Two Weeks to 50 - A Winter Break Journal

Hi everyone! Here I am, with two weeks of Winter Break ahead of me and little else to do.

I have NEVER hit level 50 on any of my dozens of toons. Altoholic? Definitely.

So! Here's the plan! I'm going to roll up a new character within the next 24 hours, and do nothing but level him or her for the next two weeks. Along the way, I will journal my experience.

Step one is going to be picking an AT and powersets. I've played a bit of everything, but especially melee in the past, so I'm looking for something a bit different. If you can sell me on a non-melee, non-Kheldian build, your name will go first on my supporters list! Feel free to suggest concepts and names to go with the build as well.

Step two of course is playing and journaling. I will play with pick-up groups whenever possible, solo when I can't, and share the story with all of you! I've got plenty of inf lying around, but in the interest of time I'm going to focus on just using SO's, basic IO's, and maybe a little franken-slotting or a couple of the more obvious, cheaper uniques (Performance Shifter +End, for example). I'll be sure to ask for advice as I need it, though, to help me put together a competent build. Expect daily updates (except perhaps on Christmas or days I don't actually play) to keep you apprised of my progress!

Supporters, great teammates, and advisors will be thanked by listing their names here. If you want to find me in-game to help out or just team up, my global is @Blue_Fenix. I'll post the character name as soon as it's been picked.

Don't let me down, Virtue!

CURRENT LEVEL: 0

PROGRESS BAR:
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GREAT WALL OF SUPPORTERS:

Alrighty, I've settled on a character. I rolled up an Assault Rifle/Ice Manipulation blaster named...

Snoviet!

His backstory involves a Siberian Super Solider Project gone wrong. I wrote a fun little bio for him as well as a cool costume. Perhaps I'll post screen shots later. In any case, off to start the great journey!

EDIT: Here's the copy-paste of the bio. And a screen-shot! The little red symbol on his jacket is a hammer-and-sickle of course.



(A well-groomed man steps out of the snow and into a dive bar. He proceeds to a table and sits across from a large drunk brute. They speak with Russian accents)

"I am agent Markovitch, KGB. You are Mr... ah... Blodfist, no?"

(The brute grunts)

"I am having need of your, ah, special talents, as it were. We have an AWOL soldier who must be... dealt vith"

(The brute takes another shot of vodka and holds out his hand. The KGB agent hands him a folder)

"Mr. Timotovitch was a product of our Siberian Super Soldier Project, cancelled, I'm afraid, due to certain, vell, psychological concerns. He is now reported to be in America, under the most ridiculous alias of 'Snoviet'. You can take care of this matter for us, ya?"

(The brute grunts again, derisively)

"Payment, of course, vill be half now, there in the folder, and half upon completion. This is acceptable, no? Good."

(The agent stands to leave, but pauses when the brute speaks for the first time)

"You vant I should kill him slowly?

Goodluck! Don't get sidetracked!

Day 1:

A selection of quotes and thoughts from Snoviet's inner monologue, all in stereotypical Russian accent.

"This bureaucracy almost as bad as KGB. Just because I am having super-powers, I must register in order to beat people up? This is crazy like bull!"

"Ms. Liberty? Bah, what a silly American name. But then, she is having nice legs...."

(Teaming with other heroes, and getting beat) "You know, we are having saying for times like this in Mother Country. In Snoviet Russia, !@#$ you!"

"What? They vant us to stop a bank robbery? Dirty capitalist swine can't protect their own money hoards! Ah, vell, at least we vill have plenty to shoot at...:

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So, I rolled up Snoviet as a Hero in Atlas Park (can't wait for 20 so he can fall to Vigilante). Messed around beating up some Hellions, then made a sewer team consisting of 4 blasters, a controller, a scrapper, and a tanker. We did the usual sweep and ran up to level 7-ish before we got sufficiently lost to decide to move on.

The team headed over to King's Row for some radios. The scrapper dropped out, and the tanker switched to his blaster. Thus, the team window looked something like

Blaster
Blaster
Blaster
Controller
Blaster
Blaster

I thought we might have a little trouble, but what the hell, let's do this. Turns out, it was AWESOME. Blasted our way through three radios pretty darn quick, then off to rescue Atlas Park bank and the dirty capitalist swine who work there. By that time, I had to log off for a going-away party for a good friend, but I was very happy with getting to level 9 and picking up a Jetpack. Next up: Steel Canyon, more Radios, and maybe Positron?

CURRENT LEVEL: 9

PROGRESS BAR:
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THANKS FOR TEAM GOES OUT TO:
Enerlect
Waldo Wonder Jr
Bee-Line
Agent Sawl
Lord Repulse
Death of Them
USA Brawler

Very cool idea! I'll be watching your progress. Too bad I'm a Freedomite or I would join you on this journey.

Snoviet... it's brilliant. Completely brilliant.

Wild Streak - Lv. 50(+3) Beast Mastery/Sonic Resonance Mastermind, Amnesty - Lv. 50 Staff Fighting/Dark Armor Stalker

Good luck with all that! When you turn 20, I have a toon that's trying to go Vigilante as well. I'll drop you a note and see where you're at. Maybe we can run some tips together.

Day 2:

"Vhat is the deal vith these snow beasts and huge pretty boxes? Is ridiculous! Besides, we are having much bigger snow beasts in Siberia."

Second day of the journey started out slowly. I had a hard time finding teammates, but at least I ran into Bee-Line and Waldo Wonder Jr. again. I ended up running enough radios to save another dirty capitalist swine bank (the King's Row branch this time) and pick up the other lowbie jetpack. Then, Waldo and I ran most of the Midnighter Arc. By that time Snoviet had hit level 12, so it was time for new powers, dual-origin enhancers, and lunch!

After lunch and running some errands, I logged in again and decided to solo a little to evaluate my build so far. I've mostly been focusing on the AR powers, especially Buckshot and M30 for the AOE on teams. I'd just picked up the Sniper Rifle power as well, so I wanted to screw around with that. +0/X1 was too easy, so I bumped up to +0/x2 and found myself challenged.

I feel like I'm finally starting to understand Blasters, though. I enjoyed messing around with snipe pulls and tricks like immobilizing a lieutenant and moving around a corner to deal with his minion goons. I also discovered just how powerful immobilizing with Chilblain can be on enemies that lack long range attacks such as "Buckshot" enemies and Outcast Bricks who only hurl a boulder every 15 seconds or so.

I wrapped up Midnighter and did a couple more solo missions before deciding to jump back on a team. This time, I stumbled across an almost-full group doing radios and quickly grabbed two more levels. Endurance is definitely starting to be an issue for me, especially when I run Hasten, but I'm sure that will ease up once I have enough slots to put EndRedux in my attacks.

Oh, and running between missions at ground level without Super Speed or Stealth SUCKS for blasters. I definitely racked up a bit of debt trying to Ninja Run across the tougher parts of Steel Canyon.

In any case, at level 15, I realized.... it's time to pick up a friend from the airport! So, I stopped there, and will continue again today.

CURRENT LEVEL: 15

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Day 3:

Snoviet sets out to save Baby New Year....

"Now THIS is like Mother Russia! Snow! Ice! Siberian snow creatures!"

"Hostage is baby!"

Later, running the Synapse TF full of Clockwork...

"KGB would KILL to have this technology. Well, KGB kill you anyway, but you understand, ya?"

Teaming with a Brute by the name of Clubbin', a discussion about dancing begins on the team...

"In Snoviet Russia, KGB hold dance contest. Winner gets to keep his legs!"

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What a day! Baby New Year team went well, and I picked up the holiday self-rez (which I got a hell of a lot of use out of already). Also ran the Synapse TF, which took forever but got me up to around 20 or 21. I soloed up to 22 and slotted out with SO's, which as usual made a huge difference in my performance.

Key powers I've picked up are Flamethrower (BWAHAHAHA, BURN!), Ice Patch (lol, pratfalls), and of course, Build Up (with Sniping... BOOM, Headshot). I've also tried out Chilling Embrace, but it doesn't really seem to contribute much, especially on teams. I'm sure it's providing some mitigation, but on teams I tend to either be just fine or dead reeeeeeally fast, so, yeah...

Anyway, I'm starting to consider setting up separate team and solo builds. Team build would focus mainly on AoE damage, while solo build would be a bit more balanced and include more of /Ice's mitigation tools.

Later in the day, I got on a couple of high-level tip teams, and that pushed me up to just shy of 25. I'm almost at the "halfway" point! Now, my next milestone is going to be 26 and Ignite, then Shiver whenever that opens up.

CURRENT LEVEL: 24

PROGRESS BAR:
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Day 4:

"So much violence, is like party in old country!"

"In Snoviet Russia, we have saying: if man still conscious at end, was not good party!"

A teammate mentioned he could not find 'Snoviet Russia' on the map....

"I am from coldest Siberia. You Americans have saying, "when hell freezes over", ya? That is where I come from"

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A little soloing, some random teaming, a horrible failed bank rescue mission, and BAM, level 25, "halfway" to 50! Later in the day, I eek my way up to 26 and pick up Ignite...

O. M. G. IGNITE. So much damage.

Unfortunately, it turns out to be rather difficult to use effectively on teams. Solo it's great, but with a fast moving group, I often felt that I was not hitting very many targets with Ignite or it didn't have enough time to really do its job before things died from other AoE anyway. I'm considering dropping Ignite and Ice Patch from my 'team' build and maybe picking up some Leadership powers or the Fighting pool.

Anyway, I tried to put together a Citadel TF, which promptly slowed to a crawl when we discovered it was spawning everything at level 30, and I was leading the team at 26. I dinged 27 and thought it would get easier, but nooooooo, TF's apparently level-lock you, which I didn't know. So! We restarted with a higher-level leader and kicked the Council's collective butts. Level 28, and time to start messing around with Shiver!

CURRENT LEVEL: 28

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Great thread so far. ^_^

*Subs to thread*

Day 5:

"Why is it I am feeling all depressed today? Vhat could be wrong vith me? Oh, ya, I know! I is not killing anyone in HOURS!"

Day 5 was a sloooow day. I decided level 28 was a good time to rebuild and split off my 'team' and 'solo' builds.

First off, I switched to build 2, and built it for teaming. No more Ignite or Ice Patch, but I managed to fit in Acrobatics, Assault, and Tactics, and better slot my attacks. This is an AoE damage build, above all else.

I spent a significant amount of time and money then franken-slotting my team build with cheap IO's. I think I don't really have enough experience with the IO system yet to be able to slot out a character quickly, and I was distracted with other real life stuff, so it took me quite a while.

After that, I switched back to build 1, used a vet-respec on it, and thereby traded in all the level 25 SO's I had slotted for cash. I decided, though, that I didn't feel like taking the time to franken-slot this one, so I quickly grabbed a bunch of level 30 SO's and headed off to do some Vigilante tips solo.

My solo build uses Ignite and Ice Patch to amazing affect, allowing me to handle +0/x3 with few problems. Some groups are more challenging, though, such as the Sky Raiders. Stupid Porters jumping behind me and ignoring my nicely set-up kill zone. I also managed to squeeze in Acrobatics, Tough, and Weave, which definitely up my survivability quite a bit. Those powers came at the cost of having no melee attacks (which isn't really a big deal) and skipping M30 Grenade (I've got 2 cones + Ignite and M30 is the lowest damage AR AoE) and Shiver.

Finally, after doing my morality mission and becoming a Vigilante, I got on my team build and joined a level 50 team that was fighting Freakshow. Team build was putting out plenty of damage and aggro, but we were lacking in buff/debuff/heals so I died a lot. I tried to use Shiver to debuff, but I felt like it wasn't doing much. Maybe the high-level (51 and 52, with me at 49) Freakshow were resisting the slows? I dunno.

In any case, I made it to 29 and called it a night. Today, more teaming, and Christmas Eve with my family!

CURRENT LEVEL: 29

PROGRESS BAR:
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Day "6":

"I have yet to meet man who can outsmart bullet"


So, I haven't updated in a few days due to Christmas. Spent a bunch of time with my family, and then went shopping at after-Christmas sales, yadda yadda yadda.

Anywho, I'm back in the game, and the important thing is, I've managed to hit 33 today.

FULL AUTO FTW!

Seriously, it's a really fun power. I've never had a blaster this high level before, so I don't know how the other Tier 9's compare, but Full Auto is certainly awesome.

I'm eating dinner now, and will get back on later tonight I expect. I have until the end of Monday the 3rd to get to 50 before my Winter vacation ends. Think I can still do it, considering New Year's party might get in the way? We'll see.

CURRENT LEVEL: 33

PROGRESS BAR:
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Take Ignite. Seriously, take Ignite.