Most effective solo merit farming?

Greetings all, I'm looking to farm up some merits, but don't really have the ability to run TFs (familial duties) so I was looking for some advice on the best way to get them solo. I know I can run oro arcs to get them, and was just looking for some advice on some of the more efficient arcs as far as time to reward ratios.

Currently doing this with a 27 scrapper so the higher level content would not be available to me (yet) but feel free to include it as I am steadily rising.

Much appreciated!

the ouroboros sf/tfs are easy solo merit farms

• can start and finish them when you want
• never have anything higher than elite bosses if on the lowest diff settings
• most of them take an hour or less
• decent merit rewards (not as much as a tf, but they add up)
• all mishs take place in ouroboros so less travel
• inspiration vendor in ouroboros as well

Any recommendations for which ones are best Red and Blue side?

mender silos redside (has a lot of EBs, but can be done in about an hour for 10 merits)

badge mishs are quick mishs to flashback to and usually give 1-2 merits

Hero merit rewards
Villain merit rewards

Blue side, I'll often run "Hatred's Hungry Heart", which I can get 7 merits and get it done in about 15 minutes. "The Freakshow War" is often talked about as being a good run, though a bit long. For a stealthy, fast moving character, "Revenant Hero Project" might be good, since there's very little actually fighting needed, though a lot of travel.

If your Scrapper can take out EBs, you might try out the "Horror of War" arc (lvls 45-50). Going rate is about 30 minutes for 18 merits.

There is also an arc by Timothy Raymond (I think it's him) in the 40-45 range called "Division: Line" and there are 13 missions in the arc and 12 can be stealthed (just glowies and/or defeat boss/minions around boss)...there is one mission where it's an actual "rescue" but the map is small/short so taking the captive back to the door is actually not bad at all.

I can do the Division: Line arc in about 1 hour and 10 mins or so...maybe cut it down to an hour...lots of traveling here though (example of the one time I wrote where the missions were: Tram, PI, Brickstown, Dark Astoria, Steel Canyon, Atlas, Crey's Folly, FF, Steel Canyon, Brickstown, Perez, PI and finally FF). So if you really want to speed through it, make sure you have the mission tp power from the booster pack, an SG base with all the teleporter pads, pocket d porter and Ouro portal. Oh and this arc gives you 33 merits. Almost double the merits of the Horror of War arc for a bit more than double the time.


I tried doing some of the other lower content story arcs (the ones that shipped with the original game...nothing like faultline/croatoa/etc) and wow...so much travel (just like the Division: Line arc except worse because sometimes you don't have a travel power!)....just not worth it to me.

Thanks all for the responses.

Stargeek, have a cookie for pointing out that wonderful resource.

i prefer bowers arc, 16 merits for about 30-35 mins

Set at +0/*1, the Mender Silos Task Force (5th Column Overthrow, known vernacularly for some reason as Fall Of The Fifth) is worth roughly a quarter of a level per run. It starts at level 30.

The arc is four missions long, all at the same door. Mission one, your goal is to click three glowies, then defeat a boss (if you've set to fight them solo, a lieutenant otherwise) and his immediate minions that attempt to ambush you. The second mission, you need to find a glowie and click it, then kill Nosferatu and his ambush minions as they come to you. In the third mission, you need to find Burkholder, and kill him and his guarding minions. In the fourth mission, you need defeat Requiem, Siege, and Maestro, while finding time to kill a hundred freaking nazis. This arc is probably one of my favourite things to do in the game, and if you're a melee oriented character with mez protection and an ability to output damage at speed - ie, any scrapper, tanker, brute, stalker, widow, or bane spider - you can belt through it quickly and reliably.

For making money, the arc's spawns start at 30 and cap at 39. Therefore, bosses in the 35-39 range run the chance of dropping Miracles and Lotgs, while everyone can drop Crushing Impacts, Thunderstrikes, Titanium Coatings and so on. Also, 5th Column use the council drop table, so they all can drop tech and arcane salvage. Keep an eye on the market, know what's going to sell well and make sure you don't delete something useful to make room mid-mission. The last room does include literally a hundred nazis so you are going to get a lot of salvage and recipe drops per run.

I can go into further detail if people are interested, but the most significant advice I'd offer:

• Do not set the missions to -1 difficulty. This means that in the last room, all the fodder in the opening area will be grey, and won't drop inspirations as reliably. Since Nosferatu will be chewing through them at speed, you want them to provide you with inspirations.
• When you prepare to fight Nosferatu, you will want to have enough reds to damage cap yourself (remember your +100%ish percent in your actual ATTACKS), purple shields to protect yourself from his attacks, but most importantly, at least three accuracy buffs. His attacks all do a very strong -tohit debuff, and he spawns with Vampyri that add to it.
• Nosferatu will run if you're doing electrical damage, since that floors his recovery. This is a bad thing and if you're an elec/elec scrapper, for example, you might just find it unreasonably difficult to kill him. Sorry.
• Stealth buffs from a supergroup workstation can make the first mission a lot faster.

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EBs. It's not that it can't be solo'd with AVs, it's just the point is doing it quickly.

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According to Synapse, Merits are balanced at 8 per hour doing Flashbacks, or 20 per hour doing TFs. I know you mentioned that you can't do TFs due to familial duties, but honestly it is supposed to take you 2.5 times as long to earn Merits if you use Flashbacks rather than TFs. Obviously there are exceptions, as there are fast and slow TFs, fast and slow Flashbacks. But reconsider TFs. Join a mature big SG/Coalition that is family friendly. They understand "kid agro". Then just stick to the short TFs. Katie Hannon (30-35) is still very short, the ITF (35-50) can be short, there are others that people can do in under an hour.

Doc,

you forgot to more recent 50% boost to story arcs, since Synapse made that statement.

Story arcs are now targeted at 12 merits/hour.

Thanks. I went over so many details along the way, it's embarassing to have missed that one.

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