Organica

Hehe, thanks! Wow, I really overestimated my ability to sell that IO. (I did log in this morning and saw that it had sold!) The lesson here is to check to see what something sells for before crafting it. I crafted my Dark Watcher's Despair because I noticed that they actually sold for a bit above cost (and it has sold). I just assumed a stealth IO, even a teleport one, would be valuable enough to craft. :/

I think I'm pretty good at pricing things to sell. It's always a trick to list it high enough that you get a good sell price but low enough that it actually sells. So far my Miracle has been listed just a little too high -- people are buying them for more than mine is listed, but the sales are always going to people who listed cheaper than me. But if I list much lower, say, 136 million, I run a slight risk of it selling for only 140 million.

When I listed my Gift of the Ancients defense, they were going for 20 million or slightly more. In general defense and resist IOs go for a lot, so even though GotA is not one of the best defense IOs, I figured a listing of 17.5 mil would be good. Lately they've been going for 10 million though. :/ On the other hand, I have faith that they'll eventually go back up as soon as supply dries up.

Whether that ever happens, we'll see. Right now it seems that a lot of rare recipes are being driven down in price, probably from a lot of people doing a-merit rolls like me. ^_^ I wonder if, once they fix the most recent AE problem, if prices will drop even lower. (Working on the theory that prices for top level IOs are good when people are getting to level 50 more easily.)

I was mostly speaking of classic herding of course. "I'm gonna herd to here! Wait for me!" THAT kind of herding.

Some of the other points are quite valid. Making sure people don't spam holds and the like prematurely -- valid. Pulling one group forward into another group -- VERY valid. Using a second tank (brute/scrapper) to pull other groups to the kill point -- VERY valid.

To be honest, the tanks I like best herd quite a bit, they just don't corner-pull every single group or announce everything they're doing. They just try to make sure the majority of enemies are bunched up in one place. I'll usually wait a few seconds for them to accomplish this, then unleash death. Or, if I'm on my scrapper, I'll aggro stragglers and go stand next to the tank. Normally this doesn't involve corner-pulling and it certainly doesn't involve pausing to make sure everyone is on the same page and then having them wait while you go get the bad guys. It just means letting the tank rush in and draw aggro for 2-3 seconds so you can AoE more effectively.

Not classic herding, but it's what any good tank does.

Of note: I made my Saturday merit purchase/roll at about 2 PM. I did my Sunday merit/purchase roll at 10 AM. I managed to make a merit purchase/roll (and craft and list) at 6 AM Monday morning, before I went to work. (And I somehow wasn't late.)

I made today's merit purchase & roll at 2 AM. I set my alarm clock. woke up, did the roll, crafted and listed stuff, and went back to bed. So it's already all sold (not for much though). But I'll be able to make another purchase and roll at 10 PM tonight. ^_^

Nov 9

SOLD:

Devestation dam/rech for 11 mil
Devestation chance for hold for 10 mil
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech for 12 mil

Money: 454 634 187

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll)

Positron's Blast acc/dam/end listed for 10.2
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage listed for 7.1
Luck of the Gambler end/rech listed for 2.6
Devestation acc/dam/rech listed for 5.1
Aegis res/end/rech listed for 9.1

Ending money: 421,907,037



I listed my Miracle for slightly too much -- it hasn't sold, despite sales above my list price. I do expect the Dark Watcher's Despair to sell -- eventually. My Gift of the Ancients Defense is way overpriced for what they're currently selling for, but I suppose it'll sell eventually too. So far the only recipe that I'm convinced I never should have crafted is the TimeSpace Manipulation stealth IO. I didn't even check what that sold for before crafting it.

Also: despite some very nice "big ticket" items dropping to me, I think overall I've probably been not far off average. A lot the other stuff I've been getting has been sellable but nothing to earn big bucks on.

I did a hero merit roll on my level 33 blaster last night -- I have 180 merits on her. I got another Miracle unique and a BotZ KB IO. (And 3 items of true vendor trash -- Ghost Widow's Embrace, Pacing of the Turtle, I forget what else. Though since there were few available at level 33 I crafted and listed them anyway). Anyway I've been pretty lucky lately on those big-ticket items at least.

Nov 8:

SOLD:
Scirocco's Dervish chance for lethal damage for 9 million
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech for 10 million
Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge speed for 150 million
Decimation acc/end/rech for 10 million

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll)

Money: 464,733,735

Miracle +recovery
Gift of the Ancients +7.5% run speed
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech
Devestation chance to hold
Devestation dam/rech

Ran: Freakshow War & Hami Raid

Ending Money: 422,717,916

/em undercuts all of Fulmens niches.

Herding is useful: if the enemies are scattered and your team has a lot of AoE, or if rushing into the room could result in a team wipe due to aggroing 2-3 full groups.

Any tank that insists on herding every single group is wasting time and doesn't have as good a grasp of the game as they probably think they do. But if they form the team, that's their call.

All of these arguments always amount to:

"50% to 75% of the player base should be able afford a top 1% build."

Which is illogical on the fact of it. But let's just imagine that even the top 1% of enhancements were available to anyone easily. Once you've hit 50 and IO'd out your character to the gills (which you didn't even have to work hard for), what's left? You have nothing more to strive for, and you are not superior to anyone else in the game, because they all have the best builds possible. There is no superior build, because everyone can get one easily. There is no market, because you can't make money selling anything. Nothing is rare, and only the "used to be rare" stuff is even desired.

How many people would quit the game at that point? A game which can be conquered easily is not going to hold the interest of a lot of players.

I have about 15 level 50 characters and dozens of other characters. Nearly every one has a set IO build; I consider that standard (and I'm not talking economical builds here). I have as much money as I want or need to do whatever I want. I've never slotted an IO that cost me even 1 billion, let alone 2 billion. I think I've only ever slotted two PvP IOs, and I picked ones I could easily afford (less than 100 million each) for the +recovery set bonus they granted.

I don't think there are more than 2-3 IOs that are worth 2 billion or more in the game, period. I could be wrong; I haven't checked in a while. I don't buy that your build calls for 18 or 20 IOs that cost 2 billion each. I do get that you came up with a build that's incredibly expensive, but it's not necessarily a required build or even the best build for your character. In fact, I'd go so far as to say if you can't figure out a way to get these IOs, you're probably not playing the game in a way that would make good use of them (or require them) to start with.

I especially don't buy the argument that you need PvP IOs in order to feel "super". My IO'd characters are near godlike without PvP IOs, thanks.

Nov 7

SOLD:
Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge for 150 million
Mako's Bite chance for letal damage for 10 million
Numina's Convalescense heal/rech for 45 million
Devestation chance to hold for 10 million
Aegis +Psionic and Mez Resist for 8 million

Ran: Freakshow Wars, 2 tip misisons, Freakshow Wars

Money: 333,541,024

Hero Merit Purchase: 20 million influence (level 35-39 roll)

Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge speed (listed for 143 million)
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech (listed for 9.1 million)
Dark Watcher's Despair recharge/end reduction (listed for 4.1 million)
Decimation acc/end/rech (listed for 8.1 millino)
Scirocco's Dervish chance for lethal damage (listed for 8.1 million)

Ending Money: 294,603,232

That robot is awesome Henri!

I like the tattered sleeves on Airhead too... just slightly off center, heh.

Okay you asked for it. Not that my costumes are all that creative or make great use of the origins pack, but I've tried to compensate by picking good photo-shoot locations. ^_^

WARNING: Full sized screen captures!



Organica needed the leaves cloak and aura, naturally. ^_^





A new character of mine called Earthsinger, actually a fire/psi dom.





The White Haired Bride, a ghostly stalker. (Posed on top of a shipwreck, though hard to tell in these particular shots.)



I used the steam puffs on Clockwork Doll, though it's very hard to take a good picture illustrating that aura.

Nov 6

SOLD:
Obliteration chance for smashing damage for 20 million
Numina's convalescense heal/rech for 36,666,666
Numina's Convalescense +recovery +regen for 60 mil
Analyze Weakness chance for +to hit for 9 mil
Mako's Bite dam/rech for 10 mil

Money: 166,191,376

Hero Merit Purchase: 20 million influence (level 35-39 roll)

Numina's Convalescense heal/rech (listed for 37.1 mil)
Aegis +Psionic and Mez Resist (listed for 7.1 mil)
Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge speed (listed for 141 mil)
Devestation chance to hold (listed for 7.6 mil)
Mako's Bite chance for lethal damage (listed for 8.1 mil)

Ran Freakshow Wars twice

Ending Money: 121,495,766

Nov 5

SOLD:
Aegis res/end/rech for 20 mil
Inpervium Armor resist for 35 mil
Trap of the Hunter acc/immob/rech for 6.1 mil

Money: 75,181,246

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll)

Mako's Bite dam/rech (listed for 7.1 mil)
Numina's Convalescense +recovery +regen (listed for 57 mil)
Numina's Convalescense heal/rech (listed for 31.1 mil)
Obliteration chance for smashing damage (listed for 17.2 mil)
Analyze Weakness chance for +to hit (listed for 7.1 mil)

Money after crafting/listing: 38,116,369

So my new project for November -- which I can hopefully accomplish even though I'm going to try and play less and work on writing for NaNoWriMo -- is to burn 50 merits and 20 million a night on a hero merit roll, and see how much money this nets me when I craft and sell. (It's not clear to me which is the best way to make money -- random rolls, buy and craft the best rare recipe, or save up for a PvP IO. I suspect the PvP IO is the best route, but if I can hit over 2 billion with 30 merit rolls, I might reconsider that. )

For the purposes of this Experiment, I'm using my level 50 MA/WP scrapper Nina Ballerina. I can hami raid easily with her, and she already has 600 merits to start with. She's also a hero, which is not true for the two scrappers I normally play more often -- Mouse Police and Tiffany Blackheart are both vigilantes. I'm doing 35-39 rolls to begin with, but I may experiment with other levels at some point in the process too.


I started this experiment Thursday. I made sure Nina had exactly 50 million influence to begin with, and had nothing for sale. I do have some outstanding bids on Oblits on her, but if they suddenly fill I'll just e-mail the recipes to someone else to craft. Likewise for any random recipes that drop while I'm playing Nina. I was going to try and keep track of money made while running TFs and selling salvage drops and the like so I could factor that out, too, but that's kind of a pain and I screwed that up on the first day. So any money made while playing just gets added to the pool. It shouldn't make a big difference, anyway. Results so far:

Nov 4

Starting Money: 50,000,000

Hero Merit Purchase: 20,000,000 (level 35-39 roll)

Impervium Armor: Resistance (listed for 31 mil)
Gift of the Ancients: Defense (listed for 17.1 mil)
Trap of the Hunter acc/immob/rech (listed for 5.1 mil)
Aegis end/rech/res (listed for 16.1 mil)
Time & Space Manipulation +stealth (listed for 2.1 mil)

Ran: 1 Freakshow Wars

Ending Money: 17,581,246

I've never really wanted a Shield Wall. If it were the +3% def pvp IO I *might* be interested.

75 month vet. Although I benefited a great deal from their recalculation of vet numbers; I was gone for more than a year at one point.

Something like 42 month vet on my 2nd account... I think? Can I add them together and call myself a 117 month vet?

One last thing I meant to post. While I was burning 50 merits a night with Alting, I was earning merits on other characters that I didn't spend. I didn't keep track of who earned what, or how many merits they had before I started, but I ran most of my Freakshow War and Freakalympic runs on Tiffany, and my hami raiders are Mouse and Nina. So when I was done last night, I had:

Tiffany Blackheart: 1,151 merits
Nina Ballerina: 603 merits
Mouse Police: 534 merits

Mouse and Tiffany are currently Vigilantes so I don't anticipate spending any of their merits at the moment. I'm planning to burn 50 a night on Nina for a month (will have to keep earning more obviously), do a hero merit roll, craft and sell and see how much money that nets me.

Another problem with logging in late: if you happened to log out right after the first raid on Monday (hypothetically) so that you could switch to a different character for the 2nd raid... and then (again, hypothetically) you don't log back in until Wednesday's raid, you might find yourself logging in beneath forty tons of angry jello.

Hypothetically speaking. >.>

Lol. You must not deserve it!

That's a bug they didn't consider, I guess.

(I like rolling 10-14 for AE tickets, even though you get a lot of junk. But I have an irrational fear of wasting hard-earned merits on such a roll, so I've never done it.)


End of the line for me tonight! I started this on October 4th, finished up November 3rd. I even managed to get 50 merits on Alting, convert and roll them, and then join a Manticore and turn experience back on and gain a full level.

My big concern this week was I didn't play much on Sunday, only ran a Freakshow War on Tiffany, so by Monday night I had to scramble a bit to get to 50 merits on Alting and then Tuesday I started the night at zero merits, and still had our usual "static" team which ran from 8 to 10 PM. MG didn't even run any TFs that night, but a friend wanted to run Manti after 10 PM so I got that in anyway.

Gonna try to play less this month and do Nanowrimo again. But at some point I'd like to spend a month doing level 50 hero merit rolls, 1 a night, and trying to craft and sell everything and tracking how much money I make or lose doing that.

Sunday Oct 31
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War
Merits: 33 merits

Hero Merit Roll:
Numina's Convalescense heal/rech
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech
Performance Shifter rech/acc
Blessing of the Zephyr KB Protection
Gift of the Ancients +7.5% run speed

Monday Nov 1
Arcs/TFs: Hamidon/Hamidon/I Lost My Daddy/Hear and Now/Posi1/Posi2
Merits: 53/53/6/16/11/15 = 154 merits

Hero Merit Roll:
Luck of the Gambler def/end/rech
Numina's Convalesence hea/rech
Trap of the Hunter chance for lethal damage
Scirocco's Dervish dam/acc/end
Analyze Weakness chance for +to hit

Tuesday Nov 2
Arcs/TFs: Mind of a King/I Lost My Daddy! (x4+)/Hatred's Hungry Heart/Manticore
Merits: 14/6/6/6/6/7/32 = 77 merits

Hero Merit Roll:
Numina's Convalesense heal/rech
Pacing of the Turtle end/rech/slow
Devestation chance to hold
Lockdown chance for +2 mag hold
Expedient Reinforcement resist bonus aura

Wednesday Nov 3
Arcs/TFs: Hamidon/Hamidon/Hear and Now/Mind of a King/Manticore
Merits: 53/53/16/14/32 = 165 merits

Hero Merit Roll:
Trap of the Hunter chance for lethal damage
Entropic Chaos dam/end/rech
Positron's Blast chance for lethal damage
Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge speed
Stupefy Chance for Knockback

4 day total: 429 merits, 107.25 merits/day
31 day total: 3,319 merits, 107.06 merits/day