Zero to Awesome Redeux! 31 Day Project

Day 16 -- July 16, 2012



Not much to say about tonight. I ran five tips and the Crossing the Line morality mission, earned a hero merit, converted 50 regular merits into another hero merit, so I had 4 again and spent 2 on a Kinetic Combat dam/end/rech level 30. As you can see, an overnight bid for a dam/end had filled (I took the quick route and bid on a level 35) so that gives me the full Kinetic Combat set in Incinerate. That's one more thing out of the way.





Here's a little study in how marketing works. Yesterday I listed a Decimation acc/dam/rech for about 36.1 million, and it sold for 40 million. But they were selling for as much as 50 million, so I listed the next one for 41 million.

It didn't sell overnight, but since I had free slots after buying the two Kinetic Combat pieces I was missing, I put another one up for sale. This was my last one, and I listed it for 40,000,001.

It sold within the hour for 50 million. (First image).

Mind you, the one I had listed for 41 million still hadn't sold. (Second image). But there were several sales for 45-50 million. This means someone was listing for less than 41 million, but probably more than 40 million, and probably more than the 40 million and 1 influence that I'd listed mine for.



So I pulled it down and relisted it for 40,001,000. The only reason I didn't list for 40,000,001 was just being rather careless on my part... I just wanted it for somewhere below 41 million. BUT! It did not sell the rest of the evening, so it's very possible that my competitor is listing for between 40,001,000 and 40,000,001.

Anyway other than that, I didn't do much. Another Summer Event run got me to 37, and earned me my fourth Overwhelming Force dam/end/rech (and fourth of a different level). Still looking for the acc/dam/rech and the acc/dam/end/rech.

I spent about an hour at the Hero Dawn Costume Contest. Some of my friends routinely join this weekly contest, but I usually don't know about it far enough ahead of time to plan for anything. But I heard that tonight's theme was "Over the Rainbow" ie Wizard of Oz themed costumes, and I could hardly avoid entering Princess Ozma:



Before the contest I moved her to my oldest solo Virtue Super Group, Guardians of Oz. Really, she should have been in that one all along. And -- I won first prize! Woo!

There were some very good costumes in the contest too... my friend Jane did a great Elpheba (Wicked Witch of the West), and I saw a really good Dorothy, an excellent Cowardly Lion, a munchkin, a winged monkey (two I think actually), and what looked like a pretty good Tik Tok. Really, I was kind of sad that I had to stand still and couldn't go up and down the line looking at the other costumes.

Princess Ozma was you? Well done outfit, congrats! I was there too as Dorothy. Fun stuff

Thanks! That was a really good Dorothy too!

It's too bad so much of the trivia was centered on the movie, though hardly surprising. Jane was acing those questions; she said it was her all-time favorite movie, and it showed. But when you get past the movie -- I own about 50 Oz books. Yes, there are that many -- a lot more than that in fact. Baum wrote 14, then the original publisher hired other writers to continue the series, and eventually there were 40 "canonical" books, ie ones published by the official publisher. But people kept writing Oz books, and all of the Baum books are in public domain now, as well as some of the others, and some of the "non-canonical" books are as good or better than some of the canonical ones -- and some of them were actually written by the "canonical" writers too. ^_^

I've also read a couple of books on Baum himself. Heh. But I only got one question in the trivia contest.

Day 17 -- July 17, 2012



My last Decimation sold overnight. And that's the only thing I sold today. I don't have a lot of things left in storage to throw up for sale -- well, things that would earn me a big profit anyway. I have a couple of brute and tanker ATOs, but I already have ones listed for sale that haven't sold yet. And I have a bunch of mid-level set IOs and generic IOs that I can sell but not for a huge profit. So I placed some bids on more things to sell.



By evening I had three Blaster ATOs purchased, but I'm still trying to buy more stuff so at the moment I haven't placed these up for sale. I'm bidding on a couple of cheaper purple recipes that I can hopefully convert and resell for a profit -- I'm back up to 7 converters from random drops, time I used them to make money.

Otherwise I spent money on my build. I bought several of the Decimaion recipes that I need, and one more of the Positron's Blast. I bought the five Doctored Wounds pieces that I needed. I had a bid in for two Call to Arms acc/dam and one of those filled. Here's my build at present:



I'm not doing bad! I have about 57% global recharge now before Hasten kicks in. Domination is up a lot of the time!

I ran five hero tips, and I ran an Ouro badge mission -- the Negotiator badge I think it was -- because I had 48 regular merits left. That gave me 50, which I converted, then bought another Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge. I'm kind of in a position where I'm not sure I need to buy anything else for my build with my hero merits, but there are pieces of Positron's Blast and Decimation that I need, and which are hard to come by, but which aren't so expensive that I want to use a-merits on them. I just have to place bids and wait. But I can probably buy stuff with merits just to make money off of now.

Later in the evening I ran SSA 1.3 and earned a hero merit from that. Marshall Blitz was tough -- he killed me twice -- but I managed it in the end. I also ran the Cimemora "meet people" mission, and the talk to Imperious mission, for 2 merits... but no task forces or other stuff tonight, so I have a total of 2 merits and I think 2 hero merits on me right now.

Day 18 -- July 18, 2012

It seems like in the last 24-48 hours, sales on Blaster ATOs have passed a tipping point. Sort of a "point of no return", except that, of course, things will return to normal eventually.

What I mean is, just yesterday I bought three acc/dam/rech ATOs for 26,300,000 each. I had bids in for some dam/rech ATOs too, but my initial bid was under 22,000,000 and someone else bid just over that. I did see several sales at close to what I'd bid, and I rebid at a higher price in hopes of snagging a few to resell. I also had bids in for more of the acc/dam/rech.

As of tonight I had bought nothing more. There were few for sale, and things were consistently selling for a lot of influence. I decided things were at a price tipping point, and I put two of my acc/dam/rech ATOs up for sale for 61 million each. They seemed to be selling really well, and there were only 10 for sale, but I wondered if I was being a little greedy.



They sold within an hour, for 65 and 80 million, as you can see.



I listed the last one for 66 million, feeling more bold. It sold for 77 million inside a minute.

I really wish I'd bought more of these things. Right now there are 2 dam/rech listed for sale, and the going price is about 100 million. Several of the other Blaster ATOs have 10 or 15 for sale at most. And I'm kind of stuck trying to figure out what I should be bidding on instead, because right now you can't really get Blaster ATOs at reasonable prices...

Ran five tips tonight and the morality mission for a hero merit. I broke down and bought a Decimation dam/end/rech with 2 hero merits, since I can't seem to buy one off of the market.

Didn't do anything else tonight, so I'm only halfway to level 38.

I just want to say this thread is an amazing display of your mastery of the game as well as a fantastic teaching tool (as you intended). Thank you, keep up the great work, and keep having fun! ( ' :

Day 19 -- 2012

I'm nearly 2/3rds through the month-long project, and I think I'm lagging behind in levels compared to how I did last year (I haven't checked to confirm that). Money-wise I'm probably doing pretty good, but I haven't joined many teams or task forces in the last week and thus have been leveling slowly.



Market-wise, I accomplished very little today. I had placed a level 30 Devastation proc for sale yesterday on the theory that anything blaster-related might sell well, and it did, for 21 million. That was pretty much it for the day, none of my lowball bids on cheap ATOs or cheap purple sets netted me anything. I'm up to 11 converters now, I want something to try and convert!

On the other hand, I did much better in the leveling department. I ran 5 tips, then a Summer event (got one of the Overwhelming Force that I already have, again) and then I joined a Sutter Task Force. Several of my friends were complaining that they didn't like Sutter and didn't want to join, but it went well. The conclusion was that Sutter is a perfectly okay Task Force on a good team, but can become a real pain with a poor team.

Oh, by the way, my Summer event via the LFG tool paired me up with someone that I had 5-starred. As it turned out, he was not one of my regular friends though -- instead it was Zombie Man. Dunno if he recognized my toon though.

And then I teamed with Zombie Fryer on the Sutter TF... two Zombehs in a row, hehe. But the Sutter was all friends and five-starred people pretty much.



I hit 38 on the Sutter and got close to 39, and I was also close to 50 merits, so late at night I decided to run a Freakshow Wars arc via Ouro. I set it for 2 hours for the easy badge (it normally takes me less than an hour to run), and then after the first mission I realized that I still didn't have a stealth IO. I decided to rectify that immediately, and I wound up spending more than an hour at Wentworth's, and subsequently missed my 2 hour target window for the badge by 1 minute 27 seconds. But what I did: bought and crafted a fly stealth IO and four Decimation IOs (I now had my tier 9 fire attack to slot). The best part of this is that I've had a bid on level 30 or level 31 Decimation acc/end/rech recipes for over a week now without buying one, and my current bid was for over 15 million a piece for level 30's, and then I found a level 32 for sale and bought it for 7.1 million. Can't argue with that!

After I was done with the TF I converted 50 merits and bought a Positron's Blast triple, then found a level 30 acc/dam for sale. Again, lucky to find it, it hadn't been there an hour earlier.

But filling out my Positron's Blast set made me realize something. I have 3 Decimation sets in my build, and two Call to Arms, and one Positron's Blast. That's 6 sets with a 6.25% recharge bonus. Uh... rule of five. Doh! So I downloaded the new MIDs, and reworked my build a bit -- needed to do that anyway -- and now I'm going to have to swap out one set of Decimation for Thunderstrikes. Which means I can sell the Decimations, most likely.

Anyway I hit 39 on my Ouro arc... so mission accomplished.

Day 20 -- July 20, 2012

Last year I had AE Baby to level 50 on day 20, and about 750 million infamy earned. This year Dilithium Flower managed to hit 40 on day 20, so I'm clearly behind the curve on my leveling, but I believe I'm ahead of the game on earning influence, though it's a bit hard to tell at the moment with all the money I have tied up in bids and things listed for sale. I also think I'm further along in filling out my build, but again, hard to know for sure.

But clearly a few ITFs are in order.

Anyway! Converters have been burning a hole in my pocket. After a couple of days of trying to buy something to convert and adjusting my approach, I finally struck paydirt yesterday.



I've had lowball bids in on several Absolute Amazement recipes, and a stack of 10 of one of the cheapest ATOs I could find. This morning I purchased two Dominion of Arachnos quads for 4.2 million each -- a bit more than I'd originally bid, but I got impatient waiting.





I immediately used two of my 11 converters for out of set conversions. I got a Scrapper and a Dom ATO in return. Hmm... Scrapper should sell okay, not as certain about the Dom one. I was really hoping for a blaster or brute ATO, but in a pinch I think Corr, Tank, Scrapper, and Troller ATOs sell pretty well too, so my chances seem good of getting at least a few nice things to sell.



In any case by evening I'd bought several more things -- including the last Decimation I thought I needed for my third set, which I probably don't need now.

But I also had five more ATOs to play with! Fun!



No blaster or brute ATOs, but I wound up with two Scrapper, one Defender, one Stalker, and one Controller ATO. Seems like a decent haul to me, I can probably make money off of these -- the Scrapper and Controller ATOs certainly.

After this I started running my nightly tip missions, but some friends were forming a Citadel, so I joined that. Finally! I'm only missing Citadel and Numina for Task Force Commander, after this I only needed Numina.



By the time the Citadel was over I'd bought the last of my 10 SoA ATOs, so more fun awaited me.



This time around I wasn't so lucky -- one more Scrapper ATO, but also two Kheldian ATOs, which are hardly an upgrade from the Arachnos ones.

I'd used 10 of 11 converters at this point, so I decided to use the last one to convert one of the Kheldian ATOs. I probably could have predicted the results:



/em sighs.

Anyway I finished my tip missions, ran the morality for a hero merit, then since it was Friday I ran SSA1 twice for the hero merit and 20 regular merits. This gave me 89 regular merits, and I converted 50 to another hero merit, for a total of three. I bought a level 30 Luck of the Gambler Defense IO, which is only 1 merit. I need 2 or 3 more of those too, so that's my current spending goal. I'm finally reaching the point where I'm starting to add slots to Manuevers, Weave, etc and can actually slot these too.



By this point I'd earned another converter, so I went for a third conversion on my wayward SoA ATO. A controller ATO, much better!



Also by this point I'd sold one of the Scrapper ATOs. Not for a lot of money, but at least I sold something for a profit.



And a little later I was able to convert my other Kheldian ATO to a Stalker ATO. Which... is better... I think.

Late at night I ran a Summer event, which netted me an Overwhelming Force acc/dam/end (at last, one of the two I didn't have -- now I just need the quad). It also put me a hair's breadth from level 40. A few sniper kills in Founder's Falls solved that problem, and then I ran my costume mission, for which I hunted grey-conning Nemesis in Eden.

Can someone tell me why I seem to get so many converters hunting grey-con mobs? Is it just because I kill more faster, or is it because they can't drop anything else so that my chances of a converter drop are higher? I get a lot of them while hunting grey-cons in Talos for tips, and here I got another while running my costume mission.



Which was good, because one of my other purchases filled. An Absolute Amazement! Finally, a chance to try conversion on a purple IO!



The results were less than stellar. I don't consider a Soulbound Allegiance an upgrade over any other purple IO.

But I thought, "Hey, I can kill some grey mobs in Talos and I will certainly get another converter!" And you know what? This worked.



And... the results were slightly better, I suppose, but what I'm shooting for is one of the damage sets -- Ragnarok, Apocalypse, Hectacomb, or Armageddon.

Anyway that was my evening of converter experiments!

Current Goals

At this point I have 11 days left for my experiment, and I still need to reach 50. Saturday (today) will be tricky for me too because I'm busy with friends in the evening, so I can't grind levels. I also want to see a few more things sell so that I'll feel more confident about putting in bids for some of the bigger-ticket items that I need for my build -- Cytoskeletons and a Glad Armor +3% defense, for example. Those are things that I'll want to bid and wait for several days in order to get them at a good price. I may even pull down my Absolute Amazement bids and do that this weekend.

Villain Plan by Mids' Villain Designer 1.959
http://www.cohplanner.com/

Click this DataLink to open the build!

Dilithium Flower: Level 50 Magic Dominator
Primary Power Set: Plant Control
Secondary Power Set: Fiery Assault
Power Pool: Flight
Power Pool: Leadership
Power Pool: Speed
Power Pool: Fighting
Ancillary Pool: Mace Mastery

Villain Profile:
Level 1: Strangler -- BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(3), BasGaze-Acc/Hold(3), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(5)
Level 1: Flares -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(5), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(7), Decim-Acc/Dmg(9)
Level 2: Incinerate -- KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx(A), KntkC'bat-Acc/Dmg(9), KntkC'bat-Dmg/Rchg(11), KntkC'bat-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(11)
Level 4: Roots -- Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob(A), Enf'dOp-Acc/EndRdx(13), Enf'dOp-EndRdx/Immob(13), Enf'dOp-Immob/Rng(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Immob/Rchg(15), Enf'dOp-Acc/Rchg(17)
Level 6: Fire Breath -- Posi-Dmg/Rng(A), Posi-Dmg/Rchg(17), Posi-Dmg/EndRdx(19), Posi-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(19), Posi-Acc/Dmg(21)
Level 8: Seeds of Confusion -- AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear(A), AotDominator-Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/Rchg(34), AotDominator-EndRdx/Rchg(34), AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx(34), AotDominator-Acc/Conf/Hold/Immob/Sleep/Stun/Fear/EndRdx/Rchg(36), AotDominator-Rchg/+Dmg%(37)
Level 10: Fire Blast -- Decim-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Decim-Dmg/Rchg(23), Decim-Dmg/EndRdx(25), Decim-Acc/Dmg(27), Decim-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(27)
Level 12: Spirit Tree -- Dct'dW-Rchg(A), Dct'dW-Heal(29), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx(29), Dct'dW-Heal/Rchg(31), Dct'dW-Heal/EndRdx/Rchg(33)
Level 14: Fly -- Frbd-Stlth(A)
Level 16: Maneuvers -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(21), HO:Cyto(23)
Level 18: Vines -- BasGaze-Acc/EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(A), BasGaze-EndRdx/Rchg/Hold(37), BasGaze-Acc/Hold(37), BasGaze-Rchg/Hold(39)
Level 20: Embrace of Fire -- RechRdx-I(A)
Level 22: Hasten -- RechRdx-I(A), RechRdx-I(50)
Level 24: Hover -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(25)
Level 26: Carrion Creepers -- Ragnrk-Dmg(A), Ragnrk-Dmg/EndRdx(39), Ragnrk-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(39), Ragnrk-Acc/Rchg(40), Ragnrk-Dmg/Rchg(40), Posi-Dam%(50)
Level 28: Boxing -- Dmg-I(A)
Level 30: Tough -- S'fstPrt-ResKB(A), S'fstPrt-ResDam/Def+(31), GA-3defTpProc(31)
Level 32: Fly Trap -- C'Arms-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(40), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(42), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(43)
Level 35: Scorpion Shield -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(36), HO:Cyto(36)
Level 38: Blaze -- Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx/Rchg(A), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/EndRdx(43), Thundr-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(43), Thundr-Dmg/Rchg(45), Thundr-Acc/Dmg(45), Thundr-Dmg/EndRdx(50)
Level 41: Weave -- LkGmblr-Rchg+(A), LkGmblr-Def(42), HO:Cyto(42)
Level 44: Disruptor Blast -- OvForce-Acc/Dmg/End/Rech(A), OvForce-Dmg/End/Rech(45), OvForce-Acc/Dmg/End(46), OvForce-Acc/Dmg(46), OvForce-End/Rech(46)
Level 47: Summon Tarantula -- C'Arms-EndRdx/Dmg/Rchg(A), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg/Rchg(48), C'Arms-Dmg/EndRdx(48), C'Arms-Acc/Dmg(48)
Level 49: Assault -- EndRdx-I(A)
Level 1: Brawl -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Domination
Level 1: Prestige Power Dash -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Slide -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Quick -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Rush -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Prestige Power Surge -- Empty(A)
Level 1: Sprint -- Empty(A)
Level 2: Rest -- Empty(A)
Level 4: Ninja Run
Level 2: Swift -- Run-I(A)
Level 2: Health -- Mrcl-Rcvry+(A), Numna-Regen/Rcvry+(33)
Level 2: Hurdle -- Jump-I(A)
Level 2: Stamina -- P'Shift-EndMod(A), P'Shift-End%(33)
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I reworked my build slightly -- I can show my Overwhelming Forces now, and I reslotted Carrion Creepers for damage. A set of Ragnarok plus a proc gives me ED-capped damage and 89.93% recharge, while giving me the set bonuses that I want -- 4% endurance recovery, 15% accuracy, 10% global recharge. But this is still the last thing on my list of what to accomplish by the end of the month, if I can get everything else and I'm in position with at least bids on the Ragnaroks, I'll be more than satisfied.

In order to complete my build I will need to go villain. A round trip takes 8 days, but my only goal is to have the right powers before the 31st, so I don't need to have made the full trip back by then. Fridays are when I'm doing my SSA1 runs, and it would be a shame to miss out on the hero merit, so my current plan is to run 10 vigilante tips next Wednesday and Thursday, and then run the SSA1 Friday, after which I can run my vigilante morality mission and immediately run 5 villain tips. By Saturday I will be able to run 5 more villain tips, turn villain, and do the patron arc.

Well it's good to mention it of course. I'm very careful so I don't think I would have forgotten. ^_^

Day 21 -- July 21, 2012

I ran a Numina Task Force this morning. That earned me my Task Force Commander badge and got me halfway to 41.



Other than that, I sold a Defender ATO. I'm not raking in tons of money on my coverted ATOs, but I am making money.

I also ran a Freakshow Wars arc via Ouro this morning for extra merits. Along the way I earned another converter, and decided to try my luck again with my purple IO. When that didn't achieve the desired result, I spent 10 merits on another converter... and then another....





Third time was the charm! (Technically my fifth time with this IO). Got an Apoc proc. There were surprisingly a lot of these for sale (60), but the going price seems to be around 250 million so if I can sell for that I'm more than 100 million ahead of where I started. ^_^ My hope is a large number of those 60 for sale are priced above 250 mil.



Then, just to prove a point, I slaughtered a few grey mobs in Talos. Yep -- got another converter.



My current costume for Dilithium Flower -- fifth costume slot.

My other project that I wanted to finish by the end of the month was to fill all my Virtue slots on this account with characters and stick them in one of my SGs. Little extra prestige, you know. ^_^ (I am not placing any of them in Dilithium's SG though -- that is for now a solo SG, as in 1 character only).

But for what it's worth, here's what I've created so far. I try to come up with names that I like, that aren't just random garbage, but not anything so incredibly clever that I'd regret locking it away behind a premium account. Sadly most of these characters are destined to never be played:



Blackberry Crush (Strawberry Crush was taken. Raspberry Crush is still free though).



Carmelcorn (Popcorn was taken)



Cupcake Overdrive



Jalia Jamb (a name I used in Toontown years ago, a combo of my old EQ shaman Jalia McMarrin, and Jellia Jamb, the maid in the Emerald City palace).



Master Wannabe (some friends in global chat were forming a master run and trying to find people for it... they didn't want any "wannabe's").



Hero Mero (friend typed this when he was trying to type "hero merit")



Nyaanko (literally can be read as "cat girl", nyaa being "meow" to Japanese and -ko which I believe literally means child, but is a very frequent ending for a girl's name. Nyaanko is a side character in one of my favorite manga Genshiken -- I think it's a nickname rather than her real name).



Snackrifice, who is a zombie master mind and therefore certainly won't be played after the account turns premium.


I have 4 slots left to fill.

That's a lot of catgirls. HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!

I mean, I know it's Virtue and all.... but c'mon!

Heh, I make more catgirls than I actually play. I only have Mouse Police and Squiddy Kitty at 50, and rarely play them.

Athough actually that's a part of the problem... for some of these I'm just looking for a saved character costume that contains nothing I don't have access to on my rather basic newly-VIP account.

I have a lot of Mouse Police costumes saved that use older costume pieces.

And the sad part is... I suggested another character name yesterday, but it would have to be a catgirl, and you're right, I've made a lot already. But how's this for a catgirl plant dom: Herbal Hairball. >.>



Also... made a couple more sales.

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Another update: I didn't take a picture of this because... I forgot. Also I'm at a friend's place and doing this on my laptop. But I placed a bid for two Cytoskeletons today at 221 million each. The weekend is when you usually have hami raids, so I've found that's normally your best chance to get hami-O's at a good price. Anyway... bought both by evening. ^_^

Love the thread, you are 100% right about the level 50 SOs being an easy seed starter. I usually do that with the large Insps.

Try doing this challenge on a server that isn't as populated as yours and record your findings.

Day 22 - July 22, 2012

I started out this morning by running a Summer event -- hadn't done one last night. I queue'd up and ran around Talos killing grey mobs, trying to get a converter to drop. Eventually the event started -- we had me, two trollers (illusion and dark), and a thugs MM. LOTS of pets, LOTS of damage, LOTs of holds and confused mobs! Not so good for the badges where you have to kill two enemies at the same time or avoid killing the EBs however, but we pretty much plowed through everything. Although it was funny to see Gang War come out and stand around doing nothing... the AV was constantly held, so never attacked anyone and the gang therefore did not attack either.

I wound up with an Overwhelming Force dam/end, I think it was. My quest for the quad continues.

I spent more time killing grey mobs, but nothing dropped. Then I saw someone forming a Citadel, so I joined that 40 merits, and I hit level 41.

After this I decided to try some purple conversion marketing Goat-style -- that is, see what purple recipes I could buy instantly for 150 million.



An Unbreakable Constraint hold, as it turned out.



I had a converter on me (dropped during Citadel), but I had to buy a second one to get something I liked.



Listed for 261 million, sold instantly for 275 million.

Hey! That was easy and fast! Let's see if I can do that again!



I managed to instant-purchase two Gravitational Anchor recipes.

Here's where things got a bit bogged down. I didn't want to spend all my merits on converters, so I spent a considerable amount of time killing grey mobs in and around Talos, trying to get a converter to drop. No dice. Finally I decided that, what the heck, if I make money it's worth the cost of a few merits. I had 89 merits on me at the time.



As you can see, it took five conversions to get something I liked on the first IO. Bleah, 50 merits gone. Luckily, the second IO took only 1 conversion, so my average was 3 conversions to a damage set IO. That seems about right, in retrospect.

And I can always earn more merits, and experience at the same time. Better than running around killing grey mobs I suppose. I promptly went to Ouro and started a Freakshow Wars run, to earn back some of my merits.

First mission, first room, first mob, I see this...



Okay, I'm happy to have it of course, but it's like the game is taunting me....

By afternoon/evening, my Armageddon (listed for 261 million) had sold for 300 million. The Apocalypse proc, listed for 250 million even, sold for 255,555,555.

Which actually gave me most of a billion influence to play with... what you can't see from these screenshots is that I had a bid out for an Absolute Amazement at 121 million, and a bit for a third Cytoskeleton at 221 million.

So! Next verse, same as the first! I hope, at least.

By this point I was back up to 97 merits -- I'd spent time gathering all of the explore badges in Praetoria proper (6 zones, 30 merits) and I'd run a blueside Cathedral of Pain... I forget how many merits that is, it's 21 if you go for just the merits but I went for the buff and badge.

I still had my 1 converter from my Freakshow Wars run this morning, so I was all set to try some more conversions... hopefully ones that didn't waste as many converters as last time.





Bought two recipes easily enough! Crafted them, and it was time to try converting them!





Oh yeah! Now THAT'S what I'm talking about! Only 2 conversions to get two damage IOs!

I have these up for sale at the moment. ^_^

Only other thing I did this afternoon was work on my base a bit. I was at nearly 150 thousand prestige by this point. I'm trying to design a more interesting entrance, and while I was at it I got rid of my oversight center (never actually used it for anything) and installed a real energy room and control room, and a mainframe. To do this I had to buy a little more prestige... only spent 30 million though. I don't have the power supply though, that costs 200,000 prestige, so it will be a while before I can install that.

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Ran 5 tips + morality mission. Bought a Luck of the Gambler Defense IO. I need just one more for my build.

My two purples haven't sold yet. I pulled down my Cytoskeleton bid and put in a bid for a Glad Armor 3% defense IO instead. Those are the two things I need to buy for my build, outside of the purple set that I theoretically want to add.

Ran with a Tina McIntyre mission team and got to 42. I was really hoping to get higher this weekend, but oh well. As I recall, when I did this last August there was a DXP weekend to boost my leveling quite a bit. This time around, I may not be hitting 50 until the very end of the month. But also, I seem to level slower -- the little patrol experience boosters and other experience boosters that I always have on my main account really do help.

When running TFs and such, maybe suggest to the team leader running at +2 or +3 or whatever the team can handle? I think it'd be worth the extra few minutes per mission if you're gaining like 30% more XP per kill or however much more XP you get from higher con enemies...

Also, today's Monday, which means there should be a mothership raid tonight. That should be decent for XP if you're not doing anything else! Also, if it's within the time-frame of your project, I believe they're doing Captain Mako week with DXP weekend soon?

Nice going so far, regardless!

Da6 23 - July 23, 2012



Early this morning I logged in to find that I'd sold a couple of things -- one of my purple IOs from last night, the Armageddon, and a scrapper ATO.

I forget what I listed the Armageddon for, something like 261 or 277 million.



I only had a few minutes before I had to get ready for work, but that was enough to purchase two more purple recipes to convert.



I had 1 free converter on hand. I wound up spending 50 merits buying five more, before I got what I wanted: An Armageddon, and a Ragnarok.



I probably should have kept the Ragnarok for my build, but I was in a hurry. Hindsight is 20/20. Anyway, by evening I had sold 3 purples. The Hectacomb had been listed for 249 million, the others were 262 million I believe.



My bid for a Glad Armor 3% defense IO had also filled.

This leaves me with one Cytoskeleton to purchase, and five pieces of Ragnarok. That will pretty much complete my build, I think. And, as you can see, I have a billion influence left to do that with. A billion won't buy 1 Cyto and 5 Ragnaroks, but it's a really good start.



I was only able to insta-purchase one purple recipe for 150 million this time.



A single conversion (I had two free ones) got me another Ragnarok. And this time, I decided to save it for my build.

At the moment I have bids in for a Cyto and a Synthetic Cyto, whichever I manage to buy first is good. I'm bidding a bit more than I did on Saturday since the price probably won't drop until the weekend again. We'll see. Also bidding on some purple recipes in the hopes of snagging one for less than 150 million.

What I did tonight: Ran a Penelope Yin Task Force, which unfortunately was "taken over". We had four people from the global channel I'm on, but had to open up to LFG to fill it out. Some of the LFG people decided without asking that we were doing a speed run, and so we skipped a bunch of potential experience that those that formed the TF really hadn't planned to skip.

After that we ran a Hess Task Force -- I got to make use of the fact that I have Hess as a contact, finally! We refused to look outside our own circle for anyone else, and thus we wound up running with only five people plus one filler who was afk for the entire TF eating dinner, but joined so that we could start and came back just barely in time to grab a free badge and merits. We'd made certain up front that people knew we weren't doing a speed run and we mostly killed our way to objectives, but decided as a group to stealth to the boss on the final mission.

As soon as we'd finished, someone in one of my global channels was starting up a Moonfire. I joined, along with some other friends. Again, this turned out to be an unannounced speed run, which I don't mind so much on a Moonfire but I think it annoyed my other friends. But at least it was the leader making that decision this time. Still, it's better to say up front what you plan to do. I enjoy speed runs when I know that's what we're doing, but to not warn people is bad form and even worse, to decide it on your own when you're not the team leader... that's rude.

I got to 43, and I earned a bunch of merits.

So a bit later at night I had something else sell... another ATO.

And I tried again to buy a couple of purple recipes for cheap, and this time I found two for sale:





My conversion attempts yielded a Ragnarok triple immediately, and after a couple of weak attempts, I got an Armageddon dam/rech, which I listed for sale.

The Ragnarok I placed in my base. After all, I'm trying to make money so I can afford a Ragnarok set... but if I can get it by converting a few 150 million influence IOs, so much the better!

Afterwards I switched to AE Baby to run a Mortimer Kal TF with Goat and Aurora Girl and a few other people. Much fun Slightly chaotic at times but I kind of like it that way.

Then switched back and even though it was late, I ran my five tips. No Summer event though, didn't have time after all that TF'ing.

This thread of yours has inspired me to start flipping ATOs on one of my marketeers been very profitable so thank you there.

Also this purple conversion seems like a good investment but it would force me into running hero tips etc for merits so will have to assess that before I decide if i want to start working those as my 5th market toon