Empyrean Merit Drive

I think it's time that I tried to be a bit more efficient in my pursuit of Emp Merits.

Starting on Tuesday evening, 8pm Central/9 pm Eastern, 11/22/11, in RWZ if there's enough interest,

I'm going to lead first - a Lambda (unless there's too much interest, then I'll go BAF. )

Upon completion of that - If BAF, I'll do Lam, if Lam, Then BAF.

Following those two, Keyes.

Following Keyes, UGT.

I really don't like waiting around. That being said, I know some of you have long loading times, etc. If I have enough interest at 8pm, great.

If I don't have the numbers required by 8:10, I'll just go back to the grind of crafting and selling until Thursday, when I expect to repeat the process.

And, I expect to do this every Tues and Thurs until I get sick of it.

With the UGT, it can be a long trial. People can get distracted, tired, hungry, etc. If all goes as planned, I'd like to run it in less than an hour. However, things don't always go how we want them to. I don't know every single nuance of the UGT, but I do know that there are two things that seem to cause frustration amongst the leagues that end up failing the trial.

1. Not using the lichen temp powers often enough. Some grab as many as they can, get defeated - and other folks don't have enough and can't use them on the goliath av. So, he regens, prolonging the battle. We'll try to distribute these more evenly.
2. People get confused, despite the best efforts of those with Tactics and Clarion.
Some consider it bad form to ask people to "bring" anything on a trial/tf. I think if you want those emp merits, you'll bring at least 4 of the largest Break Frees you can. I believe they're called Escape. This large one can stop the confusion and allow you to re-target the Avatar. If 16 toons can't take down the avatar in 4 minutes, we probably wouldn't get to the avatar to see it. I say 16, even though I hope to run with 24, because I know some will not listen and possibly get defeated through no fault of their own.

Hope I see some of you there. I'd say all of ya, but there's only room for 23 more.

Good luck to you!

The last two runs of the UG that I've led the past 2 Saturdays; we did the UG in basically right at 1 hour (give or take a few mins of waiting/etc). Was quite surprised by the two times actually....and it's not like we were "stacked" either.

Edit:

Wish I could be there to help ya heh.

I wish you could be there too.

I found this little picture in reviewing trial strategy.

http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f3...p/1f09e1c3.jpg


While I hope to do this tonight - I forgot that Thursday is Thanksgiving. So, I'll postpone that for this week - might try it Friday after the MSR. I'd go earlier, but want to wait 20 hours for that stupid timer to finish counting down.

I'll see you there. I've been itching to get in some more Keyes and Underground, but lately I've only been seeing trials on days where I can't stay very long, and everybody always opens with LAM/BAF, and then I have to head out. I'm good to stay tonight, though. Looking forward to it.

Any huge objections to letting me use this for IXP? (as in, bringing level 51s) I promise to be as useful as possible!

Actually, I'm in this for the Emp merits. All of these trials can be played by level 50s. In my mind, everyone should have already level shifted with the alpha slot before even going on any trial - but that's just the way I play. If I'm level 50, am I going to quibble about a level 48 or 49 tagging along? No.

That being said, If I see too many toons that aren't level shifted, I'm gonna call it because I don't want to waste anybody's time. It's one thing to be level 49 and tackling +1 or +2's, but the defense softcap in iTrials is at 59% or somewhere very close to that. If you're not even at the softcap in regular content(playing a melee toon) then you're cruising for a bruising. Not saying you won't pay attention and do the best you can, just saying that the content can be percieved as challenging for those that are 50+2/+3. There's a reason why I don't bring level shifted toons (50+1) to an incarnate trial. It makes a huge difference, especially to my squishies that don't necessarily focus on defense. A kin defender (for example) that's not level shifted, even if his accuracy and toHit are maxed is going to have a rough time because the siphons and the heal require accuracy. The game mechanics make this harder for a kin than an Empath. That aside, if we have some granite tanks, I'm sure they'll be ok with speedboost and ID. I'm just gonna have to wait and see.

As for BAF , that's are now only challenging if we can't stay on top of the adds. So, I won't worry on that one.

Cool Breeze. Ill be there as well

I was really sweating my ability to connect to CoH and stay connected after zoning today. I still am. From 4pm to 7:30pm Central - No internet at all. A darn shame if I can't get online and stay online.

After 2 seperate 20 minute phone calls to my ISP, I was able to get an appointment for a tech to come by tomorrow to check everything out.


But, here goes nothing, as mysteriously, my internet is back up. And, just in time. : )

:'(

I'm about to start working nights.

Had friends come over last minute last night, so wasn't able to make it. Planning on next Tuesday though.

That's again for setting this up Ukase. Well run trials and good company makes for some fun times. I'm definitely looking forward to doing this again real soon.

I thought it went well also. Too bad about the Underground Trial -- better luck next time!

But on that topic, did anybody else have a problem targeting Des in the Avatar chamber? supposedly hanging out near her is beneficial, but I had no way of finding out where she was.

At about 2 minutes left, when I saw that we were highly unlikely to complete the trial, I'd asked our des keeper to bring her in - -and was told that they didn't have a clue where des was, as they couldn't target her. I don't know if this was a bug, or whether Des got lost in the tunnel somehow. I'd read that Des sometimes just vanishes for no apparent reason - but when I was coming back from the hospital with 15 seconds left, I saw some dialogue of hers- but never saw her.

As you mentioned, she was untargetable via her health bar pane.

I'm tempted to pass on this tonight because of Tanker Tuesday. But, if we have enough folks, I'll just bring on one of my tanks.

I don't think I'll do this anymore. I see Tanker Tuesday is a weekly thing now, so I think that might be more fun for me.

I may however start some trials before Tanker Tuesday, but Tuesdays can be kind of funny for me, so I can't put anything concrete prior to evening time.

For now, Friday and Sundays after the MSR is enough.

It gets to be quite exhausting trying to make things so clear for newer players that a child could understand what's expected and hoped for.


Then, I'm forced to realize that some are children and some are just childish.

I'll certainly form some trials - but I don't want to locked into a time.