Minotaur

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Kinetic Combat can get pretty expensive, so I only worked one into my build.

My goal is to stay cheap and I've done it.

Fyi, I'm posting from my phone. Otherwise i'd post the build noe.

On another noote: trolls -> lol

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I kept the cost down on the sets of 4 kinetic combats by using the proc, and only one (whichever I could get) of the DE and DER which are the expensive ones. If you're patient and spend a while over it in advance of needing the IOs, is not too bad.

I was softcapped to S/L/nrg by level 36 IIRC.

I presume you didn't play on Freedom then at that point, rarely a day went by without somebody asking for the fortune teller mission.

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Just because there are none for sale right now doesn't mean there will not be any for sale. What's stopping you from seeing the flipper's price, setting a bid for 1 more, and waiting 24 hours? Just because you could buy them for 20K before doesn't mean you have to pay 3M now.

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No, I don't have to pay 3M now and I don't, but I do have to pay 250K instead of the 20K I used to have to pay to beat the flipper's price.

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1) If you're a math/stats guy, what are you doing talking about luck? Any math/stats guy would chalk it up to chance and would recognize that no matter what your last 100 rolls turned out like, your most profitable selection is a random roll. Either you're really bad in statistics, or you're not really a math/stats guy.


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I made a spreadsheet of what I dropped and I know what I got on average per merit on a sample of say 3000 merits, and I know I get more value from buying the single recipes. This may not be everybody's experience, but it is mine. It also saves me the hassle of having to sell 12 enhancements rather than one, which blocks transaction slots for a while, so even if I was making a small loss, I'd still do it that way. I've made between 5-6M profit after salvage/crafting costs per 20 merit roll, and I can make more than that (85-90M) off a 240 merit lvl 20 miracle unique and it will sell in a day or so. My most regular merit purchasing toon is lvl 17 so can't do LotGs.

The spreadsheet I used is out of date, because it was in the days of 4M pangean soils instead of the 1M they are now (both at buy it nao prices), so if I cared that much I would redo it, but I really can't be bothered.

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In the reasonably early days, if you were level 10 and broke, as there was no Ouroboros, you simply pimped the fortune teller. 50s who missed the fortune teller mission and wanted the atlas medallion had plenty of spare cash, nothing to spend it on, and no other way of getting the badge, so getting 1-10M for letting them on your fortune teller mission was easy, and funded your DO/SOs, particularly if more than one 50 wanted in.

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If you took the right contact, were the right level when you ran it, recognized what it was, and advertised it appropriately during a high traffic time. All of these things would occur only if you already knew what Fortune Teller was, which would require having played way past that point. This, in turn, makes it no different than depending on a high-level toon to fund your low-level toons. Thus, this was mentioned earlier in the thread as a practice that doesn't have to occur any longer, pointing out that low-level toons get richer faster without the support of a higher-level toon. That negates your story because you actually support the new system over the old by way of that story.

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This is not the point I was making, you can't do this any more as the 50 can now Ouro the FT any time they want, so there's no inf available. Also at that time, if you had a float of 3M early on, you would never run out of inf for SOs, so having a bankrupt toon basically never happened if you were careful. There were plenty of 50s broadcasting their willingness to pay, particularly people who'd outlevelled the FT before badges existed, and who if they had 20M inf had all the inf all their toons on that server could ever need.

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The second part of feeling broke is that you can no longer do what you used to do with patience on the market. In I13, I created a toon on another server with an almost identical build to one I made in I9/10. The cost was certainly a factor of 4 higher and maybe more than that. Why ? well my best guess is that useful but not uber mid 30s recipes that you used to be able to leave a bid for 20K in for and would get in a week or so, are now being flipped more so you rarely see them for <200K (but there are lots of crafted enhs at 1M+).

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This is you scapegoating flippers. No flippers are making money off semi-useful recipes in the mid-30s that barely clear 500K profit. That's not a dependable enough supply to consistently work, more profit than that can be made almost anywhere on the market, and there's not high enough demand to make that scheme pan out. Flippers are going to flip the things that generate the most profit for their time, and that market set would be a joke when examined from that viewpoint. High prices directly correlate to people wanting to buy things now. You can blame those individuals for higher prices, not flippers/crafters who, by definition, want to keep the price of ingredients (such as recipes) down to maximize their profit.

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I've posted examples in previous threads, but things like red fortune (and some of the lower priced healing sets), when there are frequently none of some of the recipes between levels 25 and 40 but many crafted enhancements in that range, all at 1M+, a lot at 3M. Often you'll see several obvious flipper bids for 223456 or whatever. What you can't do now is pick up the recipes for 20K just by waiting a while as I used to, or get a steadfast res/def for 100K.

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Unless I get lucky with drops, I tend to hit 50 with a build full of non top of the line set bonuses, a couple of merit purchased shinies and about 50M in cash. I craft/sell drops that are worth selling and have a reasonable handle on how to maximise cash from my drops without actively marketeering.

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This shows that you're not solid with the numbers (since buying is cheaper than merit-purchasing) yet still make plenty by the time you ding 50, which was what the original poster claimed didn't happen. Thus, you've made a valid observation based on faulty reasoning.

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I'm extremely solid with the numbers (I'm actually a maths/stats guy IRL) and what I do if there's an advantage to doing so is merit purchase a 20 miracle unique, sell it and buy a 35-40 to pocket the difference if I can wait for it (I usually don't have the cash just lying around at level thirtysomething when I IO up to straight up buy one).

It would probably be a good idea to random roll instead, but (as fulmens will testify from the rolls I sold him) I have terrible luck on random rolls, I've taken well over 100 merit rolls on 35-40 TF, and got 1 numinas unique, no miracles and no LotGs so far, so am not inclined to try again.

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I cripple my own inf generation somewhat by preferring to level toons up than play my 36 (non PLd) 50s and also preferring to play in teams when I can thus minimising drops. I also refuse to farm.

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Borderline valid. In reality, playing toons up exposes those toons to drops all along the way that are not available to 50s, many of which are extremely valuable for that exact reason. Farming is unnecessary if one enjoys TFs, as merits can lead to large inf infusions, and odds are you're more motivated to play on a regular basis by leveling toons up as opposed to getting burned out on 50s. This, in the long run, helps your inf generation because you play more overall. So, basically, short-term, you do cripple your inf per kill by playing lower level toons, but your tortoise still competes in the neverending race.

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This is just not true, a 50 could do what I do on normal missions thru Ouro and TFs, and would get more influence for doing the same mission as me exemped, and the same drops other than the mission end ones which are not usually valuable anyway.

I am doing elec/EA as a stalker rather than a brute and have softcapped that (I think brute may be slightly easier due to more unsuppressing stealth in the hide power). Basically my plan was kinetic combat x 4 in all the ST attacks except CI. Eradication x 4 in all the AoEs. 3x pulv fist + 3 pounding slug in CI and 3 Aegis in resist powers. Throw in CJ, tough, weave and a steadfast res/def and I have at present (with hide suppressed) S/L/E around 50, neg/fire/cold 45, holes being psi and toxic.

The powers that have Kin combats (I use the proc among my 4 for added mitigation) are then made up to the bonuses I want by frankenslotting the other two slots, the eradications where I don't use the proc, I just add a multistrike double or triple.

Note that you mustn't use procs in CI or it won't arc properly.

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People who powerlevel are usually the ones who buy their ingame money from spammers.

The first time you cheat makes the next time just that much easier

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considering I PL'd my Defender to 50 to get a Khledian for a character concept and constantly /ignore buy influence spam in e-mails, you sort of suck at guessing what people do

better luck next time bro ~\o/~

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You may not but a lot of them do, the comment is reasonable, also a lot of people who PL a hero to 50 to get a kheld find them unplayable, may not apply to you, but seen it enough times.

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This post is an amazing combination of having no idea what you're talking about and arriving at reasonable conclusions. Honestly, I can't figure out how you've managed to mesh the two together.


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And that's wonderfully constructive, how about telling me which are which and possibly we can get somewhere.

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Your personal observations don't sync with mine. My characters have never been richer. I've played long enough to remember how difficult it was for the average player to just buy their first set of SOs. My first level 50, played with at least a few DOs well into her late 20s, and that was fairly common.

Every character I have now can afford a full set of DOs at 12, a full set of SOs at 22 and upgrade to new SOs every 5 levels. However, I don't even bother with SOs anymore because I usually slot level 25 IOs at 22 and never look back, only replacing them when I get sets.

How can the average, casual player complain about being poor?!? The game, even without the market, is literally awash with money. One rare salvage drop can easily yield you 1M, which is plenty for your first two sets of SOs. An average player will get multiples (dozens?) of rare drops in the course of getting to 50.

I know of a player who still prefer slotting SOs, and won't get IOs except for the -kb IOs. He sells every recipe he gets for 100 inf, never bothering to craft or optimize on price. Every character he plays has more influence/infamy than he ever needs.

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And your experiences don't tally with mine at all. In the reasonably early days, if you were level 10 and broke, as there was no Ouroboros, you simply pimped the fortune teller. 50s who missed the fortune teller mission and wanted the atlas medallion had plenty of spare cash, nothing to spend it on, and no other way of getting the badge, so getting 1-10M for letting them on your fortune teller mission was easy, and funded your DO/SOs, particularly if more than one 50 wanted in.

I think part of the reason people consider themselves broke is that they are trying builds that were not particularly fun before IOs. How many pre IO spines/darks did you see ? certainly the numbers exploded post I9. Some of these builds can be done fairly cheaply with IOs, but if you don't do TFs or farm tickets (I do TFs so is not an issue for me) one numinas or miracle unique can easily be more spare cash than you have when you hit 50 without doing anything extravagant on the way.

The second part of feeling broke is that you can no longer do what you used to do with patience on the market. In I13, I created a toon on another server with an almost identical build to one I made in I9/10. The cost was certainly a factor of 4 higher and maybe more than that. Why ? well my best guess is that useful but not uber mid 30s recipes that you used to be able to leave a bid for 20K in for and would get in a week or so, are now being flipped more so you rarely see them for <200K (but there are lots of crafted enhs at 1M+).

Unless I get lucky with drops, I tend to hit 50 with a build full of non top of the line set bonuses, a couple of merit purchased shinies and about 50M in cash. I craft/sell drops that are worth selling and have a reasonable handle on how to maximise cash from my drops without actively marketeering.

To me, what I am able to achieve is reasonably balanced, I haven't made the effort to farm/marketeer to get the ludicrous amounts of inf required to purple out a toon these days, but I still get something much more functional and fun than I did on SOs.

I cripple my own inf generation somewhat by preferring to level toons up than play my 36 (non PLd) 50s and also preferring to play in teams when I can thus minimising drops. I also refuse to farm.

I've just started doing some active marketeering, and am making plenty of inf both sides for any non purple/PVP IOs I could want, but getting into serious purple territory will take me a while.

I actually quite like the kinetic combat proc for extra mitigation as part of my set of 4 (also means you only need one of the DE and DER which are the hard ones to get), this is currently working well on my ElM/EA stalker, at which point the two purples make sense to up the enhancement bonuses.

Surely he should be Doctor Ebil (or Dr if the original is taken).

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Well, how do these two alternatives comnpare:

4 level 35 Kinetic Combats, 1 level 50 Mako quad, 1 lvl 50 End red common for 39% Acc, 95% damage, 95% end and 59% recharge

4 level 35 Kinetic Combats, 1 level 50 Mako quad, 1 Hecatomb proc for 39% Acc, 95% damage, 59% end and 59% recharge -- and the proc.

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What about 4 KC, hecatomb proc and triple for the 4% recov set bonus.

Try this

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Can't they just turn of the effects of powers so they don't see the bubble or buff? I have heard of ppl not being able to handle the sonic buffs so they just turn of the effects in their settings.

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This is what I do, I have trouble seeing through fire/ice armors and bubbles, so I suppress close fx. The only problem I have is that some odd things like my stone mallets disappear too.

On the asking people not to use powers, there is only one I ask about. Hurricane gives me motion sickness and makes me feel as if I'm about to throw up, so I ask the stormie if they use hurricane most of the time and quit the team if they do and can't/won't do without it.

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Shadow Meld is a nice option that I didnt concider. Elude on the other is something that i have thought about and decided I can do without.

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If you're softcapped then elude and shadow meld are almost an irrelevance. Hibernate is not the worst option in the world however. The only use for shadow meld is for non positional psi attacks really.

I'm doing ElM/EA and using shadow meld to close my more gaping psi hole.

Fire/DM is fun, but more of a heavy scrapper than a team tank without a fair amount of buffing.

Dark/EM is worth considering stacking stuns from the attacks with oppressive gloom.

Shield/WM is fun and I'd imagine shield/axe is similar.

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My PvP farming made me 1 billion plus in 1 lomg morning.

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Get a few really good purple drops and it is very believable.

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Forget that, the right 2 PvP IOs would do you.

I'm actually doing a challenge like this for fun atm, toon is less than 2 weeks old (ElM/EA stalker), started with absolutely nothing and now has a fully IOd build at level 37 and c. 150M after less than 2 weeks. I've dropped nothing that's made me any serious cash and am just playing through normal content solo.

Edit - I've also been playing in SG mode throughout to fund my base as this was the first toon on a new server, so almost all the cash came from marketeering, mainly flipping salvage.

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So here's the deal. Mentally, I think of these particular powers as not actual weapons. It's the element being wielded in the a manner similar to how you'd wield a weapon. So "Stone Melee" isn't actually a mallet made of stone.

Yes, it's vague and subjective...but it's one of the rationalizations I have for why there these particular powers don't require a 'draw' animation, and why they don't support 'weapon' customization...even though there's not a technical restriction or limitation for either of those things.

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They're clearly effects not weapons, when you suppressclosefx or whatever the command is so you can see past your armor, your mallets disappear so what is there to redraw

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Why is the stalker striking first? Let the brute charge in, get some aggro, and gain fury while the Stalker uses his Assassin's Strike after the alpha strike is gone. Not only is this safer for the stalker, it gives the brute his much needed fury to perform at his best. Statistically, the stalker "looses" nothing by not perform AS first, while the brute does.

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Ideally, the stalker starts the AS animation before the brute arrives, but the brute has aggro by the time it goes off.

I've played the stalker in a team like this and it works, may mean the brute has to leave the previous group before it's 100% dead.

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As they say, "pics or it didn't happen." I won't argue this issue until I get one. So I'm wrong... For now.

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Tina's missions

Upsilon Beta 9-6 is the non arc mish.

If you click on the Praetorian war, you will see AM appears twice.

Maria's missions

No antimatter

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Actually, maria has a random non arc mish that has anti matter. I remember saying to myself the moment I do things in order so I get antimatter, I ended up facing him 3 times. This isn't including the times he teleports douring the tina story arc. The problem is, sometimes maria won't give you more missions after tyrant. I don't know what triggers that.

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You're wrong about this, Tina has 3 encounters with him, the one he telports out of, the final arc mission and another (non-arc) with 10 or so glowies. I keep this one for friends who need him and just kill him and never click the glowies.

You cannot get him off Maria.

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Because there's no good way (if there is a way) of doing that. I explained the problems with your system in my above post.

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Actually you got the problem assessment wrong, all it would do is force the hardcore farmer to have multiple farming toons, generating an even bigger demand for purples unless you limited it by account.

The idea of time limiting drops is vaguely sound (as done for PvP drops) but you would need to either very slightly up the drop rate to compensate for the purples lost, or give an infinitessimal chance of a purple dropping off any boss of any level, similar to what has been done with pool Cs.

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Suggestion, platinum roll, 9999 tickets:

15% chance of a random purple
85% chance of 1 gold + 1 silver + 1 bronze roll

What would this do to the market ?

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Do you mean 85% chance to get a random gold OR silver OR bronze? Or a 85% chance to get all three?

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All 3, ie c 5Ks worth of stuff

Suggestion, platinum roll, 9999 tickets:

15% chance of a random purple
85% chance of 1 gold + 1 silver + 1 bronze roll

What would this do to the market ?

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Hi Tripp_Hazzard.

How is pl'ing a sub set of farming? Pl'ing was around long before farming. Farming only came into play once inventions appeared.....

BC

[/ QUOTE ]In the current game, I'm not aware of any way to Powerlevel without also Farming. I'm wide open to enlightenment, though.

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The Leech

Hero side get onto every TF at the minimum level for it and refuse all offers of SKs. You can probably get from 10 into the late 30s before repeating any content. Also join random 8 man teams 3-4 levels higher than you thereafter, you are being essentially PL'd, but it's just not quite as fast as the farm methods.

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If I can give you any advice for Positron, it's run it in a small(er) team. The spawns are smaller, the debuffs don't stack as bad, and it generally just makes for a smoother run. The second mission (Rolistar / CoT) is another very troublesome part of the Posi TF, and there's no toxic in sight.


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Correct, Rollister is either second or third, the order of some of the missions is random, and full of CoT. Ruin mages using earthquake and force fields combined with spectral demon lords and their to hit debuff cause low level groups all kinds of problems.

I try to do this with groups of 2 or 3, although tonight we had 4 (2 15+, 10, 12 with no buffing or healing, tank was 10 shield/stone) and completed in 2 hours 10 minutes, so it needn't be that bad.

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What makes me nervous about Ice and Invuln are the holes in their defense. Specifically toxic. I’ve seen a number of Posi TF’s fall apart because the first few missions have Vahz in them and the INV tanks just can’t take the alpha from an 8 man spawn.

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No tanker - none - is going to have the ability to last long against a full team spawn of Vahzilok at level 15. (Oddly, the easiest tanker to work in there might be Fire.)

Posi is something you do because either you want to get to level 15 in the course of an evening; or because you are after Task Force Commander. Or you just want a lot of merits, or maybe the badge. But nobody runs Posi for fun. A tanker built to handle Posi well would be both difficult and pointless to make.

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Shield isn't bad, I tanked posi and synapse quite happily on my shield/mace. Typed defence is screwed v toxic, but ranged still works.

Numina can be a bit scary for a defence based toon.

And I run posis for fun and merits, but I do it on a blaster, and provided the tank can take the alpha, I can kill the groups before he gets beta'd.