Organica

Well, it's a lot of merits. Same reason people used to do that for the old Posi. Same reason people still run Dr. Q.

And frankly, Dr. Q and Justine Augustine are both worse than Synapse so it is not the 2nd worst in the game. Plus at least it has a nice ending... but those first 5 or whatever defeat alls? Yeah.

I screwed up a bit this week. Last Saturday I didn't make my hero merit roll until after Midnight -- I didn't have the merits earlier to do it and then I was busy running several TFs. So on Sunday I wasn't able to roll before 9 PM, and after that I was on a mission team and then logged off and completely forgot about it until the next day. So all week I was rolling the previous night's merits at about 3-4 PM after coming home from work. I really wanted to get a roll in every day, though. My plan was to roll by Noon or 1 PM on Saturday, 8-9 AM Sunday, and maybe wake up really early Monday to roll early in the morning and eventually catch up that way. But then Friday I had other things on my mind and forgot to roll again until late, and I had to run a quick Ouro arc to have enough merits, so I rolled around Midnight again.

So I gave up. I skipped a day this week. ^_^

I also turned on experience this week for Alting until I was 33 and nearing 34. All of my rolls for the week were 35-39 range rolls. I think the rolls have generally been better -- less junk -- but otherwise nothing truly spectacular. I sort of figured after 19 days of hero merit rolls, I'd have gathered a few Luck of the Gambler +recharges, Numina's uniques, Miracle uniques. So far I have 1 of those, period.

(Also, in case it wasn't clear, I'm not earning all of these merits on the level 30 (now 33) character Alting. I need 50 merits a day for Alting though so I can make my hero merit conversions and rolls. So about half. For the other half, the vast majority have been on my level 50 MA/WP scrapper Tiffany Blackheart who now has over 1,000 merits saved up, but also occasionally on other characters. One of the Manticores we ran tonight, we decided at the last minute to try and make it an all-blaster TF, so I played my 43 energy blaster Liberty or Debt. We had 7 blasters and 1 brute. ^_^ )

Sunday Oct 17
Arcs/TFs: Citadel/Katie Hannon/Synapse/Babbage/Hess/Manticore
Merits: 40/9/58/2/19/32 = 160 merits

(level 35-39 rolls at level 32)
Performance Shifter rech/acc
Edict of the Master Aura 5% Def Buff for Pets
Numina heal/rech
Obliteration acc/dam/rech/end
Devestation dam/rech

Monday Oct 18
Arcs/TFs: Babbage/Synapse/Babbage
Merits: 2/58/2 = 62 merits

Analyze Weakness acc/end/rech
Aegis +Psionic and Mez Resist
Stupefy chance for knockback
Forced Feedback rech/end
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech

Tuesday Oct 19
Arcs/TFs: Hess/Moonfire/Stephanie Peebles/Manticore
Merits: 19/32/15/32 = 98 merits

(level 35-39 rolls at level 33)
Gift of the Ancients defense
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech
Stupefy acc/stun/rech
Decimation acc/end/rech
Lockdown acc/end/rech/hold

Wednesday Oct 20
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow Wars/Hess/Manticore
Merits: 33/19/32 = 84 merits

Lockdown acc/end/rech/hold
Mako's Bite dam/rech
Mako's Bite chance for lethal damage
Scirocco's Dervish dam/acc/end
Decimation acc/end/rech

Thursday Oct 21
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War
Merits: 33 merits

Mako's Bite acc/end/rech
Touch of Death dam/end/rech
Mako's Bite chance for lethal damage
Blessing of the Zephyr 4 pts knockback protection
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage

Friday Oct 22
Arcs/TFs: Hear and Now/Return to Vampyre Mountain/Imperius/Sara Moore/Madman's Council/Madman's Council
Merits: 16/13/26/64/8/8 = 135 merits

(No hero merit roll)

Saturday Oct 23
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Freakalympics/Hear and Now/Manticore/Manticore/Hess
Merits: 33/34/16/32/32/19 = 166 merits

Devestation acc/dam/rech
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech
Mako's Bite acc/end/rech
Decimation acc/dam/rech
Sovereign Right acc/end

7 day totals: 738 merits, 105.4 merits per day
20 day total: 2097 merits, 104.85 merits per day

A couple of other things that weren't asked, but since people might read the thread for answers I thought I'd add:

1. You have a better chance of getting a recipe drop from a boss (to the best of my knowledge).

2. Recipe drops from enemies will generally be at the level of the enemy. This is why a level 1 character can get a purpple recipe drop, if they're on a team fighting level 47 or higher enemies.

3. Recipe drops on completion of mission are at the character's actual level. So if I'm playing a level 50 character through the Freakalympics Ouro arc, I'm exemplared to level 29 and I'll probably get a mix of level 29 recipes and some level 50 recipes during the course of the arc.

I can never keep all of these zones I never visit straight. Bricksport is a blueside zone right? Next to Independent Island I think, or was that Freedom City?

Actually I get oranges all the time as end-of-misison rewards. Which, if you're farming the same mission over and over, you won't get.

I also keep bids out on them in the 30-33 range, and craft and store any that I get. Bids fill slowly. I've gotten them in AE ticket rolls and hero merit rolls, but if I were going to start from scratch I'd definitely buy the harder-to-get ones using hero merits.

Bad Grouchybeast! Bad!

By the way, I played Wall Street Brawler for a bit yesterday and got him to 22 I think. He's kinetic melee, and I used the Alpha aura on his hands in the color of green -- money. Seeing him wave green glowing hands about in arcane ways inspired me to add a little bio for him:

"Far more sophisticated than a mere alley brawler, who does nothing more than punch people in the face, the Wall Street Brawler has perfected the art of Money Melee: He mesmerizes his opponents by waving massive fistfuls of cash before them. THEN he punches them in the face."

Sunday Oct 10
Arcs/TFs: Hess/Manti/Numi
Merits: 19/32/36 = 87

Hero Merit Roll:
Debilitative Action acc/immob/rech
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage
Kismet def/end/rech
Decimation acc/end/rech
Impervious Skin end/rech/res

Monday Oct 11
Arcs/TFs: Hess/Manti/Wincott/Flux
Merits: 19/32/4/11 = 66

Hero Merit Roll:
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech
Mako's Bite Dam/Rech
Mako's Bite chance for lethal damage
Unspeakable Terror chance for disorient

Tusday Oct 12
Arcs/TFs: Freakalympics/Manti/Julius the Troll
Merits: 34/32/6 = 72

Hero Merit Roll:
Debilitative Action chance for stun
Debilitative Action chance for stun
Decimation acc/end/rech
Mako's acc/end/rech
Touch of Lady Grey recharge/end reduction

Wednesday Oct 13
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Ubleman the Unknown/Hear and Now/Citadel
Merits: 33/17/16/40 = 106

Hero Merit Roll:
Impervium Armor resistance
Devestation chance to hold
Devestation dam/rech
Scirocco's Dervish acc/dam/end
Ghost Widow's Embrace acc/hold/rech

Thursday Oct 14
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Horrors of War/Faultline Accolade/Manti/Hess
Merits: 33/18/5/32/19 = 107

Hero Merit Roll:
Time & Space Manipulation +stealth
Tempest chance for endurance drain
Stupefy Chance for knockback
Decimation acc/dam/rech
Glimpse of the Abyss acc/fear/rech

Friday Oct 15
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Babbage/Madman's Council/Hess/Manticore/Jurrasik/Hear and Now
Merits: 33/2/8/19/32/2/16 = 112

Hero Merit Roll:
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end
Scirocco's Dervish dam/acc/end
Aegis end/rech/resist
Blessing of the Zephyr 4 points KB protection

Saturday Oct 16
Arcs/TFs: Freakshow War/Freakalympics/Manticore/Posi1
Merits: 33/34/32/11 = 110

Hero Merit Roll:
Stupefy chance for knockback
Impede Swiftness Chance for smashing damage
Tempest chance for endurance drain
Scirocco's Dervish dam/acc/end
Positron's Blast chance for energy damage

7 Day total: 661 merits, 94.4 merits per day.
13 day total: 1359 merits, 104.5 merits per day.

I dunno, I'm starting to talk myself out of random hero merit rolls. At least at level 30, I've been rolling quite a lot of junk, and very few awesome finds.

We hit 22 minutes on Hess this week, and 44 minutes on Manticore. I managed Freakshow War in 50 minutes, and twice more in 53 and 55 minutes. I can see why that one's popular. Freakalympics, my best time was 1 hour 9 minutes.

Also -- I ran Hear and Now the first time and was surprised when I got to the end to find Maestro was an AV. I beat him anyway -- first time I've ever solo'd an AV! And that's without Eagle's Claw, my tier 9 attack.

I want to solo a Manti now.

I've been rolling 1 hero merit a night at level 30. I craft and then e-mail them to myself... so that a character in my solo SG can grab them and pop them into storage. I also pull stuff out of my solo SG base storage and e-mail them to myself so that another character can use them. I e-mail influence to myself, given that my level 30 toon is burning 20 million a night converting merits, and I transfer money and recipes/IOs/inspirations around just in general as needed through e-mail. Also, on my high level toons any tier 4 inspirations that I don't immediately need get e-mailed to go to storage or to be used by other characters.

Have had no problems since the first week or so that email went live.

If only you were in my SG, you'd be asking why people don't run Posi1 and 2 more often instead of Hess, Manticore, Numi, Hess, Manticore, Numi....

But I'll echo what others have said: They're fun, interesting, and low level people can run them. Even today there are plenty of new people and people who are too low level to run some of the other TFs.

I know my SG recruits, and probably the traditional way of broadcasting in zones. The leader did a whole bunch of recruiting just this past weekend. He apparently feels good when there's new blood in the SG and lots of people to team with, and he tries to get people on vent to talk to as well of course.

Our SG exists largely to run lots of TFs and teams, we have multiple divisions, you're not going to know everyone in the SG but I know a lot of the regulars by now. Not a prestige farm, I think only one division of the SG is even in the top 100 on Virtue last I looked, but I do think it's a good resource for new players to ask questions and for people to find TFs and teams easily. Admittedly global channels accomplish the same thing, but a SG feels a bit more personal since you team with the same people more often.

I also run a small solo SG so I'm in that camp too. Previously I teamed a lot via global channels for several years; I never had trouble finding teams or joining TFs, but I wasn't talking to and teaming with the same people every night. I'm having more fun, running more TFs than before. I think even now a well-run SG is better than going it alone.

10/7/10: Thursday. I sort of feel like Thursday was a wasted evening for me. (Wasted in game, I mean – you could easily say I waste all my evenings simply by playing the game ^_^ ). First of all, I converted 50 merits to a hero merit for Alting, and then accidentally rolled it for rare low-level salvage. So that's 20 million and 50 merits cashed in for salvage that barely sells for vendor price. Unlike most players, it's not really a huge hit for me – I earn more than 50 merits and 20 million a night – but it's still depressing.

I managed another Freakalympics run in about 1 hour 15 minutes – that seems to be a very constant time for me – but by then MG had started up a new static team that I'd promised to be on. We ran through the Hollows arc all the way to Frostfire, which took us late into the evening. Unfortunately, because they started before I showed up, I couldn't run my own arc at the same time, so I earned no merits. That was a bit depressing too. I had fun teaming with people but I felt I wasn't living up to my self-imposed goals.

10/08/10: Friday night I ran my Freakalympics and Freakshow War arcs solo – about 1 hour 15 minutes and then 1 hour 5 minutes. I joined a Citadel after that, and ended the evening with the usual Hess and Manticore. Really, I barely remember any of it. ^_^

10/09/10: Saturday I start the morning with my usual Freakalympics arc.

Afterwards someone in the SG wants to run a Hess TF. "Does anyone have the contact?" the SG leader asks. "I do," I say – on Tiffany at least, and Mouse. But the guy who wants to run it claims to have the contact too. That's great, as I can use Alting, who can both stealth and port others and who needs merits for another hero merit conversion & roll.

Once we get there, the leader discovers that no, Hess won't talk to him after all. (This, mind you, was after he went afk for three minutes halfway through forming the team, and without warning anyone. I had people asking to join and the leader wasn't responding.) He randomly puts someone else in charge who also can't talk to Hess. I'm having serious doubts about how this particular Hess is going to go. I log off and switch to Tiffany, and eventually convince someone to hand the star to me. Then we're off!

I try to direct people to speed things along, but Tiffany can only stealth – she can't port the rest of the team to her. We have one person who can stealth and ATT, and we use that once. On other missions we just fight our way to the objective. This actually doesn't waste much time – it's a high-powered, high-damage team. In the end we don't pull Hess, we fight our way up the scaffolding to him – and still finish in 38 minutes. ^_^

A bit later MG comes on and we run the daily Hessicore, which I run using Alting. Our "speed run" of Hess takes 36 minutes – nearly the same time as the half-speed run earlier in the day. Sometimes stealthing and porting people in takes just as much time as brute-forcing your way there as a team. Especially when it's a good team. Afterwards I head to Ouro and run "A Madman's Council", the arc that opens up Hess as a contact. Now Alting can start the Hess TF too. ^_^

In the evening MG wanted to run a second Hess TF – my third of the day. I decided to run this on Dark Girl Four, a level 46 dark/dark defender who can stealth and teleport. Alting is a dark/dark corruptor who stealths and teleports, so I figured Dark Girl would be the least confusing alternative. But of course, there were a few different power choices between the two so I was sometimes confused anyway. Maybe moreso, since they're otherwise so similar.

Before logging off I ran a Freakshow War arc in just over an hour. 164 merits on the day!

10/08/10: Sunday. I like scrappers. I have 9 at level 50, and my oldest Organica is now 47. I like melee in general -- I also have 2 level 50 tanks and 1 level 50 brute. I really need to level up a stalker – I have lots of low-level stalkers, but none even in the 20's. But scrappers are my favorite.

Recently I've really enjoyed playing Tiffany Blackheart, a heavily IO'd MA/WP scrapper. She's unstoppable. I want to duplicate that build with a different primary. I logged into several of my lower-level scrappers -- I have a level 22 Dual Blades/WP scrapper that I play a bit and get to 23, but Dual Blades doesn't seem powerful enough to me. Mind you, I've never played it at the higher levels, but… I'm just not sold on it.

I have several MA scrappers (four 50's in fact), two katana, two broadsword, one electric… I have a spines scrapper at level 30… my 50 brute is dark melee so I've tried that before… and then I have a fire melee/SR at level 50 on Victory, where I hardly ever play. I really like fire melee though. I decide that's exactly what I want – fire melee/WP.

So I buy two new slots and create a brand new fire melee/WP scrapper. Yay, just what I need – another new character to level!

It's Sunday morning on Virtue, and you'd think I could find a sewer team. Eventually a tank tries to form one, but when we're at 4 players and he struggles to find anyone else, he abruptly quits the team. I street sweep to level 5, and then decide to give in and PL myself a bit. PLing bores me today though. My previous alts I'd PL'd to 20, but right now I can't remember why. At 17 I can slot level 20 IOs. At 20 I can run my 2nd costume mission and alignment missions, and my last few alts have been villains. Those were my only reasons, right?

I stop at 17, spend time crafting IOs, and soon I'm in Steel Canyon on a team. And then, I remember why I normally PL to 20 – no stamina. It hurts less on a team though, and soon I'm 19.

I take a break, but later come back to my new scrapper. I want to get to 20, get quick recovery, and run my costume mission. I join a team advertising for new members. I quickly notice one guy has a single star above his name, and check notes – "NEVER TEAM WITH THIS MORON!" it says. Hmm, and I know exactly which guy it is too, the one that kicked me from a team a few weeks ago for complaining that his "rogue" mission was, in fact, a villain mission. Oh, and at the same time I notice this, he's calling out someone in /broadcast, saying how he knows that person and they should be avoided. Pot, meet kettle! But then -- what to do, what to do?

Well, he's not leader, and I'm not leader. I asked to join, and I only want to gain 2/3rds of a level. I decide I'm okay with teaming with him for the moment. And in fact he's a very good player, just a bit abrasive. I get my level and the team breaks up. But that was my first ever chance to refuse to team with someone based on a previous bad player rating – and I didn't pull the trigger.

Next thing I know, I'm being invited to a team by MG. "Hessicorina?" MG says, as soon as I join. "What?" I reply. "Hess + Manticore + Numina," MG says. "Oh, sure," I say. "Alting to Alting."

On the Manticore TF, my old friend DC comes along. DC is an old-school powerleveler, farmer, PvPer, and more recently a hardcore badger. The few toons he plays are always VERY heavily IO'd. This is fine, but he does like to show off, so at a couple points during the TF he says things like, "Yawn, softcapped for smashing/lethal," and "Doo doo do, not being hurt, la la la," and other things intended to remind everyone how awesome he is. It's a little annoying – he's not doing anything Tiffany can't do, but hopefully I'm not as obnoxious about it.

Maybe I need to invite him to the arena to see how awesome his toons really are. ^_^ But what I really want to do one of these nights is solo Manticore on Tiffany. I think I could do it, easily.

Someone in the SG wants to know if anyone has Kinetic Combats in the level 30 range. That's exactly the sort of thing I keep stored in my base. He needs an acc/dam, a dam/end, and a triple, and also three Scirocco's Dervish IOs. I have all but one of the Scirocco's. After the Manti ends I switch to Nina Ballerina, who is nearly identical to Tiffany (also an MA/WP scrapper) but who is in my solo SG. I pull what he needs and meet him in Atlas. "How much?" he asks. Well, here's where it gets tricky – I haven't checked prices on everything, but I know that the Kinetic Combat dam/end and triple are the really expensive ones, and I'm handing over five IOs total. "Is 75 million okay?" I ask. I’m pretty sure that's less than I could get selling them, but possibly more than he can afford. But hopefully he's been pricing these on the market before asking if anyone had some available. He agrees to the price, but only has half the money on this character. MG and company are waiting for me in Founder's, so I tell him he can give me the rest later. Actually, it doesn't matter too much to me if I get the rest – I like being able to help people by having this stuff on hand, especially when it's someone who wants to slot the same levels that I prefer, and I don't want to charge too much but I'm wary of becoming the person who hands out expensive IOs cheap to whoever in the SG wants them, because EVERYONE will come asking.

I join the Numi with Nina, who unfortunately can't stealth. We have 4 blasters, 2 scrappers, and 2 stalkers – things are obliterated at lightning speed. Tank? Support? What's that? We finish in 59 minutes. ^_^

10/11/10: Monday – MG wants to run a Hessicore early, if I'm available. I am, and we do. That nets me 51 merits on Alting, good for another hero merit roll – which mostly sucks when I do it, Unspeakable Terror, two Ghost Widow's Embrace, and two Mako's. I nabbed a Luck of the Gambler +7.5% recharge and a Blesing of the Zephyr 4 pts knockback protection on my Saturday roll, but my rolls for Sunday and Monday have been very sucky.

Just before we start the Hess, I notice we have 3 tanks. "It's too bad we don't have a tank," I say. One of them asks, "What do you mean?" There are other people talking to, so it's not clear who he's asking, but then he sends me a tell: "I'm a tank." Wow, thanks for the newsflash! I was confused about that! I'm not sure if he's just clueless or truly stupid. Two minutes into our first misison, he declares, "This is too low!" and abruptly quits the team. Okay then – confirmed idiot. I make notes, MG makes notes, and adds, "How not to be on my teams ever again." Level 50 tank, too.

Afterwards MG wants to start up our static team. The plan is to run this team Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is going to make it very hard for me to keep up my pace of 100 merits a night, but after all I did promise to join, and it is fun. But I do kind of complain that I wasn't able to run the same missions as the rest of the team last time, so I got no merits at all. Even a few would make me feel better. While we're waiting I start in on Wincott's hunt missions, and we ultimately spend the evening running all of my missions for Wincott and Flux, ending with another Frostfire battle. Frostfire's a very long mission, it's 10 PM by the time we're done, but at least I'm on the same page as everyone else now. But that's just 15 merits on top of the 51 from earlier in the night, so I'll need to make that up at some other point.

In any case, everyone's about 14 or 15 now… we're going to outlevel the Hollows before we finish all of the arcs. That always seems to happen when I run the Hollows arcs.

But he's not wearing a cap....

Yeah, Superspeed + Stealth IO = invisibility, Fly + stealth IO does not. Now, if you have some other stealth power like Steamy Mist, then Fly + stealth IO + Steamy Mist = invisibility.

Since I've been keeping track of what I do each night for over a month, I was able to tally up the merits I earned in September... almost 2,000. That got me thinking... why couldn't I earn 3,000 merits in a month? That's 100 merits a night. That's doable, the way I play. ^_^

So as of October 4th this became my goal -- average 100 merits a night for the rest of the month. A side goal is to earn at least 50 of these merits on Alting, a character that I have level-locked at 30. The idea is that I can convert 50 merits to a hero merit and roll for 5 recipes every night (level 30-34 rolls, by necessity). Sort of a double-challenge, then.

I'll leave it to others to decide if all of this adds up to anything interesting. But here's my results for the first six days:

Monday October 4
Arcs/TFs: Freakalympics/Synapse/Hess/Manticore
Merits: 34/58/19/32 = 143

Hero Merit roll:
Touch of Death dam/end/rech
Obliteration acc/dam/end/rech
Expedient Reinforcement End/Dam/Rech
Decimation acc/dam/rech
Analyze Weakness acc/end/rech

Tuesdy October 5
Arcs/TFs: Freakalympics/Freakshow War/Hess/Manticore
Merits: 34/33/19/32 = 118

Hero Merit roll:
Devestation dam/rech
Decimation acc/end/rech
Mako's Bite Chance for Lethal
Stupefy Chance for Knockback
Ghost Widow's Embrace Acc/Hold/Rech

Wednesday October 6
Arcs/TFs: Hess/Hess/Manticore/Numina/FF Explore Badge
Merits: 19/19/32/36/5 = 111

Hero Merit Roll
Aegis end/rech/resist
Kinetic Combat dam/end/resist
Lockdown acc/end/rech/hold
Pacing of the Turtle end/rech/slow
Tempest: chance of endurance drain

Thursday October 7
Arc: Freakalympics
Merits: 34

Hero Merit Roll:
None. I clicked too quickly and accidentally rolled for low level rare salvage

Friday October 8
Arcs/TFs: Freakalympics/Freakshow War/Citadel/Hess/Manticore
Merits: 34/33/10/19/32 = 128

Hero Merit Roll:
Expedient Reinforcement: Resisst Aura for Pets
Unspeakable Terror: acc/fear/rech
Scirocco's Dervish: dam/acc/end
Positron's Blast dam/acc/end
Lockdown: chance for +2 mag hold

Saturday October 9
Arcs/TFs: Freakalympics/Hess/Hess/Manti/Madmen's Council/Hess/Freakshow War
Merits: 34/19/19/32/8/19/33 = 164

Hero Merit Roll:
Blessing of the Zephyr: 4 Points KB Protection
Luck of the Gambler: +7.5% global recharge
Positron's Blast: Chance for Energy Damage
Devestation: Chance to Hold
Forced Feedback: rech/endurance

Six Day Total: 698 merits, 116.3 merits per day.

10/04/10: Monday. Mondays are usually slow but tonight was busy. At one point our SG leader was running a level 34 team, a Sister TF and a Synapse TF were both going, and still we had people logging in and asking if there was a team to join, or did anyone want to run a Synapse or Numi or ITF or Posi1.

After totaling my merits yesterday I began to wonder if it would be possible to earn 3,000 merits in a month. That's 100 merits a night. I think that's my new goal for October. It sounds crazy, but actually MG might already be doing that. MG has over 2,000 merits on one character right now. Me, I tend to spend my merits – I have one character with over 300 and 2 or 3 more with over 200.

But I did manage to earn more than 100 merits last night.

I started by running the Freakalympics solo again. I really want to accomplish this in less than an hour, but the first mission bedeviled me again. This time the first hostage was on the third floor, so I decided to gather up the other two, deal with the ambushes, clear the top floor, and lead them all out at once. Unfortunately the top floor was massive and the last two hostages were in literally the last two places I looked. The first mission took me 28 minutes.

After that, things went well. I finished off the whole arc in 1 hour 16 minutes. MG started up a Sister TF while I still had 3 missions to go, and then a Synapse was forming while I still had the (always very full) last room of the last mission to clear. But I moved fast and was able to finish, alt to Alting, and join the Synapse just before they started.

I announced when Babbage was about to be up and where. MG had a full team waiting for us when we came out of the mission – maybe even her Synapse team, I wasn't sure. Babbage went down in less than 30 seconds. ^_^ We finished up in 2 hours 8 minutes, a very good time for Synapse.

After that MG ran a "Hessicore", her new terms for nightly Hess and Manticore speed runs. Hess took 28 minutes, Manticore took 47 minutes. We were flying!

MG went off to run a Numina after that, but it was after 10 PM and I knew better than to stay up that late. Still, that's 143 merits for the evening. I earned 109 of them on Alting, still locked at level 30, and immediately converted 50 of them and did a hero merit roll. Oblit triple, Decimation triple, Touch of Death triple, Expedient Reinforcement triple, and – an Analyze Weakness, triple I think. So overall a very nice roll, but I'm still waiting on that Numi unique or LotG +recharge to drop.

While I was doing my Freakalympics run I e-mailed 250 million to the SG leader as a prize money donation for our upcoming Halloween party. I didn't hear back from him for over an hour, but he checked the e-mail just before logging off. "Uh… are you sure you want to donate this much?" he asks. Yes, of course I do. ^_^ I want good prizes!

10/05/10: Tuesday. I start the night with my fourth attempt at a Freakalympics in under an hour. The first mission is done in 13 minutes – my best start yet! I'm confident I'll do it this time! But other missions are in far-flung areas and take me longer than usual to complete. I finish in 1 hour 13 minutes – my best time, but still over an hour.

By this point MG and company have started up a Sister Psyche TF that I wasn't able to join. I want to do something else that will take about an hour, so that I can finish about when the Sister should finish. I decide that maybe I should do the Freakshow War – 33 merits, several missions that are stealthable, looks like it could be done fairly quickly. I ask if anyone wants to join me but nobody does.

I finish that up in 1 hour 7 minutes. It's fast, but not as interesting as the Freakalympics with that cool final mission map. But a Sister Psyche – Freakshow War – Freakalympics run might make a nice "Freakorama" combo. ^_^

I'm not sure why people don't run Ouro arcs more often. Everyone jumps when you want to do a Sister Psyche TF, but nobody cares to run a Freakalympics arc. There's no AV, and there's no badge, but 34 merits is nothing to sneeze at and the final map is pretty cool. Run through Ouro, it's basically a task force in all but name. If they made the end boss an AV, added a badge, and placed a contact in the city and called it the Freakalympics Task Force, people would suddenly run it all the time.

By this point the Sister TF has failed – two people dc'd and didn't come back, two people quit. MG is waiting for me to finish, and we start up the nightly "Hessicore". Hess TF – 33 minutes. Manticore – 59 minutes. So that's 118 merits on the evening. ^_^ MG went on to a Numina TF, but I was good and logged off "early" again. Converted 50 merits for a hero merit and did another roll for Alting – nothing very spectacular, once again.

My rant for the day is this: Superspeed is not stealth, especially in a crowded tunnel. Stop pretending it is. Alting is a dark/dark defender with superspeed and a stealth IO, so I have 3 types of stealth going. I can bounce off of enemies and they don't notice me. But when the moron with only superspeed runs past, all the council open fire, and guess what? Their bullets hit me and suddenly they seem me. Then, when I get to my destination and want to teleport other people in, guess what? Your stupid superspeeding-only *** is dragging enemies in from the hallway and making it impossible for me to do my job. Do everyone a favor and wait at the entrance when we're trying to stealth a mission, or else invest in some real form of stealth. There are plenty of them available, it's not that hard.