I was close enough to Aid Other teammates, yet high enough above the ground to not be interrupted by Earthquake. Finished in 45m 42s and got level 43 and the Task Force Commander accolade.

Marcia Law (35 pistols/kin corr) joined a 6 player Cap SF. 3 toons on the team (including me) had very similar face and hair (brown hair in "low ponytail") and we joked that we could be sisters. Our team got split up when fighting Attack Leader Zurabsal resulting in several deaths, then got split up again in the Portal Corp mission while Longbow ambushes came in, resulting in more deaths. I think we kept getting split up because some team members were stealthing while others wanted to clear for the double exp; we ended up agreeing to clear. One person quit at the start of the last mission (I guess he really didn't want to clear the mission...), but the remaining 5 of us completely cleared Bat'Zul's lair. We had a little trouble pulling Bat'Zul to the door, then our stalker tanked Bat'Zul (sort of...) until he turned and ran at low life, but we got him. Finished in 1h 17m and got Marcia to level 36.


Mon 8/15

Some friends were running a Keyes trial and trying for badges and wanted healing, so I played Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols defender). I ended up being the only "healer" on the trial, so we tried for Avoids the Green Stuff. It took two tries, but we got Avoids the Green stuff on the second Keyes run. I got an uncommon and a common and to 66% Lore. Even though I was the only healer I still tried to heal the disintegrating people, for practice if nothing else. I can now recognize the graphic for someone being disintegrated: a tight glowing green sphere around their midsection; and I could save someone from dying if they helped a little by popping greens or self heals. If it was just me, though, and they didn't pop anything, they would die.


Tue 8/16

Another Keyes badge attempt; this time I mixed it up by playing Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr); the trial leader initially thought I was a dark defender for some reason, so was looking for more healers for awhile. I suspect this is because my heroic healer has a bright red outfit with hot pink powers, while my villainous healer is in black leather with maroon and dark purple powers, so doesn't look very healy. Anyway, we had 3 healers, so were trying for Loves a Challenge; but the other two were rarely played alts, at least one of which had never been played on any incarnate trial before (the player had been on Keyes trials before, but the toon never had), so they seemed to have a hard time landing much healing on the people getting disintegrated. Or maybe they gave up after the first person died each time. I imagine they just need more practice, it takes awhile to get the hang of doing it. I got a little too focused on healing for disintegration; at one point I obliviously moved to heal someone who was being disintegrated and standing in an Obliteration patch, resulting in me getting caught by the Obliteration patch too. Oops. Anyhow, we did two tries at the Keyes trial; completed both times but missed the badges both times. I got 2 commons and up to 65% Lore exp.

I ran Ice Kate over to the ski chalet hoping to unlock wintery badges and costume pieces; the place was open, but there was no contact for the Baby New Year missions, so I actually couldn't do anything. I could've spent candy canes, maybe, but I didn't really feel like buying them.

Instead I played Darla Doppler (52 kin/son def) on a LGTF which finished in 19m 31s and got 37 merits, a notice, and a hero 1 DNA.

Fricka C (12 fire/fire dom) solo'd a mission fighting Destroyers in Imperial City to get to level 13.

Teal Serpent (50 archery/traps corr) joined a 7 player ITF; we had a strange mix of support (pain, TA, traps and poison) but it seemed to work pretty well. I felt a little squishy despite having good range DEF and some lethal RES; possibly I'm a little spoiled from playing level shifted toons. Finished in 23m 10s and took the ancient nictus fragment.

Reading the stories of the Keyes badge attempts makes me sad that I work nights

Thu 8/18/2011

Police Woman hit the inf cap at the market, sent myself another 900M inf.

Darla Doppler (51 kin/son defender) joined a BAF trying for the Strong and Pretty badge. We had a team dedicated to clearing adds as soon as they spawned. The adds were clear when we killed Nightstar, but there was a 4 second delay before Siege went down, and a wave of reinforcements spawned the instant before Siege died. So we missed the badge, but completed the trial. I got a common and to 71% Lore exp.


Fri 8/19

Tehuantl (18 widow) tried a villainous AE arc called Household Chores of the Damned, whose premise is that you're a villain, but you have to do some random non-crime related errands. I think this sort of thing can work (my Papers and Paychecks has a similar concept), but the jobs presented were just too mundane for my taste, and the story was not funny enough to make up for it. I ended up quitting the arc without rating it.

Mega (53 SS/will brute) solo'd my Attack of the 50 Foot Villain arc on +1 x4, mostly for fun; I like the idea of being a gigantic monster attacking Tokyo. It's a defeat all and I capped my AE tickets for the map just before finishing, which is probably horribly inefficient since it causes me to miss out on the end-of-mission ticket bonus. After that I started an arc called Tales of the Creatures from Another Forbidden Planet, which also had a movie monster sort of theme; there was nice writing in the mission briefings, but the actual missions felt a bit tedious to me, and I ended up abandoning the arc in mission 2.

There were tons of people looking for a BAF trial in RWZ but no one willing to start one. So I formed and led one, playing Yuki-Onna (52 ice/cold corr), running three quick BAF trials, getting 3 commons and to 71% Lore. For some reason none of our tanks or brutes were willing to pull the AVs, so various impatient squishies ended up doing this instead; I watched them in combat and it did seem our tanks/brutes died a lot, so may have been a bit squishy for this level of content. I got a compliment on the fast turnaround on the trials I ran, also; I'm still using the method where I instantly queue for another BAF as soon as people zone back into RWZ from the last one, which I like because it nearly eliminates the downtime between trials.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a team that was forming to do the Lord Recluse SF, but we couldn't get enough to start and the leader gave up on forming it. I inherited the star and ended up forming and leading a 6 player ITF instead. We had a weird team mix: a MM, a controller, 2 corruptors, a lowbie blaster and a fortunata; with no melee at all I was a little worried about how we'd handle the AVs, but actually it went really well, with only one death, and we easily manhandled Romulus despite having no melee. I took the ancient nictus fragment and got a Gravitational Anchor (RCHG/ACC) recipe drop.


Sat 8/20

Blond Justice (53 sword/shield scrapper) solo'd Deadfellas, a well-written villainous AE arc with fun dialog, where you get involved in a fight between the Family and the undead. I gave it 5 stars.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a Lambda, got a common and to 82% Destiny. Went on to fight a Rikti invasion in Atlas Park, getting the Sentry and Chief badges.

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR scrapper) did a Lambda. The leader asked us not to close doors at all until we got credit for killing 30 reinforcements; the plan was to let a lot of adds build up on Marauder, then judgement them all. We did quickly get the 30 kills, but a lot of people died in the initial fight. We were low on support (only an emp and a traps) and more people died as the fight continued. With most people in the hospital we weren't able to keep steady DPS on Marauder, and ran out of grenades. We started killing weapon shipments for more grenades, but ended up running out of time with Marauder at 12% life. Despite failing the trial, I unlocked Interface and got 30% Destiny exp due to the sheer number of adds we killed. I crafted the lowest tier Reactive Interface (25% chance of RES debuff). After that I joined a full BAF trial and got an uncommon and to 45% Judgement; then another Lambda, which had rather poor aggro control even with 2 tanks, resulting in Marauder running all over the place. Despite that we beat the trial and I got a rare and to 61% Destiny. I felt very squishy as a soft capped (45% to all positions) SR scrapper on incarnate trials; the mobs were accurate enough to give me a hard time.

Mayday (51 fortunata) did a BAF trial, getting a common and to 37% Lore.


Sun 8/21

Mega (53 SS/will brute) solo'd Ghost Widow's patron arc, something I had started long ago but never got around to finishing. I beat up Numina, then did Ghost Widow's second arc, where I betrayed and beat up Ghost Widow. One of these missions involved rescuing a Night Widow ally who somehow got killed by AoE from Longbow mobs before I could rescue her, which seemed to bug out the mission; I had to log off to reset it.

Mercy Beaucoup (51 ice/kin corr) did a Lambda, getting a rare and to 96% Interface, then a BAF, getting a rare and to 64% Judgement. With several kin toons at 50 now, I'm having trouble deciding whether I prefer ice/kin corruptor or kin/sonic defender. I like the corruptor's high damage, especially from ice storm and blizzard, but the defender is a lot tougher to kill due to better resistance and defense, though it feels like she does less damage overall.

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) did a Lambda, getting a common and Destiny unlocked. I crafted a Barrier Radial (tier 2 defense/resist/ally rez).

Tehuantl (18 widow) joined a 10 player league that killed Deathsurge in Cap au Diable. I got a compliment on her origin story, which was nice.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a RWZ raid. We had a full 48 player league but surprisingly little lag. The raid was really successful; I got 954 vanguard merits and 2 reward merits from Ukon Gr'ai.

Schadenfreude (51 AR/pain corr) joined a Keyes trial badge attempt. We had 4 healers and the trial was going really well, but near the end of the Antimatter fight, someone died mysteriously, despite not being the target of either disintegrate or obliteration; I have no idea what happened there. Finished the trial but no badge, got a very rare and to 75% Lore. This was actually not too bad considering we had 2 players who had never done Keyes before.


Mon 8/22

Yuki-Onna (51 ice/cold corr) joined a Lady Grey TF. We had no actual controllers but lots of corruptors and defenders with holds that were able to handle the green mitos; I found Benumb was noticably good against the green mitos due to reducing their mez protection. Finished in 26m 10s and got a Hero 1 DNA, a notice, and 37 merits. After that I joined a BAF, getting an uncommon and to 94% Lore.

Tue 8/23/2011

I finally got around to respecing Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols def) to drop the old Fitness pool, which let me pick up Regen Aura (which I used to think was useless, but now I have a better opinion of), Temp Invuln and Suppressive Fire.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Mystery Girl I20.5: Level 50 Natural Defender
Primary Power Set: Empathy
Secondary Power Set: Dual Pistols
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Leadership
Ancillary Pool: Power Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Healing Aura -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(3), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(5), Dct'dW-Heal(5), Dct'dW-Rchg(7)
Level 1: Pistols -- HO:Centri(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(7), Apoc-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(9), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(9), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(11), Apoc-Dam%(11)
Level 2: Dual Wield -- Decim-Acc/Dmg(A), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(13), Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(19), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(19), HO:Centri(21)
Level 4: Heal Other -- Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(A), Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(17), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(23), Dct'dW-Heal(25), Dct'dW-Rchg(25)
Level 6: Resurrect -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 8: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), Krma-ResKB(21)
Level 10: Swap Ammo
Level 12: Fortitude -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(27), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(27), RechRdx-I(29)
Level 14: Super Speed -- Clrty-EndRdx(A), Clrty-RunSpd(15), Clrty-Stlth(15)
Level 16: Bullet Rain -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), RechRdx-I(17), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(29), Posi-Dmg/Rng(34), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34), Posi-Dam%(34)
Level 18: Clear Mind -- Range-I(A)
Level 20: Suppressive Fire -- UbrkCons-Hold/Rchg(A), UbrkCons-Acc/Hold/Rchg(31), UbrkCons-Acc/Rchg(31), UbrkCons-EndRdx/Hold(50), UbrkCons-Dam%(50)
Level 22: Recovery Aura -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(37), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(37), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(39), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(45)
Level 24: Empty Clips -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), HO:Centri(42), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(43), Posi-Dmg/Rng(43), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(46), Posi-Dam%(46)
Level 26: Regeneration Aura -- Dct'dW-EndRdx/Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(39), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Dct'dW-Heal(48), Dct'dW-Rchg(50)
Level 28: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 30: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(31), LkGmblr-Rchg+(42)
Level 32: Adrenalin Boost -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(33), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(33), Efficacy-EndMod/Rchg(33), Efficacy-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(46)
Level 35: Piercing Rounds -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(36), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(36), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(36), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(37)
Level 38: Hail of Bullets -- Armgdn-Dmg(A), Armgdn-Dmg/Rchg(39), Armgdn-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Armgdn-Acc/Rchg(40), Armgdn-Dmg/EndRdx(40), Armgdn-Dam%(43)
Level 41: Power Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(42)
Level 44: Temp Invulnerability -- TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx(A), TtmC'tng-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45), TtmC'tng-ResDam(45)
Level 47: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(48)
Level 49: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Vigilance
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- EndMod-I(A)
Level 10: Chemical Ammunition
Level 10: Cryo Ammunition

I used a couple billion of the inf I had built up to bid on some of the purple recipes I needed. While I was re-slotting IOs, someone was forming a Keyes "Loves a Challenge" badge attempt, but the leader kept counting down "need 10 players and at least 2 healers" ... "need 9 players and at least 2 healers" ... "need 8 players and at least 2 healers" and so on, so it was obvious that lots of people wanted the badge but no one wanted to actually play a healer so that it would be possible to get the badge. Since I was on my empath, I said I would queue for BAF or Keyes, whichever started first. This started an argument because the Keyes leader felt I was teasing him by being on a healer and essentially refusing to help him since he didn't think his Keyes would start before a BAF, and I kinda lost it, ranting about how any of the last 10 people that joined his league could've brought a healer but they didn't. A lot of those people piped up with essentially "After I get my badge, I'll help other people get theirs!" which I've heard before and always felt was an empty promise. I eventually realized I was on tilt and composed myself, apologized for yelling and joined the Keyes trial. We did end up with 3 healers in a 14 player league, but someone got hit by Disintegration just as a time stop event was starting, and so they died. I did get a very rare and to 76% Lore though, and I used this to craft a Clarion Radial Epiphany (tier 4 status protect/range/secondary boost/incarnate shift). I originally thought I wanted the 120 second duration Clarion to have perma mez protection, but the buff to range and heals seems very tasty despite the 90 second duration of the Clarion Radial. With the Clarion buff active, my Heal Other now hits for 816.

Fricka C (13 fire/fire dom) solo'd a few missions in Praetoria; I hit level 14 right in the middle of a ghoul ambush which was great timing. I also visited the tailor to change her costume from regular tights to a more metallic and shiny look.


Wed 8/24

Mystery Girl picked up Apocalypse (DMG/END) at the market for 500M, and an Unbreakable Constraint (proc) for 63M. I joined a BAF; we seemed to leak prisoners, letting 15 escape, but ended up winning. I got a common and up to 91% Lore.


Thu 8/25

Playing Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) I solo queued into a Keyes trial, but the leader somehow didn't make it into the trial area, so all the members quit and apparently reformed the trial without me. (Possibly I managed to offend some people with my earlier Keyes trial rant, hard to say.)

Darla Doppler (51 kin/sonic def) joined a clear most ITF, finishing in 38m 0s. I got a Luck of the Gambler (DMG/END) and Aegis (psi resist/status resist) recipes as drops, 6 shards and the ancient nictus fragment.

Yuki-Onna (52 ice/cold corr) did a clear most LGTF in 44m 24s, got 5 shards and the Hero 1 DNA.

Mystery Girl (52) picked up Unbreakable Constraint (RCHG/ACC) recipe at the market for 150M, and an Apocalypse (DMG/RCHG/ACC) for 625M.

Freitag and 7 de Coeur played my Talos Vice AE arc on Union server, leading a team of players through, and they said some really nice things about it, like "this is definitely an arc to run!" This was really nice. I also hit the unclaimed ticket cap and claimed 2000.


Fri 8/26

Tehuantl (18 widow) solo'd the Origin of Power arc to level 19.

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR scrapper) did a clear most Kahn TF in 46m 11s. I haven't played Thunder Girl much lately since I've been a bit down on SR as a defense set, but this run was a real confidence builder because I could click glowies even while being attacked, and got to tank Reichsman and the AV adds. We were a little low on debuff so Reichsman took awhile, but we won. I took the Dimensional Keystone. After that I solo queued into a BAF and got an uncommon and to 71% Judgement.

Darla Doppler (51 kin/sonic def) joined a BAF; I noticed one of our brutes was obviously slacking, lagging behind and being AFK a lot. I did get to 92% Lore and upgraded my tier 2 barrier to a tier 3 Barrier Partial Radial Invocation, giving me an incarnate shift. The leader asked me if he could give me the star, since he was kind of tired of leading, but I said he was doing fine, and I also warned him that if he gave me the star I would immediately kick the AFK slacker. So one of these arguments convinced him to stay leader, though he did ask who I meant. On our second BAF run I unlocked the Lore slot.

Ice Kate (33 cold/ice def) joined a Sister Psyche TF. We had 2 cold, traps and 5 damage; despite no real healing we were incredibly strong due to high DPS and debuff, cold shields and FF Gen, and we played very aggressively. Finished in 1h 19m and got Kate to level 34.


Sat 8/27

I did a respec for Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR scrapper). In order to try and make her more survivable on incarnate trials, I dropped some recharge to get her range defense up to 58%, close to the supposed incarnate trial cap (way overkill for non incarnate content). I also dropped Confront for Elude, and swapped the Mu patron pool to get the Fire epic pool back. I originally switched to Mu because electric attacks fit Thunder Girl's theme, but the Mu bolts feel really wimpy to me and the villainous red lightning doesn't match any of her other electric attacks anyway.

Hero Plan by Mids' Hero Designer 1.942
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Thunder Girl I21: Level 50 Magic Scrapper
Primary Power Set: Electrical Melee
Secondary Power Set: Super Reflexes
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Blaze Mastery
Hero Profile:
Level 1: Charged Brawl -- 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: Focused Fighting -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(7), LkGmblr-Rchg+(9)
Level 2: Focused Senses -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(9), LkGmblr-Rchg+(11)
Level 4: Agile -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(23)
Level 6: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Def/Rchg(A), LkGmblr-Def(25), LkGmblr-Rchg+(40)
Level 8: Thunder Strike -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(11), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(13), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(13), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(15), Oblit-%Dam(15)
Level 10: Practiced Brawler -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 12: Build Up -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(17)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(25)
Level 16: Dodge -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(17)
Level 18: Chain Induction -- Mako-Acc/Dmg(A), Mako-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Mako-Dmg/Rchg(19), Mako-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Mako-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(21), Mako-Dam%(23)
Level 20: Quickness -- Run-I(A)
Level 22: Super Speed -- Clrty-Stlth(A), Zephyr-Travel(43), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(46)
Level 24: Kick -- HO:Nucle(A)
Level 26: Tough -- Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx(A), Aegis-ResDam/Rchg(27), Aegis-EndRdx/Rchg(27), Aegis-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(29), Aegis-ResDam(31), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(34)
Level 28: Lucky -- DefBuff-I(A), DefBuff-I(29)
Level 30: Weave -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(31), LkGmblr-Rchg+(31), LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx/Rchg(36)
Level 32: Lightning Rod -- Oblit-Dmg(A), Oblit-Acc/Rchg(33), Oblit-Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(33), Oblit-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(34), Oblit-%Dam(34)
Level 35: Evasion -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), LkGmblr-Rchg+(36)
Level 38: Elude -- HO:Membr(A), HO:Membr(39)
Level 41: Char -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(42), Lock-Rchg/Hold(42), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(42), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(43), Lock-%Hold(43)
Level 44: Fire Blast -- Apoc-Dmg(A), Apoc-Dmg/Rchg(45), RechRdx-I(45), Apoc-Acc/Rchg(45), Apoc-Dmg/EndRdx(46), Apoc-Dam%(46)
Level 47: Fire Ball -- Det'tn-Dmg/Rchg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(48), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(50), Ragnrk-Knock%(50)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Critical Hit
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(37), Numna-Heal/Rchg(37), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(39), Numna-Heal(39), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(40)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(37), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(40)

After the respec, I brought Thunder Girl to a BAF; sadly I still died a lot, though partially this was due to other players getting sequestered near me. Nevertheless I still felt really squishy. 58% range DEF is great against the minions but it seemed like the AVs could easily 1 shot me with attacks along the other positional vectors. I got a common and Judgement unlocked, and crafted an Ion Total Core Judgement (tier 3 electric attack).

Marcia Law (36 pistols/kin corr) did a clear most Silver Mantis SF. In the final mission, fighting our way up through the Sky Raiders' floating base was very messy; I got held a lot by the toxic turrets, then died and had to hospital, but couldn't get back due to lack of stealth and needed someone to TP me to Duray, who we pulled down to the water and beat him there. Finished in 1h 34m, picked up a level 24 Steadfast Protection KB protection recipe and got to level 38. Followed that with a clear most ITF that took 41m 21s; Marcia was very squishy but I got to do Fulcrum Shift/Hail of Bullets a lot, which was very fun. This got Marcia to level 39.

Schadenfreude (52 AR/pain corr) joined a 4 player team in Grandville doing one of Scirocco's story arcs. We defeated Malaise, Ice Mistral (twice) and Scirocco himself. I also got 2 compliments on Schadenfreude's name and one on how nice the buffs were.

Yuki-Onna (51 ice/cold corr) did a clear most LGTF on +2 difficulty. I died a bunch fighting Hami, but otherwise we did OK, finishing in 1h 1m; I took the 37 merits and got 6 shards. I upgraded my alpha slot to the tier 4 Spiritual Core Paragon (45% rchg, level shift). I solo queue'd into a BAF and got a rare and Lore unlocked; upgraded my destiny slot to tier 3 Barrier Partial Radial Invocation (def/res/Rez and incarnate shift).


Sun 8/28

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) solo queue'd into a BAF trial; I got a common.


Mon 8/29

Tehuantl (19 widow) joined a 4 player team for some rogue tips, followed by paper missions and an Independence Port mayhem where we did all the side missions and beat up Aurora Borealis. This got Tehuantl to level 22 and SOs.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) did a BAF; we had like 7 tankers and I offered to switch, but the leader said it was fine. In an effort to be one of the more useful tanks I pulled both AVs to the tennis courts, using Dull Pain and Rebirth to shrug off their alpha strikes. I got an uncommon and to 28% Lore.

Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols def) bought an Apocalypse (chance for negative) IO from the market for 435M. This completed a set and got her global recharge to +173.75%; it seems like this lets me keep 6 Fortitudes up, sometimes 7. Did a BAF; I seemed to die a lot (despite my high recharge I have no real defense, so I really need to stand farther away to avoid Whirling Hands and Nova) but got a very rare and Lore unlocked. I crafted a tier 2 Cimeroran Core Ally.

Tue 8/30/2011

Mystery Girl (52 emp/pistols) joined a 14 player Keyes badge attempt. We had 3 healers. We damaged Antimatter down below 10% which made the pulse damage around 1300 in several pieces; this was enough to instantly kill me if all the component parts hit. Looking at the combat dialog, I did notice some of the pulse damage was unresistable and some was energy, but my empath has no energy resistance so the difference was minor. We had some close calls in the final fight where twice someone was being disintegrated when the time stop effect began, but due to superior positioning of the AV, the time stop duration was very short every time. I got the Anti-antimatter badge and Master of Keyes accolade, and a very rare. The league as a whole got the Loves a Challenge badge also (though I already had that). A very good run indeed.


Thu 9/1

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) solo queued into a Lambda trial, got an uncommon. Most of the toons I play often have unlocked most of their incarnate slots, so I figure I'll play Police Woman on some trials to try and get salvage for the tier 4 boosts. Someone recognized when I showed up by my signature full auto attack and I got called "the most reliable AR around" which was awfully nice. I solo queued into a BAF for another uncommon.

Avatea announced a Praetorian invasion in Atlas Park, so I ran over there, along with multiple leagues of other heroes. We beat up Diabolique, Chimera, Dominatrix, and probably some other Praetorian AVs (though they were coded like giant monsters) who had made it inside City Hall; as well as War Walkers that were roaming the streets.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) did a BAF, getting an uncommon and to 46% Lore.


Fri 9/2

A malicious player (or possibly several players) has been going around hitting high rated story arcs with between three and five 1-star ratings, including not only my arcs but also those of most of the AE authors who are active on the CoH forums. This caused both my Teen Phalanx Forever! and Fusionette Incarnate arcs (along with many other arcs by other authors) to drop from a 5 star to a 4 star average, and has resulted in lots of wailing on the Mission Architect forum. The funniest response to this was the Farm Reviews thread where people are playing farm arcs and attempting to review them as if they were intended to be stories. I contributed this arc by playing through Zombie Robots (Fire Farm Version) with Fire Maiden (53 SS/fire brute). This arc actually had hints of story and characters but did not really do anything with them. But there were enough attempts at actual development that I gave it 2 stars.

After playing a farm arc I decided I wanted to play an actual story arc, so I played Ice Kate (34 cold/ice defender) through Who Dares Wins, a Dev Choice and contest winner. This was a terrific story about a Sky Raider captain plotting to take over Terra Volta; I gave it 5 stars. This got Ice Kate to level 35 and I did the intro to RWZ arc that let me join Vanguard.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) helped a 10 person league farm EoEs in the Abyss for the red side Hami raid; I picked up 8 EoEs before heading out, and mailed some of them to the raid leader.


Sat 9/3

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) joined a 6-player Numina. We had a very solid team with 3 defenders, 2 VEATs and a brute, and finished in 43m 14s.

With the farm review thread in mind, I messed around with writing a Cimerora based arc where you fight barbarians, hoping to make some kind of hybrid farm-and-story arc. I started with the premise that you're rescuing Sister Solaris and some sibyls from barbarian hordes that happen to be Battle Maiden minions. Made a little progress with this, but it's not good enough to publish yet, especially since I would need to unpublish something else first.

Police Woman joined a Lambda and got a common. Another player was playing through my Attack of the 50 Foot Villain story arc and gave me feedback with some really good ideas. Using the Architect accolade I started editing my story arc and got so involved in this that I completely missed the league queueing up for a BAF and got dropped from the league. But, I got to use the time for editing instead, so the arc is nicely improved.

Fricka C (14 fire/fire dom) exemplar'd to a level 5 and duo some missions in New Praetoria, getting her to level 15.

Sakura (30 plant/storm controller) joined a Moonfire TF. I was constantly out of END, finally had to ask our kin to cast SB, after which he was a little better about keeping SB up. This was the weekly strike target, and so I hit level 32, got the Silver Bullet badge and 159/200 on the vampire badge.

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) helped out with the red side Hami raid, as a vigilante. We had a weird strategy with only 2 brutes taunting yellow mitos, so each had to taunt 3 mitos each. It took awhile to recruit enough healers to make a valid attempt at Hami, and even after that we had about 3 false starts due to not getting enough Adrenaline Boost and Painbringer on the main tank. Asking around I found that none of the other healers had AB/PB perma. In fairness, it does take a decent amount of recharge to perma AB/PB, and many of the healer toons were secondary characters that people brought to try and help out. We eventually managed to get our buff status stable enough for the tanker to go with 4 AB/PB stacked on him; we really couldn't maintain this many AB/PB on him for long, but he said he also ate an EoE whenever he started to run low. We managed to clear 3 waves of mitos before suffering a raid wipe, but succeeded in beating Hamidon on the next try. I got a Membrane HO.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) did a clear most LGTF in 52m 18s, taking the merits; followed by a clear most ITF in 1h 2m. I accidentally aggroed Imperious with my MM pets, so I ended up charging in to take the aggro, sort-of tanking him. I took the ancient nictus.


Sun 9/4

Sakura (32 plant/storm controller) joined the Sisterhood Sunday Event for Citadel TF. We had a strong team and cleared most missions; I tried to stealth once but the team was killing mobs fast enough to stay right behind me, so I gave it up. Finished in 1h 22m and got to level 33.

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) solo'd 5 vigilante tips (thinking of going villain to pick up patron pools) and a Striga mission for the Slayer badge. I flashbacked the Spelunker mission for 2 merits and the Atlas Medallion.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) did a BAF; the leader called for controllers to be on doors and all non-controllers to stay on the streets. This seemed OK; not sure it is either better or worse than the normal doors strategy. I got a common, then swapped toons for each of the following runs. Mega (52 SS/will brute) did another BAF for an uncommon. April Fool did a BAF for a rare. Police Woman did a BAF for a rare.

Darla Doppler (52 kin/son def) did a Moonfire TF; we had 2 kins and were pretty fast moving, finishing in 1h for 64 merits and a notice.


Mon 9/5

Police Woman did a 6 player Moonfire. We had high DPS and finished in a blazing 44m, getting 64 merits and a notice. Most of this team swapped to red side for a 7 player Renault SF; I played Police Woman as a vigilante. I got to stealth/TP the Shockstorm mission while under heavy fire from ambushes, which got me some praise from the team leader. I also found that the black helicopter improvements make it really easy to get from Nerva right to Kalinda by taking the North Mercy destination. Finished in 51m for 24 merits and an assist credit, putting me at 18/50 on assists.

Wow! Impressive!

I just found this, PW! It's pretty cool to go back in time and see where you and the game were years ago.

Wed 9/7/2011

My Talos Vice story arc got selected as a Developer's Choice! This was really exciting, and I logged on to find my unclaimed tickets maxed again (had to claim another 2000). This gives me two arcs on the front page of the default Architect Entertainment search, which is pretty awesome, and an extra story arc slot for free, which I haven't quite decided what I'll do with yet.

Indigo Ifrit (51 fire/rad corr) did a Lady Grey TF on a very debuff-heavy team in 20m 2s.

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR scrapper) did a Statesman TF in 27m 45s; I found her Ion Judgement was excellent for clearing vines on the villain respec map. I had a player comment that she had a new costume (actually an old costume with minor tweaks to include Resistance goggles, which seem to be my new favorite costume piece), and another mentioned he hadn't seen Thunder Girl around that much, to which I answered that I wasn't that sure how well SR stands up as a defense set against incarnate content.

Huge Congrats @PW! They should just hire you already.

Thu 9/8/2011

I played Fire Maiden (52 SS/fire brute) on a speed STF. I was the tank and found while fly-tanking Lord Recluse that I could still send Lore pets to attack the towers, which seemed cool. Somehow Lord Recluse got stuck on top of a pillar (I thought he got immob'd there, the leader thought he got stuck in geometry) which made him harder to kill, but still finished in 23m 12s, a very fast time. I got a Nucleolus.

Followed that with an Apex TF which we finished in 15m 49s, a record time (for me anyway); I took the 10 threads. Also did a Lady Grey TF in 17m 43s, also a record time. I got assigned to help hold green mitos, which I thought was weird, but between KO Blow and Char I suppose I do have two holds.


Fri 9/9

Fire Maiden did another STF; I was tank again. Somehow I managed to pack the patron AVs so tightly together that Black Scorpion died of AoE without anyone directly targeting him; I think I landed on the right side of the AVs, taunted them, then flew to the left side to try and point them away from the team. But more likely it was just lucky. Finished in 24m 12s and got a Centriole.

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) did a Mortimer Kal SF in 18m 4s for 44 merits and a Notice of the Well; then I queued into a BAF trial where I got a common.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a RSF. We had tank and our only brute said he had nothing slotted, so the team leader asked me to tank -- which I tried to do, but it was awkward as I had no taunt (though I do have a lot of annoying trick arrows that tend to draw aggro). We also had one person disconnect right away and never come back, and two players who were doing the RSF for the first time, but both claimed they were really laggy (often missing the time window to for Recall Friend or Resurrect, which frustrated the team leader), so they were not very much help. So this was a rough RSF. In the final fight we had a team wipe after killing Numina and Positron, but we won on the second try. In that last fight I was really relying on high DEF (from IOs and Vengeance) and high RES (from orange inspirations and my patron shield); my pets died like flies to the Freedom Phalanx. Finished in 52m 41s; I took the Essence of Incarnate, got a Soulbound Allegiance (DMG/RCHG/ACC) recipe drop, and a compliment on April's name and costume.

Switched back to Police Woman and did the 2nd villain respec on a 5 player team. The whole team was pretty squishy (3 blasters, MM, kin controller) so we had a lot of death, but finished in 15m 55s. I got the Thorn Thief badge and an assist credit. After that the team merged into a 14 player BAF trial; I got a rare.


Sat 9/10

Police Woman did another 2nd villain respec in 19m 27s for another assist credit.

Ice Kate (35 cold/ice def) did an all defender clear all ITF on +1 difficulty. We were nigh indestructable due to massive buffs (cold shields, fortitude etc), but our DPS seemed a little low, even damage capped from fulcrum shift. Finished in 1h 5m and got to level 37.


Sun 9/11

Indigo Ifrit (51 fire/rad corr) did a Lambda, getting a common and 46% interface exp.

With my free arc slot I republished Crisis at Talos Towers, in honor of the 9/11 date. It's a story where a Rikti dropship hits an office building in Talos Island and you have to rescue civilians and police from the fire. It's also an arc that heavily features fire damage, and so with the talk about making a story-oriented farm, I tried re-purposing it to be more "farm-y", by tuning the enemy group, upping all the spawns guarding objectives to "hard" and adding more ambushes. I playtested it a bunch with Fire Maiden (52 SS/fire brute), picking up about 4500 tickets doing so; but I'm normally I'm solidly against farming, so I have mixed feelings about it and have been too shy to really advertise it. Also I suspect it's in some kind of halfway state right now, where it's not got enough story to be a "good story", but the risk/reward isn't optimized enough to make it a "good farm". Not quite sure what I'll do next with it.

Ice Kate (37 cold/ice def) solo'd 5 vigilante tips, finished the very grey Stephanie Peebles arc for 15 merits, then did the vigilante morality mission to change her alignment to Vigilante.

Strong Woman (52 inv/SS tanker) joined a BAF trial. I noticed one scrapper was dead and stayed dead through most of the prisoner phase, and called him on it; someone else said he was probably AFK. I blamed the AFKer for all the escapees, which got some laughs. The league was trying for the Strong and Pretty badge, and detailed one team to take care of adds while the other two teams wrestled with AVs. The AV teams were not especially good at this and we had a lot of deaths, but eventually got them down, timing it correctly so no spawns were up, successfully getting the Strong and Pretty badge for the league. (I actually already had this badge.) I did get a rare and lore unlocked, and crafted a Warworks total core improved ally (the tier 3 Warworks damage-oriented pet, with a Vicki and an incarnate shift).

San Min (51 MA/will scrapper) queued into a BAF trial and got an uncommon and to 36% Lore exp.

Mon 9/12/2011

Thunder Girl (51 elec/SR) did a STF in 30m 15s, took essence of incarnate.

The Mission Architect profanity filter still disallows "Black Scorpion" as an NPC name (sigh), but I found I was able to trick it by renaming my AV to "Black Scōrpion". Not the most elegant solution, but it works for now.

Fricka C (15 fire/fire dom) solo'd Seer 1381's arc to level 16. I felt sorry for poor Katie Douglas, who had most of her life stolen away.


Tue 9/13

Issue 21 dropped, and I got a fistful of badges by logging in: Loyal Customer, Tenacious, Unshakable, Diligent, Persistent, Rookie, Radiant, Doorbuster. I mysteriously picked up 5 more auction house slots for a total of 27, and my salvage capacity jumped to 105; all part of the new Paragon Rewards system. I also noticed the max characters per server had jumped up to 48, and I had some unused character slots banked and earned some more from I21, so I happily unlocked more slots on Liberty.

I restarted Shield Maiden (formerly a shield/mace tanker) as a mace/shield scrapper. I got a fistful of weird level 1 enhancements: Will of the Seers (DMG/RCHG/psi proc), Resistance Tactics (DMG/RCHG/smash proc), Clockwork Efficiency (DMG/RCHG/nrg proc), Might of the Empire (DMG/RCHG/knockdown proc), Syndicate Techniques (DMG/RCHG/lethal proc); apparently this was originally some special Going Rogue promo that I automatically got as part of Paragon Rewards, too. I joined an 8 player sewer trial which got me to level 7; this was very fun, we got to beat up a lot of low level AVs and even got SOs from doing so.

I re-created Kashira (formerly a db/ninj stalker) as a katana/fire brute, then ran the sewer trial 3 more times to get to level 12. Someone called me on having a costume that looked too much like Elektra, which was unfortunately true, so I ended up hitting a tailor to rework Kashira's costume to be a bit more different. Now she probably looks too much like Mai Shiranai. Bleh. We also did one of Twinshot's missions, but it involved talking to a lot of NPCs and killing very few NPCs, so no one on the team seemed to like it.

Started Negative Nelly (a newbie dark/mental blaster with a "photo negative" style costume) and did a sewer trial to level 7. I spent most of the trial roleplaying an extremely negative attitude, crying doom whenever we saw an AV, saying the game is too hard, and so on. I think most of the team "got it" so I didn't get yelled at too much. Not sure whether I like dark blast on a blaster yet. We'll see.


Wed 9/14

I hit the unclaimed ticket cap at AE and claimed 3700 to spend on a gold recipe roll, getting a lousy Force Feedback (RCHG/END). The Paragon Store was finally up and running on Wednesday, so I purchased the Beam Rifle powerset and the Server Transfer pack, which were both on sale. This cost 1120 of the 1750 points I started with.

Shield Maiden (7 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Matthew Habashy's story arc which seemed to mostly be against Hellions; this got me 2 merits and I hit level 8. I also found that my brand new character had a free respec, which must've been awarded on Wednesday, too.


Thu 9/15

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) joined a 23 player Underground trial. This involved running through many tunnels killing things while escorting Desdemona. We did a lot of travel during this trial, which makes me think the Underground trial map must be huge...but it didn't seem too laggy, which was surprising. We fought an AV with insanely high regen from some kind of lichen, some other, easier AVs, and ran into lots of bombs that had to be destroyed. The final encounter was with an Avatar of Hamidon who confused people a lot. Then there was a lengthy cut scene with lots of exposition from Desdemona. I got an uncommon reward, 2 empyrean merits, and the Tour Guide and Underground Seeker badges.

I joined another underground trial that was forming, but after 20 minutes it hadn't started yet and I was running short on time, so I dropped out of the league.

I restarted Shield Maiden again -- still a mace/shield scrapper, but I decided she had to be Praetorian in order to fit her back story (she's from the War World and is one of Battle Maiden's lackeys). This probably sounds dumb but I reroll characters for silly reasons sometimes. Anyway, the Praetorian tutorial and starting area still seem basically the same. I did spend 400 points buying the barbarian costume pack, using some barbarian pieces for Shield Maiden's costume, though I felt some costume pieces were a bit too ludicrous for me to use. Solo'd to level 4 before calling it a night.


Fri 9/16

I started a new Psychic Woman (newbie psi/time corr with a generic heroic tights costume; probably need to make a better one) who went hero side and did a sewer trial to reach level 7.

I rerolled Spacegirl (formerly mind/rad controller) to a newbie beam/rad corruptor. Even though Spacegirl (the 50 mind/rad controller) was level 50, fully incarnate slotted and heavily purpled out for recharge, I decided she just had to have a laser gun!! So, yeah, I transferred my controller to Exalted and started a newbie beam/rad corruptor. I got her to level 2 and out of the tutorial and plan to play her on the Sci-Fi theme team.

A friend asked me to help on the Underground trial, and I joined as Police Woman. I was doubtful about our team mix (tons of damage, very short on buff/debuff) but we tried it. We got stopped cold by the lichen-infested war walker, though, as its regen was just too high. We had some confusion over which of the lichen objects to kill in that room also; some thought we had to clear the whole room, some thought only the nearby ones were relevant. We also had a number of people die and go to the hospital and get lost, unable to find their way back, so they were missing for most of the fight. So we ended up running out of time and failing the trial.


Sat 9/17

I decided to transfer my controller Sakura to Exalted and re-use the name for my katana brute, because I thought it would be a great name for a katana wielder. I had controller Sakura use 400 reward merits for 20 random recipe rolls first; best of the bunch were a Blessing of the Zephyr (KB protect), a Miracle (recovery proc), a Kinetic Combat (DMG/END/RCHG), an Obliteration (smash proc), a Decimation (ACC/DMG/RCHG) and a Decimation (ACC/END/RCHG). So I deleted Kashira, transferred Sakura to Exalted, then tried to re-start my katana brute with the name Sakura .... only to find the name Sakura is no longer allowed as a character name. Argh! I checked Exalted and was able to log in controller Sakura without being forced to rename or anything, but the game absolutely would not let me start a new toon named Sakura. So I sheepishly re-started my katana/fire brute with the name Kashira, again. Did sewer trial to 7, solo'd Matthew Habashy's arc to 8, then solo'd Sondra Costel's arc. The new Atlas story missions have some really neat mission mechanics. I was also excited that Bonebreaker was the boss of the Skulls in one of these missions, but was disappointed to find that he wasn't actually anything like the Bonebreaker that I wrote in my AE arc Two Tickets to Westerly.

Psychic Woman (7 psi/time corr) solo'd Matthew Habashy's arc to 8, then joined a 5 player sewer trial that got her to level 10.

Darla Doppler (52 kin/sonic def) joined a Numina TF on a full team. We found that I21 had made it a little harder to find clockwork in the new Atlas, and had cut the Galaxy hunt from the TF entirely. Finished in 46m 42s and got a Notice of the Well.

Ice Kate (38 cold/ice def) did a clear most ITF in 35m 54s, getting to level 39.


Sun 9/18

Kashira (8 kat/fire brute) solo'd To Dream of Nothing, an AE arc about a mysterious event that depowers all high level heroes for some reason. This had some good writing, but I found the story logic for the depowering effect was too inconsistent, making it unbelievable; and also the missions were a bit tedious, with one of them requiring 12 glowies and another forcing you to backtrack a lot. I gave it 3 stars. After that Kashira joined a sewer trial, getting her to level 12.

I solo'd Shield Maiden (4 mace/shield scrapper) through the Deputy Assistant of Information and Warrant story arcs in Praetoria, getting to level 7. It definitely seems easier to level blue side newbies over Praetoria newbies, due to the new sewer trial.

I started Poison Woman, a new plant/poison controller with a goth-y costume, sending her to red side (poison just doesn't seem heroic to me) and did the first new story arc in Mercy Island.

Tehuantl (22 widow) joined a 3 player team for one mission in First Ward. Saw some Carnival of Light there; they look really neat. I'll need to spend more time exploring there.

Mon 9/19/2011

I spent some time playing Spy Girl (49 MA/ninj stalker) helping an emp defender complete 5 rogue tip missions.

Kashira (12 kat/fire brute) duo'd the Midnight Squad arc with a time controller, getting to level 13.

Shield Maiden (7 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Reese's arc to level 8. I beat up Reese and informed on him to Marauder. I already feel the lack of the Death from Below trial on gold-side; leveling in Praetoria feels a lot slower as a result.

Tue 9/20

Spy Girl duo'd another 6 rogue tip missions with my emp defender friend; this reinforced Spy Girl's Rogue alignment, gaining 60 merits.

The new Spacegirl (2 beam/rad corr) joined the NERDCON ONE sci-fi themed team. The rules were that we had to have beam weapons, robotics, and/or time manipulation. This resulted in an 8 player team of 5 corruptors, 1 blaster, 1 defender, 1 controller. We did 2 Death From Below trials to get to level 10, then did the Posi 1 TF. The evil clones had a lot of time manipulation, but we managed to beat them, finishing in 55m 36s. We then went straight into the Posi 2 TF; we tried stealthing some of these missions, but this went poorly because none of us actually had stealth, so we suffered 2 team wipes before giving up on stealthing and just killing through. Dr Vahzilok went down fast due to the amount of debuffs we had; finished in 45m 53s. This all got Spacegirl to level 17. I did have someone ask, "Say, wasn't Spacegirl level 50?" and I had to confess that I restarted her because Spacegirl absolutely needs to have beam weapons.

Psychic Woman (10 psy/time corr) solo'd Idol Hands, a lowbie arc where you stop a Hellion plot. This was actually quite good and I gave it 5 stars.


Wed 9/21

Shield Maiden (8 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Mr G's arc, then duo'd a mission with a controller who wanted to clear every mob in his mission for exp. I ended up running out of time due to a previous commitment, and had to bail mid-mission, which I felt guilty about. I did hit level 9 though.


Thu 9/22

Police Woman hit the inf cap at the market again, mailed myself another 900M. Rare salvage prices (where I make most of my inf) have fallen to about 1-1.5M inf each; previously they were around 2M or higher. I speculate that this is due to the huge amount of rare salvage coming from people farming AE missions.

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) bought an Armageddon proc for 375M, which completed her set of 6, gaining 5% toxic resist as a set bonus. I realize it is a little extravagant to buy very rare damage sets for an emp defender, but hey, I have the money, and she needs the extra recharge and DPS. I joined an Underground trial which took half an hour to form, then an hour to run. People kept dying, which made me feel like a bad emp; I tried to heal the whole league, but couldn't keep up with this, so eventually tried to focus just on my team. Got a rare, 2 empyreans, a fistful of badges and a Performance Shifter (END/RCHG) recipe from this trial. This gave me enough salvage to upgrade my lore pet to the tier 4 Cimeroran pet.

Kashira (13 kat/fire brute) duo'd Theoden's "Who Will Die?" arc in 22m 15s, getting to level 15. Did it again in 19m 22s, getting to level 16. This arc was surprisingly quick and fun with some nice touches in the missions. I also picked up the new Spring Attack pool power; people on the forum ***** about this not being good enough, but I kinda like it. Strangely I was able to get 2 hero merits by doing the arc twice; I would've guessed it would only let you get 1 a day, or less.


Fri 9/23

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) did the Underground trial. I was assigned to a "bomb squad", which was heavily incarnated range attackers that were sent ahead of the league to destroy bombs. This was pretty dangerous work and ultimately wasted when some scrapper ran ahead of us and got blown up. Finished the trial and got an Uncommon and the Regenerate This badge.

Went on to do a Lambda (got a common) and a BAF, which was messy with not much support, and I ended up dying a lot to AoE (but got a rare).

Kashira (16 kat/fire brute) joined an 8-player team to beat up Protean; this got her to level 17.


Sat 9/24

Mystery Girl (53 emp/pistols def) joined the Hamidon raid; for a little while it looked like we wouldn't have enough interest, then suddenly a lot of people showed up and we had a good raid. Beat him on the first try and got a Nucleolus.

I also spent some time editing my AE story arc Crisis at Talos Towers, based on some feedback I had received from people who had tried it. This arc is meant to be a combination story/farm, but I'm finding it quite hard to do both at the same time.

Shield Maiden (9 mace/shield scrapper) finished soloing Mr G's arc, then did part of Transmuter's arc to get to level 10.

Ice Kate (39 cold/ice def) duo'd 2 rogue tip missions, then joined a 7 player team for 1 hero tip. I got a compliment on Kate's name and background story, which was nice.

Kashira (17 kat/fire brute) joined a team for 2 hero tips; we had a near wipe against Nemesis. After our tank and other brute logged off, I ended up becoming de facto tank; as a low level fire brute, I was pretty squishy, but kept trying. I did get to level 19 from this.

I used the reward points I had been given for my current veteran status to unlock all the tier 8 Paragon rewards. The tier 9 VIP goodies were taunting me, though, and I ended up spending US$50 for 4600 store points; but this was really to gain the 4 reward points that came with the purchase. This gave me enough reward points to buy all the tier 9 VIP items, unlocking some fun costume options. I'm able to resist most other stuff in the store, but I'm a sucker for costume items.


Sun 9/25

Shield Maiden (10 mace/shield brute) finished soloing Transmuter's arc; for my moral choice, I chose to save my fellow teammates instead of going after Ricochet. I went on to do Tami Baker's arc. The mission where I fought 100 Destroyers in front of the TPN building was really cute; I liked the civilians who where cheering me on. 100 mobs is a lot to handle at level 10, though, so I got beat up twice; but eventually hacked my way through them all. I thought the final confrontation with Dominatrix was kind of dumb, though; her intervention in the arc seemed very clumsy and heavy-handed to me, so I half-thought she had been framed by someone else -- but no, it was her. Shield Maiden hit level 11 from all this.

Kashira (19 kat/fire brute) did some solo testing of my Crisis at Talos Towers arc, which got her to level 20.

Psychic Woman (10 psy/time corr) joined a sewer trial, getting to level 13. I'm not sure about psy/time corr so far; kinda debating switching to mind/time controller for more control, or maybe psy/dev blaster for more damage.

I started a Poison Woman (3 plant/poison controller) and joined a red-side sewer trial, getting to level 7. I'm not real psyched about poison so far either, so not sure how far I'll get with this.


Mon 9/26

I restarted Fire Emerald (formerly a fire/mm blaster) as a fire/time corr; went hero-side and solo'd my way to level 4. I'm kinda liking fire blast with time; it may just be my perception of the special effects, but this just feels like it's doing more damage than my psy/time corr.


Tue 9/27

Spacegirl (17 beam/rad corr) joined the sci-fi theme team for a Synapse TF. 2 players had to leave mid-TF and one was AFK for awhile, leaving 5 of us slogging through the +0 x8 missions. We were heavy on debuffs though, and managed to defeat Babbage with 5. Finished in 2h 22m and got to level 21.

Kashira (20 kat/fire brute) joined a 6 player pickup team which did the finale of the Ray Cooling arc, getting Kashira to level 21.


Wed 9/28

Police Woman (53 AR/dev blaster) solo queued into a BAF, got an uncommon.

Fire Emerald (4 fire/time corr) solo queued into two Death from Below sewer trials. I'm finding the chance for knockdown proc from the promo enhancement is actually really nice in Fireball. This got Fire Emerald to level 10.

Spacegirl (21 beam/rad corr) solo'd Serge's costume mission, then joined a pickup team for two slightly stale door missions.


Thu 9/29

Police Woman won a hide-and-seek game, finding the hider at the statue of Talos; the prize was a level 35 Luck of the Gambler (DEF/+7.5% rchg) recipe. I also hit the unclaimed ticket cap at AE and claimed 300. I only claimed 300 since I was experimenting on spending tickets on common arcane salvage rolls, and that was enough to fill up my inventory; most of it was junk but I sold 6 alchemical silver for 156K. This seems like decent inf for the tickets I spent, but is kind of small potatoes compared to my other marketeering, so probably isn't worth it for me.

Spacegirl (21 beam/rad corr) solo'd Matthew Habashy arc; this arc caps at level 10 so was all grey to her, but she still got an arc completion bonus at the end, which bumped her to level 22, allowing me to slot SOs.

Fire Emerald (10 fire/time corr) solo'd Welcome to MAGI, a story where Azuria's apprentice goes crazy and does erratic things. The writing style was nice but the plot didn't really work; I gave it 3 stars. This got Fire Emerald to level 11.

Kashira (21 kat/fire brute) joined a 7 player team working on Roy Cooling's arc; we had 2 team wipes to rogue PPD (those guys are actually pretty tough), but got Kashira to level 22.


Sat 10/1

Police Woman solo queued into a BAF; I got a rare. This let me upgrade her Judgement to the tier 3 Pyronic Total Radial Judgement. I don't really like sitting around idle while leagues form, so I find that queueing via LFG and doing other stuff until a trial "pops" works better for me. For no really good reason I spent 120 astral merits and 18 empyrean merits on costume pieces from the vendors in Ouro; I got the full Ascension set and a bunch of the auras and path auras. I'm not actually using any of these costume pieces, so I feel rather silly for having spent so many merits, but I like having them available in the tailor.

Spacegirl (22 beam/rad corr) joined a 5 player Sister Psyche TF. I got a costume compliment, which was nice. I also noticed that I did not have to redraw my beam rifle when using rad toggles; she kept the gun in her hand while applying them. This was really nice. Finished the TF in 1h 14m and got to level 23.

I started a new version of Kid Valkyrie (now a broadsword/regen brute); I had retired my original Kid Valkyrie (who was a broadsword/regen scrapper) because I just sucked so badly at playing regen. But maybe a regen brute will do better due to higher hit points. I did a Death from Below trial to get to level 7.

April Fool (52 thug/TA MM) joined a RSF. The final fight was very bloody; we had only one melee toon, an energy aura brute, who had trouble holding the attention of the AVs (we think due to Energy Cloak debuffing his aggro somehow). We had one team wipe, then on the second try we had a sort of rolling wipe where people kept hospitalling, then rushing back to the mission and into the fight. At one point I was solo (all teammates and pets dead) while kiting most of the Freedom Phalanx, and survived mostly by virtue of inspirations and jumping around like a maniac. Finally won, finishing in 38m 51s; I took an essence of the incarnate.

Blond Justice (53 sword/shield scrapper) did a speed ITF in 16m 3s.

Later in the day Police Woman did another BAF (got a rare), then a Lambda; I was asked to lead the grenade gathering team, which was odd since my team had a tank and a brute, but it worked out; got another rare.

Fire Emerald (11 fire/time corr) accepted a pickup invite to a 4 player team playing Avenge the Gates of Fire, an AE arc where you rescue king Leonidas and the 300 Spartans from hell. This was a neat idea but not that fleshed out, and the custom mobs were really hard at my level. I gave it 3 stars.

Shield Maiden (12 mace/shield scrapper) solo'd Praetor Sinclair's arc. Chimera was such a jerk and Belladonna was so cool that I switched to her side during the "moral choice" mission, joining the Resistance. I also solo'd Investigator Kang's arc, stopping Cutter Cain. This got Shield Maiden to level 13.


Sun 10/2

Hit the ticket cap at AE again (actually I suspect I had been at the cap and wasting tickets for a few days), so I claimed 3700 tickets and spent them on a gold reward roll, getting a Mako's Bite (DMG/RCHG) recipe. I also hit the inf cap at Wentworth's and emailed myself 900M.

Police Woman joined a pickup lambda; we only had 1 kin for support who I ended up rezzing a lot with medicine pool. We had a lot of deaths but eventually zerged Marauder down; I got a common. Also did a BAF and got an uncommon.

Fire Maiden (53 SS/fire brute) did a BAF trial and got a rare; I used this and 8 astrals, 7 empyrean merits to upgrade her Lore slot to the tier 4 Cimeroran pets.

Shield Maiden (13) solo'd Hatchet's arc, including an unbelievably long defeat all. Hatchet is Not a Nice Guy and I ended up betraying his insane plot to Marchand, who gave me some orders to act as an infiltrator in the Resistance. This got me to level 14.

Tue 10/4

Spacegirl (23 beam/rad corr) joined a 7 player Moonfire TF. I got a costume compliment, which was nice. Our team was very heavy on buff and debuff, which made things easy; clearing most, we finished in 1h 17m. I got the Silver Bullet badge for all the werewolves.

The NERDCON sci-fi team got off to a slow start; initially there were just 2 of us and I ended up duoing with the other player, a blaster, doing old-school street sweeping in Founders Falls. A third player came on a bit later and the 3 of us did Theoden's "Who Will Die?" TF in 27m 38s; I took the hero merit. We then recruited up to 8 for a Citadel TF that took 1h 14m. Vandal simply melted under all the beam weapons. Beam weapons seem great against AVs and when there's multiples on a team; I'm tempted to start another beam alt. This all got Spacegirl to level 27.

Finished the night by visiting the Echo of Galaxy City and collecting all the badges to get Galactic Explorer, which seemed like an ideal badge title for Spacegirl.

12/29/2011

I've been slacking on journal entries for a couple months; partly due to being busy, partly due to being on CoH a bit less. Someone reminded me online that they hadn't seen a journal entry in some time, and so, here's my attempt to catch up for the last few months.

I started Bette Noire, a Street Justice/Willpower brute. Her name is sort of a pun on the French expression "Bete Noire" and a reference to Flamebird, and her costume is sorta Batgirl/Batwoman inspired while trying not to be exactly like either one. I like Street Justice so far, it feels very brutal and lives up to the "street" name. Did DfB a couple times and a bunch of lowbie MA arcs to get to level 18.

I bought 5 arc slots from the in-game store, and developed and published a new story arc, Agent of the OSS (arc #525356), a WW2 era arc where you fight lots of Nazis, somewhat connected to the Ubelmann the Unknown arc, with some throwaway pop culture references. This was pretty fun to write and play test, and I've lured a few people into trying it out. Most like it but complain the arc seems too short to them, but I'm actually OK with this, as I think "serious" story arcs are invariably too long, using all 5 missions allowed just because they can.

I also got a fun review of my Papers and Paychecks (arc #298290) story arc. Playing this arc actually motivated a free player to subscribe to the game, just so he could send me a private email on the forum saying how much he liked it! He wrote "Let me just say first off, that if all AE arcs were like this one, I’d never leave the building! .... This arc was an EASY 5 stars (too bad there’s no way to give it a six)." which I thought was pretty awesome. Of course, he also wrote "I was a little annoyed that you used a stock civilian model for Jenny, because no matter how you angle the camera, you can’t see up her skirt. I thought that this was going to be a strike against you, but it all worked out in mission #2 when she handed me a photocopy of her fanny (good save)." ... which was....a little weird. But hey, it's the Internet.

Hit the inf cap and mailed myself 900M on 10/20. The market for rare salvage (which I trade in) has really become low margin; even though I still buy and sell a lot of these, I make very little inf per unit now (typically buying at 900K and selling at 1.1M inf for a pretty measly profit), so have not made much money since then. I should probably look for a new market niche, but fortunately, I have several billions socked away still, so I'm not really hurting and can afford to be lazy.

Around Halloween I bought the Halloween costume pack; not really using anything from it yet, but it seemed cool. Had a fun time with the Haunted House trial, the devs really outdid themselves on that. Police Woman picked up Is there a doctor in the house? and Tricked Out badges.

Police Woman did various incarnate trials, upgraded to tier 4 Longbow lore pet. The nerfed Keyes trial seems really easy now, at least compared to the original version of it. Probably for the best, though, since now (non-hardcore) people are actually willing to try it. I even led one Keyes trial run, and learned that you need to assign people to clear war works from the terminals on the first and third reactors (but not the second) and the pattern to ask tanks to lead Antimatter around (the lone bunker, then the left of a matched pair, then the right).

I got to see the Mind of Mayhem (MoM) trial for the first time and thought it was really cool, though it's a little troubling that we end up [SPOILER]killing Shalice Tilman[/SPOILER] as a story result. Got most of the badges, but there's one that requires killing illusions of different giant monsters that will require several runs to get; some people were "farming" these by just doing the first part of the MoM trial, then aborting (rinse & repeat), but that didn't seem very fun to me. I also did the TPN trial a couple times; both times I was assigned to an "outside" team where we were focused on killing telepaths that were riling the crowds of protestors, and occasionally an AV-level Maelstrom. The TPN was quite well led and successful enough to get me the "Master of TPN" badge, which was rather ironic as I really did not see very much of the trial (I gather there was a whole "inside" area of the trial that I never saw).

I did enough trials to upgrade Police Woman's Destiny to the T4 Ageless Radial Epiphany.

Police Woman was on a speed Tin Mage that finished in 14m 24s, recordbreaking time (as far as I know for Liberty, anyway).

Spacegirl (who I had rerolled as a beam/rad corr) had her sci-fi based SG gradually stop playing over the course of a few weeks. I ended up moving her to my private SG and respec'd her several times; once to dump Cutting Beam because I thought it sucked, and a second time to get Cutting Beam back because I needed more AoE. Somewhat ironic, I know. Finished all the TF Commander task forces and started doing ITFs and eventually a STF, and hit level 50 on an Eden trial formed on SisterhoodFriends channel. Once I hit level 50 I solo'd through Alpha Unlocked and started doing incarnate trials, and respec'd her to a soft cap range DEF build that I'm really liking:

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.95
http://www.cohplanner.com/
Click this DataLink to open the build!
Spacegirl I21: Level 50 Magic Corruptor
Primary Power Set: Beam Rifle
Secondary Power Set: Radiation Emission
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Leaping
Power Pool: Speed
Ancillary Pool: Psychic Mastery
Villain Profile:
Level 1: Single Shot -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(3), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(3), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(5), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(5), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(7)
Level 1: Radiant Aura -- Numna-Heal/EndRdx(A), Numna-EndRdx/Rchg(7), Numna-Heal/Rchg(9), Numna-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(9), Numna-Heal(11), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(11)
Level 2: Charged Shot -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(13), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(13), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(15), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(15), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(17)
Level 4: Accelerate Metabolism -- Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(A), Zephyr-ResKB(17), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(19), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc/Rchg(19), P'Shift-Acc/Rchg(46)
Level 6: Disintegrate -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(21), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(23), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(23), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(25), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(25)
Level 8: Hover -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(27), LkGmblr-Rchg+(27)
Level 10: Enervating Field -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 12: Lancer Shot -- Thundr-Acc/Dmg(A), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(29), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(29), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(31), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(31), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(31)
Level 14: Fly -- Zephyr-Travel(A), Zephyr-Travel/EndRdx(33)
Level 16: Mutation -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 18: Cutting Beam -- Posi-Acc/Dmg(A), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(33), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(33), Posi-Dmg/Rng(34), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(34)
Level 20: Radiation Infection -- HO:Enzym(A), HO:Enzym(36), HO:Enzym(36)
Level 22: Lingering Radiation -- Acc-I(A)
Level 24: Aim -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 26: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Def/EndRdx(A), LkGmblr-Def(37), LkGmblr-Rchg+(37)
Level 28: Tactics -- GSFC-ToHit(A), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg(37), GSFC-ToHit/Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-Rchg/EndRdx(39), GSFC-ToHit/EndRdx(39), GSFC-Build%(40)
Level 30: Vengeance -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 32: Overcharge -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(40), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(42), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(42)
Level 35: Fallout -- Cloud-ToHitDeb(A), Cloud-Acc/ToHitDeb(36), Cloud-Acc/Rchg(48), Cloud-ToHitDeb/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Cloud-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(48), Cloud-%Dam(50)
Level 38: EM Pulse -- Lock-Acc/Hold(A), Lock-Acc/Rchg(42), Lock-Rchg/Hold(43), Lock-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(43), Lock-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(43), Lock-%Hold(45)
Level 41: Dominate -- BasGaze-Acc/Hold(A), BasGaze-Acc/Rchg(50)
Level 44: Mind Over Body -- S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(A), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx(45), RctvArm-ResDam/EndRdx/Rchg(45), RctvArm-ResDam(46), RctvArm-EndRdx(46)
Level 47: Combat Jumping -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A)
Level 49: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
------------
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Scourge
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Flight-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Heal-I(A)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-EndMod/Rchg(21), P'Shift-EndMod/Acc(34)

I rerolled Quick Katie, formerly a 50 plant/kin controller, to an elec/kin corr, partly because I decided I like corruptors more than controllers, partly because it felt weird to me to use plant attacks when the real Katie Hannon uses elec blasts. Actually, the real Katie Hannon is storm/elec or maybe elec/storm, but I figure "Quick Katie" needs to be at least part kin. After a couple DfBs, Posi 1, Posi 2 and Synapse, I got the new Quick Katie up to level 20.

I rerolled my katana/fire brute a few times, deciding I liked Virtual Girl's TRON-like costume but not her name, which is too similar to that of a porn site. So I made a technology origin kat/fire brute named Just Pixels, got to about level 7 before deciding this name was dumb, then rerolled another tech kat/fire brute named Software, a name I was pleasantly surprised to get. Got Software up to level 25 through a combination of DfB, Posi 1, Posi 2, Striga, tip missions and some AE arcs.

Olivia Q (50 MA/SR scrapper), one of my oldest toons, had several members of her old SG return to CoH with free-to-play and I had the chance to team up with them a few times, fighting stuff just for the fun of it, which was quite cool.

With the release of Titan Weapons, I rerolled Kyrie Eleison (formerly a fire/fire brute) to a titan/fire brute. I think this provoked some eyerolling from my global friends, who were like, you rerolled that toon again? I am really liking titan weapons/fire so far, though; an angel swinging a huge sword around "feels right". A combination of DfB, Posi 1/Posi 2/Synapse, story-oriented AE, Striga, tip missions, and First Ward got her to level 26.

Strong Woman (50 inv/SS tanker) joined a Tanker Tuesday event where a league of 18 tankers just barely beat the Lord Winter's Realm event, then I did a tanker only ITF in 37m 26s. I would've guessed an all-tanker team would have pretty poor synergy (since my mental image of an ideal team has at most 1 tanker and lots more debuffs), but both these went a lot better than I expected.

Over the last few months I played a bunch of AE arcs, partly to support the Player's Choice contest. Here are some quicky reviews:

Challenge of the Splendid Pals episodes 7-9: corny Superfriends-inspired fun, messed up slightly by profanity filter, 4 stars.
The Black Theorem: somewhat tedious math-oriented arc, 3 stars.
The Patrolman's Beat: decent writing, but story made me feel like the sidekick to the NPC hero. 4 stars.
The Complete Cat-Girl Cloning Project: mechanics seemed fine, story very weak. 3 stars.
How to Succeed in Mad Science without really trying: kinda fun with some issues, couldn't beat the boss who had granite armor and self-heals. 3 stars.
The Golden Scepter: mystical quest, a neat story with a very cool look, 5 stars.
A Very Special Episode: fun TV based romp, 5 stars.
When the Words Stop: surreal and imaginative, but it also left me totally confused. 4 stars.
Exploding Planet: superman homage that didn't really grab me. 3 stars.
Grunty McFisterson's Guide to Winning Respect: decently written intro villain arc where you beat people up to get "respect", but the contact plays you for a fool, so it really has the opposite effect. 3 stars.
Ouroboros Chronicles: Tales of Nemesis: a neat story but the gameplay bogged down due to large maps and chained objectives. 4 stars.
Shadow of Grime Alley: a Batman homage that had some plot problems. 3 stars.

I also played a bunch of TFs:

4xPosi 1: 1h 14m, 40m 7s, 49m 7s, 52m
3xPosi 2: 52m 24s, 1h 2m, 46m
2xSynapse: 1h 22m, 1h 18m
2xManticore: 1h 33m, 1h 29m
1xNumina: 1h 52m
1x1st red respec: 13m 6s
1x2nd blue respec: 1h 38m
1xEden: 25m
1xSutter: 49m
1xKal: 15m 6s
3xKahn: 24m, 26m, 22m
11xITF: 14m 13s, 1h 9m, 18m 20s, 46m 41s, 43m 46s, 32m 15s, 22m 2s, 37m 26s, forgot time, 53m, 24m
1xLGTF: 22m 8s
3xSTF: 27m, 27m, forgot time
3xApex: forgot time, 16m 22m, 19m 56s
2xTin Mage: 17m 42s, 14m 24s

...and did a bunch of incarnate trials:

8xLambda: 1xFail, 5xCommon, 3xUncommon, 1xForgot
11xBAF: 7xUncommon, 2xRare, 1xVeryRare, 1xForgot
7xKeyes: 1xCommon, 1xUncommon, 3xRare, 1xVeryRare, 1xForgot
1xUnderground: 1xRare
2xMoM: 1xCommon, 1xVeryRare
2xTPN: 1xRare, 1xVeryRare

Anyway, if you got this far, thanks for reading, and have a happy New Year! See you in game!