Organica

Did the fire rads do anything last night? The Market channel was quiet. I asked if anything was up and didn't get a response. I didn't actually log into Tainted Candy though to see.

Normally I do a Virtue hami raid on Monday, but my schedule has been changed so that I get home an hour later, and lately hami raids have been filling up and starting up to an hour earlier than they used to. Last week we managed to cobble together a third raid for those of us who couldn't get in to the first two, but this week I opted out.

My other goal for the evening was to get my ma/wp scrapper on Freedom from 49 to 50, so I solo'd for an hour, but I didn't find a team and got bored. Then I got it in my head to make some cool pictures of each of my four high-level MA scrappers, because MA just looks cool. I was in the process of doing this with Tiffany Blackheart, a 46 ma/wp scrapper on Virtue, when I got a tell from a friend. Did I want to start a Posi TF?

It was already pretty late by this point, 8:30 PM and I like to be in bed by 10 PM. I knew that Posi takes a long time, although I've been on small teams that rushed everything and did it in about 2 hours. My friend plays with his roommate, and they are farmers and powerlevelers who like expensive builds and rushing things, and they've both been on a big "do every TF in the game" kick lately, so I figured they were prepared to run this fast. I asked if he thought we could do it in about 2 hours. Reply: "I've never done this one before, I have no idea."

Still, I figured 2 hours was a good guess. That would put me only about 1/2 an hour past my normal bed time. And I did want the badge for my scrapper. Against my better judgment, I said sure, I'd do it.

My two friends were also on scrappers, and they had another person on the team already, and were apparently looking for more. I asked if we had anyone who could stealth. Answer? No idea. I asked if they were going to fill out the whole team. Answer? Sure.

Okay, I've never attempted a Posi with 8 people, and we were adding anyone that wanted in, which means several lower level toons. Also, it was taking time to get things together. I began to have my doubts.

The... second or third mission, the one with the "rescue the FEMA workers" was pretty disasterous. I guess it usually is. Half the team had super speed and were trying to rush ahead, and the other half weren't able to bypass all of the CoT, and people kept dying. At one point we used a team teleport to bring everyone to the final room of the mission, but there was a chaotic fight in progress and everyone died.

After that we reached the first of the actually stealthable missions, and my friends again rushed ahead. Half the team got lost or died trying to follow. My friends are good players but not good leaders or communicators, and people were getting frustrated. The leader's response? "Don't worry, guys! Be happy!" (Literally, that's what he said.) A couple of us had to explain why it's best to stealth these missions, given the length of the TF, and calm people down before anyone rage-quit.

Anyway, once we got past the stealthable missions we started working more together as a team. We only lost one person and that was before we were even having any problems. Still, we didn't start until 9 PM and took 3 hours to finish, so I got to sleep pretty late. ^_^ But I got my badge, and my merits, and got partway into level 47.

Congrats! Our club is very exclusive, so please read the rules about keeping riff-raff out. Unless it's a tall, ill-kempt gent with a human skull tied to his hat. That's just Riff-Raff, he's a rich villanous sort, perfectly fine to let him in. I mean, you know, people that are poor. We can't be having with any of that sort in the club.

Harlequin Romance




Grettel

sorry for not cropping...

I've been mostly ignoring my Midlevel toons, but I'd be up for this if I knew the date and time. ^_^

In general I'm addicted to scrappers, specifically for the last 3/4 of a year I've been addicted to Martial Arts, but on a more specific level my first 50 martial arts scrapper has Crane Kick slotted with one of the knockback IO sets, because knockback is fun. ^_^

I made a fire/kin back in 2004, not because I knew they would someday be one of the favorite game builds, but because /kin had a power that made every enemy around you go flying away. Useless power, but great fun.

Also: Shield Charge. Not only awesome, but actually devastatingly useful.

tl;dr: I've played 3 martial arts/willpower scrappers to 50 in the last six months. The end.

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My name is Organica, and I'm not just addicted to playing scrappers, I'm addicted to playing Martial Arts scrappers.

As everyone says, there are no bad scrapper primaries, but on a purely practical level MA has little to reccommend it. It has only one AoE, with average damage; one of its two big-gun single target attacks comes with knockback, and in general while all of the stuns are nice, they don't make up for the lack of sheer killing power in other sets.

And yet there's no lack of MA scrappers out there. I run into them constantly. Also, I'm on the verge of increasing my stable of level 50 MA scrappers from one to four. That's a bit much, even for me, but purely asthetically, MA is one of the most fun sets in the game. ^_^

My first level 50 scrapper was katana/regen. Still an awesome character to play. My second level 50 scrapper was fire/SR. Also tons of fun to play. With the nictus broadsword in mind, I also managed to level up a broadsword/regen scrapper to 50. Also lots of fun.

But along the way I also got Shinobu Dragonheart to 50. This is my MA/Invul scrapper on VIrtue. With soft-capped smashing/lethal defenses she can take on as many freaks, council, etc you want to throw at her and not break a sweat. She takes longer to kill those enemies, but she's never in danger, and seeing her spin and fly about, leaping up and backflipping over a crowd of enemies is a blast. I have more fun playing her than just about any other character.

So I decided I had to play up a second MA scrapper, with a different defensive set. Say, Willpower, a set I'd yet to play to 50.

This was last September. I already had several low-level MA scrappers, including a level 25 MA/Willpower on Freedom named Nina Ballerina. I liked the idea of a ballerina scrapper, given all the high kicking. But I mostly play on Virtue, and didn't have plans to play Nina all the way to 50 anytime soon, so I started a new MA/Willpower on Virtue and named her Tiffany Blackheart. (And just for variety, I used most of the alternate punches on Tiffany.)

I also picked up a very good MA/Willpower guide from these forums, and followed it. I bought level 30 IOs only so I could exempt down more easily. While I was at it, I pacted her with a broadsword/shield scrapper on my other account, so I could level two up at once.

Everything was going well. Then October rolled around and we had a double experience weekend. Tiffany was in her late 20's, and I was trying to work through the Striga arcs and then the Croatoa arcs, and I didn't want to outlevel my contacts. But I wanted to take advantage of the double experience. I was also having fun with MA, so I decided that I should play up Nina Ballerina. Only I wanted to stay on Virtue... so I recreated Nina there. I really didn't want to make a second MA/Willpower on the same server as Tiff, but given that Nina's a ballerina I needed something that looked natural, and I already had two regen scrappers at 50. With some reluctance, I made my Virtue Nina an exact duplicate.

In just a couple of weeks, and taking full advantage of double experience weekend, I got the new Nina up to level 47. I used the same MA/Willpower guide to build her out (only substituting some Smashing Haymakers for Kinetic Combats to save money). Then I went back to Tiffany, and worked her up to 42. At this point, I stopped to IO out my broadsword/shield defense scrapper pacted to Tiffany, and discovered the joy that is shield charge for myself. ^_^ I quickly got the pair of them up to 47.

However I've begun playing on Freedom again... and I really had no scrappers on Freedom, aside from my level 25 version of Nina. The idea of having a Tiffany Blackheart-like on Freedom was intriguing -- that build made for a very durable scrapper, and I still loved MA. She was tons of fun to play. But I really had no desire to play not just the same set, but the exact same character to 50.

However, I'd discovered that the name Jalia was available on Freedom. This is a name I've used in every MMO I've played, going back to my a shaman I played in Everquest. Using two server transfers, I changed the name of the original Nina to Jalia, then completely remade the look of the character. Yesterday, Jalia hit level 49. Her build is nearly complete, and she's as much fun to play as Tiffany or Nina.

(In fact the build's durable enough that I attended a hami raid on Friday when I was only level 46, showed up just as they were starting, couldn't find a team, had no Essence of the Earth inspirations, but I joined in with the other scrappers attacking yellows anyway and managed to avoid getting myself killed. Although I suppose any willpower scrapper could have done that. ^_^)

I figure by the end of the week I'll have all four scrappers to 50. Then I can focus on something else. I think I'm probably done creating MA scrappers at this point though. Four is enough! ^_^

Also: whoever posted that MA/Willpower build, I think the file is listed as "Zen Foo Do's ma/scrapper build", just letting you know it's such a great build that I've duplicated it three times.

And a pony. ^_^

No, that would be cool though.

To be honest, if the game had unlimited funds and an unlimited number of programmers, I'd love to see several different time period zones in place. It seems kind of sad if the Midnighters only ever travel back to one specific time period. A medieval or viking zone would be cool. An Egyptian zone would be cool. A Victorian era zone would be cool, or a Wild West zone. All fun ideas, and I'm sad to think that most of them are probably just pipe dreams. Even one more zone reached via the Midnighter's club would be welcome.

You could combine a Victorian era zone with a Wild West zone -- after we get dual pistols it would be a fun addition. Also, you'd need Wild West zombies (Weird West), and some Steampunk tech (Wild Wild West) with an early version of Nemesis as one of the enemies (although I'm sure there were villain groups around back then that no longer exist).

So I guess I vote for two new zones: 1) A Victorian Steampunk Wild West Horror zone, and 2) Outer Space/Moon zone with Space Pirates and underwater swimming. And a big red ball.

As a fan of Tyr, Ensiferum, Amon Amarth, Falkenbach (to name a few), I approve!

Those first two bases are scary good.

After keeping track for a week, I guess I made 1 billion 945 million since last Thursday. I'm not sure if that's really my average, that included some profit from an Apocalypse and a Hectacomb that dropped while on farm teams.

If anyone cares, the breakdown goes like this:

Virtue Toons:
Mouse Police +396 million
Shinobu Dragonehart +97m
Shinobu Valentine +36m
Sailor Shinobu +134m
Serpentine-Fire +75m
Tiffany Blackheart +46m
Popeye Khan +96m
Holy Bell +90m

Huntress Midnight +153m (infamy)
Mia Nevermore +18m (infamy)

Freedom Toons:
Mouse Police -1 million
Black Unicorn +40m
Jalia +420m (from farming, this is not one of my marketing toons)

Justice Toons:
Mouse Police +194 million
Maiden Knight +25m

Victory Toons:
Mouse Police +19 million
Kung Fu Chelsea +32m

I'd be interested in reading their interviews but their web site is a mess. The pages appear for a second, then I get a blank page (this happened to me when I tried to read it from work and here at home too). I don't know what they're doing... I use Google Chrome to surf, so maybe it works in other browsers, but I guess I won't be reading anything on that web site.

Well my name is -Dark Sentinel, but you can call me -

Azure Knight: Name taken.
Sapphire Sentinel: Name taken.
Sapphire Knight: Name taken.
Aqua Sentinel: Name taken.
Azure Sentinel: Name taken.
Cerulean Sentinel: Name taken.
Blue Sentinel: Nam taken. (As well as Blue Sentinal, heh).
Lady Guinevere: Name taken.
Guinevere: Name taken.
Isolde: Name taken.
Lady Isolde: Name taken.
Chevaliere: Name taken.
Blue Valkyrie: Name taken.
Azure Valkyrie: Name taken.
Knight in White Satin: Name incorrectly formatted.
Silent Knight: Name taken.
Justice Maiden: Name taken.
Maiden of Justice: Name taken.
Charity Justice: Name taken.
Sword Broad: Name taken.

Available on Justice:

Maiden Knight
Cerulean Knight
Cerulean Valkyrie
Aqua Valkyrie
Dame Isolde
Dame Guinevere
Chevaliere Isolde
Chavaliere Guinevere
White Satin Knight
Justice Maid (surprisingly)
Maid of Justice
Dame Mascus
Madam Mascus
Curtana
Lady Curtana
Alliya Khan
Double-Edged Dame
Jeanne Hachette
Ja'el Justice

But after all that, I think I'm going to go with Maiden Knight. I'm a bit surprised it was available. I'm listing all of the others that were available in case anyone's interested in using one of them.

My regen scrapper has near-softcapped positional defenses. That's not a recommended way to build a regen scrapper, but I like it. ^_^

I do agree, it was the IO system that encouraged diversity. And it's complicated, yeah, but it allows you to go in so many different directions. Instead of six-slotting my attack for damage, I can pick a set that grants me defense, or recharge, or hit points and regen... I can maybe get away with 5 pieces of a set or 4, and use the extra slots somewhere else. Choice it part of why it's complicated, but that's a good thing.

I do like the underground council base in RWZ, and the tunnels in Faultline. Also the Eden Trial map and the Abandoned Sewer Trial map, both are very cool.

I ran a respec trial on Sunday and one person had never done it before. He thought the reactor room was really cool. I guess it is, I'm just used to it. ^_^

I like Sapphire Sentinal. I'd actually been considering something like "Azure Knight" or "Aqua Knight" but those are probably taken anyway. Other ideas I had were "Maiden Knight" or "Isolde" (which is similar in vein to "Lady Guinevere"). I also like chevalière as a name or part of a name.

Don't think I want to go with Dame.

I'll see what's available tonight when I get home and make a decision then. Thanks for the suggestions!